Unnatural death
Miss Whittaker lying in wait for her at Liverpool docks; Mr. Trigg is
inveigled into a house of mystery and is semi-poisoned. I wonder what
would have happened to Mr. Probyn, if he had been careless enough to
remain in England.”
“I deny nothing,” replied Parker. “I will only point out to you that
during the month in which these disasters occurred to the Gotobed
family, the object of your suspicions was in Kent with Miss Vera
Findlater, who never left her side.”
“As against that undoubted snag,” rejoined Wimsey, “I bring forward a
letter from Miss Climpson, in which—amid a lot of rigmarole with which I
will not trouble you—she informs me that upon Miss Whittaker’s right
hand there is a scar, precisely similar to the one which Mr. Trigg
describes.”
“Is there? That does seem to connect Miss Whittaker pretty definitely
with the Trigg business. But is it your theory that she is trying to
polish off all the people who know anything about Miss Dawson? Rather a
big job, don’t you think, for a single-handed female? And if so, why is
Dr. Carr spared? and Nurse Philliter? and Nurse Forbes? And the other
doctor chappie? And the rest of the population of Leahampton, if it
comes to that?”
“That’s an interesting point which had already occurred to me. I think I
know why. Up to the present, the Dawson case has presented two different
problems, one legal and one medical—the motive and the means, if you
like that better. As far as opportunity goes, only two people figure as
possibles—Miss Whittaker and Nurse Forbes. The Forbes woman had nothing
to gain by killin’ a good patient, so for the moment we can wash her
out.
“Well now, as to the medical problem—the means. I must say that up to
now that appears completely insoluble. I am baffled, Watson (said he,
his hawk-like eyes gleaming angrily from under the half-closed lids).
Even I am baffled. But not for long! (he cried, with a magnificent burst
of self-confidence). My Honour (capital H) is concerned to track this
Human Fiend (capitals) to its hidden source, and nail the whited
sepulchre to the mast even though it crush me in the attempt! Loud
applause. His chin sank broodingly upon his dressing-gown, and he
breathed a few guttural notes into the bass saxophone which was the
cherished companion of his solitary hours in the bathroom.”
Parker ostentatiously took up the book which he had laid aside on
Wimsey’s entrance.
“Tell me when you’ve finished,” he said, caustically.
“I’ve hardly begun. The means, I repeat, seems insoluble—and so the
criminal evidently thinks. There has been no exaggerated mortality among
the doctors and nurses. On that side of the business the lady feels
herself safe. No. The motive is the weak point—hence the hurry to stop
the mouths of the people who knew about the legal part of the problem.”
“Yes, I see. Mrs. Cropper has started back to Canada, by the way. She
doesn’t seem to have been molested at all.”
“No—and that’s why I still think there was somebody on the watch in
Liverpool. Mrs. Cropper was only worth silencing so long as she had told
nobody her story. That is why I was careful to meet her and accompany
her ostentatiously to Town.”
“Oh, rot, Peter! Even if Miss Whittaker had been there—which we know she
couldn’t have been—how was she to know that you were going to ask about
the Dawson business? She doesn’t know you from Adam.”
“She might have found out who Murbles was. The advertisement which
started the whole business was in his name, you know.”
“In that case, why hasn’t she attacked Murbles or you?”
“Murbles is a wise old bird. In vain are nets spread in his sight. He is
seeing no female clients, answering no invitations, and never goes out
without an escort.”
“I didn’t know he took it so seriously.”
“Oh, yes. Murbles is old enough to have learnt the value of his own
skin. As for me—have you noticed the remarkable similarity in some ways
between Mr. Trigg’s adventure and my own little adventurelet, as you
might say, in South Audley Street?”
“What, with Mrs. Forrest?”
“Yes. The secret appointment. The drink. The endeavour to get one to
stay the night at all costs. I’m positive there was something in that
sugar, Charles, that no sugar should contain—see Public Health
(Adulteration of Food) Acts, various.”
“You think Mrs. Forrest is an accomplice?”
“I do. I don’t know what she has to gain by it—probably money. But I
feel sure there is some connection. Partly because of Bertha Gotobed’s
£5 note; partly because Mrs. Forrest’s story was a palpable fake—I’m
certain the woman’s never had a lover, let alone a husband—you can’t
mistake real inexperience; and chiefly because of the similarity of
method. Criminals always tend to repeat their effects. Look at George
Joseph Smith and his brides. Look at Neill Cream. Look at Armstrong and
his tea-parties.”
“Well, if there’s an accomplice, all the better. Accomplices generally
end up by giving the show away.”
“True. And we are in a good position because up till now I don’t think
they know that we suspect any connection between them.”
“But I still think, you know, we ought to get some evidence that actual
crimes have been committed. Call me finicking, if you like. If you
_could_ suggest a means of doing away with these people so as to leave
no trace, I should feel happier about it.”
“The means, eh?—Well, we do know something about it.”
“As what?”
“Well—take the two victims—”
“Alleged.”
“All right, old particular. The two alleged victims and the two
(alleged) intended victims. Miss Dawson was ill and helpless; Bertha
Gotobed possibly stupefied by a heavy meal and an unaccustomed quantity
of wine; Trigg was given a sufficient dose of veronal to send him to
sleep, and I was offered something of probably the same kind—I wish I
could have kept the remains of that coffee. So we deduce from that,
what?”
“I suppose that it was a means of death which could only be used on
somebody more or less helpless or unconscious.”
“Exactly. As for instance, a hypodermic injection—only nothing appears
to have been injected. Or a delicate operation of some kind—if we could
only think of one to fit the case. Or the inhalation of something—such
as chloroform—only we could find no traces of suffocation.”
“Yes. That doesn’t get us very far, though.”
“It’s something. Then again, it may very well be something that a
trained nurse would have learnt or heard about. Miss Whittaker was
trained, you know—which, by the way, was what made it so easy for her to
bandage up her own head and provide a pitiful and unrecognisable
spectacle for the stupid Mr. Trigg.”
“It wouldn’t have to be anything very out of the way—nothing, I mean,
that only a trained surgeon could do, or that required very specialised
knowledge.”
“Oh, no. Probably something picked up in conversation with a doctor or
the other nurses. I say, how about getting hold of Dr. Carr again? Or,
no—if he’d got any ideas on the subject he’d have trotted ’em out before
now. I know! I’ll ask Lubbock, the analyst. He’ll do. I’ll get in touch
with him to-morrow.”
“And meanwhile,” said Parker, “I suppose we just sit round and wait for
somebody else to be murdered.”
“It’s beastly, isn’t it? I still feel poor Bertha Gotobed’s blood on my
head, so to speak. I say!”
“Yes?”
“We’ve practically got clear proof on the Trigg business. Couldn’t you
put the lady in quod on a charge of burglary while we think out the rest
of the dope? It’s often done. It _was_ a burglary, you know. She broke
into a house after dark and appropriated a scuttleful of coal to her own
use. Trigg could identify her—he seems to have paid the lady particular
attention on more than one occasion—and we could rake up his taxi-man
for corroborative detail.”
Parker pulled at his pipe for a few minutes.
“There’s something in that,” he said finally. “I think perhaps it’s
worth while putting it before the authorities. But we mustn’t be in too
much of a hurry, you know. I wish we were further ahead with our other
proofs. There’s such a thing as Habeas Corpus—you can’t hold on to
people indefinitely just on a charge of stealing coal—”
“There’s the breaking and entering, don’t forget that. It’s burglary,
after all. You can get penal servitude for life for burglary.”
“But it all depends on the view the law takes of the coal. It might
decide that there was no original intention of stealing coal, and treat
the thing as a mere misdemeanour or civil trespass. Anyhow, we don’t
really _want_ a conviction for stealing coal. But I’ll see what they
think about it at our place, and meanwhile I’ll get hold of Trigg again
and try and find the taxi-driver. And Trigg’s doctor. We might get it as
an attempt to murder Trigg, or at least to inflict grievous bodily harm.
But I should like some more evidence about—”
“Cuckoo! So should I. But I can’t manufacture evidence out of nothing.
Dash it all, be reasonable. I’ve built you up a case out of nothing.
Isn’t that handsome enough? Base ingratitude—that’s what’s the matter
with you.”
Parker’s inquiries took some time, and June lingered into its longest
days.
Chamberlin and Levine flew the Atlantic, and Segrave bade farewell to
Brooklands. The _Daily Yell_ wrote anti-Red leaders and discovered a
plot, somebody laid claim to a marquisate, and a Czecho-Slovakian
pretended to swim the Channel. Hammond out-graced Grace, there was an
outburst of murder at Moscow, Foxlaw won the Gold Cup and the earth
opened at Oxhey and swallowed up somebody’s front garden. Oxford decided
that women were dangerous, and the electric hare consented to run at the
White City. England’s supremacy was challenged at Wimbledon, and the
House of Lords made the gesture of stooping to conquer.
Meanwhile, Lord Peter’s projected _magnum opus_ on a-hundred-and-one
ways of causing sudden death had advanced by the accumulation of a mass
of notes which flowed all over the library at the flat, and threatened
to engulf Bunter, whose task it was to file and cross-reference and
generally to produce order from chaos. Oriental scholars and explorers
were button-holed in clubs and strenuously pumped on the subject of
abstruse native poisons; horrid experiments performed in German
laboratories were communicated in unreadable documents; and the life of
Sir James Lubbock, who had the misfortune to be a particular friend of
Lord Peter’s, was made a burden to him with daily inquiries as to the
post-mortem detection of such varying substances as chloroform, curate,
hydrocyanic acid gas and diethylsulphonmethylethylmetane.
“But surely there _must_ be something which kills without leaving a
trace,” pleaded Lord Peter, when at length informed that the persecution
must cease. “A thing in such universal demand—surely it is not beyond
the wit of scientists to invent it. It must exist. Why isn’t it properly
advertised? There ought to be a company to exploit it. It’s simply
ridiculous. Why, it’s a thing one might be wantin’ one’s self any day.”
“You don’t understand,” said Sir James Lubbock. “Plenty of poisons leave
no particular post-mortem appearances. And plenty of them—especially the
vegetable ones—are difficult to find by analysis, unless you know what
you are looking for. For instance, if you’re testing for arsenic, that
test won’t tell you whether strychnine is present or not. And if you’re
testing for strychnine, you won’t find morphia. You’ve got to try one
test after another till you hit the right one. And of course there are
certain poisons for which no recognised tests exist.”
“I know all that,” said Wimsey. “I’ve tested things myself. But these
poisons with no recognised test—how do you set about proving that
they’re there?”
“Well, of course, you’d take the symptoms into account, and so on. You
would look at the history of the case.”