After the Exhibition: A Jack Haldean 1920s Mystery (A Jack Haldean Mystery) (17 page)

After a few minutes, a woman, patting an untidy bird’s nest of grey hair into position, came in. To say she fitted her surroundings was unkind but true.

‘Miss Sharpe?’ asked Jack, standing up. ‘I wondered if you’d be able to help me.’

‘I don’t know, I’m sure,’ said Miss Sharpe, in a voice about as faded as the carpet, perching on the edge of one of the shabby chairs. ‘Mrs Kiddle said you were looking for Mrs McAllister. She’s your aunt, I believe.’

Jack had adopted this innocent deception to explain his interest in Mrs McAllister. ‘Yes, that’s right. My Aunt Joan. I haven’t seen her for a long time.’

‘Are you from America?’ asked Miss Sharpe.

‘I beg your pardon?’ said Jack, pausing as he sat down. This was unexpected, to say the least.

‘I wondered if you were from America. I thought you might be.’ She put her head to one side. ‘You look foreign, and I know they’ve got a lot of foreigners in America. And gangsters and millionaires and so on,’ she added, regarding Jack with vague hopefulness.

‘No, I’m not from America,’ said Jack, taken aback. ‘Or a gangster or a millionaire, come to that. I’m not even foreign.’

‘No?’ said Miss Sharpe. Jack felt he had let Miss Sharpe down in some obscure way. ‘Mrs McAllister had lived in America. I thought you might be American.’

So that’s what Mrs McAllister’s accent had been! Not pure American, but an English accent with American inflections.

‘I suppose,’ she said, looking at him dubiously, ‘that you could call Americans foreigners, but they’re not
foreign
foreigners, if you see what I mean? I know they express themselves oddly on occasion, but at least they do speak English.’

Having thus admitted kinship with one hundred and ten million people, Miss Sharpe moved on. ‘I know Mrs McAllister’s been back a few years now and I wondered if that’s why you hadn’t seen her for a while.’

Once again, Jack felt he’d let Miss Sharpe down. ‘Because I’ve been in America, you mean? Sorry, that’s not the reason.’

‘She used to talk about America,’ she said sadly, and heaved a wistful sigh. ‘How good it was over there, how big the shops were and how there were lifts in all of them, so you didn’t have to bother with stairs, which must be
such
a boon to those who are getting on in years. Even those of us who aren’t exactly old find stairs such a sad trial. I sometimes,’ she added with an air of resigned martyrdom, ‘get positively breathless when faced with a flight of stairs, with such shooting pains in my legs, you wouldn’t believe. Mrs McAllister was
most
sympathetic.’

‘That was very nice of her,’ said Jack.

‘I feel it in my knees, most of all, but it goes all the way up to my hips,’ she said with a sort of weary persistence. ‘Mrs McAllister said that in America I wouldn’t notice I had legs. Not notice! I’m always aware of my legs. And my knees. I used to talk to Mrs McAllister about my legs all the time.’

She looked at him hopefully, obviously willing to continue the discussion, but Jack had no intention of getting sidelined by Miss Sharpe’s legs. Miss Sharpe, he felt, could quite happily allow her legs to dominate any conversation. Instead he hazarded a guess. He’d better show some sort of knowledge of Aunt Joan.

‘She loved New York, didn’t she?’

‘Oh,
yes
,’ said Miss Sharpe, thankfully dropping the legs
motif.
‘She talked a lot about New York. She lived in a lovely house, near a big park.’ She frowned. ‘Now, where was it?’

‘Central Park?’ asked Jack, guessing wildly.

Miss Sharpe’s face cleared. ‘That’s it! I couldn’t remember for the moment.’

Jack decided to try another guess. From his two meetings with Mrs McAllister, to say nothing of the shabbiness of Purbeck Terrace, it seemed unlikely she would own or rent ‘a lovely house’ near Central Park. There was, he thought, only one way she could live there. ‘She enjoyed her time in service, didn’t she?’

Miss Sharpe looked worried. ‘In service?’ She leaned forward confidentially. ‘Well, yes, she did, but she didn’t like people to know she’d been in service.
I
didn’t mind, but there are some who would. People are so prejudiced, aren’t they? She wouldn’t have liked it to have got about. She never was in service here, you understand, only in America, and that’s not the same, is it? It’s different in America, I daresay. Of course, when she got married – her husband would be your Uncle Michael, wouldn’t he? – she had to give it up. Not that she minded, as he did quite well for himself, didn’t he?’

‘So I believe.’ Jack decided to draw another bow at a venture. ‘Was he in grocery?’

From Miss Sharpe’s expression it was clear that Uncle Michael wasn’t a grocer.

‘Or was that my Uncle Arnold?’ he mused out loud. ‘Or my Uncle Stephen?’

‘He was a barber, I believe.’

Now that was something he wouldn’t have guessed.

‘Of course! Hair today, gone tomorrow, as you might say,’ said Jack with a disarming smile.

Miss Sharpe tittered. ‘That’s exactly what your Aunt Joan used to say! She did use to make me laugh.’ She looked upon him kindly. ‘I can see you’ve got her sense of humour.’

Blimey, had he? Remembering Mrs McAllister, it wasn’t the best compliment he’d ever received, but it was something. ‘As a matter of fact, I never met Uncle Michael,’ he said, truthfully enough.

‘No? She was very happy with him. He restored her faith in men, she used to say, after having been so dreadfully let down.’

Jack looked a question.

‘I don’t know any
details
, of course,’ said Miss Sharpe, lowering her voice, ‘but your poor Aunt Joan had supped sorrow with a spoon, as she used to say. With a spoon,’ she repeated impressively. She sighed deeply. ‘Some men, Mr Haldean, see a woman’s trusting heart as a mere plaything, but your Uncle Michael was her knight in shining armour and an excellent barber as well.’

‘I’m very glad to hear it,’ said Jack. There didn’t seem to be much else he could say. ‘I was hoping to mend a few bridges,’ he added. ‘We were never a close family. My father had a huge quarrel with Aunt Joan after my grandparents died, all about who should own a sideboard, I think. It seemed very trivial, I must say, but you know how families can be.’

‘Oh, I
do
know,’ said Miss Sharpe earnestly. ‘Why, my own mother could never abide to hear her own sister, Doris, mentioned after she’d married. She gave herself airs, my mother said. Just fancy, Mr Haldean, I never knew Mrs McAllister had any living relatives at all. She certainly never mentioned you.’

This wasn’t, perhaps, surprising.

‘I’m sure she’d like to see you, though. These quarrels in families are so silly, aren’t they?’

‘They certainly are,’ agreed Jack heartily. ‘Tell me, Miss Sharpe, what happens if any letters arrive for my Aunt Joan? Is there an address to send them on to?’

Miss Sharpe shook her head. ‘She hasn’t had any letters. It’s just as well, because she didn’t leave a forwarding address. I wish she had, because I’ve got her collecting box upstairs and I’d like to give it back to her.’

‘Her collecting box?’

‘Yes, and her tray.’

Enlightenment dawned. ‘Oh, for the Waifs and Strays Society, you mean?’

‘That’s right. I don’t know what to do with it, I’m sure.’ Miss Sharpe, it seemed, was only sure of negatives. ‘I thought she’d come back for it, as she was a very dedicated worker for the cause.’

‘That does her great credit,’ said Jack, seeing some comment was called for.

‘Oh yes, she was. She went out such a lot.’ Miss Sharpe heaved a sigh. ‘Tireless, she was. She left the box in her room, so I took care of it, but really, I’d like to see she has it safely.’ She regarded him with perplexed anxiety. ‘It’s a worry to me, having to look after it. Mrs Kiddle didn’t know what to do with it. Another lady – a Miss Richardson, a very nice lady indeed – has Mrs McAllister’s room now and she didn’t want it in the room as it takes up so much space, but we couldn’t just throw it away or use the tray for kindling. No, indeed. I mean, it’s
official
, isn’t it?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Jack, a suspicion forming in his mind, ‘you’d let me have it, Miss Sharpe. I’ll see she gets it back when I finally get in touch with her.’

‘Would you? I’d be so grateful.’ She stood up. ‘I’ll go and get it for you.’

A few minutes later he was in possession of a wooden tray containing a few flags and the tin collecting box that he’d last seen outside the art exhibition.

‘I only wish I could wrap it up for you,’ said Miss Sharpe. ‘It seems such a bulky thing to carry around.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Jack cheerfully. ‘I haven’t got to carry it far.’

He carried the tray and the tin as far as Scotland Yard.

‘Hello,’ said Bill, as Jack came into his office. ‘I’m still waiting to get the go ahead on that warrant for the chantry.’ He looked at the tray suspiciously. ‘Have you taken to good works? I hope you’re not going to ask me to brass up.’

‘Not money, old thing,’ said Jack, pulling out a chair and sitting at the desk, ‘but I’d like some information about this.’ He tapped the tray. ‘This is Mrs McAllister’s and so’s the tin.’

He told Bill about his encounter with Miss Sharpe. ‘And, Bill, although I don’t want to sound snobbish, I thought the general ambiance of 46, Purbeck Terrace, made it an unlikely place to find a flag-seller.’

Bill nodded. ‘I know what you mean. Flag-sellers are usually fairly upper-class, aren’t they?’

‘Middling to upper, yes. Which doesn’t describe our Mrs McAllister. Add to which I thought she was a right old fraud when I met her outside Lowther’s Arcade, and I wondered if there might be something not quite as mother makes about this particular tray and tin.’

‘It
looks
authentic enough,’ said Bill, pulling the tray towards him.

‘I agree. So if the tray and tin are authentic but Mrs M. struck me as a phoney, that means what?’ asked Jack, lighting a cigarette.

‘That means …’ Bill broke off and stared at his friend. ‘Blimey, Jack, are you telling me you think it was pinched?’ Jack nodded. ‘Hell’s bells! You made me cough up a fortune to that ruddy woman. I put two ten bob notes – two, mark you! – into that tin.’

Jack laughed. ‘D’you know, I didn’t think of that.’

‘A pound,’ muttered Bill. ‘A whole quid, just thrown away on your say-so because you made me feel guilty.’

‘Get over it,’ said Jack easily. ‘I put a shilling in.’

‘Yes, and I put in a damn sight more. This needs checking right away.’ He reached out his hand to the telephone. After a conversation with the operator, he was put through to the Waifs and Strays Society. Pencil in hand, he jotted down notes as he talked.

‘Well,’ said Bill, putting the phone down, ‘I bet you’re right. They’ve got no record of a Mrs Joan McAllister as a collector, but a tray and tin has been stolen. All the other trays are accounted for, by the way, so this has to be the stolen tray. One of their collectors, a Miss Marjoriebanks-Smythe, reported the theft last year.’

‘How did it happen?’

‘Miss Marjoriebanks-Smythe was caught short, poor woman, in King’s Cross Station, and needed to use the facilities. Obviously, she couldn’t take the tray into the cubicle with her, so asked the attendant to keep an eye on it for her. However, the attendant was distracted by a mother with two small children, and when Miss Marjoriebanks-Smythe came to collect her tray and tin, they were gone. There was a fair old crowd in and out of the lavatories, so the attendant couldn’t say who was the likely thief. It was reported as stolen at the time, but that was that. Incidentally, the Society didn’t have a flag day on the Saturday we got collared by the wretched woman – McAllister, I mean – so that proves it, not that we needed any proof.’

‘So she was a fraud,’ said Jack. ‘I thought so.’

‘I wish you’d thought so before I paid up,’ grumbled Bill. ‘There’s one thing, though. Now I know she obtained money under false pretences, I can circulate a description of her. We could find her like that.’

‘Not if Mrs McAllister was the body in Signora Bianchi’s cottage.’

‘No …’ Bill drummed a tattoo with his pencil on the desk, then looked at his friend hesitantly. ‘Doesn’t it seem awfully far-fetched to you, Jack? I mean, it was only yesterday we thought the dead woman was Signora Bianchi, and we know how that turned out. I’m a bit leery about giving a name to the victim until we know a damn sight more.’

‘The only reason we thought the victim was Signora Bianchi was because the body was in her cottage,’ said Jack impatiently.

‘And because Miss Wingate told us so. She seemed very certain about it.’

‘That’s because, not unnaturally, she’d been expecting to see Signora Bianchi in her own house.’

‘Yes, well, that’s the point, isn’t it? It’s one thing having Signora Bianchi murdered in her own cottage …’

‘Amidst all the comforts of home,’ murmured Jack.

‘… But it’s quite another having a complete stranger bumped off there,’ continued Bill, ignoring him. ‘Why pick on the cottage? Doesn’t it seem odd to you?’

Jack shook his head. ‘Not really. It was common knowledge that Signora Bianchi was away. It’s isolated yet accessible, and he – the murderer – should have been uninterrupted.’

‘It’s still a bit of a coincidence, don’t you think? That it could be Mrs McAllister, I mean.’

‘Is it?’ Jack put his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. ‘Look at what we’ve got. Mrs McAllister, who we now know to be a right old fraud, is collecting money …’

‘Don’t I know it,’ muttered Bill.

‘… Who, by coincidence,’ continued Jack, ‘if you like, is drawn to a well-dressed and, as far as she was concerned, well-heeled crowd outside Gospel Commons. Now she might be a fraud but she wasn’t faking her faint. Something rattled her badly and I think it’s someone she saw.’

Bill pulled a face. ‘Perhaps.’

‘I’ll tell you something else, too, Doubting Thomas,’ said Jack, leaning forward. ‘When I ran into Mrs McAllister that day outside Lowther’s Arcade, I congratulated her on her recovery and said something along the lines that I hoped she was taking things easy. She reacted as if I’d said something funny, and said she certainly intended to take things very easy indeed in the near future.’ He looked at his friend expectantly. ‘Put those things together and what have you got? I think she recognised someone at the exhibition.’