“You’re rarely wrong, Dr. Vandeleur. What was the actual cause of death?” Barker asked.
“Something had been inserted into his ear, penetrating the brain; some kind of stout wire perhaps, or an ice pick. Killed him instantly.”
“Wouldn’t that result in an issue of blood?”
“It did. There was a small amount in the ear canal, but the outer ear appears to have been wiped clean. Someone came up behind him while he was reading and killed him so quickly he never even had time to drop his newspaper.”
“The thing that strikes me,” the Guv said, “is the only person I know in London capable of such a subtle method of killing is in the other room there, being disinfected at this very moment, an Italian assassin named Serafini. In fact, it was Serafini’s postmortem I was coming here to speak with you about.”
“That’s more than a coincidence,” Vandeleur said. “Was he killed the same way?”
“No, but he was definitely murdered.”
“Let’s take a look. I don’t suppose Sir Alan will mind if I sew him up later.”
The doctor led us across the hall. If possible, the odor of the corpses was even stronger in the confines of the examination room. Serafini’s form lay stretched on the table, a mountain of mottled flesh. Beside it, the coroner’s assistants bent over a second table.
“What’s going on here?” Vandeleur asked curiously, looking over their shoulders before stepping back with a start. “Ye gods! What is it?”
“It’s a woman, sir,” the first assistant said. The man’s name, I knew, was Trent, and he had helped us on a previous case. Medical students were always queuing up to work under Vandeleur. He was the best coroner in London. “Most of the bones have been crushed. There’s no way we’ll ever get her stretched out, I’m afraid.”
“It’s Serafini’s wife,” Barker supplied. “He never went anywhere without her, not even into the afterlife.”
“It’s obvious both were dispatched by shotguns, though it won’t be official until I file my report. Your Italian assassin took a gun blast to the chest.”
There was no doubting it, for a purplish wound cratered his left breast and another was found among the ribs on his right side.
“I beg your pardon, Dr. Vandeleur,” Trent put in, “but there’s another in his back and two in the woman’s as well.”
“His flesh is all churned up,” the coroner said. Pulling the forceps from his pocket again, he began poking about the wounds. In a moment, he held up a round, metal ball.
“Lead shot,” he pronounced. “His internal organs are peppered with it.”
Barker crossed his arms. “Two blasts; four, if you count his wife. Even if one were to discharge one barrel at a time, it would require reloading.”
“I cannot imagine either one of them giving someone sufficient time to reload,” I hazarded.
“Very true, Thomas,” my employer said. “This was done by two men, then, who would have to be professional killers. For all his girth, Serafini was quick and deadly, and his wife every bit as dangerous as he. Only professionals could have killed him.”
“Three assassinations in London in a day?” Vandeleur remarked. “What is the city coming to?”
“I don’t know, but I intend to find out. So, shall you give a verdict of willful murder regarding Sir Alan?”
Vandeleur stepped into the corridor, and my employer and I followed him, leaving his assistants to their grisly task.
“I am not in the habit of sharing my conclusions before rendering a verdict, Mr. Barker,” he said cautiously, putting the forceps back in his pocket, “but the evidence seems conclusive enough.”
“Is there no possible way that he could have had a seizure which produced bleeding in the brain?”
“Keep to your own field, Barker, and leave the diagnoses to a trained pathologist,” Vandeleur snapped. He could be quite waspish at times.
My employer hesitated. “I was merely thinking of your reputation. In your shoes, I would not wish to render a verdict based upon a wound so small it is barely visible. I wonder how you even spotted it, despite the convolutions of the brain.”
“It was the blood in the ear canal. What are you getting at?”
“I’m afraid no good can come of declaring it a murder. Sir Alan was a very important man. Is there proof it will hold up in court? Most likely, the government shall think you mad despite your reputation, and your position will be in jeopardy.”
“Are you suggesting I render a false verdict?” Vandeleur snapped. “I have never done so in my life and shall certainly not start now.”
“I was thinking of Sir Alan’s wife and Scotland Yard. They will wish to avoid a scandal at all costs. The wound is too small to appear in any photograph. As far as I can see, you won’t have enough proof to convince your peers.”
“For once, I don’t require it. A half hour ago, a representative of Her Majesty’s government arrived informing me that Sir Alan’s death was now a government matter. I don’t know how he knew the man had been murdered. He said he sent for you, as well. That’s what I thought you were here about when I saw you in the corridor.”
“I’d like to speak with this gentleman,” my employer said. “Where is he now?”
Vandeleur led us out of the room and down the main corridor, while I contemplated what it would be like to work all day in a place that smelled of carbolic and moldering bodies. Just before we reached the desk, where an orderly watched like a sentinel, Vandeleur turned and opened a door on the left.
A man stood up in the room beyond, but I could not see him. Barker is over six feet, and Vandeleur approaches it. As unobtrusively as possible, I tried to peer over their shoulders. I was expecting a stranger, but in fact I knew the man. Coupled with what I had seen so far that day, I rather wished I didn’t.
3
"Good morning, Mr. Anderson,” Barker said.
The official was Robert Anderson of the Home Office, a man with a most intriguing title, that of Spymaster General. He had employed us a year before in an action against a group of Irish dynamiters. At the time, he had attempted to recruit my employer, saying he had more than enough work for him, but Barker had turned him down. It didn’t take a private enquiry agent to see that he was about to ask him again.
“You look fit,” Anderson said. “Are you still causing trouble?”
“I’m still setting all the government lads straight, if that is what you mean.”
“You know how it is, Mr. Barker. Too much to keep up with, too little payroll for overworked men. Why don’t we take a walk? The smell in here is giving me a headache.”
Anderson passed between us. He was a man in his mid-fifties, his hair and beard just starting to gray. Barker had told me once that Anderson was a devout Evangelical who spent his nights studying biblical numerology. The spymaster walked to the door and opened it, saying, “Are you coming?” He was unaccustomed to being refused. With a nod at Vandeleur, Cyrus Barker followed Anderson, with me making a trio.
“Is he coming, too?”
“He is,” the Guv said. “Anything you wish to say can be said in his presence. It won’t be repeated.”
I’m grateful for whatever praise Barker throws my way. Like most Scotsmen, he’s frugal with it. In fact, I’d say a dog would starve on it, but perhaps I exaggerate.
“Very well. He was present at our last encounter, I suppose. Come.”
The attendant generally has visitors sign in and out, but he did not come forward as the three of us left the morgue and began walking down Poplar’s High Street, a downtrodden street like a thousand others in the East End.