Wobble to Death

THURSDAY
CHAPTER 10

Feargus O’Flaherty slept serenely, his russet curls pressed against the sacking which served as a pillow. The hard work that he had put in the evening before had left him exhausted, but exhilarated. Only eight miles separated him from Chadwick. Eight miles that he could cut back slowly, day by day. With the crowd all behind him, lifting him, he would be level with Chadwick by Saturday, and there would be a great struggle for victory, which he would surely win in the last second. And then how life would alter! His days as a support-ing runner, a catchpenny performer included to divert the crowds with his antics, would end. He would be a celebrity, entitled to be matched in duels with the champions. O’Flaherty of Ireland, the Dublin Stag, conqueror of Chadwick in the Six-Day Contest! He would travel to Europe, and America and take on the best of the Indians. And while he was touring abroad, Moira should ride along Regent Street in a phaeton and stop to buy gowns and bonnets wherever she wanted, ready to charm him when he returned…

‘You will pardon me, O’Flaherty?’

The dreamer stirred, disturbed by the voice.

‘I think you should be rousing yourself, my friend. The race, you know. I have just left the track. Chadwick’s light is on…’

O’Flaherty parted his eyelids. Mostyn-Smith was sitting near by, still in his black outfit, eating a breakfast prepared from some herbal recipe. Harshly this unromantic scene displaced the one in O’Flaherty’s mind. He stretched, tugged the blankets away and rose, yawning.

‘I don’t know how you stay on your feet on half an hour’s rest,’ he said to Mostyn-Smith, half in admiration, half resentment.

‘If you think it out mathematically,’ came the answer, between spoonfuls, ‘you will realise that my half-hour is in fact only one hour less than your three. I rest, you see, for four half-hours in twenty-four, whereas you take a single rest-period of three hours, except when your natural func-tions otherwise compel you to stop.’

The logic of this was too sophisticated for the Irishman in his present state. He moved to the door, dimly recalling that the washing facilities were behind the huts. Mostyn-Smith raised a restraining hand.

‘Footwear, O’Flaherty. You should not walk barefoot in those fetid pools outside. I admit to being mistaken about poor Darrell’s demise, but the danger of tetanus remains.’

O’Flaherty returned without a word for his socks and boots. The experience of sharing with Double-barrel had not turned out as he once expected, with the little man jumping at the sound of his voice. O’Flaherty’s prestige would not easily recover from the incident of the carbolic. When his feet were safely shod, he ventured, shivering, outside.

The washing arrangements for the eight pedestrians still in residence at the huts consisted of four buckets and a tap, at knee-height. Two additional buckets were kept behind a wood-and-sacking construction.

O’Flaherty turned the tap to fill a bucket. The water was icy. He carried his bucket some yards from the tap, to escape the odour from nearby. He cupped his hands, and lifted some water to his face, leaning over the bucket with legs astride to avoid the drops that fell. The contact was chilling, but revived him too. It was the first wash he had given him-self in twenty-four hours. Such refinements as footbaths and shaves were impossible without an attendant to heat the water. He straightened, shaking the water from his eyes. Then he breathed in, deeply.

There was a familiar, unpleasant smell in the air that had nothing to do with the stench from the latrines.

O’Flaherty coughed to empty his lungs. He inhaled again, speculatively. He was certain now. Gas. But where was its source? He looked around him. He could see only water-piping. Then he wheeled round, and decided what had happened. The huts themselves had been fitted with gas for lighting and cooking. The escape was from the hut behind him, one of those left empty when runners had retired from the competition. The smell was penetrating the wooden sides.

There was no time to investigate; Chadwick might be on the track already, adding to his lead. O’Flaherty walked back to his hut.

Mostyn-Smith was already asleep. Like some weird fakir he seemed to go into and out of unconsciousness at will. He was a queer cove all right. O’Flaherty felt as uncomfortable when he was like this as when he was conscious. Without sitting, he bolted some ripe cheese and bread, swigged at a bottle which he had now taken to hiding among his spare boots, and left for the track.

It was not so late as he feared. Chadwick was still in the tent being fussed over by his trainer. Only Billy Reid was in action so far; his brother usually made sure he was the first. From behind O’Flaherty came the voices of other competi-tors returning without enthusiasm, donkeys to the tread-mill. Several officials were in the centre, commiserating with each other over their inhuman hours of duty. To their left, Jacobson stood alone. The early start was equally repel-lent to him, but as manager he could hardly join the com-plainers. So he stood alone with hands deep in his overcoat pockets, collar turned up to hide unshaven jowls, and legs flexing to combat the draughts. O’Flaherty approached him. ‘There’s an unholy smell of gas coming from one of the huts. Someone left a tap on, I should say.’

Jacobson responded without much interest.

‘Where?’

‘The end one. In front of the wash-place. Smelt it when I was there a few moments back.’

‘Very well. I’ll take a walk that way in a moment.’

O’Flaherty nodded and returned to the track. Chadwick had still not appeared, so he set off at a jog-trot. At this rate he might cut back the eight miles by Friday.

Jacobson consulted his watch, and nodded to Chadwick as he made his appearance. Then he strolled away towards the hut the Irishman had indicated. Only when he was a few yards away did his lethargic thought-processes seize on the significance of that particular hovel. He hurried towards the closed door. The whiff of gas was strong around it. The door was stiff, and he used his shoulder. As it swung inwards, an outrush of gas hit his face as firmly as a baize drape. He drew back for air, gulped, and stumbled inside.

Sam Monk’s body lay where Jacobson had last seen it, inert on the bed. The gas-ring and the lamp were hissing into the darkness. He silenced them and quit the place, hun-gry for air. The glimpse he had taken of Monk’s appearance told him it would be futile to try to revive him.

His mind seething with half-realised conclusions, Jacobson ran to the constable seated outside Darrell’s tent, and alerted him. The Law took over.

‘You say O’Flaherty first noticed the gas?’

Sergeant Cribb questioned Jacobson as they approached the hut containing Monk’s body.

‘Yes. That was a few minutes after four.’

‘And you opened up?’

‘I did. The gas reeked all round the hut. You can still smell it, can’t you?’

Cribb sniffed, and grimaced.

‘You had to force the door?’

‘Well, it was stiff. I put my shoulder to it.’

They stepped inside. The sergeant bent over the body to examine it. Jacobson swung the door back and forth, encouraging a draught. When it was safe, he lit the lamp.

‘There’s something written here,’ he said, taking up a sheet of paper from the top of the bedside cupboard. He handed it to Cribb, who replaced it on the cupboard with-out glancing at it.

‘Whisky,’ he said, finally standing up.

‘Oh yes,’ Jacobson confirmed. ‘The man had been imbib-ing heavily. I brought him back here about half past ten last night. He was drunk all right.’

The sergeant was interested.

‘You brought him, Mr Jacobson?’

‘Well yes.’ The manager hesitated. ‘Mr Herriott asked me to. Monk was getting in the way. There was a lady. Mrs Darrell. I think Mr Herriott wanted Monk where he could cause her no embarrassment.’

‘So you brought him here?’

‘Yes. He was far gone, Sergeant. You can see that by his features now. The drink has left him rosy-faced.’

Cribb shook his head.

‘Symptom of gassing. Was he conscious, would you say?’ ‘I suppose so. He was depressed, though. When I brought him in he just sank back on to the bed.’

‘Did you turn on the gas?’ Cribb was examining the piece of paper as he spoke.

‘No. I’m sure of that. I simply brought him in, watched him fall on to the bed and left.’

Cribb grunted, apparently accepting the statement. His eye picked out the ventilator, a small outlet which worked by a shutter mechanism. It was closed.

‘Pretty little suicide, eh?’ he said to Jacobson. ‘Gas soon fills a poky shack like this. Much cleaner than a wrist-slash-ing. This note …’

‘Yes?’ Jacobson was feeling relieved that there was a note. Events might have been interpreted to his disfavour otherwise. ‘You’ve read it?’

Jacobson shook his head, and Cribb obliged by reading it aloud, in the dull intonation traditionally used by police in giving evidence.

‘ “This is to show how sorry I am. I did not mean him to die. Samuel Monk”.’

‘His conscience killed him, then,’ commented Jacobson. ‘Poor fellow. I don’t know whether I myself could have car-ried on living after making the tragic mistake that he did.’

Cribb ignored this. He began feeling into the dead man’s pockets.

‘The note wasn’t here when you brought him in?’

‘Certainly not.’ Jacobson was puzzled.

‘You think it was written after that?’

‘Well, I assume it must have been.’

‘Capable of writing, was he?’ Cribb snapped at him.

Jacobson pursed his mouth irritably.

‘You’ve got the note there, Sergeant, so he must have been. I presume you will identify it as Monk’s handwriting.’ ‘You see the shutter there,’ Cribb continued. ‘Closed. Was it closed when you were here?’

‘I really cannot remember,’ protested the manager. ‘But if a man wanted to gas himself he would hardly leave a venti-lator open, now would he?’

Cribb was too taken up with the details of Monk’s death to crush this sarcasm. He said nothing more to Jacobson for a full minute.

‘Am I wanted any longer?’

‘Thank you. No.’

When Jacobson left, Cribb was on his knees, feeling the floor below the bed.

The news was not long in circulating. Cribb’s sudden arrival was noted, and Jacobson’s agitated comings and goings confirmed an occurrence of some importance. Far from concentrating on their event with the single-minded-ness legendary among athletes, the Islington trampers fol-lowed every movement within their range of vision. Tedium was a worse menace than distraction in this form of compe-tition. So when a stretcher was carried from the huts past the track the identity of the covered burden was generally known.

‘Monk done the proper thing,’ was Chalk’s verdict. ‘If a trainer tips bloody poison into a man’s drink ’e’s got no right to go on.’

‘Bugger ’ad a better ending than Charlie Darrell, come to that,’ Williams added. His rest had helped his feet consider-ably, and he was walking normally now. ‘Poor old Charlie. Why bloody Chadwick didn’t get it I don’t know. That nob’s set to take the bloody monkey now, and ’e never had the beatin’ of Darrell.’

‘O’Flaherty’s ’ot after him. There ain’t ten miles in it and Feargus is no small beer when there’s something to go for,’ Chalk observed hopefully.

‘Beat Chadwick? The day O’Flaherty does that I’ll swim the bloody channel.’

Chalk did not pursue the point. He was not quick-witted at his best, but even he could detect some professional jeal-ousy here. Fortunately a fresh arrival provided distraction.

‘ ’Ullo. Crushers arriving in force now,’ he commented, watching Thackeray’s advance on the hut, where Cribb was still at work. ‘I’ll tell you something about that one, mate. Master of disguise, ’e is. See them great feet of ’is and that belly? You wouldn’t credit that ’e’s been running on this path, now would you? Double-barrel reckons ’e goes round with him at night-’

A guffaw from Williams broke in.

‘You believe that? ’Im pussy-footing it with Double-barrel? What’s ’e supposed to be up to for God’s sake? That’s the only thing we ain’t got chasing round this bloody ring-a bobby on ’is beat!’ He continued to enjoy the prospect so heartily that Chalk gave up entirely.

Inside the hut where Monk’s body was found, Cribb was grappling with blankets on the floor when Thackeray arrived.

‘Come on, man. Help me get this lot back on the bed,’ he said, a little breathlessly. ‘Had to have ’em off. Checking. Heard about Monk?’

‘I came as quick as I could, Sarge. Looks as if this ties it all up neat. Sad business, though.’

The two detectives between them deposited the blankets, and then themselves, on the bed.

‘Out of condition, both of us,’ declared Cribb. ‘Could do with a turn or two round the track.’ Abruptly becoming seri-ous, he added, ‘You saw Monk yesterday, after I left you. What was he like?’

‘Like?’ queried Thackeray.

‘His state. Drinking then, wasn’t he?’

‘Oh yes. He’d taken a glass or two, but he talked well enough, Sarge.’

‘Depressed?’

‘I didn’t think so at the time, but I’m not really a judge of such things. My wife always-’

‘You asked to search his place?’

‘Yes. He gave me a key at once. Said there wouldn’t be anyone else there. He also told me where to find the phial of strychnine, and it was there, exactly where he said.’

Thackeray produced the tube of glass from his pocket. Cribb took it carefully, held it in front of his face, and turned it slowly, watching the repositioning of the few crystals inside as though it was a water-snowstorm in a glass globe.

‘There they are then. He spoke truth,’ said Cribb.

‘I went on to the chemist he spoke of,’ continued the con-stable. ‘The man knew him by name. He remembered sup-plying the strychnine last Friday too. Said he does a bit of business with the trainers from around there. He knows they use the strychnine for making up tonics for the pedes-trians, but, as he says, he’s only supplying very small amounts, and he’s careful about telling them of its dangers. They all sign the book-’

‘Book? Monk had signed for it?’

Thackeray nodded.

‘Take a look at this, then.’ Cribb picked up the note that Jacobson had found. ‘Same signature?’

Thackeray squinted at it, scratching his beard.

‘Positively the same, Sarge.’

‘Hm.’ Cribb seemed suddenly elated. ‘Did you look through the book?’

Thackeray beamed virtuously.

‘I found seven previous entries in Monk’s name in the last four years. They was all for the same quantity, Sarge.’

‘Capital work. He was a regular customer, then?’

‘Yes-and each time he collected strychnine he was preparing a ped for a long walk or mix. The chemist told me he made sure of that.’

‘Did he now?’

‘And I questioned him about other sources of supply,’ continued the constable, stressing his efficiency, ‘and he told me he didn’t know of another chemist his side of London who would sell a man strychnine, unless he was a doctor.’

Cribb was in good humour now. He had quite recovered from being brought out so early.

‘Excellent, Thackeray! We’re making progress.’

The constable glowed.

‘Now! On your knees, man,’ Cribb continued. Thackeray’s mouth dipped at the sides, to underline exactly the shape of his moustache. ‘Look for a pencil. I’ve had no luck. Man like you should find it if it’s here.’

‘I’ve got one in my pocket,’ Thackeray replied, much deflated. ‘You can borrow that.’

The sergeant slowly shook his head.

‘Not your pencil, Thackeray, and not mine. I want Monk’s. Else what did he write this note with? There was none in his pockets, and I’ve been through everything else here.’

Slightly mollified, Thackeray stooped to search for the piece of evidence. Three unsuccessful minutes later he looked up again at Cribb.

‘Sarge, it ain’t here, I’m sure. You know, it could be that he wrote the note some time earlier. Wasn’t he drunk, any-way, when Jacobson brought him back here?’

‘True,’ said Cribb. ‘Staggering drunk. I had to confirm there’s no pencil here though. Means he wrote the letter some hours previous. Jacobson brings him in, too scuppered to stand straight, and dumps him on the bed. Some time after Jacobson’s left, he gets up, produces his note from somewhere, and puts it out on the cupboard. Then he shuts the air-vent, turns on the lamp and the gas-ring and gets back on the bed. D’you see it happening, Thackeray?’

The constable got to his feet.

‘Well, a man can come round quite quick, Sarge. He did that night we questioned him. He wasn’t found until after four. That’s five hours since Jacobson dumped him.’

‘All right. So it’s not impossible, even if we think it unlikely. Let’s assume that’s the way he did it. Now tell me why.’

‘Why, Sarge? Well, it’s in the note, ain’t it? He was so depressed after killing Darrell he took his own life.’

‘So you think Monk killed Darrell?’

Thackeray rubbed his forehead. Either the sergeant was being impossibly naive, or too subtle for him to follow.

‘Think back to yesterday morning, when we questioned Monk,’ explained Cribb. ‘If the man killed Darrell acciden-tally, then he was lying to us. He swore that he put no more strychnine into that bottle than would have helped revive a tired man. You checked the phial and it contains the num-ber of crystals he said it would. The rest, as he told us, had gone into the tonic. Yet somehow the tonic gets a monstrous helping of strychnine-much more than Monk collected from the chemist this time, or in four years together. Now then,’ and Cribb’s voice was raised in enthusiasm, ‘if Monk added more strychnine it wasn’t an accident. It was murder, Thackeray.’

‘But the note,’ protested Thackeray. He picked it up. ‘“This is to show how sorry I am. I did not mean him to die”-and that’s in Monk’s own hand.’

Cribb rubbed his hands vigorously.

‘Exactly! We’ve got a case, man-double murder very likely. Don’t look depressed. Murder and suicide at the very worst.’