‘Damn it! No ear-nibbling smoochy last dance for me!’ grumbled Joe.
‘And we never did manage to hear the band play us out with “Three O’Clock In The Morning”! Do you really mind?’
‘No. Their licence runs out at two. I’d have had to arrest the management. Glad to have missed it,’ said Joe. ‘Sing it for you if you like?’
Joe recounted his talk with Mathurin, ending with, ‘. . so if you hear on your social grapevine that a certain police commander is a degenerate who’s run off to Antibes with Mathurin’s frisky old aunt, you are to squash the rumour at once!’
‘If I can do that without compromising my own reputation, I certainly will, sir. But it looks as though Monty’s in the clear. I got Joanna to tell me all about that evening — no difficulty — she was spilling over with enthusiasm for the intrigue, and all she had to say confirms Mathurin’s story. Just one little extra detail I found quite intriguing.’
‘Go on, Westhorpe.’
‘Well, do you remember Sergeant Armitage was convinced that the Dame signalled to someone across the room before she left to go upstairs?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Joanna knows who it was!’
Chapter Fifteen
Their taxi was turning into Park Lane and Joe was suddenly aware that time and opportunity were slipping away from him, the case already beyond his control. He leaned forward. ‘Slow down, cabby, will you?’
It wasn’t the first time the driver had received the command. He grinned and obligingly began to hug the kerb, moving along at ten miles an hour.
‘Good idea, sir. We’re nearly home. You could come in if you like but I wouldn’t advise it. My father always waits up. He’s got a little list of men he perhaps won’t set the dogs on just yet and you’ve been added to it. In fact you’ve moved up to a jolly high position. He tells me he “likes the cut of your jib” or something. Thought I’d better warn you.’
‘I’m on quite a few lists,’ said Joe lightly. ‘I’ve got very slick at smooth take-offs down driveways. I particularly favour the laurel-lined ones.’
Tilly reached for his hand and squeezed it. ‘Goodness, you’re easy company, Joe,’ she said softly.
‘It was Joanna,’ she went on hurriedly.
‘Joanna? What was Joanna?’ Joe’s senses were still reeling from the sudden show of warmth and — could he have been mistaken? — affection.
‘The recipient of the Dame’s signal was Joanna herself.’
‘Eh? But why on earth. .?’
‘My friend may look as though she’s sculpted out of the same stuff as a sugar mouse but don’t be deceived!’
‘I expect hobnobbing with Monty would open a girl’s eyes to the world?’
‘Well, Joanna’s not averse to a little hobnobbing from time to time but not with Monty.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She told me she’s been keeping him dangling. No hanky-panky before marriage. She’s quite cold, you know, tough and rather businesslike. Monty may not look much of a catch to you but, believe me, he’s not despised in the matrimonial stakes. He’s got a title and expectations of something even grander when his grandfather dies. And the old boy is rumoured to be on the rocks and breaking up fast. Monty’s got connections on the Joliffe side as well and there’s money there.’
‘He’ll be needing it! The cad’s got expensive and dangerous tastes.’
‘Yes. I got a feeling that all may not be quite as it seems with the Mathurin finances. . I was offered a close look at her engagement ring. It was big but old-fashioned. I’d say he’d pinched it from his granny not offered Joanna her choice of the sparklers on display at Asprey’s.’
Joe wondered for a moment how he was going to manage without Westhorpe’s female insights and her unique access to the powder rooms of London.
‘But Joanna’s tale backs up Audrey’s version of Dame Bea’s proclivities, sir. She was prepared to have quite a laugh about it. She wouldn’t have shared the confidence with most girls but she knows what I do and assumes I’m not about to have a fit of the vapours at the revelation. During the party Beatrice joined them and made herself very agreeable to Joanna. She must have seen something in the girl that Joanna is not admitting (to me at any rate) is there because she made a louche suggestion. She invited Joanna to come up to her room. Right there in front of Monty! Joanna can’t be certain that he didn’t overhear but he made no comment.’
‘So the Dame flung her a last come-on, vampish look from the door and disappeared. No wonder Armitage missed it. He was scanning the blokes for a reaction! Explains why she left her door unlocked if not open, perhaps even called an excited, “Do come in!” to her killer,’ said Joe with a shudder.
‘But who came through the door? Cousin Monty seeing red and prepared to wield a poker to avenge his fiancée’s honour? I can’t see it, sir. Even if he could have got away unseen from the party.’
‘Not for honour. I don’t believe Monty would wield so much as a fish-knife for honour. Oh, Lord! We’re here! All lights on, I see. A moment, cabby. . Look, Tilly, no notes, remember! This was an entirely unofficial evening. But most enjoyable. .’
He would have said more but she turned to him and put a finger firmly over his lips. ‘I had a wonderful time! Goodnight, Joe.’ A swift kiss on his left cheek and she was gone.
He sat on, wrapped in disturbing thoughts and wishing he hadn’t drunk so much champagne.
‘Where to now, sir?
The cabby’s tactful question stirred him to say decisively, ‘Scotland Yard. The Derby Street entrance.’
‘Young lady nicked your watch in that last clinch, did she, sir?’
Joe laughed. ‘No. Not my watch.’ As though to double-check, he ostentatiously consulted his wristwatch. Well after eleven. What the hell did he think he could achieve at this late hour, boiling his brains over a stillborn case? He thought there might be waiting on his desk a delivery of notes from Cottingham who’d been sent off with a day’s steady police work under his belt before the axe had fallen. Joe was feeling too agitated to go straight home and he didn’t have the effrontery to face Maisie’s sharp tongue and knowing comments in his evening dress with lipstick on his left cheek and reeking of champagne and cigars. An hour’s clandestine work would steady his jumping thoughts. Scotland Yard never slept. Lights were on from top to bottom of the building when he left the taxi. The uniformed man at the entrance saluted him and waved him through. As he passed the reception desk on his way to the stairs, he was hailed urgently by the duty sergeant.
‘Sir! Commander Sandilands! This is a piece of luck! We’ve been trying to get hold of you. Something’s come up. All too literally, sir! There’s a couple of river police here won’t go away until they’ve seen you.’
Joe approached the desk in puzzlement and the sergeant opened the office door behind him calling, ‘Alf! George! Got him! He’s all yours.’
Alf and George slammed down mugs of cocoa, bustled out of the office and stood, giving him a slow police stare. They were wearing their river slickers and naval-style peaked caps and very purposeful they looked. The leader glanced uncertainly from Joe back to the duty officer, who swallowed a grin and said, ‘Yes. This is who you’ve been waiting to interview. Commander Sandilands.’
‘Off duty,’ Joe muttered, aware that he looked as though he’d just strolled off-stage from his bit-part in a society farce at the Lyric. ‘Sandilands it is. Tell me what I can do for you.’
‘What you can do for us is identify a corpse, sir. It’s down at the sub-station by Waterloo Bridge. It’s a fresh one — only been in the water an hour at the most. A suicide.’
‘I’d like to help, of course,’ said Joe, stifling his irritation. ‘But suicides are not my department. Can’t you just go through your usual channels?’
The last thing he wanted was to be lured away to that stinking hole down by the bridge. The river police, the only arm of the service the people of London had ever really taken to their hearts, were a force Joe could admire too but he wanted nothing to do with them this evening. As well as coming down hard on theft, piracy and smuggling in the docks they managed also to patrol the sinister reaches of the Thames which were favoured as the last resting place of unfortunates driven to take their own lives. Sometimes the three-man crews were so quickly on the spot in their swift river launches that bodies were netted and fished out before they’d breathed their last, and in that cold, stone, carbolic-scented little room by the arches they would squeeze and pummel the victim laid out on the canvas truckle bed until, willing or not, the dank river water spewed out of the lungs to be replaced with the breath of life.