Vicious Circle

by Douglas Clark

  “I wasn’t wrong, was I?”

  “Well . . .”

  “I didn’t hear you contradicting me?”

  “In front of the C.C.? Not likely. We put on a united front at such moments.”

  “Yeah, well. It doesn’t do any harm to let people like Harrington think we’re a bit clairvoyant.”

  Masters laughed. “E.S.P.’s more like it. And I’m not saying you were wrong, Bill, as long as it’s understood that if we have to go back a bit with our inquiries, I don’t have to feel embarrassed.”

  “Go back to the year spit, if it’ll help,” said Green airily. “Nobody except us need know.”

  “Good. Do they have a mess and a bar here?”

  “From six o’clock. Snack meals all day, but set supper or dinner or what-have-you in the refectory from seven to half-eight.”

  “You’ve had your spies out.”

  “No need to send out a light-armoured recce. Young P.C. Gibson who acted as guide is doing it most of his time. He’s more like a hotel receptionist than a copper. All the patter. I asked him if he provided papers in the morning.”

  “What was his reply?”

  “I think he thought I was pulling his leg. That’s the trouble with the force these days. The young cops have no idea what is and what isn’t important in life.”

  Masters smiled to indicate that he appreciated Green’s chatter but that the talk was now over. “I’m going along to the office they’ve allotted to us to make a phone call.”

  “Give Wanda my love, and young Michael William.”

  “I was going to call Mr Patrick Dean. I expect even deputy coroners will have reached home by now so I’ll call him there.”

  “Want me with you?”

  “I think so, Bill. Just in case he gets sniffy about my approaching him direct instead of through you. If he wants to play everything by the book . . .”

  It was Dean himself who answered the phone.

  “My name is Masters, sir. I am a Detective Chief Superintendent from Scotland Yard. I have rung to make my number with you and to say that Mr Green, who is to act as your temporary officer, is here with me.”

  “That’s nice of you. We must meet very soon.”

  “Whenever you say, Mr Dean.”

  “Well . . . look, Mr Masters, don’t think I’m rushing things, but I would like it to be this evening. That’s if you’re not otherwise engaged, of course.”

  “We, too, would like to push ahead. What time, Mr Dean?”

  “I shall be at home all evening. Shall we say after dinner sometime?”

  Masters did a rapid calculation. “That would mean somewhere round about nine.”

  “Splendid.”

  “Right, we’ll be there. Just one thing, Mr Dean. Do you propose to let me see your pathologist’s report?”

  Dean laughed. “Most certainly, Mr Masters. As my officer, Mr Green would have to see it, and I can hardly expect him not to tell his boss, can I? Besides, there is no reason why the wretched thing should be kept secret from you or for you to institute a forensic examination of your own if you don’t want to. Apart from everything else, they cost time and money.”

  Masters thanked him and put the phone down. He said to Green: “Everybody here seems obsessed with the need for economy. So we’d better get on with the job and save their pockets.”

  The two sergeants joined them in the bar. There were a few others present, but nobody paid any attention to them. Berger commented on it. “Matey lot, aren’t they?”

  “They’re probably all as much strangers here as we are. You haven’t approached any of them.”

  “They’re mostly young coppers, Chief.”

  “So you avoid them because of their youth and inexperience. They probably are avoiding us because of our age and obvious experience. Besides, though we don’t realize it, the reputation of the Yard still sets us apart from local people, and I have no doubt the grapevine has been working and they know who we are.”

  Masters was right. Nobody spoke to them though it was obvious from the glances that they were the subject of more than one conversation.

  “Can you eat this, Chief?” asked Reed when they were reading the menu posted up in the dining room. “It looks like a lot of old stodge from your point of view.”

  Masters, back at the Yard for only a few days after an attack of hepatitis which had laid him low for almost the first four months of the year, considered the type-written sheet. “I’ll manage the salad and soused herring. Probably they’ll give me a bit of brown bread instead of the chips which seem to be a concomitant part of every choice.”

  “We’ve sucked a dry one here,” grumbled Green. “As my old dad used to say, he wouldn’t eat Shepherd’s Pie at home because he did know what was in it, and he wouldn’t eat it away from home because he didn’t know what was in it. And by the way, is Lamb Boulangère that white wishy-washy stuff with lumps of chine-knuckle standing up meatless in what looks like onion gruel?”

  “That’s it,” said Reed. “And they never take out those slimy yellow tendons . . .”

  “Do you mind?” Green continued to peer at the menu. Finally, he said: “I’ll have rabbit-food, too. With bully and chips.”

  “The trouble is,” he said later, when half-way through his meal, “you can’t get a bottle of vino to wash it down with. If we stay here long, George, we’ll have to eat out, even if it’s only at the Chinese chippy.”

  They didn’t linger at table, and left with no delay for Downhampton, and although they were early for their appointment, Patrick Dean was ready and waiting for them.

  He showed them into his sitting room.

  “I have here,” he said as soon as they were all seated, “a statement from the deceased’s family practitioner. He refused to sign a death certificate and personally informed the coroner that he did not feel in a position to do so.”

  “Are you saying,” asked Green, “that he suspected digitalis poisoning the moment he was called in?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why should he immediately jump to that conclusion?”

  “Because she had previously taken overdoses of her own medicine—which was digitalis—and the signs were the same, according to Dr Whincap.”

  “Attempted suicide in other words?”

  “Not according to Whincap. Just plain arrogance and stupidity, thinking she could ignore his orders and take her medicine just as and when she pleased and in any amounts she fancied. It was not attempted suicide but sheer bloody-mindedness.”

  “In that case,” said Green, “why should Dr Whincap assume that this last case was any different from previous occasions on which she had so stupidly overdosed herself?”

  “Because he knew she hadn’t got any digitalis in the house.”

  “Ah!” said Green, who had been left by Masters to conduct this part of the interview out of deference to his temporary appointment as coroner’s officer. “Now we are getting somewhere. How did he know she had no digitalis?”

  “Because on Christmas Day he searched the house and removed what there was. Since then he had arranged for her to be supplied with one tablet daily—the tablet to be taken there and then in the presence of the practice nurse, her daughter, or her granddaughter.” Dean then explained Whincap’s arrangements for Elke Carlow’s daily medication.

  “Understood,” said Green. “And for the moment we’ll accept that those arrangements were foolproof and also that the doctor’s search of the house on Christmas Day really did ensure that there was no cache of digitalis left hidden on the premises. But, as I understand it—and Dr Whincap must have been aware of this, too—digitalis is only available on prescription.”

  “True.”

  “So he must have been aware that his patient could not possibly have got hold of an extra supply of her heart drug.”

  “Right.”

  “So why did he immediately diagnose digitalis poisoning?”

  “He is a doctor. He recognized the signs and symptoms.
”

  “Did he? How often has he encountered digitalis poisoning, I wonder?”

  “Several times with that particular patient alone.”

  “So you told me. Does Whincap say what symptoms caused him to diagnose digitalis poisoning?”

  Dean looked down at the sheet of paper in front of him, and then read: “I based my diagnosis on various symptoms. The first of these was vomiting . . .”

  “Which occurs in virtually every form of poisoning,” said Green.

  “Slow pulse . . .”

  “Same again. Most poisons play havoc with the pulse. And with the heart.”

  “He said that his differential diagnosis was helped by noting a circulatory change, tachycardia, cardiac irregularities, reported visual disturbances, delirium, and anal incontinence.”

  “All of which occur with scores of poisons other than digitalis.”

  “Are you sure? I’m a lawyer, not a medical man, so I’m more than a little hazy . . .”

  Green appealed to Masters. “I’m right, aren’t I George?”

  “In fact, most certainly. But I think you must pay some attention to the fact that this woman had suffered from digitalis poisoning before. Dr Whincap was bound to connect the occasions, and don’t forget he would immediately recognize this type of poisoning in this woman. He must have associated her, mentally, with digitalis poisoning. Hence his subsequent actions.”

  “No,” countered Green emphatically. “Whincap is apparently an able and experienced doctor who knows—is certain, in fact—that this patient cannot have possessed nor obtained the digitalis necessary to poison herself with. Why then, should he even entertain the idea that she was poisoned by digitalis, particularly as every symptom he mentioned could indicate an overdose of any one of maybe a hundred irritant and poisonous substances?”

  “I get your point, Mr Green,” said Dean slowly. “Whincap knew that it could not be digitalis poisoning and yet he diagnosed it as such with no single positive reason for doing so.”

  “Right,” said Green. “Why not put her death down to a poison of unknown origin or source and leave it to the pathologist to identify? That would be the usual course.”

  “What are you suggesting, Mr Green? That Dr Whincap knows more than he should? Because if so, he could have signed the death certificate without raising a hue and cry.”

  “How do you make that out? He was treating her for heart trouble. Had she died of that there would have been no vomiting, purging, coloured lights and so on. She’d just have died from cardiac failure.”

  “Which in fact is what she did die of according to the pathologist.”

  “Ah, yes. I know that one. We all die from a cessation of breathing in the long run. It’s what causes the cardiac failure or our breathing to stop that matters.”

  “Quite.”

  “And Mrs Carlow died in the presence of her sister who had been a witness to two hours of these symptoms. Whincap could not, on any account, have signed a certificate recording cardiac failure.”

  “That is true. Are you saying he was in some way trying to . . . to obfuscate the cause of death?”

  “Not the immediate cause. The reasons for the cause. The causes of the cause, if you like. Look at it this way. Whincap had made sure that this woman could not overdose herself with digitalis. But she did have an overdose. So how good were his precautions? That’s question one. Question two is why, when he knew she couldn’t possess any extra digitalis, did he diagnose digitalis poisoning in a very short visit and without any signs and symptoms specific to digitalis poisoning? My assertion is that digitalis should have been the last poisonous substance he thought of, because he knew it to be impossible.”

  Dean stroked his chin in thought. Masters, smoking quietly, took the pipe from his mouth and gave, with it, a tiny gesture of approval and support for Green’s contentions.

  Dean, noticing this tacit support, said: “Mr Green, what you have said to me provides me with cause enough to question Dr David Whincap very closely at the inquest.”

  “Right.”

  “But so far you have carried out no investigation into the possibility of others being implicated in this death—if anybody else was implicated that is.”

  Green ground out his cigarette. “Mr Dean, I’m not an experienced coroner’s officer, but as I understand the job, it is only necessary for me to raise some doubt in your mind—give you some cause to hold a full inquest—for you to act in whatever way you see fit. I don’t have to investigate the crime, I only have to suggest that there appears to be reason to suspect one—or not—as the case may be.”

  “True,” said Dean, “but you have pointed a finger at one man, only. Dr David Whincap. It is enough to warrant a full investigation. I agree with that. But I would rather not pillory one man, who may be innocent . . .”

  “Pillory?”

  “If I were to ask Whincap to answer—in open court—the questions you have posed, without asking equally searching questions of other people, that fact alone would give the impression that I consider the doctor to have something to hide. And having something to hide is, in the public view, equivalent to being guilty.” He looked round the four policemen. “Am I right?”

  “Quite right, sir,” said Reed. “But do you have to put those questions to Dr Whincap in open court? What I mean is, need you hold the inquest straight away?”

  “I would prefer to.”

  “In that case, sir, why not just open and then postpone for a definite time or even an indefinite time, to allow the police to make their inquiries?”

  “Thank you, Sergeant. But that would indicate that there is positively a criminal background to the affair. I would rather avoid giving that impression if it is not justified.”

  “Fair enough,” said Green. “And it’s my job, as your officer, to give you enough cause to treat the inquiry as a preliminary to a criminal investigation. I have given you some cause which you believe would give a lop-sided impression to the public at large. Perhaps—as Sergeant Reed suggested—you could delay the inquest for a few days . . .”

  “I’ve already said I would prefer not to.”

  “Right. Then open as has been suggested, and call me immediately—after evidence of identification. Ask me why I am here. I will say that as the dead woman is related to the senior CID man in the area it was felt that a third party should be called in to make your inquiries. Not because there has been any hint of hanky-panky, but because the law demands that disinterested and, therefore, impartial officers should be employed to help you clear the matter up.”

  “I think I follow. I then ask you if, so far, you have found any reason to suppose that the death is anything other than suicide . . .”

  “Not reasons, facts,” said Green. “I’ll tell the truth. I have no facts. And that gives me the opportunity to add that as I have only just arrived, I should like a bit of time to poke around—not because I suspect anything or anybody—but just to make doubly sure. And I’ll add, for the benefit of anybody who’s interested, that as I’ve come all this way to act as your temporary officer I’d appreciate enough time to do the job properly.”

  “Got it. I then ask you how long you think you would need before you could truly assure the court one way or the other . . .?”

  “Right. I ask for a few days and you grant them. Nobody can complain or get the wrong impression.”

  “Excellent,” said Dean. “There’s just one thing. If, subsequently, there is a case to answer, won’t your first evidence make you look a bit of a Charlie?”

  “No way. I’ll have told you the truth first off and if, subsequently, we do uncover something nasty, people will say how right I was to ask for an adjournment. I’ll come out of it smelling of roses.”

  “If that’s the way you look at it . . .”

  “It is. As long as you open the inquest very soon. If you delay, circumstances will change. I may not be able to say I’ve no facts, and then what you want to avoid will happen.”

&n
bsp; Dean nodded. “Two o’clock tomorrow afternoon soon enough? I could sit without a jury to save complications.”

  “Just the job.”

  “So we are agreed. That’s a weight off my mind. I don’t mind telling you that I was a little apprehensive.”

  “What about?”

  “The degree of co-operation I could expect from senior Yard officers. You see, in spite of my being a disinterested party, I do know a lot of the people involved in this business, and one can’t help but hope that the innocent should come through unscathed by gossip. Areas like this are not like London, you know. Malicious chat can spread like wildfire.”

  Masters intervened. “Mr Dean, though an unnatural death is a serious and depressing business, you must know that there are thousands of similar cases each year, up and down the country. The coroners’ reports we receive are various and sometimes bizarre, but few members of the general public pay much attention to them, no matter how sad and inexplicable they are. We shut our eyes to the spectacle of ourselves, the human race, sweeping up its own debris. So why should the death of Mrs Carlow cause much interest? Another old woman dies of an overdose, just as scores of elderly people die of hypothermia, neglect and any number of other regrettable causes.”

  “That sounds extremely cynical, Mr Masters.”

  “It is not meant to be. As a policeman, I’m supposed to be case-hardened—in both senses of the word. But I would ask you to believe that all four of us here are more affected by these tragedies than the average citizen. You see, we deal with them. The average citizen doesn’t know about them, at least not intimately, and even if he does, he finds it less disturbing to forget—after shaking his head sadly to indicate that he is not entirely unmoved.”

  “That’s right,” said Green. “What his nibs is really asking, Mr Dean, is why this case, important as it is to those intimately concerned, should rouse even a ripple of interest or concern among the general public?”

  Dean scratched one ear. “The press . . .” he began.

  “Will be looking for a story,” admitted Green, “but if you give them nothing to get their teeth into at the inquest, they’ll not bother.”