“He’d have destroyed it.”

“That’s so,” admitted Fox.

“But,” Alleyn went on, “as I say, I don’t think he’s read it. There are no cigarette-ends of that brand about, are there?”

They hunted around the room. Alleyn went into the bedroom and came back in a few moments.

“None there,” he said, “and dear Mr. Garnette looks very unattractive with his mouth open. But I think we’d better look for prints in there, Bailey. There’s that open door. Did you run anything to earth in the bedroom, Fox?”

“A very small trace of a powder in the washstand cupboard, sir. That’s all.”

“Well, what about cigarette-butts?”

“None here,” announced Fox, who had examined the grate as well as all the ashtrays in the room. “There are several Virginians — Mr. Bathgate’s and Dr. Curtis’s I think they are — no Turkish anywhere.”

“Then he hasn’t opened the box.”

“I must say I can’t help thinking that note’s got a bearing on the case,” said Fox.

“I think you’re right, Fox. Put it in my bag, box and all. Let’s finish off and go home.”

“And tomorrow?” asked Nigel.

“Tomorrow we’ll get Mr. Garnette to open the surprise packet.”

“What about the gentleman in question, sir?”

“What about him?”

“Will he be all right? All alone?”

“Good Heavens, Fox, what extraordinary solicitude! He’ll wake up with a hirsute tongue and a brazen belly. And he will be very, very troubled in his mind. There’s that back door.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We’ll have to leave a couple of men here. Let’s tidy up. Put all that stuff back in the safe, Fox, will you? I’ll tackle the desk.”

The two detectives replaced everything with extreme accuracy. Alleyn locked the safe and the desk and pocketed the keys. He strolled over to the bookcase, and as Fox packed up the police bag he murmured titles to himself: The Koran, Spiritual Experiences of a Fakir, From Wotan to Hitler, The Soul of the Lotus Bud, The Meaning and the Message, Jnana Yoga… “Hullo, here’s something of his own invent. As I live, a little book of poems. Purple suede, Heaven help us, purple suede! Eros on Calvary and Other Poems, by Jasper Garnette. Old pig!”

He opened the book and read.

“Oh, Lord, oh, Lord, how inexpressibly beastly!”

He shoved the poems back and then, with a grimace at Nigel, thrust his hand behind the books and, after a little groping, pulled out several dusty volumes, all covered in brown paper.

“Petronius,” he said, “and so on. This is his nasty little secret hoard. Notice the disguise, will you! Hullo, what’s this?”

He turned to the table and held a very battered old book under the lamp.

“Abberley’s Curiosities of Chemistry. What a remarkably rum old book! Published by Gasock and Hauptmann, New York, 1865. I’ve met it before somewhere. Where was it?”

He screwed up his face with the effort to remember and, holding the book lightly in his long, fastidious hands, let it fall open.

“I’ve got it,” said Alleyn. “It was in the Bodleian, twenty years ago.”

He opened his eyes and turned to Nigel. That young man was standing with his mouth agape and his eyes bulging.

“What’s the matter with you?” asked Alleyn.

Nigel pointed to the book in the inspector’s hands. Fox and Alleyn both looked down.

The book had fallen open at a page headed: “A simple but little-known method of making sodium cyanide.”

CHAPTER XII

Alleyn Takes Stock

“Dear me!” said Alleyn as he laid the book on the table. “This is a quaint coincidence.” He paused a moment and then murmured: “I wonder if coincidence is quite the right word.”

“H’m,” said Fox, deeply.

“I’d call it the Hand of — of Fate, or Providence, or Nemesis or something,” said Nigel.

“I dare say you would — on the front page. Not this time, however.” But Nigel was reading excitedly.

“Do listen, Alleyn. It says you can make sodium cyanide from wool and washing soda.”

“Really? It sounds a most unpalatable mixture.”

“You have to heat them terrifically in a retort or something. It says: ‘It is, perhaps, a fortunate circumstance that this simple recipe is not generally known. The tyro is advised to avoid the experiment as it is attended by a certain amount of danger, so deadly is the poison thus produced.’ ”

“Yes. Don’t blow down my neck and don’t touch the book, there’s a good chap. Bailey will have to get to work on it. Not nearly so much dust on this as on the other hidden books, you notice, Fox, and the brown paper cover is newer. The others are stained. Blast! I don’t like it at all.”

Bailey reappeared and was given the book.

“I don’t think the results will be very illuminating,” said Alleyn. “Try the open page as well as the cover. What is it these books smell of?”

He sniffed at them.

“It’s those stains, I seem to imagine. It’s very faint. Perhaps I do imagine. What about you, Bailey?”

Alleyn examined the Curiosities closely.

“It smells faintly. There’s no stain on the cover.” He slipped the blade of his pocketknife beneath the brown paper and peered under it: “And there is no stain on the red cover of the book. There you are, Bailey.”

“But, Alleyn,” interrupted Nigel, “surely it’s of the first importance. If the pathologist finds cyanide — sodium cyanide — and Garnette has this book and—”

“I know, I know. Extraordinary careless of him to leave it there, don’t you think? Stupid, what?”

“Do you mean you think it is coincidence?”

“Bless my soul, Bathgate, how on earth am I to know? Your simple faith is most soothing, but I can assure you it’s misplaced.”

“Well, but what do you think? Tell me what you think.”

“I ‘think naught a trifle, though it small appear.’ ”

“That has the advantage of sounding well and meaning nothing.”

“Not altogether. Look here. We know Miss Quayne was probably murdered by cyanide poisoning. We believe that it must have been done by one of eight persons.”

Nigel counted beneath his breath.

“Only seven, six Initiates and Garnette.”

“Mr. Wheatley, sir,” Fox reminded him. “The young fellow that handed round, you know.”

“Oh — true. Well?”

“Well,” Alleyn went on composedly, “we have reason to suppose the stuff was dropped into the cup in a cigarette-paper. The paper was later found on the place where the cup fell. So much for the actual event. We have learned that Miss Quayne had deposited bearer-bonds, to the tune of five thousand, in the safe. We have found a parcel that appeared to be the original wrapping of these bonds. If so the bonds have been taken and newspaper substituted. We have found a message in Cara Quayne’s writing, addressed yesterday, presumably to Garnette. This message says she must see him at once as she had made a terrible discovery. I think the odds are he has not read the message. Whether it referred to the bonds or not we have no idea. We have found an antique work on chemistry hidden among Garnette’s books. It falls open at a recipe for homemade cyanide. So much for our tangible data.”

“What about motive?” suggested Nigel.

“Motive. You mean Garnette’s motive, don’t you? I gather you are no longer wedded to Mr. Ogden as the villain of the piece.”

“I wasn’t really serious about Ogden, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he and Garnette were rogues together in the States.”

“What’s your view, Fox?” asked Alleyn.

“Well, sir, I must say I don’t think so. Father Garnette was very frank under the influence and he said he met Mr. Ogden crossing the Atlantic. That tallies with Mr. Ogden’s statement.”