Something Wicked by David Roberts

mentioned it to him, he had glanced at it dismissively and thrown it to one side. Now he knew he had been wrong and he was a big enough man to admit it.
    ‘I congratulate you, Lord Edward. I seem not to have been thorough enough. You have got more from Mrs Venables than I expected. In the light of the other murders – if that’s what we must now call them – we can see some sort of pattern emerging.’
    ‘Yes, but what puzzles me is that General Lowther’s wine was delivered by Justerini and Brooks – a highly respected wine merchant. We must find out what carrier they used but we should assume it wasn’t interfered with until it reached the General’s house.’
    ‘And Mrs Venables said there had been no visitors to the house in the weeks before he died – no strangers, anyway,’ the policeman went on. ‘And since the note was found in the pocket of the General’s smoking jacket, it must have been someone who knew him intimately.’
    ‘Perhaps . . .’
    ‘Could it have been Mrs Venables?’ the Inspector suggested without much confidence. ‘She might have discovered he hadn’t left her any money.’
    ‘I don’t see it. She could not know that he had left it all to Miss Tiverton. Anyway, she had worked for him for so long, why wait until that day to kill him?’
    ‘Perhaps she had suddenly discovered the General had made a new will. Maybe she had witnessed it.’
    ‘Yes, that’s a possibility, I suppose, though a witness would not have seen what was in the will.’
    ‘But if you witness a will, you can’t be a beneficiary,’ the Inspector persisted. ‘If she had been asked by him to witness what she thought was his will, she might have deduced that she would not inherit.’
    Edward wasn’t convinced but if Treacher wanted to follow up his hunch that was up to him. ‘Well, Inspector, I’ll leave that for you to follow up. I’ll talk to Miss Tiverton and see what she’s got to say.’
    ‘Miss Tiverton – yes, I remember interviewing her all right. The village schoolmistress! She taught me nothing. Oh dear, Lord Edward, you are making me feel foolish.’
    ‘Not at all, Inspector. I’m coming at it from a different angle, that’s all. I’m starting with a presumption that the deaths were murders. You did not. There is another possibility as to how the Shakespeare quotation got into his pocket. Perhaps, when he went to London that last time, he met someone who gave it to him.’
    ‘Someone gave it to him . . .’ mused the Inspector, ‘and he kept it because it meant something to him. He didn’t necessarily see it as a threatening message . . .’
    ‘It’s a possibility – that’s all we can say until we find out more.’
    ‘I’ll put together a complete list of everyone who could have been in or near the house in the weeks before the General died,’ the Inspector offered. He looked at Edward anxiously. ‘I suppose we ought to exhume his body to see if there is any trace of poison.’
    ‘I’m afraid so, Inspector.’ Edward was tempted to say something consoling along the lines of ‘you shouldn’t blame yourself’, but decided it would sound patronizing. Anyway, damn it, it had been an inadequate investigation and the Inspector needed to face up to it.
    ‘I should also officially reopen the investigation into Hermione Totteridge’s death,’ the Inspector added gloomily.
    ‘I fear so. Might I suggest . . . a friend of mine, Charlotte Hassel, knew Miss Totteridge – she was a sort of honorary aunt to her when she was a child. She has offered to introduce me to her sister, Violet Booth. I gather she lives in Norfolk. I’d like to talk to her before there’s any suggestion that the coroner’s verdict might have to be challenged. Would that be all right with you?’
    Treacher nodded his head. ‘I’d be grateful for any help you can give me, Lord Edward. The fact is that I feel rather out of my depth. There seems to be a murderer on the loose in and around Henley and I have