Читать книгу Bodies from the Library 2 - Группа авторов - Страница 8

It was nine o’clock on a warm summer’s morning when Nurse Stephens discovered the body of her employer. Even in death Mrs Carmichael’s face still held the irritability of one forced to lean on others who were all too often engaged elsewhere. For fifteen years she had been paralysed from the waist down. Now a tiny hole, drilled neatly through her right temple, had made the top half of her body as immobile as the lower half.

It was all most unfortunate, particularly for Nurse Stephens, who had a most unprofessional attitude to the sight of the little blood there was. She managed, however, to ’phone the doctor and the police.

Inspector Swallow was nominally in charge of the party who arrived at Delver Park at ten o’clock—assorted ‘experts’, finger-print men, a photographer and the doctor. After a telephone conversation with Inspector Rambler of Scotland Yard, Swallow had been advised by that gentleman to bring with him on the case Mr Verity, who happened to be staying in the locality, and whenever Mr Verity ventured on a case, no one could possibly deny that he, not the police officer, was in charge of it.

‘You will certainly find him a little difficult to get on with,’ Rambler had said to Swallow over the ’phone, ‘but he is really a remarkable man. He always finds the truth. If he is in the area you can’t afford to neglect his services. In any case, I don’t suppose you will be able to. He has an infuriating habit of tendering them unasked.’

Inspector Swallow had not waited for that event, but had picked Mr Verity up in the police car on his way to Delver Park, and he now stood regarding the lifeless features of Mrs Carmichael with faint distaste.

Mr Verity was an immense man, tall and proportionately broad. His blue eyes shone brilliantly out of a pointed, bronzed face, which was completed by a well-tended, chestnut Vandyke. Despite the earliness of the hour, he was smoking a long, black Cuban cigar with the most curiously theatrical gestures.

‘She does make a particularly unlovely corpse,’ he said at length. ‘And I thought that death was meant to have a softening effect on the features.’

Inspector Swallow interposed: ‘If you’ve finished your inspection, could we have a few details, doctor?’

Doctor Hendrikson, neat, bird-like and laconic, straightened up.

‘She was killed with something like a very thin knitting-needle. It was driven with a considerable amount of force through her temple here. A quick-closing wound with very little blood. Time of death 10.30 to 11 o’clock last night. That’s about as accurate as I can get it.’

‘Clear enough. Munby, get finger-printing, and you, Brandt, do your stuff.’

Brandt, a young recruit to the Force, took his camera and leant over Mrs Carmichael’s tightening face. He giggled nervously.

‘Watch the dickie bird,’ he said with bravado.

Mr Verity scowled.

‘The contagion of Mr Raymond Chandler!’ he snorted.

‘Let’s go and see the family,’ said Swallow.

Together the two detectives went downstairs to the library where the dead woman’s husband and the nurse were waiting for them.

Robert Carmichael was a tall, austere man still in his late thirties, with a fine forehead, darting brown eyes, a rather sharp nose and an unexpectedly weak mouth and chin. Nurse Stephens was good-looking in a coarse, full-blown sort of way. Neither appeared distraught though they were essaying a reasonable facsimile.

Swallow was good at this game, being at once urbane, sympathetic and slightly menacing.

‘Now, let’s start from tea-time yesterday.’

Nurse Stephens was ready and willing.

‘Tea was at 4.30. Mrs Carmichael had her medicine at 4.45, and after that I wheeled her down to the garden. About five, Mr Carmichael took her photograph and went off to the village to develop it, whilst I sat with Mrs Carmichael for an hour or so before wheeling her off to bed. I remained on duty until seven o’clock, when relieved by the night nurse, Wimple.’

‘And everything was all right before you left?’

‘Certainly, Mrs Carmichael was asleep and everything in order.’

‘And later on that evening?’

‘At 7.30 we all went over to Colonel Longford’s house for dinner and bridge. We arrived back here at about one in the morning,’ Robert Carmichael put in.

‘All?’

‘Nurse Stephens, my brother-in-law Doctor Sanderson, Sandra my stepdaughter, and myself.’

Mr Verity grunted reflectively.

‘There seems to be a pretty comprehensive interest in that curiously anti-social pastime, eh, Mr Carmichael?’

‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

‘I refer to bridge.’

‘Yes, we all play.’

‘Tell me, Mr Carmichael, did your wife have any mortal enemies that you knew of?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t help you there, Mr Verity. I am as much in the dark as you are.’

‘Never mind, Mr Carmichael. I have a wonderful capacity for illumination.’

With a wave of the hand he dismissed them.

That evening after tea, Inspector Swallow and his elderly colleague saw Dr Sanderson, the dead woman’s brother.

The old man started the ball rolling with typical charm.

‘Well, sir. You’ve lost a sister and made £15,000. Some people would consider that you have made a profit on the day’s activities. What do you think?’

Doctor Sanderson, balding, eagle-nosed and tubby, was indignant.

‘Really, Mr Verity, I do resent that most earnestly. After all, I was very fond—’

‘I know all about it. Your sister left it to you. I saw Riggs the lawyer before tea. And don’t say you didn’t know … Looks of incredulity are lost on me. I have seen too many of them to be deceived into thinking that you only expected a little something … an extra pipe of tobacco a week maybe, or that odd pint.’

‘But it’s true—’

Inspector Swallow interposed tactfully.

‘Oh, come now, sir. It is our duty to check up on people, and we have discovered that you’ve been borrowing money on the strength of your expectations. Considerable sums, too.’

Doctor Sanderson paled.

‘Oh, so you know about that. You certainly work fast.’

His face set defiantly; assumed pain gave way to spleen.

‘All right, then, if you know so much about me, what about the others? Have you seen my sanctimonious brother-in-law? He’s not the sort of man to be chained to a hopeless invalid all his life and do nothing about it.’

Mr Verity was yawning hugely.

‘In the words of the vulgar, do you imply that we cherchez la femme?’

‘And not so far either.’

‘You refer, of course, to the angel of mercy. You could be right.’

‘No “could be” about it. And there’s Sandra. Money in trust. Love’s young dream, and the missing parental consent. Why not have a look at all that before picking on me?’

‘It’s not a question of picking on anybody,’ murmured Mr Verity sweetly. ‘I just always like to take suspects in order of repulsion.’

Doctor Sanderson stormed out of the library in a fury.

Both detectives stayed to dinner. It was a homely little meal, marred perhaps for the hypersensitive by the arrival of the mortuary van. Mr Verity was in great form and talked incessantly about a portrait of an old man in polychromed clay executed by Guido Mazzoni in the late fifteenth century which he had just purchased for his collection of statuary at his Sussex home ‘Persepolis’. The company, with the exception of Sandra, Carmichael’s stepdaughter, bore his recondite conversation with fortitude. She, however, was noticeably distressed, and it was with some diffidence that the two men set out after dinner to find out exactly why.

‘Believe it or not,’ she began, when at last they were alone together in the library, ‘I had a great affection for my mother.’

‘That is not the voice of vulgar rumour,’ said the old man.

‘You can love a person and not always get on with them, Mr Verity.’

‘So the Bible continually reminds us.’

Swallow scratched his head and said gently:

‘Your mother had £20,000 in trust for you. I understand you were to receive this sum, or the income thereof, on your marriage, provided your mother gave her consent. Is that correct?’

‘Perfectly. Have you ever heard anything so monstrous? It was my father’s idea.’

She said this as if her father’s death had been no great loss to her.

‘And the position was that, having hunted down one Harry Logan as your intended mate, you could not persuade your mother that the alliance of Harry and £20,000 was a holy one.’

Mr Verity smiled benevolently at her over his black cigar, and patted his inflated stomach affectionately.

Sandra Collins was almost crying. Her top lip trembled mutinously.

‘So—?’

‘So, if I might say it without offence, my dear Miss Collins, murder for money is still a highly favoured motive, not only amongst those who write on matters of crime, but amongst those who investigate it.’

Wishing to avoid an hysterical scene, Inspector Swallow left the world of conjecture conjured up by his colleague, and returned to the world of fact.

‘Tell me, Miss Collins,’ he began suavely, ‘what did you do last night?’

‘I went out to dinner with the others. You can soon find out whether that’s true or not.’

‘I have already done so.’

Sandra was openly weeping now.

‘I didn’t kill her, Inspector,’ she sobbed, ‘… my own mother … You can’t say I did.’

‘Which at the moment of speaking is perfectly true,’ grunted Mr Verity, blowing a smoke-ring.

‘Oh, you’re impossible,’ she cried, and with the tears pouring down her face hurried from the room.

‘Mr Verity, I don’t like this case,’ Swallow said when they were alone. ‘All of them had motives for killing her, yet none of them could have done it.’

Mr Verity beamed.

‘Don’t let it prey on you. 10.30 to 11 o’clock is the time to keep in mind. Surely we can punch a hole in one of their well-rehearsed narratives.’

‘It seems impossible. They were all over at Colonel Longford’s between 7.30 p.m. and 1 a.m. He lives twelve miles from here and there was absolutely no opportunity for one of them to take an unnoticed hour off, to drive back here, do the murder and drive back again. I checked up on it and no one left. Besides, the excellent Nurse Wimple was on duty in the passage outside Mrs Carmichael’s room the whole night, so no one could have got in.’

Mr Verity looked glum.

‘Oh lord! Not another locked room. My last locked-room case was a shattering business … all centring round some dreadful woman in a wardrobe. Besides, the excellent Wimple probably spent half the night dreaming she was in the arms of Tarzan.’

‘I’m afraid she claims all-night consciousness. And, further, she had no motive to kill the old lady.’

‘Of course she didn’t do it. If she had, she would have taken good care to provide herself with an alibi.’ The old detective yawned. ‘Come, Inspector, adjourn with me to the local hostelry. A pint or two of good ale, a cigar and a little light discussion on the terra-cotta work of Antonio Pollaiulo will do wonders for our tired brains.’

The next morning Inspector Swallow, calling on Mr Verity, found him in a state of high excitement.

‘Here, Inspector, look at this. Interesting, eh?’

He pointed with a well-manicured forefinger at the centre-page advertisement in the morning’s copy of the Daily Grind. It showed two photographs of Mrs Carmichael ‘Before and After Taking Toneup, the wonderful restorative for Invalids … “I felt absolutely washed out until I started taking Toneup,” says Mrs Carmichael, a chronic invalid of Delver Park …’

‘Yes, I know all about it.’ Inspector Swallow said. ‘It was Mrs Carmichael’s idea. I asked her husband. He sent it off the same night she got killed. Just another manifestation of the invalid’s craving to be noticed, I suppose.’

‘I suppose so,’ Verity replied, thoughtfully brushing his Vandyke with the back of a huge hand. ‘But I wonder why she is looking so sour in the “After” photograph. It’s most curious. In this kind of picture the patient is always equipped with a smirk of imbecilic glee. Here she looks like a professional mourner.’

Swallow studied the ‘After’ picture in perplexity.

‘Maybe it’s the cigarette smoke getting in her eyes.’

Mr Verity took out a small pocket magnifying-glass and scrutinized the picture again.

‘You must excuse the Sherlock Holmes touch … Yes, that is another curious point. There is certainly plenty of cigarette smoke there. But where is the cigarette?’

‘I think I can barely see it … there between her fingers.’

Inspector Swallow pointed to a dark smudge on the picture.

‘That is very odd indeed. One might almost say it is the first real rift in the leaden clouds of deceit which have surrounded us since the start of our investigations.’

‘Do you think she was dead then?’

‘Certainly not. The doctor said she died between 10.30 and 11 o’clock, approximately six hours later. I never believe doctors on questions of health, but on questions of death I have always found them infallible. Besides, the maid up at Delver Park confirms she was alive at six o’clock. She helped carry her upstairs in the wheel-chair.’

Inspector Swallow ran a harassed hand through his thinning hair.

‘I don’t understand it at all, Mr Verity. A woman is murdered in a room where no one could have reached her without being seen, and at a time when everyone was miles away. What do we do now? What is the significance of this photograph, if any?’

‘It certainly is significant. In fact, it tells us everything.’

Mr Verity lit a Cuban cigar and looked dreamily in front of him.

‘You really must have patience, Inspector. As to what we are to do now, there is only one thing to do.’

‘And that is?’

‘We must pay a visit to the morgue … No, don’t ask why. You will see when we get there.’

They had to stand five minutes in the antiseptic half-light of the mortuary before the attendants had sorted out Mrs Carmichael. Nervously Swallow pulled back the sheet and studied the body intently.

‘Observe her right hand,’ murmured Verity over his shoulder.

The Inspector whistled, and the noise had a horrible flat ring in that desolate room.

‘She must have been a heavy smoker. The whole finger is stained with nicotine, and the flesh is badly scorched on the side there.’

Mr Verity’s satanic face wore a smug look.

‘Just so. Mrs Carmichael must have suffered a considerable amount of pain in allowing that cigarette to burn down to that point.’

‘She must have been asleep when her husband took that “After” picture,’ said Swallow.

‘Fiddlesticks,’ roared Verity. ‘She was unconscious.’

‘And just what is the point of shunting an unconscious woman around in a bath-chair, posing her for a personality picture, dumping her in bed and going off to a bridge party?’ the Inspector enquired, suddenly startled by the old man’s explosion.

‘The point should be obvious to an intelligence considerably meaner than yours, my dear Inspector. Come, I want to make a telephone call.’

‘To whom?’

‘To the station, of course. I want them to arrest our two murderers, and take them into custody. Come, don’t stand there as if you had been struck by lightning. I’m sure they must have a ’phone here; if not for the convenience of the inmates, at least for casual visitors.’

Whilst the Inspector saw that the body of Mrs Carmichael was safely returned, Mr Verity found the ’phone and got through to the police-station. His instructions were brief but effective.

Ten minutes later, after Mr Verity had meticulously examined some Corinthian-style pillaring which had caught his fancy on the exterior of the little town hall, the two detectives were speeding back to the police-station in the Inspector’s car.

‘After all, we don’t want to keep our prisoners waiting,’ Mr Verity explained as he urged his colleague to exceed the speed limit. Inspector Swallow, his mind in a baffled whirl, drove steadily.

Once at the station, Mr Verity jumped out of the car with all the deftness of a rhinoceros in labour, and charged inside.

‘Well, where are they?’ he enquired of a constable behind the desk.

‘Waiting inside, sir.’

Next door sat Robert Carmichael and Nurse Stephens, white-faced and very angry.

‘You’ll pay for this, Verity,’ Carmichael roared. ‘False imprisonment. I’ll get £10,000 damages.’

‘The only damage you’ll get is to your neck,’ the old man replied benignly.

‘You can’t prove a thing. On your own evidence, the murder was done between 10.30 and 11 o’clock. Nurse Stephens and I were miles away at the time. I have half a dozen witnesses.’

‘Saving your presence, Nurse Stephens, I wouldn’t give a damn if you had the whole population of Central London as witnesses. You may have been miles away when your wife died, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t murder her. You ran the whole job up between you—a very natural alliance seeing that you planned to carry the partnership on to the legalised sex level when the obstacle was safely in her coffin.’

‘This is absurd,’ screamed Nurse Stephens. ‘Supposing you prove it.’

‘I can do that, too,’ Mr Verity replied, taking a deep puff at his cigar and exhaling slowly. ‘From the burn on Mrs Carmichael’s finger, I was convinced that at the time you took that photograph your wife was unconscious. Therefore some drug was suggested and at the same time a wonderful opportunity for administering the stuff—Mrs Carmichael’s medicine.

‘What happened was this. Nurse Stephens slipped an overdose of some suitable narcotic, probably chloral hydrate, into the medicine, and though the victim lost consciousness within half an hour she did not die until close on 11 o’clock. What simpler than for your nurse to come along in the morning and drive a thin implement through her head, the idea being to make it look as if Mrs Carmichael had been murdered at 11 o’clock, the time of death, when she and her accomplice were twelve miles away playing bridge. A very thin weapon, even if it had been used when the victim was alive, would cause so very little blood that Doctor Hendrikson was unable to tell that the wound was inflicted after death. Again, a drug like chloral hydrate would not be suspected if there were other evidence to account for death, like a wound in the temple. Ingenious and all well within a qualified nurse’s knowledge.

‘It really was very foolish of you, Mr Carmichael, to give way to your macabre egotism and put a picture of your dying wife in the newspaper with a caption plugging her superb health. It wasn’t really necessary to prove that she was alive at five o’clock. There was plenty of independent testimony on this point. On the other hand, it clearly showed me the way to your conviction … You can lock them up now, Sergeant.’

Protesting, they were led below. Inspector Swallow came up to the old man and held his hand out.

‘Many congratulations, Mr Verity. I should never have guessed.’

‘Nonsense, my dear fellow,’ he replied, pumping the other’s hand. ‘No guesswork was required. You would have got there if you had thought about it long enough … Perhaps you will lunch with me so that we may talk of other and pleasanter things? I suggest you join me at “The Stag” at one o’clock. I must first pay a brief visit to your local museum. I have heard they possess a quite excellent bronze of Antonio Rizzo; a Venetian youth, I believe. See you at lunch.’

Inspector Swallow watched him go down the street, still gesticulating wildly, his small beard and the smoke from his cigar being blown about by the wind, and disappear round the corner into the High Street. With a shake of his head he returned inside to the comparative calm of the police-station.