“Ah, well, that is more interesting. There was a quantity of opium in his stomach. Enough to kill him.”
“Was there indeed?” she murmured. Her voice, her whole person, felt suddenly shaky. She had considerable sympathy for anyone facing the misery of poisoning, let alone dying of it. In her mind, everything sped closer, became more personal. “How very… Why stab him, then?”
Harris scowled. “Presumably in the hope that no autopsy would then be considered necessary. But I pressed for one anyway. You were right—he was already dead when he was stabbed. He died of the opium poisoning.”
“He ate at home,” Constance pointed out.
“And no one else was ill in his household. They all ate the same things.”
“Who served them?”
Harris’s lips twitched. “The family served themselves from the same serving dishes. There’s certainly a bottle of laudanum in the St. Johns’ stillroom, but I don’t see how it could have got into only Mr. St. John’s dinner.”
“Did they all drink the wine?” she asked.
“The family all did, and even the butler quaffed the dregs before bed. None of them noticed a peculiar taste to it. Are you afraid I didn’t ask the right questions?”
Constance smiled. “Sorry. I’m thinking aloud. I suppose we can’t know how St. John’s notecase got into Nevvy’s pocket?”
“I guess a charitable man might have given it to pay for his hospital treatment.”
“Why give him the wallet as well as the money?” She shook her head. “Whoever did this does not think highly of the police. You’re meant to think that Nevvy stabbed St. John to rob him, and not realize he was poisoned. But even that’s too simple, isn’t it?”
Harris’s face remained expressionless. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I have seen people die of consumption. I don’t see how he could have got here from wherever he sheltered, let alone had the energy to stab anyone.”
He was not remotely surprised. “How well do you know your neighbors, Mrs. Grey?”
“We keep ourselves to ourselves, inspector,” she said dryly. “The ladies don’t leave cards here.”
“Your people tell me there has been no trouble, no threats or quarrels with your neighbors.”
So he too wondered if the placement of the bodies was a malicious trick. “There never has been. Our existence here has always been discreet, a presence no one acknowledges. But you know that.”
“Then your own people would not conceal a recent quarrel from you? If there was trouble during your absence?”
“No,” she said firmly. And yet it was something she hadn’t thought of. In the warmth of the morning sun, she suddenly felt cold.
Chapter Four
Having sent Janeyand Lenny out to investigate a case of theft from a wealthy home, Solomon was alone in the Silver and Grey offices. He was trying to follow the rambling letter that introduced next week’s first new case when the knocker at the front door sounded.
Hoping it was Constance having forgotten her key, he rose and opened it to discover Sergeant Flynn smiling amiably at him.
“Come in,” Solomon said at once, standing back.
Flynn entered, looking about him with interest. “Sorry to disturb you.” At Solomon’s invitation, he walked into the comfortable office and his eyebrows flew up. “Wouldn’t mind an office like this one. I’m working for the wrong firm.”
“To be fair, the office was not furnished with the profits from this business. We fulfil a different function to the police. As you know. What can I do for you, sergeant?”
“Oh, I only came by to keep you informed,” Flynn said, just a little too easily. “Mrs. St. John identified her husband’s body, which was stabbedafterdeath. He died of opium poisoning. The other body was a vagrant known as Nevvy—Gareth Neville. You may have seen him around here. He tramped mostly about the City. Some of our fellows recognized him.”
“Did he die of opium poisoning too?” Solomon waved him to a chair.
“Consumption. He seems to have just died. Who knows where? Inspector Harris suspects the bodies were placed on your doorstep after death, no doubt from different locations.”
“A lot of effort to go to,” Solomon remarked.
