“I wish I could help you, Inspector,” he said. “But I hardly knew the young woman. It’s an awful thing. So very sad.”
“My understanding, Mr. Morris,” the inspector said, “is that you arranged for the audition. You must have known her.”
“I did know her.” To Agatha, Bertie asked politely, “May I smoke?”
“Certainly.”
He withdrew a gold cigarette case and was lighting up as he said, “I had seen Miss Ward in The Dancing Years. She handled lines well.”
“And she was attractive.”
“Indeed she was.”
“You’re aware she was a… dancer at the Windmill.”
“Many talented girls are reduced to that kind of thing, Inspector. Must I tell you of the hard realities of London? It’s unfortunate. I was hoping to give her a… break.”
“You didn’t know her socially, then. You merely remembered her from a play you’d seen her in.”
He exhaled smoke, away from Agatha. His hands, she noted, were slender, artistic; he wore a number of gold rings, one with a diamond. The wartime trend toward austerity of dress had not taken with Bertie.
“I did know Miss Ward, slightly. In a social manner.”
Agatha glanced at the inspector, then said to the producer, “Bertie, if you’d be more comfortable without my presence-”
“No. I have nothing to hide.” A tight, humorless smile appeared as a small slash in the midst of the round face. “I have a reputation for, shall we say, fraternizing with showgirls and actresses. It’s exaggerated, but not entirely unearned.”
Inspector Greeno sat forward, slightly. “What was your relationship with Miss Ward?”
“I would say ‘relationship’ rather overstates it, Inspector. I happened to bump into Miss Ward in Piccadilly last week. We spent a social evening together. Dined. Danced. I heard the story of her sad present situation. And she asked if I might keep her in mind, should something turn up in one of my productions.”
“What night last week?”
“I believe Wednesday. My wife was rehearsing, and I’d had a long day, working on the production. And I just decided to take an evening for myself.”
“I see. And that one… social evening with Miss Ward… was the only night you’ve spent with her.”
Bertie’s eyes flashed. “I did not use that phrase-‘spend the night with her.’ We dined and danced during the blackout. Just two friends catching up a little.”
“Then you had known her previously.”
“Just in passing. An attractive girl in the theatrical game. It’s a small world. A kind of a family.”
“Then you didn’t go to her flat, that night.”
“Of course not.”
The inspector made a few notes, then asked, “And last night-you didn’t socialize with Miss Ward?”
“No. My wife and I dined at our club, Boodles, which is quite near our flat in Park Place. We spent a quiet evening together, both utterly exhausted from our labors. You may ask Irene for confirmation.”
Inspector Greeno did.
Irene Helier Morris-looking haggard and wearing almost no makeup, and yet still beautiful, if starkly so, her short dark hair disarrayed-sat in white blouse and dark slacks, as if she’d been out riding and fallen from her horse.
“I have only ten minutes, Inspector,” she said in that commanding contralto. She may have looked frazzled, but she was the epitome of self-control. “We’re between acts.”
Murders happened every day, Agatha wryly thought; opening nights were uncommon.
“We can keep this brief,” the inspector said. “For now.”
Irene sighed. “I don’t mean to be cold about it. But I didn’t know this woman. I saw her exactly once-yesterday, when she auditioned, and did a decent job of it.”
“She won the role.”
“Yes. But we hadn’t notified her yet.”
“Who takes care of that?”
“It’s a call Janet would make. My husband’s majordomo.”
“Speaking of your husband, Mrs. Morris-or do you prefer Miss Helier?”
“Mrs. Morris is fine. I have a stage name, just as Mrs. Mallowan in writing has a, uh… what is it called, Agatha, darling? A byline. Speaking of my husband… go on.”
“He tells us,” the inspector said, his tone bland, “that he knew Miss Ward, slightly.”
“Yes…. Might I borrow a cigarette?”
“Certainly,” the inspector said, and took a deck of smokes from his suitcoat pocket and lighted her up using a match from a Golden Lion matchbook.
“Why is it,” Irene asked rhetorically, “that one ‘borrows’ a cigarette, when there is absolutely no intention nor possibility of its return?”
As the inspector waved out the flame, Irene drew in smoke, held it, savoring it, then exhaled grandly.
“My husband has an eye for sweet young things… although I gather Miss Ward was neither sweet nor terribly young… if younger than I. But as I understand it, murder is a risk a harlot runs, isn’t it? And she was a harlot, after all…. Agatha, do I sound cruel?”
“You sound pragmatic.”
Irene nodded. “Thank you. That is exactly what I am, where Bertie is concerned. I turn a blind eye to his little flings. It’s one of the perks of being a producer. Casting couch, the Americans call it. And Bertie, well… he needs the reassurance. When he was a boy, he was slender and that glorious face of his attracted females like honey. Now that he’s lost his hair and gained some pounds and some years… what’s the harm, if he gets his ego stroked, now and then? As long as it’s not serious.”
“You were prepared,” the inspector said slowly, “to hire… as an actress for your production… a woman you knew, or strongly suspected, to have had a relationship with your husband?”
“Relationship!” She gave out a single sharp laugh. “I am the only relationship in Bertie’s life. I am the love and light of his life. I am sure he’s feeling somewhat neglected these days, tied up with the production as I am, and a night with a Nita Ward would not surprise me.”
“How did you spend last evening?”
“Our flat is in Park Place-near where you lived for a while, Agatha… around the corner from the Ritz, directly opposite Boodles. That’s where we dined yesterday evening. Then we had a quiet evening at home. Drank some wine. Listened to dance music on the radio. Sat by the fire… terribly romantic.”
The inspector pressed. “Might your husband have gone out, later, last night? Perhaps after eleven, even after midnight? After you were asleep?”
“I was up quite late, actually. Probably until two. It was all Mrs. Mallowan’s fault.”
Agatha sat forward, touching her bosom. “My fault, Irene?”
Irene exhaled smoke through her nostrils and smiled regally, eyes sleepy. “Completely yours. I was reading your new one-Evil Under the Sun? You simply must tell me who you based the actress on, darling. I have my theories…. Is there anything else, Inspector?”
“No. Not at the moment…. Shoo Mrs. Cummins our way, would you, Mrs. Morris?”
“With pleasure.”
When the director had gone, Inspector Greeno turned to Agatha and asked, “Do you think she might be covering for her husband?”
Agatha asked, “Do you think he might be covering for his wife?”
He let out a weight-of-the-world sigh. “Morris says he just ‘bumped’ into Miss Ward in Piccadilly. Do you believe that?”
“I do.”
“As he said, show business is a small world. A family.”
“Yes. An incestuous one.”
The inspector’s eyes widened.
The brunette secretary/assistant, Janet Cummins, was highly cooperative, but had little to tell.
“I dealt with Miss Ward at the audition,” she said, her blue eyes large and rather naive behind the lenses of the black-rimmed glasses, “and spoke to her in that regard, probably half a dozen times.”
“But you’d never met her before?”
“No.”
“I understand it was your job to call her and inform her that she’d landed the understudy assignment.”