She had bleeding Cherrill thinking like a thriller writer now!
“Actually, Fred,” Greeno said, between cigar puffs, “she prefers ‘Mrs. Mallowan.’ But she has a keen eye, under any name.”
“Indeed. Those impressions in the dresser-top dust at the Jouannet flat may prove valuable. But so far the fingerprints from the Lowe flat aren’t, terribly.”
“Why is that? Smudged again?”
“No, they were beauties-textbook examples of the art; in addition to the candlestick, perfect prints showed up on the half-finished glass of beer, and on a hand mirror. We just don’t have any corresponding prints in our files.”
“How is it possible that a vicious wrong ’un like our Ripper doesn’t have a previous criminal record?”
“Well, he doesn’t. Perhaps he’s a late bloomer. Or an American G.I., like they say. But when you do find a good suspect, Ted, we’ll have excellent prints to check him against. Any other leads?”
“Nothing from the Jouannet place, beyond what Mrs. Mallowan spotted. Oh, I did find a broad roll of Elastoplast in the drawer of that same dresser.”
“Sticking plaster, hmmm. Anything significant about it?”
“Probably not. But the adhesive tape had a small oblong piece cut out of it, recently I would say. If it was used to patch one of the stolen items… well, hope springs eternal.”
“As does despair. Incidentally, no good fingerprints at the Jouannet pigsty-and I gathered and processed them personally, on the scene.”
Greeno grunted. “Well, fingerprints or not, it was clearly the same man. These killings are quite specific in their savagery.”
“They are indeed-Spilsbury confirms the slashing and strangulation indicates a left-handed murderer, just as my fingerprint evidence does. We are, it would seem, close.”
“And yet so far,” Greeno said, dryly. “Thanks, Fred.”
“Cheerio, Ted.”
Of the stories from the prostitutes, the most compelling concerned the urbane civilian client who called himself variously the Duke and the Count, whose smoothness disappeared when the actual sex came into play. He was rough. Some of the women claimed he “strangled” them during the act… as one wilted flower put it, “Playful-like, y’know?”
Greeno was working double-shifts, so he’d had to decline Agatha’s generous offer of tickets to the opening night of her new play. The actors would be on the boards by now, he thought-it was mid-evening, after blackout-and he hoped his friend was enjoying herself, and that her fictional murders were being well-received. These thoughts, somewhat ironically, preceded the first real break of the case.
Phyllis O’Dwyer-the prostitute whose friends spoke of an encounter between Phyllis and a “wild” customer who may have tried to kill her-finally turned up, under her own steam.
Thirty-odd, another attractive woman whose features had hardened into soulless near-immobility, Phyllis O’Dwyer sat with her shapely silk-stockinged legs crossed as she smoked, blowing occasional rings. Her eyes were light blue and wide-set, another heart-shaped face with a fake beauty mark; her hair was a shade of red unknown to God but familiar to West End beauty shops. She wore a black suit with a startling red silk blouse, and was the kind of cheap that could prove expensive.
“You’ve been looking for me, I hear,” she said. She had a ragged voice, having suffered too much drink, too much screaming, over the years… possibly too much drunken screaming. “I wasn’t hidin’ or nothin’. Couldn’t this bleedin’ big police department find one little redhead?”
Phyllis was five-eight and weighed a well-shaped ten stone, easily.
“It’s amazing,” Greeno admitted, lighting up a fresh cigar, “what turns up, when a thousand pounds is involved.”
Her eyes flashed. “I ain’t here to lie, Guv. I had the life scared out of me, ain’t ashamed to say. Crikey, I thought I was a goner, sure.”
Rocking back in his swivel chair, arms folded, Greeno said, “Why don’t you tell me your story, Phyllis.”
“No call for that attitude, Guv. I come in here of my own free will, a good citizen doin’ you a good turn. No call for you callin’ me a liar.”
“I never did.”
“I can read between the lines. I’m a lot of things, but a fool ain’t one of them. I tell you, Inspector, it’s true, every blessed word of it. And if you don’t believe me, you can stick my story right in your… files.”
“Go on, Phyllis. My ears are open and so is my mind.”
“Cor. Well. You plan to charge me two pounds for this?”
She meant was Greeno going to nick her for prostitution, if she copped to that; two pounds was the standard fine for solicitation.
“No. It’s a free ride.”
She smiled with casual lasciviousness. “No free rides in my trade, Guv…. Anyway, here you have it. I meet this airman outside Oddenino’s restaurant in Regent Street. Cadet, he was.”
“How do you know?”
“He was wearin’ a cadet’s white flash. Are you going to interrupt me, every whip stitch?”
“No.”
“So I take him home, see, and it was cold as hell, and my little flat was chilly, even with the gas fire, so I kept on a pair of boots. Some blokes like that anyway, it’s a bit of a kink, isn’t it? Also, just for show, I left on a necklace I’m partial to. Stones set off me eyes.”
Risking Phyllis’s wrath, Greeno asked, “What sort of necklace?”
“Big old thing. Costume jewelry. If them jewels was real, I wouldn’t be makin’ my livin’ on me back, would I now?”
That seemed to be more or less a rhetorical question, so Greeno merely nodded politely.
She was saying, “So he says to me, ‘Do you always wear a necklace in bed?’ He was lyin’ next to me. We’d already… done the deed. Sort of turning the center stone around in his fingers, like. And I say, ‘Sometimes. Some blokes like a little glamour.’ And I kinda kicked a foot in the air, showin’ off me boot. It was a joke. But I don’t think he liked it none, ’cause he grabbed hold of the necklace and started to twist it… you can see the bruisin’ on me neck.”
“I can.”
“So he’s got a whole handful of the necklace and was twistin’ it like mad. I was choking, bleedin’ chokin’, I tell you. And his eyes… kinda blue, they was, funny shade… they was blazing. Just like a madman’s.”
“How did you survive it, Phyllis?”
“Damn near didn’t. I was in agony. I was swearin’ at him, when I could spit anything out at all-and fightin’ to get the necklace loose off me throat… and in me bleeding death throes, I lash out my feet! God bless them boots. If I didn’t have them on, I… well, I think I got in a lucky kick, I must have done, turnabout’s fair play cause he had me jewels and I got him in his, and he screamed like a ninny, and fell off the bed, arse over teakettle.”
“What did you do then, Phyllis?”
“I yanked the necklace off and I say, ‘Hey, what the bloody hell’s up with you, Tarzan?’ I was breathin’ hard and wonderin’ what he would do next… but he was down on the floor, all quiet-like all of a sudden. Breathin’ hard his own self. Almost like he was cryin’. Very quiet, he says, ‘I’m sorry. Very sorry. I get carried away sometimes.’ I say, ‘I’ll carry you away to hell and gone!’ And he stands, and he’s diggin’ in his pockets… he already give me five pounds. Now he gives me another fiver, to show how sorry he was. I snatched it from him and told him to get the hell out. And he did.”
Greeno studied her. Her eyes were wide and bright and the recollection of fear was palpable in her manner. She was not, in his view, lying.
She began to dig in her little purse, and soon she came up with two crumpled fivers. “I stuck the notes away in a drawer. Didn’t spend ’em.”
“Why not, Phyllis?”
“I thought… with all this Ripper stuff in the papers, maybe they would be clues. You could trace ’em, like.”