“Have you looked up anything about the stuff—maximum dose, and so forth?” Sir Clinton inquired.
“The maximum dose of hyoscine hydrobromide is down in the books as six-tenths of a milligramme—about a hundredth of a grain in apothecaries’ weights.”
“Then she must have swallowed ten or twelve times the maximum dose,” Sir Clinton calculated, after a moment or two of mental arithmetic.
He paused for a space, then turned again to Markfield.
“I’d like to see the hyoscine in your store here, if you can lay your hands on it easily.”
Markfield made no objection.
“If you’d come in yesterday, the bottle would have been here, beside me. I’ve taken it back to the shelf now.”
“I suppose you borrowed it to do a mixed melting-point?” Sir Clinton asked.
“Yes. When there’s only a trace of a stuff to identify, it’s the easiest method. But you seem to know something about chemistry?”
“About enough to make mistakes with, I’m afraid. It simply happened that someone described the mixed melting-point business to me once; and it stuck in my mind. Now suppose we look at this store of yours.”
Markfield led them along a passage and threw open a door at the end.
“In here,” he said.
“You don’t keep it locked?” Sir Clinton inquired casually, as he passed in, followed by the Inspector.
“No,” Markfield answered in some surprise. “It’s the general chemical store for this department. There’s no point in keeping it locked. All our stuffs are here, and it would be a devilish nuisance if one had to fish out a key every time one wanted some chloroform or benzene. We keep the duty-free alcohol locked up, of course. That’s necessary under the Customs’ regulations.”
Sir Clinton readily agreed.
“You’re all trustworthy people, naturally,” he admitted, “It’s not like a place where you have junior students about who might play thoughtless tricks.”
Markfield went over to one of the cases which lined the room, searched along a shelf, and took down a tiny bottle.
“Here’s the stuff,” he explained, holding it out to the Chief Constable. “That’s the hydrobromide, of course—a salt of the alkaloid itself. This is the compound that’s used in medicine.”
Now that he had got it, Sir Clinton seemed to have little interest in the substance. He handed it across to Flamborough who, after looking at it with would-be sagacity, returned it to Markfield.
“There’s just one other point that occurs to me,” the Chief Constable explained, as Markfield returned the poison-bottle to its original place. “Have you, by any chance, got an old notebook belonging to young Hassendean on the premises? Anything of the sort would do.”
The Inspector could make nothing of this demand and his face betrayed his perplexity as he considered it. Markfield thought for a few moments before replying, evidently trying to recall the existence of any article which would suit Sir Clinton’s purpose.
“I think I’ve got a rough notebook of his somewhere in my room,” he said at last. “But it’s only a record of weighings and things like that. Would it do?”
“The very thing,” Sir Clinton declared, gratefully. “I’d be much obliged if you could lay your hands on it for me now. I hope it isn’t troubling you too much.”
It was evident from Markfield’s expression that he was as much puzzled as the Inspector; and his curiosity seemed to quicken his steps on the way back to his room. After a few minutes’ hunting, he unearthed the notebook of which he was in search and laid it on the table before Sir Clinton. Flamborough, familiar with young Hassendean’s writing, had no difficulty in seeing that the notes were in the dead man’s hand.
Sir Clinton turned over the leaves idly, examining an entry here and there. The last one seemed to satisfy him, and he put an end to his inspection. Flamborough bent over the table and was mystified to find only the following entry on the exposed leaf:
Weight of potash bulb
= 50.7789 grs.
Weight of potash bulb + CO2
= 50.9825 grs.
Weight of CO2
= 0.2046 grs.
“By the way,” said Sir Clinton casually, “do you happen to have one of your own notebooks at hand—something with the same sort of thing in them?”
Markfield, obviously puzzled, went over to a drawer and pulled out a notebook which he passed to the Chief Constable. Again Sir Clinton skimmed over the pages, apparently at random, and then left the second book open beside the first one. Flamborough, determined to miss nothing, examined the exposed page in Markfield’s notebook, and was rewarded by this:—
Weight of U-tube
= 24.7792 gms.
Weight of U-tube + H2O
= 24.9047 gms.
Weight of H2O
= 0.1255gms.
“Damned if I see what he’s driving at,” the Inspector said savagely to himself. “It’s Greek to me.”
“A careless young fellow,” the Chief Constable pronounced acidly. “My eye caught three blunders in plain arithmetic as I glanced through these notes. There’s one on this page here,” he indicated the open book. “He seems to have been a very slapdash sort of person.”
“An unreliable young hound!” was Markfield’s slightly intensified description. “It was pure influence that kept him here for more than a week. Old Thornton, who put up most of the money for building this place, was interested in him—knew his father, I think—and so we had to keep the young pup here for fear of rasping old Thornton’s feelings. Otherwise. . . .”
The gesture accompanying the aposiopesis expressed Markfield’s idea of the fate which would at once have befallen young Hassendean had his protector’s influence been withdrawn.
The Chief Constable appeared enlightened by this fresh information.
“I couldn’t imagine how you came to let him have the run of the place for so long,” he confessed. “But, of course, as things were, it was evidently cheaper to keep him, even if he did no useful work. One can’t afford to alienate one’s benefactors.”
After a pause, he continued, reverting apparently to an earlier line of thought:
“Let’s see. You made out that something like twelve times the normal dose of hyoscine had been administered?”
Markfield nodded his assent, but qualified it in words:
“That’s a rough figure, remember.”
“Of course,” Sir Clinton agreed. “As a matter of fact, the multiple I had in my mind was 15. I suppose it’s quite possible that some of the stuff escaped you and that your figure is an under-estimate?”
“Quite likely,” Markfield admitted frankly. “I gave you the lowest figure, naturally—a figure I could swear to if it came to the point. As it’s a legal case, it’s safer to be under than over the mark. But quite probably, as you say, I didn’t manage to isolate all the stuff that was really present; and I wouldn’t deny that the quantity in the body may have run up to ten milligrammes or even slightly over it.”
“Well, it’s perhaps hardly worth bothering about,” the Chief Constable concluded. “The main thing is that even at the lowest estimate she must have swallowed enough of the poison to kill her in a reasonably short time.”
With this he seemed satisfied, and after a few questions about the preparation and submission of Markfield’s official report, he took his leave. As he turned away, however, a fresh thought seemed to strike him.
“By the way, Dr. Markfield, do you know if Miss Hailsham’s here this morning?”
“I believe so,” Markfield answered. “I saw her as I came in.”
“I’d like to have a few words with her,” Sir Clinton suggested.
“Officially?” Markfield demanded. “You’re not going to worry the girl, are you? If it’s anything I can tell you about, I’d be only too glad, you know. It’s not very nice for a girl to have the tale going round that she’s been hauled in by the police in a murder case.”
The Chief Con
stable conceded the point without ado.
“Then perhaps you could send for her and we could speak to her in here. It would be more private, and there need be no talk about it outside.”
“Very well,” Markfield acquiesced at once. “I think that would be better. I’ll send for her now.”
He rang a bell and despatched a boy with a message. In a few minutes a tap on the door sounded, and Markfield ushered Norma Hailsham into the room. Inspector Flamborough glanced at her with interest, to see how far his conception of her personality agreed with the reality. She was a girl apparently between twenty and twenty-five, dressed with scrupulous neatness. Quite obviously, she spent money freely on her clothes and knew how to get value for what she spent. But as his eyes travelled up to her face, the Inspector received a more vivid impression. Her features were striking rather than handsome, and Flamborough noted especially the squarish chin and the long thin-lipped flexible mouth.
“H’m!” he commented to himself. “She might flash up in a moment, but with that jaw and those lips she wouldn’t cool down again in a hurry. I was right when I put her down as a vindictive type. Shouldn’t much care to have trouble with her myself.”
He glanced at Sir Clinton for tacit instructions, but apparently the Chief Constable proposed to take charge of the interview.
“Would you sit down, Miss Hailsham,” Sir Clinton suggested, drawing forward a chair for the girl.
Flamborough noticed with professional interest that by his apparently casual courtesy, the Chief Constable had unobtrusively manœuvred the girl into a position in which her face was clearly illuminated by the light from the window.
“This is Inspector Flamborough,” Sir Clinton went on, with a gesture of introduction. “We should like to ask you one or two questions about an awkward case we have in our hands—the Hassendean business. I’m afraid it will be painful for you; but I’m sure you’ll give us what help you can.”
Norma Hailsham’s thin lips set in a hard line at his first words, but the movement was apparently involuntary, for she relaxed them again as Sir Clinton finished his remarks.
“I shall be quite glad to give any help I can,” she said in a level voice.
Flamborough, studying her expression, noticed a swift shift of her glance from one to the other of the three men before her.
“She’s a bit over-selfconscious,” he judged privately. “But she’s the regular look-monger type, anyhow; and quite likely she makes play with her eyes when she’s talking to any man.”
Sir Clinton seemed to be making a merit of frankness:
“I really haven’t any definite questions I want to ask you, Miss Hailsham,” he confessed. “What we hoped was that you might have something to tell us which indirectly might throw some light on this affair. You see, we come into it without knowing anything about the people involved, and naturally any trifle may help us. Now if I’m not mistaken, you knew Mr. Hassendean fairly well?”
“I was engaged to him at one time. He broke off the engagement for various reasons. That’s common knowledge, I believe.”
“Could you give us any of the reasons? I don’t wish to pry, you understand; but I think it’s an important point.”
Miss Hailsham’s face showed that he had touched a sore place.
“He threw me over for another woman—brutally.”
“Mrs. Silverdale?” Sir Clinton inquired.
“Yes, that creature.”
“Ah! Now I’d like to put a blunt question. Was your engagement, while it lasted, a happy one? I mean, of course, before he was attracted to Mrs. Silverdale.”
Norma Hailsham sat with knitted brows for a few moments before answering.
“That’s difficult to answer,” she pointed out at last. “I must confess that I always felt he was thinking more of himself than of me, and it was a disappointment. But, you see, I was very keen on him; and that made a difference, of course.”
“What led to the breaking of your engagement?”
“You mean what led up to it? Well, we were having continual friction over Yvonne Silverdale. He was neglecting me and spending his time with her. Naturally, I spoke to him about it more than once. I wasn’t going to be slighted on account of that woman.”
There was no mistaking the under-current of animosity in the girl’s voice in the last sentence. Sir Clinton ignored it.
“What were your ideas about the relations between Mr. Hassendean and Mrs. Silverdale?”
Miss Hailsham’s thin lips curled in undisguised contempt as she heard the question. She made a gesture as though averting herself from something distasteful.
“It’s hardly necessary to enter into that, is it?” she demanded. “You can judge for yourself.”
But though she verbally evaded the point, the tone in which she spoke was sufficient to betray her private views on the subject. Then with intense bitterness mingled with a certain malicious joy, she added:
“She got what she deserved in the end. I don’t pretend I’m sorry. I think they were both well served.”
Then her temper, which hitherto she had kept under control, broke from restraint:
“I don’t care who knows it! They deserved all they got, both of them. What business had she—with a husband of her own—to come and lure him away? She made him break off his engagement to me simply to gratify her own vanity. You don’t expect me to shed tears over them after that? One can forgive a good deal, but there’s no use making a pretence in things like that. She hit me as hard as she could, and I’m glad she’s got her deserts. I warned him at the time that he wouldn’t come off so well as he thought; and he laughed in my face when I said it. Well, it’s my turn to laugh. The account’s even.”
And she actually did laugh, with a catch of hysteria in the laughter. It needed no great skill in psychology to see that wounded pride shared with disappointed passion in causing this outbreak.
Sir Clinton checked the hysteria before it gained complete hold over her.
“I’m afraid you haven’t told us anything that was new to us, Miss Hailsham,” he said, frigidly. “This melodramatic business gets us no further forward.”
The girl looked at him with hard eyes.
“What help do you expect from me?” she demanded. “I’m not anxious to see him avenged—far from it.”
Sir Clinton evidently realised that nothing was to be gained by pursuing that line of inquiry. Whether the girl had any suspicions or not, she certainly did not intend to supply information which might lead to the capture of the murderer. The Chief Constable waited until she had become calmer before putting his next question:
“Do you happen to know anything about an alkaloid called hyoscine, Miss Hailsham?”
“Hyoscine?” she repeated. “Yes, Avice Deepcar’s working on it just now. She’s been at it for some time under Dr. Silverdale’s direction.”
Flamborough, glancing surreptitiously at Markfield, noted an angry start which the chemist apparently could not suppress. Put on the alert by this, the Inspector reflected that Markfield himself must have had this piece of information, and had refrained from volunteering it.
“I meant as regards its properties,” Sir Clinton interposed. “I’m not an expert in these things like you chemical people.”
“I’m not an alkaloid expert,” Miss Hailsham objected. “All I can remember about it is that it’s used in Twilight Sleep.”
“I believe it is, now that you mention it,” Sir Clinton agreed, politely. “By the way, have you a car, Miss Hailsham?”
“Yes. A Morris-Oxford four-seater.”
“A saloon?”
“No, a touring model. Why do you ask?”
“Someone’s been asking for information about a car which seems to have knocked a man over on the night of the last fog. You weren’t out that night, I suppose, Miss Hailsham?”
“I was, as it happened. I went out to a dance. But I’d a sore throat; and the fog made it worse; so I came away very early and got home as best I could. But i
t wasn’t my car that knocked anyone down. I never had an accident in my life.”
“You might have been excused in that fog, I think, even if you had a collision. But evidently it’s not your car we’re after. What was the number of the car we heard about, Inspector?”
Flamborough consulted his notebook.
“GX.9074, sir.”
“Say that again,” Markfield demanded, pricking up his ears.
“GX.9074 was the number.”
“That’s the number of my car,” Markfield volunteered.
He thought for some time, apparently trying to retrace his experiences in the fog. At last his face lighted up.
“Oh, I guess I know what it is. When I was piloting Dr. Ringwood that night, a fellow nearly walked straight into my front mudguard. I may have hurt his feelings by what I said about his brains, but I swear I didn’t touch him with the car.”
“Not our affair,” Sir Clinton hastened to assure him. “It’s a matter for your insurance company if anything comes of it. And I gathered from Dr. Ringwood that you didn’t exactly break records in your trip across town, so I doubt if you need worry.”
“I shan’t,” said Markfield, crossly. “You can refer him to me if he comes to you again.”
“We’d nothing to do with the matter,” Sir Clinton pointed out. “He was told he’d get the owner’s address from the County Council. I expect he got into a calmer frame of mind when he’d had time to think.”
He turned to Miss Hailsham, who seemed to have recovered complete control over herself during this interlude.
“I think that’s all we need worry you with, Miss Hailsham. I’m sorry that we put you to so much trouble.”
As a sign that the interview was at an end, he moved over to open the door for her.
“I certainly don’t wish you success,” she said icily, as she left the room.
The Case With Nine Solutions (A Clinton Driffield Mystery) Page 13
