The Thirteen Problems - Agatha Christie [31]
‘ “I don’t know what you mean by anything else,” said Mabel sullenly.
‘ “Just what I say, my dear. If you have done anything silly, don’t for Heaven’s sake keep it back now. I only want to do what I can to help you.”
‘ “Nothing and nobody can help me,” said Mabel wildly, “except death.”
‘ “Have a little more faith in Providence, dear,” I said. “Now then, Mabel, I know perfectly well there is something else that you are keeping back.”
‘I always did know, even when she was a child, when she was not telling me the whole truth. It took a long time, but I got it out at last. She had gone down to the chemist’s that morning and had bought some arsenic. She had had, of course, to sign the book for it. Naturally, the chemist had talked.
‘ “Who is your doctor?” I asked.
‘ “Dr Rawlinson.”
‘I knew him by sight. Mabel had pointed him out to me the other day. To put it in perfectly plain language he was what I would describe as an old dodderer. I have had too much experience of life to believe in the infallibility of doctors. Some of them are clever men and some of them are not, and half the time the best of them don’t know what is the matter with you. I have no truck with doctors and their medicines myself.
‘I thought things over, and then I put my bonnet on and went to call on Dr Rawlinson. He was just what I had thought him—a nice old man, kindly, vague, and so short-sighted as to be pitiful, slightly deaf, and, withal, touchy and sensitive to the last degree. He was on his high horse at once when I mentioned Geoffrey Denman’s death, talked for a long time about various kinds of fungi, edible and otherwise. He had questioned the cook, and she had admitted that one or two of the mushrooms cooked had been “a little queer”, but as the shop had sent them she thought they must be all right. The more she had thought about them since, the more she was convinced that their appearance was unusual.
‘ “She would be,” I said. “They would start by being quite like mushrooms in appearance, and they would end by being orange with purple spots. There is nothing that class cannot remember if it tries.”
‘I gathered that Denman had been past speech when the doctor got to him. He was incapable of swallowing, and had died within a few minutes. The doctor seemed perfectly satisfied with the certificate he had given. But how much of that was obstinacy and how much of it was genuine belief I could not be sure.
‘I went straight home and asked Mabel quite frankly why she had bought arsenic.
‘ “You must have had some idea in your mind,” I pointed out.
‘Mabel burst into tears. “I wanted to make away with myself,” she moaned. “I was too unhappy. I thought I would end it all.”
‘ “Have you the arsenic still?” I asked.
‘ “No, I threw it away.”
‘I sat there turning things over and over in my mind.
‘ “What happened when he was taken ill? Did he call you?”
‘ “No.” She shook her head. “He rang the bell violently. He must have rung several times. At last Dorothy, the house-parlourmaid, heard it, and she waked the cook up, and they came down. When Dorothy saw him she was frightened. He was rambling and delirious. She left the cook with him and came rushing to me. I got up and went to him. Of course I saw at once he was dreadfully ill. Unfortunately Brewster, who looks after old Mr Denman, was away for the night, so there was no one who knew what to do. I sent Dorothy off for the doctor, and cook and I stayed with him, but after a few minutes I couldn’t bear it any longer; it was too dreadful. I ran away back to my room and locked the door.”
‘ “Very selfish and unkind of you,” I said; “and no doubt that conduct of yours has done nothing to help you since, you may be sure of that. Cook will have repeated it everywhere. Well, well, this is a bad business.”
‘Next I spoke to the servants.