Bodies from the Library 2

‘You can’t prove a thing. On your own evidence, the murder was done between 10.30 and 11 o’clock. Nurse Stephens and I were miles away at the time. I have half a dozen witnesses.’

‘Saving your presence, Nurse Stephens, I wouldn’t give a damn if you had the whole population of Central London as witnesses. You may have been miles away when your wife died, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t murder her. You ran the whole job up between you—a very natural alliance seeing that you planned to carry the partnership on to the legalised sex level when the obstacle was safely in her coffin.’

‘This is absurd,’ screamed Nurse Stephens. ‘Supposing you prove it.’

‘I can do that, too,’ Mr Verity replied, taking a deep puff at his cigar and exhaling slowly. ‘From the burn on Mrs Carmichael’s finger, I was convinced that at the time you took that photograph your wife was unconscious. Therefore some drug was suggested and at the same time a wonderful opportunity for administering the stuff—Mrs Carmichael’s medicine.

‘What happened was this. Nurse Stephens slipped an overdose of some suitable narcotic, probably chloral hydrate, into the medicine, and though the victim lost consciousness within half an hour she did not die until close on 11 o’clock. What simpler than for your nurse to come along in the morning and drive a thin implement through her head, the idea being to make it look as if Mrs Carmichael had been murdered at 11 o’clock, the time of death, when she and her accomplice were twelve miles away playing bridge. A very thin weapon, even if it had been used when the victim was alive, would cause so very little blood that Doctor Hendrikson was unable to tell that the wound was inflicted after death. Again, a drug like chloral hydrate would not be suspected if there were other evidence to account for death, like a wound in the temple. Ingenious and all well within a qualified nurse’s knowledge.

‘It really was very foolish of you, Mr Carmichael, to give way to your macabre egotism and put a picture of your dying wife in the newspaper with a caption plugging her superb health. It wasn’t really necessary to prove that she was alive at five o’clock. There was plenty of independent testimony on this point. On the other hand, it clearly showed me the way to your conviction … You can lock them up now, Sergeant.’

Protesting, they were led below. Inspector Swallow came up to the old man and held his hand out.

‘Many congratulations, Mr Verity. I should never have guessed.’

‘Nonsense, my dear fellow,’ he replied, pumping the other’s hand. ‘No guesswork was required. You would have got there if you had thought about it long enough … Perhaps you will lunch with me so that we may talk of other and pleasanter things? I suggest you join me at “The Stag” at one o’clock. I must first pay a brief visit to your local museum. I have heard they possess a quite excellent bronze of Antonio Rizzo; a Venetian youth, I believe. See you at lunch.’

Inspector Swallow watched him go down the street, still gesticulating wildly, his small beard and the smoke from his cigar being blown about by the wind, and disappear round the corner into the High Street. With a shake of his head he returned inside to the comparative calm of the police-station.

Mr Verity had gone. Inspector Swallow mopped his brow as he climbed the steps of the police-station.

‘Say, Inspector—’

‘Why, Harry!’ Swallow positively beamed at the local reporter. ‘I want some information from you.’

‘Me? I just came for the latest—’

‘I know, I’ll give you something later. Look, you’re in the newspaper business. Supposing an advertising agency wanted to insert an advertisement in a national newspaper, how long before publication would they have to get the pictures and things ready?’

‘The way clients change their minds and alter the ads, I’d say a month or so.’

‘No, seriously. What’s the shortest time?’

‘Well, let’s see. The national papers close for press for advertisements the evening of the second day previous to publication—earlier, some of them. Then the agency would need a day for their layout men to draw the ad out and so on, another for making the illustrations, especially if they’re half-tones, another for casting the block. About four days. It has been done in less time, of course, in emergencies and with top-level pushing.’

‘The photo of the old woman was posted at six,’ Swallow was murmuring to himself, ‘to reach London next morning. I say, Harry, could it be done in under a day?’

‘Not on your life. Now, Inspector—’

But Swallow had hurried in.

Robert Carmichael and Nurse Stephens were still very angry and considerably on their dignity. Swallow beamed at them a little nervously.

‘I’m terribly sorry about all this.’

‘We want—’

‘Oh, Carmichael,’ said the Inspector hurriedly, ‘that photo you took of Mrs Carmichael the afternoon of the tragedy, what was it for?’

‘I tried to tell you. Mrs Carmichael is—was—being featured in a “Toneup” advertisement, “Before and After”—you know the sort of thing.’

‘Yes, I’ve seen it.’

‘Have you? Then you’ll have noticed how terrible she looks in the “After” shot. The “Toneup” people wanted to use the advertisement again next month, and they asked for a more cheerful photograph. I was taking it, that’s all.’

‘Quite. Sergeant, have you got those interviews with the servants at Delver Park? Can’t think why Verity ignored them so completely.’

‘Yes, sir; it’s all sorted out now. The person you suspected is inside here.’

‘Confession?’

The sergeant nodded.

‘Nurse Wimple, the night-nurse,’ he said, ‘confirms now that the maid came up about 10.30. Very tired she was and complained about running up and down stairs for invalids all day. “There now,” said the maid, “I’m so tired I’ve been and forgotten your cocoa, Nurse. And the water’s all on the boil.” Nurse Wimple said she looked so done in that she offered to go down and get it herself. I quote: “I’ll go down, dearie. You just stay here a minute.”’

‘Time enough,’ Swallow commented.

‘ See, where my slave, the ugly monster Death,

Shaking and quivering, pale and wan for fear,

Stands aiming at me with his murdering dart. ’

‘Verity would appreciate that. Persepolis, indeed!’ Inspector Swallow snorted.

‘Yes, sir. And we’ve got the motive. Neurotic hatred of the invalid, built up over the years—’

Nurse Stephens nodded in sympathy: ‘She could be hard. Look at her treatment of Sandra, Logan’s a good man.’

‘—and there was a good fat legacy. She knew—at least, it was common gossip according to the cook. But we didn’t get anything on the burn.’

‘On Mrs Carmichael’s hand?’

‘I know about that,’ said Nurse Stephens. ‘She used to sit in her room sometimes in her chair. She tried to poke the fire a day or so ago and nearly fell in it—caught her finger on a coal.’

The sergeant looked a little worried. ‘I thought Verity said it showed in the photograph in the paper?’

‘Verity’s imagination,’ Swallow smiled. ‘The fingers had come out dark, the nicotine stains probably—you could never identify that burn smudge on a newspaper reproduction. Coincidence, though.’ Inspector Swallow sighed. ‘So it was just another simple tragedy, after all.’

Robert Carmichael had simmered down now. He smoothed back his thinning hair.

‘There’s just one thing, Inspector,’ he said. ‘Why did you let that Verity fool make such a nuisance of himself, upsetting everyone?’