The snow down my neck had reached my twelfth thoracic vertebra, so I could only rise to a polite murmur about imagining it on the bridge with a peaked cap and a telescope in a hurricane.
‘I can assure you my brother George has not suffered the slightest discomfort from the elements for years, except when he has forgotten his umbrella. He has an extremely agreeable office in the City, where he has risen to be Marine Superintendent of the Capricorn Shipping Line.’
I gave a start.
‘The Capricorn Line, sir?’
But before I could say any more Sir Lancelot gripped my arm.
‘Look at that! The feller in the bowler again.’
He was wiping snow from one of those big plans of the Zoo they put up here and there. With a little shriek, he shot out of sight behind the aviary.
‘I told you he was insane,’ snorted Sir Lancelot.
‘He certainly seems to be behaving rather oddly.’
‘So are we, being here at all in this weather. Now children, here is our next exhibit.’
‘What a swizz,’ complained Hilda, ‘they’re only rats.’
‘I assure you, young lady, that the dental structure of the rat is utterly fascinating.’
‘I want to see the lions,’ grumbled Randolph.
‘Panthera leo by all means. I believe they are kept over here.’
We pitched into the snow again. We were all four soaked to the skin, but I myself was glowing inside like a blast furnace. I’d had a terrific idea about Sir Lancelot’s brother, and I was just wondering how to work it out when there was that damn little man again, nipping round the antelopes and shooting into the lion house.
‘Grimsdyke!’
Sir Lancelot stopped.
‘Sir?’
‘I’m inclined to think there is more in this bowler-hatted feller than meets the eye.’
‘He may simply be rather fond of animals, sir?’
‘H’m. We shall nevertheless investigate. Now you two children.’ He glared at them. ‘Keep close behind me, and if you make so much as a squeak I’ll chuck you in the bear pit.’
We crept through the snow to the door of the lion house. We peeped inside. There was the little man with his attaché case open, throwing chunks of meat to a bunch of highly appreciative carnivores behind the bars.
‘By George!’ Sir Lancelot hissed in my ear. ‘Now I know who the feller reminds me of. Crippen!’
‘What, Crippen the murderer, sir?’
‘Of course Crippen the murderer! He’s exactly the same type – meek little man in a stiff collar and glasses, and as dangerous as hell. Good God, Grimsdyke! We’re witnessing the crime of the century.’
I didn’t quite follow all this.
‘Don’t be dense, boy! You chop up your wife, and what do you do with her? Why – feed her to the lions in the Zoo, of course!’
‘But he may just be having a bit of fun, like people with monkey nuts–’
‘Hi, there! You!’
I was a bit alarmed as Sir Lancelot strode into the lion house.
‘Here, I say!’ I exclaimed. ‘Hold on, sir–’
I was even more alarmed when the Crippen chap gave a yell, chucked the last of the meat through the bars, and made for the far door with the senior surgeon of St Swithin’s in pursuit.
‘Stop that man!’ shouted Sir Lancelot. ‘Stop him, I say!’
I stood in the snow. I wondered what to do. Sir Lancelot chased the chap round the penguins, while the children jumped up and down in delight. They hadn’t had such fun since a visiting curate got caught in the motor-mower.
The little man dived for one of those revolving iron exit gates, with Sir Lancelot close behind. I grabbed the children’s chocolate-plastered gloves and followed. I must say, I felt pretty worried. Sir Lancelot was making an absolutely first class ruddy fool of himself. Distinguished surgical gents simply can’t go round London chasing tender-hearted little men who feel the lions need a bit of fattening up. And when I got the brats outside, there was Sir Lancelot holding his quarry by the macintosh collar, and probably committing all sorts of actionable assault.
‘All right, guv’nor,’ the little man kept repeating. ‘I’ll come quiet. It’s a fair cop all right, and I shouldn’t never have done it.’
‘Good Lord!’ I exclaimed, a bit horrified. ‘Then he really is a–’
‘Fetch a constable,’ commanded Sir Lancelot. ‘Careful what you say, you villain. Any statement you make I shall reduce to writing and produce in evidence at your trial.’
‘Oh, Gawd!’
I found a policeman. He looked about sixteen, and approached with a sort of air I’d worn myself when nabbed by Sister for an awkward case in Casualty.
‘Officer, take this man in charge. A very serious crime has been committed.’
The little man cried, ‘I confess everything,’ and burst into tears. The children gave another roar of laughter. Their uncle had finally come up to scratch on the afternoon’s entertainment.
‘Name and address, please, sir,’ said the policeman, reaching for his notebook.
‘My dear good man! Don’t stand there taking names and addresses as though he’d parked on the wrong side of the street. I tell you that something of the utmost seriousness has been committed. Do you know who I am? I am a surgeon. Indeed, I am the consultant surgeon to the Police Welfare Club, and I demand to be taken to your superior officers immediately. Ah, a police car! I am glad somebody had the intelligence to reach for the telephone. Grimsdyke!’
‘Sir?’
‘You will kindly take the children home in my Rolls. The scene is far too painful for their eyes.’
‘What’s going on here?’ called a policeman from the car.
‘Let us all go to the nearest police station and find out,’ said Sir Lancelot.
7
Our return minus Sir Lancelot caused quite a stir in Harley Street.
‘Not an accident!’ exclaimed the Bishop, I fancied a shade too hopefully.
‘No, not an accident,’ I assured him, while everyone seemed to be talking at once. ‘But it is rather complicated–’
‘Oh, dear,’ exclaimed Lady Spratt.
‘You see, the police–’
‘The police?’ murmured the Bishop. ‘Horror!’
‘And I’d better not discuss it in front of the children–’
‘Mummy,’ said Hilda, ‘Sir Lancelot called me an ugly little moron.’
The brats were smartly removed by the Bishop’s eldest daughter, and I led the others into the drawing-room.
‘We had a rather odd experience,’ I started. I shifted a bit, what with everyone staring at me. ‘Fact is, we witnessed the aftermath of a murder.’
‘Murder!’ gasped the Bishop.
‘Lancelot wasn’t involved – ?’ cried Lady Spratt.
‘Only in nabbing the criminal,’ I reassured her quickly.
‘It is really most unfortunate that we should become mixed up in such matters,’ remarked the Bishop’s wife.
‘But Gaston, what on earth happened?’ demanded Lady Spratt.
‘We were all in the lion house.’ It really was dashed difficult knowing exactly how to put it. ‘And there was the murderer chap, tossing great chunks of meat through the bars from his suitcase. You see, we were actually watching him disposing of the body.’
The Bishop’s wife gave a scream, and fainted again.
‘Horror upon horror!’ cried the Bishop.
There was naturally a good deal of confusion, even though we’d already established the drill for this situation. But what with carting his wife to the sofa and the smelling salts and the brandy and the Bishop fanning her with his apron, I couldn’t get any further with the story before Sir Lancelot appeared himself in a police car, looking pleased with life.
‘Lancelot! What on earth have you been up to?’ insisted Lady Spratt at once.
‘Furthering the ends of justice, my dear. Where are our guests?’
‘Charles is j
ust upstairs helping his wife. She was taken ill again.’
‘Really? Something’s constitutionally wrong with that woman. It might not be a bad idea if I had a look at her. There you are, Grimsdyke. You’ll stay for tea?’
‘Tea!’ Lady Spratt started to get cross. ‘How you have the nerve to talk about tea when we are all of us in a state of utter emotional exhaustion–’
‘You really must try and keep calm, my dear. Once I get this beastly wet overcoat off I shall give you the full story. Meanwhile, I see no reason whatever why I should forgo my usual tea.’
And a pretty dramatic story it was, too.
When Sir Lancelot had arrived at the police station, where he was lucky to find he’d once repaired the sergeant’s hernia, the little man was incapable of anything except loud sobs.
‘Aware that vital evidence was rapidly disappearing in the gastric juices of lions,’ Sir Lancelot explained, as the pretty little Italian maid wheeled in the tea-trolley, ‘I immediately directed the police to telephone McFiggie. McFiggie naturally grasped the point at once, and agreed that the animals should have an emetic, which has already been administered. Once the stomach contents are under his microscope he will be able to tell if there is any trace of human flesh remaining undigested. Elementary, my dear Grimsdyke.’
He then settled down to his usual Sunday spread of hot buttered crumpets and dundee cake.
Fact is, I fancied Lady Spratt now felt as proud of the old boy as I did myself. For all that chasing round the penguins, the quick-wittedness which had pulled off so many tricky surgical diagnoses in the wards at St Swithin’s had copped the perpetrator of a particularly crafty and messy murder. It just proved again how Sir Lancelot made a resounding success of anything he happened to take an interest in, from surgery to snipe shooting and collecting rare diseases to collecting rare china.
‘Lancelot, how provident to see you safe and sound.’ The Bishop appeared in the doorway, looking flustered. ‘I fear that my wife–’
‘My dear feller, take a seat. I have a most interesting story to tell.’
‘My poor wife…not very well.’
‘Indeed? I’m extremely sorry to hear it.’
‘Thank you, thank you. The London air… I don’t think it quite suits her. It would perhaps be for the best if we all shortly returned home again.’
‘Very wise of you,’ agreed Sir Lancelot, swallowing half a crumpet. ‘As for my adventures today, you can read all about them in the morning papers.’
‘Papers!’ The Bishop went pale. ‘If you wouldn’t mind…no abuse of your kind hospitality…we shall be on our way quite early tomorrow.’
‘I’ll give instructions for Maria to call you at six.’ Sir Lancelot glanced through the window. ‘Ah, the police again. My former patient, Sergeant Griffin, I see.’
The Bishop stared at the black saloon outside. ‘Perhaps, Lancelot, if it wouldn’t seem impolite, we had better leave tonight. The traffic on the roads tomorrow, you understand–’
‘Then I shall give Maria instructions to help you with the packing straight away. Come in, Sergeant, come in.’ The Bishop bumped into the policeman in his hurry to be out of sight. ‘Cup of tea? Cigarette?’
‘No thank you, Sir Lancelot. Good afternoon, madam. Good afternoon, sir,’ the Sergeant added to me. He put his helmet on a handy occasional table. ‘Well, Sir Lancelot,’ he began, ‘you’ve done a fine job of work for us, and no mistake.’
‘I am always delighted to be of assistance to the police,’ declared the surgeon, munching a slice of cake.
‘We’ve been after that chap for quite a time.’
‘Good heavens! You mean he’s committed a number of murders?’
The sergeant smiled. ‘Very droll of you to put it like that, sir. I suppose he did murder the poor things.’
‘No two ways about it, I should think,’ remarked Lady Spratt sharply.
‘We’ve got the report from Dr McFiggie, and the CID have searched the fellow’s premises up at Crouch End. Quite a bit of evidence they found there. He’d have made a good many visits to the Zoo before he finished the job. Could have cost him a small fortune in admission fees in the end.’
‘You couldn’t possibly get a whole body in an attaché case,’ Sir Lancelot agreed.
‘There were a good many bodies. His refrigerator was packed with them.’
‘Ugh!’ cried Lady Spratt. I must admit a shiver went up and down my own spine.
‘How dastardly!’ exclaimed Sir Lancelot.
‘I agree, sir. I fancy the RSPCA will have charges to bring as well.’
Sir Lancelot stared. ‘The RSPC what?’
‘The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals–’
‘Yes, yes! I know, I know–’
‘Some of them poor things must have been killed very carelessly.’
Sir Lancelot rose.
‘One moment, Sergeant. You will kindly explain yourself?’
The policeman looked surprised.
‘Doesn’t seem much to explain, sir. I’ve got Dr McFiggie’s phone message here.’ He pulled a scrap of paper from his tunic pocket. ‘It says, “Microscopical examination of stomach contents from lions A, B, and C shows large masses of undigested muscular tissue, probably originating from cat or dog”. The fellow you caught runs a small pork-pie business,’ he explained. ‘We’ve suspected for months he was putting bits of stray dogs and cats in his stuff, and once he got wind we were on his trail he tried to get rid of the evidence. Ah, well – crime doesn’t pay in the end, sir, does it?’
There was a silence.
‘No,’ said Sir Lancelot shortly. ‘It doesn’t.’
‘Sergeant, are you sure you won’t have a cup of tea?’ asked Lady Spratt.
A few minutes later I was alone with Sir Lancelot in his study.
‘Grimsdyke–’
‘Sir?’
‘Grimsdyke, you will not utter a word of the true story of this afternoon.’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it, sir.’
‘I think I can silence that legalised Burke and Hare, McFiggie. I never did like the feller much, anyway. I shall have to resign from the Police Welfare Club, of course. But that was an intolerable waste of time. For the rest, I must rely on your discretion, or I shall be unable to take luncheon in the hospital refectory again if there happens to be steak pie on the menu.’
‘Believe me, sir, I’d do anything for you,’ I told him stoutly.
‘Thank you, Grimsdyke. You are a damned chatterbox, but this time I believe you. And – and I sincerely appreciate it,’ he added quickly. Sir Lancelot paused. ‘If there is anything I might do in return…?’
‘Do you think you could give me an introduction to your brother, sir?’ I asked at once. ‘The sailor chap? I was thinking of taking a little paid holiday while getting on with your memoirs.’
‘Ship’s doctor, you mean? Assuredly I shall give you a reference.’ He sat at the desk. ‘Just tell me what to write. From long experience on appointment boards I know that no testimonial is the slightest use unless written by the applicant.’
‘That’s jolly decent of you, sir.’
‘I am more than happy to be of assistance.’ Sir Lancelot took the cap off his fountain pen. He paused, and gave a smile. ‘And there’s one thing, my boy. At least I managed to get rid of the blasted Bishop.’
8
‘Enter!’
It was the next morning, and that voice was chillingly familiar.
‘Yes?’
‘Er – Dr Grimsdyke, sir. They just sent in a letter about me.’
‘Sit.’
Captain George Spratt, wearing a plain blue serge suit in an office filled with rather pleasant models of ships, took a silver box from his pocket and whisked a pile of black snuff into each nostril.
‘So you want a voyage, eh?’
‘That was the general idea, sir.’
He sat glaring at me for half a minute. I’d always felt that Sir Lancelot himself wo
uldn’t have looked out of place pacing the poop of the Bounty, but his brother George resembled Blackbeard the Pirate after a heavy night on the rum trying to decide whether to flay the captives alive or have them boiled slowly in oil.
‘Very convenient for you medical gentlemen, isn’t it?’ he began, as though hailing something through fog. ‘Walking about with a built-in steamship ticket? Eh? Though my brother seems to write very highly of you.’ The Captain paused. ‘I don’t suppose he mentions me much, does he?’
As a matter of fact, Sir Lancelot did keep pretty quiet about his brother George, but I tried to indicate in a few words that he was always being held up as embodying the best nautical qualities of Sir Francis Drake and Grace Darling.
‘He told you that scurrilous tale about the choir funds, I suppose? Totally untrue, of course. Years afterwards they found out that the Vicar had boozed the lot.’ Captain Spratt tossed Sir Lancelot’s letter aside. ‘You want to sail on Monday in the Capricorn Queen?’
‘I’d very much like that particular ship, sir.’
I tried not to slip off the chair in eagerness.
‘Well, I suppose Dr O’Rory has been pestering me long enough for a voyage off.’ The Captain sat stroking his beard. ‘Needs it too, from the reports I’ve been getting. Now look here young feller me lad – going to sea doesn’t mean an extended bout of skylarking at the Company’s expense. Understand? Doctors are members of our crews, and expected to comport themselves as such. If you want to drink yourself to death, you can do that with less trouble to everybody ashore. As for women, the only time you hold a lady’s hand at sea is to give up your place in the lifeboat as the ship goes down. Get that straight to start with.’
‘Yes, sir.’
I must say, I was glad that Captain Spratt was as landlocked as Sir Joseph Porter, KCB, the Ruler of the Queen’s Navee. Even for dear Ophelia I wouldn’t be shut up with a chap like him for six weeks in a floating steel strong-box.
‘Though God knows why anyone at all wants to go to sea today.’ The Captain treated his nose to another meal of snuff. ‘You look a man of the world, Doctor,’ he conceded. ‘Know anything about advertising agencies?’
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