Online Flip Book / Download   Back to our Information Page

AS THE ATMOSPHERE of the railway carriage thickened with tobacco-smoke, Mr. Mummery became increasingly aware that his breakfast had not agreed with him.

There could have been nothing wrong with the breakfast itself. Brown bread, rich in vitamin-content, as advised by the Morning Star’s health expert; bacon fried to a delicious crispness; eggs just nicely set; coffee made as only Mrs. Sutton knew how to make it. Mrs. Sutton had been a real find, and that was something to be thankful for. For Ethel, since her nervous breakdown in the Summer, had really not been fit to wrestle with the untrained girls who had come and gone in tempestuous succession. It took very little to upset Ethel nowadays, poor child. Mr. Mummery, trying hard to ignore his growing internal discomfort, hoped he was not in for an illness. Apart from the trouble it would cause at the office, it would worry Ethel terribly, and Mr. Mummery would cheerfully have laid down his rather uninteresting little life to spare Ethel a moment’s uneasiness.

He slipped a digestive tablet into his mouth — he had taken lately to carrying a few tablets about with him — and opened his paper. There did not seem to be very much news. A question had been asked in the House about Government typewriters. The Prince of Wales had smilingly opened an all-British exhibition of foot-wear. A further split had occurred in the Liberal party. The police were still looking for the woman who was supposed to have poisoned a family in Lincoln. Two girls had been trapped in a burning factory. A film-star had obtained her fourth decree nisi.

At Paragon Station, Mr. Mummery descended and took a tram. The internal discomfort was taking the form of a definite nausea. Happily he contrived to reach his office before the worst occurred. He was seated at his desk, pale but in control of himself, when his partner came breezing in.

“‘Morning, Mummery,” said Mr. Brookes in his loud tones, adding inevitably, “Cold enough for you?”

“Quite,” replied Mr. Mummery. “Unpleasantly raw, in fact.”

“Beastly, beastly,” said Mr. Brookes. “Your bulbs all in?”

“Not quite all,” confessed Mr. Mummery. “As a matter of fact I haven’t been feeling — —”

“Pity,” interrupted his partner. “Great pity. Ought to get ’em in early. Mine were in last week. My little place will be a picture in the Spring. For a town garden, that is. You’re lucky, living in the country. Find it better than Hull, I expect, eh? Though we get plenty of fresh air up in the Avenues. How’s the missus?”

“Thank you, she’s very much better.”

“Glad to hear that, very glad. Hope we shall have her about again this winter as usual. Can’t do without her in the Drama Society, you know. By Jove! I shan’t forget her acting last year in Romance. She and young Welbeck positively brought the house down, didn’t they? The Welbecks were asking after her only yesterday.”

“Thank you, yes. I hope she will soon be able to take up her social activities again. But the doctor says she mustn’t overdo it. No worry, he says — that’s the important thing. She is to go easy and not rush about or undertake too much.”

“Quite right, quite right. Worry’s the devil and all. I cut out worrying years ago and look at me! Fit as a fiddle, for all I shan’t see fifty again. You’re not looking altogether the thing, by the way.”

“A touch of dyspepsia,” said Mr. Mummery. “Nothing much. Chill on the liver, that’s what I put it down to.”

“That’s what it is,” said Mr. Brookes, seizing his opportunity. “Is life worth living? It depends on the liver. Ha, ha! Well now, well now — we must do a spot of work, I suppose. Where’s that lease of Ferraby’s?”

Mr. Mummery, who did not feel at his conversational best that morning, rather welcomed this suggestion, and for half an hour was allowed to proceed in peace with the duties of an estate agent. Presently, however, Mr. Brookes burst into speech again.

“By the way,” he said abruptly. “I suppose your wife doesn’t know of a good cook, does she?”

“Well, no,” replied Mr. Mummery. “They aren’t so easy to find nowadays. In fact, we’ve only just got suited ourselves. But why? Surely your old Cookie isn’t leaving you?”

“Good Lord, no!” Mr. Brookes laughed heartily. “It would take an earthquake to shake off old Cookie. No. It’s for the Philipsons. Their girl’s getting married. That’s the worst of girls. I said to Philipson, ‘You mind what you’re doing,’ I said. ‘Get somebody you know something about, or you may find yourself landed with this poisoning woman — what’s her name — Andrews. Don’t want to be sending wreaths to your funeral yet awhile,’ I said. He laughed, but it’s no laughing matter and so I told him. What we pay the police for I simply don’t know. Nearly a month now, and they can’t seem to lay hands on the woman. All they say is, they think she’s hanging about the neighborhood and ‘may seek situation as cook.’ As cook! Now I ask you!”

“You don’t think she committed suicide, then?” suggested Mr. Mummery.

“Suicide, my foot!” retorted Mr. Brookes, coarsely. “Don’t you believe it, my boy. That coat found in the river was all eyewash. They don’t commit suicide, that sort don’t.”

“What sort?”

“Those arsenic-maniacs. They’re too damned careful of their own skins. Cunning as weasels, that’s what they are. It’s only to be hoped they’ll manage to catch her before she tries her hand on anybody else. As I told Philipson — —”

“You think Mrs. Andrews did it, then?”

“Did it? Of course she did it. It’s plain as the nose on your face. Looked after her old father, and he died suddenly — left her a bit of money, too. Then she keeps house for an elderly gentleman, and he dies suddenly. Now there’s this husband and wife — man dies and woman taken very ill, of arsenic poisoning. Cook runs away, and you ask, did she do it? I don’t mind betting that when they dig up the father and the other old bird they’ll find them bung-full of arsenic, too. Once that sort gets started, they don’t stop. Grows on ’em, as you might say.”

“I suppose it does,” said Mr. Mummery. He picked up his paper again and studied the photograph of the missing woman. “She looks harmless enough,” he remarked. “Rather a nice, motherly-looking kind of woman.”

“She’s got a bad mouth,” pronounced Mr. Brookes. He had a theory that character showed in the mouth. “I wouldn’t trust that woman an inch.”

As the day went on, Mr. Mummery felt better. He was rather nervous about his lunch, choosing carefully a little boiled fish and custard pudding and being particular not to rush about immediately after the meal. To his great relief, the fish and custard remained where they were put, and he was not visited by that tiresome pain which had become almost habitual in the last fortnight. By the end of the day he became quite lighthearted. The bogey of illness and doctor’s bills ceased to haunt him. He bought a bunch of bronze Chrysanthemums to carry home to Ethel, and it was with a feeling of pleasant anticipation that he left the train and walked up the garden path of Mon Abri.

He was a little dashed by not finding his wife in the sitting-room. Still clutching the bunch of chrysanthemums he pattered down the passage and pushed open the kitchen door.

Nobody was there but the cook. She was sitting at the table with her back to him, and started up almost guiltily as he approached.

“Lor’, sir,” she said, “you give me quite a start. I didn’t hear the front door go.”

“Where is Mrs. Mummery? Not feeling bad again, is she?”

“Well, sir, she’s got a bit of a headache, poor lamb. I made her lay down and took her up a nice cup o’ tea at half-past four. I think she’s dozing nicely now.”

“Dear, dear,” said Mr. Mummery.

“It was turning out the dining-room done it, if you ask me,” said Mrs. Sutton. “‘Now, don’t you overdo yourself, ma’am,’ I says to her, but you know how she is, sir. She gets that restless, she can’t bear to be doing nothing.”

“I know,” said Mr. Mummery. “It’s not your fault, Mrs. Sutton. I’m sure you look after us both admirably. I’ll just run up and have a peep at her. I won’t disturb her if she’s asleep. By the way, what are we having for dinner?”

“Well, I had made a nice steak-and-kidney pie,” said Mrs. Sutton, in accents suggesting that she would readily turn it into a pumpkin or a coach-and-four if it was not approved of.

“Oh!” said Mr. Mummery. “Pastry? Well, I — —”

“You’ll find it beautiful and light,” protested the cook, whisking open the oven-door for Mr. Mummery to see. “And it’s made with butter, sir, you having said that you found lard indigestible.”

“Thank you, thank you,” said Mr. Mummery. “I’m sure it will be most excellent. I haven’t been feeling altogether the thing just lately, and lard does not seem to suit me nowadays.”

“Well, it don’t suit some people, and that’s a fact,” agreed Mrs. Sutton. “I shouldn’t wonder if you’ve got a bit of a chill on the liver. I’m sure this weather is enough to upset anybody.”

She bustled to the table and cleared away the picture-paper which she had been reading.

“Perhaps the mistress would like her dinner sent up to her?” she suggested.

Mr. Mummery said he would go and see, and tiptoed his way upstairs. Ethel was lying snuggled under the eiderdown and looked very small and fragile in the big double bed. She stirred as he came in and smiled up at him.

“Hullo, darling!” said Mr. Mummery.

“Hullo! You back? I must have been asleep. I got tired and headachy, and Mrs. Sutton packed me off upstairs.”

“You’ve been doing too much, sweetheart,” said her husband, taking her hand in his and sitting down on the edge of the bed.

“Yes — it was naughty of me. What lovely flowers, Harold. All for me?”

“All for you, Tiddley-winks,” said Mr. Mummery, tenderly. “Don’t I deserve something for that?”

Mrs. Mummery smiled, and Mr. Mummery took his reward several times over.

“That’s quite enough, you sentimental old thing,” said Mrs. Mummery. “Run away, now, I’m going to get up.”

“Much better go to bed, my precious, and let Mrs. Sutton send your dinner up,” said her husband.

Ethel protested, but he was firm with her. If she didn’t take care of herself, she wouldn’t be allowed to go to the Drama Society meetings. And everybody was so anxious to have her back. The Welbecks had been asking after her and saying that they really couldn’t get on without her.

“Did they?” said Ethel with some animation. “It’s very sweet of them to want me. Well, perhaps I’ll go to bed after all. And how has my old Hubby been all day?”

“Not too bad, not too bad.”

“No more tummy-aches?”

“Well, just a little tummy-ache. But it’s quite gone now. Nothing for Tiddley-winks to worry about.”

Mr. Mummery experienced no more distressing symptoms the next day or the next. Following the advice of the newspaper expert, he took to drinking orange-juice, and was delighted with the results of the treatment. On Thursday, however, he was taken so ill in the night that Ethel was alarmed and insisted on sending for the doctor. The doctor felt his pulse and looked at his tongue and appeared to take the matter lightly. An inquiry into what he had been eating elicited the fact that dinner had consisted of pig’s trotters, followed by a milk pudding, and that, before retiring, Mr. Mummery had consumed a large glass of orange-juice, according to his new régime.

“There’s your trouble,” said Dr. Griffiths cheerfully. “Orange-juice is an excellent thing, and so are trotters, but not in combination. Pigs and oranges together are extraordinarily bad for the liver. I don’t know why they should be, but there’s no doubt that they are. Now I’ll send you round a little prescription and you stick to slops for a day or two and keep off pork. And don’t you worry about him, Mrs. Mummery, he’s as sound as a trout. You’re the one we’ve got to look after. I don’t want to see those black rings under the eyes, you know. Disturbed night, of course — yes. Taking your tonic regularly? That’s right. Well, don’t be alarmed about your hubby. We’ll soon have him out and about again.”

The prophecy was fulfilled, but not immediately. Mr. Mummery, though confining his diet to Benger’s food, bread-and-milk and beef-tea skillfully prepared by Mrs. Sutton and brought to his bedside by Ethel, remained very seedy all through Friday, and was only able to stagger rather shakily downstairs on Saturday afternoon. He had evidently suffered a “thorough upset.” However, he was able to attend to a few papers which Brookes had sent down from the office for his signature, and to deal with the household books. Ethel was not a business woman, and Mr. Mummery always ran over the accounts with her. Having settled up with the butcher, the baker, the dairy and the coal-merchant, Mr. Mummery looked up inquiringly.

“Anything more, darling?”

“Well, there’s Mrs. Sutton. This is the end of her month, you know.”

“So it is. Well, you’re quite satisfied with her, aren’t you, darling?”

“Yes, rather — aren’t you? She’s a good cook, and a sweet, motherly old thing, too. Don’t you think it was a real brain-wave of mine, engaging her like that, on the spot?”

“I do, indeed,” said Mr. Mummery.

“It was a perfect providence, her turning up like that, just after that wretched Jane had gone off without even giving notice. I was in absolute despair. It was a little bit of a gamble, of course, taking her without any references, but naturally, if she’d been looking after a widowed mother, you couldn’t expect her to give references.”

“N-no,” said Mr. Mummery. At the time he had felt uneasy about the matter, though he had not liked to say much because, of course, they simply had to have somebody. And the experiment had justified itself so triumphantly in practice that one couldn’t say much about it now. He had once rather tentatively suggested writing to the clergyman of Mrs. Sutton’s parish, but, as Ethel had said, the clergyman wouldn’t have been able to tell them anything about cooking, and cooking, after all, was the chief point.

Mr. Mummery counted out the month’s money.

“And by the way, my dear,” he said, “you might just mention to Mrs. Sutton that if she must read the morning paper before I come down, I should be obliged if she would fold it neatly afterwards.”

“What an old fuss-box you are, darling,” said his wife.

Mr. Mummery sighed. He could not explain that it was somehow important that the morning paper should come to him fresh and prim, like a virgin. Women did not feel these things.

On Sunday, Mr. Mummery felt very much better — quite his old self, in fact. He enjoyed the News of the World over breakfast in bed, reading the murders rather carefully. Mr. Mummery got quite a lot of pleasure out of murders — they gave him an agreeable thrill of vicarious adventure, for, naturally, they were matters quite remote from daily life in the outskirts of Hull.

He noticed that Brookes had been perfectly right. Mrs. Andrews’ father and former employer had been “dug up” and had, indeed, proved to be “bung-full” of arsenic.

He came downstairs for dinner — roast sirloin, with the potatoes done under the meat and Yorkshire pudding of delicious lightness, and an apple tart to follow. After three days of invalid diet, it was delightful to savor the crisp fat and underdone lean. He ate moderately, but with a sensuous enjoyment. Ethel, on the other hand, seemed a little lacking in appetite, but then, she had never been a great meat-eater. She was fastidious and, besides, she was (quite unnecessarily) afraid of getting fat.

It was a fine afternoon, and at three o’clock, when he was quite certain that the roast beef was “settling” properly, it occurred to Mr. Mummery that it would be a good thing to put the rest of those bulbs in. He slipped on his old gardening coat and wandered out to the potting-shed. Here he picked up a bag of tulips and a trowel, and then, remembering that he was wearing his good trousers, decided that it would be wise to take a mat to kneel on. When had he had the mat last? He could not recollect, but he rather fancied he had put it away in the corner under the potting-shelf. Stooping down, he felt about in the dark among the flower-pots. Yes, there it was, but there was a tin of something in the way. He lifted the tin carefully out. Of course, yes — the remains of the weedkiller.

Mr. Mummery glanced at the pink label, printed in staring letters with the legend: “ARSENICAL WEEDKILLER. POISON,” and observed, with a mild feeling of excitement, that it was the same brand of stuff that had been associated with Mrs. Andrews’ latest victim. He was rather pleased about it. It gave him a sensation of being remotely but definitely in touch with important events. Then he noticed, with surprise and a little annoyance, that the stopper had been put in quite loosely.

“However’d I come to leave it like that?” he grunted. “Shouldn’t wonder if all the goodness has gone off.” He removed the stopper and squinted into the can, which appeared to be half-full. Then he rammed the thing home again, giving it a sharp thump with the handle of the trowel for better security. After that he washed his hands carefully at the scullery tap, for he did not believe in taking risks.

He was a trifle disconcerted, when he came in after planting the tulips, to find visitors in the sitting-room. He was always pleased to see Mrs. Welbeck and her son, but he would rather have had warning, so that he could have scrubbed the garden-mold out of his nails more thoroughly. Not that Mrs. Welbeck appeared to notice. She was a talkative woman and paid little attention to anything but her own conversation. Much to Mr. Mummery’s annoyance, she chose to prattle about the Lincoln Poisoning Case. A most unsuitable subject for the tea-table, thought Mr. Mummery, at the best of times. His own “upset” was vivid enough in his memory to make him queasy over the discussion of medical symptoms, and besides, this kind of talk was not good for Ethel. After all, the poisoner was still supposed to be in the neighborhood. It was enough to make even a strong-nerved woman uneasy. A glance at Ethel showed him that she was looking quite white and tremulous. He must stop Mrs. Welbeck somehow, or there would be a repetition of one of the old, dreadful, hysterical scenes.

He broke into the conversation with violent abruptness.

“Those Forsyth cuttings, Mrs. Welbeck,” he said. “Now is just about the time to take them. If you care to come down the garden I will get them for you.”

He saw a relieved glance pass between Ethel and young Welbeck. Evidently the boy understood the situation and was chafing at his mother’s tactlessness. Mrs. Welbeck, brought up all standing, gasped slightly and then veered off with obliging readiness on the new tack. She accompanied her host down the garden and chattered cheerfully about horticulture while he selected and trimmed the cuttings. She complimented Mr. Mummery on the immaculacy of his garden paths. “I simply cannot keep the weeds down,” she said.

Mr. Mummery mentioned the weedkiller and praised its efficacy.

“That stuff!” Mrs. Welbeck started at him. Then she shuddered. “I wouldn’t have it in my place for a thousand pounds,” she said, with emphasis.

Mr. Mummery smiled. “Oh, we keep it well away from the house,” he said. “Even if I were a careless sort of person — —”

He broke off. The recollection of the loosened stopper had come to him suddenly, and it was as though, deep down in his mind, some obscure assembling of ideas had taken place. He left it at that, and went into the kitchen to fetch a newspaper to wrap up the cuttings.

Their approach to the house had evidently been seen from the sitting-room window, for when they entered, young Welbeck was already on his feet and holding Ethel’s hand in the act of saying goodbye. He maneuvered his mother out of the house with tactful promptness and Mr. Mummery returned to the kitchen to clear up the newspapers he had fished out of the drawer. To clear them up and to examine them more closely. Something had struck him about them, which he wanted to verify. He turned them over very carefully, sheet by sheet. Yes — he had been right. Every portrait of Mrs. Andrews, every paragraph and line about the Lincoln poisoning case, had been carefully cut out.

Mr. Mummery sat down by the kitchen fire. He felt as though he needed warmth. There seemed to be a curious cold lump of something at the pit of his stomach — something that he was chary of investigating.

He tried to recall the appearance of Mrs. Andrews as shown in the newspaper photographs, but he had not a good visual memory. He remembered having remarked to Brookes that it was a “motherly” face. Then he tried counting up the time since the disappearance. Nearly a month, Brookes had said — and that was a week ago. Must be over a month now. A month. He had just paid Mrs. Sutton her month’s money.

“Ethel!” was the thought that hammered at the door of his brain. At all costs, he must cope with this monstrous suspicion on his own. He must spare her any shock or anxiety. And he must be sure of his ground. To dismiss the only decent cook they had ever had out of sheer, unfounded panic, would be wanton cruelty to both women. If he did it at all, it would have to be done arbitrarily, preposterously — he could not suggest horrors to Ethel. However it was done, there would be trouble. Ethel would not understand and he dared not tell her.

But if by chance there was anything in this ghastly doubt — how could he expose Ethel to the appalling danger of having the woman in the house a moment longer? He thought of the family at Lincoln — the husband dead, the wife escaped by a miracle with her life. Was not any shock, any risk, better than that?

Mr. Mummery felt suddenly very lonely and tired. His illness had taken it out of him.

Those illnesses — they had begun, when? Three weeks ago he had had the first attack. Yes, but then he had always been rather subject to gastric troubles. Bilious attacks. Not so violent, perhaps, as these last, but undoubtedly bilious attacks.

He pulled himself together and went, rather heavily, into the sitting-room. Ethel was tucked up in a corner of the chesterfield.

“Tired, darling?”

“Yes, a little.”

“That woman has worn you out with talking. She oughtn’t to talk so much.”

“No.” Her head shifted wearily in the cushions. “All about that horrible case. I don’t like hearing about such things.”

“Of course not. Still, when a thing like that happens in the neighborhood, people will gossip and talk. It would be a relief if they caught the woman. One doesn’t like to think — —”

“I don’t want to think of anything so hateful. She must be a horrible creature.”

“Horrible. Brookes was saying the other day — —”

“I don’t want to hear what he said. I don’t want to hear about it at all. I want to be quiet. I want to be quiet!”

He recognized the note of rising hysteria.

“Tiddley-winks shall be quiet. Don’t worry, darling. We won’t talk about horrors.”

No. It would not do to talk about them.

Ethel went to bed early. It was understood that on Sundays Mr. Mummery should sit up till Mrs. Sutton came in. Ethel was a little anxious about this, but he assured her that he felt quite strong enough. In body, indeed, he did; it was his mind that felt weak and confused. He had decided to make a casual remark about the mutilated newspapers — just to see what Mrs. Sutton would say.

He allowed himself the usual indulgence of a whisky-and-soda as he sat waiting. At a quarter to ten he heard the familiar click of the garden gate. Footsteps passed up the gravel — squeak, squeak, to the back door. Then the sound of the latch, the shutting of the door, the rattle of the bolts being shot home. Then a pause. Mrs. Sutton would be taking off her hat. The moment was coming.

The step sounded in the passage. The door opened. Mrs. Sutton in her neat black dress stood on the threshold. He was aware of a reluctance to face her. Then he looked up. A plump-faced woman, her face obscured by thick horn-rimmed spectacles. Was there, perhaps, something hard about the mouth? Or was it just that she had lost most of her front teeth?

“Would you be requiring anything tonight, sir, before I go up?”

“No, thank you, Mrs. Sutton.”

“I hope you are feeling better, sir.” Her eager interest in his health seemed to him almost sinister, but the eyes behind the thick glasses were inscrutable.

“Quite better, thank you, Mrs. Sutton.”

“Mrs. Mummery is not indisposed, is she, sir? Should I take her up a glass of hot milk or anything?”

“No, thank you, no.” He spoke hurriedly, and fancied that she looked disappointed.

“Very well, sir. Good night, sir.”

“Good night. Oh! by the way, Mrs. Sutton — —”

“Yes, sir?”

“Oh, nothing,” said Mr. Mummery, “nothing.”

Next morning Mr. Mummery opened his paper eagerly. He would have been glad to learn that an arrest had been made over the weekend. But there was no news for him. The chairman of a trust company had blown out his brains, and all the headlines were occupied with tales about lost millions and ruined shareholders. Both in his own paper and in those he purchased on the way to the office, the Lincoln Poisoning Tragedy had been relegated to an obscure paragraph on a back page, which informed him that the police were still baffled.

The next few days were the most uncomfortable that Mr. Mummery had ever spent. He developed a habit of coming down early in the morning and prowling about the kitchen. This made Ethel nervous, but Mrs. Sutton offered no remark. She watched him tolerantly, even, he thought, with something like amusement. After all, it was ridiculous. What was the use of supervising the breakfast, when he had to be out of the house every day between half-past nine and six?

At the office, Brookes rallied him on the frequency with which he rang up Ethel. Mr. Mummery paid no attention. It was reassuring to hear her voice and to know that she was safe and well.

Nothing happened, and by the following Thursday he began to think that he had been a fool. He came home late that night. Brookes had persuaded him to go with him to a little bachelor dinner for a friend who was about to get married. He left the others at eleven o’clock, however, refusing to make a night of it. The household was in bed when he got back but a note from Mrs. Sutton lay on the table, informing him that there was cocoa for him in the kitchen, ready for hotting-up. He hotted it up accordingly in the little saucepan where it stood. There was just one good cupful.

He sipped it thoughtfully, standing by the kitchen stove. After the first sip, he put the cup down. Was it his fancy, or was there something queer about the taste? He sipped it again, rolling it upon his tongue. Is seemed to him to have a faint tang, metallic and unpleasant. In a sudden dread he ran out to the scullery and spat the mouthful into the sink.

After this, he stood quite still for a moment or two. Then, with a curious deliberation, as though his movements had been dictated to him, he fetched an empty medicine-bottle from the pantry-shelf, rinsed it under the tap and tipped the contents of the cup carefully into it. He slipped the bottle into his coat-pocket and moved on tip-toe to the back door. The bolts were difficult to draw without noise, but he managed it at last. Still on tip-toe, he stole across the garden to the potting-shed. Stooping down, he struck a match. He knew exactly where he had left the tin of weedkiller, under the shelf behind the pots at the back. Cautiously he lifted it out. The match flared up and burnt his fingers, but before he could light another his sense of touch had told him what he wanted to know. The stopper was loose again.

Panic seized Mr. Mummery, standing there in the earthy-smelling shed, in his dress-suit and overcoat, holding the tin in one hand and the match-box in the other. He wanted very badly to run and tell somebody what he had discovered.

Instead, he replaced the tin exactly where he had found it and went back to the house. As he crossed the garden again, he noticed a light in Mrs. Sutton’s bedroom window. This terrified him more than anything which had gone before. Was she watching him? Ethel’s window was dark. If she had drunk anything deadly there would be lights everywhere, movements, calls for the doctor, just as when he himself had been attacked. Attacked — that was the right word, he thought.

Still with the same odd presence of mind and precision, he went in, washed out the utensils and made a second brew of cocoa, which he left standing in the saucepan. He crept quietly to his bedroom. Ethel’s voice greeted him on the threshold.

“How late you are, Harold. Naughty old boy! Have a good time?”

“Not bad. You all right, darling?”

“Quite all right. Did Mrs. Sutton leave something hot for you? She said she would.”

“Yes, but I wasn’t thirsty.”

Ethel laughed. “Oh! it was that sort of a party, was it?”

Mr. Mummery did not attempt any denials. He undressed and got into bed and clutched his wife to him as though defying death and hell to take her from him. Next morning he would act. He thanked God that he was not too late.

Mr. Dimthorpe, the chemist, was a great friend of Mr. Mummery’s. They had often sat together in the untidy little shop on Spring Bank and exchanged views on greenfly and club-root. Mr. Mummery told his story frankly to Mr. Dimthorpe and handed over the bottle of cocoa. Mr. Dimthorpe congratulated him on his prudence and intelligence.

“I will have it ready for you by this evening,” he said, “and if it’s what you think it is, then we shall have a clear case on which to take action.”

Mr. Mummery thanked him, and was extremely vague and inattentive at business all day. But that hardly mattered, for Mr. Brookes, who had seen the party through to a riotous end in the small hours, was in no very observant mood. At half-past four, Mr. Mummery shut up his desk decisively and announced that he was off early, he had a call to make.

Mr. Dimthorpe was ready for him.

“No doubt about it,” he said. “I used Marsh’s test. It’s a heavy dose, no wonder you tasted it. There must be four or five grains of pure arsenic in that bottle. Look, here’s the mirror. You can see it for yourself.”

Mr. Mummery gazed at the little glass tube with its ominous purple-black stain.

“Will you ring up the police from here?” asked the chemist.

“No,” said Mr. Mummery. “No — I want to get home. God knows what’s happening there. And I’ve only just time to catch my train.”

“All right,” said Mr. Dimthorpe. “Leave it to me. I’ll ring them up for you.”

The local train did not go fast enough for Mr. Mummery. Ethel — poisoned — dying — dead — Ethel — poisoned — dying — dead — the wheels drummed in his ears. He almost ran out of the station and along the road. A car was standing at his door. He saw it from the end of the street and broke into a gallop. It had happened already. The doctor was there. Fool, murderer that he was to have left things so late.

Then, while he was still a hundred and fifty yards off, he saw the front door open. A man came out followed by Ethel herself. The visitor got into his car and was driven away. Ethel went in again. She was safe — safe!

He could hardly control himself to hang up his hat and coat and go in looking reasonably calm. His wife had returned to the armchair by the fire and greeted him in some surprise. There were tea-things on the table.

“Back early, aren’t you?”

“Yes — business was slack. Somebody been to tea?”

“Yes, young Welbeck. About the arrangements for the Drama Society.” She spoke briefly but with an undertone of excitement.

A qualm came over Mr. Mummery. Would a guest be any protection? His face must have shown his feelings, for Ethel stared at him in amazement.

“What’s the matter, Harold, you look so queer.”

“Darling,” said Mr. Mummery, “there’s something I want to tell you about.” He sat down and took her hand in his. “Something a little unpleasant, I’m afraid — —”

“Oh, ma’am!”

The cook was in the doorway.

“I beg your pardon, sir — I didn’t know you was in. Will you be taking tea or can I clear away? And oh, ma’am, there was a young man at the fishmonger’s and he’s just come from Grimsby and they’ve caught that dreadful woman — that Mrs. Andrews. Isn’t it a good thing? It worritted me dreadful to think she was going about like that, but they’ve caught her. Taken a job as housekeeper she had to two elderly ladies and they found the wicked poison on her. Girl as spotted her will get a reward. I been keeping my eyes open for her, but it’s at Grimsby she was all the time.”

Mr. Mummery clutched at the arm of his chair. It had all been a mad mistake then. He wanted to shout or cry. He wanted to apologize to this foolish, pleasant, excited woman. All a mistake.

But there had been the cocoa. Mr. Dimthorpe. Marsh’s test. Five grains of arsenic. Who, then —— ?

He glanced around at his wife, and in her eyes he saw something that he had never seen before. . . .