Bitter Almonds

 

A MONTAGUE EGG STORY

 

‘DASH IT!’ EXCLAIMED MR Montague Egg, ‘there’s another perfectly good

customer gone west.’

He frowned at his morning paper, which informed him that an inquest

would be held that day on the body of Mr Bernard Whipley, a wealthy and

rather eccentric old gentleman, to whom the firm of Plummett & Rose had

from time to time sold a considerable quantity of their choice vintage wines,

fine old matured spirits and liqueurs.

Monty had more than once been invited by Mr Whipley to sample his

own goods, sitting in the pleasant study at Cedar Lawn – a bottle of ancient

port, carried up carefully from the cellar by Mr Whipley himself, or a

liqueur brandy, brought out from the tall mahogany cabinet that stood in the

alcove.

Mr Whipley never allowed anybody but himself to handle anything

alcoholic. You never, he said, could trust servants, and he had no fancy for

being robbed, or finding the cook with her head under the kitchen dresser.

So Mr Egg frowned and sighed, and then frowned still more, on seeing

that Mr Whipley had been discovered dead, apparently from prussic acid

poisoning, after drinking an after-dinner glass of crème de menthe.

It is not agreeable when customers suddenly die poisoned after

partaking of the drinks one has supplied to them, and it is not good for

business.

Mr Egg glanced at his watch. The town where he was at that moment

reading the paper was only fifteen miles distant from the late Mr Whipley’s place of residence. Monty decided that it might be just as well to run over

and attend the inquest. He was, at any rate, in a position to offer testimony

as to the harmless nature of crème de menthe as supplied by Messrs

Plummett & Rose.

Accordingly he drove over there as soon as he had finished his

breakfast, and by sending in his card to the coroner, secured for himself a

convenient seat in the crowded little schoolroom where the inquest was

being held.

The first witness was the housekeeper, Mrs Minchin, a stout, elderly

person of almost exaggerated respectability. She said she had been over

twenty years in Mr Whipley’s service. He was nearly eighty years old, but

very active and healthy, except that he had to be careful of his heart, as was

only to be expected.

She had always found him an excellent employer. He had been, perhaps,

a little close about financial matters and had kept a very sharp eye on the

housekeeping, but personally she was not afraid of such, being as careful of

his interests as she would be of her own. She had kept house for him ever

since his wife’s death.

‘He was quite in his usual health on Monday evening,’ Mrs Minchin

went on. ‘Mr Raymond Whipley had telephoned in the afternoon to say he

would be down for dinner –’

‘That is Mr Whipley’s son?’

‘Yes – his only child.’ Here Mrs Minchin glanced across at a thin,

sallow, young-old man, seated near Mr Egg on the bench reserved for

witnesses, and sniffed rather meaningly. ‘Mr and Mrs Cedric were staying

in the house. Mr Cedric Whipley is Mr Whiple’s nephew. He had no other

relations.’

Mr Egg identified Mr and Mrs Cedric Whipley as the fashionably

dressed young man and woman in black who sat on the other side of Mr

Raymond. The witness proceeded.

‘Mr Raymond arrived in his car at half-past six, and went in at once to

see his father in the study. He came out again when the dressing gong rang

for dinner, at a quarter past seven. He passed me in the hall, and I thought

he looked rather upset. As Mr Whipley didn’t come out, I went in to him.

He was sitting at his writing table, reading something that looked to me like

a legal paper.

‘I said, “Excuse me, Mr Whipley, sir, but did you hear the gong?” He

was sometimes a little hard of hearing, though wonderfully keen in all his

faculties, considering his age. He looked up and said, “All right, Mrs

Minchin,” and went back to what he was doing. I said to myself, “Mr

Raymond’s been putting him out again.” At half-past –’

‘One moment. What had you in your mind about Mr Raymond?’

“Well, nothing much, only Mr Whipley didn’t always approve of Mr

Raymond’s goings-on, and they sometimes had words about it. Mr Whipley

disliked Mr Raymond’s business.

‘At half-past seven,’ continued the witness, ‘Mr Whipley went upstairs

to dress, and he seemed all right then, only his step was tired and heavy. I

was waiting in the hall, in case he needed any assistance, and as he passed

me he asked me to telephone to Mr Whitehead to ask him to come over the

next morning – Mr Whitehead the lawyer. He did not say what it was for. I

did as he asked me, and when Mr Whipley came down again, about ten

minutes to eight, I told him Mr Whitehead had had the message, and would

be with him at ten the next day.’

‘Did anybody else hear you say that?’

‘Yes. Mr Raymond and Mr and Mrs Cedric were in the hall, having their

cocktails. They must all have heard me. Dinner was served at eight –’

‘Were you present at dinner?’

‘No. I have my meals in my own room. Dinner was over about a quarter

to nine, and the parlour-maid took coffee into the drawing-room for Mr and

Mrs Cedric, and into the study for Mr Whipley and Mr Raymond. I was

alone in my room till 9 o’clock, when Mr and Mrs Cedric came in to have a

little chat. We were all together till just before half-past nine, when we

heard the study door slam violently, and a few minutes later, Mr Raymond

came in, looking very queer. He had his hat and coat on.

‘Mr Cedric said: “Hullo, Ray!” He took no notice, and said to me, “I

shan’t be staying the night, after all, Mrs Minchin. I’m going back to Town

at once.” I said, “Very good, Mr Raymond. Does Mr Whipley know of your

change of plans?” He laughed in a funny way, and said: “Oh yes. He knows

all about it.” He went out again and Mr Cedric followed him and, I think,

said something like, “Don’t lose your hair, old man.” Mrs Cedric said to

me, she was afraid Mr Raymond might have had a quarrel with the old

gentleman.

‘About ten minutes later, I heard the two young gentlemen coming

downstairs, and went out to see that Mr Raymond had left nothing behind

him, as he was apt to be forgetful. He was just going out of the front door

with Mr Cedric. I ran after him with his scarf, which he had left on the hall-

stand. He drove away in his car very quickly and I came back into the house

with Mr Cedric.

‘As we passed the study door, Mr Cedric said, “I wonder whether my

uncle –” and then he stopped, and said, “No, better let him alone till

tomorrow.” We went back to my room, where Mrs Cedric was waiting for

us. She said, “What’s the matter, Cedric?” and he answered, “Uncle Henry’s found out about Ella. I told Ray he’d better be careful.” She said, “Oh,

dear!” and after that we changed the conversation.

‘Mr and Mrs Cedric sat with me till about eleven-thirty, when they left

me to go up to bed. I put my room in order and then came out to make my

usual round of the house. When I put out the light in the hall, I noticed that

the light was still on in Mr Whiple’s study. It was unusual for him to be up

so late, so I went to see if he had fallen asleep over a book.

‘I got no answer when I knocked, so I went in, and there he was, lying

back in his chair, dead. There were two empty coffee-cups and two empty

liqueur glasses on the table and a half-empty flask of crème de menthe. I

called Mr Cedric at once, and he told me to leave everything exactly as it

was, and to telephone to Dr Baker.’

The next witness was the parlour-maid, who had waited at table. She

said that nothing unusual had happened during the dinner, except that Mr

Whipley and his son both seemed rather silent and preoccupied.

At the end of the meal, Mr Raymond had said, ‘Look here, father, we

can’t leave it like this.’ Mr Whipley had said, ‘If you have changed your

mind you had better tell me at once,’ and had ordered coffee to be sent into

the study. Mr Raymond said, ‘I can’t change my mind, but if you would

only listen –’ Mr Whipley did not reply.

On going into the study with the coffee and the liqueur glasses, the

parlour-maid saw Mr Raymond seated at the table. Mr Whipley was

standing at the cabinet, with his back turned to his son, apparently getting

out the liqueurs.

He said to Mr Raymond, ‘What will you have?’ Mr Raymond replied,

‘Crème de menthe.’ Mr Whipley said, ‘You would – that’s a woman’s

drink.’ The parlour-maid then went out and did not see either gentleman

again.

Mr Egg smiled to himself as he listened. He could hear old Mr Whipley

saying it.

Then he composed his chubby face to a more serious expression, as the

coroner proceeded to call Mr Cedric Whipley.

Mr Cedric corroborated the housekeeper’s story. He said he was aged

thirty-six, and was a junior partner in the publishing firm of Freeman &

Toplady. He was acquainted with the circumstance of Mr Whiple’s quarrel

with his son. Mr Whipley had, in fact, asked him and his wife to the house

in order that he might discuss the situation with them. The trouble had to do

with Raymond’s engagement to a certain lady.

Mr Whipley had talked rather impulsively about altering his will, but he

(Cedric) had urged him to think the matter over calmly. He had

accompanied Raymond upstairs on the night of the tragedy and had

understood from him that Mr Whipley had threatened to cut his son off with

the proverbial shilling. He had told Raymond to take things easy and the old

man would ‘simmer down’. Raymond had taken his interference in bad

part.

After Raymond’s departure he had thought it better to leave the old man

to himself. On leaving Mrs Minchin’s room with his wife, he had gone

straight upstairs without entering the study. He thought it would be about a

quarter of an hour after that, that he had come down in answer to Mrs

Minchin’s call, to find his uncle dead.

He had bent over the body to examine it, and had then thought he

detected a faint smell of almonds about the lips. He had smelt the liqueur

glasses, but without touching them and, fancying that one of them also

smelt of almonds, had instructed Mrs Minchin to leave everything exactly

as it was. He had then formed the impression that his uncle might have

committed suicide.

There was a rustle in the little court when Mr Raymond Whipley took

his place at the coroner’s table. He was a lean, effeminate and rather

unwholesome-looking person of anything between thirty and forty years of

age.

He said that he was ‘a photographic artist’ by profession. He had a

studio in Bond Street. His ‘expressionist studies’ of well-known men and

women had gained considerable notice in the West End. His father had not

approved of his activities. He had old-fashioned prejudices.

‘I understand,’ said the coroner, ‘that prussic acid is frequently used in

photography.’

Mr Raymond Whipley smiled winningly at this ominous question.

‘Cyanide of potassium,’ he said. ‘Oh, dear, yes. Quite frequently.’

‘You are acquainted with its use for photography?’

‘Oh, yes. I don’t use it often. But I have some by me, if that’s what you

want to know.’

‘Thank you. Now can you tell me about this alleged difference of

opinion with your father?’

‘Yes. He found out that I was engaged to marry a lady connected with

the stage. I don’t know who told him. Probably my cousin Cedric. He’ll

deny it, of course, but I expect it was jolly old Cedric. My father sent for me

and really cut up quite rough about it. Full of diehard prejudices, you know.

We had quite a little rumpus before dinner. After dinner, I asked to see him

again – thought I could talk him round. But he was really very offensive. I

couldn’t stand it. It upset me. So I barged off back to Town.’

‘Did he say anything about sending for Mr Whitehead?’

‘Oh, yes. Said if I married Ella, he’d cut me out of his will. Quite the

stern parent and all that. I said, cut away, then.’

‘Did he say in whose favour he thought of making his new will?’

‘No, he didn’t say. I expect Cedric would have come in for something.

He’s the only other relation, of course.’

‘Will you describe very carefully what happened in the study after

dinner?’

‘We went in, and I sat down at the table near the fire. My father went to

the cabinet where he keeps his spirits and liqueurs and asked me what I

would have. I said I would have a crème de menthe, and he sneered at me in

his usual pleasant way. He fetched out the flask and told me to help myself,

when the girl brought in the glasses, I did so. I had coffee and crème de

menthe. He did not drink anything while I was there. He was rather excited

and walked up and down, threatening me with this and that.

‘After a bit I said, “Your coffee’s getting cold, father.” Then he told me

to go to hell, and I said, “Right you are.” He added a very disagreeable

remark about my fiancée. I am afraid I then lost my temper and used some

– shall we say, unfilial expressions. I went out and banged the door. When I

left him he was standing up behind the table, facing me.

‘I went to tell Mrs Minchin that I was going back to Town. Cedric

started to butt in, but I told him I knew who it was I had to thank for all this

trouble, and if he wanted the old man’s money he was welcome to it. That’s

all I know about it.’

‘If your father drank nothing while you were with him, how do you

explain the fact that both the liqueur glasses and both the coffee-cups had

been used?’

‘I suppose he used his after I had gone. He certainly did not drink

anything before I went.’

‘And he was alive when you left the study?’

‘Very much so.’

Mr Whitehead, the lawyer, explained the terms of the deceased’s man’s

will. It left an income of two thousand a year to Cedric Whipley, with

reversion to Raymond, who was the residuary legatee.

‘Did deceased ever express an intention of altering his will?’

‘He did. On the day before his death he said that he was very much

dissatisfied with his son’s conduct, and that unless he could get him to see

reason, he would cut him off with an annuity of a thousand a year, and leave

the rest of the estate to Mr Cedric Whipley. He disliked Mr Raymond’s

fiancée and said he would not have that woman’s children coming in for his

money. I tried to dissuade him, but I think he supposed that when the lady

heard of his intentions she would break off the engagement. When Mrs

Minchin rang me up on the night in question I was convinced in my own

mind that he intended to execute a new will.’

‘But since he had no time to do so, the will in favour of Mr Raymond

Whipley will now stand?’

‘That is so.’

Inspector Brown of the County Police then gave evidence about finger-

prints. He said that one coffee-cup and one liqueur glass bore the finger-

prints of Mr Raymond Whipley, and the other cup and the glass which held

the poison, those of Mr Whipley, senior. There were no other prints, except,

of course, those of the parlour-maid, on the cups or glasses, while the flask

of crème de menthe bore those of both father and son.

Bearing in mind the possibility of suicide, the police had made a careful

search of the room for any bottle or phial which might have contained the

poison. They had found nothing, either in the cabinet or elsewhere. They

had, indeed, collected from the back of the fireplace the half-burnt fragment

of a lead-foil capsule, which bore the letters ‘… AU … tier & Cie’, stamped

round the edge.

From its size, however, it was clear that this capsule had covered the

stopper of a half-litre bottle, and it seemed highly improbable that an

intending suicide would purchase prussic acid by the half-litre, nor was

there any newly opened bottle to which the capsule appeared to belong.

At this point a horrible thought began to emerge from Mr Egg’s inner

consciousness – a dim recollection of something he had once read in a

book. He lost the remainder of Inspector Brown’s evidence, which was

purely formal, and only began to take notice again when, after the cook and

housemaid had proved that they had been together the whole evening, the

doctor was called to give the medical evidence.

He said that deceased had undoubtedly died of prussic acid poisoning.

Only a very small amount of the cyanide had been found in the stomach,

but even a small dose would be fatal to a man of his age and natural frailty.

Prussic acid was one of the most rapidly fatal of all known poisons,

producing unconsciousness and death within a very few minutes after being

swallowed.

‘When did you first see the body, doctor?’

‘I arrived at the house at five minutes to twelve. Mr Whipley had then

been dead at least two hours, and probably a little more.’

‘He could not possible have died within, say, half an hour of your

arrival?’

‘Not possibly. I place the death round about half-past nine and certainly

not later than ten-thirty.’

The analyst’s report was next produced. The contents of the flask of

crème de menthe and the coffee dregs in both cups had been examined and

found to be perfectly harmless. Both liqueur glasses contained a few drops

of crème de menthe, and in one – that which bore the finger-prints of old

Mr Whipley – there was a distinct trace of hydrocyanic acid.

Even before the coroner began his summing-up it was plain that things

looked very black for Raymond Whipley. There was the motive, the fact

that he alone had easy access to the deadly cyanide, and the time of death,

coinciding almost exactly with that of his hasty and agitated flight from the

house.

Suicide seemed to be excluded; the other members of the household

could prove each other’s alibis; there was no suggestion that any stranger

had entered the house from outside. The jury brought in the inevitable

verdict of murder against Raymond Whipley.

Mr Egg rapidly made his way out of court. Two things were troubling

him – Mrs Minchin’s evidence and that half-remembered warning that he

had read in a book. He went down to the village post-office and sent a

telegram to his employers. Then he turned his steps to the local inn, ordered

a high tea, and ate it slowly, with his thoughts elsewhere. He had an idea

that this case was going to be bad for business.

In about an hour’s time, the reply to his telegram was handed to him. It

ran: ‘June 14, 1893. Freeman and Toplady, 1931,’ and was signed by the

senior partner of Plummett & Rose.

Mr Egg’s round and cheerful face became overcast by a cloud of

perplexity and distress. He shut himself into the landlord’s private room

alone and put through an expensive trunk call to Town. Emerging, less

perplexed but still gloomy, he got into his car and set off in search of the

coroner.

That official welcomed him cheerfully. He was a hearty and rubicund

man with a shrewd eye and a brisk manner. Inspector Brown and the Chief

Constable were with him when Monty was shown in.

‘Well, Mr Egg,’ said the coroner, ‘I’m sure you’re happy to be assured

that this unfortunate case conveys no imputation against the purity of the goods supplied by your firm.’

‘That’s just what I’ve taken the liberty of coming to you about,’ said

Monty. ‘Business is business, but, on the other hand, facts are facts, and our

people are ready to face them. I’ve been on the phone to Mr Plummett, and

he authorised me to put the thing before you.

‘If I didn’t,’ added Mr Egg, candidly, ‘somebody else might, and that

would make matters worse. Don’t wait for unpleasant disclosures to burst.

If the truth must be told, see that you tell it first. Monty’s maxim – from The

Salesman’s Handbook. Remarkable book, full of common-sense. Talking of

common-sense, a spot of that commodity wouldn’t have hurt our young

friend, would it?’

‘Meaning Raymond Whipley?’ said the coroner. ‘That young man is a

pathological case, if you ask me.’

‘You’re right there, sir,’ agreed the Inspector. ‘I’ve seen a sight of

foolish crooks, but he licks the lot. Barmy, I’d call him. Quarrelling with his

dad, doing him in and running away in that suspicious manner – why didn’t

he put up an electric sign to say “I done it”? But as you say, I don’t think

he’s quite all there.’

‘Well, that may be,’ said Monty, ‘but over and above that, there’s old

Mr Whipley. You see, gentlemen, I know all my customers. It’s my job, as

you may say, to have all their fancies by heart. No good offering an 1847

Oleroso to a gentleman that likes his sherry light and dry, or tantalising a

customer that’s under orders to stick to hock with bargains in vintage port.

‘Now what I’d like you to tell me is, how did the late Mr Whipley come

to be drinking crème de menthe at all? He only kept it by him for ladies; it

was a flavour he couldn’t do with in any shape or form. You heard what he

said about it to Mr Raymond.’

‘That’s a point,’ said the chief constable. ‘I may say it had already

occurred to us. But he must have taken the poison in something.’

‘Well, I only say, bear that in mind – that, and the foolishness of the

murder, if it was done the way the jury brought it in. But now about this

lead-foil capsule. I can tell you something about that. I didn’t intrude myself

at the inquest, because I hadn’t got the facts, but I’ve got them now and

here they are. You know, gentlemen, it stands to reason, if a capsule was

taken off a bottle that day in the study, there must have been a bottle

belonging to it. And where is it? It’s got to be somewhere. A bottle’s a

bottle, when all’s said and done.

‘Now, gentlemen, Mr Whipley dealt with my employers, Plummett &

Rose, for over fifty years. It’s an old-established firm. And that capsule was

put out by a firm of French shippers who went into liquidation in 1900;

Prelatier & Cie was their name, and we were their agents in this country.

Now, that capsule came off a bottle of Noyeau sent out by them – you can

see the last two letters of the word on the stamp – and we delivered a bottle

of Prelatier’s Noyeau to Mr Whipley, with some other samples of liqueur,

on June 14, 1893.’

‘Noyeau?’ said the coroner, with interest.

‘I see that means something to you, doctor,’ said Mr Egg.

‘It does, indeed,’ said the coroner. ‘Noyeau is a liqueur flavoured with

oil of bitter almonds, or peach-stones – correct me if I’m wrong, Mr Egg –

and contains, therefore, a small proportion of hydrocyanic acid.’

‘That’s it,’ said Monty. ‘Of course, in the ordinary way, there isn’t

enough of it to hurt anybody in a single glassful, or even two. But if you let

a bottle stand long enough, the oil will rise to the top, and the first glass out

of an old bottle of Noyeau has been known to cause death. I know that, because I read it in a book called Foods and Poisons, published a few years

ago by Freeman & Toplady.’

‘Cedric Whipley’s firm,’ said the inspector.

‘Exactly so,’ said Monty.

‘What, precisely, are you suggesting, Mr Egg?’ inquired the chief

constable.

‘Not murder, sir,’ said Monty. ‘No, not that – though I suppose it might

have come to that, in a way. I’m suggesting that after Mr Raymond had left

the study, the old gentleman got fidgety and restless, the way one does

when one’s been through a bit of an upset. I think he started to drink up his

cold coffee, and then wanted a spot of liqueur to take with it.

‘He goes to the cabinet – doesn’t seem to fancy anything, roots about,

and comes upon this old bottle of Noyeau that’s been standing unopened for

the last forty years. He takes it out, removes the capsule and throws it into

the fire and draws a cork with his corkscrew, as I’ve seen him do many a

time. Then he pours off the first glass, not thinking about the danger, drinks

it off as he’s sitting in his chair and dies without hardly having time to call

out.’

‘That’s very ingenious,’ said the chief constable. ‘But what became of

the bottle and the corkscrew? And how do you account for the crème de

menthe in the glass?’

‘Ah!’ said Monty, ‘there you are. Somebody saw to that, and it wasn’t

Mr Raymond, because it would have been all to his advantage to leave

things as they were. But suppose, round about half-past eleven, when Mrs

Minchin was tidying her room and the other servants were in bed, another

party had gone into the study and seen Mr Whipley lying dead, with the

bottle of Noyeau beside him, and had guessed what had happened.

‘Supposing this party had then put the corkscrew back into the

cupboard, tipped a few drops of crème de menthe from Mr Raymond’s glass

into the dead gentleman’s, and carried the Noyeau bottle away to be

disposed of at leisure. What would it look like then?’

‘But how could the party do that, without leaving prints on Mr

Raymond’s glass?’

‘That’s easy,’ said Monty. ‘He’d only to lift the glass by taking the stem

between the roots of his fingers. So. All you’d find would be a faint smudge

at the base of the bowl.’

‘And the motive?’ demanded the chief constable.

‘Well, gentlemen, that’s not for me to say. But if Mr Raymond was to be

hanged for murdering his father, I fancy his father’s money would go to the

next of kin – to that gentleman who published the book that tells you all

about Noyeau.

‘It’s very unfortunate,’ said Mr Egg, ‘that my firm should have supplied

the goods in question, but there you are. If accidents happen and you are to

blame, take steps to avoid repetition of same. Not that we should admit any

responsibility, far from it, the nature of the commodity being what it is. But

we might perhaps insert a warning in our forthcoming Catalogue.

‘And à propos, gentlemen, let me make a note to send you our New

Centenary History of the House of Plummett & Rose. It will be a very

refined production, got up regardless, and worthy of a position on any

library shelf.’