She’d just been trading her white lab coat for her Glen Plaid, when Sir Bernard had leaned into the dispensary and said, “We have another. Would you like to accompany me?… I must warn you, my dear, I’m told our friend has outdone himself.”
She had of course accepted the invitation, and by now had become blithely blase about the breakneck Spilsbury style of motoring, though James, in her lap, did seem rather alarmed, the terrier a seasoned passenger who usually insisted on sticking his head out the window. At the moment James’s snout was buried in her bosom.
On the way, Agatha posed a question she had been meaning to ask the pathologist for some time.
“These women,” she said. “How long does it take them to die at the strangler’s hands?”
“There’s a variable… and it would be no different for a man, suffering that fate.”
“And what is the variable?”
“Whether the victim is breathing in when the murderer’s grip tightens, squeezing off the air… or breathing out, at that moment.”
“What does the variable amount to?”
“Thirty seconds, if one happened to be breathing out-breathing in, fifteen.”
“Not terribly long.”
“No, my dear-terribly long indeed. It would seem, I should think, even at fifteen seconds… interminable.”
Sir Bernard parked behind Inspector Greeno’s Austin-although truth be told, the inspector could have walked to the crime scene, so close was it to his recently established special headquarters at the police station on nearby Tottenham Court Road. James waited in the Armstrong-Siddeley; an animal would hardly be welcome at a crime scene.
And that thought had barely passed through Agatha’s mind when an attractive teenaged girl exited the door up to the flat, with her arms filled by a Scottie terrier. Closed in behind the window of the parked sedan, James began to bark furiously, and the other terrier enthusiastically responded to the call of the wild.
The teenaged girl-whose expression, Agatha thought, might best be described as “shell-shocked”-hugged the dog close to her. A uniformed policewoman, who had exited the building just behind the girl and dog, was at the child’s side now, guiding her by the arm, speaking to her softly, the words drowned out by the pair of yapping animals. With James muffled behind the rolled-up car window, his barks seemed echoes of the other terrier’s.
Agatha paused, watching the policewoman escort the girl-a dark-haired, long-stemmed budding beauty-into the front passenger seat of a waiting police car.
Sir Bernard-as usual, minus a topcoat, in an impeccably tailored black suit with red carnation-was at the door to the stairwell, holding it open with one hand, the oversize Gladstone bag in the other. He looked at her anxiously, almost cross. “Agatha…?”
“That must be the dead woman’s child,” she said, hollowly.
“Most likely,” Sir Bernard said.
He had told her the basics of the affair on the ride over: the teenaged girl, home for a long weekend, her knocking unanswered, going to a neighbor, who fetched a bobby.
Agatha fell in line, Sir Bernard leading the way up a narrow poorly illuminated flight; this was hardly a “ladies first” situation.
The girl had instantly brought to mind the image of Agatha’s own daughter at that age, who had been similarly beautiful (and still was). Agatha could only hope this young woman was as free-spirited and independent as her Rosalind. Though she knew her love for Rosalind was reciprocated, the mother felt sure that, when the day came, her daughter would not suffer the terrible emotional upheaval Agatha had suffered at the loss of her beloved Clara.
Three doors shared the landing, where Inspector Greeno and a uniformed constable waited. The center door was closed-the common loo, no doubt; the door at the right was filled by a harshly attractive blonde who looked thirty-odd but likely was still in her twenties.
The inspector was interviewing the woman, who stood in her doorway smoking a cigarette; she wore an improbably virginal white-and-pink floral housedress and her rather startling hair was in pin curls. This probable prostitute seemed genuinely sorrowful, and was clearly cooperating with the inspector without the sexual fencing in which Ivy Poole, at the previous crime scene, had indulged.
Inspector Greeno said, “Miss Wick, my pathologist and secretary have arrived… if you’ll excuse me.”
“Shall I wait inside my flat, ’spector?”
“No, I’ll be with you again, shortly.”
The landing was getting crowded and the inspector sent the constable down to street level, to keep any interested citizens, and particularly the press, away.
The third door, the one at left, was open, revealing the flat within, which, while a single room, took up a fairly large area, though perhaps the sparseness of the furnishings furthered that impression.
A single bed was against the facing wall, on which a black eiderdown covered a protuberance that likely was the victim’s corpse. On a small table at the head of the bed was a porcelain pitcher and basin and a few towels. On the floor, at the foot of the bed, a scattering of female apparel included a green cloth coat with a rabbit-fur collar, a navy jumper, a frilly white blouse, a chemise, and a little blue pillbox hat with a gay red feather.
For such a frightful, seedy flat, these were surprisingly nice clothes, Agatha noted. Of course, they were the woman’s working garb. The spider, not the web, attracted, after all; but what terrible sort of fly had been summoned?
Depending on where one stood on the landing, the rest of the scantily furnished flat could be ascertained, for the most part. At the left was a small kitchen area with a table and counter with open shelving below with a few pots and pans; on the counter was a hot plate and a few stacked dishes and cups, but no cupboards above and no sink. At the right, a sitting area with two straightback chairs faced a small fireplace. The wooden floor had two drab threadbare rugs, one in the kitchen area, the other under the bed.
The tawdry little flat was more striking in what it hadn’t than in what it had: no bureau, no wardrobe, no sink with running water, no icebox. Where did she keep her clothes? Agatha wondered. Then she noticed the suitcases under the bed.
Inspector Greeno was saying to Sir Bernard, “I’m afraid I left the comforter in place, Doctor. Under no circumstances did I want to subject the victim’s daughter to the sight of her mother.”
“Who identified the deceased?”
From her doorway, Miss Wick chimed, “I did, dearie. He leaved her face alone, small favor.”
“Otherwise,” the inspector continued, “the constable did a nice job of not disturbing things. You certainly won’t find a shortage of evidence. The fiend used every damn thing he could lay hands on, on the poor wench…. Pardon my bluntness, ladies.”
“Not at all,” Miss Wick said, from her doorway.
Agatha said to the inspector, “Is there any doubt that this is the same assailant?”
But it was Sir Bernard who answered, “There’s always doubt. We make no assumptions before we’ve examined the evidence…. Ready for me in there, Inspector?”
“Photographers haven’t been here yet, Doctor. I wouldn’t remove anything, just yet.”
“Understood.”
And Sir Bernard and his massive medical bag of tricks entered the bleak flat. Carefully stepping around various items on the carpet near the bed, and avoiding the piled clothing, he knelt, opened the Gladstone bag wide, and withdrew his rubber gloves. He rose, put on the gloves like a surgeon preparing to operate, and was lifting the eiderdown gently off the corpse when Inspector Greeno stepped in front of Agatha and pulled the door shut to the flat.
Agatha looked with undisguised irritation at the inspector, but Greeno’s narrowed eyes and a gesture of the head indicated to her that this action was taken due to the presence of Miss Wick, and not herself.
Softly, almost whispering, the inspector said, “I’ll not deny you entry, Agatha, when Sir Bernard has completed his examination of the victim and the various evid
ence.”
“Thank you, Ted.”
“But I beg you to carefully consider whether you need expose yourself to such unpleasantness.”
“We’ve had this conversation before, Ted.”
“I know we have, Agatha. And I believe my respect for you has been made clear.” He nodded toward the closed door. “But that’s the work of a sexually deranged, homicidal maniac, in there. They pay me to have nightmares. You needn’t volunteer for this misery.”
Genuinely moved by his concern, Agatha touched the man’s sleeve. “Thank you, Ted. But I’m a big girl.”
A loud voice, nearby, interrupted the sotto voce conversation. “Excuse me, but I work evenings. If you don’t need me, ’spector, I could stand to get on with me life.”
Miss Wick’s sorrow had abated sufficiently for her to become annoyed by the inconvenience, it would seem.
“I do have a few questions,” the inspector said, turning to the attractive if harshly made-up blonde.
Both Inspector Greeno and Agatha took notes as the former asked several questions. Miss Wick again was cooperative and businesslike.
“The daughter didn’t know her mum was a working girl,” the woman said. “And I think Pearl turned to it, late in life… at least, late in hers, right?”
“I’m not sure I follow,” the inspector admitted.
“Well, she was a respectable woman, a landlady at a seaside boardinghouse. But the army come and evicted her-took over her place for barracks and such.”
Agatha had a shock of recognition-she’d been similarly “evicted.”
“She was a right good-looking woman, for her age,” Miss Wick said.
“How old was she?”
“In her cups one night, she admitted to bein’ forty-two. It says something about her, you know, favorable like, that at her age the men would still seek her favors.”
The fifty-odd Agatha decided not take offense. Young women in this profession lived hard and died young. Age, it would seem, was relative.
“You called her ‘Pearl.’ ”
“Yes. Her daughter calls her ‘Margaret,’ but it’s Pearl, on the street. Calls herself Pearl Campbell, or she did, anyway. That’s the name you’ll find on your books.”
“She’s been arrested?”
“Last week, you fellas was ’round ’cause of a row she was havin’ with a soldier. Right noisy, it was.”
The inspector exchanged glances with Agatha, saying to Miss Wick, “Who called to complain?”
“Well…” Suddenly Miss Wick seemed embarrassed. “I denied it, when she accused me… I told her it musta been them in the flat, other side of hers… but it was me, all right.”
“That’s… not exactly according to your profession’s code, is it?”
“I would never turn no girl in for making a few honest bob. Dishonest, maybe you’d call it. But I had a gentleman caller meself, at the time, and the noise got so bad, my guest got nervous and flew the coop.”
“I see.”
“Besides, maybe he’d a hurt her or somethin’, the bloody row goin’ on over there. So I was doin’ her a favor, really, callin’ it in-wouldn’t you say, Guv’nor?”
“Did the police come?”
“Yes-like I said, it’ll be on your books. Ask the bobby on this beat-he’s right downstairs!”
“I’ll do that.”
“They wrote the soldier up, too. Good-looking boy.”
“RAF?” the inspector asked, possibly because of Cadet Cummins, Agatha supposed.
“No. Canadian. Nice boys, the Canucks; but they don’t spend as free as the Yanks.”
“Was there any noise last night? Or this morning?”
“No. And I didn’t see Pearl at all last night. No idea who she was entertainin’…. It’s the Ripper, ain’t it?”
“You did your friend a favor. Allow me to do you one.”
“What’s that?”
“I won’t take you in on suspicion of soliciting, if you agree not to go out tonight.”
She frowned. “Don’t nick me, Guv. I got but one date tonight and he’s a regular. No harm done.”
“Miss Wick, you live and work in the middle of this monster’s stamping grounds. You stay in, till we get him.”
“Is that advice or a threat?”
“It’s advice. The threat is down on the street…. You identified the body, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“Do I need to say more?”
“No, Guv.”
“Thank you, Miss Wick. You go on inside, now. There’s a good girl.”
And she did.
“Will she listen to you?” Agatha asked.
“No. But she’ll stay with her regular clients.”
“The murderer might be a regular client.”
The inspector grunted a humorless laugh. “Precisely. One credible theory regarding the original Ripper had it that Jack was a habitue of prostitutes who caught a disease from one and took his rage out on many.”
“You’ll check on this Canadian soldier, of course.”
“Of course.” He sighed mightily. “Solving a murder is like doing a jigsaw-all you need do is fit the pieces together… but you have to find them first.”
She shook her head in admiration. “What you do, Ted, requires incredible patience.”
“It does at that. Real policework is careful plodding, questioning, screening, sifting. Before tonight, our Ripper hadn’t left us many clues.”
“But now he has?”
“He may have. Sir Bernard will tell us. You’ll note at once that the fiend’s madness, his… blood lust, if you’ll forgive the melodrama….”
She smiled gently. “Melodrama is my business, Ted.”
He returned the smile, though his seemed weary. “Well, he’s accelerating in viciousness.”
“As did the original Ripper. Perhaps our man is a kind of ‘copycat,’ too.”
“I think he well may be. But these mutilations reveal a loss of control, not the execution of some master plan. You’ll see a small armory of makeshift weapons, in there-each potentially a carrier of fingerprints and other clues.”
When finally Sir Bernard allowed her to enter, he stayed in the doorway, watching her. Because the photographers had not yet arrived, the pathologist had not collected any of the evidence, merely made his observations.
The late Margaret Lowe lay stiff and naked on the cheap cotton-covered divan, which was heavily, darkly stained with blood. Despite her condition, it was clear she had been a striking woman with a fine figure, very much the beauty her teenaged daughter would one day be.
Agatha prayed the daughter’s fate would be kinder.
The victim’s eyes were open wide and pink with burst blood vessels, her mouth open in a silent scream; around her neck a much-darned nylon stocking had been tightly knotted.
Thirty seconds to die, Agatha thought. She was screaming when she went… breathing out, then.
The mutilations were as promised-a shocking escalation of the previous murder: razor slashes on the breasts and stomach, and the lower part of her body stabbed and slashed, again and again. As a terrible final gesture, a candle had been employed in an obscene fashion.
She turned away with a shudder. Eyes lowered, she saw the “small armory” on the rug: a bread knife, a carving knife, a razor blade, a fireplace poker… all bloodstained.
A hand touched her arm and she started.
“I’m sorry, Agatha,” Sir Bernard said. “I thought…”
“I’m not feeling sick… just sick at heart.”
“I know. The objectivity of your medical training must come to bear.”
“Is this the world, Bernard? Is this the world we live in now?”
“Only a part of it, Agatha.”
“Evil… so evil.”
Watching as she went, so as not to disturb any evidence, she moved away from both Sir Bernard and the bed, pausing in the small sitting area by the fireplace. Her eyes went to the mantelpiece, where sto
od a cheap chrome-plated candlestick.
She moved closer, raising a finger like a child wondering if a burner should be touched. “Bernard… this is where he got the candle….”
“Very probably.”
“You can see the fingerprints!” She wheeled, excited. “You can see all kinds of fingerprints.”
Sir Bernard, whose focus had been on the corpse and the area surrounding, came to have a close look. “Cherrill will have a fine time with this,” he said, smiling tightly as he leaned in, keen-eyed.
Then the pathologist frowned.
“What is it, Bernard?”
“These are fingerprints from a right hand….”
She took a closer look, herself. He was correct. But then she smiled. “Yes, but when a left-handed person removes a candle from a candlestick, he holds the candlestick with his right hand…”
Sir Bernard’s eyes sparked. “And grasps the candle in his left!.. Very nice, Agatha. Very nice indeed.”
A voice behind them said, “Excuse me-Sir Bernard, I’m not sure what we should do about this….”
“About what, Inspector?”
Inspector Greeno looked almost as pale as the corpse. “I just got word from a motorcyle dispatch rider.” He held up the message in his hand. “We have another one….”
One of Inspector Greeno’s detectives, arriving with the police photographer, took charge at the Margaret Lowe crime scene. Superintendent Fred Cherrill himself had been called to take over, and to collect the fingerprints.
Sir Bernard, with Agatha and her terrier in tow, followed Inspector Greeno to Sussex Gardens, Paddington-in the same Edgware Road district as Montague Place, where the Hamilton woman had been killed. With the inspector in the lead, Sir Bernard could not careen wildly through the blacked-out streets of West London, for which Agatha was grateful (James, too).
The ground floor flat consisted of two rooms-a kitchen and a bedroom. Unlike Margaret Lowe’s spartan quarters, these were fully furnished digs, with modern kitchen appliances and the bedroom well and comfortably furnished, judging by the glimpse Agatha received before Sir Bernard closed himself off in there with the corpse of Doris Jouannet.
The London Blitz Murders d-5 Page 12