The London Blitz Murders (12 page)

“And how on earth is that?”

“Well, by recognizing the girl.”

“… Would six-fifteen be convenient?”

“It would. Could you stop by my flat?”

“Certainly. Is there anything else?”

“Actually, there is. Inspector Greeno is going to want to chat with Janet Cummins’s young flier. Perhaps you could make a call and find out when and how that might best be arranged.”

“I will. Does the inspector want to talk to young Cummins this afternoon, or shall I bring the information to our meeting at six-fifteen?”

“I would imagine the latter is fine. We’ll be at the theater for the better part of the afternoon, I should think.”

As it turned out, the interviews were not held at the theater. With a full dress rehearsal under way, nowhere in the theater—from the stalls to the dressing rooms—could be commandeered; even the offices were bustling with phone calls relating to last-minute preparations for Friday’s big event.

Agatha suggested the Golden Lion, next door. The narrow, intimate pub possessed dark mahogany woodwork, an impressive wooden liquor rack behind the bar, and an elaborate stained-glass window that had been boarded over for the duration, for protection of itself and the patrons.

The manager—a small man with big opinions—knew Agatha by sight (and reputation); she had signed a copy of
Orient Express
for him, some months ago, and he was predisposed to theatrical people, since his pub was a haunt for that crowd.

So arranging the use of the upstairs dining room—it was now two-thirty and past the lunch hour—was an uncomplicated negotiation. The narrow stairway was at the right rear of the pub, its winding well well-decorated with photographs and illustrations of actors and actresses who’d performed next door at the St. James, over the last hundred years or so.

Inspector Greeno and Agatha set up shop at the table-for-four nearest the stairs.

Francis L. Sullivan—the tall, rather heavyset actor Agatha knew as Larry—was the first to be interviewed. As dialogue coach, he among their short list could slip away most easily, during dress rehearsal.

“Primarily,” Larry said, his baritone sonorous even at its most casual, “I’ve been hired to work with the understudy for the ingenue—a replacement proved necessary, at this, the eleventh hour. This new girl hasn’t even come around yet. They’ve only just notified her.”

The inspector sat facing the interviewee, with Agatha to one side, her back to the wall. Ted Greeno had made it clear to Sullivan that this chat was informal and, when Larry asked if he might have a Guinness while they spoke, the inspector had assented.

“How terribly sad,” the actor was saying, after a sip from his foaming mug. “I spoke to Miss Ward on stage, and backstage, as well. She was praying for this part. That’s exactly what she said: praying.”

“It was that important to her,” the inspector said.

“Yes. She told me she’d done rather well, before the war. Claimed she’d had speaking parts in a number of revues, and of course she had a nice little role in
The Dancing Years
.”

Agatha said, “With Ivor Novello? Why, I saw that.”

“I saw it, too,” Larry said. “I remember her in it. She did fine for herself… but it was one of the plays that hit hard times as the war approached.”

“The night I attended,” Agatha mused, “the house was so thin, Ivor stepped out and invited the public from the gallery to occupy the vacant seats.”

Larry nodded, causing his second chin to goiter a bit. “Poor kid said she’d been reduced to working the Windmill.”

Agatha raised her eyebrows at the mention of the home of notorious nude revues. “I didn’t see her perform
there
.”

The inspector, lightly, asked, “How about you, Mr. Sullivan? Did you see her at the Windmill?”

His hand, lifting the mug of ale, froze halfway to his fully open mouth; the half-hooded eyes opened all the way, as well. The effect was not flattering.

“Why, no,” Larry said. “I never frequent that kind of display. You see, I’m a happily married man, Inspector.”

“I rather think any number of happily married men have been known to frequent the Windmill.”

“Well,” Larry said, shifting his massive frame in his hard wooden chair, “I’m not one of them.”

“Did it occur to you,” the inspector said, “that Miss Ward, in mentioning that she’d danced in a nude revue, might have been… approaching you?”

The big man blinked; he looked like a confused owl. “Approaching me… in what sense, sir?”

“Mr. Sullivan, the Ward girl was a prostitute.”

But, surprisingly, this remark did not seem to unsettle the actor in the least. “So I gathered. A terrible thing, a pity, but some of these young girls, even formerly respectable actresses, down on their luck in these times… what with the servicemen flooding the city… well.”

“Did you work with the girl last night?”

He set down the mug hard and it splashed a bit. “What?… Inspector, I’m starting not to like the sound of this. Agatha, would you tell the inspector I’m a respectable thespian. I played Poirot, for pity’s sake!”

Not terribly well
, Agatha thought, then said, “I don’t think the inspector means to imply anything untoward, Larry.”

“Certainly not,” the inspector said. “But you yourself, Mr. Sullivan, indicated you were hired to work with the new understudy. And Miss Ward was selected as the new understudy, yesterday.”

“Well, she was not informed of her good fortune,” the actor said. “I believe our director was considering Miss Ward and another actress. Her selection would have been announced today.”

“No offense meant, Mr. Sullivan,” the inspector said cheerfully. “But you can see how I might assume you and the understudy may have worked together, yesterday night.”

“ ‘Worked together’? Is that meant as a euphemism?”

“Working on her performance. On her lines. With the opening coming in just a few days… I’d imagine you theater folk labor at all sorts of odd hours.”

“We do,” Larry said, with strained dignity.

“By the way,” the inspector said, “could you tell me where you were last night? How you spent the evening?”

Again the eyes widened, and he looked toward Agatha, as if for help. “This is starting to sound as though I’m a suspect.”

Agatha smiled and shrugged. “I answered the same question, Larry.”

His eyes beseeched her. “Agatha—how can you be party to this insulting interrogation? Tell him I’m a happily married man. Do you honestly think I would betray my darling Danae?”

In truth, she did not. She found Larry a dear man, and the affections of his attractive, younger wife Danae surely constituted all the rotund actor required in his romantic life. She recalled fondly time spent with the couple at their home in the country, at Haslemere, Surrey, set as it was against Spanish chestnut woods—truly delightful (
not a bad setting for a mystery
, she thought, filing the notion away and moving quickly on).

Still, Larry’s wife was in the country and Larry was in the city. Further, thespians (as Larry would have it)—as much as Agatha adored them—were a breed unto themselves, and some of the most refined, elegant of them were alley cats, morally and sexually speaking.

She did not believe Larry fell into this class; but she could not say she would have been astonished to be proven wrong.

“Larry,” Agatha said gently, “if you would be more comfortable speaking to the inspector, out of my presence…”

“No! No.” The big man shook his big head. “I have nothing at all to hide. I dined with friends at my hotel, the Savoy… I can provide a list… and then spent the rest of the evening alone, in my room.”

“That’s where you’d have been between eleven p.m. and two, say?”

“It is.”

The inspector said nothing. Agatha could guess what thoughts were coursing through the detective’s mind: this alibi was essentially no alibi; slipping out, unnoticed, from the
Savoy in the middle of the night (and back in again) would not have been at all difficult to accomplish.

The inspector wrote down the names of Larry’s dinner companions—a theatrical group numbering six, including Larry himself—and thanked the actor for his cooperation and help.

Somewhat flustered, Larry offered his hand to the inspector and, as they shook, said, “I certainly meant no offense. My apologies, if I appeared defensive. You caught me quite off-guard.”

“Not at all…. Oh, Mr. Sullivan?”

The actor was poised at the top of the stairwell, a foot dangling in midair; his expression reminded her of a startled deer in the woods. Poor dear.

“Would you mind sending Mr. Morris over? He indicated he should be free, by this time.”

“Certainly. My pleasure. Good day, Inspector.”

“Good day, Mr. Sullivan.”

As usual, Bertie Morris was impeccably dressed—his dark gray suit went well with the lighter gray silk tie and off-white shirt. The handsome features framed by a balding, round head were solemn, and his tone was equally grave.

“I wish I could help you, Inspector,” he said. “But I hardly knew the young woman. It’s an awful thing. So very sad.”

“My understanding, Mr. Morris,” the inspector said, “is that you arranged for the audition. You must have known her.”

“I did know her.” To Agatha, Bertie asked politely, “May I smoke?”

“Certainly.”

He withdrew a gold cigarette case and was lighting up as he said, “I had seen Miss Ward in
The Dancing Years
. She handled lines well.”

“And she was attractive.”

“Indeed she was.”

“You’re aware she was a… dancer at the Windmill.”

“Many talented girls are reduced to that kind of thing, Inspector. Must I tell
you
of the hard realities of London? It’s unfortunate. I was hoping to give her a… break.”

“You didn’t know her socially, then. You merely remembered her from a play you’d seen her in.”

He exhaled smoke, away from Agatha. His hands, she noted, were slender, artistic; he wore a number of gold rings, one with a diamond. The wartime trend toward austerity of dress had not taken with Bertie.

“I did know Miss Ward, slightly. In a social manner.”

Agatha glanced at the inspector, then said to the producer, “Bertie, if you’d be more comfortable without my presence—”

“No. I have nothing to hide.” A tight, humorless smile appeared as a small slash in the midst of the round face. “I have a reputation for, shall we say, fraternizing with showgirls and actresses. It’s exaggerated, but not entirely unearned.”

Inspector Greeno sat forward, slightly. “What was your relationship with Miss Ward?”

“I would say ‘relationship’ rather overstates it, Inspector. I happened to bump into Miss Ward in Piccadilly last week. We spent a social evening together. Dined. Danced. I heard the story of her sad present situation. And she asked if I might keep her in mind, should something turn up in one of my productions.”

“What night last week?”

“I believe Wednesday. My wife was rehearsing, and I’d had a long day, working on the production. And I just decided to take an evening for myself.”

“I see. And that one… social evening with Miss Ward… was the only night you’ve spent with her.”

Bertie’s eyes flashed. “I did not use that phrase—‘spend the night with her.’ We dined and danced during the blackout. Just two friends catching up a little.”

“Then you had known her previously.”

“Just in passing. An attractive girl in the theatrical game. It’s a small world. A kind of a family.”

“Then you didn’t go to her flat, that night.”

“Of course not.”

The inspector made a few notes, then asked, “And last night—you didn’t socialize with Miss Ward?”

“No. My wife and I dined at our club, Boodles, which is quite near our flat in Park Place. We spent a quiet evening together, both utterly exhausted from our labors. You may ask Irene for confirmation.”

Inspector Greeno did.

Irene Helier Morris—looking haggard and wearing almost no makeup, and yet still beautiful, if starkly so, her short dark hair disarrayed—sat in white blouse and dark slacks, as if she’d been out riding and fallen from her horse.

“I have only ten minutes, Inspector,” she said in that commanding contralto. She may have looked frazzled, but she was the epitome of self-control. “We’re between acts.”

Murders happened every day
, Agatha wryly thought;
opening nights were uncommon.

“We can keep this brief,” the inspector said. “For now.”

Irene sighed. “I don’t mean to be cold about it. But I didn’t know this woman. I saw her exactly once—yesterday, when she auditioned, and did a decent job of it.”

“She won the role.”

“Yes. But we hadn’t notified her yet.”

“Who takes care of that?”

“It’s a call Janet would make. My husband’s majordomo.”

“Speaking of your husband, Mrs. Morris—or do you prefer Miss Helier?”

“Mrs. Morris is fine. I have a stage name, just as Mrs. Mallowan in writing has a, uh… what is it called, Agatha, darling? A byline. Speaking of my husband… go on.”

“He tells us,” the inspector said, his tone bland, “that he knew Miss Ward, slightly.”

“Yes…. Might I borrow a cigarette?”

“Certainly,” the inspector said, and took a deck of smokes from his suitcoat pocket and lighted her up using a match from a Golden Lion matchbook.

“Why is it,” Irene asked rhetorically, “that one ‘borrows’ a cigarette, when there is absolutely no intention nor possibility of its return?”

As the inspector waved out the flame, Irene drew in smoke, held it, savoring it, then exhaled grandly.

“My husband has an eye for sweet young things… although I gather Miss Ward was neither sweet nor terribly young… if younger than I. But as I understand it, murder is a risk a harlot runs, isn’t it? And she was a harlot, after all…. Agatha, do I sound cruel?”

“You sound pragmatic.”

Irene nodded. “Thank you. That is exactly what I am, where Bertie is concerned. I turn a blind eye to his little flings. It’s one of the perks of being a producer. Casting couch, the Americans call it. And Bertie, well… he needs the reassurance. When he was a boy, he was slender and that glorious face of his attracted females like honey. Now that he’s lost his hair and gained some pounds and some years… what’s the harm, if he gets his ego stroked, now and then? As long as it’s not serious.”