Seeing is Believing

had to take notice. Ann colored up.

'Yes, my wench, I was. And I'd like to bet you that Hubert Fane had been makin' what we'll call advances to you. And that you were on the point of telling us so, when we kept mistakenly askin' you about Arthur's activities in that direction. Only you couldn't force yourself to do it.

'I remember how you looked at Adams's place, that Thursday afternoon by the clock-golf outfit, when we first talked about Polly Allen. You said with a pointed kind of emphasis that you didn't know Arthur well, but you did know his 'family.' You wouldn't refer to his wife like that. And he hadn't got any family: his father and mother died at a time you were in rompers. Any family, that is, except Hubert. Is that what you were tryin' to convey?'

'Yes,' admitted Ann, and nodded her head violently.

Her face was scarlet.

'For some time?' asked H.M.

'Yes, for some time.'

'What had he been doing?' inquired Vicky, with considerable interest.

'Now, now!' said H.M. austerely. 'None o' that!'

'Well, it'd be interesting to know,' Sharpless pointed out, with a broad and open grin. 'But never mind. Go on, sir. Dish us out the dirt.'

'So our good, harmless Hubert took up with Polly Allen. Whether or not because she reminded him of the girl who wasn't having any, I'll leave you to decide. I think t don't have to emphasize that. But now, my fatheads, I'd like to call your attention to an interestin' parallel. Has any of you ever heard of the Sandyford Place mystery?'

'Hoots!' cried Dr. Nithsdale, with rich scorn. 'Whu doesna ken it?'

'I don't, for one,' said Sharpless.

The little doctor glared at him. H.M. silenced them both.

'You'll find it in the Notable British Trials series. It happened at Glasgow in the early 'sixties. In Sandyford Place, off Sauchiehall Street—'

'Saw-ee-all Street,' corrected Dr. Nithsdale sternly. 'Mon, ye're pronunciation of Eenglish wad mak' an Eskimo shuver in a hot-hoose.'

'All right. Saw-ee-all Street,' said H.M., accepting the correction but unable to manage the proper gulp between the first two syllables. 'One night when all the family were away from home except a servant girl named Jessie McPherson and a sanctimonious, holy old gent named James Fleming, the servant girl was murdered. Very nastily, with a chopper.

'I'm not goin' to argue the evidence, which is debated yet. A woman named McLachlan was eventually arrested, and gentle James Fleming released as the Crown's chief witness. At the trial, the judge referred to him as a 'dear old gentleman,' which same term has been applied to Hubert Fane.

'But it always seemed to me that Fleming killed the girl because she wouldn't give in to him, and made a row, and then he wanted to hush it up.To quote McLachlan: 'He just said it couldna be helped now, although he was very sorry.' It's certain that this dear old gentleman was a cantin' humbug—'

'Aye. One of ihe grea'est blackguards,' agreed Dr. Nithsdale with pride, 'that even Sco'land ever gave us.'

'And on the night of July fifteenth, in this room,' said H.M., 'the same thing happened all over again.'

There was a pause.

'Y'see, Hubert made a mistake. He'd been used to success. But he didn't know Polly Allen. As we've heard, she liked 'em young; she laughed at anybody over forty; and she didn't care a curse about money. That's why she was so 'amused,' as her friends said, when she set out for her mysterious date on that night.

'Hubert thought this was goin' to be easy. He chose a night when all the women were away, and Arthur was supposed to be workin' late at the office. Correct?'

'Yes,' said Vicky.

'Of course nobody among Polly's friends had ever heard of any affair with Arthur Fane. There never had been any.

'So Hubert invited his languishin' prey here. And what happened? She laughed at him. You follow that? She laughed at him. And so the dear old gentleman lost his head and strangled her.

'Arthur, returnin' from the office earlier than was expected, found 'em here. The scene must have been pretty riotous. Hubert did just what old James Fleming is supposed to have done: offered money if Arthur would keep his mouth shut. Arthur said: 'Money? You haven't got a bean.' Whereat Hubert, however anguished at havin' to do it, produced evidence that opened Arthur's eyes.

'Arthur Fane needed that money. So he—'

'He helped in the disposal of the body?' interposed Ann.

'That's right, my wench. The little scene you witnessed, of Arthur comin' to the door in his shirtsleeves, didn't suggest an assignation. It suggested work: spade-work.

'What they did with the body we don't know and we're not likely to. The only thing we can be sure of is that it's not buried near Leckhampton Hill, where

Hubert later said it was. But you can't wonder that Arthur Fane talked about murder in his sleep.' H.M. looked at Vicky.

'From then on dates Hubert's changed place in the household — which you, ma'am, misinterpreted. Y'see, we tend to forget that there are certain advantages about the position of a person who's bein' blackmailed. He can demand a better room in the house, and the sort of food he wants at table. He can say, 'Burn it all, if I'm being bled to the tune of a couple of thousand pounds, I'm going to get something out of it.' Also, he can make the blackmailer pretty uncomfortable too.

'He can keep remindin' the blackmailer, by sly little digs (as Hubert did), that they're in the same boat together. If Hubert Fane was a murderer, he could make ruddy sure Arthur kept in mind how a respectable solicitor helped dispose of the body and raked in the cash for doin' it. Think back over everything you ever heard Hubert say, and see if it doesn't sound different now.

'But Hubert had already decided that the blackmailer was goin' to die.'

A stir went through the group.

'Ah!' murmured Rich. 'Now we come to it.'

'In a minute, son. Don't hurry me.

'Hubert's original idea, I think, was a straight-out business of shovin' strychnine into a grapefruit. Arthur, as we've heard, was partial to grapefruit.'

Courtney interposed here.

'Wait. Where did he get the strychnine? And has this anything to do with your mysterious trips in buying horse liniment from all the chemists in Cheltenham?'

H.M. looked modest.

'Well, y'see, son, it occurred to me that if I ever wanted to poison anybody in a small town or village…' 'Heaven help the victim if you ever do!' H.M. glared him down.

'As I said,' he continued with dignity, after a suitably withering interval, 'I'd never be so fatheaded as to buy poison and sign the register. I wouldn't need to.

'Most small-town chemists, in my experience, are friendly souls who like to talk. They don't mind you loiterin'. If they know you, they don't even mind your hangin' about in the dispensary while they make up prescriptions.

'I've never forgotten — long ago — discoursin' philosophy myself in a dispensary, while the chemist went from room to room, or attended to the shop outside. And I looked round, and there at my elbow was a five-ounce bottle of strychnine.

'Usually it's the most conspicuous thing on the shelves: a clear glass bottle of white powder, with a red label. You can't miss it. I sort of thought then that I could have tipped out a little of that stuff in my hand, and the chemist'd never know the difference unless he came to check over his stock. And by that time it'd be too late to remember who in blazes might have got at the bottle.'

Sharpless shook his head.

'You know, sir,' Sharpless remarked, 'you really are an old son of a so-and-so, and no mistake.' H.M. drew himself up.

'I'm the old maestro,' he said, tapping his own chest; 'and don't let any would-be criminal ever forget it.