Minute for Murder Read online

  “And did it?” asked Nigel.

  “Did it what?”

  “Cheer her up?”

  “To be quite frank, no. You see, my little job in Germany required me to play the woman’s part rather well; otherwise there’d have been no future in it. So, when I got into the rig again, I found myself automatically playing up to it. And this didn’t go down madly well with Nita—I mean, she thought I should become myself again when she’d got me safely up in her room here, and I kept lapsing back into Bertha Bodenheim, and in fact the joke fell rather flat. It’s not the sort of joke a womanly woman would appreciate, anyway.”

  “What did she want to see you about?” asked Blount, rather coldly.

  “Oh, but surely you can imagine.” Charles’ high, clear voice was uncannily like his sister’s as he protested. “Don’t you see? We had been engaged. She had taken up with Jimmy since—perfectly right and proper—but she was terrified that I would assert my claims over her. She wanted to be the first to tell me what had happened, not let the truth come skulking out when we all met the next day. And, of course, she wanted to get me on her side—it’s too bizarre how naïve women are when——”

  “On her side? Against your sister, you mean?” Nigel asked.

  “My dear, of course. She knew I doted on Alice. She wanted to be forgiven (a) for deserting me, (b) for taking away Alice’s husband. Oh, yes, we went into the whole thing.”

  “And did you forgive her?”

  “I think I put her mind at rest, poor sweet,” said Charles, with a quick, veiled glance at Nigel. “Not that I approved of Alice’s life being broken up——”

  “It wasn’t,” Mrs. Lake interrupted.

  “Well, you know what I mean. Being broken into, dear, if you must be pedantic and proud. But, from what she told me, I gathered that the situation was reasonably in hand, the triangle more or less squared. And she was obviously attracted to Jimmy no end. Quite a changed woman—I was astonished.”

  “Can you enlarge on that a bit?”

  “So cosy, my dear, so domesticated. Quite a different proposition from what she’d been that year I was working at the Ministry. She talked—how shall I say?—well, like a staid, respectable married woman. Quite riveting, the contrast. To tell the honest truth, I found her rather dull.”

  “Did she talk about divorce at all? The possibility of Mr. and Mrs. Lake being divorced, I mean?” asked Blount.

  “No.”

  “There was nothing in her conversation which could help us?—Think carefully, Major Kennington—nothing to suggest there was some other man, or woman, who might have a motive for making away with her?”

  “No. I must say I find this ‘some other man or woman’ rather daunting. Meaning my sister and my brother-in-law are the obvious suspects?”

  “No, Major Kennington. As you put it that way. Your sister and you,” said Blount in level tones. “You two had more cause for jealousy than any one else, so far as we know yet.”

  Not a hair of Alice Lake’s elegant coiffure appeared to turn at this. She just glanced at her brother, with an ironical twist of her mouth. Charles Kennington studied his finger-nails for a moment; then he said:

  “There are other causes than jealousy, Superintendent, for crimes passionels.”

  “Such as?”

  “Oh, no, you don’t!” replied Charles, with a return to his frivolous manner. “The chief suspect is not going to get himself in deeper by suggesting a few nasty motives for others!”

  Alice was scrutinising him with a puzzled expression. As he said no more, she turned to Blount.

  “But surely there’s quite a possibility that the wrong cup was poisoned? I mean, that the poison was intended for my husband?”

  “There is that possibility. Yes.”

  “Oh, I see,” she said, after a pause, making a little face. “And I had an equal motive for killing him? Jealousy again? The woman scorned? Charles, you were a silly to put temptation in my way.”

  “What? Oh, yes, Stultz’s thing. Yes. But how was I to know that publicising it would lead to?—ah, well, it’s a lesson. My poor erring sister, I shall accompany you to the scaffold with spiritual consolation. I shall——”

  “I don’t think this conversation need be prolonged any further,” interrupted Blount, sternly. “You must understand, both of you, that crime is a serious matter. You know my attitude already, Major, towards your bringing that poison container to Mr. Lake’s room and then, apparently, forgetting all about it.”

  “ I know. It was rather distrait of me. I couldn’t be more sorry. But all those photographs and things took my mind off it. I find photographs so entrancing, you see, and——”

  “At the same time,” continued Blount, “you and your sister should realise that everyone in the room then must be under suspicion. The police are not content with exploring only the obvious motives. I have been frank with you, because you raised the question of ‘obvious suspects’ yourself.”

  “Your sentiments do you credit, Superintendent,” remarked the irrepressible Charles. “I feel that, under happier circumstances, you and I could get along whizzingly. Well, my pet lamb, we’d better leave the sleuths to their sleuthubrations.”

  “We shall, of course, have to check both your statements.”

  “Statements? Oh, to make sure it was I and not Alice who came here that night? Yes, well, Alice’s hatlessness should be easily established. And the night-porter at Claridges may remember a seductive female gliding upstairs at about 1.30 a.m.—I had to walk all the way back in my clip-clopping little high-heeled shoes. Or he may not. Wait a minute, though. How silly of me. Did you find a piece of ribbon in the w.p.b?”

  “We did.”

  “Ah. That saves a lot of trouble. Nita gave me back some old billets-doux of mine. They were tied up with the ribbon. Asked me to take them away and destroy them. So I did. So I must have been here.”

  “Why take away the letters, yet leave the ribbon?” asked Nigel.

  Charles Kennington’s features worked themselves into an expression of the most dramatic distaste.

  “My dear! How can you ask? Haven’t you seen the ribbon? Magenta! I could not go about with a piece of magenta ribbon—it’d be death to my complexion!’

  “Hum!” said Blount, when the pair had departed. “Quite a tough nut, that Mrs. Lake. Smooth customers, both of ’em. Very smooth. Hmm.”

  “I’m inclined to think he was telling the truth.”

  “Well, he’d better. His story is easily enough disproved, if——”

  “I don’t mean about coming here. I’m sure he did. I mean when he said that his sister always tells the truth—believes Truth must prevail. I think I must cultivate her society.”

  “Any other intuitions?” asked Blount ironically.

  “One or two odd little turns of phrase. From Charles.”

  “Ah, you mean when you asked him did he forgive Nita, and he answered ‘I think I put her mind at rest.’”

  “That’s very perceptive of you, Blount. Yes. It sounds rather sinister now, in cold blood, doesn’t it? But I’m thinking chiefly of—well, first a curious word he used about the poison container; and second, his extremely uncharacteristic lack of chattiness on one of the subjects that arose.”

  CHAPTER V

  DIRECTOR: URGENT

  LATE THAT NIGHT, Nigel Strangeways returned to the Ministry. He had spent a fruitless afternoon; first at Nita Prince’s flat, drearily reading through the letters she had kept, which yielded nothing but evidence of her youthful indiscretions; then, with Blount, trying to extract information from Nita’s few women friends. It soon became clear that, after she had taken up with Jimmy Lake, she had forsaken her old haunts and become a home girl. The only woman in whom Nita seemed to have confided recently—Miss Sproule, a Junior Specialist in another Division—said that Nita had been worrying about what would happen to her after the war: the Ministry would close down; her opportunities for being with Jimmy would be fewer. There was no
thing new here. The Director had admitted as much during yesterday’s interview with Blount: natural delicacy had no doubt prevented him then from talking about the suggestion of divorce; but he had said that he and Nita were worried about the future. It must be common enough just now in such liaisons, Nigel reflected—war had prevented people looking far ahead or envisaging the consequences of their private actions: there must be many lovers now wondering if their affairs could last beyond the cessation of hostilities, almost dreading the return of peace. Miss Sproule had told them that Nita seemed determined not to relinquish Jimmy, however. “If he’s got to choose between us,” Nita had said, “I shall see that it’s me he chooses.”

  Nigel entered the great hall of the Ministry. In deference to the man at the reception desk who was supposed to scrutinise all passes, he made a perfunctory gesture towards his breast pocket; but the man was reading a magazine and did not even look up. Nigel marched along the empty, sounding corridor towards the lifts. Presently he was at the top floor. He looked into his own room. No messages for him. He went along to the Deputy Director’s room, and found Harker Fortescue, as usual, at work.

  “Lay off it,” he said. “Come down to the canteen.”

  The Deputy Director’s face looked cadaverous in the light of the green-shaded table-lamp; hollowed out with exhaustion.

  “O.K.,” he said. “Ker-rikey, what a day! Let’s see if Jimmy will come too.”

  The Director, who was back in his own room now, declined. The police investigation had been interfering with his work all day, he said, and the Controller had been nagging at him, and all the efforts of his staff had failed to find the missing secret file, and there was going to be hell to pay for someone; so they could go and have their midnight feast by themselves.

  “He’s taking it very hard,” said Harker Fortescue as they descended in the lift.

  “Well, naturally. After all, Nita——”

  “Oh, I don’t mean that. Though no doubt he is. But the old boy’s been creating all the afternoon about that file.”

  “I expect it’s a way of taking his mind off what happened yesterday.”

  “Taking all our minds off it. And just as well,” said Harker grimly. “I tell you, Nigel, this is a filthy business. After you”—they emerged from the lift and moved towards the basement canteen—“there’s going to be an awful lot of muck turned over before the police get at the truth.”

  “There is indeed.”

  “Are you working for them?”

  “Well, yes and no. With them, but not necessarily for them.”

  “H’m. I suppose you know what you mean by that. Damned if I do. Anyway, the thing’s a nightmare. I mean, I thought I knew everyone in the Division—knew none of us could do a thing like that. Now it’s happened, one spends half the time telling oneself it couldn’t have happened, pinching oneself, finding one is awake after all; and half the time trying to avoid one’s colleagues’ eyes. Does a man look any different after he’s committed a murder? He ought to. But——”

  “Don’t burble, Hark’ee,” Nigel interrupted kindly. “You’re over-strained. What you want is a nice plate of spam and pickles.”

  The Deputy Director shuddered strongly, and asked for his usual glass of milk. They went to a corner table in the refectory, which was empty now except for a few teleprinter girls, a handful of messengers yawning over their dominoes, and a press representative or two awaiting the next official hand-out. The air-conditioning apparatus hummed; the naked electric light glared down on teaurns, counter, metal chairs and tables, metallic perms.

  “Fancy calling this place a refectory,” mused Hark’ee. “It’s more like travelling steerage on a third-class liner bound for hell.”

  “You’re full of fancies to-night.”

  “Just whiling away the time, old boy, till you start on your third degree.”

  “Oh, I see. Well, you can begin by telling me what your row with Billson was about.”

  “Which row was that?” The Deputy Director’s face, under the glaring lights, looked expressionless, a crude map drawn on parchment.

  “Two Thursdays ago. During the lunch hour. About Nita Prince. Miss Finlay heard you through the wall.” Nigel stuffed another piece of bread and marge into his mouth. He repeated the words that his assistant had heard. “‘Last chance’—what last chance was he giving you? And why was he ‘in a cleft stick’?”

  Harker Fortescue’s mouth twisted quizzically.

  “Your Miss Finlay is a very slap-dash type. Why don’t you train her better? Always jumping to conclusions and usually the wrong ones.”

  “In fact you were just having a friendly little romp with Billson?”

  “I didn’t say that. I merely say we were not talking about Miss Prince.”

  “But Pamela Finlay heard you——”

  “She heard a word which, with her usual inaccuracy, she interpreted as ‘Prince.’ The word was prints. I was telling him off about the dilatoriness of his Unit in supplying photo-prints for the Production Units.”

  The Deputy Director was gazing at Nigel, rather in the expectant manner of one who has told a peculiarly subtle joke and is waiting to see if the point of it has been taken. Nigel stared down his nose.

  “But, if you were telling him off, why did he talk about giving you a last chance?”

  “My dear old boy, you know what Billson is like, surely? He’s a sea-lawyer. He’s a Permanent Civil Servant. He fights every point, on principle. He refuses to accept responsibility. When I started ticking him off, he came back with a long grievance about the Pink Forms. He said the system was unworkable. He told me I must reconstruct the procedure—he’d give me this last chance to do so—or he’d apply for transfer to another Department. He was quite heated. So was I, I admit. Billson always did get my goat.”

  “So you told him he could ‘go to the dogs’ for all you cared? Strong words, Hark’ee.”

  The Deputy Director smiled blandly at Nigel.

  “I think I really will sack your Miss Finlay. She gets nothing right. What I said was he could go to the Docks. The Docks Department of the Ministry of War Transport had a vacancy for a Finance Officer, and that’s where he was threatening to transfer. Wish he had. Though God help poor old M.O.W.T., if he did.”

  “I see. So that explains it.” Nigel sighed gently. “How well did you know Nita before the war, when she worked for your agency?”

  “I didn’t. She only modelled for us occasionally. I never was one for taking models out to dinner. Though I must say she was a whizzer in those days.”

  “You realise the police will inquire very closely into everyone’s relations with Nita? And they’ll go back some way into the past?”

  “Oh, yes. ‘Routine enquiries’? I know. Well, my past is a pure white sheet—in that respect. Next?”

  “Why do you think someone should want to kill Nita?”

  Harker Fortescue’s cold eyes scrutinised Nigel, unwinking. After a long pause, he said:

  “Speaking purely in the abstract, there are three possible reasons for killing a beautiful woman.” He held up three fingers, and slowly ticked them off. “One, jealousy. Two, satiety. Three, if she’s a certain kind of woman, because she’s blackmailing you.”

  “Do you think Nita was that sort of woman?”

  “She was a reformed rake. Reformed, mark you. I take it we’re agreed about that? So not blackmail for money. But there are other things for which a woman may blackmail.”

  “Go on,” said Nigel, his pale blue eyes gazing sleepily at the golden, leaf-metal hair of a teleprinter girl at a distant table, who was chattering away to her companions—no doubt discussing the V.P.D. scandal too.

  “Security,” said Harker Fortescue. “A reformed rake will go to any lengths to defend her reformation—any lengths of emotional blackmail, I mean. She’ll cling to respectability as fiercely as a respectable woman will covet what they call Romance.”

  “All this, ‘purely in the abstract’?”
r />   The Deputy Director nodded.

  “Well. Very interesting.” Nigel sighed again. “And now, while I fetch you another glass of milk, you might be thinking out—purely in the abstract—some slightly less preposterous version of your row with Edgar Billson.”

  Nigel Strangeways rose and made for the counter, leaving Fortescue goggling at his back. The refectory telephone rang. One of the attendants at the counter answered it.

  “Mr. Fortescue? Mr. Fortescue?” she called out in a sing-song voice.

  The Deputy Director strode towards the telephone. The desultory voices in the canteen, which had been hushed for a little, began again. The next moment, Harker was beckoning to Nigel.

  “Jimmy! Jimmy! Are you there?” Nigel heard him say.

  “What’s up?”

  “He sounded ill. Damn and blast the exchange, we’ve been cut off!” Harker jiggled the call lever angrily.

  “Never mind about that! Quick! Let’s get up there!”

  Nigel Strangeways sprinted between the tables, Fortescue at his heels. Faces turned stupidly to follow them, like sheeps’ faces when a train is passing. Their hurrying feet echoed through the long basement corridor. Nigel stabbed his finger at the lift button and held it down.

  “What did he say?” he asked, as the light panel flickered—six, five, four——

  “He just said, “Hark’ee, is that you? Come”—and then his voice faded away. He sounded bloody queer.”

  The lift door slid open. They tumbled in. Nigel stubbed the top-floor button. The lift should have gone up, non-stop; but at the ground floor it stopped again: the door slid open, stayed open for the set thirty seconds, then automatically closed. The same happened at the first floor. Harker began to curse. But Nigel pushed him out of the lift, saying, urgently:

  “Run down to the Reception Desk! See that no one leaves the building. No one. I’ll ring you down. Hurry!”

  Nigel stayed in the lift. It had come down to the basement without stopping. Now it seemed to be going to stop at every floor. Yes, second floor, stop, pause, door slides open, pause—curse it, that means someone on some floor pressed every button on the outside panel, just before we got into the lift. Someone wants to delay us. The obvious thing to do is to get out and run up the stairs. But perhaps someone wants me to do the obvious thing. Safer not, my boy. Why hasn’t this blasted lift got a non-stop master button?