I am in a terrible predicament, as you will see directly. I don’t know what to do . . .
‘One of the maxims which I have found most helpful in my career,’ the Superintendent was saying, ‘apart, of course, from employing a good press agent, has been the simple one that appearances are not always deceptive. A crime may be committed exactly as it seems to have been committed, and exactly as it was intended to be committed.’ He helped himself and passed the bottle.
‘I don’t think I follow you,’ I said, hoping thus to lead him on.
I am a writer of detective stories. If you have never heard of me, it can only be because you don’t read detective stories. I wrote Murder on the Back Stairs and The Mystery of the Twisted Eglantine, to mention only two of my successes. It was this fact, I think, which first interested Superintendent Frederick Mortimer in me, and, of course, me in him. He is a big fellow with the face of a Roman Emperor; I am rather the small neat type. We gradually became friends, and so got into the habit of dining together once a month, each in turn being host in his own flat. He liked talking about his cases, and naturally I liked listening. I may say now that Blood on the Eiderdown was suggested to me by an experience of his at Crouch End. He also liked putting me right when I made mistakes, as so many of us do, over such technical matters as finger-prints and Scotland Yard procedure. I had always supposed, for instance, that you could get good finger-prints from butter. This, apparently, is not the case. From buttery fingers on other objects, yes, but not from the pat of butter itself, or, anyhow, not in hot weather. This, of course, was a foolish mistake of mine, as in any case Lady Sybil would not have handled the butter directly in this way, as my detective should have seen. My detective, by the way, is called Sherman Flagg, and is pretty well known by now. Not that this is germane to my present story.
‘I don’t think I follow you,’ I said.
‘I mean that the simple way of committing a murder is often the best way. This doesn’t mean that the murderer is a man of simple mind. On the contrary. He is subtle enough to know that the simple solution is too simple to be credible.’
This sounded anything but simple, so I said, ‘Give me an example.’
‘Well, take the case of the magnum of Tokay which was sent to the Marquis of Hedingham on his lordship’s birthday. Have I never told you about it?’
‘Never.’ I said, and I, too, helped myself and passed the bottle.
He filled his glass and considered. ‘Give me a moment to get it clear,’ he said. ‘It was a long time ago.’ While he closed his eyes, and let the past drift before him, I fetched another bottle of the same: a Château Latour ‘78, of which, I understand, there is very little left in the country.
‘Yes,’ said Mortimer, opening his eyes, ‘I’ve got it now.’
I leant forward, listening eagerly. This is the story he told me.
The first we heard of it at the Yard (said Mortimer) was a brief announcement over the telephone that the Marquis of Hedingham’s butler had died suddenly at his lordship’s town house in Brook Street, and that poison was suspected. This was at 7 o’clock. We went round at once. Inspector Totman had been put in charge of the case; I was a young Detective Sergeant at the time, and I generally worked under Totman. He was a brisk, military sort of fellow, with a little prickly ginger moustache, good at his job, in a showy, orthodox way, but he had no imagination, and he was thinking all the time of what Inspector Totman would get out of it. Quite frankly I didn’t like him. Outwardly we kept friendly, for it doesn’t do to quarrel with one’s superiors; indeed, he was vain enough to think that I had a great admiration for him; but I knew that he was just using me for his own advantage, and I had a shrewd suspicion that I should have been promoted before this, if he hadn’t wanted to keep me under him so that he could profit by my brains.
We found the butler in his pantry, stretched out on the floor. An open bottle of Tokay, a broken wine-glass with the dregs of the liquid still in it, the medical evidence of poisoning, all helped to build up the story for us. The wine had arrived about an hour before, with the card of Sir William Kelso attached to it. On the card was a typewritten message, saying, ‘Bless you, Tommy, and here’s something to celebrate it with.’ Apparently it was his lordship’s birthday, and he was having a small family party for the occasion, of about six people. Sir William Kelso, I should explain, was his oldest friend and a relation by marriage, Lord Hedingham having married his sister; in fact, he was to have been one of the party present that evening. He was a bachelor, about fifty, and a devoted uncle to his nephew and nieces.
Well, the butler had brought up the bottle and the card to his lordship—this was about 6 o’clock; and Lord Hedingham, as he told us, had taken the card, said something like, ‘Good old Bill, we’ll have that to-night, Perkins,’ and Perkins had said, ‘Very good, my lord,’ and gone out again with the bottle, and the card had been left lying on the table. Afterwards, there could be little doubt what had happened. Perkins had opened the bottle with the intention of decanting it, but had been unable to resist the temptation to sample it first. I suspect that in his time he had sampled most of his lordship’s wine, but had never before come across a Tokay of such richness. So he had poured himself out a full glass, drunk it, and died almost immediately.
‘Good Heavens!’ I interrupted. ‘But how extremely providential—I mean, of course, for Lord Hedingham and the’ others.’
‘Exactly,’ said the Superintendent.
The contents of the bottle were analysed (he went on) and found to contain a more than fatal dose of prussic acid. Prussic acid isn’t a difficult thing to get hold of, so that didn’t help much. Of course we did all the routine things, and I and young Roberts, a nice young fellow who often worked with us, went round all the chemists’ shops in the neighbourhood, and Totman examined everybody from Sir William and Lord Hedingham downwards, and Roberts and I took the bottle round to all the well-known wine-merchants, and at the end of a week all we could say was this:
(1) The murderer had a motive for murdering Lord Hedingham; or, possibly, somebody at his party; or, possibly, the whole party. In accordance, we learnt, with the usual custom, his lordship would be the first to taste the wine. A sip would not be fatal, and in a wine of such richness the taste might not be noticeable; so that the whole’ party would then presumably drink his lordship’s health. He would raise his glass to them, and in this way they would all take the poison, and be affected according to how deeply they drank. On the other hand, his lordship might take a good deal more than a sip in the first place, and so be the only one to suffer. My deduction from this was that the motive was revenge rather than gain. The criminal would, revenge himself on Lord Hedingham, if his lordship or any of his family were seriously poisoned; he could only profit if definite people were definitely killed. It took a little time: to get Totman to see this, but he did eventually agree.
(2) The murderer had been able to obtain one of Sir William Kelso’s cards, and knew that John Richard Mervyn Plantaganet Carlow, 10th Marquis of Hedingham, was called ‘Tommy’ by his intimates. Totman deduced from this that he was therefore one of the Hedingham-Kelso circle of relations and friends. I disputed this. I pointed out: (a) that it was rather to strangers than to intimate friends that cards were presented; except in the case of formal calls, when they were left in a bowl or tray in the hall, and anybody could steal one; (b) that the fact that Lord Hedingham was called Tommy must have appeared in Society papers and be known to many people; and, most convincing of all, (c) that the murderer did not know that Sir William Kelso was to be in the party that night. For obviously some reference would have been made to the gift, either on his arrival or when the wine was served; whereupon he would have disclaimed any knowledge of it, and the bottle would immediately have been suspected. As it was, of course, Perkins had drunk from it before Sir William’s arrival. Now both Sir William and Lord Hedingham assured us that they always dined together on each other’s birthday, and they were convinced that any personal friend of theirs would have been aware of the fact. I made Totman question them about this, and he then came round to my opinion.
(3) There was nothing to prove that the wine in the bottle corresponded to the label; and wine experts were naturally reluctant to taste it for us. All they could say from the smell was that it was a Tokay of sorts. This, of course, made it more difficult for us. In fact, I may say that neither from the purchase of the wine nor the nature of the poison did we get any clue.
We had, then, the following picture of the murderer. He had a cause for grievance, legitimate or fancied, against Lord Hedingham, and did not scruple to take the most terrible revenge. He knew that Sir William Kelso was a friend of his lordship’s and called him Tommy, and that he might reasonably give him a bottle of wine on his birthday. He did not know that Sir William would be dining there that night; that is to say, even as late as 6 o’clock that evening, he did not know. He was not likely, therefore, to be anyone at present employed or living in Lord Hedingham’s house. Finally, he had had an opportunity, for what this was worth, to get hold of a card of Sir William’s.
As it happened, there was somebody who fitted completely into this picture. It was a fellow called—wait a bit, Merrivale, Medley—oh well, it doesn’t matter. Merton, that was it. Merton. He had been his lordship’s valet for six months, had been suspected of stealing, and dismissed without a character. Just the man we wanted. So for a fortnight we searched for Merton. And then, when at last we got on to him, we discovered that he had the most complete alibi imaginable. (The Superintendent held up his hand, and it came into my mind that he must have stopped the traffic as a young man with just that gesture.) Yes, I know what you’re going to say, what you detective-story writers always say—the better an alibi, the worse it is. Well, sometimes, I admit; but not in this case. For Merton was in gaol, under another name, and he had been inside for the last two months. And what do you think he was suspected of, and now waiting trial for? Oh well, of course you guess, I’ve as good as told you. He was on a charge of murder—and murder, mark you, by poison.
(‘Good Heavens,’ I interjected. I seized the opportunity to refill my friend’s glass. He said, ‘Exactly,’ and took a long drink. I thought fancifully that he was drinking to drown that terrible disappointment of so many years ago.)
You can imagine (he went on) what a shock this was to us. You see, a certain sort of murder had been committed; we had deduced that it was done by a certain man without knowing whether he was in the least capable of such a crime; and now, having proved to the hilt that he was capable of it, we had simultaneously proved that he didn’t do it. We had proved ourselves right—and our case mud.
I said to Totman, ‘Let’s take a couple of days off, and each of us think it out, and then pool our ideas and start afresh.’
Totman frisked up his little moustache, and laughed in his conceited way.
‘You don’t think I’m going to admit myself wrong, do you, when I’ve just proved I’m right?’ Totman saying ‘I’, when he had got everything from me! ‘Merton’s my man. He’d got the bottle ready and somebody else delivered it for him. That’s all. He had to wait for the birthday, you see, and when he found himself in prison, his wife or somebody——’
‘—took round the bottle, all nicely labelled “Poison; not to be delivered till Christmas Day”.’ I had to say it, I was so annoyed with him.
‘Don’t be more of a damned fool than you can help,’ he shouted, ‘and don’t be insolent, or you’ll get into trouble.’
I apologised humbly, and told him how much I liked working with him. He forgave me—and we were friends again. He patted me on the shoulder.
‘You take a day off,’ he said kindly, ‘you’ve been working too hard. Take a bus into the country and make up a good story for me; the story of that bottle, and how it came from Merton’s lodging to Brook Street, and who took it and why. I admit I don’t see it at present, but that’s the bottle, you can bet your life. I’m going down to Leatherhead. Report here on Friday morning, and we’ll see what we’ve got. My birthday as it happens, and I feel I’m going to be lucky.’ Leatherhead was where this old woman had been poisoned. That was the third time in a week he’d told me when his entirely misconceived birthday was. He was like that.
I took a bus to Hampstead Heath. I walked round the Leg of Mutton Pond twenty times. And each time that I went round, Totman’s theory seemed sillier than the last time. And each time I felt more and more strongly that we were being forced into an entirely artificial interpretation of things. It sounds fantastic, I know, but I could almost feel the murderer behind us, pushing us along the way he wanted us to go.
I sat down on a seat, and I filled a pipe and I said, ‘Right! The murderer’s a man who wanted me to believe all that I have believed. When I’ve told myself that the murderer intended to do so-and-so, he intended me to believe that, and therefore he didn’t do so-and-so. When I’ve told myself that the murderer wanted to mislead me, he wanted me to think he wanted to mislead me, which meant that the truth was exactly as it seemed to be. Now then, Fred, you’ll begin all over again, and you’ll take things as they are, and won’t be too clever about them. Because the murderer expects you to be clever, and wants you to be clever, and from now on you aren’t going to take your orders from him.’
And, of course, the first thing which leaped to my mind was that the murderer meant to murder the butler!
It seemed incredible now that we could ever have missed it. Didn’t every butler sample his master’s wines? Why, it was an absolute certainty that Perkins would be the first victim of a poisoned bottle of a very special vintage. What butler could resist pouring himself out a glass as he decanted it?
Wait, though. Mustn’t be in a hurry. Two objections. One: Perkins might be the one butler in a thousand who wasn’t a wine-sampler. Two: Even if he were like any other butler, he might be out of sorts on that particular evening, and have put by a glass to drink later. Wouldn’t it be much too risky for a murderer who only wanted to destroy Perkins, and had no grudge against Lord Hedingham’s family, to depend so absolutely on the butler drinking first?
For a little while this held me up, but not for long. Suddenly I saw the complete solution.
It would not be risky if (a) the murderer had certain knowledge of the butler’s habits; and (b) could, if necessary, at the last moment, prevent the family from drinking. In other words, if he were an intimate of the family, were himself present at the party, and without bringing suspicion on himself, could bring the wine under suspicion.
In other words, and only, and finally, and definitely—if he were Sir William Kelso. For Sir William was the only man in the world who could say, ‘Don’t drink this wine. I’m supposed to have sent it to you, and I didn’t, so that proves it’s a fake.’ The only man.
Why hadn’t we suspected him from the beginning? One reason, of course, was that we had supposed the intended victim to be one of the Hedingham family, and of Sir William’s devotion to his sister, brother-in-law, nephew, and nieces, there was never any doubt. But the chief reason was our assumption that the last thing a murderer would do would be to give himself away by sending his own card round with the poisoned bottle. ‘The last thing a murderer would do’—and therefore the first thing a really clever murderer would do. For it couldn’t be explained as ‘the one mistake which every murderer makes’; he couldn’t send his own card accidentally. ‘Impossible,’ we said, that a murderer should do it deliberately! But the correct answer was, Impossible that we should not be deceived if it were done deliberately—and therefore brilliantly clever.
To make my case complete to myself, for I had little hope as yet of converting Totman, I had to establish motive. Why should Sir William want to murder Perkins? I gave myself the pleasure of having tea that afternoon with Lord Hedingham’s cook-housekeeper. We had caught each other’s eye on other occasions when I had been at the house, and—well, I suppose I can say it now—I had a way with the women in those days. When I left, I knew two things. Perkins had been generally unpopular, not only downstairs, but upstairs; ‘it was a wonder how they put up with him’. And her ladyship had been ‘a different woman lately’.
‘How different?’ I asked.
‘So much younger, if you know what I mean, Sergeant Mortimer. Almost like a girl again, bless her heart.’
I did know. And that was that. Blackmail.
What was I to do? What did my evidence amount to? Nothing. It was all corroborative evidence. If Kelso had done one suspicious thing, or left one real clue, then the story I had made up would have convinced any jury. As it was, in the eyes of a jury he had done one completely unsuspicious thing, and left one real clue to his innocence—his visiting-card. Totman would just laugh at me.
I disliked the thought of being laughed at by Totman. I wondered how I could get the laugh of him. I took a bus to Baker Street, and walked into Regent’s Park, not minding where I was going, but just thinking. And then, as I got opposite Hanover Terrace, who should I see but young Roberts.
‘Hallo, young fellow, what have you been up to?’
‘Hallo, Sarge,’ he grinned. ‘Been calling on my old school-chum, Sir Woppity Wotsit—or rather, his valet. Tottie thought he might have known Merton. Speaking as one valet to another, so to speak.’
‘Is Inspector Totman back?’ I asked.
Roberts stood to attention, and said, ‘No, Sergeant Mortimer, Inspector Totman is not expected to return from Leatherhead, Surrey, until a late hour to-night.’
You couldn’t be angry with the boy. At least I couldn’t. He had no respect for anybody, but he was a good lad. And he had an eye like a hawk. Saw everything and forgot none of it.
‘I suppose by Sir Woppity Wotsit you mean Sir William Kelso?’ I said. ‘I didn’t know he lived up this way.’
Roberts pointed across the road. ‘Observe the august mansion. Five minutes ago you’d have found me in the basement, talking to a cock-eyed churchwarden who thought Merton was in Surrey. As it is, of course.’
I had a sudden crazy idea.
‘Well, now you’re going back there,’ I said. ‘I’m going to call on Sir William, and I want you handy. Would they let you in at the basement again, or are they sick of you?’
‘Sarge, they just love me. When I went, they said, “Must you go?
We say at the Yard, ‘Once a murderer, always a murderer.’ Perhaps that was why I had an absurd feeling that I should like young Roberts within call. Because I was going to tell Sir William Kelso what I’d been thinking about by the Leg of Mutton Pond. I’d only seen him once, but he gave me the idea of being the sort of man who wouldn’t mind killing, but didn’t like lying. I thought he would give himself away . . . and then—well, there might be a rough house, and young Roberts would be useful.
As we walked in at the gate together, I looked in my pocket-book for a card. Luckily I had one left, though it wasn’t very clean. Roberts, who never missed anything, said, ‘Personally I always use blotting-paper,’ and went on whistling. If I hadn’t known him, I shouldn’t have known what he was talking about. I said, ‘Oh, do you?’ and rang the bell. I gave the maid my card, and asked if Sir William could see me, and at the same time Roberts gave her a wink, and indicated the back door. She nodded to him, and asked me to come in. Roberts went down and waited for her at the basement. I felt safer.
Sir William was a big man, as big as I was. But of course a lot older. He said, ‘Well, Sergeant, what can I do for you?’ twiddling my card in his fingers. He seemed quite friendly about it. ‘Sit down, won’t you?’
I said, ‘I think I’ll stand, Sir William. I wanted just to ask you one question if I might.’ Yes, I know I was crazy, but somehow I felt kind of inspired.
‘By all means,’ he said, obviously not much interested.
‘When did you first discover that Perkins was blackmailing Lady Hedingham?’
He was standing in front of his big desk, and I was opposite to him. He stopped fiddling with my card, and became absolutely still; and there was a silence so complete that I could feel it in every nerve of my body. I kept my eyes on his, you may be sure. We stood there, I don’t know how long.
‘Is that the only question?’ he asked. The thing that frightened me was that his voice was just the same as before. Ordinary.
‘Well, just one more. Have you a Corona typewriter in your house?’ You see, we knew that a Corona had been used, but there was nothing distinctive about it, and it might have been any one in a thousand. Just corroborative evidence again, that’s all. But it told him that I knew.
He gave a long sigh, tossed the card into the waste-paper basket, and walked to the window. He stood there with his back to me, looking out but seeing nothing. Thinking. He must have stood there for a couple of minutes. Then he turned round, and to my amazement he had a friendly smile on his face. ‘I think we’d both better sit down,’ he said. We did.
‘There is a Corona in the house which I sometimes use,’ he began. ‘I dare say you use one too.’
‘I do.’
‘And so do thousands of other people—including, it may be, the murderer you are looking for.’
‘Thousands of people including the murderer,’ I agreed.
He noticed the difference, and smiled. ‘People’ I had said, not ‘other people’. And I didn’t say I was looking for him. Because I had found him.
‘So much for that. There is nothing in the actual wording of the typed message to which you would call my attention?’
‘No. Except that it was exactly right.’
‘Oh, my dear fellow, anyone could have got it right. A simple birthday greeting.’
‘Anyone in your own class, Sir William, who knew you both. But that’s all. It’s Inspector Totman’s birthday tomorrow——’ (‘As he keeps telling us, damn him,’ I added to myself.) ‘If I sent him a bottle of whisky, young Roberts—that’s the constable who’s in on this case, you may have seen him about, he’s waiting for me now down below’—I thought this was rather a neat way of getting that in—‘Roberts could make a guess at what I’d say, and so could anybody at the Yard who knows us both, and they wouldn’t be far wrong. But you couldn’t, Sir William.’
He looked at me. He couldn’t take his eyes off me. I wondered what he was thinking. At last he said:
‘A long life and all the best, with the admiring good wishes of——How’s that?’
It was devilish. First that he had really been thinking it out, when he had so much else to think about, and then that he’d got it so right. That ‘admiring’; which meant that he’d studied Totman just as he was studying me, and knew how I’d play up to him.
‘You see,’ he smiled, ‘it isn’t really difficult. And the fact that my card was used is in itself convincing evidence of my innocence, don’t you think?’
‘To a jury perhaps,’ I said, ‘but not to me.’
‘I wish I could convince you,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Well, what are you doing about it?’
‘I shall, of course, put my reconstruction of the case in front of Inspector Totman to-morrow.’
‘Ah! A nice birthday surprise for him. And, knowing your Totman, what do you think he will do?’
He had me there, and he knew it.
‘I think you know him too, Sir,’ I said.
‘I do,’ he smiled.
‘And me, I dare say, and anybody else you meet. Quick as lightning. But even ordinary men like me have a sort of sudden understanding of people sometimes. As I’ve got of you, Sir. And I’ve a sort of feeling that, if ever we get you into a witness-box, and you’ve taken the oath, you won’t find perjury so much to your liking as murder. Or what the Law calls murder.’
‘But you don’t?’ he said quickly.
‘I think,’ I said, ‘that there are a lot of people who ought to be killed. But I’m a policeman, and what I think isn’t evidence. You killed Perkins, didn’t you?’
He nodded; and said, almost with a grin at me, ‘A nervous affection of the head, if you put it in evidence. I could get a specialist to swear to it.’ My God, he was a good sort of man. I was really sorry when they found him next day on the Underground. Or what was left of him. And yet what else could he do?
I was furious with Fred Mortimer. That was no way to end a story. Suddenly, like that, as if he were tired of it. I told him so.
‘My dear little Cyril,’ he said, ‘it isn’t the end. We’re just coming to the exciting part. This will make your hair curl.’
‘Oh!’ I said sarcastically. ‘Then I suppose all that you’ve told me so far is just introduction?’
‘That’s right. Now listen. On the Friday morning, before we heard of Sir William’s death, I went in to report to Inspector Totman. He wasn’t there. Nobody knew where he was. They rang up his block of flats. Now hold tight to the leg of the table or something. When the porter got into his flat, he found Totman’s body. Poisoned.’
‘Good Heavens!’ I ejaculated.
‘You may say so. There he was, and on the table was a newly opened bottle of whisky, and by the side of it was a visiting-card. And whose card do you think it was? Mine! And what do you think it said? A long life and all the best with the admiring good wishes of—me! Lucky for me I had had young Roberts with me. Lucky for me he had this genius for noticing and remembering. Lucky for me he could swear to the exact shape of the smudge of ink on that card. And I might add, lucky for me that they believed me when I told them word for word what had been said at my interview with Sir William, as I have just told you. I was reprimanded, of course, for exceeding my duty, as I most certainly had, but that was only official. Unofficially they were very pleased with me. We couldn’t prove anything, naturally, and Sir William’s death had looked as accidental as anything could, so we just had to leave it. But a month later I was promoted to Inspector.’
He filled his glass and drank, while I revolved his extraordinary story in my mind.
‘The theory,’ I said, polishing my pince-nez thoughtfully, ‘was, I suppose, this. Sir William sent the poisoned whisky, not so much to get rid of Totman, from whom he had little to fear, as to discredit you by bringing you under suspicion, and entirely to discredit your own theory of the other murder?’
‘Exactly.’
‘And then, at the last moment, he realised that he couldn’t go on with it, or the weight of his crimes became suddenly too much for him, or——’
‘Something of the sort. Nobody ever knew, of course.’
I looked across the table with sudden excitement; almost with awe.
‘Do you remember what he said to you?’ I asked, giving the words their full meaning as I slowly quoted them. ‘“The fact that my card was used is convincing evidence of my innocence.” And you said, “Not to me.” And he said, “I wish I could convince you.” And that was how he did it! The fact that your card was used was convincing evidence of your innocence!’
‘With the other things. The proof that he was in possession of the particular card of mine which was used, and the certainty that he had committed the other murder. Once a poisoner, always a poisoner.’
‘True . . . yes . . . Well, thanks very much for the story, Fred. All the same, you know,’ I said, shaking my head at him, ‘it doesn’t altogether prove what you set out to prove.’
‘What was that?’
‘That the simple explanation is generally the true one. In the case of Perkins, yes. But not in the case of Totman.’
‘Sorry, I don’t follow.’
‘My dear fellow,’ I said, putting up a finger to emphasise my point, for he seemed a little hazy with the wine suddenly; ‘the simple explanation of Totman’s death—surely?—would have been that you had sent him the poisoned whisky.’
Superintendent Mortimer looked a little surprised.
‘But I did,’ he said.
So now you see my terrible predicament. I could hardly listen as he went on dreamily: ‘I never liked Totman, and he stood in my way; but I hadn’t seriously thought of getting rid of him, until I got that card into my hands again. As I told you, he dropped it into the basket, and turned to the window, and I thought, “Damn it, you can afford to chuck about visiting-cards, but I can’t, and it’s the only one I’ve got left, and if you don’t want it, I do.” So I bent down very naturally to do up my boot-lace, and felt in the basket behind me, because of course it was rather an undignified thing to do, and I didn’t want to be seen; and it was just as I was putting it into my pocket that I saw that ink-smudge again, and I remembered that Roberts had seen it. And in a flash the whole plan came to me; simple; fool-proof. And from that moment everything I said to him was in preparation of it. Course we were quite alone, but you never know who might be listening, and besides’—he twiddled the stem of his empty wine-glass—‘p’r’aps I’m like Sir William, rather tell the truth than not, and it was true, all of it, as I told the Super, how Sir William came to know about Totman’s birthday, and knew that those were the very words I should have used. Made it very convincing, me just repeating to the Super what had really been said. Don’t think I wanted to put anything on to Sir William that wasn’t his. I liked him. But he as good as told me he wasn’t going to wait for what was coming to him, and he’d done one murder anyway. That was why I slipped down with the bottle that evening, and left it outside Totman’s flat. Didn’t dare wait till the morning, in case Sir William closed his account that night.’ He stood up and stretched himself. ‘Ah, well, it was a long time ago. Good-bye, old man, I must be off. Thanks for a grand dinner. Don’t forget, you’re dining with me next month. I’ve got a new cocktail for you. You’ll like it.’—He swaggered out, leaving me to my thoughts.
‘Once a murderer, always a murderer . . .’ And tomorrow he will wake up and remember what he has told me! And I shall be the only person in the world who knows his secret! . . .
Perhaps he won’t remember. Perhaps he was drunk . . .
In vino veritas. Wasn’t it the younger Pliny who said that? A profound observation. Truth in the bottle . . .
‘Once a poisoner, always a poisoner . . .’
‘I’ve got a new cocktail for you. You’ll like it.’
Yes, but—shall I?