Flowering Death

by Angus MacVicar

  About seven o’clock that evening, in his comfortable office in Whitehall, Spike was studying a large tome on the subject of Indian medicine and was finding his mental labours somewhat disturbed by the memory of Joan Nevinson’s fresh loveliness, when the bell of the telephone on his desk began to ring.

  He snatched up the receiver.

  “Spike!” exclaimed the agonized voice of Sergeant Spring at the other end of the wire, “there’s the most devilish to-do at Arundel House ... Mrs. Parkinson, the housekeeper, has been taken to hospital with queer growths on her feet. And Miss Nevinson has disappeared.”

  CHAPTER III

  SPIKE DORRANCE was a young man who, in his various criminal investigations, had been subjected to shocks and surprises of many kinds. And it was said of him by certain of his associates at the Yard that if the Prime Minister were garrotted he would take the news without batting an eyelid.

  His coolness was a matter for pride in the hearts of Inspector McGonagle and Sergeant Spring, for he was their special friend and counsellor, and it was clear that he enjoyed working with them better than with any other policeman. And yet even McGonagle and Spring admitted to each other — privately, of course — that the man’s coolness frequently savoured of callousness. Others, to whom the youthful doctor’s rise to influence at New Scotland Yard was the cause of resentment and jealousy, openly stated that he was unscrupulous and harsh in his methods and that the art of detection had been debased by him.

  There was the case, for instance, of the girl in Tooting who had been afflicted by a mysterious and painful illness resembling meningitis. She had died, and her guardian, an Italian who called himself by the distinguished name of Marconi, had laid hands on her considerable wealth. Suspicions, of course, rested on Signor Marconi; but nothing could be proved against him. And the law, as represented by an inspector and sergeant who had little imagination, followed its clue. It left Signor Marconi severely alone.

  Spike Dorrance, however, had a private interview with the Italian in his laboratory, some six weeks after the death of the girl. What transpired at that interview Inspector McGonagle and Sergeant Spring did not quite understand. Nor did the faithful pair try to understand. The fact remains, however, that Signor Marconi died three nights later, shrieking with the pain of a sudden attack of meningitis.

  When the news was brought to Spike he had smiled cheerfully.

  “Intriguin’!” he had remarked. “Very intriguin’, indeed!”

  And once, when it was conveyed to him in a Soho restaurant that the Paraguayan Consul had been transfixed with seven spears to the wall of his office in Piccadilly, Spike had waved his informant to a seat at his table and had continued to relish his cold bird as if the news were of less importance than the result of the two-thirty at Sandown Park.

  Such details concerning the head of Department Q7 made his conduct, when he received Sergeant Spring’s advice on the occurrences at Arundel House, all the more peculiar. His ruddy checks grew pale and he ran long, sensitive fingers through his crisp dark hair.

  “Spring!” he rasped through the telephone. “Pull yourself together! Tell me exactly what’s happened. Tell me all that you and McGonagle know about the — er — disappearance of Miss Nevinson.”

  Spike heard the quick intake of breath at the other end of the wire. He himself clenched his teeth, and anyone observing him at that moment would have seen a different person from the usually suave and smiling investigator. He — or she — would have looked upon a grim, determined man whose humanity had, for once, got the better of his professional calm. Little muscles raced up and down the long line of his dark jaw. His mind was centred on the fresh beauty of Joan Nevinson.

  “By God!” he muttered, half-unconsciously. “If anyone hurts her —”

  But Spring was speaking, his voice coming thickly from the ear-piece of the telephone.

  “As you know, Spike, McGonagle has been scouting round the florist’s and the hospitals all afternoon. Two of your men have been watching Arundel House. I spent three hours grilling the butler and the two female servants.”

  “I am aware of all that, Spring.”

  “Yes, Spike ... I reached Arundel House about four o’clock. Dr. Fayne was out — at St. Clement’s Hospital. Mr. Lancaster was rehearsing at the Paternoster Theatre. Both of them, naturally, were being shadowed. Our men can vouch for their presence at their various tasks till they returned here half an hour ago. Miss Nevinson, when I arrived at the house, was writing letters in the drawing-room. She told me to go ahead with the servants in the kitchen and that she would see me when I had completed my job. I finished with Mrs. Parkinson first — about five o’clock — and the housekeeper went to her room to lie down, saying that with all the bother she wasn’t feeling well. I didn’t think that strange.”

  “Of course not, Spring.”

  “I finished with Mary Daw, the maid, and with Seale, the butler, about half an hour ago, just as Fayne and Lancaster came in, practically together. I asked for Miss Nevinson. They hadn’t seen her. She couldn’t be found in the house. I called in your men. Neither of them had seen the girl leave. The only callers at the house in the three hours I had been inside were two upholsterer’s men, who took away the bloodstained library carpet in a van. They were expected, I understand, at four-thirty. They arrived at four-forty-five.”

  Spike snapped into the mouthpiece.

  “You chump, Spring! Can’t you see it now?”

  “Yes, Spike. I can see it. Anything may have happened in the drawing-room while I was in the kitchen at the back of the house. I couldn’t have heard the sounds of a struggle even though one took place ... And I phoned Matchards, the furniture crowd. The van they sent round to Arundel House should have been back two hours ago. There’s no sign of it yet.”

  “And Mrs. Parkinson? What about her?”

  "As Payne and Lancaster and I were questioning your men there was a shriek from her room. Fayne left us to investigate. He came back to say that the old lady had become anxious about a queer burning sensation in her legs. She had got out of bed to examine them. She had discovered about her ankles peculiar fungoid growths — like flowers — just beginning to show above the healthy skin ... Mrs. Parkinson is now in St. Clement’s Hospital — raving a little, I believe.”

  “And you’re ravin’, Spring. So am I. What the hell are we to do? ... Sorry, old scout! This case is gettin’ on my nerves. I’ll be round with you in ten minutes. By the way, is McGonagle there?”

  “I sent for him.”

  “Good man!”

  For a moment after laying down the receiver Spike stood stock-still in the middle of his comfortable, cheerful room. He spared a couple of minutes to allow his thoughts to ramble. His long, lean body was taut and still.

  *

  He had been certain from his first glance at the flower-strewn corpse of Dr. Abraham McIntee in the library at Arundel House that the case was going to be one of considerable difficulty. He had not, however, suspected that it would present more than a few bizarre points. In his opinion, the crime against Dr. McIntee had been committed for personal reasons and would prove, like most murders, to be an isolated instance of violent death. Now he wasn’t quite so sure. Why had Mrs. Parkinson been so suddenly afflicted with the strange flower-disease? Why had Joan — why had Miss Nevinson disappeared?

  A vague uneasiness intruded upon his anxiety for the girl. His quick Celtic imagination began to conjure up startling visions. Mrs. Parkinson had contracted the flower-disease. So might others. And he, Spike Dorrance, perhaps one of the greatest authorities in the world on mysterious tropical ailments, knew of no antidote for the malady. No other specialist, to his knowledge, knew of one. And the illness, judging by the case he had observed, proved fatal in approximately a week.

  Then his mind switched back to the murder of Dr. McIntee. What had been the motive? Since early in the morning he had concentrated upon this aspect of the question; but the old doctor, as far as he could discover, had
been the enemy of none, and a benefactor to most people with whom he had come into contact.

  Now, however, as he stood alone in his room, with the evening sunlight gleaming upon the thick carpet and the sporting prints on the walls, the ghost of an idea came to Spike ... He snatched up his hat and the stout ash stick which he usually carried. He dismissed the peculiar notion which had come to him. Plenty of time to consider this when Joan — when Miss Nevinson had been discovered.

  *

  His car was parked in a corner of the cobbled court outside. It was low and long and had a dark grey body. Its streamlines and the gleaming metalwork were somehow suggestive of great speed and power. Sergeant Spring, that incurably imaginative policeman, had once observed that the vehicle, in motion, was like a lean greyhound in full flight, its belly scraping the ground.

  Into the driving-seat Spike leapt, throwing his stick into the open tonneau. The engine purred, growled, roared; and the big car spun round and shot out between high pillars into the sunlit street. A policeman on duty in Piccadilly Circus saluted smartly as it screamed past him. He knew that car. It was a legend to every young constable in the Metropolis.

  McGonagle, to his cost, was aware that its maximum speed was a hundred and twenty-six miles per hour. He had once journeyed to York with Spike, their mission having been to arrest the North Riding poisoner. When recounting his experiences to Spring at a later period, the big Irish detective confessed that to apprehend the mad poisoner, who might at any moment have thrown quantities of prussic acid on him, was a rest-cure: a rest-cure, that is, compared with sitting beside the mad driver of the Bentley who negotiated sharp bends with his foot jammed down on the accelerator.

  Spike ran up the steps leading to the front door of Arundel House, to be met on the threshold by his two friends, McGonagle and Spring. The inspector’s eyes protruded to a remarkable extent, while the sergeant’s round face was noticeably strained.

  Spike wasted no time on preliminaries. He turned to Spring.

  “You’re sure no one in this house could have been directly implicated in the kidnapping?”

  “Quite sure, Spike. You heard what I said over the telephone. I can vouch for Mrs. Parkinson, Mary Daw and Seale. Payne and Lancaster have been sworn to by our men.”

  The young doctor nodded.

  “I believe you. Then we haven’t a darned thing to go by.”

  “Except,” said Spring, “that furniture-van.”

  “Right. It’s not much. But beggars can’t be choosers ... Seems obvious, doesn’t it, that Dr. McIntee’s murderer has had something to do with Miss Nevinson’s disappearance?”

  “I wonder now,” drawled McGonagle, “why that person wanted to kidnap the sweet girl? Why didn’t he murder her, too?”

  “You’re a ghoul, McGonagle!” snapped Spike. “But — can’t you answer your own question?”

  “I think I can ... She knew something important. But she didn’t know that she knew something important, if you follow me.”

  “Yes. I follow you.” Spike, even in his anxiety, could not help the grin. “You’re Irish, aren’t you, McGonagle?”

  “What I mean is,” continued the policeman, unperturbed, “she might easily have incriminated someone quite unintentionally. Also — someone may want her mouth shut because of something she has learned since the period of the murder; but, at the same time, that person may want to keep her alive for what she is — a lovely woman.”

  “You lousy old wretch!” muttered Spike. “You’re as right as rain ... Where are Fayne and Lancaster?”

  “Come inside,” advised the inspector. “They’re in the drawing-room. Lancaster’s nerves are pretty taut, I think; but Fayne’s got some kind of Oriental stoicism which keeps his pecker up. You know what I mean?”

  “Yes ... That lad’s a Eurasian as certainly as I’m a Scot.”

  In the big front-room, through the wide windows of which the evening sun slanted, the two men sat on either side of a tiny fire. Lancaster, his smooth, healthy cheeks flushing, leaped to his feet as the policeman entered. Fayne rose quietly, unhurriedly from his chair. His dark eyes glowed in a queer, questioning manner.

  “Dorrance!” cried the actor, “what has happened to Joan?”

  The head of Department Q7 frowned.

  “I don’t know. Do you?”

  Lancaster recoiled.

  “How ... What —”

  “I’m sorry,” murmured Spike. “We have no idea, at the moment, as to the whereabouts of Miss Nevinson. All we know is that the two furniture men were not furniture men at all. Miss Nevinson must have answered their ring personally as all the servants were engaged with Sergeant Spring. They may have chloroformed her, wrapped her in the carpet and carried her out under the very noses of my men.”

  “It is probable,” agreed Fayne slowly. “But by the way, Dr. Dorrance, I don’t suppose that you can do anything for my patient, Mrs. Parkinson? You have heard, of course about the malady which, unfortunately, has overtaken her?”

  “I’ve heard. And I’m beginning to think that there is only one man in the world who can help her.”

  “Who is that person?” inquired Dr. Fayne.

  “The man,” replied Spike, “who murdered Dr. McIntee and who inoculated his housekeeper with the germ of the flowering death.”

  Fayne bowed.

  “I see,” he said. “It should not be difficult to lay hands on that person.”

  Mervyn Lancaster was about to speak when there was a sharp knock at the door of the room.

  A plain-clothes policeman stepped up to Sergeant Spring and saluted.

  “By your orders, sir,” he said, “I telephoned every station in London County to look out for a van with a smashed rear lamp and a dented front off mudguard. A van answering this description, though the number is different from the one which visited this house, has been observed in Croydon.”

  Spike spun round.

  “Croydon it is!” he exclaimed. “The Bentley. Well done, Spring!”

  CHAPTER IV

  MCGONAGLE sat beside Spike in the driving-seat, while Spring and the plain-clothes policeman — whose name, it appeared, was Walsh — jammed themselves into the narrow tonneau.

  “And for peace’s sake, Spike,” said the inspector as the Bentley moved off from Arundel House, “have mercy on us. I’m getting old and done and my nerve is not as good as it was.”

  Spike laughed. To some extent he had recovered his good humour. There was a prospect of action. There was the possibility that Joan — that Miss Nevinson might be found.

  McGonagle and Spring observed the change in his mood with secret satisfaction, for they had been taken aback during the last few minutes by his jumpy, cruel behaviour. They had expected him, after the disappearance of the girl and the coming of Mrs. Parkinson’s mysterious illness, to soothe and comfort their own worried minds; but instead they had been dismayed and their troubles had been accentuated by the knowledge that their friend could not be relied upon, just then, for moral guidance. Now, however, their leader had almost regained his usual equanimity. Confidence returned.

  “Spring!” exclaimed Spike over his shoulder as the car narrowly missed a bus in Shamrock Street, “there are men still watchin’ Arundel House?”

  “Yes. Don’t worry about that, Spike. I got a man down from the Yard ten minutes ago to replace Walsh here.”

  “Good.” Spike turned again to McGonagle. “Now, we have about half an hour’s run ahead of us before we reach Croydon Police Station. Let’s get all the facts of this case clear. Have you and Spring discovered anything?”

  McGonagle shook a big square head. His eyes almost popped out as the Bentley whirled round the tail-end of a tram-car and narrowly missed decapitating a horse which was pulling a lorry. But he tried to speak with calm.

  “To tell ye a fact, Spike,” he said, “I don’t know. We’ve worked all the usual lines. And I may say that everyone in Arundel House seems to be telling the truth. We’ve looked into their past
histories and there’s nothing particularly unusual anywhere.”

  “Fayne all right?”

  “I think so. He’s the son of a Burmese tea-planter. The father, I believe, was once wealthy; but before his death four years ago he seems to have lost all his money in the investment slump. Kenneth Fayne, luckily, had graduated as a doctor by that time; but until he met old McIntee he was in a fairly rocky condition — financially, I mean. His pals in St. Clement’s Hospital tell of attic lodgings and so forth ... By the way, no one appears to know much about his mother. But I think his colour gives us a certain clue. I don’t think old Fayne was married.”

  “Thought so, Inspector me bhoy. And Dr. McIntee became interested in the youngster? Took him into partnership?”

  “That’s it. Everything quite above board. Young Fayne, by all accounts, is a pretty skilful lad. Fellows at St. Clement’s Hospital seem to like him, too. He’s a bit taciturn and quiet; but they tell me he can be surprisingly gentle and kind with sick people. And he’s a marvel with kids. D’you know what he did once? Little girl with diphtheria became very fond of him. Kept calling for him one night when she was highly fevered and couldn’t sleep. He came from Arundel House at one o’clock in the morning, said ‘Damn the infection’ to a Sister who tried to stop him and lay down beside the little girl, holding her hot hands in his till dawn ... Lately, however, he has become exceptionally moody, and once or twice he has shown signs of an ugly temper. There are rumours that he and Lancaster have been making the running for old McIntee’s ward.”

  “Is that so!” murmured Spike. “Very interestin’.”

  “Interesting, maybe,” agreed McGonagle. “But — oh, Lord, Spike, take care! We were nearly on the pavement that time.”

  “Were we?” Spike’s blue eyes were chilly. “Carry on, McGonagle. What do you know of this actor bird?”

  McGonagle glanced at his friend reproachfully.