Half an hour later a trio of grey-faced men sat in the Assistant Editor’s room, each silently occupied with his own thoughts. Jackson seemed dazed by the blow. All he could think of at the moment was the tragic waste, the personal and professional loss, if the worst happened.
Oglivie was tactfully avoiding his Chief’s eye. He sensed what Haines was going through, and felt great sympathy. It could have happened to anybody, but Haines was unlikely to be reminding himself of that fact.
The Chief Inspector’s features were set in deep lines. He had liked Ede. He had felt a responsibility for him, as indeed for everyone else in this place. It was useless to tell himself that he had done everything in his power to make an occurrence such as this impossible, and that he had given the Editor the plainest of warnings; it was no consolation to know that at every stage of the inquiry he had been in the closest consultation with his superiors and with able, experienced colleagues. The fact was that he had been the man officially entrusted with the case, the man on the spot, and that under his very nose the murderer had struck again, unhindered, while the laborious process of elimination creaked on its way. It was distressing and humiliating beyond words. He would have liked to plunge into work, to stop the treadmill of his thoughts, but he was temporarily condemned to inaction. A decontamination squad had arrived from the Yard, but had not yet completed its preparations for entering Ede’s room.
The tense silence was broken at last by Jackson. “I suppose there is just a chance?” he muttered, hardly daring to look at the inspector.
“We can only wait,” Haines said. “I’m afraid the poor fellow looked pretty bad.” At least, he reflected, no time had been wasted after the alarm had been given. Emergency treatment had been prompt, and the ambulance had arrived within five minutes. Ede had appeared to be a man with a strong constitution, and he couldn’t have taken in so very much of the stuff or he would never have reached the door of the shower-room before collapsing.
Ogilvie tried to be reassuring. “They always say that if there’s any sign of life at all when the doctor gets to work on a cyanide case, there’s a chance.”
Haines grunted. He felt it somehow safer not to speculate on the possibility of Ede’s recovery—it was too much like tempting Fate.
The phone rang, and all three men leaned forward with a jerk. Jackson was nearest, and fumbled unsteadily for the receiver. It was an inside call—a query from the Subs’ room about some technical matter. For the first time in his life, Jackson behaved as if he didn’t care whether the paper came out or not. “For God’s sake, man, don’t worry me with that now,” he cried in exasperation. “Use your own judgment.” He flung the receiver down.
Haines sat back. “Surely those chaps outside must be ready by now,” he said rather fretfully to Ogilvie.
“I’ll go and see, Chief.” Ogilvie was half-way to the door when the phone rang again.
This time Jackson handed the receiver over after a moment. “It’s for you, Inspector.” Specks of moisture glistened on his forehead and his white hair looked damp.
Haines took the phone. “Chief Inspector Haines here. Yes, Sergeant … Say that again, I can’t hear very well … They do!” He looked across at Jackson with shining eyes. “Right. Yes, you’d better stay in case there’s a chance later … All right. ’Bye.”
He hung up and took a long, grateful breath. “They think he’ll live.”
“Thank God!” said Jackson with deep fervour. He blinked several times, took off his spectacles, wiped them and put them back. “Oh, that is good news. Has Mrs. Ede been told?”
“Yes—she’s there with him now.” Haines was smiling, and looked ten years younger. “You know, Mr. Jackson, if he does pull through, there’s not much doubt that he’ll owe his life to you. If you hadn’t gone straight in and pulled him clear when you did, he’d have had no chance at all. Are you quite sure you’re not feeling any ill effects yourself?”
“Positive, Inspector—you needn’t worry about me. I recognised that smell at once and held my breath—I’m sure I didn’t take any of the stuff in.” Jackson sat back and heaved a sigh. “Oh, what a relief!”
Haines nodded. With Ede off his mind, he had suddenly become preoccupied with the implications of the murderer’s new stroke. Now that it was clear that Hind had not been the sole target, various possibilities suggested themselves.
(I) Hind’s death had been a mistake, the accidental result of a method aimed at Ede. But this seemed unlikely, because Ede had been host at the luncheon and no one could reasonably have supposed that he would be the first to eat anything.
(2) Hind’s death had been a mistake, the olives having been intended for either Cardew, Iredale or Munro.
(3) Hind’s death had been intended, but only as the first incident in a campaign which was later to include Ede.
Haines frowned. He had no grounds for choice between the second and third possibilities, but in either case the murderer must have had a motive for killing at least two people. What possible motive could link Ede and one of the other four as victims? And would the murderer’s whole purpose have been accomplished if Ede had died? Was the campaign over—or was a new offensive brewing? Speed of investigation was obviously imperative.
The door opened suddenly and a plain-clothes man came in. “We’re ready to fix you up now, sir.”
“Okay, Phillips.” Haines got quickly to his feet. “You’d better come along too, Ogilvie—it’s not very easy to see in those masks.” He turned to the Assistant Editor. “Perhaps you’d tell Miss Timmins the good news? I want to have a talk with her as soon as possible, and it’ll do her more good than all the smelling salts in the world.”
Jackson beamed. “It will be a pleasure.”
The two policemen followed Phillips across the corridor to the men’s cloakroom, where a decontamination point had been improvised. Another man was there with a lot of apparatus. In a short time the four of them were dressed in special suits and gas masks, and Phillips led the party into Ede’s room. The windows were wide open and the atmosphere had no doubt cleared considerably during the past half hour, but Phillips and his assistant were taking no chances and began to use their ammonia sprays lavishly.
Haines and Ogilvie went through into Ede’s dressing-room suite at the far end of the room. It was, they saw, a well-equipped annexe, consisting of a changing room, a wash-room, and a tiled shower cubicle. Thrown across a settee in the changing-room were the clothes that Ede had taken off, and beside them the evening clothes he had intended to put on. The door of the cubicle was open. The shower had been used, but at first glance everything seemed in order. Heavily encumbered, Haines got down on his knees to examine the floor, sweat pouring down his back. Ogilvie peered round his shoulder. Beside the shower there was a piece of duckboard consisting of half a dozen wooden slats screwed on to two battens. Haines lifted one corner, disclosing a sodden newspaper. It was a copy of the Morning Call, of that day’s issue. Both men inspected it closely. Haines ran a finger over the wet surface and found it crystalline. The cubicle, he realised, must still be deadly.
It was plain enough now what had happened. Someone who had known Ede’s habits must have slipped into the shower-room and put the stuff under the duckboard. Ede had stepped out on to it after his shower, with warm water running off him, and at once the cyanide had given off its deadly gas and knocked him out before he could get beyond the door. Haines was just wondering how Ede could have failed to notice the smell of cyanide on first entering the shower-room when Ogilvie drew his attention to a patent disinfector on the wall. Those things, he knew, gave off a strong perfume of their own, sufficient to conceal the presence of the cyanide as long as it was still dry.
By now the decontamination officers were waiting to spray the shower-room. With a last glance round, Haines place the wet newspaper carefully on the duck-board and carried the whole thing out into the main room. Phillips had brought a gas-proof container into which the inspector dropped the exhibits. The main thing now was to get the suite properly aired, so that the Yard experts could come in and make their detailed examination.
It took Haines and Ogilvie a little time to divest themselves of their special clothing and wash away all traces of cyanide. When they got back to the Assistant Editor’s room, Jackson was waiting for them. He had sent a message in to Miss Timmins, who was making a good recovery in the Women’s Rest Room under Katharine Camden’s ministrations. “Well, did you manage to find out anything?” he asked eagerly.
“There’s no doubt how it was done, Mr. Jackson,” said Haines, mopping his forehead, “but that’s about as far as we’ve got at the moment.” Briefly, he described what they had seen in the shower-room.
“Good Heavens!” exclaimed Jackson, as Haines finished, “how unbelievably horrible!”
“Proper execution chamber,” observed Ogilvie. “Just like the ruddy Nazis.”
“Well, we’d better get on,” said Haines. “I’d like to know more about that newspaper, Mr. Jackson. What time would it have been available in the office?”
Jackson, who had been frowning down at his desk as though trying to capture an elusive memory, looked up slowly. “I’m sorry, Inspector—what did you say?”
Haines repeated the question.
“That depends on what edition it was,” Jackson told him.
“It had three stars,” said Haines, “if that’s any help.”
“Ah, then it must have been a West of England paper. Let me see, we were running a bit late last night. The first copy must have been off the presses just after half-past ten.”
“That gives us a time limit one way, then,” said Haines. “The stuff couldn’t have been laid before ten-thirty last night.” He was wondering if the cyanide had been actually carried into the room in the newspaper. “Come on, Ogilvie, let’s go and see what Miss Timmins has to say. Perhaps she’ll be able to tell us something more definite.”