Death in High Heels (6 page)

“Let me get this straight: you and Rachel Gay and Irene Best are the salesladies in the showroom, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“And Miss—er—Miss Aileen Wheeler,” said Charlesworth, consulting a list, “Miss Wheeler and Miss Judy Carol are the mannequins?”

“Yes, they don’t sell, they just walk around in the models and show the customers what they are going to look like in the dresses—perhaps!” said Victoria, explaining to mere man. She added casually, “Judy’s not here to-day.”

“Not here?”

“No, she rang up this morning to say that she wasn’t well.” Victoria looked vaguely troubled.

“Nobody’s told me this.”

“Mr. Bevan’s been so worried and upset that I don’t believe he’s realized. Gregory knows. I suppose you could go and see Judy at her home; can I ring her up and say you’re coming?”

“No, I’ll have to arrange about that later. Where were we? Oh, yes, you were telling me about the shop. Now, Miss Doon? What was she?”

“She kept the stock and things; she was the sort of link between the
salon
and the workroom upstairs. Miss Gregory is Mr. Bevan’s secretary and glorified general factotum. She dances attendance on him with a very stately measure.”

“And what about this Mr. Cecil?”

“Oh, well, Christophe’s was really built round him; he does the designs and copes with most of the important customers, and so on. Mr. Bevan owns the shop and he’s got another one in Paris and he’s opening a branch in Deauville; but Cissie’s really the most important part of it—he’s marvellous in his own sphere.”

“Cissie?”

“I’m sorry; we always call him that and I forgot. When you see him, you’ll understand.”

“I’ve seen him,” said Charlesworth.

“Oh, then you do understand,” said Victoria, smiling faintly.

Encouraged by the smile, Charlesworth cast about for further questions. “Did you know Miss Doon well? Did you see anything of her outside her work?”

“Yes, a bit. She used to come to our flat sometimes. My husband’s a painter, you see, and she sat to him for one or two nudes. He was terribly thrilled with her.”

A cloud passed over her face, but Charlesworth was quite unable to make out whether it might be attributed to jealousy or resentment, or merely to the tragic thought that the lovely body now lay cold and quiet in a mortuary. He let her go.

Aileen came next, a goddess, draping herself with languid grace across the arm of a chair, and answering his questions in accents of the utmost gentility, but with an intonation that rang like a tocsin in his ears. “Did you ever see Miss Doon outside the shop?” asked Charlesworth, having taken her over the events of the previous day. “Did you know her personally apart from your work?”

“No, I did not.”

“Were you on friendly terms with her in the shop?”

“The mannequins saw hardly anything of her in the shop; I’ve never even spoken to her outside.”

“I suppose you haven’t any idea as to how she might have come to take a dose of this oxalic acid?”

“Not a sausage,” said Aileen automatically, and took her departure.

Even Bedd’s equable pulse had been stirred by the vision of her wild-rose face and burnished hair, but he shook his head sadly after the retreating form. “Beautiful, but dumb,” said Bedd.

“Pity she isn’t,” replied Charlesworth, and mentally crossed Aileen off, his books.

Mrs. ’Arris provided a savoury in this feast of sweetness. A stout, red-cheeked woman, who looked as though she wore a life-belt fastened under her worn woollen cardigan, she marched into the office and, planting her feet wide apart, demanded: “Wot’s this? Perlice?”

“That’s right. We——”

“Well, I never done it.”

“Nobody has suggested——”

“I never done nothink. It’s all ’er lies.”

“Now, please be quiet, Mrs. Harris——”

“A bit of fish, maybe, and a few cold potatoes, no good to anybody, but nothing more I
won’t
allow. I’ve always bin known as a good, ‘ard-workin’ woman, and without my ’usband’s sent for, nothing else will I say.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mrs. Harris. Now please be quiet and let me put a few simple questions to you.”

“Sending for the perlice, just for a bit a fish.”

“This has nothing to do with fish. A young lady, Miss Doon, has died, and I’m simply here to find out what she died from. I believe the staff here have lunch in the basement and that you’re generally down there helping with the serving out and so on; and I want you to tell me whether you think it’s possible that Miss Doon had anything to eat, or any tea, between lunch-time and the time she was taken ill.”

“Not without she ’ad some sweets or somethink in ’er office, she didn’t. Tea she did not ’ave, that I do know. She was took bad before it went round.”

“But she ate her lunch all right?”

“No, she did not, never being a one for curried rabbit and complaining Monday it was worse than ever.”

“What was wrong with it?”

“Nothink that I could see, but she was always one to make a fuss. ‘I can’t eat this ’ere,’ she says, ‘worse than usual it is,’ she says. ‘What’s for sweet, Mrs. ’Arris?’ she says. ‘Jelly, Miss,’ I says. ‘Good lord,’ she says, ‘what are we comin’ to? Well, bring me mine, Mrs. ’Arris,’ she says, ‘and take this muck away.”

“And did you give her a jelly?”

“Yes, cook give me a jelly through the ’atch, and I takes and gives it to Miss Doon. ‘There you are, Miss,’ I says. ‘And cook says you can ’ave another ’elping if you want it, being as ’ow Miss Gregory’s out and won’t want ’ers.’”

“What happened to the rest of her meat?”

“Well, there wasn’t much left. After all ’er grumbling she seemed to ’ave got through most of it. Put it all in the dustbin, I did. D’you think it was orf?”

“Well, something did upset Miss Doon, didn’t it? I suppose the dustbins have been emptied long ago?”

“Yes, the sergeant arst me that first thing this morning. Emptied before I got ’ere they was. I wonder if there was somethink wrong with that rabbit? Come to think of it, I ’ad terrible pains in the night, meself?”

“What, last night? After the rabbit?”

“That’s right, chronic they were. I says to my ’usband, ‘George,’ I says, ‘my stomach’s terrible agen,’ I says.…”

“Oh, then you’ve had these pains before? They weren’t something new?”

“Bless you, no. I ’as them nearly every night. Wot I suffer nobody knows, not without it’s my husband. ‘George,’ I says to ’im …”

“But under the circumstances, you don’t think it need necessarily have been the rabbit?”

“Well, you never know, do you? Still, the other young ladies ’asn’t complained, not without it was Miss Rose from the workroom, but that was a needle what she she got in ’er finger from the sewing-machine.…”

“Thank you, thanks awfully, Mrs. Harris. You see it was all nothing to worry about, was it? And you’ve been very helpful.”

“Well, it was the brooch, atcherly, sir, that I ’ad at the back of me mind. Miss Doon she lorst ’er brooch, see? and Miss Gregory she would ’ave it that I’d got something to do with it, and they kept on going at me, and worriting that poor little Macaroni about it too, and ’er as innercent as the babe unborn, and that fond of Miss Doon she would do nothink to ’arm ’er, let alone steal ’er brooch. Then all the time it turns up in the lining of Miss Doon’s coat when she was being took. That Gregory I’d like to scrag ’er. You won’t take no notice of anythink she tells you, will you, sir?”

“Not as far as the brooch is concerned. Don’t you worry, Mrs. Harris, that’s all right with me; and the fish too.…”

Mrs. ’Arris thanked him with tears in her eyes and drifted out, still muttering.

If Mrs. ’Arris provided the savoury, Miss Gregory certainly started off as the sorbet. She greeted Charlesworth frigidly, and totally ignored the sergeant, who felt himself, most unreasonably, getting pink and uncomfortable. She was a tall, rather angular girl, growing a little heavy at the hips, and with a small oval lump, probably of thyroid origin, prominent in her slender throat. She was dressed with meticulous care and made up heavily but with an inexpert hand. Charlesworth turned his head uneasily from the stare of her cold, grey eyes, but started off briskly enough with his questionnaire.

“Miss Gregory, I understand that you didn’t go into the room where the young ladies were using this oxalic acid which is suspected of having killed Miss Doon?”

“No, I did not. I was standing behind Mr. Bevan, and I could see it lying on the floor. He picked some of it up in his hand and turned to show it to me, but he threw it down’ again and I sent the charwoman to brush it all up. It was perfectly disgraceful that the stuff should have been lying about the place. The salesgirls are very nice people and so on, but they are completely irresponsible. Mr. Bevan’s always saying so to me.”

“She means she’s always saying so to Mr. Bevan,” thought Charlesworth, disgusted. He asked the usual question as to her personal relations with the dead girl.

Gregory’s expression grew guarded. “At one time I was rather friendly with her; I found I didn’t like the sort of people she went about with and I stopped seeing her.”

“About this luncheon business—we think she may possibly have taken some poison by accident then. You didn’t help in the dishing out, I understand?”

“No, I did not. That’s the charwoman’s job and I consider that it’s quite unnecessary that the girls should do it for her. It only spoils these people and they begin to take advantage of it… she should dish out the food and put the plates in the hot-cupboards and let the girls help themselves as they come down. However——”

“Anyway, you didn’t assist.”

“No, I was upstairs in Mr. Bevan’s office. I came down after they were all at the table, to tell Miss Doon that her luncheon appointment with Mr. Bevan was off. He had been thinking of sending her to the new branch which he is opening in Deauville and he had arranged to take her out and discuss the matter and make arrangements and so on; but that morning he came round to see me and told me he had decided to send me instead, so of course he had to cancel his date with her—or rather, I’m afraid, he forgot all about it, and he asked me to come out for a little celebration.”

Charlesworth looked at her triumphant, gloating face and hated her. “This is the perfect poisoner,” he thought. “She’s cruel and treacherous and selfish as hell. I must check up on this female most carefully.” He changed the course of his questions a little. “Mrs. Best was in the running for the job, I believe?”

“Irene Best? Did she tell you so? Well, that really is rather pathetic. There was a slight chance for her, I suppose, if Mr. Bevan hadn’t been able to spare either Miss Doon or myself; and she had a certain amount of experience and had managed the showroom here—under Mr. Cecil—for quite a long time. But as I pointed out to Mr. Bevan, she was quite impossible for the post: I didn’t like doing it, of course, but it was my duty to show him that she really wouldn’t have done. Poor little thing, she has no personality, you see, and after all it is rather important in a position like that to have presence and a certain amount of
charm
, if you see what I mean, and after all, poor little Mrs. Best is even quite—well, you can see for yourself.…”

“What the devil is she gassing about?” thought Bedd, as Gregory’s voice grew lower and more confidential. “I believe she’s taken quite a fancy to our Charles. What a hope she’s got, with all these daisies flying about! Better do some rescue work ’ere, I think. “Well, now, Mr. Charlesworth, sir,” he announced, with much preliminary clearing of his throat, “there’s one more witness for us to see, Miss Doon’s seckerterry; and then we’ll be finished, sir.” “’Igh time too,” he added inwardly, glancing at his watch. “Does she think we’ve got all night to spend listening to ’er running down ’er girl friends?”

“Good work, stout Cortez,” said Charlesworth, as soon as they were alone. “I was getting quite frightened. She came so close that I thought she was going to eat my face. Ye gods, what’s this?” he added, as Macaroni came wailing up the stairs.

Kindness, sternness, terrorism, nothing could abate Macaroni’s sobs. Charlesworth was quite impressed by the magnitude of her grief. “To think that I should have carried the poison to her my
self
!” howled Macaroni, and would not be comforted. They gave it up at last and contented themselves with extracting their information through her tears.

“You took the packet from Mrs. Gay and put it in your pocket. What happened next?”

“Mr. Bevan came in,” sobbed Macaroni, with a fresh outburst of weeping at the memory of this awful contretemps.

“And what did you do then?”

“I ran downstairs and I gave the powder to Miss Doon and she put it in the left-hand drawer of her desk, because she keeps that locked, you see, and then she locked the drawer and I don’t know anything more about it.”

The sergeant went down to fetch it. “Is this all there was?” asked Charlesworth, holding the packet out before her.

“Yes, that’s all.”

“Well, now, look carefully. We don’t want any mistakes. Is this the way the paper was screwed up?”

Macaroni gazed at it with tearful eyes. “Yes, just like that.”

“You don’t think it’s been touched since Miss Doon put it in her drawer?”

“I don’t think so,” said Macaroni, lugubriously.

Charlesworth opened the paper and displayed a small quantity of powdered crystals within. “Would you say that this was the exact amount you were given? Think very carefully before you answer.”

This second admonition was too much for Macaroni. She burst into tears again and all that could be heard was that it was too, too dreadful to think that she should have been the means of poisoning her dear Miss Doon.

“But, my child, you say that none of the poison has gone; so it can’t have been any of the lot that you took down to her.”

“There might be a few grains less.”

“A few grains less wouldn’t make the slightest difference as far as you’re concerned. A few grains wouldn’t kill a person. What you mean is, not that you think there are a few grains less, but that if there were, you couldn’t be sure of telling; isn’t that right?”