The Little Doctor went in search of Rose.
He had just made a rapid calculation. Rose had been in the house for about a year when Madame Duplantet had died from arsenic — or from a weak heart. Could one conceive of a poisoner sixteen or seventeen years old?
He listened at the door of Rose’s room, heard no sound and softly turned the handle.
“Well, come on in,” she said impatiently. “I’ve work to do.”
It was obvious that she had expected him to come. She had prepared his reception. The room had been tidied and some papers had been burned in the fireplace.
“Monsieur Mordaut gave me permission to question everyone in the house. Do you mind?”
“Go ahead. I know already what you’re going to ask me. My aunt told you I was Monsieur Mordaut’s mistress, didn’t she? The poor thing thinks of nothing else; that’s because she’s never been married or had a sweetheart.”
The Little Doctor looked at the ashes in the fireplace and asked more slowly, “Haven’t you a lover or a fiancé?”
“Wouldn’t that be natural at my age?”
“Can I know his name?”
“If you can find it out... Since you are here to look, look. Now, I must go downstairs, because it’s my day to polish the brass. Are you staying here?”
“Yes, I’ll stay here if you don’t object.”
She was annoyed, but she went out and he heard her going down the stairs. She probably didn’t know that it is possible to read the writing on burned paper. She hadn’t bothered to disperse the ashes, and there was an envelope which, being of thicker paper, had remained almost intact. At one corner the word “restante” could be made out, which led him to suppose that Rose fetched her mail from the village post office. On the other side the sender had written his address, of which the words “Colonial Infantry Regiment” and, lower down, “Ivory Coast” could be deciphered.
It was almost certain that Rose had a follower, a fiancé or a lover, who was at present stationed with his regiment in the tropics.
“I’m afraid I’m disturbing you once more, Monsieur Mordaut. You told me this morning that you felt pains from time to time. As a doctor I should like to make sure, above all, that there’s no question of slow poisoning.”
Without protest and with the trace of a bitter smile the master began to undress.
“For a long time,” he sighed, “I have been expecting to suffer the same fate as my wife and aunt. When I saw Solange Duplantet die in her turn...”
The consultation lasted half an hour, and the Little Doctor became more and more serious.
“I wouldn’t like to say anything definite, until I had consulted some colleague with more experience. Nevertheless, the discomfort you have been feeling could be caused by arsenical poisoning.”
“I told you so.” He was neither indignant nor even afraid.
“One more question. Why did you insure Ernestine’s life?”
“Did she tell you about it? Well, it’s quite simple. One day, an insurance salesman called. He was a clever young man with a persuasive manner. He pointed out that there were several of us in the house and all of us getting on in years...”
“I know exactly the arguments he used. Someone was bound to die first. It would be sad of course, but why shouldn’t it at least help you to restore the castle? If all your family died... But, excuse me,” the Little Doctor interrupted himself. “Is Hector insured too?”
“The company won’t insure mental deficients. Anyhow, I allowed myself to be persuaded, and I insured Ernestine in spite of her wonderful health.”
“Another question. Did you insure yourself?”
This idea seemed to strike him for the first time.
“No,” he said in a reflective voice.
Should one treat him as an inhuman monster, or just pity him? Or should one read the greatest cunning into everything he said? Why had he so willingly given the Little Doctor a free hand? Wouldn’t a man who was capable of poisoning his wife and two other women also be capable of swallowing poison himself, but in insufficient quantities to do any real harm?
The Little Doctor, overcome by a kind of disgust which his curiosity only just succeeded in dominating, wandered round the château and the grounds. He was standing by the gate, wondering if a stroll to the village wouldn’t be a good thing — if only for a change of atmosphere — when sounds of confusion reached him, followed by a loud cry from Ernestine.
He ran round a corner of the château.
Not far from the kitchen was an old barn containing some straw and milking utensils. Inside this building Hector lay dead, his eyes glassy, his whole face contorted. The Little Doctor did not even have to bend down to diagnose.
“A large dose of arsenic.”
Near the corpse, stretched out on the straw, lay a bottle with the inscription “Jamaica Rum.”
Monsieur Mordaut turned slowly away, a strange light in his eyes. Ernestine was crying, while Rose, standing a little on one side, kept her head lowered.
Half an hour later, while they were waiting for the police who had been summoned by telephone, the Little Doctor, his brow covered in a cold sweat, was wondering whether he would live to see the end of this investigation.
He had just elucidated, in part at least, the story of the bottle of rum.
“Don’t you remember the conversation I had with Monsieur Mordaut after lunch?” asked Ernestine. “You were there. He asked me what there was for dinner and I said ‘A vegetable soup and a cauliflower.’ ”
She was quite right. The Little Doctor remembered vaguely having heard something of the sort.
“Monsieur Mordaut replied that as you were staying here it wasn’t enough, and asked me to make a rum omelette.”
“When you need rum,” asked Dollent, “where do you get it from?”
“The cupboard in the dining room, where all the spirits are kept.”
“Have you a key?”
“No, I ask for it when I want it.”
“Did you return the key?”
“Yes, to Monsieur Mordaut.”
“What did you do with the rum?”
“Put it on the kitchen mantelpiece, while I cleaned the vegetables.”
“Did anyone come into the kitchen? Did you see Hector wandering round?”
“No.”
“Did you leave the kitchen?”
“Only for a few minutes to feed the dogs.”
“Was Hector in the habit of stealing drinks?”
“It has been known to happen. Not only drinks. He was terribly greedy; he stole anything he could lay his hands on, and went off, like a puppy, to eat it in a corner.”
What would have happened if Hector hadn’t found the bottle of arsenic and supposed it to contain rum?
Ernestine would have prepared the omelette. Would anyone have noticed an unusual taste? Wouldn’t any bitterness have been put down to the rum? Who would have managed not to eat the omelette — an omelette made in the kitchen, served by Rose, with Monsieur Mordaut, Hector and the Little Doctor in the dining room?
There was no dinner at the château that evening. The police were in possession, and two of them stationed at the gate had difficulty in restraining the crowd, which was becoming noisy.
In the dilapidated drawing-room Monsieur Mordaut, white and haggard, tried to understand the questions which were flung at him by the police. When the door opened after the interview, he was handcuffed. He was led into an adjacent room to remain in custody of two policemen.