The Riddle at Gipsy's Mile

by Clara Benson

  Lew doubted whether she would ever send for him. He knew she loved the boy, but she lacked the capacity to look after him—as a matter of fact, their mother had done most of the work in that regard. Still, they went on with their lives, and heard from Lily occasionally. She was unable to get any more work on the stage: her dreams of becoming a famous actress had been disappointed and she was becoming rather too old for the chorus, when there were girls coming up who were ten years younger than she. She wrote to him saying that she had taken a job as a dance hostess in a night-club, but did not mention which one. Lew was worried about her again: he was unfamiliar with the world of night-clubs and had no clear idea of what dance hostesses did, but surely the work would bring her into contact with all kinds of low company?

  Then, two months ago the blow had fallen, and their mother had died suddenly. Now there was no-one to look after the child. He, Lew, was out at work for fourteen hours a day, and could not bear the responsibility alone. He had written to Lily, asking her to come home and claim her son, but had received no reply. He wrote once more, then gained the permission of his foreman to take some time away and went in search of her, leaving the boy in the care of a neighbour.

  He spent a couple of weeks going from night-club to night-club, asking whether they had heard of a Lita de Marquez—since he knew that was the name she used. For some time he had no success, and was just about to give it up and go home when someone suggested he try the Copernicus Club. When he spoke to a waiter there who told him that yes, Lita worked at the club, Lew felt a huge sense of relief and thought that his search was over. He went to her lodgings, in the belief that the only difficulty that lay before him was how to persuade her to come home and be a mother to her son—only to find that she must somehow have got wind of his coming and had run away again. There was nothing to do but return home sorrowfully. At around the same time, he remembered reading about the dead woman in the ditch, but he made no connection between her and Lily, since the girl they found had had blonde hair and Lily was dark. It wasn’t until the story of Johnny Chang’s arrest for her murder got into all the newspapers that he finally realized the terrible truth. Hardly able to believe it and stricken with grief, he had gone to the police as soon as he could.

  Inspector Jameson felt a great deal of sympathy for the young man, who had, after all, lost both his mother and his sister in the space of only a few weeks, and who now found himself having to care for a young boy alone. He was about to ask another question when they were interrupted by the entrance of the child in question, a boy of about eight or nine, who had just arrived home from school. Although he was older than he had been in the photograph found in Lita’s suitcase, there was no doubt that it was the same child.

  The boy stared at the two policemen curiously but said nothing.

  ‘Go upstairs, Bertie,’ said his uncle. ‘I have something to talk about with these gentlemen.’

  The boy gazed at them for another second, but then obeyed without question.

  ‘Have you told him about his mother yet?’ asked Jameson.

  A spasm of pain passed across Lew’s face.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘How can I tell him when he’s only just lost his grandmother? What am I meant to say to him? That his mother was mixing with men she didn’t ought to and that one of them murdered her? It’s not right.’ He fixed them with an intense stare. ‘You will hang him, won’t you?’ he said. ‘You won’t let him get away with what he did to Lily?’

  ‘If he did it, then he will get justice,’ said Jameson. ‘And all we need to do is to find some more evidence,’ he said privately to Willis as the two of them left the little cottage and headed back to London. ‘I’m not keen on the thought of putting Johnny Chang in front of a jury of typical Englishmen, with all their prejudices about Chinese men and white slavers, without something more concrete than we have already. Who knows what ridiculous ideas they will get into their heads?’

  ‘Does it matter, if he did it?’ said Sergeant Willis. ‘We don’t want him to get off scot-free if he really is a murderer.’

  ‘You and I have made enough mistakes in the past to know that the evidence is the thing,’ said Jameson. ‘It’s all very well saying that we’re pretty sure he did it, but you can’t hang a man on a hunch.’

  ‘It sounds to me as though you’re having doubts about his guilt, sir,’ observed Willis.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Jameson. ‘I can see clearly enough where the facts are pointing, but I won’t be happy until the chaps down in Kent tell us that they’ve found the hotel where the two of them stayed and the motor-car they hired.’

  ‘And what if they don’t?’ inquired Willis.

  ‘Then they will have to look harder,’ said Jameson.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Despite their best efforts, however, the Kent police were unable to find any evidence that Johnny Chang had visited the area at all. When questioned, Johnny himself had finally admitted that he and Lita had been having an affair of sorts, that she had ended it and that he had followed her to Charing Cross in an attempt to persuade her to stay. Beyond that, though, he insisted that he knew nothing. She had refused to be won over, he said. It had never been anything serious on her part, and she was going away as she had bigger fish to fry now. She was sorry to throw him over, but that was how things were and he ought to take it like a man. He had seen then that she was firm in her purpose, and had finally stormed away angrily. He was sorry about that: he should have liked to part from her on better terms, but how was he to know that someone was going to kill her?

  And that was all they could get out of him on the subject of Lita. He flatly denied ever having been to Littlechurch or Hastings or the Romney Marsh, and was outraged that anyone could think him capable of murder. As for his lack of an alibi, he maintained that when he got home from Charing Cross he had been taken ill—perhaps it had been something he ate—and had remained in bed for two days. No, nobody had seen him. In the normal way of things his mother would have taken care of him, but she had been away visiting his sister and her new husband.

  One morning, a day or two after they had returned from Felixstowe, Sergeant Willis looked up from a sheaf of reports which had just come in from Kent, and shook his head.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said with a sigh.

  ‘What about that woman who says she saw a girl in a blue coat and hat getting into a motor-car at Hastings?’ said Jameson. ‘Have they found out anything more about that?’

  ‘No,’ said Willis. ‘No-one else seems to have seen it, and she can’t give us a good description of the car except to say it was a big one. Not much use, really.’

  ‘I suppose not,’ agreed Jameson. ‘Well, we shall just have to keep plugging away at it.’

  He was not the only person feeling dissatisfied about the whole thing. Mrs. Marchmont had been reading the newspapers avidly since Johnny Chang’s arrest, but now that the hue and cry had died down there was not much more to be told. Lily Markham’s story had come out, and the papers—especially the Clarion—dwelt sentimentally on her poor but honest upbringing, her supposed dead husband (whom they imagined as having died tragically during the War) and her orphaned child. Meanwhile, there was little sympathy for the man who was supposed to have murdered her, and young women everywhere were warned to beware of foreigners who spoke with honeyed words yet hid evil in their hearts. Angela shook her head in disquiet. She hoped Freddy was not behind all this: she had not seen him for some time, and supposed that his recent piece on the police raid at the Copernicus Club and his experience in the cells (which he had written and published to great acclaim at Angela’s suggestion), together with his coup in leading the police to Johnny Chang, had won him the respect of Mr. Bickerstaffe. The newspaper was keeping him busy, she imagined.

  So the weeks passed, and soon enough it was time for Angela to return to Gipsy’s Mile for the grand launch of Marguerite Harrison’s sculpture exhibition in Littlechurch. The show had received a good deal of advance publicity—thank
s no doubt to Freddy—and it was rumoured that some of the most important young artists of the moment had agreed to exhibit alongside Marguerite.

  Accordingly, on a dull day in October Angela found herself once again sitting in the back seat of the Bentley as it motored powerfully along the Kent road. They drove in unaccustomed silence, since William seemed unusually absorbed in his own thoughts. By a sort of unspoken mutual consent, neither of them had mentioned the incident of the watch since that day a few weeks earlier, although Angela was longing to know what he had done with it. It had been foolish of Marguerite, who was used to dispensing generous gifts and largesse to all her protégés. She ought to have seen that William was a different case, owing to both his position and his character. Still, Angela would not interfere. William was his own man and could quite well look after himself.

  They arrived at Gipsy’s Mile without incident—there was no fog to cause them to lose their way this time—and were greeted as effusively as ever by Marguerite. Miles came out too, and Angela was shocked at the change in him. His face had become thin and drawn, and deep frown lines had appeared on his forehead. She remembered what Marguerite had said about him, and deduced that he had not yet got over his ‘queer fit,’ although he saluted her in his usual laconic but friendly manner.

  Cynthia and Freddy had already arrived and were laughing together about something in the sitting-room.

  ‘Angela, darling,’ cried Cynthia. ‘Why, I haven’t seen you for an age! Have you been hiding?’

  Angela resisted the temptation to reply, ‘Only from you,’ and merely said, ‘Hallo, Cynthia. Where is Herbert?’

  Cynthia looked not a little vexed.

  ‘So inconvenient, darling,’ she said. ‘You won’t believe it, but just at the last moment he said that something had come up at the bank and that he couldn’t come. So strange! I’ve never known him do that before.’

  Freddy sidled up to Angela.

  ‘Don’t believe Mother,’ he murmured. ‘If you ask me, the work thing is all rot. I reckon the real story is that he couldn’t bear the thought of having to find something original to say to the vicar’s wife about forty heaps of bronze and marble fashioned roughly into the shape of something that would throw one’s maiden aunt into a fainting fit.’

  Angela had seen Marguerite’s work before, and was inclined to agree, since it was rather modern and daring. She had herself been wondering how it would be received by the people of Littlechurch, in fact. It turned out, however, that Marguerite had invited so many of her London friends down that it would be a wonder if there were enough room in the gallery to accommodate many of the locals.

  While the others talked of the exhibition, Angela took the opportunity to speak to Miles and inquire after his health.

  ‘Marguerite said you have not been well,’ she said. ‘I hope you’re quite recovered now.’

  ‘Marguerite was talking bunk,’ he said impatiently. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me—or at least nothing more than a touch of cold.’ He saw Angela’s surprise at his vehemence and looked a little sheepish. ‘I can’t bear fuss,’ he explained, ‘and Marguerite insisted on telling everybody that I was at death’s door, when nothing could have been further from the truth.’

  Angela apologized and said she was glad he wasn’t ill, at any rate, and the conversation turned to other matters.

  Meanwhile, Marguerite was holding forth with great enthusiasm about a young artist who was coming to the exhibition—indeed, was expected at Gipsy’s Mile at any moment, since he apparently gloried in his poverty and was unable to afford to stay anywhere else for the event.

  ‘I think you’ll be tremendously impressed by Vassily’s work, darlings,’ she said. ‘I feel that he has really captured the spirit of the age with his art. His Eternity of the Damned series in particular almost moved me to tears. So clever and witty, how he satirizes the way in which modern society is going. Just wait until you see it! But I shan’t say any more, as I don’t want to spoil it for you.’

  Vassily, when he arrived, turned out to be a bulky young man with an intense and piercing stare and a lowering brow. He shook hands with everyone with great solemnity and declared himself honoured to meet them all.

  ‘I am very glad you invite me,’ he said in a deep voice to Marguerite, who was fluttering about him anxiously, ‘although it is very painful for me to stop work even for moment. I do not like to interrupt creative force, but for you I make exception, Mrs. Harrison.’

  ‘Oh, Marguerite, please,’ said Marguerite. ‘We’re all terribly informal these days, you know. Now, if you’ll just let me show you your room—’

  She bore him away in triumph. The door to the sitting-room was open and William could be seen passing through the hall as they came out. Angela happened to be looking that way, and was entertained by the little scene that followed. The two men stopped and sized each other up for a second, then Vassily evidently dismissed William as being of no importance, for his face assumed a look of disdain. William glanced at Marguerite, who was clutching Vassily’s arm, and she tossed her head and turned away. William’s expression became impassive and he stepped back respectfully to allow them to pass. Angela noticed that the tips of his ears had turned pink, and felt a pang of sympathy for him.

  Freddy had seen it too, clearly, for he threw her a look of malicious satisfaction, and shortly afterwards took the opportunity to sit down beside her on the large sofa.

  ‘You see?’ he murmured. ‘What did I tell you? She flits here and there, just like a butterfly, and no man can hold her down. Apart from good old Miles, of course,’ he added, looking over at the gentleman in question, who was pouring a drink for Cynthia and laughing at something she had said, having apparently missed what had just occurred.

  Angela shook her head but did not reply. Instead, she said, ‘So, Freddy, I gather your first month as a reporter has been a resounding success.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘Since that night at the Copernicus Club and the heartfelt piece I wrote about the unnecessary violence of the police and the appalling state of the prisons, I have become old Bickerstaffe’s right-hand man. Why, the old man is as fond of me as of a son. I have a nose for the news, he says.’ He lowered his voice confidentially. ‘I don’t mind telling you that some of the old hands there have begun looking rather askance upon me, but’ (here he gave an exquisitely expressive shrug of the shoulders) ‘how can I help it if I happen to be immoderately talented? It’s something that was given to me by a sheer accident of birth. And are lesser men to be given opportunities over my head merely by dint of long service? No, I say: we must think of the greater good. If the future of the Clarion depends upon young upstarts such as myself, then I say long live the young upstarts, and down with the Old Guard!’

  He sat back complacently and lit himself a cigarette.

  ‘Quite,’ said Angela, amused. ‘So you have a “nose for the news,” do you? That must be very useful.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Freddy assured her. ‘You’d be quite astonished at the way things seem to happen whenever I chance to be on the spot. I have quickly learned never to leave the house without my notebook on me, since I never know when a story might suddenly present itself.’

  ‘Indeed?’ said Angela.

  ‘Yes.’ He paused to blow smoke into the air, then went on, ‘As a matter of fact, I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if something were to happen at Marguerite’s exhibition.’

  ‘What do you mean? What do you think is going to happen?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘But something will. I can feel it in my bones.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  Marguerite’s sculpture exhibition was to be held in the church hall in Littlechurch. There had been some grumbling among the locals that the hall was to be out of use for two whole weeks, but Marguerite had paid such a generous fee to the parish council to hire the place that their objections were overridden, and everyone except the few naysayers agreed what a good thing it was for the tow
n to have such a renowned artist among their number. Some of the more excitable souls even predicted that as a result of the exhibition, Littlechurch would shortly become a centre of art and culture to rival London and Paris, and Mr. Culshaw, the local art teacher, suddenly began receiving dozens of requests for private lessons in painting and drawing, somewhat to his surprise.

  Had Marguerite been worrying about whether there would be any interest in her exhibition, her fears were very quickly proved groundless. She and her guests had come along to the hall early to make sure that things were properly set up, and she had just declared herself satisfied when Freddy came in and said, ‘I say, how many people will this hall hold, do you suppose? We appear to have the entire population of Littlechurch outside, waiting for the grand opening.’

  ‘But of course,’ said Vassily. ‘They hear of the great talent of Marguerite and want to see her works.’

  Marguerite gave a little trill of laughter.

  ‘Oh, come now, Vassily,’ she said. ‘They may have come to see my poor little efforts, but it is your genius that will make them stay. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if this exhibition were to be the start of a glorious career for you.’

  Vassily looked as pleased with himself as was physically possible with his particular arrangement of facial features, and stepped across to move one of his sculptures a fraction of an inch. As far as Angela could see, his Eternity of the Damned series consisted of a row of half-formed human shapes carved roughly out of brown granite. They had a certain appeal, she supposed, although how the good people of Littlechurch would take art in such a modern style could only be conjectured. As for Marguerite’s sculptures—Angela had to agree with Freddy in his view that they might well cause a certain amount of consternation among those of a more sensitive temperament.

  ‘Do you think they’ll arrest her for obscenity?’ said Freddy as they gazed critically at one particularly suggestive piece.