Murder at Renard's (Rose Simpson Mysteries Book 4) (10 page)

It did not seem possible that matters could get any further out of hand, and yet that is exactly what happened. A woman screamed, a high, shrill shriek, which had the effect of stopping everyone in their tracks. All eyes turned to face the front of the shop, which faced onto the street, from whence the cry had come. The cause of the wail at once became abundantly clear, together with the smell of burning fabric and smoke. The great candelabra, so precariously positioned beside the drapes, had toppled over and, in so doing, had set one of the velvet drapes alight. The drape in question was hung on the window beside the door, thereby temporarily preventing exit to the street. Fear filled the room, further fuelled by additional screams from various members of the audience until there was total panic. While some of the men had the good sense to tear the drapes from their hanging to prevent the flames from spreading, a considerable number of the audience tore around the room looking for a means of escape. In the confusion and panic that followed, a number of chairs and the makeshift lectern were knocked over.

Madame Renard, realising that her fashion event was threatening to end in disaster, was keen to take whatever measures were necessary to mitigate the damage. Accordingly, she sent Mary off to the kitchenette to get the key that hung on a hook under the sink. This unlocked a door off the storeroom which opened out onto the neighbouring street.

Rose, meanwhile, did her best to calm the frightened customers. Looking across at the window, she saw that some of the men were engaged in beating the flames into submission. Others had taken the initiative to locate the kitchen and were returning with all available receptacles, filled to the brim with water, so that they could drench the flames. The combined assault meant that the fire was soon put out and it was only the smell of scorched fabric and smoke that now pervaded the air. This did not stop a general exodus to the storeroom. The sight of flames had scared the customers and few were prepared to use the shop door. Instead they sought refuge through the door off the storeroom into the next street. The corridor and stairs soon became full of people jostling and pushing as they tried to fight their way through. The chaos was made worse by people falling and tripping on the steps. There also appeared some confusion as to where the door was located, some customers correctly favouring the storeroom, while others the kitchenette, so that there was considerable coming and going; the corridor itself became a sea of people going this way and that.

Jacques, Rose noticed, had now managed to open the shop door and clear a way through. A few brave souls, after hesitating for a moment as if afraid that the curtains might any moment reignite, made their exit to the street via this route. As they passed, they stared at the charred remains of what had once been the velvet drapes. Others slowly followed suit. Mary, meanwhile, ushered customers and guests out through the storeroom door. Rose stayed in the middle of the shop, at a loss as to whether to stay where she was and clear up or offer assistance elsewhere. An initial look at the damage suggested that, with the exception of the ruined curtains, the destruction to the shop was superficial and could be easily remedied by a lick of paint. Closer scrutiny would, of course, be required in the morning when they would have the benefit of daylight.

Madame Renard looked close to tears, surveying the now closed, deserted shop. Rose went over to her and put an arm rather awkwardly around her shaking shoulders. Such intimate an act towards her employer seemed strangely out of place despite the circumstances, for the proprietor often appeared aloof to her employees. However, at this moment she looked a shadow of her former self, needing all the support that was offered merely to function. Jacques soon appeared at his mother’s side and, embracing her, offered his own words of comfort. The proprietor’s sobbing subsided. For a moment there was silence as no one spoke, each lost in their own thoughts.

‘Rose, where’s Lady Celia?’ Madame Renard said suddenly. ‘I didn’t see her go out, did you? Do you think she's still here in the shop?’

‘I’m certain she went out with the others,’ answered Rose reassuringly, ‘although to tell you the truth, there was so much confusion, with people going backwards and forwards, that I couldn’t tell you who left when.’

Somewhat reluctantly she mounted the stairs and accompanied her employer on a tour of the rooms off the corridor. The kitchenette was empty, as was the storeroom, although the latter had been left in chaos. In the eagerness to get out, boxes had been knocked over and parcels wrapped in brown paper had become undone. Their contents had mingled and sprawled out onto the floor to become trampled underfoot. A number of dresses also had fallen off their coat hangers as they had been bumped and knocked in the exodus. Madame Renard looked at the ruined clothes in dismay, and Rose wondered whether the greatest and most costly damage had not been done in this room. They made their way quickly to the office. As the room had been used that evening as a makeshift dressing room, Rose thought there was a vague possibility that Lady Celia might be here, although privately she considered it highly unlikely given the noise and kerfuffle that would surely have roused her attention. If nothing else, she thought that the woman would have made her presence known. She would not have been content to sit quietly in silence, while all about her were noise and the sounds of panic.

At the door, Madame Renard raised a hand as if to knock. Rose was fairly confident that they would find the room empty and, given the events of the evening, felt less inclined to observe the social niceties. Willing the evening to be over, she opened the door and went in.

The spectacle that greeted her was so awful and unexpected that for a moment Rose could hardly comprehend what she was seeing, and stood motionless, staring stupidly at the object that lay sprawled out on the floor in front of her at the far end of the little office which, due to the small size of the room, was in reality only a few feet away. She heard Madame Renard give a sharp intake of breath behind her as she took in the scene. The woman clasped at Rose’s arm with fingers that dug into her flesh as if she feared she would slump to the floor without the younger woman’s support.

Gently, but firmly, Rose unfastened the proprietor’s fingers from her arm and made her way slowly over to the figure lying prostrate on the floor. It seemed to her that the proper thing to do was to feel for a pulse, and gingerly she knelt beside the figure to do just that, although the gesture appeared futile, for she already knew, without it being confirmed, that the woman was dead. Evidenced by, if nothing else, a small pair of scissors protruding from her neck. On further examination she found that the woman had also sustained an additional injury; a nasty gash on the side of her head.

‘Is … is she dead?’ whispered Madame Renard from across the room. So engrossed had Rose been in feeling the woman’s body for signs of life that she had almost forgotten that the proprietor was there, and the sound of her voice made her start. The words themselves, however, brought her back to reality with a thud.

‘Yes,’ she said, her voice quite weary. ‘I’m afraid there’s no hope, she’s quite dead.’

‘Poor, poor Lady Celia!’ wailed Madame Renard. ‘I cannot believe it, I can’t!’ She began to weep bitterly. ‘Tell me it’s not true, Rose. And in my precious little shop too. My office of all places. Tell me that I am dreaming, that this is some ghastly nightmare and I will wake up and all this will be gone.’

Rose shook her head sadly and gave the dead woman one last glance before she got to her feet. Something, other than the obvious fact that the woman had undoubtedly been murdered did not make sense. Her attention was drawn to the woman’s clothing, in particular the abundance of lace on the woman’s bodice which could just be made out even though the woman was lying spread-eagled on her front. The shoulders of the dress should have been made of the same silk satin as the rest of the gown, but instead they were formed of silver and glass beads. She realised the woman’s figure was all wrong too. With a sickening feeling growing up inside her stomach, Rose bent down and put her hand out and gingerly pushed away some of the woman’s hair from her face.

‘It’s not Lady Celia,’ Rose said finally. ‘It’s Sylvia.’

‘Well, what have we here, Sergeant?’ enquired the inspector joining his subordinate in the police motor vehicle.

Sergeant Perkins, rather a chipper young man, mirrored in his dress by the jaunty angle he wore his hat, cleared his throat, eager to make a good first impression. He had not worked with this particular inspector before, although he did, of course, know of him by reputation. Nervously, he gathered together the papers on his lap. For a moment when he looked down at them he could see nothing but odd words that seemed to make no sense at all. He took a deep breath and tried to focus. He knew full well that, when he was nervous, he had a tendency to talk too much and often said the first thing that came into his head, appropriate or not.

‘Take your time, Sergeant.’

The sergeant looked up anxiously to see if he could detect any signs of sarcasm on the other man’s face. But the inspector, if anything, was looking at him kindly, and there had been no trace of sarcasm in his voice. The younger man visibly relaxed, sinking back a little in his seat so that he was no longer perched precariously on the very edge, in danger of falling off or, worse still, bumping into the inspector, should the police driver decide to take a corner rather fast.

‘It’s a murder in a dress shop, would you believe, sir? I know that they say some of the prices of dresses are criminal these days, but even so …’ The sergeant faltered as he saw the expression on the inspector’s face. ‘Yes … ah, let me see, as I was saying, the deceased died in a dress shop, a small boutique, nothing very fancy, but quite nice all the same, I understand. Renard’s. I don’t expect that you’ve heard of it, have you, sir?’

‘I can’t say I have. Who was the deceased? The proprietor, I suppose? Did she live on the premises?’

‘No, to both questions, sir. The deceased, as it happens, was one of the shop assistants.’

‘Really?’ The inspector raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘I say, that’s a bit of a rum do, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t think I quite follow, sir,’ muttered Sergeant Perkins, looking confused.

‘Well, it stands to reason she must have been dead for quite some hours. I’m surprised that’s all, that the proprietor didn’t come across her body before while she was shutting up shop for the night. Having said that, you’d have thought she’d have noticed one of her assistants was missing, wouldn’t you?’

‘Ah, I see what you’re getting at now, sir,’ said the sergeant, looking relieved. ‘As it happens the murder took place between nine thirty and ten o’clock this evening.’

‘Indeed? And what in heaven’s name was the girl doing at the shop at that hour? Surely she wasn’t stocktaking?’

‘No, sir, the shop was hosting a fashion event of sorts. The girl was murdered in a backroom while the shop was full of people. And what’s more, sir, the girl was the mannequin, which is why we can be pretty precise about the time of death. She’d not long gone back to the dressing room to change out of her last outfit.’

‘Ah, I see. That’s one mystery solved. But it’ll mean we’ll have a room full of people to interview tonight,’ half groaned the inspector. ‘Still, at least one or two of them should have seen something that will help us with our enquiries.’

‘That’s just it, sir. There was hardly anyone left in the shop when the body was found. There’d been a fire, you see, just about the time the girl was being murdered, or perhaps a little before. They’d covered the windows with heavy velvet curtains for the event, and the one nearest the door caught fire.’

‘That was rather convenient for our murderer,’ said the inspector, showing sudden interest.

‘Wasn’t it just, sir,’ said the sergeant excitedly. ‘The two things must be connected, don’t you think? It can’t be a coincidence. It created a damned useful diversion if you ask me. Apparently the place was in chaos with most people running all over the place trying to get out and a few trying to put the fire out. I’d be surprised if anyone saw anything.’

‘Do we know what started the fire?’

‘A candelabra, sir. Someone in their wisdom saw fit to place it near the curtains. A damned silly thing to do, if you ask me. Someone must have knocked it and one of the lighted candles happened to catch the curtain. The shopkeeper swears blind that it couldn’t have caught fire by itself. Most particular about it, she was.’

‘It sounds as if it would have been easy to deliberately set the drape alight if anyone was so minded,’ said the inspector. ‘All someone would need to have done was pull up some of the fabric and hold the material over one of the candles.’

‘Yes, and if the person positioned himself in front of the candelabra, it needn’t have been obvious what he was doing,’ agreed the sergeant.

‘If they didn’t think anyone was looking, they might even have taken a chance and moved the candelabra nearer to the curtains.’

‘Wouldn’t that have been a bit risky, sir? Surely someone would have spotted them doing that.’

‘Not necessarily, not if all eyes were on the mannequin parade at the time.’

‘Well, apparently the girl had just appeared in rather a spectacular gown by all accounts. Stayed there in the room for only a few minutes, she did, before disappearing, presumably back to the dressing room.’

‘Well, we’ll have a better idea what happened when we’ve seen the place and interviewed anyone who is still there. You never did give me the name of the deceased, by the way, Sergeant.’

‘The deceased’s a Sylvia Beckett, sir. She was one of the shop assistants, like I said. Bit of a shame really. Apparently she was very excited about modelling the gowns. It was a last minute decision, I understand. The mannequin was supposed to have been Lady Lavinia Sedgwick, but she pulled out at the last minute.’

‘Lady Lavinia Sedgwick?’ The inspector looked up, surprised.

‘Yes, sir. Have you heard of her? Her photographs are always in the society pages. Quite a looker she is too. Her brother’s the Earl of –’      

‘Belvedere, yes, I know. I’ve met her. Him too, come to that.’

‘Have you really, sir? You’ll be telling me next that they were suspects in one of your murder investigations.’

‘As it happens, they were,’ said the inspector, grinning at the expression on the sergeant’s face. ‘Now, who’s still at the dress shop, the proprietor, I assume?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said the sergeant, perusing the papers on his lap. ‘A Madame Renard, hence the name of the shop. Then there’s her son, Jacques Renard, works at Harridges, he does. Then there’s a Monsieur Girard, he’s the designer, whatever that is, and then the two shop assistants … now, what are their names? Ah, here we are, a Miss Jennings and a Miss Simpson.’

‘Miss Simpson?’ The inspector sat up in his seat with a start. ‘What’s her Christian name? It’s not Rose by any chance, is it?’

‘Let me see,’ said Sergeant Perkins, studying his notes. ‘Well, there’s a thing. You’re quite right, sir. Fancy you knowing that. The young lady is a Miss Rose Simpson. Don’t say you’re acquainted with her too, sir?’

‘I am,’ confirmed his superior. ‘Or at least, I have been.’ For a moment, he appeared to the sergeant to be lost in thought.

‘You’ll be telling me next, sir, that she’s been involved in your murder investigations too.’

‘She has. Now, don’t gape at me like that, sergeant, it’s far from becoming. Hello? We’ve stopped. We must be there. Bring your notes with you, will you, Perkins, there’s a good fellow.’

The inspector climbed out of the car, followed by his sergeant, his notebook at the ready. Both policemen surveyed the exterior of the dress shop with interest.

‘It doesn’t look the sort of place there’d be a murder, does it, sir?’ said Sergeant Perkins, pressing his nose against the window, trying to make out the interior of the shop through the gap left by the burnt drape. ‘Still, I suppose you can never tell. My old man told me of a stabbing that had occurred in a tearoom once. Ever so respectable a place it was too. Full of little old ladies at the time having their afternoon cups of tea, it was …’

The sergeant’s idle chatter faltered and dwindled into nothing, as he became increasingly aware that his superior was giving what he was saying absolutely no notice at all. Instead, he was staring intently at the shop, as if its very existence intrigued him. And when he spoke, it was so quietly, as if he were speaking to himself. The sergeant had to take a step or two towards him to catch his words. 

‘So this is where Rose works, is it? Well I never.’

Rose rubbed her eyes and tried to stifle a yawn. She was sitting on one of the chairs that, until an hour or so ago, had been occupied by a member of the audience. She dimly remembered that she had secretly coveted such a seat, standing as she had been with her aching feet. Now though, she longed to get up and stretch her legs. This sudden, overpowering tiredness she felt, she knew had nothing to do with the physical exertions of the day. It was something much deeper than that, which threatened to engulf her if she allowed herself to submit. It was the combination, she thought, of the shock and then the waiting. It seemed they had been waiting for ages, although in truth it had not been so very long at all.

They had given their preliminary statements to the first policemen on the scene, and now they were required to wait for the gentlemen from Scotland Yard to arrive to take more detailed statements.  Only then would they be permitted to go home and sleep. However, bitter experience told her that, never mind how tired she was, sleep would elude her. She would not be able to close her eyes without seeing Sylvia as she had seen her last, sprawled out upon the floor, her hair dishevelled and matted by blood, a pair of small gold scissors protruding from her neck; the very same scissors that Rose had picked up and admired only a short time ago. She remembered Sylvia had liked the scissors too, had gone so far as to comment on how pretty they were with their bird design. It seemed even more awful somehow that she should have been killed with an object that she had praised and wished was her own. So much better if it had been something else, although Rose knew she was being stupid and sentimental. Because what was at issue was not the weapon that had been used to kill Sylvia, the salient point was that she was dead, and had been murdered at that. But who’d have thought, Rose mused, that such a dainty object could have caused such damage? It was almost unbelievable to think that such a delicate looking object could have been used for such a foul purpose as to take another person’s life.

She glanced around the shop. The silence seemed eerie and unreal somehow after the noise and bustle associated with the fashion show. The shop itself showed signs that it had been hastily abandoned as a result of the audience fleeing from the fire. The small clusters of seats were now in disarray, with a number of the chairs on their sides where they had been knocked over in the ensuing rampage. The counters and occasional tables had also not gone unscathed. Some of their contents had scattered onto the floor, where they had been trampled and ruined or broken underfoot. The odd object remained intact, a brooch here, a scarf there, and such items seemed strangely out of place amid the destruction. The great drapes, which had contributed so much to the chaos of the evening, still adorned the windows. They succeeded in blocking out the night, although in places they had become detached from the hooks that secured them, and drooped and sagged like giant wilting flowers. The offending charred curtain itself lay torn and blackened on the floor, a sad reminder of how and when the evening had begun to deteriorate, although few if any could have imagined the devastating way it was to end.

Rose was roused from her reflections by the sound of whimpering, not dissimilar to that of a wounded animal. She looked up to see Mary, sitting a few chairs away from her, her eyes red and swollen from crying, and a general unkempt look about her, accentuated by her hair which had become undone from its fastenings. Strands of it fell across her eyes, and in places was plastered to her face by tears. The girl had her arms clasped tightly about her, her body rocking slightly in an involuntary movement. Every now and again she paused to sniff and wipe her nose on the sleeve of her blouse. Rose did not take the trouble or spare the time to dart a quick glance at Madame Renard, to see if the proprietor had noticed her employee’s dishevelled appearance or erratic behaviour. Instinctively Rose took a woollen shawl from within the nearest counter and moved her chair so that she could sit beside the weeping girl. Putting an arm around her shoulders, she handed her one of the embroidered lace handkerchiefs lying on display on the nearest occasional table. Gently she stroked the girl’s hair, while encouraging her to mop her eyes and blow her nose while she arranged the shawl around her.

‘I’m sorry, Mary. I hadn’t really thought what an awful shock all this must have been for you. It was frightful for us all, of course, but it must have been much worse for you.’

‘Because we were particular friends, you mean?’ said Mary between sniffs. Her voice sounded weary, as if she found it a struggle to talk, and was barely audible. ‘Yes, I suppose it’s the shock that makes me feel like this. I can’t believe it’s happened; it doesn’t seem real. How can Sylvia be dead, Rose?’ She tugged at the other woman’s arm as if she believed Rose held the answer. ‘And murdered too! Oh … it’s all so horrible. And here of all places. Renard’s! Rose, to think that it was only a few hours ago that she was ribbing me about having to wait on everyone while she pranced around the room, all eyes on her. I was that cross too, Rose. I said some spiteful things to her. Now I wish I hadn’t. I wouldn’t have said them if I’d known …’ Mary’s voice faded and a fresh bout of weeping overcame her.