Death of a Beauty Queen (11 page)

‘There, now then,' Penfold cried, quite excitedly. ‘Just what I said myself – they know, the two of them.'

‘Very likely,' agreed Mitchell. ‘Only what? And how much?' He looked at his watch. ‘Not much chance of bed,' he sighed. ‘It's nearly three, and a bit late for a call. Still, I think I would like a chat with this gentleman who's so sure he has nothing to say. You didn't see the young man, Leslie Irwin, did you?' he added, to Penfold.

‘No, he didn't show himself,' Penfold answered. ‘I asked if he was in, and the old man said he was in bed, and I left it at that. You can't,' he protested indignantly, ‘do much with a man you can't get a word from, except that he has nothing to say.'

‘Holding your tongue does make things difficult,' observed Mitchell. ‘Lucky for us so few people can manage it. What did you think of Mr Irwin?'

‘Jiggered,' answered Penfold slowly, ‘jiggered if I know. He is the sort you would always look at twice and wonder who he was. Under fifty, I should say, and well-preserved at that, very tall and thin, with a thin face and a big nose, and eyes that – well, that seem to see things, if you know what I mean. Mouth tight shut all the time – even when he speaks he hardly opens it, though the words come out clear enough. Black hair, rather long, a little thin on top, but not a sign of grey hair. Close beard. Very neat and precise. Gives you the idea he's watching all the time, only you don't know what, but all the same he's ready. He makes you think of a Mills bomb that might go off sudden if you weren't careful.'

‘Sounds as if he were going to be difficult,' Mitchell mused. ‘Very difficult. We had better go and see him, anyhow. Perhaps he may be more reasonable now he's had time to think a bit.'

He led the way into the corridor outside. There were still a number of people hanging about, whispering, awestruck, in corners, or unable to tear themselves from the fascination the scene of so strange and terrible a tragedy exercised upon them. There were still newspaper men, too, waiting in the hope of some further crumb of information they could pick up and announce in enormous letters as, ‘Exclusive to Us,' or, anyhow, as ‘Amazing Development.' They swooped down on Mitchell the moment he appeared, but long experience had taught him the technique for dealing with them. Pacified with the assurance that important clues were being closely studied, and that a successful issue to the investigation was confidently anticipated, the newspaper men departed, and Mitchell, having given Ferris a few instructions and assured himself a constable was in position at the door of the room where the attack had taken place, so as to guard against any risk of disturbance, went out, with Penfold and Bobby, to the waiting car.

* Headquarters,' he ordered, in a loud voice, for the benefit of any lurking, listening reporter, but the chauffeur knew that phrase was really an indication to him to stop presently for further orders.

Round a corner or two, and well out of sight, he slackened speed accordingly, and Mitchell gave him the Irwin address.

It was not far, and the house proved to be a fair-sized, old-fashioned-looking residence standing by itself in a large garden. In one window above the front door a light still shone, but the rest of the house was in darkness.

‘Someone awake, anyhow,' Bobby remarked.

‘Probably they've been expecting us,' Mitchell said. ‘I doubt if there's been much sleep there to-night.'

‘The fight only shows in one window,' observed Penfold.

‘The son probably,' Mitchell suggested. ‘If the father's waiting for us, he's waiting in the dark. Well, we're in the dark, too. Better knock, Owen.'

Bobby obeyed, and this time, within a minute or two, a light went up in the hall. The door opened, and on the threshold appeared the figure of a man, strangely tall and thin between the darkness of the night and the lighted hall behind. He was wearing a dressing-gown and pyjamas, and his bare feet were in bedroom slippers. He said coldly:

‘You have come back, then. It was quite unnecessary. I have nothing to say. Could you not wait till the morning?'

‘Death did not wait for the girl who has been murdered to-night,' Mitchell answered gravely.

‘I suppose you want to come in?' the other said, after a pause. ‘But I tell you again, I have nothing to say.'

He led them into the dining-room; an apartment well, and indeed comfortably, furnished, though in the somewhat heavy Victorian style modern taste is apt to find oppressive. The atmosphere of the room was chill and a little damp, as though it were not much used, and everything was not only in its place, but looked as though in no circumstances would it ever dare to be otherwise. Even the droop of the curtains before the window seemed depressed and sad, as if hiding melancholy things, and a text prominent upon the wall above the empty fireplace, ‘The Lord Watcheth,' seemed meant for a warning and a threat rather than as a promise of protection and comfort.

Mr Irwin, with a silent gesture, invited his visitors to seat themselves, and himself took his place in an armchair at the head of the long, solid mahogany table.

No one spoke. Mr Irwin waited, calm, impassive, grim, almost as if he had forgotten their presence. Yet his eyes were bright with a kind of burning watchfulness. For a man may control with absolute command every nerve and muscle in his body but never his eyes, where shines his soul. Penfold and Bobby waited for their senior officer. But Mitchell waited, too, for he knew that, so strong and strange a thing is silence, few of the light and chattering race of man can endure it for long. But plainly Paul Irwin was of the few, and Mitchell understood that he would sit there indefinitely with his impassive features and his burning eyes. Mitchell said:

‘I take it, Mr Irwin, you are aware that murder has been done to-night in the Brush Hill Central Cinema?'

The old man gave no sign that he had even heard, except, indeed, that he changed the direction of his fierce watchful gaze and fixed it upon Mitchell.

‘The victim is named Caroline Means,' Mitchell went on. ‘I understand she was known to you and to your son, Leslie Irwin.' He paused, but he might have been addressing a dead man or one totally deaf for all the impression his words seemed to have made. Mitchell continued: ‘In the room where the murder was committed, a hat, believed to be yours, was found.'

Still there was no reply; not so much as a quivering eyelid revealed that what had been said had been heard. Mitchell waited while, as it seemed to Bobby, interminable minutes passed. Then he said:

‘I think you heard me. May I request a reply?'

‘You have said nothing that calls for a reply,' Mr Irwin answered then, as impassive as before. ‘You have made two statements. I do not challenge either. I have nothing to say.'

‘I believe you are a solicitor, Mr Irwin,' Mitchell said. ‘May I remind you that a solicitor is himself in some sort an officer of the King's justice, and has duties to perform – more so even than the ordinary citizen, who also has a duty to assist the police.'

But to this there was still no reply, only that fixed, unwavering, unchanging gaze that yet seemed somehow to tell of a tumult of fears and passions and desires held tremendously in check.

Mitchell got to his feet.

‘You are also a man,' he said. ‘Murder has been done to-night – murder on a woman – a young girl. Do you refuse me your assistance?'

I have nothing to say,' answered Irwin, each word, so to speak, throbbing with an intensity of suppressed emotion, yet an emotion of which there was still no least, outward sign.

‘I think I must remind you,' Mitchell said formally, ‘that your adoption of such an attitude gives rise, naturally, to the gravest misgivings.'

‘His hat there, and him seen near the door as well,' mumbled Penfold, even discipline unable to keep him silent longer or control his indignation.

To Mitchell it seemed that at this remark of Penfold's old Mr Irwin's tense expression wavered for an instant, into a momentary relief, only to harden again at once into immobility again. Swiftly Mitchell flashed another question.

‘Do you agree,' he asked, ‘that your son, Leslie Irwin, was seen leaving Miss Mears's room during the evening, that immediately afterwards he left the cinema, and that you followed him?'

This time Mitchell succeeded in obtaining an answer other than the perpetual ‘I have nothing to say,' that hitherto had been Mr Irwin's sole response.

‘Who told you that?' he asked. ‘Mr Sargent, I suppose? If you ask him again, and if he answers truly, he will agree that, at the time, he both said and thought that Leslie was only in the act of opening the door to enter the room. Also he will agree that when my son saw us he closed it again without going in, or even looking in, and after that he immediately returned home.'

‘Did you follow him?' Mitchell asked quickly.

But again Mr Irwin, as if regretting his outbreak, fell back upon his formula of ‘I have nothing to say,' and, recognizing the uselessness of continuing, Mitchell said:

‘I think your son, Leslie Irwin, is in the house and awake. Can we see him?'

‘He is in the house, I believe. I do not know whether he is awake,' Mr Irwin answered. ‘There is nothing that I know of to prevent you from seeing him. If you call to him up the stairs, I think it likely he will hear you.'

Mitchell thought so, too. He thought it likely the young man, who must have heard their arrival, was not only awake but listening. He muttered an order to Bobby, who left the room for the hall, and at the bottom of the stairs called softly:

‘Is Mr Leslie Irwin there? If so, will he please come down?'

That the young man had been waiting and listening was evident, for at once he appeared, coming with a quick, hurried nervousness down the stairs and across to the diningroom, the door whereof Bobby was holding open for him.

Like his father he was tall and of slender build, and in feature he bore him a strong resemblance, though a resemblance curiously softened. It was as though Nature, in taking the elder man for a model had wished to introduce an element of beauty, but had been able to do so only at the cost of introducing also weakness and indecision. The bright, fierce steady eyes of the father were equally bright in the son, but with a soft and gentle, almost timid, brightness, and were veiled by exquisitely long and curling lashes. The nose, equally well-shaped, had lost its aggressiveness. The mouth, in the older man set in such hard, straight lines, showed in the younger yielding curves above a dimpled and receding chin that was almost ludicrously different from old Mr Irwin's; square, determined, and forward thrusting. None the less the likeness was very marked, and if the boy showed none of his parent's grimly resolute air, as of one who would yield not even in trifles, yet still Leslie did somehow in his manner suggest an innate wilfulness, and even obstinacy, that told he would not readily give up anything he wanted. Possibly the essential difference between them was, however, that what the father willed he would always will till he had achieved, but the son's will would be much more fluid, various, and changeable.

And Mitchell thought to himself that the strain they only too plainly both endured showed itself characteristically in each: in the father by a grim and almost sullen silence and watchfulness, in the son by the haggard, worn expression of his features, and in a redness and inflammation of the eyes that suggested recent tears.

It was on Leslie, as he came into the room, that both Penfold and Bobby concentrated their attention, trying to form an estimate of his character, and noting his distressed and haggard look and the extreme nervousness he seemed to show. But Mitchell chiefly watched Paul, and how a glow of tenderness and love and pity seemed for an instant to transform his features, melting momentarily through the mask of his impassivity and then vanishing again.

‘Come in, Leslie, my son,' he said, but so softly it is doubtful whether any of them but Mitchell heard him.

Leslie did not. His father's words went, for him, unheard. He stood in the doorway, facing them, for Bobby had gone back to his place and his notebook. Leslie looked at the three police officers in turn with a kind of angry defiance, clenching his fists, squaring his shoulders a little, as if he would have liked to fling himself on all three of them in physical conflict. He stared across at his father with a mingled expression of dread and challenge of which Mitchell could understand nothing. He had seen a man in the dock look at the judge on the bench like that, dreading him, and yet defiant of all he could do. Very loudly, but not too steadily, Leslie said:

‘I don't care what you think. I didn't do it.'

The words sounded clear and strange in the heaviness of that oppressive room. No one answered, and Mitchell, watching Paul Irwin closely, and seeing that he allowed no sign to show on his impassive, unmoved countenance that he had even heard his son, thought it certain that all this had been discussed between them previously – that the unchanging features of the elder man, the reddened eyes and twitching nervous mouth of the younger, both testified to some scene of high emotion that had recently taken place between them.

‘They knew,' Mitchell thought. ‘How did they know?'

At the same moment Bobby leaned across to him, and whispered:

‘They've been talking it over. They've been getting ready for us.'

Mitchell nodded, and Leslie left his place by the door and flung himself down in an empty chair near the fireplace. He said:

‘Well, now then.'

‘Mr Irwin,' Mitchell said to him. ‘No one has accused you–'

‘What's the use of talking like that?' Leslie snarled, interrupting. ‘When a lot of bobbies turn up after... after – My God!' – he broke off into a kind of low wail – ‘it's awful... awful.'