Death of a Frightened Editor

by E.

  The superintendent located the post office and went inside. An elderly woman in a black old-fashioned dress, held high up in the neck with bone supports came forward. She was grey-haired, the hair brushed straight back from her forehead and fastened in a knot at the back of her head. Jones talked.

  He came out ten minutes later a packet of picture postcards of the village in his hands. He looked a stunned man. After paying his bill at The Crown, he got into his car and drove slowly out of the village. A few yards down the road he was stopped by an uplifted hand, and recognised Isaac. He stopped and looked out of the driving window. Isaac leaned on the door, and eyed the superintendent, warily.

  “Ah reckons you be perlice,” he said. “Ah reckons I knows police when I sees ’em. Been in their hands times enough.” He paused. “Poachin’”—he grinned. “What’s Mary been doing of? Her was allus a bit wild. Her left here cause her was going to have a bebby. Mebbe I knows who was father.”

  Jones hemmed and ha’ed a little. “So,” he said, “Not altogether daft you village lads, are you? Yes, I’m police,” he agreed. “But Mary hasn’t been up to anything that I know of. It’s a friend of hers who may be in trouble. See.”

  He slipped the car in gear and with a wave of the hand at Isaac, turned Londonwards.

  Arrived in the Metropolis, he drove towards the Yard, but suddenly checked the car, and made a diversion, landing up in Victoria Station Yard. Inside the station he hunted among the ticket inspectors on duty at the platform barriers.

  Ten minutes later he burst in on Doctor Manson and Merry . . .

  And told his story.

  “I been havin’ me own ideas on this case,” he began. He had been settled in the Doctor’s study with a whisky and soda and a cigar. An envelope lay on his knees. “Me own ideas,” he repeated. “There were a couple of men who wrote a book all about crime detectin’ and motive and suchlike. Americans they were. It’s a good book, and ought to be read by all detective officers,” he said, severely, and regarded Manson with the look of a schoolmaster.

  “Would they be Soderman and O’Connell, by any chance?” the Doctor asked, blandly.

  Jones appeared taken aback, but ignored the question. “They reckon that when it comes to lookin’ for motive the best idea is Church . . .”

  “Cherchez la femme,” Manson suggested. Jones nodded.

  “So I looks at the woman we got, see.”

  “But, Old Fat Man, Soderman and O’Connell also say in the same place, ‘often the woman is innocent of the criminal transaction’. What made you pick on Mrs. Harrison for your attentions?”

  “Watchin’ her, Doctor.” He edged to the front of his chair. “Remember when you told that circus . . . ‘one of you murdered him’?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, now, all of ’em was blazing mad, and wanted to protest. All of ’em except two. Starmer knew already, ’cos you’d told him in this room. The woman didn’t know till then. Blister it, Doctor, when you said the words, she gasped. She wasn’t mad at all. I was watching her . . . Cherchez la femme, see?”

  Manson was regarding the superintendent with wide open eyes. “Go on,” he said.

  “Well, I goes off to Somerset House . . . lookin’ . . . marriage certificate . . . see who husband is . . . or was. There wasn’t one. Nor any death certificate . . . Mr. Harrison. Mary Harrison’s husband. I looks at the births. Nary a son was ever born to Mary wife of name of Harrison . . .”

  “But the illegitimate child—” began Merry. Jones waved him to silence.

  “Coming . . . that,” he said.

  “Mrs. Harrison came . . . London from Deedham. worked there . . . clerk. I gets there, but don’t make much progress. She—Mrs. Harrison all right . . . only been there . . . couple years. Employers have a reference? . . . yes . . . Hadn’t kept it, o’ course. Manager’s secretary remembered she came from Middlecoombe.”

  “So you went off to Devonshire, Old Fat Man,” said Manson. “Did you find her?”

  “NO!” Jones turned his cigar in his fat fingers, looking with his eyes down at the operation. Then he looked up—grinning.

  “But I found a MISS Mary Harrison,” he said. “. . . Found she left there sudden-like.”

  “I see. So you went scandal-mongering, eh?”

  “Found . . . lads . . . who talked . . . and talked . . . and talked,” Jones admitted. “Said . . . known Mary . . . since girl bit of scarlet girl . . . said. Left village . . . scandal . . . knew going . . . have child . . . Never heard . . . more of her.

  “Said girl worked . . . shop up road. So I goes to shop . . . more information.”

  Jones stopped, and took a deep breath. “Cor, stone the ruddy crows, Doctor, I nearly falls down when I gets in shop and peeks round. I says to old woman could I see the boss . . . said ‘I’m the only boss here? There’s never been . . . man here,’ she lets out. ‘It’s always been my shop.’ So I says where’s your son, and she ups with a pound weight and wants to bash me brains out . . . Seems she’s . . . old maid.” He paused to let Manson and Merry wipe the tears from their eyes.

  “I asked about Mary Harrison,” Jones continued. “‘Harrison,’ she says, ‘Yes, she was here. Slut. Cleared off sudden-like. Good riddance!’ I bought pictures of village. Shop is on one of ’em. Got it here.” He produced it. “You don’t need worry . . . about window. Full of tins . . . beans, carrots, peas and washing things. Just look . . . name over top.” He handed over the print.

  The Doctor and Merry bent over the photograph. The Doctor stared, as if mesmerised. Then:

  “Good Heavens!” he said, softly. “Good Heavens!”

  Jones looked gratified at the impression he had made. “Well, then I goes back to Somerset House . . . look birth certificates again. And finds Mary Harrison . . . with boy child, illegitimate. Father’s name . . . same as over shop.”

  He sat back and blew smoke rings at the ceiling, a look of bland innocence over his fat jowls. Manson turned and looked at him.

  “And what else are you keeping back, you fat fraud?” he asked.

  “Did you know that a passenger walked down to the Pullman that evening with Mr. Mortensen? Barrier inspector saw ’em and passed their season tickets together.”

  “What!” said Merry. “Impossible.”

  “Ask the Inspector,” Jones retorted. He grinned. “Nobody thought of asking the Barrier if they remembered times,” he said.

  Manson patted the superintendent on the shoulders. “Well, Old Fat Man, you can go finding women all over the country in future, and I won’t say a word about it. Now come and tell the A.C.”

  26

  In Brighton, Inspector Edgecumbe heard of the developments with an air of embarrassment. He rubbed his chin ruefully at Manson’s next question.

  “You see, Doctor, the way you were sizing things up we rather laid off that angle, and haven’t done much else about it,” he said.

  “I do know, Edgecumbe. I was misled there. But we can get back on it, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, yes.” The inspector took a folder from a filing cabinet, and the two went through its contents. It took a matter of a quarter-of-an-hour.

  “There’s no harm done, at any rate,” Manson said. “The search covers all the ground.

  “I remember you made a search of all the passengers’ premises for any traces of poison, or anything that might have contained poison the morning after the death. I looked through your men’s reports at the time, but there seemed nothing of a suspicious nature. Let’s have another glance through them.”

  The inspector produced the reports. He also carried from an inside room a large box containing a collection of articles. Doctor Manson raised questioning eyebrows in its direction.

  “The things we brought away from the examination, Doctor,” the inspector said. “We’re holding them, of course, till the end of the case.”

  “That’s something I didn’t expect,” Manson praised. He picked up the reports.

  “You’l
l start by remembering, Doctor, that none of the seven bought any poison here. I had every chemist’s shop visited, and we saw every poison book.”

  “They wouldn’t get it in their own names.”

  “Whoops!” said the inspector. “I had every name of every purchaser in the books, and their addresses, and every one was visited. They all accounted for the poison. In any case only two got strychnine. They were doctors—”

  “Was Betterton one?”

  “Yes, but the amount was checked against his books and stock, and was found to be in order. Now, the reports. I’ll check them with the articles we brought away. You said to look for bottles, packets and such-like, even from the dustbins. Most of the things we have here we got from Mrs. Harrison. She had a chemist’s shop in the place. Toilet preparations, skin foods, face creams, peroxide and bottles and jars with French names on them. Look!”

  He lifted a container out of the box and exhibited the collection.

  “Now, I went to a wholesale chemist here, and he said none of them contained strychnine, or anything like it. So that was that.”

  Manson nodded, and picked up another report. “D.D.T. spray and arsenical spray for fruit trees. Who was this?”

  “Starmer, Doctor. He has a large garden and greenhouse. I didn’t worry over those. Arsenic wasn’t concerned. The men, you will see, had lots of bottles—hair preparations, and so on. They all bore well-known trade names. We smelt and tested them all. They seemed genuine.”

  Manson lifted out a large oblong packet. “What’s this?” he asked.

  “Vermin killer.”

  “What vermin killer?”

  “Battle’s.”

  “What!”

  The inspector grinned appreciatively. “Nothing in it. I thought of that, Doctor. Horticultural chappie I know here sells it. I remembered something about it so went to him. He says it USED to contain strychnine at one time but the use of the stuff was banned by the Home Office a good time ago. Our Laboratory at Lewes said the same thing.”

  “I see,” said Manson. “Where was it found?”

  The inspector consulted the report. “In the store shed on the farm along with sheep dip. Our man brought it away because of the name.”

  A porcelain pot was next out of the box. It contained some paste, about a quarter full. The pot was labelled ‘theobroma oil’.

  “What would that be, Doctor?” Edgecumbe asked.

  “Cacao butter. Chocolate and cocoa is prepared from the roasted kernels of the theobroma seeds. The paste has other uses. What does he suffer from? Constipation or haemorrhoids?”

  “I don’t know, Doctor.”

  “Well ask him sometime—and see him blush at his secret.”

  “Then he had a bottle of ammonia, and that’s about all, except for a piece of porcelain on which his shaving brush stood. There seems no poison anywhere there—at least of the sort we want.”

  “I agree.” Doctor Manson picked up the reports again. He jotted two notes on a piece of paper. The inspector, peeping over his shoulder, saw they were addresses. “Do I still hang on to these things?” he asked.

  “By all means. I have a mental note of them, but we’ll have to be able to produce them if wanted.”

  The Doctor left in his car. Clear of the police station he turned off the London road by the Palace Pier and headed along the sea-front in the direction of Hove. He turned off again at Brunswick Square and parked by the side of the gardens. Noting the numbers of the houses in front of him he followed them along to one he was apparently seeking. It received only a cursory examination, however, after which the Doctor continued walking, eyeing each doorway as he did so.

  At one bearing a doctor’s plate he turned in and disappeared, only to reappear in two or three minutes. The same procedure was continued to the top of the square, but without another call. He then retraced his steps, and foraged in the other direction, eventually reaching the rooms of another doctor. His stay there was longer.

  “Yes,” the doctor said in answer to a question. “Occasionally.”

  Manson made a suggestion. The doctor smiled.

  “Oh, no. Nothing like that,” he said. “As sound as a bell. Stomach trouble. Most of us have these days, you know. But that is all.”

  Manson thanked him and took to his car again. When he had reached a point beyond Preston Park he turned right into a country lane, and pulled up at a gate which gave entrance to a farmstead.

  A whistle produced a countryman in corduroy breeches and hacking jacket, who waited inquiringly. Manson produced his warrant card.

  “We are checking up on poisonous preparations in farm buildings,” he explained. “What do you carry of that description?”

  “We’ve got a bit, sir,” was the reply. “I keep them in the store-room. They’re safer there than anywhere else.” He led the way, and pointed to a shelf. “That’s them,” he said. “Most of it is arsenic. Fruit and other sprays, and so on.”

  “Any vermin destroyer?”

  “Yes. Liverpool virus.”

  “And some packet stuff, I see.” Manson pointed them out.

  “Oh, that! We don’t use that now. The virus is better. Ought to destroy it, I suppose. But I keep forgetting.”

  “How long have you had it?”

  “Blessed if I know, sir. It was here when I came. The fellow before me used it. I never had any truck with it myself, neither here nor anywhere else.”

  “A year, perhaps?”

  “More than that.”

  Manson inspected the preparation more closely. The packets were covered with a thick layer of dust, except for the last half row, which was comparatively clean. “Seems to be some missing?” he suggested.

  “Aye. A police officer like yourself took one away. Said he could do with a packet. That’d be more’n a week ago.”

  “Only one? If the packets were arranged in a block, as they seem to have been, it would appear that three packets are missing.”

  The man looked. “So it does. That’s funny. They were all right the last time I noticed them. But I don’t often go there.”

  “Perhaps someone else has used a packet.”

  The man shook his head. “Nobody handles that stuff except myself,” he said. “I keep this door locked.”

  “Oh, well. It doesn’t matter. Your stuff seems to be all right. Many thanks.”

  At the next telephone box Manson called up Edgecumbe. The inspector listened.

  “All right, Doctor,” he said. “I’ll have them brought up by the next train.”

  The train from Brighton nearly beat the Doctor to London. He had been in his study only a few minutes when a detective-constable was shown in. He carried a parcel.

  “I was told to give it to you, personally,” he said.

  Manson took it into the laboratory. Opened, it disclosed the packet of vermin killer which the Brighton inspector had produced from his box of exhibits. Manson carried it into the laboratory.

  “I think,” he said to Merry, “I’d like an outside expert witness in on this. Get hold of ‘Stiffy’ and ask him to come over, will you?” Merry reached for the phone.

  ‘Stiffy’—real name William Abigail, teetered into the Laboratory. A meek little man with a huge forehead and bulging eyes, he was the Home Office pathological expert. He and Manson had worked together on a number of murder investigations, and had been of great assistance to each other. His pathological profession was the origin of his nickname! He was also a brilliant analyst.

  “Ha!” he said as he saw Manson. “So you want my help, do you? Can’t get out of a mess by yourself, eh? What’s it all about?”

  Manson told him.

  “Ha!” he said, again. “Battle,” and looked at the label. “That’ll be 1934—that’s when we changed the Act.” He shook his head. “Perished by now, you know. Expect so.”

  “It’s been hermetically sealed, Stiffy.”

  “All right. We’ll try it . . . not much hope. Alcohol,” he demanded. “And a coat. Don
’t want to spoil my clothes. Can’t afford it.”

  He donned a laboratory coat, opened the packet of vermin killer and with an ivory knife cut a piece free. Reducing it to powder, he laid it in the bottom of a glass beaker and poured alcohol over it. The contents turned into a thickish, black-coloured liquid, which the pathologist stirred vigorously with a glass rod.

  “That’s the soot and flour,” he said. He waited a while. “Ought to be dissolved by now. We’ll try it. Filters.” The liquid was passed through filters into a dish. ‘Stiffy’ peered into the filter. He transferred a little to a slide, and peered at it through a microscope. A few crystals disclosed themselves.

  “Eureka!” said Merry.

  “Not good enough. Shut up!” ‘Stiffy’ commented. “Got a mouse?”

  “I reckon we’ve thousands of ’em in this place,” said Merry. He disappeared into the domains of Wilkins, the Laboratory assistant, and reappeared with a white rodent in a cage.

  ‘Stiffy’, not without trouble, inserted some of the crystals into the animal’s mouth, and restored it to the cage. A few moments later the mouse leaped madly, arched its back in convulsions, and died.

  “It works!” said ‘Stiffy’. “Alcohol.”

  “What for?” Manson looked surprised. “Under proof.”

  “Oh, whisky!” ‘Stiffy’ grinned.

  “Come into the study,” Manson invited.

  * * *

  “How the devil did you get on to that, Harry?” Merry asked when the Expert had departed.

  “Better get Jones up, Jim. He started the hare; he’d better be in the chase.” The superintendent listened to the tale.

  “Lumme!” said Jones. “Got the stuff. Must have made the poison. Well, Doctor, that’s done it I reckon.”

  “I’m afraid it hasn’t, Old Fat Man. It doesn’t follow that because there is strychnine preparation on the premises the person knew it was there, or that the poison could be extracted from it. And it’s doubtful whether there was the knowledge how to extract it. Anyway, it still has to be got into Mortensen’s mouth, you know.”