The Brigadier had been trying to mow his lawn, but had given up the attempt. “Grass still too wet,” he said. “Come inside. We shall be more comfortable there.”
Jonas explained, with certain omissions, what he was after. The Brigadier, who must, he thought, have been at least seventy and long retired, listened politely, if inattentively, to an enquiry which did not concern him.
He said, “I never actually met Humbolt. He had no family, you see. So when he died his house was immediately put on the market. I saw it advertised and snapped it up.”
“Oh dear,” said Jonas. “Another dead-end. If he’d left a widow she might have been able to help me. It isn’t Humbolt I’m after, though. It’s a man who was a compatriot and a close friend of his. He, too, has died without any visible family connections.”
“Tiresome,” said the Brigadier. “But I don’t really know that I can help much.”
“Tell me, was there an inquest?”
“Yes, they had to have an inquest. Humbolt had been in pretty good health, you see. And hadn’t troubled the doctor for years. So his death was a bit of a mystery. But it turned out to be a coronary. There was a piece in the local paper about it.”
The Brigadier, who was clearly the sort of man who kept his records under control, went to his desk and fetched out a yellowing clipping. “Keep it if you like.”
Jonas thanked him and tucked it away in his wallet.
As they walked out of the front door the Brigadier said, “Only one thing wrong with this house. Too much garden.”
“You keep it very nicely,” said Jonas.
“As well as I can, but it’s a back-breaking job for a man of my age. I was sorry I couldn’t secure the gardener along with the house. Charlie must have been a wonderful worker despite his game leg. He only came for two days a week, but everything was in apple-pie order when I took it over.”
Jonas said, “I suppose he wouldn’t still be around?”
“No. He sold his cottage when Humbolt died and moved off. I did see him once before he left. Odd thing was I was sure I’d seen him before somewhere. Unusual sort of face. He was a popular local character. Someone may know where he’s gone.”
The newsagent, who was evidently the clearing house for all local gossip, said, “Yes, we all knew Charlie. He worked two days a week for Mr Humbolt, two days for Mrs Lamprey and two for the Clarks. I expect they’ll have kept in touch.”
“I don’t suppose,” said Jonas, almost holding his breath, “that you happen to have a photograph of him.” As he spoke he was busy trying to construct a plausible reason for his request.
To the newsagent, fortunately, it seemed a perfectly natural thing to want. He thought for a moment and then said, “He took first prize for his roses the year before he left. Very popular victory. There was a photograph of the Mayor of Seaford presenting him with the cup. I haven’t got a copy myself, but the Seaford and Newhaven Gazette could find it for you, I don’t doubt.”
The Seaford and Newhaven Gazette turned the relevant number up for him. Having two copies they were happy to sell one to Jonas. He cut out the photograph and tucked it away in his wallet alongside the account of the inquest.
He was aware that his trip to Alfriston had not solved the mystery of Dr Rainey’s death. It had added another mystery to it.
Superintendent Queen examined the cuttings deliberately. It was impossible to tell from his face whether he was surprised or annoyed. Both, perhaps, Jonas thought. But he could see the implications clearly enough.
“No doubt about it,” he said. “Charlie, who worked for Mr Humbolt, is the same man as Fred. The photograph’s conclusive.”
“Quite conclusive.”
“But where does it take us?” He was re-reading the account of the inquest. “This wasn’t a hasty guess by an old bumbler like Smallhorn. The autopsy was conducted by Andrew Friend.”
“Very sound man,” agreed Jonas.
“And look what he says. ‘I understand that the deceased regularly smoked twenty or thirty cigarettes a day. This alone could have brought on the occlusion of the coronary artery which was the direct cause of death.’”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Jonas. “Suppose that Humbolt’s death was natural. We know that he and Rainey had some connection with each other. Something disreputable, perhaps, which had happened in Belgium and which made them both bolt like rabbits as soon as the war was over. Rainey hears about Humbolt’s death. He doesn’t believe it was natural. So he starts to take elaborate precautions. Then Charlie – or Fred as he now calls himself – arrives. Good jobbing gardeners are so scarce that he must have been confident he’d land a job with Rainey sooner or later. In fact it took him two years to do it. He didn’t mind waiting. He’s struck me as being a very patient man.”
“And you’re suggesting that it was Fred who poisoned the doctor.”
“Who else? Most of the ingredients of his last meal were under his control.”
“And that he was the man Trotter saw leaving the house at six in the morning?”
“That seems logical.”
“There’s nothing logical about it,” said Queen irritably. “To start with, how did he get back into the house?”
“Easy. He never left it. There were a lot of places he could have hidden. Pantry, scullery, coal hole, cellar. Remember, he’d had the run of the kitchen quarters and all the time in the world to construct a foolproof hiding place.”
“All right. Then tell me this. Why didn’t he leave as soon as Rainey was dead?”
“It may have been a slow-acting poison.”
Queen considered the implications of this. He said, “You’re making my flesh creep. Do you mean to say he sat there all night watching Rainey die?”
“Watching him die, yes. And making certain that he didn’t telephone or call for help. He was twice as strong as Rainey, who would have been getting even less able to resist as the poison took effect.”
“It’s hard to believe,” said Queen. “Though I’ll admit there’s one thing that supports your theory. The look on his face. He saw death coming and he hated it. No question, we shall have to have an exhumation order. Can you authorise it?”
Jonas said, “I’ll ask my partner. She’s a much better lawyer than I am.”
That evening he rang up Michael Doneval at his home. He felt that Doneval might be more unbuttoned there than behind his desk. He said, “Thank you very much, Michael. The information you gave me has been extremely useful. In fact, it has opened things up to an almost alarming degree. Now I want your help over one more thing.”
“If I can,” said Doneval cautiously.
“It’s nothing I couldn’t get myself, but you’ll be able to get it more quickly. Could you find out the known details – nothing which isn’t in the public record – of the wartime career of a Brigadier Arkinwright.”
“Not a common name,” said Doneval, “I ought to be able to do that. I’ll telephone you some time tomorrow.”
“I’m very much obliged to you,” said Jonas.
Next morning Sabrina marched into his office with a volume of Probate Court reports and a newspaper. She said, “It wasn’t an easy point. There’s not much authority on it, because the circumstances are unlikely to arise. However, in Jepson v. Church 1898 the point had to be considered. Church was sole executor of a man called Ambrose Jepson, who died in somewhat mysterious circumstances which came to light after he had been buried. The police wanted an exhumation order. Church, who was a solicitor, was agreeable. The opposition came from Jepson’s sister, his only surviving relative. When the matter came to court, Mr Justice Romer said, ‘In many matters the authority of the executor is supreme. But in such a matter as this, which touches the feelings of the family and the intimate friends of the deceased, I consider that the opinion of the senior member of the family – or, if no such person survives, of the residuary legatee to whom the estate has been entrusted – should be regarded as paramount.’”
; “If that’s right, I can’t move in the matter. We shall have to ask Jock Lovibond.”
“I’m afraid so. However, my researches into your case have not been entirely negative.” She laid the newspaper, folded open, on Jonas’s desk. He saw that it was a copy of the New York Herald.
“I have an American friend who sends me reports which she thinks I will find interesting.”
Jonas had reached a point where he hardly knew what to expect next. The extract was headed, ‘Smokers Beware’.
A posthumous confession has solved a fifteen-year-old mystery which puzzled pathologists and forensic scientists and has opened up an alarming prospect for incautious smokers. It seems that a Mrs Sylvester Cramm of Little Falls, Minnesota, lay under considerable suspicion of killing her husband, who had been found dead in the matrimonial home. He had been in good health until that moment. It was public knowledge that he had behaved brutally to his wife and his death was undoubtedly to her financial advantage. For these reasons a very careful autopsy was conducted. However, leading pathologist, Dr Schumacher, was clear in his opinion that death was due to a simple coronary occlusion, precipitated, he considered, by the fact that the late Mr Cramm had been a compulsive smoker. It now appears from the posthumous confession of his wife, a trained nurse, that she had procured some neat nicotine and had injected this into one of her husband’s cigarettes. When this was put to Dr Schumacher he agreed that the nicotine vaporised by the heat of the cigarette and inhaled could certainly cause an occlusion of the coronary artery. Moreover, such a matter would be difficult or impossible to detect by normal post mortem examination.
Jonas said, “God dammit—”
“I’m not suggesting,” said Sabrina calmly, “that this was the way in which Humbolt was killed. But it occurred to me that the circumstances in his case were very similar. He was a chain smoker. He lived alone in the house. The gardener had access to it and there are plenty of garden sprays from which nicotine could be extracted.”
“You know what’s wrong with this case,” said Jonas crossly. “It’s all theory and supposition. I sympathise with Jack Queen. He wants facts and they are in short supply. Certainly Fred could have poisoned Dr Rainey. And if he happened to have come across that report – or to have seen the facts reported somewhere else – he might have killed Humbolt that way too. But why? What in the world is the connection between a dentist in Alfriston, a doctor in Shackleton and a jobbing gardener? Yes, what is it?”
Claire said, “I’ve got a call here from a Mr Doneval. Shall I put it through?”
“Please.”
“Short answer to your question,” said Doneval. “Brigadier Arkinwright was a sapper. He fought at Dunkirk and got an MC for his efforts on the beaches. Later, being a fluent French speaker, he joined Maurice Buckmaster in the headquarters of the SOE at Baker Street. His job was to equip undercover agents for work in France and Belgium and to debrief them when, and if, they returned. That’s the outline. I could fill it in for you a bit more, I expect, if I asked around.”
“No,” said Jonas. “That’s fine. I really am extremely grateful.”
Sabrina, who had been listening on the extension, said, “Well, is that your answer?”
“It’s a possible answer,” said Jonas.
Later that day he reported his findings to Queen who listened, with his face growing longer and longer.
“It now seems possible,” Jonas said, “that Fred – his full name my partner tells me, is Frederick Charles Blamey – could have worked, during the war, as an agent in Belgium. He’s about the right age and speaks fluent French. Also he struck me, when I met him, as a tough, self-reliant sort of person. And now we find that Brigadier Arkinwright, who had a job at SOE headquarters, thought he recognised him.”
“All right. He could have been. It’s not impossible.”
“Then I’ll make another suggestion. That Rainey and Humbolt, who fudged each other’s references, came over at the end of the war as soon as they could pack their bags. Because they knew that once the proper post-war investigations got going they would be revealed as undesirable citizens. Collaborators at least. Possibly more than that. They reckoned that they’d be a lot safer in England.”
“All right,” said Queen, “I can paint the rest of your picture. Blamey, who could have suffered as a result of their actions, gets after them. Waiting, incidentally, for more than thirty years before he went to Alfriston.”
“He was a very patient man,” said Jonas. “Like all successful secret agents and gardeners. And, anyway, what do we know about what he was doing during that time? Rainey and Humbolt might have been the last names on a long list.”
Queen looked at him with something like horror. Finally he drew a deep breath and said, “We started this and I suppose we shall have to go on with it.”
“Then you’ll have to get your exhumation order. If you discover poison and if it’s something which was available to Blamey and if you can dig a convincing motive out of the wartime history, then you’ll have some sort of a case.”
“That’s three ‘ifs’,” said Queen. “I wouldn’t be inclined to bet on our chances.”
Three days later, in response to a summons, Jonas went to see Chief Superintendent Whaley. He found Queen with him.
“It’s no good,” said Jonas. “Jock won’t do it. Particularly with a council election coming up. He says an exhumation would simply antagonise public opinion. It would be seen as pointing a finger at Fred. He was a very well liked man. Mrs McClachan, who is Jock’s niece by marriage, told him that he was not just a good gardener. An inspired one, she said. Before he worked for her she had been trying for years to grow asparagus. No dice. Then Fred came along and got her a bed of it growing from seed. A man with such green fingers, she said, couldn’t conceivably have dipped them in anything dubious. You won’t change Jock’s mind now, however hard you try, I assure you.”
As Jonas said this he got the impression that neither of his listeners had any real desire to try.
“Well,” said Whaley, “if he won’t, he won’t. And that’s an end of that.” The relief in his voice was clear.
When this was reported to Sabrina she said, “Saved by asparagus. What an epitaph for a gardener.”
“It’s all very well,” grumbled Jonas. “You make a joke of it. Whaley and Queen are only too glad to wash their hands of the whole thing. But that’s not what I’d call a satisfactory result. I like to know the truth. And now, I suppose, we never shall.”
“‘Never’ is a long time,” said Sabrina. “After all, it only took fifteen years for the facts about the Sylvester Cramm case to come to light. Allow me to give you a quote from your favourite author, Winston Churchill. ‘Truth is an uncomfortable creature to keep in the well against her efforts.’”
And in fact it was not fifteen years, but fifteen months before the truth emerged.
It was on an October day in the year following the death of Dr Rainey that Sabrina came into Jonas’s office with a letter in her hand.
She said, “Blamey is dead. Cancer of the stomach. When he knew he was dying he wrote me this letter which I will show you on the understanding that it remains entirely confidential.”
“Even from Queen and Whaley?”
“Specially from them.”
Jonas said, “Very well,” and picked up the letter, which was written in a surprisingly firm and educated hand. It opened without any preamble.
I am writing you this to repay certain kindnesses you did me last year. Not only selling my house and making my will for me, but showing me that extract from the New York Herald, which was, incidentally, reprinted in the British Medico-Legal Journal, available in the public library. A most interesting publication, I found. When you showed it to me I realised that you must have a shrewd idea of the truth and that it was time for me to move. Yes, certainly I killed Humbolt, whose real name, as you may have discovered, was Hervé Maxente. Also Dr Rainey who was René Claude. Both of them deserved to die. The
y took very large sums of money from the Germans for informing them about British agents for whom, supposedly, they were working. I have no doubt the British Government was paying them as well. This double-cross was carried out so skilfully that very few people knew about it. I did, because I got out of a safe house recommended by Maxente by dropping from a second-storey window. Incidentally breaking my leg in the process. Others were not so lucky. Claude was responsible for one of my closest friends being taken. The Germans were determined to get information from him. It took him eight hours to die. I reminded Claude of this when he was dying. The details are not of great importance. I cultivated Amanita Phalloides, the Death Cap fungus, in a bed against the wall at the bottom of the garden. All that was necessary was to add a few slivers to the field mushrooms waiting for that evening stew. It is a remorseless killer which destroys every liver and kidney cell in the human body, but it takes from six to eight hours to work, so I had to make sure that Claude did not go for help. He finally died just before six o’clock and I let myself out and went home. I had to be back at work by my normal hour, as I needed to root out the remaining fungi, which were in a bed I was supposed to be preparing for tomatoes, and burn them. If I had the time and energy [Jonas noticed that the writing had been growing more straggly, but still quite legible], I’d tell you of one or two other interesting episodes in the years since the war.
Then, at the bottom, “Goodbye and again thanks.”
A full minute had elapsed after Jonas had read the letter before he was able to say anything. Fastening on a minor point, he said, “He must have died a rich man. Who gets his money?”
“It all goes to a trust which looks after the dependants of SOE agents.”
“I see,” said Jonas. But that was not what he really wanted to say. In the end he managed to get it out.
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