by Lynne Truss
One of the many mistakes the police had made in investigating (and prosecuting) the infamous unfinished-house scam in 1949 was to imagine that such an operation could be carried out by just two people, i.e. Joseph Marriott (Wall-Eye Joe) and Vivienne Alexander (The Skirt). It should have occurred to them that successfully gaining the trust of one’s victims necessarily involves a small network of ostensibly independent ‘convincers’: in the case of the unfinished house, you would need, at least, a second man to back up the story about the enormous sum required for the unfinished building work; and ideally, also a second female person – a young girl, perhaps, with luxuriant brown pigtails – to accompany each fated woman in the car on their visit to the country. (‘This is so exciting, Mrs Phillips! I can’t wait to see if they’ve finished my room!’)
Wall-Eye had been particularly proud of his pigtailed convincer. If awards were ever given in the world of cons, his schoolgirl would win ‘Best Innovation’. Who would hesitate to get into a con-man’s car with their life savings if an enthusiastic thirteen-year-old dressed in a gym slip and boater was already bouncing around inside?
No, Wall-Eye and The Skirt rarely worked alone. In their considerable experience, most cons required two or three men working efficiently together, along with Vivienne and her attractive daughter, sadly too old now to play the schoolgirl, though she was growing up to be the most accomplished of them all.
But sometimes, if the plans were neatly contiguous (as they had turned out to be in Brighton), they could split into teams. With Wall-Eye, the longer and more complex the con, the better he liked it, and the better he played. Thus, ‘Angélique’ and ‘Monsieur Tussard’ had been in place at the Maison du Wax for more than four months (the real Angélique and her father had been smartly kidnapped and eliminated; the woman working at the ticket office was allowed to live, as she was half-blind and had never known the ‘real’ Tussards very well anyway). Meanwhile, the establishing of the Brighton Belles had been proposed a full year in advance (there were backup ideas if the council didn’t go for it). What Wall-Eye loved about his job was this combination of deliberate long-term planning and fast reflexes: as when, out of the blue (‘I’ve written to Mother in Kenya’), a London solicitor needed to be impersonated at just a half-hour’s notice, and the whole scheme brought forward by a week.
Thus, by the time Inspector Steine was due to enter the Maison du Wax on the afternoon of his planned assassination, nothing would have been left to chance. He and Adelaide would be escorted into the so-called modelling room in the basement by Angélique and shown fascinating processes involving molten wax and naked flames – one of which would be casually dropped on to a pile of paraffin-soaked rags by Adelaide just before the only door to the room was shut and secured by her on the outside, and the building evacuated. Nothing would be explained to him. He would die believing that the whole thing was an unfortunate accident in a dry old building full of shockingly flammable materials, which, thinking about it, there really ought to be a law about.
And when his pathetic cries for help went unheard, he would resign himself to death never knowing that his estranged grandfather in Dorset had died a year ago, leaving a considerable fortune; and also never knowing that he had in turn just been tricked into bequeathing the whole lot to a young woman with eyes shaped like almonds, who was no relation to him whatsoever. By the time the flames were noticed by passers-by (and the fortuitous fog would delay this), his cold-blooded murderers would be clear of Brighton, driving up the London Road. Just before the turning to Hassocks, they would find waiting for them, in a designated lay-by, two other vehicles conveying not only their associates but also a fortune in gold bars and thirty thousand pounds in untraceable notes. After which, the entire happy crew would proceed London-wards in convoy.
How fortunate, then, that something interfered with their plans. How fortunate that the station charlady had smelled a rat when first informed about ‘Miss so-called Adelaide so-called Vine’, and taken the trouble to read the first chapters of Steine’s memoir, and make enquiries concerning the true fate of the inspector’s sister. Just a few hours ago, Mrs Groynes had intended to tell Twitten all about her initial findings. But she had been interrupted: events at Colchester House had understandably hijacked her attention; and since then, even by her own standards, she had been exceptionally busy.
It was only when she had returned to the police station, hung up her coat, donned her patterned overall, lit a calming cigarette and locked her revolver away (still warm and missing two bullets) on a shelf in the weapons-and-loot-stashing cupboard, that she realised Inspector Steine was missing.
‘Afternoon, dear! Cup of tea?’ she said, opening his office door. And then, seeing his abandoned desk, ‘Oh, bleeding hell, not already?’
On Twitten’s desk was a note from Steine.
Twitten – the girl Phyllis was here. She said that she saw a DOORMAN at the scene of the crime. A doorman with a LIMP. He appeared to be in a hurry.
Does this help? Aren’t there limping doormen everywhere in this town? And aren’t they always in a hurry? I’m sure I see a dozen every day, lurching along the pavements, performing their many errands. So in my opinion, if the murderer assumed this disguise, it wasn’t very clever of him.
But the girl was very keen that you should know, so now you do.
And now for the real news. My wax model is ready; my niece Adelaide and I are to be given a ‘preview’ this afternoon ahead of the official unveiling. Please meet us there if possible at 4 p.m.
By the way, Twitten, perhaps later you will explain to me more fully the tactic you mentioned about placing a false story in the evening paper to entrap the murderer of Peter Dupont. I’ve been thinking about this, and I believe I should have forbidden it, so if it’s not too late TAKE NO FURTHER ACTION UNTIL WE HAVE DISCUSSED THIS.
And can you remind me where Brunswick is, please? Adelaide keeps asking me what you’re all investigating and also WHERE MRS GROYNES IS (!!) but I can never remember.
Mrs Groynes grimly stubbed out the cigarette, and unlocked the cupboard again. She reloaded the two empty chambers of the gun, put it in her handbag, patted her hair and reached her coat down again from the coat stand. What a day. But before she left, she picked up the telephone receiver and asked to be put through to the Metropole, where she gave the number for the penthouse suite.
‘Tony,’ she said, calmly. ‘You wouldn’t be a diamond for me, would you, love?’
Twitten, when he later pieced all the events of the day together, calculated that at the moment Mrs Groynes was calling Diamond Tony, and Deirdre was making her dramatic reappearance in the Black Cat, he was sprinting towards a car in the station approach – a car around which a small crowd of agitated onlookers had gathered.
The most notable features of this open-topped car (whose engine was still running) were the elaborate family crest painted on the driver’s door, a large wheelable trunk on the back seat and the corpse of Lord Melamine slumped at the wheel. On the passenger seat beside him was a copy of the Argus, with the story of the missing dossier prominent on its front page. It was soaked – like everything else in the car – in blood.
‘Oh, crikey! Oh, flipping, flipping crikey!’ yelled Twitten – in an unprofessional outburst that he later publicly apologised for. (He even, in his understandable anguish, struck the side of the car with the flat of his hand, which caused the crowd to make disapproving ‘tsk’ noises.)
Oliver and Sergeant Brunswick caught up with him – Brunswick still panting heavily from the run uphill to the station.
‘Oh, no!’ said Oliver. ‘Is this man dead, too? Who is he?’
‘Blimey, Twitten!’ panted Brunswick, accusingly. ‘What have you done now?’
‘I don’t understand,’ wailed Twitten.
‘Who is it?’ asked people in the crowd, jostling for position.
It was at this point – when Brunswick informed the public that there was nothing to see; and they replied hotly th
at of course there was something to see, they had already seen it, thank you very much, they’d seen a man with his brains blown out – that things threatened to turn ugly.
‘Look, just stand back!’ Brunswick said, repeatedly. ‘I am asking you nicely. Stand back! And stop mentioning the flaming brains!’
And in the end, with the help of some railway employees blowing whistles and waving flags in people’s faces, the sergeant got his way, and the crowd reluctantly dispersed – but not without grumblings and narky parting shots in which the defiant word ‘brains’ was audible, prominently and often.
When the crowd had gone, Twitten leaned into the vehicle and switched off the engine. He felt bewildered, terrible. Meanwhile Oliver’s face had drained of colour.
‘Did we do this, Constable? Are we responsible?’ he said, quietly. ‘Who is he?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Twitten.
‘Well, I am,’ said Brunswick. ‘I saw him sitting here with the engine running as I arrived to tell you about Hoagland. It’s the bloke I followed to Colchester House the other day. It’s Wall-Eye Joe, I’d bet my life on it.’
‘Wall-Eye Joe?’ repeated Oliver.
‘Famous con man,’ explained Brunswick. ‘Joseph Marriott. Notorious case a few years back. Acquitted.’
‘What did he do?’
‘Look, please, both of you,’ said Twitten, ‘I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves. I’m still trying to imagine why Captain Hoagland would have murdered Peter Dupont.’
‘So how does Wall-Eye Joe fit in, then?’ said Brunswick, confused.
‘Look, I don’t think he does, sir!’ Twitten took a deep breath. ‘Captain Hoagland worked for Lord Melamine. I have it on very good authority that this poor man was not Wall-Eye Joe but Lord Melamine – as you would know, sir, if you hadn’t abandoned the investigation at the very start to devote valuable police time to playing the flipping trumpet!’
Brunswick pulled a face, and shrugged. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘So you’re saying this isn’t Wall-Eye Joe?’
‘Yes!’
All the time, Twitten’s mind was racing – and its destination, every time, was sickeningly the same: it was always Mrs Groynes.
‘No one but us knew about the Left Luggage stake-out,’ said Oliver, reasonably. No, they didn’t, except of course for Mrs Groynes, who gave me the idea in the first place.
‘It’s no one local who’s done this, son,’ said Brunswick. ‘We don’t have villains in this town who shoot people in the head.’ No, except for Mrs Groynes, who shot dead a theatre critic in the stalls of the Theatre Royal in precisely the same manner just last month, but no one would believe me.
It was clear enough. Whoever had shot Captain Hoagland had evidently shot Lord Melamine as well – presumably for the same reason – and disappeared into the fog. The only upside was that the unknown assassin hadn’t also shot Sergeant Brunswick in the leg for good measure, as had so often been the case in the past.
But why would Mrs Groynes have done it? Didn’t she have feelings for Captain Hoagland? Hadn’t Twitten heard her say on the telephone, ‘I can’t lose you again, Hoagy. I’ll help you, whatever it takes’? In his own pocket was the handkerchief she had lent him earlier in the day: the one with the initials ‘PH’ embroidered in the corner.
Ambulances and police vehicles were arriving.
‘I was only trying to catch the man who killed Dupont,’ Twitten said quietly to Brunswick. ‘I didn’t intend all this. Not two more brutal murders in a public place! It was supposed to be a glorious arrest, not a bloodbath.’
Brunswick put a hand on his shoulder. ‘You’ve got nothing to reproach yourself for, I’m sure, son. And I’m not saying this is Wall-Eye Joe, because it makes you angry for some reason; but if it was Wall-Eye Joe, son – just for the sake of argument – we both know he flaming well deserved it.’
Twitten didn’t have the strength to argue. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said.
‘But for now, son, we need to pull ourselves together and get on. We have to report what’s happened. We need to tell Inspector Steine.’
‘Well, I have to admit, I don’t feel very happy about this little private expedition of ours, my dear,’ said Steine. Having parted from Phyllis outside the police station, he and Adelaide were now making their way along the eerily shrouded seafront towards Russell Place and the Maison du Wax. It was not an easy stroll. Due to the prevailing conditions, they had to keep dodging other pedestrians who periodically loomed into view at unusually short notice, and Steine was tired of saying, ‘Excuse me’, and ‘I do beg your pardon’, and ‘No, no, my fault entirely’.
‘Really, Uncle Geoffrey? I didn’t realise. I thought you’d be pleased.’
‘Well, I am, of course. But it’s a shame none of my colleagues were free to come along. And a shame about this awful sea fret, too, of course. I feel quite chilled by it – chilled and damp. Don’t you?’
‘Won’t they come to the official unveiling next week, Uncle Geoffrey? Your colleagues?’
‘Yes, of course they will. You’re right. Yes, yes. But seeing it like this in advance of everyone else seems wrong.’
‘Well, if you ask me, this chance is a godsend, Uncle Geoffrey. What if the waxwork isn’t very good? It would be better to know now. Between you and me, as a Brighton Belle I’m afraid I’ve always had to be quite diplomatic about the standard of the modelling at the Maison du Wax. After all, it does cost tuppence to go in, and we have our good name to protect!’
Steine smiled, nervously. There was evidently something on his mind, something he needed to share with her. And it wasn’t about waxworks or tuppenny entrance fees.
‘Look, Adelaide,’ he said. He stopped walking. ‘Sorry!’ he said to a man who immediately crashed into him.
‘Yes, Uncle Geoffrey? I hope there’s nothing wrong?’
‘Look, my dear. Come over here, out of the way.’
He led her to the sea-green iron railings. Below, they could faintly hear the sound of lapping waves and shifting shingle, and a few echoing shouts from children obscured from view. It amazed Inspector Steine sometimes, how many obstacles to enjoying himself the British holiday-maker was prepared to contend with.
‘Look, something has come to my attention, that’s all, regarding the formation of the Brighton Belles.’
This sounded serious.
‘What is it, Uncle?’ Steine observed the faintest of sea breezes lifting Adelaide Vine’s beautiful chestnut hair. The almond-shaped eyes were wide.
‘Well, it might be nothing,’ he said, ‘but I need to ask you about it, because I – well, because I’m a policeman, you see; and when something comes to my attention like this, I have to act. I have no choice. Duty and instinct come together to create what you might describe as an unstoppable force.’
‘You’re worrying me, Uncle.’
‘Look, it’s this. I remember you told me, while we were on the train to London, that you were the last recruit to hear about the formation of the Brighton Belles.’
‘Yes. That’s right.’
Adelaide smiled – innocently, expectantly. A more observant person than Inspector Steine would have noticed that she kept casting her eyes away from his face and up to the right.
‘Well, the thing that has come to my attention is that it was you – Miss Adelaide Vine – who came up with the idea for the Belles in the first place. My constable has seen the minutes of a council meeting last year in which your proposal was discussed. He told me because he assumed I would be proud.’
Adelaide blinked a few times as she took this in. ‘So?’ she said.
‘So there’s a discrepancy, my dear. You didn’t tell me the whole truth of the matter, and I’m sorry to say it pains me.’
Adelaide’s eyes quickly looked right, looked left, then right again (as if preparing to cross the road), and then she gushed, ‘Oh, Uncle Geoffrey, there’s no discrepancy at all!’
‘Yes, there is. I just explained it.’
; ‘No. I mean, I did propose the scheme to the council, that’s true.’
‘I see. But why didn’t you mention that?’
‘Because I also proposed it in Bournemouth, and Southend, and – oh, ever so many other places. Blackpool, even! And no one replied. That’s what happened, you see: no one replied, so I thought no one had picked up my clever idea.’
‘You must have been very disappointed.’
‘I was. But then, you see – this is what happened. And it absolutely explains the apparent “discrepancy”, as you call it. At the last minute, you see, I found out that Brighton had been advertising for Belles, and had all but filled the posts, without telling me. They’d been advertising, you see, not realising that the young woman who’d written to them in the first place actually wanted to be a Brighton Belle herself. Which is how I came to apply at the last minute, just as I told you. So both things are true: I did propose the scheme, and I also nearly missed out on joining it! Do you see? It makes me so unhappy that you doubted me, dear uncle. You have to believe that finding you has been the best thing that’s ever happened to me!’
A tear rolled down Adelaide’s lovely cheek. But truthfully, she looked more relieved than reproachful.
‘You do believe me?’ she said.
‘Of course. Why wouldn’t I?’
‘Thank God. I mean, oh, good.’
‘And I apologise I put you through all that unpleasantness, my dear,’ said Steine, happy to resume their walk along the front. ‘I’m sorry I was so relentless in my questioning. I suppose I just can’t help being a policeman on whom nothing is lost.’
‘I forgive you, Uncle. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the whole story before. The thing is, since we discovered we’re related, I’ve been so desperate for you to like me, you see, and it’s off-putting to men sometimes when they find out a young woman is ambitious.’
‘Surely not,’ said Steine, reassuringly, but on consideration it gave him pause. The notion of an ambitious young woman was indeed very off-putting. Even hearing the words ‘ambitious’ and ‘woman’ together in the same sentence made his nose wrinkle.