Read Online C S Lewis and the Country House Murders (C S Lewis Mysteries Book 2) by Kel Richards - Free Book Online Page B

it for . . .’ and here her faint voice died away and the words became impossible to hear.
    ‘Speak up, girl!’ barked Sergeant Merrivale. ‘Who or what did he say he was buying it for?’
    She swallowed hard and then said, ‘For Hugo Franklin . . . Mr Franklin, that is . . . the head gardener at the Hall.’
    ‘And why would he do that, miss?’ asked Inspector Crispin. ‘Did he say why Mr Franklin didn’t come into the shop and make the purchase for himself?’
    ‘He said that he was walking into the village to post a letter and Mr Franklin had asked him to . . .’ Again her voice faded away to nothing. She was like a chiming clock with a faulty mechanism—every chime becoming steadily fainter than the one before.
    Crispin suddenly spun and around and confronted me. ‘Is this true, Mr Morris? Have you suddenly remembered making this purchase? Had it slipped your mind until now?’
    ‘Of course not!’ I protested loudly. ‘I made no such purchase. I’ve never purchased potassium cyanide in my life—not two weeks ago, not ever. And certainly not for Franklin. He has a supply of cyanide in his garden shed. He showed it to Jack and me earlier today. And anyway, the Hall is not far from the village and he’s perfectly capable of walking here himself and making his own purchases.’
    ‘My dear Morris,’ interrupted Jack, ‘that’s not what’s being implied here, is it? The suggestion is that any reference to Franklin was a blind, and that you were making the poison purchase for yourself for your own nefarious purposes.’
    ‘But . . . but . . . but . . .’ I started to splutter like a single- cylinder motorcycle trying to climb a steep hill while misfiring at every stroke.
    Suddenly Sergeant Merrivale’s heavy hand was clamped on my shoulder as he said to Ruth Eggleston, ‘Is this the man, miss? Is this the man who purchased the cyanide? The man referred to in that there entry in your poisons book?’
    She nodded dumbly, blinking back tears from her eyes.
    Crispin pushed the book along the counter in my direction.
    ‘The law requires every purchaser of poisons to sign the book,’ he said. ‘Is this your signature, Mr Morris?’
    I looked down at the book and felt a sudden wave of relief.
    ‘No,’ I announced cheerfully. ‘That’s not my signature. That’s nothing like my signature. Look at any example of my writing and you’ll see at once that this is not my signature.’
    ‘How do you explain that, miss?’ asked Crispin, turning back to the shop girl.
    She swallowed hard three or four times and then said, ‘His hand was hurt. It was bandaged up. So he couldn’t write with it. He asked me to write his name for him.’
    ‘Well, Mr Morris?’ Crispin raised his eyebrows as he asked me the question.
    ‘I did hurt my hand a week or so back. A cricket injury. I copped young Will’s fast ball on my wrist. It was bruised and sprained, that was all.’
    ‘And bandaged?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And you were unable to write with it for a while?’
    ‘For a couple of days, yes. But I still wasn’t here and I didn’t—’
    Sergeant Merrivale interrupted my explanation like a bulldog lunging forward to seize a bone. ‘So that explains why it’s not your signature that’s in the book, doesn’t it, sir? This young lady says she remembers you making the purchase, so you must have done—is that correct, sir? Do you remember it now, sir?’
    ‘She’s lying!’ I said loudly. Ruth Eggleston started to sob, and I regretted my outburst. ‘Or . . . or mistaken . . . or she just doesn’t remember . . . or something,’ I added lamely.
    ‘Let’s ask the chemist himself,’ said Inspector Crispin. Without waiting for an invitation, he picked up the poisons book, lifted the flap in the counter and walked through the open doorway to the back room. The rest of us followed.
    There, bending over a small, hand-operated pill making machine was a man in a white coat—a man so elderly that he would have