Stop Press Murder

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Stop Press Murder Page 20

by Peter Bartram


  “Not as far as I’m concerned. If it had been money, that would have been different. But you’re entitled to protect your own character – although not at my expense or any other Chronicle journo.”

  “So you’ll not say anything?”

  “Not unless it happens again.”

  Pinker relaxed. “It’s a mercy it’s over.”

  “Not over, Sidney. There is always a price to pay.”

  Pinker’s lips curved up in a sly smile. “You don’t mean, young Colin, that…”

  “Don’t even think about it, Sidney. The price I have in mind is one which will help me on the murder story. I just want your help once – and then it will be over.”

  “What do I have to do?” His eyes narrowed cunningly.

  “Tomorrow, I want you to pass a message to Jim that you’ve overheard me speaking to Figgis about the Snout murder. I want you to tell him that you didn’t hear everything but Horsham was mentioned a few times. Tell him that Figgis has put the compositors on overtime to set late copy for the final edition of the paper. I think that will be enough to panic Houghton and get him out of town for a few hours. He’ll head up to Horsham and work his local police contacts trying to find out what I know. Of course, it’s nothing.”

  Pinker shuffled from foot to foot. “I can pass the message but where does that leave me? When Jim realises I’ve set him up, he’ll out my secret.”

  “You think? Jim moves in the same world as me. It’s a world where we hear a lot of confidences from people who have their own dirty little secrets they want kept under wraps. If the word gets around that Houghton is prepared to out a contact’s shady past in order to get information, nobody will ever speak to him again.”

  Pinker nodded glumly. “I suppose you might be right.”

  “Trust me. Jim’s not a snitch.”

  “I suppose I deserved that.”

  “Cheer up,” I said. I waved a hand around the room at the weird collection of props. “Are you previewing this show?”

  “Yes. It’s the opening night on Monday.”

  “What’s with the werewolf?”

  “One of the characters – the evil Ferdinand – turns into a werewolf. But after a lot of torture and murder he ends up being killed.”

  “All good family fun, then?”

  Sidney shrugged. I left him slumped on the prop box pondering his future – and the prospect of watching a werewolf getting the chop.

  He’d find it a lot simpler than the puzzles I was trying to unravel.

  That became painfully clear when I arrived back at the Chronicle.

  There was a message on my desk: “See me at your earliest convenience. FF.”

  I walked straight round to Figgis’s office, knocked on the door and went in before he could growl “Enter”.

  I said: “My earliest convenience was the outside privy at my parents’ house in Battersea. So I thought you’d rather see me here.”

  Figgis stubbed out his Woodbine. “I’m in no mood for your cracks. Sit down.”

  I pulled up the visitor chair.

  “Have you seen this?”

  He pushed across the midday edition of the Evening Argus. A screamer headline across the front page read:

  SUSPECT RELEASED: NEW ARREST SOON

  Under the headline, Jim Houghton’s breathless prose revealed that Tom Belcher had been sent on his way without charge – “insufficient evidence” a grouchy Tomkins grumbled – but that the cops were closing in on a new suspect. Jim had scooped me again.

  “They couldn’t hold Tom for more than twenty-four hours without charging him,” I said.

  Figgis said: “I’m less concerned what’s happening to Belcher and more concerned about what this is doing to us. I’ve that pricking behind my ears I get when we’re going to be beaten hollow on a big story. The Argus beat us on the Snout murder. They beat us on the Belcher arrest. They’ve beaten us on the Belcher release. And now they’re running a piece hinting at further sensational developments.”

  “Jim is flying a kite,” I said. “He’s been fed a line by Tomkins. If Jim’s story turns out to be correct, I’ll dance in a G-string and nipple tassels in the end-of-the-pier revue.”

  Figgis reached for his ciggies. “It would almost be worth Houghton being right to see that.”

  “Put your opera glasses away. That show won’t happen.”

  “So is Tomkins any closer to finding Snout’s real killer?”

  “Tomkins couldn’t find his own bum in the bath. Besides, he started off dismissing any connection between the killing and the Milady’s Bath Night theft. Then he arrested Belcher without evidence. And now he doesn’t know what to do.”

  “And from the smug look on your face, you do, I suppose.”

  I put on my serious look and said: “This case is like a mille-feuille?”

  “A what?”

  “One of those fancy French cakes with layers of pastry and cream.”

  “Not as tasty, though.”

  “The top layer was Snout’s murder. We don’t yet know who did that – or why. There’s no motive. But if we go down to the next level, the Milady theft, there is a possible motive. I’d wondered whether Lord Piddinghoe and Venetia could have a reason for removing the pictures because of the embarrassment they’d have if they were reproduced in national newspapers. Marie Richmond being Venetia’s twin sister.”

  “You’re surely not suggesting that Lady Piddinghoe killed Fred Snout.”

  “Of course not. She’d rather chase a fox or shoot a pheasant than mingle with the working classes. But I have wondered whether her son might have engaged in a little freelance activity to save his mama’s blushes. Not personally, perhaps, but he has a batman – former army servant – called Hardmann who seems to live up to his name.”

  “But there’s no proof of any of this.”

  “Not directly. But there are suspicions.”

  I described how Venetia had been paying a monthly honorarium to Marie. And had now paid off an unknown blackmailer and concocted a cock-and-bull story to explain it.

  “And you think the real reason was because she was behind the Snout killing – even if she didn’t do the dirty deed herself.”

  I nodded. “It’s a possibility.”

  Figgis scratched his chin. “Trouble is, all this is speculative. We can’t print a word of it – and at the same time the Argus is coming as close as it’s legally possible to suggesting that Tomkins is about to collar the killer.”

  “But then the next layer down in the mille-feuille is Clarence, Marie’s son,” I said. “By all accounts, he’s a volatile customer at the best of times. But he’s plainly distressed by his mother’s sudden death. Nothing suspicious in that. But I’ve discovered that with her dying breath Marie told him that his fortune lay on the pier. But that could have been the ramblings of a dying woman.”

  “And it could be, of course, that none of this has anything to do with Snout’s murder,” Figgis said. “It could’ve been a random ne’er-do-well who’d made his way on to the pier – perhaps looking to pick up the day’s takings from some of the kiosks – who ran into Snout.”

  “Could be,” I said. “It’s just that my nose is twitching. I think there’s more to it. Perhaps —”

  But we were interrupted by three loud knocks on Figgis’s door.

  “Enter.”

  Cedric’s head appeared around the door.

  “Call for Mr Crampton at his desk.”

  “Tell them to switch it through here,” Figgis said.

  Cedric’s head disappeared and the door shut. A minute later Figgis’s phone rang.

  I lifted the receiver. Fanny’s voice said: “We need to see you.”

  “Trouble at the Grange?” I asked.

  “No more than we already have. But when I got back this morning, Daddy and Grandmama said they’d be talking the situation over. They felt they’d treated you a bit roughly yesterday. They want to speak again and tell you a little about the background
to all this.”

  “Is this at your prompting?”

  “No. They mentioned it to me as soon as I walked through the door. They’ve apologised to me as well. Can you be here at seven o’clock? For cocktails.”

  “Yes.”

  “No need to dress.”

  “You mean I can come in the nude?”

  “No need to put on a dinner jacket and black tie, peasant.”

  “Where I come from, men wore flat caps and mufflers at the dinner table.”

  Fanny giggled. “I’m going out for a hack now,” she said. “Feel I need the fresh air, but I’ll see you at seven.”

  “Give my regards to Herbert.” I replaced the receiver.

  I turned towards Figgis. “Lord Piddinghoe and Venetia want to speak more.”

  “They’ll be trying to hush everything up,” he said.

  I stood up, opened the door. “Then they’ve invited the wrong man.”

  Chapter 20

  Lord Snooty, aka Pinchbeck, the butler, looked at me like I was something that had slithered out of a lettuce and said: “I’ll announce you.”

  “Like a train arrival?” I said.

  “Like an unwelcome guest,” he said.

  It looked as though this was going to be an evening when I would need my wits about me.

  We were standing in the entrance hall of Piddinghoe Grange, a place that looked as if it could well have been home to the evil Ferdinand from The Duchess of Malfi. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the werewolf had jumped out from behind one of the oak screens that lined one side of the room. An ancient grandfather clock ticked like a dying heart. The minute hand moved with a clunk. Four minutes past seven.

  We trooped down the long corridor hung with landscapes. There were dust stains on the walls where some pictures had been removed. Their title plates remained. I had a quick shufti as we hustled by. I noticed that a couple of paintings by Turner had gone but others by lesser-known artists – Benjamin Haydon and Augustus Egg – remained.

  Lord Snooty opened the door and we entered the same drawing room in which I’d heard Venetia’s false confession the previous evening.

  Pinchbeck came to attention with one hand behind his back and announced: “Mr Colin Crimpton.”

  Out of the corner of my mouth, I hissed, “Crampton, you dolt”.

  Then I put on my winning smile and strode across the room. Venetia was perched on the edge of a chaise longue. Piddinghoe lounged in his wing chair close to the fire. Logs crackled in the grate, but the room felt as cold as an empty grave.

  Venetia dismissed Pinchbeck with a peremptory wave of her hand. Pinchbeck gave the kind of insolent nod which said, “And you can naff off, too, hagface,” and left.

  “What we’re about to discuss is not a matter for servant’s ears,” Venetia said.

  “Too damned right,” Piddinghoe chimed in.

  “We’ll help ourselves to drinks,” Venetia said. “I understand journalists usually like a pint of something called half-and-half.”

  “Only when it comes with pork scratchings,” I said. “I’ll settle for a gin and tonic – one ice cube and two slices of lemon.”

  Venetia crossed to a table with a modest collection of bottles to fix the drinks.

  I said: “Will Lady Frances be joining us?”

  “She’s been riding,” Venetia said. “She should be with us shortly.”

  “Just as well that the girl’s out of the way,” said Piddinghoe. “Rather delicate matter to mention. Not something to bother Frances’s pretty little head with. Money. Rather vulgar.”

  “Especially when you haven’t got any,” I said.

  Piddinghoe cleared his throat noisily. Reached for a large brandy snifter on a side table. Took a generous pull. “How did you know?” he said.

  “The signs are there if you know what to look for. Missing pictures – mostly the best ones – in some of the rooms. Presumably sold. More holes in the carriage drive than an old colander. Rusting machinery out in the stable yard. I could go on.”

  “Ah!” Piddinghoe took another pull at his brandy.

  Venetia gave Piddinghoe a withering look. “I think Mr Crampton may want to understand why our temporarily straitened circumstances may have created the embarrassing situation we’re now in,” she said.

  “Yes, of course. Keep to the point. Can’t stand ramblers. Well, it’s like this… How shall I put it?”

  “You’re worried that any breath of scandal would get you sacked from the government,” I said.

  “In a word, yes. Like poor Jack Profumo. Not that I’ve been playing the stallion with a stable of young fillies, you understand.”

  At least I could believe that.

  “And you didn’t want to lose your government salary on top of your other financial problems.”

  “Again, you state the case concisely, young fellow.”

  “I blame myself.” Venetia took the floor. “I never realised that a rare and unwilling folly in my youth would resonate down the century in such a cruel way. As soon as the problem arose, I told Charles that I would handle it so that it would have no unpleasant repercussions.”

  If lying were an Olympic sport, this woman would win gold, I thought. She’d spun an intricate fabrication of lies the previous evening about the reason for leaving money behind the phone box. And now she was suggesting that her motive was to prevent Piddinghoe having to flog off the family silver. I’d had enough. It was time to get at the truth.

  So I asked: “Could the blackmail be linked in any way with the payments you’d been making to your sister?”

  Venetia’s face turned as pale as a ghost’s. Her lips parted. Her tongue flicked nervously over them.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she whispered.

  “There is no point in denying it,” I said.

  “What’s the fellow driving at?” Piddinghoe said.

  Venetia turned towards him. “Oh, do, for once, be quiet, Charles.”

  I said: “I’ve seen the letter you wrote to Marie saying that you would have to discontinue the payments.”

  “But that letter was private.”

  “Through a chapter of accidents – which I won’t describe now – it came into my hands.”

  Venetia slumped back on the chaise longue. Brushed a stray strand of hair away from her eyes. For the first time since I’d met her, she looked like an old woman. The flesh on her cheeks sagged. The wrinkles around her neck etched deeper.

  She said: “Yes, I’d been paying Marie for years. I must tell you I regret every penny of it. Every penny. But I had no choice. Our…” – she searched for a word – “…adventures with Edward the Seventh meant that no matter how much we grew apart and lived different lives, we would always be yoked together by a common secret. It was a secret that neither of us could afford to whisper – I because of my position in society, Marie because of her career.”

  I thought of telling Venetia that I knew her story about being a lover of Edward the Seventh was a lie. That it couldn’t have happened the way she’d described it the previous evening. But she would either lose her temper or clam up. And, first, I wanted to learn more about her relationship with Marie.

  So I held that in reserve and asked: “Surely an affair with Edward the Seventh would have added to Marie’s notoriety?”

  “Among the common clay, the riff-raff who frequented the music halls, yes. But the upper reaches of her so-called professions – the film-makers and theatre owners – the very people who employed her, had pretentions to society. A breath of scandal among one of their performers would have had society’s doors closed to them. Marie was shrewd enough to recognize that.”

  “And so she stayed silent.”

  “Yes.”

  “But not for ever?”

  Venetia shook her head wearily. “No.”

  “And that’s when the demands for money began?” I said.

  “Yes. It was in 1936. Her career had declined during the nineteen-twenties. But the ar
rival of the talkies in 1927 finally finished it. Her coarse tones may have wowed the gallery crowd in the music halls but they were too rough for talking pictures.”

  “So parts were few and far between?”

  “Her career was in decline, but not her lifestyle. She spent recklessly until all the money was gone. And then she turned to me.”

  “And you refused her?”

  “Yes. She came to tea and I explained that the expenses of the estate were such that we couldn’t afford to keep her in the style to which she’d become accustomed. At first, she seemed to accept that. She left and I thought we’d hear no more about it.”

  “But she was back a few weeks later? And this time with threats?” I said.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Damned fellow’s been poking his snout into places it’s not wanted,” Piddinghoe said.

  Venetia said: “Be quiet, Charles.”

  I said: “What were the threats?”

  Venetia took a long pull at her drink. “She pointed out that now her career had faded she’d nothing to lose. Indeed, much to gain if she sold her story to one of the Fleet Street scandal-mongering newspapers.”

  “The tabloids love a royal scandal,” I said.

  Venetia sniffed. “I fear you may be right, so I had no choice but to take Marie’s threats seriously.”

  “Would that be before or after she threw a teapot at you?”

  “After. That meeting ended acrimoniously. But I later communicated with her in writing. I said that provided she undertook not to mention the events to which she’d alluded to a living soul, I would pay her a modest emolument each month.”

  “And those living souls included Clarence, her son?”

  “Most certainly. Even by 1936, it was already clear that he was going to be – how shall I put it? – a loose cannon.”

  “Did Marie keep her promise?”

  “Until last week.”

  “When you sent the letter saying you couldn’t continue to make the payments?”

  “Yes.”

  “But she didn’t accept that?”

  “No. She telephoned me. We had a long conversation.”

  “A row?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid a row. She said she’d kept her promise of silence to the letter over the years but would no longer do so if I stopped paying her. I was adamant that I would not pay any more. She said she was going straight back home to tell Clarence and then call the newspapers. She slammed the phone down.”

 

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