THE
CRAIG
POISONING
MYSTERY





THE
CRAIG
POISONING
MYSTERY
A. FIELDING
A -
COSMOPOLITAN •
BOOK CORPORATION, NEW YORK
1930


COPYRIGHT, 1930, BY
A. FIELDING
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY
J. J. LITTLE & IVES CO., N. Y.


THE
CRAIG
POISONING
MYSTERY





CHAPTER I
YOU say you're going up to town, Bob, as soon as
you've left here. Anywhere near Pont Street?
Good. Then do you mind wheeling that nearer to me?"
The sick man waved a thin, but still brown hand, to
where a little writing cabinet, shaped like a miniature
roll-top desk, stood on a swing table.
"Thanks," he went on. "Just wait a minute, will you,
while I write a note. If you'll drop it in Houghton's
letter-box, or hand it in yourself, I shall be much
obliged." He hesitated. "Yourself," he repeated. "It's
most important, and I don't want to wait for the post."
"You write it and I'll deliver it within the hour."
Dr. Lindrum, after swinging the table up and across
the bed as requested, went to one of the windows.
"Without fail?" persisted the man in bed, unlocking
the cabinet.
"Let's see. I must look in for a moment at home
. . . within an hour and a half without fail. You can
count on that as the outside time limit unless some acci-
dent happens to me or the car," Lindrum assured him.
His good figure, crisply curly hair and fresh color-
ing gave the doctor an air of vitality and strength which


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
made him a pleasant enough young man to look at,
though his features summed up to a rather indetermi-
nate whole. He spoke without turning around, his atten-
tion riveted by something outside. That something was
a girl walking along the path below. Very slender, she
was dressed in green with white muslin at the open
throat. On her feet were sandals. Her slim, well-shaped
legs, like her arms, were bare and brown as a Neapoli-
tan baby's. They suggested sunshine and summer, just
as her buoyant walk suggested youth.
Behind him a pen could have been heard traveling
swiftly over a sheet of paper, but he did not hear it.
He only heard the crunch of gravel under light, small
feet, the feet of Countess Alexandra Ivanoff, the Rus-
sian girl to whom the sick man behind him was engaged
to be married.
Ronald Craig wrote for nearly five minutes, and not
once did Lindrum take his eyes off the figure in the
green frock that swayed and swung about her like the
calyx of a tossing flower as she strolled on, moving
with a rhythm that suggested that she was humming
as she walked.
Finally the pen stopped. Craig read over what he had
written. It ran:
Dear Guy,
I am being slowly poisoned. I found part of a
letter this morning which proves it, though who
the confederate is, and how it is being put into
my food, are beyond my present brain capacity to
unravel. I will go into that when I am better. Be


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"You certainly can, Craig," the other assured him,
as he tried to put the big, square envelope into an inner
pocket. It was too big and he held it in his hand.
The door of the sick room opened and the nurse
came in. She was a woman in early middle age, with
a firm chin and firmer eyes. Something in the way
Craig looked at her suggested dislike, or possibly—to
anyone who knew what he had just written—suspicion.
She carried a tray with a bottle of Vichy on it.
"Where's Match?" Craig asked in a weak voice. He
was a man of a little over forty, with a rather rugged
face, the face of a man of the people, which he was
not. Just now he was blanched to a pallor that seemed
to extend to his eyes, but he had evidently been an out-
of-door man, big of frame and powerfully built.
"The butler is away at the moment." The nurse had
a lady's voice, but not one that suggested great tender-
ness for her patient. "He is expected back in time to
serve lunch," she added.
Craig nodded. Then he glanced down at the tray.
"I asked for an unopened bottle of Vichy," he said,
with a twitch of his white lips.
"I have just this moment opened it," the nurse
assured him with smiling urbanity.
"By God!" Craig raised himself on an elbow and
actually clenched his fingers. "By God, nurse, you'll
bring me an unopened bottle when I ask for it, or
you'll leave the house!"
His eyes might be faded by illness, but they could
still flash with fire. He looked for a brief second what
4


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
he was when well—a man whom it was next to impos-
sible to placate should he be really roused.
The nurse bit her lip.
"Get another bottle and open it in here." Lindrum's
tone was low and almost apologetic. "It's apt to taste
flat unless opened at the moment of drinking."
She went out silently.
"How I loathe that woman!" Craig spoke with en-
ergy. He bit back an "I don't trust her," and said
instead, "By the way, just hand me back that letter I
gave you, will you? I want to add a postscript."
Lindrum handed it to him and Craig levered up the
flap with a touch from a paper knife, added a couple of
lines and refastened it. The gum was still damp.
"I'm sorry you don't like the nurse," Lindrum said
while this was being done. "She's very capable. How-
ever, you won't have any need of her much longer."
"You think not?" Craig asked slowly, handing him
the letter again, while his eyes lingered on the doctor's
face with a probing, searching stare.
There was a moment's silence. Usually Craig had a
string of complaints, the complaints of a man not used
to being ill, and a stream of impatient wonder that,
after nearly a month's illness, he was no better. But
today there was a cold, bleak withdrawal, quite different
from anything that he had shown before.
Lindrum broke the silence by asking for a rubber
band, as the letter entrusted to him partly slipped from
the papers he held.
"I haven't any bands to spare," was the reply.
5


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"My dear chap!" Lindrum's eyes looked meaningly
and reproachfully at the roll-top writing cabinet. "Look
in there."
"You can get some at the shop just outside." Craig
made no move toward the table in question.
"Hope I shall never be in need of a life-line with you
on shore," Lindrum said laughingly. "You'd shout to
me to get one in Davy Jones's locker." He held out his
hand to his patient. "Cheer up, and don't feel so doubt-
ful of your progress. Malaria is a tricky thing. So is
summer cholera, as the people call it. And when you
get both together, you get a trying combination."
Craig nodded almost contemptuously.
"Look here!" Lindrum said suddenly, looking at him
in his turn rather hard, his finger on the other's pulse.
"What about a consultation? I've tried all the usual
treatments; let's see if there isn't something fresh.
When I'm in town this afternoon I'll look in at—"
"I'll talk that over with you tomorrow afternoon,"
Craig said in a weary but very decided voice. "I think
I shall sleep a little now." There was a tap on the door,
a light tap that changed both men's faces. Into each
came a brightness, a glow, as though the sun himself
stood without. Craig lost his sleepy look.
"Come in!" His voice was clearer than a moment
ago, his face seemed to fill out as the door opened.
Countess Alexandra—Jura, as she was called—came
in with a sprig of mignonette in her long Byzantine
hands. Ronald Craig seemed to drink her in as she
stepped to the bed and stood looking down at the man
6


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
whom she was to marry in a couple of months with
a grave, speculative look in her young face.
Of its claim to beauty there were two quite opposite
opinions. Some people considered her plain, but for
her clear creamy complexion. While some, on the
other hand, thought her very lovely, and to this group
belonged the two men in the room.
To Lindrum, as he looked at her, his heart thump-
ing, she seemed like a beautiful tea-rose. The compari-
son was not inapt as far as tints went. A tea-rose's soft
creams, and yellows, and shell-pinks were all repro-
duced in her. In her pale honey hair, her pale ivory
skin, her cheeks but faintly streaked with color. Even
her lips were but a shade deeper. Nothing about her
was vivid. To Craig she was like a wash-drawing on
vellum come alive, a drawing made by some Byzantine
artist, with her eyes that suggested a slanted setting, her
high cheek-bones, her slender, almost attenuated, body.
To him, as to Lindrum, she was fragile and perfect.
Her long narrow eyes, in color they suggested amber
seen through smoke, were bent on the sick man as she
gently tapped one of his hands, the hand that would
have clasped hers, with the mignonette spray.
"You should be out in the sunshine." Her voice was
faintly hard. A hardness of accent, Lindrum thought,
rather than of actual timbre.
"1 hope to be soon," Craig said eagerly.
"Bravo!" applauded the doctor. "That's the spirit."
The other had not spoken so hopefully during the whole
interview this morning.
7


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"Stay and talk to me!" urged her fiance. She shook
her head, not smiling. Jura rarely smiled.
"I am going to write a letter and then I am going to
try on a dress." She spoke without any accent, yet not
as an English girl would have run the words together.
She looked around for a tumbler, found one, and put
the sprig in water.
"It's the only flower you have ever picked for me,"
Craig said sentimentally.
"Lady Craig picked it," Jura said flatly, "together
with some sweet peas."
Lady Craig was the widow of the former owner of
the house, a knight who had been the sick man's cousin.
She was the only dowager in the family, so Woodthorp
Manor was hers to live in during her lifetime. Ronald
Craig had been taken ill over three weeks ago now
while on a week-end visit. As for Countess Jura, the
Russian was an orphan, and Lady Craig was bringing
her out.
"But one must not put mignonette in with sweet
peas," Jura went on. "One cannot have the two to-
gether," she said again, as though the fact interested
her and might interest him. "One can have either—
alone—but not both."
"Why not?" Craig asked, as he pulled the stem
through a buttonhole of his creased pajama jacket.
Craig was not a fastidious man, as his crumpled
appearance showed, in spite of all the efforts of the
nurse to smarten him up.
"The one or the other will die." She still looked
8


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
dreamily at the flower. Lindrum left them and said a
word to the nurse outside.
"I don't like the way this thing, or these things, are
dragging on. Craig is losing strength, not gaining any.
He seemed so much better for a while after you came,
but these last days . . ."
Countess Jura came out. She had caught the last sen-
tences, and motioned him to follow her to a distant
window.
"Do you think he is going to die?" she asked under
her breath, but without a tremor.
"Certainly not!" Lindrum said explosively.
She met his expostulatory gaze with a blank look.
"It is not a sin to die. People do it all the time. Espe-
cially sick people." And turning, she passed on to her
room, her skirt swaying to her steps.
Lindrum was very white when he rejoined the nurse,
who also stood watching the Russian girl.
"I'm always so sorry for Countess Jura." She spoke
very quietly. "Of course, a nurse is supposed to have
neither eyes nor ears except for her patient—-and the
doctor," she added, a trifle sardonically. "But, as I
told you when I came, I think it's very pitiful about
Countess Jura."
He said nothing.
"She's so helpless. And she's being forced into a
marriage, as we both know. However, perhaps some-
thing will turn up to prevent it." Her eyes were care-
fully on some notes she was making of what he had
ordered for her patient.
9


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
As for Lindrum, he only shot her a swift, uneasy
glance. He should have made some scathing reply, but,
though a nurse, Mrs. Kingsmill was also a doctor's
daughter, and his sister's friend.
"Why not take her out for a spin this afternoon?"
she suggested.
He shook his head. "Too much to do; besides, Craig
wants me to drop a very important letter in the letter-
box as I pass Pont Street. A letter to a cousin of his."
"Well, why not take Countess Jura? Pont Street
means Sloane Street, which in its turn means Brompton
Road, which in its turn means shopping, which in its
turn means Countess Jura." Mrs. Kingsmill was laugh-
ing a little now under her breath, but her tone was
insistent.
For a second he hesitated then he shook his head
firmly. "No, no!" And, so saying, he went slowly down
the stairs.
In the lounge hall below, the figure of a woman
could be seen standing. The figure of a young woman.
A fact which cost the figure's owner, Lady Craig, reso-
lute massage, iron dieting, and much expense. Vaguely
Lindrum wondered, as he had often done before, why
she went to so much trouble, for, as she turned her
face toward him, its years showed as fifty in some
magical way, in spite of smoothed skin and red-brown
hair. She was very nearly an ugly woman, but she
looked as though she had plenty of that quality we
call character.
"Is anything the matter, Robert?" she asked quickly.
10


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
She had known Lindrum as a tow-headed baby.
"You're not really anxious about him, are you?"
"Yes, I am, this morning," he said gravely. "No
remedies of mine seem to help him for more than a
day or two. That was a bad relapse he had last week,
and it looks to me as if it might be about to repeat
itself."
"You don't think he is going to die, do you?" She
spoke in hushed tones. Her eyes, cool and emotionless,
were fixed on him.
"Of course he isn't!" he almost snapped. "Why
should he?"
"Jura fears the worst," she said quietly. "I don't
know why—but I think she is nerving herself to lose
him." This time her eyes were on the floor.
"There's no reason whatever why he shouldn't re-
cover—none!" Lindrum spoke forcefully.
"That's good news." She gave him one of her mean-
ingless smiles. "Jura is overanxious, doubtless. Just as
we all are."
But it struck him that her whole manner was much
more indifferent than it had been when Ronald Craig
first fell ill. Then, her concern had been undeniable
and very great. Yet at first his illness had only seemed
to be a passing chill.
"I think you ought to press the arsenic in his tonic."
She spoke idly, with no imperative in her voice. Emily
Craig had traveled much in Africa, and like many
another, she had found that arsenic often helped where
quinine was of little use.
ii


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
Lindrum knew this, and murmured some vague as-
sent. He said good-by and walked out to his car. He
was just climbing in, when he thought of Craig's letter.
For a second he could not recollect what he had done
with it. Then he remembered laying it down on the
landing table while he made some alteration in the
nurse's diet list. He ran up the stairs in search of it.
The door of the nurse's bedroom was open. She was
standing in the room, the letter was in her hand. Catch-
ing sight of the doctor she came out quickly, holding
it up.
"You dropped this, didn't you? Countess Jura found
it lying on the landing. I thought I saw you lay it down
a moment ago, and was just going to run after you
with it."
He thanked her, took it, and hurried down to his car
again. He drove as if he were practicing to break the
record—or his neck. At his gate he stopped, left the
machine to look after itself, and leaning his arms on
the top of his gate, stood looking at the building as
though he had never seen it before.
It was a pretty house. Roses surrounded it, roses
climbed up on it, virginia creeper covered it from end
to end. Yes, it was charming. But, could it find favor
in the eyes of Countess Jura? Though she did not
remember them, the houses where she had lived as a
baby—before 1917—had been palaces. Alexandra Alex-
androwna, penniless though she was, was a cousin of
the Kalkoffs, kin by marriage to the dead tsar himself.
She was about to make a very wealthy marriage,
12


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
though not a smart one. She was no wife for a doctor.
Even if—even supposing . . .
The nurse's words stung him afresh. They were only
a repetition, aloud, and by an independent witness—
for what motive could bias her ?—of what he had not
dared to tell himself explicitly, but what he had known
since he first saw them together, and that was that the
Russian girl did not care for Ronald Craig. That she
really disliked him. But that, in spite of that dislike, she
was going to marry him. Unless something intervened.
. . . Lindrum tried to whip up some scorn for the girl
who was prepared to sell herself with her eyes open.
Those enigmatic long eyes of amber seen through
smoke. But Lindrum could not find any scorn in his
heart for Jura. He knew that with her lack of training,
her fragile build, she could no more support herself
than can a young canary turned out of its gilded cage.
He told himself that generations of cage-birds had gone
to her making, and that she must find another cage or.
die. And a gilded cage, of course . . . yet Lindrum
felt that in her heart of hearts, in the center of that
wayward, difficult-to-understand complexity that was
Alexandra Ivanoff, she really cared for him—Bob
Lindrum.
The nurse could have told him that Jura no more
loved him than she did Ronald Craig, or at best only
substituted a tepid liking for an active dislike. Lindrum
would not have believed her. He felt sure that if Jura
were free, she would choose him. But she was not free.
He flung the gate open, and stormed into, the morn-
13


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
ing room. Lunch was laid in the deep bay window that
opened onto the lawn. Two beds of roses almost encir-
cled it. In the space between, across the grass, a clump
of delphiniums seemed like a part of the deep-blue sky
above them. On the dull ebony table, sprays of Dorothy
Perkins, in a bowl of the same soft azure, nodded their
heads to their luckier sisters outside. The mats were
blue and green raffia. The cream china was flecked with
blue. A little silver, a little glass, all very ordinary but
brightly shining, made up a most attractive picture.
Lindrum eyed it moodily. The ebony of the table was
painted deal. The silver was plate; the glass, just glass.
Craig was said to have bought some of the imperial
china for his bride to be. . . .
His sister came in. Agatha Lindrum was a handsome
girl, but with something rather bitter in her face. Good
at every game, keen rider to hounds, first-class dancer,
she was intensely interested in the women's work of the
village. With her many interests, she seemed to radiate
vitality, and yet it struck the doctor that she looked
very tired. For the first time he noticed that she had
artificially touched up cheeks that used to be as fresh
as a rose. Well, small wonder if she felt cabined. And,
unfortunately, there was now no leaving for her. Driv-
ing her mother in town, she had had a bad smash, and
since then Mrs. Lindrum walked only with the help of
a stick and a supporting arm. Agatha had wasted no
words in self-reproach; she took her mother home when
she was able to be moved, and was her constant com-
panion.
14


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"If I put up a bottle for Craig, Agatha, will you see
about it at once? I'm trying something different."
"I'll take it up myself. The boy has started on his
rounds."
She went to put her things on. Or, rather, she started
toward the door. Something heavy moved outside. A
stick could be heard thumping along. Mrs. Lindrum
came in, leaning heavily on the arm of the servant, her
cane in her other hand. She was a handsome woman,
with a rather imperious air. Catching her eye, one did
not wonder at the signs of good housekeeping on every
side. It was a most autocratic eye.
"Dearest, you should have waited for me!" her
daughter scolded her affectionately, as she hurried off.
"Is anything wrong?" Mrs. Lindrum asked, turning
to her son. He was surprised at the question.
"Wrong? With Agatha? Not that I know of. Why?"
"She looked—worried, I thought." The reply was
guarded.
"You're thinking of me," he retorted. "I look wor-
ried. I am worried. Over Craig."
"Is he very ill? You don't think he's going to die,
do you? I mean—I mean—" She stopped with an ex-
pression that showed that she had not meant to phrase
her thought in just those words.
"Certainly not!" her son said with energy. "Only his
illness is a bit baffling." This was the third time this
morning that the question of Craig's death had been
mentioned. And the third time that in refuting the sug-
gestion as absurd, he had had a vague, most uncom-
15


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
fortable feeling that the vehemence of his denial gave
no pleasure. Mrs. Lindrum took his arm and grasped
her stick.
"I'll sit out in the garden for a while," she mur-
mured, and he placed her carefully in her favorite deck-
chair.
In about ten minutes he hurried back to the morning
room, where Agatha sat reading the paper.
"Looking for a situation?" he asked, for that was
the page before her. She only smiled and took the bottle
from him.
"Now then, I'm off," he murmured, half to himself.
"I'll lunch at my club. Where's that letter I promised
Craig to drop in Houghton's box?" He saw it as he
spoke lying on top of his coat, where he had placed it
so as to be sure and catch his eye.
"It seems to've come pretty well unstuck." Reaching
for a bottle of gum, he gave a dexterous sweep of the
brush under the loosening flap, then he hurried off.
16


CHAPTER II
GUY HOUGHTON received his cousin's letter as
he was finishing lunch. He opened and read it at
once.
He was a short, slender, rather ugly young man of
around thirty, with a pleasant smile and merry blue
eyes. Just now they stared at the letter before him in
stupefaction.
Ronald thought he was being poisoned! Ronald
thought that that was why he was ill. Wanted to be
fetched tomorrow around nine . . . without fuss. . . .
Lindrum and Match were all right. . . . Good heavens?
what'on earth was happening at Woodthorp?
He jumped up so suddenly that the terrier, snoozing
against his knee, gave a bark and then dived after him.
Dogs adored Houghton. The master made for the tele-
phone. A moment more, and he was speaking to his
cousin, for Craig had an extension beside his bed.
"That you, Ronnie?" Houghton asked. "I've just
got your letter." His voice betrayed an effort to sound
ordinary. "Look here, can't I run down to see you this
afternoon? No? You don't feel up to it?" There was a
moment's silence on his part as Craig replied, "Stick to
the plan, Guy. Glad you got my letter."
17


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
But Houghton had more to say. "I wish you'd post
me at once that volume of Hakluyt's 'Voyages' you
wrote about last week. One of an early edition, you
remember? If you wrap it up well it won't get dam-
aged, and I'll take the greatest care of it, and oh," he
managed to make his voice sound really casual now,
"why not slip into it that print you mentioned in the
letter that I've just received. That—eh—first impres-
sion you found. Or, at any rate, a replica of it. Just in
case it might get lost. As it's very interesting, quite
amazingly so, I'd very much like to see it. Now, don't
put off sending it, there's a good chap. Post it as soon
as possible, will you? Without fail?"
There was a second's silence, then Craig's answer
reached him.
"All right. Perhaps it might be as well. I'll post the
book to you this afternoon. Come and see me some-
time, Guy."
"I may be passing quite soon," Houghton mentioned
carelessly, and Craig's voice replied with a contented:
"Good! Look in on me any time you're near here.
By-by."
Just before the receiver was hung up, Houghton's
ear caught the sound of a door opening in Craig's
room. He thought he heard a young, rather hard little
voice saying:
"Don't stop telephoning, Ronald. Or am I inter-
rupting you? Is it anything very private?"
Houghton frowned. He disliked the Russian girl in-
tensely. Well, at any rate, Ronald now knew that the
letter had arrived safely, and that he could count on
J
18


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
him, Houghton, turning up to the minute tomorrow
morning.
And, meanwhile, that "part of a letter" which Craig
wrote proved his suspicions, or at least a copy of it,
would be safely on its way to town in a volume of the
"Voyages." He ought to get it by tonight. What in the
world could it be? Written by whom, and to whom?
Houghton felt as though his head were whirling.
First of all, he rang for his man and gave directions
as to getting a room ready for Mr. Craig tomorrow
morning. Mr. Craig would probably keep to his bed,
he added, as he had got a slight chill in the country.
Then he reached for the telephone directory. Ronald
wanted no fuss. No, of course not—in the house of a
relative, with his fiancee as the only other guest! But
Houghton was determined to take down some authority
on toxicology with him in the morning. Just whom?
He sat awhile reflecting. He wanted a first-class man.
But a discreet man . . . and not a man whose mere
name would inform all Woodthorp what was feared.
Then he had an inspiration.
Houghton, who was a first-class bat, and played for
his county, had met a Dr. Gilchrist more than once
when the latter played for London University or the
Hospitals. Gilchrist was a brilliant research worker in
disease-antidotes, and Houghton remembered hearing
that, by reason of his field of work, poisons were also
his specialty. Houghton felt sure that if there were
anything to be found out down at Woodthorp Manor,
Gilchrist would find it. And yet his name would mean
nothing sinister, not even to Lindrum.
19


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
He rang Gilchrist up. The doctor was in his Rich-
mond rooms. Would he be free, Houghton asked, to go
down into the country tomorrow, Saturday, morning,
on a very special case? As a consultant. He was free?
Good. So that, supposing he were properly asked by
the medical man in charge of the case, Gilchrist would
do Houghton the great favor of coming down to look
at a cousin whose illness seemed to be dragging on a bit
long? Houghton went on to say that a very early con-
sultation would be wanted, so perhaps Gilchrist would
let him, Houghton, call for him around seven tomor-
row morning. It was a fearful hour, but he would be
most grateful.
Gilchrist, who had intended spending the week-end
in the country in any case, said that he had no objec-
tion to the idea, supposing, of course, that the usual
formalities were complied with . . . and that he liked
to get up early.
Houghton thanked him and assured him he would
be called up shortly by a Dr. Lindrum who had charge
of the case. After ringing off, Houghton tackled that
young man next.
Lindrum seemed delighted at the suggestion of get-
ting Dr. Gilchrist of the Imperial Research Laboratory
down to see Craig, but doubted if Craig would welcome
the idea of another doctor overhauling him. Houghton
assured him that he would overcome any objections of
his cousin's, and again Bob Lindrum seemed delighted
to hear it.
At his very unusually early breakfast next morning,
20 /


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
Houghton told his man to take particular care of a
book which would probably arrive by the morning post,
and to telephone to him at Woodthorp Manor, when it
came.
In the car, Gilchrist asked for the first time for gen-
eral particulars of the man whom they were going
to see.
Houghton explained that his cousin, Ronald Craig,
had come down to spend a week-end with a relative's
widow living at Woodthorp Manor, and had caught a
chill on arriving. As he had had malaria several times,
he and the local medical man, Dr. Lindrum, thought
that he had got another bout of his old enemy, but that
was nearly a month ago now, and Ronald Craig was
still in bed.
"He's getting very anxious about himself," he added,
"and I'm very fond of him. He was a good pal to me
once when I was in a hole. From a letter I got from
him yesterday, he seems to think that he is going to
die."
"Well, so he is," was the uncompromising retort.
"We all are!"
"Ah, but not yet! Not at only forty. And just about
to be married." Houghton spoke with energy. "Not if
I can help it!"
A thrush burst into song as they turned in the main
street of the little village. Gilchrist commented on the
pleasure of hearing such music.
"My cousin's fiancee says that thrushes are the guar-
dian angels of Woodthorp Manor, there are so many.
21


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
That's the place over there!" Houghton waved a hand
to a small, unpretentious house with a good deal of ivy
doing its best to pry the bricks apart. As they turned
in at the gates—-there seemed to be no lodge-keeper—
another thrush stopped its rippling song to stare down
at them. Gilchrist had no idea that thrushes looked so
fierce. Its eyes were the cruellest that the analyst had
ever encountered. Not the eyes of a guardian angel.
Who was it who said, "Ubi aves, ibi—"?
A half-strangled cry came from Houghton.
"The blinds, man. Look at the blinds!"
Gilchrist looked. As they swept up to the front door,
the blinds were being pulled down consecutively in
room after room. Houghton was out and onto the
steps in a flash, Gilchrist with him. Before Houghton
could touch the door, it opened, and a man, obviously a
superior servant of some kind, stood there. He looked
very pale. It was Match, the butler.
"Oh, sir—I'm very glad to see you!" He hardly
needed to say more. His face told what had happened
before he went on, "Mr. Craig has just died, sir."
"Just died!" Houghton looked stunned.
Match drew out his watch. "Just a quarter of an
hour ago, sir."
It was not yet nine o'clock.
"Dr. Lindrum upstairs?"
"No, sir. He was kept away all night by a maternity
case. But he's started for here at last. He'll arrive any
minute now. We tried for Dr. Williams, but he was
away too. There's been a bad fire over at Chesham
22


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
Millwall. Poor Mr. Craig." Match shook his head with
a look of retrospective pity. "It was awful, sir. Till just
at the end. The end was peaceful."
Gilchrist turned to go back to his car. There would
be no consultation now.
"Don't go!" Houghton said brokenly. "Lindrum
won't be long. And we shall want you."
It was irregular, but Gilchrist asked Match a few
questions, at first almost automatically, then with alert
interest. At one of the replies he shot a sudden swift
glance at Houghton, who was listening closely. Hough-
ton's eyes were on the doctor's face, but they could read
nothing there.
Match explained that the nurse had just gone to lie
down, utterly worn out with trying to cope with the
hours of agony that had preceded her patient's death.
The ladies had also gone back to their bedrooms. When
Gilchrist finally stood silent, looking at a hunting print
on the wall as though it very much puzzled him,
Houghton touched his arm and motioned to the stairs.
Gilchrist followed him. Match would have preceded
them, but Houghton made him a sign to stay where
he was. The butler, however, came on up.
"Here's the key to the room, sir," he said, handing
it over. One of Gilchrist's swift glances ran over him,
but Match stepped down again with his eyes on the
ground.
Houghton took the key without comment, and going
on up, unlocked the door.
The bed was covered with a sheet. Beneath it, as
23


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
they turned it back, lay Ronald Craig's dead body.
Houghton stood for a long moment looking down at
his cousin with the grieved and horrified expression of
a man who does not want to believe the evidence of his
eyes, then he turned away.
"There's a letter, or part of a letter, rather, which
he meant to send me yesterday, I think. It hadn't come
before we left town. I wonder if it's lying about any-
where. . . ."
Gilchrist had only eyes for the body before him.
Bending down, he studied it with the same kind of
attention, though in a heightened degree, that he had
paid to the final answers of the butler.
Houghton meanwhile found a bunch of keys on the
corner of the mantel, and unlocking the writing cabinet
went systematically through it. There was no "part of
a letter" inside. He had just relocked it, when Lindrum
hurried in. He, too, went to the bed for a second, before
he shook hands with Houghton, who introduced the
doctor from London.
"It's too late for a consultation," Lindrum said,
shaking his head sorrowfully. "Terribly sorry I
couldn't get here last night," he went on to Houghton,
speaking in a voice that sounded genuinely pained.
"But it was touch and go all night long with a con-
finement case, and Dr. Williams couldn't come either,
most unfortunately. He was kept at the hospital owing
to a fire that injured a lot of people." Lindrum turned
to the bed again. "Not that we could have done any-
thing. Though it was so frightfully sudden . . . ma-
laria and dysentery are tricky things apart, let alone
24


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
combined. . . . Well, I have the death certificate with
me and—"
"I want a word with you, Dr. Lindrum," Gilchrist
interrupted. "I'm too late for a consultation, as you
say, but I should like to talk the illness over with you."
There was an undercurrent of command in Gilchrist's
tone.
Houghton said that he would wait in the library to
hear their conclusions, and would they kindly lock the
door and bring him the key when they had done? He
particularly requested that no one was to be allowed to
enter on any pretext whatever.
The two doctors assured him that they would do as
he wished, but, in point of fact, they scarcely heard
him. As soon as the door had closed, Gilchrist wheeled
on the other man.
"Look here, were you giving him arsenic, and was
it an overdose? Do you do your own dispensing?"
Lindrum stared at the speaker with dropped jaw.
"Speak, man!" Gilchrist said impatiently. "He died
of arsenic poisoning." He jerked his head toward the
bed. "As clear a case as could be. The symptoms of
the final attack as detailed by the butler—besides, look
at his gums, his lids. Now, if it was an honest accident,
one of your own prescribing or dispensing, God for-
bid that I should ruin you. But I must be sure. What
were you giving him?"
"I deny it!" Lindrum said, his voice shaking. "Your
guess, I mean. Absolutely. The case was possibly gas-
tric influenza—"
Gilchrist interrupted, and in a quiet, level voice ran
25


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
over the symptoms as told him, and as evident in the
dead man before them, which, to his thinking, stood for
poison, and arsenic poison at that.
"Each one is compatible with my reading of the
case." Lindrum spoke stoutly enough, but there was a
look of suppressed terror in his eyes.
"No, they're not!" Gilchrist said bluntly. Then, in
a gentler tone: "You see, poisons are my specialty.
Whereas, I don't suppose you've ever had a case be-
fore." He was sorry for the other chap. "There's no
shadow of doubt," he went on inexorably, "but that
he was poisoned, and, to account for certain things"—
he mentioned them in detail—"he must have had the
poison administered to him in small doses—very small
indeed, I think—for some weeks, and then, yesterday,
he got a heavy dose that finished him off."
There was a long pause. Lindrum's face had grown
whiter and whiter as the other proceeded.
"If you're right—" he said now shakily, "you may
be—J don't say you are, but you may be—it's my
ruin!"
"Not necessarily—" Gilchrist spoke under his breath,
though they were both talking very low. "Think well!
Could it have been some blunder? Grammes for grains?
Anything of that sort?"
"He had a tonic of his own"—Lindrum's voice was
as gray as his lips, it was the voice of a man facing
horrible things—"an arsenic tonic. Some quack stuff.
I warned him to discontinue it. But he was an obstinate
man. It's possible he was still taking it. . . ."
26


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
was locked or not. A second later it opened, also very
gently, and Gilchrist saw a white, haggard woman's
face staring in at them. On the instant, noiselessly,
silently, the door closed again. Gilchrist went to the
door and locked it.
"He's a white man," he went on in his rapid, low
tones, coming back to the other. "Besides, no one wants
the rumor of death by poison spread about one of his
own family, unless it's due to a criminal act. No,
Houghton may guess, but, if I stand by you, he'll let
things lie, or I'm much mistaken."
Gilchrist did not add that, even so, the manor house
would probably change its medical attendant.
"I must have the facts, however," he urged again,
as the other said nothing. "The full facts."
Lindrum made a great effort and pulled himself
together. Haltingly, but sufficiently clearly, he indicated
the course of Craig's illness of now nearly four weeks,
and the remedies given.
Gilchrist listened attentively, now nodded, now
looked dubious and asked a question or two.
"Of course, I blame myself—now—" Lindrum broke
out at the end, "for not having been more suspicious,
but there's no one in the house but women. His own
family! How could I suspect—" he almost implored.
"Granted your diagnosis, I don't think anyone can
blame you for your treatment," Gilchrist said now.
"Evidently, however, there's been foul play. You will,
of course, as matters are, insist on an autopsy, and
communicate the results, which will most certainly bear
28


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
out what I've just said, to the police. You should come
out all right if you carry things with a bold hand, and
tackle them immediately. As you say, no one expects,
or wants, their family doctor to be a suspicious crimi-
nologist."
Lindrum drew a paper from his pocket, it was the
death certificate, and tore it across. "I had already
signed it!" he murmured under his breath. "Well—I
wonder where this will lead—how far—" He pulled
up, and began to talk of the arrangements for the post-
mortem.
Meanwhile, Houghton had been joined in the library
by Lady Craig.
"Guy"—she gave him a cool, beautifully manicured
hand—"I'm thankful for this chance of seeing you
alone. An awful thing has happened! Oh, not Ronald's
death, that is only sad, but this is awful. Last night—
before he died—he called out loud that he was dying of
poison. Those were his words. Match was in the room
and heard them. So did the nurse. Now, you know what
that means—unless the doctor squashes it at once. But
Bob Lindrum couldn't even squash a caterpillar!"
"Did Ronnie say anything about a paper he wanted
to show me?" Houghton interrupted her without any
ceremony.
"Paper? Do you mean a newspaper?" Lady Craig
spoke after a second's pause, and after a rather startled
glance.
"No. Not a newspaper," was Houghton's only
answer.
29


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
over to him, her whole face and manner friendly to the
point of being maternal.
Houghton, too, took a step forward.
"I'm sorry to say I can't give a certificate," Lindrum
said, glancing a little nervously from one to the other.
"I—I—there must be an autopsy."
"Oh, surely not!" she said beseechingly, while
Houghton turned and gave Gilchrist a long, inquiring
look.
"It's unavoidable." Lindrum spoke with more assur-
ance now. "I needn't tell you how frightfully sorry I
am, Lady Craig. How I wish it could be avoided."
"You need not," she assured him coldly.
"But there's no other course open to me, as his medi-
cal man," he protested. "Dr. Gilchrist here—"
At this stage the man from London was introduced
to the lady of the house, who welcomed him graciously,
with a few words of regret that he had not been sum-
moned earlier. Then she turned to Lindrum again.
"Why won't you give a death certificate?" she asked.
The young man hesitated. Then he said baldly: "I'm
sorry to shock you both, but it looks now as if Craig
had died of poison—of arsenic poison."
"How long has this been going on?" Houghton
asked with a quiver in his voice. "This poisoning of
Ronnie, I mean, Bob?"
Lindrum looked at him very unhappily. "Dr. Gil-
christ and I think it must have been for some weeks.
I can't tell you how sorry I am that I didn't guess what
the matter was, but I didn't! I think it's possible that
3i


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
he was dosing himself with some patent medicine, or
some old tonic, all the time without letting me know,
and that the arsenic in it—supposing I'm right in my
guess, of course—may have done the harm. Arsenic is
cumulative, you know."
Houghton started to speak, but checked himself. The
matter was too grave for hasty words. Nor were words
of much account now.
The doctors excused themselves. They wanted to
return to the bedroom for some further examinations
and tests. Lindrum had the key in his pocket and now
led the way upstairs again.
Once alone with him, Lady Craig turned on Hough-
ton with fear-distended eyes.
"I can't believe it.. It isn't true!" She was not on
guard now. Her face showed suddenly all its lines.
"Would to God I had got here sooner with Gil-
christ," Houghton said bitterly. "I had a feeling last
night that something was wrong. I half thought of
rushing down here yesterday evening—"
"All the more need for us to get hold at once of
some clever man who will be of use," she interrupted
hastily. "The secretary of the Crime Revelers might
be able to put us on to the right person—"
"We must get hold of the police at once," Houghton
retorted, looking around for the telephone.
"Not first!" she urged. "Of course, if the doctors are
right, it may have to come to that, though it's some
mistake on Bob's or Agatha's part. But first of all we
need—"


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"The police," he finished firmly. "You see, I happen
to be concerned with finding out the truth about Ron-
nie, not merely with having some smart amateur give
your household a clean bill of health. I want the person
who killed Ronnie to swing for the killing. I'll find out
who did it, if it takes every penny of my own, as well
as of his, money."
"For goodness' sake, don't tell that to whomever we
decide to bring in!" Lady Craig said irritably. "Though,
of course, it's nothing to do with me—financially, I
mean. But that kind of man charges quite appallingly
enough, as it is."
Houghton was not listening. He had got the number
of the local police station, and now reached again for
the instrument.
The door opened. It was Match.
"The chief constable is just coming up to the house,
my lady. I know his car."
"Chief constable?" Houghton repeated. Lady Craig
started.
"Yes, sir. I telephoned to him last night, or rather
this morning, when Mr. Craig died. Just before you
came."
"What do you mean?" Houghton asked bluntly.
"Mr. Craig told me, in between his horrible spasms
of pain, sir, that he had been poisoned. I felt it my
duty to let the police know, yet I didn't quite like to
call the police in from the station near here, so I passed
the matter on to Colonel Godolphin."
"Match!" came in almost a shriek from Lady Craig.
33


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"As you know, my lady, I am leaving service next
week," he went on suavely. "Ah, there is the ring now!
Shall I show him in here, my lady?"
"Certainly not! Into the morning-room."
"Very good, my lady."
Houghton could not repress a smile as the butler left
them.
"Well, my dear Emily, the question is taken out of
our hands." He looked well pleased that it was so.
"Anything but!" she said under her breath. "But it
disposes of my intention of giving Match a handsome
present when he leaves." She stopped. They could hear
the front door open.
"Now, every word in this house will be weighed, and
all sorts of questions put which needn't have been gone
into." It struck Houghton that, deep down, the woman
facing him was horribly uneasy. She was aging before
his very eyes.
"As long as they get the criminal, who cares!" he
said half-comfortingly, half-menacingly.
"Ah, my dear Guy," she retorted sweetly, "we are
not all in the same fortunate position as yourself. /
have not ample means of my own, nor shall / step into
a vast fortune owing to poor Ronnie's death."
Before Houghton could speak, the butler came in to
announce Colonel Godolphin and another gentleman.
34


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"It was my butler speaking." Lady Craig's tone con-
veyed the impression that Match had been merely her
mouthpiece.
"—rang me up half an hour ago, and said that Craig
had just died—" Again he paused. Lady Craig nodded
sadly. Godolphin murmured his condolences to the two
before he proceeded briskly: "Your butler went on to
say that, before dying, Craig had gasped out that he
was being poisoned, and would we look into the matter.
So, of course, I hurried up at once."
"Dreadful, isn't it?" she said with a sigh. "And the
doctors think it's true. It's very terrible that, if Dr.
Lindrum had only been more, well—up in his work,
poor Ronald might have been with us still. We had a
man down from town for a consultation finally, but—<
he only got here this morning. Too late! Dr. Lindrum
thinks poor Ronald was taking some medicine of his
own, which combined with Dr. Lindrum's medicine to
poison him. However, that's as may be! Of course,
the only thing for us to do was to insist on an au-
topsy, and put the whole matter immediately in your
hands."
Godolphin gave her rather a curious smile. He knew
the woman. He very much doubted how far she had
insisted on any such disagreeable thing, but he said a
few civil words of approval, and then asked for Lin-
drum. "He's still here, isn't he? Mr. Pointer thought
he must be."
The detective-officer in question had assumed as
much, since the blinds were up in the room which the
colonel had told him was Craig's. He thought that only
36


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
a medical examination would explain that in the other-
wise discreetly darkened house.
Godolphin was told that both the medical men had
gone back for another look at the body.
"But they seem to have no doubt of what caused his
death," Houghton went on. "Both are certain that it
was due to arsenical poisoning. Of all the terrible
ideas!" He stopped himself.
"What about weedkiller?" Godolphin asked.
"We only use a non-poisonous kind. I won't have
any other," Lady Craig replied.
Match opened the door.
"Detective Chief Inspector Pointer," he announced.
In came a tall, lean, bronzed young man, with a
definitely efficient look about his grave face and quiet
movements. His eyes were his best feature. They were
large, dark gray, and well-opened, with an expression
of seeming frankness which yet baffled all attempts to
read them. Lady Craig decided that there were both
brains and power in this man.
"Hope you won't mind my having put a constable
outside Mr. Craig's room," he said, as Lady Craig
offered her hand. He did not add that another was in
the garden, and another in the hall.
"I'm thankful to know one's there!" she said grate-
fully. "Though, personally, I am certain that this
dreadful affair will be soon cleared up. Dr. Lindrum's
theory is—" She repeated it as still more of a certainty
than before.
"Can we have a word with the butler?" Godolphin
suggested, when she had done.
37


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
Houghton, without asking leave, rang the bell.
Match, when he came in, briefly ran over the events
of last night. He seemed to consider them the continua-
tion of yesterday afternoon, which, according to him,
marked the beginning of the end. He had gone into Mr.
Craig's room, around four, to see whether he should
take out to the post a book which Mr. Craig had been
wrapping up. He found him sitting up in bed, looking
terribly ill, with his face twitching. Countess Jura
seemed unconscious of his state, as she stood with her
back to him, looking out the window.
"I thought the tea had disagreed with him. The
Countess Jura had ordered up the tray a few minutes
before, and two cups were standing on it by the bed,
each about half-empty. Mr. Craig couldn't speak, seem-
ingly, or daren't, for fear of groaning aloud or crying
out. That's what his face looked like, sir," Match went
on, addressing Houghton. "He made me a sort of sign
with his eyes, as I entered, to get her away. So I said:
'I think Mr. Craig looks very poorly, my lady, perhaps
you'll be good enough to call the nurse.' She didn't take
my meaning." Match was speaking very carefully and
slowly. "Not at all, apparently, for, without turning
round, she said that the nurse and Lady Craig had only
just left the room. And I was to leave the tray, as she
hadn't finished her cup yet. Well, it was no time for
ceremony, so I said, hurrying to the bed: 'Please call
the nurse at once, my lady!' Then she did look round,
and then—well—she rushed off to Mrs. Kingsmill as
fast as she could go, carrying the tray away with her.
38


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
The nurse came in, but there didn't seem anything she
could do. We tried for the doctor on the phone, but he
was making his round, and there aren't many telephones
here about. The nurse said something about the new
medicine not suiting Mr. Craig. After a while he grew
quieter, and fell into a sleep. When he woke up he
seemed much better—so much better that the doctor,
when he hurried in at seven, seemed to think we had
been a bit exaggerating things to ourselves. I heard him
tell Mr. Craig that he had been possibly taking his
Vichy too cold. Mr. Craig had asked for the bottles to
be set on ice," Match explained. Mr. Craig had wanted
nothing for his dinner. He, the butler, had sat with him
as usual from nine to eleven, during which time the
nurse was off duty.
Craig had no night nurse, Lady Craig here put in,
indeed, he resented having one during the day, but, with
her small staff, it was impossible to attend to a sick
person properly. In Craig's case, Match had acted as a
sort of second attendant. Last night, Match resumed,
the sick man had not talked to him at all, but lay,
apparently reading, though he, Match, noticed that he
never turned a page. But he took the open book as a
signal that Mr. Craig did not want to be talked to.
At eleven the nurse came in. Something about the
sick man's appearance must have startled her afresh.
She asked Match to sit on a moment longer. He heard
her using the telephone—telephoning to the doctor, as
she told him afterward. He himself only thought that
Mr. Craig looked very sleepy. Match went to bed on
39


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
being relieved, and slept until he was awakened by the
groans of the sick man, whose room was below his. He
heard him calling out as though in great pain. This was
just after midnight, as he saw on glancing at his watch
before hurrying down to help the nurse.
"Mr. Craig's eyes were open, but," Match went on,
"I don't think he was rightly conscious. He asked what
the time was. I said just past twelve, as near as no
matter. He said: 'Twelve o'clock, and Guy hasn't come
yet!' I replied that Mr. Houghton might come in the
morning, and he said: 'Oh, is it night?' I told him it
was, and his face cleared. He said: 'Be sure and bring
him straight to me.' And on that"—Match shut his
eyes with a look of sick repugnance at the memory—
"he had an awful seizure. So bad that he called out to
me: 'Match, I'm dying! They've poisoned me!' But,
after a bit, it passed, and he seemed to grow drowsy
again. The nurse went to wake her ladyship up. I don't
think Mr. Craig rightly knew anyone when they came
in. He seemed to be again in a sort of stupor. I thought
that meant that he was better, but, around eight this
morning, he had another dreadful attack and, after it,
seemed to fall away as it were and died without opening
his eyes again, at a quarter to nine. I telephoned to you,
sir, just as Mr. Houghton was driving up in his car."
"'They've poisoned me!'" Houghton repeated.
"Surely, Match, Mr. Craig must have said something
more definite to you. After calling out that? Or be-
fore?"
"No, sir," Match said in a low voice, and Pointer
did not believe him.
40


(THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"Were you in the room when Mr. Craig actually
died?" Godolphin asked.
"Yes, sir, and afterward, too. I didn't leave it till I
locked the door when everyone had left. I handed the
key to Mr. Houghton here, as the head of the family
now."
"So you were in the room last night practically con-
tinuously from nine o'clock on, with the exception of
about an hour from eleven till past twelve? . . ."
Godolphin wanted to have the hours clear in his mind.
"Yes, sir. All the time."
"Nothing has been taken out of the room?"
"Nothing but the bed covers, sir. The nurse took
them before I knew what she was about. The blankets,
and pillows, and so on, sir. The sheets were left."
"And these bed covers and pillows are where?"
"In a hamper which I had taken into my pantry.
Also I took the medicine bottle that had been used for
Mr. Craig. It was empty but, even so, after he died
as he did, I wrapped it in my handkerchief in case of
fingerprints, and put it in my pocket. It's down in my
pantry at this moment along with the hamper."
"And the pantry door?" Pointer asked.
"Locked, sir," Match replied with dignity. "And the
key is here." He touched his breast-pocket significantly.
"Good man!" Houghton said warmly. "Keep it so."
"But I suppose you tidied up the room, put things in
their proper places, and so on?" Pointer threw in
casually.
"No, sir, not a thing was touched except the bed, and
the bottle of medicine. As I say, before I knew what she
4i


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
was doing, the nurse had the pillows and blankets off,
but barring that, I wouldn't let her touch anything. She
wanted to stay behind and tidy up, but I was firm.
Of course, when Mr. Houghton arrived, I let him
have the key, and can't speak for what has happened
since."
The doctors came in as he finished. Lindrum was
very pale. He shook hands with the chief constable,
whom he knew, and there were introductions all
around.
"As I just told Lady Craig," Lindrum began, in a
voice that had a suppressed tenseness in it, "we suspect
that death was due to the administration of arsenic.
Until the autopsy, which must be held, of course, that
is as much as I care to say."
"Do you suspect a big dose?" Godolphin asked
nevertheless.
"Yes, as the actual cause of his death last night.
But"—Lindrum flushed and then paled again—"but
certain signs make us think that the poison must have
been being administered for some weeks past as well."
"Four weeks past?" Godolphin asked under his
breath.
"Not as long as twelve weeks is all we can say with
certainty, I think." Gilchrist answered for the other.
"How the deuce can you tell that?" Godolphin almost
whispered, drawing him aside. "Merely as a matter of
curiosity—"
"Apparently there's none in his hair yet," was the
brief but sufficient reply. Meanwhile, Lady Craig had
42


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
turned to Lindrum. She took no trouble to lower her
voice.
"There was a good deal of arsenic in the tonic that
you were giving him, wasn't there?"
Lindrum quite scouted the idea that his medicine
could have had any deleterious effect on his patient,
unless the latter had been taking some other remedy or
remedies, unknown to his medical attendant. As to the
acute seizure of last night—-having said that, he could
say nothing more until the finding of the post-mortem.
Lindrum seemed unable to stop talking—he had pre-
scribed a variant of a new, but well-tried, tonic for
malaria, and the solitary dose of it which had been
given by the nurse at noon yesterday could not possibly
have done any harm to, let alone killed, Craig.
"But I thought Match found the bottle—" Hough-
ton began. He did not get to the word "empty," for the
eye of the chief constable was on him with an expres-
sion as though Houghton were a recruit, and had
dropped his rifle on parade.
Lindrum and the chief constable then discussed the
arrangements to be made for the taking of the body to
the nearest hospital. Gilchrist had promised to assist at
the autopsy, and the house surgeon would be available
as a third. The actual final analysis would be done by
a Home Office expert. That settled, the two medical
men would have hurried off, but Godolphin detained
Lindrum.
"I should be much obliged if you would not go to
your, poison cupboard from now on. I have no power
43


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
to enforce that request until the finding of the autopsy
is actually in my hands, but it would be a prudent step
on your part, Lindrum."
Lindrum's jaw muscles moved as though he set his
teeth for a second. "Certainly," he said stiffly. "Here is
the key." He detached it from the end of his watch-
guard, and without another word left the room.
"Obviously—" Lady Craig began as soon as the door
closed behind them, "it was an overdose, or a mistake
in the prescribing. A new bottle was begun yesterday.
Robert Lindrum puts up his own medicines, and his
sister Agatha helps him. Well—there you are!" She
looked around the little circle. Something in Hough-
ton's expression made her add, reluctantly, "Apparently,
it wasn't suicide—"
"No, Emily, it wasn't suicide," he said curtly. "But
I want a word now with the colonel and the chief in-
spector, alone."
"It's thoughtful of you to spare me," she murmured,
as she let him open the door for her. "I'll go up and
see if Jura Ivanoff is awake. Poor child!"
Houghton, standing in the doorway, looking after
her, saw her feet slow up more and more with every
step of the stairs. She had forgotten him, she had
forgotten the police, he felt sure, as with compressed
lips she all but came to a standstill on the landing.
He closed the door and led the way to the farther end
of the room.
"That idea of Lindrum's about doubled doses of
medicine won't work. It wasn't only to Match that
44


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
Ronald spoke of being poisoned," he began: "he wrote
me to the same effect."
Houghton now handed over the letter which he had
received yesterday noon. Colonel Godolphin read it
through with the closest attention, and his lips shaped
themselves as though he were giving an inaudible
whistle.
"Well!" he said, finally passing it over to Pointer,
"well!" Then, after a pause: "That certainly settles
the question of suicide or a mistake in his medicine, as
you say! Where's the part of a letter to which he
refers?"
"Ah, where!" Houghton echoed. "I suggested to him
to send it to me, inside a book, so that no one would
suspect what he was doing. Match saw him wrapping
one up. Yet nothing has come from here for me this
morning, or I should have heard from my man. And
I caught sight of the book agreed on lying by his bed.
Someone, or something, made him change his mind—
most unfortunately!"
"I suppose Mr. Craig was a man whose judgment
could be relied on?" Pointer asked. "This letter of his
must form the very foundation of any inquiry."
"My cousin made a fortune on the stock exchanges
of the world," Houghton said. "Not in one lucky sweep,
but in operations extending over years. You couldn't
do that without having accuracy of judgment that
amounted to genius."
Godolphin said that he, too, would rely implicitly on
Craig's judgment.
45


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"If we take up the matter," Pointer went on, "the
letter will, of course, be sent up for investigation by
our experts. Not that I suspect it to be a forgery. On
the contrary."
"It's his writing," Houghton said almost sadly, "as
it was this last week or two."
"Are the people staying here in the manor house
friends of yours, too, Mr. Houghton? Would any of
them be by way of staying with you in town?"
Houghton shook his head. The household at the
manor consisted only of Lady Craig, Countess Jura,
and a children's governess, besides the servants. None
. of the three ladies had ever, or would in all probability
ever, stop with him.
"Why?" he asked curiously.
"Well, Mr. Craig evidently thought he would be safe,
if he could get off with you," Pointer explained. "That
being so, it would narrow down the circle of possible
suspects here by clearing any who were also great
friends of yours. But, since that isn't so, since Mr.
Craig would know that by going with you he would
get away from everyone down here, it leaves things
pretty much as they were. He may have had his suspi-
cions of any one of them."
"That letter is damned vague," Houghton agreed.
"Does it tell you anything at all?"
"I wouldn't be surprised if the guilty person were
someone known to you both, Mr. Houghton," Pointer
thought. "At least, that's a fair guess to start with.
Evidently he was certain of the real poisoner's identity.
46


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
Mr. Craig doesn't seem to feel any great amazement,
either. Nor does he say that you'll be staggered to
learn the name. ... Of course, he was tired, and very
ill . . . but still, all omission of surprise is rather
noticeable."
"Had he any enemies known to you?" Godolphin
asked.
"Not a soul," Houghton said confidently. "He made
a huge fortune about a year ago, or rather, he finished
making it then—put all his affairs into gilt-edged se-
curities, left everything in the hands of the Empire
Insurance Company to manage for him, and has taken
life easily ever since. As far as I know, he made no
enemies before retiring. Certainly he couldn't have
made any since, and enemies of this kind don't wait a
year and more before showing themselves."
Both Godolphin and Pointer thought this argument
reasonable.
"Have you any idea how his will runs?" Pointer
asked next.
"Pretty well everything was left to me in the last
will of which I know anything. It was made a year ago.
Of course, he may have made another, but I doubt it,
with his marriage so near at hand. The idea was that it
was only as a pro tern arrangement—we both thought—
which is why, apart from affection, I want the mur-
derer found and hung, chief inspector. It's my plain
duty," Houghton finished grimly, half under his
breath.
"Any legacies?" Pointer asked. >

47


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"Several, I think."
"Can you remember them?"
Houghton thought a moment. "Five hundred a year
to whoever has the Dower House. It was to be made
into a sort of fund, of course, but the interest amounted
to that. Varying sums to men in various parts of the
world who had worked for him. Nothing striking, that
I can remember. . . ."
"Anything to any servants here?"
"I rather think that Match's wages were to be con-
tinued during his life, as an annuity, but I may be
wrong. We shall soon know."
The chief constable was staring at the carpet, how-
ever, lost in thought. "That confederate—" he mur-
mured, "that confederate inside the house. . . . Noth-
ing to go on there. . . . Damned vague, as you say,
Houghton. But, as Craig excepts Match, the butler, it
evidently lies among the women."
"One fact will help," Pointer thought. "This letter
reached Mr. Houghton around two. It should be easy
to find out when it was written. Was Mr. Craig's man-
ner different, after it, to any member of the household?
The answer to that question might give us a lift part
of the way. Shall I keep this letter, sir, or will you? I
suppose Mr. Houghton has no objection to one of us
taking possession of it?"
Houghton's gesture waved away the idea of any
objections on his part to anything the two officials
might do.
"You keep it," Godolphin said. "I shall have to
48


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
leave the case entirely to you. Last night's fire looks
like arson. Together with our preparations for quarter
sessions it will keep me fully occupied."
Houghton initialed the letter and watched the chief
inspector put it carefully away.
"You know," he burst out, "it can't seem such an
incredible nightmare to you as it does to me. To me,
who know all the people in the house, and would have
vouched for all of them. Yet he wasn't murdered from
outside, but from inside. And, what's more, he was
murdered before he could show me the proof which he
had found, which was actually in his hands. ... I
think he was killed because he had got hold of that
guilty letter and had written to me to come at once.
We weren't to be allowed to meet."
"By George!" muttered Godolphin, "that's a possi-
bility! That you weren't to meet! Still, the doctors
seem sure that he was being poisoned for some time, in
small doses. . . ."
"But he wasn't actually finished off until he had
sent me that letter saying that he had hold of a paper
which proved what damnable thing was going on—
until he wrote me to come and take him away."
"One thing is certain, if you're right in thinking that
Mr. Craig was killed to prevent a meeting between
you," Pointer said thoughtfully: "it would mean that
someone knew of the contents of this letter. For, from
the wording of it, it doesn't seem likely that he would
have shown the paper he had found to anyone else, or
even spoken of it." Houghton agreed.
v 49


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"Unless Craig was indiscreet when he telephoned
you?" suggested Godolphin.
"I don't think anyone could have guessed—no,"
Houghton said with certainty as he repeated the words
they had exchanged along the wire, "no one could have
guessed from overhearing what either of us said. Un-
less"—his face darkened—"unless they got it out of
him afterward. Unless someone overheard enough to
make them curious. Someone who suspected that Ron-
nie might guess what was happening, and was on the
watch. ... In that case, they might have got it out
of him afterward, about my coming down here this
morning, I mean. Only that much, of course."
"Would he have been likely to speak of your ar-
rival?"
"To only one person, he might have. To Countess
Jura." Houghton's voice was studiously level; he de-
liberately would not meet the eyes of either man.
"How did this letter reach you, and when, exactly?"
Godolphin asked him. "According to what Craig writes
here, Lindrum was to drop it in your box himself. I
see there's no stamp or postmark on it."
"Someone—Lindrum, evidently—did drop it in my
letter-box, and my man brought it in at once."
"You heard the ring? You know that it really was
brought to you instantly?" Godolphin pressed.
"I do. I was at lunch. Time would be around ten
past two. I heard a ring, and Hughes, my man, left me
and went to the door, bringing in the letter you have
there. And, for extra certainty, I heard the letter drop
SO


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
into the box. Hughes certainly had no time to open
the envelope, or do more than see that it was addressed
to me."
"Yet the envelope's been opened." The chief con-
stable pointed to a line of dried gum outside the flap.
"Opened while it was damp, I think," Pointer added,
he was inspecting it through a glass, "and, as you say,
sir, stuck down with some fresh gum."
Houghton gave an exclamation. He, too, peered in
his turn, and now noticed, for the first time, the slight
wrinkles and waviness.
"If done while it was wet," Pointer thought, "your
cousin might have opened it himself for some last word,
or postscript."
"There's no postscript," Godolphin pointed out.
"Might have forgotten the date, of course, and opened
it to put it in. . . ."
He pulled at his mustache for a moment. "This very
much backs up your idea, Houghton," he said finally.
"We haven't any right—officially—until the finding of
the post-mortem, to assume death by poisoning."
"Don't stop for red tape," Houghton urged. "Only
clear up this nightmare."
"Lucky you're the head of the family," Godolphin
murmured a trifle grimly, as he thought of Lady Craig,
whose gushing welcome had by no means hoodwinked
him.
"The house is hers," Houghton went on, "but she
won't want to antagonize me just now. Supposing I'm
right in thinking I'm Ronnie's executor. So ring bells;
51


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
But now, look here, I quite understand that no one can
be allowed to go into that room alone, or I shouldn't
have stayed down here for a second, but will you both
come up with me now, at once, and let us see if we can't
find that precious paper my cousin referred to?"
Godolphin and Pointer both rose by way of assent.
"Supposing it to be still in existence I shouldn't
locate it, off-hand, in the room where Mr. Craig died,"
Pointer said in a low tone to the chief constable, who
gave him an emphatically assenting look.
Houghton led the way upstairs. Godolphin followed
and waved to Pointer to come along. Strictly speaking,
as yet the Scotland Yard man was only an onlookec
Indeed, still more strictly speaking, if the affair were
placed in his hands, he would still be supposed to act
only as an adviser to the chief constable. But even that
standing was not his yet. For the moment, there were
only the words of the dying man, written and spoken,
and the belief of the two doctors, to show that a crime
had been committed. Such, at least, was the theory.
In point of fact, none of the three men had the least
doubt on the matter, and the chief inspector carried with
him up to the bedroom a camera which he had borrowed
from his host of last night, the local superintendent.
53


CHAPTER IV
AT a word from Godolphin, Houghton remained
with the former in the doorway while Pointer
took several photographs of the room and then quickly
measured the distances between the various most im-
portant pieces of furniture and marked them on a
plan.
That done, the room was free to move about in,
though Godolphin asked Houghton not to touch any-
thing. He himself stepped first of all to the bed and
looked long at the face which had been hidden by the
sheet. "He's altered," Godolphin said pityingly; "must
have suffered agonies, by the change in him."
"He relied on me—and I wasn't there!" came in a
choked whisper from Houghton, who strode to the
window a moment and stood there, back to the room,
biting his lips.
Pointer eyed the dead man closely. He- saw a good-
looking man with sharply cut features—features that
suggested considerable driving power. He looked a
very unyielding man, the detective thought, a man
whom he would expect to insist on his own way even
in trifles. He looked, to Pointer, like one who would
54


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
live to schedule, and insist on others living to it too.
There was nothing easy-going about the face. But it
was emphatically the face of a law-abiding man.
"I'll see to it that whoever did it pays for it!" Hough-
ton now said tensely, moving away from the window
and stepping to the writing-cabinet. He picked up the
keys, which lay where he had left them, unlocked the
case and flung back the top.
"You see, the paper's not in here!" He fluttered
through the contents a second time, more carefully.
Godolphin good-naturedly forbore to remind him
about not touching things, and went through the little
cabinet too.
"There's no gum here," he remarked as he did so,
"otherwise it seems to be stocked with everything that
the mind of a stationer could think of. What's the word
the house-agents always use? 'Replete.' That's it."
"Yes, a sort of portable office. But as you say, there's
no gum, though there's a pot of Stickwell. And what's
much worse, there's no 'part of a letter.'" Houghton
shook his head.
Pointer, after looking the case over very carefully
too, took out the letter sent Houghton by the dead
man.
"It evidently came from that block there. Want to
make sure?" asked Godolphin, without much interest.
"I think we'll find it's an inch shorter than the rest
of the sheets on this pad." The man from the Yard
was measuring the two with his long but very strong-
looking fingers, the fingers of an engineer.
55


THE CRAI.G POISONING MYSTERY
Godolphin, who was turning away, turned back
keenly interested. As he had thought, the letter sent
Houghton was identical in make of paper and color,
but, as Pointer thought, it was an inch shorter. The
envelope, on the other hand, tallied absolutely with the
others in the same division, envelopes made to go with
that particular block.
Pointer eyed the lower edge closely.
"I rather thought that something had been torn off
here and that the edge had then been roughened to look
like the other edges," he murmured half to himself.
"That would explain why the envelope was opened!"
came in great excitement from Houghton.
"Y-yes, only I don't think it was Mr. Craig who went
to the trouble of trying to hide the fact that the paper
had been shortened," Pointer said, deep in thought.
"Someone with plenty of time did that. Neatly done."
"It looks as if a postscript had been added and cut
off by someone," Godolphin thought. "I can't imagine
Craig working to make the sheet look as if it hadn't
been touched, can you, Houghton?"
Houghton ridiculed the idea. "The last man in the
world to've cared how the paper looked," he added.
"No," his voice was husky, "what was taken away was
the name! I feel sure Ronnie opened it to scrawl with
his weary fingers the poisoner's name. Perhaps a sort
of feeling that he had better tell me. . . . Well, this,
at any rate, proves that the letter is no forgery, had
proof been needed."
"Whoever tore it off must have known—positively—
56


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
that you and the writer were not going to meet. At
least, that's how it looks to me—so far," Pointer said
slowly.
"By Jove!" came from Houghton, "what a thought!
That the actual fingers that tore off—touched—that let-
ter, that opened that envelope, were the fingers of the
murderer!"
"I don't know about opening the envelope. Mr.
Craig might have done that himself to write the very
postscript in question," Pointer reminded him, "but
as to who tore it off . . . yes, that's how it looks, so
far."
"I rather agree with you, Pointer," Godolphin now
said. "Yes, I rather agree with you. I wonder if we
can find any finger-prints on it—"
"You won't!" Houghton said hopelessly. "Whoever
tore it and worked away at the edge to make it look like
the rest of the paper would have worn gloves."
He picked up a big book from a table by the wall.
"This is what I wanted him to send the precious find
in." He fluttered its leaves carefully but fruitlessly.
"Match said he wrapped up a book. . . . Here's the
wrapper!" He pounced on the paper-basket and fished
out a brown sheet that had been folded around some-
thing flat and sharp-edged. Houghton laid it on the
volume. The marks fitted.
"So he did mean to send it. ... I would have asked
Match about it just now, only I didn't want to inter-
rupt the story of how the end actually came. Hello—
look at this 1" Houghton had turned the wrapper over.
57


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
Houghton spoke passionately, under his breath. "It's
like turning over a stone and finding it alive with crawl-
ing vermin. I quite counted on finding that paper—
finding it in this room. But I'm afraid there isn't an
earthly chance of its being here, as you say." As neither
of the other two answered him, he went on, "Or even
in existence, you think?"
"I'm afraid not," both said frankly.
"I won't allow that it's been burnt or destroyed,"
he said obstinately. "It would be too rotten bad luck!"
"There's always accident, or a blunder, or the possi-
bility of blackmail to keep it safe," Godolphin com-
forted him. "I've known very incriminating documents
saved for the last reason. Not by the criminal, needless
to say, though."
The search passed on into the bathroom. Here, again,
no paper was found. What had been the sitting-room
intended to go with the bedroom was now the nurse's
room. There was nowhere else to look, except in the
remainder of the house, and evidently Craig himself
could not have hidden it, except in his sick-room.
"Mr. Craig used to live here himself, I understand,
before the house was made into a dower house?"
Pointer asked Houghton, as the latter stood looking
rather helplessly down at the toilet-table of his cousin.
The drive up from the police station had been too
swift to allow of more than a few words between him-
self and the chief constable. Houghton nodded.
"Yes. This is the outline of my cousin's life. He ran
away to sea as a lad. Refused to come home, and stayed
59


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
on in the merchant service. When his cousin, Sir George
Craig—Lady Craig's husband—who had bought this
house, found it a bit small and inconvenient, he let it
to Ronald Craig and his wife. Then when Sir George
died—intestate—a little later, it came to him as next-of-
kin. When George died, Ronald left the sea and went
into the City. Bought a seat on the stock exchange and
did surprisingly well. Lately he's been doing really big
things. Playing the South American market. He got
out a year ago. Cleared a huge fortune. His two little
kids, both girls, unfortunately, live here with Lady
Craig. The house is hers for her life use, of course.
Ronald turned it into the Dower House when he began
negotiations for buying Clere Towers."
"You didn't speak of that missing paper to Lady
Craig?" Godolphin eyed him thoughtfully.
Houghton returned the look.
"I did not. I didn't speak of it to anyone until I
heard that a policeman was on duty outside the bed-
room to prevent anyone entering. I had to leave the key
with Dr. Gilchrist and Lindrum. You see, I thought—
then—that it was somewhere in this room."
"And you think Lady Craig might have destroyed
it?" Godolphin asked.
"I didn't, and don't, think one way or another about
her, or anyone else," Houghton said doggedly, "but
someone in this house has been wearing a most dam-
nably well-made mask. Someone has been posing as an
ordinary inmate, perhaps as something closer, and yet
has murdered Ronnie. Apart from what the doctors
60


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
say, his letter to me shows that. It's a horrible fact,
but it is a fact. As for me, I'm all in the dark. I find
that I can't tell his friends from his foes."
There was a short silence.
"I'll see if by any chance the letter got tucked away
into some magazine or book and is downstairs," Hough-
ton said finally, without much hope of success, and
so saying he left them.
Colonel Godolphin and Pointer stayed a little longer
in the bathroom.
"Mr. Craig was evidently not very particular about
his personal belongings, in spite of all that stationery
outfit in there." Pointer stood glancing over the tube
of shaving cream, squeezed into a sort of dying-worm
effect, the dented tin of toothpaste, a cardboard box of
cotton wool bursting at every fold, and a very much
used pair of brushes that stood on the glass shelf.
"Certainly there's nothing of the millionaire about
these things," Godolphin agreed. "I told you, coming
here, that he had no valet. He was a chap of simple
taste all through, I fancy. Though in the merchant
service he wouldn't have had much cash to spare, and
while his financial plans were ripening he once told me
that he had to look twice at every shilling. He dressed
shockingly. But Countess Jura would have altered all
that fast enough. She has the reputation of being ex-
travagant enough for a dozen ordinary women. It was
for her that he bought Clere Towers from Lord Wattle,
who couldn't afford even to heat it. And because he
made such elaborate improvements in it, the wedding
61


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
had to be delayed. Come to think of it, that plumbers'
strike may have done the Russian girl out of well over
a million."
"Was there no idea when the marriage was coming
off?"
"Not for a couple of months, was the latest opinion
of Sir Oliphant Newton, the architect to whom Craig
handed Clere Towers over. In spite of Craig's efforts to
get it earlier. Craig was desperately afraid of rivals
with the lady. Personally, I can't think why."
"Was there any special man with whom her name
had been coupled?" Pointer wanted to know.
"Nothing so easy for you! No, preventive measures
only, I believe. But as he himself fell head over heels in
love with her at her first dance, I suppose he thought
she might have the same effect on other men. It's club
gossip that the marriage settlements were drafted the
same week and O.K.'ed by her relatives, but that with
them went the proviso that the countess was to stay
with Lady Craig, at Woodthorp, until the wedding."
Pointer had finished in the bathroom. The two re-
turned to the bedroom. "Anything you've taken a fancy
to in here?" Godolphin asked.
"Mr. Craig's cigarette holder on the mantelpiece.
Apparently he has only the one. It's seen much service."
Pointer dropped it into an envelope after Godolphin had
had a look at it. "The box of cigarettes over there,"
the detective officer went on; "they're Russian cigar-
ettes, I see. Then his tooth-brush and tin of tooth-paste
from the dressing-room. His tumbler and water-bottle"
62


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
—Pointer was writing a list—"will have to be left for
later. There's the medicine bottle from the butler, and
his medicine glass here on the mantel end. I think that's
all for the present."
"Anything more in here that interests you?" Godol-
phin asked.
"Yes, something else, sir." Pointer picked up once
more a coverlet lying folded on the foot of the chaise
longue. He spread it out over the silent sheeted figure
in the bed.
"That ink splash?" Godolphin said promptly. "Looks
new, eh? Rather near the foot, unless the coverlet has
been turned so that what is now the foot was at the
head."
"Fortunately you can't turn it." Pointer showed that
a flounce ran around the three sides, leaving the top
plain. The coverlet in question was of deep crimson,
which struck a very happy note of color in the peacock-
green room, with its walnut furniture.
"Looks to me as though Craig, pen in hand, had
leaned far forward and drawn up a spare blanket,"
Godolphin thought, "and a splash like that looks as
though he had dropped his pen in doing so. But no! Th*
splash is too big for that. You think someone leaning
on the bed-end here, and holding out a filled pen to
Craig, like this, dropped it? But why make such a
splurge?"
Pointer, his eyes on the stain, did not answer.
"What's your reading of the trail, scoutmaster?"
Godolphin persisted.
63


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"Do it again, sir," Pointer asked. "Hold out your
pencil as you did just now, not at the full stretch of
your arm, but as a five foot four to six person might
have held it."
"You mean a woman? But the splash is too near this
end," Godolphin objected.
"Not if I do this, sir." Pointer promptly leaned over
the bed until his arm was approximately where the sick
man's might have been had he been sitting up, and
struck the pencil from Godolphin's hand. It fell very
fairly near the spot in question.
"That's it!" Godolphin ejaculated. "And that ac-
counts for the ink splashing toward the bed-end, a
curious point which had rather bothered me. By Jove ("
Godolphin hung over the coverlet a second, his lips
tight, "I don't wonder Houghton feels as he doesf
Something very nasty was going on here in this charm-
ing little house, among these dear simple souls. How
old do you think the ink stain is? It looks very fresh
to me."
So it did to Pointer. "The H.Q. analyst will tell us.
Also what ink it is. Though we may hear something
about it from someone in the house. It may, of course,
be only an ordinary accident, but I think it must have
happened yesterday, or else why was the coverlet left
unchanged. It was apparently folded up here at night.
And I rather think"—Pointer hung over the bed—"I
rather think that something fell at the same time as the
pen. Or why is there only the one splash and none of
the little fry that usually go with such a mark as that?"
64


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"You think the rest of the marks were on whatever
was dropped at the same time?"
Pointer fancied that they might find that the case.
"A pen suggests a paper," Godolphin went on, as
Pointer began to collect his notes.
"Suggestive!" Godolphin said slowly, "and Craig
poisoned! Craig poisoned! You know, if you had
searched the countryside over, I don't think you could
have found a house where one would expect to be safer
from that sort of thing than here. There are only
women in the house for one thing—"
"And poison is supposed to be peculiarly a woman's
weapon, and peculiarly the method of death chosen by
fellow inmates," Pointer finished to himself. But aloud
he only said, "Barring the doctor."
"True. Barring Bob Lindrum."
"What's his reputation, sir?"
"Good. Meant for the Church, but preferred doctor-
ing. Father was the late rector here. Gave Bob the best
education he could stretch to, on the understanding that
his mother and sister should always have a home with
him. Bob took a splendid degree, and is well liked. Of
course this poisoning of Craig's, unless it's cleared up,
will be a disaster to him. But provided he's not impli-
cated—and Craig felt sure he wasn't—he will live it
down in time. After all, how could he suspect? He's
not a policeman. And between ourselves, I doubt if
I should have suspected in his place."
"And Mr. Houghton's reputation, sir?"
"First-class cricketer, which means that he always
65


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"Certainly!" She turned the handle. Inside, a plain,
thin, tall young woman was standing by the table with
her head bent, so deep in thought that she did not look
up. Pointer had never seen so much hesitancy, such
deep uneasiness, so clearly on any face before. This
young woman was trying to think, trying to come to a
decision which, whatever it was, she evidently consid-
ered very important.
"I refuse—" she began. When Lady Craig cut in:
"This is the chief inspector, he just wants to see the
room for a minute"—-and without giving Pointer an-
other second, Lady Craig closed the door and turned to
him.
"Have you found out anything? One hears of such
marvels nowadays."
"The case is in Colonel Godolphin's hands," Pointer
reminded her.
"And he is—?"
"Downstairs with Mr. Houghton, I think."
She hurried down the passage, and he could hear her
descending the smooth polished stairs to the ground
floor. The manor abounded in uncarpeted wastes of
slipperiness. Pointer went down the little stairs deep in
thought, found a door at their foot unbolted, with the
key standing unturned in the lock, that led directly into
the garden. He examined first one and then the other
for some minutes. That done, he found the chief con-
stable in the library with Lady Craig and Houghton.
"Do you mind if we show Lady Craig your letter,
Houghton?" Godolphin was saying as Pointer entered.
Houghton repeated that he left everything to the police.
67


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
She read it through and stared accusingly at Hough-
ton. "Why didn't you tell me of this at once?"
"I preferred to let the police manage this show,
Emily," was the cold reply.
She bit her lip. She was angry, but was also some-
thing else. Pointer thought there was dismay mingled
with the anger, or even causing it. "Well, of course
that takes it quite out of our circle," she said after a
second's silence. "Some business affair. There was no
reason in the world, but one, why Ronald should have
been deliberately poisoned, and that was—his money.
Or something to do with it. I'm glad to know as much."
Godolphin coughed behind his hand.
"Now about this portion of a letter Craig refers to,"
he went on, "have you seen anything that might be it?
In his possession, or in his room?"
She said that she had not.
The same answer was returned to a question as to
her having seen a book intended for the post, or its
wrapper in the basket, when the idea of posting it had
apparently been abandoned.
"I don't believe that Ronald did know the truth,"
she said almost defiantly. "No; why should he? He
found something that misled him as half-truths so often
do. I don't think he knew who was poisoning him at .
all."
"My dear Emily," Houghton raised an eyebrow,
"that won't wash. There never was a better judgment
than Ronnie's. I'd trust it in every circumstance," and
so saying he left the room.
68


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"Rubbish!" she said tartly. "There's no one whose
judgment is always right. Besides, there's only one
person who benefits by poor Ronald's death." She had
turned to Godolphin. "That is Guy Houghton. This is
in strict confidence of course."
"Oh, absolutely!" both assured her.
"But I don't see how—" began Godolphin.
"Oh, how could anyone have done it?" she inter-
rupted shortly. "Mind you," she broke off, "I'm not
saying for a moment that Guy did, or could do such a
thing. But I do maintain between ourselves that he is
the only person who benefits by poor Ronald's death.
The only person in the house that is to say—"
"Outside the house?" Pointer queried.
"The only person outside or inside the house," she
amended.
"But the motive? I thought he was a very wealthy
man already?"
"He's on the stock exchange," she said swiftly.
"Who knows how anyone really stands there? But all
this is beside my one point which is, the fact that he
profits, profits enormously, and the rest of us lose!"
She fastened a pair of hard, watchful eyes on the
chief inspector as she spoke. Pointer thought that he
would never look to Lady Craig to help the cause of
justice—supposing this mood were characteristic of
her—and supposing the hunt for the truth lay too near
her own concern for her liking.
Lady Craig had not noticed any difference, however
slight, in Mr. Craig's manner, toward anyone in the
69


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
house from noon on yesterday? "From the time that
letter you just read was written, in other words?"
There was no doubt about it: she paled.
"As far as I noticed he was just the same," she said
promptly. "He certainly was to me, and so I assume he
was to everyone."
The two men went into the hall; there they found
Houghton just coming out of the library.
"I've been trying to get Osbourn, Ronnie's solicitor,
on the phone," he explained. "The firm is Osbourn-
Osbourn of Lincoln's Inn Fields. Unfortunately, this
being Saturday, he is out of town. However, the mes-
sage will be sent on to him down to Hove, letting him
know that Ronnie's dead, and he won't be long in get-
ting into touch with us. As I told you, the Empire In-
surance Company looked after my cousin's financial
matters entirely since he left the stock exchange last
year. There, too, we must wait till Monday."
"By the way," Godolphin asked suddenly, "who in-
herits if anything happens to you?"
Houghton stared. This was a new idea.
"To me? Oh, well, if anything happened to me at
once, I suppose both our fortunes would be divided
between the children and Lady Craig as the only re-
maining kith and kin." He thought over the idea for a
moment.
"Well, be careful of yourself!" Godolphin said
gravely. "As a sensible man you won't eat or drink
except at the inn while down here. We're off for the
police station now. The doctor's first information
70


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
should reach us soon, and we'll be back at once suppos-
ing it is what we all know it will be. Sorry not to help
you in your search, Houghton, but believe me, or rather
us, it's sheer waste of time. That paper is either de-
stroyed or in very safekeeping somewhere." So saying,
Godolphin, followed by Pointer, made for his car.
"So Lady Craig is very insistent, isn't she?" Godol-
phin said dryly, "that no one benefits by Craig's death
except Houghton. Methinks the lady doth protest too
much. But why?"
"Ah, why didn't she want to say to whom Mr.
Craig's manner had altered yesterday afternoon or
night. Or at least toward whom she thought it had
altered?"
"You think she kept that back?"
"I do, sir, after due—though naturally hurried—re-
flection."
"Humph!" Godolphin murmured, "I always did
say that Emily Craig was deep. Damned deep. Or could
be. What are you looking at?"
Pointer was examining some black specks in an
envelope. "Tea leaves, sir, which I picked up by that
handsome Dutch silver tea-caddy in Mr. Craig's room.
The one beside an electric kettle."
"It was empty, wasn't it? I thought it looked merely
ornamental."
The caddy in question, a handsome affair with a
tea-schooner in full sail on the lid, conveyed that im-
pression owing to the dust-free condition of its gilt
interior.
71


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"This tea is very unusual. . . ." Pointer replaced
the envelope in his letter-case. Tea was one of the
things on which he was qualified to speak. Had he had
his way, a statue to the great Chinaman who first in-
vented it would tower aloft in every country. "A genu-*
ine Chinese blend, I fancy. It's unfermented, or I'm
much mistaken. I don't think you can buy this, except
as a special order, anywhere in Europe."
72


CHAPTER V
POINTER sat in silence while Godolphin finished a
belated breakfast, then, lighting up, he asked:
"When did Mr. Craig's wife die, sir?"
"She isn't dead," was the unexpected reply. "She ran
away about three years ago with a chap called Ardmay,
who used to hunt down here. Nephew of our M.F.H.
Craig didn't trouble to divorce her until he met Coun-
tess Jura a year ago. Then he got it, of course, together
with the custody of the children. It was made absolute
about two or three months ago now.
"Is Mrs. Craig Mrs. Ardmay?"
"Not yet. Ardmay has been called to his mother's
house. She's at death's door, they say. They'll marry as
soon as she's recovered, or the funeral is over. They've
been living on the Riviera. He's interested in some land
development scheme out there. Mrs. Craig—Miss Bing-
ham as she calls herself again—lives very discreetly at
Beausoleil. It's Ardmay's villa, but when I was at
Cannes last winter I heard they managed things very
well. He puts up at the Paris. He's a wealthy chap.
Provided they settle in some other county once they're
married, everyone will overlook these last few years—
73


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
tracted, of course, but she fairly flung herself at his
head."
"Was there any arrangement made by which she sees
her children at times?"
"I was waiting for that question. No; she deserted
her babies, and Craig said she should abide by it. Not
that she seems to mind. And it was very convenient
for Craig. He never had to be afraid of running up
against her, or hearing the children talk of their
mother's visits. I've telephoned the Monte Carlo police
to let us have full particulars of Miss Bingham, of
course. We should get a reply any moment."
"I wonder why Mr. Craig didn't leave his money to
his children," Pointer speculated.
"Possibly because a wealthy aunt of his, who was
their godmother, left them a comfortable fortune apiece.
Besides, as Houghton says, this will was only intended
as a stop-gap. There's the telephone!" Godolphin seized
the instrument. It was Monte Carlo speaking. Miss
Bingham was at the villa Soleil at the moment. Had
been now for the last fortnight. Just now she had influ-
enza. Was she alone? She was, except for two servants.
It was a small villa. Yes, Mr. Ardmay was the pro-
prietor. He had not been in the principality for a
month now. Further news of Miss Bingham or of Mr.
Ardmay, should he return, would be sent on.
"Lucky for Ardmay and Miss Bingham that Craig
had got his divorce," Godolphin said with his rather
chaffing smile as he hung up. "Or don't you make
theories as you go along, Pointer?"
75


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"I like finding facts better," Pointer thought. "Of
course, if you can't find a fact lying around, you have
to fish for it with a theory."
Both men were silent on that; both lost in thought.
"I'd like your opinion of the characters living at the
house, sir," Pointer said finally. He thought he might
as well fill in the time usefully. "Beginning with Lady
Craig. What about her, sir?"
"What do you think of her yourself, you saw her
for a few minutes," countered Godolphin. He was be-
ginning to like his quiet, pleasant companion, with the
grave, thoughtful face.
"I should say she was a clever, capable woman, espe-
cially when it comes to money matters. Either is really
hard up, or is a bit on the near side where spending
is concerned, but is fond of display."
Godolphin laughed. "Quite right. But how did you
know it? She dresses well. How did you spot that
she's supposed to be a fearful screw?"
"Gardener," Pointer explained in one word. "By
the work done, I wondered at first if she employs a
blind and half-crippled gardener from compassion. But
as I happened to see a very hale and hearty—and very
awkward—young man hacking at the hedge, I can't
call it trimming it, I saw that it must be economy. Then
the plants chosen for her beds—showy and cheap. Ut-
most effect for the money. The place selected for them
too—best view—spots from the drawing-room win-
dows. You say she's called a screw, sir. Is she well
off?"
76


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"No one at the manor is well off. Which may or may
not be a help to you. Lady Craig lost practically every-
thing in the Daintry crash two years ago. You remem-
ber the Daintry Trust Company? She was one of the
unfortunate people who trusted, to the tune of her all, I
understand. Since then she has lived almost entirely at
the Dower House, of which she luckily has the use, and
has many quite remunerative irons in the fire, I under-
stand. She's taken to bringing girls out. She was a
Rawlton, you know. A connection of the present duke.
So there's not a great house in England with which she
hasn't some link. I'm told that her terms are five hun-
dred pounds down before she takes a girl, all her ex-
penses including frocks, and a last five hundred pounds
when she marries the girl off well. That's how she comes
to be looking after this Russian countess. They say in
her case that she's not to be paid until the wedding,
which must make Craig's death a fearful blow to her
finances. I've a sister-in-law who knows all this sort of
thing and who happened to be lunching with us last
month, or I might not have all the details so pat."
"And the young lady herself, Countess Alexandra,
sir? What of her?"
"Let me see?" Godolphin thought a moment. "I've
met her about nine times I fancy. So I've met exactly
nine entirely different young women, all looking just
alike, all called Countess Alexandra or Countess Jura—
according to whether people know her well or slightly
—Jura is a nickname. They, the nine of her, struck me
as having one common quality. She must act. If not on
77


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
the boards, then off. And the boards would be safer
for herself and for others. As to which of the nine
young women I met is the genuine article I can't even
hazard a guess."
"I suppose, however, all nine of her were, or was,
greatly attached to Mr. Craig?"
Godolphin had never seen them together, but agreed
that one would think so. Certainly his death had been
a tremendous blow to her prospects.
"And the nursery governess at the manor? What is
she like?"
"Very unlike a nursery governess. Or a governess of
any kind."
Godolphin's leathery face creased into a faintly hu-
morous smile. "Best company you could ask. Witty
and amusing. A bit cynical, but that makes her all the
more amusing. My wife learned by chance that she
took classical honors at Newnham, then lost her voice
and took to teaching kiddies to ease the strain. It's
returning again, luckily. Must be a dull life for such a
girl. There's something about her that suggests a suf-
fragette in the old days. She ought to've been a man.
First-class fighting stuff in Miss Cornwall, and it's
wasted in a nursery schoolroom. She never even pre-
tends to care much for children."
"Pretty?" Pointer asked.
Godolphin shook his head.
"Ugly. But interesting looking." He smoked in
silence for a minute. "Only ugly young woman I've
ever met who gives me the idea she doesn't mind her
78


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
looks." There came another silence. "Hope she's not
in it," the chief constable muttered finally.
"Because you like her, sir?"
"Because you would find her damned difficult to
catch," Godolphin corrected with a hard smile. "I'm
like Houghton. I want the man or woman who killed
Ronald Craig to swing, whoever he or she is. That's
what I'm here for."
"And what I'm here for too, sir. It wouldn't surprise
you to hear that this governess is in the crime?"
"Nothing about Miss Cornwall would surprise me,"
Godolphin acknowledged. "Finely finished, tightly
closed, impenetrable piece of goods. But hard as steel
inside as well as outside, I should say. Though you
never know. And of course she's poor, else why go
governessing?"
"Is she particularly friendly with the countess?"
Pointer asked.
"Detests her virulently. I don't mind saying in con-
fidence that if it had been Countess Jura who had been
found poisoned, I should have very grave suspicions of
Miss Cornwall. But in Craig's case—" He finished
with a wave of smoke ring.
"Craig's case . . ." He repeated meditatively. "It's
puzzling. In a novel"—Godolphin was fond of con-
trasting real life with fiction—"in a novel of course it
would be some old sin of Craig's reaping a belated
punishment, such as that in some flowery isle he should
have married the daughter of the flowery chief but did
not, and her father has at last tracked him down. But
79


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
inal scores. He knows what's important, and can con-
centrate on the thing that matters most, and get rid of
it. There's one thing in this case. There'll be no need
to test alibis."
"And that's a blessing." Pointer was one with him in
that.
"Fortunately, too, arsenic has to be bought."
Pointer gave him a long look.
"When a doctor is a family friend, sir? One who
does his own dispensing, and who has a sister to help
him put up his medicine?"
"Ah!" Godolphin's face grew grave. "Well—all
that's to be found out by you! I can't say I envy you
the job. Too many women in it for one thing."
"Quite so, sir. A governess and a nurse living under
the same roof with him and his Russian fiancee, a
doctor's sister within a stone's throw, and a former
wife in Monte Carlo."
"Chances for plenty of jealousy melodramas, you
think?" Godolphin asked. "And to help you to get tied
up, I can assure you, as could Houghton, that Craig
was a great favorite with women. He was uncommonly
interesting when he chose to exert himself. He at-
tracted them and they attracted him. I even used to
wonder if Miss Cornwall wasn't a bit fascinated. She
asked a lot of questions about him in a discreet way.
However, it's not jealousy here, I think, but something
much harder to spot."
"There's one good thing, sir," Pointer thought; "so
far, there's nothing to show that more than one motive


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
was working. The missing paper, the missing post-
script, the missing address, all fit in with one line of
reasoning, that someone wanted to prevent a premature
discovery of the poisoning of Mr. Craig. An accom-
plice . . ." Pointer went on, thinking aloud, head
bent, eyes on his boots, hands deep in his pockets,
"an accomplice . . . yet it's difficult to imagine any-
one running the risk of being found giving poison,
except for their own ends. It's not a hireling's job as a
rule."
"If you want a thing well done, do it yourself, eh?"
murmured Godolphin cynically.
"It would have to be some very great personal gain
to insider as well as outsider, to accomplice as well as
to instigator, or some tremendous emotion common to
both, felt by both; if not, what inducement could be
offered to anyone at the Dower House to make them
accept the most dangerous part of the work?"
"Don't forget, the task wasn't so dangerous until
Houghton arrived with his London specialist," Godol-
phin cautioned him. "Whoever the criminal's accom-
plice is, very nearly pulled it off. Horribly nearly. As
to what would make anyone help in the crime. . . ."
Godolphin thought a while. "In a gang of criminals,
terror is often the weapon that makes them come to
heel, but here—'at the Dower House—that would
hardly seem a good weapon. Yet you never know. ..."
Again both men fell into a profound study.
"If Mr. Craig was right, if he really did know who
was poisoning him," began the cautious Scotland Yard
man.
82


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"He was right about the poisoning, wasn't he?
Hardly likely he'd be wrong about the proof he found,"
Godolphin thought. Pointer nodded. "Then we can say
with certainty that Mr. Houghton, Dr. Lindrum, and
the butler, can be set on one side."
This time it was Godolphin who nodded. "Apart
from his letter, I think we could do that as regards the
first and last of the three. But for Houghton's arrival
with his expert, Lindrum would have given a death
certificate. And Match called us in very promptly."
The colonel stopped as the telephone rang again. He
turned to it rather impatiently. Then his face lightened.
"What, you, Lindrum! Got one definite result al-
ready? Arsenic found in the teeth and gums . . . con-
stant smallish doses, and one big dose since he last ate
anything solid. That all so far? Well, it's enough isn't
it? It was for poor Craig. Thanks very much. We'll
get on with the job now."
"Ask for Dr. Gilchrist to come to the phone a min-
ute, will you, sir?" Pointer put in swiftly as the colonel
was about to hang up. When the expert obligingly
stepped to the other end, Pointer asked him for an inter-
view as soon as the autopsy should be finished.
"Won't be for another two or three hours." Gilchrist
did not seem keen on a talk. "And I must be back in
town as soon as possible."
"I won't detain you longer than a few minutes. I
can meet you at the railway station if you like."
Gilchrist did not seem to like it much, but grunted an
agreement, and Pointer nailed him down to a definite
train and hour.
83


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
Then Godolphin took up the receiver again and
quickly arranged with Scotland Yard, through the
Home Office, that Pointer, being on the spot, should
take over the investigation into the death of a Mr.
Ronald Craig, which the doctors declared to be due to
arsenical poisoning, and which a letter written to his
cousin by the dead man, showed could not have been
suicide. Upon which Pointer again took a turn at the
instrument and sent the Yard what sounded like a gro-
cery order, which, decoded, would mean that he wanted
information concerning each of the people he had met
so far who were connected, however slightly, with the
late Ronald Craig. "Get into touch with any friends
of his; he's a member of three clubs," Pointer's list
went on, "and find out if he's supposed to have any
enemies, or have shown any signs of nervousness, and
so on. The usual thing. Don't let it be known that his
death is believed to be anything but a natural one,
though, if necessary, you can say that it looks rather
odd to you."
He rang off and turned to the chief constable:
"Are you coming up, sir?"
Godolphin shook a most reluctant head. "Unfortu-
nately I have some other things I must just glance
over, but I shall be at the manor as soon as I decently
can."
"I'll get on with the questioning of the household
then. There are some odd marks in the garden which
may, or may not, be explained by what I hear. For the
present they are covered over with empty flower-pots,
84


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
and a constable of yours is on guard over them, sitting
decorously out of sight in the potting shed."
"You make my mouth water!" Godolphin replied
with a short laugh, as, saluting, Pointer left him and
started back for the manor. The case, as far as he was
concerned, was just beginning. He was like a captain
setting out on a voyage of discovery with the letter of
the murdered man as his only instrument of precision.
All bearings must be taken by it.
The colonel overtook him in his car. Godolphin
looked quite sheepish.
"I found there was nothing that couldn't be done
without me," Godolphin muttered, as he motioned the
other to get in beside him, and drove on.
First of all, at the house, a constable was given
charge of the articles taken from the dead man's room
and dispatched with them to town in a fast police car.
Then the two took their seats in the morning-room
which Lady Craig had placed at their disposal.
Houghton was waiting for them. The result of the
autopsy, as so far known, was to him a foregone
conclusion. He said as much. As for the missing paper
—it still had not turned up, and even he was beginning
to be less certain of getting hold of it.
"A moment, »Mr. Houghton," Pointer said as he
turned to leave them. "Was there no mention in Mr.
Craig's will of Miss Bingham, the children's mother J"
"I don't recollect any. But as I say, this will was
never meant to come into effect. It was just a hastily
made division of his property at a time when he was
85


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
doing well, but nothing like as well as he did eventually.
I need hardly say—in confidence"—Houghton looked
them both very squarely in the eye—"that both Millie
Bingham and the children shall have their fair and
equitable share. In her case with provisos, of course,
which may prevent her making any use of it. But that
can't be helped. That's her lookout."
"Did Mr. Craig and she seem to get on well together
in the old days, or was the running-off on her part
rather expected? You mustn't mind the question, Mr.
Houghton. It's confidential too."
"My cousin and his wife jogged along fairly,"
Houghton said. "There was never any animosity be-
tween them. Neither before, nor after, they parted."
"Pointer wants to be sure she wasn't thirsting for
the blood of your cousin," Godolphin put in bruskly.
"She speaks, and probably thinks, very nicely of
him. It was just a case of a misfit."
"And she never asked to see her children?"
"Never, as far as I know. But I don't think she
would have been allowed to if she had."
"Jealous temperament?" Pointer persisted.
"Of Ardmay, yes, but not of Craig."
"Do you know where she is now, Mr. Houghton?"
Pointer wondered if Houghton knew of an English
residence.
"Lives near Monte Carlo. She's a frightful gambler
I hear. But she wisely avoids Cannes and Aix-les-Bains
just at present."
"And this Mr. Ardmay is—?"
86


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
rather recently with the governess, taking a very in-
ferior one which lies, however, at the head of the stairs
leading down into the garden, and also leading straight
along into Mr. Craig's room. Her previous bedroom
was beside her sitting-room on the floor above."
Godolphin received this with a meditative twist of
his mustache. "Humph . . ." he finally said. "YVhen
was this?"
"About five weeks ago, sir."
"Interesting. . . . Very. . . . Next?"
"The nurse says she noticed that ink-stain on Mr.
Craig's cover at noon yesterday. She was sure it was
not there in the morning. The coverlet was left on his
bed all day long, by the way, and only taken off at
night. She thinks it must have been made when the
children and Miss Cornwall came in to see their father
around eleven. Miss Cornwall brought them, prepara-
tory to taking them for a walk."
"Ah!" Godolphin said still more appreciatively.
"Miss Cornwall! Quite so!"
"Then about the tea Mr. Craig used, sir. It seems
it was China tea, only drunk by him and by Lady Craig.
Lady Craig not only orders it herself, but sees to it
that the caddies in her room and in his are filled. Now
Match when he set things to rights yesterday, after
Countess Jura's mad dash for the nurse, tells me he
had noticed as he replaced it, that the caddy was half
full. So the tea, presumed to be the same as that which
Countess Jura had used yesterday, and after drinking
a half-cup of which, it was believed that Craig had been
88


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
violently seemed to have disappeared. As to the
cups used, the housemaid who had washed them no-
ticed nothing odd, she says, being apparently under the
impression that arsenic is a dye."
"And what about the letter that Craig wrote to
Houghton about? I see you're keeping the best bit to
the end."
"The nurse says that a half-sheet of gray paper
folded in half fell out from under Mr. Craig's pillow
last night, in the course of one of his paroxysms. She
picked it up and placed it on the mantel, weighting it
down with the medicine spoon, which, incidentally made
a smear on it, she noticed. As to what became of the
gray half-sheet, she says she has no idea whatever.
I had her go over very carefully with me how each of
the people stood when they came into the room in the
course of the night, and there were two people, each of
whom stood for quite a few minutes at that corner of
the shelf, and so could have either read or taken away
the paper."
"And they were—?"
"Miss Cornwall and Match, the butler. I haven't
seen Miss Cornwall yet."
"And Match? What does he say?"
"That he didn't see it. He says he was too much
upset at the attacks Mr. Craig was having to see any-
thing."
"Do you believe him?"
"I can't make up my mind, sir. I don't disbelieve
him."
89


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"Did Mrs. Kingsmill notice what was written on the
paper? But the fact that you haven't told me of it first
thing, shows she didn't read it."
"Unfortunately she can't see well without her glasses.
All she can say is that there were four or five lines of
writing on it, and no signature, as she feels sure that
the lines were all of about even length. But beyond
that, and the fact that the paper was perfumed, there-
fore, one would think, a woman's, she knows nothing
more about it. Or says she doesn't, and she struck me as
very carefully telling me all about it. Yes, she struck
me as telling all she knew about it," Pointer repeated,
stressing the last word of his sentence.
"Oh? Where did she give you the contrary impres-
sion?" Godolphin's ears were pricked.
"About the words that Mr. Craig called out. She
says she remembers his crying out, 'I'm poisoned,
Match! I'm dying,' but thinks—or rather, no—says,
that she can't recollect any other of his further words.
Match told us that Mr. Craig said, 'I'm dying, Match.
They've poisoned me!'"
"Pretty near—" Godolphin thought.
"Oh, yes, if it were a genuine lapse of memory on her
part, but I don't think it is. I think Mr. Craig did
say something else, and that she won't say so."
"Humph . . . 'They've poisoned me!' . . . oughtn't
to be any difficulty about repeating that—"
"If those were the words—" Pointer threw in.
"Eh? I thought Match—"
"Just so, sir. Match says they are. But when it
90


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
conies to the exact words that Mr. Craig called out last
night, I think he, too, is holding something back. Or
altering something, I'm not sure which. Mrs. Kings-
mill won't change the words, and simply refuses to
recollect them. That's how I read the situation."
"But nothing, so far, has thrown any light on those
marks you found in the garden, whatever they are, I
hope?" Godolphin said.
Pointer shook his head. "Quite the other way, sir.
They are distinctly not explained, so far, by anything
I have heard. They're just a double line of footprints—
but I have just asked Countess Alexandra to speak to
us. I think she's at the door."
She came in, pale and distraught-looking. Her hair
was combed straight back from her face, showing her
high cheek-bones. Her—to Pointer—repellent hands,
with their incredibly long flexible fingers, were twisting
at a square of lace. Her eyes were red-rimmed.
"Oh, how can I speak of it!" she began, before the
door was barely shut behind her. "My loss! My break-
ing heart!" And there came a sob. It sounded like a
real sob. "It was my fault—my doing," she now panted,
sinking into a chair and staring ahead of her.
"Eh?" Godolphin asked.
"I told him I intended to break off our engagement.
Yesterday morning I told him—or rather, wrote him
a note telling him it, and because of that—!" She
buried as much of her face as possible in the lace
square.
She could not tell the exact time. It was yesterday
91


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
morning . . . before lunch . . . before two, that was
to say . . . after her breakfast at eight. At any rate,
she was sure—here came a heart-broken sob—that
either Ronald Craig had taken poison because of that
letter, or he might have meant to take only enough to
make him very ill, so that she would change her mind.
But he had evidently miscalculated and taken a fatal
dose. There was no question about it, she assured the
silent men, no question at all.
"Did Lady Craig know of this letter?" Pointer asked.
Yes, she had told her this morning when she—Alex-
andra Alexandrowna—had collapsed after Craig's
death.
So this might have been the letter for which Lady
Craig had been looking in the dead man's room, and—
muddling thought—it might also have been the half-
sheet of paper which the nurse had seen tucked beneath
Craig's pillows, for, on questioning, the Russian girl
said that she had written on her usual letter pad,
which was gray, and whose sheets, when folded, might
look like the 'half-letter' spoken of by the nurse. Jura
said that she had no idea what had become of her note.
It had done its work. As to any other letter which he
had beneath his pillow, she dismissed the idea as ab-
surd. He would have kept no letter there but hers. That
unfortunate letter! She had not meant it. Not one word
of it. She adored Ronald Craig. Now that he was dead,
she would never marry ... a convent would . . .
Clip—clip—clip came the sound of shears at work
on some bush just outside.
92


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"Tell him to go away!" she ordered suddenly with
unexpected tartness. "He disturbs me. He is to go
away!" She waited till the message was sent out, and
then went on pensively: "Why is it that death makes
such a difference? We all die. Then why does one feel
so about it?" She leaned forward as though expecting
an answer, and genuinely interested in it.
"About this letter you wrote Craig?" Godolphin
said, unmoved.
She explained that she had asked Craig a fortnight
ago to release her from her promise. "It was a whim—.
I loved him dearly—I still love him dearly—I always
shall—"
"—love him dearly," finished the chief constable
mechanically. "Quite so. What did he do about your
request?"
"He refused to listen. He knew me better than I
knew myself. We finally agreed that we should talk it
over when he was well again." Alexandra repeated that
she thought he was taking something to keep him ill,
to prevent his getting well quickly, because of that un-
derstanding.
This amazing notion made Godolphin stare at her
from under his bent brows. "And yesterday morning
I wrote it again in a note which I put in his hand.
Only yesterday morning! Why has one no premonition
of things that are about to happen? Why, when things
come, does one not want them any more? Is this meant
to be so? Or is it our fault? Or is it—"
"I don't know," Pointer said flatly, "but I should
93


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
like to know why you made tea for Mr. Craig yester-
day afternoon? Was it your usual habit?"
"No. I felt like it. That is all." She seemed to think
that finished the explanation.
"You mean you felt thirsty?" Pointer, studiously
matter-of-fact, queried.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"No. He was very silent. I know now that he was
very ill. I thought it was because of my letter—as in-
deed it was. And yet I wanted to make things easy.
Why should one not part friends? So I suggested tea
and rang for the tray."
"It came ready-made, I suppose?" Pointer supposed
nothing of the kind.
"Oh, no. There is an electric kettle in his room. I
made the tea. He has delicious China tea. Much better
than Lady Craig's own. She always says it is the same
blend for herself and for him—she buys Indian for the
rest of the house—but that is nonsense. I dislike her tea.
Mr. Craig's China was nearly as good as good Russian
tea."
"Did it look different," Pointer asked, "in the caddy,
or the pot, from the tea that Lady Craig thought was
the same? Or don't you know?"
"Certainly I know. She has a caddy in her bedroom
as he has in his. She makes her before-breakfast tea
for herself. The two looked, as they tasted, quite dif-
ferent. Mr. Craig's had much smaller leaves, and much
more jasmine, and it had a perfume! Altogether, as I
say, it was as good as the best Russian tea."
94


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
As Pointer disliked Russian tea, the real kind, with
its faint but perceptible tang of the leather saddle-bags
in which it had been carried across the steppes, he did
not appreciate the praise.
Asked as to whether the caddy had been full, or
half full, or nearly empty, she believed it had been
about half full—but she could not say with certainty.
They passed on to the accident she had had with the
medicine bottle. She treated that very airily. She had
made some clumsy gesture. She was always gesturing,
she said with a shrug, and had knocked the bottle over.
The cork had come out, and before she could get across
the room to pick it up, all the contents had flooded the
carpet.
"Where, exactly, in the room was this?" Pointer
asked. She told them, near the bed. The bottle stood
on the bedside table.
"But there's no stain on the carpet."
"No?" Oh, well, now that she came to think of it,
the bottle had stood in the bathroom, and it was on the
wash-basin shelf that the accident had occurred.
"But the nurse says the bottle always stood by the
bed."
Countess Alexandra looked bored.
"I really cannot remember where the accident oc-
curred—I only know I knocked it over and spilled it
all. What does it matter where it happened? The nurse
has been trying to make trouble, I see. Why is it that
love does not always bring love, but dislike always calls
out dislike?"
95


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
Godolphin gave a click of impatience. Pointer re-
pressed a grin with difficulty. They interrupted her
philosophical queries, and questioned her on matters
more directly connected with the case.
As to a letter in Craig's writing addressed to Hough-
ton, which she had placed on the landing table at noon
yesterday, she explained that she had found it lying on
the carpet, picked it up, and laid it in safety, certain
that someone would see it and take it down to the hall
table, where stood a box for the outgoing mail—the
butler's box.
No—this very petulantly to Godolphin—Craig had
never spoken to her about thinking he was being
poisoned. He knew better. As to his calling out last
night, one always thought one was being poisoned if
things tasted badly.
They explained that Craig had written a letter to his
cousin, in which he deliberately stated that he was
being poisoned.
"Whom by?" she asked, and her eyes lost something
of their desolate look and grew intent.
It was no use pretending that they knew. Godolphin
acknowledged that Craig had not said, in this particular
letter.
"Then he merely wanted to spite someone," she said
fiercely. "He was angry and wanted to punish. Yes,
that is it! He hated Nurse Kingsmill, and knew that
any question of poison would mean that she would be
suspected, and could get no more cases. Yes, that was
his reason. And how wicked of him. I loathe the woman
too, but I wouldn't harm her!"
96


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"Worse and worse, sir. But with any foreigner, a
detective is at a disadvantage. All the signposts are
written in their language, not his."
"And that tea of Craig's, that different tea from
Lady Craig's own, you think the poison might have
been given in that?"
"Seems as though it might have, sir. When we get
the analysis of all the things sent up, we shall be able
to be more certain. It seems a good guess, at the mo-
ment."
"And she heard no one in the garden last night. I'm
very keen on inspecting the garden."
"Lady Craig may tell us something that makes it un-
necessary, sir." But Godolphin refused to be damped.
99


CHAPTER VI
AND Lady Craig certainly seemed to have no light
to throw on anything that interested the chief in-
spector. She had heard no one in the garden last night.
The idea was absurd.
"By the way," she went on, "Miss Cornwall, the
children's governess, would like to leave at once." She
would, of course, let the police have her address, which
was a well-known Women's University club.
"Rather sudden, isn't it?" Godolphin asked.
"This whole dreadful tragedy is sudden," Lady
Craig reminded him coldly. "You can't blame her for
not wanting to be dragged into it. After all, she has her
living to get, and people don't like children's govern-
esses who have been in houses where someone was
poisoned."
Emily Craig spoke as though the manner of Ronald
Craig's death seemed to her far worse than the death
itself. "And now that her voice is so much better, she
was thinking of getting another post anyway."
As to departures from the manor, Godolphin left that
to the Scotland Yard man to permit or refuse. Pointer
granted it at once. Apart from any other reasons, this
IOO


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
was a poison case, and one where the victim—Ronald
Craig—had believed the danger to lie in the house itself.
Pointer could not insist on anyone remaining in the
place where Craig's death had proved the Tightness of
his suspicion, for the chief inspector had no means of
protecting any of the inmates, or even of watching over
them. It might complicate the inquiry, but no one would
be kept at Woodthorp Manor against their own wishes.
He said as much.
"The children are going down to a cottage a friend
has lent me in Devon. The nurse is taking them by the
eleven train too."
"About the governess," Pointer said casually, "are
you dismissing her, or is she giving up the place? I
don't quite understand which."
"Well—half-and-half—I suppose," Lady Craig said
lightly. "I've always thought it ridiculous of Mr. Craig
to have such tiny tots be given so expensive a gov-
erness, and the executors may think the same. In any
case, I don't want there to be any idea that / kept her
on, and am therefore responsible for her salary."
Godolphin gave one of his grim smiles—a smile that
said, "Just like you!"
"She acted as Mr. Craig's secretary," didn't she?"
Pointer next wanted to know. Lady Craig negatived it.
Mr. Craig saw to his own correspondence entirely
unaided.
"We want to explain an ink-stain," Pointer went on,
''merely by way of routine, of course. It is on this
coverlet."
IOI


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"Indeed!" Lady Craig looked all interest. "Why, it
was a new one only—" She checked herself with evi-
dent difficulty. "Most careless of someone," she fin-
ished.
"About the tea that Mr. Craig used," Pointer threw
in casually, "it was special tea, I understand?"
"China tea," she answered promptly. "I always use
it, and Dr. Lindrum thought it would be best for him,
too. Why?"
"Is there any tea in his room at the moment?" he
asked, without replying.
"I'm afraid I haven't looked lately. Whenever his
tea-caddy is empty, I refill it from the tea I use myself."
"And when did you last refill the caddy?" he per-
sisted.
She shook her head, with a very watchful eye on
him. "I really have no idea," she replied lightly. "As I
said, whenever I happened to notice it was empty."
"Did you make tea for him?" he asked next.
"No, never," came swiftly and very firmly. "The
nurse would probably do that, as the children were gen-
erally taken in to see their father around five."
"And where do you get it from?"
She explained that she and Mrs. Lindrum ordered it
together, so as to buy it at a reduced rate in bulk. Mrs.
Lindrum did the ordering through some hospital sup-
ply society. It reached the manor house in a tin biscuit
box kept in a cupboard in her—Lady Craig's—room.
She rose, as though the interview were over. "Look
here," Godolphin stopped her, "can you explain about
102


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
Countess Jura and Craig? Were they engaged at the
time of his death last night, or were they not?"
"I really couldn't say." Lady Craig gave her con-
ventional smile that had no merriment attached to it.
"She says now that they were not. Poor Ronald, as far
as I know, considered that they were. But I'll send Miss
Cornwall in to speak to you."
"What would her position have been, sir," Pointer
asked under his breath, coming back to his chair, "sup-
posing the engagement had been broken off and Mr.
Craig had lived?"
"Not a pleasant one, I should imagine," Godolphin
said slowly. "As I told you, from what I saw of him,
I should expect Craig to've been a very generous man
as long as you were fulfilling your contract, but hard
as nails if you failed him, let alone tried to do him, give
him less than the bargain was for. For instance, if he
had promised anything—advanced any money to Lady
Craig for the marriage, you can be sure that she would
have to refund every farthing, and possibly pay interest
as well. But, unless there was someone else in the offing,
I can't think that the countess would have been able to
get out of it. The Kalkoffs had arranged it with Craig.
They wouldn't want to try to get her a second hus-
band." He shook his head. "I can't see how she could
have helped herself, unless she had some way of earn-
ing her living up her sleeve. And I never met a girl who
struck me as less able, and less inclined, to do that."
The door opened. Pointer saw again the plain young
woman with the intelligent face that he had seen when
103


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
he was allowed to look for a second into what he now
knew was the children's school-room. It was also the
face that Dr. Gilchrist had seen for a moment peering
into the room where the dead man lay.
She explained that she wanted to go to town, and
get other work. That the sooner she could go, the better,
as there would be the less to connect her in people's
minds with the tragic affair that had happened last
night. She spoke without any emotion, as though solely
concerned with what was best for herself. Pointer stud-
ied her with covert intentness.
The character of the people associated with a crime
meant little in itself. Good judge though he was, he
never relied on his impressions. It was what they had
done, not his ideas as to what they might do, that
mattered. He was no witch-doctor to smell out a crim-
inal. But in dealing with the circle around a problem,
in pulling out from unwilling witnesses things they
would rather not have let slip, a right judgment of
their characters was all-important. A wrong reading
might close some most valuable mouth forever, as far
as a case was concerned.
Godolphin had said that Yseult Cornwall disliked
teaching children. Pointer would have expected some
such feeling. The colonel thought that she had good
fighting stuff in her. . . . Yes, Pointer saw something
about the long jaw that suggested one who would enjoy
wresting a victory from out of the very teeth of oppo-
sition. Godolphin considered her hard. . . . She was
speaking like a hard woman now. Most of all, it was
104


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
a shut-in face, by which the chief inspector meant a
face that lived behind closed doors—that kept its feel-
ings well away from inspection—good and evil feelings
alike.
Watching her now, listening to her, he learned noth-
ing whatever except what she was saying. And that in
itself was rare with him. He felt as though there were
a thick sheet of lead between his mind and hers. Was
this barrier intentional? According to her own account,
she had absolutely nothing to tell them.
"What about the paper that Mr. Craig signed yes-
terday?" Pointer suggested, looking apparently at his
notebook as though checking off some previous state-
ment made him. A useful ruse sometimes. Miss Corn-
wall only stared blankly. She knew nothing of any
paper or any signature she said.
On the ink-stain being mentioned, she only said that
probably Mr. Craig had dropped his pen, or the chil-
dren had been playing with it. They had been in a
minute or two before she joined them. As to any letter
laid on the mantel-shelf last night, she had seen none.
She had gone into the room only for a second or two
to say good-by to Mr. Craig.
"Do you think Mr. Craig was conscious?" Pointer
asked in a tone that did not suggest much interest in
the reply.
Again came the same hesitation that had marked
some passages with each of the household, except
Countess Jura, the pause of a person debating whether
they will speak or be silent, agree or deny. It is a pause
105


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
that never suggests love of accuracy but rather conceal-
ment.
"I—couldn't say."
"But surely," put in Godolphin sharply, "surely,
Miss Cornwall, you would know at once whether Craig
was conscious or not. Did he speak to you? Did he
reply to anything you said?"
"No," she said very low, "no. Perhaps he wasn't
conscious."
"And then?"
"I waited for a moment or two, thinking he might
speak. But there was nothing I could do. So I went
back to my own room and stayed there till I heard the
butler locking the door, and so knew that Mr. Craig
was dead."
Pointer waited a second and then said suddenly:
"Do you know how much tea there is left in Mr.
Craig's tea-caddy?" And on the instant there swept
across her face a perfect convulsion of terror. Gone in
a moment, it left a ravaged grayness behind.
"I think it's empty, or nearly so." She said very
evenly: "I made tea generally for him, you know, as
he liked the children with him at that hour. But yes-
terday he didn't feel up to having them, and they.iSf*
course, were my only reason for being there. Oh, about
the caddy, as Lady Craig always sees to it that it is
full, very possibly she filled it yesterday." The glance
that flickered from one to the other of the two men,
suggested again that sickly terror. As they seemed to
have nothing more to ask her, she left them with a gait
106


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
that suggested that only will-power kept it from stag-
gering. There was a moment's silence while Pointer
made a note in his book. He used his own shorthand.
"Was her manner just as usual, sir?" he asked.
Godolphin was emphatic that it was not.
"I never saw such a change. Generally, always hith-
erto, her chief characteristic has been aplomb, certainty
of manner. Her voice, her way of speaking, what she
said, all suggested a young woman absolutely sure of
herself and her place in the world. But today, that stiff,
wooden sort of stolidity, isn't the Miss Cornwall I've
ever seen before. ... Of course a murder in the
household of which she's a member would be a shock,
but I should have expected her to react to it quite dif-
ferently. Then there's her face. She's no beauty at the
best of times, but she looks like her own mother today.
But so does Emily Craig. It takes Countess Jura's philo-
sophical spirit apparently to pass unscathed through
such events as Craig's deathbed scenes. But, person-
ally, I should say you've got the accomplice!"
"Looks like it," Pointer agreed. "I never felt greater
terror in anyone before. But shall we have a look at the
garden now, sir?"
He led the way out.
"These flower-pots here, sir, and those over against
the house, cover some odd marks."
Godolphin settled down to the trail like a hound. He
found that someone, a woman evidently, and in the
dark—for in places a swerve of an inch would have
meant avoiding a plant—had rushed headlong across
107


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
two of the beds in the scant little acre of garden, which
was all that was left around the house. He saw at once
that the prints would cover part of a beeline drawn
from the gate to Craig's bedroom window. Then
they were lost. Nearer the house was a different set.
Women's shoes again, but lower-heeled and broader-
toed. They showed that the wearer had stood close in
against the wall under Craig's window. A small stone
squirrel placed at the foot of a lilac tree there had had
his paw broken off. Godolphin went over the marks
again. Yes; a headlong rush half across the garden
from the gate in the direction of Craig's window, as
straight as though a line had been drawn, it must have
been over everything in the way. Then, either another
woman or a change of shoes and a long wait under the
window.
"Well, Pointer," the colonel asked, when he himself
was quite clear as to this much, "what do you make of
it?" They were talking in the center of the tennis courts
now, well away from eavesdroppers.
"I think two women, sir. One rushed out across those
beds in the middle, straight for Craig's lighted win-
dow—rushed at night with her eye only on the light.
Then she lost it. It would be cut off by that clump of
trees"—he pointed to some chestnuts—"and went on
by the path. Which would seem to show that the room
was lighted only by a small shaded light, I think, other-
wise she could have seen the reflection on the trees. But
seeing no reflection she follows the path. As she now
leaves no marks she knows how the paths run; only
108


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
at first in her rush she didn't care. She is a woman of
around five foot five or six, I should think."
"I make her five foot six," Godolphin nodded. "Do
the marks tally with any of the women in the house?"
"Might be any of them, sir, except Countess Alex-
andra. These marks were made by leaps rather than
steps, so that breadth of foot is really all one can judge
by."
"What about the nurse?"
"She carries a very good electric torch always with
her, and the lamps here aren't put out until she's back
in the house. Match puts them out before going to bed.
They were on last night as usual. Besides, I think this
woman was in slippers when she ran."
"That heel-mark bears it out." Godolphin bent over
a smudge again: "How about those by the wall?"
"They don't fit anyone in the house, sir. The heel
is too low even for the nurse's shoes, and the toe too
broad. She didn't go inside I think. But the other did.
The one who leaped straight through these beds. She
either is an inmate of the house, and didn't come out
again last night, or, if she left, walked along the gravel
paths back to the gate. But the other woman who stood
close under Mr. Craig's window only walked on the
paths, unless it was someone who had stepped out of
the house. There are no other marks of feet except
across the two flower-beds and by the side of the house.
You noticed the stone squirrel's broken paw, sir?"
"Yes; what broke it?" Godolphin liked "to see the
young uns at it," as he often said.
109


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"Something small and sharp, and held at an angle
like this"—Pointer demonstrated with his cane. "In
fact, I think it was like this," he tapped the cane, "for
there is the mark of a stick deep in the ground at one
side as though leaned on heavily or for a long time."
"A walking stick!" Godolphin seemed much struck.
"A heavy woman?" he asked in an odd voice.
"Or stood a long time. Tired, say. Either is possible,
but I think it was fatigue, not weight. Judging by the
footprints, she stood all the time while waiting with
her left ear turned to the window above her. Her
weight on her right foot, like this." Pointer leaned to
one side on his stick, his right foot barely on the
ground, the left half of his face turned up in an atti-
tude of one listening closely."
"I thought that hole a gardener's stake." Godolphin
was vexed with himself.
"One of your constables asked the gardener about
what stakes he uses. He has none big enough to fill
that hole. Besides," Pointer took out something from
a rubber pouch, "I had time to pour in a little quick-
setting plaster of the superintendent's which I had
brought with me. This is the result." He held it out.
"Bent ferrule." Godolphin's mustache twitched as
though he started to add something. But he said no
more as he handed it back.
"Good quality cane," Pointer thought, replacing his
exhibit in its pouch. "Not a laboring person's certainly.
Nor are the shoes those of a laboring person. Very
flexible soles."
no


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"A lame woman?" Godolphin asked, and there was
again a curious glint in his eye.
Pointer thought not. "There are no marks whatever
of her stick coming up the garden paths, though she
may have kept to the grass. But neither are there any
marks of it under the window until she stood there. I
should say not lame, but hears better with the left ear
than the right."
And then Godolphin broke into a low laugh of in-
tense amusement. "What a tangle! I know, and you
soon will know, a woman who's hard of hearing in her
left ear, but she's very lame in her left leg—all but a
cripple. Odd how the wrong people fit and the right
ones won't. But as to sticks out here in the country,
everyone, male or female, uses them. But that's your
lookout. Anything else?"
"No," Pointer said thoughtfully. "It looks as if a
woman rushed in at the gate, along the gravel path
until she could see the light from the sick-room win-
dow, then ran across these beds."
"Stumbled over them would be a better word,"
Godolphin threw in.
"True, sir. Then on by the path again, in the dark,
up to the little side door. Then she—or one of the
women—threw some gravel up at the window."
"I saw some on the sill." Godolphin was vexed with
himself for not paying more attention to it. "I only
thought of the children—well, what did the two come
for?"
"Ah! that's just it, sir," Pointer agreed. "What?"
in


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"The part of the letter Craig mentioned to Hough-
ton?" persisted the colonel.
There was a short silence. "I don't see why the rush,
if it was that," the chief inspector went on, eyes on his
shoes, head bent. "Nor why it was left till so late, as
we think it was—it's odd. The two women whose
prints never show together . . . one of whom seems
to've followed the other, stood listening below the
window or watching. . . ."
"To help if need be? Perhaps she had a torch," sug-
gested Godolphin.
"Possibly, sir. Though the way that squirrel was
hit looks as if she had been feeling her way with her
stick once she left the path and crossed to the wall."
"There's Houghton. Let's see if he has any sugges-
tions to make." Godolphin motioned to him to come on
out, and showed him the footprints.
"Whose are they?" was the immediate question. It
was one that could not be answered for the moment.
"Do you think they came for that missing letter?"
Houghton asked next, studying them attentively. This,
too, could not be answered. All they could say was that
from the size of one the woman could be either Lady
Craig, Miss Cornwall, or Mrs. Kingsmill. But that the
other woman, the one who waited under Craig's win-
dow, had not been identified with any of the shoes yet
seen.
Houghton looked disappointed.
"Probably the one was only the nurse hearing Ronnie
call out in pain and dashing back to him; and the other
112


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
then she went past him and on around a bush. The
gardener leaned on his broom and watched her. It was
an oddly considering, meditative look. The man was no
gardener in Pointer's opinion, yet oddly enough that
glance was a true gardener's glance. Just so had his
own father often stood of an evening, pipe in mouth,
in his tiny coastguard's plot of ground, eying some
plant which was not doing well. With a ruminating,
critical, yet very affectionate glance: "Who is the gar-
dener here, sir? Do you know him?" Pointer asked.
Godolphin nodded. "That's Jones. He's the Wood-
thorp general odd-job man. Was a clerk in the city
until just lately, when his doctors told him he must get
out into the open-air more, so he's trying his hand at
any work that keeps him away from the house. Very
poor fist he makes of most things," the colonel went on.
"I got him to touch up a corner on my garage, and it's
not dry yet; but he means well, and he's uncommon
cheap. Says frankly that he's trying to learn how to do
things and only asks the pay of a learner. He only gar-
dens—if one may call it that—one day a week here, I
believe. He looks after a lot of the houses around where
they can't, or won't, afford good work." Godolphin
stopped. The Russian girl had once more come out.
She said something peremptory to the man, of which
the two listeners caught the words: "At once! Imme-
diately!" The man stayed a moment on his broom,
looking thoughtfully back into her flushed face, still
with his considering gaze. Then he nodded and went
off. Godolphin laughed.
114


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"Just like Jones. He's a queer fish. But very likable.
He's talking of leaving the odd-job trade and going in
for touring the country with some puppets he's making,
I understand. 'The Pilgrim's Progress' it's to be called,
and he intends to show the story in a little booth like
a Punch and Judy show. I've seen some of his figures;
he carves them out of knots and twisted branches very
cleverly." He stopped as Houghton hurried in, evidently
with a message.
"Lindrum's just phoned. He'll be back at this house
in an hour. Says a Mr. Scarsdale will be there too. May
I come with you? I want to hear what Lindrum has to
say about that letter, the letter that brought me down
here."
Both Godolphin and Pointer assured him he would
be welcome.
"My cousin may have said something which Bob
only half listened to at the time, and which might be
important if I knew of it. But who is Scarsdale?"
"Scarsdale," Pointer explained, "is the head dis-
penser at the hospital where the autopsy is held. I
asked him to check and seal up Dr. Lindrum's poison-
book, preliminary to an official from the Home Office
going over it later on."
"Unfortunate that so little arsenic goes such a long
way," was Houghton's only comment. He looked very
discouraged. His labors had brought him no reward,
and he was beginning to understand that they would
not.
Godolphin decided to put in the time until the hour
US


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
was up in going through Craig's private papers with
Houghton, and the two settled down to work. Pointer
was due at the railway station to meet Dr. Gilchrist.
The medical man was already seated in the waiting-
room as he got there. "Do you mind if I drive you up
and down the road in my car?" Pointer asked. "There's
plenty of time, and we shall be quite safe from eaves-
droppers there."
Gilchrist none too eagerly followed him into the little
two-seater. There he gave a detailed account of the
complete autopsy finding. Further tests would be made
in due course by other experts.
"I presume that's all you want to know, chief in-
spector," he wound up.
"Nearly all," Pointer said speciously. "But by the
way, how did you happen to come down to the manor
house this morning?"
Gilchrist told him.
"And once you had met Dr. Lindrum, who suggested
the idea of poison—you or Dr. Lindrum?"
"I don't remember. . . ."
"Ah! Not Dr. Lindrum," murmured Pointer. "Did
he seem at all unwilling to admit the idea that it was
poison once it had been suggested by you?"
Gilchrist was too angry to speak for a moment. He
did not care to have his mental pockets turned inside
out.
"Dr. Gilchrist," Pointer said quietly, "I haven't time
to be diplomatic. If we're right, a dreadful crime has
been committed here, and a man slowly done to death—
116


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
until the final swift dose was given him at the time
which best suited the murderer's convenience. If you
have any sympathy with murder, frankly 1 have none.
Quite apart from the fact that I'm at Scotland Yard,
I have none. Never had."
"Nor I either!" Gilchrist was young enough to retort
with warmth. "But Dr. Lindrum—
"—may have had nothing whatever to do with the
crime. May have had his medicine tampered with, or
his poison-cupboard rifled. May have been the catspaw.
You know yourself, Dr. Gilchrist, that around him, not
necessarily on him, suspicion must rest. He may have
some shrewd ones himself. How did he take it when
you first diagnosed his late patient's death for him?"
"Who told you, chief inspector, that I diagnosed it
for him?" Gilchrist asked stonily.
"Who told you death was due to arsenic?" Pointer
countered. "The appearance of things." He spoke with
a faint half-smile, and Gilchrist gave in. Those pleasant
gray eyes seemed to look at him so casually, and yet
Gilchrist felt suddenly that they were reading things far
back in his mind. Things of which he himself was not
fully aware.
Pointer soon elicited the facts of the first talk be-
tween the two medical men. Gilchrist went on to say
that at the autopsy, every action, every word, and, he
thought, every look of Lindrum's, were those of an
absolutely innocent man taken quite unawares by what
had been going on.
"I see. . . ." Pointer stared at his boots. "I see. . . .
117


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
Yet, frankly, Dr. Gilchrist, wouldn't you have expected
him to have detected that it was going on—the poison-
ing of his patient, I mean? Weren't the symptoms suf-
ficiently marked to arrest a doctor's attention? Toward
the end, say?"
Gilchrist hesitated.
"Yes," he said honestly, after a struggle, "they were.
He must have been overworked or preoccupied, I think.
Greatly worried with another case, or his own affairs."
"He is well up in his work?"
"His degree would tell you that. M.B. of London
isn't to be had for the asking." Gilchrist evidently
wanted to be on his brother medico's side if he could
do so and play fair.
"Now, would you tell me exactly what you did in
the room? Where you stood, what you touched. Next,
what Mr. Houghton did. And lastly, what Dr. Lindrum
did. If you could let the time you were in the bedroom
pass before your mind like a film and just enumerate
all the movements on it?"
The idea amused Gilchrist. He wanted to test for
himself how sharp his observation and his memory
were. When he had finished, after several corrections,
and "oh, I forgot's," Pointer again thought over things
for a second in silence.
"You're quite sure that neither of you three gentle-
men took anything out of the bedroom?"
"Absolutely."
"And didn't touch the paper basket, you think? Nor
a silver tea-caddy with a ship in full sail on it?"
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"I'm sure none of us three went near either."
Pointer thanked him, saw him into the train, and then
drove on to Lindrum's house, which was at the other
end of the village. When he was shown in, the young
doctor turned a face on him that even Pointer hardly
recognized. He was pale and looked very shaken, and
yet curiously elated, with a deep and hidden elation.
The dispenser was in another room with his assist-
ant, a thin spectacled youth, who, from first to last, did
not open his mouth in public. Houghton and Godolphin
came hard on Pointer's heels.
Lindrum took them all into his surgery; Godolphin
handed him back the key to the poison cupboard and
he unlocked the door for them. All the time, he had a
curiously absent air as though his mind were elsewhere.
It was only at the click the key made that he seemed
to wake up with a start. He looked like a man called
from a pleasant dream to a most unpleasant reality.
"Oh, by the way," he said suddenly, "I ought to
explain that there was an accident with the arsenious
acid jar. It fell into the sink"—he pointed to a chip on
the edge. "I weighed the contents immediately after-
ward, and noted them, of course, together with the
explanation of what had happened, in my book. I also
sent word to the council to be on the lookout. Nearly
eight drachms went down the pipe." He led the way
back to his smoking-room. There, Houghton and his
two companions heard in full detail the story of the
letter handed by the dead man to Lindrum. Half-way
through it Pointer was called to the telephone.
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
The analysis of the things hurried up to town by a
motor cyclist constable this morning was now avail-
able. The bedding was not finished yet, but the Home
Office expert could already say with certainty that there
was no arsenic in any of the toilet things sent, nor in
the cigarettes or cigarette holder, nor yet in the bottle
of medicine which, though empty as a grocer would see
it, yet contained liquid sufficient to be tested.
Pointer thanked him, and told the others of the first
result. Lindrum gave a sigh of relief.
"I didn't expect much—personally—from those anal-
yses," Houghton said. "The food would offer so much
safer, more indetectable a way of giving the poison.
Match is out of it of course." He spoke with certainty.
"The poison was already in some tumbler or cup. Col-
orless, odorless, tasteless, what was easier?"
"But not so easy to get colorless, odorless, and taste-
less arsenic," Pointer could have added, but did not.
"Do you thoroughly trust the nurse?" he askeci the
doctor.
"Absolutely!" Lindrum spoke with vehemence.
"Mr. Craig evidently didn't," Pointer mused.
"What makes you think that?" The doctor's tone
was indignant.
"He didn't include her with you in that letter you've
just been telling us about."
"Mrs. Kingsmill is absolutely incapable of any crime,
let alone murder. She's the most loyal, most painstak-
ing soul imaginable. My sister would tell you the same.
She's known her for years intimately."
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
Lindrum, after a moment, took up his account of
the happenings to the letter which he had dropped in
Houghton's box.
"Ronnie reopened it before you; did you see what he
wrote?" Houghton asked eagerly. "Oh! I don't mean
the words; but surely you have an idea of how many
lines it ran to?"
"Four or five, I should say, no more. He added a
paragraph that length"—Lindrum marked on his finger
about the depth of the paper that was missing. "I do
remember now that he had to fairly work his pen in and
out at last to get his words on the one sheet."
"By the way, doctor," Pointer struck in, "that letter
Mr. Craig kept under his pillow the last day? You
would probably have seen it. Did you see the writing T'
Lindrum hesitated but for the barest fraction:
"No, I didn't," he said. Yet there was something in
his eye . . . some reservation.
"Did you recognize the paper, or rather have you
seen any similar paper before?"
"Dozens of times," Lindrum said too hurriedly.
"Lots of people use it. It was just a mottled gray,
rough edges, nothing in the least remarkable." He shot
a swift look at the other as though to read his face.
Pointer hesitated. But Craig had trusted Lindrum.
He rose.
"As Mrs. and Miss Lindrum are not coming back
till this evening, and it may be too late to disturb them
then, may I have a word with your maid? In a room to
ourselves? As you know, Dr. Lindrum, we absolutely
121


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
accept your account of the letter, but I must confirm the
hours when you came in, when you left, and so on—
that's routine."
Lindrum nodded; rang the bell and told the maid to
take the chief inspector into the dining-room, and to
answer all his questions as fully as possible.
Pointer began them by looking out of the window
at the flowers. "By the way, if I should want to send a
note to the doctor at any time, you employ the same
gardener as Lady Craig does, don't you?"
"No, sir. We don't need a gardener. Miss Agatha
and the master between them do the little there is to
be done in that line. But Jones is always there to run
errands when the boy as carries the bottles is busy. He
often takes the doctor's medicine around. Very trust-
worthy is Jones."
"Do you know if in the message Lady Craig sent by
him just now she mentioned anything about the date of
the inquest?" Pointer asked on a chance. It was a ludi-
crous question to him, but Mary saw nothing funny.
"The note wasn't from her ladyship, sir. It was from
the Russian countess, at least, so Jones said."
Pointer did not seem to be listening, as he strolled
around the room looking appreciatively at the row of
snapshots that were framed to make a picture chair-
rail running around three of the four sides.
"Mrs. Lindrum's work, sir. She started doing of
them at this last Christmas, and hasn't quite finished
yet. Those last ones were taken only the day of the ten-
nis party at the manor, sir. The day that poor Mr.
122


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
Craig came down ill. Must have been poisoned in town,
sir. One of these slow-working poisons. That's what I
say."
Pointer was interested in all the snapshots of the
doctor, especially when he saw that each had been dated
in a neat, clear hand. He had quite a chat with the
maid about them and Miss Lindrum and her mother.
Suddenly a bell rang. Pointer had had a word with one
of the constables on duty at the manor house before
leaving. He was to ring the Lindrums' back door bell
at a given minute, and have a chat with the maid about
the fire of last night and any suspicious characters seen
around; or, failing that, to question her as to the where-
abouts of sundry perfectly respectable neighbors. The
one important thing was to detain Dr. Lindrum's only
servant for a specified length of time.
Mary jumped up and stood irresolutely. Pointer told
her that he would just finish a note he was making and
then rejoin the other gentlemen. She hurried off down-
stairs. After all, a detective officer from Scotland Yard
can find his way back by himself along a six-foot
passage, if anyone can, she argued. Pointer gave her
a minute, and then slipped up the stairs.
When he finally returned to the doctor's study, the
two dispensers, who had finished, followed him in. He
listened without much interest to what they would say.
Their faces had told him that nothing of importance
was coming. As he thought, they reported that every-
thing was in order. They had relocked the cupboard
with the poison-book in a sealed envelope package in-
123


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
side, and now handed the key to the chief constable,
who passed it promptly over to Pointer.
"I should be much obliged if you would let me
glance through your appointment book and jot down
the dates when you first attended Mr. Craig," the latter
said, when the two men had left the room.
Lindrum laid the volume before him. When he
turned to sit down again Houghton went over to him.
"That report of the dispensers, Bob, as far as I'm
concerned, it wasn't necessary. I hope you know that.
But it's satisfactory to have it clearly stated. For the
rest"—he held out his hand—"I'm most awfully sorry
for you. So would Ronnie be. I know, as he knew, that
you had nothing to do with any poisoning of him."
Lindrum's face worked. For a second it looked as
though he might break down as he wrung the other's
hand.
"Fortunately, apart from your character," Houghton
went on, "there isn't the ghost of a motive."
Lindrum took a stride forward. "There's something
I ought to tell you. All three of you." It was the voice
of a man who feels that he must speak, however much
against his own interests speech may be. "There is a
motive, some might say, on my part," Lindrum went
on. "It may come as a shock to you, Houghton. It's
this—J intend to marry Countess Jura as soon as it's
decent to announce the engagement and have the wed-
ding." He looked from one to the other almost defi-
antly. Houghton looked at him as though he could not
believe his ears, and then fell to patting Sheik, Lin-
124


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
drum's cocker, who was enraptured at such attentions
on the part of one of his particular gods.
"Since when, Bob?" Houghton finally asked.
Lindrum flushed. "I don't want to sail under false
colors. I loved her the first time I set eyes on her.
Naturally."
"Naturally!" murmured Houghton under his breath,
with a glance at Godolphin that was very close to a
grimace.
"As long as she was engaged to Craig I would have
done nothing until I had spoken to him first and got
him to release her. I meant to do this as soon as he was
well. She never cared for him." He said the last almost
pleadingly to Houghton, who nodded grudgingly.
"Do you think Ronnie guessed it?" Houghton asked,
after a moment's silence.
"Not that she cared for me," Lindrum said quickly.
"He knew probably that she didn't love him, but I
think he had no idea ... it was a dreadful position,
but none of our own making."
"Well," Houghton said, stroking Sheik's beautiful
head thoughtfully, "it's only what I should have ex-
pected of you, Bob, to play the game and out with the
truth, damning the consequences; but I'm afraid people
will talk. If it comes off!"
"If what comes off?"
"Your marriage to Jura Ivanoff."
"Let them! I am going to marry her as soon as it
» can be arranged without showing any lack of feeling
for Craig. It's a very terrible position for us both. For
125


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
the present, of course, nothing is to be said to anyone
else, but I thought you three should be told immedi-
ately. You are all keen on getting the murderer. So am
I! More than any man, I want to clear up this dreadful
problem."
"And you think this will help to clear it up?" Godol-
phin asked.
"It's the truth, colonel."
There was an awkward silence broken to everyone's
secret relief by the servant coming in to say that the
doctor was wanted at once by Miss Green, who sent
word round that the swelling in her throat was
worse. Pointer handed him back his book, and his three
visitors hurried off, while the doctor came as far as the
gate with them and then turned in the opposite direc-
tion. For a moment none of the three spoke.
"Poor Bob!" Houghton said finally under his breath.
"Poor Bob! For I can't think that girl will ever marry
a country doctor. It she wanted to, her people wouldn't
let her. Nor would she want to, unless I read her all
wrong. Well, facts are as before, and his confidence
means nothing to me. Ronnie knew who was poisoning
him, and it wasn't Bob Lindrum. But I wonder what
Jura's game is . . . looks as if she wanted people to
suspect him . . . people who don't know him ... it
would be just like her!"
"Fortunately, neither of the Lindrums can be con-
nected with the murder of Craig, according to that last
letter of his to you," Godolphin reminded him. "No
need of accomplices in the house for either of them
126


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
apart from no motive whatever. As for an incrimi-
nating letter, part of which Craig found, well, neither
of those two would have written to anyone at the
manor. A word in a quiet spot would have been so
much safer." Godolphin was glad that this was so. He
was prepared to suspect and arrest anyone, but he was
glad that the dead rector's children were out of the
question. The parson had been a very popular figure
throughout the countryside.
Houghton thoroughly agreed with him.
"Apart from Ronnie's letter, that would be my own
conviction too."
"And what's your conviction about Mrs. Lindrum?"
Pointer asked him. "What's she like?"
"In looks? Handsome woman. Sort of type to break
rather than bend. Used to run the parish when her hus-
band was alive. I never cared for her as a kid," he
ended ruminatingly.
"Why not?" asked Godolphin in surprise. "I like her
myself. Stern, but fine character."
"I used to have a sort of notion that she wasn't quite
straight. That she didn't always stick to the truth, I
mean. You know how quick kids are to notice that—
and remember it! It may be all wrong. I may merely
have overheard her, the poor soul, telling the village
bore that she was so sorry he had to go; or reassuring
the chief squawker in the village choir that she hadn't
been miles out of her course at the end of the anthem.
Children's likes and dislikes are silly things."
"You don't dislike her nowadays?" Pointer asked.
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"The other way round. I like her. Mrs. Lindrum is
a woman who actually thinks. I mean really does think,
not merely think that she thinks. Let alone talk about
it, like that Russian girl." Houghton nodded and turned
in at the first shop for some cigarettes.
128


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
Godolphin did not hide his amazement.
"Yet, do you know, at a dinner some weeks ago,
when a tray of black coffee was upset into her lap, it
struck me that she hopped back out of its way with
uncommon dexterity for a cripple. But I didn't follow
up the thought. Amazing! . . . Mrs. Lindrum! . . .
well, well! But the reason?"
"If Miss Lindrum had ever been in love with Mr.
Craig, I could see a reason," Pointer murmured.
"For Mrs. Lindrum's deception?"
"Yes, sir, for it, and the double footprints of last
night, assuming that one pair was Miss Lindrum's.
But as everyone, including yourself, tells me that the
two were the merest acquaintances, I wonder if the ex-
planation is connected with the fact—also learned from
you—that Mrs. Lindrum was a great friend, the one
great friend in the neighborhood of the one-time Mrs.
Craig."
"And what would that mean?"
"I don't know yet, sir; but I do now know that Mrs.
Lindrum stood under Mr. Craig's window last night."
"Do Miss Lindrum's shoes fit the marks of the other
woman?" Godolphin asked, deep in thought.
"She could have made them. The servant didn't hear
her go out last night, but her room is on the top floor.
There's nothing to prove it was she, however."
"Any'more than Lady Craig or Miss Cornwall,"
mused Godolphin, "and Miss Cornwall certainly had
the wind up this morning. I saw her once when a sav-
age dog made as if to attack her and the children; she
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
didn't give an inch. Sheer pluck saved them all then.
Yet this morning—you think she's in it?" Godolphin's
voice said that he himself did.
"I do, sir, up to her neck. And Miss Cornwall is far
too intelligent to make any mistake about that. No mere
appearance of being involved would account for the
state she was in—beneath all her self-control. She
knows there's proof against her enough to hang her if
we come upon it. At least that's how I read her."
Pointer spoke with certainty. "And that is what has
absolutely unnerved her. Her hands trembled all the
time, tight-pressed between her knees though she kept
them. When I asked her about the letter on the mantel-
shelf—which she had not seen she said—a bead of
sweat trickled down her temples. Her very teeth would
have chattered if she had not clenched them now and
again. Oh no, if she's not the person to whom that
missing portion of a letter was sent, that would mean
there's still another at the manor house in the crime.
Which seems to me most improbable. It's bad enough,
and unusual enough, to have two poisoners at work.
But three! Guilty or innocent, I think certainly that
Miss Cornwall is the accomplice of whom Mr. Craig
wrote his cousin."
"Proof against her—but if she got hold of the letter
and tore it up—or didn't she get hold of it . . ."
Godolphin groped.
"That's a very difficult question to be sure of, sir,"
Pointer thought. "She was in the room where it lay
out on the mantelpiece, unless Match, or some other
132


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
person, had already taken it. But unless she knew that
it is still in existence, I don't think she'd be so
frightened."
"She knows someone is holding it over her?" Godol-
phin wondered. "Maybe. And the ink on Craig's cover-
let?",
"I think she was getting Mr. Craig to sign some-
thing which he had promised to sign before he found
that incriminating part of a letter. After he found it,
he—I think—knocked the pen and paper out of her
hand in a sudden burst of fury. Yet—" Pointer
stopped.
"Go on!" said Godolphin. "Yet?"
"He says, when writing to Mr. Houghton at noon,
that he doesn't know who the accomplice is. But I
shouldn't be surprised if, on reflection, he had decided
it was probably Miss Cornwall. He didn't have her in
to make tea for him yesterday, apparently for the first
time since he was ill. And I don't think she felt it safe
to go into his room last night until he was unconscious.
Probably she decided that it would look odd if she
stayed away entirely."
Godolphin nodded.
"But what would she stand to gain?" he asked,
"apart from money? And—I may be wrong—but I
don't think money in itself would appeal to Miss Corn-
wall. She's not Emily Craig."
"Supposing she thought that if Mr. Craig were out
of the way, she had a chance of marrying Mr. Hough-
ton?" Pointer said slowly. "This is but the merest
133


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
guesswork, sir, but I had an idea from the way she
looked at him this morning, when he said good-by to
her as she got into the car, that she was a bit fond of
him—"
"Well, do you know, Pointer, that's what my wife
always maintains!" Godolphin evidently valued his
wife's opinion on such a matter. "I thought she had
rather a leaning toward Craig, but Mrs. Godolphin
always maintains—between ourselves—that it was for
Houghton. And he?"
"Oh, he is quite indifferent, sir, and, I think, uncon-
scious of her liking. You say he's engaged, but Miss
Cornwall may not feel that to be an insuperable bar.
At any rate, it's the only guess I have, so far, as to
any motive on her part."
Pointer was trying to peer through a dense fog, and
he knew it. But vaguely—vaguely—he thought he saw
something through it—something that would get clearer
as he came closer.
"It was a pretty desperate game to play," he went
on. "The risks were enormous, but then the fortune
of the dead man was enormous. . . . Her face and her
past history don't suggest a criminal . . . but she has
had to take to a form of earning her living which must
be rather hard to bear for a girl who has taken honors.
. . . She did not like teaching children . . . yet she
seemed condemned to spend the remainder of her life
doing it . . . unless she married. Yes, it might suit
Miss Cornwall, just as well as someone else, that
Ronald Craig should die."
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"Yseult Cornwall as the accomplice; the tea as the
medium; but the chief criminal, the instigator?" Godol-
phin muttered. "You have no idea?" he asked, as
Pointer said nothing,
r "My idea is that it's Miss Bingham," was the reply.
"It's only an idea, of course, but she would fit all of
the facts we know so far. That part of a letter found
by Mr. Craig ... he would have known his wife's
writing at once ... so would Mr. Houghton. . . .
Yes, the whole tone of Craig's letter to his cousin was
consistent with the guilty fragment found having come
from Mildred Bingham. She might, in spite of all
belief to the contrary, have a grudge to satisfy against
Mr. Craig. She certainly could not come to the manor
in person, and would therefore have to arrange for the
poison to be given by that most dangerous thing—a
confederate. No gifts of food sent by her would have
been even accepted by the sick man. She would cer-
tainly fit with the choice of her children's governess as
her accomplice. Personally, I find it hard to believe that
any woman would leave those two uncommonly taking
little tots and not try to have any word about them.
If Miss Cornwall is, ds I think is possible, her em-
ployee, why, she's in constant touch—-through her—
with them; and through her, keeps a footing in her
one-time husband's house."
"And that would quite account for Lady Craig's
manner," Godolphin went on, working out the sum for
himself. "Yes, Miss Cornwall in Miss Bingham's pay
. . . that would explain Emily Craig's whole odd
135


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
manner when the young woman was mentioned. If
Lady Craig knew that the mother had planted the
governess in the house, unknown to the father, but
with her—Lady Craig's—cognizance. In the light of
the tragedy of this morning, any secrecy which she had
presumably or, rather, certainly promised, would have
a very different look. She would probably assure herself
that Yseult Cornwall was quite innocent, but she would
hasten to get rid of her; she would have as little to do
with her before her departure as possible. Yes ... it
fits . . . and it would explain why Miss Cornwall dis-
liked the Russian girl so much ... if she were on the
wife's side . . . and it would explain why she asked
so many questions at first about Craig, before he came
down to that tennis party last month. I wonder what
you think she wanted Craig to sign?" he wound up
curiously.
"I should expect it to be something connected with
Miss Cornwall's ostensible reason for being at the
manor. Something connected with the children? She
could press whatever she wanted to with regard to
them, such as, say, some provision for them after
Craig's marriage to Alexandra Ivanoff, without arous-
ing any suspicion, necessarily, that she was in league
with the one-time wife. It was quite possible that, 'act-
ing on instructions received,' as the Force put it, Yseult
Cornwall had been trying to get Craig to let his former
wife have the custody of the two children, or, at least,
a share in it. As he was about to marry again, it was
quite likely that she had pretty well succeeded. Then"—
136


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
so Pointer was reasoning out what might have hap-
pened—"then Mr. Craig had found that incriminating
letter, or part of a letter, from Miss Bingham, and the
mere mention of her name made him see red."
"By Jove, it would!" came heartily from Godolphin.
"But I don't see what possible grudge Mildred Bing-
ham can have against Craig—"
"There might be active hatred on her side that Mr.
Craig had so long postponed getting the divorce, and
had got it only because it suited him to be free," Pointer
thought. "It is possible ... it is just possible, sir,
that it is by no means so certain that Mr. Ardmay
would marry Miss Bingham now, though it might have
been quite certain, had she been free in the beginning.
Mr. Ardmay's mother was ill. . . . Mr. Ardmay has
been sent for and is with her. . . . She is getting bet-
ter, but she has apparently not yet insisted on his
marrying Miss Bingham. . . . Suppose Mr. Ardmay
has failed the lady. ... It seems to me, sir, that there
are possibilities of a complete change in Miss Bing-
ham's feelings toward Mr. Craig. And of a recent
change too. Say, some four weeks old—or rather, no,
not four—at least five weeks ago," he corrected him-
self carefully.
"Now, what might you mean by that?" Godolphin
asked, "or is it the Scotland Yard touch?"
Pointer laughed. "While I was out of the room, sir,
I telephoned to the Sewage Disposal Board, and learned
that Dr. Lindrum had reported the accident of the
arsenic jar just about five weeks ago almost to a day.
137


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
That means a week before Mr. Craig came down to
the manor house."
"And what, in its turn, does that mean?" Godolphin
asked, cocking an eye at him.
"Nothing much by itself, but when I found out, by
looking over some snapshots of him, that he first took
to wearing the key on the end of his watch-guard
around the same date, it grows interesting. Off-hand, it
looks, sir, as though the jar had not been dropped by
Dr. Lindrum, but by someone whom he found at his
poison* cupboard. It had had a smart fall, judging by
the chip. And both facts—dropped poison jar, with the
loss of some of its contents, an indeterminate amount,
of course, and his keeping the key of the cupboard on
him—took place only a week before Mr. Craig fell ill."
"By George!" muttered the intrigued chief con-
stable. "But where does Miss Bingham come in?"
"I found in his engagement book that on the day
when he telephoned to the Urban Council, a Mrs.
Harding had an appointment at his house at eleven. He
sent the council the message at eleven-twenty, accord-
ing to their books, just after the accident, as we think.
The lady's name first appears in the book about eight
weeks ago, and occurs very frequently up to the day
of the accident, but not once after it! And, what's more,
an entry for her, two days after it, is scratched through
with a big black dash, as though marked off very
decidedly.
"What's her address? Is it given?"
"Very carefully, the first time. The maid's writing,
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JHE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
I fancy. Cloud Cottage, Morton Dean. Apparently the
only time Mrs. Harding came to Dr. Lindrum's house
was when the accident occurred to the jar of arsenic."
"Cloud Cottage!" Godolphin seemed surprised.
"Why, that's little Mrs. Cook's house! She's our crack
tennis player. Very nearly up to champion form. Prac-
tically lives at the tennis club. And, by Jove—yes, she's
quite a friend of Lady Craig's. I've met her at dinner
at the manor house more than once."
"According to the children's nurse, the Craig chil-
dren are taken over there constantly to play with the
little Cook children. Oddly enough—or not oddly, per-
haps—the Cook children never come to the manor to
play with the Craigs."
"I seem to remember hearing Mrs. Cook tell about
a sunk garden which has a gate, and which she had
turned into a play garden for her children. She said
something about the nurse being able to watch them
from the window," Godolphin murmured.
"And Miss Bingham also, sir, if she stayed with
Mrs. Cook, under the name of Mrs. Harding. She
couldn't venture to talk to her children, I fancy, but
she could see them. And, oddly enough, just eight
weeks ago, Miss Cornwall began to take them over
to Mrs. Cook's every afternoon—so said their quite
innocent Nannie. If Miss Cornwall is, as we believe,
linked with Miss Bingham, then, obviously, one would
think the mother would take the chance when she is in
England of having the governess arrange for her to
see her children. Yet they were taken nowhere else
139


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"There's another thing"—Pointer was half talking
to himself—"when I got word about the harmlessness
of the doctor's medicine bottle and the rest of the things
taken from Mr. Craig's room, I also was told the name
of that tea which was spilled around the empty caddy.
No wonder Countess Jura liked it. It's unprocurable
in Europe, and difficult to get in China. The Mandarin
name means the Tea of a Thousand Years—it's con-
sidered such a tonic. Now, I particularly asked at the
manor for any sort of box, or basket, or container,
lead or zinc-lined. In short, something which tea as
good as I knew that tea was, could have come in. Good
Chinese tea is most elaborately put up, as a rule. The
servants had no idea of what I wanted, had never seen
any such boxes or baskets, either in anyone's room, or
thrown out. That looked to me as though the tea in
question had been handed over, or sent, in some ordi-
nary wrapping, by post. Now, if Miss Cornwall could
meet Miss Bingham so easily, and, of late, so fre-
quently, what was easier than for her to be handed the
especial tea which was to be reserved for Mr. Craig?"
"And you can add another little fact," Godolphin
said quietly. "Mr. Ardmay's father was a tea-broker
in Shanghai. Ardmay himself is on the board of a
half-dozen tea companies . . . and Lady Craig would
be more than willing for Miss Bingham to supply
Craig with tea, just as she would be delighted to have
her pay for Miss Cornwall. Though I'll bet a new hat
she charges Craig for the hundred a year Miss Corn-
wall, as a university woman, must ask. Yes, Lady Craig
would know all about that especial tea that came into
141


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
the house in some unacknowledged way. . . . Looking
back on last night, I think she feels that she was very
near an open scandal. And an open scandal to Emily
Craig would mean an end of her commissions on intro-
ductions and matches."
Both men thought that, on the whole, Lady Craig
fitted into the lighter parts of the puzzle, as well as did
Yseult Cornwall and Mildred Bingham into its darker,
its very horrible center.
"I congratulate you, Pointer," Godolphin said
warmly. "You only got to work after breakfast, and
you've already a very plausible idea of how the poison
was obtained, how it was given, and by whom. ... I
call that really smart work."
Pointer flushed. He was a shy man where praise was
concerned. "It's all Mr. Craig's letter," he said truth-
fully enough. "I'm merely going by it."
Having shown his appreciation, Godolphin now
began to see the flaw.
"Hello! I forgot one thing—.and so have you!"
Pointer thought this was quite likely; but which
thing was it?
"Why, Miss Bingham's vouched for in Monte Carlo.
I haven't much opinion of the French police, but at
least they're accurate enough when it comes to keeping
tally of visitors."
"But is it Miss Bingham, sir? Or some friend of
hers? Well, I shall very soon know whether she was
Mrs. Harding, or not."
"How?"
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"Probably by being present at Dr. Lindrum's coming
interview with Countess Alexandra. She sent him some
word that tremendously elated him. Word that she
would marry him, I think. In any case, he's sure to
rush over and see her, if only to tell her that he's told
us—"
"He has a telephone you know," Godolphin reminded
him.
"And he's in love with her," Pointer countered,
smiling a little. "Personally, I bank on his coming
over to see her. If so, in their talk, they may drop some-
thing that would give me a line on—well, my guess.
. . . If not, then I shall put it squarely to him, and get
it out of him, by hook or by crook."
"And now I see," Godolphin went on, "why you
think the fact that Mrs. Lindrum was a friend of Miss
Bingham's may be connected with those marks of hers
in the manor garden last night. Though I still don't
see where she comes in. . . ."
"Neither do I, sir," Pointer said, to the other's pa-
tent disappointment, as he let himself in at the manor-
house gate.
He stopped for a word with the butler in the hall.
"I rather think that Dr. Lindrum will be here shortly.
Can you show him into the library?"
Match said that it could be done perfectly. He may,
or may not, have guessed that the chief inspector would
choose to sit writing up his notes in the dining-room,
and that possibly the communicating door between the
two rooms might not be quite shut.
143


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
Pointer asked him to come in for a word first. He
wanted to talk with Match. That odd hesitation, or
sense of something being withheld, that marked the
butler and the nurse concerning the words called out by
Craig last night, haunted him. "I'm dying, Match."
Pointer wondered if the words that followed were not:
"She's poisoned me"? The nurse might think they re-
ferred to herself or to the doctor's sister, even, who put
up his prescriptions, and who was a great friend of
hers. And Match? Did Match know that the pronoun
referred to Mildred Bingham? If so, why did he shield
her? From affection? Apparently he had had little to do
with her, but he might be under a debt of gratitude
nevertheless. That remained to be found out, or was
it from some idea of blackmail, or even with an idea
of himself playing the sleuth? Certainly the name of
Mildred Bingham had not been mentioned when the
nurse was in the room, or the latter would have re-
peated it. Her denial of any knowledge of the other
woman had rung quite true, and her reference to what
little she had heard of her had sounded genuinely con-
temptuous.
Pointer now opened with a few more inquiries about
Craig's past life, as far as it could be known to the
butler.
"He had been in the merchant service; had he any
friends still at sea?"
"None so far as I know, sir."
"Any letters or parcels come from out of the way
corners of the world while he was staying here?"
"No, sir. I think he was finished with the sea. Quite
144


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
finished. Didn't mind talking of it, you know, but
didn't regret it. He was quite the financier." Match
suddenly gave a subdued little laugh. "The sea showed
though. More than he thought. Made him a bit of a
mixture."
"As how?"
"Well, he was a gentleman, and yet he had funny
ways. Never would have a valet." Match evidently
considered that most eccentric.
"Never would be waited on more than he could help.
Until he fell ill. It was as much as my place was worth
to lay his things out for him, and a well-planned meal
was wasted on him. He could appreciate cooking, but
not a proper sequence of dishes, and didn't care how
they were served! He would eat off the silver salver if
he felt like it!" Match added, by way of a fanciful
illustration of his meaning, rather than of actual hap-
pening.
"What was your opinion of his judgment? Would
you rely on it?"
"Generally speaking, it was very good, sir. Finan-
cially speaking, it was first class, of course. But—
well—" He hesitated.
Pointer pressed him for an answer.
"Well, sir, in confidence, what's your opinion of a
man's judgment who wants to marry a young lady
against her will? Any young lady, but Countess Jura
of all young ladies! It's asking for trouble."
"Did you ever see Mrs. Craig?" Pointer said, look-
ing up suddenly.
"Yes, sir. When the lease of the house was being
H5


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
made out to Mr. Craig by Sir George, Mr. Craig and
his lady stayed here a good deal, off and on."
"What was she like?" Pointer asked in an idle
tone.
"Very nice lady, indeed, sir," Match said, as casually
as he rose and pushed his chair neatly back into line.
"You're leaving the Dower House I hear shortly,
Mr. Match. Why?"
"My joints, sir." The man spoke with every appear-
ance of candor. "I can't hold things as I used to."
"I see." Pointer thought a moment. "But why did
you telephone to the chief constable on your own ini-
tiative early this morning? Why didn't you leave it to
Lady Craig?"
Match looked uncomfortable. "Well, sir. I should
have done so, strictly speaking, but when it comes to
avoiding unpleasantness I don't trust her ladyship,
between you and me, sir. Not when it comes to avoid-
ing unpleasantness. And Mr. Craig was my employer,
strictly speaking. So, on the whole, I thought it best to
do what her ladyship couldn't undo. There's the front
door bell, sir." Match quietly withdrew.
He left again a mixed impression behind him. The
trouble was that, as Colonel Godolphin said, everyone
in a murder case developed caution and took on some
protective covering, weighed their words with a care
that could be far more misleading than hasty speech.
Yet Pointer felt certain that some definite reason
lay behind Match's silences or repressions. For one
thing, the chief inspector, like Houghton, felt fairly cer-
146


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
Lindrum blinked. For a moment it seemed as though
he would only obey and let the beautiful creature say
what she liked. Then his medical training made him
probe. "Look here, darling," he began hesitatingly, "I
don't doubt it's your beautiful way of expressing
things, but there's no need to see the future quite so
black. Prison cell? And I don't quite follow—I'm glad
you think I did right, but—" His voice was bewildered.
So was his face.
"It was right!" she said fiercely. "No matter what
the world says! It was right because you did it to set
me free. As long as Ronald lived I should never have
got free," she went on passionately. "He had bought me
as serfs used to be bought. And I was as helpless. Oh,
my beloved, I will never forget what you have done!
You did it for me. We will atone by our prayers for
the sin of it. I shall always love and weep for you.
Always. I sent you word that I would marry you
whenever you wished. And I should have. It is a small
enough thing on my part for what you did. But you
have taken the noble, the martyr's road, and I love you
twice as much!" She would have flung her arms around
his neck, but he actually ducked and stood away from
her.
"What do you mean by I 'did it'? What—" He
stopped. His face turned slowly a dead, limp white.
"What did I do?" he finished in a hoarse croak.
She opened wide her clouded amber eyes. "I don't
understand you! Oh, how wonderful not to understand
those we love! I, who generally understand people only
too well. But why do you look and speak like this? You
149


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
told the police! Then why not be frank between our
two selves? Of course, it was—terrible—it was a great
sin—the way you chose. But it was done for love of
me.
"What was?" The question came like the crash of
something falling; something breaking.
She stamped her foot lightly. "Oh, why do you want
me to put it into words? What do words matter? In
the beginning was not the word, ever! That is silly. In
the beginning was the thought. Before words. There is
no need of words between us!"
He held her off. "Say it!" he ordered in a curious
dead voice. "Say it in words. What is it I have done?"
She gave a little shiver. "How dangerous you look.
I love danger. I love—"
"Say it!" The man almost shook her. "What did I
do? How did I set you free as you call it?"
"By what you gave him—the medicine—the poison
—if you want it put into speech." She spoke coldly
now, rubbing her shoulder where he had gripped it.
"You mean that? You think that?" There was pas-
sion in his voice again, but of quite a different kind
from any she had heard before. "That I murdered—
slowly poisoned my patient, just because he was en-
gaged to you? You think that, and you've been slob-
bering over me because of that!" His tone was rougher
even than his words. Alexandra Alexandrowna jumped.
"But you told me you had! You told the police! And
you said to me as I passed you on the stairs after the
police came that it was all because of your love for me."
150


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
She spoke like a person just getting down from a
merry-go-round, who hardly knows whether he is
on his head or his heels.
"Because my infatuation for you had blinded me to
what I should have noticed in Craig's symptoms," he
corrected bitterly. "And I shall never forgive myself
in having been so blind. But /, too, have murdered
him! Murdered him; not in cold blood but slowly to've
done him to death, and then be thanked for it! Let me
pass, please!" She still stood looking absolutely in-
capable of movement. His words, his tone, above all,
his look roused her. Her eyes were like a smoky lantern
flaming out of her face.
"You are acting a part!" she said accusingly. "Why?
Because the police are in the house? Because one of
them is probably looking at us from the next room
through the door which is not shut?"
Pointer acknowledged that she had most inconven-
iently sharp eyes, this young woman.
"Then you did not tell the police!" she murmured
very low. "You lied to me. And I have talked freely,
thinking there was nothing more to conceal. Why did
you lie to me? You are so difficult to understand, you
English. So subtle, so secretive. So—yes—so treacher-
ous. One builds on what seems firm, and it gives be-
neath one's feet! You are giving beneath my feet!"
She finished with a flash of her amber eyes that made
them look very brilliant
.
"Will you let me pass, please," he repeated. "God,
to think me capable of such an act! To be capable of
151


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
thinking me capable of it!" He was stammering al-
most brokenly.
She came a step nearer, staring at him. He backed
away, a quite involuntary seeming, but very decided
movement.
"I see!" Scorn rang in her voice. "You did murder
Ronald Craig. That I know. That much is true. But
not, as I thought, for me, but for yourself!"
This evidently made all the difference to Alexandra
Alexandrowna. "Well," she drew a deep breath, "I
will not give you away. After all, you have freed me
from slavery, and I am thankful that I shall not have to
marry you. I did not want to marry you—really. But
I thought I was in honor bound to pay the price."
No wonder that Colonel Godolphin said you met a
fresh person every time you met this young woman,
Pointer thought.
As for the doctor, with a gesture of being able to
stand no more, he rushed from the room and the house.
Jura stalked to the now closed communicating door
and flung it open. The room beyond was empty.
Pointer was in the hall, watching the doctor tear his
hat from Match's astonished grasp, and tumble out
through the door held open for him. The chief inspec-
tor was as puzzled as was Match, but from a different
reason. Lindrum's horror—Countess Jura's scene with
him—was it a well-worked-up play that he had wit-
nessed? Been meant to witness? Or again it might have
been acting on Lindrum's part—alone. Or acting on her
part—alone. "An actress born" Godolphin had called
152


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
her. If she were guilty, and believed that she was being
watched, it would have been a clever move to accuse
another, to refuse to be convinced of his innocence.
And what, or rather whom, had she meant with her
bitter "others they wait, they look on?" However,
Pointer reminded himself that such speculations were
waste of time. Like the doctor, Alexandra was out of
the running. Neither was in Craig's mind when he
wrote his last letter to his cousin. But supposing that
Jura were not acting, why was she so certain that the
doctor had poisoned his patient? Was it just the cer-
tainty of the woolly wits with which Houghton credited
her, or had she really some knowledge which, to better
trained eyes, might not point to the doctor, but to the
real criminal?
Jura met him on the stairs.
"I want to see you alone," she commanded. "You
may as well know something," she began, when the
door of her little sitting-room had closed behind him.
"Just as well," he agreed, as she stopped on that.
Her manner reminded him of the famous saying about
the Almighty and a cockroach. But the tone was not
assumed. This was only yet another Countess Alex-
andra, the one who was kin by marriage to the dead
tsar of all the Russias.
"Last night the nurse ran down the stairs by my
room and let in Dr. Lindrum. He rushed upstairs with
her. I looked1 out and saw the nurse standing outside
the room, as though on guard, as though to prevent
anyone entering. She must have heard me open my
153


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
She fixed her cloudy eyes somberly on him. She
sighed. "One is never—no, not consecutive—that is
not the word I want. Con-consistent, that is it. One
cannot be. I wanted to be free. Oh, I say that frankly,
but I could not stand by and actually see him given
poison." She frowned and flung her cigarette on the
floor. "It is silly not to be consistent. But one is much
weaker than one thinks. Even one's hates are weaker
than one thinks. Why is that? Is it because—"
"One moment," Pointer cut in. "What made you
think of poison in the first place?"
"One has intelligence. One reflects. One remembers."
She was talking quite familiarly now.
"And one reads," he suggested. "No one else in the
house seems to have connected Mr. Craig's illness with
poison except he himself—and you. I accept your state-
ment that he never spoke of being poisoned to you,
but I can hardly believe that you would arrive at such
a conclusion without some help."
"I read about arsenic poisoning in the encyclopaedia,"
she now confessed. "Mr. Craig had the volume brought
up to him."
"When? Please try to remember. This hour may
be important."
"Just before the doctor came yesterday morning.
He asked me if I would mind bringing it up. He asked
me in rather a low tone. I now remember. I sent it
up. I was too occupied with other .things to bring it
* myself."
"To whom did you give it?"
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"To the butler."
"And you—what made you read up poisons in it?"
"I happened to come in and see him reading the
page in the afternoon. Just after the doctor had left.
He shut it, but I had come close up before he noticed
me. He was so wrapped in what he was reading, and
his face looked quite terrible. So I looked at the page
and read it for myself afterward. And when I had
read it I knew— That was why I told Ronald Craig
to leave Woodthorp as soon as I read what was wrong
with him."
Pointer gave her one of his swift and apparently
casual glances. She was staring straight before her.
"And he?"
"He said that he had already decided to go. I spoke
of change of air, of course, and of fresh doctors. I
did not speak of poison. Nor did he. He told me, as a
great secret, that he had arranged to leave early next
morning. That was why I said nothing to Dr. Lindrum,
and only emptied the bottle. I thought it precaution
enough, since it was Dr. Lindrum who was poisoning
him. As to the motive—I thought I knew it. I did not.
There I was wrong. But only there."
"And the motive you thought, was—?"
"You heard," she said indifferently. "You were in
the adjoining room and heard."
"Had you ever suggested to Dr. Lindrum that you
would not be sorry if Mr. Craig died?"
For once she looked genuinely unhappy.
"Of course I had! But I thought of natural death.
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
Not of killing. That was why I was prepared to atone.
I thought Dr. Lindrum had misunderstood me because
he loved me. A noble misunderstanding." She choked.
"I would do anything for anyone I loved. But men?
Men are very difficult to understand, I think," she mur-
mured, her eyes full of tears. She turned her face
haughtily away as though conscious of them. "I have
nothing more to tell you." And with a quite uncon-
scious arrogance she dismissed him from her presence.
157


CHAPTER Vm
POINTER was quite willing to be dismissed. He
hurried down the stairs and out of the house as
soon as he had verified the hour when a volume of
Chambers's Encyclopaedia had been sent upstairs. The
butler had brought it away on leaving the room for
the night, and replaced it on the shelves. It had been
the first volume. Walking away from the manor,
Pointer wondered how much of this about a visitor
having been admitted last night was true.
It was borne out by at least one pair of footprints
found by him in the garden, the running pair, careless
of anything but hurrying toward the light shining out
of the sick-room. He put the thought aside for a
moment.
So Ronald Craig had read up arsenical poisoning.
That would explain his certainty. But he must have felt
certain before sending for the particular volume. Be-
fore the doctor came yesterday morning, that meant
just before writing the letter to Houghton. Yes, he
had evidently found something very conclusive . . .
that part of a letter which he did not seem to have sent
on. Pointer's mind went on to the rest of the interview
158


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
with the Russian girl just now, as, deep in thought, he
walked down to the rooms the nurse occupied at the
other end of the village. So Countess Jura now claimed
to have thrown away the contents of the medicine bot-
tle from a feeling of horror when she believed that
Ronald Craig was being poisoned, and suspected that
the poison was in the medicine.
It was possible that she was telling the truth. But
the fact remained that by her act she might well have
made it exceedingly difficult to prove that there was no
poison whatever in that medicine bottle. Yet, if that
had been her intention, would she not have rinsed out
the bottle? It would have been quite simple under
pretext of washing her hand from the spilled medi-
cine.
Yes, on the whole, Pointer inclined to think that
the reason she gave just now might have been the real
one. That medicine . . . was it to replace a poisoned
one by an innocent one, that someone had come last
night. Was the Russian right in her certainty, if it
really was her certainty, that the nurse had let in
whoever it was who had come by the little side door?
Was it the poisoner who had rushed over when the
purpose was accomplished to recover the telltale vehicle?
Then was it the nurse who was the accomplice of Mrs.
Craig? Was he all wrong in his ideas about Miss
Cornwall?
A minute later he was talking to the nurse, who
seemed as pale as her stiffly starched apron.
"Why did you not tell me that you had let someone
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
into the manor last night by the door leading down
into the garden, past the children's day nursery?" he
asked sternly.
Her pupils dilated. "I—I—" She stopped short.
"Because of the fact that Mr. Craig died from poison,"
she said finally, with every appearance of candor. "And
it was only Miss Lindrum I let in. It was such a kind
thought of hers to come over and help me, and it
seemed dreadful that, because of that, she should be
brought into this terrible tragedy."
"What exactly happened?" he asked after a pause.
"When I telephoned to the doctor's house that Mr.
Craig had just had a most frightful seizure, Miss Lin-
drum answered the call, and told me he was out on a
call. But she rushed around herself to see if she could
help me, as I seemed so upset. Awfully good of her.
But then Miss Lindrum is a good friend to me, and
I couldn't bear that she should be penalized for such a
kind thought."
"She went into the sick-room?"
"Yes; just to see him and to be sure that there wasn't
anything she could do. There wasn't. Mr. Craig was
unconscious, or dozing heavily. She waited a moment
or two with me and then left."
"You were in the room with her?"
"Certainly."
"All the time?" he pressed.
"She only stayed a couple of minutes. There was
nothing she could do to help. Nothing anyone could do.
I got her to stay with him just for those few seconds
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
while I took a grip of myself again out in the passage.
You see, Mr. Craig's seizures last night were something
quite new to me. I have never seen anything like them."
Her voice shook a little.
"Then as a matter of fact you were outside the bed-
room while Miss Lindrum was inside it."
"Yes." Her eyes were riveted on his face. "Why?
Or rather, why not?"
"When you went back in again, can you be sure that
the medicine bottle was exactly in the same place as
when you left the room?"
"I didn't notice. You forget that the bottle was
empty. Countess Jura emptied it." She spoke in what
looked like honest bewilderment.
He accepted the correction. "How did you hear Miss
Lindrum at the garden door?"
"She threw up a handful of gravel. You see, she
didn't want to call any servant to the front door. She
thought the whole house might be helping in the sick-
room."
"But how did you know who threw the gravel?" he
persisted.
"When I telephoned to the doctor, and she learned
how ill Mr. Craig seemed to be, she said something
about coming herself to see if she could help. So I ran
down as soon as the gravel clinked on the pane and
let her in."
"Did you go out with her afterwards?"
"Just down to the door. As I say, it was only a bare
five minutes at the outside."
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
There was a short silence. So, as he had fancied, Miss
Lindrum might have been the person in her mind if
she had suppressed, as he thought she might have, a
possible "she" in Craig's last words.
"Why didn't you repeat the exact words used by
Mr. Craig, when he called out that he was being poi-
soned?" he asked suddenly.
Mrs. Kingsmill looked as though he had given her a
bad jolt. She said nothing for one startled moment.
"Your duty to Mr. Craig, as I see it, should make
you repeat exactly what he said. He was a dying man.
It was his last effort to point out who was his mur-
derer. Frankly, Mrs. Kingsmill, it seems to me a very
terrible thing that you should try to alter that message,
or refuse to pass it on. As it happens, so far, Miss
Lindrum is outside those whom we suspect. But even
if she were not, Mr. Craig was in your charge, and he
was done to death. It seems to me the least that you
can do—now—to help us." Pointer had hard work
to keep real feeling from creeping into his voice. The
picture before him of the dying man in his agony try-
ing to leave some word for those who should look into
his death, and then the two in the room, nurse and but-
ler, for their own ends, for their own reasons, whether
good or bad, giving the police only a garbled version,
moved him deeply.
His words stung the nurse, as he had intended that
they should. "What exactly did Mr. Craig say?"
Pointer asked again. "Word for word, Mrs. Kingsmill,
please. And you must be prepared to swear to them."
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
The nurse drew a long breath. "He said: 'I'm dying,
Match. She's poisoned me.' And I shall never forgive
you if you have got me to say anything that will harm
Agatha Lindrum."
Pointer blinked, then he mentally disentangled the
words of the dying man from the addition of the
woman speaking. So it had been "she"!
Yes, that fitted his theory or rather his idea. . . .
But the nurse and Miss Lindrum? ... As Godolphin
sensibly said: "Miss Lindrum need not have had any
accomplice in the house, and most certainly would not
have written an incriminating letter to anyone in the
house."
As he expected, when he went on to the doctor's
house he found him looking like a man who has had a
severe tumble in the dark. There was something dazed
about his eyes, bewildered in his voice. Pointer was in
a hurry. He must get through all this outlying fog to
something clear and sharp of outline, and that as
quickly as possible. He told Lindrum bluntly of Coun-
tess Alexandra's idea that the doctor had been to the
Dower House after all last night.
"She's off her head," Lindrum said in a strangled
voice, "must be. It's dreadful, but she's—well—I don't
believe she's quite sane," he finished in a burst of con-
fidence. "Between ourselves only, chief inspector. But
I mean it. The things she said—the things she thought
—has been thinking—been thinking all along—" He
choked.
"The nurse says that Miss Lindrum came to the
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
house last night," Pointer went on. "It might have
been she whom the countess heard."
"My sister went there?" Lindrum looked genuinely
surprised. "Well, if Mrs. Kingsmill says she did—"
He signified with a wave of his hand that the matter
was then established.
"And did Mrs. Lindrum go up to the manor too,
last night?"
"My mother?" The doctor spoke as though he had
not heard aright. "My mother, chief inspector, can't
walk alone."
There was a second's pause. Pointer broke it abruptly.
"Dr. Lindrum, why didn't you tell us the truth about
Mrs. Harding?"
The bluff worked. After a second's stare, the stare
of a man who has been thinking of something very
different, Lindrum said wearily:
"I might as well have done so, evidently. When
did you learn about her?"
"An hour ago."
"And who told you?"
"We never reveal the source of our information,"
Pointer said officially, thinking with an inward grin of
the doctor's book under his elbow at the moment. "But
why did you leave us to find out this most important
fact?"
"Because it isn't important," Lindrum said urgently,
almost fearfully. "I assure you it isn't. She had no
more to do with Craig's death than I have. It's simply
a case of appearances being against her."
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
of the powder had been spilled. I weighed what was left
and sent word as I say to the authorities. Mind you,
the stuff spilled in the basin was to the eye just about
what was lacking in the jar."
"A small pinch would do if dropped into paper,"
Pointer mused.
"It would," Lindrum agreed, his eyes on the floor.
"Doctor, can you swear, as an honest man, that a
pinch hadn't been taken out?"
"I can't swear it. But I—I—" He made a helpless
gesture.
"Why did you suspect her of having taken some of
the poison?"
"But I didn't suspect her, and don't!" came in ener-
getic denial.
"You must have! Forgive me, but you must have.
Or why did you question her so closely, and weigh the
poisons at once—-while she was still there?"
Lindrum bit his lip.
"Why did she go to the cupboard, and why did she
take down the jar of arsenic?" Pointer went on.
"Suicidal impulse," Lindrum said in a low tone.
"I'm violating her confidence, chief inspector, but I
don't know what else to do under these terrible cir-
cumstances. She was desperate. Craig refused to see
her; refused to let her have the children, and she was
tired of life. She solemnly swore, and I absolutely be-
lieve her, that it was to get some poison for herself
that she unlocked the cupboard. Suicide, but not mur-
der, was in her mind."
167,


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"Suicide? That's rather hard to believe," Pointer
said, to draw the other on, "they tell me she's extremely
happy—about to marry this Mr. Ardmay."
"Ardmay has let her down," Lindrum went on. "This
is in strict confidence, all this, remember. That mar-
riage won't take place, and she knew it. She came over
to England to see him—Ardmay, I mean. And saw
that he meant to leave her on the mat. He's the type
that would. It was his mother's doing, but he could
defy the old woman if he had any spirit. He lost his
money over some Riviera land ventures, and she has
the purse now, and won't hear of the marriage. She's a
Roman Catholic. In her eyes, once Mrs. Craig always
Mrs. Craig."
"When was this?"
"Three months ago and a bit over. She came to me
as Mrs. Harding two months ago."
"But where does Mr. Craig come in?" Pointer
seemed puzzled. "You said she talked of suicide because
he wouldn't see her."
Lindrum nodded.
"She found out her mistake. She would have given
her right hand if Craig would have taken her back.
You know," he went on in a burst of what certainly
looked like candor, "you know, that's one of the reasons
why I hoped—well—wanted to—Why Countess Jura
didn't seem to me so unattainable as she would other-
wise have been. You see I knew that Mrs. Craig was
over here just in order to try and have a meeting with
Craig, but he refused. She told me that he returned
168


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
her letters unopened at that time. And he wasn't a man
to change his mind. Nor can you blame him," he added
honestly, "but I heard from her only this last week that
she was about to pull off one thing on which she had
set her heart. I mustn't name names, but someone at
the Dower House had worked on Craig sufficiently to
get him all but to agree to let the mother have free
access to her children. His death has stopped that, which
shows that your ghastly suspicion of who might have
poisoned him is impossible."
"I didn't know the facts," Pointer explained.
"I don't suppose it would do much harm if I guessed
that the nurse was Miss Bingham's friend up at the
house?" he went on.
Lindrum looked impatient. "The two don't know
each other. No, it wasn't the nurse, but I must see
about—" He turned wearily to some letters and pre-
scriptions.
"Just a few last words," Pointer said rising. "Miss
Lindrum, is she a friend of the former Mrs. Craig's?"
"Doesn't know her. Never saw her. Like Mrs. Kings-
mill," Lindrum murmured, getting to work.
Pointer still lingered. "Can you give me any idea
why the butler should be on Mrs. Craig's side?"
Lindrum looked incredulous.
"No earthly idea. The Craigs stopped with Sir
George and Lady Craig now and then before they
moved into the house, but for that I don't think Match
knew anything of them. I think you must be wrong
there."
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
Church no one could blame the mother for refusing to
permit the marriage hitherto, but not since this morn-
ing . . . not since early this morning.
Pointer hurried forward to catch up with the village
postman whom he saw just ahead of him. He had
noticed that just outside the manor house stood a post-
box. From the isolation of the house, he fancied that
it would be but little used except by inmates of the
house itself. It had been, he learned later, supplied
solely at the request of Ronald Craig when the latter
lived at the manor.
The chief inspector asked Merton, the postman,
whether he had taken many letters yesterday from that
particular box.
"You know who I am, and the job I'm on, I expect,"
he wound up, holding out his tobacco pouch. *
"I do, sir. We all do. And good luck to you* is what
we all say! To be poisoned in his own old home!
Where's a man safe, if not with his young lady, and
all? But now as to letters, well, of course, the Official
Secrecy Act doesn't bind me in a case like this?" he
queried. It was plain that he hoped it did not.
"Not to me," Pointer assured him. "What you tell
me will be absolutely confidential. Just as the questions
I put to you are."
Merton nodded.
"My eldest joined the Force last year. He's to be
moved to London this year, if he does well. Perhaps
you'd keep an eye on him, sir, if he comes your way.
Name of William Henry. But now, as to letters from
171


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
that particular box . . . it's emptied three times daily,
as you know, sir. There was one letter first collection
in the morning, and none in the evening; but all the
three o'clock collection was a letter in Mr. Craig's own
writing. The only one in the box. As it happens, the
authorities have told us to keep a tally of the number
of letters we collect from that box. They're thinking of
taking it away. This letter I took up at three was Mr.
Craig's all right. Many's the time I've taken a cable
bdck to the post-office for him in the old days when
he lived here. Yes, sir. It was Mr. Craig's own writ-
ing."
"Good. That is very important. Did you notice the
address, by any lucky chance?"
Merton had, but it had quite slipped from his mem-
ory. In answer to further questions, he could only say
that it wasn't to any funny place, by which, it seemed,
he meant abroad. He had an idea that it was addressed
to some well-known town.
"It couldn't have been by any chance to a Mr.
Osbourn, at Harrow?"
"That was it, sir!" Merton was awed by what he
took to be a fine exhibition of detective craft. "Smart
work that, sir!"
Pointer was amused at this easily earned praise.
"And the letter you took up in the morning, was it
to a Mrs. Harding? Or was it to a Miss Bingham at
some place abroad, Monte Carlo or Beausoleil?" He
wrote down the names.
Merton shook his head. He was sure that the stamp
172


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
hunting through the books in the book-room. It's true
of the few in the dining-room, too. No, you can play
around Harrow, but you'll get nothing for your pains.
Besides, Osbourn himself may phone me up at any
minute."
Godolphin came hurrying in. He had just definitely
closed his office for the day, except for some emer-
gency. Even so, he had given the superintendent what
practically amounted to plenary powers until he, the
chief constable, should appear again.
Pointer explained what he was now after.
"My car can do seventy without a gurgle when the
road's clear," Godolphin said promptly. "Give me a
Bentley for speed, any day. I'll run you out to Harrow,
but what will you do when you get there?"
"Like the speed of your Bentley, sir, that's better
not told before civilians." And leaving word with
Houghton to let them know at the Harrow police sta-
tion if Mr. Osbourn should communicate with him, or
if anything unexpected happened, Pointer left the
house in charge of Sergeant Milton.
In the car, he told the chief constable the result of
the last couple of hours' work.
"So it is Mrs. Craig, or Mildred Bingham, rather.
. . . Hard lines on those two poor little kids, eh,
Pointer?"
"Very," Pointer said gruffly. Those were the terrible
sides to his life's work.
"Craig wrote to Osbourn," Godolphin murmured
after a moment. "Who took the letter to the box?"
175


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"Ah, who?" Pointer echoed. "All I think we can
say for sure is that it wasn't Miss Cornwall."
The drive was not more than an hour, even with
Godolphin having to go carefully on account of Satur-
day afternoon traffic, but by avoiding main roads, he
managed to keep his car pretty well extended most of
the time.
Mr. Osbourn's house at Harrow was a substantial-
looking villa, meant for large families, and large in-
comes. The two opened the gate, and Godolphin was
about to drive the car in, when Pointer suggested keep-
ing it outside. The house had a shut-up look, and the
blinds were down, but he pointed to the marks in the
gravel before them.
"Good many comings and goings for a house shut
up over the week-end," he murmured.
He rang the bell. Godolphin used the knocker. No
sound of stirring came from behind the door, though
they repeated the duet several times.
"Well, what do we do now?" Godolphin asked.
"Fish in the letter-box? I'll bet you've got the necessary
equipment with you."
Pointer did not reply. He was examining the gravel.
"The only freshly made ones are those two. One set
looks like a taxi," he murmured. "Patched tires—"
"Coming lightly laden, and going away empty."
Godolphin was not above showing that in ordinary po-
lice work he, too, could hold his own. "In other words,
setting down a fare, probably. But these are marks of
almost new Rapson Perfectas, belonging to a small
176


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
light car, a sports model, I should say. Both sets of
marks made about the same time—last evening, in all
likelihood. And round about the same time, though the
Rapson going and coming, crosses the other marks.
It looks to me as though Mr. Osbourn came up from
the station in a taxi, his own car probably being with
his family at the seaside, and that the Rapson called
for him later on, and drove him away in it. Anything
else particularly interesting about the marks, Pointer?"
Godolphin wanted to learn if Craig's letter was still in
the letter-box.
"Only the place where the Rapson waited, sir."
Pointer was frowning a little. "Not by the front door,
nor by the garage, but off there to one side."
He walked to the spot. Saw that, standing there, a
car, by day or by night, would be out of sight of the
road, though quite in view from the steps of the house
itself. The road was splendidly lighted, two lamps
being practically at the gates. It was the "out of view
from the road" detail that intrigued the chief inspector.
It looked as though whoever had used the light little
car did not wish his car to be noticed by anyone—or
someone—on the road, but had no objection to people
in the house knowing he was there. There were many
explanations of that. Some quite all right; but one
was not. It was that the person in the Rapson-tired car
knew that whoever was in the house, Mr. Osbourn or
another, would have no suspicions aroused by his com-
ing, but that it might be well if passers-by saw as little
of the car as possible. In fact, it rather suggested to
177


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
Pointer that, though the solicitor was not suspicious,
the driver, or the occupant—though the lightness of
the marks suggested only one occupant of the car—
realized before his arrival that it might be as well for
him to leave as unobtrusively as possible.
"Solicitors have many such callers," Godolphin
thought, when the other had pointed this out, "espe-
cially well-known family solicitors, like Mr. Osbourn."
"Yes . . . but there are no footprints leading to
the Rapson along the gravel path. Whoever was in it,
must have walked from the car and back to it along the
grass border. I don't think two people either came or
left in it."
"Difficult to tell," Godolphin demurred, "though I
agree they must have both been light-weights."
"Well, sir, if Mr. Osbourn went with him, both
walked along the grass border. Yet it's so narrow an
edging here as to be decidedly difficult to do so by day,
let alone by night."
"I take back about Osbourn going off in the car. The
Rapson probably came to see if Osbourn was in, and
found the place shut up," Godolphin suggested, pulling
his mustache.
"Think so, sir?" Pointer evidently did not. "People
don't generally come to a solicitor's private house on
business, on Saturday afternoons or evenings—I don't
think those tracks were made early last evening—what
do you say?"
"I should put them as more probably made last
night." Godolphin was rather an expert on marks and
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
impressions made'in soil, and had been examining these
'attentively.
Pointer thought so, too. "But if so, the gate was
fastened back, for the car didn't pause at it. . . ."
They strolled carefully around the house. All win-
dows were shuttered, and all shutters closed.
"Do you mind lighting a cigarette, while I investi-
gate the letter-box, sir. If anybody comes up to the
gate, as though they might be ccming in, just strike two
matches in quick succession, will you?"
"Compounding a felony . . ." Godolphin mur-
mured sadly.
"Not at all, sir!" Pointer seemed shocked. "I'm only
going to look inside."
He gave a twist to the rather cumbrous top of his
umbrella, unscrewed something, pulled out something,
tightened up a ring—and he had a very nice small peri-
scope, with a tiny electric bulb to reflect into its minute
mirror. He inserted it, moved it about, and then with-
drew it and restored his umbrella to its usual appear-
ance.
"Letter-box is empty, sir," he said, walking to the
gate, "so that if, as is practically certain, the letter
was delivered yesterday, it has been taken out of the
box."
"Ahf We thought the taxi probably brought Os-
bourn to the house last night." Godolphin now lit a
cigarette in earnest. "It looks as if he left the house
on foot, and that after he left, the Rapson drove up,
found the house shut up, and went off. As to walking
179


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
on the grass—he may have a bad foot, or it may be a
hobby of his. Oh, yes, I know what you're going to say.
Funny of him not to've driven up to the door and
walked to and from his car in the usual way, but I
remind you again that Osbourn is a family solicitor,
with probably dozens of very funny cases on hand.
But what are you going to do next? I suggest the sta-
tion, and a word with the station-master."
It was what Pointer intended doing, so they drove off
dewn the hill.
To the station-master, Colonel Godolphin explained
that he wanted Mr. Osbourn very particularly on a mat-
ter connected^with one of the families to whom the
latter acted as solicitor. They had found his house shut
up. Could the station-master give any advice?
That gentleman at once explained that Mr. Osbourn
always spent his week-ends at Hove. Mrs. Osbourn
and the children would go down in the car early on
Friday, or sometimes even Thursday evening, and Mr.
Osbourn would join them on a Friday or a Saturday.
He invariably went down by train. No; he had not
gone down from Harrow either yesterday or today.
The station-master was quite sure on that point because,
as he hoped to catch him and ask a question about
some of the new bylaws, he had told off the two porters
early this morning to keep an eye out for the solicitor
and let him know when he came along. It looked to him
as though, for once, Mr. Osbourn had gone straight
from his offices in Lincoln's Inn Fields. He had tele-
phoned from there for a taxi to meet his train last
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"Which I did, sir, and left everything as ordered.
Mr. Osbourn doesn't often see anyone at his house, but
I've known him to do it now and then, to oblige, as
you might say. I suppose the lady couldn't make it
convenient to come to his office."
"Lady?"
"He always orders port to be put out if it's gentle-
men, and the whisky and siphon filled. I've been fifteen
years in Mr. Osbourn's service, sir; I know his ways."
Pointer fumed a bit at not having been told that Mr.
Osbourn wouldn't still be at Harrow, and asked when
she had had this telephone message.
"Just about this time yesterday, sir," Mrs. Pinwheel
looked at her clock. "Just around five, it was, as you
might say."
"Then he didn't go down to Hove till late last night?"
Pointer looked regret at an opportunity just missed.
"That's what he said, sir, over the phone. As how
he was going on down after the interview, and I
wouldn't be needed until Monday morning. He takes
his dinner out, you see, sir, when Mrs. Osbourn isn't
here. I only come in of a morning to get him his break-
fast, and tidy up and see to things. I leaves always at
noon."
"I think I've seen Mr. Osbourn about Harrow; he's
a very big heavy man, isn't he?" Pointer said in leav-
ing.
"Lor', no, sir! Mr. Osbourn is as thin as a rail.
Quite a youngish gentleman, is Mr. Osbourn. Not much
over thirty."
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
They thanked her, and turned away with the air of
men who had had a journey for nothing.
"So the visitor was a lady, and Osbourn was a light-
weight? Perhaps he drove off with her afterward in
the Rapson. ..." Godolphin was looking very alert.
Pointer suggested a halt at the nearest telephone. He
had the Osbourn number at Hove. A lady's voice an-
swered, and told very much the same story just now
related by Mrs. Pinwheel. "No; Mr. Osbourn isn't here
yet."
Pointer explained that he was speaking from Wood-
thorp Manor.
She did not let him finish.
"I'm so sorry, so very distressed, about Mr. Craig's
death. It's Mrs. Osbourn speaking. It's too unfortunate
that my husband has been delayed in getting down here
just this one week-end. But that's how things always
happen, isn't it?"
Pointer did not say that it was. He was by no means
sure that things always happened as they were hap-
pening just here. On the whole, he thought that they
did not.
"I'll tell him as soon as he gets here, of course,"
Mrs. Osbourn went on, "and he'll ring you up at once.
It'll be a very great shock to him."
"Mr. Houghton telephoned you earlier today, didn't
he? Well"—as an assent came along the wire—"did he
tell you that we are hunting everywhere for a most im-
portant paper?"
"No, he didn't. A paper missing?"
183


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
It was only at the fourth window that he had any
success. There he found a bedroom window that had
been left open so often that the two screw holes had
permanently warped away from each other, so that,
except for the pleasure it probably gave Mrs. Pinwheel
to turn the screws, the result was negative.
It was an upper bedroom window, and Pointer was
soon inside. Another moment, and the wiry and athletic
Godolphin was beside him. The house was quite still.
The door was locked on the outside, but a little manipu-
lation and they were out on the landing. One by one
they glanced through the bedrooms on the same floor.
The furniture was neatly sheeted; all were empty. None
showed signs of disturbance. Downstairs, they found
the same, except that in the telephone room was a basin'
and towel that had been used. Last of all, Godolphin
opened a room that looked like a library. He took his
hat off and turned to Pointer.
"I fancy this must be Osbourn."
Sitting in front of a writing-table, half-lying on the
table itself, sat a youngish, very thin man. He had been
shot through the back of the head at such close range
that the weapon had singed the trim, well-kept hair.
The dead man was lying sprawled to one side, but
both Godolphin and Pointer thought he had been pushed
to one side, immediately after he had been killed, to
enable his murderer to see, or to get at, what had been
in front of him. Or to give that impression to the
police.
The table was in confusion, some of the papers tossed
186


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
so that they all but covered the quiet face of the man
who lay with one extended hand still holding a pen.
Whatever it was on which he had been writing, or edit-
ing, or signing, it was no longer in front of him. The
top sheet of the blotting-pad had gone too.
"Yes; I take it this is Mr. Osbourn," Godolphin said
again, putting down his hat beside Pointer's by the
door, and also pulling on his gloves.
Pointer studied the half of the face that was visible.
There was nothing in it to suggest any sowing that
should have led to this harvest. It was a pleasant,
thoughtful face. Just now, it wore that contented look
that so often comes in death—as though life had been
well worth while. A chain dangled from the man's
side, with a key-ring on the end. Behind him was the
safe which the solicitor had apparently opened, for it
was standing with its door flush with the wall, and
showed as great a confusion as did the desk. In short,
the room shouted aloud that someone had been hunting
for something among the papers in it. Did it shout too
loudly? No; Pointer could not say that it did. It looked
very natural.
"The point is, did they find it?" Godolphin now said.
"That Rapson car didn't wait very long, judging by
the marks and the absence of oil spots," Pointer said.
"Not an hour, I should judge," Godolphin confirmed.
"This room oughtn't to take anything like an hour to
search," Pointer as an expert on such matters said
firmly. "Unless done to lead us off the track; I should
say whoever was hunting lost their nerve and was half
187


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
beside themselves. Didn't know what they had looked
at, and what not. . . ."
Pointer stopped. For he had just caught sight of a
little gray glove crumpled up under a chair near the
safe. So intent on whatever they were doing had some
one been that on it was the mark of a small, high heel.
Pointer bent over it, but he did not touch it.
"Gray," mused Godolphin, "like the paper. Seems
fond of the color. And now what?"
"I think that's all, sir, until the police know the
facts."
Godolphin and he left the house as they had entered
it, then Pointer took down the steel ladder, repacked
it in its suitcase, and the two made for the colonel's car.
He drove off without a further word to the police sta-
tion. "I shall be interested in hearing how you break
the news," he said dryly. "The ways of the Yard with
us humbler fry are interesting."
They found that Maddox, the Harrow station super-
intendent, was a young, keen man, who privately con-
sidered this the day of his life when Pointer told him
he had just found the dead body of a man, whom they
presumed to be Mr. Osbourn, the well-known solicitor,
in his empty house here in Harrow.
"Could you identify him, if it is he?" Godolphin
asked.
"Certainly, sir. Know him to speak to." Maddox de-
scribed the lawyer, and in doing so described the dead
man.
"You quite understand, don't you," Pointer went on,
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"Colonel Godolphin and I have just dropped in to ask
you whether Mr. Osbourn is away? You aren't sure.
And you run us up in your car. We find the house de-
serted; you, suddenly remembering that the Osbourns
are away over the week-end, take a turn round the
house to see that all is as it should be. You catch sight
of an open window on the first floor. Oh, yes, you'll
find one open, but it was shut when I got there. Noth-
ing in the house was open then. However, catching
sight of the open window, and noticing marks of a
ladder against the wall, you at once hurry back to your
car where we are waiting, tell us what you have no-
ticed, and at the same time get out the collapsible steel
police ladder you always keep in your car."
The superintendent was grinning from ear to ear.
"I suppose it turns out afterward that the ladder marks
and the open window had nothing to do with the
crime?"
"It does. One was an oversight on Mrs. Pinwheel's
part, the other is the doing of the gardener," Pointer
agreed. "We shall want your best photographer, plenty
of magnesium powder, and plenty of plaster, to take
some impressions from the gravel in front of the
house. Be sure and not drive quite up to the gate."
And so within a few minutes the superintendent and
two of his men stood gazing down at the dead body of
Mr. Osbourn. Maddox at once telephoned to the Yard,
who, in learning that chief inspector Pointer "hap-
pened" to be on the spot, asked for him.
"You think there's a connection with Craig's death?"
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
hours ago, and under twenty-four, and that's only a
guess, mind you."
"But sometime early last night would fit?"
"Very well indeed."
"Say—not long after eight?"
Vickers could not be more precise than he had been.
Pointer and the others asked further particulars of the
dead man's life and character. All details supplied by
the doctor showed that it would apparently be waste of
time hunting among his past for clues as to the motive
for this death.
He had last seen the solicitor on Wednesday when he
had been his cheery self, full of plans for a summer
holiday on the Broads, which he had promised his
boys.
"By the way," Pointer looked up from the cellarette
which he had just unlocked, "did Mr. Osbourn wear
glasses? Was he short-sighted? Or near-sighted?"
"Splendid sight. Proud of it. Why?" But Pointer
only replaced an empty whisky decanter and relocked
the little affair without replying.
"What was stolen? Securities?" Vickers turned to
Colonel Godolphin.
"Can't tell yet. It all depends on what turns out to
be missing. Did you ever hear Mr. Osbourn talk of a
client of his, a man called Ronald Craig?"
The doctor had.
"He's some fearfully wealthy chap who used to give
Osbourn quite healthy tips now and then. Tips which
Osbourn passed on to me." Vickers, in answer to a
191


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
further question, said that his friend had never spoken
of Craig's private life nor referred to him recently. No,
he had no idea of when Osbourn had last seen the ex-
financier.
"Did you ever hear him speak of a Miss Bingham,
or a Mrs. Harding?"
He had not.
"Do you know by chance the private address of Mr.
Osbourn's confidential clerk?" he next asked.
Dr. Vickers explained that Osbourn had lost his head
clerk some months ago, and that he, Vickers, knew
nothing about the present man. Then he and the super-
intendent settled about the autopsy later and Vickers
hurried away.
As soon as he had gone, the glove was carefully
lifted and examined. The makers were a famous French
manufacturing firm. There was no stamp inside, but
instead was a tiny fragment of hand-made, rough-
edged mottled gray paper. It was quite blank.
Next they hunted for a list of the safe's contents,
and finally found it in a locked drawer of the writing
table.
"Craig's will is on it," Godolphin said, who was
skimming it over, "but no letter of his. Of course it
would have come too late, but I'm afraid—"
So was Pointer. So was the superintendent, who had
been told of the quest on the way up from the station.
All three feared that, as the dead man suggested, there
was no such letter now on the premises. That the
murderess had thought it would be in the safe seemed
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
likely from the fact that Osbourn was not killed until
the safe, a combination safe, was open. She would have
naturally looked in there first therefore, yet the wild
confusion of the papers in the writing-table showed that
the search had extended to every paper in the room.
"Any finger-prints?" Godolphin asked.
"Gloves, sir," Pointer said briefly, "but not like
this"—he touched the pocket in which, in a sealed
envelope of waxed paper, lay the glove that had been
found under a chair—"rubber gloves. Which was prob-
ably how this little affair came to be forgotten."
Godolphin paused in front of the little tray on which
stood a decanter three-quarters full, two long-stemmed
sherry glasses and some stale olive sandwiches under a
cover. On one of the glasses was a smeared half-moon,
which still gave out a cloying perfume.
"Lipstick," he muttered.
Godolphin remembered something.
"Why did you ask about Osbourn's eyesight?"
"Because of this, sir." Pointer unlocked the cellar-
ette. He held out the empty whisky decanter. "I can't
see why Mr. Osbourn would have locked it away like
that unless he had been very near-sighted. Looks to me
as if the lady had unlocked it after his murder, and
helped herself to whatever was in it, for there's quite a
rim of lipstick on it too. She drank it neat. And from
the jug!"
"No wonder she couldn't find the paper!" Godolphin
said feelingly, as he too peered through a glass at the
decanter lip. "Well, that's the most hopeful sign I've
193


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"From the police point of view—perhaps! But from
your own? It would have meant a third dead body on
our hands."
Houghton only stretched out his hand for the en-
closure. He looked disappointed when he glanced it
over.
"This tells nothing—nothing we don't know al-
ready." He frowned down at it. "Who wrote these
damned murdering lines? That's the riddle! And to
whom? 'Don't overdo the poison . . . that's where the
only danger lies,' he read aloud, the only danger!" His
voice shook as he repeated the words and handed the
two papers reluctantly back to Pointer. "Tell me every-
thing, please," he begged.
They went over each point.
"And here is the glove we found under that chair."
Pointer held it out in its paper tray. "Don't touch it,
but perhaps you could identify it by the perfume?"
Houghton sniffed and shook his head.
"Is there any lady known to both you and Mr. Craig
who is very fond of gray?" Pointer asked next.
"Countess Alexandra," Houghton said promptly.
Godolphin intervened. "Prejudice isn't evidence, and
the cap must fit the head, Houghton. I've met Countess
Alexandra several times, and, as it happens, she's never
yet been wearing gray!"
"She wore it the day she came to town to choose
Ronnie's birthday present," Houghton said defensively,
"all gray. Hat, cloak, shoes, and gloves. I'm bound
to say it suited her. She called to ask what sort of thing
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
he might be expected to like. That writing cabinet thing
was her choice finally."
"Now, Mr. Houghton," Pointer went on, looking at
his shoe tips as he stood leaning an arm on the mantel-
shelf, "that copied part of a letter Mr. Craig found—
don't think hard—don't try and not implicate innocent
people—but just say out the first name that comes into
your head after reading it and Mr. Craig's covering
letter."
"I can't think of anyone except—you know who I
think is at the bottom of this terrible business," Hough-
ton said finally, "but I can't say honestly that those
lines suggest her.style."
"Countess Alexandra had no need to write any
messages, nor to have an accomplice. Besides, I don't
think this is a foreigner's note," Pointer said, "the
phrase 'don't overdo' looks to me genuine homespun."
Houghton only studied afresh the copy of Craig's
copy which Maddox had made, and which they were
all using.
"Setting her on one side," the chief inspector went
on, "doesn't Mr. Craig's own letter to Mr. Osbourn
suggest anything to you? Miss Bingham for instance?"
Godolphin asked bluntly.
Houghton stared at him. There was incredulity as
well as horror on his face.
"But she's out of England, and Osbourn here was
shot! Besides, Mildred Bingham has no grudge against
Ronnie. Nothing to gain by his death."
"We know to the contrary," the colonel went on.
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"We know that with Craig's removal the great bar to
her marriage with Ardmay was removed also." He
explained the mother's standpoint about divorce.
"Craig's letter points directly to her. He wants no
scandal, but there must be some sort of punishment, and
he will talk over with the solicitor what steps can be
taken. To whom would the word scandal apply outside
of the Woodthorp circle? Only to Miss Bingham. Mind
you, Pointer suspected her from the first. This letter
of Craig's is only one more confirmation."
"And you think because of that whelp Ardmay—"
Houghton began thickly.
"We do," Godolphin added.
"She was in gray the last time I saw her. I never
considered her as possible. And I should have known
her writing." Houghton spoke like a man groping along
a trail and identifying each thing as he came to it by its
feel in the darkness. "Yes, I should have known it
anywhere; it's so peculiar." He stopped a moment and
then said suddenly: "That was the postscript to my
letter! That Ronnie Craig was sending a copy to Os-
bourn. In which case whoever tore it off would have
known where to look for it, and would have known that
it wasn't coming to me. And would have known, too,
that Ronnie was keeping the original."
Godolphin and Pointer both thought this fitted in
well with the possibilities.
"And that was why the address was taken," Godol-
phin added, "stamps and all so as to be able to prove
the assertion to the head poisoner that it hadn't gone.
Yes, by Jove, little by little, things are getting clearer."
200


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"But all this doesn't go with the known fact that
Miss Bingham's out of England! I mean Osbourn's
death and this getting of the paper. And who was her
accomplice?" Houghton asked.
They told him who was suspected. He only nodded.
"Well, I shouldn't wonder at the choice of Miss
Cornwall," Tie said thoughtfully, "but was it she who
shot Osbourn? It couldn't have been Mildred Bingham
we know. She's in Monte Carlo."
Now, while Houghton had been breaking the speed
limit and very nearly his steering gear in getting to
Harrow, Pointer and the chief constable had been talk-
ing to the Monte Carlo police. The latter were quite
certain that the lady in question had been at the villa
last night, and was there now. They were unshakable
on this point, and it had now become of prime impor-
tance. Hitherto, the whereabouts of Miss Bingham,
provided she were kept under close observation, was
quite immaterial to the case. Whether she were in Eng-
land or out of it would neither prove nor disprove her
guilt in the poisoning of Ronald Craig, but this murder
of Mr. Osbourn's brought in at once the question of
alibis, and raised them to prime importance. No one at
the manor house had been absent last evening around
the time when the visitor of Mr. Osbourn had appar-
ently been expected. But when had that visitor really
arrived? It might have been a clever ruse to telephone
for an early evening hour and then telephone again at
the hour itself pleading a breakdown, or some other
unavoidable delay, getting the appointment postponed
to a much later hour.
201


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
Could anyone from Woodthorp have got away un-
noticed during last night for a couple of hours? Craig
had sent his own car back to town for a thorough over-
haul. There was Lady Craig's car, a fine looker but a
poor performer, and not one that fitted with Rapson
nor yet with patched tires.
It had taken the colonel an hour to cover the distance
between Woodthorp and Harrow. Houghton had taken
only a little more, but a woman driving at night—
Pointer decided they must count at the very least three
hours to come and go. The garage at Woodthorp was
locked at night and the key hung in the butler's pantry,
but as he had been in Craig's bedroom so much last
night that meant little. Also the sports car was probably
taken at some garage; the car in which the murderer or
murderess drove being left for some useful repair on
some pretext. Dangerous thing to do though. Miss
Cornwall was a very good driver, but she had been
noticed by butler and nurse—or so they said—hovering
around the sick-room. Was that to furnish an alibi?
Certainly if they were telling the truth, and Pointer
thought they were in that particular, she could hardly
have driven here, murdered the lawyer, and searched,
however hastily, for the letter. Besides, he believed she
had the original. If so, she would have known that this
was but a copy though she might well have feared the
accompanying letter.
But what about Mildred Bingham? Pointer decided
that the very first move irlust be to settle whether the
woman, believed by the Monte Carlo police to be Mil-
202


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
her voice." Pointer was tidying up some loose papers
still left out. "Would you have recognized it supposing
she hadn't seemed to know who was speaking to her?"
"It's very like hers if not hers," Houghton said
cautiously) "but oddly enough it sounded more like
her voice when I first met her than when I saw her last.
She used to have rather a pronounced accent, which she
lost. It was rather marked just now. I thought it might
be emotion, and it might be! Trouble is, I can't honestly
swear for or against it being Mildred herself,"
Houghton acknowledged, impatient with his own lack
of certainty. Again the Monte Carlo police were com-
municated with. A close and detailed account of the
lady believed to be Miss Bingham was telephoned back
to Pointer, and proved as inconclusive as the voice that
Houghton had heard over the telephone. Unfortunately,
the lady possessed no distinguishing marks of any kind.
Certainly the description now furnished again closely
resembled the Mildred Bingham known to two of the
men listening.
"The voice was like hers if not hers," Houghton
repeated. Pointer thought a moment and then let
Houghton betake himself home to bed while he him-
self rang up Dr. Lindrum.
"Yes?" came on the instant in the alert voice of a
man accustomed to night calls.
"Look here, Dr. Lindrum," Pointer began with an
appearance of frankness, "I want to get into touch with
Miss Bingham. Most urgently. Do you know of any
address that will find her?"
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"She lives at Monte Carlo. That's the only address
of hers I know of."
"Would you mind calling Mrs. Lindrum to the phone
for a moment. I'm sorry to—"
Lindrum cut into his polite regrets. "My mother is
not here. I'm thankful to say that my sister prevailed
on her to go abroad until all this has been settled one
way or another. She's going to Switzerland with some
friends. No, I'm sorry, chief inspector, but you can't
have the address. Anything I can tell you you're wel-
come to, but I don't intend to have my mother dragged
into this. What did you want her for?"
"I want Miss Bingham's present address," Pointer
said shortly, "if you or Miss Lindrum can supply it
instead, so much the better."
Lindrum said that he had no idea of her where-
abouts, and his sister did not know the woman.
Pointer rang off. It would be no use trying Lady
Craig. She was not the woman to admit any knowledge
of anyone in the position which Pointer believed she
knew Mildred Bingham occupied in the mystery sur-
rounding the death of Ronald Craig. He must try a
woman detective whom he often employed. He very
carefully instructed her in what she was to say, and
above all, in how she was to say it. Miss Gerding was
a very good actress indeed, who, prevented from get-
ting engagements owing to rheumatism, was invaluable
to Scotland Yard.
At a word from him she now rang up Miss Cornwall
at her club. Miss Cornwall had not seemed in any hurry
208


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
to get another post. She had not put her name down
on any of the university women's usual registers. She
had spent the time, since her return to town yesterday,
in her room, taking all her meals in it.
Called to her telephone now, Miss Cornwall heard a
gentle but very excited woman's voice speaking to her
in the tone of one afraid of being overheard.
"Is that Miss Cornwall? Miss Yseult Cornwall? Oh,
I'm so glad you're in. Listen! I can't get hold of Mil-
dred. Mildred Bingham, of course."
"What!" Checked in her well-memorized conversa-
tion, the detective heard a hard and clear: "I don't know
where Miss Bingham is," and a sound as though the
receiver were about to be put down.
"Wait a moment!" came in a tone of genuine
urgency. "Something dreadful has happened. Mr.
Craig's solicitor, a Mr. Osbourn, has been murdered,
and the police think that Millie did it, because of that
letter you lost. Oh, never mind how I know! There's no
time for explanations. I don't know how to get word to
her. Her telephone is too dangerous, and I can't get off
by myself again until tomorrow. Oh, don't interrupt!
Listen! Who is it speaking? Tell her it's Daisy. The
papers won't have the news until tomorrow morning.
You'll go yourself? At once? You can get hold of a
little sports car that can do forty?"
And then the actress did a clever bit of work, as
clever as all that had gone before it. Turning away from
the instrument, the receiver still in her hand, she said in
quite a different, a would-be casual voice: "Hello,
209


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
mums, you're dressed early. I was just ringing up my
beauty doctor." Then into the phone she spoke again
in a voice that sounded as though she were trying
desperately to make it sound light, "Thanks so much,
Miss Smith," and with a little laugh of forced merri-
ment, she hung up. So Pointer's bluff had worked.
Mildred Bingham, the real one, was in England. In or
near London. And he had found it out without wasting
valuable time and public money by going to Monte
Carlo with Houghton, who, with the best will in the
world to settle the point, might not be able to tell the
one-time Mrs. Craig from any good impersonation. As
to the measures he had just taken to prove this, Pointer
always thought of his job as soldiering, soldiering in
a war which, for him, would only end with his death;
the war of right against wrong. As a soldier, so he too
had to use weapons, take cover, and try to mislead the
enemy. Open fighting was to his taste, but his duty was
to win. And here, he did not even feel that an enemy
was opposed to him so much as that he was tracking
down some great man-eating cat, who had already slain
two men to his knowledge and might slay more.
A taxi, rather a smart one, for the journey might be
long, set down a fare just outside Miss Cornwall's club
at the time this very one-sided conversation was going
on over the wire. The fare was fussy about the pay-
ment, but finally, just as Miss Cornwall came hurrying
down the steps, all seemed settled, and the driver, who
looked singularly unlike what he was, a Scotland Yard
man, put up his flag and began to turn.
210


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
said loudly, and in the tone of a man with one idea.
"Wot I want to know is—"
The door opened again, but not so secretively, and
Miss Cornwall came running out.
"Why, you're there!" she cried in a tone of surprise.
"Waiting for you," the other replied easily. "Didn't
you hear me say I'd go on out to the taxi?' She turned
to the man. "Now drive us to Victoria Station. You
can keep what I just handed you for yourself—and a
quiet tongue," she murmured, in a voice so low that he
hardly caught it.
Pointer mumbled some agreement this time, and
clambered back to his wheel. So Miss Bingham wanted
to hurry off without Yseult Cornwall. She had thought
she could leave her in her place, apparently. It did not
throw a very nice light on Miss Bingham's character,
but neither did it suggest that Miss Cornwall was in
possession of any facts, let alone of a letter, which could
harm Mildred Bingham.
Pointer drove rapidly this time, but not to Victoria
Station, though he took them to a house not far from
that spot. He stopped just before he got to his objective
to take in beside him another Scotland Yard man.
When the taxi finally stopped, Miss Bingham began at
once, "This isn't the station! I told you—"
"I am Inspector Watts"—the man beside Pointer
now stood by the door. "I want a word with you, Miss
Bingham, and with you, Miss Cornwall. Kindly go on
into this house. The door is open. There is a room on
the right-hand side as you enter, where we can all talk."
213


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
Then, as the women sat on as if turned to stone, he
pulled out a card like a season-ticket and held it out.
"Here is my warrant-card, in case you would like some
corroboration as to who I am."
Yseult Cornwall leaned forward and read it; she even
compared the photograph with the man before her.
Mildred Bingham only sat white and silent. Then, as
Watts opened the door and helped each out, she fol-
lowed the other, without a word, into the trim little
house.
Watts was close behind them. He turned on the top
step. "We shan't need you any more, my man. You can
call round tomorrow morning for your fare."
Pointer touched his cap and drove off.
A moment later Watt asked Miss Cornwall to follow
him into the room opposite. Here she found Pointer
cleaned up, and waiting for her. The chief inspector
wanted an interview with her first, for he fancied that
she would be calmer than would Mildred Bingham, and
that she might be induced to betray the chief person in
the guilty compact, if he were right in his theory that
such a pact existed. He found her quite collected out-
wardly. Her eyes looked at him steadily from out of
dark hollows.
He cautioned her, and though she paled at the knowl-
edge of what that preliminary meant, she kept her head
high, and her outward look of self-control, as she
began:
"If Miss Bingham were any other than the kind of
woman she is, I should have preferred to tell you before
214


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
her what I am now going to tell you by myself. But
she's a raving maniac just now. She chooses to think I
have betrayed her to you. If she is innocent, of course,
I"—.for a second a quiver passed over her white face—
"if she is innocent," she repeated, "I have, in a sense,
done just that, I suppose. But I still don't see how I
could have acted differently. . . ." She put her hand
to her forehead for a second. Yseult Cornwall looked
ill. "I'm in an awful position. I knew it when I heard—
what Mr. Craig called out. I must protect myself."
She paused, and then went on hurriedly:
"I was at the manor house on Mrs. Craig's behalf—
Miss Bingham's behalf. I met her at Monte Carlo about
a year ago, when I was there with a very bad throat.
I talked to her now and then, and finally, just before I
thought I must come back and see what I could find in
the way of secretarial work, she offered me the post of
nursery governess to her two children, at a hundred a
year. I was to keep her informed of how they were
getting on, of course, and, above all, I was to try and
get her husband, who had not divorced her at that time,
to let her see them at intervals. As she told the story,
all my sympathies were with her. And then, too, I liked
the idea of pulling it off—about her and her children, I
mean. I thought it wicked of Mr. Craig."
Miss Cornwall paused again, and her face grew
grimmer.
"I accepted with relief, and I liked the house when I
got to it. Lady Craig and I suited each other splendidly.
I liked the people. I don't care much for children of
215


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
that age—to me they're just little animals, and not
nearly so engaging as puppies—but I grew quite fond
of them. But I saw hardly anything of Mr. Craig.
"About two months ago—I have all the dates written
down for you here, and the addresses"—she handed
Pointer a paper—"Miss Bingham came to England.
She stayed with a Mrs. Cook, a friend of Lady Craig's,
who takes paying guests, and who has three or four
children of her own with whom the little Craigs could
play. Lady Craig arranged it so that I took them there
every Wednesday for all afternoon. Sometimes the
mother watched them from an upper window; some-
times she wasn't there. Then one Wednesday she
wanted me to do my best to get a written understand-
ing from Mr. Craig about the children. I was, rather,
to push for it. He had got his divorce by that time, and
she fancied he might be willing to let her have her way
after he was married. I was quite willing to try, but I
saw so little of him. Once a month he came down to see
the children, or had them brought to his rooms in May-
fair for the afternoon, but that was all. Nurse and I
went with them, and he seemed to like talking to me,
but that was all. Oh, I ought to tell you before this, as
soon as she came to Mrs. Cook's, Miss Bingham spoke
as though there might be a chance of winning her hus-
band back to her. However, about the children: I said I
would do what I could. She got impatient," Yseult's
low, husky voice went on. "Finally, she said she would
arrange it, somehow. That's rather a trick of hers,
talking as though things would happen, just because
216


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
she wanted them to, so I didn't think much about it,
and when Mr. Craig came down soon after to see
Countess Jura on his birthday and fell ill, I thought it
merely a piece of good luck." She repeated the last two
words with a bitter laugh. "I'm sorry to talk like this
about her," she went on, "but the position is not one
where I can keep silence. If I am doing her harm, well
—I can't help it—the responsibility is too horrible!"
Naturally Pointer agreed with her.
"That's all I know, chief inspector—oh, I hope you
will believe me that that's all I know about his illness."
Her intelligent eyes, distended with fear, were fixed on
the detective officer. "You see, I used to pour out tea
for him every day. Make it for him. There's an electric
kettle and a plug in his room. And she gave me the tea
to use. Said it was some wonderful first-picking she got
direct from Peking through Mr. Ardmay, and would do
Mr. Craig a world of good. I know—J know how it
sounds—now. Even Lady Craig half distrusts me. Oh,
it was horrible to feel that she half suspected me and
wanted me to leave. She wouldn't shake hands when
I left!"
"What about yesterday morning?" Pointer went on,
leading her for the moment off that terrible question of
the tea. "In the morning the children were taken in by
their nurse, and you went in afterward with a paper for
him to sign?"
She nodded. "He had quite come round to my way
of thinking about the right of the mother to have
them." She paused, then she corrected herself. "That's
217


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
very careful, that he never forgave being taken in. He
motioned to me to leave him, and—I was startled by
that look and wanted to think things over—I went.
Then later in the afternoon the door opened as I was
passing and his eyes met mine—it was after that first
dreadful seizure he had—he looked at me with a dread-
ful look. It was a most awful look. I couldn't face the
possibility of it again, even though it surprised me. That
was why I wouldn't go in to see him at the end. Not at
first. But as the night wore on, I couldn't bear not to
ask him to forgive me, to tell him, that, after all, I had
meant well, both to him and the children, as well as to
Miss Bingham, by the deception I had practiced on him.
So I finally went in. Lady Craig had quite agreed with
me that I must stay away, but she let me finally come
in—when he was unconscious. I thought he was dead,
and went to the fireplace to get myself in hand.
"I had liked him, as I told you, and besides, his death
meant that I had failed, just when I thought I had
succeeded. I had worked most awfully hard, Mr.
Pointer, trying to get him to like to talk to me, to listen
to my point of view. And as I stood there with my
back to the bed, I found myself looking down at part
of Miss Bingham's last letter to me! I saw at once how
he knew about me. I slipped it into my dress and ran
down to telephone to Miss Bingham that he was very
ill indeed, and that I thought he had found part of her
last letter to me. I must have dropped the letter either
running down the stairs or on the way to the phone.
At any rate, I forgot all about it until next morning
219


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
when I heard that Mr. Craig had died of poison, and
that that half-sheet was considered most important—a
clue to the murder. And I thought of the tea! The tea
that I had made so often for him, and for him alone!
Mr. Pointer"—her eyes were almost leaping out of
her face—"I nearly died of horror first, and then of
fright. What an awful position for me, supposing that
things were wrong. And they were! He had been poi-
soned! Lady Craig told me that she would not keep me
in the house, she refused to listen to anything I said,
refused to speak out, but only told me that I must leave
at once and not see the children again. I wouldn't let
that pass. I insisted that if she stood to that last, I
should go straight to you, and tell you the whole story
of why, and how, I was in the house. Finally, she gave
in, and let me go to the station with Nannie and the
babies.
"I went on up to town, as you know, to my club.
Last night . . ." She told him of the telephone message
and of the shock it gave her. "I didn't know what to do,
what to think. But I had lost Miss Bingham's letter, I
had got her into this trouble, supposing she were inno-
cent. I, of all people, mustn't let her down. Finally, I
decided to do as this Daisy said, and warn her. She
took it like a demented thing. I don't think she is guilty,
I feel sure she isn't, of this second-hand murder, at any
rate. But we decided she must try to get abroad—to—
to friends abroad."
"To whoever is impersonating her there. With the
object of throwing us off the track, of course."
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"Not at all!" Miss Cornwall spoke very sharply. "Her
maid is taking her place—in bed with the 'flu is the
idea—to prevent Mr. Ardmay knowing she was back in
England trying to get into touch with Mr. Craig, as she
did try at first. Until she found he sent back every
letter—through his solicitor—unopened."
She evidently did not know that Miss Bingham had
tried to slip away alone, leaving her to face any trouble
there might be.
"About this tea, first of all, how was it given you?"
"Mrs. Harding, as she called herself, used to hand
it me or send it me by post. It came in charming little
lead-lined baskets. She used to keep some herself, and
pack about a quarter of a pound at a time into small
ordinary tins which I took back to the manor, or which
she posted to me. I thought she really did think it, as
she said, a wonderful restorative. She told me the
Mandarins called it the Tea of a Thousand Healthy
Years, and impressed on me that it was frightfully
difficult to get and appallingly expensive, and that it
was to be used only for him, exclusively for him. Mr.
Craig looked distinctly better after he drank it. He
thought so too. Only, he believed that Lady Craig got
it for him."
"And did you keep it exclusively for him?"
Her face grew sickly white. "Yes. I used only to
pretend to pour some into my cup, and the children only
had milk."
"And Lady Craig knew about it?"
"Of course. She didn't mind one way or another at
221


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
first, she said. Then she, too, thought it was helping
Mr. Craig. We both knew, of course, that he wouldn't
touch it if he knew where it came from, so Lady Craig
always spoke of it as though she ordered it. Chief
inspector, I'll never put myself in a false position again
for any reason—for any purpose. I feel stifled with all
the lies of these last days. I don't suppose you'll believe
me, but quite apart from this horror of his death, I've
had my lesson. It's not true that it's only the first step
that costs. Each step costs in one's self-respect. Deceit
leads so far . . ." She bit her lip, and turned again to
her story. "Countess Jura used to get quite pettish
about not being given some of the tea in question. She
knew, in spite of all Lady Craig said, that what was sent
her in the mornings wasn't the same as what was made
for Mr. Craig, but she saw that Lady Craig was reso-
lute about it. I think she thought it merely love of
economy on her part."
"When was the last time that you made tea for
him?"
"The day before the last."
"And was any tea left in the caddy?"
"No; I emptied it almost entirely, but a new packet
was ready, and Lady Craig put it in sometime in the
evening. Each packet used to about half fill the caddy."
"So Countess Jura used this new packet?"
Miss Cornwall nodded. Her face showed that she
realized what underlay the question.
"Have you any idea what became of it? We found
the caddy empty."
-
222


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
She explained that she could not be sure of every
word, but that was the close sense of every sentence
and, to a great extent, the exact wording. It meant, she
now explained, that she was not to overdo her efforts
about Miss Bingham and the children. Miss Bingham
was afraid she might spoil everything by showing her
hand too clearly. That was where the only danger lay.
And with the doctor too, Miss Bingham was afraid
that she might question him in such a way that he
should think her interest in the sick man excessive.
"And Countess Jura did," she threw in with a mirth-
less smile.
Dr. Lindrum, Yseult Cornwall now explained, knew
that Miss Bingham had come down near Woodthorp,
but not that she and Miss Bingham were in touch with
each other.
Pointer scanned her lines closely and had her sign
and date it. Folding it up he said slowly:
"There's a reference to poison in the letter we have,
you think it means the tea?"
"Reference to poison?" Her eyes grew wild. "Of
course there's no reference to poison—"
"There is in the copy that Mr. Craig made, and that
we have in our possession. The one he sent to his solici-
tor, Mr. Osbourn."
She was on her feet in a second: "Let me see that
copy!" she gasped.
He shook his head.
"It's not true!" she said hoarsely. "You've mistaken
some word! Misunderstood some sentence; wait a
224


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
moment, I remember now the exact words in one
sentence ran: 'Don't try to hasten things and overdo
it!'" She looked terrified. "Or—wait—wait! 'Don't
try and hasten the end.' That was it! 'and overdo it.'
I can't be sure of the exact words used."
"Mr. Craig was," Pointer said very gravely indeed.
Her face grew still. Her quivering stopped. Almost
stonily she turned to him:
"How could the word 'poison' have been used in any
letter of Miss Bingham's to me? Do you mean that
you're going to pretend, that anyone is pretending, that
that word was used between us? That I knew?",
He made no reply. His silence was sufficient answer.
"Miss Cornwall," he said instead, "Miss Bingham
had access to poison. On at least one occasion. That
is proved. Access to enough to have killed two or three
people. That being so, and with the possibility of poison
in her possession, and with you constantly in and out of
the room of a man who died from the very poison we
know she could have obtained, with a letter which you
acknowledge receiving from Miss Bingham, a copy of
which was made by Mr. Craig himself and sent to his
solicitor with instructions for its safekeeping, made by
him with the original before him, what is the natural
inference? The sentence I referred to in the copy runs:
'Don't overdo the poison. That's where the only danger
lies.' You have told me about the tea. It sounds as
though it means: 'Don't give him too much of the tea.'
Had the letter been as innocent as you claim, why was
Mr. Craig not allowed to see his cousin and show him
225


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
wept, and entreated by turns. Finally she turned to the
detective officer:
"Yseult Cornwall got me into this! I ought to've
known better than to trust her! If there's been any
poisoning done she's done it. If anyone murdered the
solicitor, she did! For her own ends, whatever they are I
I only know she offered to take the post at Woodthorp
manor and keep me posted as to my children, bring
them to see me when I was near by, and work on Mr.
Craig so that he would let me have them."
Pointer disliked the woman, disliked her extremely.
She was handsome with her still lovely skin, flashing
eyes, smart figure, and hard masterful voice. Boundless
physical energy was in her, and she had probably superb
health. But there was in her, too, he felt as he studied
her very carefully, a force restless and irresponsible, a
will to have what it wanted at any cost, or rather at any
one else's cost. He believed that she was immoral in
the widest sense. If starving, she would, he thought,
steal. If in a tight place, lie. Law as an ideal simply
would not exist for her. If her need were great enough
and she felt herself safe enough, he did not think that
she would shrink from murder. Lady Craig he counted
as an egoist, but there were limits to her egoism set by
common sense and good taste. Here were no limits.
This woman, however, had a certain mesmeric quality,
a sort of strong effluvium of the grasping spirit that
was in her, which might draw weaker, frailer spirits
into her reach, even against their own will. She denied
everything. She lied flatly, wildly, ridiculously.
229


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"That woman"—she finally came back again to
Yseult Cornwall—"lured me on with her talk. She
betrayed me to you. Coming to me last night with talk
about someone who had phoned to her. Daisy! I know
three Daisies. Of course I trusted her, fool that I was.
As I had trusted her in the beginning."
"That letter you wrote Miss Cornwall, part of which
she lost, your last letter," Pointer now began.
"... was full of sorrow that he was ill; was full
of hopes that he would soon be better. I'll tell you the
whole truth." She seemed to force herself to be calm,
and now drew up a chair at a table. "The whole truth.
I wanted the children, my children"—again there was
an interlude quite irrelevant to the charge that hung
over her by a hair—then came the story amid denuncia-
tions of everybody but herself. When Mildred Bingham
found fault with herself it was only for being too trust-
ful, too affectionate, too fond, too easily led. The pic-
ture she painted was of a gentle soul, who, finding too
little of the love that she needed with her husband, had
flung everything to the winds for the sake of finding it
elsewhere.
"But I wanted to get back!" she sobbed. "I wanted
my husband and my children." Pointer asked few ques-
tions "until she had more or less run down. Then he
said: "And the letter Mr. Craig found, the letter, of
part of which we have a copy?"
Again she insisted that it had been wholly affec-
tionate in tone. Had she ended with a portscript giving
Miss Cornwall any final instructions? None. Except to
230


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
let her know how Mr. Craig and the children were.
Especially Mr. Craig, as he was ill at the time. "There
is nothing else whatever in it, chief inspector, and if
you have any paper which says more than that, then it's
no copy of what I wrote! I swear that! I'm prepared to
swear to it anywhere!"
That much Pointer quite believed.
For the rest her story, or rather, many stories,
boiled down to the fact that Ardmay had lost his
money, that his cat of a mother refused to let him have
any, unless he gave her, Mildred Bingham, up; that like
all men he was not to be trusted, and was giving way
to the fiend who was his mother, that she was therefore
in a frightful position. That she longed inexpressively
to be back with Ronald Craig. That a too affectionate
heart had learned its lesson. That no one but a mother
could understand a mother's feelings. That Ronald
Craig, left to himself, would have taken her back, just
as Ardmay left to himself would never have given her
up, that now that Ronald Craig was dead, Mrs. Ardmay
would have to give in, or she, Mildred Bingham, would
bring an action against the son. . . . That people
couldn't play with her without regretting it; that Miss
Cornwall had deceived her from first to last, and, while
pretending to serve her, had worked against her and
taken the opportunity to play her own dark game, what-
ever it was.
Pointer asked her, again cautioning her, to write out
as well as she could remember them, any postscripts to
her last letter to Miss Cornwall.
231


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
She scrawled some lines which bore no slightest
resemblance to the copy sent by the dying man to his
solicitor. A copy which one of his careful nature would
make exact. About Dr. Lindrum's poison cupboard,
she denied absolutely ever having been to it. If he said
she had, he was trying to protect himself. She acknowl-
edged that her maid had taken her place at Beausoleil.
That, she explained, was because of Ardmay. Here she
got a little into difficulties, but finally said that she
didn't want to slip up on both men. Her idea was to try
and get Craig to take her back, working through that
deceitful minx Miss Cornwall. But, failing this, she
intended to leave a latchstring out. Ardmay must not
know that she had made any overtures to Craig. He was
to think her still at Monte Carlo. It was only bad luck
that her visit, incognito, as Mrs. Harding, to England,
should have coincided with Ronald Craig's death and
Mr. Osbourn's. As to the latter she had never asked
him for an appointment. She had spent the night of his
murder in her own rooms in the furnished service flat
she had taken after her nerves got better.
She hadn't any witnesses, of course she had none.
Once more came a burst of weeping and of terror. Of
imploring him not to arrest her. She did not try to
explain the glove found at the lawyer's, she denied ever
having approached him in any way, either last week or
before. If the glove was really hers, then, she said:
"Miss Cornwall put it where it was found. She could
easily have taken one. Yes, she always wore gray gloves,
mouse-gray—it was her favorite color, as everyone
knew."
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"That sister of the doctor's, of course," she said on
the instant. "She's in love with" Ronald Craig; she all
but pulled it off—until he saw this Russian girl. Then
he dropped her, and she's furious. Oh, I know her!
Smug hypocrite! I know how she used to meet him on
the sly." Pointer disliked the woman more and more.
Godolphin was right; Mildred Bingham seemed capable
of everything except of being a lady.
"Where did this take place? This meeting or these
meetings?"
"In Paris! I was there with Mr. Ardmay, and the
first people we bumped into were the two of them. I
didn't mind. But I made some inquiries. Oh no, there
was nothing one could get hold of. She's not the kind
to think the world well lost for love! Though, of course,
one knows how things really were between them."
"Or one interprets it according to one's own outlook
on life," Pointer thought.
"It seems he met her by chance in the first place at
a mutual acquaintance's, and after that he followed it
up—or she followed him up! She was staying with a
French professor, taking some final examination or
other at the Sorbonne, and, I say, they were insepar-
able for nearly a fortnight. Then he left Paris, went
home and met this Russian creature. That was the end
of the Lindrum girl's hopes. Evidently he had been
careful not to commit himself in writing. She couldn't
prove anything, so I suppose she just had to do what
many another has had to do before, and let him go.
No one at Thornton seems to have any idea that they
234


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
wall girl that she is the poisoner. Or rather that both
are.
"Yes," Pointer went on doggedly, "I think just that
too, sir. But there is the fact that on the sheet of paper
on which Mr. Craig wrote that copy for Mr. Osbourn,
the word overdo comes last on the line, and there is a
little gouge out of the paper after it."
"Well?" said Godolphin impatiently, "well?"
"Well, sir, it is possible that he might have copied
the word 'it' and that someone got hold of the copy
before we did, nicked away the paper edge with that
little word on it, and wrote in below, in an imitation
of the very weak spindly hand used by Mr. Craig
throughout, the two fatal words 'the poison' on which
the prosecution will chiefly depend to prove their case."
"Among many other things, all of which fit," Godol-
phin reminded him.
"Quite so, sir. But they say all roads lead to Rome.
Certainly all paths in an inquiry lead to the criminal,
if he really is the criminal, or they end in no-thorough-
fares. I must make sure I'm right. I don't doubt it,
but I must make sure."
"How can you be surer than you are now?" It was
an exclamation rather than a question.
"By leaving Mr. Craig entirely out of it, sir, except
through his death. By starting afresh on the case as
though his letters to Mr. Houghton and Mr. Osbourn
didn't exist, and seeing if my inquiries lead—as I think
they will—to one or both of those two women. For
there's one very odd thing, sir—"
237


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
gray stone walls became rose-tinted, covered with blos-
soming creepers, cobblestones changed to flower-beds
and a playing fountain. It had been but the simplest
trick of lighting, but it had made a tremendous impres-
sion on the coastguard's son, who had watched wide-
eyed. It seemed to Pointer now as though he saw the
same thing repeated, only it was truth this time, not
illusion. The whole little room seemed to be swung off
and up into some other world, a world of permanency
and beauty, and again the walls seemed roses, and the
ground beneath his feet was as a sheet of flowers.
"I wanted to see him once more," she said very
softly. "Laura Kingsmill is my friend. She knew. She
had guessed. I had never told her, but she had guessed.
So when I ran across she let me in and left me alone
in his room, while she stayed outside to give me a mo-
ment if anyone should come to the door. No one did,
though it seems that I was heard, coming and going.
The explanation I gave you that I went to help Mrs.
Kingsmill was true—as far as it went. You know the
rest of the truth now, chief inspector, and if you know
anything, you must realize that I wouldn't have harmed
a hair of his head." Her lips quivered, but she stiffened
them, just as she had fought down the tears in her eyes
a moment ago. Her face, wholly gentle, and aglow still
with the roses and flowers, turned to him.
Pointer was convinced that whoever had poisoned
Craig it was not this woman. She would be watched,
and her past looked into—but by one of his men. He
would waste no time himself over her.
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
I am hunting for a new light on the case. How about
Miss Bingham, the lady who was once Mrs. Craig?"
She looked at him steadily.
"I rather think you can answer that question better
than I can," she said finally.
"You think it was she?" he asked slowly.
"I do. Not because she was Mrs. Craig once upon a
time—but because of many things I have heard about
her. But all only hearsay, and, of course, I'm bound
to be prejudiced. I know Bob told you about finding
her at his poisons."
"Do you agree with your brother in thinking that
she went to his cupboard for poison for herself?"
Agatha Lindrum's face went very white.
"If I only knew!" she murmured. "I thought it, at
the time, just the sort of thing she might be expected
to do—J mean, go there and be found with a jar of
poison in her hands when he came in. I thought it was
done for effect—to work on his feelings. I thought so
until Ronald's death. But now—now . . ." She did
not finish her sentence. "Ronald was quite right not
to let her have anything to do with the children," she
went on instead. "It wasn't harshness on his part. We
talked it over several times. She really was, in his opin-
ion, the last woman in the world to have charge of any
children. Tyrannical, harsh, overbearing when angered
—he felt that she would only bully them."
"Yet in his will he practically leaves them in her
charge. With reservations, true, but still practically
gives them to her."
243


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
Agatha Lindrum jumped in her chair.
"I don't believe it!" she said hotly. "Forgive me, I
mean that I feel sure your information about that is
wrong."
"I read the will myself."
"But it's impossible!" she repeated. "He felt so
strongly about it. He was so convinced that she was
the kind of woman who loves her children only while
they are babies, while they are still her own flesh and
blood, as it were, part of her. But as they grew to be
themselves, when another, an individual spirit began
to show in them, she would hate them. She would
crush the spirit, just as much as she would cherish the
body that had once been part of her own body. It's
what that type of woman always does—the type that's
all passion and has no idea of fairness. No, no, he
couldn't have handed those two tots over to her!"
"But I saw the will," Pointer repeated.
"Isn't there any chance of its being a forgery?" she
countered. "I can't—I can't think that he would be so
cruel to his own babies."
"We have no reason to think the will anything but
genuine," he replied.
"But I have!" she returned with spirit. "I, who
heard Ronald Craig talk on that very point, I have the
best of reasons!"
"It would have made things easier for his coming
marriage," Pointer suggested.
She shook her head.
"Ronald Craig wasn't the man who does things
244


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
because they're easier. And Countess Jura's by way
of being fond of the children. She's only a bigger child
herself. I've seen them all playing together like kit-
tens."
"Could the countess have had access to the poison
cupboard?" was his only comment.
Agatha Lindrum thought. "Not unless she knew
where the key was kept, and went to it before that
incident of Miss Bingham. Practically, I should say
it was so unlikely that one could almost say it was
impossible. Once or twice she was alone in the dining-
room, which connects with the surgery, but I was
always around when she was here—it would be some-
thing about some flowers, or a word from Lady Craig,
or some arrangement about tennis—I don't think she's
ever been to the house more than three times, all told."
"And Lady Craig?"
"She came often when we first moved in here, but
that's long ago now. And my brother always 'balances'
his poisons, as he calls it, every year, just before New
Year. Any poison that's been taken would have to have
been taken since then, and since then, Lady Craig has
never been in."
"And Miss Cornwall?"
"She has never been here. I hardly know her. For
some reason or other, Miss Cornwall won't make
friends with me."
The reason was not difficult to find, if one knew that
she was Miss Bingham's friend, or had been, when she
first came to the manor. Doubtless her employer had
245


CHAPTER XI
ONE of the main questions in Pointer's mind was
where the guilty person—who was not to be Miss
Bingham nor Miss Cornwall—could have obtained the
poison used for Ronald Craig. Dr. Lindrum's cupboard
was, on the whole, fairly inaccessible, or at least he
would assume so, for the time being. Of course, if the
doctor were himself the criminal, the supply was to his
hand. But Pointer did not think him the criminal. True,
he was in love with Countess Jura, he benefited under
Craig's will, but, apart from other reasons, Pointer had
a great admiration for country doctors. Not lightly did
he suspect of murder a member of what he consid-
ered a very selfless band of men. Lindrum would be
left till the last among his list of possibles. He decided
to turn his attention first of all to veterinary surgeons.
They are often amazingly careless about the safekeep-
ing of the poisons which their business necessitates
their having on the premises. Much more careless than
are medical men. Pointer directed that all "vets" in
England should be questioned as to any strangers who,
within the last six months, had either purchased poison
from them, or brought them animals to kill. Should
s
247


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
any of these newcomers to the surgeon resemble, even
slightly, any of Craig's circle, the chief inspector was
to be at once informed. He rather thought that a man
in town would have been chosen, and preferably a very
busy man with a large practice.
This message telephoned, he listened to the account
of the pasts, as so far uncovered, of all the people con-
nected, distantly or closely, with the crime. He learned
nothing that could suggest why a crime should have
been committed by any one of them, let alone a double
murder.
This did not discourage the man who was trying to
save Mildred Bingham from himself. He had many
ideas which only Craig's letter had made him set on
one side. First of all, he intended to question Lady
Craig as to the wrapper which had been mutilated, and
left in the paper basket in Craig's room, since hers were
the finger-prints found on it. Inexplicably mutilated,
according to Houghton. Pointer's own notion was that
the lady might merely have salvaged the stamps, which
had evidently been thrown away too, since there was a
tiny corner of one still on the paper in the Yard's pos-
session. But he wanted to find out more as to her exact
complicity in the Bingham-Cornwall combination—that
combination which Craig's codicil had made seem at
variance, both with his own preconceived notion, and
with the tale told by both women. Yet, if not for that
reason, why was Yseult Cornwall at the house?
Walking up to the manor house now, he passed the
tiny cottage occupied by Jones. Jones . . . Pointer
248


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
heard again the sound of the clipping shears that
seemed to affect the Russian girl so deeply; saw again
her manner when speaking to him just before she sent
him off with the message to Dr. Lindrum that had
brought such short-lived joy to the young medico;
noticed once more, in memory, the man's manner to
her, the something in it not at all of a servant's look
or bearing.
Jones, so said Godolphin, so said everybody, had
been a clerk in town. The firm for which he worked,
according to his own account, had been sold. There was
a record on the books of such a name, but as all the
staff had changed, it was not possible to find out more
without devoting an amount of time to the search which
seemed quite needless. But Jones's writing on his gar-
dener's tabs was not that of a clerk. True, in this day
of typewriters, that meant little, but the writing was
quite peculiarly unclerkly. The letters were those of a
man who formed them with the greatest difficulty,
Pointer would have said. And, to a lesser degree, the
same was true of the numbers written by him. The
door of the cottage stood open, and in the one ground-
floor room sat Jones. He was whittling at something
in his hand. Evidently one of the little figures of which
Godolphin had spoken. Pointer asked if he might come
in. Jones waved toward a chair opposite, and showed
Pointer his work. Just now he was carving a grotesque
and rather sinister figure, with a smiling face that
looked dangerous, one hand held out as in friendship,
the other hidden in the folds, with a knife in it.
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
room from there, and I knew that he must be ill because
the light burned all night, and people passed to and fro
across it."
They talked of the death.
"In the village, they say that Mr. Craig left word
who killed him," Jones wound up.
Pointer looked surprised. "They haven't told me
that"—and he turned the conversation.
His mind was working. Those figures . . . those
street scenes, and above all, that palace. They were pure
Russian. Pure Muscovy . . . those cupolas and tur-
rets. He studied the man in front of him. Typically
English, one would have said, with his long slightly
tanned face and blue-gray eyes, his gentle expression,
and rather diffident smile. Only, his lashes were quite
unusual in length and curve. They emphasized the
already noticeably dreamy look of the eyes. Jones spoke
English like an educated man, with no hint of accent
or of a foreign turn to his speech.
The two sat in silence. Pointer very carefully kept
himself, as far as possible, from liking or disliking any
persons whom he met in the course of one of his in-
quiries. But, just as he had disliked Miss Bingham in
spite of this, so now he was conscious of a strong
attraction to the young fellow beside him. He felt as
though some friendly dog were sitting next to him, as
though something that liked him were near. Looking
up from his contemplation of his boots, he met the
handy-man's eyes full and square. And the sensation
of friendliness deepened.
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"I envy you," Jones now said, putting his work
away. "A man doing the work he is best fitted for
is an enviable thing. Well, I shall be doing it when I
start out on the road next week with my 'Pilgrim's
Progress' puppets. As a rule, most of us are slaves."
"To the capitalists?" Pointer asked equably.
"To the mistake of wanting to be happy," Jones
said. "He knew! Bunyan knew!"
He waited for Pointer to precede him. At the gate,
they parted, Jones to do some chimney repairs at the
other end of the lane, Pointer ostensibly to go on up
to the manor, but he only made a loop behind the little
plot of ground, and then once more entered the tiny
cottage. Jones had not locked the door behind him.
Pointer now saw that there was no lock on it.
He looked over the two rooms very carefully. Every-
thing bore the marks of extreme poverty, genuine pov-
erty. The scanty articles were all of the cheapest. There
were no letters, no books save a well-thumbed paper
edition of the immortal tinker's immortal works. On
the hob was a jug of some dark liquid. Pointer sniffed
at it. Then he tasted it. It was a mixture of chocolate
and black coffee. In a varnished earthenware pot of
odd design was some thick, sour cream. In the cup-
board, which the man used as a larder, was the remains
of some scarlet-colored soup, slices of fermenting beet-
root lay in a bowl beside it. Borsch, in its most simpli-
fied form, and Russian chocolate . . . and, hanging
from a hook in the cupboard was a dried fish of a spe-
cies quite unknown to Pointer, though it looked to him
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
While he waited, he worked carefully and quickly
through the contents of her writing-table. There was
only one thing that interested him. In a locked box
inside a locked drawer, he found a letter. It was from
a certain Ilya Popoff, and was written from the Soviet
Embassy in London. The letter was some months old.
It offered Lady Craig ten times the fee she would get
from Ronald Craig, if she would contrive to break off
the just-announced engagement between Ronald Craig
and Countess Alexandra Ivanoff, and arrange instead
a marriage between the young lady and the writer.
Pointer photographed the letter, then replaced every-
thing as he had found it, and was apparently deep in
a book of travels when Lady Craig came in. "I'm so
glad you're back," she began at once. "I want a word
with you. A private word. An absolutely confidential
talk."
Pointer assured her that it would be confidential as
far as that was possible. "Any suspicions of yours, for
instance, will be absolutely so. But of course any facts
you tell me may have to be mentioned or proved at a
trial. But if possible we will not call you as a witness."
"Oh, it's nothing to do with Ronald Craig's death,"
she said at once with a certain overhaste. "It's merely
that I feel I can't bear the load of doubt any more."
There was a little silence while she lighted a cigarette
with fingers that shook. "It's only about Countess
Jura," she began again, "and the night that Mr. Craig
died. For the fact is she was out when I called her the
first time. Her bed hadn't been slept in, yet it was past
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
midnight. The second time when I went again she was
there—J had unlocked the door with a key from the
night nursery which fits it. I hadn't relocked it, of
course. I suppose she thought it was still locked. I
never thought of it, but burst in to tell her that she
must come at once. That Ronald was going—fast. She
was in the most extraordinary get-up. It was nothing
less than a disguise." Lady Craig's voice was very low,
but she spoke as one who had thought it all over and
who intended to tell the whole truth. "She looked like
a girl from some charity orphanage. Got up so that no
one would ever guess it was Countess Jura Ivanoff. A
scarf or handkerchief over her head hid almost all of
her face and all of her hair—and she had a shawl on
as well, I think—I seem to remember it tossed on a
chair. The sort of thing charwomen throw over their
shoulders in the East End. Now, chief inspector, why
had she disguised herself like that? Where had she been
that no one was to identify her?" Edyth Emily Craig
looked at the detective officer with a worried concen-
tration.
She might not be a generous woman, nor have much
in the way of sentiment in her make-up, but she struck
Pointer; she had so struck him all along as fundamen-
tally on his side of the line—as honest. The feeling
would not weigh the scales by a feather's weight on
her side should he find anything to contradict or even
to query it, but for the present he thought that she was
telling all she knew—not telling more.
"Didn't you ask where she had been?"
ft
255


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"I don't remember what I said. The fact that Mr.
Craig might be dying, even while I stood there, was the
only clear thought in my mind. Of course she ought to
be in the room. You know how servants' gossip
spreads."
"And what did she say when you spoke to her?"
"She burst out singing!" Lady Craig lowered her
voice again. "And when I repeated that Ronald was
dying and she must come quickly with me if she wanted
to see him alive, she—" Lady Craig paused—"she said
she wasn't coming. When I repeated 'He's dying. J tell
you!' she said a most extraordinary sentence in her
detached way: 'And why should he not die? Why
should he live to spoil my life?'"
"And you?" Pointer asked.
"I told her that unless she came with me at once, I
would send her out of the house by the first morning
train, back to her relatives. On that she threw off the;
disguise she had on and got into a dressing-gown and
came with me. Mr. Craig had sunk into a sort of stu-
por, and didn't know anyone, but at least she was in
the room for a moment. Not that she looked at him.
She refused to go near the bed."
"What did she do in the room?"
"She went over to the fireplace and stood there a
moment with her back to the bed, her hands to her
face, leaning on the mantelpiece as though she couldn't
bear to look at him. Then she turned round and almost
ran out of the room. But the point was she had been
there. Now, chief inspector, I have said nothing about
256


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
this because I thought I could find out by myself what
it was all about. But I can't. And as you're in the house
anyway, there is no reason, since you are evidently at
a standstill in the investigation, why you should not
do me this trifling service. I know the commissioner
very well," she said patronizingly, "and you may count
on a good word from me in return."
"Thank you," he said very seriously, "that's very
good of you. But about Mr. Craig's death. Is it a fact
that you yourself stand to lose financially by it?"
She lighted a fresh cigarette. "I think I had better
tell you the exact truth about the position as regards
myself and Countess Jura's marriage. Mr. Craig had
arranged with me to keep her down here until the mar-
riage, and was, of course, paying me for the care of
her. You see I bring out girls, and of course he made
it worth my while to stay down here just with her. On
the wedding day I was to have my fee and that would
have ended matters. As you say, I would usually expect
to lose heavily by Mr. Craig's death, but—I'm going to
be quite frank with you—as a matter of fact I shan't
lose. Because before he left town I was approached
by a young Russian, enormously wealthy, staying over
here with some friends of his at the Soviet Embassy
in London. He met Countess Jura and fell in love with
her. It's odd the effect she has on some people—men—
I can't see it myself; however, this young man prom-
ised me ten times my usual fee if I could help him
break off the match between the countess and Mr.
Craig. I wrote to him that I could not even consider
257


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
such a proposition. Should the engagement be broken
off, however, I would let him know, and we would then
take the matter up."
Pointer was amused—'inwardly—at the lady's way
of putting things. "So, as a matter of fact," he now
asked, "You were really backing up the countess in her
desire to be free?"
"I let her know that I would not oppose any efforts
she might make in that line," Lady Craig said, diplo-
matic as ever. "I was quite aware that the countess dis-
liked Mr. Craig, and only accepted him because she
really had no option. Her relations, the Kalkoffs, had
put it quite plainly to her before me. It was take my
cousin or leave their house, and lose their protection
and backing."
"Did you tell her of the proposition?"
"Certainly. That would only be fair. Though I can
hardly think she would marry a communist. He's the
son of some commissar or other, and I don't suppose
she really gave the matter another thought." Lady
Craig said this last a little too glibly. Her worried eyes
did not match her tone.
"And Mr. Craig had no idea of this young man's
existence?" Pointer had no doubt as to what the reply
would be.
"I believe she said something definite in a note she
gave him not long before he died. No one but herself
had seen it, so I can't say. Apparently Mr. Craig
destroyed it at once."
"And the young man's name?"
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
murder," Lady Craig explained elaborately. "Only her
dressing up like that and going out that night was
odd. And I dislike odd things. And I really thought you
might be glad of something definite to work on. But
as to Mr. Houghton—that's quite another matter.
That's intuition. I don't say that he did it. Only I do
say that he stands to benefit by his cousin's death, and
we none of us do. Mr. Osbourn? Mr. Osbourn was
probably shot to throw you off the trail. And it has
very evidently achieved its purpose. That is in strict
confidence, of course, but I don't like Guy Houghton.
I don't trust him. I hear he's already cutting down the
extra allowance Ronald Craig always paid toward the
upkeep of the manor . . . altogether, if any one of our
little circle killed those two men, it was quite obviously
Guy."
"Dogs seem very fond of him," he murmured.
"Dogs!" Lady Craig might have been an Arab
woman from her tone of contempt. "Dogs are fright-
fully overrated creatures, chief inspector."
"I shouldn't wonder," Pointer agreed. "By the way,
I suppose Countess Alexandra can describe Mr.
Popoff?"
"She says he's huge; red-haired; stammers slightly,
and has lost the little finger of his right hand."
Pointer eyed his shoes. "Sounds rather a noticeable
figure. Does she seem to share his feelings for her at
all?"
"I haven't the faintest idea. We never discuss him.
I merely told her of his offer and my reply. Telling her
260


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
that, of course, until she had definitely given up Mr.
Craig, I could not think of letting her see or correspond
with this other man."
"By the way," he asked suddenly, "what jewelry has
Mr. Craig given her?"
"As she refused to wear a ring, he gave her instead,
on their engagement, a very handsome string of pearls.
They're insured for three thousand; far below their
real value, of course. Probably he has given her other
things as well. But Countess J ura tells one very little
about herself. She'll talk for hours over such things as
how it is that violets know how to be violets, and why
they don't get muddled and come up cabbages, and so
on." Lady Craig looked her impatience. "But she never
talks of sensible things. And Ronald Craig was the last
man to speak of any gifts he gave. By the way, this
information too is in strict confidence, of course. I
mean about the pearls. It was only by chance I learned
their value; I don't know where she keeps them. I've
never seen her wear them. Not that the matter is of
any importance."
Pointer raised an inward eyebrow. He turned the
conversation now to Yseult Cornwall and Miss Bing-
ham. At first Lady Craig baulked, but finally she con-
fessed, with what seemed full details, to a plot which
agreed with the story told by the two women in all
particulars. Certainly she and Miss Cornwall had had
plenty of time, the early hours after Ronald Craig had
died, to go over it carefully. When pressed she acknowl-
edged that she had thrown the tea away. In a revul-
261


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
sion or convulsion of horror at the thought of what
might be believed to have been done by its means. The
chief inspector wasted no words on explaining to her
how impossible her action now made it to prove, or
disprove, the question of poison in the tea. Like the
Russian girl, but for a far less understandable reason,
Lady Craig had seen to it that no evidence could be
gleaned from the caddy. She refused to acknowledge
that she had really thought poison was in it, for it was
obviously impossible to connect Guy Houghton with
the tea, and above all things she wished, at least out-
wardly, to believe in the innocence of Miss Bingham,
and of the arrangement by which she paid Yseult
Cornwall's salary; a salary which Pointer had seen
booked in duplicate to Ronald Craig in the lady's
accounts. Finally she left the chief inspector, repeat-
ing that he would doubtless be glad of the Countess-
Jura-out-in-disguise-at-night puzzle to fill up his time.
He walked back to the inn, thinking over what he had
just found out, and just been told.
Lady Craig might stand to gain five thousand pounds
by the death of Ronald Craig, or at any rate, a hand-
some sum. Countess Jura, had she not married him,
would have had to hand back the pearls, and possibly
other valuable gifts as well. Pearls insured for three
thousand . . . not seen on her . . . sold or pawned?
Where had she been on the night when the man whom
she disliked, and yet to whom she was engaged, had
been poisoned? Whom met? Why in disguise? She had
asked the governess to change rooms with her, taking
262


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
Jones's jaw dropped. Jura gave a delighted giggle.
"I did not want him to be suspected, when he made
up his mind to follow me down here," she explained
quite needlessly.
"You are Mr. Popoff?" Pointer repeated to the
man.
"I was," Jones said quietly, "I was. But he was
a wealthy man, inheriting ill-gotten gains, and I have
nothing to do with him. I am Jones, a British subject,
a poor man owning nothing but what you see on me
and in my box in there."
"But he is a power!" the girl bent forward. "A
power for good. I have felt it. Others have felt it. He
cares. He really cares. There are so few who care for
others. Ilya, I mean Henry, does. We are going to
start off together teaching and preaching our ideas to
the world. This puppet show will help. It shows what
we mean. And every language can see. We are going
to go to Jerusalem, to Bethlehem!"
"A Russian idyll?" Pointer murmured. "A pair of
Russian lovers?"
"Lovers!" She drew herself up.
"Lovers!" Jones leaped to his feet.
"What an idea!" came from the girl. "Russian, yes;
but lovers, no. We are reformers, chief inspector. And
reformers are never in love." There was just a trace
of malice in the swift glance of her amber eyes that
shone in the moonlight like big soft lamps.
"Love has nothing to do with it," Jones said, with
uncalled-for vehemence. "As Alexandra Alexandrowna
267


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"It was from Russia!" she said finally, and her eyes
were full of tears. "From Holy Mother Russia!" She
turned to Pointer as she wiped her cheeks. "And now
he has destroyed it. You don't know what tosca means
to a Russian."
Pointer again had no time to learn.
"Were you two together the night before Mr. Craig
died?" he asked.
She nodded. "Yes, I came to meet this brute. I often
did. Or rather not to meet him, to hear what he had
to say. I like hearing what he has to say."
"And what time was it when you came here?"
She shrugged. "The moon was just over a big bank
of cloud. It was after Lady Craig and Miss Cornwall
and I went up to bed—after ten that is—"
"And you stayed till—?"
"Lady Craig would know. She came into my room
just as I got in. She always knows what time it is."
"Can you give me the hour when she got here, more
precisely?" Pointer asked Jones.
"The nightingale was singing in that bush," Jones
said dreamily. "She seemed like part of his song. She
herself is a melody—but badly played," he added
hastily.
"You came to Woodthorp because of her?"
"To save her from marrying a wealthy man. To
save her from herself. She needs poverty to show what
is in her. To find her soul—her beautiful soul."
Jura burst out passionately in Russian to say that
she would rather have had the yellow diamond than
272


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
of all the people connected with Ronald Craig's death,
a complete set of which Pointer had secured by many
effective devices. The next step was to have his men
turn their attention to all shops that sold dogs, while he
reserved the Lost Dogs' Home for himself, as most
probably the place where the dog came from. He was
right in his very obvious guess. A dog of just such
odd marking had been sold two months ago, on the very
day the accident had occurred, to a lady dressed all in
gray, who had lost her voice. Nothing more was re-
membered about her appearance, except that the sales-
woman thought she was very timid, even afraid of the
mongrel that she finally selected and took away with
her. No, she had not been particular. The beast was
only wanted for a watch dog in a lonely bungalow.
His men were told to drop dogs, and Pointer went
to see Miss Bingham and Miss Cornwall in their house
of unobtrusive detention. Each denied ever having been
to the veterinary near Victoria Station. Each wrote
out and signed the denial. The governess was very
quiet; Miss Bingham was not. The two refused to see
or speak to each other, the woman who, with her hus-
band, kept the apartment house, told Pointer, and the
chief inspector thought that they were sensible. Miss
Bingham detained him as he was leaving her, and
made another appeal to him.
"Chief inspector, everything would be right now, if
only you would say that you know I'm innocent. You
do know it. You must know it. You're far too clever
not to. Mrs. Ardmay has given way. I hold some let-
277


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"It's going to rain. Oh, what a nuisance! It is going
to rain!" Slowly she came back and picked up her glass
again, singing a little song under her breath.
Suddenly, the little ball swinging at her wrist on its
circlet of paste, opened, and out tumbled the hurriedly-
thrust-in wad, and a powder puff.
Houghton sprang to pick them up for her. He saw,
as he did so, that what she had been looking at was
four stamps gummed in a line on a backing of brown
paper, and folded into a compact little pad. The corner
of one stamp was missing.
"So that was why the address was torn off the wrap-
per," he said sarcastically. "The stamps were the at-
traction!"
She made a swift and quite unexpected swoop, and
had the stamps off his palm before he could have be-
lieved her inefficient-looking fingers could have stirred.
"I know why you want those," she said, white-faced
and blazing-eyed. "I know now how Ronald Craig was
murdered. The stamps were poisoned, and you poi-
soned them!"
He stared at her with a face of horror.
"Stamps . . . poisoned . . . Ronnie . . ." Then
he took a step forward as she tried to dodge out of the
room. He was between her and the door. "By God, if
there should be truth in it! If that was how he died!
Poisoned by you! Put out of the way by you! Out of
your way!"
"I didn't do it!" she retorted, "but you did! You!
You! No one knows but me, and I shall telephone to
280


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
"I understood you to say, Dr. Lindrum, when we
overtook you, that with you, in your bag, you have the
means of detecting the presence of arsenic in water?"
Lindrum, who was quite white, nodded.
"Yes—a bottle of hydrochloric acid. And, as Lady
Craig always keeps ammonia in the bathrooms, I can
make a simple test. An organic mixture would need
Reinsch's process, which would have to be done at
home."
Pointer left the room. He asked Match for a tumbler,
wiped it out, and put in about a tablespoonful of water
from the tap. Then, with a bottle of ammonia under
his arm he came back into the room again, where no
one had stirred, where one had the sensation that no
one had drawn a full breath.
Tearing off one of the stamps, Pointer laid it down
on the table, and damping the back, drew off the paper.
Then he washed the back of the stamp over and over
again, in the water in the tumbler, using a little camel-
hair brush that he took from its paper envelope.
"Colonel Godolphin was with me when I bought this
at the chemist's, and we had the man initial it. It's
sterilized—just in case. Will you test this water in the
glass for arsenic, doctor?"
Lindrum took the tumbler, poured in some hydro-
chloric acid, and drew a sharp breath. A yellow pre-
cipitate formed at once. "I'll add ammonia, and if it's
sulphide of arsenic, it will dissolve." He added some
drops of ammonia, and the precipitate dissolved with a
couple of swirls of the glass.
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THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
mine over that palm. I shall always have palms in my
rooms, Ilya, in memory of my escape. For if I had put
a full glass in place of his, he would have suspected.
Then I drank my glass—which had been his—for fear
that he would see that it was not full, and rinsed the
glass with soda water, so that he would feel comfort-
able. Then I waited. Oh, it is not nice to wait for poison
to take effect even on someone else. One feels quite ter-
rible. And one wonders if one has made a mistake, and
has taken it oneself, after all."
"Lies 1 lies! lies!" came from the floor in a tone of
unexpected energy. "Stand back, Lindrum—I may be
dying, but I'll see justice done before I do die. She
murdered Craig because she hated him, and knew that
from the value of the gifts he had given her, a string
of pearls he bought for eight thousand as a wonderful
bargain, and a diamond for which he paid three thou-
sand, she could exist quite comfortably for a time. She
had sold the pearls and would have to explain that to
him. So she poisoned him with poison from Lindrum's
cupboard probably, or else Jones got it for her from
some tin of weed-killer. You can see for yourself the
terms they are on. Craig suspected her at the very last,
and she realized that she must do something. She let
him find a half-sheet in Mildred Bingham's writing—a
sheet which, unfortunately, he did not send to me, or
we could prove it a forgery—but she got hold of it
while he lay dying, and destroyed it.
"She was all but too late to see him alive, as she had
rushed over to Osbourn's, shot him with the automatic
288


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
anyone in the other room out of his sight. Pointer
motioned Match into yet a third room when the now
unconscious man had been laid down on a couch, and
Lady Craig was getting together the things that the
doctor needed, getting them very quickly and efficiently.
"Match," he said, "why did you try to shield the
lady who was Mrs. Craig? I feel pretty sure that Mr.
Craig when he was dying told you Miss Bingham was
the poisoner, that he called out, 'She's poisoned me,' in
reference to that talk. Come now—the truth! It won't
hurt the lady in question, and we must clear it up."
Match fingered his chin. "In confidence, sir? I had,
and have a reason, but it's nothing to do with any
crime."
"In that case, in strict confidence," Pointer promised.
"Miss Bingham is my niece, sir," Match said in a
low voice. "Her father married his cook, you may
have heard? Well, my sister was that cook. Not that
she got much out of the marriage. But after Mr. Bing-
ham died, his people took a great interest in the one
child of the marriage. Then my sister died, and the
Binghams took Millie to live with them. I went to my
sister's funeral and had a talk with Miss Bingham, my
sister's sister-in-law. Nice lady. I could see that Millie
would have everything necessary. Not that they were
wealthy, but comfortably off, and besides, there was
the step up. I didn't want to harm the child, and as I
told them, I should never let her know who I was,
unless she needed me. Which she never has. But when
you asked me to put you all on her trail, knowing that
290


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
if he under-dosed Countess Alexandra's drink. But to
go back to Osbourn. I think the whole idea of murder-
ing both Craig and Osbourn arose in Houghton's mind
when Mr. Osbourn's confidential clerk died some six
months ago, and he saw a chance by a double crime to
get an enormous fortune."
"But he's a wealthy man!" Godolphin murmured,
protesting with himself rather than Pointer.
"As far as we know, sir. But not as far as I suspect.
The Paris Bourse has monthly settlements, and I think
that certain inquiries I am making will show that the
differences he would have had to meet the first of next
month would have been the final touch to some twelve
months of constant heavy losses."
They found out later that this was so, and that
Houghton had also been speculating in Spanish pesetas
with equally disastrous results.
"I think Mr. Houghton made a very careful and
elaborate plan for the death, first of his cousin, and
then of Mr. Osbourn, the only other witness to the
will. I fancy it would have been something really neat.
Slow poisoning of Mr. Craig was part of it, we know,
and probably something quite 'safe' for Mr. Osbourn.
A motor accident, say, or a drowning fatality when he
was down at Hove. But Mr. Craig was clever. He
grew suspicious, and Mr. Houghton had no time to let
his plan run on. He had to throw it aside, and act at
once when that letter from his cousin reached him. But
for that, I think Mr. Houghton would have presented
us with a really neat piece of work. But Mr. Craig
295


THE CRAIG POISONING MYSTERY
murdered the same night," Pointer resumed the story.
"This presupposed a man who benefits and who could
have slipped in a forged will. We find that both the
witnesses of the will are dead. One a natural death;
one murdered. All this suggests the one who benefits
under the found will, supposing he knew the supposed
maker of the will, had access to his writing and signa-
ture; knew what kind of pen and what kind of ink he
used. One who knew also that the clerk-witness was
dead, and had a specimen of his writing, or at least of
his signature too. Houghton fitted all this."
"He could experiment as many times as he liked
before he produced the perfect will, the one we have,"
Godolphin agreed. "No wonder there were lollipops for
everyone." The colonel was quite appreciative.
"Miss Lindrum said it was a forgery," Pointer spoke
slowly. "I thought that mere affection for the dead
man, unwillingness to see flaws in him."
"Countess Jura said it was a forgery, too," Godol-
phin gave a vexed laugh. "Out of the mouths of babes
. . . just as Emily Craig was right in maintaining that
alone of Craig's circle, Houghton was capable of mur-
der and had adequate motive for it. It sounded like
bunkum at the time. But she was right."
"And right too about the fact that his fondness for
dogs didn't count for much. Do you know, sir, when I
think of that poor tyke, taken from the Home, and
tied down in the middle of the road, and then slowly
driven over . . ." Pointer did not finish. Evidently his
thoughts were not sufficiently official.
301