'What was wrong with her?'
'Heavily doped with one of the barbiturates. She's pretty bad, but she'll pull round.'
'The maid?' said Battle . His rather ox-like eyes went heavily to the big bell-pull, the tassel of which rested on the pillow near the dead woman's hand.
Lazenby nodded.
'Exactly. That's the first thing Lady Tressilian would have done if she'd cause to feel alarm — pull that bell and summon the maid. Well, she could have pulled it till all was blue. The maid wouldn't have heard.'
'That was taken care of, was it?' said Battle . 'You're sure of that? She wasn't in the habit of taking sleeping draughts?'
'I'm positive she wasn't. There's not a sign of such a thing in her room. And I've found out how it was given to her. Senna pods. She drank off a brew of senna pods every night. The stuff was in that.'
Superintendent Battle scratched his chin.
'H'm,' he said. 'Someone knew all about this house. You know, doctor, this is a very odd sort of murder.'
'Well,' said Lazenby, 'that's your business.'
'He's a good man, our doctor,' said Leach when Lazenby had left the room.
The two men were alone now. The photographs had been taken, and measurements recorded. The two police officers knew every fact that was to be known about the room where the crime had been committed.
Battle nodded in answer to his nephew's remark. He seemed to be puzzling over something.
'Do you think anyone could have handled that club — with gloves on, say, after those fingerprints were made?'
Leach shook his head.
'I don't, and no more do you. You couldn't grasp that club — not use it, I mean, without smearing those prints. They weren't smeared. They were as clear as clear. You saw for yourself.'
Battle agreed.
'And now we ask very nicely and politely if everyone will allow us to take their fingerprints — no compulsion, of course. And everyone will say yes — and then one of two things will happen. Either none of these fingerprints will agree, or else — '
'Or else we'll have got our man?'
'I suppose so. Or our woman, perhaps.'
Leach shook his head. 'No, not a woman. Those prints on the club were a man's. Too big for a woman's. Besides, this isn't a woman's crime.'
'No,' agreed Battle . 'Quite a man's crime. Brutal, masculine, rather athletic and slightly stupid. Know anybody in the house like that?'
'I don't know anyone in the house yet. They're all together in the dining-room.' Battle moved towards the door.
'We'll go and have a look at them.' He glanced over his shoulder at the bed, shook his head and remarked: 'I don't like that bell-pull.'
'What about it?'
'It doesn't fit.'
He added as he opened the door: 'Who wanted to kill her, I wonder? A lot of cantankerous old ladies about just asking for a tap on the skull. She doesn't look that sort. I should think she was liked.' He paused a minute and then asked: 'Well off, wasn't she? Who gets her money?'
Leach answered the implication of the words: 'You've hit it! That will be the answer. It's one of the first things to find out.'
As they went downstairs together Battle glanced at the list in his hand. He read out: 'Miss Aldin, Mr. Royde, Mr. Strange, Mrs. Strange, Mrs. Audrey Strange. H'm, seems a lot of the Strange family.'
'Those are his two wives, I understand.'
Battle 's eyebrows rose and he murmured: 'Bluebeard, is he?'
The family were assembled round the dining-room table, where they had made a pretence of eating.
Superintendent Battle glanced keenly at the faces turned to him. He was sizing them up after his own peculiar methods. His view of them might have surprised them had they known it. It was a sternly biased view. No matter what the law pretends as to regarding people as innocent until they are proved guilty, Superintendent Battle always regarded everyone connected with a murder case as a potential murderer.
He glanced from Mary Aldin, sitting upright and pale at the head of the table, to Thomas Royde, filling a pipe beside her, to Audrey sitting with her chair pushed back, a coffee cup and saucer in her right hand, a cigarette in her left, to Nevile, looking dazed and bewildered, trying with a shaking hand to light a cigarette, to Kay, with her elbows on the table and the pallor of her face showing through her make-up.
These were Superintendent Battle's thoughts: Suppose that's Miss Aldin. Cool customer — competent woman, I should say. Won't catch her off her guard easily. Man next to her is a dark horse — got a groggy arm — poker face — got an inferiority complex, as likely as not. That's one of these wives, I suppose — she's scared to death — yes, she's scared all right. Funny about that coffee cup. That's Strange; I've seen him before somewhere. He's got the jitters all right — nerves shot to pieces. Red-headed girl's a tartar — devil of a temper. Brains as well as temper, though.
Whilst he was thus sizing them up Inspector Leach was making a stiff little speech. Mary Aldin mentioned everyone present by name.
She ended up: 'It has been a terrible shock to us, of course, but we are anxious to help you in any way we can.'
'To begin with,' said Leach, holding it up, 'does anybody know anything about this golf club?'
With a little cry, Kay said, 'How horrible! Is that what — ' and stopped.
Nevile Strange got up and came round the table.
'Looks like one of mine. Can I just see?'
'It's quite all right now,' said Inspector Leach. 'You can handle it.'
That little significant 'now' did not seem to produce any reaction in the onlookers. Nevile examined the club.
'I think it's one of the niblicks out of my bag,' he said. 'I can tell you for sure in a minute or two. If you will just come with me.' They followed him to a big cupboard under the stairs. He flung open the door of it and to Battle's confused eyes it seemed literally crowded with tennis racquets. At the same time, he remembered where he had seen Nevile Strange before. He said quickly: 'I've seen you play at Wimbledon , sir.'
Nevile half turned his head. 'Oh, yes, have you?'
He was throwing aside some of the racquets. There were two golf bags in the cupboard leaning up against fishing tackle.
'Only my wife and I play golf,' explained Nevile. 'And that's a man's club. Yes, that's right — it's mine.'
He had taken out his bag, which contained at least fourteen clubs.
Inspector Leach thought to himself: 'These athletic chaps certainly take themselves seriously. Wouldn't like to be his caddy.'
Nevile was saying: 'It's one of Walter Hudosn's niblicks from St. Esbert's.'
'Thank you, Mr. Strange. That settles one question.'
Nevile said: 'What beats me is that nothing was taken. And the house doesn't seem to have been broken into?' His voice was bewildered — but it was also frightened.
Battle said to himself: 'They've been thinking it out, all of them …'
'The servants,' said Nevile, 'are absolutely harmless.'
'I shall talk to Miss Aldin about the servants,' said Inspector Leach smoothly. 'In the meantime, I wonder if you could give me any idea who Lady Tressilian's solicitors are?'
'Askwith & Trelawny,' replied Nevile promptly. 'St. Loo.'
'Thank you, Mr. Strange. We shall have to find out from them all about Lady Tressilian's property.'
'Do you mean,' asked Nevile, 'who inherits her money?'
'That's right, sir. Her will, and all that.'
'I don't know about her will,' said Nevile. 'She had not very much of her own to leave, so far as I know. I can
