Peter and Jack stood with gaping mouths. No doubt alert members of the Metropolitan Police should not allow themselves to be seen so obviously and blatantly surprised. But then, on the whole, members of that force do not expect to have their superior officers take the ground from under their feet.
‘Look, sir,’ he said, ‘Mullens –’
Ironside whipped round.
‘Oh, Spratt,’ he said. ‘And I might have been telling a lie for some special and devious purpose.’
‘But you weren’t, sir,’ said Jack, reddening.
‘Well, no, I wasn’t.’
‘Then what do you mean, sir? If I may ask,’ Peter said.
He looked as put out, or more so, than Jack.
‘But the oldest trick in the book,’ Ironside said. ‘The big, fat tape-recorder. That was what Mullens heard. His late employer’s resonant tones coming out of that. No doubt dictating something. That was why he thought you were in here, Miss Stitchford. Put it on and we’ll see.’
Jack went over to the tape-recorder. It was necessary to unplug the big fire to get it to go but eventually Teddy Pariss’s familiar, aggressive voice came bouncing out.
‘The main aim of my contests is dignity. This is what we put first. A real dignity. We want to make beauty contests as dignified and gracious as a royal occasion.’
‘You see,’ said Ironside gently, ‘there had to be some explanation for that fire being off. And when you come to think of it, it’s quite simple: someone used the time-plug from the fire for the tape-recorder. To confuse the issue. A deplorably silly trick. Bound to come out, you know.’
He looked round at them all severely.
‘And why are you telling me all this?’
It was Daisy Stitchford, sharp as an asp.
‘I felt I owed it to you,’ Ironside said.
‘It’s because you think I killed him, isn’t it? Well, answer me this. Why should I have killed him today? If I’d wanted to have killed him, I could have killed him years ago.’
‘Except for one thing,’ Peter Lassington said.
All eyes turned to him.
He swallowed.
‘Except that it happened to be today that Teddy Pariss’s old friend Fay Curtis took her life,’ he said. ‘Quite what it was she knew about you I can’t guess. But it must have been enough to stop you doing what you’d wanted to do for a very –’
‘Constable, Constable.’
Superintendent Ironside sounded shocked.
‘We haven’t cautioned this lady,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t really go making allegations like that unless you’re prepared to tell her you have reason to believe she killed Pariss.’
He wagged his head from side to side.
‘And, you know,’ he said, ‘I don’t think we really do believe that. Not with all the conflicting evidence we’ve had so far.’
Peter blushed a deep pink.
‘Well,’ said Daisy Stitchford, ‘I shall remember this. It’s not only disgraceful, it’s entirely untrue. I don’t even know this person you talked about.’
Peter said no more.
Daisy looked round the little room in which her late employer, and former lover, had met his untimely end. Ironside, standing by the little desk with its overloaded array of luxury furnishings, looked back at her with mild interest. Jack, beside Peter near the door, pretended to be very busy examining the pattern of the cover on the late Mr Pariss’s well-sprung divan. Peter dropped his gaze and stared stonily at his shoes, which were notably pointed-toed for a policeman’s. The huge, flashy electric fire, slowly cooling after being unplugged, emitted every now and again a series of little ticking sounds, unaware of the part it had played in the drama, or so it seemed.
‘Then I’ll go,’ said Daisy. ‘Unless you’ve anything else you want to tell me.’
‘No, I don’t think there’s anything at the moment,’ Ironside said. ‘Perhaps there’ll be something tomorrow, though. Where shall we be able to find you?’
Daisy looked at him piercingly through the glitter of her spectacles.
‘I shall be here,’ she said. ‘There’s a great deal of clearing up to be done.’
She gave them one last severe look and left.
‘I’m very sorry, sir,’ Peter said. ‘I’m afraid I got carried away.’
‘I should hope you are sorry,’ said the superintendent. ‘You’ll take care to leave the direction of an interview to me in future.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Not that your point wasn’t worth making. Daisy Stitchford must have been about in Teddy Pariss’s unregenerate days when he had that unpleasant mob at his command and all that. And it’s from that period that Fay Curtis dates. So you’re well within your rights in drawing that conclusion.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘But next time make some allowance for my subtlety, please. I might have got there myself.’
Peter looked even more abashed.
‘And now,’ Ironside said, ‘I think you two youngsters had better go off and get a bit of sleep. There’s not much more to be done tonight. I’ll see you here tomorrow at seven-thirty sharp.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Peter and Jack marched smartly out of the little office and went out to the dutifully wet and chill night. For a few minutes they stood at the stage door, talking about the events of the day, before plunging under the healthily cold douche of the rain.
It was some time during the night that the rain decided that it could effect an honourable withdrawal. So it was through early morning streets still cold enough but quite dry that Peter Lassington made his way the short distance between his flat and the Star Bowl ballroom. Scarcely anybody was about. A cat, its fur fluffed up against the chill, hurried back from some assignation with its tail held complacently upright.
The restaurants – where the evening before smooth young executives had glided through the ritual of dinner with gorgeous, scrumptious, vanilla-and-strawberry ice-cream debs – were now silent, shuttered, weary and inhospitable. In front of each stood two or three dustbins, lids awry, gorged with the leavings. In the packed window of an electrical goods shop fires stood shoulder to shoulder, tinny and cold, and a couple of television sets glared with single, dull, sightless eyes at the empty street in front of them.
Yet the street itself as the light of day began to break was unexpectedly cheerful. The weather, whose freakishness is the prop and stay of the awesome British character, had become wildly irresponsible. The sky was blue, getting darker and darker every moment as a hopelessly gay sun climbed up. Puffs of white cloud scurried about with plainly not the least notion of the significance of their behaviour.
Peter walked quickly through it all, and it was before twenty-five past seven when he entered the little office at the Star Bowl. But Ironside was already at work. The newspapers with their happily shouting headlines about ‘Death Comes To Beauty King’ and ‘Girlie Knife Kills Man Who Made Girlies Queens’ were lying in a heap on the floor beside him. On the desk was a well-filled note-book in which he was marking curious little symbols against certain items.
‘Ah, good morning, Lassington,’ he said. ‘Eager to know what’s going on, I see.’
Peter looked at him with a suspicion which a night in bed had increased rather than dispelled.
‘Well, yes, sir,’ he said, ‘I am keen to know where we are.’
‘Then suppose you tell me.’
Ironside looked up from his note-book and smiled.
‘Me, sir? Tell you?’
‘Yes, that’s right. I’ll just finish this, but I’ll be listening.’
His grey head plunged down again and he drew a small circle with a dot in it against a short item in his note-book.
Peter licked his lips.
‘Well, as I see it, sir,’ he said, ‘the case against Daisy Stitchford is still pretty good. I know I made a fool of myself last night, but the fact remains she knew Teddy Pariss at the time old Fay Curtis did. And, the moment Fay’s dead, Teddy gets killed. And then there’s the letter. It was here at one stage. I’ll swear that. But we know it’s gone now, don’t we, sir?’
The question was asked on a note of desperation. Ironside looked up at last.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said, ‘we know that. But go on. And don’t mind me.’
He returned to his note-book, reading through several pages of neatly written comments without making any marks.
‘Or there’s Bert Mullens,’ Peter said. ‘It would have been quite easy for him to slip along here. He could practically choose his moment. And we certainly caught him out trying to eavesdrop on us.’
‘Yes,’ said Ironside without looking up, ‘we certainly caught him out.’
He put no particular emphasis on the ‘we’. But Peter felt obliged to acknowledge a slight deviation from the truth.
‘When I say “we”, sir, I mean you really. I mean, I hadn’t actually any idea he was at the door like that.’
‘He’s got dreadfully heavy breathing, poor fellow,’ said Ironside.
As if reminded of something, he riffled back through his notebook, put a cross with a dot in each angle against a brief item and then turned to the untouched pages at the back and added a new note.
‘I don’t know so much about “poor fellow”, sir,’ said Peter. ‘If you ask me, anyone who’s so very interested in what the police are saying is pretty shady on the face of it.’
Ironside laid down his pencil.
‘Exactly so,’ he said. ‘And as a matter of fact some poor unfortunate at the Yard has been busy in the night checking on his prints. We may hear something before long.’
He looked at Peter with mild interest.
‘Any other points that have struck you?’ he asked.
‘Well, yes, sir. There are other things. I mean, we shouldn’t forget June Curtis or Lindylou, sir. Should we? It’s all very well that tale that Lindylou spun us last night. But the fact remains she was probably in the room next door when Pariss was killed. There’d be nothing to prevent her slipping along here. And I’ll tell you what I think might have happened.’
‘Do that,’ murmured Ironside.
But his words were disgracefully inaudible.
‘Well, sir, I see it like this. She’d have done more or less anything to do well in the contest. We know that. Well, what was to prevent her trying it on with Teddy? And then when it came to it very likely she found him a bit more than she’d bargained for. After all, she is only a child really.’
‘Yes,’ Ironside agreed, ‘she is only a child, Lassington.’
‘And it’s much the same with June Curtis, sir,’ Peter went on. ‘I can say this better now Spratt isn’t here. She told us all about that tea-urn, but it could have been only a cover-up. She could really have come in here afterwards.’
Ironside appeared to be less impressed than he might have been. He looked at his watch.
‘Spratt’s late,’ he said. ‘A pity. I would have liked to have heard what he’s got to say about all this.’
The phone on the late Mr Pariss’s tiny temporary desk rang eagerly.
Ironside picked it up and cautiously gave the number.
‘Ah, it’s you,’ he said.
He put his hand over the mouthpiece’
‘Fingerprints. Mullens.’
He listened to a rapid, chattering buzz on the far end.
‘Thank you,’ he said at last. ‘You’ve done perfectly splendidly.’
The person at the other end abruptly rang off.
‘Well, now,’ said Ironside, unperturbed, ‘here’s some interesting news. Our friend Mullens isn’t our friend Mullens at all.’
Peter’s eyes brightened.
‘Yes,’ the superintendent went on, ‘he’s our friend Hake, it appears. Our friend Charles Hake. My own Christian name, I’m sorry to say, because the fellow has a nasty little record for blackmailing. A fearfully unpleasant crime. You know, I think we shall have to have a serious talk with him.’
His head plunged down into the note-book again and for a while he wrote industriously. Then he put down the pencil and sat in silence.
Peter cleared his throat.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said, ‘but was I on the right track at all in what I was saying?’
Ironside looked up.
‘No,’ he said. ‘You’ve gone right off the track, I think.’
‘Sir?’
‘I believe I referred to it before,’ Ironside said. ‘The right order in tackling a case. If this was a matter of breaking and entering you wouldn’t go speculating about what people had in their minds. You’d simply find out who was about at the time in question.’
Peter thought this over.
The telephone rang again.
Ironside pointed to it silently and Peter took up the receiver.
It was Sheila Spratt, Jack’s wife. She sounded agitated. Jack had not been home all night. The station knew nothing about him. As far as they were concerned he had been seconded to Ironside.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Peter said cautiously. ‘I’ll ring you back.’
‘Who was that?’ Ironside asked.
Peter paused for thought.
‘Well,’ said Ironside with a trace of bark, ‘who was it?’
‘Mrs Spratt, sir. Spratt hasn’t been home all night. They know nothing about him at the station.’
Peter looked round the little room.
‘Looks as though he’s gone missing, sir.’