“No — er — no!” Habershon was disconcerted. 7116 revolver had not figured even in Plan B. “I missed it years ago. I suppose it was stolen.”
Karslake had winced at the question. Rason, instead of following it up, was fooling with the coffee pot and a tape measure. Karslake cut in with his own question.
“When you were in the sitting-room, was there a typewriter on the table — or a comptometer?”
“I don’t remember noticing one.” Plan B covered that question. “I read in the papers of something of the kind being used to send a signal in Morse, but I can’t offer any suggestion.”
Rason had produced another photograph from his dispatch case.
“Take a look at that, Mr. Habershon.”
Habershon took the photograph, mounted on a millboard. He caught his breath and nearly dropped it.
It was a photograph of Webber taken after death, emphasizing the “death position enigma.”
“I confess I find that somewhat — er — nauseating!” said Habershon.
“Then keep your eye on the diagram at the side,” snapped Rason. “Note that dotted line down from the dead man’s arm to the table. That arm was standing nine and a half inches above the table in midair. Got that? Your coffee pot is exactly nine and a half inches high! You collected that set some hours after you’d shot him, Habershon.”
“I — er—”
“Shut up! Anything you say will be used in evidence against you. Not that it matters what you say now. Here’s the set-up!”
Rason leaned over the dining table, his left hand near his ear, as if holding a telephone receiver. His right arm was partly extended, the forearm resting on the castellated roof of the coffee pot.
“Thumb seven and a half inches above the table. If you measure this, Mr. Karslake, you’ll find it’s okay.”
He turned his right thumb down till the tip rested on the knob on the lid of the milk jug. Half of the metal lid sprang up on its counterpoise like a jack-in-the-box.
Rason stabbed with his thumb. Three short — three long — three short.
Le Château de L’arsenic
by Georges Simenon
He hesitated a moment. Then he stood on tiptoe and rang the bell. He was a small man, and the bell was situated in an abnormally high position. The Little Doctor knew that he was being watched — not only from inside the château but from the houses in the village, where they must be wondering who, at such a time, would dare to ring this bell.
He was in a village in a clearing in the forest of Orleans, but the clearing was rather small for the château and the few surrounding cottages. The forest seemed to overflow, stifling the village, and you felt that the sun had difficulty in getting through the thick branches. A few thatched roofs, a grocer’s shop, an inn — all low, narrow houses — and then the château, too large, too old, falling to ruin and looking like an impoverished aristocrat in rags, but rags which had once been well cut.
On the first floor a curtain moved. A pale face appeared for a moment at one of the windows.
Finally, a servant came to the door. She was a girl of about twenty to twenty-five, pleasant-looking, prettier than you would have expected to find in such a place.
“What do you want?” she asked him.
“I want a word with Monsieur Mordaut.”
“Have you an appointment?” she asked.
“No.”
“Are you from the Public Prosecutor?”
“No, but if you would be good enough to give him my card...”
She went away. A little later she came back with another servant, a woman of about fifty with a forbidding face.
“What do you want with Monsieur Mordaut?”
Then the Little Doctor, despairing of ever passing this closely guarded gate, spoke frankly. “I have come about the poisonings,” he said, with the same charming smile he would have used to give someone a box of chocolates. The face had reappeared behind the first-floor window. Probably Monsieur Mordaut.
“Come in, please.” he said. “Is that your car? You had better drive it in too, or the children will soon be throwing stones at it.”
The drawing-room, like the exterior of the château, was sad and dusty. So also was Monsieur Mordaut in his long, old-fashioned jacket, and with his sunken cheeks covered by a lichen-like, short, dirty gray beard.
“Good morning, sir,” said the Little Doctor. “I must apologize for having almost forced an entry, particularly as you have probably never so much as heard of my name.”
“No, I haven’t,” said Monsieur Mordaut with a shake of his head.
“Well, sir, as others are interested in handwriting or palmistry, I have a passion for human problems — for the puzzles which, in their early stages, are nearly always crimes.”
“Pray continue.”
“I have been extremely interested in the rumors which have been current for some time about you and this château. I came here to discover the truth; that is to say, to find out whether you murdered your aunt Emilie Duplantet; then your wife, who was Félicie Maloir before you married her; and lastly your niece, Solange Duplantet.”
It was the first time that the Little Doctor had addressed such a speech to another human being, and his nervousness was aggravated by the fact that he was cut off from the world by a long corridor, with innumerable doors leading off it. Monsieur Mordaut had not stirred. At the end of a long piece of black cord he swung an old-fashioned eyeglass; his expression was infinitely sad.
“You were right to speak frankly... Will you have something to drink?”
In spite of himself the Little Doctor shivered. It is somewhat disconcerting to be offered a drink by a man you don’t know, and whom, in a slightly indelicate fashion, you have just accused of being a poisoner.
“Please don’t be afraid. I’ll drink out of the bottle before you. Did you come by the village?”
“I stopped at the inn for a minute to book a room.”
“That was unnecessary, Monsieur... Monsieur...”
“Jean Dollent.”
“I would be honored, Monsieur Dollent, if you would stay here.”
Monsieur Mordaut uncorked a dusty bottle of an unusual shape. Almost without thinking, the Little Doctor drank one of the best wines he had ever tasted.
“You must stay here as long as you please. You must have your meals with us. You shall have the run of the château, and I will answer all your questions to the best of my ability. Excuse me a moment.”
He pulled a long woollen cord, and somewhere in the building a reedy bell sounded. Then the old servant who had opened the door to Dollent appeared.
“Ernestine, please lay another place at table. Also prepare the green room for monsieur. He is to be treated here as if it were his own house, and you must answer any questions he puts to you.”
Once more alone with Dollent, he sighed. “You are probably surprised by this reception. But there are, Monsieur Dollent, moments when one jumps at no matter what chance of salvation. If a fortune-teller, a fakir or a dervish offered to help me, I would treat him in the same way.”
He spoke slowly, in a tired voice, fixing his eyes on the worn carpet while, with exaggerated care, he wiped the lens of the eyeglass which he never used.
“I am a man who has been pursued from birth by ill luck. If there were competitions of bad luck, championships for bad luck, I would be certain to win. I was born to attract unhappiness, not only to myself, but to all those around me.
“My grandparents were extremely rich. My grandfather Mordaut built a large part of the Haussmann area in Paris and was worth millions. The day I was born he hanged himself because of some political scandal in which he was involved. As a result of the shock, my mother developed puerperal fever and died within three days. My father tried to make good his father’s losses — but of his whole fortune only this château remained. I came here when I was five. Playing in the tower I accidentally set fire to a whole wing, which was destroyed, and with it many objects of value.”