She w a somewhat religious woman and it seems possible that soene form of religious insanity made her feel that she had a divi command to rid the world of certain people, but it does not seem that she herself had borne them any personal animus.
‘Then there was the French woman, Jeanne Gebron, who was called The Angel of Mercy. She was so upset when her neighbours had ill children, she hurried to nurse those children. Sat devotedly at their bedside. There again it was some time before people discovered that the children she nursed never recovered. Instead they all died. And why? It is true that when she was young her own child died. She appeared to be prostrated with grief. Perhaps that was the cause of her career of crime. If her child died so should the children of other women. Or it may be, as some thought, that her own child was also one of the victims.’ ‘You’re giving me chills down my spine,’ said Tommy.
‘I’m taking the most melodramatic examples,’ said the doctor. ‘It may be something much simpler than that. You remember in the case of Armstrong, anyone who had in any way offended him or insulted him, or indeed, if he even thought anyone had insulted him, that person was quickly asked to tea and given arsenic sandwiches. A sort of intensified touchiness. His first crimes were obviously mere crimes for personal advantage. Inheriting of money. The removal of a wife so that he could marry another woman.
‘Then there was Nurse Warriner who kept a Home for elderly people. They made over what means they had to her, and were guaranteed a comfortable old age until death came But death did not delay very long. There, too, it was morphia that was administered – a very kindly woman, but with no scruples – she regarded herself, I believe, as a benefactor.’ ‘You’ve no idea, if your surmise about these deaths is true, who it could be?’ ‘No. There seems no pointer of any kind. Taking the view that the killer is probably insane, insanity is a very difficult thing to recognize in some of its manifestations. Is it somebody, shall we say, who dislikes elderly people, who had been injured or has had her life ruined or so she thinks, by somebody elderly? Or is it possibly someone who has her own ideas of mercy killing and thinks that everyone over sixty years of age should be kindly exterminated. It could be anyone, of course.
A patient? Or a member of the staff- a nurse or a domestic worker?
‘I have discussed this at great length with Millicent Packard who runs the place. She is a highly competent woman, shrewd, businesslike, with keen supervision both of the guests there and of her own staff. She insists that she has no suspidon and no clue whatever and I am sure that is perfectly true.’ ‘But why come to me? What can I do?’ ‘Your aunt, Miss Fanshawe, was a resident there for some years – she was a woman of very considerable mental capacity, though she often pretended otherwise. She had unconventional ways of amusing herself by putting on an appearance of senility. But she was actually very much all there – What I want you to try and do, Mr Beresford, is to think hard – you and your wife, too – Is there anyhing you can remember that Miss Fanshawe ever said or hinted, that might give us a clue Something she had seen or noticed, something that someone had told her, something that she herself had thought peculiar.
Old ladies see and notice a lot, and a really shrewd one like Miss Fanshawe would know a surprising amount of what went on in a place like Sunny Ridge. These old ladles are not busy, you see, they have all the time in the world to look around them and make deductions – and even jump to conclusions – that may seem fantastic, but are sometimes, surprisingly, entirely
Tommy shook his head.
‘I know what you mean – But I can’t remember anything of that kind.’ ‘Your wife’s away from home, I gather. You don’t think she might remember something that hadn’t struck you?’ ‘I’ll ask her – but I doubt it.’ He hesitated, then made up his mind. ‘Look here, there was something that worried my wife about one of the old ladies, a Mrs Lancaster.’ ‘Mrs Lancaster? Yes?’ ‘My wife’s got it into her head that Mrs Lancaster has been taken away by some so-called relations very suddenly. As a matter of fact, Mrs Lancaster gave a picture to my aunt as a present, and my wife felt that she ought to offer to return the picture to Mrs Lancaster, so she tried to get in touch with her to know if Mrs Lancaster would like the picture returned to her.’