The Bermondsey Poisoner: An immersive and thrilling historical mystery (A Penny Green Victorian Mystery Book 6) by Emily Organ

Author:Emily Organ [Organ, Emily]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Storm Publishing
Published: 2024-11-04T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-NINE

“That was not a particularly satisfactory hearing,” said James as we left The Five Bells pub, where the inquest into Inspector Martin’s death had been swiftly opened and adjourned by the coroner, Mr Osborne. “It raised more questions than it answered.”

“The adjournment gives you two weeks to find sufficient evidence to prove that Sally Chadwick poisoned Inspector Martin,” I said.

“I have less time than that, Penny. Sally is only being held on remand for that charge until next Wednesday. I have six days, and if I can’t provide the evidence in time she will face trial for three murders instead of four. I can’t understand it. Bermondsey Street police station has been thoroughly searched three times over and there is still no sign of the poison she used in Inspector Martin’s murder.”

We walked up Bermondsey Street towards the police station. The warm drizzle which had begun the day before continued to fall. I surveyed the heavy grey above our heads and wondered whether we had seen the last of the summer.

“Did you check Sally Chadwick’s clothing for any sign of the poison she used?” I asked.

“We did, but only once she had become a suspect, which wasn’t until Monday evening. Inspector Martin was poisoned last Thursday, which means she had almost four days to dispose of the bottle. That sounds like a long time, but given that she was in the cell for most of it she had rather limited opportunity to dispose of anything.”

“Perhaps she consumed the rest,” I suggested.

“She shows no signs of having poisoned herself.”

“Perhaps there was very little poison left and she had been practising mithridatism?”

“Practising what now?” James gave a slight laugh.

“Consuming small amounts of poison on a regular basis, which builds a greater tolerance to it.”

“Perhaps she had.” He gave me a sceptical look. “Though Miss Chadwick doesn’t seem the sort to practise something of that kind, does she?”

“She doesn’t seem the sort to plan and execute the deaths of four men either.”

“You think she’s innocent, don’t you? Despite the overwhelming evidence against her.”

“I don’t know whether she is innocent or not, but I think she has been coerced.”

“How might you explain Charles Martin’s death, in that case?”

“She must have done it, there’s no doubt about that. But I still believe it was carried out on someone else’s orders. And perhaps she used up all of the remaining poison when she did it?”

“Then where is the bottle?”

“It has to be somewhere. Or perhaps there wasn’t one.”

“What would the poison have been stored in, then?”

“I don’t know. How else can arsenic be obtained?”

“I’m not sure, but I know that it is obtained with great difficulty. Its availability has been well regulated for more than thirty years.”

“She must have found an inventive way of storing and administering it. Perhaps she used a packet of rat poison.”

“In which case you’d think we would have found the packet somewhere, but we have found nothing. Nothing at all.”

James’s brow had worn a perpetual scowl ever since he had told me the news of Inspector Martin’s death.

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