31
We took our leave shortly thereafter. As we paused upon the threshold, I turned back to Elspeth. “Did you really give up fossil hunting after discovering your Megalosaurus?”
There was a melancholic sweetness to her face, the sort of expression a woman might wear as she bids farewell to a lover going off to war, knowing she will not meet him again.
“I did. I hadn’t the heart for it after that. But lately, I have begun to realise how much I miss it. I was never so alive as when I dug among the dead.”
With that, she closed the door upon us and we left Wren Cottage. Stoker drew in a great lungful of the sweet late summer air. It was scented with roses and phlox, the last gasp before the gentle decay of autumn settled in. The spaniel trotted on its antique legs after Stoker, lifting its head for a pat. He obediently bent down and ruffled the threadbare ears.
“I sincerely hope Elspeth is indeed not a murderess. We have entirely too many dogs already and if you bring that walking sofa cushion home with you, I shall not be responsible for my actions.”
He continued to fondle the creature’s ears, a barely suppressed smile twitching the corners of his mouth.
“You needn’t look so pleased with yourself,” I told him waspishly. “You were just as incorrect as I.”
“But I relied solely upon my powers of deduction,” he replied in lofty tones. “You, my deceitful minx, resorted to larceny in order to arrive at the same conclusion as I. Yours, therefore, was the greater misstep. You had far more resources, and yet you fared no better—worse, in fact. For I arrived earlier than you. Remind me again, Veronica. How well do you enjoy losing a wager?”
“I have not lost yet,” I answered through gritted teeth.
He sent the spaniel trotting back to its mistress and we took the shorter footpath to Cherboys, pausing where a bit of it branched off to Nanny MacQueen’s cottage.
“I am sorry about J. J.,” I ventured. “I ought to have told you she was here.”
“I ought to have guessed,” he said with a shrug.
“You astonish me. I thought you meant to hold a proper grudge about that.”
“I have plenty of other things to hold a grudge over,” he assured me.
I held up a hand. “Perhaps ere you begin to catechise my faults, you will be good enough to give me the benefit of your medical knowledge.”
He folded his arms over the breadth of his chest. “About?”
“The strychnine. We have established it could not have been introduced in the food at dinner. But the strychnine might have been introduced into Beatrice’s tonic.”
He considered it a moment, then shook his head. “No. She must have consumed the poison after leaving the house.”
“How can you possibly know that?” I demanded.
“Because she did not have the bottle on her person. I handled her body when I performed that extremely rudimentary postmortem. I took the liberty of looking over her clothing. She had no bottle with her, and she did not have it with her the previous night. Perhaps it wasnot her custom to carry it with her in the evening, particularly when it would have been a simple thing to go upstairs or to send a servant for it. The extreme nature of her attack suggests the poison was a large dose, administered on the island.”
“Botheration,” I muttered. “Then we are no nearer to clearing Julien as a suspect. I hope he is better after his little outburst this morning?”
“Sleeping off the better part of a whole bottle of Napoléon cognac.”
“I thought brandy was the only spirit known by that designation.”
“No, I mean cognac that actually belonged to Napoléon. Julien was given a case by a grateful client and always travels with a bottle for emergencies.”
“Well, I suppose being suspected of murder might well count as such,” I allowed.
“Would you care to come with me to visit Nanny?” Stoker enquired, a gleam in his eyes.
“I would rather be tortured by one of the lesser demons in Hell, thank you,” I replied cordially.
He was still laughing when I left him.
•••
