And in an instant she had darted up.
Only to see Ironside standing smiling down at her.
‘Good gracious,’ he said, ‘what a comedy. Really, Miss Stitchford, you’re wasted as a secretary. The stage calls you, with its glamour and its rewards.’
Daisy Stitchford’s little mouth tightened with baffled fury.
‘I – I felt better,’ she said.
‘Then no doubt you’re better enough to answer my question,’ Ironside said.
‘What question?’ said Daisy. ‘Really, Superintendent, I think I’d better go and lie down somewhere. I’ve never had an attack like that before. I don’t feel up to answering questions.’
‘Now that’s a pity,’ Ironside said, ‘because I feel very much up to asking them. A little incident like that puts heart into a fellow. Sit down, Miss Stitchford.’
He grasped the battered upright chair and swung it round for Daisy to sit on.
She sat.
‘Now,’ said Ironside, ‘what papers in particular were you looking for? What was it that Mr Pariss was up to that you so much wanted to know about?’
‘I refuse to answer,’ said Daisy.
Ironside put a hand on the back of her chair and leant over her.
‘Come, now,’ he said, ‘that sort of answer won’t do you any good. It’ll make me think the most unpleasant things about you.’
Daisy’s back straightened.
‘No,’ she said, ‘not a word.’
Ironside changed his tactics.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m not making out that you were doing anything so very bad. Just looking at documents your late employer kept intriguingly hidden away. Very natural.’
Daisy smiled a little. And shook her head firmly.
‘Listen,’ said Ironside, ‘if you don’t tell me just what you were at, then I’ll begin to think there was something in that desk which was important for you to get hold of. Something that could connect you with Pariss’s death.’
‘Threats won’t help you,’ Daisy answered. ‘I know my rights. I certainly won’t speak without having a solicitor of my choice present, and I doubt if I’ll say much even then.’
‘But those papers, Miss Stitchford,’ Ironside said, ‘I’ve only got to go through them to find out what it is.’
‘Go through them then,’ Daisy said.
Ironside shook his head sadly from side to side like a faithful hound unjustly rebuked.
‘Won’t you tell me?’ he said.
‘No.’
Ironside sighed. He walked over to the door and opened it.
‘Miss Stitchford,’ he said, ‘it would have been in your own interests.’
‘I can take care of those, thank you very much,’ Daisy answered.
And out she trotted.
Ironside nodded to Peter to close the door.
When he had done so Peter turned back.
‘What do you think she could have wanted, sir?’ he said. ‘Shall we go through the drawers straight away?’
‘Oh, no. I don’t think so.’
‘But, sir, why not?’
‘Well, we mustn’t duplicate effort, you know.’
‘Dupli – You mean you’ve been through them already?’
‘Certainly. And fascinating they were too. But not really helpful as regards this case.’
‘But wasn’t there anything that she might have wanted to have got hold of?’
Ironside smiled.
‘I’m sorry to disappoint you,’ he said, ‘but there wasn’t a thing.’
‘Then what was all that business of trying to sneak off about, then?’
‘Do you know what I think?’
‘No, sir.’
‘I think that underneath that forbidding exterior a little heart was pit-pattering away in sheer panic. Though, on the other hand –’
There came a knock at the door.
Hesitant and apologetic though it was, it was enough to stop the superintendent finishing his sentence.
On the other hand. . . .
19
It was Bert Mullens whose reluctant tap on the door had stopped Superintendent Ironside formulating whatever doubts he had considered expressing about just what had caused Daisy Stitchford to behave in such a curious fashion.
The superintendent seemed, in fact, to be delighted at having been prevented from saying more.
‘Come in, come in,’ he called cheerfully.
‘You wanted to see me?’ Bert said, his doleful head only halfway through the door. ‘Or will another time do?’
‘No, no,’ said Ironside. ‘No time like the present. In you come. Sit yourself down. Make yourself comfortable.’
Bert perched on the edge of the hard chair. He did not look comfortable. His shoulders were hunched and his whole face drooped.
‘Well,’ Ironside said, ‘and are you feeling better now?’
‘I’m all right.’
It was a surly admission.
‘A terrible thing to have happened. A terrible thing. They told you some sleeping pills got into the tea-urn, didn’t they?’
‘It didn’t ought to have been allowed. That’s what.’
‘Ah, well, mistakes will happen.’
‘Somebody ought to get punished for that,’ Bert said.
‘Oh, come,’ said Ironside, ‘I prefer to think of it as carelessness, pardonable carelessness.’
Bert glared at him.
‘You ought to do something about finding out who done it anyhow,’ he said.
‘Oh, but we are, my dear fellow. All those fingerprints we’re trying to chase. All these people we’ve interviewed. Don’t you worry: we’ll find out who killed poor old Mr Pariss. Don’t you worry about that.’
‘Not that,’ said Bert. ‘About who put them pills in that urn. Might of finished me off for good and all.’
‘Oh. That. I’m sorry, I quite misunderstood you. But, you know, no one could have realized you were likely to go drinking all that much tea.’
‘It was going, wasn’t it? If I hadn’t drunk it, it would all of been wasted.’
‘Yes, of course, I see that. Perfectly sensible of you. But then you’re a sensible chap, aren’t you?’
A grunt.
Encouraged by this acknowledgement, Ironside went on.
‘Yes, a sensible chap. You know what can be done and what can’t.’
‘That was what was wrong with him,’ declared Bert unexpectedly.
Ironside was not at a loss.
‘With Mr Pariss?’ he said. ‘I’d very much like to know what was wrong with him.’
‘Didn’t know what couldn’t be done,’ Bert said. ‘Always expecting a bloke to do more than what he could. It wasn’t fair.’
‘No. That would certainly be most unfair. But then on the other hand you expected quite a lot from Mr Pariss, didn’t you?’
‘Never mind what I expected, I never got it.’
Bert chuckled hoarsely.
‘But I do mind what you expected,’ said Ironside. ‘I mind very much indeed. I’d like to know just exactly what you did expect, Charles Hake.’
The pale light that had lit Bert’s face when he had brought off his joke faded.
‘What do you mean?’ he said.
‘You know what I mean.’
The end of Bert’s nose, normally shapeless and putty-coloured, began to go a throbbing red.
‘You’re on about that, are you?’ he said with croaking anger. ‘Well, it’s no use. If I’d of had something on that old bastard I might of tried to use it. I admit that. Admit it. But I didn’t have nothing. Not a sausage.’
He glared down at the pencil tray on the desk. The serried pencils lay as sharp and as pointed as when the late Mr Pariss had delighted to pick them up and, stabbing savagely at an innocent sheet of paper, break tip after tip.
Peter stepped quietly up.
‘Tell me,’ he said to Bert, ‘what did you do with the money?’
‘Money? I tell you there wasn
’t no money.’
‘I think there was,’ Peter said. ‘Where have you got it tucked away?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Peter went on. ‘There must have been quite a bit to hide somewhere safe. Did you send it to one of those Swiss banks? Is that it?’
‘I don’t know what you’re on about.’
‘Don’t you, indeed? I think you do. I think you opened an account at a bank in Switzerland, one of those banks that are obliged by law never in any circumstances to say a thing about their clients. You used one of those banks, didn’t you?’
‘I didn’t. I never.’
Bert sounded as unconvincing as usual.
Peter, without taking his eyes off him for a fraction of a second, moved a pace nearer.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘you’ve got one of those accounts with no name attached to it, haven’t you? One of those useful number-only accounts in Geneva, where they accept any sum sent and no questions asked. Isn’t that it?’
‘Geneva?’ Bert said. ‘What do you mean, Geneva? What would I be wanting to go to Geneva for?’
‘There’s no better place to hide dirty money.’
‘Look,’ Bert said with a touch of desperation, ‘I wasn’t blacking Teddy. If you must know, he wouldn’t let me. There’s some you can’t. They just laugh at you. Laugh in your face.’
‘And very right, too,’ said Superintendent Ironside. ‘It’s the only way to deal with a blackmailer. Isn’t it, Lassington?’
He stood up and went and opened the door.
‘So I can go, can I?’ said Bert.
He shambled towards the open door.
Just as he reached it Ironside spoke quietly in his ear.
‘Would you call yourself a patient man, Hake?’
Bert stopped still.
For a long time he did not answer.
‘Patient?’ he said when at last he did speak. ‘You ask me whether I’m a patient man? Didn’t I work for Teddy Pariss? Isn’t that answer enough?’
‘That’s what I was wondering about, you know,’ said Ironside. ‘I was just wondering whether you were patient enough?’
Bert gave him one look of dawning understanding. The thought swam through the deep, greeny murk of his mind and hit at last on some concealed nerve.
He gave a short, deep groan. And then he turned and ran out of the room. Positively ran slap-bang into a man in a slightly military-looking belted raincoat coming carefully up the corridor.
The poor fellow, suddenly cannoned into in this way, was evidently taken completely off guard. He uttered an ear-splitting shriek, as if the humdrum, though unsavoury, form of Bert Mullens was a fearsome creature conjured out of the worst excesses of the science fiction shelf.
Ironside and Peter hurried out to see what was the matter.
‘’Ere,’ said Bert with wild indignation, ‘what the hell do you think you’re doing? I never touched you.’
He turned to Ironside.
‘I swear to God I never touched the bloke,’ he said.
The man, for all the military air given him by his coat and the peaked cap he wore pulled sharply down over his forehead, still cowered against the wall of the passage. It might have looked as if Bert had in fact launched a blood-thirsty attack on him, only a mere glance at Bert himself was enough to disprove the notion.
Peter, accustomed to the vagaries of a constable’s beat in London’s West End, stepped forward.
‘Now, what’s going on?’ he said. ‘I’m a police officer.’
The man in the cap promptly darted a glance back in the direction of the stage door. It was a glance Peter knew well.
He took a pace nearer.
‘Now, then,’ he said, ‘what are you doing here?’
Realizing that there was nothing for it but to put a bold face on it, the man left the comfort of the corridor wall.
‘Ah, officer,’ he said, ‘just the chappie.’
Peter was not as impressed as was intended.
‘Well?’
‘I think you could probably help me a bit here,’ the man said. ‘Fact is, I’m looking for the O.C.’
‘What O.C.?’ said Peter mercilessly.
Under the military raincoat the man squared his shoulders.
‘Officer in charge, don’t you know,’ he said.
‘In charge of what?’ Peter said.
‘Oh, well, in charge of the show. Want a word with him, as a matter of fact.’
Ironside from the doorway of Teddy Pariss’s office decided to take a hand.
‘Can I do anything for you?’ he said without introducing himself further.
‘Oh Oh, good show. You can help me, as a matter of fact. Name of Mortenson. Captain Mortenson, as a matter of fact.’
‘Oh, yes?’
Captain Mortenson looked around him nervously. Much as he might have done when about to lead his men through a particularly sticky patch of the Desert War.
‘It’s like this, old boy,’ he said. ‘I run a sort of club, you know. Quite a nice little show really. Well I mean to say when I say “run” I’m actually two i/c. Haven’t got the capital meself.’
‘What’s the name of this club?’ Ironside asked in a voice which, for once, could all too clearly be heard.
‘Garden of Allah, actually, old boy.’
Captain Mortenson’s hand dived into the recesses of his trench coat.
‘Got a card here somewhere as a matter of fact,’ he said. ‘If you’d care to look in any time I’d be only too glad.’
‘Don’t bother,’ Ironside said. ‘I expect to be leaving for the country quite soon.’
‘Oh, yes? Good show. Spot of huntin’, I dare say.’
‘No,’ said Ironside firmly. ‘I intend to give up hunting. Completely.’
‘Oh. Well, dare say you know best, old boy.’
‘I do. And now what can I do for you?’
Captain Mortenson licked his thin lips.
‘It’s like this actually, old boy,’ he said. ‘Well, you know all the publicity there was in the paper this morning for this place. Well, it struck me that it would be a pretty good idea to get hold of a couple of the girls who were actually in the contest.’
‘I see,’ said Ironside.
‘Wanted to make arrangements, as a matter of fact,’ said Captain Mortenson. ‘’Course I must make it clear at the outset I can’t offer a great deal in the way of ackers. Though you’d get your ten per cent, old man. I’d see to that.’
‘It’s kind of you,’ said Ironside.
‘But then on the other hand,’ Captain Mortenson went on, his voice slipping into a fast, hopeful jabber, ‘the girls wouldn’t have to do very much. Just slip off the old costume, don’t you know. Give a wiggle or two, I mean, if I can say they’re straight from the death line-up at the Star Bowl, that should fix it. Wouldn’t you think?’
‘As a detective officer on the point of retirement,’ Ironside said, ‘happily I don’t have to think about things like that. I’ll leave it to your good taste and judgement, Captain.’
For a moment Captain Mortenson’s narrow eyes blazed with fury. Then better sense prevailed.
‘Oh. Come to the wrong shop, have I?’ he said. ‘Well, I’d better be pushing off then.’
He retreated, in moderately good order considering everything, in the general direction of the sunlit streets.
Ironside watched him go.
‘You know,’ he said, ‘I think we’d better hurry.’
‘Hurry, sir?’ said Peter.
‘Before that gentleman gets round to Miss Twelvetrees. We don’t want to have to dig her out of the Garden of Allah.’
‘Lindylou?’ Peter said.
‘Well, who else? After all, you were the one who used to be always reminding me she was in the next room when the murder took place. At least, you kept reminding me until your friend Spratt ran off. And there’s nothing we can do about him for the moment.’
When they reached the car Ironside gave the driver
Lindylou’s address without so much as taking his note-book out of his pocket. Peter sat in silence, glancing at him from time to time speculatively.
The traffic was a little easier at this time of the morning and they were soon zooming along the top side of the Park at a great rate. Ironside looked out at the dark green winter grass and the great, bare trees.
‘They had sheep there during the war,’ he said. ‘Pity.’
There was no way of telling whether he thought it was a pity that the departure of the sheep had deprived this part of London of a touchingly rural presence or whether he thought the whole war-time pastoral venture had been ill-judged.
Peter refrained from going into the matter.
They swept through the wide streets and past the shabbyish stately houses of Bayswater. Lindylou lived in a flat at the top of a big, crumbling five-storey house in a downgraded part of Pad-dington. The railings in the front were broken and only a blackened and knotted piece of old rope stopped children from falling into the area yawning invitingly between house and pavement.
They toiled up the uncarpeted, fiendishly dark and noticeably pungent stairs.
Lindylou turned out to be at home, and on her own. But this, it seemed, was an unusual state of affairs.
‘Mum and Dad’s out at work,’ she said. ‘And the kids are at school or else playing out the back.’
‘How many kids are there?’ Ironside asked, his deep-set eyes scanning the crowded room methodically.
‘There’s five after me,’ Lindylou said.
‘And you all live here?’
‘There’s the room next door.’
‘Ah, yes.’
Ironside picked a cheaply framed photograph off the shiny but battered sideboard. It was of Lindylou looking a little younger than she did at present and a good deal less sophisticated. Underneath was written in small elaborate handwriting ‘Linda Twelve-trees’.
‘Well, sit down, Miss Twelvetrees,’ Ironside said. ‘We’ve got a few more questions we’d like to ask you.’
‘What about?’ said Lindylou pertly.
She sat on the edge of the arm of a sofa which could be turned into a bed. She may have chosen this spot partly because the actual seat of the sofa was piled with broken toys at one end and with a heap of comics at the other. But it was mostly to assert her independence, a fact indicated by the aggressive way she stuck out those parts of her which she could stick out most conveniently.
Is Skin Deep, Is Fatal Page 18
