Chapter One
A Beauty Walks
“But listen, Betty,” Harold Millsom said huskily, “it won’t get you anywhere. It never does, in the long run. You’ll regret it all your life, honestly you will.”
“Darling,” Betty said, “you just don’t understand, that’s all there is about it. I must go. Why, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime! Hundreds, why thousands, of girls would give their right hands for my chance. Please don’t make me unhappy about—about anything.”
Millsom didn’t answer, just looked at her as if he worshipped her beauty; and she was beautiful as few will ever be. So young, with great blue eyes and a skin without a blemish, a face which seemed to glow. As Millsom stared, it was as if her beauty made him suffer; tormented him. That showed in his eyes, in the way his lips tightened and twisted; like those of a man in pain who was determined not to break down.
“Honestly,” Betty said solemnly, “I think I’ve got everything, Harold—everything that matters to make me a star. I do, really.”
“You little fool, you’ll just be one of thousands who waste their lives prancing about the stage, making up to any oily old man who promises you a chance!” Millsom burst out. “The only chance you’ll ever get will be sleeping—”
“Harold!”
Millsom gulped.
“Oh, I know,” he muttered. “That was beastly. I’m sorry. I didn’t really mean it, Betty, it’s just that I hate to think of you being spoiled, ruined, disappointed, and you will be. That’s what always happens.”
“Don’t be silly.” Betty was tranquil again. “Some girls get to the top, don’t they? What about Vivien Leigh and Jean Simmons, and all of them? They had to begin at the beginning, and that’s what I’m doing. In fact, in some ways,” Betty went on earnestly, “I’ve made a better start. I did win the competition, and—”
“I wish to God you’d never entered for the damned thing!”
“Oh, Harold, there you go again. It’s no use, you know, and I’m sure you’ll be the first to come and congratulate me when I’m a star.”
Millsom moved suddenly, swiftly; startling her. But she was not afraid, for she had known him all her life, and had great trust in him. Even when his strong fingers gripped her shoulders and actually hurt, she wasn’t afraid.
“Listen, you damned little idiot, you’ll never be a star. They’re fooling you. You can’t act, and you’ll never be able to, and it’s past time someone stopped you making a fool of yourself. They’ll just lead you up the garden and then throw you aside. You won’t be worth a penny change when you’re through.”
“Harold,” said Betty, very quietly, “you’re hurting.”
He didn’t let her go, but shouted: “Are you going to listen to me? Are you?”
“Please let me go,” Betty said, still quietly, “you’re hurting.”
He let her go.
He moved back a yard, staring, with the pain showing in his eyes again.
“I think I’d rather see you dead than ruined by that theatre mob,” he told her. “Listen, Betty, you must see reason. You’ve got a good job, and everything’s fine. In a couple of years you and I could get married, even before that if you like. That’s the kind of life you want, not kicking your legs in some third-rate chorus or buttering up some nasty old man who—”
“That’s quite enough,” Betty said.
She turned and walked away from him. She moved with a natural grace which was hurtful to him. Her back was towards him, but her face was engraved on his mind’s eye; it was as if a part of himself was walking away.
He took an involuntary step forward.
“Betty!” he called, hoarsely.
She didn’t look round.
He went forward again, but stopped. The ground of the Common rose slightly, and she was near the top of the rise, beauty outlined against a golden dusk, against dark clouds edged with burnished brass. To the right and the left were trees, oak and beech and birch, not far off was a children’s playground, a little farther away were the bushes where young lovers were already moving, yearning for solitude. Beyond were the lanes across the Common, leading to the first of the little houses of this London suburb; houses built of yellow brick, darkened by the passing years, yet looking bright and fresh and almost new in this clear evening light, which would fade when the glistening brass edges of the clouds rolled away.
They were dark clouds.
Betty moved towards the houses, along the gravel pathway, past the children’s playground and its shrieking, shouting crowds, past a Common keeper, who touched his peaked cap and then stood and stared after her. So did three youths who had just come on to the Common. One of them gave a wolf whistle. Harold Millsom heard that, and his hands clenched, his face went very white.
He took another step forward, glaring at the youths, who were a hundred yards away.
“Take it easy, Harold,” a man said, from behind him.
Millsom spun round.
A tall, thin man with a long neck and a large Adam’s apple stood near some bushes. Millsom and Betty had been close to them; this man might have been there all the time, and heard everything. Every word.
“What the hell are you doing there, Tick?” Millsom was so angry, so deeply hurt, that he would gladly strike anyone, do anything to get release from the tension. “Come on, tell me, how long you been there?”
“Take it easy, old lad,” Tick said hastily, “it’s a public place, isn’t it? I’ve got every right—”
“How long have you been there?” Millsom’s voice grew shrill.
“Not long, and I never did any harm, chum. Why don’t you unwind a bit, old boy, go on the loose—like Betty?” He gave a quick, nervous, hopeful grin. “That’s what you want to do. No use losing your loaf, is there? She’ll come back when she’s proved you’re right—”
“So you’ve been there all the time, have you?” Millsom said unsteadily. “Why, you dirty, sneaking Peeping Tom, I’ll smash your face in.”
“Keep away!” Tick gasped, in sudden alarm, and flung his arms up in a weak gesture of defence.
It was no more than a gesture.
Powerful fists smacked into his face, his stomach, his chest; he felt one eye close, tasted the salt of blood on his lips, gasped and cried and gave ground fast, but could not get away from the savage, vicious, pounding fists.
He was just a heap on the ground when Millsom walked blindly away, and three youths, one of whom had whistled after Betty, watched him as they hurried to see what had happened to Tick.
Tick was sobbing, bleeding, blinded by tears and blood.
Betty closed the door of one of the little houses, an hour later, and walked towards the Common. It was dark but for the street lamps. She didn’t really like the thought of crossing the Common, but it offered a short cut to the main road and the buses for the half-hour ride to the West End. She walked quickly, and no one followed her.
She wasn’t likely to have any more bother with Harold, she persuaded herself. She was sorry, but he simply didn’t understand. If he had his way she would marry him now, and they would settle down to a little house and a lot of kids. He’d often hinted that he’d like a big family, and where would that get them? The pictures twice a week, perhaps, and the pools, and her figure would be ruined in a few years. Kids did that to your figure, didn’t they? Oh, no, that wasn’t the life for her, the Beauty Queen of South London with a small part in a British film almost certain, and goodness knew what to follow. She was confident of her ability, and that caused the trouble – at home as well as with Harold, no one had any faith in her.
She could see the greenish glow of the big main-road lights from the top of the hill. This was near the spot where she had talked with Harold. Down below, in a kind of hollow, it was very dark; the darkest stretch in the Common. She was always jittery when crossing here, and quickened her pace involuntarily. But her fears were subconscious, tonight; she walked on invisible, billowy clouds, and dreamed wonderful dreams of stardom, of film-star heroes and a film-star husband, of waving, cheering fans, of a triumphal return home to Telham and Hindle Street, and proud, humbled parents – perhaps with Harold Millsom kissing her gently on the cheeks and confessing that he had been wrong.
The faint glow of the green lamps was in the sky, and that was now the only light.
A sound pierced this dream world, and she missed a step.
Then she went on, more quickly, hands tightly clenched, heels digging into the springy turf. She didn’t look right or left, but went straight on. She had heard something, hadn’t she? Or had it been an owl? People said there was one here. She wouldn’t come here alone at night again, it was silly being scared just so as to save an extra twenty minutes’ walk the other way round. She just had to get up to the West End, the bright lights, the theatre district; she couldn’t bear being at home, hearing her father say that she wouldn’t come across a straighter young chap than Harold Millsom if she lived to be a hundred, and her mother calling her a stage-struck little fool whose pretty face would be her ruin.
She heard the sound again.
Someone – panting?
This time, she looked round, a swift, frightened glance. It was very dark, but she could see a pale white shape, not far away; the face of a man or woman.
And whoever it was came hurrying.
Running.
“No,” gasped Betty. “No, don’t—”
She began to run, too. Her high heels caught in the grass and she stumbled. The unknown pounded after her, much nearer, much louder, panting. She wanted to scream, but no sound would come from her throat. She ran on – on – on.
She reached the top of the second slope. Here the light was better, she could even see the green lamps and the yellow ones of the houses and the shops, she could see the shapes of roofs and the outline of trees. She was safe, or very near safety; she’d just been silly, needn’t have panicked. She need only run comfortably –
Her heel caught in the ground, and she pitched forward.
The fall didn’t hurt, but it brought terror back, terror which filled her mind and her body. She tried to scramble to her feet. Now she was panting, too, and the thudding of her heart drowned the sound that the pursuer was making, the pounding unknown creature.
She got to her knees.
A dark shape loomed over her.
“No!” she screamed. “No!”
Great fear welled up in her, terror paralysed her, even the single word coming from her lips was hoarse and gasping.
“No, no, no!”
Before she could see who it was, she felt hands at her throat, felt fingers biting into her flesh as fingers had bitten into her shoulders earlier. But these hurt more; these were squeezing into her throat, choking. She kicked and struck and fought with awful desperation, but the agonising pain stayed at her throat – and it was getting worse. Her lungs were bursting, she couldn’t breathe. She felt the burning pressure as the air tried to get out and as she fought to draw more in. But the fingers hurt more and more.
The lights faded, until there was only darkness.
A sharp, knife like pain shot across Betty’s breast. She knew that she was losing consciousness; a strange, pain-wracked darkness filled her head, it was as if someone were filling it with air, hissing and roaring; as if her head and her lungs would burst.
Then her thoughts and the pain she felt and the fear in her were all gathered together and lost in blackness.
Her assailant bent down, gripped her ankles, and dragged her away from the path, over the grass, towards the silent darkness of the bushes.
Chapter Two
Chief Inspector West
“Where is West?” asked Detective Inspector Turnbull.
“Doesn’t he ever show up before ten?”
“He was out late last night,” a detective sergeant said, tersely.
“What I can’t understand is why he always gets the plums,” Turnbull complained. “I was told that he had the Old Man in his pocket, now I know it’s true. If you keep in with Chatworth you can get away with murder in this place. It wants a bit of cleaning up, if you ask me.”
“No one,” said the sergeant, coldly, “is asking you.”
Turnbull made no further comment, but moved to Roger West’s desk, one of five in the large office, and sat down in Roger West’s chair. No one in the room told him that this was almost sacrilege. No one in the room would feel in the slightest degree sorry for Turnbull when West told him where to get off. Turnbull, by common consent at Scotland Yard, was riding for a fall. Few who knew him hoped it would be a light one.
True, he was a clever swine; if it weren’t for his conceit and his low opinion of nearly everyone else, he would be good for the Yard.
Now he sat at West’s desk, reading reports from MK Division, Telham, about the murder of a girl named Betty Gelibrand. Funny name, Gelibrand. ‘Attractive blonde’ said the Divisional report – and that would mean another holiday for the Press.
Turnbull read on …
The sergeant went out, and the two Chief Inspectors in the office studiously ignored Turnbull. The telephone on Roger’s desk rang.
Turnbull snatched up the receiver.
“Turnbull here … Oh, good morning, sir …” The change in his tone made both the C.I.s look up; and then glance at each other understandingly. “No, sir, he’s not in yet … I don’t think he’s in the building, sir … I will, the moment I can get hold of him, I won’t lose a moment.”
He rang off.
He looked at the profile of one C.I., a rugged profile; and the broad back of the other.
“That,” he announced, “was the great Sir Guy Chatworth himself, and he didn’t sound too pleased.”
Neither man answered.
Turnbull looked nastily at the profile and the back, then lifted the receiver again. He told the operator to let him know the moment that Chief Inspector West entered the building, before turning back to the report and the scanty oddments of information about Betty Gelibrand. Now and again he sniffed; when he’d finished reading, he took out a packet of Turkish cigarettes and lit one.
“Jim,” said one C.I. to the other, after a few minutes, “mind if I open a window?”
“I’ll help you,” growled the other.
Turnbull pretended to read on.
Two sergeants arrived within three minutes of each other, so there were five men in the office when the door opened and Roger West came in.
West had a way with him wherever he was, whatever he was doing, a kind of restrained briskness; giving an impression that he was anxious to get this particular job over and be tackling the next; yet he could be as patient as Cartwright, the Yard’s Job.
Two sergeants and two C.I.s looked up at West and secretly grinned, for they saw the way he glanced at his desk and Turnbull. But Turnbull didn’t notice. In spite of the open window, the smell of Turkish tobacco smoke was very strong. There was a look of anticipation among the four: this was where West would tear a strip off a subordinate who used his chair, read reports which were on his desk, and polluted the very air.
West, a broad six feet, dressed in a light-brown suit, with fair curly hair and good features justifying the Yard’s nickname of ‘Handsome,’ let his blue eyes flicker over the four, and then walked towards Turnbull. His smile of greeting died, he became poker-faced.
He reached the desk, casting a shadow. Turnbull glanced up and started with surprise, even appeared to feel a moment of discomfiture.
“Waiting for me?” asked West.
“Er—yes. Yes, brought this.” Turnbull stood up, slowly, and picked up the report. “Job out at Telham. Nineteen-year-old girl murdered. Strangled.” The moment of discomfiture past, Turnbull became just a detective with a Yard man’s dispassionate attitude towards facts and evidence. “Not a sex job, they say. She scratched the murderer—hands or face. According to the three different descriptions given by three different people out at MK, she was something to look at. A local Beauty Queen.”
“Oh,” said West.
Turnbull, while talking, had moved out of the way of West’s chair. West sat down. The other four, very busy about their own business, all showed disappointment in varying degrees. One could never tell how West would take a thing, but he shouldn’t let Turnbull put anything over him; it would make the Detective Inspector even more insufferable.
“Sir Guy wants you to go over to Telham,” Turnbull reported; “he’s been on the telephone for you several times.”
“I’ve just seen him,” West said, briefly. “You’re to come on this job with me.”
Turnbull’s eyes glistened.
“Oh, good. I—”
“It’ll be an exercise in logic and deduction, no doubt,” West said, “but don’t forget that people are involved, will you? Go easy on the parents.”
“Oh, to hell with the parents,” Turnbull said carelessly. “It’s the boy friend I’m interested in, a Harold Millsom.”
“Are you?” West looked at him levelly. “I hope he doesn’t disappoint you. Telephone MK and say we’re on our way. Then go and see if my car’s ready, will you? I had a bit of pump trouble on the way here. If the mechanics haven’t finished, we’ll use anything they can spare. Shouldn’t think we’ll need anything fast”
“We can use mine,” Turnbull offered eagerly. He had a high-powered Jaguar.
“No, thanks,” West said.
Turnbull obviously didn’t like that, but shrugged and turned away. The door closed behind him. West waved a hand in front of his face, dispersing smoke, glanced at the windows, lit a Virginia cigarette, and then began to look at the reports. He was reading them ten minutes later, when the telephone rang.
“Hallo? … Yes, Turnbull … I’ll be right down.”
He rang off.
“Handsome,” said the Chief Inspector with the rugged profile, “why the hell didn’t you tear a strip off him? He wants keeping down, or he’ll get unbearable.”
“Now could I keep a good man down?” asked West. His smile didn’t suggest that he had any kindly feeling towards Turnbull, but that was his only comment, “I’ll be seeing you. Urgent messages to MK.”
“O-kay,” the Rugged Profile grinned.
“Tell you what you can do for me,” West said, belatedly. “Turn up the files on murdered girls—unsolved jobs—in the past three months or so, will you? Lock ’em away from Mr. Turnbull!”
He went out.
He whistled softly as he walked along the wide, cold passages of the Yard, was taken down in the big lift, and walked down the stone steps into the courtyard. Turnbull was standing by the side of his, West’s, green Morris.
“Oh, good,” said West. “Hop in.”
The girl lay upon a stone slab in the cold, dimly lit morgue attached to the MK Divisional Headquarters. Outside, traffic bustled, but the sound hardly disturbed the stillness. The morgue keeper, with the indifference of long experience, switched on a second light over the girl’s face. “See better?” he asked West.
West and Turnbull stared at Betty Gelibrand.
“My,” said Turnbull, “someone’s going to lose some happy days and nights, she’s quite something.”
West looked at him sharply; then studied the bruises beneath the girl’s chin, some light, some dark, all evidence of the savagery which had been part of the murder. He moved Betty’s head and saw where the hair had been torn out, after catching in the bushes as she had been dragged under cover. He looked at the marks of ringers round the neat ankles.
“See that,” Turnbull said. “Two or three runs, but no torn threads. Know what that means?”
“What do you think it means?”
“Why, it’s as plain as the nose on your face. Smooth hands, office worker—not manual, anyhow.” Turnbull was just the machine again. “Probably got the nails trimmed very close, might even be a nail biter. I mean, you try grabbing the girl round the ankles.” He pushed past West, grabbed, and demonstrated; the body might have been a plaster model. “Difficult to keep your nails off the stockings, and when you pull, you kind of drag so that the nails would almost certainly break the nylon and leave a lot of frayed ends. But they didn’t. She’s all of ten stone, meaty little filly, but—”
“He could have worn gloves,” West said, without any change of expression.
“Gloves and a grip like that?” Turnbull pointed to the bruises on the throat. “You don’t think so any more than I do.” He sniffed. “It was a warm night, too. Well, not much more we can do here, is there?”
There wasn’t.
They spent another half-hour in the office upstairs, looking at photographs, hearing about the girl’s parents, her crowning as the Beauty Queen of South London, her hopes and plans, her boy friend Harold Millsom, and a few other odds and ends which the Divisional people thought important and Turnbull obviously didn’t. Then they drove to the Common, which was small, little more than a park without gates and fences.
It was fresh and green, for there had been a lot of rain that May, and this was early June. The trees were in full leaf. Several clumps of rhododendron glowed pink, purple, and bright red in the warm sun. A crowd surged about the bushes and the nearer trees, and the police had roped off a semicircle which included the flowering shrubs. Six uniformed policemen stood guard, and a hundred people, several of them women with young children, gaped at the plainclothes police who were near the lovely flowers which had hidden death.
About all this, the birds sang and flitted; and there was the hum of insects, the unflustered seeking of bees.
West stepped over the rope; Turnbull followed. They saw where the body had been left – where the girl might have stayed for hours, even days, but for a frisky dog and an elderly man who had wondered where the dog had found a handkerchief …
They saw the tracks made when she had been dragged along; and hair was clinging to thorny brambles and small hawthorn bushes.
“If you don’t mind me saying so,” Turnbull said with ill-concealed impatience, “I think it’s time we talked to this boy friend, Millsom. She’d won this Beauty Queen title, small wonder when you think of her face and figure, and she wouldn’t have much time for a plodding Harold after that, would she?”
“She might not,” West temporised.
Turnbull obviously had to fight to keep calm.
“We don’t want the chap to do a flit, do we?”
“Don’t we?” For the first time, West’s eyes smiled faintly. “Wouldn’t that point the accusing finger?”
“You know what I mean,” said Turnbull. “The killer’s a dangerous type; if it is this Millsom, it would be better to know where he is.”
“We’ll go and see him, soon,” West agreed. “In fact—”
He broke off, as one of the policemen at the cordon moved away from a man who had been talking and gesticulating wildly, and came towards him. “Forget it,” West added, and went to meet the policeman.
He looked past him towards the man who had been talking and waving his arms about. He was young, and really something to see. A badly swollen mouth, one eye closed up, a cut over the other eye, and a swollen ear, all told their story. Beneath it all was a lean neck and a busy Adam’s apple.
The constable saluted.
“Excuse me, sir, there’s a man here says that he can give you some information.”
“Do you know him?”
“Well, I do and I don’t,” said the constable; “He’s a chap named Carter. Tick Carter.” The constable didn’t actually sneer, but went very close, and so managed to create exactly the impression he wanted to. “He’s been around here for years, sir. He says—”
Tick Carter suddenly vaulted over the rope, and hurried towards them at an ungainly gait.
“I tell you I know who it was!” he shouted, as if he were calling through a reed pipe. “It was that swine Millsom! They had a hell of a row here last night. One hell of a row and—and he nearly killed me, too. Look at my face. Look—”
“Take it easy, take it easy,” boomed the constable, and stemmed the flow of words long enough to give Turnbull a chance to say: “What did I tell you? I can smell ’em!”
“If I were you, I’d keep my voice down a bit,” West said to the gangling Tick Carter. “Now, tell us all about it.”
Turnbull already had a notebook and pencil out; his pencil sped, keeping pace with the rush of words, and his face held a look of almost gloating satisfaction.
Ten minutes later, West, Turnbull, and an MK man left for the shop where Millsom worked, in Telham High Street. Ten minutes later still, they discovered that he hadn’t shown up that morning.
He had lodgings near by, and his landlady was worried because he hadn’t been home all night.
