Surfeit of Lampreys (15 page)

“Another instance,” said Dr. Curtis drily, “of the aristocracy mixing with the commonalty. They've tried trade and they've tried big business. Why not a spot of homicide? Sorry!” he added uncomfortably. “Silly statement. Very unprofessional. The peer was probably pinked by a—what? A servant? A lunatic? Somebody with an axe to grind? Here we are in Sloane Street. Cadogan Gardens, isn't it?”

“Pleasaunce Court. Do you know the doctor, Curtis? His name's Kantripp.”

“I do, as it happens. He was in my first year at Thomas's. Nice fellow. Awkward business for him if, as one supposes, he's the family doctor.”

“It may not be awkward. Let's hope it's a simple matter. Some nice homicidal maniac wandering about the top story of Pleasaunce Court Mansions and going all hay-wire at the sight of an elderly peer in a lift. Let's hope there are no axes to grind. Here's the turning. How anybody can get a kick out of homicide is to me one of the major puzzles of psychology.”

“Was there never a time,” asked Dr. Curtis, “when you read murder cases in your newspaper with avidity?”

“Oh, yes. Yes.”

“And do they always bore you, nowadays?”

Alleyn grinned. “No,” he said. “I'm not bored by my job. One gets desperately sick of routine at times but it would be an affectation to pretend one was bored. People interest me and homicide cases are so terrifically concerned with people. Each locked up inside his mental bomb-proof shelter and then, suddenly, the holocaust. Most murders are really very squalid affairs, of course, but there's always the element that press-men call the human angle. All the same, Curtis, it's a beastly sort of stimulus. One would have to be very case-hardened to feel nothing but technical interest. O Lord, here we go! There's a gaggle of P.C.s coming along in the car behind. Fox said we might need some spare parts.”

The car pulled up. With that unmistakable air of being about their business, the four men got out and walked up the steps. A knives-to-grind returning from a profitable day in Chelsea paused at Pleasaunce Court corner and addressed himself to a newsboy.

“Wot's up in vere?” asked the knives-to-grind.

“Wot's up in where?”

“In vere. In vem Mensions.”

The newsboy looked. “Coo! P'lice.”

“P'lice!” said the knives-to-grind contemptuously. “I believe you! 'Ere! Know 'oo that is? That's 'Endsome Ell-een.”

“Cripey, you're right, mate! Fency me missin' 'im! I've doubled me sales on 'Endsome Ell-een many an evenin'. Coo, there's 'is cemera-bloke. That's a cemera orl right in that box. And t'uvver bloke'll be 'is fingerprint expert.”

“It's a cise for the Yawd,” said the knives-to-grind.

“Ar. Murder,” agreed the newsboy.

“Not necessairilly.”

“Garn! Wot's the cemera for if it's not murder? Taking photers of the liftman?
Not necessairilly!
'Ere wite on! I'll git orf a
Stendard
on the old bloke in the 'all.”

The newsboy ran up the steps crying in a respectful manner, “
Stendard
, sir,
Stendard
?” The knives-to-grind thoughtfully salvaged a cigarette butt from the kerb and put it in his waistcoat pocket. A second car drew up and four constables got out and entered the flats.

The newsboy reappeared and with an unconvincing show of nonchalance returned to his post.

“Well,” asked his friend, “ 'ow abaht it?”

“Been an eccident.”

“What sorta eccident?”

“Old bloke 'ad is eye jabbed aht in the lift.”

“Garn!”

“Yeah,” said the newsboy, assuming a slightly hard-boiled transatlantic manner. “And it's just too bad abaht 'im. 'E's a gorner.”

“Dead?”

“Stiff.”

“Cor!”

“
Eccident!
” said the newsboy with ineffable scorn. “

“
Eccident!
Oh yeah?”

“Wiv cops and cemeras floatin' in by dozins,” agreed his friend. “Oh, yeah? Not 'alf. I
don't
fink.”

And taking up the shafts of his grindstone he trundled down Pleasaunce Court, pausing at the corner to raise the mournful cry of his trade.

“Knives to grind? Knives to grind?”

His voice floated up in the evening air. Alleyn heard it as he rang the Lampreys' doorbell.

“Any old knives to grind?”

CHAPTER EIGHT

F
OX HAD LAVISHED
the most delicate attention on the skewer. It was tied down to a strip of cardboard and lay in a long box. Alleyn held the box under the lamp. The plated ring at the broad end of the skewer caught the light and glinted. The blade did not glint. It had had time to dry a little.

“Disgusting,” said Alleyn. He laid down the box. “Yours, Bailey. The blade has obviously been lifted by the point.”

“That's me,” said Dr. Kantripp. “I thought it better to avoid the ring as much as possible, though of course in drawing it out—”

“Of course,” said Dr. Curtis.

“Well, you'd better try the ring and top of the shaft, Bailey,” said Alleyn.

“It's a whale of a great skewer,” said Dr. Curtis.

“Yes. An old one. People use them nowadays for paperknives.”

“They got this one from the kitchen,” said Fox.

“Did they? We'd better take a look at the body, if you please, Dr. Kantripp.”

They moved to the bed. Fox tilted the lamp. Dr. Kantripp drew back the sheet.

“Nothing's been done,” he said. “I thought, under the circumstances—”

“Yes, of course. His wife hasn't seen him like this?”

“No. She wouldn't come. Just as well perhaps.”

“Yes,” agreed Alleyn, staring at the gargoyle's head on the sheet. “Just as well.”

“No. He's not very pretty,” muttered Dr. Curtis absently. He bent down. Fox moved the lamp.

“It seemed a bit queer to me his lasting so long, Doctor,” said Fox.

“The head's a queer thing,” observed Dr. Curtis. “There have been cases of survival—What was the angle, Kantripp?”

“Slightly upward. But it may have shifted.”

“Yes.”

“You say, Fox,” said Alleyn, “that he tried to speak?”

“Well, sir, not to say speak. He made noises.”

“It wasn't likely, I thought, that he could say anything,” said Dr. Kantripp, “but Mr. Fox thought there was just a chance. As Curtis says, queer things happen with injuries to the brain. There have been cases—”

“I know. What are those marks beside the eyes? Hypostases?”

The two doctors exchanged glances.

“I didn't think so,” said Dr. Kantripp diffidently.

“Bruises, more likely,” said Dr. Curtis. “You don't get hypostases there. Not with the way he's lying.”

“They said, Fox, that he sat on the right-hand end of the seat?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have a look at the left temple, would you, Curtis?”

Dr. Curtis began to take away the dressing over the left eye.

“You're quite right, Alleyn,” said Dr. Kantripp. “There's a cut on the temple under the bandage. I was going to show you. Yes, there it is.”

With a swift and delicate gesture Alleyn placed his long left hand across the staring right eye and the left socket. The heel of his hand was against the right side of the face, thumb downwards.

“There's a sort of fancy steel fretwork affair in the wall of the lift,” said Fox. “With knobs on. There's a bit of a smear on one of the knobs. It looks as if it had been wiped.”

“Does it, indeed?” Alleyn murmured and swiftly drew away his hand. “We'll get him out of here,” he added.

“I've left orders for the mortuary van.”

“Yes. Thank you, Curtis. You'll do the post-mortem tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“I think before I see the family we'll take a look at the lift. You can get to work in here, Bailey. Try those bruises for prints. You'd better go all over the face. It's a faint hope but you'd better have a shot at it. Then the skewer. Then come along to the lift. And, Thompson, you get some shots of the head, will you?”

“Very good, Mr. Alleyn.”

Alleyn did not move away from the bed. He stared at the face on the pillow and the single eye in the face seemed, in return, to glare sightlessly at him. Alleyn stooped and touched the jaw and neck.

“No rigor yet?”

“Just beginning. Why?”

“We may have to perform an unpleasant experiment. Is the nurse still here?”

“Yes,” said Dr. Kantripp.

“When Bailey and Thompson have finished, get her to tidy him up. He's a nightmare as he is. Come on, Fox.”

Fox had caused the mechanism of the lift to be switched off, had sealed the doors and had posted a uniformed constable on the landing. The lift was dark inside and, waiting there at the Lampreys' landing, it wore an air of expectancy.

“Window at the top of the door,” said Alleyn.

“That's right, sir.”

“Didn't you say that he sat in here, yelling for his wife? With the doors shut?”

“So the butler said.”

“He might have been whisked down below.”

“Perhaps he kept his thumb on the stop button, Mr. Alleyn.”

“Perhaps he did.” Alleyn switched on the light. “Now, where was he?”

“From all accounts he was sitting in the right-hand corner with his head leaning against that steel grid affair and his bowler hat tilted over his face. Of course the lift's been used since then. The doctor, for one, came up in it. As soon as our chaps came in they attended to that. Still, it's a pity.”

“It is.” Alleyn peered at the steel fretwork of the wall. “There's the smear you talked about on that bulge or knob or what-you-will.”

“Very fancy design, isn't it, sir?”

“Very, Br'er Fox. Grapes, you see, mixed up with decorative lumps. Modern applied art. How tall was he?”

“Six foot and a half-inch,” said Fox immediately.

“Good. You're six foot, aren't you? Just sit at the other end, Foxkin. Yes. Yes, I fancy that if you sat there and I caught you a snorter on the right side of your head your left temple would miss that corresponding knob by half an inch or so. However, that's altogether too vague. It looks as if we'll have to get him in here to try. I see these knobs have got slight depressions in the surface. Look at our particular one. Somebody, as you capably observed, has wiped it. And the seat, as well. Not very proficiently. Bailey will have to deal with this. Hullo!”

Alleyn stooped and flashed his torch under the seat. “I suppose you've already spotted those, you old devil,” he observed.

“Yes, sir. I thought I'd leave them for you.”

“What delicacy! What tact!” Alleyn reached under the seat and drew out a pair of heavy driving gloves with long gauntlets. He and Fox squatted on the floor and examined them.

“Bloody,” said Fox.

“Blood, or something that looks like it. Between the middle and the third fingers of the left hand, and on the inner surface of those fingers. And a little on the palm. Can you see any on the right-hand glove? Yes. Again, a little on the palm. Bless my soul, Fox, we must take care of these. Give them to Bailey, like a good chap, and then tell me the whole story as far as you've got.”

Fox went into 28. The constable cleared his throat. Alleyn gazed at the lift well. The door into 25 opened and a good-looking, pale young man peered out onto the landing.

“Oh, hullo,” he said politely. “I'm sorry to bother you. You're Mr. Alleyn, I expect.”