The Fashion In Shrouds (29 page)

They had chosen this place for conversation partly because it was secret and partly because there was a gas-fire and, although it was midsummer, the night was chilly.

Miss McPhail, Val's secretary, who spent her life guarding this sanctuary, had gone home, but Rex was still about in spite of the time, and the three of them were alone in the great house. Val had come back from her little Queen Anne bandbox in Hampstead at her brother's request and they had found Rex still working when they arrived a little after ten. Georgia was expected after her show and they were waiting for her.

Campion sat on the edge of a solid wooden table before the fire directly under a hanging daylight bulb. The rest of the room was in shadow, and the hard, unnatural glare shone down on his dark back and bent head.

Val walked about the room. Her dress was the bright,
clear green of cooking apples and she looked young but very brave and capable, with her fine hands clasped behind her and her chin set.

Rex leant against the mantelshelf. He held a small square of chestnut velvet and was playing with it absently, feeling the yielding quality of the material and trying the light on it as he laid it on his arm. It was very quiet in the room and still cold.

‘I remember her at the Old Beaulieu,' Rex remarked without looking up. ‘She was very “
attractif
”. Not chic, never any class, but a “
piece
”. Well worth looking at. Her father was Gaiogi Laminoff's accountant. His name was Wilfred Adamson. He died before she left. That was very early in thirty-three, I think. Gaiogi Laminoff did what he could for her. He got Ferdie Paul to give her a little part on tour, and I know, one September – it must have been that same year – she was hanging round the agents, very sorry for herself.'

‘Gaiogi didn't take her back?' inquired Campion curiously.

‘No, he was shutting the Beaulieu and looking about for capital to start the Poire d'Or.' Rex was still speaking in an absent fashion, as if he were working round to a point and wondering if to make it. Mr Campion, who was liable to moments of irrelevant observation, suddenly saw him objectively, a natty, demure little soul, only effeminate insomuch as sex shocked him for its ugliness and interested him because it shocked him.

He went on talking, still stroking the scrap of material on his cuff.

‘Then she came into money,' he said. ‘I don't know if there was a man or not, but for quite a bit she was running round with the dancing boys and driving about in a little car. She even bought one of our models. I used to see her quite a bit. She never said where she got the cash, but she certainly had it.'

Mr Campion looked up sharply, enlightenment on his thin face.

‘That was in nineteen-thirty-four, the year Portland-Smith disappeared?'

Rex raised his head and his eyes, which were doggy and
harassed in the usual way, now had a flicker of excitement in them.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘He went off on June the eighteenth. I've always remembered that; it's the anniversary of Waterloo. Caroline Adanison had plenty of money, but long before then. It was early spring when she came round here for a model and she'd had it some time then. I noticed her particularly. She chose a very lovely grey moiré which Madame admired and which passed over the heads of the buyers. It's only three years ago. She was broke again early the next autumn, when Gaiogi Laminoff recommended her. She was a good model but not a pleasant girl. She was very bitter about Gaiogi, although he did so much for her. He was having trouble of his own then. The Poire d'Or opened in April or May of thirty-four and Bjornson had let Laminoff in by that crash of his by the January; it had been coming some time.'

‘I thought Gaiogi was only the Manager of the Poire d'Or?' put in Val, who had paused behind the table.

‘No. He had money in it. Bjornson never put up
all
the money for anything. Besides, I knew Bud Hockey, who was running the music there, and I remember he told me that Laminoff was down for a packet. I know I wondered where the old man had got it from, because there was no squeal. His backer, if he had one, was very quiet.'

There was a long silence while everybody digested this information.

‘You think it was Gaiogi's own money?' said Val at last.

Rex shrugged his shoulders and twisted the velvet into a rosette, holding it at arm's length to admire the effect.

‘It looked like it, Madame. But he had none when the Beaulieu closed. There was a little gossip about it at the time; nothing exciting, just speculation.' He laughed at Campion shyly. ‘One talks about money,' he said. ‘It's the other subject.'

Mr Campion considered the discovery and Val cut into his thoughts with another of the tag phrases from their childhood.

‘There's no proof, but I've lost a ha'penny and you're eating nuts,' she remarked.

He nodded. Portland-Smith had shot himself in June and
Miss Adamson had been well supplied with money since the previous winter. After the shooting she had become poor again. He did not say the words aloud, but Val, he knew, was following his thought. As with many people of one blood, there was a curious, wordless communion between them which might have been telepathy or an identically similar mental process.

‘I didn't know she knew him,' said Val.

‘Caroline Adamson and Portland-Smith?' Rex hesitated over the names. ‘I don't know that she did, but I think she did. It's merely an impression; something to do with a joke about her being so like Georgia Wells. I can't remember it at all. I doubt if I ever really heard it. It wasn't much, I know; only snack-bar talk.'

‘You're quite the little gossip, Rex, aren't you?' Val was amused. ‘A little bit here, a little bit there. It all tells up.'

The man wriggled and giggled coyly and his face flushed.

‘I've got a very good memory,' he said primly. ‘Besides, I like to know what's going on. But I never put two and two together, it's too disturbing.'

An electric bell over the door began to vibrate and Val hurried across the room.

‘There she is,' she said. ‘No, Rex, thank you, I'll go down myself. I want to.'

The little man bowed elaborately and held the door open for her. His every movement was self-consciously gallant and there was a nervous, chuckling effrontery behind his manner which was quite out of keeping with this or any other situation. He came back to the mantelpiece to pick up his piece of velvet. It lay, a dark pool, on the white ledge, and as his hand hovered over it he suddenly drew back. Then, controlling himself, he took up the scrap and threw it into a wastepaper-basket.

‘She was stabbed, wasn't she?' he said. ‘That velvet reminded me. It's very lovely material. Very soft and beautiful to drape. But I don't care for it. Dried blood is that colour, you know. I saw a lot of it in France.'

‘In France?' Mr Campion was surprised. The notion of the ladylike Rex as a warrior was incongruous.

‘'Fourteen to 'seventeen.' Rex spoke briskly. ‘The Somme and the Marne. I was a Tommy. I never got a commission.
It was a long time ago, but it cured me of all kinds of things. I've never put up with ugliness or discomfort since. I shall advise Madame against the velvet. All this plum and magenta which is so popular is a great pity, I think. It was the Coronation which introduced it, of course, but I still don't like it. It doesn't make
me
think of Royalty.'

He giggled again and smoothed his hair.

‘Laminoff had some peculiar experiences in Russia, I believe. He doesn't talk about them, but he went back during the Revolution and only came through with his life He can't stand ugliness either. Have you noticed? Everything has to be easy, delicate and elegant. He'll do anything for it. When the Poire d'Or was actually smashing he wouldn't give up the orchid on each table. Money for its comfort's sake means more than a lot to him.'

He glanced at his neat wrist-watch, which was gold and very delicate without being at all womanish.

‘Beddy-byes,' he said unexpectedly. ‘I shan't be home till midnight. I don't know if I've been of any use. It's only gossip, as Madame says. I don't know anything unpleasant I don't really want to. Good night.'

He giggled again and went out, adroitly avoiding the visitor by thirty seconds.

Georgia was not alone. Campion heard Ferdie Paul's excited squeak before the party reached the second floor. He came in a little in advance of the others, a great wave of nervous energy sweeping into the room with him.

‘My God!' he said. ‘My God, what a schemozzle! One damned thing on top of another!' He sat down on a wooden chest and pulled out a cardboard packet of cigarettes, lighting one from it and pitching the spent match into the furthest corner of the room.

Georgia came in with Val. She was at her loveliest, in a black dress of some soft, transparent material draped over her bosom and flowing out into soft baby-frills round the hem and train of the skirt. She looked graceful, womanly, and, in some inexplicable way, pathetically bereft.

‘Oh, darling,' she said to Campion. ‘Oh, darling. How incredibly depressing. I've had a policeman in my dressing-room and Ferdie's had two; one at the plane and one at the flat. What a slut of a girl!'

‘Damn it, you can't blame her,' said Ferdie from the background. ‘It's not her fault. She's simply the person who fell through the hole in the floor. She was a good-looker, too. It's a pity.'

He spoke with real regret, no doubt at the thought of beauty wasted.

Georgia sat down on the table close to Campion.

‘Two deaths,' she said huskily. ‘Two. But I'm not superstitious. I won't be superstitious. What are we going to do? What exactly does it mean to us?'

Everyone looked at Campion, who bestirred himself.

‘It's an awkward position,' he said slowly, thinking that it would have been easier for Val and himself to tackle Georgia on the delicate matter which they had met to discuss if a fourth party had not been present. ‘You see, once the police get hold of a case like this they're so infernally thorough. Everyone who knew Miss Adamson will be cross-examined for days by earnest detectives trying to sound as though they had just dropped in to talk about string. In the end they'll find out every mortal thing the wretched girl has said and done during the last six months. That doesn't matter much, of course. I promised them I would give them any information I came across, and I shall, as anyone else would. But whereas it doesn't matter what they find out if it's relevant, they may so easily get on to all kinds of things which are nothing to do with the case and which, although not criminal, have their awkward aspects. These, may make the good dicks red herrings and land us all with a kettle offish.'

He paused. Ferdie Paul was looking at him with his head a little on one side and a slightly derisive smile, which was tolerant rather than contemptuous, on his curly mouth.

‘Exactly!' he said. ‘Exactly, my dear boy. And so what?'

‘It's about me' said Val, coming forward with sudden determination. ‘It's no good being vague and lawyer-like, Albert. You must say the words in a case like this. Now look here, Georgia my pet, you must not go telling the police that story about me and the
cachet blanc.
It's a good yarn and amusing and all the rest of it and it doesn't matter whom else you tell it to, because everyone we know will see it as you see it and realize that you don't really mean that it's true. But the police may take it seriously and we don't want
them going all hysterical and applying for exhumation orders and that sort of thing, do we? It isn't as though they could find anything, we know. There was a P.M. at the time, thank God, but there would be a frightful row which would ruin us both professionally.'

Ferdie Paul, who had been sitting admiring his feet throughout this eminently straightforward statement, now glanced up.

‘You're a good girl, Val,' he said. ‘A sensible girl and a damned good sort to take it like that. I told you, Georgia, that story was stark lunacy at the time.'

Georgia put her arm round Val. It was a long, slow movement, and, laying her dark head gently against the apple-green dress, she allowed two tears, and only two, to roll slowly down her cheeks. It was exquisite, the most abject, expressive and charming apology Campion had ever seen. Georgia seemed to think it was pretty good, too, for she brightened perceptibly for an instant before resuming her mood.

‘I didn't realize it,' she said earnestly. ‘I've got a blind spot. I didn't see it. That story has got me into terrible trouble, Val, more than you'll ever know, so I have been punished. But if it wasn't for you I'd be almost glad. If it hadn't been for that silly story I'd never have realized something rather awful that was happening to me. Now at least I'm sane again.'

She paused.

‘And my darling is dead,' she said in her breath, but with a tragic depth of feeling which startled them all by its staggering sincerity.

‘Who's dead?' said Val sharply.

Georgia stared at her in genuine bewilderment.

‘Ray,' she said. ‘Oh, my dear, you haven't forgotten him so soon? He was the only man I ever really loved and when he died I didn't realize it. I don't want to talk about it or I shall make a fool of myself. Forgive me.'

She blew her nose on a little white handkerchief and smiled through her tears.

Ferdie sat looking at her with professional admiration. Then he glanced at the other two and laughed.

‘She's a dear girl, isn't she?' he said, not without a
certain pride. ‘That's very sweet, Georgia, but get the main idea. Don't tell the police fairy stories, even if you believe them. Val's absolutely right. This thing could make one hell of a stink if the Press decided to risk it, which they might, of course. I don't know. What do you think, Campion? Oh Lord, what a mess! How long will the police keep at this thing?'