1

‘But I told you, he’s quite a gentleman,’ eighteen-year-old blonde Belinda was insisting, getting down to her sixth shampoo and set of the morning. ‘His father’s a Member of Parliament.’

‘And my father’s Richard Dimbleby.’ Her friend Vi on the next-door customer was a woman of the world, well past twenty. ‘Where did you meet his lordship, may I ask?’

‘At the Luxor.’

‘Oh, a dance-hall pick-up.’ Vi wrinkled a pretty nose. Monsieur Augustin’s establishment in Kensington, with its plastic Madame Pompadour decor and row of broody matrons under chromium beehives, looked exactly like every other ladies’ hairdresser’s in the country, and so did the little girls in pink overalls working inside. ‘What’s the dream boy do for a living? Or is he a millionaire into the bargain?’

‘He’s a scientist.’ Belinda glanced proudly across the suds, scientists these days being particularly with it. ‘He’s ever so brainy.’

Vi snipped a pink sachet of rose-scented shampoo.

‘Bet it’s not long before he starts trying a few experiments.’

‘I told you he’s serious. He says class distinctions are as old-fashioned as the Tower of London.’

‘Go on? One night he’ll ask you back to hear his latest records.’

Belinda pouted.

‘If that doesn’t work he’ll remember he’s bought you half a dozen nylons, but left them behind on his dressing-table. Mark my words, girls have been murdered for less.’

They were interrupted by a scream from the basin, ‘Are you trying to scald the skin off me, or something?’

‘Zaire is something ze mattaire?’ Monsieur Augustin appeared. ‘A leedle too ’ot for madame’s delicate complexion? Zut! I adjust ze temperature. Belinda, my dear, come ’ere one petit moment. You make a pig’s breakfast out of that old woman’s hair, you ignorant little piece of rubbish,’ Monsieur added to his employee, ‘and I’ll kick you out of the joint so hard you won’t sit down again till your Christmas dinner. Get me?’

Dismissing Vi as merely dead jealous, Belinda met her serious scientist that night as arranged, by the international clock in Piccadilly Circus tube station. He took her to a Chinese restaurant, which she thought quite dreamy, if rather indigestible. They stood outside afterwards in Shaftesbury Avenue, on a crisp December evening with all London at their disposal.

‘Well,’ said Randolph Nightrider. He stood on one leg, his habit in moments of emotional stress. ‘Bit late for a cinema, eh?’

‘We could see a cartoon programme,’ Belinda suggested hopefully.

‘Here, I say –’ He put down one leg and stood on the other. ‘Lots of people about, pushing you everywhere. I’ve got a car round the corner, so why not go back quietly to my place and hear a few records?’

Her inch-long eyelashes fluttered like a pair of startled sparrows.

‘Besides, I’ve bought a present for you.’

‘Present?’

‘Yes. Nothing much. Half a dozen nylons. Like a fool I left them behind on my dressing-table.’

‘Very kind, I’m sure,’ she returned with crushing primness. ‘But I don’t happen to be that sort.’

‘Good lord, you don’t imagine I’m up to any funny stuff, do you?’ Randolph looked shocked. ‘We scientists are above all that sort of caper, let me assure you. By golly, yes. Besides, I thought you might like a dekko at some of my scientific instruments. They’re utterly fascinating. And anyway, it’s going to rain.’

His car seemed a make constructed from the spares of every other make, held together with pieces of wire.

‘Don’t worry, I could do the Monte in this,’ he explained warmly, untying the string from the door. ‘You interested in motor cars?’

‘Not really.’

‘They’re my utter passion. Hold on to that doorknob screwed to the dashboard.’

They arrived somewhere in north London at a block of flats which struck Belinda as the cross between a church and a railway station.

‘I’m afraid we’ll have to be frightfully quiet,’ Randolph explained, switching off. ‘Lots of other important scientists live here, and they’re all asleep.’

‘What, at ten o’clock?’

‘Yes, their brains get terribly tired during the day. You don’t mind the back way, do you? Porter chap locks the front at nightfall. Security, you know,’ he added darkly.

The flat threatened no seductive shades nor lurking cocktail cabinets. It was a plain monkish cell, with an iron bed, a wardrobe, and a table covered with books. Randolph carefully closed the door.

‘Well, and here we are. That’s one of my scientific instruments on the table. It’s called a microscope. Won’t you take your coat off?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘But aren’t you rather warm?’

‘No, thank you. Eeeeeek!’ cried Belinda, finding herself facing the picture of a man with his head sawn in half.

‘Ssssssh! Quiet!’ Randolph hurriedly shut the book. ‘I beseech you! Are you sure you won’t take your coat off?’

‘Where are them nylons?’ asked Belinda, coming to the point.

‘Nylons? Where have they got to, now? I swear they were just here when I went out.’

‘And them records?’ She was admitting Vi had sense after all.

‘Do let me take your coat –’

‘Oh no you don’t!’ She wrapped it round with the air of pulling up the drawbridge. ‘If you ask me you’re nothing but a –’

Her suitor’s jaw dropped. His normal tomato complexion changed to mashed potato. A knock had sounded at the far end of the corridor and a gruff voice came through the night, ‘Warden here. Might I see if you are entertaining, Mr Forcedyke? I have reason to believe somebody is. Not guilty, I see. Thank you. Good night.’

‘Not…not a word,’ Randolph enjoined shakily.

‘’Ere! What is this, I’d like to know? You get me up to your flat –’

‘I – I can explain everything, but not just at the moment.’

A second knock rang out. ‘Warden here. Mr McWhittle, have you a visitor in your room? No, I thought it couldn’t be you. My apologies. Good night.’

‘The window!’ Randolph threw it up. ‘The fire escape’s two stories below. Can you jump?’

‘Jump? Are you crazy? Do you think I’m going to break my neck for some –’

‘Warden here.’ The knock was much nearer, like Fate catching up with Beethoven. ‘Anyone in your room, Mr LaSage? I’ll look for myself, if you please. My apologies, Mr LaSage. It might seem you are losing your touch. Good night.’

Randolph looked round frantically. ‘Quick!’ he hissed. ‘The wardrobe.’

‘What!’

‘Belinda…my dear…my darling…’ He looked far more imploring trying to get her out of his room than trying to get her into it. ‘My career…my whole life…utterly depends on you getting into that wardrobe.’

Whether it was the drama of the situation, or it being rather a lark to tell Vi tomorrow, or because she was really a soft-hearted little girl, Belinda wavered.

‘I might suffocate,’ she pointed out.

‘A panel’s dropped off the back. For heaven’s sake! Hurry.’

She scrambled inside. The knock fell on Randolph’s door.

‘Come in! Oh…er, good evening, sir.’

‘Up to your hocks in midnight oil, I see?’

‘Just…just looking through a few microscope slides. Histology, you know.’

‘H’m. And what might that slide be?’

‘It’s…it’s liver, sir.’

‘Allow me. Indeed? If you cannot tell the liver from the brain, young man, you may be in for certain embarrassments later in life. Anyway, you have the thing upside down.’

‘Oh, have I, sir? How silly.’

Belinda heard a loud sniff.

‘Do I smell cheap perfume?’

‘My after-shave lotion, sir. Just spilt it.’

‘You are, I presume, quite alone?’

‘Alone, sir?’ Randolph sounded mystified. ‘But of course, sir. Why, sir?’

‘It doesn’t matter. I will bid you good night.’

‘And a very good night to you, too, sir!’

‘Here, is that an early edition of Gray’s Anatomy? By George, I must have a look at that.’

‘Take it, sir. Take it away. Please do, sir. Read it downstairs in comfort.’

‘No, a glance will suffice.’

Belinda shifted slightly in the wardrobe. Something was digging into her side. She gingerly put out a hand. It was hanging from the clothes-rail, and seemed to be some sort of birdcage with a big smooth knob on top.

She screamed.

The door flew open and she found herself facing a fierce-looking red-faced old gentleman with a beard.

‘Sixty seconds,’ announced the old gentleman briskly, ‘and you will be out in the street.’

‘There’s been a murder!’ cried Belinda.

‘It is now fifty-five seconds. Come along, young lady, jump to it. Or I shall be obliged to report you to the police for soliciting skeletons. Now you and I, my lad, must have a little chat in the morning, mustn’t we? Nine o’clock sharp,’ ended Sir Lancelot Spratt.