its own pot during the war when things were
scarce, and it’s gone on like that ever since.”
Neele murmured:
“That made it easier, of course.”
“What’s more,” said Sergeant Hay, “Mr.
Fortescue was the only one that took
marmalade for breakfast (and Mr. Percival
when he was at home). The others had jam or
honey.”
Neele nodded.
“Yes,” he said. “That made it very simple,
didn’t it?”
After a slight gap the moving picture went
on in his mind. It was the breakfast table
now. Rex Fortescue stretching out his hand
for the marmalade pot, taking out a spoonful
of marmalade and spreading it on his toast
and butter. Easier, far easier that way than
the risk and difficulty of insinuating it into
his coffee cup. A foolproof method of administering
the poison! And afterwards?
162
Another gap and a picture that was not quite
so clear. The replacing of that pot of marmalade
by another with exactly the same
amount taken from it. And then an open
window. A hand and an arm flinging out that
pot into the shrubbery. Whose hand and
arm?
Inspector Neele said in a businesslike voice:
“Well, we’ll have of course to get this
analysed. See if there are any traces oftaxine.
We can’t jump to conclusions.”
“No, sir. There may be fingerprints too.”
“Probably not the ones we want,” said
Inspector Neele gloomily. “There’ll be
Gladys’s of course, and Crump’s and Fortescue’s
own. Then probably Mrs. Crump’s, the grocer’s assistant and a few others! If
anyone put taxine in here they’d take care not
to go playing about with their own fingers all
over the pot. Anyway, as I say, we mustn’t
jump to conclusions. How do they order
marmalade and where is it kept?”
The industrious Sergeant Hay had his
answers pat for all these questions.
“Marmalade and jams come in in batches
of six at a time. A new pot would be taken
into the pantry when the old one was getting
low.”
163
“That means,” said Neele, “that it could
have been tampered with several days before
it was actually brought on to the breakfast table. And anyone who was in the house or
had access to the house could have tampered
with it.”
The term “access to the house” puzzled
Sergeant Hay slightly. He did not see in what way his superior’s mind was working.
But Neele was postulating what seemed to
him a logical assumption.
If the marmalade had been tampered with beforehand–then surely that ruled out those
persons who were actually at the breakfast table
on the fatal morning.
Which opened up some interesting new
possibilities.
He planned in his mind interviews with
various people–this time with rather a different
angle of approach.
He’d keep an open mind. . . .
He’d even consider seriously that old Miss
Whatshername’s suggestions about the
nursery rhyme. Because there was no doubt
that that nursery rhyme fitted in a rather
startling way. It fitted with a point that had
worried him from the beginning. The pocketful
of rye.
164
“Blackbirds?” murmured Inspector Neele
to himself.
Sergeant Hay stared.
“It’s not blackberry jelly, sir,” he said.
“It’s marmalade.^
II
Inspector Neele went in search of Mary
Dove.
He found her in one of the bedrooms on the
first floor superintending Ellen, who was
denuding the bed of what seemed to be clean
sheets. A little pile of clean towels lay on a
chair.
Inspector Neele looked puzzled.
“Somebody coming to stay?” he asked.
Mary Dove smiled at him. In contrast to
Ellen, who looked grim and truculent, Mary
was her usual imperturbable self.
“Actually,” she said, “the opposite is the
case.”
Neele looked inquiringly at her.
“This is the guest room we had prepared
for Mr. Gerald Wright.”
“Gerald Wright? Who is he?”
“He’s a friend of Miss Elaine Fortescue’s.”
165
Mary’s voice was carefully devoid of inflection.
“He was coming here–when?”
“I believe he arrived at the Golf Hotel the
day after Mr. Fortescue’s death.”
“The day after”
“So Miss Fortescue said.” Mary’s voice
was still impersonal: “She told me she
wanted him to come and stay in the
house–so I had a room prepared. Now–after
these other two–tragedies–it seems more