The London Blitz Murders

by Max Allan Collins

  The nightmare dated to childhood and centered upon a figure she had come to term “the Gunman,” a handsome French soldier with a powdered wig, three-cornered hat, and a musket, his eyes a haunting, piercing light blue. Oddly, the figure in her nocturnal fantasies had never done anything threatening, much less shoot the weapon at her: it was his very presence, specifically his incongruous presence, that frightened her.

  This dream figure of potential violence initially had turned up in a children’s party, where he would enter and ask to join the game. Later versions found him sitting at a tea table with an otherwise benign group of Agatha’s friends and relations; sometimes, in an eye-blink, her mother or sister or a chum would be replaced by the blue-eyed Gunman; other times she would be walking along the beach with a friend and then, suddenly, he and his weapon would be beside her, instead.

  Agatha felt strongly that there was no simplistically Freudian aspect to the dream—she had been very young when the Gunman dreams first began; and, anyway, she understood psychology well enough to know that if the figure had shot her or even threatened to shoot her, a sexual connotation might be drawn.

  But Sigmund himself had said it, hadn’t he? Sometimes a banana simply was a banana.

  Nor did she recall any storybook that she might have read as a child (or had read to her), whose vivid illustration of a soldier might have planted this seed of fright.

  The most disturbing of the dreams had been during her marriage to Archie. Even before their relationship had begun to deteriorate, she would dream of blue-eyed Archie—in his uniform of the Great War—metamorphosing into the blue-eyed Gunman. Chilling how little difference there was between the fantasy figure and the real Archie, how small a metamorphosis was required.

  Odd, wasn’t it? Even as a child she’d had an instinct that people were not always who or what they seemed, that even a friend or family member might become someone, something, sinister. Perhaps this was why she had been drawn to writing mysteries in which violence and menace lay beneath the humdrum surface of everyday living.

  “I hate to interrupt this reverie,” a familiar voice said.

  She looked up at her friend and neighbor, Stephen Glanville, a typically devilish grin on that Ronald Colmanesque, dimple-chinned face. Both dashing and professorial in a light gray tweed suit with dark gray bow tie, Stephen had some folded newspapers tucked under one arm, and was leaning on the chair opposite her at the small table.

  “Please join me, Stephen.”

  He did. “You looked perfectly glazed over, when I came in. I trust you’re lost in thought, devising fiendish plot twists for our Egyptian mystery.”

  Archaeologists were, by nature, a persistent lot.

  “Actually, I’m fiddling with the new Poirot idea.”

  “I thought you despised the little bastard—if you’ll pardon my French. Or in this case, Belgian.”

  “Stephen—please. Whatever I may think of the little monster, he is popular with my readers, and their opinions count more than mine…. Shouldn’t you be at Whitehall?”

  He glanced at his watch. “I’m due at the ministry in half an hour. I have time for a cup and a quick hello.”

  A waitress brought Stephen tea, and he said to Agatha, “I’m glad I found you here.”

  “It’s nice to be appreciated…. Why?”

  “Then I trust you haven’t seen the press?” He folded open the newspapers, and a particularly vile tabloid was on top: the front page asked, LONDON PLAGUED BY NEW RIPPER?

  “I don’t read The News of the World,” Agatha said, with prim disgust.

  “Someone at the Yard must be on the payroll. Several someones, judging by the various stories.” The other papers had also picked up on the Maple Church and Evelyn Hamilton murders, Stephen showed her, though none as blatantly as the tabloid.

  “Typically irresponsible,” Agatha said. “Two murdered women does not a ‘new’ Ripper make.”

  “No, but some ‘confidential source’ has shared the fears of Inspector Greeno and your friend Sir Bernard that these killings may mean a Blackout Ripper is among us. Sells papers.”

  “And creates panic. Disgraceful.”

  “I know how you feel about the newspapers, Agatha….”

  She said nothing.

  She trusted Stephen knew not to enter forbidden territory. Even after all these years, the discomfort, the embarrassment of a certain newspaper campaign remained a palpable presence in her psyche. When she had fled her problems with Archie and his philandering, seeking sanctuary at a health resort, the press had treated her “disappearance” as major news, and then, when she had turned up alive and well (considering), had accused her of staging a publicity stunt.

  From that time on, she felt a revulsion toward the press, a dislike for journalists and their undue, tasteless attention. She knew firsthand how a fox felt—hunted, the earth dug up around her, hounds snapping at her every step.

  “You are the rare public figure, Agatha, who deplores notoriety. Most authors seek publicity.”

  “The work is the work, Stephen. My life is my life. And my own.”

  “I know. I hope I have not overstepped….”

  “Not yet.”

  He sighed. Sipped his tea. Sat back in the hard chair. Folded his arms. Said, “That’s why I have sought you out, to ask you one last time to reconsider the foolishness of involving yourself with Spilsbury and these Ripper crimes.”

  “The press has designated them Ripper crimes. I do not necessarily think—”

  He raised a hand, stopping her in mid-sentence. “I bring these papers ’round only to let you know what you may be in for. If the press detects your presence, even on the fringes of this matter, you may be in for an unpleasantness for which you are wholly unprepared.”

  She frowned in thought. “Stephen… I admit to you that this had not occurred to me. Thank you for pointing it out.”

  He leaned forward, touched her hand. “Then you have reconsidered. You’ll stay well out of this.”

  “No. But I will take precautions to avoid journalists in the matter.”

  His face fell. “Agatha… tell me truthfully. Does Max ever win an argument with you?”

  “We don’t argue. We discuss.”

  “And do you always prevail?”

  “Certainly not. But then Max is my husband… you’re merely my friend.”

  He chuckled. “With precious little influence, obviously…. Oh, I must run.”

  He came around, kissed her cheek, and was gone.

  Back in the flat, in the library, Agatha sat in her easy chair, making notes on the Poirot; but Stephen’s concerns about the press, his warning, lingered.

  The telephone rang out in the hall, and she allowed herself to be interrupted; she wasn’t getting much work done, anyway. The phone was on a stand just around the foot of the stairs. The caller proved to be Sir Bernard.

  “I am taking you at your word,” he said.

  “I would expect nothing else.”

  “Well, our murderer has struck again. I’ve been called to the scene—over Soho way, not far from Piccadilly. Shall I come ’round and pick you up?”

  “Are you at the hospital?”

  “Actually I’m at my flat.”

  Sir Bernard lived with his sister Constance on nearby Frognal Street; he and Agatha were practically neighbors.

  “I could pick you up,” he was saying, “in a matter of minutes.”

  “Please do.”

  “Mrs. Mallowan… Agatha. I’m told it’s unpleasant.”

  “It’s a murder, isn’t it?”

  “Indeed,” he said, with an air of understanding.

  And they said good-byes and hung up.

  Agatha had already assembled a crime-scene wardrobe. She had given it considerable thought, actually. The weather was brisk if not brutally cold, but she could hardly wear a fur coat to a murder—this was not, after all, a first night at the theater.

  Nor did she wish to present either an overly femi
nine or schoolteacher matronly appearance. She chose a wardrobe that seemed to her suitably appropriate for detective work, and only hoped she had not inadvertently stooped to melodramatically theatrical effects.

  The suit was a mannish pastel beige affair, jacket with cardigan neckline and patch pockets, skirt pleated front and back. To the Glen Plaid tones-of-brown woolen topcoat—boyish-looking with its flap pockets and raised welt seams on the sleeves and in back—she added a mannish wide-brimmed light brown felt hat with darker brown band.

  The latter was enough like a man’s fedora to make her wonder if she might not be pushing her detective credentials; but it was the current style….

  Sir Bernard, however, wore no topcoat at all. In his crisp black suit with his characteristic red carnation in its buttonhole, he might have been the best-tailored undertaker in town. He seemed oblivious to (or perhaps contemptuous of) the chill weather.

  Agatha, who loved to drive and had a reckless streak herself, found the experience of being Sir Bernard’s passenger in his Armstrong-Siddeley sedan a surprising if not wholly pleasant one. For an individual who appeared the soul of moderation—she had seen no signs that he either smoked or drank—the pathologist took liberties with traffic lights and one-way streets that would have inspired fines and perhaps jail time for any mere citizen.

  That the streets were so relatively barren of vehicles made the journey only frightening and not terrifying.

  She attempted to slow his passage with conversation, but this had no apparent effect, and after one exchange on one subject, Agatha lapsed to silence.

  That one exchange, however, was significant.

  “Bernard,” she said, “I do have a concern.”

  “What is that, Agatha?” he asked, careening around a corner down the wrong way of a one-way street, pedestrian eyes only slightly wider than if their bearers had just heard an air raid siren’s banshee cry.

  “These murders,” she said, hanging on to a door strap, “have already attracted the attention of the gutter press.”

  “Unfortunately, yes. And not just the tabloids, I’m afraid. Deplorable that this ‘Ripper’ connection has been made. Creates a difficult atmosphere in which to work.”

  “That’s my concern, as well. I don’t know if you’re aware that I have a distinct aversion for publicity….”

  “I was not, but I’m relieved to hear it.”

  He slowed, barely, before running a STOP signal.

  “Relieved?”

  “Yes. I take you at your word that your interest in this case is scientific—background research. If the notion here was to attract the press to a ‘collaboration’ between the foremost forensics man and the world’s greatest mystery writer… well. I could not be party to that.”

  “I abhor the press.”

  “As do I,” he said, almost spinning the steering wheel, narrowly missing a bicyclist. “The newspapers have published an unending parade of lies and legends about me, exaggerating my career. I’m afraid I’ve developed an almost morbid aversion to publicity.”

  Had they not been flying down a West End street like an ambulance, this confirmation would have warmed the cockles of Agatha’s heart.

  “I have,” Sir Bernard continued, “made it clear that my participation as pathologist on call to Scotland Yard is contingent upon one condition: that I be protected from the press…. That shielding, my dear, will be extended to you.”

  “Wonderful! Bernard…”

  “Yes, Agatha?”

  “Do you by any chance have a siren?”

  “No.” He glanced at her, the soul of placid gravity. “This is not an official police vehicle…. Why do you ask?”

  “Nothing. Merely a point of research.”

  Detective Chief Inspector Edward Greeno was waiting for them on Wardour Street, standing before a gigantic Dali-esque eye painted upon the window of an optician’s shop. The inspector, puffing on a pool cue of a cigar, looked every inch the detective of film and fiction—a broad-shouldered bulldog in a snapbrim fedora and extravagantly lapelled trench coat.

  Upon seeing Sir Bernard and Agatha approaching, the inspector dropped his cigar—though it was only half-smoked—and quickly ground it out with his heel on the pavement. Then he met them halfway, introducing himself, bowing to Agatha, who presented him a hand to shake, man-to-man fashion; he accepted her hand, grinning at her, his expression rather foolish.

  “Excuse me for smiling under such conditions,” the inspector said, “but I have to admit, Mrs. Christie, that I am a big reader of yours.”

  Sir Bernard—standing with an almost absurdly oversize black Gladstone bag in hand, looking like an impatient doctor making a house call (which was the case, actually)—crisply corrected Inspector Greeno.

  “That’s her writing name, Inspector. This is Mrs. Mallowan. Her husband is the noted archaeologist.”

  The inspector nodded a curt apology, saying, “Mrs. Mallowan…. A lot of the boys read your books. We feel as though we could use that little Belgian of yours, from time to time.”

  “Inspector,” she said, “I am pleased and relieved by your attitude. I was afraid I would be considered a sort of fifth wheel. I can only assure you I will touch nothing and stay well out of everyone’s way.”

  “Just the mouse in the corner, eh? You may spend a good deal of time out on the landing, I’m afraid, as it’s a small flat.”

  “I will do as I’m told, Inspector.”

  Another grin creased the bulldog face. “Well, Sir Bernard vouches for you, and the Home Office has given out instructions to treat you royally… which for a fan like me will be a pleasure.”

  Sir Bernard said, “One small point, Inspector—Mrs. Mallowan has the same aversion to publicity that I do.”

  “I’m ahead of you, Doctor. I’ll tell you I was mad as hell… excuse me, Mrs. Mallowan… about this press leak. Last thing we needed was panic on the West End, over a so-called ‘Ripper’… and now, I’m afraid, we indeed have one.”

  Agatha frowned. “One what, Inspector?”

  “A Ripper. The doctor has described the other two murders to you, in some detail, I understand.”

  “He has.”

  “Well, this time we have a bona fide Ripper-style sexual mutilation.” Gently, tentatively, Inspector Greeno touched the sleeve of her Glen Plaid. “And I did want to warn you, Mrs. Christie… Mrs. Mallowan. This is pure savagery, it is. You may wish to spare yourself the—”

  “Inspector, I work with Sir Bernard at University College Hospital. My background is that of a nurse dealing with the combat wounded. Need I say more about my lack of squeamishness?”

  “Not at all, Mrs. Mallowan.”

  “May I take notes?”

  “You may.” He gestured with a thick finger to the flat above the optician’s. “Initially we’ll stay out on the landing. I’ve had some photographs taken, but my procedure is always to preserve the crime scene as much as possible, until Sir Bernard arrives…. Shall we go on up?”

  Inspector Greeno led the way, his voice echoing up the dim narrow stairwell. “Her name was Evelyn Oatley. Meter reader found her. Our assumption is that she’s one of the working girls here in Soho.”

  By this, Agatha knew, the inspector meant the woman had been a prostitute.

  A uniformed police officer waited on the landing. He said to Greeno, “I’ll just get out of your way, Governor,” and headed down the stairs to stand watch on the street, thus making room in the small space for the inspector and Agatha. In the meantime, Sir Bernard went on through the open door into the flat, where the electric lights were on.

  “The only thing I touched, Doctor,” the inspector said to the pathologist’s back, “was the electrical meter. Hope putting a shilling in the slot won’t do any harm.”

  Sir Bernard said nothing. He set his big Gladstone bag down with a slight clank. At first he was blocking the body, which lay sprawled on a divan-style bed in the single-room flat. Carefully stepping over a vast pool of dried blood,
the pathologist walked around the body, studying it, at times leaning almost close enough to kiss the dead woman’s naked flesh.

  Intermittently, Agatha’s view of the corpse improved until she had seen it all too well.

  The victim was thirty-odd, curvaceous and quite attractive in an apple-cheeked Kewpie-doll manner. Her throat had been cut—a wide, thin gash, like a terrible thin-lipped smile below her chin; and the lower part of the woman’s body, near her sexual organs, had been viciously slashed.

  “When we interviewed the electrician,” the inspector said to Agatha, his voice soft and conversational, “he seemed quite sure Miss Oatley was a prostitute.”

  “Do you think he was a client?”

  The inspector’s quick look showed surprise at this frankness on Agatha’s part. “I asked him that. He said no, even when I assured him no charges would be proffered and it would be kept strictly confidential.”

  “Had he ever spoken to the girl? Just a chat when he dropped around to read the meter?”

  “Yes. He said Miss Oatley was a nice kid, a bubbly sort, not at all down about her lot in life. He said she was a showgirl.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, she apparently danced at the Windmill, from time to time.”

  The notorious Windmill Theatre was home to a long-running nude revue whose manager boasted about staying open throughout the Blitz, as a patriotic duty to servicemen. It was one of the few theaters in London that Agatha had never frequented.

  “Looks like the old, old story,” the inspector said. “She was a showgirl, her looks started to slip, she took to the streets. Since the blackout began, prostitution’s gone up like a barrage balloon—all along Haymarket and Piccadilly, the girls stand with their torches pointing down, lighting their feet, so clients can find them easily.”

  “I’m sure it passes the time,” Agatha said dryly, “during a blackout.”

  Sir Bernard was kneeling at his Gladstone bag, which, unclasped, yawned wide; he was putting on rubber gloves.

  The door to the adjacent apartment opened and a slender, not unattractive woman of perhaps twenty-five years stood, her hand with its red fingernails tight around the neck of her cotton terry cloth robe; a red-and-white candy-striped sash hugged her narrow waist. Despite the robe, she was fully (and rather overly) made-up.