Free Blue Murder by Harriet Rutland Page B

supply a few days before. I’ve always been afraid that she might do so. She was always so careless over such things.”
    â€œYour mother took sleeping-draughts prescribed by Dr. Macalistair?”
    â€œYes. She’s taken them for a year or more.”
    â€œAnd what makes you think that they contain morphia?”
    â€œOh, everybody knows that, even the servants,” said Leda. “Mother liked to tell everyone that she slept badly and had to take morphia powders.”
    â€œDo you know how she knew they contained morphia?”
    â€œI suppose Dr. Macalistair told her.”
    â€œSo, in your opinion, Miss Hardstaffe, your mother accidentally took too many of the sleeping powders?”
    â€œIt’s obvious, surely. What other explanation could there possibly be?”
    The coroner glanced down at a pencilled note on the pad before him.
    â€œWhen did you last see your mother alive?” he asked. “The night before she died. At about twenty-five minutes past nine when she said good-night before going upstairs to bed.”
    â€œYou didn’t go into her bedroom to see her?”
    â€œNo. I never did. She liked to read in bed, and didn’t care to be disturbed.”
    â€œDid she seem any different from usual? Did she, for example, seem to be worried about anything?”
    â€œNo. She was worried about her health, of course, but there was nothing unusual in that.”
    â€œYou didn’t hear any sound from her room after you had gone to bed?”
    â€œNo. But my bedroom is on the opposite side of the house. Unless it was some loud noise, like a scream or a bang, I shouldn’t hear it.”
    â€œThank you, Miss Hardstaffe.”
    She was dismissed.
    Hardstaffe gave a similar version of the breakfast scene, and he had last seen his wife alive a few seconds before Leda.
    Arnold could picture the frail old lady bending down to drop a conventional kiss upon his half-averted brow, one over-ringed hand resting on his unresponsive shoulder. He had often wondered whether she still squeezed some sentimental pleasure from the habit, or whether it was merely a long-disused custom resuscitated for his own benefit. For Mrs. Hardstaffe’s creed undoubtedly held the command, “Thou shalt always keep up appearances before strangers.”
    â€œYou noticed nothing unusual about Mrs. Hardstaffe’s manner that night?”
    â€œNothing whatever.”
    The coroner gritted his teeth before forcing himself to ask the next question.
    â€œMiss Hardstaffe has said that you all met for the first time each day at breakfast. Am I correct in assuming that you and your wife did not occupy the same bedroom?”
    â€œQuite right,” came the bland reply, but Arnold saw the schoolmaster’s hands clench until the knuckles were white.
    He’s having a job to control himself, he thought. I should think he’s got a guilty conscience, too, after the way he treated that poor woman.
    â€œYou heard no sound during the night?”
    â€œNone whatever.”
    â€œDid you sleep near Mrs. Hardstaffe?”
    Hardstaffe glared.
    â€œWe had adjoining rooms, if that’s what you mean,” he said.
    â€œIt is exactly what I do mean,” returned the Coroner. “Are the two rooms connected or separate?”
    â€œThere is a communicating door which is always kept locked, but I don’t see what...”
    â€œAnd the key?”
    â€œOh, that was lost many, many years ago,” replied Hardstaffe, whereat two of the men present were filled with a violent desire to punch his jaw.
    â€œHave you any idea how your wife came to take an overdose of morphia?” persisted the coroner.
    Hardstaffe relaxed his stance a little, and put his hands into his trousers pockets, jingling some loose coins.
    â€œI see no reason to differ from my daughter’s opinion,” he said. “The first thing I noticed when I went into Mrs. Hardstaffe’s bedroom