Heir Presumptive

by Henry Wade

  Eustace realized that though there was not—could not be—any direct evidence against him, there were circumstances which might reasonably lead the police to be suspicious. That being so, it would probably be wise to follow Darnell’s advice, at least to the extent of consulting a solicitor. Who should he consult? Eustace had had no professional dealings with solicitors since the time, nearly ten years ago, when Beryl Fotherwaite had left him all that money. That had been a local firm in the provincial town where he had been in practice, and they would be no use for a job of this kind.

  It wasn’t going to be easy to explain his position to a solicitor. After all, there was a good deal that he could not tell anyone, and a certain amount more that would be distinctly awkward. For instance, any solicitor whom he consulted would want to know why he had made such frequent attempts to see Desmond in the last fortnight; the explanation he had given to the police was distinctly thin and the real reason could not be told to anyone. There was a third reason, neither quite true nor quite false, which might convince someone who knew the whole inner history of the case—an inner history which Eustace was reluctant to tell to a stranger.

  There was one man to whom he could give this version of the truth and who would understand his thoughts and actions: Henry Carr. And he was a solicitor. Carr already knew all about his hopes and fears. He knew and he sympathized. He would understand if Eustace said: ‘I wanted to see Desmond as often as I could—and alone—in order to make a good impression on him, to stop him doing what Lord Barradys advised.’ That would be a difficult thing to explain to a strange solicitor, because it would mean admitting that he knew the hoped-for inheritance was on the point of slipping away from him—and that would be halfway to admitting a motive for killing Desmond before he came of age.

  It might not be possible to give that explanation in court; it might be too dangerous. That was a matter for an experienced solicitor to advise, and there was no one’s advice he would rather have than Henry Carr’s. He was shrewd and he was sympathetic. Eustace believed that Henry liked him, and it was perfectly clear that he did not believe the rumours about David’s death which must undoubtedly have reached his ears.

  With a sigh of relief Eustace came to his decision, and, true to his one good rule, went straight to the telephone and put a call through to Carr’s suburban office. The solicitor had returned, was engaged all the rest of the day, but would be glad to dine with Eustace at his flat that evening.

  Eustace spent a good deal of the afternoon in thinking over just how much he should tell Henry Carr. The question of the morphia tablets; he must know about them; would he swallow the explanation given to the police? the fact that they had been bought only a short time after he first heard of the possibility of his succession, and only a short time before David’s and Desmond’s sudden deaths, was painfully suggestive. He might have difficulty in persuading a jury, and he certainly could not prove that this bottle was only a replacement. The question of the ‘Medical Jurisprudence’ book; he would not put it beyond the police to discover just when that was bought; taken in conjunction with the morphia tablets, that would be a damning piece of evidence. Should Carr know about it?

  Eustace did not go round and see Jill, which he would have liked to do. He was beginning to realize what a serious danger Jill’s knowledge of his plans and actions represented. If the police got on to her and questioned her there was no knowing what she might not let out; she was shrewd enough, but women—in Eustace’s experience—sometimes spoke before they thought. It would be better to keep right away from her, in the hope that the police would not discover her existence.

  Henry Carr turned up in good time and apparently in good spirits. Nothing was said about the subject uppermost in both their minds until dinner was over and port put on the table, when Eustace told Hamilton to take the rest of the evening off; he had no desire that any part of the coming conversation should be heard. Having presently assured himself that Hamilton really had left the flat, Eustace filled up the port glasses and began without preamble.

  “The police have been questioning me in connection with Desmond’s death,” he said. “I should be glad of your advice, Henry. By the way, you don’t mind my calling you that?”

  “Of course not. I hadn’t realized that you didn’t; I’ve called you Eustace for some time.” Carr smiled pleasantly as he sipped his port. “I’m sorry about the police but I’m not really surprised.”

  This was a bit of a shock, though Eustace tried not to show it.

  “Really? What made you . . . expect it?”

  “Before I answer that, tell me what sort of advice you want from me.”

  “That’s easy. The C.I.D. man who was here to-day advised me to be represented at the adjourned inquest. I want to ask you to take that on.”

  Carr nodded.

  “I see,” he said. “That’s good of you, Eustace. I appreciate that. Now I’ll tell you, quite frankly, why I’m not surprised. In the first place I have known, ever since David’s death, that the Scottish police were not altogether satisfied that that was an accident. They thought it happened so conveniently for you and they thought that, though it was possible, it was such a very unlikely accident to occur.”

  “How did you know that?” asked Eustace, curiously.

  “In the first place from Blanche. She told me that a girl who was up there with you . . .”

  “That Hope-Fording bitch. I thought so.”

  “Yes; that was the name. She tried her best to persuade the Scottish police that you had done it yourself—the knife wound, I mean. She told them you wanted to succeed to the Barradys title and so on, and that you thought that if David was out of the way you were bound to, because Desmond was so ill.”

  “She wanted to marry David herself,” said Eustace bitterly. “That’s what made her so wild.”

  Henry Carr laughed.

  “I rather guessed that,” he said. “In addition to that I heard something about it from a friend of mine, who’s a W.S. in Glasgow.”

  “W.S.?”

  “Writer to the Signet. Scottish equivalent for solicitor. He’d heard about it from a pal in Edinburgh who’d got a friend in the Crown Office—that sort of thing you know; all very improper, but these things do leak out. The Chief Constable of Inverness-shire had been perfectly satisfied but the Procurator Fiscal hadn’t. However, they seem to have made up their minds that, whatever suspicions they might have, there was no earthly chance of proving anything against you, so the Lord Advocate marked it ‘no proceedings’, and that was the end of that.”

  “Who’s the Lord Advocate?”

  “He’s the chief officer of the Crown in Scotland—both in civil and criminal matters. He more or less corresponds to our Attorney-General and Director of Public Prosecutions rolled into one. What he says goes, as the Americans say. As a matter of fact it would be one of his deputies who would really go into the details and advise the Lord Advocate—a chap called an Advocate Depute. Anyway, between them they decided on no proceedings, but they did do one thing more—they notified Scotland Yard.”

  Eustace, who had felt himself growing colder and colder as this story revealed the danger that he had been in, helped himself to a third glass of port with a rather shaky hand. Carr declined, but accepted a glass of brandy.

  “Good Lord,” said Eustace. “This is a very nasty shock, Henry. I knew they were taking nothing for granted, but I didn’t realize it had gone as far as all that. None of the local people, the stalkers and so on, had any doubt at all. Why, how could I . . . good heavens, the idea’s fantastic?”

  “Well, that’s not what we’ve got to worry about now, anyhow,” said Carr. “I’ve only just heard the last part—that the Scottish authorities had notified Scotland Yard. That was only after a little time and then Scotland Yard sent a man round to talk to Mrs. Toumlin. She was told that it was advisable that you should not have access to Desmond, at any rate not alone. They wouldn’t give her any reasons and they helped matters by
saying that she mustn’t tell anyone else. Naturally, the poor woman lost her head completely and I wonder you didn’t realize that something was up. You’ll remember that when I met you there I told you that I rather expected you wouldn’t be allowed to see Desmond? Well, I didn’t know the reason then, but I had gathered that she’d got something against you and so I thought I’d wait and tell you what I did.”

  “I see,” said Eustace slowly. “But how long have you known about this? about her being warned, I mean?”

  “Only to-day. After Desmond died the poor woman came out with it all to Blanche, and Blanche told me on the way to the inquest.”

  “Before you lunched with me? That was very decent of you, Henry. You might well have wanted to keep clear of a chap suspected of murder.”

  ‘‘My dear fellow.” Henry Carr leant forward and patted Eustace on the arm. “Mind if I smoke?”

  “I’m so sorry. What’ll you have? a cigar?”

  “Pipe, if you don’t mind.”

  “Do. Shall we go into the other room?” asked Eustace with a laugh. Going into the other room consisted of moving into the two large armchairs in front of the fire, Eustace’s flat boasting only one reception room, but that a large one.

  “Now the question is, what about this inquest? Before we go into it, Eustace, I must ask you one formal question: are you in any way responsible for Desmond’s death?”

  “No,” declared Eustace whole-heartedly, while thanking his stars that the question had not referred to David.

  “Good. I’ve made it a rule to ask that question in all cases involving criminal procedure, and I’ve never defended anyone whom I knew to be guilty, except in two very exceptional cases. Of course, this isn’t a case of ‘defending’ yet, and I don’t suppose it ever will be, but I think the principle applies even at the stage of ‘representation.’ Now tell me all you know, what the police have asked you, what you think they know, and what you think they’ve got in their minds.”

  Eustace was glad that he had spent some time that afternoon in thinking over what he should tell Henry Carr; without preparation he might have stumbled. He said nothing about Scotland, on the principle that the fewer lies he told the safer. He told of his frequent visits to Desmond, giving the reason that he wished to stand well with the boy and wanted to see him alone. He told of the detectives’ questions on this point. He told of his transactions with money-lenders, making no attempt to hide the fact that he had used the deaths, first of Howard and Harold, and then of David, to impress Isaacson and Levy. He revealed the fact that he was a qualified medical practitioner, which Henry Carr declared that he had always known. He told of the bottle of morphia tablets and here for the first time the solicitor looked grave.

  “You were right to be frank about that,” he said, “but it’s an awkward fact. Of course, we don’t know yet what they’ve got in their minds. The P.M. may show—in fact, presumably it will show—that death was due to natural causes . . . or rather that it was due to what Spavage explained and expected. You don’t know of anything else?”

  “Nothing, except that Inspector Darnell asked me rather particularly whether I had any other drug besides morphia.”

  “That probably was only intelligent anticipation. I don’t see, Eustace, that there’s anything to be worried about at the moment. Presumably the police will show their hand—if they’ve got a hand—at the adjourned inquest, and we can then decide what line to take. We won’t settle anything definitely yet, but it seems to me that you’d better answer any questions you’re asked quite frankly. I take it that you’ve told me everything and not kept anything back?”

  Eustace nodded, with an uncomfortable feeling that his boats were now burned.

  “Even about . . . my wanting to see Desmond alone . . . and the reason?” he asked.

  “I think so, though I’ll think it over and give you a considered opinion before the time. It’s a bit awkward, but frankness disarms a lot of suspicion. It was a perfectly natural desire on your part; anyone but a hypocrite will see that. If I were you I should try and forget about it now till we know what we’re up against; the whole thing may come to nothing.”

  Eustace nodded.

  “Sound advice, but none too easy to follow,” he said. “Have a whiskey and soda.”

  “Thanks, I will.”

  Eustace rose and took the decanter and syphon and a couple of glasses out of the red lacquer cupboard.

  Henry Carr laughed.

  “You know how to look after yourself, Eustace,” he said. “I don’t wonder the C.I.D. man wanted to know where the golden egg came from.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Adjourned Inquest

  THE adjourned inquest on Desmond Hendel was re-opened on Thursday, 17th October. The Coroner began by stating that the police had expressed their desire to be represented by a solicitor and that he had received a similar request from an interested party.

  “It is probably known to everyone,” said Mr. Ellinstone, “that the discretion of a Coroner in matters of procedure is very wide, his powers almost unlimited. Those of you familiar with the Coroner’s Act will have been struck by the almost complete lack of direction which it displays, so much so that Coroners have to interpret its intentions as best they may, and some of the interpretations may strike the general public as rather strange. There has, for instance, been a tendency of late years on the part of some Coroners to allow their enquiries to develop into a kind of preliminary trial; persons indicted with no offence have found themselves practically on trial for their lives, examined, cross-examined, re-examined by members of the legal profession other than the Coroner himself, with the result that prejudice has been aroused in the minds of the public which is grossly unfair to the persons concerned.

  “I have no intention of allowing this enquiry to develop into anything of that kind. I shall not object to the presence of the solicitors to whom I have referred, and I shall allow them reasonable latitude in asking questions which appear likely to elucidate the matter into which we are here to enquire, but I must remind them that my discretion is absolute and that they must accept any ruling which I make as to what is relevant and permissible and what is not.”

  Mr. Ellinstone paused and looked round the room. The two solicitors referred to, Mr. Justin representing the police, and Mr. Henry Carr representing Eustace Hendel, bowed slightly in acknowledgment of the Coroner’s remarks, and the Coroner bowed even more slightly back.

  “Call Sir Hulbert Lemuel,” he said.

  A tall, clean-shaven man, dressed in a morning coat, moved forward to the witnesses’ chair. He explained that he was employed by the Home Office as Public Analyst, that certain organs had been sent to him in sealed jars, certified by two doctors as having been taken post-mortem from the body of Mr. Desmond Hendel, that he had examined the organs in the usual way and had isolated various drugs which were present in them in varying quantities.

  “Before you go into the question of what you found, Sir Hulbert, I must explain to the jury that I have arranged for you to see the depositions of Sir Horace Spavage, the physician in charge of the case, who is unable to be present to-day for reasons which he explained a fortnight ago. You have read those depositions, Sir Hulbert?”

  “I have, sir. I found that the organs contained two drugs, opium and veronal, which were referred to in Sir Horace Spavage’s evidence as having been given to his patient by way of medicine; these two drugs were present in the quantities that I should expect to find under the circumstances described by Sir Horace.”

  “And that was all?” asked Mr. Ellinstone.

  “No, sir. There was a third drug present. I found traces throughout the viscera, but chiefly in the stomach, from which I recovered roughly three-fifths of a grain. The amount in the liver, kidneys and intestines was negligible. I estimate that at least one grain had been taken by the deceased within a period of eight hours before death.”

  “And that drug was?”

  “Hyoscine.”


  Hyoscine! Eustace started violently. There was a general stir throughout the court. The majority of the general public present realized that here was something of vital importance. Eustace, and others with him, knew that this meant . . . murder!

  “Hyoscine? That is not a drug you would have expected to find from the history of the case so far as you know it?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You say that you identified the presence of one grain. Is that a toxic dose?”

  “Very much so. Taken even by itself, and by a healthy person, it would have a highly toxic effect and might even prove fatal. Taken in conjunction with the other drugs which we know that the deceased was taking, it would almost certainly be lethal and that within a comparatively short space of time.”

  “In your opinion was it the cause of death in this case?”

  “The immediate cause; yes. There were predisposing causes; the sarcoma from which the deceased was suffering would of course be one, and the medicinal drugs—the veronal and the opium—would be another.”

  “Thank you, Sir Hulbert. Can you suggest any means by which the hyoscine can have been taken by the deceased? Any means other than suicidal or homicidal, that is?”

  “It might be given in the form of hydro-bromide as a sedative, but of course not in anything like that quantity.”

  “In view of the fact that veronal and opium were already being given, do you consider it likely that hyoscine was also being given . . . legitimately?”

  “No, sir; I do not.”

  Mr. Ellinstone was feeling good. It was pleasant to be consistently addressed as ‘Sir’ by so distinguished a man as Sir Hulbert Lemuel. Moreover, he was pleased with his opening remarks, which had come well off the tongue.