In the Teeth of the Evidence Read online

  ‘Ah, yes. Can you give an opinion about this, Mr Tolley? Dr Maggs you know. Mr Lamplough, Lord Peter Wimsey. By the way, Jenkins, Mr Lamplough has been going into the corpse’s dentistry, and he’s looking for a lost tooth. You might see if you can find it. Now, Mr Tolley?’

  ‘Can’t see much doubt about how it happened,’ said Mr Tolley, picking his teeth thoughtfully. ‘Regular death-traps, these little saloons, when anything goes wrong unexpectedly. There’s a front tank, you see, and it looks as though there might have been a bit of a leak behind the dash, somewhere. Possibly the seam of the tank had got strained a bit, or the union had come loose. It’s loose now, as a matter of fact, but that’s not unusual after a fire, Rouse case or no Rouse case. You can get quite a lot of slow dripping from a damaged tank or pipe, and there seems to have been a coconut mat round the controls, which would prevent you from noticing. There’d be a smell, of course, but these little garages do often get to smell of petrol, and he kept several cans of the stuff here. More than the legal amount – but that’s not unusual either. Looks to me as though he’d filled up his tank – there are two empty tins near the bonnet, with the caps loose – got in, shut the door, started up the car, perhaps, and then lit a cigarette. Then, if there were any petrol fumes about from a leak, the whole show would go up in his face – whoosh!’

  ‘How was the ignition?’

  ‘Off. He may never have switched it on, but it’s quite likely he switched it off again when the flames went up. Silly thing to do, but lots of people do do it. The proper thing, of course, is to switch off the petrol and leave the engine running so as to empty the carburettor, but you don’t always think straight when you’re being burnt alive. Or he may have meant to turn off the petrol and been overcome before he could manage it. The tank’s over here to the left, you see.’

  ‘On the other hand,’ said Wimsey,‘ he may have committed suicide and faked the accident.’

  ‘Nasty way of committing suicide.’

  ‘Suppose he’d taken poison first.’

  ‘He’d have had to stay alive long enough to fire the car.’

  ‘That’s true. Suppose he’d shot himself – would the flash from the – no, that’s silly – you’d have found the weapon in the case. Or a hypodermic? Same objection. Prussic acid might have done it – I mean, he might just have had time to take a tablet and then fire the car. Prussic acid’s pretty quick, but it isn’t absolutely instantaneous.’

  ‘I’ll have a look for it anyway,’ said Dr Maggs.

  They were interrupted by the constable.

  ‘Excuse me, sir, but I think we’ve found the tooth. Mr Lamplough says this is it.’

  Between his pudgy finger and thumb he held up a small, bony object, from which a small stalk of metal still protruded.

  ‘That’s a right upper incisor crown all right by the look of it,’ said Mr Lamplough. ‘I suppose the cement gave way with the heat. Some cements are sensitive to heat, some, on the other hand, to damp. Well, that settles it, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes – well, we shall have to break it to the widow. Not that she can be in very much doubt, I imagine.’

  Mrs Prendergast – a very much made-up lady with a face set in lines of habitual peevishness – received the news with a burst of loud sobs. She informed them, when she was sufficiently recovered, that Arthur had always been careless about petrol, that he smoked too much, that she had often warned him about the danger of small saloons, that she had told him he ought to get a bigger car, that the one he had was not really large enough for her and the whole family, that he would drive at night, though she had always said it was dangerous, and that if he’d listened to her, it would never have happened.

  ‘Poor Arthur was not a good driver. Only last week, when he was taking us down to Worthing, he drove the car right up on a bank in trying to pass a lorry, and frightened us all dreadfully.’

  ‘Ah!’ said the Inspector. ‘No doubt that’s how the tank got strained.’ Very cautiously he inquired whether Mr Prendergast could have had any reason for taking his own life. The widow was indignant. It was true that the practice had been declining of late, but Arthur would never have been so wicked as to do such a thing. Why, only three months ago, he had taken out a life-insurance for £500 and he’d never have invalidated it by committing suicide within the term stipulated by the policy. Inconsiderate of her as Arthur was, and whatever injuries he had done her as a wife, he wouldn’t rob his innocent children.

  The Inspector pricked up his ears at the word ‘injuries’. What injuries?

  Oh, well, of course, she’d known all the time that Arthur was carrying on with that Mrs Fielding. You couldn’t deceive her with all this stuff about teeth needing continual attention. And it was all very well to say that Mrs Fielding’s house was better run than her own. That wasn’t surprising – a rich widow with no children and no responsibilities, of course she could afford to have everything nice. You couldn’t expect a busy wife to do miracles on such a small housekeeping allowance. If Arthur had wanted things different, he should have been more generous, and it was easy enough for Mrs Fielding to attract men, dressed up like a fashion plate and no better than she should be. She’d told Arthur that if it didn’t stop she’d divorce him. And since then he’d taken to spending all his evenings in Town, and what was he doing there—

  The Inspector stemmed the torrent by asking for Mrs Fielding’s address.

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ said Mrs Prendergast. ‘She did live at Number 57, but she went abroad after I made it clear I wasn’t going to stand any more of it. It’s very nice to be some people, with plenty of money to spend. I’ve never been abroad since our honeymoon, and that was only to Boulogne.’

  At the end of this conversation, the Inspector sought Dr Maggs and begged him to be thorough in his search for prussic acid.

  The remaining testimony was that of Gladys, the general servant. She had left Mr Prendergast’s house the day before at 6 o’clock. She was to have taken a week’s holiday while the Prendergasts were at Worthing. She had thought that Mr Prendergast had seemed worried and nervous the last few days, but that had not surprised her, because she knew he disliked staying with his wife’s people. She (Gladys) had finished her work and put out a cold supper and then gone home with her employer’s permission. He had a patient – a gentleman from Australia, or some such a place, who wanted his teeth attended to in a hurry before going off on his travels again. Mr Prendergast had explained that he would be working late, and would shut up the house himself, and she need not wait. Further inquiry showed that Mr Prendergast had ‘scarcely touched’ his supper, being, presumably, in a hurry to get off. Apparently, then, the patient had been the last person to see Mr Prendergast alive.

  The dentist’s appointment-book was next examined. The patient figured there as ‘Mr Williams 5.30’, and the address-book placed Mr Williams at a small hotel in Bloomsbury. The manager of the hotel said that Mr Williams had stayed there for a week. He had given no address except ‘Adelaide’, and had mentioned that he was revisiting the old country for the first time after twenty years and had no friends in London. Unfortunately, he could not be interviewed. At about half-past ten the previous night, a messenger had called, bringing his card, to pay his bill and remove his luggage. No address had been left for forwarding letters. It was not a district messenger, but a man in a slouch hat and heavy dark overcoat. The night-porter had not seen his face very clearly, as only one light was on in the hall. He had told them to hurry up, as Mr Williams wanted to catch the boat-train from Waterloo. Inquiry at the booking-office showed that a Mr Williams had actually travelled on that train, being booked to Paris. The ticket had been taken that same night. So Mr Williams had disappeared into the blue, and even if they could trace him, it seemed unlikely that he could throw much light on Mr Prendergast’s state of mind immediately previous to the disaster. It seemed a little odd, at first, that Mr Williams, from Adelaide, staying in Bloomsbury, should have travelled to Wimbledon
to get his teeth attended to, but the simple explanation was the likeliest: namely, that the friendless Williams had struck up an acquaintance with Prendergast in a café or some such place, and that a casual mention of his dental necessities had led to a project of mutual profit and assistance.

  After which, nothing seemed to be left but for the coroner to bring in a verdict of Death by Misadventure and for the widow to send in her claim to the Insurance Company, when Dr Maggs upset the whole scheme of things by announcing that he had discovered traces of a large injection of hyoscine in the body, and what about it? The Inspector, on hearing this, observed callously that he was not surprised. If ever a man had an excuse for suicide, he thought it was Mrs Prendergast’s husband. He thought that it would be desirable to make a careful search among the scorched laurels surrounding what had been Mr Prendergast’s garage. Lord Peter Wimsey agreed, but committed himself to the prophecy that the syringe would not be found.

  Lord Peter Wimsey was entirely wrong. The syringe was found next day, in a position suggesting that it had been thrown out of the window of the garage after use. Traces of the poison were discovered to be present in it. ‘It’s a slow-working drug,’ observed Dr Maggs. ‘No doubt he jabbed himself, threw the syringe away, hoping it would never be looked for, and then, before he lost consciousness, climbed into the car and set light to it. A clumsy way of doing it.’

  ‘A damned ingenious way of doing it,’ said Wimsey. ‘I don’t believe in that syringe, somehow.’ He rang up his dentist. ‘Lamplough, old horse,’ he said, ‘I wish you’d do something for me. I wish you’d go over those teeth again. No – not my teeth; Prendergast’s.’

  ‘Oh, blow it!’ said Mr Lamplough, uneasily.

  ‘No, but I wish you would,’ said his lordship.

  The body was still unburied. Mr Lamplough, grumbling very much, went down to Wimbledon with Wimsey, and again went through his distasteful task. This time he started on the left side.

  ‘Lower thirteen-year-old molar and second bicuspid filled amalgam. The fire’s got at those a bit, but they’re all right. First upper bicuspid – bicuspids are stupid sort of teeth always the first to go. That filling looks to have been rather carelessly put in – not what I should call good work; it seems to extend over the next tooth – possibly the fire did that. Left upper canine, cast porcelain filling on anterior face—’

  ‘Half a jiff,’ said Wimsey, ‘Maggs’s note says “fused porcelain”. Is it the same thing?’

  ‘No. Different process. Well, I suppose it’s fused porcelain – difficult to see. I should have said it was cast, myself, but that’s as may be.’

  ‘Let’s verify it in the ledger. I wish Maggs had put the dates in – goodness knows how far I shall have to hunt back, and I don’t understand this chap’s writing or his dashed abbreviations.’

  ‘You won’t have to go back very far if it’s cast. The stuff only came in about 1928, from America. There was quite a rage for it then, but for some reason it didn’t take on extraordinarily well over here. But some men use it.’

  ‘Oh, then it isn’t cast,’ said Wimsey. ‘There’s nothing here about canines, back to ’28. Let’s make sure; ’27, ’26, ’25, ’24, ’23. Here you are. Canine, something or other.’

  ‘That’s it,’ said Lamplough, coming to look over his shoulder. ‘Fused porcelain. I must be wrong, then. Easily see by taking it out. The grain’s different, and so is the way it’s put in.’

  ‘How, different?’

  ‘Well,’ said Mr Lamplough, ‘one’s a cast, you see.’

  ‘And the other’s fused. I did grasp that much. Well, go ahead and take it out.’

  ‘Can’t very well; not here.’

  ‘Then take it home and do it there. Don’t you see, Lamplough, how important it is? If it is cast porcelain, or whatever you call it, it can’t have been done in ’23. And if it was removed later, then another dentist must have done it. And he may have done other things – and in that case, those things ought to be there, and they’re not. Don’t you see?’

  ‘I see you’re getting rather agitato,’ said Mr Lamplough; ‘all I can say is, I refuse to have this thing taken along to my surgery. Corpses aren’t popular in Harley Street.’

  In the end, the body was removed, by permission, to the dental department of the local hospital. Here Mr Lamplough, assisted by the staff dental expert, Dr Maggs, and the police, delicately extracted the filling from the canine.

  ‘If that,’ said he triumphantly, ‘is not cast porcelain I will extract all my own teeth without an anaesthetic and swallow them. What do you say, Benton?’

  The hospital dentist agreed with him. Mr Lamplough, who had suddenly developed an eager interest in the problem, nodded, and inserted a careful probe between the upper right bicuspids, with their adjacent fillings.

  ‘Come and look at this, Benton. Allowing for the action of the fire and all this muck, wouldn’t you have said this was a very recent filling? There, at the point of contact. Might have been done yesterday. And – here – wait a minute. Where’s the lower jaw gone to? Get that fitted up. Give me a bit of carbon. Look at the tremendous bite there ought to be here, with that big molar coming down on to it. That filling’s miles too high for the job. Wimsey – when was this bottom right-hand back molar filled?’

  ‘Two years ago,’ said Wimsey.

  ‘That’s impossible,’ said the two dentists together, and Mr Benton added:

  ‘If you clean away the mess, you’ll see it’s a new filling. Never been bitten on, I should say. Look here, Mr Lamplough, there’s something odd here.’

  ‘Odd? I should say there was. I never thought about it when I was checking it up yesterday, but look at this old cavity in the lateral here. Why didn’t he have that filled when all this other work was done? Now it’s cleaned out you can see it plainly. Have you got a long probe? It’s quite deep and must have given him jip. I say, Inspector, I want to have some of these fillings out. Do you mind?’

  ‘Go ahead,’ said the Inspector, ‘we’ve got plenty of witnesses.’

  With Mr Benton supporting the grisly patient, and Mr Lamplough manipulating the drill, the filling of one of the molars was speedily drilled out, and Mr Lamplough said: ‘Oh, gosh!’ – which, as Lord Peter remarked, just showed you what a dentist meant when he said ‘Ah!’

  ‘Try the bicuspids,’ suggested Mr Benton.

  ‘Or this thirteen-year-old,’ chimed in his colleague.

  ‘Hold hard, gentlemen,’ protested the Inspector, ‘don’t spoil the specimen altogether.’

  Mr Lamplough drilled away without heeding him. Another filling came out, and Mr Lamplough said ‘Gosh!’ again.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Wimsey, grinning, ‘you can get out your warrant, Inspector.’

  ‘What’s that, my lord?’

  ‘Murder,’ said Wimsey.

  ‘Why?’ said the Inspector. ‘Do these gentlemen mean that Mr Prendergast got a new dentist who poisoned his teeth for him?’

  ‘No,’ said Mr Lamplough; ‘at least, not what you mean by poisoning. But I’ve never seen such work in my life. Why, in two places the man hasn’t even troubled to clear out the decay at all. He’s just enlarged the cavity and stopped it up again anyhow. Why this chap didn’t get thundering abscesses I don’t know.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Wimsey, ‘the stoppings were put in too recently. Hullo! What now?’

  ‘This one’s all right. No decay here. Doesn’t look as if there ever had been, either. But one can’t tell about that.’

  ‘I dare say there never was. Get your warrant out, Inspector.’

  ‘For the murder of Mr Prendergast? And against whom?’

  ‘No. Against Arthur Prendergast for the murder of one Mr Williams, and, incidentally, for arson and attempted fraud. And against Mrs Fielding too, if you like, for conspiracy. Though you mayn’t be able to prove that part of it.’

  It turned out, when they found Mr Prendergast in Rouen, that he had thought out the scheme well in advanc
e. The one thing he had had to wait for had been to find a patient of his own height and build, with a good set of teeth and few home ties. When the unhappy Williams had fallen into his clutches, he had few preparations to make. Mrs Prendergast had to be packed-off to Worthing – a journey she was ready enough to take at any time – and the maid given a holiday. Then the necessary dental accessories had to be prepared and the victim invited out to tea at Wimbledon. Then the murder – a stunning blow from behind, followed by an injection. Then, the slow and horrid process of faking the teeth to correspond with Mr Prendergast’s own. Next, the exchange of clothes and the body carried down and placed in the car. The hypodermic put where it might be overlooked on a casual inspection and yet might plausibly be found if the presence of the drug should be discovered; ready, in the one case, to support a verdict of Accident and, in the second, of Suicide. Then the car soaked in petrol, the union loosened, the cans left about. The garage door and window left open, to lend colour to the story and provide a draught, and, finally, light set to the car by means of a train of petrol laid through the garage door. Then, flight to the station through the winter darkness and so by underground to London. The risk of being recognised on the underground was small, in Williams’s hat and clothes and with a scarf wound about the lower part of the face. The next step was to pick up Williams’s luggage and take the boat-train to join the wealthy and enamoured Mrs Fielding in France. After which, Williams and Mrs Williams could have returned to England, or not, as they pleased.

  ‘Quite a student of criminology,’ remarked Wimsey, at the conclusion of this little adventure. ‘He’d studied Rouse and Furnace all right, and profited by their mistakes. Pity he overlooked that matter of the cast porcelain. Makes a quicker job, does it, Lamplough? Well, more haste, less speed. I do wonder, though, at what point of the proceedings Williams actually died.’