Death in High Heels

by Christianna Brand

  “I’m talking about pre-Arthur days. Aileen hasn’t always been proper, has she?”

  “Of course she has. Always. She was born proper.”

  “But Bevan himself told me that she was his mistress.”

  “Good heavens, that wasn’t Aileen! That was her sister. She’s the most terrible female; some people say she’s actually on the streets, though I don’t believe that. Poor Aileen’s terrified of Arthur finding out; he’s the most awful little tick, really, and he’d chuck her over for two pins if he thought she was connected with anyone like that. Didn’t you see the sister at the funeral, a creature with henna’ed hair … no wonder poor Aileen passed out. There was Arthur among the crowd at the gate and Anne as large as life in the audience or whatever you call it at funerals, all dressed up like a sore finger and covered from head to toe in silver fox. She looks very much like Aileen, except that she’s so made-up, and Arthur might easily have recognized her.”

  “Why on earth should she have gone to the funeral? Did she know Miss Doon?”

  “She knew Bevan! He’d given her up for Doon and now that Doon was dead I suppose she thought she might get Bevan back and went along to see how he looked and let him know she was still on the tapis. She daren’t come near the shop; he’d put a stop to that. She made a bit of a pest of herself after Bevan left her and tried to get a few pounds out of Doon by threatening to make her affair with Bevan public. She was a fool because Doon didn’t give a hoot in hell who knew about it; but Doon did get a bit fed up and once, after the girl had rung her up, she went round to see Aileen and told her that she must keep her sister quiet. I remember her telling Rachel and me about it in her room one day. Doon never cared who knew all about her affairs.”

  “In the light of all this, perhaps you know something about a party at which Aileen is supposed to have met Bevan for the first time, just before she came into the firm?”

  “Oh, yes, it was while Bevan was still running the sister. I supposed he wanted to do her a good turn, and we needed a new mannequin. He told her sister to bring Aileen along to this party and he got another man and made up a four. Aileen has told us since that it was perfectly ghastly, because the girl who was giving the party was furious at Bevan turning up with all these extra people and didn’t make any secret of her annoyance. I expect Ann Wheeler had something to do with it, too—she would hardly be a very acceptable guest at a decent party. Anyway, the next day Aileen came round to the shop and we all had a look at her and thought she was marvellous, so Bevan took her on.”

  “And it couldn’t have been Aileen after all?” asked Charlesworth, laughing again.

  “Mr. Charlesworth, you knew that perfectly well! Don’t pull my leg any more. Do tell me—tell me the truth! Who was it? How did you find out?”

  “I found out by a piece of brilliant deduction, Victoria. For once I came all over like a detective in a storybook … insight flashed about like lightning and the little grey cells whizzed round and round and round; and when they stopped whizzing I knew who my murderer was. From that I worked backwards, which isn’t according to the rules at all, and in the end I found myself left with two questions. First, how could anyone come out of a room if they’d never gone into it? And second, wouldn’t it be as difficult to write a note in gloves that were too small as it would in gloves that were too large? Find the answer to my questions and you’ll know the answer to your own.”

  They approached the turning that would take them to Victoria’s door. “Go straight on, Mr. Charlesworth,” said a small, sad voice at his side. “I’ll come with you.”

  “You can’t do that, my dear. I’m going to …”

  “Yes, I know. Couldn’t I come too? Whatever they’ve done, it’s rather dreadful to let anyone go through this without—without someone to hang on to.…”

  He said no more, but headed the car further west. They stopped at a door guarded by two constables in uniform; Bedd had got there before them, and Smithers also joined them, too crestfallen to make more than a feeble protest at Victoria’s presence. The four of them went along a familiar corridor; a plain-clothes man stood aside to allow them to ring the bell.

  Even as she opened the door, Gregory knew why they had come.

  4

  Victoria, sick and dazed, heard Smithers mumble words he had once repeated to her. She pushed past him and, taking Gregory by the arm, led her to a chair. “You must sit down, Gregory; there’s no need to stand out here. Wait a minute, Mr. Smithers, give her a moment; get a glass of water … there in the bathroom.…”

  Smithers, like a little dog, obeyed. Gregory drank some of the water and lifted a face that, in those few moments, had grown old and gaunt under her clumsy make-up. Her cold grey eyes met the gentle blue ones; she said harshly: “Victoria … please go away.”

  “But, Gregory—I came to tell you … I came to offer you … I just wanted you to know that you have a friend.…”

  Gregory did not answer. She sat hunched in the big chair, her hands dangling listlessly at her sides, and made no further movement. “Do speak to me, Gregory,” stammered Victoria, miserably. “I only want to help you if I can. Is there anything I can do for you?”

  Still there was no reply. “Come along, my dear,” said Charlesworth, putting his arm round Victoria’s shaking shoulders. “You can’t do any good. If Miss Gregory wants to see you some other time, she’ll know she can send for you. Smithers will look after her now. I’d better take you home.”

  Victoria stopped in the doorway. “Gregory—do just say one word to me!”

  But the figure in the big armchair was silent and still.

  5

  Once more they got into the car. “Drop me at a Tube station, Mr. Charlesworth, if you will,” said the sergeant, tactfully, and they watched his broad, friendly back disappearing into the gloom. “He’s a good old stick,” said Charlesworth, letting in the clutch. “He’s stood by me solid all through this blinking affair. What a mess I’ve made of it, Victoria, haven’t I?”

  “I think you’ve been marvellous,” said Toria, a trifle mendaciously.

  “Do you? Well, I return the compliment. For sheer misguided loyalty, commend me to the staff of Christophe et Cie.”

  Victoria smiled for the first time since they had left Gregory’s flat. “Well, we were all fond of Irene, you know, and there wasn’t one of us she hadn’t been good to in her own little way. It’s an impossible thought to go to the police with accusations against someone you know so well. I think we all believed you would discover the truth in the end—we just couldn’t bear to be responsible for your finding it out. But now, Mr. Charlesworth, I must know about this Gregory affair … you thought of your two questions—and then what?”

  “Well, I thought of my two questions—how could anyone come out of a room they hadn’t gone into? And wouldn’t it be as difficult to write in too small gloves as it would be to write in too large ones?… you yourself saw the answer as quickly as I did.”

  “It was a wild guess, really, now that I come to dissect it; I didn’t think about the room—I suddenly had a vision of Gregory’s big, bony hands thrusting themselves into Irene’s little gloves, and there didn’t seem to be any doubt any more.”

  “That was how it hit me. I was sitting talking to her at the time and she said something that put me on the right track. I took one look at her hands, and I seemed to know. I thought it over for a while, and then I went round to a big chemist’s just opposite her flats and talked to the people there; after that I rang up Smithers and for once we found ourselves in perfect agreement. I told him to put a watch on the place and to make a few inquiries here and there, and it was then he mentioned to me that Irene had left the hospital.”

  “But, Mr. Charlesworth, why should Gregory have done it? She had the job they all wanted.…”

  “Ah, that was where I went wrong in the very beginning,” said Charlesworth. “I suspected people of murdering Doon because they wanted the job in Deauville; it never occurred t
o me to suspect anyone of killing her because they didn’t want it! But there it was—Gregory was being sent away and Doon would have Bevan all to herself in London. Smithers got hold of Bevan after I rang him up and questioned him on this point. Bevan says that that Monday was the first time he had told her she was to go, and that he didn’t take much trouble to conceal his reasons; he says—he really is a filthy bounder, that chap—that he thinks that up to then Gregory had really had some idea that he would marry her. I suppose she realized that morning that if she had to leave London she would lose him once and for all, and when directly afterwards she saw the poison lying on the floor in the shop the idea of killing Doon must have flashed on her as a solution of all her troubles. Firstly, she would get her rival out of her way, and secondly, she would make it impossible for Bevan to send her abroad; it was essential for him, wasn’t it, to have one or other of them at Christophe’s? That masculine brain of hers worked very coolly and quickly and she took good care to keep well away from the poison that was already in the shop. She went downstairs and told Mrs. ’Arris to go up and sweep it away; and in the few moments while the basement was empty she went up the area steps and out into the street; once there she went to a different chemist altogether and bought an ounce or so of oxalic acid. She came quietly back and in at the back door of Bevan’s office and when lunch was ready she walked calmly out of the office and downstairs, and as soon as an opportunity presented itself she put a lethal dose of the poison on to poor Doon’s lunch. It was simple and daring and it worked; but what I can’t make out is why she should have gone to a chemist so near her own block of flats.”

  Victoria thought for a moment. “I think I can tell you why,” she said, slowly. “She heard Rachel telling Mr. Bevan that a chemist won’t give you oxalic acid unless you’re fairly well known to him. I believe that’s wrong, actually, but we thought at the time that Mr. Mitchell only let us have the stuff because, though he may not have known our names, he knew who we were and where we came from. If Gregory went to a large chemist’s near her flats it was probably because they knew her there as a regular customer, though they wouldn’t have associated her with Christophe’s. It was a terrific risk, though.”

  “It was the only one she took and it was justified. A lot of people buy oxalic acid, and it isn’t at all an event in the day of a large chemist’s shop to sell an ounce or two. It’s used for cleaning brass, you know, as well as hats.”

  “One ought to work in a joke about brass hats, I suppose,” said Victoria, wanly. “But I can’t think of one.”

  Charlesworth smiled down at her: “Well, anyway, you must be recovering, to have even had the idea.”

  Her eyes clouded. “I don’t think I am, actually; but still, after all, she was a murderess, and Doon died a terrible death; I must try to remember that. Anyway, go on about the chemist.”

  “Oh, yes. Well, the point is that it’s nothing out of the way to sell an ounce or two of oxalic, and though the particular man who served her read about the case afterwards in the papers he had no earthly reason to connect her with it. He didn’t even know her name, or that she came from the flats opposite; only that she was a fairly regular customer. She took care to put her hand in front of her face whenever there were Press photographers about, and the only pictures that appeared in the papers were almost unrecognizable. He thought no more about the whole affair until I rang up this evening and even then it took a good deal of digging to unearth it from his memory. Meanwhile, as I say, Gregory had gone quietly back to the shop and through the back door into Bevan’s office; and when the lunch was ready she marched downstairs as large as life, and it was so natural for her to do so that it didn’t occur to any of you to wonder how she got there in the first place, although the door had been visible to you all the morning and none of you had seen her go in. I ought to have realized it, of course; she didn’t come upstairs while Mrs. ’Arris was brushing up the poison, she didn’t pass Mrs. ’Arris and Mr. Cecil on their way downstairs, and Mrs. ’Arris didn’t set eyes on her the whole morning … when could she have left the cloakroom?”

  “Surely that was a bit of a risk?”

  “Well, not much. When she came downstairs at lunch-time she still hadn’t burned her boats, had she? If anyone paid any particular attention to her or so much as asked her where she had sprung from, she had only to sit tight and keep the poison in her pocket till another time; but nobody took the faintest notice and so she went ahead with the dirty work. It wasn’t very difficult for her to have got the crystals on to the plate of food; you were all sitting at the table by then, and the plate was in the farthest hot-cupboard, so that her back would have been turned towards you, more or less; and then there was nothing more to do but to lead her victim to the table and persuade her to eat. It was bold, but it wasn’t foolhardy.”

  “It was vile!” cried Victoria, recoiling. “The treachery! The cruelty! I do feel sorry for her now, poor devil, but when one thinks of it—how can she have gone about among us and been so sweetie-pie and seen us suffer, and seen Irene suffer?…”

  “Well, she may have been genuinely sorry about the anonymous letters; she’s a woman, after all, and though she was hard enough about killing poor Doon, it doesn’t follow that she would want to see Irene so wretched and upset, and of course she didn’t know the part Irene had played; all the same, when she went into the flatlet and found her lying in a coma with four empty packets beside her that had contained sleeping draught—well, she was quick enough to see where her advantage lay. She didn’t touch the glass or leave her marks on anything in the room—I suppose you are all rather detective-minded by now!—but she cramped her fingers into Irene’s little gloves and scrawled a confession of murder and suicide and crept upstairs again.”

  Victoria shifted her position, curling one slim leg under her on the seat of the car, but her mind never left the problem before her. “Yes, but how could she have known Irene was dying?”

  “Oh, I don’t for a moment suppose she did, do you? Smithers will get all this out of her, but I imagine what happened was that, as she went down to post her letter she suddenly thought, just as you did, that it had been rather stupid to let Irene, when she was in such a depressed condition, have a fatal dose of sleeping draught to take to bed with her. I don’t imagine she had any but the most altruistic thoughts as, using the key she still had in her handbag, she crept into the flat to see that all was well. But, like you, Victoria, she was too late; and, like, you, but for a very different reason, she decided to leave Irene to her fate. She didn’t think anyone had seen her outside her own flat, but just in case there had been a porter about, she candidly admitted posting the letter after you had left. Of course it must have been a shock to her when Smithers turned up in the middle of the night, demanding to see Irene, but she didn’t lose her head. She tried to persuade him to put it off till the morning, but finally she gave him the key and settled down in her flat to wait.”

  “But she was so surprised. She actually fainted when she heard that Irene had been found dying. Was that just pretending?”

  “Oh, no, you couldn’t get round Smithers with a fake faint. I got him to repeat, this evening, what he actually said to her; he told her first that Irene had taken an overdose, and then that she had been found while there was still time to save her. That was why Gregory fainted: at the knowledge that Irene wouldn’t die—that she would be alive to deny that she had written the ‘confession.’ Gregory didn’t know, of course, that you had been, in the room before her to leave your beautiful finger-prints on the glass; if the key was on the table then, I don’t suppose she noticed it … she had a lot to think about and it ust wouldn’t have made any impression on her. Why did you tell me, Toria, that there were no papers on the table beside the glass? It put me off horribly.”

  “I thought that if I said there were it would show that I knew Irene had taken too much,” said Victoria, apologetically, “and then I should have had to explain why I left her to die—I couldn’t
do that for her sake, and also, of course, for my own. If I’d had time to think I’d just have said that I didn’t notice any papers: in fact, if I’d thought it out properly and not been so miserable and worried about leaving her and so on, I could have made up a much better story altogether. When Mr. Smithers came to see me I thought at least that Rene was dead; it was terrible when I realized that she was alive and I should never be able to explain why I’d gone away and left her. I was frightened then!”

  “I’ll tell you another time you were frightened, poor little thing,” said Charlesworth tenderly, “when I told you Smithers had got on to the idea that it might have been intended to murder Gregory, not Doon.”

  Victoria shuddered. “I saw then that it was between Irene and myself, and as long as he suspected me of trying to kill Irene, it had to be me! The only way out would have been to tell you all that I knew or thought about Rene—and, of course, in the end that’s what I would have done. I explained that to the Dazzler, after you came to see me; we both knew that I should be safe in the end … all the same, I had some nasty moments.”

  Charlesworth took a corner rather badly. “So did I!” he said.

  “But, Mr. Charlesworth, what first gave you the idea that it was Gregory? What about the flashes of insight and the little grey cells? Tell me how the mind of the great detective worked. You told me it was something Gregory said that put you on the right track. What did she say?”

  They were approaching Victoria’s door. Charlesworth passed it and drove slowly round the block as he explained. “She said she thought Irene had decided to make an end of her life.”

  Toria shrugged her shoulders: “Well, how could that help you? You know we all thought that.”

  “Thought what?” said Charlesworth.