The Lately Deceased Read online

  ‘There’s no suggestion that he was pushed, I suppose, Superintendent?’ Geoff said. ‘Because he wasn’t drunk – or not so that you’d notice it.’

  ‘None at all, nor has Mr Myers any recollection of coming over dizzy, or of being pushed or anything happening to him to cause him to fall. I think we must accept his falling as “one of those things”. What is more to the point is that he didn’t die as the result of the fall.’

  ‘If he had, Gordon would have got away with it, would he?’ Geoff asked, reflectively.

  ‘No, sir, he wouldn’t. Mr Myers’ statement was the supporting evidence we needed; but the damning evidence was the skewer that fell from Walker’s standard lamp. It was you who found it, wasn’t it, miss?’ he asked, turning to Eve.

  ‘Yes, it was, Superintendent. What did you find out from it?’

  ‘Quite a lot, as it turned out. The brown stains on it were, of course, blood – human blood – and it was not a very difficult matter to establish the particular sub-group to which it belonged. It was not the same group as Mrs Walker’s!’

  ‘Then it couldn’t have been the weapon that killed her, said Eve. ‘So who did it kill?’

  ‘Nobody.’

  ‘Then whose blood was it?’

  ‘We now know that it was Gordon Walker’s.’

  ‘But I don’t understand. How did his blood come to be on it?’

  ‘Because he put it there.’

  ‘Why, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘Because he had the little learning which so often proves to be a dangerous thing. He knew that his blood group was O Rhesus Negative, a fairly uncommon but by no means rare group – and that his wife shared the same group. Where he slipped was in believing that because his blood and hers were of the same general classification, the one would be indistinguishable from the other. But that, as the doctor here will no doubt tell you,’ he said, nodding towards the local GP, ‘is far from being the case. Am I right, sir?’

  ‘Perfectly right,’ the doctor replied. ‘For transfusion purposes, only the ABO and Rhesus groups are important, but there are a couple of dozen other groups – either quite separate ones or subdivisions of the Rhesus system which would be very significant from the point of view of a police investigation.’

  ‘Precisely that,’ said Meredith quietly.

  ‘But why should Gordon know that his blood and Margaret’s were of the same group?’ asked Eve doubtfully ‘I’ve no idea what mine is.’

  ‘Mrs Walker was a regular blood donor,’ Meredith told her. ‘The probability is that Walker saw it on the official card that is issued to all donors. We don’t know for certain that he did, of course, but we do know that he knew that she was O Rhesus Negative, because he told me so in the course of an early interview. That he knew his own group is easier to explain. Those of you who were his friends will know that he suffered from stomach ulcers; and twice, following internal haemorrhage from them, he had to have transfusions of blood. On the first of these occasions, a sample of his blood was taken by the hospital to find out his group. It turned out to be O Rhesus Negative. Now, there is a standard procedure followed by hospital laboratories whenever a Rhesus Negative sample passes through their hands. The practice is to forward the blood to the Regional Transfusion Centre for more elaborate tests to determine the gene classification. In due course the Transfusion Centre sends a card to the patient with all the relevant details set out on it, and instructions to retain the card against the possible need of another transfusion in the future. This, procedure was followed in Walker’s case. So you see, there was every reason why he should know more about his blood than you know about yours, Miss Arden.’

  ‘I see,’ said Eve thoughtfully. ‘So though Gordon’s and Margaret’s bloods were basically the same, they weren’t identical?’

  ‘That’s it. Mrs Walker’s blood was O Rhesus Negative but, genetically speaking, I understand, there is a world of difference between these two. The effect of this information, of course, was to disprove conclusively what until then we had believed to be the case; that the blood on the skewer was Margaret Walker’s.’

  ‘That must have brought you up short!’ commented Geoff.

  Meredith nodded sadly.

  ‘As you can imagine this development brought the whole case tumbling about our ears and it was while we were still trying to pick up the pieces that Myers surfaced from his coma and told us what he knew.’

  ‘But because two specimens of blood match, it’s no proof that they come from the same source,’ Geoff objected ‘A dozen other people at that party might have had the same gene coding as the blood on the skewer.’

  ‘It would be surprising if they had, Mr Tate,’ Meredith commented dryly, ‘Fewer than one person in every hundred has that particular genotype.’

  ‘Nevertheless, you can’t hang a man because his blood matches the blood on Exhibit A,’ Geoff persisted doggedly. ‘It’s not proof.’

  ‘Not proof, I agree, but strong corroborative evidence when taken in conjunction with the weight of other evidence we had against him.’

  ‘So you think he cut himself and drenched the skewer in his own blood,’ Eve persisted, revelling in the gory details.

  ‘I think so,’ agreed the detective.’

  ‘I never saw any sign of a wound on him,’ she said doubtfully.’

  ‘I think you are hardly likely to, young lady. A jab on the fingertip with a needle will allow a whole lot of blood to be squeezed out by somebody persistent enough.’

  ‘I see. What else did you find?’

  ‘That the skewer was liberally marked with Colin Moore’s fingerprints.’

  ‘What did that prove?’

  ‘Well, of course, it was intended to prove that Moore was the last man to handle the weapon and was therefore the murderer. But, you know, fingerprints can be quite easily planted on any object having a suitable surface. They were in this instance, shortly after Moore lost consciousness and before Walker turned on the gas.’

  ‘Do you think Gordon meant me to find that skewer?’

  ‘Yes, that was all part of his plan. Cast your mind back to the evening when you found it. Who suggested that the lamp be moved across the room?’

  ‘It was Gordon,’ Geoff said, promptly.

  ‘Precisely. He placed it there for you to find as soon as the lamp was moved.’

  ‘How perfectly grisly of him!’ Eve said, thrilled.

  ‘In fact. the whole purpose of that little party was to set the scene for the “accidental” discovery of this additional bit of evidence of Moore’s guilt.’

  ‘But if the skewer I found wasn’t the murder weapon, what happened to the skewer that really did kill Margaret?’

  ‘I would say at a guess,’ Meredith replied with a smile, ‘that it was gathered up and returned to stock by the bartender on the night of the murder. In all probability it is now again performing its proper function as a barbecue skewer.’

  ‘Ugh! What a perfectly disgusting thought.’

  ‘Yes, but then murder usually is disgusting.’

  ‘Look, officer,’ Webster broke in, ‘Am I right in understanding that if poor Margaret had only kept her mouth shut on the night of the party, she’d be alive and well tonight.’

  ‘That’s about the size of it, sir.’

  ‘And if she was alive now, so would be Colin Moore.’

  ‘He would.’

  ‘And if they were both alive, Gordon would be alive, too.’

  ‘Just that.’

  Webster turned to his wife.

  ‘Let that be a lesson to you, darling. Never open your mouth unless you’ve got something worthwhile to put into it.’

  And, suiting the action to his words, he raised his glass and drained its contents at a gulp.

  THE END

  Crime Fiction from

  Bernard Knight

  The Lately Deceased

  The Thread of Evidence

  Mistress Murder

  Russian Roulette
/>   Policeman’s Progress

  Tiger at Bay

  The Expert

  For more information about Bernard Knight

  and other Accent Press titles

  please visit

  www.accentpress.co.uk

  First published by Herbert Jenkins Ltd 1963

  This edition published by Accent Press Ltd 2015

  ISBN 9781786150462

  Copyright © Bernard Knight 2015

  The right of Bernard Knight to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  The story contained within this book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers: Accent Press Ltd, Ty Cynon House, Navigation Park, Abercynon, CF45 4SN