Free Blue Murder by Harriet Rutland

that’s impossible! Those head injuries!”
    The Constable shook his head. Superintendent Cheam had turned to look at some papers on the desk, as if to make it clear that he had no further interest in the interview.
    â€œI’m afraid you’re the only one whose head has been injured, sir,” said Files patiently. “Nobody’s even tried to murder Mr. Hardstaffe. I saw him walking down the village this morning.”
    Arnold looked utterly bewildered.
    â€œBut all that I’ve been telling you...?”
    â€œAh! You’ve been letting your imagination run away with you a bit there. Been working a bit too hard on that book, I shouldn’t wonder, and it’s got on your nerves.” Arnold rose to his feet, and swayed unsteadily. The Constable came across, and, taking him by the arm, propelled him gently through the door and out into the hall.
    â€œIf you take my advice, sir,” he said, “you’ll go and see the doctor in the morning. That knock on the head must have been worse than you imagined. You need a good long rest. Just you leave London alone for a bit, and stay up here in Nether Naughton: it’s healthier.”
    â€œThen it’s all nonsense?” demanded Arnold. “There isn’t any tragedy at the Hardstaffes’ after all?”
    â€œOh, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,” remarked the Constable as he ushered him through the front door. Mrs. Hardstaffe was found dead in her bed on Sunday morning.”

CHAPTER 11
    The inquest on Mrs. Hardstaffe was held on the following day.
    Arnold, whose suggestion that he should move to the local inn had been waved aside by an indignant Leda, drove the bereaved daughter and husband to the large, bleak, single-storied building lent by the Women’s Institute for the occasion. He sat with them in one of the small wooden chairs placed in rows, while the Coroner faced them over one of the green-baized card tables, and as many of the villagers as were not afraid of being dubbed “gawpers,” crowded into the spaces behind them.
    The doctor who had performed the post-mortem was called first.
    The Coroner, a white-haired country lawyer, fidgetted as though his task was distasteful to him, and listened as though he did not in the least care how many grains of morphia had been found in the body of the schoolmaster’s wife.
    In fact, he did care very much.
    He had lived in the village as long as he could recall—apart from such absences as were necessary for the purpose of education—and he had as a matter of course entered the legal firm in the nearby market town which bore his father’s and grandfather’s name. And so he remembered the time when Mrs. Hardstaffe had first come to live in Nether Naughton, a radiant little figure, suitably proud of being a headmaster’s wife, and prouder still of the two children whom she adored.
    To preside at an inquiry into the death of old Joe Latham who, too venturesome at ninety, had fallen downstairs and broken his neck, or to hold an inquest on Sally Mason’s baby, left unattended in its gas-helmet during a mock attack by “invading forces;” such cases were part of his duty, and, legally, he found them a pleasant change from his routine work. But to inquire into the death of a woman with whom he had been friends as long as her husband permitted, and for whom he had remained a bachelor: a woman who, while appearing faded and nondescript to others, had remained radiant as a rose to him...
    No, he did not like the task before him this morning.
    He became aware that the young doctor had finished the medical discursion, and he hastily jerked himself into speech.
    â€œThere can be no doubt then, that Mrs. Hardstaffe died from an overdose of morphia. Did you at any time prescribe this drug for her, Dr. Lowell?”
    The doctor hesitated. 
    â€œNo, but I’m not Mrs. Hardstaffe’s medical adviser. I am Dr.