Macdonald said: “I’m leaving the house to you. I’ll be back later—garden door around eleven o’clock. Hannah’s safe in bed.”
“I’ll be there,” murmured Reeves.
At that moment the telephone rang: before he answered it, Macdonald opened the door and called: “All right, Mrs. Higson. I’ll answer it.” He shut the door and lifted the receiver. It was Dr. Brown.
“What’s this about Hannah Barrow being ill? If she is ill, why wasn’t I called?”
“I called Dr. Ferens because he was nearer, sir. She seemed in a bad way, but it’s nothing to worry about. I was just coming down to see you.”
“And who’s looking after Hannah? I tell you I don’t like it. The devil’s let loose in this place.”
“Mrs. Higson is here, sir. She’s quite reliable.”
“Reliable? How do you know who’s reliable?” snapped the old man. “Everybody seems to be taking leave of their senses. Did you say you were coming down here?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll be with you within five minutes.”
The old man was still muttering to himself as Macdonald replaced the receiver.
Leaving the door of the office wide open, after a nod to Reeves, Macdonald went towards the kitchen, whence emerged a good savoury smell and splutter of frying bacon and eggs.
“Mrs. Higson,” he called, and getting no reply he went into the kitchen and found Emma busy with her frying pan. “I’m just going, Mrs. Higson,” he called across to her. “Would you like to come round the house with me and satisfy yourself there’s nothing to worry about, or will you be quite happy in your mind if I go round myself?”
“Thanking you, sir, if you’ll go around that’s good enough for I. I’ll have me bit of supper and then go upstairs to be near Hannah. And I tell you straight I’m not letting nobody in here after I’ve bolted door when you go out.”
“Quite right. And you can bolt all the other doors, too. I’ll give you a call when I’ve been round.”
Conscientiously, Macdonald went through every room in the house. Reeves was there somewhere, but Macdonald didn’t catch sight of him. Nobody was better at a cat and mouse act than Reeves. Hannah was snoring peacefully, still lying sedately on her back, but her wrinkled face was a normal colour and her scrubby hands were as red as nature meant them to be, relaxed on the grey blankets which Emma Higson had tucked in so neatly.
Macdonald went downstairs to the office, collected his attaché case and the sheets of Reeves’s report, and then went to call Emma Higson, who saw him to the front door.
“It’s been a fine old upset and all,” she said, “but if so be us has got to have policemen all over house, us’d as soon have you as anybody, meaning no offence.”
“Very kindly said,” replied Macdonald. “You get up to bed and have a good sleep. Good-night to you.”
He heard the bolts shoot into their old sockets with a purposeful rattle as he turned away into the fragrant witchery of the summer evening. Milham on the Moor looked lovely enough to catch at the heart, the evening sun glowing on rose and ochre of cob walls, on golden thatch and enchantment of carven stone, all embellished with roses and honeysuckle, scented, colourful and serene.
2
“Why couldn’t you let Hannah alone?” demanded old Brown indignantly. “She’s a borderline case, I know that, got the mind of a child, but she’s a good old soul. D’you think you could put her in a witness box? Not if I know it. She hasn’t got her full complement of wits, and I won’t have her bullied.”
“No one’s going to bully her, sir. Certainly not myself,” replied Macdonald patiently. “I realise as well as you do that her intelligence is limited. She couldn’t be taught to read and write, but she could be taught to do routine tasks, and to do them well. Because her world is very limited, she remembers accurately all the small things she has been taught to do by rote. And she notices any deviation from the normal. I’m quite convinced she was telling the truth when she said she smelt alcohol in Miss Torrington’s breath.”
“I’ve no doubt she did,” growled the old man. “And how much farther does that get you? You’ve got your analyst’s report, and you’ve got the evidence I gave you about the bottle of brandy. You say it’s gone. Well, where do you think it went to? Do you think Hannah Barrow drank it?”
“No. I don’t,” replied Macdonald.
“Then what more evidence do you want? If you put the facts you’ve got before a jury, do you suppose they wouldn’t be satisfied?”
“It’s not my job to satisfy a jury. It’s my job to get all the available facts, not for a jury in the first case, but for my superior officers and for the Director of Public Prosecutions. And there are a number of facts for which I have not yet found explanations.”
“D’you think Hannah Barrow can supply the explanations?”
“Not the explanations, no, though she has produced some interesting facts. I’m hoping that you can help me with some of the explanations.”
“I’ve been doing my best,” rejoined Dr. Brown. “What’s your trouble now?”
“You told me that you prescribed for Miss Torrington recently—a sedative and an indigestion mixture.”
“Quite right. I also told you that she probably poured the stuff down the sink.”
“She didn’t do that. Bismuth was found by the analyst—”
“I know that. Good God, are you going to tell me now the woman was poisoned?” snapped out old Brown.
“No, sir. She was drowned, after being rendered unconscious, or at any rate incapacitated, by a blow on the base of her skull. But since she had the medicine you prescribed, I can’t understand why we haven’t found the bottles, or any remains of the medicine. You may consider that fact so trivial as to be irrelevant. I do
