There was a knock at the door.
Angel said, ‘Come in.’
It was Ahmed. He put his head round the door. ‘I’ve found Mr Lubrecki, sir,’ he said.
‘Right. Come on in,’ Angel said.
Ahmed stood back and let Felix Lubrecki enter the room in front of him.
‘You wanted to see me, Inspector?’ he said.
Angel nodded. ‘Please sit down, Mr Lubrecki. Yes, I am interviewing all the guests at Miss Minter’s party individually.’ He put his hand out to indicate Ahmed and said, ‘And DC Ahaz here is taking notes.’
Lubrecki nodded.
After asking for Mr Lubrecki’s address and telephone number, Angel said, ‘You must have been a very good friend of Miss Minter to have been invited to this special party?’
‘I’m not sure that I would have regarded myself as a very good friend, Inspector. She was appreciably older than I am. My mother, Hannah Lubrecki, was a contemporary of hers and in earlier days knew her well.’
‘Were they good friends, then?’ Angel said craftily.
The question made Lubrecki hesitate. His eyes shot rapidly from left to right and back again. He licked his bottom lip then said, ‘Erm … not exactly, no.’
Angel put his hands together to form a steeple then slowly interlocked the fingers. He pursed his lips, looked at him across the table and raised his eyebrows.
Lubrecki said, ‘Well, Inspector, my mother was a very beautiful woman, particularly when she was in her twenties and thirties. You may say that I am prejudiced, but I’ve seen her in films of the sixties and seventies.’
‘So have I, Mr Lubrecki,’ Angel said. ‘I can unhesitatingly confirm what you say. She was most … erm, alluring.’
‘And Joan was jealous of her success,’ he said. ‘My mother was offered a leading role in a blockbuster part, which she accepted. Joan got to hear of it and, using her womanly wiles, somehow got the producer to change his mind. My mother wasn’t told that Joan had got the part instead of her. She was amazed to read about it in the newspapers with a quote by Joan saying that she had got the part in straight competition with Hannah Lubrecki. This wasn’t true and did my mother great harm. Anyway, they had a big row the next time they met. Thereafter, there was always a coldness between them. Of course, my mother still got offers of parts, but never the big remunerative roles she had been used to getting.’
Angel nodded. Then he said, ‘Well, why would Miss Minter invite you, then?’
‘Oh, well, I played her infant son in an early film called Beware My Vision. She was very kind to me. She said I was the son she never had. Over the years, our paths crossed frequently, and I was in many of the films she was in. Never the lead. Never in the glorious superstrata that she enjoyed. But there I was, third or fourth or sixth or tenth down the list of credits.’
‘I see,’ Angel said. ‘So you were on very good terms with Miss Minter?’
‘I wouldn’t even put it as strong as that, Inspector. This is a dog-eat-dog profession, and it is better to have a short memory rather than a long one. Being ostensibly on good terms with Joan and being seen with her over the years has stood me in good stead for getting more work by simply being in the public eye.’
‘Thank you. I understand. Was there anybody else who held a grudge against Miss Minter?’
Lubrecki rubbed his chin. ‘I’m afraid there would be quite a few people. Of course, so much of it is wicked gossip initiated by sour grapes.’
‘Well, tell me. Let me decide.’
Lubrecki’s forehead creased. ‘Well, there’s the story about Perdita Gold.’
Angel’s eyebrows went up.
Lubrecki noticed and said, ‘Oh? I see you know who I mean.’
‘Oh yes,’ Angel said. ‘Another very stunning woman. Occasionally seen as an oriental princess or queen in romantic love stories. Very beautiful, she was.’
‘You wouldn’t have thought she was so beautiful if you saw her arriving at Shepperton at six o’clock on a January morning with her hair in a towel.’
Angel smiled.
‘Anyway,’ Lubrecki said, ‘Perdita was promised top billing when writer/director Karl Hartmann offered her a part in Valley of Desire. When the publicity went out her name was under that of Joan’s. Worse than that, she was cast as Joan Minter’s character’s sister and Perdita is more than twenty years younger than Joan. When Perdita challenged all this, Joan said that those conditions were written into her contract. Perdita stuck it out and made the film but said that subsequently it held her back from getting some parts and the money was much less. That was a long time ago. But she remembers having to do a live pier show in the South of England somewhere during the summer of 2000 to make ends meet.’
‘Were Miss Minter and Perdita Gold sworn enemies, then?’
‘I wouldn’t go that far, Inspector. But, of course, if Perdita had been invited to this party here, she didn’t turn up, did she?’
‘Is there anybody here who was involved in that story?’
‘Yes. There’s Leo Altman. He had a small part in the film. Which reminds me of another story about Leo Altman and Joan, which doesn’t show Joan up in a good light.’
Angel nodded. ‘Please tell me about it.’
Lubrecki said, ‘Well, there was a young film-maker called Charles Fachinno, who had an option on a screenplay of the best-selling novel, Dawn Never Comes. He wanted Joan Minter and Leo Altman for the leading parts. Joan read it, liked it and phoned to say that she’d like to do it. They talked money, agreed a deal and a contract was being drawn up. At the same time, with funds borrowed from a bank, Fachinno bought the screenplay for a quarter of a million pounds. Then Joan gave back word. Because she gave back word, the leading man, Leo Altman, also gave back word. The story was reported in a society magazine and nobody would look at Fachinno’s project after that. It looked as if Joan had rejected it because she had considered it wasn’t a commercial proposition. Fachinno owed the bank. He appealed to Joan, told her the situation; she said that as she hadn’t signed anything, it was hard lines. She had been offered double the money in the comedy, Find the Lady, which turned out to be a huge success. Fachinno said that she had made it worse by letting word get out that she had declined the part. He had thought he could trust her. Anyhow, it bankrupted the man. Also, Leo Altman never had a leading part offered again. He had to be content with bit parts of butlers or doctors. He crawled about after Joan Minter pretending to take sides with her. He had been hoping that Joan would sometimes put in a good word for him, but she never did.’
Angel knew he would have to see Leo Altman to get his version of the story.
‘Thank you, Mr Lubrecki. Those backstage happenings are quite … um, enlightening.’
‘I hope they prove helpful in your enquiries, Inspector.’
‘I hope so too. Now can we turn to the murder yesterday? Where were you when Miss Minter was making her speech and was shot?’
‘I was several feet in front of the man with the gun.’
‘What makes you think it was a man?’
‘I don’t know. There wasn’t a sound or anything to indicate it was a woman. Maybe it was because there was no rustling sound from his clothes. If it had been a woman, there might have been. There were no smells of paint, powder or perfume emanating from him either.’
Angel blinked. It was unusual to hear such a police-like answer from a witness. ‘Thank you,’ Angel said.
He was slowly coming to the belief that, indeed, the murderer must have been a man.
‘Just a couple more questions, Mr Lubrecki. I take it you knew all the people present in the room before Miss Minter was shot?’
‘Yes, indeed.’
‘Well, after Miss Minter was shot, did you notice who was missing?’
‘Well, no … I didn’t notice.’
‘Pity,’ Angel said.
Angel continued the interviews after lunch. He knew that he must try to finish them that day so he would have to get a move on
.
Ahmed ushered Mr Leo Altman into the room and when he was comfortably settled at the table opposite Angel, the inspector said, ‘Yours is a well-known face to me, Mr Altman. You seem hardly ever to be off our screens these days.’
The grey-haired gentleman nodded and said, ‘Then you must be watching old films, Inspector.’
‘I suppose I am,’ he said.
‘That sounds almost like a compliment.’
‘It was intended to be,’ Angel said with a smile. ‘Now, I’m anxious to know what your relationship was with Miss Minter.’
‘Well, we had known each other a very long time. She probably knew me as well or better than anybody else here. I had a great respect for her. She had worked and battled her way to the top of her profession.’
‘Were you envious of her standing? You said that you had known her a very long time?’
‘Not at all.’
‘I wondered if you felt that Lady Luck had not been kind to you.’
‘You could say that, Inspector. Success in this business is made up of three things: talent, judgement and being in the right place at the right time.’
‘And what caused the disaster of the project Dawn Never Comes?’
Altman shuffled uneasily in the chair. He rubbed his chin. ‘Fancy you knowing about that.’
Angel said, ‘You were going to be the star in that film, weren’t you?’
‘Yes, I was. It was a long time ago. It was a great story and a great part for me.’
‘What happened? The film was never made, was it?’
‘No, it never was. Everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong.’
‘But it needn’t have happened, need it?’
‘No. It was a great shame. It came when I was just beginning to break through from minor parts to leads.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Angel said. ‘What happened?’
‘Well … a young man, new to the film business, got an option on the book Dawn Never Comes and he started to set it all up. He wanted me as the male lead and Joan as female lead. A film was about ten weeks’ work and tremendous exposure thereafter round the world. I thought, if it’s good enough for Joan, it would be good enough for me. His name was Charles Fachinno. I’d never heard of him. He’d been a big wheel in the potted-meat business. All those little glass jars. You don’t see them these days. Well, who eats potted meat these days? Anyway, he sent me a screenplay, which I thought was outstanding. My agent worked out a deal which was highly satisfactory and I was ready to sign a contract, when I got a message that Joan had changed her mind. That made me a bit nervous. Well, very nervous. Then I began to think about the situation. Fachinno was unknown to us. Being successful in the potted-meat business wasn’t any recommendation for producing what I thought was going to be a major film. Also, I had no idea who the director was going to be. It’s important to have someone in that job that you’ve confidence in. So I didn’t sign and I returned the contract unsigned.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘All hell broke loose. One of those glossy magazines came along and Joan gave them the story that she’d no faith in the new blockbuster film that was being talked about. She told them that she didn’t know anything about the “potted-meat man”. He was in a business he didn’t know about. She said the screenplay was amateurish and boys’-own. She rubbished it so much that I was embarrassed. Then I heard Charles Fachinno had been to see her but she had been very rude to him. On the strength of getting a verbal agreement from her that she would take the female lead, Fachinno had put his potted-meat business as security and got the bank to shell out a quarter of a million to the author and a commitment to shell out further sums. But now Fachinno couldn’t make the film because Joan had so compellingly disparaged the project. I wasn’t pleased because my name had been associated with what was now becoming regarded as a flop. Coincidentally, or maybe because of it, I was out of work and had not a single job in my diary. I was becoming quite desperate … almost at the stage of getting out of the business, when I saw an ad in The Stage for auditions for the part of a butler in a new play called Find The Lady starring, surprisingly, Joan Minter. I was amazed and resentful that she had come out of the mess so well, the mess that she had helped to create. I really had to eat humble pie to get that job as butler. And have been butlers, doctors, hotel clerks and judges ever since. I never did get a lead offered after that.’
‘But you’ve never been out of work, have you?’
‘That’s true.’
‘Now about yesterday. Can you tell me where you were standing just before Miss Minter was shot?’
‘I was in front of the man with the gun. I was standing between Felix Lubrecki and Erick Cartlett.’
‘Were you far from the door?’
‘About six or eight feet.’
‘I take it you knew everybody in the room?’
‘Yes. Everybody except Joan’s staff: her secretary, the butler and the caterers.’
‘Yes, of course. Could you say who wasn’t there after Miss Minter had been shot and the lights were turned back on?’
‘No. I never thought to look. It was all too dreadful …’
FOUR
IT WAS 4 p.m. Angel was still interviewing the guests and staff of the Mansion House, and eliciting unexpected information about the personal and working life of Joan Minter. He was at the table in the little sitting room, rubbing his chin. But he wasn’t any clearer as to the identity of her murderer.
There was a knock on the door. It was Ahmed. ‘I’ve got Mrs Bell, sir,’ he said.
‘Come in, Mrs Bell,’ Angel said.
The young woman with the shining, wet eyes said, ‘It’s Miss Bell, Inspector, actually. But please call me Jane.’
‘Right … er … Jane. Please sit down.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, wiping her cheek with a tissue.
Angel waited. He contented himself looking at her and smiling to try to put her at ease.
She looked up at him and said, ‘Excuse me, may I ask if you are the Inspector Angel, the one in the papers that they say is like the Canadian Mounties because he always gets his man?’
Ahmed smiled as he watched Angel’s reaction.
The inspector was always embarrassed at this question and wanted to get it quickly out of the way. ‘Well, yes. I suppose I am.’
‘I’ve seen you on the television, I’m sure. They say that you’ve always solved the murder cases you’ve been given. I read it in a paper or a magazine somewhere.’
‘Yes, well … I do what I have to do.’
Her eyes filled up again. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I just can’t control myself. I’ve never been so close to a … to somebody who died.’
Angel knew the feeling well. After all, over the years he had had to deal with many tragedies involving all kinds of people including mature men, sometimes some of whom broke down in tears, both genuine and false. If the dead person was known to be a villain, of course it wasn’t difficult to remain controlled and level-headed. But sometimes it wasn’t easy for a young woman, not much older than a girl, to control her emotions.
‘Well, you’re not to worry, Jane.’
‘Well, I do worry, Inspector. I’m afraid. I know that the murderer is here among us. I don’t know who I can trust.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Stands to reason, Inspector. Nobody saw a stranger in the dining room or anywhere in the house. Nobody has come forward and said that they saw a stranger. There is no stranger. If there is no stranger, then the murderer must be one of the guests. If a guest wants to murder Miss Minter, an icon and one of the nicest ladies in the world, well, there’s no telling who else he might want to murder. He might want to murder me. Well, I’ve never done anybody any harm … not knowingly, anyway. And if I had, I would certainly want to apologize and put it right.’
Angel nodded. ‘At the moment, Jane, it seems that there was a stranger in the house,’ he said. ‘That he crept in behind everyb
ody while you were watching Miss Minter giving her speech from the top of the piano. That he chose his time, switched off the lights, shot her, then let himself out by the front door and disappeared into the night.’
‘I think a strange face among that crowd of celebrities would be bound to have been recognized by one of them and reported, Inspector. I certainly didn’t see anybody.’
‘Jane, I said that it seemed that a stranger crept into the place. I didn’t say I agreed with it.’
‘But, Inspector, I didn’t know until just now that the gun that killed her had been found, and that it had been found on the lawn on the way to the main gate. Surely that’s evidence that it was a stranger making his escape after all?’
‘Not at all,’ Angel said. ‘All the murderer had to do was go upstairs to the first floor, go into the bathroom or the lavatory, lock the door and throw the gun out of the window. You wouldn’t have to be a medal winner at the Olympics to manage that. Any old biddy would have been able to do that.’
She looked at Angel, and sighed. ‘Oh. Oh yes,’ she said with a smile. The smile quickly faded. A hand went up to her face. ‘That means that the murderer is still here. It’s somebody in the house, then!’
It was 5 p.m.
Angel was still in the small sitting room at the Mansion House. He had let Ahmed cadge a lift to the police station in the SOCO van. Angel would like to have called it a day himself and gone home but there was still one interview that wouldn’t wait.
There was a knock at the door.
Angel quickly took the small recording machine out of his pocket, switched it to Record and put it on the desk in front of him.
‘Come in,’ he called.
‘Ah, Mr Trott,’ Angel said. ‘Come in. Please sit down. I understand that you wanted to see me?’
‘I’ll stand, sir. If you don’t mind,’ Trott said. ‘Yes, sir. It’s an organizational and financial matter.’
Angel and the Actress Page 4