‘Looks like anything you please,’ said Reggie. ‘However.’ He finished the strawberries while Underwood fidgeted and disapproved.
It was nevertheless before eight o’clock when Reggie’s car set them down on the ridge of Tootle Heath, still in the dewy mist of the prelude to another torrid day. They walked down through clumps of thorn and gorse to the grey palings of Colborn’s house and found the back gate. An unshaven loafer sauntered up and grinned at Underwood. ‘Not a soul been round here, inspector.’
‘Oh. Very well,’ Reggie said. ‘Show us where the soul went the other night.’
‘I couldn’t give you the track of him, sir,’ the detective protested. ‘It was all snooping round these clumps.’
‘Yes. But you thought he went inside. And followed. Which way?’
‘Oh, I can show you that,’ the detective said gloomily, and they passed through the gate into the belt of woodland. ‘I couldn’t see him here, but I went on thinking I heard footsteps. But it’s like country, for queer sounds o’ nights. I came on here, yes; I nearly flopped into that blinking pond, came round it like this, watching the grounds to see if the bloke was making for the house. Not a blink. So I went back to the gate again, and there he was still loitering, and I cut after him and he was off.’
‘As you said. Yes,’ Reggie murmured. He stood gazing at the pool, and walked round it. The yellowish slimy bottom could be made out clearly enough.
‘Nothing in there,’ said Underwood.
‘There is not. No.’ Reggie wandered on into the dressing-places under the old yew-trees, and stood there, looking about him. He made a stride forward, and dropped on his knees where the carpet of brown leaves showed a fragment of something red. Slowly he stood up again, and gazed at the ground all about with a look of fear and surprise, moved to and fro, poring over it. He came back to the twisted hollow trunk of a yew, close by where he had made his find, stared at it, gave a jerk of the head. ‘My case, Underwood,’ he said sharply, opened it, took out two wooden boxes and a surgical knife. Into one box he scraped the red fragment from the ground. Then he approached the yew-tree, and from the gnarled wood about the gaping hollow removed other fragments, red and pallid, in which yellow hairs were caught. These went into the second box.
He peered down into the hollow trunk. When his face met the light again, it was frowning. He measured across the mouth of the hollow and made a note, and looked up to contemplate Underwood dreamily. ‘Well, well,’ he sighed. ‘This bein’ thus, this is all.’
‘It’s flesh, that stuff, is it?’ Underwood asked, in a voice of horror, as they walked away.
‘Yes, I think so. However. A little laboratory work is required. Get on the phone to Mr Lomas, and tell him to keep close contact with Colborn and Deal. Then come on to me.’
About half past ten Reggie walked out of his laboratory to the room in which Underwood sat waiting. ‘Have you proved it, sir?’ Underwood asked eagerly. ‘Mr Lomas has just been on the phone again, but you said not to disturb you.’
Reggie took the telephone. ‘Is that Lomas? Fortune speaking. Fragments from yew-tree and ground both human tissue: traces of glands in neck.’
‘Thanks very much.’ A chuckle came from Lomas. ‘Nice wedding-present for Mr and Mrs Colborn.’
‘What? Who? When? Where?’
‘Can it be you didn’t foresee this, Reginald? Are you only human after all? You disappoint me sadly. While you’ve been finding human glands for him, Colborn has been marrying Ann Deal at the Marylebone registry office. Wedding breakfast at Scotland Yard, what?’
Reggie put down the receiver with a clash. ‘Come on, Underwood,’ he cried, and ran out.
His car brought them to the registry office just before a police car drove up with Superintendent Bell. A loafer approached them. ‘Parties gone back to Dr Harvey Deal’s house, sir. But Sergeant Smith said Colborn has sent luggage on to Paddington Station.’
‘You follow ’em up to Deal’s place, Bell,’ said Reggie, and told his own chauffeur to drive to the railway station.
On the first departure platform there was a bustle of passengers about a long train to the Devonshire coast. Reggie wandered along with Underwood at his heels till they came to a first-class carriage where a man dressed as a chauffeur stood waiting on guard over luggage which filled the corner seats. Reggie passed on, got into another carriage, and walked back down the corridor, looking in at the luggage as he passed, turned into a neighbouring compartment and sat down. Other people came along the corridor, this way and that.
The chauffeur moved away from the train, lifting his hand. Colborn and Ann appeared, hurrying to him, with a porter who carried more luggage. Colborn spoke to the chauffeur and dismissed him. In the same moment Bell pushed through the crowd and clapped his hand on Colborn’s shoulder.
Then Reggie got out of the train and whispered to Underwood, and Underwood slid away and vanished.
Colborn was in a red, stammering fury. Ann clung to his arm. ‘No use making a row,’ Bell told him. ‘Come along, you and your lady.’ Detectives closed about them and shouldered a way through the gaping crowd.
Reggie touched Bell’s arm. ‘And their luggage, please. All the luggage,’ he murmured, and watched while it was collected. ‘Put it into my car. I’m coming on.’
Three suitcases, a woman’s dressing-case, and a square, wide-mouthed bag were in front of him when he drove away. It was the bag which he picked up. He opened it, looked inside, made a small unhappy sound, and still looked long. When he shut the bag again he lay back and closed his eyes, and his round face had a melancholy calm.
Still in a dreamy melancholy he entered Lomas’s room carrying that bag. ‘Good fellow!’ Lomas smiled at him. ‘Made a kill at last, what? They tell me Bell’s just brought in the happy pair.’
‘I suppose so. What about father-in-law—and father?’
‘Deal? Oh, we’ve collected him. I was just going to put ’em through it. But let’s get the interpretation of your medical evidence.’
‘Yes! That is required,’ Reggie’s eyelids drooped. ‘Not from me, though. Evidence short and sweet. Woman found in trunk was drowned, and on her body vegetable matter like that in the pool. On a yew-tree there, and below, I found, today, human material which came from the interior of a human neck. Old Deal and young Colborn should be asked to explain these things. Also one other thing.’ He laid upon Lomas’s table the wide-mouthed bag. ‘This was found with Colborn’s honeymoon luggage. You remember the unknown person who dodged round the pool carried a squarish bag.’ Reggie opened it. ‘Look.’
Lomas looked, and drew back with a start—gasped. ‘Good gad! The head!’
‘Yes. I think so. Head of young woman. With yellow hair. Provisionally, fitting body. Face obliterated by vitriol.’
‘And that devil Colborn was taking it on his honeymoon!’
‘Explanation certainly required,’ Reggie murmured.
Colborn was brought into a room where Lomas and Bell sat together with Reggie lounging behind them, the bag on the floor at his feet.
Colborn let out a storm of abusive threats: it was a blank outrage, they had no right, he would give them hell for it, he—
‘I am investigating a murder,’ Lomas said. ‘I have to ask you to explain your actions. Where were you going?’
‘I was taking my wife to Dartmouth. I have a yacht there.’
‘Really?’ Lomas put up his eyeglass. ‘Spending your honeymoon at sea?’
‘What about it?’
‘You didn’t tell me you were going to marry Miss Deal. Why not? You didn’t tell me you would be at sea tonight. Why not?’
‘What the devil is it to do with you?’
‘You had been asked to identify a woman’s body.’
‘And I couldn’t. Nothing more to do with me.’
‘You said you were unable to recognise
that headless woman as Nurse Benan. The woman had been drowned, and on the body were water-weeds like those in your swimming-pool. Beside that swimming-pool we have found fragments of flesh from a human neck. Can you give me any explanation of that?’
The freckles on Colborn’s face stood out tawny against pallor. ‘What do you say?’ he stammered. ‘It’s mad.’
‘No explanation. Very well. The luggage which you and your wife were taking with you to sea has been brought here.’ Lomas reached down and put the bag on the table, and opened it. ‘Will you give me your reason for taking that?’
Colborn bent forward, saw the dark, misshapen face, cried out an oath, and flung himself back. ‘I—I wasn’t taking it,’ he stammered. ‘I never saw it before. That bag’s not mine.’
‘Not—yours,’ Lomas sneered.
‘Not ours, damn you!’ Colborn roared. ‘It’s been planted on us.’
‘Oh. Who would be likely to plant it on you?’ Reggie asked. ‘Can you think of anyone? Well, well. Do you recognise the head?’
‘Who could recognise it?’ Colborn growled.
‘Not easy. No. Features chemically obliterated. However. Anyone else connected with you missing besides Nurse Benan? Anyone else about your place with fair hair?’
Colborn glowered at him. ‘I say that bag’s not ours. I know nothing about it.’
‘Better try Deal, Lomas,’ Reggie said.
‘Quite. Your answers are unsatisfactory, Mr Colborn. You’ll be detained.’
‘All right. Do your damnedest,’ Colborn said loudly. ‘What about my wife?’
‘She will be detained too,’ said Lomas.
As another storm of abuse broke, Reggie went out. A detective was waiting outside the door. ‘Anything for me?’
‘Yes, sir. Urgent from Sergeant Underwood. He asked for a couple of men to Garnet Mansions, Kennington, and said to let you know.’
Over Reggie’s face came a dreamy smile. ‘I wonder,’ he murmured. ‘Lead me to it.’
A detective beside the chauffeur conducted his car to a shabby road in which blocks of flats rose among small old houses. They stopped at the corner of it and walked on to the entry of Garnet Mansions. Underwood came out from behind the stairs. ‘He’s here in the top flat, sir. Took it furnished from the regular tenant. Name of Edgar Smith. Nothing known about him.’
‘Well, well. Let us call on Mr Smith.’
They went up the greasy stone stairs and on the last landing another man joined them, and whispered: ‘He’s still there all right. He hasn’t shown.’
They rang at Mr Smith’s door, waited, rang longer, and were not answered. Underwood banged on the panels. The door was opened a little way; a thin, dark face looked round it; an angry voice asked: ‘What do you want?’
Underwood and his men pushed in, thrusting before them into the fusty sitting-room of the flat the man who had opened the door, a swarthy man in blue serge. ‘I am a police officer,’ Underwood said. ‘Mr Edgar Smith, I presume?’
‘That’s my name. What can I do for you?’
‘I’m here to ask you where you got the bag you left in a first-class carriage at Paddington this morning?’
The man laughed. ‘Oh, that! That’s all right, officer. Dr Deal gave it to me to take to Mr Colborn. Sit down. I’ll tell you. Have a drink?’ He turned to a gimcrack sideboard, and opened one of the cupboards. Reggie moved to the table.
‘No drinks, thank you,’ said Underwood. ‘Come on.’
‘Oh, just a spot.’ The man laughed, and turned with a bottle and glass in his hands. As he poured the liquor, Reggie plucked off the tablecloth and flung it over his head, and ran at him from behind and pinned his arms.
‘Keep clear of the fluid, Underwood,’ he cried. Bottle and glass were knocked down and sulphurous fumes rose. Handcuffs snapped on the man’s wrists.
Reggie drew back. ‘Thanks very much.’ He made a little bow to the pinioned man, who grinned and trembled.
Underwood looked down at the smoking, yellowing carpet, and looked at Reggie. ‘Oh, yes.’ Reggie nodded. ‘Vitriol. Meant for you. As used on detached head. Bring her along. She’s a felt want.’
‘What, sir?’ Underwood gasped.
‘My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap! Let me introduce you to Nurse Sybil Benan.’
And she began to laugh.
Reggie came into Lomas’s room and sank into the biggest chair. ‘Where the deuce have you been?’ Lomas exclaimed. ‘Why did you cut out?’
‘Not my job. Your job.’ Reggie gazed at him with sad eyes. ‘Are we down-hearted? Yes.’
‘It is the devil of a case,’ Lomas said. ‘But I put the wind up Deal, Reginald. And he’s told a fool’s tale. You remember you asked Colborn if any other woman about the place was missing, and that gravelled him? Not a bad line.’
‘My dear chap! You flatter me.’
‘I worked that with Deal. And he said old Colborn had a housemaid who’d been discharged for a row with the nurse. I asked what the row was, and he tied himself in knots. I take it that housemaid had her suspicions there was dirty work. She may have tried blackmailing Deal.’
‘Yes, it could be,’ Reggie murmured. ‘I wonder. I always wondered who wrote that anonymous letter which set us going.’
Lomas frowned. ‘Damme, do you ask me to believe Deal? What he’s after is to make out the housemaid murdered the nurse for revenge, and put it on Colborn and him to make the revenge complete.’
‘Ingenious fellow. No. I don’t ask you to believe that. Housemaid did not murder nurse. Because Nurse Benan isn’t murdered. She’s in the cells by now. With black hair and a brown face. But it’ll all come out in the wash. Nurse murdered housemaid.’
‘Good gad!’ Lomas flung himself back in his chair. ‘How the devil have you got to that?’
And Reggie told him. ‘Bag containin’ head was put into the carriage where Colborn’s luggage was by a person of middle size in a long coat. Bag and person thus recalled the loiterer with intent round Colborn’s place at night. I sent Underwood to see the person home. Person, when embraced by me in the act of throwing vitriol, was found to be female. As expected. Nurse Benan. Kindly convicting herself by possession of head and vitriol. Quite clear now. Nurse Benan, havin’ helped old Colborn out of life, which we shall never prove, meant to marry young Colborn and the fortune. She probably tried blackmail for services rendered. He preferred Ann Deal, and he’s not a man to be blackmailed. Nurse Benan had lost, and she’s not a good loser. Remember the vitriol for Underwood. And she had the housemaid on her shoulders. Probably wanting blackmail also. One brilliant stroke of murdering the housemaid and putting the murder on Colborn and Deal would settle accounts all round. Nurse Benan made it so. She had funds, you remember. A thousand-pound legacy from old Colborn. Even if Deal didn’t pay her any hush money. She took the second flat disguised as a man. She’d cut off her hair in the first flat. An error. I found very short yellow hair on her brush. That compelled my attention. However. She also left evidence of a letter making appointment with Sam Colborn by the swimming-pool. Very ingenious. But that also bothered me. Too convenient. She got the housemaid to call on her in the second flat. Knocked her out and drowned her in the bath. Cut off the head, cut up the knee with the skill of a nurse, and obliterated features by vitriol. Daubed the body with stuff from the pool, collected on the night of the party when we weren’t watching. My error. Your error. Dumped body in the trunk from a little old car she has. Then tried to plant head by the swimming-pool. But you had forgotten to remove the watch on the gate. She was nearly caught, head and all, by your active and intelligent police officer, while trying to poke it into the hollow tree. It didn’t go easy. Too big. Head had still to be disposed of. Bold and brilliant stroke to plant it on the honeymoon couple. If they were stopped—Colborn was taking the head to throw overboard from his yacht. If they weren’t—head would be fo
und in the train they’d travelled by. Clever female. Rather underratin’ the male intelligence. As they do. However. Can’t blame her. Bad case, Lomas. Very bad case. One of our gross failures. Full of encouragement to the criminal mind.’
‘Failure?’ Lomas exclaimed. ‘Damme, it’s great work, Reginald.’
‘Oh, my Lomas!’ Reggie groaned. ‘Frightful. Exemplar of futility. We shall never know the truth of old Colborn’s death. We’ve let a poor wretch of a woman get murdered. And all we do is to hang another. An awful warning. Hopeless trade, our trade. Change the uniform of the police. Should be sackcloth and ashes.’
A Question of Timing
Phyllis Bentley
Like C. S. Forester, Phyllis Eleanor Bentley (1894–1977) became a successful novelist in a field other than detective fiction. The daughter of a mill owner, she grew up in Halifax, and after publishing several books made her breakthrough with Inheritance (1932), the first of three novels which formed an exceptionally popular saga about a West Riding mill-owning family called the Oldroyds.
Bentley seems to have had no ambitions to become a detective novelist, although she did write a novel of Gothic suspense, and a juvenile mystery that was nominated by the Mystery Writers of America for an Edgar award. Over a period of more than thirty years, however, she wrote a long series of short detective stories featuring Miss Marian Phipps. Rather like the more famous Miss Marple, she makes effective use of her understanding of human nature to solve crimes. Sixteen of the tales are collected in Chain of Witnesses: The Cases of Miss Phipps (2014); the editor, Marvin Lachman, an expert on the short form, describes them as ‘some of the best detective stories published in the second half of the 20th century’. This obscure but pleasing tale, which does not feature Miss Phipps, first appeared in the Poppy Annual for 1946.
Life’s a funny thing. Sometimes there are holes in it big enough to drive a bus through; nothing seems to tie up with anything, if you know what I mean. At other times it works on a mighty close schedule, ties everything up tight without an inch to spare. Yes, indeed; life or fate or whatever it is can time things to a split second. Or if it’s chance that manages these things, then it’s funnier still.
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