In At The Death

by Francis Duncan

  ‘Does it say how—if at all—Hardene’s name came to be mentioned at the Seamen’s Mission?’ Tremaine asked, and the inspector shook his head.

  ‘Some doubt over that. Seems that nobody was quite sure just how his name did come up—or if it ever did. Fenn did come from the Altiberg all right—captain gives him a clean sheet—and he did say at the Mission that he was after a shore job and wanted to get in touch with somebody in Bridgton who could give him something in the caretaker line. My man couldn’t get a really good idea of how the doctor came into it. Seems that he was fairly well-known in the place by name and that other people had gone up to see him from the Mission so that it’s possible that somebody did mention him to Fenn. On the other hand nobody actually remembers doing it.’

  ‘And nobody remembers Fenn doing it either. That the position?’ Boyce said, although more as a statement of fact than as a question.

  ‘That’s it. We’re still working on it though. My man naturally had to go carefully in case Fenn got alarmed—not that he isn’t likely to smell a rat in any case now—and with a place like the Mission, with men coming and going all the time, there’s always the chance that whoever did tell him about Hardene has already left Bridgton.’

  ‘What about the rest of his story?’

  ‘Same thing. Could be true or could be phoney. He spent part of the evening in the Mission playing billiards and he slept in the hostel at the back of the building—that’s what he told you, of course. We couldn’t give him an alibi to cover the whole time. He might have been around, as he says, until he went to bed, but on the other hand there’s no definite proof that he didn’t slip out at some period during the evening.’ Parkin shrugged. ‘With so many strangers about and men constantly coming in and going out it’s next door to an impossibility to be certain about him.’

  ‘All right,’ Boyce said. ‘We’ll leave Mr. Fenn still with his big question mark. Anything more?’

  ‘I’ve wired a description to Halifax and asked them to let us know if they’ve anything on him, but I daresay it’ll take time to get their reply.’

  ‘And in the meantime Sir Robert is champing at the bit. I know,’ Boyce said. ‘A policeman’s life is a dog’s life. What about friend Slade? Any skeletons in his cupboard?’

  ‘If there are we haven’t found ’em so far.’ Parkin selected another report from the papers in front of him. ‘Lives at a place called Red Gables on the other side of the river. Good class house but a bit isolated. Means you either have to cross by the toll bridge or go right down into the city and cross the river by one of the main bridges. Slade’s been living there about three and a half years—came from up north. He’s a sleeping partner in a small wholesale grocery firm in the city—he bought his interest shortly after he came here—but apart from that he doesn’t seem to have any business connections. No directorships or anything of that kind. Bank says he’s solid and he’s never been in the news for any reason. Doesn’t go in for politics or public work. His being a cripple probably explains that.’

  ‘Maybe. What’s the trouble with him?’

  ‘Had a fall of some kind. Injured his spine and has had partial paralysis ever since.’

  ‘Before he came here—or after?’

  ‘Before. Tried various specialists it seems but without getting anywhere. Got fed up with being pushed from one doctor to another and stuck to Hardene after coming to Red Gables.’

  ‘Did Hardene do anything for him?’

  ‘To cure him?’ Parkin shook his head. ‘No, I gather there isn’t a hope of anybody doing that. But he’s always given Hardene a good name as a doctor. Told his servants that Hardene was the one man who understood him and that he wouldn’t go to anyone else whatever happened. He’s a bachelor—lives with an old couple who combine the jobs of housekeeper and gardener and generally do anything he needs.’

  ‘What about his car?’

  ‘He can’t drive himself because of his disability, so he hires a chauffeur from an agency whenever he needs to go out. But he hasn’t made much use of his car lately, apart from his visits to Hardene. Funny thing,’ Parkin mused, glancing down at the papers in front of him, ‘both the servants said that Slade thought a good deal of Hardene and was always praising him up. Yet he was so rattled when we talked to him yesterday and made a point of telling us that they’d had violent arguments.’

  ‘A man who’s in constant pain,’ Tremaine said, ‘sometimes does behave in what seems an irrational manner. He might have had what sounded like strong disagreements with his doctor and yet he might really have been satisfied with him all the time.’

  He looked up at the wall behind Parkin’s head, upon which was placed a large-scale map of the city and its immediate surroundings. He pushed back his chair.

  ‘I wonder if you’d point one or two things out to me, Inspector. Whereabouts, for instance, is Martin Slade’s house?’

  The inspector rose to his feet in turn and picked up the long wooden pointer that stood against the wall at the side of the map.

  ‘Here’s the river, of course, and here’s the toll bridge. Red Gables would be about here. The scale isn’t big enough to show the actual house but I’d say it was about three hundred yards beyond the bridge itself.’

  ‘I see. And Hardene’s house and surgery?’

  The pointer moved searchingly and stopped.

  ‘Here.’

  Tremaine peered over his pince-nez, standing on tiptoe, a frown on his face.

  ‘Did Hardene have any other patients who live on the far side of the river?’

  ‘Couldn’t say off-hand. Miss Royman will have the list, though.’ Parkin peered at the map and a frown came into his own face. ‘Yes. See what you mean,’ he said slowly. ‘Bit off the beaten track.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have thought Hardene’s practice would have stretched so far.’

  ‘It didn’t,’ Parkin said. He moved the pointer. ‘This strip right against the river and these houses up by the bridge are served by a couple of doctors who live in Lancaster Crescent here. I’d have thought that most people across the bridge—at least in its immediate neighbourhood—would have gone to one of them rather than to Hardene. His practice was mostly the other way.’

  He swept the pointer over the map and Tremaine nodded.

  ‘It ran in the direction of the house where he was found. That’s what I thought was likely to be the case. I wonder what made Slade choose him?’

  He did not continue that particular line of thought, however, but remained staring at the map.

  The bridge was near the top left-hand corner and the road serving it ran in a fairly straight course right across the map and on to meet a trunk road curving around the northeastern suburbs of the city. Most of the area above the road, apart from the exclusive extension of Druidleigh in which Jerome Masters lived, was taken up by the open downs.

  ‘Which is Elm Tree?’ he asked.

  Parkin indicated a point on the downs about half-way between Hardene’s surgery and the eastern edge of the map. It was a lonely spot. A narrow road that was an off-shoot of the main artery from the bridge twisted around it, but there were no houses in its immediate vicinity.

  ‘Lovers’ Corner is the local name for it,’ the inspector said, and Tremaine gave a distressed cough.

  Jonathan Boyce was gathering his papers together.

  ‘I’ll be glad of a car,’ he observed. ‘I’m making a call on Doctor Reedley, the fellow who sold Hardene the practice, and then I’m going up to the surgery. If I haven’t run into you before I’ll either ring you or meet you here at three this afternoon. That suit your plans?’

  ‘Quite all right, sir,’ Parkin returned. ‘I’ve still quite a bit of routine checking-up to do.’

  Boyce drew a finger along his chin.

  ‘Reminds me,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to ask you to add a bit more to the list. Sorry to be loading the donkey work on you like this. But I’d like you to find out what you can about Miss Royman and that fellow Lint
on—the Courier reporter.’

  ‘Linton?’ Parkin looked puzzled, but he nodded. ‘It ought to be easy enough—Courier’s editor will give us all we want. But I don’t—–’

  ‘You don’t see what it has to do with anything,’ Boyce put in, smiling. ‘As a matter of fact, neither do I—not yet, anyway. You’ll have to thank Tremaine for that particular job. Did you know young Linton was sweet on the girl?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know that. Is it—certain, sir?’

  The inspector had become subtly more official in his attitude. Apparently he was feeling that he had allowed his enthusiasm too free a rein during their earlier conversations and had not been giving the Yard man the deference which was his due.

  ‘It seemed to be certain enough when Tremaine saw them together last night,’ Boyce told him. ‘And this morning we picked up another interesting little item of news from Hardene’s solicitors. He’s left Margaret Royman a legacy of a thousand pounds.’

  ‘A thousand!’ Parkin whistled. ‘It’s quite a sum!’

  ‘Worth picking up if you want to get married and your only source of income is a few pounds a week you’re making out of your job,’ Boyce said drily. ‘It’ll be news to me if provincial reporters get paid a princely wage. So you see we can’t overlook it.’

  ‘No, I can see that, sir,’ Parkin said, his hand on the door. ‘I’ll get things moving in that quarter. But first I’ll fix up your car.’

  Tremaine’s head was in a whirl as he went down the stairs at Boyce’s side. This was only the second day of the investigation, but already so much had happened and so many things had come to light concerning so many people that he was beginning to feel that he must have lived in Bridgton all his life.

  It seemed a very long time ago when he had walked along the platform at Paddington Station at the side of a burly detective-sergeant who had been carrying a murder bag. He wondered whether he would have stepped into the train if he could have foreseen the complications to which his journey might lead.

  But as he left the building and walked towards the waiting police car he knew that there was nowhere else he would rather be. Despite its horror, despite the nausea and the fear that clutched him sometimes at the thought of what he might be called upon to do, the excitement of the greatest hunt in the world—the hunt for a human being—held him firmly in its grip.

  He climbed quickly into the car and huddled himself into a corner of the rear seat, not looking at Jonathan Boyce. He had a sudden paralysing sensation of guilt; he felt that he ought to be ashamed of himself.

  11

  THE PROWLER VANISHES

  CHIEF INSPECTOR JONATHAN Boyce, for all his abrupt manner and his air of stocky aggressiveness, was both a wise and a compassionate man. One glance told him what Tremaine was feeling and he made no attempt to draw him into conversation.

  They travelled smoothly through the traffic and out of the city on its southern side. After forty years as a hard-working but unspectacular general practitioner Doctor Meredith Reedley had taken down his plate and settled himself in a modernized cottage situated on a fertile ridge from which there was a magnificent view over twenty miles of rolling country beyond.

  He was pottering about in his half an acre of garden, pipe in mouth, when the police car drew up outside his gate. He stuck the trowel he had been using into the earth and came slowly towards them.

  Boyce handed his card across the gate.

  ‘Good morning, Doctor. I wonder whether you could spare me a few minutes?’

  The older man raised his eyes from the card to Boyce’s face, and pulled open the gate.

  ‘Scotland Yard! What have I been up to?’

  ‘The question of an innocent man, Doctor!’ Boyce told him. ‘If you’d really been up to anything you wouldn’t have dared to ask!’

  ‘You should have been a doctor yourself, Chief Inspector. Your bedside manner is irreproachable. But come inside, gentlemen, and tell me what I can do for you.’

  They went into the comfortably furnished interior of the cottage and Boyce looked about him appreciatively.

  ‘You’ve certainly picked a delightful place for your retirement, sir.’

  A touch of sadness came into Doctor Reedley’s face and he turned away for a moment or two, gazing out of the window at the distant line of hills.

  ‘For nearly forty years,’ he said slowly, ‘I dreamed of somewhere like this. I always wanted to live in the country—I never did want to be a townsman. But after I’d qualified it seemed like suicide for a young man to bury himself in the country—the end of ambition in a rustic backwater—and so I decided that I’d start with a town practice and when I’d gained enough experience and made my name I’d come and settle down like the country gentleman.’

  ‘Judging by what I’ve seen up to now, sir,’ Boyce said, politely, ‘it seems to have been well worth waiting for. I rather gather you stuck to the town after all until the time came for you to give up your practice?’

  ‘Yes,’ Reedley said, with a sigh. ‘I stuck it for forty years. At first you don’t notice how the weeks and the months are slipping by—anyway, you tell yourself, there’s all the time in the world; you’re still a young man. And then you find that you aren’t a young man any longer and that you’re fast in your little groove with no more hope of becoming the great success you once imagined than you have of flying to the moon. Five years ago I made up my mind that it was time to cut loose. I knew that although my wife hadn’t made any complaints she’d been pining all the time to get away into the country where there wouldn’t be a surgery bell or a telephone to ring at any hour of the day or night. We found this place, had a few alterations made, and moved in. It was just what we’d always wanted. I told myself that at last I’d be able to make amends to my wife. But I’d left it too late. In six months she was dead.’

  ‘I’m—sorry,’ Boyce said, feeling his own inadequacy. ‘It must have been a bitter blow.’

  ‘I suppose I earned it. If I’d had the sense to do what I ought to have done years ago it might not have happened.’ The older man stared unseeingly through the window, over the green fields stretching away beyond the cottage. ‘Well, it’s over now and regrets aren’t of much use.’

  Boyce cleared his throat gently. He thought he saw his opening.

  ‘It’s about your leaving your practice in Bridgton that I wanted to see you, sir.’

  Reedley nodded.

  ‘It’s about Hardene, is it? I saw in yesterday’s Courier what had happened. Terrible business. I don’t see, though, how I can be of any help to you.’

  ‘In cases like this we naturally have to follow up every possible line of enquiry, even if at first sight there doesn’t seem to be much connection. I’m wondering whether you can tell me anything about Doctor Hardene that may link up.’

  Reedley drew his brows together in a frown.

  ‘I’ll do what I can, naturally, but it was five years ago and I’m not going to pretend that my memory’s as good as it might be. What is it you particularly want to know?’

  ‘I’m not so much following any special line as trying to find out as much as I can in a general way,’ Boyce said. ‘It’ll be a help if you can just tell me anything you remember about your association. How did Doctor Hardene come to do business with you in the first place, for instance?’

  ‘That’s easy enough, anyway. Apparently he’d been abroad—Canada, I think. He’d just come back and was looking for somewhere to settle down. Whilst he’d been in London he’d met an old acquaintance of his student days—they took their finals together—and I suppose he must have mentioned his plans. Anyway, the point is that the father of this friend of his happened to be one of my own contemporaries who knew that I was thinking about getting rid of my practice. Hardene and I belonged to different generations, of course. They gave Hardene my name. He came down to see me, said he liked the place and the job, and agreed to take over.’

  ‘Did he make any bones about it? About the price, for e
xample. Did he give you the impression of being short of money?’

  ‘He certainly didn’t give me the idea that he was hard up, although I’m not in a position to give you any real information about it. He didn’t haggle at all—accepted everything lock, stock, and barrel at the first valuation. The whole business, in fact, went off amicably.’

  ‘Did he carry the whole thing through himself?’ Boyce hesitated as if searching for the right phrases. ‘I daresay you knew he wasn’t married. Did he appear to be completely on his own? You didn’t happen to meet or even hear him mention any relatives or close friends?’

  ‘On the contrary, I gathered he was pretty much a stranger in a strange land. He’d been abroad for so many years that he’d lost touch with his friends over here. It was just by chance that he’d run into his old student acquaintance I spoke of—you know how these things do turn out sometimes. Now I come to think of it, I do seem to remember his telling me that he had no near living relatives.’

  ‘That was why, no doubt, he advertised for a housekeeper as soon as he took over?’

  ‘Yes. I was able to recommend someone to look after him on a temporary basis for a week or two, but he engaged a permanent housekeeper very soon after he settled in.’

  ‘I suppose you kept in touch with each other, sir?’

  ‘Well, we did at first. If a query came up regarding the practice he might get in touch with me—but that was only at the beginning, while he was finding his feet so to speak. But we were never on what you might call social terms. He never came out here and I never went in to see him at the old house.’ The doctor shrugged. ‘You know how these brief acquaintances gradually die off—like the friendships you make on a seaside holiday. We did exchange Christmas cards for a year or two but that was all. In fact, until I saw the report in the Courier yesterday I hadn’t given him a thought for a long time. I’m afraid this isn’t very helpful,’ he finished apologetically. ‘I’m sorry I can’t be a great deal of use to you.’