Barbara Cleverly - The Damascened Blade

She paused and looked round, saying at last, ‘Look here! I’ve worked for peace on the frontier all my grown-up life. I’ve worked to bring what James so truly called a danse macabre to an end at last. I’d have done or said anything to cut the cycle of death and revenge!’

‘It was my idea to pass it off as poisoning, Joe,’ Betty said. ‘We thought first we’d just carry his body to the stairs and position the straight line of the wound along the edge of one of the stone steps to make it look as though he’d fallen but then we thought, “That’s not going to deceive anybody!” Pathans move like cats – they don’t go falling over their feet, not even in the dark. And, anyway, what would he have been doing on the stairs in the night? Too many questions raised! We had to think of some more natural reason for his death and then I remembered that, by chance, Zeman and I had both eaten the pheasant dish – no one else. If we could say that he and I alone of the group had been taken ill – food poisoning or something – that might be convincing. I told Grace I had actually been sick earlier that night and that gave her the idea… ’

‘We had to work fast,’ Grace interrupted, sensing that

Betty had some qualms about recounting the next step of the deception. ‘There was the question of hypostasis, of course. We would have to deal with Joe and we weren’t quite sure how much knowledge of post-mortem procedure and the physical aspects of death go with being a London policeman these days, so I had to assume the very best information and evidence would be required. The body had to be placed without delay where eventually it would be discovered so that the blood and other fluids could settle into a convincing pattern. I took a flake of white stone from the steps and inserted it into the wound and then addressed the problem of the vomit.’

She looked round the pale faces at the table with a slight touch of malicious humour and said, ‘In deference to everyone’s sensibilities – and none more sensitive here than Iskander and Betty herself, I imagine – I will simply say in answer to your unvoiced questions – syringe! From porcelain washing bowl to the throat of the corpse was the work of a minute.’

‘And then you artistically placed a trail from Zeman’s room to the body and left a pond under his chin,’ Joe confirmed.

‘Yes. But this is where we hit a problem during the autopsy. I don’t think it escaped your eagle eye, Joe, that the, um, solid material contained therein was relatively fresh. I had to assume that every London-trained policeman is familiar to some extent with vomit… ’

Joe nodded. ‘Ruined many a pair of copper’s boots!’

‘So I decided to tell the truth about the time of the expulsion of the part-digested matter rather than the actual time of the death. I skewed the estimate of rigor mortis and I don’t think anyone was aware of that. It can vary quite a bit anyway. If I’d given 3 a.m. as the time of death Joe would have guessed at once that the pantomime in the corridor was not unconnected.’

‘There was an alternative course of action,’ said Joe.

‘Yes, of course. We could have told you there and then. Tried to enlist your help. Don’t think it didn’t occur to me! But James was adamant. He refused to confide in you.’ She looked at Joe, head on one side. ‘And now I know you better, Commander, I understand his reservations.’

‘But there was something about the sick that gave it all away!’ Lily said. ‘I remember, Joe, when we went back to look at Zeman’s clothes you said, “The smell – it takes me back to any Saturday night in Seven Dials.” And then you went quiet for a bit and said, “Or does it?” I know what you were thinking! No alcohol!’

‘That’s right,’ said Joe. ‘George, you for one won’t know that, unusually – and I have to ascribe this to stress brought on by association with the infuriating Rathmore for the space of an evening – Zeman and Iskander both indulged themselves in a brandy or two at the end of the meal. There was no olfactory trace of alcohol in the vomit ascribed to Zeman. “Children’s party” rather than “Seven Dials gutter”, you might say! Sorry, Betty! This isn’t easy for any of us and particularly hard on you. So, incredibly, if the eleven o’clock vomit sample didn’t belong to Zeman, no matter how intimate its association with the corpse, then it had to be someone else’s eleven o’clock vomit. Betty had been sick at the appropriate time and – she was the only person at the party who did not drink any alcohol.’

‘So if Betty was involved, James was involved too and Grace was helping in the cover-up,’ Lily concluded.

‘But I can’t see,’ said Grace, ‘how you guessed about Minto’s part in all this.’

‘The tooth marks!’ Lily said. ‘Joe and I went back to the infirmary and checked over his clothes. There were holes in the sleeve of Zeman’s shirt. And the distance between the holes was what you’ve all just seen between the teeth of that little mutt over there. And we knew he’d been trying to get into Betty’s room because there are scratch marks in the paintwork on the door.’

‘A formidable pair of investigators, you and Lily, it would seem,’ said Grace. ‘But tell me – if you had worked it out with such ease what stopped you from revealing all this?’

‘I think it must have been the curlers!’ Joe allowed himself a smile. ‘I was unwilling to believe that a lady in curlers and dressing gown could possibly be on her way to a murder or the cover-up of a murder. I was completely taken in by you, Grace. And as for Betty – she should be treading the boards at the Old Vic!’

‘We had a certain amount of luck too,’ Grace admitted. ‘The poultryman’s revelation that the pheasant had been poisoned with arsenic was a bonus.’

‘Yes! Innocent old Achmed! Played right into your hands. Rather superfluous, though, coming after your colourful account of death by androthingamajig!’ Joe smiled. ‘What imagination!’

Grace shook her head. ‘Andromedotoxin! And I didn’t make that up! There is such a condition – though I’m still waiting to see a real case of it.’

‘This is all getting a bit self-congratulatory,’ said Sir George reprovingly. ‘May I remind you that we’re accounting for a most regrettable death? What a devious crew I have to deal with! I don’t wonder Iskander decided to hold a pistol to your heads! But where, politically speaking, do we stand now?’

‘I would ask where, in the eyes of the Law, do we stand now?’ said Joe firmly.

‘I expect you’re ready to answer your own question?’ said Sir George.

‘The death, being occasioned by an attempted murder on the part of the deceased, must be viewed as justifiable homicide,’ said Joe. ‘A clear case of self-defence. James had no alternative… anyone would have done the same. He was a man with, literally, a dagger at his throat and the thought that his wife also was likely to be similarly done to death as she slept at his side. No court in the land, military or civil, would convict James of murder or even manslaughter in the circumstances, but for the sake of order and clarity and honouring the legal process he should be arrested and charged and the case brought to court.’

Grace and James exchanged a look but remained silent.

‘Well, there speaks the voice of Scotland Yard and the British Judicial System,’ said Sir George, ‘and, indeed, if James were so foolish as to crack someone on the head with a candlestick in a bedroom in Berkeley Square, I would agree that a trip to the Old Bailey was distinctly on the cards. But we are here on the North-West Frontier, practically a battle zone, not a court of law for hundreds of miles and a fort to run while James is languishing in chains. Hmm.’