Bright Young Things

by Jane A. Adams

  ‘So,’ Henry said, ‘we have several considerations here. The identity of the young woman in the car, where Miss Faun Moran has been for these last six months, and who caused the deaths of both. These matters are all undoubtedly interlinked, we cannot examine them in isolation.’

  ‘The young woman now buried in the family crypt,’ Mickey said, ‘that I’m told your father now wants exhumed … did you see the body before burial?’

  Pat Moran nodded. ‘I demanded to. I couldn’t believe that Faun was gone. My father didn’t want me to see her. He said it would be too upsetting. In fact, my father refused to see the body; he said he wanted to remember his child as she had been in life, not after such a god-awful death. So I went to the undertakers, and I stamped my feet, I’m afraid, and behaved like a complete brat until the poor man gave in. I couldn’t believe it, and I needed to say a proper goodbye, you understand?’

  ‘And you are certain that it was Faun?’

  For the first time Pat looked uncomfortable and she found it hard to meet Mickey’s eyes. ‘For once my father was probably right,’ she said. ‘It would have been better not to have seen. She was burnt, and her face was … broken. There is no other word for it. My beautiful little sister, all shattered and unrecognizable. I looked quickly and then, I’m afraid, I turned away.’

  ‘But you felt certain it was her? The identification was largely dependent on the fact that she was seen getting into Mr Everson’s car,’ Mickey pressed.

  ‘Yes. She was wearing pieces of my sister’s jewellery. Besides, what reason was there to doubt it at the time? Several people knew she was going for a drive with Mal. It was his car found crashed, he was found close by badly injured, she was in the car burnt and the car was burnt. Who else could it have been? At least that was the way we thought when it happened. And now … now we know that it was some other poor unfortunate. But my sister is still dead. What is going on here, Inspector? Why did the original investigation not realize this body was not my sister’s?’

  ‘Because no one was looking for anything else,’ Henry said coldly. ‘What were deemed to be the facts were presented and no one looked further. From what I can gather the families wanted the matter cleared up very quickly and as quietly and simply as possible. But from those who viewed the crime scene, and I have no doubt now that it was a crime scene, we are now also coming to the belief that the fire was set after the crash, rapidly and efficiently. Undoubtedly the car would have been consumed and the body with it had it not been for strange chance that brought others on to the scene. Others who put the fire out and preserved what we now realize was evidence of a crime.’

  ‘Tell us,’ Violet demanded. ‘What was seen?’

  Henry looked at the now very discomfited Constable Burton, who had suddenly realized that this was his payment for tea and cake. That he must tell these two women what he had witnessed on the day and just after and what he had been told by Farmer Carter and his son-in-law. With a little prompting from Mickey he began his story. Questions from the two women filled out what he forgot to say. A half hour later they were both much better informed and even more deeply shocked.

  ‘So if I have this right,’ Violet said, ‘it is likely that my brother was drugged, that he did not drive the car, that perhaps Faun – and I am sorry to say this out loud, my dear’ – this to Pat – ‘perhaps drove the car and was in some way complicit in the disposal of this young woman’s body. I’m assuming she was not alive when the fire was set?’

  ‘We must hope not,’ Mickey said.

  ‘Indeed, the alternative is too terrible to contemplate. This whole business is too terrible to contemplate.’ Violet reached across the table and took Pat’s hand. ‘What did she get herself into?’

  ‘No,’ Pat said firmly. ‘What did someone else get her into? Faun would never willingly injure any other person, of that I’m certain. She must have been pressured, blackmailed possibly. Someone made her do this.’

  ‘And yet you say she seemed happy at the party. That there was no sign of anxiety. That she had news for you,’ Henry reminded her.

  Pat scowled at him and then her expression softened and she nodded. ‘She did. She was the happiest I have seen her in quite some time.’

  ‘And you have no sense of what this news might have been about?’

  ‘As I said before, I assumed it was about some man or other. It usually was. Faun had very little in terms of common sense when it came to men. I hoped she would acquire some given time and the truth is most of us were stupid about some man or other when we were young. It is as well most of us are not punished for the indiscretions of when we are eighteen or nineteen or we would all be in trouble.’

  ‘Your sister was intelligent. Would she not have realized that she was getting into something far too deeply?’

  ‘I think,’ Mickey said, ‘that she was also something of a romantic? And that perhaps the death of your mother hit her particularly badly, am I right?’

  ‘I’m afraid you are, on both counts,’ Pat admitted. She poured herself more tea and sat thinking for a moment or two and then she said, ‘I challenged her, asked her if her news was about a man and she said that she had found someone special. But she was afraid that I might not approve. I asked her immediately if that meant that he was a married man and she said that it was nothing like that, but that this was not her usual type and so I might find it strange. Then I’m afraid we were interrupted by someone knocking on the door and it was clear that Faun was looking for an excuse not to say anything more and we both came downstairs again.’

  ‘Not her usual type of man?’ Mickey asked.

  ‘I may be completely wrong but I got the impression that he was older. That she had fallen for an older man. But I know nothing. If I did, I’d tell you. What is there to lose now?’

  The waitress appeared and asked if they required any more tea and no one spoke much until she had brought a fresh teapot and more hot water. Then Henry asked, ‘Were you actually invited to the house party? Only you weren’t on the list we were given.’

  ‘As a matter of fact I was. I probably still have the invitation somewhere.’

  ‘Why would Mrs Belmont leave you off the list she gave to us?’

  Pat shrugged. ‘Probably because the invite came from Eliza. Mrs B doesn’t know the half of what goes on under her roof and she wasn’t even in residence that weekend. I wasn’t gate-crashing, but nobody would have cared if I had been.’

  ‘From what we’ve heard that happens a lot at house parties.’

  Violet laughed. ‘The truth is people don’t always realize they’re having a house party until we all turn up.’ She sobered. ‘But I imagine all of that’s going to change now with all the business of the stock market crash and Wall Street. Even late last year, well, it all felt so different, you know? People pulling in their horns and cutting back and just not being quite as willing to … to entertain, I suppose. I mean, we don’t exactly move in the rarefied circles of the Mitfords and the Ponsonbys. We might occasionally run with the same crowd but what the world refers to as the Bright Young Things are in a different league altogether.’

  She sounded, Henry thought, slightly dismissive.

  ‘So no bath and bottle parties for you?’ Mickey asked.

  Violet laughed at that. ‘All the world and his wife went to that event, or at least you’d think so from the way people talk. “Too, too sick-making to be left out”,’ she mimicked and then shook her head disparagingly. ‘My allowance doesn’t quite run to that many changes of bathing suit. My folks are well off, by any measure, but not out of the top drawer. My mother was from minor nobility and so that opens doors but even so …’

  ‘What about Faun?’ Henry asked Pat.

  ‘Oh, doors opened anyway for Faun,’ she said softly. ‘Even those that really should have stayed closed. For her own sake.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  Pat hesitated as though wondering what she should say. If she should say anything. Then
she shrugged. ‘She boasted that her friends in London took her to the Gargoyle Club and … that she danced the evening away at the Savoy and then went on to these little underground places where you had to know someone, as she put it, before they allowed you in. She mentioned gambling and even a boxing match on one occasion, but when I tried to press her she just clammed up and told me I was being a bore. I told her she was far too young, warned her of the scandal if it came out. What if there was a police raid? But even though she was far too young to be legal, she was always in the company of far older associates.

  ‘In many ways, Faun was a little fool,’ Pat said. ‘But I loved her, fool or not. And the trouble was she had as much sense of caution as a cat leaping between roofs. She thought just because she found one thing easy that everything else would be too.’

  ‘What did she find easy?’ Mickey asked.

  ‘Getting her own way, attracting men, even if they were the wrong sort of man. Getting people to like her. I mean, that was effortless.’ She sat back, looking suddenly defeated. ‘I suppose when we’re very young we all feel we know about the world and as we get older we all realize we know nothing. The sad thing is my sister didn’t have a chance to comprehend all the things she didn’t know.’

  ‘And she never mentioned names?’

  Pat sighed. ‘She mentioned names. She dropped names, if you will. I was never certain if there was any truth to the matter of it or if she was just trying to impress me.’

  ‘And the names?’ Mickey pressed gently.

  ‘Best tell them, Pat,’ Violet urged her. ‘We agreed, remember. We need the truth, no matter how ghastly it might be.’

  Pat nodded reluctantly. She withdrew a small aide memoire from her purse and wrote three names down. Folded the paper and pushed it across the table towards Henry. ‘I may be totally wrong,’ she said softly, ‘but I suspect … I suspect the last name on that list is the man Faun believed herself to be involved with. To be in love with.’

  Henry placed his fingertips on the paper but did not open it. This, he sensed, was a potential breaking point in the relationship they had built with these two young women. I’ll go this far, Pat was telling him, but don’t press me. I’ve already said more to you than I have to anyone else. He could feel Mickey’s gaze resting on him, willing him to know when to give the matter his best and leave it alone.

  ‘You said you believed her to be involved with the last name on the list,’ Henry said.

  ‘A fantasy,’ Pat said simply. ‘What would a man like that want with a slip of a girl like my sister? It’s too absurd.’

  A few minutes later Henry stood watching the two young women drive away. They had decided, as it was already dark, to call on friends where they would be assured of hospitality for the night and drive home the following day. Constable Burton and Mickey now awaited him in the car. It was strange, he thought, where people drew their line in the sand. He wondered about Pat; had she perhaps fancied herself in love with this same man and been knocked back? Was that why she could not conceive of her sister being involved with him?

  ‘So, who do we have on that slip of paper?’ Mickey asked as Henry got into the car.

  ‘Two names that I find predictable. Evan Klein runs with the Connaughts and their set. He’s louche, effeminate, and a writer of sorts, and Cecil Beaton likes to take his picture, I believe. But there’s not a young woman of quality whose name hasn’t been associated at some point or other. The second is Martyn Cairns, an intellectual—’

  ‘And close to Mosley, from what I’ve heard. Something of a fascist. Doesn’t he give public lectures? I have a memory of disturbances after one and the constables having to restore order.’

  ‘It would not surprise me. The third name, however, is interesting. Benjamin Caxton, decorated war hero, son of a peer of the realm. Has fingers in a dozen political pies and as many business ones. I believe Cynthia’s Albert may have had some dealings with him.’

  ‘Severely injured during the war. Lost an eye and was badly burned.’ Mickey nodded. ‘I have seen him in the newspapers.’

  ‘Not a man you’d associate with a flighty child,’ Henry said.

  TEN

  Monday 13 January

  They had returned to London on the Monday morning and mid-afternoon found Henry back at his flat contemplating a lonely few hours until it was time to go to bed. He was still finding it hard to settle and, unusually for him, hard to be alone. Mickey had invited him back but Henry had declined. Monday evenings were one of the few times that Mickey and Belle could actually claim as their own, when the theatre was dark and she was not performing. He knew they treasured the time that they could spend together and he would not willingly have intruded upon that even though he knew that he would have been welcome.

  He telephoned Cynthia, eager for the sound of a familiar voice and for ordinary news and for a while they talked about random things.

  She joked that Henry Johnstone’s return from retirement in order to take on this new and mysterious case shared billing on the front page with Pope Pius XI’s proclamations about the sinfulness of co-educational schools.

  ‘Are you coping with this, Henry?’ she asked him.

  ‘So far I am. I confess I’m still finding it hard work, just being on my feet all day and thinking what I must ask people, what questions come next. I think if Mickey wasn’t present I would struggle but Mickey knows how I work, how I think, what needs to be done and that helps to keep me moving in the right direction.’

  ‘It will take time, Henry. Be patient with yourself.’

  Henry smiled. ‘Patience was never one of my virtues,’ he confessed.

  ‘Cynthia, have you ever had dealings with a Mr Benjamin Caxton? His name has come up and I had this vague memory that Albert did business with him at one time.’

  ‘On one occasion, yes. But he is not a man we have cultivated. He does not have the best of reputations for honesty, Henry, and he is very much the politician these days. I believe his business affairs have been handed over for others to manage. It was his father that we had more connection with. Cyril Caxton was a nice man and Albert’s father and he were great friends at one time.’

  ‘And did something happen to end that friendship?’

  ‘No, I don’t believe so. I think it was simply that neither was as active in business. Both had retired and Cyril retreated to the countryside. He took a great interest in hunting and local politics and I believe in fishing. Essentially he retired and became an English gentleman in habit as well as in family name. Albert’s father, as you know, took to travelling, so I don’t think there was any great falling out, more a simple drift apart.’

  ‘But you’ve had no real dealings with the son.’

  He could sense Cynthia thinking about this, carefully considering her response. ‘You know that Ben was wounded, badly so. He barely made it home with his life. There is no doubting his courage.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But he’s a predator, Henry.’

  ‘Predator? What exactly do you mean?’

  ‘I think you know what I mean. As women gain experience, they learn to recognize the type. Men too, but men seem to idolise them. Women will either run like hell or fall for the charisma.’ She paused, as though thinking. ‘You remember that friend of our father’s? Another doctor, a man called Rice.’

  ‘All too well.’

  ‘He’s like that, but with the money and power and reputation to support his baser instincts and give them outlet. And, like Rice, I believe Benjamin Caxton has a fondness for widows. Preferably wealthy, older widows.’

  ‘But Rice wasn’t averse to young girls either, from what I remember.’

  ‘Don’t remind me. The memory is still disgusting and distasteful.’

  Rice, Henry remembered, had been the one person among their father’s old associates to offer them any kind of assistance after his death. Come and stay with me, he’d said, his voice kind and concerned, his hand reaching for Cynthia’s. It would b
e perfectly proper, as you know my dear sister lives with me and so you would not be alone in the house.

  I have my brother to look after.

  Of course. And he will be most welcome until we can make some other arrangements. A charity scholarship perhaps, or an apprenticeship. You can’t possibly manage alone.

  At the time Henry had not fully understood his sister’s tight-lipped anger as she had declined. Cynthia had not been worldly or experienced enough to comprehend exactly what he wanted but she knew enough to be wary. Rice was enough like their father and had been close enough to him that she knew his type and had no wish to jump from the frying pan into the fire. And as it happened, she and Henry had managed very well alone, with only the slightest of assistance from anybody else.

  ‘Rice was powerful within our own small community,’ Henry mused. ‘Wealthy too, compared to many.’

  ‘Several bequests from sick, grateful patients I seem to remember. As I said, he was fond of widows. I remember hearing our father laughing over one poor woman who had given him gifts and money and you can guess what else and then had been cast aside once he’d bled her dry. Why are you asking about him? I mean not about Dr Rice, but about Ben Caxton?’

  ‘Because it’s rumoured, and only rumoured, that he took an interest in young Faun Moran. And that she fancied herself in love with him.’

  ‘Well, if that’s true it is not a good thing to have happened. In fact, it is a vile thing to have happened. What could a young thing like Faun Moran know about dealing with a phony like Caxton? She might have fancied herself in love, she might even have fancied that the feelings were returned, but no, Henry, the man is a predator, an amoral degenerate.’

  ‘Harsh words.’

  ‘And I will not take them back, Henry. If you are dealing with this man then be careful.’

  ‘I think he’s hardly as dangerous as others I’ve had unfortunate dealings with lately.’