Page 56 of Marble Hall Murders

‘Yes. He started out buying specimens, some of them fifty or a hundred years old, and when that ceased to satisfy him, he started creating them himself. It was an unusual hobby – and that was why I was there. He’d come into contact with some quite unpleasant chemicals which had caused health problems. A darkening of the skin, warts, lesions. It could have been quite serious if I hadn’t intervened. I put him on a course of dimercaprol and it cleared up in no time. Anyway,Eliot happened to be in the room while I was treating his grandfather and when I turned round, you won’t believe what I saw! He had his hand in my medicine bag. He was rummaging through the different medicines and before I could stop him, he’d snatched one of my bottles and run out of the room.’

‘Little thief!’ Mrs Lambert exclaimed.

‘That’s true, dear. But I checked what was missing and it was only a bottle of Liqufruta. A cough medicine. It wasn’t poisonous or anything like that. Of course, I had to tell his parents and I must say, I was very disappointed by their response. One of the children had a birthday that week and they didn’t want to make a big thing of it. I insisted that they talk to Eliot, though. You can’t have children rummaging around in medicine bags.’

‘And stealing!’ Mrs Lambert added.

‘In the end, his father gave him a good talking-to. Eliot said he’d done it as a dare and insisted that he’d thrown the bottle away, so no harm had been done. I would have given him a good hiding – but whatever Eliot may be saying about them now, his parents weren’t like that and he got off scot-free.’

‘When was this?’

‘The twenty-fifth of June 2003.’ Dr Lambert was pleased that he could remember the date. ‘It was exactly two days later that Mrs Crace died.’ He realised the implications of what he had just said and went on hurriedly. ‘Before you make any false connections, let me assure you that she could have drunk a whole bottle of Liqufruta with no effect whatsoever. It was a herbal remedy. Nothing more.’

‘Miriam Crace was suffering from heart disease,’ I reminded him.

‘Yes. She had mitral stenosis.’

‘A narrowing of the mitral valve controlling the flow of blood to the heart.’

‘That’s correct.’ He was impressed by my medical knowledge, but all I was doing was repeating what Eliot had written about Lady Chalfont. The two women had the same disease.

‘Was that the reason she had to take six months off?’ I asked. This was something I had read in Miriam’s biography. ‘She went to a clinic in Lausanne,’ I added.

‘Oh no. That was a long time ago, before she even bought Marble Hall. It was in the medical notes I inherited from my father – but it was nothing to do with her heart. She was worn out. Stress caused by overwork.’

‘And you’re certain it was the mitral stenosis that killed her.’ It was time to get to the point. I felt myself closing in on the target I had set myself. ‘You see, that’s what worries me, Dr Lambert. Eliot is saying something very different.’ I paused, as if afraid to put my thoughts into words. ‘He’s suggesting that his grandmother might not have died from natural causes.’

‘He said that?’ Dr Lambert was instantly outraged.

Next to him, the newspaper came down, folded into his wife’s lap. She glared at me from the other side.

‘Is he pretending he poisoned her with cough medicine?’

‘He never mentioned the cough medicine. He hasn’t told me what happened, but that’s why I felt I ought to see you. I have warned Eliot against going into print with this sort of accusation—’

‘If he’s saying that, it’s a downright lie! I was the first person to examine Mrs Crace. Mrs Rodwell – she was the housekeeper – called me up to Marble Hall at six o’clock in the morning. Miriam Crace died minutes before I arrived. I issued the MCCD – the medical certificate of the cause of death – and delivered it to the registrar. I also referred the death to the coroner. If there had been the slightest indication of there being anything suspicious or unnatural about her passing, I would have been obliged to report it under the Registration of Births and Deaths Regulations of 1987. Otherwise I would have been committing a criminal offence. But there was not. Miriam Crace’s heart condition was well known to everyone who was close to her. Mitral stenosis is fatal in eighty per cent of cases, usually within ten years, and especially if there is secondary pulmonary hypertension – which in this instance was most certainly the case. And why would anyone want to harm her, anyway? She was loved all over the world.’

‘You’re positive it had nothing to do with the liquid that Eliot took from your medicine bag?’

‘One hundred per cent. I’m sorry I even mentioned it now.’

‘You didn’t say anything at the time?’

‘I told his uncle what had happened, as I recall, but otherwise there was no need to. No.’

‘And I don’t suppose you noticed, but was there an empty glass beside her bed? You may have known that Miriam drank a glass of lemon and ginger every morning when she woke up.’

‘I did know that, but I can’t say I noticed it at the time. As you can imagine, I had other things on my mind.’ He shookhis head. His patience had finally run out. ‘I think you should leave,’ he said.

‘You’ve been very helpful,’ I said. ‘And believe me, all I want to do is to stop Eliot writing things that will cause harm to you or to the family. You’ve made it crystal clear that they don’t make any sense.’

That calmed him down a little. His wife was still glaring at me, but he got up and showed me to the door. When he opened it, I glanced at the car, as if noticing it for the first time. ‘It’s beautiful,’ I said. ‘Is it yours?’

‘Yes.’ His pride got the better of him. ‘It’s a Suffolk Jaguar SS100. A beautiful car – a 4.2-litre twin-cam straight-six engine. It purrs along, and there’s plenty of legroom too. I’ve got a Triumph Spitfire in the garage. I’m proud to have them and it’s all thanks to Miriam Crace. She left me a generous bequest in her will. She was a wonderful woman. I still miss her.’

‘We all do,’ I said.

I turned and walked away, but he stood there, watching me, until I had gone.

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