Agatha Christie - Hickory Dickory Dock

"One-oh, two or three of the boys were arguing-"

"What were they arguing about?"

"Murder, and ways of doing it. Poisoning in particular."

"Who was concerned in the discussion?"

"Well, I think Colin and Nigel started it, and then Len Bateson chipped in and Patricia was there too-"

"Can you remember, as closely as possible, what was said on that occasion-how the argument went?" Jean Tomlinson reflected a few moments.

"Well, it started, I think, with a discussion on murdering by poison, saying that the difficulty was to get hold of the poison, that the murderer was usually traced by either the sale of the poison or having an opportunity to get it, and Nigel said that wasn't at all necessary. He said that he could think of three distinct ways by which anyone could get hold of poison, and nobody would ever know they bad it. Len Bateson said then that he was talking through his hat.

Nigel said no he wasn't, and he was quite prepared to prove it. Pat said that of course Nigel was quite ri lit. She said that either Len or Colin could probably help themselves to poison any time they liked from a hospital, and so could Celia, he said.

And Nigel said that wasn't what he meant at all.

He said it would be noticed if Celia took anything from the Dispensary. Sooner or later they'd look for it and find it gone. And Pat said no, not if she took the bottle and emptied some stuff out and filled it up with somethin, else. Colin laughed then and said there'd be very serious complaints from the patients one of these days, in that case. But Nigel said of course he didn't mean special opportunities. He said that he himself, who hadn't got any particular access, either as a doctor or dispenser, could jolly well get three different kinds of poison by three different methods. Len Bateson said, 'All right, then, but what are your methods?" and Nigel said, 'I shall't tell you, now, but I'm prepared to bet you that within three weeks I can produce samples of three deadly poisons here," and Len Bateson said he'd bet him a fiver he couldn't do it."

"Well?" said Inspector Sharpe, when Jean stopped.

"Well, nothing more came of it, I think, for some time and then, one evening, in the Common Room, Nigel said, "Now then, chaps, look here-I'm as good as my word," and he threw down three things on the table. He had a tube of hyoscine tablets, and a bottle of tincture digitalin and a tiny bottle of morphine tartrate." The Inspector said sharply, "Morphine tartrate. Any label on it?"

"Yes, it had St. Catherine's Hospital on it. I do remember that because, naturally, it caught my eye."

"And the others?"

"I didn't notice. They were not hospital stores, I should say."

"What happened next?"

"Well, of course, there was a lot of talk and jawing, and Len Bateson said, 'Come now, if you'd done a murder this would be traced to you soon enough," and Nigel said, "Not a bit of it. I'm a layman, I've no connection with any clinic or hospital and nobody will connect me for one moment with these. I didn't buy them over the counter," and Colin McNabb took his pipe out of his teeth and said, "No, you'd certainly not be able to do that. There's no chemist would sell you those three things without a doctor's prescription." Anyway, they argued a bit but in the end Len said he had to pay up. He said, 'I can't do it now, because I'm a bit short of cash, but there's no doubt about it; Nigel's proved his point," and then he said, "What are we going to do with the guilty spoils?" Nigel grinned and said we'd better get rid of them before any accidents occurred, so they emptied out the tube and threw the tablets on the fire and emptied out the powder from the morphine tartrate and threw that on the fire too. The tincture of digitalis they poured down the lavatory."

"And the bottles?"

"I don't know what happened to the bottles should think they probably were just thrown into the waste paper basket."

"But the poison itself was destroyed?"

"Yes, I'm sure of that. I saw it."

"And that was-when?"

"About, oh just over a fortnight ago I think."

"I see. Thank you, Miss Tomlinson." Jean lingered, clearly wanting to be told more.

"D'you think it might be important?"

"It might be. One can't tell." Inspector Sharpe remained brooding for a few moments. Then he had Nigel Chapman in again.

"I've just had a rather interesting statement from Miss Jean Tomlinson," he said.

"Ah! Who's dear Jean been poisoning your mind against? Me?"

"She's been talking about poison, and in connection with you, Mr. Chapman."

"Poison and me? What on earth?"

"Do you deny that some weeks ago you had a wager with Mr. Ba-teson about methods of obtaining poison in some way that could not be traced to you?"

"Oh, that!" Nigel was suddenly enlightened. "Yes, of course! Funny I never thought of that. I don't even remember Jean being there. But you don't think it could have any possible significance, do you?"

"Well, one doesn't know. You admit the fact, then?"

"Oh, yes, we were arguing on the subject.

Colin and Len were being very superior and high-handed about it so I told them that with a little ingenuity anyone could get hold of a suitable supply of poison-in fact I said I could think of three distinct ways of doing it, and I'd prove my point, I said, by putting them into practice."

"Which you then proceeded to do?"

"Which I then proceeded to do, Inspector."

"And what were those three methods, Mr. Chapman?" Nigel put his head a little on one side.

"Aren't you asking me to incriminate myself?" he said. "Surely you ought to warn me?"

"It hasn't come to warning you yet, Mr. Chapman, but, of course, there's no need for you to incriminate yourself, as you put it. In fact you're perfectly entitled to refuse my questions if you like to do so."

"I don't know that I want to refuse." Nigel considered for a moment or two, a slight smile playing round his lips.

"Of course," he said, "what I did was, no doubt, against the law. You could haul me in for it if you liked. On the other hand, this is a murder case and if it's got any bearing on poor little Celia's death I suppose I ought to tell you."

"That would certainly be the sensible point of view to take."

"All right then. I'll talk."

"What were these three methods?"

"Well." Nigel leant back in his chair. "One's always reading in the papers, isn't one, about doctors losing dangerous drugs from a car? People are being warned about it?"

"Yes."

"Well, it occurred to me that one very simple method would be to go down to the country, follow a G.P. about on his rounds, when occasion offered-just open the car, look in the doctor's case, and extract what you wanted. You see, in these country districts, the doctor doesn't always take his case into the house. It depends what sort of patient he's going to see."

"Well?"

"Well, that's all. That's to say that's all for method number one. I had to sleuth three doctors until I had found a suitably careless one. When I did, it was simplicity itself. The car was left outside a farmhouse in a rather lonely spot. I opened the door, looked at the case, took out a tube of hyoscine hydrobromide, and that was that."

"Ah! And method number two?"

"That entailed just a little pumping of dear Celia, as a matter of fact. She was quite unsuspicious.

I told you she was a stupid girl, she had no idea what I was doing. I simply talked a bit about the mumbo jumbo Latin of doctors' prescriptions, and asked her to write me out a prescription in the way a doctor writes it, for tincture digitalin. She obliged quite unsuspecting. All I had to do' after that was to find a doctor in the classified directory, living in a far off district of London, add his initials or slightly illegible signature. I then took it to a chemist in a busy part of London, who would not be likely to be familiar with that particular doctor's signature, and I received the prescription made up without any difficulty at all. Digitatin is prescribed in quite large quantities for heart cases and I had written out the prescription on hotel notepaper."