clerk. The inquest was then adjourned for a week by a properly docile coroner.'
'It's the Inspector I mean,' said Iris. 'He described finding a small paper packet under the table containing traces of potassium cyanide.'
Anthony looked interested.
'Yes. Obviously whoever slipped that stuff into George's glass just dropped the paper that had contained it under the table. Simplest thing to do. Couldn't risk having it found on him – or her.'
To his surprise Iris began to tremble violently.
'Oh, no Anthony. Oh, no, it wasn't like that.'
'What do you mean, darling? What do you know about it?'
Iris said, 'I dropped that packet under the table.'
He turned astonished eyes upon her.
'Listen, Anthony. You remember how George drank off that champagne and then it happened?'
He nodded.
'It was awful – like a bad dream. Coming just when everything had seemed to be all right. I mean that, after the cabaret, when the lights went up – I felt so relieved. Because it was then, you know, that we found Rosemary dead – and somehow, I don't know why, I felt I'd see it all happen again… I felt she was there, dead, at the table…'
'Darling…'
'Oh, I know. It was just nerves. But anyway, there we were, and there was nothing awful and suddenly it seemed the whole thing was really done with at last and one could – I don't know how to explain it – begin again. And so I danced with George and really felt I was enjoying myself at last, and we came back to the table. And then George suddenly talked about Rosemary and asked us to drink to her memory and then he died and all the nightmare had come back. I just felt paralysed I think. I stood there, shaking. You came round to look at him, and I moved back a little, and the waiters came and some asked for a doctor. And all the time I was standing there frozen. Then suddenly a big lump came in my throat and tears began to run down my cheeks and I jerked open my bag to get my handkerchief. I just fumbled in it, not seeing properly, and got out my handkerchief, but there was something caught up inside the handkerchief – a folded stiff bit of white paper, like the kind you get powders in from the chemist. Only, you see, Anthony, it hadn't been in my bag when I started from home. I hadn't had anything like that! I'd put the things in myself when the bag was quite empty – a powder compact, a lip-stick, my handkerchief, my evening comb in its case and a shilling and a couple of sixpences. Somebody had put that packet in my bag – they must have done. And I remembered how they'd found a packet like that in Rosemary's bag after she died and how it had had cyanide in it. I was frightened, Anthony, I was horribly frightened. My fingers went limp and the packet fluttered down from the handkerchief under the table. I let it go. And I didn't say anything. I was too frightened. Somebody meant it to look as though I had killed George, and I didn't.'
Anthony gave vent to a long and prolonged whistle.
'And nobody saw you?' he said.
Iris hesitated.
'I'm not sure,' she said slowly. 'I believe Ruth noticed. But she was looking so dazed that I don't know whether she really noticed – or if she was just staring at me blankly.'
Anthony gave another whistle.
'This,' he remarked, 'is a pretty kettle of fish.'
Iris said: 'It's got worse and worse. I've been so afraid they'd find out.'
'Why weren't your fingerprints on it, I wonder? The first thing they'd do would be to fingerprint it.'
'I suppose it was because I was holding it through the handkerchief.'
Anthony nodded.
'Yes, you had luck there.'
'But who could have put it in my bag? I had my bag with me all the evening.'
'That's not so impossible as you think. When you went to dance after the cabaret, you left your bag on the table. Somebody may have tampered with it then. And there are the women. Could you get up and give me an imitation of just how a woman behaves in the ladies' cloakroom? It's the sort of thing I wouldn't know. Do you congregate and chat or do you drift off to different mirrors?'
Iris considered.
'We all went to the same table – a great long glass-topped one. And we put our bags down and looked at our faces, you know.'
'Actually I don't. Go on.'
'Ruth powdered her nose and Sandra patted her hair and pushed a hairpin in and I took off my fox cape and gave it to the woman and then I saw I'd got some dirt on my hand – a smear of mud and I went over to the wash- basins.'
'Leaving your bag on the glass table?'
'Yes. And I washed my hands. Ruth was still fixing her face I think and Sandra went and gave up her cloak and then she went back to the glass and Ruth came and washed her hands and I went back to the table and just fixed my hair a little.'
'So either of those two could have put something in your bag without your seeing?'
'Yes, but I can't believe either Ruth or Sandra would do such a thing.'
'You think too highly of people. Sandra is the kind of Gothic creature who would have burned her enemies at the stake in the Middle Ages – and Ruth would make the most devastatingly practical poisoner that ever stepped this earth.'
'If it was Ruth why didn't she say she saw me drop it?'
'You have me there. If Ruth deliberately planted cyanide on you, she'd take jolly good care you didn't get rid of it. So it looks as though it wasn't Ruth. In fact the waiter is far and away the best bet. The waiter, the waiter! If only we had a strange waiter, a peculiar waiter, a waiter hired for that evening only. But instead we have– Giuseppe and Pierre and they just don't fit…'
Iris sighed.
'I'm glad I've told you– No one will ever know now, will they? Only you and I?'
Anthony looked at her with a rather embarrassed expression.
'It's not going to be just like that, Iris. In fact you're coming with me now in a taxi to old man Kemp. We can't keep this under our hats.'
'Oh, no, Anthony. They'll think I killed George.'
'They'll certainly think so if they find out later that you sat tight and said nothing about all this! Your explanation will then sound extremely thin. If you volunteer it now there's a likelihood of its being believed.'
'Please, Anthony.'
'Look here, Iris, you're in a tight place. But apart from anything else, there's such a thing as truth. You can't play safe and take care of your own skin when it's a question of justice.'
'Oh, Anthony, must you be so grand?'
'That,' said Anthony, 'was a very shrewd blow! But all the same we're going to Kemp! Now!'
Unwillingly she came with him out into the hall. Her coat was lying tossed on a chair and he took it and held it out for her to put on.
There was both mutiny and fear in her eyes, but Anthony showed no sign of relenting. He said:
'We'll pick up a taxi at the end of the Square.'
As they went towards the hall door the bell was pressed and they heard it ringing in the basement below.
Iris gave an exclamation.
'I forgot. It's Ruth. She was coming here when she left the office to settle about the funeral arrangements. It's to be the day after tomorrow. I thought we could settle things better while Aunt Lucilla was out. She does confuse things so.'
Anthony stepped forward and opened the door, forestalling the parlourmaid who came running up the stairs from below.
'It's all right, Evans,' said Iris, and the girl went down again.
Ruth was looking tired and rather dishevelled. She was carrying a large-sized attache case.
