Bodies from the Library 2

‘You will certainly find him a little difficult to get on with,’ Rambler had said to Swallow over the ’phone, ‘but he is really a remarkable man. He always finds the truth. If he is in the area you can’t afford to neglect his services. In any case, I don’t suppose you will be able to. He has an infuriating habit of tendering them unasked.’

Inspector Swallow had not waited for that event, but had picked Mr Verity up in the police car on his way to Delver Park, and he now stood regarding the lifeless features of Mrs Carmichael with faint distaste.

Mr Verity was an immense man, tall and proportionately broad. His blue eyes shone brilliantly out of a pointed, bronzed face, which was completed by a well-tended, chestnut Vandyke. Despite the earliness of the hour, he was smoking a long, black Cuban cigar with the most curiously theatrical gestures.

‘She does make a particularly unlovely corpse,’ he said at length. ‘And I thought that death was meant to have a softening effect on the features.’

Inspector Swallow interposed: ‘If you’ve finished your inspection, could we have a few details, doctor?’

Doctor Hendrikson, neat, bird-like and laconic, straightened up.

‘She was killed with something like a very thin knitting-needle. It was driven with a considerable amount of force through her temple here. A quick-closing wound with very little blood. Time of death 10.30 to 11 o’clock last night. That’s about as accurate as I can get it.’

‘Clear enough. Munby, get finger-printing, and you, Brandt, do your stuff.’

Brandt, a young recruit to the Force, took his camera and leant over Mrs Carmichael’s tightening face. He giggled nervously.

‘Watch the dickie bird,’ he said with bravado.

Mr Verity scowled.

‘The contagion of Mr Raymond Chandler!’ he snorted.

‘Let’s go and see the family,’ said Swallow.

Together the two detectives went downstairs to the library where the dead woman’s husband and the nurse were waiting for them.

Robert Carmichael was a tall, austere man still in his late thirties, with a fine forehead, darting brown eyes, a rather sharp nose and an unexpectedly weak mouth and chin. Nurse Stephens was good-looking in a coarse, full-blown sort of way. Neither appeared distraught though they were essaying a reasonable facsimile.

Swallow was good at this game, being at once urbane, sympathetic and slightly menacing.

‘Now, let’s start from tea-time yesterday.’

Nurse Stephens was ready and willing.

‘Tea was at 4.30. Mrs Carmichael had her medicine at 4.45, and after that I wheeled her down to the garden. About five, Mr Carmichael took her photograph and went off to the village to develop it, whilst I sat with Mrs Carmichael for an hour or so before wheeling her off to bed. I remained on duty until seven o’clock, when relieved by the night nurse, Wimple.’

‘And everything was all right before you left?’

‘Certainly, Mrs Carmichael was asleep and everything in order.’

‘And later on that evening?’

‘At 7.30 we all went over to Colonel Longford’s house for dinner and bridge. We arrived back here at about one in the morning,’ Robert Carmichael put in.

‘All?’

‘Nurse Stephens, my brother-in-law Doctor Sanderson, Sandra my stepdaughter, and myself.’

Mr Verity grunted reflectively.

‘There seems to be a pretty comprehensive interest in that curiously anti-social pastime, eh, Mr Carmichael?’

‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

‘I refer to bridge.’

‘Yes, we all play.’

‘Tell me, Mr Carmichael, did your wife have any mortal enemies that you knew of?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t help you there, Mr Verity. I am as much in the dark as you are.’

‘Never mind, Mr Carmichael. I have a wonderful capacity for illumination.’

With a wave of the hand he dismissed them.

That evening after tea, Inspector Swallow and his elderly colleague saw Dr Sanderson, the dead woman’s brother.

The old man started the ball rolling with typical charm.

‘Well, sir. You’ve lost a sister and made £15,000. Some people would consider that you have made a profit on the day’s activities. What do you think?’

Doctor Sanderson, balding, eagle-nosed and tubby, was indignant.

‘Really, Mr Verity, I do resent that most earnestly. After all, I was very fond—’

‘I know all about it. Your sister left it to you. I saw Riggs the lawyer before tea. And don’t say you didn’t know … Looks of incredulity are lost on me. I have seen too many of them to be deceived into thinking that you only expected a little something … an extra pipe of tobacco a week maybe, or that odd pint.’

‘But it’s true—’

Inspector Swallow interposed tactfully.

‘Oh, come now, sir. It is our duty to check up on people, and we have discovered that you’ve been borrowing money on the strength of your expectations. Considerable sums, too.’

Doctor Sanderson paled.

‘Oh, so you know about that. You certainly work fast.’

His face set defiantly; assumed pain gave way to spleen.

‘All right, then, if you know so much about me, what about the others? Have you seen my sanctimonious brother-in-law? He’s not the sort of man to be chained to a hopeless invalid all his life and do nothing about it.’

Mr Verity was yawning hugely.

‘In the words of the vulgar, do you imply that we cherchez la femme ?’

‘And not so far either.’

‘You refer, of course, to the angel of mercy. You could be right.’

‘No “could be” about it. And there’s Sandra. Money in trust. Love’s young dream, and the missing parental consent. Why not have a look at all that before picking on me?’

‘It’s not a question of picking on anybody,’ murmured Mr Verity sweetly. ‘I just always like to take suspects in order of repulsion.’

Doctor Sanderson stormed out of the library in a fury.

Both detectives stayed to dinner. It was a homely little meal, marred perhaps for the hypersensitive by the arrival of the mortuary van. Mr Verity was in great form and talked incessantly about a portrait of an old man in polychromed clay executed by Guido Mazzoni in the late fifteenth century which he had just purchased for his collection of statuary at his Sussex home ‘Persepolis’. The company, with the exception of Sandra, Carmichael’s stepdaughter, bore his recondite conversation with fortitude. She, however, was noticeably distressed, and it was with some diffidence that the two men set out after dinner to find out exactly why.

‘Believe it or not,’ she began, when at last they were alone together in the library, ‘I had a great affection for my mother.’

‘That is not the voice of vulgar rumour,’ said the old man.

‘You can love a person and not always get on with them, Mr Verity.’

‘So the Bible continually reminds us.’

Swallow scratched his head and said gently:

‘Your mother had £20,000 in trust for you. I understand you were to receive this sum, or the income thereof, on your marriage, provided your mother gave her consent. Is that correct?’

‘Perfectly. Have you ever heard anything so monstrous? It was my father’s idea.’

She said this as if her father’s death had been no great loss to her.

‘And the position was that, having hunted down one Harry Logan as your intended mate, you could not persuade your mother that the alliance of Harry and £20,000 was a holy one.’

Mr Verity smiled benevolently at her over his black cigar, and patted his inflated stomach affectionately.

Sandra Collins was almost crying. Her top lip trembled mutinously.

‘So—?’

‘So, if I might say it without offence, my dear Miss Collins, murder for money is still a highly favoured motive, not only amongst those who write on matters of crime, but amongst those who investigate it.’