‘NOW then,’ said Roger Sheringham, as he and Alec stepped through the ticket-barrier at Charing Cross the following morning. ‘Where to first?’
‘Anywhere you like,’ responded Alec largely. ‘Right-ho! Follow me, then.’
After his discovery on the previous evening, Sheila had plunged downstairs to interview her father and returned in triumph a few minutes later with a telephone Buff Book. Half an hour’s work had resulted in a list of all the chemists in W.C.3 and E.C.3 in their estimated order of importance, and armed with this Roger and Alec had departed for London immediately after breakfast in order to set about a little routine work.
To describe their morning’s adventures would be to repeat the same tale two dozen times over. From shop to shop they made their way, in each of them Roger showed the man behind the counter a fair copy of the squiggle Mary Blower had depicted and asked whether they used labels with that pattern, in each the man told them that they did not and good morning. Lunch found them weary but undismayed.
‘I’m sick of E.C.3,’ said Roger frankly, as he set down his empty coffee cup and prepared to face another toilsome round. ‘Let’s have a shot at the other for a change.’
‘All right,’ Alec agreed equably. ‘Warton’s is the first on the list, isn’t it? Manufacturing chemists, or something.’
‘Warton’s it is,’ said Roger, and reached for his hat.
And then their luck, in the curious way luck has after a change or a break, turned abruptly. Warton’s did use labels with a scroll in the corner. Roger gazed at a specimen with happy eyes; it was, if not the brother, at any rate, the first cousin of Mary Blower’s artistic effort.
‘I want to see your manager,’ said Roger, quivering with excitement.
The manager was unenthusiastic. To Roger’s introduction of himself as a special correspondent of the Daily Courier he was politely inquiring; to Roger’s request to be informed at once whether a two-ounce packet of arsenic had been sold over the counter during the last fortnight in June or at the beginning of July he was courteously blank; in answer to Roger’s entreaty to be allowed to see the poisons’ book for that period the manager replied a little proudly that Warton’s was a wholesale house, not a retail chemist. The manager then began to hint ever so politely that he was a very busy man and what about good afternoon?
‘Damn all managers!’ said Roger impartially as he emerged into the passage once more.
‘Quite so,’ Alec agreed. ‘What about trying at the counter ourselves?’
The ground floor of Warton’s covered a large area. It was like a shop and yet curiously unlike a shop. Broad, low counters ran about like long fat snakes in all directions and men in long dull-yellow overalls stood about very occasionally behind them. There was an air of repose over the whole place which was not unpleasing.
Roger tackled one of the men in the long dull-yellow overalls. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said brightly. ‘I want to make some inquiries about arsenic.’
‘Over there, sir,’ said the man, pointing to a distant counter. ‘Just to the right of that pillar. No, not that one—the one on the left of the clock.’
With some difficulty Roger presented himself at the right counter.
‘Arsenic, sir?’ said the elderly assistant, in a marked Scotch accent; he was a little dried-up man with a straggling grey beard and gold-rimmed spectacles. ‘Would it be the pure arsenic or the commaircial ye’re wanting?’
‘Are you the man who looks after all the sales of arsenic here?’ Roger asked.
‘Yes, sir. I attend to all the orders for arsenic.’
‘And I suppose you sell it in buckets, so to speak?’
‘We sometimes sell a verra large quorntity at a time,’ the little old man admitted in a somewhat puzzled voice.
‘But if one wanted to buy a sample, just a couple of ounces say, you could let a customer have that over the counter?’
‘Weel, I should want yere business card, of course, sir. Ye’ll understand that we only supply the trade here. Or maybe ye want it for a manufactory process?’
‘I don’t want it at all,’ Roger said confidentially. ‘As a matter of fact I’m acting for the Daily Courier and I want to ask you some questions about a small packet of arsenic which was bought here a short time ago.’
The assistant looked dubious. ‘I doot ye’d best see Mr Graves, sir,’ he said. ‘He’s the manager. Or maybe one of the directors. I misdoot whether I ought to tell ye myself.’
‘Well, I’d much rather see you, because you must be the man who sold it. And also,’ Roger added cunningly, ‘if you can give me the information I want (which I’ll undertake to treat quite confidentially if you prefer), the Courier would be prepared to pay very handsomely for it indeed.’
The little old man brightened visibly. ‘After all, perhaps there wouldn’t be any harm in me just hearing yere questions, sir. What would it be ye were wanting to know?’
‘Either during the last fortnight of June or the first fortnight of July, probably the latter, somebody came in here and bought two ounces of arsenic. Now, does that convey anything to your memory?’
The man shook his head regretfully. ‘Is that all ye can tell me, sir? There’s a terrible lot of people come in here for sma’ samples like that.’
‘Well, now, supposing it was a woman—would you remember then? Did you serve any woman with two ounces of arsenic during that period?’
‘It wusna a wumman, sir; I can tell ye that. I don’t mind that I’ve served a wumman with arsenic for twelve months or mair.’
Roger exchanged glances with Alec.
‘You’re quite positive of that?’ he asked.
‘Pairfectly! I can take my oath it wasna a wumman.’
‘Lay you doon and dee, eh?’ said Roger happily. ‘Well, that’s something anyhow. Now, how are we to get at who it was? Do you keep any sort of a record of these small sales?’
‘Oh, aye. I enter them all up in ma cash-buke. But not the names, ye see.’
‘Well, what about having a glance through your cash-book and seeing how many two ounces of arsenic you sold at that time? You never know; there might only be this one, and then seeing it in the book might help you to remember the circumstances.’
‘It’s not verra probable, I must tell ye,’ muttered the little old man, but produced a bulky ledger nevertheless and began to run his finger down its columns.
A customer arrived, and Roger stood aside; the customer departed, and the search continued.
Three customers later the little Scotchman closed the ledger and laid a slip of paper in front of Roger. ‘Five times, between the fifteenth of June and the fifteenth of July, sir,’ he said. ‘Two of them I mind, on the twenty-thirrd of June and the fifth of July; customers I know. The ither three might have been onnybody.’
Roger pounced on one of the dates. ‘July the seventh! That’s our man. July the thirteenth is too late, and June the seventeenth probably too early.’ He pulled out his pocket-book and extracted his copy of the time-table of the case which he had made out the evening before leaving for Wychford. ‘Yes, July the seventh—look, Alec! See?’ He stubbed excitedly with his finger at the items immediately below and pushed it into the other’s hand. ‘That was a Tuesday,’ he said, turning back to the counter. ‘Now then, can’t you remember who bought that two ounces of arsenic on Tuesday, July the seventh? What he looked like or—or whether he wore glasses or anything like that?’
The little Scotchman turned his eyes dutifully up to the ceiling and proceeded evidently to rack his brains, while Roger watched him in an agony of anxiety.
‘Ah doot ma mind’s a pairfect blarnk!’ he said at last, turning them down again.
They gazed at each other in dismay.
‘Try again!’ Roger urged, and up went the eyes once more.
With difficulty Roger refrained from dancing with impatience.
‘It’s nae use at a’,’ confessed the assistant, his accent becoming broader every minute as he saw the Courier’s generosity eluding his clutches. ‘Ah canna mind onnything at a’ aboot it.’
‘But this is awful!’ Roger groaned. ‘We’ve got our finger right on the crux of things. We must hoick it out of him. Alec, try the effect of his native language, and see whether that jabs his memory.’
Alec and the assistant eyed one another Scotchly.
Then Alec gave tongue. He said, quite calmly:
‘Didn’t you say something just now about business cards? Couldn’t you get a hint from that?’
Roger sank on to the counter. ‘I resign!’ he moaned. ‘The death of Superintendent Sheringham. Superintendent Grierson, I hand it to you.’
‘Would he be a chemist, this gentleman?’ the assistant wanted to know.
‘Go on, Alec,’ said Roger. ‘You answer him. I’m not here any longer.’
‘No, he wouldn’t,’ Alec replied. ‘He’d be—What would he be, Roger?’
‘God knows!’
The little old Scotchman was burrowing happily under the counter. ‘If he’s not a chemist, I’d have his caird, ye see,’ his voice floated up. ‘Chemists’ cairds I juist have a luke at, but if the customer isna a chemist I keep his caird and mak’ a note on it of the sample he bocht, so that we can follow up wi’ a le’er la’er on if we don’t get an orrder from him, ye see. I thocht a’ the time that yere gentleman maybe was a chemist. Here’s the cairrrds!’
He reappeared with a cardboard box in which little bundles of business-cards were held together with elastic bands. With maddening deliberation he at last selected one of these, pulled off the band and began to turn over the cards. Roger watched him breathlessly, and even Alec looked decidedly interested.
‘Here we aire!’ said the assistant with much satisfaction at last, holding one of the cards up to his spectacles and looking at it intently. ‘Two ounces of best white arsenic, on the seventh of July, wanted for a manufactory process in connection wi’—I canna richtly read for the moment what—’
‘L-let me have a look at it!’ Roger interrupted unsteadily, stifling an insane desire to hurl himself upon the bleating little old man, and tear the card out of his grasp.
But that individual was not a Scotch business man for nothing. With an unmistakable gesture of caution he stepped back from the counter arid regarded Roger over the top of his spectacles.
‘Wull I get the Courier’s money if I show you this cairrd?’ he asked carefully.
‘You wull,’ Roger choked. ‘By the nine gods I swear it. And I’ll name a trysting day if you like. Only for heaven’s sake hand it over!’
‘Hoo much?’
‘Oh—oh, whatever you like!’
‘Five poonds?’
‘Five poonds? Lord, yes, I’ll see you get five poonds. Honest to goodness, I will. Oh, tell me a Scotch deity to swear by, Alec!’
‘Ah’ll get five poonds if I let you tak’ a luke at this cairrrd?’ repeated the assistant, who clearly preferred things quite cut and dried.
Roger leaned over the counter. ‘You’ll get five pounds if you let us look at that card; and if you don’t hurry up, you won’t need it, because you’ll be dead.’
‘Then Ah’ll tak’ it noo,’ said the assistant with simple dignity.
Roger tremblingly counted out five pound notes. A moment later the precious card was in his hands. He stared at it with bulging eyes, while Alec peered over his shoulder. Printed upon it plain for all men to read were these words: ‘Thomas Bentley & Sons, Ltd., Import and Export Merchants.’
‘Well, I’m damned!’ said Roger.
‘Good Lord!’ said Alec.
In silence they turned their eyes upon the little old assistant.
‘Do you ever read the newspapers?’ Roger asked him reverently.
‘Aye. Whiles I do.’
‘You do?’
‘Aye. Whiles. I hae the Peebles Gazette sent on to me maist every week by ma dochter. But I dinna always read it, ye ken; I dae verra little licht reading.’
In silence Roger and Alec turned their eyes back to each other. In silence they turned on their heels and marched out of the barn-like place.
‘Hey! Hech!’ cried the little old assistant after them, rendered since the receipt of his five pounds almost incoherently Caledonian. ‘Hooch! Ah wornt thart cairrrrrd barck!’
They paid no heed. It is doubtful whether they even heard him.
On the pavement outside they halted and faced one another.
‘The Wychford Poisoning Mystery is solved,’ said Roger in hushed tones.
‘Who’d have thought it of the blighter?’ grunted Alec.
‘Brother William!’ intoned Roger and Alec in unison.