Murder of a Movie Star

by L. B. Hathaway

  ‘And?’

  ‘Yesterday, when Langley ordered me to fetch you in town, like some common errand boy, I was angry: Silvia had disappeared off somewhere earlier, ruining the schedule, and yet it was me who was doing all the running around. I’d been ordered not to call you or leave any trace, but I wasn’t going to waste my time on a fool’s errand, especially if you weren’t even in London. You could have been off at the sea like everyone else at the moment, on holiday…’

  ‘So you called ahead at my office?’

  ‘That’s right. Just to check it was worth my while coming out. And then, the next thing I know, just as I’m leaving, is that an urgent telephone call has come for me, here. And it’s Johnnie Roslington, my dealer, on the line.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He said he knew I was going to meet you, and that he’d been wanting to meet you now for quite a while about a big job, but that it was important he wasn’t seen entering your offices, as people might get the wrong idea. Or he might get photographed.’

  Posie scowled.

  ‘He told me to collect you and bring you back here to Worton Hall where he’d come and have a chat with you. He said to get parked up, and then to leave you alone. He’d jump in the back seat. I was surprised when he didn’t show up. He’s normally a man of his word.’

  ‘That was why you were so nervy the whole time?’

  ‘Aye.’

  Posie stared. She felt like nothing was quite real anymore, and a horrible tiny doubt had entered her mind. Was Johnnie Roslington actually Caspian della Rosa, in disguise?

  Caspian della Rosa: her nemesis, the man who had not been seen on British shores since New Year’s night, 1921, who had somehow managed to escape the clutches of the police on all continents. But it was unthinkable that he could have re-entered England without being found out: every port, harbour and airfield had strict instructions to detain the man under arrest until Scotland Yard arrived.

  But Posie knew that Caspian della Rosa was a chameleon, with a vast international network of connections and untold, unspeakable riches stacked up behind him. And until recently, somehow, he had wanted Posie all for his own.

  She suppressed a shiver.

  How else could she explain the mechanics of how Johnnie Roslington had known that Robbie Fontaine had been going to meet her, unless this same Johnnie Roslington had been listening in on calls made to and from her office on Grape Street?

  ‘What’s he like, this Mr Roslington?’

  ‘To look at? He’s tall, thin, dark. Good-looking, I suppose. Easy on the eye. Wears fancy tailored clothes and tweeds. Very English.’

  Posie breathed a huge sigh of relief.

  Caspian della Rosa, while very good at acting and disguises, was short, tubby and not at all good-looking, and such attributes couldn’t really be faked. The only jarring note now was the phone being intercepted, but hopefully Len was sorting that all out.

  ‘Thank you for telling me, Mr Fontaine. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. Please tell Mr Roslington I am at his service, when and however he wishes to meet me.’

  ‘I will do,’ said Fontaine, rising. ‘I felt a rat, that’s all; like I was selling you for a thousand pieces of silver. It all seemed peculiar to me but I couldn’t really not do as he said. I’m in debt to Roslington, you see. In a big way. And he could expose me as being a drug addict at any time: it’s a big power he wields over me. Fortunately, I have my Sheila.’

  He smiled sadly. ‘It’s my Sheila who bails me out, time and time again. When I’ve got through the pay packet at the end of the month. I don’t know how she does it, but she does. I think you’ve met my wife, haven’t you?’

  ‘No,’ Posie said, shaking her head.

  Sergeant Rainbird knocked. ‘Can you come next door when you have a second, Miss? It’s about Elaine Dickinson, of course.’

  He vanished, looking harried.

  ‘A bad business, this,’ said Robbie Fontaine, sighing.

  ‘Did you know her, then? Elaine? I’d heard she was a big fan of yours. She didn’t stalk you?’

  Robbie shook his head. ‘She never bothered me. Asked for autographs and photographs a good few times, but she was a nice polite lass, I always thought. Now they’re saying she sent those awful letters to Silvia and topped herself out of remorse. Poor kid. It’s not for everyone, this business. That’s why I’m getting out.’

  ‘How so, sir?’

  ‘This is highly confidential, so don’t repeat it, but after this film is done I’m quitting. I’ve had enough. I owe it to myself and to Sheila to make a new start. Maybe have some kiddies before it’s too late. Maybe I’ll do what Tom Moran did, and take another name.’

  ‘I thought you were contracted for the next three years to Sunstar?’

  Robbie Fontaine chortled.

  ‘Yes, legally I am. But after this film premiers there won’t even be a Sunstar Films company anymore. The good old days are gone, even if others pretend they haven’t. Brian Langley is on the brink of bankruptcy and nothing will save him. Every fool knows that America, Hollywood really, is what people want. They don’t want a crummy little film made at Isleworth anymore! This Wrap Party is the end. Langley won’t even make back the costs of filming. Even if both Silvia and I died together today, the insurance he has on both of our lives wouldn’t cover much of his outlay.’

  Posie tried to disguise her sharp intake of breath. ‘How do you know this? About the insurance, I mean? You’ve seen the documents?’

  Robbie Fontaine tapped his nose authoritatively. ‘No,’ he said. ‘But someone I trust has. I have my sources,’ he said, smiling. ‘Same as I know that although he’s supposed to have given up all of his firearms after the war, Brian Langley kept his wartime revolver: a silver-coloured Webley. A Mark IV. Kept it out of sentiment.’

  ‘Golly.’

  ‘And I tell you what,’ Robbie Fontaine said, his smile now gone. ‘I have to say that I thought it was old Langley making those death threats himself: I thought he might go as far as having Silvia Hanro and myself killed on the same day, for the money. I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear it was all down to poor little Elaine. I was even thinking of doing a bunk today, I was that afraid. Now I’ll attend, of course.’

  They stepped out together and the movie star sauntered off, his big form taking up most of the corridor, his cloud of citrus ebbing away, the policemen from Richmond stepping away from him in awe as he moved.

  Posie was thinking through everything Robbie Fontaine had just told her when she saw Silvia Hanro herself, still dressed in her ridiculous Anne Boleyn costume, hurry down the corridor.

  ‘Sorry, Posie,’ she called, full of nervous energy. ‘Got held up at the studio. Now, what did you want me for?’

  Posie asked her to wait in the little props cupboard for a minute and dashed into the Green Room where a heated argument seemed to be going on.

  ****

  Twenty-Eight

  ‘What’s going on here?’

  Posie noted in a split-second that Dolly was still in situ, idly flicking through a magazine on a turquoise velvet couch, looking bored. The others, the Chief Inspector, both Sergeants, Dr Poots and the blonde man Posie had seen the Pathologist talking to in the corridor, were standing in a tight circle, obviously disagreeing about something. An elderly clock on the wall reached half-past ten, and was obviously meant to chime the half-hour, but wheezed it through instead.

  Chief Inspector Lovelace looked harassed but stayed silent.

  Sergeant Binny turned, slightly imploringly. ‘You didn’t think it was clear-cut, the death of the dresser, did you, Miss Parker?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  Dr Poots, an unlikely ally, stared at Posie from behind his horn-rimmed spectacles for a second, as if wondering whether or not to waste his breath. He mopped at his brow. He evidently decided it was worth it:

  ‘Speak some sense to this Inspector friend of yours, Miss Parker.’

  ‘How so, sir?’


  ‘I’ve had that body on my hands now for more than two hours. In this heat! Which is normally a bad thing, but it’s helped me this time. The heat has accelerated the normal breakdown processes, and I’ve been able to see quite clearly – in fact, I’d stake my job on it – that the girl, Elaine Dickinson, was murdered.’

  Posie gasped. ‘Really?’

  Dr Poots nodded. ‘Really. There are now clear, livid hand marks around the girl’s neck, as if she was held down. Clear as day! I’d say she was forced to drink that poison orchid concoction, by violent means, and it cost her her life. And someone intended that to be the case.’

  ‘Was it a man, sir?’

  ‘I couldn’t tell, Miss Parker. That’s the Chief Inspector’s job, or should be, if he’d only accept my findings. All I can say is that it was someone strong and powerful.’

  Posie thought briefly of Brian Langley’s hands, twisted and with their long fingers, but strong, nevertheless. Unaccountably she thought too of Silvia Hanro herself, her strong physique, her big hands. She turned to Lovelace who had folded his arms angrily, a gesture she was unfamiliar with.

  ‘You don’t accept this, sir?’

  ‘I find it unconvincing, Posie. Not evidence enough for murder. Not yet. Not until Poots here has got the body back to the mortuary for a proper post-mortem. This heat could cause any number of strange side effects in a body. I’ve known doctors be wrong before.’

  ‘True.’ Dr Poots nodded. ‘But not me. I just think you should think about it, Lovelace. It’s not my place to do your job but since being here this morning I’ve heard all manner of strange rumours about how this poor mite was responsible for death threats against a certain famous movie star. I’d say a good many people seem relieved: as if a danger had been averted somehow. I just think you should know that this woman may not have been that danger. She encountered danger herself.’

  Posie nodded, grateful beyond words. The panic and fear she had been feeling since entering that dressing room filled with evil early in the morning now seemed as if they had been caught and given voice and shape. And delivered by an esteemed Police Pathologist, no less.

  ‘Please, sir.’ She nodded urgently. ‘I think Dr Poots is right. You must call off this Wrap Party. At once. Make it official. Silvia Hanro is still in mortal danger.’

  ‘That’s not a given, Posie. Our evidence boys have taken away enough drugs to dope a horse with from the woman’s room upstairs, and she obviously had some sort of screw loose. How else do you explain the finger and the death threats? Evidence which is clear as a bell!’

  ‘I can’t, sir.’

  ‘Well, then. There you go. We go on. Clear this little lot up, and offer a subtle level of protection at the party. Then we leave. End of story. We can look more into the life and death of this sad girl when we get back to the Yard.’

  ‘I hate to tell you this, Lovelace, but you’re making a big mistake,’ growled Dr Poots.

  Posie stared over at the Chief Inspector who was looking angrier by the minute. He shook his head stubbornly and went over to a large scuffed-up table, pouring himself a hot drink from a thermos flask there, turning his back on everyone.

  Posie had hardly ever seen him so rattled.

  Dr Poots made exasperated noises and put his black bowler hat back on, stuffing paperwork into his large leather bag. ‘I’ll deliver my report later, then,’ he called out in a resigned fashion. ‘Sometimes I don’t know why I bother. I even got a specialist in.’

  ‘A specialist, sir?’ said Posie, with interest.

  Dr Poots barely looked at her, clipping his bag shut. ‘Yes. This is Dr Andrew Netherton. I called him in when I saw that the girl had probably ingested plant poison. He’s a specialist at Kew Gardens, close by. He specialises in poisonous plants. He’s a toxicologist.’

  ‘And? Did you find anything interesting?’

  ‘It will all be in my report later,’ said the Pathologist stiffly.

  But the man with the leonine hair nodded excitedly at Posie, anxious to get his tuppence worth’s in.

  ‘I did add a minor detail. Could be significant, later. At the Coroner’s Inquest.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘The original time of death was estimated at around midnight,’ the blonde man nodded. ‘But that type of plant poison – digitalis, or orchid poisoning – has a strange effect on the body after death. It delays all the usual effects by several hours: slows down rigor mortis. So we were able to deduce that Miss Dickinson, rather than dying at around midnight, had been dead for at least four hours before that – say by eight o’clock last night.’

  ‘It will all be in my report, Miss Parker; Dr Netherton’s findings too,’ repeated the Pathologist moodily, swinging out, ushering his medical colleague out apologetically. But for Posie the minor detail was game-changing.

  She stared hard at both Sergeants as if they were very stupid, and then across at Lovelace who was scrawling through notes in his own notebook, his back still to the room. She looked around desperately.

  ‘Am I the only one who can see this?’ she cried. ‘If Elaine Dickinson was dead at eight o’clock last night then she can’t possibly have been the person sending death threats, can she?’

  Dolly, on the sofa, stopped flicking through another magazine and looked up thoughtfully. ‘I see,’ Dolly cried out at last. ‘I’m with you!’

  ‘Thank goodness! I think the heat is getting to our esteemed police force!’ said Posie, roused to the point of anger.

  ‘You mean the telegrams sent to the press, don’t you?’ said Dolly. ‘They were sent at eight o’clock from Richmond. But the doctor just told us that Elaine was dead then! And how can a dead girl send telegrams?’

  ‘Exactly!’ said Posie, and had the satisfaction of seeing the Inspector turn back into the room, pale and sweaty beneath his temper and his fear.

  ‘You might have a point,’ he conceded, irritably.

  ‘I think you have to seriously consider the idea that it could be Brian Langley behind all this, sir,’ Posie begged.

  ‘We’ve fresh evidence that he was seen leaving Elaine’s room last night, about midnight, and he could easily have killed her and then rearranged her room, making it all look like a crazy suicide. It’s his job to make things look right, he said so himself. He hasn’t really got an alibi for the night, either; he was just here, apparently reviewing the film so far. No-one can vouch for him specifically.’

  Posie continued, more urgently now. ‘I’ll warrant that Brian Langley only reported Silvia missing as a smokescreen, to divert attention elsewhere. No-one else seemed worried she’d left Worton Hall, not even Tom. I also now know that Brian Langley still keeps a gun, a Webley. And that he definitely has insurance on both Silvia Hanro and Robbie Fontaine’s lives. How much more evidence do you want?’

  ‘I’ll admit it’s quite convincing,’ said Richard Lovelace gruffly. ‘What is the source of your new information?’

  ‘Robbie Fontaine, sir.’

  The Chief Inspector rolled his eyes. ‘Then I’ll not cancel the party.’

  ****

  ‘Sorry about that,’ said Posie to Silvia Hanro, back in the props cupboard. The girl was sitting at Posie’s desk and idly pulling out pins from an elaborate headdress she had been wearing. She took it off to reveal her own artificially-enhanced hair, the exact colour of Posie’s.

  Posie sat down hard on the small stool.

  ‘I think congratulations are in order.’ Posie smiled, letting the words, laden with meaning, fill the tiny space. It did the trick.

  She saw the china-blue eyes of the movie star widen perceptibly. ‘I’m sorry? What can you mean? I’m not sure I understand you.’

  ‘Oh, I think you understand me just fine, Miss Hanro. I’m congratulating you on your nuptials, yesterday morning, at nine-thirty at Westminster Registry Office. When you mysteriously disappeared so that Brian Langley had to re-jig his filming schedule. Your marriage to Tom Moran, or should I say, to Mark Paris?’

 
; The movie star stared, then flushed red, and looked down at her hands.

  ‘How do you know this?’ she whispered in a low voice.

  ‘Oh, there’s not much I don’t know.’ Posie smiled placidly. ‘I don’t want to be your judge, and I don’t really give two hoots what you do, but I do wish you had told me all of this from the start. It would have made my job easier. That’s the trouble with this place: literally nothing is quite as it seems. Did you think I was stupid?’

  ‘NO! It’s just…’

  ‘No-one was supposed to know, is that right? I get that.’

  Silvia Hanro narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. ‘You’re good,’ she whispered icily. ‘I’ll give you that. What else do you know? Or think you know?’

  ‘A good deal.’

  Posie took the opportunity to shake out the contents of Sergeant Rainbird’s envelope again and the orange forms and the damp orange dress and a dark, long expensive wig, also damp, flopped out onto the desk. Silvia gasped.

  ‘How dare you! You went into my home?’

  ‘I thought it was Tom’s home?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘I didn’t actually. The police did.’

  ‘But you have no right! They have no right to!’

  ‘They do actually: you were formally listed as a missing person, and they were looking for evidence as to where you might have been. I saw you, you know. On the Aldwych. Alone, on your wedding night.’

  ‘Tell me what you know,’ rapped Silvia, her knuckles white with anger.

  Posie nodded calmly and listed her discoveries in chronological order: the early affair with Brian Langley; the birth of their illegitimate child in 1918 without Brian’s knowledge, and Silvia’s subsequently giving it away; the very recent plan to marry Tom Moran.

  Silvia had gone white under the Leichner.

  ‘You were worried when you saw that finger with its gold-foil ring, weren’t you? It meant everything to you. Not that you bothered to tell me that.’