may I ask, would you assume for a moment that Lenore Gregory would have come here tonight, poisoned the sherry while she was here, and then remained very accommodatingly to become a prime suspect?”
“Maybe she didn’t have an opportunity to spike the sherry beforehand.”
“Nonsense. This vessel is crawling with amateur Argonauts, no doubt eating out of cans and sleeping like pigs and wandering about as they please on and below deck. There would certainly have been no lack of opportunity for any of them. Moreover, let us remember that the poison was in the sherry . Sherry, I understand, was not Captain Westering’s usual drink. If she were going to spike anything, as you put it, for the purpose of killing the captain, she would surely have spiked something he would have been more likely to consume.”
“She could have done it after it became apparent that he was going to have a glass with her.”
“Then why put it in the decanter? It’s absurd on the face of it. Besides, only one glass had been used.”
“It is, at that, isn’t it? Absurd on the face of it, I mean. But who knows? She’s a kid. Green as grass. No experience with murder. Maybe she just made an unholy botch of the job. Lots of murderers have, you know. On the other hand, maybe not. Maybe she’s a devil of a lot cleverer than she’d have us know. Maybe she wanted us to think just what you are thinking.”
“Poppycock! The girl is neither a fool nor a devil. She is a frightened and disillusioned idealist.”
“Well, I’ll hand her one thing. She’s made a good friend in short order.” His sour little eyes gave Miss Withers points for friendship, however misplaced. “Remember, though, that you showed up, according to your own story, at an inopportune time, to say the least. She might have been planning to get out of here in a hurry, but you blocked her escape. She had to improvise.”
“If you imagine that she has the capacity for that kind of improvisation, you are badly mistaken. Anyhow, cicutoxin, the deadly substance in hemlock, does not work that fast. It is fatal, as I recall, in not less than fifteen minutes, and may not be so for much longer. Assuming that it worked in Captain Westering in the minimum time, Lenore Gregory would have had fifteen minutes after ingestion to make her escape. As it was, she was here when I came, and Captain Westering had just died.”
“All right. Let’s concede for the moment that your girl Lenore is nothing more, as you claim, than a dewy-eyed idealist, still wet behind the ears, who is guilty of nothing but idiocy that has got her into a very nasty spot. Where does that leave us?”
“It leaves us, I should say, where we started. That is, with a murdered man on a vessel packed with a passel of suspects from here, there and everywhere, about half of them young women, and all of them living in cramped quarters that would breed intimacies and animosities and all sorts of abnormal relationships, any one of which might explode at any time.”
“I’m sorry I asked. It’s a bloody, unholy mess, that’s what it is. Why can’t anything stay simple, the way it seems when it starts?” He glared at Miss Withers with a venomous flicker in his eyes, as if she were somehow to blame for complicating things. “I suppose I’ll have to question all these kooks. Every last damn one of them. It makes me sick to my belly to think of it.”
“It is, I believe, the accepted procedure in murder investigations to question the suspects. Meanwhile, you might see what can be done about finding the person who slipped off this vessel and disappeared immediately after the murder.”
“What!”
“Now, don’t get belligerent because I haven’t told you sooner. I only found out about him myself a few minutes ago.”
“Is that so? You seem to have a remarkable facility for finding out things. Is it your motherly appearance or do you have a network of spies?”
“I’ve had no experience as a mother, and have
“Maybe she didn’t have an opportunity to spike the sherry beforehand.”
“Nonsense. This vessel is crawling with amateur Argonauts, no doubt eating out of cans and sleeping like pigs and wandering about as they please on and below deck. There would certainly have been no lack of opportunity for any of them. Moreover, let us remember that the poison was in the sherry . Sherry, I understand, was not Captain Westering’s usual drink. If she were going to spike anything, as you put it, for the purpose of killing the captain, she would surely have spiked something he would have been more likely to consume.”
“She could have done it after it became apparent that he was going to have a glass with her.”
“Then why put it in the decanter? It’s absurd on the face of it. Besides, only one glass had been used.”
“It is, at that, isn’t it? Absurd on the face of it, I mean. But who knows? She’s a kid. Green as grass. No experience with murder. Maybe she just made an unholy botch of the job. Lots of murderers have, you know. On the other hand, maybe not. Maybe she’s a devil of a lot cleverer than she’d have us know. Maybe she wanted us to think just what you are thinking.”
“Poppycock! The girl is neither a fool nor a devil. She is a frightened and disillusioned idealist.”
“Well, I’ll hand her one thing. She’s made a good friend in short order.” His sour little eyes gave Miss Withers points for friendship, however misplaced. “Remember, though, that you showed up, according to your own story, at an inopportune time, to say the least. She might have been planning to get out of here in a hurry, but you blocked her escape. She had to improvise.”
“If you imagine that she has the capacity for that kind of improvisation, you are badly mistaken. Anyhow, cicutoxin, the deadly substance in hemlock, does not work that fast. It is fatal, as I recall, in not less than fifteen minutes, and may not be so for much longer. Assuming that it worked in Captain Westering in the minimum time, Lenore Gregory would have had fifteen minutes after ingestion to make her escape. As it was, she was here when I came, and Captain Westering had just died.”
“All right. Let’s concede for the moment that your girl Lenore is nothing more, as you claim, than a dewy-eyed idealist, still wet behind the ears, who is guilty of nothing but idiocy that has got her into a very nasty spot. Where does that leave us?”
“It leaves us, I should say, where we started. That is, with a murdered man on a vessel packed with a passel of suspects from here, there and everywhere, about half of them young women, and all of them living in cramped quarters that would breed intimacies and animosities and all sorts of abnormal relationships, any one of which might explode at any time.”
“I’m sorry I asked. It’s a bloody, unholy mess, that’s what it is. Why can’t anything stay simple, the way it seems when it starts?” He glared at Miss Withers with a venomous flicker in his eyes, as if she were somehow to blame for complicating things. “I suppose I’ll have to question all these kooks. Every last damn one of them. It makes me sick to my belly to think of it.”
“It is, I believe, the accepted procedure in murder investigations to question the suspects. Meanwhile, you might see what can be done about finding the person who slipped off this vessel and disappeared immediately after the murder.”
“What!”
“Now, don’t get belligerent because I haven’t told you sooner. I only found out about him myself a few minutes ago.”
“Is that so? You seem to have a remarkable facility for finding out things. Is it your motherly appearance or do you have a network of spies?”
“I’ve had no experience as a mother, and have
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