Inquest: A Golden Age Mystery

CHAPTER I

SIX MONTHS AFTER

During the last ten years of his life, I was medical adviser to Mr Hoe-Luss.

He was simply William Luss at first. With an overflowing measure of prosperity, the Hoe was added unto him later. It was, like so many other things, optional for the first year or two. Then, substantiated by a hyphen, it was used, perhaps not compulsorily, shall we say, tactfully?

Willie Luss was not really a snob. But there is progress in a hyphen, while two names are demonstrably better than one.

When I first came in contact with him, he was already rich. When he died he left over a quarter of a million.

I had two good reasons for liking him. He was always pleasant to me; and could be relied on year after year to cover my income-tax and rent. He was never really ill, but often very nervous. Then he had a household of servants who, with considerable leisure at their disposal, could afford to be reasonably ill at various seasons of the year.

Hoe-Luss began as an iron-master and, later, formed some connection with a firm in Lorraine. He met and married Marie Hurst there (she was on a holiday with some relations at Metz), and this marriage was afterwards the source of considerable trouble.

He was fifty-three, and Marie thirty, at the date of their wedding. Her father—an Englishman of some note as a consulting engineer—died when she was twelve. He left his widow a quite respectable income, on condition that Marie was to be educated and brought up in England.

So Marie Hoe-Luss (née Hurst) became an Englishwoman. All that part of her, that is, which could be Anglicised. That which could not comprised: her dark, quick eyes, her (Norman) dislike of spending uselessly, her habit of gesticulation, and her physical charms, which were of a completely Gallic type.

It was perhaps natural that all Hoe-Luss’s relations, with expectations equally natural, should refer to her as ‘that designing Frenchwoman.’

I expect she did. She had a taste for intrigue of a petty type, and was a schemer by inclination. While her husband lived, she was kind to him—devoted, he said. I feel sure she had a strong sense of duty. He gave her a fortune; she did her best to repay him in the only way open to her.

I spent several holidays on his yacht. But, at her request, I believe, he put down the yacht, and in the last year of his life bought a large property on the Isère.

This was a rather fine property, including a large château, and a great many farms. These latter, I think, he leased out on some peculiar, but profitable, French system by which the farmer pays no rent, but divides his profits with the owner of the land.

It was at the Château de Luss (as he renamed it) that he died. I did not accompany him. He had a house-warming and a house-party, all (Marie legally) British.

I have heard so much about this sad event, from so many different sources, that I know very little definitely about it. It was hinted that Hoe-Luss died of eating fungi which he took to be mushrooms, or of fungi administered as mushrooms. It is obviously a matter of opinion. Marie of course would approve the fungi. The Gaul, the Norman especially, likes to use unconsidered trifles, which others disdain.

I believe there was some sort of fudged-up inquiry into the cause of death. But I am not familiar with the forensic medicine of our neighbours, and I am sure that the doctor called in did not send the unfortunate man’s organs for the examination of a pathologist. He told the shocked house-party that the symptoms resembled those caused by eating fungi—Amanita phalloidis, perhaps. I am not sure of the exact species. And he was, to Marie’s satisfaction, inclined to blame the fact on Hoe-Luss’s English cook.

Marie knew that the English did not cook. This was not Chauvinism exactly, but an expression of her dislike for wilful waste and stringy vegetables. As she said, the English also did not know the difference between edible and poisonous fungi. They have only one sauce, and one mushroom.

One of his relatives, and the proverbial wild-horses could not drag the name from me, was ironically amused over the doctor’s verdict. She said that the symptoms also resembled those caused by an irritant poison. But she knows very little of poisons, and I take that to be the result of unfulfilled hopes, and wrecked expectations.

Marie sold the château promptly. She grumbled at the probate’s slow delays on this side. She had not realised that months must pass before an estate is settled, and a fortune handed over to the legatees.

She returned to Hoe-Luss’s place in Wiltshire: Hebble Chace, Winstone. This was a fine house, of the Queen Anne period, standing high, and retaining most of its charming features, while perfectly and completely modernised as regards all those things that count.

I had a sort of expectation that she would ask me to come and see her when she returned from France. I was naturally interested in my former patient, who has left me the sum of five hundred pounds. But, although Hebble Chace is only four miles from my house, I was not asked to call. I wanted to call. There were still the expensive and leisured servants. But we doctors have a strict etiquette.

It was all the more surprising then, when, at the end of six months, I received a letter from Mrs Hoe-Luss asking me to stay a week. She was having a house-party. Some of the people I knew. And was this not the time when I usually took my holiday?

It fell in very well, for several reasons. I had arranged for a locum tenens that week. I had had a bad year, and would have to curtail my expenses for a while. I was anxious to know more about the English cook and the fungi; or, alternatively, the cause of death.

My own contribution to the debate, if any, was my knowledge that William Hoe-Luss had been passionately fond of mushrooms, and easily led by Marie. The data I had was very slender. Had he eaten the dish of fungi (Amanita phalloidis) alone? And if so, why alone?

There are some people who cannot tolerate certain drugs, even foods, but I know of no one who can tolerate, in the medical sense, the poisonous varieties of fungi. There was no sickness, even temporary, among the members of the house-party at the château.

There was no proof that Hoe-Luss had eaten voraciously, or with a view to there being no waste. There was nothing left, however, of that fatal dish. The English cook, of course, threw the remains away. She gave evidence in a peculiarly British and aggressive spirit, saying that she never believed in eating weeds, and never would. She had thrown the ‘muck’ away.

It turned out that she had incinerated it. She agreed that she did so of her own volition. Even the female relation who made tendencious remarks to me admitted that Marie and the cook were at daggers drawn.

One of those men, so prevalent nowadays, who write detective stories, could have made a good thing of this. A cook with a grudge against her foreign-born mistress, with a fortune in prospect, might do something to throw suspicion on that mistress. Cook had done her duty under protest in this case. She said that Mr Hoe-Luss had gathered the ‘weeds’ in the park, and brought them to her to cook.

I don’t think that he was seized with illness immediately after eating the fungi. I have been told that he went to his study, to work out some details of a business merger. He was found lying at the foot of the eight, narrow and crooked, stairs that led up to this chamber. He was quite dead then. Most of the guests had gone, it is said, to a picnic up the river. But there was some doubt about the times. And poisoning from these fungi is sometimes slow to develop.

I wondered about this new house-party. Since Marie had gone to live at Hebble Chace, she had cut down some of the staff, turned off one game-keeper, two gardeners, a groom, a chauffeur, and an able-bodied pensioner, who had lived on Hoe-Luss’s bounty for many years. Also, she had begun to sell garden produce and flowers to a dealer. And now she was launching out in an entertainment to a number of people. Was this propitiatory, or premonitory? Every one of the relatives of her deceased husband had been passively unpleasant. Was she inviting them? And why, after ignoring me for six months, was she including me in the party?

I need hardly say that professional, not personal, interest led me to accept. A doctor does not like to see his patients die, but, if they must die, he is naturally anxious to know if any of his diagnoses were correct, and how far he had been able to distinguish between the fact and fiction of his patient’s complaints. If you go so far as to suspect hob-nailed liver, for example, it is comforting and illuminating to hear that cirrhosis was the actual cause of death. It is crushing, but also valuable, to learn that the man you took to be a secret drinker is only, or was only, a martyr to indigestion.

Having been evaded by Marie for six months, it was strange that I met her out driving the day after I had accepted her invitation. She made her chauffeur draw up the car, asked me where I was going, and made me get up.

I am glad you can come, doctor, she said, when I sat beside her. You will be the eleventh. Yes, I am inviting all those who were with us at the château when poor William died.

Have they all accepted? I said lamely, for this seemed strange to me.

Yes. Aunt Green and Sir Eugene Oliver are with me now. The rest come on Saturday, she said. You have met them both?

I assented. Aunt Green was really a cousin of Hoe-Luss. She was a sardonic old lady, and nobody’s darling, I imagine. Eugene Oliver was a ‘guinea-pig,’ director of companies; flashy, sharp; a nominee of Caley Burton, the late Hoe-Luss’s partner.

I presume that probate is now a matter of the past? I said. It is always wearying.

She looked at me sharply. You think so? Perhaps it is. Yes, your lawyers have made a bit out of it, and there have been duties and stamp fees to help out your Government.

Everybody’s doing it; has to, I murmured, as we drove into the village. Well, I get off here, thank you.

On Saturday, for lunch, said she.

I hear you have a new cook, said I.

She smiled, but something in her eyes told me that this was where I definitely did ‘get off.’

I brought her from Paris, doctor.

I hope she is a success, I said.

CHAPTER II

MISDEAL?

When I reached Hebble Chace on the Saturday, I found that only three more guests had turned up in time for lunch. One was Joe Hoe-Luss, the dead man’s nephew, and his fiancée, Meriel Silger. And a Mrs Graves, who, I have been informed, had a good chance at one time of becoming Mrs William Hoe-Luss—a tiff, and the visit to Metz, alone intervening. I had not met her before, but she appeared to be a pleasant woman of forty or so, pretty for her age, very tolerant, very fond, one would imagine at first sight, of the woman who had supplanted her.

Joe Hoe-Luss was about thirty, and looked like a racing tout in good clothes. He was actually metallurgical expert to the iron firm, and superficially did not appear to be worried by the fact that his uncle had put him down for a hundred pounds, and a pair of London-made guns.

Meriel Silger had the air of a martyr to circumstances, and as this air had only been put on since Joe’s uncle died, it had not yet settled properly on her face, which was pretty, if vacant of any noticeable intelligence.

Joe was his nephew, she said to me once. I do think—

She dealt in these cut-off sentences, leaving you in no doubt as to their proper terminations. The fact is, according to Aunt Green, that Meriel became engaged to Joe when he was thought to be a holder of good cards. When all the honours went elsewhere, she felt aggrieved.

I sat between Mrs Graves and ’Gene Oliver at lunch. Marie had Joe on her left and Meriel on her right, and talked very nicely to them about their marriage. She appeared to have forgotten that this was a sore subject. Or perhaps she hadn’t.

Oliver looked at them, and then at me. I suppose you heard all about it, Dr Soame? Rather odd, isn’t it, that we should have the same crowd here that were over at the château when William conked out?

He spoke quite softly, but Aunt Green heard it, and. cackled. Hush, you young monster! Or at least abate your language.

Oh, sorry, said ’Gene. One gets into these slangy habits. But you did hear all about it? he added to me.

Why did he want to know? I shook my head. Something, of course. Certainly not all—unless that was all.

He nodded. Reminds one of King John and the dish of lampreys—or was it John?

I frowned at him significantly. I am sure Mrs Hoe-Luss doesn’t want the subject brought up again. She must be trying hard to forget it.

He giggled, and Aunt Green cackled again. But how unkind!

Ask Meriel, said he. Trying hard to forget it—that’s decidedly good.

And that is why we’re here, said Aunt Green.

Is there anything funny that I ought not to hear? demanded our hostess suddenly.

Certainly not, said ’Gene. By the way, Joe, when is your fixture coming off? September, isn’t it?

Ask Meriel, said Joe. As I was saying, Marie, we have to cut out the idea of taking ‘Hurdles.’ The shooting is good, and I should have liked to try uncle’s guns, but the rent’s a bit above my figure.

Well, everyone is hard up nowadays, or nearly— said Meriel, and pouted.

Aunt Green whispered in my ear. Dr Soame, you see our menagerie still growls over the bone! For a week too! A cheerful prospect.

You can see that I was in a fix. All these other people had got, or failed to get, what they wanted. They could afford to be unpleasant to Marie. But a country doctor when so many big places are empty is not in the happiest of positions. If I were to take sides, then I would have to grub a bit harder for my rent and income-tax.

What about that merger that was in prospect at the time? I asked Oliver hastily. Gone west, I suppose.

He grinned. Wait till Caley Burton comes. He’ll tell you. You see, it was his proposition in the first place. He wanted William to join up with the ‘Solidaris Tool Co.’ Then our old friend discovered that Caley had batches of nominees who could have out-voted him, and there was the devil of a row.

He paused suddenly. Marie was looking at him. I was just saying, he added, with his usual impudence, that Burton was very keen on that merger with the ‘Solidaris.’

Joe flushed. He wasn’t the only one, young fellow!

I admit it freely, said ’Gene. I was for it, all the time.

Hammer-and-tongs, you see! Aunt Green whispered to me. How we love one another.

Meriel smiled most unpleasantly. Sir Eugene is always frank. At least—

Marie smiled at me. You had better ask Mr Burton about it this afternoon, doctor.

I felt that this accusation of inquisitiveness was hard and undeserved. I had only mentioned the merger to get away from the acrid atmosphere of misdealt money.

These big business affairs have an appeal to the layman, I pleaded. How money is made, and so on.

True, said Marie. I am sure it interests you.

Joe cackled now, and Mrs Graves came to my aid. I do think it is a quite fascinating subject, she murmured. How some gain, and some lose.

Who’s being frank now? asked Oliver.

I have no idea what you mean, she replied timidly.

All the better, said ’Gene. But you wanted to know something more about the merger, Soame, didn’t you?

Not at all, I assured him. It was merely an idle question.

If this was an ‘affair of vedettes’ at lunch, I dreaded the idea of dinner; many dinners in fact. I had wondered why Marie invited this party to stay, I wondered still more when I realised that they had brought grudges for clubs, and hoped to lay them freely about her head, and each other’s.

Oliver invited Joe and me to accompany him for a stroll in the park after lunch. But Joe said he was making up a four, and refused. Oliver took my arm, provided me with a cigar, and grinned at me affectionately.

I suppose you know why we are all down here? he asked me, as we walked across the springy grass a few minutes later.

I was not able to assure him that I knew nothing of the reason. I had begun to think that Marie, who was innately malicious, had asked them all down to upset each other. But it was difficult to put that into words.

That business at the château, he told me, without waiting for an answer. If you’ve ever played cards with Marie, you must know how keen she is on ‘inquests.’ This is an inquest.

What? I asked, in surprise.

An inquest, my dear fellow. Who killed who, and so on.

But surely that was decided, though there was no killing, strictly speaking.

Everyone does not think so.

I looked horrified, and, better, I was horrified. But there was no doubt about the plate of poisonous fungi?

None whatever. The cook cooked some. Wait a moment, though, there was a doubt if they were poisonous. The good woman threw the remains into a stove.

I smiled now. Yes, I heard, or read, that. But since Hoe-Luss was poisoned after eating them, it is pretty evident that the fungi were not edible.

Not so evident as it seems. There was the question of his neck.

His neck? Whose neck?

He stared. Oh, I forgot. That didn’t get into the papers. The French sawbones said it was irrelevant.

My dear Oliver, I pleaded. Do stick to the point. Are you suggesting that his throat was affected by the poison?

He moved impatiently. No, I was talking of his broken neck.

"His broken neck? Did he break his neck, and how?"

That’s the trouble, said Oliver sardonically. I suppose bones can be broken after death?

Of course, I said. But this is very surprising.

That is what most of us said, until the doctor explained. He said William must have felt suddenly ill in his study, ran out for assistance, and tripped.

And fell down the stairs?

Of which there were eight. The château is on so many levels.

Then it may have been the fall that killed him, not the fungi? Is that it?

About fifty-fifty, Soame. Now you have an idea why dear Marie wants an inquest. I don’t come into this. William never loved me enough to leave me anything, but some of the others imprudently remarked that William had no right to back Jenny Murphy in her theatrical venture, but, since he did, Marie might have scented trouble. My own opinion is that William was not a ready victim of Jean’s, but simply out to help her.

I wish you wouldn’t start a fresh hare every minute, I said, rather helplessly. I never heard of Miss Murphy, and I don’t see what bearing this has on William Hoe-Luss’s death either.

I don’t suppose it has, said ’Gene, drawing hard at his cigar. I was just trying to make you see how dashed complicated the thing is. There are some people not homicidal in themselves, but provocative of homicide in others.

But Hoe-Luss was a very amiable fellow.

Amiable people are often most irritating, he said. But I didn’t mean that. There was this question of Jean Murphy and the dangerous age, you know.

I don’t know, I protested. There’s a lot of loose talk by laymen about things like that, but what does it mean?

The fact is, said ’Gene, Marie has always been jealous of him. I don’t think he gave her any grounds for it, but she once told old Madame Gavrault in my hearing that William was at a dangerous age.

A silly remark, I said.

"I grant you, but silly remarks are responsible for many a spot of bother, aren’t they? I’m not giving you my view, simply what I heard drifting about after William conk—died. He was fifty-five, wasn’t it? and