The Lately Deceased

by Bernard Knight

  Edgar, with forty years’ experience of violent death, was scornful. ‘What you mean, “if”?’ he demanded, ‘You reckon she’s always ’ad a ’ole in ’er chest wiv blood comin’ out?’

  ‘You’re a great comfort, you are!’ growled the detective inspector. He turned to his sergeant, a keen, fresh-faced young man with a shock of red hair.

  ‘Masters, get over to this place in Great Beachy Street right away, find out who’s in the house and stay put until you hear different. OK?’

  ‘If there is somebody there, do you want me to get a statement?’ asked Masters.

  ‘No, just sit on ‘em. With a bit of luck we’ll be over ourselves before long, as soon as Old Nick has called in here.’ The younger officer left without further question and immediately afterwards a police car drew into the yard with the divisional detective superintendent and his inspector.

  The DDS was a famous character, known as ‘Old Nick’ to everyone from youngest cadet up to the Commissioner.

  Born Nicholas Meredith, his black Mephistophelian eyebrows, long menacing face and dark hair had clinched his nickname from the day he joined the force.

  Tall, even above the lankiest constable, he had habitually to stoop to get down to the level of other people, and this hunched stance added to his air of malevolence. He rarely smiled, his reaction to any sort of humour being a deepening of his habitual scowl; his closer colleagues knew that this was an act assumed in his earlier days to compensate for self-consciousness and had by now become an ingrained habit. His worth as a detective was undoubted and his appointment to one of the ‘plum’ divisions as chief of detection spoke for itself.

  He listened silently to the story, short as it was.

  ‘What did the doctor say about it this morning?’ was his first question. The Welsh accent was still strong after all his years in London. As he looked at the wound, which Edgar once again displayed, Grey told him that they had done nothing yet in the way of investigation.

  ‘Right, then you’d better start. Grey, get the Yard to send the photography and print men to meet us at this flat, as soon as they can get there. Have you sent anyone over there yet?’

  Grey, thankful for having anticipated this need, said that his sergeant was there.

  ‘You’re the coroner’s officer, I take it?’

  Old Nick knew very well who Wally was, but this impersonal touch was all part of the act he kept up.

  ‘Get hold of this damn doctor and get him over to that address as well. When did you say that Dr Chance is going to do his examination?’

  ‘Twelve o’clock, his secretary said just now,’ answered Grey.

  ‘Right, it’s twenty past ten now; the photo people can do the flat and get over here in time for the pathologist. He’s always late, so they’ll have time enough to finish at the scene first.’

  ‘You’re reckoning on this being a true kill, then, sir?’ asked Wally Morris, pointing at the body on the trolley.

  ‘Well, I haven’t got a hole in my chest; I don’t know about you!’ replied Meredith, more or less repeating the mortuary keeper’s sentiments. ‘So until proved otherwise by the pathologist, we’ll take it that she’s been the victim of some foul play. Now, we’ve got to round up all these characters from that party.’

  He led the way to his car and drove off fast in the direction of Great Beachy Street, taking with him the other detective from divisional headquarters, an officer named Stammers. Wally Morris stayed with Grey while the latter passed on the message to the Information Room at the Yard and arranged for the Photographic Section and the fingerprint men to go to the scene of the death.

  As they climbed into Morris’s Ford to follow the police car, Wally flung a parting shot at the stolid figure of Edgar Sidgwick.

  ‘Mind you warm old Grizzle-Guts’ gown and give him some gloves without holes in! I’ve had enough trouble today without having him going into one of his tantrums when he gets here. Cheerio!’

  He let in the clutch with a jerk and sped off towards Marylebone Road and Great Beachy Street.

  Chapter Six

  Geoffrey Tate sat at his desk, twisting a pencil endlessly between his fingers and staring down at Holborn through his office window. A small gilt clock on his inkstand showed a few minutes before eleven o’clock. His face was drawn and worried – so different from a few hours before, when he had been the mainspring of the party at Gordon’s flat.

  Coming to life for a moment, he pressed a key on his intercom and spoke to the secretary in the outer room.

  ‘Will you ring Mr Walker’s office again, please?’

  There was a short silence, then the girl’s voice came into the room: ‘Sorry, Mr Tate, his secretary says he’s not been in yet, nor left any message.’

  ‘Right, thank you.’

  He lifted the key and made a pretence of attending to some of the papers in front of him. Within a few minutes, however, he had thrown down the sheaf and sat picking his thumbnail, with a gloomy expression on his face. Again he spoke to his secretary, asking her to try to reach Gordon at his flat.

  ‘Yes, sir. I’ll ring now … just a moment, there’s an incoming call for you. Will you take it first, please?’

  He picked up the white telephone, when a strange and very polite voice spoke at the other end.

  ‘Good morning, sir, this is Detective Sergeant Masters speaking. I’m sorry to trouble you, but I believe that you may be able to give the police some assistance over the death of a Mrs Margaret Walker. The matter is rather urgent, sir, and my superior officer would be glad of a few words with you right away.’

  Geoffrey’s stomach seemed to give a spasmodic twitch as the significance of the words reached his mind.

  ‘Police! Are you a coroner’s officer or something?’

  He seemed at a loss for the right words for a moment.

  The police voice gently disillusioned him over the wires.

  ‘No, sir, I think it would be better if we explained when you came over to Comber Street Police Station, sir. We’re sending a car over now to pick up a Miss Arden and a Mr Franklin, so perhaps you would be good enough to come along with them.’

  His tone made the request as much an order as if he had issued a summons.

  ‘I suppose you wouldn’t like to tell me what this is all about?’ asked Tate.

  ‘I’d rather not, sir, if you don’t mind. The car will be at the main entrance in about ten minutes. Goodbye for now, sir.’

  Geoff hung up and immediately buzzed for his secretary.

  ‘Get me Franklin in Technical and Eve Arden … God knows where she is.’

  A few minutes’ hurried ringing around the studios produced no result. Geoff paced his office like a worried tiger until a message came up from the foyer commissionaire that a police officer had called to collect him. He hurried down in the lift and met Abe Franklin in the hall. There was no sign of Eve Arden.

  The police officer, a mobile man in a soft cap and leather leggings, put his fingers to his cap brim and inquired after the lady whom he was supposed to collect as well.

  ‘I’m afraid she doesn’t appear to be in the building,’ said the hall porter. ‘We’ve been ringing for her ever since we had the message.’

  ‘I’ll just have to take you two gentlemen, then,’ said the police driver and led the way to a black Wolseley parked outside. He installed them in the back and weaved off through the heavy mid-morning traffic.

  Abe turned to Geoffrey as soon as they were on their way.

  ‘Any ideas what the hell this is all about?’ he asked.

  ‘Obviously to do with poor Margaret, but why all this Sherlock Holmes stuff?’

  Neither having much to contribute to solving the mystery, they remained silent for most of the fifteen-minute journey to the red-brick pile of the police station. Here they were shown into a bare waiting room lit by a gas fire and decorated by posters showing how to recognise the Colorado beetle.

  Almost immediately a large ginger-headed young man
in plain clothes appeared and introduced himself as the owner of the voice on the telephone.

  ‘Detective Superintendent Meredith will be here in a few minutes, if you will wait, please.’

  Again his voice indicated that they had little choice in the matter.

  ‘Meanwhile, perhaps you could help me while we are waiting by looking at this list and seeing if there are any names missing from it of people who were at the party last night.’

  He produced a handwritten list of about twenty names. Most of them were known to either Abe or Geoff Tate and between them they were able to contribute another half-dozen fresh names.

  The detective seemed sincere in his thanks and added the extras to the bottom of his list. He asked where these people were likely to be found at this time of day and then excused himself to try to contact them. The two men were left in the bare room, Geoff staring into the hissing gas fire and thinking of the expression ‘able to assist the police in their enquiries’, while Abe studied a new pictorial treasure on the wall, exhorting the public to lock their back doors while watching the ‘telly’!

  In Great Beachy Street, the photographers were just leaving, taking their lights and tripods with them en route to the mortuary for the post-mortem. The fingerprint men had gone, disgusted by the welter of strange prints on everything, after the recent party. Meredith stood in the centre of the lounge, hands on hips, looking morosely around him. With him were Inspectors Grey and Stammers, and Wally Morris.

  Annoyance made the superintendent unusually talkative. ‘If I were an Aussie and not a Welshman, I’d call this set-up a “fair cow”. Not a thing left as it was, after that damn barman had cleared up. The bloody guests scattered all over London and the body carted right across the manor by a couple of ham-handed undertakers.’

  ‘Do you want to get stuck into the husband now or wait till after the PM?’ asked Grey.

  ‘Let’s keep him on ice for a bit,’ Old Nick answered. ‘A bit of a delay often sweats anything they’ve forgotten up to the surface!’

  ‘I had to tell him that we have reason to suspect that his wife’s death may not have been a natural one, sir, but I’ve given him no details,’ said Grey.

  Meredith nodded agreement.

  ‘Meanwhile,’ he said disgustedly, ‘what am I meant to do? I don’t yet know if I’m looking for a weapon, let alone what sort. All because that ruddy doctor boobed. Don’t they teach them any forensic medicine in medical college these days? Has Masters been able to locate him yet?’

  Grey went to the phone and called the station.

  ‘Masters contacted him and told him to come here right away. He should have been here by now.’

  Almost like the cue in a tightly scheduled play, a uniformed constable put his head around the door at that moment.

  ‘Sir, there’s a doctor at the front door, says you sent for him. Shall I send him up?’

  ‘Yes, please. As quick as you like,’ snapped Meredith.

  He turned back to Grey and Stammers.

  ‘Let’s see what this medical genius has to say for himself.’

  The little doctor strutted into the room, red in the face and full of fight. He had no idea what was going on, but he had an uneasy feeling that he was not there to be complimented.

  ‘Doctor Weinkaatz?’ queried Meredith, getting a curt nod in reply.

  ‘I think you were called here to see a recently deceased woman last night, sir?’

  The doctor, rising up and down on his heels and clasping his hands behind his back, glared at Old Nick before replying.

  ‘I am very busy, very busy. Is it necessary that I be called to see you at this time? I haf told the coroner’s clerk all about it.’

  ‘I’m afraid, Doctor, that we have a very serious matter to deal with here and it’s partly due to your actions – or lack of them – that we find ourselves in a difficult position.’

  Meredith spoke with slow measured words, as if impressing the error of his ways on a schoolboy before giving him ‘six of the best’.

  ‘I do not know vat you are meaning, vat is so much the matter here, then?’

  Weinkaatz was still blustering, but warily now. He could see that something was amiss. Ignorant though he was of the processes of the law, even he knew that such an array of senior police officers would not be concerning themselves over a common heart attack.

  Meredith started at the beginning, speaking with painstaking simplicity to avoid any excuse for an outburst of broken English.

  ‘I am Detective Superintendent Meredith. These are Detective Inspector Grey and Detective Inspector Stammers. We were called by the coroner’s officer a short while ago because of some doubt as to the true cause of death of the deceased woman, Mrs Walker, whom you saw at about five o’clock this morning?’

  ‘What doubt is this? I know of no doubt,’ broke in the doctor excitedly. ‘I saw and diagnosed acute heart failure or asphyxia. I reported it to the coroner’s officer. What is this doubt you speak of?’

  Meredith held up his hand to stop the flow of gabbled words.

  ‘Just a minute, Doctor, if you please. This lady was a stranger to you, yet you were ready to certify that she died of heart failure or of asphyxia. Surely that is in itself an admission of ignorance of the cause of death? If you were not able to decide between one of two quite unrelated conditions, how could you be satisfied that you knew how she had died?’ Grey butted in with another broadside against the physician, who was standing tight-lipped, his eyes darting from one policeman to the other.

  ‘Why didn’t you call the police and get them to ask for the divisional surgeon’s opinion, or at least notify the coroner’s officer at the time?’

  Weinkaatz blew himself up until he looked almost globular.

  ‘I haf experience enough to know when not to disturb other doctors and I am sure that the coroner’s officer does not get out of bed to see every sudden death at five o’clock in the morning!’

  Meredith shot him down with one short sentence.

  ‘Not even when the deceased has a stab wound in the chest, Doctor?’

  The effect was remarkable. The small foreign gentleman’s face went from red to a sickly green in a fraction of a second and beads of sweat appeared on his brow.

  ‘I do not understand, Superintendent. Vat does this mean? There was no mark, no wound on the body. I myself examined. Tell me please.’ He produced a large handkerchief and mopped his forehead vigorously.

  ‘For your information, Doctor, there is a penetrating wound in the left side of the chest. Now, if you don’t mind, we’d like to know exactly what happened when you came here earlier today. Take a note of it, Williams.’

  Meredith directed the last remark to a plain-clothes constable who had come over with Masters from the Comber Street station.

  ‘Now, sir …’

  Slowly, with many interruptions for disclaimers of negligence or responsibility, the meagre story was dragged from Dr Hugo Weinkaatz. He was vague as to the time of his call and arrival at the flat; he thought it must have been between five and six o’clock. This was of little importance, however, as the telephone operator would be able to put a more precise time to events. The doctor said he remembered one or two faces of the guests at the party which had just broken up on his arrival, but could name only the bereaved husband, Mr Walker. He had seen the dead woman only on the bed, and had pronounced life extinct after examining her eyes, feeling for the pulse and listening to the chest with a stethoscope. He omitted to say for how long!

  ‘Did you see any sign of injury or bloodstaining when you examined the heart?’ demanded Old Nick.

  ‘Nothing, nothing at all was there. I cannot see how you can say this thing!’

  ‘Can you tell us, Doctor,’ said Meredith, ‘which part of the chest you listened to? Did you lift the clothing at all?’

  ‘No, she wore a long dress, with a top jacket. I put my stethoscope in the aortic area at the top. Zat is sufficient to hear the heartbeats if they are the
re.’

  Meredith’s medical knowledge did not run this far and he was unable to make any comment.

  ‘So there could have been a mark lower down without you noticing it?’

  Weinkaatz, grasping eagerly at any concession, agreed profusely.

  ‘Yes, yes that is so … but there was no blood at all’

  ‘Mmmm … now, lastly, you are ready to swear that she was dead at the time you saw her. Not in a coma or anything like that?’

  ‘She was dead, officer, even a little cold.’

  Meredith had one last question: ‘How long would you say she had been dead, Doctor?’

  The Austrian shied away from this like a frightened horse.

  ‘Oh, how can I say? Not long; no stiffness in the eyes, just a little bit cold … very hard to say … hot room, too. I can only say less than six hours.’

  Meredith finished with a reprimand on the evils of not reporting such deaths to the authorities straight away, and the now crestfallen doctor went off promising to go to the police station at two o’clock to sign his typed statement.

  Grey was scornful at the doctor’s estimation of the time of death.

  ‘Six hours, my Aunt Fanny!’ he sneered. ‘A likely story, if you ask me!’

  ‘Where’s Walker now?’ asked Old Nick.

  ‘Waiting in the dining room,’ said the constable.

  ‘Hmm! It’s difficult to know quite what to do with him, until we’re ready to drag the story from everybody else at this blasted party. We can’t do that until after lunch now.’

  ‘What about moving him over to the station, sir?’ Grey suggested. ‘They can fix him something to eat while he waits. There should be quite a few other witnesses there by now, if Masters has been able to round them up.’

  ‘Does it matter if they talk together beforehand?’ asked Stammers.

  ‘Can’t do any harm. No one knows why they’ve been sent for yet, except possibly one of them and there’s no fear of him blabbing,’ answered Meredith.