Poison in the Pen

CHAPTER 17

The inquest on Connie Brooke took place at eleven o’clock on Saturday morning. Only formal evidence was taken, after which the police applied for an adjournment. Miss Wayne having announced her intention of attending, Miss Silver offered to accompany her, and was profusely thanked.

“Oh, if you would! I should find it such a support! These things are so painful, and until last year I went nowhere without my dear sister.”

In other circumstances Miss Silver might have pointed out that the painful experience could easily be avoided by the simple expedient of staying at home. As, however, her professional interest was engaged, she made no attempt to dissuade Miss Renie, who duly appeared in the full mourning outfit which she had worn at Miss Esther’s funeral. She provided herself with an extra handkerchief, confiding to Miss Silver that an inquest always made her cry-“And it seems no time at all since I was at poor Doris Pell’s.”

The inquest was at the George, its largest room having been placed at the Coroner’s disposal. It was packed. After the medical evidence had testified to the very large number of tablets which the dead girl must have swallowed, Miss Maggie Repton was called to the chair which had been set at the far side of the Coroner’s table. She took the oath in a series of gasps and sat pulling at the corners of her handkerchief. It is to be assumed that the Coroner himself was able to hear her replies to the questions which he put, but it was only when he repeated them that they reached anyone else. Asked if she had given Connie Brooke a bottle of sleeping tablets, she was understood to indicate that she had.

“What made you do that, Miss Repton?”

Her murmured reply appeared as, “She hadn’t been sleeping.”

“Did you tell her how many tablets to take?”

There was a slight movement of the head, followed by another murmur.

“Oh, you think the dose was on the bottle. Are you not sure about that?”

Here the Police Inspector intervened to state that the dose was on the label, but the lettering was rubbed and faint. The bottle was produced and scrutinized. The Coroner said,

“Yes. It is not at all clear. Now, Miss Repton, how many tablets did this bottle contain?”

It emerged that Miss Maggie had no idea. After a series of such questions as “If you can’t say exactly, can you make a guess? Was it half full-a quarter full-very nearly empty?” it had still been impossible to draw her into expressing any opinion. She gasped, she whispered, she pressed the by now extremely crumpled handkerchief to her eyes, but no faintest gleam of light was cast upon the number of tablets in the bottle which she had given to Connie Brooke.

Miss Eccles succeeded her, taking the oath clearly and giving her evidence with businesslike precision. She had walked across the Green with Connie Brooke as far as Holly Cottage and said good-night to her there. They had talked about the sleeping-tablets, and she had cautioned Connie strongly against taking more than one. Pressed upon this point, she repeated it with emphasis.

“She wasn’t accustomed to anything of the sort, and I told her she ought not to take more than one.”

“Did she make any comment?”

“No, she didn’t. We got off on to her not being able to swallow anything like a pill. She said she would crush the tablet up and put it in the cocoa which she had left ready on the stove. I told her it would taste horrible-and then I remembered and said, ‘Oh, but you don’t taste things, do you?’ ”

“Yes, that was in Dr. Taylor’s evidence-she had lost her sense of taste after an illness. Now, Miss Eccles, when you were referring to the dose she was going to dissolve you used the words ‘a tablet.’ Is that what Miss Brooke said?”

Mettie Eccles said,

“I’m not sure. I was thinking about her taking a tablet. I had just told her she ought not to take more, but I’m not sure whether she said ‘a tablet’ or ‘tablets.’ I’m sorry, but I can’t be certain about it.”

Under the Coroner’s questioning she gave a very clear and composed account of Penny Marsh running over to fetch her next morning, and of how they had found Connie Brooke lying dead upon her bed. She was questioned as to the saucepan that had held the cocoa.

“Did you wash it up and put it away?”

“Oh, no. She must have done that herself.”

“It is not for us to assume what Miss Brooke did.”

Mettie Eccles did not exactly toss her head. There was just some slight indication that she might have done so if she had not been restrained by respect for the court. What she did do was to say very firmly indeed,

“Connie would never have left a saucepan dirty.” There was very little more after that. The police asked for an adjournment. The Coroner left his seat, the spectators streamed away by ones and twos, the room at the George returned to its normal uses.