“That’s all right; your expert knowledge is of value. We can probably now exclude the bottle straight away and concentrate on the decanter.”
“Just so,” replied Mr. Egg. “Ye-es. Do you happen to know how many of the six dozen bottles had been used?”
“No, but Craven can tell us, if you really want to know.”
“Just for my own satisfaction,” said Mr. Egg. “Just to be sure that this is the right bottle, you know. I shouldn’t like to feel I might have misled you in any way.”
The inspector rang the bell and the butler promptly appeared — an elderly man of intensely respectable appearance.
“Craven,” said the inspector, “this is Mr. Egg of Plummet & Rose’s.”
“I am already acquainted with Mr. Egg.”
“Quite. He is naturally interested in the history of the port wine. He would like to know — what is it, exactly, Mr. Egg?”
“This bottle,” said Monty, rapping it lightly with his fingernail, “it’s the one you opened last night?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sure of that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How many dozen have you got left?”
“I couldn’t say off-hand, sir, without the cellar-book.”
“And that’s in the cellar, eh? I’d like to have a look at your cellars — I’m told they’re very fine. Ail in apple-pie order, I’m sure. Right temperature and all that?”
“Undoubtedly, sir.”
“We’ll all go and look at the cellar,” suggested the inspector, who in spite of his expressed confidence seemed to have doubts about leaving Mr. Egg alone with the butler.
Craven bowed and led the way, pausing only to fetch the keys from his pantry.
“This nicotine, now,” prattled Mr. Egg, as they proceeded down a long corridor, “is it very deadly? I mean, would you require a great quantity of it to poison a person?”
“I understand from the doctor,” replied the inspector, “that a few drops of the pure extract, or whatever they call it, would produce death in anything from twenty minutes to seven or eight hours.”
“Dear, dear!” said Mr. Egg. “And how much of the port had the poor old gentleman taken? The full two glasses?”
“Yes, sir; to judge by the decanter, he had. Lord Borrodale had the habit of drinking his port straight off. He did not sip it, sir.”
Mr. Egg was distressed.
“Not the right thing at all,” he said mournfully. “No, no. Smell, sip, and savor to bring out the flavor — that’s the rule for wine, you know. Is there such a thing as a pond or stream in the garden, Mr. Craven?”
“No, sir,” said the butler, a little surprised.
“Ah! I was just wondering. Somebody must have brought the nicotine along in something or other, you know. What would they do afterwards with the little bottle or whatever it was?”
“Easy enough to throw it in among the bushes or bury it, surely,” said Craven. “There’s six acres of garden, not counting the meadow or the courtyard. Or there are the water-butts, of course, and the well.”
“How stupid of me,” confessed Mr. Egg. “I never thought of that. Ah! this is the cellar, is it? Splendid — a real slap-up outfit, I call this. Nice, even temperature, too. Same summer and winter, eh? Well away from the house-furnace?”
“Oh, yes, indeed, sir. That’s the other side of the house. Be careful of the last step, gentlemen; it’s a little broken away. Here is where the Dow ’08 stood, sir. No. 17 bin — one, two, three and a half dozen remaining, sir.”
Mr. Egg nodded and holding his electric torch close to the protruding necks of the bottles, made a careful examination of the seals.
“Yes,” he said, “here they are. Three and a half dozen, as you say. Sad to think that the throat they should have gone down lies, as you might say, closed up by Death. I often think, as I make my rounds, what a pity it is we don’t all grow mellower and softer in our old age, same as this wine. A fine old gentleman, Lord Borrodale, or so I’m told, but something of a tough nut, if that’s not disrespectful.”
“He was hard, sir,” agreed the butler, “but just. A very just master.”
“Quite,” said Mr. Egg. “And these, I take it, are the empties. Twelve, twenty-four, twenty-nine — and one is thirty — and three and a half dozen is forty-two — seventy-two — six dozen — that’s O.K. by me.” He lifted the empty bottles one by one. “They say dead men tell no tales, but they talk to little Monty Egg all right. This one, for instance. If this ever held Plummet & Rose’s Dow ’08 you can take Monty Egg and scramble him. Wrong smell, wrong crust, and that splash of whitewash was never put on by our cellar-man. Very easy to mix up one empty bottle with another. Twelve, twenty-four, twenty-eight and one is twenty-nine. I wonder what’s become of the thirtieth bottle.”
“I’m sure I never took one away,” said the butler.
“The pantry keys — on a nail inside the door — very accessible,” said Monty.
“Just a moment,” interrupted the inspector. “Do you say that that bottle doesn’t belong to the same bunch of port wine?”
“No, it doesn’t — but no doubt Lord Borrodale sometimes went in for a change of vintage.” Mr. Egg inverted the bottle and shook it sharply. “Quite dry. Curious. Had a dead spider at the bottom of it. You’d be surprised how long a spider can exist without food. Curious that this empty bottle, which comes in the middle of the row, should be drier than the one at the beginning of the row and should contain a dead spider. We see a deal of curious things in our calling, inspector — we’re encouraged to notice things, as you might say. ‘The salesman with the open eye sees commissions mount up high.’ You might call this bottle a curious thing. And here’s another. That other bottle — the one you said was opened last night, Craven — how did you come to make a mistake like that? If my nose is to be trusted, not to mention my palate, that bottle’s been open a week at least.”
“Has it indeed, sir? I’m sure it’s the one I put here at the end of this row. Somebody must have been and changed it.”
“But—” said the inspector. He stopped in mid-speech, as though struck by a sudden thought. “I think you’d better let me have those cellar keys of yours, Craven, and we’ll get this cellar properly examined. That’ll do for the moment. If you’ll just step upstairs with me, Mr. Egg, I’d like a word with you.”
“Always happy to oblige,” said Monty agreeably. They returned to the upper air.
“I don’t know if you realize, Mr. Egg,” observed the inspector, “the bearing, or, as I might say, the inference of what you said just now. Supposing you’re right about this bottle not being the right one, somebody’s changed it on purpose, and the right one’s missing. And, what’s more, the person that changed the bottle left no fingerprints behind him — or her.”
“I see what you mean,” said Mr. Egg, who had indeed, drawn this inference some time ago, “and what’s more, it looks as if the poison had been in the bottle after all, doesn’t it? And that — you’re going to say — is a serious look-out for Plummet & Rose, seeing there’s no doubt our seal was on the bottle when it was brought into Lord Borrodale’s room. I don’t deny it, inspector. It’s useless to bluster and say ‘No, no,’ when it’s perfectly clear that the facts are so. That’s a very useful motto for a man that wants to get on in our line of business.”
“Well, Mr. Egg,” said the inspector, laughing, “what will you say to the next inference? Since nobody but you had any interest in changing that bottle over, it looks as though I ought to clap the handcuffs on you.”