‘I can’t be,’ said Wimsey, sadly. ‘There is something we have overlooked, Charles.’
‘The fact is that Harwell has an alibi, and Amery doesn’t,’ said Charles. ‘You can come with me tomorrow and have a go at those porters one last time, if you like. I’m not a stubborn man. But it won’t get us anywhere.’
‘I’ll take you up on that, if I may,’ said Peter. ‘Will you stay for a drink?’
‘The usual, Chief Inspector?’ asked Bunter, imperceptibly translating himself from colleague to servant again. Mango began to beat a hasty retreat.
‘Oh, Mango,’ Lord Peter called her back. ‘That was very well done. Excellent work. We are all very grateful to you.’
Whereupon Mango blushed deeply, and fled.
Much later, when Peter was musing over his new purchase beside the library fire, there was a timid knock on the door.
‘Come in,’ said Lord Peter, in a terrible tone, annoyed at whatever it might be. ‘Oh, it’s you, Mango. Lady Peter has gone to bed. Leave it till morning.’
The girl stood her ground, looking terrified.
‘What is it?’ he asked, in a more gentle tone.
‘It’s just, my lord. I can’t help wondering . . . that is . . . of course it’s no business of mine to say things, but . . .’
‘Don’t be silly, Mango,’ said Lord Peter, adjusting his monocle, and staring at her through it. ‘Say what you have to say. I don’t eat the servants.’
‘My lord, could it possibly be just a coincidence, do you think, about Phoebe Sugden? I mean I know she doesn’t seem to have been anywhere near Hampton, but somehow, when there’s something horrible in the very next house, I couldn’t help but wonder . . .’
‘What are you referring to, Mango? What about Phoebe Sugden? Where does she come in?’
‘I don’t know if she does, my lord, but . . .’
‘Sugden – the name of the people in Mon Repos? Mrs Chanter’s employers?’
‘Their daughter, my lord.’
‘One Phoebe. What about her?’
‘She’s disappeared, my lord. The police have put out posters and everything.’
‘Well, yes indeed, Mango, it does seem an odd coincidence. I’ll have to ask Charles about it. I didn’t know.’
‘Oh, sir, didn’t you see all those newspaper headlines?’
‘Headlines? About Phoebe Sugden? No, I didn’t.’
‘Yes, you did, sir. You must have done. Phoebe Sugden is only her real name, sir. Her stage name is Gloria Tallant.’
Peter said, ‘My God, how stupid of me! I must get hold of Charles at once. No, wait, it’s late and he’s a family man. At crack of dawn. Mango, thank you very much.’
‘It’s nothing, sir. I could have said earlier, only I thought you would have known. It’s caused much more of a stir at Hampton, sir, than Mrs Harwell, what with Phoebe being a local girl, and her poor mother and father being local too, and her being a real star, a West End actress.’
‘What do they think has happened to her, Mango?’
‘Kidnap, or murder, or worse, sir,’ said Mango with just a touch of relish.
‘Any or all, to choice,’ said Peter. ‘I suppose Chief Inspector Parker will know about the police enquiry. You don’t happen to be able to tell me when the young woman disappeared?’
‘A week to the day after the murder, sir, I believe.’
‘But not from Hampton? What am I doing keeping you up asking questions, Mango? Things do rather run away with me when I get the bit between my teeth. Patience till morning is my only course. Goodnight.’
When Mango left, Lord Peter picked up The Times, and looked for any further developments in the missing actress story. He could find no mention of it, but his eye did light, well down the page, on a story that a man had been charged with the Sunbury attacks. According to the report the man had been in hospital, unconscious following a road accident during the intervening period, and had recovered enough to be interviewed only on Tuesday. Widespread speculation attributing other crimes to the same person was accordingly discounted, and further enquiries would be pursued concerning these other incidents. The police were now anxious to interview anyone who had seen a Siddeley Sapphire erratically driven in Sunbury on the night of 27 February.
‘Humm,’ said Lord Peter, replacing the paper in the rack, and betaking himself to bed.
The bedroom was awash with moonlight, the curtains standing wide.
‘Harriet?’ he said softly.
‘Yes, indeed. Who else should it be?’ she said, laughing.
‘I only wondered if you were asleep. Shall I close the curtains?’
‘Not on my account. I love to see the moon and stars from the bed.’
‘Then so you shall, Domina. O, moon of my desire, that knows no wane, the moon of heaven is rising once again—’
‘Stop burbling, Peter, and get under the covers before you take cold.’
‘Here I come. I haven’t palled on you yet?’
‘Not at all. I appear to be insatiable.’
‘Splendid. In a wife I would desire, what in whores is often found . . . I suppose whores must have been rather different in his day.’
‘Absurd, Peter, you are absurd . . .’
‘The lineaments of gratified desire – I know it, Domina, I know it.’
16
Don’t put your daughter on the stage, Missus Worthington, Don’t put your daughter on the stage . . .
NÖL COWARD
These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
‘Had you realised, Harriet,’ asked Peter over breakfast, ‘that Gloria Tallant and Phoebe Sugden are, or were, as I am afraid is more likely, one and the same?’
‘No, I hadn’t,’ said Harriet. ‘But – that explains it. I kept thinking that the pictures of Gloria Tallant looked familiar, and I couldn’t think why. I’d never seen her. But, Peter, I had seen Phoebe Sugden.’
‘Had you? Was I there?’
‘No; it was while you were abroad. I saw her at the Ritz. Eiluned pointed her out to me. She was lunching with Laurence Harwell.’
‘I’ve got to see Charles,’ said Peter, abandoning breakfast, and leaving without more ado.
Harriet went from the breakfast table to her writing desk, and began to work, steadily. Miss Bracy soon had to lay down her knitting and rattle her staccato keys. The scene Harriet had reached was a nocturne – the reservoir by night. For various technical reasons it had not proved possible to remove the scene to Highgate Ponds, and the story was now taking shape without reference to London’s rivers. A lovelorn youth was rowing himself gently across the surface of the silvery water, and would, when Harriet had set the scene, witness the slow surfacing of a dead body, whose horrid pallor would give him the fright of his life. For some reason the moon shone brightly in Harriet’s prose, and she was enjoying word-painting the watery stillness and the glinting reflected banners of moonlight. She was just pulling herself together, and sternly admonishing herself with the rule that the reader’s interest in description is quickly exhausted, when Meredith tapped on the door and asked if she was at home to Mr Gaston Chapparelle.
‘Here?’ she said, surprised. ‘Oh, very well, Meredith, show him up.’
But she finished her sentence before going up to the drawing-room herself.
Chapparelle was contemplating the portrait miniatures of ancient Wimseys which hung beside the mantelpiece. He took her hand and bowed over it.
‘Forgive the intrusion, Lady Peter.’
‘Do you need yet another sitting, Mr Chapparelle?’
‘No, it is not that. I need your intercession.’
‘With whom? I am ready to help you in any way I can.’
‘With Mr Laurence Harwell. I believe he is a friend of yourself and Lord Peter.’
‘He is an acquaintance of ours, certainly. I don’t know that I would expect to
have any influence over him, though, Mr Chapparelle. Won’t you sit down?’
‘I am at my wit’s end, Lady Peter.’
And indeed the Frenchman did look deeply agitated. Harriet experienced a sudden desire to be at Talboys, where people would have such a journey to reach one that one would not be at the mercy of other people’s troubles all the time.
‘What has Mr Harwell done?’ she asked, trying to keep the sigh out of her voice.
‘Rather it is what he has not done – or ce qu’il refuse à faire. You see, Lady Peter, I am to have an exhibition at the Reynolds Academy; it is a signal honour for a living painter. Naturally I am very pleased. My clients are very pleased. First their beautiful faces are to be seen in excellent surroundings for the world to admire, and then also the investment they have made in my fee is becoming highly profitable. Everyone is pleased except Mr Harwell. When I apply to him yesterday to borrow his painting for a month he refuses. He will not even consider.’
‘How very odd,’ said Harriet.
‘I tell him the exhibition will be un coup de foudre, that all London will be talking about it, and he refuses even more catégoriquement. I tell him that the painting is indispensable; that it is the great masterpiece of my London period, that without it the show is Hamlet without the prince. He replies that I am a mountebank, that I have sold the picture to him and that it is no more concern of mine at all. I have been treated like a grocer, Lady Peter, or a shoemaker.’
‘I am so sorry, Mr Chapparelle. I expect Mr Harwell is within his legal rights, but . . .’
‘Art is not property,’ said Chapparelle with dignity. ‘Never have I been so insulted. Could you not explain to him?’
‘I don’t know that I could. I don’t know Mr Harwell beyond the slightest acquaintanceship. Would the absence of the Harwell portrait really ruin the exhibition? You have painted so many interesting portraits.’
‘In this one there was a unique metaphysic,’ the painter said with dignity. ‘Your portrait is a work of genius, madame, but you do not give the occasion for such nuance, such double entendre.’
‘I hope you do not think me jealous of poor Mrs Harwell on that account. And surely we must make allowances for Mr Harwell. I will try to find a chance to talk to him. But I do not expect to have any influence on him.’
‘Thank you, Lady Peter,’ said the painter, taking his leave. ‘Your portrait will be very soon ready. You could collect it until the opening of the exhibition. If, that is, Lord Peter will be ready to lend it when the time comes. I find that with Englishmen, one does not know where one stands.’
‘And with Englishwomen, Mr Chapparelle?’
‘Alas, madame, one knows very well. One is all too often out in the cold. The fires must be lit over and over again.’
‘Charles, never mind the porters for the moment. Who is in charge of the disappearing actress case?’ asked Wimsey, standing in Chief Inspector Parker’s office.
‘It’s in my department. Bollin is the detective working on it. Why the sudden interest?’
Wimsey told him. Charles whistled softly. ‘We’ve been missing something,’ he said. ‘I’ll get Bollin to put us in the picture. But you’re right; it can’t be coincidence.’
‘Interesting, that,’ said Wimsey. ‘As a matter of fact, Charles, surely it could. There are such things as coincidence; it’s not like saying, “It can’t be a unicorn,” now, is it?’
‘It’s all very well for you to theorise. What I know is that if a copper says something is just coincidence it means they have given up trying to make sense of it.’
‘And sub specie aeternitatis everything makes sense?’
‘Even you, Peter, even you.’
Inspector Bollin proved to be a rotund young man, with ink on his fingers, and an impressive pile of papers in his hands. Charles introduced Lord Peter. On being asked about the connection, coincident or not, between Phoebe Sugden and the Harwell case Bollin became embarrassed at once. It was apparent that although Phoebe’s home address was in his notes, he had not put two and two together and realised exactly how close together the two houses in Hampton were.
‘I’m not on the Harwell case, sir,’ he said miserably to Charles. ‘It didn’t occur to me to check . . .’
‘We understand it is the talk of the town in Hampton,’ said Charles mildly.
‘Miss Sugden disappeared from an address in London, sir, at which she had been resident for approximately two years. I did not pursue enquiries in her childhood home, sir.’
‘You were not to realise that the address was next door to one involved in quite a different enquiry,’ said Wimsey helpfully.
‘No, my lord, I was not,’ said Bollin, heatedly. ‘Not but what I would have happened upon it sooner or later.’
‘Of course you would,’ said Wimsey.
‘Possibly,’ said Charles. ‘Meanwhile, what have we got in the case of Miss Sugden?’
Bollin launched into an account of the case.
Gloria Tallant, alias Phoebe Sugden, now aged twenty, had been sent at her parents’ expense to a private dance and drama school, where she had done fairly well. Inspector Bollin had interviewed the principal of the college and received a distinct impression that the young woman’s looks rather than her talent were her best hope of a big part. However, on leaving the college she had put her name on the books of several agencies, and by and by had achieved some very minor parts. Then she had had a stroke of extraordinary good luck. Sir Jude Shearman’s new play required a leading lady with red hair, who could dance a few steps in the second act.
‘She had red hair?’ asked Wimsey.
‘Very striking red hair, I understand, sir,’ said Bollin. ‘This is her picture and description.’
Wimsey looked at the photo and the details. ‘I’m turning into an old married man, Charles,’ he said, sorrowfully. ‘A picture of a pretty woman leaves me cold. So, Inspector Bollin, our heroine lands a plum part.’
‘It was for six weeks, sir. She had a bit of difficulty pleasing the director in rehearsal, but it was all set for the opening night. That’s the background, sir. Then she didn’t show up for the dress-rehearsal, or the opening performance, and her understudy had to go on in her place. Two days later the police were informed.’
‘Two days? Why the delay?’
‘It was very unfortunate. But the young woman’s parents had gone abroad for the winter; the mother’s health is uncertain, I believe.’
‘Friends? Family?’
‘She was living alone, sir, in a bedsitting-room in Southwark, quite handy for the West End. Apart from the people at the theatre there was just a boyfriend. I’ll come to him in a minute.’
‘And at the theatre they just assumed she had let them down?’
‘That’s about it, sir.’
‘Do ambitious young women often skive off, leaving lead parts to the understudies?’ enquired Wimsey.
‘I don’t know about that, sir, but the management didn’t know this one well enough to know if she was reliable or not. No track record so to speak. They sent somebody to her flat, but he couldn’t get in, and the neighbours didn’t know anything. And when I asked a lot of questions, sir, it appeared that the director had told her off at the last rehearsal, the pre-dress-rehearsal, and upset her.’
‘Do we know what about?’
‘It was more or less about a certain line in the last act, I understand. He couldn’t make her say it how he wanted, and she cried, and he told her she wasn’t good enough to try that on, and she flounced out.’
‘So when she didn’t appear when she was supposed to, they thought she was sulking?’
‘Paying him out. Making him sweat a bit. They thought it was . . .’ Inspector Bollin turned to his notes, ‘ “A touch of the Sarah Bernhardts”, they said.’
‘But surely they realised it was serious when she missed curtain-up on the first night?’
‘Yes, they did, sir. But by then they had other things on their minds. Like wheth
er Miss Mitzi Darling with dyed hair could save the day. They put a junior member of the management – well, someone from the ticket office – on to the job of trying to find her, and when she drew a blank they called the police.’
‘I see. And you said there was a boyfriend?’
‘Yes, sir. One Larry Porsena.’
‘Another stage name, I take it? And by the nine gods he swore – what did he swear, Inspector Bollin?’
‘A long deposition, sir. And no; it seems Porsena is his real name. Eye-tie parents, I gather.’
Charles flipped over the pages Inspector Bollin handed to him, and said, ‘Give us the gist of this, will you, Inspector?’
‘Gladly, sir. The gentleman was very fluent, sir. But what he says, roughly, is this. Gloria had an audition, at eleven in the forenoon, to which he escorted her. They were going to have lunch together afterwards, and before the dress-rehearsal for Dance until Dawn. Porsena left her at the stage door of the Cranbourne Theatre, and waited for her outside. She never came out. Of course he didn’t know how long it should have been, but by two o’clock he was hungry, and browned off, and he went in and asked what had happened to her. He was told that there was no auditioning going on; that there was nobody in the building except the scene-painters, and he could make himself scarce.’
‘And he jumped to the conclusion, I suppose, that she had stood him up?’
‘Exactly, sir. He was very fed up. She had a part, and he hadn’t; did I say he was a fellow-actor, sir? And he thought she was giving him the brush-off. So he just went off and drowned his sorrows. A couple of days later he went round to her place in the morning, to try to make it up with her, and of course he couldn’t find her. Next thing he knew he read about in the newspapers.’
‘And what did you make of him, Inspector?’ asked Wimsey.
‘Excitable sort of young man, sir. Genuinely fond of the young lady. Very worried about her.’
‘I see. Would you think I was poking my nose in unnecessarily if I went and talked to him myself?’
‘It’s a free country, sir,’ said Bollin, stiffly.
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