“The power of evil?”
“I don’t put the Cartwrights in that category, but yes, in my job one comes to sense the power of evil. One would have to be very insensitive not to. Small pockets of it. Not the big overwhelming clouds of evil that emanated from Hitler and his gang for so long.”
“I think I understand.”
“I’m sure you understand fully, because you’re a very clever, not to say wise, girl.”
She smiled down at him. “They are inimical to all you stand for, aren’t they? The rotten apples. Not actively harmful in themselves but liable to taint their neighbours and eventually the whole barrel.”
He nodded. “They provide succour for all sorts of nasties, too, allowing them to multiply . . .”
“Oh!” Wanda put down her glass and dashed into the kitchen to turn off a gas tap. “Just in time,” she said, relieved. “I thought I smelt it. Your precious cauliflower has nearly boiled dry.”
A few minutes later they sat down to their meal. The pie was glorious. Deep, with no bottom crust. Golden pastry with added, decorative leaves made from the overs; well-stewed beef cooked in nothing more than its own tea; stalkless florets of cauliflower in white sauce and boiled potatoes. He had come to regard this as his favourite meal, and his anticipation of pleasure was so great that his knife and fork, as he lifted them, almost groaned with desire. But as he was lifting the first mouthful, the front doorbell rang.
Masters himself answered it as he always did after darkness had fallen, preferring Wanda not to open up to unknown or unexpected callers at night.
He found Mr and Mrs Cartwright on the doorstep.
Edna Cartwright gatecrashed. She usurped the role of the invited guest, assuming that the opened door was an implicit invitation to enter. She brushed past Masters in the tiny hall, exclaiming at how cold it was outside and saying she had come for a few words with Wanda.
Wanda, hearing the voices, appeared at the door of the dining room. Mrs Cartwright made straight for her as Masters closed the door behind Cyril Cartwright. Then they were all four grouped near the dining table.
“Still at supper?” shrilled Mrs Cartwright. “You’ve usually finished by now.”
“We’ve hardly begun,” said Masters coldly.
“Don’t let us interrupt you.” She turned to Wanda. “We just had to come, my dear. It was too much! On top of this morning’s disappointment over the coat material, this dreadful business about Rhoda Carvell. One of the outstanding journalistic figures of our time! She will be missed.” She turned to her husband. “She will be missed, won’t she, Cyril?”
“Undoubtedly,” replied Cartwright. “Her last piece on The Conservative Woman. Masterly!”
Masters couldn’t help the jibe. “Aren’t you contravening the equal opportunity laws by calling it masterly?”
“Am I? Oh, I see. But I can hardly say mistressly, can I?” Cartwright gave a little grin at his own quip.
“In Mrs Carvell’s case it would be quite appropriate,” said Masters coldly.
“You could use faultless, Cyril,” said his wife, rising to the bait. “Or impeccable.”
“Or pitch of perfection,” said Masters facetiously.
“Now, now,” said Cartwright waggishly. “We all know you wouldn’t like her article, George, you being in sympathy with the restoration of hanging and flogging.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Not all the time at any rate. But I can envisage occasions . . .”
“So you are not entirely beyond redemption,” shrilled Mrs Cartwright. “Whom would you not hang among murderers?”
Masters looked straight at her and said slowly: “Whoever killed Rhoda Carvell, to begin with.”
“Why! You . . .” For once Mrs Cartwright was lost for a reply. Her husband said placatingly: “Pay no attention to George, Edna, can’t you see he’s pulling your leg? You left yourself wide open there, my dear. The Chief Superintendent got home a shrewd blow.”
Mrs Cartwright had gone sulky. Wanda was trying to usher her out of the dining room and into the sitting room so that George could eat in private.
“You have your supper, darling.”
“I think I’ll give it a miss.”
She looked unhappily at him. He shrugged to reassure her and to show that he appreciated her situation. Wanda turned to Cartwright. “George is investigating Rhoda Carvell’s death, you know. He’s been down to the house where she died. That’s why we’re late with supper.”
Cartwright looked sheepish. “Oh, I say, we are sorry. Most . . . most inconsiderate of us to bring the matter up.”
“Not at all,” said Masters. “It’s all in the day’s work to me. The stink of corruption is almost routine. So you don’t upset me. But I am interested in the fact that neither you nor Mrs Cartwright appears to appreciate the macabre significance of Rhoda Carvell’s last published article. In it she poked fun at and poured scorn on those who would hang murderers, little dreaming that by the time the piece appeared she would herself be the victim of a murderer whom—one must assume—she would not have wished to be hanged for his crime. Tell me, Mrs Cartwright, if that same man murders you and your husband in bed tonight . . .”
“Don’t, don’t!”
“Don’t what? Don’t go on or don’t hang your murderer?”
Masters got no reply. After a long moment of silence, he kissed Wanda lightly on the forehead. “I’ll see you later, poppet,” he said, and left the dining room, closing the door behind him.
Cartwright said: “I’m afraid the Chief Superintendent is a little overwrought as a result of his experiences today. It’s a thought that had never occurred to me before that our police officers could be so affected by what they encounter in the course of their duties. One must not forget to appreciate that, Edna, and one must make allowances. Their lives are so very different from our own daily round among merry, if sometimes boisterous, children.”
“Yes, indeed,” murmured Mrs Cartwright who had obviously not yet forgotten the possibility of herself being murdered in her bed, as mentioned by Masters.
They heard the front door slam.
*
Masters had decided to get out of the house because he felt that his presence in his unwonted irritable mood would put an unnecessary strain on Wanda. Without him there to worry her she would cope admirably with the Cartwrights. And he had a sneaking sense of shame that he should be trying to dictate to her in any way concerning her personal relationships with friends and acquaintances. It had never happened before. He prayed it never would again.
His feet started to take him to the Yard. Not that he was conscious of the direction. He mentally blasted the Cartwrights. They had annoyed him last night, the memory had ruined his day and now they had spoiled his supper. It was Edna Cartwright who riled him most: her obsession with the desire to be considered one of the intelligentsia. At least he supposed it was that. She was as bad in every way as the women with right-wing views whom she scoffed at. And Cartwright himself was little better to allow a woman like that to rule his life.
Masters entered the Yard and went up in a deserted lift to a deserted corridor. Some of the offices would be occupied, he knew, while various parts of the building would be as busy as Piccadilly underground station in the rush hour, with messages coming in and going out every minute. But once in his own office, he felt cut off from the world. On his desk was a new file cover. A typed stick-on label on the top right hand corner stated simply: Carvell/Woodruff. He sat down and opened it. A typed report from the AC Crime was listed as insert one. His own notes on the interview with Heddle were two. An information memo from somebody gave a breakdown on Rhoda Carvell, Ralph Woodruff, and lastly Professor Carvell. It gave little more than a list of his degrees and appointments as noted in Who’s Who and his address. This last surprised him. Gladstone Hall of Residence, Tutors’ Set I, 3rd Floor. It struck him as odd. Gladstone Hall was for students and, as he well knew, the Tutors’ Sets were there to house young, unmarried lecturers wh
o acted in the capacity of wardens, simply because it was thought wise to have a few mature, more responsible people among the many undergraduates who lived there.
He looked at his watch. He was a little surprised to find it not yet nine o’clock. It seemed later, but when he remembered that he hadn’t spent time eating supper and that the Cartwrights’ intrusion had only lasted a few minutes, the surprise lessened. He lifted the phone, asked for a line, and dialled his home number.
“Have they gone yet?”
“I’m afraid my husband isn’t at home at the moment.”
“So they’re still there? Have they got their sitting britches on?”
“Yes, I think George would say that was right.”
“I’m in my office. I’ll ring off.”
“How long did you say?”
“An hour? Will they be gone by then?”
“Right. I’ll tell him. Thank you for ringing.”
It was not a code, just an instant understanding. It comforted Masters to know that he and Wanda were still so much in accord, despite the slight disharmony caused by the Cartwrights. He sat for a moment or two thinking about this after he had put the phone down. Was he right to have shown his dislike of the Cartwrights? What should be a husband’s attitude towards acquaintances of his wife whom he finds not merely uncongenial but positively inimical? He knew the answers. He should not interfere. He should leave well alone. And yet . . . after all, Bill Green, too, had thought that something should be done.
Whilst this problem was still worrying him, another thought sprang to mind. It occurred to him that if he were to take a tube to Euston, he might be lucky enough to find Professor Carvell in his set at Gladstone Hall. The visit would use up the hour he had told Wanda he would wait before returning home.
*
“I can’t say if the professor is in.”
The porter was in a glass box situated in the foyer between the two main entrance doors. The back of his box was the inside of the front wall. Through the glass ends and front he could see whoever entered or left, whoever used the main staircase and, at the same time, keep an eye on the lift doors. It was a strategic position which, if properly used, would enable any wide-awake porter to know whether a senior member had come in or gone out, and this particular incumbent of the box was as beady-eyed as a falcon. Masters wondered why the man could not give him a straight answer. Bloody-mindedness? Or was he acting on instructions?
“Please ring his set and enquire.”
The man obviously didn’t like being told what to do.
“He’s bound to be out at this time of night.”
“Nevertheless, please ring.”
“Who shall I say’s calling?”
“Detective Chief Superintendent Masters of Scotland Yard.”
The announcement changed the porter’s attitude. “That’ll be about his dead wife, I suppose?”
Masters was in no mood to discuss his business with the porter. But on the principle that you never know when you might want a bit of co-operation from a beady-eyed hall porter, Masters nodded. “Something like that.”
The porter used the internal phone. When he put it down, he said: “The professor’s got ten minutes before he goes out. Third floor. Opposite the lifts there’s a passage. His door’s half-way down on the right. His name’s on the card.”
“Thank you. You knew he was in, didn’t you?”
“I knew he hadn’t gone out since six when I came on. And I knew he hadn’t come in since then, either. So you tell me how I could tell whether he was in or out. And if you don’t scarper, he’ll be out before you get to him.”
“Going out at this time of night?”
“Often does. All togged up. It’s either a woman or the tables.”
Masters nodded his thanks and moved to the lifts. The door to Carvell’s set opened as soon as he knocked.
“Chief Superintendent Masters? Come in. I’ve only got a few minutes. In fact you are lucky to get me at all.”
“Oh yes, sir?”
“I had been invited out to a party, but because of what has happened today my hostess cancelled it. She’s just giving me supper instead.”
“It didn’t happen today,” said Masters, not in any way desirous of correcting Carvell but more to make sure that the man had not been misled by wrong information. Carvell, who was in his shirt sleeves, and obviously in the final stages of dressing, came to a halt as he headed towards what Masters assumed was the bedroom door leading off the study.
“I beg your pardon. I assumed you had come to talk to me about my late ex-wife.”
“Late wife,” agreed Masters, “but not ex.”
“What are you attempting to do, Chief Superintendent? Put me through some sort of accuracy test?”
It was a question to which, Masters guessed, Carvell expected a hot denial. So Masters disappointed him. “That was my intention, professor.”
“I see. In that case I’d better watch my p’s and q’s.”
“Why?” Masters, who had been left standing in the middle of the room, glanced around while Carvell thought up his reply to what had been a startling question.
“So as not to disappoint you as well as myself,” he replied tartly. “You obviously require facts and as for myself—well, I have been through many tests in my time. Oral as well as written, and I pride myself I haven’t failed one yet. I shall try not to do so this time. So I will accept—for the sake of accuracy—that whatever happened to my late wife did not happen today, but was only discovered today or late last night. I will also agree that my late wife was not my ex-wife in so far as only a decree nisi had been granted and, as yet, no decree absolute.”
“Thank you.”
“Would you mind if I now put my jacket on?”
Masters shrugged. “I’ll sit down while you fetch it.”
“I would rather you didn’t make yourself too comfortable. I’m just about to leave—with your permission, of course.”
Masters sat down. “How did you get to know of your wife’s death?”
By this time Carvell had passed into the bedroom. He shouted his answer back. “Your Assistant Commissioner was kind enough to telephone me.” He reappeared at the door, shrugging his jacket on. “He told me that murder was suspected and that you would be in charge of the case. He also added that should I ever wish to speak to him about the matter . . .”
Masters looked up at him. “Yes?”
“I am at liberty to do so.”
‘Of course you are. I find it strange that he found it necessary to tell you. It is the prerogative of every citizen to approach the police. Not all of them get directly to Mr Anderson, of course, which is a pity. When we were entertaining him to dinner last week, my wife was counselling him to be a bit more available. He probably heeded her words, hence his offer to you.”
Masters felt he had taken the sting out of Carvell’s implied threat very nicely. He regarded the professor now he was fully dressed. Carvell was as Heddle had described him. A bronzed, muscular man. Good looking, with regular features and hair just greying at the temples. A lion in the menagerie of any hostess.
“Was Mrs Carvell a drinker, Professor?”
“If we are to play this game by your rules, you must be more precise, Chief Superintendent. Drinker is such a sloppy term as, in order to sustain life, we are all, perforce, drinkers.”
“Did Mrs Carvell drink alcohol to excess?”
“There are gradations, even in excess. Certainly Rhoda drank alcohol. More than I cared for. So, to some degree, I will say she drank to excess. It was, perhaps, a hazard of her occupation. But if you wish to know whether she frequently got intoxicated, the answer is never, except . . .”
Masters waited.
“Except when she drank champagne. It had the most remarkable effect on her. Far more so than hard liquor. I can best describe it as inducing fits of the giggles, followed very shortly by childlike slumber. Quite an engaging experience for the onlooker.”
&nb
sp; “Actually, Professor, I asked the question because I have heard that Mrs Carvell was a fresh-air fiend.”
“And you find it hard to imagine liquor and fresh-air fiendishness mixing, is that it?” asked Carvell with a short laugh. “The Royal Navy would smile at such ingenuousness, Mr Masters. Men who spend half their time on the open bridges of destroyers spend the rest of their waking hours in a wardroom drinking pink gins.”
Masters inclined his head to acknowledge the point. “You mentioned gin, sir. Did Mrs Carvell drink gin?”
“Gin mostly.”
“Every night?”
“Unfailingly. Are you telling me her drink was poisoned?”
“You don’t know how she died?”
“The Assistant Commissioner mentioned poison, but said that as the pathologist’s report was not ready at the time he spoke to me, he couldn’t specify which substance.” Carvell looked at his wristwatch. “Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .?”
“Arsine,” said Masters laconically.
“Arsine? AsH3! Arsenic in other words.” Carvell banged a fist into the opposite palm. “That would be a messy death. Poor Rhoda! So chic and smart . . . to die in a mess of vomit.” Carvell grimaced distastefully. “How she would have hated the idea of that! Must have hated it. Particularly with the two of them there together, ill, and incapable of helping each other.”
“Have you any medical knowledge, Professor?”
“No.”
“Yet you are familiar with the signs and symptoms of arsenical poisoning?”
“Everybody knows poisoning cases like that vomit abominably.”
“But you are a scientist. You knew the formula for arsine.”
“Of course I’m a scientist as you call it. I’m a geologist.”
“Of course. That’s a pure science isn’t it?” Masters got to his feet. “You’re obviously anxious to get away, but I shall have to speak to you again. I haven’t really asked anything I came to ask.”
“Chief Superintendent, I am sure you are a hardworking and conscientious man. The fact that you are still pursuing your enquiries at this time of night shows that. But please call on me during the normal working day. I attend almost full time at Disraeli College.”
The Monday Theory Page 8
