‘No? One of the best moments, I thought,’
‘Yes. To be quite frank, Inspector, I missed most of the film. Fell asleep.’
‘Oh yes? So what did you do after that?’
‘I took a train to Oxford.’
‘Any particular reason?’
‘No. I just needed a break. I’ve had a tough few weeks. I needed a little pampering.’
‘I see. And what did you do when you got to Oxford?’
‘I checked into a hotel.’
‘Which one?’
‘The Randolph.’
‘Without luggage?’
‘I had bought what I needed in Hammersmith. I had a case.’
‘Why?’
‘What do you mean — why?’
‘Why did you check into a hotel?’
‘I like hotels. I feel at home in hotels. When I need a treat I go to an hotel.’
The Detective-Inspector nodded very slowly. ‘I see. Do you know how your mother-in-law died?’
‘No. As I say, I only just heard the news that. .’
‘She was killed by paraquat.’
‘Oh.’
‘Very nasty death. Vomiting, diarrhoea, abdominal pains, local inflammation of the mouth and throat, leading to multiorgan failure.’
Graham winced. ‘As you say, nasty.’
‘And a very unusual way of committing suicide.’
Graham shrugged. ‘If someone’s determined to do it. .’
‘Have to be very determined to do it the way Mrs. Hinchcliffe did.’
‘Oh?’
Detective-Inspector Laker didn’t speak as he reached into his briefcase and produced a polythene bag. Carefully and slowly, he opened the bag and placed the familiar sherry bottle on the table by his chair.
The bottle was empty, though there was a dark sediment at the bottom.
‘That was how she did it, Mr. Marshall. Dissolved in the sherry were the contents of eight sachets of weed killer containing paraquat.’
‘Oh.’
‘Well, I say “dissolved”. That’s hardly the word. It doesn’t dissolve, just sinks to the bottom really. Very difficult to swallow that lot, you know. Virtually have to crunch your way through it.’
Graham let out a little nervous laugh. ‘As I said, she was very determined.’
‘Unpleasant stuff to swallow, too. Can inflame the throat tissues.’
‘If you’re going to kill yourself, you don’t fuss about a little discomfort, surely.’
‘Maybe not. Why do you think she mixed the stuff with sherry?’
‘To make it more palatable.’
Laker nodded, digesting this idea. ‘Yes, I suppose that’s reasonable.’ He paused. ‘On the other hand, if that were the case, why did she put a label on it, marking it as poison?’
‘Well, er. .’ Graham felt he was losing ground. ‘So that nobody else would drink it, thinking it was sherry. .?’
‘Hmm.’ The Detective-Inspector continued to take his time. ‘Interesting things, fingerprints,’ he announced suddenly.
Graham expressed surprise at the
‘You see, Mr. Marshall, as you would expect, your mother-in-law’s prints are all over that bottle. There are also others.’
‘So?’
‘The strange thing is that the fingerprints on the label are not Mrs. Hinchcliffe’s. Or not many of them. It seems certain that someone else put that label on.’
Graham was silent.
‘You wouldn’t object to having your fingerprints taken, Mr. Marshall?’
It was time for anger. ‘Now listen, Inspector, if you’re accusing me of having a hand in my mother-in-law’s death — ’
‘Not accusing you of anything, Mr. Marshall. But when a strange death like this occurs, it’s my job to imagine the events that could have led up to it.’
Yes. O.K.’
‘Perhaps you’d allow me to spell out a possible scenario to you, Mr. Marshall. Suppose we take the starting- point that Mrs. Hinchcliffe’s death wasn’t suicide, but that it was murder.’
‘Pretty botched-up, messy murder, if it was.’
‘Most murders are botched-up and messy, Mr. Marshall.’
Not the ones I’m involved in! It was with difficulty that Graham restrained himself from actually saying the words.
‘Right, my scenario. . Let’s not just say it was murder, let’s also say that you killed Lilian Hinchcliffe.’
‘But I didn’t.’
A hand was raised for quiet. ‘Hypothesis, Mr. Marshall, just hypothesis. Right, let’s start with the facts. Mrs. Hinchcliffe came staggering out of the front door of this house at about three o’clock on Saturday afternoon. She was very ill, vomiting, hardly able to stand. A passer-by phoned for an ambulance. She was taken to hospital and died there at one thirty-five yesterday morning. While she could still speak, she said the same thing to the passer- by who found her, to the ambulance man, and to the doctor at casualty. What she said was: “Graham did it”.’
‘She was probably talking about her insane idea that I killed Merrily.’
‘Maybe, maybe. But for my hypothesis, let’s read it the other way. And let’s think of motive. That anonymous letter didn’t endear her to you.’
‘No, certainly not, but — ’
‘I agree. Not a sufficient motive for murder, no. On the other hand, you have had financial problems recently, Mr. Marshall. I checked yesterday with your bank manager and I gather there have been times when — ’
‘But that’s all over.’
‘I have also discovered,’ Laker continued inexorably, ‘that Mrs. Hinchcliffe recently changed her will, cutting out her elder daughter, and leaving everything to her younger daughter and husband. With your wife’s death, Mr. Marshall, that meant that you — ’
‘But — ’
‘No, I agree. There wasn’t much to gain, was there?’ He stopped. ‘Until the news of the actor William Essex’s bequest.’
‘But I didn’t know about that. I only discovered this afternoon that — ’
‘Charmian Hinchcliffe left the message for you on Friday evening.’
‘But I didn’t hear it till this afternoon.’
Laker cocked his head dubiously. ‘No? That seems rather strange. You spent Friday night here. Still, never mind, let’s press on with my scenario. Your mother-in-law did come round here on Saturday morning, as you say, and by then you had decided to kill her. Two suicide attempts in the past, so you thought you’d make it look like suicide.’
‘I don’t know what makes you think — ’
‘You have shown interest in poison before, Mr. Marshall. Some weeks ago. The girl at the library remembered you very clearly.’
‘But — ’
‘And the young man at the garden centre said that you were very specific about wanting a weed killer containing paraquat.’ Laker smiled. ‘But on with the scenario. Let’s say you experimented with weed killer in sherry. First, perhaps you thought you could get Mrs. Hinchcliffe to drink the treated sherry by mistake, but then you
