Dr. Swartz took my arm. “Come on, Blake, I must hurry if I’m to send off my cable and do any work this morning. Sorry, Silver, we can’t stop at the moment.” He pulled me along beside him and as we went out of the door I was aware of Silver glowering at our backs. I walked to the entrance with Dr. Swartz and then, feeling that I had given Silver enough time to leave the door, I started back toward the chemistry department.
Round a corner of the building I heard the booming of a familiar voice, like waves thundering on a sandy beach, and realised that Uncle John was in the vicinity. He came stumping round the corner, with Dr. Flanagan on one side of him and Inspector Hargrave on the other. “You can see the trouble,” he was bellowing. “This place is like a warren with its numerous entries. They have a janitor at the main door, but he’s mostly there for show and to take messages. Anyone could get in or out without bein’ seen if they wanted to. So no one can be said to have an alibi who cannot prove their presence somewhere else during the whole time that the demonstration room was empty, or at least was supposed to be empty except for Porter. Joe Flanagan won’t say how long he had been dead when examined—‘Some time’—Humph, and when we ask him how long he means by his ‘some time’ he says, ‘anythin’ between twenty minutes and an hour,’ and that the room was too hot for him to give anything nearer. Hum-hum.” He buzzed like a furious bee stuck in a flower, and Dr. Flanagan looked up at him indignantly. “It’s all very well for you to speak, John Stubbs, but if I risked a more exact estimate it might result in a serious injustice which would do more harm than good, unless you’d just like to see someone hang and never mind who it was.”
Inspector Hargrave nodded his head wisely, like a young straggly owl trying to behave like the solemn king of the oak. My uncle caught sight of me and, with a gesture that seemed to sweep the buildings from the ground, roared “Look at him. He’s got no proper alibi and he had a row with Porter the night before. The young fool then gets cold feet when he realises that someone has been brewing their cyanide in the place he chose for his quiet meditation and he behaves like a silly version of Brer Rabbit—‘lyin’ low and sayin’ nuffin’.”
The inspector looked over toward me and beckoned with his hand. Unwillingly I approached him. He smiled at me in a wintry fashion. “Er, good morning, Mr. Blake. I just wanted to tell you that it was not very wise of you not to mention to the sergeant that you had found where someone had been preparing cyanide. If your uncle had not informed me of your discovery and I had found it for myself I could not have been blamed for drawing the obvious conclusion that you knew more about the rest of the affair than you had told me. Your uncle vouches for the fact that you are not a chemist and Jenkins watched you looking it up in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, so that, for the present, I don’t think there is any need for us to worry further about your misdemeanours, but if you conceal anything else that comes to your knowledge I will be forced to look upon it more seriously.”
While he was speaking I stood in front of him, moving from one foot to the other, like a schoolboy being reprimanded by a schoolmaster. My uncle started to laugh and I glared at him. “Your bottom’s all right this time,” he bellowed, “but the next time I catch you tellin’ lies you’d better be careful. I can recommend a silk handkerchief between your trousers and your pants. It breaks the force of the blow and doesn’t sound wrong.” The inspector smiled weakly at his childish joke, while Dr. Flanagan joined in the laughter at my expense. I smiled at my uncle and he straightened his glasses and puffed out his moustache. He looked more or less serious again, but his eyes, when I caught them over the steel rims, twinkled.
“Well, we know how the murder was done now, but we’re still no nearer findin’ out who done it or which reason out of many impelled him to do it. Someone had taken a hypodermic and pierced Porter’s eardrum with it; the syringe was filled with cyanide but Joe Flanagan here says that there was no need for the cyanide as the shock of havin’ his drum pierced would have been sufficient to kill Porter without the poison. Embarrass des riches. There’s too much damn cyanide about this case and I don’t like it, I don’t like it at all.”
His big face was puzzled. “Where was Swartz bound for?” he asked, and in answer to my look of surprise, “Oh, it’s all right, I’m not playin’ the detective with you. I looked in at the window on the far side of that wing and saw right through to this side where your two heads were bobbing toward the gate.”
“He was going downtown to send off a cable, he said. He doesn’t seem to have slept well last night and I expect he thought the walk would wake him up.”
“Hmm, yes, that’ll probably explain why he did not send it off from the office. I wonder what it’s about.” He laughed. “I’m beginning to get so curious about everyone that soon I’ll start walkin’ up to strangers and askin’ them to show me the contents of their pockets. I expect you heard what I was sayin’ as you came round the corner, eh? Well, I’ve been amusin’ myself by drawin’ up a rough time-table. The times, mind you, are only approximate. Here it is.”
From the bundle of papers in his poacher’s pocket he withdrew a large postcard which was covered with his minute legible writing. I took it and glanced down it. It ran as follows:
12:45 p.m.: Andrew Blake leaves demonstration room to search for a quiet place in which to write up his notes.
1:05 p.m.: Dr. Swartz departs in search of Powys, with whom he has arranged to have lunch.
1:07 p.m.: Janitor, delayed by telephone call, is leaving for lunch and hears Porter asking Silver to be quick as he has a lot he wishes to do.
1:09 p.m.: Mary Lewis, having tidied up, leaves and meets Peter Hatton in the corridor. (Statement supported by Dr. Hatton.)
1:10 p.m. or thereabouts: Powys leaves Swartz alone for a few minutes while he prepares his dogs’ food.
1:30 p.m.: Silver, obviously in a hurry, is seen by many people leaving hostel, brandishing sheaf of papers.
1:40 p.m.: Blake and Stubbs encounter Mary Lewis entering dining hall, and immediately after meet Peter Hatton, hurrying in the same direction.
1:42 p.m.: Blake and Stubbs meet Silver, who has discovered the body of Ian Porter and proceed with him to demonstration room.
Notes: Evidence of janitor is evidence that Porter was alive at 1:20 p.m. Sergeant Jenkins timed on a walk from entrance hall to hostel and back manages journey in about seven and a half minutes each way. Silver, even hurrying, is unlikely to have done the journey at the same speed as a police sergeant in good training, and we must allow him a few minutes to collect his papers. Therefore evidence of janitor and time would appear to clear Silver, unless it can be proved that he used some other method of travel, i.e., taxi or bicycle. Statement of Swartz that he remained beside dog pen is unsupported: he would have had sufficient time to reach his demonstration room, spend five minutes there, and return before Powys discovered his absence. Statement of Blake likewise unsupported. (Note, if Blake’s statement is to be accepted, it follows that the cyanide must have been prepared some time before he entered the lab, as he makes no mention of its distinctive odour.) Statements of Mary Lewis and Peter Hatton are supported by one another.
I looked up as I finished reading and my uncle beamed at me in a pleased way. I felt that everything was going according to some plan which he had all worked out in his mind. “Do you see anythin’ suggestive in it?” he demanded fiercely. I shook my head as I had rather liked Swartz and I did not want to point the finger of suspicion toward him unless it was absolutely necessary, though it looked to me as though he would be asked to try to prove that he had not left the dogs during Powys’s absence.
“By the way,” the inspector looked at me, “when you hit Porter do you remember where you hit him? In the solar plexus? Um. Then, Doctor, that doesn’t explain the bruise on his chin. Unless he bumped it against something else or got into another row. You said, Professor Stubbs, that he was pretty well lit up, eh? And he was staggering—well, he might have fallen again or, more likely, he g
ot into another row after he left you and someone poked him on the jaw to keep him quiet.”
Uncle John beamed at me and his spectacles slid a further quarter of an inch down his nose. He tried to look very mysterious as he said, “You’ve all missed the suggestive points in my little timetable and my remarks on it.” We looked at him expectantly but he shook his shaggy head, dexterously caught the glasses as they fell off his nose, and roared, “No, no, work it out for yourselves. I may be wrong and I don’t want you jeerin’ at me afterwards for an old fool. All that I have is on that piece of paper and you can find it as soon as I can. I don’t know whether you’ll draw the same deductions as I do, but you may. I want a lot more information than I have before I’ll start mentionin’ names.”
Inspector Hargrave looked at him with the sympathy which one gives to an unfortunate lunatic who gives no real reason for certification, and Dr. Flanagan shook his head with the air of having known John Stubbs for a long time but of having rarely seen him as eccentric as he was now. The inspector turned toward me. “Have you seen Miss Lewis or Dr. Hatton,” he asked, “I want to have a word with them.” My uncle replied for me. “They’re lunching with me, Inspector, and I promise you that I’ll deliver them into your hands undamaged.” He grinned villainously. “That sounds bad, doesn’t it? Will that be all right?” Rather grudgingly the inspector intimated that he supposed that it would be all right and Uncle John laughed and said, “Don’t look so disgruntled, man. I won’t eat them for my lunch and I won’t stuff them with stories to tell you, however tempted I am.”
Dr. Flanagan looked at his wristwatch and he and the inspector went off together. My uncle grinned at me wickedly and when they were out of hearing he stooped down to me with a conspiratorial wink and bellowed in my ear, so loud that I clapped my hand over that organ and was quite surprised to find that I had not followed Porter’s example and died of shock. “Heh. They think they’re dealin’ with a crazy old man and they’ll only tolerate his presence because he knows the actors in this drama and they don’t. As for anythin’ the old man may discover, well, they’ll be glad to hear of it and their expert eyes will examine it and decide if it’s worth any further consideration, but, of course, they don’t expect much from me. I am not supposed to be a detective and Joe Flanagan’ll tell you I’m a damned bad doctor with the worst bedside manner that was ever seen, so naturally they can’t believe that I’ll discover anythin’ they can’t. So I’ll be as mysterious as I can, for I dropped the inspector one or two hints and he examined them as if I was tryin’ to pass off some pinchbeck as real twenty-four-carat stuff and gave them back to me. Now I’ve got to go and see a man about a mouse.” He hooted like a steam tug and stumped away from me in the direction of the outside exhibits.
I met Macowen, the newspaper man, in the hall when I entered it, and I informed him that I had sent off my article on the blood and taste-testing. He tried to pump me for further information about Porter and the other people who had been mixed up in the affair, but I managed to persuade him that I knew no more than I had already told him and, also, knowing nothing, I could not tell him what the inspector had uncovered during the morning. I left him with the strong impression that the police had a clue and expected to make an arrest very shortly, a phrase which appeared to comfort him greatly, fitting into its proper place with a cheerful click.
Opening the door of a lecture room quietly I slid into the darkness and sat down at the back. The lecture was very strange as I could not understand much of it. Completely unfamiliar words were linked together with ordinary ones and I would think I was getting along beautifully when suddenly I would find myself lost in a wilderness of technicalities. However, the lecturer was illustrating his lecture with slides and some of them were very pretty, looking like the early explosive paintings of Kandinsky, while others had the formal excellence of a low relief by Ben Nicholson or a plan of the Suez Canal. I amused myself by trying to invent stories about the slides as they slipped in and out, until clapping announced the end of the lecture and the lights went up. I went in search of my uncle and found him talking to an excited Frenchman. He did not introduce me, but took advantage of my appearance as an excuse for an affectionate farewell.
Chapter 7
Natural Magic
“HARRUMPH,” my uncle blew out his moustache and looked round the table, like a jolly Christmas card uncle looking at all the nephews and nieces who have just had a good blowout on ginger pop and strawberry ices at his expense. His eyes fastened on Peter and Mary and he smiled benevolently.
“Humph, you two,” he bellowed, “I don’t want to tread on your sandcastles or to throw stones in your glasshouses, but don’t you think it would be a good idea if you were to tell me what really happened between one and two o’clock yesterday afternoon?” Peter glared at him indignantly, but he blew out his moustache and continued, “It’s no use, Peter boy, you’ll never make a good liar. I knew you were lyin’ when you started off last night and then, I’m sorry for it, I led you on and asked you simple questions and you tied yourselves up. Remember I asked you what you thought of Cortet’s cage? Yes? Well I knew you’d seen it earlier in the day and I knew, too, that Cortet was goin’ to take it downtown durin’ lunch to have an alteration made. He’d spent the journey in thinkin’ up what I believe Dr. Swartz would call a ‘dingus,’ some sort of gadget, and he was very excited at the thought of tryin’ it out. Well, you see, my children, I met him again today and asked him how the alteration had gone. In the course of a long and exhaustin’ conversation, I discovered that he had this cuteness, which will apparently make his cage the ace of cages, fitted at a blacksmith’s in the town at about a quarter past one yesterday while he stood by in terror lest the smith should damage his darlin’ child. Now, then, don’t you agree with me that it would be better if you were good children and told me the truth. I’m not threatenin’ you, but I more than suspect that Inspector Hargrave thinks there’s something fishy about your story. I persuaded him to let you lunch with me first, before he started his Star Chamber proceedin’s. It would be much better if you could go along with me after lunch and tell the inspector that you had lost your heads yesterday and now wished to tell him the truth.”
He stopped and, taking them off, wiped his spectacles on the sleeve of his tweed jacket. Peter and Mary were looking at one another in dismay and their faces were so surprised that I almost wanted to laugh. Uncle John settled his glasses firmly on his nose and ordered cigars and cigarettes and beer, this last a trifle tentatively, as we had already drunk enough beer to fill a good-sized bath.
When they seemed at last to have made up their minds they both started at once and then stopped. They did this again and Uncle John, his voice surprisingly subdued, said, “Will you begin, please, Mary? Peter, don’t interrupt unless you want to correct anythin’. Come on, now, Mary.”
She smiled at him and lit a cigarette while we pared the ends off our cigars. “Dr. Swartz left the room,” she began, hesitantly, “just after his two assistants and left me alone tidying up my test tubes and swabs. I did it as quickly as I could for I knew that Dr. Porter was coming in to do some work and I did not want to be there when he came. He’s been a bit too—” she stopped and my uncle suggested the word “pressing.” “Yes, that’s it, pressing. However, I was not quick enough and I had just finished when he came in. He was most unpleasant and when I tried to leave the room he stood in front of the door so that I would have needed to push him aside in order to get out. He said a great many unpleasant things and I told him that I—er—did not like them. He got very angry then and came toward me. Ugh. I saw his great stomach wobbling backward and forward and I got frightened and went backward. I retreated until I found myself in a corner and then I tried to hit him but he caught my arm. Just then Peter came in and I think I screamed.”
She stopped and Peter took her arm. Uncle John sucked at his cigar and rumbled, “You go on, then, Peter.”
“Well, I found that the work I had to d
o was not going to keep me as long as I expected and I went along to the demonstration room to see whether by any chance Mary had not left yet. When I opened the door I saw Porter and asked him what the hell he was doing and told him to let go of Mary’s wrist at once. He turned round to face me, still keeping hold of her, and grinning like an ape. He put his other hand on a chair and I told him to let go of her at once or I would hit him. He laughed and told me to go ahead so I tried to get at him, but he swung the chair at me and I had to dodge that. The weight of his blow threw him off his balance and he let go of Mary and grabbed at my tie. I saw then that I would stand no chance against him armed with that chair and as he stumbled I hit him as hard as I could on the point of the chin with a short jab of my right and he dropped on the floor and rolled over flat on his back. I was never more surprised in my life, for I hadn’t thought I’d hit him hard enough to knock him cold like that. I thought for a moment I’d killed him, but when I bent over him I saw he’d be all right in a few minutes. Then this damn fool woman,” he squeezed Mary’s arm, “tells me that I shouldn’t have done it and I lose my temper and tell her that she can have dear Ian and walk out on her. I walk around the corridors for a good while, cursing and swearing to myself until I’ve worked all the temper out of my system. Then I say to myself, ‘Peter, my lad, you’ve made one hell of an ass of yourself and the best thing you can do is to find Mary and tell her you’re sorry for being such a damned fool!’ I pull myself together and march back to the demonstration room, full to the neck of mildness and good intentions. I threw open the door and marched in with a come-to-my-arms-my-beamish-girl look on my face.
“If I may coin a phrase, you could have knocked me down with a feather when I saw Porter lying in a different position and I went over to him. I’ve read too many books with Reggie Fortune and Dr. Thorndyke not to know the smell of prussic acid when it is wafted to my nostrils. I never for a moment thought of the possibility of his having committed suicide. He wasn’t that kind of man. Without thinking where she could have got the cyanide, I sort of jumped to the conclusion that Mary had been trying the effects of chemical food on the fat guinea pig. I’m sorry, Mary.” He turned to her and she smiled at him. “Then I thought I’d better find her quickly and, I don’t know why, I ran round all the buildings before I decided that the common room was the place to try. That’s when I met you and Andrew, sir.”
Unholy Dying Page 8