“I know all that,” said Wimsey. “I’ve tested things myself. But these poisons with no recognised test—how do you set about proving that they’re there?”
“Well, of course, you’d take the symptoms into account, and so on. You would look at the history of the case.”
“Yes—but I want a poison that doesn’t produce any symptoms. Except death, of course—if you call that a symptom. Isn’t there a poison with no symptoms and no test? Something that just makes you go off, Pouf! like that?”
“Certainly not,” said the analyst, rather annoyed—for your medical analyst lives by symptoms and tests, and nobody likes suggestions that undermine the very foundations of his profession—“not even old age or mental decay. There are always symptoms.”
Fortunately, before symptoms of mental decay could become too pronounced in Lord Peter, Parker sounded the call to action.
“I’m going down to Leahampton with a warrant,” he said. “I may not use it, but the chief thinks it might be worth while to make an inquiry. What with the Battersea mystery and the Daniels business, and Bertha Gotobed, there seems to be a feeling that there have been too many unexplained tragedies this year, and the Press have begun yelping again, blast them! There’s an article in John Citizen this week, with a poster: ‘Ninety-six Murderers at Large,’ and the Evening Views is starting its reports with ‘Six weeks have now passed, and the police are no nearer the solution—’ you know the kind of thing. We’ll simply have to get some sort of move on. Do you want to come?”
“Certainly—a breath of country air would do me good, I fancy. Blow away the cobwebs, don’t you know. It might even inspire me to invent a good way of murderin’ people. ‘O Inspiration, solitary child, warbling thy native wood-notes wild—’ Did somebody write that, or did I invent it? It sounds reminiscent, somehow.”
Parker, who was out of temper, replied rather shortly, and intimated that the police car would be starting for Leahampton in an hour’s time.
“I will be there,” said Wimsey, “though, mind you, I hate being driven by another fellow. It feels so unsafe. Never mind. I will be bloody, bold and resolute, as Queen Victoria said to the Archbishop of Canterbury.”
They reached Leahampton without any incident to justify Lord Peter’s fears. Parker had brought another officer with him, and on the way they picked up the Chief Constable of the County, who appeared very dubiously disposed towards their errand. Lord Peter, observing their array of five strong men, going out to seize upon one young woman, was reminded of the Marquise de Brinvilliers—(“What! all that water for a little person like me?”)—but this led him back to the subject of poison, and he remained steeped in thought and gloom till the car drew up before the house in Wellington Avenue.