Embarrassment of Corpses, An (10 page)

“Must have been a damn good shot to hit his man bang on target, allowing for the loss of power,” he commented. “Could it have been nearer? From a bus, perhaps?”

“A bolt fired that close wouldn't have been stopped by the mere presence of a skull,” replied the young doctor. “You're dealing with rather a splendid marksman, Superintendent. Someone I'd like to take shooting myself some time. Do you shoot?”

“Only nephews,” Mallard said with a perfunctory smile. He had caught sight of Oliver attempting to talk his way past a policeman.

“When I got to the Yard, they said you were here,” Oliver panted as Mallard waved him through. “I came as fast as I could. The traffic's at a standstill, so it was quicker to dallow my way through the Park to Piccadilly. Is it Sagittarius?”

“It could be. Shot with a crossbow, probably from the other side of the Circus, so there's some connection with the Archer. There's been no sign left, however, and we don't know yet where the killer was stationed.”

“I may have an answer to that,” said Oliver humbly. “Can I try something, Uncle?”

The superintendent shrugged. “Be my guest,” he said blandly.

Oliver stalked over to the tent, which was now being dismantled by two uniformed constables, sweating in the heat. The body had already been spirited into an ambulance, but the noisy and nosy crowd showed no sign of thinning. Mallard watched his nephew scuttle around on the pavement, shifting position from side to side and looking all the time across the Circus. Then he bobbed up and down a few times on the same spot, and squinted harder into the distance, shielding his eyes with the flat of his hand.

“He's not from your side of the family, is he?” Effie asked quietly as Oliver scurried back to them.

“Do you have any officers searching those buildings?” he asked, pointing at the wall of pinstriped neon opposite. Mallard nodded. “Then ask them to look on the roof right where that dormer pops up,” Oliver continued. “Above the sign advertising Foster's Lager.”

Effie relayed the instructions to the scene-of-crime officer, who spoke quietly into his radio. The three waited in silence, observed still by the public from behind the barriers.

“I heard you people sometimes used psychics,” remarked Edmund Tradescant. He had been watching Oliver's antics curiously, as if trying to relate them to the apparent police interest in astrology, and now wandered over to Effie. “Does he possess some kind of sixth senses?”

“No, Mr. Tradescant,” Effie claimed, “Mr. Swithin has quite enough trouble with the basic five.” She returned to monitoring the portable walkie-talkie.

“Some things do seem to be more than coincidence, though,” Tradescant continued. “This is the second person I've known in a week who's been killed in a public place. Poor Gordon here in Piccadilly Circus, and last Monday there was Harry Random in Trafalgar Square.”

“Oh, you knew Sir Harry Random,” said Mallard, with interest, well aware by now that the two deaths were more than a coincidence.

“Only slightly. We once served together—”

“They found it,” said Effie suddenly. “Bring it over,” she shouted into the radio as Tradescant wandered away again. A figure on the rooftop opposite waved something once and then disappeared from view. Mallard made a note to see if any of the other victims had served in the military and turned on his nephew.

“Okay, Oliver, talk,” he commanded. Oliver indicated the statue.

“Sagittarius the Archer,” he said. “There's a very famous archer.”

They followed his pointing finger. On a slim pedestal, balanced delicately on one foot, the epicene and nearly naked figure of a boy was aiming a bow and arrow almost directly at them.

“Eros,” breathed Mallard. “Of course.”

“Actually, it's not really supposed to be Eros,” said Oliver smugly. “It represents the Angel of Christian Charity, in honor of Lord Shaftesbury. Funny how a Christian image so quickly became distorted in popular imagination into a pagan god…” He trailed off, catching Mallard's long-suffering expression.

“So you think the killer was using the statue of Eros as his sign this time?” Effie asked.

“Not exactly. I think we'll still find the written sign, just like before. In this case, the killer couldn't tie it to the crossbow bolt—it would throw off the trajectory. No, I believe he wanted to make it look as if Eros himself killed the unfortunate Sagittarius. So I simply guessed he would take up a position more or less in a direct line with the statue's aim. Our killer has a sense of humor.”

“They're the worst kind,” mumbled Mallard.

Two policemen pushed their way briskly through the crowd and stepped into the arena. One of them carried a black plastic bag, containing something rigid and vaguely cruciform. He opened it slightly, showing Mallard the stock of a high-powered crossbow. Taped on the polished wood was a plain white index card with the Sagittarius symbol drawn in blue ink.

***

“You know, Oliver,” said Mallard reflectively, leaning over the rim of the Trafalgar Square fountain and staring blankly into the rippling water, “I'm starting to feel like a child watching a conjuror.”

They had needed somewhere more private than the roped-off crime scene in Piccadilly Circus, and Oliver had suggested the short walk to Trafalgar Square. The fountain where Sir Harry Random had died three days earlier was far enough from the road for their voices to be heard above the relentless fanfare of car horns.

“You bring out each of your predictions like a fluttering dove from a silk handkerchief,” Mallard continued, “leaving Effie and me gaping in the audience and asking ‘how did he do that?' I don't think this is a dignified feeling for a Scotland Yard detective. I have to remind myself constantly that I'm the professional, and you're a mere half-wit who writes about field mice. So let's agree to tell your old uncle and that nice Sergeant Strongitharm everything you know about this case. Right now. Before I ask Effie to bite you in the limb of her choice.”

“That won't be necessary,” said Oliver with a grin, “although it's certainly a tempting offer.”

Effie prepared her countenance for the Look, but paused. What if it failed again? And was that such a terrible thing to say, after all? It may have been meant as a compliment. Anyway, Mallard had started it.

“We know the victims are chosen because of their birthdays,” Oliver was saying, “but we all had the feeling there was more to these murders than just birthdays. And yet as each murder takes place, the odds against finding any other link between the victims increase considerably.”

“Twelvefold,” murmured Effie.

“We've even lost the connection with west London,” said Mallard. “The late Sagittarian lived in Yorkshire.”

“Well, over lunch, I decided to forget about the victims, apart from their birth signs, and I started thinking more about the murders themselves. Why does the killer make these elaborate arrangements? It seemed like a rather ridiculous and macabre game of Consequences, with each player writing in an outlandish time or place or way of killing. Why otherwise did the meeting with Harry Random take place at six o'clock in the morning? Why did the murderer entice poor Mrs. Clapper all the way from Harold Wood to Sloane Square to kill her? And what was the significance of making Mr. Sandys-Penza jump from the roof of the greenhouse? Well, I think I've found three possible links, which explain these oddities, and the answer does lie in the stars. The zodiac doesn't just predict
who
is murdered. It decides
how
the victim is killed and
where
the murder takes place.”

“Colonel Mustard with the lead pipe in the Ballroom,” mused Mallard, remembering an earlier conversation. “It
is
just like that board game.”

“Only in this case, the who is the victim, not the murderer.”

Mallard nodded slowly, chewing on his lower lip. “So today,” he said, “we have a man whose birth sign is Sagittarius—that's
who
—shot with a bow and arrow—that's
how
—in front of the most famous statue of an archer in the city, perhaps in the world—and that's
where
.”

“But does it work for the others, Oliver?” asked Effie excitedly. It was the first time she had used his first name. Oliver couldn't see her because of the fountain's spray on his glasses, but he hoped she was smiling encouragingly at him.

“I raised the question as to why poor Harry had his meeting at six o'clock in the morning,” he said. “But if you want to drown someone in the fountain in Trafalgar Square and get away with it, then the early hours of a Bank Holiday morning are surely the best time.”

“Sir Harry was a Pisces,” said Effie. “How does that connect to Trafalgar Square?”

“Fish,” replied Oliver. He began to walk around the edge of the fountain.

“No fish in there,” muttered Mallard as he followed his nephew. Oliver stopped beside one of the gushing waterspouts near the fountain's perimeter, a brawny merman wielding two sea creatures. They had noticed it on Monday, when Mallard had wondered if it had been the accidental cause of Sir Harry Random's death.

“I found Harry floating in this part of the fountain. Look at the statue.” Oliver pointed to the merman. “The water comes out of the fish that he's holding.”

“That's where. What about how?”

“Isn't drowning rather closely related to fish?”

“Okay, the pattern works for Pisces, too,” Mallard admitted. “But what about the Aquarian, the sign of the Water-bearer?” Effie slapped him mildly on the arm.

“Come on, Tim, it's obvious now,” she said. “Nettie Clapper was clubbed with a lead pipe, which is used for plumbing. It's a water-bearer. And this happened almost underneath a large aqueduct that carries the River Westbourne. A perfect water-bearer. And you were so rude about that nice Mr. Noss, the station master,” Effie added, with mock deprecation.

“As always, Effie, an ounce of your charm is never wasted,” Mallard admitted gallantly. Oliver found himself wishing she would waste a little charm on him, too. About a lifetime's worth.

“So what about Capricorn the Goat, Oliver?” she was asking. His name again!

“Mark Sandys-Penza plunged to his death from a height when leaping around high places, like a mountain goat,” he explained. “This happened in the Tropical House in Kew Gardens, which gets its name from the Tropic of Cancer and…the Tropic of
Capricorn
.”

They fell silent. A passing Japanese tourist photographed them.

“Who and how and where,” Mallard repeated contentedly. “And it's when, too, because he's kept to a daily routine so far.”

“Is this more the level of complexity you were looking for, Chief?” Effie asked.

“It gives us a chance of predicting where tomorrow's murder will take place,” he replied. “We just have to think like the murderer. What's the next sign on the list?”

“Scorpio,” said Oliver and Effie together. “The sign of the Scorpion,” Oliver added unnecessarily. Mallard sighed.

“Okay, Oliver, where do we find a scorpion in London?”

Chapter Five

Ever since he was four years old, when an attempt to feed a Mivvi to a grouchy donkey on the beach at Llandudno had led to fifteen stitches and a tetanus shot, Geoffrey Angelwine had been terrified of horses. The word
gymkhana
alone could bring him out in a sweat. So when Oliver arrived home that evening with his second take-away curry in twenty-four hours, he was intrigued to find his friend wearing knee-high riding boots and clutching a crop. At least he assumed it was Geoffrey whose head was hidden in the cupboard under the kitchen sink, but not being skilled at recognizing him from his posterior (unlike Geoffrey's employers, Hoo, Watt & Eidenau, who used it frequently for metaphorical target practice), Oliver conceded that the kneeling figure could also have been a burglar disguised as a silent film director, taking a nefarious crack at the Harpic.

Oliver quietly placed his food on the kitchen table and waited. Geoffrey stayed frozen on his knees for another thirty seconds, and then lashed out suddenly with the riding crop. A baking dish flew out of the cupboard and scuttled across the kitchen floor like an overexcited tortoise.

“Damn,” he exclaimed in a muffled voice.

“What are you doing?” Oliver asked brightly. There was a thump, such as may be made by a junior public relations executive lifting his head in a startled manner and forgetting about the sink's U-trap three inches above it.

“Damn,” Geoffrey repeated, a little more poignantly, as he emerged from the cupboard and stood up groggily, rubbing his head. His hands were swaddled in mismatched oven mitts.

“Lost your horse?” Oliver inquired, taking his curry out of the carrier bag and sitting down.

“Very funny,” mumbled Geoffrey crossly. He stared suddenly at the plastic bag on the table. “Did you check that?” he asked.

“What do you mean, check it? It's only had my dinner in it.”

Geoffrey strode stiffly to the table, unable to bend his ankles in the unyielding boots, and swatted the empty bag several times with his riding crop. Then he peered gingerly inside.

“All clear,” he said with relief.

“I realize the Taj Mahal Restaurant may not always specify the kind of meat they put in their curries,” Oliver commented, “but you can usually assume the beast is dead.”

Geoffrey pointed at him dramatically with the crop. “You may laugh at me,” he said, although Oliver had never required permission before, “but that's just how scorpions can get in.”

“Oh, scorpions,” replied Oliver carelessly. Geoffrey must have heard the radio broadcast. “I thought you were rehearsing some extreme form of safe sex.”

The broadcast had been Mallard's idea. He had smuggled Oliver into New Scotland Yard earlier that afternoon, secreting him in a small conference room with Effie and with instructions to find a scorpion somewhere in the capital. Then he had disappeared. So Oliver and Effie had stalked scorpions through every reference book on London in the Yard's library, but no arachnid had waved its venomous tail at them from the pages. “And the irritating thing,” he had said several times, “is that I can remember seeing a statue or a bas-relief somewhere that had a scorpion in it. But I have no idea where, or even if it was in London.”

Mallard's abrupt return two hours later, armed with a portable radio, caused Effie to take her feet off the table hurriedly and smooth her skirt, which peeved Oliver. He had been enjoying the growing spirit of informality that had led her to shed her shoes and prop her long legs on the conference table. (He had also enjoyed the legs themselves.) But he was even more peeved after hearing the news bulletin, which Mallard smugly professed to have written.

“Before the main points of the news,” the announcer had articulated, using the same cadence for each sentence, “we have a special announcement from the Metropolitan Police. Listeners in the Greater London area are asked to look out for scorpions, which are poisonous insects found in many parts of the world, and which can be highly dangerous to humans. Several scorpions have been spotted in London recently, so exercise extreme caution, especially when opening parcels or food packaging. If you see a scorpion, please call 999 immediately.”

Mallard's mistake had been to ask Oliver what he thought. The superintendent's pride of authorship give way to dawning dread as his astounded nephew painted a vivid picture of terrified Londoners in Wellington boots wielding cricket bats as they rooted through their larders and wardrobes, flooding police switchboards with reports of scorpions in the supermarkets, scorpions on the Underground, scorpions driving buses, and giant twelve-legged scorpions dancing the Watusi on the M25.

“…and at least one lunatic will claim to have been forced to make love to a flying saucer full of large-breasted, green Venusian scorpions,” Oliver spluttered in conclusion.

“Besides, scorpions aren't insects,” Effie added serenely, returning to her reference book.

“We'll call off the warning tomorrow, of course,” Mallard had muttered defensively. “We'll say it was a hoax.” But Geoffrey's antics had confirmed Oliver's worst fears.

“You'll thank me when you wake up in the morning
not
all black and swollen and dead,” Geoffrey was saying. “I've just spent an hour going through every kitchen cupboard, looking for signs of the ghastly creatures.”

“Did you find any?”

“No, but I did find your missing cummerbund. I suppose it'll have to be drycleaned. Now, you can check your room, and Ben can do the downstairs toilet, when he's finished his latest photo-shoot.”

Oliver had noticed the drumming of bed castors on floorboards, coming from Ben Motley's studio. He could now hear a faint whimpering, almost a giggling, wafting down the stairs and through the open kitchen door.

“Any idea who…?” he ventured.

“I think we're honored by royalty again,” said Geoffrey distractedly. He was glaring at the linoleum under his feet, as if the pattern might at any moment sprout claws and a stinger.

“Where did the riding boots come from?” Oliver asked.

“I found them in Susie's room. I don't think they're hers, though, because they're too big, even for me. I had to stuff them with newspapers. Great protection against scorpions, eh?”

“Did you check inside before you put them on?” Oliver asked innocently. Geoffrey's beady eyes widened as far as the physical limitations of his eyelids would allow. Then, without a word, he dropped to the floor and began to tug frantically at his left boot, with little success.

“Oh dear Lord, I can feel them! I knew I should have worn two pairs of socks,” he cried. Oliver decided the time had come to end his friend's anxiety.

“Look, about those scorpions…” he began, but was interrupted by the rattle of footsteps on the uncarpeted stairs. Next moment, Ben hurtled into the kitchen, consternation on his handsome face.

“You've seen one!” panted Geoffrey from the floor, his cheeks already flushed from his exertions. Ben ignored him.

“Quick, Ollie, tell me a joke!” he gasped.

“A joke?” echoed Oliver. “I can never remember jokes.”

“You just remember at least one!”

“Well, there's this Englishman, Scotsman, and Irishman in the French Revolution…”

“Is that the one where the guillotine sticks?” Ben interrupted.

“Oh, you've heard it.”

Ben was shaking his head. “No good. It's too long and I've already used it for foreplay. Come with me!”

“What about me?” wailed Geoffrey, rocking on his back as he tried to get a grip on the boot. “My toes are going to sleep. There must be a whole nest of them in there!”

But Ben grabbed Oliver's sleeve and hauled him out of the kitchen, sending a curry-laden fork spinning across the room. Oliver followed his friend up the stairs, aware this was not the time to ask Ben formally if he was a rival for Effie Strongitharm's affections.

“I have a rather important client,” Ben whispered as he and Oliver reached the second floor landing. “But she has a peculiar quirk, and that's not a reference to her anatomy. She can only have an orgasm if she's laughing. So I want you to stand outside the door and shout all the jokes you know. We're up to the plateau phase, so I need some raucous belly-laughs to finish the assignment. Get to work!”

“But I told you, I can never remember jokes!” Oliver protested, clutching Ben's arm. “The only stuff that comes to mind is that old music hall cross-talk act we learned for a laugh.”

Ben paused. A faint chuckling came from the studio. “Then that'll have to do,” he conceded. “But don't expect my timing to be perfect. I have f-stops to think of.”

“So who is she?” Oliver asked slyly.

“I can't tell you that,” whispered Ben as he opened the door. “But let's just say her great-great-great-grandmother-in-law would
not
have been amused.”

Five minutes later, when Effie Strongitharm tentatively pushed open the kitchen door, it was to witness a small public relations officer apparently break dancing on the floor, while from upstairs came the noise of a shouted comedy routine being very enthusiastically received by an audience of one female.

“I say, I say, I say!” (Oliver's voice.)

“Yes?” (Ben's voice, a little fainter, after a pause to adjust his focus.)

(Deep exhalation by the woman.)

“Why does the Lord Mayor of London wear red, white, and blue braces?” (Oliver's voice.)

“I don't know, why does the Lord Mayor of London wear red, white, and blue braces?” (Ben's voice)

(Anticipatory squeals of delight from the woman.)

“To keep his trousers up!” (Oliver's voice in triumph, followed by more raucous female laughter.)

Effie had found four possible reasons for Oliver's apparent immunity to her disapproving gaze: (a) he was too pure at heart to be bothered by it; (b) he was too depraved to care; (c) he was too stupid to notice; or (d) he was short-sighted. For some reason, which she couldn't fully explain to herself, she felt she needed to know the answer, and the only way was to find out more about the young man. So when Mallard muttered that he wanted to give Oliver some information, but he was too busy hunting scorpions to pick up the telephone, Effie had volunteered to stop by Edwardes Square on her way home to Richmond to pick up a change of clothes. Her immediate impression was that (b) was rapidly supplanting (c).

“I rang the bell but nobody heard me,” she said to Geoffrey, who was looking up at her helplessly from the floor. “It's all right, I'm a police officer.”

“Then do you know how to get a pair of riding boots off?” Geoffrey pleaded in desperation. “My feet are being eaten by scorpions.”

Effie knew how to take control of a situation. She effortlessly picked Geoffrey up by his armpits and threw him into a chair.

“Put your leg out!” she commanded. Geoffrey cautiously extended a limb. Effie grabbed his foot and straddled his leg, keeping her back to him, as if mounting a small, thin Shetland pony.

“I say, I say, I say,” wafted down the stairs, with an ostinato of more moans.

“Push against my bottom,” Effie instructed, looking back over her shoulder. Geoffrey blushed.

“Why does the Lord Mayor of London wear red, white, and blue braces?”

“Not with your hands, you nitwit. With your other foot.”

“To keep his trousers up?”

“Harder. Don't be a wimp.”

“No, to stop them falling down!”

Effie shot forward, clutching the empty boot, accompanied by a high-pitched screech from upstairs that subsided into happy chortles. Geoffrey ripped off his sock and inspected his toes.

“Thank God, they're all there,” he sighed.

“Of course they are,” Effie replied briskly. “There aren't any scorpions. My name's Effie Strongitharm, by the way.”

“Geoffrey Angelwine,” replied the other, feeling that to shake the policewoman's hand now would only be a step backward in their acquaintanceship. “Oliver's told me about you. No scorpions?”

“Absolutely none. It's all a dodge made up by Tim Mallard. Didn't Oliver tell you?”

“No, he didn't,” Geoffrey replied thoughtfully, eyeing the riding crop. They heard voices on the stairs and shortly afterward, the kitchen door swung open.

“So was it good for you?” sniggered Ben, as he and Oliver came in gleefully. They caught sight of Effie and froze.

“Effie!”

“Sergeant Strongitharm!”

She acknowledged their startled greetings with a slow nod of the head. “Good evening, Mr. Motley. How good of you and Oliver to provide some entertainment for poor Mr. Angelwine in his distress.” She rested her hand on Geoffrey's shoulder.

“Oh that, we were just…” Oliver attempted, trying to ignore Geoffrey's nauseating smirk. “You see it took two of us…I was helping Ben.…”

“You clearly have hidden talents, Oliver,” Effie remarked frostily. “I expect you took your wife to the West Indies for her holiday and your dog has no nose, am I correct?”

“You're looking every bit as charming as last night, Sergeant,” cooed Ben, who had recovered more quickly than his friend. “Will you join us for some tea?”

Effie allowed a polite smile to dawn on her face. “It's very tempting, Mr. Motley, but I'm still on duty. I've called to give Oliver a message from Superintendent Mallard,” she said, switching her attention to Oliver and her smile off. “Your uncle wanted me to let you know that Gordon Paper was born in July.”

“I'm not sure I understand,” said Oliver meekly.

“He
wasn't
a Sagittarius.”

Oliver's blue eyes opened wide behind his cheap spectacles. “You mean it could have been a coincidence that the first three victims had the correct zodiac signs?” he asked incredulously. “What are the chances of that happening?”