Antidote To Murder (26 page)

“Very well, Chief Inspector; if you think it will clear my husband’s name.”

Pike bowed. “Thank you. We will do our best. In the meantime, when your husband returns, please urge him to come and see me.” He handed her his card.

“We need to find somewhere to talk, Matthew,” Dody said as they headed away from number seventy-seven Harley Street.

“We do indeed,” said Pike.

* * *

A
rchibald Van Noort paced the length of his parlour. “They suspect me of what, Matilda?” he asked again in disbelief.

“Criminal abortion, Archie; please tell me it isn’t true.”

“Surely you don’t think—”

“I don’t know what to think anymore. But I would never have let the policeman search the house if I had known you were home.”

“Sally saw me. I came in just before our visitors arrived. I was tired and went straight to bed in my dressing room. When I heard the voices on the stairs, I hid behind the curtains. But criminal abortion—that is preposterous!”

“They know you are practising without a licence. Your card was found in the pocket of a dead girl.”

“What girl?”

“I don’t know—they didn’t tell me her name. Can you remember handing anyone your card recently?”

Van Noort shook his head. “I see so many unfortunate girls.”

“Prostitutes,” Matilda clarified.

Van Noort pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. Matilda knew everything, understood more than he deserved, and yet he could still not meet her eye for the shame of it. “No, no, prostitutes are not the only ones who get themselves into trouble—though they are, of course, the hardest to help. The most I can do for them is to warn them to keep away from backstreet operators—there’s a gang of ruffians out there who deliberately lure the girls into undertaking dangerous treatments. And, of course, I encourage them to change their ways. It’s not as useless as it sounds. I have had some successes.”

“But why give these girls your cards? You are no longer a registered doctor. It was only a matter of time before the police came calling.”

“My dear, I don’t need you to point that out. But my card gives me more credibility. When the women and girls see
Doctor
before and the initials after my name, they trust me.”

“Well, I wish you had never done it. The police are sure to come back.”

There was a sudden banging at the door. “Back upstairs,” she whispered urgently.

He was halfway up the stairs when she called out in relief, “It’s all right, it’s only Jack.”

Only Jack, thank God. Not the police, or worse, those men from that filthy street gang. Only Jack.

“What are you doing here?” he asked gruffly. “Is something wrong?”

It took a lot more than a rough tone to hurt Jack’s feelings. “’Ello, Mrs. V, Doc,” the boy said in his usual cocky manner.

“Take your cap off inside, Jack,” Matilda said. He did as he was told and she hugged him. “Are you here to stay this time?”

“I want to, Mrs. V, you know I do, but it’s ’ard, see, wiv Dad now gone.”

Van Noort had not told Matilda where he had met Jack. She might not be so keen to have him in the house if she knew where he spent so much of his time.

“I understand.” Matilda bravely hid her disappointment. “Would you like some biscuits and lemonade?” she offered kindly.

“’S’aw right, Mrs. V, can’t stop now.” Jack turned to Van Noort. “Somefink terrible’s ’appening above the fish shop—’ere, read this.” The boy handed Van Noort a grubby piece of paper.

“What’s this? Did that rascal Dunn give it to you?” Was this a trap?

“Nah, word on the street’s Dunn’s gone to meet ’is maker. Though I reckon ’is maker will probably soon be frowing ’im back to where ’e come from.”

“Don’t make light of it, Jack. Judgement will eventually befall us all,” Van Noort said as he digested the note’s contents. “So, who did give you this?”

“Just some ol’ biddy from the fish shop. Said she thought there was somefink bad going on upstairs and knows you take an interest in this kinda fing.”

“You’ve read this?”

“Course.” Mee-Mee the whore had been teaching Jack his letters, and he was proving to be a quicker learner than any of them had expected.

“Should I call the police?” Matilda asked.

“No, but I will if I catch the blaggard at it.”

“At what?” She looked from one to the other, confused.

Jack twitched at Van Noort’s sleeve. “We gotta go now, Doc, before it’s too late.”

“I’ll explain later, my dear,” Van Noort said.

He retrieved his hat and jacket while Matilda headed for the kitchen, returning with a handful of biscuits. “Put these in your pocket, Jack, and be careful.”

Chapter Thirty

T
he sun blazed down on them as they walked, and Pike had no breath for talking. Sweat streamed down his face, and Dody had to slow her pace for him to keep up, his cane
tap-tapping
on the footpath. Feeling the heat herself, she suggested they stop at Debenham and Freebody off Cavendish Square, which like many of the larger draperies, had a luncheon room especially for ladies on serious shopping expeditions.

Pike excused himself to make a telephone call while Dody freshened up in the cloakroom. They met again at the restaurant’s entrance, and the waiter found them a table.

Dody was relieved to find the atmosphere between the two of them had returned to much as it had been before their disastrous evening together.

He placed the order: a dandelion and burdock drink for Dody, ale for himself, and a plate of sandwiches to share.

He took several swallows of ale and immediately looked the stronger for it, listening intently as she recounted her conversation with Mrs. Van Noort.

“Poor woman,” he said, drawing his brow. “But you think she was still keeping things from you?”

“She left so many gaps, which only my knowledge of her husband’s particular form of brain damage can begin to fill.”

“And that is?”

“I think he suffers from temporal lobe epilepsy due to damage to that part of the brain. Sufferers’ symptoms vary. Some exhibit sudden outbursts of unexpected aggression, agitation, and grand mal fits. But from what I gather of his wife’s descriptions and yours, Van Noort seems to experience aura-like phenomena accompanied by incomplete though violent seizures.”

Dody thought back to Spilsbury’s comments that certain topics should never be discussed openly between the sexes. Would Pike feel the same? Now was as good a time as any to find out.

“Patients with temporal lobe damage are often left with heightened libido and religious mania, the combination of which must result in terrifying internal battles.”

Pike made no reaction. The notion of “proper” conversation between males and females did not seem to enter his thinking. Their minds seemed to meet on so many levels, she hoped that somehow they would find a way to cast aside the barriers that separated them.

“He did strike me as a religious type, and his lust for Mata Hari seemed incongruous, to say the least,” Pike said.

“The man is also suffering from some kind of hysteria as a result of his war trauma.” Dody looked at Pike. The more she reflected on his behaviour at the hospital, the more she thought he might be suffering from a similar affliction.

He refused to meet her eye and helped himself to an egg and cress sandwich from the platter. “The head injury and peculiar behaviour I can believe. The hysteria, as I understand, is due to a lack of moral fibre.”

A common idea amongst men of Pike’s cloth, Dody mused, and a terrible misconception. It confounded her to think that he might see this in himself. She did not think she had met a more courageous or principled man. Unfortunately this was not the time or the place to take the matter further.

“As for his drastic change in sexual behaviour,” she continued, “he would hate himself for being unable to control his urges.”

“He is a rapist also?”

“No, I don’t think he is. It is a certain type of woman who would trigger his lust and the type of woman he seems to favour would be more than willing. As long as he could pay, there would be no need for force.”

“I’ve seen him on at least two occasions in the company of a young lad. You don’t think . . .”

Dody saved Pike the discomfort of continuing. “No, I don’t think so. He and his wife were devastated when they discovered they could not have children. He is possibly just exercising his paternal instincts.”

Pike shuddered. “I hope you’re right. Though it is possible his wife knows him less well than she thinks.”

“Yes, that is possible.” Dody took a sip of her cool drink. “And what of you—other than the pill press, did you discover anything else in the house?”

“As a matter of fact, I did.” Pike paused. His eyes shone; he was pleased with himself.

“Will I have to use torture to extract the information?”

“I will tell you gladly. You are proving most helpful—I am glad Spilsbury forced you to come along.” He smiled.

“Hardly forced, but go on.”

“He was in the bedroom, hiding. I sensed he was there and then I noticed the toes of his boots behind the curtains. He has a”—Pike waved a hand through the air as if trying to catch a word—“a peculiar presence about him. I acted as if I had not seen him, but telephoned the Yard as soon as we arrived here. I’ve asked Fisher to assign some men to follow him and I can only hope he doesn’t vanish before they get into position.”

“But what good will following him do?”

“If he is innocent, it will be for his own protection. If he is guilty, we might catch him in the act. Meanwhile, I’ll have the pill press tested and see if it produces the same kind of indentations as found on the illegal tablets.”

“Much as it pains me to say it, I don’t believe he is innocent.”

“The man is of unsound mind—any lawyer worth his salt will be able to prove that. If he is guilty, he will be prevented from committing such crimes again and he will be helped. I guarantee he will not hang.”

Pike insisted Dody take the last sandwich from the plate. She was not hungry and still suffering from intermittent bouts of cholera, but she forced it down with the remainder of her drink. Dispiritedly she said, “And there’s still Borislav’s account of a doctor with a foreign name in his shop.”

Pike sighed. “Vague conjecture which we must not allow to blinker our investigation.” It was strange that they both wished Van Noort to be innocent. Perhaps, in different ways, they both had sometimes walked in his shoes.

They needed a change of topic; the case was making them melancholy. And there was still the other matter weighing on Dody’s mind. She might as well broach the subject; she had nothing more to lose now.

“At about the time of the inquest, I received flowers and a box of marzipans with a brief, unsigned note of apology.”

His eyebrows rose. “You have a secret admirer?”

“Is that such a surprise?” she asked with some pique.

“No, no, forgive me. I didn’t mean it to sound like that.”

“I have no idea who the gifts were from. I thought”—she paused for a breath of courage—“at the time the gifts must have been from you, but now I’m not so sure.”

“I assure you, Dody,” Pike said, covering her hand with his. “I have never kept my admiration of you secret.”

Chapter Thirty-One

T
he young lady from the river has been officially identified by her father as Elizabeth Strickland,” Fisher said to Pike as they bounced along in the dispatch van to Everard’s house. “I sent men to interview her work colleagues and it did not take long to find her young man. I interviewed him this morning, and he was distraught and quite cooperative after I told him he would not be charged with procuring abortifacients if he provided us with information.”

“Good. And?”

“He bought the tablets at the Crown and Anchor on Dorset Street. Naturally he was not given the seller’s name, but he described him as having an ugly mug—as if he’d been kicked by a horse, he said. I made further enquiries and believe the name of the man to be—”

“Daniel Dunn?”

“The same, sir. I had Dunn’s premises searched but found no tablets nor tablet-making equipment.”

“And the pill press I took from Van Noort’s study is perfectly smooth; it did not produce tablets with the pitted surfaces. So, who the devil was Dunn working for, Fisher?”

“I don’t know, sir, although I am following the idea that he was involved in some kind of a gang, with possibly Van Noort and Everard at the top of it.”

Again Pike wondered what the connection might be between the two doctors. What kind of a hold, if any, did the older man have over the younger?

“Have you heard from the men watching Van Noort?” he asked, aware of how stretched the surveillance team was, with but one pair of men assigned to each suspect. He could only hope they were more reliable than the men who had been assigned to the late admiral.

Fisher grimaced. “I’m afraid he’d already left the house by the time they got into position. A streetsweeper saw him leaving earlier in the company of a young lad.”

“Damn—but someone is still watching his house?”

“Yes, sir.”

That was better than nothing. Considering the time it took to organise such matters, it came as no surprise that they had lost him. If Pike’s knee had not been playing up so much, he would have hung around and followed the man himself. But, he reminded himself, that would have meant leaving Dody to make her own way home and he was glad he had been able to escort her. Towards the end of their lunch she had looked quite unwell. When they reached her door, she had promised him she would rest, and he hoped she had kept her word.

“What about Everard? Any movement there?”

“No, sir. He has not been seen since after he was released from the cells and returned home to his wife. Their house has no telephone for us to listen in to, and as far as my men can tell, no notes have been sent out or delivered.”

Pike said nothing. Could it be that there was no connection at all between the two? It was possible Van Noort had performed the disastrous operation on Esther Craddock independently and Everard merely used the death to stir up trouble for Dody.

But who had employed and later murdered Dunn? No one at the hospital had been able to give them a description of the poisoner. He seemed to have blended in with the other doctors visiting the ward on that chaotic night. Everard might have got away with this, but surely not Van Noort with his long gangly legs, sallow skin, and peculiar mannerisms. Van Noort was one of the most unusual-looking men Pike had ever met, and even an overworked nurse would surely have noticed him.

Fisher had a few more solid facts for him. “The Everards live in a semidetached residence within walking distance of the Paddington Mortuary,” he said as they chugged past the modern coronial complex. “They have two children, a boy of four years and a girl of two. They employ a maid, a cook, and a nanny.” Outside the van window, neat semidetached homes with well-kept front gardens passed by. “We’re almost there, sir.”

“How can he afford three staff on his wage?” Pike mused.

“Like Dr. McCleland, Everard’s work at the mortuary is part-time. He has rooms close by from which he works as a general practitioner.”

“But he must be stretched.”

“I wouldn’t know about that, sir. But he could not have killed Dunn. I sent some men to his rooms to make some enquiries. On the morning that Dunn was murdered, Everard was delivering a baby. He had been up all night with the mother—it was a difficult birth.”

“If his wife and servants verify that he was home on the afternoon of the firebombing, that leaves us with nothing but the letters he still denies sending.”

“Are we barking up the wrong tree then, sir?”

“Everard’s guilty of something, Fisher. Of that I am sure.”

The police van dropped them outside a red door in the middle of a neat row of Queen Anne–style semidetached homes. Harley Street this was not, but the area had a pleasant, middle-class feel that Pike found appealing. An image of Dody came unbidden: opening the door to him, pulling him into the cool of the small hall, and covering him with kisses, children’s toys scattered on the stairs behind her. He sighed. Perhaps he was seeking the unobtainable; perhaps he was more like Margaretha than he cared to think. He feared that Dody could no more fit into his world than he could into hers. He shook the thought away as the red door opened for them.

The maid showed them into a cramped parlour and introduced Mrs. Henry Everard. Beside him, Fisher drew breath. Pike hoped he managed to hide his surprise more effectively as Mrs. Everard held out her hand from the confines of a wheeled invalid’s chair. No wonder the Everards needed all the domestic help they could get.

Henry Everard entered the room collarless and in his shirtsleeves, stopped abruptly in the doorway, and bristled. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Henry, please,” his wife said.

Everard pushed past the police officers and took his wife’s hand. “I’m sorry, my dear,” he said, “but I think they have come to bully information out of you.” He shot an accusing look at Pike.

“If you mean by enquiring of your wife your whereabouts on the afternoon of the twenty-fifth, you are correct, sir.”

“My husband was with me, Chief Inspector.”

No surprises there, Pike thought, Everard had probably briefed her already. The servants might tell a different story, though. Paltry wages would surely be a measure of their loyalty when confronted with the weight of the law. “Have a word with the servants, please, Inspector,” Pike said.

Fisher gave a start, drawing his mind back from other things. The woman maintained her composure, but must have noticed his eyes scanning her wheelchair. “In case you are wondering, Inspector, I was semiparalysed in a carriage accident about eighteen months ago.”

Fisher stuttered some apologies and left the room. Pike admired Mrs. Everard’s frankness, as well as the open shine of her green eyes. She was an attractive woman despite being crippled. Her brown hair was unfashionably short—practical and easy to cope with, he supposed. But his sympathy for her did not extend to her husband, who had succeeded in making Dody’s life a misery over the last few weeks. He would not allow these kinds of emotions to temper his questioning or distract him from his purpose.

“If your husband was with you on the afternoon of the twenty-fifth, can you tell me who might have borrowed his motorcar?” he asked.

Pike watched the couple carefully; they made no eye contact or gave any other noticeable signals. “I have no idea,” Mrs. Everard answered. “The motorcar is rarely used; it was a gift to Henry from my father. We find it unreliable and expensive to run—Henry barely knows how to drive it, isn’t that right, dear?” Everard dropped his head. “He just likes to polish it.”

“I did not lend it to anyone,” Everard muttered like a sulky child.

“I would like to look at it then,” Pike said.

“Very well.” Everard heaved a sigh. “Follow me.”

They met up with Fisher in the hall. According to him, the servants had confirmed what their mistress had said, that Everard had been at home on the afternoon of the firebombing.

They followed the doctor through the garden to a converted stable backing onto a lane at the rear of the property. As Pike trod the path bordered by urns of vibrant blooms and reclining marble cherubs, he wondered if he might be able to strike some kind of bargain. Everard was hiding something—that much was obvious—but if Mrs. Everard could persuade her husband to tell them all he knew, such as who it was driving his motorcar, his sentence might be reduced.

At the stable Everard drew the heavy bolts and pushed aside the creaking door, revealing a vacant space bordered by a wheelbarrow, a stack of dirty terra-cotta pots, and a pile of empty hessian sacks.

“As you can see,” Everard said, poker-faced, “the horse has bolted.”

Fisher reddened and took a step towards Everard. “Why didn’t you tell us that in the first place? What the hell’s happened to the bloody thing?”

Pike straightened from his examination of an oily patch on the ground. “A motorcar was kept here until recently.”

“Indeed one was—until it was stolen,” Everard said. Fisher flexed his fingers. “As my wife said, it was a gift from her father, one of his last gifts before he died. She was sentimentally attached to the vehicle. I did not want her distressed by its theft and chose to keep the matter from her. I trust you will do the same.” He shrugged as if the matter were out of his hands.

Fisher had had enough. He grabbed the man by the front of his waistcoat. “You could have said this earlier when you were first questioned and saved us a good deal of time. You’re making this up as you go along, covering for someone else, damn it.”

“Let go of him, Fisher,” Pike said, understanding fully how his colleague felt.

Fisher released his grip, and Everard made a show of dusting himself down. Pike said, “You are not taking this seriously enough, Dr. Everard.” He nodded towards the house. “It seems to me that you have a lot to lose here.”

When they returned to Mrs. Everard in the parlour, Pike asked, “Is your wife aware that you might be charged with murder—at the very least, as an accessory? For her sake, you must tell me what I need to know. Tell me about the man you are in league with. Frankly, I do not believe you are responsible for Dunn’s murder and the deaths of the two young women, but I think you know who is.” He glanced from husband to wife. “And I think that is the same man you lent your motorcar to.”

Mrs. Everard held out her hand to her husband. “Henry, please, whatever you have done, I forgive you for it—just tell the police what you know.”

Her cooperation with the police despite her obvious love for her husband reminded Pike of Mrs. Van Noort; he marvelled at how two obviously flawed men could have such intelligent, loyal wives. Perhaps a female influence on parliament would not be such a bad thing after all.

“All right,” Everard said through clenched teeth, “I wrote the bloody letters, but that is all I did.” Mrs. Everard gasped and brought up a hand to cover her mouth. Her husband would not or could not bring himself to look at her. “Are you satisfied now, Chief Inspector?”

“On whose instructions?” Pike asked.

“My own—and you know why. I resent the woman.”

“I think you were told to write the letters by the man who borrowed your car.”

Everard turned his back on them.

“Tell us who borrowed your car,” Fisher said.

“I’ve got nothing to tell you,” Everard said with a heave of his shoulders.

Pike removed Van Noort’s water-stained card from his jacket pocket and tapped Everard on the back with it, obliging him to turn. “Do you know this man?”

The doctor took the card and looked at it, then handed it back, his countenance unchanged. “No. Never heard of him.”

“But there is someone whom you are in league with—you admit to that?” Fisher barked.

“I admit to absolutely nothing except the letters.”

“Cooperate with us now and you might be able to avoid a lengthy prison sentence,” Pike said.

Everard folded his arms and said nothing.

Mrs. Everard dropped her head into her hands and began to weep.

“Look, the poor woman’s too upset for us to continue,” Pike said under his breath to Fisher. “Let’s leave them alone and maybe she’ll talk him out of this stubborn mind-set.” Louder, he said, “Mrs. Everard, if you or your husband have anything else to divulge, please contact me.” He handed her his card. To Everard he said, “A bailiff from the courts will be visiting you shortly to notify you of your appearance before the magistrate to face charges of libel and perverting the course of justice. I suspect a murder charge might also be pending. Good day to you both; we will see ourselves out.”

On the front porch Fisher said to Pike, “Well, that was most unpleasant.”

“Unpleasant indeed, but worth it; he admitted to the letters.”

“But why did he write them?” Fisher asked.

“Because someone pressured him into it, someone who might be using Mrs. Everard’s unfortunate situation to his advantage.” There were no boundaries to what a man would do for the woman he loved—Fisher would know that.

“Is it worth keeping the men in position?” Fisher nodded to a man up the street, propped against a lamppost with an open newspaper.

“Absolutely. They must follow him when he leaves the house.”

“Do you expect him to leave, sir?”

“I have no doubt about it. He is facing the prospect of prison and he will need to make provisions for his wife. His silence must be worth something to someone.”

* * *

A
short nap had left Dody feeling refreshed and her stomach a little more settled, too. These continuing bouts of English cholera were debilitating, and puzzling—she should surely be immune to it by now. Some dry toast might help. She washed her face in her bathroom and redid her hair. She was losing weight, she noticed, as she tightened her belt another notch. Taking the new bottle of effervescent powder Borislav had made up for her from the medicine cupboard, she added three teaspoons to a glass of water and drank it down. It was a triple dose, but today she needed something stronger than the meat juice she had been relying on to keep herself going.

Annie met her on the stairs. “Chief Inspector Pike is in the morning room, Miss Dody. Are you up to receiving visitors?”