The London Blitz Murders

FIVE





PRIVACY IN A PUBLIC HOUSE





AGATHA HERSELF MADE THE SUGGESTION that those who’d witnessed Nita Ward’s audition yesterday afternoon be interviewed today.

“I do not see them as suspects,” Agatha told Inspector Greeno, as the pair sat in the tiny cafe, having coffee and tea respectively. She felt strangely self-conscious using the term “suspects” outside of the pages of fiction. “But at least one of my colleagues knew the poor girl prior to the audition, and the rest had direct contact with her.”

“I’d like you to accompany me,” the inspector said.

“I’m not sure that’s wise—would my friends be as frank in front of me?”

Inspector Greeno twitched a humorless half-smile. “That’s a good point, Mrs. Mallowan.”

“I do wish you’d call me Agatha.”

The grin had warmth and width that turned the bulldog face into something attractive. “Agatha it is—if you’ll do me the honor of calling me Ted.”

“Ted… what a wonderful designation… or should I say ‘moniker,’ out of respect for your trade? Such a cheery name for a homicide detective.”

The inspector leaned forward, eyes narrow. “Here’s my view of it—initially, they’ll loosen up around you. Your presence will be a kind of reassuring factor. Then, after each interview, we’ll exchange notes, so to speak….”

She nodded. “I believe I understand. If at some point, my presence turns from comforting to inhibiting…”

“Then I’ll question them again, at a later date, on my own. Rather more officially.”

“These interviews, then, will be conducted unofficially. Informally.”

“Absolutely, Agatha.” He grinned again, though warmth wasn’t part of it, this time. “We don’t really think one of your theater people is the new Jack the Ripper, do we?”

“We don’t. Particularly not the ladies.”

Inspector Greeno raised an eyebrow. “Well, one never knows.”

She frowned at him, curiously. “Aren’t these sexually motivated murders?”

“Not necessarily. In all three, robbery has been at least a partial purpose—the previous victim gave up some eighty pounds to her slayer.”

Agatha kept pressing. “But the savagery of the mutilation, in the region of Miss Ward’s sexual organs…”

“A jealous woman could easily accomplish such a task.”

The mystery writer’s eyes flared. “I don’t know about ‘easily’…. What does Sir Bernard say about signs of sexual assault?”

“The first victim showed signs of sexual activity, but not the bruising and such usually associated with rape…. May I speak this frankly, Agatha?”

“You may. I will be insulted if you do not.”

He waved a waitress over to request another cup of tea, and, once the girl had been dispatched, he said, “We have three victims, all female. The second one, our air-raid shelter schoolteacher, did not show signs of having had recent sexual activity. My guess is that Sir Bernard’s examination of Miss Ward… Mrs. Oatley… will show that she did.”

Agatha was nodding again, very slowly now. “I believe I follow you, Inspector.”

“Ted.”

“… Ted. The first and third of the women, by the nature of their professions, would have had sexual intercourse, recently. Quite apart from the crime committed upon them.”

The inspector also was nodding. “My best guess would be that our Ripper had ‘normal’ relations with victims one and three, after which—perhaps seized with some unnatural rage against women—he strangled them.”

Could this be, Agatha wondered, an individual who—upon sexual climax—felt guilt, or even revulsion? A sense of uncleanness… either about himself, or his paid partner, that sent him into a misogynistic fury?

She said, “Then you do think this is the work of a man.”

“Most likely. But remember, Agatha—one theory about the original, Whitechapel Ripper, never disproven, is that ‘Jack’ was a ‘Jill.’ ”

Agatha found herself smiling. “Jill the Ripper? Isn’t that absurd on its face?”

“Not really. The medical skills displayed by the turn-of-the-century Ripper were consistent with those of a midwife.”

“From what I saw,” Agatha said, and allowed herself a shudder, “our current Ripper, whether Jack or Jill, has no discernible surgical skills.”

“I would have to agree. One does wonder… why has the killer escalated into mutilation? That is, if we are indeed looking at the same offender.”

Agatha raised her eyebrows knowingly and sipped her coffee.

The inspector again leaned forward. “If you’re thinking something, Agatha, please share it. I wouldn’t be sitting here conversing with you in the midst of a murder case if I didn’t take your contribution seriously.”

“You’re too kind… but I’m afraid my own prejudices would show through all too clearly, if I were to express this particular opinion.”

“I’ll take that into account.”

Now Agatha leaned forward. “What has changed since the first two murders?”

“This one is more barbaric—”

“No. I didn’t state myself clearly. What has changed between the first two murders and the commission of this third atrocity?”

The inspector frowned, then shook his head. “Nothing comes to my mind. What comes to yours?”

“The newspapers. Specifically, the tabloids.”

The inspector’s eyes flared. “Crikey! You’re right. The press dubbed our boy a new ‘Ripper.’ ”

“And how does our Ripper respond to this attention? He… or, giving you the benefit of the doubt, Ted, she… decided to live up to the title the press bestowed.”

The bulldog face paled. “Surely that can’t be…. The killer showed hatred of women in the first two killings, and he’s merely getting bolder, and escalating out of his own mania… not spurred on by his press clippings.”

Agatha shrugged. “It has been my observation that a certain breed of wrongdoer enjoys the limelight. No doubt this string of murders is the first ‘important’ thing this unfortunate individual has ever managed to do.”

“Unfortunate?” His brow was heavily ridged with displeased surprise. “Surely, Agatha, you’re not one of the ‘reforming’ breed, who think villains are pooooor victims of their heredity and environment… ?”

She took another sip; the coffee was wonderfully bitter. “I’m willing to believe that the likes of our Ripper are ‘made’ that way… born with a kind of disability, as if coming into this world blind.”

“That hardly justifies—”

“One should pity them,” she said, interrupting (something she seldom did, but the views she held on this subject were strong within her). “But not spare them.”

He chuckled; the ridged forehead smoothed itself out. “Well, hearing that from you is a relief. Because if ever a villain needed to swing, this one does.”

She shrugged. “I’m not against hanging. What else can we do with those who are tainted with hatred and ruthlessness? For whom other people’s lives go for nothing?”

“Mrs. Mallowan… Mrs. Christie. You are not what I expected.”

“Have you read Milton, Inspector?”

“As a schoolboy.”

“How well do you remember it?”

“As well as the next bloke, I’d say.”

“Satan wanted to be great, do you recall? He wanted power—he wanted to be God. He had no love in him, no… humility. He chose evil.”

The inspector was shaking his head again. “Difficult to believe that the newspapers themselves, by glorifying the likes of a Ripper, could somehow encourage him….”

“It’s a pity the papers save their bad reviews for artists, and reserve their rave reviews for criminals.”

That amused the inspector, who finished his tea and requested that Agatha give him the names of—and any insights she might have into—each of the individuals they would be interviewing this afternoon. She did this, and he dutifully jotted notes.

A dress rehearsal of her new play was scheduled for two p.m. at the St. James, and Agatha felt confident that the inspector’s interviews with the appropriate parties—producer Bertram Morris, director Irene Helier Morris, dialogue coach Francis L. Sullivan, and the producer’s secretary, Janet Cummins—could be squeezed in around the proceedings. This left only Stephen Glanville and Janet’s RAF pilot husband, who would not be at the theater for an interview.

“We could call Stephen,” Agatha said, “and arrange a meeting for his Whitehall office, or at the Lawn Road Flats, after work.”

“Either would be fine—you’re kind to suggest it.” The inspector rose, saying, “I’ll take care of the bill while you give him a call, if you would. Oh, and would you ask Dr. Glanville what the best way is, to get ahold of this young cadet? Seeing as how he’s a superior of the boy’s.”

The cafe had a public phone, which Agatha used. Stephen was apparently fairly important at the Air Ministry, because it took her one switchboard operator and two secretaries to make her way to him.

“Well, what a bizarre coincidence,” Stephen said. “That young woman the next victim… how terrible. How tragic.”

Stephen’s words rang hollow, but that was to be expected: when someone one knows only slightly dies, the news arrives with an abstract impact, devoid of the emotion the loss of a close friend would bring.

“Frankly, dear,” Stephen was saying, “I really don’t know that I would have anything of use for your inspector….”

Rather than point out to Stephen that talking to the police in a murder investigation was not optional, Agatha said, “Would you speak to him, though? Just as a favor to me. I’m the one that caused this inconvenience, after all.”

“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.”

“You were prepared,” the inspector said slowly, “to hire… as an actress for your production… a woman you knew, or strongly suspected, to have had a relationship with your husband?”

“Relationship!” She gave out a single sharp laugh. “I am the only relationship in Bertie’s life. I am the love and light of his life. I am sure he’s feeling somewhat neglected these days, tied up with the production as I am, and a night with a Nita Ward would not surprise me.”

“How did you spend last evening?”

“Our flat is in Park Place—near where you lived for a while, Agatha… around the corner from the Ritz, directly opposite Boodles. That’s where we dined yesterday evening. Then we had a quiet evening at home. Drank some wine. Listened to dance music on the radio. Sat by the fire… terribly romantic.”

The inspector pressed. “Might your husband have gone out, later, last night? Perhaps after eleven, even after midnight? After you were asleep?”

“I was up quite late, actually. Probably until two. It was all Mrs. Mallowan’s fault.”

Agatha sat forward, touching her bosom. “My fault, Irene?”

Irene exhaled smoke through her nostrils and smiled regally, eyes sleepy. “Completely yours. I was reading your new one—Evil Under the Sun? You simply must tell me who you based the actress on, darling. I have my theories…. Is there anything else, Inspector?”

“No. Not at the moment…. Shoo Mrs. Cummins our way, would you, Mrs. Morris?”

“With pleasure.”

When the director had gone, Inspector Greeno turned to Agatha and asked, “Do you think she might be covering for her husband?”

Agatha asked, “Do you think he might be covering for his wife?”

He let out a weight-of-the-world sigh. “Morris says he just ‘bumped’ into Miss Ward in Piccadilly. Do you believe that?”

“I do.”

“As he said, show business is a small world. A family.”

“Yes. An incestuous one.”

The inspector’s eyes widened.

The brunette secretary/assistant, Janet Cummins, was highly cooperative, but had little to tell.

“I dealt with Miss Ward at the audition,” she said, her blue eyes large and rather naive behind the lenses of the black-rimmed glasses, “and spoke to her in that regard, probably half a dozen times.”

“But you’d never met her before?”

“No.”

“I understand it was your job to call her and inform her that she’d landed the understudy assignment.”

“That’s right. Before we left the theater evening last, Miss Irene told me she’d decided on the Ward woman. I was to give her a call, next morning. This morning, that is.”

“And did you?”

“Yes. About ten o’clock. A police officer answered. I said I had news for Miss Ward, and the officer said Miss Ward was indisposed.”

Nicely understated of the officer, Agatha thought.

The inspector was asking, “Do you happen to know if your husband knew the Ward girl?”

“Gordon? I don’t imagine so. He certainly said nothing to me about it.”

The inspector flicked a look Agatha’s way, indicating he’d had the same thought she had: if the pilot did recognize the girl auditioning on stage, he’d be unlikely to say as much to his wife.

Agatha filled the awkward silence with a question: “Janet, are you able to spend many evenings with your husband? What with him stationed here in London.”

“Now and again, but lately, no. I’ve been so busy with the production, and the nights we haven’t worked all hours, I’ve been simply spent.”

The inspector asked, “How about last evening? Were you and your husband together?”

“No. We talked about it, but I was exhausted. The last days before opening night are punishing. We talked about going out tonight, too, but Gordie’s on fire duty.”

“What does that consist of?”

“Staying in his billet, keeping himself available, should he be needed.”

Agatha saw the wheels turning in the inspector’s eyes—he could go out and talk to Cadet Cummins tonight.

“Is there anything else, Inspector? I really should get back.”

“No, you’ve been very helpful, Mrs. Cummins. Thank you.”

When they were alone, the inspector asked, “What do you make of that, Agatha? Anything strike you strange about any of our interviewees?”

She shook her head. “I can’t say, really. How odd, to be faced with my friends and colleagues as if they were suspects in one of my fictions.”

“I’m not sure they are suspects. We have a spree killer here, a multiple murderer. What we’ve heard this afternoon might constitute the makings for suspicions were Nita Ward the only victim.”

Agatha nodded. “On the other hand, Ted, everyone we spoke to most certainly read at least some of the press coverage of the first two murders… the same ‘Ripper’ rabble-rousing rubbish we referred to earlier.”

“That’s true. But what strikes you as significant about that?”

“Well… I hesitate to say.”

“No, please!”

“It will sound foolish…. It’s a notion straight out of my books.”

“I like your books. Try me.”

“I was just thinking… if one wanted to commit a murder, and have it go undetected… what better way than to hide it among a series of killings by a madman?”

His eyes tightened and he began to nod, apparently taking her suggestion seriously, or at least pretending to. “The term the Americans use for that kind of thing is a ‘copycat’ killing.”

“Really?” she said brightly.

And Agatha wrote that down.

In Agatha’s tiny living room, the inspector sat on a comfortable chair while Agatha took a straightbacked one, with Stephen Glanville sitting on the sofa, arms outstretched along the cushions on either side of him, his legs crossed. He was the picture of casualness.

“With all due respect, Inspector,” Stephen said, with unhidden amusement, “this line of questioning indicates my good friend here has led you astray.”

Agatha sat up. “Whatever do you mean!”

Stephen chuckled. “She’s undoubtedly portrayed me as some overaged Casanova, constantly in pursuit of one romantic conquest after another.”

Frowning, the inspector said, “She’s done nothing of the kind….”

“Oh, I don’t mean to get your dander up, Inspector… or yours, for that matter, Agatha. But I am a married man, and I have had a few ill-advised affairs.”

Agatha rose. “Why don’t I step into the library, while you and Inspector Greeno continue…”

“Nonsense,” Stephen said, waving for her to sit back down, which she did. “I’m not going to embarrass anyone but myself… and I have a rather high embarrassment threshold, as you may have noticed.”

“I simply asked,” the inspector said, “if you had known Nita Ward.”

“And my point,” the handsome professor replied, “is that my occasional peccadilloes notwithstanding, I do not necessarily know every shop girl, chorine and streetwalker in the city of London…. No, I saw Miss Ward only once, when she auditioned yesterday. And barely took note of that.”

“And yesterday evening—”

“I was in my flat, reading up on the Eleventh Dynasty. Agatha, if you will take the time to read the Henanakhte Papers, I just know you’ll come around.”

The inspector flashed a look at Agatha, who sighed and said, “Stephen is twisting my arm about writing a mystery set in ancient Egypt.”

Brightly, Stephen said, “It’s a dreadful alibi, I know, Inspector. I was alone. The Windmill chorus line wasn’t available for a private function, last night, I’m afraid.”

The Inspector tried to sit straight up, but the comfortable armchair worked against him. “Sir, this is a serious matter. I can’t say I appreciate the frivolity of your attitude.”

Stephen’s smile faded. “I do apologize. I’ve had a long day, and—meaning no disrespect at all to the late Miss Ward—have been dealing with life and death matters relating to the war, and our young men who are so gravely at risk. That you would drag me into this, simply because of my ‘reputation,’ is the height of absurdity, and rather than be insulted about it, I decided to be amused.”

The inspector, who’d also had a long day, rose and nodded. “Point taken…. Did you have an opportunity to inquire about Cadet Cummins?”

Stephen rose. He withdrew a small folded piece of paper from his suitcoat’s inner pocket. “Here’s the address of Cummins’s billet, and the names of various superior officers. You might catch him tonight—he’s on fire picket.”

“His wife said as much. I’ll do that.”

Agatha had also risen. She stood between the two men, and placed a hand on their nearest arms, rather like a benign referee.

“I believe I’ll allow you to make that call by yourself, Inspector,” she said. “I’ve had quite enough detecting for one day, I’m afraid.”

“Understood, Mrs. Mallowan.”

Suddenly playing host, Stephen said, “I’ll see Inspector Greeno to his car, my dear,” and took the man by the elbow and walked him to the door and outside.

Poised in the doorway, she watched as—beyond the breast-high brick pillars bookending the wrought-iron gate—a quite serious Stephen Glanville conversed with Inspector Greeno, whose demeanor was equally somber, though this was a respectful exchange, not an argument.

When the inspector had driven off in his Austin, Stephen returned to the porch.

“Your behavior,” she said, “was quite despicable.”

“I had nothing to guide me—I’ve never been a murder suspect before.”

She could see in his face the wear and tear of his current life—the pressures of Whitehall, the complications of life away from his family—and knew how false the levity had been.

Suddenly she knew what he’d been speaking to Greeno about: once again, doubtless, Stephen had been pleading the case against Agatha’s involvement in this investigation.

“You are worried about me, aren’t you?” she said, and touched his sleeve.

A devilish half-smile flashed. “Careful—remember what a rogue I am with the ladies…. Shall we dine at the Lawn Flats restaurant, my dear? The off-the-rations special is baked cod and parsnip balls.”

She winced. “Hitler’s secret weapon,” she said.

But she got her coat and went with him.





FEBRUARY 11, 1942





AND SO, JOINING THE GLOOM-DRIVEN hazards of the blackout, among the other strains and inconveniences of wartime, came this new and yet all too familiar terror.

The press, the tabloids in particular, seemed to take bloodthirsty relish in having so traditional and homegrown a menace to share with their readers; it was as if the yellow journalists were relieved to be able to interrupt the continuing chronicle of international woe—Singapore falling, Rommel’s Afrika Corps advancing again in the Western Desert—with good old-fashioned British blood lust.

Any respectable women—forced to walk alone down pitch-dark snowy streets, making their way to the safety of air-raid shelters—moved quickly, looking about them in bird-like anxiety, terrified that a lurking murderer might spring from the silence of a doorway or an alley’s mouth, to claim another victim. And was a shelter truly safe, when Monday’s victim had been discovered in one?

And what of the not-so-respectable women of London?

The first Jack the Ripper had terrorized the East End, notorious in its day for an abundance of ladies of the evening. The Blackout Ripper—as the tabloids had dubbed the unknown killer, who had instantly become a household name—sought his soiled-dove prey on the West End, which had become (in these war years particularly, and in the words of Superintendent Fabian of the Yard) “the Square Mile of Vice.”

Even before the blackout, the limited visibility of which made conditions virtually identical to Jack’s fog-shrouded atrocities, these narrow streets and shadowy pavements—Soho, particularly—echoed with the eerie footsteps of London’s long, proud, wicked criminal history. Here you could enjoy anything and everything, for a price—drugs, games of chance, blue movies (in “secret” cinemas); you could buy a diamond ring for two hundred and fifty pounds (only it would prove to be diamothyst, worth one-thirtieth of the price). You could be dominated by a woman with a whip, or defile a “virgin” (Catholic school girl costumes were a must, in the wardrobes of the higher-paid call girls).

By day and night, Piccadilly Circus was bustling, swarming with uniforms from many nations—Poles, Canadians, Free French, and of course the Americans, so many Americans. Sinful business was booming….

So the women of the street, who were not seeking the relative safety of a shelter, put themselves at even greater risk than usual. Many stayed in, however, alone in their dingy flats—or confining their clientele to known and trusted “regulars”—too frightened to venture into their usual haunts. Unbeknownst to them, the ladies of the evening were joined by policewomen in plainclothes and too much makeup, under the watch of Yard men also in the disguise of ordinary clothing.

This had been Detective Chief Inspector Ted Greeno’s doing, only one of a number of strategies he’d pursued, following the three murders. He was, after all, in charge of the biggest case of the war, the kind of murder case that could make a career.

Or break it.