Doctor Who_ The Banquo Legacy - Andy Lane [36]
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THE REPORT OF INSPECTOR IAN STRATFORD (5)
The conservatory was in shadow when I entered. Wallace’s description of Richard Harries’s fatally flawed experiment had intrigued me, and I wanted to see the scene as soon as possible. Leaving Baker in charge of questioning Herr Kreiner, I had followed Wallace’s directions through to the back of the house.
Pale-blue moonlight cascaded in through the glass roof, barely illuminating the untidiest room I had ever seen. I could just about make out two trestles standing in the centre of the room; a large table top stood beside them, scarred with an irregular pattern of scorch marks that identified the location of the ill-fated experiment. The area between the trestles was piled high with junk of every kind: books, glassware, paper, boxes and other items of scientific detritus. I guessed that they had been shifted from the surface above to make way for the equipment.
The sweet smell of charred meat hung in the air – not entirely unpleasant until one remembered the source.
‘If the state of this conservatory reflects the state of mind of its former occupant then Richard Harries must have been a very disturbed person, wouldn’t you say?’ The voice hung on the air, vibrant and eager. In the jigsaw pattern of moonlight and shadow it was difficult to trace where it came from, but I thought the man was located over by the garden side of the conservatory, where Richard Harries (or, more likely, Simpson operating under Harries’s instruction) had covered the glass with black cloth and wooden boards in a haphazard arrangement.
‘I rarely draw sweeping conclusions from scant facts,’ I said to the shadows.
‘Very wise. Conclusions are like London buses: if you jump on one without looking you invariably end up heading the wrong way.’ The voice seemed to be elsewhere in the room now. Had its owner moved, or was I misjudging his location?
I took a step forward. ‘My job here is purely to establish what happened – Dr Friedlander.’
‘What happened?’ The voice was closer this time, over near the bookshelves that lined the wall adjoining the Manor proper. There was an oil lamp and a box of matches on a side table. I moved closer and set flame to wick. ‘A search for absolute truth,’ he continued. ‘You’re a philosopher, then? And please – call me “Doctor": Friedlander is such a mouthful, I find.’
‘I’m not a philosopher: I’m a policeman. Inspector Ian Stratford, Scotland Yard.’
As the light from the oil lamp slowly spread across the conservatory I found myself staring at a man of medium height wearing a long coat of some material that reflected the light in a soft sheen. His waistcoat was cut from a cloth more suited for carpet bags than for formal attire, and his cravat was in imminent danger of coming undone. He struck me immediately as a student of the Bohemian persuasion, but there was something about his poise, his immense stillness and concentration, that spoke of experience, of life lived to the full but also of a boundless enthusiasm. He held a book in his hands, and for all the world it appeared as if he had been reading it in the near-darkness.
‘Surely crime is a philosophy of its own,’ he said, not raising his gaze from the page. ‘One man obeys the law, another chooses to break it. Two different views of life and social responsibility.’
‘Crimes are committed by criminals,’ I said firmly. ‘Criminals are either desperate men attempting to better their situation by breaking the laws by which society lives or unhinged men who refuse to accept that they are bound by society’s rules. Either way, they must be apprehended and punished.’
‘And so falls several hundred years of debate,’ the Doctor said, smiling at me. His eyes were a startling blue. ‘I have to say that Professor Harries’s taste in books is remarkably catholic.’ He gestured to the shelves from which he had removed the volume he was reading. ‘Complete