Agatha Christie - Hickory Dickory Dock

"Very ingenious," said Inspector Sharpe, drily.

"I am incriminating myself! I can hear it in your voice."

"And the third method?"

Nigel did not reply at once. Then he said, "Look here. What exactly am I letting myself in for?"

"The theft of drugs from an unlocked car is larceny," said Inspector Sharpe. "Forging a prescription-"

Nigel interrupted him. "Not exactly forging, is it? I mean, I didn't obtain any money by it, and it wasn't actually an imitation of any doctor's signature. I mean, if I write a prescription and write H. R. Jarmes on it, you can't say I'm forging any particular Dr. James's name, can you?" He went on with rather a wry smile.

"You see what I mean. I'm sticking my neck out. If you like to turn nasty over this-well-I'm obviously for it. On the other hand, if…"

"Yes, Mr. Chapman, on the other hand?" Nigel said with a sudden passion, "I don't like murder. It's a beastly, horrible thing. Celia, poor little devil, didn't deserve to be murdered. I want to help.

But does it help? I can't see that it does.

Telling you my peccadilloes, I mean."

"The police have a good deal of latitude, Mr. Chapman. It's up to them to look upon certain happenings as a light-hearted prank of an irresponsible nature. I accept your assurance that you want to help in the solving of this girl's murder. Now please go on, and tell me about your third method."

"Well," said Nigel, "we're coming fairly near the bone now. It was a bit more risky than the other two, but at the same time it was a great deal more fun. You see, I'd been to visit Celia once or twice in her Dispensary. I knew the lay of the land there…"

"So you were able to pinch the bottle out of the cupboard?"

"No, no, nothing as simple as that. That wouldn't have been fair from my point of view. And, incidentally, if it had been a real murder-that is, if I had been stealing the poison for the purpose of murder-it would probably be remembered that I had been there. Actually, I hadn't been in Celia's Dispensary for about six months. No, I knew that Celia always went into the back room at eleven fifteen for what you might call 'evenses', that is, a cup of coffee and a biscuit. The girls went in turn, two at a time. There was a new girl there who had only just come and she certainly wouldn't know me by sight. So what I did was this.

I strolled into the Dispensary with a white coat on and a stethoscope round my neck. There was only the new girl there and she was busy at the Outpatients' hatch. I strolled in, went along to the poison cupboard, took out a bottle, strolled round the end of the partition, said to the girl, "What strength adrenalin do you keep?" She told me and I nodded, then I asked her if she had a couple of veganin as I had a terrific hangover. I swallowed them down and strolled out again. She never had the least suspicion that I wasn't somebody's houseman or a medical student. It was child's play. Celia never even knew I'd been there."

"A stethoscope," said Inspector Sharpe curiously.

"Where did you get a stethoscope?" Nigel grinned suddenly.

"It was Len Bateson's," he said. "I pinched it."

"From this house?"

"Yes.

"So that explains the theft of the stethoscope. That was not Celia's doing."

"Good Lord, no! Can't see a kleptomaniac stealing a stethoscope, can you?"

"What did you do with it afterwards?"

"Well, I had to pawn it," said Nigel apologetically.

"Wasn't that a little hard on Bateson?"

"Very hard on him. But without explaining my methods, which I didn't mean to do, I couldn't ten him about it. However," added Nigel cheerfully, "I took him out not long after and gave him a hell of a party one evening."

"You're a very irresponsible young man," said Inspector Sharpe.

"You should have seen their faces," said Nigel, his grin widening, "when I threw down those three lethal preparations on the table and told them I had managed to pinch them without anybody being wise as to who took them."

"What you're telling me is" said the Inspector, "that you had three means of poisoning someone by three different poisons and that in each case the poison could not have been traced to you." Nigel nodded.

"That's fair enough," he said. "And given the circumstances it's not a very pleasant thing to admit. But the point is, that the poisons were all disposed of at least a fortnight ago or loner."

"That is what you think, Mr. Chapman, but it may not really be so."

Nigel stared at him. "What do you mean?"

"You had these things in your possession, how long?" Niel considered.

"Well, the tube of hyoscine about ten days, I suppose. The morphine tartrate, about four days. The tincture digitalin I'd only got that very afternoon."

"And where did you keep these things-the hyoscine hydrobromide and the morphine tartrate, that is to say?"

"In the drawer of my chest-of-drawers, pushed-to the back under my socks."

"Did anyone know you had it there?"

"No. No, I'm sure they didn't." There had been, however, a faint hesitation in his voice which Inspector Sharpe noticed, but for the moment he did not press the point.

"Did you tell anyone what you were doing? Your methods? The way you were going about these things?"

"No. At least-no, I didn't."

"You said, "at least," Mr. Chapman."

"Well, I didn't actually. As a matter of fact, I was going to tell Pat, then I thought she wouldn't approve. She's very strict, Pat is, so I fobbed her off."

"You didn't tell her about stealing the stuff from the doctor's car, or the prescriptions, or the morphia from the hospital?"

"Actually, I betold her afterwards about the digitalin, that I'd written a prescription and got a bottle from the chemist, and about masquerading as a doctor at the hospital. I'm sorry to say Pat wasn't amused. I didn't tell her about pinching things from a car. I thought she'd go up in smoke."

"Did you tell her you were going to destroy this stuff after you'd won the bet?"

"Yes. She was all worried and het up about it.

Started to insist I take the things back or something like that."

"That course of action never occurred to you yourself?"

"Good Lord no! That would have been fatal; it would have landed me in no end of a row. No, we three just chucked the stuff on the fire and poured it down the loo and that was that. No harm done."

"You say that, Mr. Chapman, but it's quite possible that harm was done."

"How can it have been, if the stuff was chucked away as I tell you?"

"Has it ever occurred to you, Mr. Chapman, that someone might have seen where you put those things, or found them perhaps, and that someone might have emptied morphia out of the bottle and replaced it with something else?"

"Good Lord no!" Nigel stared at him. "I never thought of anything of that kind. I don't believe it."

"But it's a possibility, Mr. Chapman."

"But nobody could possibly have known."

"I should say," said the Inspector, drily, "that in a place of this kind a great deal more is known than you yourself might believe possible."

"Snooping, you mean?"

"Yes."

"Perhaps you're right there."

"Which of the students might normally, at any time, be in your room?"

"Well, I share it with Len Bateson. Most of the men here have been in it now and again. Not the girls, of course. The girls aren't supposed to come to the bedroom floors on our side of the house. Propriety. Pure living."

"They're not supposed to, but they might do so, I suppose?"

"Anyone might," said Nigel. "In the daytime. The afternoon, for instance, there's nobody about."

"Does Miss Lane ever come to your room?"

"I hope you don't mean that the way it sounds, Inspector. Pat comes to my room sometimes to replace some socks she's been darning. Nothing more than that."