Superintendent Larrabee was watching Inspector Owen filling his pipe. He let a little silence hang on the air before he turned back to Dr. Griffiths. ‘Arsenic got into Mr. Stone’s food,’ he said, ‘and it didn’t get into his wife’s, though they and Merrill ate the same meal. What’s the fatal dose of arsenic?’
‘I would say about two grains.’
‘They found about seven-tenths of a grain in that specimen you took, which means that Stone must have had considerably more. We propose to see Merrill; you know, invite him to assist us in our inquiries. It may be, I wouldn’t like to say at this stage, that we may have to go further than that. You understand, Dr. Griffiths? We may have to charge him with the attempted murder of Stone.’
‘I fully understand the seriousness of what I’ve suggested about Merrill, if that’s what you mean,’ Dr. Griffiths said quietly.
‘I am sure you do.’
Superintendent Larrabee didn’t think it necessary to add that if the situation was as dicey as that, he would have to decide about taking steps to obtain an exhumation of Mrs. Merrill.
‘There still may be a very reasonable explanation for the arsenic getting into Mr. Stone’s food,’ Dr. Griffiths said, his face clouding over.
If there did turn out to be a reasonable explanation how arsenic got into Stone’s food, Superintendent Larrabee thought, it would mean they might have to wait before asking for the exhumation. He realized Dr. Griffiths was speaking to him.
‘I find it very hard to believe Merrill would poison his wife and attempt to poison a friend,’ Dr. Griffiths was saying. ‘I mean, for what motive?’
The other raised an eyebrow. Then his expression was bland and innocent. ‘What indeed?’ he said.
Dr. Griffiths found himself thinking about Dick Merrill and Mrs. Stone. His lips thinned and he gave a tiny sigh.
‘Anyway,’ the Scotland Yard man was saying, ‘we’re straying from purely medical considerations. You can leave motives to us. May I say that you did your duty by coming to Inspector Owen, and he will keep in touch with you.’
Dr. Griffiths went out and was quickly followed by a man of about fifty, tall and spectacled, with a moustache; he looked pale as though he had been through an exhausting illness. He appeared to be the unemotional type, and he just nodded to Superintendent Larrabee when Inspector Owen introduced them, indicating the chair Dr. Griffiths had sat in.
‘I see you and your wife came to Castlebay about three years ago,’ Superintendent Larrabee said.
Edward Stone nodded. ‘I was employed in the Indian Civil Service, and I came home early in 1948. After India got her independence, that is. I met my wife about four years ago, and we decided to settle in Castlebay.’
‘Your wife is younger than you?’
The eyes behind the horn-rims flickered over the detective. ‘Considerably younger; she is only thirty.’
‘And you have been living happily together?’
‘We were very happy at first. Very happy, that is to say, until Merrill started his game.’ The other eyed him questioningly. ‘We met him and his wife at a party soon after we came to Castlebay. There wasn’t anything definite until a few months ago, after Merrill lost his wife. Then I began to hear gossip that my wife had been seen with him in his car at one or two places; Llandudno, Conway was another. I spoke to Margot about it and she said he had just taken her for drives when I was away in London. That he was just a friend and nothing more.’
He broke off and took out a handkerchief and dabbed his forehead at the hairline, where spots of perspiration had formed. He folded the handkerchief carefully and put it back in his breastpocket so that only a little of it showed.
The others looked at him patiently. Edward Stone was not enjoying this very much.
‘But the rumours that they had been seen about together persisted,’ he said, ‘and I decided to confront him. I called at his office, and told him of the rumours I had heard. He appeared to take what I had said in the right spirit, and said he would not see my wife again.’
He paused once more, as if waiting for someone to say something.
‘Go on, Mr. Stone,’ Superintendent Larrabee said, ‘was there any further trouble?’
‘I discovered that he and my wife had again been meeting clandestinely. She admitted that she was attracted to him; she said he persuaded her to meet him and she could not resist. It was at this time that Merrill had invited my wife and me to dinner. We had accepted and were due to go to his house in a few days’ time. I realized that I could not have a row with him at dinner, and had better see him immediately. I went along to his office.’
He brushed a finger and thumb along his moustache. ‘Merrill admitted that he had met my wife again, but said the meeting was purely by accident. He may have flirted with her in a harmless way, but he assured me I should have no further ground for complaint. He sounded sincere, and so I saw no reason to doubt what he said. I told him we would still dine with him as arranged. He seemed very pleased at this, and then offered me some tea, but I refused. He pressed me to have it, but I still refused. I can’t tell you why. Perhaps it is a good thing that I did.’
‘And three nights ago, you went to Merrill’s house with your wife for dinner?’
‘I said I would go and I kept my word, and my wife went with me. It was a pleasant evening. Merrill was, of course, as charming as he well knows how to be. He is a woman’s man, you know.’
‘There was nothing out of the way about the dinner, nothing to attract your attention?’
‘Nothing, but of course, I was not looking out for anything.’
Superintendent Larrabee glanced up from some notes on the desk. ‘I see you had wine, and coffee afterwards. And still you saw nothing unusual or experienced nothing unusual?’
‘When I began to talk about going, he said I must have a brandy for the road. At first I declined, and then I had some. Having had the brandy, my wife and I went shortly afterwards.’
‘Did your wife not have any brandy?’
‘No.’
Larrabee nodded as if to encourage the other to continue.
‘I drove my wife home,’ Stone went on. The journey was only about a couple of miles, and I felt nothing on the way. But soon after we got indoors I felt terribly ill in the stomach, and then I started to be sick. I was so ill all night that in the morning my wife decided to call Dr. Griffiths.’
‘And he came to see you?’
‘Yes.’
‘And took a specimen?’
‘I believe so, though I was too ill to note what he was doing at the time.’
‘Have you heard from Merrill since?’
‘Yes, he phoned the next morning after the dinner party, and my wife told him I was ill. He phoned again next day, that was yesterday, and asked me to come and have tea at his office. I put him off. I told him I had been sick, and he said he couldn’t understand it. Last night he phoned again to ask me to tea. By that time Inspector Owen had told me on no account should I accept any invitations from him. I again put him off.’
‘So far as you know he kept away from your wife?’
‘So far as I know.’
Superintendent Larrabee and Detective-Sergeant Pitt, accompanied by Inspector Owen, went to Dick Merrill’s office in the High Street. Sergeant Parry drove them in a police car. They stopped outside the office, and Parry went in and told a clerk in the