The door of Townsend House was opened by a very unimpressed Stephen Markham. He surveyed the small crowd before him — Edith Langford and her friend Mrs. Lundy, Detective-Sergeant Anderson, and Constable Horn — then reluctantly let them in.
“Sorry to trouble you again, sir,” said Anderson, “but we have a few more questions for the family.”
Stephen glared.
“Haven’t we been through enough today?” he asked indignantly.
Anderson’s manner became soothingly official.
“Like I said, sir, I’m terribly sorry, but unfortunately police business…” Still talking, he guided Stephen away to the drawing room, throwing a significant glance over his shoulder.
“Right,” said Edith, when the drawing room door had closed. “We need to investigate old Mr. Markham’s will. If Stephen or Alex destroyed it, that gives them a motive. Otherwise, Anabel inherits everything.”
“And she has the perfect alibi,” added Mrs. Lundy. “Us!”
“I wonder if she regrets being left all that money,” said Edith thoughtfully. “Growing up in an orphanage, she must have wished to find her family, and now they all hate her.”
“I suppose her father went overboard, trying to make up for lost time.”
“Parents.” Constable Horn shook his head. “They’ll go to any lengths for their children, won’t they?”
“Too true,” sighed Edith, thinking of her pupils at the village school — and the demanding parents that came with them.
“Constable,” she said, “if you use the hall telephone to ring Mr. Markham’s solicitor, we’ll tackle the study and see what we can find.”
The constable hurried off, and Edith and Mrs. Lundy crept into the study.
“This is so exciting!” whispered Mrs. Lundy. “Do you think we’ll find any clues?”
Edith looked doubtfully at the untidy room, which was dominated by a large mahogany desk. She examined the desk drawers, then peered into the fireplace.
“No evidence of a will being burnt,” she said.
“No sign of a will here,” said her friend from the depths of a filing cabinet.
Edith frowned at the desk, willing it to give up its secrets. In the middle was a dark stain, presumably from the poisoned tea which had sent the victim into convulsions.
“It’s lucky the cup didn’t get broken,” she said. “At least we know how the poison was administered.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Lundy’s voice came from behind a bookcase. “Constable Horn says it’s not often the doctor has a nice sample of tea to test for strychnine!”
She emerged, dusty and out of breath.
“No hidden safe,” she reported ruefully.
They conducted as thorough search as possible, but in a short time were forced to concede defeat.
“No will, nothing suspicious, not even a dropped cufflink or a wisp of cigarette ash,” grumbled Mrs. Lundy. “That Hercule Poirot has it easy, getting clues left for him all over the place.”
Constable Horn appeared in the doorway.
“Ladies,” he said, “I’m afraid you’ve been wasting your time.”
“We just came to the same conclusion,” said Edith. “Let me guess, the will is with the solicitor?”
“Been safe in London all this time.”
“But that makes the whole thing impossible!” exclaimed Mrs. Lundy.
“We must recreate the crime in our mind’s eye,” said Constable Horn importantly. “That’s what the policing manual says.” He pointed to the chair by the desk. “Mr. Markham sat there when his tea was brought in. This tea was left in reach of Stephen, Clarissa, and Alex, while the cook and the nurse made a fresh pot for themselves in the kitchen. But those three had no motive for killing Mr. Markham. Meanwhile Anabel was talking to you, and with all the motive in the world she couldn’t have touched that tea.”
“True.”
“Then the cook takes the tea into the study, the victim drinks it and a few minutes later goes into horrible convulsions, the cook and the nurse rush in, and the police are called.”
“Correct.”
“This leads us to conclude…” He paused and frowned. “To conclude that… Well, that…”
“See,” said Mrs. Lundy. “Impossible!”
Edith picked up a pretend tray in her hands.
“The cook takes in the tea,” she said, miming putting the tray on the table. “The victim drinks the tea… He overturns the cup…” She stared at the dark stain on the desk, thinking furiously, trying to make sense of all the things she’d heard and seen. “The tea…” she murmured. “Yes… The tea. And not the tea!”
She grinned at the other two triumphantly.
“The tea?” asked Mrs. Lundy.
“Only not the tea!” exclaimed Edith again. “I think I’ve figured it out. And now there’s something we need to do.”
Edith found the detective in the drawing room. His bright blue eyes twinkled as she motioned him frantically aside. When she whispered to him, his expression turned to astonishment.
“Arrest Anabel? What about her alibi?”
Edith shook her head.
“I was wrong. About the whole thing, in fact.”
“You mean she could’ve poisoned the tea after all? But how…” He stopped. “No, you can explain later. I trust you.”
He nodded to Constable Horn, and the two of them advanced on Anabel, who was sitting in a corner, a defiant cigarette in her hand.
“Anabel Rivera, I am arresting you on suspicion of murder—” he began.
“That’s a lie!” She jumped up, all assumed nonchalance gone. “I didn’t do it!”
She glanced frantically around at her new-found family, but they only averted their eyes.
“You ladies!” Anabel exclaimed desperately. “You were with me the whole time!”
“I’m afraid we omitted a detail in our statement,” said Edith quietly. “There were those few minutes when you went into the house to fetch more matches. It was enough time to stop by the hallway and poison the tea.”
“No, it isn’t true!”
“The case against you is very serious, Miss Rivera,” said Anderson. “With two witnesses who saw you go into the house, and a hefty motive, I should caution you that you’d better say no more until you have a solicitor present.”
He took her by the elbow and steered her out of the room. Anabel continued to protest loudly, exclamations flowing into Spanish when her English ran out.
Edith glanced at Mrs. Lundy. It was a big gamble, but if she was right—
A sharp movement, and one of the assembled company darted to the door.
“Wait, Detective, you have the wrong person! I confess!”
The Markham family gaped in astonishment at Nurse Banks, who was clutching the detective’s arm. Anabel gazed at her with no less amazement.
“But… why?” murmured Alex.
“Constable Horn was right,” said Edith. “Parents will resort to anything for the sake of their children. Even murder.”
In a much more sympathetic mood, Stephen poured them all drinks and turned to the detective. Constable Horn had led the murderer away, leaving many questions behind.
“What in the world just happened?” he asked.
“Over to the person who cracked the case,” said Anderson with a smile for Edith.
“It was a team effort,” she said modestly. “You, Detective, first pointed out that the only person with motive had a perfect alibi. And Mrs. Lundy examined the facts and found the case impossible. Only when I assumed the scenario of the poisoned tea to be impossible did I begin to see how the murder was really done. And then I remembered what Constable Horn said about the lengths parents go to for their children.”
“So Nurse Banks is really my mother?” asked Anabel quietly. She still looked completely shocked.
“Yes,” said Edith gently. “She had to give you up when she came home to her family. They saw her divorce as a disgrace.”
“In Spain it can be like that,” agreed Anabel. “But Mr. Markh— my father said she wrote to him on her deathbed.”
“That was part of her plan,” said Edith. “She insinuated herself into the household. After so many years, Mr. Markham didn’t recognise her, especially in a nurse’s uniform. What was it you said about her? ‘All starch and spectacles.’ It was the perfect disguise. She waited until he found you and changed his will, and then she struck. I suppose it was her way of making amends to you.”
“How horrible,” murmured Anabel.
“But she couldn’t just pose as a nurse!” exclaimed Alex.
“She was a nurse,” Edith explained. “Apparently she’d met Mr. Markham during the war. And what would a young lady do in the war effort?”
“Of course. Nursing.”
“That’s how she poisoned him. Not with the tea, Mrs. Lundy was right that it was impossible. For one thing, strychnine takes longer than a few minutes to take effect — more like fifteen. It was the strychnine in the cup that threw us off.”
“Yes, what about that?” asked Clarissa.
“She put that in later. Remember that she and the cook ran into the study together. Someone had to go back to the hall to telephone the police. And who would be left with the victim? Naturally the nurse.”
“Positively diabolical!” exclaimed Stephen, then looked at Anabel sheepishly. “So how did she poison Father?”
“With the medicine she gave him before tea time. Then she made sure to leave the room with Anabel and stay with the cook, giving herself an alibi.”
“It’s too awful,” sighed Anabel. Clarissa put an arm around her. Alex took her hand, and Stephen poured her another drink.
Edith smiled at her friends, and tactfully they retreated, leaving the family to make amends.
“I should have known,” said Edith thoughtfully as they walked back to Longborough. “The name she chose gave her away.”
“How so?” asked Anderson.
“The surname Rivera is from the Spanish for riverbank.”
“Nurse Banks. Of course.” He shook his head. “Is there anything you don’t know, Miss Langford?”
“The secret to Mrs. Lundy’s delicious welcome-to-the-village cake,” said Edith with a smile.
“Ah,” said Mrs. Lundy enigmatically. “That is between me and Archibald. And, being a cat, he is not likely to tell.”
Daria Writes 