‘I see, sir. And do the beneficiaries and the possible beneficiaries know of these provisions?’
‘Yes, they do. At one time Florian, and at another time Bernardo, was to have been my sole legatee, but Florian was led into temptation. I need not particularise. It seemed reasonable, therefore, to exercise a little — how do you call it in English? — to give him a hope for the future provided that he behaved himself and gave me no more distress of mind.’
‘Benevolent blackmail, in fact.’
‘Those are the words I wished to use. But where is all this tending?’
‘I don’t know yet,’ said Gavin, untruthfully, thankful that the old man had not, so far, seen the point of the conversation. ‘And now I wonder whether I might have a word with Mr Colwyn-Welch?’
‘Certainly, if you will kindly ring the bell. I find that even a slight exertion makes me breathless, so, if you would not mind going down to the library and sending my grandniece to me — Oh, Carrie, take Mr Gavin to the library and ask Miss Binnie to join me here.’
Left alone with Florian, Gavin took out a notebook and seated himself at the library table.
‘Now, then, young man,’ he said, in business-like tones, ‘I want some different answers from the ones you gave me last time.’
‘There aren’t any different answers,’ Florian protested. Gavin tapped on the table with the top of a silver pencil.
‘No?’ he said pleasantly. ‘Well, we can but try. You do realise, don’t you, that the poisoned chocolate-cream was intended to kill you, and not those unfortunate girls?’
Florian went white. His lip quivered.
‘Poisoned chocolate-cream?’ he said huskily.
‘Poisoned chocolate-cream. Dutch chocolate-cream. Chocolate-cream either from Amsterdam or Rotterdam, probably purchased out there and subsequently impregnated with hydrocyanic acid. Let me tell you a story. It is called, The Dog It Was That Died.’ Without a glance at the young man, who, with shaking hands, was attempting to light a cigarette, he unfolded the saga of Toby the Golloper. There was a long silence when he had finished, except that Florian, having succeeded at last in lighting the cigarette, inhaled unwisely and was subjected to a fit of coughing. Gavin waited. The paroxysm over, Florian stared into the fire, his shoulder turned away so that Gavin could not see his face.
The battle of nerves came to a sudden end.
‘All right, then,’ said Florian, turning round. ‘I did have some Dutch chocolate-cream. I did give it to the barmaid because I hate the muck and she was always eating sweets. But I didn’t give anything to the other girl — I didn’t even know the other girl — and I swear to you I had no idea the filthy stuff had poison in it!’
‘That I’m prepared to accept, and there’s no doubt that the poison was intended for you.’
Florian flung his cigarette into the fire and put his head in his hands. Gavin waited again, but this time there was no tension in the silence. Florian raised his head.
‘How much trouble is there in it for me?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ said Gavin briskly, unwilling to let him off the hook until he had obtained from him what he wanted. ‘Not a lot, I daresay, if you’ll co-operate with us instead of treating us to another spate of lying and Artful Dodging. Where did the chocolate-cream come from?’
‘I don’t know, except from Holland. It came by post, with some Dutch cigars.’
‘Any letter with it?’
‘No, nothing except the parcel.’
‘I suppose you didn’t keep the wrappings?’
‘No, of course not. It was only brown paper and so on.’
‘Postmark?’
‘I don’t remember. It was put by my plate at lunch-time by my landlady, and I just tore it open to see what it was. I only had an hour between leaving the garage and getting back there, and I always liked to drop in for a beer on my way back. My landlady’s only idea was a cup of tea, and I loathe tea, but one must drink something. Water isn’t interesting, and nobody over here makes decent coffee.’
‘Then did you hand over the chocolate-cream almost as soon as you received it?’
‘Yes. I shoved it and the small box of cigars — there were only five of them — in my overalls pocket and when I got to the pub I handed the chocolate-cream to Effie. She said, ‘Oh, ta, ducks, but I won’t eat it now, if you don’t mind. Got to have my dinner in a minute. Sure you wouldn’t like to keep a bit of it for yourself? I’m not all that keen on chocolate-cream. It’s apt to give me the bile.’
‘That’s why she gave most of it away to the other girl, then, so that takes care of that,’ said Gavin. ‘Now we come to the point. Who hates your guts sufficiently to want to murder you? Did you collect some Dutchman’s girl-friend or fall foul of a secret society while you were in the Netherlands at any time?’
Florian rallied at the sound of the jesting tone. He smiled, showing wolfish teeth. Although Gavin had heard of this hideous smile from Laura, he was taken aback by it. He had not seen it before.
‘I am circumspectness itself when I’m abroad,’ said Florian, shutting off the smile and returning his expression to its former innocence and beauty.
‘Well, who would want to kill you?’ asked Gavin. ‘One doesn’t have enemies one doesn’t know about. Come along! Two innocent women are dead, through no fault of their own, because they swallowed poison which was obviously intended for you. Don’t worry about getting somebody into trouble. Don’t you realise that, if we don’t lay hands on this joker, he’s going to try again?’
‘Well, if that’s it…’ said Florian. ‘No, dash it, I can’t! What if I should be wrong?’
‘We’ll sort that one out. Tell us what you suspect. Give us something to go on, however wrong you turn out to be.’
‘You’ll swear he’ll get a sporting chance? You won’t go and hang the wrong man?’
‘It’s clear to me that you don’t think it is the wrong man. In any case, I don’t suppose he’ll be hanged. They discriminate nowadays, you know.’
‘Oh, well, in that case… look here, I know jolly well who it was. It was my brute of a cousin, Bernardo Rose.’
‘Thanks,’ said Gavin, unemotionally. He made a note, got up, nodded to Florian and went up the stairs to Bernard van Zestien and Binnie.
‘Did you get what you wanted from Florian?’ the old man enquired. ‘Did he answer your questions?’
‘Yes, he was most informative,’ Gavin replied.
‘I am glad. He can be difficult and obstinate. Perhaps at last he is learning a little commonsense. You will stay for dinner, Mr Gavin?’
‘As Mr Gavin I should like very much to accept, sir. As Policeman Gavin, I’m afraid I must be on my way.’
He drove into Norwich, telephoned a long telegram from police headquarters there to the Superintendent in Derbyshire and booked a room for the night. In the morning, immediately after an early breakfast, he drove to Kensington and had lunch with Dame Beatrice and his wife.
‘So there it is,’ he said, when, after lunch, he had told his story. ‘I must look up Bernardo Rose’s address.’
‘It’s the same as old Rebekah’s, I expect,’ said Laura. ‘You’ll find that she and Petra and Bernardo and Bernardo’s father and mother all muck in together. What’ll you bet?’
No wager was made, but Laura turned out to be right, or near enough for Gavin’s convenience and purpose. The two households occupied identical service flats in Golders Green, one above the other in the same building. The door was opened by Petra, whom he recognised from Laura’s description. She was clad in what his old-fashioned, untutored mind informed him was a ‘confection’. It was a pyjama-style négligée in rose-pink satin ornamented with silver sequins and, in Gavin’s respectful opinion, it accorded well with her slightly olive complexion and lustrous, beautifully-dressed dark hair. She smiled at the handsome, manly visitor.