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“Well, you certainly took notice of his clothes.”

“Well, Guv, that’s how a girl sizes up a man, ain’t it?”

“All right. What happened then?”

She shrugged again, sighing smoke. “I stayed up till midnight, maybe a quarter after, give or take a tick. I have a little fireplace-I was sitting in front of the warm, brushing my hair, drying it….” Another coquettish look at the inspector. “A girl has to look her best in these times, you know.”

“What else, Miss Poole?”

“Well, I could hear Evie’s radio going, next door. She did that sometimes, turned it way up, when she had gentleman guests. It’s a way of… making so’s I couldn’t hear what went on over there. Only a thin partition-like, between rooms, you know. But I have a bigger place than Evie’s, Inspector; bedroom’s separate from the other room. You can come have a look, if you like….”

“Maybe later. Go on, please.”

“Well. I went into my bedroom about twelve-fifteen, twelve-thirty. Can’t hear the radio in there.”

“Did you hear anyone leave the flat?”

“No. But even if she did, or he did, I wouldn’t be able to hear it from my bedroom. I always shut my bedroom door, Inspector… and bolt it. Girl doesn’t like to be interrupted.”

No, Agatha thought, her eyes going to the open doorway framing the slain woman next door on the divan, a girl doesn’t….

“And anyway,” Miss Poole said. “A girl’s got to be careful around here…. Anything else, Inspector?”

“Not right now, thank you.”

“Care for a cuppa? Hard-working public servant that you are?”

“No thank you.”

She flashed him another fetching smile-perhaps just out of habit-and then the door shut and the inspector and Agatha were alone on the landing.

“Do you suspect the husband?” Agatha asked.

“Always…. We’ll track him down.”

Sir Bernard stepped into the hall, his rubber-gloved hands folded before him. “There is evidence we need to catalogue and collect, Inspector.”

“What’s your impression so far, Doctor?”

“My unofficial view, prior to autopsy?”

“Of course.”

“She was partly strangled… but not enough to kill her. Whilst she was either semi-conscious or unconscious, the assailant cut her throat with a razor blade…. It’s on the bed.”

“That’s what killed her?”

“Almost certainly. The mutilations were postmortem: twelve stab wounds with the point of a tin-opener… also on the bed… and five more with a set of curling tongs… on the bed, as well.”

“Time of death?”

“Judging by the condition of the body, I place the killing between midnight and two this morning.”

Agatha jotted this information in her notebook, then queried, “Before you begin to collect the evidence, the weapons, might I step inside the flat? I’d like to have a look. I’ll take care.”

The inspector and the pathologist exchanged prolonged glances; Sir Bernard nodded and Inspector Greeno said, “By all means, Mrs. Mallowan. But are you sure you wish to subject yourself to-”

“I am sure that I do.”

Agatha entered the flat with the same reverence she would take with her into a chapel. This young woman, prostitute or not, was an innocent whose life had been savagely taken; the victim’s terror, her pain, the final merciful unconsciousness… these Agatha sensed in the small, terrible, mundane space.

A cupboard had been broken into. A handbag and its scattered contents-including a wallet obviously emptied of its money-lay on a settee.

The victim herself was sprawled on the divan bed, her head hanging over one side, a leg draped down over the other. Blood spattered the sheer nightgown; the naked flesh was very white. Agatha avoided the five-foot black pool. She noted the bloodstained can-opener on the bed, the bloody safety razor blade and the bloodstained pair of curling tongs.

And she looked at the face of the dead woman…

… and a hand involuntarily came, fingers curled, to the writer’s agape mouth.

Collecting herself, Agatha exited quickly but carefully, and she took the inspector by the sleeve. The gesture caught him by surprise and he looked sharply at her.

“I know her,” Agatha said.

“What?”

Sir Bernard’s attention was on their guest, as well.

“Evelyn Oatley must be her real name,” Agatha said, almost distractedly.

“Real name?” the inspector parroted.

“She had another,” Agatha said, and glanced toward the dead woman. “Funny-she needn’t have taken that client up to her flat last night…. Excuse me.”

And Agatha went quickly down the street and out into the bracing air, where she drew in deep breaths, exhaling plumes.

Emerging behind her from the stairwell door, Inspector Greeno said, almost irritably, “Mrs. Mallowan, what are you saying?”

Without really knowing where she was going, Agatha clip-clopped down the street with the inspector tagging after. She ducked into a small cafe and ordered coffee while the perplexed if intrigued inspector took a seat across from her at a little table.

Finally Agatha cast her gaze upon him, and, smiling a little, albeit in a most melancholy manner, said, “She landed an understudy role just yesterday-she’d have been informed today. I saw her try out at the St. James Theatre, afternoon last… where she used the stage name Nita Ward.”

FIVE

PRIVACY IN A PUBLIC HOUSE

Agatha herself made the suggestion that those who’d witnessed Nita Ward’s audition yesterday afternoon be interviewed today.

“I do not see them as suspects,” Agatha told Inspector Greeno, as the pair sat in the tiny cafe, having coffee and tea respectively. She felt strangely self-conscious using the term “suspects” outside of the pages of fiction. “But at least one of my colleagues knew the poor girl prior to the audition, and the rest had direct contact with her.”

“I’d like you to accompany me,” the inspector said.

“I’m not sure that’s wise-would my friends be as frank in front of me?”

Inspector Greeno twitched a humorless half-smile. “That’s a good point, Mrs. Mallowan.”

“I do wish you’d call me Agatha.”

The grin had warmth and width that turned the bulldog face into something attractive. “Agatha it is-if you’ll do me the honor of calling me Ted.”

“Ted… what a wonderful designation… or should I say ‘moniker,’ out of respect for your trade? Such a cheery name for a homicide detective.”

The inspector leaned forward, eyes narrow. “Here’s my view of it-initially, they’ll loosen up around you. Your presence will be a kind of reassuring factor. Then, after each interview, we’ll exchange notes, so to speak….”

She nodded. “I believe I understand. If at some point, my presence turns from comforting to inhibiting…”

“Then I’ll question them again, at a later date, on my own. Rather more officially.”

“These interviews, then, will be conducted unofficially. Informally.”

“Absolutely, Agatha.” He grinned again, though warmth wasn’t part of it, this time. “We don’t really think one of your theater people is the new Jack the Ripper, do we?”

“We don’t. Particularly not the ladies.”

Inspector Greeno raised an eyebrow. “Well, one never knows.”

She frowned at him, curiously. “Aren’t these sexually motivated murders?”

“Not necessarily. In all three, robbery has been at least a partial purpose-the previous victim gave up some eighty pounds to her slayer.”

Agatha kept pressing. “But the savagery of the mutilation, in the region of Miss Ward’s sexual organs…”

“A jealous woman could easily accomplish such a task.”

The mystery writer’s eyes flared. “I don’t know about ‘easily’…. What does Sir Bernard say about signs of sexual assault?”

“The first victim showed signs of sexual activity, but not the bruising and such usually associated with rape…. May I speak this frankly, Agatha?”