Masters said: ‘I’m sure you have your troubles. When can I talk to you?’
‘Well, I’m very rushed. The funeral’s today on top of everything else. The arrangements were left entirely in my hands. Just at the busiest part of the season.’
It sounded to Masters as though the little manager were accusing his former employer of being inconsiderate in getting herself murdered in July. If she’d have waited until November she wouldn’t have caused nearly as much inconvenience.
‘I appreciate how busy you must be, Mr Compton, so I’ll call in again this evening. But tell me, before I go, just how long you’ve been manager here?’
‘Over fifteen years.’
‘That long? You worked for the first Mrs Partridge then?’
‘I certainly did. And a finer woman you couldn’t find, Mr Masters. A lady. Businesslike but refined. And considerate—always.’
‘And the second Mrs Partridge?’
Compton puffed up slightly and reddened. ‘Really, Mr Masters, you shouldn’t ask me my opinion of an employer so recently dead and not yet buried.’
‘Why not? You discussed Mrs Molly. Why not Mrs Fay? Or are you a believer in nil nisi bonum?’
‘To some extent, yes.’
‘And there’s nothing good you can say about Mrs Fay?’
‘Please! I have no doubts that the second Mrs Partridge had her good points, but we are making a comparison between her and the first Mrs Partridge.’
‘And comparisons are odious. I know. Thank you very much, Mr Compton.’
‘For what?’
‘For allowing me some of your time. I’ll go now and return later. But there’s just one thing you can help me with. A personal thing.’
‘Anything I can do for you . . .’
‘Micro-encapsulated perfume strips.’
‘What?’
They stared at each other for a moment. Masters thought Compton looked put out: astounded. Because he was floored by the question? And little men of his type don’t like being beaten by questions on their home ground? Masters couldn’t tell. He said: ‘They obviously mean nothing to you, Mr Compton. Sorry I mentioned them.’
He left immediately.
He said to Cathy York: ‘Where do I find the dance professional?’
‘Ernie?’
‘I don’t know his name.’
‘Ernie Syme. In the ballroom, I expect.’
Masters made his way through from the hall. The dance floor had been cleared. Chairs stood on tables round the sides. While Masters stood at the door half hidden by a curtain, a lone figure in an orange shirt and chocolate trousers came through a door in the orchestra shell on the far side of the dais. He didn’t exactly mince along, but Masters got the impression he was a little fairy-like. Something in the way he carried the long sprinkler cylinder in his left hand. Away from the body.
Syme, he judged, must be nearing forty, but wearing well from a distance, like an ageing matinée idol. He was dark tan in colour—probably from long hours in the sun beside the pool. The hair was curly, short, dark and greased. As he gazed, unnoticed by the dancer, Masters realized that the lines on his face were more deeply etched than they appeared to be at a first glance. The figure was well-built, but slim and lithe, like that of a man who takes care. The little spring from the dais, which was low enough for a short step down, indicated good muscle tone.
Masters continued to watch. Syme held his canister high and wide and started to sprinkle a white powder on the floor, waltzing as he did so, through the dusting, as if to rub it into the boards with the buff-soled dancing shoes he was wearing. Masters wondered what this treatment could be. French chalk, perhaps, to make the surface easier for gliding on? He watched for a few seconds more. Syme took a few steps, military two-step-wise, in the peculiar gait that makes dancers look as if they’re trying to march while sitting down. He finished up with a little flick of a salute which, Masters thought, would cause any self-respecting sergeant-major, unfortunate enough to witness it, to first shoot the performer and then himself.
Masters stepped inside.
Syme, startled by his appearance, halted in mid-pirouette, sprinkler still at arm’s length.
‘I say, you did startle me, whoever you are.’
‘My name is Masters, Mr Syme. I’m from Scotland Yard.’
‘Yes. I’ve heard about you. I saw two of your officers last night. They’re big men, too.’
‘I’d like a word with you, Mr Syme, please.’
‘Oh, yes? Well we’d better go into the office where we can be private. You can’t say anything round here without somebody listening. Nosey as they make them.’
Masters followed him on to the dais, through the little curved door in the shell and into a room that might at one time have been a butler’s pantry. The deep sink was still there, the silver cupboards, the tiled cooling gantry and a slate corbel. Apart from a table, chair and coatstand, the room seemed to be piled high with cardboard boxes variously stencilled ‘Snowballs’, ‘Streamers’, ‘Balloons’, ‘Carnival Hats’ and the like.
Syme offered the chair. As Masters sat down he became aware of the same perfume in here as in Mrs Partridge’s rooms. At first the paper odour of the carnival toys had overwhelmed it, but near the desk it was sufficiently strong to come through. He looked about him. Across the foot of the dressing-room type mirror on the wall were three of the by now familiar pink strips.
Masters said: ‘Can I smoke a pipe in here with so much combustible material about?’
‘Please do. I like a pipe. It does something for a man, don’t you think?’
‘So they tell me.’ Masters rubbed Warlock Flake in the palm of his left hand. ‘Mr Syme. You were very friendly with Mrs Partridge.’ It was a statement, not a question.
‘Oh very friendly. Dear, darling Fay. Such a lovely woman. Junoesque, I called her. We’re really desolated with grief at her going.’
‘Are you?’
‘But of course. It’s a tragedy for all of us, and particularly for me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we were so very close.’
‘You intended to marry her?’
‘Good gracious, no. Nothing like that.’
‘But when a man and a woman—both without marriage partners . . . I take it you’re not married, Mr Syme . . . no? When a man and a woman are very close it usually means they are thinking of marriage.’
‘Not in our case. Our friendship was on an entirely different plane. Fay loved dancing, and she used to play music to me for hours . . .’
‘I didn’t see a piano, or any other instrument in her flat.’
Syme sounded a bit snappy. ‘On the record player.’
‘That was in the library when I went up. Not in the sitting-room.’
‘No. I moved it out the other day.’
‘What other day?’
‘You are precise.’
‘Very, Mr Syme, whenever possible.’
‘Oh, well I shall have to think back. Yes. I’ve got it. It was last Friday afternoon.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘Because I went up to see Fay soon after lunch. I always do go up early on Fridays. It’s the only day we have a thé dansant, you see. Lots of our guests go home on Saturday early so they don’t want to be out late on Friday. We have the thé dansant from half past three to half past six so that they can enjoy themselves without being late. And the boys in the band can have the evening off, too. It’s a change for them, you know. Only the one night off a week in the season.’
‘Why did you go to see Mrs Partridge early on Fridays?’
‘Because I had to be down here again by three.’
‘Why go up at all?’
‘Because it’s my night off, too.’
‘That’s not much of an answer.’
‘Well, you see, I’d go up to see Fay because I might not see her in the evening.’
‘Because you were going out?’
‘It’s nice
to get off the camp site sometimes.’
‘I think I understand. You visited Mrs Partridge every day?’
‘Yes. She was lonely, poor woman, after her husband died.’
‘And she played you records?’
‘Ever so often.’
‘What about last Friday?’
‘Well, I went up—about two o’clock it would be—and I found her prostrate. Simply prostrate.’
‘Just a moment, Mr Syme. If she was prostrate, who let you in?’
‘I let myself in, of course.’
‘You have a key of your own?’
‘Fay trusted me.’
‘I have no reason to suppose there was anything to cause her not to, Mr Syme. But I’d like the key. You should have given it to Superintendent Mundy.’
‘He didn’t ask for it.’
‘Can I have it now, please?’
Syme took a ring from his pocket, slipped off a key and presented it to Masters like a girl in a lovers’ tiff handing back a gew-gaw.
‘Thank you. Now to get back to last Friday. You let yourself in and found Mrs Partridge prostrate. Where? In bed?’
‘No. On the divan in her lounge.’
Masters interpreted this as meaning the settee in the sitting-room.
‘What was the matter with her exactly? Did she say?’
‘She said she’d been ill.’
‘Sick, you mean? She’d vomited?’
‘Yes.’
‘Anything else?’
‘A slight headache.’
‘What did you do for her?’
‘I felt her forehead and fetched her a pill and a glass of water.’
‘What sort of a pill?’
‘From a new bottle. Called Non . . . non . . .’
‘Nonavom?’
‘That’s it. She asked me to get it.’
‘Where was the bottle?’
‘In her handbag.’
‘I see. You didn’t think of calling a doctor?’
‘I wanted to call Dr Meeth, but she wouldn’t hear of it.’
‘Wouldn’t hear of it? What exactly does that mean? That she didn’t think she was ill enough to trouble the doctor?’
‘She was in agony, but she was very brave about it. No. I knew she didn’t want that Dr Meeth or his wife near the house after all the unpleasantness.’
‘What unpleasantness, Mr Syme?’
‘Dr Meeth was beastly to her when she had flu, so she withdrew their camp contract. Money for nothing they were getting out of her and they didn’t like it when it was stopped.’
‘I see. What next?’
‘Well, when dear Fay said she wouldn’t have the doctor at any price I suggested I should put on some soothing music. Ballet music—Coppelia. We both loved that. Or La Boutique Fantasque. Marvellous. So satisfying. It transports one. Not fussy, you know, like Ravel.’
‘Quite, Mr Syme. What did she say?’
‘I thought it would ease her headache—you know, the caress of music, with power to soothe the troubled . . .’
‘What did she say, Mr Syme?’
Ernie looked sulky at being interrupted in full flow.
‘That the mere sight of the record player would make her worse. She must have been feeling really terrible, poor dear, and it made her a little rude. She told me to . . . well, I thought if she felt like that about it I’d better remove it, so I carried it and the records and put them in the library. I felt I hated them myself at that moment for upsetting her so much. I was quite glad to shut the door on them.’
‘Did you leave then?’
‘After a few minutes. I had to, you see. I have to M.C. all our dances and balls. And I have to partner ladies who appear alone. You’ve no idea, Mr Masters, how terribly exhausting it all is. But my visits to Fay used to make it all so worthwhile, and restore me in mind and body, ready to carry on.’
‘I’m sure. When had you last seen her before the Friday afternoon?’
‘On the Thursday evening, or I suppose you, being a policeman, would call it Friday morning. As Charles Lamb said, Mr Masters, to be up late is to be up early. And that’s so true in my profession. I’m so accustomed to being up in the wee small hours I hardly notice it any more.’
‘Mrs Partridge left the ballroom at the end of the dance?’
‘She loved it so much she always waited for the last waltz and Auld Lang Syne. Then I used to escort her up. And she always said, she didn’t mind living alone, but she was terrified of going into an empty flat so late. So I used to see her in.’
‘And then leave?’
‘No. We always had our night-cap together. I used to make our coffee while she slipped into something light . . .’
‘Such as a nightdress?’
‘I really don’t know what you’re suggesting, but there was nothing wrong. Absolutely nothing.’
‘And I’m suggesting nothing. But you were the one who made the coffee, were you?’
‘Yes. I loved doing little things for her.’
‘And she was in good health at the time? Not sick or headachy?’
‘Not in the least. She loved her coffee. And she loved dessert. She always took them together, and she had them just as usual.’
‘Dessert at that time? What was it? Two o’clock in the morning?’
‘About then. I must say I couldn’t eat dessert myself. I always had a liqueur. Just a thimbleful of peach brandy, you know, to be sociable.’
Masters shuddered inwardly at the thought, but made no comment. Syme was a talker, and talkers helped. He mustn’t show disapproval to stop the flow. He said: ‘So she went to bed quite happily. Did she say when she had started to feel sick?’
‘I think it was after lunch on Friday. There’s always fish on the menu, you know, on Fridays. Fay liked her fish and chips.’
Masters thought she sounded the sort who would—preferably out of a paper. But he said: ‘So she was able to enjoy lunch.’
‘That’s right. And brought it all up again straight afterwards, she told me. There must have been something very wrong with the fish.’
‘Maybe. But nobody else was ill after eating it, apparently.’
‘No? Funny, isn’t it? But then darling Fay had such a delicate stomach, you know.’
‘Did she? How soon did she recover?’
‘Wonderful recuperative powers, she had too, luckily. And she was brave with it. She fought it off quite quickly. I popped in after the thé dansant, round about seven o’clock, just to see how she was, and she’d managed to have a little something for tea. It had done her good to get something inside her. A little more dessert, you know. So clean and refreshing for the mouth after nausea. And so good for one. The doctors say it is excellent for an upset stomach.’
‘Maybe. I’m pleased Mrs Partridge recovered so quickly. Did she return fully to normal?’
‘Not really. Never again, poor dear Fay. She did so love to be out and about, but I couldn’t persuade her to go in those last few days. I tried, on Saturday and Sunday, to persuade her to go for a drive, but she said she felt quite weak and debilitated after her attack and would stay at home. On Monday she said she felt much better, so she walked as far as the swimming-pool in the afternoon and came to Olde Tyme Night on Monday. She had to sit out most of the dances, but she enjoyed sitting there, I’m sure.’
‘What about the poodles?’
‘Oh, those!’ It was obvious that Syme had little time for the late dogs. ‘If dear Fay had one tiny fault it was her preoccupation with her poodles. Made real fools of them. I told her often enough that she would make them fat and lazy always feeding them titbits and sweets as she did. It isn’t good for them, you know. And they snapped at people. I give you my word that if I as much as went near Fay they menaced me.’
‘Were they ill at all?’
‘They died, didn’t they?’
‘I meant last Friday.’
‘They were always so lackadaisical it would be difficult to say.’
‘B
ut you went close to Mrs Partridge. Felt her forehead, gave her a pill—didn’t they try to stop you?’
‘No. No, they didn’t. I’d forgotten that. How very odd.’
‘They were there?’
‘Oh, yes. I suppose the little fellows had some feeling after all. They probably realized their mistress was in distress and I was helping her.’
Masters was privately a little sceptical of this. But he said nothing, and rose to go. As he stood up, he said: ‘I see you have some perfume strips.’
‘The rose in aromatic pain! So much visual beauty brought to this lowly state to give us lasting perfume.’ He ran his finger-nail along it. ‘But it’s nearly finished now. Such a pity. It quite transforms this room.’
‘I’d like some. Could you tell me where you got it?’
‘From Fay, of course.’
‘And where did she get them from?’
‘An American guest.’
‘I see. He was here some time ago?’
‘In May, I think. Yes, it must have been May.’
Masters left the tiny office and made his way back to the hall of the house. He’d spent longer than he’d expected with Syme, and wondered where the rest of the team might be. There was no sign of them. Cathy York assured him that she had seen none of them, and added that she rarely missed seeing anybody who came within sight of her glass box—particularly important detectives from London.
Masters decided to wait. He wandered around, slowly, examining the chiselled stonework of the fireplace and identifying what he supposed was the crest of the former owners. A dog—he expected it must be a hound—with a heavy collar. Faint blobs on its coat in bas-relief. A spotted dog? Houndsby! Stipple-Houndsby! Stippling—that meant painting or drawing in dots. That would be it. The boys at the College of Heralds had enjoyed a bit of fun there. A coat of arms for the Spotted-Dogs. Pleased with this bit of deduction, he turned to the table. A thick, leather-bound volume, heavily tooled with the same coat of arms, and the edges of the leaves watered in red and blue. He could remember this treatment had been a fairly common practice in his early youth, but it was rare now. A pleasing conceit that had almost disappeared under the wheels of the juggernaut of rising costs. He opened the book idly. It was, as he thought, a visitors’ book. There for anybody who wished to sign his name and—because the publicity value might be enormous—to make such complimentary remarks about Throscum Holiday Camp as he saw fit. He leafed through it, noting what people had said. If all the comments were true, Throscum certainly gave its patrons good value. He was nearly up to date, when he noted one entry with an American address spelt out in full. He read the entry: ‘I left here last, in May 1944. I went reluctantly, never expecting to return to anywhere on God’s good earth. Now, exactly 25 years later, I leave here again. Again I go reluctantly, but only because of the excellent reception given me by my good British friends, and because this time (D.V.) I can be sure of returning in a few short weeks. Cyrus R. Sprott, Late U.S.A. Rangers.’
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