by John Creasey
It was little more than a shot in the dark; if it scored a hit, then a murderer was still free and they didn’t yet know why Betty Gelibrand had been killed.
Luck turned Roger’s way that afternoon.
Turnbull was sent North, following a request for Yard assistance from the Lake District, and the exhumation and second post-mortem were carried out while he was away. The Press was beaten comfortably. Plump, bald-headed Dr. Maddock himself, looking tired and glum, brought the result to Roger.
“He was probably suffocated before the time he was pushed off,” Maddock growled. “Not much doubt, I’m afraid. I had Osborn with me. He spotted pressure marks on the throat and faint signs of suffocation on windpipe and throat. So did I, on making a better job. I’ve come a big cropper, didn’t worry much about looking for anything else, the injuries seemed to speak for themselves. He couldn’t have been dead long, the bleeding was so free that it suggested death on the impact; I was too damned cursory about the rest. My new report’s going through. Maybe my resignation ought to go with it.”
“Don’t you resign,” Roger said urgently. “If you want to take your punishment like a man, tell Turnbull all about it when he gets back. If you survive that you’ll deserve to be kept on the payroll.”
He was excited, but that didn’t alter the fact that he had greater reason to be worried. Millsom had been a murderer’s victim. Hidden by the platform, someone else had suffocated him and pushed him over; and Turnbull had missed it. Here was a case going sour on the younger officer. What would come of it?
Remember, though – Turnbull had saved his life.
There was a surge of activity at St. Cleo’s. Yard and Divisional men virtually took the church over. The different approaches to the roof were checked, every inch was gone over thoroughly, every print was taken. It was a massive job. The workers on the rebuilding and repair were co-operative, their prints were checked, and prints were found of two people with small hands, but who could not be identified.
It was impossible to be sure when they had been made, but they were found on the approach to the roof from the inside, on two or three tools in the hut, and on sheltered pieces of scaffolding.
Photographs of these two sets of prints stood on Roger’s desk.
Hundreds of people were questioned. Two or three remembered seeing young Millsom call at the vicarage. Others ‘thought’ they had seen a small man go into the church when it was very late – ‘about’ the time of the tragedy. Someone else was sure that a small woman dressed in grey had gone there one evening about the same time. Nothing was conclusive, but every little fact was noted.
Throughout the upheaval, Millson’s father kept in the background. When it was over, Roger went to the vicarage to see him. The other’s calm grey eyes had lost much of the hurt; but the Rev. Millsom seemed a rapidly ageing man.
“Do you think my son innocent, Mr. West?”
“I think there might be doubt about his guilt,” Roger said. “Once I’m sure, I’ll let you know.”
The clergyman nodded, as if satisfied; but how could he answer one inescapable question?
If his son hadn’t killed Betty, why had he run away?
Questions of a different kind flung themselves at Roger. Who had been at St. Cleo’s? Who had been on the roof? Who had killed Millsom, Betty Gelibrand, and Hilda Shaw? Had the two girls anything in common apart from beauty?
Roger searched all the records and found nothing except the fact that Hilda Shaw had also won a competition; he didn’t yet know which one. He decided to make a visit to Tottenham his next call, and then his telephone bell rang.
That was at three o’clock on the afternoon following the exhumation. Chatworth had murmured congratulations, many men at the Yard felt stimulated, there were plenty of dry cracks at the still-absent Turnbull.
“Roger West here.”
“Dalby here, Sergeants’ Room,” said a man briskly. “There’s a job you might be interested in, sir. Girl’s body found in the garden of an empty house at St. John’s Wood. Hidden by bushes, been there about three weeks. The smell made a neighbour go and look. Would you like—”
“Wait for me,” Roger said quietly. “I’ll be in the hall in ten minutes. Know anything about her?”
“Not yet,” Dalby said.
It was literally impossible to guess anything from the girl’s appearance; Roger didn’t try. But her handbag was found in the bushes, there were snapshots, her address, oddments which gave him most of the information he wanted. Within two hours he was in a small front sitting-room at a house in St. John’s Wood, near Regent’s Park. He had a glossy photograph of the dead girl in his hands; and beyond all doubt she was a beauty. The odd thing was to realise that she was dead; in the picture she looked so very much alive, radiant, happy.
Her mother was a faded beauty, with frightened eyes dulled with shock.
“Oh, I can’t begin to tell you how I feel … My Rose, my precious little Rose … She was so happy when she won the competition. I’ve never seen her happier … I couldn’t do anything to disappoint her, when she rang up and said she wasn’t coming home for a few days, I couldn’t disappoint her, could I? She said it was a chance in a thousand, I couldn’t …”
She went on and on, unable to stop the flow. She moved about the room, touching things, picking them up, putting them down, then standing quite still and closing her eyes tightly, then moving again, still talking in that monotonous drawl.
“I can’t believe it’s happened to my Rose, she was such a good girl, I tell you she was a good girl. She might have made a few mistakes, but she wasn’t flighty, not really flighty, and she was so sure she was going to be a success.” The dazed woman paused. “A success, a success,” she repeated brokenly. “And I think she would have been, too. How could she have failed? Look how lovely she is!”
Roger said: “Yes, I can see, Mrs. Alderson, she was a really beautiful girl, I don’t wonder she was ambitious. What competition did she win?”
“Why, Conway’s Beauty Competition, you know, Conway’s Soap.” Mrs. Alderson closed her eyes again, and stood with a hand pressed against a table. “I can’t believe …”
Roger’s heart was thudding; a suffocating kind of beat. Here was the third dead beauty and another winner of a Conway’s Beauty Competition. Just coincidence? It couldn’t be.
The woman stopped for a moment.
“Let me have any other photographs you have,” Roger said gently, “we’ll find the man who killed her, Mrs. Alderson.”
She opened her grey eyes, and they blazed with a sudden fury.
“What good will that do, you fool?” she cried. “Will that bring my Rosy back? Go on, tell me, will it bring my Rosy back? She was the best daughter in the world, she was a good girl, will catching the man bring her back?”
Detective Sergeant Dalby was experienced and ready. He distracted her attention, and soon she quieted. Within an hour, Roger was slowing down outside a house in Tottenham, near a park, a small house in a long row of small houses. A Divisional man was by his side.
“Want me, sir?” he asked.
“Just wait, will you?” Roger said.
He hurried to the front door, confident that there would be no distress here; the mother of Hilda Shaw was a hard-hearted piece, according to the police who had interviewed her.
A small, striking, middle-aged woman opened the door, started when she saw him; and then smiled warmly. Roger placed her in a second; that kind of smile was the same the whole world over, as was this kind of woman. She had a fine figure and dressed to improve it, and she had a face which gave meaning to seduction.
Roger was brusque.
She realised that he was from the Yard, and her manner changed, she became waspish.
“Look, why don’t you forget all about it? We can’t bring her back, can we? Anyone would think you
policemen had nothing better to do than worry the life out of—”
“Had your daughter ever taken part in a Beauty Competition?” Roger broke in briskly. Pretended ignorance would serve best with this woman.
“Supposing she had.”
“Had she?”
“’Course she had,” declared Mrs. Shaw. “She won three the summer before last, two last year, never entered without getting in the first three. She only entered for one this year, and she was well on the way to winning it.”
“Which one?”
“The biggest and the best,” boasted Mrs. Shaw. “Nothing but the best was good enough for my Hilda, if she hadn’t lived up to that she might have been alive today. Conway’s the soap people. She won their North London heat, and was in the finals—for a thousand-pound first prize. Or don’t you fellows know anything?”
Chapter Eight
Big Prize
Conway’s, an old-established corporation, spread their activities far beyond soaps, soap powder, and detergents and touched the fringes of many other preparations, including beauty and skin foods, toilet preparations, some pharmaceutical goods, and a wide range of toilet accessories. They ran the Beauty Queen of Britain Competition each year in association with a popular weekly magazine, which was controlled by Conway’s. Roger found that there were always twelve district heats, and studied a map – issued as a Conway advertisement. This showed London divided into four districts, as well as five other English districts – South, South-west, Midlands, North-west, and North-east – together with a district each in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The winner from each heat would take part in the finals, later in the year. Victory carried a thousand pounds, the title of Miss Britain, the right to take part in a World Contest; and. Conway’s Queen would be given a great chance to break into the film world.
Roger talked to Chatworth …
“I don’t think we want to tackle Conway’s openly at this stage,” he said, “but I’d like to get at someone reliable on the staff there, someone who has a bit to do with organising the competitions.” He still felt the tension of excitement which had come with the discovery of a connecting factor among the three murders. “We’re only on the fringe of it yet, sir, but—” he paused.
“Well, go on.”
“There’ve been seven heats so far, three in London, one in the South of England, one North-west, one North-east, one Midlands,” Roger said. “The three London winners are now dead. It would be easy to say that pretty girls who win Beauty Competitions sometimes lose their heads and get themselves into trouble, but—”
“For once I’m not arguing with you,” Chatworth interrupted. “This isn’t coincidence, and nothing’s going to make me believe it is. Watch those other four winners. Check arrangements for other district competitions. Spend all your time on this until something urgent crops up. See all the girls, get their photographs—oh, go away and stop grinning, you know what to do!”
Roger jumped up.
“Oh, Turnbull’s on his way back,” Chatworth said. “Had quite a triumph up there. I had the Chief Constable on the telephone an hour ago—says that Turnbull did a brilliant job and finished in three days when anyone else would have taken a week. Want him on this job?”
“It’s up to you,” Roger said.
It would be an object lesson to see how Turnbull took the rebuff that he was going to walk into. Did he know about the exhumation and the finding, or had he been too preoccupied with the case in Westmorland?
Oh, forget him. Three Beauty Queens had been murdered during the past seven – no, nine weeks, he was forgetting his two weeks out of action. Four Queens might be in danger, and five more heats were due to be run before the summer was out. Watching the new winners would become priority for the Divisions and County Police concerned and none would take it lightly.
It was easy to get information, names, and addresses of all the heat winners and runners-up from the magazine. The London Divisions and County Police were told, and the four Queens closely watched.
Roger was studying every minute detail of the competitions when Turnbull came into the office.
Only Eddie Day was present.
Turnbull came in quietly, yet it was still quite an entrance. Roger looked around. The Detective Inspector was not smiling so broadly as usual; there was tension in his manner. He had his hat on, tipped to one side, and his brown suit was perfectly cut.
He nodded to Eddie, walked straight to Roger.
“Hallo. They tell me you’ve been busy.”
“This and that turned up,” Roger said.
“And I was a ruddy fool not to see them coming. Made me quite a spectacle for everyone to laugh at.” There was no real feeling in Turnbull’s voice, and he seemed shaken. “Good job you came back on duty when you did, or everything might have been forgotten.”
“We don’t forget easily,” Roger said.
“So we don’t.” Turnbull took off his hat, and spun it round on his forefinger deftly. Round and round, round and round. “I see what you mean. Any objection if I keep on the case with you?”
“Not up to me,” Roger murmured.
“You can say the word, and Chatworth will assign me to the job,” Turnbull said. “Or you can tell him I’ve been a loud-mouthed braggart with the wrong sense of smell, and keep me off it. Which are you going to do?”
“If you want it and you can be spared for the job, I won’t try to keep you off,” Roger told him. He glanced at Eddie, then moved towards the door. “There are one or two things in Records I want to show you.” He led the way out, and in the passage went on very quietly, “Never mind Records, we’ll find a corner in the canteen, I want to talk to you.”
“The maestro about to give a lesson?”
Roger said deliberately, “Listen, Turnbull, I don’t want an argument. I’m not interested in giving you or anyone else lessons.” They walked side by side towards the stairs, Turnbull an inch taller, an inch broader; two massive men. Roger walked with a slight limp, because his leg was still bandaged. Two or three men passed them before they reached the canteen and found a corner away from everyone else. “No need for Eddie Day, Chatworth, or anyone else to be in on this one,” Roger went on deliberately, and offered cigarettes.
“Thanks.” Turnbull flicked a lighter. “What’s so important that it needs a conspiracy?”
“You flopped on the Gelibrand job, and you want to make up for it,” Roger said. “That kind of thing has happened to all of us, and will keep happening. Any man here with a hundred per cent record would have wings and a halo, but I’ve never seen any. How much do you know about it now?”
“Beauty Queen mystery,” said Turnbull.
“That’s it. Remember coming back from Telham the day we’d seen Betty Gelibrand? We were stuck in a traffic jam near Victoria. A woman passed along the pavement, and you demonstrated what a fine wolf whistle you’ve got?”
Turnbull was clenching his hands tightly.
“So what?”
“You could go wrong again on this job, missing the wood for the trees. Or the killer of luscious lovelies.” The attempt to be flippant failed miserably; Roger wished he’d never made it. It wasn’t easy to do the right thing with Turnbull, because Turnbull was so obviously suspicious of a trick; of being fooled. “And you’ll be so anxious to make amends that you might overreach yourself again.”
“What exactly are you saying, West?” No ‘Handsome’; no friendliness; just a cool voice and a hard stare. “That I’ll fall for a skirt and forget the job?”
“I’m saying you can’t afford to go wrong on this one again, and if there’s anything in it that makes you think you might go wrong, you ought to keep off. I shan’t do anything to make you.”
“Just a friendly warning,” Turnbull said, and sneered.
Then suddenly, unex
pectedly, he laughed and clapped Roger on the shoulder. His face cleared, his voice became deep, amiable.
“Okay, okay, Handsome! I’m dim-witted today, perhaps I’m dim-wined all the time! I thought you were taking a rise out of me, instead of that you’re doing me a favour. Thanks a million!. I’ll think it over—not that I’m worried about being put off the scent by a nice piece of goods. Imagine you remembering that floosie in Victoria Street. There’s more to you even than I thought!” He laughed again, and seemed much more natural. “You’re a lucky man in other ways too, aren’t you?”
“Am I?”
“Two fine kids and a beautiful wife!”
“What do you want me to do?” Roger asked. “Find you a nice girl to settle down with?”
They laughed …
Things weren’t right between them, all the same. Turnbull had changed his attitude, probably because he had realised that he was adopting a bad one, but he hadn’t felt as natural as he’d tried to make out. Roger hoped he would not have to work with him, but was reluctant to do anything to keep him off the case. He owed Turnbull too much.
Next morning, Chatworth telephoned him. “Conway’s managing director has just been on the phone to me,” he said. “Wants to know if we’d like the competition heats suspended. Would you?”
“No!” Roger almost blurted.
“Might pick up a thing or two from them, eh?”
“Well, it’s possible,” Roger said more cautiously.
“I’ll just say ‘not yet,’” Chatworth promised. “Oh, another thing. Unless you’ve thought of any strong objection, I’m going to have Turnbull working with you on this job,” he said. “He seems to see it as a test case.”
Roger said flatly, “Very good, sir.”
“My, my, my,” exclaimed Turnbull, looking down at the photographs placed out on Roger’s desk. “Seven of the best. Pity about those two, they’ve got a slight edge on the others, I fancy. Don’t you?” He pointed to photographs of Betty Gelibrand and Hilda Shaw. “Not that the others would make me want to run home to mama.” He seemed to be talking a little too fast and for the sake of it. “Seen the others in the flesh yet?”
