'Thirty-three.' 'Then it's unlikely to be rheumatism if he's lived a normal civilized life. I say unlikely, but it could happen. Did he say pain or ache?' I consulted the medical file. 'Actually, he said ache.'
'Um. Not much to go on. Doctors usually have real patients to examine, not wraiths of your imagination.' I said, 'Supposing the man was treated for rheumatism and it didn't work, and then his doctor thought a cardiogram was indicated. What would you think then?' 'How long has the man been treated for rheumatism?' 'Hang on.' I checked the file.
'Three months.' Tom's breath hissed in my ear. 'I'm inclined to think the doctor should be struck off. Do you mean to say it took him three months to recognize a classic symptom of ischasmia?' 'What's that?'
'Ischaemic heart disease-angina pectoris.' I suddenly felt much happier. 'Would the man survive?' 'That's an imponderable question-very iffy. If he's had that ache in his arm for three months and if it is ischasmic and if he hasn't had treatment for his heart then he'll be in pretty bad shape. His future depends on the life he's been living, whether he smokes a lot, and whether he's been active or sedentary.' I thought of Sergeant Benson in an army stores office.
'Let's say he's been sedentary and we'll assume he smokes.' 'Then I wouldn't be surprised to hear he's dropped dead of a coronary one morning. This is hypothetical, isn't it? Nobody I know?' 'No one you know,' I assured him. 'But not quite hypothetical. There was a man in that condition back in 1946. He died about a month ago. What do you think of that?' 'I think that I think I'm surprised, but then, medicine isn't a predictive sport and the damnedest things can happen.
I wouldn't have thought it likely he'd make old bones.' 'Neither would I,' I said. 'Thanks for your trouble, Tom.' 'You'll get my bill,' he promised, and rang off. I depressed the telephone rest, rang Penny, and asked her the name of Benson's doctor. She was faintly surprised but gave it to me when I said my boss wanted to tidy up a few loose ends before I was transferred. 'It's just a matter of firm identification.' The doctor's name was Hutchins and he was a shade reserved. 'Medical files are confidential, you know, Mr. Jaggard.' 'I don't want you to break any confidences, Dr. Hutchins,' I said. 'But the man is dead after all. All I want to know is when Benson last had a heart attack.' 'Heart attack!' echoed Hutchins in surprise. 'I can certainly tell you all about that. It's no breach of confidentiality on a doctor's part if he says a man is perfectly well. There was absolutely nothing wrong with Benson's heart; it was in better condition than my own, and I'm a much younger man. He was as fit as a flea.' 'Thank you, Doctor,' I said warmly. 'That's all I wanted to know.' As I put down the telephone I thought I'd handled that rather well. I sat back and checked off all the points. Item: Sergeant Benson was suffering from heart disease at the end of 1946. His condition, according to Tom Packer, was grave enough so that no one would be surprised if he dropped dead. Hypothesis: Sergeant Benson had died of heart disease some time after 18 December, 1946 and before 4 January, 1947. Item: Civilian Benson was discharged at Earl's Court on 4 January, 1947 and subsequently showed no trace of a bad heart condition. Hypothesis: Civilian Benson was a planted substitute for Sergeant Benson, exactly as Chelyuskin was a substitute for Private Ashton. The method was exactly the same and it happened on the same day and in the same place, so the likelihood of a connection was very high, particularly as Benson worked for Ashton for the rest of his life. Corollary: Because the methods used were identical the likelihood was high that both substitutions were planned by the same mind. But Ogilvie had told me that the idea was Chelyuskin's own. Was Benson another Russian? Had two men been smuggled out? It all hung together very prettily, but it still didn't tell me who Benson was and why he had shot Ashton.
CHAPTER THIRTY Ogilvie was pleased about all that even though it got us no further into cracking the problem of why Benson should kill Ashton. At least we had seen the common linkage and he was confident that by probing hard enough and long enough we-or rather I-would come up with the truth. All the same he coppered his bet by having me do an intensive investigation into the life of Sergeant Benson before he joined the army. Ogilvie was a belt-and-braces man. So I spent a long time in the West Country looking at school records in Exeter and work records in Plymouth. At Benson's school I found an old sepia class photograph with Benson in the third row; at least, I was assured it was Benson. The unformed young face of that thirteen-year-old gazing solemnly at the camera told me nothing. Some time in the ensuing years Benson had had his features considerably rearranged. There were no photographs of an older Benson to be found in Plymouth, but I did talk to a couple of people who knew him before the war. The opinion was that he wasn't a bad chap, reasonably good at his job, but not very ambitious. All according to the record. No, he hadn't been back since the war; he had no family and it was assumed there was nothing for him to go back for. All this took time and I got back to London just as Penny and Gillian were about to leave for America. I drove them to Heathrow myself and we had a drink in the bar, toasting surgical success. 'How long will you be away?' I asked Gillian. She wore a broad-brimmed straw hat with a scarf tied wimple-fashion and large dark glasses; style coming to the aid of concealment. 'I don't know; it depends how the operations go, I suppose.' She sketched a mock shiver. 'I'm not looking forward to it. But Penny will be back next week.' Penny said, 'I just want to see Gillian settled and to make sure everything is all right, then I'll be back. Lummy wants to go to Scotland with me.' 'So you undermined his certainty.' 'Perhaps,' she said noncommittally. 'Did you arrange for the auction?' 'It's on Wednesday-viewing day on Tuesday. We already have a flat in town.' She took a notebook and scribbled the address. That's where you'll find me when I come back, if I'm not in Scotland.' Gillian excused herself and wandered in the direction of the ladies' room. I took the opportunity of asking, 'How did you get on with Ogilvie?' I had arranged the meeting with Ogilvie as promised. He hadn't liked it but I'd twisted his arm. Penny's brow furrowed. 'Well enough, I suppose. He told me pretty much what you have. But there was something…' 'Something what?' 'I don't know. It was like speaking in a great empty hall. You expect an echo to come back and you're a bit surprised when there isn't one. There seemed to be something missing when Ogilvie talked. I can't explain it any better than that.' Penny was right-there was a hell of a lot missing. Her psychic antennae were all a-quiver and she perceived a wrongness but had no way of identifying it. Below the level of consciousness her intelligence was telling her there was something wrong but she didn't have enough facts to prove it. Ogilvie and I knew there was something wrong because we had more facts, but even we were blocked at that moment. I saw them into the departure lounge, then went home and proceeded to draw up an elaborate chart containing everything I knew about the Ashton case. Lines (ruled) were drawn to connect the dramatis personae and representing factual knowledge; lines (dashed) were drawn representing hypotheses. The whole silly exercise got me nowhere. About this time I started to develop an itch in my mind. Perhaps it had been the drawing of the chart with its many connections which started it, but I had something buried within me which wanted to come to the surface. Someone had said something and someone else had said something else, apparently quite unrelated and the little man Hunch who lived in the back of my skull was beginning to turn over in his sleep. I jabbed at him deliberately but he refused to wake up. He would do so in his own good time and with that I had to be content. On the Tuesday I went to the Ashton house for the public viewing. It was crowded with hard-eyed dealers and hopeful innocents looking for bargains and not finding much because all the good stuff had gone to the London flat or to Sotheby's. Still, there was enough to keep them happy; the accumulated possessions of a happy family life of fifteen years. I could see why Penny didn't want to be there. I wasn't there to buy anything, nor was I there out of mere curiosity. We had assumed Ashton had hidden something and, although we hadn't found it, that didn't mean it wasn't there. When I say 'we' I really mean Ogilvie, because I didn't wholly go along with him on that. But he could have been right, and I was on hand to see if any suspicious-looking characters were taking an undue interest. Of course, it was as futile an exercise as drawing the chart because the normal dealer looks furtive and suspicious to begin with.