Dody McCleland 02 - Antidote to Murder

by Felicity Young

  “Daniel Dunn?”

  “The same, sir. I had Dunn’s premises searched but found no tablets nor tablet-making equipment.”

  “And the pill press I took from Van Noort’s study is perfectly smooth; it did not produce tablets with the pitted surfaces. So, who the devil was Dunn working for, Fisher?”

  “I don’t know, sir, although I am following the idea that he was involved in some kind of a gang, with possibly Van Noort and Everard at the top of it.”

  Again Pike wondered what the connection might be between the two doctors. What kind of a hold, if any, did the older man have over the younger?

  “Have you heard from the men watching Van Noort?” he asked, aware of how stretched the surveillance team was, with but one pair of men assigned to each suspect. He could only hope they were more reliable than the men who had been assigned to the late admiral.

  Fisher grimaced. “I’m afraid he’d already left the house by the time they got into position. A streetsweeper saw him leaving earlier in the company of a young lad.”

  “Damn—but someone is still watching his house?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  That was better than nothing. Considering the time it took to organise such matters, it came as no surprise that they had lost him. If Pike’s knee had not been playing up so much, he would have hung around and followed the man himself. But, he reminded himself, that would have meant leaving Dody to make her own way home and he was glad he had been able to escort her. Towards the end of their lunch she had looked quite unwell. When they reached her door, she had promised him she would rest, and he hoped she had kept her word.

  “What about Everard? Any movement there?”

  “No, sir. He has not been seen since after he was released from the cells and returned home to his wife. Their house has no telephone for us to listen in to, and as far as my men can tell, no notes have been sent out or delivered.”

  Pike said nothing. Could it be that there was no connection at all between the two? It was possible Van Noort had performed the disastrous operation on Esther Craddock independently and Everard merely used the death to stir up trouble for Dody.

  But who had employed and later murdered Dunn? No one at the hospital had been able to give them a description of the poisoner. He seemed to have blended in with the other doctors visiting the ward on that chaotic night. Everard might have got away with this, but surely not Van Noort with his long gangly legs, sallow skin, and peculiar mannerisms. Van Noort was one of the most unusual-looking men Pike had ever met, and even an overworked nurse would surely have noticed him.

  Fisher had a few more solid facts for him. “The Everards live in a semidetached residence within walking distance of the Paddington Mortuary,” he said as they chugged past the modern coronial complex. “They have two children, a boy of four years and a girl of two. They employ a maid, a cook, and a nanny.” Outside the van window, neat semidetached homes with well-kept front gardens passed by. “We’re almost there, sir.”

  “How can he afford three staff on his wage?” Pike mused.

  “Like Dr. McCleland, Everard’s work at the mortuary is part-time. He has rooms close by from which he works as a general practitioner.”

  “But he must be stretched.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that, sir. But he could not have killed Dunn. I sent some men to his rooms to make some enquiries. On the morning that Dunn was murdered, Everard was delivering a baby. He had been up all night with the mother—it was a difficult birth.”

  “If his wife and servants verify that he was home on the afternoon of the firebombing, that leaves us with nothing but the letters he still denies sending.”

  “Are we barking up the wrong tree then, sir?”

  “Everard’s guilty of something, Fisher. Of that I am sure.”

  The police van dropped them outside a red door in the middle of a neat row of Queen Anne–style semidetached homes. Harley Street this was not, but the area had a pleasant, middle-class feel that Pike found appealing. An image of Dody came unbidden: opening the door to him, pulling him into the cool of the small hall, and covering him with kisses, children’s toys scattered on the stairs behind her. He sighed. Perhaps he was seeking the unobtainable; perhaps he was more like Margaretha than he cared to think. He feared that Dody could no more fit into his world than he could into hers. He shook the thought away as the red door opened for them.

  The maid showed them into a cramped parlour and introduced Mrs. Henry Everard. Beside him, Fisher drew breath. Pike hoped he managed to hide his surprise more effectively as Mrs. Everard held out her hand from the confines of a wheeled invalid’s chair. No wonder the Everards needed all the domestic help they could get.

  Henry Everard entered the room collarless and in his shirtsleeves, stopped abruptly in the doorway, and bristled. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Henry, please,” his wife said.

  Everard pushed past the police officers and took his wife’s hand. “I’m sorry, my dear,” he said, “but I think they have come to bully information out of you.” He shot an accusing look at Pike.

  “If you mean by enquiring of your wife your whereabouts on the afternoon of the twenty-fifth, you are correct, sir.”

  “My husband was with me, Chief Inspector.”

  No surprises there, Pike thought, Everard had probably briefed her already. The servants might tell a different story, though. Paltry wages would surely be a measure of their loyalty when confronted with the weight of the law. “Have a word with the servants, please, Inspector,” Pike said.

  Fisher gave a start, drawing his mind back from other things. The woman maintained her composure, but must have noticed his eyes scanning her wheelchair. “In case you are wondering, Inspector, I was semiparalysed in a carriage accident about eighteen months ago.”

  Fisher stuttered some apologies and left the room. Pike admired Mrs. Everard’s frankness, as well as the open shine of her green eyes. She was an attractive woman despite being crippled. Her brown hair was unfashionably short—practical and easy to cope with, he supposed. But his sympathy for her did not extend to her husband, who had succeeded in making Dody’s life a misery over the last few weeks. He would not allow these kinds of emotions to temper his questioning or distract him from his purpose.

  “If your husband was with you on the afternoon of the twenty-fifth, can you tell me who might have borrowed his motorcar?” he asked.

  Pike watched the couple carefully; they made no eye contact or gave any other noticeable signals. “I have no idea,” Mrs. Everard answered. “The motorcar is rarely used; it was a gift to Henry from my father. We find it unreliable and expensive to run—Henry barely knows how to drive it, isn’t that right, dear?” Everard dropped his head. “He just likes to polish it.”

  “I did not lend it to anyone,” Everard muttered like a sulky child.

  “I would like to look at it then,” Pike said.

  “Very well.” Everard heaved a sigh. “Follow me.”

  They met up with Fisher in the hall. According to him, the servants had confirmed what their mistress had said, that Everard had been at home on the afternoon of the firebombing.

  They followed the doctor through the garden to a converted stable backing onto a lane at the rear of the property. As Pike trod the path bordered by urns of vibrant blooms and reclining marble cherubs, he wondered if he might be able to strike some kind of bargain. Everard was hiding something—that much was obvious—but if Mrs. Everard could persuade her husband to tell them all he knew, such as who it was driving his motorcar, his sentence might be reduced.

  At the stable Everard drew the heavy bolts and pushed aside the creaking door, revealing a vacant space bordered by a wheelbarrow, a stack of dirty terra-cotta pots, and a pile of empty hessian sacks.

  “As you can see,” Everard said, poker-faced, “the horse has bolted.”

  Fisher reddened and took a step towards Everard. “Why didn’t you tell us that in the first plac
e? What the hell’s happened to the bloody thing?”

  Pike straightened from his examination of an oily patch on the ground. “A motorcar was kept here until recently.”

  “Indeed one was—until it was stolen,” Everard said. Fisher flexed his fingers. “As my wife said, it was a gift from her father, one of his last gifts before he died. She was sentimentally attached to the vehicle. I did not want her distressed by its theft and chose to keep the matter from her. I trust you will do the same.” He shrugged as if the matter were out of his hands.

  Fisher had had enough. He grabbed the man by the front of his waistcoat. “You could have said this earlier when you were first questioned and saved us a good deal of time. You’re making this up as you go along, covering for someone else, damn it.”

  “Let go of him, Fisher,” Pike said, understanding fully how his colleague felt.

  Fisher released his grip, and Everard made a show of dusting himself down. Pike said, “You are not taking this seriously enough, Dr. Everard.” He nodded towards the house. “It seems to me that you have a lot to lose here.”

  When they returned to Mrs. Everard in the parlour, Pike asked, “Is your wife aware that you might be charged with murder—at the very least, as an accessory? For her sake, you must tell me what I need to know. Tell me about the man you are in league with. Frankly, I do not believe you are responsible for Dunn’s murder and the deaths of the two young women, but I think you know who is.” He glanced from husband to wife. “And I think that is the same man you lent your motorcar to.”

  Mrs. Everard held out her hand to her husband. “Henry, please, whatever you have done, I forgive you for it—just tell the police what you know.”

  Her cooperation with the police despite her obvious love for her husband reminded Pike of Mrs. Van Noort; he marvelled at how two obviously flawed men could have such intelligent, loyal wives. Perhaps a female influence on parliament would not be such a bad thing after all.

  “All right,” Everard said through clenched teeth, “I wrote the bloody letters, but that is all I did.” Mrs. Everard gasped and brought up a hand to cover her mouth. Her husband would not or could not bring himself to look at her. “Are you satisfied now, Chief Inspector?”

  “On whose instructions?” Pike asked.

  “My own—and you know why. I resent the woman.”

  “I think you were told to write the letters by the man who borrowed your car.”

  Everard turned his back on them.

  “Tell us who borrowed your car,” Fisher said.

  “I’ve got nothing to tell you,” Everard said with a heave of his shoulders.

  Pike removed Van Noort’s water-stained card from his jacket pocket and tapped Everard on the back with it, obliging him to turn. “Do you know this man?”

  The doctor took the card and looked at it, then handed it back, his countenance unchanged. “No. Never heard of him.”

  “But there is someone whom you are in league with—you admit to that?” Fisher barked.

  “I admit to absolutely nothing except the letters.”

  “Cooperate with us now and you might be able to avoid a lengthy prison sentence,” Pike said.

  Everard folded his arms and said nothing.

  Mrs. Everard dropped her head into her hands and began to weep.

  “Look, the poor woman’s too upset for us to continue,” Pike said under his breath to Fisher. “Let’s leave them alone and maybe she’ll talk him out of this stubborn mind-set.” Louder, he said, “Mrs. Everard, if you or your husband have anything else to divulge, please contact me.” He handed her his card. To Everard he said, “A bailiff from the courts will be visiting you shortly to notify you of your appearance before the magistrate to face charges of libel and perverting the course of justice. I suspect a murder charge might also be pending. Good day to you both; we will see ourselves out.”

  On the front porch Fisher said to Pike, “Well, that was most unpleasant.”

  “Unpleasant indeed, but worth it; he admitted to the letters.”

  “But why did he write them?” Fisher asked.

  “Because someone pressured him into it, someone who might be using Mrs. Everard’s unfortunate situation to his advantage.” There were no boundaries to what a man would do for the woman he loved—Fisher would know that.

  “Is it worth keeping the men in position?” Fisher nodded to a man up the street, propped against a lamppost with an open newspaper.

  “Absolutely. They must follow him when he leaves the house.”

  “Do you expect him to leave, sir?”

  “I have no doubt about it. He is facing the prospect of prison and he will need to make provisions for his wife. His silence must be worth something to someone.”

  * * *

  A short nap had left Dody feeling refreshed and her stomach a little more settled, too. These continuing bouts of English cholera were debilitating, and puzzling—she should surely be immune to it by now. Some dry toast might help. She washed her face in her bathroom and redid her hair. She was losing weight, she noticed, as she tightened her belt another notch. Taking the new bottle of effervescent powder Borislav had made up for her from the medicine cupboard, she added three teaspoons to a glass of water and drank it down. It was a triple dose, but today she needed something stronger than the meat juice she had been relying on to keep herself going.

  Annie met her on the stairs. “Chief Inspector Pike is in the morning room, Miss Dody. Are you up to receiving visitors?”

  “Yes, thank you, Annie, I’m feeling much better. Please bring us some tea.”

  In the morning room, Pike rose from his chair. He put his hand out to take hers and held on to it. “You still don’t look well. You need to see a doctor.”

  “I am a doctor,” Dody scoffed with good humour.

  “And I am a policeman. Look at the mischief my daughter got up to last year under my very nose.”

  “All right, I see your point. Our professions sometimes blind us to things that others can easily see. There’s another doctor at the Clinic, Nancy Wainright. I will see her tomorrow—does that satisfy you?”

  “Yes,” Pike said, unable to keep from touching her arm. “I would hate for you to get worse. I don’t think I could bear it.”

  “I won’t get worse, but thank you, Matthew, I know you care and I am glad of it.”

  He smiled faintly then dropped her hand when Annie entered with the tea tray.

  Over tea, Pike told Dody how Henry Everard had admitted writing the letters, and about his dire domestic circumstances.

  “No wonder he was so driven,” Dody remarked. “His poor wife. I had no idea. I put so much of my energy into disliking him, I didn’t give much thought to his personal circumstances. I should have known better.”

  “You are an astonishing woman, Dody,” Pike said, shaking his head. “In your situation I would find it hard to be so understanding.”

  “It is over, that is enough. And I would prefer to think that no man is entirely bad—or entirely good.”

  “But it is as if the devil has him round the throat,” Pike continued, “and he won’t say a word to make things easier for himself. If I’m not careful, he’s likely to throw in the towel and confess to everything whether it be true or not.”

  Annie entered the room once more, this time with a note on a silver salver, which she presented to Pike.

  “I told my staff they could find me here—though why they did not telephone, I don’t know. I gave them your number.” Pike paused to read the note. “Good God,” he said, jumping to his feet. “Annie, who delivered this?”

  “A messenger boy on a bicycle, sir.”

  “Is he still there?”

  “Long gone, I ’spect.”

  “Go into the street and get me a cab immediately.”

  “No, Annie, tell Fletcher to bring the car around,” Dody said, anxious at the alarm on Pike’s face.

  “Fletcher’s out, miss; taken Miss Florence shopping,” Annie s
aid.

  Pike handed Dody the note and rushed from the room. Dody followed him into the street. He turned as if to tell her to stay, then stopped himself with an exasperated sigh, knowing full well that he could not say or do anything that would stop her. While they waited, Dody read the note. If they wanted to catch their abortionist, the anonymous correspondent wrote, they would find him operating at this very moment in rooms above the fishmonger’s in Whitechapel Road. They must hurry before it was too late.

  “Fishmonger’s,” Dody said aloud as they hurried to the main road, where the chances of flagging down a cab would be greater. “I found a fish scale in Elizabeth Strickland’s clothing. We thought it must have come from a fish in the river.”

  “The river is too filthy for fish. I don’t know when one was last caught in the Temple Quay stretch of the Thames,” Pike said.

  Dody pressed her palm to her forehead, “Of course, how stupid I—” Her stomach contracted painfully and she gasped, doubling over.

  Pike took her arm. “Dody, what is it? Are you all right?”

  She straightened herself and smiled to put his mind at rest. “I am quite all right. I’m just annoyed with myself.”

  He looked at her doubtfully, but said only, “Even if you had known that, I doubt it would have led us to this particular fishmonger’s.”

  Fortunately a motor taxi was the first vehicle to stop. Pike flashed his warrant card at the driver and told him to make haste.

  “How long does such a procedure take?” Pike asked as they settled onto the vehicle’s dimpled backseat. Dody linked her arm through his and held on to him tightly. Her stomach was feeling most peculiar and the movement of the taxi threatened to unsettle it further. “Twenty minutes to an hour, depending on how developed the foetus is. God, I hope we’re not too late.”

  “But he does not deliberately kill them, does he, Dody?”

  “He would not be much of an abortionist if he did. I’m presuming Esther’s and Elizabeth’s deaths were accidental—but who can tell?”

  “Then I’m staking my hopes that she is alive and that he is still on the premises, cleaning up.”