Strong Poison: Chapter 9 - Crumpets, Kitchen Gossip, and a Scandalous Great Aunt

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Chapter 9 By what ingratiating means, Mr. Bunter had contrived to turn the delivery of a note into the acceptance of an invitation to tea was best known to himself. At half past four on the day which ended so cheerfully for Lord Peter, he was seated in the kitchen of Mr. Urquhart's house toasting crumpets. He had been trained to a great pitch of dexterity in the preparation of crumpets, and if he was somewhat lavish in the matter of butter, that hurt nobody except Mr. Urquhart. It was natural that the conversation should turn to the subject of murder. Nothing goes so well with a hot fire and buttered crumpets as a wet day without, and a good dose of comfortable horrors within. The heavier the lashing of the rain and the ghastlier the details, the better the flavour seems to be.

On the present occasion, all the ingredients of an enjoyable party were present in full force.

Mrs. Pettican (0:49)

Horrible white, he looked, when he came in, said Mrs. Pettican, the cook. I see him.

When they sent for me to bring up the ot bottles, three of them they had, one to his feet and one to his back, and the big rubber one to his stomach. White and shivering, he was, and that dreadful sick, you never would believe, and he groaned pitiful.

Hannah Westlock (1:17)

Green, he looked to me, Cook, said Hannah Westlock, or you might perhaps call it a greenish yellow. I thought it was jaundice are coming on, more like them attacks he had in the spring.

Mrs. Pettican (1:31)

He was a bad color then, agreed Mrs. Pettican, but nothing like to what he was that last time, and the pains and cramps in his legs was agonizing. That struck Nurse Williams very forcible. A nice young woman she was, and not stuck up like some, as I could name. Mrs. Pettican, she said to me, which I call it better manners than calling you cook, as they mostly do, as though they paid your wages for the right of calling you out of your name. Mrs. Pettican, said she, never did I see anything to equal them cramps except in one other case that was the dead spit of this one, she said. And you mark my words, Mrs. Pettican, them cramps ain't there for nothing.

Ah, little did I understand her meaning at the time.

Mr. Bunter (2:27)

That's a regular feature of these arsonical cases, or so his lordship tells me, replied Bunter. A very distressing symptom.

Had he ever had anything of the sort before?

Hannah Westlock (2:38)

Not what you could call cramps, said Hannah. Though I remember when he was ill in the spring, he complained of getting the fidgets in the hands and feet. Something like pins and needles, by what I understood him to say.

It was a war it to him, because he was finishing one of his articles in a hurry. And what with that and his eyes being so bad, the writing was a trial to him. Poor thing.

Mr. Bunter (3:08)

From what the gentleman for the prosecution said, talking it out with Sir James Lubbock, said Mr. Bunter, I gathered that those pins and needles and bad eyes and so on were a sign he'd been given arsenic regularly, if I may so phrase it.

Mrs. Pettican (3:23)

A dreadful wicked woman she must have been, said Mrs. Pettican. Ever another crumpet do, Mr. Bunter. A torturing of the poor soul that long-winded way.

Bashing on the ed or the asty use of a carving knife when roused I can understand. But the orrers of slow poisonin is the work of a fiend in human form, in my opinion.

Mr. Bunter (3:50)

Fiend is the only word, Mrs. Pettican, agreed the visitor.

Hannah Westlock (3:55)

And the wickedness of it, said Hannah, quite apart from the causing of a painful death to a fellow being.

Why, it's only the mercy of Providence. We weren't all brought under suspicion.

Mrs. Pettican (4:11)

Yes, indeed, said Mrs. Pettican. Why, when Master told us about them digging poor Mr. Boyes up, and finding him full of that there nasty arsenic, it gave me such a turn, I felt as if the room was a-going round, like the galloping horses at the roundabouts. Oh, sir, I says, what in our house?

That's what I says, and he says, Mrs. Pettican, he says, I sincerely hope not.

SPEAKER_1 (4:44)

Mrs. Pettican, having imparted this Macbeth-like flavor to the story, was pleased with it, and added, Yes, that's what I said to him.

Mrs. Pettican (4:52)

In our house, I said, and I'm sure I never slept a wink, for three nights afterwards, what with the police, and the fright, and one thing, and another.