Waiting for Orders (6 page)

‘And where, pray, was the body?’ inquired Mercer acidly.

‘On the floor at the back of Mrs Barrington’s car, with a rug covering it. They could not leave it among the trees, in case it should by chance be discovered. Barrington could not take it in his car. He had appointments to keep, and his car would be left in the road for long periods unattended. In the large municipal car park, Mrs Barrington’s car would be safe from inspection. There is only one attendant, and he is at the gate.

‘At half past five, I think, Mrs Barrington left the cinema, returned to her car, and drove to the Haywick Dunes, where she had arranged to meet her husband. High tide was at six o’clock. It must have been about then that they arranged to meet. It would be dusk then, too. And that place is very lonely and deserted. The chances of Barrington’s being seen as he carried the body to the water were small, I think. No doubt Mrs Barrington then drove back to Seabourne to make the necessary inquiries of her aunt’s friends. That is all, I think.’

There was silence for a moment. It was broken by the Inspector.

‘I don’t see where the furnace comes into it,’ he remarked.

‘The rug and the car mats would be soaked with blood, Inspector. Mrs Barrington would no doubt put them into the furnace after it had been banked-up for the night. Even such thick materials would be charred and destroyed, but they would put the fire out unless the dampers were also opened. Probably the niece of a rich aunt would not know much about furnaces.’

‘However,’ said Mercer sourly, ‘you have yet, Dr Czissar, to explain the presence of the locket on the beach. They might, assuming that this – this theory of yours is correct, have taken the locket from the body. But I refuse to believe that they would,
after
the disappearance of Mrs Fallon, have risked detection by planting the locket on the beach. The risks would have been enormous, even at night. If he had been caught with it, why – ’

‘Ah, yes. The locket.’ Dr Czissar smiled. ‘I read about police matters in so many newspapers, you know, that I sometimes forget things I have read, even if they interested me. There is so much crime, is there not? Even in law-abiding England.’ Was there, Mercer wondered, the faintest note of mockery in the fellow’s voice ? Confound him!

‘It was,’ said Dr Czissar, ‘something I saw the other day in a second-hand jeweller’s window that reminded me of the Barringtons.’

He put his hand in his pocket. It reappeared holding something that swung from a thin, yellow chain. It was a pinchbeck locket in the shape of a heart.

‘The jeweller said,’ went on Dr Czissar, ‘that these things were quite common. Out of date, he said. One can buy such a locket almost anywhere if one tries. Perhaps there was one bought in Seabourne or Haywick recently. It could have been put on the beach on the night before the murder. After all, it was Mrs Barrington, wasn’t it, who identified it as the particular locket that her aunt wore? Clever criminals are so stupid, are they not?’

He looked at his watch. ‘I suggest also that you find out if Barrington purchased the new car mats and rug before or after the murder, and if anyone saw his wife driving towards Haywick on the fourth. And a detailed account of Barrington’s movements after half past five would, no doubt, provide you with more of the evidence you need for a conviction.’

He got suddenly to his feet. ‘But I must really be going. So kind of you. Enchanted. Enchanted.’

Mercer, in a daze, found himself returning once more the stiff little bow and the blank, cow-like stare. Then Dr Czissar was gone.

‘Phew!’ said the Inspector loudly. ‘I thought – ’

Mercer pulled himself together. ‘I’ll see you later, Denton,’ he said sharply. ‘Sergeant, see if you can find me some aspirin for this cold of mine.’

The door closed again and Mercer was alone.

He waited for a moment, staring hopelessly at the untouched pile of work in front of him. Then he drew a deep breath and picked up the telephone.

‘I want, he said, ‘to speak to the Chief Constable of Wessex.’

A
SSISTANT
-C
OMMISSIONER
Mercer stared without speaking at the card which Sergeant Flecker had placed before him.

There was no address: simply –

It was an inoffensive-looking card. An onlooker, who knew only that Dr Czissar was a refugee Czech, with a brilliant record of service in the criminal investigation department of the Prague police, would have been surprised at the expression of almost savage dislike that spread slowly over the Assistant-Commissioner’s healthy face.

Yet, had the same onlooker known the circumstances of Mercer’s first encounter with Dr Czissar, he would not have been so surprised. Just one week had elapsed since Dr Czissar had appeared out of the blue with a letter of introduction from the almighty Sir Herbert at the Home Office, and Mercer was still smarting as a result of the meeting. No man, least of all a man in charge of a criminal investigation, likes to be told, even very politely, that he doesn’t know his job. When the teller not only tells, but proceeds to prove that he is right, pride is damaged. Mercer’s expression can be excused.

Sergeant Flecker had seen and interpreted the expression. Now he spoke. ‘Out, Sir?’

Mercer looked up sharply. ‘No, Sergeant. In, but too busy!’ he snapped, and got on with his work.

Half an hour later Mercer’s telephone rang.

‘Sir Herbert to speak to you from the Home Office, Sir,’ said the male operator.

After a long and, to Mercer, extremely irritating interval, Sir Herbert came through.

‘Hello, Mercer, is that you? I say, what’s this I hear about your refusing to see Dr Czissar?’

Mercer jumped, but managed to pull himself together. ‘I did not refuse to see him, Sir Herbert,’ he said. ‘I sent down a message that I was too busy to see him.’

Sir Herbert snorted. ‘Now look here, Mercer. I happen to know that it was Dr Czissar who spotted those Seabourne murderers for you. Not blaming you personally, of course, and I don’t propose to mention the matter to the Commissioner. You can’t be right every time. We all know that as an organization there’s nothing to touch Scotland Yard. My point is, Mercer, that you fellows ought not to be above learning a thing or two from a foreign expert. We don’t want any of this professional jealousy. Of course’ – there was a significant little pause – ‘if you feel that it’s a bit irregular, I can have a word with the Commissioner.’

If it were possible to speak coherently through clenched teeth, Mercer would have done so. ‘There’s no question of professional jealousy, Sir Herbert. I was, as Dr Czissar was informed, busy when he called. If he will write in for an appointment, I shall be pleased to see him.’

‘Good man,’ said Sir Herbert cheerfully. ‘But we don’t want any of this red-tape business about writing in. He’s in my office now. I’ll send him over. He’s particularly anxious to have a word with you about this Brock Park case. Goodbye.’

Mercer replaced the telephone carefully. He knew that if he had replaced it as he felt like replacing it, the entire instrument would have been smashed. For a moment or two he sat quite still. Then, suddenly, he snatched the telephone up again.

‘Inspector Cleat, please.’ He waited. ‘Is that you, Cleat?… Is the Commissioner in? … I see. Well, you might ask him as soon as he comes in if he could spare me a minute or two. It’s urgent. Right.’

He hung up again, feeling a little better. If Sir Herbert could have words with the Commissioner, so could he. The old man could be a devil, but he wouldn’t stand for his subordinates
being humiliated, insulted and – yes, that was the word – blackmailed by pettifogging politicians. Meanwhile, however, this precious Dr Czissar wanted to talk about the Brock Park case. Right! Let him! He wouldn’t be able to pull
that
to pieces. It was absolutely watertight. He picked up the file on the case. Yes, absolutely watertight.

Three years previously Thomas Medley, a widower of sixty with two adult children, had married Helena Murlin, a woman of forty-two. The four had since lived together in a large house in the London suburb of Brock Park. Medley, who had amassed a comfortable fortune on the Baltic Exchange, had retired from business shortly before his second marriage and had devoted most of his time since to his hobby, gardening. Helena Murlin was an artist, a landscape painter, and in Brock Park it was whispered that her pictures sold for large sums. She dressed both fashionably and smartly, and was disliked by her neighbours. Harold Medley, the son, aged twenty-five, was a medical student at a London hospital. His sister, Janet, was three years younger, and as dowdy as her stepmother was smart.

In the early October of that year, and as a result of an extra-heavy meal, Thomas Medley had retired to bed with a bilious attack. Such attacks had not been unusual. He had had an enlarged liver and had been normally dyspeptic. His doctor had prescribed in the usual way. On his third day in bed the patient had been considerably better. On the fourth day, however, at about four in the afternoon, he had been seized with violent abdominal pains, persistent vomiting, and severe cramps in the muscles of his legs.

These symptoms had persisted for three days, on the last of which there had been tetanic convulsions. He had died that night. The doctor had certified the death as being due to gastroenteritis. The dead man’s estate had amounted to roughly £110,000. Half of it went to his wife. The remainder was divided equally between his two children.

A week after the funeral the police had received an anonymous letter suggesting that Medley had been poisoned. Subsequently they had received two further letters. Information had then reached them that several residents in Brock Park had received similar letters and that the matter was the subject of
gossip. Medley’s doctor had been approached later. He had reasserted that the death had been due to gastroenteritis, but confessed that the possibility of the condition having been brought about by the wilful administration of poison had not occurred to him. The body had been exhumed by licence of the Home Secretary and an autopsy performed. No traces of poison had been found in the stomach; but in the liver, kidneys, and spleen a total of 1.751 grains of arsenic had been found.

Inquiries had established that on the day on which the poisoning symptoms had appeared, the deceased had had a small luncheon consisting of breast of chicken, spinach (tinned), and one potato.

The cook had partaken of spinach from the same tin without suffering any ill effects. After his luncheon, Medley had taken a dose of the medicine prescribed for him by the doctor. It had been mixed with water for him by his son, Harold.

Evidence had been obtained from a servant that, a fortnight before the death, Harold had asked his father for £100 to settle a racing debt. He had been refused. Inquiries had revealed that Harold had lied. He had been secretly married for nearly six months, and the money had been needed not to pay racing debts, but for his wife, who was about to have a child.

The case against Harold had been conclusive. He had needed money desperately. He had quarrelled with his father. He had known that he was the heir to a quarter of his father’s estate. As a medical student in a hospital, he had been in a position to obtain arsenic. The time at which symptoms of poisoning had appeared had shown that the arsenic must have been administered at about the time the medicine had been taken. It had been the first occasion on which Harold had prepared his father’s medicine.

The coroner’s jury had boggled at indicting him in their verdict, but he had later been arrested and was now on remand.

Mercer sat back in his chair. A watertight case. Sentences began to form in his mind. This Dr Czissar, Sir Charles, is merely a time-wasting crank. He’s a refugee, and his sufferings have probably unhinged him a little. If you could put the matter to Sir Herbert …’

And then, for the second time that afternoon Dr Czissar was announced.

Mercer, as it will have been noted, was an angry man that afternoon. Yet, as Dr Czissar came into the room, he became conscious of a curious feeling of friendliness towards him. It was not entirely the friendliness that one feels towards an enemy one is about to destroy. In his mind’s eye he had been picturing Dr Czissar as an ogre. Now Mercer saw that, with his cow-like eyes behind their thick pebble spectacles, his round, pale face, his drab grey raincoat, and his unfurled umbrella, Dr Czissar was, after all, merely pathetic. When, just inside the door, Dr Czissar stopped, clapped his umbrella to his side as if it were a rifle, and said loudly: ‘Dr Jan Czissar. Late Prague police. At your service,’ Mercer very nearly smiled.

Instead he said: ‘Sit down, Doctor. I’m sorry I was too busy to see you earlier.’

‘It is so good of you –’ began Dr Czissar earnestly.

‘Not at all, Doctor. You want, I hear, to compliment us on our handling of the Brock Park case.’

Dr Czissar blinked. ‘Oh, no, Assistant-Commissioner Mercer,’ he said anxiously. ‘I should like to compliment, but it is too early, I think. I do not wish to seem impolite, but …’

Mercer smiled complacently. ‘Oh, we shall convict our man all right, Doctor. I don’t think you need worry.’

‘Oh, but I do worry. You see – he is not guilty.’

Mercer hoped that the smile with which he greeted the statement did not reveal his secret exultation. He said blandly, ‘Are you aware, Doctor, of all the evidence?’

‘I attended the inquest,’ said Dr Czissar mournfully. ‘But there will be more evidence from the hospital, no doubt. This Mr Harold could have stolen enough arsenic to poison a regiment without the loss being discovered.’

The fact that the words had been taken out of his mouth disconcerted Mercer only slightly. He nodded.

A faint, thin smile stretched the Doctor’s full lips. He settled his glasses on his nose. Then he cleared his throat, swallowed hard, and leaned forward. ‘Attention, please!’ he said sharply.

For some reason that he could not fathom, Mercer felt his self-confidence ooze suddenly away. He had seen that same series of actions, ending with the peremptory demand for
attention, performed once before, and it had been the prelude to disaster, to humiliation, to … He pulled himself up sharply. The Brock Park case was watertight.