The Craig Poisoning Mystery (Musaicum Murder Mysteries). Dorothy Fielding

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 returned 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 cigarettes, I see. Then his tooth-brush and tin of tooth-paste from the dressing-room. His tumbler and water- bottle"—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?" Godolphin 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 The 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.

      "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 accounts for the ink splashing toward the bed-end, a curious point which had rather bothered me. By love!" Godolphin hung over the coverlet a second, his lips tight, "I don't wonder Houghton feels as he does I Something very nasty was going on here in this charming 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?"

      "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 doctoring. 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 implicated—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 plays the game. He's wealthy. On the stock exchange, and engaged to a charming girl, one of the Somerset Hawthornes." Godolphin caught sight of the clock. "Suppose we have breakfast? I had only started mine. By the time it's over, the doctors may be able to give us a word to go on—something official. Or are there any clues that will melt away?" Pointer thought not.

      "As to helping Houghton hunt on for that enclosure that never reached him, he might as well search for the torn-off postscript, to my mind," Godolphin went on.

      Pointer agreed.

      "I'll break it to him gently"—and Godolphin left the room. The chief inspector beckoned to the constable on the landing and had him lock himself into Craig's room. Outside, Pointer stood a moment looking about him. A passage ran to a door at its end, others opened off it. Beside the end door he found a staircase. As he was about to descend it he heard voices in the room, tense to the point of anger and yet low. They were women's voices. One was Lady Craig's:

      "There's quite a good train at eleven. I shall explain to the colonel that you want to get another post at once, so as not to be associated in people's minds with this tragedy—at least not more than can be helped. The explanation is reasonable. That is all I wanted to see you about." A chair was pushed back.

      Pointer came up from the staircase as though from below just as the door opened and Lady Craig came out.

      "I'm getting the geography of the wing in my head," he said. "May I look in here?"

      "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 considered 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 another 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—?"

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