‘And it had a Judas window,’ the raconteur completed his description.
‘What’s a Judas window?’ asked Crosby.
‘A sort of one-way mirror,’ said Dabbe.
‘Oh, I’ve heard of them.’ Crosby went a bit pink. ‘So that the person on the other side doesn’t know when there’s someone watching.’
‘This hospital, doctor …’ said Sloan.
‘When my father was there in the war, it was treating all sorts and conditions of men and disease—including a number of Lascar seamen with gonorrhoea … You know what sailors are …’
‘By giving them malaria?’ asked Sloan a trifle repressively. ‘That’s right, Sloan. And it was the duty of the House Physician to inoculate these patients by means of the only known method …’
‘Which was?’ asked Sloan, hoping to keep the conversation clinical.
‘The bite of the anophelene mosquito.’ Dr Dabbe chuckled. ‘Believe it or not, these mosquitoes were kept captive in the hospital’s dispensary …’
‘Along with the leeches, I suppose,’ said Sloan.
‘I bet that that was before the Animal Liberationist people had got going,’ said Crosby feelingly. He had sustained injuries once at a march in aid of Animal Rights. It had been at the hands of a group not at all interested in the protection of the endangered species known as unarmed police constables.
‘And, as I don’t need to remind you, gentlemen’—the pathologist was not interested in either leeches or the Animal Liberation Movement—‘such mosquitoes are dangerous.’
‘I can see that they would be,’ said Sloan, something of a specialist himself in the dangerous, if not the endangered.
‘It was delivered to the ward from the dispensary in a corked test-tube.’ Dr Dabbe had obviously learned narration skills at his father’s knee because he went on: ‘The Lascar seaman was languishing on his bed in the padded cell and a young nurse accompanied the doctor in a way that was de rigueur in the dear dead days of long ago.’
There was a pause in tribute to yesteryear. Detective Constable Crosby shuffled his feet and Dr Dabbe smiled.
‘This young nurse stood on the left of the bed and was thus nearest to the door. This is important and you should remember it.’
‘Yes, doctor,’ said Sloan patiently.
‘The House Physician went round to the other side of the bed and therefore had the bed between him and the door,’ said Dr Dabbe. ‘Well, my fa—this House Physician removed the cork from the test-tube and applied the open end of it to the seaman’s arm.’
‘So …’ said Crosby, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
‘So far, so good,’ said the pathologist. ‘The anophelene mosquito, which had been kept hungry, applied itself to the patient’s forearm with all the vigour of its kind …’
‘Being out for blood, in a manner of speaking,’ said Sloan, conscious that Superintendent Leeyes would be out for his blood if he didn’t get back to the police station with that report soon.
‘Exactly, Sloan. When it had had its fill, it withdrew its proboscis or whatever.’ The pathologist gave a wicked grin. ‘That it had also ingested a good dose of cla—well, gonorrhea, troubled the mosquito not at all. This infection,’ added Dr Dabbe hortatively, ‘sometimes known as the English disease, not being one to which gnats of the genus Culex are susceptible.’
‘You learn something every day, don’t you?’ observed Crosby chattily.
Dr Dabbe was not deflected. ‘In this respect, as the poet had it, only man is vile.’
‘Yes, doctor.’ It was a lesson Sloan had learned early on in his police career.
‘Well, what this little beast had enjoyed, Sloan, was the heady taste of freedom …’
For a moment Sloan was not sure whether the pathologist was talking about the mosquito or the patient.
‘… and when it came to going back into the test-tube, I’m afraid that the insect wasn’t having any of that and escaped.’
‘Oh, dear,’ said the Detective Inspector, stealing a surreptitious glance at his watch.
‘Exactly,’ said Dr Dabbe. ‘The nurse acted first and with great presence of mind.’
‘She got out?’ said Crosby.
Dr Dabbe nodded. ‘Being nearest to the door, she made for it, shot through it, and then slammed it shut behind her.’
‘Good for her,’ said Crosby.
‘But not good for my fa—the House Physician, Crosby. That left him, the Lascar seaman and the mosquito together in the padded cell, which, best beloved, you will remember had no door handle on the inside.’
‘“Best beloved”?’ echoed Detective Constable Crosby, mystified.
‘Never mind,’ said his superior officer. ‘Carry on, doctor.’
‘Well, the seaman, having the nasty gonorrhoea already, and it was to be hoped, now malaria as well, had nothing to lose and remained calm and disinterested throughout.’
‘Good for him,’ said Crosby.
‘And the mosquito, already a carrier of Plasmodium falciparum malaria and now perhaps also of Neisseria gonorrhoea too, was, at least, not as hungry as he had been.’
‘That was something,’ said Sloan.
‘For the unhappy House Physician,’ said Dr Dabbe, ‘growing older by the minute, rather more was at stake. Were he to be bitten by the mosquito he would be at risk of being infected not only by malaria but possibly by the gonococcus, too.’
‘And he would know it, too,’ said Sloan, ‘being medical himself.’
‘Not so much a case of a little learning being a dangerous thing,’ said Dr Dabbe judiciously, ‘as a lot of learning being downright terrifying.’
‘What happened next?’ asked Crosby in a manner dear to all narrators.
‘He started to yell to be let out, of course,’ said Dr Dabbe.
‘Not unnaturally,’ said Sloan, feeling something of a captive listener himself.
‘But the nurses on the outside of that locked door yelled back: “Not on your life!” “It is on my life …” wailed the poor fellow, urgently trying to remember what he’d learned about malaria and gonorrhoea.’
‘Neither prospect exactly pleasing,’ said Sloan not unsympathetically.
‘Taking several propitiatory oaths about his future conduct,’ said Dr Dabbe drily, ‘to do with remaining chaste for the rest of his life and never visiting Afric’s burning shores, he set about trying to catch the mosquito.’
‘Quite so,’ said Sloan, stealing another glance at his watch. Time was getting on.
‘What happened next?’ asked Crosby.
Dr Dabbe chuckled. ‘The young ladies outside the door of the padded cell, all wearing the uniform of those dedicated to the selfless care of the sick, chanted: “Kill it, kill it, and then we’ll open the door.”’
‘They would,’ said Crosby feelingly.
‘It never does to trust someone you can’t see though,’ pronounced Sloan. ‘Never.’
‘No,’ agreed Dr Dabbe, ‘but perhaps it was just as well they didn’t trust him because he—deceitful fellow—called out that he had killed it.’
‘And he hadn’t?’ said Crosby, unversed as yet in real cupidity. ‘What happened?’
‘Ah,’ said the pathologist, ‘the watch of Nightingales on the other side of the cell-door had heard the siren songs of newly qualified young doctors before and were not deceived. They demanded to be shown the body.’
‘Quite right,’ said Crosby stoutly.
‘The cunning young man countered that he would when they opened the door. “Show us through the Judas window,” the nurses trilled sweetly,’ recounted the pathologist, showing all the skills of a real tale-spinner. ‘One of the nurses whose father was a judge even called out “Habeas Corpus” …’
Detective Inspector Sloan gave it as his considered opinion that invoking the law was seldom helpful in a real emergency.
‘Then,’ said Dabbe histrionically, ‘the House Physician suddenly went quiet.’
‘S
aying his prayers, was he?’ asked Sloan.
‘The hapless fellow had been struck by a horrid thought,’ said Dabbe. ‘He’d just remembered that the tsetse fly—Glossina morsitans—which is the vector of sleeping sickness—African trypanosomiasis—is led to its victims by the odour of their breath. Mind you, gentlemen, he was pretty flustered and not yet sufficiently sophisticated to think it through …’
It crossed Detective Inspector Sloan’s mind that the time would probably come when forensic scientists would be able to track down criminals in the same way.
Dr Dabbe was talking about the past not the future. ‘The House Physician said afterwards that he wasn’t taking any chances with the anophelene mosquito.’
‘Quite right,’ said Sloan.
‘So he shut his mouth and kept it shut while he sought a weapon.’
‘Quite right,’ said Sloan again. It was a course of action he approved on principle.
‘Only, of course, there wasn’t a weapon immediately at hand. Not in an old padded cell.’
‘No.’
‘So it came about,’ said the pathologist, ‘that those looking through the Judas window were treated to the engaging spectacle of a white-coated young doctor in hot pursuit of a mercifully replete mosquito round a padded cell, brandishing a small pocket vade mecum of pharmacology, circa 1941, published in conformity with war-time economy standards.’
‘And,’ enquired Sloan, his glance straying back to his watch, ‘was the race to the swift?’
‘Well,’ replied Dr Dabbe judiciously, ‘the House Physician was no match for the mosquito at ducking and diving although he was quite good on the Rugby field. The hospital, you understand, had been in need of a wing three-quarter at the time of his admission.’
‘Oh, I understand all right,’ said Sloan.
‘The contest was in some respects—especially to those who witnessed it—reminiscent of that between Sancho Panza and the windmill …’
‘Was he a boxer?’ asked Crosby suspiciously.
‘No, Crosby, he wasn’t,’ said Dr Dabbe, ‘but it doesn’t matter because in the end Homo sapiens beat Culex, the law of the jungle prevailing.’
‘It usually does,’ said Sloan.
‘Kill or be killed,’ said Crosby sententiously.
Dr Dabbe hadn’t finished. ‘Picking up the dead body of the mosquito, the House Physician waved it triumphantly in front of the Judas window, demanding of the nurses to be let out of the padded cell at last.’
‘And?’ said Sloan. Surely that report they were waiting for should be ready by now? They were late enough already.
‘And,’ said Dr Dabbe, ‘the door was indeed opened unto him.’
‘Good,’ said Crosby.
‘But,’ sighed the pathologist, ‘how was he to know that while he had been concentrating on the kill his audience had been swelled—and silenced—by the arrival of a prewar, pre-Salmon Ward Sister of the old school?’
‘How indeed?’ said Sloan politely.
‘One with a Crimean cast of mind, too …’ The door of the pathologist’s room opened and his secretary appeared with something in her hand but he carried on regardless: ‘The poor fellow fell out of the cell and said, ‘Talk about being clapped out …’ That was before he realized she was there, of course.’ Dabbe paused and said with a touch of melancholy, ‘He never made consultant, you know. Had to go into general practice …’
LORD PETER’S TOUCH
‘He said what?’ exploded Superintendent Leeyes irately.
‘That the bell-ringers in Almstone church take their names from the characters in a book by Dorothy L. Sayers called The Nine Tailors when they’re ringing. All eight of them.’
‘Do they, indeed!’ snorted Leeyes.
Detective Inspector Sloan consulted a list. ‘Joe Hinkins, Hezekiah Lavender, Harry Gotobed—’
‘You’re not having me on, Sloan, are you?’ Leeyes interrupted dangerously. ‘Because if you are …’
‘No, sir,’ Sloan assured him, resuming his notebook. ‘I’m dead serious … Jack Godfrey, Esra Wilderspin, Donnington …’
‘Didn’t Donnington have a Christian name, then?’
‘Not that the author told us,’ said Sloan precisely, ‘any more than did Young Pratt … No, I’m wrong there, sir. Sorry. My mistake. He was Wally.’
‘Are you quite sure that you’re not having me on?’
‘Quite sure,’ said Sloan.
‘Anyway, that’s only seven,’ said the Superintendent, who invariably argued that good detection was always based on minute attention to detail.
‘I’m afraid,’ sighed Sloan, ‘that that’s the whole point.’
‘Is it?’ asked the Superintendent testily. ‘Then I’d be obliged if you’d tell me more. I’ve been waiting to know what the whole point is.’
Detective Inspector Sloan took a deep breath. ‘In this book that they’re all going on about …’
‘The Nine Tailors. I’d got that far.’
‘The eighth ringer, one William Thoday, was taken ill and Lord Peter Wimsey stepped into his shoes.’
‘Ah,’ said the Superintendent alertly.
‘This group of ringers—groups call themselves “towers” by the way …’
‘Well, it’s better than calling themselves “Happy Bands of Pilgrims”,’ said Leeyes realistically.
‘They meet about twice a week to practise and to ring these peals.’ Sloan paused and then said, ‘Silly, really, I suppose, sir, them taking names like that.’
‘It’s been done before,’ said his superior officer perversely. ‘In fiction, anyway.’
‘Sir?’
‘By Rudyard Kipling in a short story called “The Janeites”.’ The Superintendent was a great one for attending Adult Education Classes and ‘Rudyard Kipling—The Writer and The Man’ had been the most recent. ‘The people in that were all from Jane Austen’s Emma.’
‘Just like that,’ said Sloan, blessing Kipling. As a working policeman the line of that writer’s which he liked best was the one describing the crimes of Clapham as being chaste in Martapan but he got straight down to business. ‘Last night in Almstone Tower the man on number two bell, William Thoday, couldn’t come and a friend of the Rector’s stood in for him …’
‘And?’
‘The man on number six bell, who called himself Donnington, got killed.’
‘By accident? You don’t get a lot of accidents bell-ringing, Sloan.’
‘You might say, sir, that he was taken up by excess rope.’
‘You might,’ responded Leeyes briskly. ‘I wouldn’t. Put it in plain English.’
‘The bell fell over the balance point, Donnington hung on to the rope and went up with it at about fifty miles an hour, hit his head on the beam and fell fifteen feet back on to the stone floor of the bell tower.’
‘A Dead Ringer,’ commented Leeyes, more of an Edgar Wallace man himself in spite of the classes on Rudyard Kipling.
‘They call it a “high-speed lift” among themselves, do the bell-ringers,’ said Sloan. ‘It’s one of the big bells, you see, sir. It must weigh the best part of a thousand kilograms.’
‘And how much is that?’ The Superintendent would never have any truck with measurements devised by Napoleon Bonaparte.
‘Well over nineteen hundredweight.’ Sloan paused. ‘This visitor of the Rector’s seemed to know what he was doing, though. After he’d made sure that there was nothing to be done for this man Donnington he went up into the belfry to have a looksee …’
‘Couldn’t wait for us to get there, I suppose,’ grumbled the Superintendent. ‘That’s the worst of amateurs.’
‘When he got up there,’ continued Sloan, ‘he found that the stay was broken. The stay, sir, is what supports the bell.’
‘I could work that out for myself, thank you, Sloan,’ said Leeyes. ‘Why did the stay break?’
‘The wood was rotten with woodworm,’ said Sloan.
‘Don’t they inspect it?’ aske
d Leeyes, ‘And treat it?’
‘Yes to both those things, sir. But that wasn’t what this friend of the Rector’s wanted to know.’
‘All right then, tell me. I suppose I’m never too old to learn.’
There would have been nobody at the police station at Berebury who subscribed to this view of the Superintendent, but all Sloan said was: ‘He asked if the man calling himself Donnington always took that bell.’
‘And did he?’
‘Yes, sir. Though it’s not usual these days to stick to the same bell.’ It wasn’t usual not to have any women either but Sloan didn’t say so. This was no moment for feminism. He hurried on. ‘Then I’m told this chap—I did say he was a gentleman, didn’t I, sir?—took out a rather old-fashioned sort of eyeglass and had a good look at the bolts keeping the stays in but talking nonsense all the while he did it. “Fop first, hero second” was how Jack Godfrey described him to me afterwards.’
‘If you ask me,’ said Leeyes gratuitously, ‘it sounds as if they had had the vapid Sir Percy Blakeney with them.’
‘“The Scarlet Pimpernel”?’ Sloan must have been all of eleven years old when he’d first read that book. ‘Oh, no, sir, I don’t think so. Not,’ he added hastily, ‘that we’re not all literary inheritors in our way.’ As far as the Calleshire force was concerned, opinion on the Superintendent’s origins was divided between two schools of thought: Ghenghis Khan and Harold Hardaxe.
Leeyes grunted. ‘That’s as may be. How much evidence had this character destroyed by the time you got there?’
‘None, sir. On the contrary. He wouldn’t let anyone at all into the bell-chamber until our people arrived.’
‘That’s something, I suppose,’ said Leeyes grudgingly. ‘Then what?’
‘He said we should treat it as a case of murder and then he went off to talk to the Rector.’
‘Leaving us to hold the baby …’
‘Not quite, sir. He came back about ten minutes later with the reverend gentleman and said we should arrest the man going under the name of Wilderspin. Seems as if in real life he’s a carpenter.’
‘That doesn’t make him a murderer.’
‘No, sir, but he’s the one among them who best knows about wood.’
Injury Time Page 4