Mad Hatter's Holiday

by Peter Lovesey

  There must have been a dozen men in a working-party sinking stakes into the shingle near the water’s edge. Farther along, he made out a line of uprights jutting starkly against the glinting luminosity of the water. Some were twice as tall as the men and had cross-pieces fixed with diagonal struts. If this had not been Brighton—and in the season—he would have sworn that he was looking at a row of gibbets. He shivered, pulled up his overcoat collar and moved away towards the Marine Parade at a tidy step, without accounting for what he had seen.

  The Albemarle was situated in a favoured position overlooking the Chain Pier, its crenellated facade and porticoed entrance proclaiming it one of the more exclusive hotels in a fashionable terrace. The crimson velvet curtains at the dining-room windows were only half-drawn, so that passersby were treated to glimpses of waiters dancing attendance with silver coffee-pots. Moscrop paced the pavement opposite, like a sentry. Cabs were beginning to line the kerbs in anticipation of trade; this evening most would be making for the Dome. The ball in the regiment’s honour was certain to be one of the principal events of the season.

  He took out his watch and held it to the light. Half past eight, she had said, and it was already twenty minutes to nine. Perhaps it was less easy to slip away unobtrusively than she had thought.

  The hotel door opened and a figure emerged. Not Zena, unhappily. A man in full evening dress, with cape and stick. As he stepped forward to secure a cab, his face passed close to the ornamental lamp attached to one of the columns. Dr. Prothero, for sure. The spry movements would have given him away if the lamp had not. He was across the pavement and into a growler so fast that he might have been going to a patient in labour. The driver executed a neat turn in the road and made off in the direction of Black Rock and—Moscrop reflected—Lewes Crescent.

  Others followed at intervals, couples mostly, fussing over their gowns and cloaks as they negotiated the carriage-steps. Almost nine o’clock. Had she forgotten? With Prothero gone, what could be keeping her?

  On turning, he practically collided with a female figure wrapped in a shawl.

  ‘What the devil . . . ?’ She had appeared from nowhere.

  ‘Hello, Mr. Moscrop.’

  Bridget’s voice, dammit. She drew back the shawl a little and he could see that malapert little face beaming delightedly at the effect it produced on him.

  ‘Caught you by surprise, didn’t I? There’s another entrance round the corner and scarcely anyone uses it. Have you got the formula for my mistress?’

  ‘I was intending to hand it to her personally.’

  ‘Well you can’t, can you? She ain’t here. Oh, yes, I’ve to tell you that she’s sorry she can’t come down. She took to her bed straight after dinner to please Dr. Prothero—him being set on an evening out and wanting to see her asleep before he went.’

  ‘Asleep, you say. Did she take the sleeping-draught?’

  Bridget winked in a most embarrassing fashion. ‘No, she was foxing when he looked in on her. She’s taking no more of that stuff until she hears from you. But of course she can’t come down here in her night-things, and nor could you go up, being a gentleman.’

  ‘Indeed not!’

  ‘So that’s why I’ve been sent down, to act as messenger. Have you found out what it is she’s been taking?’

  He felt in his breast pocket for the piece of blue paper on which the chemist had summarised the result of his analysis. ‘Perhaps you will kindly convey this to Mrs. Prothero, then. It will set her mind at rest. The preparation is nothing more sinister than chloral hydrate. You probably know it as chloral. Thousands dose themselves with it to induce sleep. Taken to excess, it can produce a morbid condition known as chloralism, but the solution your mistress has is unlikely to have that effect.’

  ‘I told you he wasn’t poisoning her.’

  ‘There has never been any suggestion that he was. I think you should guard your tongue, young lady. Good God! What was that?’

  A crack like a pistol-shot from behind them. Someone along the street screamed in fright. A dog started barking. Faces appeared at the hotel windows.

  ‘It came from down on the beach, I’m certain,’ said Bridget.

  They went to the railing and leaned over. People ran across the road from the hotels and joined them.

  ‘Some half-drunk soldier showing off to his doxy,’ someone decided.

  ‘They don’t carry arms when they’re off duty.’

  ‘Could have filched a rifle from the shooting-gallery.’

  ‘Look!’ said Bridget. ‘There’s people down there. With flares. D’you think they’ve found a corpse?’

  Moscrop remembered the strange constructions he had seen. The activity appeared to be taking place at about the same spot. They moved with the crowd to get a closer view. They had not gone more than a few yards when there was another sensation down below. A spluttering of flame, a violent hissing sound, and the sight of a luminous projectile speeding skywards and dipping into a spectacular parabola over the sea.

  ‘A blooming sky-rocket! It’s a firework show in honour of the military.’

  It was, and the function of the gibbet-like structures was made clear. They were for the mounting of the set-pieces, the climax of all pyrotechnic displays. Splendid initiative on someone’s part! One hoped that the tableaux would include some fitting tribute to the regiment. Already the town was answering the summons of that first rocket, coming on to the streets in scores and converging on the sea-front. Young men clambered over the railing from the Marine Parade on to the roof of the Aquarium for a grandstand view. Children still flushed with the warmth of sleep were brought into the night air wrapped in blankets, their eyes registering half-excitement, half-apprehension.

  ‘I’m dotty about fireworks,’ said Bridget. ‘Sky-rockets. Oh, lovely!’

  ‘Shouldn’t you return to your mistress? She must wonder what is happening.’

  ‘You’re right. I’ll have a better view from up there. Her room and Jason’s overlook the beach. We’re on the second floor—those windows on the right. Look, there’s Guy on the balcony! Wave your umbrella.’

  ‘He wouldn’t see us, among so many,’ said Moscrop drily. ‘You won’t forget to give the formula to Mrs. Prothero, will you? Do you think if I waited here I might see her come out on to the balcony? I suppose not. She will not want to put all her clothes back on for a few skyrockets. She can probably see all she wants from the other side of the window. Then she can take her chloral in total confidence and be sleeping when her husband returns. You will remember me to her, won’t you?’

  The girl made a curious sound in her throat which began as a gurgle and ended as a gale of immodest laughter. ‘She won’t need no remembering of you, Mr. Moscrop. You ain’t the sort of man she’s likely to forget!’

  Deuced impertinence! What the girl meant by her remark he was not sure, but he was damned certain he was not going to allow a domestic to treat him with open derision. He took a breath to deliver a crushing rejoinder, but there was no one to crush. She had turned away, still laughing, and made her escape through the crowd.

  A row of Catherine Wheels made a spluttering start on the beach. He turned to look at the Albemarle again. The balcony was empty. It was impossible to see whether anyone was within. The crowd was thick around him, but for once he did not experience any pleasure in being shoulder to shoulder with a mass of people he did not know. Nor did fireworks interest him. There were better shows every Saturday at the Crystal Palace. In ten minutes, he took a last look at the hotel window and edged through the crowd, to begin the walk back along the front to his lodgings.

  On the beach, a crocodile made its appearance, the first of the set-pieces, symbolic of Egypt, its jaw opening and closing wickedly. What cheers there were as the sparks spent themselves and the enemy was exposed as a charred and smoking ruin! Marvellous to be British, and in Brighton, and secure from such monsters!

  CHAPTER

  9

  ‘IT’S A CURIOUS THING, S
arge,’ Constable Thackeray observed.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Why, that anyone should think of putting an end to one of his fellow beings at the seaside. A most peculiar thing. I’ve always thought of a holiday as a pleasurable experience. Not that I know a lot about it. The only days I’ve had by the sea have been the “M” Division excursions to Southend, and I don’t usually have much recollection of them. But it stands to reason, Sarge. Murder’s got nothing to do with donkey-rides and sand-castles and—er—‘

  ‘Punch and Judy?’ suggested Sergeant Cribb. ‘You’re talking through your hat, Thackeray. Murder’s got everything to do with the seaside. All that’s curious is that there isn’t more of it.’ The argument demolished, he returned to his Brighton and Sussex Daily Post, thoughtfully purchased at London Bridge. The two detectives were seated in a second-class carriage of the Brighton Express. Five tunnels and numerous long stretches of chalk embankment tended to keep observation of the countryside to a minimum. Cribb, fox-faced and short of small-talk, had his newspaper. Thackeray, rhino-hided and implacable, was bent on conversation.

  ‘The whole atmosphere’s against it, Sarge. Sunshine. Promenading. Concert parties.’ Seeing that Cribb was not preparing to respond, he extended the list indefinitely. ‘A plate of winkles. Trips on the Skylark. Minstrel shows. A sniff of the briny from the pier-head . . . s>. . . . !s>. . . . !s>.’

  Cribb put down his newspaper. ‘When we get to Brighton, Constable, there won’t be much time for sight-seeing, but I want you to make sure you get a look at that pier you’re talking about. There’s two of ’em where we’re going, paper-doily things, with fancy iron-work all white and smelling of fresh paint. When you’ve had your eyeful of the scrubbed decks and the dapper little buildings, take a look underneath, right under the pier. I’ll tell you what you’ll see. Girders festering with barnacles. Slime and weed and water black as pitch lurching and heaving round the under-structure fit to turn your stomach. That’s part of your pier, too. Just as slums and alleys and back-streets lie behind the nobby hotels along the sea-front. Some can close their eyes to ’em. Not you and me, Thackeray. We ain’t going to Brighton for a paddle, you know.’

  Thackeray calmly stroked the underside of his beard with the back of his hand and studied the cocoa-advertisement a foot above Cribb’s bowler hat. He was too experienced to be baited by sarcasm of that sort. Cribb, denied satisfaction, found it impossible to return to his reading.

  ‘Nothing to do with the seaside? That’s one of the best I’ve heard—even from you. If you’d only widen your reading, Constable, you’d know there’s hardly a street in Brighton without its murderous associations.’ He began counting off the fingers on his left hand. ‘The King’s Road. Charles Bravo met his wife there. Portland Street, where Christiana Edmunds took her poisoned chocolates to be sold. Queen’s Square, where Constance Kent confessed to murdering her stepbrother. Lover’s Walk, Preston, where John William Holloway wheeled the pieces of his wife on a barrow and buried ’em. He was a painter on the Chain Pier, smartening it up for the likes of you to sniff the briny from. I could go on.’

  ‘Don’t, Sarge. I shall never enjoy another “M” Division outing. What makes ’em choose the seaside, do you think?’

  ‘Obvious reasons. Place is full of strangers right through the summer. Irregular behaviour isn’t noticed. People tend to be more conversational on holiday, too. Chance of making casual acquaintances.’

  ‘You’re right, now I come to think about it. You couldn’t find a better place for a spot of murdering.’

  ‘Accidental deaths are happening all the time,’ said Cribb, warming to his theme. ‘There’s one reported in the paper here. Woman of fifty-five found drowned. Non-swimmer. Seems she took a dip on the last day of her holiday. Ashamed to take a dry costume back to London, so she went for an early morning bathe, when not many people were about. Now who’s to know whether someone didn’t hold her head under?’

  ‘Blimey, Sarge, you’ve got a suspicious mind.’

  ‘I don’t say it happened, but it could have. And if she wasn’t murdered, what about the cove that falls off the pier next week, or the one that swims out too far the week after? It’s Lombard Street to a china orange that sooner or later some evil-minded person will see it as a neat way of dispatching a victim.’

  ‘Well, you have, Sarge.’

  ‘Exactly. You’ve got to learn to think as they do, Constable. We wouldn’t be much help to the Brighton force if we couldn’t. They’re looking to you and me for something special in the way of detective-work. It’s not like them to call in the Yard unless they’re driven to it. Put the winkles out of your mind, Thackeray, and use the rest of the journey to set your thoughts in order for a piece of smart investigating.’

  Two tunnels on, Thackeray caught Cribb’s eye again, in transit from Social Intelligence to In the Magistrates’ Court. ‘Sarge, why did you make that remark about Punch and Judy? I can’t see what connection it has with murder. It’s children’s entertainment after all.’

  Cribb was silent, disinclined to relate the criminal career of Mr. Punch for the benefit of his assistant.

  ‘Part of any seaside holiday,’ Thackeray persisted.

  Cribb spoke without looking up. ‘Constable, there was one other murder I should have mentioned earlier. A year ago, on this very line, a Mr. Gold was done to death in the Brighton Express by one Lefroy, whose effigy is now in Madame Tussaud’s. If you ask me one more question I guarantee there’ll soon be a likeness of me standing beside him in the waxworks. Just think that out and let me read my newspaper.’

  Grafton Street, where they had been asked to report, proved to be a turning off the Marine Parade, as handsome a setting for a police station as either detective had encountered. Constabulary duties in such surroundings could not be anything but delightful. The cab-drive along the front, besides introducing them to the champagne quality of the sea air, afforded glimpses of a way of life seldom seen anywhere in London but Hyde Park. Society beauties paraded in open carriages, warding off the undesirable effects of the sun with lace parasols, and contriving simultaneously to be seen to advantage from both sides of the road. Others rode on horseback or walked beside young men in blazers and straw hats. In the background the waves lazily unfurled and sent dazzling white foam racing up the shingle. What a beat for some fortunate bobby to pound!

  The atmosphere inside the station was just as balmy. ‘A pot of fresh tea, if you please, Constable Murphy,’ called the duty sergeant as they entered. ‘It’s either two gentlemen what’ve come to confess to stealing a pair of boots each, size twelve, or the reinforcements from the Yard are here. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Privileged to meet you. Brown’s my name and Pink’s my Inspector’s. Singular, don’t you think? I’d better take you straight in to him. Murphy will take care of your things.’ Inspector Pink was misnamed. His face bore witness to thirty summers or more of service on the south coast, as brown and creased as one of last season’s potatoes. ‘Uncommon glad to see you, gentlemen. It’s not often that we get a case that we know straight away is quite beyond the skills of our own detectives. Extraordinary affair, this. He damned near got away with it, too. If it hadn’t been for a sharp-eyed young lad, he certainly would have.’

  ‘There was a witness to the crime, then?’ said Cribb.

  ‘No, more’s the pity. Don’t know where it happened, or when. This boy was smart enough to spot the evidence, that’s all. He reported it to the manager, who came straight to us this morning. It’s still in place. We couldn’t have moved it if we’d wanted. You’ll see why. If you’re not too tired, we’ll go along as soon as you finish your tea. It’s just a short walk from here.’

  The inspector was clearly determined not to spoil the impact of his evidence in situ by saying any more about it, so with respect for his feelings they stirred and sipped and blew on their tea to such effect that they were marching along the Marine Parade in minutes, leaving Sergeant Brown to marvel over the prodigious
capacities of the Scotland Yard palate.

  ‘I’m sure you must have heard of our aquarium,’ said the Inspector as he led them down the granite steps. ‘Designed by Birch, the fellow who built the West Pier. It’s always been a favourite place of mine. There’s something about the atmosphere. This is a deuced unfortunate thing to happen. I only hope it won’t discourage visitors.’

  ‘The reverse, I should think,’ said Cribb.

  They strode importantly through the reading-room and along the main aisle, their substantial tread diverting attention from the tanks. Halfway along, a large, uniformed constable was reinforcing a notice announcing that owing to unforeseen circumstances the Alligator and Crocodile Cavern was temporarily closed. A small man in pince-nez hovered anxiously nearby.

  ‘This is the manager, Mr. Pym,’ the Inspector explained. ‘Sergeant Cribb and his assistant are from the Criminal Investigation Department, Mr. Pym. They will be conducting this inquiry.’

  Mr. Pym advanced a nervous hand. ‘Most gratified. I hope that we shall not need to involve the newspapers. It could have such a discouraging effect on attendances.’

  ‘Have you done as I asked?’ enquired Inspector Pink.

  ‘Yes. The big one is well-drugged, and I think the others are asleep too. Shall we go inside?’

  ‘We shall need more light,’ said the inspector. ‘Where did you put the bull’s-eyes, Constable?’

  ‘Just inside the door, sir, on your left.’

  Even with lanterns lit and probing the interior, the shape and size of the cavern were disconcertingly difficult to make out. ‘Your eyes will get accustomed shortly,’ Mr. Pym assured them. ‘It’s perfectly safe to step forward. The specimens are all on the other side of the glass.’