“We don’t want to waste Mr. Leader’s time with metaphysics.”
“No,” said Munting, obstinately, “but what I want to know——”
A tremendous clattering of feet in the corridor heralded the throwing
open of the door and the irruption of a large number of young men in
overalls.
“Oh, Lord,” said Leader, “we’ll have to clear out.” He looked at his
watch. “I say, do you mind if I barge off? There’s a demonstration I’ve
simply got to attend. Nuisance, but I’m rather behindhand with Dimmock’s
subjects. Must mug it up somehow. Awfully pleased to have seen you. Can
you find your way out?”
“Just a moment,” said Munting. “You remember the fellow I brought with
me last year—Lathom—the artist?”
“Yes, of course—the fellow who was so keen on poisons. Asked such a lot
of questions about the right dose, and was so struck with our synthetic
stuff. Didn’t seem able to get over the fact that you couldn’t
distinguish artificial muscarine from the natural product by chemical
analysis. Very intelligent bloke I thought he was—for an artist. I
remember him perfectly. Why?”
“Have you seen anything of him since?”
“No. Why?”
“I just wondered. He said something once about looking you up.”
“Well, he didn’t. Perhaps he came in the vac. There’s nobody here then,
except the swots and the dunces trying to cram themselves for the exams.
Tell him to come in term-time. I really must buzz along. I say, come and
feed one night, won’t you?”
Munting promised to do so, and Leader escaped, cannoning violently into
the demonstrator as he dashed out. We followed, not wishing to be caught
and interrogated.
“That was Benton,” said Munting, looking back at the closing door. “I
wish we could have had a word with him. If Leader——”
“About the origin of life, I suppose? You’re cracked about the origin of
life. It’s the origin of death we’re investigating. We’ve got what we
came for. It’s clear enough that anybody might have walked in and helped
himself to a dose of that stuff. Look at those places we went into. No
one to stop us—and it’s term-time, too. In the vac. the place is
absolutely deserted. If Lathom was over here in the vac.—and he was.
Don’t you remember those letters of Margaret Harrison’s? He was here in
July.”
“Yes,” agreed Munting, thoughtfully. “Yes, I quite see that. But the
difficulty is to _prove_ it. Just because it’s so easy to get in, it’s a
million to one against anybody having noticed you. And you can’t expect
a jury to accept a vague possibility like that. If there was any
analysable difference between natural and synthetic muscarine, then, of
course, you would have something genuine to go upon. Because it would be
quite impossible to eat synthetic muscarine by accident—except in a
laboratory. But apparently there is no difference.”
This sobered me. I had been feeling that we were well on the way to
solve the problem. But now I saw very clearly that we were just as far
away as ever. No jury in the world would accept this involved and
unsubstantiated theory. True, people are ready enough to believe that an
adulterer is very likely a murderer as well. But if it comes to the
question of probability, which will they rather believe? That a man
elaborately stole a rare and incomprehensible laboratory product which
none of them have ever heard of, and elaborately administered it under
involved and peculiar circumstances? Or that an eccentric experimenter
with “unnatural” foods accidentally poisoned himself with toadstools?
The answer is obvious.
Moreover, to obtain a conviction, there must be no doubt possible. The
murder theory must be overwhelmingly _more_ likely than the accident
theory. Judges are careful to point this out.
I was as certain that Lathom had poisoned my father with synthetic
muscarine as that I was alive. But I began to be equally certain that
Lathom had hit upon a method of murder that was utterly and completely
proof against proof.