"Quite true. Can’t one make a feeble joke without rasping your susceptibilities? Now is that the end of your list?"
"I think so, sir."
"Ah! You didn’t think of including someone with the initial ‘B,’ then? You remember the ‘B’ on the bracelet?"
The Inspector seemed rather startled.
"You mean this fellow B. might have been a discarded lover of Mrs. Silverdale’s who was out for revenge like the Hailsham girl? I hadn’t thought of that. It’s possible, of course."
"Now let’s turn to a fresh side of the case," Sir Clinton suggested. "One thing’s certain; hyoscine played a part in the affair. What about Mr. Justice’s pertinent inquiry: ‘Who had access to hyoscine at the Croft-Thornton Institute?’"
"Every blessed soul in the place, so far as I could see," the Inspector confessed, rather ruefully. "Silverdale, Markfield, young Hassendean, and the two girls: they all had equal chances of helping themselves from that bottle in the store. I don’t think that leads very far. That hyoscine was common property so far as access to it went. Anyone might have taken some."
"Then push the thing a little further. Out of all that list, who had an opportunity of administering hyoscine to Mrs. Silverdale—directly or indirectly—on the night she died?"
"Directly or indirectly?" Flamborough mused. "There’s something in that perhaps. On the face of it, only three people could have administered the drug directly, since there were only three people at Heatherfield in a fit state to do it. I take it that she swallowed the stuff at Heatherfield, sir, because I found no trace of a paper which might have held it, either at the bungalow or on the bodies of young Hassendean and Mrs. Silverdale."
"That’s sound, I believe," Sir Clinton acquiesced. "She swallowed the stuff at Heatherfield before going out. Now who are your three suspects?"
"Mrs. Silverdale herself might have taken it, sir, either on purpose or by mistake."
"But she had no access to hyoscine that we know of."
"No, sir, but both Silverdale and young Hassendean had. She may have taken it in mistake for a headache powder or something of that sort. And it might have been added to a headache powder by either Silverdale or young Hassendean."
"That’s a good enough suggestion, Inspector. But I didn’t see any sign of a powder paper in her room when I searched it; and you remember she came straight downstairs and went out of the house, according to the maid’s evidence. Any other view?"
"Then it must have been administered in the coffee, sir, by either young Hassendean or the maid."
"The maid? Where would she get hyoscine?"
"From Silverdale, sir. It’s just occurred to me. Silverdale wanted a divorce; but he couldn’t get evidence because his wife was simply playing with young Hassendean and keeping well within the limits. But if she were drugged, then young Hassendean might seize the chance that was offered to him, and if Silverdale was prepared beforehand, he’d have his evidence at the cost of watching them for an hour or two."
"So Silverdale gave the maid the drug to put in one of the cups of coffee and ordered her to give that cup to Mrs. Silverdale, you think?"
"It’s possible, sir. I don’t put it higher. That maid was a simple creature—look how the doctor pumped her on the pretence of getting medical information that night. She was devoted to Silverdale; he told us that himself. She’d swallow any talk he chose to hand out to her. Suppose he faked up some yarn about Mrs. Silverdale needing a sedative but refusing to take it. The maid would believe that from Silverdale, and she’d put the hyoscine into the cup quite innocently. If the worst came to the worst, and the cups got mixed, then young Hassendean would get the dose instead."
"It’s asking a bit too much, I’m afraid. Remember it was a heavy over-dose that was given."
"Everybody’s liable to make a mistake, sir."
"True. And I suppose you’d say that after the murder at the bungalow Silverdale awoke to the fact that the maid’s evidence about the hyoscine would hang him, probably; so he went back and murdered her also."
"It was someone well known to her who did her in, sir. That’s clear enough."
"In the meantime, you’ve left aside the possibility that young Hassendean may have administered the stuff. How does that strike you?"
"It’s possible, sir," the Inspector admitted cautiously. "But there’s no evidence for it."
"Oh, I shouldn’t like to go so far as that," Sir Clinton said, chaffingly. "I’ll tell you what evidence there is on the point. There’s Hassendean’s own diary, first of all. Then there’s what we found in young Hassendean’s laboratory notebook."
"But that was just some stuff about weighing potash-bulbs, whatever they may be."
"Quite correct. That was what it was."
"Well, I’m no chemist, sir. It’s off my beat."
