Clues for Dr. Coffee, page 4
“Plenty of time tomorrow, Quent.” Phelps slapped the teataster heartily on the back. “Bright and early in the morning.”
“Bright and early and hung over,” Albertson sneered.
“Well, I just came by to wish you many happy returns,” Phelps said. “I’ve got to run now. Good night all.”
As soon as the front door had closed, Quentin Laird donned his raincoat.
“Quent, where are you going?” Ellen asked uneasily.
“I told you I had back work to do.”
“But Mr. Phelps said tomorrow—”
“Sorry Ellen brought you here for nothing, Doctor,” Laird broke in. “Thanks, anyhow. Good night, Bill. ’Night, Sis.”
The door slammed.
“Bill!” There was alarm in Ellen’s voice. “Go after him!”
“Let him sit down at his revolving table again,” Albertson said. “Good for him psychologically. Right, Doctor?”
“I’m afraid,” said Dr. Coffee, “that this has gone beyond the province of pathology. I—” He stopped. Ellen Laird had turned deathly pale. She rushed from the room. An instant later she was back. She was trembling.
“Bill! You must go after him. His gun is gone.”
“His gun is in his desk at the plant,” Albertson protested. “It’s been there for at least ten days.”
“All the more reason, Bill. Please.”
Albertson made a face. “Okay,” he said grudgingly.
Dr. Coffee had raided the icebox, leafed through the current issue of the Journal of Clinical Pathology, and was just falling asleep when his phone rang. It was Max Ritter, lieutenant of detectives, Northbank police.
“Hi, Doc,” said the detective. “You know that guy you phoned me about this morning? That teataster?”
“You mean Quentin Laird, Max?”
“That’s the guy. Well, he did it. He just shot himself. Dead. I’m on my way. Do I pick you up, Doc?”
“I’ll be waiting, Max,” the pathologist said, reaching for his trousers.
It was still raining when Dr. Coffee and the long, lanky, sad-eyed police detective reached the Great Indo-Cathay Tea Co. Quentin Laird was lying face down in the rain-spattered areaway between the main building and the warehouse. The headlights of a squad car illuminated the scene. The wet pavement was reddened by a halo of blood from a wound in the teataster’s right temple. A revolver lay near his right hand.
The coroner had not yet arrived; so, while Ritter questioned the night watchman, Dr. Coffee conducted his own somewhat extralegal examination of the body.
The watchman’s story was simple: When he punched the clock at station No. 37 in the far wing of the main building, he had noticed through the window that there was a light in the tasting room on the ground floor. When he reached station No. 27, the light had gone out. An instant later he heard a shot—one shot. He had rushed down, found Laird lying in the areaway, and had called the police.
No, he had seen no one about. No, he had heard no cars driving up or away, but then the rain was making an awful racket.…
“Damn the rain,” Max Ritter said as Dr. Coffee was covering the body with his own slicker. “Washes out the works. No footprints. No nitrates for a paraffin test. No powder marks. No nothing. You think the guy bumped himself off, Doc?”
“I don’t know, Max. He said tonight he’d got his taste back, but he was a funny bird. Even so, I can’t see why he would come all the way out here to shoot himself, and then do it in the rain instead of in his office. Look, Max.” The pathologist lowered his voice. “Laird had a bottle in the inside pocket of his coat. It broke when he fell. Will you make sure the coroner doesn’t mess up the fragments when he gets here? I may be able to analyze the residue. I wonder—Hello, Mr. Phelps.”
The manager of the Great Indo-Cathay Tea Co. had stepped from the tasting room and pushed through the rain-soaked group of policemen. Apparently he had dressed in a hurry. His tie was askew and one shoe untied. He carried a furled umbrella. His face was drawn with anxiety as he looked about him in silence, the rain dripping from his hat, his wet shoulders glistening in the rays of the headlamps.
“They just called me,” he said. “I never thought—Good God, he’s done it after all.”
“Don’t touch anything, Mr. Phelps,” Ritter said. “Who called you?”
“The watchman. My wife didn’t want to wake me, but—”
“You think he shot himself, Mr. Phelps?”
“Well, he used to talk a lot about it these last few days, but I never believed him. Has anybody seen Albertson?”
“Last I saw of him, he was setting out to follow Laird,” Dr. Coffee said. “That must have been two hours ago.”
“Curious,” Phelps said. “Has anyone notified Ellen?”
“I’ll take care of Miss Laird,” Dr Coffee said, “as soon as the coroner gets here.”
When Dr. Mookerji waddled into the pathology lab at eight o’clock the next morning he found Dr. Coffee surrounded by test tubes and gently hissing Bunsen burners.
“Salaam, Doctor Sahib,” said the resident, pressing the tips of his fingers together. “Prominent subocular rings are indicating nocturnal sleeplessness. You had irksome nighttime emergencies, Doctor?”
“We’ve got a rather complicated qualitative to run,” Dr. Coffee said, “and not much material to work with. I think we’re looking for an acid. But if you get stuck, don’t use up the last drop. Save enough for X-ray diffraction.”
“Shabash!” exclaimed Dr. Mookerji. “We are again stalking homicidal murderers for Leftenant Ritter?”
“Our ex-moniliasis case was shot to death last night. The coroner thinks it’s suicide, but he’s agreed to an autopsy. Will you join me downstairs in an hour, Doctor?”
“With utmost lugubrious pleasure,” said Dr. Mookerji.
Max Ritter was sitting on Dr. Coffee’s desk when the pathologist and his Hindu resident returned to the laboratory, bearing Mason jars and white enamel pails.
“Hi, Doc,” the detective said, pushing his soft felt hat back from his deep-set eyes. “Find anything?”
“Not to the naked eye, Max. No brain tumor. No necrosis of the ninth nerve. We’ll have to wait a few days for the microscopic sections. What about you?”
“The Laird dame’s still a total loss,” Ritter replied. “The family doc pumps her full of sedatives.”
“What about Albertson?”.
“He sticks to his story. Says he starts out after Laird and gets a flat tire. It takes him half an hour to dig up a service station that’s open and another twenty minutes to get the tire changed. When he gets to the tea plant everything’s dark and he don’t see nobody around so he goes home.”
“How does it check, Max?”
“He looked in at Laird’s office all right. We find his prints on the glass door. And the service station backs him on the flat. I also check against the watchman’s clock. Albertson’s tire is fixed in plenty time for him to be at the plant when Laird is shot. But he’s also got plenty time to be there ten-fifteen minutes before the shooting. Maybe he does look around, don’t see Laird, and leaves. Maybe—Doc, when we first walk through that tasting room, do you notice an umbrella leaning against the round table?”
“No, I didn’t. Have you sealed the warehouse, Max?”
“Tight as six ticks. This guy Phelps is yelling his head off because were holding up tea shipments. So I let him yell. I also padlock the tasting room.”
“With that umbrella inside?”
“Well, no,” said the detective. “Funny thing. But when I put the padlock on last night; the umbrella is gone.”
Quentin Laird was buried in a flag-draped casket with full military honors. An American Legion chaplain pronounced the eulogy, American Legion buglers played Taps, and Legion riflemen fired the regulation three volleys over a grave banked high with flowers—most of them from the lush gardens and private greenhouse of Robert Phelps.
Ellen Laird, sobbing on the shoulder of Bill Albertson, was convinced that her brother had taken his own life, as he had threatened to do. At least one of the mourners knew this was untrue. So did Dr. Coffee.
“It’s homicide, Max,” the pathologist had explained to Ritter just before the funeral. “But it won’t be necessary to hold up the interment. I’ve got all the evidence here in my lab.”
The evidence, as Dr. Coffee expanded further, consisted of microscopic sections of tissue surrounding Laird’s fatal wound. Not only did the sections show no flame burns (proof that the gun muzzle was not within six inches), but there was no powder tattooing. The rain might have washed away superficial powder stains, but a gun fired from a distance of twelve to sixteen inches would have blasted powder grains deep into the secondary layers of skin. The microscope had found none. Therefore the muzzle of the gun that killed Laird had been held more than sixteen inches from his head—an awkward, unusual, and practically impossible posture for a man bent on suicide.
“Okay, so it’s murder,” said Ritter. “Where do we go from here, Doc?”
“Dr. Mookerji and I have a theory. Tell him, Doctor.”
“Quite,” said the Hindu. “Have completed analysis of residual liquid in fragments of broken bottle from late teataster’s pocket. Have identified traces of gymnemic acid.”
“You don’t say!” exclaimed Ritter with mock surprise. “And just what the hell am I supposed to say to that?”
“Gymnemic acid, Leftenant,” said Dr. Mookerji, “is active principle permeating leaves of plant entitled Gymnema sylvestre, which is close relative of milkweed family. Am remembering that in native Bengal—
“What’s this Jim Whosis got to do with tea?” Ritter demanded.
“That,” said Dr. Coffee, “is what we’ve got to find out. I had the New York office of the Food and Drug Administration on the phone a while ago. The Chief U. S. Tea Examiner agreed to fly one of his best men out here tonight if you will wire him an official request. You or the chief of police.”
“I’m official enough to send the wire,” Ritter said, “even if I ain’t official enough to be filled in on your secret.”
The pathologist chuckled. “Ill explain when I go to the airport with you to meet the tea man, Max. Meanwhile you’d better get a badge and credentials to make him a pro tem member of the Northbank police force—under any name except Sebastian Oxford. That’s his real name. I want him to prowl around the Indo-Cathay warehouse tomorrow as a cop. And keep Albertson and Phelps away from him.”
“Easy, Doc. Phelps goes to Cleveland for the day, and I’ll keep Albertson busy at the station till Oxford gets what he wants.”
The phone rang and Dr. Coffee answered. “Oh, hello, Professor.… You have? … Good. Tomorrow? Dr. Mookerji too? … Thanks a lot. Ill tell him.”
When he had hung up, the pathologist explained: “That was Professor Treet of the Botany Department at Northbank College. At my request, he’s made a survey of asclepiadaceous plants in this region. He’s located some very interesting specimens. I want you to go with him tomorrow, Dr. Mookerji, to help identify some of the more exotic species. He’ll pick you up at eleven.”
“Am most gratified, personally and botanically,” the Hindu said.
Dr. Coffee was away most of the next day, which was Saturday—a biopsy at a Boone Point hospital without a pathologist, and an autopsy for an insurance company at Lycoville. On his return he went into a huddle with Max Ritter, Dr. Mookerji, and Sebastian Oxford, the U. S. Tea Examiner.
The huddle was interrupted by a long and indignant phone call from Bill Albertson, protesting “police persecution” and threatening legal action if he and Ellen Laird were further molested. Dan Coffee’s reply was an invitation to Sunday breakfast. He then called Robert Phelps and repeated the invitation. After all, when the wife’s away, the amateur chefs will play.…
The orange juice had been squeezed and the house was redolent with the fragrance of frying bacon when the guests began to arrive. Dr. Coffee was very proud of his buckwheat cakes, as well as the delicately smoked breakfast sausage that an ex-patient sent him regularly from Indiana. And once he had graced the table with the half-gallon of scrambled eggs and the gallon of coffee (his own blend of Caracolillo, Puerto Rico and Medellin), he kept the conversation on a high gastronomic plane. He even avoided introductions until the food had disappeared.
“I hope you like my coffee,” he said. “I wouldn’t dare serve tea to experts like Mr. Phelps, Mr. Albertson, and Mr. Oxford.”
“Oxford?” Phelps paled. “Not Sebastian Oxford, the tea examiner?”
Mr. Oxford bowed modestly. He was a moon-faced, well-fed man whom any television panel would have picked as a truck driver rather than teataster.
“Mr. Oxford,” the pathologist continued, ‘Tarings us the interesting news that several thousand chests of substandard tea which were illegally removed from a New York warehouse last month have mysteriously turned up in Northbank. Now—”
Bill Albertson half rose from his chair. “Are you implying,” he shouted, “that the Indo-Cathay shipping department had something to do with smuggling substandard tea into this country?”
“Oh, no.” Mr. Oxford smiled blandly. “I’m merely stating that a shipment of Java black tea was recently denied entrance to the United States because it was not only substandard but had also absorbed a slight taint from being stowed near a cargo of hides. Who bribed whom and how the tea was spirited out of the New York warehouse, I can’t say. That’s a matter for the FBI and Treasury agents to determine. But I can say that this tainted tea is now in the Indo-Cathay warehouse in Northbank. The off-taste has been disguised by spraying the tea with oil of bergamot, which has in fact produced a fairly good imitation of Earl Grey tea. True Earl Grey is, of course, China black sprayed with bergamot, but were not getting much tea from China these days, and the bergamot is a dominant fragrance.”
“Should I assume,” said Phelps stiffly, “that since Lieutenant Ritter is here this morning, the Earl Grey concerns poor Laird’s suicide?”
“Murder,” corrected Max Ritter.
Bill Albertson upset his coffee cup.
“The connection is obvious,” explained Dr. Coffee as he reached over to hide the stain with a clean napkin. “To conceal the presence of the fraudulent shipment, Laird’s palate had to be put out of commission. Since Laird used to refresh his taste buds with an infusion of almond-and-barley water, it was a simple matter to spike the bottle with another infusion, made with the leaves of a plant called Gymnema sylvestre. These leaves partially paralyze the taste buds so that the palate is no longer sensitive to the taste of bitter or sweet.”
“Then my brother was—was….” Ellen Laird began. She stopped, looking fearfully from Phelps to Albertson.
“Professor Treet informs me,” Dr. Coffee continued, “that Gymnema sylvestre belongs to the family of the Asclepiadaceae, of which several dozen varieties exist in this region. Mr. Phelps, for instance, has some beautiful and colorful butterfly weed in his garden. Mr. Phelps also grows Gymnema sylvestre.”
“Doctor, I resent the implication,” Phelps said calmly.
“Implication, my eye!” said Ritter. “That’s a charge, Phelps, of murder. The D.A.’s fixing up the complaint right now.”
“I insist Laird killed himself.”
“I’ll prove in court that he didn’t,” said Dr. Coffee. “Miss Laird, you’ll be deeply grieved to learn that you unwittingly helped cause your brother’s death. During the few days that he sat at home brooding, his palate recovered from its temporary paralysis. And when he took a sip of the Earl Crey tea you made on the night of his birthday, he found that his taste had returned, that he could recognize the deficiencies in the tea. Phelps was present and must have noted his reaction, because he left immediately and preceded Laird to the office, took possession of the gun which Laird kept in his desk—”
“You have a magnificent imagination, Doctor,” Phelps broke in.
“You forget I was present when Laird discovered his taste had returned,” Dr. Coffee continued. “I noticed his curious expression as he sipped the tea, but I couldn’t have analyzed it then without the background I have now. You could and did. You knew he wasn’t going to the office to commit suicide, but to investigate the strange taste of the Earl Grey tea. You had to get there first.
“When Laird found you in his office, he must have accused you of skulduggery. You would deny it, of course, and he would naturally suggest that you both step over to the warehouse while he looked for the substandard tea his palate had told him was there. You knew he would find it, so you shot him while crossing the areaway. You also smashed the bottle he was carrying under his coat. Luckily there was enough residue for Dr. Mookerji to analyze.”
“Doctor,” Phelps insisted, “I was not inside the tasting room between the time I left Laird’s house and the time I came to the plant and found him dead.”
“I might believe that, despite the evidence of the Gymnema sylvestre,” said Dr. Coffee, “if it were not for your umbrella.”
“Umbrella?”
“When Lieutenant Ritter and I first reached the plant, there was an umbrella standing in the corner of Laird’s office—where you had forgotten it when you came to kill Laird. When you appeared after the call from the watchman, you came into the areaway through Laird’s office—carrying a furled umbrella. The umbrella was gone from Laird’s office when Ritter and I left.”
“The umbrella I was carrying,” Phelps declared, “I brought from home.”
“If you had brought the umbrella from home,” Dr. Coffee pursued, “the umbrella would have been wet and you would have been dry. But when you appeared in the areaway, the umbrella was furled and dry, and you were dripping wet. So, obviously, it was you who retrieved the umbrella from Laird’s office. Or do you still insist you weren’t there, Phelps?”
Phelps opened his mouth but no words came.
“Drink up, Phelps,” said Max Ritter, pushing back his chair. “Maybe the tea and coffee they serve downtown where we’re going won’t be to your taste.”
“No Taste for Tea” appeared in Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine under the title “The Man Who Lost His Taste.”
