“Yes. She goes down under opportunity and also under motive. She certainly had a big interest in polishing off the old man, she saw him during the period of administration and she very likely gave him something to eat or drink while he was in the house. So she is a very likely subject. The only difficulty with her is the difficulty of getting hold of the drug. You can’t get digitalin just by asking for it, you know.”
“N — no. At least, not by itself. You can get it mixed up with other drugs quite easily. I saw an ad. in the Daily Views only this morning, offering a pill with half a grain of digitalin in it.”
“Did you? where? — oh, that! Yes but it’s got nux vomica in it too, which is supposed to be an antidote. At any rate, it bucks the heart up by stimulating the nerves, so as to counteract the slowing-down action of the digitalin.”
“H’m. Well, put down Miss Dorland under Means with a query-mark. Oh, of a course, Penberthy has to go down under Means too. He is the one person who could get the stuff without any bother.”
“Right. Means: No. 1, Dr. Penberthy. Opportunity: No. 1, Dr. Penberthy, No. 2, Miss Dorland. We’ll have to put in the servants at Lady Dormer’s too, shan’t we? Any of them who brought him food or drink, at any rate.”
“Put ’em in, by all means. They might have been in collusion with Miss Dorland. And how about Lady Dormer herself?”
“Oh, come, Peter. There wouldn’t be any sense in that.”
“Why not? She may have been planning revenge on her brother all these years, camouflaging her feelings under a pretence of generosity. It would be rather fun to leave a terrific legacy to somebody you loathed, and then, just when he was feelin’ nice and grateful and all over coals of fire, poison him to make sure he didn’t get it. We simply must have Lady Dormer. Stick her down under Opportunity and under Motive.”
“I refuse to do more than Opportunity and Motive (query?).”
“Have it your own way. Well, now — there are our friends the two taxi-drivers.”
“I don’t think you can be allowed those. It would be awfully hard work poisoning a fare, you know.”
“I’m afraid it would. I say! I’ve just got a rippin’ idea for poisoning a taxi-man, though. You give him a dud half-crown, and when he bites it—”
“He dies of lead poisoning. That one’s got whiskers on it.”
“Juggins. You poison the half-crown with Prussic acid.”
“Splendid! And he falls down foaming at the mouth. That’s frightfully brilliant Do you mind giving your attention to the matter in hand?”
“You think we can leave out the taxi-drivers, then?”
“I think so.”
“Right-oh! I’ll let you have them. That brings us, I’m sorry to say, to George Fentiman.”
“You’ve got rather a weakness for George Fentiman, haven’t you?”
“Yes — I like old George. He’s an awful pig in some ways, but I quite like him.”
“Well, I don’t know George, so I shall firmly put him down. Opportunity No. 3, he is.”
“He’ll have to go down under Motive, too, then.”
“Why? What did he stand to gain by Miss Dorland’s getting the legacy?”
“Nothing — if he knew about it. But Robert says emphatically that he didn’t know. So does George. And if he didn’t, don’t you see, the General’s death meant that he would immediately step into that two thousand quid which Dougal MacStewart was being so pressing about.”
“MacStewart? — oh, yes — the moneylender. That’s one up to you, Peter; I’d forgotten him. That certainly does put George on the list of the possibles. He was pretty sore about things too, wasn’t he?”
“Very. And I remember his saying one rather unguarded thing at least down at the Club on the very day the murder — or rather, the death — was discovered.”
“That’s in his favour, if anything,” said Parker, cheerfully, “unless he’s very reckless indeed.”
“It won’t be in his favour with the police,” grumbled Wimsey.
“My dear man!”
“I beg your pardon. I was forgetting for the moment. I’m afraid you are getting a little above your job, Charles. So much diligence will spell either a Chief-Commissionership or ostracism if you aren’t careful.”
“I’ll chance that. Come on — get on with it. Who else is there?”
“There’s Woodward. Nobody could have a better opportunity of tampering with the General’s pillboxes.”
“And I suppose his little legacy might have been a motive.”
“Or he may have been in the enemy’s pay. Sinister men-servants so often are you know. Look what a boom there has been lately in criminal butlers and thefts by perfect servants.”
“That’s a fact. And now, how about the people at the Bellona?”
“There’s Wetheridge. He’s a disagreeable devil. And he has always cast covetous eyes at the General’s chair by the fire. I’ve seen him.”
“Be serious, Peter.”
“I’m perfectly serious. I don’t like Wetheridge. He annoys me. And then we mustn’t forget to put down Robert.”
“Robert? Why he’s the one person we can definitely cross off. He knew it was to his interest to keep the old man alive. Look at the pains he took to cover up the death.”
“Exactly. He is the Most Unlikely Person, and that is why Sherlock Holmes would suspect him at once. He was, by his own admission, the last person to see General Fentiman alive. Suppose he had a row with the old man and killed him, and then discovered, afterwards, about the legacy.”
“You’re scintillating with good plots today, Peter. If they’d quarrelled, he might possibly have knocked his grandfather down — though I don’t think he’d do such a rotten and unsportsmanlike thing but he surely wouldn’t have poisoned him.”
Wimsey sighed.
“There’s something in what you say,” he admitted. “Still, you never know. Now then, is there any name we’ve thought of which appears in all three columns of our list?”
“No, not one. But several appear in two.”
“We’d better start on those, then. Miss Dorland is the most obvious, naturally, and after her, George, don’t you think?”
“Yes. I’ll have a round-up among all the chemists who may possibly have supplied her with digitalin. Who’s her family doctor?
“Dunno. That’s your pigeon. By the way, I’m supposed to be meeting the girl at a cocoa-party or something of the sort to-morrow. Don’t pinch her before then if you can help it.”
“No; but it looks to me as though we might need to put a few questions. And I’d like to have a look round Lady Dormer’s house.”
“For heaven’s sake, don’t be flatfooted about it, Charles. Use tact.”