Murder in Piccadilly (6 page)

“Yes—er—I mean—” she murmured, and to her relief the struggle towards politeness was mercifully ended by the sensational entry of Massy Cheldon.

“Why, Ruby!” he exclaimed as he took her hand between his own, “I'd no idea you were giving a party. I hope I'm not in the way?”

“Of course not, Massy. We're delighted to have you. Bobbie, a whisky and soda for your uncle. Not a cocktail. You know he hates them. Mrs. Elmers, I needn't introduce my brother-in-law to you. Mr. Davidson. Oh, Massy, I want to present you to Bobbie's friend, Miss Nancy Curzon.”

It was only accidental, but to Ruby at any rate it was disturbing that the others should form a ring while Nancy extended her hand.

“Pleased to meet you,” she said fatally.

“It's an honour,” Massy responded gallantly, and looked over her head. “There's Sylvia and Kitty, and, of course, Freddie. Hello, Freddie!”

Really the great man was in a most friendly mood. “Charming!” whispered Mrs. Elmers. “Wish I had his money,” was Kitty's comment, “I'd start the screamingest night club in London and bar everybody over twenty-five.”

“Must come and see you dance, Miss Curzon,” Massy resumed when the party had recovered a little from his importance.

“But haven't you?” she asked seriously. “I seem to remember your face. Must have seen you before.”

“Now you're trying to make me vain,” he retorted, and Nancy was so puzzled that when Freddie came up to claim her she suffered him to lead her back to the exclusive coterie in the corner.

As Massy Cheldon moved away with Ruby, conversation became general, and Mr. Davidson, invading the Freddie Neville group, broke it up. Sylvia wandered towards Mrs. Elmers, and Freddie, taking a hint consisting of a muttered threat in his right ear, left Nancy to Bobbie.

“I know your uncle well by sight,” she said, and said it so seriously that Bobbie stared at her in astonishment.

“Why the tragedy, Nancy, and the gloom?” he asked, seeking refuge in facetiousness. “Of course, you've seen my uncle. He's one of London's most famous bores and is often on view in Piccadilly and Pall Mall, to say nothing of St. James's Street.”

“Now you're talking like Freddie,” she protested. “It's something more than having seen him, Bobbie. When I started dancing I used to be one of a troupe called the ‘Seven Fairies.' I was the youngest—only fourteen—and the eldest was a girl named Hortense Delisle. Her real name was Annie Smithers, but that wouldn't have looked well on a bill. Of course.” She uttered an exclamation of relief and her face cleared. “It was your uncle who got keen on Annie, dead nuts, in fact. We girls used to tease her about him.”

“Well?” His lack of surprise astonished her.

“Why do you say ‘well' like that?” she whispered, wishing she could shout. “Is your uncle that sort of fellow?”

“Always has been, according to his own account.” Bobbie laughed. “He's been a lady-killer from the day he left Eton, perhaps before. But he's always seen to it that the killing has cost him nothing.”

“I think he spent money on Annie.”

“Oh, so that's why you're melodramatic. My dear Nancy, you must learn to be surprised at nothing. Uncle Massy is a bore and a miser who fancies himself as an Adonis. But he's always been too mean to marry, which I suppose I ought to be thankful for.”

“I wonder,” she murmured pensively.

“Wonder what?”

“What your uncle would say if I asked him what had become of Annie. She was going about with him a lot when she suddenly disappeared.”

“To be continued?” said Bobbie, ironically.

“Let me think, you idiot,” she said with a smile. “Annie was a beauty.” She sighed. “Oh, here's Freddie.” She made a face at him.

“Nancy,” said the irrepressible intruder, “Sylvia and Kitty and I want you and Bobbie to join us in a midnight visit to Whitechapel. Rather a lark! Whitechapel's an awfully interesting place, you know.”

“It's awful, but not interesting, Freddie. But do take your face away. Oh, who's that?”

“Mrs. Carmichael,” heralded Florence from the doorway.

The newcomer entered on the run, uttered a laughing apology to Ruby and instantly rescued Massy from Mr. Davidson and Mrs. Elmers.

“That's the queerest widow in Fulham,” Bobbie whispered. “Wants to marry my uncle, and yet she's well off.”

Mrs. Carmichael, who at forty-three had to some extent got the better of her age, was now chatting to both Ruby and Massy. She was of good figure and height, with handsome features and a warmth of expression which gave a semblance of youth to her appearance. Her feeble egotism induced her to arrive late at every party, believing that a solitary entry with all the other guests forming a chorus would give her an outstanding position in any company. She had at her finger-tips the gossip of fifty drawing-rooms and about as many families, which she retailed with an artistic hesitancy and pretence of ignorance which convinced her—but no one else—that she was a listener to instead of a retailer of scandal.

“I'm so sorry I'm late, dear,” she purred to Ruby.

“Oh, we all know, Mrs. Carmichael,” said Massy chaffingly, “that you take good care to avoid whatever dangers may lurk in punctuality.”

“Nasty, clever man,” she cried, affectionately.

“What about a livener-up, Mrs. Car?” asked Freddie, intruding where even a devil would have feared to tread.

“Thank you,” she said with the sourest of her ready-to-wear smiles. “A weak, very weak whisky and soda.”

To her annoyance Mr. Davidson, observing that Freddie Neville was apparently basking in the smiles of the eclectic Mrs. Carmichael, joined the group and was speedily followed by Sylvia, Kitty and Mrs. Elmers. The widow of multiple butcher shops smiled her hardest to keep her thoughts at bay.

“A wonderfully pretty girl, Massy,” said Mr. Davidson, anxious to please.

They started at his loudness of voice until they discovered that Nancy and Bobbie had disappeared from the room.

“Of course, she's pretty, Davidson,” said Massy curtly. “What else is there to infatuate Bobbie?”

“When a man thinks only of a girl's beauty he's apt to forget himself,” said Mrs. Carmichael, but the remark missing fire because Massy Cheldon continued to look severe, she added hastily, “Not that I approve of this constant running down of our sex. An incurable bachelor like yourself, Mr. Cheldon,—”

“Incurable? There's no such thing or state, Mrs. Car!” retorted Mr. Davidson who was sufficiently well-to-do to be able to afford to discount Massy Cheldon's standing in his own family. “Cheldon is merely taking the longest way round to St. George's, Hanover Square. I used to think I was one of the incurables. Didn't marry until I was forty-three, and I did it again at fifty-six.”

“And yet you're always sneering at our poor sex, Mr. Davidson. You deserve to be punished for it,” said Mrs. Carmichael severely.

“I was,” he answered curtly.

The widow sought a chair and Massy Cheldon dropped into the one next to hers. Mr. Davidson sprawled himself on the decayed sofa, to Ruby Cheldon's horror, and Mrs. Elmers occupied part of a chair. Freddie, ready to serve, stood between them and the door.

Ruby longing for the time to pass so that she might take counsel with her brother-in-law, inspected the array of bottles and decanters on the sideboard.

“Perhaps Mrs. Elmers would like some tea,” she whispered to Florence who had appeared in response to the pressing of the bell. “Oh, there's the front door. Who can it be?”

She had forgotten the vanishing of Bobbie and Nancy, and their return was very welcome, for somehow even the inventive and resourceful Mrs. Carmichael was finding it none too easy to keep the conversation alive.

“Sorry, mother,” said Bobbie, “but the cigarettes gave out. Have one, uncle?” He presented a large box. “Oh, of course, Mrs. Carmichael. You too, Nancy.”

“I must rush,” said the dancer. “Just come back to say good night. Goodbye, Mr. Cheldon. Have my work to do before I try and forget Freddie and his grin.”

“Oh, come now, Nancy!” that youth protested good humouredly.

But the murmuring “good nights” and “good byes” and the temporary disappearance of Bobbie blotted him out of the picture until Bobbie had come back and in a feverish attempt to compensate himself for the loss of his fascinator led Freddie to a determined assault on the solids and liquids.

“Thank you, Bobbie,” said Massy Cheldon, accepting the scientifically adjusted whisky and soda. “I wanted it.”

“A toast, ladies and gents,” said Freddie, believing his assumed cockney accent was exquisitely correct and therefore exquisitely funny. “To the health and happiness of Nancy Curzon, and I am sure you will all agree with me that Bobbie has found a distinct number one.”

Massy Cheldon nodded, and Mrs. Carmichael therefore nodded to. But they did not fail to notice that Bobbie's face reflected a sort of angry pride that threatened a scene.

“So she's dancing in a night club,” Massy Cheldon remarked in an undertone with a sentimental flavour about it. “Dear me, why I could have been only a boy when I was last in one.”

“But I thought night clubs were only invented during the war,” exclaimed Sylvia.

“My paternal grandmother eloped with a man she met in a night club in the Haymarket in the early years of Queen Victoria's reign. It's curious to think that if that hadn't happened I mightn't have been here.”

“Oh, night clubs are not the curse some people make them out to be,” said Freddie Neville, helpfully.

“Thank you, Freddie,” said Massy Cheldon ponderously, and Mrs. Carmichael duly provided the necessary laughter. “By the way, how is your mother getting on at Hollywood?”

“First rate, thanks. She's just got a fresh contract at two hundred a week—pounds not dollars—and is going great guns. You should see her press notices. But I can tell you that I was a trifle worried until I got the cablegram, for if she hadn't secured the contract I'd have had to take that job in the city my cousin offered me.”

“That was a narrow escape, indeed,” said Mr. Davidson sarcastically.

“It was. Quite knocked me off my grub with anxiety and nervous strain.” Freddie Neville was incapable of identifying sarcasm even when it was being aired at the expense of others. “But won't it be jolly when Bobbie's married to Nancy? We'll all be able to see her dance for nothing. A jolly crowd these night club birds, and quaint. One's an ex-pug, you know.”

They did not know, and Mrs. Carmichael, in particular, did not wish to know. Freddie's oratory only bored her, but then so would have the most polished of speakers if Massy Cheldon happened to be in her company.

“You'll marry one day, Freddie,” she said sweetly. “All you men want looking after, particularly Mr. Cheldon.”

“I have twenty servants to look after me,” he said, and growled as he reminded himself of their cost to him.

“They only look after themselves,” said Ruby, with a laugh.

“It's not good for a man to be alone,” Mrs. Carmichael ventured. “That's in the Bible, but it's not one of the Ten Commandments although it ought to be.”

“Why will you women always bring up the subject of marriage?” said Massy Cheldon testily. “One would think it was the best substitute for paradise. You should see some of the married couples at Broadbridge. They live like pigs.”

“Is that their fault?” asked Bobbie, moodily.

“Of course it is,” snapped his uncle. The tone angered Bobbie who had to find revenge in a pose of philanthropist and idealist.

“If I owned Broadbridge I'd be ashamed to admit that some of my tenants lived like pigs,” he growled. “I'd give them decent houses.”

“And have them turned into pigstyes within a year! But then, Bobbie, it's so easy to be generous with another man's money. Of course, I'm not popular at Broadbridge, and don't I know it! They would prefer for their landlord some romantically-minded young ass who would pauperise them and at whom they'd be the first to laugh. They don't want a shrewd, level-headed, clear-thinking man who keeps them up to the scratch.”

“People who live in pigstyes must have to do an awful amount of scratching,” said Mrs. Carmichael in an effort to ease the situation.

“And, of course, they grunt,” said Ruby.

“They grunt right enough—at me,” said Massy Cheldon gloomily. “But unfortunately or fortunately all the pigs are not at Broadbridge.” He glared at his nephew.

“I say, populace,” protested Freddie Neville in a plaintive voice, “aren't we getting a bit personal talking about pigs?”

“Speak for yourself, Freddie,” interjected Sylvia Brand.

“Perhaps, you're right, Freddie,” said Massy Cheldon rising.

It was the signal for the breaking up of the party, and Mr. Davidson began the farewell proceedings.

“Just see Sylvia and Kitty home,” whispered Ruby to Bobbie. Her brother-in-law still lingered, the last of the guests after Mrs. Carmichael had been conducted to the custody of her chauffeur.

“Well what do you think of her?” Ruby asked with a wan smile.

“My dear Ruby,” he answered, seizing the whisky decanter, “there's not the slightest need for me to tell you that. You've been too long one of the Cheldons not to know the Cheldon standard. Can you fancy her at Broadbridge Manor? Does she fit in with our rules and traditions?”

“She's dreadfully common.” Ruby sighed. “Oh, dear, I do wish she was even passable. Massy, you remember her ‘perfect lady' and ‘perfect gentleman' and her manners!”

“She's clever though, Ruby, devilishly clever, and we've got to bear that in mind. Bobbie is infatuated with her. We both know what a young snob he is, and yet he gloated in her gaucheries. Was actually proud of them.”