The inspector looked steadily across at Joe. “He’s a good bloke, that one. Came straight out and said if he hadn’t been warned to look for something a bit fishy, he’d have passed the body straight through. No question. Then we looked more carefully at the documents. And the bottom fell out of our theory. Two unknown medical signatures on the death certificate—both bona fide doctors used regularly by Chadwick. No, neither of ’em Dr. Carter. He’s well in the clear on the eugenics racket. And then we tracked the delivery van back to the Prince Albert.”
He paused to puff his pipe into life. “That was a bad hour you put us through, commissioner. You were out there on the road. We were busting a gut to get hold of you and warn you. Leaving messages here there and everywhere. The school, The Bells, the RAC patrol boys. Ringing and ringing. But you’d disappeared … gone off the dial. Blimey, I’d have—” He glanced at Dorcas and censored the soldier’s phrase which had been on the tip of his tongue, “—been extremely concerned had I know you were driving straight into that snake pit!”
“We were shitting bricks too, inspector,” Dorcas said.
“So, you’re all off this afternoon, leaving me carrying the can?” Martin concluded with affected grumpiness.
“Not all. Gosling’s staying on here for a bit.”
“Liaising with the new headmaster when he gets here,” Gosling said. “Calming things down. Providing some continuity.”
Martin expressed the hope that when the interviews took place, somebody would have the sense to check whether the applicant’s featured on the Eugenic Society list. He suggested a little blackballing might be advisable. “You know, Farman really thought we were making a silly fuss. Tried to make out he didn’t know he was sending those poor boys off to their deaths—they were just onward bound to further specialised treatment at the parents’ request. Huh! He’s got his lawyers quite convinced he’s been misunderstood! Deluded or what?”
“Self-deluded,” Dorcas suggested. “The very best kind of liar. Like his Matron. She was just doing what the headmaster asked her to do, of course. Packing the boys’ trunks and waving them off.”
“Matron aided and abetted, but I’m pretty sure she wasn’t privy to the hideous truth. Didn’t know because she didn’t ask. Well rewarded. Money closes more than mouths, it closes minds. She claims that, insofar as she had any thoughts at all, she reckoned all that discreet leaving by the back door after dark was designed to avoid any disturbance to the other boys.”
Martin sighed. “Very persuasive lady. Runs rings round the men. She’ll move on unscathed. But not unchecked.”
“From a London perspective, Farman has been quite useless when it comes to rolling up the conspiracy. They were too smart to give away names and contacts. He received his orders by telephone. Not always the same voice. And he, in turn, rang up the Prince Albert. Chadwick & Son, your friendly family undertaking business, established 1895. Purveyors of bespoke death through two generations.”
“Christ! Why? Chadwick and Bentink—two butchers operating in my county? Why?” Inspector Martin’s outburst voiced everyone’s horror and disbelief. They listened in hope of enlightenment to a carefully delivered explanation by Dorcas, who was the only one prepared to take a shot at it, though Joe noted with understanding that her voice lacked its usual confidence.
They nodded in agreement with her suggestion that eugenics was a two-sided coin. One side urged the improvement of the quality of the population by breeding selectively from worthy stock, which would appear to be Bentink’s philosophy, the other side urged and attempted to licence the removal of undesirable elements, preventing them from reproducing their faulty genetic makeup. An approach put into practice by Chadwick. The two faces, each unaware of the other, shone out from a freshly minted but utterly counterfeit coin.
“Any chance these devils were working in concert, sir?” Martin asked.
“No sign of it. I think they operated totally independently of each other, though it’s clear that at least Chadwick had some suspicion of what Bentink was up to. Both were members of the Eugenist Society through the generations. They were at least each aware of the other’s existence and, perhaps, proclivities. And what did our fine, idealistic Utopians do when push came to shove? Chadwick betrayed Bentink, just handed us his card. Simple as that. Distraction. Laying off the blame.”
“And successfully,” Dorcas said. “We fell for it. Well, no. It was my fault. I was only too pleased to seize the chance to hurry you along to the St. Raphael clinic, which I had decided deserved an investigation.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” said Martin. “If ever a place needed a light shining on it, that one did! Bentink is now busy blaming everyone he can think of and calling in favours from the greatest in the land. Think on!” the Inspector warned. “With all the discretion that bloke has guaranteed over the years for god-knows-what delicate conditions amongst the high and mighty, some of them will be only too ready to hear his pleas. The embarrassing secrets he must hold in his files! These birds’ll go to a lot of trouble to squash a revelation of anything from syphilis to face lifts.”
“Does this make us lose our faith in humanity?” Gosling wondered out loud.
“Always,” said Joe. “If we have any humanity in us. But then I find, in most cases, there’s usually someone quite unexpected lurking ready to pick up the torch and shine it around. I’m thinking of Adam and Francis Crabbe. Men who know what’s right and go straight for it with no regard for their own safety and no thought of reward.”
“Reward? Farman was rather partial to a bit of that. I’ve applied to get a look at his bank statements. Should be interesting,” Martin said. “The money trail? Did you get a line on that?”
“The cheques came anonymously from a very reputable London bank, numbered account. I wouldn’t be surprised to find it was a holding account bulging with donations from a eugenic faction.”
Joe thanked Martin for all that he’d done at the Sussex end of the operation. “On the bright side, we leave you well placed for promotion on the satisfactory outcome of all this, Martin. No, it was well done, and I shall say so!” he added seriously. “If anyone’s prepared to listen to that bungler Sandilands when I get back to the Yard.”
Martin’s opinion was that the hardest part of the task awaited Joe back in London. “You’ll never get to the spider at the centre of all this. Contacts will be cut, doors will bang shut. The establishment will close ranks on you. Too many reputations at stake.”
“My own as well,” Joe admitted.
He sketched out his plans for further action on his return to London. The nine lost boys were lost no longer. Eight at least had been brought back into the light, and Joe was determined that they would be acknowledged. The parents who still remained would be confronted with whatever evidence he could get together. He realised it was too late for a lawful conclusion for most of these cases, whose trails had led to a cold gravestone at the best, but he would do what he could.
This was not a task he could delegate to one of his superintendents. Any such enquiry would spread poison, invite recrimination, risk unbalancing the status quo. It was a course of action that would wreck a police career. It was for his shoulders alone.
For the last time, Joe laid out the nine faces on the table top, and Martin, Dorcas and Gosling silently studied them.
“Farewell ceremony, sir?” Martin asked.
“Ave atque vale, I think Godwit would say. No sooner greeted than bidden farewell. But no longer lost,” Joe said. “Thanks to Hercules here.” He grinned at Gosling. “And thanks to Edwin Rapson. I’ve had some strange guides through my cases but never one as unlikely as Rapson: murder victim, rapist, blackmailer and would-be killer of his own flesh and blood! But it’s the thread of his researches that led us through the labyrinth.”