by Q. Patrick
The Archdeacon interrupted impatiently. “Any news of those foodstuffs—the tea things, you know, which I sent up to the Yard last night for analysis?”
“’Arf a mo, ’arf a mo, Archdeacon,” Norris was always mortally afraid that someone would steal his thunder. “I was just coming to that. Doc. Fisher was working on it all the morning and says that he’s thoroughly examined the contents of the tea-pot, milk jug, sugar bowl, bread ’n butter, and the dregs in the cups, and he can’t find a tryce of any poison, known or unknown! He says he’ll stake his perfessional reputation that they’re O-kye, and that’s that. Any news your end?”
The Archdeacon gave his colleague a brief summary of his findings in Crosby-Stourton and then rang off after a few acrimonious civilities. Norris was not his type at all.
Lighting his favorite Dunhill pipe, the Archdeacon went upstairs to his room—the one place where he could count on being alone and undisturbed. It was time, he reflected, for what he would waggishly call his “cold collation” of facts. Indeed, there came a moment in every case when the Archdeacon took the facts that he had gradually garnered in the well-ordered store house of his brain, and set them down on paper by the light of cold, hard reason. He then applied some of the rules of elementary mathematics. “Given all the facts and factors,” he would tell himself, “mathematics cannot lie.” And even in a case like the present, he felt that he had sufficient data to plot a fairly presentable graph or work out a very quadratic equation!
He removed his coat, rolled up his sleeves and sat down at a table that would have been the pride and envy of any antique collector. He pulled out his note-book and squared paper. His usual method was to divide his conclusions under the main headings, MOTIVE, MEANS and OPPORTUNITY, and then to write down in due order any possibilities which the facts of the case warranted, however remote and unlikely they might appear on the surface. The mathematical mind took no cognizance of birth, character, personal dislikes or prejudices, but tried to be as impartial and aloof as if the Archdeacon were solving the mystery with chessman in an African desert, without ever having been near the village of Crosby-Stourton.
In a neat, even hand he wrote as follows:
MOTIVE
A. FOR KILLING AMY
In view of the facts collated, who had a possible motive for killing Amy Lubbock?
1. Isabel—Jealousy. Amy was more attractive to men, and Norris’ London investigation shows that she may have stolen at least one of Isabel’s followers. Ref. also Mrs. Greene’s story, and Isabel’s dying words referring to a policeman (?P. C. Haines).
2. Lucy—Ambition. Anticipating a rich and important marriage with young Crosby Lucy might conceivably be trying to get rid of her lowly family one by one.
3. Cockett—Passion. Rumor said that Cockett had always loved Amy and that she had refused him repeatedly. Disappointed passion might have led him eventually to murder her.
4. X—some person unknown for motive unknown.
(This last shadowy figure always appeared in the Archdeacon’s little calculations, and was his one and only concession to the infinitesimal fallibility of mathematics and a lack of omniscience in himself.)
B. FOR KILLING ISABEL
1. Cockett—Revenge, either for past wrongs, (anonymous letter, etc.) or because he suspected (or knew) that she killed Amy.
2. Lucy—Same as A2.
3. Any villager who knew or suspected Mrs. Greene’s evidence. Isabel, being of the blackmailing type, seems to have created universal dislike.
4. X—as in A4.
Remembering with a certain amount of bitterness a notorious case in which the whole issue had been clouded because a murderer had killed a housemaid in mistake for her—and presumably his own—mistress, the Archdeacon had subsequently made it a point to figure on the possibility of the murderer’s missing his aim. In “The Housemaid Murder” the police of two continents had been baffled to explain a motive which had turned out eventually to be merely a foolish mistake. In the present case there was quite a reasonable possibility that Mrs. Lubbock or Lucy had been the intended victims, since they were the normal inmates of the cottage and the two elder girls had been there by accident. He, therefore, decided to work out a list of possible motives for killing the voungest girl and her mother.
MOTIVE (Cont d.)
C. FOR KILLING LUCY
1. Isabel—Jealousy. Might possibly have aimed at killing a younger and more attractive sister and then committed suicide.
2. Christopher—A crime of passion. Unlikely, because evidence seemed to point to the fact that Lucy was not averse to his attentions.
3. Dr. Hoskins—Passion. The matron hinted at Lucy’s hold over him. Unlikely.
4. Sir Howard or Lady Crosby—To prevent her marriage with Christopher.
5. Vivien Darcy—Jealousy. Sir Howard hinted she was in love with Christopher and that he was infatuated with Lucy.
6. Almost any of the villagers—For some real or fancied wrong since Lucy was universally disliked as a “snob.”
7. X—As in A4.
A formidable list of possible motives for doing away with Lucy, he reflected grimly.
D. FOR KILLING MRS LUBBOCK
1. Lucy—same as A2.
2. Sir Howard or Lady Crosby for some (unknown) reason connected with the past, or to get her out of Lady’s Bower (unlikely).
3. X—as above.
He smiled to himself as he pictured the faces of some of these people if they could see their names down on his lists as potential suspects, with outlandish, and probably undreamed of motives attributed to them!
He then went to his next main group of headings.
MEANS
E. Who of the persons implicated could possibly have obtained a complicated drug without running the risk of easy detection?
1. Dr. Hoskins—Easily.
2. Dr. Crosby—Easily.
3. Lucy Lubbock—Easily from Cottage Hospital.
4. Mrs. Lubbock—Possibly. She had been nurse to old Mrs. Burwell.
5. Vivien Darcy—Possibly. Miss Pinkney had mentioned that she visited the Dispensary at the Hospital.
6. Lady Crosby—From one of the hospitals donated by her.
7. Sir Howard—Less easily but quite possibly from same source.
8. X—from source unknown.
OPPORTUNTY
F. Who was in the vicinity of the cottage on the day of each death so as to be in a position to administer the poison to each victim?
CASE OF AMY
Fatal dose must have been taken between the hours of six and ten-thirty.
1. Lucy—returned to Lady’s Bower about six.
2. Mrs. Lubbock—all the time.
3. Isabel Lubbock—all the time.
4. Cockett—in cottage most of evening.
5. Sir Howard—called earlier in day.
6. Vivien Darcy—ditto.
7. Mrs. Greene and Miss Coke.
8. X—who might be the “dark stranger” described by Buss.
CASE OF ISABEL
1. Lucy—In Lady’s Bower all day.
2. Mrs. Lubbock—ditto.
3. Dr. Hoskins—morning and evening.
4. Dr. Crosby—ditto.
5. Sr. Howard—called in afternoon.
6. Vivien Darcy—ditto.
7. Cockett—tea time and later.
8. Mrs. Greene and Miss Coke and the villagers, about tea time.
9. X—very doubtful, as anyone would have seen him.
Again the Archdeacon smiled to himself as he thought of how Sir Howard would bluster if he knew that he was down on the list cheek by jowl with the common village folk. He even smiled at his own impertinence in putting him there at all, and had the pleasant feeling that he was committing a mild sort of sacrilege. It was typical of the man, however, that he should tabulate all his potential suspects—whether prince or pauper—with a calm and unbiased pencil.
He next reviewed his findings at length, and applied to them certain little math
ematical principles which had often come in useful before. By the time he had finished his calculations and covered his squared paper with weird and wonderful hieroglyphics, X came out on top (as he usually did) with the highest score; Lucy second, Cockett third, and the rest (with the possible exceptions of Vivien Darcy and Dr. Hoskins) as “also rans.” Not a very signal triumph, he reflected ruefully, for the science of mathematics.
He then proceeded to jot down a few disconnected facts in connection with the actual administering of the problematic poison. They ran something as follows:
When was the fatal dose administered in each case?
Dr. Hoskins says action of drug may be immediate, or slightly delayed.
Amy drank tea from 5:30 till 6:30 and then again during the latter part of the evening. Presumably she took one Dormital tablet around 11. Is it safe to presume that the Dormital tablets were, as Dr. Hoskins suggests, accidental and without bearing on the death?
Was the illness of which she complained to Isabel the beginning of the action of the poison? (Note. See Hoskins on this.)
Isabel drank tea off and on throughout the evening until her death, which was sudden.
Was the rinsing out of her cup deliberate or accidental?
What was poisoned? Is it safe to presume that it must have been the individual teacup of the victim since Norris had reported that the tea in the pot, the sugar, milk and bread and butter, were free from all traces of poison? If poison had been put in the teapot, the milk jug, or the sugar, would not all the rest have been poisoned too?
If the action of the poison was immediate, who were the persons present in both instances immediately before symptoms appeared? (Mrs. Lubbock, Lucy, Cockett.)
These constituted a few delicate problems to keep him busy on a midsummer afternoon, he reflected. Problems, in fact, on which he might easily spend many a profitable afternoon without arriving at any satisfactory solution. He yawned and stretched himself with the comfortable feeling that he had at least got some of his troubles down in black and white. Then he pulled out his hunter and found, to his amazement, that it was almost six o’clock and long past his regular tea time.
He went to the washstand and poured some tepid water into the ewer. (The day had been warm.) Then he plunged his face into it, washed his hands, straightened his tie and prepared to go downstairs. But when he reached the door of his room he was stopped by a noise which sounded as if a herd of wild elephants had suddenly stampeded in the corridor.
He stood for a moment irresolute, and then plunged outside—a plunge which landed him full in the midriff of P. C. Buss who was shepherding into the room a dapper and slightly intoxicated gentleman. The constable gave a stertorous grunt, straightened himself and muttered these mystic words. “This, sir, is the missing link—the presumptuous percolator of the crime—!”
VI
Although the Archdeacon had been most assiduous during his first day in Crosby-Stourton there was one stone which so far he had left unturned, or rather, he had left the turning of it to P. C. Buss, with the casual injunction to report progress if any.
But Buss was too soft-hearted, too easily impressed by the counsels of others, to suspect anyone of wilfully belittling his own. No, as he saw it, the detective from London had been tired, had been confused, had been too alien (poor fellow!) with his London speech and his London clothes, to understand the true worth and sagacity of his Crosby-Stourton colleague and to attach proper weight to the mysterious stranger whose presence at the scene of the crime had been so ably described to him during tea at the Crosby Arms.
Police Constable Buss heaved a sigh of genuine pity, therefore, as he strolled down the village street at ten o’clock on the Wednesday morning, and realized that he himself must follow up his own clue, run his own dark stranger to earth, and, though he really hated to do it, carry away the laurels himself from under the disappointed nose of the great London detective. He was a little vague about just how this was to be done, but he placed great trust in a Kind Providence, and this morning a Kind Providence did not play him false. Instead, it led him past Miss Sophie Coke’s little shop, and it led Miss Sophie Coke to step out onto her doorstep and wave him a cheery greeting. Miss Coke had heard by now (as who in Crosby-Stourton had not!) of the Archdeacon’s arrival on the previous evening, and was consumed with curiosity.
“Good morning, Constable,” she said. “I hear there’s a great detective down from London to help you.”
She looked about hopefully in search of the Constable’s new assistant, disguised, perhaps, as a pedlar or a lilac bush, but seeing no one more exotic than Buss himself, she sighed and went on casually:
“I know it seems very trivial when there’s a Fiend among us, but I do wish you’d arrest the man who drove past here yesterday evening if you catch him. Drove by so fast, he did, that all the jars rattled on my shelves, and I was afraid the sixpenny lead soldiers would fall off the top shelf and get mixed with the tupenny ones on the second from the bottom. I looked out the window after him, and he turned the corner down there toward Edith’s Ford in a cloud of dust and the chickens squawking in every direction. A reg’lar bad ’un, he was, to drive so fast, and one I’d never seen before—at least, I don’t think so.”
“A Strange Man?” asked Buss with gratifying interest.
“Strange,” said Miss Coke grimly, “and a Toff!” after which terrible indictment she made as if to withdraw again to her little counter. But Buss stepped up the path, fixed her with a searching eye, and delivered himself of an august command:
“Tell me all,” he said in sepulchral tones.
“Well, I never!” said Miss Coke recoiling. Then with a cautious glance up and down the road she said in a piercing whisper: “Was it Lady’s Bower you were thinking of?” Surely you don’t think”
“No,” said Buss. “Not yet. According to English Law, Miss
Coke, a man is innocent until he becomes guilty. Miss Coke, I represent the Law in Crosby-Stourton. Tell me all.”
Miss Coke smiled a confidential smile, adjusted her spectacles, smoothed her apron, drew a deep breath, and suddenly paused while a blank expression replaced a rapturously informative one:
“That’s all,” she said woefully.
“All? Think, Miss Coke, think! A life, many lives, may hang balancing.”
Miss Coke thought. A frown puckered her forehead, and at last the anxious Buss saw a gleam of satisfaction light up her eyes.
“Yes,” she said, “it was yesterday morning. It’d gone out of my head because it was not long after I’d heard of the second Lubbock visitation (may God preserve us all!). But I noticed this motor car because I’d never seen it before in the village. I didn’t see the driver because the car was standing empty, but I’m sure it’s the same one that drove past last night. And where do you think it was standing?” Miss Coke lowered her voice and looked over her shoulder as if the shelves of her little shop contained each a malicious eavesdropper.
“In front of the Post Office,” she breathed.
“Ah,” said Buss with official reserve.
“Ah,” said Miss Coke with maidenly dignity.
“Good day, Miss Coke.”
“Good day, Mister Constable.”
P. C. Buss retraced his steps thoughtfully towards the Post Office, reaching its door some ten minutes after the Archdeacon and Dr. Hoskins had met there and left together for the Cottage Hospital. Buss paused outside, looked up and down the road, noticed an urchin staring at him with a fascinated eye, drew a grimy post-card out of his pocket and glanced up at the sign above him with a “how-lucky—! I-was-just-looking-for-a-stamp” expression. Having thus deceived the urchin as to his true purpose (Buss had a nice idea of the subtler points in a detective’s job), he put his hand to the latch and walked boldly in through the door.
Mrs. Greene, frustrated by Hoskins’ arrival in the very moment of her greatness, allowed herself to entertain a sudden wild hope that the Archdeacon himself was returning to gather m
ore pearls from her sagacious lips. Then, realizing that it was only Buss, she resolutely calmed the fluttering of her nerves, picked up a handy copy of the Somerset and Devon Observer, and glanced across it at the Constable with just that degree of tolerance which a fellow servant of His Majesty deserved.
“Good morning,” she said. “What can I do for you?”
“Much,” said Buss in a Gargantuan whisper.
Mrs. Greene, who had expected a request for a penny stamp, or at most a three ha’penny one, laid down her paper and looked at him. This sounded promising.
“Yes?” she answered.
Buss came close to the little counter behind which she sat, and stared at her solemnly.
“Yesterday morning, ma’am,” he said, “I have been led to believe that a strange man came into this office. At least, his car was seen outside. Did he come in, and did you find him noticeable?”
Mrs. Greene’s already ample bosom swelled with importance.
“Did he come in, Constable? He did, indeed. And a suspiciouser character never crossed this threhold. I notice these things, my friend, I do, indeed. I am a Mother, Constable, with an innocent daughter to think of, and l notice.”
“Had you ever seen this man before, ma’am, near Lady’s Bower on Sunday, for instance?”
“Never,” said Mrs. Greene firmly. Buss sighed.
“But you mark my words, Constable, he had his hat pulled down over his eyes, and he asked me a suspicious question. He comes up quite friendly-like, says he’s a stranger here, but finds our village very charming (there’s smoothness for you!), and could I tell him please who lived in the handsome big house called Somerton Court? I told him the truth quite natural-like, because at the time I didn’t realize what he was, but it’s my belief now that he knew all along it was the house of Sir Malcolm Darcy, and had some underhand purpose in asking—to see how I’d take it, for instance. Because it’s my belief he’s the very man I saw meeting Miss Vivien Darcy at ten o’clock last night at Podd’s Corner.”