Harcourt decided to grasp the nettle. ‘You’re here about the Flask business, I expect.’
‘The Flask business?’
‘A well-known local…’ Harcourt hesitated. How to describe Eustace Flask, since he was reluctant for some reason to say ‘medium’? He settled lamely for ‘… a local character.’
Inspector Traynor looked even blanker and Harcourt relaxed even more.
‘Mr Flask had the misfortune to be murdered yesterday. The crime was perpetrated near the river.’
‘I know nothing about that.’
‘Well, that’s a – that’s not surprising. I mean, it would be surprising if the news had already reached the London papers.’
‘I dare say the news will eventually,’ said Traynor. ‘An interesting case? You have apprehended someone?’
‘Only a matter of time,’ said Harcourt. ‘So, if it isn’t to do with this murder, why are you here, Inspector?’
‘Just as I am unaware of your man Flask, Superintendent Harcourt, I don’t suppose you have heard of a recent accident in London. It occurred in the suburb of Norwood. A married couple died because one of them had carelessly left the gas jets open. It was fortunate there was no explosion. A neighbour caught a whiff of gas, and smashed a window. She alerted the constable on the beat and together they ensured that no one caused a spark in the vicinity, until the supply could be turned off at the mains and the house thoroughly ventilated. But it was far too late. The man and his wife were found upstairs, asphyxiated in their bed.’
Now it was Harcourt’s turn to put on a blank face. Had the Inspector travelled all the way from Great Scotland Yard to give him a first-hand account of an accident in a London suburb? He wondered how to respond.
‘A sad story. I hadn’t heard it. To be frank, Inspector, an accident such as this – a London accident – is unlikely to feature in The Durham Advertiser.’
Harcourt spoke not knowing of the article which Helen Ansell had mentioned to Tom.
‘I suppose not,’ said Traynor. ‘The name of the couple was Seldon. He was a policeman. And you are also a policeman, Superintendent, like me. Anything about the story strike you as odd?’
Now Frank Harcourt put on his thinking face. A dead policeman. That explained the Inspector’s interest. Mentally, he ran over what he’d just heard about the gas mains in the Norwood house but without result. Was this a Scotland Yard test? Why didn’t the fellow on the other side of his desk get to the point? Harcourt shrugged and Traynor said, ‘You see, you might be careless enough to go to bed leaving the gas lamps on but only after you had cut off the supply at the mains. Alternatively you might leave the mains supply on but only if you ensured that all the jets in the house were turned off.’
‘Yes, I see,’ said Harcourt, glimpsing what Traynor might be on about.
‘This was a murder, a double murder. Someone had broken into the house via a back window to a privy. We know that because one of the window bars was prised away. The same someone went round turning on the gas taps and, after that, the supply from the mains. He was careless. He left his coat on the floor of the privy.’
‘And you’ve traced the owner of the coat, Inspector?’
‘No such luck. The burglar – the murderer, I should say – did not leave his name with the coat. It was an old, battered item, impossible to trace back to a shop or manufacturer, let alone an owner. Just the kind of thing you might be glad to discard. But a day or two later we received a note at the Yard. It was anonymous, scrawled.’
‘Ah,’ said Harcourt, thinking of the note, also an anonymous scrawl, which he had received with the knife in the box.
‘I have it here,’ said Traynor, taking a folded piece of paper from his pocket. He passed it to Harcourt. The Superintendent read: ‘LOOK TO DOCTER TONY HE MURDERED THOSE 2 IN NORWOOD’. Harcourt returned the paper and looked enquiringly at Traynor.
‘Interesting, eh? Now usually such a note – and we get them from time to time at the Yard – would not take us much further. Who is to say that this is not simply a malicious or mischievous communication? But the writer of it knew something. He knew that this was a case of murder even though the deaths had initially been reported as a household accident. And then we had a stroke of luck. One of our detectives on the metropolitan force makes it his business to be familiar with the area of London round Rosemary Street. He knows its courts and alleys, he knows many of its disreputable inhabitants. He knows too of a gentleman called Tony, Doctor Tony, who lodges in the vicinity. No last name at that stage but it appears he might have been a genuine medical man once. Of him we could find no trace. But we did lay our hands on an individual called George Forester of the Old Mint, which is near Rosemary Street. It did not take long to break Forester. It turned out that he was the writer of the note. He confessed soon enough. He said he felt under some sort of obligation to this Tony, claimed that the doctor had saved the life of one of his children and that ever since he, George, had run the odd errand on the doctor’s behalf.’
‘I see.’
‘One of the things he had done recently was to spy on a couple of dwellings, one of which belonged to the Seldons. Doctor Tony had requested this and George did it without thinking very much about the reasons. When he heard about the death of the Seldons he put two and two together. George is not a bad fellow even if he has had the odd brush with the law in his younger days. He didn’t want to sing out direct to us so he wrote that note, hoping we’d nab Tony without involving him. Fact is, though, I think he was relieved when we hauled him in. Said it had been weighing on his conscience. He told us everything. We didn’t even have to threaten him with being an accessory.’
‘So this doctor – this Tony – turned on the gas taps in the policeman’s house. Do you know why, Inspector?’
‘We’ve been doing a bit of deep digging, which is our method at the Yard. We reviewed all the arrests which Seldon had been present at. We looked at cases where he had given testimony in court. And we discovered that Seldon had recently been involved in a case against a medium – what’s the matter?’
Traynor hesitated. At the mention of the word ‘medium’, Harcourt had given a start.
‘It’s nothing,’ said the Superintendent. ‘A coincidence perhaps. I’ll explain in a moment.’
‘Well, there was to be a prosecution against the medium under the Vagrancy Act. Seldon had attended a seance at which a man called Ernest Smight accepted money in exchange for his predictions. No great crime perhaps but it is still an offence. We don’t always concern ourselves with such matters but someone high-up had laid a complaint against Smight, and we were obliged to investigate. Ernest Smight was due to appear before the magistrates. It wasn’t the first offence either so he might have served a few months inside.’
‘But something happened?’
‘You might say so, Superintendent. Smight threw himself off Waterloo Bridge. Obviously he thought he was facing financial ruin and penury. He preferred the cold waters of the Thames to prison gruel. He has a sister who assisted him in his presentations and she as good as accused the police of bringing about his demise. He also has a brother who has gone much further than words. By a combination of close questioning of Miss Smight and keeping our ear to the ground, we have established that George’s friend Tony is Doctor Anthony Smight. He has assorted letters after his name and might once have enjoyed a respectable practice. But he allowed himself to sink in the world. He haunts an opium den near the London docks, having acquired a taste for it out in the East. He consorts with dubious men and loose women. He occasionally does a good turn, as he did when he attended that child of George’s, but in general his life is one of indolence and vice. However, he has never committed murder – until now!’
Inspector Traynor paused in his recital. In his quiet way he had been leading up to this climax. Only he wasn’t quite done.