Mystery Villa (30 page)

‘Oh, no,' Mitchell agreed. ‘He certainly knew nothing about the Tudor Lodge business. Though he wasn't so much an accomplice as a principal in trying to sell his wretched little shop for about ten times what it was worth – but there's nothing in that for us, as the whole story was bunk. It served its purpose, though, in shutting his mouth and making him want to keep out of the way of any questioning that might have put us on Markham's track. He wasn't going to come forward and talk at the risk of spoiling such a magnificent sale as Jones-Markham promised him, the little rat.'

‘I expect he would be quite capable of swearing he didn't know Markham again,' Bobby agreed. ‘He's badly scared of being brought in on the murder. There's Mrs Rice.'

Mitchell smiled faintly.

‘An observant lady,' he said. ‘Yes, get Mrs Rice, and I'll see about someone from Bournemouth. The case is fairly complete as it is, but no case can be too strong.'

So it came about that, next day, at the bookstall of the tube station near the offices of Messrs. Yelton & Markham, two ladies waited as the evening rush hour approached. They were evidently expecting someone with whom they had rendezvous, for they watched carefully the endless crowd streaming in on the way from work to home and leisure, and, at a little distance, Bobby waited in the background, while Inspector Ferris read, with attention, the sporting news in the evening paper, and occasionally offered a comment to the ticket collector at the gate.

All at once Mrs Rice turned towards Bobby. She indicated a tall man who had just hurried in.

‘Yes,' she said.

The nurse from Bournemouth, by her side, shook her head.

‘No,' she said.

Two soft, half-whispered common words that doomed a living man to the gallows.

Bobby stepped forward and signed to Inspector Ferris.

‘He's shaved his moustache, but it's Jones all right that worked for Mr Humphreys and took my order somewhere else, so we had no Sunday dinner,' Mrs Rice said.

The Bournemouth nurse said:

‘That's not the gentleman who was with us – nothing like him.'

The man at the gate was apparently making some difficulty about letting the tall new-comer through. The tall man said something angry and impatient. Ferris touched him on the shoulder.

‘Mr Markham, I think, sir,' he said. ‘Also known by the name of Jones, when acting as shop-assistant to Mr Humphreys, a grocer at Brush Hill. I am an officer of police, and I must ask you to come with me to Cannon Row–'

He had not time to finish the sentence, for Markham jumped back, and made as if to run in a last wild effort at escape. But Bobby was standing just behind, and put out an arm to stop him. The scuffle was so brief it hardly attracted any attention, it might have been caused, not by the despair of a man's last effort for his life, but by a dropped umbrella or a stray dog under someone's feet.

‘That's no good, Mr Markham,' said Ferris quietly. ‘Better come along without making trouble. We've a car waiting.'

Markham said no word, but walked from the station, by the side of Ferris, to the waiting car, and therein entered like a dead man entering a hearse.

THE END

E.R. Punshon was born in London in 1872.

At the age of fourteen he started life in an office. His employers soon informed him that he would never make a really satisfactory clerk, and he, agreeing, spent the next few years wandering about Canada and the United States, endeavouring without great success to earn a living in any occupation that offered. Returning home by way of working a passage on a cattle boat, he began to write. He contributed to many magazines and periodicals, wrote plays, and published nearly fifty novels, among which his detective stories proved the most popular and enduring.

He died in 1956.

Information Received

Death Among The Sunbathers

Crossword Mystery

Death of A Beauty Queen

Death Comes To Cambers

The Bath Mysteries

Mystery of Mr Jessop

The Dusky Hour

Dictator's Way

Mr. Sargent, the manager of the Brush Hill Central Cinema, wished he had never held a Beauty Competition. Caroline Mears, the predicted winner, had already caused trouble with one of the other girls. Paul Irwin, a strong Puritan and influential councillor, had taken it into his head to come backstage to look for his son Leslie, who hoped to marry Caroline against his father's wishes. Just as the winner of the competition was being announced, different news spread through the cinema like lightning – Caroline Mears had been murdered!

Superintendent Mitchell of Scotland Yard and his young sergeant, Bobby Owen, were faced with one of the most puzzling cases of their careers. There were at least seven suspects, against four of whom an equally good case could be made out. There was Paul Irwin's maddening reiteration that he had ‘nothing to say' to all questions, and a multitude of confusing evidence, none of which fitted the main jigsaw puzzle. Conundrums abound in this whodunit: one which will keep even the most seasoned mystery reader guessing – right to the very last page.

Death of A Beauty Queen
is the fifth of E.R. Punshon's acclaimed Bobby Owen mysteries, first published in 1935 and part of a series which eventually spanned thirty-five novels.

She came out quickly, self-confidently, royally, with none of that hesitation or apparent self-mistrust that had marked the entry of some of the other competitors on the stage of the Brush Hill Central Cinema. Turning, she faced the crowded audience, and stood, superb and lovely, her tall figure outlined against the neutral-tinted curtain that formed certainly an equal background for all, but that also showed off very effectively her gown of gold brocade, cut in the new sweeping ‘stream-line' fashion.

For just the fraction of a second there was complete silence, and for just that moment her self-confidence wavered, so that a passing fear flickered an instant in her light, rather hard, blue eyes – her worst feature, perhaps, but one not very noticeable at first or at a distance. Then it passed as she understood that her confidence had not been misplaced, that it was her beauty itself that had imposed upon this crowded audience the silence she had mistaken during one brief instant for indifference, but that in reality was appreciation far deeper than the facile rounds of clapping some of the other competitors had earned.

But now the applause began, low at first, then swelling into organ notes that, filled all the building, that bathed the soul of the girl standing there in an almost physical delight.

It flowed about her; it enveloped her; she made little movements with her hands as if to draw it closer to her; she seemed to herself no longer human but half divine; she seemed to float above the world – above all the rest of humanity – borne up to the very heavens on the wings of this tumultuous cheering. Instinctively she closed her eyes. A profound instinct, a strange sub-conscious knowledge in her inner self, told her they had in them some quality that at times was apt to check the enthusiasm of her admirers, and let her curled, exquisite eyelashes droop upon her rounded cheek. It was a gesture she had practised. It had a modest and demure air; it gave, she was well aware – for she knew these things as a child knows how to breathe or smile or cry – an added attraction of contrast to her somewhat flamboyant beauty, to her masses of golden hair, her large, strongly marked features of almost perfect shape and harmony, her imposing height, so that she seemed a veritable goddess of old Grecian dream, even though to some eyes it might have seemed also that there showed a hint of a possible coming grossness.

Still the applause continued. It beat into her soul like fine music on one who understands; she glowed in it like metal white hot in the furnace; she felt it wafting her away to all those delights of fame and wealth and power wherefor panted her soul. To herself she seemed to soar high above the life of common, everyday humanity, to be freed from all those trammelling bonds of necessity and need that hitherto had irked. To her it was as a release from everyday existence, from life itself, and in such a moment how could she remember that a release from existence and from life means merely – death?

Hollywood! That was the magic word of power this cheering seemed to her to spell. How glad she was that now she could start for Hollywood at once, and could scorn the tuppenny-ha'penny little engagement at the Colossal Film Studio, Palmer's Hill, that was the prize to-night, and that this continuous applause seemed to certify already hers. She supposed that the news of this triumph to-night would at once be recorded everywhere, for all her favourite film papers agreed in telling her how continually the wide world was ‘scoured' for possible ‘stars' by the magnates of the films. So, knowing all about her, they would welcome her eagerly; they would ‘groom' her a little, and then her career of triumph would begin.

From under her half-closed lids, with those long curling lashes that veiled so well the hard appraising look her eyes sometimes showed, she bestowed an approving smile upon the spectators. They were applauding still – as, indeed, was only right and proper. How proud they would all be to remember this night, in times to come when her name was famous everywhere, and ‘Caroline Mears' flared in electric splendour in every busy street throughout the world. Well, she did not grudge them their satisfaction, even though she felt they ought to pay a little extra each for the privilege – a little extra in cash that should be hers for herself alone. Only, was ‘Mears' too ordinary a name for the bright magnificence of the lights that she foresaw? She decided on the instant to change it to ‘Demeres' – or ‘Le Merre' perhaps. Yes, ‘Le Merre' it should be – or, no, ‘La Merre,' of course, and a slight pucker of anxiety creased for an instant the satin-like smoothness of her brow as her glance picked out, standing alone at one side of the auditorium – those hard, clear, brightly shining eyes of hers possessed wonderful sight – a tall, straight man, apparently of middle age, who stood there, erect and stern and rigid, taking no part in the general applause that now was slackening a little.

What was he doing there, she wondered? Anyhow, she had the money; and what did it matter if his glance beat upon hers with a hint of a force before which that of her beauty was as that of ice before fire? With an effort, but only with an effort, she averted her gaze.

In the wings, Mr Sargent, owner – under his bankers of course – of the cinema, and organizer of this Beauty Contest, with its prize of a film engagement, that had moved all Brush Hill to its depths, was beckoning to her to come off now the cheering was dying down, and Martin, the timekeeper, whose job it was to note with a stop-watch the duration of the applause each competitor earned, said to him: ‘You'll need a crowbar, Mr Sargent, to prise that girl off.'

‘She's a winner all right,' Sargent answered. ‘They're beginning clapping again.'

‘Asked 'em to, she did,' observed Martin; and added dispassionately: ‘Some of the rest of 'em aren't so dusty. Lilian Ellis, for one – that comes on next.' Then he said: ‘Someone told me Paul Irwin was in front.'

‘Irwin? Councillor Irwin?' Sargent repeated, startled. ‘Why, what's he snooping round for, the old killjoy? Wanting to make more mischief?'

‘His boy's behind,' Martin explained. ‘Young Leslie – sweet on this girl, they say, and likely old man Paul thought he would have a look at her.'

‘Half the young fools in the place are sweet on her,' growled the manager. ‘If it's only that – she's turned him down anyhow. I'll go and have a word with the old man, though,' he added, looking uneasy again.

For Paul Irwin, a member of the borough council, was no friend to cinemas, or, for that matter, to any other form of public entertainment, and had fought hard to get the Brush Hill cinemas closed on Sundays – indeed it was for that purpose he had been elected to the council to represent a group holding certain strict old-fashioned ideas. For Mr Irwin's powers and influence the cinema owner had considerable respect, and he hoped sincerely the old campaign was not going to be reopened.

Again he beckoned to the girl on the stage to come off, and again she took no notice, but, with a bow and a smile to right and left, appeared rather to invite renewed applause. Yet her glance that stabbed so keenly from under her half-closed eyes was again upon that tall and rigid figure of the man of whom Sargent and Martin had just been speaking.

‘Well, I don't care,' she was telling herself. ‘He can do what he likes – it's enough to pay my fare to Hollywood, and I can start to-morrow if I like.'

In the wings, Martin said to Sargent:

‘Well, you've got to get her off somehow or we shall be here all night – there's Lord knows how many of 'em waiting their turn.'

Sargent nodded, and walked out on the stage. He bowed to the audience, who stopped applauding, a little puzzled by his unexpected appearance. He bowed to Caroline, who understood it very well, and who turned on him angry eyes that did not harmonize too well with her smiling lips, and then he took her hand.

‘Got to give the others a chance, you know, my dear,' he said to her, in an undertone, as he conducted her off the stage to a fresh round of applause.

If Miss Caroline Mears had ever heard of that celebrated retort: ‘
Je ne vois pas la nécessité
,' she would probably have quoted it now – at any rate it very accurately represented her sentiments. As it was she said nothing, and consoled herself with the reflection that she had managed to stop on the stage longer than any of her rivals and so would probably be best remembered when it came to the voting.