Falling Star

by Patricia Moyes

  “And the rest of the afternoon?” Henry inquired.

  “I ’ave lunch sent to my suite. I stay with Giulio and my poor Peppi.”

  “You didn’t leave the hotel at all?”

  “Never once. Never till eight o’clock in the evening, when Giulio and I go for dinner to Dick Travers, my agent, at his home. He is very funny man,” she added enigmatically.

  “Did anyone,” Henry asked, “visit you during the afternoon?”

  Fiametta shook her head positively. “Nobody.”

  “Mr. Pardoe,” said Henry, “told us he was in the Belgrave Towers during the afternoon.”

  Fiametta looked surprised. In most people the surprise would have passed as unmistakeably genuine; but I remembered that Fiametta was an accomplished actress in her own rather limited way. It was certainly within her powers to register surprise convincingly.

  “’E was? Then why he not come to see me?”

  “I don’t know,” said Henry. “By the way, might I see the famous lipstick case?”

  For a moment Fiametta looked really put out. Then she said, “No. Again I ’ave lose it.”

  “Again? That is unfortunate. How did it happen?”

  Fiametta had evidently decided to carry the thing off with a flourish. “ ’Ow should I know?” she demanded. “My maid is careless. All the maids in the ’otel are thieves, everyone know that. This time, it is gone, and I look for it no more. The past is the past, and what are a few small rubies? I ’ave ’undreds of rubies—and diamonds—and sables—and mink… You poor little man, you think I care over a little thing like a lipstick? Let the maid ’ave it! I don’t will be bothered. My poor little policeman. If you find it, you shall ’ave it—as a gift from Fiametta Fettini…”

  Whereupon she bestowed a resounding kiss on the top of Henry’s head and swept out of the room, gurgling with laughter. Henry rubbed his head reflectively and said, “How very interesting.”

  “Pay no attention to her,” I said. “She’s preposterous.”

  “She’s frightened,” said Henry.

  “Frightened?” I could not help laughing at that. “La Fettini isn’t frightened of anything or anybody in the world.”

  “Oh, well,” said Henry, meekly, “I may be mistaken. Ah, there you are, Mr. Potman.”

  “Now,” said Sam, “let’s get this over. We’re busy people, you know.”

  “I know you are,” said Henry, apologetically. “It won’t take long.”

  “I gather from the oothers,” said Sam, North Country accent well in evidence, “that you want to know wot we did all that day. Well, I can tell you, and fast. I broke the unit at twenty to twelve and came back here. I had a bite of lunch in my office with the costume designer. I had some things to talk over with him. Two to three, or thereabouts, I went for a bit of a walk, to do some thinking. Pudge will tell you it’s a thing I’m partial to doing.”

  I nodded. “A very annoying habit,” I said to Henry, but not, I hope, with any malice. “He just disappears. I remember the day Bob Meakin was killed; nobody could find him for hours. Just walking around the streets.”

  “I like London,” said Sam shortly. “Anyhow, I was back here before half-past three, and I got through a bit of office work with my secretary till four, when we had the rushes. Pudge was there, and Fred Harborough and Diana; nobody else that I remember. Then I came back to my office and did a bit more work. It must have been a bit after six when Pudge came in and told me about Margery. Then I went home and spent the evening planning the next day’s work.”

  “You had dinner at home?”

  “I never go out in the evening when I’ve got a picture on the floor,” said Sam.

  “You’re not married, are you, Mr. Potman?” said Henry. “Do you have a housekeeper, or…?”

  “No, I don’t. I have a char who comes each morning. I like to do my own cooking of an evening. It helps me to think.”

  “By the way, Mr. Potman,” said Henry, “did you ask your secretary to look out Miss Phipps’s letter of resignation for you?”

  Sam looked surprised. “Certainly not,” he said, “why ever should I do that?”

  “It’s just that we can’t lay hands on it at the moment,” said Henry, “and Sylvia suggested that you might have…”

  Sam shook his head. “Sorry, Inspector,” he said, “can’t help you. Never set eyes on it. It was addressed to Pudge, you know.”

  “I know,” said Henry.

  That seemed to be all that Sam could contribute, and he kept on looking at his watch in a marked manner until Henry told him he could go. As the door closed behind Sam, I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “I’m glad that’s over,” I said.

  “I’m afraid it’s far from over,” said Henry. “Still, I won’t be bothering you people again for the time being, I hope. I’ve got other people to see, and—well, I’ll be in touch. Thanks for the use of your office.”

  With that he left, saying “good-bye” most politely to Sylvia as he went.

  I sat on at my desk unable to concentrate on the work which I knew I should be doing. We might have a short respite, but I knew Henry Tibbett well enough to be sure that once he had started something, he would go on with it to the bitter end. Heaven knew where the bitter end of this affair might lead him to. In an effort to distract my thoughts, I picked up the paper which Henry had left on the desk. It was open at the section headed “What’s On in Town,” and I noticed that Henry’s doodling had taken the form of making inked rings around the announcement of the program at the New Forum Cinema. Idly, I read the advertisement. “New Forum, Chelsea. Marx Bros. Duck Soup. 2.15, 4.00, 6.15, 8.00.” There did not seem to be anything very remarkable in it. It merely confirmed what Biddy had said. It was at that moment that my telephone rang.

  “Mr. Croombe-Peters,” said Sylvia’s voice, “I’ve got Mrs. Meakin on the line. Will you speak to her? She says it’s very urgent.”

  I can’t pretend that I was pleased. However, I could not imagine that Sonia Meakin could have anything vitally important to say, and speaking to her would at least give me the excuse I wanted for shelving my work for a few minutes longer.

  “Very well,” I said, “put her through.”

  A moment later Sonia Meakin’s voice floated down the line. “Oh, Mr. Croombe-Peters. How kind of you to speak to me. I’m so sorry to disturb you—listen, I must see you. At once. I simply must.”

  This was more than I had bargained for. “I don’t think I can manage,” I began.

  “You must. Oh, you must. I’m telephoning from the Olde Tudor coffee bar, you remember. Please be here in ten minutes.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Meakin. It’s out of the question.” I could not imagine what the woman wanted, but I was certainly not prepared to go trekking around to Covent Garden to find out.

  “All right then. I’ll come to you. I’ll be outside your office in five minutes. Please.”

  “No.”

  “Mr. Croombe-Peters,” she said softly, “Inspector Tibbett has been to see me.”

  “Has he really? I don’t think that is any concern of mine.”

  “I didn’t realize that the police were—that they…”

  “You must forgive me, Mrs. Meakin. I’m very busy and…”

  “Very well.” Her voice had suddenly changed, grown hard. “Very well, Mr. Croombe-Peters. The next time I see Inspector Tibbett, I shall tell him the exact circumstances of my husband’s death.”

  “You’ll what?” For a moment, I was too taken aback to think. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Don’t you?” she answered, quietly. “Will you be outside your office in five minutes’ time?”

  There was nothing I could do. “Yes,” I said, and rang off.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SONIA MEAKIN WAS waiting for me when I came out into the narrow Soho street five minutes later. She was on the opposite pavement, with her back to the door of our offices, and she was making a pretense of studying the menu of
a scruffy-looking Italian restaurant. I crossed the street and came up behind her.

  “Well, Mrs. Meakin,” I said, “what do you want with me? I can’t spare more than a few minutes.”

  She turned around and gave me the benefit of a long look from her limpid blue eyes. It was difficult to believe that anybody could look so innocent and appealing, while indulging in a particularly nasty form of blackmail.

  “Oh, Mr. Croombe-Peters,” she said, in a melting voice, “how good of you to see me.”

  “It’s not good of me at all,” I replied crossly. “I have come here simply because I intend to get to the bottom of the extraordinary remark which you made to me on the telephone.”

  She looked down demurely. “Well,” she said, “we can’t talk here in the street, can we? Shall we have a cup of coffee somewhere?”

  “Very well.” I looked at my watch. “But it’ll have to be quick. There’s an espresso bar around the corner in…”

  “I was going to suggest the Casablanca in the King’s Road.”

  “In Chelsea? Are you out of your mind? We can’t possibly go all that way just to…”

  She smiled, like a Madonna. “Oh, but we’re going to Chelsea in any case, Mr. Croombe-Peters,” she said, and before I could say a word she had hailed a cab and climbed into it. There was nothing I could do but follow her.

  I made one or two attempts to say something during the taxi ride, but Sonia Meakin merely sat gazing serenely out of the window, presenting me with a graceful quarter profile. I do not mind admitting that I was growing more and more depressed and agitated. I had no idea of what she knew, or thought she knew, but it was evidently something that could be unpleasant, if not dangerous, to us all. It was also apparent that she was one of the coolest and most ruthless people I had ever had the misfortune to come across. It made me furious to think that I had been taken in by her outward artlessness not once but twice before; first at the inquest, and again—when I should have known better—on the day when she turned up at the Underground station. I reflected grimly that I would not be caught in the same way again, but the thought brought me little comfort. Manifestly, it was now too late.

  We found a secluded corner in the near empty restaurant and ordered coffee. When it had arrived, I said, “Well?”

  Sonia Meakin hesitated. She had had plenty of time to think up exactly what to say to me, so I judged this apparent indecision to be part of a prearranged plan designed to influence me in some way. At last she said, “Mr. Croombe-Peters, I’m going to be frank with you.”

  “Good,” I said as unpleasantly as I could.

  “You see,” she went on, in that gentle, cooing voice, “I have a favor to ask of you.”

  “Oh, have you? Well, the answer is ‘no.’ ”

  She did not appear to have heard. She went on, “I happened to be passing Chelsea Mansions today and I saw you going in with Chief Inspector Tibbett. You went to Margery Phipps’s flat.”

  “How do you know,” I asked, “what flat we went to? And how do you know who my companion was? I suppose you’ve had dealings with the police before, have you?”

  She wrinkled her pretty nose and smiled, like a doll. “Oh, Mr. Croombe-Peters, how could you think that? No, I’ll be perfectly honest. I’m afraid I was rather naughty.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me.”

  “I followed you in, and I heard the Inspector talking to the porter. The porter called him by his name, that’s how I know it. I also heard you asking for the key to seven-one-six, Margery Phipps’s flat.”

  “You seem extraordinarily well informed,” I said coldly. “May one ask whether you knew Miss Phipps personally when she was alive?”

  “I had met her, yes.”

  “Had you been to her flat?”

  “Yes, once.”

  “Why?”

  Mrs. Meakin looked at me with that devastating candor. “To have tea,” she said.

  “When was this?”

  “Oh, I don’t remember. Shortly before she died.”

  “Just a friendly call?”

  “Of course.”

  “You didn’t tell me this last time we met.”

  “There was no reason why I should.”

  There was a silence.

  Then I said again, “Well? Get on with it.”

  “It so happens,” said Sonia Meakin delicately, “that Margery had something of mine, something which I—I prize, and I would like it back. Of course, the porter wouldn’t give me the key, but he’d surely recognize you as having come in with the Chief Inspector this afternoon. He’d give you the key.” She looked at me hopefully across the coffee cups.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “it’s out of the question. I am interested to hear that Margery Phipps was blackmailing you, but I can only say that it was no more than you deserved.”

  “Blackmail? What a horrible word.”

  “Yes, isn’t it? I should keep well clear of it, if I were you. In any case, you’ve surely nothing to fear now that Margery is dead.”

  “This—thing—I want to get back is nothing valuable, just sentimental. I’m sure nobody would mind if I went in and took it.”

  “How do you know that the police haven’t already confiscated it?”

  “Oh, I don’t think—they wouldn’t know—I mean, I told you, it’s just a question of sentimental value…”

  “And I told you some time ago that the answer would be ‘no’; it still is. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be off. I have an engagement.”

  “You won’t help me?” Her voice quivered and a suspicion of tears appeared in the huge blue eyes.

  “No, to put it in a nutshell, I won’t.”

  She sighed. “Then there’s only one thing for me to do. I shall have to ask Inspector Tibbett to let me in.”

  “Yes,” I said, “why don’t you?”

  “Of course, he couldn’t be expected to do it for nothing. And there’s really nothing I can offer him, except perhaps some little pieces of information that he might find useful.”

  “I am getting very bored with this, Mrs. Meakin,” I said. “For God’s sake, stop being coy. You made a definite and threatening remark to me on the telephone. You said that if I wouldn’t see you, you would tell the police how your husband really died. Now, you’ll have to put up a better bluff than that, you know. I was just one of about thirty people who saw the whole thing happening. Nobody was near him. Nobody touched him. He slipped and…”

  “Yes.” She gave me another of those looks. It was like drowning in cold, clear blue water. “Poor Bob. He slipped.”

  “There was no negligence of any sort on the part of the unit. That was proved by the coroner’s court. If you have anything to add, I shall be most interested to hear it.”

  “Mr. Croombe-Peters, you made a lot of money out of Bob’s death, didn’t you?”

  “I certainly did not. Whatever do you…?”

  “I’m sorry. I put it badly. I didn’t mean you, personally. I meant your film company. Bob told me a few days before he died that he thought the whole concern was going bankrupt, but then he had that sad accident, and the insurance company paid up, didn’t they?”

  “I’m afraid,” I said icily, “that Bob was misinformed. The company has always been in a perfectly healthy financial state. After all, it is backed by my father. Certainly, the insurance claim was met, as was right and proper. We have had to reshoot practically half the film, and that was precisely the contingency against which we insured ourselves. You are talking utter nonsense.”

  “Please, Mr. Croombe-Peters.” She smiled at me and put a gentle hand on my arm. “Don’t let’s quarrel. After all, we’re both in this together.”

  “What on earth do you mean?”

  “I made a lot of money out of Bob’s death, too.”

  “You inherited his estate,” I said, “but when Bob was alive he was earning big money. I don’t imagine you lacked for anything. You must be even more callous than I thought if you prefer a few thou
sand pounds to a live husband.”

  “You don’t understand. Bob was certainly earning a lot, but, well, you know what actors are like. He’d got behind with his income tax years ago, and latterly it was just a question of earning enough to keep the vultures happy from day to day. Then, he was fearfully extravagant. Heaven knows how he got through the money as he did, but I suppose spending just comes easily to some people. It was terrible, Mr. Croombe-Peters. We were always broke, and always trying to keep up appearances. Worse than that, I couldn’t see how I was going to keep on paying the children’s school fees…”

  “Children? I didn’t know…”

  “I have two boys. They’re both at prep school, the younger one started last term. Oh, I’m not surprised you hadn’t heard of them. I was determined at all costs to keep them out of this sordid business.”

  “Really? You showed very few signs of wanting to keep out of this sordid business yourself at the time of the inquest.”

  “You mean those terrible newspaper articles? Oh, of course I’d never have done it, if I’d known…”

  “Known what?”

  “That Northburn Films had taken out that marvelous insurance policy on Bob’s life. It seemed to me that the only way I could provide for the future was to sell my story to the press. It was horrible.” She gave a little reminiscent shudder. “But I couldn’t have faced telling the boys they’d have to leave school. Harry’s in the first eleven this term and Tom’s—oh, but I mustn’t bore you.”

  Believe it or not, I very nearly fell for it again. She sounded so natural and plausible, and I suppose it is always a temptation to think the best of an attractive woman. I had to keep a tight hold on myself as I said, “Please get to the point.”

  She sighed. “It’s so difficult, isn’t it,” she said, “to know exactly what is ethical and what isn’t. After all, the insurance companies can well afford it.”