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“Does he imagine the rest of us enjoy it?” Alastair’s voice rose suddenly and for the first time his composure seemed in danger of slipping. “For God’s sake, Kenneth, either say something useful or hold your tongue.”
Oonagh moved a little closer to him and put her hand lightly on his arm.
“Actually, Quin has made a point,” Deirdra said with her face screwed up in concentration. She did not appear to have noticed Alastair’s distress. “Miss Latterly must have seen the brooch before she decided to give Mother-in-law a double dose of medicine….” She avoided using the word poison. “And since Mother-in-law was not wearing it, then either she saw it in her case, which does not make a lot of sense—”
“Why not?” Alastair said tersely.
There was no anger in Deirdra’s face, only deep thought. “How could she? Did she look all through Mother’s case at some time when she was supposed to be resting? And then mix the medicine at the same time?”
“I don’t know why you say that.” Alastair looked at her irritably, but already there was a quickening in his expression belying his words.
All heads turned from Alastair to Deirdra.
“Well, she couldn’t mix it in front of her,” Deirdra said quickly. “And she couldn’t give her two doses. Mother would not have taken them.”
Monk smiled with the first real satisfaction he had felt since Rathbone had broken the news.
“You have an excellent point, Mrs. Farraline. Your mother-in-law would not have taken the double dose.”
“But she did,” Alastair said with a frown. “The police informed us of that, the day before you arrived. That is precisely what happened.”
Oonagh looked very pale, a flicker of tension between her brows. She turned from Alastair to Monk without speaking, waiting for him to explain.
Monk chose his words with intense care. Could this be the key to it all? He refused to hope, but still he found his body rigid, muscles aching.
“Was Mrs. Farraline sufficiently forgetful that she might either have accepted two doses of her medicine or have taken one herself and then allowed Miss Latterly to have given her another?” He remembered Crawford’s dismissal of such an idea and he knew what the answer would be.
Oonagh opened her mouth, but in the minute’s hesitation before she spoke, Eilish interrupted.
“No, certainly not. I don’t know what the answer is, but it is not that.”
Baird was very pale. He looked at Eilish with something so fierce in his eyes it seemed to be agony, even though it was apparently Monk to whom he was speaking.
“Then the answer must be that Miss Latterly saw the brooch in the house, before it was packed, and decided then on her plan. She must have doubled the dose before she left.”
“How?” Deirdra asked.
“I don’t know.” He was not disconcerted. “She was a nurse, after all. Presumably she knew how to make some medicines as well as give them. Any fool can pass out a vial or present it to someone.”
“Make it out of what?” Monk asked with assumed innocence. “The ingredients would hardly be lying about the house.”
“Of course not,” Deirdra agreed, looking from one to another of them, her face puckered. “It doesn’t make sense, does it. I mean, it doesn’t sound remotely likely. She was only here for one day … less than that. Did she go out, does anyone know? Mr. Monk?”
“I assume you have questioned the local apothecaries?” Quinlan asked.
“Yes, and none has sold digitalis that day to any woman answering Miss Latterly’s description,” Monk replied. “Or indeed to anyone else not already known to him personally.”
“How confusing,” Quinlan said without any apparent unhappiness.
Monk felt himself beginning to hope. He had the essence of doubt already.
“I think you are missing the point,” Oonagh said very gently. “The brooch will have been packed in Mother’s traveling jewel case, which was in the carriage with them. And of course Mother had the key. Miss Latterly saw it when she was preparing the medicine, or perhaps she looked through it out of curiosity when Mother may have alighted at the station to use the convenience. There would be plenty of opportunities during a long evening.”
“But the digitalis,” Baird argued. “Where did she get that? She didn’t find that in a railway station.”
“Presumably she carried it with her,” Oonagh replied with a tiny smile. “She was a nurse. We have no idea what she had in her case.”
“On the chance of having someone to poison?” Monk said incredulously.
