Murder in Piccadilly (21 page)

“Is it? I thought it was public house. But fancy your knowing it? A night club. I've heard of them. A niece of my late husband used to be a waitress in one at Birmingham.”

“The ‘Frozen Fang' is not one of the best in London,” said her customer, determined to steer the conversation round to Nosey Ruslin. “I'm surprised Mr. Massy Cheldon ever heard of it.”

“He was never in it. He told me that. Oh, he was affable that morning. Quite the free-spoken gentleman.” Mrs. Chalk's pride was something which had to be encouraged and flattered.

“He probably saw you were a sensible and intelligent lady,” said the detective, venturing into what he was afraid might prove to be a morass. “Men like to talk to women who have a sense of humour.”

He was relieved when she smiled her appreciation.

“He laughed when I told him the postage would be one shilling,” she resumed at a gallop. “But that included the registration fee. Then he didn't want the receipt, but I insisted. We don't often have registered letters here. There was the big box with Milly Ellis's new hat in it which she was sending ahead of her to Derby and she registered it and claimed….”

The adventures of the hat continued for nearly five minutes.

“Could I see the duplicate receipt?” he asked suddenly. “I am rather interested in Mr. Massy Cheldon although I never met him when he was alive.”

Mrs. Chalk, unable to detect anything sinister in the distinction between death and life, spared Chief Inspector Wake the trouble of disclosing his identity by producing the book.

“Thank you,” he said after giving it a glance. “And now I think I'll have that tie with the blue and green spots. It's taken my fancy. Four and six? Here it is. Oh, by the way, I suppose Mr. Cheldon didn't tell you what was in the parcel? I mean as he was in such an affable mood he might have asked you to guess.”

Mrs. Chalk, pausing in the act of wrapping up the tie, stared at him in astonishment. Evidently he had scored with his guess.

“Why, you might have been in the shop at the time!” she exclaimed. “That was just what he did do. ‘I'll give you three guesses, Mrs. Chalk,' and I said ‘diamonds, clock and old iron'. How he did laugh to be sure! ‘You're not so far off, Mrs. Chalk', he says, but he didn't tell me what it was.”

Chief Inspector Wake made his exit on her last word of gratitude, for the tie had been written off as a dead loss eleven months previously, and once he was in the sunshine he walked as rapidly as he could back to the sophistication represented by Detective-Sergeant Clarke and a police car.

“We'll catch the next train from Lewes,” he said without a sign of the feeling of triumph which he was mastering. “There's nothing here, Clarke, and yet I haven't wasted my time.”

They were a mile out of Lewes station when he disclosed his discovery.

“Clarke, I nearly let myself be tricked by that young Cheldon. You remember I said I thought his part in the business was small if he had had any part in it at all?”

“Yes, sir.” The sergeant showed his excitement by sitting bolt upright.

“I was wrong. He's been lying to me, and lying with intent. He told me again and again that Nosey Ruslin had had nothing to do with his uncle, that they had never met; that his uncle didn't even know Nosey by sight.”

“And it isn't true?” Clarke's question was put in an awed whisper.

“I know now it isn't. On April 9th, Massy Cheldon took a small parcel to the local post office, and that parcel was addressed to Mr. N. Ruslin, The Frozen Fang, Dean St., London, W.1. I inspected the entry in the registration book at the post office.”

“But this is amazing!” his companion exclaimed. “It alters everything. You were so confident that they had never met.”

“It's never too late to learn, Clarke,” said his chief gravely. “Thank goodness, I've done nothing that'll have to be undone. This discovery of mine will only grease the wheels of the case and compel us to work faster. But it's all to the good. Fancy Nosey and the squire of Broadbridge Manor being acquaintances! Somehow I'd never imagined it. I did think of it at first, but knowing Nosey as I do I soon put it out of my mind. Clarke, we'll have to pay more attention to the young heir.” He laughed throatily. “Ten thousand a year—that's what they say he's come in for by his uncle's death.”

“Ten thousand a year.” The voice had envy in it.

“It was the first time in his life Massy Cheldon ever took a parcel to the post office himself. One of his servants always attended to the letters and parcels. Mrs. Chalk, the postmistress, made an instant hit with the squire and they talked quite a lot. He asked her to guess what was inside the parcel. She voted for diamonds, clock and old iron, and he told her she wasn't so far out.”

It was Detective-Sergeant Clarke's turn to smile knowingly.

“You didn't tell her, sir, that if she'd said ‘revolver' she'd have very likely won his money?” he remarked.

“What would have been the use? I left her to guess further. What interested her, though, was the address, the ‘Frozen Fang' took her fancy.”

“Mr. Massy Cheldon evidently had nothing to hide or he wouldn't have taken the parcel to the centre of local gossip,” said the sergeant.

“We must remember that.” Chief Inspector Wake half closed his eyes. “Clarke, there'll be no rest for either of us until we find the answer to the question, why did Massy Cheldon send a registered parcel containing a revolver—we can bank on the contents—to one of the most dangerous men in London a few weeks before he was himself murdered.”

The sergeant looked thoughtfully in the direction of the fields they were passing at forty miles an hour.

“He sent a revolver but he was stabbed to the heart,” he murmured as if memorising a lesson. “Yet it may not have been a revolver. I suppose you have a reason for not inquiring about it at Broadbridge Manor?”

“You evidently understand me, Clarke,” said Wake with a bare smile. “My first intention was to question the butler and the other servants, but I quickly saw that would be a mistake. For the time being only you and I know about the registered parcel.”

His companion nodded.

“It's a rare piece of luck, Clarke, and if only it will hold all our troubles are over. I only hope one of the local men may not wander into the post office and hear how Mrs. Chalk broke a regulation. That's what I like about these country places though—they don't worry about red tape and rules and etiquette.” He raised a leg on to the seat. “Of course, we are only guessing it was a revolver, and yet if it wasn't it won't really matter. It would be of great importance had Massy Cheldon been shot, but as the weapon was a dagger the actual contents of the parcel are of minor importance. I gathered from Mrs. Chalk's description it wasn't long enough to have held the dagger. What is important is the fact that it proves that Massy Cheldon and Nosey Ruslin were acquainted. I shouldn't be surprised to hear that they were intimate friends.”

“That's what I think, sir. Mr. Cheldon wouldn't have bothered to act as his own messenger if that parcel wasn't important for some reason.” Detective-Sergeant Clarke lapsed into profound thought.

“When I have cleaned up the London end of the parcel I may return to Broadbridge,” said Wake thoughtfully. “But only if absolutely necessary. The murder took place in London and the murderer is most likely still there. If it's Billy Bright, Nosey Ruslin or young Cheldon they can't move fifty yards without our knowing it.”

“You think one of the three is the man?”

“Don't you?”

“I'm not so sure, but if I had to pick I'd choose Billy Bright. Nosey never risks his own neck, and this young Cheldon couldn't be such a fool as to hang himself. Besides, there's the dagger. That's un-English.”

“Young Cheldon gains a fortune by the murder of his uncle. He is the one person in the world who benefits by the crime. We know that he is desperately in love with a dancer who wouldn't marry him as long as he was poor. That's obvious, isn't it, Clarke?”

“Certainly, sir. But he wouldn't use a dagger, and he'd never have trailed his uncle to the busiest and most crowded spot in London and knife him there. No, I won't have young Cheldon at any price.”

“Only as an accessory before the fact, eh?” Chief Inspector Wake was smiling paternally at his junior, who had had only sixteen years' experience compared with his own thirty odd.

“Possibly. But from what I've seen of him I should say that young Cheldon hasn't any nerve. He's a pampered specimen of mother's pet and no mistake. Never worked in his life.”

“He was in a city office for a few weeks,” his chief reminded him. “Fifty shillings a week, too.”

They both laughed.

“And from fifty shillings a week to ten thousand pounds a year in a night—actually in a few moments—because some expert with a stiletto put finis to his uncle.” Wake became grave again. “Clarke, every day has produced fresh clues linking the three men I have named, but especially Nosey Ruslin and Cheldon. We know that when Nosey hasn't been with young Cheldon he's been seen with Billy Bright. I'm positive there's something between them, something that binds them into a silence and a caution that are forced on them by danger. The parcel to the ‘Frozen Fang' is the strongest link of all.” He brought his flat hand down on the newspaper lying negligently across his knees. “Nosey is our man, and when we have him we'll have the murderer.”

“How will you get him, sir?” There was a trace of scepticism in the sergeant's voice which his chief understood and appreciated.

“I know it won't be easy,” he answered quickly. “But if I can't outwit Nosey I'll resign and enter an asylum. He's clever, Clarke, very clever in his own opinion and in mine, but I can work on his knowledge of the conspiracy that led up to Massy Cheldon's murder and I'll have him on it eventually. He can be as nervous as a kitten.”

The sergeant interrupted him with a sound that might have been a snort, a laugh, a half-strangled cough or an ejaculation of contempt.

“We're dealing with three nervous men, sir,” he said as if a new light had dawned on him. “You couldn't have anyone more nervous and more easily upset than Billy Bright. Look at the way he fainted simply because you paid his account at the Greville. And young Cheldon.”

“You needn't try to tell me anything about him. He was in a blue funk all the time I was talking about his uncle's murder. And it wasn't caused by sorrow either, Clarke. I know the human face—been studying it for most of my lifetime. Too often it tells you nothing, but once in a while it's a regular talking-machine.”

“And Nosey Ruslin?” The sergeant actually grinned. “No doubt about him, sir. I remember, now that you mention it, how nervous he was when he fought the Wapping Tiger.”

“He was ten times the better boxer,” said Chief Inspector Wake, his expression darkening, “and should have won in the first or second round. But he was so nervous that he threw the fight away. I was less experienced than I am now, and I had nearly a week's pay on Nosey.” He leaned forward to choose a cigarette from the other's case. “Well, if I lost on his nervousness then, Clarke, I'm going to win on it now. He's prepared for me and he has an answer for every question. Has he?” He reclined back. “I'll play with him as a cat plays with a mouse and at the right moment I'll knock him flat with a little story about a registered parcel. But, remember, Clarke, not a word to anyone. When I am prepared to disclose it, it shall appear in my report. I regard the parcel as the luck of a lifetime.”

Chapter Ten

To a sensitive and imaginative
dilettante
, such as Bobbie Cheldon was, the events following on the murder of his uncle were more horrible and disturbing than the murder itself. The flaunting headlines and the bouncing newspaper reports; the insurgent suspicions of himself which every day bred, the inability to detach himself completely from the crime and look only to the future, and the embarrassment of his acquaintance with Nosey Ruslin and the other night club habitués amalgamated to render his waking hours a torture and his sleeping ones a nightmare.

On top of his own self-conscious demeanour there was the unhappiness of stifling anger caused by his mother's attitude. She scarcely ever referred to the murder now unless compelled to by the course of their infrequent conversations or a particularly disturbing insinuation by an enterprising newspaper, but he could detect fear in her eyes, and in the circumstances such an emotion was tantamount to accusation.

Could his mother really suspect him? He did not ask her that question because he knew what her indignant, reproachful reply would be. But that she was on the verge of a nervous collapse because she deducted from every approaching footfall the minatory figure of Chief Inspector Wake with a warrant in his pocket, required no extra intelligence to discern. He had implored her not to read the newspapers, but they fascinated her as the serpent does the rabbit. He declared and shouted in turn that they had nothing to fear or to be ashamed of, and she agreed with her tongue and contradicted herself with her eyes. And to add to his misery and threatening doubts was her decision that “for the present” he must make no move in the direction of Broadbridge Manor. The family lawyer, Mr. Parker, who was now watching his interests, had expressed the opinion that as soon as Massy Cheldon had been buried there could be no objection to Bobbie formally entering into possession of his estate, but she had over-ruled that opinion, and Bobbie, afraid of quarrelling with anyone, had no option but to acquiesce.

“Adjourned for eight days,” Ruby read from her morning newspaper.

“That was in the paper last night,” he reminded her with the faintest ebullition of irritation.

“And here's an exclusive interview with you.” He saw her smile bitterly and ground his teeth in rage.

“I only told a reporter that I had seen my uncle a few hours before his death,” he remarked with an effort to keep his temper. “That and I was not going down to Broadbridge Manor just yet.”

His mother flung the paper from her.

“It's horrible, Bobbie, horrible.” She stared pensively before her. “Poor Massy! He deserved a better fate.” Her expression hardened. “I'll not be happy until they catch the murderer, the cowardly ruffian.”

For a reason he would not have admitted to himself Bobbie was unable to resist retorting in a harsh and unfeeling voice.

“Let the police do their work, mother,” he said. “It's no business of ours. We're not detectives and—”

“No business of ours?” she exclaimed in astonishment. “Bobbie, it's our business more than anyone else's. The murderer must be found and convicted before I can know another happy moment.”

He went a trifle greyer in the face, but forced himself to confront her with a question that could not be suppressed.

“Are you afraid of—of me?”

“You!” She strangled the scream in time, but the horror remained in her large grey eyes. “Of course I'm not. What nonsense you talk, Bobbie! I know you couldn't have done it, but do the public and—and Inspector Wake?”

He contorted his shoulders to express his contempt for public opinion, and almost instantly was shaking with fright.

“There have been hints in the papers,” he said kicking at the worn carpet. “It's beastly.” He was nearly crying. “I had nothing to do with it. I swear I hadn't.”

“For God's sake, don't deny it,” his mother cried. “Don't speak of it at all. I won't have you defending yourself. No one has accused you, and you mustn't accuse yourself.”

The conversation had taken such a curious turn that each became afraid of the other and for several minutes there was a silence that embarrassed them. Ruby, appalled by the indiscretion which had brought her to within a hair's breadth of betraying her worst fears, dared not trust to language again, and Bobbie had nothing to say which could be expressed in moderate language.

“Hadn't we better have lunch?” he remarked suddenly. A turn up and down the room and he took up a position before the fireplace. “Funny state of affairs, mother, isn't it? Here we are lunching on cold meat and cheese in a Fulham slum and yet I'm worth ten thousand a year. A rich man compelled to live as a pauper! It's the limit.”

“That needn't worry us now,” she said quietly. “It would be bad taste to begin spending when your uncle is—”

With a gesture of impatience he picked up a newspaper and ostentatiously devoted himself to the sporting pages, not because cricket or racing interested him, but because references to the Piccadilly murder could not be found there. He was still studying the cricket scores when his mother reminded him that lunch was ready. Half an hour later when she rose the food she had provided for both of them had not diminished in weight more than an ounce or two.

“I haven't any appetite,” he said miserably. “Oh, if only we could get away from all this! If only we could go abroad!”

“You can't until the inquest is over,” she reminded him unnecessarily, “and even then the papers and the public would think…” She stopped dead.

“That I was running away from arrest.” He laughed loudly. “Oh, it's lovely to be suspected by one's own mother!”

She uttered a stricken cry of protest at his cruelty.

“Bobbie,” she said, driven to anger by his indifference to her distress. “It's not you I'm frightened for, but it's you plus your queer friends from the night clubs. You couldn't hurt anyone. All the money in the world wouldn't have tempted you, but these others.” She wiped her eyes with her handkerchief and he wondered why she was crying.

Before he could trouble his wits further for a way out of the impasse created by her avowal the bell rang.

“Another reporter or a policeman,” he muttered, and was still muttering when he found Nancy, dainty in white and dainty of expression, standing before him.

“You're not to see Nosey yet,” she whispered as they kissed. Then in her usual voice, “Just dropped in to see how you were, Bobbie.”

To his relief the living-room was empty when they entered it, and at his suggestion Nancy took off her hat and having performed in front of a mirror threw herself into the armchair.

“Dead beat, Bobbie, and worried,” she said, all her animation gone and in its stead the pallor of fear.

He stared in surprise until she had to smile.

“I was pretending, Bobbie, in case your mother opened the door. Can't be too careful. At least that's what Nosey says.”

“Why does he say it?” he asked, irritably.

“You ought to know why,” she retorted, suspecting that he was playing a game with her. “Nosey is your pal, isn't he?”

The sneer in his expression was obvious, and Nancy took umbrage at it.

“Oh, I see,” she exclaimed, and if her arms were not akimbo they ought to have been if the picture was to be complete. “Now that you're the rich Johnny with thousands a year and an estate Nosey doesn't count!”

“Be careful,” he whispered, imploringly. “Mother's in the next room. But you're wrong Nancy, about Nosey. He never has been a pal of mine.”

“Never a pal, and he lent you money? Never a pal and he stood by you when no one else would? Never a pal—” Speech failed her and she stared contemptuously at his troubled countenance.

“If you'll let me speak I'll explain,” he said.

“Explain what and how you like,” she cried, still unappeased, “I suppose you'll be telling the world next that I'm not your pal?”

“I hope you're more than that,” he answered quickly.

“Oh, you're a fool!” she cried, losing her temper. “I wish I hadn't come. I wouldn't have either only Nosey is that worried and upset that I couldn't refuse. You're not to see him or write him or ring him up. When he wants to talk he'll let you know. He wouldn't even write the message down, Bobbie, and he nearly bit my head off when I asked him to tell me what it meant. I suppose it's something to do with—”

“Don't,” he gasped, “Nancy, don't. I hate even the barest reference to uncle's murder.”

“So that's the effect it has on you, too, is it? Bobbie.” There was alarm in her voice and the effect was to deepen his fear into terror. “You're behaving just like Nosey did. What's come over you all? There's Billy Bright hiding in Margate. Went off last night looking as though he was going to his own funeral. Bobbie, what's this between you and Nosey?” She rose and her voice culminated in a scream. “My God, it's not true—it's not true!” She started away from him as though the outstretched hands were covered with blood.

“I swear, Nancy, I had nothing to do with it. On my honour I swear it. Nosey and I were together when it happened.”

She pushed him away.

“I'll not be dragged into this. I tell you I won't.” She was now the vulgar, hysterical creature of the gutter fighting for a reputation that was always in peril. “You'll do your own dirty work without me. Nosey's a gentleman compared with you. Nosey wouldn't—”

It was not exhaustion that brought the tirade to an end, but the figure of Ruby Cheldon in the doorway.

“Chief Inspector Wake has called again, Bobbie,” she said, without so much as a glance at the girl. “He wants to have another chat with you.”

“If your son has no objection,” said the familiar husky voice. The detective had followed Ruby in, an act of discourtesy which Bobbie would have resented had he noticed it, but as it was he was in such a condition of nervous uncertainty that he saw nothing and thought of nothing.

“Why, you must be Nancy Curzon, of Curzon & Bright, the famous dancers!” Wake exclaimed with an enthusiasm she mistook for the genuine article. “Remember seeing you at that charity matinee at the Hackney Empire.”

Nancy giggled her pleasure at the compliment of his recognition, and he did not trouble to inform her that the reason for his presence at that particular show was a suspicion that her partner had taken part in the Chiselhurst jewel robbery. He could recall now his disappointment when he found that he had wasted two precious hours on a dull programme.

“I'll be off as you're wanting to see Bobbie—Mr. Cheldon,” she said, adopting a set manner which suited her less than a crinoline would have done.

Chief Inspector Wake smiled again.

“I love satisfying a woman's curiosity—been married twenty-eight years myself—and I'd rather you stopped with us. It's nothing very important, Miss Curzon, and when I'm gone you can resume your tête-à-tête.” He smiled for the third time because he thought his descent into the French language had been a success.

Nancy took a mental census of the room before deciding. That Bobbie's mother should refrain from supporting the inspector's invitation was natural. That Bobbie himself should say nothing was not surprising either. He was not a he-man according to the abbreviated and imported vocabulary of her little underworld.

“All right,” she said, sitting down again. That she was not wanted by Mrs. Cheldon gave a spice to her decision; that Bobbie did not want her inflamed her curiosity. And yet when she had assumed what she had decided would be a comfortable position she began to tremble.

“Am I required?” The gentle, musical voice of Ruby Cheldon filled the room, banishing the shrill tone of the dancer, the gruffness of the detective and the mumbled politeness of the mystified and terrified Bobbie.

“I think it would be better if you rested, mother,” was the only reply. Chief Inspector Wake plainly did not care what she did, and it was no concern of Nancy's.

“Yes, I am tired,” she murmured, reading into his words an admission that he did not wish her to hear what the detective had to say to him.

“Wouldn't it be better, Nancy?” he began and hesitated.

“Let's sit down and have a quiet chat,” said the detective, pulling forward a chair for himself. “And Miss Curzon may be of assistance to me. She knows the West End as well as I do.”

The extravagant lie she accepted as normal flattery.

“I've been dancing for years,” she said, as if that explained more than any of them had the right to expect.

“You're sharp-witted, Miss Curzon, and the sort of girl I prefer to deal with. Besides, I'm interested in the ‘Frozen Fang' at the moment.”

Her attack of nerves returned. He might have been accusing her of the murder of Massy Cheldon to judge by her reaction to his seemingly harmless words, fat forefinger, prominent umbrella and too, too easy assumption of command over all of them.

“There's not much that happens there that I don't hear of,” she said, speaking at random because as a woman she had to attempt to obtain the last word.

“Exactly, and that's why I regard you as a valuable ally.” She nearly demanded with severity such as a perfect lady could assume, if he regarded her as a coppers' nark, but that would have been vulgar and unladylike, and how she wished she could think of the slang term for coppers' nark! But she was so flustered she could not think of anything.

“You know Nosey Ruslin?”

The question nearly overwhelmed her and she was barely in time to reply before her embarrassment could become noticeable.

“Nosey Ruslin? Oh, yes. Everybody knows him. I often see him in the ‘Frozen Fang'. Used to be keen on Alva Carleon, a Spanish girl.”

“Italian,” he corrected, and she moved slightly.