‘That’s the kind of thing you’re supposed to know!’ said Sir Nevil reprovingly. ‘I’ll have to help you. One of the founding fathers or perhaps I should say founding mothers of the Women’s Royal Naval Service. The Wrens. Alarmingly distinguished but formidable nuisance if you ask me. And evidently somebody must have thought likewise because she’s just been murdered. In the Ritz! Can’t tell you what a hoo-ha there’ll be when the news gets out. Many thought the damn woman was God. Or Florence Nightingale. Or Boadicea or some other heroine of our Rough Island Story, with a wide following – mostly of silly girls – silly old fools too (many of them in the Admiralty), stretching from here to Portsmouth. I spoke to the manager just now and, I can tell you, they’re not giving a damn for Dame Beatrice – all they want is no publicity. I told them I was sending my best chap. Discretion guaranteed. Right, Joe? I’m handing this over to you and we’ll talk about it in the morning. As luck – or good management – would have it, we’ve got a chap in place already. A detective sergeant. You can liaise with him. Um . . .’
There was a pause while Sir Nevil, Joe guessed, rustled through his notes. ‘You’re not obliged, of course, to make any further use of this chap once you’ve taken his statement. I mean – feel free to pick your own team, what!’ A further pause. ‘In fact, there seems to be, perhaps I ought to tell you, something of a question mark against his name. May be nothing . . . Anyway, I’ve arranged for an inspector and some uniformed support for you and I suppose you’d better have a police surgeon . . . oh, and one of those photography fellows you’re so keen on. . . . Won’t be long before the place is swarming with reporters so I suggest you get dressed and go on down there.’
‘I am dressed. I’d only just got home.’
‘Only just got home! Some people live for pleasure alone! If you were any good at your job you’d get an early night occasionally. Oh, and Joe, what was the name of that young woman . . . Millicent something or other . . . Millicent Westwood?’
By a mighty effort Joe deduced that he was referring to Mathilda. Mathilda Westhorpe was a woman police constable. She’d worked with him on a recent job and had obviously impressed Sir Nevil. She’d impressed Joe too. Sir Nevil was not easily impressed but, almost alone of the higher echelons of Scotland Yard, he was at this time tremendously in favour of the women police and during his recent spell as Commissioner had, whilst trimming their numbers, managed to establish them as a regular arm of the force.
‘I mean,’ he continued, ‘if you’re going to find yourself searching through this lady’s drawers you ought to have a little female back-up.’
‘Searching through her drawers? It may conceivably come to that but I wouldn’t think of starting there –’
Impatiently: ‘Searching through her things, I mean, and to spell it all out for you since you seem somewhat obtuse at this time of the morning, searching through her effects – jewellery, furs and the like. Female things. This is a scene of crime. It would be the usual thing to do. I’m suggesting you’ll need a little female assistance – that’s what they’re there for after all – to save your blushes. Might as well make proper use of these gels as we seem to have got them. Are you beginning to understand me?’
Tilly Westhorpe had been seconded to Joe’s unit and, the more he thought about it, the more he thought her caustic and irreverent common sense would be valuable, to say nothing of her drawer-searching skills. Joe rang her at home, a number in Mayfair. A fashionable area but that was no surprise. Sir Nevil’s recruiting methods were aimed, as he put it, at girls ‘of a certain position’. At this time of night she wouldn’t be able to get to the Ritz in a hurry . . . it probably took her an hour to struggle into the uniform. And there was always the possibility that her parents wouldn’t let her out at night by herself.
A carefully enunciating voice answered, a male voice which managed, though remaining impeccably correct, to convey suspicion, disapproval and surprise that a gentleman should be calling at that hour. Miss Mathilda was not at home and, no, he was not at liberty to tell Joe when she was expected to return. Joe left a message that she was to contact him at the Ritz as soon as she was able. The voice took on several more degrees of frost and assured him that the message would be passed at the earliest convenient moment. Joe was left in no possible doubt that this moment might arise round about teatime the next day.