‘As you see, sir, I’m wearing gloves.’ With more than a touch of professional satisfaction, Tilly held up two evening-gloved hands of pristine white satin. ‘I took care not to touch the body. Alive or dead.’
Her eyes flicked sideways to Armitage and at last Joe understood. He reckoned that this calculated display of innocence and foresight was aimed not at himself but at the arresting officer.
‘I’d left the door ajar as I found it,’ she continued with her story, ‘so I pushed it open and went down in the lift to the reception desk. I informed the manager who rang the Yard from the rear office and they said they’d send someone. I must say the manager was calm about it,’ she added, wondering. ‘This is surely a major incident but if I’d been reporting a broken fingernail he couldn’t have been more undemonstrative.’
‘It’s part of the training. But go on.’
‘Then I came straight back up here to stand guard on the body until help arrived. Five minutes later I was joined by. . er. .’
‘Detective Sergeant Armitage, miss.’
‘The sergeant arrived and put me under arrest.’
‘A perfectly reasonable thing to do,’ said Joe. ‘Anyone would have done the same.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Tilly. ‘Quite proper in the circumstances.’
She turned to Armitage and smiled. The sudden intensification of the glow from her cornflower blue eyes would have lit up Tower Bridge for thirty seconds. Joe remembered that Armitage in France had had a reputation for susceptibility and a quick glance at the sergeant revealed that he was not unaffected. Joe was considerably amused by this. His own previous encounters with Constable Westhorpe had taught him the wisdom of looking the other way when she unsheathed her smile. Lucky for him, he thought, that in all their previous dealings she’d been wearing the thick and calculatedly unalluring serge uniform, its uncompromising skirt almost brushing the tops of her black boots, her pretty face all but quenched under a high-crowned wide-brimmed felt hat and chin strap. The trembling shoulders and the slightly heaving white bosom at present on view were beginning to have an effect on Armitage, Joe decided, and he took off his heavy police cape and held it out.
‘Don’t get cold, Westhorpe. I’m afraid I can’t offer to close the window yet. And all this must be quite a shock,’ he said. ‘Put this on.’
She opened her mouth to return what would be bound to be classed by Armitage as a saucy remark. ‘I’m all right,’ she said belligerently, making to shake Joe aside.
Joe eyed her with authority. ‘Just put it on,’ he said. He was relieved to be interrupted by the shrilling of the whistle in the voice tube.
‘See who that is, Bill,’ he said. ‘Find out what they want.’
‘It’s reception, sir. There are three police officers below and a gentleman from the Evening Standard.’
Joe thought for a moment, finally saying, ‘Right, Bill, go on down, will you? Contain the reporter in the manager’s office and stand Robert over him. Tell him we’ll have something for him in a while. Encourage him to stay. Incommunicado, of course. Tray of Ritz coffee served up every quarter of an hour, you know the sort of thing. I’d like to find out how he got hold of this so soon. Brief the officers and send them up by the stairs. I want the lift sealed off and the whole of the fourth floor. And then I think you’d better stay on down there — watchdog on guard! The Yard will have sent a medico and a photographer. I want them brought up as soon as possible. And sometime in all this we’ll have to think about informing the next of kin.’
‘Yessir,’ said Armitage coming automatically to attention. There was something in his manner that alerted Joe to a potential problem. The hostile and suspicious look he flung at Tilly on receiving his order to take charge downstairs, leaving her alone in the murder room with the Commander, did not go unnoticed by Joe. He sighed. It seemed to be a case of hatred at first sight between these two. When he considered the possible causes of this he was not reassured. Instinctive antipathy, class rivalry — there was no doubting that the two came from vastly different strata of society — and (probably the prime motive for the mistrust) professional jealousy. Intelligent and ambitious, the pair of them. They would each try to outdo the other to gain credit in Joe’s eyes. How tiresome! He calculated promptly that there was no way in the world he could work efficiently with two warring officers under his command. One would have to withdraw from the case. He thought for a moment and made his decision.
‘Oh, Sergeant, you’d better get hold of one or two of the officers down below and set them to take statements from the party guests. Corral them in the dining room. They won’t like it, but stress that it’s for their own good — with one of their number killed they would do well to cooperate discreetly. And we’ll need a complete list of guests and their room numbers as well as the IDs of everyone who was known to be in the hotel this evening.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s over an hour since she was killed. And this place is a beehive. No, a sieve more like. And, shall we admit it? — any one of the hundreds of people who were milling about in the building this evening could have got up here unnoticed and have slipped away equally unnoticed. Hours of work to be done and all with the extreme of discretion.’
He and Armitage looked at each other steadily, contemplating for a moment the mountain of routine but tricky police work before them.
‘Leave it to me, sir,’ said Armitage with quiet energy. ‘I think I can manage.’
Joe smiled. He knew he could.
When the sergeant and his assistant had left the room, Joe felt free to go and look down at Dame Beatrice. ‘Like Boadicea’, Sir Nevil had said, he remembered as he stared in surprise and pity. What had he expected? Her reputation and her rank had led him to believe he would be dealing with an elderly tweed-skirted spinster with iron gaze and incipient moustache but the body before him at first sight recalled a pale-faced, languorous and frankly erotic woman seen in a painting by an Austrian painter whose name eluded him. ‘Decadent’ was the word that came to mind. Her dark red hair, unfashionably long, lay spread, dishevelled and blood-soaked, a fitting frame for the smashed and distorted white mask of outrage and hate it outlined. So must the Queen of the Iceni have looked, he thought, as she snarled defiance at the Roman legions.
She was wearing her evening dress, an ankle-length gown of green taffeta. Joe knelt by the body, noting with a stab of disgust that the bodice had been torn. The seams along each shoulder had been wrenched apart with considerable force and her small white breasts lay exposed. The urge to cover her nakedness was almost overwhelming but Joe steeled himself to observe and note.
To his further embarrassment Constable Westhorpe came and joined him. A well-bred young girl should have kept her distance, pretended to look the other way, even called weakly for smelling salts, he thought resentfully.
‘Terrible sight,’ he said and would have said more. Would have suggested that she might like to leave this next distressing part of the enquiry to him but she looked down calmly enough at the body.
‘Is it Gustav Klimt,’ he wondered out loud to bump them over the awkward moment, ‘the painter that this lady’s appearance calls to mind?’ Too late he remembered that a reference to a foreign painter with a reputation for decadence would be bound to be offensive and shocking to the good taste of a young lady of Tilly Westhorpe’s background. But, with a bit of luck, she would never have heard of the chap.
The constable considered for a moment. ‘Oh, yes, I see it. . The Kiss, you mean? It’s the angle of the head, I think. No. . I’d have said rather Dante Gabriel Rossetti. His darkest nightmare.’ She looked stonily down at the battered features and then, caught by an emotion Joe could not fathom, she spoke again as though to herself.
‘Evil, evil old devil!’ she said passionately. ‘Killing’s too good for her!’
Chapter Three
Joe let the words lie between them for a moment, puzzled and apprehensive.
‘Would this be a good moment to explain just how familiar you were with this la
dy, Westhorpe? And what exactly was the nature of your personal reason for coming up here to see her? Sir Nevil has asked for you to be associated with this enquiry but if there’s the slightest suggestion of an interest other than professional, you’ll be asked to withdraw.’
Calmly she took her eyes off the corpse and transferred her gaze to Joe. Direct and searching, it had the effect of making him feel himself to be the one undergoing questioning. ‘We were never introduced. As far as I know she was perfectly unaware of me. The party tonight is the first occasion on which I have ever seen her. But sir! Surely you cannot be unconscious of her reputation? In the circles in which I move, I can assure you, Commander, Dame Beatrice is not venerated. .’
She was just getting into her swing and Joe was eager to hear more when something prompted her to cut short her attack on the character of the deceased. ‘But this is hardly the place to swap gossip, I think. And one shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, and all that. . Oh, for goodness sake! What am I saying? You ought to be aware, sir, and, in the circumstances, there will be few enough to tell you. . The woman was a monster! Dissolute, degenerate, debased. .’
‘Run out of d’s, Westhorpe?’ said Joe, taken aback and trying to take the sting out of her remarks, almost sacrilegious, he felt, when delivered with such vehemence over the cooling body. ‘What about, er, Dame. .? Darling of the navy. .? Doyenne of London society?’
‘I’m trying to be helpful, sir,’ she said repressively. ‘You are not obliged to give any weight to my information but if you enquire in the right quarters you will hear other evaluations of Dame Beatrice’s character and habits than those you will read in next week’s obituaries. But for now, there’s work to be done — work in which you will find me perceptive and efficient.’
She didn’t quite click her heels but Joe almost expected to hear it.
‘Very well. We’ll leave it. But I’m not satisfied with your explanation and will come back to it. I shall need to know precisely what brought you to this room at such an unlikely hour to see someone you say you were not acquainted with. Now, we need to establish without further delay who is her next of kin.’
‘I could just tell you but perhaps you’d rather read the details from her diary which is in the bedroom. She lives in Surrey with her mother. Not married, of course.’
At a nod from Joe, Westhorpe went into the bedroom, emerging with a small black notebook. ‘Here we are. . Mrs Augustus Jagow-Joliffe, King’s Hanger, near Godalming. There’s a telephone number. Dame Beatrice has a flat of her own, I think. . yes. . here’s the address — it’s in Fitzroy Gardens.’
She handed the book to Joe and he put it in his pocket.
‘Where would you like me to start, sir? Shall I make a sketch of the crime scene?’
‘Hold on, Westhorpe. That’s a job for whichever inspector they’ve supplied us with. You can make a start on her personal effects. An inventory, if you like.’
Westhorpe just managed not to roll her eyes in disbelief. ‘Very well. I’ll start in the bedroom as that’s where most of the effects are and leave the field clear for the attentions of a superior officer.’
Joe opened his bag and took out a notebook and a pencil. ‘Here, use this.’ He stood in the doorway watching as she set about making her inspection. He had expected her to make at once for the wardrobe or the chest of drawers but she stood by him, surveying the room.
‘First of all, the bed’s been turned down so a member of the hotel staff has been in the room this evening though it will probably have been well before the time we’re interested in. They usually come in about nine o’clock. . though I did see a maid pushing one of those little chariots they have with bed linen and towels and so on down the corridor when I got up here the first time.’ She looked thoughtful.
‘Indeed? Was she coming towards the room or going away?’
‘Hard to tell. She was right at the other end. Going away, I’d say. When I came out again, there was no sign of her. If she’d been there I would have sent her down with a message.’
She opened the notebook at a clean page and prepared to write. ‘I’ll start with what she’s got on, shall I? Evening dress. I’ll leave the interesting condition of same to others. No gloves, you see, sir. They’re over there on that table. Neatly folded, worn but unstained. First thing a woman does when she gets back to her room is take off her gloves and kick off her shoes. But she still had her shoes on — did you notice? Could have been expecting someone? Perhaps her evening wasn’t over? She hadn’t started to draw a bath.’
‘Just list the items, please, Westhorpe.’
‘She’s put her gloves down with her evening bag.’ Without compunction, Westhorpe picked up the delicate, bead-sewn satiny confection and checked the inside. ‘Lanvin. Contents just what you’d expect for an evening out. Female things!’ She held it under Joe’s nose. ‘Small amount of cash. . oh, and a couple of keys. Door keys.’
Joe took them and slipped them into an envelope. Westhorpe noted this.
He followed her through to the bedroom. ‘Wardrobe first, I think.’ She swung the doors back and began her list, commenting on the items she saw. ‘Not much here. I assume she had only booked in for two nights.’
‘Why do you say “only two nights”?’ He had already ascertained as much from reception.
‘It’s a two-day wardrobe. Her travelling suit — of good tweed with a matching blouse which presumably she was wearing when she came up this morning. . and a spare blouse for the journey back. Two day dresses. . both by Captain Molyneux. . yes, she would wear Molyneux. Two hats, one chestnut felt, one black grosgrain with a brim. A fur jacket. One pair of walking brogues and a pair of lighter shoes in kid. That’s it.’
She moved to the dressing table. ‘One ivory-backed hairbrush and a leather trousse for toiletry items. Hair pins. Packet of “quelques fleurs” powder leaves.’
Joe’s interest sparked as she finally moved to the drawers, the searching of which was the reason for her being here, getting under his feet, he reminded himself. She took off the police cape and put it down carefully at the bottom of the bed. ‘Do you mind, sir? It’s really rather hot in here. Central heating. Wonderful, isn’t it? And, after all, the reason for wearing protective covering seems to have evaporated. Now. . two camisole sets, one lawn, one. . ooh!’ To his surprise, she shook out and held up to his embarrassed gaze a slippery-looking undergarment in magenta.
‘Silk,’ she commented. ‘The real thing, not crêpe de Chine.’ And, examining the label, ‘From a very exclusive shop — Ma Folie — in Wigmore Street.’ She folded it deftly and replaced it in the top drawer.
‘Westhorpe, you don’t need to demonstrate the lady’s wardrobe,’ said Joe uncomfortably.
With a slight smile of triumph she continued her list, calling out the items as she wrote. ‘Three pairs of silk stockings, two still in packets. Two slips of oyster satin, six lawn handkerchiefs.’
Irritated that his attention was being distracted by laundry lists of peripheral importance to his enquiry, Joe was edging quietly back towards the murder room when she stopped him with an excited call. ‘Oh, this is interesting!’ She was extracting a small black leather box bearing heraldic gold insignia from the bottom of the underwear drawer. ‘You ought to see this, sir!’
‘What is it?’
‘Well, it’s not her secret store of cachous!’
Intrigued by his constable’s reaction and the knowledge it revealed, Joe watched, fascinated as she opened the box and showed him the contents.
‘Ha! A Dutch cap! And from a very recherché and vastly expensive establishment. The Gräfenberg Clinic. Nothing but the best for Dame Beatrice, you’d say!’
She wrote up the entry in her notebook even adding, Joe noticed, the serial number on the bottom of the box. ‘Ah!’ she said.
‘Yes, Westhorpe?’
Tilly smiled in a knowing way. ‘There are two such clinics, one in Harley Street, the other in Berlin. This is from the Berlin branch.
Very discreet! Someone of Dame Beatrice’s notoriety would never, of course, be seen crossing the London threshold of such a place, let alone Dr Stopes’ clinic in Whitfield Street. Far too near home.’
Joe was finding Westhorpe’s asides and insights informative — as, indeed, she had promised — and for the moment he held in check his urge to call her to heel and remind her of her lowly professional position. All the same, he was uncomfortable with the role she was assuming for herself and he was relieved when a tap on the door announced the arrival of — he hoped — an inspector. He went to the door, finding, to his annoyance, that Westhorpe had joined him and was hovering at his elbow still holding the box.
At the sight of them, the man standing outside looked up instinctively to check the number on the door. A middle-aged man with an eager expression underlined by a flamboyant moustache, he was wearing a trench coat over a brown tweed suit. In one hand he held a bowler hat and in the other a large black leather bag. He was trying very hard not to laugh.
‘You have the right room,’ said Joe curtly.
‘Good evening, sir. Oh, er, I say,’ he said, swallowing a smile. ‘Awfully sorry, sir. . no one thought to warn me that this was a black tie occasion. . miss.’ He nodded politely at Westhorpe.
‘Even the corpse is in evening dress, you’ll find, Cottingham. Join the party. You’re very welcome. I must introduce you to Constable Westhorpe who is seconded to our unit. She’s, um, working under cover. At Sir Nevil’s suggestion. Westhorpe, this is Inspector Ralph Cottingham. Ex-Guards officer so no doubt you’ll feel free to be rude to him too.’
The inspector smiled uncertainly at Westhorpe and seemed relieved when Joe sent her back into the bedroom and led him through to the scene of the murder.
‘Notebook, Cottingham?’
‘Got everything you might need in here, sir,’ said Ralph. ‘When I heard you were working the case I thought I’d better bring along the old “Murder Bag”. Always keep it ready. Some of the top blokes don’t bother but, like you, I’m a keen disciple of Sir Bernard.’
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