Bodies from the Library 2

Wishing to avoid an hysterical scene, Inspector Swallow left the world of conjecture conjured up by his colleague, and returned to the world of fact.

‘Tell me, Miss Collins,’ he began suavely, ‘what did you do last night?’

‘I went out to dinner with the others. You can soon find out whether that’s true or not.’

‘I have already done so.’

Sandra was openly weeping now.

‘I didn’t kill her, Inspector,’ she sobbed, ‘… my own mother … You can’t say I did.’

‘Which at the moment of speaking is perfectly true,’ grunted Mr Verity, blowing a smoke-ring.

‘Oh, you’re impossible,’ she cried, and with the tears pouring down her face hurried from the room.

‘Mr Verity, I don’t like this case,’ Swallow said when they were alone. ‘All of them had motives for killing her, yet none of them could have done it.’

Mr Verity beamed.

‘Don’t let it prey on you. 10.30 to 11 o’clock is the time to keep in mind. Surely we can punch a hole in one of their well-rehearsed narratives.’

‘It seems impossible. They were all over at Colonel Longford’s between 7.30 p.m. and 1 a.m. He lives twelve miles from here and there was absolutely no opportunity for one of them to take an unnoticed hour off, to drive back here, do the murder and drive back again. I checked up on it and no one left. Besides, the excellent Nurse Wimple was on duty in the passage outside Mrs Carmichael’s room the whole night, so no one could have got in.’

Mr Verity looked glum.

‘Oh lord! Not another locked room. My last locked-room case was a shattering business … all centring round some dreadful woman in a wardrobe. Besides, the excellent Wimple probably spent half the night dreaming she was in the arms of Tarzan.’

‘I’m afraid she claims all-night consciousness. And, further, she had no motive to kill the old lady.’

‘Of course she didn’t do it. If she had, she would have taken good care to provide herself with an alibi.’ The old detective yawned. ‘Come, Inspector, adjourn with me to the local hostelry. A pint or two of good ale, a cigar and a little light discussion on the terra-cotta work of Antonio Pollaiulo will do wonders for our tired brains.’

The next morning Inspector Swallow, calling on Mr Verity, found him in a state of high excitement.

‘Here, Inspector, look at this. Interesting, eh?’

He pointed with a well-manicured forefinger at the centre-page advertisement in the morning’s copy of the Daily Grind . It showed two photographs of Mrs Carmichael ‘Before and After Taking Toneup , the wonderful restorative for Invalids … “I felt absolutely washed out until I started taking Toneup ,” says Mrs Carmichael, a chronic invalid of Delver Park …’

‘Yes, I know all about it.’ Inspector Swallow said. ‘It was Mrs Carmichael’s idea. I asked her husband. He sent it off the same night she got killed. Just another manifestation of the invalid’s craving to be noticed, I suppose.’

‘I suppose so,’ Verity replied, thoughtfully brushing his Vandyke with the back of a huge hand. ‘But I wonder why she is looking so sour in the “After” photograph. It’s most curious. In this kind of picture the patient is always equipped with a smirk of imbecilic glee. Here she looks like a professional mourner.’

Swallow studied the ‘After’ picture in perplexity.

‘Maybe it’s the cigarette smoke getting in her eyes.’

Mr Verity took out a small pocket magnifying-glass and scrutinized the picture again.

‘You must excuse the Sherlock Holmes touch … Yes, that is another curious point. There is certainly plenty of cigarette smoke there. But where is the cigarette?’

‘I think I can barely see it … there between her fingers.’

Inspector Swallow pointed to a dark smudge on the picture.

‘That is very odd indeed. One might almost say it is the first real rift in the leaden clouds of deceit which have surrounded us since the start of our investigations.’

‘Do you think she was dead then?’

‘Certainly not. The doctor said she died between 10.30 and 11 o’clock, approximately six hours later. I never believe doctors on questions of health, but on questions of death I have always found them infallible. Besides, the maid up at Delver Park confirms she was alive at six o’clock. She helped carry her upstairs in the wheel-chair.’

Inspector Swallow ran a harassed hand through his thinning hair.

‘I don’t understand it at all, Mr Verity. A woman is murdered in a room where no one could have reached her without being seen, and at a time when everyone was miles away. What do we do now? What is the significance of this photograph, if any?’

‘It certainly is significant. In fact, it tells us everything.’

Mr Verity lit a Cuban cigar and looked dreamily in front of him.

‘You really must have patience, Inspector. As to what we are to do now, there is only one thing to do.’

‘And that is?’

‘We must pay a visit to the morgue … No, don’t ask why. You will see when we get there.’

They had to stand five minutes in the antiseptic half-light of the mortuary before the attendants had sorted out Mrs Carmichael. Nervously Swallow pulled back the sheet and studied the body intently.

‘Observe her right hand,’ murmured Verity over his shoulder.

The Inspector whistled, and the noise had a horrible flat ring in that desolate room.

‘She must have been a heavy smoker. The whole finger is stained with nicotine, and the flesh is badly scorched on the side there.’

Mr Verity’s satanic face wore a smug look.

‘Just so. Mrs Carmichael must have suffered a considerable amount of pain in allowing that cigarette to burn down to that point.’

‘She must have been asleep when her husband took that “After” picture,’ said Swallow.

‘Fiddlesticks,’ roared Verity. ‘She was unconscious.’

‘And just what is the point of shunting an unconscious woman around in a bath-chair, posing her for a personality picture, dumping her in bed and going off to a bridge party?’ the Inspector enquired, suddenly startled by the old man’s explosion.

‘The point should be obvious to an intelligence considerably meaner than yours, my dear Inspector. Come, I want to make a telephone call.’

‘To whom?’

‘To the station, of course. I want them to arrest our two murderers, and take them into custody. Come, don’t stand there as if you had been struck by lightning. I’m sure they must have a ’phone here; if not for the convenience of the inmates, at least for casual visitors.’

Whilst the Inspector saw that the body of Mrs Carmichael was safely returned, Mr Verity found the ’phone and got through to the police-station. His instructions were brief but effective.

Ten minutes later, after Mr Verity had meticulously examined some Corinthian-style pillaring which had caught his fancy on the exterior of the little town hall, the two detectives were speeding back to the police-station in the Inspector’s car.

‘After all, we don’t want to keep our prisoners waiting,’ Mr Verity explained as he urged his colleague to exceed the speed limit. Inspector Swallow, his mind in a baffled whirl, drove steadily.

Once at the station, Mr Verity jumped out of the car with all the deftness of a rhinoceros in labour, and charged inside.

‘Well, where are they?’ he enquired of a constable behind the desk.

‘Waiting inside, sir.’

Next door sat Robert Carmichael and Nurse Stephens, white-faced and very angry.

‘You’ll pay for this, Verity,’ Carmichael roared. ‘False imprisonment. I’ll get £10,000 damages.’

‘The only damage you’ll get is to your neck,’ the old man replied benignly.