Chapter Eight

The inquisition at the police station had begun when Eve Arden arrived soon after lunch. She had been in Surrey all the morning doing location shots for a serial play in which she had a small part, and had not had the police message until she returned to Metropolitan House at the end of the morning. Coming straight over to Comber Street by taxi, she found that the crowd in the small waiting room had overflowed into an adjacent office, almost all the people from the party having now been collected.

The two Moores and Martin Myers were among the few absentees. Eve nodded to those near the door when she arrived but, seeing Geoff Tate leaning against the window sill, she hurried over to him.

‘Hello, Geoff. Please tell me what’s going on!’

Geoff turned quickly and greeted her. In spite of the circumstances, he could not hide his approval of her trim figure beneath the open coat. Her blonde hair was clustered around her face and her blue eyes were shadowed with anxiety, adding a touch of concern to her usually cheerful expression. He had always liked her company for its happily irresponsible gaiety, but now he found a new and heightened interest in her.

‘Eve, at last! The coppers have been searching high and low for you all day. Tell Uncle where you’ve been.’

‘I’ve been working. What a ghastly hole this is. Do they let you smoke in here, Geoff?’

‘Yes; sorry I can’t offer you one. I don’t suppose you’d care for a drag on my pipe!’

To his surprise, he found himself straining to be gentle towards Eve, whom he had usually met only at the parties that abounded at ‘Metro’.

‘What’s happening now, have they told us what this is all about?’

‘No. They promised to, as soon as they could. The big chief detective came in just before lunch and gave us some patter to stall us for a bit, but that’s all so far. They’re holding a post-mortem.’

‘Post-mortem … ugh, how horrible! Where’s Gordon now?’

Leo Prince, who was sitting at the table reading a newspaper with assumed nonchalance, answered for Geoff.

‘The bobbies have got him in there.’ He jerked a thumb in the direction of an inner door. ‘Probably got him under the bright lights trying to wring a confession out of him,’ he sniggered. Eve looked shocked.

‘Don’t make fun of it. Gordon must have had a foul day already, without you being clever about it!’

‘OK, keep your hair on. But he didn’t take much notice of her when she was alive, did he, so why should he be so cut up now that she’s gone? Besides, he’ll come into a packet of money – if he’s around to spend it!’

Geoff slid off the ledge and advanced on the greasy-haired Leo.

‘Exactly what the hell do you mean by that?’ he demanded.

A nasty situation was averted by the opening of the door and the arrival of Meredith and Grey. The murmur of voices died down and all faces were turned expectantly towards the tall superintendent. His face was grave and his eyes roved around beneath the black brows, probing the faces before him as he delivered the news.

‘As we thought this morning, this occurrence has proved to be serious in the extreme,’ he announced slowly. ‘Mrs Margaret Walker died as the result of direct violence and we have no alternative but to assume that she was murdered.’

The announcement was met by a stunned silence. Everyone had been uneasy since being summoned by the police, but all had had the idea that some unfortunate accident during the rather torrid party had brought down the disapproval of the authorities.

But murder? Everyone seemed incapable of taking in the detective’s meaning for a moment. Before they had time to break from their silence with demands for details, Old Nick went on.

‘I must ask you all to remain here until you are called to give as full a statement as you can. Each statement will then be typed and read over to you, to be signed by you if correct. After that you are free to leave, but you must give us detailed directions as to where you may be found. I shall be glad if none of you will leave London without first informing me or Inspectors Stammers or Grey.’

He threw another dark look around the room before turning and going back into the interview room, where Gordon Walker could just be seen sitting in front of a desk, shoulders hunched.

Meredith closed the door on the rising babble of voices which now broke out in the waiting room, and retreated to the desk, where a typed statement lay on the blotter. He sat down and waved the paper at Gordon.

‘Right, Mr Walker, I’ll just read what the sergeant has written. Please listen carefully and, if there are any mistakes or omissions, please let me know before you sign it.’

He cleared his throat and began to read aloud. It was a fairly short account of the previous night’s happenings, prefaced by a paragraph stating that his wife’s health had always been good during the time that they had been married. Then, as near as he could remember, he gave a timetable of events during the night, with the information that Margaret had been drinking more than was her custom during the earlier part of the evening.

He could not remember with whom she had left the room for the first of the games, and he had not seen her until he had found her in the wardrobe much later on. At the time of finding her, he had thought that she was in an alcoholic coma, but that certainly he thought she was alive. He was not prepared to swear to the presence of breathing; he had been slightly drunk by then himself and had had no cause at the time to think that she was in anything other than a drunken stupor.

He recounted the discovery by Lena Wright and the arrival of the doctor, then the removal of the body from the house. He then had had a bath and shave and lain in his dressing gown on the bed until nine o’clock, when he dressed and waited for the doctor or coroner’s officer to contact him as expected. The first indication of serious complications was the arrival of Masters who told him that his wife might not have died a natural death.

‘Have you anything to add to this, sir?’ asked Meredith at the finish.

‘No I don’t think so, Superintendent,’ replied Gordon wearily. Those are the facts – you don’t want opinions, I suppose?’

Old Nick looked at him warily.

‘Not on this preliminary statement, no, sir; but if you have anything at all to say which might be relevant to my inquiries, please let me have it right away.’

‘Well, if this is murder, which I certainly can’t credit, then my wife was probably the least likely candidate in the house last night! If someone was to have been killed, there were several far more likely customers present – perhaps even myself amongst them. But Margaret … impossible!

Meredith regarded him with interest.

‘In other words, you mean that the fatal attack on your wife was made by mistake in the dark, having been meant for someone else?’

Gordon nodded. ‘I can see no other explanation, Superintendent!’

Old Nick stood up, towering above the others.

‘Thank you, Mr Walker. Probably at a later time I’ll ask you to enlarge on that. At present, we must get on with the other witnesses. I expect you’ve had enough by now, anyway. Please let one of my officers know where you are staying, and if you want to go out of town, let us know so that we may contact you if we want your help again.’

Grey beckoned Meredith down and spoke softly into his ear.

‘What about the weapon? Or are you going to keep that under your hat?’

Old Nick rubbed his blue-black chin thoughtfully, before making up his mind.

‘You might as well know that your wife was stabbed to death,’ he said bluntly to Walker. ‘We must start looking for the missing weapon at once. Have you any instrument in your flat resembling a stiletto?’

Gordon ran a hand shakily through his hair. ‘Stiletto? God, this gets more fantastic every minute! I feel as if I shall shortly wake up from a nightmare.’

Meredith waited patiently for Gordon to come down to reality. ‘Please try to think if you can recall any tool or instrument that might fit that description.’

The other chewed his lip in concentration.

‘Certainly no stiletto … never even seen one. A knitting needle, maybe. Margaret used to knit sometimes, but that was in Oxford. She wouldn’t have brought her knitting to a horse show. I just can’t think of anything else, Superintendent.’

‘Well, if you do come up with any ideas, let us know right away. You can go back to collect your things, but I’m afraid that we will have to stay in possession for a day or two. Where will you be staying until then, sir.’

‘With Mr Tate, I expect. I’ve not asked him yet, but I’ve no doubt that he can put me up. I wouldn’t stay in the flat now, anyway. I’ll go down to Oxford as soon as I can, to square things up down there.’