Murder Offstage (23 page)

Twenty-Seven

For a tiny second she thought she saw Len’s hands
tremble, the telegram flicker uncertainly in his hands.

‘All okay?’ she asked, but she didn’t need to wait for his
answer to know that it would not be good news. His face had gone white.

‘It’s the old man,’ he said quietly. ‘He’s not in a good
way, Po. Not good at all, in fact. Very ill. He says he’s only got a matter of
weeks... He wants me to go to him, help him out. I must leave England
immediately.’

‘Of course,’ Posie said, shaken at the news. She hadn’t
heard Len speak about his father in an age, and hadn’t liked to ask. ‘But
where
is he exactly?’

Len laughed. ‘Didn’t you know?’ he smiled, a shadow of his
usual light-hearted self returning. He nodded at the wall behind her desk:

‘
There
,’ he smiled. ‘He went to the Cap d’Antibes two
years ago. He was so impressed with your painting up there that he left
straightaway. He sends me postcards now and then. Apparently it’s even better
than he expected: warm, glamorous, an easy-going pace of life. He even has a
French lady-friend down there, I believe. Imagine! Poor blighter.’

Posie nodded, ‘I’m so glad he’s had a good time.’

‘I’d better get going, pack a bag and book a train,’ Len
said, standing and grabbing his tweed jacket, glancing at his watch.

‘Who knows? I might even be able to get a third-class berth
from Calais on the Blue Train if I’m lucky. It’ll take me there direct.’

Posie felt her heart beating very fast against her rib cage.
She wanted to stop Len, to jump in his way and keep him here in London just as
it had seemed that he might become hers at last. And now all this talk of the
glamorous Blue Train, the easy life in the South of France with French
lady-friends: what if he didn’t come back?

‘When will you return?’ she said, almost whispering the
words, chiding herself for her selfishness as she spoke them aloud.

Len came close to her. He stroked her cheek tenderly.

‘Soon, my love. I promise. I can’t tell you when exactly,
but I’ll come back. Will you wait for me?’

Posie nodded. Of course she’d wait. What a question! Even
with all the uncertainties still hanging between them, the unanswered
questions. The girlfriend, for example… He kissed her hand and reluctantly let
it go.

‘I’ll write,’ he called over his shoulder. And then he was
gone.

She watched Len’s retreating back as he almost ran out of
the Grape Street Bureau, and she felt as if the wind had been blown out of her
sails.

She felt a soft rubbing sensation at her ankle, and saw Mr
Minks was busily looping himself backwards and forwards, making a fuss of her,
purring loudly.

‘You want feeding, don’t you, sir?’ Posie said, bending down
and scooping him up, grateful for the distraction. She thought briefly of Count
della Rosa, and how the cat had seemed equally comfortable in his arms,
oblivious to any danger.

She wondered where he was right now…

And then she banished the thought from her mind, and stepped
through into the kitchen.

****

Three Months Later

Epilogue

It had been a late spring that year, and the flowers
had taken an age to come through. But now they were more than making up for it,
and as Posie strode bare-foot through Bloomsbury Square Gardens with her glacé
sandals clutched in her hand, the smell of the roses and freshly cut grass drifted
past in a summery May-time bliss.

Lunchtime was nearly over, and workers were reluctantly
shouldering their way back to dark, uninviting offices, vying for dusty
pavement space with the crowds of tourists who were milling around outside the
British Museum, waiting for the guards to open the doors for the afternoon
visiting slot.

Posie slung her shoes back on and headed back to the office
on Grape Street.

She decided to treat herself to a penny ice at the
news-stand, and just as she was choosing the least garish colour on offer, her
eyes caught sight of the headline of the lunchtime edition of
The Times
:

GALACTIC
SINKS! ALL SOULS LOST! DOES THE CURSE OF THE MAHARAJAH DIAMOND STRIKE AGAIN?

She gasped and took the slippery ice-cream and a copy
of the newspaper at the same time, gobsmacked. She stood rooted to the spot,
reading the details.

It was incredible: the boat had sunk only five hundred
nautical miles off the coast of Bombay. There was no obvious reason for the
disaster, although the ship was running behind schedule and it was thought she
was trying to make up for lost time by taking a perilous short cut.

All three hundred souls aboard had drowned. A rescue mission
was not being attempted, and no foul play was suspected. The Maharajah diamond,
in Captain Grace’s possession, was now buried somewhere at the bottom of the
Arabian Sea.

The rest of the story was given over to lurid details about
the history of the curse of the Maharajah diamond and its string of tragedies,
including a brief mention about Lucky Lucy and Count della Rosa, who had, as
yet, evaded capture by the police and was top of police wanted-lists across all
of Europe.

Posie folded the paper carefully, and licked the raspberry
ice thoughtfully.
So this is how it ends
, she thought to herself.

She sighed: poor Captain Grace and his crew, and all those
poor passengers. But somehow she was pleased that the wretched diamond, which
she had held for a blistering few minutes, was now out of human reach and
couldn’t cause any more heartache.

She got into her office on the strike of two o’clock. A
client was coming in half an hour and she wanted to prepare in good time.

The new secretary, Prudence Smythe, was busily folding
invoices and licking stamps in her little office. She was a conscientious girl,
and a very good secretary. She had a nice prim telephone manner too, and that
was important. The telephone, which Posie had installed with the money which
Len had been paid for his last job, rang all day long.

Inspector Lovelace had been right: the crazy week in
February and the article in the
Associated Press
had done wonders for
business at the Grape Street Bureau. Posie was more in demand than she could
ever have wished for, and it felt good to know that she could keep the place
running virtually single-handed, not comfortably perhaps, but adequately. Gone
were the days of worrying about selling her last few nice bits and pieces to
pay for rent and firewood, and gone too was the guilt she felt about relying on
Len’s shadowing work.

Just as well she was in demand: Len had been gone now for
three long months, and with no definite fixed date for his return, Posie’s
earnings had had to keep the whole place afloat.

He wrote infrequently, but his letters when they came were
filled with a longing for London, for Grape Street and for Posie. It seemed Mr
Irving Senior’s health had miraculously turned a corner, and French doctors
were hopeful for a full recovery. At the bottom of every letter Len had
written:

Yours, my love. Soon. X X

Posie wrote every week to the boarding-house address Len had
given her and fed him tit-bits of news.

She took her scissors now and started to cut out the article
about the sinking of
The Galactic
. She would send it to him with a short
note. She missed Len terribly, but she didn’t want to press him in the letters,
to ask when exactly ‘soon’ might be.

Just then Prudence knocked and came through. There was a
telephone call for Posie and the caller wouldn’t speak to just a secretary. He
had demanded Miss Parker in person.

Posie took the earpiece. The booming tones of the Tenth Earl
of Cardigeon met her ears. He sounded in a surprisingly good mood:

‘Parker?’

‘The very same, sir.’

‘You seen the news about
The Galactic
?’

‘I have, sir. A tragedy. I am afraid the Arabian Sea is a
bit far for me to get to, sir, if you were going to ask me to find the diamond
for you a second time. Besides, I can’t swim.’

The Earl laughed a great belly-laugh.

‘Not why I’m ringing, Parker. I’ve been in touch with the
insurers. They’re going to pay out and the Maharajah has decided he will split
the proceeds in half with me. Jolly nice fellow, what?’

Posie gulped, surprised. ‘Yes, I’d say so, sir. You can get
the roof fixed now at Rebburn, can’t you?’

Again came the belly-laugh.

‘Perhaps. But I wanted to thank you properly for helping us
out back in February. It all looked a bit of a lost cause at one point. I’ve
decided to give you some of the insurance monies by way of thank you. I know
you’re in a bit of a tight spot since all your family died. I’m going to send
you a cheque for ten thousand pounds. That should see you right, what?’

Posie couldn’t remember the conversation ending, but she had
floated through the waiting room in a blur. Ten thousand pounds! A small
fortune! Certainly enough to buy her own flat,
and
pay the rent upfront
on the Grape Street Bureau for several years to come… Was she dreaming?

Prudence bobbed in. ‘Your client is here, Miss. The one
about the missing husband? And these arrived for you by the afternoon post.’

Prudence laid a thick cream envelope embossed in silver on
Posie’s desk. It could only be one thing. A wedding invitation!

Posie tore it open and sure enough, enclosed within was a
silver-lettered card inviting her
and a partner
to the September wedding
of Lord Rufus Cardigeon and Miss Dorothea (‘Dolly’) Price. The wedding would be
at St Bride’s Church in London.

‘Oh! How lovely!’ Posie smiled to herself, imagining the day
ahead, the chance for a new dress for the first time in years, and at her
side…she hoped against hope that he would be back in time…

Dare she mention her recent good news
and
the wedding
invite in the letter she would write to Len today?

‘And these came, for you too,’ Prudence mumbled shyly,
passing across a bunch of bright yellow mimosa. The dry dusky scent took over
the room, filling it with sweetness.

‘I’ll get a vase for you. The florist who delivered them
said they were from the South of France. He said the gentleman who sent them
was most particular about you knowing that. Said they would remind you of him,
while he wasn’t here…’

Prudence had gone a deep shade of pink and bowled out of the
door backwards. Posie laughed and burrowed her face in the sweet soft buds of
the mimosa and inhaled.

It was going to be a lovely summer.

****

Thanks for joining Posie Parker and her friends at the
Grape Street Bureau.

Enjoyed
Murder Offstage
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Historical Note and 1920s Money

The historical timings, dates, background and detail
described in this book are accurate to the best of my knowledge, save for the
following exceptions:

Locations

1. The
La Luna
club never existed, although it
is based very roughly on a club (
The Cellar Door
)
in Aldwych,
London (http://www.cellardoor.biz).

2. The Hatton Garden I have created is entirely
fictional. In reality it is a world-renowned centre of excellence for diamonds.

3. The Athenaeum Theatre does not exist, neither does
No 11, St James.

4. Nightingale Mews, SW7 and Winstanley Mews, SW3 do
not exist.

5.
The Galactic
(and its sinking) is entirely
fictitious.

6. The
Associated Press
is fictional.

7. The story of the Maharajah diamond is fictional (as
are both the Maharajah and the city-state of Gwilim itself, although timings
with regard to the rebellions and the period of the Viceroy in India are
accurate).

8. I have taken the liberty of including the wonderful
art-deco Bush House on Aldwych, London, WC1 (as background detail in chapter
six) although in reality it was a building site in 1921 and not opened
officially until 1925.

9. The famous Blue Train,
Le Train Bleu,
(which
Len takes in chapter twenty-seven) was already in service in 1921 (running from
Calais to the fashionable hotspots of the South of France, including the Cap
d’Antibes) but was not known by such a nickname until 1924.

Grape Street in London, WC1, really does exist,
although you might have to do a bit of imagining to find Posie’s Detective
Agency there.

Characters

The characters in this book are all fictitious, save for the
appearances in chapter nine of Ivor Novello, the famous composer (1893–1951)
and Kitty La Roar, who kindly appears as a historical version of herself (see
www.kittylaroar.com).

A Short Note on Money

Very roughly, the 1921 figures for money given in the book
equate to:

1. Five Pounds = a 2014 value of £207 or $346

2. Five Thousand Pounds = a 2014 value of £207,187 or
$346,760

3. Ten Thousand Pounds = a 2014 value of £414,375 or
$693,495

4. Seven Hundred Thousand Pounds = a 2014 value of
£29,000,000 or $48,531,923

****