‘Deal with it,’ he snapped. ‘I’ll hold the girl.’ He bounded towards Rosy, applied a half nelson with one arm and clamped her mouth with the other.
Pocketing the pistol and hastily smoothing her hair, Mrs Gill opened the door and went towards the stairs …
Voices wafted up from below: Mrs Gill’s plus a deeper burbling one. There was the sound of a laugh: ‘Oh hardly!’ the lighter voice exclaimed. The burbling continued.
Harold tightened his grip on Rosy, and bending his head muttered into her ear, ‘Don’t get your hopes up, my dear, they’ll need a search warrant. Mildred knows that – and besides, she’s good at dealing with buffoons.’ She felt the hot breath on her neck and could smell his tweed and sweat, and felt physically sick. In spite of the spluttered words, the pipe was still clenched between his teeth. Flinching from the agony of her left arm, Rosy drew back her right elbow and jabbed it as hard as she could into the portly stomach. His hand fell from her mouth. ‘Bitch!’ he grunted, and fumbled to resume his hold. But it was too late. With a desperate gulp of air, Rosy emitted the loudest scream of her life; indeed one so loud that she startled herself – she never knew she had such lungs!
From the effect it also clearly startled the visitor in the hall, for in the next instant there was a loud hoot from a police whistle and a crashing of hobnailed boots on the stairs. The door was flung wide and a young man with flushed face and tousled hair stood on the threshold.
With a curse Gill released his captive, and lunging forward dropped his pipe, skidded over it and fell heavily on all fours. He remained in that pose gasping in obvious agony. ‘Bloody knee,’ he whispered to himself, ‘bloody fucking knee!’
To her later fury Rosy burst into tears. However, it was a response that must have confirmed the young officer’s assumption that all was not well. Surveying the scene of crying girl and cursing man, he looked both stern and relieved – thankful, perhaps, he would be spared an official reprimand for the errors of misplaced zeal. He seemed about to speak, when there was the sound of a shot from below and a splintering crash.
Harris (for it was he) jumped, and swivelling his head cried, ‘Jesus, what’s that, Henry?’
‘It’s all right,’ a thin voice yelled, ‘it’s the woman; she’s just blasted the Chink vase. I’ve got the gun off her.’
‘Fool!’ Harold Gill was heard to mutter as he contemplated the floorboards a foot from his nose.
‘Radio for reinforcements,’ Harris shouted back imperiously.
In obvious pain Gill started to crawl towards the door. ‘Stop that!’ the youth said sharply.
Gill stopped, and with a sigh of resignation heaved himself into a sitting position and slumped against the wall. He looked up at the policeman. ‘Clever little bugger, aren’t you?’
Harris shrugged. ‘Dunno, sir.’ He gazed at Gill thoughtfully, looking slightly puzzled. ‘So are you really up to white slaving?’ he enquired.
‘Up to what?’ rasped the older man.
‘White slavery. We’ve had a tip-off you see and—’
‘White slavery? What the hell are you talking about, boy?’
Rosy had the impression the young man did not care to be addressed as ‘boy’ for she noticed a slight pursing of his lips, and the next moment he shouted over his shoulder: ‘Bring the lady up here, Henry. I want to interview the pair of them.’ He sounded very important.
Mrs Gill appeared, accompanied by a uniformed constable even more youthful than Harris. She glanced down at her husband and gave a helpless twitch of her hands.
‘I did try, Harold, but the bullet hit the vase.’
‘I know,’ he replied wearily, and then added with some asperity: ‘You bought it in Singapore; I’ve been wanting to smash it ever since. Just shows, wait long enough …’
Like the presiding officer, Mrs Gill pursed her lips and regarded him with evident displeasure.
Harris gestured her aside, and squatting down beside her husband said quietly, ‘I don’t understand this white slavery business, sir … you see, I had you down for something else – something quite else.’ He stared intently at Gill.
‘Really?’ the other replied indifferently. ‘Can’t think what that could be.’
The interrogator cleared his throat. ‘Does the name Churchill mean anything to you, sir?’
There was a silence, punctuated by the merest intake of breath from Mildred. And then Mr Gill said, ‘Naturally. He is the leader of my party – our nation’s prime minister. Do you imagine I am an idiot?’
‘No, but what I think is—’ Harris began, leaning closer.
But at that moment there sounded the clanging bell of a police vehicle, screeching of tyres, slamming of car doors and the nasal gabbling of walkie-talkies. The reinforcements had arrived.
Detective Sergeant Greenleaf and the inspector pounded into the room, and nodding briefly to Harris and Henry immediately took charge. Rosy was hustled out, Mildred handcuffed and Gill yanked to his feet and propelled on to the landing. His face had become suddenly ashen – the result of the damaged knee no doubt, but from what little Rosy had seen and heard she guessed there was something else plaguing his mind: Harris’s words.
The inspector embarked on the formalities of arrest, enunciating the spiel with toneless gravity. But before he had got far Gill stopped him. ‘Excuse me, old man, do you think I could possibly have a gasper? I’m not feeling too good.’ He leant heavily against the banister and in a trice drew from his pocket a pack of Kensitas. Rosy later remembered being surprised at this, having always seen him only with the briar pipe. Swiftly he put a cigarette between his lips, while one of the constables mechanically proffered a match.
‘He doesn’t need one,’ Mrs Gill said sharply.
‘Oh God,’ cried Harris, ‘he’s bitten the end!’
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
‘Well that was a howdy-do and no mistake,’ said the inspector over supper in the canteen. ‘What you might call a surprise. Wasn’t pretty either, but at least it was quick. Which is just as well, otherwise they’d be saying it was our fault for not being more alert and anticipating things.’ He frowned, adding morosely, ‘More than likely they will say that anyway, you’ll see.’
‘Shouldn’t worry,’ Greenleaf reassured him, ‘wasn’t our fault. I mean to say, how were we supposed to know his fag was bunged full of cyanide? After all, it’s not something you expect from St John’s Wood, is it? Not even from a white slaver.’ He grinned and added, ‘I assume there was some kind of mistake there.’
The other nodded looking puzzled. ‘Yes, a mistake. Can’t quite make it out – some joker started it off, phoning the duty officer. But the odd thing is that the super hasn’t said much about it – almost as if he’s concerned with something else. But I can tell you, he’s none too pleased all the same. Something fishy going on, I shouldn’t wonder. Heard him shouting down the phone to someone saying he was sick and tired of being the lackey of MI5 and why was he never put in the bloody picture. Anyway, what he has said to me is that he wants the whole incident put under wraps for the time being, and that if anyone is heard even mentioning it they’ll lose their stripes and rue the day.’
‘Do what, sir?’
‘Rue the sodding day!’
‘Ah, I see … So what about the wife?’
The inspector brightened. ‘Well, that’s the funny thing. You see, when we took her in for questioning she didn’t say a thing, literally didn’t open her mouth for two hours. In fact I was beginning to think we had a mute on our hands. Then all of a sudden she had a sort of fit – went on for quite a long time, had to be sedated.’
‘Yes, very funny sir,’ said Greenleaf dryly.
‘Ah, but it was you see, because when she finally surfaced from the sedation she had changed.’
‘What do you mean, changed?’
‘What I say. She had changed from being Mrs Mildred Gill into someone else.’ The inspector reached for the sugar and spooned half of it into his cup, while
the sergeant digested his words.
‘I see. So, er, who is this someone else, if you don’t mind my asking?’
‘Mata Hari.’
Greenleaf dropped his knife and gaped. ‘Mata Hari!’
‘Yes. Even uses a few words of Dutch – leastways, I assume that’s what it is, sounds like gobbledygook to me.’
‘Come on, sir, you’re having me on!’
The inspector shrugged. ‘If you say so.’
The sergeant coughed and eyed his superior with some suspicion. ‘So when she’s not talking Dutch what does she say exactly?’
‘She is firmly of the opinion that Marcia Beasley was her rival – both in circles of espionage and in matters romantic, that is to say she was enjoying the favours of her husband. Finding the situation disagreeable on both counts she decided to put a stop to her discomfort by felling the rival with a coal scuttle.’
‘She was shot,’ objected Greenleaf.
‘Yes, in 1917.’
‘No, not her! The other one, Mrs Beasley.’
‘We know that, but apparently it is an aspect of the event Mata Hari does not recall. It’s the coal scuttle that has caught her fancy. I did try to suggest otherwise but she got a bit shirty, said I was getting above my station.’
Greenleaf grinned. ‘Not so mad after all.’
Ignoring the remark, the inspector went on to say that since the forensics had established that the gun used on Mrs Beasley was the same as that used by Mrs Gill to pulverise the Chinese vase, there was a fair chance that she had indeed been the murderer of her neighbour. ‘Somewhere at the bottom of that barminess there’s a truth lurking,’ he asserted with confidence. ‘Still, what with hubby being dead and her too sick to stand trial, I don’t suppose we’ll ever know, really. A bum case as you might say.’
‘But what about the girl – what’s she got to say? Looked pretty tearful when we arrived.’
‘As well she might, must have been a bit of a shock. When I first started to question her she was fairly vague; but then she seemed to rally and became much clearer – not that’s it’s helped much. I gather she had been invited to tea by Mrs Gill and all was going nice and normal like, when suddenly, for no apparent reason, the woman began getting aggressive, and then out of the blue pulled a gun. Not used to being threatened across the tea table, Miss Gilchrist was taken aback and tried calming her down. But before she got very far Gill appeared and grabbed her.’
‘What for? Sex?’
‘I did ask that, but the girl said there hadn’t been time to find out as at that juncture Harris and Henry turned up, followed by us, of course.’ He flicked ash into his saucer. ‘Funny, really, the scrapes people get themselves into …’
‘I wonder why Mata Hari,’ pondered Greenleaf.
‘Oh, ask Harris, he’ll tell you. Reckons it’s Freudian. Says it’s very common in ladies of a certain ilk and age – sublimation or some such.’
‘How does Harris know that?’
‘Like he knows everything: it’s that set of encyclopaedias his gran gave him for Christmas.’
‘Well if he knows so much, what does he make of Gill and his suicide?’
‘As a matter of fact he hasn’t said a word about it – which given the super’s embargo is just as well. In fact he’s been very silent all day, keeps frowning.’
‘Perhaps he’s not had time to consult his oracles!’
They laughed and turned to other things, namely Clovis Thistlehyde.
‘So,’ Greenleaf said, ‘if Mrs Gill did murder the Beasley woman as she alleges, do we assume that being barking mad, i.e. in her Mata Hari mode, that she also went to the studio and dealt with the painter?’
‘Oh no. I think that’s something quite separate: a coincidence, certainly, but no connection. If you recall, Sergeant, it was you that kept going on about him being a witness to something at the victim’s house and seeing that mythical geezer with a lawnmower … a bit of a red herring, if you ask me.’ The voice held a note of reproach.
‘I seem to recall, sir,’ said Greenleaf stoutly, ‘that you gave me firm instructions to follow it up. You seemed quite interested at the time.’
‘Well I am not now,’ snapped the other. ‘Look, we’ve got a confession, haven’t we? That’ll do. Don’t let’s muddy the waters!’
Greenleaf was not entirely convinced, but on the whole thought it best to say nothing. Instead he suggested that Harold Gill’s suicide was doubtless prompted by the strain of living with one fixated on the idea that she was an exotic spy and insatiable siren.
The inspector agreed that it was more than likely.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
‘Do you think we should send flowers?’ asked Felix eagerly. ‘I’ve just had the most ravishing consignment of early azaleas, just the thing for an invalid.’
‘She is not an invalid,’ replied Vera.
‘But might have become a corpse,’ said Cedric.
Felix nodded. ‘Exactly! And we’ve had far too many of those as it is. From what she said on the phone it sounds as if it was quite a close-run thing. It was really very shrewd of you, Cedric, to suspect the Gills. I trust she is suitably grateful … Now, what about the flowers?’
‘Forget the flowers,’ snapped Vera. ‘There are more pressing matters. We are not in possession of the details – and the details could be very disagreeable for us. Very disagreeable. The only information we have so far is what Rosy Gilchrist gabbled down the telephone, i.e. that there had been a ghastly fracas at the house, that Gill had committed suicide and she was safe. Yesterday’s paper merely says that the house owner had died in unusual circumstances and that two women were escorted from the premises. Obviously the press have been kept at a distance, or even muzzled – they are not normally so reticent. What isn’t clear is whether Gill divulged anything to the police before his death, or indeed whether the girl herself has said anything. For all we know she could have blown the whole gaff – about Sabatier and everything else. It is not unknown for people to go to pieces in such situations.’
‘Well I doubt whether Miss Gilchrist—’ began Felix.
Vera glared. ‘Don’t you see? We can rely on nothing! We only have the vaguest notion of what went on in that house and have no idea what was said in the police station afterwards. Anything might have emerged! Gill’s death may be a blessing but equally it may open up a whole can of embarrassing worms. If the authorities get even a sniff of the Sabatier murder and our part in the coal business we could be accused of all manner of things such as misleading the police, hindering their enquiries and concealing crucial evidence. The law takes a dim view of that sort of thing. And as for myself, I could be facing a murder charge.’
‘But Vera,’ Felix exclaimed, ‘that’s not very likely; I mean presumably Gill did it and—’
‘Huh! Simply because Gill committed suicide and was found attacking the girl does not necessarily mean that he murdered Marcia … I daresay he did, but the police may not be sure; and until they are they will be examining other possibilities, one of which is myself. As said previously, I’m not too keen on my brother’s role being rooted up: there’s a potential motive there which, failing anything better, they’ll be sure to seize on … I tell you, we are totally in the dark as to how much they know, and that means being in a position of extreme delicacy. I don’t like it.’ She paused, adjusted the pork-pie hat and scowled.
‘In that case,’ said Cedric briskly, ‘we must get out of the dark and into the light.’ He rose from his chair. ‘Gather your flowers, Felix. We shall visit Miss Gilchrist’s flat and hear things from the horse’s mouth!’
The horse meanwhile was sitting on her sofa thanking her lucky stars she was all right and brooding on what she had recently learnt. After the interview with the inspector following the dreadful event, she had been driven home and left to her own devices. But that morning the inspector, plus a tall officer she had never seen before, appeared on her doorstep and enquired if it was convenient to speak to her.
Since their demeanour suggested that her convenience was of little interest, she resigned herself to a further interview. In fact, this turned out to be less onerous than expected.
The questions were mild and easily parried, but she was given information of a startling nature and also issued with a stern warning. This latter was that if she were not to fall foul of the Official Secrets Act it was imperative that she revealed nothing about the recent incident. When she expressed quizzical surprise the inspector had said woodenly that ‘them that ask no questions are told no lies’.
Fortunately his commanding officer, i.e. the superintendent, was more civil and forthcoming. ‘You see, Miss Gilchrist,’ he had said in a confiding tone, ‘some rather interesting facts have recently come to light regarding our friend’s activities during the war … Gill was not entirely what you might think and I gather has been the subject of some rather close scrutiny from MI5. In fact, there is currently a very intensive enquiry being conducted which is absolutely top secret. The Cabinet – our prime minister and his advisors – are determined that nothing should be said that would compromise its proceedings. Thus I must advise you that any breach of this directive will be met with the severest sanctions.’ The tone had been pleasant, the point unmistakable.
Rosy had nodded meekly and indicated she would of course be suitably discreet. But curiosity prevailed and she had asked cautiously, ‘But what about Mrs Gill? She was certainly acting very strangely when I last saw her.’
‘Ye-es,’ he had replied slowly, ‘the lady seems to have had a breakdown of sorts – permanent probably – and is talking very wildly. Very wildly. She is under the impression that she is the spy Mata Hari.’ He gave a wintry smile. ‘But she has also indicated that it was she who had been responsible for the murder of your poor aunt; seems most emphatic about it … some sort of domestic jealousy, one gathers. Despite her patent confusion we are inclined to believe what she says. Among other things the gun in her possession was the same as that used on Mrs Beasley, but she has also been most explicit about how – as Mata Hari, you understand – she had been biding her time for months to get revenge on her “arch rival”. Apparently it began with the beribboned bits of coal and went on from there … all calculated to a nicety it seems, as is the style with your better class of assassin.’ He allowed himself another chilly smile.
A Little Murder Page 28
