Information Received
For the next day or two, Sir Clinton's interest in the Hassendean case
appeared to have faded out; and Inspector Flamborough, after following
up one or two clues which eventually proved useless, was beginning to
feel perturbed by the lack of direct progress which the investigation
showed. Rather to his relief, one morning the Chief Constable summoned
him to his office. Flamborough began a somewhat apologetic account of
his fruitless investigations; but Sir Clinton cut him short with a
word or two of appreciation of his zeal.
“Here's something more definite for you to go on,” he suggested. “I've
just had a preliminary report from the London man whom we put on to
search for the poison. I asked him to let me have a private opinion at
the earliest possible moment. His official report will come in later,
of course.”
“Has he spotted it, sir?” the Inspector inquired eagerly.
“He's reached the same conclusion as I did—and as I suppose you did
also,” Sir Clinton assured him.
Flamborough looked puzzled.
“I didn't spot it myself,” he confessed diffidently. “In fact, I don't
see how there was anything to show definitely what stuff it was,
barring dilatation of the eye-pupils, and that might have been due to
various drugs.”
“You should never lose an opportunity of exercising your powers of
inference, Inspector. I mustn't rob you of this one. Now put together
two things: the episode of the mixed melting-point and the phrase
about his ‘triumph’ that young Hassendean wrote in his journal. Add
the state of the girl's pupils as a third point—and there you are!”
Flamborough pondered for a while over this assortment of information,
but finally shook his head.
“I don't see it yet, sir.”
“In that case,” Sir Clinton declared, with the air of one bestowing
benevolence, “I think we'd better let it dawn on you slowly. You might
be angry with yourself if you realised all of a sudden how simple it
is.”
He rose to his feet as he spoke.
“I think we'll pay a visit to the Croft-Thornton Institute now, and
see how Markfield has been getting along with his examination. We may
as well have a check, before we begin to speculate too freely.”
They found Markfield in his laboratory, and Sir Clinton came to
business at once.
“We came over to see how you were getting on with that poison
business, Dr. Markfield. Can you give us any news?”
Markfield indicated a notebook on his desk.
“I've got it out, I think. It's all there; but I haven't had time to
write a proper report on it yet. It was——”
“Hyoscine?” Sir Clinton interrupted.
Markfield stared at him with evident appreciation.
“You're quite right,” he confirmed, with some surprise. “I suppose
you've got private information.”
The Chief Constable evaded the point.
“I'm asking this question only for our own information; you won't be
asked to swear to it in court. What amount of hyoscine do you think
was in the body, altogether? I mean, judging from the results you
obtained yourself.”
Markfield considered for a moment.
“I'm giving you a guess, but I think it's fairly near the mark. I
wouldn't, of course, take my oath on it. But the very smallest
quantity, judging from my results, would be somewhere in the
neighbourhood of seven or eight milligrammes.”
“Have you looked up anything about the stuff—maximum dose, and so
forth?” Sir Clinton inquired.
“The maximum dose of hyoscine hydrobromide is down in the books as
six-tenths of a milligramme—about a hundredth of a grain in
apothecaries’ weights.”
“Then she must have swallowed ten or twelve times the maximum dose,”
Sir Clinton calculated, after a moment or two of mental arithmetic.
He paused for a space, then turned again to Markfield.
“I'd like to see the hyoscine in your store here, if you can lay your
hands on it easily.”
Markfield made no objection.
“If you'd come in yesterday, the bottle would have been here, beside
me. I've taken it back to the shelf now.”
“I suppose you borrowed it to do a mixed melting-point?” Sir Clinton
asked.
“Yes. When there's only a trace of a stuff to identify, it's the
easiest method. But you seem to know something about chemistry?”
“About enough to make mistakes with, I'm afraid. It simply happened
that someone described the mixed melting-point business to me once;
and it stuck in my mind. Now suppose we look at this store of yours.”
Markfield led them along a passage and threw open a door at the end.
“In here,” he said.
“You don't keep it locked?” Sir Clinton inquired casually, as he
passed in, followed by the Inspector.
“No,” Markfield answered in some surprise. “It's the general chemical
store for this department. There's no point in keeping it locked. All
our stuffs are here, and it would be a devilish nuisance if one had to
fish out a key every time one wanted some chloroform or benzene. We
keep the duty-free alcohol locked up, of course. That's necessary
under the Customs’ regulations.”
Sir Clinton readily agreed.
“You're all trustworthy people, naturally,” he admitted, “It's not
like a place where you have junior students about who might play
thoughtless tricks.”
Markfield went over to one of the cases which lined the room, searched
along a shelf, and took down a tiny bottle.
“Here's the stuff,” he explained, holding it out to the Chief
Constable. “That's the hydrobromide, of course—a salt of the alkaloid
itself. This is the compound that's used in medicine.”
Now that he had got it, Sir Clinton seemed to have little interest in
the substance. He handed it across to Flamborough who, after looking
at it with would-be sagacity, returned it to Markfield.
“There's just one other point that occurs to me,” the Chief Constable
explained, as Markfield returned the poison-bottle to its original
place. “Have you, by any chance, got an old notebook belonging to
young Hassendean on the premises? Anything of the sort would do.”
The Inspector could make nothing of this demand and his face betrayed
his perplexity as he considered it. Markfield thought for a few
moments before replying, evidently trying to recall the existence of
any article which would suit Sir Clinton's purpose.
“I think I've got a rough notebook of his somewhere in my room,” he
said at last. “But it's only a record of weighings and things like
that. Would it do?”
“The very thing,” Sir Clinton declared, gratefully. “I'd be much
obliged if you could lay your hands on it for me now. I hope it isn't
troubling you too much.”
It was evident from Markfield's expression that he was as much puzzled
as the Inspector; and his curiosity seemed to quicken his steps on the
way back to his room. After a few minutes’ hunting, he unearthed the
notebook of which he was in search and laid it on the table before Sir
Clinton. Flamborough, familiar with young Hassendean's writing, had no
difficulty in seeing that the notes were in the dead man's hand.
Sir Clinton turned over the leaves idly, examining an entry here and
there. The last one seemed to satisfy him, and he put an end to his
inspection. Flamborough bent over the table and was mystified to find
only the following entry on the exposed leaf:
Weight of potash bulb = 50.7789 grs.
Weight of potash bulb + CO₂ = 50.9825 grs.
───────────
Weight of CO₂ = 0.2046 grs.
“By the way,” said Sir Clinton casually, “do you happen to have one of
your own notebooks at hand—something with the same sort of thing in
them?”
Markfield, obviously puzzled, went over to a drawer and pulled out a
notebook which he passed to the Chief Constable. Again Sir Clinton
skimmed over the pages, apparently at random, and then left the second
book open beside the first one. Flamborough, determined to miss
nothing, examined the exposed page in Markfield's notebook, and was
rewarded by this:—
Weight of U-tube = 24.7792 gms.
Weight of U-tube + H₂O = 24.9047 gms.
───────────
Weight of H₂O = 0.1255 gms.
“Damned if I see what he's driving at,” the Inspector said savagely to
himself. “It's Greek to me.”
“A careless young fellow,” the Chief Constable pronounced acidly. “My
eye caught three blunders in plain arithmetic as I glanced through
these notes. There's one on this page here,” he indicated the open
book. “He seems to have been a very slapdash sort of person.”
“An unreliable young hound!” was Markfield's slightly intensified
description. “It was pure influence that kept him here for more than a
week. Old Thornton, who put up most of the money for building this
place, was interested in him—knew his father, I think—and so we had to
keep the young pup here for fear of rasping old Thornton's feelings.
Otherwise. . . .”
The gesture accompanying the aposiopesis expressed Markfield's idea of
the fate which would at once have befallen young Hassendean had his
protector's influence been withdrawn.
The Chief Constable appeared enlightened by this fresh information.
“I couldn't imagine how you came to let him have the run of the place
for so long,” he confessed. “But, of course, as things were, it was
evidently cheaper to keep him, even if he did no useful work. One
can't afford to alienate one's benefactors.”
After a pause, he continued, reverting apparently to an earlier line
of thought:
“Let's see. You made out that something like twelve times the normal
dose of hyoscine had been administered?”
Markfield nodded his assent, but qualified it in words:
“That's a rough figure, remember.”
“Of course,” Sir Clinton agreed. “As a matter of fact, the multiple I
had in my mind was 15. I suppose it's quite possible that some of the
stuff escaped you and that your figure is an under-estimate?”
“Quite likely,” Markfield admitted frankly. “I gave you the lowest
figure, naturally—a figure I could swear to if it came to the point.
As it's a legal case, it's safer to be under than over the mark. But
quite probably, as you say, I didn't manage to isolate all the stuff
that was really present; and I wouldn't deny that the quantity in the
body may have run up to ten milligrammes or even slightly over it.”
“Well, it's perhaps hardly worth bothering about,” the Chief Constable
concluded. “The main thing is that even at the lowest estimate she
must have swallowed enough of the poison to kill her in a reasonably
short time.”
With this he seemed satisfied, and after a few questions about the
preparation and submission of Markfield's official report, he took his
leave. As he turned away, however, a fresh thought seemed to strike
him.
“By the way, Dr. Markfield, do you know if Miss Hailsham's here this
morning?”
“I believe so,” Markfield answered. “I saw her as I came in.”
“I'd like to have a few words with her,” Sir Clinton suggested.
“Officially?” Markfield demanded. “You're not going to worry the girl,
are you? If it's anything I can tell you about, I'd be only too glad,
you know. It's not very nice for a girl to have the tale going round
that she's been hauled in by the police in a murder case.”
The Chief Constable conceded the point without ado.
“Then perhaps you could send for her and we could speak to her in
here. It would be more private, and there need be no talk about it
outside.”
“Very well,” Markfield acquiesced at once. “I think that would be
better. I'll send for her now.”
He rang a bell and despatched a boy with a message. In a few minutes a
tap on the door sounded, and Markfield ushered Norma Hailsham into the
room. Inspector Flamborough glanced at her with interest, to see how
far his conception of her personality agreed with the reality. She was
a girl apparently between twenty and twenty-five, dressed with
scrupulous neatness. Quite obviously, she spent money freely on her
clothes and knew how to get value for what she spent. But as his eyes
travelled up to her face, the Inspector received a more vivid
impression. Her features were striking rather than handsome, and
Flamborough noted especially the squarish chin and the long
thin-lipped flexible mouth.
“H'm!” he commented to himself. “She might flash up in a moment, but
with that jaw and those lips she wouldn't cool down again in a hurry.
I was right when I put her down as a vindictive type. Shouldn't much
care to have trouble with her myself.”
He glanced at Sir Clinton for tacit instructions, but apparently the
Chief Constable proposed to take charge of the interview.
“Would you sit down, Miss Hailsham,” Sir Clinton suggested, drawing
forward a chair for the girl.
Flamborough noticed with professional interest that by his apparently
casual courtesy, the Chief Constable had unobtrusively manœuvred the
girl into a position in which her face was clearly illuminated by the
light from the window.
“This is Inspector Flamborough,” Sir Clinton went on, with a gesture
of introduction. “We should like to ask you one or two questions about
an awkward case we have in our hands—the Hassendean business. I'm
afraid it will be painful for you; but I'm sure you'll give us what
help you can.”
Norma Hailsham's thin lips set in a hard line at his first words, but
the movement was apparently involuntary, for she relaxed them again as
Sir Clinton finished his remarks.
“I shall be quite glad to give any help I can,” she said in a level
voice.
Flamborough, studying her expression, noticed a swift shift of her
glance from one to the other of the three men before her.
“She's a bit over-selfconscious,” he judged privately. “But she's the
regular look-monger type, anyhow; and quite likely she makes play with
her eyes when she's talking to any man.”
Sir Clinton seemed to be making a merit of frankness:
“I really haven't any definite questions I want to ask you, Miss
Hailsham,” he confessed. “What we hoped was that you might have
something to tell us which indirectly might throw some light on this
affair. You see, we come into it without knowing anything about the
people involved, and naturally any trifle may help us. Now if I'm not
mistaken, you knew Mr. Hassendean fairly well?”
“I was engaged to him at one time. He broke off the engagement for
various reasons. That's common knowledge, I believe.”
“Could you give us any of the reasons? I don't wish to pry, you
understand; but I think it's an important point.”
Miss Hailsham's face showed that he had touched a sore place.
“He threw me over for another woman—brutally.”
“Mrs. Silverdale?” Sir Clinton inquired.
“Yes, that creature.”
“Ah! Now I'd like to put a blunt question. Was your engagement, while
it lasted, a happy one? I mean, of course, before he was attracted to
Mrs. Silverdale.”
Norma Hailsham sat with knitted brows for a few moments before
answering.
“That's difficult to answer,” she pointed out at last. “I must confess
that I always felt he was thinking more of himself than of me, and it
was a disappointment. But, you see, I was very keen on him; and that
made a difference, of course.”
“What led to the breaking of your engagement?”
“You mean what led up to it? Well, we were having continual friction
over Yvonne Silverdale. He was neglecting me and spending his time
with her. Naturally, I spoke to him about it more than once. I wasn't
going to be slighted on account of that woman.”
There was no mistaking the under-current of animosity in the girl's
voice in the last sentence. Sir Clinton ignored it.
“What were your ideas about the relations between Mr. Hassendean and
Mrs. Silverdale?”
Miss Hailsham's thin lips curled in undisguised contempt as she heard
the question. She made a gesture as though averting herself from
something distasteful.
“It's hardly necessary to enter into _that_, is it?” she demanded.
“You can judge for yourself.”
But though she verbally evaded the point, the tone in which she spoke
was sufficient to betray her private views on the subject. Then with
intense bitterness mingled with a certain malicious joy, she added:
“She got what she deserved in the end. I don't pretend I'm sorry. I
think they were both well served.”
Then her temper, which hitherto she had kept under control, broke from
restraint:
“I don't care who knows it! They deserved all they got, both of them.
What business had she—with a husband of her own—to come and lure him
away? She made him break off his engagement to me simply to gratify
her own vanity. You don't expect me to shed tears over them after
that? One can forgive a good deal, but there's no use making a
pretence in things like that. She hit me as hard as she could, and I'm
glad she's got her deserts. I warned him at the time that he wouldn't
come off so well as he thought; and he laughed in my face when I said
it. Well, it's my turn to laugh. The account's even.”
And she actually did laugh, with a catch of hysteria in the laughter.
It needed no great skill in psychology to see that wounded pride
shared with disappointed passion in causing this outbreak.
Sir Clinton checked the hysteria before it gained complete hold over
her.
“I'm afraid you haven't told us anything that was new to us, Miss
Hailsham,” he said, frigidly. “This melodramatic business gets us no
further forward.”
The girl looked at him with hard eyes.
“What help do you expect from me?” she demanded. “I'm not anxious to
see him avenged—far from it.”
Sir Clinton evidently realised that nothing was to be gained by
pursuing that line of inquiry. Whether the girl had any suspicions or
not, she certainly did not intend to supply information which might
lead to the capture of the murderer. The Chief Constable waited until
she had become calmer before putting his next question:
“Do you happen to know anything about an alkaloid called hyoscine,
Miss Hailsham?”
“Hyoscine?” she repeated. “Yes, Avice Deepcar's working on it just
now. She's been at it for some time under Dr. Silverdale's direction.”
Flamborough, glancing surreptitiously at Markfield, noted an angry
start which the chemist apparently could not suppress. Put on the
alert by this, the Inspector reflected that Markfield himself must
have had this piece of information, and had refrained from
volunteering it.
“I meant as regards its properties,” Sir Clinton interposed. “I'm not
an expert in these things like you chemical people.”
“I'm not an alkaloid expert,” Miss Hailsham objected. “All I can
remember about it is that it's used in Twilight Sleep.”
“I believe it is, now that you mention it,” Sir Clinton agreed,
politely. “By the way, have you a car, Miss Hailsham?”
“Yes. A Morris-Oxford four-seater.”
“A saloon?”
“No, a touring model. Why do you ask?”
“Someone's been asking for information about a car which seems to have
knocked a man over on the night of the last fog. You weren't out that
night, I suppose, Miss Hailsham?”
“I was, as it happened. I went out to a dance. But I'd a sore throat;
and the fog made it worse; so I came away very early and got home as
best I could. But it wasn't my car that knocked anyone down. I never
had an accident in my life.”
“You might have been excused in that fog, I think, even if you had a
collision. But evidently it's not your car we're after. What was the
number of the car we heard about, Inspector?”
Flamborough consulted his notebook.
“GX.9074, sir.”
“Say that again,” Markfield demanded, pricking up his ears.
“GX.9074 was the number.”
“That's the number of my car,” Markfield volunteered.
He thought for some time, apparently trying to retrace his experiences
in the fog. At last his face lighted up.
“Oh, I guess I know what it is. When I was piloting Dr. Ringwood that
night, a fellow nearly walked straight into my front mudguard. I may
have hurt his feelings by what I said about his brains, but I swear I
didn't touch him with the car.”
“Not our affair,” Sir Clinton hastened to assure him. “It's a matter
for your insurance company if anything comes of it. And I gathered
from Dr. Ringwood that you didn't exactly break records in your trip
across town, so I doubt if you need worry.”
“I shan't,” said Markfield, crossly. “You can refer him to me if he
comes to you again.”
“We'd nothing to do with the matter,” Sir Clinton pointed out. “He was
told he'd get the owner's address from the County Council. I expect he
got into a calmer frame of mind when he'd had time to think.”
He turned to Miss Hailsham, who seemed to have recovered complete
control over herself during this interlude.
“I think that's all we need worry you with, Miss Hailsham. I'm sorry
that we put you to so much trouble.”
As a sign that the interview was at an end, he moved over to open the
door for her.
“I certainly don't wish you success,” she said icily, as she left the
room.
“Well, I think that's all we have to do here, Inspector,” Sir Clinton
said as he turned back from the open door. “We mustn't take up any
more of Dr. Markfield's time. I don't want to hurry you too much,” he
added to Markfield, “but you'll let us have your official report as
soon as you can, won't you?”
Markfield promised with a nod, and the two officials left the
building. When they reached headquarters again, Sir Clinton led the
way to his own office.
“Sit down for a moment or two, Inspector,” he invited. “You may as
well glance over the London man's report when you're about it. Here it
is—not for actual use, of course, until we get the official version
from him.”
He passed over a paper which Flamborough unfolded.
“By the way, sir,” the Inspector inquired before beginning to read,
“is there any reason for keeping back this information? These infernal
reporters are all over me for details; and if this poison affair could
be published without doing any harm, I might as well dole it out to
them to keep them quiet. They haven't had much from me in the last
twenty-four hours, and it's better to give them what we can.”
Sir Clinton seemed to attach some importance to this matter, for he
considered it for a few seconds before replying.
“Let them have the name of the stuff,” he directed at last. “I don't
think I'd supply them with any details, though. I'm quite satisfied
about the name of the drug, but the dose is still more or less a
matter of opinion, and we'd better not say anything about that.”
Flamborough glanced up from the report in his hand.
“Markfield and the London man both seem to put the dose round about
the same figure—eight milligrammes,” he said.
“Both of them must be super-sharp workers,” Sir Clinton pointed out.
“I don't profess to be a chemist, Inspector, but I know enough about
things to realise that they've done a bit of a feat there. However,
let's get on to something more immediately interesting. What did you
make of the Hailsham girl?”
“What did I make of her?” Flamborough repeated, in order to gain a
little time. “I thought she was more or less what I'd expected her to
be, sir. A hard vixen with a good opinion of herself—and simply mad
with rage at being jilted: that's what I made of her. Revengeful, too.
And a bit vulgar, sir. No decent girl would talk like that about a
dead man to a set of strangers.”
“She hadn't much to tell us that was useful,” Sir Clinton said,
keeping to the main point. “And I quite agree with you as to the
general tone.”
Flamborough turned to a matter which had puzzled him during their
visit to the Institute:
“What did you want young Hassendean's notebook for, sir? I didn't
quite make that out.”
“Why, you saw what I got out of it: arithmetical errors which proved
conclusively that he was a careless worker who didn't take any trouble
at all to verify his results.”
“I had a kind of notion that you got more out of it than that, sir, or
you wouldn't have asked to see Markfield's notebook as well. It
doesn't take someone else's notebook to spot slips in a man's
arithmetic, surely.”
Sir Clinton gazed blandly at his subordinate:
“Now that you've got that length, it would be a pity to spoil your
pleasure in the rest of the inference. Just think it out and tell me
the result, to see if we both reach the same conclusion independently.
You'll find a weights-and-measures conversion table useful.”
“Conversion table, sir?” asked the Inspector, evidently quite at sea.
“Yes. ‘One metre equals 39·37 inches,’ and all that sort of thing. The
sort of stuff one used at school, you know.”
“Too deep for me, sir,” the Inspector acknowledged ruefully. “You'll
need to tell me the answer. And that reminds me, what made you ask
whether the dose could have been fifteen times the maximum?”
The Chief Constable was just about to take pity on his subordinate
when the desk-telephone rang sharply. Sir Clinton picked up the
receiver.
“. . . Yes. Inspector Flamborough is here.”
He handed the receiver across to the Inspector, who conducted a
disjointed conversation with the person at the other end of the wire.
At length Flamborough put down the instrument and turned to Sir
Clinton with an expression of satisfaction on his face.
“We're on to something, sir. That was Fossaway ringing up from
Fountain Street. It seems a man called there a few minutes ago and
began fishing round to know if there was any likelihood of a reward
being offered in connection with the bungalow case. He seemed as if he
might know something, and they handed him over to Detective-Sergeant
Fossaway to see what he could make of him. Fossaway's fairly satisfied
that there's something behind it, though he could extract nothing
whatever from the fellow in the way of definite statements.”
“Has Fossaway got him there still?”
“No, sir. He'd no power to detain him, of course; and the fellow
turned stubborn in the end and went off without saying anything
definite.”
“I hope they haven't lost him.”
“Oh, no, sir. They know him quite well.”
“What sort of person is he, then?”
“A nasty type, sir. He keeps one of these little low-down shops where
you can buy a lot of queer things. Once we nearly had him over the
sale of some postcards, but he was too clever for us at the last
moment. Then he was up in an assault case: he'd been wandering round
the Park after dark, disturbing couples with a flash-lamp. A
thoroughly low-down little creature. His name's Whalley.”
Sir Clinton's face showed very plainly his view of the activities of
Mr. Whalley.
“Well, so long as they can lay their hands on him any time we need
him, it's all right. I think we'll persuade him to talk. By the way,
was this lamp-flashing stunt of his done for æsthetic enjoyment, or
was he doing a bit of blackmailing on the quiet?”
“Well, nobody actually lodged a complaint against him; but there's no
saying whether people paid him or not. His record doesn't make it
improbable that he might do something in that line, if he could manage
to pull it off.”
“Then I'll leave Mr. Whalley to your care, Inspector. He sounds
interesting, if you can induce him to squeak.”