Joe enquired amiably and sympathetically about her flight over the Channel. She declared she’d enjoyed it but he set her brave comment against the betraying rise and fall of her pearls as she failed to restrain a gulp. The conversation, which was never going to be an easy one, felt as discordant as the strains of the Gallic version of ‘Nimrod’ filtering along the corridor and all three were relieved to draw it to a close.
Harry Quantock escorted his guests back to the front door where, to Joe’s surprise, an Embassy car was waiting for them. A manservant hurried forward with madame’s cape and monsieur’s hat. After routine farewells, Quantock handed Catherine Somerton into the back seat, closed the door and turned to speak softly to Joe: ‘His Excellency will be keen to hear the outcome of this business, you understand, Sandilands?’ A light smile softened the command. ‘As will Jack Pollock. Sir George’s cousin. He sends his respects and good wishes. He’ll be in touch.’
The morgue, illuminated as it now was by electric bulbs, was all the more sinister. The light had the effect of deepening the many dark corners, emphasizing the roughness of the walls and highlighting things better left in the shadows. Like shining a torch in the face of an old whore, Joe thought. Disturbing and unkind. But at least they were not faced, on entry, with a line-up of freshly delivered corpses to pass in review as had been the custom from the Middle Ages to the recent past. All the bodies apart from one had been filed away in the sliding steel cases along the back wall, Joe was relieved to see.
Dr Moulin was still at his post and waiting for them. He greeted Joe warmly and the two men went into their routine. Dignified and considerate, he checked that the lady was prepared for the sight of her husband’s corpse. Catherine Somerton hugged her cape about her, clutched her pearls, shivered and nodded.
‘Do you think we might take a look at Exhibit A before we begin?’ Joe asked and Moulin nodded his agreement. The dagger was produced for her inspection.
She made no attempt to handle it but looked at it carefully and turned a co-operative face to Joe. ‘I’m sorry, Commander. I’ve never seen it before.’
‘Did Sir Stanley keep a collection of knives at home?’
‘Ah. Where was his home? We had no such objects in the house in Kent. But you should be aware, Commander, that my husband lived for many years in India. He had a passion for the country that I could not share. I joined him there for the first year of our marriage but the climate did not agree with me and I returned. He could have amassed a collection of such artefacts and I would be unaware of their existence. This is, I take it, the very blade that did the deed?’
Joe and Moulin murmured in unison.
She peered at it more closely, then shook her head. On the whole, a good witness, Joe thought. When the doctor moved to the head of the sheeted figure she moved with him and stood waiting on the other side. Joe watched her carefully as the cover rolled downwards to the waist. There was at first no reaction. Finally, she drew in a deep breath and whispered: ‘That’s Somerton. My late husband.’ And, as Joe had predicted, there came at last the inevitable question: ‘Tell me, doctor, did he suffer?’
The doctor also was prepared for this. But he was a scientist, not a diplomat, and he gave an honest reply. ‘His death must have come very quickly, madame. He did not linger in pain. But the wound – you may see for yourself – is a savage one, almost severing the head. The initial assault would have caused a degree of pain, yes.’
‘Good!’ said the widow, suddenly bright. ‘But however painful it was, it could never have been painful enough!’
In the stunned silence, she rounded on the corpse and for a moment Joe felt his muscles tense. Fearing what? That she was about to inflict a truly painful blow of her own? Incredibly – yes. The doctor had put out a restraining hand. She gestured it away impatiently and went to stand close by the head. She bent and spoke directly to the corpse, her lips inches from his ear: ‘I hope you’re in hell, you rotter! I hope that Lucifer in person is turning your spit. Look at you! Oozing your stinking essence on to a slab in a foreign dungeon. Dyed hair! Pomaded moustache! You lived – a disgrace; you died – a disgrace.’
She took a step back and gave her last, formal farewell: ‘Down, down to hell; and say I sent thee thither.’
Joe was uneasy. The vehemence was spontaneous but the quotation from Henry VI had been, he calculated, prepared with some forethought. The whole outpouring appeared the distillation of years of resentment. He looked again at the dead face, softening in decay, and speculated on the qualities that could provoke such hatred.