‘I don’t know. I couldn’t think who to ask. Then, when you telephoned for an appointment, I remembered hearing that you had investigated poor General Craig’s murder a few years back so I thought I’d consult you.’
‘It’s all so far-fetched!’ Verity was trying to sound interested but she was so tired it was hard to concentrate. She was by herself in a light, airy room overlooking Cleveland Street. As a good Communist, she had tried to insist on a public ward but the doctor would not hear of it. ‘Until we know what the matter is we must keep you in isolation. Wouldn’t do to infect the other patients, would it, Miss Browne?’
Edward knew that, in normal circumstances, the doctor’s tone of voice would have grated on her but she had no fight left in her and merely nodded her head meekly.
‘I’m sorry, V. I ought not to bore you. I’ll leave you to get some sleep.’
‘No please, stay with me for a bit.’ She clutched his hand. ‘My stock has definitely gone up having you visit me. Even the doctors treat me with respect and one of the nurses was swooning over you.’
‘What rot!’ It had genuinely never occurred to him that he was becoming quite famous. His photograph appeared in the illustrated papers on a regular basis and his reputation for solving crimes was gradually becoming known to a wider public however much he tried to keep a low profile. People he had never met asked him to pontificate on murder investigations he knew nothing about. The Daily Mail had actually asked him to be their crime correspondent, an offer he had indignantly refused. Verity had laughed when he told her and said it was a compliment.
Of course, it was also becoming common knowledge that he and Verity were more than just friends. The engagement was still supposed to be a secret – even his family had not been told officially, though it would be no surprise to Edward’s brother and sister-in-law when it was announced. He had noticed a photographer outside the hospital – a film star was recovering in the Middlesex after a suicide attempt – but the man had recognized him and taken his photograph. He was resigned to reading in the newspapers coy speculation on why he was so often at the bedside of the celebrated foreign correspondent, Miss Verity Browne.
‘I’m so sorry to be such a wet blanket,’ she was saying. ‘I was hoping that next time I was in London we could play at being a courting couple. You could take me to gay parties and show me off to your relatives and we could tell all our friends.’
‘I don’t go to parties and you already know all my relatives,’ he smiled. ‘I’m still waiting to be introduced to yours, by the way.’
‘My father? I do want you to meet him. He’s supposed to be back in England in a couple of weeks.’
‘Does he know about your . . .?’
‘My illness? I got his chambers to telegraph him – he’s in Buenos Aires of all places – but they haven’t heard anything yet.’
‘When will you get the results of the tests?’
‘Soon. Tomorrow, probably. It’s so stupid. I don’t know why I collapsed like that. I just feel so tired. A week or two of rest . . .’
‘I’ve been thinking about that . . .’
‘Mersham?’
‘Not there. I know Connie would love to have you,’ he added hastily, ‘but the castle’s still crawling with children.’ These were Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. Mersham Castle had become one of the main ‘clearing houses’, as one official had named them, where the children were looked after until families could be found to take them.
Verity had winced to hear him say firmly that Connie would be so delighted to have her. The Duke, she knew, would not be so pleased. He had made it clear to her that he thought she was not good enough for his younger brother. ‘No, it wouldn’t be fair on them,’ she said quickly. ‘They’ve got enough on their plate already and since it was my idea to bring the children to Mersham . . .’
‘Gerald loves it. He told me the other day he feels so much happier now that he’s doing something to help and the sound of children’s voices in those big empty rooms . . . well, he said it lifted his spirits no end. Those were his exact words.’
‘Still, if I have what the doctors think I have, I’m infectious . . .’
‘I’ve got a better idea. A friend of mine, Leonard Bladon – we were up at Trinity together – he’s a doctor . . . has a sort of clinic, I suppose you’d call it, but it’s more of a hotel – a place to recuperate for people who aren’t ill enough to be in hospital but who still need a bit of looking after. I thought it might fit the bill.’
‘And you can do a bit of sleuthing when you’re not ministering to me,’ Verity said with a little smile which made his heart turn over.
‘Something like that,’ he agreed.
‘Edward, you’re so sweet, but what if . . . what if I don’t get better? What if the doctors find something . . . something bad? I’m scared.’ Her voice was so low he had to bend his head to hear her. ‘You know what I’m like. I don’t mind rushing about a battlefield. A bit of danger makes me feel alive but to be ill . . . to lie in bed and know . . . or, worse still, not know.’
‘V, darling . . .’ Edward fought to find the right words. He knew that she badly needed reassurance but not empty platitudes. ‘We’ll know the worst soon enough. You’re a fighter and if . . . if the doctors say it’s serious, then we’ll fight it together. You’ve got lots of work to do so we can’t have you lying in bed for too long.’ He hastened to distract her. ‘Tell me about what you were up to in Czechoslovakia. I haven’t had a chance to ask what with all this . . .’ he tailed off.
Verity smiled wryly and squeezed his hand. ‘Not much to report, really. Like this – a waiting game. The Czechs mobilized their armed forces when it looked as though Germany was going to invade, as you know, but then nothing happened. The Germans didn’t invade. It seems Hitler’s pursuing a more subtle approach than merely marching across the border as he did in Austria – at least for the moment. I guess he’s testing the reaction of France and Britain to a gradual takeover. If, as seems likely, our government makes no protest, they’ll take over the whole country piecemeal. German civilians are pouring into the Sudetenland and, as they take jobs and businesses, refugees – not only Jews but Czech patriots of all kinds – leave for Prague. The city’s full to the brim of the dispossessed sitting in cafés making one small cup of coffee last a whole afternoon.’
Edward nodded his head. ‘I suspect the great British public isn’t interested in Czechoslovakia. They’d not support the government if they promised to go to the aid of the Czechs.’
‘And the British press won’t kick up a fuss about what Hitler is doing in Europe. We’re so bloody cosy behind our moat. The editor spikes most of my reports and Joe Weaver lets him. But I just know it’s all going to blow up while I’m tied to this bloody bed.’
It was rare to hear Verity swear and it signalled how depressed she was. Before he left the hospital – promising to return early the next day – Edward found the doctor who had examined her. He was a brusque young man – busy, efficient and not unsympathetic but he refused to allay any of his fears.
‘Come back tomorrow, Lord Edward. We’ll have the results of the tests and the X-rays before midday. Then we can decide what to do. One thing I can tell you – it will take a while before Miss Browne recovers her strength. I know mentally she’s not one to give up the struggle but physically she’s at the end of her tether. She’s going to need a lot of looking after.’
‘Answer that, will you, Fenton?’
Edward was stropping his razor – a ritual he enjoyed. He found it made him relax. He owned a safety razor, of course, but the whole business of soaping his face with the shaving brush and the feel of the cold blade against his skin was how he preferred to greet the day. He did not like being interrupted and so it was with irritation that he had heard the insistent ring of the telephone and with surprise bordering on indignation that he now heard Fenton at the bathroom door.
‘It’s Chief Inspector Pride, my lord. I told him you wer
e engaged but he insists on talking to you. He says it’s urgent.’
Edward reluctantly wiped the soap off his face with a towel and pulled on a dressing-gown. He had to admit he was curious. He knew Pride of old but had not seen or talked to him for at least eighteen months. What had suddenly made him telephone at – he glanced at his watch – eight fifteen, before the day could properly be said to have started?
He grabbed the receiver. ‘Pride? Is that you?’ He had a sudden thought that he might want to talk to him about Verity. She was so often at odds with authority but he quickly remembered that, whatever problems she had to face, the police would not be one of them.
‘Sorry to bother you so early, my lord, but I wonder if you could come up to Devonshire Place, number sixty-two?’
‘That’s Eric Silver, my dentist’s address. What on earth are you doing there, Chief Inspector?’
‘It says in the appointment book that you saw him at five yesterday evening.’
‘That’s correct. I was his last appointment.’
‘His receptionist tells me that he usually had a five-thirty but he’d cancelled that appointment and sent her home early.’
‘That’s right. He wanted to consult me about something. Why, what’s the matter? Is Silver all right?’
‘I’m afraid not, my lord. He’s been murdered.’
‘Murdered!’
‘Yes, the receptionist – Miss Wilton – came in twenty minutes ago and found him in his chair. Someone had used his drill to make a hole in his head. And a very messy business he made of it.’
Edward almost dropped the receiver. ‘That’s horrible, disgusting. Who on earth would do such a thing? I say, Chief Inspector, you don’t think I had anything to do with this, do you?’
‘I do, I’m afraid. I found a piece of paper – a page torn out of the appointment book as a matter of fact. On it were written in block capitals the words Aquila non captat muscas. If I am not mistaken, my lord, that is the legend to be found on the Mersham family arms.’
‘How did you know?’
‘I remembered it from my visit to Mersham Castle.’ Three years before, Pride had investigated the murder of General Craig at the Duke of Mersham’s dinner table.
‘That’s very impressive, Chief Inspector. What a memory you have. But, do you think . . .?’
‘I think, Lord Edward, that this whole business concerns you. Someone has just sent you a peculiarly unpleasant message.’
Edward finished shaving, cutting himself in the process, dressed hurriedly and downed a cup of black coffee, all the time going over in his mind Eric Silver’s suspicion that the deaths of three of his patients were somehow connected. He had been inclined to dismiss these fears as fanciful. On balance, he thought it was mere coincidence that three elderly people had died doing what they most enjoyed – Herold playing with his bees, Hermione Totteridge in her garden and General Lowther drinking himself into oblivion. However, Silver’s murder and the unequivocal challenge his killer had left him quite altered the situation. The murderer was not interested in concealing his crimes. On the contrary, he was arrogant enough to throw the gauntlet down for Edward to pick up.
By the time the cab had dropped him in Devonshire Place, he had determined to avenge his friend’s brutal murder. It was by no stretch of the imagination his fault that Silver had been killed but it was clear that the murderer had somehow discovered that the dentist was expounding his theories to him and retribution had been swift and savage. But why had the murderer not killed Silver before he had spoken to him? Perhaps he had just happened to recognize Edward entering the surgery and it had aroused his suspicions. Perhaps he had actually overheard the conversation. How else could he know what Silver would say? Edward shivered as if someone was walking over his grave, as his old nanny used to say. He had heard nothing and nobody in the surgery apart from the dentist but then he was hardly listening for anyone and his ears were still ringing from the noise of that dreadful drill.
The photographs had been taken by the time he arrived and the surgery dusted for fingerprints but the corpse, mercifully covered by a sheet, was still in the dentist’s chair.
‘It’s not a pretty sight,’ Pride warned before nodding to one of his men to lift the sheet. Edward took one look and turned away in horror. For a moment he thought he might vomit but he regained control of himself and looked again. The drill had been thrust into Silver’s ear and, through that, into his brain. Blood and gore covered the wound but the drill itself was still attached to the electrical wire that drove it.
Pride signalled for the sheet to be replaced and ushered Edward out of the room. ‘I’m sorry you had to see that but I thought you might notice something.’
‘Forgive me, Chief Inspector, but I must have some air. Such a gruesome . . . the murderer must be mad . . . a sadist.’ The two men went out into the street and walked up and down until Edward began to feel better, but the horror of what he had just seen still made him want to retch. ‘Thank you. I’m sorry about that,’ he said at last. ‘I thought nothing could shock me but that . . . He was killed in his chair?’
‘Yes. I have to say it’s the most macabre murder I have ever investigated. Vindictive is the word which comes to mind.’
‘Indeed. Who else saw Silver yesterday, apart from me?’
‘He had four appointments in the morning and two in the afternoon before you. We’ll talk to them all, of course, but Miss Wilton says they are all regulars.’
‘She must be terribly shocked. Who’s looking after her?’
‘Her mother. One of my men has taken her back to Cricklewood. The doctor gave her a sedative but she was, as you would expect, in deep shock.’
‘She had worked for Silver for some time, I think.’ Edward was trying to get his brain to work.
‘About three years, I understand.’
‘As far as I know, Silver had no relatives. He wasn’t married and I remember him telling me his parents were dead.’
‘Was he . . .’ Pride hesitated, ‘a homosexual?’
‘I don’t know. It never occurred to me.’ Edward was shocked by the question but knew it had to be asked. ‘Not as far as I know,’ he said as firmly as possible. ‘May I see the piece of paper left with the body?’
They walked back into the building and took the ancient-looking lift up to the second floor. As the lift doors clanged open, Edward saw two policemen struggling down the stairs with a stretcher on which lay the shrouded body of his erstwhile dentist.
‘I really can’t get over this, Chief Inspector. You see someone full of life one moment and the next he’s struck down by a madman.’
Pride passed a sheet of paper to him. Seeing Edward hesitate, he said, ‘Go ahead. There are no fingerprints on it. No bloodstains . . . nothing at all. The killer used the pen on the receptionist’s desk. Either he was wear-ing gloves or he wiped everything clean afterwards . . . My guess is that he was wearing gloves and perhaps a white coat. Miss Wilton seems to think there’s one missing. There must have been a lot of blood. Now, if we could find those . . . ’
Edward examined the paper and the writing on it with care.
‘It must have been written by someone who knows you reasonably well – well enough to know your family’s coat of arms and to have recognized you going into the surgery,’ Pride commented.
‘And he’s well educated,’ Edward remarked, ‘or the Latin wouldn’t have meant anything to him.’
‘Aquila – the eagle – non captat muscas. The eagle won’t catch flies. Am I right?’
‘Quite right, Chief Inspector.’
‘Can you guess at its significance or is it just that the murderer wants you to know that he knows who you are?’
Edward chewed his lip. ‘You’ll probably laugh me out of court, Pride, but there does seem to be an entomological significance. First, though, I’ve got to tell you what Mr Silver wanted to consult me about.’
‘I wish you would,’ Pride said drily. ‘After all, that must
explain why the man was killed.’
When Edward had finished, Pride smiled thinly. ‘So you think our murderer is a bug hunter?’
‘Well, Herold was killed by his bees, Hermione Totteridge died from the poison she was using to kill her greenfly and the General drank a wine called Mouches – flies.’
Pride scratched his head. ‘I’ve never heard the like. Until we have talked to the local police we can’t know whether the theory stands up but if it turns out to be true . . . Perhaps Silver was misinformed and General Lowther died drinking something else. What about his own murder? There were no bugs involved as far as I can see – apart from your Latin motto.’
Edward sucked his lip and hesitated. ‘I expect the murderer was forced into this killing and hadn’t the time to plan something clever but . . .’
‘But?’
‘It’s probably just my odd way of looking at things but do you remember the Victorian explorer, John Hanning Speke?’ Pride shook his head. ‘He went to Africa with Richard Burton and was the first European to see Lake Victoria. No, I’m sorry, Chief Inspector, I’m being ridiculous.’
‘Go on. I’ve come to respect your hunches, Lord Edward.’
‘Well, I don’t know whether it’s true or just a myth but, as you can imagine, those early explorers in Africa were plagued by bugs and beetles of every kind. Anyway, as I remember the story, Speke woke up in his tent one morning on the shores of Lake Tanganyika to find a beetle wriggling about in his ear. He poked it with his finger and shook his head but nothing seemed to dislodge it. The feeling of the beetle squirming and buzzing in his head was driving him mad so in the end he picked up a compass from the map he was making and thrust the point into his ear.’
Pride winced. ‘And did it . . .?’
‘It killed the bug and deafened him.’
‘You spent some time in Africa, didn’t you, Lord Edward?’
‘Yes, Kenya mostly. Paradise – at least for us Europeans . . . Can you imagine one wonderful day after another . . . The Rift Valley bathed in a golden glow from sunrise to sunset. Only the insects to worry you, particularly the mosquitoes . . . ’ He stopped and considered. ‘I see what you’re getting at, Chief Inspector, but if we’re talking geography, I think it’s much more significant that all three of Silver’s patients died in the Henley area.’
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