Old Mrs. Gale was kneeling at Augustus’s head ineffectually trying to mop his brow with a very small handkerchief as he rolled to and fro, and wailing:

  “Won’t someone help? My poor boy! My poor boy!”

  Riley said to Roger: “Can’t you do something?”

  Roger said: “Better give him an emetic.” He loosened Augustus’s cravat. “Stand back, you people!” He murmured to Riley: “He’s pretty bad. Carry him to his room. We must get a doctor. I’ll go.”

  He ran off, wishing he had his Vespa.

  But before the doctor arrived, Augustus was dead.

  2

  The rest of the story was soon told. The emetic, salt and water, prepared by Robert and administered as best she could by Dulcibella, had had the desired effect. They had carried him to his room and put him to bed, but after about ten minutes he had rolled his eyes, shuddered and died.

  “Did he say anything?” asked the doctor as he snapped his case to. “Anything articulate?”

  Cornelia and Dulcibella looked at each other as if not sure whether they ought to give away Augustus’s last words.

  “Come on!” said the doctor irritably. “You were alone with him. There’ll have to be a p.m. and an inquest. What, if anything, did he say?” He went to wash his hands at the basin in the bedroom. Augustus, marble-white, seemed still to prohibit liberties.

  “He said—” began Cornelia, and stopped.

  “He said,” began Dulcibella and finished boldly:

  “‘Joan, my beloved, I am coming to you.’”

  The doctor looked round: “Was that the name of his first wife?”

  “No,” said Cornelia. “My mother’s name was Esther.”

  The doctor, a tubby little man called Jones, came towards them as he wiped his hands.

  “Who was this Joan?” he said. “Do you know?”

  “Yes,” said Dulcibella. “We know.”

  “You’re the second wife?” said the inquisitive doctor.

  Dulcibella said: “I was the second wife.”

  “Oh. I see.” The doctor was embarrassed. “Then I won’t trouble you further. You’ll have to answer questions, I’m afraid.”

  “What about?”

  “This is not a natural death. It looks like suicide. We shall know more after the post-mortem.” He threw the towel on to the floor and left Augustus’s widow and his daughter together.

  3

  The archæologists left at once and walked back to the hotel. Each carried his suitcase, and Roger carried three cases: one containing his clothes, and two small ones, easily carried in one hand, containing his first-aid equipment and his chemical reagents. He was very thoughtful. His silence at last brought the inevitable facetious comment.

  “A penny for your thoughts,” said Riley.

  What were his thoughts? Nothing that he could tell Riley or Martin. Chief among them ranked his arrangement with Dulcibella, an arrangement which Augustus’s death must cancel. Roger had not even tried to get a private word with Dulcibella before he left: she seemed extremely upset, and he understood that it would not do to speak to her now of personal concerns. He himself wanted to be alone, to have time to think out the results of what had happened: Dulcie’s freedom, for instance. Had Augustus suspected anything? He had said something in the overheard quarrel, had said he was not so blind as he might seem, and had implied that someone—his mother—had warned him. But Roger did not believe that he himself was suspected. But might he not have brought suspicion on himself by the way in which he had leapt to Dulcibella’s defence? Yet Augustus had gone on treating him normally throughout dinner.

  But none of this could be discussed with Riley, or even with Martin. He wondered if Martin had made any progress with Cornelia. He doubted it. It seemed to him that he himself had spent more time with her than Martin had, and of course Martin was a very slow starter, that he knew. A short weekend was not enough. But it didn’t matter because, of course, Cornelia too was now free.

  His continued silence evoked another question from Riley:

  “I wonder what it was that Gale took?”

  4

  Before the bar closed that evening Roger was called out: a police officer wished to see him. Would he be so good as to come along to the police station? Superintendent Mallett would be obliged. Roger, without returning to the bar, went with the constable to the door, and then, disliking being seen in the company of a uniformed man, went off to get his Vespa.

  When he got to the station he was shown into an office where Mallett, Dr. Jones, Dr. Fitzbrown and several other police officers were waiting for him. When they all turned to look at him, Roger felt nervous, though they seemed friendly. His nervousness had been coming on for the past couple of hours: it was due, he knew, to his consciousness of his relations with the dead man’s wife. Would they, could they, find out what was surely, so far, a secret between him and Dulcibella? Could he trust Dulcibella? Could he trust himself, for that matter? Do not people who feel guilty—and Augustus’s death had that effect on him—give themselves away?

  It is hard to remember that other people do not know what one knows about oneself. One often hands them what they can’t possibly find out. Roger faced the men who were now staring at him.

  The Superintendent shook hands with him.

  “Sit down, Mr. Royden. Sorry to trouble you. It’s about this unfortunate affair of Augustus Gale. You were present when he died.”

  “Not when he died,” said Roger boldly. “I and my two colleagues were present—among others—when Gale collapsed in the entrance-hall. They carried him up to his room, and I offered to fetch a doctor. He died, I believe, before the doctor came.”

  “That’s so,” said Dr. Jones. “He was dead when I arrived.”

  “It took you some time to reach the doctor’s house?” said Mallett.

  “Yes. I went as fast as I could. I ran all the way. I had no means of transport, and besides, I didn’t know where to look for the doctor’s house. I had to enquire when I reached the town.”

  “Why didn’t you phone?” said Mallett.

  “Phone?” said Roger. “There’s no telephone at Geffrye House.”

  “No telephone? In a house so remote? In these times?”

  “Geffrye House,” said Roger solemnly, “is not of these times. There is no telephone. Augustus Gale did his best to keep out all modern inventions. But you surely know that: it’s the key to the whole affair.”

  “What affair?” snapped Mallett.

  “Gale’s death,” said Roger.

  “That,” said Mallett, “will be for the Coroner to decide. There will be an inquest on Tuesday morning at eleven. You will be wanted there, Mr. Royden—and your colleagues. But you will receive official intimation. We have sent for you now to ask you something which may help us. You are an analytical chemist?”

  “I am.”

  “Attached to the archæological party now excavating the mosaics near Geffrye House, under the auspices of the Romano-British Society?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your duty is to analyse substances unearthed in these excavations?”

  “Yes—when I can.”

  “And for this purpose you carry with you certain equipment—chemical reagents and so on.”

  “Of course,” said Roger. “But what is this? It sounds to me like an inquisition. What’s the idea?”

  “Don’t get excited,” said Mallett. “You will certainly be asked to answer all these questions—under oath—at the inquest. But—”

  Dr. Fitzbrown stepped forward. He was a tall, pleasant-looking man with black curly hair. He said soothingly:

  “The Superintendent is only asking you questions because that may help to make the inquest go more easily and quickly.” He turned to Mallett: “I say, hadn’t you better come to the point?”

  Mallett said:

  “I think perhaps Dr. Jones had better take over.”

  Jones said:

  “The point is, Royden, the p.m. shows that Gale died of a powerful dose of some kind of mercury poisoning. The police want to know where he got it. They’ve found nothing of the kind in the house, and they can’t begin trying to trace the source, doing the round of chemists’ shops and so on, until they know in what form the poor devil chose to take the mercury.”

  Roger started and gripped the seat of his chair. He looked the picture of guilt.

  “Wait a minute,” he said.

  Jones stepped forward inquisitively.

  “Did you have any mercurial salt among your reagents?”

  “Not among my reagents,” said Roger.

  “Where, then?”

  “In my first-aid kit. I took it everywhere with me. It had become a habit: I often had to do minor surgical operations like lancing boils, taking splinters out, and so on. Once I took a tooth out,” he said proudly, adding with ingrained honesty: “It was loose.”

  “Rather more than first aid,” said Jones. “Go on. I think I see daylight.”

  “So I had to have something to sterilise instruments.”

  “And for that you used—”

  “Biniodide of mercury.”

  “Old-fashioned,” said Jones. “So you had biniodide of mercury with you? Where was it? Was it accessible?”

  “Was it accessible to others?” resumed Mallett.

  “It was in a small case. I call it my first-aid case, but it is rather more than that, as you say. I have built it up in the light of my own experience with archæological expeditions abroad as well as in this country.”

  “You had this biniodide of mercury,” said Mallett, making a careful note of the name, “in what you call your first-aid case. Was this case open?”

  “Open?” said Roger. He repeated the word in a stupid manner because he had been struck by a thought which disconcerted him and he wanted to gain time.

  “Locked or unlocked?” said Mallett impatiently.

  “It was usually locked, but it may have been unlocked. I’m not sure, but I think it was unlocked—” He was going on to explain why, but Mallett interrupted:

  “Then Gale could have got at the contents. Where did you keep the case?”

  “The case was in my bedroom at Geffrye House.”

  “Was the bottle labelled?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was it labelled ‘Poison’?”

  “Yes.” Roger was glad to be able to say this: he had always conscientiously stuck red “poison” labels on any of his bottles that needed them.

  “In what form was this poison? Liquid?”

  “Oh no. I carried it in the usual form: tablets to be dissolved in water when required.”

  “Do you know the strength of the tablets?”

  “Not exactly,” said Roger. “They were made up to be dissolved in a pint of water, as a disinfectant. They weren’t made to be taken.”

  Mallett gave Jones an inquiring look.

  “That’s so,” said Jones. “He wouldn’t know the exact quantity in the made-up tablets. But they’d be highly toxic. And biniodide tablets suit our findings: potassium as well as mercury, y’know.”

  Mallett nodded.

  “I don’t think we need detain Mr. Royden any longer.”

  Roger got up, a trifle too eagerly.

  “Do you mean to say Gale got into my room and pinched one of these tablets?”

  “That,” said Mallett, “is for the Coroner to decide, after weighing the evidence. We shall see.”

  Roger moved towards the door, glad to get away but aware of an unsatisfactory feeling, a desire to ask questions, but without knowing what these questions could be.

  Dr. Jones said:

  “And if I were you, I’d leave surgery—even minor surgery—to qualified men. In fact, the general view is, y’know, there’s no such thing as minor surgery. Then you could put things like mercury salts in the fire. All you need is boiling water, anyway.”

  “All right,” said Roger, irritated.

  When he stepped out of the police station, he was aware of the sweet night air, in which the scents of wallflowers and seaweed were blended. But he was not soothed. He was puzzled, apprehensive, completely miserable.

  5

  After he had gone Mallett turned to the two doctors.

  “Well? What are we going to make of that?”

  “It’s clear where Gale got the tablet or tablets, anyway,” said Jones.

  “Yes: we can wash out the trek round the chemists’ shops, thank goodness.”

  “There’s a missing link, you know,” said Fitzbrown quietly.

  “Yes, I know,” said Mallett. “I was thinking that. How did Gale know that the tablets were in Royden’s case?”

  Nobody answered till Jones said dubiously: “Royden must have let Gale see the case. The bottle was labelled ‘Poison’. Funny he didn’t keep it locked.”

  “Oh, that’s nothing,” said Mallett. “It’s easy enough to get a key to unlock an ordinary case.”

  “But we don’t know it was an ordinary case.”

  “We must satisfy ourselves about that,” said Mallett. He signed to one of his men: “Collins, go round to the Imperial and ask Mr. Royden to give you what he calls his first-aid case.”

  The constable saluted and went.

  “How did this man Royden strike you?” said the Superintendent.

  “Nervous—and shifty,” said Jones, who always thought the worst of everybody, and treated all human beings, including his own patients, as guilty of some unspecified crime unless they were seriously and obviously ill.

  Dr. Fitzbrown belonged to the class of doctors who follow the ancient Hippocratic rule that medicine is one of the branches of humanitarianism.

  “Nervous,” he admitted, “and ill at ease. But what do you expect? He had to face a semicircle of strangers who appeared to be accusing him of something.”

  “We accused him of nothing,” said Mallett quietly.

  “Not in so many words. But you were hinting at—”

  “At what?” said Jones aggressively.

  “Well, officiousness for one thing. And carelessness for another.”

  “He didn’t seem sure,” reflected Mallett, “whether the case was locked or unlocked. What he said suggested to me that he usually kept it locked but had unlocked it recently for some reason or other. I meant to go into that but something diverted me. We’ll have to have him back, I’m afraid.”

  6

  They had no need to send for Roger.

  When Collins returned with the suitcase Roger was with him. He was in a high state of indignation.

  “Look here,” he said as he burst into the room with the constable. “What’s this all about? What right have you—”

  Mallett stopped him.

  “We have every right, I assure you, to take all the steps we think necessary in inquiring into a violent death. We have no right to detain you. Go if you wish. But I wanted to ask you a few more questions, and I think you’d do well to answer.”

  “Gale’s death has nothing to do with me.”

  “It has, in so far as he appears to have taken a tablet from your case.” Mallett indicated, without touching, the case which Collins had placed before him on the table. “Open it,” he said.

  Roger stepped forward, but Mallett waved him back. Collins drew on his white gloves and released the catches.

  “The case is unlocked,” said Mallett superfluously. “Is this how you found it?”

  “Yes.”

  “With the lid fastened down?”

  “Yes.”

  Mallett said:

  “Then Gale’s fingerprints should be all over it. Take it to the lab. and have it tested.” He turned to Roger. “Did you at any time show it to Gale?”

  “No. Why should I?”

  “Never mind why. Did you or did you not?”

  “I did not.”

  “Did you show it to anyone else?”

  “Show what?”

  “The case.”

  “Everybody must have seen it as I went in.”

  Mallett said irritably: “The contents—did you show Gale, or anyone else, the contents?”

  “I don’t remember. I don’t think so.”

  He remembered perfectly well and was dreading the question.

  Dr. Jones stepped forward.

  “Why don’t you speak the truth?”

  Dr. Fitzbrown intervened quietly:

  “Yes, you’d do better to tell the truth. The Superintendent is suggesting that Gale must either have seen the bottle labelled ‘Poison’ or been told about it by someone else.”

  Roger looked relieved.

  “I may have shown some of my kit to the ladies,” he said.

  “Go on,” said Fitzbrown. “Ladies are proverbially curious.”

  “I think I showed it when I arrived to members of the family.”

  “Why?”

  “Miss Gale—or possibly Mrs. Gale—showed me to my room. One of them remarked on the number of my cases —I had three—so I showed the two cases that were for work: the chemical equipment and the so-called first-aid case.”

  “And after that you didn’t lock the case.”

  “Evidently not. I don’t remember.”

  They stared at him in such a way that he knew they didn’t want him any more.

  “Can I have my case?” he said.

  “After the inquest,” said Mallett.

  Roger was forced to go.

  7

  The next morning, about noon, a taxi drove to the police station. Out of it stepped a sprightly man with a white beard; he handed out an old lady who got up the steps without waiting for him. By the time he caught up with her she was being shown into Superintendent Mallett’s office.

  “I am Mrs. Gale—Augustus Gale’s mother,” she said, taking the chair offered to her, and looking like a toad on a toadstool. “I wish to speak to you privately. I—”

  The police constable was about to shut the door when the old lady’s escort nimbly stepped in.

  “I,” he said, “am Professor Bose. I have something to say to you about the late Augustus Gale.”

 

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