‘You were travelling — ’ said Charlie.
‘No! I have told you I was not travelling.’
‘All right,’ said Charlie, ‘I’ll phrase that differently, you were at the time of the crash in the employment of Isabelle de Neuville, am I right? And were planning to travel with her.’
‘You are right. That was the name of my employer. I left her on the station platform. She owed me money which she would not pay. She insulted me. I have not forgotten.’ And she added in a murmur, ‘Or forgiven either.’
‘Tell me,’ said Joe, ‘just as a matter of interest – you parted from Madame de Neuville at the Gare de Lyon. Have you seen her since?’
‘Of course she bloody well hasn’t!’ Edgar Troop shouted. ‘She’s just told you – bloody woman was killed!’
‘Edgar! Edgar, I think you could leave us now. This is old news, old information. There is nothing you can add, nothing you can help me with. I am in safe hands and feel quite secure with Charlie and his friends. You may go about your business in town – you are already late for your appointment. Please do not feel that you have to stay on my account.’
With warning looks from one to the other, the guard dog turned, looking meaningfully at his watch, and left the room.
Flora continued. ‘I did see Isabelle de Neuville afterwards, yes. Once more. I identified her body, Commander. I read about the crash in the papers and went to Beaune to offer my services. The police were desperate for any witnesses who could help them with the enormous task of identifying the dead. I borrowed money from… from an old friend of Madame de Neuville’s. He was pleased to give me the cost of the rail fare – second class,’ she added with a secret smile and a glance at Simpson, ‘to travel down to identify her.’
‘Were there any problems with the identification?’ asked Joe.
‘It was a chaotic scene! Distressed families and friends picking over the piles of bodies. Distraught and terrified poor souls – but for me, no problems at all. She was wearing a very recognizable red travelling dress with sable trimming and her bag and all her documents including her passport were still with the body.’
She gave Carter a level look and went on, ‘But there is something you ought to know – perhaps already do know concerning Isabelle de Neuville… According to her passport, which was English, her real name was Isobel Newton. She took a French name as her, what shall we say… as her working name.’
‘And how long had you been in Miss Newton’s employ?’ said Joe.
‘For five years. I met her in the south of France in 1914 before the war. I am southern French as the commander guessed. She was living under the protection – I think that’s the phrase – of a naval officer and in addition to the flat, the jewels, the motor car, he paid for the services of a maid. Myself.’
‘And when she moved to Paris she took you with her. Tell me, madame, how did you enjoy life in the Avenue de l’Opéra?’
Joe asked the question with an easy smile but his intention was to disconcert and alarm. He felt himself disadvantaged by her calm. At that moment a tray of tea was carried in and placed on the table in front of Flora. Deliberately, she busied herself with the formalities of the presentation of teacups and avoided his eye and his question. Having dispensed China and Indian tea, lemon and milk in the correct proportions, she once again turned to Joe.
‘To know that we resided in the Avenue de l’Opéra, my mistress and I, you must have very special knowledge of our past, Commander. Such information could only come from one source. And that source is at present in Simla. Am I correct?’
‘That is correct, madame. You will realize that Isobel Newton has told me everything.’
To Joe’s surprise Flora burst out laughing. ‘All? Are you quite certain of that, Commander? Unless she is much changed she will have told you exactly what she wished you to know and no more than that! You won’t have learned all there is to know about Isobel Newton!’
The tone was still light but now had a diamond-hard edge. A vengeful edge, the edge of a hatred which Joe welcomed. A show of emotion and particularly hatred in an interview was often the first crack in the façade and he thought the moment had come to widen the crack. Increase the leverage in the weak spot.
‘On the contrary,’ he said seriously, ‘Isobel has confided her secrets to me. She has at great pains to herself revealed the unkind blows dealt her by fate. She has entrusted me with an account of how she came to fall from innocence and how she was subsequently manipulated and abused by those who had seemed to be her protectors.‘ He managed a heartfelt sigh as one saddened by the iniquities of the world.
To Joe’s delight, Flora put her teacup down with a crash. Her dark eyes glowed with the intensity of jet and she shook her head slowly from side to side, never taking her eyes from Joe’s. He felt himself recoil instinctively; it was for a moment as though a hooded cobra had reared up in front of him.
‘Fall from innocence!’ she hissed. ‘That girl was never innocent! She was born guilty as sin! She was selfish to the core. She manipulated, she used, she deceived! And still it goes on. And you, Sandilands, are her latest victim it would seem! One of hundreds! How often I’ve seen it!’
Joe sat in silence as the dam began to burst. Flora went on, her voice rising as she spoke. ‘Her own father couldn’t wait to get rid of her. There was already trouble at home before he sent her away to the south of France. Silly old fool assumed that she’d be safe with his strait-laced parishioner… it wasn’t two minutes before little Miss Isobel had betrayed her employer’s trust. She was thrown out of the hotel but she ended up in a very chi-chi little flat in St Raphael which is where I began to work for her… Fall from innocence, indeed! She jumped! And she landed in a feather bed!’ Her eyes clouded for a moment and she added in an undertone, ‘I could tell you stories of besmirched innocence that would make your blood run cold.’
‘And what, precisely were your duties, madame?’ Joe cut her short. ‘I am wondering why, if you so despised Miss Newton, you remained in her employ? I must presume that the work was to your liking?’
‘It was work! Can you imagine what is available to a girl, a lonely and unsupported girl in France? It was not to my liking, as you put it, but it was not the street. I had a roof over my head, a bed to sleep in, enough food and good clothes. If I didn’t have much affection for the woman whose clothes I pressed, whose pearls I polished, I could at least put on a good face.’
‘You are a beautiful woman, Flora, if you don’t mind my saying so,’ said Carter diffidently. ‘Er… didn’t Miss Newton feel any jealousy?’
Flora’s rouged lips opened slightly in astonishment and then curved into a sly smile. ‘My word, Superintendent! And to think I took you for a man of the world!’ She leaned forward and spoke slowly as though explaining an intricate idea. ‘It is the custom of poules de luxe to employ not an old hag but an attractive maid to receive their clients. If there should be any delay in service – if mademoiselle for instance has decided to sleep until midday or is caught dallying with someone she should not be dallying with – then a pretty maid can be a not unwelcome distraction.’ Her voice became hard again as she went on, ‘And if a client has lost his attraction or – even more unforgivably – has lost his money or mademoiselle is simply feeling lazy or indisposed, then her pretty maid may be required to exercise her own arts of seduction. To draw the fire. Isn’t that what a soldier would say? I cleaned for that woman, I polished and scrubbed, I lied and I whored! And, in the end, she rewarded me with a third class ticket!’
‘So when you arrived to identify the corpse you saw, of course, that it was not that of Isobel Newton but that of some other woman…?’
‘Yes. I would never have bothered going all the way to Beaune to look at that woman’s body but I thought there might just be some jewellery I knew she always wore – a ring, a necklace – that had escaped attention. She was never empty-handed, that one! She owed me a lot of money and now she was dead there would never be another
way of retrieving any of it. Well, no luck there. The jewels had disappeared. The hospital was in chaos. People running around everywhere, no one’s identity being checked. They left me alone with the body in a little cubicle and the first odd thing I noticed was that she was wearing lisle stockings. She had lost her shoes but the stockings were plain to see. When I investigated further I noticed her underwear. What you English call a camisole, a pink woollen vest and pink cotton drawers. Elasticated – they were called directoire knickers – a thing Isobel would never have worn.’ She laughed a brittle laugh. ‘She wouldn’t have condescended to have been seen dead in such things! I had actually seen Isobel put on her green silk that morning. This was not Isobel Newton but a body dressed in her outer clothes. I took a closer look and then I remembered the other English girl. The one in the station bar. I came up to the bar to give Isobel a message about the luggage she’d left me to deal with and had quite a shock. She was sitting opposite a girl who could have been her twin sister! But she was very badly dressed. Expensive clothes but not smart and she was wearing just such stockings.
‘What had happened became clear to me. Not so easy but not impossible to exchange outer garments. In that situation – with blood and bodies, shrieking steam from the shattered engine, fire breaking out – I can imagine the scene – our lady was cool. We all know she can be but to peel underclothes from a body and put them on to herself was too much of a task even for her. It wasn’t an oversight – it was a calculated risk. And it paid off. But for me. It gave me all I wanted!’
Her smile of triumph was too much for Joe and he dropped his eyes from her face.
‘I guessed what Isobel had done,’ she went on.
Joe recognized this as the next stage in a confession. She had given them the truth and now felt the normal compulsion to follow it up with, if not a justification, then an account of her own cleverness.
‘It was not out of character. She was using someone again but this time she had stolen a whole identity for herself. I wondered why. I wondered what was so special about this girl she was attempting to become. I left the hospital and bought a newspaper. There was an account of a Miss Alice Conyers who was the only one apart from a baby to have survived the accident. It described her as an heiress going out to India to take control of a large trading empire.’
‘So you decided to follow “Alice Conyers” to India?’
‘It wasn’t that simple. I had to plot and plan and save up the fare. I looked up old clients on the Côte. Some of them had heard what had happened to Isobel and were very generous to me, for old times’ sake. As soon as I’d got enough together I came out to Bombay. It wasn’t difficult to track her – every newspaper was full of her. She was being a complete commercial and social success. She was even making a name for herself as a philanthropist! In Delhi I met Edgar. Probably a stupid idea but I took him into my confidence. We decided to follow her to Simla when the weather turned – she spends every summer up here – and we used his money and my experience to set up here.’
‘And the blackmail money? The jewellery you extorted? What happened to that?’ Carter wanted to know.
‘I guessed she’d have told you about that,’ said Flora with a smile of satisfaction. ‘Poor little Isobel, menaced by an unknown blackmailer! Well, I can tell you, Superintendent, that she got off lightly! The demands were very reasonable in the circumstances. She truly deserved to suffer more. And never forget that we are talking about money that is not rightly hers at all. I think you do forget that!’ She turned a scornful gaze on Joe.
With a defiant gesture she swept the shawl from her shoulders. Every eye was drawn to the Holbein jewel glowing richly against the black velvet. ‘Here’s your proof! I wouldn’t want you to wreck the whole establishment in an effort to find it – I’m sure that’s what you were planning to do. Such a very memorable brooch, isn’t it? I wouldn’t be surprised if it were posted as missing believed stolen so that you can find it in my possession!’
Simpson shuffled his feet uncomfortably. Joe and Carter looked back at her, non-committal.
‘You may call it blackmail, Superintendent, but if you were to question Alice Conyers-Sharpe in your official capacity I think you will find that she will say she has merely been sending gifts to an old employee in return for a service she values greatly. She is well known to be generous. With ICTC funds,’ she added waspishly. ‘So, I wear this openly. I have shown it to you. As yet there is no indication that it is stolen and I assume you would apprise me of that at once if such were the case… Nothing to say? Then I suggest we put an end to this farce. I will detain you no longer. I know you have more important crimes to investigate.’
‘Just one or two more things you can tell us, Flora,’ said Joe. ‘Do you remember all your mistress’s lovers?’
Flora gave the question her full attention. ‘I think I would recognize most of them if I saw them again but I couldn’t possibly enumerate and name them! Some stand out more than others.’
‘Feodor Korsovsky. Does he stand out in your memory?’
‘Ah! Feodor! At last you begin to behave like a detective. No, I never met him. He had left her and gone to New York before I started to work for her. But she talked of him. She talked of him a great deal. He was one of the first of Isobel’s lovers. They were together for quite a long time and she was actually faithful to him – she claims. She met him in Nice at a café frequented by singers. She always used to fancy that she had a good singing voice. Still does, I believe. They seemed to be genuinely in love with each other but he had to go off to New York and they were separated by the war. He wrote to tell her he wasn’t coming back. He’d rejoined his wife who’d been waiting for him for years in America. Isobel never forgave him. For her he epitomized the treachery of all men. She certainly hated him.’
‘So you realized the threat he posed to Alice Conyers-Sharpe – that is Isobel Newton’s security. And you were presumably aware, as was the whole of Simla, that he was scheduled to appear at the Gaiety. You would have been able to ascertain without any difficulty the precise time of his expected arrival in the town.’
‘What are you implying?’ she asked, pale and controlled.
‘We are implying, Flora, that you are the only one in Simla who would have the personal knowledge of Korsovsky, the motive for killing him and the means of purchasing his death. We intend further to charge you and others as yet unnamed with bringing about the murder in similar circumstances and for exactly the same motive of Lionel Conyers a year ago.’
Flora was staring at them in wide-eyed astonishment, unable to speak.
‘I hope you have taken in the importance of what I have just said,’ Joe added, ‘and the seriousness of your situation. We come finally to the bottom of these two murders.’
‘Two murders?’ Flora had found her voice. ‘Two murders?’ she said again. A slow smile spread across her face. ‘But, Commander, there have been three murders!’
* * *
Chapter Twenty-three
« ^ »
Listen, Flora,’ Carter started to say carefully, ‘we are investigating the murders of Lionel Conyers and Feodor Korsovsky. We believe you to have procured with the help of an accomplice or accomplices the murders of these two men. We believe you to have had them killed to preserve intact the false identity of Alice Conyers-Sharpe in order that you might continue to blackmail her. We have no evidence – no report even – of a third murder. If you have any information to give regarding a third killing I suggest you give it at once.’
‘May I make one thing quite clear, Superintendent? I have killed no one. I have not ordered or “procured”, as you put it, the murder of anyone.’ She laughed again, eyes shining with humour. ‘Oh, dear! You’re back to square one, I’m afraid. If not worse since I present you with not two unsolved crimes but three! Haven’t you guessed? Can’t you guess? No? Then I shall have to spell out for you a message you would much rather not hear, I think.’
‘Get on with it, Flora!
’ said Carter, exasperated.
‘Oh, my God!’ murmured Joe under his breath. Fascinated, he could only watch and wait for Flora to confirm an awful suspicion and, without doubt, she was enjoying herself, teasing out the suspense, playing with them, and they could only silently sit it out.
‘You should know, gentlemen, that Lionel Conyers was the second victim and Korsovsky the third. The first, oh the first victim, was killed much earlier. But the motive for all three murders is the same. To bring about and maintain the personation of Alice Conyers by Isobel Newton – if we’re using official language.’
‘And the first victim?’ asked Carter.
‘Was Alice Conyers herself!’
‘What the hell are you talking about, Flora?’
She sat forward in her chair looking at each of the three men in turn, claiming their absolute attention.
‘Alice Conyers was murdered. And by Isobel Newton.’
‘Don’t be silly! She died in the rail crash. Everyone knows that. You yourself inspected the body!’ Carter was becoming angry.
‘Yes! I inspected the body! I’ve already told you that – but I didn’t tell you everything I noticed about the state of the corpse! I was left alone with it for as long as I chose to take. The official cause of death registered by the harassed doctor who had the task of processing over two hundred accident victims was accidental death due to a broken back and head injuries. A reasonable assessment considering the time available to him and the circumstances. After all – who is going to look for murder amongst so much carnage?’
She paused for a moment, fearing no interruption from her audience who were weighing every word, every nuance.
‘But I was looking more carefully, with the eye of one who knew that something was not as it should be. Before even I had taken in the stockings and the underwear I had noticed that the injuries to the head were unusual. Her face was completely…’ she reached for a word, ‘… obliterated. Smashed beyond recognition. When I had inspected the clothing and come to the conclusion that my mistress had changed places with this poor girl I took a closer look at the injuries. Not a pleasant task. I have no training in these matters and it took a lot of determination to handle a corpse in such a way but I managed. I turned the body over. Her back was injured as the doctor had said. Certainly there was much bruising to the spine and that seemed to be clearly the spot on which she had fallen. I would say that the impact of her fall was on the back. Why then was there such damage to her face?’
Ragtime in Simla Page 24