The Right Sort of Man

by Allison Montclair

  “You will do nothing of the kind!” she protested as the third man opened a leather-bound box and removed a printed form and an ink pad. “Would you mind explaining this?”

  “We have arrested Richard Trower for the murder of Matilda La Salle,” said Kinsey.

  “I don’t believe it,” said Mrs. Bainbridge. “Has he confessed?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say,” said Kinsey.

  “That means no,” said Sparks. “Upon what evidence have you charged him?”

  “We found a bloody knife under his mattress,” said Kinsey.

  “And have you—I don’t know what the proper terms are,” said Mrs. Bainbridge.

  “Matched it to her blood type,” said Sparks.

  “Our initial tests were positive,” said Kinsey.

  “You still haven’t said what this has to do with my poor Bar-Let,” said Sparks. “I will vouch for her. She’s been to Cambridge, served valiantly during the war, and has done yeoman’s work—”

  “Yeowoman’s work,” corrected Mrs. Bainbridge.

  “Yeowoman’s work here. Plus, she can’t walk. It’s a tragic story.”

  “You promised us complete co-operation in this matter,” Kinsey pointed out.

  “We were told that we weren’t suspects,” said Mrs. Bainbridge.

  “There’s another piece of evidence,” said Kinsey. “Godfrey?”

  “Yes, sir,” said the third man.

  He took a small jar of white powder from his kit.

  “You’ve been typing today?” he asked Sparks.

  “Obviously,” she replied.

  “Won’t bother with the keys, then,” he said.

  He sprinkled the powder liberally on the sides and back of the typewriter, then blew off the excess with a small, rubber bulb. Dozens of prints, smeared and overlapping, covered the surface.

  “I really ought to clean her once in a while,” sighed Sparks. “Never occurred to me. Sorry, old girl.”

  Godfrey pulled out a camera and photographed each side.

  “Right,” he said, sliding the ink pad over to Sparks. “Hold out your right hand first.”

  He took each finger, rolled it in the ink, then onto the rectangles designated for each digit.

  “You’re quite gentle with a lady’s hands,” observed Sparks. “You could take a few lessons from him, Mike.”

  “As long as you’re co-operative, I’m gentle,” said Godfrey, repeating the process with her left. “I’ve broken a finger or two in my time with less co-operative people.”

  Sparks held up her blackened fingertips for Mrs. Bainbridge’s inspection.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  “That colour doesn’t go with your outfit,” said Mrs. Bainbridge.

  “Now, Mike, what is this all about?” asked Sparks. “What is this evidence?”

  “Your Mister Trower claimed he never had his meeting with the late Miss La Salle,” said Kinsey. “He had arranged it, but then he received a letter saying it was canceled.”

  “A letter? Who from?” asked Mrs. Bainbridge.

  Kinsey gestured to Larkin, who removed a manila folder from an attaché case he was carrying. He opened it on the desk. Inside were a sheet of stationery and an opened envelope.

  “That’s our letterhead,” said Sparks, peering at them.

  “Mrs. Bainbridge, is this your signature?” asked Kinsey.

  She looked at it closely.

  “It is a close facsimile,” she said. “But it isn’t mine.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Because I never signed that letter. I’ve never signed any typed letter. I’ve never used that wretched machine.”

  “Now, now,” said Sparks. “Don’t be mean to my Bar-Let. But she’s correct, Mike. Anything from me is typed, because it’s more businesslike, and my handwriting is atrocious, as you well recall.”

  “I do,” said Kinsey. “So were some of the sentiments expressed.”

  “Mrs. Bainbridge, on the other hand, has exquisite penmanship, the mark of her superior breeding and upbringing.”

  “Thank you,” said Mrs. Bainbridge. “So, every letter leaving my desk is hand-written. That letter did not come from either one of us.”

  “But the stationery did,” said Kinsey.

  “Stolen, perhaps,” said Sparks.

  “Would you mind providing a typed letter for comparison?” asked Kinsey.

  Sparks looked at the half-completed letter in the Bar-Let, sighed, then unscrolled it.

  “I’ll have to do it fresh,” she grumbled. “I can never line them up properly once they’re removed.”

  “You’re assisting Scotland Yard in a murder investigation,” Kinsey reminded her.

  “Yes, yes, I know,” she said, rolling a fresh sheet in. “You want ‘A quick brown fox?’”

  “All the letters, capital and small,” he said.

  She typed them out rapidly, then whipped out the sheet and handed it to him. He placed it next to the one in the folder.

  “Mister Godfrey, if you wouldn’t mind,” said Kinsey.

  Godfrey reached into his case and produced a magnifying class.

  “I say, Holmes,” murmured Mrs. Bainbridge.

  The technician pored over the newly typed sheet, then over the letter.

  “I would say they both came from the same machine, sir,” he said.

  “May I?” asked Sparks, holding out her hand.

  Godfrey looked at Kinsey, who nodded. He handed the magnifying glass to Sparks, who looked at the letter in the folder.

  “The nick in the capital R; the smudge in the lower-case e, that matches,” she said. “And—yes!—the wobble in the w. It’s a fair cop. My Bar-Let is the culprit. But I never typed this, and neither did Mrs. Bainbridge.”

  “How did Trower duplicate her signature? Has he received other correspondence from her?”

  “Certainly,” said Mrs. Bainbridge. “You saw them in our file.”

  “So Trower would have had a facsimile to work with,” observed Kinsey.

  “So might anyone if they were using our office,” said Mrs. Bainbridge. “All they would have to do is go into our filing cabinet and take one to copy.”

  “An excellent point,” said Kinsey. “Godfrey, print the filing cabinet. And you might as well take exemplars from Mrs. Bainbridge while you’re at it.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Mrs. Bainbridge in dismay. “I just did my nails this morning.”

  Sparks smirked as Godfrey inked her partner’s fingertips.

  “This does wash off, doesn’t it?” asked Mrs. Bainbridge as he rolled them on the form.

  “Eventually, Ma’am,” he said. “It takes some scrubbing. A little alcohol helps.”

  “In so many things,” said Sparks.

  He dusted and photographed the filing cabinet, then stepped back, satisfied.

  “I don’t understand why Mister Trower would go to all of this trouble,” said Bainbridge, staring disconsolately at her blackened fingertips. “He could have just said she called him to cancel.”

  “He needed a plausible reason to say he never met up with her,” said Kinsey.

  “Did he tell you that?” asked Sparks.

  “He hasn’t told us anything.”

  “Good for him,” said Sparks.

  “Are you siding with a murderer?” asked Kinsey. “Not that it would surprise me in your case.”

  “I’m siding with Dickie Trower,” said Sparks. “I still don’t think he did it.”

  “Who else would know that you had set him up with Miss La Salle?” asked Kinsey.

  “Anyone she told,” said Mrs. Bainbridge. “She must have friends or family in whom she would confide. Have you spoken to them?”

  “No,” said Kinsey. “We found your information in her handbag at the scene, along with a note in her handwriting with the time and place for the date. He must have contacted her by telephone.”

  “If someone went to all the trouble to send himself a letter establi
shing a weak alibi, then he would have been smart enough to get rid of the knife,” said Sparks.

  “Maybe,” said Kinsey. “But murderers, in my experience, tend not to be the clearest of thinkers.”

  “Whose prints are on the letter?” Mrs. Bainbridge asked Godfrey.

  “Not my department,” said Godfrey. “We have a specialist.”

  “A dactyloscopist,” said Sparks, savouring the word as it rolled off her tongue.

  “Very good, Miss,” said Godfrey. “Not many know that.”

  “You’ll find that Miss Sparks likes to show off,” said Kinsey. “She thinks her brain is better than most others.”

  “If you’re through, may we clean up?” asked Mrs. Bainbridge. “It’s disconcerting to the clientele when one’s office looks like a crime scene.”

  “We’re done,” said Kinsey.

  “Mike, I’d like a quick word with you,” said Sparks. “Alone.”

  “Where alone?”

  “Come with me,” she ordered.

  He followed her into the hallway, then down to the landing just below.

  “What is it?” he asked when they stopped.

  “I need to have your word that our fingerprints will be destroyed after you rule us out,” she said.

  “Left yours on another crime scene somewhere?” he asked.

  “I’m serious, Mike,” she replied, not taking the bait. “I can’t have mine on file.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Oh, there it is,” he sighed. “Your explanation for so much of your life. I’m beginning to think they really were on a body somewhere. Perhaps more than one.”

  “I’m asking you to trust me on this, Mike. Please.”

  “Trust with me, once destroyed, is difficult to regain, Iris.”

  “Ah, you do remember my first name. I was beginning to wonder.”

  “I have been trying to forget everything about you,” he said wearily.

  “No one forgets me,” she said. “Will you promise to destroy our fingerprints?”

  “I can’t make that commitment.”

  “Mike, I am asking as a favour to me.”

  “Oh, that’s lovely,” he said, laughing bitterly. “Your days of asking favours have long vanished.”

  “Well, then we’re finished here.”

  They walked back into the office. Mrs. Bainbridge raised an eyebrow slightly in question. Sparks shook her head.

  “I guess this is farewell, then,” said Mrs. Bainbridge. “I would offer to shake your hands, but I don’t want to get ink all over them.”

  “We’ll forego the niceties,” said Sparks. “Good-bye, gentlemen. Come again when you have more red herrings to chase.”

  “Thank you for your assistance, ladies,” said Kinsey.

  “Good-bye,” said Godfrey.

  They left. Iris waited until the constabulary clatter faded down the stairs and out of the building.

  “Toss me the key, would you?” she said. “I need to get these stains off my fingers.”

  Gwen pulled the lavatory key and threw it to her. She stared moodily into space until Iris returned, contemplating her fingertips.

  “Here’s the smell of the ink still!” cried Iris. “All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand! Do we have any perfumes of Arabia, by the way?”

  “None,” said Gwen, taking the key from her. “My turn.”

  “Take this,” said Iris, tossing her a small bottle of nail varnish remover.

  She walked down the hall to the lavatory, unlocked it, then scrubbed as hard as she could until the ink was gone. Her fingertips looked red and raw when she was done. Looking at them, she had a sudden impulse to jam her nails into her arms until they bled. She gripped the sides of the sink, her breath coming in shuddering gasps. She held on until the attack subsided, then splashed some cold water on her face and neck.

  The face that stared back from the mirror looked like a dead woman. She took a deep breath, pinched her cheeks to give them some colour, then walked back.

  She was halfway there when she remembered that she hadn’t locked the lavatory door. It was silly, taking these precautions, but they had been drilled into her by Mister MacPherson, the custodian, so she went back and locked it. The physical act of turning the key set her mind to work, and she walked slowly back to the office, pursuing the train of thought.

  She heard her partner’s voice speaking softly as she reached the door. Iris was on the telephone. She signaled for silence when she saw Gwen in the doorway.

  “Yes. Yes, that would be fine,” she said. “No, we certainly don’t want that matter coming to light. Thank you so much. Yes, we must do that soon. Good to hear your voice as well. Good-bye, sir.”

  She hung up, then smiled.

  “What was that all about?” asked Gwen.

  “I wanted to make sure our fingerprints were destroyed once they’ve eliminated us,” said Iris. “I had to go over Mike’s head. Several heads over his head, in fact.”

  “He won’t like that,” said Gwen.

  “No, he won’t,” said Iris, “but his happiness is no longer my charge.”

  “He seemed a solid sort,” commented Gwen. “A good man in a difficult job.”

  “He’s solid enough,” agreed Iris. “Solid to the point of rigidity. He needs to be more flexible if he’s to rise in this world.”

  “So you think Dickie Trower is innocent,” said Gwen.

  “I do,” said Iris. “God help him, because the police certainly won’t.”

  “Then we should help him,” said Gwen. “We should find out who really did it.”

  CHAPTER 3

  “We should do nothing of the sort,” said Iris. “We’d be interfering in a police investigation. We are not equipped—”

  “You are,” said Gwen.

  “I most certainly am not. What gave you that idea?”

  “You’re smart. Much smarter than most. And you know a great deal about many things that would help us find the truth of this matter.”

  “You’re daft, my dear,” began Iris, then she stopped as Gwen’s face flushed. “Oh, God. Forgive me, please. I know you hate to be called names.”

  “No, no,” said Gwen, breathing slowly to calm herself. “I’m being—sensitive. One of my faults.”

  “One of your strengths, rather,” said Iris. “Sensitive is certainly a word no one has ever applied to me. I’m the proverbial bull in the china shop.”

  “Cow,” said Gwen.

  “I’ve been called that a few times in other contexts,” said Iris. “I wonder why only bulls qualify for that expression?”

  “Because males blunder about and do more damage,” said Gwen. “A cow in a china shop would look at the lovely patterns and think about having some tea. With milk. Look, here’s a thing that bothers me. That stationery was ours. How did whoever forged that letter get in here?”

  “Picked the lock,” Iris said promptly. “The lock on our office door isn’t that difficult if you know what you’re doing.”

  “You could pick it, couldn’t you?” asked Gwen.

  “Er, maybe,” said Iris.

  “You can,” Gwen stated confidently. “Part of that war-time training you never talk about? Or was that at Cambridge as well?”

  “I can’t—”

  “You can’t answer that, I know,” said Gwen. “So, our murderer has both forgery and lock-picking amongst his skills. Is that a common combination in your experience?”

  “Not usually,” replied Iris. Then she shot Gwen a dirty look. “In my experience,” she repeated, “your interrogation skills can be impressive. You’ve got more out of me than anyone.”

  “I see you more than anyone,” said Gwen. “I know you better, even with your secrets. So, who would have done this? Who could have killed that poor girl?”

  “We don’t know enough about her to speculate,” said Iris. “My instinct would be a jealous lover.”

  “Mine as well. W
hich means we need to find out more about Miss La Salle.”

  “No, we do not. It’s not our business.”

  “If they hang Dickie Trower, will you rest easy in that belief? We must investigate.”

  “My goodness,” said Iris, staring at her in astonishment. “When did you turn into Bulldog Drummond?”

  “It’s the right thing to do. And I can’t do it without you.”

  “No,” said Iris. “And that is my last word on the subject. I have a letter to retype, and a typewriter to clean and console, and a business to run.”

  “Which reminds me—we should return Miss La Salle’s fee to her family.”

  “Oh, hell!” cried Iris in chagrin.

  “You know that we should.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Iris. “It’s absolutely proper. I wish that she hadn’t been our only new customer in the last week and a half. And I wish I hadn’t celebrated that fact by treating myself to a night out.”

  “Are our funds so short?” asked Gwen in concern.

  “Well, we still haven’t received our marriage fee from the Cornwalls,” said Iris. “In fact, that was the very letter I was working upon when we were so rudely interrupted.”

  “They still haven’t paid? Did you not send them the Inquiry Polite?”

  “A week ago,” replied Iris, rolling a fresh sheet of paper into the typewriter. “I am now working on the Rebuke Stern, but I have a bad feeling about them. They both seemed dodgy.”

  “Which is why we thought they would suit each other,” remembered Gwen. “What comes next if the Rebuke Stern produces nothing? The Threat Litigious?”

  “I was thinking that we should go straight to Sally,” said Iris, typing away furiously.

  “Oh, dear. Not Sally.”

  “You disapprove?”

  “You know how I feel about Sally. Sally unnerves me.”

  “Sally unnerves everyone,” said Iris. “That’s the point of Sally.”

  “Promise me you won’t resort to Sally until we see the results of the Rebuke Stern,” said Gwen.

  “I promise,” said Iris.

  She finished the letter, signed it with what she hoped was an angry signature, then sealed it in an envelope. She held it in her hand for a moment after she affixed the stamp.

  “Did you notice the postmark?” she asked thoughtfully.

  “What postmark?” asked Gwen.