Heberden's Seat

by Douglas Clark

  “In what way?” asked Reed.

  “Let’s dispose of the coincidence business first,” interrupted Masters. “Because there is a thumping great coincidence here, pointed by the fact that the two men disappeared at different times. Had they both dropped out simultaneously, it would have been easy to suppose that they had both met with a fatal accident while in each other’s company, or had agreed to push off together to South America without informing their wives. But for two men to disappear, in the same area, within a few days of each other, with the added factor that they are inseparable friends, argues that lightning has struck in the same place twice. And that isn’t on.

  “So if it is a coincidence, it’s a man-made one. As DCI Green says, if the body in the well is that of one of the two missing men, it will make a difference if it is number one or number two. If it is number one, it could be that number two killed him and then, after a lapse of time, disappeared. If it is number two, where is number one?”

  “Number two could have committed suicide in a fit of remorse at killing number one.”

  “Of course he could. But I venture to suggest that in such a case, the one who committed suicide would leave a note telling us where he had hidden the other’s body. As Mr Webb has said he has no knowledge of what has happened to the two men, it means no note has been left.”

  “That’s right,” agreed Webb. He picked up the phone on his desk as it started to ring. The others busied themselves with their tea and cake as he spoke.

  “Mrs Heberden, did you say? She’s been away for a week and returned to find . . . no sign of her husband? He’s been away three or four days? How does she know? Mail, papers and milk. I see. Right, Sergeant, I’ll look into it. Ring Mrs Heberden and tell her I’ll be out there as soon as I can.”

  He put the phone down and looked across at Masters. “There’s been another one, sir.”

  “Disappearance?”

  “Alexander Heberden. He’s a fairly wealthy landowner. In his sixties. . . .”

  “Wealthy?” asked Green, disbelievingly. “And the milk was left on the doorstep?”

  Webb shrugged. “He and his wife live at the Grange. It’s big, too big, for them. But they have the help of a married couple living in and a charwoman for the heavy work. The garden is done on contract. One of these firms with three or four men in a lorry descends once a fortnight to trim the edges and hoe the beds. Every summer about now they close the house, more or less.”

  “You mean they send their couple away on holiday?”

  “That’s it. But they don’t necessarily go off themselves or together.”

  “Coincidentally, you mean?”

  Webb nodded. “Mrs Heberden usually goes off on one of these artistic package holidays. She goes off and dabbles with about fifty others who all live in some hotel where they’re supposed to get instruction in drawing and so on.”

  “I know the sort of thing.”

  “Yes. Well, the old man doesn’t go. He’s quite a busy sort of man. He manages his own properties, you see, so he’s always going and coming.”

  “So it is conceivable that he remained behind alone in the house?”

  “From what I heard on the phone, he was to be there for just two nights alone and then he was going off to some big agricultural show down in the west country. He was to judge some classes, I believe. I suppose he was instructed by his wife to cancel the milk and papers but apparently never got round to it.”

  Masters shrugged. “He could have forgotten. Your best plan is to ring the secretary of the show he was supposed to attend. He could be there, or could have been there.”

  “Mrs Heberden did that as soon as she got back home. The secretary of the show said Heberden hadn’t turned up. He’d rung through to the Grange several times to try to get hold of Heberden, but without any luck.”

  Berger said: ‘You’ve got an epidemic, Mr Webb. Two epidemics. One of missing persons and one of mysterious fires.”

  Webb nodded. “I’ll have to go now, to see Mrs Heberden. I don’t suppose . . .?”

  “What?” asked Masters.

  Webb looked slightly sheepish. “Well, sir, you gentlemen are always available to help should any other force need help. And I need help. Definitely.”

  Masters glanced across at Green who was carefully withdrawing a Kensitas with the nails of thumb and forefinger and who—or so it seemed—refused to meet his gaze. Masters knew the problem. Green had been away for some days and now wanted to get back home. But he was too good a copper to want to refuse help where it was needed. The DCI was, at the moment, unable to solve his personal equation and was waiting to hear how Masters tackled the problem.

  Seeing he was to get no help, Masters had no option but to say to Webb: “It will have to be done officially. Your Chief Constable will have to make a formal request to the Assistant Commissioner, Crime. And don’t forget that your senior officers may not want us, even though you do.”

  “Will you stay until I can sort it out?”

  “I think your best plan would be to ask your headquarters to request that we should stay, without prejudice, until you have the forensic report on the body in the well. If you could hurry that along, so that you have at least a preliminary report by, say eight o’clock, that outcome might decide whether we stay over tonight or not.”

  *

  The call came from the pathologist at twenty past seven. He was willing to give them a preliminary report if they would care to motor the sixteen miles to Lincoln in order to hear it.

  Curiously enough, the time which had elapsed since Webb left them about five o’clock had been spent, not in discussing whatever case might eventuate, but in wandering round Market Rasen, noting its racecourse, its old De Aston Grammar School, cattlemarket, church and, almost inevitably, in sampling the beer in The Chestnut Tree, the largest of the local hostelries. Reed had arranged for his battery to be given a crash charge, and it was he who brought the message to Masters that a forensic report was ready. Masters, in the middle of giving the barman an order, cancelled it and asked his colleagues to join the car.

  “Is Webb coming?” asked Green.

  “He set off as soon as he’d found me and given me a message for the Chief.”

  “We’ll get there, will we?”

  “The battery’s been given a charge. I know it’s damaging to force it. I’d always prefer to trickle charge, but needs must when the devil drives.”

  “See there’s no devil driving this tank,” grunted Green, who was highly nervous in cars and so always selected what he considered to be the safest seat—the nearside rear. “Take your time getting there and remember everybody else on the road is a fool.”

  Despite Green’s instructions, they arrived at the forensic laboratory a minute or so before eight, and were met by Webb and Dr Watling, the pathologist.

  “Masters?” said Watling. “I’ve heard of you. Several times as a matter of fact. There aren’t too many chaps like me about, so the few of us who do exist tend to chatter among ourselves like washerwomen in a public laundry. You’ve often been the subject of our conversation.”

  “I’m flattered, Dr Watling. Is what you’ve got for us likely to get me talked about?”

  Watling, in slacks and shirt sleeves, picked up his notes from the desk. “It depends on what you make of it, but I think yes. You see, dead men don’t throw themselves down wells.”

  Green asked: “He didn’t drown?”

  “No. Dead on arrival in the well. No water at all in the lungs and tubes.”

  “How was he killed?”

  “That’s a question I can’t answer directly. All I can give is the general verdict that he died from respiratory depression so severe as to be fatal.”

  “Meaning what? He stopped breathing?”

  Watling laughed. “You could say that, Mr Green, because that is precisely what happened. But what I mean is he wasn’t injured in any way—shot, knifed, coshed or strangled—to cause death. The respiratory depression
caused him to stop breathing and so to die, but what caused the respiratory depression is another matter.”

  “Heart attack of one sort or another?” asked Masters.

  Watling shook his head. “Heart as sound as a bell. No signs of thrombi or other obstructions—”

  “Obstructions?” broke in Green. “Something in his throat that blocked the air intake?”

  “Throat clear, I’m afraid.”

  “So where do we stand?” asked Masters.

  Watling paused before replying. “I have been over the body very carefully. It has been in water for four or five days, I’d say, so there’s a lot of swelling and a sort of blotting-paper effect with the epidermis, so it is possible I have missed some minute hypodermic puncture. But I think not. Nor can I see any signs of ingestion of a toxic substance—no burning of the lips or oesophagus or anything of that sort.”

  “Discolouration of the organs?”

  “Not so far.”

  “A puzzle.”

  “It means I have to do some extremely careful analysis, because I can think of no way in which a healthy man could suffer a lethal bout of respiratory depression unless that depression was caused by a foreign substance.”

  “Foreign substance?” asked Berger.

  “Everything that goes into the body is foreign. Even food and drink. But I was thinking of chemicals and medicines mostly. Quite a number of drugs have respiratory depression as a side effect. Rarely fatally so, of course, but heroin, for example, causes it in a dose-related way.”

  “So you think he was poisoned?”

  “If you care to put it that way, yes. I also think he was murdered, because, as I said, corpses don’t throw themselves down wells.”

  Masters nodded and turned to Webb. “Has the body been identified?”

  “Not identified as yet, sir, but recognised. It’s number two.”

  “The second of the two friends to disappear?”

  “The same. Name of Rex Belton, the local representative of a farm machinery firm.”

  “I said it would be sinister,” commented Green. “One goes missing and a few days later his pal is murdered. No suicide in a fit of remorse. Murder. Probably two murders—if the first one’s body shows up.”

  Webb said, glumly: “And Alexander Heberden gone, too. It might mean we’ve got a maniac loose.”

  “I take it,” said Masters, “that your headquarters would now definitely like us to take over?”

  “That was the agreement with the Yard, sir. If murder was established, we could call on your services.”

  “In that case, we’ve a job of work to do.” He turned to Watling. “When can I expect your full report, doctor?”

  “Tomorrow at this time?”

  “Fine. I’ll ring you. So if you’ll excuse us now, my team and I have a few things to do, not least among which is to find somewhere to lay our heads.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” said Webb. “I took the precaution of making provisional bookings at the Chestnut Tree.”

  *

  They had a late dinner. The staff at The Chestnut Tree weren’t too pleased about it, but Webb seemed to have the resources and enough local authority to make it possible. Consequently he joined them at table, and his presence gave Masters his first opportunity as officer in charge of the investigation to ask the questions to which he wanted answers.

  As he dissected a grilled sole, he said: “We know two names. Rex Belton, who is the gentleman down the well, and Alexander Heberden, who is one of those missing. Who is the third man?”

  “John Melada.”

  “Sounds foreign.”

  “He’s British. There may have been a bit of Latin blood there somewhere—Italian or Spanish—but if so, I know nothing of it.”

  Reed raised a hand with a fork in it. “Can I butt in, Chief?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “You seem to be linking all these cases. I know Mr Webb links Belton with Melada and the reasons for that are obvious. But why assume Heberden is connected with those two in any way? Did they all three live close together? Were they friends?”

  Masters turned to Webb for the answers to the last two parts of Reed’s multiple question.

  “Melada and Belton live just outside Lincoln. Not in the city itself, otherwise they wouldn’t be in the County Divisional area. It’s about twelve or fourteen miles to where they live. But Heberden lives not far from the church where you found Belton. Actually, he owns a deal of land between the two villages of Oakby and Beckby. In fact the parish is called Oakby-cum-Beckby. But as far as I know, Heberden was not friendly with the other two. I mean, it’s not likely, is it?”

  “Why not?” growled Green. “You think because Heberden was the squire the other two wouldn’t be in his class?”

  Webb seemed surprised by Green’s words and by the tone of his voice, but he answered readily enough. “If that’s how you want to put it, that’s exactly what I think. But there are other factors. First, Heberden was much older than the other two, so the generation gap would keep them apart. Second, they lived miles away from each other, so it’s not likely they knew each other casually.”

  Reed came in again. “That’s what I thought, and it’s why I asked the Chief if he was linking the three cases.”

  Green, still a bit grumpy because his socialist principles had been outraged, said: “They’re all missing, aren’t they? Doesn’t that link them?”

  Before Reed could reply, Masters said: “Quite right. But there’s more than that.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “Belton disappeared down a well in the yard of St John the Divine church in Oakby. Also in the churchyard of St John the Divine is an oak seat bearing a plaque with the donor’s name. That name is Alexander Heberden—I read it this afternoon.”

  Webb laid down his knife and fork and stared at Masters in amazement. “You’re sure?”

  “If the chief says so,” grunted Berger, “he’s sure.”

  “Less concrete, but still a strong possibility—as a link between Belton and Heberden—is the fact that Belton is a representative for a firm selling agricultural machinery, and Heberden is a land-owner on Belton’s patch. If Belton was any use as a salesman he would have made sure he called on everybody in the area who might use the implements he sold and—or so I think—he would make sure that he knew potential customers and that they knew him.”

  “Heberden doesn’t actually farm himself,” said Webb.

  “So what?” asked Green. “If he has tenant farmers his influence could be just what a rep would try to get. Heberden could recommend his tenants to buy certain items which Belton had to sell. In fact, it would pay Belton to cultivate Heberden, if you’ll pardon the pun.”

  “Christmas night!” said Webb. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Perhaps you could establish that they were acquainted,” said Masters to the local man. “It may help us if we know for sure.”

  Webb nodded. Reed asked: “And the fires? Are they linked, too, Chief?”

  Masters carefully turned the half skeleton of his grilled sole before replying. Having thus exposed the white underbelly, he paused before dissecting it. “At the moment I confess I can think of no reason to suppose that they are. However, Mr Webb says they are unusual—in that such spates of fire-raising are infrequent in his area. That alone should not be a cause for regarding them as significant in the case of the murdered Belton simply because it, too, is unusual for the same reason. Nor, however, is it a cause for disregarding them entirely.” He carefully parted a portion of fish down one of the longitudinal striations. “But if we are not to disregard them, then we must pay them some attention. So far, we know nothing of them, except that they are five in number—two hayricks, two old barns, and a veterinary surgeon’s premises. I can surmise nothing from that information. But we shall see when we know more.”

  “That’s as good a way of saying nothing as I’ve come across in a month of Sundays,” said Green, wiping his mouth on his na
pkin. “Any more spuds on that dish in front of you, young Berger? If not, flag-wag for some more.”

  “Is it?” asked Masters, sensing an old belligerence in Green’s tones. “If I have said nothing in reply to Reed’s last question, perhaps you will supply the answer.”

  Green replied without thought: “You can’t link the fires to the murders. There’s no evidence to say you should.”

  “Go on.”

  “So why waste time on them?”

  “You’re saying we should ignore them.”

  Green stared hard at Masters. “No you don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Catch me that way. Once you have mentioned it as being possibly connected, even in the slightest way with Belton’s murder, and it turns out that he’s as much as motored past the sites of one of those fires, even if it was ten years ago last muck-spreading, you’ll crow like an old hen.”

  “So?”

  “We’ll look into them, with the excuse that it’s best to do so even if only to eliminate them from the investigation.”

  The waiter, somewhat ungraciously, plonked a metal serving dish of freshly fried chips in front of Green who, from that point on, appeared to lose all interest in the discussion, preferring to concentrate on his food.

  Webb asked: “How are you going to start, sir?”

  Masters took his time in replying. “You probably think we’ve been having a bit of a slanging match so far. But I assure you, all that we have really been doing is clearing our minds. However, to answer your question more directly, I propose to start with people. Belton had a wife. He also had a friend, Melada, who, though he has apparently disappeared, had a common-law wife. And there’s Mrs Heberden. So there are three to start with. They may lead us to others. Then there are places. The church for instance, and the sites of the fires. By the time we’ve got so far, we should be able to get to events about which we so far know nothing.”

  “Do you always work like that?”

  “No. We treat each case on its merits; and don’t try to hold me to any timetable or sequence. We have to maintain flexibility of approach.” Masters put his knife and fork together on the plate. “Of course, we ought to have a better idea of how to proceed once we get the forensic report.”