‘And just who might she have been going to meet?’ Chubb cocked an eye at Madden. ‘Has Angus any ideas about that?’
‘Not that I’m aware of. But if she was headed for a rendezvous it was most likely with a man.’
‘And you—or rather Angus—now thinks this imaginary bloke could be the real murderer?’
‘It’s possible.’
The chief super shook his head again. A rumble of discontent issued from his lips.
‘Possible maybe, but not good enough, John, and you know it. It’s guesswork. Don’t blame Cradock. For once I agree with him. We all know what will happen if he consents to re-open the case. All hell will break loose. It was bad enough the first time around, what with an actress getting herself topped and the Prince of Wales’s name being batted about like a Ping-Pong ball. We won’t want to go through all that again if we can help it.’
He peered at his listener.
‘Look, Styles here said you were planning to go down to Kent to have a word with Tom Derry and take a look at this pendant. Fine. I’ve no problem with that. In fact, if you learn anything interesting you might pass it on to us. But if you’re going to ask any more questions, for heaven’s sake be discreet. I don’t want this thing suddenly blowing up in my face; and neither does Cradock.’
He paused to lend weight to his words.
‘As for Angus, he’ll just have to swallow it. I’ll write him a letter explaining why we can’t take it any further; not as things stand.’ He cocked an eye at his visitor. ‘How is he generally—in good spirits?’
‘I wouldn’t say that.’ Madden prepared to get up. ‘His gout’s playing up again. I left him growling like a bear in his cave.’
‘Then like as not he’ll bite your head off when you give him the news.’ Chubb chuckled.
‘I shouldn’t be surprised.’ Madden rose to his feet. ‘Look, I understand your position, Charlie, and I’ll do my best to explain it to Angus. Thank you for giving me your time. Helen sends her regards and says she hopes you’ll pay us a visit again soon. I’m sure Angus would like to have a word with you as well.’
‘I’ll bet he would.’ Chubb rose to bid his visitor farewell. ‘So he can bite my head off, too.’
• • •
‘I’m sorry it’s turned out this way, sir.’ Billy Styles had walked with his old mentor down the corridor from Chubb’s office to the head of the stairs. ‘I’d like to have given you more support, but . . .’
‘But Mr Sinclair doesn’t have a strong case.’ Madden patted him on the arm. ‘Don’t worry, Billy. I knew I’d be batting on a tricky wicket. I told Angus I would try, but I didn’t really believe we could persuade either Charlie or Cradock to act. It’ll take more than that pendant to get them to re-open the inquiry.’
‘Mr Sinclair must know that.’ Billy was puzzled. ‘I just wonder why he’s stirring things up. I know he was in charge of the investigation, but only nominally to judge by the file. It was almost all over by the time he got down there. The Canterbury police arrested the bloke the next day.’
‘Yes, only nominally, as you say, but he was still in charge.’ Madden had paused at the head of the stairs leading down to the lobby. ‘And the man was hanged: that’s the point to remember. That’s why Mr Sinclair is so upset. If he thinks for a moment that they were wrong—that he played some part, no matter how small, in sending an innocent man to the gallows—it’ll go on tormenting him. He’s always hated capital punishment. He thinks it’s barbaric.’
Billy reflected.
‘I’m surprised he didn’t come up to London himself.’ He grinned. ‘Then Charlie would have had to face him. He wouldn’t have enjoyed that.’
‘Oh, he would have come. You can be sure of that. But he’s immobilised at the moment. It’s his gout. Helen has told him he’s not to budge from his cottage until it eases a little. Even then, I doubt he could manage a trip to London. He’s quite crippled at the moment.’
In her role as Highfield’s doctor, Madden’s wife had seen to the former chief inspector’s health ever since his retirement four years earlier.
‘Since I was coming up to town anyway, I offered to have a word with Charlie in person. Mr Sinclair wrote to him a week ago. He’s still waiting for a reply. I’m sure he’ll get it in due course—but it won’t be the one he was hoping for. I’ll have to ring him this evening and give him the bad news.’
Madden started down the stairs, but paused when he caught the look in Billy’s eye.
‘I was just wondering.’ The younger man scratched his head. ‘Isn’t there something I could do? I’d like to help Mr Sinclair if I can.’
‘No, don’t do anything, Billy, not for the moment.’ Madden was quick to discourage him. ‘Charlie’s a good sort, but he won’t take kindly to having his orders ignored. And as it happens it’s no inconvenience for me to slip down to Kent. I’ll be up in London all this week and probably next week, too, but not fully occupied. I’m rather looking forward to seeing Tom Derry again. You remember him, don’t you?’
‘Of course.’ Billy grinned in happy recollection. ‘That was when we went down to Maidstone together.’
The visit he was recalling had occurred more than a score of years earlier when he had worked under Madden on an investigation into a series of brutal murders that had begun in Highfield but taken them far afield in search of the killer. Their travels had included a trip to Maidstone, where the then local CID chief, Tom Derry, an old friend of Sinclair’s, had proved to be of particular help.
‘Derry was transferred to Canterbury in the thirties, which is how he came to be involved in the Portia Blake murder. He’s retired now, but it was his letter to Mr Sinclair that got the ball rolling. I rang him yesterday and explained about Angus being laid up at the moment and that I was coming down in his place. Derry’s also worried that they may have arrested the wrong man.’
‘Well, if both of them feel the same way there may be something to it.’ Billy frowned.
‘Perhaps. I’ll know better when I’ve talked to him.’
Madden started down the stairs.
‘Before then, though, I’m going to have to ring Angus and give him the bad news.’
He glanced back over his shoulder.
‘Spare a thought for me, would you?’
2
‘YES, ANGUS. I SEE. No, really, I understand. Not at all, Angus—I was happy to be of help. Yes, of course I’ll give you a full report when I get back. By the way, are you feeling any better?’
Madden listened with the receiver pressed to his ear; and then, like Chubb earlier in the day, he winced.
‘I’m sorry to hear that. Helen did say it might take some time to wear off.’
Again he was silent as he listened to the voice at the other end of the line.
‘Quite so. It sounds most unpleasant. We’ll talk again very soon. Goodbye for now.’
As he replaced the receiver Madden looked up and saw that his daughter, Lucy, was standing at the bottom of the stairs listening. He hadn’t heard her come down from her bedroom upstairs. She was shaking her head.
‘Poor Angus.’
‘Yes, poor Angus.’ Madden scowled. ‘But he’s certainly making a meal of it.’
‘You’re being very hard-hearted,’ she observed piously.
‘Am I?’ Madden led the way into the sitting-room. ‘According to your mother he’s the worst patient she’s ever had, and I can believe it. I thought he’d be pleased when I told him I was going down to Kent tomorrow. Not a bit of it. He said I should have been more insistent with Chubb, made him see reason.’
‘Poor Angus.’
‘Will you stop saying that?’ Madden caught her eye and she laughed. He stood back to take in her appearance. ‘What a lovely dress. Did you make it yourself?’
‘Sort of.’ Lucy turned slowly about so that he could apprecia
te the full effect of the tight-waisted, bouffant garment. Cut well below her knees in the so-called New Look—a fashion that like so many had come from Paris (and been much derided by killjoys when it first appeared as a waste of scarce material)—it swirled about her graceful figure in a shimmering blue wave. ‘It’s an old evening dress of Mummy’s which I cut down and made some alterations to. Can you remember her wearing it?’
‘Yes, now that you mention it.’ Madden’s gaze softened. ‘You’re really very good at this. Are you going to make a career of it?’
It was more than a year now since Lucy had come up to London with the idea of finding a job and, to her parents’ surprise, had accepted a lowly position in the salon of a well-known dress designer (somewhat to the disappointment of her mother, who still nursed the hope that her unpredictable daughter might eventually realize she had a good mind and try for university).
‘But that’s what I’m doing in a way.’ Lucy had sought to console her. ‘I’m studying, learning things. I’m a bit of a dogsbody at the moment, but that’ll change, you’ll see.’
‘Perhaps I’ll have a famous daughter one day.’ Madden mused agreeably on the thought. ‘We’ll all be invited to view the new Lucy Madden collection.’
‘You never know. It might happen.’ Lucy was busy checking her reflection in the mirror above the mantel. ‘I feel I’m abandoning you tonight,’ she said. ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’
‘I expect I’ll manage. I’ve got Alice to look after me.’
‘Dear Alice. She hardly knows what to do with herself now that Aunt Maud’s gone. She talks to me about her all the time.’
It was the recent death of Helen’s aunt—and Lucy’s great-aunt—Maud Collingwood that had brought Madden to London. Surviving well into her nineties, the old lady had passed away peacefully in her bed—as she had always sworn she would—two months earlier, and when her will was read Helen and Madden found that she had left them her house in St John’s Wood.
‘It’s not that surprising, I suppose—I was her closest living relative—but what on earth are we going to do with it?’
For a while Helen and her husband had toyed with the idea of renting the house. But the problems of absentee landlordism had finally persuaded them to sell it.
‘We can use the money to buy a flat which Lucy can use,’ Helen had pointed out. ‘And it can be somewhere for Rob to stay as well when he’s in London.’ Their son, a naval officer, was presently serving on a cruiser in the Indian Ocean.
The decision having been made, Madden had set himself the task of finding an estate agent to handle the sale and of disposing of such furniture as they did not wish to keep, while Lucy, who had been camping with friends in an over-crowded flat in Knightsbridge, had moved to St John’s Wood.
‘I’d rather not leave Alice in the house on her own,’ Helen had explained.
Aunt Maud’s long-time maid and companion, Alice Penny, had made plans to spend her retirement with her sister and brother-in-law at Hastings, on the south coast, but her move had been delayed by the alterations that would have to be made to their home before they could take her in. In the interim, Helen had insisted that she remain in her late mistress’s house, and Alice in turn had decided that she would continue to serve as cook and maid there for as long as the Maddens might need her.
Lucy, meanwhile, was busy in front of the mirror putting last-minute touches to her make-up.
‘Could you help me with my dress, Daddy? It’s those buttons at the back. They’re so hard to reach. I don’t know how Mummy used to manage. Did she have a maid to help?’
‘I should think so. People did in those days.’
Madden came up behind his daughter and began the painstaking job of fitting each small cloth-covered button into its appropriate slit. Glancing at the mirror he saw their faces—Lucy’s fresh glowing complexion and his own weathered visage where the lines around his eyes were deeply carved now and his dark hair streaked with grey. As always in summer, when his skin grew tanned, the scar on his forehead—a legacy of the months he had spent in the trenches during the First World War—showed white against the brown skin. She caught his eye in the mirror and smiled.
‘When you took me to dinner at Rules the other night we were spotted by a friend of mine, Polly Manners. She rang me the next day wanting to know who my madly attractive escort was and did I know any other fascinating-looking older men like him I could introduce her to.’
‘Madly attractive!’ Madden spluttered. ‘What a ridiculous thing to say. And you’re much too young to be thinking about older men.’
‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that what’s called a contradiction in terms?’
She kissed him on the cheek, and then stood back to examine her reflection in the mirror.
‘Don’t wait up for me. I won’t be back till late.’
‘Dancing till dawn again, are you?’
Madden regarded his lovely daughter wistfully. Lucy had inherited not only her mother’s looks but so many of her mannerisms that there were times when he seemed to be seeing Helen in her youth reborn in the golden-haired girl before him.
Lucy shook her head. ‘You keep forgetting I’ve got a job. I have to get up in the morning. You’re confusing me with Mummy. It was she and Violet who used to dance the night away. Literally. Violet has told me all about it, how they would gather in Piccadilly at the end of a ball to have breakfast at one of those mobile kitchens. “Ah, the times your mother and I have seen the sun come up over Green Park.”’
One of Helen’s oldest friends, Lady Violet Tremayne was a fixture of Highfield life.
‘Of course Mummy denies it furiously. She says Violet exaggerates everything. But I know which one of them I believe.’
Lucy put on her wrap.
‘I wish I were staying in with you tonight. I’d much rather hear about this case of Angus’s and what happened at Scotland Yard today. You must promise to tell me all about it when you come back from Kent. I want to know what you find out—every last detail.’
To Madden’s surprise, when he had told his daughter about the mission Sinclair had entrusted him with she had reacted instantly to one of the names he had mentioned.
‘The Portia Blake murder! Of course I remember that. When I was at St Clare’s we used to smuggle copies of the News of the World into the dormitory and read it by torchlight under our sheets. She was an actress, wasn’t she? She looked lovely in her photographs. It was awful to think of her being strangled that way.’
In the course of her chequered scholastic career Lucy had spent some months at a boarding-school in Dorset, one from which her parents had hurriedly removed her when it became apparent from letters received from the headmistress that she was about to be expelled for persistent misbehaviour.
‘We always thought there was more to it than met the eye, the other girls and I. The trouble was the police made an arrest almost at once. It was over so quickly.’
At that moment the bell rang—it was the taxi she had rung for earlier—and Madden accompanied his daughter to the front door.
‘Oddly enough, that’s exactly what Angus says,’ he told her as she kissed him goodnight.
3
‘IF ONLY SHE HADN’T been an actress.’ Tom Derry scowled at the word. ‘It was all Fleet Street needed to start licking its lips. We’d hardly had time to shift the poor woman’s body to the mortuary slab in Canterbury when more than a score of them descended on us from London—reporters, photographers . . . the lot. They pretty well laid siege to the house.’
He grunted to himself, as though the memory still had the power to rile him.
‘And of course it wasn’t only that. It was also because of where she was staying: her host, Sir Jack Jessup, was a big name. “Black Jack Jessup”—that’s what the newspapers used to call him. Actually he was christened with your name, John. But he wa
s always known as Sir Jack, and preferred to be called that. He’d been quite a lad in his younger days, always in the public eye for one reason or another, and later on he became “one of the Prince of Wales’s set”, as the press liked to put it then. I don’t know how much truth there was in that, though Edward did come down here to stay a couple of times before he abdicated. But it meant the papers could put it all together—actress, Prince of Wales, murder! Well, I don’t have to draw a picture for you. It was meat and drink to them.’
He fell silent for a few moments as a flock of sheep materialised on the narrow lane in front of them and he was forced to steer a careful path between their woolly bodies.
‘That’s also why Angus was sent down from London. As soon as our chief constable heard about the murder—and that was within an hour or two—he was on the blower to the commissioner in London. He could see what lay ahead and wanted any brickbats that might be coming our way from the press or public spread around, with the Yard getting its fair share. At least that’s my opinion.
‘And the irony was she had never been much of an actress anyway, Miss Portia Blake. I looked into her background and found she’d been in only a handful of West End plays and one or two films, and always in walk-on parts, never as a lead or anything close to it. But the press boys weren’t going to let a little thing like that spoil their party.’ He snorted.
Madden glanced across at his companion for the day. Not surprisingly, the former Kent detective had aged with the years. Now quite bald, Derry had also shrunk, at least in Madden’s memory as he recalled the lanky individual he had first encountered in Maidstone all those years ago. Like Sinclair he had retired from the force at the end of the war with the rank of superintendent. But he seemed as alert as ever and had greeted Madden warmly when he had arrived at his cottage on the outskirts of Canterbury earlier that morning.
‘I remember the day you came down from London as though it were yesterday,’ he had told him. ‘Whatever happened to that young cub you had with you?’
The Death of Kings Page 2