"Well, I wasn't so far out with my list of conditions," Mr. Bradley consoled himself. "But why don't you agree with my rather subtle point about the murderer not being a public - school or University man, Sheringham? Just because Bendix happens to have been at Selchester and Oxford?"
"No, because I'd make the still more subtle point that where the code of a public - school and University might influence a murderer in the way he murdered another man, it wouldn't have much effect when a woman is to be the victim. I agree that if Bendix had been wanting to dispose of Sir Eustace, he would probably have put him out of the world in a nice, straightforward, manly way. But one doesn't use nice, straightforward, manly ways in one's dealings with women, if it comes to hitting them on the head with a bludgeon or anything in that nature. Poison, I fancy, would be quite in order. And there's very little suffering with a large dose of nitrobenzene. Unconsciousness soon intervenes."
"Yes," admitted Mr. Bradley, "that is rather too subtle a point for one of my unpsychological attributes."
"I think I dealt with most of your other conditions. As regards the methodical habits, which you deduced from the meticulous doses of poison in each chocolate, my point of course is that the doses were exactly equal in order that Bendix could take any two of the chocolates and be sure of having got the right amount of nitrobenzene into his system to produce the symptoms he wanted, and not enough to run any serious risk. That dosing of himself with the poison really was a master - stroke. And it's so natural that a man shouldn't have taken so many chocolates as a woman. He exaggerated his symptoms considerably, no doubt, but the effect on everybody was tremendous.
"We must remember, you see, that we've only got his word for the conversation in the drawing - room, over the eating of the chocolates, just as we've only got his word for it that there ever was a bet at all. Most of that conversation certainly took place, however. Bendix is far too great an artist not to make all possible use of the truth in his lying. But of course he wouldn't have left her that afternoon till he'd seen her take, or somehow made her take at least six of the chocolates, which he'd know made up more than a lethal dose. That was another advantage in having the stuff in those exact six - minim quantities."
"In fact," Mr. Bradley summed up, "our Uncle Bendix is a great man."
"He really is," said Roger, quite solemnly.
"You've no doubt at all that he is the criminal?" queried Miss Dammers.
"None at all," said Roger, astonished.
"Um," said Miss Dammers.
"Why, have you?"
"Um," said Miss Dammers.
The conversation then lapsed.
"Well," said Mr. Bradley, "let's all tell Sheringham how wrong he is, shall we?"
Mrs. Fielder - Flemming looked tense. "I'm afraid," she said in a hushed voice, "that he is only too right."
But Mr. Bradley refused to be impressed. "Oh, I think I can find a hole or two to pick at. You seem to attach a good deal of importance to the motive, Sheringham. Don't you exaggerate? One doesn't poison a wife one's tired of; one leaves her. And really, I find some difficulty in believing (a) that Bendix should have been so set on getting hold of more money to pour down the drainpipe of his businesses as to commit murder for it, and (b) that Mrs. Bendix should have been so close as to refuse to come to her husband's help if he really was badly pressed."
"Then I think you fail to estimate the characters of both of them," Roger told him. "They were both obstinate as the devil. It was Mrs. Bendix, not her husband, who realised that his businesses were a drainpipe. I could give you a list a yard long of murders that have been committed with far less motive than Bendix had."
"Motive allowed again, then. Now you remember that Mrs. Bendix had had a lunch appointment for the day of her death, which was cancelled. Didn't Bendix know of that? Because if he did, would he have chosen a day for the delivery of the chocolates when he knew his wife wouldn't be at home for lunch to receive them?"
"Just the point I had thought of putting to Mr. Sheringham myself," remarked Miss Dammers.
Roger looked puzzled. "It seems to me a most unimportant point. If it comes to that, why should he necessarily want to give the chocolates to his wife at lunch - time?"
"For two reasons," responded Mr. Bradley glibly. "Firstly because he would naturally want to put them to their right purpose as soon as he possibly could, and secondly because his wife being the only person who can contradict this story of the bet, he would obviously want her silenced as soon as practicable."
"You're quibbling," Roger smiled, "and I refuse to be drawn. For that matter, I don't see why Bendix should have known of his wife's lunch - appointment at all. They were constantly lunching out, both of them, and I don't suppose they took any particular care to inform each other beforehand."
"Humph!" said Mr. Bradley and stroked his chin. Mr. Chitterwick ventured to raise his recently crushed head. "You really base your whole case on the bet, Mr. Sheringham, don't you? "
"And the psychological deduction I drew from the story of it. Yes, I do. Entirely."
"So that if the bet could be proved after all to have been made, you would have no case left?"
"Why," exclaimed Roger, in some alarm, "have you any independent evidence that the bet was made?"
"Oh, no. Oh, dear me, no. Nothing of the sort. I was merely thinking that if any one did want to disprove your case, as Bradley suggested, it is the bet on which he would have to concentrate."
"You mean, quibbling about the motive, and the lunch - appointment, and such minor matters, is altogether beside the point?" suggested Mr. Bradley amiably. "Oh, I quite agree. But I was only trying to test his case, you know, not disprove it. And for why? Because I think it's the right one. The Mystery of the Poisoned Chocolates, so far as I'm concerned, is at an end."
"Thank you, Bradley," said Mr. Sheringham.
"So three cheers for our sleuth - like President," continued Mr. Bradley with great heartiness, "coupled with the name of Graham Reynard Bendix for the fine run he's given us. Hip, hip - - "
"And you say you've definitely proved the purchase of the typewriter, and the contact of Mr. Bendix with the sample - book at Webster's, Mr. Sheringham?" remarked Alicia Dammers, who had apparently been pursuing a train of thought of her own.
"I do, Miss Dammers," said Roger, not without complacence.
"Would you give me the name of the typewriter - shop?"
"Of course," Roger tore a page from his notebook and copied out the name and address.
"Thank you. And can you give me a description of the girl at Webster's who identified the photograph of Mr. Bendix? "
Roger looked at her a little uneasily; she gazed back with her usual calm serenity. Roger's uneasiness grew. He gave her as good a description of Webster's young woman as he could recall. Miss Dammers thanked him imperturbably.
"Well, what are we going to do about it all?" persisted Mr. Bradley, who seemed to have adopted the role of showman for his President. "Shall we send a delegation to Scotland Yard consisting of Sheringham and myself, to break the news to them that their troubles are over? "
"You are assuming that everybody agrees with Mr. Sheringham?"
"Of course." "Isn't it customary to put this sort of question to a vote? " suggested Miss Dammers coolly.
"'Carried unanimously,'" quoted Mr. Bradley. "Yes, do let's have the correct procedure. Well, then, Sheringham moves that this meeting do accept his solution of the Poisoned Chocolates Mystery as the right one, and send a delegation of himself and Mr. Bradley to Scotland Yard to talk pretty severely to the police. I second the motion. Those in favour . . .? Mrs. Fielder - Flemming?"
Mrs. Fielder - Flemming endeavoured to conceal her disapproval of Mr. Bradley in her approval of Mr. Bradley's suggestion. " I certainly think that Mr. Sheringham has proved his case," she said stiffly.
"Sir Charles?"
"I agree," said Sir Charles, in stern tones, equally disapproving of Mr. Bradley's frivolity.
"Chit
terwick?"
"I agree too." Was it Roger's fancy, or did Mr. Chitterwick hesitate just a moment before he spoke, as if troubled by some mental reservation which he did not care to put into words? Roger decided that it was his fancy.
"And Miss Dammers?" concluded Mr. Bradley.
Miss Dammers looked calmly round the table. "I don't agree at all. I think Mr. Sheringham's exposition was exceedingly ingenious, and altogether worthy of his reputation; at the same time I think it quite wrong. Tomorrow I hope to be able to prove to you who really committed this crime."
The Circle gaped at her respectfully.
Roger, wondering whether his ears had not really been playing tricks with him, found that his tongue too utterly refused to work. An inarticulate sound oozed from him.
Mr. Bradley was the first to recover himself. "Carried, non - unanimously. Mr. President, I think this is a precedent. Does anybody know what happens when a resolution is not carried unanimously? "
In the temporary disability of the President, Miss Dammers took it upon herself to decide. "The meeting stands adjourned, I think," she said.
And adjourned the meeting found itself.
CHAPTER XV
ROGER arrived at the Circle's meeting - room the next evening even more agog than usual. In his heart of hearts he could not believe that Miss Dammers would ever be able to destroy his case against Bendix, or even dangerously shake it, but in any event what she had to say could not fail to be of absorbing interest, even without its animadversions of his own solution. Roger had been looking forward to Miss Dammers's exposition more than to that of any one else.
Alicia Dammers was so very much a reflection of the age. Had she been born fifty years ago, it is difficult to see how she could have gone on existing. It was impossible that she could have become the woman - novelist of that time, a strange creature (in the popular imagination) with white cotton gloves, an intense manner, and passionate, not to say hysterical yearnings towards a romance from which her appearance unfortunately debarred her. Miss Dammers's gloves, like her clothes, were exquisite, and cotton could not have touched her since she was ten (if she ever had been); tensity was for her the depth of bad form; and if she knew how to yearn, she certainly kept it to herself. Passion and purple, one gathered, Miss Dammers found quite unnecessary to herself, if interesting phenomena in lesser mortals.
From the caterpillar in cotton gloves the woman - novelist has progressed through the stage of cook - like coccoondom at which Mrs. Fielder - Flemming had stuck, to the detached and serious butterfly, not infrequently beautiful as well as pensive, whose decorative pictures the illustrated weeklies are nowadays delighted to publish. Butterflies with calm foreheads, just faintly wrinkled in analytical thought. Ironical, cynical butterflies; surgeon - butterflies thronging the mental dissecting - rooms (and sometimes, if we must be candid, inclined to loiter there a little too long); passionless butterflies, flitting gracefully from one brightly - coloured complex to another. And sometimes completely humourless, and then distressingly boring butterflies, whose gathered pollen seems to have become a trifle mud - coloured.
To meet Miss Dammers and look at her classical, oval face, with its delicately small features and big grey eyes, to glance approvingly over her tall, beautifully dressed figure, nobody whose imagination was still popular would ever have set her down as a novelist at all. And that in Miss Dammers's opinion, coupled with the ability to write good books, was exactly what a properly - minded modern authoress should hope to achieve.
No one had ever been brave enough to ask Miss Dammers how she could hope successfully to analyse in others emotions which she had never experienced in herself. Probably because the plain fact confronted the enquirer that she both could and did. Most successfully.
"We listened last night," began Miss Dammers, at five minutes past nine on the following evening, "to an exceedingly able exposition of a no less interesting theory of this crime. Mr. Sheringham's methods, if I may say so, were a model to all of us. Beginning with the deductive, he followed this as far as it would take him, which was actually to the person of the criminal; he then relied on the inductive to prove his case. In this way he was able to make the best possible use of each method. That this ingenious mixture should have been based on a fallacy and therefore never had any chance of leading Mr. Sheringham to the right solution, is rather a piece of bad luck than his fault."
Roger, who still could not believe that he had not reached the truth, smiled dubiously.
"Mr. Sheringham's reading of the crime," continued Miss Dammers, in her clear, level tones, "must have seemed to some of us novel in the extreme. To me, however, it was perhaps more interesting than novel, for it began from the same starting - point as the theory on which I myself have been working; namely, that the crime had not failed in its objective." Roger pricked up his ears. "As Mr. Chitterwick pointed out, Mr. Sheringham's whole case rested on the bet between Mr. and Mrs. Bendix. From Mr. Bendix's story of that bet, he draws the psychological deduction that the bet never existed at all. That is clever, but it is the wrong deduction. Mr. Sheringham is too lenient in his interpretation of feminine psychology. I began, I think I may say, with the bet too. But the deduction I drew from it, knowing my sister - women perhaps a little more intimately than Mr. Sheringham could, was that Mrs. Bendix was not quite so honourable as she was painted by herself."
"I thought of that, of course," Roger expostulated. "But I discarded it on purely logical grounds. There's nothing in Mrs. Bendix's life to show that she wasn't honest, and everything to show that she was. And when there exists no evidence at all for the making of the bet beyond Bendix's bare word . . ."
"Oh, but there does," Miss Dammers took him up. "I've been spending most of today in establishing that point. I knew I should never really be able to shake you till I could definitely prove that there was a bet. Let me put you out of your agony at once, Mr. Sheringham. I've overwhelming evidence that the bet was made."
"You have?" said Roger, disconcerted.
"Certainly. It was a point you really should have verified yourself, you know," chided Miss Dammers gently, "considering its importance to your case. Well, I have two witnesses. Mrs. Bendix mentioned the bet to her maid when she went up to her bedroom to lie down, actually saying (like yourself, Mr. Sheringham) that the violent indigestion from which she thought herself to be suffering was a judgment on her for having made it. The second witness is a friend of my own, who knows the Bendixes. She saw Mrs. Bendix sitting alone in her box during the second interval, and went in to speak to her. In the course of the conversation Mrs. Bendix remarked that she and her husband had a bet on the identity of the villain, mentioning the character in the play whom she herself fancied. But (and this completely confirms my own deduction) Mrs. Bendix did not tell my friend that she had seen the play before."
"Oh!" said Roger, now quite crestfallen.
Miss Dammers dealt with him as tenderly as possible. "There were only those two deductions to be made from that bet, and by bad luck you chose the wrong one."
"But how did you know," said Roger, coming to the surface for the third time, "that Mrs. Bendix had seen the play before? I only found that out myself a couple of days ago, and by the merest accident."
"Oh, I've known that from the beginning," said Miss Dammers carelessly. " I suppose Mrs. Verreker - le - Mesurer told you? I don't know her personally, but I know people who do. I didn't interrupt you last night when you were talking about the amazing chance of this piece of knowledge reaching you. If I had, I should have pointed out that the agency by which anything known to Mrs. Verreker - le - Mesurer (as I see her) might become known to her friends too, isn't chance at all, but certainty."
"I see," said Roger, and sank for the third, and final, time. But as he did so he remembered one piece of information which Mrs. Verreker - le - Mesurer had succeeded, not wholly as it seemed but very nearly so, in withholding from her friends; and catching Mr. Bradley's ribald eye knew that his thought was shared
. So even Miss Dammers was not quite infallible in her psychology.
"We then," resumed that lady, somewhat didactically, "have Mr. Bendix displaced from his temporary role of villain and back again in his old part of second victim. She paused for a moment.
"But without Sir Eustace returning to the cast in his original star part of intended victim of the piece," amplified Mr. Bradley.
Miss Dammers rightly ignored him. "Now here, I think, Mr. Sheringham will find my case as interesting as I found his last night, for though we differ so vitally in some essentials we agree remarkably in others. And one of the points on which we agree is that the intended victim certainly was killed."
"What, Alicia?" exclaimed Mrs. Fielder - Flemming. "You think too that the plot was directed against Mrs. Bendix from the beginning? "
"I have no doubt of it. But to prove my contention I must demolish yet another of Mr. Sheringham's conclusions.
"You made the point, Mr. Sheringham, that half - past ten in the morning was a most unusual time for Mr. Bendix to arrive at his club and therefore highly significant. That is perfectly true. Unfortunately you attached the wrong significance to it. His arrival at that hour doesn't necessarily argue a guilty intention, as you assumed. It escaped you (as in fairness I must say it seems to have escaped every one else) that if Mrs. Bendix was the intended victim and Mr. Bendix himself not her murderer, his presence at the club at that convenient time might have been secured by the real murderer. In any case I think Mr. Sheringham might have given Mr. Bendix the benefit of the doubt in so far as to ask him if he had any explanation of his own to offer. As I did."
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