The Poisoned Chocolates Case

CHAPTER XII

ROGER was very busy.

Flitting in taxis hither and thither, utterly regardless of what the clocks had to tell him, he was trying to get his case completed before the evening. His activities might have seemed to that artless criminologist, Mrs. Verreker - le - Mesurer, not only baffling but pointless.

On the previous afternoon, for instance, he had taken his first taxi to the Holborn Public Library and there consulted a work of reference of the most uninspiring description. After that he had driven to the offices of Messrs. Weall and Wilson, the well - known firm which exists to protect the trade interests of individuals and supply subscribers with highly confidential information regarding the stability of any business in which it is intended to invest money.

Roger, glibly representing himself as a potential investor of large sums, had entered his name as a subscriber, filled up a number of the special enquiry forms which are headed Strictly Confidential, and not consented to go away until Messrs. Weall and Wilson had promised, in consideration of certain extra moneys, to have the required information in his hands within twenty - seven hours.

He had then bought a newspaper and gone to Scotland Yard. There he sought out Moresby. "Moresby," he said without preamble, "I want you to do something important for me. Can you find me a taximan who took up a fare in Piccadilly Circus or its neighbourhood at about ten minutes past nine on the night before the Bendix murder, and deposited same at or near the Strand end of Southampton Street? And/or another taxi who took up a fare in the Strand near Southampton Street at about a quarter - past nine, and deposited same in the neighbourhood of Piccadilly Circus? The second is the more likely of the two; I'm not quite sure about the first. Or one taxi might have been used for the double journey, but I doubt that very much. Do you think you can do this for me?"

"We may not get any results, after all this time," said Moresby doubtfully. "It's really important, is it?"

"Quite important."

"Well, I'll try of course, seeing it's you, Mr. Sheringham, and I know I can take your word for it that it is important. But I wouldn't for any one else."

"That's fine," said Roger with much heartiness. "Make it pretty urgent, will you? And you might give me a ring at the Albany at about tea - time tomorrow, if you think you've got hold of my man." "What's the idea, then, Mr. Sheringham?"

"I'm trying to break down a rather interesting alibi," said Roger.

He went back to his rooms to dine. After the meal his head was buzzing far too busily for him to be able to do anything else but take it for a walk. Restlessly he wandered out of the Albany and turned down Piccadilly. He ambled round the Circus, thinking hard, and paused for a moment out of habit to inspect with unseeing eyes the photographs of the new revue hanging outside the Pavilion. The next thing he realised was that he must have turned down the Haymarket and swung round in a wide circle into Jermyn Street, for he was standing outside the Imperial Theatre in that fascinating thoroughfare, idly watching the last of the audience crowding in.

Glancing at the advertisements of The Creaking Skull, he saw that the terrible thing began at half - past eight. Glancing at his watch, he saw that the time was twenty - nine minutes past that hour.

There was an evening to be got through somehow.

He went inside.

The night passed somehow, too.

Early the next morning (or early, that is, for Roger; say half - past ten), in a bleak spot somewhere beyond the bounds of civilisation, in short in Acton, Roger found himself parleying with a young woman in the offices of the Anglo - Eastern Perfumery Company. The young woman was entrenched behind a partition just inside the main entrance, her only means of communication with the outer world being through a small window fitted with frosted glass. This window she would open (if summoned long and loudly enough) to address a few curt replies to importunate callers, and this window she would close with a bang by way of a hint that the interview, in her opinion, should now be closed.

"Good morning," said Roger blandly, when his third rap had summoned this maiden from the depths of her fastness. "I've called to - - - "

"Travellers, Tuesday and Friday mornings, ten to eleven," said the maiden surprisingly, and closed the window with one of her best bangs. That'll teach him to try and do business with a respectable English firm on a Thursday morning, good gracious me, said the bang.

Roger stared blankly at the closed window. Then it dawned on him that a mistake had been made. He rapped again. And again. At the fourth rap the window flew open as if something had exploded behind it. "I've told you already," snapped the maiden, righteously indignant, "that we only see - - "

"I'm not a traveller," said Roger hastily. "At least," he added with meticulousness, thinking of the dreary deserts he had explored before finding this inhospitable oasis, "at least, not a commercial one."

"You don't want to sell anything?" asked the maiden suspiciously. Impregnated with all that is best in the go - ahead spirit of English business methods, she naturally looked with the deepest distrust on anybody who might possibly wish to do such an unbusinesslike thing as sell her firm something.

"Nothing," Roger assured her with the utmost earnestness, impressed in his turn with the revolting vulgarity of such a proceeding.

On these conditions it appeared that the maiden, though - by no means ready to take him to her bosom, was prepared to tolerate him for a few seconds. "Well, what do you want then?" she asked, with an air of weariness patiently, even nobly borne. From her tone it was to be gathered that very few people penetrated as far as that door unless with the discreditable intention of trying to do business with her firm. Just fancy - business!

"I'm a solicitor," Roger told her now, without truth, "and I'm enquiring into the matter of a certain Mr. Joseph Lea Hardwick, who was employed here. I regret to say that - - "

"Sorry, never heard of the gentleman," said the maiden shortly, and intimated in her usual way that the interview had lasted quite long enough.

Once more Roger got busy with his stick. After the seventh application he was rewarded with another view of indignant young English girlhood. "I've told you already - - "

But Roger had had about enough of this. "And now, young woman, let me tell you something. If you refuse to answer my questions, let me warn you that you may find yourself in very serious trouble. Haven't you ever heard of contempt of court?" There are times when some slight juggling with the truth is permissible. There are times, too, when even a shrewd blow with a bludgeon may be excused. This time was one of both.

The maiden, though far from cowed, was at last impressed. "Well, what do you want to know then?" she asked, resignedly.

"This man, Joseph Lea Hardwick - - "

"I've told you, I've never heard of him."

As the gentleman in question had enjoyed an existence of only two or three minutes, and that solely in Roger's brain, his creator was not unprepared for this. "It is possible that he was known to you under a different name," he said darkly.

The maiden's interest was engaged. More, she looked positively alarmed. She spoke shrilly. "If it's divorce, let me tell you you can't hang anything on me. I never even knew he was married. Besides, it isn't as if there was a cause. I mean to say - well, at least - anyhow, it's a pack of lies. I never - - "

"It isn't divorce," Roger hastened to stem the tide, himself scarcely less alarmed at these quite unmaidenly revelations. "It's - it's nothing to do with your private life at all. It's about a man who was employed here."

"Oh!" The late maiden's relief turned rapidly into indignation. "Well, why couldn't you say so?"

"Employed here," pursued Roger firmly, "in the nitrobenzene department. You have a nitrobenzene department, haven't you? "

"Not that I'm aware of, I'm sure."

Roger made the noise that is usually spelt "Tchah! You know perfectly well what I mean. The department which handles the nitrobenzene used here. You are hardly prepared to deny that nitrobenzene is used here, I hope? And extensively?"

"Well, and what if it is?"

"It has been reported to my firm that this man met his death through insufficient warning having been issued to the employees here about the dangerous nature of this substance. I should like - - "

"What? One of our men died? I don't believe it. I should have been the first to know if - - "

"It's been hushed up," Roger inserted quickly. "I should like you to show me a copy of the warning that is hung up in the factory about nitrobenzene."

"Well, I'm sorry then, but I'm afraid I can't oblige you."

"Do you mean to tell me," said Roger, much shocked, "that no warning is issued at all to your employees about this most dangerous substance? They're not even told that it is a deadly poison? "

"I didn't say that, did I? Of course they're warned that it's poisonous. Everybody is. And they're most careful about the way it's handled, I'm sure. It just happens that there isn't a warning hung up. And if you want to know any more about it, you'd better see one of the directors. I'll - - "

"Thank you," said Roger, speaking the truth at last, "I've learned all I wanted. Good morning." He retreated jubilantly.

He retreated to Webster's, the printers, in a taxi.

Webster's of course are to printing what Monte Carlo is to the Riviera. Webster's, practically speaking, are printing. So where more naturally should Roger go if he wanted some new notepaper printed in a very special and particular way, as apparently he did?

To the young woman behind the counter who took him in charge he specified at great length and in the most meticulous detail exactly what he did want. The young woman handed him her book of specimen pieces and asked him to see if he could find a style there which would suit him. While he looked through it she turned to another customer. Not to palter with the truth, that young woman had been getting a little weary of Roger and his wants.

Apparently Roger could not find a style to suit him, for he closed the book and edged a little along the counter till he was within the territory of the next young woman. To her in turn he embarked on the epic of his needs, and in turn too she presented him with her book of specimens and asked him to choose one. As the book was only another copy of the same edition, it is not surprising that Roger found himself no further forward.

Once more he edged along the counter, and once more he recited his saga to the third, and last, young woman. Knowing the game, she handed him her book of specimens. But this time Roger had his reward. This book was one of the same edition, but it was not an exact copy.

"Of course I'm sure you'll have what I want," he remarked garrulously as he flicked over the pages, "because I was recommended here by a friend who is really most particular. Most particular."

"Is that so?" said the young woman, doing her best to appear extremely interested. She was a very young woman indeed, young enough to study the technique of salesmanship in her spare time; and one of the first rules in salesmanship, she had learned, was to receive a customer's remark that it is a fine day with the same eager and respectful admiration of the penetrating powers of his observation as she would accord to a fortune - teller who informed her that she would receive a letter from a dark stranger across the water containing an offer of money, on her note of hand alone. "Well," she said, trying hard, "some people are particular, and that's a fact."

"Dear me!" Roger seemed much struck. "Do you know, I believe I've got my friend's photograph on me this very minute. Isn't that an extraordinary coincidence?"

"Well, I never," said the dutiful young woman.

Roger produced the coincidental photograph and handed it across the counter. "There! Recognise it?"

The young woman took the photograph and studied it closely. "So that's your friend! Well, isn't that extraordinary? Yes, of course I recognise it. It's a small world, isn't it?"

"About a fortnight ago, I think my friend was in here last," Roger persisted. "Is that right?"

The young woman pondered. "Yes, it would be about a fortnight ago, I suppose. Yes, just about. Now this is a line we're selling a good deal of just at present."

Roger bought an inordinate quantity of note - paper he didn't want in the least, out of sheer lightness of heart. And because she really was a very nice young woman, and it was a shame to take advantage of her.

Then he went back to his rooms for lunch. Most of the afternoon he spent in trying apparently to buy a second - hand typewriter.

Roger was very particular that his typewriter should be a Hamilton No. 4. When the salesman tried to induce him to consider other makes he refused to look at them, saying that he had had the Hamilton No. 4 so strongly recommended to him by a friend, who had bought a second - hand one just about three weeks ago. Perhaps it was at this very shop? No? They hadn't sold a Hamilton No. 4 for the last two months? How very odd.

But at one shop they had; and that was odder still. The obliging salesman looked up the exact date, and found that it was just a month ago. Roger described his friend, and the salesman at once agreed that Roger's friend and his own customer were one and the same.

"Good gracious, and now I come to think of it," Roger cried, " I actually believe I've got my friend's photograph on me at this very minute. Let me see!" He rummaged in his pockets, and to his great astonishment produced the photograph in question.

The salesman most obligingly proceeded to identify his customer without hesitation. He then went on, just as obligingly, to sell Roger the second - hand Hamilton No. 4 which that enthusiastic detective felt he had not the face to refuse to buy. Detecting, Roger was discovering, is for the person without official authority to back him, a singularly expensive business. But like Mrs. Fielder - Flemming, he did not grudge money spent in a good cause.

He went back to his rooms to tea. There was nothing more to be done except await the call from Moresby.

It came sooner than he expected. "Is that you, Mr. Sheringham? There are fourteen taxi - drivers here, littering up my office," said Moresby offensively. "They all took fares from Piccadilly Circus to the Strand, or vice versa, at your time. What do you want me to do with 'em?"

"Kindly keep them till I come, Chief Inspector," returned Roger with dignity, and grabbed his hat. He had not expected more than three at the most, but he was not going to let Moresby know that.

The interview with the fourteen was brief enough however. To each grinning man in turn (Roger deduced a little heavy humour on the part of Moresby before he arrived) Roger showed the photograph, taking some pains to hold it so that Moresby could not see it, and asked if he could recognise his fare.

Not a single one could. Moresby dismissed the men with a broad grin.

"That's a pity, Mr. Sheringham. Puts a bit of a spoke in the case you're trying to work up, no doubt?"

Roger smiled at him in a superior manner. "On the contrary, my dear Moresby, it just about clinches it."

"It what did you say?" asked Moresby, startled out of his grammar. "What are you up to, Mr. Sheringham, eh?"

"I thought you knew all that. Aren't we being sleuthed?"

"Well!" Moresby actually looked a shade out of countenance. "To tell you the truth, Mr. Sheringham, all your people seemed to be going so far off the lines that I called my men off; it didn't seem worth while keeping 'em on."

"Dear, dear," said Roger gently. "Fancy that. Well, it's a small world, isn't it?"

"So what have you been doing, Mr. Sheringham? You've no objection to telling me that, I suppose? "

"None in the least, Moresby. Your work for you. Does it interest you to know that I've found out who sent those chocolates to Sir Eustace?"

Moresby eyed him for a moment. "It certainly does, Mr. Sheringham. If you really have."

"Oh, I have, yes," said Roger very nonchalantly; even Mr. Bradley himself could not have spoken more so. "I'll give you a report on it as soon as I've got my evidence in order. - It was an interesting case," he added. And suppressed a yawn.

"Was it now, Mr. Sheringham?" said Moresby, in a choked voice.

"Oh, yes; in its way. But absurdly simple once one had grasped the really essential factor. Quite ridiculously so. I'll let you have that report some time. So long, then." And he strolled out.

One cannot conceal the fact that Roger had his annoying moments.