Moscrop pulled nervously at the ends of his moustache. This was a new development, quite foreign to the routine of Brill’s, Mutton’s and Lewes Crescent that he had thought was inflexibly established. It held him temporarily incapable of action. Anything else-a carriage-drive, a boat-trip, a walk along the pier-he could reasonably have accepted. But this-it was unaccountable, and quite impossible to have anticipated. Heavens! Where was the man going dressed like that, striding towards the centre of town?
He set off numbly in pursuit, through Steine Gardens and past the Victoria fountain, forced almost into a trotting gait to keep within sight of the eccentrically dressed doctor, who was passing with his knapsack-who would credit it? under the very shadow of the Town Hall towards North Street. The trail continued past the circulating libraries, Treacher’s and Wright’s, across the junction with West Street and into Dyke Road, the steep ascent making no appreciable difference to Prothero’s rate of progress.
Moscrop had reason to be thankful for his daily constitutional along Oxford Street; Prothero was demonstrably in better physical condition than men half his age. But the necessity of keeping pace was not the most alarming aspect of the march. Of more concern to Moscrop was the grim sense of purpose in the set of the doctor’s shoulders and the almost military rigidity of his head. This was no taking of the air; it was a calculated march and it was leading them by the quickest possible route to one of the highest points of the South Downs. The knapsack, boots and leggings, so out of place among the shoppers in North Street, were entirely justified here, and Moscrop, in canvas shoes and flannels, was pathetically ill-equipped. Aside from the folly of attempting to cover uneven terrain in such gear, he faced the prospect of appearing as conspicuous on the Downs as Prothero had looked in Brighton.
As they approached Seven Dials he made the decision he knew he must: he would watch Prothero cross the road, see which route he took of the half-dozen available, and then double back to his lodgings for his walking boots and the Zeiss binoculars, staking the power of the lens on the open slopes against the twenty minutes start he would thereby sacrifice. If, as he suspected, Prothero had decided for his own reasons to walk clean out of Brighton and over the Downs by the loneliest route, someone must give pursuit. The man might never be heard of again. It would be a grave mistake to depend upon young Guy to lead the authorities to his father. The boy had left the Albemarle half an hour before Dr. Prothero that morning, and in all probability was already pedalling out of Brighton along some quiet lane on a hired bicycle.
At the Seven Dials crossroad, Prothero marched unhesitatingly to the continuation of Dyke Road. Moscrop turned left into Vernon Terrace and unashamedly ran down the hill towards his lodgings.
One of the largest of the arch-fronted buildings under the Parade had been put at Constable Thackeray’s disposal. So had Constable Murphy, principally known in Brighton for his tea-making. Unhappily, no one had provided a gas-ring.
‘I could always try the boxing saloon next door,’ suggested Murphy. ‘It’s known locally as the Blood Hole but I reckon the owners might try to think of something else after this week’s melancholy happenings. Sugar and milk for you?’
‘We’ll leave it for half an hour, shall we?’ said Thackeray. ‘We should be through this lot by then and I’ll enjoy one of your specials back at Grafton Street when I’ve got the smell of fish off my hands. Found anything else in your bin?’
‘It’s mainly driftwood and seaweed,’ said Murphy.
‘Lay it all out neat, just the same. Those was the sergeant’s orders.’
The floor was already three-parts covered with objects taken from the beach during the diggings earlier in the week. In the search for human remains everything picked up except pebbles had been deposited in bins. The necessary work of sifting the contents for a possible clue was in the capable hands of Thackeray and Murphy.
‘Your sergeant’s taken the afternoon off, has he?’ said Murphy, carefully smoothing out a strip of seaweed and placing it, like a necktie, over the back of a convenient chair.
‘I don’t think he’d do that,’ said Thackeray. ‘He’s not above fitting in a swim now and then, but he wouldn’t take long over it. No, he’s gone to Dorking on the train, as a matter of fact. Pursuing inquiries there. No offence intended towards you, of course, but I wouldn’t mind being with him. I think he might have something to say to the newspapers when he gets back tonight.’
‘What’s that-the name of the murdered woman?’
‘I ain’t at liberty to say,’ said Thackeray primly. ‘Hey! Keep your eyes on the job. That’s a piece of paper you’ve got there. All the paper has to come to me. Sergeant Cribb’s instructions.’
The instructions (which Murphy could not very well dispute, Cribb having communicated them through Thackeray) were that Thackeray should take charge of anything made of paper, cloth and metal, while Murphy handled the rest, including seaweed, driftwood, gull’s feathers and fish remains.
‘Here’s another garter for you, anyway,’ said Murphy. ‘That’s the fifth, and they’re all too faded to have been there just since Saturday. This old beach could tell a few stories-what’s that you’ve got?’
Thackeray unfolded a piece of blue paper. ‘I’m damned if it ain’t the very thing the sergeant asked me to look for! This is going to make my day. Here. Come and have a look.’ The paper was headed ‘Saddington and Sims. Dispensing Chemists.’ The words written on it had become smudged from exposure to the damp, but they were clearly legible.
3rd October, 1882
‘To Mr. A. Moscrop.
Our analysis of the liquid you brought in yesterday morning shows it to be a weak solution of chloral hydrate (CCL3 CH 20H). The charge is two shillings and sixpence.’
‘He said it would be here somewhere,’ said Thackeray. ‘Oh, he’s a leary old cove, is my sergeant.’
‘How did he reason it out, then?’ asked Murphy, not without a tinge of scepticism.
‘He didn’t say, but it’s obvious enough-if you’ve done a bit of detective work before. Mrs. Prothero asked this man Moscrop to get her sleeping-potion analysed to see what her husband was dosing her with, d’you see? Her maid collected it from Moscrop and took it to her. Now when she goes off along the beach and gets murdered, she’s going to have it on her person, ain’t she? She ain’t so daft as to leave it in the hotel-room where her husband might pick it up.’
‘Clever,’ said Murphy, genuinely impressed. ‘I’ve got another question for you now. How did Mrs. Prothero come to be on the beach on Saturday night?’
‘Now that’s something Cribb and I are working on,’ said Thackeray, leaning forward across his bin. ‘Her husband thought she was already drugged with chloral and asleep, but we know she was awake. We’ve got two people’s word for that-Bridget, the maid, told Mr. Moscrop, and young Guy told the sergeant. So there was nothing to stop her from putting on her clothes and going out.’
‘The others would have noticed,’ said Murphy.
‘Perhaps they did. Nobody’s asked ’em yet. She could have slipped out while they was on the balcony watching the fireworks.’
‘Why would she want to go out?’
‘It seems to me that there’s two possible answers to that question,’ said Thackeray, prodding the air magisterially with a wooden spade. ‘Either she thought she would go down and see if her husband was among the crowd watching the fireworks, or she had decided after all to thank Mr. Moscrop for bringing the good news about the chloral.’
‘And then someone murdered her,’ said Murphy. ‘It’s a pestiferous quarter at night, is Brighton beach. No place for a respectable married lady. It could be one of hundreds that struck her down. I don’t envy you, trying to find the one that did it.’