Murder at Renard's (Rose Simpson Mysteries Book 4) (15 page)

‘Mary told me that sometimes she wished Sylvia was dead, that she had even thought of the various ways in which she might kill her.’

She heard Inspector Deacon take a sharp intake of breath. Clearly this was not what he had expected her to say. Other than that, there was a moment of complete silence in the room. If there had been a clock on the mantelpiece, she would surely have heard it tick. She could hear her own heartbeat, not only feel it. If she listened carefully and strained her ears, she could just make out the hum of voices in the room next door. She found herself in a state of expectation, whether waiting for Inspector Deacon to say something, or to hear something from outside this claustrophobic and confined little room, she did not know. All she knew was that she shouldn’t have spoken so freely, that by doing so she had let Mary down. Mary, who she remembered suddenly, had first raised the suggestion that she investigate Sylvia’s murder. Perhaps she should say as much to Inspector Deacon.

She opened her mouth as if to say something to that effect. But, just at that very moment, she heard the clatter of feet, the sound of shoes on wood. Someone was running up the flight of stairs two at a time. The door to the square room was opened. They heard the person stride across the floor with its threadbare carpet, and the door to their own little rectangle room was unceremoniously thrown open. Inspector Deacon, she noticed, had risen from his seat, and Rose, without thinking, found that she had followed suit. 

Sergeant Perkins stood before them. He looked flushed, whether from his physical exhaustions or the news he had to impart, it was hard to tell. Rose sneaked a glance at Inspector Deacon. He appeared to be as apprehensive as she was herself.

‘Out with it, man,’ demanded the inspector. ‘How is Lady Celia? Pray, don’t tell me she’s lying there with her throat cut in the drawing room?’

‘Not a bit of it, sir,’ answered the sergeant cheerily. ‘She’s as right as rain, so she is. The butler sent her lady’s maid to check up on her. Sleeping like a new-born babe, she is.’

‘The maid was quite sure her mistress was only sleeping?’ said the inspector sharply.

‘Yes, sir. Quite sure. She was snoring fit to wake the house, so the maid told the butler. Although I understand there was nothing unusual in that. I thought the butler was going to keel over with the shock of it all when I told him her ladyship might be in danger. He went very quiet and dropped the telephone apparatus, so he did.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ said the inspector, thinking that his sergeant was enjoying his dramatic retelling of events a trifle too much. ‘Did he say what time she arrived home?’

‘Yes, sir. About a quarter past ten, give or take a few minutes, he thought. And she wasn’t alone. She was escorted home by a gentleman. I’ve written his name down here.’ He paused to glance at his notebook. ‘Ah … here we are … a Mr Bertram Thorpe.’

‘He’s her young man,’ said Rose quickly. ‘He was at the fashion event this evening. She’d asked him to attend.’

‘I see. Well, we’ll need to speak to both of them in the morning. Anything else to report, Sergeant?’

‘The butler was that anxious when he heard a murderer was about. He’s stationed a footman to stand all night outside her ladyship’s bedroom door and positioned another to stand outside her window. Poor fellow. Let’s hope it doesn’t rain.’

‘Well, that’s made our job easier,’ said the inspector looking relieved. ‘What about the uniformed officer?’

‘I waited downstairs by the telephone so that he could report back to me, sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘He’s confirmed the butler’s story. Lady Celia’s safe and well. He could hear her snoring when he stood outside her bedroom door. He’s staying on duty outside the house as you requested. They’ll be that many people watching over the lady, sir, no harm will come to her tonight, and that’s a fact.’

‘Let’s hope you are right,’ said Inspector Deacon grimly.

‘Now, let me see if I understand the situation correctly,’ said Inspector Deacon. ‘Jacques Renard is the proprietor’s son, works at Harridges and lives out in lodgings?’ He looked about his surroundings. ‘Goodness knows there’s hardly enough room for him to live here with his mother.’

‘Yes, Madame Renard sent him to work in Harridges to learn the shop trade. She wants to prepare him for the day when he takes over the management of Renard’s.’

Rose might have added that it was her own personal view that another reason her employer had dispatched her son to work at the department store had been an eagerness to keep Jacques and Sylvia apart. The words came readily enough to her lips, but on refection she thought better of it. It might surely only serve to muddy the waters unnecessarily. It would suggest a possible motive for murder which she herself thought highly implausible.

If Inspector Deacon had noticed her intention to add anything further, then he gave no sign of it. Indeed, given by what he asked next, it appeared that his thoughts had moved on from the proprietor’s son entirely.

‘I see. And how does Monsieur Girard come into the picture?’ He asked, getting up to stretch his legs and arms before taking his seat again.

It was with some effort that Rose did not allow her gaze to fall on the inspector’s injured leg. She wondered whether it gave him pain. A part of her rebelled at the notion that, as the investigation progressed, she would become accustomed to seeing his reliance on the cane. It occurred to her to speculate whether he felt the same. Did he awake each morning and remember his dependence on his stick, or for one blessed moment did he forget?

‘He also works at Harridges,’ said Rose, tearing her thoughts away from consideration of the inspector’s injury. ‘That’s where Jacques met him. Monsieur Girard arranges their window displays.’

‘Oh?’ Inspector Deacon sounded surprised. ‘Then he doesn’t design clothes for a living? It’s not his profession?’

‘No. I believe it’s by way of being a bit of a hobby with him. He hasn’t shown any of his designs before. Tonight was the first time he had put them on display.’ Rose sighed. ‘This evening’s fashion event was being held both to launch Monsieur Girard’s clothes collection and to illustrate Madame Renard’s intention to start offering haute couture to her customers. A departure for her from selling only factory made clothing.’

‘I see, so the success of this event was important to the both of them?’ said the inspector. ‘Is he any good, this Monsieur Girard, as a clothes designer, I mean?’

‘Yes, he is rather, in a quiet sort of a way. By that I mean he has a good eye for the cut of fabric and how it drapes around the body. His outfits are well made and fit beautifully,’ said Rose. ‘His clothes have a subtle style about them. There is nothing flamboyant about them in any way, which was part of the attraction of them for Madame Renard. They were very wearable. She could picture in her mind our customers dressed in them.’

‘It sounds as if they differ a bit from his window displays. Quite spectacular some of them are at Harridges,’ volunteered Sergeant Perkins from his seat behind Rose. ‘You could stop and stare at one for hours trying to take in all the little details. The things they think of to put in the windows, you’d never believe it. Quite a bit of art they are, those windows displays, as good as any picture in one of those picture galleries.’

‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ said the inspector, sounding none too pleased at his subordinate’s interruption.

‘Yes, he specialises in beautifully dressed displays,’ said Rose, amused by the young man’s enthusiasm. ‘They tend to be themed.’ She had half turned in her seat to include the sergeant in the conversation. ‘Although I’m not sure our customers appreciate such attention to detail. Or should I say the price that is associated with such clothes? From a distance it’s difficult to see all the work that has gone in to producing such garments.’ Rose turned back to face the inspector. ‘The one exception of course was the satin silk gown.’

‘Ah, that was the silver dress the girl was wearing when she was killed?’ said Inspector Deacon. Rose nodded. ‘It was hard to tell what it looked like when we saw it.’ He paused a moment to dwell with some reluctance on the image of the body on the floor conjured up in his mind’s eye. ‘But from the way you were describing it earlier, with the strings of glass and silver beads and all, it sounds as if it were a grand dress, spectacular even?’

‘Yes, it was. There were a lot of gasps and sighs from the audience when Sylvia emerged in that dress. It’s hard to put in words how magnificent the gown was. It sounds silly, but it had almost a magical quality to it. It so totally transformed her appearance, you see. I think that was one of the reasons the audience were so taken with it. They were familiar with seeing Sylvia dressed in her shop habiliments, of blouse and skirt. It’s a smart ensemble, but jolly plain. When Sylvia appeared in that silver dress, she looked like a princess. We were literally besieged by the audience; everyone wanted to arrange fittings for the dress.’ She gave a half smile, which only emphasised the sadness in the room. If the evening had not ended so tragically, she would have been tempted to laugh. Unbidden, a vision of Sylvia as she had looked in the dress appeared in her mind’s eye. She blinked back her tears. How very wretched all this was. ‘Poor Monsieur Girard. No one will want to buy his silver gown now that it has such a sad association.’

‘It’s difficult ever to predict how the general public is going to react to such a thing. It might well give the gown a morbid fascination for some, particularly if it was as magnificent as you say it was. Now, tell me about Sylvia Beckett. What sort of a girl was she? Were you by way of being friends?’

‘I wouldn’t say we were particularly friendly,’ said Rose, brought abruptly back to the present and picking her words with care. ‘We knew each other well, of course, working in the shop together as we did. But I don’t think she liked me very much and I didn’t particularly take to her. She could be rather temperamental. One moment she would be as nice as anything, the next rather sulky and insolent. She could be dreadfully rude to customers she didn’t like. And she rather took against me after Lavinia and I became friends. She resented Lavinia when she worked in the shop, you see. If I’m honest, I can’t say I blame her. Lavinia was just playing at working after all, and Madame Renard would insist on giving her the less onerous tasks to do, the ones that we enjoyed doing. And she did rather fawn over her. She thought Lavinia would be good for business, you see, It didn’t surprise me in the least that Sylvia was jealous of her. Had I not liked Lavinia, I might well have felt the same.’

‘So, the young lady didn’t like Lady Lavinia? Well, I won’t hold that against her,’ said Inspector Deacon, not being particularly fond of the lady in question himself. For she had not made a very favourable impression on him when they had chanced to meet during a previous murder investigation.

‘Lavinia is all right,’ said Rose smiling. ‘I think you got off on the wrong foot, that’s all. She’s not nearly as bad and selfish as she likes to make out. Really, she’s rather a dear.’

‘I’ll take your word for it, Miss Simpson,’ said Inspector Deacon, sounding far from convinced.

‘It’s rather funny in a sad sort of way,’ said Rose. ‘But Sylvia rather reminded me of Lavinia in a manner of speaking.’

‘Oh? I would have thought them very dissimilar.’

‘Sylvia thought rather a lot of herself, you know, gave herself airs and graces. She always thought herself rather above us, Mary and me, as if she were intended for far better things than to be a shop assistant. The way she used to talk, one would be excused for imagining that she had a string of eligible young gentlemen lining up to marry her.’

‘Oh, anyone in particular?’

‘She and Jacques Renard used to be rather taken with each other, although I fancy things may have cooled between them lately. It’s only an impression I had, that they weren’t so close. Monsieur Renard has spent less time at Renard’s since he started working at Harridges
a few months’ ago. And Sylvia talked about him less often.’ Rose sighed. ‘I don’t think there was ever anything very serious between them anyway, certainly not on Jacques’ part at least.’

‘You were saying that the deceased reminded you of Lady Lavinia,’ prompted Inspector Deacon.

‘Yes, she liked having people wait on her. She would have loved to have had her own servants. This evening she even had me carry her outfits for her from the storeroom to the dressing room. I offered to hang them up for her, but she was most insistent that she do that herself. Now I come to think about it, I suppose she didn’t want me to see that she’d brought the silver gown into the dressing room. She wasn’t supposed to wear it this evening, you see.’

‘Oh, why was that?’

‘Well it was her own fault really. Lady Celia caught Sylvia making a face in the mirror when she, Lady Celia that is, said that she would like to wear the same dress herself. She took against Sylvia over that and insisted that she not be allowed to wear the dress. It was all so silly and unnecessary. Sylvia was awfully upset about it, as was Monsieur Girard because Lady Celia really did not have the figure to carry off the dress. In the end he and the seamstress created a simplified version of the dress for her to wear.’

‘And yet Miss Beckett decided to wear the dress after all?’

‘Yes, I can’t understand what possessed her to do so. She risked incurring Madame Renard’s fury and Lady Celia flew into quite a rage about it and insisted on her immediate dismissal.’ 

‘Did she indeed? Now, where were we? Yes, you were saying that Sylvia Beckett reminded you of Lady Lavinia in character. Do you have anything else to say on that?’

‘Yes. She asked me to help her with her hair this evening. It’s just the sort of thing Lavinia would ask me to do for her … oh!’

‘What is it?’

‘The golden scissors! It was me who brought them into the dressing room. They were in the storeroom and I went and got them. Sylvia was trying to fix a hair comb in her hair and her hair got all tangled up with the lace collar of the outfit she was wearing. Try as we might we couldn’t free it. She was dreadfully impatient and would refuse to keep still, you see. In the end I went and got the scissors and cut out the bit of hair. I didn’t know Elsie had left her scissors in the storeroom; she was always very precious about them. It was Sylvia who remembered that they were there. If only she hadn’t!  But it’s all my fault because I forgot to return them. I put them down on the desk beside the door and forgot all about them. We were in the most awful rush, you see.’

All colour had drained from Rose’s face and a mist of dizziness rose up before her. She clutched at the seat of her chair with both hands to steady herself. Out of the corner of her eye, she was vaguely aware that Inspector Deacon had risen from his seat and was standing in front of her, as if to be in readiness to catch her should she slide from her chair. She heard the scrape of a chair behind her and assumed that Sergeant Perkins had also risen to come to her aid if required. With a tremendous effort of will, not least driven by the desire not to make a fool of herself by fainting, she fought through the mist and regained her senses.

‘If I hadn’t left them there … the scissors, I mean, the murderer wouldn’t have had anything to hand to stab Sylvia with. I provided him with the weapon! It hadn’t occurred to me before, even when I found Sylvia’s body stretched out on the floor and saw them sticking out of her… They were on the desk right by the door … the scissors, I mean. He hardly had to come into the room to see them lying there. Perhaps they gave him the idea to do what he did. If only –’

‘If they hadn’t been there, then the murderer would have used something else,’ Inspector Deacon said quickly. ‘I daresay there was a letter opener on the desk. He could have used that instead. It would have been just as effective. It’s not your fault, Rose. You mustn’t blame yourself.’

‘It’s all very well to say that, and of course I know you’re right but –’

‘Don’t think any more about it,’ said the inspector. ‘It doesn’t do to dwell on such things. The best thing you can do for Miss Beckett now is to help us catch her murderer. Now, let’s go through the events of today leading up to the fashion show itself, shall we?’

‘Very well,’ said Rose wearily. ‘It’s rather difficult to know where exactly to begin. I think it is perhaps worth mentioning something that happened yesterday.’

‘Oh, and what was that?’

‘I telephoned Sedgwick Court to speak to Lavinia. As you may, or may not, know it was originally intended that she should model Monsieur Girard’s outfits not Sylvia.’

‘Yes, I was aware of that. Lady Lavinia pulled out at the last minute, didn’t she? And Miss Beckett stepped in to be the mannequin.’

‘She didn’t pull out as such. Lavinia is unwell,’ said Rose rather defensively. ‘She would never have let Madame Renard down if she could possibly have helped it. And she did try and find someone to replace her.’

‘Are you saying that her intention was that Lady Celia should model the gowns in her place?’ Inspector Deacon sat back in his chair looking interested.

‘Yes, only of course it wasn’t possible. Lady Celia’s figure is quite different to Lavinia’s. There wasn’t time to make the necessary alterations to the outfits. But we only knew that this morning when she came into the shop to be fitted.’

‘So it was then decided that Miss Beckett should model the outfits instead because she had a similar figure to Lady Lavinia?’