Mrs Ferrars’ husband died just over a year ago, and Caroline has constantly asserted, without the least foundation for the assertion, that his wife poisoned him.
She scorns my invariable rejoinder that Mr Ferrars died of acute gastritis, helped on by habitual overindulgence in alcoholic beverages. The symptoms of gastritis and arsenical poisoning are not, I agree, unlike, but Caroline bases her accusation on quite different lines.
‘You’ve only got to look at her,’ I have heard her say.
Mrs Ferrars, though not in her first youth, was a very attractive woman, and her clothes, though simple, always seemed to fit her very well, but all the same, lots of women buy their clothes in Paris, and have not, on that account, necessarily poisoned their husbands.
As I stood hesitating in the hall, with all this passing through my mind, Caroline’s voice came again, with a sharper note in it.
‘What on earth are you doing out there, James? Why don’t you come and get your breakfast?’
‘Just coming, my dear,’ I said hastily. ‘I’ve been hanging up my overcoat.’
‘You could have hung up half a dozen overcoats in this time.’ She was quite right. I could have.
I walked into the dining-room, gave Caroline the accustomed peck on the cheek, and sat down to eggs and bacon. The bacon was rather cold.
‘You’ve had an early call,’ remarked Caroline.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘King’s Paddock. Mrs Ferrars.’
‘I know,’ said my sister.
‘How did you know?’
‘Annie told me.’
Annie is the house parlourmaid. A nice girl, but an inveterate talker.
There was a pause. I continued to eat eggs and bacon. My sister’s nose, which is long and thin, quivered a little at the tip, as it always does when she is interested or excited over anything.
‘Well?’ she demanded.
‘A sad business. Nothing to be done. Must have died in her sleep.’
‘I know,’ said my sister again. This time I was annoyed.
‘You can’t know,’ I snapped. ‘I didn’t know myself until I got there, and haven’t mentioned it to a soul yet. If that girl Annie knows, she must be a clairvoyant.’
‘It wasn’t Annie who told me. It was the milkman. he had it from the Ferrarses’ cook.’
As I say, there is no need for Caroline to go out to get information. She sits at home and it comes to her.
My sister continued: ‘What did she die of? Heart failure?’