The October Cabaret

by Nancy Buckingham

  Through the open french windows a vehicle could be heard jolting up the lane, the first to come along since we’d been here. It stopped by the gate, and Maggie glanced out to see who it was. A door slammed and I heard the click of the gate.

  “Oh lor, he’s bringing in the booze. Miss Willoughby used to have a delivery every month regular,” she explained. “Someone should’ve told them she’s dead and gone.”

  As Maggie went to meet the vanman, I caught a glimpse through the window of a figure in a grey nylon overall. Something about his swaggering walk told me who he was even before I took in the good-looking face with those sexy eyes, the dark-brown hair cut in an Afro style.

  I knew by some instinct that I mustn’t let him see me here. Just as he reached the front porch, I slipped out of the french windows into the garden.

  Chapter Nine

  My ears stretched, I heard him walk straight through the hall and into the living room, as if this was what he was used to doing.

  “Hi, gorgeous, how goes it?” he said cheerfully to Maggie, and grunted “Morning,” as an acknowledgement of Ben’s presence. “Where’s Miss Willoughby, then?”

  She relished breaking the news, just as with us. “You won’t be seeing her again, love. Dead and gone, she is, poor old duck. No more quiet tipples for Miss Ruth Willoughby, so you’ve lost a darn good customer.”

  There was a brief, highly charged silence. Then, “She’s dead? When... when did this happen?”

  “More’n a fortnight ago now. She fell downstairs in the night and broke her neck. The milkman spotted her through that little round window early next morning, all twisted in a horrible heap on the floor, and he called the police. Thank the Lord it was him and not me—it gave me a nasty enough turn as it was, when they came to tell me. You should have seen her. She looked awful, poor thing! She must’ve been dead for hours, they said.”

  Again a silence. I could hear movement in the room but I didn’t dare look round to see what was happening, in case he spotted me. I stood as if admiring the garden, my fingertips brushing the long spikes of a lavender bush so that its fragrance floated into the warm, still air. At the gate I could see a small white van-and the name printed on its side gave me a jolt. REGENCY WINES.

  The young man’s voice was tense, unsteady, as if he was somehow nervous. “She was stoned, I suppose?”

  “Well, let’s say she was a bit tiddly. But then, wasn’t she always?”

  “What’s going to happen here—this cottage and all her stuff?

  “All being sold. We’ll have strangers in the village, more of them townees, I wouldn’t mind betting.” He was moving towards the front door, I realised, and Maggie was following him. As he stepped out onto the path, I slipped back inside the room through the French windows, hearing her voice receding. “You might pick up a nice bit of business if you play your cards right... that sort are always throwing parties...”

  Ben was looking at me curiously. “What made you suddenly dive outside like that? If you’d stayed in here you’d have seen something very interesting.”

  “Like what?”

  “That chap ... he pretended to be pacing aimlessly round the room, but he deliberately went up close to the cabinet in the alcove. And when he looked inside, his face turned as pale as a ghost.”

  “As if... ?”

  “He certainly expected to find something there, and I think we know what it was.”

  “I recognised him, Ben. That’s why I went outside, so we wouldn’t come face to face.”

  “You recognised him? Who is he?”

  “I don’t know. But he was in the shop yesterday morning talking to Pearl when I arrived back there after seeing you. I asked afterwards who he was, and she told me just one of those types who come in and look round without seriously intending to buy anything. But there was something odd about the way they reacted when I walked in on them … the way that chap looked at me, sort of defiantly. And Pearl seemed on the defensive. I got the impression that they’d been quarrelling.” I gave him a steady, serious look, and plunged on, “I know you think I’m a bit neurotic about that accident, Ben, but whatever you say, I was pushed in front of your car. And—well, I might as well tell you straight out—it crossed my mind that maybe it was him ... that Pearl had put him up to it, I mean, and that he’d gone round to the shop to report that he’d not succeeded in killing me.”

  Ben’s mouth went tight. “We’d better track him down,” he said, “and have a chat with him.”

  I nodded grimly. “There’s something else, Ben... have a guess at the name of his firm.”

  “Regency Wines?”

  “Right. It’s painted on the side of the van.”

  At that instant we heard the van start up and drive off, and a moment later Maggie reappeared.

  “Nice young chap,” she beamed. “Miss Willoughby had a real soft spot for him.”

  “I believe I’ve seen him at the wine stores,” said Ben. “Has he been working for them long?”

  “It’s been him delivering for about the last six times. There used to be a grumpy old devil, and I was glad when he packed it in. I like a bit of a laugh, and I never could see no harm in it.”

  “No harm at all,” Ben agreed. “Well, thanks for all your help, Mrs. ... ?”

  “Ayling,” she said. “A good old Sussex name, that is.”

  Something passed discreetly from him to her, a five pound note. “Tess will tell her mother how kind you’ve been, letting us see inside the cottage.”

  “You’re most welcome, I’m sure.”

  We stopped at the inn on the village green, The Robin Hood, for a drink and a snack. Then we headed straight back to Brighton.

  We made a slight detour, to the Regency Wines shop near the Pavilion, to check on when they closed. We’d decided that the best time to catch the delivery man was as he was leaving work for the day. A printed card in the window said five-thirty ... another three hours yet. Ben and I arranged to meet again at five-fifteen.

  I felt immensely relieved to have his help and support in all this, and I began to stammer something to this effect.

  “You can forget about being grateful,” he said impatiently. Then he laid a hand on my arm. “Tess, promise me you’ll take great care. I’d hate anything to happen to you.”

  I looked at him searchingly. “Are you changing your mind about that accident of mine?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” he admitted. “But there’s no harm in being extra careful when you cross roads.”

  * * * *

  Pearl looked up from the desk when I went in. She’d been entering something in the stock book. Sarcasm floated in her voice as she asked, “Had a good day, Tess?”

  I shrugged. “There was something I had to attend to.”

  “But of course. I’ve been busy, too. That Dutch barometer is sold, and the sixteenth-century map of Sussex. Besides which I’ve almost clinched a sale for the rosewood workbox. The customer is thinking it over and will call in again tomorrow, so you’d better be on your toes.”

  I nodded listlessly, wanting to challenge her straight out about the young man from the wine shop. But I held back, sensing that it would be unwise—or at least would get me nowhere. Best to stick to the plan of action I’d agreed on with Ben. I made an effort to smile, and said, “You seem to have done very well, Pearl.”

  “Such praise, it will go to my head if I’m not careful. By the way, what do you intend doing about replacing the stock that’s sold? You can’t rely on the few bits and pieces that are offered to you.”

  I had enough on my mind without being forced to think about business. “I suppose I’d better see what auctions are being held in the next week or two.”

  “Perhaps it would be as well if I went along for you.”

  “No, thanks, Pearl. The only way for me to learn is from my own mistakes.”

  “In this trade,” she said, looking superior, “mistakes can be expensive.”

  Was she trying to
unnerve me, I wondered, as I trailed upstairs to freshen up. I didn’t see how things could go on like this for long, mistrusting Pearl the way I did. Would it come to a showdown between us, or should I simply say that I didn’t need her help, after all? Either way, I dreaded the prospect.

  * * * *

  Ben and I sat waiting in his car in the narrow service road that backed Regency Wines and the adjoining shops. We could see the white van parked in the yard, and twice Afro-haircut had emerged from the rear door to unload crates. The next time he appeared he had discarded his grey nylon overall and wore the same blue denim jacket I’d seen him in yesterday. Under his arm he carried a bright-red crash helmet.

  “Come on, “ said Ben, opening the car door. “And leave the talking to me, Tess.”

  As we reached the yard gates the young man was wheeling out a motorbike. He stared at us in astonishment, and you could see his mind figuring out why two apparently unconnected people should be bearing down on him like this.

  “Just a minute, chum,” Ben began. “We’d like a word with you.”

  “What about?” he asked suspiciously.

  “About Miss Willoughby. Miss Willoughby and her Sèvres cabaret.”

  He looked blank-genuinely blank, I thought—and Ben spelled it out for him.

  “I’m talking about that porcelain breakfast set that used to be in the china cabinet at her cottage, but isn’t there now.”

  Afro reacted to that, all right. He was so badly shaken that he almost let his motorbike overblance. Recovering, he threw a leg over the saddle and put on his helmet, adjusting the straps. His fingers seemed all thumbs.

  “I suppose you know what the hell you’re talking about,” he said - and I had to admire the cockiness in his voice “because I’m damned if I do.”

  He kick-started the bike to ride off, but Ben moved quickly to block his way. Forgetting he’d told me to leave things to him, I put in, “And what were you doing at my shop the other day, talking to Mrs. Ratcliffe?”

  “Talking to who?”

  “At Pennicott’s Emporium in the Lanes.”

  “Oh, her.” He fiddled with a lever on the handlebars, and the engine settled down to a steady thrumming. “If you’re so interested, why don’t you ask her?”

  “I did. She said you were just a time waster.”

  “You got your answer then, didn’t you?”

  This was getting us nowhere. As I turned to Ben with a look of apology for blundering in, Afro grabbed his chance. Leaning sideways, he gave me a violent shove that sent me staggering, so that I landed up against one of the stout wooden gateposts. I cried out from the searing pain in my shoulder, and Ben lunged forward to help me. In the same instant I heard the bike’s engine revving hard, heard the roar as it swung out into the service road and thundered away.

  “Get after him in the car, Ben,” I stammered weakly. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be okay.”

  “It’s too late, I’ll never catch a motorbike in this traffic. But not to worry, we’ll tackle him again tomorrow.” Ben was looking at me with worried eyes. “Are you sure you’re all right, Tess? You piled into that gatepost with a helluva thwack.”

  I flexed my arm experimentally, rotating the shoulder joint, and flinched at new sparks of pain. I felt rather sick. Ben assisted me back to the car, his arm round my waist, and I sank into the seat with a sigh of relief.

  “Well, we know now,” I said, as he slid his long length in beside me. “There’s no doubt that chap is connected somehow with the October Cabaret. Do you think he stole it?”

  “No, it wasn’t him.”

  “How can you be so certain?”

  Ben picked with his thumbnail at some tiny scratch on the steering wheel. “At the cottage this morning while you were standing outside... you remember I told you how badly shaken he seemed when he noticed that the cabaret was missing from the china cabinet? I know I’m taking a leap in the dark, but I reckon that in his mind the old lady’s death and the disappearance of the porcelain are linked. And he’s running scared of becoming involved.”

  I looked at Ben. “You believe that Miss Willoughby’s death wasn’t an accident?”

  “Things begin to point that way,” he said soberly.

  “Surely it wasn’t necessary to kill an inoffensive old lady?” I protested, with a crawling sense of horror.

  “Hold it, you’re going too fast. Maybe she had a shock at hearing someone in her cottage in the early hours of the morning, which gave her a heart attack so that she fell headlong down the stairs. It could have been something like that.”

  “You mean she woke up and disturbed the person who was stealing the October Cabaret?”

  “Could be. But we don’t know for certain that there was a thief. Neither can we be absolutely sure that what she had was the October Cabaret.”

  “But the photographs Uncle Maynard took, and that list. Plus the fact that he’d been given Miss Willoughby’s address... on the back of a Regency Wines billhead, too.”

  “Oh yes, Tess, we do know that your uncle was there in the thick of whatever was going on. And it’s pretty obvious there was some kind of connection between him and our motorbike friend,”

  “Ben, I’ve just thought of something. You remember when Maggie Ayling was telling us about Ruth Willoughby’s death ... three weeks come next Monday morning, she said her body was found. And that’s when Uncle Maynard died, too—it’s less than twenty-four hours after him.” My voice quavered as I finished, “That’s rather a strange coincidence, isn’t it?”

  We stared at one another. Then Ben said into the silence, “You’ve been puzzled all along about your Uncle’s death, haven’t you?”

  “I just couldn’t understand why somebody as careful as he always was about his diabetes should have been caught out in such a way. And now I don’t believe it was as simple as that,” I said wretchedly. “Oh Ben, what do we do?”

  He touched my hand. “We’ll get it sorted out, Tess,”

  “But how?”

  “Two things, to start with. Apart from nailing down chummy again and seeing what he’s got to say for himself - pity he’ll have had time to cook up a plausible story - there’s one other line of enquiry open to us, Ruth Willoughby’s sister. How about us going up to London on Sunday and calling on her?”

  Chapter Ten

  Ben rang me in the middle of the morning on Saturday.

  “Tess, how’s your shoulder?”

  “Oh, not too bad. I gave it a long soak in a hot bath last night.”

  “Can you talk?”

  “Yes, it’s not one of Pearl’s days, and the shop’s empty.”

  “I’ve got bad news,” he said. “Our friend from Regency Wines has hopped it.”

  “Oh Ben,” I gasped in dismay. Then, “But how do you know?”

  “I went round there as soon as they opened, to make a full frontal attack. The manager was only too ready to have a good moan about Luke... that’s his name, by the way—Luke Webster. He hadn’t shown up for work, and Saturday’s their busiest day. It’s typical of the chap, he said, to show no consideration for other people ... why couldn’t he at least have phoned, and so on. I began to get a nasty suspicion about Luke, so I got his address and charged straight round there. It turned out to be one of those tall, crummy old houses up past the station.”

  “But he wasn’t there?”

  “He scarpered last night, seemingly. Not that his landlady realised he was gone until I coaxed her into opening up his room. A scene of wild confusion there, and all his gear packed and carted off. The tough old biddy nearly climbed the wall. It emerged that Luke had sweet-talked her into letting him get four weeks behind with his rent.”

  “Oh Ben, what do we do now?”

  “There’s still Pearl Ratcliffe. Maybe we’d better tackle her, after all.”

  “She won’t be coming in again until Tuesday,” I pointed out.

  “Let’s drop in on her at home this evening,” he suggested. “We could just h
appen to be passing. She could hardly bar the door.”

  “She’ll be furious, Ben.”

  “That,” he said calmly, “might suit our purpose very well.”

  Someone was coming in and I ended our conversation quickly, arranging for Ben to call round at six-thirty.

  The customer turned out to be a smart-aleck. He was interested in a rather attractive early Victorian biscuit barrel on which the hallmark had been worn away from overzealous polishing, and he tried to con me into believing that it was really nothing better than plated Britannia metal. Recognising me as a novice, he’d taken me for a fool as well.

  But I’d done enough of my homework to know better, and in the end he caved in and grudgingly paid my price. Yet I felt no sense of triumph as I put the money in the cash drawer. My uncle’s antique shop, in which I’d expected to feel such pride, seemed suddenly to have become a millstone round my neck.

  Peter Kemp had offered me an escape route. All I had to do was lift the phone and ring his number, and tell him yes, I’d sell. But what then? Leave Brighton? Leave Ben? My brief temptation died even before I remembered that Peter wouldn’t be in his office on a Saturday.

  A stream of customers kept me busy, and I made a number of minor sales … mostly the sort of items that holidaymakers bought as presents to take home. At lunchtime I just grabbed a sandwich and some coffee. But during the afternoon I suddenly remembered that I’d next to nothing in the larder for the weekend.

  In a drawer I’d discovered a BACK IN 15 MINUTES sign, which I guessed had been put to frequent use in Uncle Maynard’s time, and wasn’t intended to be taken too literally. I ledged it prominently in the window, snatched up my purse and a plastic carrier bag, and headed for the shopping precinct in Churchill Square.

  At West Street I had to wait for a break in the flow of traffic. Suddenly I spotted a familiar figure on the opposite pavement, dodging and weaving through the swarming pedestrians. An Afro haircut, swaggering shoulders. Recklessly I plunged forward, forgetting ray promise to Ben to take extra care crossing roads.