“By God,” he said, “that’s damned interesting. Fine idea for a murder.
Of course, any jury in the country would be only too ready to believe it
was accident. Tempting Providence, and all that. And unless your man was
fool enough to use the synthetic muscarine in its racemic form, you
know, I’m very much afraid he’s pulled it off. There’s a chance, of
course. They may not have gone further than that. Why didn’t you ask
Benson while you were about it?”
“I thought of doing so,” I admitted. “At least, I didn’t know about this
racemic business, but I thought there might be some way of telling the
artificial stuff from the real. But Harrison seemed satisfied——”
“He would be. I know these people. Wrapped up in their own subjects. An
engineer—_he_ ought to know something about molecular structure. But
no. He’s no occasion to study Organic, so it doesn’t occur to him that
there’s anything to know about it. The word of a first-year student at
Anthony’s is enough for him. You have more imagination. Why didn’t
you——?”
“I don’t know that I quite wanted to.”
“Let bad alone, eh? But damn it, it’s interesting. I say, what a scoop
for the papers, if it comes off! ‘First murder ever caught by the
polariscope.’ Better than Crippen and the wireless. Only they’ll have a
bit of a job explaining it. Now, look here, what are we going to do
about it? Who did the analysis?”
“Lubbock.”
“Oh, yes—Home Office man, of course. We’ll have to get on to him. It’s
chance if he’s kept the stuff by him. What? Oh, he has. That’s all right
then. We’ve only got to take a squint at it and then we shall know. I
mean, if the stuff really is racemic, we shall know. If not, we never
shall. What’s the time? Quarter-past eleven. No time like the present.
Here, driver!”
He thrust his head out of the window and gave an address in Woburn
Square.
“It’s all on our way, and Lubbock never goes to bed before midnight. I
know him well. He’ll be keen on this.”
His energy swept me up, feebly protesting, and in a few minutes’ time we
were standing on Sir James Lubbock’s doorstep, ringing the bell.
The door was opened by a manservant, of whom Waters inquired whether Sir
James was at home.
“No, sir. He is working late to-night, sir, at the Home Office. I think
it’s the arsenic case, sir.”
“Oh, of course. That’s luck for us, Munting. We’ll run down and catch
him there. You might give him a ring, Stevens, and say I’m coming down
to see him on an urgent matter. You know who I am?”
“Oh, yes, sir. Dr. Waters. Very good, sir. You’ll find him in the
laboratory, sir.”
“Right. We’d better hurry up, or we may just miss him.”
We plunged back into the taxi.
“Shall we find any difficulty in getting in?”
“Oh, no. I’ve been there before. We’re making very good time. Provided
he hadn’t started before Stevens got through to him, he’ll wait for us.
Ah! here we are.”
We drew up at a side door in the big Government building. After a short
colloquy with the man on duty, we were passed through. I stumbled at
Waters’ heels through a number of dreary corridors, till we fetched up
in a kind of small ante-room.
“I feel strongly persuaded,” I said, “that I am on a visit to the
dentist.”
“And you hope very much he’ll say there’s nothing to be done to you this
time. I, on the contrary, hope very much that it’s something malignant
and unusual. Have a fag.”
I accepted the fag. I tried to think of Harrison, perishing horribly in
his lonely shack, but instead I could only see Lathom with his hair
rumpled and his teeth set, painting with his usual careless brilliance.
I got the idea that God or Nature or Science or some other sinister and
powerful thing had set a trap for him, and that I was pushing him into
it. I thought it was ruthless of God or whoever it was. Pom, pomty; pom,
pomty; pom, pomty; pom, pomty—I was nervously humming something and I
couldn’t think what. Oh, yes— Haydn’s _Creation_—that bit, where the
kettle-drums thump so gently, so ruthlessly, on one
note—“And-the-spi-rit-of-God (pomty)
moved-upon-the-face-of-the-waters-(pom)”—only apparently it wasn’t the
Spirit of God, but an asymmetric molecule, which didn’t fit the rhythm.
Somebody was walking down the corridor, with a soft, muffled beat,
rather like kettle-drums. “Let there be light (pomty-pom) and there
was——”
The door opened.
I recognised Sir James Lubbock at once, of course, though now, in a
white overall and pair of crimson carpet slippers, he presented an
appearance less point-devise than he had done at the inquest. He greeted
Waters cordially and received my name with a faint look of puzzledom.
“Mr. Munting? Yes—let me see, haven’t we met before?”