The Doorway to Death Read online

  It was absurd, of course; the woman reminded her of Lorna Morne, and the description fitted Michael.

  She must forget it.

  Chapter Three

  Work For West

  Chief Inspector Roger West of New Scotland Yard turned over the several photographs of the dead woman, some of them taken in life and found at her flat, some of them taken after death. No art studio could have done these better. West put three of them aside, and as he did so, the Chief Inspector sitting at the next desk looked across and grinned.

  “Feeling sorry you didn’t know her before she died?”

  West kept a straight face.

  “If I had I’d know her friends, and probably the one who did this,” he said.

  The C.I. grimaced. “Handsome West, always on the ball! I ought to have known. Got anything yet?”

  “Only this cyclist,” said West. “I don’t know how much notice to take of that yet.” He tapped a small sheaf of papers on his desk, all reports from the detectives who had been working in Page Street, Elwell, since the discovery of the murder, at seven o’clock that morning. “It’s nearly always the same: neighbours go deaf, dumb and blind when you want anything on a murder job. Only three admit noticing anyone. Two, including a woman in the downstairs flat at the house, saw the cyclist. One says she also saw a fattish, elderly man go into the house. One of the Divisional coppers saw the cyclist, but doesn’t mention the fattish chap. Sooner we talk to the copper the better.”

  “Know anything about the dead woman?” The other C.I. was looking at the photographs.

  “Her name was Rose Jensen, known as Miss, but there are one or two small callouses on the wedding-ring finger. She’d worn a ring there for a long time. She moved to Page Street in the winter, January or February, taking the upstairs flat. It’s self-contained. Haven’t found out where she worked. She kept herself to herself, as the neighbours say, and they didn’t want it any other way. As it was, some said they didn’t like the tone of the neighbourhood being lowered.”

  “By Rose’s men friends?”

  “Yep.”

  “Many?”

  “A fair variety,” Roger said. “Looks as if there were enough to make it pretty obvious what she did. She didn’t go out to work regularly, but did a lot of tapestry work and sold it through one or two West End shops, too. Earned a bit, and had a fair income from Government stocks and a few industrials.”

  “Just wanted to earn pin money in the evenings,” the other C.I. remarked. Then his telephone bell rang, and he lifted the receiver quickly. “Carter speaking …”

  Roger sifted through the reports.

  There were sixty-two houses in Page Street, and nearly half of them were divided into two flats. So the police had made more than a hundred calls that morning, with comparatively little to show for it.

  Most of the neighbours had been out, or else in their own back gardens. Elwell was a neighbourhood where the front room was still the parlour, kept for week-ends and special occasions.

  West picked up the report from Fingerprints. Rose Jensen’s prints had been everywhere in the flat, and there were three others which could be photographed, but none of these was in Records. The curious thing about the situation was that no papers at the flat gave any indication about the woman’s past; there were no letters, and not a single name and address except her bank. The bank manager knew her as a model customer, that was all.

  West finished his study, made one or two notes, and then turned to other cases on his desk. It was half an hour before the telephone bell rang.

  “West speaking.”

  “Good morning, sir. Colonel Jay would like to see you.”

  “I’ll come along at once.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  West put down the receiver, but didn’t get up immediately. Carter, the only other C.I. present out of the five who shared this large office, glanced across at him as if sensing trouble. The sunlight, striking through an open window, caught West’s fair hair, a colour which concealed the increasing grey in it and made him look much younger than his forty-two years. He wasn’t called ‘Handsome’ for nothing.

  “Jay?” Carter asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you can’t expect ’em all to eat out of your hand, can you?”

  “No, I can’t can I?” Roger said, and stood up quickly. His grin concealed the surge of irritation he felt at Carter’s remark. It wasn’t the first of its kind, and it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously, yet it stung. Until a few months ago, Roger had probably had the best prospects of any man at the Yard, with the whole-hearted support and liking of the then Assistant Commissioner for Crime, Sir Guy Chatworth. Over the years, he had grown used to being dubbed Chatworth’s white-haired boy. Why not? He hadn’t given it much thought then, but Chatworth had retired through illness, and soon afterwards a tartness had crept into the voices of some of the other C.I.D. men.

  Was it true to say that Carter was ‘tart’?

  If he was, could he be blamed?

  He was nearing fifty, and had only just been promoted to his present rank. Roger, at forty, had been a C.I. for several years. He hadn’t noticed it at the time, or hadn’t given it much thought, but since Chatworth had gone, he had realised how many older men in the Criminal Investigation Department’s service had been passed over for him and other younger men.

  Now Colonel Jay was in Chatworth’s place.

  No one yet knew how to take Jay. There had been some annoyance and perhaps resentment among the senior men who had hoped to step into Chatworth’s shoes, for Jay had been brought in from outside, with no intimate knowledge of the Yard. There had been talk of a new broom; hints and suggestions that Chatworth’s regime had been too soft, that Chatworth had been too friendly with the senior staff, implications that he had been much too friendly with one or two. If one tried to look at this from the point of view of the Commissioner, it made sense. Results had been good, but if in fact Chatworth had had favourites, it was easy to see that the Commissioner might feel that he ought to bring someone in from outside, and make sure that everyone started from scratch.

  None of this greatly worried Roger, but he didn’t like the implication that he was a senior C.I. because of Chatworth’s influence and friendship, and not because of his qualities and qualifications. It had never been voiced, but Carter’s “Well, you can’t expect ’em all to eat out of your hand, can you?” had stabbed. A lot of remarks like it stabbed.

  Roger didn’t look round, but was aware that Carter was looking up at him from under his brows as he went out. No one was in the corridor, and his footsteps echoed. He wished he could shake off the feeling of annoyance and irritation, but it was stronger than ever when he reached the A.C.’s office on the floor above. He found himself smiling wryly, for he felt now as many had felt when tapping at Chatworth’s door. Chatworth had scared the lights out of a lot of men, even seniors who should have known better. Perhaps it was only a question of getting to know Jay, too.

  Jay had a different secretary from Chatworth, whose secretary had been Big Sister to many Yard men. This one was younger, in the early thirties. She wasn’t bad-looking, her manner was a little too sweet, and it was difficult to be sure that she wasn’t two-faced.

  “Good morning, Mr. West.”

  “Morning, Miss Foster.”

  “I’ll tell the Colonel you’re here.”

  “Thanks,” said Roger. He watched her as she picked up the telephone, listened as she passed on the information primly. Then she said: “Very good, sir,” and put down the receiver.

  “The Colonel won’t keep you many minutes, Mr. West.”

  “Thanks,” Roger said again, and moved towards the window. It overlooked the Embankment, and on a summer’s morning, that was quite something to see. There wasn’t a ripple on the surface of the Thames, except the wake of two pleasure-steamers on the way upstream, their gaily coloured awnings vivid, their decks crammed with people. Westminster Bridge looked as if it would s
tay there another two hundred years. Traffic on the bridge and the Embankment was very thick. Little groups of tourists were standing opposite, and taking pictures of Scotland Yard.

  Roger expected the telephone or other bell to ring, as a summons. It didn’t. After several minutes, he turned to look at Miss Foster, and was startled to see Colonel Jay standing in the doorway between the two offices. Jay’s opening of the door must have caught his attention, although he hadn’t consciously heard it. He could not fail to see that Jay was studying him. Critically?

  There was a moment’s awkward pause, and then Roger said: “Good morning, sir.”

  “Good morning, West. Come in, will you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  There couldn’t be much good in this kind of formality.

  The A.C.’s office had changed, too. Chatworth had favoured chromium and glass, Jay was more conventional, and the Office of Works had been quite willing to switch the furniture round. Chatworth’s was now in the Yard’s secretarial offices. The dark oak here made the room seem smaller than it had been, even dimmed the brightness of the morning. There was Jay’s green swivel armchair behind the desk, another armchair in front of it, and two or three high-backs.

  “Pull up a chair, and sit down,” Jay said.

  “Thank you.”

  “West,” began Colonel Jay, without preamble, “will you give me your considered opinion as to the degree of success that we at the Yard achieve against major criminals?”

  He had a rather precise, military voice, almost remote; there was obviously a danger that he was a humourless man. To look at, he was not exceptional; his regular features were perhaps a little small, his greying hair was cut very short at the back and sides, and rather crimped on top. He had a weathered complexion and very clear grey eyes; any one suit of Chatworth’s would have made two for Colonel Jay, whose waistline was actually concave. He wore tweeds which were cut to fit very tightly, almost moulding the outline of his figure.

  Obviously, this was to be a kind of test.

  “I think I’d like the question qualified, sir,” Roger said.

  “Oh? How?”

  “By ‘major criminals’ do you mean professionals who go in for the big stuff, or normally law-abiding individuals who’ve committed major crimes?”

  Was that being ‘smart’? It was impossible to judge Jay’s reaction, there was nothing at all to go by.

  “What is your considered opinion on each?”

  “I think we get nearly a hundred per cent of the professionals,” Roger answered quietly. “I don’t know of many who haven’t been inside and aren’t likely to go again. There are one or two who’ve kept out of our hands, usually because we can’t get evidence, but they’ll slip up one day. If we’re thinking of professional crooks after they’ve committed the crime, I don’t think we can ask for much more, sir. We’re a long way behind in methods of prevention, though, and we’d need twice as many men in the uniformed branch to get on top of that.” Roger spoke with great deliberation; at least Jay would understand that he’d given this thought. “It’s difficult to assess success against the ordinary citizen who commits an isolated crime and hopes to get away with it. I would say that some of the crimes committed are never discovered. Of those that are discovered, we get a fair proportion of convictions.”

  “Are you satisfied with that proportion?”

  “Not by any means, sir.”

  “What proportion of major thefts are unsolved, for instance?”

  “About fifty per cent,” Roger replied.

  “That’s very high.”

  “It’s much too high.”

  “How do you account for it?”

  “Delay in discovering the crime is probably the largest single factor, sir.”

  “What are the other important factors?”

  There was a catch here, but Roger didn’t see what it was. These were all partly trick questions. He couldn’t recall anyone else reporting a catechism like this from Jay, so he had been selected for special treatment.

  “Two main ones, I’d say, sir. The first is the ingenuity of the criminal, the other is the difficulty of getting witnesses. Once they know that their evidence is wanted in a big case, they hesitate and often want to back out. It isn’t much use subpoenaing an unwilling witness. They don’t like the responsibility, and are difficult in court.”

  “And is that all?”

  “There’s another factor which is pretty general in all jobs.”

  “What have you in mind?”

  Roger said very cautiously: “The human factor, sir. We make mistakes. I can recall at least two occasions in the past where I have made serious ones, one simply because I didn’t see the right angle until too late, the other because at the time I’d been working for forty-eight hours straight, and was too tired.”

  “Ah,” said Jay, perhaps a little more softly. “Wouldn’t it have been wise to have handed over to someone else until you had some rest?”

  “Very wise.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “No one else was qualified to handle that particular investigation.”

  “Were you sure about that, or was it a question of preferring to handle the case yourself, West?”

  At least he had come out into the open now; was deliberately needling Roger, implying that he’d kept going on a case longer than he should because he wanted the satisfaction and perhaps the glory of catching his man, Roger’s immediate problem became acute. Should he let Jay see that he realised what this was all about, or should he play dumb? The one thing he mustn’t do was show annoyance. Nor must he point out that Chatworth had found nothing to complain about in these particular cases.

  “It’s very difficult to be sure when you are too tired to work properly,” Roger said carefully. “We get used to working for long stretches and at high pressure, and usually keep going for as long as we can. If you mean, did I prefer to handle it rather than bring in someone else – no, sir.”

  “What case was this?”

  “The Fortescue murder, three years ago.”

  “The Fortescue murder, yes.” Jay paused. “Give me another considered opinion, West.”

  “On what subject, sir?”

  “Do you think there is any weakness in our organisation, apart from shortage of manpower in certain branches? Weaknesses in training, for instance, or of concentrating too much in the hands of any one person or group of individuals.”

  “On the contrary, sir.”

  “I don’t quite understand you.”

  “If anything, I would say that there isn’t sufficient concentration.”

  “Give me an example.”

  “On my desk at the moment there are reports on seven different cases, all pending. It would be very much more satisfactory if I could concentrate on one or two. I know it isn’t always possible, and that’s an organisational weakness. Whether other weaknesses would develop if we were able to concentrate more, I don’t know.”

  “I see,” said Jay, and there was an edge of sarcasm in his tone. “Is there any one particular case on which you would like to concentrate at the moment?”

  “The new cases always seem more attractive than the old ones, sir.”

  “You mean, the Rose Jensen murder.”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you formed any conclusions?”

  “None at all,” Roger said bluntly. “I haven’t even seen the body or the scene of the crime, only studied the reports which were on my desk with a note from Superintendent Cortland.”

  “On my instructions,” Jay said, and moved his chair back and stood up. “I want you to concentrate on the Jensen case. You may pass on all other matters, through Superintendent Cortland, and work exclusively on this. I should like a day-to-day report on your progress.”

  “Written, sir?”

  “No. Verbal.”

  “Very well, sir,” Roger said, already standing up. “Is there anything else?”

  “Not now,” said Colonel Jay, an
d nodded dismissal. He didn’t speak again until Roger was at the door, when he said: “You’ll look for that cyclist first, won’t you?”

  “I’ll look for the cyclist,” Roger said expressionlessly. “Good morning, sir.” He went out and closed the door, stalked towards the landing and the stairs, his face set very hard, and as he reached the head of the stairs he said explosively: “I’ll have that cyclist before the day’s out if I have to question a thousand cyclists myself!”

  Later, he realised the worst thing was that he couldn’t laugh at himself, after saying that. At the time, he meant it. Finding the cyclist of Page Street had become all-important; the elderly man was almost secondary in his mind.

  He himself was on trial.

  Chapter Four

  High Pressure

  Carter wasn’t in the office when Roger got back. Bill Sloan, also newly promoted, one of Roger’s cronies and also a ‘favourite’ of Chatworth, was there, together with an old-timer, Eddie Day. Eddie, a Cockney, was the Yard’s expert on forgery, but had never reached superintendent’s rank, a fact which he sometimes blamed on to favouritism. He had a pointed nose, a receding chin and prominent, yellowish teeth, which seemed more protuberant than they really were because he often breathed through his mouth. Now he was studying a cheque through a magnifying glass; it was one of his boasts that he could get results through a glass which others wouldn’t get when using infra red.

  Both men looked up, and stopped what they were doing when they saw Roger.

  Sloan didn’t speak.

  “Wot’s ’appened, ’Andsome?” demanded Eddie. “Lost a fortune?”

  “Probably lost my stripes,” Roger said, deciding that it was better to come out with it, for Eddie would soon suspect the truth. “I’ve learned that the A.C. has definite ideas of his own.”

  “Time we had an A.C. like that,” Eddie said. He had made similar cracks, but seldom succeeded in annoying Roger; this one annoyed him.

  Roger said: “Well, we’ve got one. Better brush up your Gross on Criminal Investigation, Eddie, you might find yourself under cross-examination.”