The 12.30 from Croydon (39 page)

‘That looks a more conclusive alibi than it really is,’ remarked Quilter.

‘That’s so, of course, sir. But all the same it’s a thing which would appeal a lot to the ordinary mind. How, a man would feel, could he be suspected when he wasn’t there? And the farther and more completely away he was, the safer he would feel. It’s human nature, even if it isn’t reason.’

‘That’s true,’ Heppenstall agreed. ‘I should feel it myself under the same circumstances.’

‘Well, there’s a lesson to you not to depend on it,’ Byng advised. ‘This is going very nicely, inspector. Yes?’

‘There was still another thing on the same lines,’ resumed French. ‘Owing to the deceased’s habit of keeping the bottle in his own custody there would be difficulty in introducing the poisoned pill. This difficulty would also appeal to the murderer – he wouldn’t believe he would be suspected of doing anything so nearly impossible. I don’t know if I’ve made myself clear?’

The others reassured him.

‘Well, it seemed to me that if a man was ingenious enough to think up the whole scheme, he was ingenious enough to meet this minor difficulty. At all events, rightly or wrongly, I had by this time come to the tentative conclusion that the poison medium was a pill.

‘I had also taken a note to look for anyone interested who had an unusually good alibi at the time of the death.’

‘Bless me,’ exclaimed Quilter. ‘You mean that the safeguard upon which the criminal depended most was what actually led you to him?’

‘That usually happens, sir. The more ingenious and elaborate the shifts to cover up suspicion, the more obvious it usually is that they are shifts. My experience is that if criminals weren’t so clever they’d be harder to catch. What do you say, super?’

Lucas nodded. ‘I agree. From their own point of view they can’t let well alone. Lucky for us, all the same.’

‘I then dropped that side of it,’ went on French, ‘and started making a list of all the people whom I thought might be guilty. This was a tedious job and not very interesting, so I need only tell you my conclusion. The list included: Mr Peter Morley, Mrs Morley, Mr Charles Swinburn, Mrs Pollifex, Miss Pollifex, Weatherup, the two maids, Mr Crosby, as well as some possible unknown. These names were obtained by general inquiries, which gave me the persons who benefited under the will, and also those who might have had access to the pills.

‘On the grounds of general probability I tentatively eliminated the ladies and Mr Crosby, leaving as the most likely suspects Morley, Swinburn, and Weatherup. It was understood, of course, that this list was not final, but was open to revision at any time. I also noticed with a good deal of interest that Swinburn was on a cruise to the Mediterranean at the time of the death. Was this, I wondered, the alibi I had been expecting?’

‘Net beginning to close?’ remarked Heppenstall.

‘Well, hardly that, sir. Let us say, a path for investigation mapped out. I next interviewed Weatherup and got as complete a statement from him as I could. He told me that Morley and Swinburn had been both calling on the deceased more frequently of late than formerly, and he believed that there was “some business on between them”. Of course, both had admitted what that business was. Swinburn had been to lunch and dinner before he went away on his trip, and Morley had also been to lunch and dinner, that dinner being on the night before Mr Crowther died. I pumped Weatherup as to whether either had been alone with the deceased and I learned that Swinburn had been alone with him for a considerable time after both lunch and dinner, and that Morley had been alone with him for a considerable time after lunch only, Mr Crosby being present on the evening when he dined. But from Mr Crosby I learned that Morley had been alone with him for three or four minutes when Mr Crosby had left the room to get some papers from his overcoat.

‘It was during the course of this questioning that Weatherup made a statement of which I thought nothing at the time, but which afterwards seemed to me to be significant. I asked him how he was sure on what evening it was that Swinburn had dined, and he said it was because the tablecloth got stained on that night, and he had to change it a day earlier than usual. I asked how it had got stained and he told me of the spilling of the wine.

‘It was in bed that night when the possible significance of this struck me. I had been puzzling over the question of how the poisoned pill could have been introduced into the deceased’s bottle. From what I had been told, Mr Crowther kept the bottle in his waistcoat pocket, and it was never therefore out of his possession. Moreover, at night he was a poor sleeper and would certainly have awaked if anyone had gone into his room to tamper with it; unless of course he was first drugged. But no hint of his having been drugged had come out, and with an elderly invalid I doubted if such a matter could have been hidden. Now it occurred to me that if the wine had been spilled when the deceased was taking his pill, his attention might have been sufficiently distracted to allow the pill to have been slipped into the bottle. I was not quite satisfied about this, because if it had been merely dropped in, the old man would have taken it within a day or so. The pill seemed to have been put low down in the bottle. Then suddenly I saw how it might have been managed. If a second bottle of pills had been obtained, and the pill had been inserted beforehand into it, the bottles could easily have been changed. A moment would do it, and the spilling of the wine would have been amply sufficient to distract the old gentleman’s attention while it was being done. This, of course, was pure guesswork, but it was all tending in the same direction.’

French paused. There was no question of the completeness with which he was holding his hearers’ attention. All were listening with the keenest interest; Quilter, however, not to the extent of forgetting his duties as host.

‘Fill up your glass, inspector,’ he said to French. ‘Talking’s dry work. And you, Byng, you’re ready for more whisky. Superintendent, the cigars are just behind you.’ He threw a pine log on the fire and beamed at the others.

‘A great entertainment you’re giving us, Quilter,’ Heppenstall declared, taking another cigar and passing the box to Lucas. ‘I wish we had something of this kind after every case.’

‘Same here,’ Byng agreed.

‘Well, inspector, did you find out if you were right about the spilling of the wine?’

‘No,’ French answered, ‘I’m afraid that remained a theory. I noted it and went ahead. From my conversations with Weatherup I was gradually coming to the conclusion that he was innocent. For this I had no definite reason, therefore I did not accept it, merely noting it as an opinion. But it had just enough influence on my mind to make me take the cases of Morley and Swinburn first.

‘I fully realized, as you, sir, pointed out at the trial, that Morley had a stronger motive for the crime than Swinburn, for the simple reason that his uncle had given Swinburn part of what he had asked for, whereas Morley had got nothing. Therefore I took Morley first. I tried to find out if he had bought any cyanide.

‘It was obvious that he would not attempt to buy it locally. He would go to some distant big town. But I could not find out that he had left home within the four weeks previous to the old man’s death.

‘Then I asked the same question of Swinburn, and at once I felt I was on the right track. He was very open about the whole thing – suspiciously open, indeed, making no secret of his movements. I suppose he felt quite safe. He told me that he had had some negotiations with his uncle before the 17th of August. On that day, it was a Thursday, he lunched with the old man, and I had already learned that he was alone with him after lunch. Then on the following Monday, the 21st, he went up to Town, stayed two nights in order to visit a machine-tool works at Reading, and returned on Wednesday, the 23rd. Two days later, on Friday, the 25th, he dined at The Moat, and after dinner was again alone with his uncle. I may mention that it was on this occasion that the wine was spilled.

‘When Swinburn told me all this, he had no idea what a giveaway he was making. My theory was now beginning to take shape. It seemed to me that on Thursday, the 17th, when he lunched at The Moat and when he got the cheque for £1,000, he must have come to the conclusion that his uncle was not going to stump up to an extent that would be any good to him. I believed that he then decided to commit the murder. On that occasion of lunching he undoubtedly saw the taking of the pill, and his idea for the method probably occurred to him then or shortly after. His problem would be to get the poison, and he would appreciate what I have been saying about the impossibility of getting it locally. What better place to get it could there be than London? So off he goes to London. I presumed he had succeeded in obtaining the stuff in London, and he returns, makes his pill, slips it into a bottle he has bought, dines at The Moat two nights later, spills the wine and during the excitement changes the bottles.

‘Such was my new theory. Obviously it was only a theory, but I determined it was worth testing before I went any further.’

Once again French paused, while the others made appropriate murmurs of interest.

‘I did my best at the interview with Swinburn to dispel any fears that he might have that I suspected him,’ French went on. ‘I was not ready for an arrest, and I didn’t want to have the labour and expense of shadowing him. I believed he felt himself safe after that interview; indeed, I imagined he thought me a bit of a fool who would give him no trouble.

‘Obviously my next step was in London, and next day I went back to the Yard. I began by checking his statement, though I had no doubt I should find it accurate. And so I did. Swinburn had spent the nights of the 21st and 22nd August at the Duchy of Cornwall Hotel in Northumberland Avenue, and on the 22nd he had gone to Reading and interviewed the manager of Endicott Brothers about three machine tools for his works – all just as he had said.

‘But there was one fact which emerged from my inquiries at the hotel. It seemed clear that he could have done a deal more in London than pay his visit to Reading. On that second day, for instance, the 22nd, he left the hotel after an early breakfast and didn’t return till dinner-time, so the porter told me. He was only in the Reading works for half an hour, so that the entire visit shouldn’t have taken more than about three hours. Where was he all the rest of the day? Of course he might have had perfectly legitimate engagements, but then again, he mightn’t. At all events, my discoveries were still working in.

‘Now I had been pretty continuously considering how he might have got the poison. There were a number of possibilities. He could have bought it openly in his own name at any chemist’s at which he was known, on some pretext such as wanting it for photography or electro-gilding or silvering, or for chemical experiments or research, or for destroying wasps or some animal which had to be made away with. I thought this so unlikely as not to be worth consideration. But by impersonating someone else, real or imaginary, and going where he was not known, he might have got it on some similar pretext. Or he might have stolen it if he could obtain access to a doctor’s or chemist’s store. Poison has often been stolen from a doctor’s car, and some trick to get a doctor to take it in his car and leave it for a moment unwatched should not be beyond the bounds of possibility.

‘No cases of theft had been reported, however, and as I thought, of all the remaining ways, that of impersonation was the most probable, I decided to work first on this assumption. This scheme meant buying the stuff at some chemist’s, and that involved signing the poison book. I thought I could get what I wanted through the poison book.

‘I drafted a circular at the Yard and had it sent to every chemist in London. In it I asked for a copy of every entry of purchases of potassium cyanide under the dates of the 21st, 22nd and 23rd of August. There were only seventeen in the whole of London, and I began by telephoning for confirmation to the whole seventeen purchasers. Sixteen confirmed the entries and one denied all knowledge of the affair.

‘This seventeenth was Mr Carswell, of Surbiton, and the chemist who had supplied the entry was Peabody. I went off and saw Peabody, and when I found that he had failed to carry out the regulations and had not personally known his purchaser, I felt I was on the right track.

‘As a precaution I arranged a meeting between Carswell and Peabody, and Peabody confirmed that Carswell was not the man who had bought the stuff. It seemed to me that the only question then remaining was whether this man was or was not Swinburn.

‘To settle this point I asked Peabody to come down here to Cold Pickerby. In spite of your insinuations, sir,’ French grinned across at Heppenstall, ‘I wanted to be careful not to give Peabody a lead on the matter. I—’

‘That was only in the way of business, inspector,’ Heppenstall interrupted. ‘I never thought you would do anything unfair. In fact, I said so in so many words.’

‘You did, sir. It was cleverly done all right.’ French grinned again. ‘However, as I say, I didn’t want to give the man a lead. So I fixed it this way. I borrowed a canvas hut from the Electricity Works and set it over a manhole on the street near the club. Just before lunchtime I got inside with Peabody and told him to tell me if he saw Swinburn pass along the street. He recognized him at once going into the club. I didn’t take that as an identification but stayed there till Swinburn came out again. Swinburn was this time facing the hut and he passed within four or five feet. Peabody swore he was absolutely sure. So that was that.’

‘Yes, there was no getting over that. You were satisfied then as to his guilt?’

‘Perfectly satisfied. All the same – wrongly, as it turned out – I delayed making an arrest till I should have some further evidence.’

‘Why do you say wrongly?’ Byng interrupted. ‘I should have thought you were wise in that.’

‘I took a risk which I ought to have foreseen, but didn’t. If I had acted at once I should have prevented another murder.’

All four men stared. ‘Another murder?’ repeated Quilter. ‘Oh, you mean Weatherup’s. ’Pon my soul, for the moment I forgot Swinburn had been charged with that also. We’ve heard so much of the Crowther case, it put the other out of my mind. You’re sure he was guilty of the second?’