Bright Young Dead

by Jessica Fellowes

  ‘What’s the connection with Adrian Curtis?’

  Louisa swallowed hard. This was the even bigger admission. ‘Before the party, Dulcie asked me to find an empty bedroom for the two of them to meet privately that night. I had to help trick him into meeting her there.’

  ‘What?’ Guy sounded incredulous.

  ‘She told me she needed to talk to him and he was refusing. She worked for his mother and sister but he lived in Oxford, so it was hard for her to get to him. They’d had a … you know.’

  ‘I can guess.’

  Louisa was grateful that they were talking on the telephone and Guy couldn’t see how deeply the shame coloured her. ‘That was when he caught her stealing, and hit her. That’s why the police think she’s guilty – because they’d already had a row.’

  ‘Go on.’ Guy’s tone was less friendly each time he spoke.

  ‘What if Dulcie had arranged to meet a fence that worked for the Forty to hand over the stolen jewels later that night? She hinted to me that if a theft ever got reported, it was the maids that always got suspected first.’

  ‘With good reason, it would seem,’ interjected Guy.

  ‘Yes, all right. The point is, if she knew she was going to steal she also would have had to make sure that she didn’t have the jewels on her when they were reported missing. Meeting a fence would have solved that.’

  ‘I know the Forty have been working as maids in big country houses,’ said Guy. ‘An easy way for them to get their hands on valuable items.’

  ‘Then the other day, I remembered that Dulcie was wearing a watch that night, when she’d not had one on before. I noticed at the time that it was too big for her, as if it was borrowed. I think she must have needed it because she had arranged to meet someone at a particular time.’

  ‘She was supposed to collect Miss Charlotte, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, but she could have relied on a clock in the house for that. I think she was going to hand over the jewels to someone from the Forty or one of their go-betweens.’

  ‘But I’m still not making the connection with Adrian Curtis’s death.’

  ‘I don’t know exactly, but I think Dulcie arranged to meet the fence at the bell tower. Where Adrian Curtis was pushed off.’

  ‘Why would they have asked Mr Curtis to be there?’

  ‘Perhaps Dulcie didn’t but the fence did. I think that Dulcie had arranged to meet a man but the murder happened first. I didn’t know she was going to steal from one of the guests, I swear. I thought she needed to talk privately to Adrian Curtis, no more than that. She told me she was trying to get out to go straight, she liked her work as a maid. But her sister has married outside and when Dulcie wanted out too the Forty got jumpy, threatening her unless she proved she’d be loyal. Now she’s been accused of the murder and she can’t tell the police it was the Forty because they’ll kill her and her sister. And it’s just lately I’ve realised that she meant for me to tell you. Well, the police. I think that’s why she took me to the pub.’

  ‘I think I see that. She is setting up the Forty and using you to do it,’ said Guy, slowly, trying to piece it all together in her mind. ‘I still don’t understand why Mr Curtis got caught up in it though.’

  ‘I don’t want to think this,’ said Louisa slowly, carefully. ‘But she’d had a row with him. I think maybe she did mean for him to be hurt. I still can’t believe she’d have planned to murder him but it’s not impossible.’

  ‘Either way, Dulcie Long is an accessory,’ said Guy, ‘even if she didn’t actually push him off the bell tower but the fence did.’

  Louisa’s voice sounded very small at the other end of the telephone. ‘Yes, I suppose she is.’

  ‘And you knew she was a thief, and you showed her to an empty room in the house,’ said Guy. ‘Which means you are involved, too.’

  There was no sound from the other end, just shallow breathing.

  Guy forced himself not to care; he had to get everything that was needed now.

  ‘What about the man? Did anyone see him, or could Dulcie have made him up?’

  ‘No one saw him.’ Louisa’s voice was faint.

  ‘There’s no alibi for Dulcie Long and you’re telling me she was involved with the Forty – and you knew that.’ He stopped – he thought he might stop breathing. ‘You let her into the house. You betrayed everybody, Louisa. How could you do it?’

  But he was talking into an empty line. Louisa had hung up.

  * * *

  Guy’s palms were sweating, his heart racing. He had to think carefully about what to do next. This wasn’t his case, so he couldn’t be seen interfering. Yet, he had been ordered by Cornish to find a fence who worked for the Forty, and if Dulcie’s connection could be proved, then Dulcie Long would be as good as convicted and hanged. And he wanted to be the police officer who got that conviction.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Pamela’s dress was ready for collection from Mrs Brewster and she was determined to get it in time for Christmas and the hunt ball – even if Nancy did declare them the dullest of all parties, ‘stuffed nose to tail with men who want to marry their mothers, obligingly surrounded by girls who look just like them’. If Nancy could have had her way, she’d have yo-yoed to London each week, so Pamela knew it would be the work of a moment for the two of them to gang up on their mother and persuade her to let them return once more before they were trapped at Asthall by the festivities. Louisa, naturally, was to accompany them.

  ‘Isn’t it rather too much to ask of Iris to put you up again?’ Lady Redesdale queried, though Louisa could hear that Nancy had already found the chink in her armour and knew she was weakening.

  ‘No, Muv,’ said Pamela, interjecting supportively. ‘She says it’s awfully helpful to have us there because we run errands for her and things.’

  ‘If you’re quite sure,’ said Muv, ‘then, fine. But not for too long. You can take the morning train tomorrow and be back in time for tea the following day. I have a meeting for the local Conservatives and I’d like you both there.’

  Delight at going to London overlaid the usual groans made at this request and Pamela kissed her mother in gratitude, who waved her off. ‘Go on, then. Don’t forget to ask your father if there’s anything he needs picking up from the Army and Navy.’

  On the train down, the three of them had a carriage to themselves in first class. The conversation turned, as it frequently did, to the murder of Adrian Curtis and what had happened on that night.

  ‘I still don’t understand why Adrian went to the bell tower,’ said Nancy.

  ‘Dulcie must have asked to meet him there,’ said Pamela, ‘when they were talking in Aunt Iris’s bedroom.’

  ‘Yes, but they weren’t talking, they were arguing. Why would he agree to meet her there when they had just had a row? It doesn’t make sense.’ Nancy’s brow was furrowed appealingly; it made her look rather young again. Nancy turned to Louisa. ‘Don’t you know more, Lou? You met Dulcie when we came to the party in London, didn’t you? Did she say anything to you then?’

  Louisa hoped her shirt was buttoned high enough not to reveal the inevitable red blotches that would be forming on her neck. She knew she wasn’t guilty – she hadn’t known anything of a murder, and she was still certain of Dulcie’s innocence, at least of the act itself. But she’d done wrong, she knew that, too. ‘No, of course not,’ she said.

  Pamela stared out of the window, watching the flat fields and hedgerows speed past. Soon they would turn to neatly laid out allotments and rows of suburban houses, before the last tunnel had the train emerge tightly between narrow terraces like blackened piano keys and their arrival at Paddington Station.

  ‘The treasure hunt was his idea,’ Pamela murmured. ‘What if Adrian orchestrated his own death?’

  ‘Oh, you really are perfectly absurd. I think it was Ted who said it first anyway,’ expostulated Nancy. She snatched up a magazine and turned the pages without looking at them.

  But Louis
a thought the sisters might be on to something. If Lord De Clifford had suggested the treasure hunt and Dulcie did meet a fence from the Forty that night, then he would be the obvious link because the gang showed up at his fiancée’s nightclub. And there had been that mysterious conversation she’d overheard between Lord De Clifford and Clara, the beans that she’d promised not to spill. Not to mention the knife in Clara’s bag. Phoebe, who used to work for the 43, could be caught up in it too somehow – she’d admitted to faking her ankle sprain. It was too much to pull together but there had to be a thread between them. Whether this was a plot with Dulcie or against her, Louisa couldn’t guess at.

  * * *

  Once their cases had been dispatched to their rooms and they had said a friendly hello to Iris, the three of them went on their way to Mrs Brewster. Nancy had invited herself along too, to check that Pamela hadn’t made a ghastly mistake, as she so charmingly put it. When they knocked on the door, Mrs Brewster took a few minutes to open it and when she greeted them, she looked thinner than before, if not simply more tired. The deep grooves on her face almost threw shadows and her olive skin had taken on a grey pallor. Nonetheless, she clapped her hands and led them through to her workroom with its tottering piles of materials undiminished. Nancy began to exclaim over dresses that were hanging up, fingering their soft velvets and smooth silks. Mrs Brewster brought out Pamela’s dress and the girl gasped happily at the way the honey-coloured material hung heavily, the pink sash a touch of genius.

  ‘You must try it, signorina,’ said Mrs Brewster. ‘If I need adjust anything, I do it today. Needle and thread, I have plenty here.’ She laughed again but it sounded hollow.

  Louisa, standing in the doorway, edged out of the room and looked down the hall, wondering if the little boy was there. This time she had brought a few clothes for him, old cast-offs from the nursery that she knew wouldn’t be missed. Something about his blue eyes hadn’t left her since she’d seen him. She stole down the hallway, knowing she wouldn’t be missed in that moment. Outside the door he had peeked out of the previous time, she hesitated for a moment, then knocked gently and pushed it open. Inside was a tiny kitchen, with a window that looked out onto the backs of surrounding flats, the wintry light flooding onto the boy, seated at a table, his hand clutching a crayon, eyes as big as moons. He started at her appearance.

  ‘Hello,’ said Louisa, ‘Don’t worry, I’m a friend.’ She crouched down so her gaze was level with his. He watched her every move and his fingers tightened on the crayon but he was mute. ‘I’m Louisa, but you can call me Lou. What’s your name?’

  The boy’s bottom lip started to tremble but he said nothing. Suddenly the door was pushed open wider and Mrs Brewster came in.

  ‘What is this?’ she asked. ‘Did he make a noise? I tol’ you, bambino, you must stay quiet.’

  Louisa straightened up. ‘He didn’t do anything, Mrs Brewster. I wanted to come and say hello. I brought some clothes for him, things we don’t need any more.’ She held out the small package, wrapped in brown paper. The old woman took it and put it on the table.

  ‘Grazie,’ she said. ‘Clothes are kind but food is what we need.’

  Louisa felt admonished, as if she had failed in her responsibility to the boy. ‘But, why?’ she asked. ‘Haven’t you got enough work?’

  ‘Oh, work! Yes, I have plenty. But too much. And still not enough – the rent is up, up, up, all the time. Mr Brewster, he leave me with nothing, niente. Only his gambling debts. And the mother of this bambino, she in prison, she send me no money.’

  A thought came into Louisa’s mind and she immediately dismissed it as ridiculous.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

  Mrs Brewster looked at the boy sadly. ‘I like him, poor child, he knows not why he came into this world. But I cannot feed him, he will have to go to the workhouse. It’s him or me.’

  ‘What about his father?’

  ‘Oh, I dunno about him. Dead or gone away, who knows.’ She shrugged.

  ‘You can’t send him to the workhouse.’ Alarmed, Louisa whispered this, though the boy could hardly have understood what it meant. She knew well enough. The workhouse was the great fear, the bogeyman of Louisa’s childhood; if you lost your job, if you became sick, you went to the workhouse. It was the place where poor people went to die.

  The thought of a moment ago pushed itself back. That Dulcie had deliberately sent Louisa to Mrs Brewster and it wasn’t to do a favour for Miss Charlotte.

  ‘Is his mother Dulcie Long?’ she suddenly asked, the words out before she could stop herself. Mrs Brewster’s eyebrows shot up into her hairline.

  ‘Si,’ she said, ‘but how could you know?’

  So this was the real reason Dulcie had sent Louisa to Mrs Brewster’s. The funny thing was, it wasn’t that the boy looked like his mother that had planted the seed of curiosity in Louisa’s mind. It was that he looked like the late Adrian Curtis.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Louisa put two more lumps of sugar in her already very sweet tea. She was sitting alone in the kitchen of Iris Mitford’s flat, while Nancy and Pamela had luncheon with their aunt. The cook was in the room but they hadn’t spoken much; she was a taciturn Scot, more concerned with the crackling on her pork than a fretful fellow servant. As Louisa stirred, her mind went round in similar circles. There was no proof, of course, that this boy was the son of Dulcie Long and Adrian Curtis. It was no more than a hunch, a connection between one pair of blue eyes and another. Did Charlotte Curtis know? If Louisa was right about this then surely she must have done – Dulcie would have to have been in the Curtis household when she got pregnant, been sent away to have the baby and then returned to their employment. And now that Louisa set it out like that in her mind, it sounded outlandish. Would Lady Curtis re-employ a maid who had been made pregnant by her son?

  Perhaps, if that maid needed to be kept quiet.

  And did this information mean they now had a motive for Dulcie to kill Adrian? If the Forty had discovered that she had had an affair with him, outside their closed ranks, she might have been afraid for her life. If Adrian was threatening to let people know he was the father of the child, that would be a strong reason. But would Adrian have told anybody? So far as Louisa had ever heard about this sort of thing happening, the baby would be put up for adoption and everything would be hushed up. Which could be why Dulcie had been secretive about her son. She may have told Lady Curtis that he had been adopted and not confessed to still seeing him, even paying for him to be looked after. Had Dulcie been asking Adrian for money for their boy, and was that the cause of their row?

  What she needed to do was talk to somebody who could give answers. But who? She would talk to Dulcie if only she could be certain that Dulcie would tell no more lies. She felt she’d made a great mistake in thinking that because she and Dulcie came from similar backgrounds they were the same or somehow complicit. They were not.

  Yet, whatever Dulcie was doing, she was not protecting herself. She was walking towards her trial knowing she was going to be found guilty of the murder and unable to say anything about it. Guy might be looking into the Forty connection but it was going to be nigh on impossible for him to find anything and harder still to prove they had anything to do with the murder. They needed something more concrete and this was possibly their only hope. If Louisa could help Dulcie prove that Adrian was the father of her child, if she even let the court know she had a child, perhaps it would save her from hanging.

  When luncheon was over, Louisa was summoned by the bell to the drawing room. Even a flat such as this, neither large nor small, had clearly demarcated areas that served much as the grander state rooms of a palace. Pamela stood as Louisa came in and a voice spoke harshly: ‘Don’t stand up when a servant comes into the room!’

  Both Pamela and Louisa stopped still as though playing a game of musical statues until the man who had spoken disappeared behind a rustle of the newspaper. Nancy and Iris were drinking coffee, mild
ly embarrassed at this outburst. Pamela nudged Louisa to turn around and go out into the hall. ‘Sorry,’ she mouthed. Louisa shook her head to say it didn’t matter. Nor did it really; it was only another one of those tiny knocks to her confidence that she was quite used to. Only she did wonder sometimes if the hammer might chip her at such an angle one day that she completely crumbled.

  ‘Let’s go out for a walk,’ said Pamela. ‘I don’t much like my aunt’s visitor and I could do with getting away.’ They gathered their coats and hats and went out, shutting the door gently behind them.

  Outside it was still light, a watery kind of day, cold but brisk, with women in full-length fur coats and men with mufflers wrapped around their necks. Almost automatically they headed for Peter Jones in Sloane Square, with its pretty Christmas trees in the windows. Both Louisa and Pamela liked the café on the top floor, where you could look out across the tops of the red brick houses of Chelsea.

  ‘What was going on this morning, then?’ said Pamela, when they were sitting down with a pot of tea between them, the milk in a blue and white jug.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Though she knew perfectly well.

  ‘There was some sort of commotion going on between you and Mrs Brewster when I was trying on the dress.’

  Louisa paused, then decided that she needed to talk to somebody and Pamela was a good bet. Pam wasn’t like the rest of her sisters and all the more attractive for it. Nanny Blor called her a rock and she was – the ballast of the family. Where Nancy and Diana could be flighty and moody, Pamela was steady and kind. And she had proved herself to be someone reliable and calm in a crisis in the last few weeks. Though she was nervous about anything on her own behalf, when it came to others a formidable coping streak came to the fore. Louisa admired her.

  ‘She’s looking after a small boy of about three. I saw him last time and there was something about him that meant I couldn’t quite forget him, so when we returned today, I took some of Tom’s old baby clothes for him.’