Jimmy Thesiger and Bill Eversleigh

Jimmy Thesiger and Bill Eversleigh begin as familiar companions whose joking exchanges make their differences seem harmless. That appearance collapses when Bill’s trust becomes an instrument in Jimmy’s criminal plan: Bill helps the authorities draw Jimmy out, and Jimmy responds by drugging him and arranging for his death. Their connection is therefore both a personal betrayal and a practical hinge in the investigation that exposes Jimmy.

From Banter to Concern

Early exchanges between Jimmy and Bill are marked by teasing rather than open conflict. Bill claims to have the tact of a budding diplomatist; Jimmy replies that he must still be in the larval stage. The joke establishes an easy familiarity, with Jimmy taking the sharper line and Bill accepting the exchange without apparent resentment. Their lightness is significant in retrospect because it gives their later encounter the surface of ordinary friendship even as danger gathers beneath it.

Bill also speaks to Jimmy about Bundle Brent, saying that she has improved and that he had expected her to be difficult. Jimmy reports that his Chief, George Lomax, was agreeably surprised by her as well. The conversation shows Bill observing the people around him and speaking openly with Jimmy, while Jimmy can answer in the tone of a companion sharing a familiar subject. Nothing in that exchange signals the violence that will later turn their apparent ease into a disguise.

The change becomes visible when Bill raises the deaths of Gerald Wade and Ronald Devereux. He tells Jimmy that he hopes he will be all right, acknowledging that joking is one thing but that the two deaths make the matter serious. His concern is awkwardly expressed, but it is not merely conversational: Bill is thinking about Jimmy’s safety in the wake of the deaths. Jimmy answers with exasperation and says that he will have to show Bill Leopold. The remark leaves the threat implicit rather than explaining it, preserving the gap between Bill’s humane concern and Jimmy’s evasive response.

Bill’s Part in the Trap

By the time Superintendent Battle explains the operation, Bill’s apparent position as Jimmy’s honest friend has become a deliberate means of testing Jimmy. Battle says that the authorities had got Jimmy badly rattled over the Seven Dials business and uncertain where danger lay. Bill went to Jimmy’s rooms with a fabricated story that papers belonging to Ronald Devereux had come into his possession and might implicate Jimmy. He went as the friend who expected an explanation, giving Jimmy the opportunity to show what he would do when he believed suspicion had reached him.

The risk was real. Battle explains that the plan depended on Jimmy trying to put Bill out of the way, and that the authorities anticipated the means he would use. Jimmy offered Bill whisky and soda. While Jimmy was briefly out of the room, Bill poured the drink into a jar on the mantelpiece, then pretended that the drug was taking effect. The drink contained enough hydrochloride of morphia to kill two people. Bill’s performance let Jimmy believe the poisoning had worked; it also allowed the authorities to observe the response they were trying to provoke.

Bill’s role required more than delivering a false story. He had to continue acting as though he were becoming unconscious while Jimmy explained himself. At first Jimmy indignantly denied the accusation. Once he thought the drug had begun to work, he admitted everything and told Bill that he was to be the third victim. The shift from denial to confession makes the contrast in their positions stark: Bill is risking himself to uncover the truth, while Jimmy treats their friendship as cover for murder.

The Attempt on Bill’s Life

Jimmy’s scheme extends beyond the drugged drink. He takes Bill to a car with its hood up and leaves him there while creating an alibi at a golf course, where he briefly presents himself as someone about to play a round. He then returns to London and goes to the Seven Dials Club. After Alfred leaves, Jimmy comes back to the house, speaks to Bill as he gets out of the car, and enters to perform a small comedy of concern. The sequence turns Bill’s apparent helplessness into part of Jimmy’s staging: the friend who has supposedly been poisoned is also a prop in a plan to mislead witnesses and conceal the intended violence.

When Jimmy pretends to go for a doctor, he instead slams a door, creeps upstairs, and hides behind the door of the room where Bundle Brent is to be sent. Bill continues his act, believing that the watchers outside mean there is no immediate danger to Bundle and that he can reveal himself whenever necessary. But Jimmy has not finished using him. After apparently throwing down his revolver and leaving, he returns with Loraine Wade. Bill hears Loraine say that the plan has gone splendidly, and Jimmy ask her to help carry him upstairs so that he and Bundle can be together as a surprise for No. 7.

Bill’s feigned unconsciousness is now carried into the room where Bundle has been attacked. He makes himself a dead weight as Jimmy and Loraine haul him upstairs. Their words reveal that Jimmy believes Bundle will not regain consciousness: he tells Loraine that he hit her with all his might. The locked door leaves Bill and Bundle together, apparently helpless, but Bill is still conscious enough to open his eyes when the pair have gone. He later tells Bundle that he thought she was dead. His fear makes the personal cost of his part in the sting explicit: the man who had accepted the risk of confronting Jimmy is forced to face what seems to be the death of someone he cares about.

Betrayal and Consequence

Battle credits the capture of Jimmy to Bill, saying that Bill knew what he was facing and risked his life cheerfully. Yet the operation does not leave Bill untouched. The plan brings him into direct reach of a lethal dose, a staged death, and the assault on Bundle; Battle acknowledges that the authorities failed to take proper care of her. Bill’s courage is thus not presented as a risk-free clever performance. His feigned collapse helps reveal Jimmy’s guilt, but it also places him inside the violence that Jimmy has arranged.

The relationship ends in a decisive reversal. Bill’s friendly approach gives Jimmy the opening he needs to explain himself, but the trust behind that approach is answered with an attempted killing. Jimmy exploits Bill’s willingness to believe that a friend might have an explanation; Bill, in turn, uses the role of trusting friend to help expose the man he is confronting. Their earlier banter remains part of the contrast, not evidence that the danger was imaginary: the casual companionship that made the deception plausible is precisely what Jimmy turns against him. In the final account, Bill’s loyalty is tested by Jimmy’s treachery, and his willingness to continue the performance helps bring that treachery into the open.