Bitter Almonds

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Bitter Almonds

by Dorothy L Sayers

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 creme 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 creme 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. Whipley'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 1 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.

"1 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 parlor-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, ' Ishan't be staying the night, after all, Mrs. Minchin. I'm going back to Town at once.' 1 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, 1 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. 1 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, 1 noticed that the light was still on in Mr. Whipley's study. it was unusual for him to be up so late, so 1 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 creme 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 parlor-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 parlor-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, "Creme de menthe." Mr. Whipley said, "You would-that's a woman's drink." The parlor-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. Whipley'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 liquor 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 tor 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. White-head?"

"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 favor 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 creme 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 creme 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 fiancee. 1 am afraid I then lost my temper and used some-shall we say, unfilial expression. 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 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 any 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 fiancee 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 favor of Mr. Raymond Whipley will now stand?"

"That is so."

Inspector Brown ot 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 parlor-maid, on the cups or glasses, while the flask of creme 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-liter bottle, and it seemed highly improbable that an intending suicide would purchase prussic acid by the half-liter, 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 been dead at least two hours, and probably a little more."

"He could not possibly 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 creme 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 creme 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 or perplexity and distress. Me 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 authorized 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. Quarreling 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 tantalizing 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 creme de menthe at all? He only kept it by him for ladies; it was a flavor 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; Prela-tier &. 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 flavored 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 creme 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 creme 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, 1 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 apropos, 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."

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