“Nothing now but to wait for the findings, whether negative or positive,” said Harrow to Callum as they sheltered in a shop doorway before making their separate ways home for breakfast. “It will take some time, I reckon, before we get a report.”
“At any rate, our investigations, since we knew the identity of the Watersmeet body, have given us some satisfaction, sir. We’ve traced the man’s movements to a certain extent. We know he emigrated and we know he soon got into trouble and came back here pretty well broke. That’s when he turned to blackmail, I’ll bet.”
“I’m not as well satisfied as you seem to be,” said Harrow. “We didn’t discover who the chap was. It took Dame Beatrice to work that one out.”
“We beavered away at the Australian end, sir.”
“Only with a lot of boost from our own top brass, and we could have done nothing unless Dame Beatrice had got a name put on the man. Thank goodness he didn’t festoon himself with a set of aliases like the valley chap.”
“Well, when he emigrated he had done nothing wrong, sir, so far as we can prove.”
“That’s true, but he seems to have made up for it since. Dame Beatrice thinks the chemist left him to make up the prescriptions when he could no longer be sure of reading the doctor’s writing himself, and it’s likely enough. Her theory is that our chap mixed the ingredients cheerfully enough at first, but then something about the prescriptions made him suspicious, so he must have kept them as evidence in case anything should rear itself up later.”
“He wanted to cover himself and the chemist, you mean, sir?”
“Dame Beatrice is certain that’s all there was in it to begin with, but that when he came back to England he saw the prescriptions as a means of blackmail.”
“But Dr. Rant was dead by then. He wrote his own prescriptions. You can’t blackmail a dead man.”
“The dead man left two daughters and left them pretty comfortably off, remember.”
“Is that what Dame Beatrice thinks?—that the women were being blackmailed?”
“It’s what I think. That older one, Miss Bryony Rant, is bright enough to have picked up doctor’s shorthand from her father and I’ve no doubt she had access to the official pad on which the prescriptions were written out before the leaf was torn out and given to the chemist.”
“So, as she was in charge of the Crozier Lodge car, she took her father’s prescriptions into Castercombe to get them made up, you mean, but the prescription the doctor had written out for himself was not the prescription handed in to the chemist? I thought, though, that we were told Dr. Mortlake took over from Miss Rant in delivering the prescriptions.”
Strange and bizarre things are done in the name of science. Some are cruel, some repulsive. The clipping of Dr. Rant’s nails and hair came, to the lay mind, under the latter heading, but to Sir Ranulph it was all in the day’s work. That done, the corpse was decently re-interred. The Watersmeet man was already back in his grave, for the fitting of the coup de poing to the hole in his skull had proved to be no more than a formality.
The shrouding tarpaulins in the cemetery had not gone unremarked although, with the break in the weather, they had been seen by few. The news, however, found its way around in the way news seems to do and it reached Dr. Mortlake through the agency of the local tobacconist.
“Doings at the cemetery, so I heard,” she said. “Don’t do to believe everything you hear, though, does it? There’s some as knows how to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, whatever our grandmothers used to say.”
“A funeral, Mrs. Wake? I didn’t know anybody in the town had been buried. Who was it?”
“Not buried. Un-buried, if you take my meaning, doctor, and there was two of them, at that. All done secret, with screens around and policemen on the gate and everything.”
“Good gracious me! Who were they!”
“Oh, well, you know what people are! They’ll say anything if it’s a bit spicy. I was told it might be Dr. Rant for one. It was along the main path and just about where he laid, but, if that was so, I reckon you’d have knowed about it, you being a doctor, too.”
“Where was the other screen put up? You mentioned two graves, I think.”
“That’s right, or so I heard. The other tarpaulins was over on the Beestone road end, but nobody don’t seem to know whose grave it was.”
The reports came through in due course and could not be kept out of the local paper. From there they reached the big dailies and there followed a sensational article in a Sunday paper headed: How many other graves ought to be investigated? Analysis of Dr. Rant’s hair and fingernails had revealed nothing, so there was still no conclusive proof that his death had been anything but accidental. However, the subject of poison had been raised and provoked much speculation. Perhaps the doctor’s worsening condition could be attributed to a slow, systematic poisoning which, combined with the quantities of alcohol he had consumed, eventually proved fatal?
And so on and so forth. The article skated round the edges of libel, for, although he was not named, it was clear that the writer blamed Dr. Mortlake for not having spotted what was wrong with his chief. The report went so far as to call Dr. Mortlake’s professional ability in question. The London readers of the paper were titillated; Axehead, Abbot’s Bay, and Abbots Crozier were enthralled, and some of the visitors were distinctly apprehensive and confided to one another in the hotel lounges after dinner how thankful they were that they had not been compelled by illness to consult so incompetent a practitioner.
Dr. Mortlake himself kept a low profile, but he did seek legal advice. He was warned that in an action which involved the Goliath of a popular Sunday newspaper and the David of an obscure country doctor, David was unlikely to win, so he held his peace and went to Crozier Lodge.
Here he found only Susan and the poacher. Adams was there on the excuse of having brought rabbits for the hounds, but the truth was that he was there to keep Susan company. She had been invited, with the Rants, to go to the Stone House, but she would not leave the dogs unattended even for a few hours.
“What do you make of the news, doctor?” she asked, when she had put Adams, with his cup of tea, thick bread and butter and scones, jam, and cream, in the kitchen and had taken a tray for herself and Dr. Mortlake into the sitting-room.
“Well,” he said, “I’m not very happy, of course, but I had no suspicions at all regarding the death. A man who was juggling with his life the way Rant was doing was bound to lose out. It happened a bit before I thought it might, I suppose, but he had been undermining his health for years, ever since his wife died. I came over to offer my sympathy to his daughters. It must have been most unpleasant for them to have to face the details of their father’s suicide all over again.”
“Suicide do you call it? Personally I believe in calling a spade a spade,” said Susan. “Murder is a very ugly word, but, if it tells the truth, well, that’s that. I heard they dug up a second grave. I wonder whose that was? Nobody at the Crozier Arms seems to know.”
17
Judgement Suspended
Susan and Dr. Mortlake were in the middle of tea, although the second cup had not been poured out, when the telephone rang. The receiver was in what had been Dr. Rant’s surgery. Susan excused herself to her guest and went along to answer it. It was Harrow on the line. He announced himself.
“We’ve been to see Dr. Mortlake,” he said, “but his receptionist told us he had gone to visit the Miss Rants at Crozier Lodge.”
“They’re not here. Dr. Mortlake is having his tea.”
“Keep him there. We’ll be along in no time. Now the news about Dr. Rant’s death is known, there are one or two points he can clear up for us. And, look, Miss Susan, don’t tell him who this call is from. We want answers straight off the cuff. This is a very serious matter and we don’t want a prepared statement.”
Susan returned to the sitting-room.
“Only the girls saying they had been asked to stay for dinner, so would be l
ater than they thought,” she said. She went into the kitchen to her brother and said, “Get it down you and hop it before the police get here.”
“Police? I haven’t done nothing!”
“Get lost, I tell you!”
“Oh, all right. Got nothing on you, have they?”
“Who knows? Swallow—and off!”
Adams obeyed her. He disliked meeting the police. She returned to the sitting-room and unemotionally resumed her interrupted tea. Harrow and Callum turned up just as she was carrying the tray back to the kitchen. She put it down to answer the door to them. She noticed, as she did so, that, although they had parked their car on the drive, it completely blocked the front gates. Sekhmet, Isis, and Nephthys were inspecting it, having already taken a sniff or two at the doctor’s car which was near the house.
“Excuse me a minute,” she said. “With the gates open, they could get out.”
“Shut the dogs up, if you don’t mind, miss,” said Harrow, “and leave the gates as they are. We shan’t be a minute. Where can we find Dr. Mortlake?”
“In there.” She indicated the sitting-room door. “He won’t be expecting you.” She went out on to the drive and soon had the two hounds and the Labrador safely penned. Harrow and Callum went to the sitting-room and entered it without knocking. Dr. Mortlake rose as they came in.
“You’ll have heard the news about Dr. Rant,” said Harrow.
“Dear me, yes. So it was suicide, after all.”
“We think you could help us as to that, doctor. By the way, can you tell us what this is?” He produced the worked flint. Mortlake took it and turned it over in hands which, in spite of his professional training, were slightly unsteady.
“Good Lord!” he said. “I wondered where that had got to. It’s the gem of my collection. I was burgled a few weeks ago, so I suppose the thieves picked this up accidentally with the valuables they took.”
“You have never reported a breakin, doctor.”
“I didn’t think it was worthwhile. You chaps don’t seem all that clever at recovering stolen property.”
“Reverting to the matter of Dr. Rant, we would like you to accompany us to the station, where I can have a shorthand writer at my disposal. Your evidence may be of the greatest assistance to us in our enquiries.”
“The police station? Oh, all right. I’ll get my hat.”
Five minutes went by before Harrow said, “Where the devil has he got to?”
“In the bog, perhaps,” said Callum. Susan appeared as they walked into the hall. They questioned her.
“He’s nowhere about,” she said, “unless he went upstairs, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t. One of the treads makes a loud cracking noise. I should have heard it. Besides, I believe I heard the front door shut about five minutes ago. I shouldn’t wonder if he’s scarpered. Not everybody enjoys being questioned by the police.” Remembering their search of her cottage, she looked at them with little enjoyment herself.
Callum dashed up the stairs, but soon came down again.
“Well, he can’t have got far,” said Harrow. “His hat is still on the hall stand and his car is in the drive. He couldn’t get it past ours. We’ll soon catch up with him.”
“Not if he’s made for the top of the cliff railway and has gone by the cliff path. You can’t get your car along there and, once he’s in the valley, he could hide for days among those rocks. You’d better let me loose the hounds,” said Susan.
Without waiting for any comments, she dashed out at the front door and bounded down the steps. The two policemen followed, passed by Mortlake’s car, and got into their own without waiting to see what Susan would do.
They drove to the top of the cliff railway, left the locked car safely parked, and made for the cliff path. Before they were half-way along it, the panting hounds, all six of them, followed a good way behind by Susan, streamed up to them and passed them. Susan dropped into an easy jog-trot and said, “He left his hat, so I let them smell it. They know he is somewhere ahead of us along here. They’ll find him.”
“I hope they won’t pull him down and savage him,” said Harrow.
“Of course not. Gentle as lambs. They will hold him until we get there, that’s all.” She dropped into a walk. Realising that, so far as the hounds were concerned, there was nothing to be done without her, the policemen followed suit. They came to the end of the cliff path and to the steep incline which led down to Rocky Valley. Seated on the cricket ground below was Dr. Mortlake. The six hounds were in an alert circle around him regarding him with the affection which, if they are of noble mind, the victors extend to the vanquished.
“Well, what do you know?” said Detective-Sergeant Callum.
“You go first, miss. We don’t want the seat of our trousers torn out,” said Detective-Inspector Harrow, looking at the slavering ring of canine eagerness.
“So let me get it all straight,” said Laura, a day or two later.
“The floor is yours,” said Dame Beatrice courteously.
“Funny about the English language. To be floored means to be baffled, more or less defeated, as I understand it—comes from prize fighting, I suppose. Lots of our sayings seem to come from one form of sport or another. Batting on a sticky wicket, for instance. Anyway, contrary to being floored, to be given the floor means that one is free to orate and to produce arguments, no matter how long and how boring.”
“Riding for a fall; drawing a bow at a venture; that cock won’t fight; the ball is in your court; to trump your rival’s ace; to hound a person to death; to miss the mark; the dice were loaded against him; skating on thin ice; a sprat to catch a mackerel; to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds—”
“To be three sheets in the wind,” said Laura, grinning. “Meanwhile—”
“Oh, I do beg your pardon. You were about to recapitulate.”
“Not that, exactly. I only want to get things straightened out. When did you know that Mortlake was the murderer?”
“It has not been proved yet that he is the murderer, but undoubtedly he will be brought before the magistrates and they will decide whether he is to be sent for trial.”
“But you yourself think he’s guilty.”
“There were indications when Detective-Inspector Harrow heard the story told by Adams about finding an interloper in the Rant’s garage loft. I thought it possible that the person wearing the long coat and the hat was Susan, but when we confirmed the identity of the dead man at Watersmeet, it seemed likely that the motive for murder was a lot more complicated than punishment for dog-stealing.”
“The verdict on Todhunter’s death and the one on Dr. Rant’s will be quashed, I suppose, as a formality. But what about that hat and the piece of material that the police found at Susan’s cottage?” asked Laura.
“There is no doubt in my mind that those two objects were planted by someone who wanted to throw suspicion on Susan,” said Dame Beatrice. “Whoever did it was careless enough to provide a hat of the wrong colour that did not even fit her—presumably in the belief that, if anyone had seen the intruder at Crozier Lodge that morning, they would not have been close enough to discern the details of the hat. As we now know, however, the piece of trouser material did match the garment found at Watersmeet—and that was more incriminating. The police were certainly concerned about Susan’s involvement, but they had no other evidence against her.”
“It must have counted in her favour that she reported finding the body and lost no time about it.”
“Possibly, although a murderer might have followed the same line. Well, the verdict stood and then the valley murder took place and about that there could be no doubt at all. Whoever the murderer was, he was an extremely desperate man. In killing the chemist’s assistant, he had scotched the snake, not killed it. Someone else was on to him.”
“I can see how the forged prescriptions had tripped up Mortlake in the end, but who else had the goods on him? Not Goodfellow, and it was Goodfellow who got murdered in Rocky Valley.�
��
“Have you forgotten that Goodfellow was a very unsavoury private detective? I surmise that, when the prowler began to visit Crozier Lodge, Susan justifiably feared for the safety of the precious Pharaohs and engaged Goodfellow to find out what was going on.”
“Then he was the chap whom Adams found in the garage loft?”
“Oh, no. That was Todhunter,” said Dame Beatrice firmly. “Let’s look at the facts from the beginning. Don’t forget that Mortlake knew Dr. Rant very well. It is my guess that he acquired proof that Rant had been responsible for the death of that woman in the Midlands and used this to blackmail his employer—in the hope of taking over Crozier Lodge when Rant died. Mortlake was obviously an ambitious young man without the means to set up his own practice. Rant promised him some money, but would not change his will leaving the Lodge to Mortlake. This refusal must have given root to an obsession: Mortlake became more and more greedy and impatient. He even proposed marriage to Bryony, remember? In the end, he decided that the only way to achieve his ends was to hasten Rant’s death—which anyway could not have been far off—by doctoring his prescriptions. Bryony and Morpeth would not have stayed long in that large house after their father’s death, if it hadn’t been for the Crozier Pharaohs—and Mortlake could probably have purchased it cheaply because of its unhappy associations.”
“Your powers of deduction never cease to amaze me. So Mortlake saw the Pharaohs as having ousted him from his rightful inheritance? Todhunter’s reappearance on the scene must really have put a spanner in the works.”
“Knowing that Morpeth, in particular, was of a nervous disposition, Mortlake thought that a prowler at Crozier Lodge would soon scare the sisters away—especially if he seemed to pose a threat to the hounds. By stealing Sekhmet, he was sending a warning shot across the sisters’ bows.”
The Crozier Pharaohs (Mrs. Bradley) Page 18