‘Rex versus Prosser,’ Edgar announced, when he’d had enough tea, biscuits and cigarettes to consider the day begun.
‘Is this the burning car one?’ Skelton asked. ‘Bradford, is it?’
‘Bedford. Actually, more like Biggleswade.’
The ‘Blazing Car Mystery’ had dominated the headlines for a week. Initially, it was assumed that the deceased, Harold Musgrave, a vacuum cleaner salesman, bankrupt and facing charges of bigamy, had taken his own life in a particularly grisly act of self-immolation. Then, the post-mortem had revealed that Mr Musgrave had died from a blow to the back of the head before the fire was lit. This was no suicide. Poor Mr Musgrave had been murdered, and 68the corpse and car no doubt burnt to destroy any evidence left by his killer.
Soon afterwards, the Bedfordshire police had arrested Tommy Prosser, a local bad man who’d done time in the past for robbery, violence and drunkenness. The evidence against him was compelling, but less than conclusive. Earlier in the day, Mr Musgrave had withdrawn £1,250 from a bank in Biggleswade. Tommy Prosser happened to be in the bank at the time, so, the police claimed, knew that Musgrave had the money on him. Later in the day, Prosser bought a two-gallon can of petrol from a garage just outside Biggleswade. He could provide the police with no plausible or verifiable reason for buying the petrol and neither could he give adequate account of his movements at the time the murder took place. And, when the police searched his house, they found a bloodstained starter handle. Analysis indicated that the blood was human. Prosser couldn’t give a good account of that, either, so it was assumed that it was the murder weapon.
But the police had not been able to find any trace of the £1,250 either in Prosser’s house or, as ashes, in the car or fluttering about nearby.
Edgar stood and brushed biscuit crumbs from his trousers. ‘The police think that, having learnt that Musgrave had the money on him, Prosser either cadged a lift in town, or flagged the car down later, perhaps faking some sort of emergency.’
‘Any witnesses?’ 69
‘Nobody saw him near the car or in the area prior to the murder, although the people who first discovered the burning car say they did see a man running away who may have fitted Prosser’s description, but only inasmuch as he was medium-build, medium-height and wearing a dark coat.’
‘So, could have been you, for instance. Or Aubrey, or any one of ten million men. Were they even sure it was a man?’
Edgar turned the pages of the brief. ‘I think a general assumption was made.’
‘So, all the police have is conjecture and circumstantial evidence. Do you know, I think we could win this one standing on our heads, Edgar.’
‘There is a slight problem,’ Edgar said.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s on one of these Poor Persons’ Defence Act Certificates. Maximum fee fifteen guineas. If you’d rather not, I could easily pass it on. You have got your plate rather full at the moment.’
A week earlier, Skelton’s fee for turning up at Marylebone Police Court for Giles Ewers, the smirking boy with the general for a dad, had been nearly forty times that. He was earning obscene amounts of money from the Anglo-American Abrasives business, a case he barely understood. He liked to think of himself as a man of principle whose sole master was blind justice. The travesty of the smirking boy and the pointlessness of the Abrasives had compromised his ideals. A fifteen-guinea job for a hard-done-by pauper would 70provide a cleansing restitution.
Skelton checked the name of the solicitor on the first page of the brief.
‘F. E. Holland? Do you know anything about him?’
‘Nothing at all. Chancing his arm, if you ask me. Offering you a fifteen-guinea brief.’
‘The fee is immaterial. I think we should do it.’
Edgar pulled a face. If people found out that his chief would work for fifteen guineas, he feared, they’d both be in the poorhouse by Christmas.
‘Perhaps you should read the brief first,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure it’s quite as straightforward as you assume.’
Edgar left him to it.
Skelton eased himself into one of the low chairs, got his pipe going and settled down to read.
Holland, the solicitor, had provided a lively summary of events, based mostly on the pedestrian testimony of PC Myatt, Great Dunworth’s senior and only policeman, and a somewhat racier account provided by Chester Monroe, a journalist working for the Bedford Weekly Illustrated.
Holland had also provided a useful map, showing Great Dunworth and the next-door village of Lower Dunworth, Keeper’s Lane, between the two, where the murder had taken place as well as other places mentioned in the account – Dunmore Beacon, the Bell Inn, the parish church and so on.
The fire had been discovered by two sixteen-year-olds, a boy and a girl, who had seen a figure, supposedly Tommy 71Prosser, running away from the scene. They had raised the alarm at The Bell, and someone called Ernie Robinson had offered to cycle to the police house in Great Dunworth to report the incident.
At the police house, PC Myatt was not in the best of tempers. He was supposed to have dined on a baked potato cooked in the ashes of a neighbour’s bonfire, together with sausages toasted on sticks, but rain had put paid to that. Consequently, he had had no supper at all when Ernie Robinson showed up to report the terrible fire on Keeper’s Lane.
PC Myatt told Ernie to cycle up to the doctor’s house, then, still supperless, had put on his uniform and waterproofs and cycled down to Keeper’s Lane. The rain, which an hour earlier seemed to have eased off, had started again.
The constable’s first task on arriving at the scene had been to clear the gawpers away. A fair old crowd had gathered. He was helped in this by Mr Glazier, Chairman of the Parish Council, who had been attending to the bonfire at the top of Beacon Hill and come down to help, and Sid Hatch, president of the cricket club. A Mr Bracken, who lived in a cottage nearby, had brought out a couple of Tilley lights so they could see what they were doing, and Mr Glazier had a hurricane lantern.
Then Jed Stubbs from Stubbs Farm turned up in his tractor and suggested he tow the burnt-out car into an adjacent field to get it off the main carriageway because people would be wanting to come up and down Keeper’s Lane in the morning. There was a question, however, 72regarding the corpse and whether it should be left in the car or removed, and, if it were to be removed, how they would go about it. It was little more than a charred shape, still approximately upright even though the seat it had been sitting on was almost burnt away. Nobody present had had experience of dealing with charred corpses and there was some doubt as to whether it could be removed at all. Might it crumble at a touch?
Sid Hatch pointed out that children would be passing in the morning on their way to school. No matter how far the car was towed off the road, they’d be curious, and you wouldn’t want them seeing a thing like this. But PC Myatt suggested that the correct procedure, as he understood it, was to leave the body where it was so that in the morning the Bedford coroner’s people could inspect it properly.
Dr Norman had arrived by this time in his car. He reminded PC Myatt that the coroner’s office and the mortuary in Bedford were temporarily closed for renovations during which time cadavers were being taken to Northampton to be dealt with there.
This changed matters. PC Myatt didn’t know anything about Northampton. It was an entirely different police force over there with different arrangements. It would take time just to get in touch with them and it might be days before they could send somebody out. He asked whether Dr Norman would mind keeping the body at his house for the time being. The doctor said he didn’t think this was a very good idea. Other than the cupboard under the stairs, which 73was full of golf clubs and cricket bats, he had nowhere to put it. He wouldn’t want it in the private parts of the house because he had children of his own and his charlady tended to arrive before six. Can you imagine? And obviously the effect on patients, were he to put it in the surgery or waiting room could be devastating.
Then Mr Bracken, the man from the nearby cottage who’d brought the Tilley lamps, said they could put it in his shed if they wanted. It was dry and he could lock it safe from the eyes of gawpers and children.
So, the constable and the doctor helped by one or two of the others managed to extract the corpse from the car. Although it did not, as some had feared, crumble at a touch, one or two bits did break off. Both the constable and the doctor were sure that this wasn’t their fault and reckoned that even if the most professional undertakers or mortuary assistants had done the job, the bits would still have come away. It couldn’t have come out otherwise.
While Jed Stubbs towed the car into the field, PC Myatt, Dr Norman, Mr Glazier and Mr Bracken carried the corpse, wrapped in a tarpaulin that Mr Bracken had provided, to the shed. Then Mrs Bracken invited them all into her kitchen and kindly made hot cocoa with rum in it.
The following morning, PC Myatt tried to phone the coroner in Bedford, but the telephone, which had not long been put in, had gone wrong again. So, he got Mr Stephens, the baker, who was going up that way in his van to take a message to the main police station in Bedford explaining the 74situation and got on with his normal day’s work. Stephens came back later the same day with a note from the sergeant in Bedford, saying that the Bedford mortuary was closed, and PC Myatt should get in touch with the coroner in Northampton. This, of course, Myatt already knew. He had hoped that the sergeant or somebody else at the station would take charge of the matter and contact the Northamptonshire people themselves. The Bedford people had cars, after all, and telephones that worked.
He was thinking about cadging a lift from somebody either into Clophill, where they might have a telephone that worked, or all the way to Northampton, when a cheeky young chap on a motorcycle turned up, introduced himself as Chester Monroe, and said he was from the Bedford Weekly Illustrated and had found out about the suicide and fire and wanted all the details. He had a camera with him. He said he’d already taken photographs of the burnt car and had discovered that the body was being kept in Mr Bracken’s shed. He wanted to take photographs of that, too, but Mr Bracken was unwilling to do so without specific permission. PC Myatt didn’t think that would be respectful.
Chester Monroe said that if PC Myatt was having so much trouble getting in touch with Northampton, he could either ride back to his office in Bedford and telephone from there, or if he fancied it, give him a lift on his pillion all the way to Northampton. PC Myatt told him it wouldn’t be right for him to go to Northampton himself because he had his duties to attend to but said that if Mr Monroe would be 75good enough to take a message for him, he would be very grateful. The journalist said he’d be glad to. So, Myatt wrote out a message and Mr Monroe rode off to deliver it.
The people from Northampton came on the Friday morning.
The brief also contained clippings from the Bedford Weekly Illustrated, which came out on the Saturday.
There were good photographs of the car and what looked like a studio portrait of the dead man, Harold Musgrave.
Chester Monroe must have worked hard and fast to put the story together. Skelton had no idea what the deadline would be on a paper like the Bedford Weekly Illustrated, but he’d imagine that with plates to be made for the pictures and so on, it would be some time on the Friday, possibly Friday lunchtime, so it was quite remarkable that between the Thursday and the deadline, Mr Monroe had somehow been able to discover the supposed suicide’s name, Harold Musgrave, that he was a commercial traveller for the Auto-Vac-It vacuum cleaner company, that his home address and the Auto-Vac-It factory were both in Coventry, that, because of his success as a salesman, the company had awarded Mr Musgrave the two most lucrative ‘patches’ – the Midlands and the South-East, including London – and that despite this success he was heavily in debt and was facing a bigamy charge and several paternity suits. And he’d even been able to get hold of the photograph of the dead man, presumably from one of the wives or the Auto-Vac-It offices. And all in time for the Saturday edition. 76
The story had made it to the national newspapers on the Monday, by which time the body had been conveyed to Northampton, where the autopsy had discovered the crushing of the skull at the back of the head and concluded that this was no suicide but murder and the police had picked up Prosser within a couple of days – clearly their chief suspect for any crime committed in the area, regardless of evidence.
Edgar came back with tea.
‘The prosecution case is built on quicksand,’ Skelton said. ‘We’ll have it demolished in half an hour.’
‘If you’re sure …’
‘We should go and see Holland and Prosser. He’s in Bedford Prison. Bedford’s what … an hour on the train?’
‘Ooh, could be longer. I believe they’re repairing the line or improving it or something.’
‘Bring a book, then.’
Edgar joined the tips of his fingers in a gesture that, on another man, might have appeared thoughtful but on Edgar, who was not in the habit of joining the tips of his fingers, appeared odd. Out of character. Possibly sly. ‘I was wondering,’ he said, ‘if perhaps you might like to drive.’
‘Drive? To Bedford?’
‘I’m sure it would be much quicker and easier than going on the train.’
‘You get sick in cars.’
‘Yes, but I was talking to Mrs Stewart about that and she told me about these powders that were apparently used 77to great effect by Napoleon’s Camel Corps to cure sickness induced by the constant bouncing up and down.’
‘And the remarkable Mrs Stewart has some of these powders?’
‘The camel powders, yes.’
‘And do they work?’
‘They worked miraculously well for Small Michael.’
‘Who …?’
‘Mrs Stewart has two nephews both called Michael. Small Michael and Big Michael. Small Michael, after several dolorous years of unemployment, found a job as a coalman, but almost had to give it up because of bilious attacks in the delivery lorry. He took the camel powders and is now in line for promotion.’
‘You can get promotion as a coalman? There’s a hierarchy of them?’
‘I believe so.’
‘Have you tried these camel powders?’
‘Not yet, no.’
‘So, the trip to Bedford would be by way of an experiment?’
‘Mrs Stewart assures me that—’
‘I still think the train …’
‘The other thing is … Luton is on the way to Bedford, isn’t it?’
‘General direction.’
‘I was wondering whether we could pick up a cocktail cabinet?’
‘A what?’ 78
‘I’ve bought a small cocktail cabinet.’
‘Do you drink cocktails?’
‘I plan to. It’s second-hand, in perfect condition and very beautiful. See …’
Edgar showed Skelton a picture in a catalogue. The cocktail cabinet resembled a child’s puzzle in which various wooden pieces, mostly triangles, have to be assembled to form a perfect square – except it had been assembled all wrong so that the triangles stuck out at odd angles threatening to put somebody’s eye out.
‘It’s Czech,’ Edgar said. ‘A beautiful example of Czech cubist design.’
Skelton looked for hints of gingham or plaid then realised he meant the country not the pattern. He knew what cubism was. He’d read an article in a magazine about a French artist called Braque who went in for that sort of thing before the war. He wondered whether he should boast about being so au fait with artistic trends, but then realised he didn’t know whether ‘Braque’ was pronounced ‘Brack’, ‘Brake’, ‘Braykew’, ‘Brack-way’ or something even more outlandish, so, rather than make a fool of himself, kept his cakehole shut.
‘I was wondering whether, on the way to Bedford, we could stop off in Luton and pick it up,’ Edgar said.
‘In the car?’
‘It’s quite small. I’m sure it would fit nicely on the back seat of your Bentley.’
Skelton imagined the pointy bits piercing his upholstery and looked doubtful. 79
‘I’m fairly sure,’ Edgar continued, ‘it’s designed either by Pavel Janák or Josef Gočár.’
‘Are they men?’
‘Cubist furniture designers.’
‘There’s two of them?’
‘We could go tomorrow.’
‘I thought I was in court all day tomorrow.’
‘Somebody fell ill or died. The trial’s been postponed indefinitely. And I could rearrange the meeting with Buscott.’
‘Who’s Buscott?’
‘A man you had a meeting with tomorrow, but I can easily rearrange it. I’ll get in touch with F. E. Holland, the solicitor in Bedford, to make sure he can see us in the morning, and I’ll arrange with the prison to see Tommy Prosser. So, if we had an early start, we could pick up the cocktail cabinet first thing and still have a full day ahead of us.’
Skelton sucked thoughtfully on his pipe. The fait it would appear, was accompli. This, then, would be his penance for compromising his ideals by being an accessory to the smirking Ewers boy and the Abrasives people. He would be defence counsel for a pauper and removal man for his clerk. All for fifteen guineas. More than enough, surely, to give anybody’s conscience a good scrub.