We were all moving around and I got into an argument with someone just after that. I didn’t notice when she drank it. There were other people around her.” “I see. In fact, what you are saying is that anybody could have dropped morphia into her coffee cup?” “You try and put anything in anyone’s cup!
Everybody would see you.” “Not necessarily,” said Sharpe.
Len burst out aggressively, “What the hell do you think I wanted to poison the kid for? I’d nothing against her.” “I’ve not suggested that you did want to poison her.” “She took the stuff herself. She must have taken it herself. There’s no other explanation.” “We might think so, If it weren’t for that faked suicide note.” “Faked my hat! She wrote it, didn’t she?” “She wrote it as part of a letter, early that morning.” “Well-she could have torn a bit out and used it as a suicide note.” “Come now, Mr. Bateson. If you wanted to write a suicide note, you’d write one. You wouldn’t take a letter you’d written to somebody else and carefully tear out one particular phrase.” “I might do. People do all sorts of funny things.” Z, “Tn that case, where is the rest of the letter?” “How should I know? That’s your business, not mine.” “I’m making it my business. You’d be well advised, Mr. Bateson, to answer my questions civilly.” “Well, what do you want to know? I didn’t kill the girl, and I’d no motive for killing her.” “You liked her?” Len said less aggressively: “I liked her very much. She was a nice kid. A bit dumb, but nice.” “You believed her when she owned up to having committed the thefts which had been worrying everyone for some time past?” “Well, I believed her, of course, since she said so. But I must say it seemed odd.” “You didn’t think it was a likely thing for her to do?” “Well, no. Not really.” Leonard’s truculence had subsided now that he was no longer on the defensive and was giving his mind to a problem which obviously intrigued him.
“She didn’t seem to be the type of a kleptomaniac, if you know what I mean,” he said. “Nor a thief either.” “And you can’t think of any other reason for her having done what she did?” “Other reason? What other reason could there be?” “Well, she might have wanted to arouse the interest of Mr. Colin Mcationabb.” “That’s a bit far-fetched, isn’t it?” “But it did arouse his interest.” “Yes, of course it did. Old Colin’s absolutely dead keen on any kind of psychological abnormality.” “Well, then. If Celia Austin knew that.
Len shook his head.
“You’re wrong there. She wouldn’t have been capable of thinking a thing like that out. Of planning it, I mean.
She hadn’t got the knowledge.” “You’ve got the knowledge, though, haven’t you?” “What do you mean?” “T mean that, out of a purely kindly intention, you might have suggested something of the kind to her.” Len gave a short laugh.
“Think I’d do some damfool thing like that? You’re crazy.” The Inspector shifted his round.
“Do you think that Celia Austin spilled the ink over Elizabeth Johnston’s papers or do you think someone else did it?” “Someone else. Celia said she didn’t do that and I believe her. Celia never got Tiled by Bess; not like some other people did.” “Who got riled by her-and why?” “She ticked people off, you know.” Len thought about it for a moment or two. “Anyone who made a rash statement. She’d look across the table and she’d say, in that precise way of hers, “I’m afraid that is not borne out by the facts. Tt has been well established by statistics that Somethin, of that kind.
Well, it was riting, you know comespecially to people who like making rash statements, like Nigel Chapman for instance.” “Ah yes. Nigel Chapman.” “And it was green ink, too.” “So you think it was Niel who did it?” “Well, it’s possible, at least. He’s a spiteful sort of cove, you know, and I think he might have a bit of racial feeling. About the only one of us who has.” “Can you think of anybody else who Miss Johnston annoyed with her exactitude and her habit of correction?” “Well, Colin Mcationabb wasn’t too pleased, now and again, and she got Jean Tomlinson’s goat once or twice.” Sharpe asked a few more desultory questions but Len Bateson had nothing useful to add. Next Sharpe saw Valerie Hobhouse.