A Medal For Murder (4 page)

For the time being, I gave up all thoughts of work as we strolled the footpath, past the bandstand where the orchestra played a marching tune. A little girl did cartwheels on the grass. A child’s hoop spun across our
path. ‘We’ll take that as a lucky hoop,’ Meriel said. ‘At least the weather’s brightened up. The Agricultural Show was a bit of a washout last week, and the golf course flooded – something about a burst pipe.’

‘That must have put a damper on for the tourists.’

‘Oh they just keep sipping the waters and bathing. And none of it has harmed my production. Excellent box office.’

We reached the tea-room and sat down. Meriel turned her face to the sun while the waiter cleared the table and set down menus. She closed her eyes. ‘This reminds me of glorious days when my mother sang in La Scala. I would sit out in the afternoons while she rested.’

Then she glanced at me over the top of her menu. ‘You’re so trim,’ she said accusingly. ‘You could have any number of these delicious ices. I tried the pistachio last week, and they have the most amazing selection of cakes and éclairs.’

The band began to play a Viennese waltz. Before the tune finished, the waiter jotted down our orders.

‘It’s lovely here, Meriel.’ I felt relaxed and glad to be alive.

‘They have excellent musicians. Harrogate city fathers believe music banishes anxious cares and encourages a cheerful outlook. And I do feel cheerful. Look at this.’ She thrust a newspaper under my nose. Just like home then, with Mrs Sugden devouring tales of folly and crime. But this was Harrogate after all. The item in Wednesday’s
Herald
comprised a list of names – this week’s visitors to the Spa, set out according to which hotel they stayed in. She pointed to a name. ‘See! There he is.’

‘Burrington Wheatley?’

‘The very one.’ She glanced around the tables, as if to make sure the man himself was not within hearing distance. ‘A funny butterball of a man with a face the colour of a blazing cinder, pure white hair, snowy moustache and flyaway black eyebrows. You can’t mistake him.’ As she spoke, she drew moustache and eyebrows on her face with her fingertips, to drive home her description.

A suspicion sprouted. ‘Why would I not want to mistake him?’

The waiter set down our salads. Meriel waited. ‘Because, dear Kate, I want you to praise me to the sky when you sit next to him this evening. He is the well-known Manchester theatre impresario.’

‘What does an impresario do?’

She looked at me as though I were the worst kind of innocent. ‘He produces plays of course, tours productions across the country, into the best venues. If he likes my work . . . Well, let us say this could be the making of me. Clap till your hands hurt. An hurrah or two would not go amiss.’

I said doubtfully, ‘I didn’t know I was to be your standard bearer.’

She closed her eyes, stretched her neck and pulled back her shoulders. ‘My life is going to change. I can feel it in my toes.’

As we ate, we caught up with news of a mutual friend at whose fancy dress party we had met last New Year’s Eve.

Meriel ordered more bread, and surreptitiously slipped a slice into her bag, along with a tomato. ‘Harrogate has been lucky for me. Who would have thought I could have a spell at the Opera House for an
amateur production at the height of the season? It is too good to be true. I tried to get a foot in the door in London, and it just did not happen. I was assistant to an assistant wardrobe mistress. Every moment was torture – an utter squandering of my talents.’

I listened to her accounts of costume making until the young waiter set down our cakes and ices. The ice cream was already melting in the heat of the afternoon.

Meriel asked the waiter’s name, then said, ‘Well now, Malcolm, can you tell me what’s playing at the Opera House this week?’

‘Why, it’s an adaptation of an Arnold Bennett novel, madam.
Anna of the Five Towns
.’

‘What have you heard about it?’ she demanded.

He blushed and looked for a means of escape. ‘Well?’ ‘I’m not sure of the tale,’ he admitted. ‘But I was told that the best-looking lass in Harrogate is taking a good part.’

‘Thank you. That is an excellent recommendation.’ His answer seemed to satisfy her. ‘It doesn’t matter what they say, Kate, as long as they are talking.’ She turned the page in the newspaper. ‘Read this review.’

I scanned the piece. Her production had indeed earned a glowing review.

Meriel dabbed a dribble of ice cream from her chin. ‘You know why I chose this story,
Anna of the Five Towns
?’

‘It does seem a difficult choice. I would have gone for a ready-made play myself.’ I bit into my chocolate éclair.

‘I chose it because it reveals hypocrisy, meanness, oppression, tyranny.’ She waved her spoon, flicking a dash of ice cream onto the hat of the woman at the next
table. Given the meltiness, it was an impressive hit. As Meriel talked about the play, she drew a good deal of attention to our table.

The café was busy. While customers were not exactly being hurried out, we were encouraged not to dawdle. The waiter brought the bill. Meriel snatched it from me. ‘This is my treat.’

She opened her copious bag and began a search. ‘Do you know, I’ve left my dratted purse in the theatre. How annoying!’

I took the bill from her.

‘But what I was saying, Kate, about
Anna of the Five Towns
, it has a heroine who has no way of fighting back because she has always lived under tyranny and does not have the language or the ability to fight her corner, and say what she wants. And in Lucy Wolfendale, I have the most perfect Anna.’

‘You have cast someone similar in character?’

‘Heavens no! Lucy could not be more different.’

At the theatre, I made a beeline for the box office, while Meriel chatted to the doorman.

The white-haired bespectacled box office attendant handed me my complimentary ticket for that evening. I thanked her and asked, ‘Do you know whether a Mrs deVries has booked to see the play? I came across from Leeds without her address and hoped she may be here tonight.’ It was a good try, but failed.

The woman shook her head. ‘Half Harrogate’s seen the show, but that name rings no bells.’ She frowned. ‘deVries? Sounds Belgian. The Belgies form a bit of a clique if you ask me.’

 
 

The final curtain fell on
Anna of the Five Towns.
The cast had taken bow after bow, to rapturous applause.

Bravos greeted the young leading lady as she stepped forward, a young man on either side of her: one who had won her hand, and one who had died tragically.
Anna
took a solitary bow.

Mr Burrington Wheatley, Meriel’s velvet-clad impresario who sat to my right, applauded loudly.

At the interval, he and I had moved from the front row of the stalls to the back, to escape an obnoxious fellow theatregoer who arrived late, blew cigar smoke up at the cast, and gave me his running commentary while rustling a bag of mint humbugs.

When the applause subsided, Mr Wheatley and I squeezed out of the auditorium, pausing in the crush of the lobby at the foot of the stairs that led to the dress circle and bar. He turned to me. ‘The girl who played Anna . . .’

‘Lucy Wolfendale.’ I remembered her from our photographic session.

‘She’ll leave a trail of broken hearts and empty
wallets in her wake, rely upon it. An actress like that comes along once in a generation. She is a natural.’

A growl came from behind. It was the humbug-eating cigar smoker we had escaped from earlier. With a good deal of annoyance, he snarled, ‘An exquisite creature like Miss Lucy Wolfendale comes along not once in a generation but once in a lifetime.’

Mr Wheatley gave me an amused wink. He said, ‘I comment only on her acting abilities, sir. I mount theatrical productions that tour the provinces. I would have Miss Wolfendale in my company tomorrow.’

The cigar smoker’s nose twitched with distaste. He kept in step as we climbed the broad staircase. ‘Miss Wolfendale will tread no one’s boards. Her future is here.’

Mr Wheatley raised a mischievous eyebrow. ‘You’re her father?’

‘Her father?’ The cigar smoker stopped in his tracks. For a moment I thought he would strike Mr Wheatley. He bit on the cigar. Out of the side of his mouth, he said coldly, ‘I am Lawrence Milner, an old family friend. Miss Wolfendale is a respectable girl. A turn on the amateur dramatic stage with friends might be acceptable. The professional theatre is out of the question.’

Attempting to defuse the situation, I said, ‘The young chaps were very good.’

‘One of them is my son, Rodney,’ Lawrence Milner said. ‘And he will have no more time for this sort of thing.’

He had made that point during the play, and the likeness was clear. Younger and older Milners had the same reddish-blond hair.

I decided to ignore him. ‘Did you not think, Mr
Wheatley, that Dylan Ashton acted the part of Willie superbly? He seemed entirely in love with Anna.’

‘That wasn’t acting,’ Mr Wheatley murmured in a kindly voice.

Mr Milner pushed past us and elbowed his way towards the bar.

Mr Wheatley took my arm. ‘Miss Jamieson’s talent as a director is to know what to cut and what to play.’

‘Oh and what did she cut?’

Meriel and I were the last to leave the theatre. She had to make sure nothing had been left in the dressing rooms. She thanked the doorman effusively, as we followed him to the stage door, saying she would never forget all his small kindnesses.

‘A tip wouldn’t go amiss,’ she whispered to me. ‘With all the junk in this bag, I can’t find my purse.’

The instant we left the theatre and stepped into the little back street, great drops of warm summer rain turned to stair rods. I hurried into the nearest shop doorway, diving into my overfull bag. ‘I’ve an umbrella here somewhere.’

Meriel pulled a hood over her head. ‘You’ll have to let me carry the brolly. I’m taller.’

My heel touched something. I looked down, stepping back with a sudden gasp, fearing I had trodden on some sleeping tramp.

‘Is he drunk?’ Meriel took the umbrella from my hand, opening it with a swish.

Bending, I touched the man’s warm cheek. He had lost his hat. Light reddish-blond hair fell onto his forehead. His jacket was undone, and missing a button. Later, I wondered how I could have focused on such
small details. Perhaps something in me wanted not to look at the hilt of a dagger that protruded from his chest. By the glow of the alley gas lamp, I noticed a streak of blood, trespassing onto the starched white dress shirt.

I stared blankly, wondering for a moment whether this was some tom-fool stage trick with a retracting dagger. The figure might leap at us and start to laugh. He did not. In the soft shadowy light, the features came into focus. The jut of the jaw, the broad nose. It was a handsome face, frozen in a look of angry surprise, as if his lips had not expected to be deprived so soon of their cigar.

‘It’s that fellow . . . the one who sat next to me. He’s dead.’

Meriel shrieked. ‘Not my Mr Wheatley!’

Pushing my bag into Meriel’s hands, I felt for a pulse on the man’s neck, knowing the gesture to be futile.

Meriel backed away, fear in her voice. ‘It’s Lawrence Milner.’ I stood up and as we faced each other, I saw terror in her eyes. She said quickly, ‘That’s his motor, just on the Parade there.’ She hurried to look, as though what we saw in the doorway might be some trick of the light and the real Mr Milner would be alive and sitting at the wheel.

‘Somebody has slashed the tyres,’ she called.

But that would no longer concern Mr Milner.

I waited for her to walk back up the alley. ‘Ghastly, ghastly,’ was all she could say. The body lay behind me. Meriel blocked my way. For a long moment, I felt paralysed.

One of us had to do something. Meriel seemed to have lost her grip.

‘Stay here, Meriel. I’ll get the doorman to call the police.’

At that, she turned, and ran back towards the stage door, calling, ‘I’ll tell him.’

She had taken the umbrella. I had the choice of standing in the lashing rain, back to the window, or sharing the doorway with the dead man. I chose the lashing rain.