“I'm not talking about arresting anyone, sir,” the Inspector replied in an injured tone. “I'm just reviewing possible motives.”
“Quite true. Can't one make a feeble joke without rasping your susceptibilities? Now is that the end of your list?”
“I think so, sir.”
“Ah! You didn't think of including someone with the initial ‘B,’ then? You remember the ‘B’ on the bracelet?”
The Inspector seemed rather startled.
“You mean this fellow B. might have been a discarded lover of Mrs. Silverdale's who was out for revenge like the Hailsham girl? I hadn't thought of that. It's possible, of course.”
“Now let's turn to a fresh side of the case,” Sir Clinton suggested. “One thing's certain; hyoscine played a part in the affair. What about Mr. Justice's pertinent inquiry: ‘Who had access to hyoscine at the Croft-Thornton Institute?’ ”
“Every blessed soul in the place, so far as I could see,” the Inspector confessed, rather ruefully. “Silverdale, Markfield, young Hassendean, and the two girls: they all had equal chances of helping themselves from that bottle in the store. I don't think that leads very far. That hyoscine was common property so far as access to it went. Anyone might have taken some.”
“Then push the thing a little further. Out of all that list, who had an opportunity of administering hyoscine to Mrs. Silverdale—directly or indirectly—on the night she died?”
“Directly or indirectly?” Flamborough mused. “There's something in that perhaps. On the face of it, only three people could have administered the drug directly, since there were only three people at Heatherfield in a fit state to do it. I take it that she swallowed the stuff at Heatherfield, sir, because I found no trace of a paper which might have held it, either at the bungalow or on the bodies of young Hassendean and Mrs. Silverdale.”