‘And you took it up?’
‘I certainly did!’ said Miss Ermengilda bitterly. ‘I’ve been let down too often by girls with simply glowing references to waste my time with those who can’t produce any at all.’
‘What sort of a worker was Pearl Wallace?’
Miss Ermengilda inclined her head judiciously. ‘Average,’ she said after a moment’s thought. ‘By which I mean she did as little work as possible, was completely uninterested in the job, and was not unduly scrupulous in money matters if she thought she could get away with it. On the other hand, she was quite personable and she kept herself clean. I wish I could say as much about all the girls who have been employed here. And now, sergeant’ – Miss Ermengilda fixed MacGregor with a steely eye – ‘I think it’s time you told me a little more about what’s happened.’
‘Pearl Wallace is apparently the unknown girl whose dead body was found the other day in Frenchy Botham.’
Miss Ermengilda nodded. ‘I remember reading about it in the paper. What on earth was she doing down there?’
‘That’s what we’re trying to find out,’ said MacGregor. ‘You don’t, if I may say so, seem very surprised at what’s happened.’
Miss Ermengilda was craning her neck to see what was going on in the shop. ‘Oh, I’m not,’ she admitted frankly. ‘Pearl Wallace was what I call one of Nature’s victims. Some people seem to attract bad luck, don’t they?’
‘When did you last see her?’
Miss Ermengilda closed her eyes for this calculation. ‘That would be Friday, the seventh of this month. She waited until after we’d finished serving the luncheons and then calmly informed me that she wouldn’t be in at all the next day – which was a Saturday, if you please. The busiest day of the week! I was simply furious and I said so. She answered me very pertly and so, really, I had no choice. I gave her a week’s notice. She told me precisely what I could do with it, collected the wages due to her and her cards from my desk, and marched out. Naturally, I haven’t seen her since then – nor, indeed, did I expect to.’
MacGregor glanced around. ‘Was she particularly friendly with any of your other staff?’
Wordlessly Miss Ermengilda indicated the fair Doris who was casually assuring an anxious American lady that, if she wanted to take some real English candy back to the States with her, she couldn’t do better than a nice box of Edinburgh rock.
‘We’d better have a word with her, I suppose,’ said MacGregor, already feeling in his bones that they weren’t going to get much enlightenment from Doris.
‘I’ll send her over!’ offered Miss Ermengilda quickly. She was itching to get her hands on that American woman.
MacGregor gestured vaguely in the direction of the comatose Dover. ‘Perhaps we could have some tea at the same time?’
‘I should have thought a pot of strong black coffee would have been more to the point,’ observed Miss Ermengilda with a sniff. Then she realized that this couple of time-wasting policemen were transforming themselves into a couple of paying customers. ‘Tea for two and cakes? I’ll give the order myself. Oh, by the way’ – she paused as the query struck her – ‘what was Pearl Wallace doing with one of our paper bags?’
‘She was using it to patch a hole in one of her shoes.’
Miss Ermengilda’s lips clamped together in a hard line. ‘And that,’ she informed MacGregor grimly, ‘is where one’s profits go! Oh, these dratted girls!’
It was over ten minutes before Doris and the afternoon tea arrived. Dover, rousing on the instant like an old war horse hearing the bugles, showed no surprise at finding a young lady in fancy dress sharing the table with him. He contented himself with reaching across for the plate of Olde Danish pastries.
Doris herself had undergone something of a metamorphosis. Ermengilda’s Kitchen didn’t sport all that many handsome young men amongst its patrons, and Doris had no intention of wasting the opportunity. During her brief sojourn in the kitchen, she had wielded mascara, eye-shadow, hair spray, lipstick and cheap scent with a liberal hand.
For once in his life MacGregor was almost pleased that he’d got Dover with him.
10
When it came down to brass tacks, however, Doris wasn’t all that helpful. ‘Well, I knew Pearl, natch,’ she said, pulling out her pocket mirror and examining her face intently in it. ‘She sort of taught me the job when I first come here, didn’t she?’ She poked out a finger and began to rub the lipstick off her teeth. ‘I’ve only been here a couple of months, see? Actually, I’m thinking of jacking it in. It’s dead boring, you know. I might try and get a job abroad. Like on the Coster Bravo or the South of France. Pearl? Oh, yes . . . well, I sort of only knew her in the shop, you know. We didn’t go out together or anything. I did ask her round to our house once, but my mum didn’t take to her. Thought she was sort of sly. Well, she did sort of keep herself to herself, if you see what I mean. My mum didn’t go much on Pearl living in lodgings, either. Said it wasn’t natural for a girl of her age. Said no good would come of it. And she was right, wasn’t she?’
For reasons best known to himself, Dover decided to take a hand in the interrogation. He was probably trying to speed things up as he was finding Doris’s shrill and adenoidal voice very wearing on the ear. ‘Did you know she was pregnant?’
‘Pearl?’ Doris’s cup of excitement was filled to over-flowing. ‘Pregnant? Go on!’ Her eyes glinted and she nodded her head in a knowing manner. ‘Well, I can’t say as how I’m surprised, really. She never said nothing, of course, but I had wondered. She sort
