by Hannah Howe
The evening was dark and damp, yet the Chancellor house was well illuminated. I counted ten windows in the facade, a facade dominated by a central extension that jutted out to greet you. The extension was square at the bottom with a curious diamond design for the upper-stories. The walls on the extension were chamfered, complimenting the walls to the right of the house. The doorway was situated to the right of the extension and within the door frame, I found a rather plain and nondescript doorbell. I rang the doorbell, tapped my toes on the stone step to fight off the chill of the evening, then smiled when Henry Chancellor opened the door.
“Come in, come in,” he ushered, waving his right hand. “Come through to the study; I will join you in a moment.”
I wandered into Henry’s study, a room dominated by dark mahogany furniture, dark leather upholstery and brown flock wallpaper. The room contained an upright piano, a desk with a decorative telescope and gyroscope set upon it and, along the wall opposite the picture window, a large blackboard covered with numerous squiggles and calculations.
Henry joined me in the study and I nodded my approval. “What a lovely room, what a lovely house.”
He shrugged modestly. “I can take little credit for it, unfortunately. This is the Chancellor family home; the house has been in the family for generations. We moved in after my parents died, my mother first then, six months later, my father. When my father, who was a very shrewd businessman, passed away, I felt the pull of the green, green grass of home. So I quit my lecturing position in London and we returned to Wales. At first, Ruth wasn’t happy, but she soon adjusted. It’s a fine house,” Henry conceded, “though it is a drain on our resources. However, it is handy for the golf course and the university.”
“Are you any good at golf?” I asked.
He smiled ruefully. “I play for the walk, as they say.”
The study was clearly Henry’s domain and I could find little evidence to suggest that Ruth spent any time in this room. I was looking around the room, looking for evidence of Ruth, when Henry captured my train of thought.
“Ruth is rather busy at the moment. She is preparing a lecture, which she will deliver tomorrow morning. She will join us, shortly. In the meantime, may I get you something to drink, Miss Smith?”
“Samantha.”
“Samantha.” He rolled my name around on his tongue as though savouring it. “Samantha,” he repeated, the blissful look on his face suggesting that he liked the taste. “Very feminine. Very feminine. Very feminine, indeed.” Maybe he caught sight of my curious expression because, suddenly, he snapped out of his daydream and felt the need to apologise. “Sorry, I lost myself there for a moment. A drink?”
“A fruit juice would be fine.”
As Henry ambled into another part of the house to prepare my drink, I continued to scan the study. Astronomy books, no surprise there, dominated the bookcase along with books by Victorian poets and the works of Arthur Conan Doyle. A collection of classical records occupied one corner of the room, though I failed to locate a record player. Maybe it was hidden in a secret compartment on his desk? I was gazing at the desk, at a gardening book to be precise, when Henry rejoined me in his study.
“Are you into gardening as well?” I asked.
“No, no.” He shook his head. “That book belongs to Ruth; she is trying to cultivate the perfect rose.”
“Henry...”
As one, we glanced up from the book and turned our heads to look over our shoulders. A woman had entered the study, presumably Dr Ruth Carey.
She had short, wavy hair, bottle-blonde with grey and brown roots. Her eyebrows were thick, her eyes grey and feline. Her lips, too, were thick and her face emitted the strange orange glow of a fake suntan. The skin on her face seemed tight, as though stretched beyond endurance. She wore pearl earrings in her ears and gold rings on her ring finger. Her figure was comfortable, middle-aged, though her breasts appeared top-heavy, as though they had been enhanced.
“Who is that?” she asked while frowning at me.
“This is Samantha, dear. She is a private investigator. I have asked her to look into those ghastly death threats.”
“Oh, Henry,” she sighed. “You are such a sweetheart.” She walked into the room and planted a delicate kiss on Henry’s right cheek. “But we don’t need anyone poking their noses into our private lives. We certainly don’t need a private investigator.” Turning away from Henry, she snarled at me. “And we certainly don’t need anyone as pathetic-looking as her. I mean, she looks like a waif, someone from the pages of Dickens...Olivia Twist! Please, sir, can I have some more? Get rid of her, Henry. Let’s go out to dinner.”
Ruth Carey turned, dragging Henry by the arm. However, the professor held his ground. From over his right shoulder, he gazed at me, his eyes glinting with apology.
While it is true that I do possess a waif-like figure and that I could do with adding a few pounds, I resented her Dickensian comment on the grounds that I always try to look presentable and dress for the occasion; on this occasion I was representing my client in his home, so I was wearing a black pencil skirt, a black waistcoat and a red buttoned blouse. Okay, so I hadn’t wandered in from a catwalk, but scruffy I was not.
“You must take these death threats seriously, dear.” Henry had released himself from his wife’s grip and was gazing at her from over the top of his half-moon spectacles with a look of humility in his eyes. “Samantha can help us. For my sake, be courteous to her and answer her questions.”
Ruth Carey sighed. She waved her arms in dismissive fashion then flounced around the room. She said, “Do I know who sent the threats? No. Am I worried about them? No. Why aren’t you worried? Because they are obviously the work of a crank. What sort of crank? An attention seeker, so why give him the attention he craves.” She sighed again, this time for dramatic effect. “There, I have answered her questions. Now come along, Henry. I’m famished. Let’s go to dinner.”
“Him,” I noted in my quiet, unassuming voice. “You said ‘him’, so you know it’s a man.”
Ruth Carey hesitated. She glanced at her husband, then at me, eyeing me with revulsion, suspicion. “I naturally assumed...” She turned and walked towards the door. “Come along, darling, this...woman...is starting to annoy me.”
Somehow, she managed to make ‘woman’ sound like a dirty word.
“She’s a Dickless Tracey, that’s what they call them, you know.” Ruth giggled in a childish manner. “Rather apt, don’t you think?”
“Can I see one of the threats?” I asked, trying to ignore her barbs.
“I destroyed them all,” she replied brusquely.
“Can you write out the words he used? As accurately as possible, please.”
“His words have gone from my memory. I have more important things to think about.”
An interesting reply, I thought while removing my notepad and pen from my shoulder bag. “How many threats have you received?”
“Three or four. I really can’t remember.”
“Were the threats typed, or handwritten?”
“They arrived in the mail.”
“As newspaper cuttings,” Henry interjected. “Rather quaint in the electronic age, don’t you think?”
I made a note on my notepad, then continued, “Did you recognise the typeface?”
“Really, Henry...” Ruth sighed with exaggerated exasperation “...must we put up with this woman any longer?”
“Did you recognise the typeface?” I repeated.
“No, I did not! Now, I’m going to dinner. And, darling, if you don’t get rid of this woman, I’m going alone!”
Henry coughed, a dry cough laced with embarrassment. He shot me a quick glance, his eyes apologetic, before scurrying after his wife. I followed in more leisurely fashion.
“I would like Samantha to accompany you tomorrow, at the lecture,” Henry pleaded.
“Really...” Ruth had her back to us as she struggled into her raincoat. “...she’d be wasting her ti
me. And you’d be wasting our money, Henry.”
“We have enough money,” Henry replied in a quiet voice. “And your safety is worth every penny we own.”
Ruth Carey turned to face her husband. Through the orange glow, I thought I detected a hint of humility on her face, a suggestion of what attracted Henry to Ruth in the first place.
“Very well,” she conceded. “Tell this pitiful waif to be at the old chapel in Pisgah Street tomorrow, at noon.” While adjusting the lapel on her raincoat, she turned and glared at me, the intensity of her look threatening to fry me on the spot. “And when the lecture is over, I do not want to see this woman again; is that understood.”
Henry nodded. He mumbled meekly, “Perfectly, dear.”
Chapter Five
I arrived at Pisgah Street in the centre of Cardiff at eleven thirty the following morning. The chapel, now abandoned and converted into a public hall, stood at the end of the street, isolated, looking careworn. The building was open and I found Ruth Carey in the pulpit, leafing through her notes. She glanced in my direction, then returned to her notes without acknowledging my presence. Of course, it is not essential to like your clients to do a good job and, despite Ruth’s hostility towards me, I resolved to be on my best behaviour and to offer her the best service possible.
By noon, the chapel had filled to capacity. As the people drifted in, I melted into the background. From my position, near a flight of steps that led to a gallery, I eyed the congregation, looking for a possible suspect. Unless pensioners had taken to writing poison pen letters, I saw no one who would easily fit into that category. Indeed Ruth’s audience resembled a gathering of ‘Middle England’, ironic given that we were in the capital of Wales.
At noon, Ruth commenced her lecture. I listened to the introduction and preamble while scanning the audience. I had my shoulder bag with me, for practical purposes, and to conceal my Smith and Wesson .32. I wondered idly if the punishment for firing a gun in an ex-chapel was a seat at a table in Hell, not that I held any strong religious convictions. Indeed, I placed politicians and organised religion in the same bed – they were there to control the populace and for the betterment of themselves.
“Eugenics,” Ruth intoned, “what do we mean when we talk about eugenics? Well, eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution. Eugenics draws together psychology, biology, politics, psychiatry, economics, education, religion, medicine, genetics and many other disciplines. Like a tree, eugenics draws its minerals from many sources and organises them into a harmonious entity. The word ‘eugenics’ stems from the Greek, meaning ‘well-born’, and for those of us who believe in eugenics, that is our aim – to improve the genetic quality of the human population. Eugenics is a social philosophy advocating the improvement of human genetic traits. But, how are we to achieve this aim? Well, one method is to encourage a higher level of reproduction in the people who display a series of desired traits and, conversely, to discourage people who possess undesirable traits from reproducing. After all, this is basic common sense – whom would you prefer as your neighbour – a malingerer or a striver, a ne’er-do-well or an achiever? We can thank William Goodell, a Victorian gentleman, for advocating the castration and spaying of the insane. But, I hear you cry, surely such practices are inhuman? Well, I would argue, surely it is better to identify a flaw in humanity and prevent that flaw from reproducing itself, for the good of society, and for the good of the damaged individual. We can also thank Francis Galton, half-cousin of Charles Darwin, for the development of eugenics. Francis Galton took Darwin’s theory of plant and animal evolution and applied it to humans. In 1883, Galton gave his research a name – eugenics. Eugenics rejects the doctrine that all humans are born equal. Plainly, it is absurd to think that a person who carries out menial tasks, such as sweeping and cleaning the roads, is the equal of someone who is highly trained and highly skilled, like a psychiatrist, for example. Equality can hold no place in our world if the human population is to thrive in the future. To thrive we must strive for genetic fitness. We must seek the elimination of the less fit in our society, and that includes the promotion of a pure race at the expense of the weaker races. To thrive we must enforce marriage restrictions, racial segregation, mental health segregation, forced sterilisation, forced abortions. Too harsh, I hear you cry. Not at all, I reply, for I am talking about the greater good, the future well-being of humanity. We must cultivate strong, powerful groves, not degenerate, weak orchards. We must segregate and institutionalise prostitutes, gay men and women, the disabled, the blind, the deaf, the mentally ill. We must promote a consumer-driven, market-based society where people can identify the traits they desire for their children and select those traits from the laboratory. By following the path espoused by eugenics, we can eliminate disease; we can all live longer, healthier lives, with greater intelligence. Our aim is simple – to improve the human gene pool, to rid the population of haemophilia and Huntington’s Disease, to name but two. Our aim is to encourage the intelligent, the successful, the healthy to reproduce through financial and political stimuli, through in vitro fertilisation, egg transplants and cloning, through demographic separation. Our aim is to encourage good parenting through a licence that certifies that parents are morally, mentally and physically fit to have children. It is a fact that people with a higher level of intelligence have fewer children. It is a fact that the average intelligence of the British population is declining. It is a fact that criminals have more children than non-criminals. A licensing programme would ensure that all parents are of a good moral standing and possess a high level of intelligence. And in case you fear that we stand alone, I would remind you that Winston Churchill, Theodore Roosevelt, George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, John Henry Kellog and numerous others have all written or spoken in favour of eugenic principles. These people, you, me, us are on the side of humanity. We strive for a better society, a society based on morality, on purity, a society based on strength.”
As Dr Ruth Carey spoke, a number of people jeered, stood up and left the hall. The congregation that remained, the majority, put their hands together in applause. That applause was tepid to begin with, but it rose in warmth as Ruth Carey beamed at her audience, her orange face glowing with satisfaction. As she spoke, it occurred to me that Ruth Carey was espousing perfection in our society at the expense of those deemed ‘less perfect’. Yet, she had modified her own appearance through cosmetic surgery, thereby admitting that she did not regard her natural self as ‘perfect’. When she looked into her mirror in the morning, I wondered if she recognised the irony. Probably not – bigots like Ruth Carey wouldn’t recognise irony even if it was wrapped around an anvil and dropped on their heads.
After mingling with her audience and signing a few autographs, Ruth Carey wandered over to me. With a smile of smug satisfaction still glowing on her face, she asked, “Did you enjoy my lecture?”
“No. I think your ideas are dangerous, racist and inhumane.”
She scoffed while placing her notes in a leather briefcase, then turned and dismissed me. “The subject matter probably went over your head. You don’t strike me as the brightest button; did you attend university?”
“No.”
“A silly question, but one has to ask.” With the briefcase under her arm, Ruth Carey walked towards the exit. The congregation had dispersed and, even though I disliked the woman, I felt duty bound to follow her. “You’re rather pathetic, aren’t you?” she continued. “I mean, you’re thin, you have all that hair, you have the body language of a timid mouse and clearly you are not well educated. And as for your choice of career...poking your nose into other people’s dirt is hardly edifying for a man, let alone a woman.”
I’d resolved to be on my best behaviour and I’d promised myself that I’d offer my client, Professor Henry Chancellor, the best service possible. Nevertheless, I was sorely tempted to remove my gun from my bag and use it on Ruth Carey. Instead, I leaned forward and gave her a piece of my mind.
“I’m thin because I’m a vegetarian, I watch what I eat and I lead an active life. I wear my hair long because I like it like that. If I’m walking around on eggshells that’s because I have a lot on my mind at the moment. My family were poor, so I didn’t attend university, but I am well educated. As a toddler, I joined my local library and I read hundreds of books every year, I still do, from the Apollo moon landings through to the Zulus. And, as for my career, I’m dedicated, diligent and loyal to my clients; I have a filing cabinet full of testimonials, should you doubt me, or my abilities.”
Ruth Carey snorted, shook her head then gazed at me with cold eyes. “Quite a speech, for a plebeian. However, your opinion is not called for and neither does it count.”
Despite my best intentions, I found my frustration hardening; I tapped my foot on the pavement, ran my fingers through my hair then ground out through clenched teeth, “Did one of your patients send those death threats?”
Ruth Carey turned her back on me. She walked along the pavement, towards her BMW. “I do not discuss my patients with anyone, and certainly not with you.”
“I think you know who sent the threats,” I replied while lengthening my stride to keep up with her. “I’m right, aren’t I? I might be a commoner, a plebeian. I might be nothing to look at and I might have personal issues, but I’m damned good at my job and I’m damned good at identifying bullshit when I see it and I’m looking at bullshit right now.” She turned on her heel, glared and raised her right hand. She was about to bring her hand down hard across my face when, like Quick Draw McGraw, I whipped my gun from my shoulder bag.
“You strike me,” I said, “and you’re dead.”
Someone screamed, probably at the sight of my gun, while stragglers from the congregation ran along the street, seeking cover. Oblivious to them, and to the rain that was starting to fall, Ruth Carey waved her leather briefcase at me and glowered, “You are a very disturbed woman. Put that gun away before I have you arrested. You’re fired. My husband will hear of your insolence. I will make sure that you never work in this city again.”
