The Wychford Poisoning Case

‘I don’t know anything about mass suggestion, but it’s a fact that most people spend their lives being wrong about everything. Most people think she’s guilty. Therefore, she isn’t. Shove the gravy over, please, Alec. Ta.’

‘It’s an ingenious defence,’ Roger said gravely. ‘Do you agree, Dr Purefoy?’

‘That she’s innocent? No, I’m afraid not. I wish I could say that I did, but I can’t see the faintest possibility of it.’

‘Now, I’m quite sure she’s innocent,’ Sheila murmured.

‘Sheila, Sheila!’ said her mother.

‘Sorry, mum; but you know perfectly well that father’s never been known in all his life to grasp any stick except by the wrong end. To my mind, that proves it. I’d better write to the woman’s solicitor.’

‘You see the respect with which we parents are treated nowadays,’ smiled Dr Purefoy.

‘Sheila,’ said Alec suddenly, ‘I think I’ll scrag you after dinner. Like I used to when we were kids.’

‘Why this harshness?’ inquired Miss Purefoy.

‘Because you jolly well deserve it,’ said Alec, and relapsed into silence again.

‘Thank you, Alec,’ Dr Purefoy said pathetically. ‘You’re a brave man. I wish I had your courage.’

‘I like that, father,’ said his daughter indignantly. ‘When you absolutely ruined my best evening frock only last week.’

But Roger had no intention of allowing the conversation to wander off into the paths of family badinage. ‘Do you know the Bentleys or any of the people mixed up in the case personally?’ he asked the girl at his side.

‘Not the Bentleys. I know the Saundersons more or less, and I believe I’ve met Allen. Of course I know Dr James and Dr Peters.’

‘You know Mrs Saunderson, do you?’ Roger said with interest. ‘What sort of woman is she?’

‘A damned little cat,’ said Miss Purefoy frankly.

‘Sheila!’ This from her mother.

‘Well, she is, mum, as jolly well you know; so why on earth not say so? Isn’t she, father?’

‘If my information is correct, your remark was a laudable understatement, my dear,’ Dr Purefoy said with a perfectly grave face.

‘I’d rather gathered that, from the newspaper reports,’ Roger murmured. ‘In what way, Miss Purefoy?’

‘Well, look at what she did! That’s enough, isn’t it? Of course she hasn’t got a husband to teach her decent behaviour (she’s a widow, you know), but there are some things that simply aren’t done. After all, she was supposed to be the Bentley’s friend, wasn’t she? But that’s just like her; double-faced little beast. She’d give her soul to be talked about. Of course she’s in the seventh heaven now. I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if it turned out that she’d poisoned the man herself just to get her name in the papers. That’s the sort of daisy she is.’

‘Is she, though?’ Roger said softly. ‘That’s very interesting. And what about Mrs Allen?’

‘Oh, she’s a good bit older. Older than her husband, too. Always happens, doesn’t it?’ went on this sophisticated damsel. ‘Any woman who marries a man younger than herself deserves all that’s coming to her, in my opinion. But of course Mr Allen is a bit of a lad, you know. I heard about him before I was out of my teens. You know, whispers in dark corners and breath well bated. Well, it’s a matter of common knowledge that he—’

‘That will do, Sheila!’ said Mrs Purefoy, whose expression had during the last minute been growing more and more apprehensive.

‘Mother always shuts me up before I can get on to the really spicy bits,’ confided Miss Purefoy to the world at large.

The entry of the parlourmaid cut short any further attempts on the part of her daughter to add to the grey in Mrs Purefoy’s lustrous dark hair. The conversation which ensued would have satisfied a Sunday school teacher.

It was not until the three men were left alone together after dinner that Roger re-introduced the subject. He did not wish, for the present at any rate, to advertise the reason for his visit to Wychford, even to the Purefoys; and too great an interest in the murder, unless its cause were to be more fully explained, would only appear to spring from a curiosity unbridled to the point of indecency. When the two women had retired, however, and the doctor’s excellent port was circulating for the second time, he did feel at liberty to raise the matter.

‘About this Bentley case, doctor,’ he remarked. ‘Of course you know the two doctors concerned. Is there any point of particular interest, do you think, in the medical evidence?’

Dr Purefoy stroked his lean jaw with the palm of his hand. ‘No, I don’t think so, Sheringham. It all seems perfectly straightforward. Do you mean about the cause of death?’

‘Well, yes. That or anything else.’

‘Because that, of course, isn’t in doubt for a minute. As clear a case of arsenical poisoning as there could possibly be. Actually more than a fatal dose found in the man’s body after death, and that’s very rare indeed; a great deal is always eliminated between the time of swallowing the dose and death.’

‘How much would you say he had been given, then?’

‘Well, it’s impossible to say. Might have been as little as five grains; might have been as much as twenty. Making a pure guess at it, I should say about eight to ten grains. He didn’t vomit nearly as much as one might expect, James told me, which points to a comparatively small dose.’

‘A fatal dose being about three grains?’

‘Yes, two and a half to three. Two and a half is reckoned an average small fatal dose, but it would have been ample for Bentley, I imagine.’

‘Why for him particularly?’

‘Well, he was rather a poor creature. Undersized, delicate, poor physique; a bit of a little rat, to our way of thinking.’

‘And very fussy about his health, I gather?’

‘Exactly. One of those maddening patients (we all have ’em) who think they know a sight more about their ailments and the right drugs to cure them than their doctor does. Oh, quite impossible people; and I understand from James that Bentley was as bad a specimen of the tribe as you’d hope to see.’

‘Oh? In what way?’

‘Well, you prescribe for ’em and all that, and then find that the prescription can’t be used because the fellow’s already been prescribing for himself before he came to you at all, and the two prescriptions clash; and then you prescribe something else, and the fellow goes and takes something perfectly different that he thinks is going to suit his case better. Oh, hopeless! That’s just the lunatic Bentley was. Always dosing himself from morning to night: never happy unless he was stuffing some drug or other inside his skin.’