Shelf Life

by Douglas Clark

  “I’ll swear to that,” said Lawson. “Ted and I hadn’t even thought about it until Norm told us in the park.”

  “Nobody heard you there?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Then how,” asked Green quietly, “do you account for the fact that there was a nice bottle of poisoned wine all ready and waiting for you when you got there?”

  Their two mouths fell open in surprise. “But that’s . . . it’s impossible,” said Lawson.

  “It happened, lad. Or are you going to tell me Miss Foulger was in the habit of leaving six bottles of poisoned wine in her outhouse on the offchance that somebody like you three would come along to nick it?”

  “Six bottles?” asked Mobb.

  “We’ll never know for sure, will we, lad, because all the others were broken. Unless you’re going to tell me that somehow, somebody knew exactly which bottle out of six your pal was going to pinch?”

  “But that could mean that all three of us would have been dead by now,” said Mobb.

  “Right, lad. That’s exactly what it could have meant. And that’s one more good reason for not breaking into other people’s homes in future and for not taking what doesn’t belong to you.”

  “But she should be locked up.”

  “Who?”

  “That Miss Foulger.”

  “Why?”

  “Leaving poisoned wine about.”

  “On her own premises? Everybody in Colesworth who has a garden has something poisonous in the shed. I’ll bet Mrs Lawson has something poisonous in her kitchen—bleach, cleaning fluid and the like. You want us to run them all in?”

  “No, but . . .”

  “The point is, lad, keep your hands off what doesn’t belong to you. Then you can’t come to any harm in the way your pal did.”

  “That’s right,” said Mrs Lawson firmly. “I only hope it’s taught you two a lesson. As for you, Eric, you’ll tell me in future exactly where you’re going and what you’re going to do. I’m going to keep an eye on you, my boy.” She turned to Mobb, and for a moment, Green thought she was going to blast him. Instead, she said. “And the same applies to you. If you want to go about with Eric, you come here and tell me. Everything. And if you want girlfriends, they come here, too, so’s I can see if they’re suitable. And what I say goes in the future. Understood?”

  Both youths, surprised out of their lives, nodded their agreement.

  “Right. I know it will be a shock to your systems, but tomorrow I’m going to see about getting some work for you two to do. Even if it’s only washing windows. I know a lot of people who haven’t been able to get a window cleaner for years.”

  Green got to his feet. “We’ll say goodnight, Mrs Lawson, and leave the three of you to your business meeting. Thanks for the coffee.” He turned to the two boys. “There’s a lot of money to be made as a window cleaner. And I mean by washing the glass, not by smashing it to help yourselves to other people’s belongings. You behave yourselves, and Constable Sutcliffe here will recommend a few customers to you. You’ll soon build up a round.”

  Chapter Seven

  It was after eleven o’clock when Green and Berger arrived at the Albatross Hotel. Masters and Reed were waiting for them.

  “Time for ajar, if we’re quick,” said Masters. “I got the barman to hang on for a bit. Failing him, there’s the night porter.”

  “Why not a cold one at the bar and a few bottles upstairs afterwards?”

  “As you like. I take that to mean you’ve something to tell us.”

  “Only to report. Confirmation that the vino came from Foulger’s. Boyce nicked it in the afternoon.” They moved into the deserted bar where the lights were lowered and the barman was tidying up after a busy evening.

  Masters ordered the beer. Green drank deep before saying: “What about Tom Watson? Did you sort them out?”

  “I think I acted as catalyst. They only needed to be brought together and made to talk. The girl herself had the answer. She’s decided to have an abortion. Mrs W didn’t like the idea at bottom, but she accepted it as the best solution to a problem which could ruin all their lives.”

  “How did Tom take it?”

  “After he got over thinking I’d gone there to put his girl through the hoop, with a strong possibility of arresting her for murder, he accepted the outcome with a noticeable sense of relief. You could actually feel a lot of the misery and mistrust lift out of all of them.”

  “So you’re pleased you went.”

  “Very pleased.”

  “Even though old Tom Watson was all set to plant one on him,” said Reed.

  Green stared. “He what?”

  “He squared up to the Chief. I got in between them quick.”

  “Good for you, lad. If Watson had taken a swing at His Nibs . . . well, striking a superior officer isn’t viewed very favourably. Tom Watson would have been out on his ear tomorrow.”

  “I was afraid he’d have been out on the floor tonight. Flat out. If the Chief had retaliated he’d have made mincemeat of Watson. Don’t you remember that chap he hit near Paddington? I thought we’d never get him round and he was a big strong bloke.”

  Green grinned. “I actually saw that punch,” he said with great pleasure. “I’d have liked a movie shot of it. Funny, really, though, because His Nibs doesn’t like using his mitts. Frightened of getting them dirty on a villain’s hide, I suppose.”

  Masters, who had missed most of this conversation because of a few words with Berger, turned back to Green. “Yes, I was pleased I visited the Watsons’, but for one awful moment I thought Tom would go for me. I was wondering how I’d be able to keep it quiet if he did. I wouldn’t have wanted to spoil his career just because I’d taken it into my head to do a bit of do-gooding.”

  “Most do-gooders ruin more lives than enough.”

  “Meaning I ought not to have gone?”

  “Meaning I shouldn’t have let you, I should have gone instead.”

  Masters put down his empty tankard. “Maybe. Now, what about going up? Reed, tell the night porter I’d like eight cold bottles sent up.”

  “Right, Chief.”

  Green, whose memory was renowned for its accuracy, had almost finished his account of his evening’s work when the phone in the bedroom rang. Masters answered it. It was Professor Haywood.

  “Haven’t disturbed your beauty sleep have I, old boy? No? Good, because you’ve had me working ever since I left you at teatime.”

  “Sorry to hear that, Professor.”

  “Sorry, nothing. Your brainwave paid off. At least I hope you think it did.”

  “Do I take it you found something interesting on Boyce’s boots?”

  “In the soles. They’re rubber, you know. Thick rubber with a very pronounced and deep cut pattern.”

  “Deep enough to hold a bit of evidence for about ten hours, you think?”

  “Ten hours? Ten days probably. Tiny pieces of glass embedded . . .”

  “Ah!”

  “Don’t tell me. That is exactly what you were expecting.”

  “Not expecting exactly. Hoping for would be nearer the mark. And, of course, the type of glass—or types—is going to make a difference.”

  “Which are you hoping for most?”

  “Well, now, as I now know he broke five bottles of white wine, I would expect to find some white or pale green bottle glass. That is unless Miss Foulger put her wine into brown bottles. Somehow, I don’t think she would. However, that is beside the point. But were you to find shards of actinic glass . . .”

  “Now it’s my turn to say, ‘Ah!’?”

  “Meaning what exactly?”

  “A tiny sliver of pure brown actinic glass, and quite a large piece—over a quarter of an inch long—with the remains of the greyish ceramic collar one finds on capsules.”

  “So that piece is part of a neck?”

  “Yes. It’s concave with a narrow diameter. It was lodged in one of the treads of the pattern.”

&nbs
p; “Thank you, Professor.”

  “I suppose it tells you a lot.”

  “It certainly tells me that the wine was doctored where Boyce found it, unless we intend to consider a coincidence so great that I doubt whether any computer ever built could calculate the chances.”

  “How come?”

  “I mean that Boyce should pick up an actinic glass shard from a capsule on the day on which he was killed by the contents of just such a container in some place other than the one where he found the wine.”

  “I think I get that. I think you’d be right to ignore it, otherwise your investigations would become as convoluted as your explanations.”

  “Thanks.”

  “It’s a pleasure. Now, as I’ve been working all night while you people have been living it up . . .”

  “Correction, Professor. We are all four just home after a full night’s work.”

  “Really?”

  “The truth, Professor. We were just exchanging results when you rang. We are all four here in my room.”

  “You wouldn’t have a cold drink there, would you?”

  “As a matter of fact, we have. Are you coming to join us?”

  “Expect me in ten minutes.”

  “Right.” Masters put down the phone. “Berger, please ask the night porter for another half dozen bottles of iced beer and tell him to expect Professor Haywood.”

  “Right, Chief.”

  Green glugged another beer into his tankard and said: “So we’ve got to look at La Foulger, have we?”

  “I should hope so,” said Berger. “Hers the wine and hers the poison.”

  “And hers the premises,” added Masters. “You got the gist of Haywood’s call, I suppose?”

  “Every word,” said Green. “Both going and coming. Funny how some phones act like loud-speakers, while some won’t ackle at all.”

  “Ackle or crackle?” asked Berger.

  “They all crackle or whine,” grunted Green.

  “Time’s own Garments,” murmured Masters.

  “You what?”

  “Sorry. I was maundering. When you spoke about the noise a phone makes.”

  “Time’s own Garments? Where’s the . . . er . . . connection?”

  “Not poetry at this time of night, Chief,” pleaded Berger.

  “The trouble with the young,” said Green, “and among them I include you, Sergeant Berger, as well as sundry others like Lawson and Mobb, is that you have no soul and no culture. I’ve loved poetry all my life. I started learning verse when I was three, hence my encyclopaedic knowledge of the subject.”

  “You didn’t know the bit the Chief just quoted.”

  “No . . . o.”

  “And I bet you can’t remember the first verse you ever learned.”

  “I can, you know.”

  “Let’s hear it, then.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t want to hear any poetry. But since you’ve changed your mind . . .” Green changed his voice to falsetto, and quoted, childlike:

  “One, two, three, my mother caught a flea.

  She put it in the teapot to make a cup of tea.

  The flea jumped out and made mother shout . . .”

  At that point the door opened and Haywood said:

  “Here comes father with his tongue hanging out.”

  Green gazed at him in surprise. “You know that one, do you Prof?”

  “Sure. It’s one of the old skipping rhymes. The pitch, patch, pepper group.” He joined Green in the middle of the floor. Together they recited:

  “Oliver Cromwell lost his shoe,

  At the battle of Waterloo,

  Pitch, patch, pepper.”

  “Cut it out for heaven’s sake,” said Masters. “All the other guests will be complaining.”

  “You started it,” accused Green. “Time’s own Garments!”

  Masters said: “Beer for the Professor, please Reed. He’s had a long, hard day.”

  The beer was cold enough to frost the pressed glass of the tankard. Haywood took it gratefully and lifted it. “Here’s to the good of your health,” he said.

  “Here’s to the health of your blood,” answered Green.

  Together they intoned:

  “You can’t have good health without good blood,

  So here’s to your bloody good health.”

  “They’re both kalied,” said Berger. “It must be the heat or something they ate.”

  “The show’s over,” said Masters. “Sit down, please, everybody.”

  As they settled he turned to Haywood. “I’ve got a problem.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Bill Green learned tonight from one of our dead friend’s pals that Boyce nicked one of a row of bottles of wine and then smartly broke all the rest.”

  Haywood nodded to show he’d got the picture.

  “The youth said that Boyce chose the fullest bottle. The one with most wine in it. So I presume he meant that the liquid was furthest up the neck.”

  “That follows. It was the one that had had the gold solution added to it.”

  “Quite. But you told us there were two thousand milligrams of gold salt in the bottle.”

  “That’s right. Checked and rechecked.”

  “You also said that the ampoules—of all strengths, hold one mil.”

  “Right again.”

  “If the strongest dosage is fifty milligrams in one mil . . .”

  “It is.”

  “It would take forty mils of liquid to hold it.”

  “Right again.”

  “Or eight good teaspoons of liquid.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s too much to go on top of an already full bottle of wine.”

  “Levels in full bottles differ, you know, but I see what you mean. Forty mils is nearly one and a half fluid ounces. Over one and a third, anyway.”

  “Couldn’t whoever put it in have poured some of the wine away, Chief?” asked Reed.

  “I suppose he could have done,” agreed Masters, “but I don’t visualise it like that. I could be all wrong.”

  “No, you’re not,” said Green surprisingly. “Our chap whipped the cork out and started emptying his poison in. He wasn’t thinking of levels or overflowing or anything like that. If he’d had too much for one bottle he’d have gone on to the next.”

  “We don’t know he didn’t,” said Reed.

  “We do, lad. The two thousand milligrams the Prof has told us were in the bottle make a good round figure. A big, good round figure. I reckon we can go nap on him not having more than that or him not having two thousand one hundred and ten or some such figure.”

  “I agree with that,” said Haywood. “That two thousand is a very accurate figure. If your man had doctored more bottles, there wouldn’t have been two thousand exactly in Boyce’s drink. Besides, I cannot really believe anybody could get away with that much aurothiomalate, let alone more.” He turned to Masters. “It seems like a bit of a poser for you, but there’s nothing I can suggest that will help.”

  “We’ll manage,” said Green. “Now, what about another forty—or four hundred—mils of beer, Prof?”

  “Thank you. The latter figure would be the more to my liking.”

  *

  As Masters reached the breakfast table, he said to Green who was already there, alone, and eating: “No potato this morning?”

  “Fried bread instead,” said Green through a crunching mouthful. “I reckon word got round among the chefs that after our chat in the kitchen yesterday we were not to be given any favours. So they sent word back that they had no spud to fry for me. So I sent the waiter back for fried bread. They couldn’t say they hadn’t any bread, could they?”

  “Hardly. But they’re not acting the fool are they? They’re not denying us anything else?”

  “No . . . o,” said Green. “But what extra I’ve asked for—like a couple of sausages to go with my egg and bacon—is going to be added to the bill.”

  “They said so?
”

  “I could see it on the waiter’s face. We’ll have to wrap this one up quick, George, otherwise we shall find ourselves . . . what’s that latin saying? . . . persons au gratin?”

  “That’s more or less right. At any rate I grasp the meaning.” Masters broke off to give the waiter his order for orange juice and scrambled eggs and then went on: “Oh, by the way, Bill, I want to thank you for backing me up last night over the business of the amount of fluid in the bottle. I’m afraid the others didn’t quite see it my way. You obviously did.”

  “Think nothing of it,” said Green stretching for more toast. “I could visualise what you were getting at and it seemed natural to me. Even if I hadn’t seen it the same way, you had a fifty per cent chance of being right, so it was a good enough bet.”

  “Thanks all the same.”

  Green put his knife and fork down. “George, I’ve known you long enough to recognise certain signs. When you go all absent minded and start quoting bits about the garments of time, I know you’re not really with us. Your old brain has seen a way through the ice floes and you’re starting to head for open water. If you suddenly shouted, ‘There she blows!’ at such a time I’d pay attention because I reckon it would have some meaning. So when you start asking about the volume of poison in a bottle I realise it will—most likely—have some relevance. That’s it. End of explanation.” He took up his knife and fork again. “Now I’d better finish this before it gets cold. I don’t like congealed eggs.”

  The two sergeants came down together.

  “You’re late,” growled Green.

  “After that schemozzle last night, I’m surprised we’re here at all.”

  “Cut the lip and look slippy,” ordered Green. “We’ve got a lot to do.”

  “Like what?”

  Green was stumped for specifics, not having discussed the programme with Masters, but he wasn’t for being beaten.

  “You two,” he said, “have to comb this town to find that bottle. After that you can print it, then go to the morgue and take Boyce’s dabs. Compare the two. After lunch you can empty Miss Foulger’s dustbin. We want all the broken glass sifted out and then separated.”

  Reed asked: “He’s not serious, is he, Chief?”