The Charing Cross Mystery, J. S. Fletcher [portable ebook reader .txt] 📗

arranged and tied up with tape. Unloosing the fastenings and rapidly spreading the envelopes out on the table, he suddenly put his finger on an address.

“There you are, Mr. Hetherwick,” he exclaimed. “That’s just what I expected to find out⁠—though I certainly didn’t think we should discover it so quickly. This man has lived at Sellithwaite some time or other. Look there, at this address⁠—‘Mr. James Granett, 7, Victoria Terrace, Sellithwaite, Yorkshire.’ Of course!⁠—that’s how he came to know and be with Hannaford. They were old acquaintances. See⁠—there are several letters.”

Hetherwick took two or three of the envelopes in his hand and looked closely at them. He perceived at once what Matherfield had not noticed.

“Just so!” he said. “But what’s of far more importance is the date. Look at this⁠—you see? That shows that Granett was living at Sellithwaite ten years ago⁠—it was of that time that Hannaford was talking to him in the train.”

“Oh, we’re getting at something!” assented Matherfield. “Now we’ll put everything back, and I’ll take this box away and examine it thoroughly at leisure.” He replaced the various articles, twisted a cord round the box, knotted it, and turned to the dead man’s clothes, lying neatly folded on a chair close by. “I haven’t had a look at the pockets of those things yet,” he continued. “I’ll just take a glance⁠—you never know.”

Hetherwick again watched in silence. There was little of interest revealed until Matherfield suddenly drew a folded bit of paper from one of the waistcoat pockets. Smoothing it out he uttered a sharp exclamation.

“Good!” he said. “See this? A brand new five pound note! Now, I’ll lay anything he hadn’t had that on him long! Got it that night, doubtless. And⁠—from whom?”

“I should say Hannaford gave it to him,” suggested Hetherwick.

But Matherfield shook his head and put the note in his own pocket.

“That’s a definite clue!” he said, with emphasis. “I can trace that!”

IX The Medicine Bottle

Hetherwick went away from the sordid atmosphere of Fligwood’s Rents wondering more than ever at this new development; he continued to wonder and to speculate all the rest of that day and most of the next. That Granett’s sudden death had followed on Hannaford’s seemed to him a sure proof that there was more behind this mystery than anybody had so far conceived of. Personally, he had not the slightest doubt that whoever poisoned Hannaford had also poisoned Granett. And he was not at all surprised when, late in the afternoon of the day following upon that of the visit to Dorking, Matherfield walked into his chambers with a face full of news.

“I know what you’re going to tell me, Matherfield,” said Hetherwick, motioning his visitor to an easy chair. “The doctors have held a postmortem on Granett, and they find that he was poisoned.”

Matherfield’s face fell; he was robbed of his chance of a dramatic announcement.

“Well, and that’s just what I was going to tell you,” he answered. “That’s what they do say. Same doctors that performed the autopsy on Hannaford. Doesn’t surprise you?”

“Not in the least,” replied Hetherwick. “I expected it. They’re sure of it?”

“Dead certain! But, as in Hannaford’s case, they’re not certain of the particular poison used. However⁠—also as in his case⁠—they’ve submitted the whole case to two big swells in that line, one of ’em the man that’s always employed by the Home Office in these affairs, and the other that famous specialist at St. Martha’s Hospital⁠—I forget his name. They’ll get to work; they’re at work on the Hannaford case now. Difficult job, I understand⁠—some very subtle poison, probably little known. However, I believe we’ve got a clue about it.”

“A clue⁠—about the poison?” exclaimed Hetherwick. “What clue?”

“Well, this,” answered Matherfield. “After you’d gone away from Fligwood’s Rents yesterday afternoon, and while I was making arrangements for the removal of the poor chap’s body, I took another careful look round the room. Now, if you noticed things as closely as all that, you may have observed that Granett’s bed was partly in a sort of alcove⁠—the head part. In the corner of that alcove, or recess, just where he could have set them down by reaching his arm out of bed, I found a bottle and a glass tumbler. The bottle was an ordinary medicine bottle⁠—not a very big one. It had the cork in it and about an inch of fluid, which, on taking out the cork, I found to be whisky, and, I should say by the smell, whisky of very good quality. But I noticed that there was the very slightest trace of some sort of sediment at the bottom. There was a trace of similar sediment in the bottom of the tumbler. Now, of course, I put these things up most carefully, sealed them, and handed them over to the doctors. For it was very evident to me⁠—reconstructing things, you know⁠—that Granett had mixed himself a drink, a nightcap, if you like to call it so, from that bottle on getting into bed, and then had put bottle and glass down by his bed-head, in the corner. And just as I mean to trace that five-pound note, Mr. Hetherwick, so I mean to trace that bottle!”

“How?” asked Hetherwick, closely interested. “And to what, or whom?”

“To the chemists where it came from,” answered Matherfield. “It came from some chemist’s, and I’ll find which!”

“There are hundreds of chemists in London,” said Hetherwick. “It’s a stiff proposition.”

“It’s going to be done, anyway,” asserted Matherfield. “And it mayn’t be such a stiff job as it at first looks to be. See here! There were labels on that bottle, both of ’em torn and defaced, it’s true, but still with enough on them to narrow down the field of inquiry. I’ve had the face of the bottle photographed⁠—here’s a print of the result.”

He brought out a photographic print, roughly finished and mounted on a card, and handed it over to Hetherwick, who took it to the light and examined it carefully. It