by R. N. Morris
The sergeant reached across to his desk to retrieve a slip of paper which he handed to Quinn. ‘Their report, sir.’
Quinn scanned the document, ignoring the complaints about contamination. At last his eye was caught by the very detail he was looking for. ‘Excellent!’
‘Is that the tobacco flake, sir?’
‘Yes, Macadam. This may be just the breakthrough we need.’
‘A single tobacco flake, sir. It’s not much to go on. But I was chatting to Charlie Cale. He’s my friend in the lab, sir. A very clever young man, if I may say so. Well, Charlie Cale has made a bit of a study of tobacco, sir. Got the idea from Sherlock Holmes, I don’t doubt. He’s a great one for reading detective stories.’
‘That’s all we need,’ said Inchball.
‘Yes. But that needn’t concern us. He reckons the tobacco found in that cigarette case, sir, came from an Egyptian cigarette. The tobacco is actually Turkish. But it is a type of Turkish tobacco used by Egyptian cigarette manufacturers.’
‘Can he identify the exact brand?’
‘What he can say, sir, is that the tobacco had been soaked in opium.’
‘And so, we are looking for a killer who smokes opium-soaked Egyptian cigarettes!’
‘With respect and all that, sir, we cannot say that for certain,’ objected Inchball. ‘We may only be able to say that this cigarette case once contained such cigarettes.’
‘Your caution is commendable, Inchball. But what of the letters D.P.? Are we at least able to say that we are looking for a murderer whose initials are D.P.?’
‘Again, sir, I do not know that we are permitted to draw that conclusion. In the first place, why would the killer put his initials on an object which is bound to come into the police’s possession?’
‘To tantalize us? I believe we are dealing with an arrogant individual. It is always the arrogant ones who play these games.’
‘Now there I agree with you, sir . . .’
‘Really, Inchball? I am flattered. And I agree with you. On consideration, I believe they are unlikely to be his initials. Perhaps he means us to assume they are. He is trying to mislead us. But if they are not his initials, what do the letters stand for? I feel they must mean something.’
‘Differential Pressure,’ said Macadam quickly. ‘D.P. – Differential Pressure . . .? No?’ Sensing the scepticism of his colleagues, he had another stab: ‘Or it might be Dramatis Personae. In plays, you know, sir. Then there’s Deceased Person. Oh, and Dreadnought Programme.’
‘It also stands for Detective Prick,’ said Inchball bluntly.
The three men were startled by the ringing of the telephone, a recent addition to the department. Sir Edward had insisted on its installation.
They had all been trained in its use, although Macadam, as the most technologically inclined, viewed it as his preserve. He leapt to answer it now. ‘Special Crimes.’
He listened breathlessly for a moment, before handing the device to Quinn.
‘The answer’s no, Quinn.’ The tiny voice sounded like a wasp trapped inside a snare drum. A more absolute buzzing filled the earpiece as the line went dead. Quinn gave the telephone back to Macadam.
‘Bad news, sir?’
‘It was Sir Edward. I put in a request to release the photograph to the newspapers, or rather an artist’s rendition of it, without the wound. He has vetoed it.’
‘So we must find out the queer’s identity the hard way?’ said Inchball.
‘I’ve been through the Rogues’ Gallery, sir, as we discussed.’ Macadam’s voice was again discouraging. ‘Nothing, I’m afraid. I’ve made a start going back through relevant case files now. There may be photographs in there that haven’t found their way into the Rogues’ Gallery, for some reason. You never know. Many a slip twixt cup and lip and all that.’
‘Your thoroughness is commendable, Macadam. Now, where were we? Ah yes, the inscription. Let us go back to the first part. To be entirely free. Does it not strike you as the kind of thing someone might get out of a book? A quotation, in other words. Couldn’t D.P. refer to the title of the book in question? Or the author?’
Macadam and Inchball regarded the enlargement of the inscription thoughtfully.
‘That makes sense,’ said Inchball.
‘Where do we begin, though, sir? There have been so many books written,’ said Macadam forlornly.
‘We must think about the kind of books that would appeal to a decadent individual such as is capable of doing this.’ Quinn gestured vaguely at the wall.
‘I know a couple of bookshops in Soho that stock the kind of literature you have in mind,’ said Inchball.
‘Perfect. However, we must find a way to elicit their cooperation without intimidating them. In my experience, such establishments tend to be wary of the police. Perhaps it would be best to conduct our inquiries there discreetly. One of us could pose as a gentleman interested in material of that nature.’
Macadam and Inchball looked at one another uneasily. ‘With respect and all that, sir,’ began Inchball, ‘I think you might be the best man for that job.’
The chief’s reaction seemed to surprise the two sergeants. ‘I have no objections to that. Indeed, I think it is an excellent suggestion. It will allow me to get deeper into the mind of the individual we are looking for. To understand the man, explore the milieu. So I will go to these bookshops, and to other places where these types are found. Despite the fact that the body was found in Shadwell, I do not think that was within his usual orbit. He may have come from the East End originally, we cannot know. But if he made his living as a renter, as the state of his anus suggests, then I believe his occupation will have drawn him closer to the West. Piccadilly. Tottenham Court Road. Hyde Park. And yes, Soho. He must have had friends, associates. These are the places where we will find them.’
‘And you mean to go undercover, sir?’ Macadam was uneasy.
‘Yes.’
‘Posing as a sodomite?’ wondered Inchball.
‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that. My objective will be to draw as little attention to myself as possible. So I will not be posing as anything. However, I shall endeavour to blend in. I expect I will play it by ear.’
‘Dangerous,’ was Inchball’s judgement.
‘It need not be. I shall simply be asking a few questions. I shall have to think of a plausible cover story, of course.’
‘Very dangerous.’
‘What are you worried about, Inchball?’
‘For one thing, that we might find you with your throat slit and your arse full of spunk.’
‘I will be careful, of course.’
‘It doesn’t matter how careful you are. If you go in like this, you’ve got no protection. Anything could happen to you, sir. With respect and all that.’
‘I shall simply be trying to get the lie of the land. I shall not even have with me a photograph of the dead man to show.’
‘I am glad to hear that, sir. Because that would be very dangerous.’
‘No, I shall stick with my plan to create an artist’s rendition of the dead man. Instead of releasing it to the newspapers, I shall use it in my enquiries. I shall speak to one of the police artists – Petter would be the man. I’ll have Petter draw a living portrait from the post-mortem photograph. I shall have it framed. My cover story will be that I am looking for a friend . . .’
‘A friend whose name you don’t know?’ objected Inchball.
‘A friend whom I believe gave me a false name.’
‘Not much of a friend then?’
‘We met at . . . Victoria Station. In the public bar.’
‘Public bar or public convenience?’
‘Public bar. I do not want to appear too overtly deviant. We met while waiting for our respective trains – or so I thought.’
‘Yes, good,’ said Macadam. ‘You should appear rather innocent, sir. Perhaps even naive. You didn’t realize that he was there to pick men up. If that could come as a shock to you, sir, th
at would strike the right note, I think.’
‘I shall endeavour. At any rate, we struck up a friendship. He seemed a troubled young man. Reminded me of myself when younger.’
‘Really, sir. In what way?’
‘He seemed lost. I wanted to help him. But he ran off before I could.’
‘How did you get the portrait?’ demanded Inchball.
‘I – he gave it to me.’
‘Indeed. And why would he do that?’
‘He seemed to have a premonition that something bad was about to happen to him. He had had this portrait done by a street artist. He wanted someone to remember him as he was now.’
‘Why you?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t explain it. It is one of those things that cannot be explained. He was drawn to me for some reason. I asked the same question. But he ran off, without giving an answer.’
‘Very, very dangerous,’ decided Inchball.
‘What name did he give you?’ wondered Macadam.
Quinn hesitated. It was a good question. Suddenly he had the answer. ‘Daniel.’
‘Why Daniel?’ asked Macadam.
‘I don’t know. That was just the name . . .’ Instead of saying that came to me, Quinn said, ‘. . . he gave me.’ It was as if he was already beginning to believe in the details of his lie.
‘I don’t like it,’ said Inchball. ‘I don’t like it one bit.’
‘It’s not a bad name,’ said Macadam.
‘I don’t mean the bleeding name. I mean the whole thing. I don’t hold with all this subterfuge and pretence. We should go in as who we are. Straight up. Coppers. Making enquiries about a dead renter. Round them all up and throw them in the cells, if necessary. If they don’t like it, tough. One of them will squeal eventually.’
‘That is one approach,’ said Quinn. ‘And I do not rule it out entirely. However, before we resort to such measures, I feel it would be useful for me to familiarize myself with the world of our victim.’
‘What do you want us to do, sir?’ asked Macadam. ‘Stay on your back?’
‘Steady!’ said Inchball.
‘No. We simply do not have the resources for all three of us to be engaged in the same operation. Finish reviewing the files to see if our victim shows up as having any form. Then I want you to talk to tobacconists. Which ones stock opium-soaked Egyptian cigarettes? Who are their customers? Do they recognize the cigarette case? Also, try silversmiths and jewellers. It must have come from somewhere. And someone must have made that inscription.’
‘Perhaps the murderer is skilled in engraving?’ suggested Macadam. ‘It may seem unlikely, but I myself once took an evening class in metal engraving. It’s not that difficult, if you have a reasonable dexterity and are used to working with tools.’
‘Blimey!’ interjected Inchball. ‘Is there anything you haven’t taken an evening class in?’
‘It became quite a passion of mine, at the time. I thought it would be a good way of earning a few extra bob. Still have the burin at home somewhere.’
‘The what?’ snapped Inchball.
‘The burin. It’s what you call the tool. The graver. Haven’t used it for years. I could bring it in if you’d like to see it?’
Quinn found Macadam’s boyish assumption that others would share his enthusiasms touching. He did not have it in him to be discouraging. ‘As you wish, Sergeant.’
Inchball evidently felt no such compunction. ‘I’ll show you what you can do with your bloomin’ burin.’
‘Macadam’s theory is plausible,’ cut in Quinn. ‘The killer would naturally wish to limit the number of people he involved in his activities. A man may teach himself all manner of skills.’
As he made the observation, Quinn drew himself up self-consciously. He imagined himself at the centre of a crowd of strangers, all of whom had their gaze fixed upon him. The image was a premonition. He would go amongst a group of men whose lives he had often wondered about but never experienced. He would go amongst them to investigate them. And yet – the image seemed to be saying to him – he would find himself the object of their scrutiny.
And somewhere in that crowd of phantoms, one man closed his hand around a cutthroat razor.
Before he left for the evening, Quinn wrestled the telephone from Macadam one more time to make a call.
‘Am I speaking to Doctor Bugsby?’
‘You are. To whom am I speaking?’
‘You are speaking to Detective Inspector Quinn of the Special Crimes Department.’
‘Good evening to you, Inspector Quinn. How may I help you?’
‘You recently conducted a post-mortem examination of a body found at the London Docks in Shadwell.’
‘Ah, yes. The exsanguinated corpse. A very nasty business.’
‘May I ask you, did you make any test for opium poisoning?’
‘Why would I do that? It was obvious how the victim died. Massive haemorrhaging caused by a deep wound at the neck, which severed the external carotid artery.’
‘I was merely wondering whether the victim might have been drugged before he was bound and cut. And whether he was conscious or unconscious when he met his fate?’
‘It doesn’t make a difference to the cause of death.’
‘No. However, it may have made a difference to his sufferings. I have another reason for asking, however. We found a cigarette case, in which there were traces of opium-soaked tobacco. I wonder whether it is possible to tell if the victim may have smoked opium-soaked cigarettes.’
‘Impossible to say. All I can say for certain is that I saw no obvious signs of opium poisoning. However, given the extraordinary state of the cadaver, that is perhaps not surprising. And anyhow, the post-mortem changes in cases of opium poisoning are not marked. We might look for some turgidity in the cerebral vessels. But in this case, the almost entire lack of blood in any vessel would have confounded any such observation. Occasionally we see some subarachnoid effusion of serum at the base of the brain or around the spinal cord. There was none. You should know that there is no direct chemical test for the presence of opium and the only indirect test we have is highly unreliable. Certainly, the amount of the drug absorbed from smoking a cigarette would be too small to be conclusively detectable. Neither would it have been enough to render the victim unconscious, though it may have altered his perception of the experience.’
‘I see. Thank you, Doctor.’
‘Was there anything else, Inspector?’
‘When I examined the body, I was struck by the depth of the indentations left by the rope.’
‘Yes. He was tightly bound.’
‘I wondered if you recovered any material from those wounds.’
‘Material?’
‘Fibres, for example, such as might help us to identify the type of rope used to bind the victim.’
The line crackled emptily. Either the doctor’s answer had been swallowed up by the interference, or he had said nothing.
‘Doctor?’
‘That would be useful to you, would it?’
‘It may prove to be. One cannot be sure.’
‘Very well, I shall go back and look again at those wounds. I confess that the focus of my previous examination was on the numerous atypical features that the corpse exhibited. Perhaps I allowed myself to be distracted by them.’
‘If you discover anything, please be so kind as to send it to the forensics laboratory here at New Scotland Yard.’
‘Of course.’
‘Doctor, have you ever seen a case like this before? I mean, the blood. The draining of the blood.’
‘No. I have not.’
‘Do you have any expertise in criminal psychology, doctor?’
‘I know enough to say that you are dealing with a madman.’
‘My feeling, Doctor, is that one victim will not be enough for him.’
‘That is my feeling too, Inspector.’ There was another long crackle of static. At the end of it, Quinn heard: ‘. . . luck, Inspector.’ The line
went dead.
A Domestic Interlude
Silas Quinn lived in a four-storey lodging house just off the Brompton Road. It was a respectable house in a pleasant location, close to Hyde Park and Exhibition Road. Quinn saw enough unpleasantness in his professional life; he wanted his home to be somewhere good, clean and wholesome.
On Saturday afternoons, if his duties allowed, he would sometimes visit one or other of the museums. His favourite was the Natural History. In truth, these days his duties rarely did allow. He vaguely had it in his head that it was months since he had last browsed the mineral galleries, or craned his neck at the giant fossils. It was, in fact, years.
From time to time, he wondered if it was strictly the call of duty that kept him away. Or rather, if his willingness to answer that call came from the fact that he simply found his work more absorbing than his leisure. A pastime, after all, is ultimately an empty activity. It lacks the point of a task, and falls far short of the purpose of a mission.
No doubt it is pleasant if one has the company of a friend, particularly a young and pretty friend of the female sex. But Quinn lacked such a resource. His visits to the museum were always solitary. He invariably left there more alone than when he went in, even if he had managed to consume an afternoon, and treated himself to tea and cakes in the tea room. The public scale of the buildings had a desolating effect.
Aware of his tendency to solitude, and wishing to guard against it, Quinn made heroic efforts at the house to forge relations with his fellow lodgers.
What was the point, he said to himself, of clearing the streets of killers and criminals, if he could not hold down a polite conversation with ordinary, decent people?
He made sure that those ordinary, decent people knew nothing about the nature of his work. To his fellow lodgers, he was simply Mr Quinn. He did not know if they speculated about what he did for a living. None of them had ever taken enough interest in him to ask.
It rather amused him that they might imagine him to be a clerk or a shopkeeper, or possibly a commercial traveller, given his irregular hours and occasional absences.