Appleby Talking (15 page)

There was a moment’s silence. Sir David Evans’ fixed expression of benevolence had never wavered. “Pad passions,” he said. “Look you, Mr Appleby, there is pad passions in that man.”

Albert was pottering gloomily among his cadaver-racks. His massive frame gave a jump as Appleby entered; it was clear that he was not in full possession of that placid repose which ex-policemen should enjoy.

Appleby looked round with brisk interest. “Nice place you have here,” he said. “Everything convenient and nicely thought out.”

The first expression on Albert’s face had been strongly disapproving. But at this he perceptibly relaxed. “Ball-bearing,” he said huskily. “Handles them like lambs.” He pushed back a steel shutter and proudly drew out a rack and its contents. “Nicely developed gal,” he said appreciatively. “Capital pelvis for child-bearing, she was going to have. Now, if you’ll just step over here I can show you one or two uncommonly interesting lower limbs.”

“Thank you – another time.” Appleby, though not unaccustomed to such places, had no aspirations towards connoisseurship. “I want your own story of what happened this morning.”

“Yes, sir.” From old professional habit Albert straightened up and stood at attention. “As you’ll know, there’s always been this bad be’aviour at the final lecture, so there was nothing out of the way in that. But then the lights went out, and they started throwing things, and something ’it me ’ard on the shins.”

“Hard?” said Appleby. “I doubt if that could have been anything thrown from the theatre.”

“No more do I.” Albert was emphatic. “It was someone came in through the doors the moment the lights went out and got me down with a regular Rugby tackle. Fair winded I was, and lost my bearings as well.”

“So it was some little time before you managed to get to the switch, which is just outside the swing doors. And in that time Professor Finlay was killed and substituted for the cadaver, and the cadaver was got clean away. Would you say that was a one-man job?”

“No, sir, I would not. Though – mind you – that body ’ad only to be carried across a corridor and out into the courtyard. Anyone can ’ave a car waiting there, so the rest would be easy enough.”

Appleby nodded. “The killing of Finlay, and the laying him out like that, may have been a sheer piece of macabre drama, possibly conceived and executed by a lunatic – or even by an apparently sane man with some specific obsession regarding corpses. But can you see any reason why such a person should actually carry off the original corpse? It meant saddling himself with an uncommonly awkward piece of evidence.”

“You can’t ever tell what madmen will do. And as for corpses, there are more people than you would reckon what ’as uncommon queer interests in them at times.” And Albert shook his head. “I seen things,” he added.

“No doubt you have. But have you seen anything just lately? Was there anything that might be considered as leading up to this shocking affair?”

Albert hesitated. “Well, sir, in this line wot I come down to since they retired me it’s not always possible to up’old the law. In fact, it’s sometimes necessary to circumvent it, like. For, as the late professor was given to remarking, science must be served.” Albert paused and tapped his cadaver-racks. “Served with these ’ere. And of late we’ve been uncommon short. And there’s no doubt that now and then him and me was stretching a point.”

“Good heavens!” Appleby was genuinely alarmed. “This affair is bad enough already. You don’t mean to say that it’s going to lead to some further scandal about body-snatching?”

“Nothing like that, sir.” But as he said this Albert looked doubtful. “Nothing
quite
like that. They comes from institutions, you know. And nowadays they ’as to be got to sign papers. It’s a matter of tact. Sometimes relatives comes along afterwards and says there been too much tact by a long way. It’s not always easy to know just how much tact you can turn on. There’s no denying but we’ve ’ad one or two awkwardnesses this year. And it’s my belief as ’ow this sad affair is just another awkwardness – but more violent like than the others.”

“It was violent, all right.” Appleby had turned and led the way into the deserted theatre. Flowers still strewed it. There was a mingled smell of lilies and formalin. Overhead, the single great lamp was like a vast all-seeing eye. But that morning the eye had blinked. And what deed of darkness had followed?

“The professor was killed and laid out like that, sir, as an act of revenge by some barmy and outraged relation. And the cadaver was carried off by that same relation as what you might call an act of piety.”

“Well, it’s an idea.” Appleby was strolling about, measuring distances with his eye. “But what about this particular body upon which Finlay was going to demonstrate?
Had
it outraged any pious relations?”

“It only come in yesterday. Quite unprepared it was to be, you see – the same as hanatomists ’ad them in the sixteenth century. Very interesting the late professor was on all that. And why all them young varmints of students should take this partikler occasion to fool around–”

“Quite so. It was all in extremely bad taste, I agree. And I don’t doubt that the Coroner will say so. And an Assize Judge too, if we have any luck. But you were going to tell me about this particular corpse.”

“I was saying it only come in yesterday. And it was after that that somebody tried to break into the cadaver-racks. Last night, they did – and not a doubt of it. Quite professional, too. If this whole part of the building, sir, weren’t well-nigh like a strong-room they’d have done it, without a doubt. And when the late professor ’eard of it ’e was as worried as I was. Awkwardnesses we’ve ’ad. But body-snatching in reverse, as you might say, was a new one on us both.”

“So you think that the outraged and pious relation had an earlier shot, in the programme for which murder was not included? I think it’s about time we hunted him up.”

Albert looked sorely perplexed. “And so it would be – if we knew where to find him. But it almost seems as if there never was a cadaver with less in the way of relations than this one wot ’as caused all the trouble. A fair ideal cadaver it seemed to be. You don’t think, now” – Albert was frankly inconsequent – “that it might ’ave been an accident? You don’t think it might ’ave been one of them young varmint’s jokes gone a bit wrong?”

“I do not.”

“But listen, sir.” Albert was suddenly urgent. “Suppose there was a plan like this. The lights was to be put out and a great horrid dagger thrust into the cadaver. That would be quite like one of their jokes, believe me. For on would go the lights again and folk would get a pretty nasty shock. But now suppose – just suppose, sir – that when the lights were put out for that there purpose there came into the professor’s head the notion of a joke of his own. He would change places with the cadaver–”

“But the man wasn’t mad!” Appleby was staring at the late Professor Finlay’s assistant in astonishment. “Anything so grotesque–”

“He done queer things before now.” Albert was suddenly stubborn. “It would come on him sometimes to do something crazier than all them young fools could cudgel their silly brains after. And then the joke would come first and decency second. I seen some queer things at final lectures before this. And that would mean that the varmint thinking to stick the dagger in the cadaver would stick it in the late professor instead.”

“I see.” Appleby was looking at Albert with serious admiration; the fellow didn’t look very bright – nevertheless his days in the Force should have been spent in the detective branch. “It’s a better theory than we’ve had yet, I’m bound to say. But it leaves out two things: the disappearance of the original body, and the fact that Finlay was stabbed from behind. For if he did substitute himself for the body it would have been in the same position – a supine position, and not a prone one. So I don’t think your notion will do. And, anyway, we must have all the information about the cadaver that we can get.”

“It isn’t much.” Albert bore the discountenance of his hypothesis well. “We don’t know much more about ’im than this – that ’e was a seafaring man.”

The cadaver, it appeared, had at least possessed a name: James Cass. He had also possessed a nationality, for his seaman’s papers declared him to be a citizen of the United States, and that his next-of-kin was a certain Martha Cass, with an indecipherable address in Seattle, Washington. For some years he had been sailing pretty constantly in freighters between England and America. Anybody less likely to bring down upon the Anatomy Department of Nessfield University the vengeance of outraged and pious relations it would have been difficult to conceive. And the story of Cass’ death and relegation to the service of science was an equally bare one. He had come off his ship and was making his way to an unknown lodging when he had been knocked down by a tram and taken to the casualty ward of Nessfield Infirmary. There he had been visited by the watchful Albert, who had surreptitiously presented him with a flask of gin, receiving in exchange Cass’ signature to a document bequeathing his remains for the purposes of medical science. Cass had then died, and his body had been delivered at the Anatomy School.

And, after that, somebody had ruthlessly killed Professor Finlay and then carried James Cass’ body away again. Stripped of the bewildering nonsense of the final lecture, thought Appleby, the terms of the problem were fairly simple. And yet that nonsense, too, was relevant. For it had surely been counted upon in the plans of the murderer.

For a few minutes Appleby worked with a stop-watch. Then he turned once more to Albert. “At the moment,” he said, “Cass himself appears to be something of a dead end. So now, let us take the lecture – or the small part of it that Finlay had got through before the lights went out. You were a witness of it – and a trained police witness, which is an uncommonly fortunate thing. I want you to give me every detail you can – down to the least squawk or flutter by that damned vulture.”

Albert was gratified, and did as he was bid. Appleby listened, absorbed. Only once a flicker passed over his features. But when Albert was finished he had some questions to ask.

“There was the audience,” he said, “–if audience is the right name for it. Apparently all sorts of people were accustomed to turn up?”

“All manner of unlikely and unsuitable folk.” Albert looked disgusted. “Though most of them would be medical, one way or another. As you can imagine, sir, a demonstration of a sixteenth-century dissecting technique isn’t every layman’s fancy.”

“It certainly wouldn’t be mine.”

“I couldn’t put a name to a good many of them. But there was Dr Holroyd, whom you’ll have met, sir; he’s our professor of Human Physiology. Went away early, he did; and looking mighty disgusted, too. Then there was Dr Wesselman, the lecturer in Prosthetics – an alien, he is, and not been in Nessfield many years. He brought a friend I never had sight of before. And out they went too.”

“Well, that’s very interesting. And can you recall anyone else?”

“I don’t know that I can, sir. Except of course our Vice-Chancellor, Sir David Evans.”

Appleby jumped. “Evans! But he swore to me that–”

Albert smiled indulgently. “Bless you, that’s his regular way. Did you ever know a Welshman who could let a day pass without a bit of ’armless deceit like?”

“There may be something in that.”

“’E don’t think it dignified, as you might say, to attend the final lecture openly. But more often than not he’s up there at the far doorway, peering in at the fun. Well, this time ’e ’ad more than ’e bargained for.”

“No doubt he had. And the same prescription might be good for some of the rest of us.” Appleby paused and glanced quickly round the empty theatre. “Just step to a telephone, will you, and ask Dr Holroyd to come over here.”

Albert did as he was asked, and presently the physiologist came nervously in. “Is another interview really necessary?” he demanded. “I have a most important–”

“We shall hope not to detain you long.” Appleby’s voice was dry rather than reassuring. “It is merely that I want you to assist me in a reconstruction of the crime.”

Holroyd flushed. “And may I ask by what right you ask me to take part in such a foolery?”

Appleby suddenly smiled. “None, sir – none at all. I merely wanted a trained mind – and one with a pronounced instinct to get at the truth of a problem when it arises. I was sure you would be glad to help.”

“Perhaps I am. Anyway, go ahead.”

“Then I should be obliged if you would be the murderer. Perhaps I should say the first murderer, for it seems likely enough that there were at least two – accomplices. You have no objection to so disagreeable a part?”

Holroyd shrugged his shoulders. “Naturally, I have none whatever. But I fear I must be coached in it and given my cues. For I assure you it is a role entirely foreign to me. And I have no theatrical flair, as Sir David pointed out.”

Once more Appleby brought out his stop-watch. “Albert,” he said briskly, “shall be the cadaver, and I shall be Finlay standing in front of it. Your business is to enter by the back, switch off the light, step into the theatre and there affect to stab me. I shall fall to the floor. You must then dislodge Albert, hoist me into his place and cover me with the tarpaulin. Then you must get hold of Albert by the legs or shoulders and haul him from the theatre.”

“And all this in the dark? It seems a bit of a programme.”

Appleby nodded. “I agree with you. But we shall at least discover if it is at all possible of accomplishment by one man in the time available. So are you ready?”

“One moment, sir.” Albert, about to assume the passive part of the late James Cass, sat up abruptly. “You seem to have missed me out. Me as I was, that is to say.”

“Quite true.” Appleby looked at him thoughtfully. “We are short of a stand-in for you as you were this morning. But I shall stop off being Finlay’s body and turn on the lights again myself. So go ahead.”

Albert lay down and drew the tarpaulin over his head. Holroyd slipped out. Appleby advanced as if to address an audience. “Now,” he said.