The Case of the Murdered Players (Andrew Tillet, Sara Wiggins & Inspector Wyatt Book 7)

by Robert Newman

  “That’s what I asked him the first time I met him,” said Wyatt. “It seems he comes of an old county family with an estate near Stanbury. His father was one of those hunting, fishing squires who wasn’t the least bit interested in his children, and Norwood’s best friend when he was growing up was a man who worked on the estate and taught young Norwood a great deal about animals, birds and fish. When Norwood went away to school, the man was caught poaching by the Norwood gamekeeper. They fought, he broke the gamekeeper’s arm and was sent to jail. When he was released, he couldn’t get work, and he had a family to take care of, so he started poaching again. He was sent to jail again, and this time he got jail fever and died there.”

  “But that’s awful!” said Andrew.

  “That’s what Norwood thought,” said Wyatt. “He was away at Oxford at the time, didn’t know anything about it until it was too late. When he found out about it, he had a terrible fight with his father, wouldn’t talk to him for several years. Then, when his father died and he inherited the estate, he started the Golden Rule Society to try to keep the same thing from happening again.”

  “Good for him!” said Sara.

  “I agree,” said Wyatt. “It’s something the government should be doing. No matter what it cost, in the long run it would save not only lives, but money—which is one of the few things the state seems to understand. You’ll forgive me for sending you off, then?”

  “Of course,” said Andrew. “As for the other thing we talked about, as I said, I think you should tell my mother the truth instead of having Mr. Harrison pretend there’s something wrong with the play. But, whatever you do, of course I’ll back you up, make sure she doesn’t appear on stage anywhere until you’re convinced she won’t be in danger.”

  “All right, Andrew. You may be right about the direct approach. Your mother’s not an easy person to fool. I’ll think about it. And I’m sure I’ll be seeing the two of you again soon.”

  The two young people left, and Wyatt ordered another pint of bitter and some Stilton cheese. He was just finishing both when Norwood appeared at the table with Bolan.

  “May we join you now?” he asked.

  “Please do. Can I offer you some bitter or cheese?”

  “Thank you, no. Bolan says that he knows a good deal about you, as you do about him, even though you’ve never met.”

  “Well, now that we’ve remedied that, why don’t the two of you sit down?”

  “Thanks, guv’nor,” said Bolan.

  “What are you up to these days, Nifty?” asked Wyatt.

  “That’s one of the things we’ve been talking about,” said Norwood. “Bolan thought that he’d like to work with a locksmith or a safe manufacturer. He knows a great deal about both, but I told him I didn’t think that was a good idea.”

  “I agree. I think his interest in safes and locks might be misunderstood.”

  “Exactly. But I was able to get him a job in a machine shop in Southwark, and he and his new employer seem happy about it. But that’s not what we wanted to talk to you about. Tell him, Bolan.”

  “All right. Do you remember old Harry Hopwood, Inspector?”

  “Of course. He was one of the first major arrests I made.”

  “Right. Nabbed him after that break-in on Greek Street you did. But there was a good deal of swag that was never recovered. Lot of old coins, for instance.”

  “Yes. There was a goodish reward offered for their return.”

  “Right. Well, old Harry’s dead, died about two months ago. We was pals in the clink, and knowing he was mortal sick and not likely to make it out the gate, he told me where he’d hid the stuff, and I thought I’d like to tell you.”

  “Oh? To collect the reward?”

  “No. I don’t want the reward. They can give it to Mr. Norwood here for that society of his. I’m just trying to prove to everyone that, from now on, I’m really going straight.”

  “Nifty, I won’t say I’m surprised,” said Wyatt, “because I’m not. I’m dumbfounded, dumb-foozled and just plain bowled over!”

  3

  A Startling Revelation

  It was getting dark when Sara and Andrew got off the bus and walked home up Rysdale Road. Just before they reached the house, they met the lamplighter, an elderly man with a grey mustache, who nodded to them and smiled. Remembering his first evening in London—the first time he had seen a lamplighter—Andrew paused and watched as he pushed his long pole up under the glass shade of the gaslight, turned on the gas and lit it, then went on, the yellow glow high up on the iron standards marking his progress.

  When they left The White Stag, Sara and Andrew had walked over to the Drury Lane Theatre near Covent Garden, where Andrew had bought tickets for the pantomime the next afternoon. Sara had protested rather feebly, not sure that Andrew really wanted to go and reluctant to have him spend the money, especially for good seats in the stalls, if he didn’t. But he had paid no attention to her, assuring her that he was as anxious to see the pantomime as she was. That, in fact, it wouldn’t seem like the Christmas season if he didn’t go.

  From the Drury Lane they walked over to Liberty’s, an architectural jumble of a store with balconies and enclosed courtyards strewn with all the colors and fabrics of the Arabian Nights; and there Sara helped Andrew pick out a shawl as a Christmas present for his mother, a cashmere with a muted paisley pattern. And as the shawl was being wrapped, he saw Sara looking at a silk scarf and was thus able to determine, as he had hoped he would, what he should get her for Christmas.

  Verna was already home when they got there, and Andrew barely had time to give his package to Mat-son and ask him to hide it before Verna came downstairs looking like a stormcloud sweeping down from the Alps. No, they told her, they hadn’t had tea and followed her into the sitting room while Matson went to inform the cook that they were home.

  “You don’t look as if you had a very good lunch,” said Andrew.

  “There was nothing wrong with the lunch, but there certainly is something wrong with Harrison,” said Verna. “I don’t know what’s come over him. Up to now I trusted him so completely that I kept saying I didn’t know why we bothered with contracts. That his word was good enough for me. But today I didn’t believe anything he said.”

  “You’re talking about the reasons he gave you for postponing the play?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he say?” asked Sara.

  “The same thing he said before. That the play needed more work. Well, I know that. I was the one who first said the second act could use another scene. But we agreed that it was a small thing and we should go into rehearsal while Duncan did something about it. But now Harrison says he doesn’t want to commit himself until he sees what Duncan does. Yes, Matson?” she said as the butler knocked discreetly at the door.

  “Inspector Wyatt is here and would like to see you.”

  “Show him in. And ask Annie to bring in another cup. I’m sure he’d like some tea also.”

  Matson bowed and left.

  “Good evening, Peter,” said Verna when Wyatt came in. “I won’t ask you how you are because it’s obvious you’re in a temper.”

  Wyatt would have been hard put to deny it, for if Verna looked like a stormcloud, he looked like a typhoon.

  “I take it you haven’t seen this afternoon’s Journal,” he said.

  “I never see it,” said Verna. “It’s a loathesome sheet.”

  “It is. But since someone is bound to show you a copy of today’s, I thought it had better be me.” And taking a folded copy of the newspaper from his pocket, he gave it to her, pointing to an article marked with red ink.

  “Meg Morrissey dead!” she said after she’d read a few lines. “Murdered! I knew her! Not well, but I did know her. And I liked her!”

  “I thought you knew her,” said Wyatt. “That’s why I was sure that someone would show you the article. It’s a story written by a reporter named Fulton,” he said to Sara and Andrew. “And he’s covered, n
ot only this murder and the other two I told you about at lunch, but the ones that took place ten years ago.”

  “What’s that?” said Verna, looking up from the newspaper. “You had lunch together, you and Andrew?”

  “And Sara. Yes.”

  “Did you meet specifically to talk about these murders—Meg Morrissey’s and the others he mentions?”

  “We did.”

  “But why?”

  “Did you finish the article?”

  “You mean where he talks about the fact that this may just be the beginning? That … Wait a minute. Are you suggesting that I might be in danger?”

  “Isn’t that what he suggests—though he’s careful not to mention you or anyone else by name?”

  “Yes, but he’s just a Fleet Street faker, the worst kind of yellow journalist. Do you mean you think so too?”

  “I do.”

  “Well,” she said, and her voice was cold and cutting, “this is getting more and more interesting. You admit that you met with Andrew and Sara to discuss these deaths, the very farfetched possibility that I might be threatened. Did you, by any chance, discuss this with anyone else?”

  “If you mean Mr. Harrison, the answer is yes.”

  “I knew it! Knew there was something wrong there—that Harrison wasn’t telling me the truth. But it never occurred to me that it would be anything like this! That someone I had considered a friend would go behind my back, connive with my son and my manager…”

  “Connive?”

  “Isn’t that what you were doing?”

  “No!”

  “I don’t think you’re being fair, Mother,” said Andrew.

  There was something wrong here, something he did not understand. Because, from the time they had first met, Verna and Wyatt had seemed to admire one another greatly. But now here they were sparring with one another like a pair of hereditary enemies.

  “What do you call it if not conniving?” said Verna. “If you felt that there was reason to be anxious about my safety—grounds real enough to warrant my keeping off the stage for a while—why didn’t you come to me openly and tell me about it?”

  “Because I was afraid that you would do exactly what you’re doing—respond, not rationally, but emotionally!”

  “When you say emotionally, what you really mean is hysterically, don’t you?”

  “If I meant hysterically,” said Wyatt, his voice rising slightly as Verna’s had become colder, “I would say hysterically!”

  “I don’t know if I believe that. In fact, I’m not sure I believe anything you say! It seems to me that things must be very slow over at Scotland Yard for you to get this exercised over something as ridiculous as this!”

  “Mother, please …” said Andrew.

  “May I point out to you, Miss Tillett, that what we’re talking about—what you’re calling ridiculous—is a possible threat to your life?”

  “And why is that of such cardinal importance to you?”

  “Because I’m a policeman. Because it’s my job to prevent crimes as well as capture those who commit them. And because the most heinous, the most abhorrent of all crimes are the ones in which someone’s life is threatened. Does that answer your question?”

  “Not entirely.”

  “I didn’t think it would. All right.” His voice dropped in register but became more intense. “While it would be my job to worry about anyone in the circumstances we’ve been discussing, no matter how difficult you’ve been—and you’ve been very difficult indeed—I worry more about you than I would about anyone else because …” He hesitated.

  “Yes?”

  “Because I love you, dammit! I have from the first time I met you, and if you hadn’t become so completely impossible, I’d ask you to marry me!”

  “Oh,” said Verna quietly, even demurely, and without the slightest bit of surprise. “Well, of course, that’s different.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, that’s different.”

  Andrew jumped as Sara kicked him in the ankle. Closing his mouth, which had opened in astonishment, he looked at her. She got up, pulled him to his feet and led him from the room. It was only when they were outside and the door had closed behind them that the full significance of what had just happened dawned on him. That and something else. The fact that though he had been astonished, Sara had been as little surprised at what had been said as Verna.

  4

  The Old Deaths and the New

  “Well,” said Sara, sitting down on the bench that was just outside the parlor door. “How do you feel about it?”

  “About what?”

  “About what just happened.”

  “Why, I don’t know. After all, it doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

  But even as he said that, he realized that wasn’t true. It had a great deal to do with him. If matters followed their usual course, and Verna married Wyatt—and remembering things that he had paid little attention to at the time, he was suddenly convinced that she would marry him—then Wyatt would become his stepfather.

  “I’ll admit I’ve been pretty dim, but I never did think of the two of them that way. I take it you did.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it’s strange. I never knew my father. He died before I was born. And so, while it’s taken me by surprise, I think I’d like it. I mean, why shouldn’t I like it when I like him—Peter—so much?”

  “Liking him—and I know you do like him—and liking the idea of having him marry your mother are two very different things. Not that you’re going to have too much to say about it.”

  “I don’t think I will either. Is she going to say yes to him?”

  “Of course.”

  “I think so, too. Well, there’s no point in our waiting out here. I don’t imagine we’ll be seeing either of them for some time.”

  “I think we will,” said Sara confidently.

  “Why?”

  “Because your mother’s a very intelligent, sensitive woman.”

  As she said this, the door opened, and Wyatt looked out.

  “Oh, there you are. We hoped you hadn’t really sloped off. Do you want to come back inside?”

  “Do you want us to?” asked Andrew.

  “Of course we do,” said Verna. She looked intently at Andrew as he came back into the room. “It was very discreet of you to leave when you did, darling, but it wasn’t really necessary.”

  “Actually, it wasn’t my idea. It was Sara’s. I was too surprised to think of going. Or of anything else.”

  “I know. It did come as rather a surprise. But now that you’ve had a chance to think about it, how do you feel about it?”

  “That’s what Sara asked me just a minute ago, and … I’m glad, Mother. I’m very glad.”

  “Oh,” said Verna, coloring with pleasure. “I’m happy that you’re glad. Because, while I haven’t said anything definite yet, I’m more inclined to say yes to Peter’s odd and abrupt proposal than anything else.”

  “Odd and abrupt?” said Wyatt. “The whole thing was a tricksy diddle, a form of entrapment on your part. Because, as I’m sure you know, a proposal of marriage was the last thing I had on my mind when I came here. I came because of that piece in the paper, because I was concerned about your safety, and—”

  “Well, since, as I said, I haven’t given you a definite answer yet, there’s no need for you to feel committed. In fact—”

  “Since that particular discussion concerns only you and Peter,” said Andrew, “and I suspect it will go on for some time, may I suggest that you postpone it for the time being and we go back to what began all this, the matter of your safety?”

  “I would have thought,” said Verna, “that my possible marriage would have been of just as much interest to you as an extremely hypothetical danger. However…”

  “Thank you, Andrew,” said Wyatt. “I’m very anxious to get back to the matter of the mysterious deaths because, when we stopped discussing them, your mother w
as still resisting the idea of staying off the stage until we had the matter in hand.”

  “I still think it’s nonsense,” said Verna. “But I’m willing to listen to anything you have to say about it.”

  “Well, that’s progress,” said Wyatt. “Very well. Let’s begin with the deaths that took place ten years ago. I don’t imagine you remember them.”

  “But I do,” said Verna. “I was just beginning to get parts then and I’d been to see Ben Wallace several times—he was a very well-known manager—and I admired Nina Wallace enormously. But I don’t know what was so mysterious about their deaths. I mean, I know there was some uncertainty as to how Nina had died, but I don’t think there was any about Ben Wallace. He was mad about her, and almost immediately after she died, he had a heart attack.”

  “Quite true,” said Wyatt. “I spent a good deal of time looking into the matter, and his death was the only one that was definitely and satisfactorily explained medically.”

  “Who were the others?” asked Sara. “And what happened to them?”

  “They were both actresses, too. One of them, Aggie Russell, was a friend of Nina’s and had been to see her shortly before she died. She died herself the next day, and so did another actress, May Mallory, who didn’t seem to have any direct connection with them. As to how they died, when you read the reports you realize that doctors can do just as much waffling as the police when they don’t know the answer to something. They talk of seizures and strokes, but they don’t come out flatly and say that’s what they died of.”

  “Am I right in suspecting you don’t think they died of natural causes?” said Verna.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I feel there’s a connection of some sort between those deaths and the ones that have just taken place. And though we’ve said nothing about it to the press, we know that the most recent ones were murders.”

  “Committed how?” asked Andrew.

  Wyatt hesitated. “I don’t like to talk about it because it’s very strange and very frightening. They were stabbed.”

  “Stabbed?”