Mingled With Venom

Chapter 11

Last Will and Testament

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‘You know,’ said Bluebell, accepting a lift in Dame Beatrice’s car and sitting between her husband and Dame Beatrice on the back seat while Garnet sat in front with George, ‘I know it means plain sailing for the rest of us—the family and Fiona and Ruby, I mean—but I can’t help feeling that the police are barking up the wrong tree.’

‘The coroner was wise enough to repress that outspoken juryman and insist upon a verdict of murder by person or persons unknown,’ Dame Beatrice pointed out.

‘All the same, I am sure they mean to arrest that honest, ignorant girl.’

‘Yes, but even if they arrested her as she left the house, there is still a hearing before the magistrates to come.’

‘There’s a prima facie case, I think,’ said Garnet, turning his head. ‘The girl fits the classic formula.’

‘How do you mean?’ asked his sister. ‘And how do you know what the classic formula is?’

‘I sometimes have a crime in one of my novels, so I need to know such things. Three points arise before a criminal can be convicted. The person concerned must be shown to have had the means, the opportunity and (to a much lesser extent) a motive for committing the crime.’

‘Why “to a lesser extent”? I should have thought the motive was of supreme importance.’

‘Well, no, because what would be a valid motive to one person would offer no temptation, or very little, to another. Let us take a very simple example: let us suppose that you and Gamaliel are equally hungry; really hungry, I mean. You come to a baker’s shop in which you happen to know that the proprietor is also the only counter-hand. As you are both approaching the shop you see him chasing a small boy down the street. The shop door is open. You—both of you—are almost starving. What happens? You tell me, honestly, what happens.’

‘Well,’ said Bluebell, ‘I think you have picked a heavily loaded and very unfair example, but—well, yes, I suppose you are right. Gamaliel would step inside the shop and grab all the bread and buns that he could get hold of: I should not.’

‘Yet my premise is that you are just as hungry as he is.’

‘Gamaliel needs food far more than I do, so I still don’t think it’s a fair example. What does Dame Beatrice think?’

‘I think that if Gamaliel were starving and you had no food to give him, you would steal it. Your motive, in such a case, would be strong enough for that. But one can argue about motive indefinitely. What we have to consider in the far from hypothetical case which has come under our notice, is to what extent we can agree that there is a prima facie case in the matter of Margaret Denham.’

‘She had the means,’ said Parsifal. ‘Do not misunderstand me. I do not believe the girl is guilty. All the same, the kind of plant which appears to have wrought the mischief is known to have been growing in the garden of the house where she was living.’

‘You would have to prove that the root or roots of that particular plant had been dug up at the requisite time,’ said Bluebell, ‘and, moreover, that Margaret was the person who did the excavating.’

‘So “opportunity” comes under two separate headings,’ said Garnet. ‘One: when had she the opportunity to do the digging? That raises another question, you know. The majority of householders, and that includes these cottagers, are very proud of their gardens, I’m sure Mrs Antrobus or her husband (if she has one) would have noticed at once that the plants of monkshood had been tampered with and one or more of them removed.’

‘An excellent point,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘and one which must be investigated further.’

‘Further? Oh, but the police must have gone into the matter. My second point,’ Garnet went on, ‘is that, granted she had the poisonous root at hand and, for the sake of argument, granted that she had murder in mind, it would have to be established that she had the opportunity to substitute a lethal jar of condiment for an innocuous one.’

‘I thought the cook’s evidence covered that point,’ said Parsifal. ‘The murderer had only to pop into the kitchen while the cook was upstairs resting after lunch and the kitchenmaid was in the scullery washing the dishes and with a closed door between her and the kitchen, for the exchange of jars to be effected in only a few seconds and in perfect safety.’

‘But the murderer need not have been this girl,’ Bluebell protested. ‘Anybody living or staying in the house, or even Mattie or Redruth Lunn from outside it, could have had the same opportunity.’

‘The means would have been simple enough to come by,’ Parsifal conceded. ‘Mrs Antrobus is far from being the only person hereabouts to have monkshood in her garden. Come to think of it, we’ve got several plants of that genus in our own front garden.’

‘But we don’t—I mean, we didn’t until this morning know that the cook and the kitchenmaid would be out of the kitchen at a definite and well-established time,’ said Garnet.

‘We might find that hard to prove,’ said Bluebell. ‘Fiona most certainly would have known, and there is no way of proving that she had not told us.’

‘Even if she herself denied telling us?’ said Parsifal.

‘The law would argue that she was lying in order to protect the people who had taken her in when she had nowhere else to go,’ said Garnet.

‘But what motive could any of us have for murdering our grandmother? The very question sounds like a music hall joke,’ protested Bluebell.

‘We may have sufficient motive attached to us when the Will is read,’ said Garnet, with a short laugh in which there was no hilarity.

‘Oh, gracious me! I never thought of that,’ said Bluebell.

Her husband said, in his weak and gentle voice, ‘It was the first thought which came into my head. Of course, it depends upon how the money has been left which will determine on which of us the most suspicion falls, for it would be useless for us to claim that we had no idea of what was in the Will, although that would be the truth.’

‘But the girl had a motive, too, remember, ’said Garnet.

‘Revenge for wrongful dismissal? Revenge is not usually sought except by the criminal classes, the gangsters and those terrible people in Ireland. Besides, however unjustly the girl herself feels she has been treated, it was not really wrongful dismissal. Ruby Pabbay has been given the status of a member of the family and that entitles her to at least a semblance of respect from the servants of that family. Suppose she had used the same opprobrious terms to insult our mother or Fiona?’ argued his sister.

‘Ah, but she wouldn’t, don’t you see,’ said Garnet eagerly. ‘Class distinctions may be undemocratic, but they still exist, particularly in remote districts such as this. Margaret Denham would no more have spoken to mother or Fiona in such terms than she would have used them to a duchess.’

‘Talking of means,’ said Dame Beatrice, who had been listening with interest to the debate, ‘I wonder how many people knew Mrs Plack’s recipe for making the mixture?’

‘Well, as Margaret had been kitchenmaid until she was dismissed for insolence, she certainly must have known it,’ said Bluebell. ‘But here we are at the hotel. I beg you to put us down here, Dame Beatrice. We have a very short walk home.’

Dame Beatrice perceived that the three wanted to carry on the conversation among themselves. ‘You will at least allow me to offer you a glass of sherry at the hotel bar,’ she said.

‘A pint would be preferable,’ said Garnet, ‘but the other two don’t drink, so I will wait until I get home where Gamaliel, good boy, will have anchored a can or a bottle in the stream to cool it the way I like.’

The funeral of Romula Leyden had been attended by few outside her family and almost the same collection of people was seated, once again in the dining-room, to hear the family solicitor read aloud her last Will and testament.

‘I ought to tell you,’ he said, as a preliminary, ‘that the Will differs in some respects from the one made a year ago, the contents of which may or may not be known to you.’ He looked around at the faces of the company. He was a student of human nature, had a large and lucrative practice, a slight streak of sadistic humour and, above all things, he enjoyed reading aloud the testamentary dispositions of the sometimes unpredictable and occasionally eccentric wealthy. ‘I will add, in fairness to you all before I begin to read, that, owing to the very difficult position in which we all find ourselves, my partners and I are not prepared to submit this Will to probate until Mrs Leyden’s murderer is apprehended and his or her guilt proved.’

‘But that is absolute nonsense!’ exclaimed Maria. ‘I know a guilty party is not permitted to benefit by the death of a testator, but you surely cannot imagine that one of us is my mother’s murderer!’

‘Although I was not present, owing to an attack of migraine, I thought it was clear enough at the inquest who the guilty party is,’ said Fiona quietly, ‘and that person can never have expected to benefit under madre’s Will.’

‘I shall now read the provisions,’ said the solicitor in the dry tones which are believed to be the histrionic hall-mark of his profession. He allowed himself another glance around the table before he began to read. His voice was professionally toneless. Garnet caught Fiona’s eye and grinned. Maria looked affronted, Parsifal, his wide mouth half-open, expectant. Ruby looked smug, Diana bored. The rest of the countenances, except for Garnet’s satirical grin, were impassive, polite, resigned. The solicitor cleared his throat and began upon the preliminaries.

‘Excuse me,’ said Bluebell, interrupting him, ‘but are the servants mentioned?’

‘Yes, Mrs Leek, later on, at the end.’

‘Then shouldn’t they be present?’

‘There is no need for them to be here,’ said Garnet. ‘Carry on, please, Mr Monaker.’

‘I think all beneficiaries are entitled to be present, Garnet,’ argued Maria, looking belligerently at her son.

‘It is not for servants to learn all their employer’s business, mother. We don’t want the entire contents of my grandmother’s Will tattled all around the neighbourhood.’

‘The contents will be open to public inspection when once the Will is proved,’ said Bluebell.

‘That is not the same thing at all.’

The solicitor said mildly: ‘Perhaps the simplest thing would be to admit the servants and then dismiss them when they have heard those passages which concern only themselves.’

‘Do they all benefit?’ asked Rupert. ‘It would be embarrassing if some were mentioned and others not.’

‘Good heavens!’ said Diana. ‘Don’t tell me that you have a kind heart after all. When did you care about servants’ feelings?’

‘I meant embarrassing for us, not for them,’ said Rupert, his large, sallow face flushing with anger and his mobile, rather thick lips closing grimly as soon as the words were out. Diana laughed spitefully and stated that she was relieved to hear that the Ethiopian had not changed his skin.

‘Dear and beautiful Diana,’ said Gamaliel, ‘you must not talk about Ethiopians in a light manner when a black boy is in the room.’

‘May we send for the servants?’ said the solicitor. Fiona went out and returned with the cook, the parlourmaid, the two housemaids, and the middle-aged woman named Maybury, Ruby’s mother, who had been Mrs Leyden’s personal maid.

‘Sonia and Mattie and Redruth Lunn will be here anon, madam,’ said Mrs Plack, addressing Maria. ‘Sonia having been sent by Miss Bute for to fetch ’em over.’

‘We will wait for them,’ said Maria. ‘The rest of you had better go back to the servants’ hall and bring chairs for yourselves and them.’

At last there was a full muster. The servants had placed the chairs with backs to the long wall opposite the windows. They all sat straight up, feet together on the carpet and their hands folded in their laps, except for the Lunns. Mattie’s great hands, seemingly so rough yet none more gentle with horses’ mouths, hung at her sides and demonstrated the unusual length of her arms. Her brother, small, lean and furtive-looking, held his chauffeur’s peaked cap on his knee.

‘I shall not need to keep you long,’ said the solicitor, looking at them benignly over the top of his spectacles, ‘but you will like to be told of your expectations, however small, under the late Mrs Leyden’s last Will. You must not expect your little gifts immediately, but I shall release them to you as soon as I can. In the Will, the sum of one thousand two hundred and forty pounds has been set aside for you by the testator in the following proportions: to Mrs Plack three hundred pounds; to Miss Maybury two hundred and fifty pounds; to Mr Lunn two hundred pounds; to Miss Buskin one hundred and fifty pounds; to the two Miss Trewethens one hundred and twenty pounds each; to Miss Hills one hundred pounds. Miss Matilda Lunn receives no lump sum, but is told that the three horses in the late Mrs Leyden’s stable are hers.’

Mattie’s heavy face was transfigured. She beamed. Her eyes shone. She got up from her chair, crossed the intervening stretch of carpet and shook the astonished solicitor warmly by the hand.

The servants could hardly have reached the green baize door before their excited chattering began. Apart from Mattie, the most astonished and delighted person was the kitchenmaid.

‘I never expected to get nothing, being only with her a matter of three weeks,’ she said.

‘Ah, my gal, I reckon you got me to thank for your hundred pounds,’ said the cook. ‘So you just mind as you don’t go and blue it all on useless frippery. Missus asked me, when you’d been here a fortnight, how you was shaping, so I said none better, a good, willing, hardworking gal, I told her, and biddable in all respects.’

Mattie said to her brother as they walked across the downland turf, ‘I reckon it’s coals of fire when I think of all the names I called her in private when she turned me off. What do you think to your two hundred? Satisfied, like, be you?’

‘Ah, specially if Mrs Porthcawl gets the house and keeps me on.’

‘Wonder if she’d rent me the stables for a bit till I gets my riding-school going?’

In the dining room there was a nervous, anticipatory silence. The solicitor cleared his throat.

‘Shall we resume?’ he said. The family and dependants hitched their chairs a little nearer the table. Parsifal licked his long lips. Garnet scratched his nose. Ruby smiled brightly around with the air of one who knew that for her there were no surprises in store. She was mistaken.

‘This is the last Will of me, Romula Grace Leyden of Headlands, Gorsecliff, Veryan Bay, in the Duchy of Cornwall. I hereby revoke all previous Wills and testamentary dispositions hertofore made by me,’ read out Mr Monaker. The Will continued by appointing him and his partners the executors and then what to the hearers was the important part was reached. ‘… in the following proportions,’ went on the level, emotionless voice: ‘to my daughter and sole surviving child Maria Charlotte Porthcawl, I leave the house and estate known as Headlands and forty per cent of my fortune for her use and its upkeep, with the proviso that if I die before Ruby Pabbay has concluded her musical education, the said Maria Charlotte Porthcawl shall maintain her in the style to which I have accustomed her, neither better nor worse, until such education be concluded and Ruby Pabbay be launched upon her career.’

There was a cry of protest from Ruby. ‘That’s not right!’ she shouted. ‘I was to have been left enough money to keep myself and pay for the rest of my training! It was to have been my business, not somebody else’s! When was that Will dated?’

‘A fortnight ago,’ said the solicitor, ‘and, if you please, Miss Pabbay, I shall be obliged if you will reserve your questions until I have finished.’

Ruby pushed back her chair so clumsily that it fell over. She rushed out of the room and banged the door behind her so that the windows rattled.

‘Please go on,’ said Maria quietly.

‘Very well. To my grandson Garnet Wolseley Porthcawl I leave twenty per cent of my fortune, the same to his sister, Bluebell Wendy Mildred Leek, my granddaughter. Of the remaining twenty per cent: five per cent to my friend and erstwhile companion, Fiona Griselda Bute, and five per cent each to Gamaliel Leek, adopted son of Parsifal and Bluebell Leek, Quentin and Millament Bosse-Leyden, the children of Rupert and Diana Bosse-Leyden, to be held in trust for all three children until they shall attain the age of eighteen years, and provided that the said Rupert and Diana remain man and wife.’

There was a lengthy peroration at the end which referred, after the servants’ little legacies had been repeated, to the rights and duties of the executors, but nobody listened. As soon as the non-committal voice ceased, Garnet put the question which everybody wanted to ask.

‘Have you any idea,’ he said, ‘of the cash value of my grandmother’s fortune? — the actual money, I mean?’

‘In round figures,’ replied the solicitor, ‘it amounts to about four hundred thousand pounds.’

‘Well, your grandmother has sewn us up in a nice parcel!’ said Diana, as she and Rupert drove back to Campions. ‘What are we to do about it?’

‘Stay married and enjoy our other relationships as we do at present, I suppose. We can hardly bounce Quentin and Millament out of their inheritance. The ten per cent between them will amount to a considerable sum if wisely invested.’

‘Six years’ accumulated interest, yes. Ten per cent of four hundred thousand is forty thousand. Their future is secure.’

‘If we don’t botch it up. What do you say?’

‘The same as you, of course. Who wants to chuck away forty thousand pounds? Money talks much louder than illicit love affairs.’

‘I will give up Fiona if you will give up Garnet. We could have another go at our marriage, perhaps.’

‘“Money is the true fuller’s earth for reputations, there is not a spot or a stain but what it can take out,” ’ quoted Diana gaily.

‘We loved one another before the children were born.’

‘We thought we did. It comes to much the same thing, I suppose. All right. Let’s have another bash.’

‘So now I know why I was taught simple arithmetic,’ said Gamaliel. ‘Five per cent of four hundred thousand pounds is twenty thousand pounds. I have worked it out. I will celebrate by telling you something which will please you. I will go back to school in September and work hard at my O levels and take them again in March, for I am sure I have not passed this time. But A levels are beyond the scope of my intelligence. You must accept that and let me leave when I am seventeen and have been head boy for a year.’

‘I take it that you will settle down with me here at Headlands,’ said Maria to Fiona, ‘and help me cope with Ruby.’

‘I shall be glad to do so. There is no chance now that Rupert will divorce Diana and marry me. He will not sacrifice his children for my sake and I would not want it.’

‘Diana has just as much cause to divorce him as vice versa,’ said Maria, ‘but you are right. Neither of them will deprive their children. It would be scandalous if they did. So my mother’s money does more good now she is dead than it did during her lifetime, and that’s a sad thought.’