Death in High Heels

by Christianna Brand

  Nine

  1

  TEN people read their post on Monday morning in stricken silence, for even the black heart of the murderer quailed at the things the anonymous letters had to say about Irene Best. Bevan was beside himself with remorse; he had chosen her to be absent from the funeral for no other reason than that she had been at hand when he had made his decision; if only that old fool Mrs. ’Arris had obeyed him, there would have been at least two objects for the public’s suspicion, if they must take it in this way. He was bound to admit that it did look rather peculiar for one single person to have absented herself on a feeble excuse of ill-health, and he cursed the hour in which he had made his ill-fated arrangements and brought down this horrible attack upon her gentle head. Victoria, distraught, rushed round to Irene’s little room with the Dazzler, unshaven and protesting, at her side. To her surprise, she found Aileen already there, roused to something approaching energy by her disgust at the cowardly attacks, holding Irene’s hand and beseeching her not to allow herself to be upset. “I wouldn’t,” avowed Aileen, which was probably true, since no one in the memory of Christophe et Cie had seen her moved from her indifferent calm.

  Irene looked terrible. Her face seemed to have shrunk to a tiny point and her eyes under their heavy lids were dark with despair. “Don’t let yourself be upset by it Irene, my darling,” implored Toria, joining her hopeless plea with Aileen’s. “It’s all too vile and cruel and wicked; but why should you care what such cheap and cowardly people think or say? We know you didn’t—didn’t kill Doon so as to enjoy her suffering, and—and all these revolting things … I mean, Irene, all your friends believe that you didn’t murder her; why should you care what these horrible, unbalanced creatures write?”

  “Have they sent letters about me to everybody?” asked Irene, dully.

  “I don’t know, darling. They sent one to me, and I suppose you got one, Aileen, did you? They must have got our addresses from the papers. But still, what does it matter if they have?”

  “Everyone at Christophe’s knows that you’re the last person in the world that would have killed her, Rene,” said Aileen, kindly. “Not a soul will take any notice of what a lot of mad people say; we all know that it was Bevan who told you to stay away, and why he told you. He said the same to Mrs. ’Arris, and if only that silly idiot Judy hadn’t let her come, there wouldn’t have been all this beastliness.”

  “Poor old Mrs. ’Arris would have got them too,” said Irene, miserably. “You don’t know how awful it is—how can I go to work to-day, with all the people in the streets thinking I stayed away from Doon’s funeral because I killed her? I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t have killed Doon for anything.… I was very fond of her—at least, if I wasn’t fond of her, I did quite like her; she’d never done me any harm … she was the last person I’d want to kill.…” She burst into tears.

  “She’d better not come to the shop to-day,” said Aileen, across the weeping head.

  “Oh, Aileen, she must. It’s the only thing to do. If she doesn’t it will only give a worse handle to people to say things against her. Rene, darling, you must pull yourself together and come to Christophe’s as if nothing had happened; Bobby Dazzler will take us all down in the car—he’s waiting outside; once you’re at the shop, there won’t be anyone to see you who doesn’t believe you’re innocent. You must come, darling; if you don’t, it will only give those ghastly people something much more to go upon. Be brave, my pet, and make up your mind to it; let’s have a go at your face and get rid of the tear marks; and put on a good big hat that’ll cover up your poor little mug and the fresh air will soon make it all right. You should see the Dazzler,” prattled Victoria, vigorously applying a sponge; “he came out without shaving or anything, and he looks too awful—nobody could be dazzled by him to-day. You see how much Bobby thinks of you, Rene, darling. He’s willing to imperil his reputation for beauty in my eyes and in the eyes of the world. There, that’s better, isn’t it, Aileen? It doesn’t show a thing now, does it?”

  “Not a sausage,” said Aileen, warmly.

  “You really think I’m doing the right thing?” asked Irene, doubtfully.

  “Of course you are. Toria’s quite right. It would give a completely wrong impression if you stayed away. Don’t be worried, Rene; you’re only going among people that believe in you—and are fond of you,” added Aileen, with unparalleled enthusiasm, “isn’t she, Victoria?”

  “Of course she is,” said Toria.

  “Do you two really believe I’m innocent?” said Irene, looking wistfully into their eyes.

  “Of course we do,” repeated Aileen, as they came up to the car. “Don’t we, Toria?”

  “Of course we do,” said Victoria, and turned away her head.

  2

  At the shop an indignation meeting was in full swing. All of the staff had received letters and another batch had been addressed to Christophe’s. Bevan had, however, taken charge of these, and most of them were destroyed before they met other eyes. The morning papers had rehashed the news of Saturday’s funeral and promised the customary early arrest. One or two of them had taken up the cudgels in Irene’s favour, but their defence was, of necessity, as veiled as the attacks of the opposition, and little comfort could be derived from even the most favourable of them. Charlesworth had given out a carefully worded explanation which did something to appease the public mind; and he was working feverishly for some explanation of the ghastly muddle in which he found himself. Sir George was agitating, the Chief uncertain, and his colleagues full of good-natured derision. Only Bedd remained, solid and level-headed as ever, and to him the distracted young man turned for consolation.

  “Unless I can get something definite by this evening, Bedd, I shall ask the superintendent for assistance. I can’t bear to do it, but I mustn’t go on mucking about like this … we really aren’t any nearer a solution than we were when we started. We’ve got a good motive against Macaroni, and that’s about all, except for this note from Rachel Gay, and I’ve sweated all the week-end and can’t establish any further connection between her and the dead girl. Do you think I ought to question her? I don’t want to put her on her guard.”

  “I should leave it for the moment, sir. There’s this report to consider from Tomlinson. What about interviewing Cecil? Not but what it’s difficult to see what we’ve got to go on.”

  “I’m much more inclined to think that it was all something to do with this other fellow, Elliot. Jenkins has been trying to trace him the whole week-end, but from the moment he left the flat there doesn’t seem to be a sign of him. Cecil’s story is that Elliot said on the Monday night that he was going to leave; they didn’t see each other the following morning, and when Cecil got back from work in the evening, he’d gone. Cecil hoped he’d come back and he ordered dinner for him, but he never turned up; and Cecil accordingly packed up his possessions and deposited them in the basement at the shop. Certainly nobody saw Elliot return to the flat that evening, but that doesn’t mean very much; there’s only one porter, and he could easily miss anybody going in or out. If Cecil did do the fellow in, what’s happened to the body? All we know for certain is that it wasn’t taken away in a trunk!”

  “It isn’t really your worry, sir, what may have happened to Elliot.”

  “Well, it is, in a way, because till I can prove that the conversation Cecil had with his mother was about Elliot, I can’t prove that it wasn’t about Doon. I wonder if the trunks would help us in any way. I can’t see why they should, but we might have a look—it would give us something to do,” he added, bitterly.

  Cecil had not yet returned from Kent so that elaboration was unnecessary. Bevan carelessly assented to their request and returned to an eager confabulation with his publicity agents. With small hope of results, they marched down to the basement and looked into the dark recess beneath the stairs.

  The trunks had gone.

  “Wasn’t this place watched during the week-end?” yelled Charlesworth, when he
had recovered the use of speech.

  “I’m afraid not, sir. There was nothing to watch.”

  “They wasn’t there when I got ’ere this morning,” said Mrs. ’Arris, who was an interested spectator.

  Bedd ignored her and addressed himself to Charlesworth. “You’d seen all there was to see, Mr. Charlesworth, sir; there was no clues or anythink to be mucked up; I spoke to the constable on night duty and asked him to keep an eye on the place, but other than that there was nothink necessary; that’s really so, sir, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose so, I suppose so. How can we get hold of this bobby?”

  The unfortunate policeman was located and dragged out of bed to come to the telephone. He had seen nothing untoward during his rounds, but he had since heard that P.C. Henson had put in a report that a man had removed some luggage from the basement in the course of the Saturday afternoon. As far as he knew, P.C. Henson would be on the same beat now. He returned, resentfully, to his bed.

  P.C. Henson was discovered marching with all majesty down Regent Street. He had certainly reported to the Yard that the luggage had been taken. “I suppose no one thought of telling me!” cried Charlesworth, almost in tears. “I’m only the detective on this blasted job. A little thing like that couldn’t be expected to interest me! Well, never mind, Henson, it isn’t your fault, if you made your report all right; you did all you had to do. Tell me about this man.”

  “He had a key to the front door of the shop, sir. He told me that some luggage of his had been deposited there and that he had come to fetch it. I asked him what was in the boxes and had a look, just to make sure; I’d heard from—er—from the talk at the Yard that there was nothing of importance in the boxes, sir; and since he had the key and I hadn’t had no instructions to the contrary, sir, I couldn’t stop him taking them. He put them in a taxi and drove off. I took the number of the taxi, and he gave me the address—they’re both in my report.”

  “It couldn’t have been Cecil,” said Charlesworth to Bedd. “Tomlinson says he didn’t leave the country the whole week-end. What was this chap like, Henson? He wasn’t a pale, fair young man, very pansy-looking?”

  “Oh, no, sir. He was a big feller, fattish and had dark hair. Pansy-looking he certainly was, Mr. Charlesworth, but it wasn’t Mr. Cecil. He said his name was Elliot.”

  3

  Elliot was surprised and grieved that the police had been to any trouble about him. A call at his innocuous South Kensington hotel brought him out of bed, a flabby, dark man, a little below middle-age, clad in a pair of livery-looking yellow pyjamas and a satin dressing-gown of a very lovely green. They sat down in the small, square hotel bedroom, taken up almost entirely by the brass bedstead and shiny, modern washbasin; and Elliot, having carefully excluded every breath of air, curled himself on the edge of the bed and burst into a flurry of explanations.

  “Can we have this from the beginning?” suggested Charlesworth, after some minutes. “You left Mr. Cecil’s flat—when?”

  “I left on the Monday morning. I just took a weeny suitcase with me and jumped on to a bus and came along here. I didn’t want to see Cecil again, I didn’t, really, after the rather beastly things he said to me on Sunday; he called Magda the most dreadful names … oh, it was terrible, my dear.…”

  “Miss Magda Doon, is that?”

  “Well, of course—I was madly in love with her—didn’t you know? I met her at Christophe’s and from that moment … she was so strong, you know, and vital, and then she was so cruel to me—my dear, she was as cruel as hell, that girl, and, I don’t know, but there’s something fascinating about it.…”

  “Didn’t you see her death reported in the papers?”

  “But of course, and it was the most dreadful shock. I wanted to go to her funeral; I adore funerals, don’t you? They’re so entrancingly Victorian; all the lovely black horses and wavy plumes and the hideous wreaths and all the little individual studies of weeping women and the men striking unconscious attitudes of despair.… I so seldom get the chance of going to one where I know the actors, as it were—but there it was, I couldn’t, very well; I didn’t want to see Cecil, you see; I felt I just couldn’t face a scene all over again, and besides, what with the move and the shock and everything I seemed to have caught a rather nasty little chill, and I’ve hardly been able to move out of this place ever since. I just crawled out and ordered a wreath, but there again, I didn’t want Cecil to know it was from me, so I didn’t put my name on it, just a message that she would understand, wherever she is … though I’m afraid there’s no doubt about that, such a deliciously cruel creature as she was could never have settled down in what we understand by heaven. It was rather a lovely thing, the wreath, orchids crawling, as it were, up a simple wooden cross; a sort of symbol of death in the midst of sophistication: the triumph of nature over civilization…”

  “Yes, I saw it,” said Charlesworth, shortly.

  “It was rather lovely, didn’t you think? I had a second one made for myself, and there it is now, hanging over my bed; the orchids are drooping a little, you see, and it seems sort of in keeping, doesn’t it? She was so like an orchid herself.”

  “How did you know that Cecil had left your things at the shop?” asked Charlesworth, revolted by all this crawly symbolism.

  “Oh, but one knew he always did,” said Elliot, blushing faintly. “When he told Bunny that I was coming to live with him—Bunny was the boy who shared the flat with him before me—Bunny walked out in a pet and then Cecil couldn’t bear to see all those familiar things all over the place and he took them all to Regent Street and put them in the basement of the shop. I helped him, so of course I knew. He told me he had done the same before Bunny came: he had a horrid fellow staying with him then, he was mad on the Chinese and filled the place with lacquer cabinets, too utterly banal for words; but the incense made Cecil feel sick. Bunny soon changed all that, but he did it up in the so-called modern style, and though it was extraordinarily well done, it was a trifle behind the times.”

  “Is there anything more I ought to ask this chap?” murmured Charlesworth to the sergeant, losing interest in the décor of Cecil’s flat.

  “No use saying anythink about the oxalic acid, I suppose, sir?”

  “I don’t think so; he had left the flat before it had even been brought into the shop. All right, Mr. Elliot,” said Charlesworth, aloud. “I don’t think there’s anything else I want at the moment … you’ll remain at this address, will you?”

  “Yes, I shall be here till the end of the week, anyway,” said Elliot. “But, officer—you won’t say anything to Cecil, will you? I really couldn’t stand another emotional scene just now, and after the shock and with my teeny chill …” They left him to it.

  Charlesworth sent Bedd to the shop to fetch Cecil, and himself returned to his office at Scotland Yard. There P.C. Henson’s report confronted him from beneath some papers on his own chaotic desk; P.C. Jenkins was still looking all over London for the elusive Elliot. “Let him look,” said Charlesworth savagely; but on hearing that he was even now on the other end of the telephone: “Put him through to me.”

  “Very sorry, sir,” said Jenkins, when an opportunity at last occurred. “I don’t see what more I could’ve done, sir. I suppose he was trying to ’ide from Mr. Cecil where ’e’d gorn; having only a small case ’e could ’ave ’opped on to a bus, and there’s a lot of young gentlemen carrying suitcases ’ops on to buses, sir. As for the ’otel, I’d ’ve come to it sooner or later, I suppose, but it means a lot of routine, Mr. Charlesworth, and I couldn’t’ve done it in the time … not without a lot of luck, I couldn’t. Very sorry, sir. I ’ope you won’t ’old it against me, sir,” said P.C. Jenkins, his aitches deserting him entirely in the stress of the moment.

  “I never ’old things like this against people, Jenkins, you ought to know that by now,” said Charlesworth, catching the infection. “Don’t do it again, that’s all. You needn’t worry any more about it; I’ve got it off my chest
and it’s over. How’s the missus?” he added, in a praiseworthy effort to make amends. P.C. Jenkins replied that his wife passed away some years ago.

  Cecil, arriving at Christophe’s with the faithful Mr. Tomlinson still in unobtrusive attendance, was met by Bedd with a polite request that he should go to the Yard, as Mr. Charlesworth would like to have a few words with him. “You’re quite within your rights if you care to refuse, sir,” explained the sergeant, as Cecil showed signs of rebellion, “but Mr. Charlesworth would be glad if you could make it convenient to come along with me.”

  “Yes, go along, Cecil, go along,” said Bevan, to whom the sight of uniforms at the shop gave little pleasure. “Go and see what the inspector wants. They can’t kill you, man,” Cecil shuddered visibly, “and if you don’t go willingly they’ll get you there anyway.”

  At the Yard Charlesworth, uncertain of his ground, essayed an impression of sternness and much mystery. “Sit down, will you, Mr. Cecil. I have some questions of great gravity I want to ask you and I thought it would be more—more comfortable, shall I say, if I put them to you here.”

  “I’m sure I can’t imagine what you can want to ask me, Inspector,” said Cecil, frightened to death.

  “Well, it’s—er—it’s come to my knowledge lately, Mr. Cecil, that during the week-end you had a quarrel with your friend, Mr. Elliot, and that, as a result of this quarrel, you were—er—were put to a serious temptation; on the Monday you found these oxalic acid crystals lying about, and you were tempted by this pure chance to take a very terrible course. Isn’t this correct, Mr. Cecil?”

  “I don’t see what you can know about it,” cried Cecil, staring at him with terrified eyes.

  Charlesworth’s air of importance strengthened enormously. There was little, it seemed to say, that the police did not know; but wouldn’t it be better that they should hear it from Cecil’s own lips?…