“From now on I collect butterflies,” said Drummond gravely. “Have some more beer?”
“I thank you—no,” said MacIver stiffly, and with a curt nod to us all he left the room.
“Poor old MacIver’s boots are fuller of feet than usual this morning,” laughed Drummond as the door closed. “He simply doesn’t know which end up he is.”
“A rum development that, Hugh,” said Sinclair.
“Think so, old man? I don’t know. Once you’ve granted what I maintain—namely, that there’s some means of communication between the two houses—I don’t think it’s at all rum. Just as MacIver said—the point is that there will be no inquest. Inquests mean notoriety: newspaper reporters, crowds of people standing outside the house staring at it. If I’m right that’s the one thing that the occupants of Number 12 want to avoid.”
“But dash it all, Hugh,” cried Darrell, “you don’t suggest that the invalid Miss Simpson—”
“To blazes with the invalid,” said Drummond. “How do we know it’s an invalid? They may have killed the old dear, for all we know, and buried her under the cucumber frame. Of course, that man was dead: I’ve never seen a deader. Well, dead bodies don’t walk. Either he went out through the window, or he went into Number 12. The first would be an appalling risk, seeing it was broad daylight; in fact, without making the devil of a shindy it would be an impossibility. So that’s where I get the bulge on MacIver. I can go into Number 12, and he can’t without a warrant. That’s so, isn’t it, lawyer man?”
“He certainly can’t enter the house without a warrant,” I agreed. “But I don’t see that you can go at all.”
“My dear old lad,” he answered, “I am Miss Simpson’s long-lost nephew from Australia. If she is all that she pretends to be, I shall buy her some muscatel grapes, kiss her heartily on each cheek and fade gracefully away. But if she isn’t …”
“Well,” I said curiously. “If she isn’t?”
“Then there will be two damned liars in the house, and that’s always a sound strategical position if you’re the lesser of them. So-long, boys. Tell me all about the inquest, and stand by for a show tonight.”
He lounged out of the room, and I sat looking after him a little helplessly. His complete disregard for any normal methods of procedure, his absolute lack of any conventionality, nonplussed me. And yet I couldn’t help admitting to myself that what he said was perfectly correct. If she was the genuine article he merely retired gracefully: if she wasn’t, he held the whip hand, since the last thing the occupants of the house could do was to send for the police. And after a time I began to find myself hoping that she would prove to be an impostor, and that there would be another show tonight. It struck me as being more exciting than the legal profession. …
But at this point, in order to keep to the sequence of events, I must digress for the moment and allude to the inquest. It was an affair of surpassing dullness, chiefly remarkable for the complete suppression of almost all the facts that mattered. I realised, of course, that it was part of the prearranged plan: though even I, knowing as I did that there is a definite understanding between the coroner and the police in all inquests where murder has occurred, was surprised at the result when compared to the facts.
But bald as that result was, the reporters got hold of it. The few central facts which concerned the death of the policeman and the finding of the dead bodies of the dog and the Australian had to come out. Also the disappearance of Robin Gaunt. (In fact, as anyone who cares to look up the account can see for himself, no mention occurred of the War Office or things military throughout the whole of the proceeding. I saw Major Jackson in the body of the court, but, since he was in mufti, he was indistinguishable from any ordinary spectator.)
I told of the cry over the telephone; and, in short, I told with the omissions I have mentioned the story I have already put down in these pages up to the moment when Inspector MacIver arrived. And Toby Sinclair confirmed it.
Then Sir John Dallas gave his evidence, which consisted of a series of statements of fact. The deaths had been due to an unknown poison administered externally: he was unable to say how it had been applied. He could give no opinion as to the nature of the poison, beyond saying that it punctured the skin and passed up an artery to the heart. He was continuing his experiments in the hopes of isolating it.
Then MacIver was called, and I must say that I admired the almost diabolical cunning with which he slurred over the truth, and advanced the theory that had been decided upon. He didn’t say much, but the reporters seized it with avidity, and turned it from a weakly infant into a lusty child.
“No trace has been discovered of Mr. Gaunt?” said the coroner.
“None,” admitted MacIver.
Though naturally a full description had been circulated all over the country.
The verdict, as may be remembered, was “Wilful murder by some person or persons unknown” in the case of the Australian—David Gayton: and “Death by misadventure” in the case of the constable. And in the latter case expressions of sympathy were tendered to his widow.
“Well done, Stockton.” Major Jackson and I went out of the court together.
“I suppose you know they had a shot at me last night,” I said.
“The devil they did,” he remarked, looking thoughtful. “Where?”
“It’s too long a story to tell,” I answered. “Have you heard anything about the selling of the secret abroad?”
“Couldn’t have yet,” he said. “Of course, strictly between ourselves, we’re on to it in every country that counts. But the devil of it all is that unless old Dallas can isolate this poison,
