Sparkling Cyanide Read online

  Everyone blinked.

  At the same time a wave of sudden freedom from restraint seemed to pass over the party at the table. It was as though they had been subconsciously expecting something that had failed to happen. For on an earlier occasion the going up of the lights had coincided with the discovery of a dead body lying across the table. It was as though now the past was definitely past—vanished into oblivion. The shadow of a bygone tragedy had lifted.

  Sandra turned to Anthony in an animated way. Stephen made an observation to Iris and Ruth leaned forward to join in. Only George sat in his chair staring—staring, his eyes fixed on the empty chair opposite him. The place in front of it was laid. There was champagne in the glass. At any moment, someone might come, might sit down there—

  A nudge from Iris recalled him:

  ‘Wake up, George. Come and dance. You haven’t danced with me yet.’

  He roused himself. Smiling at her he lifted his glass.

  ‘We’ll drink a toast first—to the young lady whose birthday we’re celebrating. Iris Marle, may her shadow never grow less!’

  They drank it laughing, then they all got up to dance, George and Iris, Stephen and Ruth, Anthony and Sandra.

  It was a gay jazz melody.

  They all came back together, laughing and talking. They sat down.

  Then suddenly George leaned forward.

  ‘I’ve something I want to ask you all. A year ago, more or less, we were here before on an evening that ended tragically. I don’t want to recall past sadness, but it’s just that I don’t want to feel that Rosemary is completely forgotten. I’ll ask you to drink to her memory—for Remembrance sake.’

  He raised his glass. Everyone else obediently raised theirs. Their faces were polite masks.

  George said:

  ‘To Rosemary for remembrance.’

  The glasses were raised to their lips. They drank.

  There was a pause—then George swayed forward and slumped down in his chair, his hands rising frenziedly to his neck, his face turning purple as he fought for breath.

  It took him a minute and a half to die.

  Book 3

  Iris

  ‘For I thought that the dead had peace

  But it is not so…’

  Chapter 1

  Colonel Race turned into the doorway of New Scotland Yard. He filled in the form that was brought forward and a very few minutes later he was shaking hands with Chief Inspector Kemp in the latter’s room.

  The two men were well acquainted. Kemp was slightly reminiscent of that grand old veteran, Battle, in type. Indeed, since he had worked under Battle for many years, he had perhaps unconsciously copied a good many of the older man’s mannerisms. He bore about him the same suggestion of being carved all in one piece—but whereas Battle had suggested some wood such as teak or oak, Chief Inspector Kemp suggested a somewhat more showy wood—mahogany, say, or good old-fashioned rosewood.

  ‘It was good of you to ring us, colonel,’ said Kemp. ‘We shall want all the help we can get on this case.’

  ‘It seems to have got us into exalted hands,’ said Race.

  Kemp did not make modest disclaimers. He accepted quite simply the indubitable fact that only cases of extreme delicacy, wide publicity or supreme importance came his way. He said seriously:

  ‘It’s the Kidderminster connection. You can imagine that means careful going.’

  Race nodded. He had met Lady Alexandra Farraday several times. One of those quiet women of unassailable position whom it seems fantastic to associate with sensational publicity. He had heard her speak on public platforms—without eloquence, but clearly and competently, with a good grasp of her subject, and with an excellent delivery.

  The kind of woman whose public life was in all the papers, and whose private life was practically nonexistent except as a bland domestic background.

  Nevertheless, he thought, such women have a private life. They know despair, and love, and the agonies of jealousy. They can lose control and risk life itself on a passionate gamble.

  He said curiously:

  ‘Suppose she “done it,” Kemp?’

  ‘Lady Alexandra? Do you think she did, sir?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. But suppose she did. Or her husband—who comes under the Kidderminster mantle.’

  The steady sea-green eyes of Chief Inspector Kemp looked in an untroubled way into Race’s dark ones.

  ‘If either of them did murder, we’ll do our level best to hang him or her. You know that. There’s no fear and no favour for murderers in this country. But we’ll have to be absolutely sure of our evidence—the public prosecutor will insist on that.’

  Race nodded.

  Then he said, ‘Let’s have the doings.’

  ‘George Barton died of cyanide poisoning—same thing as his wife a year ago. You said you were actually in the restaurant?’

  ‘Yes. Barton had asked me to join his party. I refused. I didn’t like what he was doing. I protested against it and urged him, if he had doubts about his wife’s death, to go to the proper people—to you.’

  Kemp nodded.

  ‘That’s what he ought to have done.’

  ‘Instead he persisted in an idea of his own—setting a trap for the murderer. He wouldn’t tell me what that trap was. I was uneasy about the whole business—so much so that I went to the Luxembourg last night so as to keep an eye on things. My table, necessarily, was some distance away—I didn’t want to be spotted too obviously. Unfortunately I can tell you nothing. I saw nothing in the least suspicious. The waiters and his own party were the only people who approached the table.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kemp, ‘it narrows it down, doesn’t it? It was one of them, or it was the waiter, Giuseppe Bolsano. I’ve got him on the mat again this morning—thought you might like to see him—but I can’t believe he had anything to do with it. Been at the Luxembourg for twelve years—good reputation, married, three children, good record behind him. Gets on well with all the clients.’

  ‘Which leaves us with the guests.’

  ‘Yes. The same party as was present when Mrs Barton—died.’

  ‘What about that business, Kemp?’

  ‘I’ve been going into it since it seems pretty obvious that the two hang together. Adams handled it. It wasn’t what we call a clear case of suicide, but suicide was the most probable solution and in the absence of any direct evidence suggesting murder, one had to let it go as suicide. Couldn’t do anything else. We’ve a good many cases like that in our records, as you know. Suicide with a query mark. The public doesn’t know about the query mark—but we keep it in mind. Sometimes we go on quite a bit hunting about quietly.

  ‘Sometimes something crops up—sometimes it doesn’t. In this case it didn’t.’

  ‘Until now.’

  ‘Until now. Somebody tipped Mr Barton off to the fact that his wife had been murdered. He got busy on his own—he as good as announced that he was on the right track—whether he was or not I don’t know—but the murderer must have thought so—so the murderer gets rattled and bumps off Mr Barton. That seems the way of it as far as I can see—I hope you agree?’

  ‘Oh, yes—that part of it seems straightforward enough. God knows what the “trap” was—I noticed that there was an empty chair at the table. Perhaps it was waiting for some unexpected witness. Anyhow it accomplished rather more than it was meant to do. It alarmed the guilty person so much that he or she didn’t wait for the trap to be sprung.’

  ‘Well,’ said Kemp, ‘we’ve got five suspects. And we’ve got the first case to go on—Mrs Barton.’

  ‘You’re definitely of the opinion now that it was not suicide?’

  ‘This murder seems to prove that it wasn’t. Though I don’t think you can blame us at the time for accepting the suicide theory as the most probable. There was some evidence for it.’

  ‘Depression after influenza?’

  Kemp’s wooden face showed a ripple of a smile.

  ‘That was for th
e coroner’s court. Agreed with the medical evidence and saved everybody’s feelings. That’s done every day. And there was a half-finished letter to the sister directing how her personal belongings were to be given away—showed she’d had the idea of doing away with herself in her mind. She was depressed all right, I don’t doubt, poor lady—but nine times out of ten, with women, it’s a love affair. With men it’s mostly money worries.’

  ‘So you knew Mrs Barton had a love affair.’

  ‘Yes, we soon found that out. It had been discreet—but it didn’t take much finding.’

  ‘Stephen Farraday?’

  ‘Yes. They used to meet in a little flat out Earl’s Court way. It had been going on for over six months. Say they’d had a quarrel—or possibly he was getting tired of her—well, she wouldn’t be the first woman to take her life in a fit of desperation.’

  ‘By potassium cyanide in a public restaurant?’

  ‘Yes—if she wanted to be dramatic about it—with him looking on and all. Some people have a feeling for the spectacular. From what I could find out she hadn’t much feeling for the conventions—all the precautions were on his side.’

  ‘Any evidence as to whether his wife knew what was going on?’

  ‘As far as we could learn she knew nothing about it.’

  ‘She may have, for all that, Kemp. Not the kind of woman to wear her heart on her sleeve.’

  ‘Oh, quite so. Count them both in as possibles. She for jealousy. He for his career. Divorce would have dished that. Not that divorce means as much as it used to, but in his case it would have meant the antagonism of the Kidderminster clan.’

  ‘What about the secretary girl?’

  ‘She’s a possible. Might have been sweet on George Barton. They were pretty thick at the office and there’s an idea there that she was keen on him. Actually yesterday afternoon one of the telephone girls was giving an imitation of Barton holding Ruth Lessing’s hand and saying he couldn’t do without her, and Miss Lessing came out and caught them and sacked the girl there and then—gave her a month’s money and told her to go. Looks as though she was sensitive about it all. Then the sister came into a peck of money—one’s got to remember that. Looked a nice kid, but you can never tell. And there was Mrs Barton’s other boy friend.’

  ‘I’m rather anxious to hear what you know about him?’

  Kemp said slowly:

  ‘Remarkably little—but what there is isn’t too good. His passport’s in order. He’s an American citizen about whom we can’t find anything, detrimental or otherwise. He came over here, stayed at Claridge’s and managed to strike up an acquaintance with Lord Dewsbury.’

  ‘Confidence man?’

  ‘Might be. Dewsbury seems to have fallen for him—asked him to stay. Rather a critical time just then.’

  ‘Armaments,’ said Race. ‘There was that trouble about the new tank trials in Dewsbury’s works.’

  ‘Yes. This fellow Browne represented himself as interested in armaments. It was soon after he’d been up there that they discovered that sabotage business—just in the nick of time. Browne met a good many cronies of Dewsbury—he seemed to have cultivated all the ones who were connected with the armament firms. As a result he’s been shown a lot of stuff that in my opinion he ought never to have seen—and in one or two cases there’s been serious trouble in the works not long after he’s been in the neighbourhood.’

  ‘An interesting person, Mr Anthony Browne?’

  ‘Yes. He’s got a lot of charm, apparently, and plays it for all he’s worth.’

  ‘And where did Mrs Barton come in? George Barton hasn’t anything to do with the armament world?’

  ‘No. But they seem to have been fairly intimate. He may have let out something to her. You know, colonel, none better, what a pretty woman can get out of a man.’

  Race nodded, taking the chief inspector’s words, as meant, to refer to the Counter-Espionage Department which he had once controlled and not—as some ignorant person might have thought—to some personal indiscretions of his own.

  He said after a minute or two:

  ‘Have you had a go at those letters that George Barton received?’

  ‘Yes. Found them in his desk at his house last night. Miss Marle found them for me.’

  ‘You know I’m interested in those letters, Kemp. What’s the expert opinion on them?’

  ‘Cheap paper, ordinary ink—fingerprints show George Barton and Iris Marle handled them—and a horde of unidentified dabs on the envelope, postal employees, etc. They were printed and the experts say by someone of good education in normal health.’

  ‘Good education. Not a servant?’

  ‘Presumably not.’

  ‘That makes it more interesting still.’

  ‘It means that somebody else had suspicions, at least.’

  ‘Someone who didn’t go to the police. Someone who was prepared to arouse George’s suspicions but who didn’t follow the business up. There’s something odd there, Kemp. He couldn’t have written them himself, could he?’

  ‘He could have. But why?’

  ‘As a preliminary to suicide—a suicide which he intended to look like murder.’

  ‘With Stephen Farraday booked for the hangman’s rope? It’s an idea—but he’d have made quite sure that everything pointed to Farraday as the murderer. As it is we’ve nothing against Farraday at all.’

  ‘What about cyanide? Was there any container found?’

  ‘Yes. A small white paper packet under the table. Traces of cyanide crystals inside. No fingerprints on it. In a detective story, of course, it would be some special kind of paper or folded in some special way. I’d like to give these detective story writers a course of routine work. They’d soon learn how most things are untraceable and nobody ever notices anything anywhere!’

  Race smiled.

  ‘Almost too sweeping a statement. Did anybody notice anything last night?’

  ‘Actually that’s what I’m starting on today. I took a brief statement from everyone last night and I went back to Elvaston Square with Miss Marle and had a look through Barton’s desk and papers. I shall get fuller statements from them all today—also statements from the people sitting at the other two tables in the alcove—’ He rustled through some papers—‘Yes, here they are. Gerald Tollington, Grenadier Guards, and the Hon. Patricia Brice-Woodworth. Young engaged couple. I’ll bet they didn’t see anything but each other. And Mr Pedro Morales—nasty bit of goods from Mexico—even the whites of his eyes are yellow—and Miss Christine Shannon—a gold-digging blonde lovely—I’ll bet she didn’t see anything—dumber than you’d believe possible except where money is concerned. It’s a hundred to one chance that any of them saw anything, but I took their names and addresses on the off chance. We’ll start off with the waiter chap, Giuseppe. He’s here now. I’ll have him sent in.’

  Chapter 2

  Giuseppe Bolsano was a middle-aged man, slight with a rather monkey-like intelligent face. He was nervous, but not unduly so. His English was fluent since he had, he explained, been in the country since he was sixteen and had married an English wife.

  Kemp treated him sympathetically.

  ‘Now then, Giuseppe, let’s hear whether anything more has occurred to you about this.’

  ‘It is for me very unpleasant. It is I who serve that table. I who pour out the wine. People will say that I am off my head, that I put poison into the wine glasses. It is not so, but that is what people will say. Already, Mr Goldstein says it is better that I take a week away from work—so that people do not ask me questions there and point me out. He is a fair man, and just, and he knows it is not my fault, and that I have been there for many years, so he does not dismiss me as some restaurant owners would do. M. Charles, too, he has been kind, but all the same it is a great misfortune for me—and it makes me afraid. Have I an enemy, I ask myself?’

  ‘Well,’ said Kemp at his most wooden, ‘have you?’

  The sad monkey-face twitched into laught
er. Giuseppe stretched out his arms.

  ‘I? I have not an enemy in the world. Many good friends but no enemies.’

  Kemp grunted.

  ‘Now about last night. Tell me about the champagne.’

  ‘It was Clicquot, 1928—very good and expensive wine. Mr Barton was like that—he liked good food and drink—the best.’

  ‘Had he ordered the wine beforehand?’

  ‘Yes. He had arranged everything with Charles.’

  ‘What about the vacant place at the table?’

  ‘That, too, he had arranged for. He told Charles and he told me. A young lady would occupy it later in the evening.’

  ‘A young lady?’ Race and Kemp looked at each other. ‘Do you know who the young lady was?’

  Giuseppe shook his head.

  ‘No, I know nothing about that. She was to come later, that is all I heard.’

  ‘Go on about the wine. How many bottles?’

  ‘Two bottles and a third to be ready if needed. The first bottle was finished quite quickly. The second I open not long before the cabaret. I fill up the glasses and put the bottle in the ice bucket.’

  ‘When did you last notice Mr Barton drinking from his glass?’

  ‘Let me see, when the cabaret was over, they drink the young lady’s health. It is her birthday so I understand. Then they go and dance. It is after that, when they come back, that Mr Barton drinks and in a minute, like that! he is dead.’

  ‘Had you filled up the glasses during the time they were dancing?’

  ‘No, monsieur. They were full when they drank to mademoiselle and they did not drink much, only a few mouthfuls. There was plenty left in the glasses.’

  ‘Did anyone—anyone at all—come near the table whilst they were dancing?’