"D'you think it might be important?" "It might be. One can't tell." Inspector Sharpe remained brooding for a few moments. Then he had Nigel Chapman in again.

"I've just had a rather interesting statement from Miss Jean Tomlinson," he said.

"Ah! Who's dear Jean been poisoning your mind against? Me?" "She's been talking about poison, and in connec-don with you, Mr. Chapman." "Poison and me? What on earth?" "Do you deny that some weeks ago you had a wager with Mr. Ba-teson about methods of obtaining poison in some way that could not be traced to you?" "Oh, that!" Nigel was suddenly enlightened.

"Yes, of course! Funny I never thought of that.

I don't even remember Jean being there. But you don't think it could have any possible significance, do you?" "Well, one doesn't know. You admit the fact, then?" "Oh, yes, we were arguing on the subject.

Colin and Len were being very superior and high-handed about it so I told them that with a little ingenuity anyone could get hold of a suitable supply of poison-in fact I said I could think of three distinct ways of doing it, and I'd prove my point, I said, by putting them into practice." "Which you then proceeded to do?" "Which I then proceeded to do, Inspector." "And what were those three methods, Mr.

Chapman?" Nigel put his head a Ettle on one side.

"Aren't you asking me to incriminate myself?" he said. "Surely you ought to warn me?" "It hasn't come to warning you yet, Mr.

Chapman, but, of course, there's no need for you to incriminate yourself, as you put it. In fact you're perfectly entitled to refuse my questions if you like to do so." "I don't know that I want to refuse." Nigel considered for a moment or two, a slight smile playing round his lips.

"Of course," he said, "what I did was, no doubt, against the law. You could haul me in for it if you Eked. On the other hand, this is a murder case and if it's got any bearing on poor little Celia's death I suppose I ought to tell you." "That would certainly be the sensible point of view to take." "All right then. I'll talk." "What were these three methods?" "Well." Nigel leant back in his chair.

"One's always reading in the papers, isn't one, about doctors losing dangerous drugs from a car? People are being warned about it?" "Yes." "Well, it occurred to me that one very simple method would be to go down to the country, follow a G.P. about on his rounds, when occasion offered-just open the car, look in the doctor's case, and extract what you wanted. You see, in these country districts, the doctor doesn't always take his case into the house. It depends what sort of patient he's going to see." "Well?" "Well, that's all. That's to say that's all for method number one. I had to sleuth three doctors until I had 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 Lo.ndon, add his initials or sli litly 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. Digitatin 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?" Niel 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 any money by it, and it wasn't actually an imitation of any doctor's signature. I mean, if I write a prescription and write H. R. Jarlies 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 comino, 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 lelevenses," 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 along to the poison cupboard, took out a bottle, strolled round the end of the partition, said to the girl, "What strength adrenalin do you keep?" She told me and I nodded, then I asked her if she had a couple of veganin as I had a terrific hangover. I swallowed them down and strolled out again. She never had the least suspicion that I wasn't somebody's houseman or a medical student. It was child's play. Celia never even knew I'd been there." "A stethoscope," said Inspector Sharpe curiously.

"Where did you get a stethoscope?" Nigel grinned suddenly.

"It was Len Bateson's," he said. "I pinched it." "From this house?" "Yes.

"So that explains the theft of the stethoscope. That was not Celia's doing." "Good Lord, no! Can't see a kleptomaniac stealing a stethoscope, can you?" "What did you do with it afterwards?" "Well, I had to pawn it," said Nigel apologetically.

"Wasn't that a little hard on Bateson?" "Very hard on him. But without explaining my methods, which I didn't mean to do, I couldn't ten him about it. However," added Nigel cheerfully, "I took him out not long after and gave him a hell of a party one evening." "You're a very irresponsible young man," said Inspector Sharpe.

"You should have seen their faces," said Nigel, his grin widening, "when I threw down those three lethal preparations on the table and told them I had managed to pinch them without anybody being wise as to who took them." "What you're telling me is" said the Inspector, "that you had three means of poisoning someone by three dim erent poisons and that in each case the poison could not have been traced to you." Nigel nodded.