Raisins and almonds - Poisoned Pen Press (UK)

Raisins and Almonds 1
‘A mate of mine,’ said Lane. ‘I don’t want to get him into
trouble.’
‘You’ll be in trouble if you don’t tell me what I want to know
right now. A man could be dying out there,’ said Clarke.
‘All right, all right, it was one of the boys, Dusty Miller. He’s
pushed for cash and so he sold me some seeds.’
‘Did you have reason to believe that these seeds had been
stolen or unlawfully obtained?’ asked Clarke heavily.
‘No, I was sure it was all on the level, he’s square, Dusty is.
Good sort of young lad.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Constable Clarke. ‘And why did you say that
Mr. Lane had poisoned your finches, Mr. Gunn?’
‘Oh, well, it was nothing, I just…er…borrowed a handful of
sunflower seeds for my finches, I would have put them back…’
‘You been pinching my feed!’ yelled Mr. Lane, thankful that
the black spot of legal attention appeared to have passed from
him. ‘You thief!’
‘That’s enough,’ said Clarke.
‘He knew the seeds were poisonous; he sold two chooks which
had died of poisoning, I saw his boy plucking them!’ Mr. Gunn
was not going to let go of his grievance.
‘Dead in the pen,’ agreed the boy. At a glare from his master,
he corked his mouth with sandwich again.
‘See?’ demanded Mr. Gunn.
‘All right, all right,’ said Constable Clarke. ‘That’s enough.
From both of you.’
Bert, who had been looking at the sunflower seeds, caught a
glimpse of something in the sack which had no business being
there.
‘There’s a stain on the left side of this sack,’ he commented.
‘And I reckon…’, he probed the seeds with a stick, ‘…yes, there,’
he said with satisfaction, as a small uncorked glass bottle emerged
from the black and white striped shells. It still had a few white
crystals in the bottom. ‘That’s done you a bit of good with Jack
Robinson,’ he said to Constable Clarke. ‘I reckon you’ve found
his missing bottle of strychnine.’