Is Skin Deep, Is Fatal

by H. R. F. Keating

  ‘June’ll be out on the stage rehearsing, sir,’ Jack said. ‘Do you want me to fetch her?’

  ‘You feel inclined to interrogate her just now, do you?’ Ironside said.

  He shook his head.

  ‘I think we’ll let things out there take their course,’ he went on. ‘There’ll be terrible confusion once the sad news gets out. And besides I rather like the idea of all that earnest parading when all the while the only begetter is lying quite, quite dead.’

  He looked from Jack to Peter, from Peter to Jack. Both had by now developed the technique of keeping totally expressionless in face of such pronouncements.

  ‘So I think Pariss’s secretary, if you please, Lassington.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  Leaving Ironside inquiring with immense gravity about the details of Jack’s career in the police, Peter went quickly along the broad corridor to the little passage leading up beside the stage. He slipped through the small door at the end and out into the ballroom.

  The beaky-nosed, mottle-faced Mr Brown was still tirelessly rehearsing the beauties, who by now all looked chilled to the bone in their scanty swim-suits.

  ‘Right,’ Mr Brown shouted, his open check waistcoat flapping angrily, ‘we’ll do it again. And again. And again. Till we get it right. Okay, Charlie.’

  The worried piano-player, who so surprisingly attended Civil Defence lectures, brought his hands banging down on the chipped keys of his instrument once more. The familiar briskly seductive tune to which the girls paraded floated out again.

  Peter looked round. There were fewer people about now. The only one who could possibly be Teddy Pariss’s secretary was a little, quite elderly woman sitting near, but not with, the judges. There was more than a little pointedness in the way she dissociated herself from the beauty queens’ sponsors hovering anxiously around.

  ‘Now look at it this way,’ a chubby young man with rimless spectacles was saying to one of the judges as Peter went by, ‘look at it our way. That girl, Nine, has cost us a lot of money. Well, naturally, we want to see a return for that investment. Now, how about discussing the whole thing over dinner before the show?’

  Peter never learnt whether the judge succumbed to the bait because at that moment the little sharp-eyed woman rose with a jerk to her feet and came up to him.

  ‘Yes?’ she said. ‘Can I help you?’

  The phrase was formal.

  ‘Perhaps you can,’ Peter answered nevertheless. ‘I’m looking for Mr Pariss’s secretary.’

  An instant comprehension came into her eyes.

  ‘You’re the police,’ she said in a very quiet voice.

  Peter had hoped that in his smart civvies he did not look quite so much a constable. He was also a little surprised that this neat little spare-fleshed woman seemed to know why there should be policemen about. But a moment’s look at those keen eyes told him that what Mr Brown knew she would know too. Within about five seconds.

  ‘I’m from Superintendent Ironside,’ he said to her. ‘He asked if you’d have a word with him. You are Mr Pariss’s secretary?’

  ‘I was.’

  Her flint eyes did not flicker behind the bright spectacles.

  ‘Then you know what it is he wants,’ Peter said.

  ‘Certainly. Mr Brown told me. He needed moral support.’

  The exuberant Teddy Pariss’s unexuberant secretary followed Peter primly back to the manager’s office where the superintendent waited.

  ‘I don’t think I know your name,’ Ironside began with proper formality.

  ‘Stitchford, Miss Daisy Stitchford.’

  ‘Won’t you sit down, Miss Stitchford?’

  She sat on the chair Bert Mullens had occupied. But pulled it into the table, squarely and neatly.

  ‘You’ve been Mr Pariss’s secretary a long time?’ Ironside began unexpectedly.

  ‘Yes,’ she answered.

  ‘So you would know a good deal about his business?’

  ‘I know what a secretary knows.’

  Ironside smiled.

  ‘Then you know everything.’

  ‘But I certainly won’t tell everything.’

  There was a healthy sharpness in her tone like unsugared rhubarb.

  Ironside’s eyebrows shot up.

  ‘But, my dear Miss Stitchford, who ever suggested that you should?’

  ‘Just because Mr Pariss is dead,’ Daisy Stitchford said, ‘it doesn’t mean that everything he ever did can be poked and pried into just like that. He had associates. There is a lot of money involved in the business.’

  ‘Ah, associates.’

  ‘Business associates. Merchant banks who financed him.’

  ‘And a merchant bank would hardly undertake to eliminate an unsatisfactory partner in quite the way Mr Pariss was eliminated. No, I understand that.’

  ‘But a merchant bank is hardly going to be pleased to lose the very considerable sum invested in the Miss Valentine enterprise,’ Daisy Stitchford said.

  Ironside looked surprised. Only a little surprised. But then he was a man who was not surprised easily.

  ‘So even when it comes out about Mr Pariss’s unfortunate end the show will go on?’ he said.

  ‘Exactly.’

  Miss Stitchford’s lips closed on the word like a trap.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ironside reflectively, ‘to tell you the truth, I wondered why some excuse hadn’t been found to bring the whole business to a standstill. But it was convenient not to have the news spread too quickly.’

  Daisy Stitchford made no comment.

  For a time which grew into minutes Superintendent Ironside let her sit in silence.

  ‘You aren’t interested in why it’s convenient not to have the news spread too quickly?’ he asked at last. ‘You’ve no observations to make?’

  ‘No. It’s your affair. I don’t see why I should have anything to say about it in particular.’

  ‘So you’re keeping silent?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘No doubt it’s a habit of yours, not to say anything unless you’ve something to say?’

  ‘I’ve found it pays.’

  ‘You’ve learnt from experience?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you weren’t always so uncommunicative?’

  Daisy Stitchford looked at him through her bright spectacle lenses.

  ‘I can’t see that this has anything to do with the matter in hand,’ she said.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It doesn’t occur to you that we may have to inquire quite deeply into Mr Pariss’s past? People aren’t very often killed for no reason at all. They turn out to have enemies. The enemies have been produced by something in the past. You’ve worked for Mr Pariss for a long time. Your past and his go together.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘My dear Miss Stitchford, it’s your duty, you know. It’s everyone’s duty to help the police.’

  The answer came snapping back.

  ‘And I shall do what most people do, help them as much as it suits me.’

  ‘Yes, I was afraid you’d say that. It’s deplorably true. But I must warn you that what you are contemplating is very wrong. No doubt you think you can save yourself some unpleasantness by not cooperating. But I assure you you’re not right.’

  ‘I think I am.’

  Ironside smiled a little.

  ‘Oh, don’t mistake me,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean you would save yourself unpleasantness by cooperating with the police. I simply meant that there’s unpleasantness both ways so that you might as well help. This is the real world, you know.’

  Daisy Stitchford smiled a little, oblique, mirthless smile.

  ‘But nevertheless,’ she said, ‘I prefer to keep my own counsel.’

  Ironside leant towards her.

  ‘I give you solemn warning,’ he said. ‘It’s your duty to assist the police. If you don’t do so, it may be very serious for you.’

  Daisy Stitchford stood u
p.

  ‘That is all you have to say?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, good gracious me, no,’ said Ironside. ‘We asked you to come in here, you know, so that we could pin down as accurately as we could the time that this abominable attack on your late employer took place.’

  ‘If I can help with that, I will,’ said Miss Stitchford.

  She sat down again. Thin, desiccated legs in grim lisle stockings neatly placed together.

  ‘Well, now,’ said the superintendent, ‘you were with Mr Pariss during the late morning, were you not?’

  ‘The late morning? What time do you mean by that?’

  The superintendent pursed his lips in consideration.

  ‘Well, shall we say somewhere after one o’clock? I think that’s a fair description of late morning. You were with Mr Pariss round about then?’

  Daisy Stitchford looked suddenly and genuinely surprised. Flabbergasted.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I most certainly was not.’

  8

  Daisy Stitchford looked at the three policemen opposite her across the glossy table and ranged pink blotters over which the coveted title of Miss Valentine was eventually to be decided. She looked as if she had suddenly found herself as unclothed as the beauties rehearsing even at that moment for the contest to be held that evening, the feast of Saint Valentine.

  And the three policemen looked put out in varying degrees themselves. Detective-Constable Spratt gaped. Constable Lassington’s deceptively pink and white face wore an expression of almost total bewilderment. Even Superintendent Ironside appeared not altogether to have expected Daisy’s sudden and vehement denial that she had been with her late employer, the resourceful Teddy Pariss, within the hour of his demise.

  ‘No,’ Daisy said once more, ‘I was not with Mr Pariss round about one o’clock. Whatever made you think I was?’

  Ironside smiled with faint ruefulness.

  ‘You’ve no idea how confusing an affair of this sort is,’ he said.

  Daisy glanced at him sharply through her bright spectacles.

  ‘Did nobody tell you that Mr Pariss had hung up his “Keep Out” notice?’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ironside gravely, ‘we had learnt about that. But I wasn’t sure that it would apply to someone like you.’

  Daisy tossed her sparsely arranged hair.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘you don’t think I participated in what went on when that notice was up, I should hope.’

  ‘Perhaps I could answer that more easily if I knew what did go on,’ Ironside suggested.

  ‘You haven’t learnt much, have you?’

  ‘We’re slow, dreadfully slow.’

  ‘Then I’d better enlighten you as quickly as may be. When that notice was hung on Mr Pariss’s door as often as not he had a girl in there. That’s the whole truth and the simple truth.’

  Ironside smiled a little.

  ‘The simple truth,’ he said. ‘Well, it’s certainly simple. Even a policeman can understand that sort of thing. And as long as it’s the whole truth too, then we can begin to know where we stand.’

  ‘You can take it from me that it’s so,’ Daisy answered.

  She seemed a little less aggressive and Ironside looked happier.

  ‘I’ve been Teddy Pariss’s secretary for more than thirty years, and I know what goes on,’ Daisy continued.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ironside, ‘but you’re reluctant to tell us, on the whole.’

  ‘There are things which I can see you have a right to know, and there are things which are no concern of yours.’

  ‘Yes, so you said. And I suppose there are some things which you’d be quite glad to tell us anyhow?’

  Daisy’s bloodless lips closed tightly together.

  Ironside leant towards her again.

  ‘When was it that you did see Mr Pariss for the last time then?’ he asked.

  ‘I saw him when he left the ballroom at about a quarter to one,’ Daisy replied primly.

  ‘I see. And when were you last in his office along the corridor there?’

  ‘I was in there first thing in the morning,’ Daisy answered. ‘I brought the mail along from the main offices and left it for his attention if he got round to it. There’s always so much to do when there’s a big contest on.’

  ‘Mr Pariss took a personal interest in the actual show then?’

  ‘He certainly did. Everything had to stop for that.’

  The note of disapproval dropped like acid on to the carpet.

  ‘I see,’ Ironside said ruminatively. ‘And that was the only time you were in the office here all morning?’

  ‘No, I went in once more.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘A letter was delivered here for Mr Pariss. I took it and put it on top of the others, the ones I’d opened for him.’

  ‘A letter delivered here? Who was it from then?’

  ‘I don’t know who it was from. It was marked “Private” and naturally I made no attempt to open it.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘I simply took it from the doorman, and, as I could see there was no point in disturbing Mr Pariss just at that moment – he was telling off one of the girls – I simply took the letter and put it on his desk.’

  ‘Unopened?’

  ‘I said unopened.’

  ‘I’m sorry, so you did. It’s just that I didn’t see an unopened letter anywhere in the office just now. I wondered what had become of it.’

  ‘I can’t help you there.’

  ‘No, of course not. I dare say it’ll turn up. And thank you for all the help you’ve given us.’

  The superintendent rose courteously from his shiny leather chair.

  Daisy stood up to face him.

  ‘I’ve given you what help I consider you’re entitled to,’ she said.

  She marched out.

  When the door had closed behind her Superintendent Ironside looked at his two temporary assistants. They seemed to think some sort of comment was expected.

  ‘Well,’ Jack said, ‘either Daisy Stitchford or Bert Mullens must be lying, that’s certain.’

  Ironside smiled.

  ‘Oh, my good fellow. Lying? Certain? Well, which of them do you think it was?’

  ‘Mullens, I’d say,’ Jack answered doubtfully. ‘I mean, he’s the one who looks more like a liar.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ironside with unexpected reasonableness. ‘T’d agree to that. Bert Mullens looks like a liar. And quite often when somebody looks like a liar, oddly enough they are one.’

  He turned towards Peter.

  Peter licked at his upper lip.

  ‘One thing I can clear up, sir,’ he said. ‘That letter she mentioned. It was there all right. I saw it myself when I was in with Mr Pariss. Only he’d opened it.’

  ‘Confirmatory evidence on behalf of Miss Stitchford,’ Ironside said. ‘It looks as though you chose the right horse, Spratt.’

  ‘Yes, sir. But why should Mullens lie about hearing her in the office there? He was definite enough about it’

  ‘Yes,’ Ironside said, ‘I did at least make sure of that. I may be thinking half the time about that country cottage I’ve bought, but I do remember essentials.’

  ‘But why did Mullens lie then?’ Peter said.

  ‘We have no proof that he did, Constable,’ said Ironside.

  ‘But I thought you agreed that Miss Stitchford wasn’t likely to be lying. And she said she was just in the ballroom.’

  ‘She said that.’

  The two constables looked at each other. Peter spoke first.

  ‘You mean she may have counted on us not checking up on her, sir?’

  ‘Have you checked, Constable?’

  ‘Well, no, sir. Shall I? Now, sir?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Superintendent Ironside with immense gentleness.

  Peter left the judges’ room, walked along the broad passage behind the stage till he got to the little corridor running up to the door leading to the ballroom. As he stepped thr
ough the full blare of the rehearsal met his ears again.

  For the umpteenth time the tired old piano was nobly giving forth the tired old marching song of the unjudged beauties. For the umpteenth time the high-complexioned, check-waistcoated Mr Brown was shouting ‘Smile, dear, smile.’ For the umpteenth time the fat little frowsty man with the stop-watch clicked it and waited with pencil poised to record its verdict. At the judges’ table the huddled arbiters had sunk into deep apathy. The sponsors of girls fortunate enough to have them had given up urging their attributes and had retired to the pubs.

  On the catwalk the last of the girls teetered on high white heels along the path of doom and regained the safety of the shallow stage. She evidently felt that this particular trial flight had been conspicuously successful. She looked round about with a confident smile.

  Quietly the girl who had completed the circuit before her lifted up the spiky heel of her white shoe, swung round until it was poised over her more successful rival’s white toe, and brought the sharp steel spike down.

  Hard.

  There was an agonized yelp which momentarily attracted the attention even of the tired piano-player.

  ‘You bitch. You done it on purpose. When ever am I going to get another pair?’ shouted the attacked girl, a blonde with a slight tendency to rabbit teeth.

  The aggressor, a languid brunette secretly very worried about her complexion, looked at her contemptuously.

  ‘That the only pair you got with you, is it?’ she asked.

  ‘’Course it is. They cost money white shoes like this do.’

  ‘Well, if you’re not going to lay out a bit you can’t expect to get nowhere, can you? I thought everybody had sense enough not to wear their finals shoes for rehearsals. Stands to reason.’

  The languid brunette turned haughtily away.

  The blonde’s eyes, under her thick-rimmed eyelashes, burnt with rage. She lifted her right leg and in a flash brought her own sharp stiletto heel down in the direction of the brunette’s left leg.

  The leg was long and exactly the right shape, the shape the legs of the models in the magazines are. The brunette counted on her legs to do great things for her before the day was over.

  The blonde’s heel caught her calf at just the highest point of its gently swelling roundness. It missed hitting fair and square but did leave a satisfactory long graze running down towards the instep. There was no bleeding but within seconds quite an ugly blue-black mark appeared.