Last Respects Part 23

"Hurry, man," urged Sloan. "Hurry!"

Crosby raced through the gears as fast as he could; the slope of the ramp needed plenty of power. The corner at the end, though, was tighter than any at Silverstone. He took it on two wheels.

"And again," commanded Sloan at the next level.

But they had lost speed on the way up. Crosby took the next bend more easily but at a slower rate.

"Keep going," adjured Sloan. He had his hand on the door catch.

They reached the top floor and came out into the suns.h.i.+ne. The sudden glare momentarily distracted both men but there was no disguising the dark blue Ford Zephyr standing in solitary state on the top platform or the two figures standing by the parapet of the central well. One of them had his arm round the other who appeared to be resisting.

"Stop!" shouted Sloan as he ran.

The man took a quick look over his shoulder and standing away from the other-a girl-vaulted lightly over the parapet.

17.

Here ends all dispute.

I suppose," snorted Superintendent Leeyes, who was a sound-and-fury man if ever there was one, "that you're going to tell me that everything makes sense now."

"The picture is a little clearer, sir," said Detective Inspector Sloan. He was reporting back to Superintendent Leeyes the next morning, the morning after Frank Mundill's spectacular suicide over the edge of the parapet at the top of the multi-storey car park.

"Perhaps, then, Sloan, you will have the goodness to explain what has been going on."

"Murder, sir."

"I know that."

"More murder than we knew about, sir."

"Sloan, I will not sit here and have you being enigmatic."

"No, sir," said Sloan hastily. "The first murder wasn't of Peter Hinton at all. It was of Celia Mundill."

"The wife?" said Leeyes.

"The wife," said Sloan succinctly. "Frank Mundill wanted to marry Mrs. Veronica f.e.c.kler."

"Ha!" said Leeyes.

"So," said Sloan, "he set about disposing of his wife."

"He made a very good job of it," commented Leeyes.

"He nearly got away with it," said Sloan warmly. "He would have done but for Peter Hinton putting two and two together."

"So that's what happened, is it?"

"Elizabeth Busby tells me that Hinton was something of a student of criminology, sir. His favourite reading was the Notable British Trials series."

"He suspected something?"

"We think so. Hinton wanted Mrs. Mundill in hospital."

"That wouldn't have done for a murderer," said Leeyes.

"No."

"So Peter Hinton had to go?" grunted Leeyes.

"Exactly." Sloan cleared his throat. "I-that is, we-think that he came back one day and challenged Mundill."

"And that was his undoing?"

"It was. He was a threat, you see, to the successful murder of Mrs. Mundill."

Talk of successful murders always upset the superintendent. "Do you mean that, Sloan?"

"I do, sir," said Detective Inspector Sloan seriously. "It was as near perfect as they come. We would never have known about the murder of Mrs. Mundill if he hadn't killed the young man too."

Leeyes didn't like the sound of that. "How perfect?"

"a.r.s.enic, at a guess."

"You can't have a perfect murder with a.r.s.enic."

"You can if it's diagnosed and treated as cancer of the stomach," said Sloan.

"But what doctor would..."

"An old doctor who has had a letter from another doctor saying that that was what was wrong."

Leeyes whistled. "Clever."

"Very clever," said Sloan. "Each year the Mundills went at Easter to housekeep for a loc.u.m tenens. Mundill's sister is married to a single-handed general pract.i.tioner in Calleford. While Mrs. Mundill was there she had her first attack of sickness. The loc.u.m-a Dr. Penthwin-arranged for her to have an X-ray at Calleford Hospital."

"But it would be normal," objected Leeyes at once.

"Of course it would, sir," said Sloan, "but that doesn't matter."

"No?"

"All that matters is the letter that the Mundills bring back from Dr. Penthwin to their own doctor at Collerton, Dr. Gregory Tebot."

"A forgery?" said Leeyes.

"From start to finish," said Sloan who had seen it now.

"Mundill writes it himself in the loc.u.m's name on professional writing paper. His brother-in-law knows nothing about it-neither does the loc.u.m, for that matter. Anyway Dr. Penthwin's soon gone. Dr. Tebot gets the letter which he thinks is from Dr. Penthwin and starts treating Mrs. Mundill for an unoperable cancer of the stomach."

"Most doctors would," agreed Leeyes reluctantly.

"Mundill sees that the doses of a.r.s.enic follow the course of the disease," said Sloan. "Peter Hinton spotted it was a.r.s.enic, I'm sure about that. He'd asked if her eyes kept on watering. That's what put us onto it too."

Leeyes grunted. "Mundill had long enough to look it all up in the books while he was over there."

"He'd even," said Sloan, "had long enough to go through the patients' medical records until he finds a letter with the wording pretty nearly the same as he wants."

"Clever," said Leeyes again. A whole new vista of medical murder opened up before him. "Has it been done before, do you think?"

"Who can say?" said Sloan chillingly. "Anyway, Dr. Tebot isn't going to start on fresh X-rays or anything like that, is he? He wouldn't see any need for them."

"The nearly perfect murder," said Leeyes.

"There was something else going for him, too, sir."

"What was that?"

"Celia Mundill didn't want to be cremated."

"And that suited the husband, I'm sure," said Leeyes.

"Cremation requires two medical certificates," said Sloan. "Burial only one." He'd leetured Crosby on the burial of victims of murder. A grave was the best place of all.

"The nearly perfect murder," said Leeyes again.

"He almost spoilt it, sir."

"How come?"

"Gilding the lily." It was surprising how often that happened with murderers. They wouldn't-couldn't-leave well alone.

"What lily?"

"The grave, sir. Mundill insisted on his wife being buried by the water's edge where the river floods."

"To help wash the a.r.s.enic away," said Leeyes. He cast his mind back. "That's been done before, hasn't it?"

"And to aid decomposition," completed Sloan. "I don't know how much it would have helped but I daresay he thought that if anyone got any bright ideas after he married Mrs. f.e.c.kler..."

Leeyes grunted. "He was going to marry her, was he?"

"He was," said Sloan. "On his wife's money. Financially he had nothing to lose by her death and a lot to gain."

"That's always dangerous," said the voice of experience.

"Mundill had a life interest in his wife's estate," said Sloan, "but he wanted a little capital too."

"Don't we all," said Leeyes.

"That," said Sloan manfully, "is why he sold a picture that wasn't his to sell."

"Ha."

"And blamed its disappearance on Peter Hinton."

"An opportunist if ever there was one," commented Leeyes.

"What put the girl's life in danger," said Sloan, "was her spotting the report of the sale in the daily paper."

It had been a close thing yesterday.

"If it hadn't been for that, eh, Sloan, Mundill might have got away with murder."

"I'm sure I hope not, sir," said Sloan.

"And the fisherman," said Leeyes. "Why did he have to go?"

"We think," said Sloan slowly, "that Boiler must have been trying to apply a little pressure to Mundill."

"Why?"

"He wasn't a nice man," said Sloan obliquely. "He could easily have known all about Mundill's visits to Mrs. f.e.c.kler's cottage. He was about at all hours remember and not very scrupulous."

"He could have spotted that sand-hopper creature." Leeyes had seen the report on gammarus pulex.

"That was probably what took him up river the first time," said Sloan, "but I think it may have been his cousin Ted who gave him the real clue."

"Cousin Ted? You'll have to do better than that for the coroner, Sloan."

"Ted Boiler is the village undertaker."

"What about it?"