Poisoned Chocolates Case (22 page)

“So far as he could make out, all you wanted was a good Hamilton No. 4, and he had a good Hamilton No. 4 to sell. He saw nothing wrong in leading you to suppose that his was the shop where your friend had bought his own good Hamilton No. 4, because he had quite as good a one as any other shop could have. And if it eased your mind that he should recognise your friend from his photograph - well,” said Miss Dammers drily, “he was quite prepared to ease it as many times as you had photographs to produce.”

“I see,” said Roger, and his thoughts dwelt on the eight pounds he had handed over to that sympathetic, mind - easing shopman in return for a Hamilton No. 4 he didn't want.

“As for the girl in Webster's,” continued Miss Dammers implacably, “she was just as ready to admit that perhaps she might have made a mistake in recognising that friend of the gentleman who called in yesterday about some notepaper. But really, the gentleman had seemed so anxious she should that it would have seemed quite a pity to disappoint him, like. And if it came to that, she couldn't see the harm in it not even now she couldn't.” Miss Dammers's imitation of Webster's young woman was most amusing. Roger did not laugh heartily.

“I'm sorry if I seem to be rubbing it in, Mr. Sheringham,” said Miss Dammers.

“Not at all,” said Roger.

“But it's essential to my own case, you see.”

“Yes, I quite see that,” said Roger.

“Then that evidence is disposed of. I don't think you really had any other, did you?”

“I don't think so,” said Roger.

“You will see,” Miss Dammers resumed, over Roger's corpse, "that I am following the fashion of withholding the criminal's name. Now that it has come to my turn to speak, I am realising the advantages of this; but really, I can't help fearing that you will all have guessed it by the time I come to my denouement. To me, at any rate, the murderer's identity seems quite absurdly obvious. Before I disclose it officially, however, I should like to deal with a few of the other points, not actual evidence, raised by Mr. Sheringham in his argument.

“Mr. Sheringham built up a very ingenious case. It was so very ingenious that he had to insist more than once on the perfect planning that had gone to its construction, and the true greatness of the criminal mind that had evolved it. I don't agree,” said Miss Dammers crisply. "My case is much simpler. It was planned with cunning but not with perfection. It relied almost entirely upon luck: that is to say, upon one vital piece of evidence remaining undiscovered. And finally the mind that evolved it is not great in any way. But it is a mind which, dealing with matters outside its usual orbit, would certainly be imitative.

“That brings me to a point of Mr. Bradley's. I agree with him to the extent that I think a certain acquaintance with criminological history is postulated, but not when he argues that it is the work of a creative mind. In my opinion the chief feature of the crime is its servile imitation of certain of its predecessors. I deduced from it, in fact, the type of mind which is possessed of no originality of its own, is intensely conservative because without the wit to recognise the progress of change, is obstinate, dogmatic, and practical, and lacks entirely any sense of spiritual values. As one who am inclined to suffer myself from something of an aversion from matter, I sensed my exact antithesis behind the whole atmosphere of this case.” Everybody looked suitably impressed. As for Mr. Chitterwick, he could only grasp before these detailed deductions from a mere atmosphere.

"With another point of Mr. Sheringham's I have already inferred that I agree: that chocolates were used as the vehicle of the poison because they were meant to reach a woman. And here I might add that I am sure no harm was intended to Mr. Bendix himself. We know that Mr. Bendix did not care for chocolates, and it is a reasonable assumption that the murderer knew it too; he never expected that Mr. Bendix would eat any himself.

“It is curious how often Mr. Sheringham hits the mark with small shafts, while missing it with the chief one. He was quite right about the notepaper being extracted from that sample - book at Webster's. I'm bound to admit that the possession of the piece of notepaper had worried me considerably. I was at a complete loss there. Then Mr. Sheringham very handily presented us with his explanation, and I have been able today to destroy his application of it to his own theory and incorporate it in my own. The attendant who pretended out of innocent politeness to recognise the photograph Mr. Sheringham showed her, was able to recognise in earnest the one I produced. And not only recognise it,” said Miss Dammers with the first sign of complacence she had yet shown, “but identify the original of it actually by name.”

“Ah!” nodded Mrs. Fielder - Flemming, much excited.

“Mr. Sheringham made a few other small points, which I thought it advisable today to blunt,” Miss Dammers went on, with a return to her impersonal manner. "Because most of the small firms in which Mr. Bendix figures on the board of directors are not in a flourishing state, Mr. Sheringham deduced not only that Mr. Bendix was a bad business - man, with which I am inclined to agree, but that he was desperately in need of money. Once again Mr. Sheringham failed to verify his deduction, and once am he must pay the penalty in finding himself utterly wrong.

“The most elementary channels of enquiry would have brought Mr. Sheringham the information that only a very small proportion of Mr. Bendix's money is invested in these concerns, which are really a wealthy man's toys. By far the greater part is still where his father left it when he died, in government stock and safe industrial concerns so large that even Mr. Bendix could never aspire to a seat on the board. And from what I know of him, Mr. Bendix is quite a big enough man to recognise that he is not the business - genius his father was, and has no intention of spending on his toys more than I he can comfortably afford. The real motive Mr. Sheringham gave him for his wife's death therefore completely disappears.”

Roger bowed his head. For ever afterwards, he felt, would genuine criminologists point the finger of contempt at him as the man who failed to verify his own deductions. Oh, shameful future!

"As for the subsidiary motive, I attach less importance to that but on the whole I am inclined to agree with Mr. Sheringham. I think Mrs. Bendix must have become a dreadful bore to her husband, who after all was a normal man, with a normal man's reactions and scale of values. I should be inclined to think that she morally drove him into the arms of his actresses, in search of a little light companionship. I'm not saying he wasn't deeply in love with her when he married her; no doubt he was. And he'd have had a naturally deep respect for her then.

“But it's an unfortunate marriage,” observed the cynical Miss Dammers, “in which the respect outstays its usefulness. A man wants a piece of humanity in his marriage - bed; not an object of deep respect. But I'm bound to say that if Mrs. Bendix did bore her husband before the end, he was gentleman enough not to show it. The marriage was generally considered an ideal one.”

Miss Dammers paused for a moment to sip at the glass of water in front of her.

"Lastly, Mr. Sheringham made the point that the letter and wrapper were not destroyed, because the murderer thought they would not only not harm him but definitely help him. With that too I agree. But I do not draw the same deduction from it that Mr. Sheringham did. I should have said that this entirely confirms my theory that the murder is the work of a second - rate mind, because a first - rate mind would never consent to the survival of any clue which could be easily destroyed, however helpful it might be expected to prove, because he would know how often such clues, deliberately left to mislead, have actually led to the criminal's undoing. And I would draw the subsidiary deduction that the wrapper and letter were not expected to be just generally helpful, but that there was some definite piece of misleading information contained in them. I think I know what that piece of information was.

“That is all the reference I have to make to Mr. Sheringham's case.”

Roger lifted his bowed head, and Miss Dammers sipped again at her water.

“With regard to this matter of the respect Mr. Bendix had for his wife,” Mr. Chitterwick hazarded, 'isn't there something of an anomaly there, Miss Dammers? Because I understood you to say at the very beginning that the deduction you had drawn from that bet was that Mrs. Bendix was not quite so worthy of respect as we had all imagined. Didn't that deduction stand the test, then? "

“ It did, Mr. Chitterwick, and there is no anomaly.”

“Where a man doesn't suspect, he will respect,” said Mrs. Fielder - Flemming swiftly, before her Alicia could think of it.

“Ah, the horrid sepulchre under the nice white paint,” remarked Mr. Bradley, who didn't approve of that sort of thing, even from distinguished dramatists. “Now we're getting down to it. Is there a sepulchre, Miss Dammers?”

“There is,” Miss Dammers agreed, without emotion. “And now, as you say, Mr. Bradley, we're getting down to it.”

“Oh!” Mr. Chitterwick positively bounced on; his chair. “If the letter and wrapper could have been destroyed by the murderer . . . and Bendix wasn't the murderer . . . and I suppose the porter needn't be considered . . . Oh, I see!”

“I wondered when somebody would,” said Miss Dammers.

“FROM the very beginning of this case,” Miss Dammers proceeded, imperturbable as ever, “I was of the opinion that the greatest clue the criminal had left us was one of which he would have been totally unconscious: the unmistakable indications of his own character. Taking the facts as I found them, and not assuming others as Mr. Sheringham did to justify his own reading of the murderer's exceptional mentality - -” She looked challengely towards Roger.

“Did I assume any facts that I couldn't substantiate?” Roger felt himself compelled to answer her look.

"Certainly you did. You assumed for instance that the typewriter on which the letter was written is now at the bottom of the Thames. The plain fact that it is not, once more bears out my own interpretation. Taking the established facts as I found them, then, I was able without difficulty to form the mental picture of the murderer that I have already sketched out for you. But I was careful not to look for somebody who would resemble my picture and then build up a case against him. I simply hung the picture up in my mind, so to speak, in order to compare with it any individual toward whom suspicion might seem to point.

"Now, after I had cleared up Mr. Bendix's reason for arriving at his club that morning at such an unusual hour, there remained so far as I could see only one obscure point, apparently of no importance, to which nobody's attention seemed to have been directed. I mean, the engagement Sir Eustace had had that day for lunch, which must subsequently have been cancelled. I don't know how Mr. Bradley discovered this, but I am quite ready to say how I did. It was from that same useful valet who gave Mrs. Fielder - Flemming so much interesting information.

"I must admit in this connection that I have advantages over the other members of this Circle so far as investigations regarding Sir Eustace were concerned, for not only did I know Sir Eustace himself so well but I knew his valet too; and you can imagine that if Mrs. Fielder - Flemming was able to extract so much from him with the aid of money alone, I myself, backed not only by money but by the advantage of a previous acquaintance, was in a position to obtain still more. In any case, it was not long before the man casually mentioned that four days before the crime Sir Eustace had told him to ring up Fellows's Hotel in Jermyn Street and reserved a private room for lunch - time on the day on which the murder subsequently took place.

"That was the obscure point, which I thought it worth while to clear up if I could. With whom was Sir Eustace going to lunch that day? Obviously a woman, but which of his many women? The valet could give me no information. So far as he knew, Sir Eustace actually had not got any women at the moment, so intent was he upon the pursuit of Miss Wildman (you must excuse me, Sir Charles), her hand and her fortune. Was it Miss Wildman herself then? I was very soon able to establish that it wasn't.

“Does it strike you that there is a reminiscent ring about this cancelled lunch - appointment on the day of the crime? It didn't occur to me for a long time, but of course there is. Mrs. Bendix had a lunch - engagement for that day too, which was cancelled for some reason unknown on the previous afternoon.”

“Mrs. Bendix!” breathed Mrs. Fielder - Flemming. Here was a juicy triangle.

Miss Dammers smiled faintly. “Yes, I won't keep you on the tenterhooks, Mabel. From what Sir Charles told us I knew that Mrs. Bendix and Sir Eustace at any rate were not total strangers, and in the end I managed to connect them. Mrs. Bendix was to have lunched with Sir Eustace, in a private room, at the somewhat notorious Fellow's Hotel.”

“To discuss her husband's shortcomings, of course?” suggested Mrs. Fielder - Flemming, more charitably than her hopes.

“Possibly, among other things,” said Miss Dammers nonchalantly. “But the chief reason, no doubt was because she was his mistress.” Miss Dammers dropped this bombshell among the company with as little emotion as if she had remarked that Mrs. Bendix was wearing a jade - green taffeta frock for the occasion.

“Can you - can you substantiate that statement?” asked Sir Charles, the first to recover himself.

Miss Dammers just raised her fine eyebrows. “But of course. I shall make no statements that I can't substantiate. Mrs. Bendix had been in the habit of lunching at least twice a week with Sir Eustace, and occasionally dining too, at Fellow's Hotel, always in the same room. They took considerable precautions and used to arrive not only at the hotel but in the room itself quite independently of each other; outside the room they were never seen together. But the waiter who attended them (always the same waiter) has signed a declaration for me that he recognised Mrs. Bendix, from the photographs published after her death, as the woman who used to come there with Sir Eustace Pennefather.”