Cyanide With Compliments

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  After a brief delay he found himself through to a scientist colleague in the research department.

  ‘Maitland? Good,’ he said. ‘I’m interested in a light engineering works. Don’t they have cyanide around in a place like that?’

  ‘Sure,’ replied the scientist. ‘They use it in case hardening. To the uninitiated like you, that’s the surface hardening of iron and steel by immersion in a cyanide bath.’

  ‘Oh, yeah?’ retorted Pollard. ‘Is the stuff kept under lock and key, like dangerous drugs in a hospital?’

  ‘Should be, of course, but probably isn’t, as a general rule. Is this your doped chocolates case?’

  ‘It is. Well, thanks for the gen. Now that I’ve got it from the horse’s mouth, it’ll help to fill out my report.’

  Maitland wished him luck and rang off.

  Pollard picked up the report again, and sat looking at it Harrison and Wynne Ltd, Light Engineering Works. Managing Director: John E. Bayley. Dropping it, he began to compose a report for his Assistant Commissioner, now recovered from his cold and back at his post. By midday it had been sent in, and shortly afterwards there arrived a summons to the presence.

  Still rather catarrhal but restored to normal good humour, the AC looked up with the hint of a grin as Pollard came in.

  ‘Congratulations,’ he remarked. ‘Each act provides its quota of the unexpected. Exeunt the Langs in the wake of the bigamous Donald Vickers, and now a light engineer waits in the wings for his cue. What’s the curtain going up on this time?’

  ‘I couldn’t have answered that question when I came away from Honeydew this morning, sir. But now we know that John Bayley has access to cyanide, and there are reasonable grounds for suspecting him of conspiracy to commit arson, I think it’s worth plugging away at a possible link with the Vickers murder, improbable though it seems at this stage.’

  The AC cleared his throat noisily, and selected a lozenge from a tin on his desk.

  ‘We’ll assume for a moment that such a link exists,’ he said. ‘This would imply (a) that Mrs Vickers found out about the arson conspiracy, and (b) that John Bayley knew that she had, and came to the rather surprising decision that it was worth taking the risk of murdering her to shut her mouth for good and all. I’d like your comments.’

  ‘Re (b), sir,’ Pollard replied, ‘it’s occurred to me within the past hour that we don’t know the final autopsy report on the body found in the burnt house at Roccombe. Suppose the dead chap was knocked on the head?’

  The AC shot a glance at him.

  ‘My own thought precisely. It would make the murder of Mrs Vickers a necessity, wouldn’t it? What about (a)?’

  ‘I find (a) baffling, sir,’ Pollard said frankly. ‘I think we can rule out her having discovered the conspiracy before the cruise, so she must have learnt about it during the trip. Having met the Bayleys, I simply can’t believe that they would have had conversations about it anywhere where they could possibly have been overheard, either on board or on shore. They both give the impression of being very much on the spot.’

  ‘I see that you’ve got Interpol on to James Bayley?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I know I’m not officially on the arson, but I don’t think Colonel Brand of Highcastle’s likely to object. A full report on the interview with the Bayleys yesterday evening has gone down to them, and I’ve asked for the findings of the autopsy on the fire victim. We’ve got the local chaps enquiring into comings and goings from the Bayleys’ house at the time of the fire, too. Then more specifically related to my own case, I thought I’d go along and take a look at Harrison and Wynne’s, and see if there’s anything to be picked up there. And on the assumption that Mrs Vickers not only found out about the arson conspiracy, but also stuck out her neck, I think another go at the Langs is indicated. In their relief at getting off the hook themselves, they might be able to think more coherently about things that happened on the cruise.’

  Slowly masticating his lozenge, the AC sat deep in thought.

  ‘That sounds pretty comprehensive,’ he said at last. ‘I’ve no further suggestion to offer. Good luck, then, Pollard, and keep me posted.’

  On parting from Pollard some hours earlier, Toye proceeded to carry out his allotted programme with his usual thoroughness. His first call was at the hospital to which Mrs Willis’s daughter had been taken on the morning of 1 May. He was there for a considerable time, being passed on from one source of information to another with lengthy waits in between. He wondered during these intervals what it was about a hospital which managed to make you feel completely irrelevant if you weren’t a patient. By being quietly persistent he finally got all the information he wanted. As he had expected, it confirmed all the statements made by Mrs Willis about her daughter’s admission and her own presence in the hospital on 2 May.

  On regaining the outer world he paused on the pavement for a few moments to inhale some antiseptic-free air, and then boarded a bus for Victoria. Here he had a quick snack in the refreshment room, and caught a train for Wallington.

  It was an overcast grey day, and leaning back in the corner of a scruffy second-class compartment Toye felt unusually depressed. He was simply rounding up obviously unnecessary confirmation of evidence which had just knocked the bottom out of the case. It’s been one ruddy door slamming in your face after another, he thought, disgruntled at having been so convinced of the Langs’ guilt himself. After a time, however, relief that Pollard had not made the awful bish of a wrongful arrest gained precedence in his mind over other considerations. He was genuinely, if rather inarticulately devoted to Pollard. And after all, they’d been right up against it before. An enquiry at the station established that Mrs Fuller, the sister of Mrs Willis, lived within ten minutes’ walk, and Toye set off on foot. The house turned out to be a spruce little semi-detached in a side road. He pressed the illuminated bell-push, and set off chimes. Quick steps were audible on the stairs, and the door was opened by a larger and more colourful version of Mrs Willis. Mrs Fuller was confident, quite smartly dressed, and sported make-up. A tape measure round her neck and some threads sticking to her clothes suggested that she had been engaged in dressmaking. Toye instinctively sensed a talker, and hastened to introduce himself before she could get launched. He explained that he was making routine enquiries in connection with the Redbay poisoning case.

  ‘My, that’s a relief!’ she exclaimed. ‘My heart was in my throat when you said you were police, after the fright we had over my sister Shirley being taken bad in the street, and going off in an ambulance. The police always come round to next-of-kin, don’t they, if they can’t get you on the phone? We’d like to have one, but what with the rentals going up all the time, and what it costs to have it put in, it just isn’t on. My sister told me those chocolates came from Honeydew. Real upset she was. Not very nice for her, is it? Won’t you come inside? Not that I’ve anything to tell you. Maybe you could do with a cuppa? I always make one about now. In there on the right, and make yourself at home. The tea won’t take a minute.’

  The small front sitting room was bright and comfortable. Toye took one of the armchairs of the three-piece suite in red imitation leather, and looked about him. Mrs Fuller seemed to have done better for herself than her sister had. There was wall-to-wall carpeting, TV, a big jug of spring flowers on the polished table against the wall, and cheerful and prosperous-looking family photographs dotted about.

  Heralded by the rattle of crockery Mrs Fuller swept in with a laden tray.

  ‘There we are!’ she exclaimed, setting it down. ‘Nothing like a cuppa, is there? Anytime, anywhere, I say? How do you like it?’

  Toye asked for a good cup, and two lumps. He accepted a square of home-made gingerbread, and adroitly seized the moment when Mrs Fuller sampled her own cuppa to get in a question about her visit to Honeydew on the morning of Wednesday, 2 May.

  ‘Oh, that’s what you’ve come to ask about, is it?’ she said. ‘I got there just on ten past ten, if that’s what you want to kn
ow. My sister wanted me to go to her place to fetch the kiddy before she started for work, but I said it wasn’t reasonable, expecting me to get a train before half-past seven in the morning, with my hubby’s breakfast to get and clear away. It’s all because she’s scared of that Mrs Morse. Ridiculous, I call it, with reliable people like Kathleen at a premium, and it isn’t as though the wages are all that. So I said I’d be along at the shop by a quarter past ten, and so I was,’ Mrs Fuller ended triumphantly.

  With only half his mind on her spate of words, Toye was busy with timing calculations. Mrs Willis had said the lady who had bought the box of Marchpane Whatnot had been in the shop ‘about ten’. So Mrs Fuller must only just have missed her.

  ‘Hold it a minute,’ he said, cutting into an account of the difficulties of getting little Tracy to eat a proper breakfast. ‘This is where I want you to do a bit of thinking back. I’m taking you into my confidence, Mrs Fuller,’ he added solemnly. ‘We’re interested in anyone who bought stuff at Honeydew that Wednesday morning. Can you remember if anyone was in the shop when you got there?’

  Mrs Fuller’s mouth fell slightly open but she quickly recovered.

  ‘No one at all, there wasn’t, while I was in there. I was a bit surprised seeing what a well-known place it is. When I went inside my sister was in the stock room, trying to get some of the parcels from the factory unpacked and checked. She was a bit flustered with Tracy under her feet, so I didn’t stop longer than it took to get the kiddy’s things on, and…’ Suddenly she broke off.

  Toye looked at her enquiringly.

  ‘Why, it’s just come back to me,’ she said. ‘There wasn’t anyone in the shop, like I said, but just as I turned into Market Court I saw a lady come out of Honeydew. She must’ve bought several things, because Kathleen — my sister, that is — had put it all in one of their posh carriers with those blessed beehives all over. The lady’d got a car parked outside, and she was unlocking it just as I came up. I know it’s rude to stare, but I couldn’t help myself, seeing I recognized her, you might say.’

  ‘Recognized her?’ Toye’s voice sounded oddly hoarse to his own ears.

  ‘That’s right. She models for the rag trade. For the older younger woman: I’d put her about thirty. You see her photo in rag trade adverts quite often. I worked for a West End dressmaker before I got married, and I still do a bit for people round here. Now that the boys have left home I’ve turned the little third bedroom into a workroom, so that I needn’t keep on clearing up. I always look carefully at the adverts, so as to know what’s being worn. I’ve got one or two of the lady somewhere in these books.’

  She hunted through a pile of magazines which were on a chair in the corner.

  ‘It’s this one, I’m sure,’ she said, hastily turning the pages. ‘Yes, here she is. Lovely suit, isn’t it? Ought to be at that price. There’s another of her in this month’s Eyeful. Drat the thing, where’s it got to? Funny how the one you want’s always at the bottom of the whole lot. This is it. Now then, here we are. Take a look. Knows how to carry off a frock, doesn’t she? Mind you, it’s the training. She —’

  ‘Mrs Fuller,’ Toye said, ‘are you prepared to swear that the original of these two photographs is the lady you saw coming out of Honeydew that Wednesday morning?’

  ‘I’d swear it in court any day,’ Mrs Fuller assured him buoyantly.

  A quarter of an hour later Toye left the house with a signed statement from Mrs Fuller. On reaching the station he found that he had half an hour to wait for a train back to London: an intolerable prospect. Uncharacteristically acting on impulse he dived into a telephone kiosk, and after dialling the Yard number and asking for an extension found himself put through to Pollard.

  ‘Toye here, sir,’ he said. ‘Speaking from Wallington. An identification of the photograph I mentioned to you was volunteered: there was a copy in the house. Another one of the same person was rustled up, too.’

  A piercing whistle of gratified surprise made him move the receiver some inches from his ear.

  ‘Talk about a breakthrough,’ Pollard said. ‘Here’s to you, old chap. Get back here as soon as you can. Something else has come through.’

  11

  On returning to the Yard Toye found Sergeant Longman with Pollard, and the atmosphere almost convivial after the tension of the past few days. He was subjected to congratulatory ragging and ordered to explain what he had been up to. Trying to conceal all trace of gratification he gave a rather bald account of his visits to the hospital and Mrs Fuller, and handed over the latter’s statement.

  ‘One of the things I shall never be able to get over,’ Pollard remarked, picking up his copy of Eyeful, ‘is what can spring from absolutely trivial actions on somebody or other’s part. Here’s Mrs Bayley taking a look at her photograph in this magazine, and then dropping the thing on the settee open at the page. Perhaps she heard something boiling over on the cooker, or the telephone rang. Then we come along, and Toye decides to park his bottom on the settee instead of on a chair, and the photograph catches his eye… However, we’d better keep our minds on the job. Highcastle have been on the line, Toye. To cut it short, the final autopsy report on the chap in the fire at Roccombe is that his skull wasn’t smashed by the roof caving in on him. A beam fell across his chest and smashed it, but stopped anything much landing on his head. The forensic chaps are satisfied that the skull was fractured by blows from a metal rod or bar, and point out that a set of fire-irons including a poker was found in the wreckage. Tests for bloodstains and so forth aren’t on, of course, after the fire and the water from the hoses.’

  ‘Real bit of bad luck for the fire-raiser, that dropout being in the house, and coming up to breathe at an awkward moment,’ commented Longman.

  ‘Makes sense of the Bayleys doing Mrs Vickers, though,’ Toye said, ‘if we take it she found out about the arson, seeing they’d got a murder on their hands as well.’

  ‘From the look of things, a motive’s been established,’ Pollard agreed, ‘but there’s a long way to go yet. How the hell did she find out? Our only chance of getting a line on that is from the Langs, as far as I can see, and I doubt if she’d have said anything to them about it. Then James Bayley’s got to be found and brought back. So far there’s no trace of him, according to the latest Interpol report. And up to now neither we nor Highcastle have managed to get on to his trail at the time of the fire. So it’s anything but all over bar the shouting.’

  Slightly sobered, the other two agreed, and Pollard began to outline his plan of action.

  ‘Highcastle want us to go down, Toye,’ he went on. ‘Exchange of views, and collaboration over tracing the fire-raiser’s movements, etc. I said we’d get the last train down tonight, and be available first thing tomorrow morning. They’re fixing us up at the Southgate as usual. Meanwhile Longman’s co-ordinating enquiries about James Bayley at this end: we haven’t a shred of evidence against him so far, remember. With any luck it may be possible to find someone who saw him turn up at the Trafalgar Terrace house after the John Bayleys went off on the cruise, or even pushing off again for Roccombe on 26 April or thereabouts.’

  ‘What about John Bayley’s factory, sir?’ Toye asked.

  ‘Dates are important here,’ Pollard replied. ‘Let’s see. The John Bayleys weren’t expected back from the cruise before 7 May at the earliest. They had given out that they were going to have a week in Venice after they disembarked. If John Bayley got cyanide from the factory, he must have gone along there very soon after flying back to London on Monday, 30 April, because of the time factor. The chocolates were posted on the following Thursday, and doctoring them would take quite half a day, I should think. Did he just clock in as usual on the Tuesday, and pay an unobtrusive visit to wherever the stuff’s kept, or did he pay the place a surprise visit out of hours? All this is over to you and the local chaps you’ve roped in, Longman. Any further suggestions, either of you?’

  After some further discussion the meeting broke up, Lon
gman departing for Camden Town, and Toye for a brief visit to his home before meeting Pollard at Paddington for the nine-thirty pm train to Highcastle.

  In view of the heaped state of his in-basket, Pollard reluctantly abandoned the idea of a quick dash to Wimbledon, and rang Jane. ‘I shan’t be back tonight,’ he told her, ‘but it’s not Fulminster. We’re going down to Highcastle on the nine-thirty from Paddington.’

  Jane gave an exclamation of surprise. ‘Highcastle?’

  ‘Yeah. They’ve got a problem, and we’ve got a problem, and the two look like heading for a merger, you’ll be surprised to hear.’

  ‘What about Fulminster?’

  ‘We’ll be taking it in on the way back tomorrow. Not for the purpose I mentioned last night, though. That idea’s definitely and finally off.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ she said. ‘Even if you’ve still got a problem.’

  ‘I sure have, darling,’ he told her, ‘but I’d much rather have it this way.’

  After further conversation of a purely personal character he rang off, and addressed himself to arrears of work relating to other cases.

  As Pollard saw it, the conference at Highcastle police headquarters on the following morning had its amusing side. Colonel Brand, the Chief Constable, enjoyed the opportunity of stressing the amount and quality of the work his men had put in on the Roccombe arson. Dart, on the strength of being the only person present with working experience of both the arson and the Vickers murder case, felt an obvious sense of superiority in his sombre way.

  After discussing the findings of the autopsy they passed on to the forensic experts’ report on the fire. Brede House, Roccombe, had been listed as a largely seventeenth-century house of architectural interest, and numerous photographs of it were available. Pollard inspected them, and felt sympathy with Olivia Strode’s dismay at the disaster. Brede seemed originally to have been a two-roomed house with a cross-passage, an upper storey having been added at a later date. He noted the rectangular projecting stair turret that Olivia had mentioned, and a massive exterior chimney-breast. There was a single-storey porch, and an attractive round-headed doorway.