Coffin in the Black Museum. Gwendoline Butler

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СКАЧАТЬ ‘Has he told them who he thinks it is.’

      Agnes shook her head. ‘Someone from the theatre, they imagine. He’s there so much.’

      ‘Is that what his mother thinks?’

      ‘It’s what I think.’ She was talking for herself as much as for Little Billy, Coffin realized. It was what she thought, and it worried her. ‘It’s sinister, that place, the old church ambience, don’t you think? It’s got a feel to it. My daughter used to go to Guide meetings in the hall and I always hated it. Nothing to do with the present use of it, something left over from the past.’

      Then she smiled. ‘Mind you, if anything could wipe out the past, then the current theatre group could. Some strong characters there. Have you met them?’

      ‘Only Stella.’

      Both of them turned towards the end of the room.

      An enthralled audience had gathered around Stella, constantly replenished as those who had had their word with the lady, drifted away and others took their place. Coffin admired the expertise with which she dismissed some and hung on to those she still wanted round her. She was holding a kind of court, at the heart of which were the foreign policemen with Herr Hamburg maintaining his place with skill.

      At the end of the room a long table was spread with a buffet where Tom Cowley was presiding over the wine.

      By the table was a display cabinet. Some strange exhibits were laid out here. One woman’s stocking, much laddered. An old raincoat, stained with mud. A dirty, crumpled square of linen. These were on one side, then to the right, as if associated with these objects but a little a separate, was another stocking, just as laddered as the one on the other side, but of a paler shade and smaller foot. It had belonged to another woman. Still to the right was a bloodstained sheet of old newspaper. It looked yellowing and brittle, but on one side was a faint, bloody fingerprint.

      ‘Don’t you find an atmosphere in this place?’ Coffin asked Agnes. ‘Wine? Or would you prefer gin or whisky? Tom seems to have thought of everything. I think there’s even some Perrier.’

      ‘Oh, I do feel an atmosphere, but that’s to be expected. It’s full of a kind of visible evil. But it’s been cleared up, the investigations are over.’

      ‘Not that one,’ said Tom Cowley, pointing to the display case. Ted Lupus, who had been looking at it, moved away hastily. ‘That was a failure. The case was not cleared up. We never caught that one.’

      ‘At home we have plenty of those,’ said the policeman from Hamburg. ‘More than we care for.’ But he studied the case with interest.

      ‘We thought we had the killer at one point. But it turned out not to be so,’ said Cowley. ‘I remember the case. Two young women, one after the other, raped and strangled. I should think we all remember it round here. A real nasty one.’

      ‘A famous case?’ asked the Belgian policeman.

      ‘No, it got very little notice outside the district. But we had a special reason here. The first victim was a policewoman and the first suspect was a young copper.’

      ‘Were these two young women the only victims?’ asked Herr Hamburg.

      It was a shrewd question, Coffin felt, with his own memories of the case flooding back.

      ‘We always wondered that,’ said Tom Cowley. ‘Especially after the second killing. There was circumstantial evidence linking the policeman to the death of the first victim. When the second one was killed it looked as though he could have done that too. So he was arrested. And then, a bit later, this piece of newspaper was found. It should have been found before, but it wasn’t. That was bad.’

      ‘These things happen,’ said Herr Hamburg.

      ‘Yes, but you always feel they shouldn’t.’

      ‘They never should.’

      ‘But they do. Anyway, there was blood on this paper. She’d bled a bit, that girl. And there was this fingerprint. Her blood. Not her fingerprint. Not the young copper’s, either.’

      ‘You have it all pat.’

      ‘Fifteen years ago?’ Cowley shrugged. ‘I was young myself then.’

      ‘Was the second victim also a policewoman?’ asked Dr Copenhagen alertly.

      ‘No. But that’s clever of you, because she very nearly was. She’d applied to join as a graduate police officer, but was turned down because of eyesight.’

      ‘And you never got anyone?’

      Tom Cowley shook his head. ‘One of our failures, an unsolved crime.’

      ‘And no more murders?’

      ‘None that we know of,’ said Tom Cowley.

      ‘And the young policeman?’

      John Coffin and Tom Cowley looked at each other.

      Coffin said: ‘His wife had died while he was under suspicion. Childbirth. When he got out he hanged himself. That right, Tom?’

      ‘Right,’ said Tom Cowley heavily. He didn’t look too well. He needed that holiday, Coffin thought.

      It was amazing how some cases never lay down and died.

      John Coffin and Stella Pinero walked home to St Luke’s Mansions together. Without admitting it to each other, they were both edging towards a closer relationship.

      ‘What about Herr Hamburg?’ The chap had hung on.

      ‘I’m meeting him tomorrow for dinner,’ said Stella. ‘He is interested in the theatre.’

      I bet, thought Coffin. He was annoyed to find he minded.

      They crossed the busy main road by the Spinnergate Tube station, where Mimsie was sitting by her paper stand. She gave them an alert look. Today she was wearing a red straw boater with feathers at the back.

      Coffin bought a paper. It was considered bad luck locally to pass Mimsie by without buying and he never ran unnecessary risks, tucked it under his arm, and they turned the corner into Black Archer Road.

      ‘That’s the house where Rosie Ascot had rooms.’ She pointed to the second in a terrace of tall, yellow brick houses, some of which were due for renovation and some of which had already experienced a sharp rise in status. The house Stella indicated was still awaiting change.

      ‘Rosie who?’ said Coffin absently.

      ‘The girl who went away.’

      ‘Oh yes. What about her landlady? Wasn’t she worried?’

      ‘Not that sort of place. Almost a squat. No one cared.’

      ‘What was she like, this girl? Describe her to me.’

      ‘Tall, fair. But I can do better than that.’

      Once at St Luke’s Mansions, Stella СКАЧАТЬ