“Look at lucky Olive Larnoch. A month ago she didn’t know where to
turn for sixpence!”
Ivy Lexton, and one of her young married women friends, Janet Horley,
were lunching together at the Embassy Club.
Every place in the great room was occupied. At the next table an
American diplomat was being lunched by one of the younger Ministers of
the Crown; and close by a popular actor-manager was entertaining a
pretty young duchess. Two sisters, who had just leapt into musical
comedy fame, were laughing at the top of their voices, while being
gaily chaffed by their host, an elderly peer who had entertained two
generations of charming women by the daring quality of his wit.
Olive Larnoch? Ivy gazed eagerly across at a couple sitting at right
angles from where she sat herself.
“Look at her string of pearls studded with huge diamonds! They’re all
real!” went on Mrs. Horley excitedly. “As for the emerald Jock Larnoch
gave her the day they became engaged, it’s worth five thousand
pounds----”
“I’m sure I’ve seen her before,” exclaimed Ivy.
“Of course you must have often seen her, in the old days, when she was
Olive Ryde, a war widow without a bob----”
“--and a stocking-shop in North Bolton Street?”
“You’ve got it in one! And her stockings always laddered, too. Well,
one evening, she met a Scotch man of business here at the Embassy,
named Jock Larnoch. He’d never been in a night-club before, so I
suppose it went to his head! I happen to know the people who brought
him here, and the funny thing is that they hadn’t an idea he was made
of money. They just thought him comfortably off. Yet his first
love-gift to Olive was a Baby Rolls--she didn’t know what to do with
it, poor dear!”
Ivy gazed with absorbed interest at the fortunate bride of the Scotch
millionaire. How marvellous it must be to have everything one wants,
including an adoring husband! She sighed a quick, bitter little secret
sigh. The sight of this fortunate young woman had brought back to her
poignant memories and a sudden realisation of what her life might be
now, had she been, a few weeks ago, what Miles Rushworth called
“free.”
“Is that nice-looking man her spouse?”
“Heavens, no! That’s Bob Crickle, who wrote the book of _T’wee-t’we_.
Jock Larnoch spends every other week ‘at the works’; there never was
such a lucky girl as Olive!”
Again, with a sensation almost of despair, Ivy thought of Rushworth,
and of all that he might have meant in her life by now if he hadn’t
been so--so old-fashioned and queer in his ideas.
The Lextons had been settled down in London for nearly two months, and
Jervis was going to Rushworth’s City office each morning. As for Ivy,
she was once more a popular member of the happy-go-lucky, while for
the most part financially solid, set with whom she had danced, played
bridge, lunched, and supped through life, in the days when she and her
husband were still living on what remained of Jervis’s fortune.
But woman does not live by amusement alone. Ivy loved being loved, so
she had “made it up” with Roger Gretorex.
Rushworth was far away, and though he wrote to her by every mail, his
letters, as she sometimes pettishly told herself, might have been read
aloud at Charing Cross. So it was that, though she had really done
with Gretorex, she still went, now and again, to Ferry Place, but far
less often than in the days when she had been utterly down on her
luck, and at odds with Fate.
And yet, though the Lextons’ troubles seemed over, black care was
again beginning to dog Ivy’s light footsteps, for she was once more
what she called, to herself, very hard up.
True, the couple were now living in what appeared to Ivy’s husband
extreme comfort, and even luxury. Not only was their flat one of the
best in the fine block called the Duke of Kent Mansion, charmingly
furnished; but an excellent cook, and a good day-maid had been left
there by Miles Rushworth’s cousins. So what might have been called the
Lextons’ home-life ran as if on wheels.
From the moment, however, that Ivy had come back to London, secure in
the knowledge that her husband was now earning a thousand pounds a
year, paid monthly, she had again fallen into the way of buying, or,
better still, of ordering on account, any pretty costly trifle, any
becoming frock or hat, that took her fancy. She also, in a way that
seemed modest to herself, had at once begun to entertain.
It was such fun to give lively little luncheon parties to her women
friends--lunch being followed as often as not by bridge! One,
sometimes even two, bridge tables would be set out in the attractive
drawing-room and, in due course, a bountiful tea would be served by
the smiling day-maid, for those of Ivy’s guests who were not afraid of
getting fat.
The good-natured old cook had not been used to so much work, and she
had very soon declared, not unreasonably, that she must have extra
help in the kitchen.
Lexton, who was rather pathetically anxious “to make good,” always
went down to the City each morning by the Underground. But he came
back by omnibus, and he invariably dropped in at his club on his way
home, and, as he was an open-hearted fellow, he often asked one of his
new business acquaintances to drop in too. That, also, meant
entertaining, but on a far more modest scale than that in which Ivy
indulged.
Though Mrs. Jervis Lexton had learnt long ago the fine art of living
on credit, there are a great many things which even in London a
prosperous young couple with a good address cannot obtain, as it were,
for nothing. Each week many pounds slipped through pretty, popular
Ivy’s fingers, and she honestly could not have told you how or why. So
it was inevitable that she should again begin to feel short of
money--short, even, of petty cash.
Often she told herself that it was maddening to feel that if Rushworth
were in England she could almost certainly have had all the money she
needed, and that without too great a sacrifice of her pride, or, what
was far more important, his good opinion of her. Just before leaving
for South Africa he had given her a hundred pounds as “a birthday
gift.” How good he was, how generous! Her heart thrilled with real
gratitude when she thought of Miles Rushworth.
Late in the same day that his wife had lunched at the Embassy Club,
Lexton, who was going out to what he called a stag party that evening,
came back from the City to find an unpleasantly threatening letter,
this time from a tailor to whom he had owed for years a huge bill, and
who had evidently just heard of his new-found prosperity.
For once Ivy’s husband looked ruffled and cross, and she, also for
once, felt very angry indeed. Jervis had begun, so she told herself
with rage, to put on airs, just because he had a job--a job that she
was too clever and tactful ever to remind him was entirely owing to
her friendship with his employer.
At last he left the flat and, with a feeling of relief, she went off,
too, by omnibus, to the tiny house where Roger Gretorex lived and
practised his profession. It was in what might have been called a
slum, though each of the mid-Victorian, two-storied, cottage-like
dwellings were now inhabited by decent working people and their
families.
Ivy had not been to No. 6 Ferry Place for nearly a fortnight, and her
lover had written her a long, reproachful letter, imploring her to
come and see him there, if for only a few moments. It made him feel so
wretched, so he wrote, never to see her now, except in the company of
people and in surroundings which filled him with contemptuous dislike,
or, in a sense worse still, only in the presence of her husband.
When everything was going well with Ivy Lexton, she felt bored, often
even irritated, with Roger Gretorex and his great love for her. But
the moment she was under the weather and worried, as she was again
beginning to be, then she found it a comfort to be with a man who not
only worshipped her, but who never wanted her to make any effort to
amuse or flatter him, as did all the other men with whom she was now
once more thrown in contact.
So it was that this late afternoon, immediately after Jervis had left
the flat, she telephoned and told the enraptured Gretorex that as she
happened to have this evening free, she would come and have dinner
with him at Ferry Place.
And yet, as she sat in the almost empty omnibus on her way to
Westminster, her heart and her imagination were full of Miles
Rushworth, and not once did she even throw a fleeting thought to the
man she was going to see. Gretorex had become to Ivy Lexton what she
had once heard a friend of hers funnily describe as a kind of
“Stepney” to her husband. Sometimes she felt that she really preferred
Jervis to Roger. Jervis was so kindly, easygoing, unexacting.
Still to-night she felt cross with Jervis, because of the scrap they
had had over the tailor’s bill, so the thought of secret revenge was
sweet.
But the image securely throned in her inmost heart was that of Miles
Rushworth.
The knowledge that Rushworth, a man possessed of great, to her
imagination limitless, wealth, was loving her, longing for her, and
yet, owing to his oversensitive, absurdly scrupulous, conscience,
hopelessly out of her reach, awoke in Ivy Lexton a feeling of fierce,
passionate exasperation.
At last she stepped lightly out of the omnibus, the conductor, and an
old gentleman who had been her only fellow-passenger, eagerly
assisting her. She smiled at them both. Even the most trifling tribute
to her beauty always gave her a touch of genuine pleasure. She was
looking very pretty to-night in a charming frock, and in her hand she
held the curious little bolster bag which Rushworth had bought for her
at Dieppe.
Eight o’clock boomed from Big Ben, and Roger Gretorex, his arm round
Ivy’s shoulder, led her into the tiny dining-room, where had been
prepared in haste an attractive little meal. She had been what the man
who loved her with so devoted and absorbing a passion, called “kind,”
and he felt happy and at peace.
After they had finished dinner they sat on at table for a while, and,
as she looked across at him, Ivy told herself that her lover was
indeed a splendid-looking man--a man many a woman would envy her.
“Sometimes,” he said in a low voice, “I dream such a wonderful dream,
my dearest. I dreamt it last night----”
She looked at him roguishly. “Tell me your dream!”
“I dreamt that you were free, and that we were married, you and I----”
She made no answer to that remark, only shook her head, a little
pettishly. For one thing, she always felt a trifle cross, as well as
bored, when Gretorex talked in what she called to herself a sloppy,
sentimental way. Could he seriously suppose that, if she had the good
fortune to be what he called “free,” she would marry a poverty-stricken
doctor who was forced to live and work in a slum? He evidently did
suppose that; and the fact that he did so made her feel uncomfortable.
“I don’t set out to be particularly good, Roger, but I do think it
awfully wrong to talk like that!”
He said slowly, “I agree, it is.”
“It makes me feel I oughtn’t to come and see you like this, in your
own house. Jervis would be very much put out if he knew I ever came
here.”
Gretorex, wincing inwardly, made no answer to that observation.
Sometimes this woman, who was all his life, would say something that
made him experience a violent feeling of recoil.
She had got up as she spoke, and with a sensation of relief she put on
her hat. It was still early, and she had suddenly remembered an
amusing bachelor girl named Judy Swinston, who lived not far from
here, in Queen Anne’s Mansions. Judy had said that she was always at
home after dinner on Thursdays, so why shouldn’t she, Ivy, go along
there now? She could telephone from a call office to find out if it
was really true that the Bohemian crowd who formed Judy Swinston’s
circle didn’t bother to dress.
In some ways Ivy Lexton was very conventional. She would have disliked
making part of any gathering which could be called a party, in her
present day-frock and walking shoes, charming as were both the frock
and the shoes. It was a perfect St. Martin’s summer evening, more like
June than the first of November.
“You’re not going yet?” asked Gretorex, in a tone almost of anguish.
“Jervis said he’d try and be back by half-past ten, so I knew I’d have
to be home early.”
“I see. All right. You won’t mind my walking with you a little way?”
And then she turned and faced him, angry at his obtuseness. How
utterly selfish men were!
“I should mind--mind very much indeed! Whenever we’ve left the place
together, I’ve always felt uncomfortable. Taxis go all sorts of ways
nowadays--just to make their fares bigger, I suppose. The other day a
taxi brought Jervis and me down close here, past the end of this
street, though it was quite out of our way. I should hate it, if he
met us walking together at this time of night. He would think it so
queer.”
Again he said sorely, “I see. All right.”
Suddenly there came the sound of raucous cries echoing down Ferry
Place.
“… Verdict in the Branksome Case.… All the winners!”
“I thought they weren’t allowed to cry papers now?” said Ivy, as the
shouts drew nearer and nearer.
“They cry them down here. As for the Branksome Case, to my mind the
verdict is a foregone conclusion. The man will hang, and they’ll let
the woman off--though she ought to hang too!”
“A lot of people were talking about the Branksome mystery where I was
lunching to-day,” exclaimed Ivy. “I knew nothing about it, so I felt
rather a fool. The truth is, I’m not a bit interested in murders,
Roger. I think it’s morbid to want to know about such things.”
“Do you, darling? Then I’m afraid I’m morbid. This Branksome Case is
of peculiar interest to every medical man, owing to the simple fact
that there is a great deal of secret poisoning going on nowadays.”
“What a horrid idea!” And Ivy Lexton did indeed think it very horrid.
“Horrid, no doubt. But I’m afraid unquestionably true. In fact I heard
the question put only the other day, as to what a doctor ought to do
if he suspects anything of the sort is going on?”
She looked at him with a certain curiosity. “What would you do,
Roger?”
“I’ve never been able to make up my mind. Of course, this Branksome
story was complicated by the fact that two were in it--a husband and a
wife. They’d got everything they could out of the woman’s lover, so
they made up their minds to do away with him. They were awfully
clever, and it’s a marvel they were ever found out.”
“How did they do it?” she asked, eager at last.
“With arsenic--fly papers.”
“Fly papers?”
He laughed. “Wonderful what people will do sometimes, isn’t it?
Steeping fly papers in water has long been a common way of ridding
oneself of a tiresome husband. There’s arsenic in almost everything we
use--at least, that’s what’s said.”
“Arsenic?” Ivy pronounced the word very carefully. It was a new word
in her limited vocabulary.
He smiled across at her. Every moment of her presence was precious to
him, so he talked on, eager too. “There’s plenty of the stuff in my
surgery, at any rate. It’s a splendid tonic, as well as a poison.”
“What a funny thing!” and she smiled at him, apparently rather amused
at the notion.
Looking back, for even Ivy Lexton looked back now and again to certain
crucial moments of her life, she realised it must have been at that
very moment that a certain as yet vague and formless plan slipped into
her mind.
“As a matter of fact,” Gretorex smiled back at her, “I’ve got to make
up and send off this very evening a mixture which will contain
arsenic----”
“I must be off now,” Ivy said, a thought regretfully.
They walked down the short passage, and through the two doors which
separated the house from the surgery. Once there he turned up the
light. Anything--anything to keep her a few moments longer in his
company!
He went quickly across from the door to the left corner of the bare,
low-ceilinged room, now his surgery, which had once been an outhouse.
There he unlocked the cupboard where he kept his dangerous drugs, and
lifted down a jar on which was printed on a red label the word
“Arsenic.” Placing it on a deal table above which was a hanging
bookcase, he exclaimed, “If you would like to see, darling, what----”
And then there came a thunderous knock at the front door of the tiny
house.
“Wait one moment! Don’t go yet, dearest,” he said hastily. “I won’t be
a minute!”
He rushed away, though even in his haste he did not forget to shut
both the doors which separated the surgery from the rest of the house.
Ivy Lexton gave a quick look round the sordid-looking stone-flagged
walled space, through which her eager little feet had so often carried
her last winter, at a time when she had been in love, really in love,
with Roger Gretorex.
She noted that there was no blind to the little square window. But,
even in the unlikely event of anyone looking in through that window,
no one standing outside could see, while she stood by the table, what
she was doing, or was about to do.
Standing very still, she listened. From the consulting-room at the
other end of the passage there came the sound of voices, raised in
argument.
Hesitatingly she took up the jar Gretorex had placed on the table.
Then she looked at it with avid curiosity. How strange and exciting to
know that Death was in that jar--prisoned, but ready to escape and
become the servant of any quick-witted, determined human being.
When, at last, she put the jar down again, she noticed what she had
not seen till now, that a glass spoon lay on the table.
Once more she looked round the bare surgery. Once more she listened
intently, only to hear again Gretorex’s voice, far away, raised in
argument.
All at once and in feverish haste she began unscrewing the top of the
jar. Once this was achieved, she pressed the jewelled top of her
bolster bag, and as it sprang open, she took her powder puff out of
its _pochette_. Then, taking the glass spoon off the table, with its
help she began shaking into the little white leather-lined pocket a
quantity of the powder which she knew to be a deadly poison.
After snapping-to the bag, she replaced its cap on the jar labelled
“Arsenic” and screwed it tight. Then she stepped back from the table a
little way, and stood quite still, thinking of what she had just done.
Why had she done that--to herself she called it “funny” thing? Deep in
her heart she knew quite well the answer to her own wordless question.
But she did not admit her purpose, even to herself.
All at once she heard sounds just behind her--the sounds made by
slippered, shuffling feet.
Filled with a sudden shock of sick terror, she turned slowly round to
see Roger Gretorex’s old charwoman, Mrs. Huntley, standing uncertainly
in the middle of the room.
The woman had evidently let herself in from the back alley with a
latchkey. But how long had she been here? And how much had she seen?
“Why, Mrs. Huntley,” said Ivy in a shaken voice. “You did startle me!”
“Did I, ma’am? I beg your pardon, I’m sure. I just come in to see if
the doctor wanted anything,” the old woman spoke in a pleasant,
refined voice.
“He’ll be here in a minute----”
“I won’t disturb him now, ma’am. I’ll come in later.”
Opening the door through which she had entered, she slipped through it
into the gathering darkness. Then she shut the door noiselessly behind
her.
Ivy moved again close to the deal table. She felt violently disturbed,
even terrified. Yet the old woman had looked absolutely placid, though
a little taken aback at finding a lady where she had expected to see
nobody, excepting maybe her employer, and him only if he were engaged
in making up medicines.
Hardly knowing what she was doing, Ivy Lexton glanced up at the row of
books in the shabby little bookcase above the table by which she was
standing, and she saw that among them was one entitled, “Poisons.”
She was just about to take it down when she heard quick footsteps in
the short passage, and Gretorex opened the surgery door.
“I won’t be more than a few moments now! You will stay, my dearest,
won’t you, till I’ve done with this chap?”
“Of course I will. Don’t hurry,” she answered, in a soft, kindly tone.
She took down the book and hurriedly she turned to the index.
Yes! Here was the word she sought. There were a number of
references--half a dozen at least--and she turned up, “Effects of
Arsenic; page 154.”
A famous case of secret poisoning was quoted, with every detail set
out, and she read it with intense, absorbed interest. It told her what
she had so much wanted to know, and feared to ask Roger Gretorex, how
a secret poisoner went to work, and also how long the process took
before--before--even to herself she did not end the question.…
As she put the volume back on the bookshelf her mind travelled into
the future--the now possible, now probable, future.
Standing there, in Gretorex’s barely furnished surgery, she saw
herself the cherished wife of Miles Rushworth, and not only rich
beyond the dreams of even her desire, but also secure from every
conceivable earthly ill.
Had Ivy Lexton belonged to another generation, she would doubtless
have called what had just happened to herself “providential.” As it
was, she just thought it a piece of astounding, almost incredible,
good luck.
She next took down from the shelf a thin little book dealing with
infantile paralysis. But she had only just time to open it, and to
glance, with a feeling of shrinking distaste, at one of the
illustrations, when Gretorex burst into the surgery. “The poor chap’s
gone at last! What are you reading, darling?”
“A book about children, dear.”
There came a pathetic look into her eyes, and Gretorex gently took the
thin volume from her hand. Then he kissed that lovely, soft little
hand.
She had told him, very early in their acquaintance, that her husband
hated the idea of children, as if they had a child it would surely
interfere with the kind of idle, gay life that he, Jervis, loved. For
the hundredth time Gretorex cursed Lexton for a heartless brute.
She allowed him to take her in his arms. For a few moments they clung
together, and she kissed him with real passion, responding as she had
not responded for what seemed to Gretorex an eternity of frustrate
longing.
Ivy had been frightened, very much frightened, just now. It was
surprisingly comfortable and reassuring to feel his strong arms round
her, to know that he loved her--loved her.
“Did you buy an evening paper?” she asked at last, disengaging herself
from his close embrace.
“No, but the chap who came to see me had one in his hand, and I
believe he left it behind. Would you like me to give it you to read in
the omnibus?”
“It would hurt my eyes to do that. I was only wondering what had
happened about that Branksome Case?”
“I can tell you that without looking at the paper, darling. In fact I
did tell you--but you’ve forgotten, my pet.”
“What was it that you told me?”
“That they’ll hang the man, and let the woman off!”
He spoke quite confidently. “There’s not a doubt but that she really
planned the whole thing out. But he, poor wretch, bought the fly
papers. Most of the secret poisoning that goes on is done by women.”
“How dreadful!”
“A great many dreadful things go on in this strange world, my darling
love.”
“You mean things that are not found out?”
He nodded, almost gaily. He was glad, so glad, to find a subject that
interested her, and that might make her stay a few moments longer.
So, “I’m afraid that only one secret poisoner is found out for six
that go scot free,” he went on. “Even now it’s difficult to tell the
difference between the effect produced by, say, arsenic, and a very
ordinary ailment. A post-mortem only takes place if there’s already
reason to suspect foul play.”
“Post-mortem?”
The word meant nothing to Ivy Lexton.
“In the vast majority of cases the danger is negligible,” he
continued. “The secret poisoner, especially if a woman, is never even
suspected, and if she is----”
“If she is?” echoed Ivy uncertainly.
“The doctor, nine times out of ten, gives her the benefit of the
doubt!”
He ended his careless sentence with a laugh. It was of her, of her
dear nearness, of her kind, soft, loving manner, that he was thinking,
and not at all of what he was saying.
“Would you let her off, Roger?”
He grew suddenly grave. “Well, no, I don’t think I would. You see it
wouldn’t be right. For one thing, she might try the same game over
again.”
She looked at him coldly. Few men were as set on doing right as was
apparently this man.
Then she smiled, a curiously subtle, sweet little smile. She knew, if
no one else did, the weak place in his defences. It was pleasant to
know that no other woman would ever have that knowledge. Ivy believed,
rightly or wrongly, that a man does not love twice as this man,
Gretorex, loved her.
“Well, I must go now,” she said at last. And then, for she saw the
sudden darkening of his face, “You may as well come with me as far as
the corner of Great Smith Street, Roger. It’s quite dark now.”
Once more she allowed him to kiss her. Once more there came from her
the response which had now for so long been lacking, and of which the
lack made him feel so desolate.
As they walked along the now shrouded, deserted little back streets of
old Westminster, Ivy Lexton was very gentle in her manner to the man
who loved her with so whole-hearted and selfless a devotion.
She had quite decided that soon they must part, never to meet again.
And yet, though Gretorex would never know it, it was to him, albeit
indirectly, that she would owe her splendid freedom, and all that
freedom was to bring to her. It was that knowledge, maybe, that made
her manner so gentle and so kind.
When at last Jervis Lexton came in, he found his wife playing patience
in the pretty sitting-room where she spent so little of her time.
He felt a little surprised, for unless she happened to be out, as was
the case six nights out of seven, Ivy always went to bed early.
“Thank God, I’m safe home again!” he exclaimed. “It was the most awful
show. The grub wasn’t bad, but the champagne was like syrup. I’ve
‘some thirst,’ I can tell you!”
“Wait a minute, and”--she smiled a gay little smile--“I’ll mix you a
highball, old boy. Would you like a Bizzy Izzy, just as a treat?”
“The answer, ma’am, is ‘yes’!”
She went off into the dining-room, and took from the fine old mahogany
brass-bound wine-cooler a bottle of rye whisky and a bottle of sherry.
Then, carefully, she poured a small wineglass of each into a tall
glass.
With the glass in her hand she hurried down the passage, and so into
the bright, clean, empty kitchen. There she soon found some ice, and,
after having chipped off a number of small pieces, she waited a moment
and listened intently, for she did not want to be surprised in what
she was about to do.
But the old cook was lying sound asleep in the bedroom which lay
beyond the kitchen. Ivy could even hear her long, drawn-out snores.
Opening a cupboard door very, very quietly, she found a syphon, and
filled up the glass almost to the top with soda-water. Then, quickly,
she mixed in with a clean wooden spoon a good pinch of the powder she
had secreted in the _pochette_ of her bag.
“A perfect Bizzy Izzy!” Ivy called out gaily as she swiftly went down
the corridor, holding in her steady hand the tall glass, now full
almost to the brim.
Through the hall and back into the sitting-room she hurried, and then
she watched, with an odd sensation of excitement, her husband toss off
the delicious iced drink.
“This soda fizz has got a bitter tang to it,” he exclaimed, “but it’s
none the worse for that!”
Ivy stayed awake for a long time that night. She had suddenly begun to
feel afraid, she hardly knew of what. But at last she dropped off to
sleep.
At nine o’clock the next morning she awoke. What was it that had
happened last night? Then she remembered.
Leaping out of bed she rushed across the dressing-table, on which
there lay the mother-of-pearl bolster bag she had had out with her
last night. Opening it she took out her handkerchief, her powder puff,
and her purse. Then she put the bag, now quite empty save for the
white powder the tiny white leather-lined inner recess contained, into
an old despatch-box which had belonged to her father.
It was the only “lock up” Ivy Lexton possessed; at no time of her life
had she been so foolish as to keep dangerous love-letters more than a
very short time. She put the despatch-box in what was the empty half
of a huge Victorian inlaid wardrobe. Then she got into bed again, and
rang the bell.
A moment later the day-maid opened the bedroom door.
“Mr. Lexton was ill in the night, ma’am. He thinks he ate something
last evening that didn’t agree with him. He asked me to tell you that
he’s not going to the office this morning.”