by Celina Grace
“A good friend is a valuable thing,” agreed Inspector Marks. Then I could see him setting sentiment aside. “Now, Miss Hart – Joan? What did you have to tell me?”
I didn’t prevaricate but came straight to the point. I wanted to match his professionalism and his no-nonsense air of getting things done.
“There’s a girl called Ethel who works at the rooming house where Guido Bonsignore lived. I spoke to her a few days ago, and she told me she’d seen a woman visit Guido a week or so before he died.” I went on to recount, as meticulously as possible, Ethel’s and my conversation. I wavered for a moment as to whether to confess I’d pretended to be a journalist but I was pretty sure that wasn’t a criminal offence and – I’ll be honest – I wanted to impress Inspector Marks, so I was honest about it. He said nothing but I saw him smile.
“Well, I must say you have quite a knack at finding new witnesses, Joan,” was all that he said once he’d scribbled down everything that I’d said in his little notebook. “I’m not sure how my men missed her on our first investigations at the house.”
“Well, sir, she said she wouldn’t talk to the police. And she’s a servant. We’re pretty much invisible to everybody,” I added, with a touch of bitterness.
“Well, thank you, Joan. I think I might be able to persuade Miss Ethel to talk to us after all. Is there anything else?”
“Actually, I have a question for you, if that’s not too impertinent, sir?”
He looked at me curiously. “What is it, Joan?”
I took a deep breath. “Sir, I’m sure I remember you telling me before that you thought Guido Bonsignore was actually a false name.”
“Yes, that’s right. It was.”
I hesitated again. It wasn’t really any of my business, was it? But I really wanted to know… “Do you – do you know what his real name was?”
The inspector regarded me for a moment, rubbing one finger across his black moustache. For a second, I thought he was going to say just that, that it wasn’t any of my business and then he nodded. “His real name was Gideon Bonnacker.”
I mouthed the words silently and then said them aloud. “’Gideon Bonnacker.” For a moment I felt a little jab of disappointment. Had I expected that the second I heard the real name of the murder victim, that I’d be able to solve the case there and then? The name meant nothing to me. Literally nothing.
The inspector was still watching me. He leaned forward a little. “He was travelling on a false passport. You’d be surprised how easy they are to get hold of, particularly after the war. There was all sorts of black market trade in different identification papers from people killed in the conflict. There still is.”
“Yes, I see.” I turned my teacup around in my hands, thinking. “Why would he come back under a false name? Was there an arrest warrant out for him, under his real name, I mean?”
The inspector looked pleased. “Now you’re thinking like a detective, Joan. It’s a good question, but as a matter of fact, there wasn’t. He’d grown up in England, fought and survived the war, went back out to Europe about twelve years ago, and he’s lived in Italy ever since. Had lived, I should say.”
“So he led a blameless life, sir?”
The inspector’s smile dimmed. “I’m not so sure about that, Joan. People who truly do lead blameless lives don’t tend to find themselves stabbed to death in theatres. But yes, so far as we can ascertain, there’s nothing particularly striking in Gideon Bonnacker’s life, unlike his death. He left his last place of employment in Italy under something of a cloud, it seems, but there were no criminal charges brought. He was sailing pretty close to the wind financially, although his bank account does show some reasonably large cash sums deposited over the last few months. The landlady of his rooming house told my men that there was a pretty regular Friday night poker game that took place there, so it might be that he won it over the cards.”
“I see, “ I said again. Then, thinking of something else, added, “He was a bit of a gambler, then?”
“So it seems. I’ve had positive identification of him at several of the race tracks. Rather bizarrely, it seemed he was also a regular at the local Catholic Church.”
I nodded. Both of those were worlds I knew absolutely nothing about and again, I felt a surge of disappointment, almost of frustration, that I wasn’t being of any more help whatsoever. I did have one other question, though and I hoped I wasn’t pushing my luck by asking the inspector.
“Sir, this might sound strange but did the doctors – did they manage to pinpoint the time of Guido, I mean, Gideon’s death more accurately? You said you were waiting for the post-mortem last time we spoke about it.”
The inspector stared at me, curiously. Then obviously deciding to humour me, he nodded and said “It seems likely that he was killed within the first half hour of the play. It’s not set in stone, but the doctors thought that they could narrow it down that far, at least.”
I thought back to that night, remembered pressing my fingers against the veins and arteries in his neck. “Yes, that does make sense. When I took his pulse, he was cool. Not cold, but the warmth had gone completely.”
The inspector courteously waited for me to go on but I had nothing else to say on the subject. He sat up briskly. “Well, if that’s everything?” He drained his teacup, wiped his moustache with his pocket handkerchief and made as if to stand up. I got up quickly myself, wondering if there was anything else I could say – or ask. I hope you’ve been listening, I thought to myself, sending a rather dour message to Mrs Watling in the privacy of my own head. No dalliances here. Worst luck.
“Well, Joan, you’ve got my card, so don’t hesitate to call if there’s anything else you remember, or that you think we might need to hear. I appreciate your help.”
He smiled at me, kind as always. I tried to smile back, conscious that there would be no reason for me to telephone him again. What else could I tell him? I’d tried to do a bit of investigation and that had all really come to nothing, hadn’t it? I felt again that keen sense of ridiculousness, that I, Joan Hart, really thought I’d do better than the police and trained professionals. Who did I think I was?
The inspector shook my hand. I had a sudden, horrid, paranoid thought then – that Inspector Marks was encouraging me to do my own detective work so that he could have a good laugh at me and my delusions of grandeur. Was he setting me up for a giant fall? Surely not? He wouldn’t be that unkind, would he? Of course he wouldn’t, I told myself, but that treacherous little voice refused to stay quiet. I was irresistibly reminded of that quotation from Samuel Johnson, about the walking dog. Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all. Replace ‘preaching’ with ‘investigation’ – was that how Inspector Marks thought of me?
I was feeling so miserable that I scarcely managed a goodbye smile. I managed to raise a hand to wave to him as he walked from the kitchen, heading for the front door. Then I slumped back down at the kitchen table and put my head in my hands, feeling like a failure at everything.
Chapter Seventeen
My low mood persisted for much of the week. I didn’t pick up Voyage of the Heart again, not even late at night to read in bed. It remained on my beside table, reproaching me for my weak will and laziness every time I looked at it. I scarcely had the energy to glance through the newspaper every day, although I did give it a cursory skim every morning, just to see if there was anything else about the Connault murder. But day after day, there was nothing, not even the realisation that the victim had at least been positively identified. There was a short article about the funeral of Aldous Smith, which I read eagerly, but there was little substance to it, just a series of photographs, mostly of Caroline Carpenter looking extremely glamourous, even with a little black nose veil shielding her face.
I put the newspaper down on the table, staring at the photograph. Something about that was ringing a bell. What was it? After a moment, it
came to me. Ethel had mentioned the woman coming to see Guido – or Gideon Bonnacker - and the fact that she’d had a black veil on covering her face. I looked again at the black and white newsprint, the reproduction of Caroline’s lovely face. Was it so ridiculous to think that it might have been Caroline who had called to see Gideon?
That thought lasted half a minute – perhaps not even that – before I realised I was being completely ridiculous. Why would Caroline go and visit a perfect stranger in a seedy rooming house? And how could she have been the woman in the Gods on the night of the murder when she’d actually been on stage in the very first act of the play? I snorted to myself. Some detective I’d make. Where was the motive? Come to that, where was the opportunity? And without those two things, where was the evidence?
I dismissed the thought entirely from my head, closed the newspaper, and made a resolution: I was going to forget about this whole case. It was clearly having a deleterious effect on my mind and my mood. All my investigations – such pathetic ones as they had been – were doing nothing to help and they were making me actively unhappy. I made another resolution, that’d I’d start to re-read Voyage of the Heart tonight, if I wasn’t too tired by the time I got to bed, and I’d make a real effort to start thinking about writing my own play – even if I wasn’t at all sure how to go about it.
I made a concerted effort to get on top of all my chores that afternoon. As was usual, once I’d stopped moaning to myself and sulking about feeling martyred, the day flew by in a much more cheerful manner, and Mrs Watling actually complimented me on the rack of lamb that I produced for Dorothy that evening, though she was dining alone. After tidying up the kitchen and making sure everything was ready for tomorrow, I carried a tea tray up to the bedroom, so I could enjoy a cuppa whilst reading the play. I thought I might even make a start at mapping out some of the plot and characters of my own play.
Verity came in at about ten o’clock, slightly flushed and more giggly than was normal for her.
“What’s wrong with you?” I eyed her over the rim of my mug. “Have you been drinking?”
“Yes, actually.” Verity flopped down onto her bed and rubbed her eyes. “Dorothy wanted me to dine with her, and I had to have two glasses of wine, otherwise she would have drunk up the whole bottle. That’s the second bottle tonight.”
“What?”
Verity rolled her eyes. “She’d put away a whole bottle by the time dinner arrived. So I had to have a couple of glasses from the other one, otherwise she’d have been face down in your lovely dinner before too long.”
I gave her a wry look. “What a noble sacrifice you made.”
Verity giggled harder. “There are some perks to being a lady’s maid, you know.”
“Don’t I know it! The food was acceptable, then? Mrs Watling was pleased with me for the main dish.”
“It was lovely. Oof, I’m so full of food and wine I might burst.” She sat down to unbuckle her shoes and looked up at me slightly tipsily. “Anyway, what about you? You could have done with a bit of a pick-me-up yourself, you know, Joan. You’ve been a right misery all week.”
“I know,” I admitted. “But I’m over it now.”
“What was wrong?”
“Oh, nothing. Nothing and everything.”
Verity gave me a sympathetic looks. “Were you so very upset about Aldous?”
Honesty made me dissuade her that that had been the problem. “No, it wasn’t that. It was just – perhaps I was trying to make sense of it all. I wasn’t getting very far.”
Verity nodded and pulled her dress over her head, dropping it on the floor a second later. “Whoops. Anyway, there’s no need to be melancholy. Tommy’s pantomime run starts next week, and if I’m not very much mistaken, he’ll be sending us tickets for when they do the dress rehearsal.”
This did indeed cheer me up further. We’d been to several of these dress rehearsal performances, where the tickets were so cheap (or, lucky us, free) that nobody minded so much if somebody forgot their lines, or doors were opened wrongly on the stage or props got dropped or missed completely. It was all part of the fun and, as a lot of the audience at those shows was made up of friends and family of the crew, there was sometimes quite a lively party afterwards.
“Oh, good.” By now I was yawning over the play, despite the tea, and decided to leave it for the next night. Perhaps I would dream up a plot in my sleep, who knew? There was one thing I checked just before I put the book to one side and turned out the bedside light. Curious, I checked the first act, just to see if I’d remembered correctly. Yes, I had; Caroline’s character had been on stage for almost all of the first act, certainly for the first four scenes which meant there was no possible way the woman in the Gods had been her. But it wouldn’t have been her anyway, would it? What on Earth had it to do with her? I must have been mad, thinking like that, and it was a sign that I should probably leave well enough alone.
Verity came back from the bathroom and stumbled into the edge of her bed as she divested herself of her slippers. “Whoops.”
I giggled despite myself. “Go to sleep, you drunkard. See you in the morning.”
“Goo’ night.”
I chuckled to myself as I turned over in my bed, pulling the covers up to my chin.
*
Verity had a bit of a headache the next morning, unsurprisingly, but that was nothing to how Dorothy was obviously feeling. Again, her breakfast tray came down almost untouched, apart from the coffee pot which had been drained dry. I saw Mrs Watling looking it over and frowning and when Verity came back downstairs a half an hour or so later for more coffee, she beckoned her over.
“Is her ladyship ill, Verity? She doesn’t seem to have touched her breakfast, and that’s the third or fourth time she’s eaten hardly anything.”
“Oh, she’s just feeling a bit under the weather,” Verity said. Her gaze caught mine for a moment and I found myself making a rueful face, which unfortunately Mrs Watling saw.
“What is it, Joan?”
“Nothing, nothing,” I said hurriedly. I turned back to the dough I was making, hearing Verity tell Mrs Watling some goodnatured lie about Dorothy having trouble shaking off a cold.
“I’ll make her up some rosehip tea,” said Mrs Watling. “There’s nothing better if you’re coming down with a cold.”
“Wonderful,” said Verity. She shot me a neutral gaze, which nevertheless said everything that she intended it to, picked up the refilled coffee pot and left the room.
I got on with my work, thinking about our mistress. Was there anything we could do? I didn’t think there was. It was most decidedly not our place to advise our employer that she was drinking far too much. I wondered if Mr Fenwick had noticed how much wine Dorothy was getting through, seeing as he was the one responsible for ordering and decanting it. There wasn’t any way to ask him, either. It’s not your place to worry about it, I told myself, thumping the dough. I seemed to be saying that to myself a lot lately.
Dorothy must have got over her hangover because she dined out that night and took Verity with her as a companion. Early on in her role, I had mentioned to Verity how nice it must be to get to go out to dinner at posh places, and jazz clubs, and exciting restaurants, and she’d rolled her eyes. “Most of the time I have to wait for her in the cloakroom, Joan,” she said. “For hours at a time, sometimes. It’s not much fun.”
That evening, as I wiped down the table and hung up my apron, I looked about me at the clean, quiet, warm kitchen and thought perhaps, that once, I’d got the better end of the deal. The evening had been fairly calm, with only the servants’ meal to make, and Mrs Watling, Doris and I had easily tackled that between the three of us. I glanced at the clock – only twenty minutes past nine. I would be able to have a few precious hours to myself in our room, finishing off reading Voyage of the Heart and perhaps making a start on my own play. I stretched luxuriously, yawned, switched off the main light and made my way to the stairs, feeling rather content.
/> Chapter Eighteen
True to his word, Tommy sent two tickets to the dress rehearsal of the pantomime round to us that week, and Verity and I both arranged our next evening off to coincide with the performance. Tommy had enclosed a note with the tickets and Verity read it silently as I looked at the tickets, hugging the knowledge to my heart that I had a nice evening out to look forward to. It seemed like a long time since my last bit of time off. I thought for a moment of Inspector Marks and whether he and his men had interviewed Ethel yet, and if they had, whether they’d found out anything interesting or useful. For a moment, I almost fell into a reverie of fantasising that what Ethel had to tell them cracked the case and Inspector Marks called in again specially, just to thank me for finding such an important witness and said that the case couldn’t have been solved without me…
Somehow I managed to pull myself back to reality. I was not going to think about this case anymore; hadn’t I told myself that? It was not my business. I sighed and it was then I realised that Verity had tears in her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, anxiously.
Verity sniffed. “Oh, it’s nothing, it’s just Tommy. I can tell he’s still feeling awfully down about Aldous – and I suppose about Voyage of the Heart being cancelled. I mean, it’s not like him, this melancholia. He’s just not like that, normally.”
“Well, it has been a very hard time,” I said cautiously but sympathetically. “Aldous was his friend. He’s bound to miss him.”
Verity sniffed again and then shook her head and put her shoulders back. “Yes, I know. Well, I can’t keep moping all day either. Let’s look forward to our night at the pantomime and say no more about it.”
As was usual when one had something to look forward to, the days between the present and the pantomime seemed to drag terribly. Every day seemed like an endless round of waking up, rubbing the sleep from one’s eyes, dragging oneself downstairs, cooking breakfasts, clearing up, cooking luncheon, clearing up, cooking dinner, clearing up… Dorothy had two evening soirées that week, which meant a whole lot more work than usual. I looked to see if the Honourable Cleo Maddox was attending either but her name didn’t appear. Despite my resolution to myself, I couldn’t help but read the newspaper every day, cover to cover if I got a chance, but nothing about the Connault murder or Aldous Smith’s suicide appeared. It was probably just as well, as further news would have tempted me from my resolution to forget the case entirely.