‘I’ve been feeling uneasy all the morning. Must be my Irish blood.’
Stephen was now positively exasperated. ‘I suppose you heard a banshee in the night too.’
Nigel was at the telephone. Presently he put down the receiver. ‘Scotland Yard are sending a team and a police doctor. Mr. Geraldine, will you instruct someone to be waiting for them? And tell Miss Wenham what has happened. I’ll tell Ryle myself.’
‘But we can’t just leave the poor creature there.’
‘No one must enter that room till the police come. She’s dead. There’s nothing you can do about her.’
Geraldine plunged out of the room. Nigel rang Basil Ryle on the internal telephone. ‘Would you come up to Protheroe’s room? Yes, it’s urgent.’ Nigel turned to Stephen. ‘Let me do the announcing, please.’
Basil Ryle looked strained and gummy-eyed, as if he had not slept. His voice had the sandpaper rasp of exhaustion. ‘What’s the matter now?’ he asked.
Nigel motioned him to the sliding window. With a puzzled expression, Ryle approached it and looked through. He was quite still for a moment: then his head bowed down slowly till the forehead rested on the window-ledge, as if in prayer.
‘No! No! Millicent! No! No!’ The almost inaudible gabble trailed away, and Basil Ryle slipped sideways to the floor.
‘Well, I must say,’ Stephen began to protest.
Nigel glanced up from loosening Ryle’s tie and collar. ‘What time did you leave here on Friday?’
Protheroe’s face seemed to diminish: the lips pushed in and out.
‘Are you completely inhuman?’ he said.
‘It’s the first question the police will ask you. Keep the answer for them, if you prefer.’
‘Soon after 5.15, I think. I had a train to catch.’
‘And was Miss Miles in there when you left?’
‘Yes. Typing her book, though, not cutting her throat.’
Basil Ryle moaned, as if in comment on Stephen’s edgy remark: his eyes opened and he sat up, shaking his head. ‘What on earth—? Did I faint?’ Then, as full consciousness returned, his face settled back into an expression of strained, drained misery, and he struggled to get up.
‘It’s no good, boy,’ said Stephen with unusual gentleness. ‘You can’t do anything. She’s dead.’
Ryle stared at him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last; and it was likely that he referred, not to Millicent’s death, but to his own past attitude towards Stephen Protheroe.
‘There is something you could do,’ said Nigel. ‘Run downstairs and ask Miriam Sanders for the key—’
‘But the key’s gone,’ Stephen said. ‘No, of course, she must have locked herself in. But—’
‘If you’ll look through that window again, you’ll see that the key’s not in the door. Of course, she might have locked the door and put the key somewhere else in the room. But I didn’t mean that key.’
‘Have you any idea what you do mean?’
‘The spare key of the side-door into the street. The receptionist keeps it. I’d like to see it, please.’
Basil Ryle went off on his errand. Nigel anticipated another protest from Stephen: ‘No. It’s best to give him something to do. The office is closed from Friday evening to Monday morning?’
‘Yes.’
‘No one here at all? Ever?’
‘No. Well, of course Arthur has a flat on the top floor. You know that.’
‘And what about Friday evenings? Staff leave at the same time as other weekdays?’
‘Yes. Some at five, the rest at five-thirty.’
‘Except those doing overtime?’
‘No. We’ve a strict rule there should be no overtime on Friday evenings. The partners often leave earlier than usual on Fridays, too.’
The internal telephone rang. It was Basil Ryle. Miss Sanders could not find the key of the side-door. It was not in the drawer where she normally kept it, nor in any other drawer.
‘Ask her when she remembers seeing it last.’
‘Thursday morning, apparently.’
‘Thank you. You didn’t borrow it yourself? No. Would you please ask the other partners if either of them did?’ Nigel put down the receiver. ‘That’s something else missing. Probably in Miss Miles’s handbag, though.’
‘Something else?’ asked Protheroe.
‘Yes. The other thing is the razor.’
‘The razor?’
‘Or whatever she cut her throat with. It’s not in her hand. And I don’t see it lying beside her. Ah well, we shall know soon enough.’
Stephen’s fine eyes regarded Nigel steadily. ‘You mean, whether it was suicide?’
‘Exactly.’
Nigel took up the telephone again, and had himself put through to Millicent Miles’s house. After a conversation with her maid in German, he told Protheroe, ‘She didn’t go home on Friday evening, though she’d ordered dinner. The maid was not particularly surprised—her employer often altered arrangements without letting her know: she assumed Miss Miles had gone off for the weekend. She tried to get in touch with Cyprian Gleed, on Sunday, but failed.’
‘So you think it happened on Friday evening?’
‘Looks like it. But there’s no knowing yet.’
A tramping of feet on the staircase. Nigel went out. Arthur Geraldine was leading a party of C.I.D. men headed by the saturnine Inspector Wright, who had recently been transferred from Division to H.Q., and the police surgeon. Wright raised his eyebrows at Nigel, but gave no other sign of recognition. Geraldine made the introductions.
‘I expect you’ll want a room to—er—work in. Interviews and so forth,’ he said. ‘You’d better have the reference library. Second door on the right.’
‘That’s very good of you, sir. I won’t keep you from your work any longer, then.’ Wright glanced at his detective-sergeant, pointed at Miss Miles’s door, and made a turning movement with his other hand. The man took out a bunch of skeleton keys.
‘I wonder could you spare us a few minutes downstairs, Mr. Strangeways?’ Geraldine’s courtly manner struck a queer note under the circumstances. ‘If there’s anything else you should require, Inspector, ring extension 4. That’s my number.’
Nigel waited behind for a word with Wright. As they talked, the sergeant got the door of the room open. A breath of very warm, unpleasantly stuffy air came out. The electric fire had been burning there all the weekend.
Downstairs, in the senior partner’s room, Nigel found a replica of the scene which had met his eyes on his first visit, five days ago: Geraldine at the desk, Liz Wenham leaning against the window, and Basil Ryle jingling the coins in his pocket on the other side of the desk. They might have been arrested eternally in a conversation-piece grouping—three publishers discussing the spring list or a reprint order or some author’s witless objections to his blurb.
‘This is a terrible business, Strangeways,’ said Arthur Geraldine. ‘Why should she do it? Why?’ And within the sacred precints of Wenham & Geraldine, his scandalised face visibly added.
‘It’s by no means certain she did do it.’
At the window, standing very still, her rosy-apple cheeks looking blotched now, Liz Wenham said:
‘You mean, it could have been’—the word ‘murder’ was too much for her—‘could have been done by somebody else?’
Nigel nodded. He noticed Ryle flinching. Geraldine buried his bald head in his hands.
‘First the libel trouble, now this,’ he muttered.
‘Oh, come, Arthur. That’s just coincidence,’ Liz Wenham was trying to be her brisk self. Coincidence, thought Nigel: what about coincidence now?
‘She’d never do it. Not Millicent.’ Basil Ryle’s tone was a strange mixture of agony and exasperation. Liz gave him a disapproving glance. She is shocked by naked emotion, thought Nigel: in business hours, at any rate: keeps her life in compartments. He realised he had no conception what went on in her other, private compartment.
‘I suppose we ought to
get in touch with her relatives,’ Liz was saying. ‘Is Cyprian Gleed the next-of-kin?’
The telephone rang. Geraldine gave them a rueful look, and became involved in a conversation with the caller about a print order. Drawing Nigel aside, Liz Wenham said:
‘We must have your help over this. Your professional services, I mean. Will you stay on for a while?’
‘Of course, if you want me to. But I’m afraid we’re at a dead end with the libel business. Unless it’s connected—’
‘Basil. Do you know Gleed’s number? Ring him up, like a good chap,’ said Liz.
Ryle stared at her intently, as if trying to understand a foreigner, then walked out of the room like an automaton. A secretary came in with a message for Liz.
‘Tell her I’ve got to cancel lunch today. I’ll ring her back. Oh and, Laura, ring Clausson and tell him he’s not got that second colour right yet on the Bellington jacket: it’s still too muddy.’
‘Yes, Miss Wenham.’ The girl tiptoed away, solemn as a communicant. Rumour of Miss Miles’s decease was already going the rounds.
Liz Wenham pushed back the grey hair over her temple. ‘Business as usual. Or do you think we ought to close down the office for today?’
‘No. The police will want to interview your staff.’
Arthur Geraldine laid down the receiver, took out a large silk handkerchief and mopped his face.
‘What were we saying?’
‘I’ve asked Basil to ring Miss Miles’s son. And Mr. Strangeways is going to stand by for a bit.’
‘Oh, good. I hope Basil will be tactful. It’ll be a terrible shock for—’
‘Shock treatment is what that young man needs. Let in a bit of reality. Ruined by his mother, of course.’
‘Ah, come now, Liz.’
‘Don’t be sanctimonious, Arthur. She was a poisonous woman, and you know it.’
Geraldine gave her a strange look, then plied his handkerchief again as if to wipe the expression off his face. ‘Extraordinary the way one’s mind works. I can’t help thinking how this will put up the advance sales for the Miles autobiography. I’m afraid you must be getting a very low view of publishers, Strangeways. We’re all monomaniacs, you know.’
Nigel’s polite murmur was drowned by an edgy laugh from Liz Wenham. ‘But even a publisher won’t arrange an author’s death just for publicity purposes, so you needn’t look so anxious, Arthur.’
‘Liz, that’s no way to be talking. You don’t seem to realise—’
The door opened and Basil Ryle came in. ‘Well, I’ve told him. He sounded as if I’d woken him from a weekend hangover.’
‘Is he coming along?’
‘I said there was no need to yet.’
‘Did you ask him when he’d seen his mother last?’ inquired Nigel.
‘Seen his mother last?’ Ryle vaguely repeated, his eyes wincing. ‘No. No, why should I? I’m not a policeman.’
‘Well, there’s no use standing about talking.’ Liz Wenham’s voice was brisk. ‘I’m going to do some work. We’d better get down to that leaflet for the Hosking memoirs, Basil.’
‘For God’s sake!’
‘Come along. We can’t have you going broody.’ There was compassion beneath the roughness of her tone. Basil followed her out meekly, his feet dragging.
‘I’ve got to ring our solicitors,’ said Geraldine. ‘Any news?’
‘No. I’m afraid it’s a washout.’
‘Well, I’m sure you’ve done your best.’
‘I dare say if we put in some heavy research—’
‘Research?’
‘Yes. I’ve a hunch that the secret of this libel business could be found, if we dug deep enough. We’d find it buried somewhere in the past.’
Arthur Geraldine raised his hand from the wrist, where it lay on the desk. ‘I don’t think we’d better go stirring up any more mud, Strangeways. Not in view of what has just happened.’ The senior partner’s voice was courtly but firm—the voice of Wenham & Geraldine regretfully declining to make an offer for an author’s MS.
Nigel went upstairs to Stephen Protheroe’s room. Stephen was concentrated upon a typescript, undistracted apparently by the voices and shufflings in the next room, the flash-bulbs that lit up the frosted glass of the sliding window from time to time.
‘How long does this go on for?’ he asked, without looking up.
‘All depends. A few hours, at least.’
‘And then?’
‘They’ll take the body away for the post-mortem and start interviewing everyone.’
Stephen made a pencil-mark on the page before him. Then, in a resonant, thrilling voice that came oddly from so minnowy a man, said:
‘The bustle in a house
The morning after death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon earth.’
‘Yes,’ said Nigel. ‘But it goes on about “putting love away,” doesn’t it? Not so appropriate.’
After a pause, Stephen murmured, as if talking to himself, ‘What was her attraction? Horse teeth. A laugh like a football fan’s rattle. Mouth too big, heart too small. Yet she could get any man she wanted—any man. I suppose all-of-a-pieceness was her strength: the seamless garment of egotism: like a child’s egotism—yes, there was something innocent about it. And innocence can be the most unscrupulous, destructive thing in the world. Of course, she had vitality too. Incredible vitality. That’s the flame every moth goes for.’
‘I imagine her as rather a tomboy when she was young.’
‘Tomboy? M’m, yes, you may be right.’
‘Which doesn’t fit in with her own picture of herself as a downtrodden sensitive at the mercy of a drunken father and a sluttish mother.’
‘What? Did she tell you that? No—’ Stephen looked suddenly alive with intelligence—‘no, that’s the sort of romance she’d spin to catch some chivalrous, unsophisticated youngster, God help him.’
‘Her parents weren’t—?’
‘For all I know, they may have been fiends in human form. But I bet she gives a rather different account of them in her autobiography. Of course, she knew her market. The Millicent Miles fans would be terribly shocked if she undressed her dead parents in public.’
‘You’ve read the book?’
‘I was tempted to take a peek at it, compare the actual Miles with the so-to-speak presentation copy. But I—What the hell—?’
Protheroe gave a start as the sliding window was flung open and Inspector Wright’s sallow, sharp face looked through. Nigel introduced them.
‘You normally occupy this room, sir?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you tell me when this window was nailed up?’
‘Nailed up? How do you mean? It’s never been nailed up as far as I know.’ Stephen sounded quite annoyed.
‘When did you last have it open, sir—before today, I mean?’
‘Good lord, how should I remember? Friday afternoon, probably. Yes, I think Miss Miles opened it to have a word with me some time in the afternoon.’
‘And of course, you’d have noticed the sound of hammering, if it’d been done while you were still here.’
‘I imagine so.’
‘And you left the office on Friday at—?’
‘Soon after 5.15.’
‘I’m much obliged to you, sir.’ Inspector Wright gave a little sideways jerk of his head at Nigel, who at once went into the next room. It seemed to be filled with bodies, apart from the one lying on the floor, covered now with a mackintosh—plainclothes men, each going about his task, separate and preoccupied, like people playing treasure-hunt at a party. The blinds were up, and the window open: it was difficult to keep one’s eyes off the blood patches on the floor, glistening and rust-red.
Inspector Wright drew a forefinger across his throat, from ear to ear. ‘Murder. No weapon. Door-key gone. We’ll have a talk presently, Mr. Strangeways. Just take a look at these marks: they’re recently made.’ He indicated two holes in the f
rame and surround of the sliding window. ‘Staple driven in to fasten the window shut, looks like. Why?’
Nigel was not unaccustomed to Wright’s habit of keeping his subordinates on their toes in this pedagogic manner—asking them to explain what was already clear to him.
‘To prevent anyone looking in while the murder was being committed,’ he replied.
‘Yes?’ The inspector’s dark, piercing eyes were still expectant: his fingers beat a tattoo on the air.
‘Which suggests,’ Nigel equably continued, ‘that the murder was committed either on Friday evening, after Protheroe had left but while there could still be other people in the building, or was committed during the weekend and the staple driven in to make you think it had been done on Friday evening.’
‘Not bad. But have you considered why the staple should have been removed at all after it had served its purpose?’
‘You tell me—it’s your turn, mate.’
‘Assuming the murderer assumes we would not notice the marks it left, or wouldn’t bother about them, it’d give him a pretty alibi. Who’d ever kill the woman, with other people still in the building, liable to walk into the next room and take a look through the window?—that’s how he wanted us to think. Therefore, we’re meant to say, it must have been done over the weekend, which no doubt he spent a long way from here. Right?’
‘Possible. But there could be another explanation. How long d’you take to walk into this room and cut a woman’s throat? A few seconds, if you take her by surprise. You don’t, presumably, staple the window first. But why do it afterwards, unless you want to stay in the room for a while unobserved? And why should you want to do that, unless you’re going to get rid of some real evidence or plant some fake evidence?’
Wright nodded vigorously. ‘O.K. in theory. But all we’ve found so far is a few footprints in the bloodstains. Goloshes probably. Size 10. Quite smart.’ He made a flapping motion with one hand. ‘Wear a pair several sizes too big. Fox the police—poor dumb clucks. Then whip ’em off. They’d wash easily too.’
‘When did she die?’
‘You know these medicos. Not less than 36 hours ago. Not more than three days. Helpful. Wait for the P.M. my lad.’
‘She didn’t go home on Friday evening. And she hasn’t been there since. I—’
End of Chapter Page 9
