“Reed’s association of ideas marches with the pathologist’s guess.”
“Guess?”
“He can’t be specific. The croton oil was found in the stomach, and as it acts quickly, it has to be assumed the oil was ingested at lunch-time. Certainly not before, and Hardy took nothing but a cup of black coffee after his ice cream. He was dead ten minutes later. The Limpid police also established that Hardy was one of those characters who didn’t take mayonnaise or salad cream, but mixed his own dressing in a tablespoon, at the table, from salad oil and vinegar.”
Green grimaced. “He would do. And I suppose his missus and anybody else who was eating with him contented themselves with a dollop of ready made dressing from a bottle and so are alive to tell the tale.”
“You’re being sharp, too.”
“Give over. If only one person at a table is poisoned, it means he had something different from the others. Knowing that’s not being sharp.”
“But the next question is?”
“It’s the obvious one. Salad oil is upstage olive oil, isn’t it? Sort of super refined? There’s not a lot of taste to it. So how could anybody substitute croton oil for salad oil, unless it’s tasteless, too, and looks the same colour?”
“According to the book, the only taste there is to croton oil is, and I quote, ‘a mild oily taste’.”
“Which, mixed with vinegar, would be no different from salad oil, I suppose?”
“That’s my belief. Otherwise, as you so rightly pointed out, how could it be disguised well enough to make him accept it and take it as salad oil?”
“Colour?”
“Virtually none. If mixed with salad oil it wouldn’t be noticed.”
“Mixed with salad oil. You mean he didn’t take it neat?”
“He may have done for all I know. Certainly he must have taken a good dose because he died quickly. But from what I read about it, it is a violent substance.”
“Violent is the right word if it knocks ’em off like flies. Tell us about it.”
“Chapter and verse?”
“Why not? We’ve got nothing else to do.”
“Croton oil comes from croton seeds and they, in turn, come from a small tree called Croton Tiglium.”
“Grown in this country?”
“No. But just about everywhere else. No, that’s wrong. I think they grow mostly in hot countries: India, Africa, South America, Java and such places. The trees and seeds differ in size, form and colouring according to where they’re grown, much the same as any other plants.”
“Anything else in your book?”
“The seeds have a dull, cinnamon-brown colour and readily lose their caruncles.”
“Their what?”
“Those little half moon bits at the end,” said Berger. “You see them on broad beans.”
“That’s nice to know. Is it relevant?”
“You did say there was nothing else to do.”
“So I did.”
“The seeds contain about fifty per cent of fixed oil which contains croton-resin and crotin. I think this last is the killer as it contains croton-globulin and croton-albumin. But that’s immaterial.”
“Okay. How does it work?”
“You remember you started talking about gut’s ache. Well, basically, croton oil is a violent cathartic, and before you ask what a cathartic is, I’ll tell you it’s a purge: a drug or substance that produces active bowel movements.”
“Splits you open like an overdose of salts, you mean?”
“You put it so nicely! But the oil is a bit more than that. One book says the oil readily produces vesication, which means it blisters the flesh—outside or internally. Another says it raises pustules which, as you well know, are bumps or blains or whatever. A third expert refers to it as an escharotic or corrosive. In other words this bloke says it burns and chars like fire or caustic.”
“Why can’t they make up their minds?”
Masters tapped out his pipe in the ash tray on the back of the driver’s seat. After a moment, he said slowly: “Because croton oil is rarely, if ever, made now. The local police spent all yesterday organising a search for the possible source of the poison—and when I say possible, I don’t mean probable. I mean any source. A general, country-wide call went out, and every pharmacy in the country was visited by their local policemen. No chemist had any. Nor did any doctor who does his own dispensing, and the drug wholesalers all said they had no stocks of it.”
“What does that leave?”
“Every hospital dispensary is being asked if they have croton oil today. The only other sources I can think of are that somebody has imported it—slipped it past customs—or alternatively that somebody has got hold of the croton seeds and extracted the oil themselves.”
“Oh no! Not like that ricin business?”
“It’s a possibility. In that case, remember, the ricin was made into tablets. Here only the expressed oil was used. Much simpler. You could do it with a woodworking vice if you’d got the seeds.”
“Here we go again. I can see now why you’re tetchy about this business. An untraceable source or a chemical nightmare! Give me a good old blunt-instrument killing or a shooting or something like that. I like to get to grips with the method used: to recognise it. Here, all we’ve got is a violent cathartic.” He stopped suddenly, and then asked, “Why should a purge kill anybody? Wouldn’t it clear itself out at the same time as it cleared everything else?”
“Leaving the victim swept and garnished, you mean?”
“That’s what people take all these brews for, isn’t it? Senna tea, brimstone and treacle, Epsom, Glauber and Rochelle salts and what not?”
“I’ve told you that croton oil readily produces blisters even on the skin. Think what would happen to your insides if you took it.”
“Like swallowing a dose of mustard gas.”
“Quite. Doesn’t that answer the question of why croton oil can kill? Listen, and I’ll tell you something else I read about it. Croton oil used to appear in the British Pharmacopoeia. Do you know what that is, Berger?”
“List of all the drugs for human consumption, sir.”
“Right. But the last time croton oil was listed was in 1914—over sixty years ago. It was removed because it was so dangerous, although until then it had been an official medicine for catharsis. But the book said that even before that time, medical students who were testing the seeds—evidently testing such things was part of the identification of drugs course in those days—were warned to take the smallest possible fragment that could be cut by scalpel from a seed and to insert it on the tongue for a maximum of thirty seconds. Remember that. A pin-head size piece for a maximum of thirty seconds. Up to that time they might only notice the mild oily taste I mentioned earlier, but the book went on to state that if this warning was disregarded, considerable pain would be suffered.”
“Sounds drastic enough to purge an elephant,” groaned Green. “Please remind me to watch what I eat when I’m in Limpid. Oh, and remind me to wash my hands every time I go near Mr Frederick Hardy’s house.”
Green sat still for a moment, and then he suddenly sat up and looked across at Masters. “Hey!”
Masters grinned. “Has the penny dropped?”
“Sharp, are we? We sit here asking how he got the oil and why the pathologist wasn’t sure if he’d taken it in the dressing, when all anybody had to do to get proof was to look in the salad oil bottle.”
Masters, still grinning, nodded.
“Absolutely true. But you see, Greeny, by the time the local bobbies arrived on the scene—after Hardy’s G.P. had called them in—the oil and vinegar bottles had disappeared.”
“They’d what?”
“Disappeared. Gone. Vamoosed. Mrs Hardy helped her husband from the dining room to the sitting room couch where he died almost immediately. Meanwhile the dining room had been unattended and, as it was a warm day, all the doors and windows were open.”
“So somebody strolls in an
d nicks the evidence.”
“We must assume so.”
“Suffering cats! No wonder you’re feeling a bit off over this one. Nobody has any idea who did the burglary? No! Don’t answer that one. I only hope that whoever did pinch the bottles got some of the bloody oil on their fingers and then licked them.”
“I’m sure that didn’t happen, otherwise we should have heard another harrowing tale of suffering and the job would be just too easy to solve.”
“What sort of suffering, sir?” asked Berger. “What I mean is, what happens if somebody takes a non-lethal dose of croton oil—like licking a greasy finger.”
“The symptoms? To the best of my memory, they are listed as intense pain in the abdomen, vomiting, purging, watery stools—”
“That’s the trots,” interposed Green.
“—pinched face, small and thready pulse, moist skin, and a few other things I can’t remember. The treatment made me laugh, slightly, as the first instruction is stomach evacuation. I’d have thought the oil itself would have done that. Thereafter you give demulcent drinks, morphine and apply poultices to the abdomen.”
“What’s the time?” asked Green.
“Ten to one. Why?”
“I feel like a demulcent drink myself. That’s if demulcent means what I think it does.”
“It does. Soothing, mollifying, like a heady pint of draught bitter, cooled to perfection.”
“Stop it,” groaned Green.
“My description, or the car?”
“Your description now, the car at the next pub. I could do with a ploughman’s bite, too.”
“Earlier today you invited me to drink at your expense this lunchtime. Does the offer still hold or are you about to plead that circumstances alter cases?”
Green looked at him for a moment.
“Did you think I would?”
“No. But I thought you should be given the chance to renege if you felt that now was not an appropriate time.”
“Then I will renege. I’d prefer to be able to savour it for more time than we’ve got now. How about this evening?”
“Couldn’t be better.”
The car slowed, and Reed drew the car up on the gravelled forecourt of a country pub.
*
An hour and a quarter later, Berger who was now driving said: “Limpid one mile, sir.”
“Thank you. We’ll go in slowly. I’d like to see what I can.”
Reed said: “The gazetteer says it’s a thriving old market town that originally came into prominence because of the wool trade. There’s a moot hall, a guildhall, two churches—one a fourteenth century abbey foundation, the other late Georgian—the remains of the abbey and numerous other old buildings of note among which are the Victorian Corn Exchange, the town hall once used for local assizes, three old inns. . . .”
“Don’t go on,” said Green. “We get the picture. It’s old. I’ll bet by now it’s ruined by supermarkets and high rise council flats.”
It wasn’t. Limpid was a backwater. Too far out for London overspill or commuters, and too far off the motorway routes to attract casual trade, it had not changed basically since the original mud tracks were surfaced into tarmac roads. Along the last half mile into the town centre, Masters did not see one new building. There was a short terrace of Victorian houses at one point, and nearer the market place, one or two of the shop fronts had been renewed. But at least there was nothing garish to spoil the overall effect of Limpid.
“Where to, sir?”
“The police station, please.”
“Where’s that, sir?”
“I really don’t know, but there is a gentleman approaching us, up ahead. Yes, the one with the limp. He looks as if he might be able to give reasonable directions.”
The car drew up alongside Richard Benson.
“Excuse me, sir. Reed spoke through the open window. “Could you tell me where the police station is, please?”
“Certainly. Straight ahead. Climb the market hill—no need to tell you to keep to the left, I suppose—then turn left at the church. That is the High Street. About a hundred yards along on the left is Woolworth’s. With me so far?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Three or four premises past Woolworth’s is a small turning left marked with a capital P for Parking sign. Take that road, pass the car park, and on the next corner is the police station. It sounds complicated, but you’re not much more than a quarter of a mile away from your objective.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Richard Benson stood back and raised his hat courteously. But as the car drew away he stood staring after it for a moment or two. During this pause he appeared to change his mind as to his own objective, because he began to return the way he had come.
In the car, Masters said, “A very pleasant-voiced and cultured gentleman you spoke to, Reed.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If you look in the rear view mirror, you will see that the encounter with us seems to have caused him to change his mind. He’s coming back this way—after a brief pause to consider the matter.”
“So he is,” said Green. “D’you reckon he knows who we are?”
“Four dirty great herbs like us in a Rover, asking for the Cop Shop? It doesn’t take much figuring out, does it?”
“No. But what’s his interest in us? Just nosey-parkering? Coming back to the shopping centre to tell people he’s spoken to us?”
“I think not. He neither looked nor sounded like a man who would be particularly impressed by meeting a Yard team, nor did he suggest to me that he would involve himself in street corner gossip.
“So what is your explanation?”
“I haven’t one.”
By this time, Richard Benson and the car were no longer intervisible. What Masters did not know was that this day, being the first Tuesday in the month, would normally have been sale day in the Corn Exchange. Because of Hardy’s sudden death, his partners had cancelled it. This had left Benson somewhat at a loose end. He had reckoned to spend most of the day at the auction, and there were a couple of items listed he would have liked to have viewed yesterday with the prospect of bidding today. But since the news of Hardy’s death and—according to rumour—the manner of it, he had been thinking hard. There were some unformed ideas at the back of his mind asking to be brought out and examined quite carefully. His mind had been trying to do this as he walked in the pleasant spring sunshine. He had not picked his route consciously. His feet had carried him that way. But his encounter with the policemen—he was sure they were policemen because not only had they enquired the way to the station, but he had recognised the face of the big man sitting in the off-side back seat as the one who had appeared on television recently to answer some rather pathetic questions on the rising number of unsolved crimes—had brought him to his senses with a jolt. On sale days he always took the same route to the Corn Exchange, and as this led past the dairy he always bought meringues for tea. Events had driven them from his mind today, and he wasn’t going to the Corn Exchange, but he felt he couldn’t disappoint Mrs Taylor. She regarded the meringues as an expected treat. But if he was to make sure of getting them now he had remembered, he would have to return to the market hill immediately.
Berger followed the directions he had been given, and a minute or two later was braking at the kerb in front of the red brick police station. As Masters thanked him, he asked if he should come inside with them.
“Laddie,” said Green, “when you’re one of this team, you’re on the field from kick-off to final whistle. Bung this heap round the back and then join us. You’re going to hear what your job’s likely to be for the next few days.”
Masters led the way up the three steps and through the open door.
Chapter Three
Chief Superintendent Telford said: “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr Masters, and all of you. But I can’t say I’m pleased you’re here. Quite frankly I’d have rather had our own crime squad tackle it.”
Mas
ters was struggling to keep his temper. Telford was a tall, pale man with a rectangular face and just enough hair to form an open grill across an otherwise bald pate. Head and face were the same colour—a pallor that Masters always associated with a cold sweat and clammy soft hands. The body was long and the uniform looked as if it had been cut too large. It sagged above the belt just like a badly fitting costume in a stage play. Masters objected to sloppiness in the force. Sloppiness in uniform he believed—perhaps erroneously—led to or indicated sloppiness of mind. Green was usually excruciatingly badly dressed, but his clothes were not supposed to be a smart uniform and they suited the man. Masters himself was meticulous as to dress, never feeling he could work properly if not dressed irreproachably. Telford, he thought, matched his dress to his mind—badly made up. He said he was pleased to meet them in one breath and the next said he’d prefer their absence to their presence.
“Why were we asked to come, sir?”
“The Chief Constable wanted you.”
“Against your advice and wishes?”
“I felt that when a problem like this came along, our own crime squad should investigate. For two reasons. First off, they need the experience. Second, you’re not going to keep men on their toes if they know that every time a plum job comes along, we’re going to bring in somebody else to do it. And as a spin-off to that second reason, you’re not going to get a lot out of men if they think you haven’t enough confidence in them to take on a tricky job.”
Masters slowly filled his pipe from the Warlock flake he had rubbed in his palm. His silence seemed to infuriate Telford.
“Well? Haven’t you got anything to say about that?”
Masters looked up. “I agree with you. But before commenting, I like to hear both sides. I suppose the C.C. advanced some reason for his choice?”
Telford pinched in his mouth: a petulant grimace. “He said he thought the crime squad was better used where he had to deploy a large number of men, or for organised crime or the prevention of crime. He spouted some crap about a crime like this needing a small, specialist team that could take its time rather than a larger group which had its everyday business in the area to attend to and so might be distracted from the murder case.”
The Gimmel Flask Page 4
