“And I shall find arsenic. Yes. I believe you. But this isn’t the milk Minnie prepared. This is milk that I prepared from a sealed bottle.” He turned on Underwood. “You watched Minnie take it into her?”
“I did, sir,” Underwood answered eagerly. “And she didn’t put anything into it, I’ll swear. As soon as she set it down, I took her away, and I had her here, under examination, till there was a scream, and I ran up and found the old lady being sick and saying it was Minnie. That’s how it was. Minnie can’t have done it.”
“No. Quite impossible. You see, doctor? The milk which Minnie did prepare I took away; and I’ve tested it, and there was no arsenic in it, nor in the sealed bottle of milk from which I sent up that jugful. Absolutely clear case. Mrs. Colson put arsenic into the milk herself from a store she had in the bedroom, and burnt the rest on the gas-stove; then she swallowed the dose, and, when the pangs came on, accused Minnie. No probable, possible shadow of doubt; no possible doubt whatever. Suicide by mother in order to convict daughter of murder. Case with elements of tragedy, as you say.”
“My God! It’s horrible,” the doctor gasped.
“You think so? Yes. However. We’ve prevented the worst. We’ve made an end. You’d better go back to your patient.”
“I can’t do anything,” the doctor muttered.
“Oh, no. No. But she might as well die as easy as may be.” The doctor stared at him, and went slowly out.
“Mr. Fortune,” said Underwood, and stopped. “I mean to say, did you expect this?” Reggie gazed at his keen, anxious face with closing eyes. “When you changed the milk—when you sent me up to make sure Minnie didn’t dope what you got ready—I made sure you were going to catch Minnie out by testing the first lot.”
“One of the possibilities,” Reggie murmured. “Never probable possibility. But one must try everything. Broken toad indicated criminal was person of determination—Minnie isn’t.”
“You did think the old lady would poison herself?”
A small smile curled Reggie’s lips. “What I thought isn’t evidence. I was protectin’ the innocent. Our job, Underwood. We haven’t been very efficient. But some success at last. Also our job to punish the sinner. That we have done. See the sequence, don’t you? Murders of grandfather and father committed to enrich the darlin’ son. Murder of constable accidental in attempt to murder darlin’ son’s wife, subsequently achieved. Motive of that; deliverance of darlin’ son from extravagant and vicious wife. If daughter could be convicted of the murder, whole of family fortune would be left for son. Hence daughter’s string used for trip line, and daughter’s shoes scratched on the broken toad. Devoted mother. Absolute devotion. When police were gettin’ dangerous about the murders—when darlin’ son came runnin’ to her in a fright that they were makin’ a case against him—final effort to save him by proving, with her own death, daughter was the family murderer. Beautiful self-sacrifice.”
“Good God!” said Underwood, under his breath. “That’s why you bullied Alfred into a funk!”
“My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap!” Reggie murmured. “Experiment made to observe reactions. Where have you put Minnie?”
“She’s up in her room, poor woman. That Miss Pearse is with her. When we had the big upset, Miss Pearse came in, hearing the row, and took her in hand. I was glad of it, I own. Minnie was pretty well throwing fits.”
“Poor soul. Yes,” Reggie sighed. “Go and ask Miss Pearse to come and see me a minute, will you?”
Miss Pearse came. She was tightly neat still, and still her little meek face had the assurance of power over everything.
“You’re very kind,” said Reggie.
“Minnie is helpless,” said Miss Pearse.
“It’s all over. Does she know that?”
“I have told her the doctor says her mother won’t recover. What do you want her to be told?”
“That there’s no blame on her. For her mother. For anything.”
Miss Pearse gave him a cold smile. “You have made sure of that? I congratulate you.”
“Oh, no. No. Your work. You gave me the key, Miss Pearse. When you made it so clear Mrs. Colson was a devoted mother. Confirmed by broken toad.”
“You are very acute, sir,” said Miss Pearse primly.
“Thanks very much. I value that.” Reggie bowed.
“Mrs. Colson committed suicide, of course?”
“Yes. Last act. Yes.”
“I have told Minnie that she did. Can you imagine what Minnie said?”
“I think so. Yes,” Reggie sighed. “Probably said it ought to have been her.”
“You are quite right. She said, ‘Why wasn’t it me; oh, it should have been me?’ These self-sacrificing people! I have no patience with them.”
“No. Nuisance.” Reggie smiled. “You’ll look after her, won’t you!”
“Of course I shall,” said Miss Pearse.
In the Teeth of the Evidence
Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy Leigh Sayers (1893–1957) was one of the most influential figures in the history of crime writing, even though she had a relatively short career as a detective novelist. Her first novel, Whose Body?, introduced Lord Peter Wimsey in 1923; her last, Busman’s Honeymoon (which began life as a play co-written with Muriel St Claire Byrne, and has the ominous subtitle A Love Story with Detective Interruptions) appeared a mere fourteen years later. In the last two decades of her life she preferred to concentrate on theological writing and translating Dante, producing only a handful of detective short stories, none of which were especially significant. Nevertheless, she made a lasting impression on the genre as an author, historian, and reviewer. In addition, she played a leading role in the formation of the Detection Club, of which she became the third president, remaining in office from 1949 until her death.
Sayers was not a scientist—she studied languages at Somerville College, Oxford, and worked in advertising before becoming a full-time writer—but her interest in the scientific is evident in several of her most memorable detective stories, such as Unnatural Death (aka The Dawson Pedigree, 1927), which features a highly unusual murder method. The title story from In the Teeth of the Evidence (1939) concerns forensic dentistry, and is one of her best short stories about Lord Peter. The reference in the text to a “Rouse case” is to the sensational real-life “blazing car murder” committed in 1930 by A. A. Rouse; the victim has never been identified. “Furnace” was Samuel James Furnace, a killer who committed suicide by swallowing hydrochloric acid while in police custody in 1933.
* * *
“WELL, old son,” said Mr. Lamplough, “and what can we do for you today?”
“Oh, some of your whizz-bang business, I suppose,” said Lord Peter Wimsey, seating himself resentfully in the green velvet torture-chair and making a face in the direction of the drill. “Jolly old left-hand upper grinder come to bits on me. I was only eating an omelette, too. Can’t understand why they always pick these moments. If I’d been cracking nuts or chewing peppermint jumbles I could understand it.”
“Yes?” said Mr. Lamplough, soothingly. He drew an electric bulb, complete with mirror, as though by magic out of a kind of Maskelyne-and-Devant contraption on Lord Peter’s left; a trail of flex followed it, issuing apparently from the bowels of the earth. “Any pain?”
“No pain,” said Wimsey irritably, “unless you count a sharp edge fit to saw your tongue off. Point is, why should it go pop like that? I wasn’t doing anything to it.”
“No?” said Mr. Lamplough, his manner hovering between the professional and the friendly, for he was an old Winchester man and a member of one of Wimsey’s clubs, and had frequently met him on the cricket-field in the days of their youth. “Well, if you’ll stop talking half a moment, we’ll have a look at it. Ah!”
“Don’t say ‘Ah!’ like that, as if you’d found pyorrhoea and necrosis of the jaw
and were gloating over it, you damned old ghoul. Just carve it out and stop it up and be hanged to you. And, by the way, what have you been up to? Why should I meet an inspector of police on your doorstep? You needn’t pretend he came to have his bridge-work attended to, because I saw his sergeant waiting for him outside.”
“Well, it was rather curious,” said Mr. Lamplough, dexterously gagging his friend with one hand and dabbing cotton-wool into the offending cavity with the other. “I suppose I oughtn’t to tell you, but if I don’t, you’ll get it all out of your friends at Scotland Yard. They wanted to see my predecessor’s books. Possibly you noticed that bit in the papers about a dental man being found dead in a blazing garage on Wimbledon Common?”
“Yonk—ugh?” said Lord Peter Wimsey.
“Last night,” said Mr. Lamplough. “Pooped off about nine pip emma, and it took them three hours to put it out. One of those wooden garages—and the big job was to keep the blaze away from the house. Fortunately it’s at the end of the row, with nobody at home. Apparently this man Prendergast was all alone there—just going off for a holiday or something—and he contrived to set himself and his car and his garage alight last night and was burnt to death. In fact, when they found him, he was so badly charred that they couldn’t be sure it was he. So, being sticklers for routine, they had a look at his teeth.”
“Oh, yes?” said Wimsey, watching Mr. Lamplough fitting a new drill into its socket. “Didn’t anybody have a go at putting the fire out?”
“Oh, yes—but as it was a wooden shed, full of petrol, it simply went up like a bonfire. Just a little bit over this way, please. That’s splendid.” Gr-r-r, whizz, gr-r-r. “As a matter of fact, they seem to think it might just possibly be suicide. The man’s married, with three children, and immured and all that sort of thing.” Whizz, gr-r-r, buzz, gr-r-r, whizz. “His family’s down at Worthing, staying with his mother-in-law or something. Tell me if I hurt you.” Gr-r-r. “And I don’t suppose he was doing any too well. Still, of course, he may easily have had an accident when filling up. I gather he was starting off that night to join them.”
“A—ow—oo—oo—uh—ihi—ih?” inquired Wimsey naturally enough.
“How do I come into it?” said Mr. Lamplough, who, from long experience was expert in the interpretation of mumblings. “Well, only because the chap whose practice I took over here did this fellow Prendergast’s dental work for him.” Whizz. “He died, but left his books behind him for my guidance, in case any of his old patients should feel inclined to trust me.” Gr-r-r, whizz. “I’m sorry. Did you feel that? As a matter of fact, some of them actually do. I suppose it’s an instinct to trundle round to the same old place when you’re in pain, like the dying elephants. Will you rinse, please?”
“I see,” said Wimsey, when he had finished washing out chips of himself and exploring his ravaged molar with his tongue. “How odd it is that these cavities always seem so large. I feel as if I could put my head into this one. Still, I suppose you know what you’re about. And are Prendergast’s teeth all right?”
“Haven’t had time to hunt through the ledger, yet, but I’ve said I’ll go down to have a look at them as soon as I’ve finished with you. It’s my lunch-time anyway, and my two o’clock patient isn’t coming, thank goodness. She usually brings five spoilt children, and they all want to sit round and watch, and play with the apparatus. One of them got loose last time and tried to electrocute itself on the X-ray plant next door. And she thinks that children should be done at half-price. A little wider if you can manage it.” Gr-r-r. “Yes, that’s very nice. Now we can dress that and put in a temporary. Rinse, please.”
“Yes,” said Wimsey, “and for goodness’ sake make it firm and not too much of your foul oil of cloves. I don’t want bits to come out in the middle of dinner. You can’t imagine the nastiness of caviar flavoured with cloves.”
“No?” said Mr. Lamplough. “You may find this a little cold.” Squirt, swish. “Rinse, please. You may notice it when the dressing goes in. Oh, you did notice it? Good. That shows that the nerve’s all right. Only a little longer now. There! Yes, you may get down now. Another rinse? Certainly. When would you like to come in again?”
“Don’t be silly, old horse,” said Wimsey. “I am coming out to Wimbledon with you straight away. You’ll get there twice as fast if I drive you. I’ve never had a corpse-in-blazing-garage before, and I want to learn.”
There is nothing really attractive about corpses in blazing garages. Even Wimsey’s war experience did not quite reconcile him to the object that lay on the mortuary slab in the police station. Charred out of all resemblance to humanity, it turned even the police surgeon pale, while Mr. Lamplough was so overcome that he had to lay down the books he had brought with him and retire into the open to recover himself. Meanwhile Wimsey, having put himself on terms of mutual confidence and esteem with the police officials, thoughtfully turned over the little pile of blackened odds and ends that represented the contents of Mr. Prendergast’s pockets. There was nothing remarkable about them. The leather note-case still held the remains of a thickish wad of notes—doubtless cash in hand for the holiday at Worthing. The handsome gold watch (obviously a presentation) had stopped at seven minutes past nine. Wimsey remarked on its good state of preservation. Sheltered between the left arm and the body—that seemed to be the explanation.
“Looks as though the first sudden blaze had regularly overcome him,” said the police inspector. “He evidently made no attempt to get out. He’d simply fallen forward over the wheel, with his head on the dashboard. That’s why the face is so disfigured. I’ll show you the remains of the car presently if you’re interested, my lord. If the other gentleman’s feeling better we may as well take the body first.”
Taking the body was a long and unpleasant job. Mr. Lamplough, nerving himself with an effort and producing a pair of forceps and a probe, went gingerly over the jaws—reduced almost to their bony structure by the furnace heat to which they had been exposed—while the police surgeon checked entries in the ledger. Mr. Prendergast had a dental history extending back over ten years in the ledger and had already had two or three fillings done before that time. These had been noted at the time when he first came to Mr. Lamplough’s predecessor.
At the end of a long examination, the surgeon looked up from the notes he had been making.
“Well, now,” he said, “let’s check that again. Allowing for renewal of old work, I think we’ve got a pretty accurate picture of the present state of his mouth. There ought to be nine fillings in all. Small amalgam filling in right lower back wisdom tooth; big amalgam ditto in right lower back molar; amalgam fillings in right upper first and second bicuspids at point of contact; right upper incisor crowned—that all right?”
“I expect so,” said Mr. Lamplough, “except that the right upper incisor seems to be missing altogether, but possibly the crown came loose and fell out.” He probed delicately. “The jaw is very brittle—I can’t make anything of the canal—but there’s nothing against it.”
“We may find the crown in the garage,” suggested the Inspector.
“Fused porcelain filling in left upper canine,” went on the surgeon; “amalgam fillings in left upper first bicuspid and lower second bicuspid and left lower thirteen-year-old molar. That seems to be all. No teeth missing and no artificials. How old was this man, Inspector?”
“About forty-five, Doc.”
“My age. I only wish I had as good a set of teeth,” said the surgeon. Mr. Lamplough agreed with him.
“Then I take it, this is Mr. Prendergast all right,” said the Inspector.
“Not a doubt of it, I should say,” replied Mr. Lamplough; “though I should like to find that missing crown.”
“We’d better go round to the house, then,” said the Inspector. “Well, yes, thank you, my lord, I shouldn’t mind a lift in that. Some car. Well, the only point now is, whether it was accident or sui
cide. Round to the right, my lord, and then second on the left—I’ll tell you as we go.”
“A bit out of the way for a dental man,” observed Mr. Lamplough, as they emerged upon some scattered houses near the Common.
The Inspector made a grimace.
“I thought the same, sir, but it appears Mrs. Prendergast persuaded him to come here. So good for the children. Not so good for the practice, though. If you ask me, I should say Mrs. P. was the biggest argument we have for suicide. Here we are.”
The last sentence was scarcely necessary. There was a little crowd about the gate of a small detached villa at the end of a row of similar houses. From a pile of dismal debris in the garden a smell of burning still rose, disgustingly. The Inspector pushed through the gate with his companions, pursued by the comments of the bystanders.
“That’s the Inspector… that’s Dr. Maggs…that’ll be another doctor, him with the little bag…who’s the bloke in the eye-glass?… Looks a proper nobleman, don’t he, Florrie?… Why he’ll be the insurance bloke… Coo! look at his grand car… that’s where the money goes… That’s a Rolls, that is…no, silly, it’s a Daimler… Ow, well, it’s all advertisement these days.”
Wimsey giggled indecorously all the way up the garden path. The sight of the skeleton car amid the sodden and fire-blackened remains of the garage sobered him. Two police constables, crouched over the ruin with a sieve, stood up and saluted.
“How are you getting on, Jenkins?”
“Haven’t got anything very much yet, sir, bar an ivory cigarette-holder. This gentleman”—indicating a stout, bald man in spectacles, who was squatting among the damaged coachwork, “is Mr. Tolley, from the motor-works, come with a note from the Superintendent, sir.”
“Ah, yes. Can you give any opinion about this, Mr. Tolley? Dr. Maggs you know. Mr. Lamplough, Lord Peter Wimsey. By the way, Jenkins, Mr. Lamplough has been going into the corpse’s dentistry, and he’s looking for a lost tooth. You might see if you can find it. Now, Mr. Tolley?”
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