“How much powder do you think he put in?”
“Oh, a good dollop. He didn’t measure it or anything, just shot it in out of the packet. Near a dessert spoonful it might have been.”
“And what happened to the packet?” prompted Parker.
“Ah, there you are.” Mrs. Bulfinch took a glance at Wimsey’s face and seemed pleased with the effect she was producing.
“We’d just got the last customer out—about five past eleven, that would be, and George was locking the door, when I see something white on the seat. Somebody’s handkerchief I thought it was, but when I picked it up, I see it was the paper packet. So I said to George, ‘Hullo! the gentleman’s left his medicine behind him.’ So George asked what gentleman, and I told him, and he said, ‘What is it?’ and I looked, but the label had been torn off. It was just one of them chemist’s packets, you know, with the ends turned up and a label stuck across, but there wasn’t a bit of the label left.”
“You couldn’t even see whether it had been printed in black or in red?”
“Well, now.” Mrs. Bulfinch considered. “Well, no, I couldn’t say that. Now you mention it, I do seem to recollect that there was something red about the packet, somewhere, but I can’t clearly call it to mind. I wouldn’t swear. I know there wasn’t any name or printing of any kind, because I looked to see what it was.”
“You didn’t try tasting it, I suppose?”
“Not me. It might have been poison or something. I tell you, he was a funny looking customer.” (Parker and Wimsey exchanged glances.)
“Was that what you thought at the time?” enquired Wimsey, “or did it only occur to you later on—after you’d read about the case, you know?”
“I thought it at the time, of course,” retorted Mrs. Bulfinch, snappishly. “Aren’t I telling you that’s why I didn’t taste it? I said so to George at the time, what’s more. Besides, if it wasn’t poison, it might be ‘snow’ or something. ‘Best not touch it,’ that’s what I said to George, and he said ‘Chuck it in the fire.’ But I wouldn’t have that. The gentleman might have come back for it. So I stuck it up on the shelf behind the bar, where they keep the spirits, and never thought of it again from that day to yesterday, when your policeman came round about it.”
“It’s been looked for there,” said Parker, “but they can’t seem to find it anywhere.”
“Well, I don’t know about that. I put it there and I left the Rings in August, so what’s gone with it I can’t say. Daresay they threw it away when they were cleaning. Wait a bit, though—I’m wrong when I say I never thought about it again. I did just wonder about it when I read the report of the trial in the News of the World, and I said to George, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the gentleman who came into the Rings one night and seemed so poorly—just fancy!’ I said—just like that. And George said, ‘Now don’t you get fancies, Gracie my girl; you don’t want to get mixed up in a police case.’ George has always held his head high, you see.”
“It’s a pity you didn’t come forward with this story,” said Parker, severely.
“Well, how was I to know it was important? The taxi driver had seen him a few minutes afterwards and he was ill then, so the powder couldn’t have had anything to do with it, if it was him, which I couldn’t swear to. And anyhow, I didn’t see about it till the trial was all over and finished with.”
“There will be a new trial, though,” said Parker, “and you may have to give evidence at that.”
“You know where to find me,” said Mrs. Bulfinch, with spirit. “I shan’t run away.”
“We’re very much obliged to you for coming now,” added Wimsey, pleasantly.
“Don’t mention it,” said the lady. “Is that all you want, Mr. Chief Inspector?”
“That’s all at present. If we find the packet, we may ask you to identify it. And, by the way, it’s advisable not to discuss these matters with your friends, Mrs. Bulfinch. Sometimes ladies get talking, and one thing leads to another, and in the end they remember incidents that never took place at all. You understand.”
“I never was one for talking,” said Mrs. Bulfinch, offended. “And it’s my opinion, when it comes to putting two and two together to make five of ’em, the ladies aren’t in it with the gentlemen.”
“I may pass this on to the solicitors for the defence, I suppose?” said Wimsey, when the witness had departed.
“Of course,” said Parker, “that’s why I asked you to come and hear it—for what it’s worth. Meanwhile, we shall of course have a good hunt for the packet.”
“Yes,” said Wimsey, thoughtfully, “yes—you will have to do that—naturally.”
Mr. Crofts did not look best pleased when this story was handed on to him.
“I warned you, Lord Peter,” he said, “what might come of showing our hand to the police. Now they’ve got hold of this incident, they will have every opportunity to turn it to their own advantage. Why didn’t you leave it to us to make the investigation?”
“Damn it,” said Wimsey angrily, “it was left to you for about three months and you did absolutely nothing. The police dug it up in three days. Time’s important in this case, you know.”
“Very likely, but don’t you see that the police won’t rest now till they’ve found this precious packet?”
“Well?”
“Well, and suppose it isn’t arsenic at all? If you’d left it in our hands, we could have sprung the thing on them at the last moment, when it was too late to make enquiries, and then we should have knocked the bottom out of the prosecution. Give the jury Mrs. Bulfinch’s story as it stands and they’d have
