The London Blitz Murders

TEN





SUITABLE FOR FRAMING





IN THAT MOST UNDIGNIFIED OF garments—a hospital gown—Agatha lay between the crisp white sheets of a crankable bed in a small temporary room off the emergency ward.

Over the past hour and a half or so, she had been thoroughly examined, poked, prodded and probed, and had passed with flying colors, though her left ankle had been wrapped in service of that minor sprain. A concerned doctor, whom she knew well from the course of her pharmacy duties, suggested that she be admitted overnight for observation; it was, however, her decision… this the doctor made clear. She declined.

It was just past midnight, the presumed end of a long, memorable and exhausting day; but Agatha felt strangely alert, her thoughts clear, her energy high. Nearly dying had been a most exhilarating experience. There would be precious little sleeping, tonight.

Further, she had—in her state of clarity in the little chamber off the emergency ward—assembled in her mind the pieces of the real-life series of murders, in much the manner she applied to the creation of her fictional crimes. Real life seemed at once simpler and more complex than her concoctions….

Inspector Greeno wondered why the killer’s spree had been interrupted—why no killing Wednesday? The answer was painfully simple: Cadet Airman Gordon Cummins had fire picket duty that night; he could not get out, Wednesday night, to have his nasty fun.

And, though it was theoretical (albeit an informed opinion), Agatha knew exactly how Cummins might have got around the billet book, which might explain as well the apparent false evidence of the roommates who had vouched for him.

She hoped she was wrong.

Her evidence was circumstantial at best; and she was at war with herself over her conclusion. How could that sweet boy who had saved her life be a sex-crazed murderer? He had written for her directions to his billet using his left hand, and what of that? Was every left-handed man in London a suspect, then?

In all probability, the fingerprints found at the two murder scenes yesterday would provide conclusive confirmation (or exoneration) of the cadet, once the great Fred Cherrill had processed them. Sir Bernard’s forensics examinations would further either indict or clear. She need do nothing but relax either here in a cozy hospital bed or at home in her own comfortable flat, waiting for the police to do their job. She was not, after all, Jane Marple, much less Hercule Poirot. And even Poirot had sense enough to allow the likes of Inspector Japp to take the physical risks.

And yet she had to know. The thing that killed the cat was nibbling at her. The puzzle-piecing portion of her mind craved the boy’s guilt; and the sentimental side of a woman whose life had been valiantly saved provided a yearning for his innocence.

Thankfully, no one from the St. James crowd had come calling. She had sent strict orders with the chauffeur to convey to the after-theater party at the Savoy that she was fine but wished under no circumstances to be disturbed tonight; she needed her rest (a lie) and they could come calling tomorrow, if they liked, when she was home again.

Quite likely the director and producer and others on the production staff were at this very moment huddled in a back private room of the posh hotel, oblivious to the hors d’oeuvres (though probably not the cocktails), wondering whatever to do—the play appeared to be a hit, judging by the enthusiastic response of the audience, and she herself had seen the Times critic walking out with a smile on his usually merciless lips. But with the theater damaged by that apparent UXB, the play and its players were as homeless as the poor rabble who’d unwittingly set off that bomb.

She had requested a robe, and this—a green flannel affair—is what she wore as she slipped out of the emergency ward and headed for the upper floor area that was home to the Department of Pharmacology and the dispensary. Rather absurdly, she had thrown her fur coat over the robe and hospital gown—after patting the fur free of as many little dirt and dust clouds as possible—but she abandoned the torn and filthy navy evening gown, thankful that she would never again have to force herself into the wretched thing.

Her keys to the pharmacy were in her purse, which lay somewhere under a ton or so of rubble where the St. James lobby had been. Her plan of action had been to find a member of the hospital janitorial staff to unlock the door for her, but no need: a charwoman was at work.

She exchanged pleasantries with the charwoman, who asked, “Where’s your pup tonight, missus?”

“Home asleep,” Agatha said cheerily, “dreaming of chasing rabbits across the commons, no doubt.”

The charwoman said, “He’s a good ’un, James is!” and returned to her sweeping, without apparent notice of Agatha’s bizarre wardrobe. In a small room off the pharmacy (itself cramped quarters), Agatha went to her locker, which—despite its name—was never locked.

This was where Agatha, upon arriving to work, would hang her Burberry and change into her lab coat; but she also kept a spare blouse and skirt—should there be any unexpected spillage in the dispensary—and a pair of sensible shoes and fresh pair of stockings, black woolen, knee-high. Since she was, at the moment, barefoot, the latter items came particularly in handy.

On the top shelf of the locker were three of her author’s copies of the new Poirot novel; she kept these within reach, as now and then a co-worker or patient would talk her out of one.

A single copy of Evil Under the Sun tucked under an arm, she left the dispensary, more or less dressed—the fur coat over white blouse and dark gray skirt—and, as she had expected, light glowed behind the pebbled glass of Sir Bernard’s laboratory.

She peeked in to the specimen-lined, bottle-and-beaker-flung cubbyhole. “Working all hours again?”

Looking very much like Sherlock Holmes, Sir Bernard, in his lab coat, sat perched on a stool at the counter with a microscope before him; but in one hand was a big-eyed Halloween-worthy gas mask, which he was examining through a magnifying glass held in the other.

He looked up sharply and his words were edged as well. “Whatever are you doing out of bed, young lady? I was just about to come down and check on your status.”

She moved to his side; a small pile of what appeared to be sand rested on a slide that had as yet to be slid under the microscope. “I have a clean bill of health, I’ll have you know…. I was hoping for a ride home, but you look to be in the midst of things. What do you have there?”

He held up the bug-eyed mask. “Inspector Greeno had it delivered around—it’s a gas respirator, part of an RAF kit. A man who may be our Ripper dropped it when a potential victim proved uncooperative.”

Another black mark against the boy; could young Cummins be so careless, so stupid? She began to wonder if this accumulation of clues was too good to be true—was there a possibility the cadet could have been fitted for a frame?

Frowning, she asked, “When did this happen?”

“Last night, I believe. That is, Thursday night. It is now technically Saturday.” Having delivered this typically precise pronouncement, the pathologist held the magnifying glass over the surface of the mask for her to look; she did so and saw nothing of note.

But the pathologist did: “I’ve found something most interesting on the fabric.”

“And what would that be?” she asked, since he seemed to want her to do so.

“Sand! I’m about to compare it to sand and mortar fragments taken from the air-raid shelter where the Hamilton woman’s body was discovered.”

She frowned thoughtfully. “Can that gas mask be traced?”

“Most certainly—there’s an Air Force number stamped inside. I spoke to the inspector… he’s working ’round the clock, it seems… and he’s getting in contact with your friend Glanville, to put the number with a name.”

She risked a smile. “Playing with sand is a far cry from performing autopsies, Bernard.”

“Agatha, forensics only begins with medicine. Science is science…. May I make a suggestion?”

“Always.”

“Why don’t you borrow my Armstrong-Siddeley? I can take the train home, when the time comes.”

“That’s very kind of you. I hope it wouldn’t be too much of an imposition….”

“Nonsense.” Then he looked at her. “This assumes you are in a condition to drive.” He arched an eyebrow and only one who knew him well could have detected the trace of a smile. “I would hate for anything to happen to my Armstrong-Siddeley.”

She grinned her most unguarded, horsey grin. “I know, Bernard. You’re so careful with it.” She gestured elaborately to herself. “No concussions, no broken bones. Tiny sprain—my left ankle. Otherwise I’m fine.”

“And you would like to go home and get some rest in your own bed? Understandable.”

She left with the keys to Sir Bernard’s automobile, the great man wholly unaware that she had entered his lab with that very intention.

Agatha prided herself a lay master of psychology. She felt certain her friend would have come to the hospital in order to keep an eye on her, and would pass the time by going to work on something or other in his laboratory.

And once Sir Bernard had become involved with his work, he would be loath to leave it, not even to give his ailing friend a ride home from the hospital….

Agatha had her own agenda, and driving to Hampstead to the Lawn Road Flats to curl up in bed was not first on that list.

It should have been: this she knew. Now that the gas mask had turned up, with its identifiable service number, the guilt or innocence of Cadet Cummins would soon be ascertained by Inspector Greeno and his minions. No need for any further involvement on her part; she was a civilian observer who, common sense would say, needed to retreat to the sidelines, and promptly.

Later she would reflect upon the events, and wonder if she would have behaved so recklessly, had the earlier brush with death not taken place. For now, she merely moved forward following her intentions.

St. John’s Wood had changed, since the time she and her first husband had lived there. In 1918, when Agatha and Archie had first moved to London, the district had been one of big old-fashioned houses with large gardens. Now the area had been invaded by large blocks of drearily modern flats, taking the place of many of those homes, particularly the smaller ones.

The address Cummins had given Agatha took her to Viceroy Court, between Edgmont and Townshend Streets, a particularly large example of the lusterless modern buildings that had invaded the district, a seven-story structure faced with yellow brick. Requisitioned for billets by the RAF, the building could not have dated back more than a few years and had a cold institutional quality that displeased Agatha.

Having left the Armstrong-Siddeley on the street, Agatha—a most unmilitary figure in her fur coat, copy of the new Poirot tucked under one arm—approached the building, which loomed monolithically in the moonlight. She entered to find the lobby a functional area of the same yellow brick with a few patriotic posters on several bulletin boards—“Let’s Go! Wings for Victory,” “Tell Nobody—Not Even Her!” and (irony again, she thought) “Hitler Will Send No Warning—Always Carry Your Gas Mask.”

A pair of guards in RAF uniform played cards at a small table near the door; looking painfully young to her, they looked up at Agatha curiously. Standing, one asked, “Help you, ma’am?”

“Just visiting my nephew,” she said.

“At this hour, ma’am?”

“I only just got in to town by motor—terrible delays. He said he’d be up late. Am I breaking a rule? After visitors’ hours, is it?”

“We don’t stand on ceremony around here, least not on the weekend. What’s his name, ma’am?”

“Gordon Cummins.”

“Oh,” the guard said with a smile. “The Count!”

Oh dear, she thought.

“Pardon?” she said.

“Nothing, ma’am, just a sort of nickname the blokes call your nephew…. I’m not sure LAC Cummins is in, ma’am. Hardly anybody is, y’know. Friday night. It’s an empty building, you’ve dropped by to.”

“I spoke to him on the telephone. I think he’s expecting me.”

“Do you know what billet, ma’am?”

“I do indeed. Room 405.”

“Go on up, ma’am.”

The guards returned to their cards—that new game, gin rummy, if she wasn’t mistaken—and she took the automatic lift to the fourth floor.

Flats faced each other across a central hall, in hotel fashion; the brick walls and the tile flooring again gave off an institutional air which seemed appropriate for the building’s commandeered use as a billets, but which must have been depressing for apartment living.

The guards were correct: the hallway was deserted. No Saturday night parties or card games could be discerned, no radios blared behind doors. The troops had no doubt descended upon Piccadilly.

She hoped she wouldn’t have to return to the lobby to request that one of those young guards unlock Cummins’s door for her—and she didn’t: after her knock went unheeded, she tried the knob and found it unlocked. Not surprising, in what was after all a glorified barracks.

The flat, drably modern, was a sitting room beyond which lay a small, separate kitchen and two small bedrooms, one of which was off the kitchen, the other off the sitting room, which also had an adjacent bathroom. Four cots had been erected in the sitting room and each cramped bedroom had a single cot. Those using the sitting room were apparently living out of small wooden RAF-issue trunks; but each tiny bedroom, glorified closets really, had bureaus—Viceroy Court had apparently provided furnished apartments to its prior tenants.

The small bedroom off the kitchen—with its easy access to the fire escape—was Cadet Cummins’s, or so she assumed. The reason for her deduction provided one more small irony: on the bureau were two stacks of popular inexpensive editions of her novels.

That much, at least, had been true: Gordon Cummins was a fan, a dedicated reader of hers.

She did not even have to open the drawers of the bureau to find what she’d been looking for: near one stack of her books, beside multiple sideways displays of her own name, were the apparent souvenirs of slaughter: a cheap comb missing teeth; a fountain pen; and a woman’s wristwatch.

Though it would take measurements and the forensics skills of Sir Bernard to confirm so, Agatha’s eyes told her these items mirrored the shapes she’d discovered in the dust at the Jouannet murder flat.

Leaning closer, narrowing her eyes, she thought she could make out something odd about that watch: it had something on the back of it….

She lifted the cheap watch and turned it over and saw the oddly cut piece of elastic tape, fitted there for the original (late) wearer’s comfort, again seeming to mirror the shape of the portion cut from the roll of sticking plaster Ted Greeno had found in a drawer of that dust-covered dresser in the Jouannet place.

Finally, an inexpensive silver-plated cigarette case, bearing the initials N.W., seemed to indicate the ghost of actress Nita Ward. A pack rat, this killer was; not a good thing to be, in that line of interest.

“What a pleasant surprise….”

Startled, she turned to see the owner, or at least the possessor, of these ghoulish keepsakes: the boyishly handsome RAF cadet, Gordon Cummins, standing with cap in hand, his smile sideways, his eyes a greenish unblinking blue.

And in a flash she recognized him, finally: the Gunman.

The smiling blue-eyed Gunman of her childhood nightmares, who had come back to haunt… and perhaps warn… her in recent nights.

How like Archie he was.

“Oh, do forgive me,” Agatha said, turning her back to the bureau and beaming at her host. “I was driving home from the hospital, and I simply couldn’t sleep, and thought I’d run over and leave this here, to surprise you….”

She held out the copy of Evil Under the Sun for him to see, then placed it on the bureau top behind her.

“I still need to sign it, I’m afraid, but I wanted to thank you properly. I thought you were spending the night with Mrs. Cummins.”

He shut the door. The cadet remained near the door, but the bedroom was so small, so claustrophobic, that they still stood relatively close to one another.

“I thought when you got back,” she said, “that you would find the book in your bedroom and just be… pleasantly surprised. But then, you said you were pleasantly surprised, just now, didn’t you? And I hope that’s true.”

He said nothing. Still smiling. Twisting the hat around in his hands.

“Well… perhaps I should go,” she said. “I’m afraid I was misguided… invading your sanctum sanctorum, as I have.”

“No,” he said. “I’m pleased to see you…. The party broke up early. Everyone was too concerned about you, and the explosion at the theater, for the merriment to continue.”

“Ah.”

“Janet was upset, and suggested I go on back to my billet. No night for celebrating, really…. Do you suspect me?”

The bluntness of that struck her like a blow, but she did her best not to show it, saying quickly, “No. But I’m afraid the police do.”

He sat on the side of the bed, which hugged the wall lengthwise, opposite the bureau; his unblinking eyes stared into nothing. “But I’m innocent. I hope you believe me.”

“Oh, I do, Gordon. You’re my savior, after all. My knight.”

His eyes met hers and his smile turned into a crinkly thing, as if unsure whether or not to become a frown. “If they caught him… this Ripper… he wouldn’t be as famous as the other one, would he?”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Well, the first one… Jack… they never caught him. He was too smart for them, they’ll say. But the truth is, he didn’t have Sir Bernard Spilsbury and these modern detectives up against him, did he? Fingerprints and things.”

“No. He didn’t. It was all quite crude then.”

“But if the new Jack were to kill someone famous, that would be different.”

“I’m afraid… afraid I don’t follow you, Gordon.”

He shrugged, the smile boyish as ever, charming. “Well, imagine if the Ripper killed you, Mrs. Mallowan. Mrs. Christie. What headlines that would make—the fiend who killed the mistress of murder. That would make history.”

“I suppose so. If you were guilty. But I don’t believe that you are.”

His eyes tightened and, finally, he blinked. “You don’t?”

She sat next to him on the bed and patted his hand reassuringly. “Certainly not. You’re a smart boy, Gordon. Would a smart boy like you leave such obvious clues just scattered about? These things on your bureau… worthless items, a toothless comb, a fountain pen, a cheap watch.”

He was frowning in thought. “Then you see it, don’t you? That I’ve been framed for this.”

She smiled and clasped her hands in a single clap. “Exactly. And I know who did and how it was done.”

Still frowning, nodding, he said, eagerly, “Do tell.”

“They’ve found a gas respirator, you know, the police have. With a service number that will likely lead to you, Gordon. I don’t see your mask anywhere here in your room, or on your person.”

“No. It was stolen several days ago.”

“I knew it!” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “These clues were planted, Gordon. And who was responsible?”

“Who?”

“I’ll tell you, though it pains me, it grieves me to my core.” She sighed heavily, lowered her head. “My ‘friend,’ your ‘benefactor’… Stephen Glanville. Who better, with his Air Ministry connections, to help himself to your personal items, to enter inconspicuously and plant these obvious clues?”

“Why Glanville?”

“He is a notorious ladies’ man, our Stephen. Though he denied knowing her, Stephen undoubtedly had an affair with Nita Ward. And he may… I hate to tell you this, as it may cause you pain, Gordon… he may have set his sights on your lovely wife.”

The cadet’s eyes flared. “Janet!”

“I’m afraid so. He has loitered around rehearsals, and his eyes have fallen upon her…. I don’t believe she has given him any cause for the unforgivable thoughts he’s clearly having regarding her, so I do beg you not to blame or reprove her. But with you out of the way…”

“He would have a clear field,” Cummins said, squinting in anger.

“Seeing your lovely wife,” Agatha said, “told me everything I needed to know about you, Gordon. With such a lovely, desirable creature in your life, you would have no need for the soiled flowers of the West End.”

“I love her. Janet is wonderful. I would never hurt her.”

She gripped his hand again. “Then you must cling to your innocence. And I will help you, Gordon. I will plead your case. Together, we will shatter this frightful frame, and restore your good name.”

He looked at her almost lovingly. “You’re wonderful, Mrs. Mallowan. You’re like… something from one of your own books.”

“As are you, Gordon. As are you.”

The door burst open and Inspector Greeno stood there with revolver in hand—such weapons were checked out only when an officer felt a vital need, and Greeno clearly felt it. His eyes widened at the sight of Agatha, then turned hard, as he leveled the weapon at the cadet, and behind him were two more plainclothes detectives, equally well armed.

“Stand up, Cummins,” the inspector said, “and put your hands on your head…. You’re nicked!”

The cadet’s eyes flew to Agatha’s. “Tell him, Mrs. Mallowan! Tell them I’m innocent.”

“I’ll give the inspector all the details,” she said gently. “Rest assured. Go quietly, dear, and it will speak well for you.”

The inspector and another detective squeezed into the room, and the assistant handcuffed the cadet as Greeno said more formally, “You’re under arrest for committing grievous bodily harm to Greta Heywood…. Take him away.”

The two plainclothes men did, Cummins calling to Agatha, “Be sure to tell him! Be sure!”

“I will,” she reassured him smilingly, “I will.”

When they were alone in the cubbyhole billet, the inspector asked, “What in hell are you doing here, and what in hell was that about, Agatha?”

Ignoring his first question, she answered the second. “Oh, I convinced him I believed in his innocence.” She showed the inspector the murder souvenirs on the bureau top. “I told him I believed that Stephen Glanville had framed him for these murders, planting these clues and others, like the respirator…. I assume the number on the mask led you here?”

“It did. That’s why we’ve arrested him only for assaulting that prostitute, Greta Heywood. We’ll get ’round to willful murder charges soon enough. Why Glanville?”

“Poor Stephen and his womanizing… he was a believable suspect. With his position at the Air Ministry, he might well have framed the boy.”

“That’s a load of rubbish!”

“Of course it is,” Agatha said pleasantly.

“Well, Cummins certainly knew Glanville didn’t do it! Why would telling him that story hold any weight?”

“What was important was that it seemed a credible defense to him… and his counselor may eventually try to utilize it. I needed him to believe I thought him innocent, and that I would defend him to the death…. You may not be aware of it, Ted, but that madman saved my life, earlier, at the theater cave-in.”

The inspector nodded, sighing, “I did indeed hear that. He must have thought you owed him a debt.”

“I owe him no debt—he was considering killing me, as his last grand gesture. But I talked him out of it.”

“My Lord, how did you manage it?”

“Oh, really, Inspector—it was easy. The boy likes my work.” She gestured to the stacks of books. “He’s a fan…. May I show you something?”

She escorted the amazed inspector into the kitchen. “With his bedroom isolated as it is, and the fire escape leading off as it does, the testimony of any of his flatmates who might say they saw him go off to bed is irrelevant.”

“It is indeed,” the inspector said, taking in the fire escape view. “If we can just get past those damned billet books.”

She laughed, genuinely amused. “Oh, Inspector, that was my first real suspicion of our cadet. I was the wife of an RAF pilot, in the first war—I know all about billet books and men covering up for each other, as they sneak in and out to see their sweethearts and wives… not necessarily in that order.”

“Blimey, I never thought it—it’s bleedin’ obvious, if you’ll pardon me saying.”

“It’s a trick immemorial, in service camps, Inspector. Oh, they’ll fuss and moan, when you try to prove it—tell you you’ll blow the billet wide open, if you expose the practice. But take my word: that so-called passbook is a tissue of lies…. Do you have a pen, Inspector?”

“I believe so,” he said, and dug it out. Then, a grin splitting the bulldog face, he added, “Two pens, counting the one Cummins copped from the Jouannet flat.”

She sat at the little kitchen table—which was cluttered with the dishes of RAF cadets—and cleared a place. She signed the title page of Evil Under the Sun and then inscribed on the flyleaf: “To Gordon Cummins—a reader I will never forget. A.C., St. John’s Wood, 1942.”

With a smile, she handed the book to the flabbergasted inspector, saying, “See to it Mr. Cummins gets it, will you?”





AFTER…





DETECTIVE CHIEF INSPECTOR EDWARD GREENO, Sir Bernard Spilsbury and Frederick Cherrill mounted an airtight case against Airman Gordon Frederick Cummins.

The items Agatha had found in the cadet’s billet were identified as belongings of murder victims Doris Jouannet and Nita Ward. The fingerprints on the candlestick and the tumbler of beer from the Lowe flat were Cummins’s. Greta Heywood and Phyllis O’Dwyer identified Cummins as their would-be assailant (they shared the tabloid reward money).

Sir Bernard Spilsbury matched sand, grit, and cement dust from the gas mask’s fabric to samples from the air-raid shelter where Evelyn Hamilton’s body had been found. Items belonging to Miss Hamilton were also found in the billet, and the two five-pound notes Phyllis O’Dwyer had turned in to Inspector Greeno were traced to Cummins, through RAF pay records.

As Agatha had predicted, the billet passbooks had been falsified, cadets covering up for cadets out on the town. But other RAF airmen were just as eager not to cover up for Cummins, whom they did not particularly like: the nicknames of the “Duke” and the “Count,” which Cummins claimed as his, had been seized upon derisively by fellow cadets offended by Cummins’s constant boasting about his “noble” birth. They said he often got dressed up in his best civilian clothes, affecting an upper-class accent, going out to impress prostitutes.

“And him with such a beauty for a missus,” one cadet had said, shaking his head.

Other cadets confirmed that they’d seen Cummins throwing money around, in his “Count” persona, shortly after Evelyn Hamilton’s murder. The Hamilton woman, of course, had been stripped not only of her life but of eighty pounds.

Throughout, Cummins maintained his innocence as well as a sunny, confident disposition. His wife, Janet, remained loyal and claimed to believe his story of having been framed by a “higher-up” at the Air Ministry. Janet even managed to mount a petition seeking a stay of execution until the “mystery man” who “switched gas masks” with poor Gordon could be found.

Despite this effort, shortly before eight a.m. on June 25, 1942, Gordon Cummins strolled, a smiling self-proclaimed innocent martyr, to the gallows. His wife wept; working girls, eager to return to the dimly lit streets behind Piccadilly in relative safety, cheered. The clatter of the falling trapdoor punctuated the distant thunder of explosions.

Luftwaffe planes were flying over London, on a rare daylight bombing raid.

Agatha’s new play received glowing reviews. It moved to the Cambridge Theatre for a long run, and opened in New York in June, 1944, under the sanitized title Ten Little Indians, where it ran for an impressive 426 performances.

The great tragedy of the war for Agatha was the death of her daughter’s husband; but Rosalind and Hubert’s son, Matthew, would be the love of Mrs. Mallowan’s later life.

Toward the end of the war, after a weekend visit in Wales with Rosalind and grandchild Matthew, Agatha returned to Lawn Road Flats. Exhausted and chilled to the bone, she switched on the heat and began to cook up some kippers, when Max came home, unexpectedly early, from his service in North Africa.

It was as if he’d only left yesterday—though he, too, was two stone heavier. He had eaten well, overseas, while potatoes and bread had taken their toll on Agatha, who was frankly relieved her husband had added girth, as well. The kippers had burned during the excitement of the homecoming, but they sat together and ate the oily things in glee and had the most wonderfully mundane evening of their married lives.

She never told Max about the Ripper affair, and their friend Stephen Glanville discreetly never mentioned it, either.

Sir Bernard, who was himself struggling with an on-again-off-again autobiography, said to her toward the end of the affair, “This will make an interesting tidbit for your autobiography.”

“I believe I’ll leave this bit out,” she told him, and she did.

She felt foolish about how she’d endangered herself, going to Cummins’s flat, and preferred Max not know of it; and she had resolved any misgivings she’d had about the inappropriateness of her fiction in the postwar world. Good and evil were a reality, and fiction that dealt with that subject, however escapist in intent, would always have a place.

One good thing had come of the episode, however: she never again had the Gunman dream.

Perhaps, at long last, her subconscious had banished the nightmare, out of her acceptance of one of the primary themes of her own work: that behind innocent eyes, evil often lurked. The thought wasn’t a frightening one, once you’d adapted it to your thinking.

At least not so frightening as to cause nightmares.

At the incessant urging of Stephen Glanville, Agatha indeed wrote an ancient-Egyptian mystery, Death Comes at the End, published in 1945; also, she dedicated the next Poirot, Five Little Pigs (1943), to her persistent friend. Glanville, after a distinguished career concluding with his position as Herbert Thompson Professor of Egyptology at Cambridge, died at age fifty-six, the premature death greatly grieving the Mallowans.

Agatha modeled the country home setting of The Hollow (1946) after that of actor Larry Sullivan and his wife Danae’s estate at Haselmere, Surrey, dedicating the novel to them with apologies.

With her husband home and the war winding down, Agatha left her position in the dispensary at University College Hospital. She and Sir Bernard Spilsbury remained friendly, but drifted apart.

In November 1945, she was sad to learn that another tragedy had befallen Sir Bernard, who had never really gotten over the death of his son Peter: another son, Alan, had fallen ill with galloping consumption, and soon died. She and Max attended the funeral, and later had a pleasant lunch with Bernard, but despite a superficial air of normality, the great man had clearly failed.

Spilsbury soon suffered several minor strokes, but Agatha understood he was continuing to work with his usual dedication, testifying in trials, conducting postmortems, endlessly filling little file cards with data and theories. On December 17, 1947, as fastidiously dressed as ever, Sir Bernard Spilsbury turned on the gas in the little laboratory down the hall from the dispensary where Agatha had worked.

Inspector Greeno suffered no such melancholy. After thirty-eight years on the job, he retired from Scotland Yard in 1960. As head of the Yard’s number one district—covering the West End and Soho—he’d long been the “Guv’nor” to coppers and crooks alike.

The Daily Express said of Greeno’s retirement, “His record of successful murder investigation, including the notorious Blackout Ripper case, bears comparison with any police force in the world. One thing is certain: the underworld will be celebrating tonight.”

Agatha Christie Mallowan lived a long and happy and productive later life, with Max Mallowan at her side. Her play The Mousetrap outdid Ten Little Indians and became a West End institution.

Shortly before her death in 1976, Agatha allowed the publication of the Poirot novel she’d written during the Blitz, to best-selling results, the death of the Belgian sleuth rating a front-page obituary in the New York Times. Her Miss Marple novel, salted away at the same time, published shortly after the author’s passing, was similarly a best-seller.

While Agatha Christie is immortal, Gordon Cummins and his crimes have, like Mrs. Mallowan’s Gunman, gone the way of all nightmares—an unpleasantness forgotten upon waking.





APPLAUSE IN THE DARK





AUTHOR’S NOTE: THE READER IS advised not to peruse this bibliographic essay prior to finishing the novel.

The previous novels in what has been called by others my “disaster” series have featured real-life crime-fiction writers as detectives in fact-based mysteries, often in settings and situations where they had actually been—i.e., Jacques Futrelle on the Titanic and Edgar Rice Burroughs at Pearl Harbor during the attack. Agatha Christie, of course, did live through the London Blitz. The description of her daily life—her work in a hospital dispensary, her writing projects and habits, etc.—has a strictly factual basis.

Agatha Christie was adept at sleight of hand, and the trick this book attempts is to present a true-crime story in the guise of a traditional mystery. How well I’ve succeeded is up to the reader, but the challenge of it was the sort of writing problem Mrs. Mallowan might well have relished.

That the real-life murders in question were vicious sex crimes of course contrasts with the cozy image of Agatha Christie (not entirely deserved in my view); but, among other things attempted in these pages, it was my wish to reflect upon reality versus fantasy, and the role of mystery and crime fiction in a brutal world. At the same time, I hoped not to dishonor Agatha’s memory by handling the subject matter in a manner she might have found in poor taste.

The series of murders by the so-called Blackout Ripper did occur, in the time frame indicated, and the basic facts of the case are honored here, as much as conflicting source material and the passage of time allow. I chose to keep the crimes of Gordon Cummins in their proper time frame, and—despite the title of this book—not at the height of the Blitz in 1940. This is, however, a work of fiction, and liberties have been taken, including the shifting of certain events to form a better-flowing narrative.

While my involvement of Agatha Christie in the Blackout Ripper murder investigation is fanciful, the creator of Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple did indeed work side by side with the famous pathologist, Sir Bernard Spilsbury, at University College Hospital during this period. The discovery that these two giants of the world of crime—a celebrated writer of mystery fiction and the British father of forensics—knew each other within an intimate work environment, at a time when both of these lonely older people were separated from their spouses, gave impetus to this narrative.

I intend this novel as a valentine to Agatha Christie, whose work—and life—I much admire. As a writer who has been identified throughout my career with the hard-boiled school of crime fiction, this choice of protagonist may seem bizarre to some of my regular readers. Suffice to say I do not view Christie as a “cozy” writer, but a tough-minded storyteller whose world-view is harder-edged than most noir authors, and whose primary detectives—Poirot and Miss Marple—are, beneath their deceiving surfaces, as relentless and even vengeful as Mike Hammer or my own Nate Heller.

Christie has in common with two hard-boiled writers I much admire—Mickey Spillane and Erle Stanley Gardner—huge success and scant respect. These enormously popular and influential writers are dismissed as simplistic storytellers, with even their admirers often praising them in a left-handed, patronizing fashion. I hope, in these pages, that I have given some small sense of the serious, gifted writer this woman was.

Many have considered Christie an enigmatic figure, and it is my hope that the character study in these pages has done her justice and in some measure brought her alive.

Books on Christie’s life and work are often inconsistent where dates are concerned; even Agatha and her husband Max Mallowan are themselves inconsistent, in their respective autobiographies, about when exactly Max left London to serve in North Africa. Even so, I have taken certain liberties here that go beyond the inconsistencies of my sources.

The prime example of this artistic license is my moving up in time the writing and production of the unfortunately named Ten Little Niggers, so that it would coincide with the Blackout Ripper murders; the material here relating to the problems that Agatha had with that tasteless title, and the title changes that ensued, is accurate. The St. James Theatre did suffer bomb damage (in 1943) and the production was indeed forced to move.

Most of the characters in this novel are real people, and the others are fictional characters with real-life counterparts. All of these characterizations, however fact-based they may be, must be viewed as fictionalized; and the characterizations range from those of Agatha, Sir Bernard Spilsbury and Edward Greeno—about whom book-length works have been written—to minor players who appear only in passing in reference material.

Gordon Cummins’s wife was indeed a secretary to a theatrical producer; I have given her the name “Janet,” and she must be viewed as a largely fictional character. Producer and director Bertram Morris and Irene Helier are fictional, with real-life counterparts. My portrayals of Francis L. Sullivan (who did portray Poirot on stage, twice) and Stephen Glanville (a distinguished colleague of Max Mallowan’s) draw largely on Agatha’s own autobiography and the official Christie biography by Janet Morgan.

The victims of the Blackout Ripper appear here under their real names. According to several sources, Margaret Lowe’s teenaged daughter did prompt the discovery of her mother’s body; however, the name “Mary Jane” is invented, though the backstory has a factual basis. The two women who escaped the Ripper’s clutches are given their real names.

My longtime research associate, George Hagenauer, spent many hours digging out material and working with me to explore the possibilities of interweaving Agatha Christie’s Blitz-era experiences with the Blackout Ripper case. While I myself uncovered the Cummins case in seeking an appropriate crime for Agatha’s involvement, it was George who discovered the Christie/Spilsbury connection, which proved so crucial to this effort. Among the material George turned up was the article “London Strangler” by Clyde Black, Detective World, July 1952, perhaps the single best treatment of the case, despite the obscurity of the source.

Agatha Christie’s An Autobiography (1977) is a massive, detailed but wonderful work, and much more revealing about its author than many would have it. The autobiographical works Come Tell Me How You Live (1946), bylined Agatha Christie Mallowan, and Mallowan’s Memoirs (1977), by Max Mallowan, were also consulted. Particularly useful was the aforementioned, first-rate authorized biography, Agatha Christie (1984) by Janet Morgan.

I am partial to two books that discuss both Christie’s life and her works: Agatha Christie: The Woman and Her Mysteries (1990) by Gillian Gill; and The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie (2001) by Charles Osborne, who has adapted several of Christie’s plays into novel form.

Surprisingly, one of the best Christie overviews is disguised as a picture book: The World of Agatha Christie (1999) by Martin Fido (whose Blackout Ripper article, coincidentally—mentioned below—first attracted me to the Cummins case). Another work vital to this novel was The Getaway Guide to Agatha Christie’s England (1999) by Judith Hurdle.

Many of Christie’s works were referred to, notably her The Mousetrap and Other Plays (1978), which includes Ten Little Indians. Various other books on Christie were delved into: Agatha Christie A to Z (1996), Dawn B. Sova, Ph.D.; Agatha Christie: First Lady of Crime (1977), edited by H.R.F. Keating; Murder She Wrote: A Study of Agatha Christie’s Detective Fiction (1982), Patricia D. Maida and Nicholas B. Spornick; The Mysterious World of Agatha Christie (1975), Jeffrey Feinman; and The New Bedside, Bathtub and Armchair Companion to Agatha Christie (1992), edited by Dick Riley and Pam McAllister. Robert Barnard’s A Talent to Deceive: An Appreciation of Agatha Christie (1979, 1980), while interesting, is typical of the supposedly pro-Christie critics who underestimate her abilities.

Book-length works on the principal detectives in the case proved particularly fruitful: The Scalpel of Scotland Yard: The Life of Sir Bernard Spilsbury (1952), Douglas G. Browne and E. V. Tullett; War on the Underworld (1960), Ex-Detective Chief Superintendent Edward Greeno, M.B.E. (who appears to be the inspiration for John Thaw’s “Regan” character on the popular 1970s UK television series The Sweeney); and Cherrill of the Yard (1954), Fred Cherrill. All of these have chapters devoted to the Blackout Ripper. The most detailed, ironically, is in the autobiography of Cherrill, the fingerprint expert whose presence in this novel is largely peripheral.

This novel is the first book-length work on the Blackout Ripper murder spree, which is largely unknown in the United States, allowing me the conceit of presenting a true-crime case in mystery format. Hardcore true-crime buffs in the UK may recognize this case, as it has been frequently written up in British true-crime anthologies and overviews.

Among the UK publications of that type that were consulted are The Chronicle of Crime (1993), Martin Fido; Volumes Eight and Seventeen of Crimes and Punishment: A Pictorial Encyclopedia of Aberrant Behavior (1974), edited by Jackson Morley; and The Detectives: Crime and Detection in Fact and Fiction (1978), Frank Smyth and Myles Ludwig. A British weekly publication, Murder Casebook: Investigations in the Ultimate Crime, Issue 72 (1991), “Blackout Killers,” was particularly helpful (another George Hagenauer find).

Where the Blitz era in London is concerned, I leaned heavily on one book—London at War (1995) by Phillip Ziegler—and I offer my sincere thanks to the author. Other helpful books on the Blitz era include The Home-front: The British and the Second World War (1976), Arthur Marwick; Keep Smiling Through: The Home Front 1939–45 (1975), Susan Briggs; The London Blitz (1980), David Johnson; and the delightful picture book The Wartime Scrapbook: From Blitz to Victory 1939–1945 (1995), compiled by Robert Opie.

I make no pretense at being knowledgeable about London and any errors herein, geographical and otherwise, are my own. To whatever degree I have been accurate, however, I owe thanks to a “walking guide” book, providing key information about Blitz-vintage London: The Face of London by Harold P. Clunn, an undated volume circa 1956; this was yet another George Hagenauer discovery. A helpful volume on crime and policework was London After Dark (1954) by Ex-Superintendent Robert Fabian.

I am extremely grateful to my editor, Natalee Rosenstein of Berkley Prime Crime, for her patience. An ambitious but misjudged false start on this novel—patterned upon Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (narrated by Cummins!)—required a request for a deadline extension, which Natalee kindly granted.

This enabled my wife, writer Barbara Collins, and me to take advantage of a trip to London for the premiere of the film Road to Perdition and visit numerous of the actual locations, from Agatha’s Lawn Road flat to every murder site. Thank you to driver Rudi Allman of Hanover Chauffeurs, whose driving was far superior to Sir Bernard Spilsbury’s.

Thanks also to my friend and agent Dominick Abel, who lent his usual support during a busy, trying time. My wife helped out by reading Agatha’s wonderful but long autobiography so that we could discuss and explore Agatha’s character, in my attempt to solve the mystery of Christie. For many months we listened to unabridged audios of Poirot novels ordered from the UK, and read by actors David Suchet and Hugh Fraser; never has research been such a pleasure.





ABOUT THE AUTHOR





Photo credit: Bamford Studio

Max Allan Collins is the New York Times best-selling author of The Road to Perdition and multiple award-winning novels, screenplays, comic books, comic strips, trading cards, short stories, movie novelizations, and historical fiction. He has scripted the Dick Tracy comic strip, Batman comic books, and written tie-in novels based on the CSI, Bones, and Dark Angel TV series; collaborated with legendary mystery author Mickey Spillane; and authored numerous mystery novels including the Quarry, Nolan, Mallory, and Nathan Heller series. His additional Disaster series mystery novels include The Lusitania Murders, The Titanic Murders, The Hindenburg Murders, The Pearl Harbor Murders, and The War of the Worlds Murder.