Free Dead In The Morning by Margaret Yorke

looked surprised. She exchanged a glance with her brother.
    “I got them from Fennersham on Friday,” she said. “But Mrs Mackenzie couldn’t have taken any of them, if that’s what you’re thinking. They’re still in the chemist’s parcel in the hall, where I left them. I was rather rushed on Friday and forgot to put them away, as I normally do at once. Mother still had a few left from the previous lot, in her room.”
    “You’re sure the new ones are still in the hall?”
    “Quite sure. I noticed them this morning. The car keys are kept on the chest in the hall, and the pills were there when I went to church. I remember thinking that I should have put them away.”
    Dr Wilkins got up and went out into the hall. He came back carrying a small paper bag printed with the name of the Fennersham chemist.
    “It’s a pity chemists don’t still seal their packets up with wax, as they used to do,” he said, opening the bag.
    He took the bottle out.
    There was no need to say anything. The three who watched could see for themselves that the bottle was half-empty.

 
IV
     
    “And what happened after that?” demanded Patrick.
    It was the same afternoon. Cathy was sitting with him and Jane in the living-room at Reynard’s relating the events of the morning. At intervals in her tale Patrick had stopped her, making her clarify what she had said and ensuring that she left out no detail. “Oh, Patrick, stop it. Leave her alone, for heaven’s sake,” said Jane. “Poor girl, it’s been an awful experience for her.”
    “It’s much better for her to get it all off her chest rather than bottle it up,” Patrick said.
    “I hate you, Patrick Grant,” said his sister. “Your ordinary curiosity is bad enough, but this is too much. Forget it, Cathy.”
    “I can’t, Jane. Don’t you see, I keep going over and over it all in my mind as it is,” Cathy said. “I’m only telling you what I’ve already told the police. How can any of us think of anything else for a single minute? Even when we know why she did it, it will haunt us for ever. She must have been so unhappy, to do something so terrible, yet she always seemed cheerful.” She shook her head in bewilderment. “I just don’t understand it. She’d got a nice son and daughter, and grandchildren, and we were all fond of her. Besides, there was the Charlotte Russe.”
    “What about it?”
    “Mrs Mack had made a little one for herself, for lunch today, as well as a big one for us. She would never have done that if she hadn’t intended to eat it,” she said.
    There was a silence.
    “I’m inclined to believe you,” Patrick said.
    “Then there was all that about the lemon meringue,” Cathy went on. “Oh, I don’t see what it means.”
    “What about the lemon meringue?”
    “We had it for supper last night. The police asked about it. We had cold cucumber soup, and chicken fricassee, and then lemon meringue pie. Gran had hers in bed, she often does, but last night she didn’t eat her pudding. She said she was full. It’s unusual, because she has a very good appetite. Maybe that was why she was so starving this morning, at breakfast-time.”
    “Let me get this straight,” Patrick said. “Your grandmother didn’t eat her pudding last night, right?”
    “Right. She’d had rather a lot of excitement the night before, with Father and Helen arriving, so I suppose it wasn’t all that surprising, but it’s one of her favourite puddings.”
    “Well? And so?” Patrick prompted her.
    “We couldn’t find the piece. I mean, Aunt Phyl cut the pie into four, a piece each for her, Gran, Mrs Mack and me. As Gran didn’t eat hers, it should have been somewhere about, in the fridge or in the larder.”
    “Could it have been thrown away?”
    “We looked in the bin.”
    “Is there a waste disposer ? It might have been thrown away like that.”
    “Not in Winterswick,” said Jane. “There’s no main drainage here.”
    “Well, where do you think it went?”