Detective Inspector Allport
Ralph, evidently, had not heard what I had said about the key to the
bedroom and neither could he have heard Allport correctly, for he
asked Kenneth in a loud whisper whether he was talking about the key
of the poison cupboard. Allport gave him one swift glance, but then he
turned to me, waiting for my answer to his question.
“Surely you must be mistaken,” I answered at length when I had
conquered my astonishment. “Dr. Wallace told me most definitely that
he had forgotten to lock the door and he came back on purpose to ask
me to prevent any one from going up-stairs until the police arrived to
take charge.”
“Oh! I must be mistaken then, of course, if you say so. The key is in
the door all the time and we all came down-stairs again for the sake
of a little exercise.”
My reply seemed to have angered him beyond all reason, and he stuck
his ugly little apology for a face over the edge of his stiff stand-up
collar and glared at me as he spoke.
Then he turned to Ethel. “You are quite certain that the key was in
the door?”
“No, I am not.”
“But you told me just now that it was.”
“I beg your pardon, but I said nothing of the kind. What I said was
that the key was generally in the door. You don’t suppose that I
stopped to make an inventory?”
I could have clapped her on the back for standing up to the little
spitfire, and as a matter of fact, he seemed rather to enjoy it
himself, for he smiled quite amicably and turned to Annie, asking her
if she could give him information on the subject.
“No, sir, as Miss Ethel says, all the bedroom door keys are usually on
the inside, and I should expect that Miss Palfreeman’s would be there
like the rest.”
“Did any one else hear the doctor tell Mr. Jeffcock that he had
forgotten to lock the door?” was his next question. No one replied,
and I answered rather stiffly that I should have thought that my
statement would have been enough, but “I dare say,” was all the
comment he made.
This, I felt, was not a very auspicious start and argued ill for the
more detailed questioning to which we should have to submit, and I
wondered what attitude he would take toward The Tundish on his return
if he could behave so abominably to the rest of us now. However, there
seemed to be nothing to gain by remonstrance, so I merely shrugged my
shoulders and picked up the morning paper which was lying on the
table. I think that neither Dr. Jeffries nor Inspector Brown relished
their association with the boorish little man.
He was undoubtedly master of the situation though, and he asked, or
rather I should say told, Inspector Brown to have the bedroom door
broken open immediately, and to send a plain clothes man to the three
addresses at which it was most probable the doctor might be visiting.
He got Ethel to write them down on a slip of paper. The man was to
come back at once if the doctor was not located. If he was, then he
was to be told that he was wanted back at Dalehouse as urgently as
possible, and the man was to wait and escort him home.
His instructions were rapped out without the least consideration for
our feelings, and I for one felt certain that The Tundish would be
arrested on suspicion directly he set foot inside the house. Having
packed off Dr. Jeffries and the inspector, he crossed the room to
where Ethel was standing, a picture of unhappiness, gazing out of the
window at the sunlit garden. I think that even he was touched.
“I am truly very sorry, Miss Hanson, to cause all this bother,” he
said, “but it simply can not be avoided. My temper may be at fault,
but there is really no time on such occasions for niceties of conduct.
As soon as I am satisfied that Dr. Jeffries can make his examination,
and if it confirms Dr. Wallace’s opinion that Miss Palfreeman has been
poisoned, then the house must be searched from top to bottom before
anything else is done. I will have the kitchen premises dealt with
first so that the maids can return to them, and then the drawing-room,
so that you can use it in addition to this. Later on, when my search
is completed, I shall require you all to tell me everything you can
think of that might have a possible bearing on the case. That may be
quite a lengthy business, and I can allow no delay for any reason
whatsoever. Will you please, therefore, arrange for an early lunch and
I shall hope to be ready shortly after twelve.” He made a stiff little
bow, and without waiting for any reply, he left the room.
I heard him run up-stairs, and a little later a crash as the door of
Stella’s room was broken in. Then he came down to the telephone, and I
heard him asking for additional men to be sent from the police
station. To my astonishment, I next heard him ask for the clerk in
charge at the exchange, and after explaining who he was, tell her to
take down in full and report immediately to him any messages that came
either to or from our number until further notice. I suppose it was
quite an ordinary precaution, but it brought home to me, as nothing
else had, the terrible plight in which we all were.
Apparently I was the only one to overhear his message, and I went over
to Ethel, who was sitting in the window-sill with writing-pad and
pencil. She told me that she was writing to her father and mother, but
did not know whether she ought to post it, on account of her father’s
health. I felt that our letters would probably be intercepted and
opened, and I told her of the conversation I had overheard.
“But it’s preposterous,” she exclaimed angrily, and it seemed to me
that there was a note of alarm in her voice. “Surely he has no right
to do a thing like that, and oughtn’t he to have a warrant before he
searches the house?”
I explained that he could most certainly get one if The Tundish’s
diagnosis proved correct, and that we should gain nothing by delaying
matters or by being awkward.
She bent to her letter again, saying, “Oh, how I wish he would come
back.”
Kenneth was standing against the mantelpiece talking to Ralph, and I
heard him mutter gruffly, “If he ever does come back!”
Ethel gave him one angry look, but she made no reply. I could not
understand Kenneth at all. Even if he did believe the doctor guilty he
seemed to have nothing to gain by his behavior. He knew that The
Tundish was a very old friend of Ethel, the girl to whom he had quite
recently become engaged, and yet his love seemed to be of such poor
stuff that he could not hide his feelings for her sake. Ralph looked
pale and wretchedly ill at ease, and I could more readily have
understood it had he shown ill will toward the doctor. He had fallen
head over heels in love with Stella, and whether his feelings went to
any depth or not, it must have been a bitter blow for him. The
evidence was certainly heavy against The Tundish; it seemed to me
inevitable that Ralph should feel antagonistic toward him, and I
thought that in the circumstances he was showing a very creditable
forbearance. With Kenneth, on the other hand, there was no apparent
reason for such uncontrolled hostility, but I had overlooked the ready
jealousy of a young man in love, and was yet to learn that weeks
before poor Stella’s death, Ethel had already sown the seeds from
which many unhappy moments grew, by singing the doctor’s praises.
Clean cut in his own opinions, he altogether failed to understand that
while engaged to him, Ethel might yet have a very real affection for
The Tundish. I believe that every action of hers showing loyalty to
her old friendship added fire to his hot resentment. Having once
decided in his own mind that the doctor was guilty, then he was a
murderer and no longer a human being in need of sympathy and
understanding. Kenneth’s love was overwhelmed by his jealousy, which
in turn was fed by Ethel’s loyalty to her friend and his own utter
inability to compromise or look at a situation through any eyes but
his own. That she could distress herself over a man who in cold blood
had taken the life of a young girl, a girl staying in her own home at
the time, and that she could brazenly kiss such a man in front of us
all, was to him proof positive that her feelings were stronger than
those of friendship alone.
But in spite of his unreasonable behavior, I was truly sorry for
Kenneth, though it was incomprehensible to me that he could stand
aloof and frowning, while Ethel sat alone, wretched and distressed. It
was bad enough for us all, but for her, with her father and mother
away, it was a truly devastating experience.
Never, I think, shall I forget that half-hour’s wait in the Dalehouse
dining-room. We could hear the police moving about as they searched
the rooms. Any intimate conversation was impossible by reason of the
presence of the two maids. The cook sat with folded arms, insolently
defiant, sniffing loudly at intervals. Annie stood with quiet tears
rolling down her cheeks. They neither of them spoke a word. Ethel
pretended to write. I leaned over the table with the morning paper
spread out. But we were all of us listening—listening to the police
and for The Tundish to return, wondering what the disagreeable little
detective would do when he did come back—and thinking which of the
rest of us it could be if the doctor were acquitted. Across my own
mind as I leaned over the table gazing with unseeing eyes at the paper
I was pretending to read, there flashed a succession of little
scenes—Ethel and The Tundish sitting close to each other, earnestly
conversing, two courts and more away from where I sat perched in the
umpire’s chair—The Tundish talking to Stella in the drawing-room and
the sound of threat in her high-pitched voice—The Tundish meeting me
in the hall directly afterward, pleasant and serene—and lastly, the
sound of a woman laughing, in the waiting-room, suddenly reviving my
childhood’s terror-fascinated memories, pale Miss Summerson lying
elaborately to the doctor in the dispensary, and Ethel, who was
supposed to be up at the club, appearing surprisingly from the
consulting-room, having returned to get some tape for the handle of
her racquet.
The heat alone, apart from all other considerations, was almost more
than we could bear. While the clock on the mantelpiece ticked the
seconds away with a regular monotony, time seemed to stand holding its
breath. Our nerves were so on edge that when at last the door was
briskly opened there was not one among us that did not give a little
jump.
It was Allport. He asked Ethel to go with him up-stairs and tell him
who had slept in the different rooms. She was with us again in five
minutes, and told the maids that they could go down-stairs, and that
we, if we wished, could use the drawing-room once more. I felt as
though we had been imprisoned for hours, but it was barely half past
eleven.
Ethel and Margaret and I moved into the other room at once, but
Kenneth and Ralph stayed where they were, talking in low tones
together. Ethel hesitated at the door, and I wondered if she were
going to ask them to join us, but she thought better of it and
followed Margaret and me. She was about at the end of her endurance,
and for her sake alone I dreaded the impending conference.
The drawing-room had been turned topsy-turvy. The carpet had been
rolled up into the middle of the floor, and the furniture, including
the heavy piano, had all been hurriedly moved. The music, the
book-shelves, the chair covers, they had all been searched and
scattered. We had expected nothing so disturbing and thorough, and the
state of the room took us all three by surprise, but I for one was
secretly glad to have something active to do in putting things to
rights.
Margaret, I thought, was wholly admirable in the way she unselfishly
suppressed her own feelings and helped to steady Ethel.
As we had crossed the hall I observed that a policeman had been
stationed at the end of the passage to the doctor’s wing, standing in
such a position that he could command a view both of the stairs to the
landing above and to the basement below. I wondered what our neighbors
must be thinking of all this police activity and how long it would be
before we had to bear with newspaper publicity in addition to our
other troubles. My imagination grew busy with the head-lines.
Early as it was, Annie was already setting out a cold lunch in the
dining-room, and Ethel explained that Allport had particularly asked
her again to hurry it up, saying that directly their search was
completed he would want to begin his preliminary inquiry.
I could not understand the desperate hurry, but she said he had told
her that speed was everything; that he could do nothing until he had
all the available information at his finger-ends and that such a
detail as a meal-time could not be allowed to interfere with his
plans. He improved, she thought, on better acquaintance, but I agreed
with Margaret when she said that it would be difficult to imagine him
doing anything else.
We had barely finished our little conversation, and it was a great
relief to talk, when the telephone bell rang in the hall. I opened the
drawing-room door. The policeman still stood on guard at the end of
the passage, but although the instrument was only a few yards away
from where he stood, he asked me to answer it for him. He evidently
had very strict instructions not to move from his position. It was the
police station calling and asking for Inspector Brown. I promised to
tell him to ring them up at once, and after consulting with the
sentry, I went up-stairs to find him. There was no one about on the
landing, and full of curiosity as to what was going on, I ascended the
stairs to the floor above.
The room in which Stella had slept is so placed that any one going up
the stairs can see right into it when the door is open. It was open on
this occasion, and as my eyes reached the level of the upper landing I
found myself looking straight at the nightmare face of the hideous
little detective. For a moment I could not understand how it could be
at such a level, but on moving up a few steps I realized that he was
kneeling on the floor in the middle of the room.
He had just taken a small envelope out of his pocket and as I watched
he allowed what looked like two tiny fragments of glass to trickle
into it out of his hand. He was evidently deep in thought and entirely
lost to his surroundings, for I had taken no precautions to move
quietly, and he neither saw me nor heard. There he knelt immovable,
the envelope in one hand, a perplexed little smile on his shapeless
protruding lips.
I moved forward, but it was not until I was right up to the bedroom
door that he realized that he was not alone. If not actual abuse, the
very least I expected was some sarcastic remark about my intrusion,
but he merely lifted up his hand for silence, for all the world like
some diminutive father admonishing his child. I could hardly refrain
from laughing at the grotesque little scene, until I looked beyond him
at the bed with its white sheet covering all that was left of poor
Stella. A single wisp of her kinky coppery hair came curving over the
edge of the sheet.
He waited a minute in thought and then asked me what I wanted, moving
out on to the landing and closing the door, which still hung on its
hinges, reverently behind him. “This is a sad, strange business,” he
said.
I told him about the call for the inspector, and he said he would go
and find him at once, but the inspector saved him the trouble, for he
came up the stairs as we were speaking together. He was carrying a
coat, and he was evidently in a state of some excitement.
“Well, we have found the key, Mr. Allport, at least I believe we
have,” and he put his hand into the side pocket of the coat and
brought out an ordinary bedroom door-key. It fitted without any
trouble, although the lock itself had been almost wrenched from the
woodwork when the door was broken open. He handed it over to his
superior.
“Where did you find it?” he asked, holding out his hand for the coat
as well.
“Among the other coats on the pegs in the hall.”
It was a thin Alpaca house coat that The Tundish had been using during
the hot weather. I recognized it at once and remembered that the
doctor had been wearing it only that morning at breakfast time. My
heart sank. It was difficult to believe that in the excitement he
might have locked Stella’s door and then have forgotten all about it.
On the other hand, I could think of no reason, even assuming I were
willing to admit him a liar, why he should so deliberately come and
tell me that the room was unlocked, with the key with which he had
locked it in one of his own pockets all the time. The detective asked
me to whom the coat belonged, and I had to tell him.
We stood silently on the landing, the three of us, Allport holding out
the key in front of him as if it were some astonishing specimen,
instead of an ordinary key to a bedroom door. I remembered how, as I
stood at the telephone when ringing up the police, I had thought that
I heard some one on the stairs, and how a few moments later I had been
surprised to find The Tundish standing close behind me, but puzzle my
brains as I might, I could see no reason why, even if he were guilty,
as both the detective and the inspector obviously thought him, he
should run secretly up-stairs to lock Stella’s door, and then go out
of his way to tell me that he hadn’t. While it did not seem to me to
add much to the real evidence against him, it was certainly one more
item for him to explain away on his return.
Now my thoughts had been so absorbing that for a time I had forgotten
both my companions and my whereabouts. However, a gentle chuckle from
the inspector brought me to my senses, and, looking up, I found that
if my thoughts had been interesting, the detective was still gazing at
the key as though he had been hypnotized.
“That is strange—very strange—very strange indeed,” he whispered at
last.
“Well,” said the inspector, “both of you two gentlemen might have been
crystal gazing, but there seems to me to be nothing very extraordinary
in Dr. Wallace locking the door, putting the key in his pocket, and
then forgetting that he’d done it.”
“Oh!” was Allport’s comment, and he shrugged his shoulders in a manner
that must have riled the inspector, for his shoulders said “Poor fool”
as plainly as shoulders could, then smiling at me he added, “And so
you found it rather intriguing also, my friend? Now I wonder why?” And
he looked at me appraisingly as though I had suddenly gone up in his
estimation.
Then he stood thinking deeply again, and I thought for a moment that
he was sinking into another reverie, but he went back into Stella’s
room and looked out of the window which was immediately over the
flat-topped roof of the doctor’s wing. Next to the house the roof is
of plain cement, but at the end away from it it is covered thickly by
a large-leaved ivy which runs riot a good foot deep. I went up and
stood beside him, but I could see nothing that might have aroused his
sudden interest, or which could have any possible connection with the
key that had been found in the doctor’s pocket.
He shut the window down again saying, “Well, we are wasting time.
Inspector, you are wanted on the telephone. Mr. Jeffcock, and you,
Inspector, as well, I want you both to promise me most solemnly that
nothing we have spoken of together, and nothing you have seen, Mr.
Jeffcock, shall be mentioned to another soul. Neither the finding of
the key, nor anything else must be spoken of.”
I gave him my promise.
“I thank you, it is of great importance, and now I shall be obliged if
you will return to the rest.”
What on earth could he have seen that was so important in the finding
of the key in the doctor’s coat? Why did he go back into Stella’s room
and look out of the window, and what were the little pieces of glass
that I had caught him so carefully preserving? These were the
questions I asked myself as I went back to the drawing-room, but I
agreed with Ethel that the little man was inclined to improve as one
got to know him better.
Ethel and Margaret, had, I found, completed the straightening out of
the furniture. I was afraid that they might ask me for the reason of
my prolonged absence, and I had no answer ready to give them, but
although I fancied Margaret watched me with a kind of half-eager
expectation, they neither of them asked me any questions.
Annie came to tell us that lunch was served.
It was a sad meal. A place had been set for Stella by mistake. The
Tundish had always said a short grace before our meals; it was a
practise of Hanson’s which he kept up while he was away. Ethel began
to say it in his absence, but she broke down after the first sentence
and had to retire to the window while she regained her self-control.
What little we ate, we ate in silence. Any attempt at general
conversation seemed out of place, and the thoughts that occupied all
our minds were too painful for speech. Yes, and too secret for
speech—for I am sure that in spite of the doctor’s appeal we were each
one of us busy with conjecture. The Tundish—and if not The Tundish,
then who?
We were about half-way through our meal when he returned. We heard him
tell the man stationed in the hall to let Inspector Brown know that he
was back, and then he opened the door.
Ethel got up at once with a little cry, and went to meet him, her arms
half extended. We were all forgotten. “Oh, Tundish, I’m so glad—so
glad that you’re back again,” she said, and there was such pleasure
and trust in her voice, and such sympathy in her looks that it was no
wonder Kenneth bit his lips and turned the other way.
The doctor looked tired, and little beads of perspiration glistened on
his forehead, the result of a hurried return, I surmised, and not of
fear or panic, for his eyes were steady and his look self-confident
and calm.
“You goose,” he laughed, putting his hand gently on her shoulder. “But
where is my thin coat? This one is well-nigh unbearable. I thought I
left it hanging in the hall.”
Ethel told him how the whole of the house was being searched and how
Stella’s door had had to be broken down. I was observing him very
closely, as indeed I think we all were, but he showed no trace of
embarrassment. His astonishment seemed both spontaneous and genuine,
and to have no appearance of being overacted or forced. I concluded
that it was altogether too natural to be simulated, but then I
remembered how, within half a minute of his conversation with Stella
in the drawing-room on the previous night, he had met me in the hall
with a pleasant smile and a face that showed no trace of either
trouble or concern.
Now again he was not perturbed, and he spoke quietly and without
emphasis. “But I know for a fact that I did not lock the door. I
intended to go back and do it and then the telephone call came through
and put it out of my head. You are sure that you didn’t run up-stairs
and lock it after I spoke to you in the hall?”
I assured him that I had not, and he stood for a moment obviously
puzzled. I glanced round to see what the others were making of it.
Kenneth sat looking straight at the doctor, fierce and grim. Ralph,
his face pale and his head bent, was playing with a little heap of
crumbs. Margaret was looking at Ralph.
“Ah well, that will be another little mystery for our friends the
police to explain.” And he took his seat at the end of the table.
“It will be for you to make the explanations,” I thought to myself as
I remembered where the key had been found, and I must confess that I
longed to break the solemn promise I had only just made.
Directly the doctor took his seat, Kenneth got up from his with
deliberate ostentation, though he obviously hadn’t finished his lunch,
asking Ethel if she would go with him into the drawing-room. She
followed him reluctantly, and The Tundish went on with his meal, but I
could see that his thoughts, like mine, were busy with the subject of
their conversation.
Shortly after they had left us Allport came in followed by Inspector
Brown. The Tundish, bland and dignified, rose at once to greet them.
“I am so sorry that I have put you to all the trouble of sending out a
man to track me down,” he said, offering his hand to the inspector,
with whom he was evidently acquainted, “but I must confess that I
deliberately omitted to leave my address—my case was a serious one and
I had no wish to be interrupted. But now, gentlemen, I am entirely at
your disposal.” He turned to Allport with hand outstretched, a quick
look at Inspector Brown inviting an introduction.
The detective took his hand at once, saying, “That’s all right,
Doctor, though I admit that you have caused me some anxiety. Now I
should like you to take me into the dispensary and show me the poison
cupboard which up to now we haven’t disturbed.”
The Tundish asked if I might accompany them, explaining how I had been
with him when the cupboard was last opened, and that I could testify
to the position of some of the bottles. Allport agreed, and I went
along with them.
The safe was opened, and for a time he stood silently looking at the
collection of bottles; I could see how immediately the Chinese flagon
attracted his attention. The doctor told him which bottle he had used
in preparing the fatal draft. Allport grunted, and asked the inspector
to fetch him his bag from the hall. From it he took a pair of rubber
gloves, and putting them on, he picked up the bottle, and placed it
carefully in a box containing cotton wool at the bottom of the bag.
Next, he asked The Tundish from which bottle he thought the poison had
been taken, assuming that an addition had been made to the sleeping
draft in the manner he suspected.
“That is undoubtedly the bottle,” The Tundish replied, pointing to the
little flagon.
“You say—_undoubtedly_—how can you be so sure that it was poison from
that particular little bottle, and not from one of the others? There
are many to choose from.”
“I am sure about it, first, because of the peculiarly bloodshot eyes,
and second, because of its very unusual smell. I smelled the dregs at
the bottom of the medicine glass when I went up-stairs immediately
after breakfast to make my first examination, and having smelled it
before I can not be mistaken.”
“Does it taste?”
“Yes, even in extremely dilute quantities it is bitter.”
Allport took the fragile little bottle between finger and thumb of his
gloved hand and held it up to the light. He held it up, looking at it
absorbed in thought, and then quite suddenly I saw him give a little
start as if he had noticed something of particular interest, and he
smiled to himself as I had watched him smiling on his knees in
Stella’s room. I turned from him to the bottle he held in his hand,
but I failed to see what it was that had quickened his attention.
“But this little bottle is very nearly full,” he said after a pause,
“the neck is exceedingly narrow and the liquid is less than half an
inch from the bottom of the stopper.”
Once more The Tundish explained how he had obtained the poison,
telling the detective exactly what he had told me only two days ago.
He ended by saying that a single drop, added to Stella’s medicine,
would have been quite sufficient to kill.
“Can you tell me, from the position of the liquid in the neck, exactly
how much of the poison has been used?”
The doctor thought for a moment and then replied, “Not with any very
great accuracy, of course, but I should say not more than two or three
drops at the most. I brought two similar bottles with me from China,
giving them both to Dr. Hanson. They were both of them full to the
stoppers and I had them sealed before my journey. Hanson used about
half the contents of one bottle in the course of his investigations,
with which I helped him. The remainder he sent away for further
examination and test to a chemical society to which we both belong. Of
the contents of the second bottle, we used exactly one cubic
centimeter in an experiment we made together the last time I visited
him, which would be about six months ago. As far as I can remember, we
left it with the liquid in practically its present position. I asked
Hanson if he had done any further work on it the day he left for
Folkestone, and he told me that he had not. You will understand we
were interested together. That is why I can state with a considerable
amount of certainty that at the most only two or three drops have been
used.”
Allport stood turning the tiny flagon this way and that, but obviously
listening attentively to the doctor’s statement, which had been made
in a voice that showed not the slightest tremor or concern. Then he
turned round quickly and asked him, “You would be surprised then if I
were to find any recent finger-prints of yours on the bottle?”
“Yes. Any more recent than six months ago.”
“Has it occurred to you that whoever added the poison to Miss
Palfreeman’s medicine—providing you are correct in your assumption
that it has been taken from this bottle—must have been closely
familiar with its properties? He or she evidently intended to kill, or
else why add poison at all? Yet, on your own showing only two or three
drops were added. It was known to the murderer that that would be
enough. He was familiar with its action.”
The four of us stood in silence, then he added very quietly, “That,
you will agree, narrows down the field of inquiry somewhat?”
The Tundish neither paled nor turned a hair as he replied, “Yes, oh
yes, it certainly narrows it down. As far as I can see it reduces it
to either me, or Jeffcock here or to Miss Hanson. To my knowledge we
are the only three people in the house having information about the
poison.”
“To your knowledge? Why do you say that—to your knowledge?”
“Because it is always possible that the maids or some one else may
have overheard Hanson and myself talking together about it.”
“Miss Summerson, for instance?”
“Oh, Miss Summerson knows all about it, in fact she has helped us with
some of our experiments. She left the house, however, before the draft
was made up and she has not yet returned.”
“To your knowledge,” Allport added.
“Why, whatever do you mean?” The Tundish said, showing some little
excitement at last.
“Miss Palfreeman’s room looks on to the flat-topped roof of the
surgery wing and an entry could have been made from it with the
greatest ease. The window, I take it, would be open on a night like
last night?”
“Yes, it was open wide at the bottom, when I went into the room after
breakfast, but Miss Hanson had been into the room before me. But it is
possible. So far as I know, Miss Summerson and Miss Palfreeman were
complete strangers to each other.”
“To your knowledge once more,” the detective laughed, “but if you had
had my experience, you would know that it is by no means safe to
assume that apparent strangers are strangers in fact.”
Again I saw that The Tundish was moved and his eyelids gave a flicker.
Did the little man notice it too, I wondered? And did he know of the
doctor’s previous meeting with Stella in China—or was it a shot in the
dark?
He seemed to be entirely absorbed in the little bottle, and to be
carrying on the conversation as a sort of accompaniment to his
examination of it. It almost appeared as if he thought that if he were
only to look at it long enough and hard enough he might wring its
secret from it. And all the time he looked his face held its puzzled
smile.
“Well, let us return to the dining-room,” he said at length, and he
laid the Chinese flagon carefully in the box in his bag along with the
other.
We were just leaving the dispensary when a sudden thought occurred to
me. “Wait a moment,” I cried. “Surely it is not safe to assume that
only two or three drops of poison have been taken from the bottle. Any
one would almost certainly fill it up again to its old level from the
tap which is all handy at the sink, before they put it back in its
place in the cupboard.”
Allport turned round with a smile of amusement at the excitement I had
shown. “Exactly so,” he said, “but I must confess that I have been
expecting the doctor to call my attention to the possibility.”
“I never thought of it,” said The Tundish.
“I am glad,” was the rather surprising reply.