XXXIV. Evidence of What Did Happen

CHAPTER XXXIV

EVIDENCE OF WHAT DID

HAPPEN

Take thou this flower to strew upon his grave,

A lily of the valley; it bears bells,

For even the plants, it seems, must have their fool,

So universal is the spirit of folly;

And whisper, to the nettles of his grave,

“King Death hath asses’ ears.”’

Death’s Jest-Book

WEDNESDAY, 8 JULY

‘DO YOU MEAN TO say,’ demanded Inspector Umpelty, with slow indignation, ‘that the young lady finds herself mistaken all this time?’ Harriet shook her head, and Wimsey said, ‘No.’

‘Well, my lord, I don’t think you can go against the doctor. I’ve asked other doctors about it, and they say there’s no doubt about it.’

‘You didn’t tell them the whole of the facts,’ said Wimsey. ‘I don’t blame you,’ he added, kindly, ‘I’ve only just thought of the rest of the facts myself. Something you said about blood put it in my head, Harriet. Suppose we put down a few things we know about this supposed heir of the Romanovs.’

1. He is known to have been very ill as a child, through being knocked down in the playground.

2. At the age of twenty-one he wore a beard, and had never used a razor. He was also

3. Extraordinarily timid about using sharp weapons or visiting the dentist.

4. Moreover, he had had at least one molar crowned—the last resort to avoid extraction.

5. On Thursday 18th, when scrambling over rocks, he wore gloves.

6. Periodic pains in the joints caused him acute suffering.

7. He used antipyrin to relieve this condition.

8. In no circumstances would he see a doctor, though he anticipated that the trouble would eventually cripple him.

9. Lack of the usual post-mortem stains were remarked on at the inquest.

10. Inquest also established that the great vessels were almost completely drained of blood.

11. And, finally, one may inherit other things besides Imperial crowns through the female line.

Harriet and the Inspector stared at this for a moment or two. Then Harriet laughed:

‘Of course!’ she said. ‘I thought your style was a little laboured in places! But as an impromptu effort it’s creditable.’

‘I don’t see what you get from all that,’ said Umpelty. And then, suspiciously: ‘Is it a joke? Is it another of these ciphers?’ He snatched up the paper and ran a large thumb down the lines. ‘Here!’ he said, ‘what are you playing at? Is it a riddle?’

‘No, it’s the answer,’ said Harriet. You’re right, Peter, you’re right—you must be. It would explain such a lot. Only I didn’t know about antipyrin.’

‘I’m almost sure that is right; I remember reading about it somewhere.’

‘Did it come through the Romanovs?’

‘Possibly. It doesn’t prove that he really was a Romanov, if you mean that. Though he may have been, for young Simons recognised something familiar in his face, which may have been a family resemblance. But it may quite likely have been the other way: the fact that he had it may have lent colour to the tradition. It often occurs spontaneously.’

‘What is all this?’ asked the Inspector.

‘Don’t tease him, Peter. Try the initial letters, Mr Umpelty.’

‘Ah—oh! You will have your fun, my lord! H, A, E —Haemophilia. What in the name of blazes is that, when it’s at home?’

‘It’s a condition of the blood,’ said Wimsey, ‘due to a lack of something-or-the-other, calcium or what not. It is inherited, like colour-blindness, through the female, and shows itself only, or practically only, in the male, and then only in alternate generations. That is to say, it might lie hidden in generation after generation of daughters, and then, by some malignant chance, pop suddenly up in a son born of a perfectly healthy father and an apparently quite healthy mother. And so far as is known it is incurable.’

‘And what is it? And why do you think Alexis had it? And what does it matter if he did?’

‘It’s a condition in which the blood doesn’t clot properly; if you get even a tiny little scratch, you may bleed to death from it. You may die of having a tooth drawn or from cutting your chin with a razor, unless you know how to deal with it—and in any case, you will go on bleeding like a stuck pig for hours. And if you get a fall or a blow, you have internal bleeding, which comes out in great lumps and swellings and is agonisingly painful. And even if you are terribly careful, you may get internal bleeding at the joints for no reason at all. It comes on from time to time and is horribly painful and gives you a hell of a fever. Hence, if I remember rightly, the antipyrin. And what’s more, it generally ends up by ankylosing your joints and making you a permanent cripple.’

‘The Tsarevitch had it, of course,’ and Harriet. ‘I read about it in those books of Alexis—but like a fool, I never thought about it in connection with the murder.’

‘I don’t know that I see it now,’ said the Inspector, ‘except that it explains why Alexis was such a namby-pamby and all that. Do you mean it proves that Alexis really was a royalty of sorts and that the Bolshies—?’

‘It may or may not prove any of that,’ said Wimsey. ‘But don’t you see, my dear old goat, that it completely busts up and spifflicates the medical evidence? We timed the death for two o’clock because the blood hadn’t clotted—but if Alexis was a haemophilic, you might wait till Kingdom Come, and his blood would never clot at all. Therefore, he may have died at noon or dawn for all we know. As a matter of fact, the blood might end by clotting very slightly after some hours—it depends how badly he had the disease—but as evidence for the time of death, the blood is a simple washout.’

‘Good lord!’ said Umpelty.

He sat open-mouthed.

‘Yes,’ he said, when he’d recovered himself a little, ‘but here’s a snag. If he might have died any time, how are we to prove he died at twelve o’clock?’

‘Easy. First of all, we know it must have been then, because that’s the time these people have an alibi for. As Sherlock Holmes says somewhere: “Only a man with a criminal enterprise desires to establish an alibi.” I must say, this case is really unique in one thing. It’s the only one I have ever known in which a murderer didn’t know the time he was supposed to have done the murder at. No wonder the evidence at the inquest gave Henry Weldon such a jolt!’

‘Yes—but—’ the Inspector seemed worried. ‘That’s all right for us, but I mean to say, that doesn’t prove it was a murder—I mean, you’ve got to prove it was a murder first, before you prove anything else. I mean to say —’

‘Quite right,’ said Wimsey. ‘Unlike Mr Weldon, you can spot the petitio elenchi. But look here, if Alexis was seen alive on the road between half-past ten and half-past eleven and was dead at two o’clock, then he must have died during the period covered by the alibis; that’s certain. And I think we can get it down a bit closer. Jem Pollock and his grandad puzzled us by saying that they thought they saw the man lying down on the rock well before two o’clock. In that case, he was probably dead already. We now know that they were in all likelihood speaking the truth, and so we need not now imagine them to be accomplices in the crime. You can whittle the period during which death must have occurred down to about two hours— say from 11.30, when Alexis could have reached the rock, to about 1.30, when the Pollocks first set eyes on the body. That ought to be near enough for you—especially as you can trace the weapon quite definitely to the hands of one of the accomplices. I suppose you can’t find that the razor was sent anywhere by post for Weldon to get hold of?’

“We’ve tried that, but we couldn’t find anything.’

‘No. I shouldn’t wonder if Weldon’s trip to Wilvercombe on the Wednesday was made for the purpose of picking up the razor. It could so easily have been left somewhere for him. Of course, Morecambe took good care not to be in Wilvercombe that day himself, the cunning devil—but what could be easier than to deposit a little parcel at a tobacconist’s or somewhere to be called for by his friend Mr Jones? I suggest that you look into that, Inspector.’

‘I will, my lord. There’s just one thing. I can’t see why Weldon and Morecambe should have been so surprised about the inquest evidence. Wouldn’t Alexis have told them about this disability of his? If he thought it proved his descent from the Romanovs, you’d think he’d have mentioned it first thing.’

‘Oh, no, you wouldn’t. It’s pretty clear that Alexis disguised that little matter very jealously. It’s not a recommendation to a man who wants to lead a successful revolution that he is liable to be laid up at any moment by a painful and incurable disease. Nor would it be exactly an inducement to “Feodora” to marry him, if he was known to be a “bleeder.” No, poor devil, he must have been terrified the whole time for fear they should find it out.’

‘Yes, I see. It’s natural, when you come to think of it. ‘If you exhume the body,’ said Wimsey, ‘you will very likely find the characteristic thickening of the joints that accompanies haemophilia. And I daresay you might get conclusive evidence by inquiring among the people who knew Alexis in London and America. I’m pretty sure he had the disease.’

‘It’s funny,’ said Harriet, ‘the way all this worked out for Weldon & Co. They had such good luck in one way and such bad luck in another. I mean: first of all they laid a fairly good plot, which turned on an alibi and a disguise. Then I came along unexpectedly and bust up the disguise. That was bad luck. But at the same time I produced a lot of unnecessary cleverness and observation which gave them a far better alibi for a totally different time, which was good luck. Then they lost the body, owing to the £300 in gold, which would have been a beastly nuisance for them. But again I barged in with evidence and photographs, and so drew attention to the death and got the body found again. Then, when, to their horror, their original lovely alibi turned out to be useless and dangerous, along comes poor little Perkins—who of course is as innocent as any sucking-pig—to give them a cast-iron alibi for the wrong time. We found the horseshoe, which would have pretty well cooked their goose, but for the astonishing bit of luck over the blood-clotting affair. And so on. It’s been an incredible muddle. And it’s all my fault, really. If I hadn’t been so bright and brainy nobody would ever have known anything about the condition of the blood at all, and we should have taken it for granted that Alexis had died long before I came on the scene. It’s so complicated, I really don’t know whether my being there helped or hindered.’

‘It’s so complicated,’ said the Inspector with a groan, ‘that I don’t believe we’ll get any jury to believe it. Besides there’s the Chief Constable. I’ll bet you anything you like he’ll pooh-pooh the whole thing. He’ll still say that after all we haven’t proved it wasn’t suicide, and we’d better let it go at that. He’s as mad as a dog with us for arresting those people anyhow, and if I come along with this story about haemo-what-you-call, he’ll have fifty thousand fits. See here, my lord, if we do prosecute, d’you really think we’ve a hope in Hades?’

‘I’ll tell you this,’ said Harriet “Last night, Mrs Weldon consented to dance with M. Antoine, and Henry didn’t like it at all. If you let Henry Weldon and Morecambe loose again, what premium would you take on those two lives—Antoine’s and Mrs Weldon’s?’

There was silence after the Inspector left them.

‘Well!’ said Harriet at last.

“Well,’ said Wimsey, ‘isn’t that a damned awful, bitter, bloody farce? The old fool who wanted a lover and the young fool who wanted an empire. One throat cut and three people hanged, and £130,000 going begging for the next man who likes to sell his body and soul for it. God! What a jape! King Death has asses’ ears with a vengeance.’

He got up.

‘Let’s clear out of this,’ he said. ‘Get your things packed and leave your address with the police and come on up to town. I’m fed to the back teeth.’

‘YES, let’s go. I’m terrified of meeting Mrs Weldon. I don’t want to see Antoine. It’s all frightening and disgusting. We’ll go home.’

‘Right-ho! We’ll go home. We’ll dine in Piccadilly. Damn it,’ said Wimsey, savagely, ‘I always did hate watering-places!’