Sir James Mackenzie, white-haired, dignified—in full morning dress and with gold-rimmed eyeglasses—had spent but a little time examining the remains of Councillor Grayling. Still, he seemed more than usually interested by his inspection.
“Well, that is quite remarkable,” he told Inspector Holly and Dr. Campbell, as he came into the Inspector’s office. He actually rubbed his hands. “Most unusual. But quite easy to diagnose,” he added, disregarding Campbell’s feelings to Holly’s pleasure. “Rather unexpected, I suppose. That must be why you missed it. But there’s no doubt. No doubt whatever.”
“Then what is it?” said Campbell, bellicosely.
“Why, the man was killed in a gas attack.”
“What nonsense is this?” snorted Campbell. “Gas attack ! There’s been no gas attack yet in the whole of Britain. Rubbish, man. There was not a single plane over that night at all, anyway.”
“You question my diagnosis?” asked Sir James with chilly politeness. “Then perhaps you will tell me some other way of explaining the œdema of the lungs, and the inflammation of the throat leading to the sloughing off of tissue sufficient to cause suffocation. I know no other cause adequate to account for the pseudo-membranes. In addition, there are clear markings on the face of the distinctive yperite burns. Perhaps you would like to examine the body again? I can see certain reasons for surprise, but none for doubt. Surprise, because the means of application of the gas do not seem very clear. But there is nothing that would cast doubt on the diagnosis, from the medical end. You yourself informed me that the man was nearly blind; anyway, there are unmistakable evidences of severe inflammation in the eyes.
“There are the symptoms that I mentioned in the throat and lungs, which your report had led me to expect. There are those highly typical burns and blisters. All of these are consonant with the results of yperite. Some of them are not consonant with anything else—in my opinion at least,” went on Sir James, menacing Dr. Campbell with his eyeglass. “The pulmonary œdema, for example, or the condition of the trachea, which was covered with a thick purulent membrane. You may care to compare the symptoms with the classical case of Gunner B. in the reports of the Chemical Warfare, Medical Research Committee, Number 17, Case 6, page eight,” he continued relentlessly. “The only variation is in the swiftness of death. That is unusual. But I should point out, to begin with, that we are not sure when the attack was made. Though that point is not, perhaps, very valid. Whatever be the date of the attack, the symptoms developed at far higher speed than in the classical cases. The tempo of dissolution, so to speak, was accelerated. This is explicable. It can be due to two things. Firstly, Mr. Grayling was an oldish man—older, I think, by some twenty years than the average soldier who was attacked by poison gas in the cases recorded, and certainly in much worse health. His resistance would be less. Secondly, we have to postulate a higher concentration of gas than was usual in the last war. How that was achieved is another matter, on which I express no opinion.”
He paused, for dissent or applause, and received neither. He turned to Holly, and said, more urbanely: “In nontechnical terms, Inspector, the man died of mustard gas poisoning. Gas, of course, is in some ways a misleading term. The stuff—dichlorethyl-sulphide it’s called—is really a liquid, giving off lethal vapour. The symptoms are very well known. They have been carefully studied and are theoretically familiar to every A.R.P. worker. In addition, we older men, can remember cases from the last war. Of course, it’s twenty years since there was an instance. But there is no doubt in my mind at all.”
“Gas!” said the Inspector, groping. “Of course I wouldn’t question your verdict, Sir James. But it does take one aback a bit. Gas. I’ll consult the Civil Defence people, but I don’t expect they will help us. There was no enemy plane signalled that night at all.”
Dr. Campbell appeared to have nothing to say. He was bright red and looked very embarrassed. Sir James offered some aid:
“I can’t tell you how it was administered. I can only tell you what it was, and that I’ve done. I can see it’s very perplexing. Is it possible that one of our own planes had some sort of an accident? For example: let’s suppose we are making practice flights, and that by some error a small poison gas bomb—a live one—was being carried on a training plane, and an inexpert or frightened pilot released it. It might have burst more or less in the dead man’s face. That would be compatible with the injuries received.”
“It’s possible,” said Holly. “Only just possible. I’ll make enquiries at the Air Ministry. I don’t think it’s likely, though. It would be a most extraordinary piece of inefficiency. Besides, we should have found traces of the bomb. The bomb case, for example.”
“Tck,” said Sir James. “Well, that’s your problem, Inspector. A mustard gas bomb doesn’t have to be dropped from a plane, I suppose. There may be other ways of killing a man with it. I confess I can’t think of a plausible one at the minute, though.”
Inspector Holly reported this verdict later to the Superintendent.
“I see,” said the latter. “And that takes us nowhere. Have you got anything else?”
“Hardly anything, sir,” replied Holly. “I’ve interviewed the young man who sat next to Grayling. Evetts, not Everitt, his name is; he works in the same firm and lives in Croxburn. There was no difficulty in finding him.”
“Yes. And then what?”
“Well, he’s a young man, I should say good-looking, but at present in rather poor physical condition. His eyes were bunged up, and he had a sore throat and a cough so continuous that between the two he could scarcely speak. He works fairly near to Grayling in the office: he’s in the chemicals department and has something to do with sending out the stores—though he made quite a point of telling me that nothing was sent out except under double check. He has a dispenser’s certificate—the thing that you need to have to handle poisons.”
“That isn’t necessarily ‘hardly anything,’ Holly; maybe you have got hold of something there. Compare the young man’s condition with what Sir James has said. Find if it would fit in with mustard gas poisoning.”
“I have done so, sir.” There was the faintest shade of rebuke in the Inspector’s tone. “The symptoms are in the A.R.P. Manual, and they are more or less what Evetts has, as far as a layman can see. Supposing Grayling had been without his mask during a severe gas attack, as in the last war, and Evetts had been in the same attack and had got his mask on rather late—that would have produced, I would think, the phenomena that I observed. But of course that is absurd. I do remember noticing that the Vicar, too, seemed to have trouble with his eyes or throat and a skin-rash. But even if that, too, was due to mustard gas, it doesn’t make the whole thing any less preposterous.
“I suppose it’s possible that young Evetts could have been monkeying with mustard gas, for the purpose of giving it to Grayling, and through carelessness got a snort of it himself. I don’t know how he would do it, though. I don’t think the Vicar would have helped him.”
“What sort of man is this Evetts? Why isn’t he in the army?” asked the Superintendent.
“Reserved. As a chemist. I don’t know but what the new call up will catch him, though. As for what he is—well, it’s hard to say exactly. There’s no trace whatever that I can find yet, of any motive against Grayling. He insists he scarcely knew him, except as a rather grumpy old man who sometimes travelled in the same carriage with him. They aren’t neighbours—he lives nearly two miles away. He claims he didn’t even know there was a Mrs. Grayling, which was a line I was going to follow up. You see, all I can find against him is that he has a pretty hot reputation with the girls. A great dancer too. Before the Palais de Danse closed he used to be there two or three times a week. Frequently acted as M.C.; but I understand there had been complaints from some of the girls about his style of petting and he had not been asked to act as M.C. for some time. I’m trying to follow that up: I don’t really know what I can expect from it, though. Unless he was going off the rails with Mrs. Grayling it doesn’t seem to fit in.”
“Any signs of extravagance? Is he supposed to be in want of money? Girls arn’t always cheap,” said the Superintendent.
“No rumours yet. I saw him in his room at Halifax Grove: it was plainly furnished. There was a radiogram that looked a bit expensive, but he’s getting four guineas a week and could probably afford it on the never-never. Nothing else. Most of his decorations consisted of a large number of female photographs on the mantelpiece, which he swept off when I came and threw in a drawer. He didn’t say why; but it needn’t necessarily be a grave matter. Girl friends sign their names quite often, and policemen are nosey. He couldn’t take the pictures off the wall, though.”
“Were they, er, hum?” enquired the Superintendent.
“Oh, no; not really,” said the Inspector broadly. “Nothing that couldn’t be sold in a shop; semi-nude girls: the sort of thing that in our day was done by Rudolf Kirchner. I don’t know who does it now.”
“A man called Varga, I think,” the Superintendent informed him, and then looked embarrassed at his own knowledge.
“The thing which does worry me a little,” said the Inspector finally, “is that I got the impression that the young man was scared stiff of me when I came. I mean that he had something to hide. It may not have been about Grayling—at least he answered everything about him quite readily and said he was very anxious to help. But he seemed very uncomfortable at any general remark—about the pictures, the girls’ photos, and even when I asked him if he liked dancing. It’s a little difficult to be sure, when a man’s voice is almost inaudible, anyway. But I did get the impression that he had got something on his conscience. Something rather serious.”