“Cases have been known,” continued Hannasyde, “where nicotine has either been injected subcutaneously, or even absorbed through the skin, with fatal results. There was apparently an instance once, years ago, of a whole squadron of Hussars being made ill by trying to smuggle tobacco next to their skins.”
“There you are! What did I tell you?” said the Sergeant. “Nice, simple case we've got when we don't even know whether the poor fellow drank the dope or had it poured over him! One thing, it looks as though whoever did the murder knew a bit about poisons.”
“Y—es. Or had read it up,” said Hannasyde. “As far as I can see it ought not to be a very difficult matter—given a little chemical knowledge—to prepare nicotine. What did you get out of the servants, Hemingway?”
“Plenty,” answered the Sergeant promptly. “A sight too much for my taste. According to them any one of the family would have been glad of the chance to do old Matthews in. Proper sort of tyrant he seems to have been. The cook thinks it was Mrs Matthews, on account of the old man wanting to ship his nephew off to Brazil, but what's the use of that? I don't say it isn't good psychology. It is. But so far I don't get any sort of line on the Matthews dame. No evidence. Then there's a classy bit of goods, calling herself Rose Daventry. If you was to ask me what I think about her, Super, I'd tell you only that I wouldn't like to use a word that might shock the Inspector.”
Inspector Davis grinned. “I know her,” he said.
“Well, she thinks the niece did it, because her uncle didn't cotton to her marrying the doctor. At least, that's the reason she gave me, but what she meant was that Miss Stella Mathews makes a lot more work in the house than little Rosebud likes. After that I had a go at the under-housemaid. Country girl, name of Stevens. She doesn't think anything, never having been brought up to it. Ruling out a couple of gardeners and the kitchen maid, there's the butler. I've got his evidence taped for you, Chief, and it's the best of a bad lot, which is all I'll say for it. Main points being that when he went up to bed a few minutes after eleven he saw Miss Harriet Matthews come out of her brother's room.”
“Did he indeed?” said Hannasyde. “That's interesting. She gave me to understand that she didn't see Matthews, after he went up to bed.”
“Well, if you're pleased, Super, it's O.K. by me,” said the Sergeant. “But if you know what motive she had for doing the old boy in, you know a sight more than I could find out.”
“She's a very eccentric kind of woman,” said the Inspector thoughtfully. “Regular cough-drop.”
“Well, I'm bound to say I haven't so far come across a case of anyone doing a murder just because they were eccentric,” said the Sergeant, “but that isn't to say I won't. Maybe you'll like my next bit of evidence. According to Beecher, there was a brand-new bottle of some tonic or other blown over into the washbasin in Matthews' bathroom, and consequently smashed. Miss Harriet found it, and disposed of the bits of glass by dropping them into the kitchen-stove. Seems a funny thing to do, to my way of thinking, but the servants made nothing of it. Said it was the sort of silly trick she would get up to. My last titbit is highly scandalous. They say the doctor drinks. Beecher-the-Butler has it firmly wedged in his head that Matthews had got something on the doctor, but unless it was him being over-fond of the bottle he doesn't know what it may have been.”
“The doctor gave me a perfectly straightforward account of that,” replied Hannasyde. “Matthews appears to have threatened to broadcast the fact that Fielding's father died in an Inebriates' Home if Fielding didn't leave his niece alone.”
The Sergeant opened his eyes at that. “What things they do get up to in the suburbs!” he remarked admiringly. “Now, some people might call that blackmail, Super.”
Hannasyde nodded. “I do myself.”
“Blackmail's one of the most powerful motives for murder I know, Super.”
“Admittedly. But I didn't get the impression that Fielding was so desperately in love with Miss Stella that he'd commit murder on her account.”
The Inspector, who had been listening with knit brows, said: “It wouldn't surprise me if the doctor thought Miss Stella was going to inherit a tidy little fortune. I'd have gone bail myself Matthews would have left the lot to her, or most of it anyway. Very fond of her he was, judging from all I hear. Gave her a Riley Sports car only six months ago, and he wasn't the sort to give anything to someone he didn't like a good bit.”
Hannasyde was silent for a moment. Then he said: “Why nicotine? He's been attending Matthews, and we know that Matthews' wasn't a good life. If he'd wanted to murder him wouldn't he have done it gradually, so that no one would ever have suspected?”
“There's that, of course,” agreed Hemingway. “On the other hand, nicotine looks to me like the very poison you wouldn't expect a doctor to use. How's that, Chief?”
“Yes, I had thought of that,” said Hannasyde.
“That's where psychology comes in,” said the Sergeant briskly. “What's our next move?”
“I've got to see Mrs Lupton, Matthews' elder sister. It transpired that it was she who demanded the P.M.”
“Well, well, well!” said the Sergeant “So it wasn't Plausible Percy after all? Now we are getting somewhere!”
“If you mean that it wasn't Fielding,” said Hannasyde patiently, “no, it wasn't. But as he seems, according to all the evidence I've heard yet, to have been perfectly willing, and even anxious to have the P.M., I don't think we're getting as far as you imagine. We'll see what Mrs Lupton has to tell us, and then I must pay a call on the heir.”
“Who's he?” inquired the Sergeant.
“He,” said Hannasyde slowly, “is Gregory Matthews' eldest nephew. He lives in town, and I shall be interested to make his acquaintance. From all I can gather he seems to be an extremely unpopular and unpleasant gentleman.”
“This is a new one on me,” remarked the Sergeant. “Where does he come into the case?”
Hannasyde gave a laugh. “That's the snag, Skipper. He doesn't. And I can't help feeling that he's the very person who ought to!”
Chapter Five
“Women!” said the Inspector, half-an-hour later. “Women!”
They had just come away from an interview with Gertrude Lupton, and there was some excuse for the Inspector's voice of loathing. Hannasyde laughed, but Sergeant Hemingway, always interested in new types, said: “Now this is what I call a nice morning. You wouldn't believe anyone would start a scandal in the family just for the fun of it, would you?”
“Not fun, jealousy,” Hannasyde corrected. “And she happened to be right”
“Right or wrong, it's my belief she hadn't a bit of reason for wanting that post-mortem,” said the indignant Inspector. “I'm not surprised her husband looked so uncomfortable. More shame to him, letting her run riot the way she does!”
“Poor devil!” said Hannasyde. “All the same, but for her there wouldn't have been a case at all, so really we've nothing to grumble about, whatever her motive may have been.”
The Sergeant scratched the tip of his nose in a reflective manner. “No motive. Bit of womanly intuition, if you ask me. Funny things, women.”
“You don't believe in that, do you?” asked the Inspector scornfully.
The Sergeant looked at him with a penetrating eye. “You a married man, Inspector?”
“I'm not.”
“That was what you call a rhetorical question,” said the Sergeant. “I know you aren't. You'd believe in woman's instinct fast enough if you were. Why, they're always having fits of it, even the best of them, and about once in a dozen times it turns out to be right. Granite-faced Gertrude had a Feeling someone did her brother in, and if you knew as much about woman's Feelings as I do, you wouldn't go around saying she did it out of spite. Not she! What she thought was: "I don't like any of the people in this house." And believe me, Inspector, once a woman gets a thought like that into her head she'll develop a Feeling against the whole lot in double-quick time.”