Antidote To Murder (16 page)

Chapter Nineteen

P
ike’s dread increased with each step along the plush carpet to the hotel room door. He repeated a phrase in his head—
I told them to warn him, I told them to warn him
—a feeble attempt to ease his overwhelming sense of responsibility. The admiral was an eager participant in the plan, he told himself. Not only had he grasped at the chance to serve his country, but he’d been more than willing to satisfy his baser instincts as well. He had been on high alert and had been warned of the danger. What, then, had gone wrong?

A uniformed constable stood guard outside a corner suite at the end of the corridor, where a small man in a brown suit paced to and fro. The small man looked up at the sound of Pike’s tread and hurried to meet him.

“And you are?” Pike asked coldly. The man pulled out his warrant card and handed it to Pike. “Detective Constable Appleby.” Pike slowly mouthed every syllable. He’d been briefed by Callan earlier on who the man was, what he had and had not done.

Pike looked closely at Appleby and noticed a purpling bruise around his swollen left eye. The detective delved into his waistcoat pocket and removed a gold sovereign. “Here, sir, take this. I was going to give it to the widows’ and orphans’ fund.”

“As you still will,” Pike said without taking the money. “Tell me what happened.”

“I exchanged places with Detective Constable Simpson outside the dining room when the admiral and the lady were about halfway through their meal. I sat in the hotel lobby so I could follow them upstairs when they’d finished. I caught the lift immediately after the one they were on, and as I stepped out on their floor, the admiral accosted me. Quite aggressive and drunk.”

“He assaulted you?”

“Yes, well, but I’d rather not make anything of it.”

I bet you won’t,
Pike thought.

“He didn’t mince his words, told me to take the money and get lost, go down to the bar, anything but hang around the corridor—said he could handle matters himself.”

Stupid old fool,
Pike thought to himself. What did the admiral think he could do alone? “Had you or Simpson seen anything that aroused your suspicion?”

“No, sir.”

“And your instructions?”

“To sit in the dark in the adjoining room with the door ajar to keep an eye on the admiral’s room and to watch if anyone else was to enter it.”

“And the admiral objected to that?”

Appleby shrugged, brushed a pale thread from his jacket sleeve. “Must have.”

Pike stared pointedly at the man for a moment. “What are you not telling me, Appleby? What did you do to upset the admiral?”

Appleby paled. “Just a small misunderstanding, sir.”

“I’m sure.” Pike pushed past the detective and flicked his warrant card to the constable guarding the door. A pungent smell assaulted him as he entered the room. The admiral lay naked on the giant bed, body arched, the back of his head jammed between the mattress and the bed head, his blackened face contorted into an agonised grimace.

Trying to avoid the hideous eyes, Pike leaned over the body and examined the handcuffs fixing the dead man’s hands to the head of the bed. They were police issue, similar to those usually attached to the admiral’s briefcase.

Pike straightened and glanced around the opulent white, gold, and scarlet room. There were two others present apart from himself, an elderly sergeant and a police photographer. A constable sat with Margaretha in the adjacent room, where Detective Appleby was supposed to have been stationed for the night. As a courtesy, the hotel had provided the room for continuing use of the police. Pike had already spoken to the twittering hotel manager and suggested it was in the Ritz’s best interest to cooperate.

“The admiral usually kept his briefcase cuffed to his wrist; I can’t see it anywhere,” Pike said to the sergeant as he pushed through the dead man’s clothes with the toe of his boot. “Have you made a thorough search?”

“Ah, yes, sir. Left the briefcase under the bed where I found it. I didn’t want to touch it; know what you Special Branch chaps are like.”

Pike ignored the sergeant’s attempt at a jocular tone and dropped to his knees. Bone ground on bone. He suppressed a grunt of pain, slid out the case, and placed it on the bed.

He inspected the latch. Damaged, prised open by a small knife by the looks of it. With a handkerchief wrapped around his hand to prevent contamination by his own prints, Pike opened the lid and gazed at the case’s contents: a copy of yesterday’s
Times
and a fountain pen, but none of the planted documents. He picked up the pen and immediately felt the black ink seeping through his handkerchief. There was an ink stain on the newspaper where the pen had rested. The gathering of fingerprints would now be even more arduous than usual.

“Damn it,” Pike cursed. He threw the pen back into the case and made his way to the bedroom sink.

“What was supposed to be in the briefcase, sir?” the sergeant asked.

Pike did not reply, but scrubbed at his hands under the running water until the black trickle turned to grey. The sergeant should have known better than to question a Special Branch officer. Fortunately the genuine blueprints of the Dreadnought’s new fifteen-inch guns were residing safely in the Admiralty strongroom. The stolen papers were fakes, but the fewer who knew that the better. The prospect of the Germans wasting time and resources on plans that were at least four years out of date had given the British military authorities much satisfaction.

“Who raised the alarm?” Pike asked as he dried his hands on a fluffy white towel hanging next to the sink.

“The woman in his bed”—the sergeant coughed—“discovered the admiral like this when she woke up early this morning. She ran screaming into the corridor and told the maid, who contacted the hotel manager. He located your man, who had fallen asleep in the lobby and who in turn called Special Branch.” He paused. “And here you are, sir.”

“Yes. Here I am.”

How could Margaretha not notice someone dying in such a violent manner beside her in the bed? Although, Pike conceded, having witnessed Margaretha’s condition after a hashish binge, perhaps it was possible she slept through the admiral’s death throes.

“Did she say whether, when she ran out into the corridor, the door was locked or unlocked?” Pike asked.

“I’m afraid I didn’t ask her that, sir.”

Pike tried to hide his frustration, stepped from the room, and examined the brass plate under the door lock. Several thin lines scored the polished sheen of the plate. He licked his finger and rubbed at one, causing it to fade. Brass fittings were polished every day in this kind of hotel; these scratches were new.

Returning to the sergeant, he said, “I think the lock was picked.” He pointed to a heavy key on the bedside table. “That’s the door key, still where it was placed after one of them locked up last night.”

He scanned the room again. Women’s clothes spilled from a gilt chair next to a table where Margaretha’s water pipe stood. The smell of stale smoke in the room suggested it had been used within the last few hours. Dirty blobs of water surrounded the pipe and two empty champagne glasses rested next to it. An empty bottle of French champagne lay under the table.

“See if you can lift some fingerprints from the champagne bottle, briefcase, and table—and try not to touch them yourself,” Pike said to the sergeant.

The sergeant sighed. He was old-school and had not taken to the new innovations in crime detection that always so intrigued Pike. But, Pike thought soberly, he’d not been able to think up any bright ideas this time.
Please God,
he prayed,
help me find justice for the admiral and make up for his death, even if I can’t make up for the blood of Bloemfontein on my hands.

He stepped aside for the police photographer to set up his tripod, and soon the chemical smell of flash powder had replaced the sweet pungency of hashish and the bleachy odour of lust. When the photographer had finished, Pike brushed away the residual flash-smoke from the air and pulled the sheet over the body. The arrival of the police surgeon was imminent, but the dead man deserved some dignity in the interim.

He lifted the admiral’s braided jacket from the floor and went through his pockets, finding a cigarette case, a handkerchief, some loose change, and a small key.

The key fitted the lock of the handcuffs, which he unlocked. The admiral’s arms flopped to the bed, and Pike tucked them under the sheet.

On the bedside table next to the key there stood a small, unlabelled jar. He unscrewed the lid, sniffed the contents, tipped some of the brown tablets into his palm, and showed them to the sergeant. “Any idea what these are?”

“No, sir, but the surgeon is on his way. He’ll know them.”

Pike slipped two of the tablets into his pocket. “I might be able to get them identified sooner.” He still planned on visiting Dody once he’d finished here and would ask her then—if she was talking to him, of course.

He found nothing of interest amongst the female articles of clothing: a blue satin blouse, a tight hobble skirt, and various items of risqué underwear, which he had seen more often than not strewn across Margaretha’s dressing room floor.

* * *

W
hen she saw who he was, Margaretha went for him like a wildcat, tearing at his cheek with her sharp talons and ripping red furrows through his skin before the constable could wrestle her to the bed.

“Shall I cuff her, sir?” the young man asked.

Pike nodded and dabbed at his bleeding cheek with his handkerchief, bright red blood joining inky black stains. “Then leave us, please.”

The constable closed the door. Pike sat on the end of the bed and regarded Margaretha in silence. Her right arm hung from the cuff attached to the head of the bed. The lacy neck of her silken negligee had been stretched during the scuffle, leaving one small but perfect breast exposed.

“Cover yourself up,” he said.

She lunged as far as the cuff would let her and spat at him. Her aim fell short and the blob landed on the eiderdown. “You do it,” she said, hatred gleaming in her coal dark eyes. “You’ve always wanted to touch me; now’s your chance.”

The contrived smile made his skin crawl. “These kinds of games might have worked with the admiral, but they don’t work with me,” he said.

Pike moved to the window and pulled back the net curtain, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck in an attempt to ease the tension. Below stretched the wooded meadows of Green Park, through which women under lacy parasols strolled arm in arm with men in boaters and striped blazers: a world far removed from the one he was in now. Opening the sash window, he inhaled the tickling scent of mown grass and felt himself begin to calm.

“Tell me what happened,” he said without turning from the view.

“Laat me met rust!”
Leave me be! Pike had learned enough Afrikaans in South Africa to understand this much Dutch.

She reverted back to English. “Then I shall tell you right now, Mr. Piano-Playing Policeman, that I did not kill him.”

“Let me decide that. What happened after I dropped you off at the hotel?”

“We dined late in the restaurant here—a magnificent meal prepared by M. Escoffier himself.”

“And how was the admiral’s mood?”

“Very jolly, especially when I tantalised him to his peak under the table.”

Pike ignored that. “Could he have eaten anything that made him ill?”

“We had the same meal. As you can see, I am perfectly well.”

“And then what?”

“We went up to our room.”

“I believe the admiral had a confrontation with a man in the corridor.”

Margaretha rolled her eyes. “The admiral said he was spying on us.” Her features lightened. “Ah, one of yours, of course. I should have guessed that filthy little man was one of yours.”

“The admiral knew about him. Amongst other things, the man was supposed to be your protection.” At her mocking laugh he said, “Please explain.”

“We had just begun to enjoy ourselves in our room—”

“With champagne and hashish.”

“No, the hashish came later—when we heard a strange noise from the walls between the rooms. The admiral found your little friend here, in this room”—Margaretha pointed to a painting on the wall depicting a reclining Venus—“at a peep hole, watching us.”

Pike moved to the adjoining wall and pushed the picture aside. Sure enough, a neatly bored hole through the wall zeroed in on the big bed next door. Bloody Appleby was in for it now. He couldn’t blame the admiral for sending the scoundrel on his way with a shiner; he would have done the same himself. And the bribe? Nonsense, the money was probably from Appleby’s own pocket. He’d see to it that Appleby lost more than his sovereign.

“And then?”

“The admiral was feeling inhibited, so I persuaded him to have some puffs of my pipe. It had the desired effect—we made love over and over again until we fell asleep. The rest you know, I think.”

Hearing the catch in her voice, he allowed himself to turn from the wall. Thankfully she had covered herself up and was busy patting at her tears with the bed sheet, finally behaving as a woman ought after suffering such trauma.

“Did you or the admiral lock the bedroom door?” he asked, adjusting his tone to remove some of its earlier sting.

Margaretha shrugged. “Who knows?”

“Did you see anyone else who looked suspicious, other than the policeman?”

Again she shrugged, “When you are in love, you only have eyes for your sweetheart. Then again, you probably know nothing of love, do you? Or is it men like Gabriel Klassen who are more to your taste?”

Love? Is that what she called her liaisons with the admiral? He rubbed his hand across his brow. This task would be easier if she had been nothing but a stranger to him.

The sergeant put his head around the door. “The police surgeon has examined the body, sir, and reckons the pills are strychnine. Says he thinks the admiral died from strychnine poisoning.”

“Thank you.” Pike returned to the woman. “You heard what he said?”

Her sudden pallor said she had. She tugged against the handcuff. “You think I poisoned him?”