4_50 From Paddington - Agatha Christie [71]
“Well, there won’t be anymore funny business,” said Inspector Bacon grimly. “We’ve got two nurses on the job now, to say nothing of Miss Eyelesbarrow, and I’ve got a couple of men there too. You coming down?”
“As fast as I can make it!”
II
Lucy Eyelesbarrow came across the hall to meet Inspector Craddock. She looked pale and drawn.
“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.”
“About this curry—”
“It was the curry?”
“Yes, very nicely laced with arsenic—quite the Borgia touch.”
“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 six o’clock—because Mr. Crackenthorpe specially asked for curry. And I had to open a new tin of curry powder—so that couldn’t have been tampered with. I suppose curry would disguise the taste?”
“Arsenic hasn’t any taste,” said Craddock absently. “Now, opportunity. Which of them had the chance to tamper with the curry while it was cooking?”
Lucy considered.
“Actually,” she said, “anyone could have sneaked into the kitchen whilst 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. Quimper had to work like a maniac on him. He’s a jolly good doctor, I will say. Cedric made by far the most fuss. Of course, strong healthy people always 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.”
“If I could only get at the motive for all this business,” said Craddock. “It doesn’t seem to tie up. The strangled woman in the sarcophagus was Edmund Crackenthorpe’s widow, Martine. Let’s assume that. It’s pretty well proved by now. There must be a connection between that and the deliberate 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 imperious 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 propped up with pillows. For a sick man he was looking Lucy thought, remarkably cheerful.
“The house is full of damned hospital nurses,” complained Mr. Crackenthorpe. “Rustling about, making themselves important, taking my temperature, 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 accusingly.
“The mushrooms were quite all right, Mr. Crackenthorpe.”
“I’m not blaming you, girl, I’m not blaming you. It’s happened before. One blasted fungus slips in and does it. Nobody can tell. I know you’re a 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