“The night I attended,” Agatha mused, “the house was so thin, Ivor stepped out and invited the public from the gallery to occupy the vacant seats.”
Larry nodded, causing his second chin to goiter a bit. “Poor kid said she’d been reduced to working the Windmill.”
Agatha raised her eyebrows at the mention of the home of notorious nude revues. “I didn’t see her perform there.”
The inspector, lightly, asked, “How about you, Mr. Sullivan? Did you see her at the Windmill?”
His hand, lifting the mug of ale, froze halfway to his fully open mouth; the half-hooded eyes opened all the way, as well. The effect was not flattering.
“Why, no,” Larry said. “I never frequent that kind of display. You see, I’m a happily married man, Inspector.”
“I rather think any number of happily married men have been known to frequent the Windmill.”
“Well,” Larry said, shifting his massive frame in his hard wooden chair, “I’m not one of them.”
“Did it occur to you,” the inspector said, “that Miss Ward, in mentioning that she’d danced in a nude revue, might have been… approaching you?”
The big man blinked; he looked like a confused owl. “Approaching me… in what sense, sir?”
“Mr. Sullivan, the Ward girl was a prostitute.”
But, surprisingly, this remark did not seem to unsettle the actor in the least. “So I gathered. A terrible thing, a pity, but some of these young girls, even formerly respectable actresses, down on their luck in these times… what with the servicemen flooding the city… well.”
“Did you work with the girl last night?”
He set down the mug hard and it splashed a bit. “What?… Inspector, I’m starting not to like the sound of this. Agatha, would you tell the inspector I’m a respectable thespian. I played Poirot, for pity’s sake!”
Not terribly well, Agatha thought, then said, “I don’t think the inspector means to imply anything untoward, Larry.”
“Certainly not,” the inspector said. “But you yourself, Mr. Sullivan, indicated you were hired to work with the new understudy. And Miss Ward was selected as the new understudy, yesterday.”
“Well, she was not informed of her good fortune,” the actor said. “I believe our director was considering Miss Ward and another actress. Her selection would have been announced today.”
“No offense meant, Mr. Sullivan,” the inspector said cheerfully. “But you can see how I might assume you and the understudy may have worked together, yesterday night.”
“ ‘Worked together’? Is that meant as a euphemism?”
“Working on her performance. On her lines. With the opening coming in just a few days… I’d imagine you theater folk labor at all sorts of odd hours.”
“We do,” Larry said, with strained dignity.
“By the way,” the inspector said, “could you tell me where you were last night? How you spent the evening?”
Again the eyes widened, and he looked toward Agatha, as if for help. “This is starting to sound as though I’m a suspect.”
Agatha smiled and shrugged. “I answered the same question, Larry.”
His eyes beseeched her. “Agatha-how can you be party to this insulting interrogation? Tell him I’m a happily married man. Do you honestly think I would betray my darling Danae?”
In truth, she did not. She found Larry a dear man, and the affections of his attractive, younger wife Danae surely constituted all the rotund actor required in his romantic life. She recalled fondly time spent with the couple at their home in the country, at Haslemere, Surrey, set as it was against Spanish chestnut woods-truly delightful (not a bad setting for a mystery, she thought, filing the notion away and moving quickly on).
Still, Larry’s wife was in the country and Larry was in the city. Further, thespians (as Larry would have it)-as much as Agatha adored them-were a breed unto themselves, and some of the most refined, elegant of them were alley cats, morally and sexually speaking.
She did not believe Larry fell into this class; but she could not say she would have been astonished to be proven wrong.
“Larry,” Agatha said gently, “if you would be more comfortable speaking to the inspector, out of my presence…”
“No! No.” The big man shook his big head. “I have nothing at all to hide. I dined with friends at my hotel, the Savoy… I can provide a list… and then spent the rest of the evening alone, in my room.”
“That’s where you’d have been between eleven p.m. and two, say?”
“It is.”
The inspector said nothing. Agatha could guess what thoughts were coursing through the detective’s mind: this alibi was essentially no alibi; slipping out, unnoticed, from the Savoy in the middle of the night (and back in again) would not have been at all difficult to accomplish.
The inspector wrote down the names of Larry’s dinner companions-a theatrical group numbering six, including Larry himself-and thanked the actor for his cooperation and help.
Somewhat flustered, Larry offered his hand to the inspector and, as they shook, said, “I certainly meant no offense. My apologies, if I appeared defensive. You caught me quite off-guard.”
“Not at all…. Oh, Mr. Sullivan?”
The actor was poised at the top of the stairwell, a foot dangling in midair; his expression reminded her of a startled deer in the woods. Poor dear.
“Would you mind sending Mr. Morris over? He indicated he should be free, by this time.”
“Certainly. My pleasure. Good day, Inspector.”
“Good day, Mr. Sullivan.”
As usual, Bertie Morris was impeccably dressed-his dark gray suit went well with the lighter gray silk tie and off-white shirt. The handsome features framed by a balding, round head were solemn, and his tone was equally grave.
“I wish I could help you, Inspector,” he said. “But I hardly knew the young woman. It’s an awful thing. So very sad.”
“My understanding, Mr. Morris,” the inspector said, “is that you arranged for the audition. You must have known her.”
“I did know her.” To Agatha, Bertie asked politely, “May I smoke?”
“Certainly.”
He withdrew a gold cigarette case and was lighting up as he said, “I had seen Miss Ward in The Dancing Years. She handled lines well.”
“And she was attractive.”
“Indeed she was.”
“You’re aware she was a… dancer at the Windmill.”
“Many talented girls are reduced to that kind of thing, Inspector. Must I tell you of the hard realities of London? It’s unfortunate. I was hoping to give her a… break.”
“You didn’t know her socially, then. You merely remembered her from a play you’d seen her in.”
He exhaled smoke, away from Agatha. His hands, she noted, were slender, artistic; he wore a number of gold rings, one with a diamond. The wartime trend toward austerity of dress had not taken with Bertie.
“I did know Miss Ward, slightly. In a social manner.”
Agatha glanced at the inspector, then said to the producer, “Bertie, if you’d be more comfortable without my presence-”
“No. I have nothing to hide.” A tight, humorless smile appeared as a small slash in the midst of the round face. “I have a reputation for, shall we say, fraternizing with showgirls and actresses. It’s exaggerated, but not entirely unearned.”
Inspector Greeno sat forward, slightly. “What was your relationship with Miss Ward?”
“I would say ‘relationship’ rather overstates it, Inspector. I happened to bump into Miss Ward in Piccadilly last week. We spent a social evening together. Dined. Danced. I heard the story of her sad present situation. And she asked if I might keep her in mind, should something turn up in one of my productions.”
“What night last week?”
“I believe Wednesday. My wife was rehearsing, and I’d had a long day, working on the production. And I just decided to take an evening for myself.”
>
“I see. And that one… social evening with Miss Ward… was the only night you’ve spent with her.”
Bertie’s eyes flashed. “I did not use that phrase-‘spend the night with her.’ We dined and danced during the blackout. Just two friends catching up a little.”
“Then you had known her previously.”
“Just in passing. An attractive girl in the theatrical game. It’s a small world. A kind of a family.”
“Then you didn’t go to her flat, that night.”
“Of course not.”
The inspector made a few notes, then asked, “And last night-you didn’t socialize with Miss Ward?”
“No. My wife and I dined at our club, Boodles, which is quite near our flat in Park Place. We spent a quiet evening together, both utterly exhausted from our labors. You may ask Irene for confirmation.”
Inspector Greeno did.
Irene Helier Morris-looking haggard and wearing almost no makeup, and yet still beautiful, if starkly so, her short dark hair disarrayed-sat in white blouse and dark slacks, as if she’d been out riding and fallen from her horse.
“I have only ten minutes, Inspector,” she said in that commanding contralto. She may have looked frazzled, but she was the epitome of self-control. “We’re between acts.”
Murders happened every day, Agatha wryly thought; opening nights were uncommon.
“We can keep this brief,” the inspector said. “For now.”
Irene sighed. “I don’t mean to be cold about it. But I didn’t know this woman. I saw her exactly once-yesterday, when she auditioned, and did a decent job of it.”
“She won the role.”
“Yes. But we hadn’t notified her yet.”
“Who takes care of that?”
“It’s a call Janet would make. My husband’s majordomo.”
“Speaking of your husband, Mrs. Morris-or do you prefer Miss Helier?”
“Mrs. Morris is fine. I have a stage name, just as Mrs. Mallowan in writing has a, uh… what is it called, Agatha, darling? A byline. Speaking of my husband… go on.”
“He tells us,” the inspector said, his tone bland, “that he knew Miss Ward, slightly.”
“Yes…. Might I borrow a cigarette?”
“Certainly,” the inspector said, and took a deck of smokes from his suitcoat pocket and lighted her up using a match from a Golden Lion matchbook.
“Why is it,” Irene asked rhetorically, “that one ‘borrows’ a cigarette, when there is absolutely no intention nor possibility of its return?”
As the inspector waved out the flame, Irene drew in smoke, held it, savoring it, then exhaled grandly.
“My husband has an eye for sweet young things… although I gather Miss Ward was neither sweet nor terribly young… if younger than I. But as I understand it, murder is a risk a harlot runs, isn’t it? And she was a harlot, after all…. Agatha, do I sound cruel?”
“You sound pragmatic.”
Irene nodded. “Thank you. That is exactly what I am, where Bertie is concerned. I turn a blind eye to his little flings. It’s one of the perks of being a producer. Casting couch, the Americans call it. And Bertie, well… he needs the reassurance. When he was a boy, he was slender and that glorious face of his attracted females like honey. Now that he’s lost his hair and gained some pounds and some years… what’s the harm, if he gets his ego stroked, now and then? As long as it’s not serious.”
“You were prepared,” the inspector said slowly, “to hire… as an actress for your production… a woman you knew, or strongly suspected, to have had a relationship with your husband?”
“Relationship!” She gave out a single sharp laugh. “I am the only relationship in Bertie’s life. I am the love and light of his life. I am sure he’s feeling somewhat neglected these days, tied up with the production as I am, and a night with a Nita Ward would not surprise me.”
“How did you spend last evening?”
“Our flat is in Park Place-near where you lived for a while, Agatha… around the corner from the Ritz, directly opposite Boodles. That’s where we dined yesterday evening. Then we had a quiet evening at home. Drank some wine. Listened to dance music on the radio. Sat by the fire… terribly romantic.”
The inspector pressed. “Might your husband have gone out, later, last night? Perhaps after eleven, even after midnight? After you were asleep?”
“I was up quite late, actually. Probably until two. It was all Mrs. Mallowan’s fault.”
Agatha sat forward, touching her bosom. “My fault, Irene?”
Irene exhaled smoke through her nostrils and smiled regally, eyes sleepy. “Completely yours. I was reading your new one-Evil Under the Sun? You simply must tell me who you based the actress on, darling. I have my theories…. Is there anything else, Inspector?”
“No. Not at the moment…. Shoo Mrs. Cummins our way, would you, Mrs. Morris?”
“With pleasure.”
When the director had gone, Inspector Greeno turned to Agatha and asked, “Do you think she might be covering for her husband?”
Agatha asked, “Do you think he might be covering for his wife?”
He let out a weight-of-the-world sigh. “Morris says he just ‘bumped’ into Miss Ward in Piccadilly. Do you believe that?”
“I do.”
“As he said, show business is a small world. A family.”
“Yes. An incestuous one.”
The inspector’s eyes widened.
The brunette secretary/assistant, Janet Cummins, was highly cooperative, but had little to tell.
“I dealt with Miss Ward at the audition,” she said, her blue eyes large and rather naive behind the lenses of the black-rimmed glasses, “and spoke to her in that regard, probably half a dozen times.”
“But you’d never met her before?”
“No.”
“I understand it was your job to call her and inform her that she’d landed the understudy assignment.”
“That’s right. Before we left the theater evening last, Miss Irene told me she’d decided on the Ward woman. I was to give her a call, next morning. This morning, that is.”
“And did you?”
“Yes. About ten o’clock. A police officer answered. I said I had news for Miss Ward, and the officer said Miss Ward was indisposed.”
Nicely understated of the officer, Agatha thought.
The inspector was asking, “Do you happen to know if your husband knew the Ward girl?”
“Gordon? I don’t imagine so. He certainly said nothing to me about it.”
The inspector flicked a look Agatha’s way, indicating he’d had the same thought she had: if the pilot did recognize the girl auditioning on stage, he’d be unlikely to say as much to his wife.
Agatha filled the awkward silence with a question: “Janet, are you able to spend many evenings with your husband? What with him stationed here in London.”
“Now and again, but lately, no. I’ve been so busy with the production, and the nights we haven’t worked all hours, I’ve been simply spent.”
The inspector asked, “How about last evening? Were you and your husband together?”
“No. We talked about it, but I was exhausted. The last days before opening night are punishing. We talked about going out tonight, too, but Gordie’s on fire duty.”
“What does that consist of?”
“Staying in his billet, keeping himself available, should he be needed.”
Agatha saw the wheels turning in the inspector’s eyes-he could go out and talk to Cadet Cummins tonight.
“Is there anything else, Inspector? I really should get back.”
“No, you’ve been very helpful, Mrs. Cummins. Thank you.”
When they were alone, the inspector asked, “What do you make of that, Agatha? Anything strike you strange about any of our interviewees?”
She shook her head. “I can’t say, really. How odd, to be faced with my friends and colleagues as if they were suspects in one of my fictions.”
“I’m not sure they are suspects. We have a spree killer here, a multiple murderer. What we’ve heard this afternoon might constitute the makings for suspicions were Nita Ward the only victim.”
Agatha nodded. “On the other hand, Ted, everyone we spoke to most certainly read at least some of the press coverage of the first two murders… the same ‘Ripper’ rabble-rousing rubbish we referred to earlier.”
“That’s true. But what strikes you as significant about that?”
“Well… I hesitate to say.”
“No, please!”
“It will sound foolish…. It’s a notion straight out of my books.”
“I like your books. Try me.”
“I was just thinking… if one wanted to commit a murder, and have it go undetected… what better way than to hide it among a series of killings by a madman?”
His eyes tightened and he began to nod, apparently taking her suggestion seriously, or at least pretending to. “The term the Americans use for that kind of thing is a ‘copycat’ killing.”
“Really?” she said brightly.
And Agatha wrote that down.
In Agatha’s tiny living room, the inspector sat on a comfortable chair while Agatha took a straightbacked one, with Stephen Glanville sitting on the sofa, arms outstretched along the cushions on either side of him, his legs crossed. He was the picture of casualness.
“With all due respect, Inspector,” Stephen said, with unhidden amusement, “this line of questioning indicates my good friend here has led you astray.”
Agatha sat up. “Whatever do you mean!”
Stephen chuckled. “She’s undoubtedly portrayed me as some overaged Casanova, constantly in pursuit of one romantic conquest after another.”
Frowning, the inspector said, “She’s done nothing of the kind….”
“Oh, I don’t mean to get your dander up, Inspector… or yours, for that matter, Agatha. But I am a married man, and I have had a few ill-advised affairs.”
Agatha rose. “Why don’t I step into the library, while you and Inspector Greeno continue…”
“Nonsense,” Stephen said, waving for her to sit back down, which she did. “I’m not going to embarrass anyone but myself… and I have a rather high embarrassment threshold, as you may have noticed.”
The London Blitz Murders d-5 Page 9