Murder a la Mode

by Patricia Moyes

  Once again, Veronica extended her foot and prodded in an exploratory manner. This time the cheetah, becoming bored and doubtless feeling the effects of the hot lights, merely went to sleep.

  “It’s gone to sleep,” said Veronica helpfully.

  “Never mind,” said Michael. “Leave it alone for the moment. At least it’s quiet, and I’ve got to reload. Ernie! Reload! There should be some beauties there.” He turned again to Henry. “For the next reel,” he said, “I must have it standing up. Can it rear on its hind legs?”

  Henry was spared the embarrassment of answering this question by the sudden and breathless arrival of a small, red-faced man in corduroys and a dirty green sweater. He carried an ancient canvas rucksack.

  “My goodness,” he exclaimed, “I’ve been looking everywhere! Did you know there was a policeman downstairs? How’s my Beauty, then?” He fell on his knees beside the cheetah, which snored loudly. “I hope she’s been a good girl. She’s been a little fractious lately…constipated and off her food, you know.” He produced an unattractive-looking bone from his rucksack. “Eat up then, Beauty. Who wants a bone, then?” The cheetah’s nose twitched. Then the animal stretched languorously, sat up, and began to gnaw the bone noisily. “There!” said the little man proudly. “Yes, a policeman, if you’ll believe it. Apparently they let Beauty in at the back entrance with no trouble, but when I came in by the front door, they stopped me. I couldn’t make the bobby understand the simple fact that I was looking for my cheetah which was having its photograph taken…”

  Henry, picturing the sergeant, could not suppress a grin. He was interested, however, in the mention of the back door, and made a mental note to investigate it.

  “She’s been as good as gold,” said Veronica. “Haven’t you, poppet?” She bent down and tickled the cheetah’s ears.

  “I’m so relieved,” said Beauty’s owner. “Oh, I wouldn’t do that, Miss. She doesn’t usually bite, mind you, but sometimes people make her nervous.”

  “Not me,” said Veronica serenely. “We’re friends.” She bent to stroke the cheetah again, and winked surreptitiously at Henry. Ernie came back with the recharged camera.

  “Right,” said Michael. “Let’s get on. Veronica, darling, move over to the right a bit.”

  “You’ll probably have to carry me,” said Veronica cheerfully. She began to hobble inch by inch across the studio, and Henry saw, with a pang of disillusionment, that the smooth, skin-tight lines of the black dress had been achieved by pinning it in at the back with huge paper clips, so tightly as to make movement virtually impossible.

  “That’ll do,” said Michael. “Now, I want the cheetah up on its hind legs, like a heraldic beast, looking out left.”

  “Here, I say,” protested the green-sweatered man, “that’s asking a bit much.”

  “I always ask a bit much,” Michael said charmingly, “and I usually get it.”

  “Well, I suppose I can try,” said green-sweater dubiously. “Perhaps if I stood on a ladder and held the bone up in the air…”

  “I don’t give a damn what you do so long as you’re not in the picture.” Michael swept a hand through his hair. “And I want the train of the dress sweeping out of the frame on the right, as if it were being blown. Teresa, put a thread in it, and hold it up, and shake it when I tell you. Ernie, I need a reflector here, to catch her face…”

  “We’ll have to get the bone away from her first, of course,” said green-sweater without enthusiasm. “They can be touchy about that. We don’t want any unpleasantness, do we?”

  They managed it in the end. The cheetah was patiently tempted by succulent morsels from the rucksack until she surrendered the bone. Henry held the wobbling stepladder, while green-sweater, perched precariously on the top step, dangled the bone invitingly above Beauty’s head. Teresa held the train of the dress on the end of a thread, and twitched it at Michael’s bidding. Ernie stood on a chair brandishing a board covered in silver paper, so that it reflected extra light on to Veronica’s pale face. Beth hovered in the background among the electric wires and lamps, adjusting the paper clips on Veronica’s back. It was a bizarre, if not ludicrous scene, but all that the camera saw and registered was the splendid, rearing beast, the proud pale girl, the moulded dress swirling into a wind-blown train behind her, and the faintly glimmering background that might have been moonlight reflected on a restless sea. It was one of the photographs of the year.

  When it was all over, and Veronica, with Beth and Teresa, had gone to the dressing room to change, Henry went up to the tall photographer and said, “Can you spare me a moment, Mr. Healy?”

  “If it’s about the cheetah,” said Michael, “ask Miss Field. She booked it.” He wiped his brow with his handkerchief.

  “It’s not about the cheetah. I’ve never seen the creature before.”

  “Oh, I suppose you’re from Nicholas Knight about the dress. Well, that’s Miss Manners’s business. Don’t bother me.” Michael sat down on the stepladder and lit a cigarette. He looked very tired.

  “I’m not from Nicholas Knight. I’m from Scotland Yard.”

  “Good God,” said Michael, but he did not sound surprised. “About Helen, I suppose.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, we can’t possibly talk now. I’m in the middle of a sitting.”

  “We’ve got at least five minutes,” said Henry, “and this is urgent. I want to know the truth about your relationship with Miss Pankhurst.”

  Michael studied the tip of his cigarette. “Is this an official interview?” he said at last.

  “It’s official,” said Henry, “in that I’m here in an official capacity, and anything you tell me I shall use as I think fit. It’s unofficial in that there’s nobody with a notebook taking down everything you say to put into a signed statement.”

  “Well, what do you want to know?”

  “I’ve told you.”

  “Helen,” said Michael slowly, “was a rather frightening person. She gave the impression of being very strong-minded and caring for nothing and nobody. In fact, she was as vulnerable as a schoolgirl emotionally, and she felt things desperately. It was easy to hurt her without meaning to. She’d never scream and shout and throw things, like Teresa. Everything was bottled up inside her, until it exploded.

  “I expect you’ve heard stories about her and me. I can only tell you that they are exaggerated. We were good friends—nothing more. I wasn’t to know what was going on under that enameled intellectual shell.”

  “You must have known, of course,” said Henry quietly, “that she was pregnant.”

  There was no mistaking the shock effect that this remark had on Michael Healy. He dropped his cigarette and stood up with a jerk.

  “It’s not possible!” he said. “It’s a lie. She can’t have been!”

  “She was,” said Henry.

  “My God,” said Michael. He had gone very white indeed. “I can’t believe…and yet…I suppose it was possible. I never thought of that. Christ, how awful.”

  “So you see,” Henry said, “you can’t ask me to believe that things hadn’t gone very far between you.”

  Michael seemed not to have heard. He had sat down again, and was shaking his head slowly from side to side, as if still trying to assimilate what he had heard.

  “I gather she hadn’t told you,” Henry went on.

  “Me? No, of course not. I mean…no. It’s too bloody for words. Poor darling Helen.”

  “You’re not going to persist in your denial that you and she were lovers?”

  Michael produced a faint, painful grin. “There doesn’t seem to be much point in denying it, does there?” he said.

  “Good,” said Henry. “We’re getting somewhere. Now, is it true that recently you had been tiring of her, and trying to disentangle yourself from…”

  “There was nothing to get disentangled from.”

  “Please, Mr. Healy. After what you’ve just admitted…”

  Michael said, a little h
elplessly, “I suppose she must have taken it more seriously than I did.”

  “You didn’t consider it important in your life?”

  “Well…no.”

  Henry did not comment on this, but said, “Now tell me about the cyanide and the keys of the darkroom store cupboards.”

  “What about them?”

  “They were in your charge last night.”

  “They were in my pocket,” said Michael. “They still are.”

  “And you went home leaving the cupboards unlocked?”

  “Guilty, Inspector.”

  “That was a pretty careless thing to do, wasn’t it?”

  “My dear Inspector,” said Michael, with light irony, “if you had ever had to put a Paris edition to bed immediately after a solid week of Paris Collections… In any case, one hardly expects violent death to occur among one’s colleagues in a place like this.”

  Henry let this pass. “When did you last notice the bottle of cyanide?” he asked.

  “I told Ernie to reduce a print around midnight. He must have used it then.”

  “But when did you actually see it?”

  “I didn’t. Not consciously. It’s always there. I didn’t use it myself.”

  “You’ve no idea how full it was?”

  “Not the faintest.”

  Michael threw down his cigarette and stood up. “Back to work,” he said. He sounded relieved.

  Henry turned to see that Veronica had come out of the dressing room. The change in her was remarkable. The sophisticated white make-up had disappeared, and she was once again the girl next door—simple, ingenuous, and young. Her golden hair had been released from its coiled chignon, and bobbed disarmingly about her brown cheeks. She wore a pink and white striped cotton dress and flat sandals. She was followed by Beth Connolly, who carried a huge wicker basket full of fresh flowers.

  As Veronica passed Henry, she nudged him and whispered, “See you this evening.” She took her place under the lights.

  “Why did it bloody well have to rain today?” Michael complained. “This needs open air and a duckpond.”

  “I know,” said Beth. “I’ve done my best for you. You’ve no idea what it’s like getting spring flowers in January.”

  Michael looked critically from Veronica to the flowers and back. Finally, he said, “Can you get a young calf and a five-barred gate?”

  Gently but firmly, Beth said, “No, Michael dear. I can’t.”

  “Well, I must have a young animal. What about a kitten?”

  Beth sighed. “It’ll take half-an-hour by taxi from Knightsbridge.”

  “Never mind. Send off for one. Very young and fluffy, and grey if possible. Then we’ll have the flowers all over the floor, with Veronica lying on her back among them, holding up the kitten. How’s that?”

  Henry left his niece lying on a sheet of white paper on the studio floor, surrounded by blossoms like a dying Ophelia. He went back to his own office.

  As he came into the room, the telephone rang. He picked it up.

  “Inspector Tibbett? This is Godfrey Goring. How are things going?”

  “Slow but sure,” said Henry.

  “Good. Good. I was wondering if you’d care to lunch with me. I generally go to The Orangery about one. It’s just over the road. We could talk quietly there.”

  “Thank you,” said Henry. “I’d enjoy that.”

  “I’ll see you there in ten minutes,” said Goring, and rang off. At once, the phone shrilled again. This time, it was the lugubrious doctor from police headquarters. “I’ve got a bit more news for you, Tibbett,” he said, gloomily.

  “I know you have,” said Henry.

  “Definitely cyanide poisoning, definitely administered in the tea. Time of death, between four and five thirty A.M. Body aged about thirty-three, well-nourished and…”

  “Don’t prolong the agony,” said Henry. “I already know.”

  “You already know what?”

  “That she was pregnant.”

  “Pregnant?” For once, the doctor was shaken out of his sad monotone. “What in hell do you mean, pregnant?”

  Henry felt at a loss. “Well…wasn’t she?” he said, feebly.

  The doctor, probably for the first time in many months, laughed. “Not only was she not pregnant, my dear Tibbett,” he said, “but she was a virgin. Put that in your meerschaum and smoke it.” He chuckled again and rang off, leaving Henry contemplating the telephone receiver in his hand with very mixed emotions.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE ORANGERY IS, of course, one of the plushiest restaurants in London, with a world-famous cuisine and cellar, and prices virtually inaccessible to those without expense accounts. Henry felt consciously and conspicuously out of place as he stood in the vestibule, surveying the décor of dark tangerine and gold, the swathed velvet curtains caught back by gilded claws, and the shiny leaves of the small orange trees, so miraculously burdened with fruit in the middle of an English winter. Only later did he realize that each golden orange was carefully tied onto its branch by a thin wire. There was a lingering aura of expensive scent and cigar smoke, and the voices which greeted Henry’s ear spoke in the bland, rich tones of financial success.

  As usual at lunchtime, the bulk of the clientele was masculine, middle-aged, smoothly tailored, affable, and sure of itself. Here, behind the façade of eating, drinking, and telling jokes, important business deals were grimly negotiated. Actors and agents bargained over contracts and percentages, property mergers were delicately mooted, indefatigable public relations men insinuated the excellence of their wares into the cynical ears of journalists, sharp-witted advertising agents skilfully persuaded their manufacturer clients of the profitability of costly campaigns. The actual—and considerable—amount of money which The Orangery spirited, so discreetly, out of the pockets of the diners was as nothing compared to the sums which effectually changed hands there daily, between the magic hours of twelve thirty and three.

  A dark, impeccable maître d’hôtel stepped up to Henry.

  “You have reserved a table, sir?” he asked. His manner was faultless, yet Henry sensed at once the slight coldness accorded to one who was not a regular customer, whose suit had not been made in Savile Row, and whose financial status was therefore a matter for conjecture.

  “I am lunching with Mr. Goring,” said Henry.

  Immediately, subtly, the manner changed. “But of course, sir. Mr. Goring is already here. You know his usual table?”

  “No.”

  “Ah, I will show you. This way, sir…”

  Henry followed the maître d’ hôtel into the restaurant proper, which was lit by darkly shaded lanterns, and garnished with splendid displays of hothouse flowers, smoked salmon, and exotic fruit. It was impossible to imagine that daylight had ever penetrated into this temple of gastronomy.

  Godfrey Goring was sitting at a secluded corner table, reading the Times. He looked up with a smile when he saw Henry approaching.

  “My dear Tibbett, this is a great pleasure,” he said. “Come and sit down. What will you drink?”

  Henry sat down and declined an aperitif. “Quite right,” said Goring, approvingly. “Never touch them myself. But you’ll take some wine with your meal, I trust?”

  Henry said that he would be delighted to do so. There followed an earnest discussion of the menu and the wine list, on both of which Goring spoke with the authority of a connoisseur. Henry was surprised to see that, when the meal arrived, Goring—who had murmured to the waiter “Just the usual for me”—contented himself with a frugal meal of cold chicken and plain salad, accompanied by a bottle of Vichy water, while Henry regaled himself on pâté maison and canard à l’orange, together with an excellent Burgundy.

  He knew enough of the protocol of business luncheons, however, not to be surprised by the fact that Goring studiously avoided any reference to the matter in hand until the coffee arrived. Until then, the managing director of Style Publications talked fluently and amusingly on the
rival merits of French and Italian cooking, the current trends in the London and Paris theatres, the advisability of taking a southern holiday in the sun in January, and the continental influence on British motor-car design. Henry had a feeling that these preliminaries were not so much rehearsed as automatic—a ritual which inevitably preceded the real business of the day.

  At last, however, when the waiter had poured coffee and departed, Goring said, “Now, you must tell me how I can help you over this shocking business of Helen Pankhurst.”

  “What I am trying to do at the moment,” said Henry, “is to fill in the background for myself. When one is called in on a case of this sort, one is hampered by having no personal knowledge of the dead person. I am hoping, by talking to her friends and colleagues, to build up a picture of Miss Pankhurst—her character and her interests and her way of life. That must be my starting point.”

  Goring nodded. “Very sensible,” he said. “I would tackle the job in the same way myself.” It was clear that this was the highest praise he could bestow. “Helen was an employee of mine. Naturally, I can only give you a professional assessment of her.”

  “You did not know her personally…socially…?” Henry asked.

  “Any good employer,” said Goring, “makes it his business to be interested in the lives of his senior staff. But in Helen’s case, I can only say that she was a girl who was completely wrapped up in her work. As such, she is a terrible loss to the company. I don’t know how we shall replace her.”

  “Tell me about her from your point of view.”

  “Helen came to us as a secretary nearly ten years ago,” said Goring slowly. “It was Margery French who, two years later, first proposed to me that Helen should be promoted to the executive staff. She was convinced, and rightly, that the girl had exceptional qualities. I interviewed her myself then, and was immensely struck by her. She had intelligence and ability, combined with—how shall I put it?—the savoir faire and…I can only call it breeding…which is essential in my senior staff. She was made an editorial assistant, then subeditor, and eventually promoted to assistant editor. I can tell you in confidence that, had she lived, she would almost certainly have become editor. Now, it is likely that Teresa Manners will get the job when Margery retires. Don’t think that I have anything against Teresa—on the contrary, she and her family are personal friends of mine. All the same, whatever Margery may say, I don’t think she is the right person to edit a magazine. However…” He broke off. “I must apologize for talking shop.”