Strong Poison Read Free Page B

maids finished the dish.
    “The final course was a sweet omelette, which was made at the table in a chafing dish by Philip Boyes himself. Both Mr. Urquhart and his cousin were very particular about eating an omelette the moment it came from the pan – and a very good rule it is, and I advise you all to treat omelettes in the same way and never to allow them to stand, or they will get tough. Four eggs were brought to the table in their shells, and Mr. Urquhart broke them one by one into a bowl, adding sugar from a sifter. Then he handed the bowl to Mr. Boyes, saying: ‘You’re the real dab at omelettes, Philip – I’ll leave this to you’. Philip Boyes then beat the eggs and sugar together, cooked the omelette in the chafing-dish, filled it with hot jam, which was brought in by Hannah Westlock, and then himself divided it into two portions, giving one to Mr. Urquhart and taking the remainder himself.
    “I have been a little careful to remind you of all these things, to show that we have good proof that every dish served at dinner was partaken of by two people at least, and in most cases by four. The omelette – the only dish which did not go out to the kitchen – was prepared by Philip Boyes himself and shared by his cousin. Neither Mr. Urquhart, Miss Westlock nor the cook, Mrs. Pettican, felt any ill-effects from this meal.
    “I should mention also that there was one article of diet which was partaken of by Philip Boyes alone, and that was a bottle of Burgundy. It was a fine old Corton, and was brought to the table in its original bottle. Mr. Urquhart drew the cork and then handed the bottle intact to Philip Boyes, saying that he himself would not take any – he had been advised not to drink at mealtimes. Philip Boyes drank two glassfuls and the remainder of the bottle was fortunately preserved. As you have already heard, the wine was later analysed and found to be quite harmless.
    “This brings us to 9 o’clock. After dinner, coffee is offered, but Boyes excuses himself on the ground that he does not care for Turkish coffee, and moreover will probably be given coffee by Harriet Vane. At 9.15 Boyes leaves Mr. Urquhart’s house in Woburn Square, and is driven in a taxi to the house where Miss Vane has her flat, No. 100 Doughty Street – a distance of about half a mile. We have it from Harriet Vane herself, from Mrs. Bright, a resident in the ground floor flat, and from Police Constable D.1234 who was passing along the street at the time, that he was standing on the doorstep, ringing the prisoner’s bell, at 25 minutes past 9. She was on the lookout for him and let him in immediately.
    “Now, as the interview was naturally a private one, we have no account of it to go upon but that of the prisoner. She has told us that as soon as he came in, she offered him ‘a cup of coffee which was standing ready upon the gas-ring.’ Now, when the learned Attorney-General heard the prisoner say that, he immediately asked what the coffee was standing ready in. The prisoner, apparently not quite toderstanding the purport of the question, replied ‘in the fender, to keep hot.’ When the question was repeated more clearly, she explained that the coffee was made in the saucepan, and that it was this which was placed on the gas-ring in the fender. The Attorney-General then drew the prisoner’s attention to her previous statement made to the police, in which this expression appeared: ‘I had a cup of coffee ready for him on his arrival.’ You will see at once the importance of this. If the cups of coffee were prepared and poured out separately before the arrival of the deceased, there was every opportunity to place poison in one of the cups beforehand and offer the prepared cup to Philip Boyes; but if the coffee was poured out from the saucepan in the deceased’s presence, the opportunity would be rather less, though of course the thing might easily be done while Boyes’ attention was momentarily distracted. The prisoner