Death on the Air (3 page)

Death on the Air
was first published in
Grand Magazine
, 1936

O
n the 25th of December at 7.30 a.m. Mr Septimus Tonks was found dead beside his wireless set.

It was Emily Parks, an under-housemaid, who discovered him. She butted open the door and entered, carrying mop, duster, and carpet-sweeper. At that precise moment she was greatly startled by a voice that spoke out of the darkness.

‘Good morning, everybody,' said the voice in superbly inflected syllables, ‘and a Merry Christmas!'

Emily yelped, but not loudly, as she immediately realized what had happened. Mr Tonks had omitted to turn off his wireless before going to bed. She drew back the curtains, revealing a kind of pale murk which was a London Christmas dawn, switched on the light, and saw Septimus.

He was seated in front of the radio. It was a small but expensive set, specially built for him. Septimus sat in an armchair, his back to Emily and his body tilted towards the wireless.

His hands, the fingers curiously bunched, were on the ledge of the cabinet under the tuning and volume knobs. His chest rested against the shelf below and his head leaned on the front panel.

He looked rather as though he was listening intently to the interior secrets of the wireless. His head was bent so that Emily could see the bald top with its trail of oiled hairs. He did not move.

‘Beg pardon, sir,' gasped Emily. She was again greatly startled. Mr Tonks' enthusiasm for radio had never before induced him to tune in at seven thirty in the morning.

‘Special Christmas service,' the cultured voice was saying. Mr Tonks sat very still. Emily, in common with the other servants, was terrified of her master. She did not know
whether to go or to stay. She gazed wildly at Septimus and realized that he wore a dinner-jacket. The room was now filled with the clamour of pealing bells.

Emily opened her mouth as wide as it would go and screamed and screamed and screamed…

Chase, the butler, was the first to arrive. He was a pale, flabby man but authoritative. He said: ‘What's the meaning of this outrage?' and then saw Septimus. He went to the armchair, bent down, and looked into his master's face.

He did not lose his head, but said in a loud voice: ‘My Gawd!' And then to Emily: ‘Shut your face.' By this vulgarism he betrayed his agitation. He seized Emily by the shoulders and thrust her towards the door, where they were met by Mr Hislop, the secretary, in his dressing-gown.

Mr Hislop said: ‘Good heavens, Chase, what is the meaning—' and then his voice too was drowned in the clamour of bells and renewed screams.

Chase put his fat white hand over Emily's mouth.

‘In the study if you please, sir. An accident. Go to your room, will you, and stop that noise or I'll give you something to make you.' This to Emily, who bolted down the hall, where she was received by the rest of the staff who had congregated there.

Chase returned to the study with Mr Hislop and locked the door. They both looked down at the body of Septimus Tonks. The secretary was the first to speak.

‘But – but – he's dead,' said little Mr Hislop.

‘I suppose there can't be any doubt,' whispered Chase.

‘Look at the face. Any doubt! My God!'

Mr Hislop put out a delicate hand towards the bent head and then drew it back. Chase, less fastidious, touched one of the hard wrists, gripped, and then lifted it. The body at once tipped backwards as if it was made of wood. One of the hands knocked against the butler's face. He sprang back with an oath.

There lay Septimus, his knees and his hands in the air, his
terrible face turned up to the light. Chase pointed to the right hand. Two fingers and the thumb were slightly blackened.

Ding, dong, dang, ding,

‘For God's sake stop those bells,' cried Mr Hislop. Chase turned off the wall switch. Into the sudden silence came the sound of the door handle being rattled and Guy Tonks' voice on the other side.

‘Hislop! Mr Hislop! Chase! What's the matter?'

‘Just a moment, Mr Guy.' Chase looked at the secretary. ‘You go, sir.'

So it was left to Mr Hislop to break the news to the family. They listened to his stammering revelation in stupefied silence. It was not until Guy, the eldest of the three children, stood in the study that any practical suggestion was made.

‘What has killed him?' asked Guy.

‘It's extraordinary,' burbled Hislop. ‘Extraordinary. He looks as if he'd been—'

‘Galvanized,' said Guy.

‘We ought to send for a doctor,' suggested Hislop timidly.

‘Of course. Will you, Mr Hislop? Dr Meadows.'

Hislop went to the telephone and Guy returned to his family. Dr Meadows lived on the other side of the square and arrived in five minutes. He examined the body without moving it. He questioned Chase and Hislop. Chase was very voluble about the burns on the hand. He uttered the word ‘electrocution' over and over again.

‘I had a cousin, sir, that was struck by lightning. As soon as I saw the hand—'

‘Yes, yes,' said Dr Meadows. ‘So you said. I can see the burns for myself.'

‘Electrocution,' repeated Chase. ‘There'll have to be an inquest.'

Dr Meadows snapped at him, summoned Emily, and then saw the rest of the family – Guy, Arthur, Phillipa, and their mother. They were clustered round a cold grate in the drawing room. Phillipa was on her knees, trying to light the fire.

‘What was it?' asked Arthur as soon as the doctor came in.

‘Looks like electric shock. Guy, I'll have a word with you if you please. Phillipa, look after your mother, there's a good child. Coffee with a dash of brandy. Where are those damn maids? Come on, Guy.'

Alone with Guy, he said they'd have to send for the police.

‘The police!' Guy's dark face turned very pale. ‘Why? What's it got to do with them?'

‘Nothing, as like as not, but they'll have to be notified. I can't give a certificate as things are. If it's electrocution, how did it happen?'

‘But the police!' said Guy. ‘That's simply ghastly. Dr Meadows, for God's sake couldn't you—?'

‘No,' said Dr Meadows, ‘I couldn't. Sorry, Guy, but there it is.'

‘But can't we wait a moment? Look at him again. You haven't examined him properly.'

‘I don't want to move him, that's why. Pull yourself together, boy. Look here. I've got a pal in the CID – Alleyn. He's a gentleman and all that. He'll curse me like a fury, but he'll come if he's in London, and he'll make things easier for you. Go back to your mother. I'll ring Alleyn up.'

That was how it came about that Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn spent his Christmas Day in harness. As a matter of fact he was on duty, and as he pointed out to Dr Meadows, would have had to turn out and visit his miserable Tonkses in any case. When he did arrive it was with his usual air of remote courtesy. He was accompanied by a tall, thickset officer – Inspector Fox – and by the divisional police surgeon, Dr Meadows took them into the study. Alleyn, in his turn, looked at the horror that had been Septimus.

‘Was he like this when he was found?'

‘No. I understand he was leaning forward with his hands on the ledge of the cabinet. He must have slumped forward and been propped up by the chair arms and the cabinet.'

‘Who moved him?'

‘Chase, the butler. He said he only meant to raise the arm.
Rigor
is well established.'

Alleyn put his hand behind the rigid neck and pushed. The body fell forward into its original position.

‘There you are, Curtis,' said Alleyn to the divisional surgeon. He turned to Fox. ‘Get the camera man, will you, Fox?'

The photographer took four shots and departed. Alleyn marked the position of the hands and feet with chalk, made a careful plan of the room and then turned to the doctors.

‘Is it electrocution, do you think?'

‘Looks like it,' said Curtis. ‘Have to be a p.m. of course.'

‘Of course. Still, look at the hands. Burns. Thumb and two fingers bunched together and exactly the distance between the two knobs apart. He'd been tuning his hurdy-gurdy.'

‘By gum,' said Inspector Fox, speaking for the first time.

‘D'you mean he got a lethal shock from his radio?' asked Dr Meadows.

‘I don't know. I merely conclude he had his hands on the knobs when he died.'

‘It was still going when the housemaid found him. Chase turned it off and got no shock.'

‘Yours, partner,' said Alleyn, turning to Fox. Fox stooped down to the wall switch.

‘Careful,' said Alleyn.

‘I've got rubber soles,' said Fox, and switched it on. The radio hummed, gathered volume, and found itself.

‘No-oel, No-o-el,' it roared. Fox cut it off and pulled out the wall plug.

‘I'd like to have a look inside this set,' he said.

‘So you shall, old boy, so you shall,' rejoined Alleyn. ‘Before you begin, I think we'd better move the body. Will you see to that, Meadows? Fox, get Bailey, will you? He's out in the car.'

Curtis, Hislop, and Meadows carried Septimus Tonks into a spare downstairs room. It was a difficult and horrible business with that contorted body. Dr Meadows came back alone,
mopping his brow, to find Detective-Sergeant Bailey, a fingerprint expert, at work on the wireless cabinet.

‘What's all this?' asked Dr Meadows. ‘Do you want to find out if he'd been fooling round with the innards?'

‘He,' said Alleyn, ‘or – somebody else.'

‘Umph!' Dr Meadows looked at the Inspector. ‘You agree with me, it seems. Do you suspect—?'

‘Suspect? I'm the least suspicious man alive. I'm merely being tidy. Well, Bailey?'

‘I've got a good one off the chair arm. That'll be the deceased's, won't it, sir?'

‘No doubt. We'll check up later. What about the wireless?'

Fox, wearing a glove, pulled off the knob of the volume control.

‘Seems to be OK,' said Bailey. ‘It's a sweet bit of work. Not too bad at all, sir.' He turned his torch into the back of the radio, undid a couple of screws underneath the set, and lifted out the works.

‘What's the little hole for?' asked Alleyn.

‘What's that, sir?' said Fox.

‘There's a hole bored through the panel above the knob. About an eighth of an inch in diameter. The rim of the knob hides it. One might easily miss it. Move your torch, Bailey. Yes. There, do you see?'

Fox bent down and uttered a bass growl. A fine needle of light came through the front of the radio.

‘That's peculiar, sir,' said Bailey from the other side. ‘I don't get the idea at all.'

Alleyn pulled out the tuning knob.

‘There's another one there,' he murmured. ‘Yes. Nice clean little holes. Newly bored. Unusual, I take it?'

‘Unusual's the word, sir,' said Fox.

‘Run away, Meadows,' said Alleyn.

‘Why the devil?' asked Dr Meadows indignantly. ‘What are you driving at? Why shouldn't I be here?'

‘You ought to be with the sorrowing relatives. Where's your corpse-side manner?'

‘I've settled them. What are you up to?'

‘Who's being suspicious now?' asked Alleyn mildly. ‘You may stay for a moment. Tell me about the Tonkses. Who are they? What are they? What sort of a man was Septimus?'

‘If you must know, he was a damned unpleasant sort of a man.'

‘Tell me about him.'

Dr Meadows sat down and lit a cigarette.

‘He was a self-made bloke,' he said, ‘as hard as nails and – well, coarse rather than vulgar.'

‘Like Dr Johnson perhaps?'

‘Not in the least. Don't interrupt. I've known him for twenty five years. His wife was a neighbour of ours in Dorset. Isabel Foreston. I brought the children into this vale of tears and, by jove, in many ways it's been one for them. It's an extraordinary household. For the last ten years Isabel's condition has been the sort that sends these psycho jokers dizzy with rapture. I'm only an out of date GP, and I'd just say she is in an advanced stage of hysterical neurosis. Frightened into fits of her husband.'

‘I can't understand these holes,' grumbled Fox to Bailey.

‘Go on, Meadows,' said Alleyn.

‘I tackled Sep about her eighteen months ago. Told him the trouble was in her mind. He eyed me with a sort of grin on his face and said: “I'm surprised to learn that my wife has enough mentality to—” But look here, Alleyn, I can't talk about my patients like this. What the devil am I thinking about.'

‘You know perfectly well it'll go no further unless—'

‘Unless what?'

‘Unless it has to. Do go on.'

But Dr Meadows hurriedly withdrew behind his professional rectitude. All he would say was that Mr Tonks had suffered from high blood pressure and a weak heart, that Guy was in his father's city office, that Arthur had wanted to study art and had been told to read for law, and that Phillipa wanted to go on the stage and had been told to do nothing of the sort.