The Mammoth Book of Roaring Twenties Whodunnits

by Mike Ashley

  It was dark outside. Balducci headed for the marina. O’Farrell wasn’t even sure why the man was running, but he took his .45 from his shoulder holster just the same.

  The millionaire ran to the end of a dock, then turned to face O’Farrell.

  “You can’t shoot me!” he cried out, waving his hands. “I’m not armed.”

  “Why would I want to shoot you, Vincent?” O’Farrell asked. He holstered his gun. “In fact, why are you running from me?”

  Balducci was sweating so much that some of the dye from his hair was running down his forehead.

  “Wh – why were you chasing me?”

  “Was I?” O’Farrell asked.

  “You came at me . . . the look on your face . . . I thought . . .”

  The man was too fit to be winded from running. He was out of breath for another reason.

  Suddenly, there was a small automatic in his hand. O’Farrell cursed himself for holstering his gun.

  “I – I didn’t mean to,” Balducci said. “She told me about the sex . . . and I just went crazy . . . it wasn’t my fault.”

  “Is that the gun?” Georgie had been shot at close range with a small caliber gun. “Where’d you get it?”

  “It was hers,” he said. “I gave it to her for protection. I – I never thought she’d try to use it against me.”

  “You must have frightened her.”

  “She . . . she was mine! She wasn’t supposed to be with anyone else.”

  O’Farrell felt badly about that. Maybe if he hadn’t slept with Georgie she’d still be alive now. or maybe it would have happened later, with someone else.

  “Come on, Vincent,” O’Farrell said. “If you shot her by accident, then you’re not going to shoot me deliberately.”

  “You know,” Balducci said, “you know . . . I knew it when I saw your face. I – I can’t let you tell anyone.”

  O’Farrell wondered where the damned police were? And where was Bat Masterson? He was wondering how close he’d get to his gun if he tried to draw it now.

  “Vincent—”

  “I’m sorry,” Balducci said, “I had no idea it would come to this when I hired you. I’m so sorry . . .”

  Balducci tensed in anticipation of firing his gun, but before he could there was a shot from behind O’Farrell. A bullet struck Balducci in his right shoulder. He cried out and dropped his gun into the water, then fell to his knees and clutched his arm. O’Farrell turned to see Bat Masterson standing at the end of the dock with an old Colt .45 in his hand. He turned to check that Balducci was neutralized, then walked over to Bat.

  “Thanks, Bat.”

  “I still got it,” Bat said.

  “Where’d you get that?”

  “Hey, all the guns in my desk aren’t harmless replicas, you know.”

  Behind Bat, Sam McKeever came running up with the other policeman.

  “Damned Charleston,” he said. “How’d you get across that dance floor without slamming into somebody?”

  “I’m graceful.”

  “Did he do it?”

  “He did it,” O’Farrell said. “He confessed. I’ll testify, but I don’t think I’ll have to.”

  The other detective, Willoughby, waved at his men and said, “Go get him.”

  “You’ll need divers,” O’Farrell told both detectives. “The gun fell in the water when Bat shot him.”

  “The same gun?” McKeever asked, surprised.

  “Yeah,” O’Farrell said, “for some reason he was carrying it around. He said he gave it to her for protection.”

  The uniformed police helped Balducci to his feet and started walking him off the dock. When they reached O’Farrell and the two detectives they stopped.

  “I’m sorry I slept with her, Balducci,” O’Farrell said. “It just happened, but she shouldn’t have died for it.”

  Balducci’s mouth flopped open and he said, “You slept with her, too?”

  As they marched him away McKeever said, “One of the doormen. Apparently he went up there when Balducci wasn’t around.”

  “So he didn’t know about me and her,” O’Farrell said.

  “He does now,” McKeever said.

  “And so do we,” Bat said.

  “You dog,” McKeever said.

  “I wonder if his money will be able to buy him out of this?” Bat asked.

  “Don’t matter to me,” McKeever said. “My job’s just to bring ’im in.”

  Bat and McKeever started after the other policemen. Let them rib him, O’Farrell thought, bringing up the rear. It wasn’t his fault she was dead. That’s what counted. Now he could be sad for her, and not feel any guilt.

  “There would have been murder”

  IAN MORSON

  One of the believed threats of the 1920s was a communist revolution in Britain. There was considerable social unrest which manifested in, amongst other things, the General Strike of 1926. When I first conceived this anthology I had not given much thought to the rise of communism, so I was surprised to receive not one, but two stories based on that theme. Fortunately both were ingenious stories and totally different. See Mat Coward’s for the other one. Ian Morson is best known for his series about medieval Oxford academic and detective William Falconer, who first appeared in Falconer’s Crusade (1994).

  Sunday afternoon, 22 April 1923.

  The British Empire Exhibition site

  “It looks like murder, Inspector.”

  “Superintendent, if you please.” James O’Nions’s retort was short and abrupt. He was particularly sensitive about his new rank. It had taken him long enough to attain – too long, in his opinion – so he was at pains to correct his sergeant’s albeit natural error. Sergeant Banks blanched at his mistake. He knew how thin-skinned his guv’nor was about his recent elevation. But he had been calling him inspector for so long, it was difficult to get out of the habit. Still, he was quick to mumble his apologies.

  “Sorry. Superintendent.”

  He returned to contemplating the charred remains in the hole at the foot of the tower. O’Nions, meanwhile, was scanning the almost completed building. The new Empire Stadium rose steeply above them with its two massive white towers breaking up the long and imposing façade. Many had commented favourably on the exterior, but O’Nions was not impressed. He thought the towers resembled nothing more than giant pepper-pots. But then, he was in a bad mood. He hated being called out on a Sunday. Or rather Mrs O’Nions hated him being called out, and that was enough for him to hate it too. The Sunday roast would not keep, and nor would her temper.

  The site in Wembley was still a hive of activity, even with the Cup Final less than a week away. For between the new stadium and the main road stretched out the bustling building site that was to become the British Empire Exhibition the following year. Large ferro-concrete pavilions had already begun to spring up across the area, and the whole affair was attracting a great deal of attention at home and abroad. Which was why Special Branch in particular had been called in to peer down a hole at a partially burned body at the foot of one of the stadium’s towers.

  O’Nions voiced his contempt for the new structures.

  “They look like oversized garages. Either that, or redundant aeroplane sheds.”

  “Sorry, sir?”

  “No matter, Banks, you would not understand. Get down there and tell me what you can see.”

  Sergeant Banks stared wide-eyed down the slippery clay embankment. All he could see was a vision of a Belgian trench, that the curled-up body did nothing to dispel. He squeezed his eyes shut, and shook his head to clear away the noise of the whiz-bang in his skull. Reluctantly, he scrambled down into the hole that had been due to have been backfilled that morning. Until that is, the workman given the job had peered into the tower’s footings, and spotted a suspicious bundle. The sides of the hole were steep, and the red clay smeared all over the seat of the police sergeant’s trousers. Now he knew why his guv’nor had stayed up top. He was never one to get his best brown
boots dirty. Banks gulped back the bitter taste in his mouth as he examined the grisly remains, blackened and curled up in a ball.

  The posture made it look as though whoever it was had tried to protect himself from the flames. There was a scattering of white powder on the body too. He reached out a hand to touch it.

  “Don’t touch, Banksie. It’s probably quicklime. Give you a nasty burn, can that.”

  Banks nodded his thanks to O’Nions’s timely warning. He also hoped the familiar tone from above meant that his guv’nor’s irritation at his gaffe was forgiven. So he deemed it now safe to speak. He bent over the body and looked closely without touching anything. “Looks like there’s no head, guv’nor. Nor hands neither. They didn’t want us to know whose body it was. Going to be a hell of a job identifying it.”

  Superintendent O’Nions just grunted, and Banks wondered if he already had some idea of the body’s identity. The guv’nor was brilliant at what Banks called “leaps of deduction”. Guesswork, some of his detractors would call it, but not the sergeant. O’Nions, for his part, didn’t disabuse his sergeant of his assumption of uncanny powers. He quite relished a bit of hero worship. The trouble was, he hadn’t the faintest idea which of the three missing men it was.

  Two weeks earlier, Hampstead

  Albert Potter was deep in the conundrum at the core of the book he was reading, when Rosalind, his wife, entered the study that evening. Some years older than he was, she was causing him concern. This very morning she had said something very curious.

  “I feel as though I am packing up,” she had suddenly said over the toast and marmalade, “so that I am ready to depart when the time comes.”

  That was all, nothing more. And she had refused to elaborate, leaving the room with some dirty dishes in her hand, and an unspoken errand on her mind. Thinking about what on earth she meant made Albert shudder. They hadn’t any trip abroad planned, had they? So, the pronouncement sounded more ominous than that. He had therefore been quite distracted when, on entering the study, Rosalind spoke only to announce an unexpected guest.

  “Darling. Junius has called. He says it is most urgent that he speaks to you.”

  “Didn’t you tell him I was – er – working on the book?”

  Rosalind raised an elegant and well-plucked eyebrow. The accusation inherent in that slightest of gestures pierced Albert to the heart. She knew the slim volume of fiction in his hand was in no way going to contribute to their massive joint project on the history of the Poor Law. Crushed by the silent rebuke, Albert sighed and gracefully accepted defeat. Reluctantly, he put the newly published murder mystery aside, and stood up to welcome his fellow MP.

  Fellow MP. It had a good ring to it.

  Albert Potter still felt like a new boy in his first term at a public school. Elected a Labour MP for North Battersea in November 1922 at the age of sixty-three, even after six months he wasn’t used to this change in his status. A noble status at odds with his physical form. At five foot four inches, and with a large head whose size was further exaggerated by his prickly bush of hair, which was greying now, he had never been patrician in dimensions. He had also soon learned that the longer-serving Members of Parliament, including many in his own Party, had cruelly christened him ‘Tadpole’. Well, one day he would show them he was no tadpole, but a frog with a pretty loud croak.

  The man who Rosalind showed in was small-framed with slicked-down black hair, and dark brown, bloodshot eyes framed with long, almost feminine lashes. His elegant suit, with the most stylish of cuts, fitted his lithe form perfectly. More spectacular were his aristocratic features, which were carved into a face of the darkest brown, almost teak-like hue. Junius Premadasa had been born in Ceylon to a very wealthy Sinhalese family, and had been sent to Britain in 1905 for an education. Despite his background, Premadasa, soon after leaving Oxford, had eagerly dabbled in first the Communist Party and then the Labour Party, eventually becoming an MP for the latter in West Ham, South. Today, his normally elegant demeanour was shattered by an obvious distress.

  Albert self-consciously pushed the popular novel with its lurid yellow wrapper further under the cushion of his chair.

  “Why, Junius! What is the matter?”

  The same day. The Grapes public house, Battersea

  No-one would have given Harry Rothstein a second glance. His stringy frame was clad in dusty, patched working clothes, matching most of the clientele of the pub. And his drawn, sun-reddened face was typical of an out-of-doors labourer drained of all energy by a full day’s toil. He looked as if he had dropped in the pub straight from a building site. Which indeed he had. But Harry Rothstein was more than an anonymous member of the proletariat. He was one of Moscow’s secret weapons. Not that that helped him make any more sense of the letter in his pocket. That is, he could understand what was written in the document, but the exhortations themselves were extraordinary, inconceivable. He was used to Moscow using such words as cadres, vanguards, and comrades. That was normal, and it was left to him to translate them into euphemisms the fellow Party members of his branch were more comfortable with. But this took the biscuit.

  As soon as he had got the letter, he had confided in Prem, who happened to be in the local Party office. The elegant, little black man was a virulent anti-imperialist, which is what had brought him into the Party despite his social standing. But at first, even he could not believe his eyes.

  “They’re mad.”

  Premadasa poked a long, aristocratic finger at the letter. “Listen to this. ‘Stir up the masses of the unemployed British proletariat.’ And . . .” His dark eyes slid down the page seeking out another phrase. “Here it is . . . ‘a successful rising is required in any of the working districts of England.’ Fat chance, old man.”

  Harry Rothstein always marvelled at the black man’s command of English vernacular. Except the words were oddly out of place expressed in such cultured tones. He sighed. “Doesn’t Moscow know that our members are still British first and foremost?”

  “Apparently not, if this letter is to be believed.” His big, brown eyes clouded over at that moment, as he gazed into some far Parsee distance. How he squared his religion with his Communist beliefs, Rothstein wasn’t sure. The black man was an enigma. So he wasn’t surprised at Premadasa’s next utterance. “However, there is something we can do about it.”

  “Like what?” Harry Rothstein thought he could not feel any more downhearted. But Premadasa’s proposal weighed him down like an albatross round his neck. Such a risky action, and at the FA Cup Final, too. Reluctantly, Harry had made a telephone call, and then resorted to The Grapes. Where he managed to down three pints in quick succession without his sense of foreboding lifting.

  Boleyn Football Ground, West Ham

  Tommy Fields slung his kitbag over his shoulder and, without a word to the rest of the team, slipped out of the dressing room at Upton Park. He had played badly in the training session today, and the manager, Syd King, had given him a peculiar look as he changed out of his sweat-stained kit and back into his street clothes. He pulled on his thick roll-neck pullover, still not sure whether he would be included in the team for the Cup Final against Bolton Wanderers. Being a Lancashire man, there had been some muttering from other West Ham players about his loyalties. Hufton, the goalie, had dived at his feet during training, and somehow got tangled in his legs. Fields had fallen awkwardly, feeling a sharp pull to his left ankle. He had limped for the rest of the session.

  As he exited the football ground, he saw an omnibus pulling away from the stop at the corner. He knew he would be late if he didn’t catch it, and sprinted down the road in pursuit. The pain in his ankle returned, shooting up his leg, and he stumbled, almost falling. The conductor saw the fit-looking man stumble, and held out a helping hand. With his aid, Fields managed to haul himself on the rear platform, still clutching his kit-bag of muddy gear. The conductor, a stringy man with yellowing teeth peered at him, a frown on his pinched features. Then recognition dawned as he put
a name to the handsome, broad face, topped with its unruly quiff of blond hair. Fields knew what was coming next.

  “Tommy Fields, ennit? Yeah, course it is. I hope you can run a sight better than that down the wing on Saturday next. I’ve got a wager on the Hammers.”

  Fields allowed a thin, polite smile to cross his lips, as he slumped in the hard wooden seat. He still wasn’t used to being recognized, and didn’t know how to cope. It hadn’t been long since he had been just another worker in a Lancashire boiler-making factory. Professional footballer and recognition were both virgin territory to him. Football – the people’s game. Sometimes he wished he was back at the factory, despite the better money he earned as a footballer. Except the factory had closed down now, and lots of his mates were out of work. And here was the bus conductor, moaning about a little bet on the result of a football match.

  “You think you’ve got problems, mate,” he muttered.

  The Grapes

  Harry was surreptitiously reading the letter again, when a man slid on to the worn red plush of the bench next to him. Harry took in the well-built torso, and the broad features.

  “Tommy Fields, as I live and breathe! Glad you got my message. Let me buy you a pint.”

  Harry should have been happy to see his old friend again. But he knew what he was about to ask of him. He didn’t like to use people’s weaknesses, even for the best of causes. And this was far from a good cause in Rothstein’s mind. But he knew he was committed. He rose from his seat to get the drink. Fields pushed his kit-bag under the seat, and laid a hand on Rothstein’s arm.

  “Just tell me what you want, Harry. I’m in a hurry.”

  Rothstein looked hesitant to him, as if what he was about to say was too much to ask a friend he had not seen in over a year. His hesitation made Fields suddenly concerned, and not a little sickened. Harry Rothstein did not like making himself beholden to anyone. Nor did he like using people. But it looked like he was going to. Hadn’t he got enough problems?

  Harry looked closer into Fields’ own eyes. Saw the doubt.