Death of an Avid Reader

by Frances Brody

  ‘Don’t say anything over the telephone, Mr Lennox. We must wait for the police.’

  ‘He must be told. We cannot keep this from the president.’

  ‘The police will tell him.’

  Lennox cleared his throat. ‘It’s me, Lennox.’ A pause. ‘Yes, I’m still at the library, and something has occurred. I wish you would come.’

  I did not want to listen any more. I went downstairs to do what one must in these situations: find the kettle.

  Only when I was alone, in the tiny room not much bigger than a cubbyhole, lighting the gas ring to heat water and staring at the blue flame, did it fully hit me how appalling this was. Dr Potter is such a brilliant man, so charming, so full of life.

  Just a few short hours had passed since we met on the stairs and he joked about Mr Lennox having framed that old cutting about the library’s acquisitions. Had Dr Potter intended to play a practical joke by taking a valuable book into the basement and then saying, I told you to be more careful with our treasures, Mr Lennox?

  Everything about our encounter took on a new significance: the recommendation that I read his undergraduate magazine articles from forty years ago, about the ghost, and about a disappearance. What was it he had said? Where is the lovely counter assistant? She was the only one who would go willingly into the dreadful basement.

  I wished I had known him better. Dr Potter was a bright light in a dull world, always slightly comical in committee meetings yet with an underlying seriousness, as if about to immerse himself in the most important business of … what? Mathematics, I supposed. What were his personal circumstances? I had no idea. The question never arose. But he was always alone. What else might he have said to me had we spoken longer?

  * * *

  Inspector Wallis arrived, with Sergeant Ashworth and PC Hodge, the beat bobby. That was only the start of the comings and goings. They were followed by a medical man, the coroner’s officer and a photographer. Finally, stretcher bearers, accompanied by Sergeant Ashworth, took away Dr Potter’s body.

  Father Bolingbroke had left after giving his address to PC Hodge. I could have left too but was anxious to give an account of my chat with Dr Potter earlier in the day, while it was still fresh in my mind, just in case there was some clue as to why this terrible thing had happened.

  I had heard Mr Castle arrive from the Leeds Club that is in the adjacent street, a few yards away. Mr Lennox greeted him with great relief.

  I was once more tucked away in the little room with the kettle but overheard Mr Castle and Mr Lennox. I caught snippets as they talked, Lennox reliving his experience.

  ‘Dreadful … knew straight away … saw his pale fingers … dead … Gothic Ornament … a mistake … wrong…’

  Mr Castle spoke in low, measured tones of reassurance. ‘… not wrong … poor Potter … such a brain … where is…’

  I heard my name, and Lennox saying he thought I had left with Father Bolingbroke.

  Reluctant to be drawn into conversation, I slipped away to the ladies’ room where I washed my face, looked at my blotchy skin in the mirror, and tried to keep from crying.

  When I emerged, I heard footsteps, followed by the click of the door closing. I went to look out of the window into the foggy night. After a few moments, two figures came out of the doorway below, Castle and Lennox, library president and librarian. Castle is over seventy years old, but strong and upright. Watching them from above, it appeared that the older man was almost supporting Lennox who leaned towards him. When they disappeared into the gloom, the window turned grey-black and blank, as if a blind had been drawn down.

  I was aware of someone nearby and turned to see PC Hodge.

  He gave a small, friendly smile. Sympathetic. ‘Quite a shock for you, madam. Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes. The librarian, Mr Lennox, took it very hard. I think that helped me to steel myself.’

  ‘That’s the way sometimes, Mrs Shackleton. The sergeant has gone to the mortuary, with the deceased. I’m to take your statement, but is there anyone you would like me to telephone for you?’

  ‘No, I’ll be all right, thank you.’

  ‘Let’s find a couple of chairs, eh?’

  We walked towards the committee room. ‘With Mr Lennox gone, who will lock up the library?’

  ‘The inspector has taken charge of the keys. The library won’t be opening tomorrow morning. We’ll take care of that, too.’

  Once we sat down, the constable took out his notebook. ‘I know the chap who works with you, Jim Sykes.’

  Something in the constable’s voice told me that he and Sykes probably did a good turn for each other now and then. ‘I’ll tell Mr Sykes you were here.’

  Before we had time to begin, a piercing noise interrupted, the sound of a police whistle, coming from the basement.

  ‘Sorry about this.’ The constable put the notebook back in his pocket as he hurried away.

  The clock on the mantelpiece ticked loudly. The fire crackled.

  I should not be here. I have a case in hand. Perhaps it was to escape from the awfulness of the present, but a thought struck me. There was another way we might trace Sophia Wells and her mother. Mrs Bradshaw, having experience of work in a fishmonger’s, may have returned to that work. I must remember to tell Sykes. He could make enquiries along the wet fish row in Kirkgate Market. One of the stall holders may know of the family from Scarborough.

  Not much more than five minutes had passed when the constable returned, a little out of breath. ‘You are a nurse, Mrs Shackleton?’

  Sykes must have told him. ‘Yes, I served with the Voluntary Aid Detachment during the war.’

  ‘You better come. There’s another one, in a bad way.’

  Following PC Hodge, once more I took the steps to the lower floor.

  I had begun to realise how large an area the basement covered, extending the width and length of the entire building, which includes adjacent shops. PC Hodge thankfully made a wide detour, avoiding the area where the bookshelves had tumbled, or been toppled, onto the unfortunate Dr Potter.

  At the far side, in a corner, a few yards from the steps that must lead to the alley where I found the fez, I saw the inspector. He was standing over someone who lay very still.

  I caught the smell from the poor creature before properly seeing him.

  Inspector Wallis shone his torch on the man who was curled in a foetal position.

  ‘I’d be obliged if you’d take a look at him. No broken bones that I can see but he is in a bad way.’

  As I bobbed down, I realised why the inspector had not wanted to come too close to the man. I knelt beside him. His breath came in short, rasping gasps. He shivered. His forehead burned with fever. Looking into the man’s mouth, I saw that his tongue was coated. There was a strong smell of diarrhoea and urine. A sudden coughing fit racked his body; congested lungs.

  As the inspector said, no bones were broken.

  ‘He has broncho-pneumonia. The sooner you get him out of here into the warmth the better.’

  Burly Constable Hodge needed no other prompt from me. He took up his position, waiting a second or two for the nod from his boss, then handed me his torch and picked up the man in his arms. As he moved him, the stench became stronger. God knows how long the poor man had lain there.

  ‘I’ll follow you up,’ the inspector said. ‘Hodge, telephone for an ambulance.’

  ‘Sir.’

  As the constable and I moved away, the inspector shone his torch around the floor where the man had lain.

  Holding the flashlight, I led us back, keeping to the wall.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Hodge said, ‘You better go first, madam.’

  The constable made his slow way behind me towards the only warm room. Looking a little red in the face, he lay down his burden on the hearth rug. ‘He’s skin and bone, but heavy.’

  There was a drop of stewed tea in the pot. I poured a cup, added sugar, and put it to the semi-conscious man’s lips. Constable H
odge raised the man’s head. Between us, we managed to help him take a few drops.

  ‘What’s your name, chum?’ Hodge asked.

  The man groaned and wheezed. He was beyond saying his name. Perhaps he was beyond reach of being kept in this world. His breath was laboured. He made a rattling sound as he exhaled. His chest rose and fell under the colourful waistcoat.

  ‘I’d better phone for that ambulance.’

  ‘The office is up the stairs, off the balcony.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  The man’s hair was black and wavy and his eyebrows bushy. He sported a sorry stage-villain handlebar moustache. Under his pallor, olive skin gave him a foreign look and the suggestion of a life lived outdoors. He wore a knitted waistcoat in garish colours, green, red and yellow. I had seen those colours before, and not long ago. The garment was simply made; knit a row, purl a row. Whoever clicked needles for the monkey’s coat had also produced this colourful creation. It was the work of a child, an inexpert knitter, or perhaps the man himself; the organ grinder who had lost his monkey.

  As he moved, the man winced. There was something heavy strapped to his middle. It was a makeshift money belt, with tapes slotted through a hessian bag. I undid it for his comfort, and then glanced in the bag: gold sovereigns, and plenty of them.

  It was the action of a few seconds. I heard a sound, reached for my satchel and put the bag of sovereigns and the tapes inside. I could not have said why, except that it seemed the right thing to do. Once I had done it, I fastened the satchel, telling myself that all our efforts must be on the man himself, without the distraction of something that might suggest guilt or raise suspicion. He needed to be in hospital, not in a cold cell.

  Inspector Wallis opened the door and stepped inside. ‘How is he?’

  ‘Badly. I could do with a wet towel for his forehead. There’s a gentlemen’s lavatory…’

  He spoke somewhat brusquely. ‘Right. I’ll fetch a towel.’

  Inspector Wallis and I have twice come into contact with each other and each occasion has been somewhat fraught. The first time was when my Scotland Yard friend, Marcus Charles, came north and took charge of an investigation that Inspector Wallis would have preferred to deal with himself. The other occasion was social and should not have caused rancour but I believe he had taken against my outbidding him at a charity auction for a hideous indoor plant that I imagine neither of us wanted. I would not have minded but my bid was entirely accidental. I had been adjusting my hat.

  This evening would provide ammunition enough for Leeds City Police to shoot scorn at their local lady detective. What was she doing in the library at that time on a Friday night? She was shooing away ghosts and ghouls, with a papist priest and a helpless librarian.

  The inspector returned with a damp towel, which he had folded. He handed it to me. I placed it on the man’s brow.

  We were kneeling on either side of the patient, Wallis leaning forward. I moved back slightly, so that our heads would not touch.

  I watched as the inspector searched the man’s pockets. Looking at the top of Wallis’s head, at his blond wavy hair, I had the odd sensation of seeing a Viking searching a vanquished opponent on the battlefield. The wavy hair must have been a trial to him as a boy. When he looked up, having found a couple of tab ends, matches, and a rosary, I noticed his deep blue eyes and dark lashes that a woman might envy. He stood, went close to the fireplace and threw the tab ends and matches into the fire. ‘What are his chances?’

  I thought the man may hear me and so simply said, ‘He needs a bed bath, a nightshirt, and a poultice to ease his chest. He will feel better for being clean.’

  If he did not recover, then at least he would meet his maker in a respectable manner, having had a little comfort.

  ‘I suppose he’ll want this by him.’ Wallis handed me the rosary, letting it fall into my hand.

  I put it back in the man’s pocket and stood.

  ‘PC Hodge tells me you waited behind to make a statement, Mrs Shackleton.’

  ‘Yes. I may have been one of the last people to have a conversation with Dr Potter. We spoke on the landing earlier today.’

  Hodge knocked and came into the room. ‘Sir, they won’t take him at the Workhouse Infirmary. Full up and had one of their outbreaks. He can be accepted at the General Infirmary. I said yes. Hope that’s all right, sir.’

  Why was Wallis frowning? ‘Inspector, that will be the best place for him. Not so far to travel and our patient will stand a better chance, particularly if they have enough staff on hand to take care of him straight away.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t they, Mrs Shackleton?’

  ‘They’ll be doing the changeover between day and night shift. Occasionally, someone is left waiting on a trolley.’ I had left my scarf on the chair and now wound it loosely around the man’s throat. ‘When he is taken to the ambulance, we can cover his mouth with the scarf, to protect him from the cold air.’

  Inspector Wallis spoke to Constable Hodge. ‘After we’ve finished here, go up to the infirmary and keep an eye on him. I want a statement as soon as he recovers, if he recovers.’ Wallis turned to me. He hesitated, as if what he was about to say came with some difficulty, and that he may be weighing a past resentment against present expediency. ‘Madam, you would be doing the police force a service if you would travel with him. I want this man kept alive.’

  ‘So do I, Inspector.’

  We both knew that he might hold the key to Dr Potter’s murder.

  Wallis regarded me as useful, but probably a nuisance. I regarded him as a detective without experience in a murder enquiry. I hoped he would call in Scotland Yard, but something told me he would want to try and solve this case himself.

  I did not trust him.

  Ten

  The two ambulance men wore navy uniforms and caps. One was short, the other tall. As they carried the stretcher bearing the sick organ grinder, one man raised his arms and the other bent his knees.

  Constable Hodge opened the library’s outer door.

  In France during the war, the Ford Model T field ambulance had been the last word. Here, in peacetime, it seemed incongruous to see its solid, square outline in the quiet, foggy street. Three men came out of the nearby Mitre, and stopped for a moment to watch the stretcher being manoeuvred into the back of the ambulance.

  The taller of the two ambulance men then went round to the driver’s side of the vehicle and climbed in the cab. The other man stayed in the back of the ambulance for another moment or two, fastening belts to keep the stretcher in place. He then reached out to me.

  ‘Up you come.’

  He jumped out, shutting the doors behind him.

  Constable Hodge opened the door a fraction, long enough to say, ‘All right, Mrs Shackleton?’

  ‘Yes thank you.’

  ‘I’m to come along later, so I’ll see you there.’

  He closed the rear door as the engine cranked into life.

  My semi-conscious patient wheezed. His chest rattled. I pushed at the flat pillow to try and give him more support and would have liked to raise him up but he was so exhausted that I merely rolled him onto his side and hoped that he would survive the short journey that lay ahead.

  He still had my soft scarf around his throat and mouth which might give him a little protection against the icy chill. When the damp towel I had brought to soothe his brow became warm from his burning forehead, I took off a glove and lay my hand on his brow. He burned with fever, yet he shivered too. I tapped lightly on his back, hoping it might give some slight relief to the congestion in his lungs.

  In the darkness of the ambulance’s interior, I listened to the sounds of our journey: the rasp of the wheels as the vehicle crossed tramlines, the regular thumpety-thump on the cobblestones, and the drone of the engine. He coughed again. I held him steady when we turned a corner, stilling his arms when he began to flail and throw off his blanket.

  During the first part of the journey, I had my bearings. After five min
utes of attending to my patient in darkness, I could not guess our position. Finally, the ambulance came to a halt.

  ‘Won’t be long now. You are at the hospital. You’ll be taken care of.’

  In the cab, driver and stretcher bearer were talking quietly.

  The door opened. The driver held out his hand to help me down.

  As the pair lifted the stretcher, the shorter of the two spoke to the sick man. ‘Did we rattle you, pal? We’re tekin you in now.’

  I closed the vehicle’s doors.

  The Infirmary building loomed darkly in the fog, huge, forbidding as the Castle of Otranto. Nothing about this day, this evening, felt real.

  This building should be familiar to me since I had been shown all around it, and was last here when the plaque was unveiled, commemorating the staff who had fallen in the Great War. At the time, I had not wanted to see Gerald’s name there, still hoping that my husband could be missing, and that he may return.

  In the lobby, a porter came to meet us, wheeling a trolley. Expertly, the ambulance men rolled the patient from stretcher to trolley.

  The driver spoke to the porter in a hushed voice. ‘This lady’s from the police. She’s a nurse and will be in attendance. A constable will be here later.’

  They took their leave.

  The porter said, ‘We’re on the second floor, nurse.’

  As we walked towards the lift, I breathed in hospital smells. Disinfectant. Anxiety. Efficiency.

  He pressed for the lift and said quietly, ‘Wrong un is he?’

  Being ‘from the police’ gave me a very good reason not to reply. But being polite costs nothing and sometimes pays dividends.

  ‘He has pneumonia.’ This did not answer the porter’s question, but stopped him from asking another.

  In the lift there was a different smell: cabbage, boiled fish, body odour.

  We rattled to the second floor.

  He opened the lift doors and wheeled out the trolley, thanking me when I closed the doors behind us. Perhaps I might very soon be expelled from the scene; a hospital matron being a law unto herself. I followed the porter along a corridor at the end of which were double doors. He used the edge of the trolley as a battering ram to open the doors.