Sparkling Cyanide - Agatha Christie [49]
‘You know I’m interested in those letters, Kemp. What’s the expert opinion on them?’
‘Cheap paper, ordinary ink—fingerprints show George Barton and Iris Marle handled them—and a horde of unidentified dabs on the envelope, postal employees, etc. They were printed and the experts say by someone of good education in normal health.’
‘Good education. Not a servant?’
‘Presumably not.’
‘That makes it more interesting still.’
‘It means that somebody else had suspicions, at least.’
‘Someone who didn’t go to the police. Someone who was prepared to arouse George’s suspicions but who didn’t follow the business up. There’s something odd there, Kemp. He couldn’t have written them himself, could he?’
‘He could have. But why?’
‘As a preliminary to suicide—a suicide which he intended to look like murder.’
‘With Stephen Farraday booked for the hangman’s rope? It’s an idea—but he’d have made quite sure that everything pointed to Farraday as the murderer. As it is we’ve nothing against Farraday at all.’
‘What about cyanide? Was there any container found?’
‘Yes. A small white paper packet under the table. Traces of cyanide crystals inside. No fingerprints on it. In a detective story, of course, it would be some special kind of paper or folded in some special way. I’d like to give these detective story writers a course of routine work. They’d soon learn how most things are untraceable and nobody ever notices anything anywhere!’
Race smiled.
‘Almost too sweeping a statement. Did anybody notice anything last night?’
‘Actually that’s what I’m starting on today. I took a brief statement from everyone last night and I went back to Elvaston Square with Miss Marle and had a look through Barton’s desk and papers. I shall get fuller statements from them all today—also statements from the people sitting at the other two tables in the alcove—’ He rustled through some papers—‘Yes, here they are. Gerald Tollington, Grenadier Guards, and the Hon. Patricia Brice-Woodworth. Young engaged couple. I’ll bet they didn’t see anything but each other. And Mr Pedro Morales—nasty bit of goods from Mexico—even the whites of his eyes are yellow—and Miss Christine Shannon—a gold-digging blonde lovely—I’ll bet she didn’t see anything—dumber than you’d believe possible except where money is concerned. It’s a hundred to one chance that any of them saw anything, but I took their names and addresses on the off chance. We’ll start off with the waiter chap, Giuseppe. He’s here now. I’ll have him sent in.’
Chapter 2
Giuseppe Bolsano was a middle-aged man, slight with a rather monkey-like intelligent face. He was nervous, but not unduly so. His English was fluent since he had, he explained, been in the country since he was sixteen and had married an English wife.
Kemp treated him sympathetically.
‘Now then, Giuseppe, let’s hear whether anything more has occurred to you about this.’
‘It is for me very unpleasant. It is I who serve that table. I who pour out the wine. People will say that I am off my head, that I put poison into the wine glasses. It is not so, but that is what people will say. Already, Mr Goldstein says it is better that I take a week away from work—so that people do not ask me questions there and point me out. He is a fair man, and just, and he knows it is not my fault, and that I have been there for many years, so he does not dismiss me as some restaurant owners would do. M. Charles, too, he has been kind, but all the same it is a great misfortune for me—and it makes me afraid. Have I an enemy, I ask myself?’
‘Well,’ said Kemp at his most wooden, ‘have you?’
The sad monkey-face twitched into laughter. Giuseppe stretched out his arms.
‘I? I have not an enemy in the world. Many good friends but no enemies.’
Kemp grunted.
‘Now about last night. Tell me about the champagne.’
‘It was Clicquot, 1928—very good and expensive wine. Mr Barton was like that—he liked good food and drink—the best.’
‘Had he ordered the wine beforehand?’
‘Yes. He had arranged everything with Charles.’
‘What about the