Hickory Dickory Dock - Agatha Christie [38]
“Well?”
“Well, that’s all. That’s to say that’s all for method number one. I had to sleuth three doctors until I found a suitably careless one. When I did, it was simplicity itself. The car was left outside a farmhouse in a rather lonely spot. I opened the door, looked at the case, took out a tube of hyoscine hydrobromide, and that was that.”
“Ah! And method number two?”
“That entailed just a little pumping of dear Celia, as a matter of fact. She was quite unsuspicious. I told you she was a stupid girl, she had no idea what I was doing. I simply talked a bit about the mumbo jumbo Latin of doctors’ prescriptions, and asked her to write me out a prescription in the way a doctor writes it, for tincture digitalin. She obliged quite unsuspecting. All I had to do after that was to find a doctor in the classified directory, living in a far off district of London, add his initials or slightly illegible signature. I then took it to a chemist in a busy part of London, who would not be likely to be familiar with that particular doctor’s signature, and I received the prescription made up without any difficulty at all. Digitalin is prescribed in quite large quantities for heart cases and I had written out the prescription on hotel notepaper.”
“Very ingenious,” said Inspector Sharpe drily.
“I am incriminating myself! I can hear it in your voice.”
“And the third method?”
Nigel did not reply at once. Then he said:
“Look here. What exactly am I letting myself in for?”
“The theft of drugs from an unlocked car is larceny,” said Inspector Sharpe. “Forging a prescription. . . .”
Nigel interrupted him.
“Not exactly forging, is it? I mean, I didn’t obtain money by it, and it wasn’t exactly an imitation of any doctor’s signature. I mean, if I write a prescription and write H R James on it, you can’t say I’m forging any particular Dr. James’s name, can you?” He went on with rather a wry smile. “You see what I mean? I’m sticking my neck out. If you like to turn nasty over this—well—I’m obviously for it. On the other hand, if. . . .”
“Yes, Mr. Chapman, on the other hand?”
Nigel said with a sudden passion:
“I don’t like murder. It’s a beastly, horrible thing. Celia, poor little devil, didn’t deserve to be murdered. I want to help. But does it help? I can’t see that it does. Telling you my peccadilloes, I mean.”
“The police have a good deal of latitude, Mr. Chapman. It’s up to them to look upon certain happenings as a light-hearted prank of an irresponsible nature. I accept your assurance that you want to help in the solving of this girl’s murder. Now please go on, and tell me about your third method.”
“Well,” said Nigel, “we’re coming fairly near the bone now. It was a bit more risky than the other two, but at the same time it was a great deal more fun. You see, I’d been to visit Celia once or twice in her Dispensary. I knew the lay of the land there. . . .”
“So you were able to pinch the bottle out of the cupboard?”
“No, no, nothing as simple as that. That wouldn’t have been fair from my point of view. And, incidentally, if it had been a real murder—that is, if I had been stealing the poison for the purpose of murder—it would probably be remembered that I had been there. Actually, I hadn’t been in Celia’s Dispensary for about six months. No, I knew that Celia always went into the back room at eleven-fifteen for what you might call ‘elevenses,’ that is, a cup of coffee and a biscuit. The girls went in turn, two at a time. There was a new girl there who had only just come and she certainly wouldn’t know me by sight. So what I did was this. I strolled into the Dispensary with a white coat on and a stethoscope round my neck. There was only the new girl there and she was busy at the outpatients’ hatch. I strolled in, went