Mr Osborne came to an abrupt halt. I stirred the pale fluid in front of me and took a cautious sip. Mr Osborne added three lumps of sugar to his own cup.
"Well, that seems to settle that," I said.
"Yes," said Mr Osborne. "Yes..." His voice was markedly dissatisfied. Then he leaned forward again, his round bald head shining under the electric bulb, his eyes quite fanatical, behind his spectacles.
"I must explain a little more. As a boy, Mr Easterbrook, a friend of my father's, another pharmacist, was called to give evidence in the case of Jean Paul Marigot. You may remember - he poisoned his English wife - an arsenical preparation. My father's friend identified him in court as the man who signed a false name in his poison register. Marigot was convicted and hanged. It made a great impression on me - I was nine years old at the time - an impressionable age. It was my great hope that some day, I, too, might figure in a cause cйlиbre and be the instrument of bringing a murderer to justice! Perhaps it was then that I began to make a study of memorizing faces. I will confess to you, Mr Easterbrook, though it may seem to you quite ridiculous, that for many, many years now I have contemplated the possibility that some man, determined to do away with his wife, might enter my shop to purchase what he needed."
"Or, I suppose, a second Madeleine Smith," I suggested.
"Exactly. Alas," Mr Osborne sighed, "that has never happened. Or, if so, the person in question has never been brought to justice. That occurs, I would say, more frequently than it is quite comfortable to believe. So this identification, though not what I had hoped, opened up at least a possibility that I might be a witness in a murder case!"
His face beamed with childish pleasure.
"Very disappointing for you," I said sympathetically.
"Ye-es." Again Mr Osborne's voice held that odd note of dissatisfaction.
"I'm an obstinate man, Mr Easterbrook. As the days have passed by I have felt more and more sure that I was right. That the man I saw was Venables and no other. Oh!" He raised a hand in protest as I was about to speak. "I know. It was inclined to be foggy. I was some distance away - but what the police have not taken into consideration, is that I have made a study of recognition. It was not just the features, the pronounced nose, the Adam's apple; there is the carriage of the head, the angle of the neck on the shoulders. I said to myself 'Come, come, admit you were mistaken.' But I continued to feel that I had not been mistaken. The police said it was impossible. But was it impossible? That's what I asked myself."
"Surely, with a disability of that kind -"
He stopped me by waving an agitated forefinger.
"Yes, yes, but my experiences, under the National Health - Well, really it would surprise you what people are prepared to do - and what they get away with! I wouldn't like to say that the medical profession are credulous - a plain case of malingering they will spot soon enough. But there are ways - ways that a chemist is more likely to appreciate than a doctor. Certain drugs, for instance, other quite harmless-seeming preparations. Fever can be induced - various rashes and skin irritations - dryness of throat, or increase of secretions -"
"But hardly atrophied limbs," I pointed out.
"Quite, quite. But who says that Mr Venables' limbs are atrophied?"
"Well - his doctor, I suppose?"
"Quite. But I have tried to get a little information on that point. Mr Venables' doctor is in London, a Harley Street man - true, he was seen by the local doctor here when he first arrived. But that doctor has now retired and gone to live abroad. The present man has never attended Mr Venables. Mr Venables goes up once a month to Harley Street."
I looked at him curiously.
"That still seems to me to present no loophole for er - er -"
"You don't know the things I know," said Mr Osborne. "A humble example will suffice. Mrs H. - drawing insurance benefits for over a year. Drew them in three separate places - only in one place she was Mrs C. and in another place Mrs T... Mrs C. and Mrs T. lent her their cards for a consideration, and so she collected the money three times over."
"I don't see -"
"Suppose - just suppose -" the forefinger was now wiggling excitedly, "our Mr V. makes contact with a genuine polio case in poor circumstances. He makes a proposition. The man resembles him, let us say, in a general kind of way, no more. Genuine sufferer calling himself Mr V. calls in specialist, and is examined, so that the case history is all correct. Then Mr V. takes house in country. Local G.P. wants to retire soon. Again genuine sufferer calls in doctor, is examined. And there you are! Mr Venables well documented as polio sufferer with atrophied limbs. He is seen locally (when he is seen) in a wheelchair."
"His servants would know, surely," I objected. "His valet."
"But supposing it is a gang - the valet is one of the gang. What could be simpler? Some of the other servants, too, perhaps."
"But why?"
"Ah," said Mr Osborne. "That's another question, isn't it? I won't tell you my theory - I expect you'd laugh at it. But there you are - a very nice alibi set up for a man who might want an alibi. He could be here, there and everywhere, and nobody would know. Seen walking about in Paddington? Impossible! He's a helpless cripple living in the country, etc." Mr Osborne paused and glanced at his watch. "My bus is due. I must be quick. I get to brooding about this, you see. Wondered if I could do anything to prove it, as you might say. So I thought I'd come out here (I've time on my hands, these days. I almost miss my business sometimes), go into the grounds and - well, not to put too fine a point upon it, do a bit of spying. Not very nice, you'll say - and I agree. But if it's a case of getting at the truth - of bringing a criminal to book. If, for instance, I spotted our Mr Venables having a quiet walk around in the grounds, well, there you are! And then I thought, If they don't pull the curtains too soon - (and you may have noticed people don't when daylight saving first ends - they've got in the habit of expecting it to be dark an hour later) - I might creep up and take a peep. Walking about his library, maybe, never dreaming that anyone would be spying on him? Why should he? No one suspects him as far as he knows!"
"Why are you so sure the man you saw that night was Venables?"
"I know it was Venables!"
He shot to his feet.
"My bus is coming. Pleased to have met you, Mr Easterbrook, and it's a weight off my mind to have explained what I was doing there at Priors Court. I dare say it seems a lot of nonsense to you."
"It doesn't altogether," I said. "But you haven't told me what you think Mr Venables is up to."
Mr Osborne looked embarrassed and a little sheepish.
"You'll laugh, I dare say. Everybody says he's rich but nobody seems to know how he made his money. I'll tell you what I think. I think he's one of those master criminals you read about. You know - plans things, and has a gang that carries them out. It may sound silly to you but I -"
The bus had stopped. Mr Osborne ran for it.
I walked home down the lane very thoughtful... it was a fantastic theory that Mr Osborne had outlined, but I had to admit that there might just possibly be something in it.
Chapter 20
Ringing up Ginger on the following morning, I told her that I was moving to Bournemouth the next day.
"I've found a nice quiet little hotel called (heaven knows why) the Deer Park. It's got a couple of nice unobtrusive side exits. I might sneak up to London and see you."
"You oughtn't to really, I suppose. But I must say it would be rather heaven if you did. The boredom! You've no idea! If you couldn't come here, I could sneak out and meet you somewhere."
Something suddenly struck me.
"Ginger! Your voice... it's different somehow."
"Oh that! It's all right. Don't worry."
"But your voice?"
"I've just got a bit of a sore throat or something, that's all."
"Ginger!"
"Now, look, Mark, anyone can have a sore throat. I'm starting a cold, I expect. Or a touch of flu."
"Flu? Look here, don't evade the point. Are you all right, or aren't you?"
"Don't fuss. I'm all right."
"Tell me exactly how you're feeling. Do you feel as though you might be starting flu?"
"Well - perhaps... aching a bit all over, you know the kind of thing -"
"Temperature?"
"Well, perhaps a bit of temperature..."
I sat there, a horrible cold sort of feeling stealing over me. I was frightened. I knew, too, that however much Ginger might refuse to admit it, Ginger was frightened also.
Her hoarse voice spoke again.
"Mark - don't panic. You are panicking - and really there's nothing to panic about."
"Perhaps not. But we've got to take every precaution. Ring up your doctor and get him to come and see you. At once."
"All right. But - he'll think I'm a terrible fusspot."
"Never mind. Do it! Then, when he's been, ring me back."
After I had rung off, I sat for a long time staring at the black inhuman outline of the telephone. Panic - I mustn't give way to panic. There was always flu about at this time of year. The doctor would be reassuring... perhaps it would be only a slight chill. I saw in my mind's eye Sybil in her peacock dress with its scrawled symbols of evil. I heard Thyrza's voice, willing, commanding. On the chalked floor, Bella, chanting her evil spells, held up a struggling white cock.
Nonsense, all nonsense... of course it was all superstitious nonsense...
The box - not so easy, somehow, to dismiss the box. The box represented, not human superstition, but a development of scientific possibility. But it wasn't possible - it couldn't be possible that -
Mrs Dane Calthrop found me there, sitting staring at the telephone. She said at once:
"What's happened?"
"Ginger," I said, "isn't feeling well."
I wanted her to say that it was all nonsense. I wanted her to reassure me. But she didn't reassure me.
"That's bad," she said. "Yes, I think that's bad."
"It's not possible," I urged. "It's not possible for a moment that they can do what they say!"
"Isn't it?"
"You don't believe - you can't believe -"
"My dear Mark," said Mrs Dane Calthrop. "Both you and Ginger have already admitted the possibility of such a thing, or you wouldn't be doing what you are doing."
"And our believing makes it worse - makes it more likely!"
"You don't go so far as believing - you just admit that, with evidence, you might believe."
"Evidence? What evidence?"
"Ginger's becoming ill is evidence," said Mrs Dane Calthrop.
I hated her. My voice rose angrily.
"Why must you be so pessimistic? It's just a simple cold - something of that kind. Why must you persist in believing the worst?"
"Because if it's the worst, we've got to face it - not bury our heads in the sand until it's too late."
"You think that this ridiculous mumbo jumbo works? These trances and spells and cock sacrifices and all the bag of tricks?"
"Something works," said Mrs Dane Calthrop. "That's what we've got to face. A lot of it, most of it, I think, is trappings. It's just to create atmosphere - atmosphere is important. But concealed amongst the trappings, there must be the real thing - the thing that does work."
"Something like radio activity at a distance?"
"Something of that kind. You see, people are discovering things all the time - frightening things. Some variation of this new knowledge might be adapted by some unscrupulous person for their own purposes - Thyrza's father was a physicist, you know -"
"But what? What? That damned box! If we could get it examined? If the police -"
"Police aren't very keen on getting a search warrant and removing property without a good deal more to go on than we've got."
"If I went round there and smashed up the damned thing?"
Mrs Dane Calthrop shook her head.
"From what you told me, the damage, if there has been damage, was done that night."
I dropped my head in my hands and groaned.
"I wish we'd never started this damned business."
Mrs Dane Calthrop said firmly: "Your motives were excellent. And what's done is done. You'll know more when Ginger rings back after the doctor has been. She'll ring Rhoda's, I suppose."
I took the hint.
"I'd better get back."
"I'm being stupid," said Mrs Dane Calthrop suddenly as I left. "I know I'm being stupid. Trappings! We're letting ourselves be obsessed by trappings. I can't help feeling that we're thinking the way they want us to think."
Perhaps she was right. But I couldn't see any other way of thinking.
Ginger rang me two hours later.
"He's been," she said. "He seemed a bit puzzled, but he says it's probably flu. There's quite a lot about. He's sent me to bed and is sending along some medicine. My temperature is quite high. But it would be with flu, wouldn't it?"
There was a forlorn appeal in her hoarse voice, under its surface bravery.
"You'll be all right," I said miserably. "Do you hear? You'll be all right. Do you feel very awful?"
"Well - fever - and aching, and everything hurts, my feet and my skin. I hate anything touching me... nd I'm so hot."
"That's the fever, darling. Listen, I'm coming up to you! I'm leaving now - at once. No, don't protest."
"All right. I'm glad you're coming, Mark. I dare say - I'm not so brave as I thought..."
