‘And you took this lady for a potential suicide, did you?’
The constable considered this. ‘Well, obviously I got it wrong. . but no. . she can’t have struck me as such because I let her be and passed on. She greeted me with a smile and some words. . “Oh, there you are” or something like that as though she was expecting to see someone she knew. Then, realizing her mistake, she fumbled about a bit in her pocket and took out a calling card and looked at it. Checking the details. Even looked at her watch. A bit of pantomime, I thought. Establishing her bona fides on the bridge. For a suicide she was a damn good actress, sir.’
‘Oh, yes, that’s exactly what she was. And it was in her pocket, not her bag?’
‘Yes, sir. Sort of, at the ready. She did have a bag over her arm.’
‘No bag has yet been found.’
‘Wouldn’t expect it. They normally throw their bags over first and then jump.’
‘Good Lord! But, tell me, who else did you see on the bridge as you proceeded on your beat?’
‘No one, sir. I was aware of figures passing along on the other side but nothing out of the ordinary. The eight forty-five omnibus went by. It doesn’t stop on the bridge, sir. It was just about dark and a mist coming up. No lighting for another few minutes. If you didn’t want to be observed throwing yourself off, it was the best time to choose.’
He looked at Joe thoughtfully for a moment, wondering whether to speak out. This Commander, or whatever he was, might look like a music hall turn but he was quiet-spoken, interested and asked the right questions. Smedley chanced it. ‘And a good time to choose if you wanted to help someone off, sir.’
Minutes later Joe was gratefully climbing aboard a tram he’d managed to flag down. It was clanking its way back along the Embankment, returning to the depot, and Joe seemed to be the only passenger. The lonely conductor launched into a cheerful conversation. ‘I won’t tell if you won’t, Constable,’ he said, using Armitage’s tap to the side of the nose to indicate conspiracy.
Joe thought he understood the jibe. He grinned and looked down at his borrowed slicker and the spare peaked cap he’d been kindly handed by the sergeant with the promise that he’d ‘be needing it in five minutes’.
‘’Sawright, mate,’ he said. ‘Don’t ’ave ter plod this next bit. Special dooties. Give us a ticket to the Yard, will you? And don’t spare the ’orses!’
In a spirit of mischief, Joe waited until the stroke of one before ringing Sir Nevil.
‘Sandilands here. Got a little problem, sir.’
‘Sandilands? Joe? What the hell! You’re supposed to be off duty!’ The voice was irritated but not sleepy.
‘I am off duty. I’ve spent the evening at the Kit-Cat and now I’m sitting here in my dinner jacket, full to the gunwales with Pol Roger ’21. You’d say:
“Gilbert the filbert, the nut with a K,
The Pride of Piccadilly, the blasé roué,”
if you could see me.’
‘You’re tipsy! You’re ringing me at this unearthly hour to tell me you’re tipsy? Where are you?’
‘At the Yard. In my office. Just finishing a report for you.’
‘What are you doing at the Yard? You were told — ’
‘I came to pick up my motor car. I shall need it tomorrow when I set off for Surrey as per orders. Someone was watching out for me and when I arrived I was shanghaied by the river police who escorted me to their awful lair by Waterloo Bridge to identify a drowned person. It turned out to be Audrey Blount.’
There was a silence at the other end while Sir Nevil rummaged through this mixed bag of information.
‘Audrey was — ’ Joe began helpfully.
‘I know who Audrey was. I’m familiar with the file. Get a grip if you can and tell me what happened.’
Joe filled in the details, encouraged by an occasional ‘And then?’ or ‘Tut, tut.’
As he finished, Sir Nevil said heavily, ‘Sad story. But, you know, Father Thames accounts for more murderers each year than the public hangman.’
‘Murderers, sir?’
‘Oh yes. It’s remorse and fear that push them over the edge. Now. . let me tell you how this sorry business will be construed by the powers-that-be over the road and over our heads. . It’ll go something like this: Audrey quarrelled with her employer, pursued her to London, as she admitted to you, with the object of killing her and did, indeed, in a fit of rage, achieve her aim. She faked up signs of a robbery and, still harbouring a grievance against her employer, she defiled the corpse in a somewhat unimaginative manner. Very tasteless and amateur attempt! In character, I would have thought. She was seen in the vicinity by a police witness no less. Disguised as a maid, she could have secreted her discarded bloodstained overall in the dirty linen on the trolley and trundled her way, unregarded, out of the hotel.’
He sighed and with affected tetchiness added: ‘Do you expect me to do all your work for you?’
Caught up in the flow of his reasoning, he rattled on: ‘Shortly after, pursued by CID and fearing arrest or simply the victim of conscience, she flees to London and does what hundreds of guilty people have done before her. Leaps off a bridge. Neat, Joe. Neat. This closes the case with a bang. A distressing domestic incident but no more than that. No need now to go on searching the rooftops of London for homicidal burglars. Hotel guests all over the capital may sleep easy in their beds. All round good solution, I’m sure you’ll agree. Have your notes sent to my office, will you?. . Oh, and, Joe, do take care if you’re driving your car back across London in your state. You sound a bit wobbly to me and some of those traffic police are sharp lads. . 1921, eh? Excellent year! Excellent! Goodnight, Joe.’
The connection was cut before Joe could protest or question.
Joe was thoughtful. Earlier in the day, Sir Nevil had been accepting but disapproving of the pressure put on them to close the case. Now Joe would have said he was eager to connive in the official clampdown. Something was going on that he was not being told about. He sighed. What to do? Give in and go along with the theories being cooked up?
Beatrice and Audrey. He had looked into two dead faces in the space of two days. He felt the weight of two albatrosses around his neck and sighed.
He was on his own. He could call on help from no one. Tilly and Bill had been discharged from the case and were heaven knows where by now. Cottingham would have to be informed by note that he was to do no further work. Cottingham. Perhaps not quite on his own, yet. There was an envelope lying on his desk addressed to him in Ralph’s hand.
Inside was a sheet dated and headed ‘Informal (underlined) notes for the attentn. of Comm. Sandilands.’ Below this were further confirmatory notes of times and locations of various guests around the hotel on the night of the murder. A follow-up interview with the lift operator revealed nothing new. The inspector had even swabbed the interior of the lift but failed to find bloodstains. The maids’ trolleys were equally clear of blood traces — Sir Nevil would not be pleased! — and the hotel laundry turned up nothing but the usual assortment of human effluvia. ‘Nose bleed in Room 318 duly verified,’ Cottingham had added carefully.
Joe turned at last to Donovan’s alibi. Just as he had told them, the boot-boy had conveniently spent the vital hour with him in his office. Cottingham had put a note in the margin: ‘Give me ten minutes and an extra fiver on expenses and I could break this. Something tells me the rogue Donovan would have a spare alibi up his sleeve, however. Shall I pursue it?’