Death in High Heels

by Christianna Brand

  “No, she couldn’t. First, she couldn’t have passed Mrs. Harris; and secondly, the door of the salesgirls’ little room, opposite the door of Bevan’s room, was open the whole morning, and they could see anybody going up those stairs and into the office. Nobody did so the whole morning. Nobody could have gone up the stairs and out of the office door because nobody went into the office till Bevan came up at one o’clock.”

  “But the secretary was left alone with Miss Doon for a little while after Bevan left her office?”

  “A few seconds, if that’s any use to you; well, say two minutes, to be absolutely fair.”

  “A lot can be done in two minutes,” said Smithers, sententiously. “You’ll agree that she might have induced Doon to take something during that time.”

  “I suppose it’s conceivable, but it’s frightfully unlikely, immediately before lunch. Anyway, you can’t get round the fact that the original amount of poison she brought down from the showroom remained untouched.”

  “It might have been used and replenished.”

  “Oh, no, I’ve gone into all that,” said Charlesworth, who had been waiting for this. “The desk was locked up and Macaroni took both the keys home with her. There weren’t any more keys and as the murder was an unpremeditated one—I suppose you’ll agree it was unpremeditated?—there wasn’t any time for mucking about getting new ones.”

  “So that your contention is that nobody could have used the poison that was originally given to the secretary, bought more poison overnight and, using her keys, filled up the little packet in the drawer before the police examined it in the morning?”

  “Nobody,” said Charlesworth, but even as he said it his voice faltered.

  “Nobody, in fact,” said Smithers, getting it in first, “except the secretary herself!”

  The conference had taken a very long time. Charlesworth had been working for seven whole days upon the case and he was weary and fed up. “You can take the darn thing over for to-night,” he said to Smithers, at six o’clock. “I’m going to have a real good dinner and then I’m going to a flick and then I’m going to bed. You can do what you like—arrest Macaroni, interview chemists, discover that Elliot was Cecil in disguise—I don’t care what the hell you do. For to-night this is your baby and I wish you joy of it.” He stumped off ungratefully into the night.

  Mr. Smithers sent for coffee and sandwiches and applied himself diligently to the notes of the case. The little secretary could very well wait until he was ready for her; she had been working quietly at the shop and was obviously relieved of all anxiety as to police suspicion about herself; on second thoughts, however, he detailed a plain-clothes man to keep a watch upon her home. Mr. Smithers was very free with the time and trouble of his subordinates.

  His study of the notes furthered him not at all. It was obviously McEnery, he decided, and he would have her along to-morrow and get an admission from her. Really Charlesworth was a bit of a fool; the Chief had spoken a word and of course he, Smithers, must keep pretty quiet about his part in solving the affair; but he would see to it that everybody realized that it was he who had cleared up in a couple of hours what had puzzled the rest of them for a week. Motive, opportunity to administer, opportunity to obtain, Macaroni had them all; he tidied his papers and reached for his hat. At that moment the telephone bell rang.

  “Hallo, yes?”

  “P.C. Conrad on the line for you, sir.”

  “All right, put him through. Hallo, Conrad, have you got something for me?”

  “Yes, sir. I thought I’d better let you know at once, sir. I’ve been round the chemists within a radius of half a mile of the shop, and I’ve found one that sold an ounce of oxalic acid on the day of the murder to a young lady. He doesn’t remember much about it, but he’s identified a photograph. It’s number five, on the back, sir.”

  Smithers rang off. “Just like him,” thought Constable Conrad. “At least old Charles always has a word of thanks for a decent piece of work, even if he is a bit of an ass … but not Smithers, not ’im. I ’ope this news gives ’im a ’eadache, that’s all.”

  It did give him a ’eadache, for the photograph with number five on the back was not of Macaroni at all; it was of a small, dark girl, extraordinarily lovely, and the name on the back of it was Mrs. Irene Best.

  Eleven

  1

  INSPECTOR SMITHERS made a half-hearted attempt to locate Charlesworth, but he was not sorry when it failed. Without waiting to consult the notes—which, indeed, he already knew almost by heart—he collected a sergeant and repaired to the flats where Irene was spending the night. The head porter referred him to Miss Gregory for the keys.

  Gregory appeared sleepy and bewildered at her door. She resisted strongly Inspector Smithers’ insistence that he should see Mrs. Best; Irene had gone to bed worn out, she said, and had taken a sleeping powder. Smithers, however, was adamant, and she finally handed over a key to the guest-flat. Smithers, having refused her permission to accompany him, marched downstairs.

  A prolonged ringing at Irene’s door evoked no response. “Asleep with the dope, I suppose,” said Smithers. “She’ll have to wake up, that’s all, and do a bit of talking. I’m not going home to-night without an explanation.”

  They applied the key to the lock and pushed their way into the tiny hall. The first door they tried proved to be that of the bathroom; they knocked upon the second without result. “I hope she hasn’t hopped,” said Smithers over his shoulder and, turning the handle of the door, went in.

  Irene hadn’t hopped. She lay on the bed in a gradually deepening sleep, and already the tormented life was ebbing out of her tiny frame. Smithers rushed forward and caught her little wrist in his hand: “My God, she’s going—ring up for a doctor and an ambulance, quick.…” He thrust his hand suddenly under the pillow and pulled out a small white card: “Good heavens, Jones, we must save her—here’s the confession!”

  It was an ordinary professional visiting-card, printed with Irene’s name and underneath it the name and address of, Christophe et Cie, such as the three salesgirls were accustomed to use when visiting clients outside the shop. On the back of it was printed in large, untidy letters: “I have made an end of my life because I killed Doon.” On the table beside the bed lay a latchkey to the outer door. The glass held a dribble of whitish dregs and beside it were four small squares of paper, unfolded and empty.

  The doctor arrived, a spruce young man, with hair brushed carefully over a premature bald spot. “Got her just in time,” he said. “She’ll pull through all right after the way you’ve managed her—you ought to have been in my profession, Inspector. What was it—suicide?”

  Smithers rose to the hook so well baited: “Most people would think so,” he answered, expansive in his gratified pride, “but one thing strikes me as odd, Doctor, which perhaps somebody, else wouldn’t take any notice of.… Why should a suicide print her last message? They hardly ever do, and the educated ones almost never—in such a moment of stress they use the medium that comes most easily to them … that’s my experience, anyway.” He spoke as if his experience were something very much worth taking into account.

  The doctor was duly impressed. “Very cute of you, that.…” He glanced at Irene again. “Good lord, isn’t this one of the girls in the dress-shop case? I’ve seen her photograph in the papers.”

  “That’s what makes me wonder, Doctor. She’s already mixed up in a murder case and one can’t be too careful.…”

  He telephoned the Yard and while he waited for assistance decided that a talk with Miss Gregory would be interesting. She reappeared, highly indignant, at her door. “Really, Inspector, or whoever you are, this is the limit. What on earth do you want now, at this hour of the night?”

  Smithers gently forced her backwards and followed her into the flat. “I’ve just been down to Mrs. Best’s room.”

  “Good gracious, that was an hour ago. If you can’t wake her it’s because, as I told you, she’s taken a sleepi
ng draught. Can’t you leave it till the morning?”

  Smithers decided to test her reaction, and put the news in startling form. “I found your friend dying,” he said bluntly.

  “Dying?… dying?…” She looked blankly at him. He could not resist adding smugly, “Fortunately I was able to apply medical aid until the doctor came, and I’ve pulled her through.…”

  But Gregory had fallen forward in a dead faint upon the floor.

  Once again Smithers applied the skill that would have made him such an ornament to the medical profession, but it was ten minutes before Gregory was revived and, sitting shakily on her chintz-covered sofa, could give him any account of the evening that had been spent at her flat.

  “Really, after all we’ve been through, the shock of this is too dreadful,” she said through white lips. “How can Mrs. Best have—did she take too much of that sleeping draught?” she asked, suddenly.

  “Well, I think she must have, Miss Gregory. Perhaps it was not a very wise thing to have given her at a time like this. Who suggested her having it, do you remember?”

  “No, I don’t remember at all—one of the girls. Now that I come to think of it, I believe it was Rachel Gay.”

  “And who actually gave it to her?”

  “Mrs. David did,” said Gregory, still, of course, unaware that there was reason to suspect anything but a simple suicide. “I boiled up some milk and Mrs. David got the powders from the bathroom and mixed one in.”

  “I suppose she couldn’t have put in more than one, by—er—by mistake?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. Each dose was wrapped up by itself in a little square of paper.”

  “Can you swear that not more than one packet was used?”

  “Well, no, I can’t swear to it,” said Gregory, doubtfully. “Mrs. David was standing by the bathroom cupboard and I handed her the glass of milk and turned back into the room. She came out of the bathroom, holding the glass in her hand and stirring the milk; but there was only one little bit of paper left on the edge of the basin, because I threw it away, later. Here it is in the wastepaper-basket.”

  Smithers solemnly collected this relic and returned to his attack. “Did Mrs. Best take the box with the remaining powders down to her room with her?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid it was I who suggested that. She was very nervy and overwrought and I thought that one powder might not be enough. It never occurred to me for a moment that she would use them in this terrible way.”

  “And how many papers were there left in the box?”

  “I don’t know. Three or four, I suppose. There were originally six, and I think I’d only used one. That would be five, counting the one she’d taken with the milk.”

  “Can you be certain, Miss Gregory, that there were four powders in the box when you handed it to her?”

  “Well, I can only suppose so; the box was closed and I simply took it off the shelf in the bathroom and carried it downstairs in my hand, and gave it to her in her room. I can’t see why you should think she took an overdose up here; she may simply have taken some more when she went downstairs. Perhaps it was simply an accident.”

  “Oh, I think not, Miss Gregory. You see, she left a letter.”

  “A letter? A suicide letter? Good heavens—what was in it? What did it say?”

  “That I am not in a position to reveal,” said Smithers, ponderously. “It certainly gave the impression that Mrs. Best intended to take her life, but one has to work out every possibility. Now, about the keys to the flatlet. I gather that they were originally handed to you?”

  Gregory explained the confusion about the keys. “I gave one to Mrs. David to slip in at the letter-box on her way home. I kept the other one as we had agreed that I should go into Irene’s room on my way to work and see whether she was awake.”

  “Couldn’t you have taken the second key to her then?”

  “Well, I suppose I could, Inspector, but I simply never thought of it. Mrs. David was passing the door and I asked her to slip it in. I don’t think anything else occurred to her either.”

  “Did you yourself go to Mrs. Best’s room after the other young ladies had gone home?”

  “No, of course I didn’t—what would I have done that for?” asked Gregory, looking puzzled and a little scared. “I went downstairs and posted a letter, but I imagined her as being fast asleep and I didn’t go near her flat.”

  “You went and posted a letter, did you? Why didn’t you ask one of the other young ladies to do it for you on their way home?”

  “For the plain and simple reason,” said Gregory, growing irritable as her nervousness increased, “that once again I didn’t think of it. As soon as Mrs. David had gone I noticed the letter lying on my desk; it had to be posted before midnight, so I wrote another one, and put both of them in the letter-box in the hall.”

  “Did anyone see you do this?”

  “Not that I know of, unless there was a porter about. What is all this leading to, Inspector? I don’t see what it has got to do with Mrs. Best.”

  “Neither do I,” said Smithers, smiling pleasantly, “but, as I said before, I have to go into all these things. One more question and then I won’t bother you any further: did any of the other young ladies go into this flatlet that Mrs. Best had taken for the night?”

  “Only Mrs. David. I went in with Irene when she arrived and took her some things for the night, and so on, and helped her to settle in; then we came upstairs and all the others came on up to my flat. Afterwards Mrs. David and I went down and tucked Irene up and left her for the night. I don’t think that at that time she had anything like this in her head; but she was dreadfully upset and unhappy and I blame myself terribly for having given her the extra sleeping powders. In the light of what has happened, Inspector, it seems a criminally stupid thing to have done; but you must believe me when I say that the thought of it just never entered my head. And none of the others seem to have thought of it, either,” she added, brightening considerably. “They all heard me offer her the box, and none of them suggested for a moment that it was unwise.”

  “No, I quite appreciate that, Miss Gregory, I’m sure you need feel no responsibility in the matter.” He produced a small chamois leather case and, taking out of it a square of dark glass, held it out before her so suddenly that she took it before she was aware of what she was doing.

  “Whatever is this?” she said.

  “Oh, I beg your pardon—what on earth am I thinking of? I meant to offer you a cigarette. I’m afraid you are in need of one after all these questions,” said Smithers, unobtrusively slipping the glass back into its case. “Now you go back to bed and try and get some sleep.…” He left her with the promised cigarette, and on his way back to Irene’s room handed the case to his sergeant. “I want these finger-prints compared with any in the room downstairs. When the man gets here, ask him to ’phone through to me as soon as he gets any results. I’m going to Mrs. David’s… I shall be at that number.”

  Bobby Dazzler had left a large drawing on the studio mantelpiece, depicting himself and his sister, she with very fat legs and he with very untidy hair, dining in great state at a palatial restaurant and with a couple of theatre tickets conspicuously displayed in the foreground, and this Victoria took to be an indication that they would not be back until late. It was a huge, square room with an overhead light, one corner occupied by the paraphernalia of painting, one by a dining-table and four chairs, and a third by a fireplace surrounded by easy chairs and a sofa. The easel and model’s throne stood in the centre and around them Victoria was obliged to make a careful detour as she fussed about picking up her sister-in-law’s scattered possessions and making up the sofa into a tolerably comfortable bed. She cried quietly to herself as she moved and her hands were shaking, but she completed her tasks and began to prepare for bed. As she slid into her nightdress, the doorbell rang.

  “Curse Bobby,” said Victoria, without venom. “He always forgets his key.” She hung a gay blue dressing-gown a
bout her shoulders and went to the door.

  Three strange men pushed their way unceremoniously into the flat.

  Victoria stared at them open-mouthed, automatically adjusting her dressing-gown. Smithers repeated his act with a second glass, but this time did not trouble himself to explain. One of his henchmen departed with the chamois leather case, and the other propped himself up against the door and pulled out his little book. Smithers took a look round the room, sniffed at the sight of the easel and the canvases piled round the walls, and sat down on the arm of one of the easy chairs. Victoria, frankly terrified, gasped out a protest at his intrusion.

  “I’m afraid I can’t waste time on fancy speeches, Mrs. David,” said Smithers, in his excitement reverting, as usual, to type. “I have to tell you that Mrs. Irene Best ’as bin found dying in ’er room; I think you already know something about that, don’t you?”

  Victoria did not swoon as Gregory had done. She stared at him with horrified eyes and said faintly: “Why should you come to me about it?”

  “Because I believe that you and Miss Gregory were the last persons to see Mrs. Best before she went to bed.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” said Victoria, looking a tiny bit relieved. “We went down to her room with her and saw her into bed. How—how could she have been found dying?”

  “She was found by me. There is a suggestion that she may have taken, or been given, an overdose of sleeping draught.”

  “She did have a sleeping draught. I—I gave it to her myself, in Gregory’s flat.”

  “You don’t suppose you can have given her too much—by any chance?” asked Smithers, smiling unpleasantly.

  “Too much—no, of course not! I gave her one powder, like Gregory said. You don’t imagine …”

  “I’m not ’ere to imagine, Mrs. David. I’m ’ere to find out.”

  “Where’s Mr. Charlesworth?” said Toria, suddenly. “Why isn’t he here? Why hasn’t he come to see me?”

  “Because I’ve taken over part of the conduct of the case from Mr. Charlesworth and I’m here in his place.”