The Problem of the Green Capsule

by John Dickson Carr

  There was a silence.

  Dr. Fell extricated himself from behind the dispensary. He lumbered towards the door, where he stood with his head lowered; then he got out a large red bandana handkerchief and blew his nose violently.

  “You must excuse me,” he said. “I have met the powers of hell before; but never where they moved with such reasoned and loving care. How did it happen?”

  “I don’t know; nobody knows.” Marjorie was evidently holding tight to her nerves. “We didn’t get to bed until very late, and we weren’t up until nearly eleven this morning. Uncle—Uncle Joe said it wouldn’t be necessary for anybody to sit up with Wilbur. This morning Pamela went into his room and just—just found him.”

  She lifted her hands slightly from the sides of her skirt, and dropped them.

  “I see. Mr. Stevenson!”

  “Doctor?”

  “Is your telephone out of order?”

  “Not that I know of,” replied the other, worried. “I’ve certainly been here all morning, and I don’t understand it.”

  “Good.” Dr. Fell turned to Elliot. “Now I will offer a suggestion. You must ring up Bellegarde. You must tell Major Crow that, far from your going to Bellegarde, he must come here at once——”

  “Hold on! I can’t do that, sir,” protested Elliot “Major Crow is the Chief Constable, you know. Bostwick——”

  “I can do it,” said Dr. Fell mildly. “I happen to know Crow very well, since that case of the Eight of Swords. In fact, to tell you the strict and guilty truth,” here his red face became more conspicuous, “Crow asked me to look into the Mrs. Terry affair when the first of these damnable things happened. I declined. I declined because the only explanation I could think of at the time sounded so wild and wool-gathering that I didn’t even put it forward. But now, by thunder, I begin to see it wasn’t wild at all. It was the obvious: the plain, dull, dead obvious. That, I fear, is why I was so immediately and infernally ready with explanations for you this morning.”

  He shook his fist savagely.

  “And because I emulated the modest violet—herrr!—two more persons have died. I want you here. I want Crow here. I want to see that film, now, more than anything else I can think of. I want to point out to you, in cold black and white on a screen, just what I think happened. Therefore I am going to telephone and issue orders like a buccaneer. But while I am telephoning”—here he ceased to thunder; he looked very steadily at Elliot—“I suggest you ask Miss Wills what happened at another chemist’s shop.”

  Marjorie stiffened. Elliot appeared not to notice; he spoke to Stevenson.

  “You live above the shop here? Have you got a room you could turn over to me for a few minutes?”

  “Yes, of course. It’s the room where I’m going to show you the film.”

  “Thanks. Lead the way, will you? Miss Wills, will you go on ahead?”

  She did not comment. Stevenson led them upstairs to a comfortable, old-fashioned sitting-room overlooking the street. Double-doors (again) communicated with what was presumably a bedroom) they were open, but a sheet had been fastened in the space with drawing-pins to form a motion-picture screen. The heavy curtains were half drawn, and there was a bright fire in the grate. A large ciné-projector, its round film-spools in place, stood on the table.

  Still without comment, Marjorie went over to a sofa and sat down. Elliot was now suffering from a severe reaction; his conscience was at work again.

  Marjorie looked round the firelit room, as though to make sure they were alone. Then she nodded and said coolly:

  “I told you we had met before.”

  “Yes,” agreed Elliot. He sat down by the table and took out his notebook, which he flattened out with great deliberation. “To be exact, last Thursday, Mason & Son, Chemists, 16 Crown Road, where you tried to buy cyanide of potassium.”

  “And yet you never told anybody.”

  “What makes you think I didn’t, Miss Wills? Why do you suppose I was sent down to this part of the country?”

  This was a stinger. He did it deliberately, throwing more meat to his conscience. He wondered how much he had betrayed himself downstairs; how much she had noticed; whether she would try to make use of it, as she seemed to be doing by that abrupt, inspired guess; and he was not standing any of that.

  If he hoped for an effect, he got one. The colour drained out of her face. Her eyes, which had been fixed widely and steadily on him, now blinked; she could not make him out; and afterwards would come anger.

  “Oh. So you did come down to arrest me?”

  “That depends.”

  “Is it a crime to try to buy cyanide even when you don’t get it?”

  Elliot picked up his notebook and let it fall flat on the table.

  “Honestly, Miss Wills, and between ourselves, what’s the good of talking like that? What sort of interpretation could anybody put on it?”

  She was extraordinarily acute. Elliot admired her intelligence even when he cursed it. She was still watching, waiting, wondering what to make of him; and her ear had instantly caught that faint shade of come-on-hang-it-why-don’t-you-help-me which he could not help putting into the last exasperated question. The rapid rise and fall of her breast grew slower.

  “If I tell you the truth, Inspector—if I tell you really and truly why I wanted that poison—will you believe me?”

  “If you tell me the truth, yes.”

  “No, but that isn’t the point. That isn’t the real thing. If I tell you the real honest truth, will you promise, promise not to tell anyone else?”

  (That, he thought, was genuine.)

  “Sorry, miss. I’m afraid I can’t make any promises like that. If it concerns this investigation——”

  “But it doesn’t.”

  “All right: what did you want with the cyanide?”

  “I wanted it to kill myself with,” said Marjorie calmly.

  There was a slight pause, while the fire crackled.

  “But why should you want to kill yourself?”

  She drew a deep breath. “If you must know, because I was so utterly and horribly sick at the idea of being home again. Now I’ve told you. I’ve told somebody.” She looked at him curiously, as though she wondered why she had told him.

  Unconsciously Elliot had slipped from the attitude of a detective asking official questions into an attitude somewhat different; but neither of them noticed it.

  “Yes, but look here! Was there any reason why you should want to kill yourself?”

  “Try being exposed to what I was exposed to—here. Poisoning people; poisoning them like that; expecting to be arrested every minute of the day, and only getting out of it because there wasn’t enough evidence. Then try going away on a gorgeous Mediterranean cruise, the sort of thing you’ve never had in your life in spite of the fact that your uncle is a millionaire. Then try coming back again—to what you left. Try it. Try it! And see what you feel.”

  She clenched her hands.

  “Oh, I’ve got over it now. But all I felt, the minute I stepped off that ship, was that I simply could not go through with it. I didn’t stop to think. If I had, I could have got some plausible story together, so that I didn’t stammer and stumble and go panicky when the chemist started to ask me questions. I thought of that afterwards. But all I thought of at the time was that I’d heard potassium cyanide was so quick and it was painless; all you had to do was taste it and you were dead. And I thought that in the East End of London they’d never know or remember me. I think it was coming back up the river on the ship that did it—seeing the houses, and everything.”

  Elliot put down his pencil. He asked:

  “But what about your fiancé?”

  “My fiancé?”

  “Do you mean to tell me you wanted to buy poison to kill yourself with when you were coming home to be married?”

  She made a despairing gesture. “I told you it was a mood! I told you. Besides, that was another thing. Everything had been so wonderful before al
l this happened, and I hoped things were turning out right for me. When I met George in London——”

  Elliot said:

  “When you met him in London?”

  “Oh, damn,” whispered Marjorie, and put her hand over her-mouth. She remained staring at him; then an expression of weariness and cynicism came into her face. “Never mind. Why shouldn’t you know? It’s doing me a lot of good—a lot of good—to get this off my chest.

  “I’ve known George for ages and ages and ages. I met him at a party in London, one of the rare occasions when Uncle Marcus let me go to town alone, and I fell for him terribly. I used to sneak up to town to meet him. Oh, we didn’t do anything about it. I suppose I didn’t have the nerve: that’s me.”

  She stared at the floor.

  “But we decided it wasn’t wise to introduce George to Uncle Marcus just yet. In the first place, Uncle Marcus never—never—encouraged—people, that is, people to come and see me. I’m a really good housekeeper, and it was much more convenient and everything to keep me—you know what I mean.” She flushed. “In the second place, George knew all about Uncle Marcus’s reputation. There would be a dreadful row if Uncle Marcus knew what had been going on behind his back. You can see that?”

  “Yes. I can see it.”

  “It would be better if we seemed to meet casually. Preferably abroad; and, besides, George said he needed a holiday anyway. Of course George hasn’t got much money, especially for a trip like that. But I had a couple of hundred in insurance, that my mother left me, and I got rid of that and so George was able to take the trip.”

  (Swine, said Andrew Elliot to himself. Damned swine. Clever swine.)

  She opened her eyes.

  “He isn’t,” cried Marjorie. “I mean, he’s clever, but he isn’t the other thing. He’s the most brilliant man I ever met, and sure of himself: that’s what I loved: sure of——”

  “Sorry,” Elliot was beginning—when he stopped short with an uncanny feeling that the world had slipped its moorings. “Swine, damned swine, clever swine.” He had not said those words aloud. He had seen them in his mind as clearly as though they were written on moving teletype, but he had not spoken them. This girl might be intelligent, except as concerned Mr. George Harding. But she was not a mind-reader.

  Marjorie herself appeared to be unconscious of it.

  “And how I hoped,” she said, with a kind of violence, “that George would give Uncle Marcus back as good as he sent! Oh, I wanted him to make a good impression. Naturally. But this—this humble tail-wagging was too much. There was a day in Pompeii when Uncle Marcus decided to have the whole thing out, just like that (in front of Wilbur and Professor Ingram too), and right in a public place where anyone might have walked in. He as good as gave George his orders, exactly how everything was to be managed for the future; and George took it like a lamb. And you ask me why I felt low and dispirited and ready to scream when I stepped off that ship! I saw there wasn’t going to be any change. I saw my life was going on exactly as it always had before. Everywhere I turned it would be nothing but Uncle Marcus, Uncle Marcus, Uncle Marcus.”

  Elliot pulled himself up.

  “You didn’t like your uncle?”

  “Of course I liked him. I loved him. But that isn’t the point. Do you understand?”

  “Ye-es, I suppose so.”

  “He was wonderful, in his own way. He’s done everything for me, and he went out of his way to give me a wonderful holiday when I needed it. But if you could only have heard him talk for five minutes! And then these eternal, non-stop arguments with Professor Ingram about crime—even when there was real, true crime right here among us—and his ‘criminological’ manuscript.…”

  Elliot abruptly picked up his pencil again.

  “Criminological manuscript?”

  “Yes; I told you. He was always working at some scholarly effort or another, but mostly to do with the science of the mind. That’s why he was so thick with Professor Ingram. He used to say, ‘Well, you maintain that a practising psychologist would make the greatest criminal alive. Why not be a pioneer in the interests of science? Commit a purely disinterested crime and prove your theory.’ Brr!”

  “I see. And what did Professor Ingram say to that?”

  “He said no, thanks. He said he wouldn’t commit a crime until he could devise a perfect alibi——”

  (Elliot had heard this somewhere before.)

  “—and, so far as even a practising psychologist could see, it was still impossible for a man to be in two places at the same time.” Marjorie crossed her knees and leaned back against the sofa. “What gave me the shivers was that they were always so cool and calm about it. Because, you see, it has happened. All these horrible things are going on, and we don’t know how or who or why. And now Wilbur is dead. Wilbur, who never did anybody the least harm, any more than Frankie Dale or the Anderson children or Uncle Marcus himself. I’m nearly at the end of my string, es-especially when they begin throwing stones at me and heaven knows what else that might happen to me. Like lynching or burning or I don’t know what. Help me. Please help me!”

  She paused.

  Such a soft and vital directness had come into her voice, such a strength of appeal, that Elliot came near losing his official calm. She was leaning forward, her hand outstretched as though she were asking to be helped up from the sofa; and her eyes never left his. It was here that they heard outside the closed door a continued noise like an elephant stumping and pawing the ground, and a trumpeting sound like a challenge at feeding-time. After this there was a loud knock; Dr. Fell, navigating the doorway sideways, turned round and blinked down at them.

  “I don’t want to interrupt,” he said, “but I think you’d better postpone questioning until a little later. Crow and Bostwick are on their way up. I think it would be better for you to go, Miss Wills. Mr. Stevenson is locking up the shop; but his assistant will drive you home in the car. Then——”

  He fastened his eyes on the cinema-projector.

  Chapter XIV

  THE UNIMPEACHABLE CLOCK

  Major Crow and Superintendent Bostwick passed Marjorie in the doorway as she was going out. But Major Crow did not speak until the door had closed. He was himself again.

  “Good morning, Inspector,” he said politely. “Or rather, good afternoon. We were unable to find you this morning.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “It is of no consequence,” said the other, still politely. “I only wanted to tell you that there is the small matter of another death to be considered——”

  “I said I was sorry, sir.”

  “Since you went to my friend Fell, I’ve got no objection. You had more luck than I had. I tried to interest him in this business last June. But no. Wasn’t sensational enough for him, it seems. No hermetically sealed rooms. No supernatural elements. No funny business at the Royal Scarlet Hotel. Only a brutal murder by strychnine, and several near-murders. But now we’ve got a broad range of evidence, and two more victims—one of whom, Inspector, it might be worth your while to examine——”

  Elliot picked up his notebook.

  “I’ve told you twice I was sorry, sir,” he replied slowly. “I don’t see that I need to say it again. And furthermore, if you want the truth, I don’t admit I’ve neglected anything I should have attended to. By the way, are there any constables in Sodbury Cross?”

  Bostwick, who had also taken out a pipe and pouch, stopped in the act of unscrewing the stem of the pipe.

  “There are, my lad,” he said. “And why do you want to know that, now?”

  “Only because I didn’t see any. Somebody smashed a plate-glass door downstairs with a stone, and made a noise you could hear as far as Bath; but I didn’t see any.”

  “Dash my buttons,” said Bostwick, suddenly blowing down the stem of the pipe and looking up again. It was an optical illusion; but his face seemed to swell to a startling extent. “What do you mean by that, now?”

  “What I say.”


  “If you mean,” said Bostwick, “that I think—mind, I say I think—that pretty soon we’ll be able to arrest a certain young lady who needn’t be named—why, yes, I do think it.”

  “HEY!” roared Dr. Fell.

  It was a blast that shook the window-frames, making all the contestants turn round.

  “This has got to stop,” said Dr. Fell seriously. “You are rowing over nothing, and you know it. If there is anybody to be blamed, blame me. The real reason for all this tempest (and you know this too) is that each of you has a different, definite, preconceived, and stubborn notion as to who is guilty. For the love of Mike come off it, or we shall get nowhere.”

  Major Crow broke the tension by chuckling. It was an honest, homely sound; both Elliot and Bostwick grinned.

  “The old blighter’s quite right,” agreed Major Crow. “Sorry, Inspector. The fact is (you could add) we’ve got our nerves so much on edge that we can’t see straight. And we’ve got to see straight. We’ve got to.”

  Bostwick extended his tobacco-pouch to Elliot. “Have a fill,” he invited.

  “Thanks. I don’t mind if I do.”

  “And now,” said Dr. Fell murderously, “now that the amenities are preserved and a general warmth of cosiness reigns o’er all——”

  “I don’t admit I have a definite, preconceived notion,” said Major Crow with dignity. “I haven’t. All I know is that I’m right. When I saw that poor devil Emmet lying there—”

  “Hah!” muttered Superintendent Bostwick, with such a sceptical and sinister inflection that Elliot was surprised. He wondered in what direction they were headed now.

  “—but there’s nothing to go on, Inspector. Nothing to hold to. There Emmet is: bang. Someone walked in during the night and put a hypodermic into his arm. Nobody heard, or will admit having heard, anything suspicious in the night. Anybody could have done it. Even an outsider could have done it, because they never lock doors at Bellegarde. Very few people hereabouts do lock doors at night. I say even an outsider could have done it, though I know what I think. Oh: and I’ve seen West, by the way, for the medical report. Chesney was killed with pure prussic acid, about a grain of it. That is, there were no traces of other ingredients to show he was killed with a preparation of the stuff like potassium cyanide or mercury cyanide. And that’s all we’ve got.”