Part 10

“Max Carrados!” exclaimed her uncle in astonishment. “You don’t say so. Why, bless my soul, Elsie, I’d almost forgotten that you knew him. It seems years ago----What on earth is Max doing in Groat’s Heath?”

“That is the extraordinary thing about it,” replied Mrs Bellmark. “He said that he had come up here to look for mushrooms.”

“Mushrooms?”

“Yes; that was what he said. He asked me if I knew of any woods about here that he could go into and I told him of the one down Stonecut Lane.”

“But don’t you know, my dear child,” exclaimed Mr Carlyle, “that mushrooms growing in woods or even near trees are always to be regarded with suspicion? They may look like mushrooms, but they are probably poisonous.”

“I didn’t know,” admitted Mrs Bellmark; “but if they are, I imagine Mr Carrados will know.”

“It scarcely sounds like it--going to a wood, you know. As it happens, I have been looking up the subject lately. But, in any case, you say that he is coming back here?”

“He asked me if he might call on his way home for a cup of tea, and of course I said, ‘Of course.’”

“Of course,” also said Mr Carlyle. “Motoring, I suppose.”

“Yes, a big grey car. He had Mr Parkinson with him.”

Mr Carlyle was slightly puzzled, as he frequently was by his friend’s proceedings, but it was not his custom to dwell on any topic that involved an admission of inadequacy. The subject of Carrados and his eccentric quest was therefore dismissed until the sound of a formidable motor car dominating the atmosphere of the quiet suburban road was almost immediately followed by the entrance of the blind amateur. With a knowing look towards his niece Carlyle had taken up a position at the farther end of the room, where he remained in almost breathless silence.

Carrados acknowledged the hostess’s smiling greeting and then nodded familiarly in the direction of the playful guest.

“Well, Louis,” he remarked, “we’ve caught each other.”

Mrs Bellmark was perceptibly startled, but rippled musically at the failure of the conspiracy.

“Extraordinary,” admitted Mr Carlyle, coming forward.

“Not so very,” was the dry reply. “Your friendly little maid”--to Mrs Bellmark--“mentioned your visitor as she brought me in.”

“Is it a fact, Max,” demanded Mr Carlyle, “that you have been to--er--Stonecut Wood to get mushrooms?”

“Mrs Bellmark told you?”

“Yes. And did you succeed?”

“Parkinson found something that he assured me looked just like mushrooms.”

Mr Carlyle bestowed a triumphant glance on his niece.

“I should very much like to see these so-called mushrooms. Do you know, it may be rather a good thing for you that I met you.”

“It is always a good thing for me to meet you,” replied Carrados. “You shall see them. They are in the car. Perhaps I shall be able to take you back to town?”

“If you are going very soon. No, no, Elsie”--in response to Mrs Bellmark’s protesting “Oh!”--“I don’t want to influence Max, but I really must tear myself away the moment after tea. I still have to clear up some work on a rather important case I am just completing. It is quite appropriate to the occasion, too. Do you know all about the Winpole business, Max?”

“No,” admitted Carrados, without any appreciable show of interest. “Do you, Louis?”

“Yes,” responded Mr Carlyle with crisp assurance, “yes, I think that I may claim I do. In fact it was I who obtained the evidence that induced the authorities to take up the case against Loudham.”

“Oh, do tell us all about it,” exclaimed Elsie. “I have only seen something in the _Indicator_.”

Mr Carlyle shook his head, hemmed and looked wise, and then gave in.

“But not a word of this outside, Elsie,” he stipulated. “Some of the evidence won’t be given until next week and it might be serious----”

“Not a syllable,” assented the lady. “How exciting! Go on.”

“Well, you know, of course, that the coroner’s jury--very rightly, according to the evidence before them--brought in a verdict of accidental death. In the circumstances it was a reflection on the business methods or the care or the knowledge or whatever one may decide of the man who sold the mushrooms, a greengrocer called Lackington. I have seen Lackington, and with a rather remarkable pertinacity in the face of the evidence he insists that he could not have made this fatal blunder--that in weighing so small a quantity as half-a-pound, at any rate, he would at once have spotted anything that wasn’t quite all right.”

“But the doctor said, Uncle Louis----”

“Yes, my dear Elsie, we know what the doctor said, but, rightly or wrongly, Lackington backs his experience and practical knowledge against theoretical generalities. In ordinary circumstances nothing more would have come of it, but it happens that Lackington has for a lodger a young man on the staff of the local paper, and for a neighbour a pharmaceutical chemist. These three men talked things over more than once--Lackington restive under the damage that had been done to his reputation, the journalist stimulating and keen for a newspaper sensation, the chemist contributing his quota of practical knowledge. At the end of a few days a fabric of circumstance had been woven which might be serious or innocent according to the further development of the suggestion and the manner in which it could be met. These were the chief points of the attack:

“Mrs Dupreen’s allowance for the care and maintenance of Charlie Winpole ceased with his death, as she had told the jury. What she did not mention was that the deceased boy would have come into an inheritance of some fifteen thousand pounds at age and that this fortune now fell in equal shares to the lot of his two nearest relatives--Mrs Dupreen and her brother Philip.

“Mrs Dupreen was by no means in easy circumstances. Philip Loudham was equally poor and had no assured income. He had tried several forms of business and now, at about thirty-five, was spending his time chiefly in writing poems and painting watercolours, none of which brought him any money so far as one could learn.

“Philip Loudham, it was admitted, took up the food round which the tragedy centred.

“Philip Loudham was shown to be in debt and urgently in need of money. There was supposed to be a lady in the case--I hope I need say no more, Elsie.”

“Who is she?” asked Mrs Bellmark with poignant interest.

“We do not know yet. A married woman, it is rumoured, I regret to say. It scarcely matters--certainly not to you, Elsie. To continue:

“Mrs Dupreen got back from her shopping in the afternoon before her nephew’s death at about three o’clock. In less than half-an-hour Loudham left the house and going to the station took a return ticket to Euston. He went by the 3.41 and was back in St Abbots at 5.43. That would give him barely an hour in town for whatever business he transacted. What was that business?

“The chemist next door supplied the information that although bhurine only occurs in nature in this one form, it can be isolated from the other constituents of the fungus and dealt with like any other liquid poison. But it was a very exceptional commodity, having no commercial uses and probably not half-a-dozen retail chemists in London had it on their shelves. He himself had never stocked it and never been asked for it.

“With this suggestive but by no means convincing evidence,” continued Mr Carlyle, “the young journalist went to the editor of _The Morning Indicator_, to which he acted as St Abbots correspondent, and asked him whether he cared to take up the inquiry as a ‘scoop.’ The local trio had carried it as far as they were able. The editor of the _Indicator_ decided to look into it and asked me to go on with the case. This is how my connection with it arose.”

“Oh, that’s how newspapers get to know things?” commented Mrs Bellmark. “I often wondered.”

“It is one way,” assented her uncle.

“An American development,” contributed Carrados. “It is a little overdone there.”

“It must be awful,” said the hostess. “And the police methods! In the plays that come from the States----” The entrance of the friendly handmaiden, bringing tea, was responsible for this platitudinous wave. The conversation, in deference to Mr Carlyle’s scruples, marked time until the door closed on her departure.

“My first business,” continued the inquiry agent, after making himself useful at the table, “was naturally to discover among the chemists in London whether a sale of bhurine coincided with Philip Loudham’s hasty visit. If this line failed, the very foundation of the edifice of hypothetical guilt gave way; if it succeeded.... Well, it did succeed. In a street off Caistor Square, Tottenham Court Road--Trenion Street--we found a man called Lightcraft, who at once remembered making such a sale. As bhurine is a specified poison, the transaction would have to be entered, and Lightcraft’s book contained this unassailable piece of evidence. On Wednesday, the sixth of this month, a man signing his name as ‘J. D. Williams,’ and giving ‘25 Chalcott Place’ as the address, purchased four drachms of bhurine. Lightcraft fixed the time as about half-past four. I went to 25 Chalcott Place and found it to be a small boarding-house. No one of the name of Williams was known there.”

If Mr Carlyle’s tone of finality went for anything, Philip Loudham was as good as pinioned. Mrs Bellmark supplied the expected note of admiration.

“Just fancy!” was the form it took.

“Under the Act the purchaser must be known to the chemist?” suggested Carrados.

“Yes,” agreed Mr Carlyle; “and there our friend Lightcraft may have let himself in for a little trouble. But, as he says--and we must admit that there is something in it--who is to define what ‘known to’ actually means? A hundred people are known to him as regular or occasional customers and he has never heard their names; a score of names and addresses represent to him regular or occasional customers whom he has never seen. This ‘J. D. Williams’ came in with an easy air and appeared at all events to know Lightcraft. The face seemed not unfamiliar and Lightcraft was perhaps a little too facile in assuming that he _did_ know him. Well, well, Max, I can understand the circumstances. Competition is keen--especially against the private chemist--and one may give offence and lose a customer. We must all live.”

“Except Charlie Winpole,” occurred to Max Carrados, but he left the retort unspoken. “Did you happen to come across any inquiry for bhurine at other shops?” he asked instead.

“No,” replied Carlyle, “no, I did not. It would have been an indication then, of course, but after finding the actual place the others would have no significance. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, nothing. Only don’t you think that he was rather lucky to get it first shot if our St Abbots authority was right?”

“Yes, yes; perhaps he was. But that is of no interest to us now. The great thing is that a peculiarly sinister and deliberate murder is brought home to its perpetrator. When you consider the circumstances, upon my soul, I don’t know that I have ever unmasked a more ingenious and cold-blooded ruffian.”

“Then he has confessed, uncle?”

“Confessed, my dear Elsie,” said Mr Carlyle, with a tolerant smile, “no, he has not confessed--men of that type never do. On the contrary, he asserted his outraged innocence with a considerable show of indignation. What else was he to do? Then he was asked to account for his movements between 4.15 and 5 o’clock on that afternoon. Egad, the fellow was so cocksure of the safety of his plans that he hadn’t even taken the trouble to think that out. First he denied that he had been away from St Abbots at all. Then he remembered. He had run down to town in the afternoon for a few things.--What things?--Well, chiefly stationery.--Where had he bought it?--At a shop in Oxford Street; he did not know the name.--Would he be able to point it out?--He thought so.--Could he identify the attendant?--No, he could not remember him in the least.--Had he the bill?--No, he never kept small bills.--How much was the amount?--About three or four shillings.--And the return fare to Euston was three-and-eight-pence. Was it not rather an extravagant journey?--He could only say that he did so.--Three or four shillings’ worth of stationery would be a moderate parcel. Did he have it sent?--No, he took it with him.--Three or four shillings’ worth of stationery in his pocket?--No, it was in a parcel.--Too large to go in his pocket?--Yes.--Two independent witnesses would testify that he carried no parcel. They were townsmen of St Abbots who had travelled down in the same carriage with him. Did he still persist that he had been engaged in buying stationery? Then he declined to say anything further--about the best thing he could do.”

“And Lightcraft identifies him?”

“Um, well, not quite so positively as we might wish. You see, a fortnight has elapsed. The man who bought the poison wore a moustache--put on, of course--but Lightcraft will say that there is a resemblance and the type of the two men the same.”

“I foresee that Mr Lightcraft’s accommodating memory for faces will come in for rather severe handling in cross-examination,” said Carrados, as though he rather enjoyed the prospect.

“It will balance Mr Philip Loudham’s unfortunate forgetfulness for localities, Max,” rejoined Mr Carlyle, delivering the thrust with his own inimitable aplomb.

Carrados rose with smiling acquiescence to the shrewdness of the riposte.

“I will be quite generous, Mrs Bellmark,” he observed. “I will take him away now, with the memory of that lingering in your ears--all my crushing retorts unspoken.”

“Five-thirty, egad!” exclaimed Mr Carlyle, displaying his imposing gold watch. “We must--or, at all events, I must. You can think of them in the car, Max.”

“I do hope you won’t come to blows,” murmured the lady. Then she added: “When will the real trial come on, Uncle Louis?”

“The Sessions? Oh, early in January.”

“I must remember to look out for it.” Possibly she had some faint idea of Uncle Louis taking a leading part in the proceedings. At any rate Mr Carlyle looked pleased, but when adieux had been taken and the door was closed Mrs Bellmark was left wondering what the enigma of Max Carrados’s departing smile had been.

Before they had covered many furlongs Mr Carlyle suddenly remembered the suspected mushrooms and demanded to see them. A very moderate collection was produced for his inspection. He turned them over sceptically.

“The gills are too pale for true mushrooms, Max,” he declared sapiently. “Don’t take any risk. Let me drop them out of the window?”

“No.” Carrados’s hand quietly arrested the threatened action. “No; I have a use for them, Louis, but it is not culinary. You are quite right; they are rank poison. I only want to study them for ... a case I am interested in.”

“A case! You don’t mean to say that there is another mushroom poisoner going?”

“No; it is the same.”

“But--but you said----”

“That I did not know all about it? Quite true. Nor do I yet. But I know rather more than I did then.”

“Do you mean that Scotland Yard----”

“No, Louis.” Mr Carrados appeared to find something rather amusing in the situation. “I am for the other side.”

“The other side! And you let me babble out the whole case for the prosecution! Well, really, Max!”

“But you are out of it now? The Public Prosecutor has taken it up?”

“True, true. But, for all that, I feel devilishly bad.”

“Then I will give you the whole case for the defence and so we shall be quits. In fact I am relying on you to help me with it.”

“With the defence? I--after supplying the evidence that the Public Prosecutor is acting on?”

“Why not? You don’t want to hang Philip Loudham--especially if he happens to be innocent--do you?”

“I don’t want to hang anyone,” protested Mr Carlyle. “At least--not--as a private individual.”

“Quite so. Well, suppose you and I between ourselves find out the actual facts of the case and decide what is to be done. The more usual course is for the prosecution to exaggerate all that tells against the accused and to contradict everything in his favour; for the defence to advance fictitious evidence of innocence and to lie roundly on everything that endangers his client; while on both sides witnesses are piled up to bemuse the jury into accepting the desired version. That does not always make for impartiality or for justice.... Now you and I are two reasonable men, Louis----”

“I hope so,” admitted Mr Carlyle. “I hope so.”

“You can give away the case for the prosecution and I will expose the weakness of the defence, so, between us, we may arrive at the truth.”

“It strikes me as a deuced irregular proceeding. But I am curious to hear the defence all the same.”

“You are welcome to all of it that there yet is. An alibi, of course.”

“Ah!” commented Mr Carlyle with expression.

“So recently as yesterday a lady came hurriedly, and with a certain amount of secrecy, to see me. She came on the strength of the introduction afforded by a mutual acquaintanceship with Fromow, the Greek professor. When we were alone she asked me, besought me, in fact, to tell her what to do. A few hours before Mrs Dupreen had rushed across London to her with the tale of young Loudham’s arrest. Then out came the whole story. This woman--well, her name is Guestling, Louis--lives a little way down in Surrey and is married. Her husband, according to her own account--and I have certainly heard a hint about it elsewhere--leads her a studiedly outrageous existence; an admired silken-mannered gentleman in society, a tolerable pole-cat at home, one infers. About a year ago Mrs Guestling made the acquaintance of Loudham, who was staying in that neighbourhood painting his pretty unsaleable country lanes and golden sunsets. The inevitable, or, to accept the lady’s protestations, half the inevitable, followed. Guestling, who adds an insatiable jealousy to his other domestic virtues, vetoed the new acquaintance and thenceforward the two met hurriedly and furtively in town. Had either of them any money they might have snatched their destinies from the hands of Fate and gone off together, but she has nothing and he has nothing and both, I suppose, are poor weak mortals when it comes to doing anything courageous and outright in this censorious world. So they drifted, drifting but not yet wholly wrecked.”

“A formidable incentive for a weak and desperate man to secure a fortune by hook or crook, Max,” said Carlyle drily.

“That is the motive that I wish to make you a present of. But, as you will insist on your side, it is also a motive for a weak and foolish couple to steal every brief opportunity of a secret meeting. On Wednesday, the sixth, the lady was returning home from a visit to some friends in the Midlands. She saw in the occasion an opportunity, and on the morning of the sixth a message appeared in the personal column of _The Daily Telegraph_--their usual channel of communication--making an assignation. That much can be established by the irrefutable evidence of the newspaper. Philip Loudham kept the appointment and for half-an-hour this miserably happy pair sat holding each other’s hands in a dreary deserted waiting-room of Bishop’s Road Station. That half-hour was from 4.15 to 4.45. Then Loudham saw Mrs Guestling into Praed Street Station for Victoria, returned to Euston and just caught the 5.7 St Abbots.”

“Can this be corroborated--especially as regards the precise time they were together?”

“Not a word of it. They chose the waiting-room at Bishop’s Road for seclusion and apparently they got it. Not a soul even looked in while they were there.”

“Then, by Jupiter, Max,” exclaimed Mr Carlyle with emotion, “you have hanged your client!”

Carrados could not restrain a smile at his friend’s tragic note of triumph.

“Well, let us examine the rope,” he said with his usual imperturbability.

“Here it is.” It was a trivial enough shred of evidence that the inquiry agent took from his pocket-book and put into the expectant hand; in point of fact, the salmon-coloured ticket of a “London General” motor omnibus.

“Royal Oak--the stage nearest Paddington--to Tottenham Court Road--the point nearest Trenion Street,” he added significantly.

“Yes,” acquiesced Carrados, taking it.

“The man who bought the bhurine dropped that ticket on the floor of the shop. He left the door open and Lightcraft followed him to close it. That is how he came to pick the ticket up, and he remembers that it was not there before. Then he threw it into a waste-paper basket underneath the counter, and that is where we found it when I called on him.”

“Mr Lightcraft’s memory fascinates me, Louis,” was the blind man’s unruffled comment. “Let us drop in and have a chat with him?”

“Do you really think that there is anything more to be got in that quarter?” queried Carlyle dubiously. “I have turned him inside out, you may be sure.”

“True; but we approach Mr Lightcraft from different angles. You were looking for evidence to prove young Loudham guilty. I am looking for evidence to prove him innocent.”

“Very well, Max,” acquiesced his companion. “Only don’t blame me if it turns out as deuced awkward for your man as Mrs G. has done. Shall I tell you what a counsel may be expected to put to the jury as the explanation of that lady’s evidence?”

“No, thanks,” said Carrados half sleepily from his corner. “I know. I told her so.”

“Oh, very well. I needn’t inform you, then,” and debarred of that satisfaction Mr Carlyle withdrew himself into his own corner, where he nursed an indulgent annoyance against the occasional perversity of Max Carrados until the stopping of the car and the variegated attractions displayed in a shop window told him where they were.

Mr Lightcraft made no pretence of being glad to see his visitors. For some time he declined to open his mouth at all on the subject that had brought them there, repeating with parrot-like obstinacy to every remark on their part, “The matter is _sub judice_. I am unable to say anything further,” until Mr Carlyle longed to box his ears and bring him to his senses. The ears happened to be rather prominent, for they glowed with sensitiveness, and the chemist was otherwise a lank and pallid man, whose transparent ivory skin and well-defined moustache gave him something of the appearance of a waxwork.

“At all events,” interposed Carrados, when his friend turned from the maddening reiteration in despair, “you don’t mind telling me a few things about bhurine--apart from this particular connection?”

“I am very busy,” and Mr Lightcraft, with his back towards the shop, did something superfluous among the bottles on a shelf.

“I imagine that the time of Mr Max Carrados, of whom even you may possibly have heard, is as valuable as yours, my good friend,” put in Mr Carlyle with scandalised dignity.

“Mr Carrados?” Lightcraft turned and regarded the blind man with interest. “I did not know. But you must recognise the unenviable position in which I am put by this gentleman’s interference.”

“It is his profession, you know,” said Carrados mildly, “and, in any case, it would certainly have been someone. Why not help me to get you out of the position?”

“How is that possible?”

“If the case against Philip Loudham breaks down and he is discharged at the next hearing you would not be called upon further.”

“That would certainly be a mitigation. But why should it break down?”

“Suppose you let me try the taste of bhurine,” suggested Carrados. “You have some left?”

“Max, Max!” cried Mr Carlyle’s warning voice, “aren’t you aware that the stuff is a deadly poison? One-fifth of a grain----”

“Mr Lightcraft will know how to administer it.”

Apparently Mr Lightcraft did. He filled a graduated measure with cold water, dipped a slender glass rod into a bottle that was not kept on the shelves, and with it stirred the water. Then into another vessel of water he dropped a single spot of the dilution.