The Poison Cupboard Read online

  THE POISON CUPBOARD

  John Burke

  © John Burke 1956

  John Burke has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1956 by Secker and Warburg.

  This edition published in 2017 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  For

  SAMUEL YOUD

  Table of Contents

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  PART TWO

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  PART THREE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  PART ONE

  My heart . . .

  Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain, And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.

  Chapter One

  It was rather like entering a cinema in the middle of a film. She had to piece the story together as well as she could.

  Of course there was no doubt about the hero — if one could call him a hero. A hero in the dramatic sense, anyway: the man around whom all this ritual was built. And, to her, a hero in the sense that an adored film star was a hero to so many: she knew that face so well, knew the petulant lower lip, knew every intonation of the voice even though she had not heard it for quite a while.

  It was more than two months since they had last seen him. His last letter had been scrappy and inadequate. At times Laura thought about him with that familiar mingling of exasperation and longing; but most of the time she tried not to think. It did no good. He had got away (that was how, wryly, she always put it to herself, knowing that it was his own way of looking at it) and there was nothing to be done. The pain would always be there, but she spent the greater part of her life dealing with pain, real or imagined, and knew a great deal about its comings and goings; knew that to dwell on it was only to intensify it.

  She did not encourage enquiries about him. The polite, often gently malicious questions were best ignored.

  Unfortunately some of her patients enjoyed mixing gossip and speculation with chatter about their ailments. There were those who had known her since she was a child. They called her, with a hint of patronage, Miss Laura, and considered it their right to probe into family affairs.

  It was one such who had led her here. The bland question, ‘And how’s Mr. Peter getting on these days?’ had been the beginning. Laura’s remote ‘Pretty well, thanks’ had been answered by the most casual of references to ‘something I happened to see in the evening paper last night,’ and after that there had been the call to Dr. Whiting in Jury to ask if he would take any urgent calls which might come in.

  And now here she was. She had not been able to get here until after the lunch recess, and she had to pick up the threads. It was not difficult. The whole thing was painfully clear.

  A man in a grubby wig rose with an air of confidence which Laura found repulsive.

  ‘As the court has already heard, two of the properties concerned in this case were being handled for the owners by the firm of Thomas Buddington and Partners. I call Mr. Frederick Buddington.’

  ‘Call Frederick Buddington.’

  A nervous young man entered the witness box. He glanced unhappily, almost apologetically, at the prisoner in the dock. He answered the preliminary questions regarding his identity and the exact nature of his position in the firm in such a hurried undertone that the judge had to lean forward and ask him to speak up. Buddington blinked, swallowed, and then spoke up in an abrupt roar that sent a titter of laughter round the court.

  Counsel said: ‘Will you please tell the court, Mr. Buddington, what happened on the afternoon of January 29th of this year?’

  ‘At about three o’clock on the afternoon of January 29th,’ said the witness, settling down to something which he had obviously rehearsed with great care, ‘a man came in and asked for the keys of two flats we had for rent in the Cromwell Road. He claimed that he had been in two days previously and had been accompanied over the flats by one of our staff. I verified this from our records. He said that he now wished to show his wife over them. I issued the keys to him.’

  ‘Is the man in question in court at this moment?’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘Will you point him out?’

  The witness pointed to the prisoner.

  ‘You are quite sure?’ said counsel affably.

  ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘You have reason for remembering the prisoner clearly?’

  ‘Yes. I’d seen him before. It wasn’t until he came back with the keys that it struck me. And I thought it was a bit fishy that he should be looking at those flats, as he wouldn’t be wanting them for himself unless he’d come up in the world a lot lately.’

  ‘What precisely do you mean by that? Had you any particular reason to be suspicious about him?’

  ‘The last time I saw him, he hadn’t got much money.’

  ‘What was this last occasion to which you refer?’

  ‘He used to work with one of those shady little agencies that used to fix people up with flats or rooms. Or that’s what they claimed. You had to pay a deposit first — but of course there was no guarantee you’d get a room — always some story why there was nothing available, once they’d taken your money off you. They were a disgrace to our profession, and it’s a good job that they —’

  ‘My lord, I object.’ Defence counsel rose indignantly. ‘I submit that these remarks are not admissible as evidence. The prosecution is dragging in matters irrelevant to the present charge in order to besmirch the character of the defendant.’

  ‘My lord, I wish to show evidence of system. The accused claims that he has been working in good faith for his employers. It is part of my submission that he has knowingly practised these shameful deceits, and I can produce witnesses to a series of similar events . . .’

  There was a wrangle. The outcome, thought Laura, did not matter. Whatever evidence was relevant or not, whatever was admissible nor not, the truth was plain. She was amazed that the preliminaries had taken so long. The case ought to have been over before she got here. She knew that Peter was guilty. She could have told them that, beyond the shadow of a doubt, he was guilty. Knowing Peter, and listening to the evidence, she saw how it all fitted together — how logically and characteristically it all fitted.

  It was a dismal story.

  Another witness.

  ‘And the man who, you say, asked for a large deposit for fittings and as a down payment for this flat which, he told you, was so much sought after — is that man present in court today?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can you positively identify him?’

  The pointing finger, the angry righteous voice. ‘That rotten, thieving young twister over there . . .’

  First the shabby little agency, preying on people who would try any
thing in order to find accommodation in London. Then, when such agencies ceased to exist, the bolder stroke: the advertisement in the newspaper and the courteous acknowledgment of replies on a finely headed notepaper, the collection of deposits (‘Money back if you are not satisfied when you have inspected the house’) and the disappearance.

  It was quite an accumulation. Taken singly, the various items might possibly have been dealt with in a magistrates’ court; added together, they demanded something more than the short sentence a magistrate was empowered to give.

  ‘My lord, I object . . .’

  ‘Similar happenings, your lordship.’

  A short debate, and the tussle for Peter’s freedom went inexorably on. Voices talked of abstractions, and it seemed to Laura that they seized every possible opportunity of deviating from the main argument in order to enjoy little skirmishes on the subject of what was and what was not admissible as evidence.

  Laura sat with her eyes lowered. To her, only Peter was real. It was nauseating that they should be wrangling over him like this.

  Peter ought to have known — known instinctively — that she was here; but he had not once glanced in her direction. She could not bear to look at him, sitting there so blandly. He could hold a pose for an unbelievable length of time: he had looked puzzled and innocent for such a long period now that the most naive jury must surely have realised that he was faking.

  She could imagine how easily he had taken money from those house hunters. He would take them along to the house or flat, show them around with his most charming air, and explain so diffidently — so very apologetically, as though ashamed to bring up such harsh matters — how essential it was to put down a deposit these days. It was done everywhere. You simply couldn’t get a decent place in town without it. Regrettable, of course, but our firm, like all the others, has to insist on it.

  She knew him so well. She knew just how plausible he would have sounded. While he was talking, he would have believed every word he said.

  Why argue? Why plead not guilty? The defence was crumbling so easily. There were too many people ready to identify Peter. Too many little flashes of awkward evidence made it clear that his avowed innocence was false.

  ‘The accused is a cruelly wronged man.’ Counsel for the defence expressed horror in the hands that rose from his gown. ‘Facing this monstrous charge — saddled with the responsibility for the misdeeds of his employers, who have cleverly disappeared — a sincere, hardworking young man . . . A young married man, I may add. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, can you believe that a young man who was himself married only a few months ago would practise such deceit on young couples with whom he must feel the greatest sympathy?’

  Married. Peter was married.

  The other details of this sordid story had hardly moved Laura at all. They had meant no more to her than so many incidents in their childhood when she had listened to accusations made against Peter — had listened to them and, as his defending counsel then, had lied and argued in his favour. The facts mattered little. What Peter had done meant nothing. He was Peter; faults, failings and petty treacheries added up to Peter; and there was no more to be said.

  But now at last she had been hit. The other revelations were nothing: this was a wicked thrust, a blow that physically sickened her.

  No word from him for so long. No announcement, not even a casual reference; no invitation; simply a wedding of which they knew nothing — hurried, drunken, in a registry office, reluctantly, indifferently, lustfully? — and his life shared from then on with a woman.

  Laura felt no immediate curiosity about the woman. That would come later. For the moment, as defending counsel desperately flourished his oratorical banners before the jury, she felt only that she had been shamefully robbed. She was unable to suppress the sudden trembling of her fingers. It was not the robber who counted: it was the fact of robbery, the awful sense of deprivation.

  ‘Even if we admit that this unfortunate young man was influenced by the bad company into which he had fallen, it is unthinkable that he should be condemned for their faults while they, the instigators, escape. It is unthinkable that . . .’

  Hurry, thought Laura. Hurry and get it over with.

  She had no doubts about the verdict. It was no good trying to make out that Peter was an innocent young man, or a gullible one. For all the smoothness of his features, he was clearly over thirty, and clearly intelligent — ‘A man who ought to know better,’ as the judge remarked when passing sentence, adding that he hoped this would mean an end to the appalling sequence of wretched trickeries which had distressed so many people recently.

  By the time he had finished, Laura had scribbled a note on a page torn from her appointment book. It went to the clerk of the court, who spoke to the judge.

  Permission to see the prisoner before he is sent downstairs. Near relative, a doctor, been out of touch with the prisoner for some time.

  Granted.

  Chapter Two

  The room was small, and smelt musty. Hopes had died here. The man in blue who sat upright with folded arms on a hard chair in the corner might not have been alive: he was part of the impersonality, the all-pervading deadness of the place.

  When Peter saw Laura, his expression snatched at her breath. She felt a constriction in her throat. It was so long since she had last seen him. And yet she knew him as she had never known anyone else in the world. She was at once so close to him, recognising with a stab of pain and love the appealing gesture as he leaned eagerly towards her, his lower lip pouting like a girl’s while at the same time his eyes were wary.

  He began to speak at once, as though to keep her from reproaching him.

  ‘Laura, you’re the last person I expected to see. How did you hear about this rotten mess? It’s a bit thick. Don’t you think so? You heard the evidence — or what they called evidence? It’s really not fair, you being dragged into it, and when the whole thing is so unjust anyway —’

  ‘All right, Peter,’ she said. ‘All right.’

  He stopped. The immediate sheepish smile enraged her and yet was so familiar that she wanted to cry. But she hadn’t cried over Peter for years; which meant that she hadn’t cried over anybody for years.

  He said with exaggerated seriousness: ‘How’s mother taking this?’

  ‘She doesn’t know about it yet. That is, unless some kind friend has been in to tell her — as one came in to tell me.’

  ‘Oh, how rotten, old girl.’

  They looked at one another in mute appraisal. They looked, and saw each the same face. Only the woman’s hair made any real difference, giving another cast to the features and disguising the outlines. Apart from that they were almost identical; yet where Laura’s face was severe and disconcertingly alert, Peter’s was somehow lazy and appealing. It was odd. It had been commented on many times by friends and acquaintances when the two were children. Such a shame, it had been generally agreed, that the boy should be so pretty. The girl ought to have had all that charm instead of being such a queer aggressive little thing. She got a reputation for being cold-hearted and even spiteful. Peter was irresistible: even people who distrusted him had to admit that he was hard to quarrel with.

  Funny how twins could be so alike and at the same time so different.

  But no one could say in so many words just what the difference was. It was something that you recognised after a while — something a very little way below the surface of the echoing faces, looking out from the eyes or caught for a moment in some twitch of the mouth.

  Laura said: ‘Why didn’t you let me know you were in trouble?’

  ‘Oh, you know how it is —’

  ‘I know,’ she said, ‘that I wouldn’t have let you get into such a dreadful mess.’

  ‘Well . . . I didn’t like to tell you. Didn’t want to drag you in.’

  ‘If you wanted money, you could at least have told me. It would have been better than this.’

  ‘I’ve never been a scrounger,’ said Pet
er self-righteously and untruthfully.

  She had not asked for this meeting with the intention of abusing him, but love and anger were inextricable. She said:

  ‘I suppose I’ve always been expecting something of the sort. It was bound to come to it in the end.’

  ‘Aren’t things bad enough?’ he lamented. ‘You don’t have to go on at me.’

  ‘I don’t see why not. It’s what you deserve. You needed it long ago.’

  His persistent flickering smile became sly. It was a mark of their estrangement that she could be unsure of the significance of that quirk of the lips. It might mean rueful affection or it might — more probably — be mockery. Perhaps it was silently telling her that she was the reason for his going to live in London after the war, that she was what he had wanted to escape from.

  She felt suddenly wretched. She longed to set him free. Somehow she had failed him. She said: ‘Oh, Peter . . .’

  ‘Don’t you worry, now.’ In a flash he was at his most charming, radiating a glib sincerity. ‘Two years isn’t so long. And I’ll be out before then, anyway. I’ll be a good boy and get let out early.’

  ‘How could you have been such a fool?’

  ‘Now don’t let’s go into that again.’

  ‘But I want to know, Peter. I want to understand.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You always did, didn’t you?’

  The tone of his voice struck into her memory and awoke old responses. She answered as she would have answered years ago, instinctively lunging to throw him off balance. She said:

  ‘What’s your address these days — your wife’s address?’

  ‘Now look here, Laura —’

  ‘I shall find out what it is somehow. You may as well tell me. I don’t imagine it’s the same as the old address. I wrote there several times, but you never bothered to reply.’

  ‘Laura, there’s no point in —’

  ‘Was she in court today?’

  ‘You don’t want to listen to everything a lawyer says when he’s up on his hind legs. Just because he put on that sob stuff about me being a married man —’