“I see. There is just one more point, I think, Mrs Biggadyke. From the series of Tuesdays I mentioned a short time ago one was missing. Tuesday, June the tenth. Can you say, of your own knowledge, where your husband was that night?”
The woman looked doubtful. “The tenth...no, well we’ve agreed I was wrong about him going where he said. To Flaxborough, I mean. So...” Remembrance suddenly came to her. “Of course—that night I do know where he was. In hospital after his accident. He didn’t come out until the Friday.”
The coroner having read Mrs Biggadyke’s deposition over to her slowly and clearly, she signed it. She was then directed by Chief Inspector Larch, mutely gesturing like an impatient head waiter, to remove herself a little further off. Her place next to the coroner was taken by the pathologist who had performed the post mortem.
The doctor’s evidence confirmed that death had been due to severe multiple injuries, including decapitation, consistent with the victim’s having been within short range of an explosion of considerable force.
“How short a range, doctor?” Mr Chalice asked.
“Oh, inches, I should say. There was a lot of burning on the front of the body. And, as I’ve said, the hands and forearms...well, they’d almost disappeared.”
“Would you go so far as to say the deceased had probably been handling the explosive substance, whatever it was?”
“Certainly I should. I’ve no doubt in my own mind that that is what he was doing.”
Again, at the instance of Larch, there was a shifting of places. The coroner found beside him a fat, sleek man in a brown suit. Mr Herbert Smiles wore that expression, half nervous, half challenging, of one who has made a lot of money just a shade too quickly. When he answered Mr Chalice’s questions he spoke with throaty solemnity. One of the best, his tone proclaimed, had passed on, and you never knew but what you might be next yourself.
Had Mr Biggadyke been in the custom of visiting the Trade and Haulage Club at Flaxborough? Yes, he was a member and at one time had regularly spent an evening there each week.
And afterwards had he availed himself of Mr Smiles’s hospitality until the following morning? He had, and very welcome had he been.
When had the custom lapsed? Oh, quite a while since—four months or more. They had met, yes, and had a few drinks from time to time. On good terms? Excellent terms, excellent. Yes.
“But in recent weeks, Mr Smiles, you are quite sure that Mr Biggadyke did not stay overnight at your house on Tuesday?”
“Not for several months, he hasn’t. I’ll be perfectly honest, mind—I did promise him I’d say that’s where he’d been if anybody asked. But now the poor chap’s passed on, well, I can only tell the truth.”
“As you swore to do,” the coroner dryly reminded him, nodding at the testament between them.
“Yes. As you say...of course.” Mr Smiles regarded the little black book as apprehensively as if it had borne the imprint of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue.
The last witness was Sergeant Worple.
He presented, with a wealth of technical detail that Mr Chalice let pass without recording, an account of the demolition of the Courtney-Snell memorial, the beheading of Alderman Berry’s statue, and the destruction of the great eye of Mr Hoole. No one, he observed, had been apprehended for the commission of these felonies (or crimes), which, at the time of the death of Mr Stanley Biggadyke were still officially ascribed to a person or persons unknown.
On the night of July the first, Sergeant Worple continued, a call was received at Fen Street police station from an officer of Chalmsbury Fire Brigade who reported the finding of a body near a burnt-out caravan at the rear of the premises of the Chalmsbury Carriage Company. He went to the scene that night and again the following morning. On the second occasion he was accompanied by Chief Inspector Larch and Constable Wraby.
Extensive inquiries were made and the site of the occurrence carefully examined.
The examination, though yielding clear indication that the caravan had been destroyed by an explosion and subsequent fire, provided no clues as to the cause of the explosion.
Inquiries also drew negative results apart from mutually corroborative statements by night drivers and fitters at the depot that the explosion occurred at 11.50 p.m. and was of considerable violence.
“These men knew, did they, that their employer had left the premises to go to his caravan?”
“Yes, sir. He arrived in his car at about 11.35 and told one of the mechanics to put the car in the garage. Then he walked down the yard to the fence and let himself through the gate into the field.”
“Were you able to learn, sergeant, whether anyone other than Mr Biggadyke had access to his caravan?”
“I did ask that question of several of the staff, sir, and they all said he was the only person who ever used it. He kept it locked and no one else at the firm had a key to it—or a key to the gate in the back fence, for that matter.”
“Did any of Mr Biggadyke’s employees know for what purpose he used the caravan?”
“They had no certain knowledge, sir. One or two offered guesses but I did not encourage what seemed to me to be rather improper speculation.”
The coroner glanced up at Worple, who was looking virtuous. “And that is all, is it, sergeant, that you can tell us? Nothing else occurs to you?”
Worple stared at Mr Chalice’s pen for a few seconds then said suddenly and decisively: “No, sir.”
The coroner leaned back, half turning, and addressed Larch. “Is there any question you would care to put, Chief Inspector?”
“I believe the witnesses have covered all the points that I can think of, sir.”
Mr Chalice nodded and faced the table once more. Although he was sitting without a jury, he did not believe
