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

Then, if he’d any sense, he’d lead that man a bit of a dance, and eventually double on him. No!⁠—I should say Baseverie’s back here in town! That’s about it, Mr. Hetherwick. But what’s this? Here’s one of my men coming to meet us. I left word where I should be found.”

Hetherwick looked up and saw a man, who was obviously a policeman in plain clothes, coming towards them. He was a quiet-looking, stodgy-faced man, but he had news written all over his plain face.

“Well, Marler?” inquired Matherfield as they met. “Got something?”

There was nobody about in that quiet corner of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, yet the man looked round as if anxious to escape observation, and he spoke in a whisper.

“I believe I’ve got that chemist!” he answered. “Leastways, it’s like this. There’s a chemist I tried this morning⁠—name of Macpherson, in Maiden Lane. I showed him the facsimiles of the lost labels on the medicine bottles, and asked him if he could give me any information. He’s a very cautious sort of man, I think; he examined the facsimiles a long time, saying nothing. Then he said he supposed I was a policeman, and so on, and of course I had to tell him a bit⁠—only a bit. Then he said, all of a sudden, ‘Look here, my friend,’ he said, ‘you’d better tell me, straight out⁠—has this to do with that Hannaford poisoning case?’ So, of course, I said that, between ourselves, it had. ‘Isn’t Matherfield in charge of that?’ he said. Of course, I said you were. ‘Very well’ he said. ‘You send Matherfield to me. I’m not going to say anything to you,’ he said. ‘What I’ve got to say I’ll say to Matherfield.’ So I went back to headquarters, and they told me you’d gone to Lincoln’s Inn Fields.”

“All right, my lad!” said Matherfield. “If you’ve found the right man, I’ll remember you. What’s his name⁠—Macpherson, Maiden Lane? Very good⁠—then I’ll just step along and see him. Not a word to anybody, Marler!” he added, as the man turned away. “Keep close. Now, this is a bit of all right, Mr. Hetherwick!” he continued, chuckling and rubbing his hands. “This beats all we heard at Penteney’s! Only let me get the name and address of the man for whom that bottle of medicine was made up, and I think I shall have taken a long stride! But come along⁠—we’ll see the chemist together.”

The shop in Maiden Lane before which they presently paused was a small, narrow-fronted, old-fashioned establishment, with little in its windows beyond the usual coloured bottles and over the front no more than the name “Macpherson” in faded gilt letters on a time-stained signboard. It was dark and stuffy within the shop, and Hetherwick had to strain his eyes to see a tall, thin, elderly, spectacled man, very precise and trim in appearance, who stood behind the single counter, silently regarding him and Matherfield.

“Mr. Macpherson?” inquired Matherfield. “Just so! Good morning, sir. My name is Matherfield⁠—Inspector Matherfield. One of my men tells me⁠—”

“One moment!” interrupted the chemist. He stepped behind a screen at the rear of his shop and presently returned with a young man, to whom he whispered a word or two. Then he beckoned to his two visitors, and opening a door at the further corner, ushered them into a private parlour. “We shall be to ourselves here, Mr. Matherfield,” he said. “And I’ve no doubt your business is of a highly confidential nature.”

“Something of that sort, Mr. Macpherson,” assented Matherfield, as he and Hetherwick took chairs at a centre table. “But my man’ll have prepared you a bit, no doubt. He tells me he showed you the photographed facsimiles of certain torn labels that are on a medicine bottle which figures in the Hannaford case, and that in consequence of your seeing them you asked to see me. Well, sir, here I am!”

“Aye, just so, Mr. Matherfield, just so, precisely,” replied the chemist, turning up the gas-jet which hung above the table. “Aye, to be sure!” He, too, sat down at the table, and folded his thin long fingers together. “Aye, and you’ll be thinking, Mr. Matherfield, that yon bottle has something to do with the poisoning of Hannaford?”

“I’ll be candid with you, Mr. Macpherson,” answered Matherfield. “But first let me ask you something. Have you read the newspaper accounts of this affair?”

“I’ve done that, Mr. Matherfield⁠—yes, all I could lay hands on.”

“Then you’ll be aware that there was another man poisoned as well as Hannaford⁠—a man named Granett, who was in Hannaford’s company on the night when it all happened? This gentleman here is the one that was in the Underground train and saw Hannaford die, and Granett make off, as he said, to fetch a doctor.”

“That’ll be Mr. Hetherwick, I’m thinking,” said the chemist, with a polite bow. “Aye, just so!”

“I see you’ve read the reports of the inquest,” remarked Matherfield, with a smile. “Very well, as I say, Granett was found dead later. I discovered a medicine bottle and a glass at his bedside. There’d been whisky in both, but according to the medical experts there had also been poison⁠—the traces, they say, were indisputable. Now, on that medicine bottle were two torn labels⁠—on the upper one, as you see from the facsimile photograph, there’s been a name written⁠—all that’s left is the initial C. and the first letter of a surname, A. All the rest’s gone. And what I want to know is⁠—are you the chemist that made up the medicine or the tonic, or whatever it was, that was in that bottle, and, if so, who is the customer for whom you made it, and whose Christian name begins with C. and surname with A.? Do you comprehend me?”

“Aye, aye, Mr. Matherfield!” answered the chemist eagerly. “I’m appreciating every word you’re saying, and very lucid it all is. And I’m willing to give you all the information in my power, but first I’d just like to have a bit myself on