"It comes to this, doesn't it," said Dalgleish. "If, as I am now assuming, the post-mortem shows that Miss Jupp was drugged and the analysis of the cocoa shows that the drug was in her last night drink, then we are faced with two possibilities. She could have taken the drug herself, perhaps for no worse reason than to get a good sleep after the excitement of the day. Or someone else drugged her for a reason which we must discover but which is not so difficult to guess. Miss Jupp, as far as is known, was a healthy young woman. If this crime was premeditated her murderer must have considered how he - or she - could get into that room and kill the girl with the least possible disturbance. To drug her is an obvious answer. That supposes that the murderer is familiar with the evening drink routine at Martingale and knew where the drugs were kept. I suppose a member of your household or a guest is familiar with your household routine?"
"Surely then he would know that the Wedgwood beaker belonged to my daughter. Are you satisfied, Inspector, that the drug was intended for Sally?"
"Not entirely. But I am satisfied that the killer did not mistake Miss Jupp's neck for Mrs. Riscoe's. Let us assume for the present that the drug was intended for Miss Jupp. It could have been put into the saucepan of milk, the Wedgwood beaker itself either before or after the drink was made, into the tin of cocoa, or into the sugar. You and Miss Bowers made your drinks from the milk in the same saucepan and sugared them from the bowl on the table without ill effects. I don't think that the drug was put in the empty beaker. It was brownish in color and would be easily seen against the blue China. That leaves us with two possibilities. Either it was crumbled into the dry cocoa or it was dissolved in the hot drink some time after Miss Jupp made it but before she drank it." ‹(I don't think the latter is possible, Inspector. Mrs. Bultitaft always puts on the hot milk at ten. At about twenty-five minutes past we saw Sally carrying her mug up to her room."
"Who do you mean by 'we', Mrs.
Maxie?"
"Dr. Epps, Miss Liddell and I myself saw her. I'd been upstairs with Miss Liddell to fetch her coat. When we came back into the hall Dr. Epps joined us from the business room. As we stood there together Sally came from the kitchen end of the house and went up the main she was with you?"
"No. Neither of us did. My son had given his father something earlier to make him sleep and he appeared to be dozing.
There was nothing to do for him except make his bed as comfortable as possible. I was glad of Miss Bowers's help. She is a trained nurse and, together, we were able to tidy the bed without disturbing him."
"What were Miss Bowers's relations with Dr. Maxie?"
"As far as I know Miss Bowers is a friend of both my children. That is the kind of question which it would be better to ask them and her."
"She and your son are not engaged to be married as far as you know?"
"I know nothing about their personal affairs. I should have thought it unlikely."
"Thank you," said Dalgleish. "I will see Mrs. Riscoe now if you will be good enough to send her in."
He rose to open the door for Mrs. Maxie but she did not move. She said, "I still believe that Sally took that drug herself. There's no reasonable alternative.
But if someone else did administer it then I agree with you that it must have been put into the dry cocoa. Forgive me - but wouldn't you be able to tell that from an examination of the tin and its contents?"
"We might have been," replied Dalgleish gravely. "But the empty tin was found in the dustbin. It had been rinsed out. The inner paper lining isn't there. It was probably burnt in the kitchen stove.
Someone was making assurance doubly sure."
"A very cool lady, sir," said Sergeant Martin when Mrs. Maxie had left them.
He added with unaccustomed humor, "She sat there like a Liberal candidate waiting for the recount."
"Yes," agreed Dalgleish dryly. "But with every confidence in her Party organization. Well, let's hear what the rest of them have to tell us."
It was a very different room from last time, thought Felix, but that room, too, had been quiet and peaceful. There had been pictures and a heavy mahogany desk not unlike the one Dalgleish was sitting at now. There had been flowers, too, a small posy arranged in a bowl hardly larger than a teacup. Everything about that room had been homely and comfortable, even the man behind the desk with his plump white hands, his smiling eyes behind the thick spectacles. The room had retained that look. It was surprising how many procedures there were for the extracting of truth which did not shed blood, were calculatedly unmessy, did not require very much in the way of apparatus. He wrenched memory back and made himself look at the figure at the desk. The folded hands were leaner, the eyes dark and less kind. There was only one other person in the room and he, too, was an English policeman. This was Martingale. This was England.
So far it had not gone too badly.
Deborah had been absent for half an hour. When she returned she walked to her seat without looking at him and he, just as silently, got up and followed the uniformed policeman into the business room. He was glad that he had resisted the desire to have a drink before his questioning and that he had refused Dalgleish's proffered cigarette. That was an old one! They couldn't catch him that way! He wasn't going to make them a present of his nervousness. If only he could keep his temper all would be well.
The patient man behind the desk looked at his notes.
"Thank you. That's clear so far. Now may we please go back a little? After coffee you went with Mrs. Riscoe to help wash up the dinner things. At about nine-thirty you both returned to this room where Mrs. Maxie, Miss Liddell, Miss Bowers and Dr. Epps were counting the money taken at the fete. You told them that you and Mrs. Riscoe were going out and you said 'Good night' to Miss Liddell and Dr. Epps, who would probably have left Martingale by the time you returned.
Mrs. Maxie said that she would leave one of the french windows in the drawingroom open for you and asked you to lock it when you had come in. This arrangement was heard by everyone who was in the room at the time?"
"As far as I know it was. No one commented on it and, as they were busy counting money, I doubt whether they took it in." ‹I find it surprising that the drawingroom window was left unlatched for you when the back door was also open. Isn't that a Stubbs on the wall behind you?
This house has several very fine things which are easily portable."
Felix did not turn his head.
"The cultured cop! I thought they were peculiar to detective novels.
Congratulations! But the Maxies don't advertise their possessions. There's no danger from the village. People have been wandering in and out of this house pretty freely for the last three hundred years.
The locking-up here is rather haphazard except for the front door. That is ritually bolted and barred every night by Stephen Maxie or his sister almost as if it had some esoteric significance. Apart from that, they aren't thorough. In that, as in other matters, they appear to rely on our wonderful police."
"Right! You went out into the garden with Mrs. Riscoe at about nine-thirty p.m. and walked there together. What did you talk about, Mr. Hearne?"
"I asked Mrs. Riscoe to marry me. I am going out to our Canadian house in two months' time and I thought it might be pleasant to combine business with a honeymoon."