“Thanks,” said Roger, and went out, brisk and alert. He collected his case from his office, and hurried down to his car.
It was then a little after eleven o’clock.
An hour later he approached the bungalow in Greyling Crescent, with misgivings which always came whenever a case involved a child. Most policemen feel the same but, partly because his own sons were still young, he was acutely sensitive. He had learned a little more about the Pirro child from Divisional officers, who were only too glad to hand the inquiry over to a Yard man. It was apparent that everyone saw this as a clear-cut job; husband-and-wife quarrel, murder, flight. From the Divisional Headquarters Roger had telephoned Cortland, asking him to put out a call for Pirro—an accountant with a small firm of general merchants—who might, of course, be at his daily job in a city office.
The bungalow was dull; four walls, square windows which looked as if they had been sawn out of reddish brown bricks, brown tiles and brown paint. It had been dumped down on a piece of wasteland, and the nearest neighbouring houses were fifty years old, tall, grey and drab.
But the front garden transformed the bungalow.
In the centre a small lawn was trim and neat as a billiard table. About this were beds of flowers, each a segment of a circle, alternating clustered daffodils, wallflowers, bushy and bright as azaleas, and polyanthus so large and full of bloom that Roger had to look twice to make sure what they were.
Two police cars, two uniformed policemen, and about twenty neighbours were near the front door. Roger nodded and half-smiled at the policemen as he went in, and was received inside by Moss of the Division, an old friend and an elderly, cautious detective, with whom he exchanged warm greetings.
“Our surgeon called the pathologist. He’s in the bedroom now—hardly been there five minutes.”
“I’ll wait.”
“Do you good!” grinned Moss. “P’raps you’d like to fill in the time by finding Pirro for us!”
“Sure you want him?” asked Roger.
“Oh, we want him.”
“Seen in the act of murder, was he?”
“Damned nearly.”
“Who by?”
“A neighbour,” Moss said. “The son’s with her now. For once we’ve got a woman who doesn’t get into a flap because we’re around.” Moss was leading the way to an open door, beyond which men were moving and shadows appearing to the accompaniment of quiet sounds. “She was taking her dog for a walk last night, nine-ish, and heard Pirro and his wife at it. Says she’s never heard a row like it.”
“I’ll have a word with her later,” Roger said. “How about the boy?”
Moss shrugged, drawing attention to his thick, broad shoulders.
“Doesn’t realise what’s happened, of course, and thinks his mother’s still asleep. Poor sort of a future for him, I gather. No known relatives. Pirro’s an Italian by birth, the neighbours know nothing about his background. The dead woman once mentioned that she lost her parents years ago, and was an only child.”
“Found any documents?” Roger asked.
“A few. Not much to write home about,” Moss said. “Ordinary enough couple, I’d say. Hire purchase agreements for the furniture, monthly payments made regularly. Birth certificates for the mother and child, naturalisation papers for Pirro, death certificates for Mrs Pirro’s parents; the dead woman was born Margent. Evelyn Ethel Margent. Age twenty-seven.” Moss pointed. “There’s a family photograph over there, taken this year, I’d say. The kid looks about the same.”
The photograph was a studio one, in sepia, and the parents and child were all a little set; posed too stiffly. The woman was pleasant to look at, the man had a dark handsomeness; she looked as English as he looked south European.
The child, unexpectedly, was nothing like either. He had a plain, round face, with a much bigger head, proportionately, than either man or woman, big, startled eyes, and very thin arms.
“Did you say you’d seen the child’s birth certificate?” Roger asked.
“Yes.”
“All normal?”
“Take a look and see.”
There it was: father, Anthony Pirro, mother Evelyn Ethel, maiden name Margent, date—
“What’s the date on the marriage certificate?” Roger asked, and Moss handed the certificate to him. “Thanks. February 7th, 1950, and the child was born October 1st, 1950.”
“Must have got married for love anyway,” Moss said. “They couldn’t have known for sure the kid was on the way when they got spliced.”
“No. Let’s have a look round,” Roger said, and still kept out of the bedroom.
He went into each small room and the kitchen, and everywhere was spick-and-span, except for the morning’s dust. For a small suburban house, the furniture was good and in excellent taste. Here was a home that was loved, where happiness should live.
The door of the bedroom was opened and the pathologist—who turned out to be Dr Sturgeon, another old friend—beckoned to Roger.
Death had not spoiled Mrs Pirro’s pleasant face, except for the dark, browny bruises at her throat.
Photographers and a fingerprint man were finishing.
“Well, Handsome!” Sturgeon’s smile was placatory. “You’ll want to know too much too soon. Better wait until I’ve done the PM.”
“All right, Dick! When did she die?”
Sturgeon pursed and puckered his full lips.
“Some time between eight o’clock last night and midnight.”
“Playing safe, aren’t you?” Roger commented drily, and studied the woman’s pale, untroubled face. He was hardened to the sight of death, in the young as well as the old, yet Evelyn Pirro stirred him to deep pity. Add the bright gaiety of life to her features, and one would see a kind of beauty.
“Any other injuries?” Roger asked.
“None that I’ve noticed yet.”
“General condition?”
“Excellent.”
“Any sign of another child?”
“No. You’re a rum ’un,” Sturgeon added, thoughtfully. “What put that into your head?”
“Go and have a look at the family photograph in the next room and also have a look round,” Roger advised. “That might give you some ideas. Then you’d better take her away.”
“Photographs finished?” he asked the youthful, red-faced photographer who had been standing by.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Fingerprints any good?” Roger asked a tall and sallow man who had a little dank, grey hair.
“Three sets.” The man nodded at the bed. “Hers, another set, probably a man’s, and the child’s.”
“Anything else?”
“No, sir.”
“Forced entry, or anything like that?”
“I checked the windows and doors,” Moss answered.
“Thanks,” said Roger.
“What I want to know is, why did it happen?” Moss said, suddenly. “Look at the house, and the way it’s kept. What makes a man come home and kill his wife and run out on his kid?”
“You couldn’t be more right. We want the motive as badly as we want Pirro,” Roger agreed, almost sententiously.
The morning sun caught his face and hair as he stood by the window looking out on to the back garden. There the lawn was less trim than that at the front, obviously because the child had been allowed to play on it. There were bare dirt patches beneath a metal swing, which showed bright red in the bright light. Roger studied all this, and considered the evidence of what he had seen and heard, only vaguely aware that Moss, Sturgeon, and the others had taken time to study him. He looked strikingly handsome, with his fair, wavy hair, and features set and grim just now, as if something of this tragedy touched him personally.
Then he caught sight of a movement in a garden beyond a patch of wasteland; brightness, a
flash of scarlet, and soon a woman, calling:
“Tony!…Tony!”
But she was too late, for a child in a red jersey had started to climb a wooden fence, the stakes of which were several inches apart, nimble and sure-footed. The woman hurried after him, tall, pleasant-faced, anxious.
“Tony, don’t fall!”
“I won’t fall,” the boy said clearly, as Roger opened the French windows and stepped outside.
At sight of Roger, the child stopped. The sun touched him on one side, and made his fair hair look silky and bright. His fair, round face was puzzled. One long leg was this side of the fence, and he held on to the top firmly with both small hands.
The neighbour caught up with him.
“Who is that man?” he demanded firmly. “Is it a doctor?”
“Tony, please…”
“Is it a doctor come to wake Mummy up?”
So they had not yet told the child the truth!
Roger felt quite sure that they should soon. It was false kindness not to, and it would probably shock and surprise soft-hearted people to find how calmly the child would take the news. Six was a strangely impersonal age, when such hurts could be absorbed without outward sign of injury.
“I’ll call you when the doctor comes,” the woman promised.
She was nice. Fifty-ish, with dark hair turning grey, a full figure, a navy blue dress. Her hand was firm on the child’s thin shoulder, and he turned away from Roger and climbed down.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not a doctor,” Roger said, and won a grave scrutiny.
Then Moss called out quietly from the French windows.
“I’ll have to go,” Roger went on gravely. “Goodbye for now.”
“Goodbye, sir!” the child said, and Roger turned away thoughtfully and went to Moss.
“What’s on?”
“We’ve just had a flash from the Yard, a message from Keeling and Keeling—Pirro’s office. He hasn’t turned up this morning.”
“Right!” said Roger. “I’ll come and talk to the Yard.” He moved swiftly, suddenly decisive, and the sight of the stretcher being pushed into the ambulance did not make him pause. He slid into his own car, noticing that the crowd had swollen to forty or fifty. Windows were open at the drab houses, women stood at their front doors. Roger flicked on his radio, and when the Yard Information Room answered he asked for Mr Cortland.
A small car swung into the crescent and stopped abruptly, and two men got out: newspapermen, one with a camera. Roger watched them as he waited.
“What are you after, West?” Cortland demanded.
“I’d like the whole works here,” Roger said promptly. “Enough men to question all the neighbours, and to try to find out exactly what time Pirro left home last night. Quick inquiry at his office, too, to find out if he’s been nervy lately. Check on any boyfriends his wife might have had just before they married, and whether any old flame has come on the scene again lately. How about it?”
“Take what men you need, but release ’em as soon as you can.” Cortland was almost curt.
“Thanks,” said Roger.
Soon it was all on the move. Detectives from the Yard and the Division swarmed the crescent, neighbour after neighbour was questioned, statement after statement was made and written down.
Roger himself went to see the neighbour who was looking after the boy, and heard her story first-hand; it was simple enough and exactly what Moss had already told him. The woman, a Mrs Frost, was calm and obviously capable; frank, too.
“I’ll gladly look after the boy for a few days, but I don’t know what’s likely to happen after that,” she said. “Mrs Pirro had often told me she had no relations.”
“And her husband?”
“She knew of none, anyhow.”
“Did they often quarrel, Mrs Frost?” Roger asked without warning.
“I’ve never known a more contented couple, and I’ve seldom heard a wry word,” she said. “It was almost too good to be true. They both doted on Tony, too.”
“Has anything unusual happened recently?”
Mrs Frost, the nice woman, hesitated as if she didn’t quite know how to answer; but Roger did not need to prompt her.
“Not really, except one thing, and I feel beastly even mentioning it, but she had a visitor yesterday morning. Tony was at school, of course. I saw a man drive up in a small car, and go in, and—” Mrs Frost paused, but set confusion quickly aside. “I dare say you’ll think I’m being catty, but I was surprised. It was a young man, and he was there for at least two hours. He left just before Mrs Pirro went to fetch Tony from school.”
She had never seen the caller before and hadn’t noticed much about him, except that he was tall and fair. There was no way even of guessing whether the visitor had anything to do with what had happened.
Roger left her, without seeing the child, had a word with Moss, and then went to Keeling and Keeling’s offices, in Fenchurch Street, in the city. It was the third floor of an old, dark building with an open-sided lift and an elderly one-armed attendant.
Pirro had not come back.
Pirro had been quite normal all of yesterday, his short, stoutish employer asserted. An exemplary worker. A happy man. No interests outside his home. In receipt of a good salary. Special friends? No, no confidants here, either. Kept himself to himself. By all means question the staff, if it would help.
There were thirteen members of the staff. Two men seemed to have known Pirro rather better than the others, and the picture of the man became clearer in Roger’s mind. Pirro brought sandwiches to lunch every day, went straight home every night, was passionately devoted to his wife, doted on the child.
It was impossible to believe that he had killed his wife, they said. Impossible.
Did anyone know where his wife had worked before her marriage?
Of course; at an office on the floor below—Spencer’s.
Roger went there, to find a benign-looking, round-headed elderly man who made a living out of selling insurance; obviously a good living, too. Did he remember Evelyn Margent? A charming girl, and most capable. Surely no trouble? So devoted to her Italian young man! Other boyfriends? We-ell—was there anything wrong in a boyfriend or two before marriage? Surely it was customary, even wise? What girl knew her mind while she was in her teens?
“Mr Spencer, do you know if Mrs Pirro had an affair just before her marriage?” Roger was now almost curt, for benignity could be too bland. This man’s round head and round face worried him, too; by now Sturgeon would know why.
“As a matter of fact, Chief Inspector, yes, she did. But I insist that it was perfectly normal, and certainly no harm came of it.”
“With whom, please?”
Spencer became haughty. “With my son, Chief Inspector.”
“Thank you,” Roger said. “Have you a photograph of your son here, Mr Spencer?”
“I really cannot see the purpose of such an inquiry. My son—”
Spencer didn’t finish, but lost a little of his blandness, opened a drawer in an old-fashioned desk, and took out several photographs: of a woman and a boy, the woman and a youth, the woman and a young man perhaps in his early thirties.
“There is my wife and son, Chief Inspector, at various ages. Take your choice.”
Roger studied the photographs impassively. He did not speak for some time, although he already knew exactly what he wanted to ask next. Spencer’s son, over the years, was fair-haired and round-faced; and in the photograph of him as a child, he was remarkably like little Tony Pirro.
“Thank you, Mr Spencer,” Roger said at last. “Will you be good enough to tell me where your son is?”
“He should be here at any time,” Spencer said, and his own round face was red with an embarrassment, perhaps distress, that he couldn’t hide. “He is my partner in business. Why do you want t
o see him, Chief Inspector?”
“I would like to know whether he has seen Mrs Pirro recently.” Spencer was now a harassed, resigned man.
“I can tell you that,” he said. “Yes, Chief Inspector, he has. It is a long story, an unhappy story. By dismal chance he saw Mrs Pirro and her son only a few days ago. He—he told me about it. He was in great distress, very great distress. The likeness—”
“Likeness?”
“You are a man of the world, Chief Inspector, and there is no point in beating about the bush. My son and Mrs Pirro were once on terms of intimacy—her marriage to Pirro was a great shock. A great shock! He did not dream that her child was his child, but he told me that once he saw them together, it was beyond all doubt. Naturally, he wanted to see his son. He was quite prepared to do so without disturbing Mrs Pirro’s domestic life, but it was more than flesh and blood could stand not to see—his own child! All last evening he talked to me about it. My advice was that he should try to put everything out of his mind, but I doubt if he ever will. It’s a great tragedy, there is positively no other word for it.”
“Has he seen Mrs Pirro since the chance encounter?”
“Oh, yes! He went there yesterday morning. He—but here is Charles, he can speak for himself.”
Charles Spencer came in, and the likeness between him and Mrs Pirro’s son put the identity of the father beyond any reasonable doubt.
4
“Dead,” echoed Charles Spencer, just two minutes later. “Evelyn dead?” He looked from Roger to his father, and back again, as if unbelieving. “But how?”
“That’s what I’m trying to establish, Mr Spencer,” Roger said.
“It’s fantastic! I can’t believe it. She—she didn’t give me the slightest indication.” The round face was red in this man’s own kind of dismay.
The Long Arm of the Law Page 18
