The Lately Deceased (17 page)

‘Be seated, please,' he concluded, and everyone lowered themselves onto the uncomfortable benches. Morris handed up a blue folder to the coroner, adding the words, ‘First case, sir, the opening of Margaret Elizabeth Walker.' He turned to the court and called ‘Gordon Walker, this way, please, sir.'

Gordon rose from his seat at the end of the second pew and advanced to the witness box, a wooden erection situated on the right hand of the coroner's seat. Wally thrust a battered book into his hand. ‘Take the book in your right hand, sir, and read the oath aloud.' … this was printed on a card sticking out of the top of the book.

Gordon, soberly dressed in a dark suit and black tie, held up the testament and swore that the evidence he gave would be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. He faced the coroner expectantly, as the latter rapidly glanced through the blue folder, containing all the papers relevant to the case. Dr Hope then looked up with keenly intelligent eyes behind rimless glasses and spoke in a mellow voice.

‘You are Gordon Arthur Walker, of 17a Great Beachy Street, London W1 and you are a television company director?'

Gordon agreed and the coroner continued.

‘You have identified the deceased in the presence of one of my officers as that of your wife, Margaret Elizabeth Walker, aged forty-five years, of the same address and of Long Manor, Woodstock, in the county of Oxford?'

‘I have.'

‘Are these two addresses correct?'

‘Yes. My wife lived mainly at our Oxford home.'

‘I see,' said Dr Hope. ‘Thank you, Mr Walker, that is all I require from you today; I shall be adjourning this inquiry in a moment, as you will hear. I understand that you require burial, not cremation?'

‘That is so, sir.'

‘In that case, I am prepared to issue an order so that you may proceed with the funeral arrangements. You may obtain it from my officer afterwards.'

Gordon left the box and went back to his seat. The coroner leant forward and spoke to Morris.

‘Is Dr Chance here?'

‘Yes, sir, he's just outside,' answered Wally, and dived out into the corridor. He returned immediately with Alistair Chance in tow. The pathologist took the witness-stand and rattled off the oath like a machine-gun firing.

‘You are Dr Alistair Robert Chance, a registered medical practitioner and pathologist of St Jeremy's Hospital?'

The words were more of a statement than a question, which was hardly surprising, as Hope had spent most of the previous Sunday playing golf with Alistair.

‘You performed a post-mortem examination for me on the body of Margaret Elizabeth Walker.'

‘I did.'

‘There is only one question I have to put to you today. Can you tell me the cause of death.'

‘Death was due to a stab wound of the heart.'

‘Thank you, Dr Chance.'

Alistair had driven seven miles through London traffic to say those few words and now hurriedly left the court to drive perhaps another seven miles to the next.

Meredith was the last witness in this brief proceeding. He mounted the stand and stood stoop-shouldered, his hands gripping the side of the box, while he waited for Morris to produce the testament. He took the oath and, in the usual manner of police witnesses, identified himself without waiting for the coroner's prompting.

‘I believe you are in charge of the investigations in this case, Superintendent.' Dr Hope had had fifteen minutes talk with Old Nick in his room immediately before this session began.

‘Yes, sir.'

‘I understand that recent developments connected with another death have a direct bearing on this case and that you do not contemplate charging anyone or indeed, proceeding much further with your investigations?'

There was a murmur in court at this, and a stirring on the Press table. This was news, with a capital ‘N'!

‘That is the position at the present moment, sir,' agreed Meredith gravely.

‘As I understand that you are satisfied with your investigations to date, I see no reason to adjourn this inquest under Section Twenty of the Coroner's (Amendment) Act. I will therefore simply adjourn it for six days and take the other case with this one on Monday next, that is, December the fourth. That will be sufficient time for you, I expect, Superintendent?'

‘Indeed, yes, thank you, sir,' said Old Nick and left the box.

‘Witnesses in the Walker case may leave the court,' announced Morris loudly. There was a rush of figures to the door and reporters stampeded from the court in an effort to waylay the detectives. A struggling throng crowded Meredith and Stammers against a wall as they tried to get to their car, setting up a barrage of questions. But Meredith would have none of it. Dourly, he replied: ‘Come to Comber Street at half-eleven and we'll have a statement for you.' Then he and Stammers clambered into their black Wolseley.

They were pursued by several Press cars all the way back to the station, where the impatient news hounds hung around while Meredith drafted the release.

‘Better give it to them soon, or they'll pull the police station down,' said Syd Grey, as he looked out of the window.

The press conference, if it could be dignified by such a name, was held on the steps of the back entrance of the station. Meredith stood in the porch and read from a typed sheet of paper. It was a short and concise account of the discovery of the dead body of Colin Moore in a gas-filled room, and the presence of the suicide note purporting to be a confession of the murder of Margaret Walker was disclosed. The explosion was touched on superficially with the information that two police officers were slightly injured.

At the close of the statement, half the pressmen ran off to compete for the nearest telephone. They were from the evening papers which were just approaching their deadline for the next editions. The remainder, reporters from the morning ‘nationals', stayed behind to put further questions to Meredith.

Old Nick answered as non-committally as he could and then waved further questions aside.

‘You've had it all for now,' he said. ‘You know I can't anticipate the coroner's verdict. The inquest on Moore will be opened tomorrow and then adjourned till next Monday.'

He went inside and closed the door firmly. The remaining news hounds hurried off in their turn, realising that they would get no more out of Meredith.

‘I'll bet half those chaps belt straight over to the gorgeous Pearl,' Grey prophesied. ‘She'll make a packet of publicity out of this.'

‘I wonder if the Press boys will rumble that it was Pearl who was meant to be on the receiving end of the skewer,' said Stammers. ‘That's one sort of publicity she wouldn't relish.'

‘Oh, I don't know,' said Grey. ‘The public are a queer lot. They might lap up the idea of a femme fatale being a candidate for murder.'

‘I've gone to some trouble to keep it out of the inquest proceedings,' said Meredith. ‘It's her own fault if she blows the gaff now.'

‘You're satisfied we know the whole story, are you, sir?' asked Grey.

‘Well, there's still some evidence to come in; if that doesn't materially change the picture, I'll settle for what we've got.'

Stammers scratched his head and asked: ‘Where does Leo Prince fit into all this? We can't hold him on any charge now, can we? He's up in West London Court this morning, isn't he? I hope he doesn't come back with a wrongful arrest charge.'

‘I don't think he has anything at all to do with the Walker case. But ‘J' Division are gunning for him. They found a load of stolen tobacco in that warehouse of his last night, so they'll get him on a receiving charge as soon as he's released from West London today. That'll hold him until they sort out his game properly!'

‘What about the post-mortem on Moore?' asked Stammers. ‘Who's doing that?'

‘One of the assistants from St Jeremy's. Old Alistair is too busy for such small fry. He'd soon find time if it was murder, though.' Grey was bitter, he'd had a few brushes with Alistair Chance in the past and had always come off second-best.

‘Not much in it, anyway,' said Stammers. ‘Straight coal gas poisoning.'

Meredith scowled. ‘We'll soon know,' he said. ‘That's why we have post-mortems.'

Dr Steven Kenny, lecturer in the Forensic Medicine Department at the hospital and assistant to Dr Chance, did the autopsy and found nothing unexpected, except in the stomach. Here, some yellow fragments caused him to ask the laboratory in the medical college to do an analysis of the contents of the blood for barbiturates in addition to the tests for carbon monoxide, the poisonous element in coal gas. The result came through on the Tuesday afternoon, a very strong positive as well as the expected high concentration of carbon monoxide.

He rang up Meredith to tell him about the additional findings.

‘Seems to have a massive dose of sleeping drugs, Superintendent,' he said enthusiastically. ‘The highest level I've ever seen. He must have taken a bucketful!'

‘Any idea how long before he died, Doctor?'

‘Can't say exactly,' he answered. ‘The yellow residues in the stomach look like butobarbitone, which would act very quickly indeed. It has been known to produce death in a matter of minutes when taken in really big doses, though that's unusual.'

‘Is it consistent with him having taken the capsules and then fixing the plastic bag over his head?' asked Old Nick.

‘Yes, doubtless he wanted to make sure of doing a proper job of it,' agreed Kenny, cheerfully. ‘He probably rigged up the gasbag arrangements before taking the capsules.'

‘Anything else of interest, Doctor?'

‘Nothing at all. He was quite healthy and no signs of injury or foul play, or anything like that.'

Meredith put down the phone thoughtfully. He was in his own office at the Divisional Station. Stammers had a room next door and he went through to see him.

‘Moore had a lot of drugs inside him, sleeping pills,' he said. ‘Get Masters to go over the house and see if there are any pillboxes or bottles lying around. Tell him to see if Moore had a prescription lately.'

‘I seem to remember I had one or two dual gas and poison jobs like this when I did a spell as Coroner's Officer some years ago,' said Stammers. ‘Some people do like to make sure of things.'

‘Yes, I'm not worried about it; in fact it strengthens the suicide angle; but we must get all the strings tied up before next week. By the way, what did the Yard say about the typewriter and the note?'

‘Nothing yet, they hadn't touched them when I rang this morning. I dare say they are a bit browned off with it. After all, suicide notes are ten a penny. They said they'd let us know by tomorrow.'

‘Well, keep it in mind. We can't afford to drop any clangers.'

Sergeant Masters went up to the Hampstead flat and let himself in through the battered front door, which was now fastened by a hasp and padlock fitted by the local police. He spent some time searching through cupboards with no success; there seemed to be no drugs of any sort in the house, except hangover cures.

In the kitchen, looking for a waste bin, he discovered a garbage chute which went through the rear wall of the house. He left the flat and went down the steps to the back of the building. The chute ended in a galvanised hopper which was common to all three flats. He rummaged with a stick through the disgusting contents for several minutes before he found what he was looking for – a white cardboard box, about two inches square. It was quite empty and bore the label of a Holborn chemist.

‘Could have come from any of the flats,' he said to himself. ‘But it's better than nothing.'

Masters took it back to the station and showed it to Grey.

‘No purchaser's name on it, boy,' the inspector sighed. ‘That's just to make it harder for us,' he added, with a tired grin.

‘It says ‘one at night'. The name could have been on this bit of label that's torn off.'

Grey nodded his head. ‘Could be,' he agreed. ‘Better go and see the chemist. He may have some ideas about it, but I doubt it. Have the box dusted for fingerprints before you go. It'll be a waste of time, but we'd better play it safe.'

Masters eventually found himself at the chemists' named on the box. It was just before closing time when he entered the shop and he found the dispensing counter wedged in a corner between ‘Sanitary Appliances' and ‘Health Foods'.

A thin girl with projecting teeth was keeping a motley collection of sufferers under observation, as they stood like sick sheep clutching slips of paper. Clinking sounds came from behind a glass partition, where the apothecary was at work.

The girl held her hand out for Masters' prescription.

‘I'd like to see the dispenser, please,' said the sergeant.

‘Did you want a gentleman assistant to serve you?' she sniffed.

‘No, thank you,' Masters replied with a smile. ‘I'm a police officer. I'd like to see the dispenser about his drug register.'

The girl stepped behind the glass screen and immediately a little man in a long white coat scurried out, looking worried.

‘Please come behind, officer,' he twittered. ‘No DDA trouble, I hope?'

He was referring to the Dangerous Drugs Act, the devious regulations of which plague every doctor and chemist.

‘None at all,' Masters reassured him. ‘I was hoping you might be able to help me in tracing some sleeping capsules. We have found a box with the address of this shop on it. The patient's name is missing, unfortunately. Can you give me any idea to whom and when this particular box was issued?'

He handed over the box and the little man looked at it short-sightedly through pebble-lensed spectacles.

‘Dear me, difficult, very difficult!' he muttered, turning the box over. ‘It was certainly dispensed more than three years ago. We changed our style of printing then – this label is one of the old sort. The directions are those of sleeping tablets, of course,' he ended hopefully.