“I have always thought,” resumed Mr. Bradley, restored, “I have always
thought that murders may be divided into two classes, closed or open.
By a closed murder I mean one committed in a certain closed circle of
persons, such as a house-party, in which it is known that the murderer
is limited to membership of that actual group. This is by far the
commoner form in fiction. An open murder I call one in which the
criminal is not limited to any particular group but might be almost
any one in the whole world. This, of course, is almost invariably what
happens in real life.
“The case with which we’re dealing has this peculiarity, that one
can’t place it quite definitely in either category. The police say
that it’s an open murder; both our previous speakers here seem to
regard it as a closed one.
“It’s a question of the motive. If one agrees with the police that it
is the work of some fanatic or criminal lunatic, then it certainly is
an open murder; anybody without an alibi in London that night might
have posted the parcel. If one’s of the opinion that the motive was a
personal one, connected with Sir Eustace himself, then the murderer is
confined to the closed circle of people who have had relations of one
sort or another with Sir Eustace.
“And talking of posting that parcel, I must just make a diversion to
tell you something really interesting. For all I know to the contrary,
I might have seen the murderer with my own eyes, in the very act of
posting it! As it happened, I was passing through Southampton Street
that evening at just about a quarter to nine. Little did I guess, as
Mr. Edgar Wallace would say, that the first act of this tragic drama
was possibly being unfolded at that very minute under my unsuspecting
nose. Not even a premonition of disaster caused me to falter in my
stride. Providence was evidently being somewhat close with
premonitions that night. But if only my sluggish instincts had warned
me, how much trouble I might have saved us all. Alas,” said Mr.
Bradley sadly, “such is life.
“However, that’s neither here nor there. We were discussing closed and
open murders.
“I was determined to form no definite opinions either way, so to be on
the safe side I treated this as an open murder. I then had the
position that every one in the whole wide world was under suspicion.
To narrow down the field a little, I set to work to build up the one
individual who really did it, out of the very meagre indications he or
she had given us.
“I had the conclusions drawn already from the choice of nitrobenzene,
which I’ve explained to you. But as a corollary to the good education,
I added the very significant postscript: but not public-school or
university. Don’t you agree, Sir Charles? It simply wouldn’t be done.”
“Public-school men have been known to commit murders before now,”
pointed out Sir Charles, somewhat at sea.
“Oh, granted. But not in such an underhand way as this. The
public-school code does stand for something, surely, even in murder.
So, I am sure, any public-school man would tell me. This isn’t a
gentlemanly murder at all. A public-school man, if he could ever bring
himself to anything so unconventional as murder, would use an axe or a
revolver or something which would bring him and his victim face to
face. He would never murder a man behind his back, so to speak. I’m
quite sure of that.
“Then another obvious conclusion is that he’s exceptionally neat with
his fingers. To unwrap those chocolates, drain them, re-fill them,
plug up the holes with melted chocolate, and wrap them up in their
silver paper again to look as if they’ve never been tampered with—I
can tell you, that’s no easy job. And all in gloves too, remember.
“I thought at first that the beautiful way it was done pointed
strongly to a woman. However, I carried out an experiment and got a
dozen or so of my friends to try their hands at it, men and women, and
out of the whole lot I was the only one (I say it without any
particular pride) who made a really good job of it. So it wasn’t
necessarily a woman. But manual dexterity’s a good point to establish.
“Then there was the matter of the exact six-minim dose in each
chocolate. That’s very illuminating, I think. It argues a methodical
turn of mind amounting to a real passion for symmetry. There are such
people. They can’t bear that the pictures on a wall don’t balance each
other exactly. I know, because I’m rather that way myself. Symmetry is
synonymous with order, to my mind. I can quite see how the murderer
came to fill the chocolates in that way. I should probably have done
so myself. Unconsciously.
“Then I think we can credit him or her with a creative mind. A crime
like this isn’t done on the spur of the moment. It’s deliberately
created, bit by bit, scene by scene, built up exactly as a play is
built up. Don’t you agree, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming?”
“It wouldn’t have occurred to me, but it may be true.”
“Oh, yes; a lot of thought must have gone to the carrying of it
through. I don’t think we need worry about the plagiarism from other
crimes. The greatest creative minds aren’t above adapting the ideas of
other people to their own uses. I do myself. So do you, I expect,
Sheringham; so do you, no doubt, Miss Dammers; so do you at times, I
should imagine, Mrs. Fielder-Flemming. Be honest now, all of you.”
A subdued murmur of honesty acknowledged occasional lapses in this
direction.
“Of course. Look how Sullivan used to adapt old church music, and turn
a Gregorian chant into _A Pair of Sparkling Eyes_, or something
equally unchantlike. It’s permissible. Well, there’s all that to help
with the portrait of our unknown and, lastly, there must be present in
his or her mental make-up the particular cold, relentless inhumanity
of the poisoner. That’s all, I think. But it’s something, isn’t it?
One ought to be able to go a fair way towards recognising our criminal
if one ever ran across a person with these varied characteristics.
“Oh, and there’s one other point I mustn’t forget. The parallel crime.
I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned this. To my mind it’s a closer
parallel than any we’ve had yet. It isn’t a well-known case, but
you’ve all probably heard of it. The murder of Dr. Wilson, at
Philadelphia, just twenty years ago.
“I’ll run through it briefly. This man Wilson received one morning
what purported to be a sample bottle of ale, sent to him by a
well-known brewery. There was a letter with it, written apparently on
their official notepaper, and the address-label had the firm’s name
printed on it. Wilson drank the beer at lunch, and died immediately.
The stuff was saturated with cyanide of potassium.
“It was soon established that the beer hadn’t come from the brewery at
all, which had sent out no samples. It had been delivered through the
local express company, but all they could say was that it had been
sent to them for delivery by a man. The printed label and the
letter-paper had been forged, printed specially for the occasion.
“The mystery was never solved. The printing-press used to print the
letter-heading and label couldn’t be traced, though the police visited
every printing-works in the whole of America. The very motive for the
murder was never even satisfactorily ascertained. A typical open
murder. The bottle arrived out of the blue, and the murderer remained
in it.
“You see the close resemblance to this case, particularly in the
supposed sample. As Mrs. Fielder-Flemming has pointed out, it’s almost
too good to be a coincidence. Our murderer _must_ have had that case
in mind, with its (for the murderer) most successful outcome. As a
matter of fact there was a possible motive. Wilson was a notorious
abortionist, and somebody may have wanted to stop his activities.
Conscience, I suppose. There are people who have such a thing. That’s
another parallel with this affair, you see. Sir Eustace is a notorious
evil-liver. And that goes to support the police view, of an anonymous
fanatic. There’s a good deal to be said for that view, I think.
“But I must get on with my own exposition.
“Well, having reached this stage I tabulated my conclusions and drew
up a list of conditions which this criminal of ours must fulfil. Now I
should like to point out that these conditions of mine were so many
and so varied that if anybody could be found to fit them the chances,
Sir Charles, would not be a mere million to one but several million to
one that he or she must be the guilty person. This isn’t just
haphazard statement, it’s cold mathematical fact.
“I have twelve conditions, and the mathematical odds against their all
being fulfilled in one person are actually (if my arithmetic stands
the test) four hundred and seventy-nine million, one thousand and six
hundred to one. And that, mark you, is if all the chances were even
ones. But they’re not. That he should have some knowledge of
criminology is at least a ten to one chance. That he should be able to
get hold of Mason’s notepaper must be more than a hundred to one
against.
“Well, taking it all in all,” opined Mr. Bradley, “I should think the
real odds must be somewhere about four billion, seven hundred and
ninety thousand million, five hundred and sixteen thousand, four
hundred and fifty-eight to one. In other words, it’s a snip. Does
every one agree?”
Every one was far too stunned to disagree.
“Right; then we’re all of one mind,” said Mr. Bradley cheerfully. “So
I’ll read you my list.”
He shuffled the pages of a little pocket-book and began to read:—
Conditions to be Filled by the Criminal.
1. Must have at least an elementary amount of chemical knowledge.
2. Must have at least an elementary knowledge of criminology.
3. Must have had a reasonably good education, but not public school
or University.
4. Must have possession of, or access to, Mason’s notepaper.
5. Must have possession of, or access to, a Hamilton No. 4
typewriter.
6. Must have been in the neighbourhood of Southampton Street,
Strand, during the critical hour, 8.30–9.30, on the evening
before the murder.
7. Must be in possession of, or had access to, an Onyx fountain-pen,
fitted with a medium-broad nib.
8. Must be in possession of, or had access to, Harfield’s
Fountain-Pen Ink.
9. Must have something of a creative mind, but not above adapting
the creations of others.
10. Must be more than ordinarily neat with the fingers.
11. Must be a person of methodical habits, probably with a strong
feeling for symmetry.
12. Must have the cold inhumanity of the poisoner.
“By the way,” said Mr. Bradley, stowing away his pocket-book again,
“you see that I’ve agreed with you too, Sir Charles, that the murderer
would never have entrusted the posting of the parcel to another
person. Oh, and one other point. For purposes of reference. If anybody
wants to see an Onyx pen, and fitted with a medium-broad nib as well,
take a look at mine. And curiously enough it’s filled with Harfield’s
Fountain-Pen Ink too.” The pen circulated slowly round the table while
Mr. Bradley, leaning back in his chair, surveyed its progress with a
fatherly smile.
“And that,” said Mr. Bradley, when the pen had been restored to him,
“is that.”
Roger thought he saw the explanation of the glint that had appeared
from time to time in Mr. Bradley’s eye. “You mean, the problem’s still
to solve. The four billion chances were too much for you. You couldn’t
find any one to fit your own conditions?”
“Well,” said Mr. Bradley, apparently most reluctant all of a sudden,
“if you must know, I have found some one who does.”
“You have? Good man! Who?”
“Hang it all, you know,” said the coy Mr. Bradley, “I hardly like to
tell you. It’s really too ridiculous.”
A chorus of expostulation, cajolement, and encouragement was
immediately directed at him. Never had Mr. Bradley found himself so
popular.
“You’ll laugh at me if I do tell you.”
It appeared that everybody would rather suffer the tortures of the
Inquisition than laugh at Mr. Bradley. Never can five people less
disposed to mirth at Mr. Bradley’s expense have been gathered
together.
Mr. Bradley seemed to take heart. “Well, it’s very awkward. Upon my
soul I don’t know what to do about it. If I can show you that the
person I have in mind not only fulfils each of my conditions exactly,
but also had a certain interest (remote I admit, but capable of proof)
in sending those chocolates to Sir Eustace, have I your assurance, Mr.
President, that the meeting will give me its serious advice as to what
my duty is in the matter?”
“Good gracious, yes,” at once agreed Roger, much excited. Roger had
thought that he might be on the verge of solving the problem himself,
but he was quite sure that he and Bradley had not hit upon the same
solution. And if the fellow really had got some one . . . “Good Lord,
yes!” said Roger.
Mr. Bradley looked round the table in a worried way. “Well, can’t you
see who I mean? Dear me, I thought I’d told you in almost every other
sentence.”
Nobody had seen whom he meant.
“The only possible person, so far as I can see, who could ever be
expected to fulfil all those twelve conditions?” said this harassed
version of Mr. Bradley, dishevelling his carefully flattened hair.
“Why, dash it, not my sister at all, but—but—but _me_, of course!”
There was a stupefied silence.
“D-did you say, _you_?” finally ventured Mr. Chitterwick.
Mr. Bradley turned gloomy eyes on him. “Obviously, I’m afraid. I have
more than an elementary knowledge of chemistry. I can make
nitrobenzene and often have. I’m a criminologist. I’ve had a
reasonably good education, but not public-school or University. I had
access to Mason’s notepaper. I possess a Hamilton No. 4 typewriter. I
was in Southampton Street itself during the critical hour. I possess
an Onyx pen, fitted with a medium-broad nib and filled with Harfield’s
ink. I have something of a creative mind, but I’m not above adapting
the ideas of other people. I’m far more than ordinarily neat with my
fingers. I’m a person of methodical habits, with a strong feeling for
symmetry. And apparently I have the cold inhumanity of the poisoner.
“Yes,” sighed Mr. Bradley, “there’s simply no getting away from it.
_I_ sent those chocolates to Sir Eustace.
“I must have done. I’ve proved it conclusively. And the extraordinary
thing is that I don’t remember a single jot about it. I suppose I did
it when I was thinking about something else. I’ve noticed I’m getting
a little absent-minded at times.”
Roger was struggling with an inordinate wish to laugh. However he
managed to ask gravely enough: “And what do you imagine was your
motive, Bradley?”
Mr. Bradley brightened a little. “Yes, that was a difficulty. For
quite a time I couldn’t establish my motive at all. I couldn’t even
connect myself with Sir Eustace Pennefather. I’d heard of him of
course, as anybody who’s ever been to the Rainbow must. And I’d
gathered he was somewhat savoury. But I’d no grudge against the man.
He could be as savoury as he liked so far as I cared. I don’t think
I’d ever even seen him. Yes, the motive was a real stumbling-block,
because of course there must be one. What should I have tried to kill
him for otherwise?”
“And you’ve found it?”
“I think I’ve managed to ferret out what must be the real cause,” said
Mr. Bradley, not without pride. “After puzzling for a long time I
remembered that I had heard myself once say to a friend, in a
discussion on detective-work, that the ambition of my life was to
commit a murder, because I was perfectly certain that I could do so
without ever being found out. And the excitement, I pointed out, must
be stupendous; no gambling game ever invented can come anywhere near
it. A murderer is really making a magnificent bet with the police, I
demonstrated, with the lives of himself and his victim as the stakes;
if he gets away with it, he wins both; if he’s caught, he loses both.
For a man like myself, who has the misfortune to be extremely bored by
the usual type of popular recreation, murder should be the hobby _par
excellence_.”
“Ah!” Roger nodded portentously.
“This conversation, when I recalled it,” pursued Mr. Bradley very
seriously, “seemed to me significant in the extreme. I at once went to
see my friend and asked him if he remembered it and was prepared to
swear that it took place at all. He was. In fact he was able to add
further details, more damning still. I was so impressed that I took a
statement from him.
“Amplifying my notion (according to his statement), I had gone on to
consider how it could best be carried out. The obvious thing, I had
decided, was to select some figure of whom the world would be well
rid, not necessarily a politician (I was at some pains to avoid the
obvious, apparently), and simply murder him at a distance. To play the
game, one should leave a clue or two, more or less obscure. Apparently
I left rather more than I intended.
“My friend concluded by saying that I went away from him that evening
expressing the firmest intention of carrying out my first murder at
the earliest opportunity. Not only would the practice make such an
admirable hobby, I told him, but the experience would be invaluable to
a writer of detective-stories such as myself.
“That, I think,” said Mr. Bradley with dignity, “establishes my motive
only too certainly.”
“Murder for experiment,” remarked Roger. “A new category. Most
interesting.”
“Murder for jaded pleasure-seekers,” Mr. Bradley corrected him. “There
is a precedent, you know. Loeb and Leopold. Well, there you have it.
Have I proved my case, Mr. President?”
“Completely, so far as I can see. I can’t detect a flaw in your
argument.”
“I’ve been at some pains to make it a good deal more water-tight than
I ever bother to do in my books. You could argue a very nasty case
against me in court on those lines, couldn’t you, Sir Charles?”
“Well, I should want to go into it a little more closely, but at first
sight, Bradley, I admit that so far as circumstantial evidence is
worth (and in my opinion, as you know, it is worth everything), I
can’t see room for very much doubt that you sent those chocolates to
Sir Eustace.”
“And if I said here and now that in sober truth I _did_ send them?”
persisted Mr. Bradley.
“I couldn’t disbelieve you.”
“And yet I didn’t. But given time, I’m quite prepared to prove to you
just as convincingly that the person who really sent them was the
Archbishop of Canterbury, or Sybil Thorndike, or Mrs. Robinson-Smythe
of The Laurels, Acacia Road, Upper Tooting, or the President of the
United States, or anybody else in this world you like to name.
“So much for proof. I built that whole case up against myself out of
the one coincidence of my sister having a few sheets of Mason’s
notepaper. I told you nothing but the truth. But I didn’t tell you the
whole truth. Artistic proof is, like artistic anything else, simply a
matter of selection. If you know what to put in and what to leave out
you can prove anything you like, quite conclusively. I do it in every
book I write, and no reviewer has ever hauled me over the coals for
slipshod argument yet. But then,” said Mr. Bradley modestly, “I don’t
suppose any reviewer has ever read one of my books.”
“Well, it was a very ingenious piece of work,” Miss Dammers summed up.
“And most instructive.”
“Thank you,” murmured Mr. Bradley, with gratitude.
“And what it all amounts to,” Mrs. Fielder-Flemming delivered a
somewhat tart verdict, “is that you haven’t the faintest idea who is
the real criminal.”
“Oh, I know _that_, of course,” said Mr. Bradley languidly. “But I
can’t prove it. So it’s not much good telling you.”
Everybody sat up.
“You’ve found some one else, in spite of the odds, to fit those
conditions of yours?” demanded Sir Charles.
“I suppose she must,” admitted Mr. Bradley, “as she did it. But
unfortunately I haven’t been able to check them all.”
“She!” Mr. Chitterwick caught him up.
“Oh, yes, it was a woman. That was the most obvious thing about the
whole case—and incidentally one of the things I was careful to leave
out just now. Really, I wonder that’s never been mentioned before.
Surely if there’s anything evident about this affair at all it is that
it’s a woman’s crime. It would never occur to a man to send poisoned
chocolates to another man. He’d send a poisoned sample razor-blade, or
whisky, or beer like the unfortunate Dr. Wilson’s friend. Quite
obviously it’s a woman’s crime.”
“I wonder,” Roger said softly.
Mr. Bradley threw him a sharp glance. “You don’t agree, Sheringham?”
“I only wondered,” said Roger. “But it’s a very defendable point.”
“Impregnable, I should have said,” drawled Mr. Bradley.
“Well,” said Miss Dammers, impatient of these minor matters, “aren’t
you going to tell us who did it, Mr. Bradley?”
Mr. Bradley looked at her quizzically. “But I said that it wasn’t any
good, as I can’t prove it. Besides, there’s a small matter of the
lady’s honour involved.”
“Are you resuscitating the law of slander, to get you out of a
difficulty?”
“Oh, dear me, no. I wouldn’t in the least mind giving her away as a
murderess. It’s a much more important thing than that. She happens to
have been Sir Eustace’s mistress at one time, you see, and there’s a
code governing that sort of thing.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Chitterwick.
Mr. Bradley turned to him politely. “You were going to say something?”
“No, no. I was just wondering whether you’d been thinking on the same
lines as I have. That’s all.”
“You mean the discarded mistress theory?”
“Well,” said Mr. Chitterwick uncomfortably, “yes.”
“Of course. You’d hit on that line of research, too?” Mr. Bradley’s
tone was that of a benevolent headmaster patting a promising pupil on
the head. “It’s the right one, obviously. Viewing the crime as a
whole, and in the light of Sir Eustace’s character, a discarded
mistress, radiating jealousy, stands out like a beacon in the middle
of it. That’s one of the things I conveniently omitted too from my
list of conditions—No. 13, the criminal must be a woman. And touching
on artistic proof again, both Sir Charles and Mrs. Fielder-Flemming
practised it, didn’t they? Both of them omitted to establish any
connection of nitrobenzene with their respective criminals, though
such a connection is vital to both their cases.”
“Then you really think jealousy is the motive?” Mr. Chitterwick
suggested.
“I’m absolutely convinced of it,” Mr. Bradley assured him. “But I’ll
tell you something else of which I’m not by any means convinced, and
that is that the intended victim really was Sir Eustace Pennefather.”
“Not the intended victim?” queried Roger, very uneasily. “How do you
make that out?”
“Why, I’ve discovered,” said Mr. Bradley, dissembling his pride, “that
Sir Eustace had had an engagement for lunch on the day of the murder.
He seems to have been very secretive about it, and it was certainly
with a woman; and not only with a woman, but with a woman in whom Sir
Eustace was more than a little interested. I think probably not Miss
Wildman, but somebody of whom he was anxious that Miss Wildman
shouldn’t know. But in my opinion the woman who sent the chocolates
knew. The appointment was cancelled, but the other woman might not
have known that.
“My suggestion (it’s only a suggestion, and I can’t substantiate it in
any way at all except that it makes chocolates still more reasonable)
is that those chocolates were intended not for Sir Eustace at all but
for the sender’s rival.”
“Ah!” breathed Mrs. Fielder-Flemming.
“This is quite a new idea,” complained Sir Charles.
Roger had been hastily conning over the names of Sir Eustace’s various
ladies. He had been unable to fit one before into the crime, and he
was unable now; yet he did not think that any had escaped him. “If the
woman you’re thinking of, Bradley, the sender,” he said tentatively,
“really was a mistress of Sir Eustace, I don’t think you need worry
about being too punctilious. Her name is almost certainly on the lips
of the whole Rainbow Club in that connection, if not of every club in
London. Sir Eustace is not a reticent man.”
“I can assure Mr. Bradley,” said Miss Dammers with irony, “that Sir
Eustace’s standard of honour falls a good deal short of his own.”
“In this case,” Mr. Bradley told them, unmoved, “I think not.”
“How is that?”
“Because I’m quite sure that apart from my unconscious informant, and
Sir Eustace, and myself, there is nobody who knows of the connection
at all. Except the lady, of course,” added Mr. Bradley punctiliously.
“Naturally it would not have escaped her.”
“Then how did you find out?” demanded Miss Dammers.
“That,” Mr. Bradley informed her equably, “I regret that I’m not at
liberty to say.”
Roger stroked his chin. Could there be another one of whom he had
never heard? In that case, how would this new theory of his continue
to stand up?
“Your so close parallel falls to the ground, then?” Mrs.
Fielder-Flemming was stating.
“Not altogether. But if it does, I’ve got another just as good.
Christina Edmunds. Almost the same case, with the insanity left out.
Jealousy-mania. Poisoned chocolates. What could be better?”
“Humph! The mainstay of your last case, I gathered,” observed Sir
Charles, “or at any rate the starting-point, was the choice of
nitrobenzene. I suppose that, and the deductions you drew from it, are
equally important to this one. Are we to take it that this lady is an
amateur chemist, with a copy of Taylor on her shelves?”
Mr. Bradley smiled gently. “That, as you rightly point out, was the
mainstay of my _last_ case, Sir Charles. It isn’t of this one. I’m
afraid my remarks on the choice of poison were rather special
pleading. I was leading up to a certain person, you see, and therefore
only drew the deductions which suited that particular person. However,
there was a good deal of possible truth in them for all that, though I
wouldn’t rate their probability quite as high as I pretended to do
then. I’m quite prepared to believe that nitrobenzene was used simply
because it’s so easy to get hold of. But it’s perfectly true that the
stuff’s hardly known as a poison at all.”
“Then you make no use of it in your present case?”
“Oh, yes, I do. I still think the point that the criminal not so much
used it as knew of it to use, is a perfectly sound one. The reason for
that knowledge should be capable of being established. I stuck out
before for a copy of some such book as Taylor as the reason, and I
still do. As it happens this good lady _has_ got a copy of Taylor.”
“She _is_ a criminologist, then?” Mrs. Fielder-Flemming pounced.
Mr. Bradley leaned back in his chair and gazed at the ceiling. “That,
I should think, is very much open to question. Frankly, I’m puzzled
over the matter of criminology. Myself, I don’t see that lady as an
‘-ist’ of any description. Her function in life is perfectly obvious,
the one she fulfilled for Sir Eustace, and I shouldn’t have thought
her capable of any other. Except to powder her nose rather charmingly,
and look extremely decorative; but all that’s part and parcel of her
real _raison d’être_. No, I don’t think she could possibly be a
criminologist, any more than a canary-bird could. But she certainly
has a smattering of criminology, because in her flat there’s a whole
bookshelf filled with works on the subject.”
“She’s a personal friend of yours, then?” queried Mrs.
Fielder-Flemming, very casually.
“Oh, no. I’ve only met her once. That was when I called at her flat
with a bran-new copy of a recently published book of popular murders
under my arm, and represented myself as a traveller for the publisher
soliciting orders for the book; might I have the pleasure of putting
her name down? The book had only been out four days, but she proudly
showed me a copy of it on her shelves already. Was she interested in
criminology, then? Oh, yes, she simply adored it; murder was _too_
fascinating, wasn’t it? Conclusive, I think.”
“She sounds a bit of a fool,” commented Sir Charles.
“She looks like a bit of a fool,” agreed Mr. Bradley. “She talks like
a bit of a fool. Meeting her at a tea-fight, I should have said she
_is_ a bit of a fool. And yet she carried through a really cleverly
planned murder, so I don’t see how she can be a bit of a fool.”
“It doesn’t occur to you,” remarked Miss Dammers, “that perhaps she
never did anything of the sort?”
“Well, no,” Mr. Bradley had to confess. “I’m afraid it doesn’t. I
mean, a comparatively recent discarded mistress of Sir Eustace’s
(well, not more than three years ago, and hope dies hard), who thinks
no small champagne of herself and considers murder too fascinating for
words. Well, really!
“By the way, if you want any confirmatory evidence that she had been
one of Sir Eustace’s lady-loves, I might add that I saw a photograph
of him in her flat. It was in a frame that had a very wide border. The
border showed the word ‘Your’ and conveniently cut off the rest. Not
‘Yours,’ notice, but ‘Your.’ I think it’s a reasonable assumption that
something quite affectionate lies under that discreet border.”
“I have it from his own lips that Sir Eustace changes his mistresses
as often as his hats,” Miss Dammers said briskly. “Isn’t it possible
that more than one may have suffered from a jealousy-complex?”
“But not, I think, have possessed a copy of Taylor as well,” Mr.
Bradley insisted.
“The criminological-knowledge factor seems to have taken the place in
this case of the nitrobenzene factor in the last,” meditated Mr.
Chitterwick. “Am I right in thinking that?”
“Quite,” Mr. Bradley assured him kindly. “That, in my opinion, is the
really important clue. It’s so emphasised, you see. We get it from two
entirely different angles, the choice of poison and the reminiscent
features of the case. In fact we’re coming up against it all the
time.”
“Well, well,” muttered Mr. Chitterwick, reproving himself as one might
who had been coming up against a thing all the time and never even
noticed it.
There was a short silence, which Mr. Chitterwick imputed (quite
wrongly) to a general condemnation of his own obtuseness.
“Your list of conditions,” Miss Dammers resumed the charge. “You said
you hadn’t been able to check all of them. Which does this woman
definitely fulfil, and which haven’t you been able to check?”
Mr. Bradley assumed an air of alertness. “No. 1, I don’t know whether
she has any chemical knowledge. No. 2, I do know that she has at least
an elementary knowledge of criminology. No. 3, she is almost certain
to have had a reasonably good education (though whether she ever
learnt anything is quite a different matter), and I think we may
assume that she was never at a public-school. No. 4, I haven’t been
able to connect her with Mason’s notepaper, except in so far as she
has an account at Mason’s; and if that is good enough for Sir Charles,
it’s good enough for me. No. 5, I haven’t been able to connect her
with a Hamilton typewriter, but that ought to be quite easy; one of
her friends is sure to have one.
“No. 6, she could have been in the neighbourhood of Southampton
Street. She tried to establish an alibi, but bungled it badly; it’s
full of holes. She’s supposed to have been in a theatre, but she
didn’t even get there till well past nine. No. 7, I saw an Onyx
fountain-pen on her bureau. No. 8, I saw a bottle of Harfield’s
Fountain-Pen Ink in one of the pigeon-holes of the bureau.
“No. 9, I shouldn’t have said she had a creative mind; I shouldn’t
have said that she had a mind at all; but apparently we must give her
the benefit of any doubt there is. No. 10, judging from her face, I
should say she was very neat with her fingers. No. 11, if she is a
person of methodical habits she must feel it an incriminating point,
for she certainly disguises it very well. No. 12, this I think might
be amended, to ‘must have the poisoner’s complete lack of
imagination.’ That’s the lot.”
“I see,” said Miss Dammers. “There are gaps.”
“There are,” Mr. Bradley agreed blandly. “To tell the truth, I know
this woman must have done it because really, you know, she must. But I
can’t believe it.”
“Ah!” said Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, putting a neat sentence into one
word.
“By the way, Sheringham,” remarked Mr. Bradley, “you know the bad
lady.”
“I do, do I?” said Roger, apparently coming out of a trance. “I
thought I might. Look here, if I write a name down on a piece of
paper, do you mind telling me if I’m right or wrong?”
“Not in the least,” replied the equable Mr. Bradley. “As a matter of
fact I was going to suggest something like that myself. I think as
President you ought to know who I mean, in case there is anything in
it.”
Roger folded his piece of paper in two and tossed it down the table.
“That’s the person, I suppose.”
“You’re quite right,” said Mr. Bradley.
“And you base most of your case on her reasons for interesting herself
in criminology?”
“You might put it like that,” conceded Mr. Bradley.
In spite of himself Roger blushed faintly. He had the best of reasons
for knowing why Mrs. Verreker-le-Mesurer professed such an interest in
criminology. Not to put too fine a point on it, the reasons had been
almost forced on him.
“Then you’re absolutely wrong, Bradley,” he said without hesitation.
“Absolutely.”
“You know definitely?”
Roger suppressed an involuntary shudder. “Quite definitely.”
“You know, I never believed she did it,” said the philosophical Mr.
Bradley.