the purloined parure 14

 

Chapter 14

 

“You’re a bloody piece of work,” burst out Alec.

“The feeling is mutual,” said Alexander, coldly. “Personally, I sometimes wonder, when I meet people like you, why I spent four years in mud, degradation and filth under a hail of bullets for the freedom of people like you, who suffered one air raid and used the war to enrich yourself to the deprivation of the cadets and the possible detriment to the war effort. I think you should have been tried for treason and shot; but that’s only my personal opinion. I know that there wasn’t the evidence, and a man is innocent until proven guilty, but as I understand it, the lack of evidence was because those higher up the chain of command were also in it, and whitewashed you for fear of you talking. What I find despicable was your use of your son, who appears to have more moral scruples than you in that he has turned to drink to drown his guilt. And he’d do better to take a job helping the poor voluntarily rather than wasting his life, but again, that’s only my opinion. I despise most of your family from the bottom of my heart, but you still have the right to protection by the law, and as such, a killer amongst you needs to be found, before other members of the family are potential donators to someone’s inheritance. No, you hadn’t thought of that, had you? Should be glad that at least it isn’t a tontine, and you have the right to will the old women’s money any way you wish.”

“Well, really!” said Daphne. “We have never had anything to do with fairground people.”

“That’s a non sequitur if you like,” murmured Alexander.

“Fairground people? What are you on about, Daffy?” asked Arthur.

“Don’t call  me that!  Why, tontines, they’re something to do with fairground rides, aren’t they? Italian things. Or ice cream.”

“It was started by an Italian in the reign of Louis XIV of France, but it’s an investment scheme. A number of people pay into an investment, and receive interest, but when any dies, his share is divided amongst the others until all have died. They only ever get the interest, not the capital,” said Alexander. “I think that covers it. Pickle?”

“Yes, you have that correctly. It’s illegal now as there was too much temptation to kill off other investors,” said Pickle. “Can I give you a lift to the autopsy, Inspector?”

“I’ll be grateful,” said Alexander.  “My car’s out of commission today.”

He got into Pickle’s rather aged Ford.

“Not a patch on your car, of course,” said Pickle.

“Mine does no better than yours in town traffic,” said Alexander. “You know, I am tempted to put in a genuine offer on the Orme Court house. The only down side to it is that it has no real garden, just a kitchen yard at the back, and the area. Of course, there is Hyde Park, but one has to cross the main road.”

“There are better properties,” admitted Pickle. “It has a lot of height to it.”

“And balconies small children will try to kill themselves crossing between,” said Alexander. What attracted him was the few mews at the back, and the warren of streets. The thought of installing Campbell and Gladys in a mews house with a tunnel between them was one which was attractive with the increasing lawlessness, when elements of criminality might watch him and his family. Many old  houses had service tunnels which were being filled in nowadays.  Being able to slip round and catch villains on the hop had its attractive side.

But then, so did a large Elizabethan house set in grounds in Oxfordshire, for his children, even if he had to commute daily to London.

He might do better to expand his holdings in the Gower Mews region.

 

Alexander could tell that Mr. Pickle was nervous.

“Your first autopsy?” he asked.

“Yes,” said the little solicitor.

“You don’t have to participate, only view it to be able to say that yes, this is your client’s remains, and no, they were not treated disrespectfully.”

“Does... are bodies often treated disrespectfully?”

“The bodies of paupers released to teaching hospitals? Frequently,” said Alexander, dryly. “For some, making jocular remarks is their way of coping, and for others it is because familiarity breeds contempt. The tendency of students to be crassly offensive seems to double itself in the teaching hospital where the excess of body fluids influences the juvenile mindset... steady on, sir! Not likely in a serious autopsy, not at all, nor body fluids, she’s been dead too long.”

“I... I beg your pardon, I was briefly unnerved,” said Mr. Pickle. He clung to the steering wheel, sweating.

“Pull over, man, and I’ll drive,” said Alexander.

“I... yes, perhaps that would be better,” said Mr. Pickle. They changed places.

“I’ll drive you home as well and send for a police car to collect me,” said Alexander.

“What is wrong with your car?” asked Mr. Pickle.

“Nothing whatsoever; but my man is driving Freddy down to Essex to the protective custody of my parents because, much as I dislike him, I don’t want to see him made a scapegoat for the killer or killers of Marty.”

“Indeed, no; he was an engaging child before he went to school, too,” sighed Mr. Pickle. “His temper was not improved during the war.”

“All of us who lived through it came back changed,” said Alexander. “You don’t walk the Nine Circles of Hell without something happening to you on the inside. Those people who weren’t there can’t hope to begin to understand how a man can be simultaneously hardened to sights no human eye should have to see, and yet softened to the point that a reminder can leave him shaking, crying, and having nightmares.  Freddy claims to lack imagination but I suspect a large part of that is his father’s insistence that he ‘be a man,’ which as his father did not go through what most of us went through is the most God-awful impudence on his part. I’ve seen it from other senior officers who never served at the front. At least my boss volunteered on fire crews with the zeppelin bombings and knows something about it. But having to conceal that you’ve been reduced to tears must cause someone like Freddy distinct discomfort.”

“You must be very comfortable with yourself to discuss things which embarrass many men,” said Pickle.

“Since I spent time with a head-shrinker, yes,” said Alexander. “And my family understand. That helps a lot. But it unmans a man in ways you can’t predict, and makes a mockery of his courage when it is tried in ways nobody has ever seen before.”

“I can’t expect to really understand,” said Pickle.

“No; but you can show him sympathy,” said Alexander. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he charged the machine gun nest because he couldn’t bear it any longer rather than because he was being brave as such; an act of desperation to shut the guns up and have peace and quiet, either in winning, or in death. That, or a friend of his had just been killed by the machine guns, and he lost control with rage.”

“I... I had never considered it,” said Pickle. “Oh, we are here!”

He was plainly very relieved not to have to think, or talk, about the war any more.

 

 

Pickle verified that the body was that of his late employer.

“Er... do you mind if I move back?” he asked. “Now I’ve told you that is, indeed, Gertrude Beauchamp.”

“Yes, stay out of the way and get out if you want to be sick or faint,” said the doctor performing the autopsy, adjusting his gloves.

Mr. Pickle moved back with alacrity.

The stenographer sat there with his notebook as the police surgeon moved forward.

“Preliminary view shows an elderly woman in less than optimal health, with signs of liver disfunction and a distended belly suggestive of digestive tract problems. The whites of the eyes show a measure of jaundice, the gums... the  gums have  distinct lead-line which is in and of itself sufficient to suggest death was by lead poisoning. That they are somewhat blanched also suggest anaemia, which can be a symptom as well.”

“May I look, doctor?” asked Alexander. “It may prove useful to me.”

“Certainly, Inspector,” said the surgeon. “Observe on the upper gum above the teeth a distinct purple line some three eighths of an inch wide.”

“Is this visible only in those who have toxic levels of lead in their body?” asked Alexander.

“No, indeed, it may be used in the living to determine that lead is causing problems.”

“In a woman of eighty-eight, would you consider it unreasonable of her doctor not to have noticed this?”

“Under the circumstances, I would not consider that most general practitioners would be looking for such a thing; in a lady of such advanced years, the symptoms of poisoning would be easy to confuse for natural degeneration.”

“Thank you, doctor. I am sure that Dr. Whitlaw will be pleased you do not consider him negligent.”

“No, not at all, not at all. Had she been sixty, say, I would have expected him to have investigated further, but any of us who reach their eighties without joint pains and gastric problems are doing remarkably well. I dare say that without the poison, she might have reached a century, but who knows? She might have been so spry, then, that she tried to run for a bus, and not being as spry as she thought, got run down by a tram.”

His team duly tittered at this sally. However, the assessment was recorded for posterity and could be raised in court if need be.

“I have evidence to enter when samples go to the laboratory, the last bottle of medicine prescribed, which Dr. Whitlaw made an empirical judgement as containing lead acetate,” said Alexander. “Once I asked him to consider the possibility, and he remembered that he had that bottle, which was virtually empty.”

“Ah, a precipitate of crystals, leading to an acute attack, I wouldn’t be surprised,” said the surgeon, cheerfully. “Nasty business, and someone with a strong stomach to watch an old woman suffer.”

“As it was probably someone who also tortured and killed one of her grandsons, that goes without saying,” said Alexander, dryly.

“Oh, the chap who was composted,” said the surgeon.  “Interesting autopsy, that, with so little to work on, but we were able to determine that some of the damage done to his body was antemortem. It was a nice little puzzle. The worms and bacteria had done more to him than the chap who tried to hide the body, a definite amateur, and nervous at that. Hesitation marks on the bone cutting, and poor choices of cutting places. Left all the epiphyses for me. And of course the uncomposted body parts left in the house were quite instructive. I’ve never had so many policemen pass out on me before with the... finds.”

“I’m not sure Mr. Pickle could handle that,” said Alexander. “I was very much disturbed by what I was told, and I’m not sure it was all... the ‘and so on’ was quite speaking.”

“It will come out in court, you know,” said the surgeon.

“See I have a report on my desk soonest,” said Alexander. “I can handle it better in a dry sort of report.”

“It’s a fascinating study, and the psychology of the perpetrator should interest the shrinks for years,” said the surgeon. “There appears to have been a prurient aspect to the torture verging on an arrested development with an almost pubescent mindset.”

“I hope you put that in your report,” said Alexander.

“I did ask for a second opinion from a colleague, who opined that the perpetrator might have been one of those young men who lied about their age to go to war, somewhere between fourteen and seventeen years old, and whose personal development was somehow twisted by the horrors that they saw.”

“Eric!” gasped Mr. Pickle.

“Or it could be someone whose personal development is stunted from parental issues, or one who suffered bullying of the sexual kind at school, or even someone who is developmentally sub adult because of being physically sub adult,” said Alexander.

“I... well, yes,” agreed the doctor. “I’m not an expert. It was just a theory.”

“Have your colleague write me a full report which includes inferences not theories,” said Alexander.  “And tell him to stay within probabilities, not to go off on a wild goose chase about it being someone of the naval persuasion who wanted illicit and illegal carnal knowledge of his own son as a cadet with added flogging, because the traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy, and the lash and is trying to make it a boys-in-the-dorm affair.”

“I’ll make sure he stays within the bounds of possibility,” said the surgeon, subdued by this flight of fancy.

“Good,” said Alexander.

The surgeon opened the torso with a Y-shaped cut, and laid back the skin, taking samples from various organs.

“There’s no typical damage necessarily visible,” he explained. “Here, we have pulmonary lesions probably caused during the suffocation of the final seizure, but her heart, as hearts go, would be the envy of many a man half her age. The kidneys are atrophied and I’ll want to examine several sections from them, as well as testing for levels of lead in her body.”

“Good, get it to the lab and have the report on my desk soonest,” said Alexander.

“You police are so impatient,” complained the surgeon.

“You aren’t the one they shoot at,” said Alexander. “We have a population of young men trained to kill, and who have become used to doing so, not to mention those who feel they somehow ‘missed out’ in being too young for the war, whose diet of entertainment includes gangster movies from America with extreme violence presented silently and without the concomitant smells to the jolly accompaniment of a Wurlitzer. Death as entertainment, not helped by those of us who have been to war tending to make light of things rather than have to talk about it.  Tell your colleague to write a paper on how normal, healthy young men are changed by war into the sort of people they would never have guessed even existed before they set out.”

 

Alexander drove Mr. Pickle home.

“Is policing harder since the war?” asked the solicitor.

“Yes,” said Alexander.  “Because life meant nothing.  And it takes time to re-adjust to being normal, not someone who laughs about the comic positions in which someone died, or the expression on the face of someone. Honestly, Mr. Pickle, it is a problem, and this is why there is so much profligacy, gaiety, wild jazz music and dancing not to mention drugs. It’s partly a celebration of having survived, and partly an escape from both the memory of it, and the fear that it could happen again. Unfortunately, the combination of too much booze and too many drugs, allied with fast cars leads to tragedy often enough, and, too, to crime to be able to keep up with the expensive habits of those about one. There is always a distance between the older folk and the younger, but at the moment the generation gap is wider than it has ever been, because no war in history has been like this one.  Always before, battle lines moved on, the dead could be gathered up and buried. The dead landscape of no-man’s-land with its blasted trees, grassless muddy surface pitted with craters is like the surface of the moon; but the movement was in a matter of yards over four years, not the miles of yore. And the older folk think us disrespectful for joking about death. And it’s not disrespect, it’s a way of surviving as others die about you.”

“I... I can’t really understand it,” said Mr. Pickle. “You seem such a normal, pleasant man.”

“And yet, I have roared with laughter, along with my colleagues, about some poor Hun, literally caught with his trousers down, squatting at a latrine pit when a piece of schrapnel took off half his moustache, one eye and the back of his head, with the other eye still sporting a monocle,” said Alexander. “The absurdity of it was... funny. Now? It’s surreal and horrible. But if you don’t laugh, you crack. And then you get your men killed.”