"Like myself," said Sir Charles impressively, "you cannot fail to grasp the significance of this. According to the will then in existence, Lady Pennefather from being not even comfortably off would become a comparatively rich woman on her husband's death. But rumours are reaching her ears of a possible marriage between that husband and another woman as soon as the divorce is complete. What is more probable than that when such an engagement is actually concluded, a new will will be made?
"Her character is already shown in a strong enough light by her willingness to accept the bribe of the will as an inducement to divorce. She is obviously a grasping woman, greedy for money. Murder is only another step for such a woman to take. And murder is her only hope. I do not think," concluded Sir Charles, "that I need to labour the point any further." His glasses swung deliberately.
"It's uncommonly convincing," Roger said, with a little sigh. "Are you going to hand this information over to the police, Sir Charles?"
"I conceive that failure to do so would be a gross dereliction of my duty as a citizen," Sir Charles replied, with a pomposity that in no way concealed how pleased he was with himself.
"Humph!" observed Mr. Bradley, who evidently was not going to be so pleased with Sir Charles as Sir Charles was. "What about the chocolates? Is it part of your case that she prepared them over here, or brought them with her?"
Sir Charles waved an airy hand. "Is that material?"
"I should say that it would be very material to connect her at any rate with the poison."
"Nitrobenzene? One might as well try to connect her with the purchase of the chocolates. She would have no difficulty in getting hold of that. I regard her choice of poison, in fact, as on a par with the ingenuity she has displayed in all the other particulars."
"I see." Mr. Bradley stroked his little moustache and eyed Sir Charles combatively. "Come to think of it, you know, Sir Charles, you haven't really proved a case against Lady Pennefather at all. All you've proved is motive and opportunity."
An unexpected ally ranged herself beside Mr. Bradley. "Exactly!" cried Mrs. Fielder - Flemming. "That's just what I was about to point out myself. If you hand over the information you've collected to the police, Sir Charles, I don't think they'll thank you for it. As Mr. Bradley says, you haven't proved that Lady Pennefather's guilty, or anything like it. I'm quite sure you're altogether mistaken."
Sir Charles was so taken aback that for a moment he could only stare. "Mistaken!" he managed to ejaculate. It was clear that such a possibility had never entered Sir Charles's orbit.
"Well, perhaps I'd better say - wrong," amended Mrs. Fielder - Flemming, quite drily.
"But my dear madam - - " For once words did not come to Sir Charles. "But why?" he fell back upon, feebly.
"Because I'm sure of it," retorted Mrs. Fielder - Flemming, most unsatisfactorily.
Roger had been watching this exchange with a gradual change of feeling. From being hypnotised by Sir Charles's persuasiveness and self - confidence into something like reluctant agreement, he was swinging round now in reaction to the other extreme. Dash it all, this fellow Bradley had kept a clearer head after all. And he was perfectly right. There were gaps in Sir Charles's case that Sir Charles himself, as counsel for Lady Pennefather's defence, could have driven a coach - and - six through.
"Of course," he said thoughtfully, "the fact that before she went abroad Lady Pennefather may have had an account at Mason's isn't surprising in the least. Nor is the fact that Mason's send out a complimentary chit with their receipts. As Sir Charles himself said, very many old - fashioned firms of good repute do. And the fact that the sheet of paper on which the letter was written had been used previously for some such purpose is not only not surprising, when one comes to consider; it's even obvious. Whoever the murderer, the same problem of getting hold of the piece of notepaper would arise. Yes, really, that Sir Charles's three initial questions should have happened to find affirmative answers does seem little more than a coincidence."
Sir Charles turned on this new antagonist like a wounded bull. "But the odds were enormous against it!" he roared. "If it was a coincidence, it was the most incredible one in the whole course of my experience."
"Ah, Sir Charles, but you're prejudiced," Mr. Bradley told him gently. "And you exaggerate dreadfully, you know. You seem to be putting the odds at somewhere round about a million to one. I should put them at six to one. Permutations and combinations, you know."
"Damn your permutations, sir!" riposted Sir Charles with vigour. "And your combinations too."
Mr. Bradley turned to Roger. "Mr. Chairman, is it within the rules of this club for one member to insult another member's underwear? Besides, Sir Charles," he added to that fuming knight, "I don't wear the things. Never have done, since I was an infant."
For the dignity of the chair Roger could not join in the delighted titters that were escaping round the table; in the interests of the Circle's preservation he had to pour oil on these very seething waters.
"Bradley, you're losing sight of the point, aren't you? I don't want to destroy your theory necessarily, Sir Charles, or detract in any way from the really brilliant manner in which you've defended it; but if it's to stand its ground it must be able to resist any arguments we can bring against it. That's all. And I honestly do think that you're inclined to attach a little too much importance to the answers to those three questions. What do you say, Miss Dammers?"
"I agree," Miss Dammers said crisply. "The way Sir Charles emphasised their importance reminded me at the time of a favourite trick of detective-story writers. He said, if I remember rightly, that if those questions were answered in the affirmative he knew that his suspect was guilty just as much as if he'd seen her with his own eyes putting the poison into the chocolates, because the odds against a coincidental affirmative to all three of them were incalculable. In other words he simply made a strong assertion, unsupported by evidence or argument."
"And that is what detective - story writers do, Miss Dammers?" queried Mr. Bradley, with a tolerant smile.
"Invariably, Mr. Bradley. I've often noticed it in your own books. You state a thing so emphatically that the reader does not think of questioning the assertion. 'Here,' says the detective, 'is a bottle of red liquid and here is a bottle of blue. If these two liquids turn out to be ink, then we know that they were purchased to fill up the empty ink - pots in the library as surely as if we had read the dead man's very thoughts.' Whereas the red ink might have been bought by one of the maids to dye a jumper, and the blue by the secretary for his fountain - pen; or a hundred other such explanations. But any possibilities of that kind are silently ignored. Isn't that so?"
"Perfectly," agreed Bradley, unperturbed. "Don't waste time on unessentials. Just tell the reader very loudly what he's to think, and he'll think it all right. You've got the technique perfectly, Why don't you try your hand at it? It's quite a paying game, you know."
"I may one day. And anyhow I will say for you, Mr. Bradley, that your detectives do detect. They don't just stand about and wait for somebody else to tell them who committed the murder, as the so - called detectives do in most of the so - called detective - stories I read."