The policemen had listened quietly, giving nothing away.
“And Betty Bellefoy? If I were to look, what, I wonder, would your file reveal about any broken limbs in December 1927?” This question came from Inspector Martin. The CID man blinked, pursed his lips, and kept silent.
Ah. Well, it had been worth a try. Seeing no way out of this, the doctor got up and went to his cabinet. “Here you are. Bellefoy, Elizabeth. Born 1913.”
“In your own words, doctor,” Martin encouraged. “It’s all right, man. It’s only us. The boy’s in no trouble. We’ve got a puzzle that needs clearing up, that’s all.”
“You’ll find Betty suffered a broken ankle falling out of an apple tree—the Bath Beauty at the bottom of their garden, on … December 24th, 1927. Multiple fracture—it was the devil to set. That what you want?”
“So—not Clara at all? It wasn’t Clara who threw herself out of the tree to dislodge an unwanted child from the womb?”
“No, it was little Betty. And not the first time she’d tried. I suppose it was the extra weight this time that did it.”
The doctor’s head went up, he sniffed, tooted into a large handkerchief, and glared back at them.
“I was called in. They’d hidden the pregnancy under layers of pinnies, as women do, and the girl had gone on skivvying at the school, condition unnoticed. They were planning to deliver the child in secrecy if it couldn’t be got rid of, but what with the ankle and all and Betty in double agony, Clara gave in and summoned me. The poor child, in her pregnant state, must have been exposed every day of her hard life to the sight of the man who’d brought it about. The man who, the previous March, had raped her. She was only just fourteen, gentlemen.”
“And Betty’s baby became officially Clara’s,” Martin said heavily. “Wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened. If a mother’s young enough not to stretch belief beyond bounds, she’ll sometimes take the blame. ‘Afterthoughts’ they’re sometimes called, these children. It happens that an auntie takes a child in with nothing said. It’s better than the alternative: the orphanage. Or the loony bin. But it’s the criminal father I’d like to get my hands on, doctor. Did the Bellefoy women ever tell you his name?”
“No. They never did. Just ‘a man at the school.’ It could have been anyone from the headmaster—well, perhaps not him—down to one of the school stewards. Randy lot, some of those boys. Get up to all sorts of mischief in the summertime with the girls from the village. Those old cart sheds are nothing but an invitation to cider-fueled bucolic debauchery.”
“And young Betty had got involved with some lad who’d not known when to stop?”
“That sort of scene. Not in the least unusual—it’s the way most marriages start, officer, and no one bats an eyelid. I think Clara had some scheme of her own that she didn’t want me to be a party to. ‘Just leave it to me, doctor,’ she’d say. ‘I know what I’m doing, and you can be sure it’ll be the best for Harry.’ She’s a determined woman. Resourceful. And she loves that child dearly.”
Dr. Carter fell into deep thought and was left untroubled by the pair of police officers while he pondered.
“I say—could these questions have anything to do with the murder that’s taken place up at the school just the other day?”
Martin replied. “We believe they are connected, doctor.”
“If they are, then you must have guessed the identity of the father and possibly the reason for his killing? Oh, no! How sickening! I don’t want to contemplate such a horror! Him? That man? Rapson? Surely not! There are rumours that he.… Oh, that can’t be! But if it is—”
The officers looked steadily at Carter, allowing him time to absorb the unpleasant idea. When he could stop spluttering, he said urgently, “Look, you’re powerful men! Can’t you do something to avert another tragedy? Because that’s what you’ll bring about. You’ll wreck three lives.”
The doctor took off his spectacles and gave them the full force of his earnest blue eyes. The midday sun, stealing at an angle through the window behind him, lit up his bald head and gave him the authority of an avenging angel.
“If we could, we would, doctor.”
Carter believed Sandilands. The Met man’s expression was no longer flinty but conveyed a great sadness.
“But meting out justice is not our role, you know. We seek out the truth. Others judge their fellow men. May I ask if you could stand by in support if the worst occurs?”
“Of course. Of course.”
Sandilands picked up and pocketed his warrant to indicate that the interview was over.
Martin paused at the door as they were leaving and loosed a Parthian arrow. “Doctor. One last thing. Are you by any chance a member of the Eugenic Education Society? Wednesday meetings once a month in Brighton?”
After a short silence the doctor asked, “Why do you ask? Strange question and surely none of your business?”
“We have reason to believe it most definitely is our business, doctor,” Sandilands took over. “I’ll come clean with you. We’re inquiring into the behaviour and movements of certain members of this society in connection with a crime—a series of crimes—against young people. We believe that Rapson is one thread sticking out of the Gordian knot. Help us to give it a tug, will you?”
“Whatever next? And to answer your question, I am most certainly not a member. Many physicians are involved—I am aware of that—and I would probably have made better advancement in my career had I been a member but—no. And no! I am in favour of life and humanity in whatever natural form they present themselves. And, gentlemen, a word of advice from me: Always mistrust a word that begins with eu.”
“Yew, doctor?” Martin asked.
“Ancient Greek: eu. It means good, well, fine. And it most often signals a lie or deception is coming. The word ‘euphemism’ says it all! ‘Speak fair.’ Use a sweet word to express an unpalatable idea. A spoonful of poisoned honey! So—those scourges of Mankind, the Furies, became the ‘Eumenides.’ ‘The Kindly Ones.’ An instrument to rival the bagpipes in unpleasant sound is a ‘euphonium.’ A ‘eulogy’ is a fine-sounding speech, usually about a dead person and usually lies. Eugene—the well-bred boy—is the cousin who poked me in the eye with a stick when we were boys. And ‘eugenics,’ my friends, is the new-fangled science of breeding fine offspring. By calculated selection of the parents.”
“You see something wrong in that aim, doctor?” Sandilands asked.
“For a start it’s not a science as it claims to be, nor ever can be. Eugenics … genetics … all bogus.”
“Bogus?” Sandilands picked him up on this. “Must I tell my niece she’s wasted three years of her life studying genetics as an element of her course at London University?”
The doctor gave him a level glance. “You might well mention it. The proponents of this quasi-science have made use of Bateson’s work, that he has termed ‘genetics’ and that he, in turn, has devised after the pea-planting experiments of a Moravian monk. Interesting stuff—yes, interesting, and it must be pursued—but it won’t bear the weight of a complete social upheaval such as they are planning. Enforced sterilisation of the unfit is on the books.”
“There’s a Sterilisation Bill going through Parliament as we speak, I understand,” the London man remembered.
“The movement’s gathering pace! The United States, Australia, Germany, Scandinavian countries, all have leapt on this infernal bandwagon and are going downhill faster than we are. Are we cart horses to be selected or discarded to produce ever more acceptable generations of children?