The Wychford Poisoning Case. Anthony Berkeley
‘Oh! I thought you said something about the gloomy mass of a sodden cook. Never mind. Go on, whatever it was. I ought to warn you that your coffee’s getting cold, though.’
‘And you might warn him at the same time that it’s past ten o’clock already,’ added her husband, applying a fresh match to his after-breakfast pipe. ‘Hadn’t you better start eating that kedgeree instead of lecturing on it, Roger? I was hoping to be at the stream before this, you know. I’ve been ready for the last half-hour.’
‘Vain are the hopes of men,’ observed Roger sadly, carrying a generously loaded plate to the table. ‘In the night they spring up and in the morning, lo! cometh the sun and they are withered and die.’
‘In the morning cometh Roger not, who continueth frowsting in bed,’ grumbled Alec. ‘That’d be more to the point.’
‘Cease, Alexander,’ Roger retorted gently. ‘The efforts of your admirable cook engage me.’
Alec picked up his newspaper and began to study its contents with indifferently concealed impatience.
‘Did you sleep well, Roger?’ Barbara wanted to know.
‘Did he sleep well?’ growled her husband, with heavy sarcasm. ‘Oh, no!’
‘Thank you, Barbara; very well indeed,’ Roger replied serenely. ‘Really, you know, that cook of yours is a culinary phenomenon. This kedgeree’s a dream. I’m going to have some more.’
‘Finish the dish. Now then, aren’t you sorry you wouldn’t come and stay with us before?’
‘Not in the least. In fact, I’m still congratulating myself that I resisted the awful temptation. One of the wisest things I ever did in all my life, compact with wisdom though it has been.’
‘Oh? Why?’
‘For any number of reasons. How long have you been married now? Just over a year? Exactly. It takes precisely twelve months for a married couple to get sufficiently used to each other without having to be maudlin in public, to the extreme embarrassment of middle-aged bachelors and unsympathetic onlookers such as myself.’
‘Roger!’ exclaimed his indignant hostess. ‘I’m sure Alec and I have never said a single—’
‘Oh, I’m not talking about words. I’m talking about expressive glances. My dear Barbara, the expressive glances I’ve had to sit and writhe between in my time! You wouldn’t believe it.’
‘Well, I should have thought you’d have enjoyed that sort of thing,’ Barbara laughed. ‘All’s copy that comes into your mill, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t write penny novelettes, Mrs Grierson,’ returned Roger with dignity.
‘Don’t you?’ Barbara replied innocently.
An explosive sound burst from Alec. ‘Good for you, darling. Had him there.’
‘You are pleased to insult me, the two of you,’ said Roger pathetically. ‘Helpless and in your power, speechless with kedgeree—’
‘No, not speechless!’ came from the depths of Alec’s paper. ‘Never that.’
‘Speechless with kedgeree, squirming with embarrassment in the presence of your new relationship to each other—’
‘Roger, how can you! When you yourself were Alec’s best man, too!’
‘You put me between you and insult me. The very first morning of my visit, too. What are the trains back to London?’
‘There’s a very good one in about half an hour. And now tell me all the other reasons why you wouldn’t come down here before.’
‘Well, for one thing I set a certain value on my comfort, Barbara, and other regrettable experiences, over which we will pass with silent shudders, have shown me very clearly that it takes a wife a full twelve months to learn to run her house with sufficient dexterity and knowledge to warrant her asking guests down to it.’
‘Roger! This place has always gone like clockwork ever since I took it over. Hasn’t it, Alec?’
‘Clockwork, darling,’ mumbled her husband absently.
‘But then, you’re a very exceptional woman, Barbara,’ said Roger mildly. ‘In the presence of your husband I can’t say less than that. He’s bigger than me.’
‘Roger, I don’t think I’m liking you very much this morning. Have you finished the kedgeree? Well, you’ll find some grilled kidneys in that other dish. More coffee?’
‘Grilled kidneys?’ said Roger, rising with alacrity. ‘Oh, I am going to enjoy my stay here, Barbara. I suspected it at dinner last night. Now I know.’
‘Are you going to be all the morning over brekker, Roger?’ demanded Alec in desperation.
‘Most of it, Alexander, I hope,’ Roger replied happily.
For nearly two minutes the silence was unbroken.
‘Anything in the paper this morning, dear?’ Barbara asked casually.
‘Only this Bentley case,’ replied her husband without looking up.
‘The woman who poisoned her husband with arsenic? Anything fresh?’
‘Yes, the magistrates have committed her for trial.’
‘Anything said about her defence, Alec?’ asked Roger.
Alex consulted the paper. ‘No; defence reserved.’
‘Defence!’ said Barbara with a slight sniff. ‘What a hope! If ever a person was obviously guilty—!’
‘There,’ said Roger, ‘speaks the voice of all England—with two exceptions.’
‘Exceptions? I shouldn’t have thought there was a single exception. Who?’
‘Well, Mrs Bentley, for one.’
‘Oh—Mrs Bentley. She knows what she did all right.’
‘Oh, no doubt. But she couldn’t have thought she was being obviously guilty, could she? I mean, she’s a curious sort of person if she did.’
‘But she is rather a curious sort of person in any case, isn’t she? Ordinary people don’t feed their husbands on arsenic. And who’s the other exception?’
‘Me,’ said Roger modestly.
‘You? Roger! Do you mean to say you think she’s not guilty?’
‘Not exactly. It was just the word “obviously” that I was taking exception to. After all, she hasn’t been tried yet, you know. We haven’t heard yet what she’s got to say about it all.’
‘What can she say? I suppose she’ll fake up some sort of story, but really, Roger! All I can say is that if they don’t hang her, no husband’s life will ever be safe again.’
‘Then let’s hope they do,’ remarked Alec humorously. ‘Speaking entirely from the personal point of view, of course.’
‘Prejudice, thy name is woman,’ Roger murmured. ‘Second name, apparently, bloodthirstiness. It’s wonderful. We’re all being women over this affair. Marmalade, please, Alexander.’
‘I know you’re a perverse old devil, Roger,’ Alec was constrained to protest as he passed the dish across, ‘but you can’t mean to say that you really think she’s innocent?’
‘I don’t think anything of the sort, Alexander. What I am trying to do (which apparently no one else is) is to preserve an open mind. I repeat—she hasn’t been tried yet!’
‘But the coroner’s jury brought it in murder against her.’
‘Even coroner’s