Adelia scurried up the steps and had managed to compose herself into a calm state as she sailed past the policeman on duty. She didn’t pause. She grabbed Theodore’s arm and carried on walking, dragging him along the pavement and off down the road and to safety. Her neck prickled but she did not look back.
Seven
Theodore, Adelia, Robert and Charlotte gathered around the desk in Robert’s study. The note was placed in the centre and they all stared at it. A fire had been hastily lit but had not yet warmed the room, and Theodore rocked on his feet, wriggling his toes to keep them warm.
“First of all, do we know that this is even genuine?” said Robert. “Anyone could have signed it.”
Theodore said, “That’s a fair question but I believe the balance of logic would suggest that it is. What else could have persuaded Nettles to invite his old foe into his home? Only a note like this. And the fact that Wiseman went shows that the note was clearly not unknown to him; he must have sent it. Yes, I can conjure up in my mind a complicated web of intrigue and double bluff but I think it unlikely.”
“You mean like a third party sending one note to one man, and a different note to another?” Charlotte said. “We used to do it when we were girls. I remember once when Edith sent a letter to Dido and pretended it was from James de Lorraine – do you remember that, mama? Edith sent another note to James and pretended it was from Dido. Then we hid in the bushes and watched them meet. He threw a sod of grass at her and she cried. We were only eleven,” she added hastily.
Theodore had heard nothing of that incident and he was slightly appalled. “Well, yes, exactly like that. I suppose that it is possible in this case.”
“The murderer could have done it, and then poisoned the pair of them, but has failed.”
“Again, this is possible,” Theodore said. “But to my mind, what we first need to establish, exactly and precisely, is whether this is a case of poison at all. Nothing else can be speculated upon unless we are absolutely sure of the manner of death.”
“And how are we to discover that?” Robert asked.
“I am a medical man,” Theodore replied. “I need to get access to the body, of course.”
He made it sound so simple.
THEODORE STRODE OUT that afternoon as darkness was already gathering. The streets were full of people shopping, selling, passing through. London was busy all year round but the last two weeks of December were particularly hectic. He headed for the police station-house which was closest to the scene of the death, and walked into the lobby with all the confidence of a titled man with many hundreds of years of traceable history to his name.
None of which impressed the desk sergeant. He was a tall, wide man with a neck like a prize bull. Theodore thought a man of such obvious strength would have been more use out on the streets. He loomed over Theodore and laughed deeply.
“I can’t tell you anything more than you’ll read in the papers, sir. The chap’s dead. Ate something dodgy. Splat. Gone.”
“I am a doctor and a private investigator. You may have heard of me?”
The policeman shook his head. “Nah. I am a busy man. There are people behind you. Next!”
Theodore found himself shoved to one side by a brown-clad workman who was clutching a leather sack and spluttering obscenities between every other word. No one looked at Theodore, touched their cap or even acknowledged him.
London had changed, indeed. He didn’t quite know what to think. He knew this was progress and he should not be a curmudgeon about it but still ... it rankled. He retreated and wandered back onto the street, pausing once he got to a clear spot on the pavement.
Well, he thought. It seems I must fall back on my personal capabilities and no longer trust in my good name. Adelia did rather well when we went to Nettles’ house. Let me follow her lead.
He looked up and down the street. One of these public houses would be the one favoured by the police of the station-house, and he intended to discover which it was.
It didn’t take him long. Publicans and bar maids were happy to talk to a potential customer with money to spend, after all, and soon he had settled himself into the corner of a reasonably clean establishment, half full of men with their heads down, steadily drinking with very little chatter or talking. He imagined it would get a little more lively as the night wore on.
He had let the barman know that he was particularly waiting for the police surgeon. The bartender had told him that this particular person didn’t ever come into the pub but that one of the assistants in the morgue did and that was good enough for Theodore. He extracted the name and a rough description of the fellow and bought a drink to wait for him.
When Isiah Codd came in, Theodore recognised him at once from the landlord’s description: he was, indeed, a “tall thin streak of an unwashed stocking”. He was so slender that one was uncomfortably aware of every bone in his body and reminded of one’s own mortality, and his skin was grey-white. The perfect person to work around the dead, indeed, and probably not suited to any other job that might involve dealing with the public.
The landlord served Codd and informed him that his drink had already been paid for by Theodore, and indicated where he was sitting. Codd came over with
