Tracing banknotes was always difficult, but as Greeno examined these, he noticed that they were two in a series, which would make matters much easier.
“When did this happen, Phyllis?”
“Tuesday night. Not long after dark.”
That meant the Ripper likely had an unsuccessful go before he’d finally hooked up with Nita Ward.
“Could you recognize him in an identification parade?”
“Like he was bloomin’ Churchill.”
The O’Dwyer woman refused to be taken into protective custody-“If you blokes couldn’t find me, not bloody likely that madman could do”-but left Greeno with a contact telephone number.
Greeno sat in his office, in a blue cloud of self-created cigar smoke, smiling to himself, which was a relative rarity in this case.
He believed her. Phyllis O’Dwyer had survived the madman’s attack-she could identify the bastard. This was their first real break….
The second one came about fifteen minutes later, in the form of the plainclothes sergeant who had accompanied Greta Heywood to the Trocadero for a reconstruction of the attack she claimed to have survived.
The sergeant, a hard-eyed round-faced veteran of the vice detail, held up a gas mask.
“It was right where the girl said he dropped it,” the sergeant said. “Kind of out of sight, Guv, behind a trash bin.”
Greeno reached across the desk and took the respirator; the masks had always struck him as otherworldly-looking things, straight out of H. G. Wells. The mask’s goggle eyes stared at him briefly, before the inspector turned the thing over and saw a beautiful row of numbers: 525987…
… an airman’s service number.
They could trace him now.
Two living witnesses.
They had him. Whether this was Cummins, or one of the thousands of other RAF fliers… they had him.
The question now was, could they stop him before he made it five murders in six nights?
NINE
For Agatha, first nights were misery.
She attended the dreaded events for two reasons and two reasons only.
First, after weeks of rehearsal and the building of sets and the gathering of props and costumes and the efforts of so many… the time had finally come; and the poor actors had to go through with it, didn’t they? And she, as the author, felt it only fair to share their misfortune, should things go awry. She was, after all, the instigator of the crime; and one should pay for one’s crimes.
On the opening night of Alibi, for example, the script enjoined the forcing open of a door to reveal a murder victim; but the door had jumped its cue and swung open prematurely, revealing said victim in the act of lowering himself to the floor. Such agonies (and the anticipation thereof) were heightened on first nights and the playwright felt a responsibility to share the torture with her accomplices.
The second reason was far less noble: the thing that killed the cat… curiosity.
Even though she had attended a number of rehearsals, Agatha had only a disjointed sense of the play as performed. Even attending a dress rehearsal-which she had not, in this instance, sitting instead with Inspector Greeno at the Golden Lion, for the interviews that had followed Nita Ward’s murder-did not give an author the full sense of a play.
An audience was required for that-an audience who might laugh in the right or wrong places, an audience who might respond well or in a lukewarm manner or even in sheer walk-out-of-the-damned-thing hostility.
Right now she was just one of that audience, seated unobtrusively to one side, about ten rows from the orchestra. Aware of eyes upon her, and of murmurs of recognition (“There she is,” “That’s her”), she sat quietly with her invited guests on her either side-Sir Bernard Spilsbury and Stephen Glanville-waiting for the lights to go down, to provide her with the anonymity she so craved.
Such sentiments considered, she was not quite sure why she adored the theater so, why in her heart of hearts she preferred the role of playwright to that of novelist. In her youth, before she had developed this miserable, horrible shyness, she had performed in plays and given piano and vocal recitals without a care. Perhaps now, in her self-conscious adulthood, she was performing through the actors, personal appearance by proxy.
Or perhaps it had to do with her propensity for living in a world of fantasy, at the center of a self-created, interior stage suited for drama, comedy and her own particular brand of melodrama. She’d had imaginary friends as a child, and even now she heard her characters speak within her and often merely felt the recording secretary of their thoughts and discourse.
She had been accused, by reviewers, of using dialogue as a sort of crutch, of short-changing the art of narrative by leaning so heavily on what the characters said to each other. This technique, she’d been lectured, was simplistic.
Her only defense was the work itself-that publishers and readers accepted this approach. To her, dialogue was the engine of a story, and perhaps she was not a novelist at all; perhaps she was a dramatist who occasionally staged her productions within the covers of a book.
Tonight, however, the play would be staged at the St. James Theatre, and she must endure all of the attention and folderol attendant with any opening night. The after-party would be held at the Savoy, and the procession of Rolls Royces that would carry “celebrities” such as herself and the director and producer to the theater began there, as well.
(The publicity-averse Sir Bernard had chosen not to participate in this indignity, and arranged to meet her later at the theater; he’d even offered to give Stephen a lift, and Agatha savored with pixie-ish glee the thought of cool and collected Professor Glanville being subjected to a wild ride with the Mr. Toad who was Sir Bernard Spilsbury.)
A West End opening, like everything else in wartime, required adjustments. The play would begin at seven p.m., not eight, and the caravan of celebrities had begun at six, prior to nightfall and the blackout. This allowed the event to include flash photographers and an illuminated marquee and a general emulation of the giddy hysteria of a pre-war premiere, even though the bombed-out remains of Willis Sale Rooms next door, and the ravaged Christie’s Auction House across the way, provided stark reminders of reality.
Often scavengers, poor things, were seen digging through the rubble of these buildings, the once-grand Willis in particular. The bobbies had no doubt chased any such unfortunates away, before the red carpet and velvet ropes were put in place at the St. James; the war-zone reminders of the Willis site and Christie’s across the street could not be banished, but the ragtag homeless, the war refugees of London, could be chased away, temporarily, at least.
Agatha, sharing her Rolls with Larry Sullivan, frowned at this bitter irony-again, she could only wonder if the homicidal frivolities she dispensed had any place in this war-torn world.
A surprising crowd awaited them, held back by constables, and timidly she smiled and waved at the blur of people who shouted, “Agatha! Agatha!” at her, as if she were a film star; oddly, the real star of stage and screen at her side, portly Francis L. Sullivan (looking rather like a head waiter in his evening dress), received fewer of these complimentary catcalls than she.
Certainly Agatha did not feel like a film star. She felt like an overweight middle-aged woman, rather embarrassingly stuffed into a navy chiffon pleated evening gown that had been purchased several seasons (and two stone) ago. Her fur coat, however, hid a multitude of sins, and the passage down the red carpet and into the lobby was blessedly brief.
The lobby was closed off to the public, and a small cocktail-party-style gathering of the principals-excluding the actors, of course, who like brides before the wedding must not be seen-was under way, the night’s nervous participants milling about sharing best wishes (including the quaint American admonishment that they should all “break a leg”) and shaking hands and kissing cheeks and calling each other “darling.”