Detectives and Young Adventurers: The Complete Short Stories. Agatha Christie

quite right in her head?’

      Miss Logan looked at them with obvious surprise.

      ‘Oh, yes. She is very religious – but there is nothing wrong with her.’

      Tommy held out the book he had taken from the table.

      ‘Is this yours, Miss Logan?’

      ‘Yes. It was one of my father’s books. He was a great doctor, one of the pioneers of serum therapeutics.’

      The old lady’s voice rang with pride.

      ‘Quite so,’ said Tommy. ‘I thought I knew his name.’ he added mendaciously. ‘This book now, did you lend it to Hannah?’

      ‘To Hannah?’ Miss Logan raised herself in bed with indignation. ‘No, indeed. She wouldn’t understand the first word of it. It is a highly technical book.’

      ‘Yes. I see that. Yet I found it in Hannah’s room.’

      ‘Disgraceful,’ said Miss Logan. ‘I will not have the servants touching my things.’

      ‘Where ought it to be?’

      ‘In the bookshelf in my sitting-room – or – stay, I lent it to Mary. The dear girl is very interested in herbs. She has made one or two experiments in my little kitchen. I have a little place of my own, you know, where I brew liqueurs and make preserves in the old-fashioned way. Dear Lucy, Lady Radclyffe, you know, used to swear by my tansy tea – a wonderful thing for a cold in the head. Poor Lucy, she was subject to colds. So is Dennis. Dear boy, his father was my first cousin.‘

      Tommy interrupted these reminiscences.

      ‘This kitchen of yours? Does anyone else use it except you and Miss Chilcott?’

      ‘Hannah clears up there. And she boils the kettle there for our early morning tea.’

      ‘Thank you, Miss Logan,’ said Tommy. ‘There is nothing more I want to ask you at present. I hope we haven’t tired you too much.’

      He left the room and went down the stairs, frowning to himself.

      ‘There is something here, my dear Mr Ricardo, that I do not understand.’

      ‘I hate this house,’ said Tuppence with a shiver. ‘Let’s go for a good long walk and try to think things out.’

      Tommy complied and they set out. First they left the cocktail glass at the doctor’s house, and then set off for a good tramp across the country, discussing the case as they did so.

      ‘It makes it easier somehow if one plays the fool,’ said Tommy. ‘All this Hanaud business. I suppose some people would think I didn’t care. But I do, most awfully. I feel that somehow or other we ought to have prevented this.’

      ‘I think that’s foolish of you,’ said Tuppence. ‘It is not as though we advised Lois Hargreaves not to go to Scotland Yard or anything like that. Nothing would have induced her to bring the police into the matter. If she hadn’t come to us, she would have done nothing at all.’

      ‘And the result would have been the same. Yes, you are right, Tuppence. It’s morbid to reproach oneself over something one couldn’t help. What I would like to do is to make good now.’

      ‘And that’s not going to be easy.’

      ‘No, it isn’t. There are so many possibilities, and yet all of them seem wild and improbable. Supposing Dennis Radclyffe put the poison in the sandwiches. He knew he would be out to tea. That seems fairly plain sailing.’

      ‘Yes,’ said Tuppence, ‘that’s all right so far. Then we can put against that the fact that he was poisoned himself – so that seems to rule him out. There is one person we mustn’t forget – and that is Hannah.’

      ‘Hannah?’

      ‘People do all sorts of queer things when they have religious mania.’

      ‘She is pretty far gone with it too,’ said Tommy. ‘You ought to drop a word to Dr Burton about it.’

      ‘It must have come on very rapidly,’ said Tuppence. ‘That is if we go by what Miss Logan said.’

      ‘I believe religious mania does,’ said Tommy. ‘I mean, you go on singing hymns in your bedroom with the door open for years, and then you go suddenly right over the line and become violent.’

      ‘There is certainly more evidence against Hannah than against anybody else,’ said Tuppence thoughtfully. ‘And yet I have an idea –’ She stopped.

      ‘Yes?’ said Tommy encouragingly.

      ‘It is not really an idea. I suppose it is just a prejudice.’

      ‘A prejudice against someone?’

      Tuppence nodded.

      ‘Tommy – did you like Mary Chilcott?’

      Tommy considered.

      ‘Yes, I think I did. She struck me as extremely capable and businesslike – perhaps a shade too much so – but very reliable.’

      ‘You didn’t think it was odd that she didn’t seem more upset?’

      ‘Well, in a way that is a point in her favour. I mean, if she had done anything, she would make a point of being upset – lay it on rather thick.’

      ‘I suppose so,’ said Tuppence. ‘And anyway there doesn’t seem to be any motive in her case. One doesn’t see what good this wholesale slaughter can do her.’

      ‘I suppose none of the servants are concerned?’

      ‘It doesn’t seem likely. They seem a quiet, reliable lot. I wonder what Esther Quant, the parlourmaid, was like.’

      ‘You mean, that if she was young and good-looking there was a chance that she was mixed up in it some way.’

      ‘That is what I mean,’ Tuppence sighed. ‘It is all very discouraging.’

      ‘Well, I suppose the police will get down to it all right,’ said Tommy.

      ‘Probably. I should like it to be us. By the way, did you notice a lot of small red dots on Miss Logan’s arm?’

      ‘I don’t think I did. What about them?’

      ‘They looked as though they were made by a hypodermic syringe,’ said Tuppence.

      ‘Probably Dr Burton gave her a hypodermic injection of some kind.’

      ‘Oh, very likely. But he wouldn’t give her about forty.’

      ‘The cocaine habit,’ suggested Tommy helpfully.

      ‘I thought of that,’ said Tuppence, ‘but her eyes were all right. You could see at once if it was cocaine or morphia. Besides, she doesn’t look that sort of old lady.’

      ‘Most respectable and God-fearing,’ agreed Tommy.

      ‘It is all very difficult,’ said Tuppence. ‘We have talked and talked and we don’t seem any nearer now than we were. Don’t let’s forget to call at the doctor’s on our way home.’

      The doctor’s door was opened by a lanky boy of about fifteen.

      ‘Mr Blunt?’ he inquired. ‘Yes, the doctor is out, but he left a note for you in case you should call.’

      He handed them the note in question and Tommy tore it open.

       Dear Mr Blunt,

       There is reason to believe that the poison employed was Ricin, a vegetable toxalbumose of tremendous potency. Please keep this to yourself for the present.

      Tommy let the note drop, but picked it up quickly.

      ‘Ricin,’ he murmured. ‘Know anything about it, Tuppence? You used to be rather well up in these