‘How do you mean?’ asked his sister. ‘And how do you know what the classic formula is?’
‘I sometimes have a crime in one of my novels, so I need to know such things. Three points arise before a criminal can be convicted. The person concerned must be shown to have had the means, the opportunity and (to a much lesser extent) a motive for committing the crime.’
‘Why “to a lesser extent”? I should have thought the motive was of supreme importance.’
‘Well, no, because what would be a valid motive to one person would offer no temptation, or very little, to another. Let us take a very simple example: let us suppose that you and Gamaliel are equally hungry; really hungry, I mean. You come to a baker’s shop in which you happen to know that the proprietor is also the only counter-hand. As you are both approaching the shop you see him chasing a small boy down the street. The shop door is open. You—both of you—are almost starving. What happens? You tell me, honestly, what happens.’
‘Well,’ said Bluebell, ‘I think you have picked a heavily loaded and very unfair example, but—well, yes, I suppose you are right. Gamaliel would step inside the shop and grab all the bread and buns that he could get hold of: I should not.’
‘Yet my premise is that you are just as hungry as he is.’
‘Gamaliel needs food far more than I do, so I still don’t think it’s a fair example. What does Dame Beatrice think?’
‘I think that if Gamaliel were starving and you had no food to give him, you would steal it. Your motive, in such a case, would be strong enough for that. But one can argue about motive indefinitely. What we have to consider in the far from hypothetical case which has come under our notice, is to what extent we can agree that there is a prima facie case in the matter of Margaret Denham.’
‘She had the means,’ said Parsifal. ‘Do not misunderstand me. I do not believe the girl is guilty. All the same, the kind of plant which appears to have wrought the mischief is known to have been growing in the garden of the house where she was living.’
‘You would have to prove that the root or roots of that particular plant had been dug up at the requisite time,’ said Bluebell, ‘and, moreover, that Margaret was the person who did the excavating.’
‘So “opportunity” comes under two separate headings,’ said Garnet. ‘One: when had she the opportunity to do the digging? That raises another question, you know. The majority of householders, and that includes these cottagers, are very proud of their gardens, I’m sure Mrs Antrobus or her husband (if she has one) would have noticed at once that the plants of monkshood had been tampered with and one or more of them removed.’
‘An excellent point,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘and one which must be investigated further.’
‘Further? Oh, but the police must have gone into the matter. My second point,’ Garnet went on, ‘is that, granted she had the poisonous root at hand and, for the sake of argument, granted that she had murder in mind, it would have to be established that she had the opportunity to substitute a lethal jar of condiment for an innocuous one.’
‘I thought the cook’s evidence covered that point,’ said Parsifal. ‘The murderer had only to pop into the kitchen while the cook was upstairs resting after lunch and the kitchenmaid was in the scullery washing the dishes and with a closed door between her and the kitchen, for the exchange of jars to be effected in only a few seconds and in perfect safety.’
‘But the murderer need not have been this girl,’ Bluebell protested. ‘Anybody living or staying in the house, or even Mattie or Redruth Lunn from outside it, could have had the same opportunity.’
‘The means would have been simple enough to come by,’ Parsifal conceded. ‘Mrs Antrobus is far from being the only person hereabouts to have monkshood in her garden. Come to think of it, we’ve got several plants of that genus in our own front garden.’
‘But we don’t—I mean, we didn’t until this morning know that the cook and the kitchenmaid would be out of the kitchen at a definite and well-established time,’ said Garnet.
‘We might find that hard to prove,’ said Bluebell. ‘Fiona most certainly would have known, and there is no way of proving that she had not told us.’
‘Even if she herself denied telling us?’ said Parsifal.
‘The law would argue that she was lying in order to protect the people who had taken her in when she had nowhere else to go,’ said Garnet.
‘But what motive could any of us have for murdering our grandmother? The very question sounds like a music hall joke,’ protested Bluebell.
‘We may have sufficient motive attached to us when the Will is read,’ said Garnet, with a short laugh in which there was no hilarity.
‘Oh, gracious me! I never thought of that,’ said Bluebell.
Her husband said, in his weak and gentle voice, ‘It was the first thought which came into my head. Of course, it depends upon how the money has been left which will determine on which of us the most suspicion falls, for it would be useless for us to claim that we had no idea of what was in the Will, although that would be the truth.’
‘But the girl had a motive, too, remember, ’said Garnet.
‘Revenge for wrongful dismissal? Revenge is not usually sought except by the criminal classes, the gangsters and those terrible people in Ireland. Besides, however unjustly the girl herself feels she has been treated, it was not really wrongful dismissal. Ruby Pabbay has been given the status of a member of the family and that entitles her to at least a semblance of respect from the servants of that family. Suppose she had used the same opprobrious terms to insult our mother or Fiona?’ argued his sister.
‘Ah, but she wouldn’t, don’t you see,’ said Garnet eagerly. ‘Class distinctions may be undemocratic, but they still exist, particularly in remote districts such as this. Margaret Denham would no more have spoken to mother or Fiona in such terms than she would have used them to a duchess.’
‘Talking of means,’ said Dame Beatrice, who had been listening with interest to the debate, ‘I wonder how many people knew Mrs Plack’s recipe for making the mixture?’
‘Well, as Margaret had been kitchenmaid until she was dismissed for insolence, she certainly must have known it,’ said Bluebell. ‘But here we are at the hotel. I beg you to put us down here, Dame Beatrice. We have a very short walk home.’
Dame Beatrice perceived that the three wanted to carry on the conversation among themselves. ‘You will at least allow me to offer you a glass of sherry at the hotel bar,’ she said.
‘A pint would be preferable,’ said Garnet, ‘but the other two don’t drink, so I will wait until I get home where Gamaliel, good boy, will have anchored a can or a bottle in the stream to cool it the way I like.’
The funeral of Romula Leyden had been attended by few outside her family and almost the same collection of people was seated, once again in the dining-room, to hear the family solicitor read aloud her last Will and testament.
‘I ought to tell you,’ he said, as a preliminary, ‘that the Will differs in some respects from the one made a year ago, the contents of which may or may not be known to you.’ He looked around at the faces of the company. He was a student of human nature, had a large and lucrative practice, a slight streak of sadistic humour and, above all things, he enjoyed reading aloud the testamentary dispositions of the sometimes unpredictable and occasionally eccentric wealthy. ‘I will add, in fairness to you all before I begin to read, that, owing to the very difficult position in which we all find ourselves, my partners and I are not prepared to submit this Will to probate until Mrs Leyden’s murderer is apprehended and his or her guilt proved.’
‘But that is absolute nonsense!’ exclaimed Maria. ‘I know a guilty party is not permitted to benefit by the death of a testator, but you surely cannot imagine that one of us is my mother’s murderer!’