the purloined parure 16 bonus just because it's Friday

 

Chapter 16

 

Alexander could see what was meant by people moving back in; though some of the tenement buildings had sightless bare windows, some had defiantly gay curtains back up, and the signs of being lived in.

“If I was on the run, holed up in a derelict block, what would I do?” muttered Alexander. “Actually, I’d put up curtains, and appear as normal as possible. But what would Barty and Bertie do? I wager they’d pick an unoccupied house, and try to make it seem still unoccupied. But it’s almost Christmas... bless the poor buggers who have crept back, there’s a Christmas tree in that house, and hand-made decorations in that one. And there’s smoke out of the rear chimney of that one with no curtains, and no signs of life at the front. They need a fire, it’s perishing.”

Whistling ‘with cat like tread’ under his breath, Alexander went to the front door with nonchalance rather than furtively, and utilised a tool which would have been frowned upon by Barrett, and would have occasioned his arrest had any bobby on the beat known about it and had the temerity to search an officer of Scotland Yard; though actually Alexander could have applied for the right to carry it to search supposedly slum unoccupied properties. He slid through the front door which yielded to his skeleton key and closed it quietly.  He passed silently down the short hallway and walked into the kitchen, where a seedy and unshaven little man sat, huddled in a greatcoat over the smoky range.

“Merry Christmas, Bertie,” said Alexander.

“Oh, bollocks,” said Bertie, in resignation.

“You’ll be safer on the inside. And warmer,” said Alexander. “Is Barty here too?”

“’E’s in the outhouse,” said Bertie.

“Well, let’s douse this fire, and we can collect him on the way out the back,” said Alexander. “He’d be a fool to run, with Harry Shearer’s men out looking for him,” he added, raising his voice.

The back door opened and the unkempt figure of Barty Tolliver came in, a far cry from his usual spruce appearance.

“We’ve got bags upstairs,” said Barty.

“Go and get them; I’ll see they’re dropped off with Vera,” said Alexander, naming Barty Tolliver’s long-term girlfriend.

“I was ’oping to ’ave Christmas outside,” said Bertie, gloomily.

“We do run to turkey or goose over Christmas,” said Alexander.

Bertie brightened.

“Oh, well, that’s somethin’,” he said. “An’ the chow is better nor what Barty cooks.”

“Lord Above!” said Alexander.  He led the two out of the back of the house and installed them in the plain car.

“Home, James, and don’t spare the horses,” he said to the driver.

“My given name is Charles and we’re in an automobile,” said the constable.

“It’s a figure of speech,” said Alexander.

When they got back to Scotland Yard it was to find a few of the office staff making an effort to decorate with paper-chains, tinsel, and, with some very naughty words as the bulbs insisted on blowing, fairy lights.

“You need a step-down transformer,” said Alexander, helpfully.

“Where am I to get one of those two days before Christmas?” demanded the frustrated WPC trying to put up the lights.

“Tell you what,” said Alexander, “There’s a car out of commission in the garage – burst radiator. If you get someone to nick the battery, the lights should run off that.”

“Cheers, sir,” said the WPC.

Barty Tolliver and Bertie Briscowe were duly booked for bunco, and Alexander wandered back up to his office. To his delight, the painting of the seven scenes of him had been mounted.

He went into the outer office and kissed Mary on the cheek.

“Thanks for collecting my painting,” he said. “Your Christmas present and that of your husband is under the tree. In case I’m not there for Christmas day.”

“Where are you likely to be?” asked Mary, suspiciously.

“Possibly in hospital,” said Alexander. Or the morgue, he thought. He was desperately afraid, but it was not something he could ask of anyone else, and unless caught in the act, nobody would believe a pair of fresh-faced lads, neither of them even adults, would do anything so gruesome.

 

He could not put off going home any longer. Moreover, he had an obligation to Campbell not to leave him in danger.

Alexander took the tube from St James’s Park, it making no odds if the train he took was District or Circle as he was only going two stops to Embankment to get out and change to the Northern Line for Goodge Street. He hated changing on the tube, the inexorable noise and bustle, the pushing and shoving reminding him of the trenches. The thick smell of humanity jam-packed into a confined space allied with the odd ozone smell of the trains, and thick grease of machinery made his nose wrinkle. But he did it, and came gladly up the steps to walk the four minute walk to his flat. At least nobody was likely to jump him at the tube station, not one of those much frequented, as he was known to have a car.

He walked up Store Street, and reflected that he must be on the lookout to purchase one of the three storey buildings there, as close to the Southern Crescent as possible, with its grand buildings at odds with the plainer ones in Store Street, and make a way through to Gower Mews. He thought, whimsically, of the grand houses in Bedford Square the other side; but he needed a house like that, even grander than the house in Orme Court, like he needed a hole in the head. But a bolt-hole rather than having to go all the way to Gower Street and as far back, almost, to the far end of the Mews left him vulnerable. And it was a terrible fire trap.  Alexander shuddered. If they set the place on fire to see if he went for the parure, it would be the death of him, and of Campbell.

But it would be a trap for his quarry, too, so hopefully they were intelligent enough to avoid that.

He unlocked the garage door and went in. Here, on a camp bed, dozed Sergeant Claud Eustace Teal. Harris was indoors. There was a door into the passage from the front door to his flat upstairs, which he would leave unlocked for Teal. A quick tuneful whistle was answered by the next phrase of the pirate king’s song, and he ran upstairs.

“No problems yet,” said Campbell.

“Which, beings as it’s only been dark a couple of  hours, ain’t surprising,” added Harris.

Alexander made stuffed cabbage leaves served over rice with a sauce he whipped up from tomato ketchup with added garlic, onion, and sour cream and called Teal up to join in the repast.  The other men regarded it suspiciously.

“I likes a bit o’ meat for my dinner,” said Harris, plaintively.

“The leaves are stuffed with lamb mince,” said Alexander. “We have our Russian relatives staying with us in Essex, and Dmitro cooked this for us, and I asked for the recipe.”

“It’s good!” said Campbell, in surprise. “Cor, ’Oo’d of thunk it. Russian, eh? You wouldn’t fink they ’ad time between revoluting.”

“It’s a lot older than the revolution,” said Alexander. “I wanted to make something so nobody could guess how many people I have here.”

“It’s nice, and you made it really quickly; can I have the recipe?” asked Teal, who was more cosmopolitan and better educated than some of his fellows.

“Certainly,” said Alexander. “I’ll write that out whilst you are digesting; just in case I’m unavailable tomorrow.”

“None o’ that, sir,” said Campbell, gruffly.

“If they blip me on the bean first, I might be half silly in hospital,” said Alexander, more lightly than he felt.

Teal, happy with stewed pears and custard as a pudding, and with his recipe in his pocket, retired back to the garage with a hot water bottle, to tuck himself under the heavy quilt there, hidden behind a tarpaulin seemingly carelessly thrown over one of the bare joists. Campbell and Harris retired behind the breakfast bar in the kitchen area, on piles of cushions, taking turns to doze. And Alexander retired to bed. They had re-checked all cupboards and small rooms as a matter of course.

 

Alexander did not think he would sleep, so he put on the beside lamp to read ‘Nicolette,’ a newly-published novel by Baroness Orczy, supposedly based on an old French satire, but taking more liberties than her usual fare of the French in the Scarlet Pimpernel books, with much fraternity and equality unlikely in the period of the time. Still, the Baroness was incapable of writing a bad book, and Alexander enjoyed it until relaxation and tiredness combined to overwhelm him in sleep, or as the Baroness would doubtless have put it, the inexorable forces of exhaustion from strain, combined with a comfortable position, drew him without protest into the arms of Morpheus.

 

Alexander awoke to the sound of breaking glass.

He sat up, his heart hammering. His light was on and his book had fallen off the bed. He bent down to pick up the book and put on the side stand, and turned off the light.  It would not have penetrated his thick curtains; and the breaking glass had not been in this room.

He lay back down, pretending to sleep, and then thought, perhaps I should get up to call out about what is going on; a policeman isn’t going to ignore the sounds of breaking glass.

He went downstairs, stealthily, and was in time to see a figure leaning out of the window, having broken one of the six panes of glass in the sash window, to unlock and open it in order to get in. They were lucky; the other window stuck.

Cold air blew in, and a few flakes of sleet. A figure was leaning out of the window, and Alexander heard a whisper, ‘Here, catch it!’ There was the sound of something landing somewhere, and Alexander decided it was time to make his presence known.

He turned on the light.

The figure at the window started, and banged his head on the lower edge of the upper sash, making it rattle.  He was wearing a mask.

Before Alexander could approach him, he sprang over the sill, and by the sounds of slithering and a brief burst of invective, slid down the ladder with more haste than wisdom, collecting a crop of splinters.

Alexander decided to act as he would if he had been robbed in the normal way. He snatched up a police whistle from the sideboard, and sounded  it loudly out into the night.

Campbell and Harris emerged.

“We didn’t do nuthin’ because you said leave it until they seized you,” said Campbell.

“Quite right.  Well, our little thieves decided they would rather do it the easy way than to indulge their dubious fun,” said Alexander. “Get Teal up here; he might as well thaw out. We’ll have bobbies all over the place presently, and the fingerprint boys, and they won’t be coming back tonight.”

It was a prediction which proved to be no less than the truth, and Alexander, wrapped in a dressing-gown of gaudy quilted silk, with a pattern of dragons and phoenixes on it, brewed endless cups of tea for bobbies on night duty, glad of a hot drink on a night with stinging, spiteful wind, and a precipitation between fog, rain, and sleet which showed a stubborn determination to work its way inside any clothing. Capes hung up on the drying rack in the kitchen, lowered for the purpose, steaming gently to add some warmth to the thawing bobbies when they must, reluctantly, leave, to get on with their duties.

Teal, Campbell, and Harris had been banished to Alexander’s bedroom so that no bobby talking out of turn might mention that the inspector had a veritable army with him who might have been expected to stop or at least deter robbers.

He did admit that they had taken an empty jewellery case which he was keeping for his own purposes.

The fingerprint squad came out by car, complaining about the hour, and the weather, and discovered that the housebreakers had worn gloves.

“Too much crime fiction,” said one, gloomily. “Chummies these days know about dabs.”

“And you can’t describe them, sir?” asked another.

“Slender, boyish figure, definitely not female, quite athletic, about five-foot ten,” said Alexander.

“Hair? Appearance?”

“Hood, black. Mask, black,” said Alexander. “Clothes, black. I conjecture that the clothing was army surplus, dyed.”

The constable nodded, making a note of this.

They finally got rid of the excess police at around five in the morning, and Alexander was permitted to shut his window, and tape brown paper over the hole. The gas fire finally started to make a difference.

“Gawdstrewf,” said Campbell.

“I’ll be a bit more sensitive with victims in future,” said Teal, meditatively. “That sounded a bit rough.”

“I am going to be ribbed unmercifully for being robbed,” said Alexander ruefully. “But then, I can’t say I mind being robbed, not tortured.”

“But they are going to find out it’s empty, and then they’ll be as mad as ’ornets,” said Campbell.

“Yes,” said Alexander. “But their costume is distinctive, and if they don’t try questioning me, if we can get enough doubt for a warrant to search, I wager we’d find it. Which doesn’t get them sent down for anything but petty theft, but it would be something.”

“And then they’ll wait for Cosher to get out, and go after ’im,” said Campbell.

“You’re right,” said Alexander. “Very well, same show tonight, gentlemen; I doubt they’re likely to delay long. They are not patient, and Joseph will be back at school in two weeks time.”

“Why don’t you put a tail on them, sir?” asked Teal.

“You know, that might not be a bad idea,” said Alexander. “I also need to telephone my folks and get Freddy to call his mother to reassure her that he is safe.  Actually, Teal, can you handle setting up the tail? I can’t ask you to spend another day in the cold.”

“I don’t think I’m much good in there, anyway,” said Teal.  “I’ll join the others.” He brightened. “You could teach me how to make that stuffed cabbage; I wouldn’t mind it again.”

“It’s a deal,” said Alexander.

 

the purloined parure 15

 

Chapter 15

 

“Had you any plans for the afternoon, Armitage?” asked Barrett.

“I was planning on running out to Ealing to track down ‘Pooch’ Robson and ‘Odds’ Pleasance, to check an alibi,” said Alexander. “But I can put it off if you have something you want me to do; though it should really be done today, as I’m expecting to be set upon by as nasty a pair of villains as I’ve ever met, and I’m not excluding the Hun.”

 “Yes, I’ve been reading your reports, truly unpleasant,” said Barrett.

“You wait until they get in the autopsy on the partly composted Marty,” said Alexander, grimly. “Poor little bastard probably either died of shock or bled out from major blood vessels if I read correctly what the police surgeon hinted at being found in the house by the search team I sent in.”

“How singularly... dear me, I am not often shocked,” said Barrett.

“No, quite,” said Alexander. “He’s reading psychology books again; it makes him come over all Freud and fury, signifying very little but with enough truth there to make illuminating reading if you discard every conclusion he makes and go for the basics.”

“Do you have to mangle Shakespeare?” asked Barrett, waspishly.

“It seemed appropriate to the moment,” said Alexander, meekly. “‘Sound and fury, signifying nothing’ is what a lot of psychology sounds like to me.”

“Well, the half-baked stuff the half-trained spout off, anyway,” said Barrett, who agreed that an excess of psychology addled a man’s wits. “There was a fellow in court the other day trying to claim that he had taken to raping adolescent boys in the school where he teaches because his mother poked him with the nappy-pin when he was a baby, simultaneously putting him off women anywhere in that region and making him conscious of his back passage and having to have his nappy emptied.”

“Good lord, some of them will claim anything if they think it makes them more interesting than nasty vicious scum who prey on kids,” said Alexander. “What did you want me to do?”

“Round up Barty Tolliver for using the old time-lag racetrack trick.”

“Oh, where the mark’s in a room with a clock put back, and someone telephones in tips, and the mark thinks the race is ongoing, and gets excited enough to bet a huge amount on a horse that doesn’t win?” said Alexander.

“Yes, and Barty might even be happy to be picked up, because he picked the wrong mark,” said Barrett, with vicious enjoyment. “Instead of some poor old boy who flutters with his pension every raceday and can be conned out of all his savings, he picked Harry Shearer.”

Alexander winced.

“And Harry sails close to the law himself, and won’t hesitate to set several hefty torpedos on Tolliver,” he said.

“Must you use American slang like ‘torpedos’ for muscle men?”

“The naval fliers who flew Sopwith Cuckoos dropped torpedos and refer to them as ‘mouldies’ and if you can think of anything more atrophied and mouldy than the brain and conscience of most muscle, I’d be surprised,” said Alexander.

Barrett snorted.

“They’re muscle without any brain or conscience; tell it like it is, and don’t go cuckoo yourself.”

“Yessir,” said Alexander, who knew when his whimsies had gone quite far enough. “Who’s Barty’s partner, do we know?”

“According to Shearer, who was being unwontedly forthcoming until he realised a constable was taking down every word, it was some ferretty little fellow with a taste in loud checked suits and garish yellow and blue ties,” said Barratt.

“Bertie Briscowe. And the constable wasn’t pounded?”

“No, you can say what you like about Harry Shearer and his illegal nightclubs, but he doesn’t beat on women.”

“Aren’t they supposed to go around in pairs, like nuns?” asked Alexander.

“Yes, well, seemingly they had only popped into the pub because t’other one had the call of nature... which judging by the embarrassment levels meant the monthlies, not a need for a jimmy riddle... uh, you know about that, not being a married man?”

“Sisters,” said Alexander. “Well, I can sympathise with that; the idea of blood pouring out for days on end and not a scar to show for one’s bravery makes me wince.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Barrett. “And the mood swings.”

“Been there,” said Alexander.

There was a moment’s shared silence of men in adversity.

“So, Barty and Bertie were two pretty men...” murmured Alexander.

“What’s that from, Gilbert and Sullivan?”

“Mother Goose; it’s a nursery rhyme,” said Alexander. He quoted,

“Robin and Richard were two pretty men;

They stayed in bed till the clock struck ten.

Then up starts Robin and looks at the sky:

‘Oh, brother Richard, the sun's very high

.You go before with the bottle and bag,

And I will come after on little Jack nag.’”

“Not one I know, but very appropriate; that sort of villain is usually up late into the night and lays in bed half the day, and they sound very shady,” said Barrett.

“I hadn’t thought of it in the nursery, but they really do,” said Alexander, cheerfully. “Terrible things these nursery rhymes teach children. Look at Tom, Tom, the piper’s son, who stole a pig and away did run.”

“Well, at least he was beaten for his theft if I recall correctly,” said Barrett. “Nursery rhymes! Honestly! I don’t have time to waste on nursery rhymes! Go sort out that alibi first and see if either of those two knows where Barty Tolliver has gone to ground, with or without Bertie Briscowe. They might be glad of the warning that Harry Shearer is on the warpath.”

“Yes, and I need to pick them up before they hear it, and scarper, themselves,” said Alexander. “Can I borrow a car and driver?”

“What’s wrong with your car?”

“I sent the fellow I think is going to be used as a scapegoat to my parents as I can’t keep him in custody any longer, and his relatives think he’s in the wind as he stormed out on my suggestion, to be collected by Campbell.”

“Careful you don’t fall into entrapment.”

“I don’t think I do.  They know I’m holding the parure, and I have the case in my flat here, so I hope that means that they attempt to attack me, and then I have an open and shut case against them. Campbell should be having a sleep in my bed right now, to be fresh overnight. I borrowed Harris and Teal as well, to lurk, sending them home for a few hours.”

“Wise,” said Barrett. “Surely they won’t attack a senior police officer? You would identify them.”

“Not if I was dead, I wouldn’t,” said Alexander. “I have every expectation that they mean to torture me to find out where it is, as it isn’t in the case, and then kill me. Campbell has orders to make himself scarce until they start.”

“I don’t like it.”

“I don’t like it much either; but we can’t rely on finger prints and they are clever, cunning, and ruthless and I suspect they could play any jury like a gramophone.”

“Did they wipe the tools that got left?”

“Yes, and they were taken from the house itself, where the outdoor man had a toolshed. I had hoped they had stolen them from their own chauffeur, but no such luck. And the bits and pieces of cages for the rats didn’t carry enough prints to be useful.”

“A pity.”

“That’s life,” said Alexander.

 

 

The plainclothes man in the unmarked car dropped Alexander off. He sauntered into the Three Pigeons, being one of two pubs where he guessed the men he was looking for might be. The other, the Penny Flyer, was where Freddy had found them, but they had their habits, and towards closing time around lunch, the Three Pigeons should find one at least of them.

He was lucky; if he had missed them, he would have had to wait until the evening.

He moved forward silently and dropped an arm each around two shoulders.

“Mr. Robson, Mr. Pleasance, what a pleasure for me,” he said.

“Oh Gawd! It’s a bleedin’ flatfoot,” said ‘Pooch’ Robson. “I’m clean, squire, straight up I am.”

“I’m not here to make a pinch, as it happens,” said Alexander. “I need to check a man’s alibi.”

“Well, he was with us if he says he was,” said ‘Odds’ Pleasance.

“It’s not so easy as that,” said Alexander.  “I am after someone who tortured little Marty Beauchamp to death; and I wager you know him.”

“We might do,” said Pooch.

“Sneak thief, doesn’t need to steal, but can’t keep his hands off other people’s collectables, books and chinaware his specialities,” said Alexander. “Usually steals – stole, I should say, poor little sod – to order for collectors. Pigeon fancier in his spare time, may have ratted you up to get his cousin into trouble.”

“Oh, that Marty Beauchamp,” said Odds. “No ’arm to ’im, an’ ’e don’t despise a flutter on the dogs.”

“Well, someone did him to death; and there has been some suggestion it was his cousin, Freddy.”

“Freddy wouldn’t torture nobody,” said Pooch, instantly. “Not like that little shit he brought once, asked if a dog wouldn’t run faster if you opened the skin near its tail and sewed a load of wasps inside. Little bastard, and Freddy took his belt to him.”

“So I should hope,” said Alexander. “It was a Sunday. First Sunday after the full moon, you had a meet, he was taken to it from the Penny Flyer.”

“Not admitting to anything,” said Pooch, “But I remember seeing Freddy about then. He wasn’t happy.”

“When is ’e?” asked Odds. “’E dropped a packet, but no more’n usual.”

“And you can vouch for him all evening?”

“And at the club ’ouse after,” said Odds. “Someone dropped him off near enough to ’is pa’s place to walk ’ome.  Wasn’t fit to change tubes even if it was open; wasn’t near enough five of the morning to make it worth while.”

“Thanks,” said Alexander. “Can I write that out and get you to sign it?”

“I s’pose,” said Pooch, suspiciously. “We don’t have to say where we were with him, do we?”

“No, you can say at a club where you share a mutual interest,” said Alexander. “I’m only interested in dirty tricks at race venues, and worry that illegal races increase the chances.”

“Oh, we seen some,” said Odds. “Funny ’ow people wot try that go swimming wiv a few ol’ pipes tied to them.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” said Alexander.  “And whilst I have your attention, do you know where I might find Barty Tolliver or Bertie Briscowe?”

“What for do you want them?” asked Pooch.

“They tried to stiff Harry Shearer,” said Alexander.

“We don’t know them at all,” said Pooch, hastily

“Nah, and don’t want to,” said Odds.

“If you did know them where would be a good place to go looking?” asked Alexander.

The men exchanged looks.

“They might of gone to ground in the Pascal Street area, out Nine Elms way,” said Pooch. “Heap o’ old Victorian tenements due for slum clearance. Plenty o’ places to hide out while there’re fights over whose responsibility it is.”

“An’ an ’ole ’eap o’ people moved out wot moved back in,” said Odds.

“But if you find them, we didn’t tell you nuffing,” said Pooch.

“Never even saw you,” said Alexander, obligingly. “Well, if you see them before I do, tell them they’ll be safer on the inside than out, and we’re happy to receive visitors if they find themselves seized with the urge of confession. Here you both are, statements to sign.”

The two petty criminals read through what they were signing and appended their signatures.

“I don’t hold with torture,” said Pooch.

“Nor do I,” said Alexander. “Nor do I.”

 

“Fancy a run out to Vauxhall?” asked Alexander, of his driver.

“Is that where you want to go, sir?” asked the driver.

“It is,” said Alexander, stifling a sigh. The young man was almost rigidly proper.

 

There were a number of Victorian tenements scheduled for demolition in Pascal Street, and Alexander sighed. A long search would ensue, and his quarry quite likely to slip out the back and through alleys they knew better than him. Well, he could look.

“Nip down the back, and nab anyone who comes running out,” said Alexander.

His driver gave him a long-suffering and jaundiced look.

“Shall I find a telephone to call for help?” he asked.

“You can surely manage a pair of bunco lads on your own?” said Alexander. “Whistle when you go after them.”

The driver sighed.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

 

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.”