“This all works very well, and Frazer is got rid of. Unfortunately for our friends, however, the nurse is too wide awake. She suspects, abstracts some of the doubtful medicine, has it analysed, thus having her suspicions confirmed. She tells Earle—very naturally: who else can she tell? But then what happens? Earle, as you suggest, tells Campion the whole story. Campion is naturally upset. He induces Earle not to make an immediate move. Then he meets Gates and fixes up his plan, which he has probably worked out beforehand as a precautionary measure. Campion sends the telegram to the nurse, meets her on the Hog’s Back, murders her and hides her body. The murder of Earle is carried out as you have described. Everything then is complete and satisfactory except for the destruction of the dangerous evidence. Now, French, here’s a point. Why didn’t Campion, as Earle’s partner, simply go to the study in St. Kilda, on the plea of looking for papers concerning the practice?”
“I thought of that, sir,” French answered. “From what I have seen of Mrs. Earle, I doubt if she would have allowed any investigation at which she was not present, and I suggest Campion realised this. Campion might have proposed conducting a secret search, but if the lady demurred, he could not press his request without suspicion.”
“Very well. Campion had to wait for Gates’ assistance, and Gates was ill. Then came the distressing advent of Ursula Stone to the study at the critical moment, and the necessity for silencing her. I’m sure your reconstruction of what happened is the truth. Now, for the third and last time of asking, your proof.”
French moved uneasily. “I hope you gentlemen will consider it sufficient when you hear it. It’s two-fold and the first point is about the dolls’ house. As I pointed out, the construction of the dolls’ house was Campion’s proof that he had been in his workshop all the time he was away from the ladies. Well, I guessed he might have tried an old trick and I went up to Town and called on the manager of Handicrafts Limited (pp. 35 and 296). Enquiries proved that on Saturday, the 8th of October, the day before Earle’s death, a man called at the shop and bought three sets of parts for this particular house. The assistant remembered the affair because there were only two sets in stock of the house the customer had asked for, and rather than wait while a third set was being obtained, the man had taken three sets of a quite different pattern. This was all right, but I was better pleased still when the assistant picked out the customer’s photograph from a bundle I gave him. It was Campion.”
“Good!” said the others in a breath. “The defence will find it hard to explain that. Campion had the three sets prepared beforehand?”
“That’s what I’m going on, sir. As I understand it, Earle got to know of the Frazer affair on the Thursday and told Campion either that evening or next day. Campion saw Gates and fixed up his plan on the Friday, going up on the Saturday morning for the houses. Before the Sunday evening he had prepared them, leaving one set untouched, half finishing another, and completely finishing a third. He showed the appropriate set at the time required, and when the murder was over, destroyed the first two. And this very day,” French added triumphantly, “in the ashes in the fireplace in Campion’s workshop, I found the little door hinges and other metal parts of these two extra sets!
“The second part of my proof was connected with the car. I could not believe that Campion had done all that running without being seen by someone. I worked on this and at last I found a young fellow who on the night in question had waited for his girl close to Galbraith’s house. While there he saw Campion’s car drive up—he was a native of Binscombe and knew the number—and he observed a man whom he thought was Campion get out, call at the house for three or four minutes, and then drive off. That, gentlemen, was just at quarter to nine, and it seems to me to clinch the entire case.”
With the air of a man who has worthily completed that which he set out to do, French drained his whisky. He was exultant, not only in his own achievement, but in the approval of his companions. Mitchell indeed directly congratulated him.
“Not bad that for proof, I will say,” he declared. “The more you think of those two points, the more convincing they become.”
Then, however, he took a little of the wind out of French’s sails by adding: “Now that’s all excellent and you’ve justified the arrests. But I’d like something more for court. You’ll have to go ahead and scrape up some more direct proof.”
***
As a matter of fact only a very few days later French succeeded in obtaining what he wanted. From his estimate of the character of Nurse Nankivel, based on her actions throughout the affair, he doubted that she would have handed over important documents to Earle without keeping a copy for her own use in case trouble arose. On the chance that such papers might exist, he called first at Bryanston Square, then at the nursing-home, to re-examine the deceased’s rooms, going on to her home near Redruth, where her effects had been sent. It was in Cornwall he made his discovery. In the lining of the nurse’s somewhat antique suitcase there was a tear, a frayed slit which might easily have come through use. Pushed under the lining through this slit he found a folded paper. It read:
“Copy of statement sent to Dr. Earle, St. Kilda, Seale, at his request, after interview at Staines on 6th October.
“Dear Dr. Earle,
“In accordance with your request, I am putting in writing what I told you to-day at Staines.
“As you are aware, there is an ante-room from which the late Mr. Frazer’s bedroom opens. On the wall of this ante-room hangs a mirror, and it just happens that if the door between the two rooms is open, a person entering the ante-room from the lobby can see through the mirror into the bedroom.
“On the afternoon of 16th September, on unexpectedly entering the ante-room about five o’clock to get a letter I had forgotten to post, I saw through the mirror Mr. Gates, who was sitting with his uncle, hastily corking and setting down a bottle. I kept my eye on the bottle and saw that it was one of Mr. Frazer’s medicines. Mr. Frazer was asleep. At the time I thought nothing of the matter, but from then I noticed that after taking that medicine Mr. Frazer grew rapidly worse. It had occurred to me how like the symptoms of Mr. Frazer’s disease were to those of arsenic poisoning, and though I didn’t exactly suspect anything, I experimented with the medicine. Once or twice I didn’t give it, pouring the doses into another bottle, which I determined to keep for analysis, should such seem necessary. On these occasions Mr. Frazer seemed better than when he had the medicine. I didn’t know what to do, and was very unhappy.
“Then before I could do anything, Mr. Frazer died. Again I didn’t know what to do. I suspected, but I wasn’t sure, and to make a mistake in such a thing would have ruined me. I did nothing. Perhaps I was wrong. I’m not trying to justify myself, only to say what happened. Dr. Campion gave the certificate and I left Polperro and got another job.
“On Thursday, 29th Sept., I had a letter from the gardener’s wife, with whom I had made friends. Among other things she told me Mr. Gates was reputed to have come in for £30,000. This made me think, and all my suspicions came back. I didn’t know what to do, but at last I felt I should not be justified in withholding what I knew. I sent the bottle of medicine to be analysed, and on Tuesday, 4th Oct., got the analysis.
“I thought first of telling Dr. Campion, but somehow I never liked him and I was afraid he might not be sympathetic. Then I thought of you, Dr. Earle, and I thought I should be safe in your hands. So I wrote you that letter asking you to meet me.
“This, I think, covers all I told you, and I am sure that if you take any action, you won’t let it injure me.
“Yours sincerely,
“Helen Nankivel.”
But one more incident remains to be told, an incident which gave the authorities any further proof they required and incidentally demonstrated the true nature of Howard Campion. When he saw how things were going he attempted to turn King’s evidence, declaring that Gates, to whom he was heavi
ly in debt, had put the poison into the medicine unknown to him, and that when he, Campion, had become suspicious, Gates had insisted on his giving the certificate, as the alternative to ruin.
On this statement Campion could be questioned, and French by a searching interrogation succeeded in breaking it down and establishing that Campion himself had been the moving spirit in the affair. Campion had used arsenic, partly because the symptoms fitted in with the disease Frazer actually had, but also because in case of discovery the use of this poison would not be attributed to a doctor, but probably to Gates, who had ready access to the weed-killer. Actually he had given the arsenic to Gates, who in his turn had put it into the medicine. Campion’s attempt to save himself at the expense of his accomplice therefore failed.
Neither man could deny the motive, which French’s further investigation fully established. Campion was in debt about four thousand pounds, and Gates about seven. The scheme to murder Frazer had been broached in a conversation on their joint troubles. Neither man, however, felt he could carry through the affair alone, and they formed a criminal conspiracy to commit the deed, sharing the spoils. After a trial of world-wide interest, both men suffered the extreme penalty of the law.
As a result of the case two unexpected alliances materialised. Mrs. Frazer, seized with a loathing of Polperro and everything connected with it, sold it and went to the Argentine, taking with her as companion no less a person than Alice Campion. Alice had always hated her brother, and had kept house for him solely for financial reasons. Julia Earle, much softened by what she had gone through, married Slade and went after them.
For French what remained? At first he thought the consciousness of work well done. But then came congratulations from his chief and friend, Sir Mortimer Ellison, Assistant Commissioner at the Yard, with—ah no, it couldn’t be!—a hint that the next vacancy…
But it was!
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