A Sticky End

by James Lear

  “Preposterous!”

  “Shut up, Trent. The less you speak, the quicker you will get back to your sister. Go on, Jack.”

  “But when he met Mr. Morgan, all that changed. I see it now. I always thought I had a rival, but like a fool I believed it was Frank’s wife, trying to get him back. But, of course, it was another man. This time, he really fell in love; with me, it had only been about what we could do when we were in bed together.”

  The two cops were looking a little green around the gills; perhaps they wished, now, that they’d accepted something stronger than coffee.

  “And so I tried to get him back by blackmailing him. That’s not how I saw it at the time—not really. I thought I could persuade him by threats, and when that didn’t work, I thought I’d get my fair share of what he was taking away from me.”

  “Loss of earnings?” I said.

  “Yes,” said McDermott. “But it was the loss of his friendship that hurt more. I know it was wrong. Eventually I saw that the game was up. He was generous enough.”

  “Because you forced him to be!” said Ross. “Do you have any idea how much this person extorted out of Frank?”

  “Yes, I could make an educated guess. And I’m sure Tippett has it all down in black and white in the ledgers, don’t you, Tippett?”

  “Yes. Mr. Bartlett was most insistent.”

  “So, Jack—he paid you off, and that was the end of that.”

  “Yes. I found other gentlemen. Never the same as him.”

  “But the demands kept coming,” said Ross. “More notes, more payments. If not you, then—who?”

  “Morgan, of course.”

  “I don’t think so, Trent.”

  “Then who?”

  “Any suggestions, Tippett?”

  “Me?” Tippett looked uncomfortable.

  “Did you never recognize the people who delivered the notes to the office?”

  “No. I told you. They came and went like a hundred other messenger boys.”

  “But surely, in a case like this, you would be watchful.”

  “I was not asked to be.”

  “And you never act outside the strict limits of what you’re asked to do?”

  “I am a clerk, sir. I am employed for my efficiency, not for my initiative.” He looked to Ross for approval.

  “Tippett is one in a million,” said the employer. “He’s been invaluable to the firm.”

  “So I hear. Nobody is accusing you of anything, Tippett. I merely ask if you have any idea where these continued demands for money were coming from.”

  “And I tell you—no. I don’t.”

  “I see. That’s a shame.”

  “Have you really dragged us all the way out here to hear this?” said Trent. “You have no more idea of what happened to Frank than I do. You’re wasting our time.” He got up.

  “One moment, Mr. Trent. You’re right, in a way. But I would like you to hear me out, all the same.”

  “Christ almighty—”

  “Sit down, Mr. Trent,” said Detective Sergeant Weston.

  “I cannot tell you who delivered those notes—at least, not yet. But there was one delivery made to Frank Bartlett about which I do know. The letter that was delivered to him just before his death. Here, in this house, on Saturday night—or, rather, in the early hours of Sunday morning.”

  Six pairs of eyes were staring at me, expressing various degrees of disbelief. I opened the door and yelled, “Durran!”

  Durran stepped into the room, holding his cap in his hands, shifting nervously from foot to foot, ill at ease in front of the police.

  “It’s okay, Sean,” I said. “You just have to tell them what you told me.”

  “But, Mitch—”

  “Who is this person?” said Walter Ross, who was almost as uncomfortable in the presence of the working class as Durran was in his.

  “Sean Durran, laborer, of Clapham,” I said.

  “What is he doing here, Mitchell?” asked Trent.

  “He’s been here before, as a matter of fact. Haven’t you, Sean?”

  “Yes.”

  “Speak up.”

  “Yes. I have. I was here on Saturday night.”

  A murmur of astonishment.

  “And what were you doing here?”

  “I was invited here by Mr. Morgan—and Mr. Bartlett.”

  “You were—” began Trent, in his usual pompous tones—but then he suddenly stopped. “Ah,” was all he said.

  “Ah. Bartlett and Morgan met Sean Durran on Wimbledon Common, and then again in a pub called the White Bear. The White Bear is well known to the police, is it not, Sergeant Godley?”

  “Yes,” said Godley. “It’s a queer pub.”

  “You know about these places,” said Trent, “and yet you allow them to remain open? What the hell are we paying our taxes for, I’d like to know.”

  “We keep them under observation,” said DS Weston, “and as long as there is no trouble, an occasional raid is sufficient to stop them from becoming a nuisance. If we closed them down, then the commons and parks of London would not be safe for decent folk to walk through.”

  “Thank you, detective sergeant. Now, Sean, perhaps you could tell us how exactly you got to know Mr. Bartlett and Mr. Morgan.”

  “I was told to meet them.”

  “You were told? By whom.”

  “A man,” he said.

  “Is that man here?”

  Durran scanned the six faces—Trent, Ross, Tippett, McDermott, Godley, Weston. “No. I don’t think so. Wait a minute.” He looked back at McDermott, took a pace or two toward him. “Was it you?”

  “Now, hang on,” said McDermott, springing to his feet and clenching his fists. “I’ve not come here to be framed for something that I had nothing to do with.”

  “No,” said Durran. “It’s not him. Looked a bit like. But no, this one was older. He’s not here.”

  “So this mystery man instructed you to waylay Bartlett and Morgan?”

  “It’s like this,” began Durran, returning to my side. “I was in the Ship one night—that’s another pub of the same sort in Tooting. My regular, you might say.”

  “Good God,” said Trent, “how widespread is this plague?”

  Everyone ignored him.

  “He asked me if I ever went down Wimbledon way. I says yes. He says, do I know the Common? I says yes. He says do I know the White Bear? I says yes.”

  “When was this, Sean?”

  “Last Tuesday night.”

  “And what happened?”

  “He gave me a letter to deliver to a certain party, and a message.”

  “What was the message?”

  “ ‘Don’t forget.’ That’s all.”

  “And did he tell you to do anything else?”

  “Yes. He said I was to compo…compri… What was the word you said?”

  “Compromise.”

  “Yes. I was to compromise the gentleman and his friend. In other words, I was to get off with them. Well, that wasn’t so tough. They were good-looking, both of them. I didn’t mind. And he gave me a tenner.”

  “Who did?”

  “This bloke in the pub. And another fiver when I saw him again on Sunday night.”

  “And you’re sure he isn’t here?”

  “No. I’m sure.”

  “So for fifteen pounds, you waited on Wimbledon Common, at a time and place you believed Bartlett would appear.”

  “Yes. This feller told me that he’d be staying at this house. Told me I was to keep my eyes in my head and follow him. If I could get him and his friend alone, I was to talk to them. So I waited around and I saw him arrive, and then after a while I saw him and the other gentleman coming out. I follows them over the Common, and I says good evening to them, with a smile and wink. Just to make sure they know my face. Then I keep an eye on them and they go into the Bear. So I think, right you are, my beauties, I’ll have you in there.”

  “But they brought you home.”

>   “Yes. Very nice too. Fun and games we had.”

  “I have no desire to hear the details,” said Ross; Tippett looked disappointed.

  “And afterward?”

  “When the young gentleman is downstairs, the older gent, Mr. Bartlett, gives me a few quid. And I give him the letter, and I say, ‘Don’t forget.’ He looks at me like he’s seen a ghost, he does. Tries to say something, but the words won’t come out. I feel bad and I leave him be. Other young gent sees me in the hall and we say good night and I go.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “That’s all.”

  “Are you sure you’re not forgetting something?”

  “I don’t think so.” He was fidgeting, eager to leave—perhaps to get back to one of his regular haunts and put some extra bread on the Durran family table.

  “Come now, Sean. What were you telling me earlier?”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Yes, you do. And you promised you’d tell these gentlemen as well.”

  “I won’t get into trouble?”

  Durran had been eager to tell the truth when I tracked him down and interviewed him earlier this afternoon; now, however, confronted by a uniformed police officer and his plainclothes superior, he was losing his nerve.

  “Detective Sergeant Weston?”

  Weston nodded. “Go ahead, Mr. Durran. You can speak in confidence. Doctor Mitchell has already consulted me.”

  Weston had, indeed, given his word that Durran would be treated leniently if he cooperated—though he had been unable to promise a complete immunity from any prosecutions. I didn’t think the time was right to mention this to Durran.

  “All right, then,” said Durran, staring gloomily at the floor. “There was something else that the bloke gave me. But I swear to God that I didn’t know what it was. He told me it was like a love potion. Something to make things go with a swing.”

  “A love potion? Surely a young man like you doesn’t need any extra lead in his pencil, Durran?”

  “No, Mitch.” Durran grinned nervously. “I don’t. But it wasn’t for me. It was for him.”

  “Who?”

  “Bartlett. The gent told me to give it to him.”

  “And did he take it?”

  “Well…not as such, no. I gave it to him without him noticing.”

  “You mean you slipped it in his drink?”

  He took a deep breath. “No. It wasn’t like that. It was in a little capsule—like something you might get from the doctor.”

  “And what did you do with it?”

  “I did what I was told. I stuck it up his arse.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  THE REACTION WAS EXTREMELY GRATIFYING. HUGH TRENT turned a deep shade of red, and his eyes bulged out. Sergeant Godley, on the other hand, turned a rather unpleasant pale green, and looked as if he was about to faint. Walter Ross muttered and mumbled into his handkerchief, while Arthur Tippett was on the verge of tears. Only Jack McDermott and Detective Sergeant Weston remained calm—the former because he was basically unshockable, the latter because he knew what was coming.

  “So, Sean,” I said to my star witness, “you inserted this capsule, or suppository, or whatever it was, into Frank Bartlett’s anus at some point during your…encounter.”

  “Yeah. I’d hid it in my sock, and then when my socks came off I held it in my hand until I had a chance to finger him. He liked that. He never knew I’d put something in him.”

  “And did it have an immediate effect?”

  “I thought so,” said Durran. “I mean, he was really randy. Especially for a bloke of his age. He was mad for it.”

  “So you thought that the love potion had done its work.”

  “Yeah. I suppose. I didn’t think much about it.”

  “Did the man who gave you the letter and the capsule explain why he wanted Bartlett to be dosed in this way?”

  “He said he wanted to make sure that Bartlett really let himself go. So that there was no chance that we wouldn’t… you know. Go all the way. And then I was to tell him all about it.”

  “I see. He wanted evidence, in fact, that Bartlett was having sexual relations with other men.”

  “Suppose so.”

  “And the love potion was just to make sure that he got his evidence.”

  “Look, that’s what he told me.”

  “You can sit down now,” I said. That was more than I could do; after the pounding Bert had given me, I preferred to remain standing. Durran took his place in a chair next to Walter Ross; I saw the older man stiffen and edge away. His tolerance of his late partner’s activities obviously had its limits.

  “The contents of this capsule puzzled me,” I said. “So I obtained a copy of the toxicology report from Frank Bartlett’s post mortem. May I, detective sergeant?”

  Weston nodded.

  “The pathologist who examined Bartlett’s body initially assumed that the cause of death was loss of blood from multiple wounds on the arms, inflicted by a razor that was taken by the police from the bathroom of this house. It seemed obvious, given the depth and severity of the cuts, and the amount of blood on the walls and floor of the bathroom. When Bartlett’s body was removed from the house, there was still so much blood in those wounds that it spilled on the hall floor. Is that right, Sergeant Godley?”

  “I don’t remember. But yes, there was blood everywhere. It was a messy business.”

  “We’ll return to that blood later,” I continued. “But for now, I am interested in poison. Before the pathologist signed the death certificate, he noticed certain unusual things about the body. One: the face was bright pink, as were the fingers and toes. Two: there were scratch marks on the stomach, possibly the result of some vigorous sexual activity, but possibly also self-inflicted. Three: the ankles and neck were swollen. When he opened up the body, he discovered that the kidneys were damaged. All of these symptoms are consistent with mercury poisoning.”

  “Mercury? Good God,” said Trent, “how horrible!”

  “Very horrible. One of the nastiest ways to die, I believe. So, given the suspicious circumstances of Bartlett’s death, the police removed more items from this house—specifically, the contents of Bartlett’s overnight bag. They analyzed everything—his toothpaste, his mouthwash, his soap, his pillbox. And what did they find?”

  “Mercury, I assume,” said Ross. “But how did it get there?”

  “No, Mr. Ross. They found strychnine. In his mouthwash.”

  “Strychnine? But you said—”

  “Confusing, isn’t it? Razor cuts, symptoms of mercury poisoning in the body, and strychnine in the mouthwash. Three possible causes of death for one corpse. Whoever killed Frank Bartlett wanted to make very sure that he died.”

  “Killed? Good God, Mitchell, you’re not suggesting this was murder?” Ross looked horrified. “Frank committed suicide, surely. That seems clear. The trouble he was in… I mean, he did what he thought was right, didn’t he?”

  “That is what we were supposed to think.”

  “But for heaven’s sake, man,” said Trent, “he cut his wrists! You said yourself that there was blood everywhere.”

  “So he did, and so there was.”

  “I’m in the dark,” said McDermott, with relish. I think he regarded the whole affair as a sophisticated drawing room entertainment. “What happened?”

  “I’m going to tell you,” I said, feeling somewhat as if I were onstage myself. “But first, gentlemen, please recharge your glasses. Officers—you might allow yourself a drop of the hard stuff. This isn’t a very pretty story. As a doctor, I recommend it.”

  The whiskey decanter was passed, and everyone helped themselves liberally. When everyone was ready, I began.

  “Frank Bartlett and Harry Morgan were lovers. They had been for nearly eighteen months prior to Bartlett’s death. There was a certain amount of overlap between Jack McDermott and Harry Morgan—but, as McDermott has told us, Bartlett made his choice, and paid the price for discardin
g his old lover in favor of the new.”

  McDermott looked pained, but nodded.

  “At various points throughout their affair, Morgan tried to break with Bartlett—he felt he was in too deep, that he was endangering his marriage and family life, as well as compromising his professional relationship with the firm of Bartlett and Ross.”

  “He didn’t try very hard, did he?” said Ross.

  “Perhaps not. But we must remember at all times that, in his way, Morgan loved Bartlett just as much as Bartlett loved Morgan. I know Morgan pretty well—we were students together at Cambridge, and we’ve been in a lot of scrapes over the years—and I know that he’s a passionate, impulsive fellow.”

  “He’s a married man,” said Trent. “He should have learned to control himself.”

  “Yes, he should,” I said, “but he didn’t. And how many of us do? Life is a constant temptation. Morgan was swept off his feet by Bartlett—but he still loved his wife and children, and had no desire to leave them. Bartlett made that easy for him—he didn’t want to upset the apple cart any more than Morgan did. He was a respectable City solicitor, with a reputation to maintain, and a very presentable wife at home.”

  “A wife who is now very ill from the shock,” said Trent.

  “Let us hope for a speedy recovery,” I said. “As Bartlett bound Morgan tighter and tighter to himself, so Morgan realized that he was way out of his depth. When Bartlett came to this house for what he thought would be a romantic weekend, they argued. Morgan told him it was over. Bartlett was furious, crazy—he had only just changed his will, as an ultimate gift to Morgan, hoping that it would bind them forever. In a last-ditch effort to win Morgan back, he took him out and found another playmate—thinking, perhaps, that Morgan had tired of him, just as Bartlett had tired of Jack, here. But that wasn’t the case. Morgan didn’t want another man. The only man he wanted was Frank Bartlett.”

  “So why did they want me?” asked Durran. “Mr. Morgan seemed to enjoy himself.”

  “He did. Morgan’s led by his dick. He’s young and he doesn’t always think before he acts.” Neither do I, I thought, glancing rather ruefully at Arthur Tippett, whom I’d fucked in the name of the investigation and who, from the look in his eyes, was eager for seconds. “It wasn’t the first time Bartlett had encouraged him to do something new, something dangerous, even. Bartlett had a great deal of influence over Morgan.”