Free Adders on the Heath by Gladys Mitchell Page A

Social and Athletic, they call themselves, according to Tom. They've got a ground of sorts, somewhere outside Southampton. I expect you heard him say so. They've had one or two good people-steeplechasers, mostly-but not exactly world class, I believe. I don't much follow athletics. Anyway, they're a pretty minor club, the same as Tom's lot.'
    'By which you mean-?'
    'Well, they're not exactly Achilles, or Poly. Harriers, or Herne Hill or Thames Valley, for example.'
    'I see.' There was a pause, then Dame Beatrice added, 'Perhaps, when we have attended the inquest, your friend will honour me with the whole of his confidence. I dislike to work on half-truths.'
     
    CHAPTER SIX
    INQUESTS ARE ODIOUS
     
    'Poisoned with henbane. His whole body stinks of it.'
    Jerome K. Jerome
     
    The inquests on Colnbrook and the so-far unnamed body also dumped in Richardson's tent were held separately but on the same day. Richardson was called as a witness in both cases. Accepting Dame Beatrice's advice (in the tradition that drowning men clutch at straws, and having about as much faith in the result), he had been to the Superintendent to tell him that he recognised the body he and Denis had found in the woods as that of the first deceased occupant of his tent. The Superintendent (suspiciously so, in Richardson's opinion) had been friendly and almost jocose.
    'So we shall see what we shall see, sir,' he had said, in termination of the interview.
    'What's that mean?' Richardson had demanded.
    'Now, now, sir, there's no reason to be nervous. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, you know.' He insisted upon shaking hands at parting.
    The so-far unidentified body came first, and the court learnt that it was that of one Edward Makepeace Thackeray Bunt, an ex-member and cross-country club-record-holder of the Scylla and District A.C.
    'You've nothing to worry about, then,' murmured Denis to Richardson. 'It's all the same bunch. One of them has bought it, mark my words.'
    Richardson grunted his incredulity at the suggestion that he had nothing to worry about. He knew better. He had spent almost sleepless nights in the hotel. Bunt was identified by his father, an older, bearded edition of the dead man. The medical evidence was clear and remained unchallenged. The deceased had died from a fatal dose of hydrocyanic acid, better known to the layman as prussic acid. (There was no mention of fir cones!)
    The police asked for an adjournment after the evidence of identification and the medical evidence had been concluded. It was clear they suspected that Bunt had been murdered, in spite of the fact, well known to the medical profession, that prussic acid is a suicide's agent, although not, at that, a very common one.
    Richardson's protagonist, Colnbrook, was identified by his sister, who did not appear to be greatly upset by the proceedings. In his case the medical evidence was that he had taken potassium cyanide, a more commonly used preparation than hydrocyanic acid and therefore more readily come by.
    Neither Denis nor Richardson was called upon to testify to the finding of the body in the woods. The police had investigated their account of the matter and the forester to whom they had spoken was severely dealt with by the coroner.
    'At what time did you come upon the body?'
    'Oo, now, that would have been around nine o'clock, I reckon, sir.'
    'Where did you find it?'
    'Where us was working.'
    'And that was?'
    'Oo, about half-way acrorst Benet Enclosure, near enough.'
    'What were you doing there?'
    The witness looked surprised.
    'Why, sir, you knows as well as I do.'
    'Answer the question, man. All this has to go on record.'
    'Oo, well, then, us was felling.'
    'Tell the court how you came to find the body.'
    'It were there.'
    'How do you mean?'
    'Why, us was felling a Scots pine, do ee see, sir, and dead man, he laid just where tree were liable to fall.'
    'You mean that the body was lying in the open, where anybody could have seen it?'
    'Ar,