Lady Marmalade Cozy Murder Mysteries: Box Set (Books 1 - 3)

by Jason Blacker

  A constable at the front desk looked up from the paper he was reading. He was an old man with gray wisps of hair and a haggard, drawn face, lined with wrinkles that wrote of hard times. He looked to be in his seventies though he was probably at least a decade or more younger.

  "What is it?" he asked Frances as she walked up to him smiling.

  His face was the color of cremated ash and he had dark sagging circles below his eyes. Looking at him you thought his eyes might roll right out of their sockets at any moment. He rested his head against his right hand. He was a man who had forgotten why he was alive, or perhaps he had just this morning woken up in a body so old and sick he was hoping to kick the bucket.

  "Good afternoon," said Frances, her voice was bright and happy, which only made the old man feel worse. "I'm here to see Inspector Davison."

  "And you are?"

  His voice was as slow and monotonous as the unpleasant scratching of a needle at the end of a gramophone record.

  "I am Lady Marmalade and this is Alfred Donahue. He'll be expecting us."

  Lady Marmalade's voice had not lost its cheeriness, though her manner had become more professional. The constable got up as slow and with so much obvious effort that you might think he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. He lumbered off slowly with a hunched back and a big sigh that lasted as long as a tire losing air.

  He returned several minutes later, just when Frances had started thinking about sitting down, followed by Sgt. Pearce. Pearce walked out of the main door that separated reception from the rest of the offices and held out his hand.

  "Good afternoon," he said, "we've been expecting you. Please come in."

  His voice was rich, deep and warm like honey poured over hot stones. Pearce smiled and shook hands firmly and his mustache was immaculately neat.

  He turned around and led them through the door he had just exited. Alfred and Frances followed him to the end of the hall where they turned left into a small office. Behind the desk sat Inspector Davison. He stood up and shook their hands without much warmth or friendship, but because it was expected.

  "Please sit down," he said, waving his hands to the two moderately cushioned chairs that lay empty across from his desk. Pearce took a harder, wooden chair that was off in the corner and he carried it up to the side of Davison's desk, but sat closer to Alfred.

  "So good of you to see us, Inspector," said Frances, trying to grease the dry cog of bureaucracy.

  Davison nodded his head and grunted. Pearce twirled his mustache and then got out his notebook. There was a folder on Davison's desk, off to his left and a desk calendar which had plenty of scribbles on it which Frances couldn't read upside down. Primarily because the penmanship was worse than a surgeon's. To Frances' right, against the wall, stood a wooden filing cabinet and on top of it was a picture of a younger Davison with his bride. It was a wedding photograph. Next to that was a more recent photograph with a thicker Davison and heavier bride and two young girls who Frances thought to be about ten or eleven. Close in age to be sure, slim and plain looking.

  "Lovely family," said Frances. "Your daughters are very pretty."

  Sometimes she told little white lies. This was one of those occasions. She could tell that Davison was still prickly from having been put in his place by her husband.

  Davison looked over at the two photographs in their wooden frames on his wooden filing cabinet, and a smile almost creased his cheeks. He nodded.

  "Jenny and Margaret are good girls," he said.

  He looked back at Frances and stared at her for a while not saying anything. Frances decided to break the silence.

  "I don't think you've been formally introduced to my butler, Alfred Donahue."

  Alfred leaned over the desk and offered his hand which was begrudgingly shook.

  "We had a wonderful lunch with the Bhandaris," said Frances.

  "Who?" he asked, looking over at Pearce.

  "That's the family that Mr. Gandhi is staying with in Ealing," he said.

  "Right," grunted Davison nodding his head. His thick ham hock hands were knitted together resting on the desk calendar.

  "I mentioned it earlier to you," said Frances. Davison didn't answer. He seemed to be in a foul mood thought Frances, but she persevered.

  "I was hoping to see Mohandas, but of course he wasn't there. I thought there was an off chance that he might have come back from the conference to enjoy lunch with his hosts, but I imagine that the conference is taking up much of his time. In any event, Sujay Patel was there. You'll remember him from last night."

  Davison nodded his head.

  "He had intuitively determined what I might have come asking, and so he had the names of some men who might be worth looking into further as possible suspects for this crime."

  "I see," said Davison, "and who might they be?"

  "Sujay mentioned that there were three groups who were quite dissatisfied with Gandhi’s approach to independence. Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. The Hindus are upset because some of them think he's turning them into pushovers. The Muslims and Sikhs are both feeling disenfranchised."

  Davison nodded again.

  "Did he give you some names of anyone who had written threatening letters?"

  "Yes, he did," said Frances. "A Hindu by the name of Nathuram Vinayakrao Godse, a Muslim by the name of Parvez Dada and a Sikh by the name of Pitambar Singh."

  "That's a good start," said Davison. He put his left meaty hand on the folder that was next to him. Then he thought better of it and knitted it back together with his other hand. Then he looked back at Frances and frowned.

  "You know this Gandhi chap has refused our help," said Davison and he sounded quite upset by it.

  "What do you mean?" asked Frances.

  "We've offered, at great expense to the taxpayers I might add, to have one of our finest look out for him. To offer some additional security. He said he won't have it."

  "Did he say why?"

  Davison nodded.

  "It wouldn't set the right tone, he said."

  "If I might argue on his behalf Inspector, it is unlikely that the shooter would try again so soon. That would be madness."

  "It surely would, but it has happened before, and I'll be damned if I lose someone on my watch, even if he's not one of us."

  Frances wasn't sure how to take that last comment, so she ignored it.

  "Then the best we can do is to ensure that we catch the murderer as soon as we can."

  Davison looked like he might say something, but he didn't. He looked over at the folder instead and then slid it in front of himself.

  "Something that strikes me as odd. You say that this Sujay gave you the name of three men who had written threatening letters to Gandhi, isn't that right?"

  Frances nodded.

  "And you think that one of these three men would, after having identified himself in such a way, decide to shoot Ravi, or Gandhi in public?"

  Frances nodded again.

  "It is possible, Inspector. I agree that it would be unusual, but you must know that criminals are very often incriminating themselves, and if these letters had been written months ago, they might have forgotten about it."

  "It is possible, Inspector," said Pearce, "we've seen this sort of thing before."

  Davison looked over at his sergeant and barely nodded. He opened up the folder that was in front of him and it contained several pages of handwriting.

  "What is that?" asked Frances.

  "This contains the names and ticket numbers of all the tickets that were bought for the lecture last night. Unfortunately they're not in alphabetical order, but rather numerical order according to ticket numbers."

  "Perhaps we can look at the tickets that you found last night or this morning scattered around the crime scene," offered Frances.

  "That's what I was thinking," said Davison.

  Davison slid open a desk drawer on his left side and pulled out the six tickets that were stored in there. He put them on his
desk, to the right of the open folder and took some time to arrange them in numerical order. He looked at Pearce.

  "We have six tickets, Sergeant. In numerical order they are 0007, 0031, 0055, 0112, 0193 and 0245."

  He looked over at Pearce who had just finished writing them down. Davison looked back over at the pages containing the ticket numbers and the corresponding name. He dragged a squat finger down the column that contained the ticket numbers until he got to 0007. He drew his finger horizontally across until he got the corresponding name.

  "Ticket 0007 was bought by Bijay Panchal."

  "Another P," said Frances.

  Davison looked up while Pearce scribbled in his notebook.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Oh, sorry Inspector, that's just the fifth Indian name I've come across today with a letter P starting either the first or last name. You'll recall that Ravi's last words to me were 'Indian…p'."

  "Yes, I remember that. If you'll just let me finish this up, then we can discuss your amusement of it at length."

  Frances smiled at him sweetly. He frowned and looked back at his papers and continued dragging his index finger down to the next ticket number."

  "Ticket number 0031 belongs to Amir Pai. “He looked up at Frances. “That's a sixth name for you."

  She smiled and nodded at him. Davison continued on.

  "Ticket 0055 belongs to Patrick O'Malley. A seventh name with P for Lady Marmalade."

  Frances was no longer smiling, she looked at the papers in front of Davison. Though they were upside down the handwriting was legible and she could make it out.

  "Ticket number 0112 belongs to, um, Molapo Mathibeli."

  Davison struggled in getting his tongue around the African's name, but he got it eventually with a bit of help from Frances.

  "Ticket 0193 is Vivienne Eastwood's, and ticket 0245 belongs to Ryan Webb."

  Davison looked up at Frances. If I recall, none of those names you gave me earlier are related to these six tickets. Davison looked back over at Sergeant Pearce. Pearce flipped through a page or two of notes and shook his head.

  "No, Lady Marmalade gave us Parvez Dada, Nathuram Godse and Pitambar Singh."

  Davison looked back over at Frances and smiled like the cat who had caught a mouse. Frances was not amused.

  "Yes, that's quite right, but you hadn't let me finish, Inspector. Sujay had also found out the names of the two men who died from injuries sustained at the hands of the British at Dharasana Salt Works."

  "Very well, what are their names."

  Frances looked at Davison and smiled more broadly than he had earlier.

  "That's were it gets more interesting," she said. "The names of the two men were Ajit Pai and Chetan Panchal. I believe that you just mentioned both those last names." Frances looked over at Pearce. "Am I correct?"

  Pearce nodded.

  "She is, Inspector. Ticket 0031 belongs to Amir Pai who could be related to Ajit Pai and ticket 0007 belongs to Bijay Panchal a possible relation to Chetan Panchal."

  "I think, Inspector," said Frances, "that you would do well to interview both of those men. And I believe those names are male names. Of course you'll be interviewing all six as I'm sure they will all have something helpful to tell about the evening's events."

  "Of course," said Davison, "I am well aware of how to investigate a murder."

  "I didn't mean to sound unkind, Inspector, I am only here to help. We are on the same team and I would never presume to tell you how to do your job."

  Frances was trying to offer an olive branch in the hopes that they might find some no man's land in order to better work together on this case.

  "Very well," said Davison, "we might as well look at the three other names you've brought up and see if they are on this list."

  "Thank you, Inspector. The first fellow is Nathuram Godse."

  Davison started on the first page and dragged his thick finger down the column containing the names. He worked methodically through the first, second, third page, coming up empty. He plodded on. He was just about to give up when he found the name he was looking for on the last page.

  "Ah, here he is," said Davison. "Nathuram Godse, ticket number 0279."

  Davison looked up at Frances.

  "I will be speaking with him too."

  Frances smiled.

  "The other two were Parvez Dada and Pitambar Singh."

  "One at a time please. I can't keep two of these names in my mind at the same time."

  "Let's start with Parvez Dada then," said Frances.

  Davison once again scoured the pages with the ticket entries, dragging his finger down the column, slowly and surely. He came up empty with Parvez and he also came up empty with Pitambar Singh.

  "May I have a look please, Inspector," said Frances. "Can't hurt to have a second set of eyes."

  Davison turned the folder to face Frances and she took her time to carefully review all the names, but the inspector had not missed any. There was no Parvez Dada or Pitambar Singh on the registry.

  Frances turned the folder around and pushed it back towards Davison. He took it and closed it and lay his big meaty hands on top of it as if that was the end of that.

  "Well, I think that was a job well done. We have somewhere to go," said Frances.

  "But Parvez and Pitambar were not on that list ,were they?" asked Davison, somewhat pleased with himself.

  Frances shook her head.

  "No, they weren't. You did a very thorough job of it, Inspector," she said, and she almost felt like standing up and patting him on the head like the good boy he was

  But she didn't. She didn't need to make things worse between them.

  "But in fairness, Inspector," she continued, "they might still be here in London and they might have snuck into the lecture last night. I wouldn't have thought that would be particularly hard to do."

  Davison looked at her with a blank expression on her face. His fingers knitted together like unruly roots. He didn't say much for some time, and during that time Frances continued to hold his stare with kind eyes.

  "You could be right," he said. "I'll make inquiries with the Home Office."

  Frances nodded.

  "I would do that."

  Davison and Frances seemed locked in a stare, much like rams caught amongst each other's horns. Finally, Davison broke it first and looked over at Pearce.

  "Give me the seven names of the men with a letter P in either their first or last name."

  Pearce licked his index finger and pulled a couple of pages down from his notebook and looked over them. His eyes moved up and down.

  "Pitambar Singh and Parvez Dada whom we aren't sure attended the lecture. Amir Pai with ticket number 0031…"

  "I don't need the ticket numbers, Pearce," said Davison.

  Pearce nodded.

  "Right," he said. "Bijay Panchal and Patrick O'Malley. They were all at the lecture, then Frances mentioned the two deceased men, Ajit Pai and Chetan Panchal."

  Pearce looked at Frances and smiled, then he looked at Davison. Davison was looking at Frances and she returned his gaze after smiling at Pearce.

  "Well, two of those men can hardly be considered suspects seeing that they're dead. Of the remaining five, Lady Marmalade, who do you think did it?" asked Davison.

  "Oh, Inspector," said Frances, "I wouldn't pretend to know who did it this early on. Though I think we have a good list to start with. Certainly Amir and Bijay have a strong motive if in fact either one of them or the both of them shot Ravi. Revenge is a very strong motive. Though I wouldn't put the case to rest yet. This Patrick chap might have something interesting to say, and I'd suggest that we take a good look through the whole list, see if any of them have criminal backgrounds. Wouldn't you think that would be a good place to start?"

  Davison smiled at Frances but it wasn't the smile of friends.

  "You would make a very fine policewoman," he said, "if we allowed policewomen amongst our ranks."

  Frances smil
ed at him.

  "That's kind of you to say," she said, "and you'll get your policewomen soon enough. I understand there are currently Metropolitan Women Police Patrols, are there not?"

  "Oh yes, quite. However, they have limited powers of arrest and aren't fully integrated with us. They take on womanly responsibilities, help out with juveniles and prostitutes. Nothing very serious."

  "Perhaps more serious than sitting behind a fancy desk pushing papers around."

  Alfred had to stifle a laugh, and coughed instead. Pearce raised an eyebrow and twirled his mustache, trying to keep the corners of his mouth from smiling.

  "Is there anything else you'd like to help me with, Frances?" asked Davison, dropping formal address.

  "Did you find anything of note in any of the other names on the list?" she asked.

  He didn't open up the folder again but he shook his head.

  "I haven't looked yet. But rest assured that I will. We're generally very thorough here at Scotland Yard."

  "I have no doubt. What about that police whistle I found for you? Any word on who it might have belonged to?"

  "We're looking into it," he said.

  Frances smiled at him and then stood up. She offered her hand and he stood and shook it.

  "You've been very kind, Inspector," she said. "I'll be certain to let the Commissioner know just how kind you've been the next time I see him."

  Davison didn't like the tone in her voice for there was nothing to like about it. She held his gaze steady for a moment just letting him know she hadn't appreciated his tone either.

  "Good day, Frances," he said.

  Frances turned to face Sergeant Pearce and he shook her hand warmly. He had a mischievous twinkle in his eye and a smile on his lips.

  "I'm sure we'll get this chap with your help, Lady Marmalade," he said.

  "I have every faith in Scotland Yard," she said, though what she meant was that she had every faith in him specifically.

  Pearce led them out and once they were in the reception area he placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. Frances turned to look at him.