“But suppose,” Troy said, “he’d wanted the medicine before she knew about the Will?”
“There was the old bottle with a dose still in it. I fancy she removed that one some time during the Birthday. If a Will unfavourable to Cedric had been made public, that bottle would have been replaced and the other kept for a more propitious occasion. As it was, she saw to it that she was never alone from dinner until the next morning. Barker beat on the door of the room she shared with Desdemona. She had talked to Desdemona, you remember, until three o’clock — well after the time of Sir Henry’s death. She built herself up a sort of emergency alibi with the same elaborate attention which she gives to that aimless embroidery of hers. In a way this led to her downfall. If she’d risked a solitary trip along those passages that night to Cedric’s room she would have heard, no doubt, that Sir Henry had signed the second Will, and she would have made a desperate attempt to stop him taking his medicine.”
“Then she didn’t mean at that time to throw suspicion on Sonia?”
“No, indeed. His death would appear to be the natural result of rash eating and pure temper. It was only when the terms of his last Will were made known that she got her second idea.”
“An atrocious idea.”
“It was all of that. It was also completely in character— tortuous and elaborate. Sonia had come between Cedric and the money. Very well, Sonia must go and the second Will be set aside. She remembered that she had found Sonia reading it. She remembered the rat-bane with its printed antidote to arsenical poisoning. So, the anonymous letters printed on the kids’ paper she herself fetched from the village, appeared on the breakfast table. A little later, as nobody seemed to have caught on the right idea, the book on embalming appeared on the cheese-dish, and finally the tin of rat-bane appeared in Sonia’s suitcase. At about this time she got a horrible jolt.”
“The cat,” said Fox.
“Carabbas!” Troy ejaculated.
“Carabbas had been in Sir Henry’s room. Sir Henry had poured out milk for him. But the bottle of medicine had overturned into the saucer and presently Carabbas began to lose his fur. No wonder. He’d lapped up thallium acetate, poor chap. Millamant couldn’t stand the sight of him about the house. He was one too much for her iron nerve. Accusing him of ringworm, and with the hearty consent of every one but Panty, she had him destroyed.
“She sat back awaiting events and unobtrusively jogging them along. She put the tin of arsenical rat-bane in Sonia Orrincourt’s suitcase and joined in the search for it. She declared that it had been a full tin, but the servants disagreed. She forgot, however, to ease the lid, which was cemented in with the accretion of years.”
“But to risk everything and plan everything on the chance that arsenic was used by the embalmers!” Troy exclaimed.
“It didn’t seem like a chance. Sir Henry had ordered Mortimer and Loame to use it, and Mr. Mortimer had let him suppose they would do so. Her nerve went a bit, though, after the exhumation. She rang up the embalmers, using, no doubt, the deepest notes of her masculine voice, and said she was my secretary. Loame, the unspeakable ass, gave her their formula. That must have been a bitter moment for Millamant. Cedric’s only means of avoiding financial ruin was by marrying the woman she loathed and against whom she had plotted; and now she knew that the frame-up against Sonia Orrincourt was no go. She didn’t know, however, that we considered thallium acetate a possible agent and would look for it. She’d kept the surplus over from the amount she could not get into Sir Henry’s bottle and she waited her chance. Sonia could still be disposed of; Cedric could still get the money.”
“She must be mad.”
“They’re like that, Mrs. Alleyn,” Fox said. “Female poisoners behave like that. Always come at it a second time, and a third and fourth, too, if they get the chance.”
“Her last idea,” Alleyn said, “was to throw suspicion on Dr. Withers, who’s a considerable beneficiary in both Wills. She put thallium in the milk when the tea-tray was sent in to Miss Able, knowing Withers and Sonia Orrincourt were there and knowing Sonia was the only one who took milk. A little later she slipped the bottle into Withers’s jacket. With Sonia dead, she thought, the money would revert after all to Cedric.”
“Very nasty, you know,” Fox said mildly. “Very nasty case indeed, wouldn’t you say?”
“Horrible,” Troy said under her breath.
“And yet, you know,” Fox went on, “it’s a guinea to a gooseberry she only gets a lifer. What do you reckon, sir?”
“Oh, yes,” Alleyn said, looking at Troy. “It’ll be that if it’s not an acquittal.”
“But surely—” Troy began.
“We haven’t got an eye-witness, Mrs. Alleyn, to a single action that would clinch the case. Not one.” Fox got up slowly. “Well, if you’ll excuse me. It’s been a long day.”
Alleyn saw him out. When he returned, Troy was in her accustomed place on the hearthrug. He sat down and after a moment she leant towards him, resting her arm across his knees.
“Nothing is clear-cut,” she said, “when it comes to one’s views. Nothing.” He waited. “But we’re together,” she said. “Quite together now. Aren’t we?”
“Quite together,” Alleyn said.
The End