CHAPTER 38

Jimmy Latter took it hard. But in the very completeness of the destruction which it brought to all that he had ever believed or thought about Lois there was some hope for the future. No man can cling sentimentally to the memory of a woman who has tried to poison him. The shock of learning what she had done was tremendous. It smashed his married life and its memories so entirely that there was nothing left. Presently, when the dust and fragments had been cleared away, there would be a space on which to build again. Even now, in these first hours, there was an undercurrent of relief. With so much else, the fear that had ridden him was gone. It wasn’t he who had driven Lois to her death.

The inquest opened at four o’clock in the afternoon. The Coroner, old Dr. Summers, handled it very firmly. He had had a session with Chief Inspector Lamb, with whom he had found himself very much in accord. The evidence would be limited to what was strictly necessary, and sensational elements would not be encouraged. A sober jury sat with him- mostly local farmers, with the landlord of the Bull, a middle-aged spinster who bred dogs, and one or two tradesmen thrown in. The village hall was packed-reporters squeezed into a solid mass by sheer pressure of village interest; both moral and physical temperatures high and rising; the latter strongly tinged with varnish and the smell of hot humanity.

Police and medical evidence first. No doubt about the cause of death-morphia. The number of grains stated.

Then Dr. Summers called Jimmy Latter.

“You had been married two years?”

“Yes.”

“You were on good terms with your wife?”

From the other side of the gulf which had opened in his life, Jimmy Latter said,

“Yes.”

“But this week there had been a serious breach?” Dr. Summers settled his pince-nez and said firmly, “I do not propose to enquire any further into this breach, but I feel obliged to ask you whether it was indeed a very serious one.”

Since the whole village already knew from Gladys Marsh that Mrs. Latter had been found by her husband in Mr. Antony’s room in the middle of the night, with Mr. Antony saying no-such a nice gentleman and engaged to Miss Julia-it had quite enough inside knowledge very heartily to endorse Jimmy Latter’s “Yes.” There was a murmur of whispered talk. Dr. Summers quelled it.

“Would you say that the breach was of such a serious nature that it might have led to a separation?”

Jimmy Latter said “Yes.” After which he was taken briefly through the events of Wednesday evening and dismissed.

Julia was called, to describe how she had found Lois Latter in a collapsed condition.

Then Polly Pell.

On this fourth time of telling her story the words came almost of themselves. She described the scene in the bathroom, her voice a child’s voice, low and shy, but quite audible. Perhaps she remembered that on this very platform she had tripped as a fairy in selected scenes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or stood on guard over a manger, in a long white nightgown and a pair of wings. She had a pretty singing voice, and one year she had sung the Page to the sexton’s Good King Wenceslas. This didn’t frighten her too much, because in private life the sexton was Uncle Fred and she had known everyone in the hall since she was a baby. These memories may have had a supporting influence.

The Coroner told her she was giving her evidence very nicely. She was shown the snuffbox after she had described it, and said at once, “Yes, that’s the one.” At the end he asked her the same question as Miss Silver had done-had she seen Mrs. Latter’s face, had she noticed her expression? She gave the same answer.

“Oh yes, sir. She looked ever so pleased.”

The close air in the hall seemed to stir. Everyone there except the gentlemen of the Press had known Lois Latter, by sight at least. Most of them had spoken to her one way or another. They all knew about the looking-glass walls in her bathroom and bedroom at Latter End, the general verdict being that it wasn’t quite nice. They could all make a picture of her like the picture which Polly had seen reflected from the bathroom wall-the beautiful Mrs. Latter hammering upon a folded paper with the heel of her shoe, and looking “ever so pleased.” To the more imaginative the picture conveyed a rather sinister thrill. There was that stir in the air.

Polly went back to her seat.

The Coroner called Minnie Mercer.

She had no black to wear for Lois Latter, but she had put on the darkest dress she had, the navy cotton which she had been wearing all the summer whenever it was hot enough, and the dark blue straw hat in which the village had seen her in church on every fine Sunday since April. Between hat and dress her face showed so thin and bloodless that the Coroner looked at her with concern. He had been her father’s friend, and there had been a time, some forty years buried in the past, when she used to sit on his knee and feel in his waistcoat pocket for peppermints.

He took her through her story very kindly. The history of the morphia first.

“It was part of your father Dr. Mercer’s stock of drugs?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you keep it?”

“In the medicine-cupboard in my room.”

“Did you keep the cupboard locked?”

“Yes.”

“And where did you keep the key?”

“In my dressing-table drawer.”

Her voice was like her face, quite drained of life and expression, but it was audible.

The Coroner went on.

“Did you notice that the bottle containing the morphia tablets had been moved?”

“Mr. Latter came to ask me for something to help him sleep. The cupboard was open because I had been getting some face-cream out of it. He took up the morphia bottle, and I took it away from him at once and said it was dangerous. I think it was in the front of the shelf when he picked it up, instead of at the back inside a box.”

“You saw Mr. Latter pick it up?”

“Yes.”

“He didn’t take anything out of it?”

“Oh, no-he just picked it up. I took it away at once.”

“Did you notice that this bottle was out of its place when you were getting out the face-cream?”

“No. It was on a different shelf, amongst several other small bottles of the same kind. I didn’t notice it till Mr. Latter picked it up.”

“Did you notice anything about the bottle after you had taken it from Mr. Latter?”

“I thought it wasn’t as full as it ought to have been. I couldn’t be sure, because it was a long time since I had looked at it, but I thought it was emptier than it had been.”

“What did you give Mr. Latter to help him to sleep?”

“Two aspirins.”

“You locked the cupboard again after that?”

“Yes.”

“And put the key in the usual place?”

“Yes.”

“Did he see you put it away?”

“Oh no.”

“When did all this take place?”

“On Tuesday evening.”

“That would be rather more than twenty-four hours before Mrs. Latter’s death?”

“Yes.”

Dr. Summers settled his pince-nez.

“We will now come to the events of Wednesday evening. Will you tell us just what you saw and what you did when you came into the drawing-room after supper?”

In the same dead voice she repeated the story which she had told to Lamb that morning. The jury could make their picture of her standing there in the drawing-room doorway to watch Lois Latter tip a white powder from an old French snuffbox into one of the coffee cups upon the tray. They could see the coffee stirred, lump sugar and cognac added, the cup carried over to the table by Jimmy Latter’s chair. They could see the box packed with rose-leaves and slipped into the table drawer.

The hall was dead still. Each of the low words fell into the stillness like a stone falling into water. In the middle of that hot, breathless afternoon more than one person shivered or felt a cold drop run trickling down the spine. They all knew Mr. Jimmy. The older ones had known him for as far away back as he or they could remember. And it was Mr. Jimmy’s wife who had tipped that white powder into the cup and set it down where it would be handy for him to pick it up and drink it.