Chapter 15: Aftermath

BOB Cummings eventually arrived with a couple of younger detectives in his investigating team, neither of whom I had actually seen before. I presumed the heavy bombing was taking its toll on policemen, stretched as they were with looting from private residences, as well as factories and warehouses damaged in the raids, and their contents ‘liberated’ under cover of the blackout.

Bob must’ve first spoken to PC Coker, who had remained outside the flat, guarding the stairs against the interested local crowd that had gathered outside, their imaginations running wild speculating on the reports of gunshots.

Occasionally, the portly policeman had bellowed news up the stairs, in particular regarding Bob Cummings being notified at the Yard, and that the Coroner and a medical doctor were on their way, all of which Mary faithfully and calmly repeated to me.

I have to say that Mary remained quiet but calm during our wait for the authorities to run through their due process in the event of a sudden violent death.

When she wasn’t clinging onto my arm, or translating the words of people who were thoughtlessly not looking at me when speaking, or sounds from beyond the room, she was very attentive and thorough. Otherwise, she was keenly going through the diary her husband had left and discovered by me in the beside table drawer.

The doctor had arrived first, a bone-thin, ancient medical man, who was probably more than half again as old as I was, carrying by evident way of need, a silver headed walking stick. He had such trouble putting a couple of stitches into my wound on my chin with his shaky hands.

So much so, that Mary took over saying, with her tongue in cheek, that she’d sewn up wounds on scores of cows following calving and tears on barbed wire, and that one more “ornery leather hide” would be no trouble at all for her.

The old quack looked closely at the finished result, which he declared, “Ah hem, as neat a job as I’ve ever seen”, his breath revealed that his lunch must have consisted of several large pink gins before embarking on his afternoon patient rounds.

As for my left ear, which registered no sound at all, he thought it was no doubt due to a perforated eardrum, that would take six to eight weeks to heal all by itself. He had no treatment for the condition other than advise me to keep it clean and clear of infection and that I was not to submerge my head in water during the next couple of weeks at least. Then he tied a bandage around my head with a huge cotton wool pad against my left ear by way of protection from invasion by dirt and other foreign objects.

What he did insist on was that I change into clean clothes, my current ones being quite disgusting and a potential source of infection for my ear and chin.

When I protested that the blood spatter pattern on the clothes and exposed body surfaces was evidence that needed photographing before cleaning up, he quite determinedly pooh-poohed my argument on medical grounds.

In addition, regarding the evidence, that the blood splatter would still be evident on the clothes if they were removed carefully and hung on clothes hooks, and there would be adequate testimony of the results from reliable witnesses, such as Constable Coker, Gus the barber and the doctor himself as to the validity of my testimony of the event.

There were bound to be suitable clothes in the wardrobe and clothing hooks aplenty, he suggested. And the detectives, he said, far more wisely than I had clearly considered, would prefer to be able to remove the clothes to a laboratory as soon as they could, so taking them, clothes hooks and all, would be a much simpler procedure for them.

Mary undertook to go through her husband’s clothing in his wardrobe and eventually passed me a selection of spare clothing hooks on which to hang my blood-soiled overcoat, jacket, shirt and tie. Then the eagle-eyed minx noted that the splatter extended to below the knee of my trousers and consequently onto my shoes.

I removed my shoes reluctantly. My left was untied and slipped off first and lastly the right, the shoe which covered my artificial foot and the strapping associated with it.

Very few people of my acquaintance had actually seen it; my father, when he was alive, saw a range of wooden and metal ones as the technology of artificial limbs improved over time, given the impetus of the large number of people who had lost limbs in the Great War, plus curious nephews more so than nieces, who tended to be squeamish, had also requested to see it, so who was I, an investigating detective by profession and calling, to deny them their natural curiosity?

Mary was childlike in her fascination with the missing appendage. She soon pointed out in her Assistant Detective voice, “There’s blood on both the socks, Edgar. I am sure they will have to be taken as evidence, too, as a pair. Then, of course, your pants, sorry, trousers, will have to be removed.”

I was sure there was a fleeting little grin at that comment, but I couldn’t be sure as her face instantly became about as revealing as a professional poker player might from the gaming tables of Monte Carlo.

“You’ll have to turn your back, when I take off these trousers, Madam,” I said as formally as I could. I was trying to make my voice commanding and assertive, but for all the reassurance I was feeling of the sound of my voice through my bones, was that I felt I sounded more like a demented Mickey Mouse than a former senior commissioned officer of the law.

“Well, Edgar, only five minutes ago I was your nurse, and nurses as you are probably very well aware, are quite accustomed to seeing gentlemen dressed down to their respectable undergarments. I think we can keep this process quite professional, like between nurse and patient. I trust your undergarments are respectable, Sir?”

The old doctor was enjoying this exchange between us, his yellow-toothed smile had probably never had so much light exposure in recent years.

“They are, thank you.” I assured the little minx, “Don’t tell me, I suppose you once studied nursing for a film rôle?”

“Well, as you pointed out the obvious, and asked me not to tell you, I won’t disclose whether I have or not,” she smiled innocently.

I sighed, stood up and undid my waist belt. I never was one for braces or, as Mary pointed out the lack of them earlier, what she called ‘suspenders’.

Perhaps there was more fun for her in the teasing than the witnessing of my discomfort at the state of my undress, as she turned away to fetch the borrowed trousers and handed them to me, while continually looking me straight in the eye.

I thanked her, and she almost bobbed in curtsy, much like Milly had done for me the previous evening.

So, by the time Detective Inspector Bob Cummings of New Scotland Yard arrived at the crime scene, I was sitting in a very nice woollen suit of clothes, the quality of which was far beyond my meagre means, the label inside indicating the source of the suit was a bespoke tailors’ shop just two doors away from Mr Sims of Sims & Butler, Saville Row. Mr Gold, was no doubt a man of impeccable taste, at least where it came to furniture, clothes and women.

Business-like, Bob organised one of his young tyros to take Mary into the second bedroom for initial questioning, as per standard procedure. She took the two paper carrier bags containing my old clothes with her. One of the local shops supplied the bags following a request by PC Coker.