Mingled With Venom

The girl who had been seated at the end of the row stood up. ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘Though I don’t see why they had to lug me into this.’

‘How long ago were you in service here?’

‘I left third week in May.’

‘How long were you—what amount of notice did you give?’

‘None. I were give my month’s wages and told to get out. Sue her for wrongful dismissal I could, if I’d a mind to it. I hadn’t done nothing for to get myself chucked out at a minute’s notice without no previous warning.’

‘There must have been some reason for it, must there not? Will you tell the jury what it was?’

‘I had words with that there Ruby Pabbay.’

‘Mrs Leyden’s protegee?’

‘Call her what you like. I called her a jumped-up little cow, for heifer she was not, to my certain knowledge.’

‘Miss Denham, you really must not bring these farmyard metaphors into my court.’

‘Sorry, I’m sure, but I know very well what sort of capers her got up to when she was kitchenmaid before me.’

‘That is a matter we need not discuss. I suppose Mrs Leyden gave you a reference when she dismissed you?’

‘Of a sort. She said I was willing, honest and outspoken.’

‘You found no difficulty in securing other employment?’

‘I been living on my savings with my sister. Ain’t many as can afford a kitchenmaid nowadays. Even cook- generals can’t always get work. It’s mostly the daily help and the missus mucking in, as you might say, or else an au pair from foreign parts which some of ’em are slavies and the other sort is madams and not worth their board and keep.’

‘We are wandering from the point. You resented losing your position in this household, it seems.’

‘It were wrongful dismissal, like I said, and I wish now as I’d gone to court about it.’

‘But you came frequently to visit your former friends here?’

‘I come here now and again to have a bit of a natter with Mattie Lunn over to the stables. Plenty of time to pay visits, being out of a job. I never come into the house, though.’

‘You could have got a post at one of the hotels, could you not?’

‘Happen I could, but I don’t care for the hotel work.’

‘You preferred to stay idle in your sister’s house and brood over your wrongs. When was the last time you visited this house before today?’

‘Last Friday morning about nine o’clock, and talked to Mattie for p’raps half an hour.’

‘The day on which Mrs Plack made the horseradish sauce for Sunday lunch?’

‘I suppose so. Anyways, her wouldn’t have made it while I was there. Too early.’

‘No, presumably she made it after you had gone. Now, Miss Denham, I would like you to listen to the rest of the evidence. I recall Superintendent Chown. Now, Superintendent, as soon as you knew that poison had been taken by the deceased and as soon as you knew what that poison was, what did you do?’

‘Well, sir, I said to myself as the stuff must have come from somewhere and being something of a student of botany, I told myself and my sergeant as it had most probably come from a plant as had a root very similar to the horseradish from which the condiment did ought by rights to have been made.’

‘And your botanical knowledge told you that the monkshood plant had such a root?’

‘To be honest and truthful, no, sir. It was the doctor as directed my attention to aconitum napellus. “This is a very nasty affair,” doctor he says to me. “If you want a tip, Chown, I should make it your business to find somebody who has monkshood in the garden and what connection, if any, such a person has with the house of Headlands. If the garden variety doesn’t help, you could chase up the wild kind. It grows around these south-west parts and in Wales” he says, which, of course, from my knowledge of botany I was aware, sir.’

‘Quite so. Your quest was successful, I believe.’

‘That is so, sir. I run the pernicious plant to earth in several gardens near hereabouts, but the garden as interested me most after I had questioned Mrs Porthcawl about possible persons who might have a grudge against Mrs Leyden was the garden of a Mrs Antrobus.’

At this name the girl Denham half-rose from her seat and was pulled back into it by the parlourmaid, Buskin.

‘Hush up!’ hissed this supporter. ‘You ain’t dead yet! Don’t give ’em no back answers. Got you in trouble before.’

‘And this Mrs Antrobus?’ asked the coroner.

‘Happens to be the sister as Denham has been living along of since she was turned away from this house,’ said the superintendent, trying to keep self-satisfaction out of his voice.

‘And thank God as neither of them is Cornish born,’ added one of the jurymen devoutly.

Chapter 11

Last Will and Testament