The Mannequin House

by R. N. Morris

  He decided to proceed discreetly but determinedly. The urgent priority was to seal off the Costumes Salon. He also sent Blackley off to find a sheet that could serve as an improvised screen for the window. Blackley had undertaken the commission with enthusiasm, apparently relieved to be distancing himself from the dead girl.

  At the same time, he positioned policemen at all the entrances, turning new customers away. Those that were already inside Blackley’s would be allowed to leave in their own time, without panic.

  Of course, the possibility had to be considered that the murderer was still inside the store. But it was unlikely. The body must have been put in position before the store opened; otherwise whoever put it there would have been seen carrying it.

  Macadam had in tow a short, corpulent man introduced to Quinn as Dr Prendergast. There was something rather seamy, if not unhealthy, about Prendergast’s appearance: a sheen of perspiration over his olive-tinged complexion; a rash of angry red spots around his nose and above his collar. He breathed heavily through an open mouth, wheezing asthmatically. Quinn felt he was one of those men who could only be improved by bathing. A pungent masculine odour emanated from him.

  The good doctor looked down at the body and sighed. ‘Another skinny one.’ He glowered out at the street, where Yeovil was negotiating with a fresh group of sensation-seekers.

  ‘I have asked Mr Blackley to fetch a sheet to rig up over the window,’ said Quinn.

  This prompted an approving grunt from Prendergast as he lowered himself to peer into the dead girl’s face. ‘Petechial haemorrhaging once again, Inspector. And this time I see we have ligature marks around the neck. Accompanied by deep, but very narrow abrasions. This one was strangled too, but with more force than the other girl, I would venture. Something sharper and more aggressive than a silk scarf caused these marks. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say . . . a wire of some kind, the way it has cut into her skin. I suppose you’ll be wanting a time of death. It always seems so important to you policemen. Impossible to be absolutely accurate, of course. Cadaveric rigidity is such an unreliable indicator.’

  ‘We know she died sometime last night, or in the early hours of this morning. I spoke to her myself yesterday afternoon.’ Quinn winced his eyes shut at the memory of the discussion that had taken place between them. He sniffed noisily and continued, ‘And her body must have been placed here before the store opened. Do you think you will be able to give us a more accurate time than that?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘In which case, I am more interested to know whether there is any evidence of recent sexual activity and whether it was consensual.’

  ‘How typical of you policemen. Always thinking the worst of people.’

  ‘I am only influenced by your report into Amélie Dupin’s death.’

  ‘Touché, as the French say. Though I hope you won’t mind if I wait for the modesty drapes before I go peering up her dressing gown?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Please do.’

  Prendergast continued his examination of the disposition of the body. ‘At least we know with this one that it wasn’t the monkey. That is to say, it’s hard to imagine how a macaque monkey could have conveyed her body here. Unless it had an accomplice.’

  Quinn said nothing. He found the doctor’s jaundiced flippancy uncongenial. It jarred with his dismay at Albertine’s death. He had to admit that he had not seen it coming. He was struggling to understand it as an event, let alone as a mystery to be solved. An uncomfortable question suggested itself to him: had his attempt to recruit her assistance somehow caused her death?

  Quinn had no doubt that it would be held against him by his enemies. But in truth he cared little about that. He was haunted more by the sense that he had failed Edna. He should have done more to protect her. It seemed obvious now, in retrospect, that her closeness to Amélie would have placed her at risk. But from whom? He was no nearer to answering that question than he had been when he first set foot in the mannequin house two days ago.

  He found Macadam taking a statement from the mannequin known as Marie-Claude. She had a guarded expression, as if she was trying to remain aloof from what had happened. From death, in other words. She watched Quinn closely as he approached. Her posture tensed as she realized he was about to speak to her.

  ‘Did you see or hear anything unusual in the mannequin house last night?’

  ‘Your pal’s already asked me that.’

  ‘And what did you tell him?’

  ‘Nothing. Not a dicky bird. I slept like a log.’

  ‘You didn’t see anyone in the house who shouldn’t have been there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s the same with all the others, sir.’ Macadam shook his head glumly. ‘No one saw anything.’

  ‘All right, Sergeant. Let the local boys finish off here. I need your help with something.’

  Quinn led Macadam out of the Costumes Salon and through the door that led to the warehouse. A motor lorry was backing into the loading bay, its engine over-revving, exhaust fumes filling the brown gloom.

  Quinn felt moisture brimming in his eyes. He put it down to exhaustion, after a night spent on surveillance. Or perhaps it was the pungency of the fumes, in which was mixed a tang of raw petrol vapour.

  The cheery whistle of a workman drew a knot of emotion to his throat. It seemed an inhumanly callous sound. Like birdsong, incapable of conceiving of suffering.

  ‘Are you all right, sir?’

  ‘We must take care, Macadam. This latest . . . spectacle is designed to confuse us, I think. Designed to present a greater mystery than is actually there. But it is not a mystery at all. It is simply an outrage. We must not be distracted by the outlandish aspects of the case. There is a very simple explanation to all of this, I am sure. People are lying to us – that’s to be expected. That’s why we must concentrate on the evidence. The facts. The facts are all there. Like the coloured fragments in a kaleidoscope. We must twist the kaleidoscope until a pattern appears. A pattern that makes sense.’

  ‘And what are the fragments we have so far, sir?’ Macadam gave an encouraging smile.

  They had come out into the dispatch yard. Plumes of stinking black smoke rose from a brick-built incinerator. Next to it a heap of rubbish was accumulating, ready for burning. Mostly broken crates and crumpled boxes, together with their discarded metal bindings. There was waste from the various workshops that were housed in the store, carpentry offcuts, oddments of carpet and sundry rags. Scraps from the kitchens gave it the characteristic ripeness of a rubbish heap. There was a large willow-patterned teapot on the summit of the heap. Quinn picked it up because at first he could see nothing wrong with it. Closer examination revealed that the tip of the spout was chipped. The teapot looked as though it had seen many years’ service; the inside was stained with tannin. He placed it carefully back on the pile of rubbish, in exactly the same place from where he had taken it.

  A high fence ran along the side of the yard next to the incinerator.

  ‘No one entered or left the mannequin house through the front door. We can be sure of that, can’t we, Macadam?’

  ‘Of course, sir,’ Macadam answered forcefully, as if he was affronted at the very voicing of such a question.

  ‘So, it’s obvious that the body must have been brought out through the rear of the house. No mystery there. It’s simply a matter of deduction.’ Quinn walked over to the incinerator. He scanned the fence, craning his head back to take in its full height. ‘The back garden to the mannequin house adjoins the yard somewhere along here, does it not?’

  Macadam nodded and pointed upwards. ‘You can just see the top branches of the tree in the garden there. The one that blasted monkey jumped from.’

  ‘Ah, yes, the monkey. I can’t help thinking that the monkey holds the key to this mystery, after all. Just as DCI Coddington first suspected.’

  ‘Do you really think so, sir?’

  ‘What was it doing in her room? How did it get
there from the Menagerie without the salesman knowing? There’s no mystery to this, Macadam. It’s simple enough. Glaringly obvious, if you subject the facts to rigorous deduction.’

  Macadam frowned deeply, as if willing himself to a point of understanding.

  ‘Naturally, the eye is drawn to what is most . . . eye-catching. We are overwhelmed by the sensational. It is a technique employed by stage illusionists. I believe it is known as misdirection. The secret, from our point of view, is not to be bamboozled. In terms of finding a solution – or of working out how the magician has pulled off his trick – the sensational aspects are the least important. And the least interesting.’ Quinn began to feel his way along the fence with both hands, applying varying degrees of pressure as he went. His manipulations resembled those of a doctor making a tentative examination of a patient’s abdomen. ‘There must be . . . some way . . .’ Quinn felt a panel of fencing shift beneath his fingers. He tensed his fingers and kept up the gentle movement. All at once, the panel swung stiffly away from him, revolving on a central upright axis. The climbing plants on the other side of the fence gave some weak resistance to the movement. But Quinn was able to push it open far enough to step through into the garden of the mannequin house. He had the sense that the plants had been loosened by many previous passages.

  The grass had still not been cut and was meadow-lush in places. The tallest stems had seeded. The border plants sprawled with a wayward abundance. The camellias were already out: great wads of pink littering the ground. There was a sense of wildness barely held back.

  Macadam joined him. ‘If Blackley knew about this . . .’

  Quinn nodded grimly. ‘Of course he knew about it. That’s how he came and went as he liked. He never used the front door. No wonder we didn’t see him last night.’

  ‘He claims he has an alibi.’

  ‘His wife, you mean? His wife and children . . . I dare say they will confirm it. People lie to us, Macadam. You know that.’

  ‘So how did he get into the house? Through the scullery?’

  The two of them looked up at the house. Glancing sunlight flared in the windows, shimmering blinds of soft fire suddenly drawn.

  Quinn’s curiosity was snagged once again by the door that went nowhere. One storey up, with no way of reaching it, since the steps that had once led down to the garden had long ago been dismantled and never replaced. ‘They said there wasn’t a ladder. Do you remember? When the monkey was in the tree? Blackley and Miss Mortimer both claimed to know nothing about a ladder. But there must be one here.’

  Quinn had the bit between his teeth now. He scanned the garden with a methodical rigour, seeking out irregularities, chinks in the innocent screen of appearances. But it was a strange regularity that caught his eye.

  Along a strip of the sprawling border the long grass presented an abrupt and very straight edge.

  Quinn got down on his knees, feeling the moisture of the grass through the material of his trousers. ‘They lied to us.’ He pulled it out – a simple wooden ladder that had been hidden away beneath a line of rampant shrubbery.

  At first sight it seemed too short to provide access to the door on the first storey. But Macadam helped him set it upright against the wall of the house. Quinn climbed to the top rung. Standing on that and leaning into the wall to keep his balance, it was just possible to reach the handle of the door that went nowhere. It could certainly be opened from the ladder. One energetic hoist up would be enough to get inside.

  Quinn nodded to Macadam with satisfaction and climbed down. ‘I think this proves Blackley had the means. But we must be careful not to jump to a premature conclusion. He may not be the only one who knew about the gap in the fence and the ladder.’

  ‘He may not have known about them at all,’ Macadam pointed out.

  Quinn gave his sergeant a startled, indignant look. ‘I have no doubt he will deny all knowledge of them.’

  He retraced his steps to the back of the garden and led the way back through the revolving fence panel into the dispatch yard.

  ‘If you wanted to dispose of a body, the means are here. That is the normal instinct of a murderer – or any criminal – to destroy the evidence. Not to flaunt it in the most public of places. If Blackley is the murderer . . . that aspect of the crime simply doesn’t make sense. His outrage at the presence of the body in his precious store appeared genuine. I am not sure he is such a proficient actor. That damned smile of his . . . He manages to hold it in place, but the effect is hardly natural.’

  ‘You are inclining to the view that someone else is the killer, sir?’

  ‘Regrettably, yes.’

  ‘Why regrettably, sir? Surely it makes no difference to us who the killer is, provided we catch him?’

  ‘I don’t like him. I have never liked him. Not from the first moment I saw him. I don’t like the way . . .’ Quinn’s words trailed off. He had caught sight of the warehouseman coming out from the loading bay. The man fixed him with a sullen glower as he hunched over the lighting of a cigarette. The still-burning match was thrown without regard to where it landed.

  The warehouseman lifted his head defiantly as Quinn approached. ‘You have a habit of throwing lighted matches around, don’t you? I saw you do that once before. It’s a rather dangerous habit, is it not? It could easily spark a fire.’

  The man blew out smoke. He stared Quinn in the eye without flinching.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘’Oo vants ’a know?’ Quinn remembered the man’s accent, the strange mangled growl of Cockney and something even more eastern, more exotic.

  ‘Kaminski, isn’t it?’ Quinn remembered now the exchange he had heard between the warehouseman and the driver. ‘Good day, Mr Kaminski. I am Detective Inspector Quinn of the Special Crimes Department.’

  ‘You looking for dat monkey? I ain’ seen ’im.’

  ‘No, I’m not looking for the monkey. I’m interested in the fence. Did you know about it?’

  ‘Vot abou’ da fence?’

  ‘There’s a way through to the house.’

  The man shrugged.

  ‘Have you ever seen anyone go through there?’

  ‘I ain’ see nobody.’

  ‘Mr Blackley? Did you ever see him go through this way?’

  The man spat.

  ‘How about his son? Mr Blackley Junior? You do know who he is, don’t you? Did you ever see him cut through here?’

  ‘I never see nobody.’

  ‘Any of the other men from the store?’

  The man’s expression remained blank. He did not seem dismayed or even surprised by Quinn’s persistence. He simply shook his head with detached patience.

  A sudden thought occurred to Quinn. ‘What about you? Did you ever go through there?’

  Kaminski evidently found this a hilarious suggestion. His laughter struck Quinn as somewhat forced.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘Vy I vant to go in dere?’

  ‘Do you know who lives in that house?’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘The mannequins.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You know then that a girl was murdered there on Tuesday night. You may have heard that another girl has been killed now. We believe her body was brought through here. Through your yard. Through your warehouse.’

  ‘I ain’ seen it.’

  ‘You must have seen something. What time is the yard opened?’

  ‘Depends.’

  ‘This morning, for example.’

  ‘Dis mornin’?’ The emphasis suggested incredulity that Quinn should be interested in this particular morning.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We open early dis mornin’. Saturday, ain’ it? We go’ a van in early, ain’ it?’

  ‘Early being . . .?’

  ‘Seven.’

  ‘You were here at seven?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Was anyone else here then?’

  ‘I’m always first.’

  �
��So you were here on your own?’

  ‘I ain’ see nothin’. I ain’ see nobody.’

  ‘Where do you come from, Mr Kaminski?’

  ‘Come from? I come from Whitechapel.’

  ‘No. What’s your country of origin?’

  ‘Polska.’

  ‘How long have you worked here at Blackley’s?’

  ‘I work ’ere ever since I come over. Thirty years now I’ve been at Blackley’s.’

  ‘Any complaints in that time?’

  Kaminski’s expression darkened. ‘Wha’ do you mean?’

  ‘Does Mr Blackley treat you all right? I’ve heard he can be something of a tyrant.’

  Kaminski concentrated on his cigarette, which for some reason had become suddenly fascinating to him. His expression was distracted when he met Quinn’s eye again, as if he had forgotten the question.

  ‘Well? I’d be grateful if you’d answer my question.’

  ‘You speak to anyone here. Dey all got complaints. Wha’ you gonna do?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mr Kaminski. What are you going to do?’

  Kaminski’s gaze became inward-focused. Then he looked up, startled, at a sudden cry that came from the entrance to the loading bay.

  ‘Ah, Quinn, there you are!’ DCI Coddington, in his herringbone Ulster, stalked across the dispatch yard. His face was set into what he no doubt imagined was that of a stern, implacable authoritarian.

  Kaminski took the opportunity provided by the interruption to squeeze out his half-smoked cigarette and tuck it behind his ear as he slipped back inside.

  ‘This is a bloody mess, Quinn!’ Coddington did his best to maintain his angry martinet persona.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ All at once, Quinn was overwhelmed by exhaustion. He found he had little patience for Coddington’s charade. Edna’s death was simply too upsetting to indulge in games. And if anyone had a right to take Edna’s death badly, Quinn felt it was he. ‘We didn’t see it coming, sir.’

  ‘You can say that again, Quinn. This doesn’t look good for you, you know.’

  ‘But no one saw it coming, sir,’ Quinn insisted. ‘Did you?’

  ‘Don’t be impertinent. I should never have let you talk me into the surveillance operation.’