The Problem of the Green Capsule Read Free

George.
    “Oh, go soak your head,” said the professor amiably.
    Marcus settled back as far as was possible without tumbling into the fountain. His expression had grown even more bland.
    “Since all this is understood,” he went on, in a slightly different voice, “you ought to know something about us. Has Marjorie told you anything about it? I thought not. If you think we are members of the strolling idle rich, who are accustomed to take a three months’ holiday at this time of year, get it out of your head. It is true that I am rich: but I am not idle and I very seldom stroll. Neither do the others: I see to that. I work; and, though I consider myself more of a scholar than a business man, I am none the worse a man of business for that. My brother Joseph is a general practitioner in Sodbury Cross; he works, in spite of his constitutional laziness; I see to that too. He is not a good doctor, but people like him.”
    Doctor Joe’s face went fiery behind the dark glasses.
    “Please be quiet,” said Marcus coolly. “Now, Wilburl—Wilbur Emmet there—is the manager of my business.”
    He nodded towards the tall and spectacularly ugly young man who stood inside the balustrade of the peristyle. Wilbur Emmet kept a wooden countenance. Towards Marcus he showed a respect as great as George Harding’s, but it was a stiffer and more dignified respect, as though he were always ready to take notes.
    “Since I employ him,” continued Marcus, “I can assure you he works too. Professor Ingram there, that fat fellow with the bald head, is just a friend of the family. He doesn’t work, but he would if I had any say in the matter. Now, Mr. Harding, I want you to understand this from the start, and I want you to understand me. I’m the head of this family; make no mistake about that. I’m not a tyrant. I’m not ungenerous and I’m not unreasonable: anybody will tell you that.” He stuck out his neck. “But I’m an interfering, strong-minded old busybody who wants to find out the truth of things. I want my own way and I generally get it. Is that clear?”
    “Yes,” said George.
    “Good,” commented Marcus, smiling. “Now, then. Everything else being so, you may wonder why we did take this three months’ holiday. I’ll tell you. It was because in the village of Sodbury Cross there is a criminal lunatic who enjoys poisoning people wholesale.”
    Again there was a silence. Marcus put on his spectacles, and again the ring of dark glasses was complete.
    “Has the cat got your tongue?” inquired Marcus. “I did not say the village contained a drinking-fountain or a market-cross. I said it contained a criminal lunatic who enjoys poisoning people wholesale. Purely to afford pleasure to this person, three children and an eighteen-year-old girl were poisoned with strychnine. One of the children died. It was a child of whom Marjorie had been particularly fond.”
    George Harding opened his mouth to say something, and stopped again. He looked at the guide-book in his hand, and hastily thrust it into his pocket.
    “I’m sorry—” he began.
    “No; listen to me. Marjorie was ill for several weeks with nervous shock. Because of this, and certain other—atmospheres,” Marcus adjusted his glasses, “we decided to come for this trip.”
    “Never been robust,” muttered Doctor Joe, staring at the ground.
    Marcus silenced him.
    “On Wednesday, Mr. Harding, we go home by the Hakozaki Maru from Naples. So you had better know a little about what happened in Sodbury Cross on last June 17th. There is a woman named Mrs. Terry who keeps a tobacconist’s and sweet-shop in the High Street. The children were poisoned by doses of strychnine in chocolate-creams sold by Mrs. Terry. She does not (you may gather) sell poisoned chocolates as a regular thing. The police believe that poisoned sweets were substituted for harmless ones—in a certain way.” He hesitated. “The point is that everyone who could have had access to the