Depths of Deceit

by Norman Russell

  Sergeant Knollys turned as Box entered the office, and sat down at a chair drawn up to the big office table. Box slid out of his overcoat, and sat down opposite him. He flourished the folder that the superintendent had given him.

  ‘Mr Mackharness wants me to go out to Carshalton tomorrow,’ he said. ‘A certain Mr Abraham Barnes, cement manufacturer, was murdered there early this morning, apparently under mysterious circumstances. I suppose I’ll be there all morning. It’s a nuisance, really, Sergeant. I want to start looking more closely at this Mithraeum business.’

  ‘Carshalton? It’s a very nice little place, sir,’ said Knollys. ‘We used to go down there by train from Croydon when I was a boy. It was on the line to Epsom. Barnes…. Yes, I remember. Barnes’s cement factory was next door to the old flour mill at Hackbridge.’

  ‘Well, that’s where I’ll be going tomorrow morning, Jack. I’ll go by myself, because I’ve other work I want you to do. Later today I’ll walk into Westminster, and visit Dr Miller at Horseferry Road Mortuary. I’ve telegraphed him to let him know I’m coming. He’ll have performed the autopsy on Gregory Walsh by then, and I’ll bring the results, and all poor young Walsh’s effects, back with me.’

  ‘And what do you want me to do, sir?’ asked Knollys.

  ‘Well, I’m telling you, aren’t I? I want you to call on the bereaved family in Hayward’s Court, Clerkenwell. You can take all Walsh’s things with you in a valise. Try to find out why he went to the Mithraeum this morning. See if you can establish any connection between him and this Professor Ainsworth, the man who discovered not only the heathen temple, but the Clerkenwell Treasure. I must go and see that treasure, Sergeant. I wonder where it is? Mr Mackharness will know—’

  ‘It’s in the South Kensington Museum, sir.’

  ‘Is it really? I’ll make a mental note of that.’

  ‘And I’ve looked up this Professor Ainsworth, sir. Roderick Ainsworth. He lives at a place called Ardleigh Manor, out at Epsom. He’s a moneyed man, by all accounts, connected with a shipbuilding concern up north.’

  ‘Well done, Sergeant. Does he have a Town address?’

  ‘No, sir, but he’s a member of the Athenaeum. We could always contact him there.’

  ‘Well, never mind Professor Ainsworth now. We’ll meet here first thing tomorrow, Jack, and I’ll give you the results of the post-mortem, and all Walsh’s things for you to take out to Old St Paneras Road. Is there any chance of a cup of tea? Where’s Sergeant Kenwright?’

  As though in answer to Box’s questions, there came a stirring in the narrow, tunnel-like passage joining the office to what Mr Mackharness called the ‘drill hall’, a long, whitewashed room at the rear of the building. Presently a burly, uniformed police constable, an impressive figure with a flowing spade beard, emerged into the office. He was carrying a tin tray, on which reposed two mugs of steaming tea, and a saucer of broken biscuits.

  ‘Ah! Sergeant Kenwright! As always, you’re just in the nick of time. Sit down there, will you, while I tell you what happened to Sergeant Knollys and me this morning.’

  As Box sipped his tea, he told the sergeant all about the summons to the Mithraeum, and what he and Knollys had found there.

  ‘I want you to go out to Clerkenwell, Sergeant Kenwright,’ said Box, ‘and take that art box of yours with you. You can take a cab if you like, or go on the omnibus. I want you to do some measurements in that crypt – its dimensions, and the dimensions of the big reredos I told you about. But more than that, I want you to make careful drawings of those pagan figures, and of anything else that you think is important. I want to know as much as I can about that Mithraeum, Sergeant, and we can start by having your collection of plans and drawings pinned up on boards in the drill hall for our contemplation. Go out there tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Very good, sir,’ said Kenwright, rising from the table. ‘I’ll put some things together straight away.’

  He saluted Box, and moved away down the tunnel. How lucky he was to have landed up there, at the Rents! Two years ago, as a beat constable, he had contracted rheumatic fever and had nearly died. When he was still convalescent, his divisional superintendent had arranged for him to be transferred to King James’s Rents, for the performance of light duties.

  There, he had discovered new talents, which had been put to such good use in the dramatic cases of Sir William Porteous, and the sinister business of the Hansa Protocol, that he had been promoted to sergeant. He hoped devoutly that he would not be returned at some time to the divisions. It was lovely at the Rents.

  In the dim, panelled smoking-room of the Scottish Lyceum Club, where he was staying, Professor Roderick Ainsworth, LLD, MA, blew out the match with which he had lit his cigar, dropped it into the ashtray, and leaned back in his deep leather armchair. It was good to be in Edinburgh again, with the prospect of a capacity audience for his forthcoming lecture at the Royal Caledonian Institution. ‘Mithras in the Shadow of St Paul’s: How London’s ancient Temple of Mithras was discovered’. He’d give the same lecture again, suitably retitled, at the Exeter Hall in London on the twentieth.

  His friend David Mackay was holding forth on one of his deliberately mischievous hobby-horses. The others sitting round the table regarded him with amused resignation. David was getting fat. He didn’t exercise enough, and he ate too much. They had all enjoyed a rather late luncheon, but David Mackay had turned his enjoyment into something approaching devotion!

  ‘So you still maintain, Ainsworth,’ he was saying, ‘that the Romans never penetrated to any great effect into Scotland? Or, rather, what we now call Scotland? Surely old Wayneflete maintained that they’d established a fortress of sorts near Newbie Mains, on the Solway Firth, just south of Annan? He wrote a paper about it, some years ago, in which he showed engravings of some fragments of tile—’

  ‘Wayneflete’s a charlatan! I know that you’re just teasing me, Mackay, but it’s true. And it’s no good waving that confounded pamphlet of his at me: I told you that I’ve come up to Scotland without my reading glasses. I don’t know where they are. Now, what was I saying? Oh, yes.’

  Ainsworth put his cigar into the ashtray, and allowed it to go out.

  ‘Wayneflete’, he continued, ‘knows very well that those bits of tile came from somewhere else. They’re suspiciously like those that you can see on the damaged tessellated pavement at Crowton Magna in Dorset. I wouldn’t put it past Sir Charles Wayneflete to have pocketed a few bits of that pavement when he was down there in ’84, and then dropped them through a hole in his pocket when he visited Newbie Mains. Don’t tell him I said so, though. He may sue me for slander!’

  Everybody laughed, and began talking of other matters.

  Roderick Ainsworth closed his eyes, and listened to his friends talking among themselves – the genial and mischievous Mackay, the learned Sillitoe, Murdoch Stuart – another practical archaeologist – and the others, all scholars of note, and all unequivocal admirers of himself. Yes, it was good to be in Scotland once again. As a young man he had often travelled up from Newcastle, where the family’s shipyard had been established for a couple of lifetimes, and savoured the brilliant intellectual life of Scotland’s capital, ‘the modern Athens’.

  Wayneflete…. It was generally accepted that Wayneflete was his academic rival, but to regard him in that light was a vexing travesty of the truth. He, Ainsworth, was a professional academic, Cordwainers’ Professor of Antiquities in the University of London. His discovery of the Clerkenwell Treasure in 1887 had confirmed his status as an investigative scholar of the first rank. And, then, of course, his uncovering of the Mithraeum at Clerkenwell had been a triumph, kindling the public’s imagination, and making him overnight a popular figure in the lecture halls.

  As to Wayneflete…. The man was a dabbler, who had never mastered any academic discipline. Was he really a charlatan? Well, perhaps that was too strong an accusation. Sir Charles Wayneflete, Baronet, was a titled amateur, jack of all trades and master of none. He li
ved beyond his income in a crumbling town mansion in Lowndes Square, eccentric and reclusive, tended now by an elderly housekeeper, who was said to bully him.

  It was ludicrous to see Wayneflete as a rival in any sense of the word. But there was no doubt whatever that he was a dangerous man, whose mind held some obscure and threatening secrets. He was, too, consumed by jealousy – jealousy of him, Ainsworth. Wayneflete was a man to despise, but never to ignore.

  ‘And how is your family faring, Ainsworth?’

  Roderick Ainsworth immediately opened his tired eyes and gave his full attention to Murdoch Sillitoe, who had asked the question.

  ‘My family? They’re in fine fettle, Sillitoe, thank you. Zena’s sculpting gets better and better. It’s all massive stuff, you know, big bronze affairs. They’re calling her the second Rodin. And Margery – my daughter – is developing into a pianist of concert standard. She can play all that finger-breaking stuff by Chopin – rattles it off, you know, as though she’s been doing it all her life. And that other fellow with the shock of white hair – she can play him, too. Liszt.’

  ‘Isn’t that the chap who died a few years ago?’ asked David Mackay. ‘Funny-looking fellow, who wore a floppy hat? Fancy being able to play him! Or do I mean Wagner?’

  Professor Ainsworth hauled himself out of his comfortable leather chair. He smiled at the assembled company. How good it was to see them all again.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘although it’s only half-past three, I must retire to my room and sleep for a couple of hours. I’m absolutely exhausted. I will appear once more in the land of the living at six o’clock, consume a cold collation of chicken in aspic with a single glass of chilled hock, and then sally forth to the Royal Caledonian Institution. Till then au revoir!’

  3

  The Sign of the Raven

  When Box arrived later that day at Horseferry Road Police Mortuary, he found Dr Donald Miller waiting for him in a chilly, white-tiled room leading directly from a grim chamber where some dozen sheeted corpses lay waiting for professional attention. Dr Miller looked tired, but his boyish, clean-shaven face held an expression of bright eagerness that Box knew to be typical of him. A house surgeon at Charing Cross Hospital, he had been appointed a police surgeon, at Box’s suggestion, in the previous year. He was twenty-six years old.

  ‘I’ve done your man for you, Mr Box,’ he said, rising from a table where he had been seated. ‘It was a bit difficult at such short notice, as I had another gentleman open on the table at the time, but I fitted him in quite nicely. Would you like a cup of coffee?’

  ‘I would, Doctor,’ said Box, shivering. ‘This place always depresses me: it’s all these tiles, and the sound of running water in those sinks of yours. Even on a day like this the place is as cold as the tomb – well, you know what I mean.’

  Young Dr Miller laughed, and busied himself with a percolator that stood over a little spirit lamp in a fume cupboard. Presently, he presented Box with a very acceptable cup of hot coffee, and invited him to sit down at the table. Pulling a sheet of paper towards him, he began to speak in the formal, stilted manner that belonged to his profession.

  ‘Today, I conducted a post-mortem examination on the body of one Gregory Walsh, a man aged about twenty-five. I found the subject to have been a healthy young man, entirely free from illness, or from sinister lesions of any kind. The tips of his index fingers and thumbs were stained with chemicals, probably incident upon his profession of assayer and sampler. Beneath the fingernail of his right index finger I found a deposit of a dried crimson material, perhaps dried paint, which I have placed aside for analysis.

  ‘Gregory Walsh met his death as the result of a blow to the back of the head, inflicted with an instrument in the nature of an adze or cleaver. Death would have been instantaneous. It was not possible for me to ascertain with certainty the time of death, but one can safely assume that it was not long before the discovery of the body. In the mouth—’

  Dr Miller’s voice faltered, and he threw down his written report on to the table.

  ‘Mr Box,’ he whispered, ‘I found that his mouth was filled with honey. There was none in his throat, or in his stomach. That honey had been spooned into his mouth by his murderer…. Having felled the poor young fellow with a single savage blow, he found the time to spoon honey into his mouth. Presumably, he’d brought a jar of the stuff in his pocket for the purpose. Can you make any sense of that?’

  ‘Not yet, Doctor,’ muttered Box. ‘But I will.’

  Miller put his report into a manila envelope, sealed it, and handed it to Box. ‘His clothes and effects are in the next room. Do you want to see them now?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Box, finishing his coffee. ‘Perhaps you’d like to stay while I examine them? Or maybe you want to get back to your silent guests?’

  ‘They can wait awhile, Inspector. In any case, they’re not all my subjects!’

  Young Dr Miller preceded Box into another tiled room, where Gregory Walsh’s effects had been laid out carefully on a couple of trestle tables.

  ‘I’ll examine the contents of his pockets first, Dr Miller, and then look at the clothes. This is a very nice silver watch, with an inscription engraved on the back. “To Gregory, on the occasion of his 21st birthday, 7 March 1889. From Father and Mother”. So he was, in fact, twenty-six. One leather watch-guard. One plain signet ring. Coins, retrieved from pockets: one sovereign, two half-crowns, four shillings, and one and sevenpence in copper. One plain handkerchief, stained with – now what is it? Coloured dust of some sort – some kind of red powder.’

  Box produced a small hand-lens from his pocket, and examined the handkerchief closely. It had evidently been freshly laundered and ironed, but its centre was crumpled, where the red powder had formed a long, narrow stain, some two inches long. In two other parts the red stains were in the form of shapeless patches. Box put away his lens, and turned to Donald Miller. At the same time, he removed his own handkerchief from his trousers pocket.

  ‘Poor Mr Gregory Walsh,’ he said, ‘had stained his right hand with some kind of coloured powder, which he proceeded to wipe off with his handkerchief, like this. That long stain in the centre was caused by his close wiping of his index finger. The other, fainter, stains were made as he cleared the powder from the palm of his hand. You mentioned that you had found a deposit of crimson powder beneath the fingernail of his right index finger.’

  ‘It sounds to me that he was scraping paint off some surface unknown. Does it suggest anything to you, Inspector?’

  ‘Not directly, Dr Miller. But it gives me food for thought. Let me flesh out these meagre facts into a little story. Mr Gregory Walsh, assayer and sampler, left his house very early this morning, and in his pocket reposed a clean handkerchief. At some time before seven o’clock, he went down into the Mithraeum in Clerkenwell, and performed some action or other which deposited a coloured powder beneath a fingernail, and on to the index finger and palm of his right hand.’

  ‘Perhaps he was scraping something with an instrument – there was a spatula in his pocket. It’s there on the table, beside his wallet. He may have used his fingernail as an extra instrument.’

  ‘Quite possibly,’ said Box. ‘Whatever he did, he saw that he had stained his hand, and in the natural way of things he took out his handkerchief and used it to wipe away the offending stains. And then he replaced his handkerchief in his pocket. He was taking his time, you see. Perhaps his assailant was somebody whom he knew, and who had met him at the archaeological site. Or perhaps his killer was there before Walsh arrived, hiding in the gloom behind that reredos, in which case, he could have been either someone known to Walsh, or a complete stranger.’

  ‘Bravo, Mr Box! You’re painting a very convincing picture of what must have happened.’

  ‘Well, it’s a strong possibility. And then, Doctor, the assailant struck Gregory Walsh down, remaining on the scene long enough to spoon honey into the corpse’s mouth…. Incidentally, were you able to p
reserve any of that honey?’

  ‘Yes, Inspector, it’s in a small jar, and sealed with my official seal. I also preserved tissue samples from the major organs, although, as I told you, the unfortunate Mr Walsh had been in perfect health.’

  The dead man’s wallet contained a small photograph of a young lady, upon the back of which was written: ‘To Greg, with love from Thelma’. There were also three of the dead man’s business cards, a five-pound note carefully folded, and the cancelled halves of two tickets for seats in the stalls of the Alhambra, Leicester Square, stamped with a date in July.

  ‘What do you make of that, Dr Miller?’ asked Box. He was inviting the young police surgeon to go a little beyond his own medical expertise.

  ‘Gregory Walsh was engaged to a pretty girl called Thelma. He took her to the music hall last July. Of course, he might be married to this Thelma. I expect you’ll find out.’

  ‘I expect I will,’ Box replied, smiling. ‘Now, what else have we got? There’s the spatula; yes, you can see faint traces of paint on the blade. Evidently, he wiped that, too. And what’s this? It looks like some kind of talisman.’

  Box had picked up a small disc, made of some blue material, perhaps lapis lazuli. On one side was engraved the figure of a rampant lion, with the Roman numeral IV beneath it. The other side of the disc showed an image of a seated figure, its head adorned with a garland. Beneath this image was engraved the words: Diu Pater.

  As Box held the disc, something shifted in his mind, and the scientific certainties represented by the tiled room of the forensic mortuary became suddenly dimmed as a shudder of superstitious dread passed through his frame. He angrily threw down the token on the trestle table.

  If Dr Miller had noticed this untypical reaction, he did not betray the fact. ‘Diu Pater is a very ancient spelling for Jupiter,’ he offered. ‘The father of the gods, you know.’