Death in High Heels (15 page)

He made a second large blob beside the first and added four long spikes. “This is only the fourth day,” he went on, scribbling away gloomily, “and out of my ten possibles I’ve got it down to five probables, and out of my five probables I’ve got two very-likelies.… I don’t think it’s too bad, sir. I don’t see why Sir George …”

“Now, hold your horses, Charlesworth. Nobody’s accusing you of mishandling the case. I think you’ve done very well so far, and so does Sir George. He had a look through your notes and he thought they were extremely clear and very much to the point.”

“Oh, Bedd does those,” said Charlesworth airily and quite inaccurately, his good-humour entirely restored. “He’s a treasure, is old Bedd. Between us, we can cope with things, sir, if you’ll give me the chance. Of course, I’d like to talk it over with you, very much. I’m in a bit of a fog at the moment, I must confess, but my point is that so would anybody else be. It’s the manager fellow, Bevan, that did it, only I can’t prove it, and I can’t quite see the motive. In any case, I don’t see how we’re ever going to get a conviction, whoever it is; what makes it so difficult is that it was obviously done on the spur of the moment and because the poison was available; especially as a good many people were there to share the suspicion by having access to the girl’s food.”

“Sir George and I were playing with a theory that someone might have come, either out of the shop through the back door of Bevan’s office or from somewhere else altogether, gone down the area steps and done the deed at some unspecified time.”

“Oh, I considered that, but it won’t wash, sir. Bevan went straight to Miss Doon’s office, after he had ordered the poison to be swept up, and he stayed there, with the door shut, until he came out again and spoke to Cecil on his way upstairs. The little secretary was with them in the office the whole time. Besides, Mrs. Harris was standing at her sink washing up from the moment that she came downstairs from brushing the stuff up; she was keeping an eye out for a knife-grinder and she had a full view of the area steps; no one could have come down them without being seen by her, and nobody did. Nobody passed through the kitchen, in fact, nobody came into the kitchen at all, until Mrs. Best came down at twelve o’clock to have her own lunch and afterwards to help serve out for the one o’clock lunch; the girls from the workroom have theirs sent upstairs.”

“But later on Mrs. Harris was serving the lunch?”

“Yes, but still with an eye out for the knife-grinder; anyway, by that time Cecil was standing at the head of the service table, very close to the area door which is just under the stairs, and at least one or two of the girls were with him all the time. Nobody could have come in then.”

“Could anyone have come down the area steps during the few minutes in which the woman was upstairs sweeping up the crystals?”

“I suppose they could have, sir, but the food wasn’t out of the kitchen then, and nobody had had time to get hold of any of the poison; in any event, nobody left the showroon except Miss Gregory, who came down to tell Mrs. Harris to take her dustpan and brush upstairs.”

“What happened to her?”

“Well, she says that she went off into the ladies’ cloakroom, which is also in the basement; there’s no proof of that; but, anyway, she had no poison, that’s as certain as can be. Bevan and the secretary were giving each other alibis in the little office; I think we must definitely cut out any time for administration of the poison, except for the twenty minutes between the time Cecil and Mrs. Best started to serve out the curry and the time the girl sat down to eat it.”

“Anyway, that’s getting somewhere. Who have you got on your very-probable list besides Mr. Bevan?”

“Well, there’s Cecil and there’s the char. There’s something very peculiar about this chap Cecil, but I hope I can clear it up pretty soon. That friend of his, Elliot, is missing, and he’s in a terrible state and obviously has something to hide … though not in a trunk,” added Charlesworth, grinning foolishly. “The friend appears to have had a crush on Miss Doon and I’ve been wondering since last night whether Cecil can have murdered her for the benefit of the other man. I must say I think that that’s stretching the claims of friendship rather far; a better explanation would be that he murdered her in a fit of jealousy because the other fellow was keen on her. He’s an unbalanced, hysterical sort of creature; one of these Oedipus complexes, by all accounts. If he did kill the girl he’ll be the easiest to convict because he’ll give himself away. The odd thing, though, is this; during my first interview with him, and with Bevan, both the sergeant and I noticed that when I mentioned the possibility of murder, each of them seemed relieved. Bevan’s explained his since—he was afraid the girl had committed suicide; but I can’t see why it should have been in Cecil’s case.”

The blobs had become a head and a body, and the spikes were now four knobby legs. A most outrageous camel was emerging from Charlesworth’s unconscious pencil. He began to decorate it with small dots as he went on, frowning with concentration. “The other very-likely is the charwoman, Mrs. Harris. She had both opportunities and a cut-and-dried motive; if she did it, we’re sunk, because we shall never prove it. Then there are the four possibles: there’s Aileen Wheeler, the mannequin (she’s almost a very-likely, really, because she had quite a respectable motive—or rather a motive that was the reverse of respectable—besides the two opportunities); Judy, the other mannequin, who makes no secret of the fact that she detested Doon, and who seems to have benefited by her death to the extent of one fiancé, returned to the fold—she had both opportunities; and Rachel Gay, but so far I haven’t traced any motive for her. Anyway, she seems a very unlikely person to commit a murder of this kind—or else she’s a very good actress.”

“Not a
very
good actress,” said the superintendent, coolly, “but an actress. I’ve seen her on the stage.”

“No!”

“Yes, I have. I never forget a name. A big, dark girl?”

“That’s the one. Where did you see her?”

“I don’t remember at all. It must have been several years ago and I have an idea that it was in the provinces somewhere, but I really couldn’t say. Only I remember the name and I remember the girl.”

“Well, that’s the most extraordinary thing, sir. However, I don’t know that it helps us very much, when one comes to examine it. There doesn’t seem to be the ghost of a motive. Still, I wonder …”

A tremendous forest grew up around Charlesworth’s camel while he wondered. His chief repressed a desire to point out the improbability of such a background, and inquired after the remaining four suspects. “Well, they’re hardly suspects at all,” said Charlesworth, scribbling busily. “They’re the ones who are in a way involved, but who had only one of the two opportunities. There’s the secretary; she could have poisoned the food, and she had the most excellent reasons for wanting to do away with Doon, who was apparently in possession of a letter which contained proof of the kid’s having gone off the rails at some time—I imagine she was holding it over Macaroni’s head for some reason of her own, though not, I imagine, for money. However, I still think she’s innocent; she only had a certain quantity of the poison and that much was found in the drawer where Miss Doon put it; moreover, Bevan gives the child an alibi for the whole period between the time she came downstairs and the time she went to the kitchen to give the message about the lunch; she had no time to go out and get more oxalic and that’s certain.”

“She couldn’t have administered it in some way during the few minutes after Bevan left the office?”

“Well, but where could she have got it from, sir?”

“All right, have it your own way; but there seems to me to be a flaw there somewhere, Charlesworth, only I can’t put my finger on it. Think it over. Now, who’s next?”

“Only three more, sir. Irene Best, Miss Gregory, Victoria David. Gregory may have had a motive because she is supposed to have been in love with Bevan and he, of course, was living with Miss Doon; however, though she might have administered poison, she couldn’t have got hold of it, so that lets her out. Irene Best had no motive that I can see, neither had Mrs. David; in any event, at the time when they might have used the opportunity to poison the food, they were each under the impression that Miss Doon was going to be out to lunch: in fact, Mrs. Best really is out of it altogether because she had no motive and neither of the two famous opportunities.”

Charlesworth finished his forest and added a dot to a minute space on the camel’s back. “No, Bevan’s my favourite, sir. He’s the villain.”

“But when could he have administered it?” asked the superintendent, gazing at him rather blankly.

“Ye gods, these old buffers!” thought Charlesworth, regarding his chief (who had just turned fifty) with a despairing though tolerant eye. “He hauls me over the coals about the case and he hasn’t even read the damn notes.” “You’ll have noticed in my interview with him, sir,” he explained patiently, “that Bevan admitted that after he came out of Miss Doon’s office he walked straight up to the table and leant across it to speak in a low voice to Mr. Cecil. He could easily have dropped the poison on to the plate while he did that.”

The superintendent continued to gaze at him. “Good lord!” he thought, “these boys! They make the most excellent and accurate notes on a case and never even notice the significance of them.” He had observed the poor-old-gentleman note in the young man’s voice and he could not keep a trace of asperity out of his own as he pointed out: “Hasn’t it dawned on you that Bevan couldn’t have known which was Miss Doon’s plate?”

Very pink in the face, Charlesworth fished out his own rough notebook and scanned it anxiously. “You’re perfectly right, sir. I’m very sorry.… I thought I’d caught you napping then,” he added, with an apologetic grin.

“It hadn’t occurred to me that you’d missed that—why did you think I’d tried to work out a theory of his coming down the area steps at a different time?”

Charlesworth, who had privately thought that the dear old geyser had been talking through his hat, made no reply except to bemoan the erasure of Bevan from his list of probables. “He did seem so perfect for the part.”

“Have you any proof of this supposed affair with the dead girl?”

“Oh, yes; I’ve got a whole bunch of letters. I’ve still got them on me, as a matter of fact; I hadn’t time to read them at the Yard, so I thought I’d run through them while I changed. Pretty pornographic, most of them!” He produced them from his pocket and idly sorted them through. “Hallo, I didn’t see this one; it’s in a different handwriting.…” He unfolded a single sheet of notepaper, and as he read its contents he suddenly went stiff and rather cold. His mind flew back to the half-hour he had spent with the lovelies in their little cubbyhole; he heard again Rachel’s warm voice, saying, “I loved her!” and Victoria’s laughter, trailing off into silence: “She looks so sweet and kind, Mr. Charlesworth, but you can’t trust her; Rachel’s a tiger when she’s roused!”

He handed the letter across the table; in a large, round, feminine scrawl, punctuated only by dashes and obviously written in haste, it read: “Please make an opportunity for me to talk to you at the shop to-morrow—it’s more vital than ever that nothing shall come out about—you know what—you’re the only person in the world who can give me away and if you do, my God, I’ll kill you.” The last words were heavily underlined. If he had not recognized the handwriting, the signature was clear for all the world to see: “Rachel Gay.’

Seven

1

R
ACHEL
was dressing to go to Doon’s funeral—struggling into a long-sleeved grey frock, polishing patent leather shoes, ripping the gay green feathers off a hat. A pair of black suède gloves lay upon the dressing-table; she thrust them suddenly out of sight and went to the telephone.

“Hallo, is that you, Judy? My dear, have you got an extra pair of black gloves, because I can’t find mine, and I thought you might be able to lend me some. Oh, thank you, darling. What? Well, if they don’t I shall just have to carry them scrunched up in my hand. I’d better call for you in my taxi and collect them, and then we can go on together.”

“I was supposed to be taking Macaroni,” said Judy.

“Oh, never mind that. I’ll ring up Aileen and tell her to call for Macaroni on her way through Camden Town. She’ll have to pass quite near.”

“Well, I’m taking Mrs. ’Arris, anyway.”

“Nonsense, Judy, you can’t do that.”

“I’ve promised to let her come with me and I’m jolly well going to,” said Judy, a trifle irritated at having her plans so summarily disarranged. “Bevan told her to stay away, I know, but the poor old thing would be brokenhearted if she didn’t go. She loathed Doon while she was alive, of course, but she’s all against missing a funeral.”

“I don’t think you ought to take her if Bevan doesn’t want her there.”

“It isn’t Bevan’s funeral,” said Judy, “and I’m taking her, so that’s all there is to it. Anyway, you’d better get a move on, Rachel, if you’re calling for me. It’s twenty past already.”

Rachel, having rung up Aileen, returned to her dressing. A seam had given way in one of her thin silk stockings and she stitched it up, rapidly but with infinite care. A clean handkerchief, powder-puff, lipstick, a couple of ten-shilling notes and some small change were transferred to her black handbag; she put on her hat, carefully brushed the shoulders of her frock, and ran down the stairs.

“Going off to the funeral of that pore young lady,” said the first charlady to the second charlady as she passed them in the hall. “Looks fair ’eartbroke, don’t she?”

The second charlady was unsentimental. “She don’t look ’eartbroke to me, Mrs. Spong,” she said, frowning heavily after the elegant figure. “I tell you what she looks to me: cross as two sticks, that’s what she looks to me!”

The arrangements for the funeral had been a nightmare to Bevan. Doon’s parents had cabled expenses, but, of necessity, left all arrangements in his hands. It had been decided to close the shop for the day—it was a Saturday, anyway, and decency demanded little less; but the problem of the attendance at the graveside was fraught with embarrassment. The Press would certainly miss no detail of the affair, and the absence of all or any of the dead girl’s colleagues might be taken amiss. On the other hand, the whole of England was by this time aware that, by a process of elimination, the murderer must be one of the staff of Christophe et Cie, and Bevan pictured with a shudder headlines blaring forth that the killer had walked with bowed head behind the victim’s coffin and placed hypocritical flowers upon her grave. He decided at last that most of the staff must be present, but that one or two absentees would, at least, leave an element of doubt for the public mind to seize upon, and he accordingly chose, at random, Irene and Mrs. ’Arris and instructed them to stay away. Mrs. ’Arris’s reaction was typical; lose her job she might, but miss the funeral she would
not
! Irene, only too glad of the excuse to be absent, assented willingly and the Press was informed that she was too unwell to attend. But alas for excellent intentions! That night headlines screamed that she alone had stayed away, and all over the country men and women took up malicious pens.