“G… good to make your acquaintance, gentlemen. I was just going to s… say that you might be in the wrong p… place for that… I… I think that these s… swine would have to be pretty stupid to try that game here, eh, my dear?”
The unlikely group was suddenly lit up by the glare of a bomb exploding behind them in St James’s Park. The air was quickly filled by the angry complaints of the park’s avian inhabitants. Then another explosion sounded, this time more distant, in the direction of Westminster.
“Bertie, my dear, perhaps we had better go back in. There’s courage and then there’s foolhardiness. It’s not going to help the country much if the next bomb lands on your head.”
The King flicked cigarette ash in irritation on the ground, then gave the policemen an apologetic smile. “Always d… do what your wife tells you, g… gentlemen. Isn’t that always b… best? Very well, my dear, l… lead on. Pleasure to meet you both. T… take care. Your country needs you.”
The royal couple disappeared into the dark and Johnson and Cole stood in stunned silence for a while. From the point of view of their mission, of course, Johnson knew that the King was quite right. Because the bombing had brought Stewart’s team to the royal home, they would learn nothing about looters tonight. They had, however, had an experience they would never forget. Suddenly they broke into laughter.
Jack Stewart came up to them, looking bedraggled, exhausted and confused. “What’s so funny then?”
“You wouldn’t believe it, Jack.”
“Why don’t you try me?”
*
Sir Bernard Spilsbury had passed a disturbed night in his St John’s Wood house. However, it was not the bombing this time that had ruined his sleep, as it had for most of the previous week. Rather, he thought, the improperly prepared haddock he had consumed at dinner at his club. Also, no doubt, his digestion had not been helped by the encounter after dinner with Sir Norman Birkett, the renowned advocate, who had given him such a hard time over his evidence in the “Brighton trunk” case a few years ago. During the inter-war period, Spilsbury, accepted by all as the founder of the science of forensic pathology, had been regarded almost as a god-like figure. Time magazine had described him as “the living successor to the mythical Sherlock Holmes”. He had been unchallenged as the leading medical expert witness in murder cases ever since his crucial evidence in the infamous case of Dr Crippen. However, in recent years there had been a slight weakening of his pre-eminence, which had all started with this blasted Birkett fellow. He brooded on this as his chauffeur-driven car drew up to the St Pancras Coroner’s Court. As his driver opened the door, he looked down to check that his habitual spats were as pristine as usual, or rather as pristine as usual at the start of his day – frequently by the end of it they were flecked with blood. He picked up his battered Gladstone bag from the seat beside him and extricated his long, thin body from the car.
As he entered the hallway of the building he spotted the chief coroner emerging from a door to his right. “Ah, Bentley, my dear man. How goes it?”
An elegant middle-aged man with a spray of silvery hair above his ears walked briskly over to him. “Busy, busy, Bernard, as always. There’s a body waiting for you downstairs, if you are free. Post-mortem requested by the Yard, chap by the name of Merlin requested haste. The deceased is a Polish pilot who seems to have suffered the natural consequences of being in the wrong place at the wrong time during a German raid, but the police think there might more to it. Can you do it?”
“Of course, my dear fellow. Who better?”
*