Ritchie was already performing the introductions. He was less jerky and more at his ease when speaking to the girl, and there was a gentleness about him which was very attractive.
‘Sit down,’ he said, taking her by the hand and leading her into the room. ‘This is Mr Campion, a very clever man, not a policeman.’
He peered down into her face and evidently thought he saw tears there, for he pressed a large white pocket-handkerchief into her hand without any explanation.
‘Now,’ he said, squatting down between them on the dusty boards, ‘tell him.’
Campion leant forward. ‘I’m awfully sorry to trouble you, Miss Marchant,’ he said. ‘It must be most unpleasant for you to go all through this again. But you would be doing me and Mr Barnabas a very great service if you’d answer one or two questions. I won’t keep you long.’
The girl made a rather pathetic attempt at a smile.
‘I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I’m glad to get away from them all. What do you want to know?’
Mr Campion approached his point gingerly. It was not going to be easy.
‘When you went down to the strong-room this morning,’ he began, ‘did Miss Curley give you the key or did you take it out of her desk?’
‘I – I took it. It was hanging on a little hook screwed into the underside of the flap at the back. It always hangs there.’
‘I see. And you just took it and went straight downstairs?’
‘Yes. But I’ve told all this to the Coroner’s Officer.’ Her voice was rising, and Mr Campion stretched out a soothing hand.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘And it’s really very kind of you to tell it to me again. When you unlocked the door and went in, what did you do?’
The girl took a deep breath.
‘I switched on the light,’ she said. ‘Then I’m afraid I screamed.’
‘Oh, I see …’ Mr Campion was very grave. ‘You saw him at once?’
‘Oh, yes. He was just inside the door. My foot nearly touched his foot. When I turned on the light I was looking straight down at him.’
Ritchie nodded at her, and with a wave of a flail-like arm encouraged her to use the handkerchief he had just lent her. There was something so extremely comic in the gesture that just for an instant laughter crept out behind the tears in the round eyes.
Mr Campion proceeded cautiously.
‘Look here,’ he said very gently, ‘this is going to help a lot. Try not to think of the man you found as someone you’ve seen in the office, someone you’ve worked for; think of him just as a thing, a rather ugly sight you’ve been called upon to look at. What struck you most about him when you first saw him?’
Miss Marchant pulled herself together. Mr Campion had been speaking to her as though she were a child, and she was a modern young woman of eighteen.
‘His colour,’ she said.
Mr Campion permitted himself a long intake of breath.
‘He was pink,’ said the girl. ‘I didn’t think he was dead, you see. I thought he’d fallen down in a fit – apoplexy or something. I went up to him and bent down, and then I saw he was dead. He was bright, bright pink, and his lips were swollen.’
‘And was he lying quite naturally?’ said Mr Campion, anxious to lead her away once the vital fact had been ascertained.
Miss Marchant hesitated. ‘I think so. He was on his back and stretched out, his hands at his sides. It wasn’t – nice.’
‘Terrible!’ said Ritchie earnestly. ‘Terrible! Poor girl! Poor Paul! All frightful …’
He hurled his cigarette stub into the fire and searched frantically for another, hoisting his gaunt body from side to side as he fought with his pockets.
Miss Marchant glanced at Mr Campion.
‘That’s all,’ she said. ‘I ran out and told Miss Curley and the others after that.’
‘Naturally.’ Campion’s tone was soothing and friendly. ‘Where was the hat?’
‘The hat? She looked at him dubiously for a moment, her brows wrinkled. ‘Oh, his bowler hat … of course. Why, it was there on the ground, just near him.’
‘Near his head or near his hand?’ Mr Campion persisted.
‘Near his shoulder, I think … his left shoulder.’ She was screwing up her eyes in an effort of recollection.
‘How was it lying?’
Miss Marchant considered. ‘Flat on its brim,’ she said at last. ‘I remember now. It was. I caught sight of the round black mound out of the corner of my eye and I wondered what it was at first. His umbrella was there, too, lying beyond it, where it must have fallen when he fell.’
She shuddered involuntarily as the picture returned to her, and looked younger than ever.
‘On the left?’ laboured Mr Campion. ‘On your left?’
‘No, his left. I told you. The side furthest from the table.’
‘I see,’ said Mr Campion, and his face became blank. ‘I see.’
Ritchie shepherded Miss Marchant to the floor below. When he came back his mild blue eyes rested upon Campion eagerly.
‘Clearer?’ he inquired, and added abruptly. ‘Sounds like gas, doesn’t it?’
Mr Campion regarded the other man thoughtfully. It had been slowly dawning upon him for some time now that Ritchie’s disjointed phrases and meaningless gestures were disabilities behind which a mind resided. However, this last shrewdness was unexpected.
‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘It does. Carbon monoxide, in fact. Of course one can’t possibly tell for certain without taking a blood test, but Miss Marchant’s description does indicate it. Besides, it fits in damnably with one or two things I noticed downstairs.’
Ritchie heaved a sigh of relief. ‘Garage next door to the strong-room,’ he remarked. ‘Fumes must have percolated somehow. Accident. Poor Paul …’
Mr Campion said nothing.
Ritchie clambered into the chair Miss Marchant had vacated and sat poring over the fire, his immense bony hands held out to the tiny blaze.
‘Carbon monoxide,’ he said. ‘How much of it will kill?’
Mr Campion, who had been reflecting upon the problem for some time, gave a considered opinion.
‘I’m not sure of the exact proportion,’ he said, ‘but it’s something very small … just over four per cent. in the atmosphere in some cases, I believe. The trouble with the stuff is that it’s so insidious. You don’t realize you’re going under until you’ve gone, if you see what I mean. The exhaust of a car is pretty nearly the pure stuff.’
Ritchie nodded sagaciously. ‘Dangerous,’ he said. ‘No ventilation down there with the door shut.’
‘… And locked.’ The words were on the tip of Mr Campion’s tongue, but he did not utter them.
Ritchie continued. ‘Shouldn’t have been there,’ he said. ‘Paul always poking about out of hours. Silly fellow … sorry he’s dead.’
The last remark was not put in as an afterthought. Every line of Ritchie’s gaunt body indicated his regret, and his tone was as expressive as the most elaborate speech.
‘I didn’t know him well,’ said Campion. ‘I met him at most four or five times.’
Ritchie shook his head. ‘Difficult chap,’ he remarked. ‘Great egoist. Too dominant. But good fellow. Impulsive. Not in love with Gina. Dreadful accident.’
Mr Campion’s mind wandered to the little grating under the shelf in the strong-room, and presently, when he and the other man went down the stairs together, it was still in his thoughts.
Ritchie was frankly overcome by the horror of the accident. The locked door and the time of death were both points that he had evidently shelved as minor details, while the significance of the position of the hat and umbrella had escaped him entirely.
As they crossed the hall, two policemen in plain clothes came up from the basement. Campion recognized one of them as Detective-Sergeant Pillow of the special branch. The man glanced up as he passed, and nodded, satisfaction in his little black eyes.
As Campion caught sight of the curious burden he carri
ed, his heart missed a beat. Carefully wrapped round the middle with a dark handkerchief, its ends looped into drooping bows and its protected centre clasped in the Sergeant’s stubby hand, was a length of rubber tubing such as is sometimes used for the improvisation of a shower-bath. Sergeant Pillow carried it as though it were his dearest possession.
CHAPTER IV
Relations
To Gordon Roe, Esq., Surgeon
London.
To wit.
Sir,
By virtue of this my Order as one of His Majesty’s Coroners for the County of London you are hereby required to be and appear before me and the jury on Tuesday the ninth day of February at eleven o’clock in the forenoon at the Court in the Parish of St Joan’s, Holborn, and then and there to give evidence on His Majesty’s behalf touching the death of Paul Redfern Brande and to make or assist in making a post-mortem examination of the viscera of the Head, Chest and Abdomen of the body of the said Paul Redfern Brande without an analysis and report thereon at the said inquest. And herein fail not at your peril.
Dated the second day of February, 1931.
P. J. Salley,
Coroner.
DOCTOR ROE PATTED HIS pocket absently as he entered the hall of Gina’s flat on the Friday following the discovery of Paul Brande’s body and the Coroner’s summons crackled responsively. The little doctor was following the anxious Mrs Austin down the passage to the studio with a certain amount of curiosity.
‘I really think you ought to have a look at her, Doctor.’ The charwoman spoke in a hushed voice and without looking round as she ploughed over the thick carpet in her soft shoes. ‘Not a mite of sleep she hasn’t had. You can see it in her face. I said to her, I said: “You have the doctor, dear. After all, he can’t make you worse nor what you are at present.” And she said to me: “I think I will, Mrs Austin.” “Lie down,” I said, but she wouldn’t, and there she is sitting in front of the fire like a lily.’
Her speech lasted until they reached the door, but just before she entered she laid a plump, damp hand upon his own and looked up at him, a gleam of conspiratorial excitement in her eyes.
‘Have they found out anything yet?’
Doctor Roe coughed. ‘I really don’t know, Mrs Austin,’ he said pleasantly. ‘I’m not a policeman, you know. Now where is our patient?’
Mrs Austin raised her eyebrows, and with many ostentatious precautions against noise, tiptoed heavily into the room.
‘Here’s the doctor, dear,’ she said in a sepulchral whisper which might well have given her employer a heart attack had their entry been really quiet.
Gina was sitting in one of the big white arm-chairs in a tailored black wrapper which contrasted with the pallor of her face and the brilliance of her eyes and hair. She made a pathetic attempt at a smile.
‘I’m glad to see you, Doctor,’ she said. ‘Won’t you sit down? That’ll do, Mrs Austin.’
That good lady left the room, making it plain that she did so against her better judgment. Doctor Roe remained upon his feet. His professional personality inclined to heartiness and was seen at its best astride a hearthrug.
‘Well, now, Mrs Brande,’ he said, ‘what’s the trouble? Not sleeping, eh? Well, of course, that’s not to be wondered at, but you can help yourself much better than anyone else can, you know. You need courage, young lady, great courage. Any other symptoms? Eating well?’
Gina leant forward, her small white hands clasped together, her elbows resting on her knees.
‘Doctor,’ she said, ‘what’s happened about my husband?’
The little medical man stiffened, and something that was half alarm, half resentment flickered in his eyes.
‘I came here to discuss your health, Mrs Brande,’ he said warningly.
‘Oh, Doctor…’ – the soft New England accent slurred the words – ‘… I don’t mean to offend you. I don’t understand professional etiquette and that sort of thing, but can’t you see that the thing that’s making me ill is not knowing what’s going to happen – what is happening. What are the police doing? Why was the inquest on Tuesday adjourned for seven days? What do they expect to learn from the post-mortem?’
‘My dear lady …’ Doctor Roe’s voice conveyed that his sense of decorum was outraged … ‘I’m a medical practitioner. I’m not a detective. You sent for me to ask advice about your health, and I’m prepared to give it to you. I can see you want sleep and I can prescribe something that will see to that. But I don’t know anything about your other trouble, and if I did I couldn’t discuss it. It would be most improper.’
‘But even if you’re a doctor, you’re human.’ The girl’s voice was quivering. ‘Don’t you see you’re the only person who knows what the police are thinking? Just imagine my position … My husband disappeared ten days ago. Four days later he was found dead. Without any warning, without any explanation, the police arrived. My husband’s body was taken away. I was summoned to appear at an inquest the next day. It lasted five minutes at the outside. My cousin-in-law gave evidence of identification, and the Coroner adjourned for seven days. I’ve been subpoenaed for the second part of the inquest, and of course I shall go. Yet when I went out yesterday I was followed.’
She paused, and the nervous tension behind her eyes was vivid and painful.
‘If only they said something!’ she said. ‘If only they told me! It’s being kept in the dark that’s getting on my nerves. Why are they watching me? Why should they think that I might run away? What’s happening?’
Doctor Roe was not entirely impervious to the appeal of a very pretty woman, but there is perhaps no professional man who must protect himself more carefully than the physician.
‘I’m very sorry for you,’ he said quite genuinely, ‘but I can’t tell you anything about the police. They have their own methods and go about their affairs in their own mysterious way.’
He frowned and looked slightly uncomfortable. Doubtless the recollection of his unpleasant morning’s work with the police surgeon in the mortuary had returned to him. But he pocketed his sympathy. Some things were safe, others were not. He attempted to be consoling and at the same time non-committal.
‘I shouldn’t worry,’ he said. ‘You have yourself to think of now, you know, and we mustn’t have your health letting you down. Let me have your wrist, please.’
He felt her pulse and compared it with his watch.
‘A little excited,’ he announced, ‘but not seriously. I’ll send you round something to make you sleep. You’ll feel very much better in the morning. This period of suspense is very trying, I know, but you must try and pull yourself together. You’ve had a very great shock – a very great shock indeed – and your grief has naturally worn you down.’
The inquisitive soul which lurked behind the physician in Doctor Gordon Roe prompted the faint question contained in the last remark, and the girl responded to it without thinking.
‘It’s not grief,’ she said. ‘Not real grief. I’m sorry for Paul, but I was not in love with him.’
Doctor Roe started. Even his most mischievous and unworthy hopes had not included a statement quite so damaging. He was both shocked and frightened by it.
‘Come, come, you don’t mean that, Mrs Brande,’ he said peremptorily. ‘You’re overwrought.’
The girl looked at him in surprise for a moment and then her nerves seemed suddenly to fail her altogether.
‘How horrible you all are!’ she said explosively. ‘If I’d said that before my husband died you wouldn’t have thought anything of it – no one would – and yet it’s just as true now as it was then. Now I’ve only got to say that I didn’t love my husband and you look at me as though you thought I’d murdered him.’
Doctor Roe was panic-stricken.
‘I – I must protest. Really!’ he murmured into his collar, and made for the door, from which he summoned Mrs Austin. ‘Get your mistress to bed,’ he ordered so sharply that she wondered whether he had divined that she had listened outside t
he door, and, having done what he considered was his duty, made his escape.
Meanwhile in a small flat over the police station in Bottle Street, Piccadilly, Mr Campion was sitting at his desk attempting to write letters and at the same time to take a comparatively intelligent share in a conversation which he was holding with someone in the room next door.
‘It’s going to be a nasty case,’ a thick, inexpressibly melancholy voice announced bitterly. ‘Anyone can see that with ’alf an eye. You keep out of it. You don’t want to get notorious. The way your name’s been gettin’ about lately you’re a positive publicity ’ound.’
‘I resent that,’ said Mr Campion, writing ‘hound’ irrelevantly in the midst of a note to his bank manager and crossing it out again. ‘These people are my friends, you know.’
‘All the more reason you want to keep away,’ said the voice, adopting this time a flavour of worldly wisdom. ‘Friends’ll ask you to do things what strangers would never dare. It’s a sex crime, I suppose you know that?’
‘What?’ said Mr Campion. He had removed his spectacles, which somewhat obscured his vision when writing, but now he replaced them and laid down his pen.
‘Sex crime,’ said the voice from within. ‘You’ve bin pretty lucky so far keepin’ out of that sort of degradation, but you won’t look so pretty trailin’ about with the mud of the cheap Press all over you. I couldn’t associate meself with you after that, for one thing. You’ll lose all your old friends.’
‘Lugg,’ said Mr Campion sternly. ‘Come in here.’
There was a rumble in the other room as though a minor earthquake had disturbed it, and preceded by the sound of deep breathing, Magersfontein Lugg surged into the room.
His girth was increasing with the years and with it his melancholy. He had also achieved a certain sartorial elegance without losing his unconventionality in that direction. At the moment he was clad in what appeared to be the hind legs of a black elephant, a spotless but collarless boiled shirt and a black velvet jacket.
His employer surveyed him coldly. ‘The vie de bohème, I see,’ he observed. ‘How are the tiny hands?’
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