Jack, Knave and Fool by Bruce Alexander Read Free Book Online

must make it clear that I know next to naught of poisons. They did not figure in my career with the Navy as a ship’s surgeon. As for my abortive practice in Lancashire, who knows? Perhaps some of those deaths I deemed natural may have been hurried on by henbane or foxglove. I had no reason to suspect, in any case.”
    “I quite understand,” said Sir John. “But you have at your disposal books such as might give some light on the matter?”
    “I do, yes, and I mean to study them tonight in order to explore this possibility, this ‘doubt’ of yours. In all truth, I was quite dissatisfied with the opinion I gave to Lady Laningham as to the cause of her husband’s death. I told her that her husband had died of circulatory failure. This is very like saying that he died because his heart stopped beating. That, of course, is the ultimate cause of all death.”
    “Would you hazard a guess as to the penultimate?”
    “I should be reluctant to do so. It seemed to be a gastric disturbance of some terrible proportion. What might cause such has me quite baffled. Barring further study of the kind I mentioned, and barring an autopsy of Lord Laningham s corpus, there would seem to be no way …” Mr. Donnelly paused, a frown upon his face, a look of frustration.
    “What is it, sir? Something has occurred to you.”
    “Indeed something did occur—though now quite useless to us. It came to me that had we saved that which Lord Laningham vomited from his stomach and brought it to a competent chemist for analysis, he might have told us if there was some foreign element in it which could have caused such a violent reaction. But you, Sir John, gave permission to the innkeeper to clean up the stage after the body had been removed.”
    “Ah, so I did. It seemed only proper.”
    “As we left, I happened to notice one of his servers with mop and pail making rid of the mess.”
    “Well, perhaps another time —though indeed I hope there be no other time.”
    Through this conversation which took place between Sir John Fielding and Mr. Gabriel Donnelly, the two other gentlemen had remained silent—yet their attitudes differed greatly. For his part, Mr. Humber was clearly fascinated by all that passed between them. Mr. Goldsmith, on the other hand, seemed merely tolerant, bound by his affection for his friend Mr. Donnelly and his respect for Sir John to let them have their say. When a brief silence ensued upon their conclusion, I was in no wise surprised when it was Mr. Goldsmith who broke it.
    “I have but one more objection to make, if I may.”
    “Make it then, by all means,” said Sir John, flapping a hand indifferently in the air.
    “It is this, a simple appeal to good sense: If one were to wish to poison another, one would not choose a setting as public as these Sunday concerts. After all, up there on the stage? With hundreds looking on? It makes no sense, sir.”
    “Yes, yes,” said Mr. Humber, swayed once again in the other direction, “Mr. Goldsmith brought that up on our walk from the Crown and Anchor. It does seem a good point, Jack.”
    “Ah, but is it?” questioned Sir John. “What was it that those hundreds saw? An old man of seventy-five who had probably eaten too much and certainly drunk too much, up there before them, prancing about as one his age should not have done, playing the fool as he had often done in the past, overexerting himself. Many there knew he was not a well man. There could have been little surprise at his collapse. Some indeed may have made such dire predictions, attending simply in the expectation that it would one day happen just as it did and they might be there to see.” He shook his great head and quaffed the last of his brandy. “No, I reject Mr. Goldsmith’s final point more emphatically than his others. I believe contrariwise, that if one were to wish to poison another —that other being Lord Laningham — he would choose just such a time and place as the Crown and Anchor stage