The Counsellor

by J. J. Connington

  “Quite likely,” agreed The Counsellor. “Trulock’s the only person—bar the gatekeeper, perhaps—who need know the identities of his . . . patients.”

  “And Helen Treverton’s being kept in that beastly house?” said Sandra. “If I’d been there, instead of you two. . . .”

  The bell of the desk-telephone interrupted her. The Counsellor picked up the receiver.

  “Yes? O.K. . . .”

  There was a long message from the other end of the wire. Then The Counsellor said: “Right!” and put the instrument back on its stand.

  “Here’s the stop press news from Pagnell,” he said, turning to his assistants. “A fire broke out in Grendon Manor this morning. Two people hurt. Our friend Pagnell is a smart lad. There’s a clause in the Public Health Act or somewhere, which authorises constables to enter burning buildings and do anything necessary to protect life and property, without getting the owner’s permission. He took advantage of that and made a thorough search of the premises from top to bottom. Helen Treverton wasn’t there. He’s sure of that.”

  “Oh!” said Sandra, much cast down.

  “How did the fire start?” demanded the practical Standish.

  “In one of the bedrooms—probably from a smouldering cigarette thrown down in a waste-paper basket. The injured couple had been occupying the bedroom. Doped, I expect, and didn’t realise what was happening.”

  “Who were they?”

  “Male and female, that’s all I learned from Pagnell.”

  “And what are you going to do?”

  “This is Thursday,” The Counsellor pointed out. “I’m going to clear the decks as far as possible for next Sunday’s broadcast, just in case we’re pressed for time later on. Business first.”

  “Well, you are a cold-blooded beast!” said Sandra, hotly. “Mark! Can’t you do something to help that poor girl, instead of talking about your broadcast?”

  “We must keep faith with our listeners,” said The Counsellor, mildly. “I was going to tell you something more, but we’ll not waste time over details, since you don’t wish it, Sandra. See your way through the business, Wolf?”

  “Can’t say I do,” Standish admitted. “I’d have bet big money that the girl was being kept at the Manor.”

  “Well, go on thumpin’ and thumpin’ at the thinkin’,” was The Counsellor’s advice. “Nil desperandum, you know. And if you want a little reading to pass the time when you’re not thinking, I recommend Poe’s essay on Maelzel’s Chess Player. Most suggestive work, that, especially for those too stupid to see beyond their nose-points. Try it! And in the meanwhile, kindly arrange for the loan of a small epidiascope. You know, the thing they use in lectures to show solid specimens instead of lantern slides. Hire it, or get it somehow. Also a screen for same.”

  Standish glanced at Sandra rather doubtfully.

  “Think he’s still under that dope?” he asked in a stage whisper. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “Oh, it’s just a brain-flash,” confessed The Counsellor. “I may be on the wrong track altogether. But get the thing, anyhow; and as quick as you can, or quicker. Meanwhile, I’ll have a look through our museum. We may have to fill out the broadcast a bit, and a few minutes chat about some of our specimens might interest people. We haven’t worked that stunt yet. And get me a pair of dividers, too,” he added with a smile at some undisclosed jest of his own. “Fine ones. And get me Picton on the ’phone. I think I’ll send him up to St. Neot’s, later on.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Stalking-Horse

  “SO that’s over,” said The Counsellor, as the car reached Grendon St. Giles and slowed down in the High Street. “You’ve got your search-warrant, Inspector.”

  “I hope it’s all right,” retorted Pagnell, with a shade of discomfort in his tone. “Awkward, if we’ve got the wrong sow by the ear, sir, after you making that sworn declaration.”

  “Let by-gones be by-gones,” suggested The Counsellor hastily. “By the way, did you make these inquiries about the source of that telephone call, the one that robbed me of the pleasure of Albury’s society that evening they tried to do me in?”

  “Yes, I did,” the inspector returned. “There was a call, right enough, to Longstoke House at that time; and it came from the A.A. telephone box just at the foot of the avenue. That’s funny.”

  “Most amusing!” snapped The Counsellor. “Hear me laugh: Ha! Ha! Well, at least I can swear that Albury didn’t send it from the A.A. box, since he was with me just then.”

  The big seven-seater drew up in front of the police station, where Querrin was waiting for them along with three uniformed constables and a man in plain clothes. The Counsellor turned to his chauffeur.

  “Amuse yourself in the village, for a while, Picton,” he directed. “I’ll drive myself. We’ll pick you up on the way back. The car will hold the rest of us with a seat apiece,” he added to the inspector. “I’ll take Mr. Querrin beside me, and the rest of you have room enough behind. Any last words?”

  Pagnell shook his head.

  “No, it’s all fixed, sir. Davis”—he nodded towards the man in plain clothes—“he goes round to the back-door, pretending to peddle sundries to the maids. Then Croom and I ring the front-door bell. You and Mr. Querrin have to get into the shrubbery alongside that ground-floor window with the blinds down. The other constables remain in reserve. Once we start, no one’s to be allowed off the premises. That’s as far as we can foresee things.”

  “The doctor?” queried The Counsellor.

  “All arranged for,” Pagnell assured him. “He’ll be there on time.”

  “Right! Then off we go,” said The Counsellor, cheerfully, as he slid into the driving-seat and started his engine. “Now we shan’t be long.”

  Nor were they, for The Counsellor was a fast driver. They took the Little Salten road, and in less than fifteen minutes the big car was pulled up close to the gate of Fairlawns, under a hedge which concealed it from the house windows. Constable Davis got out, with a shabby little leather case in his hand, and walked up the drive.

  “Give him time to get busy,” said the inspector, glancing at his watch. Then after a few minutes he added: “Now Croom and I go. You and Mr. Querrin. . . .?”

  “Cut up through the trees,” explained The Counsellor. “I’ve been over the ground early this morning, before anyone was awake. There’s a gap we can scramble through. We’ll be there when we’re wanted. But remember to clear your throat and talk loud when you get into that room.”

  The inspector nodded assent and set off with his uniformed satellite up the drive. Two minutes later, Querrin and The Counsellor made their way along the road, found the gap, and entered the grounds.

  At the front door the inspector demanded to see Trulock and he and the constable were shown into a sitting-room while the maid went in search of the doctor. In a few minutes he appeared and greeted the inspector genially.

  “Glad to do anything I can for you, Inspector. What’s the trouble to-day?”

  Pagnell feigned a slight embarrassment.

  “Well, sir, I expect it’s all right, really. But information’s been laid with us in the matter of the Dangerous Drugs Act, and we’ve got to look into the point, just as a matter of routine. Nothing in it, I expect, sir.”

  “The Dangerous Drugs Act?” echoed Trulock, with an air in which relief seemed to be blended with something else. “That’s morphine, heroin, and things of that sort. Well, I have a stock of morphia, if that’s what you’re after. Why not? I’m a qualified medical man. I don’t practise, nowadays, but I have a dispensary of sorts and I keep morphia for emergencies. Somebody’s been pulling your leg, Inspector, I’m afraid,” he added with a smile.

  “Coca leaves and Indian hemp come under the D.D.A. also,” said the Inspector.

  “Indian hemp?” queried the doctor, as though quizzing Pagnell. “That’s a pretty vague term, isn’t it?”

  “‘The expression “Indian hemp” means the dr
ied flowering or fruiting tops of the pistillate plant known as cannabis sativa, from which the resin has not been extracted, by whatever name such tops are called,’” quoted the inspector triumphantly. He had memorised that definition from the Act with some care and was glad he had done so.

  Dr. Trulock laughed unaffectedly.

  “That’s a mouthful,” he commented. “But suppose you saw the stuff itself, would the definition help you? I mean, would you recognise these ‘tops’ if you came across them without a label attached? Come, now, Inspector, Honest Indian, without the hemp. Could you swear to them?”

  “Well, I might. Or I might not,” said Pagnell with an air of great caution. “But I daresay an expert could tell me, if I put it to him.”

  Dr. Trulock suddenly changed his tone.

  “This is all rubbish, you know, Inspector,” he said sharply. “Who gave you this tale?”

  “It was what we call ‘information received,’” said the inspector, freezing up in his turn. “I’m sorry, sir, but we’ve got to act on it. You see, I’ve got a search-warrant.”

  “Oh, you have, have you?” answered the doctor.

  He showed no signs of being taken aback. He dipped his fingers and thumbs into his waistcoat pockets in his habitual manner and fumbled idly for a moment or two, as though his thoughts were on other things.

  “Let’s see your warrant,” he said at last.

  Pagnell produced it. The doctor glanced over it, but the inspector could see he was paying it but little attention. Then, apparently, Trulock reached a solution of the problem which had been puzzling him.

  “Very well,” he said, coolly enough. “I’ll put no difficulties in your way; though I’d like to say just what I think of these goings-on. Come along to my dispensary and you can hunt for yourself. You’re welcome to anything you can find.”

  He led the way along a passage towards the back of the house and ushered them into a small room fitted with shelving, a chemical work-bench, and some apparatus-racks.

  “I do a bit of research at times,” Trulock explained, with a nod towards a series of glass utensils perched on sand-baths and heated by bunsen burners.

  “And what are these, sir?” asked the inspector, professing a civil interest.

  The doctor seemed to have got over his temporary annoyance.

  “Soxhlet extractors, they call them,” he explained. “Suppose you want to extract quinine from Peruvian bark. You fill up this little papier-mâché container with the bark, and put alcohol or chloroform into the bulb at the bottom of the apparatus. Then you heat. The liquid boils up, gets condensed at the top of the apparatus, filters down through the chamber containing the bark, and so extracts your quinine. Then a siphon works and tips the solution back into the bulb below. From there, the pure liquid boils up again, but the quinine doesn’t come away with it; and the process goes on again. It’s a method of using the same quantity of alcohol time after time, and extracting so much of the quinine each time; which is cheaper than using a big amount of alcohol in a single extraction.”

  “I see,” said the inspector. Then, as a thought struck him, he added, “And what have you got in these papier-mâché containers this time?”

  “Oh, just some plant or other,” Trulock said in a careless tone which did not carry conviction to the inspector’s ears.

  “Some plant or other,” he echoed suspiciously. “What kind of plant, may I ask?”

  Trulock gave him a sharp glance.

  “Is that casual curiosity?” he asked “Or are you putting an official question to me?”

  “I’m asking officially,” retorted the inspector, making no attempt to hide his suspicions.

  “Then I don’t need to reply,” Trulock rejoined. “I’m not bound to incriminate myself, as you know.”

  “That’s correct,” admitted Pagnell. “But I’m bound to search for anything that comes under the D.D.A. I’ll come across the thing, sooner or later, when we begin to hunt.”

  Trulock seemed to ponder over this for a good many seconds. Then he appeared to make up his mind on some definite course.

  “Well, I suppose you’re bound to nose it out eventually,” he admitted. “I may as well save you trouble and avoid having my stuff turned upside down in your search. Look here!”

  He pulled out a long drawer and motioned to the inspector to examine the contents. Pagnell stooped over the drawer and found it full of lumps of some vegetable matter, roughly circular in form and about an inch in diameter. They were covered with yellowish matted hairs and the summit of each disc was a thick cushion, dirty-white in tint. The inspector picked out one and examined it inexpertly.

  “Indian hemp?” he asked with a sardonic smile.

  “I told you I’d make no admissions,” Trulock reminded him. “If you say it’s Indian hemp, I’m not going to deny it.”

  “You’re taking this rather lightly, doctor,” said the inspector. “Remember, under the D.D.A. the maximum penalty’s £1,000 fine and ten years penal servitude. There’s nothing in that to be funny about. Now another thing. Do you admit that you’ve been making extracts or tinctures from these things by means of these Soxhlet extractors there?”

  The reference to the penalties seemed to have sobered Trulock.

  “Well, I’ve admitted that already,” he conceded in a much more serious tone, “so I don’t see what use it would be to withdraw that statement. Let it go.”

  The inspector pulled out a notebook and made a few jottings in it before saying anything further. Then he produced a large envelope from his pocket and shovelled a handful of the lumps into it, after which he handed the packet over to the constable.

  “Taking samples?” inquired Trulock.

  “Just so,” said the inspector. “Part of the routine.”

  “And now, are you going to arrest me or what?”

  “We haven’t come to that yet,” explained the inspector. “I’ve got to make a search of the premises.”

  “But you’ve found the stuff,” objected the doctor. “What’s the good of wasting time?”

  “It’s part of the routine,” said the inspector, with more than a hint of obstinacy in his tone.

  The doctor seemed to recognise the ring of decision in Pagnell’s voice, for he made no further objection but followed the two officials into the hall. The inspector halted for a moment, as though to get his bearings, and then advanced towards a door. Trulock pushed past him and stood on the threshold, barring the way.

  “You can’t go in there!” he said in a low voice, but with unmistakable earnestness. “I’ve got a patient in there, one of the two who got so badly burned at the Manor the other day. She mustn’t be disturbed on any account. Understand that. I won’t be responsible for anything if you burst in there and give her a shock.”

  “Come along here,” said the inspector, with a complete change of manner.

  He took Trulock by the shoulder and forced him into the adjacent sitting-room, where they stood confronting each other. The inspector looked his captive up and down with a certain angry contempt before he spoke again.

  “Now, look here, doctor. Let’s have no more of this foolery. You thought you were too clever for a simple country policeman, but you were too clever by half. You trotted out these dried vegetables, and you thought you’d diddled me into believing they were”—he bowed ironically—“‘the dried flowering or fruiting tops of the pistillate plant known as cannabis sativa.’ And then, when you were had up in our country police court and the stuff was produced, you’d have brought a botanist to swear that they weren’t hemp at all, but things called mescal buttons, the tops of the anhalonium Lewinii, which don’t come under the D.D.A. And you were grinning to yourself in prospect over the laugh you’d have when the case against you fell apart. But we’re not so simple as all that. I’ve been up to London to get put wise. And I’ve seen specimens of Indian hemp. And what’s more, I’ve made myself acquainted with the appearance of mescal buttons, so I recognised them at once, as soon
as you showed me them in that drawer. Now have a good laugh at the joke, doctor. It’s worth it.”

  The constable at least agreed with him, for he hurriedly stifled a guffaw, and then became the very image of duty.

  The inspector put out his forefinger and laid it on the breast of the doctor’s jacket. The very gentleness of the gesture made the menace of his attitude unmistakable.

  “I’ll quote you another section of the D.D.A.,” he went on. “‘If any person wilfully delays or obstructs any person in the exercise of his powers under this section . . . he shall be guilty of an offence against this Act.’ I’m exercising my powers in searching these premises. If you delay or obstruct me in the slightest . . . Well, ten years penal is a fair sentence, let alone a £1,000 fine. And just note that you can get that whether you’ve got a grain of dangerous drug on the premises or not! I tell you straight that if you so much as lift a finger to hinder me now, I’ll arrest you on the spot, and I’ll not make it easy for you when you’re on trial. Understand?”

  Dr. Trulock caught the inspector’s eye, flinched, and turned away his head. The sudden reversal of their positions seemed to have taken the heart out of him.

  “Do as you like, then,” he said, tonelessly. “But you’ll find a patient in that room and I ask you to be careful of her. I give you my word of honour there are no dangerous drugs in that room, and you must take the full responsibility of any harm you do.”