ensure that the victim fell into a deep sleep, thus enabling a potential murderer to inject a quantity of morphine consistent with that revealed by the post-mortem. And if some eagle-eyed pathologist happened to notice the puncture mark, Mrs Davenport’s medical record would reveal that she had received a number of injections over the past few weeks in the course of the tests she had undergone.
In theory then, Purvey’s testimony, together with the fragment from the plastic wrapping of the syringe which Jarvis had discovered under the victim’s bed, cleared the way for him to open a full-scale murder investigation. But in theory only. The simple fact was that no evidence Alfred Purvey might give was likely to carry any weight with Jarvis’s superiors, still less a jury. Jarvis shuddered to think what a sarcastic QC would do to Purvey if he got a chance to cross-examine him. Clearly the testimony of a mind so pathetically at variance with reality could not be credited for a single instant. On the contrary, the implication had to be that the surer Alfred Purvey was about anything, the less likely it was to be true.
This was particularly galling in view of the fact that Purvey had not only noticed the loss of the syringe, but had seen the person who had taken it from his room.
‘I thought at first that I was dreaming,’ he said with an apologetic smile. ‘The door was wide open-not that I ever shut it completely. One doesn’t want to appear discourteous…’
‘Go on,’ said Jarvis, cutting quickly through what he had by now identified as a recurrent closed loop.
‘The curtains were still drawn, and as the room in which I am staying is on the western side of the house, it is rather dark in the mornings-not that I wish to complain, of course! Heaven knows, if s only too good of them to put me up at all…’
‘Go on.’
‘I noticed a woman moving about. What with the poor light and my own drowsiness I was unable to identify the intruder-although that is of course a wholly inappropriate word in the circumstances, implying as it does…’
‘Go on” ‘Then I must have dosed off again. When I woke, the room was empty and the door ajar. I got out of bed and found that one of the syringes which I keep on top of the chest of drawers was missing.’
To cap the unfavourable impression which would be made by Purvey’s repeated references to falling asleep and dreaming, it transpired that he had no idea which day these events had occurred. It was thus without any great hopes that Jarvis had asked his next question.
‘So you have no idea who took your syringe?’
‘Oh yes,’ Purvey replied simply. ‘It was Miss Davis.’
It took Jarvis a moment to master his emotion.
‘How do you know?’ he asked casually.
‘Well, by… by the smell.’
‘Smell?’ echoed Jarvis.
‘Of drink,’ Purvey explained.
Jarvis stared at him. Purvey blinked mildly.
‘Spirituous liquor,’ he said. ‘If one has been strictly TT all one’s life, as I have, there’s no mistaking the nauseous odour. As I say, the intruder was a woman, and of course none of my fellow guests have any access to alcoholic beverages. Not of course that I wish to give the impression of making judgements on those who have been so good as to take me in…’
‘Ah, here you are, Inspector!’ cried Anderson, appearing in the doorway. ‘I hope my little flock haven’t been trying your patience too much.’
He fixed Rosemary with a keen gaze.
‘I take it this was your idea, Miss Travis?’
Jarvis got to his feet.
‘It was mine,’ he snapped. ‘Even we clods in the police get ideas of our own from time to time.’
He had expected Anderson to react to hearing his sneering words quoted back at him, but he merely shrugged.
‘I’m sure you do, Inspector, but I was in fact referring to the episode involving Mrs Hargreaves.’
‘Where is she?’ Rosemary asked.
‘I’m so sorry you’ve been subjected to this unnecessary delay,’ Anderson murmured to Jarvis. ‘Please don’t let us detain you any longer. You must be anxious to go-‘
Rosemary pushed her way between the two men.
‘Where’s Mavis?’ she demanded. ‘Is she all right?’
Anderson regarded her coldly.
‘Mrs Hargreaves is in the capable hands of my sister, Miss Travis. She is as well as can be expected.’
Turning his back on her, he led Jarvis to the door.
“The whole thing was my fault for neglecting to lock up properly after letting you in,’ he explained in an undertone. ‘Normally we keep all the hatches firmly battened down lest the fauna get loose and do themselves an injury. Old Weatherby fell down the ha-ha last year and was in plaster for six weeks. You wouldn’t believe the pain and inconvenience we were put to. Time was you could get some great gormless strapping country lass in to do for them, but these days they all want minimum wages and National Insurance stamps and a week’s paid holiday in Tenerife.’
‘Where did you find her?’
‘Hargreaves?’ Anderson replied breezily. ‘Letitia treed her in the copper beech on the east lawn.’
‘You didn’t have to use the dog this time, then?’
Anderson gave him a sharp look.
‘Have they been telling you about Channing?’
He sighed and shook his head.
‘A typical example of the way they personalise everything. The results can be quite alarming until you learn to decode them. Symes, for instance, suffers from incontinence caused by an anal tumour which causes him a certain amount of discomfort. Since there is a long waiting-list for the operation, we have to put up with the mess and stench as best we can. Mr Symes’s response has been to accuse my sister of cauterising his rectum with a red-hot poker. Like Miss Travis, he prefers to ascribe his suffering to individual villainy rather than to the shortcomings of the health service and the workings of a fate which is simply indifferent to human misery.’
He led Jarvis into the hallway.
‘As for Channing, he has no one but himself to blame for what happened. The man’s an obsessive escapologist. He managed to get away from some POW camp during the war and has been bragging about it ever since. Last week he decided to show us all that he’d lost none of the old skills. Unfortunately he happened to choose a moment when my pet was stretching his legs in the grounds. The worst of it is that his adventure seems to have started a trend. Now they all want to have a go.’
He unlocked the front door and held it open.
‘I would ask you to stay for lunch, Inspector, but Letitia’s catering, although perfectly nourishing, is not the sort of thing you’d invite someone to. Give my respects to the Chief Constable, should you happen to bump into him. We met at a charity dinner it must be, let’s see, three years ago now?’
‘You haven’t spoken to Mrs Hargreaves yet,’ said a voice behind them.
‘Go back to the lounge, Miss Travis,’ Anderson called sternly without glancing round.
Rosemary grasped the sleeve of Jarvis’s overcoat.
‘You must speak to Mavis Hargreaves!’
‘She won’t be able to tell him anything he hasn’t already heard fifty times from the others,’ Anderson retorted dismissively.
Rosemary looked straight into Jarvis’s eyes.
‘If you leave now, I will be the next to die,’ she told him. ‘I hope you will at least investigate that properly.’
Jarvis stared back, shaken by the utter conviction of her tone. He had enough experience of people lying to him to know that Rosemary Travis was speaking the truth-or what she believed to be the truth.
‘Mrs Hargreaves is in no condition to speak to anyone,’ Anderson remarked.
‘What have you done to her?’ Rosemary cried. ‘Let me see her! Let me see her!’
‘It’s all right,’ Jarvis told her. ‘I’ll make sure she’s all right, and I’ll listen to anything she has to tell me.’
He turned to Anderson.
