Power on the Scent: A Golden Age Mystery

CHAPTER I

Human beings, unlike eggs, are not more digestible when hard-boiled, Vincent often says. But he is old-fashioned, if cynical, and the modern fashion which awards praise and admiration to those who preserve an appearance of calm in the presence of bad morals, bad manners and bad art, does not appeal to him.

People who do not know Mr. Power wonder why Vincent and I admire him. It is easily explained. To continue the egg metaphor, you can’t judge how long one has been on by the look of the shell. We knew that Power’s apparent moral toughness was no more than a hard shell which covered a soft white.

For Power, in spite of his relentlessness as a pursuer of criminals, is a sound man. He is also a lawyer, and if a lawyer has no respect for the law he lives by, it is a sad thing. As a partner in a firm of solicitors, who on occasion deal with criminal cases, he undertakes some work more often dealt with by professional detectives.

He has been extremely successful, I must say, and as a result his firm have been consulted by various people who required defence, or asked to have investigations made to prove their own innocence, or other people’s guilt.

After his successful investigation into the plague of poison-pen letters at Lush Mellish, he told us he was inundated with clients, but unfortunately, of a type he was not at all anxious to defend.

I thought you fellows defended anyone, Vincent said to him.

Power grinned: Only the worthy, my dear man, he replied. Your wife knows me better than that.

I do, I said, I am ashamed of Vincie. His anxiety to be funny is no excuse for slandering members of one of the finest professions in the world.

There, said Power, that’s a testimonial, Mr. Mercer, which would be perfect, if it wasn’t so dashed sarcastic. Well, all I will say is that I haven’t any sleuthing to do at the moment. When I have, I’ll let you in on the ground floor, and you can put it in one of your books.

We saw him often enough during the next few months, but it was June in the following year before he was able to provide me with the promised material for a novel. Vincie wanted to do it, but as he was halfway through what was to prove later his most successful book: Mine Eyes Dazzle, I protested to Power, and edged my husband out.

We were sitting at home one evening, Vincie reading a novel he had to review, and myself darning one of his socks, when Power came in, greeted us cheerfully, and accepted a cigar. They were good cigars, my husband told him, and came from a famous author known as a good judge of everything but his own work. And they were the last he ever sent Vincie. They came to us just before the man’s newest novel was published, and it was obvious later that he did not think the labourer had proved worthy of his hire.

Still enjoying the common law, Power? my husband asked him, I mean to say, no really juicy cases for Penny here?

Power grinned at me. He knows that my nickname is Penny, and told Vincie once that it must be because I was wise.

Well, I have, and I have not, he replied. A suspended inquest is rather like suspended animation; it may end very soon, or come to life with a jump.

Are you on the jury? I asked.

No. I don’t quite know where I am, but it’s not on the jury, Mrs. Mercer. The fact is that we represent the next-of-kin.

Be definite! Vincie said. Next-of-kin to whom?

To a retired stockbroker, who passed away in his rural residence at Malpertuis (pronounced Malpert), Mercer. He had looked rather dickey for a month, but had not called in a doctor, or complained. Then he suddenly conked out. The local doctor didn’t like the look of him. He hadn’t attended him, you see, and did not feel prepared to sign the death certificate. So there was an inquest.

What was his name? I asked.

Montague Morgan, aged sixty-five, suffering from osteo-arthritis in his left knee, which rather immobilised him, if you will allow me to be so military.

Do you die of arthritis? Vincie said.

No; but sometimes you wish you could, said Power. It used to be thought a form of rheumatism, but is really due to degenerative processes in the joint. Otherwise the gentleman’s corpus appeared to be fairly sound.

Thankfully I finished darning the largest hole in a sock, and put my materials away: There seems to be no good reason for killing a stockbroker, I murmured, a financier, a share-pusher, yes; but not a stock-broker.

Not an inside-broker, you mean, said Vincie. An outside broker, or a bucket-shop proprietor, comes up high in the list of those-who-ought-to-be-killed.

But why killed? Power asked, with his head on one side.

Do they suspect suicide, on account of the chronic disease he suffered from? I asked.

It has to be taken into account, Power replied, but I admit that I think that’s a mistake. He had retired, had plenty of money, a nice house and garden, a butler, a cook and housemaid, and was very cheerful to the last. He left no last message saying that he was going on to see if he could do better elsewhere.

Possibly insured, I said.

Vincie shook his head: My dear, a whitewashing verdict of suicide-being-merely-accident, does not legally compel the insurers to pay up.

Apart from the fact that he was not insured, Power said brightly. His house and furniture are, normally enough, but he had let his life policy run for many years, and then collected the surrender value. So that isn’t it.

Who is your client? I asked.

A nephew, Charles Gailey Sibbins, I understand. But he went to Africa last year to shoot a bongo, and is either still on its trail, or huffed by the beast itself—whatever it is.

The bongo does sound predatory, Vincie agreed. Meanwhile, did the first sitting of the coroner dig up anything relevant to the cause of death?

No. They sent several organs to the Home Office pathologist to dig into. He is still busy, as far as I know.

I presume you saw the local people? I said. Did you visit the police?

Yes. I had a talk with Captain Hollick, the Chief Constable for the County, also the superintendent, who is a village constable writ large. I also saw the county’s detective-inspector, a very superior bloke, of whom they are very proud.

Hendon? I asked.

You ought to know better, Mrs. Mercer! They have only just burst on the official world, and will be sub-station inspectors, the Hendonites. No. Inspector Kay is a son of the late Colonel Hepsey Kay. He joined the C.I.D. in London, rose to be sergeant, got asthma, saw a specialist, and was told that one cure was a change of scene and air. He applied to Captain Hollick who had been a subaltern in the colonel’s regiment, and was transferred to the county force.

Did they like him? said Vincie.

They did. Believe me, country policemen are not so snuffy as people imagine about men of education and rank coming into their force. In fact the superintendent down at Malpertuis was inclined to boast of their phoenix. But why this anxiety to know all about the brood of country bobbies?

I was wondering if they told you anything? I said.

Power took another of our buckshi cigars, and lit it.

Not exactly. The only odd thing I learned came from the local G.P. He wondered if Mr. Morgan doped.

We both started. Doped? I said, but surely there are ways of knowing that?

Yes, decidedly, but as none of the tests and reactions acted, that was why the doctor wondered.

Vincie laughed. If there was nothing to prove it, it seems rather an idiotic suggestion for him to make.

Power puffed at his cigar for a moment or two. H’m. He found some traces of irritation in the nasal passages. There was nothing to show that the dead man had been suffering from a cold. In fact, his household staff said that he boasted that he never had a cold.

Then what? said Vincie.

Well, the G.P. had been a major, R.A.M.C., in the war, and had come in contact with some U.S.A. troops who had acquired the dangerous habit of snuffing snow.

Cocaine? I said.

Yes. Our doctor wondered if Morgan had got the habit. In that case it might possibly be that the man had snuffed-out through it. But as I said there were no other symptoms to suggest dope. The police, naturally, sent Kay over to have a look-see. He found no drugs in the house, except a liniment called Ethidol, which you rub on, and a small box of zinc ointment, also a bottle of aspirin tablets, which sufferers from arthritis find relieves pain to a certain extent.

Nominal aspirin, zinc ointment and liniment? I said.

No. Actual, Mrs. Mercer. They were analysed, and found to be what the labels said they were. So that cock won’t fight.

What about the state of the throat passages, Power? my husband asked.

Well, the mucous lining is more or less coterminous with that of the nose, Mercer, was the reply, but a short length serves for the passage of food and drink, as well as air. Drink, liquid of any kind, would, of course, tend to wash off anything which might otherwise adhere.

I see what you mean, I said, but the doctor evidently suspected that the poison, if it was poison, was administered via the nose. It could be, I suppose?

He smiled. Yes, granted certain conditions. Say the dead man took snuff, which was mixed with a poisonous powder. In that case it would have to be a poison he could not detect in the snuff, either because he had an insensitive nose, or was one of those people who don’t bother much about scents or flavours. The soluble powder might be carried into the pharynx, and so downwards, I think. The snuff would be sneezed out.

Then snuff is not soluble? Vincie said.

Not to any great extent, I imagine, if at all. Tobacco snuff certainly isn’t, and medicated snuffs are generally prepared so that they stick to the mucus lining, to stop irritation. There was no sign of nicotine action, for the man did not smoke.

People like printers, who are not allowed to smoke at work, often take snuff as a substitute, I said; I’ve seen them.

Quite. But no one ever saw Morgan snuff, there was no container for it, and if he snuffed regularly there would have been some staining in the nasal passages.

I believe Mr. Power has something up his sleeve, I cried. He has a sort of mock humble air that tells of discovery in ambush.

Our visitor looked hurt. My dear Mrs. Mercer, I am the most candid man in London. It was not something up my sleeve, but something in Mr. Morgan’s button-hole that provoked to wonder.

That beat us both, and Mr. Power went on, when we failed to connect that link. Yes, he wore a rose in his button-hole. It was not more than a day old. The idea of a suicidal person decking himself out with flowers was another argument against the theory of suicide.

Vincie put down his own cigar, and looked thoughtfully at Power. The idea, of course, is that Mr. Morgan sniffed at the rose, and involuntarily inhaled something which had been put upon it. What colour was the flower?

The white flower of a blameless life.

I see. Then that suggests a white powder, soluble in liquid?

Not necessarily. Just as Whistler in the famous case said that a Symphony in F. was not all F.F. F—fool! No offence meant, of course. A white rose is not all white. Frequently, the centre, into which one dips one’s proboscis, is pale yellow. And if there is any pollen in roses, it is there, it is there, it is there!

Have you got the rose? I said, for it would be like Power to remove something he thought relevant to have a better look at it.

No, I handed it to the local superintendent. Curiously enough, he is not interested in flowers. Most country coppers are. So I had difficulty in getting him to take and inspect it.

But surely you only went down for the inquest? I said.

Yes, but when Morgan was undressed, his coat was hung up in the wardrobe. When I found that the doctor was up to snuff, I asked to see the coat.

Pure nosiness, I suppose? said Vincie.

On the contrary, my dear fellow, the snuffer has no mercy on his coats or waistcoats. I had an idea the police might discover some grains or traces of snuff on the material of either.

But they didn’t?

No. Not on the clothes.

Where then? I asked.

On the rose, said Power. The superintendent then gave me a lecture on bee-keeping. It seems that he only regards flowers as bee-fodder. When I informed him that I was aware that bees fertilised flowers by carrying away pollen on their stamens—I beg your pardon—on their legs, and so on, I begged him to have the stuff analysed. When is pollen poison? roughly speaking. He thought me an ass, but buzzed the rose off to the Home Office fellow, all the same.

I felt quite excited now, for Mr. Power rarely speculates without some useful evidence to help his guesses. What you have in your mind is the possibility that someone put poison on a rose, and Mr. Morgan sniffed it up? I asked.

On the face of it, that is the idea at present.

If so, I said, it should be easy to discover several things.

And the first, O Wise Woman? he said, with a little bow.

Was Mr. Morgan in the habit of wearing a daily button-hole?

Yes, he was.

A rose?

No. Or not always.

Secondly, you have not mentioned a gardener.

Daily from the village.

Did Mr. Morgan grow white roses?

Malpertuis, Mrs. Mercer, for some reason not well known to me, is not a place where roses grow to perfection.

Lack of clay, said Vincie.

Lastly, I said, where did the roses come from?

They were brought to the house by a maid, at ten in the morning. Mr. Morgan was found dead in the side-garden about half-past twelve. He had collapsed on a garden chair.

Whose was the maid? I asked.

She was employed by Mrs. Davey-Renny.

And who is Mrs. Davey-Renny? Vincie asked.

Ah, said Power, thoughtfully, now you’re asking me something.

CHAPTER II

When you hear that you are asking people something, it is tactful on occasion not to press for an answer.

Purely rhetorical that question, Vincie said. Nothing more.

I admire your delicacy of feeling, Power replied, the more so that I have no information about the young woman.

Except that she is young? I said.

I saw her, and take her to be thirtyish, he murmured, a very pretty thirtyish. She lives about two miles from Morgan’s house.

In the country then?

My dear Mrs. Mercer, if ‘Fair Rosamond’ came to life and wanted a fresh bower, she would undoubtedly have chosen ‘Fairlawn Cottage’ in the county of Loamshire.

Remote and secluded, hemmed about with trees, Vincie said dreamily.

I mention Fair Rosamond without prejudice, Power smiled.

No one can, and no one does, I said. Your lawyer-like tricks won’t avail you here. Be honest and not insinuating.

I was thinking of the qualities of a bower, he replied. I saw the perfect one in Surrey in the course of an afternoon’s drive. The owner was in the garden; large, raw-boned, wearing sandals and shorts! The horsehair with which a wren may line her building doesn’t turn the affair into a mare’s nest. What I wanted to explain is this. Fairlawn Cottage was originally built in a corner of Lord Bogan’s park. In process of time it became surrounded by a thicket of silver birch—still ‘fairest of the trees,’ in spite of the Shropshire Lad’s plea for the cherry.

Obviously lawyers read poetry, Vincie said to me gravely, but I suspect that Power was chiefly interested in the criminal side of the poetic proceedings.

I want to hear about the bower, I protested. A lovely little Tudor thing, ringed in by silver birches. Go on!

And hedges of yew, path-edgings of box, a macrocarpa maze, two herbaceous borders thronged with tall flowers.

You might be editor for nursery garden catalogues, Vincie murmured. Did you see all this?

No. I heard about it from Captain Hollick.

So he has ventured in the maze? I asked.

Apparently. He and his wife called when Mrs. Davey-Renny arrived. But let me go on. There is a gate in the high wall of Bogan’s park, and from that you wend your way across a corner of the park itself, and enter a wicket gate in a yew arch. And there you are.

Now why all this? my husband asked reflectively. Is it relevant, or have you gone all poetic by accident?

It is relevant to a promise I made your wife, said our guest, I have hopes that there is a story for her in this. I may be wrong, of course, but if not, local colour will be helpful.

Vincie’s jealous because I bagged the next story, I said.

I am not jealous, Vincie replied. "My attitude is represented by that notice the Germans were said to have put up on the walls of one of their favourite Belgian ruins: ‘Nicht ärgern nur wundern.’—Do not be angry, only feel surprised. What troubles me is the omission of any reference so far to Mrs. Davey-Renny’s roses."

You heard that it was a bad district for them, I said.

Mrs. Davey-Renny’s roses? said Power. There, of course, I am at a loss. No doubt she has them.

If she shares her treasures, she must have, Vincie said.

Irritating Mr. Power shook his head. The idea of a woman sending roses to a man is so unusual that I boggle at it.

In these sentimental, modern country-books a man with a new cottage often receives fragrant bouquets from local residents, I suggested.

Ah, said Power, but there are always spinsters of lavender fragrance, of indeterminate age, quaint speech, and no mission in the world except to provide novelists gone to grass with sentimental figurines.

Mrs. Harrises in short? Vincie said, but I feel unusually deductive this evening, Power. I have an impression that Mr. Morgan’s rose did not come from Mrs. Davey-Renny’s rosarium.

It struck me like that, Power replied. I don’t know a primula from a polyanthus, if indeed they differ at all, and roses only in connection with St. George’s Day. At the same time, if Malpertuis is bad for roses, I thought Morgan’s rose too good for Malpertuis.

Mr. Power, I said, reminds me of those sixth-form lads, who use obscure and involved phrases with a view to being thought either funny, or clever. Simply put, he wonders if the rose was a rich stranger.

Vincie nodded. He boggled just now over a woman sending roses to a man. But one was sent. By the hyphened lady, he says, her maid being the bearer. Let us hear about the maid.

I inquired about her, and, of course, I saw her at the inquest. She is a local girl aged twenty-five, engaged to the postman, not ill-looking, but not flighty. She is a good cook, and adores her mistress, who treasures her.

I suppose the advent of the postman daily has resigned her to the quietness of her home? I asked.

That, and Mrs. Davey-Renny’s good nature. At nine, Mrs. Davey-Renny has breakfast; at one, lunch; at four, tea; at seven, a light dinner. At eight, every evening if she wishes, and on condition—implicit but not on paper—that she is with the postman, Mary is allowed to be absent till ten. As the postman is ardent and decent, and Mary a quick worker, who is also in love, she is generally out every evening.

We come now to the exotic, what Penny calls the ‘rich stranger rose,’ Vincie remarked. Herrick has something to say of the shortness of human life coupled with rose-buds. As Mary took this one to Morgan about ten in the morning, which hints at a quick, breakfast wash-up, and a cycle, that rose either came from the Bower garden, or reached the Bower itself pretty late the previous evening.

"That’s obvious. I saw the girl for a few minutes, and asked her about it. Her story is this. The day being warm, she left the house at eight to meet her Mercury, Sam Collins. Her mistress was then lying in the hammock in the side garden, which has a macrocarpa hedge nine feet high. She was reading Trumpeter, Sound, which she had asked Mary to bring out, and smoking a cigarette from a box Mr. Morgan had sent her.