Mrs Antrobus was doubtful and suspicious of the visitors. ‘You’re not the police,’ she said.
‘Perhaps we are ancillary to them,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Nevertheless, we have our part to play. I represent the Home Office.’ She produced her official card.
Mrs Antrobus wiped her fingers on her apron and accepted it gingerly. ‘Well, I’d sooner my husband was at home,’ she said, as she handed it back, ‘but I suppose you’d better come in, ma’am.’
‘I would prefer to look at your bed of monkshood plants.’
‘The police have done that. Nothing to see there, except their great boots trampling all over the place. Photographed it and everything, they have, though what it proves except nasty vandals, I can’t see.’
‘So you think the digging up of your flowers was just an act of hooliganism, do you?’
‘What else could it be? My young sister never did it, and that I’ll swear, and did so to that detective fellow, not that he believed me, else why is Mags in prison and her good name blackened for all time?’
‘When did you discover that your garden had been desecrated? asked Dame Beatrice, surveying the trampled flowerbeds.
‘On the Saturday morning as the old lady died at the Sunday dinner table. I reckon the damage was done any time after Wednesday. That was the last time, till the Saturday, as I had occasion to throw out any rubbish. We grows the tall things, sunflowers, hollyhocks, monkshood and a little pergola of rambling roses to screen the bumby-hole, you see, and as it’s right at the bottom of the garden, I don’t traipse down there more often than I need. Trouble is, it’s easy enough to get at it from outside. You’d only have to step over the wall, and that’s no more than four foot high. Any boy or man could do it. Only thing is, nobody in the village wouldn’t.’
‘But somebody did. Have you any suspicions of who that somebody could be?’
‘It’s not for me to name names, not having names to name, but the poor old lady wasn’t one of Mag’s relations, was she?’
‘If we’re going to inspect every local garden and ask questions,’ said Laura, as they left the cottage, ‘we’ve got a long, long trail ahead of us.’
‘Are you weakening so soon?’
‘No, but nothing we’ve just heard convinces me that M. Denham did not dig up those roots.’
‘True. On the other hand, I cannot see that there is anything to show that she did.’
‘You know,’ said Laura, struck by a sudden thought, ‘that looked a very small cottage.’
‘Very small. What of it?’
‘I wondered whether it might not be germane to the issue to ask what the sleeping arrangements were while Margaret D. was there.’
Dame Beatrice, who had been about to enter the car which they had left a short distance away where it was possible to park it, straightened up and said in a tone of teasing wonderment, ‘Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings—’!
‘I call that an extremely offensive remark to make to the mother of two grown-up children,’ said Laura. ‘Do you want me to expound?’
‘I always hang upon your every word, but this time I can guess what you are going to say.’
‘All the same, I bet you’d never have thought of it for yourself.’
‘I confess and admit as much.’
‘You see,’ said Laura, ‘it seems to me that those plants could hardly have been dug up by daylight. Not even Margaret Denham could have been sure of when Mrs Antrobus would or would not decide to chuck away the rubbish.’
‘Margaret herself might have opted to carry out that particular chore, in which case your objection can be overruled.’
‘What! Are you acting as Devil’s Advocate?’
‘It is as well, as you yourself have often said, to explore all avenues and leave no stone unturned.’
‘Well, I’ll stand by that. Still, now that you know what’s in my mind—’
‘I suggest that you go back alone to the cottage and put the question which I had overlooked.’
Laura returned to the car after a considerable interval. Her beaming smile indicated that, as usual, she was feeling pleased with herself.
‘First pop out of the box,’ she announced with pride. ‘I apologised for the fact that you, with your exalted rank, were not up to the problems of the proletariat, and asked her point-blank the moot question. It appears that while Margaret was there, she and Mrs Antrobus shared the one double bed, and husband was relegated to a shakedown in the kitchen. Mrs A., who is expecting her first child in December, stated that she was not sorry to get shut of him for a week or two, but that it had not been for as long as she would have liked. Margaret had had a job to go to “somewhere over St Austell way” when the kitchenmaid at a big house left to get married, which rather disposes of Margaret’s motive for murdering Mrs Leyden, I feel. The fact remains that if those roots were dug up after bedtime, which I guess is earlier rather than later in these parts, that digging up was not done by Sister Mag unless she and Mrs Antrobus were in collusion.’
‘It is a pointer, but not proof. Let us inspect the other gardens round and about, particularly those belonging to the members of the late Mrs Leyden’s family.’
A number of cottages and also Bluebell’s house had the monkshood, with its sinister, purple, secretive flowers in bloom in some part of the garden, but there was nowhere, in any of the gardens, which showed that the ground had been disturbed. Only one actual call was made by Dame Beatrice and at this one, since it was at Seawards, Bluebell answered the door.
‘I am beginning a series of enquiries,’ said Dame Beatrice, knowing that it would not be necessary to state the purpose and nature of these. ‘I have visited Mrs Antrobus. I wonder whether you can think of anybody else who could help?’
‘Oh, do come in and sit down.’
‘I will not stay. I have left my secretary in the car and we have had a fatiguing round looking for poison plants.’
‘You noticed that we have monkshood growing in the garden here?’
‘Yes, but the ground, I feel certain, has not been disturbed.’
‘No. We are not keen gardeners and, in any case, one takes care not to disturb plants which are in flower.’
‘Unless for some nefarious purpose.’
‘Did you reach any conclusions at the Antrobus cottage?’
‘No. I retain an open mind. Have you any idea whether the wolfsbane grows wild in these parts?’
‘My cousin, Rupert Bosse-Leyden, could tell you. Of course, if the wild variety was used, then the plants dug up in the Antrobus garden could just have been a blind, which is what I think they were. But do go and ask Rupert. Tell him I sent you. I’m sure he will be pleased to see you and answer any questions. I don’t think any of us are very happy about the arrest of that poor girl.’
‘You will pardon me, I hope, for expressing this so bluntly, but, apart from the members of Mrs Leyden’s family, can you possibly think of anybody who could have had an interest, financial or otherwise, in her death?’
‘She had no enemies, if that is what you mean. She lived very quietly and seldom went further from home than Truro or Falmouth. Most of her friends were either dead or had dropped out and I know of nobody who bore her a grudge.’
‘Except, possibly, this girl Margaret Denham.’
‘There was Mattie Lunn, perhaps, but she is so delighted with the gift of the horses that—’
‘Yes,’ said Dame Beatrice, as Bluebell paused. ‘Yes, but she did not know of the gift of the horses until after Mrs Leyden’s death, did she?—and she had exactly the same reason for feeling disgruntled as Margaret Denham had—that is, before Mrs Leyden died.’
‘How do you know about this? I don’t believe I have ever mentioned it to you.’
‘My chauffeur resides at the public house halfway up the road towards Veryan. Gossip there is rife and as both the Lunns appear to patronise the place nightly, the gossip, although probably biased, is also well-informed.’