Mr. Bowker shot from his seat.
“Detective?” he said.
“Scotland Yard?” said the wife Agnes.
“Strange, but true,” said Derek. “Are you coming or are you not?”
“Coming, sir,” said Mr. Bowker, already half-way to the kitchen door and still with his bootlaces flapping in the breeze.
“’Arfaminute,” said Mrs. Bowker, shoving the steak and chips back in the oven. “I’m coming too. What’s happened, eh? What’s wrong? What’s she been doing now, eh? We don’t know anything about her. She’s only been here six months.…”
The Bowkers and Derek squeezed inside the lift. There was, literally speaking, a slight hitch when Mr. Bowker’s loose bootlaces became entangled between the cage of the lift and the outside world, but once this had been settled in a businesslike way by Derek’s pocketknife the cage shot upwards at a goodly speed and deposited the trio on the top flat.
“My name’s Wilson,” said Mr. Wilson. “Inspector Wilson, Scotland Yard.”
“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Bowker, trembling already.
“I thought you said Miss Gwen Astle was at home?”
“So she is, sir.”
“Prevaricator,” said Mr. Wilson tersely.
“He means you must have been mistaken,” said Derek, putting in a rough translation for the benefit of the Bowkers.
“Ain’t she in, sir?” said Mr. Bowker.
“She is not,” said Mr. Wilson. “Come in and see for yourself.”
The Bowkers filed gingerly into the hall, Mr. Bowker tripping over several of the odds and ends that were strewn over the carpet, and Mrs. Bowker’s eyebrows going a shade further up with every step she took.
“Gorblimyluvaduck!” said Mr. Bowker, using one of his favourite expletives.
“Well!” said Mrs. Bowker, finding her tongue at last and proving straight away that once the thing was found it took some losing. “Well! A nice state of things, I must say, and no mistake, I don’t think. If she imagines for one moment that I’m going to waste my time going round after her clearing up messes like this, then all I can say is she’s very far out. Look at that carpet…she can get down on her knees and have a shot at getting them ink stains out of there, for I’m blessed well sure I’m not going to do it. And will you look at that fireplace? Can you imagine me wasting a solid half-hour getting the bisom’s tea ready for her, and all the thanks and gratitude I gets is to see the whole thing scattered all over the blessed fireplace. Well, this kind of thing’s happened before, but it’s the last time it’ll ever happen, you mark my words. The very first thing to do to-morrow morning, Albert Henry Bowker, is to put on your coat and hat and go straight round to Mr. Tiffen and tell him what’s happened. I’m proper fed up with it, that’s what I am. Either that woman clears out of here or I do. If she thinks that I haven’t anything more to do than—”
“Quite,” said Mr. Wilson, edging in cleverly. “Quite so. It must be extremely annoying.”
“Annoying!” said Mrs. Bowker, who had several more suitable descriptions for it on the very tip of her tongue. “Annoying? It’s more than that, Inspector. It’s—”
“Quite,” said Mr. Wilson, once more damming the tide with difficulty. “If you’d be so good as to let me say a few words for a change—”
“That’s right, sir,” said Mr. Bowker, who had felt that way about Mrs. Bowker for the last forty-eight years. “Aggie, shut up. Let the inspector say what he wants to say.”
Aggie shut up, pursing her lips.
“When did you last see Miss Astle?”
“Eleven o’clock this morning, sir,” said Mr. Bowker.
“Just after four this afternoon,” said his consort.
“Going or coming?” asked Mr. Wilson. “I mean, was she leaving the flat then or coming into it?”
“Going out. She said she’d be in again for tea about five, and that she wanted supper at eleven-thirty. For two, of course. She was one of them women who don’t count it a decent meal if they has to eat it alone.”
“And you didn’t hear her come back at five o’clock?”
“No, sir.”
“Miss Astle had a key of her own, sir,” said Mr. Bowker, “and she knew how to work the lift herself and let herself in and out and all that. More often than not she used the lift herself or went up by the stairs rather than trouble me, me getting a bit on in years, as you might say, sir. Very good that way, was Miss Astle, I must say.”
“She was a brazen-faced, painted hussy,” said Mrs. Bowker, who apparently wished to hear no good spoken of Miss Astle.
“Tell me—how long has Miss Astle lived here?”
“Nigh on six months, sir,” said Mr. Bowker. “It was the day I was took right bad with my rheumatics that she came in, sir, I mind that fine. That was just before Christmas, sir. I mind that, because I got a letter from our Jackie, and he only writes us once a year, just a bit before Christmas. As near as makes no odds, sir, it must have been about the—”
“All right, all right,” said Mr. Wilson. “Thanks very much. Six months. That’s quite near enough. She’s always lived alone here?”
Mr. Bowker allowed his right foot to fiddle with the stray end of lace on his other boot. Mrs. Bowker pursed her lips a shade tighter. A moment before you would not have thought such a thing possible, but Mrs. Bowker was a grade A purser. The last vestige of blood vanished, leaving only a thin, grim line.
“Well?” said Mr. Wilson.
“Well, sir,” said Mr. Bowker, playing with his moustache in an embarrassed fashion and discovering a lone chip marooned on the outskirts, “well, sir, she lived alone and she didn’t live alone, in a manner of speaking, as you might say, if you follow what I mean, sir.”
“I don’t,” said Mr. Wilson.
Mrs. Bowker unlocked the lips.
“There’s no use hiding things what didn’t ought to be hid,” she said. “Especially not from the police, there isn’t. Inspector, it’s not for me to speak ill of nobody, however much trouble they may cause you in your life, what with expecting me to run after her night and day and clear up all her dirty litters and—”
“Yes?” said Mr. Wilson. “But…?”
“That Gwen Astle was one of Those Women,” said Mrs. Bowker impressively.
“Ah,” said Mr. Wilson. “Tut.”
“Mind you,” said Mrs. Bowker, folding her arms across her ample bosom. “Mind you, I’m broadminded. No one couldn’t say as how I wasn’t that. And I’ve had a fair bit of experience with these here actresses, and knows what to expect. But that there Gwen Astle was just a bit over the score, if I may say so, Inspector. If she’s had one man inside this here flat since she came here six months ago, she’s had millions.”
“Millions?” said Mr. Wilson.
“Millions,” said Mrs. Bowker. “Not that I objects for one moment to a tenant keeping company, and, as I says, you expects a bit of carrying-on from a nactress. But the length that woman carried it to—it gave the place a right bad name, it did. We had a very respectable party took the flat opposite this only last month—a Mrs. Bottomly, sir, what had been sent home from India on account of her husband and the rainy season, sir, and—”
“I’m really not interested in—”
“—And she was here less than a fortnight when she gave in her notice and cleared out. Mind you, sir, there wasn’t no unpleasantness, sir, Mrs. Bottomly merely saying as how it was the noise of the traffic in the street outside what didn’t suit her, but I knows perfectly well what the trouble was. It wasn’t the traffic in the street, sir. It was the traffic in here, sir. At all hours of the night and morning, may Gawd strike me down where I’m standing if I’m so much as exaggurating a single sentance.”
Mr. Wilson said “Tut!” again.
“She used to bring them back from the theayter, sir, after the show was finish
ed. Squads of them. Had Albert here and me running after them until two in the morning many a time, sir. ‘Get some sandwiches, Mrs. Bowker. Enough for a dozen, there’s a lamb.’ That’s the kind of thing we’d get thrown at us when it was high time any decent person was in their bed. And the times Albert here has had to go along to the ‘Hen and Chickens’ at the end of Chalmers Street and in by the back door and come staggering back laden with beer—”
“Aggie!” said Mr. Bowker in a worried voice. “The gent’s a detective, remember.”
“All right,” said Mrs. Bowker. “They can’t get you into no trouble for it—it was that hussy’s doing, and the man at the ‘Hen and Chickens’s’ stupidity for serving you out of hours. And the time they went away, Inspector—”
“When they did go away, Inspector,” put in Albert archly.
Mr. Wilson did not wish to “Tut!” again, so contented himself by clicking his teeth in a slightly shocked fashion.
“I’ve seen me going my rounds at a quarter to six,” said Albert, “like I does every morning and have done for the past thirty years and hopes to do as long as I’m spared, sir, and when I comes to collecting the boots and a-polishing of them—what d’you think, sir?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said Mr. Wilson truthfully.
“Outside her door, sir, as bold as brass, if you please…a pair of shoes what would never have fitted her not in a week of Wednesdays, sir.”
“Dear me,” said Mr. Wilson. “Tell me—in all this steady flow of male company that you and Mrs. Bowker talk about—was there any particular man?”
“No man what kept company with that there woman could be particular,” said Mrs. Bowker cleverly.
“Quite so,” said Mr. Wilson. “What I meant was—was there any one man who came here often? A habitual visitor, I mean?”
“Can’t say as how there was, sir,” said Mr. Bowker. “They came late on, sir, and they left Gawd knows when, sir. I didn’t see many of them. Not so as I’d recognize them or remember them, as you might say, sir.”
“You haven’t ever seen a tall young man—wearing perhaps a very light-grey overcoat and a black felt hat?”
“’Smatterofact, sir,” said Mr. Bowker, “now you come to mention it like, there was a bloke of that description called here this afternoon. But she wasn’t in then, so he just cleared off. It mightn’t have been the gent you mean, sir, of course; I couldn’t say for sure from the description.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Wilson, “it is rather a loose description, I’m afraid.”
“That’s the way as how I’d describe the lot of them, I would,” said Mrs. Bowker, pursing again.
“How?”
“Loose,” said Mrs. Bowker snappily.
“H’m…yes,” said Mr. Wilson. “Did either of you know Brandon Baker by sight?”
“Of course,” said Mrs. Bowker. “Everyone knew Brandon Baker. Poor dear. What a question!”
“Was he a…did he ever visit Miss Astle here?”
“Yessir,” said Mr. Bowker. “I’ve seen him come home with her quite a lot recently. Just within this last three weeks, it was, sir. I remember saying to the missus as how I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Miss Astle and Brandon Baker pulled it off one of these fine days. And the words were hardly out of my mouth when I read in the papers about him being shot.”
“And a tall, very thin man—grey hair, small grey moustache, hooky kind of nose, very thick eyebrows—dark, not grey, the eyebrows were. Ever seen anyone like that here?”
“No, sir,” said Mr. Bowker. “Can’t say as how I have. What about you, Aggie?”
“Don’t think so,” said Mrs. Bowker. “He must be about the only one I haven’t seen, though.”
“Well,” said Mr. Wilson, apparently satisfied, “thank you very much. Both of you. You’ve been a great help. It’s so nice to find people who aren’t afraid to talk. I’d like to have another look round, if I may. Don’t bother to stay up here, though. We’ll let ourselves out all right.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“If Miss Astle should turn up after I’ve gone, would you let me know? Central two-one-three-three-seven. That’ll get me. Or at New Scotland Yard—Whitehall one-two-one-two. And thanks very much for all your help. Good night.”
“Good night, sir,” said the Bowker family, and disappeared into the lift and down to a completely ruined plate of steak and chips.
“What d’you mean—thanks for the help?” asked Derek when they had gone.
“Points for Progressive Policemen, Number Seven—Politeness Pays,” said Mr. Wilson, lighting his pipe. “Always thank people for nothing. They may give you something next time. The Bowker clan don’t seem to have a very high respect for our Gwendolin, do they?”
“Less than the dust,” said Derek. “And probably quite right. I don’t hold with actresses who ring up newspapers when they change the colour of their hair. And that’s what Gwen did. What were all those deep questions about the blokes who’d signed the Astle visitors-book?”
“Didn’t you recognize the descriptions?”
“No.”
“Number one—the man who did a bunk from the Grosvenor Theatre that morning you were messing about with the lights. He wore a light-grey overcoat and a black felt hat, you remember. He may have been here this afternoon, according to Mr. Bowker, but I’ve no doubt there are quite a lot of men going about London in light-grey overcoats and black felt hats. Not much help there. Still, the fellow who was in the theatre may have been one of Gwen Astle’s boy-friends, and may have been the man who was looking for her this afternoon. Number two, Brandon Baker.”
“I gathered that. You mentioned him by name.”
“So I did. He definitely was one of the boy-friends. Number three, Hilary Foster. If the Bowkers are any good at recognizing descriptions and remembering appearances, the said H.F. was not on the calling list.”
“So what?”
“So nothing. But I’m beginning to think that Brandon Baker’s sudden end was the result of something happening to that old geometrical figure the eternal triangle. Perhaps the square on the side opposite the hypotenuse got a bit fresh with the angle at the base of the triangle, and the sum of the other two angles didn’t quite approve. Perhaps not. But I’m sure of this: if there was a triangle, angle A was Gwen Astle, angle B was Brandon Baker, and angle C was our friend in the light-grey overcoat and dark felt hat.”
“From the Bowkers’ chatter, it sounded more like a polygon than a triangle.”
“Maybe. Come on—let’s have another look round.”
The Astle flat was furnished just about as tastefully as a flat with modern tendencies can be. There were four rooms on the first-floor level, and a short staircase leading to two smallish bedrooms in the attic of the building. Mr. Wilson picked up the two sections of the alabaster statuette, rejoined them and placed the complete article carefully back on the hall table. It is surprising how much amusement can be got out of the simple things of life. A statuette broken and placed together the wrong way round is a fairly good example. Mr. Wilson, junr., collapsed in an hysterical fashion against the opposite wall. Mr. Wilson, senr., took his pipe out of his mouth and smiled in a whimsical way.
“It’s a very good thing our backsides are at the backside, isn’t it?” said Mr. Wilson, junr.
“Don’t be childish,” said Mr. Wilson, senr., “You take the low road and I’ll take the high. Have a good look round.”
“Does it occur to you that it’s usual to have a search-warrant to do this kind of thing?”
“It does. And I have. I always carry half a dozen, just in case.”
Mr. Wilson went upstairs to the attic bedrooms. The one which he diagnosed as Miss Astle’s own boudoir was in a state of eruption which made the downstairs part of the house look as if it had been recently spring-cleaned. A suitcase lay open on the be
d, with a fairly exhaustive selection of ladies’ undergarments oozing out of it and over the quilt. Mr. Wilson inspected them gravely, wondering why it was that the fair sex wasted so much time and money on garments that none but the owner would have the pleasure of seeing. Carrying the idea a bit further, Mr. Wilson decided that if all the Bowkers had said were true there might be something, after all, in what seemed such unnecessary extravagance. He crossed to the large triple-mirrored dressing-table, and toyed for a moment or two with the vast range of aids to Miss Astle’s complexion.
He opened a drawer. There were a few letters lying loose on top of a conglomeration of gloves, handkerchiefs, and other odds and ends. “My Darling…” the top one began. Mr. Wilson had no desire to read what anyone had written to their darling. He contented himself with a glance at the last line of the last page, and even in doing that his conscience gave a fairly hefty prick at the idea of snooping around a lady’s private correspondence. The way in which the letter ended made Mr. Wilson pull his nose thoughtfully for quite a minute—a sign, in Wilson, that the grey matter slightly above the nose was working pretty vigorously.
Mr. Wilson took a look into the other room. Peace, quiet, and order. He came downstairs.
“Anything?” he asked.
“Not a thing,” said Derek. “Except omelette and ink.”
“Right. Come on. I think I’ve seen enough of the leading lady’s lair for one night. Just a minute!…”
“What’s the matter?”
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