diff options
Diffstat (limited to '75476-h')
| -rw-r--r-- | 75476-h/75476-h.htm | 8390 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75476-h/images/chart.svg | 103 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 75476-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 0 -> 397569 bytes |
3 files changed, 8493 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/75476-h/75476-h.htm b/75476-h/75476-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a7d2d34 --- /dev/null +++ b/75476-h/75476-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8390 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> +<meta charset="utf-8"> +<title>The Poisoned Chocolates Case</title> +<link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> +<style> +body { + margin: 1em auto; + max-width: 40em; +} +p { + margin: 0; + text-indent: 1.5em; + text-align: justify; +} +hr { + width: 40%; + margin: 1em 30%; +} +h1, h2 { + margin: 2em auto; + text-align: center; + text-transform: uppercase; +} +h2 + p { text-indent: 0 } +blockquote { margin: 1em; } +figure { text-align: center; } +img { max-width: 95%; } +#titlepage { padding: 10% 0; } +#dedication { padding: 25% 0; } +.authorprefix { + font-style: italic; + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0; + margin: 1em 0; +} +.author { + font-size: x-large; + font-weight: bold; + margin-bottom: 6em; + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0; + text-transform: uppercase; +} +.publisher { + font-size: small; + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0; +} +.chapterlist { + display: table; + font-variant: small-caps; + list-style: none; + margin: 1em auto; +} +#dedication p { + font-variant: small-caps; + letter-spacing: 0.05em; + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0; +} +.dedicatee { + font-size: large; + margin: 0.5em auto 1em auto; + text-transform: uppercase; +} +.sc { font-variant: small-caps; } +.head { + font-size: smaller; + margin: 1em auto; + text-align: center; + text-indent: 0; + text-transform: uppercase; +} +ol { margin-left: 0.5em; } +.finis { + font-size: small; + margin-top: 4em; + text-align: center; + text-transform: uppercase; +} +.chart { margin: 1em auto; } +.chart th { + font-variant: small-caps; + font-weight: normal; + text-align: left; + vertical-align: bottom; +} +.chart .separator { + border-top: thin solid black; + padding-bottom: 0.5em; +} +.chart td { + padding-right: 1em; + text-align: left; + text-indent: 0; +} +caption, figcaption { + caption-side: bottom; + font-size: small; + font-style: normal; + margin-bottom: 1em; +} +.appendix { text-transform: none; } +div.chapter { page-break-before: always; } +div.section { page-break-before: always; } +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75476 ***</div> + +<figure> + <img id="coverpage" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="Book cover"> +</figure> + +<div class="section" id="titlepage"> + +<h1>The Poisoned Chocolates Case</h1> +<p class="authorprefix">by</p> +<p class="author">Anthony Berkeley</p> + +<p class="publisher">Published in 1929 by W. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd</p> +<p class="publisher">Reprinted in 2016 by The British Library</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="section" id="contents"> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<ul class="chapterlist"> +<li><a href="#ch01">Chapter I</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch02">Chapter II</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch03">Chapter III</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch04">Chapter IV</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch05">Chapter V</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch06">Chapter VI</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch07">Chapter VII</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch08">Chapter VIII</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch09">Chapter IX</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch10">Chapter X</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch11">Chapter XI</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch12">Chapter XII</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch13">Chapter XIII</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch14">Chapter XIV</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch15">Chapter XV</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch16">Chapter XVI</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch17">Chapter XVII</a></li> +<li><a href="#ch18">Chapter XVIII</a></li> +</ul> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="section" id="dedication"> + +<p>To</p> +<p class="dedicatee">S. H. J. Cox</p> +<p>because for once he <br> did not guess it</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch01"> + +<h2>Chapter I</h2> + +<p>Roger Sheringham took a sip of the old brandy in +front of him and leaned back in his chair at the head of +the table.</p> + +<p>Through the haze of cigarette-smoke eager voices reached his +ears from all directions, prattling joyfully upon this and that +connected with murder, poisons and sudden death. For this was his +own, his very own Crimes Circle, founded, organised, collected, +and now run by himself alone; and when at the first meeting five +months ago he had been unanimously elected its president, he +had been as full of proud delight as on that never-to-be-forgotten +day in the dim past when a cherub disguised as a publisher had +accepted his first novel.</p> + +<p>He turned to Chief Inspector Moresby of Scotland Yard who, +as the guest of the evening, was sitting on his right, engaged, a +little uneasily, with a positively enormous cigar.</p> + +<p>“Honestly, Moresby, without any disrespect to your own institution, +I do believe that there’s more solid criminological genius in +this room (intuitive genius, I mean; not capacity for taking pains) +than anywhere in the world outside the <i lang="fr">Sûreté</i> in Paris.”</p> + +<p>“Do you, Mr. Sheringham?” said Chief Inspector Moresby +tolerantly. Moresby was always kind to the strange opinions of +others. “Well, well.” And he applied himself again to the lighted +end of his cigar, which was so very far from the other that +Moresby could never tell by mere suction at the latter whether +the former were still alight or not.</p> + +<p>Roger had some grounds for his assertion beyond mere parental +pride. Entry into the charmed Crimes Circle’s dinners was not +to be gained by all and hungry. It was not enough for a would-be +member to profess an adoration for murder and let it go at that; +he or she had got to prove that they were capable of worthily +wearing their criminological spurs.</p> + +<p>Not only must the interest be intense in all branches of the +science, in the detection side, for instance, just as much as the side +of criminal psychology, with the history of all cases of the least +importance at the applicant’s finger-tips, but there must be +constructive ability too; the candidate must have a brain and be able +to use it. To this end, a paper had to be written, from a choice of +subjects suggested by members, and submitted to the president, +who passed on such as he considered worthy to the members +in conclave, who thereupon voted for or against the suppliant’s +election; and a single adverse vote meant rejection.</p> + +<p>It was the intention of the club to acquire eventually thirteen +members, but so far only six had succeeded in passing their tests, +and these were all present on the evening when this chronicle +opens. There was a famous lawyer, a scarcely less famous woman +dramatist, a brilliant novelist who ought to have been more +famous than she was, the most intelligent (if not the most amiable) +of living detective-story writers, Roger Sheringham himself, +and Mr. Ambrose Chitterwick, who was not famous at all, a mild +little man of no particular appearance who had been even more +surprised at being admitted to this company of personages than +they had been at finding him amongst them.</p> + +<p>With the exception of Mr. Chitterwick, then, it was an assembly +of which any organiser might have been proud. Roger this +evening was not only proud but excited too, because he was going +to startle them; and it is always exciting to startle personages. He +rose to do so.</p> + +<p>“Ladies and gentlemen,” he proclaimed, after the welcome +of glasses and cigarette-cases drummed on the table had died +away. “Ladies and gentlemen, in virtue of the powers conferred +by you the president of our Circle is permitted to alter at his +discretion the arrangements made for any meeting. You all know +what arrangements were made for this evening. Chief Inspector +Moresby, whom we are so glad to welcome as the first +representative of Scotland Yard to visit us”—more drumming on the +table—“Chief Inspector Moresby was to be lulled by rich food +and sound wine into being so indiscreet as to tell us about such of +his experiences as could hardly be given to a body of pressmen.” +More and longer drumming.</p> + +<p>Roger refreshed himself with a sip of brandy and continued. +“Now I think I know Chief Inspector Moresby pretty well, ladies +and gentlemen, and the occasions are not a few on which I too +have tried, and tried very hard, to lure him similarly into the paths +of indiscretion; but never once have I succeeded. I have therefore +little hope that this Circle, lure it never so cooingly, will succeed in +getting from the Chief Inspector any more interesting stories than +he would mind being published in <i>The Daily Courier</i> to-morrow. +Chief Inspector Moresby, I am afraid, ladies and gentlemen, is +unlurable.</p> + +<p>“I have therefore taken upon myself the responsibility of +altering our entertainment for this evening; and the idea that has +occurred to me in this connection will, I both hope and believe, +appeal to you very considerably. I venture to think that it is both +novel and enthralling.” Roger paused and beamed on the interested +faces around him. Chief Inspector Moresby, a little puce +below the ears, was still at grips with his cigar.</p> + +<p>“My idea,” Roger said, “is connected with Mr. Graham Bendix.” +There was a little stir of interest. “Or rather,” he amended, more +slowly, “with Mrs. Graham Bendix.” The stir subsided into a still +more interested hush.</p> + +<p>Roger paused, as if choosing his words with more care. “Mr. +Bendix himself is personally known to one or two of us here. +Indeed, his name has actually been mentioned as that of a man who +might possibly be interested, if approached, to become a member +of this Circle. By Sir Charles Wildman, if I remember rightly.”</p> + +<p>The barrister inclined his rather massive head with dignity. +“Yes, I suggested him once, I think.”</p> + +<p>“The suggestion was never followed up,” Roger continued. +“I don’t quite remember why not; I think somebody else was +rather sure that he would never be able to pass all our tests. But +in any case the fact that his name was ever mentioned at all shows +that Mr. Bendix is to some extent at least a criminologist, which +means that our sympathy with him in the terrible tragedy that +has befallen him is tinged with something of a personal interest, +even in the case of those who, like myself, are not actually +acquainted with him.”</p> + +<p>“Hear, hear,” said a tall, good-looking woman on the right of +the table, in the clear tones of one very well accustomed to saying +“hear, hear” weightily at appropriate moments during speeches, +in case no one else did. This was Alicia Dammers, the novelist, +who ran Women’s Institutes for a hobby, listened to other people’s +speeches with genuine and altruistic enjoyment, and, in practice +the most staunch of Conservatives, supported with enthusiasm +the theories of the Socialist party.</p> + +<p>“My suggestion is,” Roger said simply, “that we turn that +sympathy to practical uses.”</p> + +<p>There was no doubt that the eager attention of his audience +was caught. Sir Charles Wildman lifted his bushy grey brows, +from under which he was wont to frown with menacing disgust +at the prosecution’s witnesses who had the bad taste to believe in +the guilt of his own client, and swung his gold-rimmed eye-glasses +on their broad black ribbon. On the other side of the table Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming, a short, round, homely-looking woman who +wrote surprisingly improper and most successful plays and looked +exactly like a rather superior cook on her Sunday out, nudged the +elbow of Miss Dammers and whispered something behind her +hand. Mr. Ambrose Chitterwick blinked his mild blue eyes and +assumed the appearance of an intelligent nanny-goat. The writer +of detective-stories alone sat apparently unmoved and impassive; +but in times of crisis he was wont to model his behaviour on that +of his own favourite detective, who was invariably impassive at +the most exciting moments.</p> + +<p>“I took the idea to Scotland Yard this morning,” Roger went +on, “and though they never encourage that sort of idea there, they +were really unable to discover any positive harm in it; with the +result that I came away with a reluctant, but nevertheless official +permission to try it out. And I may as well say at once that it was +the same cue that prompted this permission as originally put +the whole thing into my head”—Roger paused impressively and +glanced round—“the fact that the police have practically given up +all hope of tracing Mrs. Bendix’s murderer.”</p> + +<p>Ejaculations sounded on all sides, some of dismay, some of +disgust, and some of astonishment. All eyes turned upon Moresby. +That gentleman, apparently unconscious of the collective gaze fastened +upon him, raised his cigar to his ear and listened to it intently, +as if hoping to receive some intimate message from its depths.</p> + +<p>Roger came to his rescue. “That information is quite confidential, +by the way, and I know none of you will let it escape beyond +this room. But it is a fact. Active inquiries, having resulted in exactly +nothing, are to be stopped. There is always hope of course that +some fresh fact may turn up, but without it the authorities have +come to the conclusion that they can get no farther. My proposal +is, therefore, that this Club should take up the case where the +authorities have left it.” And he looked expectantly round the +circle of upturned faces.</p> + +<p>Every face asked a question at once.</p> + +<p>Roger forgot his periods in his enthusiasm and became +colloquial.</p> + +<p>“Why, you see, we’re all keen, we’re not fools, and we’re not +(with apologies to my friend Moresby) tied to any hard-and-fast +method of investigation. Is it too much to hope that, with all six of +us on our mettle and working quite independently of each other, +one of us might achieve some result where the police have, to put +it bluntly, failed? I don’t think it’s outside the possibilities. What +do you say, Sir Charles?”</p> + +<p>The famous counsel uttered a deep laugh. “ ’Pon my word, +Sheringham, it’s an interesting idea. But I must reserve judgment +till you’ve outlined your proposal in a little more detail.”</p> + +<p>“I think it’s a wonderful idea, Mr. Sheringham,” cried Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming, who was not troubled with a legal mind. “I’d +like to begin this very evening.” Her plump cheeks positively +quivered with excitement. “Wouldn’t you, Alicia?”</p> + +<p>“It has possibilities,” smiled that lady.</p> + +<p>“As a matter-of-fact,” said the writer of detective-stories, with +an air of detachment, “I’d formed a theory of my own about +this case already.” His name was Percy Robinson, but he wrote +under the pseudonym of Morton Harrogate Bradley, which had +so impressed the more simple citizens of the United States of +America that they had bought three editions of his first book +on the strength of that alone. For some obscure psychological +reason Americans are always impressed by the use of surnames +for Christian, and particularly when one of them happens to be +the name of an English watering-place.</p> + +<p>Mr. Ambrose Chitterwick beamed in a mild way, but said +nothing.</p> + +<p>“Well,” Roger took up his tale, “the details are open to discussion, +of course, but I thought that, if we all decide to make the +trial, it would be more amusing if we worked independently. +Moresby here can give us the plain facts as they’re known to the +police. He hasn’t been in charge of the case himself, but he’s had +one or two jobs in connection with it and is pretty well up in the +facts; moreover he has very kindly spent most of the afternoon +examining the dossier at Scotland Yard so as to be sure of +omitting nothing this evening.</p> + +<p>“When we’ve heard him some of us may be able to form a +theory at once; possible lines of investigation may occur to others +which they will wish to follow up before they commit themselves. +In any case, I suggest that we allow ourselves a week in which to +form our theories, verify our hypotheses, and set our individual +interpretations on the facts that Scotland Yard has collected, +during which time no member shall discuss the case with any +other member. We may achieve nothing (most probably we shall +not), but in any case it will be a most interesting criminological +exercise; for some of us practical, for others academical, just as we +prefer. And what I think should be most interesting will be to see +if we all arrive at the same result or not. Ladies and gentlemen, +the meeting is open for discussion, or whatever is the right way +of putting it. In other words: what about it?” And Roger dropped +back, not reluctantly, into his seat.</p> + +<p>Almost before his trousers had touched it the first question +reached him.</p> + +<p>“Do you mean that we’re to go out and act as our own detectives, +Mr. Sheringham, or just write a thesis on the facts that the +Chief Inspector is going to give us?” asked Alicia Dammers.</p> + +<p>“Whichever each one of us preferred, I thought,” Roger +answered. “That’s what I meant when I said that the exercise +would be practical for some of us and academic for others.”</p> + +<p>“But you’ve got so much more experience than us on the +practical side, Mr. Sheringham,” pouted Mrs. Fielder-Flemming +(yes, pouted).</p> + +<p>“And the police have so much more than me,” Roger countered.</p> + +<p>“It will depend whether we use deductive or inductive methods, +no doubt,” observed Mr. Morton Harrogate Bradley. “Those +who prefer the former will work from the police-facts and won’t +need to make any investigations of their own, except perhaps to +verify a conclusion or two. But the inductive method demands a +good deal of inquiry.”</p> + +<p>“Exactly,” said Roger.</p> + +<p>“Police-facts and the deductive method have solved plenty +of serious mysteries in this country,” pronounced Sir Charles +Wildman. “I shall rely on them for this one.”</p> + +<p>“There’s one particular feature of this case,” murmured Mr. +Bradley to nobody, “that ought to lead one straight to the criminal. +I’ve thought so all the time. I shall concentrate on that.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sure I haven’t the remotest idea how one sets about investigating +a point, if it becomes desirable,” observed Mr. Chitterwick +uneasily; but nobody heard him, so it did not matter.</p> + +<p>“The only thing that struck me about this case,” said Alicia +Dammers, very distinctly, “regarded, I mean, as a pure case, was +its complete absence of any psychological interest whatever.” And +without actually saying so, Miss Dammers conveyed the impression +that if that were so, she personally had no further use for it.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think you’ll say that when you’ve heard what Moresby’s +got to tell us,” Roger said gently. “We’re going to hear a great deal +more than has appeared in the newspapers, you know.”</p> + +<p>“Then let’s hear it,” suggested Sir Charles, bluntly.</p> + +<p>“We’re all agreed, then?” said Roger, looking round as happily +as a child who has been given a new toy. “Everybody is willing +to try it out?”</p> + +<p>Amid the ensuing chorus of enthusiasm, one voice alone was +silent. Mr. Ambrose Chitterwick was still wondering, quite unhappily, +how, if it ever became necessary to go a-detecting, one went. +He had studied the reminiscences of a hundred ex-detectives, +the real ones, with large black boots and bowler hats; but all he +could remember at that moment, out of all those scores of fat +books (published at eighteen and sixpence, and remaindered a few +months later at eighteen-pence), was that a real, <em>real</em> detective, if +he means to attain results, never puts on a false moustache but +simply shaves his eyebrows. As a mystery-solving formula, this +seemed to Mr. Chitterwick inadequate.</p> + +<p>Fortunately in the buzz of chatter that preceded the very +reluctant rising of Chief Inspector Moresby, Mr. Chitterwick’s +poltroonery went unnoticed.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch02"> + +<h2>Chapter II</h2> + +<p>Chief Inspector Moresby, having stood up and blushingly +received his tribute of hand-claps, was invited to +address the gathering from his chair and thankfully retired into +that shelter. Consulting the sheaf of notes in his hand, he began +to enlighten his very attentive audience as to the strange +circumstances connected with Mrs. Bendix’s untimely death. Without +reproducing his own words, and all the numerous supplementary +questions which punctuated his story, the gist of what he had to +tell was as follows:—</p> + +<hr> + +<p>On Friday morning, the fifteenth of November, Graham Bendix +strolled into his club, the Rainbow, in Piccadilly, at about ten-thirty +and asked if there were any letters for him. The porter handed +him a letter and a couple of circulars, and he walked over to the +fireplace in the hall to read them.</p> + +<p>While he was doing so another member entered the club. This +was a middle-aged baronet, Sir Eustace Pennefather, who had +rooms just round the corner, in Berkeley Street, but spent most +of his time at the Rainbow. The porter glanced up at the clock, as +he did every morning when Sir Eustace came in, and, as always, +it was exactly half-past ten. The time was thus definitely fixed by +the porter beyond any doubt.</p> + +<p>There were three letters and a small parcel for Sir Eustace, +and he, too, took them over to the fireplace to open, nodding to +Bendix as he joined him there. The two men knew each other +only very slightly and had probably never exchanged more than +half-a-dozen words in all. There were no other members in the +hall just then.</p> + +<p>Having glanced through his letters, Sir Eustace opened the +parcel and snorted with disgust. Bendix looked at him enquiringly, +and with a grunt Sir Eustace thrust out the letter which had been +enclosed in the parcel, adding an uncomplimentary remark upon +modern trade methods. Concealing a smile (Sir Eustace’s habits +and opinions were a matter of some amusement to his fellow-members), +Bendix read the letter. It was from the firm of Mason +& Sons, the big chocolate manufacturers, and was to the effect that +they had just put on the market a new brand of liqueur-chocolates +designed especially to appeal to the cultivated palates of Men of +Taste. Sir Eustace being, presumably, a Man of Taste, would he +be good enough to honour Mr. Mason and his sons by accepting +the enclosed one-pound box, and any criticisms or appreciation +that he might have to make concerning them would be esteemed +almost more than a favour.</p> + +<p>“Do they think I’m a blasted chorus-girl,” fumed Sir Eustace, +a choleric man, “to write ’em testimonials about their blasted +chocolates? Blast ’em! I’ll complain to the blasted committee. +That sort of blasted thing can’t blasted well be allowed here.” For +the Rainbow Club, as every one knows, is a very proud and +exclusive club indeed, with an unbroken descent from the Rainbow +Coffee-House, founded in 1734. Not even a family founded by a +king’s bastard can be quite so exclusive to-day as a club founded +on a coffee-house.</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s an ill wind so far as I’m concerned,” Bendix soothed +him. “It’s reminded me of something. I’ve got to get some +chocolates myself, to pay an honourable debt. My wife and I had +a box at the Imperial last night, and I bet her a box of chocolates +to a hundred cigarettes that she wouldn’t spot the villain by the +end of the second act. She won. I must remember to get them. +It’s not a bad show. <i>The Creaking Skull</i>. Have you seen it?”</p> + +<p>“Not blasted likely,” replied the other, unsoothed. “Got something +better to do than sit and watch a lot of blasted fools messing +about with phosphorescent paint and pooping off blasted pop-guns +at each other. Want a box of chocolates, did you say? Well, take +this blasted one.”</p> + +<p>The money saved by this offer had no weight with Bendix. +He was a very wealthy man, and probably had enough on him +in actual cash to buy a hundred such boxes. But trouble is +always worth saving. “Sure you don’t want them?” he demurred +politely.</p> + +<p>In Sir Eustace’s reply only one word, several times repeated, +was clearly recognisable. But his meaning was plain. Bendix +thanked him and, most unfortunately for himself, accepted +the gift.</p> + +<p>By an extraordinarily lucky chance the wrapper of the box +was not thrown into the fire, either by Sir Eustace in his +indignation or by Bendix himself when the whole collection, box, +covering letter, wrapper and string, was shovelled into his hands +by the almost apoplectic baronet. This was the more fortunate +as both men had already tossed the envelopes of their letters +into the flames.</p> + +<p>Bendix however merely walked over to the porter’s desk and +deposited everything there, asking the man to keep the box for +him. The porter put the box aside, and threw the wrapper into +the waste-paper basket. The covering letter had fallen unnoticed +from Bendix’s hand as he walked across the floor. This the porter +tidily picked up a few minutes later and put in the waste-paper +basket too, whence, with the wrapper, it was retrieved later by +the police.</p> + +<p>These two articles, it may be said at once, constituted two of +the only three tangible clues to the murder, the third of course +being the chocolates themselves.</p> + +<p>Of the three unconscious protagonists in the impending tragedy, +Sir Eustace was by far the most remarkable. Still a year or +two under fifty, he looked, with his flaming red face and thickset +figure, a typical country squire of the old school, and both his +manners and his language were in accordance with tradition. +There were other resemblances too, but they were equally on +the surface. The voices of the country squires of the old school +were often slightly husky towards late middle age, but it was not +with whisky. They hunted, and so did Sir Eustace, with avidity; +but the country squires confined their hunting to foxes, and Sir +Eustace was far more catholic in his predatory tastes. Sir Eustace +in short, without doubt, was a thoroughly bad baronet. But his +vices were all on the large scale, with the usual result that most +other men, good or bad, liked him well enough (except perhaps +a few husbands here and there, or a father or two), and women +openly hung on his husky words.</p> + +<p>In comparison with him Bendix was rather an ordinary man, +a tall, dark, not unhandsome fellow of eight-and-twenty, quiet +and somewhat reserved, popular in a way but neither inviting +nor apparently reciprocating anything beyond a somewhat grave +friendliness.</p> + +<p>He had been left a rich man on the death five years ago of +his father, who had made a fortune out of land-sites, which he +had bought up in undeveloped areas with an uncanny foresight +to sell later, at never less than ten times what he had given for +them, when surrounded by houses and factories erected with +other people’s money. “Just sit tight and let other people make +you rich,” had been his motto, and a very sound one it proved. +His son, though left with an income that precluded any necessity +to work, had evidently inherited his father’s tendencies, for he +had a finger in a good many business pies just (as he explained a +little apologetically) out of sheer love of the most exciting game +in the world.</p> + +<p>Money attracts money. Graham Bendix had inherited it, he +made it, and inevitably he married it too. The orphaned daughter +of a Liverpool ship-owner she was, with not far off half-a-million +in her own right to bring to Bendix, who needed it not at all. But +the money was incidental, for he needed her if not her fortune, +and would have married her just as inevitably (said his friends) if +she had had not a farthing.</p> + +<p>She was so exactly his type. A tall, rather serious-minded, +highly-cultured girl, not so young that her character had not had +time to form (she was twenty-five when Bendix married her, +three years ago), she was the ideal wife for him. A bit of a Puritan, +perhaps, in some ways, but Bendix himself was ready enough to +be a Puritan by then if Joan Cullompton was.</p> + +<p>For in spite of the way he developed later Bendix had sown +as a youth a few wild oats in the normal way. Stage-doors, that is +to say, had not been entirely strange to him. His name had been +mentioned in connection with that of more than one frail and +fluffy lady. He had managed, in short, to amuse himself, discreetly +but by no means clandestinely, in the usual manner of young men +with too much money and too few years. But all that, again in the +ordinary way, had stopped with his marriage.</p> + +<p>He was openly devoted to his wife and did not care who knew +it, while she too, if a trifle less obviously, was equally said to wear +her heart on her sleeve. To make no bones about it, the Bendixes +had apparently succeeded in achieving that eighth wonder of the +modern world, a happy marriage.</p> + +<p>And into the middle of it there dropped, like a clap of thunder, +the box of chocolates.</p> + +<p>“After depositing the box of chocolates with the porter,” +Moresby continued, shuffling his papers to find the right one, +“Mr. Bendix followed Sir Eustace into the lounge, where he was +reading the <i>Morning Post</i>.”</p> + +<p>Roger nodded approval. There was no other paper that Sir +Eustace could possibly have been reading but the <i>Morning Post</i>.</p> + +<p>Bendix himself proceeded to study <i>The Daily Telegraph</i>. He +was rather at a loose end that morning. There were no board +meetings for him, and none of the businesses in which he was +interested called him out into the rain of a typical November day. +He spent the rest of the morning in an aimless way, read the daily +papers, glanced through the weeklies, and played a hundred up +at billiards with another member equally idle. At about half-past +twelve he went back to lunch to his house in Eaton Square, taking +the chocolates with him.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bendix had given orders that she would not be in to lunch +that day, but her appointment had been cancelled and she too was +lunching at home. Bendix gave her the box of chocolates after the +meal as they were sitting over their coffee in the drawing-room, +explaining how they had come into his possession. Mrs. Bendix +laughingly teased him about his meanness in not buying her a box, +but approved the make and was interested to try the firm’s new +variety. Joan Bendix was not so serious-minded as not to have a +healthy feminine interest in good chocolates.</p> + +<p>Their appearance, however, did not seem to impress her very +much.</p> + +<p>“Kümmel, Kirsch, Maraschino,” she said, delving with her fingers +among the silver-wrappered sweets, each bearing the name of +its filling in neat blue lettering. “Nothing else, apparently. I don’t +see anything new here, Graham. They’ve just taken those three +kinds out of their ordinary liqueur-chocolates.”</p> + +<p>“Oh?” said Bendix, who was not particularly interested in +chocolates. “Well, I don’t suppose it matters much. All +liqueur-chocolates taste the same to me.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and they’ve even packed them in their usual +liqueur-chocolate box,” complained his wife, examining the lid.</p> + +<p>“They’re only a sample,” Bendix pointed out. “They may not +have got the right boxes ready yet.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t believe there’s the slightest difference,” Mrs. Bendix +pronounced, unwrapping a Kümmel. She held the box out to her +husband. “Have one?”</p> + +<p>He shook his head. “No, thank you, dear. You know I never +eat the things.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you’ve got to have one of these, as a penance for not +buying me a proper box. Catch!” She threw him one. As he caught +it she made a wry face. “Oh! I was wrong. These are different. +They’re twenty times as strong.”</p> + +<p>“Well, they can bear at least that,” Bendix smiled, thinking +of the usual anæmic sweetmeat sold under the name of +chocolate-liqueur.</p> + +<p>He put the one she had given him in his mouth and bit it up; a +burning taste, not intolerable but far too pronounced to be pleasant, +followed the release of the liquid. “By Jove,” he exclaimed, +“I should think they are strong. I believe they’ve filled them with +neat alcohol.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, they wouldn’t do that, surely,” said his wife, unwrapping +another. “But they are very strong. It must be the new mixture. +Really, they almost burn. I’m not sure whether I like them or not. +And that Kirsch one tasted far too strongly of almonds. This may +be better. You try a Maraschino too.”</p> + +<p>To humour her he swallowed another, and disliked it still more. +“Funny,” he remarked, touching the roof of his mouth with the +tip of his tongue. “My tongue feels quite numb.”</p> + +<p>“So did mine at first,” she agreed. “Now it’s tingling rather. +Well, I don’t notice any difference between the Kirsch and the +Maraschino. And they do burn! I can’t make up my mind whether +I like them or not.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t,” Bendix said with decision. “I think there’s something +wrong with them. I shouldn’t eat any more if I were you.”</p> + +<p>“Well, they’re only an experiment, I suppose,” said his wife.</p> + +<p>A few minutes later Bendix went out, to keep an appointment +in the City. He left his wife still trying to make up her mind +whether she liked the chocolates or not, and still eating them to +decide. Her last words to him were that they were making her +mouth burn again so much that she was afraid she would not be +able to manage any more.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Bendix remembers that conversation very clearly,” said +Moresby, looking round at the intent faces, “because it was the +last time he saw his wife alive.”</p> + +<p>The conversation in the drawing-room had taken place approximately +between a quarter-past and half-past two. Bendix kept +his appointment in the City at three, where he stayed for about +half-an-hour, and then took a taxi back to his club for tea.</p> + +<p>He had been feeling extremely ill during his business-talk, and +in the taxi he very nearly collapsed; the driver had to summon the +porter to help get him out and into the club. They both described +him as pale to the point of ghastliness, with staring eyes and livid +lips, and his skin damp and clammy. His mind seemed unaffected, +however, and once they had got him up the steps he was able to +walk, with the help of the porter’s arm, into the lounge.</p> + +<p>The porter, alarmed by his appearance, wanted to send for +a doctor at once, but Bendix, who was the last man to make a +fuss, absolutely refused to let him, saying that it could only be a +bad attack of indigestion and that he would be all right in a few +minutes; he must have eaten something that disagreed with him. +The porter was doubtful, but left him.</p> + +<p>Bendix repeated this diagnosis of his own condition a few +minutes later to Sir Eustace Pennefather, who was in the lounge +at the time, not having left the club at all. But this time Bendix +added: “And I believe it was those infernal chocolates you gave +me, now I come to think of it. I thought there was something +funny about them at the time. I’d better go and ring up my wife +and find out if she’s been taken like this too.”</p> + +<p>Sir Eustace, a kind-hearted man, who was no less shocked +than the porter at Bendix’s appearance, was perturbed by the +suggestion that he might in any way be responsible for it, and +offered to go and ring up Mrs. Bendix himself as the other was +in no fit condition to move. Bendix was about to reply when a +strange change came over him. His body, which had been leaning +limply back in his chair, suddenly heaved rigidly upright; his jaws +locked together, the livid lips drawn back in a hideous grin, and +his hands clenched on the arms of the chair. At the same time Sir +Eustace became aware of an unmistakable smell of bitter almonds.</p> + +<p>Thoroughly alarmed now, believing indeed that Bendix was +dying under his eyes, he raised a shout for the porter and a doctor. +There were two or three other men at the further end of the big +room (in which a shout had probably never been heard before in +the whole course of its history) and these hurried up at once. Sir +Eustace sent one off to tell the porter to get hold of the nearest +doctor without a second’s delay, and enlisted the others to try to +make the convulsed body a little more comfortable. There was +no doubt among them that Bendix had taken poison. They spoke +to him, asking how he felt and what they could do for him, but +he either would not or could not answer. As a matter of fact, he +was completely unconscious.</p> + +<p>Before the doctor had arrived, a telephone message was +received from an agitated butler asking if Mr. Bendix was there, +and if so would he come home at once as Mrs. Bendix had been +taken seriously ill.</p> + +<p>At the house in Eaton Square matters had been taking much +the same course with Mrs. Bendix as with her husband, though +a little more rapidly. She remained for half-an-hour or so in the +drawing-room after the latter’s departure, during which time she +must have eaten about three more of the chocolates. She then +went up to her bedroom and rang for her maid, to whom she +said that she felt very ill and was going to lie down for a time. +Like her husband, she ascribed her condition to a violent attack +of indigestion.</p> + +<p>The maid mixed her a draught from a bottle of indigestion-powder, +which consisted mainly of bicarbonate of soda and +bismuth, and brought her a hot-water bottle, leaving her lying +on the bed. Her description of her mistress’s appearance tallied +exactly with the porter’s and taxi-man’s description of Bendix, +but unlike them she did not seem to have been alarmed by it. She +admitted later to the opinion that Mrs. Bendix, though anything +but a greedy woman, must have overeaten herself at lunch.</p> + +<p>At a quarter past three there was a violent ring from the bell +in Mrs. Bendix’s room.</p> + +<p>The girl hurried upstairs and found her mistress apparently +in a cataleptic fit, unconscious and rigid. Thoroughly frightened +now, she wasted some precious minutes in ineffectual attempts +to bring her round, and then hurried downstairs to telephone for +the doctor. The practitioner who regularly attended the house was +not at home, and it was some time before the butler, who had +found the half-hysterical girl at the telephone and taken matters +into his own hands, could get into communication with another. +By the time the latter did get there, nearly half-an-hour after Mrs. +Bendix’s bell had rung, she was past help. Coma had set in, and in +spite of everything the doctor could do she died in less than ten +minutes after his arrival.</p> + +<p>She was, in fact, already dead when the butler telephoned to +the Rainbow Club.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch03"> + +<h2>Chapter III</h2> + +<p>Having reached this stage in his narrative Moresby +paused, for effect, breath and refreshment. So far, in spite +of the eager interest with which the story had been followed, +no fact had been brought out of which his listeners were unaware. +It was the police investigations that they wanted to hear, +for not only had no details of these been published but not so +much as a hint had been given even as to the theory that was +officially held.</p> + +<p>Perhaps Moresby had gathered something of this sentiment, +for after a moment’s rest he resumed with a slight smile. “Well, +ladies and gentlemen, I shan’t keep you much longer with these +preliminaries, but it’s just as well to run through everything +while we’re on it, if we want to get a view of the case as a +whole.</p> + +<p>“As you know, then, Mr. Bendix himself did not die. Luckily +for himself he had eaten only two of the chocolates, as against +his wife’s seven, but still more luckily he had fallen into the hands +of a clever doctor. By the time her doctor saw Mrs. Bendix it was +too late for him to do anything; but the smaller amount of poison +that Mr. Bendix had swallowed meant that its progress was not +so rapid, and the doctor had time to save him.</p> + +<p>“Not that the doctor knew then what the poison was. He +treated him chiefly for prussic acid poisoning, thinking from the +symptoms and the smell that Mr. Bendix must have taken oil of +bitter almonds, but he wasn’t sure and threw in one or two other +things as well. Anyhow, it turned out in the end that he couldn’t +have had a fatal dose, and he was conscious again by about eight +o’clock that night. They’d put him into one of the club bedrooms, +and by the next day he was convalescent.”</p> + +<p>At first, Moresby went on to explain, it was thought at Scotland +Yard that Mrs. Bendix’s death and her husband’s narrow escape +were due to a terrible accident. The police had of course taken +the matter in hand as soon as the woman’s death was reported to +them and the fact of poison established. In due course a District +Detective Inspector arrived at the Rainbow Club, and as soon as +the doctor would permit after Bendix’s recovery of consciousness +held an interview with the still very sick man.</p> + +<p>The fact of his wife’s death was kept from him in his doubtful +condition and he was questioned solely upon his own experience, +for it was already clear that the two cases were bound up together +and light on one would equally clarify the other. The Inspector +told Bendix bluntly that he had been poisoned and pressed him +as to how the stuff could have been taken: could he account for +it in any way?</p> + +<p>It was not long before the chocolates came into Bendix’s mind. +He mentioned their burning taste, and he mentioned having +already spoken to Sir Eustace about them as the possible cause +of his illness.</p> + +<p>This the inspector already knew.</p> + +<p>He had spent the time before Bendix came round in interviewing +such people as had come into contact with him since +his return to the club that afternoon. He had heard the porter’s +story and he had taken steps to trace the taxi-man; he had spoken +with the members who had gathered round Bendix in the lounge, +and Sir Eustace had reported to him the remark of Bendix about +the chocolates.</p> + +<p>The inspector had not attached very much importance to this +at the moment, but simply as a matter of routine had questioned +Sir Eustace closely as to the whole episode and, again as a matter +of routine, had afterwards rummaged through the waste-paper +basket and extricated the wrapper and the covering-letter. Still +as a matter of routine, and still not particularly impressed, +he now proceeded to question Bendix on the same topic, and +then at last began to realise its significance as he heard how +the two had shared the chocolates after lunch and how, even +before Bendix had left home, the wife had eaten more than +the husband.</p> + +<p>The doctor now intervened, and the inspector had to leave +the sick-room. His first action was to telephone to his colleague +at the Bendix home and tell him to take possession without delay +of the box of chocolates which was probably still in the +drawing-room; at the same time he asked for a rough idea of the number +of chocolates that were missing. The other told him, nine or ten. +The inspector, who on Bendix’s information had only accounted +for six or seven, rang off and telephoned what he had learnt to +Scotland Yard.</p> + +<p>Interest was now centred on the chocolates. They were taken +to Scotland Yard that evening, and sent off at once to be analysed.</p> + +<p>“Well, the doctor hadn’t been far wrong,” said Moresby. +“The poison in those chocolates wasn’t oil of bitter almonds +as a matter of fact, it was nitrobenzene; but I understand that +isn’t so very different. If any of you ladies or gentlemen have +a knowledge of chemicals, you’ll know more about the stuff +than I do, but I believe it’s used occasionally in the cheaper sorts +of confectionery (less than it used to be, though) to give an +almond-flavour as a substitute for oil of bitter almonds, which +I needn’t tell you is a powerful poison too. But the most usual +way of employing nitrobenzene commercially is in the +manufacture of aniline dyes.”</p> + +<p>When the analyst’s preliminary report came through Scotland +Yard’s initial theory of accidental death was strengthened. Here +definitely was a poison used in the manufacture of chocolates and +other sweets. A terrible mistake must have been made. The firm +had been employing the stuff as a cheap substitute for genuine +liqueurs and too much of it had been used. The fact that the +only liqueurs named on the silver wrappings were Maraschino, +Kümmel and Kirsch, all of which carry a greater or lesser flavour +of almonds, supported this conception.</p> + +<p>But before the firm was approached by the police for an +explanation, other facts had come to light. It was found that +only the top layer of chocolates contained any poison. Those +in the lower layer were completely free from anything harmful. +Moreover in the lower layer the fillings inside the chocolate cases +corresponded with the description on the wrappings, whereas +in the top layer, besides the poison, each sweet contained a +blend of the three liqueurs mentioned and not, for instance, +plain Maraschino and poison. It was further remarked that no +Maraschino, Kirsch or Kümmel was to be found in the two +lower layers.</p> + +<p>The interesting fact also emerged, in the analyst’s detailed +report, that each chocolate in the top layer contained, in +addition to its blend of the three liqueurs, exactly six minims of +nitrobenzene, no more and no less. The cases were a fair size and +there was plenty of room for quite a considerable quantity of +the liqueur-blend besides this fixed quantity of poison. This was +significant. Still more so was the further fact that in the bottom +of each of the noxious chocolates there were distinct traces of a +hole having been drilled in the case and subsequently plugged up +with a piece of melted chocolate.</p> + +<p>It was now plain to the police that foul play was in question.</p> + +<p>A deliberate attempt had been made to murder Sir Eustace +Pennefather. The would-be murderer had acquired a box of +Mason’s chocolate liqueurs; separated those in which a flavour of +almonds would not come amiss; drilled a small hole in each and +drained it of its contents; injected, probably with a fountain-pen +filler, the dose of poison; filled the cavity up from the mixture +of former fillings; carefully stopped the hole, and re-wrapped it +in its silver-paper covering. A meticulous business, meticulously +carried out.</p> + +<p>The covering letter and wrapper which had arrived with the +box of chocolates now became of paramount importance, and +the inspector who had had the foresight to rescue these from +destruction had occasion to pat himself on the back. Together +with the box itself and the remaining chocolates, they formed +the only material clues to this cold-blooded murder.</p> + +<p>Taking them with him, the Chief Inspector now in charge of +the case called on the managing director of Mason & Sons, and +without informing him of the circumstances as to how it had +come into his possession, laid the letter before him and invited +him to explain certain points in connection with it. How many of +these (the managing director was asked) had been sent out, who +knew of this one, and who could have had a chance of handling +the box that was sent to Sir Eustace?</p> + +<p>If the police had hoped to surprise Mr. Mason, the result was +nothing compared with the way in which Mr. Mason surprised +the police.</p> + +<p>“Well, sir?” prompted the Chief Inspector, when it seemed as +if Mr. Mason would go on examining the letter all day.</p> + +<p>Mr. Mason adjusted his glasses to the angle for examining +Chief Inspectors instead of letters. He was a small, rather fierce, +elderly man who had begun life in a back street in Huddersfield, +and did not intend any one to forget it.</p> + +<p>“Where the devil did you get this?” he asked. The papers, it +must be remembered, had not yet got hold of the sensational +aspect of Mrs. Bendix’s death.</p> + +<p>“I came,” replied the Chief Inspector with dignity, “to ask +you about your sending it out, sir, not tell you about my getting +hold of it.”</p> + +<p>“Then you can go to the devil,” replied Mr. Mason with decision. +“And take Scotland Yard with you,” he added, by way of a +comprehensive afterthought.</p> + +<p>“I must warn you, sir,” said the Chief Inspector, somewhat +taken aback but concealing the fact beneath his weightiest manner, +“I must warn you that it may be a serious matter for you to refuse +to answer my questions.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Mason, it appeared, was exasperated rather than intimidated +by this covert threat. “Get out o’ ma office,” he replied +in his native tongue. “Are ye druffen, man? Or do ye just think +you’re funny? Ye know as well as I do that that letter was never +sent out from ’ere.”</p> + +<p>It was then that the Chief Inspector became surprised. “Not—not +sent out by your firm at all?” he yammered. It was a possibility +that had not occurred to him. “It’s—forged, then?”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t that what I’m telling ye?” growled the old man, regarding +him fiercely from under bushy brows. But the Chief Inspector’s +evident astonishment had mollified him somewhat.</p> + +<p>“Sir,” said that official, “I must ask you to be good enough to +answer my questions as fully as possible. It’s a case of murder I’m +investigating, and—” he paused and thought cunningly “—and the +murderer seems to have been making free use of your business +to cloak his operations.”</p> + +<p>The cunning of the Chief Inspector prevailed. “The devil ’e +’as!” roared the old man. “Damn the blackguard. Ask any +questions thou wants, lad; I’ll answer right enough.”</p> + +<p>Communication thus being established, the Chief Inspector +proceeded to get to grips.</p> + +<p>During the next five minutes his heart sank lower and lower. +In place of the simple case he had anticipated it became rapidly +plain to him that the affair was going to be very difficult indeed. +Hitherto he had thought (and his superiors had agreed with +him) that the case was going to prove one of sudden temptation. +Somebody in the Mason firm had a grudge against Sir Eustace. +Into his (or more probably, as the Chief Inspector had considered, +her) hands had fallen the box and letter addressed to him. +The opportunity had been obvious, the means, in the shape of +nitrobenzene in use in the factory, ready to hand; the result had +followed. Such a culprit would be easy enough to trace.</p> + +<p>But now, it seemed, this pleasant theory must be abandoned, +for in the first place no such letter as this had ever been sent out at +all; the firm had produced no new brand of chocolates, if they had +done so it was not their custom to dispense sample boxes among +private individuals, the letter was a forgery. But the notepaper on +the other hand (and this was the only remnant left to support the +theory) was perfectly genuine, so far as the old man could tell. +He could not say for certain, but was almost sure that this was a +piece of old stock which had been finished up about six months +ago. The heading might be forged, but he did not think so.</p> + +<p>“Six months ago?” queried the Inspector unhappily.</p> + +<p>“About that,” said the other, and plucked a piece of paper +out of a stand in front of him. “This is what we use now.” The +Inspector examined it. There was no doubt of the difference. The +new paper was thinner and more glossy. But the heading looked +exactly the same. The Inspector took a note of the firm who had +printed both.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately no sample of the old paper was available. Mr. +Mason had a search made on the spot, but not a sheet was left.</p> + +<p>“As a matter of fact,” Moresby now said, “it had been noticed +that the piece of paper on which the letter was written was an +old one. It is distinctly yellow round the edges. I’ll pass it round +and you can see for yourselves. Please be careful of it.” The bit +of paper, once handled by a murderer, passed slowly from each +would-be detective to his neighbour.</p> + +<p>“Well, to cut a long story shorter,” Moresby went on, “we had +it examined by the firm of printers, Webster’s, in Frith Street, and +they’re prepared to swear that it’s their work. That means the +paper was genuine, worse luck.”</p> + +<p>“You mean, of course,” put in Sir Charles Wildman impressively, +“that had the heading been a copy, the task of discovering +the printers who executed it should have been comparatively +simple?”</p> + +<p>“That’s correct, Sir Charles. Except if it had been done by +somebody who owned a small press of their own; but that would +have been traceable too. All we’ve actually got is that the murderer +is someone who had access to Mason’s notepaper up to six months +ago; and that’s pretty wide.”</p> + +<p>“Do you think it was stolen with the actual intention of putting +it to the purpose for which it was used?” asked Alicia Dammers.</p> + +<p>“It seems like it, madam. And something kept holding the +murderer up.”</p> + +<p>As regards the wrapper, Mr. Mason had been unable to help at +all. This consisted simply of a piece of ordinary, thin brown paper, +such as could be bought anywhere, with Sir Eustace’s name and +address hand-printed on it in neat capitals. Apparently there was +nothing to be learnt from it at all. The post-mark showed that it had +been despatched by the nine-thirty <span class="sc">p. m.</span> post from the +post office in Southampton Street, Strand.</p> + +<p>“There is a collection at 8.30 and another at 9.30,” Moresby +explained, “so it must have been posted between those two times. +The packet was quite small enough to go into the opening for +letters. The stamps make up the right value. The post office was +shut by then, so it could not have been handed in over the counter. +Perhaps you’d care to see it.” The piece of brown paper was +handed gravely round.</p> + +<p>“Have you brought the box too, and the other chocolates?” +asked Mrs. Fielder-Flemming.</p> + +<p>“No, madam. It was one of Mason’s ordinary boxes, and the +chocolates have all been used for analysis.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” Mrs. Fielder-Flemming was plainly disappointed. “I +thought there might be finger-prints on it,” she explained.</p> + +<p>“We have already looked for those,” replied Moresby without +a flicker.</p> + +<p>There was a pause while the wrapper passed from hand to +hand.</p> + +<p>“Naturally, we’ve made inquiries as to any one seen posting a +packet in Southampton Street between half-past eight and half-past +nine,” Moresby continued, “but without result. We’ve also carefully +interrogated Sir Eustace Pennefather to discover whether he +could throw any light on the question why any one should wish to +take his life, or who. Sir Eustace can’t give us the faintest idea. Of +course we followed up the usual line of inquiry as to who would +benefit by his death, but without any helpful results. Most of his +possessions go to his wife, who has a divorce suit pending against +him; and she’s out of the country. We’ve checked her movements +and she’s out of the question. Besides,” added Moresby +unprofessionally, “she’s a very nice lady.</p> + +<p>“And as to facts, all we know is that the murderer probably +had some connection with Mason & Sons up to six months ago, +and was almost certainly in Southampton Street at some time +between eight-thirty and nine-thirty on that particular evening. +I’m very much afraid we’re up against a brick wall.” Moresby did +not add that so were the amateur criminologists in front of him +too, but he very distinctly implied it.</p> + +<p>There was a silence.</p> + +<p>“Is that all?” asked Roger.</p> + +<p>“That’s all, Mr. Sheringham,” Moresby agreed.</p> + +<p>There was another silence.</p> + +<p>“Surely the police have a theory?” Mr. Morton Harrogate +Bradley threw out in a detached manner.</p> + +<p>Moresby hesitated perceptibly.</p> + +<p>“Come along, Moresby,” Roger encouraged him. “It’s quite a +simple theory. I know it.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Moresby, thus stimulated, “we’re inclined to +believe that the crime was the work of a lunatic, or semi-lunatic, +possibly quite unknown personally to Sir Eustace. You see . . .” +Moresby looked a trifle embarrassed. “You see,” he went on +bravely, “Sir Eustace’s life was a bit, well, we might say hectic, if +you’ll excuse the word. We think at the Yard that some religious +or social maniac took it on himself to rid the world of him, so +to speak. Some of his escapades had caused a bit of talk, as you +may know.</p> + +<p>“Or it might just be a plain homicidal lunatic, who likes killing +people at a distance.</p> + +<p>“There’s the Horwood case, you see. Some lunatic sent poisoned +chocolates to the Commissioner of Police himself. That +caused a lot of attention. We think this case may be an echo of it. +A case that creates a good deal of notice is quite often followed +by another on exactly the same lines, as I needn’t remind you.</p> + +<p>“Well, that’s our theory. And if it’s the right one, we’ve got +about as much chance of laying our hands on the murderer +as—as—” Chief Inspector Moresby cast about for something really +scathing.</p> + +<p>“As we have,” suggested Roger.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch04"> + +<h2>Chapter IV</h2> + +<p>The Circle sat on for some time after Moresby had +gone. There was a lot to discuss, and everybody had views +to put forward, suggestions to make, and theories to advance.</p> + +<p>One thing emerged with singular unanimity: the police had +been working on the wrong lines. Their theory must be mistaken. +This was not a casual murder by a chance lunatic. Somebody very +definite had gone methodically about the business of helping Sir +Eustace out of the world, and that somebody had behind him an +equally definite motive. Like almost all murders, in fact, it was a +matter of <i lang="fr">cherchez le motif</i>.</p> + +<p>On the exposition and discussion of theories Roger kept a +firmly quelling hand. The whole object of the experiment, as he +pointed out more than once, was that everybody should work +independently, without bias from any other brain, form his or +her own theory, and set about proving it in his or her own way.</p> + +<p>“But oughtn’t we to pool our facts, Sheringham?” boomed Sir +Charles. “I should suggest that though we pursue our investigations +independently, any new facts we discover should be placed +at once at the disposal of all. The exercise should be a mental one, +not a competition in routine-detection.”</p> + +<p>“There’s a lot to be said for that view, Sir Charles,” Roger +agreed. “In fact, I’ve thought it over very carefully. But on the +whole I think it will be better if we keep any new facts to +ourselves after this evening. You see, we’re already in possession of +all the facts that the police have discovered, and anything else we +may come across isn’t likely to be so much a definite pointer to +the murderer as some little thing, quite insignificant in itself, to +support a particular theory.”</p> + +<p>Sir Charles grunted, obviously unconvinced.</p> + +<p>“I’m quite willing to have it put to the vote,” Roger said +handsomely.</p> + +<p>A vote was taken. Sir Charles and Mrs. Fielder-Flemming +voted for all facts being disclosed: Mr. Bradley, Alicia Dammers, +Mr. Chitterwick (the last after considerable hesitation) and Roger +voted against.</p> + +<p>“We retain our own facts,” Roger said, and made a mental +note of who had voted for each. He was inclined to guess that +the voting indicated pretty correctly who was going to be content +with general theorising, and who was ready to enter so far into +the spirit of the game as to go out and work for it. Or it might +simply show who already had a theory and who had not.</p> + +<p>Sir Charles accepted the result with resignation.</p> + +<p>“We start equal as from now, then,” he announced.</p> + +<p>“As from the moment we leave this room,” amended Morton +Harrogate Bradley, rearranging the set of his tie. “But I agree so +far with Sir Charles’s proposition as to think that any one who +can at this moment add anything to the Chief Inspector’s +statement should do so.”</p> + +<p>“But can any one?” asked Mrs. Fielder-Flemming.</p> + +<p>“Sir Charles knows Mr. and Mrs. Bendix,” Alicia Dammers +pointed out impartially. “And Sir Eustace. And I know Sir Eustace +too, of course.”</p> + +<p>Roger smiled. This statement was a characteristic meiosis on +the part of Miss Dammers. Everybody knew that Miss Dammers +had been the only woman (so far as rumour recorded) who had +ever turned the tables on Sir Eustace Pennefather. Sir Eustace had +taken it into his head to add the scalp of an intellectual woman +to those other rather unintellectual ones which already dangled +at his belt. Alicia Dammers, with her good looks, her tall, slim +figure, and her irreproachable sartorial taste, had satisfied his +very fastidious requirements so far as feminine appearance was +concerned. He had laid himself out to fascinate.</p> + +<p>The results had been watched by the large circle of Miss +Dammers’s friends with considerable joy. Miss Dammers had +apparently been only too ready to be fascinated. It seemed that +she was living entirely on the point of succumbing to Sir Eustace’s +blandishments. They had dined, visited, lunched and made +excursions together without respite. Sir Eustace, stimulated by the +daily prospect of surrender on the following one, had exercised +his ardour with every art he knew.</p> + +<p>Miss Dammers had then retired serenely, and the next autumn +published a book in which Sir Eustace Pennefather, dissected to +the last ligament, was given to the world in all the naked +unpleasingness of his psychological anatomy.</p> + +<p>Miss Dammers never talked about her “art,” because she was +a really brilliant writer and not just pretending to be one, but she +certainly held that everything had to be sacrificed (including the +feelings of the Sir Eustace Pennefathers of this world) to whatever +god she worshipped privately in place of it.</p> + +<p>“Mr. and Mrs. Bendix are quite incidental to the crime, of +course, from the murderer’s point of view,” Mr. Bradley now +pointed out to her, in the gentle tones of one instructing a child +that the letter A is followed in the alphabet by the letter B. “So +far as we know, their only connection with Sir Eustace is that he +and Bendix both belonged to the Rainbow.”</p> + +<p>“I needn’t give you my opinion of Sir Eustace,” remarked +Miss Dammers. “Those of you who have read <i>Flesh and the Devil</i> +know how I saw him, and I have no reason to suppose that he +has changed since I was studying him. But I claim no infallibility. +It would be interesting to hear whether Sir Charles’s opinion +coincides with mine or not.”</p> + +<p>Sir Charles, who had not read <i>Flesh and the Devil</i>, looked a +little embarrassed. “Well, I don’t see that I can add much to the +impression the Chief Inspector gave of him. I don’t know the man +well, and certainly have no wish to do so.”</p> + +<p>Everybody looked extremely innocent. It was common gossip +that there had been the possibility of an engagement between +Sir Eustace and Sir Charles’s only daughter, and that Sir Charles +had not viewed the prospect with any perceptible joy. It was +further known that the engagement had even been prematurely +announced, and promptly denied the next day.</p> + +<p>Sir Charles tried to look as innocent as everybody else. “As the +Chief Inspector hinted, he is something of a bad lot. Some people +might go so far as to call him a blackguard. Women,” explained +Sir Charles bluntly. “And he drinks too much,” he added. It was +plain that Sir Charles Wildman did not approve of Sir Eustace +Pennefather.</p> + +<p>“I can add one small point, of purely psychological value,” +amplified Alicia Dammers. “But it shows the dullness of his +reactions. Even in the short time since the tragedy rumour has joined +the name of Sir Eustace to that of a fresh woman. I was somewhat +surprised to hear that,” added Miss Dammers drily. “I should have +been inclined to give him credit for being a little more upset by +the terrible mistake, and its fortunate consequences to himself, +even though Mrs. Bendix was a total stranger to him.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, by the way, I should have corrected that impression earlier,” +observed Sir Charles. “Mrs. Bendix was not a total stranger +to Sir Eustace, though he may probably have forgotten ever meeting +her. But he did. I was talking to Mrs. Bendix one evening at +a first night (I forget the play) and Sir Eustace came up to me. I +introduced them, mentioning something about Bendix being a +member of the Rainbow. I’d almost forgotten.”</p> + +<p>“Then I’m afraid I was completely wrong about him,” said +Miss Dammers, chagrined. “I was far too kind.” To be too kind +in the dissecting-room was evidently, in Miss Dammers’s opinion, +a far greater crime than being too unkind.</p> + +<p>“As for Bendix,” said Sir Charles rather vaguely, “I don’t know +that I can add anything to your knowledge of him. Quite a decent, +steady fellow. Head not turned by his money in the least, rich as +he is. His wife too, charming woman. A little serious perhaps. +Sort of woman who likes sitting on committees. Not that that’s +anything against her though.”</p> + +<p>“Rather the reverse, I should have said,” observed Miss +Dammers, who liked sitting on committees herself.</p> + +<p>“Quite, quite,” said Sir Charles hastily, remembering Miss +Dammers’s curious predilections. “And she wasn’t too serious to +make a bet, evidently, although it was a trifling one.”</p> + +<p>“She had another bet, that she knew nothing about,” chanted +in solemn tones Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, who was already +pondering the dramatic possibilities of the situation. “Not a +trifling one: a grim one. It was with Death, and she lost it.” Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming was regrettably inclined to carry her dramatic +sense into her ordinary life. It did not go at all well with her +culinary aspect.</p> + +<p>She eyed Alicia Dammers covertly, wondering whether she +could get in with a play before that lady cut the ground away +from under her with a book.</p> + +<p>Roger, as chairman, took steps to bring the discussion back +to relevancies. “Yes, poor woman. But after all, we mustn’t let +ourselves confuse the issue. It’s rather difficult to remember that +the murdered person has no connection with the crime at all, so +to speak, but there it is. Just by accident the wrong person died; it’s +on Sir Eustace that we have to concentrate. Now, does anybody +else here know Sir Eustace, or anything about him, or any other +fact bearing on the crime?”</p> + +<p>Nobody responded.</p> + +<p>“Then we’re all on the same footing. And now, about our next +meeting. I suggest that we have a clear week for formulating our +theories and carrying out any investigations we think necessary, +that we then meet on consecutive evenings, beginning with next +Monday, and that we now draw lots as to the order in which we +are to read our several papers or give our conclusions. Or does any +one think we should have more than one speaker each evening?”</p> + +<p>After a little talk it was decided to meet again on Monday, that +day week, and for purposes of fuller discussion allot one evening +to each member. Lots were then drawn, with the result that +members were to speak in the following order: (1) Sir Charles +Wildman, (2) Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, (3) Mr. Morton Harrogate +Bradley, (4) Roger Sheringham, (5) Alicia Dammers, and (6) Mr. +Ambrose Chitterwick.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chitterwick brightened considerably when his name was +announced as last on the list. “By that time,” he confided to Morton +Harrogate, “somebody is quite sure to have discovered the right +solution, and I shall therefore not have to give my own conclusions. +If indeed,” he added dubiously, “I ever reach any. Tell me, +how <em>does</em> a detective really set to work?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Bradley smiled kindly and promised to lend Mr. Chitterwick +one of his own books. Mr. Chitterwick, who had read them all and +possessed most of them, thanked him very gratefully.</p> + +<p>Before the meeting finally broke up, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming could +not resist one more opportunity of being mildly dramatic. “How +strange life is,” she sighed across the table to Sir Charles. “I actually +saw Mrs. Bendix and her husband in their box at the Imperial the +night before she died. (Oh, yes; I knew them by sight. They often +came to my first nights.) I was in a stall almost directly under their +box. Indeed life is certainly stranger than fiction. If I could have +guessed for one minute at the dreadful fate hanging over her, I—”</p> + +<p>“You’d have had the sense to warn her to steer clear of chocolates, +I hope,” observed Sir Charles, who did not hold very much +with Mrs. Fielder-Flemming.</p> + +<p>The meeting then broke up.</p> + +<p>Roger returned to his rooms in the Albany feeling exceedingly +pleased with himself. He had a suspicion that the various attempts +at a solution were going to be almost as interesting to him as the +problem itself.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless he was on his mettle. He had not been very lucky +in the draw and would have preferred the place of Mr. Chitterwick, +which would have meant that he would have the advantage of +already knowing the results achieved by his rivals before having to +disclose his own. Not that he intended to rely on others’ brains in +the least; like Mr. Morton Harrogate Bradley he already had a theory +of his own; but it would have been pleasant to be able to weigh up +and criticise the efforts of Sir Charles, Mr. Bradley and particularly +Alicia Dammers (to these three he gave credit for possessing the +best minds in the Circle) before irrevocably committing himself. +And more than any other crime in which he had been interested, +it seemed to him, he wanted to find the right solution of this one.</p> + +<p>To his surprise when he got back to his rooms he found +Moresby waiting in his sitting-room.</p> + +<p>“Ah, Mr. Sheringham,” said that cautious official. “Thought +you wouldn’t mind me waiting here for a word with you. Not in +a great hurry to go to bed, are you?”</p> + +<p>“Not in the least,” said Roger, doing things with a decanter and +syphon. “It’s early yet. Say when.”</p> + +<p>Moresby looked discreetly the other way.</p> + +<p>When they were settled in two huge leather armchairs before +the fire Moresby explained himself. “As a matter of fact, Mr. +Sheringham, the Chief’s deputed me to keep a sort of unofficial +eye on you and your friends over this business. Not that we don’t +trust you, or think you won’t be discreet, or anything like that, +but it’s better for us to know just what’s going on with a +massed-detective attack like this.”</p> + +<p>“So that if any of us finds out something really important, you +can nip in first and make use of it,” Roger smiled. “Yes, I quite see +the official point.”</p> + +<p>“So that we can take measures to prevent the bird from +being scared,” Moresby corrected reproachfully. “That’s all, Mr. +Sheringham.”</p> + +<p>“Is it?” said Roger, with unconcealed scepticism. “But you don’t +think it very likely that your protecting hand will be required, eh, +Moresby?”</p> + +<p>“Frankly, sir, I don’t. We’re not in the habit of giving up a case +so long as we think there’s the least chance of finding the criminal; +and Detective-Inspector Farrar, who’s been in charge of this one, +is a capable man.”</p> + +<p>“And that’s his theory, that it’s the work of some criminal +lunatic, quite untraceable?”</p> + +<p>“That’s the opinion he’s been led to form, Mr. Sheringham, sir. +But there’s no harm in your Circle amusing themselves,” added +Moresby magnanimously, “if they want to and they’ve got the +time to waste.”</p> + +<p>“Well, well,” said Roger, refusing to be drawn.</p> + +<p>They smoked their pipes in silence for a few minutes.</p> + +<p>“Come along, Moresby,” Roger said gently.</p> + +<p>The chief inspector looked at him with an expression that +indicated nothing but bland surprise. “Sir?”</p> + +<p>Roger shook his head. “It won’t wash, Moresby; it won’t wash. +Come along, now; out with it.”</p> + +<p>“Out with what, Mr. Sheringham?” queried Moresby, the +picture of innocent bewilderment.</p> + +<p>“Your real reason for coming round here,” Roger said nastily. +“Wanted to pump me, for the benefit of that effete institution +you represent, I suppose? Well, I warn you, there’s nothing doing +this time. I know you better than I did eighteen months ago at +Ludmouth, remember.”</p> + +<p>“Well, what can have put such an idea as that into your head, +Mr. Sheringham, sir?” positively gasped that much misunderstood +man, Chief Inspector Moresby, of Scotland Yard. “I came round +because I thought you might like to ask me a few questions, to +give you a leg up in finding the murderer before any of your +friends could. That’s all.”</p> + +<p>Roger laughed. “Moresby, I like you. You’re a bright spot in +a dull world. I expect you try to persuade the very criminals you +arrest that it hurts you more than it does them. And I shouldn’t be +at all surprised if you don’t somehow make them believe it. Very +well, if that’s all you came round for I’ll ask you some questions, +and thank you very much. Tell me this, then. Who do <em>you</em> think +was trying to murder Sir Eustace Pennefather?”</p> + +<p>Moresby sipped delicately at his whisky-and-soda. “You know +what I think, Mr. Sheringham, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Indeed I don’t,” Roger retorted. “I only know what you’ve +told me you think.”</p> + +<p>“I haven’t been in charge of the case at all, Mr. Sheringham,” +Moresby hedged.</p> + +<p>“Who do you really think was trying to murder Sir Eustace +Pennefather?” Roger repeated patiently. “Is it your own opinion +that the official police theory is right or wrong?”</p> + +<p>Driven into a corner, Moresby allowed himself the novelty of +speaking his unofficial mind. He smiled covertly, as if at a secret +thought. “Well, Mr. Sheringham, sir,” he said with deliberation, +“our theory is a useful one, isn’t it? I mean, it gives us every excuse +for not finding the murderer. We can hardly be expected to be +in touch with every half-baked creature in the country who may +have homicidal impulses.</p> + +<p>“Our theory will be put forward at the conclusion of the +adjourned inquest, in about a fortnight’s time, with reason and +evidence to support it, and any evidence to the contrary not +mentioned, and you’ll see that the coroner will agree with it, and +the jury will agree with it, and the papers will agree with it, and +every one will say that really, the police can’t be blamed for not +catching the murderer this time, and everybody will be happy.”</p> + +<p>“Except Mr. Bendix, who doesn’t get his wife’s murder +avenged,” added Roger. “Moresby, you’re being positively sarcastic. +And from all this I deduce that you personally will stand +aside from this general and amicable agreement. Do you think +the case has been badly handled by your people?”</p> + +<p>Roger’s last question followed so closely on the heels of his +previous remarks that Moresby had answered it almost before he +had time to reflect on the possible indiscretion of doing so. “No, +Mr. Sheringham, I don’t think that. Farrar’s a capable man, and +he’d leave no stone unturned—no stone, I mean, that he <em>could</em> +turn.” Moresby paused significantly.</p> + +<p>“Ah!” said Roger.</p> + +<p>Having committed himself to this lamb, Moresby seemed +disposed to look about for a sheep. He re-settled himself in his +chair and recklessly drank a gill from his tumbler. Roger, scarcely +daring to breathe too audibly for fear of scaring the sheep, +studiously examined the fire.</p> + +<p>“You see, this is a very difficult case, Mr. Sheringham,” Moresby +pronounced. “Farrar had an open mind, of course, when he took +it up, and he kept an open mind even after he’d found out that +Sir Eustace was even a bit more of a daisy than he’d imagined +at first. That is to say, he never lost sight of the fact that it <em>might</em> +have been some outside lunatic who sent those chocolates to Sir +Eustace, just out of a general socialistic or religious feeling that +he’d be doing a favour to society or Heaven by putting him out +of the world. A fanatic, you might say.”</p> + +<p>“Murder from conviction,” Roger murmured. “Yes?”</p> + +<p>“But naturally what Farrar was concentrating on was Sir +Eustace’s private life. And that’s where we police-officers are +handicapped. It’s not easy for us to make enquiries into the private +life of a baronet. Nobody wants to be helpful; everybody seems +anxious to put a spoke in our wheel. Every line that looked hopeful +to Farrar led to a dead end. Sir Eustace himself told him to go +to the devil, and made no bones about it.”</p> + +<p>“Naturally, from his point of view,” Roger said thoughtfully. +“The last thing he’d want would be a sheaf of his peccadilloes +laid out for a harvest festival in court.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and Mrs. Bendix lying in her grave on account of them,” +retorted Moresby with asperity. “No, he was responsible for her +death, though indirectly enough I’ll admit, and it was up to him +to be as helpful as he could to the police-officer investigating the +case. But there Farrar was; couldn’t get any further. He unearthed +a scandal or two, it’s true, but they led to nothing. So—well, he +hasn’t admitted this, Mr. Sheringham, and you’ll realise I ought +not to be telling you; it’s to go no further than this room, mind.”</p> + +<p>“Good heavens, no,” Roger said eagerly.</p> + +<p>“Well then, it’s my private opinion that Farrar was driven to +the other conclusion in self-defence. And the chief had to agree +with it in self-defence too. But if you want to get to the bottom +of the business, Mr. Sheringham (and nobody would be more +pleased if you did than Farrar himself) my advice to you is to +concentrate on Sir Eustace’s private life. You’ve a better chance +than any of us there; you’re on his level, you’ll know members +of his club, you’ll know his friends personally, and the friends +of his friends. And that,” concluded Moresby, “is the tip I really +came round to give you.”</p> + +<p>“That’s very decent of you, Moresby,” Roger said with warmth. +“Very decent indeed. Have another spot.”</p> + +<p>“Well, thank you, Mr. Sheringham, sir,” said Chief Inspector +Moresby. “I don’t mind if I do.”</p> + +<p>Roger was meditating as he mixed the drinks. “I believe you’re +right, Moresby,” he said slowly. “In fact, I’ve been thinking along +those lines ever since I read the first full account. The truth lies +in Sir Eustace’s private life, I feel sure. And if I were +superstitious, which I’m not, do you know what I should believe? That +the murderer’s aim misfired and Sir Eustace escaped death for an +express purpose of Providence: so that he, the destined victim, +should be the ironical instrument of bringing his own intended +murderer to justice.”</p> + +<p>“Well, Mr. Sheringham, would you really?” said the sarcastic +Chief Inspector, who was not superstitious either.</p> + +<p>Roger seemed rather taken with the idea. “<i>Chance, the Avenger.</i> +Make a good film title, wouldn’t it? But there’s a terrible lot of +truth in it.</p> + +<p>“How often don’t you people at the Yard stumble on some +vital piece of evidence out of pure chance? How often isn’t it that +you’re led to the right solution by what seems a series of mere +coincidences? I’m not belittling your detective-work; but just think +how often a piece of brilliant detective-work which has led you +most of the way but not the last vital few inches, meets with some +remarkable stroke of sheer luck (thoroughly well-deserved luck, +no doubt, but <em>luck</em>), which just makes the case complete for you. I +can think of scores of instances. The Milsom and Fowler murder, +for example. Don’t you see what I mean? Is it chance every time, +or is it Providence avenging the victim?”</p> + +<p>“Well, Mr. Sheringham,” said Chief Inspector Moresby, “to +tell you the truth, I don’t mind what it is, so long as it lets me put +my hands on the right man.”</p> + +<p>“Moresby,” laughed Roger, “you’re hopeless.”</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch05"> + +<h2>Chapter V</h2> + +<p>Sir Charles Wildman, as he had said, cared more for +honest facts than for psychological fiddle-faddle.</p> + +<p>Facts were very dear to Sir Charles. More, they were meat +and drink to him. His income of roughly thirty thousand pounds +a year was derived entirely from the masterful way in which he +was able to handle facts. There was no one at the bar who could +so convincingly distort an honest but awkward fact into carrying +an entirely different interpretation from that which any ordinary +person (counsel for the prosecution, for instance) would have put +upon it. He could take that fact, look it boldly in the face, twist +it round, read a message from the back of its neck, turn it inside +out and detect auguries in its entrails, dance triumphantly on its +corpse, pulverise it completely, re-mould it if necessary into an +utterly different shape, and finally, if the fact still had the temerity +to retain any vestige of its primary aspect, bellow at it in the +most terrifying manner. If that failed he was quite prepared to +weep at it in open court.</p> + +<p>No wonder that Sir Charles Wildman, K.C., was paid that +amount of money every year to transform facts of menacing +appearance to his clients into so many sucking-doves, each cooing +those very clients’ tender innocence. If the reader is interested in +statistics it might be added that the number of murderers whom +Sir Charles in the course of his career had saved from the gallows, +if placed one on top of the other, would have reached to a very +great height indeed.</p> + +<p>Sir Charles Wildman had rarely appeared for the prosecution. +It is not considered etiquette for prosecuting counsel to bellow, +and there is scant need for their tears. His bellowing and his public +tears were Sir Charles Wildman’s long suit. He was one of the +old school, one of its very last representatives; and he found that +the old school paid him handsomely.</p> + +<p>When therefore he looked impressively round the Crimes +Circle on its next meeting, one week after Roger had put forward +his proposal, and adjusted the gold-rimmed pince-nez on his +somewhat massive nose, the other members could feel no doubt +as to the quality of the entertainment in store for them. After +all, they were going to enjoy for nothing what amounted to a +thousand-guinea brief for the prosecution.</p> + +<p>Sir Charles glanced at the note-pad in his hand and cleared +his throat. No barrister could clear his throat quite so ominously +as Sir Charles.</p> + +<p>“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, in weighty tones, “it is not +unnatural that I should have been more interested in this murder +than perhaps any one else, for personal reasons which will no +doubt have occurred to you already. Sir Eustace Pennefather’s +name, as you must know, has been mentioned in connection with +that of my daughter; and though the report of their engagement +was not merely premature, but utterly without foundation, it is +inevitable that I should feel some personal connection, however +slight, with this attempt to assassinate a man who has been +mentioned as a possible son-in-law to myself.</p> + +<p>“I do not wish to stress this personal aspect of the case, which +otherwise I have tried to view as impersonally as any other with +which I have been connected; but I put it forward more as an +excuse than anything. For it has enabled me to approach the +problem set us by our President with a more intimate knowledge +of the persons concerned than the rest of you could have, and +with, too, I fear, information at my disposal which goes a long +way towards indicating the truth of this mystery.</p> + +<p>“I know that I should have placed this information at the +disposal of my fellow-members last week, and I apologise to them +wholeheartedly for not having done so; but the truth is that I +did not realise then that this knowledge of mine was in any way +germane to the solution, or even remotely helpful, and it is only +since I began to ponder over the case with a view to clearing up +the tragic tangle, that the vital import of this information has +impressed itself upon me.” Sir Charles paused and allowed his +resounding periods to echo round the room.</p> + +<p>“Now, with its help,” he pronounced, looking severely from +face to face, “I am of opinion that I have read this riddle.”</p> + +<p>A twitter of excitement, no less genuine because obviously +awaited, ran round the faithful Circle.</p> + +<p>Sir Charles whisked off his pince-nez and swung them, in a +characteristic gesture, on their broad ribbon. “Yes, I think, in fact +I am sure, that I am about to elucidate this dark business to you. +And for this reason I regret that the lot has fallen upon me to speak +first. It would have been more interesting perhaps had we been +permitted to examine some other theories first, and demonstrate +their falsity, before we probed to the truth. That is, assuming that +there are other theories to examine.</p> + +<p>“It would not surprise me, however, to learn that you had all +leapt to the conclusion to which I have been driven. Not in the +least. I claim no extraordinary powers in allowing the facts to speak +to me for themselves; I pride myself on no superhuman insight +in having been able to see further into this dark business than +our official solvers of mysteries and readers of strange riddles, +the trained detective force. Very much the reverse. I am only an +ordinary human being, endowed with no more powers than any +of my fellow-creatures. It would not astonish me for an instant to +be apprised that I am only following in the footsteps of others of +you in fixing the guilt on the individual who did, as I submit I am +about to prove to you beyond any possibility of doubt, commit +this foul crime.”</p> + +<p>Having thus provided for the improbable contingency of some +other member of the Circle having been so clever as himself, Sir +Charles cut some of the cackle and got down to business.</p> + +<p>“I set about this matter with one question in my mind and +one only—the question to which the right answer has proved +a sure guide to the criminal in almost every murder that has +ever been committed, the question which hardly any criminal +can avoid leaving behind him, damning though he knows the +answer must be: the question—<i>cui bono?</i>” Sir Charles allowed a +pregnant moment of silence. “Who,” he translated obligingly, +“was the gainer? Who,” he paraphrased, for the benefit of any +possible half-wits in his audience, “would, to put it bluntly, <em>score</em> +by the death of Sir Eustace Pennefather?” He darted looks of +enquiry from under his tufted eyebrows, but his hearers +dutifully played the game; nobody undertook to enlighten him +prematurely.</p> + +<p>Sir Charles was far too practised a rhetorician to enlighten +them prematurely himself. Leaving the question as an immense +query-mark in their minds, he veered off on another track.</p> + +<p>“Now there were, as I saw it, only three definite clues in this +crime,” he continued, in almost conversational tones. “I refer of +course to the forged letter, the wrapper, and the chocolates themselves. +Of these the wrapper could only be helpful so far as its post-mark. +The hand-printed address I dismissed as useless. It could +have been done by any one, at any time. It led, I felt, nowhere. +And I could not see that the chocolates or the box that contained +them were of the least use as evidence. I may be wrong, but I +could not see it. They were specimens of a well-known brand, +on sale at hundreds of shops; it would be fruitless to attempt to +trace their purchaser. Moreover any possibilities in that direction +would quite certainly have been explored already by the police. I +was left, in short, with only two pieces of material evidence, the +forged letter and the post-mark on the wrapper, on which the +whole structure of proof must be erected.”</p> + +<p>Sir Charles paused again, to let the magnitude of this task +sink into the minds of the others; apparently he had overlooked +the fact that his problem must have been common to all. Roger, +who with difficulty had remained silent so long, interposed a +gentle question.</p> + +<p>“Had you already made up your mind as to the criminal, Sir +Charles?”</p> + +<p>“I had already answered to my own satisfaction the question +I had posed to myself, to which I made reference a few minutes +ago,” replied Sir Charles, with dignity but without explicitness.</p> + +<p>“I see. You had made up your mind,” Roger pinned him +down. “It would be interesting to know, so that we can follow +better your way of approaching the proof. You used inductive +methods then?”</p> + +<p>“Possibly, possibly,” said Sir Charles testily. Sir Charles strongly +disliked being pinned down.</p> + +<p>He glowered for a moment in silence, to recover from this +indignity.</p> + +<p>“The task, I saw at once,” he resumed, in a sterner voice, +“was not going to be an easy one. The period at my disposal +was extremely limited, far-reaching enquiries were obviously +necessary, my own time was far too closely engaged to permit +me to make, in person, any investigations I might find advisable. +I thought the matter over and decided that the only possible way +in which I could arrive at a conclusion was to consider the facts +of the case for a sufficient length of time till I was enabled to +formulate a theory which would stand every test I could apply +to it out of such knowledge as was already at my disposal, and +then make a careful list of further points which were outside my +own knowledge but which must be facts if my theory were correct; +these points could then be investigated by persons acting on +my behalf and, if they were substantiated, my theory would be +conclusively proved.” Sir Charles drew a breath.</p> + +<p>“In other words,” Roger murmured with a smile to Alicia +Dammers, turning a hundred words into six, “ ‘I decided to employ +inductive methods.’ ” But he spoke so softly that nobody but Miss +Dammers heard him.</p> + +<p>She smiled back appreciatively. The art of the written word is +not that of the spoken one.</p> + +<p>“I formed my theory,” announced Sir Charles, with surprising +simplicity. Perhaps he was still a little short of breath.</p> + +<p>“I formed my theory. Of necessity much of it was guesswork. +Let me give an example. The possession by the criminal of a sheet +of Mason & Sons’ notepaper had puzzled me more than anything. +It was not an article which the individual I had in mind might be +expected to possess, still less to be able to acquire. I could not +conceive any method by which, the plot already decided upon +and the sheet of paper required for its accomplishment, such a +thing could be deliberately acquired by the individual in question +without suspicion being raised afterwards.</p> + +<p>“I therefore formed the conclusion that it was the actual ability +to obtain a piece of Mason’s notepaper in a totally unsuspicious +way, which was the reason of the notepaper of that particular firm +being employed at all.” Sir Charles looked triumphantly round as +if awaiting something.</p> + +<p>Roger supplied it; no less readily for all that the point must +have occurred to every one as being almost too obvious to need +any comment. “That’s a very interesting point indeed, Sir Charles. +Most ingenious.”</p> + +<p>Sir Charles nodded his agreement. “Sheer guesswork, I admit. +Nothing but guesswork. But guesswork that was justified in the +result.” Sir Charles was becoming so lost in admiration of his own +perspicacity that he had forgotten all his love of long, winding +sentences and smooth-rolling subordinate clauses. His massive +head positively jerked on his shoulders.</p> + +<p>“I considered how such a thing might come into one’s possession, +and whether the possession could be verified afterwards. It +occurred to me at last that many firms insert a piece of notepaper +with a receipted bill, with the words ‘With Compliments’ or some +such phrase typed on it. That gave me three questions. Was this +practice employed at Mason’s? Had the individual in question an +account at Mason’s, or more particularly, to explain the yellowed +edge of the paper, had there been such an account in the past? +Were there any indications on the paper of such a phrase having +been carefully erased?</p> + +<p>“Ladies and gentlemen,” boomed Sir Charles, puce with excitement, +“you will see that the odds against those three questions +being answered in the affirmative were enormous. Overwhelming. +Before I posed them I knew that, should it prove to be the case, +no mere chance could be held responsible.” Sir Charles dropped +his voice. “I knew,” he said slowly, “that if those three questions +of mine were answered in the affirmative, the individual I had in +mind must be as guilty as if I had actually watched the poison +being injected into those chocolates.”</p> + +<p>He paused and looked impressively round him, riveting all +eyes on his face.</p> + +<p>“Ladies and gentlemen, those three questions <em>were</em> answered +in the affirmative.”</p> + +<p>Oratory is a powerful art. Roger knew perfectly well that Sir +Charles, out of sheer force of habit, was employing on them all the +usual and hackneyed forensic tricks. It was with difficulty, Roger +felt, that he refrained from adding “of the jury” to his “Ladies +and gentlemen.” But really this was only what might have been +expected. Sir Charles had a good story to tell, and a story in which +he obviously sincerely believed, and he was simply telling it in the +way which, after all these years of practice, came most naturally +to him. That was not what was annoying Roger.</p> + +<p>What did annoy him was that he himself had been plodding +on the scent of quite a different hare and, convinced as he had +been that his must be the right one, had at first been only mildly +amused as Sir Charles flirted round the skirts of his own quarry. +Now he had allowed himself to be influenced by mere rhetoric, +cheap though he knew it to be, into wondering.</p> + +<p>But was it only rhetoric that had made him begin to doubt? +Sir Charles seemed to have some substantial facts to weave into +the airy web of his oratory. And pompous old fellow though +he might be, he was certainly no fool. Roger began to feel +distinctly uneasy. For his own hare, he had to admit, was a very +elusive one.</p> + +<p>As Sir Charles proceeded to develop his thesis, Roger’s +uneasiness began to turn into downright unhappiness.</p> + +<p>“There can be no doubt about it. I ascertained through an +agent that Mason’s, an old-fashioned firm, invariably paid such +private customers as had an account with them (nine-tenths of +their business of course is wholesale) the courtesy of including a +statement of thanks, just two or three words typed in the middle +of a sheet of notepaper. I ascertained that this individual had +had an account with the firm, which was apparently closed five +months ago; that is to say, a cheque was sent then in settlement +and no goods have been ordered since.</p> + +<p>“Moreover I found time to pay a special visit myself to Scotland +Yard in order to examine that letter again. By looking at the back +I could make out quite distinct though indecipherable traces of +former typewritten words in the middle of the page. These latter +cut halfway down one of the lines of the letter and so prove that +they could not have been an erasure from that; they correspond +in length to the statement I expected; and they show signs of the +most careful attempts, by rubbing, rolling and re-roughening the +smoothed paper, to eradicate not only the typewriter-ink but even +the actual indentations caused by the metal letter-arms.</p> + +<p>“This I held to be conclusive proof that my theory was correct, +and at once I set about clearing up such other doubtful points as +had occurred to me. Time was short, and I had recourse to no +less than four firms of trustworthy inquiry-agents among whom +I divided the task of providing the data I was seeking. This not +only saved me considerable time, but had the advantage of not +putting the sum-total of the information obtained into any hands +but my own. Indeed I did my best so to split up my queries as +to prevent any of the firms from even guessing what object I +had in mind; and in this I am of the opinion that I have been +successful.</p> + +<p>“My next care was the post-mark. It was necessary for my +case that I should prove that my suspect had actually been in +the neighbourhood of the Strand at the time in question. You +will say,” suggested Sir Charles, searching the interested faces +round him, and apparently picking upon Mr. Morton Harrogate +Bradley as the raiser of this futile objection. “You will say,” said Sir +Charles sternly to Mr. Bradley, “that this was not necessary. The +parcel might have been posted quite innocently by an unwitting +accomplice to whom it had been entrusted, so that the actual +criminal had an unshakable alibi for that period; the more so as +the individual to whom I refer was actually not in this country, so +that it would be all the easier to request a friend who might be +travelling to England to undertake the task of posting the parcel in +this country and so saving the cost of the foreign postage, which +on parcels is not inconsiderable.</p> + +<p>“I do not agree,” said Sir Charles to Mr. Bradley, still more +severely. “I have considered that point, and I do not think the +individual I have in mind would undertake such a very grave risk. For +the friend would almost certainly remember the incident when +she read of the affair in the papers, as would be almost inevitable.</p> + +<p>“No,” concluded Sir Charles, finally crushing Mr. Bradley once +and for all, “I am convinced that the individual I am thinking of +would realise that nobody else must handle that parcel till it had +passed into the keeping of the post-office.”</p> + +<p>“Of course,” said Mr. Bradley academically, “Lady Pennefather +may have had not an innocent accomplice but a guilty one. You’ve +considered that, of course?” Mr. Bradley managed to convey that +the matter was of no real interest, but as Sir Charles had been +addressing these remarks directly to him it was only courteous +to comment on them.</p> + +<p>Sir Charles purpled visibly. He had been priding himself on the +skilful way in which he had been withholding his suspect’s name, +to bring it out with a lovely plump right at the end after proving +his case, just like a real detective story. And now this wretched +scribbler of the things had spoilt it all.</p> + +<p>“Sir,” he intoned, in proper Johnsonian manner, “I must call +your attention to the fact that I have mentioned no names at all. +To do such a thing is most imprudent. Do I need to remind you +that there is such a thing as a law of libel?”</p> + +<p>Morton Harrogate smiled his maddeningly superior smile (he +really was a most insufferable young man). “Really, Sir Charles!” +he mocked, stroking his little sleek object he wore on his upper lip. +“I’m not going to write a story about Lady Pennefather trying to +murder her husband, if that’s what you’re warning me against. Or +could it possibly be that you were referring to the law of slander?”</p> + +<p>Sir Charles, who had meant slander, enveloped Mr. Bradley +in a crimson glare.</p> + +<p>Roger sped to the rescue. The combatants reminded him of a +bull and a gadfly, and that is a contest which it is often good fun +to watch. But the Crimes Circle had been founded to investigate +the crimes of others, not to provide opportunities for new ones. +Roger did not particularly like either the bull or the gadfly, but +both amused him in their different ways; he certainly disliked +neither. Mr. Bradley on the other hand disliked both Roger and +Sir Charles. He disliked Roger the more of the two because Roger +was a gentleman and pretended not to be, whereas he himself was +not a gentleman and pretended he was. And that surely is cause +enough to dislike any one.</p> + +<p>“I’m glad you raised that point, Sir Charles,” Roger now said +smoothly. “It’s one we must consider. Personally I don’t see how +we’re to progress at all unless we come to some arrangement +concerning the law of slander, do you?”</p> + +<p>Sir Charles consented to be mollified. “It is a difficult point,” +he agreed, the lawyer in him immediately swamping the outraged +human being. A born lawyer will turn aside from any other minor +pursuit, even briefs, for a really knotty legal point, just as a born +woman will put on her best set of underclothes and powder her +nose before inserting the latter in the gas-oven.</p> + +<p>“I think,” Roger said carefully, anxious not to wound legal +susceptibilities (it was a bold proposition for a layman to make), +“that we should disregard that particular law. I mean,” he added +hastily, observing the look of pain on Sir Charles’s brow at being +asked to condone this violation of a <i lang="la">lex intangenda</i>, “I mean, +we should come to some such arrangement as that anything said +in this room should be without prejudice, or among friends, +or—or not in the spirit of the adverb,” he plunged desperately, +“or whatever the legal wriggle is.” On the whole it was not a +tactful speech.</p> + +<p>But it is doubtful whether Sir Charles heard it. A dreamy look +had come into his eyes, as of a Lord of Appeal crooning over a +piece of red tape. “Slander, as we all know,” he murmured, “consists +in the malicious speaking of such words as render the party +who speaks them in the hearing of others liable to an action at the +suit of the party to whom they apply. In this case, the imputation +being of a crime or misdemeanour which is punishable corporeally, +pecuniary damage would not have to be proved, and, the +imputation being defamatory, its falsity would be presumed and +the burden of proving its truth would be laid upon the defendant. +We should therefore have the interesting situation of the defendant +in a slander action becoming, in essence, the plaintiff in a civil +suit for murder. And really,” said Sir Charles in much perplexity, +“I don’t know what would happen then.”</p> + +<p>“Er—what about privilege?” suggested Roger feebly.</p> + +<p>“Of course,” Sir Charles disregarded him, “there would have +to be stated in the declaration the actual words used, not merely +their meaning and general inference, and failure to prove them as +stated would result in the plaintiff being nonsuited; so that unless +notes were taken here and signed by a witness who had heard the +defamation, I do not quite see how an action could lie.”</p> + +<p>“Privilege?” murmured Roger despairingly.</p> + +<p>“Moreover I should be of the opinion,” said Sir Charles, +brightening, “that this might be regarded as one of those proper +occasions upon which statements, in themselves defamatory, and even +false, may be made if from a perfectly proper motive and with an +entire belief in their truth. In that case the presumption would be +reversed and the burden would be on the plaintiff to prove, and +that to the satisfaction of a jury, that the defendant was actuated +by express malice. In that case I rather fancy that the court would +be guided almost wholly by considerations of public expediency, +which would probably mean that—”</p> + +<p>“Privilege!” said Roger loudly.</p> + +<p>Sir Charles turned on him the dull eye of a red-ink fiend. But +this time the word had penetrated. “I was coming to that,” he +reproved. “Now in our case I hardly think that a plea of public +privilege would be accepted. As to private privilege, the limits are +of course exceedingly difficult to define. It would be doubtful if +we could plead successfully that all statements made here are +matters of purely private communication, because it is a question +whether this Circle does constitute, in actual fact, a private or a +public gathering. One could,” said Sir Charles with much interest, +“argue either way. Or even, for the matter of that, that it is a +private body meeting in public, or, <i>vice versa</i>, a public gathering +held in private. The point is a very debatable one.” Sir Charles +swung his glasses for a moment to emphasise the extreme +debatability of the point.</p> + +<p>“But I do feel inclined to venture the opinion,” he plunged at +last, “that on the whole we might be justified in taking up our +stand upon the submission that the occasion <em>is</em> privileged in so +far as it is concerned entirely with communications which are +made with no <i lang="la">animus injuriandi</i> but solely in performance of a +duty not necessarily legal but moral or social, and any statements so +uttered are covered by a plea of <i lang="la">veritas convicii</i> being made +within proper limits by persons in the <i>bona fide</i> prosecution of +their own and the public interest. I am bound to say however,” +Sir Charles immediately proceeded to hedge as if horrified at +having committed himself at last, “that this is not a matter of +complete certainty, and a wiser policy might be to avoid the direct +mention of any name, while holding ourselves free to indicate +in some unmistakable manner, such as by signs, or possibly by +some form of impersonation or acting, the individual to whom +we severally refer.”</p> + +<p>“Still,” pursued the President, faint but persistent, “on the +whole you do think that the occasion may be regarded as +privileged, and we may go ahead and mention any name we like?”</p> + +<p>Sir Charles’s glasses described a complete and symbolical circle. +“I think,” said Sir Charles very weightily indeed (after all it was +an opinion which would have cost the Circle such a surprisingly +round sum had it been delivered in chambers that Sir Charles need +not be grudged a little weight in the delivering of it). “I think,” +said Sir Charles, “that we might take that risk.”</p> + +<p>“Right-ho!” said the President with relief.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch06"> + +<h2>Chapter VI</h2> + +<p>“I dare say,” resumed Sir Charles, “that many of you +will have already reached the same conclusion as myself, +with regard to the identity of the murderer. The case seems to me +to afford so striking a parallel with one of the classical murders, +that the similarity can hardly have passed unnoticed. I refer of +course, to the Marie Lafarge case.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” said Roger, surprised. So far as he was concerned the +similarity had passed unnoticed. He wriggled uncomfortably. +Now one came to consider it, of course the parallel was obvious.</p> + +<p>“There too we have a wife, accused of sending a poisoned +article to her husband. Whether the article was a cake or a box +of chocolates is beside the point. It will not do perhaps to—”</p> + +<p>“But nobody in their sane senses still believes that Marie +Lafarge was guilty,” Alicia Dammers interrupted, with unusual +warmth. “It’s been practically proved that the cake was sent by +the foreman, or whatever he was. Wasn’t his name Dennis? His +motive was much bigger than hers, too.”</p> + +<p>Sir Charles regarded her severely. “I think I said, <em>accused</em> of +sending. I was referring to a matter of fact, not of opinion.”</p> + +<p>“Sorry,” nodded Miss Dammers, unabashed.</p> + +<p>“In any case, I just mention the coincidence for what it is +worth. Let us now go back to resume our argument at the point +we left it. In that connection, the question was raised just now,” +said Sir Charles, determinedly impersonal, “as to whether Lady +Pennefather may have had not an innocent accomplice but a +guilty one. That doubt had already occurred to me. I have satisfied +myself that it is not the case. She planned and carried through this +affair alone.” He paused, inviting the obvious question.</p> + +<p>Roger tactfully supplied it.</p> + +<p>“How could she, Sir Charles? We know that she was in the +South of France the whole time. The police investigated that very +point. She has a complete alibi.”</p> + +<p>Sir Charles positively beamed at him. “She <em>had</em> a complete +alibi. I have destroyed it.</p> + +<p>“This is what actually happened. Three days before the parcel +was posted Lady Pennefather left Mentone and went, ostensibly, +for a week to Avignon. At the end of the week she returned to +Mentone. Her signature is in the hotel-register at Avignon, she has +the receipted bill, everything is quite in order. The only curious +thing is that apparently she did not take her maid, a very +superior young woman of smart appearance and good manners, to +Avignon with her, for the hotel-receipt is for one person only. And +yet the maid did not stay at Mentone. Did the maid then vanish +into thin air?” demanded Sir Charles indignantly.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” nodded Mr. Chitterwick, who had been listening intently. +“I see. How ingenious.”</p> + +<p>“Highly ingenious,” agreed Sir Charles, complacently taking +the credit for the erring lady’s ingenuity. “The maid took the +mistress’s place; the mistress paid a secret visit to England. And I have +verified that beyond any doubt. An agent, acting on telegraphic +instructions from me, showed the hotel-proprietor at Avignon a +photograph of Lady Pennefather and asked whether such a person +had ever stayed in the hotel; the man averred that he had never +seen her in his life. My agent showed him a snapshot which he +had obtained of the maid; the proprietor recognised her instantly +as Lady Pennefather. Another ‘guess’ of mine had proved only +too accurate.” Sir Charles leaned back in his chair and swung his +glasses in silent tribute to his own astuteness.</p> + +<p>“Then Lady Pennefather did have an accomplice?” murmured +Mr. Bradley, with the air of one discussing <i>The Three Bears</i> with +a child of four.</p> + +<p>“An innocent accomplice,” retorted Sir Charles. “My agent +questioned the maid tactfully, and learned that her mistress has +told her that she had to go over to England on urgent business +but, having already spent six months of the current year in that +country, would have to pay British income-tax if she so much as +set foot in England again that year. A considerable sum was in +question, and Lady Pennefather suggested this plan as a means +of getting round the difficulty, with a handsome bribe to the girl. +Not unnaturally the offer was accepted. Most ingenious; most +ingenious.” He paused again and beamed round, inviting tributes.</p> + +<p>“How very clever of you, Sir Charles,” murmured Alicia +Dammers, stepping into the breach.</p> + +<p>“I have no actual proof of her stay in this country,” regretted +Sir Charles, “so that from the legal point of view the case against +her is incomplete in that respect, but that will be a matter for the +police to discover. In all other respects, I submit, my case is +complete. I regret, I regret exceedingly, having to say so, but I have +no alternative: Lady Pennefather is Mrs. Bendix’s murderess.”</p> + +<p>There was a thoughtful silence when Sir Charles had finished +speaking. Questions were in the air, but nobody seemed to care +to be the first to put one. Roger gazed into vacancy, as if looking +longingly after the spoor of his own hare. There was no doubt +that, as matters stood at present, Sir Charles seemed to have +proved his case.</p> + +<p>Mr. Ambrose Chitterwick plucked up courage to break the +silence. “We must congratulate you, Sir Charles. Your solution is +as brilliant as it is surprising. Only one question occurs to me, and +that is the one of motive. Why should Lady Pennefather desire +her husband’s death when she is actually in process of divorcing +him? Had she any reason to suspect that a decree would not be +granted?”</p> + +<p>“None at all,” replied Sir Charles blandly. “It was just because +she was so certain that a decree would be granted that she desired +his death.”</p> + +<p>“I—I don’t quite understand,” stammered Mr. Chitterwick.</p> + +<p>Sir Charles allowed the general bewilderment to continue for +a few more moments before he condescended to dispel it. He had +the orator’s feeling for atmosphere.</p> + +<p>“I referred at the beginning of my remarks to a piece of +knowledge which had come into my possession and which had +helped me materially towards my solution. I am now prepared to +disclose, in strict confidence, what that piece of knowledge was.</p> + +<p>“You already know that there was talk of an engagement +between Sir Eustace and my daughter. I do not think I shall be +violating the secrets of the confessional if I tell you that not many +weeks ago, Sir Eustace came to me and formally asked me to +sanction an engagement between them as soon as his wife’s decree +<i>nisi</i> had been pronounced.</p> + +<p>“I need not tell you all that transpired at that interview. What +is relevant is that Sir Eustace informed me categorically that +his wife had been extremely unwilling to divorce him, and he +had only succeeded in the end by making a will entirely in her +favour, including his estate in Worcestershire. She had a small +private income of her own, and he was going to make her such +allowance in addition as he was able; but with the interest on the +mortgage on his estate swallowing up nearly all the rent he was +getting for it, and his other expenses, this could not be a large +one. His life, however, was heavily insured in accordance with +Lady Pennefather’s marriage settlements, and the mortgage on +the estate was in the nature of an endowment policy, and lapsed +with his death. He had therefore, as he candidly admitted, very +little to offer my daughter.</p> + +<p>“Like myself,” said Sir Charles impressively, “you cannot fail +to grasp the significance of this. According to the will then in +existence, Lady Pennefather from being not even comfortably +off would become a comparatively rich woman on her husband’s +death. But rumours are reaching her ears of a possible marriage +between that husband and another woman as soon as the divorce +is complete. What is more probable than that when such an +engagement is actually concluded, a new will will be made?</p> + +<p>“Her character is already shown in a strong enough light by +her willingness to accept the bribe of the will as an inducement +to divorce. She is obviously a grasping woman, greedy for money. +Murder is only another step for such a woman to take. And +murder is her only hope. I do not think,” concluded Sir Charles, +“that I need to labour the point any further.” His glasses swung +deliberately.</p> + +<p>“It’s uncommonly convincing,” Roger said, with a little sigh. +“Are you going to hand this information over to the police, Sir +Charles?”</p> + +<p>“I conceive that failure to do so would be a gross dereliction of +my duty as a citizen,” Sir Charles replied, with a pomposity that +in no way concealed how pleased he was with himself.</p> + +<p>“Humph!” observed Mr. Bradley, who evidently was not going +to be so pleased with Sir Charles as Sir Charles was. “What about +the chocolates? Is it part of your case that she prepared them over +here, or brought them with her?”</p> + +<p>Sir Charles waved an airy hand. “Is that material?”</p> + +<p>“I should say that it would be very material to connect her at +any rate with the poison.”</p> + +<p>“Nitrobenzene? One might as well try to connect her with +the purchase of the chocolates. She would have no difficulty in +getting hold of that. I regard her choice of poison, in fact, as +on a par with the ingenuity she has displayed in all the other +particulars.”</p> + +<p>“I see.” Mr. Bradley stroked his little moustache and eyed Sir +Charles combatively. “Come to think of it, you know, Sir Charles, +you haven’t really proved a case against Lady Pennefather at all. +All you’ve proved is motive and opportunity.”</p> + +<p>An unexpected ally ranged herself beside Mr. Bradley. +“Exactly!” cried Mrs. Fielder-Flemming. “That’s just what I was +about to point out myself. If you hand over the information +you’ve collected to the police, Sir Charles, I don’t think they’ll +thank you for it. As Mr. Bradley says, you haven’t proved that +Lady Pennefather’s guilty, or anything like it. I’m quite sure you’re +altogether mistaken.”</p> + +<p>Sir Charles was so taken aback that for a moment he could +only stare. “<em>Mistaken?</em>” he managed to ejaculate. It was clear that +such a possibility had never entered Sir Charles’s orbit.</p> + +<p>“Well, perhaps I’d better say—wrong,” amended Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming, quite drily.</p> + +<p>“But my dear madam—” For once words did not come to Sir +Charles. “But why?” he fell back upon, feebly.</p> + +<p>“Because I’m sure of it,” retorted Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, +most unsatisfactorily.</p> + +<p>Roger had been watching this exchange with a gradual change +of feeling. From being hypnotised by Sir Charles’s persuasiveness +and self-confidence into something like reluctant agreement, he +was swinging round now in reaction to the other extreme. Dash +it all, this fellow Bradley had kept a clearer head after all. And +he was perfectly right. There were gaps in Sir Charles’s case that +Sir Charles himself, as counsel for Lady Pennefather’s defence, +could have driven a coach-and-six through.</p> + +<p>“Of course,” he said thoughtfully, “the fact that before +she went abroad Lady Pennefather may have had an account +at Mason’s isn’t surprising in the least. Nor is the fact that +Mason’s send out a complimentary chit with their receipts. +As Sir Charles himself said, very many old-fashioned firms of +good repute do. And the fact that the sheet of paper on which +the letter was written had been used previously for some such +purpose is not only not surprising, when one comes to consider; +it’s even obvious. Whoever the murderer, the same problem +of getting hold of the piece of notepaper would arise. Yes, +really, that Sir Charles’s three initial questions should have +happened to find affirmative answers, does seem little more than a +coincidence.”</p> + +<p>Sir Charles turned on this new antagonist like a wounded +bull. “But the odds were enormous against it!” he roared. “If it +was a coincidence, it was the most incredible one in the whole +course of my experience.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, Sir Charles, but you’re prejudiced,” Mr. Bradley told him +gently. “And you exaggerate dreadfully, you know. You seem to +be putting the odds at somewhere round about a million to one. +I should put them at six to one. Permutations and combinations, +you know.”</p> + +<p>“Damn your permutations, sir!” riposted Sir Charles with +vigour. “And your combinations too.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Bradley turned to Roger. “Mr. Chairman, is it within the +rules of this club for one member to insult another member’s +underwear? Besides, Sir Charles,” he added to that fuming knight, +“I don’t wear the things. Never have done, since I was an infant.”</p> + +<p>For the dignity of the chair Roger could not join in the +delighted titters that were escaping round the table; in the interests +of the Circle’s preservation he had to pour oil on these very +seething waters.</p> + +<p>“Bradley, you’re losing sight of the point, aren’t you? I don’t +want to destroy your theory necessarily, Sir Charles, or detract +in any way from the really brilliant manner in which you’ve +defended it; but if it’s to stand its ground it must be able to resist +any arguments we can bring against it. That’s all. And I honestly +do think that you’re inclined to attach a little too much +importance to the answers to those three questions. What do you say, +Miss Dammers?”</p> + +<p>“I agree,” Miss Dammers said crisply. “The way Sir Charles +emphasised their importance reminded me at the time of a favourite +trick of detective-story writers. He said, if I remember rightly, +that if those questions were answered in the affirmative he knew +that his suspect was guilty just as much as if he’d seen her with +his own eyes putting the poison into the chocolates, because the +odds against a coincidental affirmative to all three of them were +incalculable. In other words he simply made a strong assertion, +unsupported by evidence or argument.”</p> + +<p>“And that is what detective-story writers do, Miss Dammers?” +queried Mr. Bradley, with a tolerant smile.</p> + +<p>“Invariably, Mr. Bradley. I’ve often noticed it in your own +books. You state a thing so emphatically that the reader does not +think of questioning the assertion. ‘Here,’ says the detective, ‘is +a bottle of red liquid and here is a bottle of blue. If these two +liquids turn out to be ink, then we know that they were purchased +to fill up the empty inkpots in the library as surely as if we had +read the dead man’s very thoughts.’ Whereas the red ink might +have been bought by one of the maids to dye a jumper, and the +blue by the secretary for his fountain-pen; or a hundred other +such explanations. But any possibilities of that kind are silently +ignored. Isn’t that so?”</p> + +<p>“Perfectly,” agreed Bradley, unperturbed. “Don’t waste time +on unessentials. Just tell the reader very loudly what he’s to think, +and he’ll think it all right. You’ve got the technique perfectly. Why +don’t you try your hand at it? It’s quite a paying game, you know.”</p> + +<p>“I may one day. And anyhow I will say for you, Mr. Bradley, +that your detectives do detect. They don’t just stand about and +wait for somebody else to tell them who committed the murder, +as the so-called detectives do in most of the so-called +detective-stories I read.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you,” said Mr. Bradley. “Then you actually read +detective-stories, Miss Dammers?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly,” said Miss Dammers, crisply. “Why not?” She dismissed +Mr. Bradley as abruptly as she had answered his challenge. +“And the letter itself, Sir Charles? The typewriting. You don’t attach +any importance to that?”</p> + +<p>“As a detail, of course it would have to be considered; I was +only sketching out the broad lines of the case.” Sir Charles was no +longer bull-like. “I take it that the police would ferret out pieces +of conclusive evidence of that nature.”</p> + +<p>“I think they might have some difficulty in connecting Pauline +Pennefather with the machine that typed that letter,” observed +Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, not without tartness.</p> + +<p>The tide of feeling had obviously set in against Sir Charles.</p> + +<p>“But the motive,” he pleaded, now pathetically on the +defensive. “You must admit that the motive is overwhelming.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t know Pauline, Sir Charles—Lady Pennefather?” +Miss Dammers suggested.</p> + +<p>“I do not.”</p> + +<p>“Evidently,” commented Miss Dammers.</p> + +<p>“You don’t agree with Sir Charles’s theory, Miss Dammers?” +ventured Mr. Chitterwick.</p> + +<p>“I do not,” said Miss Dammers with emphasis.</p> + +<p>“Might one enquire your reason?” ventured Mr. Chitterwick +further.</p> + +<p>“Certainly you may. It’s a conclusive one, I’m afraid, Sir +Charles. I was in Paris at the time of the murder, and just about +the very hour when the parcel was being posted I was talking to +Pauline Pennefather in the foyer of the Opera.”</p> + +<p>“What!” exclaimed the discomfited Sir Charles, the remnants +of his beautiful theory crashing about his ears.</p> + +<p>“I should apologise for not having given you this information +before, I suppose,” said Miss Dammers with the utmost calmness, +“but I wanted to see what sort of a case you could put up against +her. And I really do congratulate you. It was a remarkable piece of +inductive reasoning. If I hadn’t happened to know that it was built +up on a complete fallacy you would have quite convinced me.”</p> + +<p>“But—but why the secrecy, and—and the impersonation by the +maid, if her visit was an innocent one?” stammered Sir Charles, +his mind revolving wildly round private aeroplanes and the time they +would take from the <i lang="fr">Place de l’Opéra</i> to Trafalgar Square.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I didn’t say it was an innocent one,” retorted Miss +Dammers carelessly. “Sir Eustace isn’t the only one who is waiting +for the divorce to marry again. And in the interim Pauline, quite +rightly, doesn’t see why she should waste valuable time. After all, +she isn’t so young as she was. And there’s always a strange creature +called the King’s Proctor, isn’t there?”</p> + +<p>Shortly after that the Chairman adjourned the meeting of the +Circle. He did so because he did not wish one of the members to +die of apoplexy on his hands.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch07"> + +<h2>Chapter VII</h2> + +<p>Mrs. Fielder-Flemming was nervous. Actually +nervous.</p> + +<p>She shuffled the pages of her notebook aimlessly, and seemed +hardly able to sit through the few preliminaries which had to be +settled before Roger asked her to give the solution which she had +already affirmed, privately, to Alicia Dammers, to be indubitably +the correct one of Mrs. Bendix’s murder. With such a weighty +piece of knowledge in her mind one would have thought that for +once in her life Mrs. Fielder-Flemming had a really heaven-sent +opportunity to be impressive, but for once in her life she made no +use of it. If she had not been Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, one might +have gone so far as to say that she dithered.</p> + +<p>“Are you ready, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming?” Roger asked, gazing +at this surprising manifestation.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fielder-Flemming adjusted her very unbecoming hat, +rubbed her nose (being innocent of powder, it did not suffer +under this habitual treatment; just shone a little more brightly +in pink embarrassment), and shot a covert glance round the +table. Roger continued to gaze in astonishment. Mrs. Fielder-Flemming +was positively shrinking from the lime-light. For some +occult reason she was approaching her task with real distaste, +and a distaste at that quite out of comparison with the task’s +significance.</p> + +<p>She cleared her throat, nervously. “I have a very difficult duty +to perform,” she began in a low voice. “Last night I hardly slept. +Anything more distasteful to a woman like myself it is impossible +to imagine.” She paused, moistening her lips.</p> + +<p>“Oh, come, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming,” Roger felt himself +impelled to encourage her. “It’s the same for all of us, you know. +And I’ve heard you make a most excellent speech at one of your +own first nights.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fielder-Flemming looked at him, not at all encouraged. +“I was not referring to that aspect of it, Mr. Sheringham,” she +retorted, rather more tartly. “I was speaking of the burden which +has been laid on me by the knowledge that has come into my +possession, the terrible duty I have to perform in consequence +of it.”</p> + +<p>“You mean you’ve solved the little problem?” enquired Mr. +Bradley, without reverence.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fielder-Flemming regarded him sombrely. “With infinite +regret,” she said, in low, womanly tones, “I have.” Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming was recovering her poise.</p> + +<p>She consulted her notes for a moment, and then began to +speak in a firmer voice. “Criminology I have always regarded with +something of a professional eye. Its main interest has always been +for me its immense potentialities for drama. The inevitability of +murder; the predestined victim, struggling unconsciously and +vainly against fate; the predestined killer, moving first unconsciously +too and then with full and relentless realisation, towards +the accomplishment of his doom; the hidden causes, unknown +perhaps to both victim and killer, which are all the time urging +on the fulfilment of destiny.</p> + +<p>“Apart from the action and the horror of the deed itself, I have +always felt that there are more possibilities of real drama in the +most ordinary or sordid of murders than in any other situation +that can occur to man. Ibsenish in the inevitable working out of +certain circumstances in juxtaposition that we call fate, no less +than Edgar-Wallacish in the <i lang="el">καθαρσις</i> undergone by the emotions +of the onlooker at their climax.</p> + +<p>“It was perhaps natural then that I should regard not only this +particular case from something of the standpoint of my calling +(and certainly no more dramatic twist could well be invented), +but the task of solving it too. Anyhow, natural or not, this is +what I did; and the result has terribly justified me. I considered +the case in the light of one of the oldest dramatic situations, and +very soon everything became only too clear. I am referring to the +situation which the gentlemen who pass among us in these days +for dramatic critics, invariably call the Eternal Triangle.</p> + +<p>“I had to begin of course with only one of the triangle’s three +members, Sir Eustace Pennefather. Of the two unknown one +must be a woman, the other might be woman or man. So I fell +back on another very old and very sound maxim, and proceeded +to <i lang="fr">chercher la femme</i>. And,” said Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, very +solemnly, “I found her.”</p> + +<p>So far, it must be admitted, her audience was not particularly +impressed. Even the promising opening had not stirred them, for +it was only to be expected that Mrs. Fielder-Flemming would feel +it her duty to emphasise her feminine shrinkings from handing +a criminal over to justice. Her somewhat laborious sentences +too, obviously learned off by heart for the occasion, detracted if +anything from the interest of what she had to convey.</p> + +<p>But when she resumed, having waited in vain for a tributary +gasp at her last momentous piece of information, the somewhat +calculated tenseness of her style had given way to an unrehearsed +earnestness which was very much more impressive.</p> + +<p>“I wasn’t expecting the triangle to be the hackneyed one,” she +said, with a slight dig at the deflated remains of Sir Charles. “Lady +Pennefather I hardly considered for a moment. The subtlety of +the crime, I felt sure, must be a reflection of an unusual situation. +And after all a triangle need not necessarily include a husband and +wife among its members; any three people, if the circumstances +arrange them so, can form one. It is the circumstances, not the +three protagonists, that make the triangle.</p> + +<p>“Sir Charles has told us that this crime reminded him of the +Marie Lafarge case, and in some respects (he might have added) +the Mary Ansell case too. It reminded me of a case as well, but it +was neither of these. The Molineux case in New York, it seems +to me, provides a much closer parallel than either.</p> + +<p>“You all remember the details of course. Mr. Cornish, a director +of the important Knickerbocker Athletic Club, received in his +Christmas mail a small silver cup and a phial of bromo-seltzer, +addressed to him at the club. He thought they had been sent +by way of a joke, and kept the wrapper in order to identify +the humorist. A few days later a woman who lived in the same +boarding-house as Cornish complained of a headache and Cornish +gave her some of the bromo-seltzer. In a very short time she +was dead, and Cornish, who had taken just a sip because she +complained of it being bitter, was violently ill but recovered later.</p> + +<p>“In the end a man named Molineux, another member of the +same club, was arrested and put on trial. There was quite a lot of +evidence against him, and it was known that he hated Cornish +bitterly, so much so that he had already assaulted him once. Moreover +another member of the club, a man named Barnet, had been killed +earlier in the year through taking what purported to be a sample +of a well-known headache powder which had also been sent to +him at the club and, shortly before the Cornish episode, Molineux +married a girl who had actually been engaged to Barnet at the +time of his death; he had always wanted her, but she had preferred +Barnet. Molineux, as you remember, was convicted at his first +trial and acquitted at his second; he afterwards became insane.</p> + +<p>“Now this parallel seems to me complete. Our case is to all +purposes a composite Cornish-cum-Barnet case. The resemblances +are extraordinary. There is the poisoned article addressed +to the man’s club; there is, in the case of Cornish, the death of +the wrong victim; there is the preservation of the wrapper; there +is, in Barnet’s case, the triangle element (and a triangle, you will +notice, without husband and wife). It’s quite startling. It is, in fact, +more than startling; it’s significant. Things don’t happen like that +quite by chance.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fielder-Flemming paused and blew her nose, delicately +but with emotion. She was getting nicely worked up now, and +so, in consequence, was her audience. If there were no gasps +there was at any rate the tribute of complete silence till she was +ready to go on.</p> + +<p>“I said that this similarity was more than startling, that it was +significant. I will explain its particular significance later; at present +it is enough to say that I found it very helpful also. The realisation +of the extreme closeness of the parallel came as quite a shock to +me, but once I had grasped it I felt strangely convinced that it was +in this very similarity that the clue to the solution of Mrs. Bendix’s +murder was to be found. I felt this so strongly that I somehow +actually <em>knew</em> it. These intuitions do come to me sometimes +(explain them as you will) and I have never yet known them fail +me. This one did not do so either.</p> + +<p>“I began to examine this case in the light of the Molineux +one. Would the latter help me to find the woman I was looking +for in the former? What were the indications, so far as Barnet +was concerned? Barnet received his fatal package because he +was purposing to marry a girl whom the murderer was resolved +he should not marry. With so many parallels between the two +cases already, was there—” Mrs. Fielder-Flemming pushed back +her unwieldy hat to a still more unbecoming angle and looked +deliberately round the table with the air of an early Christian +trying the power of the human eye on a doubtfully intimidated +covey of lions—“<em>was there another here?</em>”</p> + +<p>This time Mrs. Fielder-Flemming was rewarded with several +real and audible gasps. That of Sir Charles was quite the most +audible, an outraged, indignant gasp that came perilously near +to a snort. Mr. Chitterwick gasped apprehensively, as if fearing +something like a physical sequel to the sharp exchange of glances +between Sir Charles and Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, those of the +former positively menacing in their warning, those of the lady +almost vocal with her defiance of it.</p> + +<p>The Chairman gasped too, wondering what a Chairman +should do if two members of his circle, and of opposite sexes at +that, should proceed to blows under his very nose.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bradley forgot himself so far as to gasp as well, in sheer, +blissful ecstasy. Mrs. Fielder-Flemming looked as if she were to +prove a better hand at bull-baiting than himself, but Mr. Bradley +did not grudge her the honour so long as he was to be allowed +to sit and hug himself in the audience. Not in his most daring +toreador-like antics would Mr. Bradley have ever dared to postulate +the very daughter of his victim as the cause of the murder +itself. Could this magnificent woman really bring forward a case +to support so puncturing an idea? And what if it should actually +turn out to be true? After all, such a thing was conceivable enough. +Murders have been committed for the sake of lovely ladies often +enough before; so why not for the lovely daughter of a pompous +old silk? Oh God, oh Montreal.</p> + +<p>Finally Mrs. Fielder-Flemming gasped too, at herself.</p> + +<p>Alone without a gasp sat Alicia Dammers, her face alight with +nothing but an intellectual interest in the development of her +fellow-member’s argument, determinedly impersonal. One was +to gather that to Miss Dammers it was immaterial whether her +own mother had been mixed up in the murder, so long as her part +in it had provided opportunities for the sharpening of wits and +the stimulation of intelligence. Without ever acknowledging her +recognition that a personal element was being introduced into +the Circle’s investigations, she yet managed to radiate the idea +that Sir Charles ought, if anything, to be detachedly delighted +at the possibility of such enterprise on the part of his daughter.</p> + +<p>Sir Charles however was far from delighted. From the red +swelling of the veins on his forehead it was obvious that something +was going to burst out of him in a very few seconds. Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming leapt, like an agitated but determined hen, for the gap.</p> + +<p>“We have agreed to waive the law of slander here,” she almost +squawked. “Personalities don’t exist for us. If the name crops up +of any one personally known to us, we utter it as unflinchingly, +in whatever connection, as if it were a complete stranger’s. That +is the definite arrangement we came to last night, Mr. President, +isn’t it? We are to do what we conceive to be our duty to society +quite irrespective of any personal considerations?”</p> + +<p>For a moment Roger indulged his tremors. He did not want +his beautiful Circle to explode in a cloud of dust, never again to +be re-united. And though he could not but admire the flurried +but undaunted courage of Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, he had to be +content to envy it so far as Sir Charles was concerned, for he +certainly did not possess anything like it himself. On the other hand +there was no doubt that the lady had right on her side, and what +can any President do but administer justice?</p> + +<p>“Perfectly correct, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming,” he had to admit, +hoping his voice sounded as firm as he would have wished.</p> + +<p>For a moment a blue glare, emanating from Sir Charles, +enveloped him luridly. Then, as Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, evidently +heartened by this official support, took up her bomb again, the +rays of the glare were switched again on to her. Roger, nervously +watching the two of them, could not help reflecting that blue rays +are things which should never be directed on to bombs.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fielder-Flemming juggled featly with her bomb. Often +though it seemed about to slip through her fingers, it never quite +reached the ground or detonated. “Very well, then. I will go on. +My triangle now had the second of its members. On the analogy +of the Barnet murder, where was the third to be found? Obviously, +with Molineux as the prototype, in some person who was anxious +to prevent the first member from marrying the second.</p> + +<p>“So far, you will see, I am not out of harmony with the conclusions +Sir Charles gave us last night, though my method of arriving +at them was perhaps somewhat different. He gave us a triangle +also, without expressly defining it as such (perhaps even without +recognising it as such). And the first two members of his triangle +are precisely the same as the first two of mine.”</p> + +<p>Here Mrs. Fielder-Flemming made a notable effort to return +something of Sir Charles’s glare, in defiant challenge to +contradiction. As she had simply stated a plain fact however, which Sir +Charles was quite unable to refute without explaining that he had +not meant what he had meant the evening before, the challenge +passed unanswered. Also the glare visibly diminished. But for all +that (patently remarked Sir Charles’s expression) a triangle by any +other name does <em>not</em> smell so unsavoury.</p> + +<p>“It is when we come to the third member,” pursued Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming, with renewed poise, “that we are at variance. +Sir Charles suggested to us Lady Pennefather. I have not the +pleasure of Lady Pennefather’s acquaintance, but Miss Dammers +who knows her well, tells me that in almost every particular the +estimate given us by Sir Charles of her character was wrong. She +is neither mean, grasping, greedy, nor in any imaginable way +capable of the awful deed with which Sir Charles, perhaps a little +rashly, was ready to credit her. Lady Pennefather, I understand, is +a particularly sweet and kindly woman; somewhat broad-minded +no doubt, but none the worse for that; indeed as some of us would +think, a good deal the better.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fielder-Flemming encouraged the belief that she was not +merely tolerant of a little harmless immorality, but actually ready +to act as godmother to any particular instance of it. Indeed she +went sometimes quite a long détour out of her way in order to +propagate this belief among her friends. But unfortunately her +friends would persist in remembering that she had refused to have +anything more to do with one of her own nieces since the latter, +on learning that her middle-aged husband kept, for purposes of +convenience, a different mistress in each of the four quarters of +England, and just to be on the safe side one in Scotland too, had +run away with a young man of her own with whom she happened +to be very devotedly in love.</p> + +<p>“Just as I differ from Sir Charles over the identity of the third +person in the triangle,” went on Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, happily +ignorant of her friends’ memories, “so I differ from him in +the means by which that identity is to be established. We are at +complete variance in our ideas regarding the very heart of the +problem, the motive. Sir Charles would have us think that this +was a murder committed (or attempted, rather) for gain; I am +convinced that the incentive was, at any rate, a less ignoble one +than that. Murder, we are taught, can never be really justifiable; +but there are occasions when it comes dangerously near it. This, +in my opinion, was one of them.</p> + +<p>“It is in the character of Sir Eustace himself that I see the clue +to the identity of the third person. Let us consider it for a moment. +We are not restricted by any considerations of slander, and we can +say at once that, from certain points of view, Sir Eustace is a quite +undesirable member of the community. From the point of view +of a young man, for the sake of example, who is in love with a +girl, Sir Eustace must be one of the very last persons with whom +the young man would wish that girl to come into contact. He is +not merely immoral, he is without excuse for his immorality, a far +more serious thing. He is a rake, a spendthrift, without honour +or scruples where women are concerned, and a man moreover +who has already made a mess of marriage with a very charming +woman and one by no means too narrow to overlook even a +more than liberal allowance of the usual male peccadilloes and +lapses. As a prospective husband for any young girl Sir Eustace +Pennefather is a tragedy.</p> + +<p>“And as a prospective husband for a young girl whom a man +loves with all his heart,” intoned Mrs. Fielder-Flemming very solemnly, +“it is easy to conceive that, in that particular man’s regard, +Sir Eustace Pennefather becomes nothing short of an impossibility.</p> + +<p>“And a man who <em>is</em> a man,” added Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, quite +mauve with intensity, “does not admit impossibilities.”</p> + +<p>She paused, pregnantly.</p> + +<p>“Curtain, Act I,” confided Mr. Bradley behind his hand to Mr. +Ambrose Chitterwick.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chitterwick smiled nervously.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch08"> + +<h2>Chapter VIII</h2> + +<p>Sir Charles took the usual advantage of the first +interval to rise from his seat. Like so many of us in these +days by the time of the first interval (when it is not a play of Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming’s that is in question) he felt almost physically +unable to contain himself longer.</p> + +<p>“Mr. President,” he boomed, “let us get this clear. Is Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming making the preposterous accusation that some +friend of my daughter’s is responsible for this crime, or is she +not?”</p> + +<p>The President looked somewhat helplessly up at the bulk +towering wrathfully above him and wished he were anything +but the President. “I really don’t know, Sir Charles,” he professed, +which was not only feeble but untrue.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fielder-Flemming however was by now quite able to +speak up for herself. “I have not yet specifically accused any +one of the crime, Sir Charles,” she said, with a cold dignity +that was only marred by the fact that her hat, which had +apparently been sharing its mistress’s emotions, was now perched +rakishly over her left ear. “So far I have been simply +developing a thesis.”</p> + +<p>To Mr. Bradley Sir Charles would have replied, with Johnsonian +scorn of evasion: “Sir, damn your thesis.” Hampered now by the +puerilities of civilised convention regarding polite intercourse +between the sexes, he could only summon up once more the +blue glare.</p> + +<p>With the unfairness of her sex Mrs. Fielder-Flemming promptly +took advantage of his handicap. “And,” she added pointedly, “I have +not yet finished doing so.”</p> + +<p>Sir Charles sat down, the perfect allegory. But he grunted very +naughtily to himself as he did so.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bradley restrained an impulse to clap Mr. Chitterwick on +the back and then chuck him under the chin.</p> + +<p>Her serenity so natural as to be patently artificial, Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming proceeded to call the interval closed and ring up the +curtain on her second act.</p> + +<p>“Having given you my processes towards arriving at the identity +of the third member of the triangle I postulated, in other +words towards that of the murderer, I will go on to the actual +evidence and show how that supports my conclusions. Did I say +‘supports’? I meant, confirms them beyond all doubt.”</p> + +<p>“But what are your conclusions, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming?” +Bradley asked, with an air of bland interest. “You haven’t defined +them yet. You only hinted that the murderer was a rival of Sir +Eustace’s for the hand of Miss Wildman.”</p> + +<p>“Exactly,” agreed Alicia Dammers. “Even if you don’t want +to tell us the man’s name yet, Mabel, can’t you narrow it down a +little more for us?” Miss Dammers disliked vagueness. It savoured +to her of the slipshod, which above all things in this world +she detested. Moreover she really was extremely interested to +know upon whom Mrs. Fielder-Flemming’s choice had alighted. +Mabel, she knew, might look like one sort of fool, talk like +another sort, and behave like a third; and yet really she was +not a fool at all.</p> + +<p>But Mabel was determined to be coy. “Not yet, I’m afraid. For +certain reasons I want to prove my case first. You’ll understand +later, I think.”</p> + +<p>“Very well,” sighed Miss Dammers. “But do let’s keep away +from the detective-story atmosphere. All we want to do is to solve +this difficult case, not mystify each other.”</p> + +<p>“I have my reasons, Alicia,” frowned Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, +and rather obviously proceeded to collect her thoughts. “Where +was I? Oh yes, the evidence. Now this is very interesting. I have +succeeded in obtaining two pieces of quite vital evidence which +I have never heard brought forward before.</p> + +<p>“The first is that Sir Eustace was not in love with—” Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming hesitated; then, as the plunge had already been +taken for her, followed the intrepid Mr. Bradley into the deeps of +complete candour “—with Miss Wildman at all. He intended to +marry her simply for her money—or rather, for what he hoped to +get of her father’s money. I hope, Sir Charles,” added Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming frostily, “that you will not consider me slanderous if +I allude to the fact that you are an exceedingly rich man. It has a +most important bearing on my case.”</p> + +<p>Sir Charles inclined his massive, handsome head. “It is hardly +a matter of slander, madam. Simply one of taste, which is outside +my professional orbit. I fear it would be a waste of time for me +to attempt to advise you on it.”</p> + +<p>“That is very interesting, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming,” Roger +hastily interposed on this exchange of pleasantries. “How did +you discover it?”</p> + +<p>“From Sir Eustace’s man, Mr. Sheringham,” replied Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming not without pride. “I interrogated him. Sir +Eustace had made no secret of it. He seems to confide most freely +in his man. He expected, apparently, to be able to pay off his debts, +buy a racehorse or two, provide for the present Lady Pennefather, +and generally make a fresh and no doubt discreditable start. He +had actually promised Barker (that is his man’s name) a present +of a hundred pounds on the day he ‘led the little filly to the altar,’ +as he phrased it. I am sorry to hurt your feelings, Sir Charles, but +I have to deal with facts, and feelings must go down before them. +A present of ten pounds bought me all the information I wanted. +Quite remarkable information, as it turned out.” She looked round +triumphantly.</p> + +<p>“You don’t think, perhaps,” ventured Mr. Chitterwick with an +apologetic smile, “that information from such a tainted source might +not be entirely reliable? The source seems so very tainted. Why, +I don’t think my own man would sell me for a ten-pound note.”</p> + +<p>“Like master like man,” returned Mrs. Fielder-Flemming +shortly. “His information was perfectly reliable. I was able to +check nearly everything he told me, so that I think I am entitled +to accept the small residue as correct too.</p> + +<p>“I should like to quote another of Sir Eustace’s confidences. +It is not pretty, but it is very, very illuminating. He had made an +attempt to seduce Miss Wildman in a private room at the Pug-Dog +Restaurant (that, for instance, I checked later), apparently with the +object of ensuring the certainty of the marriage he desired. (I am +sorry again, Sir Charles, but these facts must be brought out.) I had +better say at once that the attempt was unsuccessful. That night +Sir Eustace remarked (and to his valet of all people, remember); +‘You can take a filly to the altar, but you can’t make her drunk.’ +That, I think, will show you better than any words of mine just +what manner of man Sir Eustace Pennefather is. And it will also +show you how overwhelmingly strong was the incentive of the +man who really loved her to put her for ever out of the reach of +such a brute.</p> + +<p>“And that brings me to the second piece of my evidence. This +is really the foundation stone of the whole structure, the basis on +which the necessity for murder (as the murderer saw it) rested, +and the basis at the same time of my own reconstruction of the +crime. Miss Wildman was hopelessly, unreasonably, irrevocably +infatuated with Sir Eustace Pennefather.”</p> + +<p>As an artist in dramatic effect, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming was +silent for a moment to allow the significance of this information +to sink into the minds of her audience. But Sir Charles was far too +personally preoccupied to be interested in significances.</p> + +<p>“And may one ask how you found <em>that</em> out, madam?” he +demanded, swelling with sarcasm. “From my daughter’s maid?”</p> + +<p>“From your daughter’s maid,” responded Mrs. Fielder-Flemming +sweetly. “Detecting, I discover, is an expensive hobby, +but one mustn’t regret money spent in a good cause.”</p> + +<p>Roger sighed. It was plain that, once this ill-fortuned child of +his invention had died a painful death, the Circle (if it had not +been completely squared by then) would be found to be without +either Mrs. Fielder-Flemming or Sir Charles Wildman; and he +knew which of the two it would be. It was a pity. Sir Charles, +besides being such an asset from the professional point of view, +was the only leavening apart from Mr. Ambrose Chitterwick of +the literary element; and Roger, who had attended a few literary +parties in his earlier days, was quite sure he would not be able to +face a gathering that consisted of nothing but people who made +their livings by their typewriters.</p> + +<p>Besides, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming really was being a little hard +on the old man. After all, it was his daughter who was in question.</p> + +<p>“I have now,” said Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, “established an +overwhelming motive for the man who is in my mind to eliminate +Sir Eustace. In fact it must have seemed to him the only possible +way out of an intolerable situation. Let me now go on to connect +him with the few facts allowed us by the anonymous murderer.</p> + +<p>“When the Chief Inspector the other evening permitted us +to examine the forged letter from Mason & Sons I examined it +closely, because I know something about typewriters. That letter +was typed on a Hamilton machine. The man I have in mind has +a Hamilton typewriter at his place of business. You may say that +might be only a coincidence, the Hamilton being so generally +used. So it might; but if you get enough coincidences lumped +together, they cease to become coincidences at all and become +certainties.</p> + +<p>“In the same way we have the further coincidence of Mason’s +notepaper. This man has a definite connection with Mason’s. +Three years ago, as you may remember, Mason’s were involved +in a big lawsuit. I forget the details, but I think they brought an +action against one of their rivals. You may remember, Sir Charles?”</p> + +<p>Sir Charles nodded reluctantly, as if unwilling to help his +antagonist even with this unimportant information. “I ought to,” +he said shortly. “It was against the Fearnley Chocolate Company +for infringement of copyright in an advertisement figure. I led +for Mason’s.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you. Yes, I thought it was something like that. Very +well, then. This man was connected with that very case. He was +helping Mason’s, on the legal side. He must have been in and +out of their office. His opportunities for possessing himself of a +piece of their notepaper would have been legion. The chances +by which he might have found himself three years later in +possession of a piece would be innumerable. The paper had yellowed +edges; it must have been quite three years old. It had an erasure. +That erasure, I suggest, is the remains of a brief note on the case +jotted down one day in Mason’s office. The thing is obvious. +Everything fits.</p> + +<p>“Then there is the matter of the post-mark. I agree with Sir +Charles that we may take it for granted that the murderer, cunning +though he is, and anxious though he might be to establish an +alibi, would not entrust the posting of the fatal parcel to any one +else. Apart from a confederate, which I am sure we may rule out +of the question, it would be far too dangerous; the name of Sir +Eustace Pennefather could hardly escape being seen, and the +connection later established. The murderer, secure in his conviction +that suspicion will never fall on himself of all people (just like all +murderers that have ever been), gambles a possible alibi against a +certain risk and posts the thing himself. It is therefore advisable, +just to clinch the case against him, to connect the man with the +neighbourhood of the Strand between the hours of eight-thirty +and nine-thirty on that particular evening.</p> + +<p>“Surprisingly enough I found this task, which I had expected +to be the most difficult, the easiest of all. The man of whom I am +thinking actually attended a public dinner that night at the Hotel +Cecil, a re-union dinner to be exact of his old school. The Hotel +Cecil, I need not remind you, is almost opposite Southampton +Street. The Southampton Street post-office is the nearest one to +the Hotel. What could be easier for him than to slip out of his seat +for the five minutes which is all that would be required, and be +back again almost before his neighbours had noticed his action?”</p> + +<p>“What indeed?” murmured the rapt Mr. Bradley.</p> + +<p>“I have two final points to make. You remember that in pointing +out the resemblance of this case to the Molineux affair, I +remarked that this similarity was more than surprising, it was +significant. I will explain what I meant by that. What I meant was +that the parallel was far too close for it to be just a coincidence. +This case is a deliberate <em>copy</em> of that one. And if it is, there is +only one inference. This murder is the work of a man steeped in +criminal history—of a criminologist. And the man I have in mind +<em>is</em> a criminologist.</p> + +<p>“My last point concerns the denial in the newspaper of the +rumoured engagement between Sir Eustace Pennefather and +Miss Wildman. I learnt from his valet that Sir Eustace did not +send that denial himself. Nor did Miss Wildman. Sir Eustace was +furiously angry about it. It was sent, on his own initiative without +consulting either of them, by the man whom I am accusing of +having committed this crime.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Bradley stopped hugging himself for a moment. “And +the nitrobenzene? Were you able to connect him with that too?”</p> + +<p>“That is one of the very few points on which I agree with Sir +Charles. I don’t think it in the least necessary, or possible, to +connect him with such a common commodity, which can be bought +anywhere without the slightest difficulty or remark.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fielder-Flemming was holding herself in with a visible +effort. Her words, so calm and judicial to read, had hitherto been +spoken too with a strenuous attempt towards calm and judicial +delivery. But with each sentence the attempt was obviously +becoming more difficult. Mrs. Fielder-Flemming was clearly +getting so excited that a few more such sentences seemed likely to +choke her, though to the others such intensity of feeling seemed +a little unnecessary. She was approaching her climax, of course, +but even that seemed hardly an excuse for such a very purple +face and a hat that had now managed somehow to ride to the +very back of her head where it trembled agitatedly in sympathy +with its mistress.</p> + +<p>“That is all,” she concluded jerkily. “I submit that I have proved +my case. This man is the murderer.”</p> + +<p>There was complete silence.</p> + +<p>“Well?” said Alicia Dammers impatiently. “Who is he, then?”</p> + +<p>Sir Charles, who had been regarding the orator with a frown +that grew more and more lowering every minute, thumped quite +menacingly on the table in front of him. “Precisely,” he growled. +“Let us get out in the open. Against whom are these ridiculous +insinuations of yours directed, madam?” One gathered that Sir +Charles did not find himself in agreement with the lady’s +conclusions, even before knowing what they were.</p> + +<p>“Accusations, Sir Charles,” Mrs. Fielder-Flemming squeaked +correction. “You—you pretend you don’t know?”</p> + +<p>“Really, madam,” retorted Sir Charles, with massive dignity, +“I’m afraid I have no idea.”</p> + +<p>And then Mrs. Fielder-Flemming became regrettably dramatic. +Rising slowly to her feet like a tragedy queen (except that tragedy +queens do not wear their hats tremblingly on the very backs of +their heads, and if their faces are apt to go brilliant purple with +emotion disguise the tint with appropriate grease paints), heedless +of the chair overturning behind her with a dull, doom-like thud, +her quivering finger pointing across the table, she confronted Sir +Charles with every inch of her five-foot nothing.</p> + +<p>“Thou!” shrilled Mrs. Fielder-Flemming. “Thou art the man!” +Her outstretched finger shook like a ribbon on an electric fan. +“The brand of Cain is on your forehead! Murderer!”</p> + +<p>In the silence of ecstatic horror that followed Mr. Bradley clung +deliriously to the arm of Mr. Chitterwick.</p> + +<p>Sir Charles succeeded in finding his voice, temporarily mislaid. +“The woman’s mad,” he gasped.</p> + +<p>Finding that she had not been shot on the spot, or even blasted +by blue lightning from Sir Charles’s eyes, either of which possibilities +it seemed that she had been dreading, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming +proceeded rather less hysterically to amplify her charge.</p> + +<p>“No, I am not mad, Sir Charles; I am very, very sane. You +loved your daughter, and with the twofold love that a man who +has lost his wife feels for the only feminine thing left to him. +You considered that any lengths were justified to prevent her +from falling into the hands of Sir Eustace Pennefather—from +having her youth, her innocence, her trust exploited by such a +scoundrel.</p> + +<p>“Out of your own mouth I convict you. Already you’ve told us +that it was not necessary to mention everything that took place +at your interview with Sir Eustace. No; for then you would have +had to give away the fact that you informed him you would rather +kill him with your own hands than see your daughter married to +him. And when matters reached such a pass, what with the poor +girl’s infatuation and obstinacy and Sir Eustace’s determination +to take advantage of them, that no means short of that very thing +was left to you to prevent the catastrophe, you did not shrink from +employing them. Sir Charles Wildman, may God be your judge, +for I cannot.” Breathing heavily, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming retrieved +her inverted chair and sat down on it.</p> + +<p>“Well, Sir Charles,” remarked Mr. Bradley, whose swelling +bosom was threatening to burst his waistcoat. “Well, I wouldn’t +have thought it of you. Murder, indeed. Very naughty; very, very +naughty.”</p> + +<p>For once Sir Charles took no notice of his faithful gadfly. It is +doubtful whether he even heard him. Now that it had penetrated +into his consciousness that Mrs. Fielder-Flemming really intended +her accusation in all seriousness and was not the victim of a +temporary attack of insanity, his bosom was swelling just as +tumultuously as Mr. Bradley’s. His face, adopting the purple tinge that +Mrs. Fielder-Flemming’s was relinquishing, took on the aspect of +the frog in the fable who failed to realise his own bursting-point. +Roger, whose emotions on hearing Mrs. Fielder-Flemming’s +outburst had been so mixed as to be almost scrambled, began to +feel quite alarmed for him.</p> + +<p>But Sir Charles found the safety-valve of speech just in time. +“Mr. President,” he exploded through it, “if I am not right in +assuming this to be a jest on this lady’s part, even though a jest +in the worst possible taste, am I to be expected to take this +preposterous nonsense seriously?”</p> + +<p>Roger glanced at Mrs. Fielder-Flemming’s face, now set in +flinty masses, and gulped. However, preposterous though Sir +Charles might term it, his antagonist had certainly made out a +case, and not a flimsy, unsupported case either. “I think,” he said, +as carefully as he could, “that if it had been any one but yourself in +question, Sir Charles, you would agree that a charge of this kind, +when there is real evidence to support it, does at least require to +be taken seriously so far as to need refuting.”</p> + +<p>Sir Charles snorted and Mrs. Fielder-Flemming nodded her +head several times with vehemence.</p> + +<p>“If refuting is possible,” observed Mr. Bradley. “But I must +admit that, personally, I am impressed. Mrs. Fielder-Flemming +seems to me to have made out her case. Would you like me to +go and telephone for the police, Mr. President?” He spoke with +an air of earnest endeavour to do his duty as a citizen, however +distasteful it might be.</p> + +<p>Sir Charles glared, but once more seemed bereft of words.</p> + +<p>“Not yet, I think,” Roger said gently. “We haven’t heard yet +what Sir Charles has to answer.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I suppose we may as well <em>hear</em> him,” conceded Mr. +Bradley.</p> + +<p>Five pairs of eyes glued themselves on Sir Charles, five pairs +of ears were strained.</p> + +<p>But Sir Charles, struggling mightily with himself, was silent.</p> + +<p>“As I expected,” murmured Mr. Bradley. “There is no defence. +Even Sir Charles, who has snatched so many murderers from the +rope, can find nothing to say in such a glaring case. It’s very sad.”</p> + +<p>From the look he flashed at his tormentor it was to be deduced +that Sir Charles might have found plenty to say had the two of +them been alone together. As it was, he could only rumble.</p> + +<p>“Mr. President,” said Alicia Dammers, with her usual brisk +efficiency, “I have a proposal to make. Sir Charles appears to be +admitting his guilt by default, and Mr. Bradley, as a good citizen, +wishes to hand him over to the police.”</p> + +<p>“Hear, hear!” observed the good citizen.</p> + +<p>“Personally I should be sorry to do that. I think there is a good +deal to be said for Sir Charles. Murder, we are taught, is invariably +anti-social. But is it? I am of the opinion that Sir Charles’s +intention, that of ridding the world (and incidentally his own daughter) +of Sir Eustace Pennefather, was quite in the world’s best interests. +That his intention miscarried and an innocent victim was killed is +quite beside the point. Even Mrs. Fielder-Flemming seemed to be +doubtful whether Sir Charles ought to be condemned, as a jury +would certainly condemn him, though she added in conclusion +that she did not feel competent to judge him.</p> + +<p>“I differ from her. Being a person of, I hope, reasonable +intelligence, I feel perfectly competent to judge him. And I consider +further that all five of us are competent to judge him. I therefore +suggest that we do in fact judge him ourselves. Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming could act as prosecutor; somebody (I propose Mr. +Bradley) could defend him; and all five of us constitute a jury, +the finding to be by majority in favour or against. We would +bind ourselves to abide by the result, and if it is against him +we send for the police; if it is in his favour we agree never to +breathe a word of his guilt outside this room. May this be put to +the meeting?”</p> + +<p>Roger smiled at her reprovingly. He knew quite well that +Miss Dammers no more believed in Sir Charles’s guilt than he, +Roger, did himself, and he knew that she was only pulling that +eminent counsel’s leg; a little cruelly, but no doubt she thought +it was good for him. Miss Dammers professed herself a strong +believer in seeing the other side, and held that it would be a very +good thing for the cat occasionally to find itself chased by the +mouse; certainly therefore it was most salutary for a man who +had prosecuted other men for their lives to find himself for once +in the dock on just such a terrifying charge. Mr. Bradley, on the +other hand, though he, too, obviously did not believe that Sir +Charles was the murderer, mocked not out of conviction but +because only so could he get a little of his own back against Sir +Charles for having made more of a success of his life than Mr. +Bradley was likely to do.</p> + +<p>Nor, Roger thought, had Mr. Chitterwick any serious doubts +as to the possibility of Sir Charles being guilty, though he was +still looking so alarmed at Mrs. Fielder-Flemming’s temerity in +suggesting such a thing that it was not altogether possible to +say what he did think. Indeed Roger was quite sure that nobody +entertained the least suspicion of Sir Charles’s innocence except +Mrs. Fielder-Flemming—and perhaps, from the look of him, Sir +Charles himself. As that outraged gentleman had pointed out, +such an idea, looked at in sober reflection, was plainly the most +preposterous nonsense. Sir Charles could not be guilty because—well, +because he was Sir Charles, and because such things don’t +happen, and because he obviously couldn’t be.</p> + +<p>On the other hand Mrs. Fielder-Flemming had very neatly +proved that he was. And Sir Charles had not even attempted yet +to prove that he wasn’t.</p> + +<p>Not for the first time Roger wished, very sincerely, that +anybody were sitting in the presidential chair but himself.</p> + +<p>“I think,” he now repeated, “that before we take any steps at +all we ought to hear what Sir Charles has to say. I am sure,” added +the President kindly, remembering the right phrase, “that he will +have a complete answer to all charges.” He looked expectantly +towards the criminal.</p> + +<p>Sir Charles appeared to jerk himself out of the haze of his +wrath. “I am really expected to defend myself against this—this +hysteria?” he barked. “Very well. I admit I am a criminologist, +which Mrs. Fielder-Flemming appears to think so damning. I +admit that I attended a dinner at the Hotel Cecil on that night, +which it seems is enough to put the rope round my neck. I admit, +since it appears that my private affairs are to be dragged into +public, regardless of taste or decency, that I would rather have +strangled Sir Eustace with my own hands than see him married +to my daughter.”</p> + +<p>He paused, and passed his hand rather wearily over his high +forehead. He was no longer formidable, but only a rather +bewildered old man. Roger felt intensely sorry for him. But Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming had stated her case too well for it to be possible +to spare him.</p> + +<p>“I admit all this, but none of it is evidence that would have +very much weight in a court of law. If you want me to prove that +I did not actually send those chocolates, what am I to say? I could +bring my two neighbours at the dinner, who would swear that I +never left my seat till—well, it must have been after ten o’clock. I +can prove by means of other witnesses that my daughter finally +consented, on my representations, to give up the idea of marriage +with Sir Eustace and has gone voluntarily to stay with relations +of ours in Devonshire for a considerable time. But there again +I have to admit that this has happened since the date of posting +the chocolates.</p> + +<p>“In short, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming has managed, with considerable +skill, to put together a <i>prima facie</i> case against me, though +it was based on a mistaken assumption (I would point out to her +that counsel is never constantly in and out of his client’s premises, +but meets him usually only in the presence of his solicitor, either +at the former’s place of business or in his own chambers), and I +am quite ready, if this meeting thinks it advisable, for the matter +to be investigated officially. More, I welcome such investigation in +view of the slur that has been cast upon my name. Mr. President, +I ask you, as representing the members as a whole, to take such +action as you think fit.”</p> + +<p>Roger steered a wary course. “Speaking for myself, Sir Charles, +I am quite sure that Mrs. Fielder-Flemming’s reasoning, exceedingly +clever though it was, has been based as you say upon an +error, and really, as a matter of mere probability, I cannot see a +father sending poisoned chocolates to the would-be fiancé of his +own daughter. A moment’s thought would show him the practical +inevitability of the chocolates reaching eventually the daughter +herself. I have my own opinion about this crime, but even apart +from that I feel quite certain in my own mind that the case against +Sir Charles has not really been proved.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. President,” cut in Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, not without +heat, “you may say what you like, but in the interests of—”</p> + +<p>“I agree, Mr. President,” Miss Dammers interrupted incisively. +“It is unthinkable that Sir Charles could have sent those +chocolates.”</p> + +<p>“Humph!” said Mr. Bradley, unwilling to have his sport spoiled +quite so soon.</p> + +<p>“Hear, hear!” Mr. Chitterwick, with surprising decision.</p> + +<p>“On the other hand,” Roger pursued, “I quite see that Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming is entitled to the official investigation which Sir +Charles asks for, no less than is Sir Charles himself on behalf of +his good name. And I agree with Sir Charles that she has certainly +made out a <i>prima facie</i> case for investigation. But what I should like +to stress is that so far only two members out of six have spoken, +and it is not outside possibility that such startling developments +may have been traced out by the time we have all had our turn, +that the one we are discussing now may (I do not say that it will, +but it <em>may</em>) have faded into insignificance.”</p> + +<p>“Oho!” murmured Mr. Bradley. “What has our worthy +President got up his sleeve?”</p> + +<p>“I therefore propose, as a formal motion,” Roger concluded, +disregarding the somewhat sour looks cast on him by Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming, “that we shelve the question regarding Sir Charles +entirely, for discussion or report either inside or outside this room, +for one week from to-day, when any member who wishes may +bring it up again for decision, failing which it passes into oblivion +for good and all. Shall we vote on that? Those in favour?”</p> + +<p>The motion was carried unanimously. Mrs. Fielder-Flemming +would have liked to vote against it, but she had never yet belonged +to any committee where all motions were not carried +unanimously and habit was too strong for her.</p> + +<p>The meeting then adjourned, rather oppressed.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch09"> + +<h2>Chapter IX</h2> + +<p>Roger sat on the table in Moresby’s room at Scotland +Yard and swung his legs moodily. Moresby was being no +help at all.</p> + +<p>“I’ve told you, Mr. Sheringham,” said the Chief Inspector, with +a patient air. “It’s not a bit of good you trying to pump me. I’ve +told you all we know here. I’d help you if I could, as you +know”—Roger snorted incredulously—“but we’re simply at a dead end.”</p> + +<p>“So am I,” Roger grunted. “And I don’t like it.”</p> + +<p>“You’ll soon get used to it, Mr. Sheringham,” consoled +Moresby, “if you take on this sort of job often.”</p> + +<p>“I simply can’t get any further,” Roger lamented. “In fact I +don’t think I want to. I’m practically sure I’ve been working on the +wrong tack altogether. If the clue really does lie in Sir Eustace’s +private life, he’s shielding it like the very devil. But I don’t think +it does.”</p> + +<p>“Humph!” said Moresby, who did.</p> + +<p>“I’ve cross-examined his friends, till they’re tired of the sight +of me. I’ve cadged introductions to the friends of his friends, +and the friends of his friends of his friends, and cross-examined +them too. I’ve haunted his club. And what have I discovered? +That Sir Eustace was not only a daisy, as you’d told me already, +but a perfectly indiscreet daisy at that; the quite unpleasant type, +fortunately very much rarer than women suppose, that talks of +his feminine successes, with names—though I think that in Sir +Eustace’s case this was simply through lack of imagination and not +any natural caddishness. But you see what I mean. I’ve collected +the names of scores of women, and they all lead—nowhere! If +there is a woman at the bottom of it, I should have been sure to +have heard of her by this time. And I haven’t.”</p> + +<p>“And what about that American case, which we thought such +an extraordinary parallel, Mr. Sheringham?”</p> + +<p>“That was cited last night by one of our members,” said +Roger gloomily. “And a very pretty little deduction she drew +from it.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, yes,” nodded the chief inspector. “That would be Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming, I suppose. She thinks Sir Charles Wildman is +the guilty party, doesn’t she?”</p> + +<p>Roger stared at him. “How the devil did you know that? Oh! +The unscrupulous old hag. She passed you the wink, did she?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly not, sir,” retorted Moresby with a virtuous air, +as if half the difficult cases Scotland Yard solves are not edged +in the first place along the right path by means of “information +received.” “She hasn’t said a word to us, though I’m not saying it +wouldn’t have been her duty to do so. But there isn’t much that +your members are doing which we don’t know about, and +thinking too for that matter.”</p> + +<p>“We’re being shadowed,” said Roger, pleased. “Yes, you told +me at the beginning that we were to have an eye kept on us. Well, +well. So in that case, are you going to arrest Sir Charles?”</p> + +<p>“Not yet, I think, Mr. Sheringham,” Moresby returned gravely.</p> + +<p>“What do you think of the theory, then? She made out a very +striking case for it.”</p> + +<p>“I should be very surprised,” said Moresby with care, “to be +convinced that Sir Charles Wildman had taken to murdering +people himself instead of preventing us from hanging other +murderers.”</p> + +<p>“Less paying, certainly,” Roger agreed. “Yes, of course there +can’t be anything in it really, but it’s a nice idea.”</p> + +<p>“And what theory are you going to put forward, Mr. +Sheringham?”</p> + +<p>“Moresby, I haven’t the faintest idea. And I’ve got to speak +to-morrow night, too. I suppose I can fake up something to pass +muster, but it’s a disappointment.” Roger reflected for a moment. +“I think the real trouble is that my interest in this case is simply +academic. In all the others it has been personal, and that not only +gives one such a much bigger incentive to get to the bottom of a +case but somehow actually helps one to do so. Bigger gleanings in +the way of information, I suppose. And more intimate sidelights +on the people concerned.”</p> + +<p>“Well, Mr. Sheringham,” remarked Moresby, a little maliciously, +“perhaps you’ll admit now that we people here, whose +interest is never personal (if you mean by that looking at a case +from the inside instead of from the outside), have a bit of an +excuse when we do come to grief over a case. Which, by the way,” +Moresby added with professional pride, “is precious seldom.”</p> + +<p>“I certainly do,” Roger agreed feelingly. “Well, Moresby, I’ve +got to go through the distressing business of buying a new hat +before lunch. Do you feel like shadowing me to Bond Street? I +might afterwards walk into a neighbouring hostelry, and it would +be nice for you to be able to shadow me in there too.”</p> + +<p>“Sorry, Mr. Sheringham,” said Chief Inspector Moresby +pointedly, “but <em>I</em> have some work to do.”</p> + +<p>Roger removed himself.</p> + +<p>He was feeling so depressed that he took a taxi to Bond Street +instead of a ’bus, to cheer himself up. Roger, having been in +London occasionally during the war-years and remembering the +interesting habits cultivated by taxi-drivers during that period, +had never taken one since when a ’bus would do as well. The +public memory is notoriously short, but the public’s prejudices +are equally notoriously long.</p> + +<p>Roger had reason for his depression. He was, as he had told +Moresby, not only at a dead end, but the conviction was beginning +to grow in him that he had actually been working completely +on the wrong lines; and the possibility that all the labour he had +put into the case had simply been time wasted was a sad one. +His initial interest in the affair, though great, had been as he had +just realised only an academic one, such as he would feel in any +cleverly planned murder; and in spite of the contacts established +with persons who were acquainted with various of the protagonists +he still felt himself awkwardly outside the case. There was +no personal connection somehow to enable him really to get to +grips with it. He was beginning to suspect that it was the sort of +case, necessitating endless inquiries such as a private individual +has neither the skill, the patience nor the time to prosecute, which +can really only be handled by the official police.</p> + +<p>It was hazard, two chance encounters that same day and almost +within an hour, which put an entirely different complexion on the +case to Roger’s eyes, and translated at last his interest in it from +the academic into the personal.</p> + +<p>The first was in Bond Street.</p> + +<p>Emerging from his hat-shop, the new hat at just the right angle +on his head, he saw bearing down on him Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer. +Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer was small, exquisite, rich, comparatively +young, and a widow, and she coveted Roger. Why, even Roger, +who had his share of proper conceit, could not understand, but +whenever he gave her the opportunity she would sit at his feet +(metaphorically of course; he had no intention of giving her the +opportunity to do so literally) and gaze up at him with her big +brown eyes melting in earnest uplift. But she talked. She talked, in +short, and talked, and talked. And Roger, who rather liked talking +himself, could not bear it.</p> + +<p>He tried to dart across the road, but there was no opening in +the traffic stream. He was cornered. With a gay smile that masked +a vituperative mind he spoilt the angle of his beautiful new hat.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer fastened on him gladly. “Oh, Mr. +Sheringham! Just the very person I wanted to see. Mr. Sheringham, +<em>do</em> tell me. In the strictest confidence of course. <em>Are</em> you taking up +this dreadful business of <em>poor</em> Joan Bendix’s death? Oh, don’t—<em>don’t</em> +tell me you’re not.” Roger tried to tell her that he had hoped to +do so, but she gave him no chance. “Oh, aren’t you really? But it’s +too dreadful. You ought, you know, you really <em>ought</em> to try and +find out who sent those chocolates to Sir Eustace Pennefather. I +do think it’s naughty of you not to.”</p> + +<p>Roger, the frozen grin of civilised intercourse on his face, again +tried to edge a word in; without result.</p> + +<p>“I was horrified when I heard of it. Simply horrified.” Mrs. +Verreker-le-Mesurer registered horror. “You see, Joan and I were +such <em>very</em> close friends. Quite intimate. In fact we were at school +together.—Did you say anything, Mr. Sheringham?”</p> + +<p>Roger, who had allowed a faintly incredulous groan to escape +him, hastily shook his head.</p> + +<p>“And the awful thing, the truly <em>terrible</em> thing is that Joan +brought the whole thing on herself. Isn’t that appalling, Mr. +Sheringham?”</p> + +<p>Roger no longer wanted to escape. “What did you say?” he +managed to insert, again incredulously.</p> + +<p>“I suppose it’s what they call tragic irony,” Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer +chattered happily. “Certainly it was tragic enough and I’ve +never heard of anything so terribly ironical. You know about that +bet she made with her husband, of course, so that he had to get +her a box of chocolates and if he hadn’t Sir Eustace would never +have given him the poisoned ones but would have eaten them +and died himself, and from all I hear about him good riddance? +Well, Mr. Sheringham—” Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer lowered her +voice to a conspirator-like whisper and glanced about her in the +approved manner. “I’ve never told any one else this, but I’m telling +you because I know you’ll appreciate it. You <em>are</em> interested in +irony, aren’t you?”</p> + +<p>“I adore it,” Roger said mechanically. “Yes?”</p> + +<p>“Well—<em>Joan wasn’t playing fair!</em>”</p> + +<p>“How do you mean?” Roger asked, bewildered. Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer +was artlessly pleased with her sensation. “Why, she +ought not to have made that bet at all. It was a judgment on her. +A terrible judgment of course, but the appalling thing is that she +did bring it on herself, in a way. I’m so terribly distressed about +it. Really, Mr. Sheringham, I can hardly bear to turn the light out +when I go to bed. I see Joan’s face simply looking at me in the dark. +It’s awful.” And for a fleeting instant Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer’s +face did for once really mirror the emotion she professed: it looked +quite haggard.</p> + +<p>“Why oughtn’t Mrs. Bendix to have made the bet?” Roger +asked patiently.</p> + +<p>“Oh! Why, because she’d seen the play before. We went +together, the very first week it was on. She <em>knew</em> who the villain +was all the time.”</p> + +<p>“By Jove!” Roger was as impressed as Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer +could have wished. “The Avenging Chance again, eh? We’re none +of us immune from it.”</p> + +<p>“Poetic justice, you mean?” twittered Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer, +to whom these remarks had been a trifle obscure. “Yes it was, in +a way, wasn’t it? Though really, the punishment was out of all +proportion to the crime. Good gracious, if every woman who +cheats over a bet is to be killed for it, where would any of us be?” +demanded Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer with unconscious frankness.</p> + +<p>“Umph!” said Roger tactfully.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer glanced rapidly up and down the +pavement, and moistened her lips. Roger had an odd impression +that she was talking not as usual just for the sake of talking, but +in some recondite way to escape from not talking. It was as if +she was more distressed over her friend’s death than she cared +to show and found some relief in babbling. It interested Roger +also to notice that fond though she had probably been of the +dead woman, she now found herself driven as if against her +will to hint at blame even while praising her. It was as though +she was able thus to extract some subtle consolation for the +actual death.</p> + +<p>“But Joan Bendix of all people! That’s what I can’t get over, +Mr. Sheringham. I should never have thought Joan <em>would</em> do a +thing like that. Joan was such a nice girl. A little close with money +perhaps, considering how well-off she was, but that isn’t anything. +Of course I know it was only fun, and pulling her husband’s leg, +but I always used to think Joan was such a <em>serious</em> girl, if you know +what I mean.”</p> + +<p>“Quite,” said Roger, who could understand plain English as +well as most people.</p> + +<p>“I mean, ordinary people don’t talk about honour, and truth, +and playing the game, and all those things one takes for granted. +But Joan did. She was always saying that this wasn’t honourable, +or that wouldn’t be playing the game. Well, she paid herself for +not playing the game, poor girl, didn’t she? Still, I suppose it all +goes to prove the truth of the old saying.”</p> + +<p>“What old saying?” asked Roger, almost hypnotised by this +flow.</p> + +<p>“Why, that still waters run deep. Joan must have been deep +after all, I’m afraid.” Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer sighed. It was +evidently a grave social error to be deep. “Not that I want to say +anything against her now she’s dead, poor darling, but—well, +what I mean is, I do think psychology is so very interesting, don’t +you, Mr. Sheringham?”</p> + +<p>“Quite fascinating,” Roger agreed gravely. “Well, I’m afraid +I must be—”</p> + +<p>“And what does that man, Sir Eustace Pennefather, think about +it all?” demanded Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer, with an expression +of positive vindictiveness. “After all, he’s as responsible for Joan’s +death as anybody.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, really.” Roger had not conceived any particular love for Sir +Eustace, but he felt constrained to defend him against this charge. +“Really, I don’t think you can say that, Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer.”</p> + +<p>“I can, and I do,” affirmed that lady. “Have you ever met him, +Mr. Sheringham? I hear he’s a horrible creature. Always running +after some woman or other, and when he’s tired of her just drops +her—biff!—like that. Is it true?”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid I can’t tell you,” Roger said coldly. “I don’t know +him at all.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s common talk who he’s taken up with now,” retorted +Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer, perhaps a trifle more pink than the +delicate aids to nature on her cheeks would have warranted. +“Half-a-dozen people have told me. That Bryce woman, of all +people. You know, the wife of the oil man, or petrol, or whatever +he made his money in.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve never heard of her,” Roger said, quite untruthfully.</p> + +<p>“It began about a week ago, they say,” rattled on this red-hot +gossiper. “To console himself for not getting Dora Wildman, I +suppose. Well, thank goodness Sir Charles had the sense to put +his foot down there. He did, didn’t he? I heard so the other day. +Horrible man! You’d have thought that such a dreadful thing as +being practically responsible for poor Joan’s death would have +sobered him up a little, wouldn’t you? But not a bit of it. As a +matter of fact I believe he—”</p> + +<p>“Have you seen any shows lately?” Roger asked in a loud voice.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer stared at him, for a moment nonplussed. +“Shows? Yes, I’ve seen almost everything, I think. Why, +Mr. Sheringham?”</p> + +<p>“I just wondered. The new revue at the Pavilion’s quite good, +isn’t it? Well, I’m afraid I must—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, don’t!” Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer shuddered delicately. “I +was there the night before Joan’s death.” (Can no subject take us +away from that for a moment? thought Roger). “Lady Cavelstoke +had a box and asked me to join her party.”</p> + +<p>“Yes?” Roger was wondering if it would be considered rude +if he simply handed the lady off, as at rugger, and dived for the +nearest opening in the traffic. “Quite a good show,” he said at +random, edging restlessly towards the curb. “I liked that sketch, +<i>The Sempiternal Triangle</i>, particularly.”</p> + +<p>“<i>The Sempiternal Triangle</i>?” repeated Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer +vaguely.</p> + +<p>“Yes, quite near the beginning.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Then I may not have seen it. I got there a few minutes +late, I’m afraid. But then,” said Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer with +pathos, “I always do seem to be late for everything.” Roger noted +mentally that the few minutes was by way of a euphemism, as +were most of Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer’s statements regarding +herself. <i>The Sempiternal Triangle</i> had certainly not been in the first +half-hour of the performance.</p> + +<p>“Ah!” Roger looked fixedly at an oncoming ’bus. “I’m afraid +you’ll have to excuse me, Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer. There’s a man +on that ’bus who wants to speak to me. <em>Scotland Yard!</em>” he hissed, +in an impressive whisper.</p> + +<p>“Oh! Then—then does that mean you <em>are</em> looking into poor +Joan’s death, Mr. Sheringham? <em>Do</em> tell me! I won’t breathe it to +a soul.”</p> + +<p>Roger looked round him with a mysterious air and frowned +in the approved manner. “Yes!” he nodded, his finger to his lips. +“But not a word, Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer.”</p> + +<p>“Of course not, I promise.” But Roger was disappointed to +notice that the lady did not seem quite so impressed as he had +hoped. From her expression he was almost ready to believe that +she suspected how unavailing his efforts had been, and was a little +sorry that he had taken on more than he could manage.</p> + +<p>But the ’bus had now reached them, and with a hasty “Good-bye” +Roger swung himself on to the step as it lumbered past. With +awful stealth, feeling those big brown eyes fixed in awe on his +back, he climbed the steps and took his seat, after an exaggerated +scrutiny of the other passengers, beside a perfectly inoffensive +little man in a bowler-hat. The little man, who happened to be +a clerk in the employment of a monumental mason at Tooting, +looked at him resentfully. There were plenty of quite empty seats +all round them.</p> + +<p>The ’bus swung into Piccadilly, and Roger got off at the Rainbow +Club. He was lunching once again with a member. Roger had spent +most of the last ten days asking such members of the Rainbow +Club as he knew, however remotely, out to lunch in order to be +asked to the club in return. So far nothing helpful had arisen out +of all this wasted labour, and he anticipated nothing more to-day.</p> + +<p>Not that the member was at all reluctant to talk about the +tragedy. He had been at school with Bendix, it appeared, and was +as ready to adopt responsibility for him on the strength of this tie +as Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer had been for Mrs. Bendix. He plumed +himself more than a little therefore on having a more intimate +connection with the business than his fellow-members. Indeed +one gathered that the connection was even a trifle closer than +that of Sir Eustace himself. Roger’s host was that kind of man.</p> + +<p>As they were talking a man entered the dining-room and +walked past their table. Roger’s host became abruptly silent. The +newcomer threw him an abrupt nod and passed on.</p> + +<p>Roger’s host leant forward across the table and spoke in the +hushed tones of one to whom a revelation has been vouchsafed. +“Talk of the devil! That was Bendix himself. First time I’ve seen +him in here since it happened. Poor devil! It knocked him all to +pieces, you know. I’ve never seen a man so devoted to his wife. +It was a byword. Did you see how ghastly he looked?” All this in +a tactful whisper that must have been far more obvious to the +subject of it had he happened to be looking their way than the +loudest bellowing.</p> + +<p>Roger nodded shortly. He had caught a glimpse of Bendix’s +face and been shocked by it even before he learned his identity. +It was haggard and pale and seamed with lines of bitterness, +prematurely old. “Hang it all,” he now thought, much moved, +“somebody really must make an effort. If the murderer isn’t found +soon it will kill that chap too.”</p> + +<p>Aloud he said, somewhat at random and certainly without +tact: “He didn’t exactly fall on your neck. I thought you two were +such bosom friends?”</p> + +<p>His host looked uncomfortable. “Oh, well, you must make +allowances just at present,” he hedged. “Besides, we weren’t <em>bosom</em> +friends exactly. As a matter of fact he was a year or two senior +to me. Or it might have been three even. We were in different +houses too. And he was on the modern side of course (can you +imagine the son of his father being anything else?), while I was +a classical bird.”</p> + +<p>“I see,” said Roger quite gravely, realising that his host’s actual +contact with Bendix at school had been limited, at most, to that +of the latter’s toe with the former’s hinder parts.</p> + +<p>He left it at that.</p> + +<p>For the rest of lunch he was a little inattentive. Something was +nagging at his brain, and he could not identify it. Somewhere, +somehow, during the last hour, he felt, a vital piece of +information had been conveyed to him and he had never grasped its +importance.</p> + +<p>It was not until he was putting on his coat half-an-hour later, +and for the moment had given up trying to worry his mind into +giving up its booty, that the realisation suddenly came to him +unbidden, in accordance with its usual and maddening way. +He stopped dead, one arm in his coat-sleeve, the other in act to +fumble.</p> + +<p>“<em>By Jove!</em>” he said softly.</p> + +<p>“Anything the matter, old man?” asked his host, now mellowed +by much port.</p> + +<p>“No, thanks; nothing,” said Roger hastily, coming to earth +again.</p> + +<p>Outside the club he hailed a taxi.</p> + +<p>For probably the first time in her life Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer +had given somebody a constructive idea.</p> + +<p>For the rest of the day Roger was very busy indeed.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch10"> + +<h2>Chapter X</h2> + +<p>The President called on Mr. Bradley to hold forth.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bradley stroked his moustache and mentally shot his +cuffs.</p> + +<p>He had begun his career (when still Percy Robinson) as a +motor-salesman, and had discovered that there is more money +in manufacturing. Now he manufactured detective stories, and +found his former experience of the public’s gullibility not unhelpful. +He was still his own salesman, but occasionally had difficulty +in remembering that he was no longer mounted on a stand at +Olympia. Everything and everybody in this world, including +Morton Harrogate Bradley, he heartily despised, except only Percy +Robinson. He sold, in tens of thousands.</p> + +<p>“This is rather unfortunate for me,” he began, in the correct +gentlemanly drawl, as if addressing an audience of morons. “I +had rather been under the impression that I should be expected +to produce as a murderer the most unlikely person, in the usual +tradition; and Mrs. Fielder-Flemming has cut the ground away +from under my feet. I don’t see how I can possibly find you a more +unlikely murderer than Sir Charles here. All of us who have the +misfortune to speak after Mrs. Fielder-Flemming will have to be +content to pile up so many anti-climaxes.</p> + +<p>“Not that I haven’t done my best. I studied the case according +to my own lights, and it led me to a conclusion which +certainly surprised myself quite a lot. But as I said, after the +last speaker it will probably seem to everybody else a dismal +anti-climax. Let me see now, where did I begin? Oh, yes; with +the poison.</p> + +<p>“Now the use of nitrobenzene as the poisoning agent interested +me quite a lot. I find it extremely significant. Nitrobenzene +is the last thing one would expect inside those chocolates. I’ve +made something of a study of poisons, in connection with my +work, and I’ve never heard of nitrobenzene being employed in +a criminal case before. There are cases on record of its use in +suicide, and in accidental poisoning, but not more than three or +four all told.</p> + +<p>“I’m surprised that this point doesn’t seem to have struck +either of my predecessors. The really interesting thing is that so +few people know nitrobenzene as a poison at all. Even the experts +don’t. I was speaking to a man who got a Science scholarship at +Cambridge and specialised in chemistry, and he had actually never +heard of it as a poison. As a matter of fact I found I knew a good +deal more about it than he did. A commercial chemist would +certainly never think of it as among the ordinary poisons. It isn’t +even listed as such, and the list is comprehensive enough. Well, +all this seems most significant to me.</p> + +<p>“Then there are other points about it. It’s used most extensively +in commerce. In fact it’s the kind of thing that might be used in +almost any manufacture. It’s a solvent, of quite a universal kind. +We’ve been told that its chief use is in making aniline dyes. That +may be the most important one, but it certainly isn’t the most +extensive. It’s used a lot in confectionery, as we were also told, and +in perfumery as well. But really I can’t attempt to give you a list +of its uses. They range from chocolates to motor-car tyres. The +important thing is that it’s perfectly easy to get hold of.</p> + +<p>“For that matter it’s perfectly easy to make too. Any schoolboy +knows how to treat benzol with nitric acid to get nitrobenzene. +I’ve done it myself a hundred times. The veriest smattering of +chemical knowledge is all that’s wanted, and nothing in the way +of expensive apparatus. Or, so far as that goes, it could be done +equally by somebody without any chemical knowledge at all; that +is, the actual process of making it. Oh, and it could be made quite +secretly by the way. Nobody need even guess. But I think just a +little chemical knowledge at any rate would be wanted, ever to +set one about making it at all. At least, for this particular purpose.</p> + +<p>“Well, so far as the case as a whole was concerned, this use of +nitrobenzene seemed to me not only the sole original feature but +by far the most important piece of evidence. Not in the way that +prussic acid is valuable evidence for the reason that prussic acid is +so hard to obtain, because once its use was determined anybody +could get hold of or make nitrobenzene, and that of course is a +tremendous point in favour of it from the would-be murderer’s +point of view. No, what I mean is that the sort of person who +would ever think of employing the stuff at all ought to be +definable within surprisingly narrow limits.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Bradley stopped a moment to light a cigarette, and if he +was secretly pleased that his fellow-members showed the extent +to which he had engaged their interest by not uttering a word +until he was ready to go on, he did not divulge the fact. Surveying +them for a moment as if inspecting a class composed entirely of +half-wits, he took up his argument again.</p> + +<p>“First of all, then, we can credit this user of nitrobenzene +with a minimum at any rate of chemical knowledge. Or perhaps +I ought to qualify that. Either chemical knowledge, or specialised +knowledge. A chemist’s assistant, for instance, who was interested +enough in his job to read it up after shop-hours would fit the +bill for the first case, and a woman employed in a factory where +nitrobenzene was used and where the employees had been warned +against its poisonous properties would do for an example of the +second. There are two kinds of person, it seems to me, who +might think of using the stuff as a poison at all, and the first kind +is subdivided into the two classes I’ve mentioned.</p> + +<p>“But it’s the second kind that I think we are much more probably +dealing with in this crime. This is a more intelligent sort of +person altogether.</p> + +<p>“In this category the chemist’s assistant becomes an amateur +dabbler in chemistry, the girl in the factory a woman-doctor, let us +say, with an interest in toxicology, or, to get away from the specialist, +a highly intelligent lady with a strong interest in criminology +particularly on its toxicological side—just, in fact, like Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming here.” Mrs. Fielder-Flemming gasped indignantly and +Sir Charles, though momentarily startled at the unexpected quarter +from which was dealt this tit for the tats he had lately suffered +at the gasping lady’s hands, emitted the next instant a sound which +from anybody else could only have been described as a guffaw. “All +of them, you understand,” continued Mr. Bradley with complete +serenity, “the kind of people who might be expected not only +to keep a Taylor’s Medical Jurisprudence on their shelves but to +consult it frequently.</p> + +<p>“I agree with you, you see, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, that the +method of this crime does show traces of criminological knowledge. +You cited one case which was certainly a remarkable parallel, +Sir Charles cited another, and I am going to cite yet a third. It is a +regular jumble of old cases, and I am quite sure, as you are, that +this is something more than a mere coincidence. I’d arrived at +this conclusion myself, of criminological knowledge, before you +mentioned it at all, and I was helped to it as well by the strong +feeling that whoever sent those chocolates to Sir Eustace possesses +a Taylor. That is a pure guess, I admit, but in my copy of Taylor +the article on nitrobenzene occurs on the very next page after +cyanide of potassium; and there seems to me food for thought +there.” The speaker paused a moment.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chitterwick nodded. “I think I see. You mean, anybody +deliberately searching the pages for a poison that would fulfil +certain requirements. . . ?”</p> + +<p>“Exactly,” Mr. Bradley concurred.</p> + +<p>“You lay great stress on this matter of the poison,” Sir Charles +remarked, almost genial. “Do you tell us that you think you’ve +identified the murderer by deductions drawn from this one point +alone?”</p> + +<p>“No, Sir Charles, I don’t think I can go quite so far as that. +I lay so much stress on it because, as I said, it’s the only really +original feature of the crime. By itself it won’t solve the problem, +but considered in conjunction with other features I do think it +should go a long way towards doing so—or at any rate provide +such a check on a person suspected for other reasons as to turn +suspicion into certainty.</p> + +<p>“Let’s look at it for instance in the light of the crime as a whole. +I think the first thing one realises is that this crime is the work not +only of an intelligent person but of a well-educated one too. Well, +you see, that rules out at once the first division of people who +might be expected to think of using nitrobenzene as the poisoning +agent. Gone are our chemist’s assistant and our factory-girl. We +can concentrate on our intelligent, well-educated person, with +an interest in criminology, some knowledge of toxicology, and, +if I’m not very much mistaken (and I very seldom am), a copy of +Taylor or some similar book on his or her shelves.</p> + +<p>“That, my dear Watsons, is what the criminal’s singular choice +of nitrobenzene has to tell me.” And Mr. Bradley stroked the +growth on his upper lip with an offensive complacency that was +not wholly assumed. Mr. Bradley took some pains to impress on +the world how pleased he was with himself, but the pose was not +without its foundation in fact.</p> + +<p>“Most ingenious, certainly,” murmured Mr. Chitterwick, duly +impressed.</p> + +<p>“So now let’s get on with it,” observed Miss Dammers, not +at all impressed. “What’s your theory? That is, if you’ve really +got one.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’ve got one all right.” Mr. Bradley smiled in a superior +manner. This was the first time he had succeeded in provoking +Miss Dammers to snap at him, and he was rather pleased. “But +let’s take things in their proper order. I want to show you how +inevitably I was led to my conclusion, and I can only do that by +tracing out my own footsteps, so to speak. Having made my +deductions from the poison itself, then, I set about examining the +other clues to see if they would lead me to a result that I could +check by the other. First of all I concentrated on the notepaper +of the forged letter, the only really valuable clue apart from the +poison.</p> + +<p>“Now this piece of notepaper puzzled me. For some reason, +which I couldn’t identify, the name of Mason’s seemed to strike +a reminiscent note to me. I felt sure that I’d heard of Mason’s in +some other connection than just through their excellent +chocolates. At last I remembered.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid I must touch here on the personal, and I apologise +in advance, Sir Charles, for the lapse of taste. My sister, before she +married, was a shorthand-typist.” Mr. Bradley’s extreme languor +all of a sudden indicated that he felt this connection needed some +defence and was determined not to give it. The next instant he +gave it. “That is to say, her education put her on rather a different +level from the usual shorthand-typist, and she was, in point of +fact, a trained secretary.</p> + +<p>“She had joined an establishment run by a lady who supplied +secretaries to business firms to take the places temporarily of +girls in responsible positions who were ill, or away on holiday, +or anything like that. Including my sister there were only two +or three girls at the place, and the posts they went to only lasted +as a rule for two or three weeks. Each girl would therefore have +a good many such posts in the course of a year. However, I did +remember distinctly that one of the firms to which my sister went +while she was there was Mason’s, as temporary secretary to one +of the directors.</p> + +<p>“This seemed to me possibly useful. It wouldn’t be likely that +she could throw a sidelight on the murder, but at any rate she +might be able to give me introductions to one or two members +of Mason’s staff if necessary. So I went down to see her +about it.</p> + +<p>“She remembered quite well. It was between three and four +years ago, and she liked being there so much that she had thought +quite seriously of putting in for a permanent secretaryship with +the firm, should one be available. Naturally she hadn’t got to +know any of the staff really well, but quite enough to give me +the introductions if I wanted them.</p> + +<p>“ ‘By the way,’ I happened to say to her casually, ‘I saw the letter +that was sent to Sir Eustace with the chocolates, and not only +Mason’s name but the actual paper itself struck me as familiar. I +suppose you wrote to me on it while you were there?’</p> + +<p>“ ‘I don’t know that I ever did that,’ she said, ‘but of course +the paper was familiar to you. You’ve played paper-games here +often enough, haven’t you? You know we always use it. It’s such a +convenient size.’ Paper-games, I should explain, have always been +a favourite thing in our family.</p> + +<p>“It’s funny how a connection will stick in the mind, but not +the actual circumstances of it. Of course I remembered then at +once. There was quite a pile of the paper, in one of the drawers +of my sister’s writing-table. I’d often torn it into strips for our +paper-games myself.</p> + +<p>“ ‘But how did you get hold of it?’ I asked her.</p> + +<p>“It seemed to me that she answered rather evasively, just saying +that she’d got it from the office when she was working there. I +pressed her, and at last she told me that one evening she was just +on the point of leaving the office when she remembered that +some friends were coming in after dinner at home. We should +almost certainly play a paper-game of some kind, and we had run +out of suitable paper. She hurried up the stairs again back to the +office, dumped her attaché-case on the table and opened it, hastily +snatched up some paper from the pile beside her typewriter, and +threw it into the case. In her hurry she didn’t realise how much +she’d taken, and that supply, which was supposed to tide us over +one evening, had actually lasted for nearly four years. She must +have taken something like half a ream.</p> + +<p>“Well, I went away from my sister’s house rather startled. +Before I left I examined the remaining sheets, and so far as I +could see they were exactly like the one on which the letter +was typed. Even the edges were a little discoloured too. I was +more than startled: I was alarmed. Because I ought to tell you +that it had already occurred to me that of all the ways of going +about the search for the person who had sent that letter to Sir +Eustace, the one that seemed most hopeful was to look for its +writer among the actual employees, or ex-employees, of the +firm itself.</p> + +<p>“As a matter of fact this discovery of mine had a more disconcerting +side still. On thinking over the case the idea had struck me +that in the two matters of the notepaper and the method itself +of the crime it was quite possible that the police, and every one +else, had been putting the cart before the horse. It had been taken +for granted apparently that the murderer had first of all decided +on the method, and then set about getting hold of the notepaper +to carry it out.</p> + +<p>“But isn’t it far more feasible that the notepaper should have +been already there, in the criminal’s ownership, and that it was +the chance possession of it which actually suggested the method +of the crime? In that case, of course, the likelihood of the +notepaper being traced to the murderer would be very small indeed, +whereas in the other case there is always that possibility. Had that +occurred to you for instance, Mr. President?”</p> + +<p>“I must admit that it hadn’t,” Roger confessed. “And yet, like +Holmes’s tricks, the possibility’s evident enough now it’s brought +forward. I must say, it strikes me as being a very sound point, +Bradley.”</p> + +<p>“Psychologically, of course,” agreed Miss Dammers, “it’s +perfect.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you,” murmured Mr. Bradley. “Then you’ll be able to +understand just how disconcerting that discovery of mine was. +Because if there was anything in that point at all, anybody who +had in his or her possession some old notepaper of Mason’s, with +slightly discoloured edges, immediately became suspect.”</p> + +<p>“Hr-r-r-r-mph!” Sir Charles cleared his throat forcibly by way +of comment. The implication was obvious. Gentlemen don’t +suspect their own sisters.</p> + +<p>“Dear, dear,” clucked Mr. Chitterwick, more humanly.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bradley went on to pile up the agony. “And there was +another thing, which I could not overlook. My sister before she +went in for her training as a secretary, had played with the idea of +becoming a hospital nurse. She went through a short course in +nursing as a young girl, and was always thoroughly interested in +it. She would read not only books on nursing itself, but medical +books too. Several times,” said Mr. Bradley solemnly, “I’ve seen her +studying my own copy of Taylor, apparently quite absorbed in it.”</p> + +<p>He paused again, but this time nobody commented. The +general feeling was that this was getting really too much of a +good thing.</p> + +<p>“Well, I went home and thought it over. Of course it seemed +absurd to put my own sister on the list of suspects, and at the very +head of it too. One doesn’t connect one’s own circle with the idea +of murder. The two things don’t mix at all. Yet I couldn’t fail to +realise that if it had been anybody else in question but my sister +I should be feeling quite jubilant over the prospect of solving the +case. But as things were, what was I to do?</p> + +<p>“In the end,” said Mr. Bradley smugly, “I did what I thought +my duty and faced the situation. I went back to my sister’s house +the next day and asked her squarely whether she had ever had any +kind of relations with Sir Eustace Pennefather, and if so what. She +looked at me blankly and said that up till the time of the murder +she had never heard of the man. I believed her. I asked her if she +could remember what she had been doing on the evening before +the murder. She looked at me still more blankly and said that +she had been in Manchester with her husband at that time, they +had stayed at the Peacock Hotel, and in the evening had been to +a cinema where they had seen a film called, so far as she could +recall, <i>Fires of Fate</i>. Again I believed her.</p> + +<p>“As a matter of routine precaution however I checked her +statements later and found them perfectly correct; for the time +of the posting of the parcel she had an unshakable alibi. I felt +more relieved than I can say.” Mr. Bradley spoke in a low voice, +with pathos and restraint, but Roger caught his eye as he looked +up and there was a mocking glint in it which made the President +feel vaguely uneasy. The trouble with Mr. Bradley was that one +never quite knew with him.</p> + +<p>“Having drawn a blank with my first ticket, then, I tabulated +the conclusions I’d formed to date and set about considering the +other points in the case.</p> + +<p>“It then struck me that the Chief Inspector from Scotland +Yard had been somewhat reticent about the evidence that night +he addressed us. So I rang him up and asked him a few questions +that had occurred to me. From him I learnt that the typewriter +was a Hamilton No. 4, that is, the ordinary Hamilton model; that +the hand-printed address on the cover was written with a +fountain-pen, almost certainly an Onyx fitted with a medium-broad nib; +that the ink was Harfield’s Fountain-Pen Ink; and that there was +nothing to be learned from the wrapping-paper (ordinary brown) +or the string. That there were no finger-prints anywhere we had +been told.</p> + +<p>“Well, I suppose I ought not to admit it, considering how I +earn my living, but upon my soul I haven’t the faintest idea how a +professional detective goes about a job of work,” said Mr. Bradley +with candour. “It’s easy enough in a book, of course, because there +are a certain number of things which the author wants found out +and these he lets his detective discover, and no others. In real life, +no doubt, it doesn’t pan out quite like that.</p> + +<p>“Anyhow, what I did was to copy my own detectives’ methods +and set about the business in as systematic a way as I could. That +is to say, I made a careful list of all the available evidence, both as +to fact and to character (and it was surprising how much there was +when one came to tabulate it), and drew as many deductions as I +could from each piece, at the same time trying to keep a perfectly +open mind as to the identity of the person who was to hatch out +from my nest of completed conclusions.</p> + +<p>“In other words,” said Mr. Bradley, not without severity, “I did +<em>not</em> decide that Lady A or Sir Somebody B had such a good motive +for the crime that she or he must undoubtedly have done it, and +then twist my evidence to fit this convenient theory.”</p> + +<p>“Hear, hear!” Roger felt constrained to approve.</p> + +<p>“Hear, hear!” echoed in turn both Alicia Dammers and Mr. +Ambrose Chitterwick.</p> + +<p>Sir Charles and Mrs. Fielder-Flemming glanced at each other +and then hastily away again, for all the world like two children in +a Sunday-school who have been caught doing quite the wrong +thing together.</p> + +<p>“Dear me,” murmured Mr. Bradley, “this is all very exhausting. +May I have five minutes’ rest, Mr. President, and half a cigarette?”</p> + +<p>The President kindly gave Mr. Bradley an interval in which +to restore himself.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch11"> + +<h2>Chapter XI</h2> + +<p>“I have always thought,” resumed Mr. Bradley, +restored, “I have always thought that murders may be +divided into two classes, closed or open. By a closed murder I +mean one committed in a certain closed circle of persons, such +as a house-party, in which it is known that the murderer is limited +to membership of that actual group. This is by far the commoner +form in fiction. An open murder I call one in which the criminal +is not limited to any particular group but might be almost any +one in the whole world. This, of course, is almost invariably what +happens in real life.</p> + +<p>“The case with which we’re dealing has this peculiarity, that +one can’t place it quite definitely in either category. The police say +that it’s an open murder; both our previous speakers here seem +to regard it as a closed one.</p> + +<p>“It’s a question of the motive. If one agrees with the police that +it is the work of some fanatic or criminal lunatic, then it certainly +is an open murder; anybody without an alibi in London that night +might have posted the parcel. If one’s of the opinion that the +motive was a personal one, connected with Sir Eustace himself, +then the murderer is confined to the closed circle of people who +have had relations of one sort or another with Sir Eustace.</p> + +<p>“And talking of posting that parcel, I must just make a diversion +to tell you something really interesting. For all I know to the +contrary, I might have seen the murderer with my own eyes, in +the very act of posting it! As it happened, I was passing through +Southampton Street that evening at just about a quarter to nine. +Little did I guess, as Mr. Edgar Wallace would say, that the first +act of this tragic drama was possibly being unfolded at that very +minute under my unsuspecting nose. Not even a premonition +of disaster caused me to falter in my stride. Providence was +evidently being somewhat close with premonitions that night. +But if only my sluggish instincts had warned me, how much +trouble I might have saved us all. Alas,” said Mr. Bradley sadly, +“such is life.</p> + +<p>“However, that’s neither here nor there. We were discussing +closed and open murders.</p> + +<p>“I was determined to form no definite opinions either way, so +to be on the safe side I treated this as an open murder. I then had +the position that every one in the whole wide world was under +suspicion. To narrow down the field a little, I set to work to build +up the one individual who really did it, out of the very meagre +indications he or she had given us.</p> + +<p>“I had the conclusions drawn already from the choice of +nitrobenzene, which I’ve explained to you. But as a corollary to +the good education, I added the very significant postscript: but +not public-school or university. Don’t you agree, Sir Charles? It +simply wouldn’t be done.”</p> + +<p>“Public-school men have been known to commit murders +before now,” pointed out Sir Charles, somewhat at sea.</p> + +<p>“Oh, granted. But not in such an underhand way as this. +The public-school code does stand for something, surely, even +in murder. So, I am sure, any public-school man would tell me. +This isn’t a gentlemanly murder at all. A public-school man, if he +could ever bring himself to anything so unconventional as murder, +would use an axe or a revolver or something which would bring +him and his victim face to face. He would never murder a man +behind his back, so to speak. I’m quite sure of that.</p> + +<p>“Then another obvious conclusion is that he’s exceptionally +neat with his fingers. To unwrap those chocolates, drain them, +re-fill them, plug up the holes with melted chocolate, and wrap +them up in their silver paper again to look as if they’ve never +been tampered with—I can tell you, that’s no easy job. And all in +gloves too, remember.</p> + +<p>“I thought at first that the beautiful way it was done pointed +strongly to a woman. However, I carried out an experiment and +got a dozen or so of my friends to try their hands at it, men and +women, and out of the whole lot I was the only one (I say it +without any particular pride) who made a really good job of it. +So it wasn’t necessarily a woman. But manual dexterity’s a good +point to establish.</p> + +<p>“Then there was the matter of the exact six-minim dose in each +chocolate. That’s very illuminating, I think. It argues a methodical +turn of mind amounting to a real passion for symmetry. There +are such people. They can’t bear that the pictures on a wall don’t +balance each other exactly. I know, because I’m rather that way +myself. Symmetry is synonymous with order, to my mind. I can +quite see how the murderer came to fill the chocolates in that way. +I should probably have done so myself. Unconsciously.</p> + +<p>“Then I think we can credit him or her with a creative mind. A +crime like this isn’t done on the spur of the moment. It’s deliberately +created, bit by bit, scene by scene, built up exactly as a play +is built up. Don’t you agree, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming?”</p> + +<p>“It wouldn’t have occurred to me, but it may be true.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes; a lot of thought must have gone to the carrying of it +through. I don’t think we need worry about the plagiarism from +other crimes. The greatest creative minds aren’t above adapting +the ideas of other people to their own uses. I do myself. So do +you, I expect, Sheringham; so do you, no doubt, Miss Dammers; +so do you at times, I should imagine, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming. Be +honest now, all of you.”</p> + +<p>A subdued murmur of honesty acknowledged occasional +lapses in this direction.</p> + +<p>“Of course. Look how Sullivan used to adapt old church +music, and turn a Gregorian chant into <i>A Pair of Sparkling Eyes</i>, +or something equally unchantlike. It’s permissible. Well, there’s +all that to help with the portrait of our unknown and, lastly, there +must be present in his or her mental make-up the particular cold, +relentless inhumanity of the poisoner. That’s all, I think. But it’s +something, isn’t it? One ought to be able to go a fair way towards +recognising our criminal if one ever ran across a person with these +varied characteristics.</p> + +<p>“Oh, and there’s one other point I mustn’t forget. The parallel +crime. I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned this. To my mind it’s a +closer parallel than any we’ve had yet. It isn’t a well-known case, +but you’ve all probably heard of it. The murder of Dr. Wilson, at +Philadelphia, just twenty years ago.</p> + +<p>“I’ll run through it briefly. This man Wilson received one morning +what purported to be a sample bottle of ale, sent to him by a +well-known brewery. There was a letter with it, written apparently +on their official notepaper, and the address-label had the firm’s +name printed on it. Wilson drank the beer at lunch, and died +immediately. The stuff was saturated with cyanide of potassium.</p> + +<p>“It was soon established that the beer hadn’t come from the +brewery at all, which had sent out no samples. It had been delivered +through the local express company, but all they could say was +that it had been sent to them for delivery by a man. The printed +label and the letter-paper had been forged, printed specially for +the occasion.</p> + +<p>“The mystery was never solved. The printing-press used to +print the letter-heading and label couldn’t be traced, though the +police visited every printing-works in the whole of America. The +very motive for the murder was never even satisfactorily ascertained. +A typical open murder. The bottle arrived out of the blue, +and the murderer remained in it.</p> + +<p>“You see the close resemblance to this case, particularly in the +supposed sample. As Mrs. Fielder-Flemming has pointed out, it’s +almost too good to be a coincidence. Our murderer <em>must</em> have +had that case in mind, with its (for the murderer) most successful +outcome. As a matter of fact there was a possible motive. Wilson +was a notorious abortionist, and somebody may have wanted to +stop his activities. Conscience, I suppose. There are people who +have such a thing. That’s another parallel with this affair, you see. +Sir Eustace is a notorious evil-liver. And that goes to support the +police view, of an anonymous fanatic. There’s a good deal to be +said for that view, I think.</p> + +<p>“But I must get on with my own exposition.</p> + +<p>“Well, having reached this stage I tabulated my conclusions and +drew up a list of conditions which this criminal of ours must fulfil. +Now I should like to point out that these conditions of mine were +so many and so varied that if anybody could be found to fit them +the chances, Sir Charles, would not be a mere million to one but +several million to one that he or she must be the guilty person. +This isn’t just haphazard statement, it’s cold mathematical fact.</p> + +<p>“I have twelve conditions, and the mathematical odds against +their all being fulfilled in one person are actually (if my +arithmetic stands the test) four hundred and seventy-nine million, one +thousand and six hundred to one. And that, mark you, is if all +the chances were even ones. But they’re not. That he should have +some knowledge of criminology is at least a ten to one chance. +That he should be able to get hold of Mason’s notepaper must +be more than a hundred to one against.</p> + +<p>“Well, taking it all in all,” opined Mr. Bradley, “I should think +the real odds must be somewhere about four billion, seven hundred +and ninety thousand million, five hundred and sixteen thousand, +four hundred and fifty-eight to one. In other words, it’s a +snip. Does every one agree?”</p> + +<p>Every one was far too stunned to disagree.</p> + +<p>“Right; then we’re all of one mind,” said Mr. Bradley +cheerfully. “So I’ll read you my list.”</p> + +<p>He shuffled the pages of a little pocket-book and began to +read:—</p> + +<blockquote> + + <p class="head">Conditions to be Filled by the Criminal.</p> + + <p>1. Must have at least an elementary amount of chemical + knowledge.</p> + + <p>2. Must have at least an elementary knowledge of + criminology.</p> + + <p>3. Must have had a reasonably good education, but not + public school or University.</p> + + <p>4. Must have possession of, or access to, Mason’s + notepaper.</p> + + <p>5. Must have possession of, or access to, a Hamilton No. + 4 typewriter.</p> + + <p>6. Must have been in the neighbourhood of Southampton + Street, Strand, during the critical hour, 8.30–9.30, on + the evening before the murder.</p> + + <p>7. Must be in possession of, or had access to, an Onyx + fountain-pen, fitted with a medium-broad nib.</p> + + <p>8. Must be in possession of, or had access to, Harfield’s + Fountain-Pen Ink.</p> + + <p>9. Must have something of a creative mind, but not above + adapting the creations of others.</p> + + <p>10. Must be more than ordinarily neat with the fingers.</p> + + <p>11. Must be a person of methodical habits, probably with + a strong feeling for symmetry.</p> + + <p>12. Must have the cold inhumanity of the poisoner.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>“By the way,” said Mr. Bradley, stowing away his pocket-book +again, “you see that I’ve agreed with you too, Sir Charles, that the +murderer would never have entrusted the posting of the parcel +to another person. Oh, and one other point. For purposes of +reference. If anybody wants to see an Onyx pen, and fitted with +a medium-broad nib as well, take a look at mine. And curiously +enough it’s filled with Harfield’s Fountain-Pen Ink too.” The pen +circulated slowly round the table while Mr. Bradley, leaning back +in his chair, surveyed its progress with a fatherly smile.</p> + +<p>“And that,” said Mr. Bradley, when the pen had been restored +to him, “is that.”</p> + +<p>Roger thought he saw the explanation of the glint that had +appeared from time to time in Mr. Bradley’s eye. “You mean, the +problem’s still to solve. The four billion chances were too much +for you. You couldn’t find any one to fit your own conditions?”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Mr. Bradley, apparently most reluctant all of a +sudden, “if you must know, I have found some one who does.”</p> + +<p>“You have? Good man! Who?”</p> + +<p>“Hang it all, you know,” said the coy Mr. Bradley, “I hardly like +to tell you. It’s really too ridiculous.”</p> + +<p>A chorus of expostulation, cajolement, and encouragement +was immediately directed at him. Never had Mr. Bradley found +himself so popular.</p> + +<p>“You’ll laugh at me if I do tell you.”</p> + +<p>It appeared that everybody would rather suffer the tortures of +the Inquisition than laugh at Mr. Bradley. Never can five people +less disposed to mirth at Mr. Bradley’s expense have been +gathered together.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bradley seemed to take heart. “Well, it’s very awkward. +Upon my soul I don’t know what to do about it. If I can show you +that the person I have in mind not only fulfils each of my conditions +exactly, but also had a certain interest (remote I admit, but +capable of proof) in sending those chocolates to Sir Eustace, have +I your assurance, Mr. President, that the meeting will give me its +serious advice as to what my duty is in the matter?”</p> + +<p>“Good gracious, yes,” at once agreed Roger, much excited. +Roger had thought that he might be on the verge of solving the +problem himself, but he was quite sure that he and Bradley had +not hit upon the same solution. And if the fellow really had got +some one . . . “Good Lord, yes!” said Roger.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bradley looked round the table in a worried way. “Well, +can’t you see who I mean? Dear me, I thought I’d told you in +almost every other sentence.”</p> + +<p>Nobody had seen whom he meant.</p> + +<p>“The only possible person, so far as I can see, who could ever +be expected to fulfil all those twelve conditions?” said this harassed +version of Mr. Bradley, dishevelling his carefully flattened hair. +“Why, dash it, not my sister at all, but—but—but <em>me</em>, of course!”</p> + +<p>There was a stupefied silence.</p> + +<p>“D‑did you say, <em>you</em>?” finally ventured Mr. Chitterwick.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bradley turned gloomy eyes on him. “Obviously, I’m +afraid. I have more than an elementary knowledge of chemistry. +I can make nitrobenzene and often have. I’m a criminologist. +I’ve had a reasonably good education, but not public-school +or University. I had access to Mason’s notepaper. I possess a +Hamilton No. 4 typewriter. I was in Southampton Street itself +during the critical hour. I possess an Onyx pen, fitted with a +medium-broad nib and filled with Harfield’s ink. I have something +of a creative mind, but I’m not above adapting the ideas +of other people. I’m far more than ordinarily neat with my +fingers. I’m a person of methodical habits, with a strong +feeling for symmetry. And apparently I have the cold inhumanity +of the poisoner.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” sighed Mr. Bradley, “there’s simply no getting away from +it. <em>I</em> sent those chocolates to Sir Eustace.</p> + +<p>“I must have done. I’ve proved it conclusively. And the extraordinary +thing is that I don’t remember a single jot about it. I suppose +I did it when I was thinking about something else. I’ve noticed +I’m getting a little absent-minded at times.”</p> + +<p>Roger was struggling with an inordinate wish to laugh. +However he managed to ask gravely enough: “And what do you +imagine was your motive, Bradley?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Bradley brightened a little. “Yes, that was a difficulty. For +quite a time I couldn’t establish my motive at all. I couldn’t even +connect myself with Sir Eustace Pennefather. I’d heard of him of +course, as anybody who’s ever been to the Rainbow must. And I’d +gathered he was somewhat savoury. But I’d no grudge against the +man. He could be as savoury as he liked so far as I cared. I don’t +think I’d ever even seen him. Yes, the motive was a real +stumbling-block, because of course there must be one. What should I have +tried to kill him for otherwise?”</p> + +<p>“And you’ve found it?”</p> + +<p>“I think I’ve managed to ferret out what must be the real +cause,” said Mr. Bradley, not without pride. “After puzzling for +a long time I remembered that I had heard myself once say to +a friend, in a discussion on detective-work, that the ambition of +my life was to commit a murder, because I was perfectly certain +that I could do so without ever being found out. And the +excitement, I pointed out, must be stupendous; no gambling game ever +invented can come anywhere near it. A murderer is really making +a magnificent bet with the police, I demonstrated, with the lives +of himself and his victim as the stakes; if he gets away with it, he +wins both; if he’s caught, he loses both. For a man like myself, +who has the misfortune to be extremely bored by the usual type +of popular recreation, murder should be the hobby <i>par excellence</i>.”</p> + +<p>“Ah!” Roger nodded portentously.</p> + +<p>“This conversation, when I recalled it,” pursued Mr. Bradley +very seriously, “seemed to me significant in the extreme. I at once +went to see my friend and asked him if he remembered it and was +prepared to swear that it took place at all. He was. In fact he was +able to add further details, more damning still. I was so impressed +that I took a statement from him.</p> + +<p>“Amplifying my notion (according to his statement), I had +gone on to consider how it could best be carried out. The +obvious thing, I had decided, was to select some figure of whom +the world would be well rid, not necessarily a politician (I was +at some pains to avoid the obvious, apparently), and simply +murder him at a distance. To play the game, one should leave a +clue or two, more or less obscure. Apparently I left rather more +than I intended.</p> + +<p>“My friend concluded by saying that I went away from him +that evening expressing the firmest intention of carrying out +my first murder at the earliest opportunity. Not only would +the practice make such an admirable hobby, I told him, but the +experience would be invaluable to a writer of detective-stories +such as myself.</p> + +<p>“That, I think,” said Mr. Bradley with dignity, “establishes my +motive only too certainly.”</p> + +<p>“Murder for experiment,” remarked Roger. “A new category. +Most interesting.”</p> + +<p>“Murder for jaded pleasure-seekers,” Mr. Bradley corrected +him. “There is a precedent, you know. Loeb and Leopold. Well, +there you have it. Have I proved my case, Mr. President?”</p> + +<p>“Completely, so far as I can see. I can’t detect a flaw in your +argument.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve been at some pains to make it a good deal more water-tight +than I ever bother to do in my books. You could argue a +very nasty case against me in court on those lines, couldn’t you, +Sir Charles?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I should want to go into it a little more closely, but at +first sight, Bradley, I admit that so far as circumstantial evidence +is worth (and in my opinion, as you know, it is worth everything), +I can’t see room for very much doubt that you sent those +chocolates to Sir Eustace.”</p> + +<p>“And if I said here and now that in sober truth I <em>did</em> send them?” +persisted Mr. Bradley.</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t disbelieve you.”</p> + +<p>“And yet I didn’t. But given time, I’m quite prepared to prove +to you just as convincingly that the person who really sent them +was the Archbishop of Canterbury, or Sybil Thorndike, or Mrs. +Robinson-Smythe of The Laurels, Acacia Road, Upper Tooting, or +the President of the United States, or anybody else in this world +you like to name.</p> + +<p>“So much for proof. I built that whole case up against myself +out of the one coincidence of my sister having a few sheets of +Mason’s notepaper. I told you nothing but the truth. But I didn’t +tell you the whole truth. Artistic proof is, like artistic anything +else, simply a matter of selection. If you know what to put in +and what to leave out you can prove anything you like, quite +conclusively. I do it in every book I write, and no reviewer has ever +hauled me over the coals for slipshod argument yet. But then,” +said Mr. Bradley modestly, “I don’t suppose any reviewer has ever +read one of my books.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it was a very ingenious piece of work,” Miss Dammers +summed up. “And most instructive.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you,” murmured Mr. Bradley, with gratitude.</p> + +<p>“And what it all amounts to,” Mrs. Fielder-Flemming delivered +a somewhat tart verdict, “is that you haven’t the faintest idea who +is the real criminal.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I know <em>that</em>, of course,” said Mr. Bradley languidly. “But +I can’t prove it. So it’s not much good telling you.”</p> + +<p>Everybody sat up.</p> + +<p>“You’ve found some one else, in spite of the odds, to fit those +conditions of yours?” demanded Sir Charles.</p> + +<p>“I suppose she must,” admitted Mr. Bradley, “as she did it. But +unfortunately I haven’t been able to check them all.”</p> + +<p>“She!” Mr. Chitterwick caught him up.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, it was a woman. That was the most obvious thing +about the whole case—and incidentally one of the things I was +careful to leave out just now. Really, I wonder that’s never been +mentioned before. Surely if there’s anything evident about this +affair at all it is that it’s a woman’s crime. It would never occur to +a man to send poisoned chocolates to another man. He’d send a +poisoned sample razor-blade, or whisky, or beer like the unfortunate +Dr. Wilson’s friend. Quite obviously it’s a woman’s crime.”</p> + +<p>“I wonder,” Roger said softly.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bradley threw him a sharp glance. “You don’t agree, +Sheringham?”</p> + +<p>“I only wondered,” said Roger. “But it’s a very defendable point.”</p> + +<p>“Impregnable, I should have said,” drawled Mr. Bradley.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Miss Dammers, impatient of these minor matters, +“aren’t you going to tell us who did it, Mr. Bradley?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Bradley looked at her quizzically. “But I said that it wasn’t +any good, as I can’t prove it. Besides, there’s a small matter of the +lady’s honour involved.”</p> + +<p>“Are you resuscitating the law of slander, to get you out of a +difficulty?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, dear me, no. I wouldn’t in the least mind giving her away +as a murderess. It’s a much more important thing than that. She +happens to have been Sir Eustace’s mistress at one time, you see, +and there’s a code governing that sort of thing.”</p> + +<p>“Ah!” said Mr. Chitterwick.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bradley turned to him politely. “You were going to say +something?”</p> + +<p>“No, no. I was just wondering whether you’d been thinking +on the same lines as I have. That’s all.”</p> + +<p>“You mean the discarded mistress theory?”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Mr. Chitterwick uncomfortably, “yes.”</p> + +<p>“Of course. You’d hit on that line of research, too?” Mr. +Bradley’s tone was that of a benevolent headmaster patting a +promising pupil on the head. “It’s the right one, obviously. Viewing +the crime as a whole, and in the light of Sir Eustace’s character, a +discarded mistress, radiating jealousy, stands out like a beacon in +the middle of it. That’s one of the things I conveniently omitted +too from my list of conditions—No. 13, the criminal must be a +woman. And touching on artistic proof again, both Sir Charles +and Mrs. Fielder-Flemming practised it, didn’t they? Both of them +omitted to establish any connection of nitrobenzene with their +respective criminals, though such a connection is vital to both +their cases.”</p> + +<p>“Then you really think jealousy is the motive?” Mr. Chitterwick +suggested.</p> + +<p>“I’m absolutely convinced of it,” Mr. Bradley assured him. +“But I’ll tell you something else of which I’m not by any means +convinced, and that is that the intended victim really was Sir +Eustace Pennefather.”</p> + +<p>“Not the intended victim?” queried Roger, very uneasily. “How +do you make that out?”</p> + +<p>“Why, I’ve discovered,” said Mr. Bradley, dissembling his pride, +“that Sir Eustace had had an engagement for lunch on the day +of the murder. He seems to have been very secretive about it, +and it was certainly with a woman; and not only with a woman, +but with a woman in whom Sir Eustace was more than a little +interested. I think probably not Miss Wildman, but somebody of +whom he was anxious that Miss Wildman shouldn’t know. But +in my opinion the woman who sent the chocolates knew. The +appointment was cancelled, but the other woman might not have +known that.</p> + +<p>“My suggestion (it’s only a suggestion, and I can’t substantiate +it in any way at all except that it makes chocolates still more +reasonable) is that those chocolates were intended not for Sir +Eustace at all but for the sender’s rival.”</p> + +<p>“Ah!” breathed Mrs. Fielder-Flemming.</p> + +<p>“This is quite a new idea,” complained Sir Charles.</p> + +<p>Roger had been hastily conning over the names of Sir Eustace’s +various ladies. He had been unable to fit one before into the +crime, and he was unable now; yet he did not think that any +had escaped him. “If the woman you’re thinking of, Bradley, the +sender,” he said tentatively, “really was a mistress of Sir Eustace, +I don’t think you need worry about being too punctilious. Her +name is almost certainly on the lips of the whole Rainbow Club +in that connection, if not of every club in London. Sir Eustace is +not a reticent man.”</p> + +<p>“I can assure Mr. Bradley,” said Miss Dammers with irony, +“that Sir Eustace’s standard of honour falls a good deal short of +his own.”</p> + +<p>“In this case,” Mr. Bradley told them, unmoved, “I think not.”</p> + +<p>“How is that?”</p> + +<p>“Because I’m quite sure that apart from my unconscious +informant, and Sir Eustace, and myself, there is nobody who +knows of the connection at all. Except the lady, of course,” added +Mr. Bradley punctiliously. “Naturally it would not have escaped +her.”</p> + +<p>“Then how did you find out?” demanded Miss Dammers.</p> + +<p>“That,” Mr. Bradley informed her equably, “I regret that I’m +not at liberty to say.”</p> + +<p>Roger stroked his chin. Could there be another one of whom +he had never heard? In that case, how would this new theory of +his continue to stand up?</p> + +<p>“Your so close parallel falls to the ground, then?” Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming was stating.</p> + +<p>“Not altogether. But if it does, I’ve got another just as good. +Christina Edmunds. Almost the same case, with the insanity left +out. Jealousy-mania. Poisoned chocolates. What could be better?”</p> + +<p>“Humph! The mainstay of your last case, I gathered,” observed +Sir Charles, “or at any rate the starting-point, was the choice of +nitrobenzene. I suppose that, and the deductions you drew from +it, are equally important to this one. Are we to take it that this +lady is an amateur chemist, with a copy of Taylor on her shelves?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Bradley smiled gently. “That, as you rightly point out, was +the mainstay of my <em>last</em> case, Sir Charles. It isn’t of this one. I’m +afraid my remarks on the choice of poison were rather special +pleading. I was leading up to a certain person, you see, and therefore +only drew the deductions which suited that particular person. +However, there was a good deal of possible truth in them for all +that, though I wouldn’t rate their probability quite as high as I +pretended to do then. I’m quite prepared to believe that nitrobenzene +was used simply because it’s so easy to get hold of. But it’s +perfectly true that the stuff’s hardly known as a poison at all.”</p> + +<p>“Then you make no use of it in your present case?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, I do. I still think the point that the criminal not so +much used it as knew of it to use, is a perfectly sound one. The +reason for that knowledge should be capable of being established. +I stuck out before for a copy of some such book as Taylor as the +reason, and I still do. As it happens this good lady <em>has</em> got a copy +of Taylor.”</p> + +<p>“She <em>is</em> a criminologist, then?” Mrs. Fielder-Flemming pounced.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bradley leaned back in his chair and gazed at the ceiling. +“That, I should think, is very much open to question. Frankly, I’m +puzzled over the matter of criminology. Myself, I don’t see that +lady as an ‘-ist’ of any description. Her function in life is perfectly +obvious, the one she fulfilled for Sir Eustace, and I shouldn’t +have thought her capable of any other. Except to powder her +nose rather charmingly, and look extremely decorative; but all +that’s part and parcel of her real <i>raison d’être</i>. No, I don’t think +she could possibly be a criminologist, any more than a canary-bird +could. But she certainly has a smattering of criminology, +because in her flat there’s a whole bookshelf filled with works +on the subject.”</p> + +<p>“She’s a personal friend of yours, then?” queried Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming, very casually.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no. I’ve only met her once. That was when I called at +her flat with a bran-new copy of a recently published book of +popular murders under my arm, and represented myself as a +traveller for the publisher soliciting orders for the book; might I +have the pleasure of putting her name down? The book had only +been out four days, but she proudly showed me a copy of it on +her shelves already. Was she interested in criminology, then? Oh, +yes, she simply adored it; murder was <em>too</em> fascinating, wasn’t it? +Conclusive, I think.”</p> + +<p>“She sounds a bit of a fool,” commented Sir Charles.</p> + +<p>“She looks like a bit of a fool,” agreed Mr. Bradley. “She +talks like a bit of a fool. Meeting her at a tea-fight, I should have +said she <em>is</em> a bit of a fool. And yet she carried through a really +cleverly planned murder, so I don’t see how she can be a bit of +a fool.”</p> + +<p>“It doesn’t occur to you,” remarked Miss Dammers, “that +perhaps she never did anything of the sort?”</p> + +<p>“Well, no,” Mr. Bradley had to confess. “I’m afraid it doesn’t. I +mean, a comparatively recent discarded mistress of Sir Eustace’s +(well, not more than three years ago, and hope dies hard), who +thinks no small champagne of herself and considers murder too +fascinating for words. Well, really!</p> + +<p>“By the way, if you want any confirmatory evidence that she +had been one of Sir Eustace’s lady-loves, I might add that I saw a +photograph of him in her flat. It was in a frame that had a very +wide border. The border showed the word ‘Your’ and conveniently +cut off the rest. Not ‘Yours,’ notice, but ‘Your.’ I think it’s +a reasonable assumption that something quite affectionate lies +under that discreet border.”</p> + +<p>“I have it from his own lips that Sir Eustace changes his +mistresses as often as his hats,” Miss Dammers said briskly. +“Isn’t it possible that more than one may have suffered from a +jealousy-complex?”</p> + +<p>“But not, I think, have possessed a copy of Taylor as well,” +Mr. Bradley insisted.</p> + +<p>“The criminological-knowledge factor seems to have taken the +place in this case of the nitrobenzene factor in the last,” meditated +Mr. Chitterwick. “Am I right in thinking that?”</p> + +<p>“Quite,” Mr. Bradley assured him kindly. “That, in my opinion, +is the really important clue. It’s so emphasised, you see. We get it +from two entirely different angles, the choice of poison and the +reminiscent features of the case. In fact we’re coming up against +it all the time.”</p> + +<p>“Well, well,” muttered Mr. Chitterwick, reproving himself as +one might who had been coming up against a thing all the time +and never even noticed it.</p> + +<p>There was a short silence, which Mr. Chitterwick imputed +(quite wrongly) to a general condemnation of his own obtuseness.</p> + +<p>“Your list of conditions,” Miss Dammers resumed the charge. +“You said you hadn’t been able to check all of them. Which does +this woman definitely fulfil, and which haven’t you been able to +check?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Bradley assumed an air of alertness. “No. 1, I don’t know +whether she has any chemical knowledge. No. 2, I do know that +she has at least an elementary knowledge of criminology. No. 3, +she is almost certain to have had a reasonably good education +(though whether she ever learnt anything is quite a different +matter), and I think we may assume that she was never at a +public-school. No. 4, I haven’t been able to connect her with +Mason’s notepaper, except in so far as she has an account at +Mason’s; and if that is good enough for Sir Charles, it’s good +enough for me. No. 5, I haven’t been able to connect her with a +Hamilton typewriter, but that ought to be quite easy; one of her +friends is sure to have one.</p> + +<p>“No. 6, she could have been in the neighbourhood of +Southampton Street. She tried to establish an alibi, but bungled +it badly; it’s full of holes. She’s supposed to have been in a theatre, +but she didn’t even get there till well past nine. No. 7, I saw +an Onyx fountain-pen on her bureau. No. 8, I saw a bottle of +Harfield’s Fountain-Pen Ink in one of the pigeon-holes of the +bureau.</p> + +<p>“No. 9, I shouldn’t have said she had a creative mind; I shouldn’t +have said that she had a mind at all; but apparently we must give +her the benefit of any doubt there is. No. 10, judging from her +face, I should say she was very neat with her fingers. No. 11, if she +is a person of methodical habits she must feel it an incriminating +point, for she certainly disguises it very well. No. 12, this I think +might be amended, to ‘must have the poisoner’s complete lack +of imagination.’ That’s the lot.”</p> + +<p>“I see,” said Miss Dammers. “There are gaps.”</p> + +<p>“There are,” Mr. Bradley agreed blandly. “To tell the truth, I +know this woman must have done it because really, you know, +she must. But I can’t believe it.”</p> + +<p>“Ah!” said Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, putting a neat sentence +into one word.</p> + +<p>“By the way, Sheringham,” remarked Mr. Bradley, “you know +the bad lady.”</p> + +<p>“I do, do I?” said Roger, apparently coming out of a trance. “I +thought I might. Look here, if I write a name down on a piece of +paper, do you mind telling me if I’m right or wrong?”</p> + +<p>“Not in the least,” replied the equable Mr. Bradley. “As a matter +of fact I was going to suggest something like that myself. I think +as President you ought to know who I mean, in case there is +anything in it.”</p> + +<p>Roger folded his piece of paper in two and tossed it down the +table. “That’s the person, I suppose.”</p> + +<p>“You’re quite right,” said Mr. Bradley.</p> + +<p>“And you base most of your case on her reasons for interesting +herself in criminology?”</p> + +<p>“You might put it like that,” conceded Mr. Bradley.</p> + +<p>In spite of himself Roger blushed faintly. He had the best of +reasons for knowing why Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer professed such +an interest in criminology. Not to put too fine a point on it, the +reasons had been almost forced on him.</p> + +<p>“Then you’re absolutely wrong, Bradley,” he said without +hesitation. “Absolutely.”</p> + +<p>“You know definitely?”</p> + +<p>Roger suppressed an involuntary shudder. “Quite definitely.”</p> + +<p>“You know, I never believed she did it,” said the philosophical +Mr. Bradley.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch12"> + +<h2>Chapter XII</h2> + +<p>Roger was very busy.</p> + +<p>Flitting in taxis hither and thither, utterly regardless of what +the clocks had to tell him, he was trying to get his case completed +before the evening. His activities might have seemed to that +artless criminologist, Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer, not only baffling +but pointless.</p> + +<p>On the previous afternoon, for instance, he had taken his +first taxi to the Holborn Public Library and there consulted a +work of reference of the most uninspiring description. After +that he had driven to the offices of Messrs. Weall and Wilson, +the well-known firm which exists to protect the trade interests +of individuals and supply subscribers with highly confidential +information regarding the stability of any business in which it is +intended to invest money.</p> + +<p>Roger, glibly representing himself as a potential investor of +large sums, had entered his name as a subscriber, filled up a +number of the special enquiry forms which are headed Strictly +Confidential, and not consented to go away until Messrs. Weall +and Wilson had promised, in consideration of certain extra +moneys, to have the required information in his hands within +twenty-seven hours.</p> + +<p>He had then bought a newspaper and gone to Scotland Yard. +There he sought out Moresby.</p> + +<p>“Moresby,” he said without preamble, “I want you to do +something important for me. Can you find me a taximan who +took up a fare in Piccadilly Circus or its neighbourhood at about +ten minutes past nine on the night before the Bendix murder, +and deposited same at or near the Strand end of Southampton +Street? And/or another taxi who took up a fare in the Strand near +Southampton Street at about a quarter-past nine, and deposited +same in the neighbourhood of Piccadilly Circus? The second is +the more likely of the two; I’m not quite sure about the first. Or +one taxi might have been used for the double journey, but I doubt +that very much. Do you think you can do this for me?”</p> + +<p>“We may not get any results, after all this time,” said Moresby +doubtfully. “It’s really important, is it?”</p> + +<p>“Quite important.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll try of course, seeing it’s you, Mr. Sheringham, +and I know I can take your word for it that it is important. But I +wouldn’t for any one else.”</p> + +<p>“That’s fine,” said Roger with much heartiness. “Make it pretty +urgent, will you? And you might give me a ring at the Albany at +about tea-time to-morrow, if you think you’ve got hold of my +man.”</p> + +<p>“What’s the idea, then, Mr. Sheringham?”</p> + +<p>“I’m trying to break down a rather interesting alibi,” said +Roger.</p> + +<p>He went back to his rooms to dine.</p> + +<p>After the meal his head was buzzing far too busily for him to be +able to do anything else but take it for a walk. Restlessly he +wandered out of the Albany and turned down Piccadilly. He ambled +round the Circus, thinking hard, and paused for a moment out of +habit to inspect with unseeing eyes the photographs of the new +revue hanging outside the Pavilion. The next thing he realised was +that he must have turned down the Haymarket and swung round +in a wide circle into Jermyn Street, for he was standing outside the +Imperial Theatre in that fascinating thoroughfare, idly watching +the last of the audience crowding in.</p> + +<p>Glancing at the advertisements of <i>The Creaking Skull</i>, he saw +that the terrible thing began at half-past eight. Glancing at his +watch, he saw that the time was twenty-nine minutes past that +hour.</p> + +<p>There was an evening to be got through somehow.</p> + +<p>He went inside.</p> + +<p>The night passed somehow, too.</p> + +<p>Early the next morning (or early, that is, for Roger; say +half-past ten), in a bleak spot somewhere beyond the bounds +of civilisation, in short in Acton, Roger found himself +parleying with a young woman in the offices of the Anglo-Eastern +Perfumery Company. The young woman was entrenched behind +a partition just inside the main entrance, her only means of +communication with the outer world being through a small +window fitted with frosted glass. This window she would open (if +summoned long and loudly enough) to address a few curt replies +to importunate callers, and this window she would close with a +bang by way of a hint that the interview, in her opinion, should +now be closed.</p> + +<p>“Good morning,” said Roger blandly, when his third rap had +summoned this maiden from the depths of her fastness. “I’ve +called to—”</p> + +<p>“Travellers, Tuesdays and Friday mornings, ten to eleven,” +said the maiden surprisingly, and closed the window with one of +her best bangs. That’ll teach him to try and do business with a +respectable English firm on a Thursday morning, good gracious +me, said the bang.</p> + +<p>Roger stared blankly at the closed window. Then it dawned on +him that a mistake had been made. He rapped again. And again.</p> + +<p>At the fourth rap the window flew open as if something had +exploded behind it. “I’ve told you already,” snapped the maiden, +righteously indignant, “that we only see—”</p> + +<p>“I’m not a traveller,” said Roger hastily. “At least,” he added +with meticulousness, thinking of the dreary deserts he had +explored before finding this inhospitable oasis, “at least, not a +commercial one.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t want to sell anything?” asked the maiden suspiciously. +Impregnated with all that is best in the go-ahead spirit of +English business methods, she naturally looked with the deepest +distrust on anybody who might possibly wish to do such an +unbusinesslike thing as <em>sell</em> her firm something.</p> + +<p>“Nothing,” Roger assured her with the utmost earnestness, +impressed in his turn with the revolting vulgarity of such a +proceeding.</p> + +<p>On these conditions it appeared that the maiden, though by no +means ready to take him to her bosom, was prepared to tolerate +him for a few seconds. “Well, what <em>do</em> you want then?” she asked, +with an air of weariness patiently, even nobly borne. From her +tone it was to be gathered that very few people penetrated as far +as that door unless with the discreditable intention of trying to +do business with her firm. Just fancy—business!</p> + +<p>“I’m a solicitor,” Roger told her now, without truth, “and I’m +enquiring into the matter of a certain Mr. Joseph Lea Hardwick, +who was employed here. I regret to say that—”</p> + +<p>“Sorry, never heard of the gentleman,” said the maiden shortly, +and intimated in her usual way that the interview had lasted quite +long enough.</p> + +<p>Once more Roger got busy with his stick. After the seventh +application he was rewarded with another view of indignant +young English girlhood.</p> + +<p>“I’ve told you already—”</p> + +<p>But Roger had had about enough of this. “And now, young +woman, let me tell <em>you</em> something. If you refuse to answer my +questions, let me warn you that you may find yourself in very +serious trouble. Haven’t you ever heard of contempt of court?” +There are times when some slight juggling with the truth is +permissible. There are times, too, when even a shrewd blow with a +bludgeon may be excused. This time was one of both.</p> + +<p>The maiden, though far from cowed, was at last impressed. +“Well, what do you want to know then?” she asked, resignedly.</p> + +<p>“This man, Joseph Lea Hardwick—”</p> + +<p>“I’ve told you, I’ve never heard of him.”</p> + +<p>As the gentleman in question had enjoyed an existence of only +two or three minutes, and that solely in Roger’s brain, his creator +was not unprepared for this. “It is possible that he was known to +you under a different name,” he said darkly.</p> + +<p>The maiden’s interest was engaged. More, she looked positively +alarmed. She spoke shrilly. “If it’s divorce, let me tell you +you can’t hang anything on <em>me</em>. I never even knew he was married. +Besides, it isn’t as if there was a cause. I mean to say—well, at +least—anyhow, it’s a pack of lies. I never—”</p> + +<p>“It isn’t divorce,” Roger hastened to stem the tide, himself +scarcely less alarmed at these quite unmaidenly revelations. +“It’s—it’s nothing to do with your private life at all. It’s about a +man who was employed here.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” The late maiden’s relief turned rapidly into indignation. +“Well, why couldn’t you say so?”</p> + +<p>“Employed here,” pursued Roger firmly, “in the nitrobenzene +department. You have a nitrobenzene department, haven’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Not that I’m aware of, I’m sure.”</p> + +<p>Roger made the noise that is usually spelt “Tchah! You know +perfectly well what I mean. The department which handles the +nitrobenzene used here. You are hardly prepared to deny that +nitrobenzene <em>is</em> used here, I hope? And extensively?”</p> + +<p>“Well, and what if it is?”</p> + +<p>“It has been reported to my firm that this man met his death +through insufficient warning having been issued to the employees +here about the dangerous nature of this substance. I should like—”</p> + +<p>“What? One of our men died? I don’t believe it. I should have +been the first to know if—”</p> + +<p>“It’s been hushed up,” Roger inserted quickly. “I should like +you to show me a copy of the warning that is hung up in the +factory about nitrobenzene.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’m sorry then, but I’m afraid I can’t oblige you.”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to tell me,” said Roger, much shocked, “that no +warning is issued at all to your employees about this most dangerous +substance? They’re not even told that it is a deadly poison?”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t say that, did I? Of course they’re warned that it’s +poisonous. Everybody is. And they’re most careful about the way it’s +handled, I’m sure. It just happens that there isn’t a warning hung +up. And if you want to know any more about it, you’d better see +one of the directors. I’ll—”</p> + +<p>“Thank you,” said Roger, speaking the truth at last, “I’ve +learned all I wanted. Good morning.” He retreated jubilantly.</p> + +<p>He retreated to Webster’s, the printers, in a taxi.</p> + +<p>Webster’s of course are to printing what Monte Carlo is +to the Riviera. Webster’s, practically speaking, <em>are</em> printing. So +where more naturally should Roger go if he wanted some new +notepaper printed in a very special and particular way, as +apparently he did?</p> + +<p>To the young woman behind the counter who took him in +charge he specified at great length and in the most meticulous +detail exactly what he did want. The young woman handed him +her book of specimen pieces and asked him to see if he could +find a style there which would suit him. While he looked through +it she turned to another customer. Not to palter with the truth, +that young woman had been getting a little weary of Roger and +his wants.</p> + +<p>Apparently Roger could not find a style to suit him, for he +closed the book and edged a little along the counter till he +was within the territory of the next young woman. To her in +turn he embarked on the epic of his needs, and in turn too she +presented him with her book of specimens and asked him to +choose one. As the book was only another copy of the same +edition, it is not surprising that Roger found himself no further +forward.</p> + +<p>Once more he edged along the counter, and once more he +recited his saga to the third, and last, young woman. Knowing +the game, she handed him her book of specimens. But this time +Roger had his reward. This book was one of the same edition, +but it was not an exact copy.</p> + +<p>“Of course I’m sure you’ll have what I want,” he remarked +garrulously as he flicked over the pages, “because I was +recommended here by a friend who is really most particular. <em>Most</em> +particular.”</p> + +<p>“Is that so?” said the young woman, doing her best to appear +extremely interested. She was a very young woman indeed, young +enough to study the technique of salesmanship in her spare time; +and one of the first rules in salesmanship, she had learned, was +to receive a customer’s remark that it is a fine day with the same +eager and respectful admiration of the penetrating powers of his +observation as she would accord to a fortune-teller who informed +her that she would receive a letter from a dark stranger across the +water containing an offer of money, on her note of hand alone. +“Well,” she said, trying hard, “some people are particular, and +that’s a fact.”</p> + +<p>“Dear me!” Roger seemed much struck. “Do you know, I +believe I’ve got my friend’s photograph on me this very minute. +Isn’t that an extraordinary coincidence?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I never,” said the dutiful young woman.</p> + +<p>Roger produced the coincidental photograph and handed it +across the counter. “There! Recognise it?”</p> + +<p>The young woman took the photograph and studied it closely. +“So that’s your friend! Well, isn’t that extraordinary? Yes, of course +I recognise it. It’s a small world, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“About a fortnight ago, I think my friend was in here last,” +Roger persisted. “Is that right?”</p> + +<p>The young woman pondered. “Yes, it would be about a fortnight +ago, I suppose. Yes, just about. Now this is a line we’re selling +a good deal of just at present.”</p> + +<p>Roger bought an inordinate quantity of notepaper he didn’t +want in the least, out of sheer lightness of heart. And because +she really was a very nice young woman, and it was a shame to +take advantage of her.</p> + +<p>Then he went back to his rooms for lunch.</p> + +<p>Most of the afternoon he spent in trying apparently to buy a +second-hand typewriter.</p> + +<p>Roger was very particular that his typewriter should be a +Hamilton No. 4. When the salesmen tried to induce him to +consider other makes he refused to look at them, saying that he +had had the Hamilton No. 4 so strongly recommended to him +by a friend, who had bought a second-hand one just about three +weeks ago. Perhaps it was at this very shop? No? They hadn’t sold +a Hamilton No. 4 for the last two months? How very odd.</p> + +<p>But at one shop they had; and that was odder still. The obliging +salesman looked up the exact date, and found that it was just +a month ago. Roger described his friend, and the salesman at +once agreed that Roger’s friend and his own customer were one +and the same.</p> + +<p>“Good gracious, and now I come to think of it,” Roger cried, +“I actually believe I’ve got my friend’s photograph on me at this +very minute. Let me see!” He rummaged in his pockets, and to +his great astonishment produced the photograph in question.</p> + +<p>The salesman most obligingly proceeded to identify his +customer without hesitation. He then went on, just as obligingly, +to sell Roger the second-hand Hamilton No. 4 which that +enthusiastic detective felt he had not the face to refuse to buy. +Detecting, Roger was discovering, is for the person without +official authority to back him, a singularly expensive business. +But like Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, he did not grudge money spent +in a good cause.</p> + +<p>He went back to his rooms to tea. There was nothing more +to be done except await the call from Moresby.</p> + +<p>It came sooner than he expected.</p> + +<p>“Is that you, Mr. Sheringham? There are fourteen taxi-drivers +here, littering up my office,” said Moresby offensively. “They all +took fares from Piccadilly Circus to the Strand, or <i>vice versa</i>, at +your time. What do you want me to do with ’em?”</p> + +<p>“Kindly keep them till I come, Chief Inspector,” returned +Roger with dignity, and grabbed his hat. He had not expected +more than three at the most, but he was not going to let Moresby +know that.</p> + +<p>The interview with the fourteen was brief enough however. To +each grinning man in turn (Roger deduced a little heavy humour +on the part of Moresby before he arrived) Roger showed the +photograph, taking some pains to hold it so that Moresby could +not see it, and asked if he could recognise his fare. Not a single +one could.</p> + +<p>Moresby dismissed the men with a broad grin. “That’s a pity, +Mr. Sheringham. Puts a bit of a spoke in the case you’re trying +to work up, no doubt?”</p> + +<p>Roger smiled at him in a superior manner. “On the contrary, +my dear Moresby, it just about clinches it.”</p> + +<p>“It what did you say?” asked Moresby, startled out of his +grammar. “What are you up to, Mr. Sheringham, eh?”</p> + +<p>“I thought you knew all that. Aren’t we being sleuthed?”</p> + +<p>“Well!” Moresby actually looked a shade out of countenance. +“To tell you the truth, Mr. Sheringham, all your people seemed +to be going so far off the lines that I called my men off; it didn’t +seem worth while keeping ’em on.”</p> + +<p>“Dear, dear,” said Roger gently. “Fancy that. Well, it’s a small +world, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“So what have you been doing, Mr. Sheringham? You’ve no +objection to telling me that, I suppose?”</p> + +<p>“None in the least, Moresby. Your work for you. Does it interest +you to know that I’ve found out who sent those chocolates +to Sir Eustace?”</p> + +<p>Moresby eyed him for a moment. “It certainly does, Mr. +Sheringham. If you really have.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I have, yes,” said Roger very nonchalantly; even Mr. +Bradley himself could not have spoken more so. “I’ll give you a +report on it as soon as I’ve got my evidence in order.—It was an +interesting case,” he added. And suppressed a yawn.</p> + +<p>“Was it now, Mr. Sheringham?” said Moresby, in a choked +voice.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes; in its way. But absurdly simple once one had grasped +the really essential factor. Quite ridiculously so. I’ll let you have +that report some time. So long, then.” And he strolled out.</p> + +<p>One cannot conceal the fact that Roger had his annoying +moments.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch13"> + +<h2>Chapter XIII</h2> + +<p>Roger called on himself.</p> + +<p>“Ladies and gentlemen, as the one responsible for this experiment, +I think I can congratulate myself. The three members who +have spoken so far have shown an ingenuity of observation and +argument which I think could have been called forth by no other +agency. Each was convinced before beginning to speak that he or +she had solved the problem and could produce positive proof in +support of such solution, and each, I think, is still entitled to say +that his or her reading of the puzzle has not yet been definitely +disproved.</p> + +<p>“Even Sir Charles’s choice of Lady Pennefather is perfectly +arguable, in spite of the positive alibi that Miss Dammers is able +to give to Lady Pennefather herself; Sir Charles is quite entitled +to say that Lady Pennefather has an accomplice, and to adduce +in support of that the rather dubious circumstances attending +her stay in Paris.</p> + +<p>“And in this connection I should like to take the opportunity +of retracting what I said to Bradley last night. I said that I knew +definitely that the woman he had in mind could not have committed +the murder. That was a mis-statement. I didn’t know definitely +at all. I found the idea, from what I personally know of her, to +be quite incredible.</p> + +<p>“Moreover,” said Roger bravely, “I have some reason to suspect +the origin of her interest in criminology, and I’m pretty +sure it’s quite a different one from that postulated by Bradley. +What I should have said was, that her guilt of this crime was a +psychological impossibility. But so far as facts go, one can’t prove +psychological impossibilities. Bradley is still perfectly entitled to +believe her the criminal. And in any case she must certainly remain +on the list of suspects.”</p> + +<p>“I agree with you, Sheringham, you know, about the psychological +impossibility,” remarked Mr. Bradley. “I said as much. The +trouble is that I consider I proved the case against her.”</p> + +<p>“But you proved the case against yourself too,” pointed out +Mrs. Fielder-Flemming sweetly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes; but that doesn’t worry me with its inconsistency. +That involves no psychological impossibility, you see.”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Mrs. Fielder-Flemming. “Perhaps not.”</p> + +<p>“Psychological impossibility!” contributed Sir Charles robustly. +“Oh, you novelists. You’re all so tied up with Freud nowadays +that you’ve lost sight of human nature altogether. When I was +a young man nobody talked about psychological impossibilities. +And why? Because we knew very well that there’s no such thing.”</p> + +<p>“In other words, the most improbable person may, in certain +circumstances, do the most unlikely things,” amplified Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming. “Well, I may be old-fashioned, but I’m inclined +to agree with that.”</p> + +<p>“Constance Kent,” led Sir Charles.</p> + +<p>“Lizzie Borden,” Mrs. Fielder-Flemming covered.</p> + +<p>“The entire Adelaide Bartlett case,” Sir Charles brought out +the ace of trumps.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fielder-Flemming gathered the cards up into a neat pack. +“In my opinion, people who talk of psychological impossibilities +are treating their subjects as characters in one of their own +novels—they’re infusing a certain percentage of their own mental +make-up into them and consequently never see clearly that what +they think may be the impossible for themselves may quite well +be the possible (however improbable) in somebody else.”</p> + +<p>“Then there is something to be said after all for the detective +story merchant’s axiom of the most unlikely person,” murmured +Mr. Bradley. “Good!”</p> + +<p>“Shall we hear what Mr. Sheringham’s got to say about the +case now?” suggested Miss Dammers.</p> + +<p>Roger took the hint.</p> + +<p>“I was going on to say how interestingly the experiment had +turned out, too, in that the three people who have already spoken +happen each to have hit on a different person for the criminal. I, by +the way, am going to suggest another, so even if Miss Dammers +and Mr. Chitterwick each agree with one of us, that gives us four +entirely different possibilities. I don’t mind confessing that I’d +hoped something like that would happen, though I hardly looked +for such an excellent result.</p> + +<p>“Still, as Bradley has pointed out in his remarks about closed +and open murders, the possibilities in this case really are almost +infinite. That, of course, makes it so much more interesting from +our point of view. For instance, I began my own investigations +from the point of view of Sir Eustace’s private life. It was there, +I felt convinced, that the clue to the murder was to be found. Just +as Bradley did. And like him, I thought that this clue would be in +the form of a discarded mistress; jealousy or revenge, I was sure, +would turn out to be the mainspring of the crime. Lastly, like him +I was convinced from the very first glance at the business that the +crime was the work of a woman.</p> + +<p>“The consequence was that I began work entirely from the +angle of Sir Eustace’s women. I spent a good many not too +savoury days collecting data, until I was convinced that I had a +complete list of all his affairs during the past five years. It was not +too difficult. Sir Eustace, as I said last night, is not a reticent man. +Apparently I had not got the full list, for mine hadn’t included +the lady whose name was not mentioned last night, and if there +was one omission it’s possible there may be more. At any rate, it +seems that Sir Eustace, to do him justice, did have his moments +of discretion.</p> + +<p>“But now all that is really beside the point. What matters is +that at first I was certain that the crime was the work not only of +a woman, but of a woman who had comparatively recently been +Sir Eustace’s mistress.</p> + +<p>“I have now changed all my opinions, <i>in toto</i>.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, really!” moaned Mr. Bradley. “Don’t tell me I was wrong +all along the line.”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid so,” said Roger, trying to keep the triumph out +of his voice. It is a difficult thing, when one has really and truly +solved a problem which has baffled so many excellent brains, to +appear entirely indifferent about it.</p> + +<p>“I regret to have to say,” he went on, hoping he appeared +humbler than he felt, “I regret to have to say that I can’t claim all +credit for this change of view for my own perspicacity. To be quite +honest, it was sheer luck. A chance meeting with a silly woman in +Bond Street put me in possession of a piece of information, trivial +in itself (my informant never for one moment saw its possible +significance), but which immediately altered the whole case for +me. I saw in a flash that I’d been working from the beginning on +mistaken premises. That I’d been making, in fact, the particular +fundamental mistake which the murderer had intended the police +and everybody else to make.</p> + +<p>“It’s a curious business, this element of luck in the solution of +crime-puzzles,” Roger ruminated. “As it happens I was discussing +it with Moresby, in connection with this very case. I pointed out +to him the number of impossible problems which Scotland Yard +solves eventually through sheer luck—a vital piece of evidence +turning up of its own accord so to speak, or a piece of information +brought in by an angry woman because her husband happened +to have given her grounds for jealousy just before the crime. +That sort of thing is happening all the time. <i>The Avenging Chance</i>, +I suggested as a title, if Moresby ever wanted to make a film out +of such a story.</p> + +<p>“Well, The Avenging Chance has worked again. By means of +that lucky encounter in Bond Street, in one moment of enlightenment +it showed me who really had sent those chocolates to Sir +Eustace Pennefather.”</p> + +<p>“Well, well, well!” Mr. Bradley kindly expressed the feelings +of the Circle.</p> + +<p>“And who was it, then?” queried Miss Dammers, who had +an unfortunate lack of dramatic feeling. For that matter Miss +Dammers was inclined to plume herself on the fact that she +had no sense of construction, and that none of her books ever +had a plot. Novelists who use words like ‘values’ and ‘reflexes’ +and ‘Œdipus-complex’ simply won’t have anything to do with +plots. “Who appeared to you in this interesting revelation, Mr. +Sheringham?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, let me work my story up a little first,” Roger pleaded.</p> + +<p>Miss Dammers sighed. Stories, as Roger as a fellow-craftsman +ought to have known, simply weren’t done nowadays. But then +Roger was a best-seller, and anything is possible with a creature +like that.</p> + +<p>Unconscious of these reflections, Roger was leaning back in +his chair in an easy attitude, meditating gently. When he began +to speak again it was in a more conversational tone than he had +used before.</p> + +<p>“You know, this really was a very remarkable case. You and +Bradley, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, didn’t do the criminal justice +when you described it as a hotch-potch of other cases. Any ideas +of real merit in previous cases may have been borrowed, perhaps; +but as Fielding says, in <i>Tom Jones</i>, to borrow from the classics, even +without acknowledgment, is quite legitimate for the purposes of +an original work. And this <em>is</em> an original work. It has one feature +which not only absolves it from all charge to the contrary, but +which puts it head and shoulders above all its prototypes.</p> + +<p>“It’s bound to become one of the classical cases itself. And but +for the merest accident, which the criminal for all his ingenuity +couldn’t possibly have foreseen, I think it would have become +one of the classical mysteries. On the whole I’m inclined to +consider it the most perfectly-planned murder I’ve ever heard +of (because of course one doesn’t hear of the even more +perfectly-planned ones that are never known to be murders at all). +It’s so exactly right—ingenious, utterly simple, and as near as +possible infallible.”</p> + +<p>“Humph! Not so very infallible, as it turned out, Sheringham, +eh?” grunted Sir Charles.</p> + +<p>Roger smiled at him.</p> + +<p>“The motive’s so obvious, when you know where to look for +it; but you didn’t know. The method’s so significant, once you’ve +grasped its real essentials; but you didn’t grasp them. The traces +are so thinly covered, when you’ve realised just what is covering +them; but you didn’t realise. Everything was anticipated. The +soap was left lying about in chunks, and we all hurried to stuff +our eyes with it. No wonder we couldn’t see clearly. It really was +beautifully planned. The police, the public, the press—everybody +completely taken in. It seems almost a pity to have to give the +murderer away.”</p> + +<p>“Really, Mr. Sheringham,” remarked Mrs. Fielder-Flemming. +“You’re getting quite lyrical.”</p> + +<p>“A perfect murder makes me feel lyrical. If I was this particular +criminal I should have been writing odes to myself for the last +fortnight.”</p> + +<p>“And as it is,” suggested Miss Dammers, “you feel like writing +odes to yourself for having solved the thing.”</p> + +<p>“I do rather,” Roger agreed.</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll begin with the evidence. As to that, I won’t say that +I’ve got such a collection of detail as Bradley was able to amass +to prove his first theory, but I think you’ll all agree that I’ve got +quite enough. Perhaps I can’t do better than run through his list +of twelve conditions which the murderer must fulfil, though as +you’ll see I don’t by any means agree with all of them.</p> + +<p>“I grant and can prove the first two, that the murderer must +have at least an elementary knowledge of chemistry and criminology, +but I disagree with both parts of the third; I don’t think +a good education is really essential, and I should certainly not +rule out any one with a public-school or university education, for +reasons which I’ll explain later. Nor do I agree with the fourth, +that he or she must have had possession of or access to Mason’s +notepaper. It was an ingenious idea of Bradley’s that the +possession of the notepaper suggested the method of the crime, but I +think it mistaken; a previous case suggested the method, chocolates +were decided on (for a very good reason indeed, as I’ll show +later) as the vehicle, and Mason’s as being the most important +firm of chocolate manufacturers. It then became necessary to +procure a piece of their notepaper, and I’m in a position to show +how this was done.</p> + +<p>“The fifth condition I would qualify. I don’t agree that the +criminal must have possession of or access to a Hamilton No. 4 +typewriter, but I do agree that such possession must have existed. +In other words, I would put that condition in the past tense. +Remember that we have to deal with a very astute criminal, and a +very carefully planned crime. I thought it most unlikely that such +an incriminating piece of evidence as the actual typewriter would +be allowed to lie about for anyone to discover. Much more probable +that a machine had been bought specially for the occasion. It +was clear from the letter that it wasn’t a new machine which had +been used. With the courage of my deduction, therefore, I spent +a whole afternoon making inquiries at second-hand typewriter-shops +till I ran down the place where it had been bought, and +proved the buying. The shopman was able to identify my murderer +from a photograph I had with me.”</p> + +<p>“And where’s the machine now?” asked Mrs. Fielder-Flemming +eagerly.</p> + +<p>“I expect, at the bottom of the Thames. That’s my point. This +criminal of mine leaves nothing to chance at all.</p> + +<p>“With the sixth condition, about being near the post-office +during the critical hour, of course I agree. My murderer has a mild +alibi, but it doesn’t hold water. As to the next two, the fountain-pen +and the ink, I haven’t been able to check them at all, and while +I agree that their possession would be rather pleasing confirmation +I don’t attach great importance to them; Onyx pens are so +universal, and so is Harfield’s ink, that there isn’t much argument +there either way. Besides, it would be just like my criminal not to +own either of them but to have borrowed the pen unobtrusively. +Lastly, I agree about the creative mind, and the neatness with the +fingers, and of course with the poisoner’s peculiar mentality, but +not with the necessity for methodical habits.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, come,” said Mr. Bradley, pained. “That was rather a sound +deduction, I thought. And it stands to reason, too.”</p> + +<p>“Not to my reason,” Roger retorted.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bradley shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>“It’s the notepaper I’m interested in,” said Sir Charles. “In +my opinion that’s the point on which the case against any one +must hang. How do you prove possession of the notepaper, +Sheringham?”</p> + +<p>“The notepaper,” said Roger, “was extracted about three weeks +ago from one of Webster’s books of sample notepaper-headings. +The erasure would be some private mark of Webster’s, the price, +for instance: ‘This style, 5s. 9d.’ There are three books at Webster’s, +containing exactly the same samples. Two of them include a piece +of Mason’s paper; from the third it’s missing. I can prove contact +of my suspect with the book about three weeks ago.”</p> + +<p>“You can, can you?” Sir Charles was impressed. “That sounds +pretty conclusive. What put you on the idea of the sample books?”</p> + +<p>“The yellowed edges of the letter,” Roger said, not a little +pleased with himself. “I didn’t see how a bit of paper that had +been kept in a pile could get its edges quite so discoloured as all +that, so concluded that it must have been an isolated piece. Then it +struck me that walking about London, one does see isolated pieces +of notepaper stuck on a board in the windows of printing-firms. +But this piece showed no drawing-pin holes or any other signs +of having been fixed to a board. Besides, it would be difficult to +remove it from a board. What was the next best thing? Obviously, +a sample-book, such as one usually finds inside the same shops. +So to the printers of Mason’s notepaper I went, and there, so to +speak, my piece wasn’t.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” muttered Sir Charles, “certainly that sounds pretty +conclusive.” He sighed. One gathered that he was gazing wistfully in +his mind’s eye at the diminishing figure of Lady Pennefather, and +the beautiful case he had built up around her. Then he brightened. +This time one had gathered that he had switched his vision to +the figure, equally diminishing, of Sir Charles Wildman, and the +beautiful case that had been built up around him too.</p> + +<p>“So now,” said Roger, feeling he could really put it off no +longer, “we come to the fundamental mistake to which I referred +just now, the trap the murderer laid for us and into which we all +so neatly fell.”</p> + +<p>Everybody sat up.</p> + +<p>Roger surveyed them benignly.</p> + +<p>“You got very near seeing it, Bradley, last night, with your +casual suggestion that Sir Eustace himself might not have been +the intended victim after all. That’s right enough. But I go further +than that.”</p> + +<p>“I fell in the trap, though, did I?” said Mr. Bradley, pained. +“Well, what is this trap? What’s the fundamental mistake we all +side-slipped into?”</p> + +<p>“Why,” Roger brought out in triumph, “that the plan had +miscarried—that the wrong person had been killed!”</p> + +<p>He got his reward.</p> + +<p>“What!” said every one at once. “Good heavens, you don’t +mean. . . ?”</p> + +<p>“Exactly,” Roger crowed. “That was just the beauty of it. The +plan had <em>not</em> miscarried. It had been brilliantly successful. The +wrong person had <em>not</em> been killed. Very much the right person +was.”</p> + +<p>“What’s all this?” positively gaped Sir Charles. “How on earth +do you make that out?”</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Bendix was the objective all the time,” Roger went on +more soberly. “That’s why the plot was so ingenious. Every single +thing was anticipated. It was foreseen that, if Bendix could be +brought naturally into Sir Eustace’s presence when the parcel +was being opened, the latter would hand the chocolates over to +him. It was foreseen that the police would look for the criminal +among Sir Eustace’s associates, and not the dead woman’s. It was +probably even foreseen, Bradley, that the crime would be considered +the work of a woman, whereas really, of course, chocolates +were employed because it was a woman who was the objective.”</p> + +<p>“Well, well well!” said Mr. Bradley.</p> + +<p>“Then it’s your theory,” pursued Sir Charles, “that the murderer +was an associate of the dead woman’s, and had nothing to +do with Sir Eustace at all?” He spoke as if not altogether averse +from such a theory.</p> + +<p>“It is,” Roger confirmed. “But first let me tell you what finally +opened my eyes to the trap. The vital piece of information I +got in Bond Street was this: <em>that Mrs. Bendix had seen that play</em>, +<i>The Creaking Skull</i>, <em>before</em>. There’s no doubt about it; she +actually went with my informant herself. You see the extraordinary +significance, of course. That means that she already knew the +answer to that bet she made with her husband about the identity +of the villain.”</p> + +<p>A little intake of breath testified to a general appreciation of +this information.</p> + +<p>“Oh! What a marvellous piece of divine irony.” Miss Dammers +was exercising her usual faculty of viewing things from the +impersonal aspect. “Then she actually brought her own retribution on +herself. The bet she won virtually killed her.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Roger. “The irony hadn’t failed to strike even my +informant. The punishment, as she pointed out, was so much +greater than the crime. But I don’t think,”—Roger spoke very +gently, in a mighty effort to curb his elation—“I don’t think that +even now you quite see my point.”</p> + +<p>Everybody looked inquiringly.</p> + +<p>“You’ve all heard Mrs. Bendix quite minutely described. You +must all have formed a tolerably close mental picture of her. +She was a straightforward, honest girl, making if anything (also +according to my informant) almost too much of a fetich of straight +dealing and playing the game. Does the making of a bet to which +she already knew the answer, fit into that picture or does it not?”</p> + +<p>“Ah!” nodded Mr. Bradley. “Oh, very pretty.”</p> + +<p>“Just so. It is (with apologies to Sir Charles) a psychological +impossibility. It really is, you know, Sir Charles; one simply can’t +see her doing such a thing, in fun or out of it; and I gather that +fun wasn’t her strong suit, by any means.</p> + +<p>“<i>Ergo</i>,” concluded Roger briskly, “she didn’t. <i>Ergo</i>, that bet +was never made. <i>Ergo</i>, there never was such a bet. <i>Ergo</i>, Bendix +was lying. <i>Ergo</i>, Bendix wanted to get hold of those chocolates +for some reason other than he stated. And the chocolates being +what they were, there was only one other reason.</p> + +<p>“That’s my case.”</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch14"> + +<h2>Chapter XIV</h2> + +<p>When the excitement that greeted this revolutionary +reading of the case had died down, Roger went on +to defend his theory in more detail.</p> + +<p>“It <em>is</em> something of a shock, of course, to find oneself +contemplating Bendix as the very cunning murderer of his own wife, but +really, once one has been able to rid one’s mind of all prejudice, I +don’t see how the conclusion can possibly be avoided. Every item +of evidence, however minute, goes to support it.”</p> + +<p>“But the motive!” ejaculated Mrs. Fielder-Flemming.</p> + +<p>“Motive? Good heavens, he’d motive enough. In the first +place he was frankly—no, not frankly; secretly!—tired of her. +Remember what we were told of his character. He’d sown his +wild oats. But apparently he hadn’t finished sowing them, because +his name has been mentioned in connection with more than +one woman even since his marriage, usually, in the good +old-fashioned way, actresses. So Bendix wasn’t such a solemn stick +by any means. He liked his fun. And his wife, I should imagine, +was just about the last person in the world to sympathise with +such feelings.</p> + +<p>“Not that he hadn’t liked her well enough when he married +her, quite possibly, though it was her money he was after all the +time. But she must have bored him dreadfully very soon. And +really,” said Roger impartially, “I think one can hardly blame +him there. Any woman, however charming otherwise, is bound +to bore a normal man if she does nothing but prate continually +about honour and duty and playing the game; and that, I have on +good authority, was Mrs. Bendix’s habit.</p> + +<p>“Just look at the <i>ménage</i> in this new light. The wife would +never overlook the smallest peccadillo. Every tiny lapse would +be thrown up at him for years. Everything she did would be right +and everything he did wrong. Her sanctimonious righteousness +would be forever being contrasted with his vileness. She might +even work herself into the state of those half-mad creatures who +spend the whole of their married lives reviling their husbands for +having been attracted by other women before they even met the +girl it was their misfortune to marry. Don’t think I’m trying to +blacken Mrs. Bendix. I’m just showing you how intolerable life +with her might have been.</p> + +<p>“But that’s only the incidental motive. The real trouble was that +she was too close with her money, and that too I know for a fact. +That’s where she sentenced herself to death. He wanted it, or some +of it, badly (it’s what he married her for), and she wouldn’t part.</p> + +<p>“One of the first things I did was to consult a Directory of +Directors and make a list of the firms he’s interested in, with a +view to getting a confidential report on their financial condition. +The report reached me just before I left my rooms. It told me +exactly what I expected—that every single one of those firms is +rocky, some only a little but some within sight of a crash. They all +need money to save them. It’s obvious, isn’t it? He’s run through +all his own money, and he had to get more. I found time to run +down to Somerset House and again it was as I expected: her will +was entirely in his favour. The really important point (which no +one seems to have suspected) is that he isn’t a good business-man +at all; he’s a rotten one. And half-a-million . . . Well!</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes. There’s motive enough.”</p> + +<p>“Motive allowed,” said Mr. Bradley. “And the nitrobenzene? +You said, I think, that Bendix has some knowledge of chemistry.”</p> + +<p>Roger laughed. “You remind me of a Wagner opera, Bradley. +The nitrobenzene <i lang="fr">motif</i> crops up regularly from you whenever +a possible criminal is mentioned. However, I think I can satisfy +even you in this instance. Nitrobenzene as you know, is used in +perfumery. In the list of Bendix’s businesses is the Anglo-Eastern +Perfumery Company. I made a special, and dreadful, journey out +to Acton for the express purpose of finding out whether the +Anglo-Eastern Company used nitrobenzene at all, and, if so, whether its +poisonous qualities were thoroughly recognised. The answer to +both questions was in the affirmative. So there can be no doubt +that Bendix is thoroughly acquainted with the stuff.</p> + +<p>“He might easily enough have got his supply from the factory, +but I’m inclined to doubt that. I think he’d be cleverer than that. +He probably made the stuff himself, if the process is as easy as +Bradley told us. Because I happen to know that he was on the +modern side at Selchester (that I heard quite by chance too), which +presupposes at any rate an elementary knowledge of chemistry. +Do you pass that, Bradley?”</p> + +<p>“Pass, friend nitrobenzene,” conceded Mr. Bradley.</p> + +<p>Roger drummed thoughtfully on the table with his finger-tips. +“It was a well-planned affair, wasn’t it?” he meditated. “And so +extremely easy to reconstruct. Bendix must have thought he’d +provided against every possible contingency. And so he very +nearly had. It was just that little bit of unlucky grit that gets into +the smooth machinery of so many clever crimes: he didn’t know +that his wife had seen the play before. He’d decided on the mild +alibi of his presence at the theatre, you see, just in case suspicion +should ever impossibly arise, and no doubt he stressed his desire +to see the play and take her with him. Not to spoil his pleasure, +she would have unselfishly concealed from him the fact that she +had seen the play before and didn’t much want to see it again. +That unselfishness let him down. Because it’s inconceivable that +she would have turned it to her own advantage to win the bet he +pretends to have made with her.</p> + +<p>“He left the theatre of course during the first interval, and +hurried as far as he dare go in the ten minutes at his disposal, to +post the parcel. I sat through the dreadful thing myself last night +just to see when the intervals came. The first one fits excellently. +I’d hoped he might have taken a taxi one way, as time was short, +but if he did no driver of such taxis as did make a similar journey +that evening can identify him. Or possibly the right driver hasn’t +come forward yet. I got Scotland Yard to look into that point for +me. But it really fits much better with the cleverness he’s shown all +through, that he should have gone by ’bus or underground. Taxis, +he’d know, are traceable. But if so he’d run it very fine indeed, and +I shouldn’t be surprised if he got back to his box a few minutes +late. The police may be able to establish that.”</p> + +<p>“It seems to me,” observed Mr. Bradley, “that we made +something of a mistake in turning the man down from membership +here. We thought his criminology wasn’t up to standard, didn’t +we? Well, well.”</p> + +<p>“But we could hardly be expected to know that he was a +practical criminologist rather than a mere theoretical one,” Roger +smiled. “It was a mistake, though. It would have been pleasant to +include a practical criminologist among our members.”</p> + +<p>“I must confess that I thought at one time that we did,” said +Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, making her peace. “Sir Charles,” she +added unnecessarily, “I apologise, without reserve.”</p> + +<p>Sir Charles inclined his head courteously. “Please don’t refer +to it, madam. And in any event the experience for me was an +interesting one.”</p> + +<p>“I may have been misled by the case I quoted,” said Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming, rather wistfully. “It was a strangely close +parallel.”</p> + +<p>“It was the first parallel that occurred to me, too,” Roger +agreed. “I studied the Molineux case quite closely, hoping to get +a pointer from it. But now, if I were asked for a parallel, I should +reply with the Carlyle Harris case. You remember, the young +medical student who sent a pill containing morphine to the girl +Helen Potts, to whom it turned out that he had been secretly married +for a year. He was by way of being a profligate and a general +young rotter too. A great novel, as you know, has been founded +on the case, so why not a great crime too?”</p> + +<p>“Then why, Mr. Sheringham,” Miss Dammers wanted to know, +“do you think that Mr. Bendix took the risk of not destroying the +forged letter and the wrapper when he had the chance?”</p> + +<p>“He very carefully didn’t do so,” Roger replied promptly, +“because the forged letter and the wrapper had been calculated +not only to divert suspicion from himself but actually to point +away from him to somebody else—an employee of Mason’s, for +instance, or an anonymous lunatic. Which is exactly what they +did.”</p> + +<p>“But wouldn’t it be a great risk, to send poisoned chocolates +like that to Sir Eustace?” suggested Mr. Chitterwick diffidently. “I +mean, Sir Eustace might have been ill the next morning, or not +offered to hand them over at all. Suppose he had given them to +somebody else instead of Bendix.”</p> + +<p>Roger proceeded to give Mr. Chitterwick cause for his diffidence. +He was feeling something of a personal pride in Bendix by +this time, and it distressed him to hear a great man thus maligned.</p> + +<p>“Oh, really! You must give my man credit for being what +he is. He’s not a bungler, you know. It wouldn’t have had any +serious results if Sir Eustace had been ill that morning, or eaten +the chocolates himself, or if they’d been stolen in transit and +consumed by the postman’s favourite daughter, or any other +unlikely contingency. Come, Mr. Chitterwick! You don’t imagine +he’d send the poisoned ones through the post, do you? Of course +not. He’d send harmless ones, and exchange them for the others +on the way home. Dash it all, he wouldn’t go out of his way to +present opportunities to chance.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! I see,” murmured Mr. Chitterwick, properly subdued.</p> + +<p>“We’re dealing with a very great criminal,” went on Roger, +rather less severely. “That can be seen at every point. Take the +arrival at the club, just for example—that most unusual early +arrival (why this early arrival at all, by the way, if he isn’t guilty?). +Well, he doesn’t wait outside and follow his unconscious accomplice +in, you see. Not a bit of it. Sir Eustace is chosen because he’s +known to get there so punctually at half-past ten every morning; +takes a pride in it; boasts of it; goes out of his way to keep up the +good old custom. So Bendix arrives at ten thirty-five, and there +things are. It had puzzled me at the beginning of the case, by the +way, to see why the chocolates had been sent to Sir Eustace at his +club at all, instead of to his rooms. Now it’s obvious.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I wasn’t so far out with my list of conditions,” Mr. +Bradley consoled himself. “But why don’t you agree with my +rather subtle point about the murderer not being a public-school +or University man, Sheringham? Just because Bendix happens to +have been at Selchester and Oxford?”</p> + +<p>“No, because I’d make the still more subtle point that where +the code of a public-school and University might influence a +murderer in the way he murdered another man, it wouldn’t have much +effect when a woman is to be the victim. I agree that if Bendix +had been wanting to dispose of Sir Eustace, he would probably +have put him out of the world in a nice, straightforward, manly +way. But one doesn’t use nice, straightforward, manly ways in +one’s dealings with women, if it comes to hitting them on the +head with a bludgeon or anything in that nature. Poison, I fancy, +would be quite in order. And there’s very little suffering with a +large dose of nitrobenzene. Unconsciousness soon intervenes.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” admitted Mr. Bradley, “that is rather too subtle a point +for one of my unpsychological attributes.”</p> + +<p>“I think I dealt with most of your other conditions. As regards +the methodical habits, which you deduced from the meticulous +doses of poison in each chocolate, my point of course is that the +doses were exactly equal in order that Bendix could take any two +of the chocolates and be sure of having got the right amount of +nitrobenzene into his system to produce the symptoms he wanted, +and not enough to run any serious risk. That dosing of himself +with the poison really was a master-stroke. And it’s so natural that +a man shouldn’t have taken so many chocolates as a woman. He +exaggerated his symptoms considerably, no doubt, but the effect +on everybody was tremendous.</p> + +<p>“We must remember, you see, that we’ve only got his word +for the conversation in the drawing-room, over the eating of the +chocolates, just as we’ve only got his word for it that there ever +was a bet at all. Most of that conversation certainly took place, +however. Bendix is far too great an artist not to make all possible +use of the truth in his lying. But of course he wouldn’t have left +her that afternoon till he’d seen her take, or somehow made her +take, at least six of the chocolates, which he’d know made up +more than a lethal dose. That was another advantage in having +the stuff in those exact six-minim quantities.”</p> + +<p>“In fact,” Mr. Bradley summed up, “our Uncle Bendix is a +great man.”</p> + +<p>“He really is,” said Roger, quite solemnly.</p> + +<p>“You’ve no doubt at all that he is the criminal?” queried Miss +Dammers.</p> + +<p>“None at all,” said Roger, astonished.</p> + +<p>“Um,” said Miss Dammers.</p> + +<p>“Why, have you?”</p> + +<p>“Um,” said Miss Dammers.</p> + +<p>The conversation then lapsed.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Mr. Bradley, “let’s all tell Sheringham how wrong +he is, shall we?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fielder-Flemming looked tense. “I’m afraid,” she said in +a hushed voice, “that he is only too right.”</p> + +<p>But Mr. Bradley refused to be impressed. “Oh, I think I can +find a hole or two to pick at. You seem to attach a good deal of +importance to the motive, Sheringham. Don’t you exaggerate? +One doesn’t poison a wife one’s tired of; one leaves her. And +really, I find some difficulty in believing (<i>a</i>) that Bendix should +have been so set on getting hold of more money to pour down +the drainpipe of his businesses as to commit murder for it, and (<i>b</i>) +that Mrs. Bendix should have been so close as to refuse to come +to her husband’s help if he really was badly pressed.”</p> + +<p>“Then I think you fail to estimate the characters of both of +them,” Roger told him. “They were both obstinate as the devil. +It was Mrs. Bendix, not her husband, who realised that his +businesses <em>were</em> a drainpipe. I could give you a list a yard long of +murders that have been committed with far less motive than +Bendix had.”</p> + +<p>“Motive allowed again, then. Now you remember that Mrs. +Bendix had had a lunch appointment for the day of her death, +which was cancelled. Didn’t Bendix know of that? Because if he +did, would he have chosen a day for the delivery of the chocolates +when he knew his wife wouldn’t be at home for lunch to receive +them?”</p> + +<p>“Just the point I had thought of putting to Mr. Sheringham +myself,” remarked Miss Dammers.</p> + +<p>Roger looked puzzled. “It seems to me a most unimportant +point. If it comes to that, why should he necessarily want to give +the chocolates to his wife at lunch-time?”</p> + +<p>“For two reasons,” responded Mr. Bradley glibly.</p> + +<p>“Firstly because he would naturally want to put them to their +right purpose as soon as he possibly could, and secondly because +his wife being the only person who can contradict his story of the +bet, he would obviously want her silenced as soon as practicable.”</p> + +<p>“You’re quibbling,” Roger smiled, “and I refuse to be drawn. +For that matter, I don’t see why Bendix should have known of his +wife’s lunch-appointment at all. They were constantly lunching +out, both of them, and I don’t suppose they took any particular +care to inform each other beforehand.”</p> + +<p>“Humph!” said Mr. Bradley, and stroked his chin.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chitterwick ventured to raise his recently crushed head. +“You really base your whole case on the bet, Mr. Sheringham, +don’t you?”</p> + +<p>“And the psychological deduction I drew from the story of it. +Yes, I do. Entirely.”</p> + +<p>“So that if the bet could be proved after all to have been made, +you would have no case left?”</p> + +<p>“Why,” exclaimed Roger, in some alarm, “have you any +independent evidence that the bet was made?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no. Oh, dear me, no. Nothing of the sort. I was merely +thinking that if any one did want to disprove your case, as Bradley +suggested, it is the bet on which he would have to concentrate.”</p> + +<p>“You mean, quibbling about the motive, and the lunch-appointment, +and such minor matters, is altogether beside the point?” +suggested Mr. Bradley amiably. “Oh, I quite agree. But I was only +trying to test his case, you know, not disprove it. And for why? +Because I think it’s the right one. The Mystery of the Poisoned +Chocolates, so far as I’m concerned, is at an end.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, Bradley,” said Mr. Sheringham.</p> + +<p>“So three cheers for our sleuth-like President,” continued Mr. +Bradley with great heartiness, “coupled with the name of Graham +Reynard Bendix for the fine run he’s given us. Hip, hip—”</p> + +<p>“And you say you’ve definitely proved the purchase of the +typewriter, and the contact of Mr. Bendix with the sample-book +at Webster’s, Mr. Sheringham?” remarked Alicia Dammers, who +had apparently been pursuing a train of thought of her own.</p> + +<p>“I do, Miss Dammers,” said Roger, not without complacence.</p> + +<p>“Would you give me the name of the typewriter-shop?”</p> + +<p>“Of course,” Roger tore a page from his notebook and copied +out the name and address.</p> + +<p>“Thank you. And can you give me a description of the girl at +Webster’s who identified the photograph of Mr. Bendix?”</p> + +<p>Roger looked at her a little uneasily; she gazed back with her +usual calm serenity. Roger’s uneasiness grew. He gave her as good +a description of Webster’s young woman as he could recall. Miss +Dammers thanked him imperturbably.</p> + +<p>“Well, what are we going to do about it all?” persisted Mr. +Bradley, who seemed to have adopted the rôle of showman for his +President. “Shall we send a delegation to Scotland Yard consisting +of Sheringham and myself, to break the news to them that their +troubles are over?”</p> + +<p>“You are assuming that everybody agrees with Mr. +Sheringham?”</p> + +<p>“Of course.”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t it customary to put this sort of question to a vote?” +suggested Miss Dammers coolly.</p> + +<p>“ ‘Carried unanimously,’ ” quoted Mr. Bradley. “Yes, do let’s +have the correct procedure. Well, then, Sheringham moves that +this meeting do accept his solution of the Poisoned Chocolates +Mystery as the right one, and send a delegation of himself +and Mr. Bradley to Scotland Yard to talk pretty severely to the +police. I second the motion. Those in favour. . . ? Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fielder-Flemming endeavoured to conceal her disapproval +of Mr. Bradley in her approval of Mr. Bradley’s suggestion. +“I certainly think that Mr. Sheringham has proved his case,” she +said stiffly.</p> + +<p>“Sir Charles?”</p> + +<p>“I agree,” said Sir Charles, in stern tones, equally disproving +Mr. Bradley’s frivolity.</p> + +<p>“Chitterwick?”</p> + +<p>“I agree too.” Was it Roger’s fancy, or did Mr. Chitterwick +hesitate just a moment before he spoke, as if troubled by some +mental reservation which he did not care to put into words? Roger +decided that it was his fancy.</p> + +<p>“And Miss Dammers?” concluded Mr. Bradley.</p> + +<p>Miss Dammers looked calmly round the table. “I don’t agree +at all. I think Mr. Sheringham’s exposition was exceedingly +ingenious, and altogether worthy of his reputation; at the same time +I think it quite wrong. To-morrow I hope to be able to prove to +you who really committed this crime.”</p> + +<p>The Circle gaped at her respectfully.</p> + +<p>Roger, wondering whether his ears had not really been playing +tricks with him, found that his tongue too utterly refused to +work. An inarticulate sound oozed from him.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bradley was the first to recover himself. “Carried, +non-unanimously. Mr. President, I think this is a precedent. Does +anybody know what happens when a resolution is not carried +unanimously?”</p> + +<p>In the temporary disability of the President, Miss Dammers +took it upon herself to decide. “The meeting stands adjourned, +I think,” she said.</p> + +<p>And adjourned the meeting found itself.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch15"> + +<h2>Chapter XV</h2> + +<p>Roger arrived at the Circle’s meeting-room the next +evening even more agog than usual. In his heart on hearts +he could not believe that Miss Dammers would ever be able to +destroy his case against Bendix, or even dangerously shake it, but +in any event what she had to say could not fail to be of absorbing +interest, even without its animadversions of his own solution. +Roger had been looking forward to Miss Dammers’s exposition +more than to that of any one else.</p> + +<p>Alicia Dammers was so very much a reflection of the age.</p> + +<p>Had she been born fifty years ago, it is difficult to see how +she could have gone on existing. It was impossible that she could +have become the woman-novelist of that time, a strange creature +(in the popular imagination) with white cotton gloves, an intense +manner, and passionate, not to say hysterical yearnings towards +a romance from which her appearance unfortunately debarred +her. Miss Dammers’s gloves, like her clothes, were exquisite, and +cotton could not have touched her since she was ten (if she ever +had been); tensity was for her the depth of bad form; and if she +knew how to yearn, she certainly kept it to herself. Passion and +purple, one gathered, Miss Dammers found quite unnecessary to +herself, if interesting phenomena in lesser mortals.</p> + +<p>From the caterpillar in cotton gloves the woman-novelist has +progressed through the stage of cook-like cocoondom at which +Mrs. Fielder-Flemming had stuck, to the detached and serious +butterfly, not infrequently beautiful as well as pensive, whose +decorative pictures the illustrated weeklies are nowadays delighted +to publish. Butterflies with calm foreheads, just faintly wrinkled in +analytical thought. Ironical, cynical butterflies; surgeon-butterflies +thronging the mental dissecting-rooms (and sometimes, if we +must be candid, inclined to loiter there a little too long); +passionless butterflies, flitting gracefully from one brightly-coloured +complex to another. And sometimes completely humourless, +and then distressingly boring butterflies, whose gathered pollen +seems to have become a trifle mud-coloured.</p> + +<p>To meet Miss Dammers and look at her classical, oval face, +with its delicately small features and big grey eyes, to glance +approvingly over her tall, beautifully dressed figure, nobody whose +imagination was still popular would ever have set her down as +a novelist at all. And that in Miss Dammers’s opinion, coupled +with the ability to write good books, was exactly what a +properly-minded modern authoress should hope to achieve.</p> + +<p>No one had ever been brave enough to ask Miss Dammers +how she could hope successfully to analyse in others emotions +which she had never experienced in herself. Probably because the +plain fact confronted the enquirer that she both could and did. +Most successfully.</p> + +<p>“We listened last night,” began Miss Dammers, at five minutes +past nine on the following evening, “to an exceedingly able exposition +of a no less interesting theory of this crime. Mr. Sheringham’s +methods, if I may say so, were a model to all of us. Beginning with +the deductive, he followed this as far as it would take him, which +was actually to the person of the criminal; he then relied on the +inductive to prove his case. In this way he was able to make the +best possible use of each method. That this ingenious mixture +should have been based on a fallacy and therefore never had any +chance of leading Mr. Sheringham to the right solution, is rather +a piece of bad luck than his fault.”</p> + +<p>Roger, who still could not believe that he had not reached the +truth, smiled dubiously.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Sheringham’s reading of the crime,” continued Miss +Dammers, in her clear, level tones, “must have seemed to some +of us novel in the extreme. To me, however, it was perhaps more +interesting than novel, for it began from the same starting-point +as the theory on which I myself have been working; namely, that +the crime had not failed in its objective.”</p> + +<p>Roger pricked up his ears.</p> + +<p>“As Mr. Chitterwick pointed out, Mr. Sheringham’s whole case +rested on the bet between Mr. and Mrs. Bendix. From Mr. Bendix’s +story of that bet, he draws the psychological deduction that the bet +never existed at all. That is clever, but it is the wrong deduction. +Mr. Sheringham is too lenient in his interpretation of feminine +psychology. I began, I think I may say, with the bet too. But the +deduction I drew from it, knowing my sister-women perhaps a +little more intimately than Mr. Sheringham could, was that Mrs. +Bendix was not quite so honourable as she was painted by herself.”</p> + +<p>“I thought of that, of course,” Roger expostulated. “But I +discarded it on purely logical grounds. There’s nothing in Mrs. +Bendix’s life to show that she wasn’t honest, and everything to +show that she was. And when there exists no evidence at all for +the making of the bet beyond Bendix’s bare word . . .”</p> + +<p>“Oh, but there does,” Miss Dammers took him up. “I’ve been +spending most of to-day in establishing that point. I knew I should +never really be able to shake you till I could definitely prove that +there was a bet. Let me put you out of your agony at once, Mr. +Sheringham. I’ve overwhelming evidence that the bet was made.”</p> + +<p>“You have?” said Roger, disconcerted.</p> + +<p>“Certainly. It was a point you really should have verified +yourself, you know,” chided Miss Dammers gently, “considering its +importance to your case. Well, I have two witnesses. Mrs. Bendix +mentioned the bet to her maid when she went up to her bedroom +to lie down, actually saying (like yourself, Mr. Sheringham) that +the violent indigestion from which she thought herself to be +suffering was a judgment on her for having made it. The second +witness is a friend of my own, who knows the Bendixes. She saw +Mrs. Bendix sitting alone in her box during the second interval, +and went in to speak to her. In the course of the conversation +Mrs. Bendix remarked that she and her husband had a bet on the +identity of the villain, mentioning the character in the play whom +she herself fancied. But (and this completely confirms my own +deduction) Mrs. Bendix did <em>not</em> tell my friend that she had seen +the play before.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” said Roger, now quite crestfallen.</p> + +<p>Miss Dammers dealt with him as tenderly as possible. “There +were only those two deductions to be made from that bet, and +by bad luck you chose the wrong one.”</p> + +<p>“But how did you know,” said Roger, coming to the surface +for the third time, “that Mrs. Bendix had seen the play before? +I only found that out myself a couple of days ago, and by the +merest accident.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’ve known that from the beginning,” said Miss Dammers +carelessly. “I suppose Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer told you? I don’t +know her personally, but I know people who do. I didn’t interrupt +you last night when you were talking about the amazing chance +of this piece of knowledge reaching you. If I had, I should have +pointed out that the agency by which anything known to Mrs. +Verreker-le-Mesurer (as I see her) might become known to her +friends too, isn’t chance at all, but certainty.”</p> + +<p>“I see,” said Roger, and sank for the third, and final, time. But +as he did so he remembered one piece of information which Mrs. +Verreker-le-Mesurer had succeeded, not wholly as it seemed but +very nearly so, in withholding from her friends; and catching Mr. +Bradley’s ribald eye knew that his thought was shared. So even +Miss Dammers was not quite infallible in her psychology.</p> + +<p>“We then,” resumed that lady, somewhat didactically, “have +Mr. Bendix displaced from his temporary rôle of villain and back +again in his old part of second victim.” She paused for a moment.</p> + +<p>“But without Sir Eustace returning to the cast in his original +star part of intended victim of the piece,” amplified Mr. +Bradley.</p> + +<p>Miss Dammers rightly ignored him. “Now here, I think, Mr. +Sheringham will find my case as interesting as I found his last +night, for though we differ so vitally in some essentials we agree +remarkably in others. And one of the points on which we agree +is that the intended victim certainly was killed.”</p> + +<p>“What, Alicia?” exclaimed Mrs. Fielder-Flemming. “You think +too that the plot was directed against Mrs. Bendix from the +beginning?”</p> + +<p>“I have no doubt of it. But to prove my contention I must +demolish yet another of Mr. Sheringham’s conclusions.</p> + +<p>“You made the point, Mr. Sheringham, that half-past ten in +the morning was a most unusual time for Mr. Bendix to arrive at +his club and therefore highly significant. That is perfectly true. +Unfortunately you attached the wrong significance to it. His +arrival at that hour doesn’t necessarily argue a guilty intention, as +you assumed. It escaped you (as in fairness I must say it seems to +have escaped every one else) that if Mrs. Bendix was the intended +victim and Mr. Bendix himself not her murderer, his presence at +the club at that convenient time might have been secured by the +real murderer. In any case I think Mr. Sheringham might have +given Mr. Bendix the benefit of the doubt in so far as to ask him +if he had any explanation of his own to offer. As I did.”</p> + +<p>“You asked Bendix himself how it had happened that he arrived +at the club at half-past ten that morning?” Mr. Chitterwick said in +awed tones. This was certainly the way real detecting should be +done. Unfortunately his own diffidence seemed to have prevented +Mr. Chitterwick from doing any real detecting at all.</p> + +<p>“Certainly,” agreed Miss Dammers briskly. “I rang him up, +and put the point to him. From what I gathered, not even the +police had thought to put it before. And though he answered it +in a way I quite expected, it was clear that he saw no significance +in his own answer. Mr. Bendix told me that he had gone there to +receive a telephone message. But why not have had the message +telephoned to his home? you will ask. Exactly. So did I. The reason +was that it was not the sort of message one cares about receiving +at home. I must admit that I pressed Mr. Bendix about this +message, and as he had no idea of the importance of my questions he +must have considered my taste more than questionable. However, +I couldn’t help that.</p> + +<p>“In the end I got him to admit that on the previous afternoon +he had been rung up at his office by a Miss Vera Delorme, who +plays a small part in <i>Heels Up!</i> at the Regency Theatre. He had +only met her once or twice, but was not averse from doing so +again. She asked him if he were doing anything important the next +morning, to which he replied that he was not. Could he take her +out to a quiet little lunch somewhere? He would be delighted. But +she was not quite sure yet whether she was free. She would ring +him up the next morning between ten-thirty and eleven o’clock +at the Rainbow Club.”</p> + +<p>Five pairs of brows were knitted.</p> + +<p>“I don’t see any significance in that either,” finally plunged +Mrs. Fielder-Flemming.</p> + +<p>“No?” said Miss Dammers. “But if Miss Delorme straightly +denies having ever rung Mr. Bendix up at all?”</p> + +<p>Five pairs of brows unravelled themselves.</p> + +<p>“<em>Oh!</em>” said Mrs. Fielder-Flemming.</p> + +<p>“Of course that was the first thing I verified,” said Miss +Dammers coolly.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chitterwick sighed. Yes, undoubtedly this was real +detecting.</p> + +<p>“Then your murderer had an accomplice, Miss Dammers?” +Sir Charles suggested.</p> + +<p>“He had two,” retorted Miss Dammers. “Both unwitting.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, yes. You mean Bendix. And the woman who telephoned?”</p> + +<p>“Well—!” Miss Dammers looked in her unexcited way round +the circle of faces. “Isn’t it obvious?”</p> + +<p>Apparently it was not at all obvious.</p> + +<p>“At any rate it must be obvious why Miss Delorme was chosen +as the telephonist: because Mr. Bendix hardly knew her, and would +certainly not be able to recognise her voice on the telephone. And +as for the real speaker . . . Well, really!” Miss Dammers looked her +opinion of such obtuseness.</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Bendix!” squeaked Mrs. Fielder-Flemming catching +sight of a triangle.</p> + +<p>“Of course. Mrs. Bendix, carefully primed by <em>somebody</em> about +her husband’s minor misdemeanours.”</p> + +<p>“The somebody being the murderer of course,” nodded Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming. “A friend of Mrs. Bendix’s then. At least,” +amended Mrs. Fielder-Flemming in some confusion, remembering +that real friends seldom murder each other, “she thought of +him as a friend. Dear me, this is getting very interesting, Alicia.”</p> + +<p>Miss Dammers gave a small, ironical smile. “Yes, it’s a very +intimate little affair after all, this murder. Tightly closed, in fact, +Mr. Bradley.</p> + +<p>“But I’m getting on rather too fast. I had better complete the +destruction of Mr. Sheringham’s case before I build up my own.” +Roger groaned faintly and looked up at the hard, white ceiling. +It reminded him of Miss Dammers, and he looked down again.</p> + +<p>“Really, Mr. Sheringham, your faith in human nature is +altogether too great, you know,” Miss Dammers mocked him without +mercy. “Whatever anybody chooses to tell you, you believe. A +confirmatory witness never seems necessary to you. I’m sure that +if some one had come to your rooms and told you he’d seen the +Shah of Persia injecting the nitrobenzene into those chocolates +you would have believed him unhesitatingly.”</p> + +<p>“Are you hinting that somebody hasn’t told me the truth?” +groaned the unhappy Roger.</p> + +<p>“I’ll do more than hint it; I’ll prove it. When you told us last +night that the man in the typewriter shop had positively identified +Mr. Bendix as the purchaser of a second-hand No. 4 Hamilton I +was astounded. I took a note of the shop’s address. This morning, +first thing, I went there. I taxed the man roundly with having told +you a lie. He admitted it, grinning.</p> + +<p>“So far as he could make out, all you wanted was a good +Hamilton No. 4, and he had a good Hamilton No. 4 to sell. He +saw nothing wrong in leading you to suppose that his was the +shop where your friend had bought his own good Hamilton No. 4, +because he had quite as good a one as any other shop could have. +And if it eased your mind that he should recognise your friend +from his photograph—well,” said Miss Dammers drily, “he was +quite prepared to ease it as many times as you had photographs +to produce.”</p> + +<p>“I see,” said Roger, and his thoughts dwelt on the eight pounds +he had handed over to that sympathetic, mind-easing shopman +in return for a Hamilton No. 4 he didn’t want.</p> + +<p>“As for the girl in Webster’s,” continued Miss Dammers implacably, +“she was just as ready to admit that perhaps she might have +made a mistake in recognising that friend of the gentleman +who called in yesterday about some notepaper. But really, the +gentleman had seemed so anxious she should that it would have +seemed quite a pity to disappoint him, like. And if it came to +that, she couldn’t see the harm in it not even now she couldn’t.” +Miss Dammers’s imitation of Webster’s young woman was most +amusing. Roger did not laugh heartily.</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry if I seem to be rubbing it in, Mr. Sheringham,” said +Miss Dammers.</p> + +<p>“Not at all,” said Roger.</p> + +<p>“But it’s essential to my own case, you see.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I quite see that,” said Roger.</p> + +<p>“Then that evidence is disposed of. I don’t think you really +had any other, did you?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think so,” said Roger.</p> + +<p>“You will see,” Miss Dammers resumed, over Roger’s corpse, +“that I am following the fashion of withholding the criminal’s +name. Now that it has come to my turn to speak, I am realising +the advantages of this; but really, I can’t help fearing that you +will all have guessed it by the time I come to my denouement. +To me, at any rate, the murderer’s identity seems quite absurdly +obvious. Before I disclose it officially, however, I should like to +deal with a few of the other points, not actual evidence, raised +by Mr. Sheringham in his argument.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Sheringham built up a very ingenious case. It was so very +ingenious that he had to insist more than once on the perfect +planning that had gone to its construction, and the true greatness +of the criminal mind that had evolved it. I don’t agree,” said Miss +Dammers crisply. “My case is much simpler. It was planned with +cunning but not with perfection. It relied almost entirely upon +luck: that is to say, upon one vital piece of evidence remaining +undiscovered. And finally the mind that evolved it is not great in +any way. But it <em>is</em> a mind which, dealing with matters outside its +usual orbit would certainly be imitative.</p> + +<p>“That brings me to a point of Mr. Bradley’s. I agree with him to +the extent that I think a certain acquaintance with criminological +history is postulated, but not when he argues that it is the work +of a creative mind. In my opinion the chief feature of the crime is +its servile imitation of certain of its predecessors. I deduced from +it, in fact, the type of mind which is possessed of no originality +of its own, is intensely conservative because without the wit to +recognise the progress of change, is obstinate, dogmatic, and +practical, and lacks entirely any sense of spiritual values. As one +who am inclined to suffer myself from something of an aversion +from matter, I sensed my exact antithesis behind the whole +atmosphere of this case.”</p> + +<p>Everybody looked suitably impressed. As for Mr. Chitterwick, +he could only gasp before these detailed deductions from a mere +atmosphere.</p> + +<p>“With another point of Mr. Sheringham’s I have already +inferred that I agree: that chocolates were used as the vehicle of +the poison because they were meant to reach a woman. And here +I might add that I am sure no harm was intended to Mr. Bendix +himself. We know that Mr. Bendix did not care for chocolates, and +it is a reasonable assumption that the murderer knew it too; he +never expected that Mr. Bendix would eat any himself.</p> + +<p>“It is curious how often Mr. Sheringham hits the mark with +small shafts, while missing it with the chief one. He was quite right +about the notepaper being extracted from that sample-book at +Webster’s. I’m bound to admit that the possession of the piece of +notepaper had worried me considerably. I was at a complete loss +there. Then Mr. Sheringham very handily presented us with his +explanation, and I have been able to-day to destroy his application +of it to his own theory and incorporate it in my own. The +attendant who pretended out of innocent politeness to recognise the +photograph Mr. Sheringham showed her, was able to recognise in +earnest the one I produced. And not only recognise it,” said Miss +Dammers with the first sign of complacence she had yet shown, +“but identify the original of it actually by name.”</p> + +<p>“Ah!” nodded Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, much excited.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Sheringham made a few other small points, which I +thought it advisable to-day to blunt,” Miss Dammers went on, with +a return to her impersonal manner. “Because most of the small +firms in which Mr. Bendix figures on the board of directors are +not in a flourishing state, Mr. Sheringham deduced not only that +Mr. Bendix was a bad business-man, with which I am inclined to +agree, but that he was desperately in need of money. Once again +Mr. Sheringham failed to verify his deduction, and once again he +must pay the penalty in finding himself utterly wrong.</p> + +<p>“The most elementary channels of enquiry would have +brought Mr. Sheringham the information that only a very small +proportion of Mr. Bendix’s money is invested in these concerns, +which are really a wealthy man’s toys. By far the greater part is +still where his father left it when he died, in government stock +and safe industrial concerns so large that even Mr. Bendix could +never aspire to a seat on the board. And from what I know of +him, Mr. Bendix is quite a big enough man to recognise that he +is not the business-genius his father was, and has no intention of +spending on his toys more than he can comfortably afford. The +real motive Mr. Sheringham gave him for his wife’s death therefore +completely disappears.”</p> + +<p>Roger bowed his head. For ever afterwards, he felt, would +genuine criminologists point the finger of contempt at him as +the man who failed to verify his own deductions. Oh, shameful +future!</p> + +<p>“As for the subsidiary motive, I attach less importance to that +but on the whole I am inclined to agree with Mr. Sheringham. +I think Mrs. Bendix must have become a dreadful bore to her +husband, who after all was a normal man, with a normal man’s +reactions and scale of values. I should be inclined to think that +she morally drove him into the arms of his actresses, in search of +a little light companionship. I’m not saying he wasn’t deeply in +love with her when he married her; no doubt he was. And he’d +have had a naturally deep respect for her then.</p> + +<p>“But it’s an unfortunate marriage,” observed the cynical Miss +Dammers, “in which the respect outstays its usefulness. A man +wants a piece of humanity in his marriage-bed; not an object of +deep respect. But I’m bound to say that if Mrs. Bendix did bore +her husband before the end, he was gentleman enough not to +show it. The marriage was generally considered an ideal one.”</p> + +<p>Miss Dammers paused for a moment to sip at the glass of +water in front of her.</p> + +<p>“Lastly, Mr. Sheringham made the point that the letter and +wrapper were not destroyed, because the murderer thought they +would not only not harm him but definitely help him. With that +too I agree. But I do not draw the same deduction from it that +Mr. Sheringham did. I should have said that this entirely confirms +my theory that the murder is the work of a second-rate mind, +because a first-rate mind would never consent to the survival +of any clue which could be easily destroyed, however helpful it +might be expected to prove, because he would know how often +such clues, deliberately left to mislead, have actually led to the +criminal’s undoing. And I would draw the subsidiary deduction +that the wrapper and letter were not expected to be just generally +helpful, but that there was some definite piece of misleading +information contained in them. I think I know what that piece +of information was.</p> + +<p>“That is all the reference I have to make to Mr. Sheringham’s +case.”</p> + +<p>Roger lifted his bowed head, and Miss Dammers sipped again +at her water.</p> + +<p>“With regard to this matter of the respect Mr. Bendix had for +his wife,” Mr. Chitterwick hazarded, “isn’t there something of an +anomaly there, Miss Dammers? Because I understood you to say +at the very beginning that the deduction you had drawn from that +bet was that Mrs. Bendix was not quite so worthy of respect as +we had all imagined. Didn’t that deduction stand the test, then?”</p> + +<p>“It did, Mr. Chitterwick, and there is no anomaly.”</p> + +<p>“Where a man doesn’t suspect, he will respect,” said Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming swiftly, before her Alicia could think of it.</p> + +<p>“Ah, the horrid sepulchre under the nice white paint,” remarked +Mr. Bradley, who didn’t approve of that sort of thing, even from +distinguished dramatists. “Now we’re getting down to it. Is there +a sepulchre, Miss Dammers?”</p> + +<p>“There is,” Miss Dammers agreed, without emotion. “And +now, as you say, Mr. Bradley, we’re getting down to it.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” Mr. Chitterwick positively bounced on his chair. “If the +letter and wrapper <em>could</em> have been destroyed by the murderer . . . +and Bendix wasn’t the murderer . . . and I suppose the porter +needn’t be considered . . . Oh, <em>I</em> see!”</p> + +<p>“I wondered when somebody would,” said Miss Dammers.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch16"> + +<h2>Chapter XVI</h2> + +<p>“From the very beginning of this case,” Miss Dammers +proceeded, imperturbable as ever, “I was of the opinion +that the greatest clue the criminal had left us was one of which +he would have been totally unconscious: the unmistakable indications +of his own character. Taking the facts as I found them, and +not assuming others as Mr. Sheringham did to justify his own +reading of the murderer’s exceptional mentality—” She looked +challengingly towards Roger.</p> + +<p>“Did I assume any facts that I couldn’t substantiate?” Roger +felt himself compelled to answer her look.</p> + +<p>“Certainly you did. You assumed for instance that the typewriter +on which the letter was written is now at the bottom of +the Thames. The plain fact that it is not, once more bears out my +own interpretation. Taking the established facts as I found them, +then, I was able without difficulty to form the mental picture of +the murderer that I have already sketched out for you. But I was +careful not to look for somebody who would resemble my picture +and then build up a case against him. I simply hung the picture up +in my mind, so to speak, in order to compare with it any individual +towards whom suspicion might seem to point.</p> + +<p>“Now, after I had cleared up Mr. Bendix’s reason for arriving +at his club that morning at such an unusual hour, there remained +so far as I could see only one obscure point, apparently of no +importance, to which nobody’s attention seemed to have been +directed. I mean, the engagement Sir Eustace had had that day +for lunch, which must subsequently have been cancelled. I don’t +know how Mr. Bradley discovered this, but I am quite ready to +say how I did. It was from that same useful valet who gave Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming so much interesting information.</p> + +<p>“I must admit in this connection that I have advantages over +the other members of this Circle so far as investigations regarding +Sir Eustace were concerned, for not only did I know Sir Eustace +himself so well but I knew his valet too; and you may imagine +that if Mrs. Fielder-Flemming was able to extract so much from +him with the aid of money alone, I myself, backed not only by +money but by the advantage of a previous acquaintance, was in +a position to obtain still more. In any case, it was not long before +the man casually mentioned that four days before the crime Sir +Eustace had told him to ring up Fellows’s Hotel in Jermyn Street +and reserve a private room for lunch-time on the day on which +the murder subsequently took place.</p> + +<p>“That was the obscure point, which I thought it worth while +to clear up if I could. With whom was Sir Eustace going to lunch +that day? Obviously a woman, but which of his many women? The +valet could give me no information. So far as he knew, Sir Eustace +actually had not got any women at the moment, so intent was +he upon the pursuit of Miss Wildman (you must excuse me, Sir +Charles), her hand and her fortune. Was it Miss Wildman herself +then? I was very soon able to establish that it wasn’t.</p> + +<p>“Does it strike you that there is a reminiscent ring about this +cancelled lunch-appointment on the day of the crime? It didn’t +occur to me for a long time, but of course there is. Mrs. Bendix +had a lunch-engagement for that day too, which was cancelled for +some reason unknown on the previous afternoon.”</p> + +<p>“<em>Mrs. Bendix!</em>” breathed Mrs. Fielder-Flemming. Here was a +juicy triangle.</p> + +<p>Miss Dammers smiled faintly. “Yes, I won’t keep you on the +tenterhooks, Mabel. From what Sir Charles told us I knew that +Mrs. Bendix and Sir Eustace at any rate were not total strangers, +and in the end I managed to connect them. Mrs. Bendix was to +have lunched with Sir Eustace, in a private room, at the somewhat +notorious Fellows’s Hotel.”</p> + +<p>“To discuss her husband’s shortcomings, of course?” suggested +Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, more charitably than her hopes.</p> + +<p>“Possibly, among other things,” said Miss Dammers nonchalantly. +“But the chief reason, no doubt was because she was his +mistress.” Miss Dammers dropped this bombshell among the +company with as little emotion as if she had remarked that Mrs. +Bendix was wearing a jade-green taffeta frock for the occasion.</p> + +<p>“Can you—can you substantiate that statement?” asked Sir +Charles, the first to recover himself.</p> + +<p>Miss Dammers just raised her fine eyebrows. “But of course. +I shall make no statements that I can’t substantiate. Mrs. Bendix +had been in the habit of lunching at least twice a week with +Sir Eustace, and occasionally dining too, at Fellows’s Hotel, +always in the same room. They took considerable precautions +and used to arrive not only at the hotel but in the room itself +quite independently of each other; outside the room they +were never seen together. But the waiter who attended them +(always the same waiter) has signed a declaration for me that +he recognised Mrs. Bendix, from the photographs published +after her death, as the woman who used to come there with +Sir Eustace Pennefather.”</p> + +<p>“He signed a declaration for you, eh?” mused Mr. Bradley. “You +must find detecting an expensive hobby too, Miss Dammers.”</p> + +<p>“One can afford one expensive hobby, Mr. Bradley.”</p> + +<p>“But just because she lunched with him . . .” Mrs. Fielder-Flemming +was once more speaking with the voice of charity. “I +mean, it doesn’t necessarily mean that she was his mistress, does +it? Not, of course, that I think any the less of her if she was,” she +added hastily, remembering the official attitude.</p> + +<p>“Communicating with the room in which they had their meals +is a bedroom,” replied Miss Dammers, in a desiccated tone of +voice. “Invariably after they had gone, the waiter informed me, +he found the bedclothes disarranged and the bed showing signs +of recent use. I imagine that would be accepted as clear enough +evidence of adultery, Sir Charles?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, undoubtedly, undoubtedly,” rumbled Sir Charles, in high +embarrassment. Sir Charles was always exceedingly embarrassed +when women used words like “adultery” and “sexual perversions” +and even “mistress” to him, out of business hours. Sir Charles was +regrettably old-fashioned.</p> + +<p>“Sir Eustace, of course,” added Miss Dammers in her detached +way, “had nothing to fear from the King’s Proctor.”</p> + +<p>She took another sip of water, while the others tried to accustom +themselves to this new light on the case and the surprising +avenues it illuminated.</p> + +<p>Miss Dammers proceeded to illuminate them still further, +with powerful beams from her psychological searchlight. “They +must have made a curious couple those two. Their widely differing +scales of values, the contrast of their respective reactions to +the business that brought them together, the possibility that not +even in a common passion could their minds establish any point +of real contact. I want you to examine the psychology of the +situation as closely as you can, because the murder was derived +directly from it.</p> + +<p>“What can have induced Mrs. Bendix in the first place to +become that man’s mistress I don’t know. I won’t be so trite as +to say I can’t imagine, because I can imagine all sorts of ways in +which it may have happened. There is a curious mental stimulus +to a good but stupid woman in a bad man’s badness. If she has +a touch of the reformer in her, as most good women have, she +soon becomes obsessed with the futile desire to save him from +himself. And in seven cases out of ten her first step in doing so is +to descend to his level.</p> + +<p>“Not that she considers herself at first to be descending at all; +a good woman invariably suffers for quite a long time from the +delusion that whatever she does, her own particular brand of +goodness cannot become smirched. She may share a reprobate’s +bed with him, because she knows that only through her body at +first can she hope to influence him, until contact is established +through the body with the soul and he may be led into better ways +than a habit of going to bed in the daytime; but the initial sharing +doesn’t reflect on her own purity in the least. It is a hackneyed +observation but I must insist on it once more: good women have +the most astonishing powers of self-deception.</p> + +<p>“I do consider Mrs. Bendix as a good woman, before she met +Sir Eustace. Her trouble was that she thought herself so much +better than she was. Her constant references to honour and +playing the game, which Mr. Sheringham quoted, show that. She +was infatuated with her own goodness. And so, of course, was +Sir Eustace. He had probably never enjoyed the complaisance of +a really good woman before. The seduction of her (which was +probably very difficult) would have amused him enormously. He +must have had to listen to hour after hour’s talk about honour, +and reform, and spirituality, but he would have borne it patiently +enough for the exquisite revenge on which he had set his heart. +The first two or three visits to Fellows’s Hotel must have delighted +him.</p> + +<p>“But after that it became less and less amusing. Mrs. Bendix +would discover that perhaps her own goodness wasn’t standing +quite so firm under the strain as she had imagined. She would +have begun to bore him with her self-reproaches; bore him +dreadfully. He continued to meet her there first because a woman, to +his type, is always a woman, and afterwards because she gave him +no choice. I can see exactly what must inevitably have happened. +Mrs. Bendix begins to get thoroughly morbid about her own +wickedness, and quite loses sight of her initial zeal for reform.</p> + +<p>“They use the bed now because there happens to be a bed there +and it would be a pity to waste it, but she has destroyed the +pleasure of both. Her one cry now is that she must put herself right +with her own conscience either by running away with Sir Eustace +on the spot, or, more probably, by telling her husband, arranging +for divorce (for, of course, he will never forgive her, <em>never</em>), and +marrying Sir Eustace as soon as both divorces are through. In any +case, although she almost loathes him by now nothing else can +be contemplated but that the rest of her life must be spent with +Sir Eustace and his with her. How well I know that type of mind.</p> + +<p>“Naturally, to Sir Eustace, who is working hard to retrieve his +fortunes by a rich marriage, this scheme has small appeal. He +begins by cursing himself for having seduced the damned woman +at all, and goes on to curse still more the damned woman for +having been seduced. And the more pressing she becomes, the +more he hates her. Then Mrs. Bendix must have brought matters +to a head. She has heard about the Wildman girl affair. That +must be stopped at once. She tells Sir Eustace that if he doesn’t +break it off himself, she will take steps to break it off for him. Sir +Eustace sees the whole thing coming out, his own appearance +in a second divorce-court, and all hopes of Miss Wildman and +her fortune gone for ever. Something has got to be done about +it. But what can be done? Nothing short of murder will stop the +damned woman’s tongue.</p> + +<p>“Well—it’s high time somebody murdered her anyhow.</p> + +<p>“Now I’m on rather less sure ground, but the assumptions +seem to me sound enough and I can produce a reasonable +amount of proof to support them. Sir Eustace decides to get rid of +the woman once and for all. He thinks it over carefully, remembers +to have read about a case, several cases, in some criminological +book, each of which just failed through some small mistake. +Combine them, eradicate the small mistake from each, and so +long as his relations with Mrs. Bendix are not known (and he is +quite certain they aren’t) there is no possibility of being found +out. That may seem a long guess, but here’s my proof.</p> + +<p>“When I was studying him, I gave Sir Eustace every chance of +plying his blandishments on me. One of his methods is to profess +a deep interest in everything that interests the woman. Naturally +therefore he discovered a profound, if hitherto latent, interest in +criminology. He borrowed several of my books, and certainly +read them. Among the ones he borrowed is a book of American +poisoning cases. In it is an account of every single case that has +been mentioned as a parallel by members of this Circle (except +of course Marie Lafarge and Christina Edmunds).</p> + +<p>“About six weeks ago, when I got in one evening my maid told +me that Sir Eustace, who hadn’t been near my flat for months, +had called; he waited for a time in the sitting-room and then +went. Shortly after the murder, having also been struck by the +similarity between this and one or two of those American cases, +I went to the bookshelf in my sitting-room to look them up. The +book was not there. Nor, Mr. Bradley, was my copy of Taylor. But +I saw them both in Sir Eustace’s rooms the day I had that long +conversation with his valet.”</p> + +<p>Miss Dammers paused for comment.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bradley supplied it. “Then the man deserves what’s coming +to him,” he drawled.</p> + +<p>“I told you this murder wasn’t the work of a highly intelligent +mind,” said Miss Dammers.</p> + +<p>“Well, now, to complete my reconstruction. Sir Eustace decides +to rid himself of his encumbrance, and arranges what he thinks a +perfectly safe way of doing so. The nitrobenzene, which appears to +worry Mr. Bradley so much, seems to me a very simple matter. Sir +Eustace has decided upon chocolates as the vehicle, and chocolate +liqueurs at that. (Mason’s chocolate liqueurs, I should say, are a +favourite purchase of Sir Eustace’s. It is significant that he had +bought several one-pound boxes recently.) He is searching, then, +for some poison with a flavour which will mingle well enough +with that of the liqueurs. He is bound to come across oil of +bitter almonds very soon in that connection, actually used as it is +in confectionery, and from that to nitrobenzene, which is more +common, easier to get hold of, and practically untraceable, is an +obvious step.</p> + +<p>“He arranges to meet Mrs. Bendix for lunch, intending to +make a present to her then of the chocolates which are to come to +him that morning by post, a perfectly natural thing to do. He will +already have the porter’s evidence of the innocent way in which +he acquired them. At the last minute he sees the obvious flaw in +this plan. If he gives Mrs. Bendix the chocolates in person, and +especially at lunch at Fellows’s Hotel, his intimacy with her must +be disclosed. He hastily racks his brains and finds a very much +better plan. Getting hold of Mrs. Bendix, he tells her some story +of her husband and Vera Delorme.</p> + +<p>“In characteristic fashion Mrs. Bendix loses sight of the beam in +her own eye on learning of this mote in her husband’s and at once +falls in with Sir Eustace’s suggestion that she shall ring Mr. Bendix +up, disguising her voice and pretending to be Vera Delorme, and +just find out for herself whether or not he will jump at the chance +of an intimate little lunch for the following day.</p> + +<p>“ ‘And tell him you’ll ring him up at the Rainbow to-morrow +morning between ten-thirty and eleven,’ Sir Eustace adds carelessly. +‘If he goes to the Rainbow, you’ll be able to know for certain +that he’s dancing attendance on her at any hour of the day.’ And +so she does. The presence of Bendix is therefore assured for the +next morning at half-past ten. Who in the world is to say that he +was not there by purest chance when Sir Eustace was exclaiming +over that parcel?</p> + +<p>“As for the bet, which clinched the handing over of the +chocolates, I cannot believe that this was just a stroke of luck +for Sir Eustace. That seems too good to be true. Somehow, +I’m sure, though I won’t attempt to show how (that would be +mere guesswork), Sir Eustace arranged for that bet in advance. +And if he did, the fact in no way destroys my initial deduction +from it, that Mrs. Bendix was not so honest as she pretended; +for whether it was arranged or whether it wasn’t, the plain fact +is left that it is dishonest to make a bet to which you know +the answer.</p> + +<p>“Lastly, if I am to follow the fashion and cite a parallel case, I +decide unhesitatingly for John Tawell, who administered prussic +acid in a bottle of beer to his mistress, Sarah Hart, when he was +tired of her.”</p> + +<p>The Circle looked at her admiringly. At last, it seemed, they +really had got to the bottom of the business.</p> + +<p>Sir Charles voiced the general feeling. “If you’ve got any solid +evidence to support this theory, Miss Dammers . . .” He implied +that in that case the rope was as good as round Sir Eustace’s thick +red neck.</p> + +<p>“Meaning that the evidence I’ve given already isn’t solid +enough for the legal mind?” enquired Miss Dammers equably.</p> + +<p>“Psy—psychological reconstructions wouldn’t carry <em>very</em> much +weight with a jury,” Sir Charles took refuge behind the jury in +question.</p> + +<p>“I’ve connected Sir Eustace with the piece of Mason’s +notepaper,” Miss Dammers pointed out.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid on that alone Sir Eustace would get the benefit of +the doubt.” Sir Charles was evidently deprecating the +psychological obtuseness of that jury of his.</p> + +<p>“I’ve shown a tremendous motive, and I’ve connected him +with a book of similar cases and a book of poisons.”</p> + +<p>“Yes. Oh, quite so. But what I mean is, have you any real evidence +to connect Sir Eustace quite definitely with the letter, the +chocolates, or the wrapper?”</p> + +<p>“He has an Onyx pen, and the inkpot in his library used to be +filled with Harfield’s Ink,” Miss Dammers smiled. “I’ve no doubt +it is still. He was supposed to have been at the Rainbow the whole +evening before the murder, but I’ve ascertained that there is a gap +of half-an-hour between nine o’clock and nine-thirty during which +nobody saw him. He left the dining-room at nine, and a waiter +brought him a whisky-and-soda in the lounge at half-past. In the +interim nobody knows where he was. He wasn’t in the lounge. +Where was he? The porter swears he did not see him go out, or +come in again; but there is a back way which he could have used +if he wanted to be unnoticed, as of course he did. I asked him +myself, as if by way of a joke, and he said that he had gone up to +the library after dinner to look up a reference in a book of +big-game hunting. Could he mention the names of any other members +in the library? He said there weren’t any; there never were; +he’d never seen a member in the library all the time he belonged +to the club. I thanked him and rang off.</p> + +<p>“In other words, he says he was in the library, because he +knows there would be no other member there to prove he wasn’t. +What he really did during that half-hour, of course, was to slip out +the back-way, hurry down to the Strand to post the parcel (just +as Mr. Sheringham saw Mr. Bendix hurrying down), slip in again, +run up to the library to make sure nobody was there, and then +go down to the lounge and order his whisky-and-soda to prove +his presence there later. Isn’t that more feasible than your vision +of Mr. Bendix, Mr. Sheringham?”</p> + +<p>“I must admit that it’s no less so,” Roger had to agree.</p> + +<p>“Then you haven’t any solid evidence at all?” lamented Sir +Charles. “Nothing that would really impress a jury?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I have,” said Miss Dammers quietly. “I’ve been saving it +up till the end because I wanted to prove my case (as I consider I +have done) without it. But this is absolutely and finally conclusive. +Will everybody examine these, please.”</p> + +<p>Miss Dammers produced from her bag a brown-paper-covered +parcel. Unwrapping it, she brought to light a photograph and a +quarto sheet of paper which looked like a typed letter.</p> + +<p>“The photograph,” she explained, “I obtained from Chief +Inspector Moresby the other day, but without telling him the +specific purpose for which I wanted it. It is of the forged letter, +actual size. I should like everybody to compare it with this typed +copy of the letter. Will you look at them first, Mr. Sheringham, +and then pass them round? Notice particularly the slightly crooked +s’s and the chipped capital H.”</p> + +<p>In dead silence Roger pored over the two. He examined them +for a full two minutes, which seemed to the others more like two +hours, and then passed them on to Sir Charles on his right.</p> + +<p>“There isn’t the slightest doubt that those two were done on +the same machine,” he said soberly.</p> + +<p>Miss Dammers showed neither less nor more emotion than +she had displayed throughout. Her voice carried exactly the +same impersonal inflection. She might have been announcing +her discovery of a match between two pieces of dress-material. +From her level tone it could never have been guessed that a man’s +neck depended on her words no less than on the rope that was +to hang him.</p> + +<p>“You will find the machine in Sir Eustace’s rooms,” she said.</p> + +<p>Even Mr. Bradley was moved. “Then as I said, he deserves +all that’s coming to him,” he drawled, with a quite impossible +nonchalance, and even attempted a yawn. “Dear me, what a +distressing bungler.”</p> + +<p>Sir Charles passed on the evidence. “Miss Dammers,” he said +impressively, “you have rendered a very great service to society. +I congratulate you.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, Sir Charles,” replied Miss Dammers, +matter-of-factly. “But it was Mr. Sheringham’s idea, you know.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Sheringham,” intoned Sir Charles, “sowed better than +he knew.”</p> + +<p>Roger, who had hoped to add another feather to his cap by +solving the mystery himself, smiled in a somewhat sickly way.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fielder-Flemming improved the occasion. “We have +made history,” she said with fitting solemnity. “When the whole +police-force of a nation had failed, a woman has uncovered the +dark mystery. Alicia, this is a red-letter day, not only for you, not +only for this Circle, but for Woman.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, Mabel,” responded Miss Dammers. “How very +nice of you to say so.”</p> + +<p>The evidence passed slowly round the table and returned to +Miss Dammers. She handed it on to Roger.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Sheringham, I think you had better take charge of +these. As President, I leave the matter in your hands. You know +as much as I do. As you may imagine, to inform the police +officially myself would be extremely distasteful. I should like +my name kept out of any communication you make to them, +entirely.”</p> + +<p>Roger was rubbing his chin. “I think that can be done. I could +just hand these things over to him, with the information where +the machine is, and let Scotland Yard work the case up themselves. +These, and the motive, with the evidence of the porter at Fellows’s +Hotel of which I shall have to tell Moresby, are the only things +that will really interest the police, I think. Humph! I suppose I’d +better see Moresby to-night. Will you come with me, Sir Charles? +It would add weight.”</p> + +<p>“Certainly, certainly,” Sir Charles agreed with alacrity.</p> + +<p>Everybody looked, and felt, very serious.</p> + +<p>“I suppose,” Mr. Chitterwick dropped shyly into all this solemnity, +“I suppose you couldn’t put it off for twenty-four hours, +could you?”</p> + +<p>Roger looked his surprise. “But why?”</p> + +<p>“Well, you know . . .” Mr. Chitterwick wriggled with diffidence. +“Well—I haven’t spoken yet, you know.”</p> + +<p>Five pairs of eyes fastened on him in astonishment. Mr. +Chitterwick blushed warmly.</p> + +<p>“Of course. No, of course.” Roger was trying to be as tactful as +he could. “And—well, that is to say, you want to speak, of course?”</p> + +<p>“I have a theory,” said Mr. Chitterwick modestly. “I—I don’t +<em>want</em> to speak, no. But I have a theory.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes,” said Roger, and looked helplessly at Sir Charles.</p> + +<p>Sir Charles marched to the rescue. “I’m sure we shall all be +most interested to hear Mr. Chitterwick’s theory,” he pronounced. +“Most interested. But why not let us have it now, Mr. Chitterwick?”</p> + +<p>“It isn’t quite complete,” said Mr. Chitterwick, unhappy but +persistent. “I should like another twenty-four hours to clear up +one or two points.”</p> + +<p>Sir Charles had an inspiration. “Of course, of course. We +must meet to-morrow and listen to Mr. Chitterwick’s theory, +of course. In the meantime Sheringham and I will just call in at +Scotland Yard and—”</p> + +<p>“I’d much rather you didn’t,” said Mr. Chitterwick, now in the +deeps of misery. “Really I would.”</p> + +<p>Again Roger looked helplessly at Sir Charles. This time Sir +Charles looked helplessly back.</p> + +<p>“Well—I suppose another twenty-four hours wouldn’t make +<em>much</em> difference,” said Roger with reluctance. “After all this time.”</p> + +<p>“Not <em>very</em> much difference,” pleaded Mr. Chitterwick.</p> + +<p>“Well, not very much difference certainly,” agreed Sir Charles, +frankly puzzled.</p> + +<p>“Then have I your word, Mr. President?” persisted Mr. +Chitterwick, very mournfully.</p> + +<p>“If you put it like that,” said Roger, rather coldly.</p> + +<p>The meeting then broke up, somewhat bewildered.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch17"> + +<h2>Chapter XVII</h2> + +<p>It was quite evident that, as he had said, Mr. Chitterwick +did not want to speak. He looked appealingly round the circle +of faces the next evening when Roger asked him to do so, but +the faces remained decidedly unsympathetic. Mr. Chitterwick, +expressed the faces plainly, was being a silly old woman.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chitterwick cleared his throat nervously two or three times +and took the plunge.</p> + +<p>“Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, I quite realise what you +must be thinking, and I must plead for leniency. I can only say in +excuse of what you must consider my perversity, that convincing +though Miss Dammers’s clever exposition was and definite as her +proofs appeared, we have listened to so many apparently convincing +solutions of this mystery and been confronted with so many +seemingly definite proofs, that I could not help feeling that perhaps +even Miss Dammers’s theory might not prove on reflection to be +not quite so strong as one would at first think.” Mr. Chitterwick, +having surmounted this tall obstacle, blinked rapidly but was unable +to recall the next sentence he had prepared so carefully.</p> + +<p>He jumped it, and went on a little. “As the one to whom has +fallen the task, both a privilege and a responsibility, of speaking +last, you may not consider it out of place if I take the liberty of +summing up the various conclusions that have been reached here, +so different in both their methods and results. Not to waste time +however in going over old ground, I have prepared a little chart +which may show more clearly the various contrasting theories, +parallels, and suggested criminals. Perhaps members would care +to pass it round.”</p> + +<p>With much hesitation Mr. Chitterwick produced the chart on +which he had spent so much careful thought, and offered it to +Mr. Bradley on his right. Mr. Bradley received it graciously, and +even condescended to lay it on the table between himself and +Miss Dammers and examine it. Mr. Chitterwick looked artlessly +gratified.</p> + +<figure id="chart-image"> + <img src="images/chart.svg" alt="Mr. Chitterwick’s Chart, rendered sideways"> + <figcaption><a href="#chart-table">[view unturned version]</a></figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>“You will see,” said Mr. Chitterwick, with a shade more +confidence, “that practically speaking no two members have agreed +on any one single matter of importance. The divergence of +opinion and method is really remarkable. And in spite of such +variations each member has felt confident that his or her solution +was the right one. This chart, more than any words of mine +could, emphasises not only the extreme openness, as Mr. Bradley +would say, of the case before us, but illustrates another of Mr. +Bradley’s observations too, that is how surprisingly easy it is to +prove anything one may desire, by a process either of conscious +or of unwitting selection.</p> + +<p>“Miss Dammers, I think,” suggested Mr. Chitterwick, “may +perhaps find that chart especially interesting. I am not myself a +student of psychology, but even to me it was striking to notice +how the solution of each member reflected, if I may say so, +that particular member’s own trend of thought and character. +Sir Charles, for instance, whose training has naturally led him +to realise the importance of the material, will not mind if I +point out that the angle from which he viewed the problem +was the very material one of <i>cui bono</i>, while the equally material +evidence of the notepaper formed for him its salient feature. At +the other end of the scale, Miss Dammers herself regards the +case almost entirely from a psychological view-point and takes +as its salient feature the character, as unconsciously revealed, +of the criminal.</p> + +<p>“Between these two, other members have paid attention to +psychological and material evidence in varying proportions. Then +again the methods of building up the case against a suspected +person have been widely different. Some of us have relied almost +entirely on inductive methods, some almost wholly on deductive; +while some, like Mr. Sheringham, have blended the two. In short, +the task our President set us has proved a most instructive lesson +in comparative detection.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Chitterwick cleared his throat, smiled nervously, and +continued. “There is another chart which I might have made, and +which I think would have been no less illuminating than this one. +It is a chart of the singularly different deductions drawn by +different members from the undisputed facts in the case. Mr. Bradley +might have found particular interest in this possible chart, as a +writer of detective-stories.</p> + +<p>“For I have often noticed,” apologised Mr. Chitterwick to the +writers of detective-stories <i>en masse</i>, “that in books of that kind +it is frequently assumed that any given fact can admit of only +one single deduction, and that invariably the right one. Nobody +else is capable of drawing any deductions at all but the author’s +favourite detective, and the ones he draws (in the books where +the detective is capable of drawing deductions at all which, alas, +are only too few) are invariably right. Miss Dammers mentioned +something of the kind one evening herself, with her illustration +of the two bottles of ink.</p> + +<p>“As an example of what really happens therefore, I should +like to cite the sheet of Mason’s notepaper in this case. From that +single piece of paper the following deductions have at one time +or another been drawn:</p> + +<ol> + <li>That the criminal was an employee or ex-employee of + Mason & Sons.</li> + <li>That the criminal was a customer of Mason & Sons.</li> + <li>That the criminal was a printer, or had access to a + printing-press.</li> + <li>That the criminal was a lawyer, acting on behalf of + Mason & Sons.</li> + <li>That the criminal was a relative of an ex-employee of + Mason & Sons.</li> + <li>That the criminal was a would-be customer of + Webster’s, the printers.</li> +</ol> + +<p>“There have been plenty of other deductions of course from that +sheet of paper, such as that the chance possession of it suggested +the whole method of the crime, but I am only calling attention +to the ones which were to point directly to the criminal’s identity. +There are no less than six of them, you see, and all mutually +contradictory.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll write a book for you, Mr. Chitterwick,” promised Mr. +Bradley, “in which the detective shall draw six contradictory +deductions from each fact. He’ll probably end up by arresting +seventy-two different people for the murder and committing +suicide because he finds afterwards that he must have done it +himself. I’ll dedicate the book to you.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, do,” beamed Mr. Chitterwick. “For really, it wouldn’t be +far from what we’ve had in this case. For example, I only called +attention to the notepaper. Besides that there were the poison, the +typewriter, the post-mark, the exactness of the dose—oh, many +more facts. And from each one of them not much less than +half-a-dozen different deductions have been drawn.</p> + +<p>“In fact,” Mr. Chitterwick summed up, “it was as much as +anything the different deductions drawn by different members +that proved their different cases.”</p> + +<p>“On second thoughts,” decided Mr. Bradley, “my detectives +in future will be the kind that don’t draw any deductions at all. +Besides, that will be so much easier for me.”</p> + +<p>“So with these few remarks on the solutions we have already +heard,” continued Mr. Chitterwick, “which I hope members will +pardon me, I will hurry on to my explanation of why I asked Mr. +Sheringham so urgently last evening not to go to Scotland Yard +at once.”</p> + +<p>Five faces expressed silent agreement that it was about time +Mr. Chitterwick was heard on that point.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chitterwick appeared to be conscious of the thoughts +behind the faces, for his manner became a little flurried.</p> + +<p>“I must first deal very briefly with the case against Sir Eustace +Pennefather, as Miss Dammers gave it us last night. Without belittling +her presentation of it in any way at all, I must just point out +that her two chief reasons for fixing the guilt upon him seemed +to me to be firstly that he was the type of person whom she had +already decided the criminal must be, and secondly that he had +been conducting an intrigue with Mrs. Bendix and certainly would +have seemed to have some cause for wishing her out of the way—<em>if</em> +(but only if) Miss Dammers’s own view of the progress of that +intrigue was the correct one.”</p> + +<p>“But the typewriter, Mr. Chitterwick!” cried Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming, loyal to her sex.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chitterwick started. “Oh, yes; the typewriter. I’m coming +to that. But before I reach it, I should like to mention two other +points which Miss Dammers would have us believe are important +material evidence against Sir Eustace, as opposed to the +psychological. That he should be in the habit of buying Mason’s liqueur +chocolates for his—his female friends hardly seems to me even +significant. If every one who is in the habit of buying Mason’s +liqueur chocolates is to be suspect, then London must be full of +suspects. And surely even so unoriginal a murderer as Sir Eustace +would seem to be, would have taken the elementary precaution +of choosing some vehicle for the poison which is not generally +associated with his name, instead of one that is. And if I may +venture the opinion, Sir Eustace is not quite such a dunderhead +as Miss Dammers would seem to think.</p> + +<p>“The second point is that the girl in Webster’s should have +recognised, and even identified, Sir Eustace from his photograph. +That also doesn’t appear to me, if Miss Dammers doesn’t mind my +saying so, nearly as significant as she would have us believe. I have +ascertained,” said Mr. Chitterwick, not without pride (here too +was a piece of real detecting) “that Sir Eustace Pennefather buys +his notepaper at Webster’s, and has done so for years. He was in +there about a month ago to order a fresh supply. It would be +surprising, considering that he has a title, if the girl who served him +had not remembered him; it cannot be considered significant,” +said Mr. Chitterwick quite firmly, “that she does.</p> + +<p>“Apart from the typewriter, then, and perhaps the copies of +the criminological books, Miss Dammers’s case has no real evidence +to support it at all, for the matter of the broken alibi, I am +afraid, must be held to be neither here nor there. I don’t wish to +be unfair,” said Mr. Chitterwick carefully, “but I think I am +justified in saying that Miss Dammers’s case against Sir Eustace rests +entirely and solely upon the evidence of the typewriter.” He gazed +round anxiously for possible objections.</p> + +<p>One came, promptly. “But you can’t possibly get round that,” +exclaimed Mrs. Fielder-Flemming impatiently.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chitterwick looked a trifle distressed. “Is ‘get round’ +quite the right expression? I’m not trying wilfully or maliciously +to pick holes in Miss Dammers’s case just for amusement. You +must really believe that. Please think that I am actuated only by a +desire to bring this crime home to its real perpetrator. And with +that end alone in view, I can certainly suggest an explanation of +the typewriter evidence which excludes the guilt of Sir Eustace.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Chitterwick looked so unhappy at what he conceived to be +Mrs. Fielder-Flemming’s insinuation that he was merely wasting +the Circle’s time, that Roger spoke to him kindly.</p> + +<p>“You can?” he said gently, as one encourages one’s daughter on +drawing a cow, which if not much like a cow is certainly unlike any +other animal on earth. “That’s very interesting, Mr. Chitterwick. +How do you explain it then?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Chitterwick, responding to treatment, shone with pride. +“Dear me! You can’t see it really? Nobody sees it?”</p> + +<p>It seemed that nobody saw it.</p> + +<p>“And yet the possibility of such a thing has been before me +right from the beginning of the case,” crowed the now triumphant +Mr. Chitterwick. “Well, well!” He arranged his glasses on his nose +and beamed round the circle, his round red face positively aglow.</p> + +<p>“Well, what is the explanation, Mr. Chitterwick?” queried +Miss Dammers, when it seemed that Mr. Chitterwick was going +to continue beaming in silence for ever.</p> + +<p>“Oh! Oh, yes; of course. Why, to put it one way, Miss Dammers, +that you were wrong and Mr. Sheringham was right, in your +respective estimates of the criminal’s ability. That there was, in +fact, an extremely able and ingenious mind behind this murder +(Miss Dammers’s attempts to prove the contrary were, I’m afraid +another case of special pleading). And that one of the ways in +which this ingenuity was shown, was to arrange the evidence in +such a way that if any one were to be suspected it would be Sir +Eustace. That the evidence of the typewriter, in a word, and of +the criminological books was, as I believe the technical word is, +‘<i>rigged</i>.’ ” Mr. Chitterwick resumed his beam.</p> + +<p>Everybody sat up with what might have been a concerted +jerk. In a flash the tide of feeling towards Mr. Chitterwick had +turned. The man <em>had</em> got something to say after all. There +actually was an idea behind that untimely request of the previous +evening.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bradley rose to the occasion, and he quite forgot to speak +quite so patronisingly as usual. “I say—dam’ good, Chitterwick! +But can you substantiate that?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes. I think so,” said Mr. Chitterwick, basking in the rays +of appreciation that were being shone on him.</p> + +<p>“You’ll be telling us next you know who did it,” Roger smiled.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chitterwick smiled back. “Oh, I know <em>that</em>.”</p> + +<p>“<em>What!</em>” exclaimed five voices in chorus.</p> + +<p>“I know that, of course,” said Mr. Chitterwick modestly. +“You’ve practically told me that yourselves. Coming last of all, +you see, my task was comparatively simple. All I had to do was +to sort out the true from the false in everybody else’s statements, +and—well, there <em>was</em> the truth.”</p> + +<p>The rest of the Circle looked their surprise at having told Mr. +Chitterwick the truth without knowing it themselves.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chitterwick’s face took on a meditative aspect. “Perhaps +I may confess now that when our President first propounded his +idea to us, I was filled with dismay. I had had no practical +experience of detecting, I was quite at a loss as to how to set about +it, and I had no theory of the case at all. I could not even see a +starting-point. The week flew by, so far as I was concerned, and +left me exactly where I had been at its beginning. On the evening +Sir Charles spoke he convinced me completely. The next evening, +for a short time, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming convinced me too.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Bradley did not altogether convince me that he had +committed the murder himself, but if he had named any one +else then I should have been convinced; as it was, he convinced +me that his—his discarded mistress theory,” said Mr. Chitterwick +bravely, “must be the correct one. That indeed was the only idea +I had had at all, that the crime might be the work of one of Sir +Eustace’s—h’m!—discarded mistresses.</p> + +<p>“But the next evening Mr. Sheringham convinced me just +as definitely that Mr. Bendix was the murderer. It was only last +night, during Miss Dammers’s exposition, that I at last began to +realise the truth.”</p> + +<p>“Then I was the only one who didn’t convince you, Mr. +Chitterwick?” Miss Dammers smiled.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid,” apologised Mr. Chitterwick, “that is so.”</p> + +<p>He mused for a moment.</p> + +<p>“It is really remarkable, quite remarkable, how near in some +way or other everybody got to the truth of this affair. Not a single +person failed to bring out at least one important fact, or make +at least one important deduction correctly. Fortunately, when I +realised that the solutions were going to differ so widely, I made +copious notes of the preceding ones and kept them up to date each +evening as soon as I got home. I thus had a complete record of +the productions of all these brains, so much superior to my own.”</p> + +<p>“No, no,” murmured Mr. Bradley.</p> + +<p>“Last night I sat up very late, poring over these notes, separating +the true from the false. It might perhaps interest members to +hear my conclusions in this respect?” Mr. Chitterwick put forward +the suggestion with the utmost diffidence.</p> + +<p>Everybody assured Mr. Chitterwick that they would be only +too gratified to hear where they had stumbled inadvertently on +the truth.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter" id="ch18"> + +<h2>Chapter XVIII</h2> + +<p>Mr. Chitterwick consulted a page of his notes. For +a moment he looked a little distressed. “Sir Charles,” he +began. “Er—Sir Charles . . .” It was plain that Mr. Chitterwick +was finding difficulty in discovering any point at all on which Sir +Charles had been right, and he was a kindly man. He brightened. +“Oh, yes, of course. Sir Charles was the first to point out the +important fact that there had been an erasure on the piece of +notepaper used for the forged letter. That was—er—very helpful.</p> + +<p>“Then he was right too when he put forward the suggestion +that Sir Eustace’s impending divorce was really the mainspring +of the whole tragedy. Though I am afraid,” Mr. Chitterwick felt +compelled to add, “that the inference he drew was not the correct +one. He was quite right too in feeling that the criminal, in such a +clever plot, would take steps to arrange an alibi, and that there was, +in fact, an alibi in the case that would have to be circumvented. +But then again it was not Lady Pennefather’s.</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Fielder-Flemming,” continued Mr. Chitterwick, “was +quite right to insist that the murder was the work of somebody +with a knowledge of criminology. That was a very clever inference, +and I am glad,” beamed Mr. Chitterwick, “to be able to assure her +that it was perfectly correct. She contributed another important +piece of information too, just as vital to the real story underlying +this tragedy as to her own case, namely that Sir Eustace was not in +love with Miss Wildman at all but was hoping to marry her simply +for her money. Had that not been the case,” said Mr. Chitterwick, +shaking his head, “I fear, I very much fear, that it would have been +Miss Wildman who met her death instead of Mrs. Bendix.”</p> + +<p>“Good God!” muttered Sir Charles; and it is perhaps as great +a tribute as Mr. Chitterwick was ever to receive that the K.C. +accepted this startling news without question.</p> + +<p>“That clinches it,” muttered Mr. Bradley to Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming. “Discarded mistress.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Chitterwick turned to him. “As for you, Bradley, it’s +astonishing how near you came to the truth. Amazing!” Mr. Chitterwick +registered amazement. “Even in your first case, against yourself, +so many of your conclusions were perfectly right. The final result +of your deductions from the nitrobenzene, for instance; the fact +that the criminal must be neat-fingered and of a methodical and +creative mind; even, what appeared to me at the time just a trifle +far-fetched, that a copy of Taylor would be found on the +criminal’s shelves.</p> + +<p>“Then beyond the fact that No. 4 must be qualified to ‘must +have had an opportunity of secretly obtaining a sheet of Mason’s +notepaper,’ all twelve of your conditions were quite right, with +the exception of 6, which does not admit of an alibi, and 7 and 8, +about the Onyx pen and Harfield’s ink. Mr. Sheringham was right +in that matter with his rather more subtle point of the criminal’s +probable unobtrusive borrowing of the pen and ink. Which is +exactly what happened, of course, with regard to the typewriter.</p> + +<p>“As for your second case—well!” Mr. Chitterwick seemed +to be without words to express his admiration of Mr. Bradley’s +second case. “You reached to the truth in almost every particular. +You saw that it was a woman’s crime, you deduced the outraged +feminine feelings underlying the whole affair, you staked your +whole case on the criminal’s knowledge of criminology. It was +really most penetrating.”</p> + +<p>“In fact,” said Mr. Bradley, carefully concealing his gratification, +“I did everything possible except find the murderess.”</p> + +<p>“Well, that is so, of course,” deprecated Mr. Chitterwick, +somehow conveying the impression that after all finding the +murderess was a very minor matter compared with Mr. Bradley’s +powers of penetration.</p> + +<p>“And then we come to Mr. Sheringham.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t!” implored Roger. “Leave him out.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, but your reconstruction was very clever,” Mr. Chitterwick +assured him with great earnestness. “You put a new aspect on the +whole affair, you know, by your suggestion that it was the right +victim who was killed after all.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it seems that I erred in good company,” Roger said +tritely, with a glance at Miss Dammers.</p> + +<p>“But you didn’t err,” corrected Mr. Chitterwick.</p> + +<p>“Oh?” Roger showed his surprise. “Then it was all aimed +against Mrs. Bendix?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Chitterwick looked confused. “Haven’t I told you about +that? I’m afraid I’m doing this in a very muddle-headed way. Yes, +it is partially true to say that the plot was aimed against Mrs. +Bendix. But the real position, I think, is that it was aimed against +Mrs. Bendix and Sir Eustace jointly. You came very near the truth, +Mr. Sheringham, except that you substituted a jealous husband +for a jealous rival. Very near indeed. And of course you were +entirely right in your point that the method was not suggested +by the chance possession of the notepaper or anything like that, +but by previous cases.”</p> + +<p>“I’m glad I was entirely right over something,” murmured +Roger.</p> + +<p>“And Miss Dammers,” bowed Mr. Chitterwick, “was most +helpful. <em>Most</em> helpful.”</p> + +<p>“Although not convincing,” supplemented that lady drily.</p> + +<p>“Although I’m afraid I did not find her altogether convincing,” +agreed Mr. Chitterwick, with an apologetic air. “But it was really +the theory she gave us that at last showed me the truth. For she also +put yet another aspect on the crime, with her information +regarding the—h’m!—the affair between Mrs. Bendix and Sir Eustace. +And that really,” said Mr. Chitterwick, with another little bow to +the informant, “was the foundation-stone of the whole business.”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t see how it could fail to be,” said Miss Dammers. “But +I still maintain that my deductions from it are the correct ones.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps if I may just put my own forward?” hesitated Mr. +Chitterwick, apparently somewhat dashed.</p> + +<p>Miss Dammers accorded a somewhat tart permission.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chitterwick collected himself. “Oh, yes; I should have said +that Miss Dammers was quite right in one important particular, +her assumption that it was not so much the affair between Mrs. +Bendix and Sir Eustace that was at the bottom of the crime, as +Mrs. Bendix’s character. That really brought about her own death. +Miss Dammers, I should imagine, was perfectly right in her tracing +out of the intrigue, and her imaginative insight into Mrs. Bendix’s +reactions—I think that is the word?” Mr. Chitterwick inquired +diffidently of authority. “Mrs. Bendix’s reactions to it, but not, I +consider, in her deductions regarding Sir Eustace’s growing boredom.</p> + +<p>“Sir Eustace, I am led to believe, was less inclined to be bored +than to share the lady’s distress. For the real point, which happened +to escape Miss Dammers, is that Sir Eustace was quite infatuated +with Mrs. Bendix. Far more so than she with him.</p> + +<p>“That,” pronounced Mr. Chitterwick, “is one of the +determining factors in this tragedy.”</p> + +<p>Everybody pinned the factor down. The Circle’s attitude +towards Mr. Chitterwick by this time was one of intelligent +expectation. Probably no one really thought that he had found the right +solution, and Miss Dammers’s stock had not been appreciably +lowered. But certainly it seemed that the man had at any rate got +something to offer.</p> + +<p>“Miss Dammers,” proceeded the object of their attention, +“was right in another point she made too, namely that the +inspiration of this murder, or perhaps I should say the method of it, +certainly came from that book of poisoning cases she mentioned, +of which her own copy (she tells us) is at present in Sir Eustace’s +rooms—planted there,” added Mr. Chitterwick, much shocked, +“by the murderess.</p> + +<p>“And another useful fact she established. That Mr. Bendix had +been lured (really,” apologised Mr. Chitterwick, “I can use no +other word) to the Rainbow Club that morning. But it was not +Mrs. Bendix who telephoned to him on the previous afternoon. +Nor was he sent there for the particular purpose of receiving the +chocolates from Sir Eustace. The fact that the lunch appointment +had been cancelled was altogether outside the criminal’s +knowledge. Mr. Bendix was sent there to be a witness to Sir Eustace +receiving the parcel; that was all.</p> + +<p>“The intention was, of course, that Mr. Bendix should have +Sir Eustace so connected in his mind with the chocolates that if +suspicion should ever arise against any definite person, that of +Mr. Bendix would be directed before long to Sir Eustace himself. +For the fact of his wife’s intrigue would be bound to come to his +knowledge, as indeed I understand privately that it has, causing +him naturally the most intense distress.”</p> + +<p>“So that’s why he’s been looking haggard,” exclaimed Roger.</p> + +<p>“Without doubt,” Mr. Chitterwick agreed gravely. “It was a +wicked plot. Sir Eustace, you see, was expected to be dead by then +and incapable of denying his guilt, and such evidence as there +was had been carefully arranged to point to murder and suicide +on his part. That the police never suspected him (that is, so far as +we know), simply shows that investigations do not always take +the turn that the criminal expects. And in this case,” observed +Mr. Chitterwick with some severity, “I think the criminal was +altogether too subtle.”</p> + +<p>“If that was her very involved reason for ensuring the presence +of Mr. Bendix at the Rainbow Club,” agreed Miss Dammers +with some irony, “her subtlety certainly overreached itself.” It +was evident that not only on the point of psychology did Miss +Dammers not find herself ready to accept Mr. Chitterwick’s +conclusions.</p> + +<p>“That, indeed, is exactly what happened,” Mr. Chitterwick +pointed out mildly. “Oh, and while we are on the subject of the +chocolates, I ought to add that the reason why they were sent to +Sir Eustace’s club was not only so that Mr. Bendix might be a witness +of their arrival, but also, I should imagine, so that Sir Eustace +would be sure to take them with him to his lunch-appointment. +The murderess of course would be sufficiently conversant with his +ways to know that he would almost certainly spend the morning +at his club and go straight on to lunch from there; the odds were +enormous that he would take the box of Mrs. Bendix’s favourite +chocolates with him.</p> + +<p>“I think we may regard it as an instance of the criminal’s +habitual overlooking of some vital point that is to lead eventually +to detection, that this murderess completely lost sight of the +possibility that the appointment for lunch might be cancelled. She is a +particularly ingenious criminal,” said Mr. Chitterwick with gentle +admiration, “and yet even she is not immune from this failing.”</p> + +<p>“Who is she, Mr. Chitterwick?” ingenuously asked Mrs. +Fielder-Flemming.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chitterwick answered her with a positively roguish smile. +“Everybody else has withheld the name of the suspect till the right +moment. Surely I may be allowed to do so too.</p> + +<p>“Well, I think I have cleared up most of the doubtful points +now. Mason’s notepaper was used, I should say, because chocolates +had been decided on as the vehicle and Mason’s were the only +chocolate manufacturing firm who were customers of Webster’s. +As it happened, this fitted very well, because it was always Mason’s +chocolates that Sir Eustace bought for his—er—his friends.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Fielder-Flemming looked puzzled. “Because Mason’s +were the only firm who were customers of Webster’s? I’m afraid +I don’t understand.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I <em>am</em> explaining all this badly,” cried Mr. Chitterwick in +much distress, assuming all blame for this obtuseness. “It had to +be some firm on Webster’s books, you see, because Sir Eustace +has his notepaper printed at Webster’s, and he was to be identified +as having been in there recently if the purloined piece was +ever connected with the sample book. Exactly, in fact, as Miss +Dammers did.”</p> + +<p>Roger whistled. “Oh, I see. You mean, we’ve all been putting +the cart before the horse over this piece of notepaper?”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid so,” regretted Mr. Chitterwick with earnestness. +“Really, I’m very much afraid so.”</p> + +<p>Insensibly opinion was beginning to turn in Mr. Chitterwick’s +favour. To say the least, he was being just as convincing as Miss +Dammers had been, and that without subtle psychological +reconstructions and references to “values.” Only Miss Dammers herself +remained outwardly sceptical; but that, after all, was only to be +expected.</p> + +<p>“Humph!” said Miss Dammers, sceptically.</p> + +<p>“What about the motive, Mr. Chitterwick?” nodded Sir Charles +with solemnity. “Jealousy, did you say? I don’t think you’ve quite +cleared up that yet, have you?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, of course.” Mr. Chitterwick actually blushed. “Dear +me, I meant to make that clear right at the beginning. I <em>am</em> doing +this badly. No, not jealousy, I’m inclined to fancy. Revenge. Or +revenge at any rate so far as Sir Eustace was concerned, and +jealousy as regards Mrs. Bendix. From what I can understand, you +see, this lady is—dear me,” said Mr. Chitterwick, in distress and +embarrassment, “this is very delicate ground. But I must trespass +on it. Well—though she had concealed it successfully from her +friends, this lady had been very much in love with Sir Eustace, and +become—er—had become,” concluded Mr. Chitterwick bravely, +“his mistress. That was a long time ago.</p> + +<p>“Sir Eustace was very much in love with her too, and though +he used to amuse himself with other women it was understood by +both that this was quite permissible so long as there was nothing +serious. The lady, I should say, is very modern and broad-minded. +It was understood, I believe, that he was to marry her as soon as +he could induce his wife (who was quite ignorant of this affair) to +divorce him. But when this was at last arranged, Sir Eustace found +that owing to his extreme financial stringency, it was imperative +that he should marry money instead.</p> + +<p>“The lady was naturally very disappointed, but knowing that +Sir Eustace did not care at all for—er—was not really in love with +Miss Wildman and the marriage would only be, so far as he was +concerned, one of convenience, she reconciled herself to the +future and, quite seeing Sir Eustace’s necessity, did not resent the +introduction of Miss Wildman—whom indeed,” Mr. Chitterwick +felt himself compelled to add, “she considered as quite negligible. +It never occurred to her to doubt, you see, that the old arrangement +would hold good, and she would still have Sir Eustace’s real +love with which to content herself.</p> + +<p>“But then something quite unforeseen happened. Sir Eustace +not only fell out of love with her. He fell unmistakably in love with +Mrs. Bendix. Moreover, he succeeded in making her his mistress. +That was quite recently, since he began to pay his addresses to +Miss Wildman. And I think Miss Dammers has given us a true +picture of the results in Mrs. Bendix’s case if not in that of Sir +Eustace.</p> + +<p>“Well, you can see the position then, so far as this other lady +was concerned. Sir Eustace was getting his divorce, marriage with +the negligible Miss Wildman was now out of the question, but +marriage with Mrs. Bendix, tortured in her conscience and seeing +in divorce from her husband and marriage with Sir Eustace the +only means of solving it—marriage with Mrs. Bendix, the real +beloved, and even more eligible than Miss Wildman so far as the +financial side was concerned, was to all appearances inevitable. I +deprecate the use of hackneyed quotations as much as anybody, +but really I feel that if I permit myself to add that hell has no +fury like—”</p> + +<p>“Can you prove all this, Mr. Chitterwick?” interposed Miss +Dammers coolly on the hackneyed quotation.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chitterwick started. “I—I think so,” he said, though a +little dubiously.</p> + +<p>“I’m inclined to doubt it,” observed Miss Dammers briefly.</p> + +<p>Somewhat uncomfortable, under Miss Dammers’s sceptical +eye, Mr. Chitterwick explained. “Well Sir Eustace, whose +acquaintance I have been at some pains to cultivate recently . . .” +Mr. Chitterwick shivered a little, as if the acquaintance had not +been his ideal one. “Well, from a few indications that Sir Eustace +has unconsciously given me . . . That is to say, I was questioning +him at lunch to-day as adroitly as I could, my conviction as to +the murderer’s identity having been formed at last, and he did +unwittingly let fall a few trifles which . . .”</p> + +<p>“I doubt it,” repeated Miss Dammers bluntly.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chitterwick looked quite nonplussed.</p> + +<p>Roger hurried to the rescue. “Well, shelving the matter of +proof for the moment, Mr. Chitterwick, and assuming that your +reconstruction of the events is just an imaginative one. You’d +reached the point where marriage between Sir Eustace and Mrs. +Bendix had become inevitable.”</p> + +<p>“Yes; oh, yes,” said Mr. Chitterwick, with a grateful look +towards his saviour. “And then of course, this lady formed her +terrible decision and made her very clever plan. I think I’ve explained +all that. Her old right of access to Sir Eustace’s rooms enabled her +to type the letter on his typewriter one day when she knew he +was out. She is quite a good mimic, and it was easy for her when +ringing up Mr. Bendix to imitate the sort of voice Miss Delorme +might be expected to have.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Chitterwick, do any of us know this woman?” demanded +Mrs. Fielder-Flemming abruptly.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chitterwick looked more embarrassed than ever. “Er—yes,” +he hesitated. “That is, you must remember it was she who +smuggled Miss Dammers’s two books into Sir Eustace’s rooms +too, you know.”</p> + +<p>“I shall have to be more careful about my friends in future, I +see,” observed Miss Dammers, gently sarcastic.</p> + +<p>“An ex-mistress of Sir Eustace’s eh?” Roger murmured, +conning over in his mind such names as he could remember from +that lengthy list.</p> + +<p>“Well, yes,” Mr. Chitterwick agreed. “But nobody had any idea +of it. That is— Dear me, this is very difficult.” Mr. Chitterwick +wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, and looked extremely +unhappy.</p> + +<p>“She’d managed to conceal it?” Roger pressed him.</p> + +<p>“Er—yes. She’d certainly managed to conceal the true state of +matters between them, very cleverly indeed. I don’t think anybody +suspected it at all.”</p> + +<p>“They apparently didn’t know each other?” Mrs. Fielder-Flemming +persisted. “They were never seen about together?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, at one time they were,” said Mr. Chitterwick, looking in +quite a hunted way from face to face. “Quite frequently. Then, I +understand, they thought it better to pretend to have quarrelled +and—and met only in secret.”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t it time you told us this woman’s name, Chitterwick?” +boomed Sir Charles down the table, looking judicial.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chitterwick scrambled desperately out of this fire of questions. +“It’s very strange, you know, how murderers never will let +well alone, isn’t it?” he said breathlessly. “It happens so often. I’m +quite sure I should never have stumbled on the truth in this case +if the murderess had only left things as they were, in accordance +with her own admirable plot. But this trying to fix the guilt on +another person . . . Really, from the intelligence displayed in this +case, she ought to have been above that. Of course her plot <em>had</em> +miscarried. Been only half-successful, I should say. But why not +accept the partial failure? Why tempt Providence? Trouble was +inevitable—inevitable—”</p> + +<p>Mr. Chitterwick seemed by this time utterly distressed. He +was shuffling his notes with extreme nervousness, and wriggling +in his chair. The glances he kept darting from face to face were +almost pleading. But what he was pleading for remained obscure.</p> + +<p>“Dear me,” said Mr. Chitterwick, as if at his wits’ end. “This +is very difficult. I’d better clear up the remaining point. It’s about +the alibi.</p> + +<p>“In my opinion the alibi was an afterthought, owing to a piece +of luck. Southampton Street is near both the Cecil and the Savoy, +isn’t it? I happen to know that this lady has a friend, another woman, +of a somewhat unconventional nature. She is continually away on +exploring expeditions and so on, usually quite alone. She never +stays in London more than a night or two, and I should imagine +she is the sort of woman who rarely reads the newspapers. And if +she did, I think she would certainly not divulge any suspicion they +might convey to her, especially concerning a friend of her own.</p> + +<p>“I have ascertained that immediately preceding the crime this +woman, whose name by the way is Jane Harding, stayed for two +nights at the Savoy Hotel, and left London, on the morning the +chocolates were delivered, for Africa. From there she was going +on to South America. Where she may be now I have not the least +idea. Nor, I should say, has any one else. But she came to London +from Paris, where she had been staying for a week.</p> + +<p>“The—er—criminal would know about this forthcoming trip +to London, and so hurried to Paris. (I am afraid,” apologised +Mr. Chitterwick uneasily, “there is a good deal of guess-work +here.) It would be simple to ask this other lady to post the parcel +in London, as the parcel postage is so heavy from France, and +just as simple to ensure it being delivered on the morning of the +lunch-appointment with Mrs. Bendix, by saying it was a birthday +present, or some other pretext, and—and—must be posted to +arrive on that particular day.” Mr. Chitterwick wiped his forehead +again and glanced pathetically at Roger. Roger could only stare +back in bewilderment.</p> + +<p>“Dear me,” muttered Mr. Chitterwick distractedly, “this is <em>very</em> +difficult.—Well, I have satisfied myself that—”</p> + +<p>Alicia Dammers had risen to her feet and was unhurriedly +picking up her belongings. “I’m afraid,” she said, “I have an +appointment. Will you excuse me, Mr. President?”</p> + +<p>“Of course,” said Roger, in some surprise.</p> + +<p>At the door Miss Dammers turned back. “I’m so sorry not to +be able to stay to hear the rest of your case, Mr. Chitterwick. But +really, you know, as I said, I very much doubt whether you’ll be +able to prove it.”</p> + +<p>She went out of the room.</p> + +<p>“She’s perfectly right,” whispered Mr. Chitterwick, gazing after +her in a petrified way. “I’m quite sure I can’t. But there isn’t the +faintest doubt. I’m afraid, not the faintest.”</p> + +<p>Stupefaction reigned.</p> + +<p>“You—you <em>can’t</em> mean. . . ?” twittered Mrs. Fielder-Flemming +in a strangely shrill voice.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bradley was the first to get a grip on himself. “So we did +have a practising criminologist amongst us after all,” he drawled, +in a manner that was never Oxford. “How quite interesting.”</p> + +<p>Again silence held the Circle.</p> + +<p>“So now,” asked the President helplessly, “what the devil do +we do?”</p> + +<p>Nobody enlightened him.</p> + +<p class="finis">The End</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="section" id="chart-table"> + +<h2 class="appendix">Appendix: <br> Mr. Chitterwick’s Chart, unturned</h2> + +<table class="chart"> +<caption><a href="#chart-image">[back to Chapter XVII]</a></caption> +<tr> +<th>Solver</th> +<th>Motive</th> +<th>Angle of View</th> +<th>Salient Feature</th> +<th>Method of Proof</th> +<th>Parallel Case</th> +<th>Criminal</th> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="separator" colspan=7> </td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Sir Charles Wildman</td> +<td>Gain</td> +<td><i>Cui bono</i></td> +<td>Notepaper</td> +<td>Inductive</td> +<td>Marie Lafarge</td> +<td>Lady Pennefather</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Mrs. Fielder-Flemming</td> +<td>Elimination</td> +<td><i>Cherchez la femme</i></td> +<td>Hidden triangle</td> +<td>Intuitive and Inductive</td> +<td>Molineux</td> +<td>Sir Charles Wildman</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Bradley (1)</td> +<td>Experiment</td> +<td>Detective-novelist’s</td> +<td>Nitrobenzene</td> +<td>Scientific deduction</td> +<td>Dr. Wilson</td> +<td>Bradley</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Bradley (2)</td> +<td>Jealousy</td> +<td>Character of Sir Eustace</td> +<td>Criminological knowledge of murderer</td> +<td>Deductive</td> +<td>Christina Edmunds</td> +<td>Woman unnamed</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Sheringham</td> +<td>Gain</td> +<td>Character of Mr. Bendix</td> +<td>Bet</td> +<td>Deductive and Inductive</td> +<td>Carlyle Harris</td> +<td>Bendix</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Miss Dammers</td> +<td>Elimination</td> +<td>Psychology of all participants</td> +<td>Criminal’s character</td> +<td>Psychological deduction</td> +<td>Tawell</td> +<td>Sir Eustace Pennefather</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Police</td> +<td>Conviction, or lust of killing</td> +<td>General</td> +<td>Material clues</td> +<td>Routine</td> +<td>Horwood or lunatic</td> +<td>Unknown fanatic</td> +</tr> +</table> + +</div> + +<hr class="x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="section" id="transcriber"> + +<h2>Transcriber’s Note</h2> + +<p>This transcription follows the text of The British Library edition, +published in 2016. However, the following errors have been corrected +from the text:</p> + +<ul> + <li>A mismatched quotation mark was repaired (Chapter VI).</li> + <li>“unwieldly” was changed to “unwieldy” (Chapter VII).</li> + <li>“appears to thinks” was changed to “appears to think” + (Chapter VIII).</li> + <li>“Aways” was changed to “Always” (Chapter IX).</li> + <li>“Masons’ ” was changed to “Mason’s” (Chapter XIII).</li> + <li>“assumptions seems” was changed to “assumptions seem” (Chapter XVI).</li> +</ul> + +<p>All other seeming errors and unusual phrasings have been left +unchanged.</p> + +</div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75476 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/75476-h/images/chart.svg b/75476-h/images/chart.svg new file mode 100644 index 0000000..858b92d --- /dev/null +++ b/75476-h/images/chart.svg @@ -0,0 +1,103 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?> +<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 960 1536"> + <title>Mr. Chitterwick’s Chart</title> + <g style="font-size:24px;font-family:serif;stroke:none" + transform="rotate(90 480,480)"> + + <line x1="24" y1="144" x2="1512" y2="144" stroke="#000"/> + + <text x="24" y="120">SOLVER</text> + <text x="24" y="192">Sir Charles</text> + <text x="24" y="216">Wildman</text> + <text x="24" y="288">Mrs. Fielder-</text> + <text x="24" y="312">Flemming</text> + <text x="24" y="384">Bradley (1)</text> + <text x="24" y="480">Bradley (2)</text> + <text x="24" y="576">Sheringham</text> + <text x="24" y="672">Miss</text> + <text x="24" y="696">Dammers</text> + <text x="24" y="768">Police</text> + + <text x="240" y="120">MOTIVE</text> + <text x="240" y="192">Gain</text> + <text x="240" y="288">Elimination</text> + <text x="240" y="384">Experiment</text> + <text x="240" y="480">Jealousy</text> + <text x="240" y="576">Gain</text> + <text x="240" y="672">Elimination</text> + <text x="240" y="768">Conviction, or</text> + <text x="240" y="792">lust of killing</text> + + <text x="456" y="96">ANGLE OF</text> + <text x="456" y="120">VIEW</text> + <text x="456" y="192" style="font-style:italic">Cui bono</text> + <text x="456" y="288" style="font-style:italic">Cherchez la</text> + <text x="456" y="312" style="font-style:italic">femme</text> + <text x="456" y="384">Detective-</text> + <text x="456" y="408">novelist’s</text> + <text x="456" y="480">Character of</text> + <text x="456" y="504">Sir Eustace</text> + <text x="456" y="576">Character of</text> + <text x="456" y="600">Mr. Bendix</text> + <text x="456" y="672">Psychology of</text> + <text x="456" y="696">all participants</text> + <text x="456" y="768">General</text> + + <text x="672" y="96">SALIENT</text> + <text x="672" y="120">FEATURE</text> + <text x="672" y="192">Notepaper</text> + <text x="672" y="288">Hidden</text> + <text x="672" y="312">triangle</text> + <text x="672" y="384">Nitrobenzene</text> + <text x="672" y="480">Criminological</text> + <text x="672" y="504">knowledge of</text> + <text x="672" y="528">murderer</text> + <text x="672" y="576">Bet</text> + <text x="672" y="672">Criminal’s</text> + <text x="672" y="696">character</text> + <text x="672" y="768">Material clues</text> + + <text x="888" y="96">METHOD OF</text> + <text x="888" y="120">PROOF</text> + <text x="888" y="192">Inductive</text> + <text x="888" y="288">Intuitive and</text> + <text x="888" y="312">Inductive</text> + <text x="888" y="384">Scientific</text> + <text x="888" y="408">deduction</text> + <text x="888" y="480">Deductive</text> + <text x="888" y="576">Deductive</text> + <text x="888" y="600">and Inductive</text> + <text x="888" y="672">Psychological</text> + <text x="888" y="696">deduction</text> + <text x="888" y="768">Routine</text> + + <text x="1104" y="96">PARALLEL</text> + <text x="1104" y="120">CASE</text> + <text x="1104" y="192">Marie Lafarge</text> + <text x="1104" y="288">Molineux</text> + <text x="1104" y="384">Dr. Wilson</text> + <text x="1104" y="480">Christina</text> + <text x="1104" y="504">Edmunds</text> + <text x="1104" y="576">Carlyle Harris</text> + <text x="1104" y="672">Tawell</text> + <text x="1104" y="768">Horwood</text> + + <text x="1320" y="120">CRIMINAL</text> + <text x="1320" y="192">Lady</text> + <text x="1320" y="216">Pennefather</text> + <text x="1320" y="288">Sir Charles</text> + <text x="1320" y="312">Wildman</text> + <text x="1320" y="384">Bradley</text> + <text x="1320" y="480">Woman</text> + <text x="1320" y="504">unnamed</text> + <text x="1320" y="576">Bendix</text> + <text x="1320" y="672">Sir Eustace</text> + <text x="1320" y="696">Pennefather</text> + <text x="1320" y="768">Unknown</text> + <text x="1320" y="792">fanatic or</text> + <text x="1320" y="816">lunatic</text> + + <text x="648" y="888" style="font-style:italic">Mr. Chitterwick’s Chart</text> + + </g> +</svg> diff --git a/75476-h/images/cover.jpg b/75476-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c279e89 --- /dev/null +++ b/75476-h/images/cover.jpg |
