Bitter Water

by Douglas Clark

“You didn’t see McRolfe or Carpenter again at the party?”

  “Oh I saw them, but I didn’t speak to them again.”

  “Did you speak to either of them later, Rosemary?”

  “Yes, I think. In fact, I’m sure so, because I remember saying goodnight to them both.”

  “Was that before or after Miss Sanders fell into the pool?”

  “Before for Andrew McRolfe.”

  “But not for Carpenter?”

  “He went much later.”

  “Are you sure of those times, love?” asked Green.

  “Very sure. Andrew came up and said he was going just about the time I was going to try and get this slob out of the Sanders mob.”

  “Me?” asked Tom in surprise.

  “Yes, you. You must remember. I saw Andrew off and then came back and caught you carrying another plate of food for that woman.”

  “She had a bad leg, you know.”

  “And an appetite like a horse, apparently, judging from the number of plates of food all you men collected for her. I remember you told me she wasn’t wearing a bra.”

  “And you said you’d like to push her into the pool and …” He looked up, suddenly, aware of what he had said. He sat with his mouth half open as the detectives regarded him wordlessly. At last—

  “Go on, Mr. Chesterton,” said Masters.

  “There wasn’t anything more. I merely said we’d all get an eyeful if Carla did go into the pool and came out with just that thin blouse clinging to her contours, and Roz walked away in a huff. She didn’t give Carla the old heave-ho, I assure you.”

  “Despite her stated wish to do so?”

  “Yes.”

  “I believe you, Mr. Chesterton, and even if I didn’t I’m not here to investigate an incident such as ducking somebody in a swimming pool.”

  “Thank heaven for that. For a moment I had myself worried.”

  Masters reverted to the subject under discussion. “So McRolfe went home early. Before Miss Sanders took her plunge, but after the lights had gone out and been repaired.”

  “A long time after the lights had been mended.”

  “Thank you. And Carpenter?”

  “After we had sent Carla Sanders home. I remember him saying he would drive her if necessary, but Mummy had already arranged for a young couple to take her. They hadn’t been drinking, or something, and I think Mummy thought a couple would be safer than one man alone with Sanders.”

  “I see. Thank you. That’s it unless there is anything else you feel you would like to tell us.”

  Both the young people shook their heads. Then Chesterton said: “Look, I hope what I’ve said won’t start a witch hunt over what Carpenter said about McRolfe. It could all have been a load of rubbish, you know.”

  Green said, “Don’t worry about it, lad. We don’t waste time on witch hunts. But you neither of you told us whether McRolfe ever did get so hot that he took his jacket off.”

  “I don’t think he did,” said Rosemary. “As I said earlier, I think he must have been wearing braces. He’s the sort that would—at a party like that, I mean.”

  ***

  The next morning the four detectives presented themselves at Carpenter’s office. Masters had got the address by the simple expedient of ringing Hugh Carlyle the previous evening. He had refused to satisfy Carlyle’s curiosity other than to say he was working his way through most of the guests in an effort to get some sort of lead.

  For some reason, Masters was not surprised to hear that Carpenter’s office was close to the old Billingsgate Market, tucked away in a narrow little way between Eastcheap and Lower Thames Street, where the buildings still retained some of their original features and where the doors and window bars were still there to fill an appreciative eye.

  “I’ve been expecting a call from somebody,” said Carpenter when they had been shown into his office.

  “Somebody, Mr. Carpenter?”

  “After that lassie died so suddenly.”

  “Interesting that,” said Green, pulling up a chair with one foot and then sitting down. “Fishy, in fact, mate, seeing we only decided yesterday morning that there was something definite for us to look into.”

  Carpenter pushed his thin beaky face forward on its long neck and grinned at Green, eyes twinkling. “Scotland Yard isn’t the sole repository of common sense, knowledge and intelligence you know, Jimmy.” It was said with a Scots accent.

  Berger and Tip started to grin. Green took it unabashed. “Meaning, I suppose, that the halesome parritch is good brain food.”

  “As is fish, I understand. And you were the first to mention fish.”

  “So I did.”

  “ ‘Who fished the murex up? What porridge had John Keats?’ ”

  “You’ve beaten me,” confessed Green, much to the surprise of the others. “What’s murex?”

  “It’s a sort of sea mussel which gives a purple dye.”

  “Spill it, all of it. Tell us how you know Carla Sanders’ death was fishy.”

  “As you will no doubt have guessed I have a deal to do with the fish trade which, sadly, is not what it was.”

  “Common Market and the Icelanders stopping trawlers fishing their old grounds?”

  “In a nutshell, yes. And the less fish there is the dearer it becomes and so sales slump even further.”

  “When I was a lad,” continued Green, “there was a decent wet-fish shop round every corner.”

  “Quite. And a fish and chip shop charged tuppence for the lump of cod and a penny for the potatoes.”

  “Where is all this getting us?” asked Masters.

  Carpenter turned a sharp eye on him. “It means that chaps like me, who inherited a once-thriving business, now have to diversify to scrape a living, while we see our ships rusting out and our deckhands on the dole.”

  “I try to appreciate the tragedy, Mr. Carpenter.”

  “You do, eh? Well, perhaps you do, vaguely. But me, I’ve had to look around, and one of the things I’ve found I could do, was invent this and that. Just little items connected with my trade, you’ll understand, though my father gave me a pretty good education as a grounding for using my brain for something other than providing cod to the makers of fishfingers.”

  “I understand that bit.”

  “To spark off ideas I read up everything that’s been written about the fishing industry, from the mechanics of belly-and-baitings to …”

  “Belly-and-what?” demanded Berger.

  “Baitings. It’s a type of trawl net.”

  “I see, sir. Sorry to have interrupted you.”

  “No matter.” He turned again to Masters. “From nets through packing, sales, preservation, right through to hygiene.”

  “And it is this last which made you suspect that the death of Miss Carla Sanders was far from straightforward?”

  “Aye, it was. When I read yon papers talking about death from uraemia brought on by acute infection it struck a chord in my mind.”

  “Played a lament on a pigskin piano, did it?” queried Green.

  “It did that.”

  “Now what’s he on about?” Tip whispered to Berger.

  “Old Greeny always calls bagpipes pigskin pianos.”

  “Oh.”

  “Please continue, Mr. Carpenter,” said Masters, not in the least displeased at the unconventional form the interview was taking, and realising that Green was as keen as he was himself to hear what Carpenter was leading up to. He could sense the coming confirmation of at least some of their own views.

  “I told you I studied the hygiene of the fish trade. And one of the things I read up was the incidence of certain infections common earlier in the century among fish market workers. Some of these were fatal. Much less so now than formerly, of course. The most likely group were the icterohaemorrhagiae infections.” He grinned at Green. “Now there’s a word to go to bed with. Do you think you can spell it?”

  “Me?” grunted Green. “Of course. Even our girlie Sergeant her
e can spell it, can’t you love?”

  “Quite easily,” answered Tip and proceeded to do so.

  Carpenter looked at them shrewdly. “You people are ahead of me,” he accused.

  “Don’t forget we have read the postmortem reports,” said Masters. “You were telling us of infections in fish markets.”

  “Aye. Those were the ones that interested me. But I learned all about leptospirosis, because it gave me an idea for a little invention. Quite a simple one. Nothing more than a high-pressure jet that would fit an ordinary garden hose. Handheld and about a yard long, it had a multiadjustable head so that it could get into any corner or crevice where bugs might lurk. But the point is, that ordinary fresh water doesn’t kill the bugs. So there had to be a means of introducing a leptospirocidal fluid into the jet. My reading told me that acid—even an acid as weak as acid urine—kills off the bugs. So I incorporated a reservoir in the jet to hold something like weak, watered-down vinegar or any old acid left over from manufacturing processes which could be diluted down and then fed gradually into the jet stream. An addition that would cost little or nothing and yet do the trick. And it worked. I sold—or rather Hugh Carlyle did—quite a large number round the world in docks, mines, sewage works and so on.”

  “Hugh Carlyle sold them?”

  “Yes. I was recommended to go to him with my original plans and he produced the prototypes. He knew what materials to use and he had the plant and the designing expertise. And he knows something about marketing, so he farmed out the large-scale manufacture and the selling. Of course, now, there are quite a lot of jet hoses for cleaning cars and things, with reservoirs for soaps or detergents. More dainty and sophisticated than my original, but I got a deal of satisfaction out of having the idea and knowing that it worked and was effective.”

  “And a bit of brass, too, no doubt?” queried Green.

  “A little. Not much. We didn’t sell millions, or even thousands.”

  “Hard luck.”

  “We’ve strayed from the point a little,” reminded Masters.

  “Aye, so we have. What I was going to say was that when I read how that girl died, suddenly, after an immersion in water at a time when she had severe abrasions on her leg, it rang a bell, because I knew that uraemia is a result of coming into contact with leptospirae and I also knew that ordinary members of the general public do not carry antibodies to leptospirae.”

  “So you suspected that the girl had died of Weil’s disease?”

  “I did. But there was nothing I could do about it. The pathologists had discovered it for themselves. I knew that from the newspaper reports after the inquest, as I’ve just told you. There’s one thing I did do, though.” He grinned, showing his teeth. “I rang Mrs. Carlyle just to make sure her man’s pool had been emptied and scrubbed. Without causing any alarm, you’ll understand. It was easy enough to ask in a jocular fashion if they’d scraped the cherries off the bottom and cleared up the broken glass.”

  “That was good of you, Mr. Carpenter,” said Tip.

  Carpenter grinned. “I don’t want Hugh Carlyle out of the way just yet, lassie. Apart from his being a very nice man, he has one or two little ideas of mine in hand.”

  “Such as?” asked Green.

  Carpenter looked at him cannily. “I’m not for telling anybody my ideas, but if after you leave the police force you become a ship’s husband, then you’ll be able to buy my wee inventions, maybe.”

  “Ship’s husband? I’m already a husband.”

  “Let me see,” said Masters. “A ship’s husband would be the man on shore who sees to making sure that the craft has everything it requires on board before setting sail.”

  “Right. Trawling fleets and the likes have them. Fuel, nets, food, ropes, ice, salt. Whatever’s needed, quartermaster, I suppose.”

  Masters looked round his team at this point as though urging caution. Then—

  “We have established the presence of leptospirae in Mr. Carlyle’s swimming pool, Mr. Carpenter. How do you suppose they got there?”

  “Infected rats widdling in it.”

  “That would seem to be the way, but can you see rats going into that pool? There is nothing in the water for them to eat. There are no nesting holes round the sides near the surface. The surround is closely paved and godly clean. Outside that are nothing but shaven lawns. What would cause infected rats—or any rats, even voles—to enter what to them must be an incredibly bleak ambience?”

  “They are nosey little devils. One of them could have fallen in.”

  “A rat, fall in? You, if anybody, should know how they can run up and down ships’ mooring ropes with the surest footing.”

  “Aye, true.”

  “And, of your knowledge of such things, do you think one rat falling into that pool would or could infect it strongly before climbing out, presumably up an absolutely vertical set of stainless steel tubular ladders?”

  “No rat could ever climb those steps,” agreed Carpenter. “Once in there, a rat would stay in. It might then pass water a number of times before it drowned.”

  “True. But if any of the Carlyle household found a drowned rat in the pool, what do you think would happen?”

  “They’re awful careful folk with Carlyle’s health. The pool would be emptied and scrubbed out before being refilled.”

  “That is my belief, too. So where do you imagine the infected bugs came from, Mr. Carpenter?”

  “You’re saying they were introduced malevolently?”

  “Something of the sort had crossed my mind. Now, Mr. Carpenter, I don’t think that many people other than medical men of one sort or another will have read, as you have, all the details of leptospirosis. The clinical picture, its incidence, treatment and prevention.”

  “I suppose that’s right.”

  “So, if the leptospirae were introduced—as you put it—malevolently into that pool, who would have the knowledge, expertise and opportunity to do it?”

  Carpenter stared hard at him for a moment. Then he said quietly: “Are you saying it was me that did it?”

  “No, Mr. Carpenter, I am not. But did you?”

  “I did not.”

  Green took out a packet of cigarettes and, surprisingly, handed them round. The gesture broke the tension.

  8

  “Let us look at the situation logically, Mr. Carpenter,” said Masters. “Carla Sanders died of Weil’s disease contracted in Hugh Carlyle’s pool during a party. You are a confessedly well-read man on the subject of Weil’s disease. You are a business acquaintance of Carlyle and you were at the party. We are agreed that the number of people who can know much about leptospirae is very small. Could one of those few, other than yourself, have been at the party and used the opportunity for contaminating the pool? Would you say that such a person was unlikely to be among the guests?”

  Carpenter pursed his lips. “Put that way, I’d say the chances were hundreds to one against.”

  “Are you sure of that?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “There were certain members of Mr. Carlyle’s staff at the party. I believe that all his employees are men with scientific knowledge of one sort or another.”

  “Engineers, electrics and electronic buffs, mechanics, draughtsmen. Those sorts of men. Not too knowledgeable about biology or microbiology.”

  “Are you a biologist?”

  “Not with any formal qualification.”

  “But you could learn about leptospirae.”

  “Given the right papers to read.”

  “Couldn’t somebody else have read those papers? Your copies of them, perhaps?”

  “My copies. I take dam’ good care …” He paused and stared reflectively at Masters. “You’re a canny laddie,” he said at last. “Everything I had that had any bearing on my jet hose was in one file. Medical papers, my drawings, specifications, everything.”

  “And?”

  “When I approached Hugh Carlyle about the manufacture of the prototype I nat
urally left the file with him, in his office, for him to read.”

  “So any of the Carlyle staff could have seen it.”

  “Carlyle is a careful man. If an idea like mine wasn’t actively being worked on, it would be locked away in secure storage. Safe cupboards, they’re called. Made of steel with combination locks.”

  “I’m sure security at Carlyle’s is of the highest. It is the foundation stone of a company of that nature. But that doesn’t prevent members of the staff learning the secrets, does it?”

  “Several of them would have to work on each specification. Designers for instance.”

  “Ah!”

  Again Carpenter thrust his neck out and peered at him. “Now what’s biting you?”

  Green took up the questioning. “You’ll realise we are talking to everybody who went to that party.”

  “Aye. I’d expect you to do that.”

  “Yesterday we spoke to Rosemary Carlyle and young Tom Chesterton.”

  “A bonnie pair.”

  “We were given to understand you thought so, otherwise you wouldn’t have warned the lad against Andrew McRolfe who, you said, was trying to cut him out.”

  “That’s true. I’ve been thinking about that. Perhaps I shouldn’t have interfered. Maybe the lassie was just playing him up to make the laddie jealous.”

  “Maybe.”

  “McRolfe is one of Carlyle’s designers, I believe.”

  “A jumped-up draughtsman.”

  “Whatever he is, did he design your jet spray?”

  “Aye, he did.”

  “And so, presumably, could have read all the papers in your file. Could have photocopied them, even.”

  “Aye, he could.”

  “But as he did so good a job on your jet spray, you will have a high opinion of him, I reckon.”

  Capenter put his head on one side and glared at Green from under bushy eyebrows. “Since you’ve had a talk to young Chesterton, you’ll know yon’s not the case.”

  “Too true, mate. Young Tom told us you said McRolfe was feathering his own nest by selling Carlyle secrets and that you’d even warned Carlyle about it. Is that true?”

  “It’s true enough.”

  “Give us an example.”

  “One of my own?”