At Vance’s Place
Vance’s bungalow being the nearest, the party repaired there for a
clean-up.
The planter was reaching down the decanter when Armourer spoke.
“What made you ferret out that basket, professor?”
Standen, who had been carrying the bundle with him all over the house,
as if chary of trusting it with anybody, raised his eyes.
“I happen to be blessed with a peculiarly keen sense of smell,” he
declared. “When that black fellow passed me this afternoon, I caught a
faint suggestion of something sickly and unpleasant. I did not pay
serious attention to it at the time, but a recurrence of apparently
the same odour in Moberly’s bedroom set me thinking. It would hardly
be true to say that I suspected Abu-Samar from that moment, but there
was just a shadowy notion at the back of my mind that he might in some
way be connected with the mystery. He seemed peculiarly anxious, if
you remember, to obtain possession of the butterfly ornament about
which he said Mrs. Battiscombe was raving.”
Battiscombe started.
“What’s that?” he demanded sharply.
Armourer flushed.
“You must recollect, Jim, that we all imagined Abu-Samar was genuinely
a doctor. Macnally was away. Standen was at my place. We had a dead
man and a sick woman and a devil of a mystery confronting us. Trevor
suggested Samar. In the end we sent for both of them--and Samar
attended Mrs. Battiscombe.”
“You don’t mean to tell me you sent that man in to my wife--_alone_?”
“No,” jerked out Vance. “I was there too--trying to bring her round.”
“You were there all the time?”
The planter looked at the ceiling.
“Most of it. I certainly came out for a bit to tell the others how she
was; but I was never far away from the door.”
Battiscombe bit his thumb.
“Go on, professor. Tell us a little more about your line of
reasoning.”
Standen adjusted his spectacles.
“Samar was the only person outside the charmed circle who knew Mr.
Moberly was dead, the only one of whom we knew. There might have been
others whom we didn’t know, but I was not prepared to take that into
account. You see, I couldn’t take my mind from that smell. Then we
embarked upon our little expedition. Abu-Samar, surprised by the
swiftness of our approach and fully aware that the odds were against
him, emerged from the burning building clinging desperately to that
basket. I judged it to be of vital importance to him, or he would have
relinquished it in his flight. Anxious to put my theory to the test, I
concentrated on the basket. It had been discarded almost immediately
after we all saw it and a heavy beam had fallen right across it, so
that I had great difficulty in extricating it. I found traces of there
having been other chrysalids--or _pupæ_, each apparently enclosed in
little bamboo cages, which were unfortunately crushed beyond
recognition. How this particular specimen managed to survive I am
unable to explain. I discovered it fully a yard from the basket
itself, and my attention was called to it by its writhing, spasmodic
movement. I hadn’t even been looking for a chrysalis; but it was
merely a matter of seconds before I had realised the possible
importance of my discovery.”
Battiscombe stared at him aghast.
“But you don’t suggest he breeds the damn’ things?”
“I don’t suggest anything. Chrysalids vary considerably in their
duration of quiescence, and we may have to be patient for quite a long
while before the actual butterfly breaks through its shell. If indeed
it does prove to be the Crimson Butterfly, we shall be faced with
another problem. We shall have to consider how it is that Abu-Samar
happens to be the sole possessor of specimens of this sort.”
Vance rested his elbows on the table. Now that the excitement of the
chase had worn off, he was once more a victim of acute depression.
“And the pendant?” he asked. “How do you fit that in?”
The professor shrugged his shoulders.
“I must frankly confess that this particular point baffles me
completely. You must not yet lose sight of the fact that the presence
of the ornament on Moberly’s table may be sheer coincidence.”
“I’m not losing sight of one thing: that Abu-Samar killed Dick
Moberly--and if ever he falls into my hands I pity him!”
Standen shook his head slowly from side to side.
“At the present stage, everything is conjecture. If, for example, a
perfectly harmless insect emerges from this _pupa_--the whole
structure upon which my theory is based falls to the ground. If indeed
Samar poisoned Moberly, can anybody suggest a motive?”
Battiscombe smiled grimly.
“If he’d poisoned _me_, it’d be far more easily understood. I kicked
him out of my place yesterday--literally, I mean, and he went off
swearing blue murder.”
“I’m wondering,” said Armourer, “if he meant to kill Dick at all.”
All eyes turned in his direction.
“What d’you mean?” asked Vance.
“Wait a bit and I’ll tell you. Did Dick know Samar?”
“Yes--a bit.”
“To what extent?”
“He used to drop in at the chief’s place sometimes, principally, I
imagine, to try and persuade him to employ him for the coolies.”
“Which, of course, Dick declined to do?”
“Yes; but,” Vance added hastily, “there was never any row about it.
The chief could be very diplomatic when he chose. He explained that he
was the manager only and had to take his instructions from London. He
also pointed out, I believe, that Macnally was the official doctor and
would naturally resent any such appointment, even if it were in Dick’s
power to make it.”
Armourer shot a side glance at his colleague.
“I may have to ask a couple of questions about Mrs. Battiscombe. Do
you mind?”
A look of pain crossed Battiscombe’s face.
“All right. Carry on.”
“Was Mrs. Battiscombe ever at Dick’s place when any of these
interviews took place?”
“It’s not unlikely. She was there fairly often.”
“You can’t say for certain?”
“No.”
The magistrate drummed on the table with his fingers.
“About that pendant. You’ve never set eyes on it before yesterday,
Jim?”
Battiscombe shook his head.
“Never; but you mustn’t lay too much stress on that, because Vera
tells me I never notice anything!”
“A common feminine delusion with regard to their male associates,”
murmured the professor.
“I’m wondering,” pursued Armourer, “whether it could be possible that
Samar, wanting to get a dig in at Battiscombe, gave the pendant to
Moberly, knowing that he would send it to Mrs. Battiscombe.”
“Meaning the intended victim to be _me_,” chimed in his senior.
“That’s what I was trying to get at. You see, professor, I’ve learnt
this evening that Abu-Samar has been suspected of poisoning a good
many people, and always, it appears, in a distinctly mysterious
manner. Battiscombe can give you the details in full, if you want
them. I don’t know how you scientists regard Oriental magic, but we
just ordinary folk cling fondly to the notion that there’s possibly
something in it. Probably we’re wrong, but there remains just a
sporting chance that we’re not. Abu-Samar is well versed in all these
spectacular tricks in which hypnotism plays a very important part. It
sounds pretty feeble, I admit, but it looks as if the actual butterfly
_followed_ that image!”
Vance passed a hand across his forehead and yawned.
“How?” he inquired wearily.
“Ask me another!--We’ve had to swallow a good deal during the past few
hours, so much in fact that we ought to be in a mood to tackle almost
any possibility.”
Battiscombe pushed himself out of his chair.
“We’d better be getting back. Michael, you seem destined to occupy one
of your long chairs to-night; I’d better curl up in another. A great
deal hangs on what Vera has to tell us to-morrow.”
The professor blinked.
“If your suggestion is in any way correct,” he remarked, “the next
victim--provided there is to be a next--should be yourself. You’ve
still got that Butterfly, haven’t you?”
Armourer laughed.
“Many thanks for your cheery suggestion, professor! As a matter of
fact, I happen to have left it at home.”
Standen emptied his glass.
He jerked himself suddenly as if to shift a heavy weight from his
mind.
“It’s all the purest nonsense imaginable,” he asserted testily, “and I
must be in my dotage to have allowed you even to harbour such a
ridiculous notion; _but_ I shall feel a great deal easier in mind when
we get back.”
“I hope everything’s all right,” said the planter gloomily, with an
inflection that suggested that everything might not be.
“Don’t be a damn’ fool!” said the professor, and stamped his way down
into the garden. “Good-night, Mr. Vance,” he called back more
pleasantly. “I didn’t want to be rude, but you echoed something I was
imbecile enough to think myself!--Good night!”