Spotted Hemlock

chapter fourteen

The Counterfeit Patient

‘ “The pig, with his large fat belly, will have no trouble in supporting himself… I own that I would willingly sacrifice the pig to save the others.”’

Ibid.

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The connection seems to me a bit thin,’ said Detective Chief-Inspector Robert Gavin, when he was informed of his wife’s adventures. ‘What makes you think—apart from the coincidence of Carrie Palliser having some connection with this place in Berkshire—this agricultural college, I mean— that what you’ve found out can be of any help over the Calladale affair?’

‘Piggy Basil,’ said Laura. ‘I always connect Berkshire with pigs.’

‘Piggy Basil? Oh, the chap who had Carey’s present job and smashed himself up climbing during the vacation!’

‘If he smashed himself up!’

‘Eh? Oh, don’t be a chump!’

‘I repeat—if he smashed himself up,’ said Laura firmly. ‘When Mrs Croc. begins talking about sending grapes to a hospital, there’s more in it than meets the eye.’

‘Pips.’

‘No, really! I’m perfectly serious. I can read Mrs Croc. like a book and I assure you that she’s suspected Piggy Basil from the word Go. And if you want to know what I think— well, I think his bona fides could bear closer inspection. I feel positively certain in my own mind that it was Piggy who accompanied Norah Coles to that holiday camp.’

Gavin looked thoughtful. Although, equally with Dame Beatrice, he distrusted Laura in the rôle of sleuth, he felt that, this time, her theory might bear close testing. As it was not, officially, his case, he handed Laura’s idea to the police who were investigating the murder.

‘I wish,’ said Laura to Dame Beatrice, ‘you would depute me to interview this Basil.’I’d turn him inside out in ten minutes. Do we know the name of the hospital?’

‘Certainly, but I go there unaccompanied,’ said Dame Beatrice with finality.

‘All right, then. But I know Scotland a lot better than you do.’

‘But you will not obtain more useful information from your fellow-countrymen than I shall. Believe me, this is not a task to be undertaken by a young woman.’

‘You mean by a bone-head, I suppose,’ said Laura, with resignation. ‘When shall I expect you back?’

‘Oh, you are welcome to come with me to Scotland. Carey’s Jenny will take care of Hamish while we are gone. All I meant was that I do not wish you to accompany me to the hospital. There I shall function very much better without you.’

They set out on the following morning, proposing to spend the first night in the city of York.

‘I could get you to Newcastle easily, if you wished, madam,’ said George. ‘Then you could hop into the Highlands from there.’

‘No, no. York for the night, then Edinburgh, then on to our destination,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘The police will beat us to it,’ Laura pointed out. ‘You know Gavin has passed on my great thought about Piggy and the holiday camp.’

‘I particularly wish the police to reach Mr Basil before we do, child.’

‘Oh, you think their visit will put wind up him, and soften him up, do you? Something in that, perhaps. Anyway, it will make a much more enjoyable trip if we don’t rush it.’

‘And, of course, we may have to allow for bad weather at this time of year, madam, I suppose,’ said George respectfully. As it happened, the only bad weather they encountered was a certain amount of rain. They reached the village of Tynmally at three in the afternoon, had tea at an hotel which seemed too big for the place and then, while Laura took a short, brisk walk before it grew too dark to admire the prospect from the bridge over a salmon river, Dame Beatrice drove to the hospital.

It was considerably smaller than the hotel and was perched at the top of a sharp incline which rose just out of the village on the north-east side. The matron had had notice of her coming and her welcome was cordial but dignified, after the manner of the Highlands. She was pressed to take tea, declined it and was conducted to the patient.

He could walk, but was still in hospital, he explained. They were keeping him under observation because of an obscure complication which had caused severe dermatitis on the injured limb. From the matron Dame Beatrice had already learn that (a) he had been a model patient, (b) he had been in hospital since the last week in August, (c) they would be extremely sorry to part with him, (d) he was terribly shy and could scarcely bear her young nurses to look at him, (e) that the leg had shown a compound fracture and that, owing to a night’s exposure in wet weather on the mountainside, he had been in very poor shape when he had been brought in, and that that was the reason why he had not been discharged.

Dame Beatrice felt considerable interest in the picture thus presented. Compared with the description she had already received of Mr Basil, the picture of the patient seemed strangely out of focus. She analysed the evidence she had just received of the characteristics of the man in hospital and cross-checked it with the stories she had heard, either vicariously or at first-hand, of Piggy Basil. Her interest mounted. A model patient might or might not be a fair description of Piggy in hospital. It was her experience that people who behaved with the utmost selfishness in their own homes and to their wives or mothers, often did become model patients in hospitals. There was nothing extraordinary in that.

The time-sequence fitted. There were no comments to be made, either, upon the matron’s second heading. August— yes. That would be right.

Even the reflection that they would be sorry to part with him could go by the board. Nurses—even Sisters—said such things. Matrons, a law unto themselves (on the whole) could concur, and, knowing no better, frequently did. But that Piggy Basil was shy was a shot so wide of the mark that the truth was obvious, she thought. This man was not Basil.

Dame Beatrice had then announced that she would be very pleased to visit the patient. He was a thin, attractive young man but he greeted her, as she had expected, with a certain amount of reserve. After the news of his injury:

‘Awfully nice of you to come and see me. Let’s see—you must be — ”

‘ “Thy evil spirit, Brutus!” ’

‘Oh, no, surely not! I mean to say…’

‘So do I,’ said Dame Beatrice, seating herself beside the bed. ‘I mean to say that you are an impostor, Mr…’

‘Simnel.’

‘Extremely apposite.’

‘Basil,’ explained Mr Simnel, ‘needed an alibi. I supplied it, that’s all.’

‘Have you read the papers since you have been in hospital?’

‘More or less. I’ve read the football reports and the racing news. Why?’

‘The sister of a girl at the agricultural college where Mr Basil was employed has been murdered. I think you had better tell me where he is.’

‘You don’t mean he had anything to do with it!’

‘We do not know whether he had or not, but you yourself have just used the word “alibi.” Why did he need an alibi? Can you tell me that?’

‘Well, yes, I could, but I don’t think he’d want me to.’

Dame Beatrice rose.

‘In that case, I have no option but to leave you with my curiosity unsatisfied.’

‘Old Basil wouldn’t hurt a fly, you know. Tell me about this girl. Why should it be supposed that he even knew her? You don’t know that he knew her, do you?’

‘No, but the circumstances are so serious that I consider you would do better to assist the police.’

‘You’re not the police?’

‘No, but I was brought into the affair before they were, and I have no intention of keeping from them any information which may assist them in their attempts to find the murderer of this unfortunate young woman.’

‘So you’ll tell them it’s not Basil in hospital with a broken leg, but his friend and holiday companion, George Simnel.’

‘Yes.’ She sat down again.

‘How did you tumble to it that I’m not the person I ought to be?’

‘I was told you were shy.’

‘Oh, I see. Yes, that wouldn’t be a word you would use to describe Basil, I admit. Was that all?’

‘Apart from a feeling I had.’

‘Of something fishy? How extraordinary!’

‘Not so very extraordinary. You see, the dead girl’s sister is missing from the college. We were led to suppose, at first, that it was the student who had been killed. I will not—in fact, I need not—give you all the details, but the police will have to find the girl. Is she with Basil?’

‘Honestly, that I don’t know. Look here, Basil’s in Ulster— somewhere near Londonderry, I believe. But you can take it from me that he hasn’t done any killing. He runs after women all right, but he doesn’t murder his little friends; he simply discards them.’

Dame Beatrice nodded.

‘What would he have done, I wonder, if you had not broken your leg?’ she said. Simnel laughed.

‘I suppose he’d have been a good boy and gone back to his job at the right time,’ he replied. ‘Anyway, I can see he’d better get himself straightened out with the police. When was the job supposed to have been done?’

‘That cannot be answered exactly, but, from the medical evidence given at the inquest, the girl probably died towards the end of September.’

‘Then, if it can be proved that Basil was in Ireland at the time…?’

‘Yes, it would clear him.’

‘You see, I busted my leg on the thirtieth of August, and after he’d seen me into hospital and let my people know and all that, he told me he’d need this alibi and asked whether I was prepared to play ball. Well, we were pals, anyway, and then, you see, my cracking up like that had spoilt his holiday, and then, again, he’d been very decent in getting me fixed up, so, as I took it for granted that he wanted to go off with some woman, I agreed to take his name and let him use mine.’

‘But was all this arranged before you came to hospital?’

‘Oh, no. Nothing was fixed up before I had the fall. The hospital part of it helped him to get away with things. He just registered me in the name of Basil and wrote the letter explaining about the broken leg to the principal of the college, and there he was—all set and everything in the garden lovely.’

‘I am surprised that the hospital has kept you here so long.’

‘Oh, I’m a mess, you know. They keep grafting bits on to me and taking bits out—the surgeon has had the time of his life. I don’t believe he’ll ever let me go.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. The grub’s good up here.’

‘There is one more thing, Mr Simnel. You said just now that Mr Basil informed your relatives of your accident. Surely they apprised the matron here of your real name?’

‘No. They live in Australia, and would take for granted what they were told.’

‘I see. Will you give me Mr Basil’s address in Ireland?’

‘You’ll find it in that small diary in my locker. Help yourself.’

‘By the way,’ said Dame Beatrice, when she had found the entry and had copied it into her own diary, ‘you have already had the police here, I suppose?’

Simnel looked genuinely surprised.

‘News to me,’ he said. ‘I suppose they interviewed the matron.’

This supposition proved to be correct, as Dame Beatrice discovered after she had taken leave of the patient. The police had asked whether she had a patient named Basil, and, when she had answered in the affirmative, they had asked some questions about his injuries and were particularly interested to hear that he had been admitted to hospital on the date she gave them.

‘They were satisfied,’ she told Dame Beatrice, ‘that he was not the man they were looking for, and begged me not to worry him by telling him of their visit. They might have spared themselves the trouble. Police or no police, no patient in my hospital is going to be worried by anybody, let alone by me.’

‘So now we know,’ said Laura, when, at dinner that evening, Dame Beatrice gave her a report of the interview. ‘It looks like this Piggy Basil, doesn’t it?’

‘We shall find out when he crossed over to Ireland and whether he can prove that he was there when the murder was committed. We had better put through a long-distance call to the police, and give them Mr Basil’s Ulster address.’

‘How many flies do you think there are on this Piggy?’ demanded Laura. ‘He seems to me a very smooth type. This alibi now. How do you really think of it?’

‘As the work of an unscrupulous man.’

‘Unscrupulous enough to commit murder?’

‘Murder is often not only the result of unscrupulousness but is also a matter of expediency.’

‘I can see why he should kill Norah Coles if he took her away and, as they say, “done her wrong,” but I can’t see how the sister Carrie comes into it. Still, they must be pretty well alike for their own mother to have mixed them up when she identified the body.’

‘As we have already realised, that attempt at identification was a horrid and difficult matter. Perhaps, after all, we had better go over to Northern Ireland and see Mr Basil for ourselves. Armed with the college photographs, we should be able to ascertain whether his companion is Mrs Coles.’

‘We don’t know that he’s got a companion. He may simply be hiding from the English police.’

‘Then Northern Ireland is not the most sensible place to choose. Kindly obtain reservations for our journey and rooms at an hotel in Londonderry, and we will be off at the earliest possible moment.’

Nothing could have suited Laura better. By the end of the week they were established in the Hotel Fingal, just outside Londonderry, the hotel in which, according to Simnel’s diary, their quarry was also staying. At that time of year the hotel was by no means crowded and it was not long before they felt certain that they had identified Basil. He was a hearty, uninhibited creature of about forty, fattish and going slightly bald. The hotel employed waitresses only, and his manner with the girl who looked after his table was what Laura had been led to expect. He was loud-laughing and brash, and appeared to embarrass the girl a good deal.

‘This,’ said Laura to Dame Beatrice, ‘is where I scrape acquaintance with Piggy. His looks give point to his name. I am observing him closely, and, as soon as the time is ripe, I suggest that I spring myself upon him with a moot question about holiday camps. What do you think about that?’

‘It might be as good a way as any other of giving him either a shock, a warning or a chance of telling you that he has never been to such a place in his life.’

‘You don’t think he would simply come clean and give me the low-down about himself and his girl-friend? Wonder where she is? Nobody seems to be sharing his table.’

‘I hardly think he will be prepared to confide in you. Still, do your best and bravest. The repercussions should be of interest.’

Laura’s opportunity soon came. In fact, Basil himself provided it. She arranged so that they reached the door of the lounge together. Piggy opened it with a flourish,and an unnecessary obeisance, Laura thanked him, sailed through and seated herself on a settee. From the reputation he had been given, she felt certain that he would join her, and so he did. Dame Beatrice, who, by arrangement, had left the dining-room earlier, watched the little comedy from an armchair near the fire.

Laura took out a cigarette and Basil’s lighter was immediately brought into play. Laura thanked him again and asked how he liked the hotel.

‘Oh, I’m leaving tomorrow,’ he said. ‘At least’—with a gallant smirk—‘I was. Not so sure now, Mrs…?’

‘Gavin.’ (He had been quick to spot the wedding-ring, thought Laura. A mistake, perhaps, not to have removed it.) ‘You do like it here, then? Do you know the country well?’

‘So-so. You can’t do much without a car, and I didn’t bring mine over.’

‘Do you fish or sail or anything?’

‘I’ve sailed a bit. As a matter of fact, I’m over here on a job.’

‘How interesting!’

‘Pigs. Wanted to study the bacon industry over here. Been all over the place—up here, in Eire—everywhere.’

‘I adore pigs.’

‘Really? That’s surely very unusual in one of the fair sex. Tell me more about yourself.’

‘I’m afraid I’m not an interesting sort of person. I’d much rather hear about you. Has it taken you long to—er—study the bacon industry?’

‘I’ve been over here since the end of August.’

‘Indeed? I’m afraid I’m gregarious. I couldn’t do even an interesting job unless plenty of other people were doing it, too. My husband always says that I’d be the last person on earth to be a Robinson Crusoe.’

‘Oh, I had my Man Friday—or, rather, girl Friday—all right, but only for a week or two. She had to go back, then, to complete her education.’

‘Oh, your daughter, you mean?’

Basil found this suggestion immoderately amusing.

‘Now, I ask you, Mrs Gavin!’ he protested. ‘Do I look the sort of bloke to cart adolescent daughters about with me? No, my dear lady, I want a chance to enjoy myself when I’m off the leading-strings.’

‘Oh, I see. A college student, then?’

‘Yes, and a very charming and quite sophisticated one.’

‘I should have thought a Youth Hostel would have suited a student better than a hotel like this, or, possibly, one of those holiday camps.’

‘Yes, but, you see, my dear Mrs Gavin, they wouldn’t have suited me. And as (if you’ll forgive a rather crude statement) I was paying the piper…!’

‘Yes, I see. Students aren’t usually very well off, although they certainly seem to have more money to play with than I was given when I went to college. I suppose they get paid jobs in the holidays.’

She gave Dame Beatrice the sign they had agreed on, and Dame Beatrice got up from her chair and walked slowly towards the door. Laura said:

‘Ah, my boss is ready to go, so I’ll say good night.’ When she and Dame Beatrice were alone, she said disgustedly, ‘Not a word of sense did I get out of him. He was stalling the whole time.’ She repeated the conversation verbatim, and then added, ‘Wouldn’t it make you gnash your teeth?’

‘No,’ Dame Beatrice replied, after a moment’s pause. ‘I can see how to go on from there. I think you’ve done well. He has admitted coming here with a student and his denial of having stayed at a holiday camp is really immaterial because the police will soon prove whether it is the truth or not, and if it is the truth, that has cleared a red-herring out of our way, and if it is a lie there is some reason for his telling it, and that reason may be important.’

‘I’d better pass him on to you, then. There’s one thing, though. I don’t care a bit for his type. He’s definitely a bounder. But I can’t see him as a murderer. He might hit another man over the head with a bottle or a pewter pot if he had a row in a pub, but I don’t see him harming a woman beyond, perhaps, slapping down on her. I’m certain he wouldn’t use poison.’

‘We seem to have lost sight of the fact that poison, and a particular poison, was the vehicle. When we get back I think we might spend a little time in research. My knowledge of the properties of coniine could be more profound, I feel.’

‘You’ve changed the subject,’ Laura pointed out, ‘and rather unfairly. Shouldn’t you be agreeing or disagreeing with me on the question of Piggy Basil’s tendencies to commit murder?’

‘I understood from you that he has no such tendencies.’

‘Well, that’s what I meant. What do you think about that?’

‘I am no judge. Probably everybody has the tendency.’

‘All right. Stall, if you want to. As for the hemlocks, spotted or other, I don’t see that they matter any more. The cause of death is known and the poor girl is buried, so what more can we do, apart from finding the murderer, or helping the police to find him?’

‘Well, child, as I pointed out just now, you believe that Mr Basil would not use poison, even if he were capable of committing murder by other means. It will be interesting to find out who would use poison, and, in particular, this poison. Opportunity is important; so is knowledge.’

‘Yes, I see. He could, so he did. That sort of thing isn’t evidence. It’s only a pointer. And why do you say so confidently that it will be interesting to find out who used the coniine? Are you hot upon the trail? If so, I think you ought to bring me abreast of the march of events.’

‘To say that I am hot on the trail is too optimistic a statement, I fear. All the same, I do feel that we have made some progress. We know now that Mr Basil never was a patient with a broken leg, and, apart from that, do you not realise that we have learnt one fact of primary importance since we have been here in this hotel?’

‘There’s only one thing I’ve learnt,’ said Laura, ‘and that is that, wherever Norah Coles may chance to be, she certainly isn’t with Piggy.’

‘And you do not consider that a fact of primary importance?’

‘Well, it means that he isn’t as black as some people would like to paint him, but that only bears out my argument that he wouldn’t commit murder.’

‘At any rate, the girl will have to be found. Finding her may or may not help to solve the mystery of her sister’s death, but as her complete disappearance, so far as we are concerned, is a mystery in itself, I feel a certain amount of interest in it.’

‘Yes, I see what you mean. If she isn’t here with Piggy, where is she? It’s quite a point, isn’t it? Shall you tackle him along those lines?’

‘Possibly. You remember that she disappeared well before the night on which Miss Good says she saw the large and ghostly horseman?’

‘Yes. Do you think they will exhume the sister if Norah Coles isn’t found soon?’

‘I have no idea. Of course, it is only a question of time before she is found.’

‘Yes, once the police hit the trail they don’t easily give up and they’re usually successful. She can’t remain hidden for ever.’

‘She might remain hidden longer dead than alive, child.’

‘Dead?’ cried Laura. ‘Good Lord!’

‘Let us keep open minds upon that subject,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I should have been happier, I confess, if we had found her here with Mr Basil. But there is one thing I am very glad to know.’

‘Yes?’

‘I am very glad to know that the dead girl worked for a time in that agricultural college in Berkshire. It clears up the only point which has been troubling me. A little knowledge can sometimes be a useful thing, you know.’

‘Are you speaking of yourself and this “little knowledge” I got from Mrs Pock at the post office?’

‘No, not exactly. Think it out for yourself. Like most young mothers, you are neglecting your intellectual gifts, child.’