“As long as Mrs. Wrayburn lived, he was fairly safe, for he only had to pay to her the sums necessary to keep up her house and establishment. In fact, all the household bills and so on were settled by him as her man of affairs under Power of Attorney, all salaries were paid by him, and so long as he did this, it was nobody’s business to ask what he had done with the capital. But as soon as Mrs. Wrayburn died, he would have to account to the other heir, Philip Boyes, for the capital which he had misappropriated.
“Now in 1929, just about the time that Philip Boyes quarrelled with Miss Vane, Mrs. Wrayburn had a serious attack of illness and very nearly died. The danger passed, but might recur at any moment. Almost immediately afterwards we find him becoming friendly with Philip Boyes and inviting him to stay at his house. While living with Urquhart, Boyes has three attacks of illness, attributed by his doctor to gastritis, but equally consistent with arsenical poisoning. In June 1929, Philip Boyes goes away to Wales and his health improves.
“While Philip Boyes is absent, Mrs. Wrayburn has another alarming attack, and Urquhart hastens up to Windle, possibly with the idea of destroying the will in case the worst happens. It does not happen, and he comes back to London, just in time to receive Boyes on his return from Wales. That night, Boyes is taken ill with symptoms similar to those of the previous spring, but much more violent. After three days he dies.
“Urquhart is now perfectly safe. As residuary legatee, he will receive, at Mrs. Wrayburn’s death, all the money bequeathed to Philip Boyes. That is, he will not get it, because he has already taken it and lost it, but he will no longer be called upon to produce it and his fraudulent dealings will not be exposed.
“So far, the evidence as to motive is extremely cogent, and far more convincing than the evidence against Miss Vane.
“But here is your snag, Wimsey. When and how was the poison administered? We know that Miss Vane possessed arsenic and that she could easily have given it to him without witnesses. But Urquhart’s only opportunity was at the dinner he shared with Boyes, and if anything in this case is certain, it is that the poison was not administered at that dinner. Everything which Boyes ate or drank was equally eaten and drunk by Urquhart and/or the servants, with the single exception of the burgundy, which was preserved and analysed and found to be harmless.”
“I know,” said Wimsey, “but that is what is so suspicious. Did you ever hear of a meal hedged round with such precautions? It’s not natural, Charles. There’s the sherry, poured out by the maid from the original bottle, the soup, fish and casseroled chicken – so impossible to poison in one portion without poisoning the whole – the omelette, so ostentatiously prepared at the table by the hands of the victim – the wine, sealed up and marked – the remnants consumed in the kitchen – you would think the man had gone out of his way to construct a suspicion-proof meal. The wine is the final touch which makes the thing incredible. Do you tell me that at that earliest moment when everybody supposes the illness to be a natural one, and when the affectionate cousin ought to be overwhelmed with anxiety for the sick man, it is natural or believable that an innocent person’s mind should fly to accusations of poisoning? If he was innocent himself, then he suspected something. If he did suspect, why didn’t he tell the doctor and have the patient’s secretions and so on analysed? Why should he ever have thought of protecting himself against accusation when no accusation had been made, unless he knew that an accusation would be well-founded? And then there’s the business about the nurse.”
“Exactly. The nurse did have her suspicions.”
“If he knew about them, he ought to have taken steps to refute them in the proper way. But I don’t think he did know about them. I was referring to what you told us today. The police have got in touch with the nurse again, Miss Williams, and she tells them that Norman Urquhart took special pains never to be left alone with the patient, and never to give him any food or medicine, even when she herself was present. Doesn’t that argue a bad conscience?”
“You won’t find any lawyer or jury to believe it, Peter.”
“Yes, but look here, doesn’t it strike you as funny? Listen to this, Miss Murchison. One day the nurse was doing something or the other in the room, and she had got the medicine there on the mantelpiece. Something was said about it, and Boyes remarked, ‘Oh, don’t bother, Nurse. Norman can give me my dope.’ Does Norman say, ‘Right-ho, old man!’ as you or I would? No! He says: ‘No, I’ll leave it to Nurse – I might make a mess of it.’ Pretty feeble, what?”
“Lots of people are nervous about looking after invalids,” said Miss Murchison.
“Yes, but most people can pour stuff out of a bottle into a glass. Boyes wasn’t in extremis – he was speaking quite rationally and all that. I say the man was deliberately protecting himself.”
“Possibly,” said Parker, “but after all, old man, when did he administer the poison?”
“Probably not at the dinner at all,” said Miss Murchison. “As you say, the precautions seem rather obvious. They may have been intended to make people concentrate on the dinner and forget other possibilities. Did he have a whisky when he arrived or before he went out or anything?”
“Alas, he did not. Bunter has been cultivating Hannah Westlock almost to breach of promise point, and she says that she opened the door to Boyes on his arrival, that he went straight to his room, that Urquhart was out at the time and only came in a quarter of an hour before dinner-time, and that the two men met for the first time over the famous glass of sherry in the library. The folding-doors between the library and dining-room were open and Hannah was buzzing round the whole time laying the table, and she is sure that Boyes had the sherry and nothing but the sherry.”
“Not so much as a digestive tablet?”
“Nothing.”
“How about after dinner?”
“When they had finished the omelette, Urquhart said something about coffee. Boyes looked at his watch and said, ‘No time, old chap, I’ve got to be getting along to Doughty Street.’ Urquhart said he would ring up a taxi, and went out to do so. Boyes folded up his napkin, got up and went into the hall. Hannah followed and helped him on with his coat. The taxi arrived. Boyes got in and off he went without seeing Urquhart again.”
“It seems to me,” said Miss Murchison, “that Hannah is an exceedingly important witness for Mr. Urquhart’s defence. You don’t think – I hardly like to suggest it – but you don’t think that Bunter is allowing his feelings to overcome his judgment?”
“He says,” replied Lord Peter, “that he believes Hannah to be a sincerely religious woman. He has sat beside her in chapel and shared her hymn-book.”
“But that may be the merest hypocrisy,” said Miss Murchison, rather warmly, for she was militantly rationalist. “I don’t trust these unctuous people.
“I didn’t offer that as proof of Hannah’s virtue,” said Wimsey, “but of Bunter’s unsusceptibility.”
“But he looks like a deacon himself.”
“You’ve never seen Bunter off duty,” said Lord Peter, darkly. “I have, and I can assure you that a hymn-book would be about as softening to his heart as neat whisky to an Anglo-Indian liver. No; if Bunter says Hannah is honest, then she is honest.”
“Then that definitely cuts out the drinks and the dinner,” said Miss Murchison, unconvinced, but willing to be open minded. “How about the water-bottle in the bedroom?”
“The devil!” cried Wimsey. “That’s one up to you, Miss Murchison. We didn’t think of that. The water-bottle – yes – a perfectly fruity idea. You recollect, Charles, that in the Bravo case it was suggested that a disgruntled servant had put tartar emetic in the water-bottle. Oh, Bunter – here you are! Next time you hold Hannah’s hand, will you ask her whether Mr. Boyes drank any water from his bedroom water-bottle before dinner?”