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“The suicide tree doesn’t make you expel,” said Morass. “Not like other poisons. None
of that agony and grabbing of the stomach, the diarrhea or the nausea. The heart just eventually slows
and stops.”
“A most considerate type of toxin,” Rayley murmured. “And quite perfect for all those
young lovers.”
“But really,” protested Geraldine. “I knew Rose, or at least the younger Rose, and I
can’t see her playing the part you have written for her in this little script. She hated Indian food,
refused anything at all spicy or flavorful, and most certainly would not have chosen a curry for
breakfast. And would she and her servant, no matter who closely linked the two were, have eaten the
same dish?”
“That is indeed problematic,” Trevor said.
“Not to mention that the method requires quite a bit of planning on the part of this
Adelaide,” said Seal. “If we consider culling the plant, cutting open the pod, extracting the kernels
and grinding their pulp. Then brewing and administering the residue by dropper. Would a half-wit
know how to do all that?”
“No one said she was a half-wit,” Emma said. “Only troubled.”
“So let us imagine that she has the skill to adequately go through the required steps,”
Tom said. “It only takes us back to Emma’s original question. What could possibly be her motive?”
They sat for a moment in silence.
“I do not want to condemn a girl I have never met,” Geraldine finally said. “Nor any of
the other household servants. But I can easily imagine that anyone in the employ of Rose Everlee
Weaver would fantasize about killing her a hundred times a day.”
“The lady was as bad as all that?” Trevor said with surprise. Gerry’s previous stories
had yielded a picture of a woman who was petulant and annoying, but that in itself was hardly enough
to prompt murder. If it was, the streets of London would be littered with feminine corpses.
“Her offenses to the spirits of those around her were never so large as to draw comment
or to allow her victim just cause to rail back at her,” Geraldine said. “It was rather like a thousand
little slights a day, until the accumulated effect was enough to drive anyone mad. Now that I consider
it, Rose Weaver was a bit of a slow-acting poison in her own way.”
Trevor raised an eyebrow. “Then why would two men so readily marry her?”
He regretted the question even as he asked it, but Geraldine did not flinch. “Some men
are challenged by critical, remote women, or so I have noticed. They marry them for the same reason
others climb Mont Blanc.”
“But once a man summits Mont Blanc, he plants his flag and leaves as soon as possible,”
Tom said airily. “While marriage to a cold woman goes on day after day, year after year.”
“Which brings us back to the husband,” said Rayley, as Trevor sighed and nodded.
***
Bombay Jail
1:16 PM
“We must make sure that they pin it on the Indian.”
“You are referring, I presume, to Pulkit Sang? Why do you not use his name? You know
it as well as I do.”
“All right then, we must pin it on Sang.”
“But he is dead.”