Chapter XIV: At Vance’s Place

Vance’s bungalow being the nearest, the party repaired there for a clean-up.

The planter was reaching down the decanter when Armourer spoke.

“What made you ferret out that basket, professor?”

Standen, who had been carrying the bundle with him all over the house, as if chary of trusting it with anybody, raised his eyes.

“I happen to be blessed with a peculiarly keen sense of smell,” he declared. “When that black fellow passed me this afternoon, I caught a faint suggestion of something sickly and unpleasant. I did not pay serious attention to it at the time, but a recurrence of apparently the same odour in Moberly’s bedroom set me thinking. It would hardly be true to say that I suspected Abu-Samar from that moment, but there was just a shadowy notion at the back of my mind that he might in some way be connected with the mystery. He seemed peculiarly anxious, if you remember, to obtain possession of the butterfly ornament about which he said Mrs. Battiscombe was raving.”

Battiscombe started.

“What’s that?” he demanded sharply.

Armourer flushed.

“You must recollect, Jim, that we all imagined Abu-Samar was genuinely a doctor. Macnally was away. Standen was at my place. We had a dead man and a sick woman and a devil of a mystery confronting us. Trevor suggested Samar. In the end we sent for both of them--and Samar attended Mrs. Battiscombe.”

“You don’t mean to tell me you sent that man in to my wife--_alone_?”

“No,” jerked out Vance. “I was there too--trying to bring her round.”

“You were there all the time?”

The planter looked at the ceiling.

“Most of it. I certainly came out for a bit to tell the others how she was; but I was never far away from the door.”

Battiscombe bit his thumb.

“Go on, professor. Tell us a little more about your line of reasoning.”

Standen adjusted his spectacles.

“Samar was the only person outside the charmed circle who knew Mr. Moberly was dead, the only one of whom we knew. There might have been others whom we didn’t know, but I was not prepared to take that into account. You see, I couldn’t take my mind from that smell. Then we embarked upon our little expedition. Abu-Samar, surprised by the swiftness of our approach and fully aware that the odds were against him, emerged from the burning building clinging desperately to that basket. I judged it to be of vital importance to him, or he would have relinquished it in his flight. Anxious to put my theory to the test, I concentrated on the basket. It had been discarded almost immediately after we all saw it and a heavy beam had fallen right across it, so that I had great difficulty in extricating it. I found traces of there having been other chrysalids--or _pupæ_, each apparently enclosed in little bamboo cages, which were unfortunately crushed beyond recognition. How this particular specimen managed to survive I am unable to explain. I discovered it fully a yard from the basket itself, and my attention was called to it by its writhing, spasmodic movement. I hadn’t even been looking for a chrysalis; but it was merely a matter of seconds before I had realised the possible importance of my discovery.”

Battiscombe stared at him aghast.

“But you don’t suggest he breeds the damn’ things?”

“I don’t suggest anything. Chrysalids vary considerably in their duration of quiescence, and we may have to be patient for quite a long while before the actual butterfly breaks through its shell. If indeed it does prove to be the Crimson Butterfly, we shall be faced with another problem. We shall have to consider how it is that Abu-Samar happens to be the sole possessor of specimens of this sort.”

Vance rested his elbows on the table. Now that the excitement of the chase had worn off, he was once more a victim of acute depression.

“And the pendant?” he asked. “How do you fit that in?”

The professor shrugged his shoulders.

“I must frankly confess that this particular point baffles me completely. You must not yet lose sight of the fact that the presence of the ornament on Moberly’s table may be sheer coincidence.”

“I’m not losing sight of one thing: that Abu-Samar killed Dick Moberly--and if ever he falls into my hands I pity him!”

Standen shook his head slowly from side to side.

“At the present stage, everything is conjecture. If, for example, a perfectly harmless insect emerges from this _pupa_--the whole structure upon which my theory is based falls to the ground. If indeed Samar poisoned Moberly, can anybody suggest a motive?”

Battiscombe smiled grimly.

“If he’d poisoned _me_, it’d be far more easily understood. I kicked him out of my place yesterday--literally, I mean, and he went off swearing blue murder.”

“I’m wondering,” said Armourer, “if he meant to kill Dick at all.”

All eyes turned in his direction.

“What d’you mean?” asked Vance.

“Wait a bit and I’ll tell you. Did Dick know Samar?”

“Yes--a bit.”

“To what extent?”

“He used to drop in at the chief’s place sometimes, principally, I imagine, to try and persuade him to employ him for the coolies.”

“Which, of course, Dick declined to do?”

“Yes; but,” Vance added hastily, “there was never any row about it. The chief could be very diplomatic when he chose. He explained that he was the manager only and had to take his instructions from London. He also pointed out, I believe, that Macnally was the official doctor and would naturally resent any such appointment, even if it were in Dick’s power to make it.”

Armourer shot a side glance at his colleague.

“I may have to ask a couple of questions about Mrs. Battiscombe. Do you mind?”

A look of pain crossed Battiscombe’s face.

“All right. Carry on.”

“Was Mrs. Battiscombe ever at Dick’s place when any of these interviews took place?”

“It’s not unlikely. She was there fairly often.”

“You can’t say for certain?”

“No.”

The magistrate drummed on the table with his fingers.

“About that pendant. You’ve never set eyes on it before yesterday, Jim?”

Battiscombe shook his head.

“Never; but you mustn’t lay too much stress on that, because Vera tells me I never notice anything!”

“A common feminine delusion with regard to their male associates,” murmured the professor.

“I’m wondering,” pursued Armourer, “whether it could be possible that Samar, wanting to get a dig in at Battiscombe, gave the pendant to Moberly, knowing that he would send it to Mrs. Battiscombe.”

“Meaning the intended victim to be _me_,” chimed in his senior.

“That’s what I was trying to get at. You see, professor, I’ve learnt this evening that Abu-Samar has been suspected of poisoning a good many people, and always, it appears, in a distinctly mysterious manner. Battiscombe can give you the details in full, if you want them. I don’t know how you scientists regard Oriental magic, but we just ordinary folk cling fondly to the notion that there’s possibly something in it. Probably we’re wrong, but there remains just a sporting chance that we’re not. Abu-Samar is well versed in all these spectacular tricks in which hypnotism plays a very important part. It sounds pretty feeble, I admit, but it looks as if the actual butterfly _followed_ that image!”

Vance passed a hand across his forehead and yawned.

“How?” he inquired wearily.

“Ask me another!--We’ve had to swallow a good deal during the past few hours, so much in fact that we ought to be in a mood to tackle almost any possibility.”

Battiscombe pushed himself out of his chair.

“We’d better be getting back. Michael, you seem destined to occupy one of your long chairs to-night; I’d better curl up in another. A great deal hangs on what Vera has to tell us to-morrow.”

The professor blinked.

“If your suggestion is in any way correct,” he remarked, “the next victim--provided there is to be a next--should be yourself. You’ve still got that Butterfly, haven’t you?”

Armourer laughed.

“Many thanks for your cheery suggestion, professor! As a matter of fact, I happen to have left it at home.”

Standen emptied his glass.

He jerked himself suddenly as if to shift a heavy weight from his mind.

“It’s all the purest nonsense imaginable,” he asserted testily, “and I must be in my dotage to have allowed you even to harbour such a ridiculous notion; _but_ I shall feel a great deal easier in mind when we get back.”

“I hope everything’s all right,” said the planter gloomily, with an inflection that suggested that everything might not be.

“Don’t be a damn’ fool!” said the professor, and stamped his way down into the garden. “Good-night, Mr. Vance,” he called back more pleasantly. “I didn’t want to be rude, but you echoed something I was imbecile enough to think myself!--Good night!”