Death of the Toad

by William McMurray

CHAPTER SIX

  Early June with its gentle warmth and occasional cool showers left over from May had given way to the full-blown heat of summer and the foretaste of July to come. Faculty members at Essex University by now had long forgotten the trials of undergraduate courses and were totally immersed in research problems, thesis supervision, bookwriting or other scholarly summer activities, with an eye to upcoming society meetings or holiday cottages. For Janet Gordon, as for many junior scientists, it was a time of intense pleasure and pressure combined: pleasure in the unfettered opportunity to pursue her experimental work at the laboratory bench; pressure in the responsibility to produce a publishable report to justify her present research grant, and to convince the Sciences Research Foundation to renew the grant in the autumn. However, on this Sunday evening Janet had escaped briefly from the lab for a few games of tennis with Jerry Pinkney. Jerry was as inconsistent on the tennis court as he had been in academic studies, but in her present unpractised state Janet was thankful for a partner to rally with her.

  "You gave me a good workout," she said as they left the court.

  "Translation- you only beat me 6-3, 6-2, instead of 6-love, 6-love."

  "Well, my timing was off a bit." Jerry swatted at her with his racquet.

  "Have you time for a swim?"

  Janet nodded gratefully as she mopped her brow. Although the sun had touched the tree-tops there was little breeze to temper the heat. She slipped quickly up to her office to pick up her swim-suit, and rejoined Jerry in the parking lot where he was waiting with the family car.

  "How is your mother managing?" she enquired as they drove along.

  "Oh, hadn’t you heard? She went home to her family for a while. Joyce went with her, so I have temporarily taken up residence in solitary splendour in the palace. It's not a bad spot to spend the summer. Actually there's quite a bit to organize with the move coming up in August, so I agreed to help out with some of the packing."

  "Did you get all of your father's belongings removed that day I saw you?"

  "There wasn't much there. Most of his records and personal papers are in his study at home. He only kept working documents on campus."

  Jerry wheeled the car near the spot where Professor Antwhistle had performed his demolitions and they walked through to the swimming pool. The sun by now had set behind the house and the pool appeared forbidding in the gathering gloom. Janet shuddered involuntarily, wishing she had not agreed to come.

  "The pool has been drained and cleaned," Jerry commented, "if that's what is bothering you. Here, see if this helps," and he switched on the lights from the panel inside the cabana.

  The pool, illuminated from within by a number of lamps that were built-in below the surface of the water, looked considerably more inviting. Janet went into the cabana to change into her swimsuit while Jerry entered the house by a sliding door into the sunroom. He returned in bathing trunks a few minutes later with a tray bearing two mugs of beer. The combination of exercise, beer, and the refreshing water around her lulled Janet in to a state of relaxation bordering on torpor. She was floating lazily on her back near the pool's edge alongside one of the translucent glass bubbles housing an underwater light. The next instant her state of serenity was galvanized into a state of alarm. Her leg brushing against the lamp-housing received a shock strong enough to send a wave of contraction through the muscles of her entire body. The next instant she was out of the pool shaking all over. Jerry rushed to her side and wrapped a towel around her.

  "Damn those lights!" he exclaimed switching them off, " It's not the first time that's happened. Poorly constructed housing must have leaked a bit. I recall quite a group in the pool one evening when one of the ladies had a similar experience. Of course she would be a poor swimmer and went under a couple of times before being fished out. The lamp housings were supposed to be fixed, but I guess it must be a basic design flaw with the seals."

  After she had recovered from the shock of her experience Janet changed and followed Jeremy into the house. He had produced a tray of sandwiches and together they sat in the fading dusk in the sunroom eating and chatting. Some of the boxes of paraphernalia from the Principal’s office littered one corner of the room.

  "Do you suppose it's possible someone tampered with those pool-lights?" asked Janet. "If a person were already in a weakened state a jolt like that might very well prove to be dangerous if not fatal."

  "I suppose it's possible as you say. But it's not a recent problem. Although they keep making repairs around the seals, somehow the water seeps in and eventually- bango- a short,"

  "That's my point. If there were someone who wanted your father out of the way he could have arranged an electrical accident, then if anyone suspected, it could be blamed on the faulty lights. One thing that mystifies me she continued, "is why your father would continue to swim there knowing about the recurrent fault."

  "Well, to that I can only say, you just didn't know father! He was persistent to the point of obduracy. The lights were his idea remember, and he never admitted to a bad idea. What's the bit about his weakened state?"

  "You were the one who put the idea in my mind," Janet responded, and proceeded to describe her findings about the doping of the coffee creamer. Jeremy listened intently without interruption.

  "You have known all this since the day we met in the office," he said finally.

  "Well, yes. The next day anyway."

  "And you didn't bother to tell me until now." There was no mistaking the resentment in his voice.

  "There didn't seem any point. I-"

  "Thought that I was the culprit no doubt. Probably still do.” he interjected.

  "The fact is," countered Janet sternly, ignoring this comment, "that I suspected one of the secretaries' husbands. Either of them had access and opportunity. But the evidence has been eliminated, so it seemed best to just let the matter drop."

  "And you say that somebody got into the office after we left to switch the bottles?"

  "Yes, only into the outer office actually. I guess that access there would be easier,"

  "No doubt. I returned there later myself to pick up the stuff I had already packed."

  "Did you notice anyone about who shouldn't have been there?"

  "No. The place was locked up tight. But I do remember thinking that someone rearranged things a bit in the inner office- desk drawers open, door to bathroom ajar. I thought it was more untidy than when Mrs. Lindsay left."

  "That was my doing," Janet admitted. "I was looking for the suspected medication. Anything else?"

  Jeremy paused trying to recollect.

  "I made two trips down to the car with boxes. The last trip was an afterthought because I thought I had got everything on the elevator in one load, moved it all out to the car, and was driving off when I realized I'd left a briefcase behind. But when I went back in the building the elevator had gone up to the top floor again so I walked by the staircase. There was no-one around when I got there."

  "Where could they have got to? The elevator just opens into to the outer office area."

  "That struck me as curious also. Whoever it was couldn't have gone back down the stairs without passing me on the landing. And both inner offices were locked and dark. I would swear there was no-one lurking in father’s offices.”

  "They could have ducked down behind the filing cabinets or hid in the cloak-room of the outer office."

  "Or they let themselves into the Regents' Office. I had no key for that door."

  "So after you left they emerged from wherever they had been hiding and switched the coffee creamers. Who else do you think had a motive as well as opportunity?"

  "I don't suppose it would have been too hard to get in the building. As for motive, I daresay any Principal has natural enemies. People denied tenure or promotion- there was that case last year in History, some prof committed suicide over it and there are plenty of other anti-administration causes. Consider our pollution-conscious friend, Bob Windham, he and father came cl
ose to fisticuffs at one confrontation. Unfortunately, Jan, my father had a host of unofficial adversaries in addition to the disaffected persons and cranks who might have attacked him officially. "

  "Such as my esteemed Professor and Head," nodded Janet grimly. "What was the source of their animosity?"

  "It may have had to do with earlier connections in Europe," replied Jeremy carefully. "I was never told the details, though it seemed to go back a long way in the past. But you're right, there was no love lost between them."

  But lost love of another kind, thought Janet. Perhaps the rivalry between the two men was a guarded secret in the Pinkney family or, Jerry didn't wish to confide in her. While she reflected and the light faded in the room Jerry gradually insinuated himself along the couch beside her. She was startled and hemmed in by the arm of the couch. Janet stood up rather-forcefully, spilling Jerry's beer in the process, and retreated apologetically toward the sunroom door. No, it was not necessary for him to drive her home, she was returning to attend to something in the lab and would let herself out by the gate.

  Quickly she made her escape, congratulating herself on a getaway without embarrassment. She felt too much of an elder sister to Jerry to encourage an intimate relationship. Janet shut the gate behind her and bustled along the river-path swinging her bag of tennis and swimming gear. Poor Jerry, It had always been, poor Jerry, the prodigal younger brother, who accepted her stern advice or mastery on the tennis court. She would have to be cautious with him if she were to keep things on that level.

  Next morning Janet rose early but ruefully. She considered the irony that although she was in shape for a ten kilometre run, an hour or so on the tennis court could leave her so stiff from the unaccustomed stops and starts. She pedalled her bicycle fiercely up the University hill in an effort to work out the kinks in her muscles, and entered the Department before anyone else had arrived. It was just as well that she got things off to an early start; she had just finished harvesting the conditioned medium from her cell cultures and transferred the cells with fresh medium into the incubator when she saw to her surprise that Professor Antwhistle had been standing quietly behind her.

  "Don't let me interfere," he expostulated, proceeding to do just that. Janet hastened to reassure him that she had in fact concluded the transfers, and ushered him into her office;

  "Still labouring in the vineyards of cell cultivation I see. How grows your garden these days mistress Janet?"

  "Well sir," she replied with a mock bow. "Too well in fact. I find it hard to keep up with the assays on the growth factor fractions. And then, at some point in the fractionation as I get the impurities removed, the purified peptides seem to lose activity. We've tried all manner of procedures to stabilize them," and she gave a detailed account of her recent attempts to isolate the growth factor from the medium conditioned by contact with rapidly growing cancer cells. After several minutes of discussion of the research project, the Professor rose from his chair as if about to leave.

  "I gather that my rusty whirligig has been one of the stumbling blocks in the elucidation of this miraculous factor of yours."

  "Oh," Janet responded, a little embarrassed, "it was a great help to have the loan of your centrifuge but-"

  "Like me it has seen better days. You don't need to shake your head my dear. The whirligig is beyond reclamation, though I still have fond hopes of retreading the old Professor. Which brings me to the two reasons why I dropped in. First, the good news. There happens, through gross negligence on the part of the Department Head, to be a surplus in one of our more arcane accounts. Several thousands in total, which could be expended usefully on equipment for some struggling investigator for, let us say, a new centrifuge?"

  Janet's face lit up as she tried to express her gratitude.

  "Don't thank me. If you must blame someone it's Frank Butler. I had suggested to him that we buy, some teaching equipment for student laboratories, but I gather that Frank was becoming quite overtaxed with young ladies from down the hall horning in on his machine. So he sent me to you. Now the bad side of my news. If you wish to take advantage of this you will have to act immediately. In order to transfer the funds and get them out of the budget before the University recaptures them at month's end you'll have to act fast. Settle on the instrument, accessories etc., get quotes to me at once, and we'll process the purchase orders. It has to be wrapped up completely by Wednesday because I leave next day for Europe. So get cracking on it and we'll eliminate one of your bottlenecks!"

  When he had gone Janet walked down excitedly to Frank Butler's lab, thanked him for his intervention on her behalf, and got the specifications on the centrifuge in his laboratory. She spent the next hour in her office calling the supplier for prices and making up her shopping-list for the order. She was in the process of setting down her justification for the equipment purchase with relation to her cell work when the telephone rang.

  It was Jeremy Pinkney again, and he started his conversation with an apology. Janet listened with mounting impatience. It seemed that with Jeremy most conversations began with some sort of apology. She was tempted to tell him to stop being an ass, but realized that this could only lead to an emotional escalation, with more apologies eventually for his assininity. When she had heard him out and accepted his promises not to repeat his indiscretions of the previous evening, Jeremy lowered his voice in the manner of one conveying startling and confidential news.

  "Strange happenings are continuing out here."

  "What sort of happenings?"

  " I don’t like to talk about it on the phone. Could you come out?"

  There was a long pause as Janet contemplated her work-day now made doubly busy by the pleasant burden of her emergency equipment order.

  "Are you still there, or is there someone with you?"

  "Yes and no, in that order. Can't you come in to the University, or give me give me some sort of clue? I've got some top priority work just now." Janet was reaching a state of exasperation with the mysterious whisperings from the other end of the phone.

  "I-uh- would rather not leave. You’ll understand when you come. Jan, it could be important. I don't know what to make of it, but I should stay and keep an eye on things until you can come and give me your advice."

  Janet began to feel overburdened by all these responsibilities, but, she thought grimly, that does not permit one to ignore the burden. Something significant might have occurred that would throw some light on the crime, if such it was; and her reaction could well be crucial, with Jerry's obvious incompetence in taking on the responsibility for making decisions and acting on them. And so after ascertaining that no-one had been injured, and that some further catastrophe did not seem to be imminent, she assured Jeremy that she would drop out as soon after lunch as possible.

  By the time that she had received a call-back from the centrifuge suppliers, and obtained the best competitive price quotation, modified her proposal, and left her experiment at the appropriate stage for Julia to continue, it was nearly three o'clock. The University tower chimed the hour as Janet pumped her bicycle along the river path. She left the bike chained to the wrought-iron fence and groped unsuccessfully for the key in its regular hiding place. She was almost ready to unlock her cycle and turn away in frustration when she pushed against the gate and found it to swing open unimpeded. So either Jeremy had forgotten to lock it, or someone else had found the hiding place of the key and let himself in. In the end Janet decided that it would be prudent to leave few traces of her own presence, and pushed the bike up the path after closing the gate behind her.

  She found Jeremy sitting rather disconsolately on the patio outside the sunroom, beer in hand. To her chagrin she could tell all too readily that it was by no means the first bottle of the day. He looked up somewhat sheepishly and sleepily when she approached.

  "Ah, great girl Jan. Knew you'd rally round when needed. Have a barley sandwich with me?"

  "Jerry, you really take the cake! You expect me to fly out-"r />
  "At my beck and call," mimicked Jeremy cheerfully.

  "Damn it all, I've too much to do to get into a drinking contest, or indulge in repartee. Now, for goodness sake get on with the problem!"

  "Tch! Tch! Such language!" Jeremy looked horror-stricken. "Must get to the important problem," and he stood up stiffly with great control and beckoned her toward the sunroom door.

  "Robbery! Theft! Burglary!" he whispered with emphasis. "Break-in with intent to steal, commit vandalism or mayhem!" He pointed to the interior of the sunroom. The boxes of Dr. Pinkney’s effects and their contents were in a state of confusion, some emptied on the carpet, some jumbled with papers and files spread out on the table under a lamp. Jerry nodded seriously while Janet surveyed the mess.

  "See now why I called it important? Could be damned important. Someone got in to steal or destroy documents eh? Same fellow I intercepted on stairs to Dad's office prob'ly. Put stuff in his coffee, tried to take his papers. Same fellow," he concluded inconsequently.

  "You said it was a break-in. But there's no sign of forced entry at this door. Where do you think he broke in?"

  "Mistake of terms. I can't find any broken windows or forced doors. Door to patio was open when I came in here. Must have left it unlocked when I saw you out. Bloody carelessness!"

  "Do you have any idea when it could have happened?" asked Janet as she looked around the room at the debris. "Incidentally, if it was robbery you must be right about the object. It couldn't have been for valuable artifacts with all these cloisonné and Royal Doulton pieces left unmolested."

  "Good point. Excellent deductive powers my dear Miss Holmes! As to time, it was 'bout four o'clock this morning. I woke up then. Bit of wind, distant thunder- came down here with flashlight. Felt the draft from open door so locked it. Didn't notice all the upset in here in the dark so went back to bed. Guess I must have scared away whoever was in here in the middle of his burglary- robbery- whatever."

  "Did you call in the police?"

  "Couldn't see much point. As you say nothing valuable taken, really no way to show anything at all taken. No damage to door. Didn't seem much point, did there?"

  Janet agreed that there was little to report, and acquiesced to Jeremy's repeated offer of a beer. He vanished in the direction cf the kitchen, and Janet walked back out to the patio. From the other side of the hedge came the sound of garden clippers. She walked around the end of the hedge and came upon Mr. Moorcroft trimming the herbaceous border of a flower-bed. He started on seeing her and straightened up.

  "Oh my Miss!" he exclaimed. "Near to dropped my shears! Not that it's your fault," he hastened to assure her. "I've been that jumpy with all the goings-on."

  Janet felt sure that Jeremy must have filled the caretaker in on last night’s break-in, but this explanation indicated not. At least it was not the goings-on to which he had referred.

  "I was the one to find him, you see. In the pool, poor man. And pulled him out. It was too late. Anyone could see, all stiff in that cold water. And they made me drain that pool later too. I didn't wish to go back there. It was a horrible thing!"

  Janet agreed that it must have been a nasty experience.

  "You got quite a shock, to see him that way no doubt." The caretaker nodded mutely, "Did you also get a shock, of the electrical variety, when you pulled him out- from the lights?"

  Mr. Moorcroft shook his head.

  "No lights on when I came along, Couldn't have been. There was a fuse blown in the panel in the cabana. I found that later when I came to drain the pool. But it was shocking all right, and a nasty coincidence with that awful nickname they used to-call him," he whispered.

  "Toad?"

  "There was the strange thing. Beside him drowned in the pool was another dead creature. A little drowned green toad. Seemed like some horrid joke of nature. I fished that out in a hurry. Didn’t like the family to see that you know? You’re the first one I’ve told of it; but you won’t tell Mr. Jerry will you?" he whispered as the latter appeared on the patio. He’s such a sensitive lad, and I wouldn't want to upset him for no reason."

  "Don't you worry," Janet assured him, and returned to the patio where Jerry had produced the beer and several slices of pizza.

  "A few bits left over from lunch. Not too warm I'm afraid," as he passed the plate. Sounds of the hedge clippers resumed from the garden below. For several minutes there was no conversation on the patio as Janet gratefully made up for her neglected lunch. When she had finished she sat for a moment quietly absorbed in thought. The clipping receded as Mr. Moorcroft continued around the corner of the house.

  "He seems a trustworthy soul ,"Janet observed.

  "Moorcroft? Salt of the earth. Looked after this place for years. Only fellow I knew who got along with father too."

  "You haven't told him about the break-in?"

  "Didn't want to involve him. Do you think I should?"

  Janet didn't answer the question immediately. If there was a link as Jeremy surmised between the events, might there not also be a connection with the ultimate demise of the Principal? The person who could contrive to adulterate the coffee creamer, and at the critical moment, to remove the incriminating evidence, was both cunning and malicious. The person who so clumsily ransacked the house and possibly arranged the death of the Principal to appear accidental was also desperate and ruthless. Had he arranged as well the ironic coincidence of a dead amphibian to accompany the Principal's corpse it would bespeak a mind almost deranged with comic malice. Unless this had in fact been a natural coincidence, in which case might it provide a clue to the cause of death of both inhabitants of the pool? Janet frowned and heaved a great sigh. The clues and connections all seemed to centre upon the Principal's office on the one hand and his house on the other. Who had access to both? Could she even trust Jeremy, or her own Professor who seemed so benignly interested in her well-being? How much of the actions of either was simply intended as a smoke-screen to distract her from getting at the root of the question. Who wished to see Dr. Pinkney out of the way, and why? Jeremy himself, for example, could have contrived to indicate the presence of an intruder both here and at the office, while he performed the switch of the coffee creamer. Or, Professor Antwhistle may have had lingering hopes of resuming some previous relationship with the widow. What were his earlier connections with Hilda Pinkney, and was it more than coincidence that he was making what seemed to be a hastily arranged trip to Europe while she was also visiting there?

  A telephone rang somewhere inside the house and Jeremy went to answer it. He emerged a few minutes later.

  "Aunt Elizabeth, father's sister," he explained. Janet had a faint recollection of a pale lady in a wheel-chair at the funeral.

  "A few pictures, books and so forth from the Pinkney side that mother wanted me to run down to her in Allentown. But with all this I thought I'd better stick around here. If someone's about to break in again I want to be around to catch him at it!"

  "Well, it doesn't seem too likely to me. You're assuming he didn't find what he expected the first time," Janet replied. "Anyway I have to get back to work."

  "And I'll lock the place up and play watch-dog in the meantime."

  Janet trundled her bike around the swimming-pool and left it leaning beside the cabana while she inspected the fuse-box inside. Mounting the bicycle she coasted down the path toward the open gate. She dismounted and searched around the post where the key was usually stashed, to no avail. But as she swung the gate back, she spied the padlock, partly hidden by the grass with its key still in place. It fitted with Jeremy's story; someone who knew the back-door access to the Principal's house seeking valuable or incriminating papers among his effects, surprised in the attempt and dropping the lock as he fled in haste.

  Janet continued on her bike after relocking the gate and depositing the key in its habitual spot. As she cycled along the river path she tried to come to terms with her doubts and suspicions, but like the key in the grass they eluded her search. Pe
rhaps, she thought, there is a lesson in all this--the key was the less obtrusive article, and it was only by finding the more obvious lock that it had been revealed. Now, what was the lock for which the crucial key in this case had been fashioned? As her thoughts and her cycle wove between the willows of the river bank two images repeatedly flashed across her mind-- two dead toads floating in a pool-- and a fisherman, his line glinting in the late copper-glow of evening.