Chapter 13
Tell me about this doctor your sister is so concerned for,” Alec invited Brenda.
“He gambles.”
“How do you know?”
“The others tease him about it.”
Not a secret, then, so of doubtful interest for the investigation. “That’s a pity.”
“And I sometimes wonder . . .” She lowered her voice. “Mr. Fletcher, I don’t know much about dope, just what I’ve heard people say, but I know doctors can get hold of all sorts of stuff. I sometimes wonder if Sam—Dr. Macleod—is a dope fiend.”
“What makes you suspect that?”
“He’s so moody. Sometimes he’s frightfully bright and energetic, but sort of not naturally, if you know what I mean?”
Alec nodded encouragement. Drug use was a natural for blackmail.
“Sometimes he’s lethargic,” she continued earnestly, “and his tennis game absolutely falls to pieces, and sometimes he’s bitter and cynical and says really brutal things to my sister. Does that sound like a dope fiend?”
“It’s possible.”
“I thought so. It may be because he saw such horrible things in the War, as Fay says, but I don’t think that’s any excuse to take it out on her. She thinks it’s frightfully romantic, and she’ll be able to reform him if he’ll only marry her.”
“Oh dear!”
“Fay is a bit young for her age,” said Brenda from the sage eminence of her year’s advantage. “Luckily, I don’t believe there’s the least chance of his ever asking her to marry him.”
“A fortunate escape. What about you? Have you a favourite among the officers?”
“Of course. I can’t let my little sister steal a march on me, can I? I pretend to mope after Dev, but it’s not serious. In fact, he never takes anything seriously. I think it may be another way to cope with the War. If you ask me, the War was a dreadful mistake.”
“You’re not the first to come to that conclusion. Dev?”
“Captain Devereux. I suppose you suspect him, too?”
“Naturally.”
“Oh well, I don’t suppose he’ll care. He’ll make a joke of it. He can be frightfully amusing and lots of fun. He’ll even cheat at croquet to let Fay and me win. It makes Ray Jardyne squirm.”
“Which, I take it, is the captain’s aim.”
“Of course. He wouldn’t do it just to please us. The thing is, Ray’s frightfully stuffy about playing by the rules, but he can’t make a fuss, as he’d like to, because of wanting to please Fay.”
He was not succeeding, to judge by the way Fay now hurried to rejoin them, leaving the disconsolate Jardyne behind. A backward glance showed the lieutenant red-faced, his mouth a tight line, his fists clenched.
An officer and a gentleman who was “stuffy” about playing by the rules was unlikely to push an old man downstairs, Alec thought.
On the other hand, someone who had trouble containing his temper might find he’d done it before recollecting his principles.
He’d have to be interviewed, as would all the other officers, and they could not be left to Tom.
With luck, Tom would be finding out a bit about the officers from the noncoms he was presently talking to.
They came to the northeast corner of the White Tower. Fay pointed to an unprepossessing building to the right of the Officers’ Quarters.
“That’s the hospital block.”
“It’s rather large for a thousand or so residents,” Alec observed. “Are you a sickly lot?”
“The upper floors are married men’s quarters,” Brenda explained. “Garrison, not Yeoman Warders.”
“They’re a bit cramped.”
“But no worse than the casemates.”
“Where most of the yeomen live.”
Alec realized he had not yet considered the possibility that Crabtree might have been murdered by the wife of one of the residents.
The downstairs shove was a method a woman might employ, but the use of the partizan argued against it, and few women would willingly hang about outside on a foggy night.
What about a woman as motive—an irate husband as murderer?
Men inclined towards excessive study of the Bible sometimes developed peculiar ideas about women.
They were usually bachelors, not widowers, and Alec hadn’t come across any suggestion that Crabtree was so unbalanced, but it would have to be borne in mind.
“Thank you for your escort, ladies,” he said.
“If there’s anything else we can do . . .”
“Just call on us.”
“We liked Crabtree.”
“And this whole business is upsetting Daddy dreadfully.”
A natural dislike of trouble on his command, or something more significant?
“Besides, we really, really like Mrs. Fletcher.”
“She’s awfully nice, isn’t she?”
“I think so,” said Alec.
With a wave, they headed for the Officers’ Quarters. Alec turned his steps towards the hospital and his mind towards his first impressions of Dr. Macleod.
At the time, he had known too little about the murder to form any useful judgement of those he met.
Macleod had seemed competent, and his report on the body agreed with that of the police surgeon.
He had also seemed restless, even nervy.
Illicit drug use could explain that, but it was not the first time Alec had come across RAMC doctors who were badly disturbed by civilian mayhem in spite of—perhaps because of—the horrific conditions they had dealt with in war.
Poor chap! If morphia was the only way he could deal with the memories, Alec was not about to harass him, as long as he was not selling the stuff to finance his gambling, or to pay blackmail.
In the foyer of the hospital, an orderly was whistling as he pared his nails with a pocketknife. A swift glance at Alec’s RFC tie and he dropped the knife, jumped to attention, and saluted. “Chief Inspector, sir! What can I do for you, sir?”
Alec’s fame had preceded him. “I hope you can give me some information. A Yeoman Warder was admitted last night, I believe?” It was less belief than guesswork—and hope. He didn’t want to have to tell Superintendent Crane he’d mislaid the man who could be either the murderer or the intended victim.
“Yessir.” The orderly consulted a large ledger. “That’d be the Yeoman Gaoler hisself, Sergeant Major Rumford.”
Alec breathed again. “Is there by any chance a note of the time?”
“Ten-fifteen P.M., it says here, sir.”
Quarter past ten. The fact baffled Alec.
It fitted with Daisy’s memory of Rumford going off along the wall at a minute or so before ten, and he must have been the yeoman who followed the Carradine girls and Mrs. Duggan past the White Tower.
But the police surgeon was pretty clear that Crabtree hadn’t been killed before eleven.
Could Rumford have reported to the hospital to establish an alibi and sneaked out later?
Or were they going to have to abandon the hypothesis of Rumford as murderer?
“Is Dr. Macleod available?”
“Dunno ’bout that, sir. He’s taking surgery, but there wasn’t many came to sick call today. I don’t think he’s got more’n a couple left. They leave by the back door, so I don’t see ’em. I’ll go check.”
“Thanks. If he won’t finish for a quarter of an hour or longer, I’d appreciate his fitting me in sooner. Detective Chief Inspector Fletcher.”
“Yessir!”
The orderly departed, to return moments later with an invitation to follow him.
Macleod’s office faced west and was flooded with sunlight. Its untidiness was no worse than many another doctor’s office-cum-examination room. He jumped up from his desk when Alec entered and shook his hand vigorously.
“How can I help you, Chief Inspector? Sit down, do.” His eyes were bright, too bright, the pupils pinpoints smaller than could be accounted for by the bright light.
Brenda Carradine was a perceptive young lady. Dr. Macleod was almost certainly taking morphia, a “dope fiend” as she had put it, or, as some would say, a morphinomaniac.
“First, I thought you’d like to know that the police surgeon’s preliminary findings agree with yours.”
“How encouraging! Perhaps I should join the police.”
Ignoring the mockery in his tone, Alec said stolidly, “Police surgeon is not a full-time job, I’m afraid.
We use GPs in private practice with some specialized knowledge of forensic pathology.
Doctor, I understand you admitted the Yeoman Gaoler, Rumford, to the hospital last evening. We’ve been looking for him.”
“Don’t blame me for not mentioning his whereabouts. I was asked about poor old Crabtree, and his whereabouts were all too well known.”
“Rumford is still here?”
“Unless someone has spirited him away.”
“His name was entered in your book at ten-fifteen. I assume that’s not the time he stepped through the door.”
“No, he’d have arrived a few minutes earlier.
It didn’t take long to realize that he needed in-patient treatment.
An interesting case, in its way. He was gassed in France, just a light dose, not sufficient to kill or severely incapacitate.
Most of the time, he’s able to function perfectly normally.
Then a pea-souper crawls out of the river and he’s hacking away again. ”
“Like last night.”
“Like last night. He had a bad go of bronchitis last winter, with a touch of pneumonia, and I advised him to retire right away, to move as far away from London and the river as he could get. But the old sod said he wasn’t ready to go yet, much as some people would like to see the back of him.”
“What do you think he meant by that?”
Macleod gave him the blankest of blank stares. “I haven’t the foggiest—pun intended. Rumford said he didn’t intend to ‘die a Yeoman Warder’ and he wasn’t ready to turn up his toes yet, thank you.”
“ ‘Die a Yeoman Warder’? That’s an odd way to put it.”