Free Five Roundabouts to Heaven by John Bingham Page B

nervous system and upon the action of the heart. The smallest recorded fatal dose is 60 grains, which taken in the solid form caused the death of a boy aged sixteen. Recovery has occurred after an ounce and a quarter. Death has occurred in ten minutes, but it may be delayed for several days…
    Barium Chloride has been taken in mistake for Epsom salts. It has been taken for suicidal purposes in the form of rat poison, into the composition of some varieties of which it enters…
    Acute Arsenical Poisoning …
     
    Idly, Bartels turned over the pages. It seemed heavy and dull. He replaced it on the shelf. Next to it, he noticed a smaller, blue book, called Toxicology: A Handbook for GPs. He sat down with it.
    Perhaps the fact that he had seen altrapeine among the bottles in the photographic darkroom in my flat caused him to pause and read about it.
    Altrapeine, he read, was a synthetic poison with a cyanide basis…“it is a white powder, odourless and tasteless, and easily soluble in water. It exercises a specially fast and usually fatal influence on the action of the heart. The circumstances of death are to all intents and purposes similar to those associated with coronary thrombosis. There is little or no pain. Death occurs within a matter of seconds, and in the case of a woman of forty it took place after a dose of a quarter of a teaspoonful. This poison is exceptionally difficult to detect.”
    Bartels laid down the book and gazed across the room. He remembered Dr Anderson once saying that coronary thrombosis was the most merciful death of all. That was when Beatrice had had severe pains in the left breast, and had half seriously, half jokingly, suggested that she might have angina pectoris.
    Dr Anderson had told him, in private, that the pain had been caused by Beatrice getting into an emotional condition. He had never discovered the cause of the emotional condition, and had soon forgotten all about it.
    Dr Anderson had said something else, chatting to him in the way doctors do. He had said that coronary thrombosis could cause angina pectoris.
    If, therefore, Beatrice—What? He stopped the train of thought. But it crept back, stealthily, and he followed it to its conclusion. If Beatrice died very suddenly, in circumstances suggesting coronary thrombosis, Dr Anderson would remember the earlier suggestions of angina pectoris…It would confirm a diagnosis of coronary thrombosis.
    He read the paragraphs again, and frowned.
    A few moments later he heard his aunt’s footsteps descending the linoleum-covered stairs leading to the basement. After the deaths of aunt Rose and uncle James, she had redecorated the ground-floor rooms and let them, and now confined herself entirely to the basement.
    Bartels rose quickly out of his chair, crossed the room, and replaced the book between the dictionaries. Perhaps it was this action, this quick, furtive movement, which first brought him face to face with the reality behind his thoughts.
    But as he hastily picked up the evening paper again, and pretended to be reading it, his mind was still protesting against the evidence of his actions.
    Now aunt Emily came into the drawing room and gave one of her glad cries of welcome. She welcomed him in exactly the same way as on all such occasions. She raised her hands in pretended surprise, managed to infuse a delighted look into her eyes and, implanting a wet kiss on both his cheeks, said:
    “My! My! My! If it isn’t Phil? Well! Well! Well!”
    Her good-natured oval face was wreathed in smiles. She gazed at him with every semblance of rapt attention. He knew that in two or three minutes she would be indulging in confidential remarks about the movements up or down of the stock exchange, for she prided herself on being a keen businesswoman, and the shortcomings of whoever at that particular moment happened to be occupying the top parts of the house.
    But this time there was another topic. It was Chan, the Chinaman.
    When Bartels asked her what