Death Has Deep Roots (18 page)

“Could a woman have delivered such a blow?”

“Certainly – even a strong and determined child.”

“You say ‘in that direction.’ Do I understand that it was a skillful blow?”

“Either skillful or lucky. A little lower, it would have caused a nasty wound in the bowel, but would not have killed—or not immediately. A little higher, and the blow might have been turned by the ribs.”

“I want to put to you something that was said by one of the earlier witnesses.” Mr. Summers read parts of Major Ammon’s evidence. “Do you agree that this was the sort of blow that Major Ammon was describing?”

“Yes. This blow was certainly struck by someone standing in front of Major Thoseby, using the knife with its point upward, with a left-handed, underarm swing. I am not an expert on French Resistance work, but that is certainly the sort of blow it was.”

“Doctor Younger,” said Macrea, “I would like to go back to something you said at the beginning of your evidence. You said that you were always cautious in offering an opinion as to how long a person had been dead?”

“Yes.”

“Does the certainty with which you can give your opinion depend on how soon after death you see the body?”

“On that and other factors.”

“Certainly, other factors must count. But is the length of time the chief factor?”

“I cannot answer a purely hypothetical question like that.”

“Very well. Let me offer you a concrete case. If you saw a body within five minutes of death what would be your approximate margin of error?”

“I should know to within a minute or two.”

“Right. Suppose now that you had examined Major Thoseby’s body within half an hour of its discovery. It had not been disturbed. It was in the same room as that in which death took place – or so we are assuming. How accurate could you be then?”

“In those circumstances, you should be able to tell within ten minutes either way.”

“Thank you. I am not going to use these figures against you, doctor, you understand. They are agreed to be approximations. Now actually you saw the body about ninety minutes after it was discovered. And your estimate of the time of death, which you have just given the court, has a margin of error of sixty minutes. ‘Not more than one hour,’ I think you said, ‘and not less than two.’”

“Yes.”

“It is true, then, that the possible margin of error grows rapidly as time is allowed to elapse between death and examination?”

“Certainly. I have never denied it. If you allowed twenty-four hours to elapse you might find it difficult to say within six hours when death took place. It is very important that a doctor should see the body as soon as possible.”

“Yes,” said Macrea. “Then why didn’t he?”

“Really, sir—”

“Don’t misunderstand me, please. I am not imputing anything in the nature of professional negligence to you, Doctor Younger. I happen to know that you were summoned, from your flat, at ten minutes to midnight and you have told us that you were examining the body at ten past – I don’t think that anyone could complain of slowness there. But I would like to know the reason for the delay of more than an hour in fetching you.”

“Well – I can hardly answer that. I understand there was some confusion over the matter between the hotel manager, his waiter and the inspector in charge of the case.”

“I see. We can recall one of those witnesses, if it seems necessary. But no doubt the inspector will be able to enlighten us when he gives his evidence.” Macrea smiled at Mr. Summers, who took the opportunity of making a bad-tempered note on his brief.

“It is true, however, doctor, that if you had been on the spot by, let us say, a quarter past eleven, you would have been able to fix the time of death very much more accurately.”

“Certainly.”

“And if anyone wished to conceal the exact time of death one of the ways of doing so would be to delay the arrival of the medical expert who was to inspect the body?”

“I think that follows.”

“Thank you. Now, doctor, in giving your estimate of the latest time of death you said, if I have you correctly, ‘certainly not less than an hour,’ and then you said, ‘more probably ninety minutes.’ I wasn’t quite clear on that. Did you mean that ninety minutes before your examination was the probable time of the murder – or the probable short limit?”

“I meant the probable short limit.”

“I see. That would take us back to twenty minutes to eleven.”

“Yes – I suppose that’s right.”

“You have heard that the prisoner is alleged to have committed this offense at about a quarter to eleven.”

“Yes. I—”

“In that case, doctor, it is your professional opinion that the murder probably took place before the prisoner’s arrival on the scene?”

“I don’t think you can use these times quite as meticulously as that.”

“I only said ‘probably.’ I believe that was your own word.”

“With that qualification, yes.”

“Thank you, doctor.”

“As I understand it, doctor,” said Mr. Summers, “you established two time limits for the latest possible moment of death. One of them was an hour before your examination, the other an hour and a half?”

“That is so.”

“Then would it not be fair to take the average of your two times and say that the latest
probable
time of death was an hour and a quarter before your examination?”

“Yes. I think that would be reasonable.”

“That is to say, five to eleven?”

“Yes.”

“Ten minutes after the prisoner visited Major Thoseby?”

“Yes, that is what I meant to imply.”

“I don’t think he knows now what he did mean,” said Macrea loudly to Mr. Rumbold.

We must return to the early afternoon of Monday.

In London, Major Ammon was beginning his evidence for the prosecution. In Angers Nap was listening to Madame Delboise’s views on the state of France. Some way outside Winchester Angus McCann, in an old tweed jacket and a pair of corduroy trousers, was strolling along the Newbury road revelling in the sights and the sounds and the smells which together made up for him the feeling of a perfect autumn day.

St. Augustine’s Preparatory School for Boys stands a mile or two outside Winchester. You either know the turning down to it or you don’t. Gussie’s would never dream of calling attention to it. The idea of some sort of painted notice board would not occur to them. It would have been an advertisement. Gussie’s does not advertise.

Fortunately McCann was able to stop a farm laborer on a bicycle, who pointed out the inconspicuous entrance, and he turned to the left and made his way down the winding gravel drive: a drive which has been trodden, at one time or another, by the little feet of the sons of some of the people in England who have really mattered.

It was a long drive. But no longer than it needed to be, for it ran back more than fifty years. This was not a matter of personal knowledge. McCann had been brought up in the Scots way at a big Edinburgh day school, but he had read his
David
Blaize
and his
Vice Versa,
and he knew just what he was heading for. The drive dipped and rose again. On his left he glimpsed a gaunt building of yellow brick. It looked, he thought, uncommonly like a Nazi execution shed and with this thought in his mind as he drew level with it he was startled to hear a volley ring out. On reflection he came to the conclusion that it might be the miniature rifle range.

Another turn of the road, a thicket of eminently Victorian laurels, and St. Augustine’s stood before him in all its peculiar glory of red brick, curly tile, glazed slate and exterior varnished pine.

A few minutes later he was shaking hands with the headmaster, Mr. Hughenden, a youngish but impressively bearded clergyman. “Perhaps you would like to come along to my study,” said the headmaster genially. “We shall not be disturbed.”

He led the way down a dark and echoing corridor where a hundred maroon blazers hung on a hundred pegs, up a short spiral flight of steps and into a turret room with mullioned windows.

“My father’s room,” said the headmaster. “I thought it a pity to change it.”

McCann could not but agree with him. It was a perfect period piece. There were dozens and dozens of photographs of Old Augustans: in scholastic dress, in athletic dress and in the uniforms of four wars. There was a superbly dreary monochrome of the Ruins of the Acropolis. There was a fire screen embroidered with the Arms of Oriel College. There was a tobacco jar embossed with the Arms of Oriel College. There was a rack of pipes. There were glass-fronted shelves of classical authors in half-calf. There was a thin and sinister-looking cupboard in the corner which McCann felt certain contained a hunting crop. There was even a marble bust of Augustus Caesar, the most arresting feature of which was a prominent and – yes, no doubt about it – slightly rubicund nose.

“We’ve never quite been able to get it clean,” said the headmaster, following his glance. “It was done by young Mornington, in my grandfather’s time. He painted it with a strong solution of permanganate of potash, on the last day of his last term here. He got the V.C. afterward in the second Zulu War – but I don’t think he ever did anything braver than that.” Mr. Hughenden gestured with his head in the direction of the outraged Caesar. “Now, Mr. McCann. How can I help you?”

McCann told him.

“That’s awkward,” said Mr. Hughenden. “Just the wrong year. I was away myself then – at Theological College, as a matter of fact. I came back to take over in 1939. There won’t be any boys here, of course, who would remember him. The assistant staff are all new – most of them since the war. There’s old Montgomery, who retired last year—he lives in North Wales. You might get hold of him. He’d remember Wells.”

“Oh, dear,” said McCann. “Yes. I’m quite prepared to go to North Wales—but it’s the time element.”

“Yes, yes. Wait a minute. How stupid of me not to have thought of it before. Tim Evans. He was here as a boy in 1937 and he’s back with us now as a master – come along and let’s see if we can find him.”

A further journey, through a maze of corridors, up one step, down two, and they found themselves in a large, untidy annex which could have been nothing but a masters’ common room. The only occupant was a thick young man, with extremely long blond hair, wearing an olive green shirt with an off-shade green collar and a large black bow tie, who scrambled out of the ruins of a wicker armchair and said, “Hullo, headmaster.”

“Oh, Evans, I wonder if you could—”

“Good heavens,” said McCann. “Buster!”

“Blow me down,” said Mr. Evans. “Angus.”

“You know each other?” said Mr. Hughenden. “Well, that’s splendid. That makes everything much easier. I’ll leave you to each other. You can find me in my study if you want me, Mr. McCann.” He pattered away.

“Buster,” said McCann sternly. “What is all this? We were never a fussy crowd in our commando. There was little of the Brigade of Guards about us. But when the hair reached the collar at the back of the neck it was usually cut. Shirts were of a decently subdued color, the collar matched the shirt and—
where did you get that tie?
”

“I know, I know,” said young Mr. Evans. “Take a seat – you can put that cup of cocoa on the mantelpiece – oh, and chuck that squash racket into the corner, it won’t hurt it – it’s a long story.”

“Never mind the story,” said McCann. “Just explain what you’re doing here looking like a down-at-heel student from the London School of Economics—”

“Oh, I say. Is it as bad as that? Well, the thing was, that when I came back here to teach, I thought it would be a good idea if I—if I laid it off, a bit.”

“Laid what off?”

“Well – look at it this way. If I let on that I’d been in the commandos and so on – you know what I mean. It takes an awful lot of living up to. Boys are such whole-hearted creatures, you’ve no idea. I’d have been expected to have a cold bath every morning in the winter and – why, good heavens, if a mad bull appeared on the playing fields it would have been ‘Send for Evans.’ Life wouldn’t have been worth living. So I just told them I’d been a conscientious objector all the war and had been doing agricultural work in North Wales.”

“I see,” said McCann. It was an aspect of rehabilitation which had not previously occurred to him. A picture of Lieutenant Evans garrotting a German sentry with a length of telephone wire came unasked into his mind. He dismissed it and returned to the subject in hand.

“Yes, I knew Wells,” said Evans. “He taught us French. I was a precocious thirteen at the time, and he was a sort of retarded nineteen. So there wasn’t all that much difference between us. Actually if the truth be told, you know, I thought he was the tiniest bit out of his depth here.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, after all – we’re Gussies! We’re a survival, a genuine nineteenth-century survival. Do you know that nearly half the teaching time here is still given over to Greek? That shakes you, doesn’t it? We rank the classics nearly as high as games and several points ahead of religion. Cricket in the summer and Rugby football in both winter terms. We’ve got our own rackets court. Boys still settle their differences behind it, with bare fists. The headmaster is called the Doctor – he’s only a pale ghost of his father at the moment, but give him another ten years and he’ll get into his stride. He still uses a birch. A real, genuine birch, though actually between you and me I think he could do more damage with the business end of a gym shoe.”

“I see. And you think that Wells—”

“The staff in a place like this are bound to be in character, aren’t they? Most of them are old Augustans, anyway. Unless you’ve been brought up to it from youth your system wouldn’t have much chance, between the food and the sanitary arrangements. Most of them are hearty, stringy types, with big knees. Quite harmless and easy to live with and about as much sex life between them as a hot water bottle.”

“But Wells—”

“Definitely other. To start with it was pretty well known that he was living with the barmaid at the Mulberry Tree.”

“Pretty well known?”