Chapter 6 #2
They reached the bottom of the hill. At the ticket office, a grimfaced Yeoman Warder in blue was posting a notice informing the public that the Tower was closed today to anyone not on official business.
Alec accosted him. “We’re on official business. Police. I’m Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher.”
The man came to attention and gave a crisp army salute, an odd effect combined with his fancy dress.
“Sergeant Major Liston, sir. Glad to see you, and I hope you catch the sodding bastard what did it! General Carradine is expecting you, if you’ll just come with me, gentlemen.
Oh, half a tick. I better give you some of our visitors’ guidebooks.
They have a plan of the Tower, so’s you can find your way about. ”
He popped into the ticket office and brought them three green brochures. Among the advertisements for Sapon soap, Beefeater gin, Mazawattee tea (“It’s British-grown!”), and Thos. Cook & Son was a plan of the Tower.
“We won’t make you pay your tuppence for the guidebook, sir.” Liston led them onward.
Beneath the royal arms carved in stone, two sentries of the Hotspurs guarded the first archway—the Middle Tower, according to the brochure.
They didn’t challenge Liston and his companions.
No doubt they had seen the yeoman go out with his notice, but Alec wondered whether anyone who managed to filch or copy a suit of the picturesque Tudor uniform would be able to march in without question. Or out, for that matter.
As they walked across the moat bridge, he said, “Tell me about the Chief Yeoman Warder. I don’t even know his name.”
“Crabtree, sir. He was regular army, sir, like the rest of us, done our twenty years afore we get a billet here. Crabtree was Regimental Sergeant Major, so it weren’t no surprise when he got picked for Chief Warder, nor there weren’t no grumbling, neither, for a nicer bloke you never met.
It fair flummoxes me who’d want to do him in. ”
“Married?”
“A widower, sir, no children. His better half died in the ’flu.”
Alec, who had lost his first wife in ’18, in the influenza pandemic, felt an instant kinship with the victim.
Yet he had a feeling that what Daisy had said of him was uncomplimentary.
Was Liston’s encomium a case of nil nisi bonum?
Alec hoped so, because if it were true, if Crabtree really had no obvious enemies, he had no starting point for the investigation.
“Can you show me on this plan where the body was found?” he asked.
The yeoman pointed. “Hereabouts. It’s just a staircase, so it’s not shown, not properly.”
“What exactly happened?”
“I didn’t see, there being a ruddy horde of Hotspurs posted all around by the time I got there, but what I heard was, he was found at the bottom of the steps with a partizan stuck through him.”
“A partizan?”
“One of them halberds—pikes—we carry when we’re on guard duty or on parade.”
“I don’t suppose you know whether it was his own.”
“Couldn’t’ve been. His is a mace with a model of the White Tower on top, wouldn’t stick into nobody. Not likely he have anyone else’s with him, neither, but s’posing he did, he’d have a ruddy hard job stabbing hisself in the back!”
“His back, was it?”
“That’s what I heard, sir.”
Alec tried to imagine a man holding a pike missing his footing on steps, perhaps tripping over the pike, and somehow falling in such a way that the pike followed him down and impaled him.
He didn’t see how it could happen. He dismissed the speculation, for the present.
Very likely the medical evidence would rule it out anyway.
He noted that Piper, while keeping up with their brisk pace over the bridge, had his notebook out and, with typical thoroughness, was writing down everything Liston said.
They came to the Byward Tower. Again, a pair of Hotspur Guards stood sentry outside the massive gate, closed except for a postern door. Alec and his men followed their guide through and found themselves in the gloom under the arch. A yeoman was on guard within, his partizan in his hand.
“The ’tecs from the Yard, Mr. Fairway,” said Liston.
Fairway sketched a salute. “And a good thing, too. The general’s in the Warders’ Room, sir,” he told Alec, pointing to a door on the left.
Liston knocked on the door, then opened it. “It’s the police, sir.”
The circular room, its ceiling vaulted, had narrow cross-slit windows high in the walls. It was well lit by a gasolier and warmed by a coal fire. As Liston ushered in the detectives, three men stood up.
Alec recognized one immediately from Daisy’s description.
He couldn’t remember his name, though, only that she had called him “Jeremy Fisher,” after Beatrix Potter’s frog.
The one who had been sitting on the corner of the big desk, swinging his foot and resting one hand on a black bag, wore the uniform of a major in the Medical Corps.
He was the only one Alec was really interested in talking to at present, but the man behind the desk was not to be brushed off.
Obviously in command, he came round and shook hands, saying, “I’m General Carradine.
Dr. Macleod and my assistant, Webster. We’re very glad to have you. ”
“DCI Fletcher, sir.” Alec had met a good many generals in his time.
To his relief, Carradine was not the red-faced, blustering sort.
In fact, he had a shrewd look in his eye, which could make him easy to work with—or hard to trap.
With any luck, he’d have an unshakable alibi.
“I’ve brought these two detective constables with me, and my sergeant, Tring, should be arriving any moment, as well as a police surgeon. ”
“Liston, you’d better get back to the Middle Tower and make sure they have no trouble getting in.” He raised his eyebrows at Alec. “Fletcher, eh?”
“My wife has been a guest of yours, sir. I did suggest to my superintendent that he should send someone else, but he insisted.”
“I’m sure he sent the best man for the job. Mrs. Fletcher is being well cared for, I assure you. You never saw such a flock of women hovering with tea and hot-water bottles.”
“Why? What’s wrong with her?”
“She did find the body, my dear fellow,” said the general reproachfully.
“Great Scott!”
“A bit of a shock for a gently bred lady, naturally, though she refused to see Macleod. Oh, but of course, you didn’t know. She asked me not to mention her presence when I rang up the Yard.”
Alec decided it was best, for the present at least, not to enquire into what the devil Daisy had been doing wandering about the Tower before anyone else was up and about. “I see,” he said, not seeing at all.
“You’ll want to see her, of course.”
“Of course, sir, but first I must talk to Dr. Macleod. Doctor, I take it you’ve examined the body?”
Macleod grimaced. “Not pleasant, but I dealt with a great deal worse in France.”
“No doubt. When you’ve told me your conclusions, I must see it for myself.” He turned back to the Resident Governor. “I gather the scene is under guard, sir?”
“I had Colonel Duggan post some of his men to keep people away. The Tower is ultimately under my authority. And all that goes on here is ultimately my responsibility as well, which is why I would like to be present while you talk to the doctor. However, it’s for you to decide.”
“You’re welcome to stay. I’m afraid I’ll have one or two questions for you after I’ve heard from Dr. Macleod.”
“Naturally, I’ll do anything I can to assist you. This is a terrible business. Poor Crabtree, of all people!”
“Let’s get on with it, then,” said Macleod impatiently. “I have sick people waiting for me.” He didn’t look very well himself, tired and jumpy. Perhaps he’d been up half the night with his patients.
“By all means,” said Alec. “Do sit down, Doctor. I take it this is a suitable place for me to use, General, at least for the present?”
“Yes, yes, do make use of the desk. This room is the Chief Warder’s lair. You’ll see his Wait Book there by the inkstand. Poor Crabtree!”
Alec went to sit behind the desk, while Carradine, the doctor, and Webster took three of the leather-seated chairs. Piper and Ross had moved to one side, standing against the wall, Piper ready with notebook and one of his supply of well-sharpened pencils.
“First of all, Doctor, can you give me some idea of the time of death?”
“I’m no expert. He’d been dead for several hours. Somewhere between ten and two, I’d say. The former is not a medical estimate. I’m assuming he turned up on time with the King’s Keys.”
“Yes indeed,” Carradine confirmed. “But why—”
“We’ll get to that later, if you don’t mind, sir. Two A.M., Doctor?”
“That’s the latest possible, in my opinion. No doubt the police surgeon will narrow it down for you.”
“Possibly.” In Alec’s experience, police surgeons came in two varieties: those who were as vague as Macleod, or vaguer, and those who gave a precise time within a quarter hour, without any possible justification by the evidence. “Any chance that he didn’t die instantly?”
“None. He broke his neck. The partizan was a gratuitous extra, but if he was not dead already, that wound would have caused fatal bleeding.”
“Did both occur at the same time, roughly?”
“With a number of Special Constables about, I was not permitted to move the body, scarcely to touch it. It was cold, but rigor was scarcely beginning to set in, possibly due to the chilling effect of lying on cold stone. And that’s all I can tell you.”
“Very helpful. The police surgeon should be able to give us an answer, or the pathologist. We may have one or two more questions for you later, Doctor, but this gives us somewhere to start. Thank you for your time.”
With an abrupt nod, Macleod stalked out.
“Damn rude,” the general muttered. “What Fay sees in the blighter, I cannot understand. But there, I’m only her father.”
Alec tactfully ignored this aside, which didn’t seem to have anything to do with the case.
“Now that we have some idea of the time,” he said, “I’d like my men to interview all the Yeoman Warders, with a view to eliminating as many as possible as soon as possible.
Where would you suggest as a suitable place? ”
“They’d better go across the way to the Warders’ Hall.
They’ll find a list of yeomen pinned up in there.
Many of them will be there already, and they have my permission to send for the rest as needed.
Fairway’s on duty out there. He’ll direct you.
” He nodded towards Piper and Ross, then turned to his aide.
“That had better go in the Daily Orders, Webster.”
Webster made a note as the detective constables departed.
“You say Crabtree was on time with ‘the King’s Keys.’ What exactly does that mean?”
“Mrs. Fletcher didn’t tell you about the ceremony she came to see last night?” Carradine asked dryly.
“She mentioned it, of course.” Alec grinned. “Either she didn’t go into detail or I didn’t listen as closely as I should have.”
“Doubtless,” Webster put in unexpectedly, “Mrs. Fletcher reserved a full description until she had witnessed the event.”
“She knows I prefer an eyewitness report to hearsay. I take it, General, you witnessed Crabtree doing something with these keys at ten o’clock last night?”
“He handed them over to me, at the door to the King’s House, after locking the gates. It’s the end of the ceremony. What I can’t make out is why he then went off down those steps. He’d finished his duties for the day.”
“He didn’t need to come back here to his office?”
“No,” said Webster, “and his quarters are in the opposite direction, next to the Yeoman Gaoler’s House. It wasn’t a pleasant night for a stroll.”
“Perhaps he was going to the Warders’ Hall,” Alec suggested.
“The men do gather there in the evenings for a pint or two,” Carradine conceded, “but Crabtree didn’t drink.
He told me, when I was considering him for the position of Chief Yeoman Warder, that he’s—that he was a teetotaller and usually spent his evenings reading the Bible.
I couldn’t make him Chapel Clerk because he was a nonconformist, but he was willing to turn out for church parades. ”
“Mightn’t his religious propensities have offended his fellow yeomen?” Alec asked.
“Oh no. He was a student, not a teacher, he assured me, and he considered every man must find his own route to salvation. I’d have heard complaints if he’d tried preaching, I assure you. The men wouldn’t have stood for it. No, a quiet man, he was, but very well respected.”
A most unlikely victim of murder, Alec thought. Digging out a motive was going to be difficult, unless Piper and Ross came up with a completely different picture of the man.