Death of a Beauty Queen

by E. R. Punshon

  ‘I will stay as long as you like,’ Maddox answered heavily, ‘if there is any chance of helping you find the – the murderer.’

  He pronounced the word with difficulty. It was as though the word brought home to him the fact, and that he dared not face it. His lean, cadaverous face showed plainly, in the worn, haggard look it bore, the tension he endured. His walk, even, was not too steady as he left the room, and Bobby looked after him with sympathy.

  ‘Poor devil. He’s feeling it,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Mitchell. ‘Yes. Not far from a breakdown, I think.’

  ‘No wonder,’ Bobby observed. ‘Pretty awful, the girl you’ve just got engaged to murdered the same day.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Mitchell again; and went on, half to himself: ‘Which is worse – to be murdered, to be the murderer, or to be the helpless looker-on? Well, Penfold, what have you got to tell us?’ he added, to the local man who had just come in.

  ‘Miss Mears lived at–’ Penfold gave the address. ‘It’s not more than ten minutes from here. It’s a converted flat in a fair-sized, semi-detached house. She and the aunt with whom she lived had the four rooms on the first floor. Miss Perry – that’s the aunt – is old and not very strong, and very seldom goes out. Apparently she sits and knits and listens to the wireless all day long. A woman comes in, three times a week, to clean. Other relatives, an aunt and a cousin or two, live in Exeter. Miss Perry is one of those people who believe in keeping themselves to themselves, and they don’t seem to have many friends. Miss Mears worked as a shorthand-typist in the City.’ He gave the name and address of the firm who employed her. Their offices were close to those of Maddox’s firm – South American Trades. Penfold continued: ‘I don’t imagine Miss Perry and Miss Mears got on very well. But the girl wanted cheap lodgings, and the aunt found the money she paid useful, so they put up with each other. As a result, Miss Perry doesn’t know much about Miss Mears’s private life – just disapproves of it generally. But she says she knows she was mad on the pictures – wanted to be a film star – and liked boys running after her. Applies to practically every girl in London, I should say,’ Penfold commented, in parentheses, and continued: ‘At least, most of ’em are cracked on the pictures, want to be film stars, and like as many boys in tow as they can get. Miss Mears never brought her boys to the flat, and Miss Perry only knows the names of one or two – the photographer, Beattie, and Leslie Irwin. Miss Perry let me lock the door of Miss Mears’s room so it can be examined later. She took it fairly calmly when I told her what had happened. I think she regards it as a natural judgment on a flighty girl, but is quite anxious to see judgment done on the murderer, too. She seems one of those people whose religion chiefly consists in expecting a judgment on others.’

  ‘Does she know this Leslie Irwin?’ Mitchell asked.

  ‘No. She approves of his father though. Mr Irwin led the local opposition to the Sunday opening of cinemas, and Miss Perry always approves of people who disapprove of what other people want – if you see what I mean,’ he added doubtfully.

  ‘Do you know anything yourself about Mr Irwin – the father, I mean, of course.’

  ‘He is a lawyer, but he doesn’t practise privately. He is secretary and solicitor to the Brush Hill Building Society. It’s a big concern – very flourishing now. There were rumours about it at one time, but it’s made big progress ever since the war, thanks to Mr. Irwin. He’s made it. Mr Irwin’s father was one of the founders back in the last century and the general idea is that Leslie Irwin is to follow his father and grandfather. He’s an articled clerk to a City firm at present, but acts as his father’s secretary, too – in training for the old man’s job.’

  ‘Know anything about him?’ Mitchell asked.

  ‘No, except that he’s honorary secretary to the Brush Hill Amateur Dramatic Society, and they say had a big row with his father over taking it on. But he managed it rather well. He joined the Brush Hill Literary Institute to study German – which his father did approve of. Then he joined one or two more classes, added the Literary Institute dramatic class, and worked on to the A.D.S. before the old man quite knew what was happening. In the blood apparently – the grandfather was a friend of Irving’s and Toole’s, and used sometimes to take a share in dramatic productions.’

  ‘Interesting family,’ observed Mitchell thoughtfully. ‘There was a hat in the room where the girl was murdered,’ he went on. ‘It seems it may belong to Mr Paul Irwin.’ Penfold looked very surprised and bewildered.

  ‘That’s very funny,’ he said. He got up and went across to look at the hat towards which Mitchell had pointed. ‘Mr Irwin usually wears a hat like that,’ he admitted cautiously.

  ‘I suppose he will be on the phone–’ Mitchell began, and then paused. ‘No, I think you had better go yourself. Take my car, it’ll be waiting. Ask Mr Irwin and the boy to come round here – oh, and, Penfold, the murderer can hardly have avoided getting covered with blood. But the funny thing is there’s no sign or trace of any bloodstains outside the room itself, and no one, apparently, has been noticed with anything of the sort on his person or clothing – except the photographer who discovered the poor girl. There’s the chance that the murderer covered himself up with a raincoat, or something like that – it’s drizzling a little, so a raincoat would seem natural. But just keep your eyes open for anything to suggest that either of the Irwins – father or son – has changed his clothing or washed his face or hands recently.’

  ‘Very good, sir,’ Penfold answered. ‘Ferris asked me to tell you he can’t get track of Miss Mears’s handbag. They are quite positive at the hospital it was never there. No one here seems to know anything about it. One or two say she had one, and they think it was in crocodile-skin. Mr. Beattie says he noticed it lying on the table while he was taking her portrait. He noticed it because it was a present of his – cost three guineas, he said, it was real crocodile, and he recognized it again at once. I think there’s no doubt it’s been stolen.’

  Mitchell looked a good deal disturbed, and began again his old trick of beating a tattoo on the table with his finger-ends. To him this case had seemed at first to be beyond all doubt what is called a love drama – one of those in which hot primeval passion, breaks through the customs and restraints of ordinary everyday life, and men fall back again into their first savagery of unchecked desire. Every now and again such cases occur to prove how thin is the crust of our sophisticated civilization, to prove how near the surface still boil the primordial instincts, and how easily man can relapse into the animal whose only will is to possess or kill – or both– Odd, how near man is still to the beast, and how easily the pale, routine-ridden city dweller, with his wireless and his cup of tea and penny bun every afternoon, can turn again to the red savagery of the dawn. Such cases are strange and difficult for the philosopher and the psychologist, but not generally difficult for the police officer. Here, for instance, it had seemed at first there would be little difficulty in discovering what ardent and passionate lover the engagement to Maddox had disappointed, and little likelihood there would be any necessity to look further for the culprit. But already there were complications. One had arisen front the evidence of Maddox himself. Now there was this question of the missing, and apparently stolen, handbag.

  ‘Never heard before of a murder for a three-guinea handbag,’ Mitchell remarked. ‘It can’t be that she came into the room unexpectedly and found an intruder there, and then he just hit out wildly with a knife and ran for it, because the evidence is she was in the room all the time continuously from when Beattie saw her there – and saw the bag, he says. If any stranger came in afterwards, why didn’t she shout for help? Or is it that she tried to, and he stopped her? Or can the bag have been taken by way of a blind? If whoever did it is really some lover who thought she had been fooling him, and who was a bit off his head, as they are occasionally, for girls will still play with fire, and when passions get loose anything may happen, he might have taken it with the idea of s
uggesting theft as a motive. But that’s not likely; crimes of passion aren’t calculated.’

  He paused again, worried and puzzled by this apparent intrusion of the vulgar motive of theft into what had seemed a tale of passion and despair and love. Bobby said:

  ‘Perhaps there was something valuable in the bag or something the murderer wanted – love-letters, or something like that? It might be letters he had asked her to bring with her.’

  ‘It might be that; worth remembering anyhow,’ agreed Mitchell. ‘Well, carry on, Penfold.’

  ‘There’s just one other thing, sir,’ Penfold said, as he rose to obey. ‘I don’t know what it means, But it may be important. There are a lot of finger-prints in the room here and there, but there are none on the handle of the knife. It has a rough surface.’

  ‘I noticed that,’ Mitchell said.

  ‘But there’s one on the blade of the knife. It looked like a woman’s, and, as there was talk about a quarrel to-night between Miss Mears and a Miss Ellis, a chance was taken to compare the print on the knife blade with Miss Ellis’s fingerprints. The knife-blade print seems identical with that of the little finger of Miss Ellis’s right hand. They’ll have to get a clearer imprint and compare them more carefully before being quite sure, but they say there’s no real doubt.’

  ‘There was a quarrel between them about stopping on the stage too long, or not long enough, wasn’t there?’ Mitchell asked. ‘That’s why Miss Mears was sulking all alone in her own room, I think. First it looked like a love tragedy – youngsters carried away by their own passion and killing as a mere relief to feelings they haven’t sense enough to get the better of. Then with this bag business it looked like turning into a motive of common robbery, and now it seems as if it may be just jealousy and a fit of temper. I think we must have a talk with Miss Ellis. Find her, Owen, will you? I suppose she’s still here. Ask her if I can have a word with her. Don’t frighten her, you know. There may be a dozen explanations of that finger-print.’

  But that hardly seemed very probable to Bobby as he left the room upon his errand, for in fact less than a fingerprint has before now brought a criminal to execution.

  The corridors, rooms, stairs, passages, that only a little before had been thronged by such eager, excited, animated crowds were indeed crowded still, for few had had any desire to leave the scene of so sensational and mysterious a tragedy, but presented now a very different spectacle. There was no more running to and fro of laughing, chattering girls, eager to compare experience: no more merry speculation on the outcome of the competition; no more friendly teasing of each other; no more grave debates as to whether this flower would not have been better here rather than there, or that ribbon or lace more effective there rather than here; no more proud boasting by confident mothers and aunts; no more swaggering up and down by fathers and uncles convinced no girl was like their girl, let the judges say what they liked. Pale and frightened, little groups gathered together, exchanging whispered speculation, watching with terrified eyes the grave-faced officers of police going about their business. Incongruous and strange indeed was the background to the grim business in hand that was furnished by that company of girlish competitors in their youth and loveliness and fashionable finery, and, as Bobby threaded his way among them, all whispering ceased, all eyes were turned to watch with dread his progress. It seemed as if they more than half expected to see him make a sudden pounce, and cry:

  ‘Here’s the murderer.’

  Cold and draughty as were these corridors and stairs, it seemed nearly everyone was collected in them. Few apparently had cared to wait in the comparatively sheltered dressing-rooms. It was as though they feared that death that had struck once that night with such suddenness and effect might soon strike again, and that only in company were they safe.

  Bobby had no difficulty in finding Lily Ellis. She made one of a small group, including several of her friends and relatives, and Bobby’s invitation to her to come and talk to Superintendent Mitchell evidently frightened her badly.

  ‘It is merely that you may be able to give some useful information,’ Bobby explained, more reassuringly than his feelings quite justified. ‘Perhaps you would like someone to come with you?’ he added.

  An aunt, a Mrs Francis, volunteered at once to be her companion. The offer plainly cheered her niece, who began to look a little less like a convicted criminal ordered to instant execution. Nevertheless all eyes followed her as she moved away in the company of Bobby and the aunt, nor was it difficult to see that what was now merely an excitement of interest and curiosity might easily turn into hostility. The whisperings and the nods and the stares could well be imagined changing to clamorous condemnation, and Bobby heard quite plainly murmured references – there was perhaps no very strenuous effort to keep inaudible – to the quarrel there had been between her and the dead girl; of how Lily Ellis had a temper of her own; of how she had been heard to cry out passionately that she could kill Carrie for playing her such a mean trick; of how she had then rushed off to tell Carrie exactly what she thought about it.

  He stole a look at her as they all three went along the corridors to the little room where Mitchell waited. There was a certain lightness, almost a fragility, about the girl that did not suggest the murderess, and yet the lines of that close-shut mouth, and a certain air of resolution that marked her grave, dark beauty, suggested one who could take strong determined action if need arose. And murder’s a thing so soon done; death a finality so easily achieved. A weapon ready to hand, a gust of passion such as it was said this girl’s calm demeanour hid, a blow aimed with small intention, and there’s tragedy ready made.

  So Bobby mused to himself as he opened the door of the room where Mitchell waited, and all three of them went in together.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Lily Ellis’s Story

  However, before he began to ask them any questions, Mitchell succeeded in putting both Lily and her aunt much more at their ease. It was the elder lady in whom at first he seemed most interested, fussing about a cushion for her back, about her chair being out of a draught, and so on, till Lily began to feel that after all no such importance and significance attached to this summons to her as she had at first feared.

  Only when Mrs Francis, a stout little elderly lady, wearing a very badly applied make-up of powder and lipstick and rouge she was not in the least used to, and a hat in the new pancake style that could not possibly have suited her worse, was at last comfortably settled, did Mitchell turn to Lily, as if suddenly remembering her presence.

  ‘Now then, Miss Ellis,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Now that’s all right, I’m sure you won’t mind telling us what you know about this affair.’

  ‘But I don’t know anything – anything at all,’ protested Lily, quickly nervous again.

  ‘That’s just what no one can be sure of,’ Mitchell assured her. ‘It’s extraordinary how much people who think they don’t know anything can tell us at times. Often small details they hardly even know they know turn out the most important. We’ll begin about yourself, shall we?’

  A few leading questions soon elicited details of the girl’s birth, education, present circumstances, her hope of obtaining the post of leading mannequin at the Brush Hill Bon Marché, the difference such an appointment would make in a home where there was an ailing mother and two small brothers.

  ‘If you had won the competition to-night, it would have meant a good deal to you then,’ Mitchell observed, with a certain reluctance in his voice as though the point were not one he much wished to make.

  Oh, yes, ’ Lily agreed eagerly. ‘Or even being second or third. I didn’t expect to be first exactly, but I knew if I came out near the top it would most likely be all right and I should be taken on.’

  ‘If we hadn’t been sure she would be the winner – that is, if the judges had eyes in their heads,’ Mrs Francis interposed firmly, ‘never would any of us have agreed to her entering. In my young days no self-respecting girl would ever have dreamed
of such a thing, but Lily has her mother to think of and the boys, and there’s so little we can do to help with business what it is.’

  ‘Everyone must understand that,’ Mitchell agreed, checking a flow of explanation that seemed likely to continue for some time.

  He was looking grim and uneasy at the same time. There was one point established. Winning the competition had meant more to Lily Ellis than a mere gratification of feminine vanity – more even that vague hopes of future success. It had meant being able to provide better for those dependent on her. His fingers beat their accustomed tattoo that always meant he was deeply worried. He said, a little abruptly now:

  ‘You knew Miss Mears?’

  ‘Only a very little. I met her at a dance once, and once or twice besides. Mr Beattie introduced us.’

  In reply to some more questions Lily explained that it was at the same dance she had first met Roy Beattie. A friend had introduced her to him, and then he had introduced her to Carrie Mears. Mr Beattie had asked her to call at his studio and let him take her photograph, but she had never done so yet, though she had promised that perhaps some day she might. Mitchell rather gathered that at this dance the young photographer had shown Lily rather more attention than Carrie had quite approved. She had regarded his scalp as dangling permanently at her waist, and had not relished seeing it transferred elsewhere. That meant then, it seemed, that there had been a note of rivalry, possibly of some ill feeling, between the two girls even before this evening, and Mitchell scowled again as this new fact forced itself upon his recognition. Claude Maddox had also been at the dance, but not Leslie Irwin, for, while dramatic societies were bad enough, dances, in the eyes of old Mr Irwin, were worse – very much worse, in fact. To have attended a dance would have been sheer defiance – it would probably have meant for the young man the risk of an open breach with his father. Besides – perhaps an even more conclusive reason – Leslie was no dancer, having no natural skill in the art, and never having had any lessons, while both Claude Maddox and Roy Beattie were expert performers.