Death in High Heels

by Christianna Brand

  The blobs had become a head and a body, and the spikes were now four knobby legs. A most outrageous camel was emerging from Charlesworth’s unconscious pencil. He began to decorate it with small dots as he went on, frowning with concentration. “The other very-likely is the charwoman, Mrs. Harris. She had both opportunities and a cut-and-dried motive; if she did it, we’re sunk, because we shall never prove it. Then there are the four possibles: there’s Aileen Wheeler, the mannequin (she’s almost a very-likely, really, because she had quite a respectable motive—or rather a motive that was the reverse of respectable—besides the two opportunities); Judy, the other mannequin, who makes no secret of the fact that she detested Doon, and who seems to have benefited by her death to the extent of one fiancé, returned to the fold—she had both opportunities; and Rachel Gay, but so far I haven’t traced any motive for her. Anyway, she seems a very unlikely person to commit a murder of this kind—or else she’s a very good actress.”

  “Not a very good actress,” said the superintendent, coolly, “but an actress. I’ve seen her on the stage.”

  “No!”

  “Yes, I have. I never forget a name. A big, dark girl?”

  “That’s the one. Where did you see her?”

  “I don’t remember at all. It must have been several years ago and I have an idea that it was in the provinces somewhere, but I really couldn’t say. Only I remember the name and I remember the girl.”

  “Well, that’s the most extraordinary thing, sir. However, I don’t know that it helps us very much, when one comes to examine it. There doesn’t seem to be the ghost of a motive. Still, I wonder …”

  A tremendous forest grew up around Charlesworth’s camel while he wondered. His chief repressed a desire to point out the improbability of such a background, and inquired after the remaining four suspects. “Well, they’re hardly suspects at all,” said Charlesworth, scribbling busily. “They’re the ones who are in a way involved, but who had only one of the two opportunities. There’s the secretary; she could have poisoned the food, and she had the most excellent reasons for wanting to do away with Doon, who was apparently in possession of a letter which contained proof of the kid’s having gone off the rails at some time—I imagine she was holding it over Macaroni’s head for some reason of her own, though not, I imagine, for money. However, I still think she’s innocent; she only had a certain quantity of the poison and that much was found in the drawer where Miss Doon put it; moreover, Bevan gives the child an alibi for the whole period between the time she came downstairs and the time she went to the kitchen to give the message about the lunch; she had no time to go out and get more oxalic and that’s certain.”

  “She couldn’t have administered it in some way during the few minutes after Bevan left the office?”

  “Well, but where could she have got it from, sir?”

  “All right, have it your own way; but there seems to me to be a flaw there somewhere, Charlesworth, only I can’t put my finger on it. Think it over. Now, who’s next?”

  “Only three more, sir. Irene Best, Miss Gregory, Victoria David. Gregory may have had a motive because she is supposed to have been in love with Bevan and he, of course, was living with Miss Doon; however, though she might have administered poison, she couldn’t have got hold of it, so that lets her out. Irene Best had no motive that I can see, neither had Mrs. David; in any event, at the time when they might have used the opportunity to poison the food, they were each under the impression that Miss Doon was going to be out to lunch: in fact, Mrs. Best really is out of it altogether because she had no motive and neither of the two famous opportunities.”

  Charlesworth finished his forest and added a dot to a minute space on the camel’s back. “No, Bevan’s my favourite, sir. He’s the villain.”

  “But when could he have administered it?” asked the superintendent, gazing at him rather blankly.

  “Ye gods, these old buffers!” thought Charlesworth, regarding his chief (who had just turned fifty) with a despairing though tolerant eye. “He hauls me over the coals about the case and he hasn’t even read the damn notes.” “You’ll have noticed in my interview with him, sir,” he explained patiently, “that Bevan admitted that after he came out of Miss Doon’s office he walked straight up to the table and leant across it to speak in a low voice to Mr. Cecil. He could easily have dropped the poison on to the plate while he did that.”

  The superintendent continued to gaze at him. “Good lord!” he thought, “these boys! They make the most excellent and accurate notes on a case and never even notice the significance of them.” He had observed the poor-old-gentleman note in the young man’s voice and he could not keep a trace of asperity out of his own as he pointed out: “Hasn’t it dawned on you that Bevan couldn’t have known which was Miss Doon’s plate?”

  Very pink in the face, Charlesworth fished out his own rough notebook and scanned it anxiously. “You’re perfectly right, sir. I’m very sorry.… I thought I’d caught you napping then,” he added, with an apologetic grin.

  “It hadn’t occurred to me that you’d missed that—why did you think I’d tried to work out a theory of his coming down the area steps at a different time?”

  Charlesworth, who had privately thought that the dear old geyser had been talking through his hat, made no reply except to bemoan the erasure of Bevan from his list of probables. “He did seem so perfect for the part.”

  “Have you any proof of this supposed affair with the dead girl?”

  “Oh, yes; I’ve got a whole bunch of letters. I’ve still got them on me, as a matter of fact; I hadn’t time to read them at the Yard, so I thought I’d run through them while I changed. Pretty pornographic, most of them!” He produced them from his pocket and idly sorted them through. “Hallo, I didn’t see this one; it’s in a different handwriting.…” He unfolded a single sheet of notepaper, and as he read its contents he suddenly went stiff and rather cold. His mind flew back to the half-hour he had spent with the lovelies in their little cubbyhole; he heard again Rachel’s warm voice, saying, “I loved her!” and Victoria’s laughter, trailing off into silence: “She looks so sweet and kind, Mr. Charlesworth, but you can’t trust her; Rachel’s a tiger when she’s roused!”

  He handed the letter across the table; in a large, round, feminine scrawl, punctuated only by dashes and obviously written in haste, it read: “Please make an opportunity for me to talk to you at the shop to-morrow—it’s more vital than ever that nothing shall come out about—you know what—you’re the only person in the world who can give me away and if you do, my God, I’ll kill you.” The last words were heavily underlined. If he had not recognized the handwriting, the signature was clear for all the world to see: “Rachel Gay.’

  Seven

  1

  RACHEL was dressing to go to Doon’s funeral—struggling into a long-sleeved grey frock, polishing patent leather shoes, ripping the gay green feathers off a hat. A pair of black suède gloves lay upon the dressing-table; she thrust them suddenly out of sight and went to the telephone.

  “Hallo, is that you, Judy? My dear, have you got an extra pair of black gloves, because I can’t find mine, and I thought you might be able to lend me some. Oh, thank you, darling. What? Well, if they don’t I shall just have to carry them scrunched up in my hand. I’d better call for you in my taxi and collect them, and then we can go on together.”

  “I was supposed to be taking Macaroni,” said Judy.

  “Oh, never mind that. I’ll ring up Aileen and tell her to call for Macaroni on her way through Camden Town. She’ll have to pass quite near.”

  “Well, I’m taking Mrs. ’Arris, anyway.”

  “Nonsense, Judy, you can’t do that.”

  “I’ve promised to let her come with me and I’m jolly well going to,” said Judy, a trifle irritated at having her plans so summarily disarranged. “Bevan told her to stay away, I know, but the poor old thing would be brokenhearted if she didn’t go. She loathed Doon while she was alive, of cour
se, but she’s all against missing a funeral.”

  “I don’t think you ought to take her if Bevan doesn’t want her there.”

  “It isn’t Bevan’s funeral,” said Judy, “and I’m taking her, so that’s all there is to it. Anyway, you’d better get a move on, Rachel, if you’re calling for me. It’s twenty past already.”

  Rachel, having rung up Aileen, returned to her dressing. A seam had given way in one of her thin silk stockings and she stitched it up, rapidly but with infinite care. A clean handkerchief, powder-puff, lipstick, a couple of ten-shilling notes and some small change were transferred to her black handbag; she put on her hat, carefully brushed the shoulders of her frock, and ran down the stairs.

  “Going off to the funeral of that pore young lady,” said the first charlady to the second charlady as she passed them in the hall. “Looks fair ’eartbroke, don’t she?”

  The second charlady was unsentimental. “She don’t look ’eartbroke to me, Mrs. Spong,” she said, frowning heavily after the elegant figure. “I tell you what she looks to me: cross as two sticks, that’s what she looks to me!”

  The arrangements for the funeral had been a nightmare to Bevan. Doon’s parents had cabled expenses, but, of necessity, left all arrangements in his hands. It had been decided to close the shop for the day—it was a Saturday, anyway, and decency demanded little less; but the problem of the attendance at the graveside was fraught with embarrassment. The Press would certainly miss no detail of the affair, and the absence of all or any of the dead girl’s colleagues might be taken amiss. On the other hand, the whole of England was by this time aware that, by a process of elimination, the murderer must be one of the staff of Christophe et Cie, and Bevan pictured with a shudder headlines blaring forth that the killer had walked with bowed head behind the victim’s coffin and placed hypocritical flowers upon her grave. He decided at last that most of the staff must be present, but that one or two absentees would, at least, leave an element of doubt for the public mind to seize upon, and he accordingly chose, at random, Irene and Mrs. ’Arris and instructed them to stay away. Mrs. ’Arris’s reaction was typical; lose her job she might, but miss the funeral she would not! Irene, only too glad of the excuse to be absent, assented willingly and the Press was informed that she was too unwell to attend. But alas for excellent intentions! That night headlines screamed that she alone had stayed away, and all over the country men and women took up malicious pens.

  Gregory had been in favour of hiring several large cars, one for Bevan, one for Cecil and herself, and one for the girls, but, “No, thanks,” said Bevan, grimly. “I should only need a fat cigar to look like a theatrical manager arriving with the season’s bunch of sweeties, fresh from their triumphs at Monte Carlo. Let them all come along in ones and twos in the best-looking taxis they can find, and I’ll pay their fares; and tell them not to send individual wreaths and things. We don’t want the papers printing the inscriptions and heading them, ‘Farewell Message of a Murderer?’”

  “They couldn’t,” said Gregory, literally. “It would be libel.”

  “Libel or no libel, I don’t want the girls sending flowers privately, do you hear? I shall order a large wreath from myself and one from them all collectively. Cecil had better send something, too.”

  “Won’t that look rather mean—only three wreaths?”

  “Will it? I don’t know. What a hell of a business this all is. Well, let the workroom send one, and perhaps we could divide up the showroom and send one from the mannequins and one from the salesgirls and yourself. You arrange it somehow—I can’t think any more about it. Do your best for me, like a good girl; if I don’t stop going over and over the thing, I shall be off my head. Damn this bloody publicity—whatever we do will be wrong.”

  Mrs. ’Arris was sitting on a chair in Mrs. Carol’s elegant hall when Rachel arrived to call for Judy. “Ow, Miss Rachel, you are late. We thought you was never coming.”

  “There’s plenty of time,” said Rachel, coldly. “I’ve got my taxi waiting, Judy.”

  They sat down side by side in the cab and Mrs. ’Arris perched herself on one of the small front seats. “Here’s a pair of Mummy’s gloves,” said Judy, handing them over. “She says not to return them—they’re quite old ones.”

  Their taxi joined the line of cars waiting at the appointed spot, and then started on the long, slow drive through the London streets. In front of them went Toria and the Dazzler in their small and shabby car; behind them Macaroni sobbed and snivelled and Aileen regarded her with dispassionate disgust. Mrs. ’Arris applied a large black-bordered handkerchief to such tears as she could squeeze out, and Rachel leant back in her corner and closed her eyes. After half an hour, when they had very little further to go, she said suddenly in a low, but perfectly audible voice, “Mrs. ’Arris.”

  Mrs. ’Arris continued to stare out of the window with her handkerchief to her nose. She knew that tone of voice very well. There’s none so deaf as them that wants to ’ear what won’t be said in front of them if they ain’t deaf, thought Mrs. ’Arris, and many a tit-bit had she learnt at the shop through this purely imaginary failing of hers. “Mrs. ’Arris,” the young ladies would say softly. “Can you ’ear what we’re saying?” was what they meant; she would go on quietly with her work and out would come their secrets—oh, she’d picked up a lot that way, and now what was coming? She gave a tremendous sniff and gazed blankly upon the passing scene.

  Rachel looked at her sharply. “I’ve got something to say to you, Judy, and I don’t want another soul to hear it—it’s perfect hell her being here at all, but I can’t wait, so thank goodness she’s deaf.”

  “How mysterious you are, Rachel! Do you mean to say that all this business about the gloves was just an excuse?”

  “Yes, of course. I’ve got a perfectly good pair at home, but I suddenly realized something this morning while I was dressing and I had to get hold of you at once before you made any—mistakes.”

  “What on earth about?”

  “About Doon’s death. Judy—you know who killed her, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” said Judy, suddenly very still.

  “How do you know?”

  “I saw you picking up the poison, Rachel, off the floor.”

  “I thought you did,” said Rachel, indifferently. “I remember now, looking up and seeing you standing at the door of your room. Now, Judy, what I want to say to you is this. Mr. Charlesworth told the Dazzler something yesterday that was very much to the point: he said that everybody at Christophe’s was safe until they knew too much. And you do know too much. So I wanted to warn you, Judy—just as long as there’s a chance of your telling what you know, your own life is in danger. You haven’t got proof, you know, and I haven’t admitted anything, have I? Mr. Charlesworth would have to find out a lot more than you can tell him, before he acted—and in the meantime anything could happen to you, couldn’t it, Judy? You hated Doon—I believe sometimes you’d have killed her yourself, if you could. Why should you bother about who actually did? If it’s going to be found out, Charlesworth will find it without any help from you—meanwhile, you do nothing—and I’ll do nothing. Will you promise?”

  “I can’t promise,” said Judy, white and shaking. “I wasn’t going to say anything, anyway, but I can’t promise. I’ll think it over.”

  “You must promise, Judy. You must swear to do nothing and you must promise never to breathe a word to anyone about what I’ve said to you to-day. Otherwise—you don’t want to die, do you, Judy? As it happens, neither do I. Look, we’re coming to the gates—promise me, swear to me, that you’ll keep quiet; promise me!”

  Mrs. ’Arris sniffed and gazed and listened with all her might. Judy promised.

  2

  It was a dismal day for August, cold and sunless and inclined to rain, but a crowd of sightseers had gathered in the cemetery and the girls had to push their way past them and into the tiny chapel. Charlesworth, from a quiet corner, watched them coming slowly up the path
towards him. Rachel and Judy walked stiffly beside each other, in troubled silence; Mrs. ’Arris waddled after them, her best black winter coat belted about her for the occasion, a velvet toque, cast out from Christophe’s, perched back-to-front on her head. Toria looked pale and sad, but her hair was like candlelight under her big black hat. Cecil swept back his forelock with a shaking hand, and minced along with a look of self-conscious grief on his pallid face; Bevan was nervous and ill-at-ease, Macaroni bathed in tears. Only Aileen walked nonchalantly up the path, and might have been a debutante at a garden party, obliged to wear grey on the death of her cousin, the Duke. She caught sight of Charlesworth in his corner and bestowed upon him a gracious, fleeting smile.

  The coffin was borne slowly in and placed on its trestles before the marble altar. A clergyman embarked upon a series of singularly inappropriate prayers. The girls stood together in a little group, their lovely heads bent, tears in their eyes; Bevan looked cross, Cecil sniffed and fidgeted, Gregory stared at something she did not see. “She looks pretty grim,” thought Charlesworth, watching her haggard face and the bitter line of her mouth. “What a strange woman she is: I never saw anyone who so obviously took trouble with her clothes, and then looked so damned awful when she had them on.” His attention was caught by a movement at the door of the chapel: “Hallo, who have we here? Pals of Doon’s, I suppose. Snappy-looking piece with the henna and the silver fox; where have I seen her before? What frightful-looking bounders the chaps are; they must be Doon’s old flames. I wish this fellow would stop gassing and let us get out of here.”