The Dalehouse murder

by Francis Everton

“Do you mean that he has made a mistake then?” Kenneth replied, and I was surprised to hear how hard and harsh his voice was. No hint of sympathy softened the bluntness of his question, and Ethel’s hand fell slowly from his shoulder.

The door opened and The Tundish came in. He stood in the doorway for a moment looking at Kenneth with as sad a smile as ever I wish to see.

“No,” he said, “I don’t think that I have made any mistake, but I have very serious news for you all. Will you please sit down?”

He took the chair at the end of the breakfast table again as he spoke, motioning to Ethel to come and sit beside him. His arm was resting on the table, and I saw her put her hand against it with a timid little touch of sympathy which he acknowledged with a smile of thanks.

Kenneth saw it too and reddened and said in an unnaturally formal voice, “Now, Doctor, we are very anxious to hear what you have to tell us.” I could have kicked him for the way he said it, and I think that that was the first time that it crossed my mind that he might be jealous of The Tundish.

The doctor took no notice of his remark, but proceeded immediately to tell us in a calm friendly voice, that, as we already knew, he had made up an ordinary sleeping draft for Stella the night before. The medicine had been taken up to her bedroom and placed on a little table by her bed, by the maid, Annie, just before supper. It had consisted of a mild narcotic taken from one of the bottles that stood on the lower shelf of the poison cupboard, to which he had added one or two other ingredients which it was not necessary for him to specify, as they were entirely harmless in their action. Every prescription, he explained, was registered in a special book kept for the purpose in the dispensary, as soon as it was made up, and this he had done in the usual way. The draft was a mild one and there was no possibility that it by itself, could have caused death or have had any harmful action. He had just roughly checked over the contents of each of the bottles he had used and they each of them contained exactly what they were alleged to contain.

He told us how the poison cupboard, in addition to the stock poisons that were placed on the lower shelf, held a number of rare and some of them very dangerous poisons, collected by Dr. Hanson over a long period in connection with his research work, on a shelf at the top. These were seldom touched and it had not been necessary for him to handle them in making up the sleeping draft for Stella. As far as he could tell they had not been disturbed. Here he turned to me, saying, “But you may be able to help us there, Jeffcock, for you saw them with me only the night before last. You had better come along and tell me if, as far as you can remember, they are still placed as they were then.”

We trooped into the dispensary, and he opened the heavy steel door of the cupboard, with the little key which he took from his waistcoat pocket. The bottles, apparently, were in the exact positions in which I had seen them only two nights before, the tiny Chinese flagon lifting its long slender neck with its queer flat stopper above the diminutive bottles that surrounded it. As far as I could recollect, it was in the identical place in which I had replaced it when The Tundish had so urgently begged me to put it down, but, as I explained, any of the other bottles might have been changed or moved about, for they were all identical in shape and size, and I had not taken any note of the names and formulæ on the neatly written labels.

“As far as you can see then, the Chinese flagon has not been moved?” The Tundish asked. “Do you think that you would be prepared to swear to that?”

I hesitated before I replied, “No, I don’t think I could swear to it, but I could state on oath that if it has been, it has been put back again in very nearly the exact position in which I saw it last.” I pointed out, however, that unless some of the other bottles were moved as well, it would be practically impossible to have put it down anywhere else, and I finished up by asking him if the Chinese flagon were particularly important.