“She’d got a syringe in her hand,” panted Miss Climpson, trying to sit up, and fumbling with her hands over the bed. “I fainted, I think—such a struggle—and something hit me on the head. And I saw her coming at me with the thing. And I knocked it out of her hand and I can’t remember what happened afterwards. But I have remarkable vitality,” said Miss Climpson, cheerfully. “My dear father always used to say ‘Climpsons take a lot of killing’!”
Parker was groping on the floor.
“Here you are,” said he. In his hand was a hypodermic syringe.
“She’s mental, that’s what she is,” said the prisoner. “That’s only the hypodermic I use for my injections when I get neuralgia. There’s nothing in that.”
“That is quite correct,” said Parker, with a significant nod at Wimsey. “There is—nothing in it.”
On the Tuesday night, when the prisoner had been committed for trial on the charges of murdering Bertha Gotobed and Vera Findlater, and attempting to murder Alexandra Climpson, Wimsey dined with Parker. The former was depressed and nervous.
“The whole thing’s been beastly,” he grumbled. They had sat up discussing the case into the small hours.
“Interesting,” said Parker, “interesting. I owe you seven and six, by the way. We ought to have seen through that Forrest business earlier, but there seemed no real reason to suspect the Findlater girl’s word as to the alibi. These mistaken loyalties make a lot of trouble.
“I think the thing that put us off was that it all started so early. There seemed no reason for it, but looking back on Trigg’s story it’s as plain as a pike-staff. She took a big risk with that empty house, and she couldn’t always expect to find empty houses handy to do away with people in. The idea was, I suppose, to build up a double identity, so that, if Mary Whittaker was ever suspected of anything, she could quietly disappear and become the frail but otherwise innocent Mrs. Forrest. The real slip-up was forgetting to take back that £5 note from Bertha Gotobed. If it hadn’t been for that, we might never have known anything about Mrs. Forrest. It must have rattled her horribly when we turned up there. After that, she was known to the police in both her characters. The Findlater business was a desperate attempt to cover up her tracks—and it was bound to fail, because it was so complicated.”
“Yes. But the Dawson murder was beautiful in its ease and simplicity.”