Death of a Frightened Editor: A Golden Age Mystery

by E.

  “Strychnine!” the chemist said. The Doctor nodded. He packed his purchase back in the cardboard carton in which he had brought it, added the seed envelope, and thanking the chemist for the use of the bench and re-agents left and returned to the police station.

  Superintendent Jones turned up in Brighton three hours later looking colossal in an overcoat of thick Crombie cloth with a collar of imitation fur and a lining of the same material. He was lolling it lordily behind a uniformed chauffeur in a Yard limousine. Manson eyed his entrance—stolid and ponderous, with the chauffeur preceding him carrying a travelling rug and a leather case; eyed it with a chuckle and an appreciative smile, for the fat superintendent for all his roughness and irascibility was held in deep affection by all the men at the Yard from the Assistant Commissioner (Crime) down to the constables on door duty.

  “At your Lordship’s service!” he greeted with a little bow. Jones snorted. “What’s in the case, Old Fat Man? Your evening topper?”

  The superintendent ignored the jest. He divested himself of his overcoat, of a heavy woollen scarf wound round his thick neck. He took off his jacket and removed a cardigan which was underneath.

  “Get his pyjamas and hot water bottle, Jim,” Manson said to Merry. “I think he’s going to bed.”

  Still silent the superintendent replaced his jacket, looked round, picked out the only chair in the place with a back and arms to it, and sat heavily down. Then he spoke:

  “I’ve got it,” he announced.

  “So have I?” Manson said. “What exactly have you got?”

  “Publisher’s library—that was it . . . visitor . . . three times asked librarian lot . . . questions.” Jones spoke that way. Scotland Yard said he talked shorthand. “Borrowed books . . . made notes . . . Got ’em here . . .” He looked round. His voice rose in a roar:

  “Callahan!”

  The face of the chauffeur shot into the open doorway.

  “Where’s my bloody case?” Jones demanded.

  “On the table, sir, behind you.”

  “Oh!” Jones opened it, and lifted out a pile of books. He enumerated each one. “Taylor’s Medical Jurisprudence, volume two. It’s on page 302. One file of Pharmaceutical Journal—page 1165 . . . Bamford’s Analysis. Tells all about it, Doctor. Lumme, could do . . . job meself.”

  Doctor Manson scanned the leaves separated by a book-marker. Jones pointed to faint pencil-lines along a margin. “Even marked them for us. See?”

  “Could be anyone,” the Doctor goaded. “You can do better than that, you fat fraud.”

  Jones grinned—and when he grinned his face became as cherubic as an angel. “Library identified photograph . . . didn’t think . . . looked like medical student . . . couldn’t dispute it, though. Besides”—he opened the books at the marked pages—“had ’em photographed . . . Hundreds . . . finger splodges . . . Gave ’em to Baxter.”

  He guffawed, and eyed the Doctor sideways.

  “Had to burgle your Laboratory,” he said.

  “What!”

  “Kirkenshaw picked lock.”

  “Well, of all the howling . . .” began Merry.

  “You and the Doctor away,” Jones protested.

  “But what the deuce for, you . . . you crook?” Manson demanded.

  “Wanted print specimens off cards . . . Pullman people . . . Knew where they were . . . Baxter told me. He’s goin’ phone here, four o’clock with news.”

  It was after 4.30 before the telephone call came. Inspector Edgecumbe lifted the receiver and listened. “For you, Doctor,” he announced and handed over. The voice of the Prints chief came over the wire.

  “Identified prints on pages of the books Jones gave me,” he announced. “Quite distinct. Funnily enough on the outside edge at the top of each page. What’s the idea turning pages from the top instead of from the bottom?”

  “Whose are they?”

  Baxter told him.

  The Doctor put down the receiver. He met the questing glances of Merry and Edgecumbe; and answered with a nod.

  “That’s it,” he said. “We’ll have all the crowd here tomorrow morning at 10 o’clock. Better get those chemist chaps and my Lane’s shopkeeper up here twenty minutes before that.”

  He turned to Jones.

  “What would you like to do, Old Fat Man? A theatre or a pub crawl?”

  “Beer!” said Jones.

  28

  The six men and a woman were ushered towards the C.I.D. room at police headquarters. They had to traverse a passage to reach it. From a doorway half-way along the passage three men watched them, unobtrusively. The three might have been constables in plain clothes waiting a duty call.

  But they were not.

  As the door closed behind the seven, Inspector Kenway turned to the three who had watched.

  “Could you identify anyone?” he asked.

  “Quite definitely,” said one. The other two announced simply, “yes”.

  “Which?”

  They told him; and all three were unanimous.

  Inside the C.I.D. room the seven waited, constraint separating them as electrons repel their like across immeasurable distances. Starmer, the little red-waist-coated banker voiced the unspoken feeling:

  “What do you suppose they want this time?”

  “To ask more questions, I suppose.”

  “They haven’t a clue, and why they go on searching is a puzzle.” This from Crispin. “He took poison.”

  “Do you think they haven’t?” Edgar asked.

  There was no answer, and uneasy silence descended again.

  Doctor Manson and the officers who had been engaged in the investigation entered the room. The Doctor went to a table centred on the floor at the top end. He carried a cardboard container. The officers seated them alongside him in a semi-circle. He looked at the seven. “It is a nasty morning,” he said. “And you have had an unpleasant journey in the rain. If anyone would like coffee or tea, please say so.”

  “Lumme!” Superintendent Jones spoke in a whisper to Kenway, who was next to him. “The condemned choose their last meal.”

  “I’d like coffee, if you don’t mind,” Mrs. Harrison said. Betterton and Starmer added their requests. The Doctor waited until the cups had been served and emptied. Then:

  “I have asked you here today for what I hope will be the last time,” he said. “There are one or two points I want clearing up. But first, constable, I would like to see the steward.”

  Reeves came in. Doctor Manson motioned him to a chair. “I want some idea of your activities, Reeves, while the car is standing in Victoria station,” he said. “For instance are you in the passenger section at that time?”

  “Very seldom, sir. The tables are laid while the car is still in the sidings at Clapham. After we reach Victoria I am pretty busy in the kitchen or the pantry.”

  “So you would not see anyone entering the car?”

  “Only if they passed the kitchen, sir.”

  “That means if they entered by the first-class compartment door so that they have to pass the kitchen to get to their seats?”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “If they came in by the third-class entrance and walked into the first-class, you would not see them?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What about Mr. Mortensen, who had an early meal? Did you see him arrive that evening?”

  “No, sir. The third-class entrance was nearest to the barrier that night. But we had a code with Mr. Mortensen. As soon as he got in he would give three rings on the service bell. That meant I was to bring in his mixed grill. Then, when he had finished he would ring again and I cleared away and brought in his coffee.”

  “Otherwise you were not in the car until . . . when?”

  “Until the passengers began to give their orders, sir. Of course if anyone rang I would go in.”

  “Thank you, Reeves that will be all.” He waited until the door had closed behind the steward and then turned to the passengers.
<
br />   “Now, gentlemen, and you, madam, I will show you how Mr. Mortensen was killed.”

  In the silence which followed the statement the breathing of Superintendent Jones could be heard quite plainly; he was a thick-necked man and suffered from asthma.

  The Doctor opened the cardboard container and lifted out a pill mould, and a box of powder. With an ivory knife he lifted out a little of the powder and dropped it carefully into each of the four cavities in the mould.

  “The powder is quite harmless.” He smiled grimly. “In point of fact it is Bismuth. But it is representing strychnine at the moment.” He pressed down the lever at the top, held it a moment or two and then released it. From the cavities he emptied four capsules, and looked up.

  “There were four capsules in the bottle in front of Mr. Mortensen when the steward, Reeves first saw it,” he said.

  “Now, strychnine acts very rapidly—from a couple of minutes to a quarter-of-an-hour. Had Mr. Mortensen swallowed capsules of strychnine, whether it were two or four—at his usual time, that is, somewhere between 4.55 and 5.5 he would have been in convulsions within fifteen minutes, and in his medical condition would have died within an hour. Perhaps it would satisfy Mr. Betterton if I said that the normal times for the convulsions to end in death is up to three hours, but Mr. Mortensen had heart trouble, and the violence of the convulsions brought about more sudden death.

  “This time lag was the main problem confronting us in our investigations, for Mr. Mortensen was perfectly well until a few minutes to six o’clock.”

  “If I may interrupt you, sir?”

  “Yes, Mr. Edgar?”

  “If Mortensen went into the lavatory and swallowed the strychnine there is no problem?”

  “None at all. In fact that seemed at first sight a reasonable explanation of his death. A small piece of screwed-up paper having plain marks of capsules having been wrapped in it was found on the floor of the lavatory. It seemed as if Mr. Mortensen had gone there, opened up the paper, extracted the capsules, screwed up the paper, dropped it to the floor and then taken the poison. Only . . .”

  He passed his gaze along the faces of the seven, and a derisive smile marred the scholarly quality of his face. “Only the paper did not bear any prints from the fingers of Mr. Mortensen. In fact, it bore no fingerprints of any description—a remarkable sleight of hand, don’t you think?”

  “All of you were very assiduous in trying to help Mr. Mortensen in the lavatory. During those valiant efforts”—Manson’s voice drawled into sarcasm—“Mr. Mortensen’s keys were purloined from his pockets by someone who, that same night, returned to London, entered Mortensen’s office and opened the safe there—with keys Mr. Mortensen had had in the car earlier in the evening. Mr. Edgar saw him use his watch-key to wind and set his watch.”

  The Doctor held up a bunch of keys, and selected one. “Here is the watch-key. Which of you took the keys and flipped the paper ball on the floor inside the lavatory? Edgar, Mackie, Starmer, Crispin, who all attempted through the hacked door panels to lift the man’s shoulders in order that the door could be opened, and thus were in contact with him? Or Betterton who was bending over him after the door had been removed? We have to decide.”

  “Betterton!” He turned to face the surgeon. “I asked you whether there was anything that could account for the discrepancy in the action of the strychnine. You are a medical man and you answered that you knew of nothing. You could have suggested to me something I was a considerable time finding out. This—”

  From the container a small bottle of liquid, a box of powder and a porcelain tile, were lifted out. The Doctor poured a little of the liquid on the tile, and taking one of the capsules he had made, rolled it in the liquid. “This is theobroma oil,” he said. “If, when this capsule is dry I dip it in this powdered keratin”—he pointed to the box of powder—“I get this”—he held up a capsule—“which I prepared before you arrived here. What would be the effect of such a prepared capsule when swallowed, supposing the contents to be strychnine, Mr. Betterton?”

  “It would delay the action of the strychnine,” Betterton said, slowly, “since keratin is indissoluble in the acid contents of the stomach and is dissolved only when the contents of the bowels are alkaline.”

  “Precisely. It delays the action of the poison—”

  “For at least an hour-and-a-half and up to three hours, Doctor Manson.” The surgeon said it challengingly. The Doctor bowed.

  “And that, Mr. Betterton, is how the killing of Mr. Mortensen was plotted. He was to have been dosed the strychnine in the prepared capsule and an hour-and-a-half or more later he would have died IN THE FLAT WHERE HE LIVED ALONE—with a screwed-up piece of paper showing traces of capsules in his pocket. Alone, I said. It would have been an obvious suicide—and a perfect murder.”

  Doctor Manson pulled gently at one of his ear lobes. He withdrew his hand and flicked a touch of powder off a lapel of his pocket. “But the best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft a-gley. The murderer must have been dumbfounded when Mortensen died on the train. But he kept quite composed as is shown by the paper ball in the lavatory.”

  “Now, what had happened? . . .

  “This—

  “Mortensen that night did a thing he had never done before. He was in jovial mood, you remember, and he celebrated his pleasurable anticipation of a weekend in Paris by accepting at long last, Mr. Edgar’s offer of a drink. He had a double whisky—neat.”

  The Doctor fell silent for a moment. Then: “What is the only thing that will dissolve a keratin coating in the stomach before two or three hours, Mr. Betterton?”

  “Alcohol.” The reply came in a whisper from the surgeon.

  “Ah!” Doctor Manson said. “So the whisky which Mr. Mortensen drank released the strychnine imprisoned behind its coating in its capsule two hours or more before the expected time—and Mr. Mortensen died on the train.”

  29

  “We have now solved the murder.”

  Doctor Manson spoke into a silence that had become as oppressive, as menacing as a mantling cloud darkening the western sky.

  “Now, we have to find the murderer. From seven people each with the same motive—to escape the clutches of a blackmailer.”

  “Six people, Doctor Manson.” Crispin made the correction. “Mortensen was not blackmailing me.”

  The Doctor ignored the interruption. “Blackmail is, in my view, the worst crime in the calendar,” he said.

  He appeared to be moved with strong emotion. His voice was not quite steady. “There are some times when I regret having adopted my profession,” he said. “This is one of them. I have been troubled in soul during the past two days when I realised the agony that must have been in the mind of the murderer over the past years—the agony of knowing that at any moment unless payments were continued to Mortensen, exposure would result; and agony at the ever-growing demands made by Mortensen on one’s finances—the work and ambitions of a lifetime thrown away. Yet, I have had to stifle my emotions, for murder cannot be countenanced. There are other means and secrecy is always maintained by the police.” He shook himself. “I have a duty to society, and I must carry it out. Mr. Betterton”—he turned to the surgeon—“you are conversant with the action of keratin. You are a medical man and can procure strychnine. In fact, a supply of the poison was sent to you a few weeks ago—”

  “My stock has been checked, sir, and found to correspond with my books and the purchase you mention.”

  “It has not yet been tested for purity of contents. Powdered chalk is very much the same in appearance. You persistently lied to us in disclaiming any personal knowledge of Mortensen outside the train. You had visited Mortensen’s office. You were at his table for a few moments on this night.

  “Mr. Phillips, Mr. Starmer, you were both at Mr. Mortensen’s table. You also lied about your knowledge of the dead man. Then, there is Mr. Edgar—yes, there is Mr. Edgar.

  “Tell me, Mr. Edgar, why on this night of odd hap
penings were you on board the Pullman about half-an-hour before your usual time?”

  Edgar swallowed hard. He looked a trifle sickly. “It . . . is quite simple, really,” he stammered. “I had had a late lunch with a client, and did not go back to my office. I decided to walk to the station. On the way I called in one of our branch offices at Westminster. I spent some time talking to the manager and then walked to the station. Usually I took a bus from the city.”

  “Mr. Mortensen was at the table when you boarded the train?”

  “Not then. He came in a moment or two later from the lavatory.”

  “And that is when you had noticed the two tablets in the bottle?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who was next to arrive?”

  “Mr. Crispin.”

  “When?”

  “About two minutes after me.”

  “He must have been surprised to see you?”

  “He was. He said: ‘Good Lord, Edgar, what are you doing here at this time? Office gone bust, or something’?”

  “And then, I suppose, you chatted together?”

  “No. Mortensen was reading a magazine and I was checking over my diary of appointments. Mr. Crispin went over to his seat and opened a newspaper.”

  “And there you sat, all three of you, in silence until the others joined you?”

  “Well, not quite, sir. Mr. Crispin giggled a little over something and then came across to us. He opened out his paper, put it in front of Mortensen and pointed out an article. Crispin spread out the sheet flat and Mortensen looked over the article. He said he wasn’t interested in it, and Mr. Crispin said, ‘I thought you might be’ and went back to his chair. Mortensen seemed to be annoyed.”