A Pocket Full of Rye. Агата Кристи

2

      Inspector Neele sat in Mr Fortescue’s sanctum behind Mr Fortescue’s vast sycamore desk. One of his underlings with a notebook sat unobtrusively against the wall near the door.

      Inspector Neele had a smart soldierly appearance with crisp brown hair growing back from a rather low forehead. When he uttered the phrase ‘just a matter of routine’ those addressed were wont to think spitefully: ‘And routine is about all you’re capable of!’ They would have been quite wrong. Behind his unimaginative appearance, Inspector Neele was a highly imaginative thinker, and one of his methods of investigation was to propound to himself fantastic theories of guilt which he applied to such persons as he was interrogating at the time.

      Miss Griffith, whom he had at once picked out with an unerring eye as being the most suitable person to give him a succinct account of the events which had led to his being seated where he was, had just left the room having given him an admirable résumé of the morning’s happenings. Inspector Neele propounded to himself three separate highly coloured reasons why the faithful doyenne of the typists’ room should have poisoned her employer’s mid-morning cup of tea, and rejected them as unlikely.

      He classified Miss Griffith as (a) Not the type of a poisoner, (b) Not in love with her employer, (c) No pronounced mental instability, (d) Not a woman who cherished grudges. That really seemed to dispose of Miss Griffith except as a source of accurate information.

      Inspector Neele glanced at the telephone. He was expecting a call from St Jude’s Hospital at any moment now.

      It was possible, of course, that Mr Fortescue’s sudden illness was due to natural causes, but Dr Isaacs of Bethnal Green had not thought so and Sir Edwin Sandeman of Harley Street had not thought so.

      Inspector Neele pressed a buzzer conveniently situated at his left hand and demanded that Mr Fortescue’s personal secretary should be sent in to him.

      Miss Grosvenor had recovered a little of her poise, but not much. She came in apprehensively, with nothing of the swanlike glide about her motions, and said at once defensively:

      ‘I didn’t do it!’

      Inspector Neele murmured conversationally: ‘No?’

      He indicated the chair where Miss Grosvenor was wont to place herself, pad in hand, when summoned to take down Mr Fortescue’s letters. She sat down now with reluctance and eyed Inspector Neele in alarm. Inspector Neele, his mind playing imaginatively on the themes Seduction? Blackmail? Platinum Blonde in Court? etc., looked reassuring and just a little stupid.

      ‘There wasn’t anything wrong with the tea,’ said Miss Grosvenor. ‘There couldn’t have been.’

      ‘I see,’ said Inspector Neele. ‘Your name and address, please?’

      ‘Grosvenor. Irene Grosvenor.’

      ‘How do you spell it?’

      ‘Oh. Like the Square.’

      ‘And your address?’

      ‘14 Rushmoor Road, Muswell Hill.’

      Inspector Neele nodded in a satisfied fashion.

      ‘No seduction,’ he said to himself. ‘No Love Nest. Respectable home with parents. No blackmail.’

      Another good set of speculative theories washed out.

      ‘And so it was you who made the tea?’ he said pleasantly.

      ‘Well, I had to. I always do, I mean.’

      Unhurried, Inspector Neele took her closely through the morning ritual of Mr Fortescue’s tea. The cup and saucer and teapot had already been packed up and dispatched to the appropriate quarter for analysis. Now Inspector Neele learned that Irene Grosvenor and only Irene Grosvenor had handled that cup and saucer and teapot. The kettle had been used for making the office tea and had been refilled from the cloakroom tap by Miss Grosvenor.

      ‘And the tea itself?’

      ‘It was Mr Fortescue’s own tea, special China tea. It’s kept on the shelf in my room next door.’

      Inspector Neele nodded. He inquired about sugar and heard that Mr Fortescue didn’t take sugar.

      The telephone rang. Inspector Neele picked up the receiver. His face changed a little.

      ‘St Jude’s?’

      He nodded to Miss Grosvenor in dismissal.

      ‘That’s all for now, thank you, Miss Grosvenor.’

      Miss Grosvenor sped out of the room hurriedly.

      Inspector Neele listened carefully to the thin unemotional tones speaking from St Jude’s Hospital. As the voice spoke he made a few cryptic signs with a pencil on the corner of the blotter in front of him.

      ‘Died five minutes ago, you say?’ he asked. His eye went to the watch on his wrist. Twelve forty-three, he wrote on the blotter.

      The unemotional voice said that Dr Bernsdorff himself would like to speak to Inspector Neele.

      Inspector Neele said, ‘Right. Put him through,’ which rather scandalized the owner of the voice, who had allowed a certain amount of reverence to seep into the official accents.

      There were then various clicks, buzzes, and far-off ghostly murmurs. Inspector Neele sat patiently waiting.

      Then without warning a deep bass roar caused him to shift the receiver an inch or two away from his ear.

      ‘Hallo, Neele, you old vulture. At it again with your corpses?’

      Inspector Neele and Professor Bernsdorff of St Jude’s had been brought together over a case of poisoning just over a year ago and had remained on friendly terms.

      ‘Our man’s dead, I hear, doc.’

      ‘Yes. We couldn’t do anything by the time he got here.’

      ‘And the cause of death?’

      ‘There will have to be an autopsy, naturally. Very interesting case. Very interesting indeed. Glad I was able to be in on it.’

      The professional gusto in Bernsdorff’s rich tones told Inspector Neele one thing at least.

      ‘I gather you don’t think it was natural death,’ he said dryly.

      ‘Not a dog’s chance of it,’ said Dr Bernsdorff robustly. ‘I’m speaking unofficially, of course,’ he added with belated caution.

      ‘Of course. Of course. That’s understood. He was poisoned?’

      ‘Definitely. And what’s more—this is quite unofficial, you understand—just between you and me—I’d be prepared to make a bet on what the poison was.’

      ‘In-deed?’

      ‘Taxine, my boy. Taxine.’

      ‘Taxine? Never heard of it.’

      ‘I know. Most unusual. Really delightfully unusual! I don’t say I’d have spotted it myself if I hadn’t had a case only three or four weeks ago. Couple of kids playing dolls’ tea-parties—pulled berries off a yew tree and used them for tea.’

      ‘Is that what it is? Yew berries?’

      ‘Berries or leaves. Highly poisonous. Taxine, of course, is the alkaloid. Don’t think I’ve heard of a case where it was used deliberately. Really most interesting and unusual … You’ve no idea, Neele, how tired one gets of the inevitable weed-killer. Taxine is a real treat. Of course, I may be wrong—don’t quote me, for Heaven’s sake—but I don’t think so. Interesting for you, too, I should think. Varies the routine!’

      ‘A good time is to be had by all, is that the idea? With the exception of the victim.’

      ‘Yes, yes, poor fellow.’