“It sounds an unpleasant business,” said Dr. Curtis. “Through the eye, didn’t you say?”
“Yes. Beastly, isn’t it? Fox was very guarded when he rang up. I recognized his suspect-listening manner.”
“Large family of Lampreys?” asked Dr. Curtis.
“Masses of young, I fancy. Damn! We’re in for a nasty run, no doubt. Why the devil do these people have to get themselves messed up in a case like this?”
“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’uwer 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 VIII
ALLEYN MEETS THE LAMPREYS
Fox 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 paper-knives.”
“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.