A Picture of Murder

by T E Kinsey

  ‘Quite,’ she replied. ‘But there’s a table over by the window, I think.’

  ‘Shall we?’ I said to Mr Newhouse, gesturing towards the open door that led to the public bar.

  He cast a glance towards Mr Orum, who was still sneering at us.

  ‘Why not, my dear?’ he said cheerfully. ‘Let’s leave these two to their conversation.’

  I followed him through to the other room, closing the door behind me as I went.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’ he said as I was sitting down.

  ‘A brandy would be most welcome,’ I said.

  ‘A woman after my own heart.’

  He made his way purposefully to the bar, ignoring the curious looks of the villagers and farmhands as he passed them. Daisy appeared behind the bar again as though by magic. She collared poor Mr Newhouse and seemed to be subjecting him to an enthusiastic interrogation as she poured the drinks. I couldn’t hear them above the hubbub but I gathered from his chuckles that she was gushing. At length he seemed to gain control of the conversation and managed to ask a few questions of his own.

  He eventually returned to the table and set down two glasses of brandy.

  ‘She’s quite a gel, your pal,’ he said as he sat down. ‘Cheers.’ He held out his glass and we clinked.

  ‘She’s very excited to meet you, that’s all.’

  ‘She’s certainly very well informed.’

  ‘She does love the gossip in the magazines,’ I said. ‘In fact she seems to love reading about moving pictures more than actually seeing them. I offered to take her into the city in the summer to see Too Much Lobster and a couple of other comedies but she wasn’t interested.’

  He laughed. ‘Not surprised,’ he said. ‘Dreadful picture.’

  ‘Excellent title, though.’

  ‘I’ll grant you that,’ he said.

  ‘So what’s the story with you and Orum?’ I said. Subtlety and discretion are all very well in their place, but sometimes one has to be direct. ‘And who’s the woman with him?’

  ‘He’s . . . ’ he began. ‘Well, let’s say that he’s a fellow practitioner of the performing arts. Give a chap a moment to light his cigar and I’ll tell you all about him.’

  As he fussed with his cutter and then a match, I looked over at the bar. Daisy was engaged in conversation with one of the young farmhands, but as she caught my eye she gave me a grin and a wink. It seemed that bringing our actor guest to the pub had been a popular decision with one person, at least.

  ‘Ah, that’s the ticket,’ said Mr Newhouse as he took his first puff. ‘Been looking forward to that since lunch.’

  I allowed him to luxuriate in a few more satisfied mouthfuls of the sweet-smelling smoke.

  ‘Now then,’ he said at length. ‘Where were we?’

  ‘Mr Orum,’ I prompted.

  ‘Ah, yes, the sad tale of Aaron Orum and Nolan Cheetham. I’m surprised you don’t know it.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t keep up with the world of popular entertainment quite as much as I should like to,’ I said. ‘There was a time when I knew about everyone and everything, but no more.’

  ‘Did you, indeed? You come from a theatrical background, perhaps?’

  ‘My father was a circus knife thrower. The Great Coltello.’

  ‘Goodness me!’ he said. ‘How very exotic. My father was a gentleman’s valet in north London. Our lives seem to be reverse images of each other.’

  ‘I’d not swap mine for a thousand pounds,’ I said. ‘I loved the circus – I still love the circus – but I’ve had so many more adventures working for Lady Hardcastle.’

  ‘I can only imagine,’ he said. ‘That story you told at luncheon raised more questions than it answered, but it certainly hints at a life of intrigue.’

  I smiled. I could see I was going to struggle to keep him on track. Like many active minds, it seemed his was apt to wander. ‘You were going to tell me about Messrs Cheetham and Orum.’

  ‘So I was, my dear, so I was.’ He took a contemplative puff on his cigar. ‘We are in Manchester,’ he said, theatrically. ‘In the 1860s, two young lads are growing up on the streets of one of the Empire’s greatest industrial cities. Born about a week apart on the same street, Aaron and Nolan are the best of pals. Inseparable. Like brothers, they say. If there were games to be played, they were playing them. If there were plans to be laid, they were laying them. If there was mischief to be made, they were making it.

  ‘Both sets of parents were mill workers. Poor, but respectable. They didn’t have much, but they got by. One year, they saved up to take the two boys to a theatre show in the city as a joint birthday treat. They were utterly captivated. The songs, the jokes, the reaction from the audience. They knew then and there what they wanted to do when they grew up.’

  ‘I know that feeling,’ I said. ‘I worked day and night to learn my father’s skills. I wanted to be out there where he was. It wasn’t so much that I wanted them to adore me – I wanted them to admire my skill, the way I admired his.’

  ‘I’m much shallower than that,’ he said with self-deprecatory chuckle. ‘I just wanted to be loved and adored. But it takes us all differently, the entertainment bug, and so it was with our two heroes. Neither of them wanted to be actors, or singers, or comics. They were imaginative, inventive boys, and they were fascinated by the artistry of it. Young Aaron felt the magic of the dialogue, the patter. He wanted to write the words the actors spoke. While Nolan was transfixed by the technical aspects – the scenery, the sound effects, the flash pots and trapdoors. He wanted to make the magic.

  ‘They followed their mothers and fathers into the mill, but they clung to their dreams. They put on shows for their friends in the back rooms of pubs, in village halls – anywhere there was a space big enough. They gathered a troupe of actors and slowly began to attract the attention of the press. Soon they were offered the chance to stage one of their shows in a small theatre in the city. Acclaim was showered upon them. They had the world at their feet. And then . . . ’

  ‘They fell out?’ I suggested.

  ‘More than that, my dear,’ he said. ‘To this day no one but they themselves knows what cast those two lifelong friends asunder, but cast they were. A bitter enmity arose between them and they never spoke again. And since then, their careers have proceeded along entirely separate lines. Aaron Orum continued to work in the theatre and, for a time, so did Nolan Cheetham. But something new came along and he discovered a technical art to eclipse anything that could be done on the stage: moving pictures.’

  ‘I see,’ I said. ‘But why would Orum come all this way now? It doesn’t seem from Orum’s attitude just now that any sort of reconciliation is on the cards.’

  ‘Alas, no,’ he said. ‘One of the last things the two were working on together was a play about an eighteenth-century witch of great power who was undone by her own petty jealousy. They fell out before production began. They never staged the play.’

  ‘Aha,’ I said as I twigged. ‘And that’s the story of Cheetham’s new film. Which explains what Orum meant when he described Cheetham as a thief just now.’

  ‘In a nutshell,’ he said. ‘He’s been sending menacingly quasi-legal letters to Cheetham for a few months, threatening to sue him into perdition if he doesn’t cough up for the royalties and credit Orum thinks he’s owed. It would seem that he’s grown tired of that, and that a physical confrontation of some sort is on the cards.’

  ‘We shall just have to make sure it doesn’t ruin the shows this week,’ I said. ‘Lady Farley-Stroud has worked hard to organize everything. I should hate it all to be spoiled by an old spat between former friends.’

  ‘We shall have to warn Cheetham, of course. There’s not much else we can do, though.’

  ‘I suppose not. Do we know who the woman is?’

  ‘Not the foggiest, my dear.’

  As I took another sip of my brandy, the door to the snug was flung ostentatiously open. It banged loudly against the wall and ev
eryone fell silent for a moment as they watched Aaron Orum stride through the door with the unknown woman on his arm. She was laughing, presumably at something devastatingly witty he had just said, as she gazed up adoringly at him. He caught me looking at them and favoured me with a sneering smile.

  He opened the outer door and they stepped out together into the gathering gloom. He struggled briefly with an umbrella and then they were gone.

  By the time we got back, there were sounds of life and activity in the house. It seemed the other guests might also have ventured from their rooms.

  We found the two women, Zelda and ‘Phemie’, in the sitting room drinking tea and chatting amiably. I left Mr Newhouse with them and went off in search of Lady Hardcastle.

  She was in the dining room with Mr Cheetham. They had spread an array of papers across the table and were standing up, poring over them. They looked up as I knocked on the door.

  ‘Ah, Armstrong,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘There you are. Thank you for looking after Mr Newhouse. Is he all right?’

  ‘Quite well, my lady,’ I said. ‘He wanted to smoke a cigar so I took him to the Dog and Duck.’

  ‘Where you could introduce him to Daisy,’ she said.

  ‘Exactly so. It seemed like a two-birds-one-stone sort of a thing.’

  ‘Splendid. Mr Cheetham has been showing me some of the notes and sketches he makes before he starts work on one of his moving pictures. I must say I’m beginning to feel more and more like the dabbling amateur I am. I don’t do nearly this much preparation.’ She waved her hand across the jumble of papers. ‘Look here. A detailed breakdown of the plot, ideas for how to frame the shots . . . even a diagram of a wonderful little special effects device. Ingenious.’

  Cheetham assumed a suitably bashful expression, but it was obvious that he was also basking in her admiration.

  ‘We bumped into an old . . . “friend” of yours in the pub, Mr Cheetham,’ I said. ‘Mr Orum.’

  He scowled. ‘Oh heck,’ he said. ‘Did he say anything? I hope he wasn’t rude.’

  ‘Rude enough,’ I said, ‘but nothing too unpleasant. Just some sniping.’

  ‘He does that,’ he said sadly. ‘Always has. I suppose he’s here to cause trouble.’

  ‘He didn’t say so, but Mr Newhouse told me your story so I can only presume that he intends to try.’

  Lady Hardcastle raised an enquiring eyebrow, but I raised one of my own and inclined my head towards the door, our customary signal for ‘I’ll tell you later when we’re on our own.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Mr Cheetham. ‘I’d hoped we’d be able to settle everything in private. It seems he has other ideas.’

  ‘He wasn’t alone,’ I said. ‘He was in the company of an elegant young lady – slim, blonde, strikingly attractive, expensively dressed. His sweetheart? Wife?’

  ‘Sounds like his type. She could be his latest paramour, I suppose. He always liked to portray himself as something of a rake. A girl in every port, like. You’re sure they were together?’

  ‘Thick as thieves when we arrived,’ I said. ‘Though she kept quiet while he was putting in his snide little digs.’

  ‘Ah, yes. He likes them vapid and docile. The sort to hang on his every word.’

  ‘She didn’t have an air of vapidity. To tell the truth, there was more of a look of shrewd contemplation about her as she sat there weighing us up.’

  ‘Then I am at a loss,’ said Cheetham.

  ‘I’m sure we’ll find out in due course,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Daisy will know.’

  ‘She will,’ I said. ‘I’d have asked her already if I’d had the chance, but she was busy and Mr Newhouse was such entertaining company that I didn’t feel an especial need to abandon him for the sake of a little tittle nor, indeed, tattle.’

  ‘Quite right, too,’ she said. ‘Sufficient unto the day is the busybodying thereof.’

  Mr Cheetham chuckled. ‘Our Basil can be quite the raconteur when he puts his mind to it. I should take most of what he says with at least a pinch of salt, though, if I were you. And perhaps a little vinegar. And some Worcestershire sauce.’

  ‘Duly noted,’ I said. ‘If I might be excused, my lady, I ought to make sure that everything is in hand for dinner.’

  ‘Of course, dear,’ she said. ‘Gertie will be joining us.’

  ‘And Sir Hector?’

  ‘She seemed uncertain. Best to make sure we can feed him if needs be, but don’t let anyone else go short. I’m sure he won’t mind mucking in.’

  ‘There’s plenty to go round,’ I said. ‘Pheasant always goes further than one expects.’

  I took my leave and went through to the kitchen, where Miss Jones had left everything in splendid order. There were even notes to indicate our next steps. Edna joined me, and between us we put a wonderful meal together.

  Chapter Four

  ‘’Ere, lady, are we really gonna be in a kinemono . . . a kinematamo . . . a movin’ picture?’

  I had been pestered into driving the little Rover over to Chipping Bevington at the crack of dawn to fetch the camera and its attendant impedimenta. Having enlisted the help of the station master’s son, ‘Young’ Roberts, in packing the gear into and on to the tiny motor car, there was precious little room for me to get into it myself.

  After breakfast and a quick lesson from Mr Cheetham on the correct operation of the camera, we had carted the camera and a mighty wooden tripod into the village, where we had set up on the green.

  The aim had been to capture the shopkeepers opening up, the villagers going about their business, the children on their way to the little village school.

  ‘I should love a candid record of life in the village,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Something that historians can look back on in a hundred years.’

  After an hour, I began to hope that her hypothetical future historians were patient people with an interest in watching people self-consciously mugging for the camera. Our latest irritant was a small boy who ought, I was certain, to be sitting at a desk reciting his times tables or learning the kings and queens of England. He should not be on the village green asking foolish questions.

  Lady Hardcastle, to her eternal credit, was a good deal more patient than I. ‘Yes, dear,’ she said indulgently. ‘But if you stand too close to the camera, it won’t be able to see you properly.’

  ‘That don’t make no sense,’ said the urchin. ‘The closer you gets, the easier it is. Any fool knows that.’

  ‘Sadly, however, the camera is so much worse than a common or garden fool. It knows only that it can see you better if you toddle over yonder, towards the church. Perhaps it’s the divine light filtering through the sacred stained glass, perhaps it’s the mere effect of the feet and inches betwixt you and the lens, but I assure you that you have a better chance of being seen on the screen if you perambulate in the general direction of the Lord’s house.’

  ‘You talks funny,’ he said.

  ‘I do, dear,’ she replied.

  I was about to say something about pots and kettles and the relative levels of blackness thereof, but I held my tongue.

  The child regarded her appraisingly for a moment, clearly uncertain what to make of the mad upper-crust lady. He began, though, to do as he’d been bidden and strolled off towards the church.

  ‘This is much harder than I was expecting,’ she said. ‘I was hoping to capture a few candid moments of village life for posterity. Instead, I seem to have many, many feet of rather expensive film devoted to a permanent record of people waving.’

  ‘We need some sort of hide,’ I said. ‘Like hunters use.’

  ‘I fear that might be just as conspicuous in the middle of a village green, dear,’ she said.

  ‘You might be right,’ I conceded. ‘Do you have anything useable at all?’

  ‘I’m not sure. We’ll have to see when we get home. I’ll keep cranking, though – you never know what we might capture. I’ve plenty of spare film back in the orangery.’

&n
bsp; ‘You’d better focus on that lad for a bit,’ I said. ‘He’s stuck to his side of the bargain and left us alone.’

  ‘You’re right, of course. Where’s he got to . . . ? Oh, I see him. Hold on . . . Let me just . . . Oh, I say, who on earth is that?’

  As she spoke, a charabanc clattered around the corner from the Bristol Road and chugged its way towards the church. Even above the clanking of the engine we could hear a rousing chorus of ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’ coming from the occupants.

  ‘A church outing?’ I suggested.

  ‘On a Tuesday?’ she said. ‘Aren’t church outings more of a weekend thing? Shouldn’t the men be at work?’

  They made such a fascinating sight that she trained the camera on them instead of the young lad. His obedient – if reluctant – compliance with her instructions might not be rewarded after all.

  The open-topped charabanc drew to a rattling halt in front of the church. A man and woman sitting at the front rose immediately to their feet and turned to face their fellow passengers. Their voices were muffled by distance and would have been masked by the raucous din of the vehicle’s engine in any case, but from the loud cheer that greeted their words, it was apparent that theirs had been a rousing speech to rival King Harry’s.

  The leaders disembarked first and directed the driver to help them with a number of items stored in the luggage compartment. As their travelling companions clambered down on to the pavement, they were each handed a placard on a stick.

  ‘How exciting,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘I do believe it’s some manner of protest.’

  Once everyone had alighted from the charabanc, the driver took his seat once more and, with a loud grinding of gears, conducted his cacophonous vehicle around the green and back towards the Bristol Road.

  His passengers moved along the path slightly and formed a ragged line in front of the doors of the village hall. They raised their placards and began a spirited rendition of ‘Rock of Ages’. They shook their placards in time with the old hymn and seemed very much to be enjoying themselves.

  ‘Your eyes are so much sharper than mine, dear,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Can you make out what’s exercising them so?’