Mingled With Venom

our debut.’

‘Oh, I see. Has she visited the famous Aysgarth Falls?’

‘Her mother fell, as they used to put it in Victorian times,’ said Fiona, in the same brittle tone. ‘That is all Antonia knows about falls, I daresay. Maria, won’t you ask Dame Beatrice to sit down?’

‘Oh, dear! I’m afraid my wits are wool-gathering today. There is so much to think about and Dame Beatrice’s peremptory tone startled me. Have you come on a serious errand, Dame Beatrice?’ said Maria.

Dame Beatrice seated herself in the proferred armchair. It was half-turned to the window and from it she had a view of Scar Head with its innocent, pastoral, downland crown and its dangerous rocks and currents below. She was speculating upon this resemblance to what had happened in the house, when the newly-named Antonia Aysgarth made a calculated entrance into the room and turned with a graceful, fluid movement, also the result of practise, to close the door behind her. She then stood with her back against it and gave the older women a rueful little smile.

‘Am I to stand in the corner?’ she asked. ‘Yes, I am meeting Barnaby when I go to London tomorrow, Maria. I was going to tell you at lunch that I was going back, but with you and Fiona looking daggers at one another and an uneasy silence brooding over the meal, it seemed neither the time nor the place, alas!’

‘Oh, sit down, Antonia, and stop play-acting,’ said Maria shortly. ‘Dame Beatrice is here on serious business.’

‘There is only one serious business connected with this house—the abuela’s death. Has she come about that?’ She looked challengingly at the visitor.

‘Not about the death; about the manner of it,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘There is no need to ask whether monkshood grows on this estate.’

‘No, but it gets washed up on the sands below this estate,’ said Maria.

Fiona said sharply: ‘There can be no connection. Besides, we don’t even know that what you saw was monkshood. It had been in the sea. It could be anything. Even if it is monkshood, it could have come from anywhere. There is nothing to connect it with that house or your mother’s death.’

‘So that’s what the silence and gloom at lunchtime were about!’ said Antonia. She looked from one to the other of the protagonists and then fixed her somewhat protuberant eyes on Dame Beatrice. ‘I wonder whether Maria’s plants had roots attached to them?’

‘No, they had not,’ said Maria, ‘and that is the whole point and that is why, whether Fiona liked it or not, I telephoned the police. The plants may be a clue. I don’t know how the tides run in these parts, but the police ought to find out. Unfortunately, having made their arrest, they do not seem interested in any evidence which may turn up.’

‘Did you leave the plants where you found them?’ asked

Dame Beatrice.

‘No, I did not. The next high tide might have carried them away.’

‘Probably the best thing which could have happened,’ said Fiona. ‘You should leave well alone, not turn it to evil.’

‘I happen to regard it as a crime to destroy evidence,’ said Maria. ‘If the police refuse to examine it, that is their business. One of Diana’s puppies got drowned and was washed up here, I remember.’

Fiona made a gesture as though she could have struck her.

‘Rupert didn’t poison madre,’ she said chokingly. Maria raised her eyebrows and turned away.

Chapter 14

Family Matters

« ^ »

‘Do you attach any importance to this flotsam?’asked Laura.

‘And jetsam, of course,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘As it could have been thrown into the sea anywhere between Nare Head and Dodman Point, I think its value as evidence is negligible.’

‘Yet Maria Porthcawl was angry with Fiona Bute for objecting to her telling the police about it. Why was that, do you suppose?’

‘I think both believe that the murder was committed by one of the family and I would not be surprised if they think they know which one. In fact, I think they all, including Miss Aysgarth, have their suspicions, and these are not fastened upon the girl who is now in custody. Whether they have all hit upon the same person I cannot say. Their diverse characters and interests render it unlikely.’

‘So that’s not much help, although I think they ought to speak out and say what they suspect.’

‘How did you enjoy your afternoon?’ asked Dame Beatrice, ignoring this comment.

‘Hugely, but I’ve nothing to show for it.’

‘No wild monkshood?’

‘Devil an inflorescence, so where do we go from here?’

‘It came out, during the course of conversation, that not only is Miss Aysgarth meeting her young man tomorrow, but she is meeting him in London and proposes to remain in the metropolis to continue her study of voice