‘I’m flattered,’ Ironside said. ‘I thought you and Lassington here had a much lower opinion of my powers. But do go on. I find all this most interesting.’
‘Yes, sir. Well, sir, when I thought I was going to be a murder suspect as well I decided that the time had come to make the break. I’ve been on the verge of it before, sir, but now I thought “To hell with it, I’ll skive off. I’ll leave all this behind and get away with June.”’
‘You thought that?’
‘Yes, I did, sir. I suppose it sounds silly to you, but it’s what I thought.’
‘Unaided? These remarkable reflections were the product of your mind alone?’
Jack just glanced over at Peter.
‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘They were. It was my own idea.’
‘Suitably romantic, certainly,’ Ironside said. ‘But not, of course, true. Is it, Lassington?’
Peter bit his lower lip and said nothing.
Ironside smiled.
‘The schoolboy code,’ he said, ‘you know, it amounts to that. The code says that the boy who’s caught must never sneak on his accomplices. I’ve got it right, haven’t I? I’m rather weak in that particular subject.’
He paused, but both Jack and Peter decided to treat his question as rhetorical. Ironside, unfortunately, had decided the opposite.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘have I got the code right, Spratt? Isn’t that the rule: never sneak once you’re caught?’
‘I suppose it is, sir,’ said Jack.
‘You suppose, Spratt. Is it, or isn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir, it is.’
‘Very well, then. I’ve already said I’m not particularly familiar with such attitudes, and I’ll tell you this: I don’t intend to have any truck with them now. I propose, however unpleasant it is, to behave as if this was the real world. So, Spratt, I’d be obliged if you’d tell the truth. It was Lassington who put this idea into your head, wasn’t it?’
Jack looked at Peter helplessly. Peter kept his face rigidly still.
‘I’ve already explained to Lassington that it was possible to deduce where you were hiding by starting from the premise that he had suggested you should disappear,’ Ironside said. ‘So, you see, all this high-mindedness is totally unnecessary. Now, answer up and don’t waste any more time. Did Lassington put this idea into your head? Yes or no?’
Once more Jack looked across at Peter.
‘Yes, sir,’ he said, ‘he did.’
He gave Peter a last look.
‘Yes, he did, sir,’ he went on. ‘In a manner of speaking I suppose if it’s a question of strict truth he was the one who first mentioned it. We were standing just by the stage door here, sir, waiting to go out into the rain last night, and we talked over the case a bit. And then Pete – then Lassington, sir, put it to me that I was in a pretty dicey position and suggested a possible way out. But it was my decision to do it, sir, my decision entirely.’
‘So long as we have the truth,’ Ironside said. ‘Luckily I’m not much concerned with apportioning the blame. Perhaps, who knows, Lassington’s exemplary regard for a friend’s welfare will be accounted a good deed?’
‘It was, sir,’ Jack said, with a touch of his old defiance.
‘I’m happy that you should think so. However, the unfortunate thing is that it was based on a false premise.’
‘A false premise, sir?’
‘Yes. You’re aware of the meaning of such an excessively pedantic expression?’
‘It means that you think I’ve got the whole thing wrong at the start,’ Jack said in an angry tone as if thoroughly fed up at last with Ironside’s painstakingly pin-pricked manner.
‘Exactly so,’ said Ironside. ‘And expressed in language both simple and forcible. An enviable asset.’
‘Look,’ said Jack, ‘just what are you getting at? What the hell is this about me getting it all about-face?’
Ironside held up a broad palm as if to avert this stream of fury.
‘I’ll try to match your simplicity, Constable,’ he said. ‘It’s just this: if you think you’re ever going to start a new life with Miss Curtis, you couldn’t be more wrong. She wouldn’t have you.’
‘It’s a lie. A damned, bloody lie.’
Jack’s face was greyly white.
‘Well, now,’ said Ironside cosily, ‘let’s try and recall Miss Curtis’s exact words. I think we could do that, Lassington, don’t you?’
He turned and looked at Peter. Apparently this was another of his rhetorical questions to which he expected an answer.
Peter eventually obliged.
‘I’m not sure, sir, exactly what she said,’ he replied. ‘I mean, she was being pressed pretty hard and all that.’
Ironside pulled the caricature of a long face.
‘Tut,’ he said, ‘an inability to remember the exact words used by a witness in a key interview. You’ll have to smarten yourself up a bit there, lad, if you’re to get into the C.I.D.
‘Especially as this business is going to be a fair setback to you,’ he added.
He turned back to Jack.
‘Now,’ he said. ‘Miss Curtis. What exactly did she say? I’ll tell you. She said: “All right, so Jack was my lover but don’t think he ever meant so much to me. He kept hanging around and kept asking and every now and again I gave in to him.” I think I’ve got it more or less correctly.’
Jack was saying nothing. But the expression of the eyes in his dead-white face conveyed an urgent enough message, a simple plea to Ironside to unsay the words. A childish cry to have the broken world mended by Daddy.
The silence grew in the little room where not so long before Teddy Pariss had perhaps made some animal sound as a paper-knife with the representation of a naked girl forming its hilt had been thrust powerfully into his back. The spell was broken by a pawing knock at the door.
‘Ah, come in, come in,’ Superintendent Ironside said with cheerful normality.
The door opened six inches. Bert Mullens thrust his bleary-eyed head in.
‘There’s a lady,’ he said. ‘Tells me you want to see her.’
He emanated unbelief.
‘I do indeed,’ said Ironside.
He got up and walked round the little desk to the door. He opened it wide.
‘Do come in, Mrs Spratt,’ he said.
Sheila Spratt walked in. She looked at Jack and then looked down at the jumble of luxury objects on the desk top in front of her.
‘Thank you, Mullens,’ Ironside said. ‘I think we shall be able to manage now.’
Bert shuffled reluctantly away. They stood listening to his indeterminate footsteps gradually going along the corridor. At last Ironside spoke.
‘I’ve just been telling your husband that Miss Curtis isn’t interested, Mrs Spratt,’ he said. ‘She has other objects in mind. The Miss Globe title is apparently more attractive than your Jack.’
Jack took a step forward. His fist was clenched.
Ironside ignored him. He was looking at Sheila Spratt with the expression of mild curiosity that Peter had seen on his face before.
It took several seconds for Sheila to absorb what had been said. At last she turned to Jack.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘dreams don’t always come true, then, do they?’
Jack shook his head from side to side in agreement, like a dumb beast.
‘I suppose you’ll be coming back after all?’ his wife said.
‘I don’t know.’
Ironside cleared his throat.
‘You mustn’t imagine it’ll be his choice, Mrs Spratt,’ he said. ‘You realize that with his notorious attachment to Miss Curtis and the fact that he was admittedly within a few yards of this room when Pariss was murdered make things very awkward for him. Just because he’s explained a certain amount to us, it doesn’t necessarily mean that he isn’t the man we want.’
Sheila Spratt looked at Ironside.
‘Don’t you understand a thing?’ she said. ‘Haven’t I told you already
? I’m married to Jack. We’ve been husband and wife for years. We’ve got children. It doesn’t make any difference to me whether he’s a murderer or not.’
Ironside smiled.
‘It would make a difference to some people,’ he said. ‘Not everybody gets quite as involved in their marriage as you do, Mrs Spratt.’
‘Listen.’
Jack spoke hoarsely.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I’m beginning to learn. Sheila, will you –’
The door opened abruptly.
Sergeant Frollet came briskly in. He stopped for a moment when he saw Sheila and looked at Ironside as if asking for instructions.
‘Ah, Frollet,’ the superintendent said. ‘An opportune interruption. Constable Spratt was about to say something he would do better to keep for the intimacy of the domestic circle.’
A little gleam of fury showed in the corners of Jack’s eyes. But Ironside was too busy with Frollet.
‘You’ve made some progress?’ he asked him.
The sergeant let a faintly pleased expression appear on his podgy face.
‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘Our friend will stand up to it all the way. I’d bet my last bob on it.’
Ironside pursed his lips as if to whistle.
‘Would you, indeed?’ he said.
He turned to Sheila Spratt.
‘Mrs Spratt,’ he said, ‘I think, if you don’t mind, you’d better leave us now. We turn out to have some unexpectedly serious business to transact.’
Whether it was because of the emotional upheavals she had been experiencing or because she was unused to the superintendent’s circumlocutions, Sheila Spratt did not appear to have understood a word of what he had said.
‘Mrs Spratt,’ he repeated, ‘I am about to clear up this business. Please go away.’
21
This time Sheila Spratt did understand. Ironside was about to make an arrest. Whatever it was Sergeant Frollet had told him so cryptically was apparently what he had been waiting for. She took one look at her husband. He was standing by the wall of the little room, looking as though the turmoil of the last few minutes had paralysed his big body and left only his mind working furiously but aimlessly to sort everything out. It was a long look.
As if it might be the last look.
Then she turned and without another word left. They watched the door shut behind her.
Superintendent Ironside slowly surveyed the room.
On the floor at his feet a few dim patches of whitish powder were all that was left of the chalk outline that had been drawn with care round the body of Teddy Pariss, organizer of the Miss Valentine contest, focus and pinpoint for so many aspiring young ladies from so many near and distant places.
‘Well, now, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘let’s just establish a few facts. There’s something to be said for clearing the decks. Seeing things as they are may not be particularly savoury, but at least it’s less complicated than seeing things any other way.’
He sat on the edge of the desk, displacing the heavy silver tray of pencils.
‘And it’s facts we’ve got to deal with,’ he went on. ‘If you’re set on making a career as a detective that’s one of the first things you’ve got to realize. Ideas are all very well, notions about what someone had in the back of their mind to make them do such at thing are all very well, but they’re precious little good to you when you come down to it. No, you must concentrate on the facts. And what is the first fact we come up against in this case? Spratt?’
He looked hard across at Jack.
Jack shook his head wearily.
‘Well, Lassington, then?’
Peter concentrated.
‘I suppose that Pariss was killed, sir.’
‘Good. We accept that he was killed and to get a knife in him in that position it must have been a deliberate assault. What next?’
Peter concentrated again.
‘When he was killed, sir?’ he asked.
‘Excellent. Yes, when he was killed. What are the facts that made it necessary for Teddy Pariss to be killed just at the time he was?’
He shot a glance at Jack. But Jack only blinked.
‘Then I’ll tell you,’ Ironside said. ‘We come up at once against that telephone call to Lassington at his flat. Don’t we? Isn’t that the time factor? Whoever made that call knew it would bring Lassington round here and that he’d discover Pariss dead. What was the idea?’
He looked at the two constables in turn. Neither was able to provide an answer.
‘Quite simple, gentlemen,’ Ironside said. ‘The murderer wanted Lassington round here to discover the body. Why? Because there was something he could rely on Lassington to do. What was that?’
‘Look here, sir –’ Peter began.
But Ironside interrupted him.
‘That stupid business with the tape-recorder and the time-plug on the fire,’ he snapped. ‘The plug had to be pulled out. That was the essence of the trick. It had to be pulled out the moment the body was found. Now why could the murderer rely on Police Constable Lassington to do that?’
He turned and looked at Peter as if he was willing the answer out of him.
But he got no answer.
‘Don’t know, sir,’ Peter said exhaustedly.
‘Oh, come, Lassington,’ Ironside said. ‘Stop pretending. You must see it all now.’
Peter shook his head.
Ironside stood up.
‘It could only be because Police Constable Lassington was the murderer,’ he said.
Sergeant Frollet moved half a pace to his right so that he stood in front of the door. Detective-Constable Spratt looked up as if in a deep well a sudden ray of light had cut down from above.
‘I warn you,’ Ironside said, ‘that anything you say from now on may be used in evidence.’
‘Thank you for nothing.’
‘Yes,’ Ironside went on, ‘you killed Pariss and left him lying there. On your way out you met Lindylou Twelvetrees – she said you looked put out, and no wonder – and you realized it was possible after all for other people to have been with Pariss. So you doubled back and broke in at that window there when Pariss was no longer in a position to hear the noise and you fixed up that alibi with the time-plug. But that meant you had to be sure of getting back to Pariss before anyone else came in. The notice on the door would keep them out for a while, so you grabbed hold of a certain Mr Sprogson, a dealer in dirty books and your particular snout. We heard he was hanging round the place from Mullens. And you told him to ring you at exactly one-thirty. You even made sure your wife took the call.’
‘It’s a lie,’ Peter burst out.
He looked round the narrow confining walls of the little office.
‘We’ve got proof,’ Ironside said. ‘I knew, of course, quite early on. But there wasn’t any point in acting till I had a little solid evidence.’
He looked over at Frollet.
‘Tell him, Sergeant,’ he said.
‘I’ve just been talking to Sprogson,’ said Frollet placidly. ‘He’ll swear to his part in court all right.’
‘In court,’ Peter shouted. ‘All this nonsense won’t look so clever then. Not when a jury ask themselves why on earth I should have wanted to kill Teddy Pariss.’
‘Motive doesn’t matter, as I’ve so often said,’ Ironside answered. ‘But you never really listened to me, did you? However, I can suggest what happened.’
‘Can you?’ Peter snarled.
‘I think you killed Pariss because you wanted to get hold of that mysterious letter from Fay Curtis,’ said Ironside. ‘After all, it did disappear, and you were the one in a position to make off with it. I imagine it was you who was blackmailing Fay. You certainly know how to use a Swiss bank, even if Mullens doesn’t. Of course Fay wouldn’t want her rather nasty activities to come out, even after her demise. It would make June’s career that much harder: nobody wants a Miss Globe from a criminal family. But I expect, like all of us, Fay wanted her revenge. So she wrote t
o her old friend, Teddy. He had some pretty unpleasant employees when I was a constable on this beat.’
He sighed heavily.
‘Strictly off the record,’ he went on, ‘I’ll even go so far as to hazard a guess that what made you blackmail old Fay in the first place was an inordinate desire to go and live in some nauseous place like Hollywood. I suppose you saw yourself surrounded by dazzling and adoring women.’
‘How did you know?’
‘Only a guess. Based on what your wife told me about all those magazines you’re so addicted to. You should have stuck to the Police Gazette, you know. It’s not so pretty, but it’s nearer the truth.’
This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader
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Copyright © H. R. F. Keating, 1965
First published by Collins 1965
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Is Skin Deep, Is Fatal Page 20
