The Avenging Chance and Other Mysteries From Roger Sheringham's Casebook by Anthony Berkeley

Author:Anthony Berkeley [Berkeley, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781932009170
Publisher: Crippen & Landru Publishers
Published: 2019-05-28T04:00:00+00:00

Part 2

“How do you make out that it was murder, sir?” asked Willis. “I’ll tell you,” said Moresby. “There were a number of curious little facts, you remember, that you wouldn’t expect in a suicide case. The doctor ringing up, the washed glass, still more the washed bottle, the burnt note to his wife, the open chloroform jar on the surgery counter as if he’d been trying to give himself the proper antidote to his own poison; the whole place reeked of chloroform. But what put me on to the idea that things mightn’t be so simple as they looked was his changing his mind from prussic acid to strychnine. Why on earth should he change his mind from a quick, not too painful poison to the most painful of the whole lot? The only reason I could see was that he had the strychnine in him already, knew his case was hopeless, and intended to finish himself off less painfully; but the strychnine convulsions caught him and stopped him getting at the prussic acid at all."

“Coo!” said Detective-Inspector Willis unprofessionally.

“Somebody wanted Dr. Carruthers out of the way, Willis — someone who knew that there was quite a possibility of him getting tetanus, and knew, too, that the symptoms of strychnine poisoning are pretty well the same as those of tetanus. I haven’t the least doubt that the doctor’s death was intended to be put down to tetanus; and with his own fears so widely expressed, it wasn’t anticipated that there’d be any trouble about the death certificate. But just to make things certain, that letter addressed to his wife was left somewhere handy, to be found if it was wanted and not if it wasn’t.”

“But — wasn’t it a genuine letter?”

“Genuine so far as the doctor had written it but not genuine so far as its meaning went It was the back page tom off a longer letter, if I’m right and it referred to something quite different and I shouldn’t be at all surprised if it wasn’t the possession of that letter, and the realization of what those words could be made to imply, that was responsible for the doctor’s death.”

“But the letter to the coroner, sir, and him ringing you up. Oh, I see. You mean it wasn’t him on the telephone at all?”

“Oh, yes it was. I’ll tell you what happened. The doctor came in, had his lunch, poured himself out a glass of beer, and drank it off. It wasn’t till he’d got it down that he realized how bitter it was. ‘That’s funny,’ he thinks. ‘Tastes almost as if there’s something in it And yet it’s a new bottle. Well, well.’ And he takes something to get rid of the bitter taste — a bit of cheese, perhaps. Then he thinks: ‘Now’s my chance. Servants out Leila’s out I’ll have a scout round.’ Upstairs he runs, and starts going through his wife’s dressing-table drawers.”

“Why ever did he do that sir?”

“Because he was her husband,

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