The Wychford Poisoning Case. Anthony Berkeley
separated on the platform and Roger hurried off to telephone. Burgoyne was in and he made an appointment with him for ten minutes’ time. Jumping into a taxi, he was carried swiftly over Waterloo Bridge and down Fleet Street, arriving in the Great Man’s office with exactly fifteen seconds to spare. Roger rather liked that sort of thing.
It was not Roger’s intention to give any hint, either to Burgoyne himself or to anyone else, of his theory that Mrs Bentley might possibly be the victim of somebody else’s plot rather than the contriver of one of her own making. For one thing it was more of a suspicion than a theory, and his arguments to Alec, interesting though he had made them sound, had been delivered more with the idea of clarifying his own mind on the matter than of stating an actual case. For another thing he preferred, should anything eventually come of this surprising notion, to keep himself the only one in the field. His words to Burgoyne were therefore chosen with some care.
‘This Wychford case,’ he said, when they had shaken hands. ‘Interesting, isn’t it?’
‘It’s been a God-send to us, I can tell you,’ Burgoyne smiled. ‘Carried us all through August, thank heaven. Interesting, is it? Well, I suppose it is in a way. Going to write a book about it, eh?’
‘Well, I might,’ Roger said seriously. ‘At any rate, I want to have a look at it at close quarters. That’s what I’ve come to see you about. You know I’m a keen criminologist, and on top of that the case is simply packed with human interest. Those Allens! There are half a dozen characters down there I’d like to study. Well, what I want to ask you is this. Can I use the Courier’s name as an inducement for them to open their mouths to me? Can you appoint me honorary special correspondent, or something like that? You know I won’t abuse it, and I’d really be awfully grateful.’
But Burgoyne was not editor of the Courier for nothing. He was a wise man.
‘You’ve got something up your sleeve, Sheringham,’ he grinned. ‘I can see that with half an eye. No—don’t trouble to perjure yourself! I see you don’t want to talk about it, so I’m not asking. Yes, you can use the Courier’s name all right. On one condition.’
‘Yes?’ Roger asked, not without apprehension.
‘That if you find out anything (and that’s what I take it you’re really going down for: good lord, man, haven’t I heard you expounding theories on detective-work and the rest of it by the half-mile at a time?)—if you do find out anything, you give us the first option on printing it. At your usual rates, needless to say.’
‘Great Scott, yes—rather! Only too pleased. But don’t expect anything, Burgoyne. I don’t mind admitting that I am going to nose around a bit when I get there, but I’m really only going down out of sheer interest in the case. The psychology—’
‘Write it to me, old man,’ advised Burgoyne. ‘Sorry, but I’m up to the eyes as usual, and you’ve had your two minutes. Don’t mind, do you? That’s all right, then. You chuck our name about as much as you like, and in return you give us first chance on any stuff you write about the case and so on. Good enough. So long, old man; so long.’ And Roger found himself being warmly hand-shaken into the passage outside. There were few people who could deal with Roger, but the editor of the Courier was certainly one of them.
Alec was waiting in the vestibule downstairs, and together they left the building, Roger recounting the success of his mission with considerable jubilation.
‘Yes, that’s going to help us a lot,’ he said, as they marched down Fleet Street. ‘There’s nothing like the hope of seeing your name in a paper like the Courier to make a certain type of person talk. And I have a pretty shrewd idea that both brother William and Mrs Saunderson are just that type, to say nothing of the unpleasant domestic, Mary Blower.’
‘But won’t the Courier have had their own man down there all this time?’
‘Oh, yes; but that doesn’t matter in the least. He won’t have asked the questions that I want to ask. Besides,’ Roger added modestly, ‘there’s another factor in our favour for worming our way into people’s good graces. I hate to keep on reminding you of it, Alexander, but you really are rather inclined to overlook it, you know.’
‘Oh? What’s that?’
‘The fact that I’m Roger Sheringham,’ said that unblushing novelist simply.
Alec’s reply verged regrettably upon crudity. One gathered that Alec was lamentably lacking in a proper respect for his distinguished companion.
‘That’s the worst of making oneself so cheap,’ sighed Roger, as they turned into their destination. ‘If a man is never a hero to his valet, what is he to his fat-headed friends?’
After a thick slab of red steak and a pint of old beer apiece they hailed a taxi and were driven to Charing Cross.
‘Do you know Wychford at all?’ Alec asked when they were seated in the train once again, with a carriage to themselves.
‘Just vaguely. I’ve motored through it, you know.’
‘Um!’
‘Why, do you?’
‘Yes, pretty well. I stayed there for a week once when I was a kid.’
‘Good Lord, why didn’t you tell me that before? You don’t know anybody there, do you?’
‘Yes, I’ve got a cousin living there.’
‘Really, Alec!’ Roger exclaimed with not unjustifiable exasperation. ‘You are the most reticent devil I’ve ever struck. I have to dig things out of you with a pin. Don’t you see how important this is?’
‘No,’ said Alec frankly.
‘Why, your cousin may be able to give us all sorts of useful introductions, besides being able to tell us the local gossip and all sorts of things like that. For goodness’ sake open your mouth and tell me all about it. What sort of a place is Wychford? Does your cousin live in the town itself, or outside it? What can you remember about Wychford?’
Alec considered. ‘Well, it’s a pretty big place, you know. I suppose it’s much the same as any other pretty big place. Lots of sets and cliques and all that sort of thing. My cousin lives pretty well in the middle, in the High Street. She married a doctor there. Nice old house they’ve got, red brick and gables and all that. Just before you get to the pond on the right, coming from London. You remember that pond, at the top of the High Street?’
‘Yes, I think so. Married a doctor, did she? That’s great. We’ll be able to have a look at the medical evidence from the inside, you see, if we want to. What’s the doctor’s name, by the way?’
‘Purefoy. Dr Purefoy. She’s Mrs Purefoy,’ he added helpfully.
‘Yes, I gathered something like that. Not one of the doctors in the case. All right; go on.’
‘Well, that’s about all, isn’t it?’
‘It’s all I shall be able to get out of you, Alec,’ Roger grumbled. ‘That’s quite evident. What taciturn devils you semi-Scotch people are! You’re worse than the real thing.’
‘You ought to be thankful,’ Alec grinned. ‘There’s not much room for the chatty sort when you’re anywhere around, is there?’
‘I disdain to reply to your crude witticisms, Alexander,’ replied Roger with dignity, and went on to reply to them at considerable length.
His harangue was still in full swing when the train stopped at Wychford, and the poorly disguised relief with which Alec hailed their arrival at that station very nearly set him off again. Suppressing with an effort the expression of his feelings, he joined Alec in following the porter with their belongings. They mounted an elderly taxi of almost terrifying instability, and were driven, for a perfectly exorbitant consideration, to the Man of Kent, a hotel which the driver of the elderly taxi was able