Black Coffee - Agatha Christie [10]
‘Most capable,’ Barbara confirmed. ‘She’s just had twins. As there are no gooseberry bushes in India, I think she must have found them under a double mango tree.’
Miss Amory allowed herself a smile. ‘Hush, Barbara,’ she said. Then, turning back to Lucia, she continued, ‘As I was saying, dear, Edna trained as a dispenser during the war. She worked at our hospital here. We turned the Town Hall into a hospital, you know, during the war. And then for some years after the war, until she was married, Edna continued to work in the dispensary at the County Hospital. She was very knowledgable about drugs and pills and that sort of thing. I dare say she still is. That knowledge must be invaluable to her in India. But what was I saying? Oh, yes – when she left. Now what did we do with all those bottles of hers?’
‘I remember perfectly well,’ said Barbara. ‘A lot of old things of Edna’s from the dispensary were bundled into a box. They were supposed to be sorted out and sent to hospitals, but everyone forgot, or at least no one did anything about it. They were put away in the attic, and they only came to light again when Edna was packing to go to India. They’re up there –’ she gestured towards the bookcase – ‘and they still haven’t been looked through and sorted out.’
She rose and, taking her chair across to the bookcase, stood on it and, reaching up, lifted the black tin box down from the top.
Ignoring Lucia’s murmured ‘Please don’t bother, darling, I really don’t need anything’, Barbara carried the box over to the table and put it down.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘at least we might as well have a look at the things now that I’ve got them down.’ She opened the box. ‘Oh dear, it’s a motley collection,’ she said, taking out various bottles as she spoke. ‘Iodine, Friar’s balsam, something called “Tinct.Card.Co”, castor oil.’ She grimaced. ‘Ah, now we’re coming to the hot stuff,’ she exclaimed, as she took out of the box some small brown glass tubes. ‘Atropine, morphine, strychnine,’ she read from the labels. ‘Be careful, Aunt Caroline. If you arouse my furious temper, I’ll poison your coffee with strychnine, and you’ll die in the most awful agony.’ Barbara made a mock-menacing gesture at her aunt, who waved her away with a snort.
‘Well, there’s nothing here we could possibly try out on Lucia as a tonic, that’s for certain,’ she laughed, as she began to pack the bottles and phials back into the tin box. She was holding a tube of morphine aloft in her right hand as the door to the hall opened, and Tredwell ushered in Edward Raynor, Dr Carelli, and Sir Claud Amory. Sir Claud’s secretary, Edward Raynor, entered first, an unremarkable-looking young man in his late twenties. He moved across to Barbara, and stood looking at the box. ‘Hello, Mr Raynor. Interested in poisons?’ she asked him as she continued to pack up the bottles.
Dr Carelli, too, approached the table. A very dark, swarthy individual of about forty, Carelli wore perfectly fitting evening clothes. His manner was suave, and when he spoke it was with the slightest Italian accent. ‘What have we here, my dear Miss Amory?’ he queried.
Sir Claud paused at the door to speak to Tredwell. ‘You understand my instructions?’ he asked, and was satisfied by the reply, ‘Perfectly, Sir Claud.’ Tredwell left the room, and Sir Claud moved across to his guest.
‘I hope you will excuse me, Dr Carelli,’ he said, ‘if I go straight to my study? I have several important letters which must go off tonight. Raynor, will you come with me?’ The secretary joined his employer, and they went into Sir Claud’s study by the connecting door. As the door closed behind them, Barbara suddenly dropped the tube she had been holding.
Chapter 4
Dr Carelli stepped forward quickly, and picked up the tube Barbara had dropped. Glancing at it before handing it back to her with a polite bow, he exclaimed, ‘Hello, what’s this? Morphine!’ He picked up another one from the table. ‘And strychnine! May I ask, my dear young lady, where you got hold of these lethal little tubes?