The London Blitz Murders d-5

by Max Allan Collins

  He huffed. “Surely you don’t suspect me of indiscretions.”

  So that was it: Larry was not worried that he might be considered a murder suspect, but that his lovely bride, Danae, might hear tales out of school.

  “Of course not,” Agatha assured him. “I really don’t believe the inspector has his eye on the St. James bunch at all, at this stage.”

  “You mean, because of the other two killings.”

  “That’s right. This seems a murder spree, clearly, and any thought that the Ward girl was someone’s murdered mistress has fallen by the roadside.”

  Larry’s eyes popped. “Is that what the inspector thought?”

  She touched the black sleeve of his tuxedo. “Larry, please. The inspector doesn’t think anything. Let’s save the melodramatics for the stage, shall we?”

  Embarrassed, Larry rode in silence for a while, then turned to her with a child’s little smile. “I would just hate for you to have a bad opinion of me, Agatha. I think the world of you.”

  “I’m sure you do, darling,” she’d said.

  The coldest of them was probably Irene Helier Morris. The actress-turned-director had traded in her mannish rehearsal togs for a lovely black gown that showed off a figure that managed to be willowy and curvaceous at once. Her makeup was perfection, her dark blue eyes highlighted beautifully, her lipstick a bold crimson.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t bring your inspector along,” Irene said, with a chilly smile.

  “I asked him,” Agatha said, realizing the woman had been trifling with her, “but this loathsome case has him working evenings.”

  In a rather premature display of celebration-the curtain had yet to go up, after all-waiters in red jackets threaded through the little party with silver trays of champagne in glasses. Irene plucked one off. Agatha did not-she did not indulge in alcoholic beverages.

  “If I didn’t know you better,” Irene said, “I’d think you pulled us into this wretched affair for the publicity.”

  “You do know me better.”

  “Well, there hasn’t been any press, it’s true. Don’t think I haven’t considered it myself-plays in this climate can use any boost they can get.”

  Not sure whether the director was trifling or not this time, Agatha smiled her most winning smile and said, “If you do turn this into a publicity stunt, my dear, neither you nor your husband need approach me again about producing one of my plays…. Excuse me.”

  “Agatha,” the director said, touching Agatha’s shoulder-she had already turned away, “forgive me. Opening night jitters.”

  Agatha turned and cast a sincere smile at the woman. “I understand. Do know that I think you’ve done a lovely job.”

  “It’s a wonderful entertainment. I don’t believe I could have mucked it up if I’d tried.”

  Now Agatha gave the director a smile to wonder about. “Oh, I’m sure you could have done, darling.”

  Leaving Irene with a confused frown, Agatha found Janet Cummins and her cadet husband, Gordon, standing rather awkwardly against a wall-obviously feeling the outsiders. He was a most handsome boy in his blue uniform, and Janet was a knockout, proving the truth behind the cliche of a secretary turned raving beauty by taking off her eyeglasses. Janet’s full-bosomed figure was well-served by a pink off-the-shoulder gown.

  “Well, Airman Cummins,” Agatha said and offered her hand.

  He took it and half-smiled. “I’m afraid I don’t know whether to shake this or kiss it.”

  “Entirely your choice.”

  He shook it and all three of them laughed lightly.

  “You are ravishing,” Agatha told Janet. “You belong up on that stage.”

  The producer’s secretary beamed and all but blushed. Her complexion was peaches and cream and her brunette hair was nicely curled. The thought that Airman Cummins would have any need to go trolling among streetwalkers, with this pretty, voluptuous wife at hand, struck Agatha as absurd.

  “I’m afraid,” Janet said, in belated response to Agatha’s compliment, “that my childhood ambitions to be an actress were quashed by a terrible strain of stage fright.”

  “I suffer the same malady,” Agatha admitted. To the RAF cadet, she said, “I’m so delighted you could get leave for this evening.”

  “Actually, I had picket duty again, but your friend Stephen Glanville, at the Air Ministry, arranged it for me. I have the whole night off to spend with Janet, don’t have to report in till nine a.m. He’s a true gentleman, Mr. Glanville is.”

  “He is indeed. He’ll be here tonight. I’m expecting him momentarily.”

  “I feel a fool, Mrs. Mallowan,” the cadet said, “not bringing a book for you to sign.”

  “Did you forget?”

  “Well… I thought it might be bad form, considering the occasion.”

  “Nonsense. I’ll fix you up at a later date.”

  His grin was infectiously boyish. “I’m so anxious to see how you’ve made this one into a play. The book ended so… finally.”

  “I warned you before, young man-I’ve changed the ending. I hope you won’t be disappointed. Perhaps you can give me an honest appraisal, after the performance.”

  “If I like it,” he said, “I’ll gush with praise.”

  “And if you don’t?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll gush with praise.”

  They all laughed again and Agatha excused herself, to respond to Bertie Morris. The round producer with the matinee idol’s face stood off to one side, motioning at her frantically.

  She joined him and said, “Why the semaphores, Bertie?”

  “I need a favor. The critic from the Times desires the briefest of interviews.”

  “Well, then, here it is: no.”

  “But Agatha…”

  “No. And if, at curtain, you try to ‘surprise’ me by requesting that I respond to the ‘author, author’ outcries with a speech, I will refuse… perhaps not graciously.”

  “Not a speech… just a few words…”

  “Bertie, must we have this conversation again? I cannot make speeches. I never make speeches. I won’t make speeches.”

  “But Agatha…”

  “And it is a very good thing that I don’t make speeches, because I should be so very bad at them.”

  Bertie’s expression of disappointment melted into a warm smile. “Well, I had to try, didn’t I, darling?”

  She returned the smile. “I suppose you did.”

  “You’ve written a simply wonderful play.”

  “I would settle for ‘good.’ ”

  The producer chuckled, but the warmth in his eyes seemed genuine. “Agatha, in your quiet way, you are the most difficult prima donna of them all.”

  “Bertie, you alone of the people I have called ‘darling’ tonight truly are… ‘darling,’ that is. And thank you.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “Well, for producing my play, for one thing, and selecting your lovely talented wife to direct, for another, as well as assembling such a fine cast in wartime. But also for being the only participant in those Golden Lion interviews, the other day, who hasn’t chastised me.”

  “Oh, that! I thought it was exciting. A police inspector asking questions about a murder-rather like one of your plays!”

  He seized a glass of champagne from a passing tray and moved on.

  Twenty minutes later, Agatha was sitting in her inconspicuous seat off to one side between her two extremely handsome escorts-Stephen Glanville and Sir Bernard Spilsbury.

  “Did you enjoy the ride?” she whispered to Stephen.

  His eyes widened, and he whispered back: “I’ll have my revenge one day, my dear…. Didn’t you invite our inspector friend?”

  “You’re the second person to ask me that. He’s working on the murders even as we speak.”

  Stephen’s expression grew serious. “It still troubles me, you in the midst of that grotesque Grand Guignol. Tell me, are you having nightmares?”

  “Not at al
l,” she lied. Well, sort of lied: the murder scenes had not turned up in her dreams; but the Gunman of her childhood nightmares had been with her every night this week.

  She turned to Sir Bernard. “Thank you for accepting my invitation.”

  “I had to miss a concert for this, you know,” he told her with a sideways glance that seemed vaguely reproving.

  Agatha touched her bosom. “Oh, dear no…”

  “Yes. It’s on the BBC this evening.”

  And he smiled a little.

  She chuckled. Those who considered Sir Bernard an aloof stuffed shirt didn’t know him very well.

  “I feel privileged,” he was saying, “to accompany the author to a first night. And as possibly the only human being in the British Empire who has not yet enjoyed one of your thrillers, I look forward to the experience.”

  Moved, she took Sir Bernard’s hand and squeezed it in thanks.

  Stephen looked past Agatha to say to the pathologist, “A word of advice, Sir Bernard-if you figure out the mystery, don’t tell her. Annoys the bloody hell out of her.”

  Agatha said, “Stephen,” sharply, but was amused.

  Also, he was right. Max had figured out the novel tonight’s play was based upon, and she had never forgiven him.

  The lights dimmed, and an expectant audience burst into applause. Bertie Morris came out on stage into the spotlight to welcome the first-night audience and Agatha did not hear a word of his speech, which wasn’t very long. She was nervous, as if about to go on stage herself.

  But she needn’t have been. The performance-by a splendid cast that included Henrietta Watson, Linden Travers, Percy Walsh, Terence de Marney, Allan Jeayes, Eric Cowley and Gwyn Nichols-was letter perfect; no corpses were up and around (at least no unscripted corpses) and the audience tittered and even laughed at her occasional dark humor, gasping in collective fright and surprise at all the appropriate moments.

  She was pleased. She liked the play and admired what Bertie and Irene had done with it. And the audience applauded long and loud, Agatha losing count of the curtain calls. At the end Bertie came out and introduced Irene, who bowed and spoke briefly; to the cries of “author, author,” Bertie gestured to Agatha in the audience and-reluctantly, terribly embarrassed-she stood and took a little bow.

  The audience rose to its feet-her first standing ovation! How wonderful; and the applause ringing off the rafters was sheer music.

  And Bertie, God bless him, had done no more than introduce her in the audience-no attempt to shame her into a dreaded speech.

  When the lights came up, she did stand in the aisle and speak to a number of audience members, and consented to sign programs, novels and autograph books. She did not mind speaking, briefly, one person to another, with an intelligent fan. And anyone who liked her work qualified as that. Around such friendly, ordinary people as these theater patrons, her self-consciousness and nervousness were blissfully absent.

  For that reason she became the last of the celebrity guests who would be chauffeured by Rolls Royce to the Savoy. Even the actors were able to remove their makeup and trade their costumes for evening wear before Agatha had finished tending to her adoring public (“Best you’ve written, dearie!” “First class-thumbs up, I’d say!” “V-signs for this one!” “Loved every minute!”).

  The caravan of Rolls Royces had to make several trips, and Agatha waited in the theater lobby, away from the glass doors, for her ride to come. The fuss, thankfully, was over. The street outside the theater was empty but for Janet Cummins and her cadet; Janet had been assigned to look after Agatha, as the rest went on, Rolls by Rolls, to the party in a private room at the Savoy.

  Only a handful of theater employees remained-even the ushers were gone; an assistant manager was tending to matters in the box-office booth. While she waited for her ride, she strolled back into the theater. The curtain was up, revealing the set of a lavish modern living room with balcony windows looking out on a painted sea.

  A question had been answered for her tonight.

  She had witnessed and heard the response of a wartime audience to her play, which was one of her most particularly bloodthirsty-seven murders and a suicide. And they had loved it-every blessed ghoulish minute of it.

  These were terrible times indeed-from the atrocities of the war itself to the current spate of West End sex murders in which she’d allowed herself to become embroiled.

  And never had the escapist fare she served up been more gratefully received, like much-needed nourishment. When the post-war world came, she would fit in just fine. She might make the books a little deeper, psychologically, to cater to a public not so innocent, as in golden days; and, thanks to her experiences with Inspector Greeno and Sir Bernard, she would take pains to make the police and legal procedures more accurate and realistic.

  But other than that, the “sausage factory” (as she thought of herself) would stay in business, thank you very much.

  Feeling as though a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, she walked back into the lobby and the explosion shook the building like a giant cannonball and threw her to the slanting floor, where she in her furs and finery went rolling into a corner between the box office and the stairwell, as the entire lobby caved in, the sounds of it beyond deafening, an avalanche of building materials raining down, sending up clouds of dust and powder.

  Someone screamed-not Agatha; a woman on the street, probably Janet Cummins. Dazed, ears ringing, Agatha pulled into the corner even more, as the ceiling continued to pour down in unceremonious chunks, stirring pulverized brick and stone and mortar into cloud upon filthy cloud.

  Then-a settling….

  She took stock of herself, and her situation.

  She could not stand-a portion of the ceiling slanted across, caught against the side of the box office, forming a little room four feet by five. She was covered in the filthy aftermath of the explosion, but did not seem to be injured. Using her nurse’s knowledge, she checked herself carefully, as the caved-in lobby continued to settle itself with groans and grating.

  Perhaps her ankle was sprained.

  Nothing more seemed wrong. She’d been flung to the floor and she’d rolled to a stop, but no bones were broken and she had suffered no concussion. Breathing was difficult, with the dust-filled air, and she covered her face with a handkerchief from the pocket of her fur coat, which had itself helped cushion her fall.

  So in that sense she’d been lucky.

  She could hear voices beyond the fallen slabs and wreckage of the former lobby, but could not make them out. No air-raid siren had preceded the blast, nor was one now cutting the night-that she would hear, despite the blockage.

  If not an air raid, what could have happened?

  And then, as she knotted the handkerchief around her face like a bandit, she remembered the rubble next door that had been the lavish Willis Sale Rooms, a favorite spot of scavengers and looters. Perhaps they had made an unintended discovery: an unexploded bomb.

  That would explain her current situation.

  She glanced overhead and saw that slanting slab, the remnant of the former roof that was her current ceiling, and it seemed to be shifting, ever so slightly, creaking like the ancient hinges of a door in a haunted-house film, spitting pebbles and grit.

  Beneath the handkerchief, she smiled bitterly.

  And so it had come to this: Agatha Christie (not Mallowan), the originator of so much mayhem, caught like a mouse in a trap, waiting for the ceiling to fall in and kill her.

  What a terrible thing it was, possessing a heightened sense of irony: the only thing in all the world that truly frightened her was the thought of being buried alive. She had avoided the air-raid shelters for this very reason, staying in bed with a pillow over her face.

  Well, she had no pillow here, did she? But she would remain calm. She would not give in to this phobia. She would not become a silly hysterical old woman.

  Examining the pile of rubble before her, roughly parallel to where the street wo
uld be, she got on her hands and knees and, still in her fur coat, began to dig her way out. She had no trouble for a while, feeling good about the effort.

  But then that slab ceiling shifted and dropped and she let out a little scream.

  The wall and other debris caught the slab, preventing it from squashing her, but that “ceiling” was only a few angled inches above her head, now. She was in a coffin. Buried alive. A Poe-like death for Agatha Christie…

  Praying (not for herself, for Max and Rosalind and any grandchildren who might one day be born), she kept at it, pawing at the rubble, clearing the way of little pieces, bigger pieces, and was making progress until she reached a larger block of sideways ceiling, not unlike the slab overhead. She could not get a grip on it; and had she been able to have done, she would not have had the strength to move the thing….

  Breathing heavily under the handkerchief now, she slumped and exhaustion seductively whispered in her ear, fatigue stroking her every muscle, bone and sinew: rest. Sleep. Wait. Someone will come…

  … death, perhaps.

  And the impasse before her, the slab of ceiling, moved, as if of its own accord.

  She could hear the grunt of a manful effort being made, and then that slab slid away, and for just a moment she had a glimpse of a face-the young cadet! — and the street…

  … and then more detritus rained down and filled the opening.

  But between the two of them, Agatha and her cadet savior, the way was cleared; another slab of ceiling provided shelter from the fragments above, making a passageway, and she reached out her arms to the boy and he grasped her hands and pulled her, ever so gently and yet firmly, through the aperture.

  He helped her to her feet, saying, “Mrs. Mallowan, dear God, are you all right?”

  She hugged the cadet and smiled into those boyish handsome features and said, “I have never been better… thanks to you, young man.”

  A sudden lurching sound behind them, a crunching and crashing of shifting wreckage, drew their immediate startled attention: the passageway through which Agatha had escaped no longer existed.

  But she did.

  She touched the boy’s cheek and whispered, “Thank you, my dear.”