There were two chairs, and Hannah indicated the more important for Macdonald. “Doctor’d mention the weather and maybe his rheumatiz,” she went on. “Sister would answer very polite—her stood up by table, see—and doctor’d say, ‘Anything to report?’ and generally ’twas, ‘All doing nicely, thank you, doctor,’ and her would show him lists of the children’s weights and that, and mention if we’d any in bed. And then him’d say: ‘Well, have them in. I like to see them,’ and then I’d go to door, so, them being all ready on landing, and them’d come in, walking round table so, while Sister said their names: girls first, then boys. And us taught them all to say, ‘Good-morning, doctor. Thank you.’ And times he’d stop one and say, ‘Put out your tongue, now. Sister will give you a nice drop of summat to-night’ though ’twas always that Gregory powder he meant, and a real poisonous taste that has: and then I’d see the childer go downstairs all quiet and respectful like and Cook’d be waiting with their milk and a bite o’ summat. If so be we had any in bed, I’d show the way up and wait inside by bedroom door till Doctor and Sister had done, and then I’d bring they down in here again. And maybe doctor’d write an order if so be we wanted more medicine or plasters or such-like, and he’d give the paper to Sister and her would copy the order in her book, and doctor might say a word or two about they in the village—new babies and the old folks he called his dear old chronics, and then he’d always say: ‘Mustn’t stand gossiping. Hannah wants to get on with her work and I can’t find the way downstairs unless her shows me,’ and in winter maybe he’d say: ‘Give me an arm, Hannah, my dear. My rheumatiz is playing up to-day, and you two women’ll be the death of me with your polished floors,’ and I’d take he downstairs and give mun his hat and his gloves and his stick and say, ‘Good-mornin, doctor, and thank you.’ ’Twas always the same.”
“Thank you, Hannah,” said Macdonald. “You’ve got a very good memory. Now when Doctor Brown wrote the orders for more medicine from the chemist, didn’t he ever look in the medicine cupboard?”
Hannah’s face puckered in disappointment. “I did forget to put that bit in,” she said. “Doctor, he had many a good laugh at our medicine cupboard. ‘None o’ they new fangled notions here,’ he’d say, ‘Gregory powder and Epsom salts and Cascara, Bicarb, Chlorate o’ Potash, Ammonia-quinine, Cod-liver oil and Castor oil: good old-fashioned remedies and you can’a beat they.’”
She went through her list complacently, and Macdonald told Reeves later that the list sent a reminiscent shiver down his own back. He had been dosed with all those remedies in his own childhood, and the one he had resented most was the Chlorate of Potash tablets, which had tasted repellent. He got up, took the keys from his pocket and unlocked the medicine cupboard. It was a tall built-in cupboard with double doors. In the right hand section were all the ‘good old-fashioned remedies,’ together with medicine glasses, thermometers still in their glass of disinfectant, methylated spirits, enamelled basins, rolls of bandages and cotton wool, boracic powder and carbolic ointment. All the bottles were clean and polished and not a drip or stain sullied the scrubbed shelves. The other half of the cupboard was latched top and bottom; when opened, it showed one of the shelves shut in by an extra door, labelled ‘Poisons.’ Macdonald unlocked it and surveyed the contents: there were several bottles of disinfectant, camphorated oil, chlorodyne—and a bottle of aspirin. Hannah pointed at the latter.
“Sister never did hold with they,” she said. “The housemaids would make free with aspirin and such-like if so be they’d a headache or that, and Sister wouldn’t have it noways. If so be we found they’d been a-buying they when them was out, Sister’d take ’em away. Her always went through their rooms reg’lar, and the place they’d hide things in you’d never believe.” (When Macdonald repeated this to Reeves, the latter so far forgot himself as to say, “I can’t think why the woman wasn’t drowned years ago—poor brats of girls.”) “Sister always kept this cupboard locked, and her gave out all the doses herself,” added Hannah.
“When Miss Torrington had any medicine for herself, was it kept in this cupboard?” asked Macdonald.
“’Tis hard to say, sir. Her never had no medicine in her room, but if her kept any in here, ’twould be in that locked part, and her didn’t often open that for me to see. And her wouldn’t let me see her taking no medicine, because her was proud of never being sick.”
Macdonald set both cupboard doors open wide, together with the ‘poison cupboard.’
“When did the bottle of brandy disappear, Hannah?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head. “’Tis hard to say. I’d tell you and welcome. I’d tell you anything, you been that homely and quiet with it. But her didn’t often open that part o’ cupboard so’s I could have a good look, see. I know that be there. For years ’twas there, and Sister’d say, ‘’Tis of the evil one, Hannah, and if so be I didn’t lock it away safe, maybe ’twould be putting temptation in the way o’ poor weak souls.’ That was there, sure enough, but when sergeant opened the cupboard, that’d gone. I don’t know how long ago that went.”
She picked up her apron and began pleating it in her fingers, her face puckered up like a troubled infant’s. “Was it that…made Sister come over dizzy like, sir?”
“What made you think of that, Hannah?”
She went on screwing up her apron. “Her’d got queer like. Her was always hard, hard as a stone her heart was for all her loving talk,
