Invisible Weapons

‘That’s just as well, for his evidence will probably be wanted at the inquest. Do you happen to take the British Medical Journal, doctor?’

‘Yes, I do. There’s this week’s issue lying on the table in front of you.’

‘I wonder if you could find me the issue of May 22? There’s an article in that number which I’m particularly anxious to read. We policemen have to try and keep abreast of certain branches of medical knowledge, you know.’

Dr Thornborough went to a bookshelf upon which lay a pile of back numbers. He ran through these twice without finding the one which Jimmy had asked for.

‘That’s queer,’ he said. ‘That particular number must have got mislaid. But I’ll have a hunt for it and send it along to you when I find it.’

‘Oh, please don’t trouble. I’ve wasted enough of your time as it is.’

Jimmy left the house, being escorted to the front door by the doctor. He then crossed the road and knocked at the door of the cottage, which stood by itself in a small garden surrounded by trees. After a few minutes the door was opened by a noticeably pale young man, wearing a tennis shirt and a pair of grey flannel trousers, who remained in the dark background of the hall, from which he peered at his visitor disapprovingly. ‘This isn’t my at home day, you know,’ he said.

‘I hoped it might have been,’ Jimmy replied. ‘Are you Mr Willingdon?’

‘Such is my ancestral name. My godfathers and godmothers in my baptism christened me Francis. To the denizens of the low haunts which I frequent I am known as Frank. And who are you that so blithely disturb my Sabbath rest?’

‘I’m Inspector James Waghorn from Scotland Yard,’ Jimmy replied simply.

‘Be sure your sins will find you out!’ exclaimed the other in a sepulchral tone. ‘Where are the minions of justice? Where are the handcuffs and the gyves? Where, in fact, is the Black Maria?’

‘Sorry, I forgot to bring it. But I’d be very glad if you could spare me five minutes of your time, Mr Willingdon.’

‘He calls me Mr Willingdon! Indeed, my offence must be rank. Wherein have I transgressed the King’s Peace? Have I driven thirty and a half miles an hour in a thirty mile limit? Have I consumed alcohol during the hours when such indulgence is not permitted? Have I been so lost to all sense of decency as to loiter with intent? Come inside, and tell me the worst.’

He led the way into a room furnished as a lounge, with the curtains drawn across all the windows. When his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, Jimmy perceived that at one end of this room was a table covered with a newspaper, on which was laid a tin can, a loaf of bread and a bottle of beer. A faint but penetrating smell of perfume pervaded the place.

‘Observe the preparations for my frugal meal,’ said Willingdon. ‘Care to join me? I dare say I could find another bottle of beer in the refrigerator.’

‘I couldn’t think of depriving you of it,’ Jimmy replied. ‘You’ve heard, of course, of what happened at the doctor’s house across the road yesterday afternoon?’

Willingdon shook his head. ‘While I am in this rural retreat, I am a temporary anchorite,’ he said. ‘That’s what I come here for. Life in the giddy world is so hectic that even the most pernicious of us want a rest sometimes. Don’t you find that, inspector? Nothing untoward has befallen the doctor, I hope? He seemed a very good fellow the only time I saw him.’

‘His wife’s uncle was found dead in his house soon after one o’clock yesterday.’

‘How very annoying! I should hate any of my well-loved and respected relatives to expire in my arms. Unless, of course, their testamentary depositions compensated for the shock to my nerves. But surely you haven’t come to talk to me about the deceased uncle of the doctor’s wife? Sounds too terribly like a lesson in elementary French.’

‘That’s just what I have come to talk about. It’s just possible that you may have seen or heard something which may throw light upon the man’s death. To begin with, what were you doing between one and a quarter past yesterday afternoon, Mr Willingdon?’

With a gesture, Willingdon indicated the table.

‘Much what I’m doing now, or should have been doing but for the unexpected pleasure of your visit,’ he replied. ‘Replenishing the jaded body with its needful sustenance.’

‘And what did you do when you had completed the process?’

Willingdon pointed to the sofa. ‘I laid myself recumbent on yonder couch,’ he replied. ‘And there I still was when the summons of the door-knocker roused me from my slumbers.’

‘You had a visitor?’ Jimmy suggested.

‘You have divined the truth, inspector. It’s not the first time that people have knocked on the door while I’ve been down here. But, as a rule, I don’t open it and after a time they go away. I had no intention of opening the door yesterday afternoon, imagining that time would abate the nuisance. So it did, but the nuisance reasserted itself. It manifested itself this time by a tapping on the window. I couldn’t stand that, so I got up to see who it was.’

‘What time was this?’ Jimmy asked.

Willingdon frowned. ‘I have always refused to be a slave to that ridiculous convention which you call time,’ he replied. ‘Besides, there’s no such thing, as any of these modern scientific johnnies will tell you. It was sometime in the afternoon, too early for my system to demand the stimulus of tea, and not yet late enough for it to have recovered from its post-prandial somnolence.’

‘Somewhere between two and three o’clock, perhaps?’

‘Very likely. I opened the window, and a husky voice hailed me. “Got any fags to spare, guv’nor?”’

‘What did the man look like?’ Jimmy asked.

‘Nothing on earth. You couldn’t imagine him unless you had read The King in Yellow, which I don’t suppose you have.’

Jimmy smiled. ‘“Songs that the Hyades shall sing, Where flap the tatters of the king,”’ he quoted. ‘Is that what you were thinking of?’

‘Once more you have divined it. There was something kingly in his assurance that his request would not be denied. And the tatters—the yellow tatters! Nowhere but in Carcosa could he have found a garment like that.’

‘Could you describe it?’

‘Words don’t often fail me, as you may have noticed. But for that purpose, I can think of none adequate. It still retained a faint suggestion of military discomfort about the collar, as though some veteran of the Peninsula war had cowered in it behind the lines of Torres Vedras. In colour it was yellow, the yellow of dank and mouldering corruption. It was probably verminous, and most certainly it stank.’

‘Could you describe the man who was wearing it?’

‘Red hair, wandering blue eyes and a pungent aroma of perspiration. Those were my impressions.’

‘Did you give him any cigarettes?’

‘I did. I gave him a handful out of that box you see over there. I thought it was the quickest way of getting rid of him. And he said, “Honourable toff, here’s my best thanks.” I liked that, for he’s the first person who’s ever thought me honourable or considered me a toff.’

‘What happened after that?’

‘“Erupit, evasit, as Tully would phrase it!” He hasn’t troubled me since, I’m thankful to say.’

In reply to further questions Willingdon gave the following information. He had taken the cottage for a month, having seen it advertised in The Times

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