04 - Carnival of Criminals (5 page)

Dr Cutt went silent for a moment.

“Let me help you Thomas.” He said at last.

Tommy stared at his legs.

“Just a sedative?”

“To see what happens.” Dr Cutt nodded.

“All right, let’s try it.”

Dr Cutt patted him on the arm.

“Don’t let anyone ever say you are not a brave man.” The
doctor stood and went to get a vial from a cabinet.

Tommy closed his eyes and sighed. What on earth was he
doing?

“Colonel Brandt, I am so glad you could come.” Clara
welcomed the colonel into her house, “Tommy and Annie are out, which is just as
well. I don’t want them knowing about this just yet.”

“What are you up to Clara?” Brandt asked, stripping his
coat off and hanging it on a hook, followed by his hat, “Your message was
rather cryptic.”

Colonel Brandt had met Clara a few months back when she
was solving the mystery of his late friend’s disappearance. Since then Clara
had rather adopted the lonely old colonel and he regularly came for Sunday
lunch. He also happened to have trained as a doctor under his father, before
joining the army.

“I have a body I want you to look at.” Clara explained.

“Here?”

“It’s complicated. I had to tell Annie to stay out of the
dining room and she is most peeved with me.”

“Surely a dead body should be with the police?”

“As I say colonel, it’s complicated.”

“Perhaps I better take a look.” The colonel said, rubbing
anxiously at his chin.

Clara started to open the dining room door.

“Tell me colonel, in-between exotic birds, did you
perhaps find the time to take a peek at the House of Curios?”

The colonel endeavoured not to blush at the mention of
his faux pas; he still had visions of nubile flesh running through his mind. It
had certainly been an experience.

“Ah, yes, I believe I did.”

“Good, then you will have met Hepkaptut before.” Clara
pushed open the door and led the way inside.

King Hepkaptut was laid out on the dining room table, a
neatly ironed linen table cloth between his blackened body and the polished
wood. Clara had kept the blind at the window drawn in case anyone peered in,
but a side window cast bright sunlight over the corpse. He looked just as
desiccated as in his display case, but the sunshine added a leathery-ness to
the texture of his pitch black skin.

“You recognise him?” Clara asked.

“The mummy from the fairground.” Brandt gasped in
astonishment, “What is he doing here?”

“He is on loan.” Clara winked, “In any case, I suspect
this gentleman is no more an ancient Egyptian than you or I.”

“I don’t know.” Mused Brandt, “Seen a few of these
mummies in my time. He certainly looks the part.”

“Well that is why I asked you to stop by. I wondered if
you might use your medical knowledge to examine Hepkaptut here and tell me what
you can about him.”

“Now Clara, I never finished my training as a doctor.”

Clara smiled.

“I know, but you do have medical knowledge, and I can’t
convince the police to get involved in this case until I can demonstrate that
this man before us was murdered, or at least that he was a perfectly healthy
and very much alive individual until around fifteen years ago.”

Colonel Brandt shook his head.

“Slow down a moment. You think this is a murder victim?”

“I even have a potential name for him, and it isn’t
Hepkaptut.”

Colonel Brandt stared a long time at the mummy on the
table. To his eyes it looked like a dozen other mummies he had seen over his
many years in the army. He had spent time in Egypt and the locals were fond of
digging up mummies from old tombs and hawking them to tourists. Mostly they
were unwrapped so people could see the actual corpse and they all had a
blackened, wizened appearance the same as Hepkaptut. Of course, there was no
knowing that those said mummies being sold in the market were real either,
there was no trusting foreigners.

“I suppose I could take a look.”

“Thank you colonel.” Clara moved to the far side of the
mummy to give Brandt room.

The colonel donned his monocle and approached the corpse.
He peered at the dark skin, amazed to see the fine imprint of pores still
visible on the flesh.

“It’s a remarkable thing, mummification.” He scanned his
eyes down over the sunken rib-cage and to the spindly legs, “Safe to say he is
male.”

“I had noticed those.” Clara said with a wry smile.

The colonel found himself blushing again.

“Mummification does preserve everything.” He coughed, “He
doesn’t appear to have any obvious breaks in his limbs.”

The colonel moved around to the side of the table where
Clara stood and peered closer at Hepkaptut’s chest.

“That’s interesting. Clara do you have a candle or lamp
perhaps so I could take a closer look at this?”

Clara vanished from the room and returned with an old oil
lamp. She placed it on a small occasional table and fetched matches from the
mantelpiece. It burst into flame a little too enthusiastically and she adjusted
the wick before bringing it over to Colonel Brandt.

“Could you cast light just over this spot here, please?”
Brandt motioned to the place on the chest he meant with his finger.

Clara leaned the lamp over as far as she dared, too aware
that she could spill hot oil on the tinder-dry mummy and incinerate them all.
That would hardly be a fitting way to end a Tuesday morning. Oblivious to her
concerns, Brandt stretched his head down until his nose was almost touching the
body and peered through his monocle. After a moment he took it off and used it
as a magnifying glass.

“Well I never. I do believe we have a bullet hole.”

“Really?” Clara tried to look around Brandt’s head.

“Yes. You see? It’s a small hole about the size of a
pencil and I would swear I could see something glinting inside it. Perhaps the
bullet itself.”

“Then my next question has to be, did this kill him?”

Brandt pulled his head back sharply, almost knocking the
lamp out of Clara’s hands in the process.

“I’m not expert enough to tell you. For all I know
someone at the fairground took a pot-shot at old Hepkaptut one night. But a
bullet wound is still a bullet wound.”

“Anything else?”

Brandt returned his monocle to his eye and took a good
look at the pharaoh’s head.

“I suppose it is quite interesting his jaw is hanging
open. I hadn’t thought of that before, but most of the genuine mummies you see
in places like the British museum have closed mouths.”

“The jaw drops after death when the muscles release from
rigor.” Clara said with a nod, “I was a nurse in the war and I went into the
morgue at the hospital more times than I care to remember. If you don’t tie the
jaw up then the mouth will flop open, like this.”

“The ancient Egyptians were very precise about the
appearance of their mummies, they wouldn’t have liked that.”

“So let’s rule out the possibility this fellow was
deliberately mummified for either strange funerary purposes or to fake a mummy,
because the jaw would most likely have been held closed by some means until the
process was done.”

“Accidental mummification?”

“A murderer hides the body of his victim in a place
conducive to such a process, then years later the corpse is discovered and mistaken
for a much older body? It explains things as well as any other theory I have.”

Brandt leaned over the corpse again.

“Two silver fillings.” He said, “And a gold crown. Nice
work, actually.”

“Somehow I don’t think that is the work of an ancient
Egyptian dentist.”

“No.” Colonel Brandt stood upright and stretched his
back. There was a faint crack, “Now what Clara?”

“I keep poking my nose around while also trying to
convince the police they need to investigate this as a murder.” Clara gave a
shrug as if the task were simple, “One final question, do you see this ring on
his hand?”

Clara pointed out the large ring Oliver had identified as
belonging to Mervin Grimes.

“That looks valuable to me, but no one put in any effort
to remove it. Any thoughts on why?”

Brandt used his monocle as a magnifier again.

“I would say they couldn’t. From the look of the knuckle
that ring has been worn for so long that the finger has swollen with age and
would have made it impossible to remove without cutting it. In actual fact there
is a mark in the skin here as if someone tried cutting off the finger but the
tool wasn’t sharp or strong enough and they gave up.”

“Perhaps the killer had only limited time to dispose of
the corpse and couldn’t waste it on the ring.” Clara theorised, “At least that
also confirms that this ring was not placed on the mummy after death.”

“Oh no, this ring has always been here.” Brandt agreed,
“He probably started to wear it as a young man and the finger grew. Bit like
when an old woman tries to remove the wedding ring she wore as a girl. She
can’t get it over the knuckle because her hands have changed.”

“Then I am satisfied this is the one and only Mervin
Grimes.” Clara perched her hands on her hips and stared at the body, “What a
way to end your days.”

“You know who he was?”

“Only vaguely. A thug who ran with some of the criminal
gangs that haunt Brighton. Presumably he fell foul of someone.”

“Clara, I don’t want to preach, but do you really want to
involve yourself in a gangster’s death? These are dangerous people.”

“It was fifteen years ago, the culprit may even be dead
or in prison already.”

“But supposing they are not and they don’t want to be
found?”

Clara cast her eye over the body of Mervin Grimes.

“No murderer wants to be found.”

“Yes, but these fellows are very dangerous and they are
not afraid of getting their hands dirty.”

“I didn’t say I was going to mix with them, as soon as I
have enough pieces of the puzzle put together I shall just hand it over to the
police and let them take charge.”

“Good, because you owe Mervin Grimes nothing. He was a
thug who ended up the way most thugs do, well, aside from the mummification.”

Clara gave Colonel Brandt a smile.

“I think I owe you a cup of tea.”

“That would be nice.”

“I think Annie has made some currant cake, if we can find
it.”

“That sounds delightful.” Colonel Brandt was almost at
the dining room door when he paused and glanced back at Mervin.

“What is it like sleeping in a house with a mummy
downstairs?” He asked.

Clara grinned at him.

“Quiet as a tomb.” She said with a twinkle in her eye.

Tommy was wheeled back into the waiting room to allow the
sedative to take effect. Dr Cutt invited his next patient to come to his
surgery before leaving Tommy to meditate on their conversation. Tommy gave a
small sigh and looked at the coffee table in the middle of the room which was
stacked with magazines. He reached forward to pick up a copy of the Brighton
Gazette but the table was just out of reach. He cursed his legs as he stretched
out again, his hand still falling short.

“Here, let me.” A woman moved from her seat on his left
and picked up the magazine. She handed it to him.

“Thank you.” Tommy smiled, remembering that the woman had
been in the room before he had gone in to see Dr Cutt. She was looking at him
with a strange intensity.

“Excuse me, but did the doctor say you are Mr Thomas
Fitzgerald?”

“Yes.” Tommy tried to identify the woman’s accent, it was
faint but discernible and he had heard such an accent before.

Slowly the thought in his mind formed into the idea that
the accent was German. Tommy’s stomach sunk a little. For the last three years
he had thrown all his bile and hate at Germany and anything with Teutonic
overtones. Others had forgotten so fast, returning to their German operas and novels,
but Tommy had found it impossible to be so forgiving. To this day anything
German made his stomach recoil in dozens of knots, his chest to tighten and an
overwhelming feeling of rage take hold of his senses. All of a sudden he
couldn’t look the woman in the face. He supposed it was not her fault she was
German, but just that faint hint of an accent had his teeth grinding and some
inner demon clawing up his throat.

“I’m sorry to impose on you like this but, are you the
brother of Miss Clara Fitzgerald?”

Tommy forced out the answer as politely as he could.

“Yes.”

“And, could you say how much she charges for her
services?”

Tommy still couldn’t look at her face. He wanted to say
some ridiculous price, send the woman away so she wouldn’t bother them further.
But some shred of decency ousted that irrational thought. After all it was up
to Clara to decide who she would take on as a client, even if they were German.

“It… it depends really. On the case.”

The woman suddenly took the seat next to him. It wasn’t so
much as if she had chosen to sit down, but rather that she had collapsed into
it from exhaustion. She gave a long sigh, then opened her black handbag and
withdrew a silver watch.

“The pawnbroker says this is worth £2. Would she accept
this for her helping me?”

She placed the watch in Tommy’s hands without another
word. He looked at the beautiful watch, its enamel white face cut away at the
top to reveal a hint of the intricate workings. Its case was ornamented with a
pattern of flowers and vines and in the middle of the back was an engraving in
German with two sets of initials intertwined. It was a fine watch and worth far
more than £2.

“My late husband made it.” The woman said quietly, “You
don’t like Germans much, do you?”

Her comment took Tommy off-guard and jerked him from his
thoughts.

“I…”

“It doesn’t matter. Over the last six years I have seen
it so much I hardly think about it now. That is why I noticed how your face
changed when you heard my accent.”

Tommy swallowed down on the choking anger before he
replied.

“This watch is worth far more than £2.” He forced himself
to look her in the face. When he did he saw an older woman, whose round, homely
face was much marked by time and worry. Her hair had mostly gone completely to
grey, but a darkness at the roots suggested it had once been the deepest of
blacks. She had probably never been pretty in the traditional sense, but her
eyes had a sparkle, even if it was dulled with time, and there was a hint of a
dimple in her cheek that would blossom when she smiled. She was dressed in dark
blue and black, the style at least a decade out-of-date, and she looked so
very, very sad.

“I’m so sorry.” Tommy said quietly.

“I told you it doesn’t matter.”

“I think it does.” Tommy ran his finger over the front of
the watch, “Your husband was very skilled. This is a fine piece.”

He drew out his own English pocket-watch for comparison,
the one his father had had for years. It looked cumbersome and workman-like
next to the delicate silver watch.

“My husband made watches since he was fourteen. He learnt
from his father in Prussia. We came to London in 1897 and there we set up a
shop. He made watches for gentlemen and was very proud of the fact.”

“I can see why he would be popular.” Tommy handed back
the watch.

“Until the war.” The woman smiled sadly, “Then he was
just another German and no one wanted his watches. It would be unpatriotic. No
matter we had been in England for seventeen years and that my son spoke with a
London accent. He was only three when we came to England. He has never been to
Germany.”

She toyed with the watch.

“I don’t blame people. We came to Brighton and changed
our surname to Smith. My husband spent his time mending watches rather than
making them, but at least it was work.” She slipped the watch back into her
bag, “I’m sorry, I am rambling.”

Tommy gave her a genuine smile.

“That’s all right.” He said, “My sister would not like
you to pawn that watch just to pay her, you know. Perhaps if you explain why
you need her help I could give you a better idea of what she would charge?”

Mrs Smith stared at her handbag for a moment. When she
looked up her eyes were teary.

“It’s my son. He is missing. Has been for the last two
years.” She opened the bag again and pulled out a photograph of a young man,
“His name is Jurgen. He will be 26 next month.”

She handed over the photograph which was about the size
of a visiting card and showed a youth with dark hair and a shy smile. He wore a
suit and was leaning against a low brick wall, his head half turned from the
camera as if caught by surprise.

“Did he serve in the war?” Tommy asked with that knot in
his throat again. In his mind Jurgen Smith’s suit was replaced by the spiked
helmet and grey uniform of the German army.

“Jurgen would have loved to serve in the British army. You
mistake me, Mr Fitzgerald, I did not favour Germany in the war. Neither I nor
my husband could see the point in conflict. It was why we left Prussia in the
first place. Jurgen was patriotic to King George and would have given his life
for England in an instant if he had had the chance. Only Germans, even Germans
who thought of themselves as British, were not allowed in the king’s army.”

“Then, what happened to him?”

“In 1914 we received a letter explaining that the
government was interning British Germans as part of its war policies. I suppose
they thought some of us might be spies or saboteurs. I cried when I read it.”
Mrs Smith took back the photograph and a tear trickled down her face unheeded,
“My son and my husband were both to be interned, but my husband was very ill
with his chest and could barely walk. So we managed to get him excused as he
clearly could do little harm to anyone. But Jurgen had to go. They sent him
away to the Isle of Man just before Christmas.”

Mrs Smith began to rummage in her bag again.

“He was interned for four years, but he wrote often, and
he knew about our move to Brighton. He said he was looking forward to seeing
the new house. I carry the last letter I received from him with me all the
time.” She removed a much-read letter from her bag, the corners were worn away
and the paper was starting to rip down the creases, “He sent me this in
December 1918, just before he was due to come home.”

Tommy was handed the letter and he read, with a little
difficulty, the tightly packed writing on the page.

“Dear mum and dad,

Good news! I am due to get the next ferry across to
England, then I will be on the train and headed home. It’s been a long time.
Some of the men here are resentful about being imprisoned, I tell them it can’t
have been as bad as those filthy trenches in France, so they should cheer up.
It hasn’t been a bad time, don’t think we had it rough. This isn’t a prison,
but I do miss London and you. I keep thinking about what I shall do once I am
home. I still have my heart set on training in engineering, perhaps I can find
a course or something when I get back? I hear that with so many dead and
injured they are going to need a lot of new lads to fill jobs, so maybe I
should just apply for something. Anyway, we can discuss that when I get home.
Not long now! I have a Christmas present for you, but don’t get too excited, it
isn’t much, just a token. Something I’ve worked on over the years. I’m running
late for the post, so I better finish up here.

Take care of yourselves

See you soon

Your loving son, Jurgen”

“But he never arrived?” Tommy handed back the letter.

“No. I waited and waited. I was in a dreadful turmoil,
you see, because I had never explained about his father.” Mrs Smith bit her
lip, “Jurgen’s father took the war hard. We changed our name, but somehow we
were still German, still the enemy. He was a proud man, but very sensitive. I
think in the end he felt so ashamed of the way Germany had behaved and
therefore he felt ashamed of being German. He was very honourable. Germans are.
He took his honour seriously and it pained him to see what his countrymen were
doing in the name of Germany. One day that shame overcame everything else. I
found him in his workshop, the gun he had shot himself with still in his hand.”

Tommy’s stomach turned over. In just half an hour that
was the third person he had heard about who had shot themselves because of the
war. It was disquieting and made him all the more relieved his own pistol was a
useless relic, its workings clogged with Flanders mud. There had been a point
where, had it been in working order, it might have provided a tempting answer
to his own anguish.

“You did not tell Jurgen?”

“It’s not the sort of news you write in a letter and,
well…” Mrs Smith grimaced, “I couldn’t face explaining it, not then. And the
longer I left it, the harder it was to think about writing it down on paper. I
should have told him, I intended to. I just didn’t.”

“I can see these last few years have been hard on you Mrs
Smith.”

Mrs Smith gave a hollow laugh.

“Very hard. I turn up an hour early for a doctor’s
appointment just to avoid being in the house alone.”

“My sister has worked on a lot of missing person cases,
she might be able to help.”

“I don’t expect Jurgen to be alive. I hope, naturally.
But if he was alive he would have come home. I just need to know what happened
to him.”

Tommy nodded.

“Look, my sister will gladly accept whatever you can
afford. Don’t pawn the watch or anything else.”

“Thank you. That is the kindest thing anyone has done for
me in years.” Mrs Smith almost cried. Her relief was palpable.

“Just give me your address and the relevant details about
Jurgen. His date of birth, height, German name, and any details about exactly
where he was interned.”

“I have all his letters and things. I could bring them to
you?”

“That would be ideal.” Tommy dug in his pocket and drew
out a crumpled cigarette card featuring one of his favourite cricket players.
He decided the card would have to be sacrificed in the name of a good cause,
and borrowed a pencil off Mrs Smith to jot down the Fitzgerald home address,
“I’ll be in all tomorrow, thought I can’t guarantee Clara will be.”

“Thank you very much, I will drop by in the morning.”

Mrs Smith carefully put the card away in her bag.

“And thank you Mr Fitzgerald for talking to a German.”

Tommy suddenly felt ashamed of his earlier reaction to
the woman.

“I shouldn’t… I mean, it’s not your fault the war began.”
He stammered.

“But I saw how hard it was for you, because of what you
went through. I can understand that. I didn’t say it to make you feel bad, just
to let you know that I appreciate your patience with me when it must be
difficult.”

“The war left a lot of… unpleasant feelings.” Tommy
explained.

“As long as you can accept I am not the enemy?” Mrs Smith
gave him a gentle smile, “I will look forward to seeing you tomorrow.”

Dr Cutt appeared around the door at that moment.

“Mr Fitzgerald? How are the legs?” He asked merrily.

Tommy found he had not been paying attention to the
effects of the sedative. He rubbed at his thigh.

“A little numb. In fact, I feel a bit numb all over.”

“Good! Time for the next phase.” He went to grab Tommy’s
chair, “Good morning Mrs Schmitt, you’re early.”

Mrs Smith/Schmitt nodded her head at him.

“Now Thomas, I want you to clear your mind of all
thoughts.” Dr Cutt continued as he pushed Tommy from the room.

Tommy realised he had not been listening, his mind
instead turned to wondering what had become of the young Jurgen.

“Hmm?”

“Clear your mind of all thoughts.”

“Oh, right.” Tommy pulled a face. He might as well have been
asked to stand up and tap dance. Oh well, it was just one more experiment to
prove he couldn’t walk. Tommy tried to block out thoughts of Jurgen Smith and
his lonely mother. Whatever had become of him it was Clara’s mystery to solve.

Only problem was he couldn’t help an image of that silver
watch flashing back into his mind, and the sensitive, ill man behind it who had
shot himself out of shame for being German. Somehow he just knew there was a
tragedy lurking in the background of the Smith life, one that had yet to be
discovered and he had the nasty feeling he was going to be the one to do it.