Suzannah laughed. “I already have an element of the Praetorian Guard at my disposal this morning, Doctor Henningham! Come in and meet Detective Inspector Redfyre, who I think comes bearing the same message.”
“What? Oh, Redfyre! We’ve met. Good Lord, man! Good to see you so swiftly off the mark once more.” He changed his mind about rushing off and came inside, reaching for Redfyre’s hand. “What on earth’s going on in this town? I hope you have some idea. There’s much speculation about. Is that coffee I smell? Wouldn’t mind a cup, if you have one . . .”
They went through into the breakfast room, where Henningham helped himself to a cup and saucer from the dresser.
“Glad to see you’re able to keep down the fluids, sir,” Redfyre commented as he took the pot and poured out a cup for the master.
“Fully recovered! You’ve no idea what a vivid experience it is to be able to eat and drink again! You know, it probably does the body any amount of good to be purged in that way. Not that I’m tempted to repeat the smelling salts experience in a hurry! Oh, and thank your superintendent for keeping me au fait with the lab results on that matter,” he said carefully with a quick glance at Suzannah. “Very interesting, and rather satisfying to have worked it out before the scientists. Well done, us!”
Redfyre decided he would take his leave as soon as good manners permitted. The table had been laid for two, and the second place had not been for him, as he had arrogantly assumed. Ah, well. The master, though a good decade older than Suzannah, was not a married man. He remained lithe and purposeful and seemed to have all his teeth, hair and limbs. Redfyre could quite imagine that an intelligent, mature lady like Suzannah would find much to admire in him. But he did wonder how Professor Alexander’s wife across the square categorised the master’s clearly regular Sunday visits to the headmistress.
Just as he was about to rise, his socially delicate situation was resolved for him when a uniformed constable cycled down the alley, counting the numbers of the houses. He stopped in front of Suzannah’s house, dropped his bike and hammered on the door. Redfyre hurried to answer.
“Sir!”
“Ah, Toseland. What have you got for me?”
“Two things, sir. This ’ere. Personal. Envelope addressed to you and delivered by city messenger ten minutes ago.” He put a white envelope into Redfyre’s hand.
The envelope was of good quality, the ink Stephens’ blue-black, and the handwriting forceful and masculine, but rather ill formed. Not the hand of one of his colleagues or friends but, in an intriguing way, not quite unknown.
“The second, Toseland?”
“I left it at the station, sir. Large file of reports from the forensics lab. I thought that had better be left on your desk rather than carted through the streets.”
“Quite right, constable. I’m on my way back right now—using your bicycle. I’d like you to go on foot to the porter’s lodge at St. Barnabas. Know where? Good. Just deliver the note I’m about to write, will you, and then come back to HQ.”
He returned to the breakfast room and interrupted a lively conversation on tropical diseases. “Suzannah. I’m called away at once. But before I go, may I beg of you an envelope and a sheet of writing paper? I have to scribble a note for my officer to deliver.”
The requested equipment was quickly put in front of him, and Suzannah and the elder picked up their conversation.
His note was blunt and short:
Detective Inspector Redfyre of the Cambridge CID would be obliged if you would meet him at the gate in Senate House Passage at noon today, Sunday, equipped with the key to the gate.
He folded the sheet, put it in the envelope, licked the gum and sealed it, then he wrote the recipient’s name across the front: Doctor Felix Herbert, Dean of St. Barnabas College, Cambridge.
He watched as Toseland set off down the cobbled way at a fast clip, then, before returning to the breakfast room, “Excuse me for a moment, will you, Suzannah? I have a note from the office to read.”
He tore the envelope Toseland had handed him and read the contents of the single sheet it contained. Just a couple of lines.
Henningham watched without comment, but Redfyre caught his increasing concern as his own expression changed from enquiring to horrified.
“I say, Inspector, is there anything I can do?”
“No, no. Thank you, but no. It’s just an invitation. One I desperately don’t want, but which I am honour bound to accept.”
He looked again at the stark note and knew that he hadn’t misinterpreted it.
“John! Greetings! I understand you have a fondness for Laundress Lane when it comes to resolving matters of honour. Tonight at 6 p.m. Yours, W”
He could not ignore the curiosity and puzzlement directed at him from the table, and made an effort to sound lighthearted when he delivered the response they were obviously waiting for.
“Well! What a morning. I begin to feel that, like d’Artagnan, I may have booked rather too many duels into my day!” He tried to smile but was afraid the result must have been something of a grimace. “Noon, teatime and now cocktail hour.”
Chapter 19
The station was deserted, apart from the reception sergeant on duty and the odd coppers coming in and out at change of shift. Redfyre was glad to have an hour at his desk with the reports before he made his way back over to Barnabas to meet the dean for the first of the confrontations he had so optimistically laid himself open to.
He dealt with his officer’s report on Tyrrell’s bicycle first. Clipped and straightforward. The bike had been found exactly where the student had said that it had been left. There was indeed a puncture in the back wheel, and the condition of it—even spider’s webs had been noted—indicated that it had not been in use for several days.
Reminding himself that a determined man in pursuit of a woman who’d spurned him could easily, fired by his emotions, have helped himself to one of the many bikes that were always lying about the streets, Redfyre was, all the same, pleased to put one approving tick by Tyrrell’s story. After a moment’s consideration, he put a question mark by the side of it.
The laboratory reports from the different sections of fingerprinting and pharmacology were revealing.
He opened up the more straightforward account, fingerprinting. He’d delivered the black satin ribbon trailing from the funeral wreath sent to Juno in the hospital to the lab with a deprecatory laugh. More in hope than in expectation. But again, scientific technique astonished him. A kindly young man in a white coat had taken it from his hand and looked at it with interest. Well, it would be a first for them if it succeeded, he’d declared with affable honesty, but that was the way, the only way, to push back the boundaries. The Indians, who’d been at it for decades longer than the Met, were saying they could even raise a fingerprint from the dead skin of a victim. It sounded pretty improbable today, but next week—well, who could know? Here in the lab, they were able to get prints from glass, leather, bakelite—any shiny surfaces. And this ribbon definitely offered a shiny surface. He could even make out smudges with the naked eye, he’d said, eager to carry off his new challenge.
And here were the results. Spectacular ones! Photographic and schematic representations of the two thumbs of a killer—a killer who’d had no idea that he would be leaving his calling card by the simple gesture of tying a bow. Redfyre lingered with satisfaction over the clarity of the hoops and whorls and ridges on display before reminding himself that the evidence was no use at all unless he had under arrest the perpetrator with his fingers on the ink pad in the interrogation room. Still, it formed a valuable part of his reserve armoury.
A short note had been added on a separate sheet. Interestingly, the young scientist had uncovered some traces of a bodily substance in addition to the expected greasy human skin secretions. Blood. Spots of blood, possibly from a thumb or finger pricked by the spikes of the holly
element of the wreath? They’d tested it according to the methods of the Institute of Pathological Anatomy in Vienna, which now recognised four different blood types, and pronounced it of human origin and type A. Useful, but only for elimination purposes.
Nonetheless, holding the prints and the blood sample in his hand had a galvanising effect on Redfyre. It was the moment the hounds caught the scent of the fox in the next field. He was hunting an identifiable presence whose two strong, murdering thumbs were on record. It was only a matter of hours, surely, before he saw the face that went with these telltale traces.
A piece of information to be filed alongside the fingerprints, only to be brought into play when a suspect was in detention. But, Redfyre conceded, in this modern world, it was the scientific approach that brought results in the courtroom. A jury of twelve men responded warmly these days to a bespectacled, highly qualified expert who would patiently take them through the scientific evidence. Intuition and reasoning of the Sherlock Holmes type were old hat. Entertaining, of course, but discredited as having no place in a modern trial. Above all, the juries wanted to arrive at a just and secure verdict with no blame for a wrong decision attached to their names; a guilty finding would result in the hanging of the accused, and that was a significant burden for most jurors. They welcomed laboratory reports, which in their eyes did not lie.
The pharmacological report was more challenging, and Redfyre had to read through the detailed findings twice before he felt he had grasped the essentials. He was glad of the résumé of results couched in less formal language that appeared at the end of the presentation. Sharp fellows they had down there in the forensic department—sharp enough to realise that their colleagues in the CID could always do with a helping hand over the challenging parts. He smiled, pleased to accept and learn from whatever help came his way.
He felt that he could now present a very cogent case to MacFarlane. A case for a root and branch inspection of the work being done at Lawrence’s laboratory and at Benson’s factory in Frog End.
The collection of pills Lois Lawrence and her mother had put together in the matchbox had been pounced on, categorised and stripped down to its alarming essentials by the scientists.
Lawrence had spoken flippantly of Benson’s output of “Perk-You-Up Pills for the Pallid,” Redfyre remembered. And the five pink samples in the box had been identified as similar in appearance to the famous and much consumed Dr. Williams’ Pink Pills for Pale People. A sample of these was produced for his information.
A home pharmacy favourite. Small, egg-shaped and rosy as a cherub’s cheek, they were boosted by advertising that assured the customer of their innocence and efficacy. The label listed all the ailments the product would deal with at once: nervous depression, watery blood, tuberculosis, anaemia, hysteria, change of life and—most mysteriously—loss of vital forces. “Read what you like into that!” Redfyre muttered suspiciously. He read again, interpreting the last three as menstrual tension, menopause and low libido. But so seductive was the fulsome literature, so enthusiastic the letters of commendation that the assiduous forensics bloke had included with his findings, Redfyre was on the point of sending out to Lloyds the Chemist for a bottle for his own use. But then he read the analysis of the contents as discovered on the bench: iron sulphate, magnesium sulphate, powdered liquorice and sugar coating stained pink with cochineal. Mmm . . . He might just as well chew a few of Mr. Basset’s Liquorice Allsorts.
Not so with the pink pill of interest supplied by the Lawrence women. Powdered flavouring and sugar coating were very similar, and there was an element of iron sulphate present, but the main constituent here identified raised Redfyre’s eyebrows. Opium in its solid state. As a liquid, a tincture of laudanum, this had always been commonly available over the counter at the chemist’s shop, but as the addictive properties of the drug became more widely understood, efforts to regulate its sale had been made.
Again, the thoughtful scientist had drawn his attention to France’s Loi des stupéfiants in 1916 and Britain’s 1920 Dangerous Drugs Act.
The second jelloid formula produced similar results. This time, the offending constituent was cocaine wrapped in an innocent-looking green sugar shell.
Benson and Lawrence were flouting the law of the land, it seemed. Or were they? Presented in the matchbox without the original packaging, there was no way of dating the wretched things. The pills could all have predated the 1920 drugs act. The two purveyors of a mindless, addictive nirvana to females would laugh at any accusation he might make and refute it using the full force of their lawyers, no doubt.
He filed the information away in his top—for immediate action—drawer. This would be taken further. And the information remained, as far as he was concerned, a cogent motive, wrapped in chemical formulae, for stopping Lois Lawrence in her tracks.
The appearance of Sergeant Thoday hurrying in with news of the body in Senate House Passage jolted him back into what he looked on as the third attack.
“I’m just about to go and meet our mysterious dean. The bloke who lurks behind the locked door—who gave permission for Juno Proudfoot to perform, against the known wishes of his superior, in the concert at the chapel. Have you noticed, Thoday, that all roads and all clues seem to lead back to that wretched college?”
“I’m beginning to think so myself,” Thoday said, eyes gleaming with the excitement of information about to be imparted. “The doc and I were helping—well, standing around observing—when the bearers came with a stretcher to collect her. No bother up to a point, and then one of the lads says, tugging at her coat, ‘This ’ere’s stuck. It’s caught under the gate.’ And it was. We had to clear her out of the alcove in her fancy frock and leave the coat behind. Nice, warm thick serge, it was. But the hem of it, a good two inches, was trapped under the wood panel of the gate. We had to send someone round the front to the bursar for the key before we could investigate. The doc stayed on as witness, as he could see that it was important. Well, the wooden gate opened easy-like. Well oiled. We went to look at it from the inside—there’s a nice little courtyard in there with a covered way—and anybody could see that she’d been pushed through and set out in the space from the inside because the door had been slammed shut again, trapping the fabric. It didn’t show from the inside when it was shut because the gate is oak planks this thick.” He demonstrated with his fingers. “There’s no way anybody could have just dumped her as they passed through the passage on the outside.”
Redfyre smiled in satisfaction. “They’re pulling together, our two ends of this puzzle, Thoday. Well observed! You’ve just put the bullet down the spout of my investigation! I have an appointment to see a dean about a doorway in half an hour.”
He began to scoop up his pens and notebook.
“Sir, sir!” Thoday was wriggling with excitement. “There’s more! And better!”
“Do go on, Sarge! And would you like to take a seat?”
“No, no! I’m halfway down King Street and have to be off again in a sec. I nipped back because I thought you ought to know. This diary of hers.” He brandished it. “I worked out some of her shorthand. It wasn’t a code, sir. She wasn’t hiding things—just reminding herself. The one we’re interested in—the assignation she’d put in for 10:00 p.m. last night was with a certain S.B.D. Now how about that being St. Barnabas, the dean? I tracked back and found he’s a regular. Goes back a year at least. Usually midweek. A Saturday night was exceptional.”
“Were the meetings always on college territory?” Redfyre asked dubiously. “Or were they conducted elsewhere?”
“Elsewhere, mostly. I found her centre of operations—not what you’d expect. It’s on Maids Causeway, but city-side and rather chi-chi. Clean, no expense spared on the furnishings and décor. Run by a woman. A lady, you’d say, rather than a madam. I broke the news of Miss Weston’s demise and sketched in the circumstances. She was horrified and upset. Eager to help, so I cau
ght her while she was in shock and found out some interesting things.” He waved his notebook. “It’ll keep, sir. You ought to be pushing off. But the main thing is, the university folk are all up to it. This call-ahead-using-the telephone stuff. The nobs have the phones, and that makes it all the more impersonal, harder to get caught out. They can just pick up the phone and order it out like a . . . like a fish and chip supper!” Thoday stammered in disgust.
“Think ahead, and you could arrange delivery of both at the same time,” Redfyre suggested whimsically. “‘Delilah for eight, and could she pick up two cod and chips on her way? How very enterprising! Oh, I’ll be needing that diary to bash him over the ear with, Sarge.”
The moment Thoday had left, Redfyre picked up the receiver of MacFarlane’s telephone. He looked at his watch. Just into sherry time. If he was lucky, he’d catch his old college friend in the bosom of his family before they all shot off to Scotland for their Christmas. Freddy, a don at St. Luke’s, was in a division above even Aunt Hetty when it came to gossip, but his confidences were always based on facts and relayed with discretion.
His friend’s hearty voice, shouting against a background of shrieks and children’s laughter, reassured him that this was in no way an unfortunate time to ring up. No, he was just about to sharpen the carving knife before lunch, so ask away . . . St. Barnabas, eh?
The figure standing at ease in the alcove, feet apart, hands behind his back was not the dean. Redfyre had never met the dean before, but he knew that this dark-suited, heavy-shouldered man could not be the college don he was expecting. A bowler hat jammed on low over a ridged forehead signalled his lowly status and emphasised the truculence of his expression, turning the features—quite deliberately, Redfyre judged—into a caricature of a flat-nosed English bulldog.
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