‘Any sort. Young, old, male, female, staff or outsider.’
Hill didn’t reply. Masters obviously wasn’t in the mood for idle back-chat. It made social contact sticky, but he knew from experience it was a good sign as far as the case was concerned. Masters always grew taciturn near the end. Hill often wondered why. Any other man would be cheerful, overtly proud of his achievement. Not that Masters wasn’t proud of his. He was. Proud as a peacock and twice as vain. But not at this stage. Later, when all was signed, sealed and delivered. Then he would expect acclaim—and get it.
‘And what about me?’ Green asked.
‘Would you like to tackle Nurse Ward?’
‘She’s in it, too?’ Brant inquired.
‘Up to the neck,’ Green said. He turned to Masters. ‘What about you?’
‘I’ll be with you, but I’ll tackle Dr Sisson—separately. As each one completes, report to the Police Station. I should be with Hook by then.’
Green started on bacon and eggs. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I really believed we’d be out of our depth over this case, but here we are, home and in the dry.’
‘Are we?’ Brant asked. ‘I haven’t the slightest idea who killed her. Or why. Have you?’
Green said airily, ‘Not the actual person, no. But we’ve got all the facts. They only need sorting, and the picture should be as clear as day.’
Masters said, ‘I mentioned yesterday that I was short on proof. Finding zinc sulphate on that rag only confirms a theory I formed. I made a mistake about ipecacuanha, but the theory was, nevertheless, basically sound. Your work today will confirm whether my theory about the identity of the murderer was correct or whether I’ve made a mistake in that, too. For that reason I’ll not give you my ideas—in case they prejudice your investigations.’
Hook was not in his office when Masters arrived at the Station. The sergeant on duty said, ‘He went off for his walk at twelve, sir. He’ll take an hour over it, then go home to lunch, and be back here about two.’
Masters cursed his luck. He had been obliged to wait until the end of surgery before seeing Sisson. Monday surgeries, as Sisson had explained, are noticeably larger than those on any other day of the week. After that, the talk with the doctor had lasted longer than Masters had intended. It had been a difficult time. No doctor will readily believe that his own ancillary staff can be implicated in the murder of patients. Sisson was no exception. Then there had been the technical questions. Sisson had taken his time, doing a thorough job. By the time Masters had been able to leave the surgery, the morning had gone, and Sisson’s visits were a long way behind schedule.
And now Hook was out beating the bounds.
Masters said to the desk sergeant, ‘I’m expecting the other members of my team to report here. Please ask them to come on to the Bristol. We’ll all be back here at two.’
‘I’ll see to it, sir. And I’ll let the Chief Superintendent know you’re coming, if I see him before you do.’
‘Thanks.’
Masters had hardly reached the hotel, on foot, than Hill and Brant, who were using the car, arrived too. They joined him in the bar. He noticed immediately that they were far from jubilant.
‘What luck?’
‘None,’ Hill said. ‘We’ve been to every chemist. Most of them don’t stock zinc sulphate—except in made-up ointments—and the others say they haven’t sold any for years except to a few kids with chemistry sets.’
Brant added, ‘And the hospital pharmacist says he’s seen nobody nosing round his books and in any case visitors are not allowed in the dispensary. So if anybody had been in, they wouldn’t say.’
Masters thought for a moment. ‘Chemistry sets, you said?’
Hill nodded.
‘Right. Off you go. Toy shops, model supply shops—anywhere likely to sell chemistry equipment and substances to children.’
‘Now, Chief?’
‘Yes. Now. And while you’re at it, call on the librarian at the public library. Ask him if he’s noticed anybody in the reference room looking at pharmacopoeias lately.’
The two sergeants left, slightly put out that they hadn’t been allowed to have just one drink, and faced with the prospect of missing lunch.
When Green joined him, Masters suggested they should take their drinks out into the privacy of the garden. There Green reported at length. Masters, satisfied with what he heard, suggested lunch, so that they could be at the station by two o’clock. They were eating when Hill and Brant returned, this time looking decidely more cheerful.
‘So you reckon you know who killed my little Sally?’ Hook asked.
Masters, puffing unconcernedly at his pipe, said, ‘Yes. I know.’
‘Who?’
‘Cora Dent.’
Hook looked more than surprised. He stared in disbelief. After a few seconds he said, ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because … well, because she’s a respected and respectable woman.’
‘You mean she’s the wife of a rich man and friendly with all the leading lights?’ asked Green.
Hook frowned. He ignored Green. ‘I’ll want some convincing before I make an arrest,’ he said.
‘Of course,’ Masters answered. ‘We’re here to give you the facts. How you proceed after that is entirely your affair. It’s your case.’
‘And I wish it wasn’t.’
‘I know.’
‘I’ve been troubled ever since I took you to the Tontine yesterday lunchtime. The way you pulled that fast one on Harry Dent.’
‘Fast one?’
‘Oh, I noticed it. I didn’t know what you were getting at, but I knew you were up to something. You had to be, otherwise you wouldn’t have asked me to take you there.’
‘I wanted some information. I believe that if I’d asked a direct question I’d not have got a true answer. So I resorted to a little ruse. Nothing more.’
‘What happened?’ Green asked.
‘We got to the Tontine,’ the Chief Superintendent replied, ‘and saw Harry and Brian Dent having a drink. We went over and joined them as they were obviously the only people—other than myself—who knew the Chief Inspector.’
‘That was the object of the exercise, sir,’ Hill said.
‘I know that. Young Brian left us after a bit to chat with somebody else. As soon as he’d gone, the Chief here pulls out a tobacco tin, opens it, and says, “Oh dear, it’s empty, and I don’t suppose they sell my brand here.” Harry Dent says, “No, they don’t. I’ve never even heard of it.” Then the Chief says, “I could have sworn there was quite a lot in it first off this morning.” Dent says, “That’s always happening.” Chief says, “Like your liqueurs, eh? You thought they were full and they weren’t.” Dent says, “Something of the sort.” Chief says, “But this is worse. I’m certain my tin had a few leaves left only half an hour ago.” Dent says, “Like my liqueurs again. I can swear that when I went to the cupboard on Thursday to check up on the gin and whisky there was half a bottle each of Drambuie and Benedictine. But I was wrong. And the girls had to do with Anisette, just like you’ll have to do with one of my cigarettes, or go without a smoke.” ’
Hill grinned. ‘What’s wrong with that?’ Green asked.
‘Nothing. Except as soon as we got in the car outside the club the Chief had mysteriously found enough tobacco for another fill. I know I’m not a D.C.S., but I can see a right mountain of hokum when it suddenly appears in front of me.’
‘If you are unhappy about that little ruse, sir,’ Masters asked, ‘would you prefer me to make my report to the Chief Constable in writing?’
Hook lit a cigarette. ‘No I wouldn’t, and you know it. But that’s not what I call good police work.’
‘Maybe not, sir, but I could think of no other way of getting to know whether the liqueur bottles had been full or empty that week, and I had to know without suggesting to Dent that I was suspicious of either his wife or son. And I assure you it was the only ruse I used d
uring the investigation.’
‘I’ll take your word for it. Now what about the rest of the proof?’
‘When we arrived, we knew nothing about diabetes and diabetic comas. Dr Sisson, however, very kindly gave us a lesson on it, and one of the points which he stressed was that the coma brought about by lack of insulin takes a long time to come on, naturally. Up to forty-eight hours. Sally Bowker, according to Sisson, must have been in a coma by soon after midnight on Saturday, and she died less than twenty-four hours later.
‘Now her coma must have come upon her inexplicably quickly. She was fit when she underwent a medical examination in the morning, she was fit in the afternoon when she was out viewing a house, and she was fit in the early evening when she went swimming. And she felt well enough to eat a good supper and drink a liqueur. Yet by midnight she was too far gone to summon help. This could mean only one thing—that her condition had been induced in some way.
‘When we visited Miss Bowker’s flat, we noticed that the bathroom, with its door shut for several days in this hot weather, smelt not only of stale air, as one would expect, but of vomit. This suggested the girl had been sick, and to support the suggestion, we found a floor rag which smelt as though it had been used for mopping up vomit and only imperfectly rinsed afterwards.
‘Dr Sisson told us that violent sickness which robbed the body of its essential minerals and all its fluid content was a significant factor in bringing on diabetic coma which, in turn, if not expertly treated, would lead to death through collapse of the blood and respiratory systems.
‘Dr Sisson also told us that Sally Bowker had been taught what the first signs of diabetic coma were, and how to combat them. The fact that she gave herself an additional shot of insulin proves that she took the precautions she had been taught.
‘Why, then, were the steps she took ineffective? We know the answer. Her insulin was useless.
‘My immediate thought on hearing Dr Sisson say that vomiting was a significant factor in bringing on diabetic coma was to suppose that the vomiting had been induced by the administration of an emetic. Unless this had been done, there would have been no need for Miss Bowker to inject more insulin that night, and a useless injection the next day would be unlikely to achieve its object, because Miss Bowker would be out and about where, had she collapsed, other people would have come to her aid.
‘That is why I was so insistent that an emetic had been administered. And at this point I must say that I am indebted to Inspector Green for his suggestion that the insulin Miss Bowker injected just before supper was also useless. I had overlooked that point, but it makes the work of the murderer more complete and sure. For a girl to eat a large meal under the impression that she is protected by insulin when, in fact, her body has no insulin, is itself a danger to health and must have been a contributory factor to the severity of the sickness and the coma which brought on death.’
Hook gritted his teeth at the thought. He threw cigarettes to Green, Brant and Hill. When he had blown out the match he said in a hard voice, ‘Go on.’
Masters did so. ‘So I set out to look for an emetic and a way of administering it. The only emetics I knew were common salt and ipecacuanha. Because to disguise a dose of common salt large enough to produce emesis would be virtually impossible, I discarded it. I thought about ipecac a little more. It appeared that this, too, was unlikely on several counts—difficulty of obtaining it in sufficient strength unobtrusively, its exceedingly bitter taste in strong doses, and so on. But, as I say, I was initially more interested in finding the way in which an emetic could have been administered. So, for the moment, I no longer concerned myself with the substance itself, and concentrated on the means by which it had been given, without her knowledge, to Sally Bowker. I asked myself the question, “What does a cook use for disguising taste in food?” The immediate answer was curry powder which, I have always understood, was originally used to disguise the taste of meat or fish that, before the days of refrigeration, was not always as wholesome as it might have been—particularly in hot countries. Curry, as you know, is made of turmeric and bruised spices. As far as I could tell, no turmeric—ginger—had been used in the preparation of Sally’s last meal. But what about spices? There were no cloves, mace, nutmeg, cinnamon, peppermint … but I continued to go through every one I could think of … lemon, pepper, coriander, aniseed … It was when I came to aniseed that I knew I had found the method. At the Dent house was a bottle of aniseed—in liqueur form. Anisette. The ideal means of disguising an emetic. And Sally had drunk Anisette after dinner on the Saturday night—although she preferred Benedictine—because Anisette was the only liqueur available. Drinking a liqueur once a week at the Dent house was her one regular indulgence. If I possibly could, I had to know whether the fact that only Anisette was available that night was brought about by accident or design. I believe it was by design. The ruse you complained of, sir, was used to get Harry Dent to say that he was surprised that the other liqueurs were finished, because he had, or so he thought, noted only two nights earlier that the bottles were half full.’
Hook grunted what Masters took to be a sound of approbation or forgiveness for his behaviour at the Tontine.
Masters went on: ‘So I came to the conclusion that the reason for there being only the one liqueur was to disguise the administration of an emetic to Miss Bowker. I was, incidentally, careful to inquire whether anybody else present at the supper party had suffered any ill effects. Nobody had.
‘The emetic used was proving a problem. But as you know, sir, through you I approached Heatherington-Blowers and, thereafter, Bruce the bacteriologist. They very kindly agreed to test the floorcloth as no samples of the vomit itself had been available. They did not know what they were looking for, but eventually they found significant traces of zinc sulphate, which is a stomach irritant, and by this means produces emesis. Heatherington-Blowers pointed out that though zinc sulphate is a stomach irritant, there were no lesions on the stomach linings when he carried out the post mortem. This allowed him to state categorically that the zinc had been administered only a short time before the girl was sick. Zinc is eliminated entirely in vomit and that is the reason it had been overlooked in the post-mortem—it was not there itself, nor were any of its effects apparent, on the membranes of the stomach. So I felt safe in assuming Miss Bowker had been given an emetic shortly before her death, disguised in Anisette.
‘Mrs Dent served the three ladies with their liqueurs. It was a habit of hers always to serve Miss Bowker her liqueur under the pretext of making sure that she was given no more than was good for her.’
Hook said, ‘It’s hard to believe. She liked Sally. Everybody did. Even old Harry Dent did—though I suppose he was a bit worried about his son being tied to an invalid all his days.’
‘Quite,’ Masters said. ‘Mr Dent would rather his son’s wife wasn’t diabetic. So would we all. But it doesn’t mean to say we try to kill off diabetics, or even that we don’t like them. I believe Harry Dent became very fond of Sally before she became diabetic, and his affection for her continued. But he had natural qualms about her state of health and the effect it would have on his son’s life. He didn’t want his son tied to an invalid, but as that was what was going to happen, I think he accepted it, and he looked on the girl as his daughter. With great affection.
‘With Mrs Dent it was different.
‘I’d like you to understand, sir, that for the next few moments I am giving you my deductions, based on what I’ve learned from various sources, including yourself. Brian Dent is an only child. The most unfortunate type of only child—the one with the over-possessive mother. He himself admits this. No girl had ever been good enough for Brian—until Sally Bowker came along. Brian says that he dropped Clara Breese in favour of Sally of his own free will. I doubt this. He may have thought he did, but I believe that if Mrs Dent had approved of Clara, she would not have allowed Brian to drop her. Clara is a girl of strong will, with a mind of her own. Not the sort to allo
w Mrs Dent to have everything all her own way. Additionally, she is a penniless artist: a girl who must work for her living. Not at all a suitable wife for Brian in Cora Dent’s eyes. Sally Bowker was a cheerful, but more pliant child. More likely to fall in with Mrs Dent’s ideas. And in her case, her work was just a pastime. She came from a well-to-do family—father a farmer in a big way and owner of a thriving light-engineering company. Just the girl to make Brian a smart, pretty wife and Mrs Dent a daughter-in-law who wouldn’t be difficult to manage.
‘I don’t say that Brian and Sally were not in love with each other. I think they were, and I think they would have made each other very happy. But I believe the engagement was only allowed to go through because Mrs Dent approved and showed her approval by offering no objections.
‘The wedding was arranged, and then Miss Bowker was diagnosed as diabetic. This, I believe, upset Mrs Dent’s applecart. You, yourself, told me, sir, that the wedding had been postponed. Why, I wonder?’
‘Because Sally was ill, of course.’
‘No, sir. Miss Bowker was no more ill a fortnight ago when she was originally to have been married, than she would have been in September at the revised date. I believe the first date was cancelled at Mrs Dent’s insistence. She hoped there would be no marriage. Miss Bowker had, as Dr Sisson put it, a metabolic defect. Mrs Dent would not want an imperfect wife for her son. She was determined they shouldn’t marry. But apart from the fact that Brian loved the girl and intended to marry her, he was formally engaged to her, and to break the engagement could have meant a breach-of-promise action with undesirable publicity—because the grounds for breaking the engagement would be such as would arouse public sympathy for the diabetic girl.
‘So a new date was fixed by Miss Bowker. There was no reason for further delay. I believe that when she named the day, Miss Bowker signed her own death warrant. Mrs Dent realized that to save her son from what, in her eyes, seemed a calamitous marriage, she would have to get rid of the girl. From that moment on she began to prepare her scheme, so that when the opportunity arose, she would be ready to put it into operation.
Masters and Green Series Box Set Page 81
