“So we’ve got to find out how some taxin — that’s from a yew bush or a tree, the seeds, the foliage, or the stems — found its way into that pie, which apparently killed him.”
“One of mine? How could it?”
“Can you remember making the mincemeat? Did anyone come by while you were mixing the fruit?”
“Not a living soul.”
“Could anyone have interfered with it since?”
“Impossible. This isn’t open house to strangers, I’ll have you know. No one crosses my threshold.”
That much Rosemary was willing to believe. “You don’t have a yew bush in your garden, I suppose?”
“I wouldn’t. It’s the tree of death. It kills horses, cattle, more animals than any other plant.”
“Yes, but this was deliberate. Human deaths from taxin are rare. Someone added seeds of yew, or some part of it, to the mincemeat Douglas Boon consumed on Christmas Eve. Don’t you see, Gertrude? We’ve got to discover how this happened. I’m certain Laura is innocent.”
“They’ll pin this on me,” she said. “That’s what they’ll do, and everyone in the village will say the old witch deserves it.”
“Will you do something for Laura’s sake? For your own sake?” Rosemary said. “Will you think about everything connected with the making of the mincemeat? The chopping of the fruit, the source of all the ingredients, sultanas, currants, raisins, peel, nuts — whatever went into it. Go over it in your mind. Did anyone else contribute anything?”
“No.”
“Please take time to think it over.”
Gertrude sniffed, stepped back, and closed the door.
Late that afternoon, Wilbur’s barking brought Rosemary to the front door before Laura emerged from the police car that returned her to The Withers.
“What a relief,” Rosemary said. “Have they finished with you?”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Laura said as she scratched behind Wilbur’s ears. He’d given her a delightful, if slobbery, welcome.
Over a fortifying cup of tea, she told her tale. She had been interviewed three times and kept in a room that wasn’t quite a cell, but felt like one. She’d told the detectives everything she knew and provided a written statement. “I’m sure they would have charged me with murder if it wasn’t for Gertrude’s pies. They had them analysed and got the results back this afternoon.”
“Poisoned?”
“No.” Laura smiled. “They were harmless, all of them.”
Rosemary pressed her fingers to her lips. “I find that hard to believe.”
“So did the inspector. You should have seen his face when he told me I was free to leave.”
“That’s amazing. Gertrude is innocent.”
“And so am I.” Laura glanced across the room. “What’s he eating? Wilbur, what have you got in your mouth? No, Wilbur, no!” She dashed across and forced open the dog’s jaws. A small piece of mincemeat fell into her palm. “Rosemary, look. There are crumbs on the carpet. I think he’s had a mince pie.”
Rosemary was already at her side fingering the pastry crumbs. “It can’t have come from inside the house. The police spent over an hour searching the place.”
“The garden, then,” Laura said. “He must have found it in the garden.”
They went to the front door. “Let him show us,” Rosemary said. “Find it, Wilbur. Good dog.”
Wilbur knew what was wanted. He went straight to a lavender bush and lifted it with his nose. A brownish conical thing was exposed.
“A death cap,” Rosemary said.
“Do you mind?” Laura said. “That’s pastry. That’s one of my lids.” She picked it up and turned it over. “How on earth did this get here?”
The question hung in the air unanswered. Wilbur’s cooperation could only go so far.
“Should we get him to a vet?” Laura said.
“Let’s give him water first.”
Rosemary filled his bowl and brought it to him. He lapped it obediently.
“He doesn’t seem to be suffering,” Laura said. “The onset was rapid with Douglas Boon.”
“Taxin is one of the quickest of all the plant poisons,” Rosemary said. “I doubt if we’d get him to a vet in time.”
“He looks all right.”
Wilbur licked her hand and wagged his tail.
“I think he wants some more.”
An hour later, he was still all right.
Rosemary and Laura allowed themselves the luxury of fresh tea. They didn’t get to drink it because Wilbur unexpectedly barked several times and ran to the door. Someone was outside holding a flashlight.
Laura looked out. The evening had drawn in and she had difficulty seeing who it was.
The voice was familiar. “You’d better call the police,” Gertrude Appleton said. “I’ve gone and killed another man.”
3.
“This can’t be true,” Laura said. “You’re in the clear. Your pies were analysed today and there’s nothing toxic in them.”
With a stare like the condemned woman in a silent movie, Gertrude said, “Follow me,” and started towards the gate.
Laura looked at Rosemary. They’d been in dangerous situations before. Rosemary shrugged. At least Gertrude wasn’t wielding that cleaver. They went after her.
She paused at her garden gate and turned the flashlight beam on Rosemary and Laura to check that they were behind her. Then she led them to her greenhouse and unlocked the door.
The place would have been creepy even in daylight, with a huge overhanging vine that still had some of its leaves, brown and contorted. Other skeletal plants in pots had been brought in for the winter. Gertrude edged around a raised flower bed in the centre and directed the flashlight at a dark shape on the floor.
A man’s body.
“I killed him,” Gertrude said with a stricken sigh. “I never looked here when I smoked out the pests on Christmas Eve. I just put down the stuff and set light to it.”
“He is dead, I suppose?” Laura said.
Rosemary leaned over for a closer look. “Well dead, I would say.”
Gertrude was still reliving the experience. “I made sure it was smouldering and got out, locking the door behind me. Opened it an hour ago and found him. I can only suppose he was drunk and crept in here to sleep it off.” She paused. “Will I go to prison?”
“Let me have the flashlight,” Laura said. She edged past Gertrude for a closer inspection. “I can’t say I know him intimately, but isn’t this one of the carol singers, the tall one, Balthazar?”
“Ben Black? It is!” Gertrude said in despair. “God forgive me. What have I done?”
“Unless I’ve got my facts muddled, you haven’t done anything at all,” Laura said. “You fumigated on Christmas Eve after visiting me, am I right?”
Gertrude nodded.
“That was in the afternoon? You locked the door and didn’t open up until today? You left the key in the lock?”
Another nod from Gertrude.
“Think about it,” Laura said. “Ben was alive and singing carols that same evening. He couldn’t have been trapped in here. See, there’s dried blood on the back of his scalp. It looks as if someone hit him over the head and dumped the body in here. Yes, we will call the police, but I don’t think you’re in any trouble.”
Over cocoa that night, with the dog asleep in front of a real log fire, Rosemary summed up the case. “What we have are two impossible crimes. One man poisoned by a harmless mince pie and another bludgeoned to death in a locked greenhouse.”
“The second crime isn’t impossible,” Laura said. “The key was in the door. Obviously the killer could get in and out. They put the body in there and locked it again thinking it might not be found for some time.”