She had always found him an excellent employer. He had been, perhaps, a little close about financial matters and had kept a very sharp eye on the housekeeping, but personally she was not afraid of such, being as careful of his interests as she would be of her own. She had kept house for him ever since his wife’s death.
‘He was quite in his usual health on Monday evening,’ Mrs Minchin went on. ‘Mr Raymond Whipley had telephoned in the afternoon to say he would be down for dinner –’
‘That is Mr Whipley’s son?’
‘Yes – his only child.’ Here Mrs Minchin glanced across at a thin, sallow, young-old man, seated near Mr Egg on the bench reserved for witnesses, and sniffed rather meaningly. ‘Mr and Mrs Cedric were staying in the house. Mr Cedric Whipley is Mr Whiple’s nephew. He had no other relations.’
Mr Egg identified Mr and Mrs Cedric Whipley as the fashionably dressed young man and woman in black who sat on the other side of Mr Raymond. The witness proceeded.
‘Mr Raymond arrived in his car at half-past six, and went in at once to see his father in the study. He came out again when the dressing gong rang for dinner, at a quarter past seven. He passed me in the hall, and I thought he looked rather upset. As Mr Whipley didn’t come out, I went in to him. He was sitting at his writing table, reading something that looked to me like a legal paper.
‘I said, “Excuse me, Mr Whipley, sir, but did you hear the gong?” He was sometimes a little hard of hearing, though wonderfully keen in all his faculties, considering his age. He looked up and said, “All right, Mrs Minchin,” and went back to what he was doing. I said to myself, “Mr Raymond’s been putting him out again.” At half-past –’
‘One moment. What had you in your mind about Mr Raymond?’
“Well, nothing much, only Mr Whipley didn’t always approve of Mr Raymond’s goings-on, and they sometimes had words about it. Mr Whipley disliked Mr Raymond’s business.
‘At half-past seven,’ continued the witness, ‘Mr Whipley went upstairs to dress, and he seemed all right then, only his step was tired and heavy. I was waiting in the hall, in case he needed any assistance, and as he passed me he asked me to telephone to Mr Whitehead to ask him to come over the next morning – Mr Whitehead the lawyer. He did not say what it was for. I did as he asked me, and when Mr Whipley came down again, about ten minutes to eight, I told him Mr Whitehead had had the message, and would be with him at ten the next day.’
‘Did anybody else hear you say that?’
‘Yes. Mr Raymond and Mr and Mrs Cedric were in the hall, having their cocktails. They must all have heard me. Dinner was served at eight –’
‘Were you present at dinner?’
‘No. I have my meals in my own room. Dinner was over about a quarter to nine, and the parlour-maid took coffee into the drawing-room for Mr and Mrs Cedric, and into the study for Mr Whipley and Mr Raymond. I was alone in my room till 9 o’clock, when Mr and Mrs Cedric came in to have a little chat. We were all together till just before half-past nine, when we heard the study door slam violently, and a few minutes later, Mr Raymond came in, looking very queer. He had his hat and coat on.
‘Mr Cedric said: “Hullo, Ray!” He took no notice, and said to me, “I shan’t be staying the night, after all, Mrs Minchin. I’m going back to Town at once.” I said, “Very good, Mr Raymond. Does Mr Whipley know of your change of plans?” He laughed in a funny way, and said: “Oh yes. He knows all about it.” He went out again and Mr Cedric followed him and, I think, said something like, “Don’t lose your hair, old man.” Mrs Cedric said to me, she was afraid Mr Raymond might have had a quarrel with the old gentleman.
‘About ten minutes later, I heard the two young gentlemen coming downstairs, and went out to see that Mr Raymond had left nothing behind him, as he was apt to be forgetful. He was just going out of the front door with Mr Cedric. I ran after him with his scarf, which he had left on the hall-stand. He drove away in his car very quickly and I came back into the house with Mr Cedric.
‘As we passed the study door, Mr Cedric said, “I wonder whether my uncle –” and then he stopped, and said, “No, better let him alone till tomorrow.” We went back to my room, where Mrs Cedric was waiting for us. She said, “What’s the matter, Cedric?” and he answered, “Uncle Henry’s found out about Ella. I told Ray he’d better be careful.” She said, “Oh, dear!” and after that we changed the conversation.
‘Mr and Mrs Cedric sat with me till about eleven-thirty, when they left me to go up to bed. I put my room in order and then came out to make my usual round of the house. When I put out the light in the hall, I noticed that the light was still on in Mr Whiple’s study. It was unusual for him to be up so late, so I went to see if he had fallen asleep over a book.
‘I got no answer when I knocked, so I went in, and there he was, lying back in his chair, dead. There were two empty coffee-cups and two empty liqueur glasses on the table and a half-empty flask of crème de menthe. I called Mr Cedric at once, and he told me to leave everything exactly as it was, and to telephone to Dr Baker.’
The next witness was the parlour-maid, who had waited at table. She said that nothing unusual had happened during the dinner, except that Mr Whipley and his son both seemed rather silent and preoccupied.
At the end of the meal, Mr Raymond had said, ‘Look here, father, we can’t leave it like this.’ Mr Whipley had said, ‘If you have changed your mind you had better tell me at once,’ and had ordered coffee to be sent into the study. Mr Raymond said, ‘I can’t change my mind, but if you would only listen –’ Mr Whipley did not reply.
On going into the study with the coffee and the liqueur glasses, the parlour-maid saw Mr Raymond seated at the table. Mr Whipley was standing at the cabinet, with his back turned to his son, apparently getting out the liqueurs.
He said to Mr Raymond, ‘What will you have?’ Mr Raymond replied, ‘Crème de menthe.’ Mr Whipley said, ‘You would – that’s a woman’s drink.’ The parlour-maid then went out and did not see either gentleman again.
Mr Egg smiled to himself as he listened. He could hear old Mr Whipley saying it.
Then he composed his chubby face to a more serious expression, as the coroner proceeded to call Mr Cedric Whipley.
Mr Cedric corroborated the housekeeper’s story. He said he was aged thirty-six, and was a junior partner in the publishing firm of Freeman & Toplady. He was acquainted with the circumstance of Mr Whiple’s quarrel with his son. Mr Whipley had, in fact, asked him and his wife to the house in order that he might discuss the situation with them. The trouble had to do with Raymond’s engagement to a certain lady.
Mr Whipley had talked rather impulsively about altering his will, but he (Cedric) had urged him to think the matter over calmly. He had accompanied Raymond upstairs on the night of the tragedy and had understood from him that Mr Whipley had threatened to cut his son off with the proverbial shilling. He had told Raymond to take things easy and the old man would ‘simmer down’. Raymond had taken his interference in bad part.
After Raymond’s departure he had thought it better to leave the old man to himself. On leaving Mrs Minchin’s room with his wife, he had gone straight upstairs without entering the study. He thought it would be about a quarter of an hour after that, that he had come down in answer to Mrs Minchin’s call, to find his uncle dead.
He had bent over the body to examine it, and had then thought he detected a faint smell of almonds about the lips. He had smelt the liqueur glasses, but without touching them and, fancying that one of them also smelt of almonds, had instructed Mrs Minchin to leave everything exactly as it was. He had then formed the impression that his uncle might have committed suicide.
There was a rustle in the little court when Mr Raymond Whipley took his place at the coroner’s table. He was a lean, effeminate and rather unwholesome-looking person of anything between thirty and forty years of age.
He said that he was ‘a photographic artist’ by profession. He had a studio in Bond Street. His ‘expre
ssionist studies’ of well-known men and women had gained considerable notice in the West End. His father had not approved of his activities. He had old-fashioned prejudices.
‘I understand,’ said the coroner, ‘that prussic acid is frequently used in photography.’
Mr Raymond Whipley smiled winningly at this ominous question.
‘Cyanide of potassium,’ he said. ‘Oh, dear, yes. Quite frequently.’
‘You are acquainted with its use for photography?’
‘Oh, yes. I don’t use it often. But I have some by me, if that’s what you want to know.’
‘Thank you. Now can you tell me about this alleged difference of opinion with your father?’
‘Yes. He found out that I was engaged to marry a lady connected with the stage. I don’t know who told him. Probably my cousin Cedric. He’ll deny it, of course, but I expect it was jolly old Cedric. My father sent for me and really cut up quite rough about it. Full of diehard prejudices, you know. We had quite a little rumpus before dinner. After dinner, I asked to see him again – thought I could talk him round. But he was really very offensive. I couldn’t stand it. It upset me. So I barged off back to Town.’
‘Did he say anything about sending for Mr Whitehead?’
‘Oh, yes. Said if I married Ella, he’d cut me out of his will. Quite the stern parent and all that. I said, cut away, then.’
‘Did he say in whose favour he thought of making his new will?’
‘No, he didn’t say. I expect Cedric would have come in for something. He’s the only other relation, of course.’
‘Will you describe very carefully what happened in the study after dinner?’
‘We went in, and I sat down at the table near the fire. My father went to the cabinet where he keeps his spirits and liqueurs and asked me what I would have. I said I would have a crème de menthe, and he sneered at me in his usual pleasant way. He fetched out the flask and told me to help myself, when the girl brought in the glasses, I did so. I had coffee and crème de menthe. He did not drink anything while I was there. He was rather excited and walked up and down, threatening me with this and that.
‘After a bit I said, “Your coffee’s getting cold, father.” Then he told me to go to hell, and I said, “Right you are.” He added a very disagreeable remark about my fiancée. I am afraid I then lost my temper and used some – shall we say, unfilial expressions. I went out and banged the door. When I left him he was standing up behind the table, facing me.
‘I went to tell Mrs Minchin that I was going back to Town. Cedric started to butt in, but I told him I knew who it was I had to thank for all this trouble, and if he wanted the old man’s money he was welcome to it. That’s all I know about it.’
‘If your father drank nothing while you were with him, how do you explain the fact that both the liqueur glasses and both the coffee-cups had been used?’
‘I suppose he used his after I had gone. He certainly did not drink anything before I went.’
‘And he was alive when you left the study?’
‘Very much so.’
Mr Whitehead, the lawyer, explained the terms of the deceased’s man’s will. It left an income of two thousand a year to Cedric Whipley, with reversion to Raymond, who was the residuary legatee.
‘Did deceased ever express an intention of altering his will?’
‘He did. On the day before his death he said that he was very much dissatisfied with his son’s conduct, and that unless he could get him to see reason, he would cut him off with an annuity of a thousand a year, and leave the rest of the estate to Mr Cedric Whipley. He disliked Mr Raymond’s fiancée and said he would not have that woman’s children coming in for his money. I tried to dissuade him, but I think he supposed that when the lady heard of his intentions she would break off the engagement. When Mrs Minchin rang me up on the night in question I was convinced in my own mind that he intended to execute a new will.’
‘But since he had no time to do so, the will in favour of Mr Raymond Whipley will now stand?’
‘That is so.’
Inspector Brown of the County Police then gave evidence about finger-prints. He said that one coffee-cup and one liqueur glass bore the finger-prints of Mr Raymond Whipley, and the other cup and the glass which held the poison, those of Mr Whipley, senior. There were no other prints, except, of course, those of the parlour-maid, on the cups or glasses, while the flask of crème de menthe bore those of both father and son.
Bearing in mind the possibility of suicide, the police had made a careful search of the room for any bottle or phial which might have contained the poison. They had found nothing, either in the cabinet or elsewhere. They had, indeed, collected from the back of the fireplace the half-burnt fragment of a lead-foil capsule, which bore the letters ‘… AU … tier & Cie’, stamped round the edge.
From its size, however, it was clear that this capsule had covered the stopper of a half-litre bottle, and it seemed highly improbable that an intending suicide would purchase prussic acid by the half-litre, nor was there any newly opened bottle to which the capsule appeared to belong.
At this point a horrible thought began to emerge from Mr Egg’s inner consciousness – a dim recollection of something he had once read in a book. He lost the remainder of Inspector Brown’s evidence, which was purely formal, and only began to take notice again when, after the cook and housemaid had proved that they had been together the whole evening, the doctor was called to give the medical evidence.
He said that deceased had undoubtedly died of prussic acid poisoning. Only a very small amount of the cyanide had been found in the stomach, but even a small dose would be fatal to a man of his age and natural frailty. Prussic acid was one of the most rapidly fatal of all known poisons, producing unconsciousness and death within a very few minutes after being swallowed.
‘When did you first see the body, doctor?’
‘I arrived at the house at five minutes to twelve. Mr Whipley had then been dead at least two hours, and probably a little more.’
‘He could not possible have died within, say, half an hour of your arrival?’
‘Not possibly. I place the death round about half-past nine and certainly not later than ten-thirty.’
The analyst’s report was next produced. The contents of the flask of crème de menthe and the coffee dregs in both cups had been examined and found to be perfectly harmless. Both liqueur glasses contained a few drops of crème de menthe, and in one – that which bore the finger-prints of old Mr Whipley – there was a distinct trace of hydrocyanic acid.
Even before the coroner began his summing-up it was plain that things looked very black for Raymond Whipley. There was the motive, the fact that he alone had easy access to the deadly cyanide, and the time of death, coinciding almost exactly with that of his hasty and agitated flight from the house.
Suicide seemed to be excluded; the other members of the household could prove each other’s alibis; there was no suggestion that any stranger had entered the house from outside. The jury brought in the inevitable verdict of murder against Raymond Whipley.
Mr Egg rapidly made his way out of court. Two things were troubling him – Mrs Minchin’s evidence and that half-remembered warning that he had read in a book. He went down to the village post-office and sent a telegram to his employers. Then he turned his steps to the local inn, ordered a high tea, and ate it slowly, with his thoughts elsewhere. He had an idea that this case was going to be bad for business.
In about an hour’s time, the reply to his telegram was handed to him. It ran: ‘June 14, 1893. Freeman and Toplady, 1931,’ and was signed by the senior partner of Plummett & Rose.
Mr Egg’s round and cheerful face became overcast by a cloud of perplexity and distress. He shut himself into the landlord’s private room alone and put through an expensive trunk call to Town. Emerging, less perplexed but still gloomy, he got into his car and set off in search of the coroner.
That official welcomed him cheerfully. He was a
hearty and rubicund man with a shrewd eye and a brisk manner. Inspector Brown and the Chief Constable were with him when Monty was shown in.
‘Well, Mr Egg,’ said the coroner, ‘I’m sure you’re happy to be assured that this unfortunate case conveys no imputation against the purity of the goods supplied by your firm.’
‘That’s just what I’ve taken the liberty of coming to you about,’ said Monty. ‘Business is business, but, on the other hand, facts are facts, and our people are ready to face them. I’ve been on the phone to Mr Plummett, and he authorised me to put the thing before you.
‘If I didn’t,’ added Mr Egg, candidly, ‘somebody else might, and that would make matters worse. Don’t wait for unpleasant disclosures to burst. If the truth must be told, see that you tell it first. Monty’s maxim – from The Salesman’s Handbook. Remarkable book, full of common-sense. Talking of common-sense, a spot of that commodity wouldn’t have hurt our young friend, would it?’
‘Meaning Raymond Whipley?’ said the coroner. ‘That young man is a pathological case, if you ask me.’
‘You’re right there, sir,’ agreed the Inspector. ‘I’ve seen a sight of foolish crooks, but he licks the lot. Barmy, I’d call him. Quarrelling with his dad, doing him in and running away in that suspicious manner – why didn’t he put up an electric sign to say “I done it”? But as you say, I don’t think he’s quite all there.’
‘Well, that may be,’ said Monty, ‘but over and above that, there’s old Mr Whipley. You see, gentlemen, I know all my customers. It’s my job, as you may say, to have all their fancies by heart. No good offering an 1847 Oleroso to a gentleman that likes his sherry light and dry, or tantalising a customer that’s under orders to stick to hock with bargains in vintage port.
‘Now what I’d like you to tell me is, how did the late Mr Whipley come to be drinking crème de menthe at all? He only kept it by him for ladies; it was a flavour he couldn’t do with in any shape or form. You heard what he said about it to Mr Raymond.’