Bernard Knight - Where Death Delights

‘The best of luck, Trevor!’ said Richard. ‘At least it’s good for trade, you should be raking it in with all these fees and expenses.’

The investigator promised to let him know what happened and Richard went back to work, looking at reports and microscope slides in a civil case where the family of a shipyard worker was suing the employers for compensation for fatal asbestosis.

At teatime, he regaled the team with the latest news. Angela murmured that she didn’t think she’d come with him to Gloucester, as there was nothing she could contribute. Richard suspected that she was afraid that her former fiancé might turn up again, though that seemed unlikely.

When Wednesday came, he did not carry out his threat to be driven to Gloucester by Jimmy, instead he left him cutting down the undergrowth at the top of the plot with an Allen scythe, a fearsome motorized device with large wheels that took more energy to steer than the operator would have used in cutting the weeds by hand.

It was now well into July and the capricious British weather had turned wet and windy now that the school holiday season was under way. He drove past Lydney and when going through Newnham, was tempted to keep his head down in case he was spotted by Mrs Oldfield. When he got to the Royal Hospital, he found the fabled black Mercedes 170S already outside the mortuary, a driver with a chauffeur’s cap busy polishing the chrome of the radiator. Inside the body-store room, Detective Inspector Brian Lane, accompanied by a photographer and the coroner’s officer, was talking to Arnold Millichamp and his personal secretary. The latter was exactly as Richard had pictured her when on the telephone. A tall, thin woman with severely cropped grey hair, she had a long, intelligent face devoid of any make-up. A tan twinset and a long brown skirt surmounted sensible shoes and to complete the picture of an English lady, even in a mortuary she wore a single string of pearls. Her employer was also tall and thin, with a completely bald head and a large hooked nose. Dressed in legal garb of black jacket and striped grey trousers, he sported a blue bow tie.

Brian Lane introduced them and Millichamp shook hands and Miss Mortimer nodded gravely and murmured a greeting.

‘Pryor, you were Professor in the University of Singapore, I recall,’ said the London man, in a mellow voice that would have suited a bishop. ‘You’ve given up the ivory towers of académe , then?’

Richard grinned. ‘I didn’t get much académe in Singapore, Professor, but plenty of experience. The local newspaper had a regular column called “Yesterday’s Stabbings!”

He handed Millichamp a carbon copy of his post-mortem report, which the pathologist gave to his secretary. She had a leather case under her arm and she slipped the report inside, as she took out a large notebook and a fountain pen, ready to record every pearl of wisdom that fell from her boss’s lips.

They all moved into the post-mortem room next door, Prudence now also carrying a large case which she opened up on a table at the side. This was Arnold’s tool kit and declining one of the red rubber aprons that the mortuary attendant offered, took a very new-looking yellow oilskin one from his case. Hanging the cords around his neck, he turned and with practised ease, Miss Mortimer tied the waist tapes around him. She then offered him a new pair of rubber gloves, which he snapped on with the flourish of a surgeon about to perform a craniotomy.

Pryor more humbly hung a rather frayed apron around his neck and followed Millichamp to the porcelain slab, where Harry Haines was already laid out. He summarized his findings for the defence pathologist, which was a short speech, as the only real area of interest was the neck wound and the damage inside the head.

‘I excised the bullet entrance hole in case the police wanted to examine trace elements on the surrounding skin,’ he explained, as Brian Lane displayed the photographs taken at the first autopsy. ‘I’ve got the piece of skin intact here, fixed in formalin, if you’d like to see it.’

Millichamp rapidly reopened the stitches of the first post-mortem and made a quick but thorough examination of all the organs and the damaged skull and brain. For all his pomp and showmanship, he was an astute operator and though he worked with extraordinary speed, Richard saw that he missed nothing significant.

After he had finished, he rooted around in the jar that Pryor had brought and studied the small bullet wound, using a lens from his box to look at the edges of the hole.

Then, pulling off his gloves, he went to the table and rapidly read through Richard’s report, handed to him by Prudence.

‘Very good, very good!’ he muttered, but somehow his tone was devoid of any condescension.

‘A two-two pistol, I understand, Inspector?’ he asked Lane.

‘Yes, Professor, a Harrington and Richardson rim-fire job. The lab has already matched the weapon to the remains of the bullet that Doctor Pryor recovered. They’re now doing some test-firings on it to check on range characteristics.’

As they washed up at the sink, Millichamp thawed a little and asked Richard about his new private venture. After hearing about their first few weeks, Millichamp nodded pontifically.

‘You need to get yourself on the Home Office list, Pryor. I’ll put in a word for you when I get the chance. We need all the experienced people we can get, especially now that universities are starting to close down their departments. Bloody short-sighted, but that’s the government for you, can’t see further than the end of their nose, if it’ll save them a few pounds.’

Declining the offer of a mug of mortuary tea, the great man and his elegant assistant left, saying that they were staying that night near Swansea, at the Caswell Bay Hotel.

‘That’s only a few miles from where the lady we’re seeing tomorrow was found,’ said Richard.

Arnold Millichamp nodded. ‘That’s partly why we’re going there. The defence solicitor wants us to see the scene, though as I gather that it’s unlikely that a murder charge will materialize, I don’t quite see the point.’

They went outside, where the chauffeur loaded their cases into the boot of the Mercedes and the two passengers sank into the back seats.

‘I look forward to seeing you again in the morning, Professor,’ called Millichamp before he closed the door.

As the car glided away Richard realized that he had been called ‘Professor’ by another of the same standing and felt an unreasonable pride in the title, in spite of having decided to abandon its use.

The more cynical Brian Lane watched the car out of sight. ‘I wonder if there’s anything going on between those two?’ he muttered, with a policeman’s suspicious mind.

Next morning, Pryor made an early start, again driving himself, as Jimmy was moonlighting somewhere down the valley, working on a vicar’s garden.

He parked at the railway arch in Swansea’s Strand before the black Mercedes arrived and had a chance to talk to Lewis Lewis and Dr O’Malley who were already there.

They stood drinking Camp coffee made by the attendant with water from a battered electric kettle, rendered almost palatable by milk powder which Richard suspected was actually from a baby-food tin.

‘So the murder charge is a non-starter?’ he asked the detective.

‘Looks like it, the lawyers are not going to run with a charge that doesn’t have a cat’s chance in hell of succeeding,’ said Lewis mournfully.

‘So Arnold Millichamp is wasting his time coming here,’ observed Pryor. ‘Just like he did yesterday.’ He told Lewis about the Gloucestershire shooting.

‘Well, he’s getting well paid for it, I’ll bet. No one comes all the way from London for peanuts.’