4_50 From Paddington - Agatha Christie [69]
“Yes, you’re quite all right. I hadn’t forgotten that.”
Lucy flushed.
“If you mean—”
“I don’t mean. You’re a highly intelligent girl. You’d be groaning upstairs, too, if I’d meant what you thought I meant. Anyway, I know all about you. I’ve taken the trouble to find out.”
“Why on earth did you do that?”
Dr. Quimper’s lips were set in a grim line.
“Because I’m making it my business to find out about the people who come here and settle themselves in. You’re a bona fide young woman who does this particular job for a livelihood and you seem never to have had any contact with the Crackenthorpe family previous to coming here. So you’re not a girl-friend of either Cedric, Harold or Alfred—helping them to do a bit of dirty work.”
“Do you really think—?”
“I think quite a lot of things,” said Quimper. “But I have to be careful. That’s the worst of being a doctor. Now let’s get on. Curried chicken. Did you have some of that?”
“No. When you’ve cooked a curry, you’ve dined off the smell, I find. I tasted it, of course. I had soup and some syllabub.”
“How did you serve the syllabub?”
“In individual glasses.”
“Now, then, how much of all this is cleared up?”
“If you mean washing up, everything was washed up and put away.”
Dr. Quimper groaned.
“There’s such a thing as being overzealous,” he said.
“Yes, I can see that, as things have turned out, but there it is, I’m afraid.”
“What do you have still?”
“There’s some of the curry left—in a bowl in the larder. I was planning to use it as a basis for mulligatawny soup this evening. There’s some mushroom soup left, too. No syllabub and none of the savoury.”
“I’ll take the curry and the soup. What about chutney? Did they have chutney with it?”
“Yes. In one of those stone jars.”
“I’ll have some of that, too.”
He rose. “I’ll go up and have a look at them again. After that, can you hold the fort until morning? Keep an eye on them all? I can have a nurse round, with full instructions, by eight o’clock.”
“I wish you’d tell me straight out. Do you think it’s food poisoning—or—or—well, poisoning.”
“I’ve told you already. Doctors can’t think—they have to be sure. If there’s a positive result from these food specimens I can go ahead. Otherwise—”
“Otherwise?” Lucy repeated.
Dr. Quimper laid a hand on her shoulder.
“Look after two people in particular,” he said. “Look after Emma. I’m not going to have anything happen to Emma….”
There was emotion in his voice that could not be disguised. “She’s not even begun to live yet,” he said. “And you know, people like Emma Crackenthorpe are the salt of the earth… Emma—well, Emma means a lot to me. I’ve never told her so, but I shall. Look after Emma.”
“You bet I will,” said Lucy.
“And look after the old man. I can’t say that he’s ever been my favourite patient, but he is my patient, and I’m damned if I’m going to let him be hustled out of the world because one or other of his unpleasant sons—or all three of them, maybe—want him out of the way so that they can handle his money.”
He threw her a sudden quizzical glance.
“There,” he said. “I’ve opened my mouth too wide. But keep your eyes skinned, there’s a good girl, and incidentally keep your mouth shut.”
V
Inspector Bacon was looking upset.
“Arsenic?” he said. “Arsenic?”
“Yes. It was in the curry. Here’s the rest of the curry—for your fellow to have a go at. I’ve only done a very rough test on a little of it, but the result was quite definite.”
“So there’s a poisoner at work?”
“It would seem so,” said Dr. Quimper dryly.
“And they’re all affected, you say—except that Miss Eyelesbarrow.”
“Except Miss Eyelesbarrow.”
“Looks a bit fishy for her….”
“What motive could she possibly have?”
“Might be barmy,” suggested Bacon. “Seem all right, they do, sometimes, and yet all the time they’re right off their rocker, so to speak.”
“Miss Eyelesbarrow isn’t off her rocker. Speaking as a medical man, Miss Eyelesbarrow is as sane as you or I are. If Miss Eyelesbarrow is feeding the family arsenic in their curry, she’s doing it for a reason. Moreover, being a highly intelligent