Tuesday 27th August 1929
The next morning, Clara, who had hardly had any sleep for the second night in a row, was waiting for Roger Jennings when he arrived with his secretary to open the office. The secretary asked if Miss Vale would be staying for coffee. She declined, saying she had another appointment to attend.
‘I’ve just come to give you this,’ she said, handing two envelopes to Jennings.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘A summary of my findings so far in the Whittaker case. One for you, in the hope that you will take on Alice Whittaker as a client, and another to pass on to a magistrate or a judge.’
‘A judge? I think you’ve got the wrong order here, Miss Vale. It should be the police you are handing this over to.’
Clara shook her head and told him, briefly, about what happened at the Whitley Bay police station yesterday. ‘So you see, I’m concerned that Inspector Davidson is either in the pay of Balshard, or he is simply not taking me or Alice Whittaker seriously. I can’t run the risk of handing the evidence to him and him ignoring it. So I thought, perhaps, if a magistrate looked at it first and gave his opinion on it, that might give me some leverage with the police. What do you think? Do you know someone we could approach with this?’
‘Are you sure you won’t come in, Miss Vale?’
Clara checked her watch. ‘Sorry, I’m going to see Uncle Bob’s doctor and he said he can squeeze me in before his surgery starts. So, can I leave this with you?’
Jennings nodded. ‘Of course. I’ll have a look at it. And if I think there’s something in it, I can have a word with a magistrate. I can’t promise he’ll look at it – he might tell us to go straight to the police – but on the other hand he might not. And I take your point about not being sure about Davidson’s standing on this.’
She smiled at the younger Jennings. He was much more amiable today than she’d seen him before. He must be warming to her. ‘Do you think you could take on Alice Whittaker as a client? As you’ll see, I think the evidence clearing her of the fire safety contravention charge is quite strong, so even if we just manage to put in another claim, it will be progress. I think, though, she’ll need help with that. Could you do that?’
Jennings smiled at Clara. ‘I will certainly have a look, yes. I will have to speak to my father about taking on a new client, but if the evidence is as solid as you suggest, then I don’t see why not. Where are all the fingerprints and that key that you were going to give Davidson?’
‘Don’t worry, they’re in a safe place. I’ll have them to hand when needed. Perhaps you could just read through what I’ve written first. I reference and list each piece of evidence in there. It’s not just the key and the fingerprints, there are samples from the Paradise there too. With my accompanying chemical analysis.’
Jennings looked impressed. ‘I’m sure you’ve done a sterling job, Miss Vale. However, it might be useful if I had access to some of the physical evidence too, in due course. So I have a fuller picture of what we’re working with. But it’s not essential. A judge, though, will want to see it.’
Clara looked at her watch again. ‘Of course, I understand. But I just don’t have time now. I’m meeting the doctor this morning, then after that Mr Ridpath is taking me for a drive up the coast to Holy Island.’
‘Oh yes?’ said Jennings, grinning. ‘Is Ridpath courting you?’
Clara shrugged, nonchalantly. ‘I have no idea, Mr Jennings. You’ll have to ask him.’
‘I might just.’ Jennings chuckled, then raised the envelope that Clara had given him. ‘But back to business. I’ll give this my full attention later today. I have a few meetings myself this morning. Then let’s set up a proper meeting so we can talk about how to proceed. My father will be back tomorrow, so we can take this forward then. Enjoy your trip up the coast, Clara.’
‘Thank you, Mr Jennings, I expect I will.’
‘So, you say you were surprised at how quickly he succumbed. Why is that?’ asked Clara, sitting in front of the doctor’s desk.
Dr Charles Malone, a good-looking brown-haired man in his late thirties, twirled the stem of his unlit pipe between thumb and forefinger. ‘Bob was my father’s patient. I inherited him, along with the practice, when my father retired. I’d met him a few times at the college library, and the occasional science lecture he attended. I knew he had been unwell, with a heart condition, but from everything Bob and my father told me, it was well under control. While his heart had to be cared for, there was nothing to suggest that death was imminent.’
‘What did he actually die of?’
‘Heart failure, as a result of chronic myocarditis – inflammation of the heart muscle. We must have misjudged how weak his heart muscle had become.’
‘Was an autopsy conducted?’ asked Clara.
Charles shook his head. ‘No, no one called for one. He had been treated for a heart complaint, he died of a heart complaint – just quicker than we thought he would.’
Clara pursed her lips. ‘But you said yourself, the speed of deterioration concerned you. Did you not think it suspicious?’
Charles frowned, his brown eyebrows shading his freckled face. ‘Concerning, yes. Suspicious, no. It was a natural death, Miss Vale, although of course, it was still tragic. Not least for his family.’ He then paused and cocked his head. ‘I don’t recall seeing any family members at his funeral.’
Clara caught her breath. ‘No, there was no one there. I can speak only for myself, but I only heard about Bob’s death after he was buried.’
Charles gave her a curious look. ‘How unfortunate.’
‘Very,’ she said, her lips sealing in a tight line. ‘But now that I’m here,’ she said eventually, ‘I am trying to find out as much about his life – and death – as I can. So I hope you can help me.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ he said, tapping the empty pipe on a stainless steel ashtray. ‘I was very fond of your uncle.’
‘So was I,’ said Clara. ‘You say it was chronic myocarditis. Was it originally caused by a virus?’
‘Possibly. He had had it for a few years, but he might well have caught something else that exacerbated it.’
‘Was he showing symptoms of an infection before he died? High temperature?’
‘Not that I’m aware, no. Just increasing fatigue in the weeks leading up to his death.’
‘More than was to be expected from a man with his condition?’
‘Yes, for his pre-existing heart condition, which was being treated by medication, his condition became worse than I thought it should have been.’
‘Did you examine him?’
‘No. I asked him to come and see me after I saw him struggling up the steps of the college library, but he declined to do so.’
‘And you didn’t pursue it?’
Charles gave Clara a hard stare. ‘I cannot force anyone to come and see me, Miss Vale, but in case you are implying that I was derelict in my duty of care, I can assure you I was not. I began to wonder whether your uncle was taking too much medication. That might have accounted for his symptoms.’
‘What was he taking?’
‘My father had prescribed digitalis for his heart and barbital, to stop him from getting overanxious. It’s standard. I would have prescribed the same.’
‘But you thought he might have been taking too much?’
‘It was a theory, yes. An overdose of barbital might have been the cause of his symptoms. When he didn’t come to see me, I took it upon myself to visit his chemist, to check that he had not been getting more than was prescribed. I was assured that he was not.’
Clara leaned back in her chair and contemplated what the doctor had just told her. ‘So, you suspected something might have been amiss. Enough to probe further. May I ask why? Why did you think something was amiss?’
Charles shrugged. ‘Like I said, I was concerned at the speed of his deterioration. But when I mentioned it to my father, he suggested that Bob might have caught a secondary virus. Which is perfectly plausible.’
‘But you have no evidence of it?’
Charles shook his head. ‘None. Neither he nor his housekeeper – I questioned her about this one day when she came to pick up a new prescription for Bob – thought there was anything to be concerned about. She said he was just tired from working too hard. I asked her what dose he was taking. She confirmed it was exactly as it had been prescribed.’
Clara’s eyes narrowed at the mention of Mrs Hobson. ‘Might she have been lying?’
Charles was startled. ‘Why on earth would she lie?’
Clara didn’t quite know how to reply to that. In fact, she didn’t quite know why she was even going down this line of questioning. Had her mere handful of days working as a private detective gone to her head? Was she simply being melodramatic? If she were, it would be quite out of character for her. She’d just hoped to speak to Bob’s doctor in order to get a fuller picture of her uncle’s life and final days. However, she had become increasingly puzzled by the conflicting accounts of those last days. On the one hand, Barnaby Jennings, Juju and Jonny Levine and Andrew Ridpath all told her that he was more tired than usual, but his mind was still as sharp as a tack. On the other, Jack Danskin and Jane Hobson both suggested that he was beginning to lose his mental faculties. And here was Bob’s doctor telling her Mrs Hobson had ‘no concerns’. Really? Why had she not mentioned Bob’s alleged deteriorating mental state to Dr Malone? She’d been very quick to tell Clara about it. Both she and Jack Danskin. It was now clear to Clara that both Danskin and Hobson may very well have had ulterior motives in pushing the ‘Bob was losing his marbles’ narrative: Danskin because he hoped to muscle in on Bob’s business, and Hobson because she seemed to believe that Bob would name her in his will. Might these be motives to – dare she even contemplate it? – hasten Bob’s demise? To her surprise, she was contemplating it, hence her line of questioning.
Clara let out a long breath. ‘I’m sorry, Dr Malone, but I have reason to suspect that Bob’s death might not have been entirely accidental. And I’m wondering whether Mrs Hobson might have had a hand in it.’
Charles gasped. ‘That is quite an accusation!’
Clara nodded in agreement. ‘It is, and I’m mentioning it here under strict patient–doctor confidentiality. I might very well be wrong, and I hope I am, but Mrs Hobson has given me reason to be suspicious.’ She went on to explain what had happened when the housekeeper came to the house. She was shocked to see Charles turning a bright shade of beetroot.
‘Whatever is it, Dr Malone?’
‘I – well – I am just astounded that Bob and Mrs Hobson were apparently lovers.’
Clara leaned forward. ‘And why is that?’
‘Because – I don’t know, really. I suppose there is no reason why they shouldn’t be.’
‘But you seem very shocked by the suggestion. Why? Is there something you knew about my uncle? Something that was not widely known by anyone but his closest friends?’
Malone ran his finger along the inside of his collar. ‘I’m not sure what you are trying to say, Miss Vale.’
‘Really?’ said Clara, spurred on by the doctor’s curious reaction. ‘It seems to me that you might know exactly what I mean. Did you know that my uncle was a homosexual, Dr Malone?’
‘Absolutely not! It’s illegal.’
‘That may very well be the case, but did you know about it?’
‘I did not.’
‘Oh, but I think you did. Your reaction tells me you did.’ The doctor’s eyes flicked to the door. He looked like a caged animal. ‘Don’t worry, Dr Malone, I am already aware of it and do not think any less of him for it. We love who we love. As long as no one is hurt, I believe we should leave people with different attractions alone. The thing is, if he did have a gentleman lover, why then did Mrs Hobson claim she and he were romantic companions? That’s what I’m trying to unpick here. So don’t worry, I’m not about to expose Uncle Bob – or his gentleman friend – after his death. His – their – reputation is safe with me. But I am concerned in finding out whether his death was natural, or whether anyone had a hand in it.’
Charles relaxed, marginally. ‘All right, I understand. But I must just clarify that I do not know who the gentleman was. Only that there was one. My father once paid an unannounced house call to Bob at home and said he saw a gentleman leaving via the back door. He was not fully dressed. Bob was embarrassed but didn’t try to deny anything. He asked for my father’s discretion. My father gave it.’
‘But he told you?’ asked Clara, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
‘Yes, he did,’ said Charles, clearing his throat. ‘When he handed over Bob’s medical files to me. He thought it might be useful to know. As his physician. In total confidence, of course.’
‘Of course,’ said Clara. She softened her tone. ‘Well, this is very reassuring. I’m glad to see you had and still have my uncle’s best interests at heart. So perhaps you can help me unpick this puzzle. Why do you think Mrs Hobson had that letter from Bob? Why did he send it to her? Do you think he might have had a gentleman and a lady lover?’
Charles shook his head firmly. ‘No, I very much doubt that.’
‘Then why the letter?’
‘Might it have been a forgery?’ asked Charles.
Clara nodded. ‘It might very well have been. To try to convince me that Hobson and Bob were more than employer and employee. In fact, I’m going up to Holy Island later this morning to try to find out more. That’s where she claims she and Bob had a romantic getaway. At one of the hotels. I’m going to see if I can find any evidence of it.’
Charles nodded brusquely. ‘Good. Good. If she is trying a fast one, she needs to be exposed.’
‘I agree,’ said Clara. ‘But I’d also like to know whether she might have had a hand in his death. You say there wasn’t an autopsy. Might one be conducted after the fact?’
‘Under certain circumstances, yes. But it would need to be ordered by a court. It’s a serious matter to order an exhumation.’
‘I understand that. But what might those circumstances be?’
‘If evidence emerged that there might have been foul play.’
Clara pursed her lips. ‘I was hoping the autopsy might reveal that evidence. An excess of barbital, for instance.’
The doctor shook his head. ‘I thought that’s what you were getting at. But I’m afraid you would need something to convince the police – and a judge – that there is good reason to suspect that, and that you have some evidence to back it up. And from what I’ve heard today, I don’t think you have that yet. Do you?’
Clara shook her head. ‘No, I don’t. But finding out if Bob was really at Holy Island with Mrs Hobson might be a step towards that. I’ll let you know what I find out.’
Charles locked eyes with her. ‘Please, do that.’ He then looked at his watch. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Vale, my surgery is about to begin. But it has been a pleasure meeting you. I see now why Bob had so much faith in you.’
It was Clara’s turn to look abashed. ‘Thank you, Dr Malone. I hope his faith was not misplaced.’