by John Bude
Meredith said with a tolerant smile:
“Oh, it’s not quite as simple as all that. I think Penpeti did threaten Mildmann with the pistol once the car had started. Doubtless, Mildmann would have seen it silhouetted against the faint wash of light still left in the sky. But that’s only half the story. Perhaps you’ll find it easier to follow if I tell you, gentlemen, that the rubber bulb of that water-pistol was charged with a highly concentrated solution of prussic acid!”
“Good God!” cried Rokeby. “You mean to tell us—?”
“As much as I possibly can,” broke in Meredith. “The precise details, I hope, will in due course be filled in by Penpeti. But I’ve good reasons for my assumption. You see, Maxton noticed that there was a slight chip out of one of the teeth in Mildmann’s upper denture. We can only presume that the chip occurred when Penpeti forcibly thrust the muzzle of that lethal weapon into Mildmann’s mouth. I suggest he pinched Mildmann’s nose, thus forcing him to open his mouth, then jabbed the muzzle between his teeth and pressed the bulb. With such a concentrated dose of the poison, it would need only a few drops to produce a fatal effect. I imagine Mildmann collapsed at once and that in a few minutes he was dead.”
“And then, sorr?” asked O’Hallidan breathlessly.
“Well, Penpeti opened the car window, tossed the pistol into the bushes, while Arkwright was opening the gate of the Dower House drive.”
“And the man, confound it, who entered and left the Dower House,” broke in the Chief, “was not Mildmann disguised as Penpeti. It actually was Penpeti!”
“You’ve said it, sir! It was. And when he came out to the car again there was nothing wrong with him. You recall Arkwright’s evidence which I incorporated in my preliminary report? Ill, staggering, gasping for breath. All fake, of course. But this play-acting served two useful purposes. Firstly, it enabled Penpeti to disguise his voice by gasping out only a few words in a husky, choking sort of way. This completely foxed young Arkwright. Secondly, it was a nice lead-in to the subsequent discovery of Mildmann’s dead body in the car. His apparent condition on leaving the house meant that Arkwright wasn’t all that surprised when he arrived at North Lodge and found his employer kaput!”
“But look here, Meredith,” broke in Braintree, “if Penpeti entered that car, how was it that Arkwright didn’t discover him when they reached the North Lodge?”
“It was the Dower House drive gate, sir. Arkwright had to get out, drive the car through and shut it again behind him. This gave Penpeti the perfect opportunity to sneak out and vanish into the darkness.”
“But surely Penpeti took a chance,” said the Chief, “in leaving Mildmann’s body in the car, while he was inside the house? Suppose the chauffeur had looked in and discovered the body? Pretty tight corner for Penpeti, eh?”
“Well,” admitted Meredith, “it was a risk, sir. But not a big risk. Arkwright would have no real cause to look into the back of the car, because he naturally thought it was empty. I daresay the body was actually lying on the floor and that Penpeti had thrown the rug over it. Before he got out he probably hauled the body into a sitting posture on the seat. During the drive, of course, Arkwright would have overheard nothing, because of the sound-proof glass panels between the front and back of the car. No—take it all round, gentlemen, I think we’ve got to hand it to Mr. Peta Marcus Penpeti Fleischer!”
“And the girl?” asked Rokeby. “How do you think she actually died? We know she was poisoned, of course, but what were Penpeti’s actions once he was in the room with her?”
Meredith smiled.
“In the circumstances, I imagine Penpeti was naturalness itself. And why not? He often visited her there. Seeing the sherry decanter, he merely proposed that they had a drink together and the girl merely accepted. Nothing odd in that. Penpeti had probably often had a drink with her. He knew from previous visits that the sherry decanter and glasses would be set out on the table. All he had to do was to pour out the sherry, stand between the girl and the table and empty the phial of prussic acid into the glass.”
“And into his own glass, too?” asked Rokeby, puzzled.
“Good God, no!”
“But hang it all—!” began Rokeby, cantankerously.
“I know what you’re thinking, my dear chap. The second glass contained a residue of concentrated prussic acid and the decanter a diluted dose. But it’s all very simple. Penpeti didn’t doctor the sherry that he drank with the girl. He waited until she’d collapsed, poured out a second portion into his own glass, added a second phial of prussic acid and poured the whole lot back into the decanter.”
“’Tis as Oi suggested, sorr,” said O’Hallidan with a smirk of satisfaction.
“But what the devil did he do it for?” asked the Chief Constable.
“A red-herring, sir. It was all part of his build-up to suggest that Mildmann poisoned the girl and then took his own life. The rifling of the desk and the removal of the letter-case was all part of the same trick. After all, Arkwright knew that his employer had gone there to recover the letters. Penpeti knew it, too, since he must have overheard them making their plans. And when Arkwright actually found the letter-case beside the dead body of his master, it was no more than he expected. It all helped to preserve the illusion that the man who stepped out of the Daimler and, later, staggered back to it, was Mildmann in disguise and not the genuine article. If,” added Meredith with a twinkle, “there is anything genuine about this particular article!” He ticked off the items on his fingers. “Charity racketeer, dope pedlar, blackmailer, false prophet, treble murderer! And add to this imposing list the fact that he’s intelligent and devoid of all moral restraint and you have the almost perfect criminal. As far as I can see he made only one mistake.”
“The gloves?” shot out Rokeby.
Meredith nodded.
“He remembered to put them on when he entered the house, but he forgot to remove them before he returned to the car. It’s been a puzzling factor in the case from the start.” Meredith leaned back in his chair, stretched his legs and concluded: “Well, gentlemen, I think that more or less foots the bill.” He turned to the Chief Constable. “Do I get that warrant of arrest, sir?”
Major Sparks chuckled.
“You do, my dear fellow. And something more!”
“And that, sir?”
“A pat on the back, a feather in your cap, a headline in the Press and a well-deserved drink. And when I say ‘well-deserved’, I damn well mean it. A good show, Meredith. A very good show.”
Only Major Sparks did not actually use the word “very”. He employed a less polite but far more emphatic adjective that more correctly expressed his professional approval and admiration!
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