Murder a la Mode

by Patricia Moyes

  “It’s only just nine,” said Henry, “and I’ve been busy all day.”

  “So have I. No, I’m damned if you can come.”

  “I could insist,” said Henry, “but I hope I won’t have to. After all, we’re both anxious to find out who killed Helen, aren’t we? And the trail gets colder every minute we waste.”

  There was an audible hesitation at the other end of the line. “Oh, all right, come if you must. D’you know the way?”

  “I’ll find it,” said Henry. “I’ll be along in about half an hour.”

  He made a quick call to Emmy to warn her that he would be late, and then continued his drive eastwards.

  The Islington address turned out to be a beautiful, decaying Georgian house in a square off Essex Street. The gradual invasion of the area by accommodation-hungry artists and intellectuals had produced an incongruous sprinkling of blue and yellow painted front doors and bright window boxes, but the neighbourhood was still basically shabby, and the house in which Patrick lived was no exception.

  The front door was open, and Henry found himself in a drab hallway decorated in flaking chocolate-brown paint, with worn linoleum on the floor. Following Patrick’s instructions, he climbed the rickety staircase to the second floor, where he found himself confronted by a door which had recently been repainted in noncommittal black. On it, a white card announced one ink-written word—WALSH. Henry looked for a bell, failed to find one, and raised the brass knocker, which was shaped like a clenched fist. It fell with a brisk thud.

  At once, there was a shuffling inside, the door opened, and Patrick Walsh said, “Come in, then, me boy. Come in.”

  Looking larger and more shambling than ever in red pyjamas, a black toweling dressing-gown and ancient camel’s-hair slippers, Patrick led the way into the flat, which consisted in the main of one enormous studio. It was, Henry thought, the epitome of where an artist should live, and he felt suddenly humble. He realized in a flash that his own taste in interior decoration—on which he was inclined to pride himself—was the artificial product of a middle-class mentality abetted by magazines and advertisements. With shame and insight, he recognized that all he and Emmy had done in their own home was to create a cheap reproduction of the currently fashionable conception of gracious living. Their choice of furniture, curtains, ornaments, and colours had been guided, however subtly, by outside influences. Now, he found himself in an apartment which had been put together by somebody who relied entirely on his own judgment, and damn the consequences. In a bitter moment of self-revelation, Henry acknowledged that if he had done the same thing, the result would have been disastrous. Here, it was triumphant.

  The huge room was starkly whitewashed, with the exception of erratic splashes of colour round windows or in alcoves—orange, deep purple, pale blue. It was incredibly untidy, but even the disorder managed to be beautiful. Small Florentine bronzes jostled modern African wood-carvings and Peruvian pottery figures. On a heavy oak farmhouse table, a space had been cleared among books and sketches to accommodate a single golden chrysanthemum in a stone jam jar, and an easel beside the window bore a bold, stylized sketch of the flower in blazing oils. On the stained wooden floor were two deep-red Persian prayer mats, a Norwegian folk-weave rug in black and white, and some strips of plain coconut matting. One window was uncurtained, the other draped with a swathe of orange silk. On the walls were several ink-and-wash drawings of figures, presumably Patrick’s own work, a small Byzantine icon glowing in jewel colours, and a particularly effective poster advertising French railways. The room should have looked a terrible mess, but it didn’t. A sure thread of personal taste ran through all the ill-assorted objects, welding them into something valid.

  Patrick sat down on a small Victorian tapestry chair, motioned Henry towards a comfortable sofa, poked the open log fire, and said, “Have a drink, then.”

  “Thank you,” said Henry. “I will.”

  Patrick gave him no choice of beverages, but poured two generous measures of Irish whisky into heavy tumblers. He tossed his own back in one gulp, refilled his glass, and then said, “Well?”

  “Helen,” said Henry, “telephoned you the evening before she died.”

  Patrick looked dangerous. “What if she did? Any law against it?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You didn’t ask. You asked me if I’d seen her, and I said ‘no’.”

  “All the same,” said Henry, “it does make life easier if people occasionally volunteer information. What did she say to you?”

  “Nothing in particular. Just a friendly call.”

  Henry took out his notebook and thumbed through it with unnecessary deliberation. In an unemotional voice, he read, “The doctor says it’s quite definite. I don’t know what I’m going to do. He’ll never leave her, you know that. I honestly wish I was dead.’ ”

  The silence that followed was as oppressive as fog. Then Patrick said, “I suppose that damn fool Olwen has been…”

  “Miss Piper, very properly, told me what she overheard…”

  “Very properly!” Patrick laughed sardonically. “I don’t suppose Olwen-bach has ever done anything in her young life that wasn’t very proper. That’s her trouble.”

  Taking no notice, Henry went on, “I don’t think she was lying, but one can never be sure. If you would tell me exactly what Miss Pankhurst said to you…”

  Patrick looked up. His face seemed older, more lined than Henry had remembered. “You tell me Helen was killed,” he said. “I doubt it. I think the darling girl took her own life, because she had…troubles. If she did, then there’s no point in telling you what those troubles were. If somebody did kill her, then it can’t have had anything to do with that particular situation. In the circumstances, I can see no possible justification for making it public.”

  “Telling me doesn’t make it public,” said Henry.

  “No?” Patrick looked at him quizzically. “I would doubt that, Mister Inspector. Can’t you take my word for it that you’re barking up the wrong tree, and leave it at that? You should look in other directions.”

  “What other directions?”

  “I don’t know.” Patrick sounded genuinely baffled. “If somebody murdered Helen, it was for a reason, obviously. But I know nothing about it. You’ve come to the wrong place for your information.”

  “Where do you suggest I should go for it, then?”

  “How should I know? That’s your job.” Patrick was getting angry again.

  “Mr. Walsh,” said Henry, “can’t you understand that I’m simply trying to get at the truth? I don’t enjoy prying into people’s private affairs, but so long as you go on making such a mystery about Helen’s private life, I have to go on investigating it, in case it has a bearing on her death. If it hasn’t, you can be sure anything you tell me will go no further.”

  In the silence that followed, Patrick refilled both glasses. Then he said, “You’ve kissed the Blarney, Inspector. If only I could believe you.”

  “Please do,” said Henry.

  Patrick brooded, and then seemed to make a decision. “All right,” he said, “I’m an old fool, I suppose, but I’ll tell you all I know. It’s precious little.”

  Henry waited hopefully. Patrick took a long swig at his glass, and then went on, “Helen was in love. Don’t ask me with whom, because she never told me and I didn’t ask. She simply told me the situation—without mentioning any names—and a hell of a situation it was for the poor girl. It seems that the man—we’ll call him X—had a wife to whom he was tied not only by loyalty but for social and business reasons. Later on, he kept telling Helen, when he was in a position to do so, he’d divorce his wife and marry her. Meanwhile, the whole thing had to be kept quiet. Well, Helen didn’t like it, but what could she do? She had to resign herself to things as they were. A few months ago, however, a new and terrible complication arose. Helen began to get seriously worried about X’s health; she was a doctor’s daughter, and knew a bit about such
things. She persuaded him to come with her to a doctor for a checkup, without telling his wife. Afterwards, she spoke privately to the doctor, who of course imagined her to be X’s wife, and he agreed that when the results of the various tests came through, he would tell her the worst, but would keep any really bad news away from X.

  “Helen knew it would be several weeks before the verdict was in. It was no wonder the darling girl was in a state of nerves. It was the day she died that she heard the news. When she telephoned me, she’d just come back from a private session with the doctor. He’d told her that X was suffering from an incurable cancer, and had at the most a year to live. X himself, of course, didn’t know this, and I presume he still doesn’t.

  “When she rang me and told me, Helen was in despair. Suddenly, all her dreams and hopes of the future were gone. There was only a year left, and she wanted to spend it with him. Divorce didn’t matter any longer, if only they could be together. Yet she was determined to spare him from knowing the truth, and she knew that unless she did, he would never leave his wife. Now does it make sense, what Olwen overheard? And do you wonder that Helen killed herself?”

  There was a long silence. Then Henry said, “Do you really not know who X is?”

  “I don’t.” Patrick was emphatic.

  “Why,” Henry asked, “have you been at such pains to prevent me from finding out about Helen and Michael Healy?”

  “I haven’t,” said Patrick. “I…” He stopped, and glared at Henry with real dislike. “You’re trying to trap me. I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you, damn you.”

  “I’m not trying to trap you,” said Henry, patiently, “I’m asking a question. Everyone else has taken a positive delight in telling me all about Helen and Michael. You are the only person…”

  “Who’s been talking?” Patrick was livid. “Olwen, I suppose.”

  “Not only Olwen,” said Henry. “Miss French and Mr. Goring and even Miss Manners—Mrs. Healy—herself. And Mr. Healy didn’t deny it.”

  “Ah, well.” Patrick sighed. “Now she’s gone, I suppose they feel there’s no point…”

  “You know very well, don’t you, that Michael Healy is X?”

  “She never told me,” said Patrick stubbornly. “Of course, there was talk. That was Olwen’s fault. It may have been right, or it may have been wrong. That’s all I have to say.”

  “I see.” Henry was thoughtful. He was remembering Michael Healy’s haggard face under the harsh studio lights, his frenetic energy, his bitter ironies. He was remembering what Godfrey Goring had said over lunch in The Orangery, and Nicholas Knight’s insinuations. It was tragic but not inconceivable that the brilliant photographer, still in his early forties, might be under sentence of death—a sentence of which he was formally ignorant, but which he might well guess in his secret heart. It explained a great deal. Was this, then, the secret which so many of Style’s staff were concerned to hide? Supposing the fact of Michael’s illness were known to others besides Patrick? Helen was dead, but Michael was dearly loved and still alive, and his friends might well fear that Henry’s investigation would reveal the truth to him in a brutal manner.

  Henry asked himself what he would do in their position. They were intelligent people. They knew that the affair with Michael could not be kept dark, with Olwen only too anxious to broadcast it. Better, then, to mention it at once, to emphasize it—to pass it off as a light-hearted caprice—to hide, at all costs, its tragic aspect. All this made sense—except for certain obstinately puzzling facts. And facts, Henry reminded himself, were his business. Facts, not speculations.

  He said, “You have a key to the Style building, haven’t you, Mr. Walsh?”

  “What of it?”

  “Nothing. I just wanted to check. Do you often work late?”

  Patrick chuckled. “Not me,” he said. “I’m too smart and too old for that. Of course, there’s the Paris shambles twice a year, but otherwise I make sure of getting away on time. I have my work, you see.” He gestured round the room. “D’you imagine I enjoy doing layouts for a fashion magazine when I should be painting?”

  “Yes,” said Henry, with a grin. “I’m sure you do.”

  At this, Patrick laughed aloud. “You’re right, of course,” he said. “Have some whisky. Of course I love it, or I wouldn’t do it. But it’s not me real work, and I know it. I’m a prostitute, that’s what it comes to. A poor bloody tart plying me trade in Earl Street. The only consolation is that my prices are high.”

  “I’m sure they are,” said Henry. “Well, I’ll leave you in peace now. Thanks for the whisky, and thanks for being so frank with me.”

  “I’m regretting it already,” said Patrick. “I should never have…”

  Henry stood up. “There’s just one more question,” he said. “Why didn’t Helen tell you who X was?”

  “Why?” Patrick, in the act of rising to his feet, stopped suddenly, startled. Then he straightened, and said, “Now, that’s what I call a truly metaphysical question. A question of pure philosophical and psychological speculation. How in hell should I know what went on in the poor girl’s mind?”

  “Didn’t it occur to you to wonder?”

  “I suppose she was afraid that if she told anyone his name, the news of his illness might get back to him…”

  “She’d been telling you about him long before she knew he was ill—or so I understand.”

  “I was proud and honoured that she told me anything at all.” Patrick drew himself up with an almost Roman dignity, in his toweling dressing gown. “I never asked questions, even in me own mind.”

  “Are you married yourself, Mr. Walsh?” Henry asked suddenly.

  Patrick’s face went brick-red. “Certainly not.”

  “Have you ever been?” There was a long hesitation. Henry added, “I can look it up easily enough, you know, at Somerset House.”

  Patrick was patently ill-at-ease. At length, in a pleading voice with an exaggerated brogue in it, he said, “Now, Inspector dear, you wouldn’t want to make trouble for an innocent man that may have been foolish in his youth, like the rest of us, would you? If I tell you, will you give me your word it’ll go no further?”

  “That depends on whether it has any bearing on the case.”

  “None in the world. None in the world.”

  “That’s for me to judge,” said Henry. “Well, come on. Tell me.”

  Patrick bent and threw another log onto the blazing fire. “It was all so long ago,” he said. “A runaway affair. I was twenty-one and she nineteen. I was an art student without two pennies to rub together, and she was from a grand family, and reading for a University degree in literature. Of course, it was madness, and anyone could have told us so. Most people did, in fact, but we didn’t listen. The first year was fine, while we were both at college still. Then the trouble began. She was ambitious as the devil—always has been. Wanted a great career for herself, and for me, too. I wanted to live in a garret and paint. The rows and the bitterness got worse and worse, and after three years she up and left me. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Did you ever get divorced?”

  “Of course not,” said Patrick shortly. “We’re both Catholics.”

  “And when did you meet up with her again?”

  Patrick turned on him, furious. “What do you mean by that? I never said…”

  “If you’d really lost touch with her,” said Henry, “you’d have made no bones about telling me all about the marriage.” There was an angry pause. Henry went on. “Well, if you won’t tell me, I’ll tell you. I think that your wife is Miss Margery French, the distinguished editor of Style.”

  Patrick gave him a long, appraising look. Then he said, “For God’s sake, keep it quiet, will you?”

  “Why?” said Henry. “What’s the harm in anyone knowing?”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “How long has your wife been with Style?”

  “Thirty-five years. Soon after she left me, she got her
first job there, as a secretary.”

  “And you?”

  “I joined the staff three years ago,” said Patrick. He carefully refrained from looking directly at Henry.

  “You got your job on the strength of your wife’s influence, no doubt?”

  “No such thing! If you think that Margery would employ anybody for any other reason than that she considered them the right person for the job…”

  “And what,” said Henry, “did you do during those thirty-two years?”

  Patrick scowled. “I painted.”

  “Successfully?”

  “No.”

  “So you must have been very glad of the job on Style,” Henry remarked.

  Patrick turned on him ferociously. “Get out!” he shouted. “Get out and stay out! And keep your bloody mouth shut or I’ll break your neck!”

  Henry looked at him with genuine pity. “It’s unfortunately part of my job to be inquisitive,” he said. “Please believe me, I don’t enjoy it, and I am reasonably discreet. Unless, of course, a fact has a bearing on the case in hand. Thanks for the whisky. I’ll let myself out.”

  He clattered down the stairs and out into the misty square. As he drove slowly home, many questions jostled in his mind, and the most pressing of them was just how far could he believe what Patrick had told him? A thought which returned with persistency was that, if one discounted the story of the illness, which could easily be a fabrication, Patrick himself was extremely well-qualified for the role of X.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING started with the inquest, which Henry was determined to keep as short and noncommittal as possible. He was pleased to see that, although the case had caused some stir in the newspapers, the public was not prepared to turn out on a raw January morning in search of sensation. Apart from Margery French, who had readily agreed to give evidence of identification, and Alf Samson, nobody else was there except for the police witnesses and a handful of crime reporters, most of whom Henry knew and greeted by name.