Death of an Expert Witness (15 page)

"What happened then?"

"Bidwell came back. Said that I wasn't to go to the Lab this morning because Mrs. Schofield wanted me over at learnings particular. I was to bike there and she'd run me and the bike home afterwards. Sticking out of the back of that red Jaguar she's got, I suppose. I thought it was a bit of a cheek seeing as I'm due here mornings but I've nothing against Mrs. Schofield and if she wanted me I wasn't above obliging. The Lab would just have to wait, I said to Bidwell. I can't be in two places at once, I said. What don't get done today will get done tomorrow."

"You work here every morning?"

"Except weekends. Gets here as near eight thirty as makes no odds, and works till about ten. Then back at twelve in case any of the gentlemen wants their lunch cooking. The girls mostly manage for themselves.

Afterwards I washes up for them. I reckons to get away by two-thirty most days. Mind you, it's light work. Scobie--he's the Lab attendant--and he sees to the working labs but all the heavy cleaning is supposed to be done by the contractors. They comes on Mondays and Fridays only, from seven until nine, a whole van full of them from Ely, and does the main hall, the stairs and all the heavy polishing.

Inspector Blakelock gets here early those mornings to let them in and Scobie keeps an eye on them. Not that you'd know they'd been most days. No personal interest, you see. Not like the old days when me and two women from the village did the lot."

"So what would you normally have done as soon as you arrived if this had been an ordinary Thursday? I want you to think carefully, Mrs.

Bidwell. This may be very important."

"No need to think. I'd do the same as I does every day."

"Which is?"

"Take off me hat and coat in the downstairs cloakroom. Put on me overalls. Get cleaning bucket and powder and disinfectant from the broom cupboard. Clean the toilets, male and female. Then check dirty laundry and get it bagged up. Put out clean white coats where wanted.

Then dust and tidy Director's office and general office."

"Right," said Dalgliesh. "Let's do the rounds then, shall we?" Three minutes later a curious little procession made its way up the stairs.

Mrs. Bidwell, clad now in a navy-blue working overall and carrying a plastic bucket in one hand and a mop in the other, led the way.

Dalgliesh and Massingham followed. The two lavatories were on the second floor at the rear opposite the Document Examination Laboratory.

They had obviously been converted from what had once been an elegant bedroom. But now a narrow passage leading to the single barred window had been constructed down the middle of the room. A mean-looking door gave entry to the women's cloakroom on the left and, a few yards down, a similar door led to the men's washroom on the right. Mrs. Bidwell led the way into the left-hand room. It was larger than Dalgliesh had expected, but poorly lit from a single round window with pivoting opaque glass set about four feet from the floor.

The window was open. There were three lavatory cubicles. The outer room contained two wash-hand basins with a paper-towel dispenser and, to the left of the door, a long Formica covered counter with a glass above it which apparently served as a dressing-table. To the right were a wall-mounted gas-fired incinerator, a row of clothes-hooks, a large wicker laundry-basket and two rather battered cane chairs.

Dalgliesh said to Mrs. Bidwell: "Is this how you would expect to find it?" Mrs. Bidwell's sharp little eyes peered round. The doors to the three lavatories were open and she gave them a quick inspection.

"No better nor no worse. They're pretty good about the toilets. I'll say that for them."

"And that window is usually kept open?"

"Winter and summer, except it's bitter cold. That's the only ventilation you see."

"The incinerator is off. Is that usual?"

"That's right. Last girl to leave turns it off at night, then I puts it on next morning."

Dalgliesh looked inside. The incinerator was empty except for a trace of carbon ash. He went over to the window. Rain had obviously driven in some time during the night and the dried splashes were clearly visible on the tiled floor. But even the inside pane, where no rain could have splashed, was remarkably clean and there was no discernible dust around the sill. He said:

"Did you clean the window yesterday, Mrs. Bidwell?"

"Of course I did. It's like I told you. I cleans the lavatories every morning. And when I cleans, I cleans. Shall I get on with it now?"

"I'm afraid there'll be no cleaning done today. We'll pretend you've finished in here. Now what happens? What about the laundry?"

The laundry-basket contained only one overall, marked with the initials C.M.E. Mrs. Bidwell said:

"I wouldn't expect many dirty coats, not on a Thursday. They usually manages to make them last a week and drop them in here on Friday before they go home. Monday's the busy day for laundry and putting out the new coats. Looks as though Miss Easterbrook spilt her tea yesterday.

That's not like her. But she's particular is Miss Easterbrook. You wouldn't find her going round with a dirty coat; no matter what day of the week."

So there was at least one member of the Biology Department, thought Dalgliesh, who knew that Mrs. Bidwell would make an early visit to the Lab to put out a clean white coat. It would be interesting to learn who had been present when the fastidious Miss Easterbrook had had her accident with the tea.

The male washroom, apart from the urinal stalls, differed very little from the women's. There was the same round open window, the same absence of any marks on the panes or sill. Dalgliesh carried over one of the chairs and, carefully avoiding any contact with the window or the sill, looked out. There was a drop of about six feet to the top of the window beneath, and an equal drop to that on the first floor. Below them both a paved terrace ran right up to the wall. The absence of soft earth, the rain in the night and Mrs. Bidwell's efficient cleaning meant that they would be lucky to find any evidence of a climb. But a reasonably slim and sure-footed man or woman with enough nerve and a head for heights could certainly have got out this way. But if the murderer were a member of the Lab staff, why should he risk his neck when he must have known that the keys were on Lorrimer? And if the murderer were an outsider, then how account for the locked front door, the intact alarm system, and the fact that Lorrimer must have let him in?

He turned his attention to the washbasins. None was particularly dirty, but near the rim of the one nearest the door there was a smear of porridge-like mucus. He bent his head over the basin and sniffed.

His sense of smell was extremely acute and, from the plug-hole, he detected the faint but unmistakably disagreeable smell of human vomit.

Mrs. Bidwell, meanwhile, had thrown open the lid of the laundry-basket. She gave an exclamation.

"That's funny. It's empty."

Dalgliesh and Massingham turned. Dalgliesh asked: "What were you expecting to find, Mrs. Bidwell?"

"Mr. Middlemass's white coat, that's what."

She darted out of the room. Dalgliesh and Massingham followed. She flung open the door of the Document Examination Room and glanced inside. Then she closed the door again and stood with her back against it. She said:

"It's gone! It's not hanging on the peg. So where is it? Where's Mr. Middlemass's white coat?"

Dalgliesh asked: "Why did you expect to find it in the laundry-basket?"

Mrs. Bidwell's black eyes grew immense. She slewed her eyes furtively from side to side and then said with awed relish:

"Because it had blood on it, that's why. Lorrimer's blood!"

Lastly they went down the main staircase to the Director's office. From the library there was a broken murmur of voices, subdued and spasmodic as a funeral gathering. A detective constable was standing at the front door with the detached watchfulness of a man paid to endure boredom but ready to leap into action should, unaccountably, the boredom end.

Howarth had left his office unlocked and the key in the door. Dalgliesh was interested that the Director had chosen to wait with the rest of the staff in the library, and wondered whether this was intended to demonstrate solidarity with his colleagues, or was a tactful admission that his office was one of the rooms which had been due to receive Mrs.

Bidwell's early morning attention, and must, therefore, be of special interest to Dalgliesh. But that reasoning was surely too subtle. It was difficult to believe that Howarth hadn't entered his room since the discovery of the body. If there were anything to remove, he best of all must have had the chance to do it.

Dalgliesh had expected the room to be impressive, but it still surprised him. The plaster work of the coved ceiling was splendid, a joyous riot of wreaths, shells, ribbons, and trailing vines, ornate and yet disciplined. The fireplace was of white and mottled marble with a finely carved frieze of nymphs and piping shepherds and a classical over mantel with open pediment. He guessed that the agreeably proportioned salon, too small to be partitioned and not large enough for a working laboratory, had escaped the fate of so much of the house more for administrative and scientific convenience than from any sensitivity on Colonel Hoggatt's part to its innate perfection. It was newly furnished in a style guaranteed not to offend, a nice compromise of bureaucratic orthodoxy and modern functionalism. There was a large glass-fronted bookcase to the left of the fireplace, and a personal locker and a coat-stand to the right. A rectangular conference table and four chairs, of a type provided for senior public servants, stood between the tall windows. Next to it was a steel security cupboard fitted with a combination lock. Howarth's desk, a plain contraption in the same wood as the conference table, faced the door. Apart from an ink stained blotter and a pen-stand it held a small wooden bookshelf containing the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, a dictionary of quotations, Roget's Thesaurus and Fowlers Modern English Usage. The choice seemed curious for a scientist. There were three metal trays marked "In,"

"Pending" and "Out." The "Out" tray held two manila files, the top labelled "Chapel--Proposals for transfer to Department of the Environment," and the second, a large, old and unwieldy file which had been much mended, was marked "New Laboratory--Commissioning."

Dalgliesh was struck by the emptiness and impersonality of the whole room. It had obviously been recently decorated for Howarth's arrival, and the pale grey-green carpet, with its matching square under the desk, was as yet unmarked, the curtains hung in pristine folds of dark green. There was only one picture, positioned in the over mantel but this was an original, an early Stanley Spencer showing the Virgin's Assumption. Plump, foreshortened, varicosed thighs in red bloomers floated upwards from a circle of clutching work-worn hands to a reception committee of gaping cherubim. It was, he thought, an eccentric choice for the room, discordant both in date and style. It was the only object, apart from the books, which reflected a personal taste; Dalgliesh hardly supposed that it had been provided by a Government agency. Otherwise the office had the under furnished expectant atmosphere of a room refurbished to receive an unknown occupant, and still awaiting the imprint of his taste and personality.

It was hard to believe that Howarth had worked here for almost a year.

Mrs. Bidwell, her tight little mouth pursed and eyes narrowed, regarded it with obvious disapproval. Dalgliesh asked:

"Is this how you would have expected to find it?"

"That's right. Every bloody morning. Nothing for me to do here really is there? Mind you, I dusts and polishes around and runs the Hoover over the carpet. But he's neat and tidy, there's no denying it. Not like old Dr. MacIntyre. Oh, he was a lovely man! But messy! You should have seen his desk of a morning. And smoke! You couldn't hardly see across the room sometimes. He had this lovely skull on his desk to keep his pipes in. They dug it up when they was making the trench for the pipes to the new vehicle examination extension. Been in the ground more than two hundred years, Dr. Mac said, and he showed me the crack--just like a cracked cup--where his skull had been bashed in.

That's one murder they never solved. I miss that skull. Real lovely that used to look. And he had all these pictures of himself and his friends at university with oars crossed above them, and a coloured one of the Highlands with hairy cattle paddling in a lake, and one of his father with his dogs, and such a lovely picture of his wife--dead she was, poor soul--and another big picture of Venice with gondolas and a lot of foreigners in fancy dress, and a cartoon of Dr. Mac done by one of his friends, showing the friend lying dead, and Dr. Mac in his deerstalker hat looking for clues with his magnifying glass. That was a real laugh that was. Oh, I loved Dr. Mac's pictures!" She looked at the Spencer with a marked lack of enthusiasm.

"And there's nothing unusual about the room this morning?"

"I told you, same as usual. Well, look for yourself. Clean as a new pin. It looks different in the day, mind you, when he's working here.

But he always leaves it as if he isn't expecting to come back in the morning."

There was nothing else to be learned from Mrs. Bidwell. Dalgliesh thanked her and told her that she could go home as soon as she had checked with Detective Sergeant Reynolds in the library that he had all the necessary information about where she had spent the previous evening. He explained this with his usual tact, but tact was wasted on Mrs. Bidwell. She said cheerfully and without rancour: