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II
“You’ve been having a bad time of it,” said Craddock.
“It’s been like one long ghastly nightmare,” said Lucy. “I really thought
last night that they were all dying.”
“It was the curry?”
“If that’s true,” said Lucy. “It must—it’s got to be—one of the family.”
“No other possibility?”
“No, you see I only started making that damned curry quite late—after
had to open a new tin of curry powder — so that couldn’t have been
“Arsenic hasn’t any taste,” said Craddock absently. “Now, opportunity.
ing?”
Lucy considered.
I was laying the table in the dining room.”
“I see. Now, who was here in the house? Old Mr. Crackenthorpe, Emma,
Cedric—”
“Harold and Alfred. They’d come down from London in the afternoon.
Oh, and Bryan—Bryan Eastley. But he left just before dinner. He had to
meet a man in Brackhampton.”
Craddock said thoughtfully, “It ties up with the old man’s illness at
Christmas. Quimper suspected that that was arsenic. Did they all seem
equally ill last night?”
Lucy considered. “I think old Mr. Crackenthorpe seemed the worst. Dr.
say. Cedric made by far the most fuss. Of course, strong healthy people al-
ways do.”
“What about Emma?”
“She has been pretty bad.”
“Why Alfred, I wonder?” said Craddock.
“I know,” said Lucy. “I suppose it was meant to be Alfred?”
“Funny— I asked that too!”
“It seems, somehow, so pointless.”
doesn’t seem to tie up. The strangled woman in the sarcophagus was Ed-
mund Crackenthorpe’s widow, Martine. Let’s assume that. It’s pretty well
proved by now. There must be a connection between that and the deliber-
ate poisoning of Alfred. It’s all here, in the family somewhere. Even saying
one of them’s mad doesn’t help.”
“Not really,” Lucy agreed.
“Well, look after yourself,” said Craddock warningly. “There’s a poisoner
in this house, remember, and one of your patients upstairs probably isn’t
as ill as he pretends to be.”
Lucy went upstairs again slowly after Craddock’s departure. An imperi-
ous voice, somewhat weakened by illness, called to her as she passed old
Mr. Crackenthorpe’s room.
“Girl—girl—is that you? Come here.”
Lucy entered the room. Mr. Crackenthorpe was lying in bed well
markably cheerful.
“The house is full of damned hospital nurses,” complained Mr. Cracken-
thorpe. “Rustling about, making themselves important, taking my temper-
ature, not giving me what I want to eat—a pretty penny all that must be
costing. Tell Emma to send ’em away. You could look after me quite well.”
“Everybody’s been taken ill, Mr. Crackenthorpe,” said Lucy. “I can’t look
after everybody, you know.”
“Mushrooms,” said Mr. Crackenthorpe. “Damned dangerous things,
mushrooms. It was that soup we had last night. You made it,” he added ac-
cusingly.
“The mushrooms were quite all right, Mr. Crackenthorpe.”
“I’m not blaming you, girl, I’m not blaming you. It’s happened before.
good girl. You wouldn’t do it on purpose. How’s Emma?”
“Feeling rather better this afternoon.”
“Ah, and Harold?”
“He’s better too.”
“What’s this about Alfred having kicked the bucket?”
“Nobody’s supposed to have told you that, Mr. Crackenthorpe.”
Mr. Crackenthorpe laughed, a high, whinnying laugh of intense amuse-
ment. “I hear things,” he said. “Can’t keep things from the old man. They
try to. So Alfred’s dead, is he? He won’t sponge on me anymore, and he
won’t get any of the money either. They’ve all been waiting for me to die,
you know—Alfred in particular. Now he’s dead. I call that rather a good
joke.”
Mr. Crackenthorpe laughed again. “I’ll outlive them all,” he crowed.
“You see if I don’t, my girl. You see if I don’t.”
Lucy went to her room, she took out her dictionary and looked up the
word “tontine.” She closed the book thoughtfully and stared ahead of her.
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