The Pale Horse - Agatha Christie [82]
“And so to—the last step. Simple, bold, successful! The only action performed by the originator of the scheme in person. He may be wearing a mansion flat porter’s uniform, he may be a man calling to read the gas or the electric meter. He may be a plumber, or an electrician, or a workman of some kind. Whatever he is, he will have what appear to be the proper credentials with him if anyone asks to see them. Most people don’t. Whatever role he is playing, his real object is simple—the substitution of a preparation he brings with him for a similar article which he knows (by reason of the C.R.C. questionnaires) that his victim uses. He may tap pipes, or examine meters, or test water pressure—but that is his real object. Having accomplished it, he leaves, and is not seen in that neighbourhood again.
“And for a few days perhaps nothing happens. But sooner or later, the victim displays symptoms of illness. A doctor is called in, but has no reason to suspect anything out of the ordinary. He may question what food and drink, etc., the patient has taken, but he is unlikely to suspect the ordinary proprietary article that the patient has taken for years.
“And you see the beauty of the scheme, Mr. Venables? The only person who knows what the head of the organisation actually does—is the head of the organisation himself. There is no one to give him away.”
“So how do you know so much?” demanded Mr. Venables pleasantly.
“When we have suspicions of a certain person, there are ways of making sure.”
“Indeed? Such as?”
“We needn’t go into all of them. But there’s the camera, for instance. All kinds of ingenious devices are possible nowadays. A man can be snapped without his suspecting the fact. We’ve got some excellent pictures, for instance, of a uniformed flat porter, and a gas man and so on. There are such things as false moustaches, different dentures, etc., but our man has been recognised, quite easily—first by Mrs. Mark Easterbrook, alias Miss Katherine Corrigan, and also by a woman called Edith Binns. Recognition is an interesting thing, Mr. Venables. For instance, this gentleman here, Mr. Osborne, is willing to swear he saw you following Father Gorman in Barton Street on the night of the seventh of October about eight o’clock.”
“And I did see you!” Mr. Osborne leaned forward, twitching with excitement. “I described you exactly!”
“Rather too exactly, perhaps,” said Lejeune. “Because you didn’t see Mr. Venables that night when you were standing outside the doorway of your shop. You weren’t standing there at all. You were across the street yourself—following Father Gorman until he turned into West Street, and you came up with him and killed him.…”
Mr. Zachariah Osborne said:
“What?”
It might have been ludicrous. It was ludicrous! The dropped jaw, the staring eyes…
“Let me introduce you, Mr. Venables, to Mr. Zachariah Osborne, pharmacist, late of Barton Street, Paddington. You’ll feel a personal interest in him when I tell you that Mr. Osborne, who has been under observation for some time, was unwise enough to plant a packet of thallium salts in your potting shed. Not knowing of your disability, he’d amused himself by casting you as the villain of the piece; and being a very obstinate, as well as a very stupid man, he refused to admit he’d made a bloomer.”
“Stupid? You dare to call me stupid? If you knew—if you’d any idea what I’ve done—what I can do— I—”
Osborne shook and spluttered with rage.
Lejeune summed him up carefully. I was reminded of a man playing a fish.
“You shouldn’t have tried to be so clever, you know,” he said reprovingly. “Why, if you’d just sat back in that shop of yours, and let well alone, I shouldn’t be here now, warning you, as it’s my duty to do, that anything you say will be taken down and—”
It