Southampton Row - Anne Perry [151]
She looked up quickly. “Yes. It were poems.”
“Was it the book that was found beside him when he died?” Narraway winced very slightly at the baldness of the question, but he did not retreat from it.
She nodded, her eyes filling with tears. “Yes.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
“Can you write, Mary Ann?”
“O’ course I can!” But she said it with sufficient pride that the possibility of her not having been able to was very real.
“Good,” Narraway said with approval. “Then will you please find a paper and pen and write down exactly what you have told us—that there was no raspberry jam in the house that day, until it was brought in by Mrs. Octavia Cavendish, and that she came with two raspberry jam tarts, both of which Mr. Wray ate. Also, if you please, that she brought the book of poetry found beside him. And put the date on it, and sign your name.”
“Why?”
“Please do it, then I shall explain to you. Write it first. It is important.”
She saw something of the gravity in his face, and she excused herself and went to the study. Nearly ten minutes later, after Pitt had taken the kettle off the stove, she returned and offered Narraway a piece of paper very carefully written on and signed and dated.
He took it from her and read it, then gave it to Pitt, who glanced at it, saw that it was wholly satisfactory, and put it away.
Narraway gave him a sharp look but did not demand it back.
“Well?” Mary Ann asked. “You said you’d tell me if I wrote that for you.”
“Yes,” Narraway agreed. “Mr. Wray died as a result of eating raspberry jam that had poison in it.” He ignored her pale face and her gasp of breath. “The poison, to be specific, was digitalis, which occurs quite naturally in the foxglove plant, of which you have several very fine specimens in your garden. It has been supposed by certain people that Mr. Wray took some of the leaves and made a potion which he drank, with the intention of ending his life.”
“He’d never do that!” she said furiously. “I know that, even if there’s some as don’t!”
“No,” Narraway agreed. “And you have been most helpful in proving that to be the case. However, you would be very wise, in your own safety, not to say so to anyone else. Do you understand me?”
She looked at him with fear in her eyes and in her voice. “You’re saying as Mrs. Cavendish gave ’im tarts what was poisoned? Why would she do that? She was real fond of ’im! It don’t make no sense! ’E must ’ave ’ad a ’eart attack.”
“It would be best that you think so,” Narraway agreed. “By far the best. But the jam is very important, so no one ever supposes that he took his own life. That is a sin in his church, and they would bury him in unhallowed ground.”
“That’s wicked!” she cried furiously. “It’s downright vicious!”
“It is wicked,” Narraway said with profound feeling. “But when did that ever stop men who consider themselves righteous from judging others they think are not?”
She swung around to Pitt, her eyes burning. “’E trusted yer! Yer got to see they don’t do that to ’im! You’ve got to!”
“That is what I am here for,” Pitt said softly. “For his sake, and for my own. I have enemies, and as you know, some of them are saying that I was the one who drove him to it. I tell you that so I have not misled you; I never believed he was the man who went to Southampton Row, and I did not even refer to it the last time I was here. The man who visited the spirit medium was called Bishop Underhill, and he is dead too.”
“’E never . . .”
“No. He died by accident.”
Her face creased with pity “Poor man,” she said softly.
“Thank you very much, Miss Smith.” No one could have mistaken Narraway’s sincerity. “You have been of the greatest help. We will take care of the matter from here. The coroner will bring in a verdict of death by misadventure, because I will see to it that he does. If you have any care for your own safety, you will agree to that, regardless to whom you speak or in what circumstances, unless brought to a court of law by me, or by Mr. Pitt, and questioned on the subject under oath. Do you understand me?”
She nodded,