Death in High Heels

by Christianna Brand

  “Exactly,” said the expert, smiling politely. “We only discount Mrs. Best because in her case it would appear to have been a genuine suicide note, and there are indications that it wasn’t that. Anyone might have written it who was not in a violent emotional state at the time; if forgers would always say as little and print it as unevenly, our job would be a lot more difficult than it is. Actually, if I were asked an off-hand opinion, I should be inclined to say that it wasn’t done by any of these young ladies at all—it’s very straggly and inky; not as neat and small as one would expect; but, of course, that may all be part of a particularly intelligent disguise.”

  “It looks as if it had been done by somebody in gloves much too big for them,” said Charlesworth, holding the card before him, arm outstretched.

  “Or with a handkerchief or some such things held round the pen to prevent marks.”

  “There was a pair of Mrs. Best’s gloves lying on the dressing-table with her handbag,” said Charlesworth, thoughtfully, “and the card was taken out of her handbag as we already know. I wonder if the murderer could have put on Irene’s gloves to protect their fingers.…”

  “Mrs. David would have had her own, as she was on her way home,” put in Smithers, who was standing by.

  “Mrs. David wasn’t wearing gloves,” said Charlesworth, sharply. “In the height of summer she doesn’t even carry them; in fact, she says she hasn’t got any, though that may be one of her light-hearted exaggerations.”

  “Well, if there is anything in your ‘light-hearted’ suggestions against Miss Gregory,” countered Smithers, “for example if she is supposed to have dropped in and overdosed the girl on her way to post her letter—she wouldn’t have been wearing gloves either, not in the height of summer, as you point out. And what is very much more important, Charles, ol’ man, is that Miss Gregory is a big, tall girl, and Mrs. Best and Mrs. David are little, small-boned women; Miss Gregory couldn’t possibly have got into Mrs. Best’s gloves—but Mrs. David could.… I must check that up.” He fished out his odious little notebook.

  “I suppose Mrs. David removed them, so as to make her marks on the glass?” scoffed Charlesworth.

  “Would you two blokes mind finishing your argument outside my room,” said the finger-print expert, patiently. “I’ve given you all I can; the thing may have been written by any of these girls, probably with the hands impeded by very thick or ill-fitting gloves; or it may have been the work of someone comparatively illiterate; or it may even conceivably have been the work of Mrs. Best herself, but if that’s so she has deliberately counterfeited forgery—too elaborate to be done by anyone in a suicidal state of mind, I think, but that’s only my opinion. Now, if you will kindly push off I can give my attention to a little matter of a suicide pact in Epping Forest: yours isn’t the only case on hand, you know, though anyone would think so from the way you both go on.”

  Smithers retired to his room and to the tireless prosecution of the case against Victoria. He had decided to leave all side issues to Charlesworth, knowing that no stone would be left unturned to provide an alternative murderer; and he confined himself frankly and exclusively to proving his own theory. In his own mind he had not the slightest doubt as to its correctness, but he fully realized that he had little in the way of concrete proof; he applied his damp pink nose to the grindstone and sniffed happily as he ground.

  3

  Charlesworth, with the afternoon before him, decided to follow up the lead that had been given him by Aileen. He called upon Bevan and requested the name and address of the host at whose party he was supposed to have offered her the post at Christophe’s, dating it for Bevan’s benefit as the “day before Aileen had called for her first interview at the shop.”

  “What on earth can you want to know that for?” said Bevan, impatiently. “I don’t see what it’s got to do with you.”

  “It would help me very much if you could let me know the name of the people who gave the party.”

  “A Mrs. Rayne gave it; it was a most dismal affair and I only remember it because she and I had a few words about my taking the Wheeler girl there. Damn nonsense.”

  “Could I have the address.”

  “No, you could not,” said Bevan, angrily. “What on earth have my private friends got to do with your investigations?” The telephone rang and he took up the receiver. “Hallo! Oh, yes, Miss Raymond. A request for payment? Have we? Already? Well, that’s too bad—we mustn’t begin troubling one of our favourite customers for money … these things go through a regular routine, you know, there’s nothing personal about them, and I often don’t know when the bills are being sent out. Suppose we split the difference and you send us a little something on account.…” He put his hand over the receiver and, still listening at the ear-piece, said to Charlesworth in a savage whisper: “You get out, please. I’m not going to give you another word about it.… Yes, yes, Miss Raymond, that’s all very well.…”

  Charlesworth went straight to the nearest telephone booth. There was one Mrs. Rain in the book and half a dozen Raynes. He proceeded to ring them all up.

  A woman’s voice answered his third call. “I hope you will forgive my troubling you,” said Charlesworth, sticking to a formula, “but I should be grateful if you would tell me whether you are acquainted with Mr. Frank Bevan, of Christophe’s, in Regent Street.…”

  The voice answered before he had finished. “Yes, I am acquainted with Mr. Bevan, or rather, I used to be. Why do you ask?”

  “I am a police officer engaged in investigations concerning the murder at Mr. Bevan’s shop,” said Charlesworth, mentally congratulating himself upon these well-rounded phrases. “I wonder if you would be so kind as to give me a few minutes’ interview?”

  “What on earth has it got to do with me?”

  “Nothing to do with you at all, madam,” said Charlesworth, soothingly. “I just wanted to ask you something about the young lady who came with Mr. Bevan to your house one evening. I can’t ask you on the telephone …”

  “I couldn’t tell you on the telephone!” said the voice, laughing. “All right, come along round.…”

  She was a pleasant, dark young woman, with bright eyes and a sense of humour. She settled him in a large armchair, gave him a cup of tea, and obviously thrilled and amused at her sudden importance in the affairs of Scotland Yard, asked him what he wanted to know.

  “I wish all women were like you, Mrs. Rayne,” said Charlesworth, beaming at her over the rim of his teacup. “Most of them are much too busy wanting to know, themselves, to bother about what I’ve come to find out. Now all I want you to tell me is this: do you remember a party you gave at which Mr. Frank Bevan was present and at which I believe he had ‘a few words’ with you about a young lady who accompanied him?”

  “I should say I do,” said Mrs. Rayne, emphatically. “It was the last time he ever came to my house and the last time he ever will. He turned up with this awful female, Ann Waller or Jane Whistler or something … she was most frankly and blatantly a daughter of joy, and though I know these people have to live, Inspector, I don’t see why I should be asked to entertain them. I gave an invitation to Frank alone, and he turned up with his woman and another couple; I did think it was a bit thick.”

  “Would you say the name was Wheeler?” asked Charlesworth.

  “Yes, I believe it was; something like that, anyway. Several of our friends had seen Frank with her before; they said he had been running her for some time. She was a pretty girl except that she was plastered with makeup; but, after all, there are pretty girls enough in London without bringing them in off the streets.”

  Charlesworth handed over a bunch of photographs and she rather doubtfully picked out Aileen’s. “This might be the girl, but if so she’s cleaned up a lot of the war-paint. I saw one in the paper the other day and thought I recognized it.… I pointed it out to my husband and said that Frank Bevan still seemed to be running her, which was something of a record, for it’s a long time ago now.”
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  Charlesworth left her pleasant flat. “I’m afraid our Aileen has been leading poor Charles up the garden,” he ruminated sadly, tucking himself into his little car. “All the same, she must be a damn good actress!” And if Rachel also were a damn good actress, as now he knew, why not Irene? Perhaps Irene hadn’t been telling the truth either, when she had seemed so surprised at hearing of that confession under her pillow. And if Irene—why not Victoria? Why should Victoria have looked so terribly frightened at the suggestion that the poison might not have been meant for Doon? He closed his heart against the thought.

  So Aileen had known Bevan and had lived with Bevan before ever she came into Christophe et Cie; and Doon had taken Bevan away from Aileen and now Doon was dead. But in the meanwhile Aileen had become engaged to her Arthur … so why should she have cared? “Ah,” thought Charlesworth, nearly mowing down a group of pedestrians in his excitement. “Blackmail, that’s what it was! Doon knew all about the affair with Bevan and she had threatened to tell Arthur; that was what she had come to Aileen’s house about, that was the visit that Aileen had at first denied.” What Doon could be blackmailing her for, he could not imagine; she had not a penny beyond the three or four pounds a week she earned at Christophe’s and she could have nothing very valuable in the way of possessions. Letters? Perhaps she had kept some of Bevan’s; but Bevan had said that he was not the man to write indiscreet letters to women, and Charlesworth could well believe it. Could Aileen in her turn be blackmailing Bevan, and Doon had found out and so Doon had to die? Aileen had had the two necessary opportunities and Aileen had fainted across Doon’s open grave. Aileen had had the spirit and wit to work up her little act of languor and grace, her refined accent and her ladylike manners; might she not have had the brains to blackmail, and the courage to strike when danger threatened? But what about Irene? Aileen had gone most of the way home from Gregory’s flat with Judy; could she have left Judy and come back to the flats? But if so, how could she have got access to Irene’s room? Gregory had had both keys, had given one to Victoria long after the others had left the flat; could Victoria be protecting Aileen? Was that whom Irene was telling lies to save? Mr. Charlesworth decided after long and complicated thought that it was not.

  4

  He sat at the Yard scribbling dolefully on a clean piece of blotting-paper, trying to see some way out. Six o’clock struck and at twenty minutes past a visitor was announced. He roused himself, pushed the now ruined blotter into a drawer and turned round in his chair. At the door stood Mrs. ’Arris.

  Mrs. ’Arris had had a trying time; there had been a crowd for the bus and her hat was crooked and she was out of breath. She was, moreover, frightened and depressed. Rachel was second only to Miss Victoria in her affections, and here she was to give Miss Rachel away. But Victoria came first and the evening papers had been most alarming about Miss Victoria. The girls had brought one in—they were always running out for a paper in these terrible days—and she had seen an account of Toria’s midnight visit to the police station and her subsequent release. “On bail!” thought Mrs. ’Arris, darkly. Many of her friends had known liberty on these terms and it had finally decided her to act. Besides, one of the customers had supposed aloud that it was that Mrs. David all the time. “Such a sweet-looking girl, Mrs. Gay, who would have thought it?” It was true that Rachel had hotly denied it and said that Miss Toria was the most innocent of them all. A note had come for her in Victoria’s writing just before, and afterwards she had been whispering in a corner with Miss Judy every time there was a moment free, warning her perhaps to say nothing, and perhaps threatening her. “You don’t want to die, Judy, do you?” It had made Mrs. ’Arris’s blood run cold that day in the keb.

  Supposing they hung Miss Rachel, and all through her, Mrs. ’Arris. But here was her dear Miss Victoria out on bail, and somebody had to do somethink about it. She wondered Miss Judy didn’t speak up; but Judy was a Yorkshireman and her word was her sacred bond.

  Charlesworth asked her to sit down and she overflowed on to one of his small office chairs and folded her grubby old hands. “I don’t like to trouble you, sir, but you was that kind about the brooch and the bit er fish; I thought as ’ow if I ’ed somethink to tell I ought to come to you; well, I ’as got somethink to tell and ’ere I am.” She produced the black-edged handkerchief which she had taken to the funeral and which was still doing duty and, after a few preliminary sniffs, unburdened her soul.

  “You actually heard Mrs. Gay admit to the murder,” said Charlesworth, flabbergasted, when she had done. “Can you be sure of that, Mrs. Harris? It’s a terribly serious thing, you know.”

  “Don’t I know it,” said Mrs. ’Arris, sobbing afresh. “’Aven’t I laid awake all last night, worriting meself to a shred, trying to make up me mind what to do. But there it is, sir. ’Ere’s my pore Miss Toria out on bail and that’s decided me.”

  “But, Mrs. Harris, the whole thing’s incredible. Would Mrs. Gay ever have said such a thing in front of you? Surely you must be mistaken?”

  Mrs. ’Arris explained her innocent little habit. “‘Mrs. ’Arris,’ the young ladies says, very soft-like, to see if I’m listening, and if I don’t answer, they thinks I don’t ’ear and goes on with what they ’as to say. I don’t mean no ’arm, sir; it’s a bit lonely in the shop sometimes, ’aving the people all talking between theirselves, and keeping you out as you might say; of course, if I’d ’ad any idea what was to come out in the keb—but there,” amended Mrs. ’Arris, with a gleam of humour, “I suppose there’s no denying I’d ’ve listened twice as ’ard!”

  “Now, tell me again, Mrs. Harris, just what Mrs. Gay said to Miss Judy … she said, ‘You know who killed Doon, don’t you?’ and Miss Judy said ‘Yes.’”

  “That’s right. And then Miss Rachel she says, ‘’Ow do you know?’ and Miss Judy says, ‘I see you picking up the poison off the floor.’ And then Miss Rachel she threatens ’er not to tell, and then she says, ‘I ’aven’t admitted anythink, ’ave I?’ and Miss Judy promises. It’s as true, sir, as true as I’m sitting ’ere.”

  Mrs. ’Arris was most manifestly sitting there and, as manifestly, most earnestly telling the truth. Charlesworth could hardly believe his ears, but he remembered the pencilled note he had found among Doon’s papers and the fact that Rachel had been an actress and might be adept at hiding her real feelings. He dismissed the old woman with words of comfort, and put the whole story before Bedd.

  Bedd was at first incredulous, then inclined to believe that they had the answer in their hands. “She had the opportunity to drop poison on the plate, sir, and she knew the plate was for Doon; no nonsense about meaning to murder Gregory. She was instrumental in bringing the stuff into the shop and she might easily have kept a bit back while she was cleaning the ’at; and now here’s this story about her picking some up off the floor.”

  “That would be when they first brought it in, when Mrs. David spilt some on the showroom carpet?”

  Bedd considered, flipping over the earlier pages of his notes. “Yes, I think it would, sir. Everybody seems certain that Mrs. ’Arris cleared up all the stuff that Macaroni spilt at the table where they were cleaning the ’at, and gave it all to Mr. Cecil.” He stopped suddenly as a sentence in his notebook caught his eye. “But this attempt at Mrs. Best’s life, sir; I don’t see ’ow Mrs. Gay could ’ve been concerned in that. Here it says: She left with Miss Judy and Miss Aileen after the party in Miss Gregory’s flat, and walked down the street with them.”

  “Yes, but she parted from them at ‘her turning’; I wonder if she could have gone back? Is that who Victoria’s trying to protect? She’s very fond of Rachel Gay—it seems much more likely.”

  “Collusion, sir?” suggested Bedd, with much temerity.

  “About the keys, you mean? I suppose Toria might have given her key to Rachel; no, she must have gone into the room with her, because of the finger-prints, and that involves Toria all over again. What about Rachel and Gregory? But why? Could Rac
hel have threatened Gregory, as she threatened Judy? D’you think that’s possible? This Rachel’s a cool customer if the conversation in the cab is correctly reported.”

  “I must say, sir, I don’t think collusion in the murder is very likely. Two girls don’t get together to murder another girl, do they? If they do it at all, they do it secretly, ’iding it almost from themselves, if you get my meaning, ’alf pretending even to themselves that they’re not doing it … of course that’s psychology,” said Bedd, proudly, “and it don’t ’old in a court of law; but there’s somethink in it, sir. As for Mrs. Gay threatening ’er—well, Miss Gregory’s a strong young woman with ’er ’ead screwed on all right, Mr. Charlesworth. She wouldn’t have no funny ideas about honour and promises and things, Miss Gregory wouldn’t. She’d pretend to agree and then she’d come straight to the police.”

  “She couldn’t have given Mrs. Gay a key? I wonder if she did, quite innocently, and that’s why she passed out when she heard of the attempted murder. I think I’ll go and see Miss Gregory, Sergeant.”

  Gregory had come home a little early from the shop. She was sitting darning a pair of stockings in her chintzy room, with a vase of roses, arranged without skill or imagination, by her side. Gregory was of the school who, never having missed a meal in their lives, are wont to declare that they would rather go without food than without flowers. She greeted Charlesworth with her joyless smile and begged him to have a glass of sherry.

  “No, thanks, Miss Gregory, I don’t think I will. I don’t really like to drink on duty.”