The Problem of the Green Capsule

by John Dickson Carr

  “We noticed that, sir,” said Elliot. “Yes, you’re shot,” he told Harding. “But you’re not dead, are you? You don’t feel dead, do you? Hoy!”

  “I’m——”

  “Let me have a look. Listen!” urged Elliot, taking him by the shoulders as Harding gave him a glazed, uncomprehending glance. “You’re not hurt, d’ye hear? His arm must have joggled or something. The bullet went sideways and grazed the skin at the back of your neck. It’s burnt, but all you’ve got is a crease not a tenth of an inch deep. You’re not hurt, d’ye hear?”

  “Never mind,” muttered Harding. “No good complaining; let’s face it. Chin up, eh? Ha, ha, ha.” Though he seemed not to have heard, and muttered the words with an absent, almost jocular calm, he gave Elliot a new impression. Elliot thought that a very keen brain had heard the diagnosis; had translated it instantly, even in a daze of fear; had realised that it was on the edge of making a fool of itself; and in a flash was up and putting on a remarkable show of acting.

  Elliot dropped his shoulders.

  “Will you attend to this?” he asked Dr. Chesney.

  “Bag,” said Doctor Joe, gulping once or twice and waggling his wrist in the direction of the front door. “Black bag. My bag. Under stairs in hall.”

  “What ho,” said Harding amiably.

  And Elliot was compelled to admire him. For Harding was now sitting up on the grass and laughing.

  All very well to talk. But that wound was a very painful one from the powder-burning alone; if the crease had gone half an inch deeper it would have meant death; and he was now losing a good deal of blood. Yet Harding, though he was still pale, seemed transfigured. He looked as though he honestly enjoyed it.

  “You’re a rotten shot, Doctor Joe,” he pointed out. “If you can miss such a sitter as that, you’ll never succeed. Eh, Marjorie?”

  Marjorie climbed out of the car and ran to him.

  Dr. Chesney—who bumped into her when they both moved—stopped shakily with his foot on the running-board and stared.

  “My God, you don’t think I did it deliberately, do you?”

  “Why not?” grinned Harding. “Steady, Marjorie. ’Ware claret.” His eyes were large, fixed, and of a dark luminousness, but he almost chirped as he patted her shoulder. “No, no, sorry; I know you didn’t mean it. But it’s no great fun having guns loosed off into the back of your neck.”

  This was all Elliot heard, for he went into the house after the doctor’s bag. When he returned, Dr. Chesney, aghast, was demanding the same thing of Bostwick.

  “You don’t think I did it deliberately, Superintendent?” Bostwick, more heavy-faced than ever, spoke grimly.

  “I don’t know what you meant, sir. I know what I saw.” He pointed. “I was standing up at that there window. And I saw you deliberately take that revolver out of your pocket, point it at Mr. Harding’s neck, and——”

  “But it was a joke. The gun wasn’t loaded!”

  “No, sir?”

  Bostwick turned round. On either side of the front door was a small ornamental pillar, painted dull yellow, supporting a flattish triangular hood over the doorway. The bullet had lodged in the left-hand pillar. By a freak turn of the hand it had passed between Harding and Marjorie, missing the windscreen of the car, and, miraculously, missing Marjorie herself.

  “But it wasn’t loaded,” insisted Dr. Chesney. “I could swear to it! I know it. I clicked it several times before. It was all right when we were at——” He stopped.

  “At where?”

  “Never mind. Man, you don’t think I’d do a thing like that, do you? Why, that’d make me a,” he hesitated, “a murderer.”

  The hollow incredulity with which Dr. Chesney spoke, the hint of a bursting laugh as he pointed to himself, carried conviction. There was something almost childlike in the way he said it. He was a good fellow surrounded by accusers. He had, metaphorically, offered to stand drinks all round; and they had refused him. Even his short ginger beard and moustache bristled with hurt surprise.

  “I clicked it several times,” he repeated. “It wasn’t loaded.”

  “If you did that,” said Bostwick, “and there was a live cartridge in the magazine, you only brought it into position. But that’s not it, sir. What were you doing carrying a loaded pistol about with you?”

  “It wasn’t loaded.”

  “Loaded or unloaded, why were you carrying a pistol?” Dr. Chesney opened his mouth, and shut it again. “It was a joke,” he said.

  “A joke?”

  “A kind of joke.”

  “Have you a licence to carry that revolver, sir?”

  “Well, not exactly. But I could get one easily enough,” snorted the other, suddenly becoming truculent. He thrust out his beard. “What’s all this fiddle-faddle? If I wanted to shoot somebody, do you think I’d wait till I was smack-bang outside this house to draw a gun and do it? Oh, bosh. Rubbish. What’s more, do you want my patient to die on me? Look at him, bleeding like a pig! Let me go. Gimme that bag. Into the house with you, George my lad. That is, if you still think you can trust me.”

  “Right you are,” said Harding. “I’ll take a chance.”

  Though Bostwick was furious, he could hardly interfere. Elliot noticed that Dr. Fell had now lumbered out of the house; both Harding and Dr. Chesney gave him a surprised glance as they went in.

  Bostwick turned to Marjorie.

  “Now, miss.”

  “Yes?” said Marjorie coolly.

  “Do you know why your uncle was carrying a revolver?”

  “He told you it was a joke. You know Uncle Joe.”

  Again Elliot could not fathom her attitude. She was leaning against the side of the car, and seemed occupied in trying to detach on the gravel several tiny white spots which clung to the damp sole of her shoe. Her glance at him was brief.

  Elliot moved in front of an angry Superintendent.

  “Have you been with your uncle all afternoon, Miss Wills?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “For a drive.”

  “Where?”

  “Just—for a drive.”

  “Did you stop anywhere?”

  “At one or two pubs. And at Professor Ingram’s cottage.”

  “Had you seen that revolver of your uncle’s before he took it out here and fired it?”

  “You’ll have to ask him about that,” answered Marjorie, in the same toneless way. “I wouldn’t know anything about it.”

  Superintendent Bostwick’s face said, “Wouldn’t you, by George?” Bostwick braced himself. “Whether you would or you wouldn’t, miss,” he said aloud, “it might interest you to know that we’ve got a question or two—about yourself—that you can answer.”

  “Oh?”

  Behind the Superintendent, Dr. Fell’s expression grew murderous. He was puffing out his cheeks for a blast of speech but an interruption was not necessary. The interruption came from another source. The staunch maid Pamela opened the front door, put her head out, made a gesture that indicated all the investigators, moved her lips rapidly without uttering a sound, and closed the door again. Except for Marjorie, only Elliot saw it. Two voices spoke almost at once.

  “So you’ve been pulling my room about?” said Marjorie.

  “So that’s how you did it!” said Elliot.

  If you had designed the words to startle her, he could not have succeeded better. She twitched her head round; he noticed the extraordinary shining of the eyes. She spoke quickly:

  “How I did what?”

  “How you seemed to be reading thoughts. As a matter of fact, you were reading lips.”

  Marjorie was clearly taken aback. “Oh. You mean,” she added rather maliciously, “when you called poor George a clever swine? Yes, yes, yes. I’m quite a proficient lip-reader. It’s probably the only thing I am good at. An old man who used to work for us taught me; he lives in Bath; he——”

  “Is his name Tolerance?” demanded Dr. Fell.


  By this time, Bostwick later admitted, the Superintendent was coming to the conclusion that Dr. Fell was insane. Up to half an hour ago the doctor had seemed sane enough; and Bostwick had always remembered with respect his work in the case of the Eight of Swords and the case of Waterfall Manor. But during that conversation in Marjorie Wills’s bedroom something seemed to have slipped in Dr. Fell’s brain. Nothing could have exceeded the joy, the almost evil joy, with which he now pronounced the name of Tolerance.

  “Is his name Henry S. Tolerance? Does he live in Avon Street? Is he a waiter at the Beau Hash Hotel?”

  “Yes; but——”

  “What a devilish small world it is, you know,” said Dr. Fell through his teeth. “Never has that noble bromide fallen more soothingly on the ear. I was mentioning my fine, deaf waiter to my friend Elliot this morning. I heard my first report of your uncle’s murder from him. Thank Tolerance, ma’am. Cherish Tolerance. Send Tolerance five bob at Christmas. He’ll deserve it.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “Because he’s going to prove who killed your uncle,” said Dr. Fell, changing his tone and speaking seriously. “Or, at least, he will be responsible for proving it.”

  “You don’t think I did it?”

  “I know you didn’t do it.”

  “But you know who did?”

  “I know who did,” said Dr. Fell, inclining his head.

  For what seemed a long time she looked at him, with no more expression in her eyes than you will find in a cat’s. Then, groping vaguely, she reached into the front of the car and drew out her handbag as though she were preparing to make a dash for the house.

  “Do they believe it?” she asked, suddenly nodding towards Bostwick and Elliot.

  “What we believe, miss,” snapped Bostwick, “is neither here nor there. But the Inspector,” he looked at Elliot, “came over here (came over here, mind) expressly to ask you some questions——”

  “About a hypodermic needle?” said Marjorie.

  The trembling in her fingers now seemed to have spread to her whole body. She stared at the catch of her handbag, opening and shutting it in a series of nervous clicks; her head was lowered, so that the brim of the soft grey hat hid her face.

  “I imagine you found it,” she went on, clearing her throat. “I found it myself, this morning. In the bottom of the jewel-casket. I wanted to hide it, but I couldn’t think of a better place in the house and I was afraid to take it out of the house. How can you dispose of a thing? How can you put it down somewhere and make sure nobody’s seen you do it? There aren’t any fingerprints of mine on it, if there ever were any, because I wiped it off. But I didn’t put it in the jewel-casket. I didn’t.”

  Elliot took the envelope out of his pocket and held it so that she could see inside.

  She did not look at him. There was now no more sense of communication between them than though it had never existed. It was a snapped cord, a dead line, a new wall.

  “Is this the hypodermic needle, Miss Wills?”

  “Yes. That’s it. I think.”

  “Is it yours?”

  “No. It’s Uncle Joe’s. At least, it’s like the ones he uses; and it’s got ‘Cartwright & Co.,’ and a grade and trade number on it.”

  “Would it be possible,” requested Dr. Fell wearily, “to forget that hypodermic needle for just one moment? Would it be possible, even, to expunge the hypodermic needle from our minds? Confound the hypodermic needle! What difference does it make what’s on it, whose it is, or how it could have come into the jewel-box, provided you know who put it there? No, I say. But if Miss Wills really believes what I told her a minute ago”—he contemplated her steadily—“she could tell us, instead, about the revolver.”

  “The revolver?”

  “I mean,” said Dr. Fell, “you might tell us where you and Harding and Dr. Chesney really went this afternoon.” “You don’t know that too?”

  “Oh, Lord, I don’t know!” roared Dr. Fell, making a hideous face. “Maybe I’m wrong. It’s all a question of atmospheres. Dr. Chesney had the atmosphere, in his own way. Harding had it in his way. You have it: in your way too. Look at you. Please tell me if I’m a blundering ass, but there are other outward signs.”

  Lifting his stick, he pointed to the white carnation lying in the drive; the carnation which Dr. Chesney had taken out of his button-hole and thrown overboard as the car approached the house. Then Dr. Fell moved his stick down and touched Marjorie’s shoe. Instinctively she jerked away, drawing her foot back and up, but one of the minute whitish spots adhering to the sole of the shoe now adhered to the ferrule of the stick.

  “They wouldn’t have thrown confetti at you, of course,” said the doctor. “But I seem to remember that the pavement outside the registry office in Castle Street is usually thick with it. And this is a damp day.—Have I got to do this sort of thing?” he added, fiercely.

  Marjorie nodded.

  “Yes,” she said coolly. “George and I were married at the registry office in Bristol this afternoon.”

  As still nobody spoke, during a pause in which they could hear noises inside the house, she tried again.

  “It was a special licence. We got it the day before yesterday.” Her voice rose a little. “We—we intended to keep it a dead secret. For a year.” Her voice rose still higher. “But since you’re such clever detectives, and we’re such rotten criminals that you guessed straightaway, all right. There you are.”

  Superintendent Bostwick stared at her.

  Then he was shocked into honest speech.

  “My girl,” he said in an incredulous tone, “God alive! I don’t believe it. I can’t believe it. Even when I thought there was something wrong with you; but we won’t discuss that, look; even then I never thought you’d go and do a thing like this. Or that the doctor would let you. That’s what beats me.”

  “Don’t you approve of marriage, Mr. Bostwick?”

  “Approve of marriage?” repeated Bostwick, as though the words meant nothing to him. “When did you decide to go and do this?”

  “We were going to do it to-day. That’s what we’d planned. We were going to be married quietly at a registry office anyway, because George hates church-services and fuss. Then Uncle Marcus died; and I felt so—so—well, anyway, we decided this morning we’d go and do it anyway. And I had my reasons. I had my reasons, I tell you!”

  She was almost screaming at him.

  “God alive,” said Bostwick. “That’s what beats me. I’ve known your family for sixteen years. I have: I tell you straight. And that the doctor would go and let you do this, with Mr. Chesney not even in his grave——”

  She had backed away.

  “Well,” said Marjorie, with the tears starting into her eyes, “isn’t anybody at least going to congratulate me, or at least tell me they hope I’ll be happy?”

  “I do hope it,” said Elliot. “You know that.”

  “Mrs. Harding,” began Dr. Fell gravely; and she flinched with surprise at the name, “I beg your pardon. My lack of tact is so notorious that it would have been surprising had I been anything but blundering. I do offer you my congratulations. And I not only hope you will be happy. I promise you that you shall be happy.”

  Whereupon Marjorie’s mood changed in a flash.

  “And aren’t we being sentimental, though?” she cried, with a satiric kind of grimace. “And here’s a great booby of a policeman,” she looked at Bostwick, “suddenly remembering how he knew my family; or at least the Chesney family; and how he’d like to put a rope around my neck! I got married. All right. I got married. I had my reasons. You may not understand that, but I had my reasons.”

  “I only said—” began Elliot.

  “Forget it,” interrupted Marjorie, with deadly coolness. “You’ve all had your say. So now you can stand round as smug and solemn-faced as owls. Like Professor Ingram. You should have seen his face, when we drove by his house and asked him to be the second witness. No, no. Oh, no. Hor
rible. He couldn’t countenance it.

  “But I forgot. All you want to know is about the revolver, isn’t it? I can easily tell you that, and it really was a joke. Perhaps Uncle Joe’s sense of humour isn’t as refined as it might be, though at least he rallies round when others don’t. Uncle Joe thought it would be a great j-joke to pretend that this was what he called a ‘shotgun’ wedding; and he would hold that revolver in such a way that the registrar couldn’t see it but we could, and he could pretend he was there to see George made an honest woman of me.”

  Bostwick clucked his tongue.

  “Oh, ah!” he muttered, with a gleam of something like relief in his face. “Why didn’t you say so before? You mean——”

  “No, I do not mean,” said Marjorie almost tenderly. “What a master of anti-climax you are! I get married to avoid being hanged for murder, and you’re filled with understanding when you think I got married to be made an honest woman of. This is beautiful.” Her mirth grew. “No, Mr. Bostwick. After all the things you think I’ve done, it may startle you terribly; but (as you would say) my purity remains unsmirched. What a world. Anyway, never mind that. You wanted to know about the revolver, and I’ve told you. I don’t know how a bullet managed to get into it; it was probably Uncle Joe’s carelessness; but it was a pure accident; and nobody meant anybody to be killed at all.”

  Dr. Fell said politely:

  “That is your impression?”

  With all her quickness of understanding, she did not at first understand this. “You don’t mean George’s being shot wasn’t an—” she began; and broke off. “You don’t mean the murderer’s been at it again?”

  Dr. Fell inclined his head.

  Evening was drawing in over Bellegarde. Towards the east the low hills were turning grey, but the sky to the west was still fiery: the sky on which faced the windows of the Music Room, the office, and the windows of Wilbur Emmet’s bedroom above. Out of one of these windows, Elliot remembered in an idle sort of way, Dr. Chesney had put his head last night.

  “Do you want me for anything more?” said Marjorie in a low voice. “If you don’t, please let me go.”