The Lately Deceased

by Bernard Knight

  ‘Hadn’t we better make a start with these people that Masters has collected, sir?

  ‘They’re entitled to be a bit shirty if they’re dragged away from their work and then held for hours doing nothing.’ Sydney Grey had a streak of sympathy where witnesses were concerned and didn’t agree with Meredith’s idea of letting them sweat.

  ‘Well, we’ll look in at the station and see who Masters has managed to scrape together,’ conceded Old Nick. ‘Meanwhile, Williams, find Mr Walker and that pair living with him and ask them to come on over.’

  When they arrived in the dismal waiting room of Comber Street Police Station, Geoffrey Tate and Abe Franklin were at once joined by five others from the party of the night before. Four were young fellows from the studios; Geoff knew them by name but had no idea what they did there. The fourth was Leo Prince, looking mystified and worried, and as happy in a police station as a Moslem in a pork butcher’s shop.

  On the heels of the detectives came Gordon, who had driven Barbara and Webster in his own car.

  Meredith addressed the subdued crowd, standing in the entrance of the CID office.

  ‘Tm sorry to have had to bring you here at this time of day and leave you so much in the dark as to what’s going on, but you must have realised by now that we have reason to be disturbed by the circumstances of Mrs Walker’s death. We will have to question each one of you individually about happenings at the party last night. Until we get the doctor’s report on the examination of the body we shall not know for certain, but I’m afraid it looks as if a serious state of affairs exists.’

  Old Nick paused for this to sink in.

  ‘Detective Inspector Grey here will ask you some preliminary questions to try to establish from you a list of all the people present last night. Meanwhile we must wait until after the post-mortem. I will then be in a position to tell you something more definite.’

  With a curt nod, he left the room with Stammers and Grey took over where he had left off.

  ‘If you’ll come into the adjoining office as the sergeant asks for you, we’ll get through it more quickly. I’ll arrange for some tea and sandwiches to be sent up while you wait for the superintendent to come back. Mr Tate, will you come in first, please?’

  Chapter Seven

  So began a tedious listing of names and times, each guest being asked questions almost impossible to answer accurately, even with the best will in the world.

  ‘What happened between so-and-so time and midnight?’

  ‘Whom did you see with Mrs Walker last?’

  ‘Which rooms did you go to during the games?’

  ‘With whom did you go?’

  ‘What time did you return to the lounge?’

  Grey asked the questions and Masters took down the meagre information gleaned from the replies. About fifteen people had arrived by the time the post-mortem was due to start and, eventually, Grey left Masters to finish off the statements and went over to the mortuary to join Meredith.

  As Old Nick had forecast, Dr Chance failed to arrive on time. He was apt to be anything up to two hours late, but this day they were in luck, as at only twenty past twelve, his Jaguar arrived at the gates.

  He was a lean, almost spidery Scot in his early sixties, with a mass of white hair and enormous eyebrows overhanging sharp blue eyes. A long, deeply lined face, set in perpetual bad temper, was pink with a freshly scrubbed look that fitted the profusion of silvery hair. He was dressed in his usual immaculate light-grey pinstripe, with a black Homburg poised correctly on his head.

  Taking a large case of instruments from the boot, he came around his gleaming car just as his secretary got out from the nearside, carrying a small typewriter in a zip-up case.

  Miss Susan Light was a very attractive brunette, petite and perfectly groomed, dressed in a shapely black business suit with a coat thrown loosely over her shoulders. She was a typical part of the Chance empire. Though he always had an exceptionally attractive secretary, it was never the same one for more than a couple of years, as they all had a habit of getting married off to eligible barristers or doctors who came into contact with the Chance ménage.

  A procession formed up in strict order of precedence to march into the mortuary. The lady went first, after Edgar, who opened the doors. Alistair went next, wearing a particularly ferocious frown for the occasion; then the detectives in order of seniority. The photographers, with Wally Morris, brought up the rear.

  Already inside were two officers from the laboratory at Scotland Yard, one of them a senior liaison officer whose function it was to advise on and retain any material for scientific examination.

  Edgar busied himself with arranging the tools, whilst Dr Chance gowned himself with the solemnity of a high priest about to perform the ultimate sacrifice. As he did so, he asked Meredith the facts of the case.

  ‘Our knowledge so far is pitifully poor, sir,’ admitted Old Nick. ‘It’s a queer job; the emergency doctor was called to the tail end of a pretty hot party in a smart flat, and finds her dead on the bed with a story of her being found drunk in a wardrobe some time before. He leaves her there and gets the undertakers to collect, then reports it to us at nine o’clock!’

  ‘Dear, dear, Superintendent! Whatever will these young doctors do next? I hope he wasn’t a St Jeremy’s man.’

  Dr Chance’s expression changed from severity to anguish for a few seconds.

  ‘No, no, sir, he was a continental doctor, and middle-aged. Anyway, he was going to call it a heart attack or an acute alcoholic death, but Mr Sidgwick here beat him to it by finding that hole in the chest.’

  Grizzle-Guts drew in his breath through pursed lips with a faint whistle.

  ‘A most invidious position for you, Superintendent, if I may say so,’ he said in his sonorous Scots voice. ‘I presume the witnesses are scattered far and wide by now?’

  ‘They are indeed, sir – a most awkward situation. A lot depends on your findings, if I may say so. We can’t very well go ahead until we are quite clear what’s happened.’

  ‘Quite so, we shall see, we shall see. Miss Light, shall we begin?’

  The eye-catching secretary, looking quite out of place in the bleak and bloody mortuary, sat quite nonchalantly at a side table where she had set up her typewriter. The younger policemen were more interested in throwing furtive glances in her direction than in the post-mortem, until Alistair called for photographs of the body as each layer of clothing was removed from the wound and its true extent could be seen.

  He called abrupt descriptions to Miss Light, who briskly clattered them onto a printed form. The appearance, height and clothing of the deceased were minutely recorded and the names of the CID officers typed as proof of identification. Then the appearances of the wound, externally and internally, were described and the next forty minutes were taken up by examining all the other organs and completing the report. Finally, Alistair Chance pulled off his rubber gloves and went to the washbasin to clean up.

  ‘There you are, gentlemen, as nice a case of murder as you are ever likely to see. This will make a nice addition to my lecture slides. You will remember to send a set of the photographs to the hospital, won’t you, Mr Meredith?’

  He brushed away almost happily for a moment and went on.

  ‘A neat stab through the lower ribs into the chest cavity and through into the tip of the heart. Unless the murderer was a doctor or anatomist, it was a lucky jab. Still, if it had been pushed far enough whatever weapon it was, it would have been bound to hit something vital higher up, even if it had missed the heart, as long as it was of sufficient length.’

  He dried his hands, seeming almost cheerful for once at this perfect example of violent death.

  ‘No chance at all of this being accident or even suicide?’ asked Meredith.

  ‘Always possible, but so unlikely as to be discounted, I feel sure. Suicide would be physically possible, but I can visualise no accident that could cause this. No, it’s murder, no doubt at all, especially as I
presume no weapon was present at the scene.’

  ‘Why no bleeding outside, Doctor?’ asked Pepper.

  ‘It’s like that Reading case. Pepper; you came with me to that, didn’t you? The blood has escaped from the heart into the chest, but death occurred too quickly for it to reach the hole in the chest wall – the little drop of blood on the dress is just a local ooze from the skin itself.’

  ‘An important point now, sir,’ said Meredith slowly and thoughtfully; ‘What sort of weapon do we have to look for?’

  Dr Chance, rolling down his shirtsleeves, considered this. ‘Very difficult to be specific, but it will be narrow, very narrow. The wound size is deceptive, but I would think less than a quarter of an inch in width. As to length, well, at least four inches, to have reached the heart from that point on the skin.’

  ‘Would it be very sharp, do you think?’

  ‘Only the tip, not necessarily along the edges. Two hundred years ago, or today for that matter in Italy, it would be a commonplace injury from a stiletto; but, in these circumstances, something like a large knitting needle comes to my mind, Superintendent.’

  Grey ventured to butt in on the conversation. ‘What about a screwdriver, sir, would that do?’

  Alistair looked at him severely as if he had said something outrageous. ‘Hardly, hardly! That would tend to leave a split at each side of the wound, but this is quite regular as far as I can see with the naked eye. I’ll have a look at it under the Ultrapak when I get back to the hospital.’

  He was in his coat by now and ready to go. Susan Light had closed up her machine and was handing him the report for his signature. He signed a copy each for the CID and for the coroner and put the spare into his case.

  ‘When will Dr Hope open the inquest, Morris?’ he asked, referring to the coroner.

  ‘He suggested Tuesday morning, if that suits you, sir,’ replied Wally.

  ‘Very well. Then, I’m away. Come, Miss Light.’

  With a flourish of cases and nylon-clad legs, they were in the Jaguar and were off, leaving a bunch of raincoated detectives standing in the dismal yard.

  Chapter Eight

  The inquisition at the police station had begun when Eve Arden arrived soon after lunch. She had been in Surrey all the morning doing location shots for a serial play in which she had a small part, and had not had the police message until she returned to Metropolitan House at the end of the morning. Coming straight over to Comber Street by taxi, she found that the crowd in the small waiting room had overflowed into an adjacent office, almost all the people from the party having now been collected.

  The two Moores and Martin Myers were among the few absentees. Eve nodded to those near the door when she arrived but, seeing Geoff Tate leaning against the window sill, she hurried over to him.

  ‘Hello, Geoff. Please tell me what’s going on!’

  Geoff turned quickly and greeted her. In spite of the circumstances, he could not hide his approval of her trim figure beneath the open coat. Her blonde hair was clustered around her face and her blue eyes were shadowed with anxiety, adding a touch of concern to her usually cheerful expression. He had always liked her company for its happily irresponsible gaiety, but now he found a new and heightened interest in her.

  ‘Eve, at last! The coppers have been searching high and low for you all day. Tell Uncle where you’ve been.’

  ‘I’ve been working. What a ghastly hole this is. Do they let you smoke in here, Geoff?’

  ‘Yes; sorry I can’t offer you one. I don’t suppose you’d care for a drag on my pipe!’

  To his surprise, he found himself straining to be gentle towards Eve, whom he had usually met only at the parties that abounded at ‘Metro’.

  ‘What’s happening now, have they told us what this is all about?’

  ‘No. They promised to, as soon as they could. The big chief detective came in just before lunch and gave us some patter to stall us for a bit, but that’s all so far. They’re holding a post-mortem.’

  ‘Post-mortem … ugh, how horrible! Where’s Gordon now?’

  Leo Prince, who was sitting at the table reading a newspaper with assumed nonchalance, answered for Geoff.

  ‘The bobbies have got him in there.’ He jerked a thumb in the direction of an inner door. ‘Probably got him under the bright lights trying to wring a confession out of him,’ he sniggered. Eve looked shocked.

  ‘Don’t make fun of it. Gordon must have had a foul day already, without you being clever about it!’

  ‘OK, keep your hair on. But he didn’t take much notice of her when she was alive, did he, so why should he be so cut up now that she’s gone? Besides, he’ll come into a packet of money – if he’s around to spend it!’

  Geoff slid off the ledge and advanced on the greasy-haired Leo.

  ‘Exactly what the hell do you mean by that?’ he demanded.

  A nasty situation was averted by the opening of the door and the arrival of Meredith and Grey. The murmur of voices died down and all faces were turned expectantly towards the tall superintendent. His face was grave and his eyes roved around beneath the black brows, probing the faces before him as he delivered the news.

  ‘As we thought this morning, this occurrence has proved to be serious in the extreme,’ he announced slowly. ‘Mrs Margaret Walker died as the result of direct violence and we have no alternative but to assume that she was murdered.’

  The announcement was met by a stunned silence. Everyone had been uneasy since being summoned by the police, but all had had the idea that some unfortunate accident during the rather torrid party had brought down the disapproval of the authorities.

  But murder? Everyone seemed incapable of taking in the detective’s meaning for a moment. Before they had time to break from their silence with demands for details, Old Nick went on.

  ‘I must ask you all to remain here until you are called to give as full a statement as you can. Each statement will then be typed and read over to you, to be signed by you if correct. After that you are free to leave, but you must give us detailed directions as to where you may be found. I shall be glad if none of you will leave London without first informing me or Inspectors Stammers or Grey.’

  He threw another dark look around the room before turning and going back into the interview room, where Gordon Walker could just be seen sitting in front of a desk, shoulders hunched.

  Meredith closed the door on the rising babble of voices which now broke out in the waiting room, and retreated to the desk, where a typed statement lay on the blotter. He sat down and waved the paper at Gordon.

  ‘Right, Mr Walker, I’ll just read what the sergeant has written. Please listen carefully and, if there are any mistakes or omissions, please let me know before you sign it.’

  He cleared his throat and began to read aloud. It was a fairly short account of the previous night’s happenings, prefaced by a paragraph stating that his wife’s health had always been good during the time that they had been married. Then, as near as he could remember, he gave a timetable of events during the night, with the information that Margaret had been drinking more than was her custom during the earlier part of the evening.

  He could not remember with whom she had left the room for the first of the games, and he had not seen her until he had found her in the wardrobe much later on. At the time of finding her, he had thought that she was in an alcoholic coma, but that certainly he thought she was alive. He was not prepared to swear to the presence of breathing; he had been slightly drunk by then himself and had had no cause at the time to think that she was in anything other than a drunken stupor.

  He recounted the discovery by Lena Wright and the arrival of the doctor, then the removal of the body from the house. He then had had a bath and shave and lain in his dressing gown on the bed until nine o’clock, when he dressed and waited for the doctor or coroner’s officer to contact him as expected. The first indication of serious complications was the arrival of Masters who told him that his wife might not have die
d a natural death.

  ‘Have you anything to add to this, sir?’ asked Meredith at the finish.

  ‘No I don’t think so, Superintendent,’ replied Gordon wearily. Those are the facts – you don’t want opinions, I suppose?’

  Old Nick looked at him warily.

  ‘Not on this preliminary statement, no, sir; but if you have anything at all to say which might be relevant to my inquiries, please let me have it right away.’

  ‘Well, if this is murder, which I certainly can’t credit, then my wife was probably the least likely candidate in the house last night! If someone was to have been killed, there were several far more likely customers present – perhaps even myself amongst them. But Margaret … impossible!

  Meredith regarded him with interest.

  ‘In other words, you mean that the fatal attack on your wife was made by mistake in the dark, having been meant for someone else?’

  Gordon nodded. ‘I can see no other explanation, Superintendent!’

  Old Nick stood up, towering above the others.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Walker. Probably at a later time I’ll ask you to enlarge on that. At present, we must get on with the other witnesses. I expect you’ve had enough by now, anyway. Please let one of my officers know where you are staying, and if you want to go out of town, let us know so that we may contact you if we want your help again.’

  Grey beckoned Meredith down and spoke softly into his ear.

  ‘What about the weapon? Or are you going to keep that under your hat?’

  Old Nick rubbed his blue-black chin thoughtfully, before making up his mind.

  ‘You might as well know that your wife was stabbed to death,’ he said bluntly to Walker. ‘We must start looking for the missing weapon at once. Have you any instrument in your flat resembling a stiletto?’

  Gordon ran a hand shakily through his hair. ‘Stiletto? God, this gets more fantastic every minute! I feel as if I shall shortly wake up from a nightmare.’

  Meredith waited patiently for Gordon to come down to reality. ‘Please try to think if you can recall any tool or instrument that might fit that description.’