“The next point was the nature of the poison,” Sir Clinton went on. “The local doctor suggested you, Ardsley, as an expert; so I went over at once to get your views. Once I knew it was curare, I felt I’d got something definite enough to go on. That isn’t common stuff. Of course you probably had a stock yourself; and I didn’t feel inclined to interfere with you. I thought it fairly clear that if you had gone on the murder tack you’d have avoided a stuff which could be traced to you directly. So I asked about any other local source, and you put me on to the pot in the Whistlefield museum. “That put a different complexion on the whole case. It was evidently essential to get hold of that supply immediately. If the murderer had drawn a private stock from the pot, we couldn’t help that. If he had just used enough to poison his darts, then we could stop further supplies by confiscating the pot. So I packed you and Wendover off to secure it.” “Wendover being to watch me, I suppose?” Ardsley put in with a grim smile. “I won’t deny it. You’d have done the same in my place,” Sir Clinton pointed out. “Why didn’t you come yourself?” Wendover inquired. “Because I’d something else on hand that had to be done in a hurry. I must confess frankly that I’d nothing definite to go on. It was mere intuition, if you like; or you can call it a case of taking precautions against eventualities which one doesn’t expect to occur. It was rather like the business of Ariadne’s clue—a long shot which might come off. And I thought it had more chance of bearing fruit. These poisoned darts were clues of a sort. They were also weapons. So if the murderer got a chance of grabbing them, I thought he might be tempted. But I wasn’t going to let him have the real things, not likely. I gave him a substitute, quite similar in appearance, but really quite harmless. Then if he tried any more of his games, the chances were that he’d use the darts I gave him; and do no great harm with them. Even if he had one or two deadly darts left, he’d be sure to mix the lot together, and that reduced the risk of poison in a dart chosen at random from the mixture of deadly and harmless ones. “So, when we were passing through the village, I got you to drop me, Wendover; and I bought some darts, drilled them like the deadly ones, faked them to match with Condy’s fluid, put some litmus in so as to make my lot easily recognisable by a simple test, and then I was ready. Incidentally, I think I got the reputation of being quite mad. I needed a tin to keep the deadly darts in—I wasn’t going to have them loose in my pocket—and I had to leave the real tin for the murderer to pick up if he wanted. So I sent out for some Navy Cut, used the tins for the lethal darts, and staggered the sergeant down there by presenting him with the tobacco. He’s still puzzling over it, I guess.