The Lately Deceased

by Bernard Knight

  Diane almost hugged herself with excitement. ‘Read on, ducky, the best is yet to come, about halfway down the column.’

  Pearl read on. ‘“Several of the guests at the party had not been traced up to a late hour last night. The police have asked the help of the Press in contacting Mr and Mrs Colin Moore, Mrs Moore being the better known to television viewers as Pearl Moore. They are asked to contact their nearest police station as soon as possible, as they are thought to be able to give some assistance to the police in this investigation.”.’

  Diane smiled sweetly.

  ‘All that lovely publicity! I’m sure that Glama Toilet Products will just love having a possible murder suspect plugging their stuff on TV!’

  Pearl found her voice, weakly and plaintively.

  ‘I don’t know anything about it. Gordon and I found her in a wardrobe and he said she was drunk. Then this nurse girl says she’s dead. The doctor came to see her and certified a heart attack or something. How can they make all this fuss now? Anyway, I don’t want to be mixed up in it.’

  Diane laughed. ‘Are you going to stay in France all your life then, dear? You’ve got to go home sometime.’

  ‘Well, I’m staying here until this lot dies down. Gordon can sweat it out by himself. I thought there might be some scandal over this “she died of drink” sort of thing, but I never dreamed that the police would come into it.’

  Diane raised her pencilled eyebrows.

  ‘Very convenient, her death, from your point of view, isn’t it, darling? Only now it looks as if someone helped her on her way a bit. Wonder who she left all her money to. But I don’t suppose you’ve thought anything about that, darling!’ she added sweetly.

  Already Pearl’s resilient nature was recovering from the shock in the paper and she was thinking of the best way to turn it to her advantage.

  ‘On second thoughts,’ she said, ‘I think I ought to go back. It would look bad if I didn’t. Besides, you’re right about the publicity. It would be a wow to get back there right away. There would be reporters at London Airport. ‘“TV star flies in from Paris … dramatic help in murder case … I was a witness!” That should hit the jackpot!’

  And so, later that evening, thanks to a carefully timed phone call from Diane to a press agency, the drama of a beautiful screen personality arriving to further the cause of justice was played out in a lounge at London Airport amidst the questions of reporters and the flashes of cameras.

  At Comber Street Police Station, where Detective Superintendent Meredith and his colleagues waited, there was no glamour and no dramatics – just the same bare office, cream walls and brown paint, thick mugs on the corner of the desk and a hard chair for the mink-coated witness.

  ‘I’m very much obliged to you for coming back to London so promptly, Mrs Moore,’ began Meredith. ‘We had traced you to Paris through the emigration authorities, but it would have been tomorrow before we could have contacted you at your address over there.’

  Pearl put on her best camera smile for him.

  ‘Anything to be of help, Chief Superintendent,’ she said, primly lowering her dark lashes. Old Nick accepted his elevation of rank without comment.

  ‘We couldn’t get hold of your husband, either, for most of yesterday, but he turned up eventually.’

  Pearl’s smile faded a notch or two. ‘I’m afraid I can’t answer for his comings and goings.’

  ‘Quite. Now let’s get on, shall we?’ said Meredith.

  Pearl described the events of the party all over again, until Masters felt as if he had been there himself. She went on to tell of the lost earring and the finding of the body. Nothing she said was new or useful in any way.

  ‘Tell us about this barbecue, Mrs Moore, if you will.’

  She looked puzzled. ‘Barbecue?’ she asked. ‘Well, it was just the usual sort of thing. Gordon hired the outfit from a firm of caterers. The barman set it up in the kitchen. It looks like a charcoal brazier, but actually it’s gas. We all went in there about ten o’clock and cooked ourselves steaks and things. They were all laid out on a table with plates and garnishes and what-have-you.’

  Meredith leant forwards over the chipped teacups, looking directly into her oval face.

  ‘Around ten o’clock, you said?’

  ‘Yes, I would think it was about then.’

  ‘What did you use to hold the steaks to cook them?’

  ‘There were a lot of long skewer things with rings on the end for handles. They were lying on the table with the plates.

  ‘What did you do with the skewers when you’d finished with them?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I think I dropped mine in the sink. Other people left them wherever they happened to be. I remember seeing a few in the lounge; the barman collected them all up when he went around tidying up.’

  The significance of this morbid interest in skewers seemed suddenly to get through to her and she put a startled hand up to her mouth.

  ‘Do you mean that she died from one of those things?’

  Meredith studied her gravely. ‘We think it possible, unless you can recall seeing any similar instrument in the flat. A long knitting needle, for instance?’

  She shook her head wordlessly, her eyes saucer-like. After a muttered word with Stammers, Meredith turned back to Pearl.

  ‘Thank you again for coming to help us so quickly, Mrs Moore. We won’t want you again tonight, but please let us know where you may be found and don’t leave London again without telling us, please.’

  As soon as she had gone. Grey gave an appreciative wolf whistle under his breath.

  ‘There’s a motive walking around on its own two lovely legs, if you ask me.’

  Stammers grinned. ‘You should be past being a dirty old man, Syd. You can get too old for anything in time. But either she’s a damn sight better actress than she appears to be on the telly, or she really hasn’t got a clue about this business.’

  Meredith sat down heavily in the chair behind the desk.

  ‘She’s a hard unscrupulous hussy,’ he said, ‘but I’m inclined to agree with you.’

  Grey perched himself on the edge of the desk.

  ‘What did you learn about the will from the lawyers, sir? Was there any lead there?’

  ‘Well, she left a very odd sort of will. Most of the estate was made over to the husband, except for five thousand each for those Leigh characters. About half a million capital stays tied up in Canada. The husband can’t realise on that for fifteen years – it’s held in trust till then. Funny bit, that, unless she was providing for his old age.’

  ‘Afraid he would blow the lot on wine, women and song,’ Stammers said. ‘Though she didn’t seem to care what he did while she was still alive. Odd creatures, women!’

  ‘Do you mean that Walker doesn’t get a penny for fifteen years?’ Grey asked.

  ‘He gets five thousand a year now and the house at Oxford. The big money is frozen for fifteen years.’

  ‘Well, five thousand a year isn’t a bad sort of motive,’ said Stammers, thinking of his own mortgage and overdraft.

  ‘The Leighs’ ten thousand cash on the nail could be a better one,’’ Meredith retorted. ‘We all know of killings for a tenth of that amount. Moreover, they might have been expecting a lot more, for all we know.’

  ‘What about the skewers, sir, now that the lab has had a look at them?’

  ‘Any one of ’em could have been used.’

  Meredith sounded disgusted and with good reason. After Colin Moore’s remarks on the previous evening about the existence of the barbecue, they had traced the brazier and accessories to a firm of caterers to which the bartender had returned the outfit. Luckily, or so the police thought at the time, the set had not been issued again and the whole lot, comprising some thirty long skewers was turned over to Scotland Yard for laboratory tests. The tests had been a waste of time since each skewer had been washed and polished by the conscientious Edwards before being returned. The laboratory had done a preliminar
y test with benzidine peroxide for blood and got a positive in seventeen cases. The reason for the negative results in the remainder was evident in the discolouration of the metal that had come from overheating.

  It had been pointless to try specific tests for human blood, as the screening test could pick up only a few parts per million. To have proved that it was human, far more material than the quite invisible traces left on the smooth metal surfaces would have been required.

  ‘So that was a dead loss,’ summarised Stammers. ‘All I learnt from Pepper was that skewering beefsteaks is about the best way you can think of to confuse the issue, in a case of stabbing. Once a skewer has pronged a chunk of meat, it will give a positive reaction for ever after. The only way to kill the reaction is to heat the metal till it glows red-hot; that explains why some of our samples were positive and some negative.’

  Old Nick mournfully agreed. ‘If the killer had the sense to put the thing back in the barbecue afterwards, he would destroy every trace of blood. And if you ask me, that’s precisely what he did.’

  ‘Does Dr Chance agree that the wound could have been made with one of these things?’

  ‘Yes, he says the slight spiral flattening would probably leave no mark on the edges of the wound: but he says that it could equally well have been a round needle or something similar.’

  Stammers rubbed his eyes and looked pointedly at his wristwatch. Grey yawned and stretched his arms above his head in a paroxysm of fatigue.

  ‘Looks as if you gentlemen are pining for your beds. I suppose there’s nothing more we can do tonight, anyway.’ Meredith assumed his ‘Iron Man’ pose as he looked at his subordinates.

  ‘What’s the next move, Super?’ asked Syd Grey.

  ‘Tomorrow we’ll have a last look around the flat. If there’s still nothing there, he’ll have to have it back. Then we’d better have another go at him. He’s suspect number one, though a pretty poor one. If we keep at him, he may drop a clanger sooner or later. That goes for these Leigh people, too.’

  ‘What about all the others we had here? Do we give them another workout?’ asked Stammers.

  ‘No point in getting them all in again. We’ll work through the principal ones: the Moores; and Tate; and Eve Arden. Grey, what about that Prince chap? Did you dig up anything from records on him?’

  Grey shook his head. ‘Not a thing on him under any name, but I’ve put the word round over in ‘J’ Division. They told me he used to run an employment agency business in Hackney. Perhaps one of the boys over there may remember him from something where he didn’t get a conviction.’

  The meeting broke up, all possibilities having been thought of and discussed, and the detectives went their separate ways to suburban homes.

  Driving through the cold wetness of the night, Meredith pondered on the difficulties of this case. He was an introverted type of person, preferring to chew over his affairs in his own company rather than thrash them out in meetings such as the one he had just left. His grim personality was more an expression of his preoccupation. Like Stammers and different from Grey, he was a thinker first and a ‘doer’ second, though the action when it came, was decisive and effective.

  As he stared at the wet road glistening under the yellow lights of the sodium lamps, he thought long and hard about Gordon Walker and the other possible suspects in this frustrating case.

  Walker stood to gain a fortune, if not immediately, at some time in the future.

  Whether or not the prospect of being free to marry his mistress was a significant factor, Meredith was not able to decide. He rather thought not, as a divorce, despite the obstacles in its path in this particular case, was always to be preferred to murder. But all that money was a motive many times over and, in the absence of a better alternative. Walker must remain number one suspect for the time being.

  What about the Leighs? Again, money seemed to be the main motive, and a strong one. Even if they had nothing else to gain, ten thousand pounds meant a lot of dollars to a pair who clearly had large drink bills to pay.

  The other suspects were so free from motives that he couldn’t find any reason to incriminate them. Tate was just a business friend, the Moores were involved only via Pearl’s affair with Gordon.

  Eve Arden, Abe Franklin, Martin Myers? There was not the slightest thing to link them with the death. They appeared to have not the faintest hope of benefit from it.

  Meredith was worried, for he felt that he had missed something obvious. He had the feeling that something had already been said that he should have followed up, but he couldn’t call it to mind.

  It was something Stammers had said … no, it was Walker who had said it – that the murderer had got the wrong victim.

  The more he thought about it, the less attractive it seemed as a line to follow up. At least, with Margaret Walker as the intended victim, there was motive in the shape of a massive inheritance. But postulate another person as the killer’s target and the motive could be anything you cared to name.

  The pattern of marital squabbles and jealousies was clear to see – could any one of these have accounted for a quick stab in the dark? How about Pearl, for instance? She must have cast aside a few lovers in her time – Masters had said that Leo Prince was among them. And then there was her husband, but could jealousy in such people match half a million pounds as a motive? The superintendent did not think so.

  The turning to his home came into sight. He turned off the main road and gave up the problem until the next day. Sunday or not, he just had to get a lead in some direction, otherwise the Commissioner would be getting edgy.

  Meredith put the car away and went quietly into the house. Shortly afterwards, he slipped between the sheets alongside his sleeping wife and, with a sigh of contentment, settled for a night’s rest.

  He reached out to turn out the bedside lamp, and as his fingers closed over the switch, the phone shrilled alongside him. He snatched up the receiver.

  ‘Meredith,’ he said hollowly.

  ‘Stammers here. Sorry to disturb you, but the hospital called just now to say that Myers is worse and may not last the night.’

  ‘Huh! Have we got a man at the bedside in case he comes round and makes some dying declaration?’

  ‘Yes, but the doctor doesn’t give much for his chances of recovering consciousness. He’s got a clot on the brain or something. They may operate if he lives until tomorrow.’

  ‘OK Let me know if anything dramatic happens before morning. Not that his evidence will be worth a lot as far as I can see! What a hell of a case this is! Goodnight.’

  He dropped the phone back on to its rest and lay back in bed, praying for the rest of the night to stay quiet.

  Chapter Twelve

  Geoffrey Tate was in the utility room, cooking eggs and making toast when Gordon got up the next morning. Geoff brought in two plates of passable food into the lounge and the two men sat down to breakfast.

  ‘You crawled out?’ Geoff said. ‘I thought you would have a lie-in this morning.’

  ‘I can’t. It’s those damned policemen again. They want me round there at half past ten.’

  ‘But it’s Sunday!’

  ‘I know it is. God knows what they want me for, but I suppose they’ve got to make a show of doing something to justify their jobs.’

  Geoff ate his breakfast without relish, unsure whether his appetite had suffered because of Eve or because of the awful business of Margaret’s death.

  ‘I still can’t really believe that all this has happened, you know,’ he said slowly. ‘One goes through all the motions of eating and living, but to have a murder brought to one’s own doorstep defies belief. Such things only happen to other people.’

  Gordon, pale and looking years older, put down his fork and pushed away his plate almost untouched.

  ‘I’ve got such a mental load to digest that I feel I’m going mad,’ he said. ‘You know better than most how things stood between Margaret and me. I was content to leave things as they we
re. Pearl was creating about divorce, but I wasn’t so keen. Pearl has flitted around the flowers so much in her short lifetime and until I was certain that she meant to make a go of it, I wasn’t going to burn my boats. That’s the truth, though the police would like to prove otherwise. If they could, it would give them the motive they’re looking for. But they won’t solve this case by hunting for motives. To my mind, what happened is as plain as a pikestaff.’

  ‘What’s your theory then?’ asked Geoff, curiously.

  ‘Oh, let’s forget it, Geoff. The police aren’t interested, and it’s probably highly slanderous or something!’

  Geoff picked up the Sunday paper and turned to the report of the murder. There was a picture of Pearl, put in because she was the best-known of the people involved. The photo was one taken at the airport on the previous evening on her return from France and did full justice to her remarkable beauty.

  Looking at it, the thought crossed Geoff’s mind that Gordon Walker had a lot to gain from his wife’s death. He put aside this disloyal thought and started to read the account of the investigations so far, plus sensational embroidery added by Fleet Street.

  The reporter had been forced to dress up his meagre facts to pad the story up to a respectable size. Much of it consisted of potted biographies of those witnesses who were already familiar to the public. He himself had only a cursory mention as a ‘friend of the husband’ and as a ‘back-room boy’. He read with interest that Colin Moore had turned up on Friday night. The reporter gave no indication from where he had appeared. The spectacular arrival of Pearl at London Airport was given good coverage, along with the picture.

  How the blazes did she get to Paris so soon? he wondered. There was no mention of Myers being in hospital, presumably the news had come in too late, or perhaps the sub-editors had thought it of insufficient interest.

  Geoff had arranged to meet Eve for lunch and, as soon as he had finished breakfast and digested the main items in the paper, he began to get ready to go out. Meanwhile, Gordon had reached the bleak yard at the back of the police station, and once more made his way up to the shabby office on the first floor.