Two for Sorrow

‘What? None at all?’

‘They’re not delicate enough for most of the materials we use here. We’ve had one knocking about at some point for stage work—sail material, something like that—but not recently, and it’s certainly not something that a stranger could just pick up. I wouldn’t know where to lay my hands on one—and that’s if we’ve got any at all.’

So the murderer had come prepared to humiliate, Penrose thought, more convinced than ever that Marjorie’s death and her father’s were more complicated than they looked. ‘One last thing—was Marjorie paid today?’

‘Yes, everyone got their week’s money at the end of the day.’

‘And as far as you know, she didn’t leave the building afterwards?’

‘No.’

‘Is any money kept on the premises?’ he asked.

‘Just a bit of petty cash in the office,’ Lettice said. ‘No more than a few pounds.’

‘I’ll have to have a look round your office. I need Marjorie’s address—that is where you keep the staff details?’ She nodded. ‘I’ll get a car to take you home now, Mrs Reader. Will there be someone in? You shouldn’t be on your own.’

‘My husband’s at work, but if someone could take me to Debenhams, he’ll see me safely home and stay with me.’ She stood up, and Penrose helped her on with her coat. ‘What’s to happen about the work for Monday?’ she asked, turning to Lettice and Ronnie. ‘There’s still a lot to do if we’re to be ready in time.’

‘God, I hadn’t even thought,’ Ronnie said. ‘We’ll have to let the rest of the girls know what’s happened somehow. But I don’t see how we can possibly go on with this gala now.’

‘Why not?’ Hilda asked.

Lettice looked surprised. ‘Well, we haven’t got anywhere to work for a start.’

‘There’s plenty of space at the Cowdray Club,’ Hilda said, buttoning her coat. ‘And I reckon they owe you girls a thing or two after what you’re doing for them. It is their bloody gala, after all.’

‘Hilda!’ Ronnie said, shocked. ‘I don’t think I’ve heard you swear once in fifteen years.’

‘You’ve taught me a thing or two, Miss Ronnie—I just like to choose my moments.’

‘But is it right to go ahead after what’s happened?’ Lettice asked. ‘It seems so heartless, somehow.’

Hilda looked at her, then sat down and took her hand. ‘It’s too easy to say what the dead might or might not have wanted,’ she said. ‘I should know—it took me long enough to stop feeling guilty about marrying again. But sooner or later, you have to think about the living and what they need—and those other girls have been looking forward to this gala for weeks. They’re going to be devastated when they hear about Marjorie—and they’ll need something to focus on to get them through it. Making them idle won’t help. And personally, I think Marjorie would have been the last to down tools if it’d been someone else.’

‘Oh Hilda—we do love you,’ Lettice said, giving her a hug. ‘You’re right, of course—we’ll ask Miss Bannerman.’

‘No we bloody won’t,’ Ronnie said. ‘We’ll tell her. Go with Archie now, Hilda, and we’ll be in touch to let you know what’s happening. And if you need anything—anything at all, promise you’ll ask us.’

‘There is one thing—it’s Miss Bannerman’s evening cape, the blue silk. Marjorie must have started work on it last night—I’d like to finish it for her. You won’t let anything happen to it, will you, Inspector?’

‘No, of course not. I’ll make sure it’s safe. We’re going to have to go over everything very carefully, I’m afraid, and it will take time, but we’ll be as quick as we can.’ He followed Hilda over to the door. ‘Whatever you pay this woman,’ he said, looking back at his cousins, ‘it’s nowhere near enough.’

‘Do you think we don’t know that?’ Lettice answered, but Ronnie called him back.

‘You think there’s more to this, don’t you?’ she said quietly.

‘Later,’ he said. ‘Please take care of yourselves.’ He delivered Mrs Reader into the safe hands of PC Ellis, then went to find Fallowfield. ‘Pop over to the Salisbury for me, Bill. I think Marjorie and her father had a bit of a row there yesterday lunchtime. Find out what it was about if you can. I’m going upstairs to talk to Spilsbury.’

As he had known it would be, the Motleys’ workroom was now a completely different place and the ominous stillness of an hour ago had given way to an organised clamour of activity. There were several photographers in the immediate crime scene, each one a trained detective, and the Home Office pathologist, Sir Bernard Spilsbury—as famous in his own right as the criminals he convicted—waited patiently for them to finish before he could examine the body. ‘You don’t do things by halves, do you Archie?’ he said as soon as he saw Penrose. ‘I gather this is your cousins’ business. I’m sorry to hear that—it must be terrible for them. I suppose the logical scenario is that he kills her and falls down the stairs in his haste to get away.’

‘But?’ Penrose asked, and his eagerness must have been obvious.

Spilsbury smiled. ‘Yes—somehow I thought you’d be looking for a but. Well, I can’t give you anything more than you’ve got yourself at the moment, and that’s instinct—but the logical scenario doesn’t quite add up to me either. I’d say that the man downstairs was knocked unconscious by the fall and died of exposure, which doesn’t help to build any other case but the obvious one—but I’m hoping to find something more conclusive for you up here.’

‘All done now, Sir,’ one of the photographers called, and Spilsbury went over to the body.

‘You were right about the row, Sir,’ Fallowfield said, coming up behind Penrose. ‘Barman said he thought he was going to have to call for help at one point—she threatened Baker with a glass, apparently.’

‘Really? What was it about?’

‘Money. He wanted her to hand over her wages, and she wasn’t having any of it. Did you know she’d been inside?’ Penrose nodded. ‘Well, he got at her about that, as well—that’s when she picked up the glass.’

‘Anything else?’

‘No. She wasn’t there very long. The bloke had been in now and again over the last few weeks, the barman said—he’d never seen him before that. But he was always on his own until yesterday.’

‘Right—then we need to find out if Marjorie’s wages are still here somewhere,’ Penrose said, and walked across to where Spilsbury was making his painstaking examination. ‘Bernard, I need to know right away if you find any money on the body.’

‘I can tell you that now, Archie.’ He held up a small brown envelope in a bag. ‘Is this what you’re looking for? It was in the pocket of her dress.’ Penrose took the wage packet, which he could see had not even been opened. ‘And this was with it.’ The second bag held a small silver photo frame, with a picture of a young woman and baby. It was no one he recognised.

‘That’s interesting, Sir,’ Fallowfield said, taking the bag from him. ‘I’d have to check, but it matches the description of something stolen from the Cowdray Club. Why would she have that?’

‘I’ve no idea, Bill, but I think it’s time we paid the club a visit.’ He brought his sergeant succinctly up to speed on what he had learned from Hilda Reader and the Motleys.

‘So you think someone else is involved?’

‘I think this suggests that,’ Penrose said, holding up the wage packet. ‘They were fighting over money, so why would he go to all that trouble only to leave behind what he came for? And for God’s sake, Bill—how much do you think is in here? Twenty shillings? Thirty? It hardly warrants that sort of violence, does it? No—either someone disturbed him before he could take what he wanted …’

‘In which case, why haven’t they come forward?’

‘Exactly. Or he didn’t do it. I don’t doubt that he came here looking for Marjorie, but I think this is what he found. No wonder the poor bastard fell down the stairs—they might not have got on, but can you imagine how any father would feel, seeing his daughter like this?’

‘I suppose he might even have walked in while it was happening.’

‘Indeed he might, Bill, and then we could be talking about two murders, not one—but all this is speculation until we have the post-mortem reports.’ He ran his hand through his hair. ‘In the meantime, we’ve got to break the news to her mother so I’d better dig her address out. Then we need to find a tactful way of asking if she thinks her husband was capable of choking their daughter with beads and stitching her mouth up with a sack needle. If you’ve got any ideas as to how to put that, I’ll hear them on the way.’

(untitled)

by Josephine Tey