Previously: Martin and Penhale's investigation into a series of suspicious poisonings started when the owner of Wenn Hall reported falling ill and his dog dying suddenly. After many twists and turns the investigation led to the arrest of the housekeeper Mrs. Daniels, after she locked them and others in the Egyptian cellar crypt and set fire to the house. Loveday Wenn has also been arrested for attacking Martin and Penhale with a drone to distract them from learning about her scheme to marry the widowed owner of Wenn Hall. Along the way, Martin had also encountered the herbalist Sandra Mylow, who tested her love potion on him and the inhabitants of Portwenn at a masked ball. Now filming with the actors Jago Powell and Wynnie Barlow is wrapping up at Wenn Hall.

Chapter 46: A Fallen Leaf

Friday Midday

Martin peeked out the front door. All seemed to be calm out on the stone terrace. Perhaps the dreaded Gull-zilla had flown the coop at last. Medical bag in hand, Martin went out to the Lexus and drove off toward the moor road and out to Wenn Hall.

He parked in the courtyard again. It was quite a change from the day before. The rain clouds had blown away, the sun had broken through, and the sky was clear. It was a lovely warm day, full of sunshine. The film crew were at work again, outside in front of the house. He stalked through the area toward the front door, thankful there appeared to be no dogs on set today.

Martin paused when he saw Wynnie Barlow open the door to her trailer and beckon to him. He hesitated, then grudgingly went over.

"Dr. Ellingham, we're wrapping up here today, so I just wanted to thank you for all your help," she said.

"Er, I should thank you for responding to my message to help Louisa, and, er… Mr. Powell."

"Oh no, I should thank you for getting us out of that locked basement in time. You saved our lives."

"Right then." Martin turned to go, but she put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

"I'm going to miss Cornwall," she said. "It's so beautiful here and the people are amazing, but I'm going back to Los Angeles and probably giving up acting for good. My husband and I are splitting up… I mean consciously uncoupling, so I need to reinvent myself and concentrate on my real passion, my lifestyle blog. I want to help my fans to nourish their inner selves."

"Er, what?"

"I've met this amazing person here, Sandra Mylow, an absolute genius when it comes to herbal remedies. She has a genuine entrepreneurial spirit too, and that is just sooo inspiring to me. I believe you know Sandra?"

"Hm," he replied, scowling at her hand still resting on his shoulder.

"I've invited her to LA to reinvent herself along with me there. I know some people that would be very interested in what she has to offer."

Her voice became more coy, and she began to massage his shoulder suggestively.

"Would you ever consider giving up your practice here and moving to Southern California to start your own private practice… Martin? You'd be free of all the National Health Service government regulation you have here and you could make lots more money, especially with my recommendation."

"No." Martin shrugged her hand off and stalked off.

As he raised his hand to the front door knocker, the door opened to reveal Jago Powell about to step out.

"Doctor! I never properly thanked you for… well for everything you did the other day. You'll be happy to hear Wenn Hall has minimal fire damage and our cameraman actually got some lovely shots of smoke pouring out of the kitchen wing. Very useful for our big finale scenes of Rebecca, where Manderley goes up in flames, so we won't have to entirely CGI it. That'll save us some money, because between you and me we're already way over budget."

"How nice for you."

"Anyway, I'm really glad to see you one last time. I'm leaving Cornwall tomorrow, likely for good. Oh this place is scenic and all, and I know I talked about buying a house here, but frankly this whole crazy business just reminded of how miserable my time as a kid was here. Too many unpleasant memories revived. I don't know how Louisa can stand sticking around after everything she's been through." He leaned toward Martin as if to confide in him. "You know, there's too many people here that are just plain Bodmin."

"I'd like to say you'll be missed but…" Martin went to push past him.

"Just one more thing Doctor… er, Martin. About Louisa."

That got his attention. "What about her?"

"She's my friend and I care about her. She had a rough start in life and she needs someone solid, dependable, caring, even when she seems ready to give up. Feeling abandoned early in life can make it hard to resist the urge to run away from your problems sometimes, believe me I know. Louisa deserves someone who will be there for her, no matter what."

There was a silent pause, then Jago stepped aside, leaving the door wide open.

"Hm. I have business with Mr. Wenn," Martin said. He stalked off.

The cook met him in the hallway, evidently back from holiday. She was a plump, rosy-cheeked woman, the complete opposite type from Mrs. Daniels. "Oh Dr. Ellingham, we've been expecting you. The master of the house is in the back garden. I'm acting as housekeeper seeing as we're short one and my kitchen is out of commission at the moment. We're mostly getting by on takeaway Indian and fish and chips for now, but I can still manage a cup of tea if you like. I certainly picked a fine time to go on holiday, missed all the excitement, didn't I."

Before Martin could tell the chatty woman he already knew the way she darted ahead and announced him to Mr. Wenn

The master of the house was sitting on the back terrace, in the same spot Martin had originally seen him, with a silver tea service laid out before him. "Ah, Dr. Ellingham. Won't you join me?"

"I thought you were suffering from smoke inhalation."

"I am, doctor." He coughed. "Ran into the kitchen yesterday to guide the firemen. Woke up with a sore throat and a bit of a headache today."

"You should have gone to hospital to be assessed yesterday. House calls aren't an efficient use of my time, but seeing as this is on the way to my aunt's farm…" He sat at the table and took out his stethoscope, placing the bell against Mr. Wenn's back and instructing him to breathe deep and then cough. He moved the bell to several locations, repeating the instructions. Then he took out his penlight and examined the patient's eyes and throat.

"Your lungs sound fine, throat a bit irritated. Your eyes and skin colour look good. How are you feeling generally?"

"Well enough, considering all that's happened. Going to be an adjustment, life without my Lovey for a while."

"For a while?" Martin had expected the marriage would be over after the recent revelations about the second Mrs. Wenn, but he kept that thought to himself.

"Well, of course we've had a rough patch lately, but we'll be doing a bit of the couples counselling while she's, um, away. I've got the number of a therapist who will make house calls to, um…"

"Prison."

"Yes." Mr. Wenn coughed and took a sip of tea. "Anyway, she's making a plea bargain and will likely get little time. It'll go quickly. In the meantime, making repairs to the house will keep me busy. Fortunately, it's mostly just smoke damage in the kitchen area, and thanks to the money from the filming I'm all paid up on the insurance, so that should take care of restoring it. And now all the publicity from the case means extra demand for tours. I'm thinking of adding two more days a week and opening up Old Granddad's King Tut's tomb replica to the curious. I've already got an offer from another film company that wants to use it as a movie set. So it's all been a bit of a mixed blessing really."

"Hm," Martin replied. "Well, I understand the lab results backed up your wife's story about the cigars being poisoned. The police searched Mrs. Daniels' cottage on the moor and found quite a few amber glass bottles with very suspicious herbal concoctions. I expect they'll dig up the remains of her brother and do an autopsy. Highly unlikely Mrs. Daniels will ever be released, whether she ends up in prison or a mental hospital. I have another aunt, a psychiatrist dealing with the criminally insane, she would find this a fascinating case."

"One thing I still don't understand," he continued. "Why did you keep Mrs. Daniels on as housekeeper even after it came out about your wife's accusations about her?"

"I think I can answer that one, Doc," came a familiar voice behind him.

"P.C. Joseph Penhale," announced the cheerful cook, one step behind the constable. She carried a second tea service out and laid it on the table. Penhale sat and poured himself a cup. Martin waved away the cook's offer of a cup.

"Me and the boys at the Delabole station have been having some interesting conversations with Mrs. Daniels. Very interesting," Penhale said.

Martin noticed Mr. Wenn was looking pale and began coughing again. He pulled out his prescription pad.

"It seems she's been aware for some time that her employer has been indulging his love of ancient artefacts by buying from black market dealers who smuggled them illegally out of Egypt. The Egyptian consulate in London is very interested to know what you've got here on the premises. They'll be sending some experts to do an inventory. Sounds like she had a bit of a blackmailer's hold over you, eh?"

Mr. Wenn managed to get his coughing under control and sipped some more tea. "Um, well… we'll see won't we? Mrs. Daniels isn't exactly a fan of the truth. I mean, do you believe her when she said had nothing to do with me getting sick that time, or my dog Bobby dying?"

"Hard to say," Penhale replied. "But there's no evidence of her involvement there, and she'd have no reason to lie about it after everything else she confessed to."

Martin was writing out a prescription for an inhaler for Mr. Wenn. As he handed it over, a breeze started to pick up and almost pulled the paper out of his hand. He had a sudden thought, a memory of something Sandra Mylow had said about her inspiration for the tamango potion.

"Mr. Wenn, I seem to recall you saying you take your tea out here almost no matter what the weather."

"That's right – spring, summer, and autumn. Always have. Bobby would sit out here with me."

"Was it windy here the day you and the dog fell ill?"

"Well, I seem to recall it was blustery the night before, lots of branches and sticks came down. They were littered all around here. But it mostly quieted down by morning, just a bit of gustiness when I came out here."

"Hm. Can you describe the scene in more detail? For instance… what sort of tea were you drinking?"

"It was Earl Grey, I think. Usually I drink English Breakfast with milk and a sugar lump but once in a while I get a sort of craving for a nice Earl Grey with lemon. Like today. I suppose this must be the first time I've had it since that day."

He took a sip. "You know, it's starting to come back to me."

"Yes, tastes and smells can have strong associations in memory," Martin said.

"I poured myself a cup and it was very hot, so I left it to cool down while I went into the house to get the paper to read over breakfast. I remember there was an article about that fellow Terry Glasson, the one who was involved in that unfortunate incident at your surgery. He pled guilty to smuggling or some such charge. All sorts of odd goings on in Portwenn lately, aren't there. Anyway, when I sat down a stray leaf had fallen into my tea cup."

"Do you remember what sort of leaf it was?"

"One from the shrub, I believe." He indicated the oleander nearby. "Must have blown in. I fished it out, didn't think anything of it. There were a few on the table and in the dog's water dish as well. So I finished up my breakfast, read the paper, and went inside to see if Loveday was awake yet."

"And when did you start to feel unwell?"

"About an hour or so later. I was really ill by that night. Lovey was quite concerned. It wasn't till the next morning we realized the dog had died. You don't think this was any coincidence, do you Dr. Ellingham."

"I don't. You are aware that oleander is highly toxic, especially to animals. What I think happened was the leaf fell into your tea and steeped there for several minutes while you were in the house, thereby contaminating the tea. Why would you drink tea that something had fallen into?"

"I thought it was just a harmless leaf. Actually I thought it gave the tea a rather nice, sweet flavour."

"Yes, antifreeze also has a nice sweet flavour. It was beyond foolish of you to drink it. It could have killed you, and the same leaves that fell into the water dish undoubtedly contaminated it enough to kill the dog, it having a smaller body weight than you and already in fragile health due to its advanced age."

"Doc, you're a genius!" Penhale proclaimed, his eager brown eyes shining with admiration. Then he looked down at his teacup and quietly pushed it away.

"It was a freak occurrence," Mr. Wenn said. "Shame about poor old Bobby, but what's done is done." He downed the rest of his tea and poured himself some more, offering the pot to Martin. "Are you sure you won't have a cup?"

"No." Martin grabbed his medical bag and stalked off.

To be continued…