Lord John’s guest looked into his tired amused old face and smiled faintly.
“Is that all?” she asked.
“No. When I next watched the party at that table a waiter had brought their coffee. The doctor feller emptied the powder from the packet into the aunt’s cup. She drank it and made a great fuss about the taste. It looked as though we were in for another scene when she fell sound asleep.”
“What!” exclaimed the guest.
“She fell into a deep sleep,” said Lord John. “And died.”
The lady with the nervous hands rose from her table and walked slowly past them out of the dining-room.
“Not immediately,” continued Lord John, “but about two hours later in her room upstairs. Three waiters carried her out of the dining-room. Her mouth was open, I remember, and her face was puffy and had reddish-violet spots on it.”
“What killed her?”
“The medical gentleman explained at the inquest that her heart had always been weak.”
“But — you didn’t believe that? You think, don’t you, that the doctor poisoned her coffee?”
“Oh, no. In his own interest he asked that the coffee and the remaining powder in the paper should be analysed. They were found to contain nothing more dangerous than a very mild bromide.”
“Then—? You suspected something I am sure. Was it the niece? The champagne—?”
“The doctor was between them. No. I remembered, however, the luncheon incident. The sleeping tablets rolling under the table.”
“And the girl picked them up?”
“Assisted by Benito. During the dispute at dinner over the champagne, Benito filled the glasses. His napkin hid the aunt’s glass from her eyes. Not from mine, however. You see, I saw his hand reflected from above in the little cupid mirror.”
There was a long silence.
“Exasperation,” said Lord John, “may be the motive of many unsolved crimes. By the way I was reminded of this story by the lady with the nervous hands. She has changed a good deal of course, but she still has that trick of crumbling her bread with her fingers.”
The guest stared at him.
“Have we finished?” asked Lord John. “Shall we go?” They rose. Benito, bowing, held open the dining-room door.
“Good evening, Benito,” said Lord John.
“Good evening, my lord,” said Benito.
“Where money is concerned,” Harold Hancock told his audience at the enormous cocktail party, “my poor Hersey — and she won’t mind my saying so, will you, darling? — is the original dumbbell. Did I ever tell you about her trip to Dunedin?”
Did he ever tell them? Hersey thought. Wherever two or three were gathered did he ever fail to tell them? The predictable laugh, the lovingly coddled pause, and the punchline led into and delivered like an act of God—did he, for pity’s sake, ever tell them!
Away he went, mock-serious, empurpled, expansive, and Hersey put on the comic baby face he expected of her. Poor Hersey, they would say, such a goose about money. It’s a shame to laugh.
“It was like this—” Harold began…
It had happened twelve years ago when they were first in New Zealand. Harold was occupied with a conference in Christchurch and Hersey was to stay with a friend in Dunedin. He had arranged that she would draw on his firm’s Dunedin branch for money and take in her handbag no more than what she needed for the journey. “You know how you are,” Harold said.
He arranged for her taxi, made her check that she had her ticket and reservation for the train, and reminded her that if on the journey she wanted cups of tea or synthetic coffee or a cooked lunch, she would have to take to her heels at the appropriate stations and vie with the competitive male. At this point her taxi was announced and Harold was summoned to a long-distance call from London.
“You push off,” he said. “Don’t forget that fiver on the dressing table. You won’t need it but you’d better have it. Keep your wits about you. ’Bye, dear.”
He was still shouting into the telephone when she left.
She had enjoyed the adventurous feeling of being on her own. Although Harold had said you didn’t in New Zealand, she tipped the taxi driver and he carried her suitcase to the train and found her seat, a single one just inside the door of a Pullman car.
A lady was occupying the seat facing hers and next to the window.
She was well-dressed, middle-aged and of a sandy complexion with noticeably light eyes. She had put a snakeskin dressing case on the empty seat beside her.
“It doesn’t seem to be taken,” she said, smiling at Hersey.
They socialized—tentatively at first and, as the journey progressed, more freely. The lady (in his version Harold always called her Mrs. X) confided that she was going all the way to Dunedin to visit her daughter. Hersey offered reciprocative information. In the world outside, plains and mountains performed a grandiose kind of measure and telegraph wires leaped and looped with frantic precision.
An hour passed. The lady extracted a novel from her dressing case and Hersey, impressed by the handsome appointments and immaculate order, had a good look inside the case.
The conductor came through the car intoning, “Ten minutes for refreshments at Ashburton.”
“Shall you join in the onslaught?” asked the lady. “It’s a free-for-all.”
“Shall you?”
“Well—I might. When I travel with my daughter we take turns. I get the morning coffee and she gets the afternoon. I’m a bit slow on my pins, actually.”
She made very free use of the word “actually.”
Hersey instantly offered to get their coffee at Ashburton and her companion, after a proper show of diffidence, gaily agreed. They explored their handbags for the correct amount. The train uttered a warning scream and everybody crowded into the corridor as it drew up to the platform.
Hersey left her handbag with the lady (an indiscretion heavily emphasized by Harold) and sprinted to the refreshment counter where she was blocked off by a phalanx of men. Train fever was running high by the time she was served and her return trip with brimming cups was hazardous indeed.
The lady was holding both their handbags as if she hadn’t stirred an inch.
Between Ashburton and Oamaru, a long stretch, they developed their acquaintanceship further, discovered many tastes in common, and exchanged confidences and names. The lady was called Mrs. Fortescue. Sometimes they dozed. Together, at Oamaru, they joined in an assault on the dining room and together they returned to the carriage where Hersey scuffled in her stuffed handbag for a powder-compact. As usual it was in a muddle.