Swan Song (7 page)

‘Why, yes, sir, there was. Whether it was him or someone else that was responsible, they evidently knew what they were about.' Mudge paused, contemplating retrospectively, Adam fancied, the grammar of this sentence.

Sir Richard struck a match. ‘Go on,' he said, waving it encouragingly. It went out.

‘The inside of the rope was padded' – Mudge had fallen into a kind of sing-song which evidently he considered suitable to his recital – ‘with some old cotton stuff. And – well, that's really all, I suppose.'

‘
All?
' exclaimed Sir Richard. ‘Don't be ridiculous, Mudge. It can't be
all.
Who found the body? And when?'

‘It was found,' Mudge announced, ‘by Dr Shand.'

‘Shand?' Fen had been standing in front of the mirror, painting a large black moustache on his face. He now turned and exhibited the result. Elizabeth uttered a little squeal of delight. Fen frowned at her. ‘Shand's a reliable man, Dick,' he continued. ‘But what was he doing here in the middle of the night?'

‘For the Lord's sake, Gervase,' said Sir Richard, ‘stop
playing with the grease-paint . . . Yes, Mudge.' He turned to the Inspector. ‘What
was
he doing here in the middle of the night?'

‘He came here,' Mudge explained hurriedly, ‘in response to an urgent message from Shorthouse.'

‘Ah. You say “message from”. Who was responsible for the message?'

‘That's just it. He doesn't know. It was a phone message.'

‘This becomes interesting,' said Fen. He had applied removing-cream to his upper lip, and now looked as if he had been eating blancmange. ‘So Shand turned up here. When, by the by?'

‘About eleven-thirty. He came straight up here – up to the corridor outside, that is – and found Furbelow sitting in his bedroom opposite.'

‘But look here,' said Adam suddenly, ‘I was in the theatre last night.'

‘Oh, Adam, so you were,' said Elizabeth in frank admiration.

‘Good heavens, Adam, what were you doing?' Fen asked.

‘I was fetching my notecase. I left it in my dressing-room during the afternoon rehearsal, and then forgot it. There was a lot of money in it, and things tend to disappear from dressing-rooms, so I came back for it as soon as I remembered. I must say, I never dreamed Edwin Shorthouse was here at all, let alone dead. What an appalling thing.'

Mudge appeared to be suffering from some obscure emotional upheaval. ‘Now, sir,' he began, glancing uneasily at the Chief Constable, ‘I'm afraid I haven't quite grasped who you are–'

‘This is Adam Langley,' Fen said indistinctly through a towel, ‘who's singing the part of Walther in
Die Meistersinger
.'

‘The only first-rate tenor of reasonable girth,' Elizabeth added proudly, ‘in Europe.'

‘You fetched your notecase, sir. Very well. What time would this be?'

‘Oh . . . twenty or twenty-five past eleven, I should say.'

‘And your dressing-room is –?'

‘On the floor below this.'

‘Quite.' Mudge nodded sagaciously. ‘Now, did you do anything else while you were in the theatre?'

‘I went for a ride' – Adam spoke a little doubtfully – ‘in the lift.'

‘I beg your pardon, sir?'

‘I went for a ride in the lift,' Adam repeated more firmly. ‘I like lifts. They give me a queer feeling inside.'

‘I should have thought that for that very reason –'

‘A
pleasant
feeling, of course.' Adam explained what he had done. ‘I talked to Furbelow,' he concluded, and added irrelevantly: ‘Apparently he sits all evening with his door open because of the gases which are exuded by electric fires.'

‘Nonsense,' said Sir Richard with incisive common sense.

‘Did you meet anyone other than Furbelow during your visit here?' Mudge demanded.

‘No one. When I'd had my joy-ride, I went straight home . . . Oh, there's one thing, though. As I was leaving, I did see a car draw up outside the stage-door. But I dare say that would have been the doctor.'

Fen did not appear greatly interested by these haphazard recollections. ‘Well, that's enough of that,' he said brusquely. ‘Let's get back to Shand's arrival, and the discovery of the body.'

Mudge coughed, and adopted an attitude suggestive of the elocution-school. ‘Dr Shand opened the door' – he paused impressively – ‘and saw Shorthouse hanging from the spot which I indicated.' He indicated it again. ‘He immediately called to Furbelow, who as we know was in his bedroom opposite, and together they got the unfortunate gentleman down.

‘Now here is the point.' Mudge shook his index finger at them, admonishing, it seemed, their inattentiveness. ‘At this time Shorthouse was technically speaking still alive. That's to say that although breathing had stopped, his heart was still beating. I'm told that on occasions this happens in cases of judicial hanging. Dr Shand cut' – the Inspector consulted some kind of mental tablature – ‘a radial artery, and circulation was still going on. Of course it was impossible to revive the man – the heart stopped only a few moments after he'd been got down. And I understand that this business of the heart beating after death can only last for a very few minutes –
at most
.'

No one spoke. Sir Richard was applying a match to his pipe, the light of it flickering fitfully over his brown, lined face, with its iron-grey hair and moustache. Fen had stopped fidgeting, and was sitting on the edge of the dressing-table, his pale blue eyes intent, his usual fantastic naivety for the moment in abeyance. Elizabeth was seated, with Adam leaning on the back of her chair. Furbelow, near the doorway, shifted from one foot to the other. And in the midst of them stood the Inspector, like a minor devil enumerating the canons of hell to a coven of particularly obtuse witches.

‘So far, so good,' he went on. ‘And I'd ask you to notice that there was no one in here apart from Shorthouse when Dr Shand arrived. Being a sensible man, he took the precaution of making sure of this, but you can see for yourself that there isn't a hiding-place anywhere. Moreover, there's literally no way in or out except by the door.'

MUDGE SIGHED.
‘
WE
now come,' he said with obvious reluctance, ‘to Furbelow. It's on his evidence, so far as I can see, that the verdict for suicide must depend.
¹
Furbelow came up to his bedroom at a quarter to eleven. He settled down, as was his habit, with the door open.'

‘It's the gases,' said Furbelow, eyeing Sir Richard defensively.

Mudge ignored this. ‘At five to eleven,' he went on, ‘a certain individual arrived and, after knocking, entered this dressing-room. As far as we know at present, that individual was the last person to see Mr Shorthouse alive.'

‘Who was it?' Sir Richard demanded.

‘His identity we haven't yet discovered.' Mudge was apologetic. ‘Perhaps Mr Langley can help us there. A young man, as I gather, and a member of the chorus.'

‘Dark he was,' Furbelow supplied. ‘Dark and foreign looking.'

‘Oh, I think I know who you mean,' said Adam. ‘He's one of the apprentices. Boris somebody.'

‘You can't remember the surname, sir?'

‘I'm afraid not. But I can point him out to you as soon as we get another rehearsal – or for that matter Furbelow can.'

‘Very good, sir.' Mudge nodded his satisfaction. ‘As you'll find in a moment, it isn't as urgently important as it might at first seem . . . This young man, then, was in here for about ten minutes, and –'

‘Just one moment,' Fen interrupted. He turned to Furbelow. ‘Did you hear them talking?'

‘No, I didn't,' said Furbelow. ‘But then, likely I wouldn't ‘ave. These doors is thick.'

Mudge continued his narrative. ‘When the young man at last emerged from this room, at about five past eleven, Furbelow – ah – accosted him.'

‘I'm sorry,' said Fen, ‘but I must interrupt again . . . Furbelow, when the door of this dressing-room is open, can you see
into
it from your room?'

‘No sir. It's at a bit of an angle, like. I can just catch a glimpse of one corner, that's all.'

‘I see . . . Go ahead, Inspector.'

‘Furbelow,' said Mudge, ‘accompanied the young man down to the stage-door and said good night. He then immediately returned to his bedroom, and, looking at the clock on the mantelpiece saw that the time was ten minutes past eleven. He calculates that he can't have been away for more than three minutes at the most.'

‘That's right,' said Furbelow admiringly. It was evident that he regarded this account as a marvel of accurate recollection.

‘Finally,' Mudge announced climactically, ‘he's prepared to swear that no one entered or left this room from ten minutes past eleven until the arrival of Dr Shand at half-past.'

‘Did he watch the door,' Fen asked, ‘while he was talking to Adam?'

‘I 'ad it in the corner of me eye,' said Furbelow.

‘Anyway,' Adam interposed, ‘
I
can vouch for that half-minute or so. I should certainly have seen if anyone had gone in or come out – there was plenty of light from the door of Furbelow's room.'

A faint but unmistakable expression of pleasure appeared on Fen's ruddy countenance. ‘Two questions, Inspector,' he said. ‘First: was there a chair, or anything, from which Shorthouse could have jumped, if he committed suicide?'

‘Yes, sir. One of those tall stools they put in front of bars, so you can never get a drink for the people sitting on them. According to Furbelow, it came from the property room. It's been taken away to be tested for footmarks and fingerprints. It was lying on its side just by the body.'

‘Yes. And while we're on the subject of fingerprints, was there anything on that hook in the ceiling?'

‘Nothing you could identify. Just a few smudges.'

‘I see. Furbelow, did you hear a bump at any stage, such as might have been caused by the stool falling over?'

‘I did, sir.' Furbelow was markedly respectful. ‘Though I can't say I took any notice at the time.'

‘When was this?'

‘About five minutes before the doctor arrived, I'd say. Though I can't be sure whether it was before or after I spoke to Mr Langley.'

‘And one other thing. Inspector, you said you'd had a bottle of gin sent away to be analysed —'

‘And the dregs of a glass, Professor Fen. Yes. But that was just a matter of routine.'

‘What it all adds up to,' said Adam slowly, ‘is simply this: that Shorthouse must have committed suicide. This room was watched from ten past eleven onwards – and there was no one except Shorthouse in it when the doctor arrived. But on the medical evidence, it's
impossible
that Shorthouse could have been dead at ten past eleven. His heart certainly wouldn't have gone on beating for
twenty minutes
.'

‘Exactly, sir.' The Inspector was displaying something like confidence for the first time that morning. ‘Suicide, it seems to me, is the only possible verdict.'

‘I wish I could be sure of that.' Fen spoke almost to himself. ‘Because I have a vague idea –'

He was interrupted by a knock on the door, which Furbelow opened. A small, ecstatic man was revealed, bearing a brief-case. He rushed in – there is no other word for it – and beamed at everybody with unconcealed pleasure.

‘Well, here we are,' he announced, ‘laden with all the gory details. Oh, it's been a splendid job, I can tell you. So quick! Such neat incisions! Such meticulous tests!'

‘This is Dr Rashmole,' said Mudge helplessly to the company in general.

‘I'll be sitting here, I think,' said Dr Rashmole, seizing a chair with sufficient violence to suggest that he wished to frighten it into compliance and good behaviour. ‘Now, you'll be anxious to get down to it at once. I have here' – he fumbled in his brief-case –
‘as well as
the PM report, the analyst's report on the gin – what a livery drink, to be sure – and something about the clothes, which they gave me at the police station to bring along. How do you do?' he added to Elizabeth.

‘Very well, thank you,' said Elizabeth faintly.

‘First then' – Dr Rashmole had got out some type-written sheets – ‘the
Cause of Death
: dislocation of the second and third cervical vertebrae. That's the neck,' he explained charitably. ‘He got it in the neck. Well, well, no time for jests, no time for jests. The usual
post mortem
appearances – need I define them?'

‘No,' Sir Richard put in hastily. ‘No.'

‘Then quite evidently he took a quantity of some barbiturate drug before he died. Hyperaemia. Oedema of the brain. Degenerative changes in the convoluted tubules of the kidneys, and
cloudy swelling
of the liver. Tchk! Tchk!' Dr Rashmole shook his head in a deprecatory manner. ‘We think it's Nembutal, but we can't be certain until further tests have been made. It's a slow business, very slow and wearisome. And then again
it might be Soporigene. Does that seem more likely to you?'

‘As to that,' Mudge began feebly, but luckily Dr Rashmole gave him no chance to finish.

‘Well, we shall soon know,' he said. ‘Perhaps there's something about it in the report on the gin. The gen on the gin, as you might say. Well, well, scarcely the occasion for jokes, I suppose. Let's have a look at it.' He produced an envelope, ripped it open with one savage thrust, and pulled out the contents. ‘Ah. Nembutal it is. Three hundred grains in the bottle – what a quantity, what a quantity – and thirty in the dregs of the glass.'

‘In the bottle?' Fen put in sharply.

‘Exactly. Apparently the bottle was only a quarter full . . . Well, I must be off. I'll leave these papers with you.' And Dr Rashmole made for the door.