A Case of Murder in Mayfair (A Freddy Pilkington-Soames Adventure Book 2)

by Clara Benson

  ‘We’d better take it to the police,’ said Freddy. ‘Where’s the nearest station?’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Corky. ‘That’s another thing.’

  He stopped and looked around him in exaggerated fashion, then tapped his nose and drew Freddy into a doorway.

  ‘What do you say to it, then?’ he said. He brought the parcel of cocaine out of his pocket and weighed it in his hand. ‘I should say there was a good half a pound here. An ounce for you and an ounce for me, and the police can have the rest.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ said Freddy.

  ‘They’ll never know. Consider it a bonus payment for the overtime we’ve done this evening.’

  Freddy eyed him in astonishment.

  ‘Are you suggesting we steal this cocaine?’ he said. ‘You? Corky Beckwith? The scourge of every drug fiend from Isleworth to Ilford? The crusader for morality who has vowed to eradicate the epidemic of dope that is destroying our nation’s youth?’

  ‘Oh, pish,’ said Corky. ‘One has to maintain appearances for the sake of the paper, but what a man does in private is his own business.’

  He peered into the packet, took a large pinch and snuffed it delicately, then gave a sigh of satisfaction.

  ‘I should say this was the good stuff, all right,’ he said.

  ‘You rotten hypocrite!’ said Freddy, outraged. ‘After all the things you’ve written, and all those people you’ve hounded.’

  ‘Never mind them—they deserved it. Look, do take a bit. You’ve done some rather good work this evening, and there’ll be plenty left over for our story.’

  ‘But I don’t want any.’

  Corky leered.

  ‘Don’t try and pretend to be holier than thou, Freddy. I can see right through you. I know you’re craving the dope—you as good as told me so today.’

  ‘No I didn’t. When did I say that?’

  ‘Why, this morning, when you told me of this friend of yours down in the country. Naturally, I saw through your ruse immediately. You were talking about yourself, of course.’

  ‘No I wasn’t!’ exclaimed Freddy.

  ‘Oh, come, now. How green do you suppose I am? It was perfectly obvious whom you meant. Now, it’s clear you don’t trust me not to tell, but I should have thought that this evening’s little adventure would have convinced you that I’m a man of my word. You can’t say I didn’t produce the goods, can you? I’ve done you a favour and handed you a story that ought to put you in old Bickerstaffe’s good books for weeks. Don’t worry—I shan’t insist you squeal on all your little pals who spend their weekends face-down in the white powder with you, but if I were you I’d keep my share of this haul to myself. After all, you deserve it.’

  ‘Look here,’ said Freddy, who was becoming impatient. ‘You’d better forget all this nonsense. I don’t want any of it, and I’m not letting you keep it either, since it seems you can’t be trusted with it. I’ll take it to the police. Give it to me.’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Corky. ‘Fair’s fair.’

  ‘But it’s evidence,’ said Freddy.

  He made as if to take the package from Corky.

  ‘Hi!’ said Corky indignantly, and held it out of his reach. There followed an unseemly tussle.

  ‘Oh, there, then,’ said Corky petulantly at last. He stood back, and Freddy was left holding the packet. ‘I suppose you’re going to go to the police now.’

  ‘Well, better I than you, fathead,’ said Freddy. ‘At least I haven’t just taken a faceful of the stuff, and can tell them what happened in a calm and rational manner.’

  ‘A calm and rational manner, eh? We’ll see about that,’ said Corky.

  Before Freddy could say a word, he stepped forward, grabbed Freddy by the hair with one hand and plunged his other into the packet, then rubbed a fistful of cocaine viciously into Freddy’s face and up his nose. Freddy gave a strangled bellow and wrenched himself free.

  ‘Why, you—you—’ he spluttered, wiping at his face.

  ‘Let’s see what the police say when you turn up giggling like an escaped lunatic, with half the dope in your hands and the other half all over your clothes,’ said Corky spitefully. ‘I’m sure they’ll be delighted to listen to your story.’

  Freddy directed a number of unrepeatable words at him, but Corky merely gave a supercilious smile and looked at his watch.

  ‘It’s not quite four,’ he said. ‘Shall we say ten o’clock at the Yard? That ought to give you time to sleep it off. Mind, don’t be late!’

  And with that he made his escape. Freddy brushed himself down as best he could, fuming, and wondered what to do next. He still had the packet, and briefly considered going to the police anyway, but swiftly abandoned the idea, for he suspected he should only babble. He felt extremely wide awake, but it was too late to go out, since everything would be closed now—and in any case, he was filthy after his climb over the rooftops—so he went home, where he was suddenly assailed by an overwhelming urge to write a novel based upon his experiences of that evening. It was somehow vitally important that he put his ideas down now, before he forget them, and so he fetched out his typewriter and dashed off five chapters at great speed in two hours, before collapsing on the sofa and falling asleep just as dawn was breaking.

  ‘Basil and Birdie, eh?’ said Sergeant Bird. ‘Who’d have thought it? Any sign of them yet?’

  ‘Not a one,’ said Inspector Entwistle. ‘They’ve skipped it, all right. We’ll watch the ports, but I doubt they’ve got that far, if she really is in the condition these two chaps described.’

  ‘Sounds like she needs a hospital more than anything else,’ observed Bird.

  ‘That’s an idea. I wonder—have them make inquiries in private nursing-homes hereabouts. He might have parked her in one of them before he made a run for it.’

  ‘Good at dressing up, too, these actors,’ said Bird. ‘I shouldn’t wonder if he’d gone in disguise.’

  ‘Well, that will make our job all the harder,’ said the inspector. He frowned. ‘What about these reporters? I don’t know that I believe their story.’

  ‘It’s a strange one,’ said Bird. ‘Running around over the rooftops at night with bags of dope. Sounds like high jinks to me.’

  ‘I had half a mind to arrest them both on a charge of disorderly behaviour,’ said Entwistle.

  ‘But they did bring us the stuff,’ said Bird reasonably.

  ‘They did, but why did they take so long about it? If you ask me, they had a go at it themselves first, to look at the state of them when they came in.’

  ‘What about this second packet of coke? The one Pilkington-Soames said had been planted on a friend of his at the Maypole during a fight. He wouldn’t name the friend, but he seemed to think that it must have been Kibble who did the planting.’

  ‘It makes sense, I suppose,’ said the inspector grudgingly. ‘If the police arrived and started arresting people he wouldn’t want to be caught with it on him. And the two lots are of the same quality, according to the lab chaps.’

  ‘Did Dacres get her supply from Kibble, then, d’you think?’

  ‘I imagine so,’ said Entwistle. ‘Although hers was of much lower quality.’

  ‘Different batches, presumably,’ said Bird.

  Entwistle pursed his lips.

  ‘There’s something fishy going on with those two reporters, I’m sure of it. I don’t believe for a moment that they got in through an open window.’

  ‘Well, they’re hardly likely to admit it if they did break in,’ said Bird. ‘Still, we have had trouble with Beckwith before. He’s known in the force as a bit of a pest, and some of the stories he writes are just this side of libellous. Pilkington-Soames we know from the Maltravers case, of course.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Entwistle. ‘And that was never cleared up to our satisfaction either.’
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  ‘He did help to catch the killer, in a manner of speaking,’ said the sergeant.

  ‘I suppose so. At any rate, whether this Kennington story is true or not, the Kibbles have certainly disappeared, and there are signs that shots were fired in the house, so I should like very much to speak to them—if we can ever find them.’

  ‘It’s a pity, really,’ said Bird ruminatively. ‘They were a funny couple. But it just goes to show you can’t trust anyone these days.’

  ‘It changes things somewhat in the Dacres case, too,’ said the inspector. ‘The Kibbles are suspects now, thanks to this drugs angle. If they were supplying her with cocaine, and she threatened to expose them, then who’s to say they didn’t decide to take matters into their own hands and silence her once and for all?’

  ‘Do you think that’s what happened, sir?’ said Bird.

  ‘Well, we know Dacres was the sort to throw her weight around a bit and make enemies. What if the Kibbles had crossed her in some way? She wasn’t the type to stand for it without retaliating—or, at least, threatening to retaliate.’

  ‘Do we know whether either of them had the opportunity that evening?’ said Bird.

  Entwistle referred to his notes.

  ‘Difficult to tell,’ he said. ‘We know they were at the piano most of the evening, but they stopped for a rest when Miss Dacres made her grand announcement. Birdie was seen talking to Sir Aldridge Featherstone for a good while after that, but we don’t know where Basil went. We do know they were both back at the piano by about ten past eleven.’

  ‘But we still don’t know at exactly what time Dorothy Dacres died,’ said Bird.

  ‘No, and that’s what makes it so difficult—we don’t know what led up to her death. If it was done on the spur of the moment after a row, then the murderer would have been missing for several minutes. But if the whole thing was planned in advance, it would have taken a matter of seconds to sneak up on her and tip her over the edge.’

  ‘True. We still don’t know whether it was premeditated or not, assuming it was murder.’

  ‘I think we must assume it was,’ said Entwistle. ‘There are too many people with motives running around, and there’s too little reason for it to have been an accident or suicide.’

  ‘Proving it will be nigh on impossible, though, unless we can find a witness or get a confession.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Entwistle thoughtfully.

  ‘Supposing it wasn’t Basil Kibble,’ said Bird. ‘Who did it? Robert Kenrick?’

  ‘Perhaps. He certainly had the opportunity, and the motive, too.’

  ‘You don’t seem convinced, sir,’ said the sergeant.

  ‘I’m not,’ said the inspector. ‘He doesn’t strike me as the type. He’s very much an innocent abroad, don’t you think?’

  ‘True. But even the most honest man might do something desperate if driven to it. And he seemed very cut up when he thought he was going to lose his girl because of Dacres.’

  ‘Well, looking at it logically he’s the most likely, since he was on the terrace before eleven and disappeared entirely after that, so I won’t strike him off the list just yet, but it will take a lot more to convince me,’ said Entwistle. ‘Now, Cora Drucker. She didn’t have much opportunity to do it, since everyone agrees she was wandering around in the living-room, asking people whether they’d seen Kenrick. Incidentally, do we know what she wanted to speak to him about?’

  ‘I don’t think she mentioned it, sir,’ said Bird.

  ‘Hmm. Perhaps we’d better ask her. Now, what motive? Jealousy?’

  ‘Possible. She was an actress once, but gave it up when her sister started taking up all the limelight.’

  ‘Thwarted ambition,’ said Entwistle. ‘That might be reason enough to commit murder, but since it doesn’t seem as though she had the opportunity, we’ll leave her aside for the moment. Now, Eugene Penk. He and Kenneth Neale give each other an alibi, at least for the first part of the half-hour period, while Sarah Rowland is his alibi for the rest of the time, since she’s quite certain he didn’t come in from the smaller terrace until the news got out about the incident.’

  ‘What was his motive?’

  ‘Any or none. We know he and Dacres were married but separated, but since he claims they’d agreed to divorce, I don’t see the sense in his throwing her off the balcony purely to get rid of a wife he no longer wanted. These Americans divorce each other at the drop of a hat, as far as I understand it, so murder would be completely unnecessary.’

  ‘Might there have been another reason for it? On the business side, I mean. He didn’t sound any too keen to have her in his picture, although he had to make the best of it.’

  ‘Yes, it looks as though he’s saddled himself with the worst sort of business partner—one who has all the money but none of the knowledge, and thinks he ought to have a say in how the business is run despite having no idea of what he’s doing.’

  ‘I gather Sir Aldridge Featherstone is putting some money into the company now,’ said Bird.

  ‘True, but Dorothy Dacres was still a thorn in Penk’s side for this particular picture. Her being given the part offended a lot of people, which would have made things difficult for him. Several people seemed to think she was completely wrong for the rôle and would spoil the film—and it was very important that this picture succeed, after his previous ones flopped. That sounds like enough of a motive to me. But he doesn’t appear to have had the opportunity, so we shall have to leave him for now.’

  ‘Kenneth Neale, then?’ suggested Bird. ‘Penk had persuaded him into directing the film on the understanding that Augusta Laing would play the part of Helen Harper, and he was furious when he found out that he’d been tricked.’

  ‘Yes, but as you pointed out before, he’d be far more likely to have chucked Penk off a balcony rather than Dorothy Dacres. I mean to say, I can’t find any evidence that he had a particular grudge against Dorothy herself.’

  ‘I hear she was rude to his daughter,’ said the sergeant.

  ‘That’s not reason enough to kill someone, surely?’

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ said Bird. ‘People can be funny about their little darlings.’

  ‘In that case, doesn’t Mrs. Neale have a motive too?’

  ‘She was with Ada all evening,’ said Bird. ‘And I doubt very much whether a seven-year-old would keep quiet if she saw her mother throw another woman off a terrace.’

  ‘Probably not,’ agreed the inspector. ‘Now, Seymour Cosgrove. Arrested the other night at the Maypole for being drunk and attacking Pilkington-Soames.’

  ‘He seems to attract a lot of that sort of thing, Mr. Pilkington-Soames does,’ observed the sergeant.

  ‘He’s a trouble-maker if ever I saw one,’ said Entwistle. ‘It’s just lucky for him he doesn’t have any motive that I can see for killing Dacres, or I’d have something to say to him. But it appears that in this case he was the innocent party—or, shall we say, he didn’t start the fight. Presumably he must have done something to offend, though, if Cosgrove felt obliged to swing at him.’

  ‘What does Cosgrove say about the night at the Abingdon?’

  The inspector grunted.

  ‘I didn’t make much progress there,’ he said. ‘He still claims he can’t remember exactly where he was during the half-hour in question, but was wandering around the living-room talking to people. Mrs. Neale remembers speaking to him at about eleven, but that was only for a few minutes. There’s a good quarter of an hour before that unaccounted for, and another quarter of an hour afterwards.’

  ‘He’s the one who lost his job, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes. And we have a number of witnesses to say he didn’t take it at all well. Whether he took it badly enough to kill is another matter, though.’

  ‘Good photographer, is he, this chap?’

  ‘Supposedly. He
does all the artistic stuff—you know, pictures of society women wrapped in cellophane with cats on their head, that sort of thing. Not my idea of art, but he seems to be well thought of.’

  ‘Ah, these artistic types,’ said Bird, understanding. ‘They can be a bit temperamental.’

  ‘And this one doesn’t have an alibi,’ said Entwistle. ‘But again, the proof’s the thing. Now, Augusta Laing. She’s our last, and I can’t find out what she was doing either. She went missing shortly after the announcement, and turned up again just before eleven, when she went out onto the balcony with Pilkington-Soames. They stayed outside for a few minutes with Miss Drucker, then they all went in together and Miss Laing was in view from then until Dacres was found.’

  ‘Dorothy Dacres didn’t vanish until after ten to eleven, so that doesn’t give her long to do the deed,’ said the sergeant. ‘Less then ten minutes, in fact.’

  ‘True, but if she was already waiting on the terrace when Dacres came out, it would have been easy enough. Still, I don’t really think she did it. This doesn’t seem like a woman’s crime to me—far too violent.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bird. ‘Anyone else? What about Sir Aldridge Featherstone?’

  ‘He’s an outsider, but I suppose we oughtn’t to discount him. I can’t see what his motive would have been, unless it was similar to that of Penk’s, and he was worried about the effect Dacres would have on the film. But I understand the definitive agreement for him to take shares in Aston-Penk wasn’t signed until after Dacres’ death. It seems a little far-fetched to me to think that a respectable business-man like Sir Aldridge Featherstone should operate in that way. I mean to say, surely if he didn’t like the presence of Dorothy Dacres in the film, he would simply refuse his backing rather than chuck her off a roof?’

  ‘It would be a queer way of going about things,’ agreed the sergeant. A thought struck him. ‘Look here,’ he said. ‘Don’t you think we’ve missed someone out? What about Miss Rowland? Might she have had the opportunity? She certainly disliked Dacres enough.’

  ‘Yes, I had thought of her already,’ said Entwistle, nodding, ‘but I think we can safely eliminate her. She was seen by many people that evening—but even if that weren’t the case, she’s given us such specific and detailed information about everybody’s movements from moment to moment that I can’t imagine she’d have had the time to nip out and kill Dacres, since she was much too busy watching everyone else.’