Is Skin Deep, Is Fatal

by H. R. F. Keating

  ‘Look, he may have taken the notice down.’

  ‘He didn’t. I saw it not a few minutes ago. And heard him in there.’

  ‘Well, if he’s there no one can be doing the place, can they? We’ve only got to find out. Come on.’

  He marched round behind the not far from terrified Bert and pushed him out ahead of him. They went along the short length of passage with Teddy Pariss’s office at the end on the right.

  The ‘Keep Out’ notice was still in place. They looked at it in silence.

  ‘See,’ whispered Bert.

  ‘He may have left it hanging when he went out.’

  Peter found he was whispering too.

  ‘He hasn’t gone out. I’d of seen him if he’d gone out,’ Bert objected.

  ‘But I can’t hear a sound inside.’

  ‘He may not be making a sound. There are things that don’t make a sound.’

  Peter turned from looking at the closed door and looked at Bert. It was plain from the way his mouth was slightly open with the tongue resting on the lower lip that he had meant what it sounded as if he had.

  Peter turned back to the door.

  ‘I’m going to knock,’ he said.

  And quickly he gave a sharp rat-tat just beside the ‘Keep Out’ notice.

  Bert Mullens looked as if he wanted to cut and run for it. Peter glared at him.

  From Teddy Pariss’s office there came no sound.

  ‘All right,’ Peter said, ‘I’m going to knock again.’

  And he banged at the door almost as loudly as Bert had banged at the judges’ room door when Lindylou Twelvetrees had taken refuge there. But more respectfully.

  And still no answer.

  ‘What did I tell you?’ Peter said. ‘He’s gone out and left the notice up.’

  ‘I tell you he could never of done. I’m on the watch I am. I have to be with those girls. He couldn’t never get past me.’

  Bert had drawn himself up.

  ‘All right,’ Peter said, ‘I’m just going to pop my head in and make sure everything’s all right.’

  ‘You do it if you like,’ Bert said listlessly.

  There are people who feel that one formal protest is enough. After that the deluge.

  Peter put his hand on the doorknob. He waited. He cocked his head at a listening angle. Behind him Bert Mullens made no attempt to participate.

  Peter took a breath and pushed at the door.

  It resisted him.

  ‘Locked,’ he said.

  ‘Can’t be locked,’ Bert said. ‘Ain’t no lock on that door. We had ‘em all taken off after the Valentine two years ago. One of the girls locked herself in one of the dressing-rooms with a chap. Nasty business.’

  Peter pushed at the door again. It certainly showed no sign of budging.

  ‘It must be locked,’ he said. ‘The office next door has a lock. That girl used it this morning.’

  ‘Manager wanted it kept,’ Bert replied. ‘I told him it would lead to trouble.’

  Peter turned away from the door for a moment.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘you’re certain there’s no lock here?’

  ‘There’s no lock on that door,’ Bert said firmly. ‘Hasn’t been for two years.’

  ‘All right, then,’ Peter said, ‘I’m going to break in.’

  He stepped back a couple of paces and charged. With a heavy thump his shoulder hit the woodwork. There was a protesting grating sound and the door moved about an inch.

  ‘Jammed,’ Peter said.

  He charged again. The same protesting sound grated out again and the door shot back three inches more.

  Peter put his arm through the gap and pressed close to the still resisting door.

  ‘I think there’s a chair there,’ he grunted. ‘Ah.’

  His hand reached the chair and he gave it a swift jerk. The door, with the weight of his body against it, flew sharply back. The little office was left suddenly open to inspection.

  But inspection was hardly needed. There, bang in the middle of the room, lay Teddy Pariss. The rich pile of the specially borrowed carpet would have kept him nice and comfortable.

  If he had been alive.

  5

  But Teddy Pariss was not alive. Not possibly. The paperknife with the golden naked-girl handle which was jutting out of the middle of his back ruled that out, definitely.

  Nonetheless Peter Lassington went forward into the little office to look at him. But he was mindful of his training not to touch anything and he turned to keep Bert Mullens from following.

  ‘This is murder, mate,’ he said. ‘There’ll be someone round from the station in a couple of jiffies. My missus was ringing them. You’d better nip back to the stage door to show ‘em the way. Hurry.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bert.

  He turned to go. His face, pasty at the best of times, had gone greasily white.

  ‘And don’t let anybody go out,’ Peter shouted after him.

  Bert had disappeared round the corner of the passage for little more than a minute before Peter heard him coming back, loudly ushering along the police reinforcements.

  Evidently Mary had been impressive on the phone to the station, because Inspector Hammersby had come round himself together with Constable Smith and Jack Spratt. But perhaps it was only because the inspector had taken it into his head to interfere in something he ought to have left alone.

  He was certainly in fine fussy form.

  ‘Murder, murder,’ he was saying. ‘Don’t talk nonsense, man. We can’t have murder all day and every day.’

  At the office door he saw Peter.

  ‘Lassington. Lassington. What’s all this? Did you give this man a message to me?’

  ‘Looks pretty bad in here, sir,’ Peter said.

  ‘What do you mean bad?’

  Inspector Hammersby came to the wide open door of the little office.

  ‘That man’s dead. Dead. Somebody’s knifed him,’ he said. ‘This is murder. Lassington, this is murder. Don’t just stand there.’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Peter.

  But there was nothing else to do.

  Inspector Hammersby gazed in at the open doorway.

  ‘Don’t touch anything,’ he said. ‘Do not touch anything. That is an order. Constable, have you been touching things in here?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Well, understand this: nothing’s to be touched. That is an order, a quite definite order.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The inspector looked round and round.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘We’ll treat this as murder. Murder, do you understand?’

  Peter said nothing.

  Inspector Hammersby looked round two or three more times. Then an inspiration visited him.

  ‘You there, Spratt. Detective-Constable Spratt. You’ll be of some use in a case like this. It’s murder, you know. We’re treating it as murder. For the time being.’

  Peter looked down at the body of Teddy Pariss. The little golden naked girl protruding from the Prince of Wales check of his jacket. Nothing of the slim, sharp blade of the knife could be seen.

  ‘Yes, murder,’ said Inspector Hammersby. ‘You, Spratt, it’s a good thing we bumped into you just there. Take up a position outside this door and don’t let a soul in. Not a soul, you understand.’

  ‘Very good, sir,’ said Jack.

  He made an effort to repress the grin plainly wanting to burst out all over his face.

  ‘Now, then,’ the inspector said, ‘we’ll take every precaution. Every precaution. Smith, go round the front and let no one out. No, Lassington, you go to the front. Smith. Smith, you know the way we came in?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Mike Smith smartly.

  ‘Very well, take up a position there. And let no one out. That is an order.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  Mike Smith and Peter hurried off. As they went they could hear Inspector Hammersby saying to no one in particular. ‘This is a Yard matter, a Y
ard matter.’

  He trotted away to find a telephone.

  Mike Smith stood beside Bert Mullens’s box and waited to stop anybody leaving. No one attempted to do so. Bert Mullens looked cowed and was uncommunicative. Peter Lassington hurried through the big, shiny ballroom with its black cables snaking across the gleaming floor and stationed himself inside the blue carpeted foyer. He did not attempt conversation with his acquaintance the doorman still presiding with hawk-like vigilance over the few people sheltering from the rain.

  The rain was certainly doing splendidly. It had abated not a jot of its steadiness all the long day. If anything it had slowly and carefully expanded it. There was little doubt that it would still be at it, no less implacable, far into the night. It was of the stuff of heroes.

  Peter Lassington stared through the many glass doors of the ballroom at the spearing drops. Eventually a dark blue powerful car drew up at the kerb with a quick screech of brakes. A police driver was at the wheel. There were two men in the back. They got out and ran towards the shelter of the porch roof with heads lowered. The second man, an enormous burly fellow with a huge pinkish face, was carrying a heavy leather suitcase.

  They had a quick, sharp word with the doorman, who hurried to let them in and, looking puzzled, pointed Peter out to them.

  While the burly man with the case stood looking round the warm, anonymous, spangled foyer his companion, almost as tall and broad but fleshless, came up to Peter.

  ‘I’m Superintendent Ironside,’ he said. ‘I’m looking for an Inspector Hammersby.’

  ‘Constable Lassington, sir,’ Peter said. ‘Inspector Hammersby’s round at the back, where the body is. In a little temporary office behind the stage. This way.’

  He led the superintendent and his burly companion into the ballroom.

  Inspector Hammersby had been filled with delicate concern that nothing should be changed by the least hairbreadth until it had been presented to the Yard men all dewy and fresh and free from any interference for which anyone, however critical, could blame him. So he had made no announcement about the unfortunate thing that had happened to Teddy Pariss and rehearsals for the evening’s show had happily started again after the lunch break. Once more the would-be Miss Valentines were up on the shallow stage with its heavy blue drapes. They had changed into swim-suits now and looked, if possible, even more deliciously vulnerable than before. But, alas, there was no Teddy Pariss to appreciate them.

  Instead, Mr Brown, the Star Bowl manager, who had been cautiously let into the secret about poor Teddy, was doing his level best to fill his late employer’s shoes in a befitting manner.

  But there was something about his prominent, beaky nose, permanently mottled complexion, thin cheeks and receding chin which stopped him from quite measuring up to the task. Or perhaps it was just the way he tied his spotted bow-tie, or the combination of just that particular check waistcoat worn generally unbuttoned and the creaseless grey flannel trousers.

  Whatever it was, he was not half the man the late Mr Pariss had been.

  ‘Twelve. You’re late, Twelve,’ he shouted as Peter and the others came in. ‘I’ll see that you lose a point for that.’

  But he lacked the original, unforced venom. Twelve answered back.

  ‘I was only putting on my tan stuff,’ she said. ‘It wouldn’t go on right. You can’t take a point off me for that.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I can. You wait and see if I don’t.’

  Superintendent Ironside stopped inside the great glossy ballroom.

  ‘Just a second, Constable.’

  Peter Lassington waited dutifully.

  The superintendent, standing with his big fleshless hands clasped together in front of him, looked round at the fabricated luxury of the Star Bowl with his quiet eyes beneath his heavy, grey eyebrows. He looked until he had taken in sufficient of the scene. Then he spoke in a voice calculated to reach just so far as he intended and no farther. And, to tell the truth, this was often just to the point where the listener could not quite hear. It made most people crane forward a little when he spoke.

  ‘Milk,’ he said to the man who must be his sergeant, ‘stay here, please. I want this constable to show me the lay-out at the back. I think someone should keep an eye on these people. I’ll have you relieved in five minutes.’

  He looked dispassionately at the group of girls and at the judges, helpers and hangers-on down by the catwalk.

  Surprisingly the burly, pink-faced Sergeant Milk produced a labyrinthine wink.

  ‘I’ll look at that lot all right, sir,’ he said.

  He fixed his gaze earnestly on the swim-suited girls on the stage, blue-legged and chill in the big ballroom without packed crowds of onlookers to warm the atmosphere.

  Peter smiled cheerfully back. It was after all the expected thing.

  ‘Right, girls, we’ll do it once more,’ the beaky-nosed Mr Brown called out. ‘When the music starts, you, One, come down to the catwalk. Then along to the turn, stop, smile, show your legs, and on you go. When she starts off again, Two comes down off the stage. Now think. Think and get it right.’

  But his hectoring decidedly lacked the genuine scorn his former employer had so unselfconsciously attained.

  ‘All right, Constable,’ said Superintendent Ironside in the same slightly too quiet voice.

  Peter started.

  ‘This way then, sir,’ he said.

  He went carefully down the side of the big, glossy floor and reached the door to the back-stage area without attracting any attention. Superintendent Ironside followed equally unobtrusively.

  ‘Well, Constable,’ he said when the little swing door had closed behind them, ‘I see you know how to get about without drawing attention to yourself.’

  Peter was unable to prevent a sudden blush.

  ‘Now,’ the superintendent went on, ‘before we go any farther, can you tell me the general lay-out of this delightful palace of pleasure?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I can. I was the one who discovered the body as a matter of fact.’

  ‘That was diabolically astute of you.’

  In the gloom Peter looked round sharply. The words were pitched just to the point where it was difficult to be sure they had been said.

  Superintendent Ironside’s craggy face wore a faint enigmatic smile.

  ‘Go on, Constable,’ he said.

  ‘Well, sir, we’re at the side of the stage now, as you know. This little corridor runs down to a wide passage going all along the whole back of the stage. There’s doors in it leading up to the stage itself on one side, and on the other side there are a couple of dressing-rooms, a rest room and a toilet for the girls. At the far end comes the stage door itself looking out on a back street, with just beside it a little sort of box for the stage-door keeper. Down the other end of the passage there’s the manager’s office and another little corridor running along to a small temporary office which Mr Pariss was using.’

  Superintendent Ironside looked at him from his deep sunken eyes under the aggressive eyebrows.

  ‘You’re a talented young man,’ he said. ‘First, it’s moving about unobtrusively, and now it’s clarity of explanation. Quite remarkable.’

  Once more Peter looked at him hard in the gloom.

  ‘And now, shall we see if you add speed as a guide to your other undoubted attainments?’

  ‘This way, sir,’ Peter said, heading down the narrow corridor beside the stage.

  He looked comically puzzled. An expression police officers by and large try to avoid.

  But Superintendent Ironside was not to meet Inspector Hammersby quite as soon as he would have liked. From behind them, somewhere in the ballroom, there came a sudden bellow of astonishing volume, in a mixture of rage, pain and shock.

  The superintendent stopped still.

  ‘Wait,’ he said.

  They could hear a confused jabber of voices. After a few seconds it became clear that it was people asking who someone was.

  ‘I’ve a feeli
ng I recognized that curious noise,’ Superintendent Ironside said. ‘It had a trace of outraged dignity about it. A policeman’s yell, I think.’

  He turned decisively and went back to the little door leading out to the big ballroom.

  As soon as he opened it they could see that he had been right. The yell had come from the enormous Sergeant Milk. He was lying now on the shiny dance floor, on his back with his right leg twisted under him in a way that legs ought never to be twisted. There was a knot of bewildered people standing round, but it was possible to see that the sergeant’s deep pink face had faded drastically.

  They hurried over.

  Milk looked up at the superintendent with big, pain-filled eyes.

  ‘It’s my leg, sir,’ he said. ‘Broken, I think.’

  ‘Has somebody sent for an ambulance?’ Ironside asked the crowd.

  ‘An ambulance? Oh, yes. Yes.’

  The beaky-nosed Mr Brown ran distractedly off.

  Ironside knelt down beside his sergeant and skilfully manoeuvred his tie down until he was able to release the neck button of the shirt.

  ‘I suppose it won’t be very long till someone comes,’ he said.

  ‘I did a damned silly thing, sir,’ said Milk, who seemed to benefit at once from the loosening of the constriction round his thick neck.

  ‘Most things we do are damned silly,’ Ironside answered, busy still adjusting the sergeant’s enormous bulk to the best advantage.

  ‘I was looking at those girls, sir,’ Milk went on. ‘I ought to have known better. And then I tripped over one of those blasted cables.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it’s something to find a man of your age showing so much virility,’ the superintendent said.

  Once again a puzzled frown appeared on Peter Lassington’s pink and white face.

  The sergeant groaned.

  ‘I couldn’t really have cared a damn about the girls, sir,’ he said. ‘But listen, you won’t let on to Mrs Milk, will you?’

  ‘I’ll be as silent as the grave,’ said the superintendent with great solemnity.

  He looked up at the bystanders.

  ‘Anybody here any experience in first-aid?’ he asked.

  The sparse-haired worried piano-player surprisingly admitted to attending Civil Defence lectures on dealing with the injured.