A Spider in the Cup (Joe Sandilands Investigation) (38 page)

“You knew well ahead of Marie’s death of the scheme to dowse the riverbank. It occurred to you that if the body were unearthed in the dramatic way it was, it would turn the screw on the senator further. Nothing left to chance. You’d already prospected the area, you had the table of Thames tides to hand. If the body were washed away in spite of your careful calculations as to depth—well, no matter. One problem would have ebbed away
with the tide. A slight hiccup in confidence perhaps when it came to preparing the body for ‘burial’ and amputation of toe? Or merely a theatrical gesture? You put a copy of a gold coin—you have, I’m told, three genuine examples at least in your possession, and several copies—under the girl’s tongue. You may well have accompanied this hocus-pocus with a funeral oration in Latin. Some dark flourish from the
Aeneid
? An impressive gesture.” On an impulse he added, “Matron must have been charmed by it.”

Joe paused and watched the bluff features puff up in outrage. Joe congratulated himself on having guessed one of the man’s secrets.

“Your mother might have approved too. I’m sure we need look no further for the inspiration for all that witchery about the beetle and the unkind cuts. A Shakespearean actress, I understand? Friend of Ellen Terry? You were raised in a lively theatrical household until your militaristic father sent you off to be schooled.”

Another glower dismissed this effort at understanding.

“But your burial party didn’t go unobserved. Your men—Onslow and Cummings, would that be?—caught a destitute seaman watching their activities. He had a name too. Absalom Hope. Absalom it was who took the trouble to get close to your Maybach and make a note of its registration number. Did you
have
to break his neck?”

“A destitute man? One of the thousands littering the streets and the riverbanks. He probably died in a fight. They’re always at it. Feeble-minded perhaps? Still collecting numbers of cars that take his interest. He could have recorded the Maybach on one of its many trips through the West End. Matron will confirm she drove a patient home along the Chelsea Reach a fortnight ago. The men probably misunderstood their instructions regarding conveyance of the body to the undertaker’s. I’ll have enquiries made. Look, I’m getting pretty fed up with doing your work for you.”

He looked at his watch.

“I’m sure Matron will back you to the hilt. But even Matron cannot rearrange the fingerprints we have taken from the coin found in Marie’s mouth.”

“As you say—there are many such in London. Not all declared as they were not legitimately acquired. You know this! You know also that my prints were bound to be found on it as I handled it on the morning of the discovery. I put it into my handkerchief for safe keeping. Everyone is aware of the dangers of contamination.”

“But not all are aware of the stickiness and tenacity of the secretions from the human finger when it comes into contact with a flat metal surface. We discussed that, if you remember, at the time.”

Joe took a large brown envelope and extracted the sheets from it. “The results from our forensic evidence laboratory. Wonderful work! Are you familiar with the terms ‘whorl,’ and ‘loop’ and ‘arch?’ No? In order to ascribe a print to its owner we must establish in a scientifically acceptable way that it could belong to none other. We require a high number of matching whorls and arches and bifurcations before we allow ourselves to announce an identification and present the evidence in court. Though, I have to say, once such scientific demonstration of guilt is put before them, juries always seize on it as utterly reliable. As it is.”

Joe selected a sheet and pointed at it with his pencil.

“Now, this is where the lab has something fascinating to say. Two people, as you point out, handled the coin after discovery. Professor Stone has left some beauties. Here and here, for example. Your prints are less easy to identify as you carefully took and held the coin by its rim. So truncated are they that we wouldn’t use them in evidence even if we needed to, which—and again, I’ll allow—we don’t. So far, so dull. But according to Sam and Joel and everyone else present on the riverbank, the
professor
it was
who extracted it”—Joe waited for the slight nod—“and you
after
that. It follows that, had you, by chance, put your fingers anywhere on the surface, your prints would have obscured—overlaid—the professor’s.”

Another nod.

“So, tell me why, Colonel, our scientists found two clear examples of your prints
under
-lying the professor’s? Here and here. Partials, because the professor’s dabs almost obliterate them, but you can make it out if you look carefully. I must ask for enlargements to present to the jury. Do you see—the lab has marked up two corresponding arches, a whorl, a bifurcation …”

There was no response as Joe waited for his thin ice to crack.

“Only one explanation, really. You had your hands on this coin
before
the dowsing brought it back to the light. Because you are the owner or you are the man who inserted it into the dead girl’s mouth. Probably one and the same.”

This was the pivot of his argument. If his reasoning was rejected, he could take it no further.

“Bravo! What a performance!”

“Don’t applaud yet—I haven’t finished. I was puzzled, Swinton, but I got there in the end, as to how you’d got hold of my telephone number. Alerted by Julia that I’d made off into the blue with Kingstone, Natalia consulted you. You got my Chelsea number from Hermione on some pretext or other. She wouldn’t have objected to telling you in the interests of furthering the case. Matron was it? The lady who pretended to be my secretary on the telephone? You sent Natalia to her death, you know. I don’t suppose you’ve ever—since the war—fired a shot at a man in anger, let alone broken a neck with your own hands but, in my book, you’re the guilty party.”

Wearily, Swinton looked at his watch. “How long does it take to brew tea in the Yard?” He sighed. “At last a mistake. Wrong, Sandilands, in the detail. Not that it matters. I was given your
number by Natalia who had it from Julia herself. She got it from Kingstone’s bodyguard. Armiger? I’m quite certain that the Yard will sign Natalia’s death off as a suicide. Temperamental, these dancers. Crossed in love? Victim of blackmail? So many hazards encountered in a life led in the spotlight. Much less paperwork involved with a case of suicide. We can help you with that. If you’d like a useful second medical opinion, we have some excellent professionals on our books. So what have you got to charge me with? A burial? For sending an unknown girl off in some style? Generosity of spirit? Paganism perhaps? You’ll get laughed out of court, man. Thank goodness you’ve told me all this in confidence. There’s still time to save you from humiliation.”

Swinton tilted his large head and looked at Joe steadily for a few moments. “They tell me you’re a patriot,” he said, surprisingly.

“As much as the next man or woman,” Joe said, killing off the comment.

“A Scotsman, I understand? Ah! The Scots! Backbone of the Empire!”

“Would you say backbone? Many would say—head. My father is Scottish, my mother English. Can it possibly signify?”

“A British patriot, then?”

Joe was puzzled and annoyed by his insistence on the use of the outmoded word and he replied briskly. “Actions, to me, speak louder than words. I will simply say: I fought in the war for four years and I have spent the remainder working to uphold British law and order. The world, if it needs to, may draw its own inferences. My emotions and morals can be of no interest to you.”

Swinton was unabashed by Joe’s pomposity. Probably a style he admired and he was still intent on pursuing his point. “I should like to have your reaction to a story … piece of history, more like … Perhaps you know it?”

He sat forward in his chair, elbows on knees, a kindly uncle entertaining his nephews on a wet Saturday afternoon.

“The Second Opium War with China was a bloody business. One of my ancestors was a naval officer aboard a gunboat—the
Plover
—along with several others trying to get access to the mouth of the Hai River. In eighteen fifty-nine, Great Uncle Gerald’s fleet came under severe fire from the Chinese troops manning a shore fort and those of our boats that weren’t sunk were stranded, disabled, in a narrow channel. Turkey shoot! They were being pounded to bits. There sailed onto the scene an American steamer. Not much use to our Admiral since the United States had signed a treaty of neutrality with China. All the
Toey-Wan
was allowed to do was watch from a distance. But that’s not what happened, Sandilands. In sailed Commodore Josiah Tattnall of the US Pacific Squadron, guns blazing. With reckless bravery, he put himself between the Chinese guns and the British ships and towed our sailors to safety.

“When he was hauled up and charged with violating neutrality, he had one sentence to say in his defence. I’m wondering whether you know it.”

“ ‘Blood is thicker than water.’ ” Joe repeated the famous phrase to the colonel’s evident satisfaction. “I believe that’s what he said. Stirring tale! What concept are you trying to sell me, Swinton? I warn you, I’m not the kind of man who breaks down under pressure and buys the full set of encyclopedias.”

“We live in troubled times, Sandilands. And they’re getting worse. Men are not for much longer going to have the luxury of remaining unaligned. Neutrality, as Commodore Tattnall demonstrated, can never be binding. In these islands we could well find ourselves caught between two Bolshevik blocks: Russia, certainly, and this may surprise you—potentially, the United States, if steps are not taken, the right alliances made.”

“Alliances?” Joe was not sure he wanted to hear the answer.

“Alliances of the blood,” Swinton said with a clear uplifted eye and not the slightest trace of embarrassment. “Many
Englishmen in the war questioned why we were turning our guns on the Germans. So like us as to be indistinguishable, apart from the uniform. Our boys played football with theirs that first Christmas Eve, you know. They tried to hush it up but it went on. Jokes were exchanged across No Man’s Land, cigarettes changed hands. Prisoners were taken when they should have been bayonetted on the battlefield. Our captured officers played chess with theirs. Brothers, you know, under the helmets. The menace to our society comes from a different direction. I work, Sandilands, with men of foresight to keep the disasters of poor political decisions at bay.”

He looked at Joe with speculation and decided to lob another whizz-bang. “There are those—men of standing—who see universal suffrage as a symptom of disease and decay in a nation. ‘Why?’ the Duke of Wellington might ask, ‘Why does the vote of a drunken, illiterate wife of a Glasgow fish-seller carry the same weight as my own?’ ”

“Ah! The Duke’s met my aunt Kirsty?” Joe thought that if he didn’t laugh at the colonel, he’d reach over and strangle him.

A weary sigh brushed his facetiousness aside. “The men I work with are men of influence and integrity. Patriots. Your presence amongst us might be welcome.”

Joe laughed. “I’ve had more persuasive approaches in my time. I find champagne and oysters at the Ritz works best for me when it comes to seduction. Look—if we’re talking patriotics, I’ll lay down my cards. I’m with G.K. Chesterton. ‘My country, right or wrong,’ is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying: ‘my mother, drunk or sober.’ I love her but I hope I would always have the courage to tell the old bag when she was sozzled and snatch the gin bottle from her hand. I’d give my life for my land but I’d always want to know it wasn’t being thrown away in a bad cause.”

Joe picked up the sound of shuffling at the door and with relief called out to Orford to come in.

“Here comes the inspector. No, Orford, Colonel Swinton won’t be taking tea after all. Perhaps they’ll be able to oblige him down at Vine Street. I’ll be along later to charge him and take his statement. Remind the sergeant down there that the prisoner is to be kept incommunicado. Whistle up your lads, will you? No need for cuffs. The colonel knows what the rules are.”

The moment the door closed behind the prisoner and his escort, Joe sank back into his seat and put his head in his hands. For good or ill, he’d fulfilled his promise to Kingstone to attack the roots. With Swinton out of the picture for a time—probably all too short a time—the mainspring of the organisation was disabled. He wouldn’t be able to order Kingstone’s killing from the depths of Vine Street nick. Well, he’d managed a breathing space for the American at last.

At Kingstone’s request, Joe had asked Miss Snow to book two first-class cabins aboard the
Naiad
for him, sailing on Wednesday. He’d wave him off with relief, but relief mixed with regret for all the conversations they would never have, the arguments they would never settle. One short weekend in the senator’s company had made him his friend for life, Joe decided with no guilty twinge of sentimentality. He’d admired the way the man had dealt with the assassination attempt, he’d enjoyed the long talks they’d had, driving between London and Surrey. The president, in his troubles, was fortunate to have a steady man at his side, Joe reckoned. A man now forewarned about the clandestine forces intent on influencing the world’s affairs.

And Armitage, the occupant of the second cabin? Damned lucky to be getting away once more. Joe was not comfortable with the idea that the FBI man was watching Kingstone’s back but the two seemed to have an understanding that suited them both. What had Julia told him about her friendship with Natalia? As young things, they’d clung together, swiftly learning how much stronger a pair can be than a single soul working alone. And three
was stronger still. Joe smiled at the idea that the Nine Men’s Morris mill of three would be operating again. Two tough men, standing on either side of their leader. All might yet turn out well.

Joe reached for his phone again. Belt and braces was never a bad policy. It was essential that these two good centurions got back home safely. There was one more thing he could do to ensure this.

“Get me the Admiralty, please, Miss,” he asked the operator.