“So you dismissed the dizziness as irrelevant?” enquired Anne.
“Oh no, I didn’t,” said Macdonald. “The dizziness was very well attested. Deceased had fallen right downstairs. I thought that was extremely relevant. Far from dismissing it, I considered it with care, and connected it with the alcohol. I argued that if a woman who was known to be a teetotaller was given a small dose of high alcoholic content it was quite likely she would come over dizzy.’ Being totally unused to alcohol, she would be very susceptible to it. And one way of giving her such a dose would be to prescribe an indigestion mixture strongly flavoured with peppermint to mask the flavour of the alcohol.”
“But wouldn’t she have smelt the brandy?” put in Anne.
“I didn’t say anything about brandy, Mrs. Ferens. I said alcohol. Absolute alcohol does not smell of brandy, although it does smell spirituous. And a very little absolute alcohol is very potent. Moreover, it is used by field naturalists and botanists for preserving specimens.”
“Algae,” murmured Reeves. “Spirogyra, likewise Zygnema and Staurastrum. I learn some very high-hat terminology in our job.”
“Well, I’m damned,” said Raymond. “I might have thought of that one. I’d seen the algae in absolute ale. in the old boy’s test tubes, but I didn’t connect it up.”
2
“Well, there was a theory to account for the famous dizziness,” said Macdonald. “It was only a theory, but it was attractive. If dizziness could be induced beforehand, it provided the perfect explanation. Terrible dizzy Sister was.’ And if the thing wasn’t accepted as accident, and analysts and pathologists got busy, the disappearance of the brandy bottle explained all. It was good pre-war brandy, whose alcoholic content would have been high. But again, all this was hypothetical. Having considered it, I turned to other factors, especially the cash one—the nest egg in the building societies, paid in in cash by ‘register letter’ posted by the illiterate Hannah.”
“Blackmail,” said Raymond Ferens softly.
“I thought it the most probable explanation,” said Macdonald, “so I looked around to see which persons in the locality might have been susceptible to blackmail to the tune of some two hundred pounds yearly over a period of ten years. And I considered that the amount of the sum paid eliminated the village folk at once. The Venners, Mrs. Yeo, Wilson, Doone—would they have paid out nearly four pounds weekly for ten years? Of course they wouldn’t. The idea was ludicrous. It represented over three quarters of what any of them earned. Not the villagers, and certainly not Sanderson —he’d only been here two and a half years. Not Dr. Ferens. He was a newcomer. Obviously one’s mind went to the most wealthy—Sir James and Lady Ridding. I eliminated Sir James after some consideration. If there had been any cause or fact which would have resulted in Miss Torrington being able to blackmail Sir James, Lady Ridding herself would not have upheld the Warden through thick and thin. In other words, if Sir James Ridding had had an affair with the Warden in time past, Lady Ridding would have sacked the Warden out of hand. Not for one moment would Lady Ridding have countenanced such an outrage to her own dignity.”
“But if Lady Ridding hadn’t known,” put in Anne.
“She would have known,” put in Macdonald. “You make a great mistake if you think she is stupid. She isn’t anything of the kind. Lady Ridding has the brains which make a profit out of pedigree cattle, dairying, and mixed farming as well as market gardening. She is extremely astute. And the rumours which have been going round about her making vast sums out of black-market butter seemed to me utterly silly. To make a success out of farming, which she certainly does, makes her very cognisant of regulations and penalties. It simply wouldn’t be worth her while to take the risk of black marketing. And to do her justice, I think she has the commercial honesty which was characteristic of her generation. She’d drive a hard bargain, but she’s too much common sense to risk her dignity and good name for the profits on butter at ten shillings a pound. And anybody who knows anything about dairy farming can tell you there isn’t so very much profit in selling butter at ten shillings a pound.”
“Perfectly true,” said Anne, “and I think you’re quite right about her being astute. We tend to laugh at her because of the grande maniere cult. But, Mr. Chief Inspector, since she is astute, wouldn’t she have been aware of the goings-on which you postulated in a different quarter altogether, outside her own home?”
It was Reeves who answered this. “She was aware of it,” he said bluntly. “I’ve no evidence for saying so. It’s just that I knew when I heard her talking, like Mrs. Ferens knew the Warden was wicked. And being a perfect lady brought up in the early nineteen-hundreds, Lady R. knew when to look the other way, as a lady should. After all, the irregularity wasn’t in her own household, and both Dr. Brown and the Warden were very useful to her.”
Anne Ferens looked at him thoughtfully. “You’re a bit shattering, aren’t you . . . sitting there making daisy chains.”
3
“I think it’s time we got back to facts,” said Macdonald. “At the moment Reeves is off duty: he can say what he likes. He has no basis in fact to support
