“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 makeup 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 everyone agree?”
Everyone 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 pocketbook and began to read:—
Conditions to be Filled by the Criminal.
Must have at least an elementary amount of chemical knowledge.
Must have at least an elementary knowledge of criminology.
Must have had a reasonably good education, but not public school or University.
Must have possession of, or access to, Mason’s notepaper.
Must have possession of, or access to, a Hamilton No. 4 typewriter.
Must have been in the neighbourhood of Southampton Street, Strand, during the critical hour, 8:30–9:30, on the evening before the murder.
Must be in possession of, or had access to, an Onyx fountain-pen, fitted with a medium-broad nib.
Must be in possession of, or had access to, Harfield’s Fountain-Pen Ink.
Must have something of a creative mind, but not above adapting the creations of others.
Must be more than ordinarily neat with the fingers.
Must be a person of methodical habits, probably with a strong feeling for symmetry.
Must have the cold inhumanity of the poisoner.
“By the way,” said Mr. Bradley, stowing away his pocketbook again, “you see that I’ve agreed with you too,
