Murder in Piccadilly (9 page)

“But I thought everything depended on that.”

Nosey Ruslin solemnly secured further liquid refreshment.

“Billy, you don't know the world like I do,” he said, poising the glass in front of his face. “Didn't I tell you this fellow Cheldon is weak but that he considers himself strong—the strong, silent man type?” He laughed before drinking. “He's just the sort to make for the family mansion breathing fire and thunder and then to collapse. A talker, Billy, and not a worker. No pluck. Still, he could be driven to doing it, though he'd do it so clumsily that they'd have him in quod before he was home again. And in that event all our trouble would go for nothing.”

“Exactly.” Billy looked discontented. “Nosey, it's useless going on with this unless there's cash and a lot of it at the end. We must put Cheldon in possession of the property so that he can pay us our little share for our—er—help.”

Nosey smiled to himself.

“He says it's worth ten thousand a year,” he murmured. “And a quarter of that each, Billy, would suit us nicely.”

“Two thousand five hundred a year!” Billy pronounced the words with a solemn hush. “Two thousand five hundred a year.”

“But we've got to have him so fixed that he won't be able to wriggle out,” said Nosey with unusual earnestness. “We're aiming high, Billy, very high, and everything will depend on our proof. Should it happen that Cheldon doesn't remove his uncle and we arrange for a substitute there must be written proof, or at any rate something in writing, that can guarantee Cheldon forking out. Personally I prefer a lump sum. No quarterly or half-yearly payments for me. You never can tell what may happen to upset an arrangement of that sort.”

“It ought to be easy to raise money on the property.” Billy laughed. “That young fool has talked so much of his rich uncle and of the property he must inherit when the uncle dies that although I've never seen it I seem to know every inch of it. Broadbridge Manor—that's the name of the place. It must be about the size of Buckingham Palace. And the way he's spouted to Nancy about his ancestors!” His expression darkened, and Nosey, watching him closely, saw disturbing signs.

“Billy.” The voice was peremptory.

“What's the matter now?” The dancer's manner was embarrassed.

“First, last and always you've got to remember that Nancy is not for you—at least, not until we've received every shilling we'll be entitled to for keeping to ourselves the exact method by which Cheldon so unexpectedly inherited his uncle's estate.”

“But you said yourself this evening that I was to make love to her,” he protested weakly.

“Exactly, and only for the purpose of keeping Cheldon's jealousy at boiling point. He must be reminded every moment that Nancy is wanted by someone else. My little lie about a contract helped, but there must be a rival besides the continental tour, and you can be that.”

Billy's expression cleared.

“It's the part of the scheme I like best.” Then his face clouded again. “But somehow Nancy isn't the same to me as she used to be.”

“Why should she? Here's a good-looking johnnie with ten thousand a year in prospect who is willing to lick her boots. What can you offer her? She knows too much about poverty to see any romance in it. Cheldon thinks poverty is wonderful. That's the difference between the three of you. But mind you, Billy, there's one other thing.”

“Yes?” Billy yawned. Excitement was passing and there was nothing else to keep in subjection his physical exhaustion.

“Nancy must never be told of our plan.”

“Do you take me for a fool?”

“Yes, I do,” was the blunt retort. “You're in love with Nancy. It's because you're in love with her that you've kept her as your dancing partner. Don't I know that if you weren't so desperately hard up you wouldn't lift a finger to help Cheldon to marry her? But you want money more than you want her, and to get the money you've got to help me to make it possible for Cheldon to engage a church and parson.”

“She's too good for him,” he muttered.

“Does Nancy think so? But we're old enough, Billy, to be sensible—at least I am. Now listen to me before you biff off. I hinted to Cheldon that he could see me at any time, and that means he'll be looking for me before I'm a dozen hours older. When we do meet I'll drop a few more seeds.” The simile always amused him. “And by the time he's starting for the mansion he'll be thinking only of the quickest way to arrange for his rich uncle's funeral.”

“But how will you trick him into providing proof—the proof that we must have?”

“Leave that to me.” Nosey looked excessively sly. “Billy, he'll go down to Broadway—”

“Broadbridge Manor,” his companion corrected.

“To this whatever-you-call-it full of zeal for helping Uncle Tom—”

“That's not the name. It's Mally or—”

“What on earth does the name matter?” Nosey was almost testy. “And don't interrupt. As I was saying, he'll arrive at Broadway Mansion with a knife in one pocket and a packet of poison in the other, both birthday presents for Uncle Algy. But do you think he'll take 'em out of his pockets when he's welcomed to the ancestral halls? Not on your life. He'll be too frightened to do more than look a bigger fool than he actually is and keep awake all night thinking about the hangman.”

“A fat lot of good that'll do us,” Billy grumbled.

“My boy,” said Nosey who from the neck downwards bore some resemblance to Napoleon and who now assumed a Napoleonic pose, “it's your profession to think with your feet—mine to think with my head. Leave the conduct of the campaign to me. I'll produce the goods if you'll promise to do as I tell you.”

“I don't want any fireworks,” the dancer protested.

“They burn your fingers if you're clumsy or unlucky.”

“No one will be any the wiser except ourselves,” was the re-assuring reply. “Can't you see that I'm rehearsing Cheldon for the weekend at Broadway—Broad Haven—Oh, never mind! I never was good at remembering names. I'll prime him up just for a trial run. He'll do nothing except eat and sleep at his uncle's house, but when he returns to us and to Nancy he'll have been readied. Savvy?”

Billy sought the sofa.

“I'll sleep here, Nosey,” he said in a tired voice. “Dead beat.”

A minute later his host was standing over him and watching his unconscious form, smiling to himself all the while as though he had just recalled a joke which had hitherto escaped his memory.

“If I had fifty quid it'ud be a certainty,” he murmured as he wended his way to his bedroom.

They had a noonday breakfast of kippers and coffee, and Billy Bright, unshaven and unoiled, ate with the appetite of a healthy schoolboy.

“Wonder if Cheldon will phone you,” he remarked, after removing the contents of a marmalade pot.

“Can't do it here,” said Nosey drily, glancing sideways at the apparatus on the small table near the door. “Cut off three days ago. Matter of six quid.” He laughed shortly. “And for hours I've been trying to think of a scheme for raising fifty.”

“I don't believe there's so much money in London—at least not in the West End. But why fifty?”

“Want to lend young Cheldon most of it. Know why?”

“That's easy. He's hard up and he'll be grateful.”

“Not exactly. He'll have to acknowledge the money and with a bit of finesse I can get him to refer to his uncle's early passing from a world of sorrow to a world of bliss.”

“A hundred to one against that,” said Billy, drawing his chair away from the table and searching his pockets for a cigarette.

“No, only about five to one.” Nosey frowned. “You're forgetting that I'm in charge, Billy.”

“You don't give me a chance to forget. But fire away. Any matches?”

“Fifty quid.” Nosey relieved his pockets of their contents, eight shillings and ninepence chiefly in coins of contemptible value. “I can't remember a pal I don't owe money to. Fifty quid,” he repeated.

A knock on the door startled him. Knocks on the door always had done so for nearly three weeks now.

“Another summons,” muttered Nosey. The knock was repeated. “You open the door, Billy. I'm not here of course.”

The dancer's laughter instantly banished the tension.

“It's only a note from Nancy,” said Billy, tearing open the envelope. “She says—what does she say?” He glanced through the letter quickly. “Tell her Mr. Ruslin will be there,” he called to the boy, and tossed the letter across the table to his fellow-conspirator.

“‘Bobbie has just phoned to say he wants you to lunch with him at the Villafranche,'” Nosey read. “‘I can't come, and Bobbie says don't be later than half-past one. Nancy.'”

“There you are, Billy, didn't I tell you?” he cried triumphantly. “I knew I'd made an impression.”

“You're a regular wonder, Nosey,” said Billy Bright admiringly. “This fellow Cheldon's been haughty all along with me and the other chaps at the ‘Frozen Fang'. How did you manage it?”

“Ah, my boy, that's only to be explained by what I once heard a bloke call magnetic charm and personality.” He laughed. “But that fifty quid, Billy. Fifty quid and it's a certainty. What's the time?” He went to the window and by straining his neck saw sufficient of a public house clock on the other side of the street to learn that it was a quarter to one. “I'll run along and try and tap Buddy Rogers,” he murmured to himself. He disappeared into the bedroom and as one was striking somewhere reappeared dressed for the expedition.

“Don't hurry away, Billy, if it doesn't suit your book,” he said genially “And if the brokers arrive while you're here don't let them grab your overcoat. I'm off to begin the campaign.” With unexpected seriousness he seized Billy's right arm. “You promise you will back me up—take your orders from me?”

“Of course,” said Billy, staring at him. “Two thousand five hundred a year of the best—after this.” He shuddered, but he was alone now.

Chapter Four

“The matter with a chap like me,” said Nosey Ruslin across the luncheon table in the Villafranche, “is that he has more money than education. Mind you, I don't say brains—education's the word. Now you have brains and education, but no money.”

“I wish I had your ability to make money, Mr. Ruslin,” said Bobbie, with a wistful earnestness that carried its own conviction.

“It can be useful.” The tone was condescending. “But it isn't everything, Mr. Cheldon.” He smiled knowingly. “It isn't Nancy, for example.”

“Without money it won't be Nancy,” the younger man rejoined uneasily.

The expansive form leaned heavily towards him and a fat hand patted his arm almost affectionately.

“Nancy knows you may come in for ten thousand a year any day,” he said consolingly. “Haven't I told her that a score of times since she let me know she was keen on you.”

Bobbie flushed with pleasure.

“She said that, did she?”

“A hundred times if once, Mr. Cheldon. Do you know what I said? ‘Nancy, you can bank on the boy friend—he's a winner. I know how to spot 'em and I've never made a mistake yet'. That's what I said, Mr. Cheldon, when I'd only seen you in the ‘Frozen Fang', and now that I know you personally I'm certain I didn't make a bloomer.”

“Thank you, Mr. Ruslin, thank you,” whispered the ardent lover.

“You won't have to work twelve hours a day as I have to, Mr. Cheldon. You're a gentleman of position—county and all that. You ought to be riding to hounds and fishing for salmon and playing polo and talking in Parliament.” The hotch-potch of the social round which he composed impromptu had a flattering inference which compelled his hearer to accept it seriously. “Who's this uncle of yours to keep you out of your fortune?”

It was so inaccurate a statement of the position that even in his present state of mind Bobbie could not accept it without experiencing a pang of conscience. But he offered no correction.

“He's an old man—nearly fifty-four—and lives as if he was going to lose every penny next week.” Bobbie took a sip of wine and glanced around.

“Pity you can't give him a push over a precipice,” Mr. Ruslin was remarking when Bobbie returned to consciousness of his companion's existence. “But, of course, there are no precipices in London that I've heard of.” It was noticeable that whenever Nosey introduced, however obliquely, the subject of murder, he instantly annotated it with a selection from his stock of humour. But Bobbie did not discern that.

“Uncle sometimes talks as if he were dying, Mr. Ruslin, but as a matter of fact he's as strong as a horse.” Bobbie gripped his wineglass again. “What could I not do with ten thousand a year!”

“You could marry Nancy,” whispered the tempter across the table. “You could put your mother in the position she ought to have been in years ago. Fancy her, the widow of a colonel, having to live with common people. Just think of it, Mr. Cheldon, here I am living on the fat of the land, and your mother—well, there.” He sighed. “You see, Nancy's told me a lot about her. People like her ought not to be poor. Look at this little lunch of ours. It'll cost a matter of a couple of quid, and that's less than I spend as a rule. It's a party of four generally, for I've got to entertain theatrical managers and film people a lot. It's the only way to do business.” He caught a glimpse of the face opposite that intimated merely polite interest. Instantly he turned on the Nancy tap. “She's a peach, is that girl of yours, and I'm proud to take her out to lunch whenever she'll let me. Not that she's too fond of the Villafranche. It's the Ritz or the Berkeley with her if it isn't the Carlton. I don't often go to those places myself, Mr. Cheldon, because I feel a bit out of it with the nobs, but Nancy—Good lord!” He smiled all over his extensive face. “She's got the manner. You'd think she was like yourself—born to it. And how she loves the life!”

Bobbie's face clouded.

“Don't be depressed, Mr. Cheldon,” said Nosey gently. “It's not as if you hadn't any prospects. You're heir to a fortune and when you've got it Nancy will drag you into St. George's, Hanover Square.”

“When I get it,” muttered Bobbie gloomily.

“You've got to get it and Nancy, too,” said Ruslin earnestly. “That's the ticket, Mr. Cheldon, and damme, I'm going to stand by you and help you. I've never met a young chap to whom I've taken such a fancy as you. Now listen and don't let that aristocratic pride make you act foolish. Mr. Cheldon, it's no disgrace to be hard up. Most young men are and I was hard up all the time when I was your age.” He jerked the pocket-book into action and held it in such a position that the wad of notes nearly concealed it. “Help yourself, Mr. Cheldon, and pay me back when you're the squire and Nancy is your lady.”

“Oh, I say!” Bobbie's emotion was almost tearful as he stared at his friend, his cheeks red and his eyes watering.

“Go on. Help yourself. Twenty or even fifty quid.” There was only forty in the collection, but exaggeration entailed no liability. “It's like lending to the Bank of England. You'll be a rich man soon.”

Since he had been fined ten pounds and had his driving licence suspended Bobbie's finances had been in a chaotic condition, Uncle Massy having insultingly declined to subscribe to the fine. The consequence had been that the culprit's daily portion of cash had been reduced to a shilling or two, eked out by such credit as his association with Nancy Curzon secured for him at the ‘Frozen Fang', and now there were dangerous debts unknown to his mother which clamoured for immediate settlement.

“Well, if I might—five pounds,” he began nervously. Mr. Ruslin's effervescent generosity and friendliness were not to be damped. Clutching as many of the notes as he could he thrust them towards his guest.

“There's about twenty there, Mr. Bobbie.”

“I make it twenty-three,” said the grateful recipient.

“Then here's two more to make up the round sum.” Before Bobbie could speak the waiter was approaching at the usual signal.

“Two six four. Right.” Mr. Ruslin's recital was low but distinct. “Keep the balance for yourself, waiter.”

Fifty shillings parted company, and Bobbie, sharing in the honours of the waiter's processional obeisance, walked into Wardour Street with the air of a man who has achieved all his ambitions.

“The office is round the corner,” said Nosey, lighting the size of cigar he considered consistent with prosperity. “Only a temporary affair until the new building in the Haymarket is ready.”

It was, indeed, a small affair, in a ramshackle building but as Nosey had merely borrowed it for the occasion he did not trouble to apologise further.

“I've sent my principal papers to the bank,” Nosey disclosed when they were in the dingy room. “Too important to leave lying about here.” He pulled open the top drawer in the desk and Bobbie heard him laugh. “I'd forgotten this.” A small, silver-plated revolver glistened in the sunlight. “That reminds me, I haven't taken out a licence. I wonder what I can do with it. The police are pretty tough about weapons. They think everybody who's got one will be tempted to turn bandit.” He glanced meaningly at Bobbie. “I wonder Mr. Cheldon….”

Bobbie was beside him in a couple of strides.

“Certainly I'll mind it for you, Mr. Ruslin,” he said eagerly. “It's a small service for all you've done for me.” He laughed. “Money does make a difference, and with your twenty-five pounds in my pocket I don't fear anyone or anything.”

“There ought to be ten thousand a year in that pocket,” said Ruslin humorously as he parted with the weapon. “But be careful, Mr. Cheldon, it's fully loaded. Slip it into your hip pocket. Good.” He picked up an official-looking document. “Ta-ta for the present.”

Bobbie was still thinking of his unexpected and unconventional ally when on the Friday afternoon he carefully packed his bag and travelled cheaply until at Broadbridge station luxury awaited him in the shape of a perfect Daimler and a magazine artist's conception of the ideal chauffeur. From that moment he had nothing to do except breathe and be a gentleman of leisure, and so far from having to handle the Gladstone bag he did not see it again until seven o'clock when he climbed the gorgeously spacious staircase at the Manor with its portrait lined walls, assuring himself as he experienced a sensation of utter ease that luxury was something only to be appreciated by those who were born to it.

He had arrived at Broadbridge Manor at a quarter past six to find Uncle Massy before a big fire in the drawing-room which had its traditions, royal and noble.

The first Duke of Weybridge had received the second Charles there—an item of family history which the Cheldons had taken over with the title-deeds—and two of the Georges were reputed to have admired its ceiling.

“The train must have been punctual,” was Massy Cheldon's conversational gambit, but the tone was friendly enough.

“I suppose so.” A movement behind him enabled him to time the approach of a footman with a tray. “Thanks.” He was facing his uncle again. “I needed that.” He smacked his lips and surrendered the empty glass. “You haven't altered the room since I was here last.”

It was the sort of remark that provides the hearer with opportunities according to his mental equipment for sarcasm or humour or a whine. Massy Cheldon naturally whined.

“The furniture's decaying but I'm not having it replaced,” he explained to his nephew's surprise. “Costs too much, and I'm having a fight with the income tax people.”

“But I love the room as it is, uncle,” he protested. “There's something of English history about it.” He went across to inspect an engraving of the Marquess Wellesley who as patron of Jonathan Cheldon had earned a niche in the Cheldon portrait gallery and also its archives.

“You don't have to pay for it,” was the growling answer.

Bobbie, although not a tactician, had sufficient sense to refrain from reminding the tenant for life of the estate that the upkeep was amply provided for out of its revenues.

“Sit down and tell me how your mother is.” They took opposite armchairs, the reigning monarch and his crown prince.

“She's putting up Mrs. Carmichael or Mrs. Elmers while I'm away so she'll not be lonely,” Bobbie explained carelessly.

“Putting up Mrs. Carmichael means putting up with her.” The nephew, for once anxious to please, used laughter to applaud this choice specimen of the Massy Cheldon Brand of Humour. “Women are curious creatures, Bobbie, and I know them…. There was…”

Bobbie was listening in a condition of welcome physical tiredness when the recital was stopped by the entrance of West, the butler, a replica of his employer without the latter's loquacity or self-esteem. He was quiet, efficient, thorough and intelligent, and he would have been quite useless to a dramatist, for he never took liberties with the aspirate.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said in a voice which annoyed Bobbie who liked a butler to be butleresque, “but you are wanted in the library.”

Massy Cheldon rose with a jerk. “Wanted in the library” was an agreed code message between himself and West for “I wish to impart something of immediate importance, sir.”

“We don't get an evening paper here, Bobbie,” he said at the door, “but you'll find
The Times
and the
Morning Post
and
Telegraph
behind you.” Bobbie, as soon as he was alone, stretched out a lazy hand to retrieve the newspapers.

Massy Cheldon preceded his butler to the library on the first floor and did not speak or even glance at him until they were safe from interruption.

“What is it?” he asked, trying to smother his nervousness.

“This, sir.”

West held towards him the revolver which Nosey Ruslin had entrusted to his new friend, Bobbie Cheldon, for safe keeping.

“Peters found it in Mr. Robert's Gladstone bag when he unpacked it to lay out his dress clothes, sir.”

With an exclamation that was a mixture of an imprecation and a gasp of fear Massy Cheldon grasped it.

“Loaded—fully loaded, West,” he muttered.

“Yes, sir. Exactly, sir.” West was judicially impartial.

“Fully loaded and evidently specially brought down here.” He shivered. He examined it again. “What do you think, West?”

“Well, sir, it's hardly my place to criticise Mr. Robert,” he began.

“It's your place to do it when I order you,” snapped his master.

“Well, sir, it occurred to me that Mr. Robert might be thinking of suicide. He lives in London and does nothing—hasn't a situation, I mean. I read in the papers how he'd been fined and his licence suspended. Or it may be that a love affair…”

Massy Cheldon seemed to wake up suddenly.

“A love affair and suicide.” He did some quick thinking. “West, I hope Peters won't blab?” He looked anxiously at his butler.

“It was the first thing I thought of, sir. I warned Peters that he must keep it to himself or he'd have to seek another place.”

“You can trust him?”

“I took care not to make too much of it, sir. Simply mentioned that it wouldn't do to talk about it in case Mr. Robert hadn't a licence for firearms. Said you'd be sure not to wish to have gossip about it in the servants' hall. He understood, sir.”

“Thank you, West.” Massy mused again. “I know what I'll do. West, the revolver is my nephew's property and I've no right to deprive him of it. But I can render it harmless—that is, unless he has brought a supply of ammunition with him.”

West smiled dutifully.

“I examined the contents of the bag carefully, sir,” he said, returning to solemnity, “and I could find no ammunition.”

“Very well. Replace it.” He handed it back. “And let Peters know my opinion that you were a fool to worry me about it. Why shouldn't my guests bring an arsenal with them if they wish?” He nearly winked. “But thank you, West, thank you very much.”