In the Teeth of the Evidence (3 page)

    The dentist’s appointment-book was next examined. The patient figured there as ‘Mr Williams 5.30’, and the address-book placed Mr Williams at a small hotel in Bloomsbury. The manager of the hotel said that Mr Williams had stayed there for a week. He had given no address except ‘Adelaide’, and had mentioned that he was revisiting the old country for the first time after twenty years and had no friends in London. Unfortunately, he could not be interviewed. At about half-past ten the previous night, a messenger had called, bringing his card, to pay his bill and remove his luggage. No address had been left for forwarding letters. It was not a district messenger, but a man in a slouch hat and heavy dark overcoat. The night-porter had not seen his face very clearly, as only one light was on in the hall. He had told them to hurry up, as Mr Williams wanted to catch the boat-train from Waterloo. Inquiry at the booking-office showed that a Mr Williams had actually travelled on that train, being booked to Paris. The ticket had been taken that same night. So Mr Williams had disappeared into the blue, and even if they could trace him, it seemed unlikely that he could throw much light on Mr Prendergast’s state of mind immediately previous to the disaster. It seemed a little odd, at first, that Mr Williams, from Adelaide, staying in Bloomsbury, should have travelled to Wimbledon to get his teeth attended to, but the simple explanation was the likeliest: namely, that the friendless Williams had struck up an acquaintance with Prendergast in a café or some such place, and that a casual mention of his dental necessities had led to a project of mutual profit and assistance.

    After which, nothing seemed to be left but for the coroner to bring in a verdict of Death by Misadventure and for the widow to send in her claim to the Insurance Company, when Dr Maggs upset the whole scheme of things by announcing that he had discovered traces of a large injection of hyoscine in the body, and what about it? The Inspector, on hearing this, observed callously that he was not surprised. If ever a man had an excuse for suicide, he thought it was Mrs Prendergast’s husband. He thought that it would be desirable to make a careful search among the scorched laurels surrounding what had been Mr Prendergast’s garage. Lord Peter Wimsey agreed, but committed himself to the prophecy that the syringe would not be found.

    Lord Peter Wimsey was entirely wrong. The syringe was found next day, in a position suggesting that it had been thrown out of the window of the garage after use. Traces of the poison were discovered to be present in it. ‘It’s a slow-working drug,’ observed Dr Maggs. ‘No doubt he jabbed himself, threw the syringe away, hoping it would never be looked for, and then, before he lost consciousness, climbed into the car and set light to it. A clumsy way of doing it.’

    ‘A damned ingenious way of doing it,’ said Wimsey. ‘I don’t believe in that syringe, somehow.’ He rang up his dentist. ‘Lamplough, old horse,’ he said, ‘I wish you’d do something for me. I wish you’d go over those teeth again. No – not my teeth; Prendergast’s.’

    ‘Oh, blow it!’ said Mr Lamplough, uneasily.

    ‘No, but I wish you would,’ said his lordship.

    The body was still unburied. Mr Lamplough, grumbling very much, went down to Wimbledon with Wimsey, and again went through his distasteful task. This time he started on the left side.

    ‘Lower thirteen-year-old molar and second bicuspid filled amalgam. The fire’s got at those a bit, but they’re all right. First upper bicuspid – bicuspids are stupid sort of teeth always the first to go. That filling looks to have been rather carelessly put in – not what I should call good work; it seems to extend over the next tooth – possibly the fire did that. Left upper canine, cast porcelain filling on anterior face—’

    ‘Half a jiff,’ said Wimsey, ‘Maggs’s note says “fused porcelain”. Is it the same thing?’

    ‘No. Different process. Well, I suppose it’s fused porcelain – difficult to see. I should have said it was cast, myself, but that’s as may be.’

    ‘Let’s verify it in the ledger. I wish Maggs had put the dates in – goodness knows how far I shall have to hunt back, and I don’t understand this chap’s writing or his dashed abbreviations.’

    ‘You won’t have to go back very far if it’s cast. The stuff only came in about 1928, from America. There was quite a rage for it then, but for some reason it didn’t take on extraordinarily well over here. But some men use it.’

    ‘Oh, then it isn’t cast,’ said Wimsey. ‘There’s nothing here about canines, back to ’28. Let’s make sure; ’27, ’26, ’25, ’24, ’23. Here you are. Canine, something or other.’

    ‘That’s it,’ said Lamplough, coming to look over his shoulder. ‘Fused porcelain. I must be wrong, then. Easily see by taking it out. The grain’s different, and so is the way it’s put in.’

    ‘How, different?’

    ‘Well,’ said Mr Lamplough, ‘one’s a cast, you see.’

    ‘And the other’s fused. I did grasp that much. Well, go ahead and take it out.’

    ‘Can’t very well; not here.’

    ‘Then take it home and do it there. Don’t you see, Lamplough, how important it is? If it is cast porcelain, or whatever you call it, it
can’t
have been done in ’23. And if it was removed later, then another dentist must have done it. And he may have done other things – and in that case, those things ought to be there, and they’re not. Don’t you
see
?’

    ‘I see you’re getting rather agitato,’ said Mr Lamplough; ‘all I can say is, I refuse to have this thing taken along to my surgery. Corpses aren’t popular in Harley Street.’

    In the end, the body was removed, by permission, to the dental department of the local hospital. Here Mr Lamplough, assisted by the staff dental expert, Dr Maggs, and the police, delicately extracted the filling from the canine.

    ‘If that,’ said he triumphantly, ‘is not cast porcelain I will extract all my own teeth without an anaesthetic and swallow them. What do you say, Benton?’

    The hospital dentist agreed with him. Mr Lamplough, who had suddenly developed an eager interest in the problem, nodded, and inserted a careful probe between the upper right bicuspids, with their adjacent fillings.

    ‘Come and look at this, Benton. Allowing for the action of the fire and all this muck, wouldn’t you have said this was a very recent filling? There, at the point of contact. Might have been done yesterday. And – here – wait a minute. Where’s the lower jaw gone to? Get that fitted up. Give me a bit of carbon. Look at the tremendous bite there ought to be here, with that big molar coming down on to it. That filling’s miles too high for the job. Wimsey – when was this bottom right-hand back molar filled?’

    ‘Two years ago,’ said Wimsey.

    ‘That’s impossible,’ said the two dentists together, and Mr Benton added:

    ‘If you clean away the mess, you’ll see it’s a new filling. Never been bitten on, I should say. Look here, Mr Lamplough, there’s something odd here.’

    ‘Odd? I should say there was. I never thought about it when I was checking it up yesterday, but look at this old cavity in the lateral here. Why didn’t he have that filled when all this other work was done? Now it’s cleaned out you can see it plainly. Have you got a long probe? It’s quite deep and must have given him jip. I say, Inspector, I want to have some of these fillings out. Do you mind?’

    ‘Go ahead,’ said the Inspector, ‘we’ve got plenty of witnesses.’

    With Mr Benton supporting the grisly patient, and Mr Lamplough manipulating the drill, the filling of one of the molars was speedily drilled out, and Mr Lamplough said: ‘Oh, gosh!’ – which, as Lord Peter remarked, just showed you what a dentist meant when he said ‘Ah!’

    ‘Try the bicuspids,’ suggested Mr Benton.

    ‘Or this thirteen-year-old,’ chimed in his colleague.

    ‘Hold hard, gentlemen,’ protested the Inspector, ‘don’t spoil the specimen altogether.’

    Mr Lamplough drilled away without heeding him. Another filling came out, and Mr Lamplough said ‘Gosh!’ again.

    ‘It’s all right,’ said Wimsey, grinning, ‘you can get out your warrant, Inspector.’

    ‘What’s that, my lord?’

    ‘Murder,’ said Wimsey.

    ‘Why?’ said the Inspector. ‘Do these gentlemen mean that Mr Prendergast got a new dentist who poisoned his teeth for him?’

    ‘No,’ said Mr Lamplough; ‘at least, not what you mean by poisoning. But I’ve never seen such work in my life. Why, in two places the man hasn’t even troubled to clear out the decay at all. He’s just enlarged the cavity and stopped it up again anyhow. Why this chap didn’t get thundering abscesses I don’t know.’

    ‘Perhaps,’ said Wimsey, ‘the stoppings were put in too recently. Hullo! What now?’

    ‘This one’s all right. No decay here. Doesn’t look as if there ever had been, either. But one can’t tell about that.’

    ‘I dare say there never was. Get your warrant out, Inspector.’

    ‘For the murder of Mr Prendergast? And against whom?’

    ‘No. Against Arthur Prendergast for the murder of one Mr Williams, and, incidentally, for arson and attempted fraud. And against Mrs Fielding too, if you like, for conspiracy. Though you mayn’t be able to prove that part of it.’

It turned out, when they found Mr Prendergast in Rouen, that he had thought out the scheme well in advance. The one thing he had had to wait for had been to find a patient of his own height and build, with a good set of teeth and few home ties. When the unhappy Williams had fallen into his clutches, he had few preparations to make. Mrs Prendergast had to be packed-off to Worthing – a journey she was ready enough to take at any time – and the maid given a holiday. Then the necessary dental accessories had to be prepared and the victim invited out to tea at Wimbledon. Then the murder – a stunning blow from behind, followed by an injection. Then, the slow and horrid process of faking the teeth to correspond with Mr Prendergast’s own. Next, the exchange of clothes and the body carried down and placed in the car. The hypodermic put where it might be overlooked on a casual inspection and yet might plausibly be found if the presence of the drug should be discovered; ready, in the one case, to support a verdict of Accident and, in the second, of Suicide. Then the car soaked in petrol, the union loosened, the cans left about. The garage door and window left open, to lend colour to the story and provide a draught, and, finally, light set to the car by means of a train of petrol laid through the garage door. Then, flight to the station through the winter darkness and so by underground to London. The risk of being recognised on the underground was small, in Williams’s hat and clothes and with a scarf wound about the lower part of the face. The next step was to pick up Williams’s luggage and take the boat-train to join the wealthy and enamoured Mrs Fielding in France. After which, Williams and Mrs Williams could have returned to England, or not, as they pleased.

    ‘Quite a student of criminology,’ remarked Wimsey, at the conclusion of this little adventure. ‘He’d studied Rouse and Furnace all right, and profited by their mistakes. Pity he overlooked that matter of the cast porcelain. Makes a quicker job, does it, Lamplough? Well, more haste, less speed. I do wonder, though, at what point of the proceedings Williams actually died.’

    ‘Shut up,’ said Mr Lamplough, ‘and, by the way, I’ve still got to finish that filling for you.’

ABSOLUTELY ELSEWHERE

A Lord Peter Wimsey Story

Lord Peter Wimsey sat with Chief-Inspector Parker, of the C.I.D., and Inspector Henley, of the Baldock police, in the library at ‘The Lilacs’.

    ‘So you see,’ said Parker, ‘that all the obvious suspects were elsewhere at the time.’

    ‘What do you mean by “elsewhere”?’ demanded Wimsey, peevishly. Parker had hauled him down to Wapley, on the Great North Road, without his breakfast, and his temper had suffered. ‘Do you mean that they couldn’t have reached the scene of the murder without travelling at over 186,000 miles a second? Because, if you don’t mean that, they weren’t absolutely elsewhere. They were only relatively and apparently elsewhere.’

    ‘For heaven’s sake, don’t go all Eddington. Humanly speaking, they were elsewhere, and if we’re going to nail one of them we shall have to do it without going into their Fitzgerald contractions and coefficients of spherical curvature. I think, Inspector, we had better have them in one by one, so that I can hear all their stories again. You can check them up if they depart from their original statements at any point. Let’s take the butler first.’

    The Inspector put his head out into the hall and said: ‘Hamworthy.’

    The butler was a man of middle age, whose spherical curvature was certainly worthy of consideration. His large face was pale and puffy, and he looked unwell. However, he embarked on his story without hesitation.

    ‘I have been in the late Mr Grimbold’s service for twenty years, gentlemen, and I have always found him a good master. He was a strict gentleman, but very just. I know he was considered very hard in business matters, but I suppose he had to be that. He was a bachelor, but he brought up his two nephews, Mr Harcourt and Mr Neville, and was very good to them. In his private life I should call him a kind and considerate man. His profession? Yes, I suppose you would call him a moneylender.

    ‘About the events of last night, sir, yes. I shut up the house at 7.30 as usual. Everything was done exactly to time, sir – Mr Grimbold was very regular in his habits. I locked all the windows on the ground floor, as was customary during the winter months. I am quite sure I didn’t miss anything out. They all have burglar-proof bolts and I should have noticed if they had been out of order. I also locked and bolted the front door and put up the chain.’