A Scream in Soho (6 page)

Chapter VIII

The Inspector Sustains a Shock!

The body which McCarthy found stretched out fully dressed upon a slab in the mortuary when, at last, he managed to make his way to that charnel house, undoubtedly bore out the description given to it by the inspector at Golders Green as suggesting that of a woman of a certain social position and, certainly, affluent circumstances.

He found it already in charge of the divisional-surgeon who, marvellous to relate, was accepting this most recent call upon him quite cheerfully; indeed, seemed rather bucked about it than otherwise. The Assistant Commissioner, he thought, must have buttered the medical gentleman well and truly when he rang him, to have this effect upon his usually anything but philosophic nature.

A glance into the little office room wherein the mortuary-keeper kept the belongings, carefully parcelled and tabulated, of those unfortunate enough to be brought into this gloomy bourne showed him that “Danny the Dip” had been forwarded on along with the cadaver, and was seated in a chair looking very much as though he were but half awake from a heavy dope sleep. Indeed, he stared at the inspector as though he scarcely recognized him.

“Can you give that chap a shot of anything that will fully awaken his faculties, Doc?” he asked quietly.

“I can,” the medical man answered with a doubtful glance at the dishevelled-looking, bloodstained figure of the pickpocket. “But if you want to get anything out of him immediately, I'd suggest a hot, strong cup of tea will have quicker results. He's had an injection of one of the barbituary drugs by the look of him. Morphine or heroin, I'd say.”

McCarthy glanced at the mortuary-keeper. “Can you manage it, do y' think?”

That worthy nodded affirmatively. There were not many for whom he would have put himself to any trouble at that hour of the morning, but Inspector McCarthy was an especial favourite of his. The D.S. could have asked for it till his tongue withered without moving the burly official.

“'Tis aisy, Inspector,” he said, in his strong Hibernian brogue. “I'll stick a kittle on me little oil stove.” He bent a huge head towards the inspector and cast a glance back towards the vacant-looking Regan. “Have ye noticed th' state his clothes are in?” he whispered. “'Tis blood he is fr'm head to foot. He never got it from that dab on the nut, and he doesn't seem to be hurrted anny other place.”

“So the inspector at Golders Green informed me,” McCarthy responded, with a worried look towards his late assistant. “We'll go into that later, when he's in better shape. Load him up with tea, hot and strong.”

“I'll pour a pint of it into him, boilin', before he's five minutes older,” the mortuary-keeper assured him. “An' if that don't do the thrick, I'll pour another.”

With this assurance McCarthy turned towards the female body upon the slab.

That she had been a handsome and certainly perfectly gowned woman but a few short hours ago there was no doubt, nor had the inspector at Golders Green been far out when he had said that the coat which covered a high fronted—and doubtless bare-backed—evening gown had cost a considerable amount of money. It was ermine and cut in the very latest mode, but the collar and front of the garment were literally steeped in blood from the ghastly throat wound which had most certainly brought about her death.

As the inspector had said, her head had been nearly severed from her body—the work of some absolutely fiendish butcher. The very savagery of the crime explained at once to McCarthy that wallow of blood upon the door, the outer steps and even the railings. The coat also explained by the very thickness of its fur the means by which the body had been got away without leaving any traces beyond those mentioned: the whole head and shoulders had been wrapped in it, thus preventing any seepage of the tell-tale fluid. It was equally possible that the vehicle, whatever it might have been, used to transport the cadaver from the square would be found equally free from bloodstains when it might eventually be picked up—if ever.

“You're quite sure it's the body in the Soho business, Mac?” the divisional-surgeon asked.

“Quite,” McCarthy answered positively. “Unless,” he amended, “two women were murdered in London to-night at about the same time and in the same manner, and both used the same perfume to a degree rather more than most women to-day are in the habit of doing. I got it strongly outside the Soho Square house and there's no mistaking it for anything but the same that this unfortunate creature has been using.”

The doctor nodded. “I get it myself,” he said. “It's queer.”

It was on the tip of McCarthy's tongue to ask what was queer about it, but as he did not want to listen to any discourse upon perfumes, generally, and this particular one specifically he withheld the question and turned again to his examination. Everything she wore, shoes, stockings and lingerie all carried the hallmark of expensiveness and quality. There were, as he had been informed by Golders Green, definite signs upon the fingers that she had worn rings upon each hand, and the mark was plainly to be seen where one ear-ring, at least, had been ruthlessly torn from the right ear-lobe. As neither of the ears had been pierced they must have been screw or clip fastenings, and that they had been taken at all seemed to argue that they must have been of considerable value. In the inside of the coat, which now lay wide open and overhanging the slab upon one side, there was a pocket into which he thrust his hand and brought out a solid gold cigarette-case which, however, carried no monogram or other possible means of identification; nor, that he could see upon a cursory examination, were there any markings on the underclothes.

He gave some little time to a study of the face itself, upon which the grey pallor of death seemed to show strangely through the heavy coating of make-up the woman wore. He decided that it was of a definitely Continental type, and not English; Teutonic, he would have said, with extraordinarily strong features for one of her sex.

“What nationality would you put her down as being, Doc?” he asked.

“German,” the D.S. answered unhesitatingly. “A perfect Teutonic cast of features; no doubt about that in my mind. Is that the only thing you notice about it, Mac?” he continued, a note in his voice which made the inspector glance at him quickly.

“What else is there to see?” McCarthy questioned. “Besides that she was a woman of distinction in her early, or mid-thirties, I'd say, and of a particularly strong cast of features, what is there to see?”

“A devil of a lot that will surprise you,” the medico answered. “That is,” he amended, “if anything can.”

“It can't,” McCarthy assured him equably, “but I'll listen, just the same.”

“Well, if this doesn't, I'll eat my hat,” the surgeon said tersely. “Your woman, McCarthy, happens to be a man!”

It was useless for the inspector to even try to hide the complete and utter surprise which filled him. His eyes bulged and his jaw dropped.

“Well, I'll—I'll go to hell!” he gasped. “You're not codding, I suppose?” he asked quickly.

“If you think I enjoy being lugged out of bed at this hour of the morning so much that I start codding people, you're very much mistaken,” the medico growled. “Your lady, I repeat, is a man. To satisfy yourself just run your hand upwards under the chin. If there aren't bristles enough under the make-up to set your mind at rest upon that point, then you take a deuce of a lot of satisfying.”

McCarthy gingerly did as he was told, to find, beyond any question of doubt, that under his hand was unquestionably the bristles of a strong beard, but so skilfully covered by the make-up that, in the ordinary way, they were absolutely undetectable.

“A common enough type in Germany nowadays,” the D.S. commented. “The last time I was in Berlin the lounges of the Hotel Adlon, and similar places, were full of them. The pure Aryan,” he continued sarcastically, “seems to have a very definite leaning in that direction. As far as the bristles go, he probably shaves two or three times a day; had he been alive and he'd done that this morning, we wouldn't have found a trace of them. The D.S. at Golders Green must have taken a very cursory glance at him—the teeth alone ought to have told him the truth, though I'll admit that they are exceptionally small.”

“They didn't me,” McCarthy said ruefully.

“Which is only proof, if you need any, that you don't know as much as you think you do, Mac,” the surgeon returned dryly.

“But what the divil is he got up in this way, here in England, for?” McCarthy questioned, though more to himself than anyone else.

The D.S. shrugged his shoulders. “That's
your
job to find out. Personally, I'd say it was a case of espionage in some form or other. There are any amount of them here among the ‘refugees' and ‘anti-Nazis.' We're the dam'dest fools on earth when it comes to that sort of thing.”

“You're telling
me!
” McCarthy exclaimed. “You want to hear the Special Branch men on that.”

“I don't,” the other said shortly. “I've got plenty of grouses of my own, without having to listen to theirs. However, you're aware now that it's the murder of a man you're investigating, and not a woman. Though,” he amended, “and speak with all caution, I'd say that he was in the habit of wearing female clothes habitually, if I make myself clear.”

McCarthy nodded. “You mean that I'm investigating the case of the murder of a man who isn't known in the country as a man at all, but as a woman?”

“That's it. And now, I'll thank you to clear out and let me get on with my job. Unless,” he added, with a jerk of his head towards another still figure stretched out upon a slab at the other end of the chill room, “there's anything you want to know about the murdered constable. I made a thorough examination of his wound, and I've come to the conclusion that it's more than likely that he was stabbed with an exact counterpart of that weapon you showed me. The sooner you can let me have it, the better, and I'll get on with the blood test you wanted.”

“I'll give the ‘dabs' artist's a ring and hustle them up,” McCarthy promised. He was turning away towards the office, in which “Danny the Dip” was now being regaled with a huge mug of tea, which, from the steam arising from it, must have been well-nigh scalding, when something else crossed his mind. “Then that hair,” he said, with a nod towards the cadaver stretched out before them, “must be a wig.”

“Of course; no man living could ever train his hair to grow that way, even though it is on the short side.”

Lifting the head, the D.S. unfastened several almost invisible hairpins, and drew an amazingly perfect wig of dark brown hair, very slightly touched with grey, from it. “Wonderful piece of real-hair work,” he commented. “Quite the best I've ever come across, must have been made by an artist in that line. Practically undetectable in the ordinary way.”

Holding out his hand for the wig, McCarthy took it, and examined it thoroughly. Among the odds and ends of miscellaneous information he had picked up from theatrical friends, was the fact that first-class wig-makers invariably stitched a tab with their name and the date of making, and very often the name of the person the wig was made for, upon the inside webbing on which the hair was threaded. If by any lucky chance it should be so in this case—and certainly the magnificent wig the “woman” had worn could only have been the work of a first-class maker—then here might be a direct clue which might, eventually, lead to the identity of the murdered man. Surely enough upon one corner of the tapes, which held the springs which formed the foundation of the wig, he came across a small printed tab bearing the inscription, “Heinrich, London.” But he could find no date or anything else that would give the slightest clue as to who the wig had been made for.

“I'll want this for a bit,” he said to the attendant. “Parcel it up, and I'll sign for it. How's Regan going on?”

“Foine,” he was told. “The tay done 'im all the good in the world, like the D.S. said it would. But there's one thing, Inspector, ye'll need get him an overcoat of some sort or other before ye can take 'im out of this. If he goes out on the street the way he is, with the blood dried all over him, he'll be pinched for murder before he gets a hundred yards, even with you with him.”

A glance into the office where Regan sat sipping at the scalding tea and pulling horrible faces in the process, satisfied McCarthy of the truth of the observation. “Find him something for the time being,” he requested. “I'll take him home with me to hear his story, and return anything you can dig him up later in the day.

“How are you feeling now, Dan?” he asked, as he entered the office.

The pickpocket looked up at him through still half-vacant eyes.

“Bloody awful,” he answered in a tone which left no doubt in McCarthy's mind as to the truth of his words. “They musta soaked me proper, Inspector, while they was at it,” he continued, with a shake of his head. “Blimey, many's the time I been put down with bars an' bottles and coshes, but I never felt like this.”

“They gave you something else, to make sure of you, Dan,” McCarthy explained. “A shot of something that would keep you where they wanted you for as long as it suited them.”

As he spoke his eyes were travelling over the thick, dark stains upon Regan's clothes. “You've no idea what happened to you after they knocked you out, Danny?” he inquired.

Regan shook his head. “After they dotted me, guv'nor, an' I seen a million stars, I dunno nothink. I 'spect I must've been dumped into a car, because it was out of one that they dived on me, and I couldn't 'ave got all the way to 'Ampstead any other way, like I must've done.”

McCarthy nodded his agreement.

“No, Danny,” he said, “it was a car, right enough. I'll take you home with me for a bit of breakfast, and hear your story up to that point there. The thing that's interesting me most at the moment, is where, and how, did you come by all this blood on your clothes. You certainly never got it from that crack on the skull.”