Lamb made a sound which might have been described as a snort.
“Oh, it isn’t, isn’t it? Very proper and respectful all of a sudden, aren’t you? Not feeling ill, I suppose?”
“No, thank you, sir.”
The table was banged.
“Then come off it! I asked you a question.”
Sergeant Abbott smiled negligently.
“I should like to hear your opinion first, sir.”
The Chief Inspector’s colour had risen. Frank was an insubordinate young dog. There were times when he wanted taking down a peg or two. There were times when he got the taking down. This morning had been one of the times, and Lamb had dealt faithfully. Young men with swelled heads were what he never had tolerated and never would. Frank was a good boy, but none the worse for a setting down-too free by half with his opinions. And now he was getting his own back. Insubordination-that was what it was, and he’d got him in a cleft stick. You can’t discipline a man for being respectful. He said rather loudly,
“It’s too soon to be giving opinions, but if the locals hadn’t thought it was murder they wouldn’t have called us in.”
Frank Abbott gave a slight cool nod.
“As you say, sir.”
“The Chief Constable didn’t want to be mixed up in it. I don’t think his opinion’s worth having. He’s overdue for retirement. But that Inspector-what’s his name, Smerdon?-he’s a smart fellow, there’s no doubt about what he thinks. And Dr. Hathaway. The doctor’s right, you know, about sleeping-draught suicides-they take the stuff in bed, every man jack of them. I suppose it’s natural-what they call association of ideas. You go to bed and you go to sleep- especially the women. The only exceptions I can think of are the people who try and get off the map altogether-go off into a wood or something like that where they think they won’t be found. Now this Mrs. Latter, she’s a smart, sophisticated woman-a goodlooker too. She’s had a row with her husband. He finds her in his cousin’s room in the middle of the night. By Mrs. Marsh’s account she’s chucked herself at his head, and he isn’t having any. Then the husband comes in-says he’s heard everything and sends her packing. Well, there’s no denying that’s a slap in the face for a woman- about the worst she could have. She might commit suicide.”
Frank Abbott nodded, but did not speak. Lamb went on.
“She might, but I can’t see her doing it like that. To my way of thinking, the sort of woman she was would have made a better show of it-dressed it up a bit. Suicides do, you know. There’s a lot of the old ‘They’ll be sorry when I’m dead’ about them, especially with women who kill themselves over love affairs. They want to make a good dramatic impression that’ll give them plenty of limelight and leave the man in the case something to think about for the rest of his life. As I see it, by all accounts Mrs. Latter wasn’t the sort of person to want to slip away quietly and not give any trouble. No woman who’s managed to get herself as much disliked as she had is going to think about other people’s feelings. That sort of woman wants to make a splash. She makes up her face, she does her hair, she puts on her best nightgown, and she leaves a suicide note to harrow the man’s feelings up.”
Frank’s indifferent look had changed. He said,
“Yes-I think you’re right.”
Lamb had talked himself into a good temper.
“Then I must be! Well, if it isn’t suicide it’s murder. And if it’s murder, then it’s one of the people in this house-one of seven people. Mr. Antony Latter is out of it-he wasn’t here. A bit of good luck for him. He’d no motive either, as far as one can see. You don’t poison a woman because she sets her cap at you. Well, that leaves Mr. Jimmy Latter the husband, those two half-sisters who aren’t really half-sisters at all-”
“His stepmother’s daughters.”
“That’s right. It leaves them, and that Miss Mercer, and the servants-the old cook who’s been here donkey’s years, the kitchenmaid, a girl of seventeen, and Mrs. Gladys Marsh.” He repeated the last name in a very disapproving tone, “Mrs. Gladys Marsh. Well, I’m sorry for her husband, whoever he is. A thorough-going bad lot is how I’d put her down. Why, she’d the impudence to make eyes at me.”
With a perfectly straight face, Sergeant Abbott said,
“Incredible, sir!”
The bullseyes bulged a little.
“Look here-how do you mean, ‘incredible’? You saw her, didn’t you?”
He got a properly respectful reply.
“I mean it would have been incredible if I hadn’t seen it.”
Lamb grunted.
“Well, bad lot or no, I think we count her out. I can’t see what motive she’d have. She was by way of being the spoilt favourite, I gather, and if she’d had any hand in the business, I shouldn’t expect her to put herself forward the way she did. I don’t suppose we’d have heard a word about Mrs. Latter having those sick attacks and saying someone was trying to poison her if Mrs. Gladys Marsh hadn’t had her fit of hysterics and let it out. I don’t see anyone else tumbling over themselves to tell us. They’ll all stick together, the rest of them will. There’s the family-that’s natural. And there’s that old woman in the kitchen-she’s been here more than fifty years. Well, people like that, they’ll stick even closer than the relations will.”
“Plus royaliste que le roi,” murmured Sergeant Abbott, adding hastily, “You’re quite right, sir.”
He got a glare.
“Oh, I am, am I? And let me tell you that my own language is good enough for me, and if it isn’t good enough for you it ought to be! If you’ve got to put a thing into a foreign language, it’s either because it’s something to be ashamed of, or it’s because you’re showing off.”
Having waved the red rag, Frank made a strategic retirement.
“It was a quotation, Chief.”
“Then you can quote in English! There’s the whole of Shakespeare, isn’t there? Extraordinary what a lot of quotations there are in Shakespeare.”
“Quite true, sir.”
“Then stick to ’em! And don’t go foreign on me-it puts me out! Where was I?”
“Mrs. Maniple sticking closer than a relation.”
Lamb nodded.
“She’s that sort. And she’s got the girl Polly What’s-her-name-”
Frank offered “Pell.”
“Polly Pell. She’s got her well under her thumb, I should say. Kitchenmaids were kitchenmaids when she went into service. She’ll have gone through the mill herself, and she’ll not be standing any nonsense. Things don’t change so much as you’d think in a village. I was brought up in one, and I know. The world’s been turned upside down, but there’s a long way to go before you can stop a determined old woman having her own way with a girl like that. So we come back to where we started. If Gladys Marsh hadn’t let the cat out of the bag, I don’t suppose anyone else would have done it.”
“I don’t suppose they would.”
“Well then, if we leave out Gladys Marsh we get the family and the old cook. I think we can leave the girl out of it too- she wouldn’t have any motive. So then there’s Mr. Latter, Mrs. Street, Miss Vane, Miss Mercer-I’m counting her as family-and Mrs. Maniple. Well, Mr. Latter has the strongest motive. He’s been married two years, and by all accounts he’s very devoted to his wife-thinks no end of her. And then all of a sudden he gets this frightful shock. He finds her in his cousin’s room in the middle of the night in her nightgown, fairly throwing herself at him, and his cousin saying no. It’s enough to throw a man off his balance. If he’d killed her then, he’d have got off with a nominal sentence. Provocation-that’s what he had. But he didn’t kill her then. He takes the rest of the night, and all next day, and the best part of another twenty-four hours after that. And Mrs. Latter dies of an overdose of morphia administered in her after-dinner coffee. He had the motive-there’s no stronger motive than jealousy. He’d put her on a pedestal and she’d come down with a crash. He had the opportunity-he was alone in the room, with the coffee in those two cups on the tray. You may say that all the rest of the family had an equal opportunity, and that’s true. Take their own statements. Miss Vane brings the tray in and puts it down, goes out on to the terrace and along to this study window, where she looks in and asks Mr. Latter if he is coming into the drawing-room for his coffee. He says yes, and she wanders about for a bit. By the time she looks in to say she’s going for a walk the rest of the family are in the drawing-room, Mr. Latter is drinking his coffee, and Mrs. Latter is going towards her chair with her cup in her hand. Miss Vane goes away, and doesn’t come back till ten o’clock, when she finds Mrs. Latter alone in the drawing-room in a state of collapse. That’s Miss Julia Vane. She could have put morphia into either of the cups, but she had no means of knowing which one Mrs. Latter would take.”