Death in High Heels

by Christianna Brand

Charlesworth acknowledged this thrust with rueful good-humour and proceeded to relate the history of the luncheon hour as he had gleaned it from Bevan on the previous morning. Bedd listened acutely and at the conclusion emitted a heavy groan. “Decks don’t look too good now, sir! Wot a shambles!”

  “You see what I meant? Every single soul went to the table or near the plate of food. Of course you can’t say that everyone would actually have been able to put anything on to the plate, but, on-the other hand, we can’t be sure that any of them would not have been able to. Certainly no one saw anything funny, but that means exactly nothing.”

  They pondered in silence for a while. “Let’s make a list,” said Charlesworth at last.

  “Three columns,” agreed the sergeant. “Opportunity to Obtain, Opportunity to Administer, and Motive. How’s that, sir?”

  “Column number three’s going to look a bit thin, but never mind, go ahead. Let’s take Bevan first: he went up to the table when they were cleaning the hat; he even picked up some of the powder, though they say he threw it all down again … he might quite possibly have kept some in his hand, I suppose. As to putting it on the plate, he leant right across the table and spoke to Cecil—he could have dropped it on then.”

  “What about motive?”

  “None that I know of, unless there was some lovey-dovey going on what we know nothing about. Shove him down A + B — C. What about Cecil?”

  “He’s very much plus A and B, sir. Only a matter of motive. He took charge of all the crystals that were swept up and, of course, he was dishing out before lunch.”

  “Yes, we must check up carefully on a motive for him. Who else? Rachel Gay?”

  “She could have taken the oxalic from the showroom and she helped with the serving out. Motive again.”

  “The same applied to the two mannequins.”

  “And to Mrs. David.”

  “Not Victoria, sergeant!”

  “She was cleaning the ’at, sir; in fact it was her that first brought the poison into the place, her and Rachel Gay. I don’t say that was deliberate, because it all seems to have grown up too natural like; but she could have taken some of it easy enough, and she went right up to the table, by all accounts, and put her ’and over that very plate of food, when she said, ‘I’ll ’ave that bit.’”

  “Yes, but Bedd, don’t you see! She thought Miss Doon was going to be out to lunch; she couldn’t have poisoned her because she didn’t even know she was going to be there. The same goes for Mrs. Best, Irene Best. She didn’t come downstairs at all after it had been decided that Miss Doon was staying in to lunch.”

  “Well, but Mrs. David did, sir. She came downstairs and went to the ’ot-cupboard and got her lunch, while Miss Gregory was with Miss Doon in her office.”

  “And put the poison on the other plate then? No, you don’t, Sergeant. It would have been easy to do, I grant you, but Victoria didn’t go to that hot-cupboard at all. The cupboards are divided, one on each side of the hatch, and Victoria’s was in the one nearest to the table; the poisoned plate was in the other one.”

  “As you like, sir. Well then, Miss Gregory; she actually took the plate out of the far cupboard and gave it to Miss Doon; she’d ’ave to take the tin cover-thing off the top, and there’d be ample opportunity for her to put poison on it then.”

  “Yes, but no motive; she had the job they all wanted, and she had the luncheon party and from all accounts she was highly pleased with herself; what’s even more to the point, I don’t see how she could have got hold of any of the stuff. When she came in with Bevan she stayed outside the girls’ room where they were cleaning the hat and everybody agrees that she didn’t touch the crystals at all. She went straight downstairs and told the charwoman to go and clear up the mess. Then she went into the cloak room in the basement.”

  “There’s no possibility of collusion, I suppose, with Mr. Cecil? He couldn’t have given her any of what he took?”

  “No, he went downstairs with Mrs. ’Arris and out to the huh-hah, where I suppose he just put the stuff in his pocket and came back; anyway, he went straight upstairs again, and didn’t see Miss Gregory at all; Mrs. ’Arris was in the kitchen all the time. After that he was in the showroom holding an indignation meeting with the girls about the way Mr. Bevan had spoken to him.”

  “Miss Gregory couldn’t have got hold of any from Mrs. Harris?”

  “Mrs. ’Arris says she never set eyes on her the whole morning, except when the Gregory came down and told her to go and brush the stuff off the showroom floor. Besides, Bedd, have a heart; they were in the midst of an unholy row about the missing brooch; it wasn’t likely that Miss Gregory was going to approach the old girl and beg for the loan of a little poison for murderous purposes.”

  “The brooch business might have been a put-up job.”

  “You’ve got a bee in your bonnet about Gregory; how could it have been a put-up job when they can’t possibly have known that the poison was coming into the place?”

  “Well, all right, sir. Miss Gregory’s out and the two young ladies is out; Victoria David and Irene Best What about this ’ere Macaroni?”

  “I believe she’s out too. She took the stuff she was given straight down to Miss Doon and handed it over to her, as she says she did; because Bevan told me that Doon mentioned it to him afterwards. And there it is now, just as the girls say they gave it to her; packet screwed up the same way and approximately the same amount of poison.”

  “She might have picked some up in the scramble, after she dropped the lot they were cleaning the hat with.”

  “No. Everyone agrees that she gave one yelp when she saw Bevan in the showroom and legged it downstairs as fast as she could lick. She certainly had opportunity to put poison on the plate, because it was she that put the plate in the hot-cupboard; and I supposed there may have been a motive mixed up in this business of the brooch, though I think most of the suspicion had shifted to Mrs. ’Arris; but she couldn’t have got any poison, I’m practically sure.”

  “Well, then, she’s—A+B+C. Then there’s Mrs. ’Arris herself.”

  “And she’s got everything, Bedd. Motive, ready-made; opportunity to obtain and ample opportunity to administer.”

  “I don’t like to think it of the old girl, Mr. Charlesworth, straight I don’t.”

  “Neither do I, poor old faggot. All the same, I’m afraid she’s Suspect No. 1. Let’s see how the list looks now.”

  The sergeant licked a stub of pencil and made a laborious table. “Minus A for Irene,” pointed out Charlesworth, looking over his shoulder. “She was nowhere near the table where they were cleaning the hat; she couldn’t have had any poison.”

  “She was in the room, sir.”

  “Yes, but she never touched the crystals, Bedd. Everyone says that. She is supposed to have picked a few up off the floor, but Mrs. Gay says there was hardly any there, and she herself only got a few of the bigger grains; the rest you couldn’t get hold of … they were swept up with a vacuum cleaner next morning.”

  “Anyway, it ’ardly matters, sir, as she’s minus B as well. ’Ere you are, Mr. Charlesworth, in order of suspicion.”

  He presented the list with pride and Charlesworth gazed at it hopefully.

  Opportunity

  Opportunity

  to Obtain

  to Administer

  Motive

  Mrs. Harris + A + B + C Probable

  Mr. Cecil + A + B + ?C

  Mr. Bevan + A + B + ?C

  Rachel + A + B — C Possible

  Aileen + A + B — C

  Judy + A + B — C

  Gregory — A + B — C Impossible

  Macaroni — A + B + C

  Victoria — A — B — C

  Irene — A — B — C

  “So what?” said Sergeant Bedd at last, having recently been to the pictures.

  4

  Cecil lived in a block of flats in Bayswater, not one of those great rabbit-warrens but a little nest of bijou service flats fo
r bachelors. There was a good deal of pseudo-Tudor furniture in the hall and the lift was panelled and decorated to correspond. It worked, however, with twentieth-century efficiency and Charlesworth rang the bell of number 9 on the second floor.

  Cecil appeared in a dressing-gown whose sickly yellow served only to heighten the extraordinary pallor of his face. The lock of hair fell more limply than ever over his furrowed brow and he frequently, during the conversation that followed, forgot all about tossing it back. His flat was in a state of chaotic, disorder; nails and tin-tacks were naked upon the walls as though innumerable pictures and draperies had been recently torn from them; a solitary photograph stuck out here and there, the book-shelves were empty and half a dozen occasional tables did nothing but take up room. Charlesworth sat down gingerly in a Victorian rocking-chair and, motioning away the grospoint footstool which Cissie solicitously placed beneath his feet, proceeded to open fire.

  “Mr. Cecil, I must explain that I wasn’t entirely satisfied with what you told me yesterday about your disposal of that oxalic acid. I want you to repeat to me exactly what you did after Mr. Bevan asked you to have it swept up.”

  “I put it down the huh-hah, Inspector, as I said.”

  “Begin at the beginning, will you? Mrs. Harris swept it up and gave it to you? All of it?”

  “Oh, yes, Inspector; she swept it right into her dustpan and then tipped it out on to a piece of white paper; there wasn’t any left in the pan or on the floor.”

  “You’re quite sure of that?”

  “Oh, yes, I am, and you can ask the girls; they were there too … naughty things, they should never have brought it in.”

  “Did Mrs. Best help to pick it up?”

  “Nobody touched it, Inspector; I was standing there watching it until Mrs. Harris came upstairs, and Irene was sitting in her corner all the time.”

  “And then you carried it straight down to the lavatory in the area?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see anyone on the way?”

  “On the way? Of course not, Inspector, there was no one to see.”

  “You didn’t speak to Miss Gregory?”

  “No, I didn’t even see her.”

  “So that nobody can say whether or not you had the poison in your hand?”

  “Mrs. Harris may have noticed it; she followed me down the stairs.”

  “And she would have seen you come back with it in your pocket?”

  “Yes, she was in the … no, I mean, of course not. I didn’t have it in my pocket.”

  “There are traces of it in the lining.”

  Cecil regarded him with terrified brown eyes. “There can’t be! There aren’t.…”

  “Oh, yes, there are.”

  For a moment he thought that Cecil was going to faint; but after a long silence a cunning look crept over the pallid face and he suggested, like a child trying out a story which it hardly hopes will be believed: “Perhaps I put the hand holding the poison into my pocket as I went downstairs. I may easily have done that… in fact, now I come to think of it, I do believe that I unconsciously …”

  From this bright suggestion he would not be budged.

  Four

  1

  BEFORE the shop opened next morning, Charlesworth was on the threshold of Christophe et Cie. Judy came forward, still in her outdoor coat, and opened the silver door. “You’re a bit early, Mr. Charlesworth! We haven’t started the day yet.”

  “I’m in rather a hurry this morning, but I wanted to see Mr. Bevan for a minute. Is he in?”

  “I shouldn’t think so, but I’ve only just got here myself. Would you like to go over to his office and see; you know the way by now, I should imagine.”

  She ran downstairs. Charlesworth walked quickly across the heavy carpet and lifted his hand to knock at the door of Bevan’s room; he dropped it again as a voice came from within, speaking low and tenderly: “Haven’t you got a kind word for me this morning, after I’ve taken all the trouble to get here early so as to talk to you? Not even a little kiss?”

  “Not a sausage,” said a nasal voice, and there was a gurgle of soft laughter.

  Charlesworth strolled back to the door. Aileen! Aileen and Bevan! The key was still in the silver lock and he turned it and went out to the car. After a moment’s thought he cancelled his original plans and headed for Bevan’s flat.

  Maryland Mansions was a block of flats larger but not less pretentious than Cecil’s bijou nest. It took a good deal of time to sort out the night-watchman on Bevan’s stairway from an army of porters, remarkable rather for the splendour of their uniform than for their physique; but at last Charlesworth ran him to earth, breakfasting in a dingy room next to the boiler-house; and, once discovered, he was delighted to air his views.

  “Come right in, sir, and sit down. It’s a bit ’ot in ’ere, account of the furnaces next door, but you get used to it. Excuse me going on with me meal, but I just got off duty, see; bit of excitement we’ve ’ad with this ’ere murder in Mr. Bevan’s shop. Reporter, is it?”

  “Police,” said Charlesworth, briefly.

  “Oh, p’lice. That’s different. I don’t mind telling you I wouldn’t ’ve said much if you was from the Press,” said the night-watchman hurriedly; “you ’as to be careful in a thing like this. Libel and such. Not but what you can’t be libelled for telling the truth and the truth is ’e’s been at ’ome both nights and all night since the murder was done. For murder it was, sir, mark my words; tired of ’er, that’s what it was, and ’aving a bit of a lull now, before takin’ up with ’is new paramore.”

  “Are you suggesting that Mr. Bevan made away with Miss Doon?”

  The watchman looked a little frightened. “Did I ever say so, sir? No, no, I’m suggestin’ nothink; but a man wot plays about as ’e plays about …”

  “Do Mr. Bevan’s lady friends come here to his flat?” asked Charlesworth, at a venture.

  “Well, not to say all of them, they don’t. She come ’ere a bit, and there was another used to be ’ere a lot but not lately. Red ’ead, she was; she was terrible.”

  “Terrible in what way?”

  “Made up she was, and was she fresh? I took ’er up in the lift one night and ‘I ’ope you’re not bashful, porter,’ she says, and ups ’er skirt and starts fixin’ ’er suspender. Give me quite a turn!”

  “I should think so, indeed,” said Charlesworth, sympathetically.

  “Miss Wheeler, that was, but she ’asn’t been for a long time now. There was another girl came from the shop, I reckernised ’er photo in the papers, a tall, dark girl; and there’s another one, a sour-faced b——young lady, but she mostly comes of a morning; I think she must be a secretary or somethink of that.”

  Charlesworth went over to a heap of newspapers in the corner of the room. “Would this be the dark one?”

  “That’s ’er; Mrs. Rachel Gay, but I ’aven’t seen ’er often and not for a long time. I don’t see the other gel ’ere.”

  “And this would be the one that comes in the mornings?” asked Charlesworth, indicating a very bad photograph of Gregory. “The one you think’s a secretary.…”

  “I can’t rightly say, sir, she’s got ’er ‘and over ’er face, ‘asn’t she?” He passed over Victoria’s photograph and Judy’s. “Never seen ’em.”

  “Nor this one—Irene Best?”

  “Never set eyes on ’er.”

  After much thought and not without a little financial persuasion he contrived to remember certain dates on which Bevan had definitely spent the night away from home. Armed with these, Charlesworth went round to the address which Aileen had given him. A motherly landlady opened the door and her mouth at the same time.

  “Are you from the Press? Come in, my dear, and sit yerself down. ’Ave a cup of tea, do. I was just going to ’ave one meself. We ’ad two young chaps ’ere this morning, already. Quite on the front page, we are.”

  She led him into her private sitting-room, threading her bulk with miraculous
dexterity through a multitude of rickety bamboo tables on which were knick-knacks and photographs in almost unbelievable profusion. Charlesworth’s long legs made havoc among presents from Hove and shell-covered boxes, but at last he found himself wedged securely into an ancient plush-covered chair, and Aileen’s landlady made formal introductions.

  “Simpson, my name is, Mrs. Simpson. My ’usband made a rare joke of that when the Duke of Windsor got married—God bless ’im,” she added, making a small ducking movement towards a picture of George VI and his family which hung over the mantelpiece, presumably to show that no offence need be taken where none intended. “I used to be a Miss King, see? and my ’usband ’e says, ‘Not the first time a Simpson’s married a King,’ ’e says. Not bad, was it? You can put that in your paper, young man.”

  Charlesworth indicated solemnly that his editor would be delirious with joy, even though it seemed probable that similar permission had been extended to the two young chaps who had already preceded him. “Now, could you give me some information for a little article about Miss Aileen? ‘Life of a Mannequin,’ that kind of thing. ‘Her Friends,’ and so on.”

  “Well, as to friends, she don’t ’ave many these days not with that sloppy Arthur of ’ers ’anging around. I reckon she must be potty on ’im to let ’im boss ’er about the way ’e does: can’t see what she sees in ’im, meself. ’E ain’t got tuppence to bless ’imself with but ’e puts on the airs of a lord!”

  “Doesn’t Mr. Bevan come to visit her? You’ve seen his picture in the papers, I expect?”

  “Oh, yes, I seen ’im in the papers, but I don’t think ’e’s ever bin ’ere or I’d ’ve remembered ’im. She ’ad enough chaps before Arthur come along, though always well be’aved, but since she took up with ’im she don’t ’ardly seem to go out at all.”

  “Not what you’d expect in a girl of her looks,” said Charlesworth. “They have a gay time, most of them.”

  “Yes, but wot does it lead to?” Mrs. Simpson gulped her tea and nodded darkly. “Murder, that’s wot. I don’t say young Aileen, but these painted ’ussies—one of them done that Miss Doon in, pore girl, and she as nice and pleasant-spoken a young lady as you could wish to meet, even if she did dress a bit odd.”