Murder in Oils 5

 

Chapter 5

 

 

Flushed out thoroughly, Alexander was ready to go in to dinner, having helped Ida to flatten and pack the many canvases which were lying around. Campbell sidled in and joined in without comment.

“I’ll guard  them, squire,” he said.

“If David doesn’t want them, I do,” said Ida. “Though I’ll likely sell those of Gloria, and the peony.”

“It’s a lovely satire; I think I could recognise her from it,” said Alexander. “Her looks appear to be admired in the village.”

“Oh, she’s beautiful in her own way, I suppose,” said Ida. “Anna Galbraith is part Spanish, and has an exotic enough look to make people look twice at her. Her features are regular, and she’s not as greasy as I feel she looks, if you know what I mean.”

“Inclined to be oleaginous of manner and you feel it in the way you look at her?” asked Alexander.

“Oh, you are very good at interpreting what I mean,” said Ida. “She’s a refugee from something in Spain; they are busy having uprisings and extremists, and she is scared of Bolshevists but she’s a good enough nurse. I expect she will leave after the funeral; there’s no reason for her to stay on.”

“Unless David decides you need a full time nurse, my girl,” said Alexander, grimly. “When is your birthday?”

“January,” said Ida.

“Well, if you have trouble, I have apprised the vicar how things really are,” said Alexander. “And here is my parents’ address; go to my mother if you are in need. She won’t take any nonsense from anyone.”

“Thank you,” said Ida. “I’d better go and dress for dinner.”

“Me too,” said Alexander.

 

oOoOo

 

Alexander was impeccably clad for dinner. He favoured a dinner jacket or tuxedo jacket over tails, and remained soberly and conventionally clad with a black waistcoat as well as black bow tie. He strolled out of Basil’s apartment, as Campbell locked the bedroom door behind him.

“The housekeeper might have a duplicate,” said Alexander.

“No, she don’t, either,” said Campbell. “Prying ain’t something the master liked, so he had me change the lock, and we kept a key each, and I took his keys afore they laid him out.”

“Well done,” said Alexander. “Tell me, was he sick at all, or did he, uh, soil himself?”

“He’d been sick and shit hisself,” said Campbell.

“And the size of his pupils in his eyes?”

“Huge,” said Campbell. “Not like when he takes laudanum, which ain’t as often as folks seem to think, not nowise.”

“Your testimony will be important; you be careful,” said Alexander. “And don’t go driving too fast.”

“Huh, I picked up the down train from Oxford and loaded me bike into the guard’s van,” said Campbell. “Told ‘em I was a courier for Scotland Yard, and they didn’t make me cough for a ticket.”

“You’re a cheeky bastard, Campbell.”

“Yessir, Mr. Basil used to say the same.”

 

 

There was a maid setting the table, a girl of about twenty-three or four, Alexander thought, with light brown hair bobbed under her cap.

“You’ll be Gladys, I presume,” said Alexander.

“Ooh sir! You don’t look at all like a flatfoot,” said Gladys.

“Nevertheless, though I am a gentleman, I am a police officer,” said Alexander. “I was a friend of Mr. Basil’s; we met during the war.”

“Ooh, sir! I did some nursing during the war, me being a Girl Scout, and then a Girl Guide when they changed it,” said Gladys.

“You must be a good, resourceful girl, then,” said Alexander, approvingly.

“Miss Ida was a Girl Guide as well, and she ain’t daft like they try to make out,” said Gladys. “I tries to help her, but I can’t get Mr. David’s attention long enough to explain to him.”

“Excellent! I am glad she has a friend in this sad household, and one of resource and sagacity,” said Alexander, laying it on with a trowel. It explained the silliness Ida described, however, in a girl who did seem sensible.

“That’s Kipling, that is,” said Gladys. “Resource and sagacity. I do try, sir.”

“Good girl,” said Alexander, slipping her a remuneration.

Gladys giggled, and slid out, having finished laying the table.

David came in with a woman who had to be Anna Galbraith. She had a magnolia complexion which, as Ida said, still managed to look as if it was made of greasepaint, dark eyes, and hair so dark brown it was almost black. David looked startled to see Alexander, as if he had forgotten him.

“Oh, yes, well, glad you had suitable clothes with you,” he said.

“I packed to stay with gentlefolk,” said Alexander. “Miss Galbraith, I presume?” he took her hand and kissed it with old world charm, and she blushed and tittered gently. “I’m told you have your exotic looks from Spanish ancestry.”

“My mother is Spanish,” said Anna Galbraith. “Things are a mess in Spain; and my parents feared Bolshevism would spread across the country from Russia, with all the strikes and violence. So we returned to England.”

“Very wise,” said Alexander. “I am sure you must miss Mrs. Henderson, having made a home here for almost three years with her.”

“Oh, I do,” said Miss Galbraith. “I have been encouraged to be quite one of the family, and I shall miss it no end.” She sighed. “Mr. Henderson is kind enough to retain me until after the funeral; then I shall have to register as available for nursing duties again. I don’t suppose you know anyone who needs a nurse?”

“I don’t, offhand, but I can ask around,” said Alexander. “Ah, Miss Truckle, recovered from a traumatic shopping trip?”

“It wouldn’t be traumatic if Ida were only better behaved,” pouted Miss Truckle.

“Perhaps she would not feel an imp of mischief if she felt herself to be treated like a woman near the age of majority, not like a little girl,” murmured Alexander.

“She is a little girl, mentally, anyway,” said Miss Truckle.

“She’s putting on an act for you,” said Alexander. “She managed a perfectly civil, sensible, and adult conversation with me about Basil.”

“She gave me the slip in Harrods, and went for tea and scones,” said Miss Truckle. “And then made a fool of me by returning when I had called out the police and store security to find her.”

“And I wager all of them laughed because they were expecting a child of eight or nine, not a young lady who needs no help to shop,” said Alexander.

“Mr. Armitage has enough experience to say that he thinks that Ida is not as troubled as I have feared,” said David.

“Oh, call me Alexander, as a friend of Basil’s it does seem ridiculous for his brother not to do so, even if we did clash at Oxford,” said Alexander, easily.

David stared at him, and his eyes bulged.

“You!” he said, with loathing.

“I was one of the little beasts who ragged you for a stupid mistake, yes,” said Alexander. “And it was unkind of us; I’m sorry. We liked Loring and were sorry for him. And it’s a good object lesson; you could be prosecuted for that sort of accusation without foundation out in the real world.”

David flushed.

“It was an easy mistake to make,” he muttered. “You had better call me David.”

“Oh, I doubt you’re the first to make such a mistake, or the last,” said Alexander. “And all’s well that ends well. Miss Henderson! May I hold your chair for you?”

“Thank you,” said Ida, who had just come in.  Her evening gown was in blue velvet, trimmed with beaded fringes, and her hair was up.

“Ida, dear! What have you done to your hair?” asked Miss Truckle.

“Put it up,” said Ida. “As one does for dinner. I think I might have it bobbed though; the weight of it is tiresome.”

“It would be neater and more seemly in braids, and what are you wearing?” demanded Miss Truckle.

“David, is it normal in your household to make such personal remarks about a young lady who would have made her debut but for illness?” asked Alexander. “I understand you employed Miss Truckle to give Miss Henderson a companion who would help her improve her accomplishments to give her some avocation whilst she convalesced, not some dragon of a preceptress unaware that the lady is well out of short frocks and pigtails.” He made his voice amused.

“Mr. Henderson, pray explain to this man that the girl is wanting,” said Miss Truckle, sharply.

“But she isn’t,” said David. “She’s a tiresome baggage and contrary but there’s nothing wrong with her brains.”

“But you told me....”

“I told you that she was troubled and had mental problems,” said David. “Ida, why didn’t you tell me this fool woman was treating you like a child?”

“Well, you always treat me like a child so I assumed it was on your orders,” said Ida. “Because you’re punishing me for Helen miscarrying, and I know she was ill before I came to you, because I was trying to look after her, and I knew I needed help myself and didn’t have the ability to look after her too.”

There was a long silence.

“But you said she had mental problems, and that means wanting,” Miss Truckle’s whining voice intruded.

“You’re fired,” said David.  “Ida, you do need a companion; perhaps Anna can be a companion and she has the skill to recognise if your troubles start again.”

“No, thank you,” said Ida. “I don’t find Anna any more convivial than Miss Truckle, and moreover it will fuel the gossip in the village.”

“Gossip in the village? What is this?” demanded David.

“I heard it too,” said Alexander. “I mentioned I was a police officer and was asked if I’d come to arrest you for killing your wife.”

David went purple.

“That’s preposterous!” he cried.

“And it might well be,” said Alexander. “But they were also talking about the possibility of Miss Galbraith being the second Mrs. Henderson.”

“Anna? But she’s just a friend,” said David.

Alexander waved a deprecating hand.

“You need to know what’s being said so that if anything untoward is said at the funeral, you’ll be ready for it,” he said. “Be assured, I will find out who is the author of any murder, if indeed, Basil was correct, and murders there have been, but I will discover the truth. And the innocent need not fear, because I do not listen to accusations without evidence.”

David went scarlet.

“That almost feels like a judgement on me,” he muttered.

“It’s not pleasant to be on the receiving end,” said Alexander.

“So, you think that Basil’s death might have been accidental overdose of laudanum, not suicide?” asked David.

“Oh, it wasn’t laudanum at all,” said Alexander.

“But Dr. Craiggie said it must have been...” said David, lamely.

“Dr. Craiggie appears to be an old fool,” said Alexander. “Basil’s symptoms are the opposite to those found with laudanum poisoning; and I have sent certain items for analysis, and I think it will be demonstrated quite ably that he died of coniine poisoning.  A poison found in the plant, hemlock.”

There was a crash and a scream.

Gloria had come in, carrying a tureen of soup and had dropped it.

“Miss Galbraith, see to Miss Wandsworth, I am sure she has scalded herself,” said Alexander.

Anna Galbraith leaped up and went to Gloria.

“Talking of nasty poisons, enough to upset anyone,” said Miss Truckle. “I cannot eat with such horrors discussed!”

“Hemlock? Ain’t that some Greek herb, like Moly?” asked David.

“On the contrary, David, it grows wild in the hedgerows, and it causes accidental poisoning for being mistaken regularly for wild parsley,” said Alexander. “I expect Miss Wandsworth was upset because she knows what it is, and because she made Basil’s herbal tobacco for him, and if it was an accident, then she would be censured for carelessness by any coroner.”

“I...yes, of course,” said David.

“Of course, anyone with a passing knowledge of botany, knowing that Miss Wandsworth made the tobacco, could add a deadly dose of hemlock to his tobacco,” said Alexander. “It’s not as if it would not be easy to slip into his studio, it being open-plan and shut off only by curtains, when he was taking a nap, say.”

“You will make us all suspect each other!” David sounded frightened.

“I imagine Basil did not like feeling suspicious, either,” said Alexander. “But someone in this household is bold, dangerous, and a killer. And if you will excuse me, I must eat something before I have to turn out for the autopsies I have ordered.”

“I’ll make sandwiches for everyone,” said Ida. “I doubt anyone will feel they can stomach a sit down meal, but sandwiches can be nibbled on.”

“Excellent,” said Alexander. “Just the sort of lass a policeman needs around the place.”

Ida blushed, and hustled out.

David got up abruptly from the table and threw himself into an easy chair. He looked as if his world had fallen apart.

“I only wanted to avoid more scandal,” he said, almost to himself. “And now it will be worse.”