by Joyce Porter
‘Pearl Wallace is apparently the unknown girl whose dead body was found the other day in Frenchy Botham.’
Miss Ermengilda nodded. ‘I remember reading about it in the paper. What on earth was she doing down there?’
‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ said MacGregor. ‘You don’t, if I may say so, seem very surprised at what’s happened.’
Miss Ermengilda was craning her neck to see what was going on in the shop. ‘Oh, I’m not,’ she admitted frankly. ‘Pearl Wallace was what I call one of Nature’s victims. Some people seem to attract bad luck, don’t they?’
‘When did you last see her?’
Miss Ermengilda closed her eyes for this calculation. ‘That would be Friday, the seventh of this month. She waited until after we’d finished serving the luncheons and then calmly informed me that she wouldn’t be in at all the next day – which was a Saturday, if you please. The busiest day of the week! I was simply furious and I said so. She answered me very pertly and so, really, I had no choice. I gave her a week’s notice. She told me precisely what I could do with it, collected the wages due to her and her cards from my desk, and marched out. Naturally, I haven’t seen her since then – nor, indeed, did I expect to.’
MacGregor glanced around. ‘Was she particularly friendly with any of your other staff?’
Wordlessly Miss Ermengilda indicated the fair Doris who was casually assuring an anxious American lady that, if she wanted to take some real English candy back to the States with her, she couldn’t do better than a nice box of Edinburgh rock.
‘We’d better have a word with her, I suppose,’ said MacGregor, already feeling in his bones that they weren’t going to get much enlightenment from Doris.
‘I’ll send her over!’ offered Miss Ermengilda quickly. She was itching to get her hands on that American woman.
MacGregor gestured vaguely in the direction of the comatose Dover. ‘Perhaps we could have some tea at the same time?’
‘I should have thought a pot of strong black coffee would have been more to the point,’ observed Miss Ermengilda with a sniff. Then she realized that this couple of time-wasting policemen were transforming themselves into a couple of paying customers. ‘Tea for two and cakes? I’ll give the order myself. Oh, by the way’ – she paused as the query struck her – ‘what was Pearl Wallace doing with one of our paper bags?’
‘She was using it to patch a hole in one of her shoes.’
Miss Ermengilda’s lips clamped together in a hard line. ‘And that,’ she informed MacGregor grimly, ‘is where one’s profits go! Oh, these dratted girls!’
It was over ten minutes before Doris and the afternoon tea arrived. Dover, rousing on the instant like an old war horse hearing the bugles, showed no surprise at finding a young lady in fancy dress sharing the table with him. He contented himself with reaching across for the plate of Olde Danish pastries.
Doris herself had undergone something of a metamorphosis. Ermengilda’s Kitchen didn’t sport all that many handsome young men amongst its patrons, and Doris had no intention of wasting the opportunity. During her brief sojourn in the kitchen, she had wielded mascara, eye-shadow, hair spray, lipstick and cheap scent with a liberal hand.
For once in his life MacGregor was almost pleased that he’d got Dover with him.
10
When it came down to brass tacks, however, Doris wasn’t all that helpful. ‘Well, I knew Pearl, natch,’ she said, pulling out her pocket mirror and examining her face intently in it. ‘She sort of taught me the job when I first come here, didn’t she?’ She poked out a finger and began to rub the lipstick off her teeth. ‘I’ve only been here a couple of months, see? Actually, I’m thinking of jacking it in. It’s dead boring, you know. I might try and get a job abroad. Like on the Coster Bravo or the South of France. Pearl? Oh, yes . . . well, I sort of only knew her in the shop, you know. We didn’t go out together or anything. I did ask her round to our house once, but my mum didn’t take to her. Thought she was sort of sly. Well, she did sort of keep herself to herself, if you see what I mean. My mum didn’t go much on Pearl living in lodgings, either. Said it wasn’t natural for a girl of her age. Said no good would come of it. And she was right, wasn’t she?’
For reasons best known to himself, Dover decided to take a hand in the interrogation. He was probably trying to speed things up as he was finding Doris’s shrill and adenoidal voice very wearing on the ear. ‘Did you know she was pregnant?’
‘Pearl?’ Doris’s cup of excitement was filled to over-flowing. ‘Pregnant? Go on!’ Her eyes glinted and she nodded her head in a knowing manner. ‘Well, I can’t say as how I’m surprised, really. She never said nothing, of course, but I had wondered. She sort of kept looking at herself in mirrors and things, to see if anything was showing. She’d got very short tempered, too. Some days you couldn’t say nothing to her without her flaring up, like, and jumping right down your throat. She’d got very sort of bitter, too.’
‘About men?’ asked MacGregor.
‘About everybody,’ said Doris, lowering her eyelids seductively. ‘Kept saying things like she was fed up with always being a door mat and that it was about time somebody else footed the bill for a change.’
Dover waited a moment in case Doris was going to elaborate on this statement. She wasn’t. ‘What did she mean?’
‘Search me.’
‘You didn’t ask?’
‘What for? I’ve got my own troubles, haven’t I?’
MacGregor consulted his notebook for inspiration. ‘Do you know anything about her boyfriends? Was there anybody special?’
‘I dunno. She used to hang around with some of them lads from the big RAF camp down the road. I reckon that’s why she hung on here for so long. Well, it’s not everywhere that’s got a supply of boys like that on tap, is it?’Course, they’re only Erks, but even so.’ Doris tossed her head and rearranged her hair on her shoulders. ‘You won’t catch me hanging round a dump like this when I leave home,’ she said. ‘I’ll be off to London. Or New York. Or somewhere.’
‘Why did she ask for the day off on the Saturday, the day before she got the sack?’
‘Search me.’ Doris was beginning to get bored. Had the conversation centred round her she might have displayed more animation. But—about a mere fellow worker and a dead one at that? Dullsville!
It was Dover who succeeded in getting her to adopt a more helpful attitude. Nubile young women had long since ceased to have any effect upon his blood pressure and this enabled him to take a less indulgent line. He addressed MacGregor across Doris. ‘Let’s take her down to the nick,’ he said. ‘Her memory might improve after a few hours shut up all alone in a rat-infested police cell.’
‘Ooh, you wouldn’t dare!’ squealed Doris.
Dover leered. ‘Wouldn’t I?’
‘Well, I’m doing my best, honest.’ Doris pouted prettily and edged nearer to MacGregor.
‘They can send you to prison for it.’
Doris, wide-eyed, stared at Dover. ‘For what?’
‘For withholding information from the police in the execution of their bloody duty,’ explained Dover, managing to make it sound like a hanging job.
‘Aw, come off it!’ Doris giggled as she remembered that you didn’t have to bother about Authority or policemen or anything, really, in these enlightened days.
‘You’ll see!’ promised Dover menacingly.
Doris relaxed completely and produced the clincher. ‘My dad’s a shop steward!’ she announced gleefully. ‘You try pushing me around, copper, and you’ll have a general strike on your hands!’
Dover scowled but, in view of his imminent entry into the world of industry via Pomeroy Chemicals Limited, he decided not to take any risks. The last thing he wanted at that particular moment in time was to find himself in the middle of some sordid trade union dispute. He contented himself with shoving his cup across for a refill and allowed the business of incarcerating the fair Doris in a dungeon to drop.
>
MacGregor poured the oil. ‘It’s just that we were counting on you being able to help us,’ he told Doris with a sad little smile. ‘Pearl was a friend of yours, you know, and somebody .did kill her. Can’t you think of anything that might help us?’
Doris played with the sugar bowl. ‘Well, there was that telephone call,’ she said grudgingly.
MacGregor tried not to pounce. ‘She got a telephone call?’
‘No, dumbie, she made one! Here, don’t go telling old Ermengilda, will you? She’d go spare if she knew we was using her phone for private calls.’
MacGregor promised, being more concerned with murder than ethics. ‘When did she make this call?’
‘Oh, the Monday or the Tuesday before she cleared off. Or it might have been the Wednesday. One day’s much the same as another in this lousy dump.’
‘And who did she make it to?’
Doris looked surprised. ‘Well, I don’t know, do I? I was outside the office keeping guard in case old Ermengilda come sneaking back, wasn’t I? All I know is she wanted a Birmingham number.’
‘A Birmingham number?’ MacGregor’s noble brow crinkled up as he tried to make head or tail of this new piece of information.
‘’Sright.’ Doris was busy examining her finger-nails. ‘We couldn’t find that little book with the dialling codes in it, could we? So she had to ring ’em up and ask what it was. That’s how I come to know it was Birmingham she wanted.’
‘But you don’t know the number?’
‘’Course I don’t, stupid!’ Doris was no longer finding MacGregor very attractive. He was quite good looking, of course, but – oh, Dragsville! ‘Once she got the code, she dialled the number, didn’t she? What was I supposed to do? Count the clicks?’
MacGregor glanced hopefully at Dover on the off chance that he might be preparing to lash out again. Pity. MacGregor would have quite liked to see Doris get a thumping.
‘And,’ concluded Doris, pushing her chair back and standing up, ‘I didn’t hear what Pearl said because I was outside the room with the door closed. Added to which, I wasn’t blooming well interested. Can I go now? Miss Ermengilda’s been looking daggers at me for ages and I don’t want to get into her bad books just along of you lot, do I?’
MacGregor slipped in a final question as Miss Ermengilda bore down on them. ‘Do you know of anybody who’d be likely to want to murder Pearl Wallace?’
Doris hadn’t the least. Nor had Miss Ermengilda, to whom MacGregor posed the same query.
Miss Ermengilda managed the distressing business of grossly over-charging her customers with considerable aplomb and then enquired if the case was likely to generate any publicity.
‘It might,’ said MacGregor, counting his change unbelievingly for the second time. ‘There’s not been much so far, but the media may start taking an interest now that we’ve got a name for the victim.’
Miss Ermengilda was writhing genteelly on the horns of a dilemma. ‘Of course, publicity is very welcome,’ she admitted, ‘but it must be the right kind, mustn’t it? One wouldn’t like Ermengilda’s Kitchen to be mixed up in anything distasteful.’ She broke off as Dover tugged rather urgently at her arm.
‘Got a bog here, missus?’
Miss Ermengilda tried, and failed, to disengage herself. ‘I beg your pardon!’
‘A WC,’ said Dover, giving his victim a shake. ‘A privy! A loo! The jakes!’
‘He means a gentlemen’s cloakroom,’ explained MacGregor, wondering why Dover, who was not normally mealy-mouthed, couldn’t call a spade a spade.
‘I’m afraid not,’ murmured Miss Ermengilda faintly. She was still attempting to unhook Dover’s sausage-thick fingers from her arm. ‘You’ll have to use the public convenience.’
‘Where is it?’
‘In the square outside. Just behind the Jubilee Oak.’
Dover was already on the move. ‘That a pub?’
Miss Ermengilda was glad for once that there were so few customers in her establishment. ‘No!’ she hissed. ‘It’s a tree, planted to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee and one of our main tourist attractions.’
Dover was at the shop door before it occurred to him that his abrupt departure required some explanation. ‘Shan’t be a tick!’ he called back to MacGregor. ‘It must be those bloody salts I took last night.’
In normal circumstances, of course, one would not dream of penetrating behind doors that ought to remain for ever closed to one but, on this particular occasion, an incident took place which, although of an intimate nature, did have some slight bearing on Chief Inspector Dover’s future conduct of the case.
A time came when, not to put too fine a point on it, Dover was in urgent need of paper. The supplies provided by the local Sanitary Department had been exhausted some time ago, and Dover was reduced to searching through his pockets. He could find only one piece that was of an acceptable size and texture: the application form for the position of Chief Security Officer with Pomeroy Chemicals Limited. There was a moment’s hesitation, but only a moment’s. Dover was never the man to get his priorities wrong and, anyhow, he could always send off for another application form.
But, somehow, even at that moment, he knew that he wasn’t going to bother. There is a lot to be said for Public Service, especially for the bone idle. The stresses and strains, the cut and thrust of commercial life – these, Dover realized, were not for him. With one firm pull, he despatched both Ambition and the application form. Then, feeling happier and more at ease with himself than he had done for some time, he adjusted his clothing before leaving, and left.
MacGregor was waiting for him outside with the police car.
‘’Strewth, that’s better!’ sighed Dover, sinking thankfully down on the back seat. ‘You don’t think she could have put something in that tea, do you? Here’ – the car had started moving as soon as MacGregor had shut his door – ‘where are we going?’
‘To the house Pearl Wallace lodged in, sir. Her landlady should be able to give us the girl’s home address and, with any luck, a great deal more information about her, too.’
‘Pearl Wallace?’
MacGregor blamed himself, really. He, if anybody, should have remembered that Dover needed treating like the mental deficient he was. ‘The dead girl, sir.’
‘I know, I know!’ snapped Dover, having had time to work it out for himself. ‘What about that RAF station?’
MacGregor nodded. ‘You think that the putative father might possibly be an airman, sir? Yes, that idea had crossed my mind. The only trouble is that there are something like a thousand men on that station and they’re always changing. An investigation there would involve us in an awful lot of work and I was wondering if we mightn’t just leave it for the moment until we’ve something more to go on. Perhaps later on . . .’
‘Good idea!’ said Dover who would have postponed everything to the morrow, if he could. ‘Besides, we’ve already decided that the real dad’s sitting on his backside in Frenchy Botham.’
‘That’s only a theory, sir,’ warned MacGregor. ‘We must try to keep an open mind.’
‘I’d be happy,’ said Dover, suddenly mindful of his troubles, ‘if I could just keep an open bowel.’
Mrs O’Malley was not unaccustomed to finding policemen on her doorstep though it was the first time she’d encountered Scotland Yard. She thoughtfully examined her visitors’ credentials before making her own position crystal clear. She was a poor widow woman who scratched a meagre living by letting off a few furnished rooms on a weekly basis. Not being blessed by much in the way of book learning, Mrs O’Malley ran a strictly cash-in-advance business. No cheques, no credit cards, no credit.
‘And that’s the only interest I take in my tenants,’ she said, folding thin arms over a thin bosom. ‘I don’t mother’em and I don’t pry into their affairs and I don’t give ’em advice. I just stand here every Friday night and hold my hand out. If they haven’t got it, they don’t stay. I’ve got a son in the nex
t street. He takes after his father. Six foot two in his stocking feet, shoulders like an ox and a nasty temper to go with it. I don’t’ – she allowed the faintest hint of a smile to play on the uncompromising line of her lips – ‘usually have any trouble.’ MacGregor pointed out that Pearl Wallace had been missing for nearly a fortnight.
Mrs O’Malley agreed, without any sign of involvement whatsoever, that this was so. ‘She paid me on the seventh and I kept the room for her till the fifteenth. A couple of days later this blackie turns up. Well, his money’s as good as anybody else’s. I let him have the room.’
MacGregor sighed. ‘You didn’t think of informing the police that the girl was missing?’
‘You get no thanks for it.’
‘What did you do with her things?’
‘Cleared ’em out. Not that there was all that much. Just a few clothes and bits and pieces that wouldn’t fetch half a dollar if you was to try and sell ’em.’
‘You didn’t throw them away?’ asked MacGregor.
Mrs O’Malley indignantly drew herself up to her full height. ‘I should think I didn’t! I packed ’em away in a cardboard box and I’ve got it in my room. Do you want to see it?’
‘We may have to take it away,’ said MacGregor as he and Dover followed Mrs O’Malley downstairs into the basement where she had her own bed-sitting room.
The television was on and Mrs O’Malley, having deposited the cardboard box on the table, made no move to switch it off. ‘I’ll be glad to see the back of it,’ she announced as she settled herself down in her chair again to watch the second half of Crossroads. ‘I’ll want a receipt, of course.’
The cardboard box yielded precisely nothing. It merely confirmed the almost ephemeral nature of Pearl Wallace’s life. A few cheap, mass-produced garments, one or two items of inexpensive make-up, a couple of tawdry teenage magazines. No letters.
