A Gentleman's Murder

by Christopher Huang

  “Odd for a shallow grave in the middle of nowhere, but that’s how it looked to me,” Dr. Grey said. “She certainly hadn’t been carelessly dumped. People dumping bodies generally don’t much care how the body is resting—it rolls a bit as it’s thrown in, and the limbs splay. I even remember one body that had been curled up into a tight little ball because that meant digging a smaller hole. I began to think the Bruton Wood skeleton might be an impoverished farm-wife whose bereaved husband had decided for whatever reason to bury her himself.”

  That matched up with what Bradshaw had said about Benson burying her. Benson was heartbroken, and he wanted to give her what respect he could. She was naked but for the sheet, to stymie identification … so why go to Saxon later to have him claim the body? Had someone else forced him to bury her there? Eric pictured another person by the grave, perhaps holding a gun on Benson and telling him to hurry up. Bradshaw, perhaps, all drill sergeant with none of his usual bonhomie; or Aldershott, standing still as a statue, spectacles glinting in the moonlight; or even Saxon, growling savagely to mask the state of his nerves. Benson, grieving badly, was in no fit state to fight back.

  Eric asked, “Could you see how she might have died?”

  “Oh yes, there were a pair of skull fractures,” Dr. Grey replied, indicating a spot near the base of his skull. He traced a line from the spine to just behind his right ear and another one farther up. “The medical examiner thought each looked consistent with a blow from a long, hard object, quite thin but not sharp. A metal rod of some kind, probably a fireplace poker or a crowbar.”

  Eric nodded. “Murder, then.” Eric pictured a poker swinging at Emily’s head. Her assailant would be standing just behind her. The blow would be right-handed, or a somewhat more awkward left-handed backhand.

  Could Benson have struck the blow that killed her? Benson had been a big man, almost as tall as Dr. Grey. Emily had been, according to reports, between five foot two and five foot four. Eric tried to envision Benson swinging at her. How high would he hold his arm? With his height, would the angle be more horizontal? Eric wanted to believe that the angle described by the coroner indicated a shorter man than Benson, but he had to admit that it seemed inconclusive.

  “What are you doing, Mr. Peterkin?”

  Eric quickly dropped his hands with the sudden realisation that he’d been miming the murder blow. “Sorry. Just … trying to picture it, that’s all.”

  Eric emerged from the Green Elephant about an hour later, after having been drawn by Dr. Grey into a series of drinking songs around the piano. This piano, it transpired, had been his own gift to the landlord of the Green Elephant, though it seemed that only Dr. Grey himself ever had the courage to play to an audience. “I’m told that someone quite good came in yesterday morning to play while waiting for his train, but of course I wasn’t about to hear it! There’s a lesson in that, Mr. Peterkin: you never really see the best fruits of your labours.”

  Outside the Green Elephant, South Street continued into the heart of Chichester, to an elaborate Gothic pavilion with stone seats facing out from a central core. This was Chichester Cross, and the main streets of the town radiated out from it in the four cardinal directions. The Peterkin Vauxhall had been parked on West Street, where the cathedral formed the whole south side of the street. Looking that way, Eric saw the first golden streaks of sunset forming on the distant clouds. At this time of the year, sunset meant it was late enough to start thinking about tea, but not quite late enough to actually have it.

  Eric stopped in the shade of Chichester Cross and considered his options. It might be worthwhile to wait and dine here, he thought. He could motor back to London later. Or he could spend the night at the Green Elephant and attend morning services at the cathedral. It would be All Souls’ Day, and time to begin thinking of those he’d lost.

  Or, he thought with a twitch of anticipation, he could call on Mrs. Benson and let her know he was ready to let her paint him in oils.

  A trio of very small children pulling a Guy in a cart behind them stopped just outside the cross to stare at Eric until the eldest, remembering her manners, requested the customary “penny for the Guy.” This Guy was stuffed with straw and dry leaves, and its face was a paper mask. Eric was happy to oblige, and the trio ran off again, the youngest looking back over his shoulder until he nearly tripped over his own feet.

  Eric watched them go, then turned back to his seat in the Cross. A furtive movement caught his eye: there was a man watching him from the corner of South and East. He had beady eyes and a bad complexion, and Eric remembered seeing him earlier as he’d come out of the Green Elephant. They’d been walking in opposite directions then; the beady-eyed man’s presence here meant he’d turned around to follow Eric.

  Eric took the road map from his coat pocket and pretended to study it, but he was on the alert. Ordinarily, he might have approached the beady-eyed man to ask him the issue, but he remembered all too well the attempt on his life just last night. Was this the same person who’d shot at him then? He wasn’t anyone Eric recognised, but that didn’t rule out the possibility of a hired killer.

  A hired killer! Surely, that only happened in books?

  Eric shifted his seat around the central core of the Cross to a position just out of view. The beady-eyed man moved to keep Eric in sight. If he wasn’t a hired killer, he was at least suspicious enough to warrant caution.

  All around, the late-afternoon crowd milled about the shops and chattered among themselves, unaware of what was happening beneath their noses. If any attempt were to be made on Eric’s life, it wouldn’t occur right here in the shadow of Chichester Cross. But he couldn’t wait here forever, and he didn’t want to lose what was likely his best lead in the mystery. The police station was back down South Street, beside the train station; if Eric had noticed the beady-eyed man’s suspicious behaviour earlier, it might have been an easy matter to wrestle him down and haul him in for questioning. As it was, he couldn’t confront him now and drag him all the way down South Street without the good people of Chichester getting quite the wrong idea. If he tried to lead him too close to the police station before making his move, or if he tried to approach a policeman now, he might arouse the beady-eyed man’s suspicions.

  Eric looked around at the four streets radiating out from the cross. The building that had once been the Butterworth Arms, where Saxon had stayed when he came, was on the corner here. It was now a pub, and it suggested possibilities.

  Eric stood up and casually strolled over to the pub. He went inside and made his way to the bar. If the beady-eyed man stayed outside to watch the entrance, Eric could slip out the back way and get help confronting him. If he followed Eric inside …

  He did.

  Eric was counting on there being a fair crowd in the pub. There’d been quite a few people at the Green Elephant, and that was earlier in the afternoon. With the sunset, people would be gathering in the pubs and taverns in preparation for an evening’s social entertainment. No one would think it strange if Eric were to order a pint of beer and take it to a table close by the door where the beady-eyed man had just come in. And the scrum of patrons kept the beady-eyed man from slipping away.

  Eric tripped over a nonexistent crack in the floorboards and sent his beer flying into the beady-eyed man’s face.

  “Oh my goodness,” Eric cried. “I’m so terribly sorry. Here, let me get that for you …” He pulled out a handkerchief—not his good handkerchief, but the turmeric-stained one from his last visit to the Shafi—and began pressing it against the would-be assassin’s beer-soaked shirtfront.

  Yellow stains on a handkerchief look only slightly less disturbing than blood, and the man had no way of knowing they were only turmeric. He pushed Eric away with an expression of horror and disgust.

  Eric’s hand closed on the other man’s jacket as he stumbled backwards, and they both fell against a beer-laden table. Beer splashed across the floor amid cries of dismay and outrage. Eric was fully prepared for
this to turn into an all-out brawl, but there were policemen watching the weekend crowd, and a pair of burly constables began pulling people apart before more than two or three blows could be exchanged.

  “Who started this?” one constable bawled. A dozen fingers pointed at Eric and his “friend,” and Eric allowed himself a smile of satisfaction. This was certainly one way of getting one’s stalker apprehended by the police.

  One constable hauled Eric to his feet, and the other helped the beady-eyed man up with somewhat better care. The beady-eyed man glared at Eric, then said to the constables, “That’s the Chinaman the maid up at Sotheby Manor told us about—Mr. Eeshahn, she said his name was. Arrest him.”

  Eric’s smile vanished as the two constables—and the third, out of uniform and still wet from the beer that had been thrown in his face—turned on him.

  The room was bare but for a table and a pair of chairs, placed facing each other on opposite sides of the table. Eric had been seated in one chair to await interrogation. He’d got up almost immediately to pace. Every passing minute only increased his annoyance. They were probably keeping him waiting on purpose, he thought, to set him on edge. Unfortunately, it was working.

  The door began to open, and Eric leapt back into his seat. The light in the corridor outside was much brighter than in the room, and for a moment, all Eric could make out was a trench-coated silhouette with an unruly shag of hair. It shrugged off the trench coat and slung it over the opposite chair, then turned to face Eric.

  It was Detective Inspector Horatio Parker.

  What was he doing here? Perhaps he’d come to follow up on Benson’s connection to Sotheby Manor. That had to be it. And Eric’s own connection to the case must have been the root of the police suspicion that had ended with his current situation. Eric said, “You’re a long way from London, Inspector.”

  “So are you, Mr. Peterkin.”

  Parker had barely changed since they last saw each other at Benson’s funeral. Come to that, he hadn’t changed since the day they’d found Benson’s body, either. There was a yellow tinge to his collar, and his jacket seemed a touch too big for his thin frame. His face was as haggard as before, and he looked as though he hadn’t slept. As when he’d first met the Inspector, Eric’s eyes were drawn once more to the scar running across his cheek.

  What was he doing here? Chichester and Sussex were surely outside of his jurisdiction.

  “Assaulting a police officer,” the inspector said, reading from a file. “I thought better of you, Mr. Peterkin.”

  “It was an accident.”

  “A likely story.”

  “He was out of uniform. Why was he following me?”

  “You were named as an interested party in a murder case. Constable Fletcher was off duty when he spotted you coming up from the train station. He’s … quite dedicated to his job.”

  Choice words, Eric thought bitterly. The same Constable Fletcher had warned his on-duty friends that “these people” were “slippery buggers” who’d “wriggle out of anything if you gave ’em half a chance.”

  Parker tossed the file onto the table and perched himself sideways on the table edge. It was a casual and informal posture, but it allowed Parker to loom over Eric.

  “Not Benson’s murder? I wasn’t aware that Scotland Yard was enlisting the Chichester police in the inquiry.”

  “We all help one another,” Parker replied with a shrug. “We compare notes. Sometimes we even catch each other’s criminals.”

  “You’re wasting your time with me,” Eric said, reddening at the implication. “I didn’t kill Benson.”

  “I hear you’ve made it your business to hunt down Benson’s killer on your own. Without help and without support. If I were a suspicious man—and I wouldn’t be in this line of work if I weren’t—I’d wonder if you weren’t looking to cover your tracks after having done the deed yourself.”

  “Is that an accusation?”

  “I merely observe that you seemed rather intimate with the widow Benson. Enough to wonder if you might want her husband out of the way.”

  Eric had been expecting something like this since he realised that the inspector had been watching them after the funeral. He drew himself up and said, with as much frosty dignity as he could muster, “There is nothing between us, and I have nothing to hide. You know perfectly well that I couldn’t have done it.”

  “Is that so, Mr. Peterkin? And why is that?”

  “Because Benson was killed in the vault. That means you want someone who had a way into the vault. I didn’t.”

  A knowing, catlike smile flickered across Parker’s face. If Eric didn’t know better, he’d have sworn that even his scar turned up at its edges.

  “Wolfe told us he’d left the vault door open, and was surprised to find it closed when you lot went down and found the body.”

  “What?”

  “Oh yes.” Parker nodded sagely. “Wolfe was quite chagrined about it. He said it spoiled the show he had prepared. He sucked two cigarettes down to nothing as he told us this, which I fancy is the most emotion he’s shown in a year.”

  “But—”

  Parker swung down from his perch on the table edge and settled into his chair. “So you’ll have to give me something better than the vault door to convince me you’re on the up and up, Mr. Peterkin. I’m giving you a chance now. Show me. Convince me that you’ve been out finding things, not hiding things.”

  This put Norris right back on the suspect list, and removed all question of whether Saxon could have broken the combination the way he broke German cyphers. Eric was back where he started. He made an effort to pull himself together. He had to turn the tables somehow. “I know the name of the woman in the photograph you removed from Benson’s room,” he said. “Her name was Emily Ang, and Benson was investigating her death. She was last seen alive here in Chichester. I wonder if that’s the reason you were here when they brought me in.”

  A twitch. It wasn’t much, but it was something. “If that’s the trail you’re following, I wish you the best of luck. It’s nothing to do with Benson’s death, but you are, of course, free to distract yourself from anything genuinely important.”

  “Why don’t you think it’s connected, Inspector?”

  “Why do you think it is?”

  “You know why.”

  They sat in silence for a minute, just watching each other. Parker’s face had dropped back into its wooden, immobile mask. Eric crossed his arms and said, “I know what I saw, Parker, and I don’t understand it. Everyone I’ve spoken to has talked about your dedication to justice, how you put in the work of three men at the Yard.”

  “I can’t comment on that,” Parker replied with a sardonic smile.

  “You’re supposed to be a hero. They awarded you the Victoria Cross—”

  Here Parker gave a bark of laughter. “And that’s supposed to mean something, is it? The Victoria Cross recognises bravery, Peterkin, and I can point out bravery in some of the rankest villains of the criminal underworld. Don’t deceive yourself that it represents any degree of moral fibre.”

  “But—”

  “If you want the damned thing, stop by my office at the Yard and I’ll give it to you. It’ll be a load off my chest.”

  Eric stared at him in silence.

  The inspector suddenly stood up and called another constable into the room. Eric thought this meant the end of the interview, but instead he was escorted outside to a motorcar and told to get in. “We’re going for a ride,” the inspector said.

  Five minutes later, they’d pulled up in front of a palatial Georgian building with a wide lawn and a flourishing Chinese wisteria in front. The walls appeared to be smooth plaster, though the ground floor was covered with ivy, and the entrance was centrally located between gracious pilasters under a broad pediment. Parker hadn’t said a word on the journey over, and Eric hadn’t expected him to. The sign at the driveway’s entrance proclaimed this to be the Royal West Sussex Hospital, and Eric wond
ered if they were here to see a doctor, or perhaps a nurse—someone who’d worked with Emily Ang at Sotheby Manor. A constable accompanied them inside, staying on the other side of Eric from the inspector; Eric might not be in handcuffs, but he wasn’t exactly free.

  It was well past visiting hours by now. The night shift had come on, and the nursing sisters flitted through the shadows like ghosts. Proceeding quietly down the corridor, Eric heard the whisper of mysterious machines shuffling on the edge of his hearing and blending with the snores and groans of sleeping patients. They did not enter any of the wards, and the glare of a formidable matron extended no invitation. Nor did they stop at any of the office doors. Instead, Parker took them down to the morgue.

  It was very still and cold. The scent of hospital disinfectant was stronger here, and mingled with something cloying and sickly sweet.

  A figure lay on the table, under a white sheet. It’s a second murder, Eric realised, and his blood ran cold. He could think of only one person this could be, for the body to be here in Chichester.

  Parker paused to make sure Eric was watching, then whipped back the sheet with a suddenness that nearly made Eric jump. Under the sheet was … a total stranger.

  This was a man in his sixties, thin and grey, with sunken cheeks and little dents on his nose where spectacles once rested.

  Eric felt all the tension simply drop out of his body. He let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding, and looked up at Parker. The inspector was watching him intently, though he wasn’t sure what for.

  “I don’t know who this is,” Eric said, coming forward for a better view. Now that the tension was gone, his natural curiosity was reasserting itself. He wondered how the man had died; there didn’t appear to be any marks on the body.

  Eric looked up. “What did you—” And then he froze.

  While Eric was busy examining the dead stranger, Parker had surreptitiously peeled back the sheet from the body on the next table. And it was Helen Benson.