Mingled With Venom

Laura picked up her cue. ‘Well, we’re due for that other visit,’ she said, ‘so I suppose we had better be off.’

Dame Beatrice made her apologies to Diana, thanked her for the offer of hospitality, and asked whether she might call again when her husband was at home.

‘I am particularly interested in the wild form of aconitum anglicum,’ she said. ‘I believe it grows in shady places near streams around this part of the country, but I have never seen a specimen.’

‘You’d better write it down,’ said Diana, ‘so that I can brief him. Look, if you tell me where you are staying, I expect he’ll phone you and tell you what you want to know. He doesn’t encourage visitors to his office and, anyway, ten to one, he wouldn’t be there. He rambles all over the place identifying the plants he wants to put in his book.’

Dame Beatrice took out a small notebook and wrote the Latin name of the monkshood, the telephone number of The Smugglers’ Inn, tore out the page and handed it over. Then, as though it was an afterthought, she said, ‘I understand that the cultivated variety of the plant—its roots, at least—can be mistaken for horseradish.’

‘Well, they were,’ said Diana calmly. ‘Only nobody thinks it was a mistake. If you’ve come from Blue I expect she’s told you all about it.’

‘Yes, I suppose I have all the information she can give me. I am looking into the case as psychiatric adviser to the Home Office.’ She handed over her card.

‘Oh, yes?’ said Diana indifferently. ‘I’m afraid all this psychology stuff is beyond me. What’s your special interest in the thing?’

‘We are anxious to assist the defence in any way we can, on behalf of the girl who has been arrested. One of the points against her seems to be that, as a former kitchenmaid at Headlands, she knew exactly how the horseradish condiment was prepared there.’

‘Oh, we all knew that,’ said Diana, one of whose virtues seemed to be a blunt frankness. ‘We had roast beef at the second of the family dinner parties Mrs Leyden gave when we thought we’d been gathered together to hear what our expectations were—not that my husband and I expected anything. She expiated on the virtues of the stuff and told us exactly how Mrs Plack made it. I don’t think anybody tried it except the black boy, and that was only to please her. The beastly kid was ogling her and playing up to her all the time.’

‘So all of you heard Mrs Leyden’s eulogies?’

‘Oh, yes, but that doesn’t prove one of us is a murderer. Anyway, we all heard it. When you’re dining with a woman as rich as she was, you listen to what she has to say.’

‘Yes, I suppose so. Did you like her?’

‘Are you asking whether I hated her?’

‘No. I meant what I said. I am not asking you whether you killed her.’

‘I like you,’ said Diana unexpectedly. ‘It’s a relief to talk to somebody who’s prepared to call a spade by its right name. Well, look, I’ll tell you. I had reason to like her, in a way, I suppose. It began a couple of years back when our kid’s boarding-school had to put up the fees. My husband doesn’t do too badly with his books but, as I expect you know, school fees are a big drain on parents nowadays and we didn’t want to back down and take Quentin and Millament away, so I sank my pride, such as it is, and went to the grande dame to ask whether she would help out.’

‘Well, she did, and that’s one of the things about her that I’ve never understood. She was ever so much more generous, it always seemed to me, to us outsiders than she was to the actual family. She subbed up for me (although I’m sure she disapproved of me in most ways) and I always thought she was more generous to Fiona than ever she was to Maria, her closest relative. Then there was that objectionable child Pabbay. Look what she did for her! Antonia Aysgarth indeed! Then I know for a fact that, when the big bills came in, Parsifal used to go cap in hand to her and, in the end, it looked to me as though she was taking up Gamaliel in quite a big way. None of us are members of the family really, you see, just connections, as it were. It’s a kind of quirk she had, I suppose. Perhaps she thought she could buy from us what she couldn’t get voluntarily from the actual blood-relations, real genuine gratitude.’

‘No monkshood in the Campions garden,’ said Laura when they were back in the car. ‘I’m sure it was the Antrobus roots which were used. Shall you pursue this Rupert? Shall you ring him up?’

‘Not at present. You say you satisfied yourself that there was no monkshood growing in that very untidy garden.’

‘Well, I did a host of Midian act and had a pretty good prowl. I’ll swear there’s no monkshood there. I’ll tell you what, though. If somebody pinched the plants from the Antrobus garden and used the roots, the police ought to have found out what happened to the leaves, stems and flowers. I mean, these plants grow to a height of four feet and more. It’s not like getting rid of a daisy, is it?’

‘I take your point.’

‘And you know the answer?’

‘No. I merely assume that anybody who would procure poisonous plants from an innocent source and commit murder with them would take care to get rid of the evidence in a way which would not cast suspicion on him or her.’

‘Isn’t it time we got on to the police and found out what they’re up to?’

‘Our intrusion would hardly be welcomed. The police believe that they have apprehended the murderer. I think that for the present we must continue to play a lone hand.’

‘Suits me. But if you’re not going to contact this Bosse-Leyden—where does the Bosse come in?’

‘It must have been his mother’s name, don’t you think? According to the gossip George has heard at the public house, Rupert Bosse-Leyden is the son of unmarried parents.’

‘So he isn’t a Leyden at all.’

‘Yes, he is. It seems that, although his father and mother never married, they lived together until the woman