Murder in Piccadilly (5 page)

“Forty-eight!” she exclaimed. “Aren't you afraid of death?” Nancy was back in the Whitechapel of her childhood with its coffins, fish and chips, beer and policemen.

“It's only life we're afraid of as we grow older. When I married, nearly thirty years ago now…” She paused to sigh reflectively, and the girl seized the opportunity to take the stage.

“Thirty years ago! I've seen pictures of what people looked like then. Wearing long skirts and going about in hansom cabs.”

“We weren't always wearing long skirts or going about in hansom cabs, Miss Curzon.” Ruby's smile was genuine for the first time. “Life was pretty much the same then as it is now. We had much the same affairs and adventures as the young people of today have. Foolish and rich young men got entangled with common women. There were elopements, quarrels about money, divorces, even night clubs.”

“Night clubs thirty years ago?”

“Yes, night clubs. I'm told they were even worse than they are today. I wonder is that possible? My cousin says they were. So you see, Miss Curzon, we're going round in a circle. In my young days there were fast women and fast hansoms. Today there are fast women and fast motorcars.”

“I suppose that means me?” The glare was so intense that Ruby could detect physical danger to herself in it.

“I'm trying not to be personal, Miss Curzon. I'm not saying anything against you—only against the notion of my son marrying. He's penniless, and you don't want a penniless husband.”

“Not on your life.” The snarl was unmistakable.

“I want Bobbie to work and work hard before he even thinks of marriage. I want him to regard the Cheldon estate as out of his reach. The Cheldons have always been workers. Bobbie's father did his bit and a bit over, and I want Bobbie to follow in his footsteps. He's in love with you, and I'm not surprised. You live in a world of which he knows nothing. You're all light and brightness and adventure—he's compelled to live in a dull flat with a dull mother.”

“Bobbie's no snob,” she muttered.

“We're all snobs, Miss Curzon. By the way, would it be an impertinence to ask which branch of the Curzon family you belong to?”

The unexpectedness of the question discomfited Nancy and made her forget her grievances and her anger.

“Well, you see, in a manner of speaking, I belong to them all—if you go back far enough. Curzon's a sort of family name.”

“But perhaps it isn't your family name?”

“I'm as good as anybody else.” The sulky hostility betokened retreat.

“For your own sake, Miss Curzon, I hope you're better than a great many people I know. But I think this is Bobbie.”

Two doors made a rushing noise and Bobbie, flushed and excited, stood over Nancy with an arm around her shoulders.

“Sorry to have missed you, darling, but I'm glad you and mother have had the room to yourselves. You've told her everything? Mother, isn't she wonderful?”

“She is very clever.”

Nancy, interpreting the last word as only another woman could, stiffened.

“Why didn't you tell me, Bobbie, that you hadn't a bean?” she said, releasing herself from his embrace.

“But I never said I had money, darling!” he protested. “I told you all about the Cheldon estate and that I was hoping my uncle would help me to get a job and—”

“A job? I don't want to marry a man with a job. I want to marry one who can afford to do without one. I work like a damned nigger and where am I? When the agent's paid and the landlady and the bill at the clubs where I've got to spend or they won't have me, there's nothing left.”

“Marriage founded on love—” he attempted, but he had two women against him now and speech was almost illegal.

“Miss Curzon is talking sense, Bobbie, and marriage founded on commonsense is the sort that succeeds.”

“Love is the first and only essential, mother,” he retorted, “and—”

“Let's leave love out of it,” Nancy exclaimed petulantly. “I've been listening to insults and putting up with them because I thought you'd got the cash, Bobbie. If I'd known the truth I'd have let your mother know exactly where she got off.”

“But, darling—”

“Need we prolong the discussion, Bobbie?” his mother asked.

“But, mother. As Bernard Shaw once said—”

“Only once?”

“Oh, never mind about Bernard Shaw. He gives me a pain in the neck. You two talk like a couple of gramophones. I won't—” Nancy spluttered.

The voice of Florence announcing Miss Sylvia Brand relegated to well below the surface all contentious subjects.

“Hello, Mrs. Cheldon, and there's Bobbie.” The introduction was affected in the usual slipshod and hurried manner.

“Good evening, Miss Curzon.”

Sylvia gave her a smiling glance while the dancer looked her up and down with something between a sniff and suspicion. But she need not have done more than ask herself if here was a possible rival. That Sylvia Brand liked Bobbie was obvious, but nothing more. She was pretty enough, but her efforts to aid nature with a touch of paint here and there had the effect of detracting from her good looks. Nancy, who used none outside her working hours, seemed fresh and natural now, while her possible rival was a shade too artificial in appearance to have a chance in the silent beauty contest now in progress. Actually there was no comparison between them, for Sylvia imitated badly and inexpertly a type not worth imitating and in her efforts to appear smart and be smart deprived herself of all the advantages derived from superior education and social position. But then Sylvia Brand, having been over-educated, really knew very little. She had gone through the conventional educational mill and had emerged a slangy, filmised, genteel paraphrase of an unconventional modern girl. Could she have afforded to be natural she would have confessed that she wanted to marry Bobbie and have a family somewhere in a western suburb. As it was, South Kensington veneered by Wardour Street had her in its grip and she was compelled to move with a small crowd which considered life a failure unless “doing something” every day and every night.

Physically she was half an inch taller than Nancy and had a figure nearly as good. She dressed with credit at the expense of a doting father and studied the art of self-possession under every conceivable circumstance. At this moment she was thrilled and alarmed by the presence of Bobbie's “latest” in the fastness of Galahad Mansions, but she affected a nonchalance which she never abandoned.

Ruby Cheldon murmured something about seeing Florence and left the room; Bobbie rushed out when the telephone bell rang with a “That may be uncle or someone.”

Sylvia smiled when she found herself alone with Nancy.

“Volatile youth,” she said, with a languid air. “Suppose you and he have fixed it up?”

“Haven't got past his mother yet—that is, if I want to.” The reply was a trifle enigmatic, but Sylvia believed she understood it.

“Didn't know it was necessary to ask permission of mamma nowadays?” she drawled, but her heart was beating faster.

“One must be unconventional sometimes.” Nancy was astonished at the ease with which she could imitate her and her set. “It strikes me she'd prefer him to marry you or someone like you.”

The unexpected addition staved off Sylvia's embarrassment.

“Oh, that's only your joke. Bobbie and I are great pals, but nothing more. I expect he thinks I'm immature. He's a bit of a poet, you know, and looks down on us poor girls.”

“Well, he looks up to me—crazy about me.”

“Not surprised. You're a bit out of the ordinary and we're all ordinary here. I had a birthday party the other day—nineteen of us because I was nineteen.”

“I was nineteen in March.”

“Then there's a month between us. How interesting.”

“Where were you born?” They had never taught Nancy Curzon, née Soggs, reticence in Paradise Alley, Whitechapel.

“Mount Street.”

“That's near Grosvenor Square?”

“Mother used to say it was about a thousand miles away.” She laughed. “When I was ten we emigrated to Knightsbridge.”

“I was born in Paradise Row, Whitechapel,” Nancy retorted with aggressive and false pride, “and Mrs. Cheldon knows it or guesses it and tells me politely I'm common and ignorant.”

“I should say you were most uncommon, Miss Curzon,” said Sylvia, in her youthfulness overrating her power to suppress an offensive patronage.

“All that matters to me is that Bobbie loves me.” She said this to remind Sylvia that if she entertained any hopes in that direction or if she imagined she could ride roughshod over her she was mistaken. “He's told me a thousand times that I'm the only girl he has ever looked at, but I'll bet many have looked at him.” Again the giggle betrayed her.

“Bobbie's very popular,” said Sylvia calmly. “We all think he's a dear. It's a pity he can't get a job.”

“Get a job?” The reference coupling Bobbie with work always had an exasperating effect on Nancy, and she exploded. “I wish to God you wouldn't talk that rot about Bobbie as if he were a twopence ha'penny clerk living in a back street. Bobbie's a perfect gentleman. Why, the other night at the ‘Frozen Fang' when a drunken ass threw a plate at him Bobbie instead of throwing the pieces back picked them up and handed them to a waiter. Bobbie's a gentleman who oughtn't to have to work.” In her anger and speed she over-employed words. A rattle of glasses on the other side of the door warned her and she subsided into a windless growl.

It was Sylvia who opened the door and disclosed Bobbie bearing a tray containing the familiar furniture of a cocktail diversion. Behind him as if acting as acolyte was a tallish, fair-haired youth reverently walking, both eyes and hands ready for emergencies.

“Be careful, Bobbie,” he was saying when the procession arrived. “There isn't too much sherry in any of the glasses, you know. Hello!” He stared at Nancy and grinned appreciatively.

“Hello!” Nancy returned carelessly. Whoever he was individually she knew his kind in bulk, hundreds of them.

“Freddie Neville—Nancy,” was Bobbie's mode of introducing them.

Freddie grinned again. Grinning was a hobby if not a speciality of his, although it mattered nothing to him that it served to distract detection of the narrowness of the space between the extreme boundary of his chin and his too prominent teeth.

“Tootle-oo!” he chirruped and handed her a glass of sherry. “Spotted you at once, though I couldn't quite fix the name. Don't remember to have seen the Nancy.”

“It's Hyacinth on the bills,” she explained.

“Of course. Well, here we are, Nancy, and the best of pals. Gather round before the Old Brigade arrives.”

They moved in a body towards the corner of the room furthest from the door, and once she found herself in the company of youth Nancy's self-possession and confidence returned to her. She was supreme in that little coterie, and she knew it. Freddie Neville, whose mission in life was to combine pleasantness and good humour with an utter lack of anything approaching brainwork, installed her as their leader, and Sylvia, barely conscious that in the presence of the real thing of which she was only an imitation, it would be discreet to merge into the audience. When Kitty Manson, Sylvia's usual partner in their nightly pursuit of what they called “life”, arrived and proved to be an animated beauty photograph with a fondness for “chipping” Freddie, the party's temperature rose a trifle higher. Laughing and shouting, pausing to appreciate Nancy's own particular scream with which she heralded or emphasised her funny stories, and sometimes talking in chorus they paid no heed to the more elderly of the guests whom Ruby was receiving while her thoughts were as far away as her brother-in-law.

Florence interrupted with a collection of plates containing sandwiches and cakes. Freddie captured two and held them before Nancy. To prove that he had a sense of humour Bobbie immediately wrested them from him and presented those cakes and sandwiches which had not reached the floor to his divinity. The chorus laughed; Kitty said something which was considered witty, and Sylvia hit Freddie on the head with her empty glass. Somewhere in the background there was a murmur of voices, and Bobbie glancing over his shoulders saw his mother's crony and toady, Mrs. Elmers, the widow of a clergyman, and Galahad Mansions' acknowledged authority on Debrett. Beyond her was Mr. Davidson complete with his eighteen stone of a lifetime's over-indulgence in food, and listening to Mr. Davidson's recital of his unflattering opinion of Mr. Stanley Baldwin was the tall and gaunt Miss Shamley, a female of almost unblemished reputation.

“We're filling up,” said Bobbie sarcastically.

“I'm not,” said Nancy instantly. “Can't afford to. I have to dance in an hour or two.”

The humour appealed to them, and in the midst of the storm of laughter Mrs. Cheldon came across to speak to Nancy. At once a chill fell upon the revellers, a chill caught from the resentful discomposure of the dancer.

“Mr. Davidson and Mrs. Elmers would like to make your acquaintance,” said Ruby with a smile.

Nancy, suspecting that Mr. Davidson and Mrs. Elmers were only two members of the jury trying her that night, suppressed an instant desire to snub Bobbie's mother, but something in the calm, set pallor of her face and the serene determination of her expression checked her.

“Right-ho—I mean, of course.” She nearly stamped her foot in her vexation at this lapse, but it was difficult to maintain perfect ladyism in the presence of so much sugared hostility and covert criticism.

Mr. Davidson shook hands enthusiastically, and Mrs. Elmers fishily.

“Fine weather we're having?” said Mr. Davidson.

“What a charming dress!” said Mrs. Elmers, who in spite of a vocabulary of exaggerated adjectives produced to please, seemed to take winter with her wherever she went. Nancy looked at the pointed nose, white and wrinkled skin and carnivorous mouth, and retreated a step or two.