‘I don’t know,’ said Perry, ‘but I give it a name. I call it God. You don’t know what the aether is, but you give it a name, and deduce its attributes from its behaviour. Why shouldn’t I do likewise? You people are making it all very much easier for me.’
It was no good. I had to ask my question. I burst in violently, inappropriately, on this theological discussion:
‘You mean to tell me,’ I said, ‘that it is possible to differentiate a substance produced synthetically in the laboratory from one produced by living tissue?’
‘Certainly,’ said Waters, turning to me in some surprise, but apparently accepting my tardy realisation of this truth as mere vagary of my slow and unscientific wits. ‘So long, of course, as the artificial substance remains in the first or racemic form, for this would be optically inactive, while that from the living tissues would rotate the beam of polarised light, when viewed in the polariscope. If, however, that racemic form had been already split up by the intelligent operator, or some other living agency, into its two dextro-and laevo-rotary forms, it would be impossible, to distinguish between them.’
I saw a path of escape opening up. Surely the synthetic muscarine at St Anthony’s would have had this other operation performed on it. There was no reason at all why I should interfere. I relapsed into silence, and the conversation wandered on.
I was recalled to myself by a movement about me. Matthews was explaining that he had to be getting home. Waters rose to accompany him. In a minute he would be gone and the opportunity lost. I had only to sit still.
I got up. I made my fatuous farewells. I said I had a perfectly good wife to go home to. I thanked my host and said how much I had enjoyed the evening. I followed the other men out into the narrow hall, with its loaded umbrella-stand and ugly, discoloured wall-paper.
‘Dr Waters,’ I said.
‘Yes?’ He turned smiling towards me. I must say something now or he would think me a fool.
‘May I have a word with you?’
‘By all means. Which way do you go?’
‘Bloomsbury,’ said I, hoping desperately that he lived at Hendon or Harringay.
‘Excellent, I am going that way myself. Shall we share a taxi?’
I murmured something about Professor Matthews.
‘No, no,’ said he, ‘I’m going by tube to Earls Court.’
We found our taxi and got in.
‘Well, now?’ said Waters.
I was in for it now. I told him the whole story.
‘By God,’ he said, ‘that’s damned interesting. Fine idea for a murder. Of course, any jury in the country would be only too ready to believe it was accident. Tempting Providence, and all that. And unless your man was fool enough to use the synthetic muscarine in its racemic form, you know, I’m very much afraid he’s pulled it off. There’s a chance, of course. They may not have gone further than that. Why didn’t you ask Benson while you were about it?’
‘I thought of doing so,’ I admitted. ‘At least, I didn’t know about this racemic business, but I thought there might be some way of telling the artificial stuff from the real. But Harrison seemed satisfied—’
‘He would be. I know these people. Wrapped up in their own subjects. An engineer — he ought to know something about molecular structure. But no. He’s no occasion to study Organic, so it doesn’t occur to him that there’s anything to know about it. The word of a first-year student at Anthony’s is enough for him. You have more imagination. Why didn’t you—?’
‘I don’t know that I quite wanted to.’
‘Let bad alone, eh? But damn it, it’s interesting. I say, what a scoop for the papers, if it comes off! “First murder ever caught by the polariscope.” Better than Crippen and the wireless. Only they’ll have a bit of a job explaining it. Now, look here, what are we going to do about it? Who did the analysis?’
‘Lubbock.’
‘Oh, yes — Home Office man, of course. We’ll have to get on to him. It’s chance if he’s kept the stuff by him. What? Oh, he has. That’s all right then. We’ve only got to take a squint at it and then we shall know. I mean, if the stuff really is racemic, we shall know. If not, we never shall. What’s the time? Quarter-past eleven. No time like the present. Here, driver!’
He thrust his head out of the window and gave an address in Woburn Square.
‘It’s all on our way, and Lubbock never goes to bed before midnight. I know him well. He’ll be keen on this.’
His energy swept me up, feebly protesting, and in a few minutes’ time we were standing on Sir James Lubbock’s doorstep, ringing the bell.
The door was opened by a manservant, of whom Waters inquired whether Sir James was at home.
‘No, sir. He is working late tonight, sir, at the Home Office. I think it’s the arsenic case, sir.’
‘Oh, of course. That’s luck for us, Munting. We’ll run down and catch him there. You might give him a ring, Stevens, and say I’m coming down to see him on an urgent matter. You know who I am?’
‘Oh, yes, sir. Dr Waters. Very good, sir. You’ll find him in the laboratory, sir.’
‘Right. We’d better hurry up, or we may just miss him.’
We plunged back into the taxi.
‘Shall we find any difficulty in getting in?’
‘Oh, no. I’ve been there before. We’re making very good time. Provided he hadn’t started before Stevens got through to him, he’ll wait for us. Ah! here we are.’
We drew up at a side door in the big Government building. After a short colloquy with the man on duty, we were passed through. I stumbled at Waters’s heels through a number of dreary corridors, till we fetched up in a kind of small anteroom.
‘I feel strongly persuaded,’ I said, ‘that I am on a visit to the dentist.’
‘And you hope very much he’ll say there’s nothing to be done to you this time. I, on the contrary, hope very much that it’s something malignant and unusual. Have a fag.’
I accepted the fag. I tried to think of Harrison, perishing horribly in his lonely shack, but instead I could only see Lathom with his hair rumpled and his teeth set, painting with his usual careless brilliance. I got the idea that God or Nature or Science or some other sinister and powerful thing had set a trap for him, and that I was pushing him into it. I thought it was ruthless of God or whoever it was. Pom, pomty; pom, pomty; pom, pomty; pom, pomty — I was nervously humming something and I couldn’t think what. Oh, yes — Haydn’s Creation — that bit, where the kettle-drums thump so gently, so ruthlessly, on one note — ‘And-the-spi-rit-of-God (pomty) moved-upon-the-face-of-the-waters-(pom)’ — only apparently it wasn’t the spirit of God, but an asymmetric molecule, which didn’t fit the rhythm. Somebody was walking down the corridor, with a soft, muffled beat, rather like kettle-drums. ‘Let there be light (pomty-pom) and there was—’
The door opened.
I recognised Sir James Lubbock at once, of course, though now, in a white overall and pair of crimson carpet slippers, he presented an appearance less point-device than he had done at the inquest. He greeted Waters cordially and received my name with a faint look of puzzledom.
‘Mr Munting? Yes — let me see, haven’t we met before?’
I reminded him of Manaton.
‘Of course, of course. I knew I knew your face. Mr Munting, the novelist. Delighted to make your acquaintance under more pleasant auspices.’
‘I don’t know that they are much more pleasant,’ said Waters. ‘As a matter of fact, it’s the Harrison case we wanted to see you about.’
‘Really? Has something fresh turned up? You know, the other day I had a letter from the man’s son. Rather an odd letter. He seemed to have got the idea that there was more in the case than met the eye. Hinted that we might have found something else — strychnine or something. Quite ridiculous, of course. There wasn’t the faintest doubt about the cause of death. Muscarine poisoning. Perfectly straightforward.’
‘Just so. By the way, Lubbock, did it by any chance occur to you to give that muscarine the once-over with the polariscope?’
‘With the polariscope? Good heavens, no. Why should it? That wouldn’t tell one anything. You know all about muscarine. Dextro-rotatory, Nothing abstruse about it.’