Mad Hatter sc-4

by Peter Lovesey

  ‘I’m sure I shan’t need to, sir. Now, gentlemen, the pastries here are recommended, I believe. Cooked on the premises. You’ll have one on Scotland Yard, I hope, seeing that you haven’t eaten very much.’

  Guy stood up suddenly and tossed his crumpled napkin on the table. ‘I don’t want pastries. I need some fresh air.’

  ‘His condition,’ Prothero explained by way of an excuse, after the red blazer was lost to view. ‘It’s in the blood, inherited from his late mother. Providentially, I am able to subdue the attacks if I cannot dispel them altogether. I will have a pastry, if you please.’

  The tray was brought and coffee served at the same time.

  ‘I should think you’ve had your difficulties with Guy, then,’ said Cribb.

  ‘In which way, exactly?’

  ‘Oh, I was meaning that it’s difficult to correct a child when it’s liable to bring on an attack of asthma.’

  ‘Less difficult than you would suppose,’ said Prothero defensively. ‘I’ll allow that he has abominable manners, but he’s been chastised like any normal boy. We’ve done all that Christian parents can.’

  ‘Perhaps the school was negligent,’ ventured Cribb. ‘You mentioned that he is starting at a new one.’

  ‘Quite soon, yes.’

  ‘I wonder if I’ve heard of it.’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. A small private academy. There is still some doubt whether he will go there, so there is no point in my mentioning the name.’ The subject was obviously closed.

  ‘I didn’t wish to be indiscreet when the boy was here,’ said Cribb, ‘but you won’t mind if I now enquire whether it was a lady-friend you accompanied to the homecoming ball?’

  ‘I fail to see what relevance it has to your investigation, but I am not ashamed to tell you I was partnering Miss Samantha Floyd-Whittingham, who happens to be the daughter of a senior officer of the regiment. She is purely a social acquaintance.’

  ‘Goes without saying, sir. You didn’t by any chance leave the ball for a part of the evening, perhaps to watch the fireworks?’

  ‘Indeed, yes. Most of the guests did. We stood in the Steine Gardens for twenty minutes or so. We could see sufficiently well from there.’

  ‘And then you returned inside, sir?’

  ‘Of course, until the ball ended, soon after one o’clock. Then I drove the young lady to her lodgings in Lewes Crescent and returned to the Albemarle. I was home before two.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it, sir.’

  ‘Samantha is still alive, I assure you. I saw her yesterday.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking she was dead,’ said Cribb.

  ‘Oh. You are concerned about my wife’s safety, but not about my-er-friend’s?’

  ‘Seeing that my information is that your friend has copper-coloured hair and the dead woman’s is brown, that’s correct, sir. There’s just one other matter, if you’ll indulge me a moment more. You’ve been most forbearing, if I might say so. Has your servant Bridget been with you long?’

  ‘Upwards of six months, I believe. I engaged her myself. She has impeccable references. My wife has never been entirely happy with her, but I think the fault may well rest more with Mrs. Prothero than with Bridget.’

  ‘What do you mean, sir?’

  ‘She is far too possessive with the child. If you engage a nurse, you should let her get on with the job, dammit, not interfere at every opportunity. Mrs. Prothero is a woman of excitable tendencies, as I think I mentioned. It is usually a relief to all of us when she takes her sleeping-draught and retires. A profound relief. You may imagine the scenes we have had between my wife and Guy.’

  ‘Vividly, sir. Do you think Bridget is completely to be trusted?’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, sir, not to put too fine a point upon it, in matters of morality.’

  Prothero put down his coffee cup. ‘My goodness, Sergeant Cribb, you have been making a close study of us. I am well aware to what you are alluding. You may think me a forward thinker in this respect, but I don’t regard it as necessarily bad if a fifteen-year-old boy is taught a trick or two by a servant-wench. I know that I was when I was young. Oh yes, they bathe together. I don’t need Scotland Yard to tell me what two wet bathing-costumes mean. But I tell you that I’m more concerned about the toxic effects of the sea-water than I am about a bit of spooning under the waves. There’s no more to it than that, Sergeant. Bridget’s no youngster. She’s not the sort to make a fool of herself with a schoolboy, but if she feels disposed to further his education a little in that direction, I shan’t turn her out of the house for it. Guy might appear to be worldly-wise, with his scant respect for his elders and betters, but his knowledge of certain areas of human behaviour is not much better than your eye for a bath towel.’ He wiped his lips thoughtfully, as if reconsidering what he had just said. ‘I didn’t notice whether your towel was green and white. I rather suspect now that it was not. Do you have it with you?’

  ‘No sir,’ Cribb was quick to reply. ‘It was hired from Brill’s.’

  ‘And you’re saying no more than that, eh? Well, Sergeant, I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful for the lunch, whatever occasioned it. I just hope for your sake that Scotland Yard will not consider it as unjustified expenditure.’

  ‘If you are thinking of leaving, I’ll accompany you as far as Grafton Street,’ said Cribb as if he were bestowing a favour. ‘You were going in the general direction of Lewes Crescent, I take it?’

  Prothero stood up. ‘Sergeant, it’s a good thing I haven’t done anything criminal, or I should be a worried man by now. By all means let’s go together.’

  Constable Thackeray was waiting with a letter in his hand when Cribb re-entered the police station. ‘Blimey, Sarge, what have you done to yourself?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There’s something different about you and I’m not sure what it is. Yes I am! It’s your hair.’

  ‘What’s the matter with it, for Heaven’s sake?’ growled Cribb.

  ‘Well, it’s standing up so, Sarge. You always have it plastered down. If I didn’t know you’d been out interviewing I’d almost think you’d been in for a dip. It must be the sea air. I believe the ozone does things like that. You’ll need to get some macassar-oil.’

  There was a moment of silence before Cribb asked, ‘Is that all, Constable, or would you like to inspect my tongue to see whether I’m becoming constipated? Shall we concern ourselves with the purpose of our visit? What have you got there?’

  ‘It’s the police surgeon’s report, Sarge. I knew you’d want to open it yourself.’

  Cribb opened the envelope and scanned its contents.

  ‘Does it tell us anything new?’ Thackeray asked.

  ‘Precious little, so far as I can see. Merely cloaks our own observations in pathological jargon. He hasn’t been able to establish a cause of death. “In my opinion the deceased was a healthy woman aged between twenty-five and forty-that’s a sizeable margin. Slight of build. Dark hair”-we know all this. Ah! Here’s a point of interest. “The dismemberment of the parts was performed with a sharp axe-like instrument employed somewhat crudely. The state of coagulation suggests that the amputations took place up to twenty-four hours after death.” It looks as if our murderer killed the woman on Saturday, hid the body under the arches and returned to finish his work the next night.’

  Thackeray lifted two scandalised eyebrows. ‘On a Sunday?’

  ‘My guess is that he wrapped the dismembered parts in newspaper and buried them a foot or so under the pebbles that night, thinking to come back.’

  ‘He was taking a risk, Sarge, leaving them on a public beach. Just suppose a child had decided to dig there. It’s unthinkable!’

  Cribb shook his head. ‘And unlikely. It’s the site of the fish-market. Nobody sits down there with a child. The smell’s too strong. Our murderer’s a very knowing cove, I’d say, and a cool’un, too. When do you think the hand was deposited in the crocodile tank
?’

  ‘First thing in the morning, as soon as the aquarium opened, I should say. He probably had some of his gruesome parcels in a bag of some sort and got into the reptile-cave before anyone else and tossed them over the top.’

  Cribb was unconvinced. ‘I know that crocs are notorious flesh-eaters and scavengers, but its asking the devil of a lot to expect ’em to finish everything before the first visitors arrive. That cave’s a popular place, you know.’

  ‘The hand was found in the morning,’ protested Thackeray.

  ‘Only because it slipped between the rock and the glass. No, I think it’s far more likely he got in there by night.’

  ‘Broke in, d’you mean?’

  ‘Why not? It’s just a short step from where the parts were buried.’

  ‘He’d have to be a skilled cracksman as well as a killer to do that Sarge.’

  ‘Not at all. You haven’t studied the lay of the building, I can see, in spite of walking past it two or three times a day. What’s its situation?’

  ‘Well, it stands between the upper promenade and the lower,’ said Thackeray, increasingly peeved at Cribb’s manner. ‘In the fork of Madeira Drive and the Marine Parade.’

  ‘Correct. And one being on a higher level than the other, what’s the effect on the siting of the building?’

  ‘It’s built hard against the rise of the upper promenade. The roof is on a level with the Marine Parade. They’ve made a terrace garden there.’

  ‘Exactly! You can walk on the roof. Hundreds of people do without realising it. But if you’ve got a sharp eye,’ (the implication plainly was that Thackeray had not), ‘and you take a look over the balustrades and under ledges you’ll see windows, dozens of ’em. They’re needed at the top to let the condensation out. Now it’s perfectly evident to anyone who walks along there that not all of those windows are closed at night. And it wouldn’t need a Charlie Peace to let himself in through one. It’s no great height, and some of the windows must be positioned over beams and furniture. I think he got in there by night. That’s probably why his aim with the hand wasn’t too good.’

  ‘Wouldn’t he have risked being seen breaking in?’

  ‘Hardly any risk at all if he worked from the side nearest the Parade. There’s a kind of well at one point between the building and the road. You can’t see into it unless you stand against the railing and lean over. That’s where I’d make my entry. I’m having one of the local detectives examine the windows there for marks. Well, there’s not much more in this report. How did you get on this morning?’

  Thackeray mopped his brow with a large handkerchief. ‘This list you asked me to make is getting longer, Sarge. The Brighton bobbies are doing the door to door work, but I’m kept quite busy taking reports from them. There’s more than a hundred women on it already, and it’s the deuce of a job to discover what their age was. They all left the town on Saturday or Sunday, though. Finished their holidays, you see. I’m beginning to understand what attracts a murderer to a seaside resort. Oh, and the man Moscrop called again.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘He asked to see you. It seems he remembered something that might be of vital importance. He wanted to look at the sealskin jacket we found, but I didn’t let him, of course. I tried to explain that it was evidence and that if he became a witness he might be called upon to identify the coat in court, and-‘

  ‘What did he say about the coat?’ demanded Cribb.

  ‘Oh it was something to do with a missing button. While Mrs. Prothero was walking along the prom. with him, a button came off her jacket. She put it in her pocket. I think he was hoping to identify the jacket we found by locating the button in the pocket, but I was able to tell him that the buttons was all in place, and we hadn’t found nothing in the pockets. He went away after that.’

  ‘Did he say which button was missing?’ asked Cribb.

  ‘The top one.’

  ‘Fetch the coat.’

  ‘You won’t find the button gone, Sarge,’ mumbled Thackeray, as he went to collect it. ‘I checked it again myself after he’d gone. But if you won’t take my word for it. . s›. . !s›. . !s›.’

  In a moment he returned with the jacket and planted it on the table in front of Cribb with a sigh pregnant with injured pride. Cribb examined each button carefully. ‘Hand me that magnifying-glass, Constable.’ He turned the buttons back and studied the cotton-strands holding them in place. ‘Interesting. The top button’s sewn on with thinner cotton than the rest, but there’s still traces of the holes where the thicker stuff went through. Someone’s had to sew the button on again. I rather think that Moscrop’s come to your rescue, Thackeray. You needn’t do any more work on that list. He’s found the lady for us.’

  CHAPTER 12

  Moscrop sat on the sea-wall that extended from the Junction Road past the aquarium to the Chain Pier. The position was well-chosen. It commanded a clear view of the front of the Albemarle Hotel from the lower road, without the obvious risk involved in watching from the Marine Parade itself. He could sit here inconspicuously for as long as he liked, pretending to contemplate the symmetry of the structure suspended over the sea between the four tapering towers inspired by the Egyptian architects of Karnak-for the Chain Pier still had its admirers, even if it lacked the amusements of its more fashionable rival farther up the shore-line. Today its clientele were mostly anglers, with some few promenaders tossing halfpennies into the shallows to see the local urchins scramble for them. People said that Tom Sayers, the great pugilist, was once one of these ‘Jacks in the water.’

  It was difficult to credit that an incomparable woman had been murdered and dismembered on this beach just a day or two earlier. The town had taken account of the crime and recorded it in its newspapers like one of the events of the season and now it was forgotten, a horror swept clean by the tides, and crushed out of reckoning by the implacable round of promenading, carriage-exercise, concert-going and ‘at homes.’ Landladies were haggling over the price of cod where the day before yesterday policemen and auxiliaries had dug for human remains. Today’s newspapers were full of the Grand Temperance Demonstration by the Band of Hope Union.

  He, for one-perhaps the only one in Brighton-refused to forget what had happened and return to the bucket and spade level of existence. It was not the holiday he had planned, this furtive waiting and watching, not quite the scintillating drawing-room exchanges with the season’s gayest debutantes that he had visualised in his most extravagant moments. But if it had not come up to those expectations, it had touched planes of experience he had not dared to contemplate before. They had been momentous, those few meetings with Zena, transforming him utterly, making poor faded cameos of the sights he had caught through his instruments in years past and treasured in his mind’s eye. Now that it was over he was not going to behave as though nothing had happened. Nor would he slink dispiritedly away. He would see things through, watch the sequence of events, patiently observe as he had always done.

  It was not all observation, even now. Anyone who had been so involved in events was entitled to bring a little influence to bear on the way they were interpreted. That was why he had gone to the police about the matter of the coat-button. What a pity it was that he had been attended to by the constable, and not his shrewd superior! The man seemed positively pleased to report that all the buttons on the sealskin coat were in position, planting his hands across his belly like some smug grocer promising a customer that all the eggs in his shop were new-laid. One could not even be sure he would mention the matter to Sergeant Cribb, who could be relied upon to understand its significance and employ the resources of Scotland Yard to establish that the button in question had been replaced recently. ‘Extensive inquiries are afoot.’ the newspapers were saying, as though that ought to satisfy everyone. Such complacency! How was one to convince these policemen that there was no need to tramp from door to door asking questions about missing women?

  The present necessity was to watch every
move that Dr. Prothero made. Sooner or later the investigation must concentrate on him. The circumstantial evidence was overwhelming. Here was a man who had already buried two wives and was treating his third as though she did not exist, openly deserting her by day and administering chloral to her by night to keep her in ignorance of his iniquitous infidelities. Zena herself had described the marriage as ‘a continuous ordeal’ and talked of the ‘unspeakable thing’ that made the child Jason her single consolation. Cribb had made a note of the phrases when they were repeated to him and could be relied upon to understand their significance. Oh no, it would not be long before Dr. Prothero came under suspicion for the murder of his wife. Wasn’t membership of the medical profession tantamount to a predisposition for murder? There was a long line of murderous doctors, from Palmer, the Rugeley poisoner, to George Henry Lamson, who had gone to the gallows as recently as April for killing his crippled brother-in-law. Doctors had the means of disposal to hand, after all, and their work brought them into such intimate contact with death that it was no surprise if occasionally one of them developed a cynical indifference to it, even a predilection for it as a convenient way of solving problems. Palmer and his kind were those who had made errors. How many others in the same profession had committed similar crimes nobody had detected?

  The details of the case-the circumstances in which Prothero had returned from the regimental ball and Zena had been on the beach-were for Scotland Yard to determine. What mattered was that until they were ready to arrest the doctor every move he made should be observed, every suspicious action recorded, and he, Moscrop, would see that it was done. A singular way to pass a holiday, but one that, curiously enough, brought him peace of mind.