Adelaide Carpenter

In the short story The Herb of Death, Mrs Adelaide Carpenter is a resident of Clodderham Court along with  Sylvia Keene and  her guardian Sir Ambrose Bercy who owned the house. According to Dolly Bantry Mrs Carpenter is about forty and a sort of chaperon for Sylvia. She had apparently been with Sylvia since the time she was eleven years of age. Dolly described Mrs Carpenter as a "ome of those middle-aged pussies who always seem to manage to dig themselves in comfortably somewhere" or one of those widows with "plenty of aristocratic relations, but no ready cash".

When it came to whether Mrs Carpenter was a suspect in the murder of Sylvia Keene, opinions among the Tuesday Night Club diverged. Sir Henry Clithering thought she would make a plausible suspect. She had an alibi and he distrusted alibis. And he had another reason for suspecting her which he would keep to himself (what this was is never revealed in the story). Dr Lloyd thought that Mrs Carpenter, being familiar with the household routines and layout would have a good opportunity to sneak in some foxglove among the sage leaves for the kitchen. As for motive, he could only speculate that perhaps Sir Ambrose had made a will favouring her (the group was working on the premise that Sylvia couldhave been killed by mistake).