Below Suspicion by John Dickson Carr Read Free Book Online Page A

Inspector didn't come until Dr. Bierce had been to see us."
    "And, all this time, you did not watch the tin. Can you swear, Mrs. Griffiths, that the prisoner never once—never once!—touched the Hn of antimony?"
    A stricken expression crossed Alice Griffiths's face. She looked round, as though for help, and saw only stony faces, except the kindly tenderness of Patrick Butler,
    "Can you swear that, Mrs. GnSiths?"
    "No, sir. I ain't even sure of it."
    "Thank you, Mrs. Griffiths. That will be all."
    And he sat down.
    Mr. Lowdnes, who had now lost his temper and was as red in the face as a peony, bounced up for a re-examination which only hardened Alice Griffiths's obstinacy. She was followed in the witness-box by William Griffiths, coachman, gardener, and odd-jobs man, who corroborated his wife about the banging door and gave further evidence about the antimony in the stable. Emma Perkins, cook—after a longer and even more adroit cross-examination by Patrick Butler—wavered and admitted that Joyce might have picked up the poison-tin.
    But there were no more fireworks until, just before the midday recess, the prosecution called Dr. Arthur Evans Bierce.
    "My name is Arthur Evans Bierce," runs his testimony in the printed record, as you may read it today. "I live at 134 Duke's Avenue, Balham. I am a doctor of medicine in general practice, and serve as part-time police-surgeon to K Division of the Metropolitan Police."
    Medical men, like police-officers, are as a rule the canniest and most discreet of witnesses. But Dr. Bierce, though no doubt canny, was clearly prepared to speak his mind on any subject.
    A lean, bony man in his late thirties. Dr. Bierce had receding brown hair which gave him a narrow, freckled dome of skull. It dominated his long nose, his sandy eyebrows and straight mouth, even the steady brown eyes. As he stood with hands folded on the ledge of the witness-box, set at an angle between the jury-box on one side and the judge's bench on the other. Dr. Bierce radiated capability.
    "At approximately 8:55 on the morning of Friday, February 23rd, I was summoned to Mrs. Taylor's house, called 'The Priory,' by a telephone call saying that she was dead."
    Mr. Theodore Lowdnes waved a mesmeric hand, the sleeve of his black gown flapping.
    "Did the news surprise you, Dr. Bierce?"
    "Very much so."
    "You had been for some years, I believe, her personal physician?"
    "To be exact, for five years."
    'For five years. Was there anything organically wrong with her?"
    "There was not. In my opinion, she could have walked to China and carried her own suitcase. But her state of mind was not healthy."
    Mr. Lowdnes frowned. "Not healthy? Will you explain that?"
    "Mrs. Taylor, at the age of seventy, was in the habit of dyeing her
    hair, painting her face, and asking me whether I knew of any rejuvenating drug which would still make her attractive to men."
    "A harmless peccadillo, surely?"
    Dr. Bierce raised his eyebrows, sending many wrinkles up the domed freckled skull. "That depends on the point of view."
    "If someone had handed her what appeared to be a tin of Nemo's salts, do you think she would have swallowed a dose?"
    "If someone she trusted had offered it to her, I should have expected her to swallow anything."
    " 'Someone she trusted.' I see. Can you tell us whether her relations with the prisoner were, or were not, cordial?"
    "In my opinion, much too cordial. The whole house was unhealthy. I did not consider it a good atmosphere for one"—here Dr. Bierce glanced briefly towards Joyce—"with so little knowledge of the world."
    "You refer to the prisoner?"
    "I do."
    Mr. Lowdnes spoke dryly. "As a medical man. Doctor, have you heard of the vilest crimes committed by those with little knowledge of the world?"
    "In books, yes."
    "I refened to real life. Have you never heard of Marie Lafarge? Or Constance Kent? Or Marie Morel?"
    "Those ladies, I fear, lived before my time."
    "I tell you this, sir, as a historical fact!"
    "Then I