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THE HERB OF DEATH
“Now then, Mrs. B.,” said Sir Henry Clithering encouragingly.
“Scheherazade, then.”
“And even less am I Sche—what’s her name! I never can tell a story
properly, ask Arthur if you don’t believe me.”
“You’re quite good at the facts, Dolly,” said Colonel Bantry, “but poor at
the embroidery3.”
“That’s just it,” said Mrs. Bantry. She flapped the bulb catalogue she was
holding on the table in front of her. “I’ve been listening to you all and I
don’t know how you do it. ‘He said, she said, you wondered, they thought,
everyone implied’—well, I just couldn’t and there it is! And besides I don’t
know anything to tell a story about.”
“We can’t believe that, Mrs. Bantry,” said Dr. Lloyd. He shook his grey
head in mocking disbelief.
Old Miss Marple said in her gentle voice: “Surely dear—”
Mrs. Bantry continued obstinately4 to shake her head.
difficulties of getting scullery maids, and just going to town for clothes,
and dentists, and Ascot (which Arthur hates) and then the garden—”
“Ah!” said Dr. Lloyd. “The garden. We all know where your heart lies,
Mrs. Bantry.”
“It must be nice to have a garden,” said Jane Helier, the beautiful young
actress. “That is, if you hadn’t got to dig, or to get your hands messed up.
I’m ever so fond of flowers.”
“The garden,” said Sir Henry. “Can’t we take that as a starting point?
Come, Mrs. B. The poisoned bulb, the deadly daffodils, the herb of death!”
“Now it’s odd your saying that,” said Mrs. Bantry. “You’ve just reminded
me. Arthur, do you remember that business at Clodderham Court? You
know. Old Sir Ambrose Bercy. Do you remember what a courtly charming
old man we thought him?”
“Why, of course. Yes, that was a strange business. Go ahead, Dolly.”
“You’d better tell it, dear.”
“Nonsense. Go ahead. Must paddle your own canoe. I did my bit just
now.”
Mrs. Bantry drew a deep breath. She clasped her hands and her face re-
“Well, there’s really not much to tell. The Herb of Death—that’s what put
“Sage and onions?” asked Dr. Lloyd.
Mrs. Bantry nodded.
“That was how it happened you see,” she explained. “We were staying,
Arthur and I, with Sir Ambrose Bercy at Clodderham Court, and one day,
by mistake (though very stupidly, I’ve always thought) a lot of foxglove
leaves were picked with the sage. The ducks for dinner that night were
stuffed with it and everyone was very ill, and one poor girl—Sir Ambrose’s
She stopped.
“Wasn’t it?”
“Well,” said Sir Henry, “what next?”
“There isn’t any next,” said Mrs. Bantry, “that’s all.”
quite such brevity as this.
“But, my dear lady,” remonstrated12 Sir Henry, “it can’t be all. What you
have related is a tragic occurrence, but not in any sense of the word a
problem.”
“Well, of course there’s some more,” said Mrs. Bantry. “But if I were to
tell you it, you’d know what it was.”
“I told you I couldn’t dress things up and make it sound properly like a
story ought to do.”
“Ah ha!” said Sir Henry. He sat up in his chair and adjusted an eyeglass.
our curiosity. A few brisk rounds of ‘Twenty Questions’ is indicated, I
think. Miss Marple, will you begin?”
“I’d like to know something about the cook,” said Miss Marple. “She
must have been a very stupid woman, or else very inexperienced.”
“She was just very stupid,” said Mrs. Bantry. “She cried a great deal af-
terwards and said the leaves had been picked and brought in to her as
sage, and how was she to know?”
“Not one who thought for herself,” said Miss Marple.
“Probably an elderly woman and, I dare say, a very good cook?”
“Oh! excellent,” said Mrs. Bantry.
“Your turn, Miss Helier,” said Sir Henry.
“Oh! You mean — to ask a question?” There was a pause while Jane
pondered. Finally she said helplessly, “Really—I don’t know what to ask.”
Her beautiful eyes looked appealingly at Sir Henry.
“Why not dramatis personae, Miss Helier?” he suggested smiling.
Jane still looked puzzled.
“Characters in order of their appearance,” said Sir Henry gently.
“Oh, yes,” said Jane. “That’s a good idea.”
Mrs. Bantry began briskly to tick people off on her fingers.
“Sir Ambrose—Sylvia Keene (that’s the girl who died)—a friend of hers
who was staying there, Maud Wye, one of those dark ugly girls who man-
age to make an effort somehow—I never know how they do it. Then there
was a Mr. Curle who had come down to discuss books with Sir Ambrose—
you know, rare books—queer old things in Latin—all musty parchment.
There was Jerry Lorimer — he was a kind of next door neighbour. His
place, Fairlies, joined Sir Ambrose’s estate. And there was Mrs. Carpenter,
pagnie to Sylvia, I suppose.”
“If it is my turn,” said Sir Henry, “and I suppose it is, as I’m sitting next
to Miss Helier, I want a good deal. I want a short verbal portrait, please,
Mrs. Bantry, of all the foregoing.”
“Oh!” Mrs. Bantry hesitated.
“Sir Ambrose now,” continued Sir Henry. “Start with him. What was he
like?”
“Oh! he was a very distinguished-looking old man—and not so very old
really—not more than sixty, I suppose. But he was very delicate—he had a
weak heart, could never go upstairs—he had to have a lift put in, and so
that made him seem older than he was. Very charming manners—courtly
upset. He had beautiful white hair and a particularly charming voice.”
“Good,” said Sir Henry. “I see Sir Ambrose. Now the girl Sylvia—what
did you say her name was?”
“Sylvia Keene. She was pretty—really very pretty. Fair-haired, you know,
and a lovely skin. Not, perhaps, very clever. In fact, rather stupid.”
“Oh! come, Dolly,” protested her husband.
“Arthur, of course, wouldn’t think so,” said Mrs. Bantry drily. “But she
was stupid—she really never said anything worth listening to.”
warmly. “See her playing tennis—charming, simply charming. And she
was full of fun—most amusing little thing. And such a pretty way with her.
I bet the young fellows all thought so.”
“That’s just where you’re wrong,” said Mrs. Bantry. “Youth, as such, has
who sit maundering on about young girls.”
“Being young’s no good,” said Jane. “You’ve got to have SA.”
“What,” said Miss Marple, “is SA?”
“Sex appeal,” said Jane.
“Ah! yes,” said Miss Marple. “What in my day they used to call ‘having
the come hither in your eye.’”
“Not a bad description,” said Sir Henry. “The dame de compagnie you de-
“I didn’t mean a cat, you know,” said Mrs. Bantry. “It’s quite different.
Just a big soft white purry person. Always very sweet. That’s what Ad-
elaide Carpenter was like.”
“What sort of aged woman?”
“Oh! I should say fortyish. She’d been there some time — ever since
Sylvia was eleven, I believe. A very tactful person. One of those widows
left in unfortunate circumstances with plenty of aristocratic relations, but
no ready cash. I didn’t like her myself—but then I never do like people
with very white long hands. And I don’t like pussies.”
“Mr. Curle?”
“Oh! one of those elderly stooping men. There are so many of them
about, you’d hardly know one from the other. He showed enthusiasm
when talking about his musty books, but not at any other time. I don’t
think Sir Ambrose knew him very well.”
“And Jerry next door?”
“A really charming boy. He was engaged to Sylvia. That’s what made it
so sad.”
“Now I wonder—” began Miss Marple, and then stopped.
“What?”
“Nothing, dear.”
“So this young couple were engaged. Had they been engaged long?”
“About a year. Sir Ambrose had opposed the engagement on the plea
that Sylvia was too young. But after a year’s engagement he had given in
and the marriage was to have taken place quite soon.”
“Ah! Had the young lady any property?”
“Next to nothing—a bare hundred or two a year.”
“No rat in that hole, Clithering,” said Colonel Bantry, and laughed.
“It’s the doctor’s turn to ask a question,” said Sir Henry. “I stand down.”
“My curiosity is mainly professional,” said Dr. Lloyd. “I should like to
know what medical evidence was given at the inquest—that is, if our host-
ess remembers, or, indeed, if she knows.”
“I know roughly,” said Mrs. Bantry. “It was poisoning by digitalin—is
that right?”
Dr. Lloyd nodded.
“The active principle of the foxglove—digitalis—acts on the heart. In-
deed, it is a very valuable drug in some forms of heart trouble. A very
curious case altogther. I would never have believed that eating a prepara-
tion of foxglove leaves could possibly result fatally. These ideas of eating
poisonous leaves and berries are very much exaggerated. Very few people
realize that the vital principle, or alkaloid, has to be extracted with much
care and preparation.”
“Mrs. MacArthur sent some special bulbs round to Mrs. Toomie the
other day,” said Miss Marple. “And Mrs. Toomie’s cook mistook them for
onions, and all the Toomies were very ill indeed.”
“But they didn’t die of it,” said Dr. Lloyd.
“No. They didn’t die of it,” admitted Miss Marple.
“A girl I knew died of ptomaine poisoning,” said Jane Helier.
“We must get on with investigating the crime,” said Sir Henry.
“Crime?” said Jane, startled. “I thought it was an accident.”
“If it were an accident,” said Sir Henry gently, “I do not think Mrs.
Bantry would have told us this story. No, as I read it, this was an accident
case — various guests in a house party were chatting after dinner. The
versation that that final bit of horseplay resulted—for the man who had
fired the pistol was entirely innocent!
“It seems to me we have much the same problem here. Those digitalin
leaves were deliberately34 mixed with the sage, knowing what the result
we?—the question arises: Who picked the leaves and delivered them to
the kitchen?”
“That’s easily answered,” said Mrs. Bantry. “At least the last part of it is.
It was Sylvia herself who took the leaves to the kitchen. It was part of her
daily job to gather things like salad or herbs, bunches of young carrots—
all the sort of things that gardeners never pick right. They hate giving you
Sylvia and Mrs. Carpenter used to see to a lot of these things themselves.
And there was foxglove actually growing all amongst the sage in one
corner, so the mistake was quite natural.”
“But did Sylvia actually pick them herself?”
“That, nobody ever knew. It was assumed so.”
“Assumptions,” said Sir Henry, “are dangerous things.”
“But I do know that Mrs. Carpenter didn’t pick them,” said Mrs. Bantry.
“Because, as it happened, she was walking with me on the terrace that
morning. We went out there after breakfast. It was unusually nice and
warm for early spring. Sylvia went alone down into the garden, but later I
saw her walking arm-in-arm with Maud Wye.”
“So they were great friends, were they?” asked Miss Marple.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Bantry. She seemed as though about to say something,
but did not do so.
“Had she been staying there long?” asked Miss Marple.
“About a fortnight,” said Mrs. Bantry.
There was a note of trouble in her voice.
“You didn’t like Miss Wye?” suggested Sir Henry.
“I did. That’s just it. I did.”
“You’re keeping something back, Mrs. Bantry,” said Sir Henry accus-
ingly.
“I wondered just now,” said Miss Marple, “but I didn’t like to go on.”
“When did you wonder?”
“When you said that the young people were engaged. You said that that
was what made it so sad. But, if you know what I mean, your voice didn’t
sound right when you said it—not convincing, you know.”
“What a dreadful person you are,” said Mrs. Bantry. “You always seem
to know. Yes, I was thinking of something. But I don’t really know whether
I ought to say it or not.”
kept back.”
“Well, it was just this,” said Mrs. Bantry. “One evening—in fact the very
evening before the tragedy—I happened to go out on the terrace before
dinner. The window in the drawing room was open. And as it chanced I
saw Jerry Lorimer and Maud Wye. He was—well—kissing her. Of course I
didn’t know whether it was just a sort of chance affair, or whether—well, I
mean, one can’t tell. I knew Sir Ambrose never had really liked Jerry Lor-
imer—so perhaps he knew he was that kind of young man. But one thing I
am sure of: that girl, Maud Wye, was really fond of him. You’d only to see
her looking at him when she was off guard. And I think, too, they were
really better suited than he and Sylvia were.”
“I am going to ask a question quickly, before Miss Marple can,” said Sir
Henry. “I want to know whether, after the tragedy, Jerry Lorimer married
Maud Wye?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Bantry. “He did. Six months afterwards.”
“Oh! Scheherezade, Scheherezade,” said Sir Henry. “To think of the way
you told us this story at first! Bare bones indeed — and to think of the
amount of flesh we’re finding on them now.”
“Don’t speak so ghoulishly,” said Mrs. Bantry. “And don’t use the word
flesh. Vegetarians40 always do. They say, ‘I never eat flesh’ in a way that
puts you right off your little beefsteak. Mr. Curle was a vegetarian39. He
elderly stooping men with beards are often faddy. They have patent kinds
of underwear, too.”
“What on earth, Dolly,” said her husband, “do you know about Mr.
Curle’s underwear?”
“Nothing,” said Mrs. Bantry with dignity. “I was just making a guess.”
the dramatis personae in your problem are very interesting. I’m begin-
ning to see them all—eh, Miss Marple?”
“Human nature is always interesting, Sir Henry. And it’s curious to see
how certain types always tend to act in exactly the same way.”
“Two women and a man,” said Sir Henry. “The old eternal human tri-
angle. Is that the base of our problem here? I rather fancy it is.”
Dr. Lloyd cleared his throat.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said rather diffidently. “Do you say, Mrs. Bantry,
that you yourself were ill?”
“Was I not! So was Arthur! So was everyone!”
“That’s just it—everyone,” said the doctor. “You see what I mean? In Sir
Henry’s story which he told us just now, one man shot another—he didn’t
have to shoot the whole room full.”
“I don’t understand,” said Jane. “Who shot who?”
“I’m saying that whoever planned this thing went about it very curi-
ously, either with a blind belief in chance, or else with an absolutely reck-
less disregard for human life. I can hardly believe there is a man capable
of deliberately poisoning eight people with the object of removing one
amongst them.”
“I see your point,” said Sir Henry, thoughtfully. “I confess I ought to
have thought of that.”
“And mightn’t he have poisoned himself too?” asked Jane.
“Was anyone absent from dinner that night?” asked Miss Marple.
Mrs. Bantry shook her head.
“Everyone was there.”
“Except Mr. Lorimer, I suppose, my dear. He wasn’t staying in the house,
was he?”
“No; but he was dining there that evening,” said Mrs. Bantry.
“Oh!” said Miss Marple in a changed voice. “That makes all the differ-
ence in the world.”
She frowned vexedly to herself.
“I’ve been very stupid,” she murmured. “Very stupid indeed.”
“I confess your point worries me, Lloyd,” said Sir Henry.
“How ensure that the girl, and the girl only, should get a fatal dose?”
“You can’t,” said the doctor. “That brings me to the point I’m going to
make. Supposing the girl was not the intended victim after all?”
“What?”
“In all cases of food poisoning, the result is very uncertain. Several
people share a dish. What happens? One or two are slightly ill, two more,
say, are seriously indisposed, one dies. That’s the way of it—there’s no cer-
tainty anywhere. But there are cases where another factor might enter in.
Digitalin is a drug that acts directly on the heart—as I’ve told you it’s pre-
scribed in certain cases. Now, there was one person in that house who
suffered from a heart complaint. Suppose he was the victim selected? What
would not be fatal to the rest would be fatal to him—or so the murderer
might reasonably suppose. That the thing turned out differently is only a
proof of what I was saying just now—the uncertainty43 and unreliability of
the effects of drugs on human beings.”
“Sir Ambrose,” said Sir Henry, “you think he was the person aimed at?
Yes, yes—and the girl’s death was a mistake.”
“Who got his money after he was dead?” asked Jane.
“A very sound question, Miss Helier. One of the first we always ask in
my late profession,” said Sir Henry.
“Sir Ambrose had a son,” said Mrs. Bantry slowly. “He had quarrelled
with him many years previously44. The boy was wild, I believe. Still, it was
not in Sir Ambrose’s power to disinherit him—Clodderham Court was en-
tailed. Martin Bercy succeeded to the title and estate. There was, however,
a good deal of other property that Sir Ambrose could leave as he chose,
and that he left to his ward Sylvia. I know this because Sir Ambrose died
less than a year after the events I am telling you of, and he had not
troubled to make a new will after Sylvia’s death. I think the money went to
the Crown—or perhaps it was to his son as next of kin—I don’t really re-
member.”
“So it was only to the interest of a son who wasn’t there and the girl who
died herself to make away with him,” said Sir Henry thoughtfully. “That
“Didn’t the other woman get anything?” asked Jane. “The one Mrs.
Bantry calls the Pussy woman.”
“She wasn’t mentioned in the will,” said Mrs. Bantry.
“Miss Marple, you’re not listening,” said Sir Henry. “You’re somewhere
faraway.”
had a very young housekeeper—young enough to be not only his daugh-
ter, but his granddaughter. Not a word to anyone, and his family, a lot of
nephews and nieces, full of expectations. And when he died, would you
believe it, he’d been secretly married to her for two years? Of course Mr.
Badger was a chemist, and a very rude, common old man as well, and Sir
Ambrose Bercy was a very courtly gentleman, so Mrs. Bantry says, but for
all that human nature is much the same everywhere.”
There was a pause. Sir Henry looked very hard at Miss Marple who
looked back at him with gently quizzical blue eyes. Jane Helier broke the
silence.
“Was this Mrs. Carpenter good-looking?” she asked.
“Yes, in a very quiet way. Nothing startling.”
“She had a very sympathetic voice,” said Colonel Bantry.
“Purring—that’s what I call it,” said Mrs. Bantry. “Purring!”
“You’ll be called a cat yourself one of these days, Dolly.”
“I like being a cat in my home circle,” said Mrs. Bantry. “I don’t much
like women anyway, and you know it. I like men and flowers.”
“Excellent taste,” said Sir Henry. “Especially in putting men first.”
“That was tact,” said Mrs. Bantry. “Well, now, what about my little prob-
lem? I’ve been quite fair, I think. Arthur, don’t you think I’ve been fair?”
“First boy,” said Mrs. Bantry, pointing a finger at Sir Henry.
“I’m going to be long-winded. Because, you see, I haven’t really got any
feeling of certainty about the matter. First, Sir Ambrose. Well, he wouldn’t
take such an original method of committing suicide—and on the other
hand he certainly had nothing to gain by the death of his ward. Exit Sir
that no one else would miss. Very thin and most unlikely. So I think, that
in spite of Mrs. Bantry’s suspicions as to his underclothing, Mr. Curle is
cleared. Miss Wye. Motive for death of Sir Ambrose—none. Motive for
death of Sylvia pretty strong. She wanted Sylvia’s young man, and wanted
him rather badly—from Mrs. Bantry’s account. She was with Sylvia that
morning in the garden, so had opportunity to pick leaves. No, we can’t dis-
miss Miss Wye so easily. Young Lorimer. He’s got a motive in either case.
If he gets rid of his sweetheart, he can marry the other girl. Still it seems a
bit drastic to kill her—what’s a broken engagement these days? If Sir Am-
brose dies, he will marry a rich girl instead of a poor one. That might be
important or not—depends on his financial position. If I find that his es-
tate was heavily mortgaged and that Mrs. Bantry has deliberately with-
I have suspicions of Mrs. Carpenter. Those white hands, for one thing, and
myself. Still, on the whole, if I’ve got to plump, I shall plump for Miss
Maude Wye, because there’s more evidence against her than anyone else.”
“Next boy,” said Mrs. Bantry, and pointed at Dr. Lloyd.
“I think you’re wrong, Clithering, in sticking to the theory that the girl’s
death was meant. I am convinced that the murderer intended to do away
with Sir Ambrose. I don’t think that young Lorimer had the necessary
knowledge. I am inclined to believe that Mrs. Carpenter was the guilty
party. She had been a long time with the family, knew all about the state
of Sir Ambrose’s health, and could easily arrange for this girl Sylvia (who,
you said yourself, was rather stupid) to pick the right leaves. Motive, I con-
fess, I don’t see; but I hazard the guess that Sir Ambrose had at one time
made a will in which she was mentioned. That’s the best I can do.”
Mrs. Bantry’s pointing finger went on to Jane Helier.
“I don’t know what to say,” said Jane, “except this: Why shouldn’t the
girl herself have done it? She took the leaves into the kitchen after all. And
you say Sir Ambrose had been sticking out against her marriage. If he
died, she’d get the money and be able to marry at once. She’d know just as
much about Sir Ambrose’s health as Mrs. Carpenter would.”
Mrs. Bantry’s finger came slowly round to Miss Marple.
“Now then, School Marm,” she said.
“Sir Henry has put it all very clearly—very clearly indeed,” said Miss
Marple. “And Dr. Lloyd was so right in what he said. Between them they
seem to have made things so very clear. Only I don’t think Dr. Lloyd quite
realized one aspect of what he said. You see, not being Sir Ambrose’s med-
had, could he?”
“I don’t quite see what you mean, Miss Marple,” said Dr. Lloyd.
“You’re assuming—aren’t you?—that Sir Ambrose had the kind of heart
that’s so. It might be just the other way about.”
“The other way about?”
“Yes, you did say that it was often prescribed for heart trouble?”
“Even then, Miss Marple, I don’t see what that leads to?”
“Well, it would mean that he would have digitalin in his possession
quite naturally—without having to account for it. What I am trying to say
(I always express myself so badly) is this: Supposing you wanted to poison
anyone with a fatal dose of digitalin. Wouldn’t the simplest and easiest
way be to arrange for everyone to be poisoned — actually by digitalin
leaves? It wouldn’t be fatal in anyone else’s case, of course, but no one
would be surprised at one victim because, as Dr. Lloyd said, these things
are so uncertain. No one would be likely to ask whether the girl had actu-
“You mean Sir Ambrose poisoned his ward, the charming girl whom he
loved?”
“That’s just it,” said Miss Marple. “Like Mr. Badger and his young house-
keeper. Don’t tell me it’s absurd for a man of sixty to fall in love with a girl
Sir Ambrose, it might take him queerly. These things become a madness
sometimes. He couldn’t bear the thought of her getting married—did his
preferred killing her to letting her go to young Lorimer. He must have
thought of it sometime beforehand, because that foxglove seed would
have to be sown among the sage. He’d pick it himself when the time came,
and send her into the kitchen with it. It’s horrible to think of, but I suppose
we must take as merciful a view of it as we can. Gentlemen of that age are
sometimes very peculiar indeed where young girls are concerned. Our last
organist—but there, I mustn’t talk scandal.”
“Mrs. Bantry,” said Sir Henry. “Is this so?”
Mrs. Bantry nodded.
“Yes. I’d no idea of it—never dreamed of the thing being anything but an
accident. Then, after Sir Ambrose’s death, I got a letter. He had left direc-
tions to send it to me. He told me the truth in it. I don’t know why—but he
and I always got on very well together.”
went on hastily:
“You think I’m betraying a confidence—but that isn’t so. I’ve changed all
the names. He wasn’t really called Sir Ambrose Bercy. Didn’t you see how
Arthur stared stupidly when I said that name to him? He didn’t under-
stand at first. I’ve changed everything. It’s like they say in magazines and
in the beginning of books: ‘All the characters in this s
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