A Death by Wounds: The first Lambert and Strange mystery

by J. D. Oswald

  He retreated inside, sat down heavily on the hallway chair and tapped the barometer on the wall beside his head. The arrow continued to point resolutely to ‘Fair’. He removed his shoes and reached beneath the chair for his hobnail boots. Dried mud coated the soles and the leather was dull and dusty. Mamie would never have allowed his boots to remain in such a state. Well, what did it matter - no-one would notice. He stepped out into the snow and stamped his feet to rid the boots of their muddy coating. The scar on his left thigh - his South African war wound - had started to ache and reluctantly, he reached inside for his stick. The base still bore the teeth marks of his old black Labrador. He would like to get a new dog, a puppy perhaps. Mamie had never been that keen.

  The Cathedral’s long backbone was just visible beyond the rooftops and he started towards it. The sky was clear and a startling bright blue. He could smell wood-smoke in the air. For a few steps, he flicked clumps of snow ahead of him with the toes of his boots as he had done as a child. A mist began to form on the inside of his spectacles. It would be half an hour before the College boys left their Houses and headed for morning lessons, the street suddenly swarming with life and then equally suddenly, empty. Only the tailor’s shop at number 70 showed signs of life. The tailor’s lad was crouched inside the bay window, wiping away the condensation. Creswell knocked on the glass, waved and continued beneath Kingsgate’s central arch. A light was flickering from behind the windows of St Swithun’s church above the gate. Then a door slammed and instinctively he looked back.

  The Russian Don, Alexander Tokarev, was striding away from the church door towards his lodgings at the end of College Street. He had his gown wrapped around him. A smart fedora shaded his forehead and eyes. He raised a gloved hand. Creswell nodded in return; he disliked the man although he had not quite put his finger on why. A foreigner of course but that was not it. Maybe it was the way that Tokarev’s thin smile never quite reached his eyes. God knows what the man had been forced to do to get out of Russia alive.

  Creswell turned into the Close and made his way past the Deanery to the Cathedral’s south wall. At least a foot of snow covered the ground where the body had been found, his fence buried beneath it. One of his ‘KEEP OUT’ notices tumbled forlornly on the surface of the snow. There was no possibility of discovering anything new now. Time to take another tack and recruit Miss Philippa Lambert to help him.

  ***

  Philippa hung back as Canon Creswell Strange opened the gate of number 55 Egbert Road. ‘Are you sure this is alright?’ she said.

  ‘Of course,’ Strange said, ‘we’re policemen…or as good as, and more importantly, they’ve given me the key.’ He patted his waistcoat pocket.

  ‘I mean for me to be here.’

  ‘Oh that, it’s fine. Have you brought a notebook with you?’

  ‘Yes, I always carry one.’

  ‘Then I would like to accept your offer of keeping a record of our little investigation.’

  Philippa relaxed a little; she always felt more comfortable whenever she had a purpose to fulfil. Number 55 was a geometrical bay-fronted house set at the western end of a long terrace. Its recently painted window ledges, grime-free glass and scrubbed doorstep presented a smart face to the world. A solitary terracotta pot, placed exactly in the centre of the paved front garden, contained a single woody geranium, defiantly displaying a scarlet flower despite its snowy coverlet.

  Strange unlocked the door and stood back to let Philippa enter the narrow hallway. Her boots clickerty-clacked over the checkerboard floor tiles which had been buffed to a shine. The air smelt faintly of boiled cabbage. Three umbrellas stood in the wrought-iron stand, two with plain black handles, the other with a duck’s head carved in ivory. Three unopened letters had been stacked on the hallway table next to a pair of hand-knitted women’s gloves.

  Philippa picked one up. ‘These must be her everyday gloves. It looks as if Mrs Mundy was wearing her best pair when she was killed. Perhaps she was meeting someone?’

  ‘Very possible.’

  Philippa hesitated by the bottom step. ‘Where do we start? The kitchen, the…bedroom?’

  ‘No, no,’ Strange said briskly, ‘always start with the bureau or the writing desk. Look for letters, accounts, receipts, family papers, that sort of thing. Try in there.’

  She tentatively pushed at the nearest door. It led to a square front room, furnished with a heavy oak sideboard, gilt-wood sofa and matching wing-backed chairs. One of the velvet sofa cushions was compressed as if someone had only just risen from it. The mantelpiece was lined with porcelain figurines of shepherds and shepherdesses, adoring lambs at their feet, and bewigged ladies in crinolined dresses. Philippa wrinkled her nose – not too her taste at all, too gaudy and sentimental. The heavy silk curtains were half-closed and she pulled them open. The window looked out over the street and she spotted a couple of inquisitive faces peering down at her from an upstairs window opposite. She headed for the roll-top bureau in the far corner of the room. It had been left open. Strange appeared by her side.

  ‘Ah excellent. Let’s take a look shall we.’

  She felt a sort of guilty pleasure as they began to sort through the papers: bills from the butcher from before the War; letters from an Aunt Agnes describing her time at Lyme Regis; a bundle of birth, death and marriage certificates. She found two postcards, one with a picture of a simpering girl on the front and overleaf a message, ‘встретьте меня завтра. Вы знаете когда и где.’; the other of King Alfred’s statue on Winchester’s Broadway, ‘У меня есть то, что вы хотите. Пятница.’ written in a different hand. She handed them to Strange.

  ‘These postcards seem rather out of place.’

  ‘I agree. I don’t know of many Russian speakers around here.’

  ‘There’s the Russian Don.’

  ‘Tokarev? Not really his style I’d say.’ Creswell continued to examine the cards thoughtfully. ‘I wonder though…I’ll keep hold of them for now.’

  She opened each of the small drawers at the back of the bureau: a roll of string; cheap writing paper; nail scissors; a candle and a box containing two spent matches; a tatty, yellowing envelope, empty except for a tiny white feather.

  ‘There’s nothing else here,’ she said.

  ‘The bedroom next then.’

  She followed Strange up the staircase and into the larger of the two bedrooms. A huge four-poster bed dominated the room. The columns that supported the canopy were as thick as tree trunks, the furrowed wood blackened with age and grime. It gave the impression of being a survivor from a more stately generation. The bed had been made in a perfunctory way with no attempt to smooth the embroidered coverlet or re-tuck the undersheet. She resisted the urge to remake it. The dressing table beside the window overflowed with perfume bottles, jars and tubs of caked powder. A double wardrobe stood by the fireplace. One of the ill-fitting pine doors was open, revealing a rail of immaculately pressed shirts and suits precisely spaced. A man’s shirt had been flung over the open door; it was creased and still slightly damp to the touch. It seemed to Philippa to be a melancholy sign of a man suddenly and unexpectedly deprived of his companion and support, and finding himself unable to cope.

  ‘The bedside cabinets I think,’ Strange said.

  It was obvious which one was Grace Mundy’s. It was closest to the door and held well-thumbed magazines, a tangle of amber beads, and a small account book containing scribbled letters and numbers. Books were piled precariously on her husband’s side, all with a sailing or fishing theme. In his drawers, Philippa found a pipe, a black sock with a hole in its heel, and at the very back of the bottom drawer, a pistol. She lifted it out with her fingertips and held it up for Strange to see.

  The Canon shrugged. ‘He was a military man, but here’s something that is interesting. It was hidden behind some scarves.’ He opened the lid of a small box. A gold brooch in the shape of a rose shone starkly against the black velvet interior
, its petals, stalk and thorns set with tiny diamonds. ‘This cost more than the gloves.’ Strange consulted his pocket-watch. ‘There’s just time to have a glance in the kitchen before our next appointment.’

  Philippa led the way downstairs and along the hallway. The kitchen door refused to open and so she shoved against it with her shoulder. The door yielded and she tumbled inside, suddenly enveloped in bitterly cold, stale air. Although the kitchen stretched the width of the house, it felt cramped; cupboards on every wall, a stove extruding from the chimney stack and in the centre, an overly-large rectangular table, polished to a shine, a piece of furniture biding its time until a smart dining room came along to claim it. A tea pot sat on the draining board by the stained sink. She lifted the lid.

  ‘There’s still tea in here. It’s very stewed.’

  ‘I’ll say.’ Strange opened the pantry door and she peered in. Packets, jars and tin boxes had been arranged on the shelves in order of size and shape, a dustpan, broom and spare handle stacked in the far corner.

  ‘I wish someone would re-arrange my little pantry like this,’ Strange murmured. It struck Philippa as an odd comment for a man to make. ‘Now, we must go,’ he continued.

  They locked the front door and were heading for the pavement when the door of the neighbouring house was flung open and a woman called after them. ‘Hello? Hello? Are you the police? Oh no, sorry, of course you’re not. Isn’t it awful about Grace?’

  ‘Yes, indeed it is.’ Strange retraced his steps and stretched out his hand. The woman took it gratefully.

  ‘Mrs?’

  ‘Bunt.’

  She was a short, dumpy woman with a deeply lined face. Her waist-less body was slightly stooped and she smelt of damp laundry. Her hands were red raw.

  ‘Why would someone do that to her?’

  ‘I don’t know Mrs Bunt. The police will be doing their best to find out. Did you know Mrs Mundy well?’

  ‘Oh yes, she was like family. She delivered all six of my children; the last didn’t make it, poor soul, although Grace did everything she could.’

  ‘Mrs Mundy was a midwife then?’

  ‘She used to be. She gave it up years ago. She did a bit of secretarial work up at the College.’

  ‘Didn’t Mr Mundy mind?’ Philippa said.

  ‘Why should he miss?’ Mrs Bunt looked Philippa up and down with narrowed eyes. ‘It was perfectly respectable. Some of us have no choice but to work.’

  ‘Of course. I didn’t mean…’

  ‘Did you like Mrs Mundy?’ Strange interrupted.

  ‘Oh yes, she was very kind. She was always popping round to see if my old Dad needed anything – he’s bin living with us since his turn – and she was ever so generous with her things. She gave me this,’ Mrs Bunt fingered the skirt of her saggy tunic dress, ‘and she is…was ever so helpful in other ways too. Only last Saturday she called round to tell me that the butcher down the road had some scrag end going cheap and that if I hurried, I might just get some, and so off I went and got the last pound.’

  ‘Did Mrs Mundy buy some too?’ Philippa asked.

  ‘Oh no,’ Mrs Bunt frowned as if the question was offensive. ‘Bill wouldn’t have liked that. The butcher always put aside a nice bit of topside every week and Grace would collect it on a Friday ready for the weekend. Poor Bill. Lord knows how he’ll manage now.’ She pulled an embroidered handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her face.

  ‘This must be so upsetting for you,’ Strange said, briefly touching the woman’s arm. ‘Tell me, did Mrs Mundy go out every day?’

  ‘Oh yes, she went out at half past eight sharp every Tuesday and Thursday morning to look after the College Dons. Sometimes Saturdays too. “They couldn’t do without me” she always said. I used to ask her what they were like – I’ve never met one myself.’ She stopped and looked away.

  ‘And what did she say?’

  ‘Nothing much,’ the woman mumbled.

  She wants to tell him though - Philippa supressed a smile - and not just because of his clerical collar. It was the way he bent his lanky frame – and rather handsome face - towards his companion, removing his spectacles and holding her gaze as though everything she said was of deep significance to him. There was no sense of falseness about his attitude, although Philippa suspected that it had been perfected over many years.

  ‘Did she like the Dons?’

  ‘So, so… She said they were a bit high and mighty sometimes.’ Mrs Bunt’s pale mouth formed into an ‘o’. ‘Do you suppose one of them….?’

  ‘There’s no need to worry about that Mrs Bunt.’ Strange took her hand again. ‘I’m afraid we must be off. It was a pleasure. Goodbye.’

  ‘That was illuminating,’ he continued cheerfully when they were out of earshot. ‘I’ve always known Winchester to be a city by name but a village in its heart.’

  Doctor Thomas Leighton Godwin ran his practice from a three-storey villa set some way back from St Cross Road, one of a terrace of five red brick houses, sternly upright in their bearing like a line of soldiers linking arms. Philippa hesitated at the bottom step.

  ‘Why do we have to speak to him?’ she said. ‘I’ve already examined the body and the police surgeon at the hospital will do the post-mortem.’ She regretted her words immediately. They made her sound surly. It would be no good trying to explain to Canon Strange why she found it so difficult to be civil to any male doctor. He would tell her that blaming the whole profession for the decisions of those who had turned her away from the teaching hospitals was uncharitable and irrational. And he would be right. But still, that was how she felt.

  Strange regarded her quizzically. ‘It would certainly be remiss of us not to speak to Doctor Godwin. Grace Mundy was his patient.’

  ‘So you said.’

  ‘Well then.’ His tone made it clear that there was no room for further debate.

  A maid opened the front door and showed them into a wide stone-flagged hallway lit by electric wall-lamps. Philippa regarded the lamps enviously; their light was so intense compared to the fuggy gas lamps in Sick House.

  The maid pointed to their right. ‘The doctor will see you in his consulting room.’

  ‘After you,’ Strange said.

  Philippa rapped on the half-open door and entered without waiting for a response. The blind was drawn down and her eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the gloom. The air held a sweet odour of pipe smoke. Doctor Godwin sat ramrod-straight behind a leather-topped desk, his face illuminated by a desk lamp. His black hair was swept back and plastered to his skull, suggesting a receding hair-line where in fact there was none. He wore pince-nez on the end of his sharp nose. He was only a few years older than she was - his plump lips and unlined skin gave that away. Philippa noticed a coat of arms from a Cambridge College and a print of a Burne-Jones painting of a knight and his lady on the wall behind him. Four stacks of paper were arranged neatly on the desk in front of him, three weighed down by human bones - a femur, a humerus and a mandible (minus the teeth) – the fourth by a small alabaster urn. She squinted at the tiny inscription: Buster, 1918.

  Doctor Godwin sprang to his feet. ‘Canon Strange. How nice to see you again. And Miss…?’ He peered over the top of his pince-nez.

  ‘Lambert.’

  ‘Of course. You’re the young lady standing in at Sick House while the doctor’s away, doing admirable service I hear. Although I imagine you’ll be relieved when they manage to find a new medic.’

  ‘No, not at all…’ She was used to encountering the view that she must be working only for the benefit of the male population and for the good of the country. It irritated her none-the-less. ‘I hope to become a doctor myself one day.’

  ‘Indeed? Do take a seat. Forgive me while I finish this note. I won’t keep you long.’ Godwin opened a drawer and brought out a glass eye with a green iris, a set of false teeth (the top row only) and a piece of polished tin cut into the shape of a man’s lower left cheek and jaw. He examined the labels on each of
the items and added the references to his note.

  ‘Do you treat men disfigured in the War?’ she asked.

  ‘I merely disguise them,’ Godwin said without looking up. ‘Others more skilled than me will attempt to restore their faces.’

  ‘Have you seen it done?’

  ‘Yes, once. At Queen’s Hospital in Sidcup.’

  ‘What did they do?’

  ‘Oh, they replaced a man’s missing nose – with a rather elegant Roman one as I recall – rebuilt his jaw and patched up his burns with skin from his shoulder. It is a commonplace procedure there now.’

  ‘I would like to see it done.’

  ‘It was remarkable.’

  ‘What is used for the pain?’

  ‘Chloroform, but sometimes,’ Godwin put down his pen and his dark brown eyes studied her, ‘sometimes four men have to hold the patient down. But these patients are desperate, Miss Lambert. I’ve heard it said that a man without a nose or a chin or with only one eye is still beautiful, like one of those stone heads pulled out of the sand in Arabia. Sentimental nonsense I say. Can you imagine what it must be like existing without a jaw, with your tongue flopping onto your chest like a wet rag?’

  ‘I know what it’s like: I worked on the ambulance trains from Le Mans.’

  ‘I ran a clearing station at Lilliers.’ Godwin paused. ‘They say there’s always one you remember – one you couldn’t save. Does that apply to you, Miss Lambert?’

  She nodded. ‘I remember a lad with his skull all smashed in. He kept smiling very sweetly and asking if he might see his mother and sister again. It was as if he was giddy with drink. It was heaven to have seen them that morning, he said, but could he see them again before he went to sleep. I told him he could.’

  ‘He died happy then?’ Godwin grimaced. ‘Yes, it’s comforting to think that. There were many that didn’t.’