At a discreet nod from Mr Brown, hardly reminiscent at all of his ineffectual yell of the afternoon, Number Two, Miss Rose Grower – a big rose, made of velvet, at her bosom and a look of magnificent confidence on her incurably horse-shaped face – set off on the same dangerous journey.
And one by one they followed, while the orchestra suavely and tirelessly played their tune. Lindylou Twelvetrees distinguished herself in two ways: by the patent anxiety of the lick she gave her lips before she hitched up her long skirt and started on the dangerous tour of the catwalk, and by the blatancy of the wink she gave the judges at the moment she paused to receive their scrutiny.
June, who followed her, was unable to control a fleeting expression which the uncharitable would have called a sneer. But it passed and she trod the softly carpeted catwalk with an easy professionalism, skilfully milking applause in a well-timed crescendo from the huge audience. She provided a noticeable contrast with the way the less practised contestants reserved every ounce of their charms for the judges, only to appear to be trying too hard.
Jack’s eyes gleamed.
‘She’ll do it,’ he said. ‘That’s my girl.’
Superintendent Ironside turned towards him but refrained from comment.
With wiggling hips or arms moving as if on wires, the rest of the contestants bore the judges’ scrutiny, ogling or simpering as each thought most effective. At last they were all back on the stage forming a bevy of beauty round the great, pink, throbbing heart and the empty, waiting throne in front of it.
‘Yes, you know,’ said Ironside as the band gracefully brought the interminable parade tune to an end, ‘this is a great improvement on a cattle show. The girls have got much more sense of discipline. You wouldn’t get one of them trying to munch somebody’s coat on the way past.’
Peter laughed.
‘It’s a sight more interesting than a cattle show too,’ he said. ‘I mean, some of those girls are smashers.’
Ironside sighed.
‘I suppose so, I suppose so,’ he said. ‘Certainly the memory of this is going to spoil the shows I’d looked forward to in my retirement. They were going to be little events to break up the monotony.’
Jack grinned broadly and nodded up towards the glamorous group round the big heart.
‘They’re not exactly a retirement sport,’ he said.
‘No, I think I’d agree to that,’ said Ironside gravely.
On the stage, Mr Brown finished describing the girls once more for the benefit of the customers. He brought his little speech to a vibrant conclusion.
The girls stood and looked at him.
He smiled back.
It was perhaps just noticeable that the eyes behind the smile were unpleased.
‘All right, girls,’ he said with a laugh, ‘off you go now. I know the customers here would like to look at you all night, but you’ve got to get into those swim-suits.’
He turned to the customers.
‘Oh, boy,’ he said.
The girls, with swift intelligence, took the hint and filed neatly off the platform.
During the interval while the girls changed into their swim-suits and the customers in the ballroom were pressed to eat and drink and make merry, the superintendent, followed by his two wary shadows, prowled round the area back-stage. His presence caused considerable annoyance.
The ruddy-faced Mr Brown, in spite of his midnight-blue dinner jacket, was quite like his old self when he addressed the girls briefly before going back on stage.
‘Now, listen,’ he said, ‘some of you were going too slow on the catwalk. Don’t think I didn’t notice. T know you all imagine you can steal an extra round of applause by staying out there. But you won’t get away with it. By cripes, I’ll have you disqualified before you can so much as wiggle your bottom, you see if I don’t.’
He gave them a final comforting glare and slipped on to the stage. As Ironside, Jack and Peter came through the pass-door they heard the beginning of his speech.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sure you’ll agree that this is the greatest bunch of little sports you’ve ever seen on any competition platform. Well, I just want to say that I agree with you. Absolutely.’
Superintendent Ironside had to speak quite loudly to make himself heard above the waves of applause.
‘I’m reassured to hear that,’ he said. ‘I was beginning to think that the evils of professionalized sport had intruded even here.’
Jack shrugged his shoulders with a grin.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘he can’t tell the customers the girls would do anything to win, can he? I mean, they wouldn’t like it.’
‘I stand rebuked,’ said Ironside.
There was a roar of applause which made even this much conversation impossible. The great little sports were filing back on to the platform.
The spirit of the contest was at a peak now. Each entrant’s start on her final run was heralded by a really frenzied burst of clapping from their particular supporters. Tears were ready to be shed, tempers were looking to be unleashed. One by one the competitors swayed or minced along the catwalk. Miss Rose Grower had another and larger and more velvety rose in the strap of her swim-suit. Lindylou Twelvetrees had a little golden locket bouncing and jiggling ahead of her. But plainly the heat of the day was getting her down. She peered anxiously at her feet as she came on to the catwalk as if to see where she was, and then fixing a wide but mirthless grin on her face she marched forward.
Only, just in the middle of the judges’ table, to miss her footing and teeter perilously from the edge.
‘Ooops,’ she squeaked.
There was a roar of laughter. Lindylou managed to regain her balance. She turned and hurried back to the comforting embraces of her fellow contestants linking arms happily under the pink heart.
June, coming next again, was in top form. She refused to allow the incident in any way to perturb her. The laughter died away. A steady swell of applause replaced it.
‘Look,’ said Jack, ‘they’re clapping all over the hall. That’s what’ll make the judges pick her. She’ll do it. She’ll really do it.’
The last of the girls slipped into place on the stage.
Mr Brown, caught and held by the spotlights, walked solemnly over to the judges’ table.
He conferred.
He walked back to the stage.
There was a thrilled hush.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Mr Brown said, ‘the judges wish to view three of the competitors again. They would like to see them in evening dress.’
An excited buzz greeted this.
‘The old devil,’ said Jack, ‘he’ll have put them up to it. It’s an old trick to spin things out. June must have won by now.’
‘Good gracious,’ said Ironside. ‘What duplicity.’
The buzz died away. Mr Brown, with colossal pauses to take breath, announced the names of the three finalists. They were June, the girl who believed in ‘Charm and be natural’ and, surprisingly so it seemed, Lindylou Twelvetrees.
‘Ah,’ said Jack, ‘I wondered if that accident business on the catwalk was a trick. She’s cleverer than she looks, that one.’
‘All the same,’ said Peter, ‘she won’t really stand a chance against June. She can’t.’
‘Do you know,’ Ironside said, ‘I think this might be an excellent moment to put our questions to that lady.’
13
Jack’s face fell as if a birthday cake had been snatched away before his eyes. Peter, though perhaps less involved, looked almost as brutally robbed.
He spoke before Jack could say anything he would regret.
‘Look, sir, isn’t that a bit hard?’ he said. ‘The poor girl will be in a hell of a state wondering what the judges will decide.’
‘Yes,’ said Superintendent Ironside, ‘she must be in a hell of a state. Bring her round to Pariss’s office, will you? And don’t let her linger about.’
It was an order. An unmistakable order.
&n
bsp; ‘Yes, sir,’ Peter said.
He hurried on ahead of the superintendent down the narrow passage beside the stage and round to the girls’ dressing-room. He knocked on the door.
One of the unsuccessful contestants poked her head round. Peter told her he wanted June urgently.
‘Oh, her,’ said the girl. ‘I don’t suppose Miss Snooty will speak to you.’
But she was wrong. June, wearing a flowered quilted nylon housecoat, came to the door.
‘Superintendent Ironside would like to see you at once,’ Peter said.
June’s eyes, inside the ornate layers of make-up, hardened.
‘I can’t see him now,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Peter stubbornly. ‘But he insists.’
‘Look, we’ll be called on again before very long.’
‘The super knows all about that.’
He waited staring at the door-post beside her, saying nothing.
‘Oh, all right.’
June swept out and Peter led her quickly round the corner and along to the office where, only that morning, Teddy Pariss, uncrowned king of the beauty queens, had had someone stick a knife right into his back.
‘Good evening, Miss Curtis,’ Ironside said bleakly.
He was sitting in Teddy Pariss’s stuffed chair and with a curt jerk of his head indicated the hard chair on the other side of the desk for June.
She did not sit down.
‘What do you want?’ she said. ‘This is a bad time for me.’
‘This is a bad time for us, Miss Curtis. Sit down, please.’
June lowered herself on to the battered kitchen chair.
‘Well?’ she said.
‘Will you tell me once more what happened the last time you saw Mr Pariss alive?’ Ironside said.
A frown of annoyance broke the smooth sheen of foundation cream and powder on June’s forehead.
‘Look, I told you. This is a tricky moment for me. If you’ve got nothing better to do than ask questions I’ve already answered, you can ask them later.’
She began to get up.
‘If I thought you were telling the truth this afternoon I wouldn’t bother you now,’ Ironside said.
June stopped getting up.
Ironside waited.
But not for long.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘let’s have the truth now and we’ll be done with it.’
For an instant it looked as if he was going to break June then and there. But her full mouth hardened almost before that instant was out.
‘You’ve had the truth,’ she said. ‘What more do you want?’
‘Very well,’ Ironside barked. ‘If you won’t tell me without fuss, then we’ll have fuss. And fuss in plenty. Now, what happened when you saw Pariss?’
‘I’ve told you.’
‘Then you can tell me again.’
‘I won’t stand for this. You can’t do it to me.’
‘You haven’t stood for anything yet, Miss Curtis. I’m investigating a murder, let me remind you. And I mean to find out what I want to know. Whether you like it or not. Now, let’s hear it.’
‘I’ve said it once, I can only say it again.’
‘Or you can tell us what really happened.’
‘Nothing really happened.’
‘No, exactly. Nothing happened the way you told it to me this afternoon.’
‘Don’t try to trick me. I told you the truth this afternoon.’
‘You told me a lot of interesting things, but you didn’t tell me what really happened.’
‘Oh, yes, I did.’
‘Did you, indeed? You told me you came in here, to begin with. Wasn’t that lie number one?’
‘Lie? What do you mean lie?’
June took a long, deep breath.
‘Are you accusing me of lying, Superintendent?’ she said. ‘Because if so, you can bloody well take it back.’
Superintendent Ironside leant forward across the little desk. He joined his craggy hands in front of him.
‘Now, look,’ he said, ‘there’s no need for all this. I’m a policeman, an old policeman. I’m on the edge of retirement. Believe me, I’ve been told lies before. I don’t get worried about it. But it makes things so complicated.’
His voice sank to a cajoling wheedle.
‘Wouldn’t it be much easier if you simply told me the truth? Straight away? Without any standing up and swearing this and swearing that? It’ll be easy for you and easy for me.’
June’s piled crown of dark red hair drooped a little.
‘I told you the truth,’ she said.
‘Ah, no, now. You told me what you thought would be easiest. I don’t blame you, mind. We all do it. But, you know, in the end, it’s simpler and easier all round just to say exactly what took place. It leaves no untidy ends. It makes everything much pleasanter.’
June looked at him. A slightly doubtful pout behind the heavy lipstick.
‘Look,’ Ironside said, ‘you did your best, of course. But you happened to be talking to an old codger who’s heard so many lies told he can spot ‘em coming a mile off. Now, don’t let’s pretend anything different. Let’s have everything open and above board between us. You just quietly sit there and tell me all about it.’
June sat. But she did not talk. There was a long time when it looked as if at any instant she was going to, but in the end she shook her head slightly and seemed to come to a decision.
‘Couldn’t I go back and get changed?’ she said. ‘Though, heaven knows, I’m not going to look my best after this.’
Ironside swung back in his chair.
‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid you won’t look your best. It’d be strange if you did. With all that must be going on in that lovely head of yours. All the lies you’ve got to check one against the other all the time. All the things you mustn’t let out. The secret you’ve got to keep, though everybody expects you to be smiling and beautiful. Oh, no, it would be very strange, indeed, if you were able to concentrate on looking lovely just now, Miss Curtis.’
And it was enough after all. Like an oyster neatly prised from its shell, June came out with it.
‘Oh, all right,’ she said. ‘I suppose I’d have told you sooner or later. It isn’t really so very much, you know. I didn’t murder Teddy Pariss, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
The rigid figure of Detective-Constable Spratt almost slumped where it stood.
Superintendent Ironside allowed his left eyebrow to rise just a fraction.
‘It was damned silly, really,’ June said. ‘And I didn’t even have to do it.’
She sat up straighter and looked the superintendent full in the face.
‘I didn’t go into Teddy at all,’ she said. ‘I crept out into the yard there, sneaked along to the window of the rest room, scrambled through and put a packet of sleeping pills in the tea-urn. I thought if those little bitches were so sleepy they didn’t know which way to turn, I’d be certain of pulling off the contest.’
‘Dear me,’ said Ironside.
He pulled a long face.
‘And just as you were coming in again,’ he asked, ‘you heard Bert Mullens clumping round the corner?’
June nodded.
‘I grabbed hold of the handle of Teddy’s door,’ she said, ‘and pretended I’d just come out. I was scared that old fool Bert would insist on having a long, maundering conversation and Teddy would come out. Poor devil, I suppose he was dead then.’
Ironside rose from his chair.
‘Well, now,’ he said, ‘they’re always telling me that confession has a relieving effect. Let’s hope so. The very best of luck to you with the judges.’
June turned and left in a hurry. She did appear to be more cheerful.
‘Well,’ said the superintendent, ‘this almost certainly accounts for that distressing business with our friend Mullens. No doubt he helped himself liberally to the tea when the girls didn’t get it. It’s pleasant to have one thing cleared up at least.’
>
‘Silly kid,’ Jack said. ‘Why did she want to do a thing like that?’
‘But this makes a difference,’ said Peter. ‘If Teddy Pariss was killed earlier than we thought, Daisy Stitchford hasn’t got an alibi after all. She may have been being watched by all those people at the time we thought the murder was done, but now it could have happened round about those two or three minutes she slipped out.’
‘And listen, me old beaut,’ Jack added, ‘this makes it more likely for Lindylou, too. Gives her more time.’
‘Ah, what eager beavers indeed,’ said Ironside. ‘And tell me, Lassington, which of these two charming suspects would you prefer?’
‘Prefer, sir?’
Peter looked at him in frank disbelief.
Ironside smiled enigmatically as ever.
‘Luckily,’ he said in his annoyingly quiet voice, ‘we don’t have to make a choice. It may be, you know, that our naked little friend wasn’t in the judges’ room long enough.’
Jack’s eyes gleamed.
‘I don’t reckon we found that out from the girls, right enough,’ he said. ‘We ought to have another go at ‘em.’
‘A pastime which I think you will not find wholly distasteful,’ said Ironside.
Jack grinned.
‘No, sir.’
‘Yet look out. Remember, we’ll be dealing not with young hopefuls now, but with young disappointeds.’
‘You could be right, sir,’ Jack said.
‘Nevertheless we must do our duty.’
So while June Curtis fought it out once more in front of the judges Jack, Peter and the superintendent invaded the girls’ dressing-room again and put them through another long bout of questioning. And the superintendent proved to be right. No longer was gay information about the world of beauty contests forthcoming. All was sullenness and sulks.
‘That June don’t stand a chance,’ one rejected aspirant confided to Peter. ‘Her sort’s on the way out. A few years ago, mind, it was different. I grant you that. But now they don’t want that voluptuous type. They like ‘em sort of cheeky.’
Is Skin Deep, Is Fatal Page 13
