The Nantucket Diet Murders Read online

  “‘D. sequine (Jacq.) Schott,’” she read. “That’s just a kind of shorthand for the botanical description, Genia. Here’s what Beth wrote down after that. “Poisoning: severe burning in the throat and mouth caused to some extent by numerous needle-like crystals (raphides) of calcium oxalate, but primarily by a protein (enzyme) aspargine.’ And then she wrote down her source—Human Poisoning from Native and Cultivated Plants, second edition, James W. Hardin and Jay M. Arena, M.D.”

  “I found another one,” Mrs. Potter said. “‘Members of the arum family grown as house plants include pothos, window leaf (Monstera sp.), elephant’s ear, caladium and dumbcane. Poisonous properties. Swelling of mouth, tongue and throat may interfere with speech, swallowing and breathing. In severe cases can cause death by choking.’ After that she wrote ‘Plants that Poison, Ervin M. Schmutz and Lucretia Breasdale Hamilton.’”

  Gussie searched through the crumpled papers. Beth halted her. “There’s only one more on that murder,” she said. “Find the one from the book Deadly Harvest.”

  “Here it is, by John M. Kingsbury,” Gussie said. “‘Some think practical jokes with these plants are funny but the truth is that more than one person has lost his life when tissues about the back of the tongue swelled up and blocked breathing as a result of taking a mouthful.’”

  Beth ate another cracker. Samson snored on his rug.

  “You think Edie died from eating dumb cane,” Mrs. Potter said slowly, “and you seem to think you were responsible. Then how did it happen, and why?”

  “They all came back for second plates of salad,” Beth said dully. “You remember, Peter asked me to cut some of the herbs for a while? He had to go to the kitchen and Count Ferencz had gone away someplace.” She paused, methodically crunching another cracker.

  Prompted by Gussie’s “and then?” she continued. “One of Peter’s flowering begonias needed pinching back, and it was a variety I wanted a cutting from,” she said slowly. “I don’t think I took one—at least I didn’t have it when I got home. What I did, and you can’t escape the truth of it, no matter how you try . . .”

  Mrs. Potter’s arm tightened around Beth’s shoulders, which began again to tremble.

  Beth swallowed. When she went on, her voice was again measured and monotonous. “What I did was to cut a leaf of dieffenbachia instead. It’s perfectly clear. I snipped up a green leaf of dumb cane over Edie Rosborough’s salad, and she died.”

  Before either Gussie or Mrs. Potter could speak, she continued. “I had to look today to be sure,” she said. “And there it was, as plain as day, the place where I cut the leaf from the plant.

  “And now I suppose you want to know how I murdered Ozzie?” she asked calmly. “I took him foxglove leaves, thinking they were comfrey. Just see my notes on foxglove there someplace.”

  “We’ll read them later,” Mrs. Potter said. “We know foxglove contains digitalis.”

  “See Mr. Kingsbury again,” Beth insisted. “He says it’s a poisonous glycoside, that it’s used to strengthen the beat of a weakened heart, but in larger amounts it can be fatal. Especially for someone who isn’t already used to taking a little of it in regular doses in medicine.” She pointed toward the remaining papers. “Now look for the one from The Poison Trail The author’s named William Boos. I’ve got them all memorized.

  “So that’s how I killed Ozzie,” she said, rising to her feet and shaking herself free of Mrs. Potter’s arm; “I didn’t know it until Thursday morning when I went over there from your house, Gussie, and after I brought home what I thought were my dried comfrey leaves. As soon as I opened the jar, I saw I hadn’t filled it with comfrey at all. I don’t remember doing it, but I’d taken him foxglove leaves, still half green, as mine are, growing along the side path by the house.

  “That’s when I went right to the science library. I vaguely knew foxglove was poisonous, but I didn’t know how it worked or how deadly it could be.”

  Gussie and Mrs. Potter were silent as Beth continued. “Once I’d read enough to know I’d poisoned Ozzie, it was only natural to wonder about the girl’s death, too,” she said. “And I told you what a help Lolly was, once she knew what I was looking for.”

  Gussie and Mrs. Potter looked at each other. Could Beth Higginson, however unintentionally, have caused two poisoning deaths? It was all the more implausible that the two, the same day, should have been caused by the most ordinary, commonplace plants of house and garden.

  “There’s got to be another explanation,” Mrs. Potter finally told her. “Besides, you know there’s no way in the world you could or would have poisoned Ted.”

  “That part’s the worst,” Beth said, her voice still a monotone. “When I opened my basket for my sweetener pills, Ted and I both saw what I had there. He knew it was cyanide the second he saw it—he’s got an old potting shed, too.”

  Mrs. Potter stared at her uncomprehendingly.

  “You don’t have one,” Beth explained tiredly. “Lots of people here do. When we bought this house, all the old tools and garden supplies had been left behind, for who knows how many years.”

  Mrs. Potter quietly removed the basket of crackers from the table, even as Beth was reaching, unseeing, for another. In its place she set a glass of milk.

  Beth took a sip, then set it aside decisively. “You thought Ted was drunk,” she said, with no show of emotion. “But I saw the bottle, too. It wasn’t any hallucination.”

  “Cyanide!” Gussie was incredulous. “You had cyanide here in your house?”

  “People used it all the time in the old days,” Beth answered easily. “Prussic acid, that’s what we’re talking about, hydrogen cyanide. An insecticidal fumigant, it says on the label. Ted said he used to have some, too, in that old corner of his basement. You probably have a bottle, too, Gussie, out in the garage or wherever the old garden stuff at your house was left behind when you bought the place.”

  For the first time, Beth almost smiled. “How I got my prussic acid—cyanide, Ted called it, same thing—from my house to your tea party is rather a blank to me,” she said sweetly. “But I did, because it was there in my basket.”

  She now beamed more confidently. “Ted knew, of course, when he saw it. That’s why he upset things and made such a mess. Ted wasn’t going to let me poison any more people.”

  “Can you show us the bottle now?” Mrs. Potter asked gently.

  “Here it is, in the corner cupboard,” Beth said, now quite cheerful. “Naturally I couldn’t let anyone at the party see it—it would have frightened them.”

  She took it down from the shelf. “It was empty, you know, but of course Ted didn’t know that,” she said, in tones of offering a reasonable explanation. “Jim checked it years ago, in case one of the grandchildren found it. He just wanted to keep it as a curiosity. When I got home, I made sure it was safe. I scrubbed it inside and out until the label came off.” She smiled. “It’s really quite a pretty old bottle., don’t you think? Don’t be afraid to touch it—it’s clean.”

  “Is that the canister up there in the cupboard, too?” Mrs. Potter continued.

  Beth lifted it down and set it on the table. “The foxglove leaves went out in the trash,” Beth said, “and I washed it very carefully, too, so it’s perfectly all right to use again if you need it for anything.”

  Mrs. Potter looked at the sparkling blue glass on the table, next to the clean tea canister. “How did you happen to take the old bottle to Gussie’s party, anyway?” she asked in a casual tone.

  Beth’s face clouded, and the deep circles under her eyes seemed even darker. “That’s one of three things I can’t remember,” she answered slowly. “One is how I could have happened to cut up dieffenbachia leaves on Edie’s salad. Two is how I took a great wad of half-green foxglove leaves to Ozzie when I meant to fill the canister with dried comfrey. And three is why ever would I have put that dusty old bottle in my basket when I got ready for the party. I can’t even remember taking it down from the shelf, althoug
h I think I remember seeing it out there in the shed not long ago.”

  Beth abruptly sat down on the braided kitchen rug and put her arms around her knees. “Those are the three things I can’t remember, no matter how hard I try. Even when I finally get to sleep at night, I wake up every few minutes trying to make myself remember.”

  Samson pushed his nose against Beth’s cheek, nudging her for attention, but she pushed him away without appearing to notice. “Anyway, I’ve decided what to do,” she said dully. “I’m going to tell everybody and make a public confession. Don’t you think that would be best?”

  Gussie was at the telephone, casting a quick eye down Beth’s list of numbers on the living room desk.

  “Mr. Laurence Higginson,” she said. “Please tell him I’m a friend of his mother’s, Augusta Van Vleeck, calling from Nantucket.”

  There was a pause. “Yes, Laurence, I do understand that it’s the middle of a busy day and you have an important client you’re about to take to lunch—you’d like to call me back later? Forget about later, Laurence. Your mother needs you. Yes, right now. Yes, charter, by all means, and hold the plane to go back. Just get here, and Mrs. Potter and I will hold the fort until you come.”

  By the time her son arrived, Gussie and Mrs. Potter had persuaded Beth in and out of a warm bath and into suitable travel clothes. They packed a bag for her with a warm woolen robe and slippers, several pairs of bright winter pants and sweaters, underthings, a neatly polished pair of penny loafers, and her toiletries. They had called another number on Beth’s telephone pad and the veterinarian’s assistant from the animal hospital was on his way to collect Samson.

  “Glad to keep him, Mrs. Van Vleeck,” he had said. “Mrs. Higginson brings him out often, and Samson’s a doll. Finest kind. Just let us know when she wants him back.”

  Beth, now oddly calm and untroubled, left with her son. Reassured by his promise to telephone as soon as the family doctor had been consulted, Gussie and Mrs. Potter gathered up Beth’s crumpled notes, turned the thermostat down to fifty, and went home to Main Street in the: early dusk of the January afternoon.

  “We’d better call Helen. She’ll want to be the one to let the others know,” Gussie said as they reached her door.

  “Only that Beth is ill and going to spend a few days in Providence,” Mrs. Potter added quickly.

  The three had already agreed that no one else would learn of Beth’s self-accusations or erratic behavior. Arnold Sallanger had held Edie’s death to be an allergic reaction, which indeed it was. He had declared Ozzie’s death to have been caused by a heart attack, which it was. To hint at intentional use of poisonous plants in the two deaths; could only make things worse for Beth now.

  20

  “But suppose Beth is right?” Mrs. Potter asked wearily, stretching her legs in the direction of the last embers in the library fireplace. “About everything? It’s one last thought, Gussie.”

  “What do you mean, suppose Beth is right?” Gussie asked, yawning. “We’ve sat here talking about Beth and worrying about her ever since she and Laurence took off for Providence. It’s almost midnight. We’ve both probably done more square inches of needlepoint tonight than in the last two months, and the one thing we’ve agonized about is that dear, happy, feet-on-the-ground Beth has gone off her rocker. She’s not right. She’s about as wrong as anybody could be.”

  Mrs. Potter nodded in reluctant partial agreement. “She’s off the tracks,” she said. “She’s been neglecting her dog, forgetting to eat or sleep. She sounds crazy as a hoot owl. She says she’s poisoned two people and that only Ted Frobisher, our favorite island alcoholic, saved her from poisoning him and maybe everybody else at your tea party Saturday. Using an empty bottle that used to hold cyanide.”

  “We’ve been over this too many times,” Gussie said. “Time for bed. Come on, now—I’m not used to these late hours.”

  “Neither am I,” replied her guest, “but just you sit down again one more minute. I asked you this—suppose Beth is right? Suppose Ozzie and Edie Rosborough both were poisoned. While you’re at it, you can even suppose somebody was trying to poison somebody else right here in your own dining room Saturday.” She paused. “Or was at least trying to make it look that way.”

  “The part about cyanide still seems like pure hysteria,” Gussie said doubtfully.

  “Shared hysteria, then,” Mrs. Potter reminded her. “I told you what Ted was screaming. You all couldn’t hear him in the kitchen—even Tony was out there then. I was bringing up the rear and no one else but me heard him, except Victor, and he didn’t get it, of course.”

  Gussie yawned again as Mrs. Potter repeated the story of Ted’s accusations. “Well, Beth couldn’t have done a better job of getting rid of the evidence if she’d been as guilty as she says she is,” she said. “We don’t even know for sure if what she took Ozzie was comfrey or foxglove. Same thing with the cyanide. If the bottle was empty, why did she wash it out?”

  “What if somebody was trying to make Beth believe she was crazy?” Mrs. Potter asked.

  “That’s terrible,” Gussie said. “Why would anyone do that to Beth Higginson?” She sat down again abruptly and stared at the fast-graying embers.

  “Let’s turn the whole thing around,” Mrs. Potter said, trying to summon new vigor. “We both know, and we’ve said over and over this evening until we’re both half asleep, that Beth would scarcely swat a fly, let alone kill another human being. Even if an assassin with a drawn dagger came to her door, she’d invite him in for a good lunch and try to reform him with kindness and cookies.” As she spoke, she, too, found that she was yawning and the library was growing chilly.

  “If you want to turn it around, we’ll do it in the morning,” Gussie announced. “I’m going to bed.”

  When Mrs. Potter awoke, as usual with the first light of day, she found she had carried her needlework in its big crewel-patterned linen bag with her to the guest room. Reaching out a nightgowned arm, she pulled from it a lined yellow pad.

  She pulled the soft coverlet over her shoulders. The ballpoint scribbled, half under the silky down puff, writing the question she had put to Gussie last night before they were both too sleepy to think. Suppose Beth is right? About everything?

  Suppose, first of all, that Edie had not died from an unexpected allergy to one of the herbs at the salad bar but, as Beth insisted, by a chopped leaf of dieffenbachia, dumb cane?

  Still possible accident, she wrote, remembering the press of young women around the salad bar and the banked ornamental plants behind and around it.

  Who had scissors? Officially, only Peter Benson and Tony Ferencz, but actually, Beth and most of the others of their lunch party. None of these, all knowledgeable of plants and herbs, could have been likely to make such a wild and weird mistake.

  It was possible that one of the softball league might have been playing a trick on the team captain without realizing its possible serious effect. She decided to reserve judgment on this entry, the question Practical joke?

  She’d go on to Ozzie and come back to his secretary and the dumb cane later.

  Ozzie’s heart attack really murder? her pen inquired next. It could have been, she answered herself. Beth’s notes on digitalis, which she and Gussie had studied in the library last night, made it clear that the drug might have acted in a way not only simulating a heart attack but actually causing one.

  Mrs. Potter paused and peered back over her few notes, still trying to keep her arms and shoulders warm in the chill air of the bedroom.

  There it was. She was going to believe that Beth was right. Oscar deBevereaux and Edie Rosborough had been poisoned. (Not by Beth, her mind cried, not by Beth.) She would believe that there had been a poison bottle in Beth’s basket at the tea party, that both Beth and Ted had seen it, and that Beth believed it had been empty.

  And that, for the moment, was all she would believe.

  She slid out of bed and opened her bedroom door. “Gussie,” she called down
the long upstairs hall, “are you up? Yes, please, get up! I’m going to the kitchen to put on the kettle for tea and you and I are going to talk about Beth’s story in a whole new light.”

  Gussie’s initial reaction was skeptical. “We don’t know what to believe,” she said. “Beth just isn’t making sense.”

  “I think she is,” Mrs. Potter said. “Look at it this way. Suppose everything Beth told us yesterday is true, except for her being the one to be poisoning people. And while you’re granting that possibility, don’t forget which two people died.”

  Gussie was thoughtful. “A man and woman who were trusted with the affairs of nearly everyone on the island. At least of all of us,” she said at last. “Two people who might have had highly confidential information someone either wanted to get, or couldn’t afford to have revealed.”

  “You might as well squeeze us some kind of breakfast,” Mrs. Potter said as they looked at each other with dismay. “Maybe one of your concoctions will help us figure out what’s behind all of this.”

  As Gussie started toward the pantry, Mrs. Potter offered a dark comment. “I’ll bet I could find foxglove leaves in your garden right now, if I went out and started poking around there, or in practically any garden in Nantucket.”

  The whirring of the juice extractor kept Gussie from hearing the ring of the telephone, and Mrs. Potter rose to answer it.

  “That was Paula, calling from Providence,” she reported as the two women sat again at the breakfast table, glasses of pinkish juice before them. “Paula—Laurence’s wife. I remember her slightly, but I really never got all of the Higginsons straight in my mind, daughters and daughters-in-law.”

  “Neither did Beth, sometimes,” Gussie said. “I wish I could laugh about that now.”

  The family doctor had come to the house as soon as Laurence got his mother home yesterday, Paula had reported. He said she was totally exhausted, that she had not been eating or sleeping. The doctor was concerned that she was deeply troubled by something she refused to talk to him (or even to her, Paula) about, and he seemed worried at the depth and suddenness of her apparent depression. He wants her in the hospital for a few days of rest and proper diet and observation, Paula said. She’d let them know as soon as there was anything more to report.