Do Not Exceed the Stated Dose Page 4

  She put her hand to her throat. “Not Henry!” She swayed ominously.

  I stood up and supported her in case she swooned again. “Come and sit on the settee. Your secret is safe with me, my dear.”

  She stared at me, aghast that I had worked it out. “After all, my pretty one, your motives were unimpeachable.”

  “Were they?” she whispered, wide-eyed.

  I embraced her gently. “All that you wanted was some precious time alone with me whilst your father was out to the world. That was your reason for tampering with the flask, was it not?” I gently probed.

  “You won’t tell anyone, Bertie? Not even my Papa?”

  “You can count on me.”

  Her response, like the Echo in the myth, was to present her adorable mouth for a kiss.

  And in spite of the myth, Narcissus did not disappoint her.

  BERTIE AND THE FIRE BRIGADE

  One of the favourite pastimes of the British while reclining in a hammock is to think up worthwhile jobs for the Prince of Wales. Everyone from the Sovereign downwards has his two-pennyworth, regardless of the fact that most of the occupations suggested are utterly unsuitable for me. I can’t imagine how the idea got abroad that time hangs heavy on my hands. Between laying foundation-stones and receiving visiting Heads of State, I have precious little time for my social obligations, let alone earning “an honest crust,” as one newspaper impertinently proposed.

  However, since the rest of the nation indulges in this sport, why shouldn’t I? I’ll tell you how I could have earned a handsome living if circumstances allowed. As a detective. Given the opportunity, I would certainly have risen to high rank in the police, for my deductive skills as an amateur sleuth-hound are well attested, if not well known.

  And I could also have made a decent show as a fireman.

  Yes, a fireman.

  The great British public is largely ignorant of my pyro-exploits, as I call them, my adventures with the gallant officers of the London Fire Brigade. I don’t mind confiding in these memoirs that I have attended fires all over London for the past twenty years. Frequently —when not attending to affairs of state—I can be found enjoying a game of billiards at the fire station in Chandos Street with my old chum, the Duke of Sutherland, another gentleman fire-fighter, while we wait for the alarm to be sounded. We both have the kit, you know: full uniform, with helmet, boots and axe. Oh, how I relish the ride on the engine, bell jangling, horses at the gallop!

  Are you intrigued? Then I shall tell you more. I once triumphantly combined my skills as detective and fireman. It happened in the summer of 1870 when I was twenty-nine and “under fire” myself, so to speak. There had been some deplorable publicity in February of that year when I was called as a witness in a divorce case, to emerge, I may add, with my character unsullied, utterly unsullied. The husband who had been so misguided as to name me and several other gentlemen had his petition dismissed on the grounds that his wife was insane and could not be a party to the suit. The wretched newspapers, not content with the result, mischievously set out to stoke up republican sentiments. I remember shortly after being hissed in the theatre and booed at Ascot. At the races. Mind, when a horse of mine won the last race, the same fickle crowd cheered me to the echo. I remember raising my hat to them and calling out, “You seem to be in a better temper now than you were this morning, damn you!”

  A few days later, on the Friday, I was at my club, the Marlborough, enjoying a short respite from affairs of state in a foursome of skittles, when a message came for Captain Shaw, my partner for the evening.

  A fire had taken hold in Villiers Street, a mere quarter of a mile away. You must have heard of Shaw, the intrepid Chief of the London Fire Brigade, immortalized by W. S. Gilbert in Iolanthe and stigmatized by Lord Colin Campbell in the most notorious of all divorce cases.

  Personally, I always had a high regard for Eyre Shaw, whatever may or may not have happened with Lady Colin on the dining-room carpet of the Campbell abode in Cadogan Place. The man is a dedicated fire-fighter, so dedicated, in fact, that he chooses to live beside the fire station in Southwark Bridge Road, a particularly unsalubrious area.

  His house, which I have visited, is most ingeniously fitted with speaking-tubes in every room so that Shaw can be promptly informed of fires breaking out.

  Immediately news of the Villiers Street fire was conveyed, Shaw apologized for interrupting our game and called for the helmet which he keeps at the club for just such an emergency.

  “Sir, would you care—”

  “I should take it as a personal affront not to be included,” I informed him.

  Ideally, I like to ride to a fire in full kit on the running-board of the engine, but on this occasion we had no time to call at Chandos Street to dress the part, so we hailed a cab and made the best speed we could down Pall Mall to Trafalgar Square and into Villiers Street by way of the Strand.

  An awesome scene confronted us. Villiers Street is a narrow, dingy thoroughfare beside Charing Cross Station, sloping quite steeply down to the Thames. It is always cluttered with coffee-stalls, whelk counters, hot potato-cans and wood-and-canvas structures festooned with gimcrack rubbish, and this evening the news of the fire had brought hundreds of sight-seers off the Strand, the station and adjacent streets.

  The naphtha flares mounted on the stalls showed us a daunting spectacle from our elevated view in the four-wheeler, wave upon wave of toppers, bowlers and greasy caps.

  The cabman confided his doubt whether he would succeed in moving the vehicle through such a throng. The feat would not have been impossible, but it would have been deucedly slow in execution, so we elected to climb out and make our own way. Fortunately, the Chief Fire Officer is instantly recognizable when he dons his helmet and to repeated cries of “Make way for Captain Shaw!” we progressed down Villiers Street like Moses through the Dead Sea. As for me, I held on to my hat and followed close with eyes down and collar up, or we should never have got through.

  Bright orange flames were leaping merrily at the windows of a large building almost at the bottom of the street and the Chandos Street lads were already at work with two engines. The proximity of the Thames meant that a floating engine had also been deployed. Shaw at once sought out the man directing operations, Superintendent Flanagan, and established what was happening. I knew Flanagan passably well as a competent officer who could handle a hose more expertly than a billiard cue. Like Shaw himself, he was Irish, more than a touch pleased with himself (a weakness of the shamrock fraternity), but conscientious and a respected leader of men. I’d once met his wife at Chandos Street, and a prettier, more beguiling creature than Dymphna Flanagan never crossed the Irish Sea. She had that combination of raven hair and lily-white skin that is unique to Irish women. You can tell the impression she made on me because I seriously thought afterwards of suggesting to some London hostess that she added the Flanagans to the guest-list on an evening I was coming for supper.

  Finally I abandoned this intention. I was willing to put up with Flanagan’s brash manners for an evening with his winsome wife, but I felt that I couldn’t inflict him on my fellow-guests.

  “Is anyone inside?” was Shaw’s first question.

  “No, it’s empty,” Flanagan told him as confidently as if the house were his own.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Sure as the Creed, Captain. The owner died last Friday. There was a manservant and he was dismissed the next day.”

  “Who told you this?” I asked.

  “One of the stall-holders, sir. They miss nothing.”

  “You say the owner died. The corpse . . ?”

  “. . . was moved to the mortuary the same evening, sir.”

  “Who was he?”

  “A retired bookbinder, name of Millichip. It’s a pity he was moved from the house.”

  “Why on earth do you say that?”

  “Curious to relate, Mr Millichip was Chairman of the London Cremation League.”

  “The what?”


  He repeated it for me. “They advocate disposal of the dead by burning.”

  “What a heathenish idea!” I commented. “The Church would never sanction it.”

  “Ashes to ashes, sir.”

  Damned impertinence. I wish you could have heard the uppish way he said it, for the tone would have told you volumes about his bumptiousness. Captain Shaw quite properly put a stop to this morbid exchange. “If you’ll pardon me, sir, you’d better redirect your hoses, Mr Flanagan. The fire is starting to take hold on the top floor.”

  Shaw’s assessment was correct. It never ceases to amaze me how swiftly a fire can spread. In spite of the best efforts of the crews, huge forks of flame ripped through the upper storey in minutes, sending showers of sparks into the night sky.

  “What the deuce burns as fiercely as that?” I asked, but Shaw had left my side to assist in the work of raising a fire-escape ladder, the better to direct jets of water onto the roof, where slates were already cascading off the rafters. I should have realized that a bookbinder might possess samples of his work, for it later transpired that the top floor was practically lined with books.

  But I wasn’t there, as most bystanders were, merely to goggle. I set to, and organized a human chain to convey buckets of water from the river as an auxiliary to the pumps. I doubt whether any of my shabby helpers recognized me, but they deferred at once to the authority represented by my silk hat and cane.

  For upwards of an hour, we struggled to gain ascendancy. The falling slates became a considerable hazard, and I was obliged to borrow a helmet from a fireman who readily conceded that my skull was more precious than his own. As so often happens, just as we were getting control of the fire, reinforcements arrived from Holborn and Fleet Street. The stop, to employ a term we fire-fighters use, came twenty minutes before midnight. The house was a mere shell by that time.

  Wearily, we senior fire-fighters gathered by the nearest coffee-stall and slaked our thirst while the firemen were winding up the hoses.

  Flanagan looked ready to drop and I told him so. “I’m feeling better than I look, sir,” he said.

  Firemen work longer hours than the police or the army. Even a Superintendent takes only one day off each fortnight as a matter of right. Of course he slips away when things are quiet, but he is constantly on call.

  “What exercises me about this fire,” I remarked to Eyre Shaw, “is how it started. If no one was inside, what could have set it off?”

  He nodded, taking my point. The wily Captain Shaw hasn’t much faith in the theory of spontaneous combustion. He said an investigation would be set in train first thing next morning. I offered to take part, if not first thing, then as soon as my other engagements allowed.

  My dear wife, the Princess of Wales, had retired by the time I returned to Marlborough House, or she would certainly have passed a comment on my appearance. As it happens, we have separate bedrooms, so it was not until breakfast that she tackled me. By then, of course, I’d bathed and changed my clothes and really believed she would have no clue how I’d spent the previous evening. She doesn’t altogether approve of my pyro-exploits. Such is my optimism that I’d forgotten that Alix has a keener sense of smell than your average bloodhound. More than once it has been my undoing over breakfast, and not always due to smoke fumes.

  “You really ought not to spend so much time with the Fire Brigade, Bertie. I can smell it in your hair.”

  “Oh?”

  “If your Mama had any idea, she would be deeply shocked.”

  “Mama is shocked if I cross the road,” said I.

  “Where was the fire this time?”

  I gave Alix an account of my evening and told her about the advocate of cremation who had unluckily been removed to the mortuary before his house burnt down. “If his timing had been better, he’d have had his wish. I wonder if one of his supporters put a match to the place in the belief that the body was still inside.”

  Alix commented, “It would be rather extreme, burning down an entire house and putting Charing Cross Station at risk.”

  “True, but someone must have started the fire. The servant wasn’t there. He was dismissed the day after Millichip died.”

  “Who by?”

  “One of the family, I gather.”

  “Well, the servant must have been unhappy about losing his job so suddenly,” Alix mused aloud, and then added emphatically, “He came back with a match to deprive the family of their inheritance.”

  It’s often said and often demonstrated that women are illogical. Obviously I married a notable exception. I wouldn’t have thought of the servant as an arsonist, but Alix was onto him already.

  I’m in the habit of taking a constitutional at 12.15, and that morning I directed my steps to the site of the fire, where I discovered Superintendent Flanagan and his deputy, First Class Engineer Henry Locke, in earnest conversation with a tall young man dressed in mourning.

  “Your Highness, may I present Mr. Guy Millichip, the son of the late owner of this house?”

  The young man’s grip was clammy to the touch. You can tell a lot from a handshake. I should know; I’ve shaken more hands than you ever will, I’ll warrant, gentle reader. A clammy hand goes with a doubtful character.

  “My condolences,” I said. “All this must be a fearful shock, coming so soon after your father’s passing. Was he a sick man?”

  “No, Your Royal Highness. It came out of the blue.”

  “A sudden death?” My detective brain was already working on possibilities.

  “Yes, sir. His heart stopped.”

  “Isn’t that always the case?” said Flanagan in his irritating Irish lilt.

  Millichip glared. “I meant to say that the doctor diagnosed a sudden heart attack. The post mortem has since confirmed it.”

  “I see. And was anyone with your father when he died?”

  “Only Rudkin, the manservant.”

  “Where were you at the time?”

  “Of Father’s death? In Reigate, where I live. I hadn’t seen him for over a year. When I noticed the announcement in The Times, I came to London directly.”

  “And dismissed Rudkin directly?”

  “He’ll find other work. I gave him an excellent character, sir.”

  “Where is he to be found?”

  “Rudkin? I have no idea. He resided here.”

  “Until he was dismissed?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And now he has no address? You consigned him to the streets?”

  “I had no use for his services and no certainty of being able to pay his wages, sir.”

  Here, Flanagan’s deputy, Engineer Locke, observed, “You’ll inherit something, surely? Aren’t you the only son?”

  Young Millichip shook his head. “I don’t expect to get a brass farthing. Father made it abundantly clear that the entire proceeds of his estate would go to the London Cremation League.” He spoke without rancour, as if remarking on the weather. Then he showed himself to be human by adding with a slight smile, “Their windfall has been somewhat reduced by the fire.”

  “Has the will been read?”

  “Not yet, sir. The family solicitor will reveal the contents after the funeral, but I know what’s in it. Father told me months ago, when he drew it up. That’s why we fell out. I was incensed. It was the last conversation I had with him. Those cremation people will blue it all on beer. They’re Bohemians for the most part. Writers and artists. Trollope, Millais, Tenniel. People like that. They meet once a month in some plush hotel in the West End with no prospect of achieving their aims.”

  “If it isn’t impertinent to ask, how much was your father worth?”

  “A cool three hundred pounds, sir.”

  “That’s a lot of beer.”

  When the young man had left us, Flanagan pre-empted me by commenting, “I recommend that we look for signs of arson.”

  “I should have thought that goes without saying,” said I in a bored voice. “Clearly the servant m
ust be found and questioned at once.”

  “The servant?” said he, as if I’d named the Archbishop of Canterbury. “I was about to suggest that Millichip must have set the place alight.”

  “Millichip? But why?”

  “To deprive the Cremation League of its legacy. He’s a very embittered young man, sir.”

  I wasn’t persuaded. However, we had much to do. I proceeded to examine the building with Flanagan and Locke. The ash was thick on the ground, but so are shoeblacks at Charing Cross, so I didn’t hesitate. It’s fascinating to look at a gutted building with a man of Flanagan’s experience. He had no difficulty in finding the seat of the fire, which was in the basement, close to the street, and he rapidly concluded that arson was the most likely cause. By picking at fragments of ash and sniffing his finger and thumb he was able to inform us that a paraffin-soaked rag had been used as tinder, probably set alight and pushed through a broken window by the arsonist.

  “So simple, if a person is really bent on destroying a house,” he said. “We had a similar case two weeks ago, didn’t we, Henry?”

  “That is correct, sir,” Locke confirmed without much animation, for it presently emerged that the Friday in question had been his day off duty and he had missed a spectacular blaze. As he’d also missed the Villiers Street fire for the same reason, Henry Locke had every right to feel deprived. Most of the calls the fire service deal with are chimney fires, which can be very tedious.

  “An empty house in Tavistock Street went up like a beacon,” Flanagan explained for my benefit. “We fought it for three and a half hours. It belonged to the eminent zoologist, Professor Carson. He left on a trip to the Amazon a couple of days before. The police are investigating.”

  “How could I have missed it?” I mused aloud, then remembered that a supper engagement had taken me to Gatti’s restaurant on the night in question and to a private address thereafter. I was bending my efforts to raise a fire that night, so to speak, not to dowse one. “Well, the police have a straightforward task in this case. I shall instruct them to detain Rudkin, the servant.”