‘Yessir,’ said Armitage coming automatically to attention. There was something in his manner that alerted Joe to a potential problem. The hostile and suspicious look he flung at Tilly on receiving his order to take charge downstairs, leaving her alone in the murder room with the Commander, did not go unnoticed by Joe. He sighed. It seemed to be a case of hatred at first sight between these two. When he considered the possible causes of this he was not reassured. Instinctive antipathy, class rivalry — there was no doubting that the two came from vastly different strata of society — and (probably the prime motive for the mistrust) professional jealousy. Intelligent and ambitious, the pair of them. They would each try to outdo the other to gain credit in Joe’s eyes. How tiresome! He calculated promptly that there was no way in the world he could work efficiently with two warring officers under his command. One would have to withdraw from the case. He thought for a moment and made his decision.
‘Oh, Sergeant, you’d better get hold of one or two of the officers down below and set them to take statements from the party guests. Corral them in the dining room. They won’t like it, but stress that it’s for their own good — with one of their number killed they would do well to cooperate discreetly. And we’ll need a complete list of guests and their room numbers as well as the IDs of everyone who was known to be in the hotel this evening.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s over an hour since she was killed. And this place is a beehive. No, a sieve more like. And, shall we admit it? — any one of the hundreds of people who were milling about in the building this evening could have got up here unnoticed and have slipped away equally unnoticed. Hours of work to be done and all with the extreme of discretion.’
He and Armitage looked at each other steadily, contemplating for a moment the mountain of routine but tricky police work before them.
‘Leave it to me, sir,’ said Armitage with quiet energy. ‘I think I can manage.’
Joe smiled. He knew he could.
When the sergeant and his assistant had left the room, Joe felt free to go and look down at Dame Beatrice. ‘Like Boadicea’, Sir Nevil had said, he remembered as he stared in surprise and pity. What had he expected? Her reputation and her rank had led him to believe he would be dealing with an elderly tweed-skirted spinster with iron gaze and incipient moustache but the body before him at first sight recalled a pale-faced, languorous and frankly erotic woman seen in a painting by an Austrian painter whose name eluded him. ‘Decadent’ was the word that came to mind. Her dark red hair, unfashionably long, lay spread, dishevelled and blood-soaked, a fitting frame for the smashed and distorted white mask of outrage and hate it outlined. So must the Queen of the Iceni have looked, he thought, as she snarled defiance at the Roman legions.
She was wearing her evening dress, an ankle-length gown of green taffeta. Joe knelt by the body, noting with a stab of disgust that the bodice had been torn. The seams along each shoulder had been wrenched apart with considerable force and her small white breasts lay exposed. The urge to cover her nakedness was almost overwhelming but Joe steeled himself to observe and note.
To his further embarrassment Constable Westhorpe came and joined him. A well-bred young girl should have kept her distance, pretended to look the other way, even called weakly for smelling salts, he thought resentfully.
‘Terrible sight,’ he said and would have said more. Would have suggested that she might like to leave this next distressing part of the enquiry to him but she looked down calmly enough at the body.
‘Is it Gustav Klimt,’ he wondered out loud to bump them over the awkward moment, ‘the painter that this lady’s appearance calls to mind?’ Too late he remembered that a reference to a foreign painter with a reputation for decadence would be bound to be offensive and shocking to the good taste of a young lady of Tilly Westhorpe’s background. But, with a bit of luck, she would never have heard of the chap.
The constable considered for a moment. ‘Oh, yes, I see it. . The Kiss, you mean? It’s the angle of the head, I think. No. . I’d have said rather Dante Gabriel Rossetti. His darkest nightmare.’ She looked stonily down at the battered features and then, caught by an emotion Joe could not fathom, she spoke again as though to herself.
‘Evil, evil old devil!’ she said passionately. ‘Killing’s too good for her!’
Chapter Three
Joe let the words lie between them for a moment, puzzled and apprehensive.
‘Would this be a good moment to explain just how familiar you were with this lady, Westhorpe? And what exactly was the nature of your personal reason for coming up here to see her? Sir Nevil has asked for you to be associated with this enquiry but if there’s the slightest suggestion of an interest other than professional, you’ll be asked to withdraw.’
Calmly she took her eyes off the corpse and transferred her gaze to Joe. Direct and searching, it had the effect of making him feel himself to be the one undergoing questioning. ‘We were never introduced. As far as I know she was perfectly unaware of me. The party tonight is the first occasion on which I have ever seen her. But sir! Surely you cannot be unconscious of her reputation? In the circles in which I move, I can assure you, Commander, Dame Beatrice is not venerated. .’
She was just getting into her swing and Joe was eager to hear more when something prompted her to cut short her attack on the character of the deceased. ‘But this is hardly the place to swap gossip, I think. And one shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, and all that. . Oh, for goodness sake! What am I saying? You ought to be aware, sir, and, in the circumstances, there will be few enough to tell you. . The woman was a monster! Dissolute, degenerate, debased. .’
‘Run out of d’s, Westhorpe?’ said Joe, taken aback and trying to take the sting out of her remarks, almost sacrilegious, he felt, when delivered with such vehemence over the cooling body. ‘What about, er, Dame. .? Darling of the navy. .? Doyenne of London society?’
‘I’m trying to be helpful, sir,’ she said repressively. ‘You are not obliged to give any weight to my information but if you enquire in the right quarters you will hear other evaluations of Dame Beatrice’s character and habits than those you will read in next week’s obituaries. But for now, there’s work to be done — work in which you will find me perceptive and efficient.’
She didn’t quite click her heels but Joe almost expected to hear it.
‘Very well. We’ll leave it. But I’m not satisfied with your explanation and will come back to it. I shall need to know precisely what brought you to this room at such an unlikely hour to see someone you say you were not acquainted with. Now, we need to establish without further delay who is her next of kin.’
‘I could just tell you but perhaps you’d rather read the details from her diary which is in the bedroom. She lives in Surrey with her mother. Not married, of course.’
At a nod from Joe, Westhorpe went into the bedroom, emerging with a small black notebook. ‘Here we are. . Mrs Augustus Jagow-Joliffe, King’s Hanger, near Godalming. There’s a telephone number. Dame Beatrice has a flat of her own, I think. . yes. . here’s the address — it’s in Fitzroy Gardens.’
She handed the book to Joe and he put it in his pocket.
‘Where would you like me to start, sir? Shall I make a sketch of the crime scene?’
‘Hold on, Westhorpe. That’s a job for whichever inspector they’ve supplied us with. You can make a start on her personal effects. An inventory, if you like.’