Our Jubilee is Death (17 page)

“What can I get for you, sir?” asked Mr Cupperly without smiling.

“Aspirin,” said Carolus. “But I also wanted to ask you a couple of questions.”

“Gallup poll?”

“No, no. Professional questions.”

“Ah,” said Mr Cupperly and looked even more important.

“You see, I'm making a private investigation of the death of Mrs Bomberger.”

“Now there, sir, we touch on difficult ground,” said Mr Cupperly with some unction. “We approach a delicate question.”

“Why?”

“I respect the confidence of my customers. I cannot play fast and loose with information entrusted to me.”

“But I'm not asking you to do that.”

“When a doctor writes a prescription,” went on Mr Cupperly, “he does so in the full confidence that the member of the pharmaceutical profession who is required to make it up will regard it as a sacred trust.”

“I'm only asking …”

“We do not actually take the Hippocratic oath, but the more conscientious of us feel bound by it.”

“The question I want to put…”

“In the eleven years I have had this shop I may say that I have never been guilty of the smallest breach of that trust which was laid on me when I became a registered pharmaceutical chemist after satisfying the Pharmaceutical Society and attending an approved systematic course of not less than one thousand six hundred hours in botany, chemistry, pharmacognosy, pharmacy and forensic pharmacy.”

“I simply wanted …”

“Although I recognize that in cases of sudden decease in which murder is suspected, the pharmacist's knowledge of the deceased person's habits may be valuable to the authorities and should be placed at their disposal I cannot approve of giving details to unauthorized persons.”

“But…”

“If, of course, you could satisfy me that you have some official status in the matter and come to me with the approval of all concerned, I should feel inclined to waive the formalities and give you the details you require.”

“I only want …”

“If on the other hand it is in a spirit of mere curiosity, almost one might say in pursuit of a hobby, that you enquire, my lips must remain sealed.”

“I have been called in by the family. I really need your information, Mr Cupperly. I think it may enable me to clear this beastly thing up.”

“In that case I will do my best. But I think it inadvisable to discuss these matters in the shop. It is early closing day today, and if you would care to call in the afternoon I shall be pleased to assist you.”

“Where do you live?” asked Carolus, who was at that moment longing for fresh air.

“We have an apartment in this building. Over the shop, in fact. Four-thirty, I suggest.”

“Thank you,” said Carolus, and fled from antiseptics and perfumes, Hippocratic oaths and duties to clients, into the fresh air from the North Sea.

But at four-thirty he was back and was led by Mr Cupperly through the side door and up a flight of stairs to a sitting-room as polished as the counter downstairs, its three-ply furniture shining and its very fire-irons having a black glow. Mrs Cupperly, a fierce-looking woman with dark hair and feline movements, sat behind a tea-tray.

“I'm just going to pour out for you, then I'm going down to the beach to pick up the children while you have your natter.”

She scarcely waited to hand Carolus bread and butter before she disappeared, clearly by pre-arrangement with her husband.

Mr Cupperly meant to enjoy himself, as Carolus saw at once. He leaned back in his chair, joined the tips of his fingers and said, “Now!”

“I understand that there were three kinds of narcotics …”

“Soporifics.”

“Soporifics, then, used in that house. Bromaloid, which was taken by Miss Pink in liquid form …”

“You can really leave that out. Its chemical contents were not interesting and no one else took it. Miss Pink had the old-fashioned idea that sleeping-pills of any sort were dangerous but a ‘dose of medicine' before going to bed would do no one any harm. She never touched any of the others and Bromaloid is the mildest thing we have. A whole bottle wouldn't have hurt her. The effect was psychological.”

“I see. Next there were the Komatoza tablets taken by the two sisters.”

“Yes. Komatoza is a preparation of pheno-barbitone which can only be sold on a doctor's prescription.”

“They had one, of course ?''

“Dr Flitcher's. Yes. I supplied them with that regularly, and have done for eighteen months or so.”

“You have a full record of your sales to them of it?”

“Yes, I have. And that is what you are going to find interesting, I think. That is why I showed a certain reserve in parting with my information.”

“Yes?”

Mr Cupperly referred to certain notes which he had beside him.

“The Stayers started taking Komatoza in January of last year. At first their joint consumption was no more than a dozen tablets a week, but as time went on this increased, until in January of this year they were using
twenty tablets a week between them. I'll spare you the details, but these tablets are sold in boxes of twenty-five, and my records, which have to be accurate with pheno-barbitone preparations, enable me to say in weekly terms just what they took.”

“Good. That makes it easier for me.”

“This consumption did not vary for a long time, then about three months ago it increased. Mrs Bomberger came to me and asked for sleeping-pills of some kind. ‘I have had certain business anxieties lately,' she confided in me. ‘And sometimes I find I cannot sleep. It is not often that this happens, but I like to be prepared for it when it does.' I asked why she did not try the Komatoza, which her nieces used. She said, ‘Well, to tell you the truth I find it quite ineffective. I am possibly a more difficult subject than my nieces.' I then recommended her to consult her doctor, who could give her a prescription for something more effective. Some days later one of her nieces …”

“Which?”

“Fortunately I can tell you that, since she had to sign the book. It was Miss Babs Stayer. She brought in Dr Flitcher's prescription for certain sleeping-pills which are only given to patients suffering severe pain or in very obstinate cases of insomnia. They are, like most drugs nowadays, manufactured by one of the great firms and ready for sale under a doctor's certificate. They also are a pheno-barbitone preparation, but with morphine. I gave the niece the usual warning and wrote clearly on the box that not more than one tablet was to be taken at a time. You may know that the Labelling of Poisons Order, which came into force on the first day of January 1926, makes it an offence to sell any preparation containing an ingredient to which the Pharmacy Act applies without stating on the label the proportion of the specified poison to the whole preparation. Needless to say, I have always conformed most scrupulously with this Order.”

“Quite, quite.”

Undeterred, Mr Cupperly proceeded, “Moreover, the Dangerous Drug Act of 1920-23 lays down that except by a doctor's prescription certain drugs may not be suppplied at all. These are morphine, cocaine, ecgonine, diamorphine, heroin and their respective salts, and medicinal opium. Even when there is a doctor's prescription, a careful register must be kept of these drugs, both of quantities bought by the pharmacist and of those sold by him. You can imagine that in selling these things to Mrs Bomberger I was particularly careful to conform with all orders. I repeated them verbally to Miss Babs Stayer.”

I bet you did, thought Carolus, but replied, “Naturally.”

“After I had given her the first supply of the tablets prescribed by Dr Flitcher I heard no more from her for some six weeks. But during this time the quantity of Komatoza used by the nieces noticeably increased, until recently it was something over forty tablets a week. I was somewhat perturbed by this and intended to consult Dr Flitcher, but unfortunately it slipped my mind until too late.”

“You were telling me about Mrs Bomberger's tablets.”

“Oh yes. At the end of six weeks she was supplied again through Miss Babs Stayer, with a second box containing, like the first, twenty tablets. The police inform me that they found this box by her bed with six tablets missing on the day after her death. They brought the box to me, in fact, to identify.”

“Thank you, Mr Cupperly. May I say that you are admirably clear and explicit?”

“A pharmacist becomes accustomed to precision, Mr Deene. I see no reason why he should not be as accurate in using words as in making up a prescription.”

“I suppose it's a bit out of your province, but do you find anything odd in the fact that poison was still in the dead woman's intestines even after her immersion?”

“It is, as you say, out of my province. The
Fédération Internationale Pharmaceutique
insists that a pharmacist should
study a certain number of subjects, but he is not required to be able to conduct post-mortems.”

As though he was fascinated by a mesmeric cobra, Carolus heard himself asking what those subjects were and caught the unctuous glee in Mr Cupperly's voice as he answered him.

“Chemistry (analytical, biological, physiological and pathological), pharmacy (chemical and galenical), pharmacognosy, micrography, toxicology, hygiene, legislation, pharmacology, botany, microbiology, mathematics, crystallography, disinfection, sterilization and optics.”

“Phew!” said Carolus.

“It is not a profession to be taken up lightly, Mr Deene.”

“I should think not!”

“We have a grave responsibility to the public even if, as it may appear, we are mostly concerned with the sale of bath salts and throat pastilles.”

“Certainly. What about this weed-killer sold to Miss Stayer?”

“I can't see how that comes into it. The tin had never been opened.”

“Just the same, I'm interested.”

“It's a very simple matter. Miss Stayer …”

“Gracie Stayer, that is?”

Mr Cupperly nodded.

“Miss Stayer was in here one day making another purchase when it seemed suddenly to occur to her. ‘Oh, Mr Cupperly,' she said, ‘have you got something for weeds?' I asked her what kind of weeds and where they were and she said they were away from all plants, coming up in the gravel. So I gave her an arsenical weed-killer which could be safely used in that garden because there are no dogs or cats. The late Mrs Bomberger detested both, I understand.”

“That's all there was to it?”

“Yes. It would never have been heard of again if the police, in enquiring about the sleeping-tablets after Mrs
Bomberger's death, had not asked me whether I had ever supplied any other poison. I felt bound to mention this.”

“I see. I'm most grateful for your information …”

After another homily, mercifully brief, on the duties and responsibilities of a registered pharmacist, Mr Cupperly let Carolus go.

He decided to call on the doctor whose address he had from the telephone directory. He found Dr Flitcher's house pleasantly set in a large square garden.

A smart young woman dressed as a nurse appeared in answer to his ring.

“May I see Dr Flitcher?” he asked.

“Health Service? Or do you want to see him privately?”

“Oh, privately,” said Carolus, who had not needed a doctor since coming out of the army and did not realize the implications of the question.

“Please come this way.”

Carolus was left alone in a room with the usual illustrated papers and sank into an arm-chair too deep for him. After a few minutes a tall young man asked him to come in.

“What's the trouble?” asked the young man, waving his stethoscope.

“I'm a private investigator,” began Carolus. “I mean I'm interested in unusual deaths …”

“Look, I'm a general practitioner, not a psychiatrist.”

“Is your name Flitcher?” asked Carolus.

“No. Flitcher's on holiday. I'm his locum.”

“If I had known that I needn't have troubled you.”

“No trouble. But Flitcher's not a psychiatrist either. With those illusions of yours I should consult someone in Harley Street. They're probably due to something you saw in your nursery.”

“Thanks. When will Flitcher be back?”

“Not for another fortnight. But he could only tell you what I have.”

“Probably,” said Carolus and managed to get himself out of the house.

He had one more chore that day, and he stopped at a telephone-booth to do it. Getting through, after a few moments' delay, to Detective Inspector Whibley, he asked him cheerfully if he had the result yet of the post-mortem on Alice Pink.

“I can't possibly discuss these things, Mr Deene,” said the Inspector.

“Why not? You told me …”

“Perhaps I might go so far as to say that you were right in your conjecture.”

“The same as Bomberger?”

“Now, Mr Deene, I mustn't answer questions from outsiders. You know that perfectly well. But I shouldn't be surprised if it was the same. No, I shouldn't be at all surprised.”

“Thank you,” said Carolus. “Now I'm going to say something to you. You won't like it, because you'll think I'm not minding my own business, or even that I'm trying to teach you yours. But I'm going to risk offending you and tell you straight out that this thing is not finished and that there is a danger, a very grave danger, of another corpse.”

There was a silent pause at the other end, then the receiver was hung up.

T
HE
question which Carolus now wanted to resolve was that of the husband, Otto Bomberger. He was inclined to be more interested than the police in this man's presence in Blessington on the night of Lillianne Bomberger's death. He knew enough to be sure that Detective Inspector Whibley would never have given him that piece of information if he thought it anything but a red herring. Yet Carolus was not so sure that there was not a certain involvement of Bomberger. Apart from that, the man might have information of another kind which could be useful.