“And what you saw with your own eyes was Miss Gresham coming down the stairs—”
“He’d torn her dress.”
“Her dress was torn,” Manners said patiently. “You didn’t see him tearing it. And Mr Grundy was at the top of the stairs, dabbing at his cheek.”
Paget bristled a little, evidently feeling that these refinements were unnecessary. Manners turned to Jennifer Paget, large, spotty, awkward, and considered her for a moment. Then he spoke gently. “Now, Miss Paget, I’ll just recapitulate what you’ve said. You were in the lavatory upstairs, and you heard a scream. You opened the door and you saw Miss Gresham standing in the doorway. Mr Grundy was behind her. His hand was on her shoulder, and he was trying to detain her.” Manners noticed a glance, a mere flicker of a glance from upraised and then downcast eyes, directed by the rock-faced Mrs Paget at her daughter.
“You’re sure of that?”
Jennifer had increased in assurance with the length of his stay. She spoke boldly.
“Quite sure.”
“Was her dress already torn?”
“Yes. She was holding it up with her other hand, her right hand.”
“Then she broke away from him and came down the stairs? Mr Grundy followed her?”
“Yes.”
“And what did you do?” Manners asked suddenly.
Two spots of colour showed in her pudgy cheeks. “I was frightened. I went back into the toilet.”
“Would Mr Grundy have seen you?”
“I – I don’t know. I just stepped back. He might not have done.”
“And now just tell me again what you saw on the following night, Saturday night.”
She told them with composure, in a slightly sing-song voice. “It was about – between half past ten and eleven, and I was taking Puggy, that’s our dog, out for a walk. We went up Brambly Way and to The Dell and at the entrance to The Dell Puggy tugged me that way and I let him pull me along. Just a few yards inside the entrance I saw Mr Grundy and the lady I’d seen at the party. They were standing off the path and he was holding her and saying something, but I couldn’t hear what. Then Puggy pulled me back into Brambly Way again, but I looked back and they were going together into No. 99, that’s where Mr Kabanga lives. That’s all I saw.”
Was the girl telling the truth? Manners was not sure. But Fastness wrote out the statements and they signed them, Paget with a flourish, his daughter in a round girlish hand.
“A drop more whisky?” Manners shook his head.
“You understand, I’m just doing my duty as a citizen. And my daughter too.”
“I understand.”
Marion’s attempts to preserve an integrated relationship with her husband took three forms, cooking a meal with particular care, talking about something that she thought would interest him, and making it clear that she was sexually available. When one or all of these stratagems failed she was inclined to relapse into her more frequent feeling that such things were unimportant. Tuesday evening was a relapsed period. They had frozen fishcakes and frozen peas for dinner, with sauce made from a packet, and afterwards cheese and fruit.
Grundy had said little, but now he paused in the act of coring an apple, tapped the evening paper. “That girl’s been killed.”
“What girl?”
“The one whose dress tore at the party.”
“Well.” Marion took the paper from him, read the story. “It says here her name’s Estelle Simpson, but it does look like the same girl. You can see what sort of girl she was.” She got up, cleared away the plates, spoke from the kitchen. “That incident’s closed, agreed?”
“There wasn’t any incident.”
She came to the door of the kitchen, dishcloth in hand, and spoke with elaborate patience. “I don’t want to know anything more about your relationship with her, do you understand?”
“There’s nothing to know.”
Her patience now barely masked an irritation that she felt as acutely as if it were flannel chafing her skin. “Don’t try to treat me like a child, as though I didn’t understand. I fully realise that at certain times—”
He broke in. “You don’t realise any bloody thing at all, so shut up.”
Was it worth making a retort on this low level? She was still trying to decide when the door bell rang and provided a reason for ending the conversation.
“Mrs Grundy?” said one of the two men at the door.
“Good evening. Is your husband in?”
She had begun to say a hesitant yes, when she was aware of her husband’s voice behind her. “I’m Grundy. What do you want?”
Almost but not quite smiling, and moving forward without in the least seeming to push his way in, the man in front said, “Detective-Superintendent Manners, sir, and this is Sergeant Fastness. Is it a convenient time to have a word with you?”
Somehow, after a moment or two, they were both inside, and she found herself closing the door after them. They all sat down in the living-room. The superintendent, she saw, was a refined, almost ascetic-looking man, one who might well have been a member of the district’s Art or Archeological or Musical Societies. The sergeant was, well, he was very much like what you would expect a sergeant to be. Now the superintendent was saying, after glancing quickly at the evening paper on the table, “I wonder if you noticed the story in the paper this evening?”
“About that woman, Estelle Simpson, you mean?”
Grundy said. “We were just talking about it as a matter of fact, speculating whether she was someone we’d met—”
“Last Friday night, here at a party?” Manners nodded. “Yes, she was.”
“She didn’t use the same name there.”
“No. Sylvia Gresham was her real name.” He looked from Grundy to Marion, nodding again, pleased as Punch. His pleasure did not diminish when he was offered a drink. The four of them sat sipping whisky. Then Manners continued, still with an air of finding his own questions slightly absurd.
“Did either of you know Miss Gresham – I mean, before the party.” Their negatives came together. “But I believe, sir, that you had something of an argument with her there.”
“No.” Grundy added, in a tone of vicious sarcasm.
“Is it your idea that because of this supposed argument I killed her? Is that what you’ve come to ask?”
Manners looked, and indeed was, shocked. People didn’t, shouldn’t, say such things with such crudity. Why had this big bruiser-like ginger man said it? He felt a certain artificiality in the words, as though Grundy were trying to force an issue that had not been reached. He said placatively, “Certainly not, sir. We’re making inquiries into Miss Gresham’s death and this incident has been reported to us, that’s all.”
“And I can guess who’s reported it.”
“Would you care to tell us just what happened, sir?”
“Nothing to tell. I was upstairs, tried to go to the lavatory but someone was in there, and she called to me from the bedroom. The zip on her dress had got caught in the dressing-table curtain. She asked me to do it up, I tugged it, tore her dress. She swore at me, screamed, scratched my face. Then she ran downstairs.”
“I see.”
“That’s all. Never seen her before, never seen her since.”
“Did you see anyone come out of the lavatory after you left it?”
“No.”
“Or standing in or beside the lavatory door when you came downstairs after Miss Gresham?”
“No.”
Manners said carefully, “There is a witness who said that you put your hand on Miss Gresham’s shoulder, tried to detain her.”
“I didn’t see this witness, but that’s right. I did put my hand on her shoulder. I was pretty annoyed when she scratched my face. Forgot to mention it.”
Manners had now to make up his mind whether he should mention the identification made by Jennifer on Saturday night, and the postcard found in Cridge Mews. Such decisions are taken almost intuitively, and he could not afte
rwards have said why he mentioned the second of these but not the first. He took a photostat of the card from an envelope and asked Grundy whether he had written it.
The photostat lay on a small occasional table. The big man bent over to look at it. His wife got up from her chair and came over to look at it too. Then, lips pursed, she went back to her chair.
Grundy shook his head. “Nothing to do with me.”
“That little figure on the bottom. It’s been suggested that it looks very much like your cartoon character.” Manners paused, then pronounced the words with an effort. “Guffy McTuffie.”
“So I see. But that doesn’t mean I drew it, or wrote the card.”
“Of course not.”
“I’m telling you I didn’t. I take it the card has something to do with the murder.”
“It was found in her flat. The appointment made in it is for Monday evening, last night, the night she was murdered. We’d like to know who wrote it.”
“I can tell you I didn’t, although as a matter of fact it looks rather like my writing.” He went to a desk, took out two sheets of paper which had some notes on them, and handed them to Manners. The writing certainly looked very similar to that on the postcard. My word, he thought, this is a cool customer. Let’s see how cool he is. He said. “I wonder if you’d mind writing something for me.”
“All right.”
He dictated the words on the postcard. The big man wrote them, unmoved.
“By the way, sir, where were you yesterday evening after – oh, after eight o’clock say?”
Grundy’s smile was grim. “At my office working on this strip cartoon series. Alone. I got home about a quarter to twelve.”
“The thing I really feel is that one’s got a duty.” Jack Jellifer sipped the new bedtime drink he had invented, a drink compounded of hot rum and lemon plus dashes of not one but two liqueurs to add pungency and puzzlement. “This has something. Shall I call it a Jellifer Goodnight?”
“I hope not.” Arlene, perched on the arm of a chair, studied him thoughtfully. “I think you’re being a bit of a nosy bastard about this, my old love. Now don’t get on your high horse, it doesn’t suit you. I like Sol.”
“So do I,” Jack said untruthfully. “But that’s hardly the point.”
“I should say it’s very much the point. Let the police do their own dirty work.”
“That’s an outrageous attitude.”
“After all, what did you see? Somebody in an old Alvis, you don’t know who it was.”
“How could I see? The hood was up.”
“Did you spot the number, do you even know Sol’s number?”
“Of course I didn’t look at the number. Why should I have done?”
“Well then.” She drained her glass. “If you ask me this drink is rather disgusting. Sickly.”
Jack Jellifer was not capable of being really angry with his wife, whom he prized as his most precious possession, one even more valuable, delightful and suited to his way of life than the fish painting, but this criticism of Jellifer’s Goodnight certainly annoyed him. He stroked the fleshy cheeks which in five years’ time would become jowls, and said, “There was no doubt at all about it being his car. It’s got a rent in the hood which I particularly noticed. I shall telephone the police.”
“You’re quite sure about seeing him on Saturday night with that woman, aren’t you?” Rhoda Paget said to her daughter.
“Of course she’s sure,” Edgar broke in.
“Edgar,” she said sharply. He was silent. Square and formidable, Rhoda confronted her daughter and repeated the question. Jennifer was unshaken.
“I couldn’t mistake him.”
“And you’re sure it was her, too? You saw them go into the house.”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
Rhoda’s manner changed to sudden, ferocious joviality.
“She only got what she deserved.”
When Rex Lecky got back from rehearsals that evening Peter Clements, with an apron round his slightly thickening waist, was cooking in the kitchen. Half an hour later he dished up a meal to which Jack Jellifer would have given qualified approval. Rex, however, had come back in a bad temper. He said that the scampi had not been properly unfrozen and were like bits of gristle, that the entrecote steak which followed had been overcooked, and he refused chips altogether as bad for the figure.
“But of course you don’t worry about that, do you, Peter?”
“Oh, really, you’re intolerable.”
“Not at all. just stating a fact. It’s important to me, not to you. Lucky you.” Peter defiantly shovelled more chips on to his plate. “In another couple of years you’ll be as fat as a pig, but what does it matter to a producer?”
“I refuse to be provoked.”
Rex showed his white teeth in a smile that made him look like some animal, a fox perhaps.
“Some people find fat men attractive. I can’t say I do myself.” There were nuts and fruit on the table and Rex cracked nuts with deliberate care, extracted them from their shells with delicate fingers, popped them into his mouth. “Sol Grundy, now, is a big man but he couldn’t be called fat. He’s just big all over. Tough.”
“That girl he had a row with at the Weldons’ has been killed.”
“So I see. The penalty of leading a wicked life.”
“Grundy was near there about the time she was murdered. I saw him. In his car.”
“How interesting.”
“He’s the sort of man who might do anything.”
“Now, Peter. You mustn’t let your feelings show.” Rex got up from the table, sat down on the sofa and picked up a book. Peter stared at him with impotent anger.
Chapter Four
Unprogress
Forty-eight hours later, on Thursday evening, Manners sat in his office collating the reports from Ryan, Fastness, Jones, and two other detectives engaged on the case. He summarised them under several headings: Cridge Mews, Grundy, Kabanga, The Dell.
Everybody who lived in Cridge Mews had been questioned, in an attempt to find out whether the dead girl had really been a prostitute. The results had been unsatisfactory. Half a dozen people knew Estelle Simpson, and two couples had been asked up to drinks in her flat. They confirmed Seegal’s view that she was a friendly girl, one very ready to stop and talk. She had said that she was a model, and also that she worked for stage and television, without going into many details. Men had been seen going into her flat, and the one seen most often recently was readily identifiable as Kabanga, but as Ryan had already discovered, people who lived in Cridge Mews were not inclined to be curious about their neighbours. Seegal, Harrison and Mrs Roberts had been questioned again, but nothing much had been learned from them. Mrs Roberts was indignantly insistent that no man had ever been in the flat when she arrived in the morning. Seegal and Harrison repeated their ambiguous stories about the men who came to call on her. Both of them identified Kabanga as her most frequent caller when his picture was shown to them, but neither of them could be sure about Grundy. Seegal was inclined to think he had called occasionally, Harrison couldn’t be sure.
Manners sighed and moved on to the postcard, the prints on which had proved too blurred for any positive identification. Certainly they did not appear to correspond with Grundy’s, which he had obligingly provided on the sheets of paper he had handed to them. The handwriting, however, was another matter. Tissart, the handwriting expert, was prepared to stand up and say positively that Grundy had written the card.
Tissart was a short stout man who often gave evidence in cases that involved the identification of handwriting. His fees were considerable, and his evidence was always given with that absolute certainty of his own correctness that should in theory offer fine opportunities to opposing counsel, but in practice – as the great Spilsbury and others have shown – often overawes them. It was years since Tissart’s opinions had been seriously challenged in Court.
He frowned and puffed out his cheeks when Manners said th
at they had nothing more than a postcard to offer him.
“It’s very little, Mr Manners, but it may be enough. What about this little drawing, that’s this Guffy McTuffie, right?”
“Yes. And the chap who interests us is one of the creators of this strip. But I don’t think he does the drawing of it, only produces the ideas.”
“Hah. Pity.” Mr Tissart gave the impression that he would have welcomed the challenge of an identification by drawing as well as by calligraphy. He took the sheets of paper provided by Grundy. “And this is our guide, eh. Let’s see now.” He spent a quarter of an hour with the documents, measuring them and examining them under a magnifying glass, while Manners did other things. Then he straightened up, and wagged a finger. “You understand, Mr Manners, that the opinion I’m going to give you now is based on a quick examination, it’s subject to the tests I shall carry out in full detail. At the same time, at the same time, this opinion is the fruit of thirty years’ experience. And although I’m not the Pope, my opinion isn’t often questioned. Eh?” Here Mr Tissart laughed, as though he had made a good joke. Manners expressed his appreciation of the importance of Mr Tissart’s opinion.
“Now, Mr Manners, my opinion is—” Mr Tissart paused for a moment to puff and blow, “—quite shortly, that these documents were penned by the same individual. That is my opinion, sir.”
Manners ventured to say that there were very few words on the postcard. Was it really possible to –
He was interrupted. “The trained eye, my dear sir, the trained eye is a remarkable organ. What you see and what I see when we look at a sheet of handwriting is not the same thing. Take, for example, the word ‘same’, which is repeated three times in the card. Compare it with the two ‘sames’ on these sheets of paper, and you will see—” And Mr Tissart was launched on a tide of comparisons which Manners did not trouble to follow in detail, but which would he knew be immensely impressive to a jury when backed up by the twenty large albums of handwriting specimens which Mr Tissart brought into Court.
The End Of Solomon Grundy Page 9