by Leo Bruce
“It may be something which only implicates herself.”
“Nonsense! It’s as plain as a pikestaff. The poor girl knew too much and has suffered for it.”
“She admits to having administered the pills from which, as far as we know, Mrs Bomberger died.”
“Alice could never administer anything, least of all a large and busy school. But let that pass. What are you doing about her death?”
“I have reported it to the police. They have probably recovered the body by now and will require you to identify it.”
See how you like that, Carolus could not help thinking.
Ethel Pink nodded. “It will be my duty,” she said. “I meant what are you doing about her murderer? When will he be discovered?”
“I do not know yet that she was murdered.”
“I shall stay here till you have cleared the matter up!” threatened Miss Pink.
“That is for you to decide, of course.”
“I shall see the police myself and tell them my sister was murdered.”
“Yes. Do that.”
“I understand you’re a schoolmaster?”
“I am. Yes.”
“Ttssstt!” said Miss Pink contemptuously, and left after the briefest nod of leave-taking.
This time Carolus made no attempt to go out, but sat down in the least uncomfortable of the chairs as though, like a Yogi, he could think deeply and to order. He remained nearly an hour there and was disturbed only by the entrance of Priggley.
“What do you want?” he asked wearily.
“Nothing, really. It’s just that I’m getting a bit worried about this case, sir. You really are slipping, you know.”
Carolus did not reply.
“For instance, do you deny that you could have prevented the death of Alice Pink?”
“I don’t see how.”
“Are you anywhere near a solution?”
“If you want me to be really explicit, I am and I’m not. It’s all terribly circumstantial. There’s nothing for me or the police to get our teeth into.”
“I see that. But if these two women were murdered it does make you look a bit slow, to say the least of it.”
“I know. I don’t pretend to be happy about this case.”
“It looked like a pretty frolic to start with, didn’t it? I mean no one could miss the Bomberger.”
“Apparently not.”
“Oh, by the way, I’ve got something to tell you. That squint-eyed character is back. Or else he never left the town. I saw him today. Very down-and-out he looked.”
“Is he at the same boarding-house?”
“No. I went round to see my friend Mrs Salter. He left there at once.”
“I’m glad you did that.”
“You’re not forgetting the farmer chap with the worn brake-cable?”
“I’m not forgetting anyone.”
“Then do let’s have some action, sir. The thing’s gone far enough.”
“In your odious lingo—I couldn’t agree with you more.”
Mrs Stick brought in the tea, and Carolus guessed from the expression on her face that Ethel Pink’s visit had not been unobserved. But this was bad diagnosis.
“How are you enjoying Blessington, Mrs Stick?” asked Rupert Priggley mischievously.
“Enjoying it? How can anyone enjoy a place where Stick only has to go out to do a bit of shrimping when he sees the fire brigade and police and all of them out recovering a dead body from the side of the cliff not half a mile from where the other one was found? We shall have one in the wardrobe next, I shouldn’t be surprised, if we go on getting mixed up in such things.”
She put down the tray and left the room in what Wilde once called ‘a marked manner’.
15
THERE were two or three more routine enquiries which Carolus had to make, and the most urgent was an interview with Cupperly the chemist. Carolus believed that on this might depend his whole case. If Cupperly was communicative and accurate and gave certain information which Carolus already suspected, then there would be no more mystery about the death of Lillianne Bomberger. That of Alice Pink was a simpler matter altogether.
But would Cupperly be communicative? Carolus was only too aware of his own amateur status. Whereas the police had only to walk in and show their cards, Carolus had to depend on the goodwill of the chemist, his recognition that Carolus did not come out of idle curiosity and his willingness to give information about his customers’ purchases, which in a certain sense was a breach of confidence.
However, Carolus thought he was more likely to get the facts he wanted from Cupperly than from the police, so he set off for the chemist’s shop before ten o’clock in the morning, when he thought it would not be too busy.
The shop was in one of the principal streets of the town, but it was not large, and when Carolus entered he was the only customer. That special smell of soap and scent which is common to all English chemists’ shops but imperceptible in those abroad, was potent here. One had the impression of walking into an atmosphere sanitary, scrubbed, disinfected and scented. And behind the counter stood the very personification of all this, a fair-haired man with rimless glasses who looked as though he had just come from a vigorous masseur in a hygienic Turkish bath and been shaved and scrubbed and polished. He was about forty years old, and Carolus thought as he saw his shining white coat and brilliant fingernails that there is a kind of personal cleanliness which almost amounts to morbidity.
“What can I get for you, sir?” asked Mr Cupperly without smiling.
“Aspirin,” said Carolus. “But I also wanted to ask you a couple of questions.”
“Gallup poll?”
“No, no. Professional questions.”
“Ah,” said Mr Cupperly and looked even more important.
“You see, I’m making a private investigation of the death of Mrs Bomberger.”
“Now there, sir, we touch on difficult ground,” said Mr Cupperly with some unction. “We approach a delicate question.”
“Why?”
“I respect the confidence of my customers. I cannot play fast and loose with information entrusted to me.”
“But I’m not asking you to do that.”
“When a doctor writes a prescription,” went on Mr Cupperly, “he does so in the full confidence that the member of the pharmaceutical profession who is required to make it up will regard it as a sacred trust.”
“I’m only asking …”
“We do not actually take the Hippocratic oath, but the more conscientious of us feel bound by it.”
“The question I want to put…”
“In the eleven years I have had this shop I may say that I have never been guilty of the smallest breach of that trust which was laid on me when I became a registered pharmaceutical chemist after satisfying the Pharmaceutical Society and attending an approved systematic course of not less than one thousand six hundred hours in botany, chemistry, pharmacognosy, pharmacy and forensic pharmacy.”
“I simply wanted …”
“Although I recognize that in cases of sudden decease in which murder is suspected, the pharmacist’s knowledge of the deceased person’s habits may be valuable to the authorities and should be placed at their disposal I cannot approve of giving details to unauthorized persons.”
“But…”
“If, of course, you could satisfy me that you have some official status in the matter and come to me with the approval of all concerned, I should feel inclined to waive the formalities and give you the details you require.”
“I only want …”
“If on the other hand it is in a spirit of mere curiosity, almost one might say in pursuit of a hobby, that you enquire, my lips must remain sealed.”
“I have been called in by the family. I really need your information, Mr Cupperly. I think it may enable me to clear this beastly thing up.”
“In that case I will do my best. But I think it inadvisable to discuss these matters in the shop. It is
early closing day today, and if you would care to call in the afternoon I shall be pleased to assist you.”
“Where do you live?” asked Carolus, who was at that moment longing for fresh air.
“We have an apartment in this building. Over the shop, in fact. Four-thirty, I suggest.”
“Thank you,” said Carolus, and fled from antiseptics and perfumes, Hippocratic oaths and duties to clients, into the fresh air from the North Sea.
But at four-thirty he was back and was led by Mr Cupperly through the side door and up a flight of stairs to a sitting-room as polished as the counter downstairs, its three-ply furniture shining and its very fire-irons having a black glow. Mrs Cupperly, a fierce-looking woman with dark hair and feline movements, sat behind a tea-tray.
“I’m just going to pour out for you, then I’m going down to the beach to pick up the children while you have your natter.”
She scarcely waited to hand Carolus bread and butter before she disappeared, clearly by pre-arrangement with her husband.
Mr Cupperly meant to enjoy himself, as Carolus saw at once. He leaned back in his chair, joined the tips of his fingers and said, “Now!”
“I understand that there were three kinds of narcotics …”
“Soporifics.”
“Soporifics, then, used in that house. Bromaloid, which was taken by Miss Pink in liquid form …”
“You can really leave that out. Its chemical contents were not interesting and no one else took it. Miss Pink had the old-fashioned idea that sleeping-pills of any sort were dangerous but a ‘dose of medicine’ before going to bed would do no one any harm. She never touched any of the others and Bromaloid is the mildest thing we have. A whole bottle wouldn’t have hurt her. The effect was psychological.”
“I see. Next there were the Komatoza tablets taken by the two sisters.”
“Yes. Komatoza is a preparation of pheno-barbitone which can only be sold on a doctor’s prescription.”
“They had one, of course ?’’
“Dr Flitcher’s. Yes. I supplied them with that regularly, and have done for eighteen months or so.”
“You have a full record of your sales to them of it?”
“Yes, I have. And that is what you are going to find interesting, I think. That is why I showed a certain reserve in parting with my information.”
“Yes?”
Mr Cupperly referred to certain notes which he had beside him.
“The Stayers started taking Komatoza in January of last year. At first their joint consumption was no more than a dozen tablets a week, but as time went on this increased, until in January of this year they were using twenty tablets a week between them. I’ll spare you the details, but these tablets are sold in boxes of twenty-five, and my records, which have to be accurate with pheno-barbitone preparations, enable me to say in weekly terms just what they took.”
“Good. That makes it easier for me.”
“This consumption did not vary for a long time, then about three months ago it increased. Mrs Bomberger came to me and asked for sleeping-pills of some kind. ‘I have had certain business anxieties lately,’ she confided in me. ‘And sometimes I find I cannot sleep. It is not often that this happens, but I like to be prepared for it when it does.’ I asked why she did not try the Komatoza, which her nieces used. She said, ‘Well, to tell you the truth I find it quite ineffective. I am possibly a more difficult subject than my nieces.’ I then recommended her to consult her doctor, who could give her a prescription for something more effective. Some days later one of her nieces …”
“Which?”
“Fortunately I can tell you that, since she had to sign the book. It was Miss Babs Stayer. She brought in Dr Flitcher’s prescription for certain sleeping-pills which are only given to patients suffering severe pain or in very obstinate cases of insomnia. They are, like most drugs nowadays, manufactured by one of the great firms and ready for sale under a doctor’s certificate. They also are a pheno-barbitone preparation, but with morphine. I gave the niece the usual warning and wrote clearly on the box that not more than one tablet was to be taken at a time. You may know that the Labelling of Poisons Order, which came into force on the first day of January 1926, makes it an offence to sell any preparation containing an ingredient to which the Pharmacy Act applies without stating on the label the proportion of the specified poison to the whole preparation. Needless to say, I have always conformed most scrupulously with this Order.”
“Quite, quite.”
Undeterred, Mr Cupperly proceeded, “Moreover, the Dangerous Drug Act of 1920-23 lays down that except by a doctor’s prescription certain drugs may not be suppplied at all. These are morphine, cocaine, ecgonine, diamorphine, heroin and their respective salts, and medicinal opium. Even when there is a doctor’s prescription, a careful register must be kept of these drugs, both of quantities bought by the pharmacist and of those sold by him. You can imagine that in selling these things to Mrs Bomberger I was particularly careful to conform with all orders. I repeated them verbally to Miss Babs Stayer.”
I bet you did, thought Carolus, but replied, “Naturally.”
“After I had given her the first supply of the tablets prescribed by Dr Flitcher I heard no more from her for some six weeks. But during this time the quantity of Komatoza used by the nieces noticeably increased, until recently it was something over forty tablets a week. I was somewhat perturbed by this and intended to consult Dr Flitcher, but unfortunately it slipped my mind until too late.”
“You were telling me about Mrs Bomberger’s tablets.”
“Oh yes. At the end of six weeks she was supplied again through Miss Babs Stayer, with a second box containing, like the first, twenty tablets. The police inform me that they found this box by her bed with six tablets missing on the day after her death. They brought the box to me, in fact, to identify.”
“Thank you, Mr Cupperly. May I say that you are admirably clear and explicit?”
“A pharmacist becomes accustomed to precision, Mr Deene. I see no reason why he should not be as accurate in using words as in making up a prescription.”
“I suppose it’s a bit out of your province, but do you find anything odd in the fact that poison was still in the dead woman’s intestines even after her immersion?”
“It is, as you say, out of my province. The Fédération Internationale Pharmaceutique insists that a pharmacist should study a certain number of subjects, but he is not required to be able to conduct post-mortems.”
As though he was fascinated by a mesmeric cobra, Carolus heard himself asking what those subjects were and caught the unctuous glee in Mr Cupperly’s voice as he answered him.
“Chemistry (analytical, biological, physiological and pathological), pharmacy (chemical and galenical), pharmacognosy, micrography, toxicology, hygiene, legislation, pharmacology, botany, microbiology, mathematics, crystallography, disinfection, sterilization and optics.”
“Phew!” said Carolus.
“It is not a profession to be taken up lightly, Mr Deene.”
“I should think not!”
“We have a grave responsibility to the public even if, as it may appear, we are mostly concerned with the sale of bath salts and throat pastilles.”
“Certainly. What about this weed-killer sold to Miss Stayer?”
“I can’t see how that comes into it. The tin had never been opened.”
“Just the same, I’m interested.”
“It’s a very simple matter. Miss Stayer …”
“Gracie Stayer, that is?”
Mr Cupperly nodded.
“Miss Stayer was in here one day making another purchase when it seemed suddenly to occur to her. ‘Oh, Mr Cupperly,’ she said, ‘have you got something for weeds?’ I asked her what kind of weeds and where they were and she said they were away from all plants, coming up in the gravel. So I gave her an arsenical weed-killer which could be safely used in that garden because there are no dogs or cats. The late Mrs Bomberger detested both, I
understand.”
“That’s all there was to it?”
“Yes. It would never have been heard of again if the police, in enquiring about the sleeping-tablets after Mrs Bomberger’s death, had not asked me whether I had ever supplied any other poison. I felt bound to mention this.”
“I see. I’m most grateful for your information …”
After another homily, mercifully brief, on the duties and responsibilities of a registered pharmacist, Mr Cupperly let Carolus go.
He decided to call on the doctor whose address he had from the telephone directory. He found Dr Flitcher’s house pleasantly set in a large square garden.
A smart young woman dressed as a nurse appeared in answer to his ring.
“May I see Dr Flitcher?” he asked.
“Health Service? Or do you want to see him privately?”
“Oh, privately,” said Carolus, who had not needed a doctor since coming out of the army and did not realize the implications of the question.
“Please come this way.”
Carolus was left alone in a room with the usual illustrated papers and sank into an arm-chair too deep for him. After a few minutes a tall young man asked him to come in.
“What’s the trouble?” asked the young man, waving his stethoscope.
“I’m a private investigator,” began Carolus. “I mean I’m interested in unusual deaths …”
“Look, I’m a general practitioner, not a psychiatrist.”
“Is your name Flitcher?” asked Carolus.
“No. Flitcher’s on holiday. I’m his locum.”
“If I had known that I needn’t have troubled you.”
“No trouble. But Flitcher’s not a psychiatrist either. With those illusions of yours I should consult someone in Harley Street. They’re probably due to something you saw in your nursery.”
“Thanks. When will Flitcher be back?”
“Not for another fortnight. But he could only tell you what I have.”
“Probably,” said Carolus and managed to get himself out of the house.
He had one more chore that day, and he stopped at a telephone-booth to do it. Getting through, after a few moments’ delay, to Detective Inspector Whibley, he asked him cheerfully if he had the result yet of the post-mortem on Alice Pink.