Murder a la Mode

by Patricia Moyes

  “What are the rumours you have heard?” Henry persisted. But he could not persuade Knight to be more definite. Michael had artistic and intellectual interests, he said. He and Teresa had nothing in common—never had had. Michael moved in a different world. Michael was really more interested in the theatre and ballet these days than in fashion. Henry gave up, and—resolving to return to the matter on another occasion—asked about the events of the previous evening.

  “I’d been working late up here,” said Knight. “It must have been about midnight when I decided to go down to the pub underneath for a nightcap.”

  “By ‘the pub underneath,’ you mean The Orangery?”

  “Yes. Terrible place, isn’t it? Really sordid. But useful, if one lives here.”

  Henry glanced out of the window, and saw that he was looking across Earl Street, and directly at the Style building.

  “Did you notice the lights on over the road?” he asked.

  “I didn’t exactly notice them,” said Nicholas. “I knew they’d all be there late, because of the Collections. I’d probably have noticed if the lights hadn’t been on, if you follow me.”

  “So,” said Henry, “you went down to The Orangery, where you met Mr. Goring and Mr. Barry.”

  “That’s right. They were just finishing dinner. Both in crashingly good form, I regret to say. Horace told endless stories, so true it wasn’t unfunny. Godfrey was putting on his hearty, one-of-the-boys act, which must have been hell to do on tonic water. I can only presume he’d done some sort of a deal with Horace, and the dinner was to clinch it. I was exhausted—but exhausted. I don’t know how I stood it.”

  “Then why,” said Henry, “did you accept Mr. Goring’s invitation to go to his house afterwards?”

  Nicholas looked a little uncomfortable. “I’ve always said,” he replied, “that I refuse to kowtow to people I don’t like, just because they’re important. Nevertheless, one can’t get away from it—it wouldn’t do for me to be bad friends with Style. It simply wouldn’t. You do see that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I see it,” said Henry. “So you and Mr. Barry drove on to Brompton Square, while Mr. Goring picked up the others from the office. By the way, was Mrs. Goring there?”

  “Lorna? No, she wasn’t. She was in the country. They’ve got a place in Surrey, you know, as well as the town house. There’s another clever fellow who married money.”

  “Tell me, did any of the Style people strike you as being unusually upset or nervous, or different from their normal selves?”

  “Normal?” Nicholas gave a little shriek of laughter. “None of them are particularly normal at the best of times. Uncle was as rude as ever—thoroughly offensive, in fact. Michael was teasing the pants off poor old Horace, which I must say I rather enjoyed. Teresa was a bit quiet, I thought, and Margery looked positively ill once or twice.”

  “And what about Miss Field?”

  “Miss Field? Who’s she?”

  “Miss French’s secretary. You gave her a lift home.”

  “Oh, the siren of Surbiton. Well, what about her?”

  “Did she appear to be just as usual?”

  “I’ve no idea,” said Nicholas. “I’d never met her before. She could hardly have been more usual, poor dear, if you follow me.”

  “So you dropped Miss Field and Mr. Barry home, and then came back here?”

  “That’s right. I live in the attic, in elegant squalor. Do you want to see my little nest?”

  “No, thank you,” said Henry firmly. “Did you notice what time you got in?”

  “It was round about three,” said Knight. “I can’t tell you exactly. I know I left Brompton Square at half past two.”

  “And when you got back here,” Henry went on, “did you notice anything out of the way? Any comings or goings?”

  “I did notice one thing. When I went to pull the curtains in my bedroom, I saw a girl coming out of the Style building. A most odd-looking creature in a terrible orange dress and a white stole and spectacles. That’s not one of the fashion staff, I said to myself.”

  Henry nodded. “That must have been Miss Piper, the features editor,” he said. “What did she do?”

  “Walked off down the street.”

  “And you didn’t see anybody else?”

  “I caught a glimpse of Helen, as a matter of fact. She was typing away. She was certainly alive then. After that I pulled the curtains and went to bed and simply died.”

  “I see,” said Henry. “Thank you very much.” He consulted his notebook. “I suppose I should have a word with Mr. Barry some time,” he said. “Can you tell me where to contact him? You know him well, I believe.”

  “I work for him,” said Nicholas shortly.

  “Work for him?” Henry was surprised. “But I thought that…I mean, you operate on a very high level, and he…”

  “He makes mass-produced little garments to sell in Wigan. That’s what you mean, isn’t it?” Nicholas sounded amused.

  “Well…” said Henry, embarrassed.

  “You’re quite right, Inspector,” said Knight, “and yet you are abysmally wrong. You don’t seem to have understood the revolution in popular taste. What’s wrong with Wigan? Wigan may not lead the world in fashion—Paris does that. But Wigan is as bright as a button and literally treading on the heels of Paris. And the working girls have a mint of money to spend.” Knight leant forward. Launched on his own subject, he had lost much of his affectation, and Henry remembered Goring’s remarks about the young man’s business ability. “People like me are an anachronism,” Nicholas went on. “The money is in ready-made clothes these days, and that’s where the good designers should be working. And indeed they are. Every great name in couture has some sort of a wholesale outlet nowadays. It’s plain common sense. Five thousand dresses at ten guineas bring in more profit than one dress at a hundred guineas. The point of a salon like mine is to get one’s name and designs known—that’s worth any sacrifice. Any sacrifice at all.”

  He paused, looking a little embarrassed. “I was lucky. My…a friend provided enough money for me to start up here. Now I’m known. I really knew I’d arrived when Barry approached me six months ago and asked me to design for his wholesale collection. You see, I have a certain…flair, if you like…for translating Paris designs for my customers. I did about a quarter of the last Barrimode collection, and next time I’m going to have a special line all to myself. Barry himself is vulgar and boring, but he knows the business inside out.”

  “Where do I find him?” Henry asked.

  “Two-eighty-six Pope Street. Just off Poland Street. That’s where most of the wholesalers cluster, God help them,” said Knight.

  As he was leaving, something struck Henry. “By the way,” he said, his hand on the door handle, “were you in Paris last week?”

  To his surprise, Knight turned very white, and when he answered, his voice had a high note of hysteria in it. “I was not!” he cried. “Certainly not! I never go to Paris. Everyone knows that. I was here the entire week. Anyone will tell you!”

  “There’s no need to get so excited,” said Henry, considerably intrigued. “It just occurred to me that you might have been, since you told me that you translated Paris designs.”

  “I have an eye,” squeaked Nicholas. “I look at the photographs and I can see the cut. I can see the seaming. I don’t need a toile.” He stopped abruptly.

  “What’s a toile?” Henry asked.

  Knight became calmer. “You remember the Chinese girl in the atelier, in the dress made of cotton?” he said. “That was a toile. One of my own, naturally. It’s the model made and cut exactly as the original, but in cheap cotton. Manufacturers buy them from Paris—and very dear they are, too. Hundreds of pounds, a good toile will cost you. But once a wholesaler has bought the toile, he can adapt and copy it as he likes.”

  “I see,” said Henry. “Thank you. I’m learning a lot. So you make Paris copies without buying toiles.”

  “There’
s no law against it,” said Knight defensively. “I told you, I don’t go near the Collections. I work from photographs, by eye.”

  “That must save you a lot of money,” said Henry guilelessly. He opened the door and went out. On the landing, he paused for a second—long enough to hear Knight picking up the telephone and saying, “Get me Barrimodes.”

  At that moment, the woman called Martha came out of the atelier, and Henry was forced, regretfully, to abandon his eavesdropping. He walked slowly down the stairs, for he had plenty to think about.

  In the street, he looked at his watch. It was half past four. He had only one more interview to conduct at Style—an interview which he did not expect to reveal a great deal. This was with Donald MacKay, the assistant art editor, in whom Veronica seemed so interested. It did not seem to Henry that he would have much to contribute. However, as so often happens, he found his talk with Donald unexpectedly rewarding.

  As far as the events of the previous evening were concerned, Donald had nothing new to add. He had noticed the Thermos flask standing in the darkroom, and confirmed that it was still there when he went home at half past one. He had been working flat out, he said, preparing sample layouts for Patrick, and had not noticed the bottle of cyanide at all. Like everybody else, however, he knew it was there, and he knew where it was kept. He told Henry about his meeting in the street with Goring, and added that he had, after much searching, finally found a taxi to take him to Battersea.

  When Henry broached the subject of Helen and Michael, Donald was relaxed, and in a mood to talk. “Oh, that,” he said. “Yes, of course I’d heard about it. Olwen made sure of that. But I’ll tell you one thing—there was something phony about it. Don’t ask me what. I’m only a junior employee here. The magazine is run by a tight little clique—Margery, Teresa, Uncle, and Helen.” He paused. “I suppose you realize that any one of them, except possibly Uncle, could make a fortune by going into public relations?”

  “What exactly do you mean by that?” Henry asked.

  “Just what I say,” said Donald. “I also mean to imply that they are adept at making people believe what they want them to believe.” He leant forward. “You’re not dealing with amateurs, Inspector. You’re dealing with professionals. Correct me if I’m wrong,” he added earnestly, “but I imagine that in your job you generally come up against people who are pretty overawed by your official status, and who’ll tell you the strict truth unless they have something really guilty to hide. That simply doesn’t apply here.” He paused. “I don’t really have the faintest idea what I’m talking about, except that there’s something wrong with this whole setup of Michael and Helen.”

  “You mean,” said Henry, “that this story may be a smoke screen to hide something else?”

  “Yes,” said Donald. “I do. Just that.”

  “The same thought had occurred to me,” said Henry, “but what?”

  “I have no idea,” said Donald.

  “Mr. Walsh,” said Henry, “was very fond of Helen, wasn’t he?”

  “He certainly was,” replied Donald promptly. “We all… that is, everybody liked her. Except Miss Field.”

  “Was that important?” Henry asked. “I mean, Miss Field is only a secretary, isn’t she?”

  Donald grinned. “A bit more than that,” he said. “She’s a very influential person, in her own way. When Margery retires—which she’s bound to do soon—it will make a big difference to Miss Field who becomes editor. She disliked Helen, because Helen was too much like her. As editor, Helen would have wanted to keep her finger on everything, even the filing system. She wasn’t a person who could delegate responsibility. Miss Field despises Teresa as a person, but she knows that if Teresa were editor she’d leave all the administration to her secretary, and Miss Field would become more powerful than ever. Do you see what I mean?”

  “Yes,” said Henry, thoughtfully. “Yes, I do see.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  HENRY ARRIVED HOME at half past six. He was tired, and it was raining. He had a dismal journey in a Number 19 bus, capped by a damp walk through small, dripping streets, and as he put his key into the front door of the flat, he was absorbed by visions of a large Scotch and soda, slippers, a quiet supper, and a hot bath.

  Consequently, he was annoyed to hear, as he came into the hall, the sound of feminine voices raised in laughter. He was, in fact, prepared to be very grumpy indeed, until he reached the living-room door and was able to identify the voices as those of Emmy, his wife, and Veronica, his niece. Since these were his two favourite women, he was prepared to forgive them a great deal. Nevertheless, it was with the firm intention of sending Veronica home as soon as possible that he entered the living room. His resolution was somewhat damped by the fact that neither of them even noticed him come in.

  Emmy was on her knees on the floor, cutting out—with the aid of a paper pattern—what appeared to be sections of a parachute in nubbly blue tweed. Veronica was lying on the sofa with her legs hooked over the back of it, revealing a large amount of shapely leg encased in bright woollen tartan tights.

  “And there was the wretched Duchess,” Veronica was saying, “in the identical dress—but absolutely the same, Aunt Emmy—and you should have seen the drama that went on. You see, she’d been to Monnier and bought the model for heaven knows how much, and to be confronted by Felicity Fraser in positively the same…”

  Henry shut the door behind him with a certain amount of noise. Emmy jumped up guiltily. “Darling! Home already! Goodness, how the time goes. I wasn’t expecting you for hours. Would you like a drink?”

  “Yes, please,” said Henry, with a touch of pique. “What are you doing?”

  “Making a skirt,” said Emmy. “Ronnie says this nubbly tweed is the latest craze in Paris. And it doesn’t crease. Feel it.”

  “Do you mind if I just have my drink?” said Henry. “I’m very tired.”

  “Poor Uncle Henry.” Veronica smiled at him upside down. “He’s been wonderful. Everyone’s tremendously impressed.”

  “I dare say,” said Henry. “Meanwhile, if nobody minds…”

  “Uncle Henry, I’ve been doing masses of detecting for you. You’ve no idea.”

  “My dear Veronica,” said Henry, “I’m sure that Scotland Yard will be suitably grateful. But for the moment, all I’m interested in is food and drink and a bath and bed.”

  “But, Uncle Henry, you said…”

  “Darling Ronnie,” said Henry, “I’m sure you’ll be tremendously useful to us—but please, not now.”

  “Pig,” said Veronica. “I was just telling Aunt Emmy about the time when the Duchess of Basingstoke turned up at a ball in exactly the same dress as…”

  “So I heard,” said Henry.

  “Here’s your drink, darling,” said Emmy. “Has it been an awful day?”

  “Pretty vile,” said Henry, feeling considerably better. He sank into his favourite armchair and kicked off his shoes.

  “And Uncle Henry, the funny thing is that…”

  “Ronnie,” said Emmy, warningly.

  “Oh, well,” said Veronica, in a slightly hurt voice, “if you don’t want to hear what I’ve found out, it’s your loss. I’ve got to go anyhow. Donald is calling for me at eight.”

  “Donald MacKay?” Henry asked, from the comfortable depths of his chair.

  “Yes, of course.” Veronica swung her legs off the back of the sofa and stood up.

  “Do you know him, Henry?” Emmy asked, with a trace of anxiety in her voice.

  “I’ve met him,” said Henry.

  “What’s he like?”

  “I’d say he was a very astute young man,” said Henry.

  “He’s an angel-poppet,” said Veronica. She kissed Henry on the nose, and disappeared in a flash of tartan stockings.

  Emmy started to clear her dressmaking off the floor. “Ronnie was telling me…” she began, but Henry stopped her.

  “I’m dead beat, Emmy love,” he said. “Please, can we just eat and
go to bed?” Thus, he gave himself a lot more work than he need have had, together with considerable worry. One never can tell about such things.

  The next day, after a short session in his office at Scotland Yard, Henry telephoned Barrimodes and made an appointment to see Mr. Horace Barry. He took a taxi to Pope Street, and was glad he had done so, for he doubted whether he would ever have found it on foot. Although it lay just off Oxford Street, this was a part of London with which Henry had had little previous contact. He was fascinated by the maze of small, bustling streets, whose every house seemed to be the headquarters of one or more wholesale businesses connected with the clothing trade. Where there were shop windows, they were full of wax models and tailors’ dummies, or devoted to “display materials”—wicker hat stands, white wire shoe racks, and those faintly indecent severed legs made of transparent plastic and designed to exhibit stockings. There were small shops which sold nothing except the shapeless felt “hoods” which would eventually be steamed and seamed into smart hats, and others dealing in buckram interlining, buttons of every conceivable size, shape and colour, and all the braids, veilings, ribbons, and trimmings which are the garnish of fashion.

  The little streets were full of urgent messenger boys carrying bales of fabric, and outside many doorways stood vans labeled with famous names. A glimpse into the interior of one of these showed Henry that it was, in fact, a huge mobile wardrobe, in which rows of dresses hung tidily on racks, waiting to be delivered to shops and stores all over the country. It was an area which proclaimed its particular commercial interest as unambiguously as Billingsgate or Covent Garden.

  Two-eighty-six Pope Street was a tall, dingy house with a series of plaques on the wall of the bleak entrance hall. These informed Henry that all enquiries for Barrimodes should be addressed to the first floor, that the fourth floor housed Marcelle Millinery Ltd., and the fifth, Beadcraft and Simon’s Belts. He also learned that No Hawkers or Circulars were welcome. Henry climbed the concrete staircase to the first floor.