A Red Herring Without Mustard

I took one of the tall laboratory stools and lifted it onto a counter near the windows. Then, from the bottom drawer of the desk—which, because it contained his diaries and documents, I still thought of as being Uncle Tar’s—I removed a pair of German binoculars. Their lenses, I had learned from one of the books in his library, had been made from a special sand found only in the Thuringian Forest near the village of Martinroda, in Germany, which, because of its aluminum oxide content, produced an image of remarkable clarity. Which was precisely what I needed!

With the binoculars hung round my neck, I used a chair to climb up onto the countertop, then scaled the stool, where I teetered uneasily atop my improvised observation tower, my head almost touching the ceiling.

Using one hand to steady myself against the window frame, and the binoculars pressed to my eyes with the other, I used whatever fingers were left to turn the focusing knob.

As the hedges surrounding the Trafalgar Lawn sprang into sharp detail, I realized that the view from the laboratory, and from this angle, should be much better than the one I’d had from my bedroom window.

Yes—there was Poseidon, gazing out upon his invisible ocean, oblivious to the dark bundle dangling from his trident. But now I had a good view of the entire fountain.

With distance collapsed by the powerful lenses, I could also see Inspector Hewitt as he came into view from behind the fountain, raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sun, and stood gazing up at Brookie’s body. He pursed his lips and I could almost hear in my mind the little whistle that escaped him.

I wondered if he knew he was being watched.

The image in the binoculars faded suddenly, was restored—and then faded again. I took the glasses away from my eyes and realized that a sudden cloud had blotted out the sun. Although it was too far to the west for me to actually see it, I could tell by the darkness that had fallen on the landscape that we were in for a storm.

I raised the binoculars again just in time to see that the Inspector was now looking directly at me. I gasped—then realized that it was a trick of the optics; of course he couldn’t see me. He must be looking up at the storm clouds that were gathering over Buckshaw.

He turned away, then turned again, and now it appeared as if he was talking to somebody, and so he was. As I looked on, Detective Sergeant Woolmer came round the base of the fountain carrying a heavy kit, closely followed by Dr. Darby and Detective Sergeant Graves. They must all have come in the same car, I thought, and driven round by way of the Gully and the Palings.

Before you could say Jack Robinson, Sergeant Woolmer had set up his folding tripod and attached the heavy police camera. I marveled at how deftly his stubby fingers handled the delicate controls, and how quickly he managed to take his initial exposures.

There was a sudden, blinding flash of lightning, followed almost instantly by an ear-splitting clap of thunder, and I nearly toppled off the stool. I let the binoculars fall free to dangle round my neck, and slapped both hands against the windowpanes to regain my balance.

What was it Daffy had once told me during a summer downpour?

“Stay away from windows during a thunderstorm, you silly moke.”

Now here I was, with lightning licking at the transom, pinned against the glass like a butterfly to a card in the Natural History Museum.

“Even if the lightning misses you,” she’d added, “the breath will be sucked from your lungs by the sound of the thunder, and you’ll be turned inside out like a red sock.”

The lightning flashed again and the thunder roared, and now the rain was coming down in sweeping sheets, pounding on the roof like the roll of kettledrums. A sudden wind had sprung up, and the trees in the park pitched wildly in its gusts.

Actually it was quite exhilarating. Daffy be damned, I thought. If I practiced a bit, I could even come to love the thunder and the lightning.

I straightened up, adjusted my balance, and raised the glasses to my eyes.

What I saw was like a scene from Hell. In the watery green light, blown by the wind and illuminated by erratic flashes of lightning, the three policemen were removing Brookie’s body from the trident. They had looped a rope under his armpits, and were lowering him slowly, almost tenderly to the ground. Towering above them in the rain, Poseidon, like a monstrous stone Satan with his pitchfork at the ready, still stared out across his watery world as if he were bored stiff with the antics of mere humans.

Inspector Hewitt reached out to touch the rope and ease the body’s descent, his hair plastered flat against his forehead by the rain, and for a moment, I had the feeling that I was watching some horrific passion play.

And perhaps I was.