five, six, picking up sticks
i
twenty-four hours later japp rang poirot up. his tone was bitter.
“washout! the whole thing!”
“what do you mean, my friend?”
“morley committed suicide all right. we’ve got the motive.”
“what was it?”
“i’ve just had the doctor’s report on amberiotis’ death. i won’t give you the official jargon but
in plain english he died as a result of an overdose of adrenaline and novocaine. it acted on his
heart, i understand, and he collapsed. when the wretched devil said he was feeling bad yesterday
afternoon, he was just speaking the truth. well, there you are! adrenaline and procaine is the stuff
dentists inject into your gum—local anesthetic. morley made an error, injected an overdose, and
then after amberiotis left, he realized what he had done, couldn’t face the music and shot
himself.”
“with a pistol he was not known to possess?” queried poirot.
“he may have possessed it all the same. relations don’t know everything. you’d be surprised
sometimes, the things they don’t know!”
“that is true, yes.”
japp said:
“well, there you are. it’s a perfectly logical explanation of the whole thing.”
poirot said:
“you know, my friend, it does not quite satisfy me. it is true that patients have been known to
react unfavourably to these local anesthetics. adrenaline idiosyncrasy is well- known. in
combination with procaine toxic effects have followed quite small doses. but the doctor or dentist
who employed the drug does not usually carry his concern as far as killing himself!”
“yes, but you’re talking of cases where the employment of the anesthetic was normal. in that
case no particular blame attaches to the surgeon concerned. it is the idiosyncrasy of the patient that
has caused death. but in this case it’s pretty clear that there was a definite overdose. they haven’t
got the exact amount yet—these quantitive analyses seem to take a month of sundays—but it was
definitely more than the normal dose. that means that morley must have made a mistake.”
“even then,” said poirot, “it was a mistake. it would not be a criminal matter.”
“no, but it wouldn’t do him any good in his profession. in fact, it would pretty well ruin him.
nobody’s going to go to a dentist who’s likely to shoot lethal doses of poison into you just
because he happens to be a bit absentminded.”
“it was a curious thing to do, i admit.”
“these things happen — they happen to doctors — they happen to chemists … careful and
reliable for years, and then—one moment’s inattention—and the mischief’s done and the poor
devils are for it. morley was a sensitive man. in the case of a doctor, there’s usually a chemist or a
dispenser to share the blame — or to shoulder it altogether. in this case morley was solely
responsible.”
poirot demurred.
“would he not have left some message behind him? saying what he had done? and that he
could not face the consequences? something of that kind? just a word for his sister?”
“no, as i see it, he suddenly realized what had happened—and just lost his nerve and took the
quickest way out.”
poirot did not answer.
japp said:
“i know you, old boy. once you’ve got your teeth into a case of murder, you like it to be a case
of murder! i admit i’m responsible for setting you on the track this time. well, i made a mistake. i
admit it freely.”
poirot said:
“i still think, you know, that there might be another explanation.”
“plenty of other explanations, i daresay. i’ve thought of them—but they’re all too fantastic.
let’s say that amberiotis shot morley, went home, was filled with remorse and committed suicide,
using some stuff he’d pinched from morley’s surgery. if you think that’s likely, i think it’s
damned unlikely. we’ve got a record of amberiotis at the yard. quite interesting. started as a
little hotelkeeper in greece, then he mixed himself up in politics. he’s done espionage work in
germany and in france—and made very pretty little sums of money. but he wasn’t getting rich
quick enough that way, and he’s believed to have done a spot or two of blackmail. not a nice man,
our mr. amberiotis. he was out in india last year and is believed to have bled one of the native
princes rather freely. the difficult thing has been ever to prove anything against him. slippery as
an eel! there is another possibility. he might have been blackmailing morley over something or
other. morley, having a golden opportunity, plugs an overdose of adrenaline and novocaine into
him, hoping that the verdict will be an unfortunate accident—adrenaline idiosyncrasy—something
of that sort. then, after the man’s gone away morley gets a fit of remorse and does himself in.
that’s possible, of course, but i can’t somehow see morley as a deliberate murderer. no, i’m
pretty sure it was what i first said — a genuine mistake, made on a morning when he was
overworked. we’ll have to leave it at that, poirot. i’ve talked to the a.c. and he’s quite clear on
it.”
“i see,” said poirot, with a sigh. “i see….”
japp said kindly:
“i know what you feel, old boy. but you can’t have a nice juicy murder every time! so long. all
i can say by way of apology is the old phrase: ‘sorry you have been troubled!’”
he rang off.
