An Expert in Murder (6 page)

‘He told me the other day that he was hoping to get out of the tour by persuading Aubrey to send Fleming instead,’ said George who, as an actor himself and the Motleys’ self-appointed manager, was no stranger to dealing with egos considerably more fragile than his own, and with characters much less placid and kindly.

‘But there isn’t a chance in hell that he’s going to get out of that contract:
Bordeaux
in the provinces is a licence to print money but, just for once, Johnny’s underestimated the value of his name on the bill. The public recognises only one Richard and it wants the real thing, not the reluctant Pretender.’

‘You’re getting your historical dramas a bit muddled, darling,’

said Lettice. ‘But it sounds like Josephine’s in for a ghastly afternoon. All those boys do when they get together is bitch and squab-ble and talk about money.’

36

‘Trust me – I’m more than a match for them with the bitching and squabbling as long as we get to the money eventually,’

Josephine laughed. ‘By the way, what did you mean about my bringing a mystery with me?’

‘Oh, there was some nasty business at the railway station last night,’ said Lettice, whose grasp of real-life tragedy was never quite as acute as her ability to bring it to the fore on stage. ‘The papers are beautifully melodramatic about it this morning, but we don’t want that to ruin our breakfast. What I’m dying to know,’ she continued, casting a sly glance at Ronnie, ‘is what you thought of Lydia’s new find. You’re always such a marvellous judge of character, and I expect she came to meet you? The two of them are practically inseparable at the moment – we’ve never seen anything like it. I gave it three weeks before Lydia started sniffing round somewhere else and Ronnie said a fortnight. George, bless him, reckoned a couple of months but men have no idea how gloriously fickle we can be when we’re bored. Anyway, as far as we can make out, we’re all wrong: she doesn’t seem to have even thought about anyone else. At times I’d have said she was almost happy!’

Josephine agreed. ‘I wasn’t with them for very long, but Lydia
did
seem happy. And it wasn’t that sickly new-love happiness, either. I have to admit, coming down on the train I was dreading that – it’s always so embarrassing when you’re stuck in the middle of it. It was contentment as much as happiness and I’ve never seen that in Lydia before – she’s always been too restless.’

‘And Marta?’ Lettice asked again, determined to have her verdict.

‘Well, she’s another beauty, certainly. And she seems very nice,’

she finished, conscious of delivering the sort of anti-climax which would never stand up to the Motleys’ relentless gaze.

‘Nice? What sort of word is that for a writer?’ demanded Ronnie indignantly. ‘We know she’s nice, we can see that for ourselves, but we rely on you for something a little more sophisticated. What do those big dark eyes tell you?’

‘That she’s got big dark eyes,’ Josephine said, with a native 37

matter-of-factness that even the Motleys could not penetrate.

‘You surely don’t believe all that nonsense about reading character in the face, do you? I only ever use that when I’ve got myself into a bit of a hole with the plot and need to move things along.

To be honest, she really didn’t say very much at all and that in itself is a good thing, if you want my opinion. But what she did say seemed awfully – well, nice.’

‘Talking of the strong but silent type, our dear cousin telephoned at the crack of dawn to make sure you were all right and to say he was coming over this morning,’ said Ronnie, realising that any further probing would get her nowhere. ‘He sounded a bit out of sorts, actually. When I told him that Lettice and I hadn’t thought for one moment that he’d be able to wait until dinner to see you, he quite snapped my head off. That’s the trouble with policemen: they’ve got no sense of humour.’

In perfectly timed acknowledgement of Ronnie’s observation, there was an impatient knocking at the front door. ‘I expect that’ll be him now,’ she said, as Mrs Snipe glided past to admit the caller with all the momentum of a galleon in full sail. ‘We’d better stop having such a nice time or he’ll arrest the lot of us.’

When the housekeeper returned, the man who followed her did seem distinctly at odds with merriment. Certainly, he bore scant resemblance to the Archie Penrose who, in spite of his cousin’s unjust reproach, usually left his job firmly behind when he came to call on the Motleys and blended beautifully into the chic eccentric-ity of their studio.

‘Good God, Archie, you look absolutely awful,’ said Ronnie, who excelled at speaking her mind, while Lettice responded with the greatest solace she knew: ‘Is Mrs Snipe getting you something to eat?’ she asked, pushing the toast rack, now a shadow of its former self, towards the empty place at the breakfast table.

Josephine shared the Motleys’ concern at Archie’s mood, but not their surprise. During a friendship that had spanned almost twenty years, she had come to realise that there were two sides to this complex individual: the handsome, gregarious entertainer, whose warmth and intelligence made people from all walks of life 38

instantly comfortable in his company and who was genuinely interested in everyone he met; and the detached, serious observer, whose liking for his fellow man did not blind him to the baser motivations of the human mind or to the pain which underpinned more relationships than most people cared to acknowledge. While she enjoyed and admired the former, Josephine’s emotional affinities were instinctively towards the latter and, although Archie protested that these were qualities which Scotland Yard demanded of him, the truth of the matter was that in his work he found a natural outlet for a view of the world which had already taken root in his soul.

Penrose waved away all offers of food but gratefully accepted a cup of coffee. ‘I need to talk to Josephine,’ he said, looking at her for the first time. ‘In private, if you don’t mind.’

‘Oh, don’t worry about us – we only live here,’ muttered Ronnie as Lettice poked her hard in the shoulder and sent George to gather up the shoes.

‘Just ignore her, darling, we’ve got to go out anyway. Lydia needs a few alterations done in time for this afternoon. In spite of the plague, it would appear that Anne of Bohemia is putting on weight.

Some people just have no self-discipline when it comes to food.’

Right on cue, Mrs Snipe reappeared and, ignoring Archie’s protestations, placed in front of him a plateful of perfectly cooked kidneys and something that looked suspiciously like a kipper. As the Motleys bustled round, fetching coats and scarves and the various bits of costume that they needed for the afternoon, Josephine looked questioningly at Archie. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked quietly.

‘In a minute,’ he said, waiting for the sisters to leave. She carried on opening her mail, glad to have something to do, but her attention kept straying back to Archie. She watched as he ran his fingers idly up and down the handle of his coffee cup, lost in his own thoughts and, for a moment, the gesture took her back to the summer of 1919, when they had met for the first time after the war and his face had expressed the same concentrated sadness as it did now. By that time, the initial bond between them – her lover and Archie’s closest friend – had been dead for almost three years, 39

killed helping another officer at the Somme, and Archie had finally come to see her in Scotland. She would never forget the pain in his voice as he described to her how, in the midst of that senseless slaughter, all for the sake of a few yards of mud, Jack Mackenzie, a young private from the 2nd Gordon Highlanders, had responded to a cry from no man’s land. There, another soldier, who had lain motionless near the German wire for nigh on two days and was believed by the British troops to be beyond all aid, had, in defiance of nature, regained consciousness and called for help. Following all the instincts of his training – which was medical, not military –

Jack had left his trench and walked the short distance to where the man lay. Armed only with a handkerchief, which he waved in the direction of the higher ground held by the enemy, he arrived unscathed and was allowed to dress the wounds as best he could, giving the soldier a drink and reassurance that a stretcher party would be sent to gather him safely in under the cover of darkness.

His mission accomplished, Jack turned to go back to his own trench and was shot in the back by a German sniper before he had taken half a dozen steps.

They said he had died instantly, but of course they always said that and she had no way of knowing if it was the truth or if there were things she had never been told which explained why Archie had avoided her for so long, even though he knew she was desperate to hear about Jack’s death from someone who had cared about him. She didn’t blame Archie, but he had failed her: in dealing with his own grief for Jack, he had been unable to face hers and, although their friendship had lasted, there remained – on both sides – a sense of regret. Now, the girl she had been prior to Jack’s death was almost unrecognisable to her: it was hard to believe herself capable of that kind of love.

After Jack was killed, and having seen such tragedies repeated over and over again, Archie gave up all hope of continuing on the path he had once chosen for himself – medicine was no career for someone who had lost faith in his ability to outplay death. But if he was no longer surprised when death arrived ahead of its time, he never shook off a sense of anger at its indifference – and that 40

had proved an excellent foundation for the career to which he eventually turned.

Now, Archie’s inability to do anything about the inherent cruelty of the world seemed temporarily to exclude everything else from his life, and Josephine was relieved when the girls were finally ready to go out and leave them in peace to talk.

‘You two take as long as you like,’ Lettice reiterated, absent-mindedly picking up the last slice of toast. ‘We’ll be at the theatre all afternoon and dinner’s booked for six-thirty, so don’t be late. I do so hate to have to rush dessert.’

‘And perhaps you’ll have cheered up by then.’ Ronnie’s parting shot was followed by the slamming of the front door, then all was quiet.

‘I love them dearly, but it’s so nice when it stops,’ Josephine said.

‘This isn’t a social call, is it?’

‘I wish it were, but I’m afraid it’s about what happened at King’s Cross last night. Have you seen the papers yet this morning?’

‘No. Lettice mentioned that something had gone on at the station, but she wasn’t very specific. What’s it got to do with me?’

‘You signed an autograph for a young woman yesterday. How well did you know her?’

At his use of the past tense, Josephine’s heart went cold. ‘Hardly at all. She recognised me on the train coming down and we had lunch together. She loves the theatre and wanted to know all about
Richard
, so we spent most of the time talking about that. I introduced her to Lydia when we got here and invited her to come and find me at the theatre if she wanted to, and that was that. Why?

What’s happened to her?’

Archie saw no point in delivering anything but the simple truth.

‘She’s been killed,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry there’s no gentler way of telling you, but it wasn’t an accident and it seems that you and Lydia were among the last people to see her alive.’

‘You mean she was murdered? Who on earth would want to hurt her?’

‘We don’t know yet, but I have to ask you this: how did you part?’

41

Josephine stared at him in disbelief. ‘We just said goodbye on the platform. She was so excited at meeting Lydia that she’d left her bag on the train and had to go back for it.’

‘You never saw her after that?’

‘No. The train was late getting in, so we were in a hurry. Marta

– that’s Lydia’s lover – was waiting for us outside with a taxi and Lydia had to get to the theatre. I left them at stage door and came straight here.’

‘And you didn’t go out again?’

‘Of course not – I was exhausted. What am I supposed to have done, Archie? Stalked the poor girl and strangled her with my scarf? For God’s sake, I thought I was the one with the vivid imagination.’ Archie remained silent as Josephine got up and walked to the window. ‘How did she die, or as a suspect aren’t I allowed to know?’ she asked sarcastically.

‘She was stabbed in the compartment of the train,’ he replied, ignoring the bait. ‘It must have happened quite soon after you left her.’

‘If only I
had
gone after her,’ she said, her anger disappearing as suddenly as it had come.

‘What do you mean?’

‘She dropped the feather from her hat on the platform and I wanted to give it back to her, but Lydia was late and there wasn’t time.’

‘You couldn’t have saved her,’ he said, gently. ‘Whoever did this was hell-bent on violence, so thank God you didn’t get in the way.’

Josephine’s face was still turned to the window, but he could tell from her voice that any counsel against self-reproach was futile. ‘You know, just an hour ago I was looking across at the theatre, half expecting to see her in the queue already,’ she said, sadly. ‘And I found myself rather looking forward to it. It’s funny, isn’t it, how quickly some people make an impression on you?

Yesterday was the first time I’d ever set eyes on the girl, but I could probably tell you more about her than people I’ve known for years. The important stuff, anyway – what she was like, what she cared about.’

42

‘And what was she like?’

‘She was that quiet sort which always gets overlooked. I don’t mean quiet in the literal sense, but most people would probably have thought her quite inconsequential. If she were at a party, she’d be the person you spoke to until you found someone more important. I think she’d got so used to people looking past her that she didn’t even notice any more. She certainly didn’t seem to mind, because there wasn’t an ounce of self-pity about her.’

‘Not an obvious murder victim, then. She doesn’t sound the sort to inspire that sort of extreme emotion.’

‘No, not a victim in any sense of the word. It’s a cliché, but she made the best of what life dealt her, and that somehow makes all this even worse. I can’t help feeling that when you’ve worked hard to come to terms with how you entered the world, you ought to have a bit more say over how you leave it – but I don’t have to tell you that. You know she was adopted, I suppose?’