by Clara Benson
They talked of this and that, and at length Penk and Neale returned to rejoin the party. Freddy immediately noticed that Penk and Cora appeared to be on very friendly terms, for he sat next to her and every so often they exchanged glances of confidence. It soon emerged that Cora Drucker had made up her mind to return to acting, and that Eugene Penk fully supported her decision—indeed, had begun to look for parts for her.
‘I’ve never done a talkie,’ she said to Freddy, ‘but I started out in the theatre, so I guess nobody will complain about my voice.’
Freddy made a suitable reply, then said:
‘This is a sudden decision, isn’t it? I mean to say, I understood you’d retired from acting.’
‘I had,’ she replied. ‘Or at least, I thought I had. But now—well, there’s no use in pretending—I won’t have to suffer all those comparisons to Dorothy that I used to get. Everyone admired her so much, and I couldn’t help feeling that they looked at her and then at me, and found me wanting. It hurt my confidence, and it must have shown, because I stopped getting parts. That just made me feel worse, and so in the end I had to stop. But Eugene is very kind, and says I never ought to have given up in the first place, and he’s convinced me to try again.’
Freddy noticed she kept touching Penk’s arm affectionately as she spoke, and did his best not to raise his eyebrows. He knew, of course, that Eugene Penk and Dorothy Dacres had been secretly married, but now that Penk was a free man, had he and Cora taken the opportunity to strike up a closer friendship?
Penk now leaned across.
‘So you’re the man who found out who killed Dorothy,’ he said without preamble.
‘Well, that’s not quite certain yet,’ replied Freddy. ‘I don’t think there’s any solid evidence to connect Basil to her death.’
‘Evidence or not, it’s pretty clear he did it,’ said Penk. ‘I hear you had a narrow escape across the rooftops.’
‘We did,’ said Freddy. ‘Not the easiest way to get from the front of a building to the back, but when one’s being chased by a man with a gun one doesn’t have much choice.’
Here he was called upon to tell the story of his adventures, which he did with only a small amount of exaggeration.
‘Do you think they’ll catch them?’ said Patience Neale.
‘I expect they will, my dear,’ said her husband. ‘They’re too well known to hide for long. Someone is bound to recognize them.’
‘Poor Birdie,’ she said. ‘And she was so looking forward to filming her part in For Every Yesterday. I suppose that’s all off now.’
‘Is the film still going ahead?’ said Freddy.
‘It sure is,’ said Penk cheerfully. ‘I’d rather it remained confidential for the moment—you know, so soon after what happened—but we expect to begin production in January, with Augusta Laing playing the part of Helen Harper.’
Freddy glanced at Kenneth Neale, who said humorously:
‘You’d better offer her the part first.’
Penk waved a hand.
‘She won’t say no. And if she does, we can find somebody else.’
‘I’ll see to it she doesn’t say no,’ said Neale. ‘In fact, I’ll telephone her as soon as we get home.’
He looked very pleased with himself—and no wonder, thought Freddy, for now he had the actress he had always wanted for the part.
‘I’m going to America,’ said Adorable Ada to Freddy. She was sitting next to him and had been staring at him fixedly for several minutes.
‘Are you, indeed?’ he said. ‘Shall you make films there?’
‘I think so,’ she replied. ‘Daddy has been talking to Mr. Penk about it. They say I shall be a star. I hope I shall like America. Everyone there is very rich and beautiful. I hope I’m good enough.’
There was just a touch of anxiety in her tone. It was the first time Freddy had ever seen her demonstrate the slightest self-doubt. Perhaps she was human after all.
‘I’m sure you will be,’ he said. ‘But you can always stop acting if you’re not having fun. I dare say there will be lots of children for you to play with in America.’
‘I don’t know any children,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I wonder what they’re like.’
Freddy wanted to say, ‘Much like you, I expect,’ but that was so patently unlikely that he held his tongue.
‘It’s a pity I don’t have any brothers or sisters,’ went on Ada. ‘Then I should have someone to play with. I should like a sister, I think.’
‘Should you?’
‘Yes. Then I should know there was at least one person who liked me. Cora was Dorothy’s sister, you know, and I think she must have liked her, even if no-one else did.’
She looked a little wistful, and Freddy almost felt sorry for her, since she evidently had no friends her own age.
‘If I had a sister, then she could arrange surprises for me, like Cora did for Dorothy,’ she went on. ‘I like surprises. Cakes and dolls, and other things. Do you like surprises?’
‘As long as they’re nice ones,’ said Freddy. He was slightly distracted, for he had just had an idea and was trying to remember what it was, and he was also trying to hear something Eugene Penk was saying about his business partner, Henry Aston, who had apparently been inconsolable at Dorothy’s death, since he had been very fond of her personally.
‘Henry’s a swell guy,’ said Penk, ‘but he gets carried away by his enthusiasms. I guess he’s so rich he can afford to do it, but I told him that’s no way to run a business. Why, if I’d let him, he’d have given Dorothy the lead part in every one of our pictures, and then wondered why they all failed. He’s as shrewd a man as you could ever hope to meet when it comes to factories and railroads, but he’s new to the movie business and a little confused by it. He thinks making a picture is as simple a matter as laying a length of track here or making so many farm machines per week there. He doesn’t understand yet that movie stars aren’t made of springs and metal, and that you can’t make them do what you want just by snapping your fingers.’
He then held forth about Sir Aldridge, and the opportunities to be had from a closer partnership between British and American film companies, and was most complimentary about the talent of British directors and actors. He seemed to be making every effort to win back the little ground he had lost with Kenneth Neale—and it looked as though it were working, since the Neales were now apparently planning to go to Hollywood to try their luck there, with the support of Penk.
Shortly after that, the little party broke up, and Freddy headed back to Fleet Street. He had hoped to find out something useful that afternoon, but he had learned nothing, except that everybody was happier since Dorothy’s death—of which he had already been well aware. He frowned, for he was still convinced that the answer to the mystery lay at the hotel; moreover, he was irked, because he was almost sure he had said something very clever not half an hour ago, but he could not for the life of him remember what it was. He shook his head in frustration, then made up his mind to stop thinking about it. Perhaps it would come back to him sooner or later—he certainly hoped so, for the trail was going cold, and without new evidence it was starting to look as though the mystery would never be solved.
News came the next day that Basil and Birdie Kibble had been caught in an attempt to flee to France. As suspected, they had been in disguise, travelling as an elderly couple, and had made a concerted effort to resist arrest. In the end they had been subdued, however, and brought back to London, where they were currently being questioned. When Freddy heard this, he went along to Scotland Yard in the hope of getting some information out of Sergeant Bird. Fortunately for him, Inspector Entwistle was out, and the sergeant was feeling disposed to talk, having conducted himself to advantage in the matter.
‘He did his best to deny everything at first,’ he said, when Freddy inquired as to whether they had made any pro
gress in their questioning. ‘Or, at least, he couldn’t deny having a gun, because we found it on him, but he tried to bluster it out, and said he thought you were burglars—which in a manner of speaking you were,’ he added pointedly.
Freddy affected an expression of boyish innocence that would not have fooled a child.
‘Nothing of the sort, I assure you,’ he said. ‘Our motives were of the purest. What did he say about the cocaine?’
‘He tried to pin the blame for that on you, too. Said you’d planted it on him. Lucky for you that your story about the shop on Commercial Street turned out to be true, isn’t it? So you’re off the hook there.’
‘Splendid,’ said Freddy dryly. ‘Have you closed that place down, then?’
‘Yes,’ said Bird. ‘We went in and caught quite a few of them red-handed. None of them will talk, of course, so we can’t prove a link between them and the Kibbles, but as soon as we told Basil he’d been seen picking the stuff up outside the theatre he crumpled and admitted everything.’
‘What about the packet from the Maypole? Did he admit to planting that?’
‘Not in so many words, but he looked guilty enough when we mentioned it, and muttered something or other about having panicked at the sight of the police. However, he denies absolutely that he had anything to do with the cocaine we found in Miss Dacres’ suite.’
‘Really? You don’t believe him, do you? She must have got it from him, surely.’
‘Not to listen to him. As far as he’s concerned, she was straight. But I suppose you’d expect him to say that if he thinks there’s a murder charge in it for him.’
‘Did he go out on the terrace at all during the fatal period?’
‘As a matter of fact, it seems he did,’ said the sergeant, looking pleased with himself. ‘And he admits to speaking to Dorothy Dacres, too.’
‘Does he, now?’ said Freddy with sudden interest. ‘Wherefore this sudden admission?’
The sergeant coughed.
‘We—er—may have hinted that he’d been seen,’ he said.
‘And was he?’
‘Perhaps he was,’ said Bird. ‘We’ll come to that in a moment. Of course we suggested it just to get a confession out of him. After all, if he was the murderer then it stands to reason that he must have been out on the terrace with her at some point, so we needed him to admit it. He denied it at first, but we pointed out that if he made a clean breast of it, then he’d be more likely to make a favourable impression on the judge.’
‘I see. At what time did he speak to Dorothy?’
‘Just before eleven, he says. He went out for a breath of fresh air, but nobody saw him because he went through Miss Drucker’s bedroom rather than out through the living-room doors, and stood on that side of the terrace, out of view. According to his story, he found Dorothy standing there, and passed the time of day with her for ten minutes or so. It was a perfectly ordinary conversation, and had nothing to do with drugs, since he swears she wasn’t one of his clients, and that he barely knew her.’
‘Do you believe him?’
Bird shrugged.
‘He protested hard enough about it, but then people do when they’re facing a prison sentence or worse,’ he said.
‘What did they talk about, if not drugs?’ said Freddy.
‘The party, mostly, it seems. But here’s an interesting thing,’ said the sergeant. ‘Kibble claims Dacres told him she was waiting for someone.’
‘She didn’t say who, I take it?’
‘No. She just said she’d been told to wait there, and wished they’d hurry up, because she was getting pretty cold.’
‘She’d been told to wait there?’ said Freddy thoughtfully.
‘That’s what Kibble said. Then she told him he’d better get back inside or he’d miss all the fun, so he went.’
‘I see,’ said Freddy. ‘Then if his story is true, presumably the person she was waiting for was the person who killed her.’
‘If it’s true,’ said Bird. ‘And that brings us back to the question of whether he was seen with Dorothy or not.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. He says he was sure he heard a muffled sneeze nearby while they were talking, and had the strong impression that someone was listening to their conversation.’
‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ said Freddy. ‘First of all we had no-one who would admit to having talked to Dorothy after she went missing, and now we have possibly two people.’
‘I shouldn’t set too much store by what Kibble says if I were you,’ said Bird. ‘I think we’ll find he killed her, all right. The only difficulty will be in proving it. I can’t see a jury convicting him on this sort of flimsy evidence.’
‘True,’ said Freddy. ‘But since he’s admitted to speaking to Dorothy, then why should he lie about the sneeze?’
‘To shift the blame away from himself, I expect.’
‘I suppose so. Still, if Basil’s telling the truth about having spoken to her, we know now that Dorothy Dacres was still alive after eleven o’clock. And even if Basil didn’t kill Dorothy, we also know that Robert Kenrick didn’t do it either.’
‘Oh? Why’s that?’
‘Because after Kenrick came in from the terrace at a little past eleven, he and Seymour Cosgrove went into the maid’s room with a bottle of whisky,’ said Freddy. ‘That’s according to Cosgrove, at any rate. And Gussie—Augusta Laing—is let out, too. She was out on the landing until just before eleven with Seymour, and then after that she was with me.’
‘Ah,’ said Bird, and made a note. ‘That clears a few things up. But I don’t think it makes much difference in the end, as I’m pretty sure we’ve got our man.’
‘I expect you’re right,’ said Freddy doubtfully. ‘I say, I don’t suppose you happen to have a list of everybody’s alibis, do you? Not for publication, naturally; I should just like to take a look at them, in case something strikes me. I mean to say, I was there anyway, so saw most of what was happening, but I don’t know exactly what everyone was doing and at what time.’
‘I don’t see why not,’ said Bird after a moment. He hunted through a pile of papers and pushed one across to Freddy. ‘You can copy that down if you like. But don’t tell the inspector,’ he added.
‘I won’t say a word,’ promised Freddy, and scribbled down some notes quickly. Then he thanked the sergeant and took his leave. He was by no means as certain as Sergeant Bird that Basil Kibble had murdered Dorothy Dacres. For one thing, there seemed to be too little motive. It was easy to jump to the conclusion that a man who was already known to have been engaging in illicit activities had taken things one step further and resorted to murder, but why had he done it? There was no evidence at all that Dorothy had threatened Basil—or even that they had known one another particularly well. And although he had admitted supplying cocaine, Basil had said Dorothy was ‘straight.’ In that case, where had the drugs found in her room come from? Then there was Basil’s story that Dorothy had been waiting for someone. She had been told to wait on the terrace, he said. But that was odd, too, because if Freddy had found out anything about Dorothy Dacres, it was that she did not like to be told to do anything. Why had she agreed to wait there, rather than inside? Who had she arranged to meet? And the story about the sneeze: was it true? If it was, then was the mysterious listener also Dorothy’s killer? None of it made sense.
Still, at least they knew one thing now: Dorothy had still been alive after eleven o’clock. That let out Robert Kenrick and Seymour Cosgrove, if Kenrick backed up Seymour’s story about where they had gone. Gussie he had never believed capable of murder, but it was a relief at any rate to know for certain that she had not done it. Who else was left? Assuming that none of the crowd of hangers-on at the party that night had done it—and he supposed the police had looked carefully into that possibility—then only a few people had any reason to want Doro
thy Dacres out of the way. What had they all been doing after eleven o’clock? Freddy took out his notebook and began to count them off as he walked. First, Cora Drucker, the dead woman’s sister: she could not have done it, for she had talked to one person after another from the time of the announcement until her sister’s body was found, and had been in sight all the time. Then there was Eugene Penk. He had been on the other terrace with Kenneth Neale for some of the time, then had remained there for a few more minutes after Neale came back into the living-room. Might Penk have done it after he came off the terrace? It did not seem so, for as far as Freddy could recall, he had returned to the living-room and called loudly for a drink at the same time that the functionary from the hotel had come to report the finding of Dorothy’s body in the street. This was confirmed by Sarah Rowland, who had been watching everybody that evening from her chair by the wall. Might Penk have crept out of Dorothy’s room when Sarah was looking in a different direction? It was possible, but then he would have had to creep back in again afterwards without being seen, in order to appear in time to receive the news from the manager. It seemed unlikely, to say the least. What about Kenneth Neale, then? He and Penk gave one another an alibi until about eleven, after which he had stormed back into the living-room and gone to speak to his wife, who had attempted to soothe his ruffled temper. Patience Neale had not been parted from Ada—and in any case, Freddy did not think she had a strong enough motive. It seemed, then, that nobody had had the opportunity. Perhaps Basil Kibble had done it after all. Freddy thought back to the night in Kennington, and recalled the grim look on Basil’s face as he pointed the gun at them. There was no doubt he was ruthless enough to kill. Perhaps Freddy was looking for complications where none existed.