Mad Hatter

CHAPTER 11

The incident in Brill’s next morning was so alien to the good-humoured atmosphere traditionally engendered in swimming baths for gentlemen that everyone was caught unawares. Several patrons whose sorties from the side had them facing the wrong direction at the crucial moment frankly refused to believe that it had happened. Its onset was unimaginably sudden: a thrashing of water sufficient to suggest that a harpoonist had scored a hit near the centre of the pool, a frantic striking for the side, a cascading emergence of Dr. Prothero on the tiled surround, and an outraged challenge to the man standing in front of his changing-cubicle, ‘That is my towel you are holding, sir!’

The defaulter, tall, sharp of feature, with a waspish look about him, not unconnected with the colours of his costume, said, ‘No, sir. It is mine.’

‘Good God!’ said Prothero. ‘I know my own towel. Return it to me at once, sir!’

The other unconcernedly applied the towel to his left arm-pit. ‘You’re mistaken. This is mine. I left it hanging over the cubicle door.’

Plainly shaken by the confidence of the performance, Prothero looked to right and left to get his bearings. ‘But this is my cubicle and my green and white towel.’

‘Perhaps your memory is at fault. Look around you. There are at least a dozen towels hanging over doors.’

‘But none of them is green and white!’ said Prothero, just refraining from stamping a bare foot.

‘Exactly. You must have brought one of another colour with you. Easy to make mistakes about such unimportant things.’

Prothero stood like Alice in the presence of the Mad Hatter.

‘If someone has taken yours,’ the other advised him, ‘we should tell the attendant. I could lend you this one, of course, but it’s rather wet. Don’t stand there getting cold. Walk around the edge of the pool at a sharp step and you’ll be dry in no time. When I’m dressed I’ll speak to the attendant for you. Things like this shouldn’t be allowed to happen.’ He towelled his hair vigorously. ‘I don’t know what Brill’s is coming to when a man can’t leave his towel hanging over a door without some scoundrel helping himself to it.’

‘Would you believe me if my clothes were in the cubicle?’ Prothero appealed. ‘A silk hat and a frock-coat?’

‘That’s not all, I trust,’ said the man with the towel, ‘or you will feel a draught. Certainly have a look. We’re all liable to make mistakes. The door’s unbolted, you see. . Oh, my stars!’

‘There!’ said Prothero, vindicated by the contents of the cubicle. ‘Now perhaps you will kindly return my towel.’ The satisfaction of confounding such arrant self-righteousness quite made up for the state of the towel.

‘How can I begin to apologise?’ said the other. ‘My own towel must have been taken-or did I leave it inside the cubicle? Good Lord, sir, I’m cut to the quick. Mortified with shame. It must be the circular shape of the building, you see. Lost my bearings.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Prothero loftily.

‘But it does. The things I said. You must allow me to stand you a meal. If you don’t, I shall never be able to hold my head up again.’

‘It isn’t necessary.’

‘My name’s Cribb. Shall we go to Mutton’s?’

‘Prothero-Dr. Prothero. There is really no need-‘ ‘I’ll find my cubicle and see you in a few minutes. The least I can do.’

So Sergeant Cribb presently sat with the doctor at a central table in Mutton’s main dining-room, a monument to the glazier’s craft, with mirrors along every wall, a domed skylight and chandelier above them and statuettes and wax flowers encased in glass on a buhl cabinet at one end. A third place was reserved for Prothero’s son, after the doctor explained that they had arranged to meet there.

‘There are just the two of you in Brighton, then?’ Cribb ventured.

‘Guy and myself, yes. My wife and younger son were here until Sunday, but they had to return to Dorking prematurely. The child was unwell.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. Some childish malady, I expect?’

‘Oh, yes. I think the food upset him, or the change of air. He is not yet three. I told my wife to let the nursemaid take Jason home, but she was most insistent on going with them. It is her first child and she is devoted to it. Shall we order? Guy won’t object, I’m sure. He is late, anyway-throwing an eye over the fillies in the King’s Road, I shouldn’t wonder. The two-legged ones. Are you here for the season, Mr. Cribb?’

‘No, no. Business brings me to Brighton. What will you order, Doctor? I believe the turtle soup is just about obligatory.’ When the waiter had gone, he said, ‘I arrived here only two days ago. Missed the return of the regiment. Did you see them?’

‘A stirring sight,’ said Prothero. ‘First-rate band, too. I don’t think there was a soul left on the beach on the morning of the march-past. Are you a military man, Mr. Cribb? There’s something of the soldier in your bearing.’

‘Yes, I took the shilling in my time. Served a few years until the home comforts began to beckon. Did you get to the ball at the Dome? I suppose you wouldn’t have been invited, not being resident in the town.’

‘As a matter of fact, I was,’ Prothero said, in a voice that suggested Cribb was making unwarranted assumptions again. ‘It was the outstanding night of the season. Everyone was there.’

‘How splendid! It must have made a fitting climax to your wife’s holiday.’

‘My wife was not present.’

‘Oh. You took your son?’

‘A friend. Guy has not enough manners yet for these occasions. My wife does not attend evening engagements for reasons of health. She is of a nervous disposition. Ah! Here comes the boy.’ He signalled with a table-napkin. ‘He’s somewhat short on the social graces, Mr. Cribb, as you’ll presently see. Had a rather narrow upbringing. I blame the school.’

Guy was wearing his red blazer. ‘I thought we were taking lunch alone,’ he told his father, with the merest glance at Cribb, who had stood to receive him.

‘Mr. Cribb, this is my elder son, Guy.’

Cribb extended his hand. Guy produced his snuff and charged each nostril, ignoring the sergeant.

‘Mr. Cribb met me in Brill’s-‘ ‘In circumstances too embarrassing to recall,’ said Cribb, putting down his hand. ‘I’m standing the lunch. Order whatever you wish.’

In a few minutes they were all busy with soup-spoons.

‘Have you left school?’ Cribb inquired conversationally.

‘Ask him,’ said Guy.

‘It’s a sensitive point at the moment,’ Prothero explained. ‘Guy has left one school and is about to start at another.’

‘A boarding establishment?’

‘Yes. This is by way of a farewell holiday. He starts in two weeks.’

‘Where is the school?’

‘He won’t tell you where it is while I’m here,’ Guy informed Cribb, ignoring his father. ‘He doesn’t want me to know. I’m treated no better than Jason. I’ll have a sirloin steak next, cooked rare. It’s probably in the Outer Hebrides.’

‘Guy has a well-developed sense of humour which does not endear him to schoolmasters,’ said Prothero. ‘Or his family, on occasions.’

‘It’s true!’ said Guy. ‘When have you ever treated me with anything but suspicion? You’re fearful all the time that I’ll embarrass you and your quack theories. I can’t even come on holiday without being forbidden to bathe in the sea because you think it’s teeming with typhoid germs.’

‘My quack theories, as you term them, are supported by a substantial correspondence in The Lancet, my boy,’ retorted Prothero. ‘Any other lad in your condition would be grateful that he had a doctor for a father. He suffers from asthma, you know,’ he added, for Cribb’s information, ‘and I have made the disease my life’s work. Don’t so lightly dismiss the efforts I have made to alleviate your attacks, Guy.’

‘How can I, when I have a bruise on my arm as big as half a crown to remind me? That’s a father’s loving care for you. I began to wheeze a bit on Sunday,’ Guy told Cribb, ‘so he gave me an injection of atropine. He might be a specialist on asthma, but he handles the needle like a punt-pole.’

‘How long do you expect to be in Brighton, Mr. Cribb?’ asked Prothero, in a way that indicated that so far as he was concerned the insults had gone far enough.

‘Oh, as long as my business detains me.’

Guy turned sharply and looked at Cribb and then turned back to his father. ‘What did you say his name was?’ he asked.

‘I told you,’ said Prothero with a glare. ‘This is Mr. Cribb.’

‘I thought that was it! And you’ve only been in the town a day or two? You’re the man from Scotland Yard, aren’t you?’ demanded Guy triumphantly. ‘Investigating the body they dug up on the beach. I’ve read it in The Argus. What do they call you-Inspector Cribb?’

‘Sergeant only, I’m afraid.’

‘You’d better watch out, Father. Sergeant Cribb’s looking for a murderer. Better get home quick and pour your poisons down the wash basin. Business! You’re a fly one, Sergeant Cribb, aren’t you?’

‘It’s never been the custom of detectives to give cards to everyone they meet,’ said Cribb, matching the sarcasm. ‘Perhaps you think I should give you an account, item by item, of what we uncovered the other morning. It’s not my notion of lunch time conversation, but if you can enjoy a slice of sirloin at the same time, I’m sure I can. What would you like to know? Ah, here’s the waiter. Are we all for steak, gentlemen?’

‘I think the soup was quite sufficient,’ said Prothero, palely.

‘What about your son?’

Guy shook his head. ‘I’ve changed my mind. I’ll have a cold collation later.’

‘Steak for one, then. Well done, if you please,’ said Cribb. ‘As it happens, gentlemen, it’s the victim I’m concerned to identify. I’ll find my murderer later. I want to know who the unfortunate woman was. There isn’t much to go on, you see. Dark hair. Age about thirty. Small to medium height. Slim in build. Wearing a sealskin jacket and black skirt. Could be every other woman you pass in the street. That’s why I have to know about women who haven’t been seen in the town since Saturday-for whatever reason. It’s my job to investigate every report.’

Prothero frowned. ‘Am I to infer that you are concerned for the safety of my wife?’

‘Yes, sir, since I have it on quite good authority that she hasn’t been seen in Brighton since Saturday.’

There was a moment’s uneasy silence.

‘Your wife didn’t accompany you to the ball,’ Cribb added as if to strengthen the point.

The colour rose in the doctor’s cheeks. ‘I told you. She doesn’t go out in the evening. She was in one piece on Sunday, dammit, and if you’d asked me in the first place I could have told you so.’

‘You accompanied her to the station on Sunday morning?’

‘Er-no. They took a cab.’

‘Your wife, the maid Bridget and Jason?’

‘Good God, man! Do you even know the name of my servant?’

‘Did the three of them travel together, sir?’ persisted Cribb.

‘Naturally.’

‘You saw them leave?’

‘Of course! After a late breakfast. They would have caught the half past eleven train. If the change at Horsham didn’t delay them, they must have been home by one.’

‘That’s good news, then,’ said Cribb, leaning back in his seat as the steak was placed in front of him. ‘Would you be so kind as to pass the French mustard? Whoever this young woman was, she was killed on Saturday night. Not far from your hotel, so you can understand my concern.’

‘There were scores of men and women on the front that night,’ Guy suddenly said. ‘It was the firework show. I saw them from the hotel window. I expect a soldier got too much drink inside him and killed the doxy he was with. Then he dragged her into one of the lock-ups under the arches and left her until the next night, then he came back and set to work with the cleaver. There! I’ve solved the case for you.’

‘It’s one possibility,’ said Cribb, without much gratitude. ‘You say you watched the fireworks from the hotel. Were you with your stepmother?’

‘She was asleep,’ Prothero stated confidently.

‘No, Father. She got up to watch the fireworks.’

‘But she had taken her usual sleeping draught.’

‘I think not. We watched the show together from your bedroom. She would tell you herself if she were here. I went out on the balcony for a time, but she was wearing her peignoir, so she remained inside.’

‘The suite overlooks the front, I gather,’ said Cribb.

‘That’s so,’ Prothero confirmed. ‘My wife and I have a double room with a balcony, the best in the hotel. Jason sleeps next door-or did until Sunday-with Bridget, and their window looks on to the sea, too. Guy is on the other side of the building, across the corridor. The boy’s right, Mr.

Cribb. There are always people along the front at night, and on the beach. Soldiers, sailors, silly little sluts of shop-girls and females of a certain profession. They don’t go there just to promenade, I promise you. Brighton is not all it seems by day in the King’s Road, you know. One has only to see the colonnade of the Theatre Royal between eleven and midnight- a veritable Gomorrah. The women of the town flock there from their sordid houses of assignation in Church Street and Edward Street and some do not even have the decency to take their clients back there. The Pavilion grounds aren’t fit to walk through by night, and you may ask your friends at Brighton police station to verify that, if you wish.’

‘I’m sure I shan’t need to, sir. Now, gentlemen, the pastries here are recommended, I believe. Cooked on the premises. You’ll have one on Scotland Yard, I hope, seeing that you haven’t eaten very much.’

Guy stood up suddenly and tossed his crumpled napkin on the table. ‘I don’t want pastries. I need some fresh air.’

‘His condition,’ Prothero explained by way of an excuse, after the red blazer was lost to view. ‘It’s in the blood, inherited from his late mother. Providentially, I am able to subdue the attacks if I cannot dispel them altogether. I will have a pastry, if you please.’

The tray was brought and coffee served at the same time.

‘I should think you’ve had your difficulties with Guy, then,’ said Cribb.

‘In which way, exactly?’

‘Oh, I was meaning that it’s difficult to correct a child when it’s liable to bring on an attack of asthma.’

‘Less difficult than you would suppose,’ said Prothero defensively. ‘I’ll allow that he has abominable manners, but he’s been chastised like any normal boy. We’ve done all that Christian parents can.’

‘Perhaps the school was negligent,’ ventured Cribb. ‘You mentioned that he is starting at a new one.’

‘Quite soon, yes.’

‘I wonder if I’ve heard of it.’

‘I shouldn’t think so. A small private academy. There is still some doubt whether he will go there, so there is no point in my mentioning the name.’ The subject was obviously closed.

‘I didn’t wish to be indiscreet when the boy was here,’ said Cribb, ‘but you won’t mind if I now enquire whether it was a lady-friend you accompanied to the homecoming ball?’

‘I fail to see what relevance it has to your investigation, but I am not ashamed to tell you I was partnering Miss Samantha Floyd-Whittingham, who happens to be the daughter of a senior officer of the regiment. She is purely a social acquaintance.’

‘Goes without saying, sir. You didn’t by any chance leave the ball for a part of the evening, perhaps to watch the fireworks?’

‘Indeed, yes. Most of the guests did. We stood in the Steine Gardens for twenty minutes or so. We could see sufficiently well from there.’

‘And then you returned inside, sir?’

‘Of course, until the ball ended, soon after one o’clock. Then I drove the young lady to her lodgings in Lewes Crescent and returned to the Albemarle. I was home before two.’

‘I don’t doubt it, sir.’

‘Samantha is still alive, I assure you. I saw her yesterday.’

‘I wasn’t thinking she was dead,’ said Cribb.

‘Oh. You are concerned about my wife’s safety, but not about my-er-friend’s?’

‘Seeing that my information is that your friend has copper-coloured hair and the dead woman’s is brown, that’s correct, sir. There’s just one other matter, if you’ll indulge me a moment more. You’ve been most forbearing, if I might say so. Has your servant Bridget been with you long?’

‘Upwards of six months, I believe. I engaged her myself. She has impeccable references. My wife has never been entirely happy with her, but I think the fault may well rest more with Mrs. Prothero than with Bridget.’

‘What do you mean, sir?’

‘She is far too possessive with the child. If you engage a nurse, you should let her get on with the job, dammit, not interfere at every opportunity. Mrs. Prothero is a woman of excitable tendencies, as I think I mentioned. It is usually a relief to all of us when she takes her sleeping-draught and retires. A profound relief. You may imagine the scenes we have had between my wife and Guy.’

‘Vividly, sir. Do you think Bridget is completely to be trusted?’

‘In what way?’

‘Well, sir, not to put too fine a point upon it, in matters of morality.’

Prothero put down his coffee cup. ‘My goodness, Sergeant Cribb, you have been making a close study of us. I am well aware to what you are alluding. You may think me a forward thinker in this respect, but I don’t regard it as necessarily bad if a fifteen-year-old boy is taught a trick or two by a servant-wench. I know that I was when I was young. Oh yes, they bathe together. I don’t need Scotland Yard to tell me what two wet bathing-costumes mean. But I tell you that I’m more concerned about the toxic effects of the sea-water than I am about a bit of spooning under the waves. There’s no more to it than that, Sergeant. Bridget’s no youngster. She’s not the sort to make a fool of herself with a schoolboy, but if she feels disposed to further his education a little in that direction, I shan’t turn her out of the house for it. Guy might appear to be worldly-wise, with his scant respect for his elders and betters, but his knowledge of certain areas of human behaviour is not much better than your eye for a bath towel.’ He wiped his lips thoughtfully, as if reconsidering what he had just said. ‘I didn’t notice whether your towel was green and white. I rather suspect now that it was not. Do you have it with you?’

‘No sir,’ Cribb was quick to reply. ‘It was hired from Brill’s.’

‘And you’re saying no more than that, eh? Well, Sergeant, I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful for the lunch, whatever occasioned it. I just hope for your sake that Scotland Yard will not consider it as unjustified expenditure.’

‘If you are thinking of leaving, I’ll accompany you as far as Grafton Street,’ said Cribb as if he were bestowing a favour. ‘You were going in the general direction of Lewes Crescent, I take it?’

Prothero stood up. ‘Sergeant, it’s a good thing I haven’t done anything criminal, or I should be a worried man by now. By all means let’s go together.’

Constable Thackeray was waiting with a letter in his hand when Cribb re-entered the police station. ‘Blimey, Sarge, what have you done to yourself?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘There’s something different about you and I’m not sure what it is. Yes I am! It’s your hair.’

‘What’s the matter with it, for Heaven’s sake?’ growled Cribb.

‘Well, it’s standing up so, Sarge. You always have it plastered down. If I didn’t know you’d been out interviewing I’d almost think you’d been in for a dip. It must be the sea air. I believe the ozone does things like that. You’ll need to get some macassar-oil.’

There was a moment of silence before Cribb asked, ‘Is that all, Constable, or would you like to inspect my tongue to see whether I’m becoming constipated? Shall we concern ourselves with the purpose of our visit? What have you got there?’

‘It’s the police surgeon’s report, Sarge. I knew you’d want to open it yourself.’

Cribb opened the envelope and scanned its contents.

‘Does it tell us anything new?’ Thackeray asked.

‘Precious little, so far as I can see. Merely cloaks our own observations in pathological jargon. He hasn’t been able to establish a cause of death. “In my opinion the deceased was a healthy woman aged between twenty-five and forty-that’s a sizeable margin. Slight of build. Dark hair”-we know all this. Ah! Here’s a point of interest. “The dismemberment of the parts was performed with a sharp axe-like instrument employed somewhat crudely. The state of coagulation suggests that the amputations took place up to twenty-four hours after death.” It looks as if our murderer killed the woman on Saturday, hid the body under the arches and returned to finish his work the next night.’

Thackeray lifted two scandalised eyebrows. ‘On a Sunday?'

‘My guess is that he wrapped the dismembered parts in newspaper and buried them a foot or so under the pebbles that night, thinking to come back.’

‘He was taking a risk, Sarge, leaving them on a public beach. Just suppose a child had decided to dig there. It’s unthinkable!’

Cribb shook his head. ‘And unlikely. It’s the site of the fish-market. Nobody sits down there with a child. The smell’s too strong. Our murderer’s a very knowing cove, I’d say, and a cool’un, too. When do you think the hand was deposited in the crocodile tank?’

‘First thing in the morning, as soon as the aquarium opened, I should say. He probably had some of his gruesome parcels in a bag of some sort and got into the reptile-cave before anyone else and tossed them over the top.’

Cribb was unconvinced. ‘I know that crocs are notorious flesh-eaters and scavengers, but its asking the devil of a lot to expect ’em to finish everything before the first visitors arrive. That cave’s a popular place, you know.’

‘The hand was found in the morning,’ protested Thackeray.

‘Only because it slipped between the rock and the glass. No, I think it’s far more likely he got in there by night.’

‘Broke in, d’you mean?’

‘Why not? It’s just a short step from where the parts were buried.’

‘He’d have to be a skilled cracksman as well as a killer to do that Sarge.’

‘Not at all. You haven’t studied the lay of the building, I can see, in spite of walking past it two or three times a day. What’s its situation?’

‘Well, it stands between the upper promenade and the lower,’ said Thackeray, increasingly peeved at Cribb’s manner. ‘In the fork of Madeira Drive and the Marine Parade.’

‘Correct. And one being on a higher level than the other, what’s the effect on the siting of the building?’

‘It’s built hard against the rise of the upper promenade. The roof is on a level with the Marine Parade. They’ve made a terrace garden there.’

‘Exactly! You can walk on the roof. Hundreds of people do without realising it. But if you’ve got a sharp eye,’ (the implication plainly was that Thackeray had not), ‘and you take a look over the balustrades and under ledges you’ll see windows, dozens of ’em. They’re needed at the top to let the condensation out. Now it’s perfectly evident to anyone who walks along there that not all of those windows are closed at night. And it wouldn’t need a Charlie Peace to let himself in through one. It’s no great height, and some of the windows must be positioned over beams and furniture. I think he got in there by night. That’s probably why his aim with the hand wasn’t too good.’

‘Wouldn’t he have risked being seen breaking in?’

‘Hardly any risk at all if he worked from the side nearest the Parade. There’s a kind of well at one point between the building and the road. You can’t see into it unless you stand against the railing and lean over. That’s where I’d make my entry. I’m having one of the local detectives examine the windows there for marks. Well, there’s not much more in this report. How did you get on this morning?’

Thackeray mopped his brow with a large handkerchief. ‘This list you asked me to make is getting longer, Sarge. The Brighton bobbies are doing the door to door work, but I’m kept quite busy taking reports from them. There’s more than a hundred women on it already, and it’s the deuce of a job to discover what their age was. They all left the town on Saturday or Sunday, though. Finished their holidays, you see. I’m beginning to understand what attracts a murderer to a seaside resort. Oh, and the man Moscrop called again.’

‘What did he want?’

‘He asked to see you. It seems he remembered something that might be of vital importance. He wanted to look at the sealskin jacket we found, but I didn’t let him, of course. I tried to explain that it was evidence and that if he became a witness he might be called upon to identify the coat in court, and-‘

‘What did he say about the coat?’ demanded Cribb.

‘Oh it was something to do with a missing button. While Mrs. Prothero was walking along the prom. with him, a button came off her jacket. She put it in her pocket. I think he was hoping to identify the jacket we found by locating the button in the pocket, but I was able to tell him that the buttons was all in place, and we hadn’t found nothing in the pockets. He went away after that.’

‘Did he say which button was missing?’ asked Cribb.

‘The top one.’

‘Fetch the coat.’

‘You won’t find the button gone, Sarge,’ mumbled Thackeray, as he went to collect it. ‘I checked it again myself after he’d gone. But if you won’t take my word for it. . s›. . !s›. . !s›.’

In a moment he returned with the jacket and planted it on the table in front of Cribb with a sigh pregnant with injured pride. Cribb examined each button carefully. ‘Hand me that magnifying-glass, Constable.’ He turned the buttons back and studied the cotton-strands holding them in place. ‘Interesting. The top button’s sewn on with thinner cotton than the rest, but there’s still traces of the holes where the thicker stuff went through. Someone’s had to sew the button on again. I rather think that Moscrop’s come to your rescue, Thackeray. You needn’t do any more work on that list. He’s found the lady for us.’