Rutland Place - Anne Perry [25]
“Pain in his stomach?” Pitt inquired.
“Diet, mostly.” Mulgrew shook his head and blew his nose. “Eats all the wrong things, no wonder it gives him a pain. He’s an odd fellow—no use for that either!” He looked at Pitt out of the corner his eye, as if waiting to be argued with.
“Quite,” Pitt said. “Anything in this stuff of Mr. Spencer-Brown’s that could have killed anyone if taken in excess?”
Mulgrew pulled a face. “I suppose so—if you mixed the whole lot and drank it.”
“No possibility of an overdose by accident? If Mrs. Spencer-Brown had a stomach pain, for example, and thought she would relieve it by borrowing some of her husband’s medicine?”
“Told him to keep it locked in his cabinet, but I suppose if he didn’t, she could have taken it. Still, don’t think she could take enough to kill herself by mistake.”
“Instructions on the bottle?”
“Box. It’s a powder. And yes, of course there are. Don’t go handing out poisons willy-nilly, you know.”
“Poisons?”
“Has belladonna in it.”
“I see. But we don’t know what she died of yet. Or at least if we do, you haven’t said so?” He watched hopefully.
Mulgrew looked at him over the top of his handkerchief and blew his nose solemnly. He fished in his pocket for another and failed to find one. Pitt pulled out his own spare and soberly handed it over.
“Thank you.” Mulgrew took it. “You’re a gentleman. That’s what makes me unhappy. Can’t swear to it yet, but I’ve a strong suspicion it was belladonna that killed her. Looks like it. Apparently she didn’t complain of feeling unwell. She had just come in from making an early call somewhere close by, and she was dead within fifteen or twenty minutes of going into the withdrawing room. All pretty sudden. No vomiting, no blood. Not much in the way of convulsions. You can see the dilated pupils, dry mouth—just what you’d expect from belladonna. Heart stops.”
Suddenly the reality hit. Pitt could almost feel it himself: a woman dying alone, the tightness of breath, the pain, the world receding, leaving her to face the darkness, the paralysis, and the terror.
“Poor creature,” Pitt said aloud, surprising himself.
Harris coughed in embarrassment.
Mulgrew’s face softened, and a flicker of appreciation showed in his eyes as he looked at Pitt.
“Could have been suicide,” he said slowly. “At least in theory. Don’t know of any reason, but then one usually doesn’t. God only understands what private agonies go on behind the polite faces people show. So help me, I don’t!”
There was nothing for Pitt to say; silence was the only decent answer. He must remember to send Harris to find Mr. Spencer-Brown’s medicine box and see precisely how much was gone.
“Do you want to see her?” Mulgrew asked after a moment.
“I suppose I had better,” Pitt said.
Mulgrew walked slowly to the door, and Pitt and Harris followed him out into the hall, past the footman standing gravely to attention, and into the withdrawing room, curtains drawn in acknowledgment of death.
It was a large room, with elegant, pale-covered chairs and sofas in a French style, bowed legs and lots of carved wood. There was much petit-point embroidery in evidence, artificial flowers made of silk in profuse arrangements, and some pleasant pastoral watercolors. In other circumstances, it would have been a charming, if rather overcrowded, room.
Wilhelmina Spencer-Brown was on the chaise longue, her head back, eyes wide, mouth open. There was none of the peace of sleep about her.
Pitt walked over and looked, without touching. There was no spirit left, no privacy to invade, no feelings to hurt, but still he regarded the woman as if there were. He knew nothing about her, whether she had been kind or cruel, generous or mean, brave or a coward; but for himself as much as for her, he wished to accord her some dignity.
“Have you seen all you wish?” he asked Mulgrew without turning around.
“Yes,” Mulgrew replied.
Pitt eased her forward a little so she appeared to have been relaxing, folded her hands although