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members. One person is the designated patient, if you will. The one who is officially sick in the eyes
of the world and the physician. Rose apparently volunteered for this role decades ago, according to
Auntie Gerry, and has played it throughout the years marvelously well. She procures the medication
for everyone.”
“Quite a stretch,” Trevor said.
“You saw the Secretary-General,” Tom said. “How did he look to you? Twitching?
Sweating? Did his thoughts jump around? Was there any indication he might have been in the throes
of an enforced opium withdrawal?” When Trevor remained silent, biting his lip, Tom moved in for
this final thrust. “And that ‘Fourteen?’ here in Benson’s notes… Evidently he meant that there was
far more poison than was needed for a woman of Rose Weaver’s diminutive size. But Anthony
Weaver is a large man, is he not? Would you say fourteen stone?”
“He was hale and hearty back in his day,” Gerry said. “I believe you are right, darling,
and that Anthony was the intended target all along.”
Although Trevor had mused over the same possibility himself only hours earlier, for
some reason he resisted the theory when it came so readily from the mouths of Tom and Geraldine.
They could consider the fact Weaver was the target, true, but they must not rush to it too quickly. He
strained to reel the group in before they leapt entirely beyond the bounds of what they could actually
prove.
“So let us say for the sake of argument that someone within the household did indeed
know that both Rose and Anthony Weaver were availing themselves of her prescribed laudanum,” he
said. “And let us further accept that this person then decided to use that laudanum to murder one or
both of them. It still leaves us with a very vexing question. How did Pulkit Sang end up dead?”
“Quite right,” said Rayley. “Sang’s death was the first fact which prompted the case and
it remains the most challenging. It’s hard to fathom that the whole household would be awash in
opiates, including the servant. I believe we should indeed pursue this line of thinking about the
medication but still not entirely abandon our original theory, that the poison was hidden in one of the
notably spicy local dishes. Based on the ones Davy and I sampled last night, I could readily believe
that our killer could hide an entire bush of Cerbera Odollam in a single pot of chicken curry without
the slightest risk of detection. Or they might sneak in a barrel of gunpowder, for that matter. The, um,
let us say explosive qualities of the local cuisine are the perfect cover for poisoning. Within an hour
of the meal, it becomes difficult to ascertain if one is dying or merely digesting.”
“What size is Sang?” Trevor asked Tom, above the general laughter.
“Always hard to estimate when a body is horizontal and not vertical, but I’d venture he
was middling. Somewhere between eight and fourteen stone, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Everyone in this room is somewhere between eight and fourteen stone,” Emma said,
continuing to laugh. “That’s quite a span of weight.”
“So a dosage is concocted,” Trevor mused, parenthetically noting that Emma's estimation
of his own weight was quite generous. “Benson believed it was more than was needed to fell Rose,
and in fact enough to kill her rather large husband. And apparently, based on the fact we have two
bodies, it was also enough to kill a very small woman and a middling sized man.”
“Over time,” Rayley said. “As much as thirty minutes elapsed between the point where
Rose and Sang must have ingested the substance and the time they died.”
“I find it easier to believe Sang took laudanum than to believe Rose ate a curry,”
Geraldine said.
“I cannot say I agree, Miss Bainbridge,” Rayley said. “Whyever would Pulkit Sang