‘And that is?’
‘We must pay a visit to the morgue … No, don’t ask why. You will see when we get there.’
They had to stand five minutes in the antiseptic half-light of the mortuary before the attendants had sorted out Mrs Carmichael. Nervously Swallow pulled back the sheet and studied the body intently.
‘Observe her right hand,’ murmured Verity over his shoulder.
The Inspector whistled, and the noise had a horrible flat ring in that desolate room.
‘She must have been a heavy smoker. The whole finger is stained with nicotine, and the flesh is badly scorched on the side there.’
Mr Verity’s satanic face wore a smug look.
‘Just so. Mrs Carmichael must have suffered a considerable amount of pain in allowing that cigarette to burn down to that point.’
‘She must have been asleep when her husband took that “After” picture,’ said Swallow.
‘Fiddlesticks,’ roared Verity. ‘She was unconscious.’
‘And just what is the point of shunting an unconscious woman around in a bath-chair, posing her for a personality picture, dumping her in bed and going off to a bridge party?’ the Inspector enquired, suddenly startled by the old man’s explosion.
‘The point should be obvious to an intelligence considerably meaner than yours, my dear Inspector. Come, I want to make a telephone call.’
‘To whom?’
‘To the station, of course. I want them to arrest our two murderers, and take them into custody. Come, don’t stand there as if you had been struck by lightning. I’m sure they must have a ’phone here; if not for the convenience of the inmates, at least for casual visitors.’
Whilst the Inspector saw that the body of Mrs Carmichael was safely returned, Mr Verity found the ’phone and got through to the police-station. His instructions were brief but effective.
Ten minutes later, after Mr Verity had meticulously examined some Corinthian-style pillaring which had caught his fancy on the exterior of the little town hall, the two detectives were speeding back to the police-station in the Inspector’s car.
‘After all, we don’t want to keep our prisoners waiting,’ Mr Verity explained as he urged his colleague to exceed the speed limit. Inspector Swallow, his mind in a baffled whirl, drove steadily.
Once at the station, Mr Verity jumped out of the car with all the deftness of a rhinoceros in labour, and charged inside.
‘Well, where are they?’ he enquired of a constable behind the desk.
‘Waiting inside, sir.’
Next door sat Robert Carmichael and Nurse Stephens, white-faced and very angry.
‘You’ll pay for this, Verity,’ Carmichael roared. ‘False imprisonment. I’ll get £10,000 damages.’
‘The only damage you’ll get is to your neck,’ the old man replied benignly.
‘You can’t prove a thing. On your own evidence, the murder was done between 10.30 and 11 o’clock. Nurse Stephens and I were miles away at the time. I have half a dozen witnesses.’
‘Saving your presence, Nurse Stephens, I wouldn’t give a damn if you had the whole population of Central London as witnesses. You may have been miles away when your wife died, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t murder her. You ran the whole job up between you—a very natural alliance seeing that you planned to carry the partnership on to the legalised sex level when the obstacle was safely in her coffin.’
‘This is absurd,’ screamed Nurse Stephens. ‘Supposing you prove it.’
‘I can do that, too,’ Mr Verity replied, taking a deep puff at his cigar and exhaling slowly. ‘From the burn on Mrs Carmichael’s finger, I was convinced that at the time you took that photograph your wife was unconscious. Therefore some drug was suggested and at the same time a wonderful opportunity for administering the stuff—Mrs Carmichael’s medicine.
‘What happened was this. Nurse Stephens slipped an overdose of some suitable narcotic, probably chloral hydrate, into the medicine, and though the victim lost consciousness within half an hour she did not die until close on 11 o’clock. What simpler than for your nurse to come along in the morning and drive a thin implement through her head, the idea being to make it look as if Mrs Carmichael had been murdered at 11 o’clock, the time of death, when she and her accomplice were twelve miles away playing bridge. A very thin weapon, even if it had been used when the victim was alive, would cause so very little blood that Doctor Hendrikson was unable to tell that the wound was inflicted after death. Again, a drug like chloral hydrate would not be suspected if there were other evidence to account for death, like a wound in the temple. Ingenious and all well within a qualified nurse’s knowledge.
‘It really was very foolish of you, Mr Carmichael, to give way to your macabre egotism and put a picture of your dying wife in the newspaper with a caption plugging her superb health. It wasn’t really necessary to prove that she was alive at five o’clock. There was plenty of independent testimony on this point. On the other hand, it clearly showed me the way to your conviction … You can lock them up now, Sergeant.’
Protesting, they were led below. Inspector Swallow came up to the old man and held his hand out.
‘Many congratulations, Mr Verity. I should never have guessed.’
‘Nonsense, my dear fellow,’ he replied, pumping the other’s hand. ‘No guesswork was required. You would have got there if you had thought about it long enough … Perhaps you will lunch with me so that we may talk of other and pleasanter things? I suggest you join me at “The Stag” at one o’clock. I must first pay a brief visit to your local museum. I have heard they possess a quite excellent bronze of Antonio Rizzo; a Venetian youth, I believe. See you at lunch.’
Inspector Swallow watched him go down the street, still gesticulating wildly, his small beard and the smoke from his cigar being blown about by the wind, and disappear round the corner into the High Street. With a shake of his head he returned inside to the comparative calm of the police-station.
PART II
Mr Verity had gone. Inspector Swallow mopped his brow as he climbed the steps of the police-station.
‘Say, Inspector—’
‘Why, Harry!’ Swallow positively beamed at the local reporter. ‘I want some information from you.’
‘Me? I just came for the latest—’
‘I know, I’ll give you something later. Look, you’re in the newspaper business. Supposing an advertising agency wanted to insert an advertisement in a national newspaper, how long before publication would they have to get the pictures and things ready?’
‘The way clients change their minds and alter the ads, I’d say a month or so.’
‘No, seriously.
