Below the Clock

Curtis laughed and also beat a retreat to the Inner Lobby. Petrie stood with a smile twisting his mouth. Now he realised some of Ripple’s difficulties. It may be generally conceded that those seeking news with regard to an occurrence at a particular time and place first ask those who were present. But whenever detectives attempt such a move in the precincts of the House of Commons they raise nice questions about freedom of ingress and egress and the immemorial Privileges of Parliament. It was so now.

The Inner Lobby was seething with discontent and ruffled vanity. The walls were echoing to discordant voices.

‘They’ve no right in here except as servants of the House …’

‘But if Reardon’s death was not heart failure after all …’

‘Nonsense. Of course it was heart failure.’

‘Why this shoulder clapping business anyway …’

‘A sheer impertinence …’

‘A gross breach of privilege, too.’

‘I’ve never been so insulted before during my years …’

‘We must tell the Speaker. We certainly must …’

‘And discover if he authorised it …’

Fred Otwood promised to raise the question and walked into the House. Curtis followed him and immediately walked over to Joe Manning. He told him of the trouble.

Manning was puzzled as well as annoyed.

‘You’re a lawyer and I’m not, Curtis. What’s the constitutional line?’

‘That depends,’ whispered Curtis. ‘I’d advise you to go slow.’

Manning nodded and took no part in the Parliamentary crisis produced by the arrival of Amos Petrie. He did not need to fan the trouble and he couldn’t assuage it. The Home Secretary made an attempt to temporise and the House became more and more impatient. Matters were not improved when the Speaker admitted that he knew nothing whatever about the affair. He had been kept in entire ignorance about the inquiries.

That fact disturbed even the Speaker. And if the pale ghost of Charles I had appeared at the Bar of the House the private members could not have been more shocked. The Home Secretary was harried, baited and badgered until anyone but an M.P. would have felt sorry for him. He began to wilt, looked hopefully at the Prime Minister. There was no help coming from that quarter.

Ingram sat on the Treasury Bench, his elbow on his knee, his head supported on his hand, listening to the disheartening exhibition made by his Home Secretary. The Premier decided to close the storm of questions and silenced everyone by stepping to the table.

‘I think,’ announced Ingram, ‘that this House will have to reconcile itself to accepting the aid of the Civil Power. I say that although I should have disapproved of its intrusion without the sanction of the House. To explain why I am of this opinion I must say that I hold in my hand the reports of two eminent medical men who this morning performed a postmortem in connection with the tragic death of the late Edgar Reardon.’

The members moved restlessly. Ingram seemed tiresomely verbose. The forensic mantle dropped from Ingram with cruel abruptness.

‘The late Chancellor of the Exchequer died of poison!’

The last word shot through his lips as though it had blistered his tongue. Five hundred breaths were intaken.

‘He was poisoned with strophanthin.’

A whisper rose round the startled House. What was strophanthin? To Eric Watson that seemed unimportant. He felt like a fly taken in the web of a spider. He flashed dimmed eyes round the vague sea of faces, half-unconsciously seeking for a friendly glance. Instead he heard five hundred repetitions of the word strophanthin.

Tranter knew what it was. He smacked his thigh to proclaim his knowledge. Those on each side began to question him. The whispers faded away as Ingram opened his mouth to speak again:

‘I understand that strophanthin is one of the most dangerous drugs in the pharmacopœia,’ he announced.

‘How did the deceased Member get it?’ The questioner was Manning.

‘That is one of the matters demanding inquiry. I am told, though, that in minute pathological doses it is used medicinally.’

‘Oh!’ Manning sat back and relaxed. ‘That explains it, of course.’

‘Not quite,’ said the Prime Minister unhappily. ‘The late Member was not taking such a medicine and more strophanthin was found in the course of the postmortem than could ever have been administered medicinally.’

To Watson that added a further complication to his entanglement. To all others it gave a final element of the fantastic to a situation already incredible. Members rose to insist upon further information being supplied.

‘The effect of strophanthin upon the heart is well known,’ he said, ‘and I am told that it is very peculiar.’ He stopped to raise a slip of paper before his eyes. Then he proceeded: ‘Even the beat upon which the heart stops tells its tale in corroboration. It stops in systole, and not in diastole, and movement is arrested in a tetanic spasm which the postmortem inevitably reveals. It is somewhat the same condition as that we know as lockjaw.’

Ingram moved back to the Treasury Bench. The Members gaped at him. The facts had now been realised and accepted. The bewilderment grew and grew. Questions were flung with the rapidity of machine-gun fire. Ingram had to return to the table. He shook his head wearily as he listened to the bombardment.

What was the explanation? Why should a man give himself a cramp in the heart that kills? Above all, why should Edgar Reardon have done it? Was it certain that the tragedy was not an entire accident? From whence did the strophanthin come? Was there any connection between the tragedy and the pending Budget?

Those who sought information were disappointed. Ingram replied to all the questions without adding to that which they already knew.

‘I share the bewilderment and perplexity of Members,’ he said. ‘I have been asking myself all these questions since the information was first placed in my hand. I cannot answer them. So far as I know the physicians have no replies to them. It is certain that the late Chancellor of the Exchequer could not have taken the poison outside the House. All who were here yesterday will attest with me that he could not have been poisoned in the House. To all who knew him it is inconceivable that he should have poisoned himself. It seems also impossible that an accident could have happened. Yet our friend is dead. There is nothing further I can say.’

For a space there was a complete silence. Then a voice rose:

‘What about the claret and seltzer he drank?’

Watson licked his dry lips, wanted to shriek out that there was no poison in the glass. He restrained himself with an effort and searched the benches to discover who had asked the question. He could not even find a look of malevolence towards himself. He seemed unnoticed, almost as though he were out of existence. The Members were inhumanly impersonal. The Prime Minister alone deviated from this attitude by a hair’s-breadth. He glanced at Watson as he proceeded to answer the question that had been fired:

‘I do not know about the claret and soda. But we all know that the greatest part of it was drunk during the course of the speech. That means that if the poison were in that drink the late Chancellor of the Exchequer was slowly absorbing it into his system during a period of approximately an hour. I am told upon the highest possible authority that it would not have been possible for him to do that without experiencing most serious effects. And we all know that he appeared in good health until a minute before he collapsed.’

The Members looked at the Premier and refrained from pressing further questions. They were completely out of their depth. Watson thought that Ingram might generously have used more definite words. A greater emphasis would have been fairer. Still, the underlying truth was one that must be recognised. Watson felt that he was entitled to relax. So he sat back in his chair and sighed with an approach to satisfaction. And in that very instant Ingram robbed his own indefinite words of every semblance of significance.

‘Of course, it is not intended to withdraw anything from the police,’ he stated. ‘All these matters I have mentioned will have to be weighed and considered. I have told you what the medical men have said. I cannot profess, and do not profess, to have any real knowledge upon those points. I have to rely upon the reports of the specialists, and I advise the House, also to be guided by them. I need scarcely tell you that the action taken by the police will depend to a great extent upon the doctor’s statements, and that the police have special experience in dealing with such matters. I have myself discussed the matter with Sir Norris Wheeler, the Commissioner of Police, and he assures me that he has taken special steps to ensure that the inquiry which concerns this House so nearly will be under the personal supervision of an investigator well able to discover the truth, and set the mind of this House at peace.’

Watson felt the ground sliding from beneath his feet. The reference to the claret and soda had only emphasised the ambiguity of his position, and the thought of the coming investigation flung his thoughts back in a panic to the position of Lola Reardon. Watson felt sick, wanted to dash from the House and dare not.

Curiously enough, there were those in the House who sat with lips moving in disguised smiles. They could see some element of comedy. A death was shrieking to be investigated, and the only witnesses were objecting to being questioned in a particular place, were arguing about the conditions under which they might give statements.

Joe Manning felt that as Leader of the Opposition it was essential that he should enter the fray. He rose with a cough.

‘Everyone knows,’ he commenced in sarcastic parody of the Prime Minister, ‘that the effects of poison may be long delayed. So why should members be troubled about a matter of which they know nothing when the death may have been the result of something that happened hours before the collapse?’

His supporters cheered feebly but ceased abruptly when Ingram commenced to reply. The Prime Minister spoke slowly, chose his words with scrupulous care:

‘I am told that the fatal dose must have been absorbed at some time between a few minutes and a few seconds before death.’

The implication was obvious—and ugly. Eric Watson regarded it almost as an accusing finger. He found himself rising to his feet and stopped when he heard another voice raised. Curtis was up, his hands resting before him, his strong voice strangely strained.

‘We naturally accept the statement in good faith as the best that can be afforded at the moment. I think it right to indicate to the Hon. Members, however, that the Prime Minister’s final remark definitely implies that every Member is a potential suspect.’