“Naturally, to Sir Eustace, who is working hard to retrieve his fortunes by a rich marriage, this scheme has small appeal. He begins by cursing himself for having seduced the damned woman at all, and goes on to curse still more the damned woman for having been seduced. And the more pressing she becomes, the more he hates her. Then Mrs. Bendix must have brought matters to a head. She has heard about the Wildman girl affair. That must be stopped at once. She tells Sir Eustace that if he doesn’t break it off himself, she will take steps to break it off for him. Sir Eustace sees the whole thing coming out, his own appearance in a second divorce-court, and all hopes of Miss Wildman and her fortune gone forever. Something has got to be done about it. But what can be done? Nothing short of murder will stop the damned woman’s tongue.
“Well—it’s high time somebody murdered her anyhow.
“Now I’m on rather less sure ground, but the assumptions seem to me sound enough and I can produce a reasonable amount of proof to support them. Sir Eustace decides to get rid of the woman once and for all. He thinks it over carefully, remembers to have read about a case, several cases, in some criminological book, each of which just failed through some small mistake. Combine them, eradicate the small mistake from each, and so long as his relations with Mrs. Bendix are not known (and he is quite certain they aren’t) there is no possibility of being found out. That may seem a long guess, but here’s my proof.
“When I was studying him, I gave Sir Eustace every chance of plying his blandishments on me. One of his methods is to profess a deep interest in everything that interests the woman. Naturally therefore he discovered a profound, if hitherto latent, interest in criminology. He borrowed several of my books, and certainly read them. Among the ones he borrowed is a book of American poisoning cases. In it is an account of every single case that has been mentioned as a parallel by members of this Circle (except of course Marie Lafarge and Christina Edmunds).
“About six weeks ago, when I got in one evening my maid told me that Sir Eustace, who hadn’t been near my flat for months, had called; he waited for a time in the sitting-room and then went. Shortly after the murder, having also been struck by the similarity between this and one or two of those American cases, I went to the bookshelf in my sitting-room to look them up. The book was not there. Nor, Mr. Bradley, was my copy of Taylor. But I saw them both in Sir Eustace’s rooms the day I had that long conversation with his valet.”
Miss Dammers paused for comment.
Mr. Bradley supplied it. “Then the man deserves what’s coming to him,” he drawled.
“I told you this murder wasn’t the work of a highly intelligent mind,” said Miss Dammers.
“Well, now, to complete my reconstruction. Sir Eustace decides to rid himself of his encumbrance, and arranges what he thinks a perfectly safe way of doing so. The nitrobenzene, which appears to worry Mr. Bradley so much, seems to me a very simple matter. Sir Eustace has decided upon chocolates as the vehicle, and chocolate liqueurs at that. (Mason’s chocolate liqueurs, I should say, are a favourite purchase of Sir Eustace’s. It is significant that he had bought several one-pound boxes recently.) He is searching, then, for some poison with a flavour which will mingle well enough with that of the liqueurs. He is bound to come across oil of bitter almonds very soon in that connection, actually used as it is in confectionery, and from that to nitrobenzene, which is more common, easier to get hold of, and practically untraceable, is an obvious step.
“He arranges to meet Mrs. Bendix for lunch, intending to make a present to her then of the chocolates which are to come to him that morning by post, a perfectly natural thing to do. He will already have the porter’s evidence of the innocent way in which he acquired them. At the last minute he sees the obvious flaw in this plan. If he gives Mrs. Bendix the chocolates in person, and especially at lunch at Fellows’s Hotel, his intimacy with her must be disclosed. He hastily racks his brains and finds a very much better plan. Getting hold of Mrs. Bendix, he tells her some story of her husband and Vera Delorme.
“In characteristic fashion Mrs. Bendix loses sight of the beam in her own eye on learning of this mote in her husband’s and at once falls in with Sir Eustace’s suggestion that she shall ring Mr. Bendix up, disguising her voice and pretending to be Vera Delorme, and just find out for herself whether or not he will jump at the chance of an intimate little lunch for the following day.
“ ‘And tell him you’ll ring him up at the Rainbow tomorrow morning between ten-thirty and eleven,’ Sir Eustace adds carelessly. ‘If he goes to the Rainbow, you’ll be able to know for certain that he’s dancing attendance on her at any hour of the day.’ And so she does. The presence of Bendix is therefore assured for the next morning at half-past ten. Who in the
