Pocket Full of Rye - Agatha Christie [2]
Some short while later Dr. Isaacs of Bethnal Green, and Sir Edwin Sandeman met in the elevator just as two different ambulances drew up in front of the building. The telephone and the office boy had done their work.
Chapter Two
Inspector Neele sat in Mr. Fortescue’s sanctum behind Mr. Fortescue’s vast sycamore desk. One of his underlings with a notebook sat unobstrusively against the wall near the door.
Inspector Neele had a smart soldierly appearance with crisp brown hair growing back from a rather low forehead. When he uttered the phrase “just a matter of routine” those addressed were wont to think spitefully: “And routine is about all you’re capable of!” They would have been quite wrong. Behind his unimaginative appearance, Inspector Neele was a highly imaginative thinker, and one of his methods of investigation was to propound to himself fantastic theories of guilt which he applied to such persons as he was interrogating at the time.
Miss Griffith, whom he had at once picked out with an unerring eye as being the most suitable person to give him a succinct account of the events which had led to his being seated where he was, had just left the room having given him an admirable résumé of the morning’s happenings. Inspector Neele propounded to himself three separate highly coloured reasons why the faithful doyenne of the typists’ room should have poisoned her employer’s mid-morning cup of tea, and rejected them as unlikely.
He classified Miss Griffith as (a) Not the type of a poisoner,
(b) Not in love with her employer, (c) No pronounced mental instability, (d) Not a woman who cherished grudges. That really seemed to dispose of Miss Griffith except as a source of accurate information.
Inspector Neele glanced at the telephone. He was expecting a call from St. Jude’s Hospital at any moment now.
It was possible, of course, that Mr. Fortescue’s sudden illness was due to natural causes, but Dr. Isaacs of Bethnal Green had not thought so and Sir Edwin Sandeman of Harley Street had not thought so.
Inspector Neele pressed a buzzer conveniently situated at his left hand and demanded that Mr. Fortescue’s personal secretary should be sent in to him.
Miss Grosvenor had recovered a little of her poise, but not much. She came in apprehensively, with nothing of the swanlike glide about her motions, and said at once defensively:
“I didn’t do it!”
Inspector Neele murmured conversationally: “No?”
He indicated the chair where Miss Grosvenor was wont to place herself, pad in hand, when summoned to take down Mr. Fortescue’s letters. She sat down now with reluctance and eyed Inspector Neele in alarm. Inspector Neele, his mind playing imaginatively on the themes Seduction? Blackmail? Platinum Blonde in Court? etc., looked reassuring and just a little stupid.
“There wasn’t anything wrong with the tea,” said Miss Grosvenor. “There couldn’t have been.”
“I see,” said Inspector Neele. “Your name and address, please?”
“Grosvenor. Irene Grosvenor.”
“How do you spell it?”
“Oh. Like the Square.”
“And your address?”
“14 Rushmoor Road, Muswell Hill.”
Inspector Neele nodded in a satisfied fashion.
“No seduction,” he said to himself. “No Love Nest. Respectable home with parents. No blackmail.”
Another good set of speculative theories washed out.
“And so it was you who made the tea?” he said pleasantly.
“Well, I had to. I always do, I mean.”
Unhurried, Inspector Neele took her closely through the morning ritual of Mr. Fortescue’s tea. The cup and saucer and teapot had already been packed up and dispatched to the appropriate quarter for analysis. Now Inspector Neele learned that Irene Grosvenor and only Irene Grosvenor had handled that cup and saucer and teapot. The kettle had been used for making the office tea and had been refilled from the cloakroom tap by Miss Grosvenor.
“And the tea itself?”
“It was Mr. Fortescue’s own tea, special China tea. It’s kept on the shelf in my room next door.”
Inspector Neele nodded. He inquired about sugar and heard that Mr. Fortescue didn’t take sugar.
The telephone rang.