Seeing is Believing

bedroom. Correct?'

H.M. and Masters exchanged glances. After a suggestion of a shrug, and an almost imperceptible nod, the chief inspector seemed to be handing the matter over to H.M.'s discretion.

H.M. sniffed.

'You ought to know, son. You saw it.' 'Right. I saw it. About sixteen hours later, violent symptoms of advanced tetanus come on. Correct?' 'Correct.'

'You go dashing over to the house, take a look at Vicky Fane, and in a glass tray on the dressing table of the bedroom you find a rusty pin. I understood you to say so, anyway, on Thursday night. Is that correct too?'

'It is.'

'Well,' continued Courtney, inflating his chest, 'I can testify for one that the pin Rich stuck into Vicky Fane's arm was ruddy well not rusty. I don't know whether it was infected, or had bacilli on it. But it wasn't rusty, because I remember seeing it shine when he handled it.

'Now what I want to know is: what is all this? What's the catch? When you did all that running about, and finger-snapping, and arguing with the doctors, what did it mean?'

H.M. sighed.

'It meant, son, that we were on the edge of makin' a blinkin' awful mistake.' 'Mistake?'

'Yes. Which the murderer wanted us to make. And which was as neat as anything you ever saw.

'Y'see, the murderer knew about that pin-jabbing episode. It was manna from heaven. So the murderer simply dropped a rusty pin on the dressing table, did a certain thing on the followin' day, and let nature take its course.

'Any doctor, hearin' the circumstances, seeing the symptoms, and inevitably coming across that pin, would be bound to diagnose tetanus. When Mrs. Fane died, it would be a regrettable accident. Richard Rich, the disgraced one, would again be held responsible. His carelessness would be supposed to have done it. There would be no suspicion and no post-mortem. Consequently…'

Courtney passed a hand across his forehead.

'Wait! For the love of Mike, wait! Then what was wrong with the pin Rich jabbed in her arm?''

'Nothing.'

'Nothing?'

H.M. seemed bothered by an invisible fly.

'Haven't you guessed it yet, son?' he inquired. 'What ailed Mrs. Fane wasn't tetanus at all. It was strychnine poisoning.'

Fourteen

Phil Courtney got to his feet. 'Strychnine—' he began.

Taking a somewhat crumpled cigar from his pocket, H.M. bit off the end, expectorated the end neatly across into the fireplace, and lit the cigar. Its smoke hung round his head in an oily cloud.

'The point is,' he explained, 'that the symptoms of tetanus are exactly the same as the symptoms of strychnine poisoning, except that the effects of strychnine come on a whole lot quicker. The only slight difference is in the nature of the cramps — the muscles are in a continuous state o' contraction for tetanus' — but nothing that would bother the keenest doctor if he'd already got tetanus in his mind.'

H.M. blew out smoke somberly.

'It wasn't us that saved Mrs. Fane's life, son,' he added. 'It was only the fact that the murderer gave her too big a dose. It was so whackin' big that it neutralized itself. Once I sent for a stomach-pump…'

Courtney, without seeing him, stared at the past. It was as though many blurred pictures had now come into focus to form a series-

'Nice pleasant gentleman or lady, this murderer,' observed Masters grimly. 'Oh, ah! You've got a bit of a better idea now, haven't you, Mr. Courtney?' Courtney had.

'Just a minute!' he begged. 'When was the strychnine given to her, then?'

'About four o'clock on Thursday afternoon, we make it,' replied Masters. 'That's to say: about twenty minutes before the symptoms started to come on. Strychnine usually begins to work within twenty minutes.'

'I see. And it was administered through the mouth, wasn't it? In a grapefruit?' H.M. raised his eyebrows.

'So?' he grunted, peering round a poisonous cloud of smoke. 'Have you been tryin' to play detective too? But that's right. It must 'a' been the grapefruit. First, the cook swears it's the only thing Mrs. Fane ate on Thursday. Second, grapefruit's one of the few things that'd be bitter enough of itself to hide the bitter taste of strychnine — drat him!'

'Drat who?'

'This feller who's been foolin' us!' roared H.M. 'I was the one who led everybody up the garden path. I was the one who fell into the trap, as smooth and slick as you please, and started babblin' about tetanus. It's small thanks to me Mrs. Fane's alive now. Cor!'

'Have you found the grapefruit that was used?'

It was Masters who answered him.

'No, sir, we haven't. And we're not likely to. At the time we had other things to think about — Mrs. Fane. When Sir Henry asked the cook later, she said she'd thrown the grapefruit in the dustbin. It wasn't there when we looked. Naturally. Somebody'd removed it.'

Masters drew a design on the edge of his notebook with his pencil. His boiled eye looked wicked. He added sinister curlicues to the design, and said:

'It's not likely the murderer'd go poking about a dustbin in broad daylight. Especially as the dustbin's by that garden shed near the back door. Too conspicuous. So it'll be very interesting to know, sir, who was hanging about that back garden after dark.' Courtney thought back.

'It'll also be a good thing to know,' continued Masters, scoring black lines, 'who was hanging about when Mrs. Propper prepared the grapefruit. And who could have got at it. And who carried it up to Mrs. Fane.'

'But it certainly wasn't—'

Courtney began this sentence with a rush, and checked himself. Two pairs of eyes fastened on him.

'Yes, sir?' Masters prompted blandly. 'You were saying?'

He tried to cough up a laugh.

'I was going to say, it certainly wasn't Frank Sharpless, of all people. The idea of him poisoning Mrs. Fane is so fantastic that you hardly need to consider it.'

Masters was noncommittal.

'Just so. Evidently. And if that young gentleman isn't careful, he's going to be asked to resign his commission. Still, evidence is evidence.'

'And what is more,' said Courtney, 'it doesn't lessen the troubles you're already in. You've already proved conclusively that nobody could have exchanged the daggers on Wednesday night. If you now prove that nobody could have poisoned the grapefruit on Thursday afternoon, you will be in the soup for fair.'

He had meant nothing by this. But Masters' color, from being ruddy, threatened to turn purple. Masters had been compelled to cork himself down for so long that the bare suggestion of this possibility was almost enough to finish him.

Snapping a rubber band round his notebook, he drew a deep breath and got up. He began to walk up and down under the lines of old weapons, which he regarded lovingly as though they expressed his mood.

'Now see here,' he began firmly. 'I'm done with flum-diddling and funny business—'

'You think so?' inquired H.M. 'Cor!'

'I tell you, I'm done with flum-diddling and funny business. I'm fair sick of the word 'impossible! I don't ever want to hear it again. What's impossible about this? Poison in a grapefruit. Well?'