Disregarding the hysterical tone of his last few sentences, I felt that
on the whole Munting was right, and had behaved with more discretion and
public spirit than I had credited him with.
It was obvious to me that Lathom was losing his nerve. As to his guilt,
I had by now no shadow of a doubt. The blatant way in which he had
marked his trail, right up from Manaton to London and back again, and
his determination to let Munting know all about it, were actions
entirely inconsistent with the carelessness of an innocent man. The
trouble was that he was now on the alert. At any minute he might take
alarm and bolt. On this account, I decided to waste no valuable time in
checking his alibi. The fact that he had produced it with such
confidence left me no hope of breaking it down; moreover, some of the
inquiries were of a sort that could only be made satisfactorily by the
police.
It was evident that I must abandon the whole idea of a return to
Manaton. Only one possibility was left, namely, that the poison had been
left in such a place that my father was bound to add it to the dish of
fungi himself; and that this manœuvre had been carried out before Lathom
left for London.
I knew that all the foodstuffs in “The Shack” had been carefully
analysed and found harmless, with the exception of the half-eaten dish
of fungi itself. I was, therefore, forced to conclude that the poison
had been added to the beef-stock in which the fungi were stewed.
Anything else would be dangerous, for the presence of muscarine in, say,
the salt or the coffee would be a circumstance so suspicious as to
impress even the coroner’s jury.
There was nothing difficult about this. The stock would have been
prepared from Monday’s delivery of shin of beef. It was my father’s
habit always to keep a pan of stock simmering on the hob. By Thursday
morning there would probably be just sufficient left to cook his evening
meal, after which he would boil up the new supply of shin for the rest
of the week.
Now, in what form would the poison have been added? Not in the solid
form, for my father would have noticed the presence of fungi in his
stock. But a teacupful of poisonous liquid might easily have been poured
in at any moment. I was, therefore, brought back to my previous idea
that Lathom had managed to procure the _Amanita muscaria_ and decoct the
poison during my father’s absence from the hut.
But how I was ever to prove this, I did not know. I had plenty of
evidence of motive and opportunity, but nothing that could put the crime
beyond any reasonable doubt in the minds of twelve good and true
jury-members. And besides, I was by no means satisfied of Lathom’s
ability to identify _Amanita muscaria_ with certainty. Was there no
easier and more reliable method by which he might have obtained the
stuff? Was it possible, for instance, to buy muscarine? If so, and if
one could trace the sale to Lathom, there would be genuine evidence of
criminal intent. For what innocent reason could an artist require
muscarine?
The difficulties of the thing stared me in the face. Even if muscarine
was procurable commercially (which I thought very unlikely, for, so far
as I know, it has no medicinal use), it was impossible for me, as a
private individual, to broadcast an investigation among all the chemists
in the country. Only the police could do that, and I could not set the
police to work without producing the very evidence which was the object
of the search. There were not only chemists—there were all the research
laboratories too. The thing seemed hopeless.
At this point the word “laboratories” struck a chord in my mind. Had not
there been something in the Munting correspondence about a laboratory?
I had not paid much attention to the passage when I first read it,
because my mind had been taken up with the idea of Lathom’s having
gathered the fungus on the spot. And, indeed, the facts had been so
buried in a lot of vague twaddle about the origin of life and other
futile Muntingesque speculations that I had skimmed the pages over in
disgust, but when I turned back to the letter I cursed myself for not
having given it fuller consideration before.
Two facts emerged very clearly from the welter of surrounding nonsense:
1. That Lathom had been shown a collection of poisons,
apparently kept where anybody could easily get at them; and
2. That Leader had drawn the special attention of the party to
certain synthetic, or laboratory-made poisons, indistinguishable
by analysis from natural vegetable products.
Here at last was something definite. Supposing that a bottle of
muscarine had by any chance formed part of the collection, what was
easier than for Lathom to have helped himself to it?
I did not know whether it was possible for an outside person to
penetrate the laboratories of St. Anthony’s College unchallenged, but
this I could easily find out by the simple process of going there.
Probably I should only have to ask to see some doctor or student.
Lathom, for instance, could have asked to see this man Leader, whom he
already knew. Leader might very well be able to give us some help in the
matter. Munting was my point of contact with Leader, and the next step
was obviously to go round and get a note of introduction.
Munting, of course, showed great unwillingness to interfere in the
matter. His interview with Lathom seemed to have upset him badly. At
length, however, I persuaded him that he had a duty in the matter.
“If you refuse to help me,” I said, “and I am able to prove the murder,
you will be something very like an accessory after the fact.”
Mrs. Munting, who, in practical common sense, is worth ten of her
husband, agreed with this point of view.
“It would be very unpleasant if you got into trouble about it, Jack. I
do think if Mr. Lathom really has done this dreadful thing, you oughtn’t
to stand in the way of getting it found out. A man like that is very
dangerous. And they say that when a poisoner has once committed a murder
and got away with it, he is very likely to try it again. It might be you
or young Mr. Harrison next time.”
“Do you really think so?” he muttered, unhappily.
“I do. And oh, Jack! Do think of the awful cruelty of letting that poor
man die such a painful, lingering death, all alone in that place,
without a soul to come near him. Anyone who could do that would be an
absolute monster. I don’t care what excuse he had.”
“That’s been haunting me,” said Munting—and he did look very white and
ill. “All right, Harrison. I’ll see it through. Look here, I’ll come
along to the place with you.”
We walked in complete silence till we came to St. Anthony’s. There were
numbers of people passing in and out through the wide entrance, and
nobody took the slightest notice of us.
“I think the labs. are up this staircase,” said Munting, leading the
way. “And here’s where we hang up the hats and coats,” he added,
rattling his umbrella into a hat-stand placed inside the heavy swinging
door.
“Is that usual?” I inquired.
“We did it last time,” said Munting, “I remember it distinctly. And as
the idea is to see whether it’s feasible to roam unchallenged about the
place, we may as well look as much like the inhabitants as possible. If
Lathom did come here poison-hunting, he’d scarcely have omitted that
precaution.”
Having thus shed the outward insignia of visitors, we found ourselves in
a wide corridor, smelling faintly of chemists’ shops, with numbered
doors on either side. A few men in white overalls passed us, but took no
notice of us. We walked briskly, as though with a definite objective,
and, selecting at random a door near the end of the corridor, pushed it
boldly open.
A big room, full of sinks and tables and well-lit by large windows,
presented itself to our view. A student sat at a bench near us with his
back to the door. He was boiling something in a complicated apparatus of
glass tubes over a Bunsen burner. He did not look up. Over by the window
four men were gathered round some sort of experiment, which apparently
absorbed all their attention. A sixth man, mounted on a pair of steps,
was searching for something in a cupboard. He glanced round as we
entered, but, seeing that we did not look likely to assist him in
finding what he wanted, ignored us, and, coming down, went up to the
student with the apparatus.
“What’s become of the . . . ?” (something I didn’t catch) he asked
irritably.
“How should I know?” demanded the other, who was pouring some liquid
into a funnel and seemed annoyed at the interruption. “Ask Griggs.”
We backed out again, unregarded, and tried another door. Here we found a
small room, with a solitary, elderly man bending over a microscope. He
removed his eye from the lens and looked round with a scowl. We begged
his pardon and retired. Before we had closed the door, his head was back
at the eyepiece again, while his right hand, which had never stopped
writing, continued to take notes.
We intruded, with equal ease and equally unchallenged, into a
lecture-room, where forty or fifty students were gathered round a
demonstrator at a blackboard; into two more laboratories, one empty and
the other containing two absorbed men and a dead rabbit, and finally
into yet a fourth laboratory, where a dozen or so students were laughing
and talking and seemed to be waiting for somebody.
One of these, having nothing particular to do, came forward and asked if
we wanted anybody in particular. Munting replied that he was looking for
Mr. Leader.
“Leader?” said the student. “Let me see. He’s a second-year man, isn’t
he? Where’s Leader, anybody know?”
A young man in spectacles said he fancied Leader was in Room 27.
“Oh, yes, to be sure. Try 27—along the corridor on the right, up the
steps and the second door on the left. If he’s not there, I expect
they’ll be able to tell you. Not at all, pleasure.”
We found our way to Room 27, and there, among a group of students, found
Leader, who greeted Munting with loud demonstrations of joy. I was
introduced, and explained that I was anxious for a little information,
if he could spare the time.
He led us to a quiet corner, and Munting reminded him of his previous
visit with Lathom and the conversation about synthetic poisons. He was
only too delighted to assist us, and led us along at once to another
room, inhabited only by the usual couple of absorbed men in a far
corner, who took no notice of us.
“Here you are,” said Leader, cheerfully, displaying an open cupboard,
stacked with glass bottles. “Convincing demonstration of the way we’ve
got Mother Nature beat. Synthetic thyroxin—some stuff you produce in
your own throat, handy and available without the tedious formality of
opening you up. A small daily dose gives you pep. Camphor, our own
brand, cures cold and kills beetles. Take a sniff and admire the fine,
rich, natural aroma. Cinchona, all my own work, or, strictly speaking,
Professor Benton’s. Adrenalin—that’s the stuff to make your hair stand
on end; full of kidney punch. Muscarine—not so pretty as scarlet
toadstools, but just as good for giving you tummy-ache. Urea——”
“That’s very interesting, isn’t it?” said Munting.
“Very,” said I. My hand shook a little as I took the bottle from Leader.
It was a squat, wide-mouthed glass jar, about half-full of a whitish
powder, and clearly labelled “Muscarine (Synthetic) C_{5}H_{15}NO_{3}.”
“It’s rather deadly, I suppose,” I added, with as much carelessness as I
could assume.
“Fairly so,” said Leader. “Not quite as powerful as the natural stuff, I
believe, but quite disagreeable enough. A teaspoonful would settle your
hash all right, and leave a bit over for the dog. Nice symptoms.
Sickness, blindness, delirium _and_ convulsions.” He grinned fondly at
the bottle. “Like to try some? Take it in a little water and the
income-tax won’t bother you again.”
“What’s it made of, Leader?” asked Munting.
“Oh—inorganic stuff, you know—all artificial. I couldn’t say offhand.
I can look it up if you like.” He hunted in a locker and produced a
notebook. “Oh, yes, of course. Cholin. You start with artificial
cholin.”
“What’s that? Something to do with the liver?”
“Well, yes, in the ordinary way. But you can make it by heating ethene
oxide with triethylamine. That gives you your cholin. Then you oxidise
it with dilute nitric acid—the stuff you etch with, you know. Result,
muscarine. Pretty, isn’t it?”
“And if you analyse it again chemically, could you tell the difference
between that and the real stuff?”
“Of course not. It _is_ the real stuff. I don’t think we’ve got any of
the natural muscarine about the place, or you’d see. But there’s no
difference at all, really. Nature’s only a rather clumsy kind of
chemist, don’t you see. You’re a chemical laboratory; your body, I
mean—so am I—so’s everybody—only rather a careless and inaccurate
one, and given to producing unnecessary flourishes and ornaments, like
your face, or toadstools. There’s no _need_ to make a toadstool when you
want to produce muscarine. If it comes to that, I don’t suppose there’s
any real need for your face—from a chemical point of view. We could
build you up quite easily in the labs, if we wanted to. You’re mostly
water, you know, with a little salt and phosphates and all that kind of
thing.”
“Come, Leader, that won’t quite do. You couldn’t make me walk and talk,
could you?” (This was Munting, of course.)
“Well, no. There’s a trifling hitch there, I admit—always supposing
anybody wants to hear your bright conversation.”
“Then there is something—what I call Life—which you can’t imitate.”
“Well, yes. But I daresay we shall find it some day. It can’t be
anything very out-of-the-way, can it? I mean, there’s an awful lot of it
knocking about. The trouble is, one doesn’t seem to be able to find it
by chemical analysis. If one could, you know, it would probably turn out
to be something quite ordinary, and then one could make it.”
“The lost formula of _Rossum’s Universal Robots_, eh?”
“Very likely,” said Leader, “that’s a play, isn’t it? I never go to
high-brow plays. All rot, you know—more in your line. But there it is.
Analyse you and you’re just so much dead matter. Analyse toadstools, and
you get this muscarine stuff. Makes one think a bit less of the marvels
of Nature, don’t it?”
“Except,” said Munting, who had by now mounted on his usual hobby-horse,
“except for the small accident of Life, which is, as you say, a
triviality, no doubt, but yet——”