A pocketful of rye - Agatha Christie

the master had got wise to it. Put someone on to watch them, he had. Divorce, that's what it would
have come to. Instead, it's come to this."
"When you say this, you mean -"
"You've been asking questions, sir, about what the master ate and drank and who gave it to him.
They're in it together, sir, that's what I'd say. He got the stuff from somewhere and she gave it to the
master, that was the way of it, I've no doubt."
"Have you ever seen any yew berries in the house - or thrown away anywhere."
The small eyes glinted curiously.
"Yew? Nasty poisonous stuff. Never you touch those berries, my mother said to me when I was a
child. Was that what was used, sir?"
"We don't know yet what was used."
"I've never seen her fiddling about with yew." Ellen sounded disappointed. "No, I can't say I've seen
anything of that kind."
Neele questioned her about the grain found in Fortescue's pocket but here again he drew a blank.
"No, sir. I know nothing about that."
He went on to further questions, but with no gainful result. Finally he asked if he could see Miss
Ramsbottom.
Ellen looked doubtful.
"I could ask her, but it's not everyone she'll see. She's a very old lady, you know, and she's a bit odd."
The Inspector pressed his demand, and rather unwillingly Ellen led him along a passage and up a
short flight of stairs to what he thought had probably been designed as a nursery suite.
He glanced out of a passage window as he followed her and saw Sergeant Hay standing by the yew
tree talking to a man who was evidently a gardener.
Ellen tapped on a door, and when she received an answer, opened it and said:
"There's a police gentleman here who would like to speak to you, miss."
The answer was apparently in the affirmative for she drew back and motioned Neele to go in.
The room he entered was almost fantastically over-furnished. The Inspector felt rather as though he
had taken a step backward into not merely Edwardian but Victorian times. At a table drawn up to a
gas fire an old lady was sitting laying out a patience. She wore a maroon-coloured dress and her
sparse grey hair was slicked down each side other face.
Without looking up or discontinuing her game she said impatiently:
"Well, come in, come in. Sit down if you like."