The Deadly Mystery of the Missing Diamonds (A Dizzy Heights Mystery)

by T E Kinsey

  ‘You reckon any of them are spies?’ said Skins as they found themselves a seat at the edge of the lake and sat down.

  ‘Spies?’ laughed Dunn. ‘Really? Who for?’

  ‘Could be anyone.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. No one does that any more. No need. The world is at peace, mate. They know what happens when they muck about with all that stuff.’

  Ellie smiled and shook her head. ‘You two idiots will be the death of me.’

  The two idiots turned to look at her.

  ‘One of your best friends has been murdered, and you’re wittering on about bowler-hatted spies. Don’t either of you actually feel anything?’

  ‘About what?’ said Skins.

  ‘About Blanche. Murdered Blanche. Dear, sweet, talented Blanche.’

  ‘She was talented, all right,’ agreed Skins. ‘She’d come a long way since we met her, and she was good even then. I’m surprised she stayed with us, to be honest.’

  ‘Loyalty,’ said Dunn quietly. ‘I chatted to her one night after we’d played some awful club up the West End and she said she’d had an offer from some bloke who’d come over from New Orleans. She turned him down to stay with us. Or maybe because she had her eye on New York, but it certainly felt like loyalty.’

  ‘There was that bloke from Berlin a couple of years ago, too,’ said Skins.

  ‘That wasn’t loyalty, though, to be fair. That was just good sense. It was madness over there then. Remember that piano player? Dieter Something? He told us about getting his week’s wages in the morning and it not being worth enough to buy a box of matches come teatime.’

  ‘You see, you idiots,’ said Ellie. ‘She meant the world to you. And now she’s gone. And you’re twice as bad, Barty Dunn. Anyone could see she had her eye on you.’

  ‘She never said.’

  ‘Well, she wouldn’t, would she? Not with you stepping out with a different doxy every other night. She didn’t want to be made to look a fool.’

  Dunn turned away to look at the ducks on the lake.

  ‘We need to put things right,’ said Skins. ‘We need to find out who did this to her. It’s more than just deserters and secret vaults. It’s personal.’

  ‘That’s more like it,’ said Ellie. ‘I think we should ask Flo and Emily for help. They’re in town this weekend and I’m having lunch with them on Monday.’

  Skins smiled. ‘That’s a stroke of luck. How come you never said?’

  ‘I did. You mumbled something like “That’ll be nice” and then challenged Edward to a duel. I knew you weren’t paying attention.’

  ‘It was a matter of honour,’ said Skins. ‘He called me a “stinky weasel”. I couldn’t let that stand. But could we meet them tomorrow instead, do you reckon? All three of us? We can ask their advice. Do you think they’d mind?’

  ‘I’m sure they’d be delighted to see you both. The worst that can happen is they tell us all to sit tight and let the gendarmes get on with it,’ said Ellie.

  Skins was distracted. ‘There’s one,’ he said suddenly.

  Out on the lake, a white pelican was ruffling its wings as it settled on to the water.

  ‘Now, the pelicans might be spies,’ said Dunn. ‘They’re definitely up to something.’

  ‘Too big. Can’t be sneaking into places looking like that. Draws too much attention. Your sparrow would make a good spy. Or a blackbird, if you want them to go somewhere fancy – they always look smart. But discreet.’

  ‘You have the attention span of a small child, Ivor Maloney,’ said Ellie. ‘I’ve seen little Catherine concentrate on things for longer than you. But are you really going to stick at this investigation thing? Aren’t you worried?’

  ‘What about?’ said Dunn.

  ‘You’ve just found out Blanche was murdered. Any of you could be next.’

  Skins looked up from his contemplation of the pelican. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘that never occurred to me. About the risk, I mean. Do you really reckon there’s a chance we could be in danger?’

  ‘If there’s a mad poisoner on the loose at Tipsy Harry’s, yes.’

  Dunn laughed. ‘Are you sure there’s such a thing as a mad poisoner? And are they poisoning musicians? Or just sax players?’

  Ellie frowned. ‘It sounds dumb when you say it like that. But it’s worth thinking about.’

  ‘We’ll be fine, love,’ said Skins. ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘Just you be careful, that’s all,’ said Ellie. ‘Both of you. Don’t go taking any food and drink from strangers.’

  He laughed again. ‘You’re starting to sound like my mum.’

  ‘Sounds like she gave you good advice. You should follow it.’

  ‘No one kills more than once, though, do they?’ said Dunn. ‘I mean, Jack the Ripper and all that, but killers kill and then that’s it.’

  ‘Sure, if there’s a reason for it. But who would want to kill Blanche Adams? And from the way you describe it, how did they even single her out? Sounds like a random killing to me. And where there’s one . . .’

  ‘You’re making too much of it,’ said Skins, though in truth he was starting to doubt that she was. Now that she’d brought it up, he couldn’t help thinking that maybe one of those weirdies at Tipsy Harry’s really was killing musicians. Hadn’t someone said something about one of the Finchley Foot-Tappers being ill? The sax player, wasn’t it? And their sax player was a woman, too. He wasn’t going to mention that to Ellie, though. Instead, he said, ‘I don’t think any of us knows enough about killers to be speculating like this.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ she said. ‘But you know who would know? Emily Hardcastle. We’ll stop at the Trafalgar Square Post Office on our way back and I’ll wire Flo care of Emily’s brother. Come on, let’s get home.’

  Chapter Six

  Lady Hardcastle had telephoned the Maloneys on Friday evening, soon after receiving the telegram. She and Flo would be delighted to offer such advice as they were able, she had said, but not until Monday.

  ‘I’m so terribly sorry,’ she explained, ‘but there are family obligations to be discharged – nieces and nephews to be taken to the zoo and so forth. You know how it is. But Monday is still fine. It’ll be a pleasure to see the boys, too. One o’clock at The Ritz, as planned?’

  Ellie had cheerfully agreed, and on Monday morning, she and Skins set out by taxi for Piccadilly via Wood Green. It was an extraordinarily long way out of their way, but they had arranged to call for Dunn. He had insisted it was a stupid waste of money, but in return they had insisted that it would be fun to arrive together. In the end, his fear of falling asleep on the tube and missing his stop had won the day. Although they’d had Sunday off, both Friday and Saturday night had been hectic and he was still weary by Monday morning.

  They arrived at Coburg Road and waved at Mrs McGuffie as she peered round her net curtains to see who was calling at number 76. She scowled when she saw it was Skins, but neither he nor his American wife were worth opening her door to berate.

  Dunn answered the door surprisingly swiftly.

  ‘Come on in a minute,’ he said as he let them in. ‘I’m just putting my shoes on.’ He held up a pair of freshly polished shoes.

  ‘Cheers, mate,’ said Skins. ‘You’re looking very dapper.’

  ‘Got to make an effort for Lady H,’ said Dunn.

  Mrs Cordell popped her head out from the kitchen, where she’d been drinking tea with her friend Dolly.

  ‘I thought I recognized that voice,’ she said cheerfully. ‘How are you, Skins, love? Oh, and Mrs Maloney, too. Hello, dear.’

  ‘Hello, Mrs Cordell. Please call me Ellie.’

  ‘Right you are, dear. Don’t you all look smart, though? You going to The Ritz with Barty?’

  ‘We are, Mrs C,’ said Skins. ‘Seeing an old friend.’

  ‘So he said. What a treat that would be, eh?’ said Mrs Cordell wistfully. ‘Lunch at The Ritz. I hope she’s paying for it, mind you. I can’t hardly dream of such a thing on my widow�
�s pension and I don’t suppose you boys is much better off. Oh, come ’ere, Barty.’ She pulled a small handkerchief from the sleeve of her housecoat and licked it, before bending down to where Dunn was lacing his shoes. She wiped a tiny smudge of shaving soap from below his ear. ‘Can’t have you going out looking a state.’

  Skins smirked. ‘Honestly, mate. Smarten yourself up a bit, there’s a good lad. Letting the side down.’

  ‘There, that’s better,’ said Mrs Cordell. ‘You’ll pass muster now. Can’t have a lodger of mine being turned away by some snooty doorman because you didn’t look your best.’

  Dunn stood and kissed her cheek. ‘Thanks, Mrs C. We’d best be on our way, though – don’t want to keep Lady H waiting.’

  ‘Ooh, “Lady H”. Get you. You go and have a lovely time, dear.’

  They trooped out the front door together and clambered into the waiting taxi.

  ‘That’s quite a landlady you’ve got there, Barty,’ said Ellie.

  ‘I know,’ said Dunn. ‘It’s halfway between embarrassing and heartbreaking – I can never quite decide which. She misses her boys, though, that’s the truth of it, so I just sort of let her get on with it.’

  Ellie touched his arm. ‘You’re a much nicer man than you give yourself credit for, Bartholomew Dunn. I can’t understand why you haven’t been snapped up.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I keep saying,’ he said. ‘I’m a catch.’

  ‘You are, honey. And don’t let Ivor tell you any different.’

  Skins had, indeed, been about to tell him different. Instead he said, ‘Do they do nice cakes at The Ritz? Maybe we could get something to take back for her.’

  Ellie leaned over and kissed his cheek. ‘Oh, Ivor,’ she said. ‘You absolute sweetheart. You’re a catch, too.’

  Skins grinned.

  The journey was an uneventful one and they arrived on Piccadilly at the front door of The Ritz at exactly one o’clock. A doorman in an inordinately smart uniform ushered them inside, and they stood for a moment, admiring the opulence.

  ‘That’s a lot of marble,’ said Skins. ‘It doesn’t matter how many of these sorts of places we see, I’ll never take it for granted.’

  ‘I should think not,’ said a woman in her late fifties wearing an extremely smart two-piece suit. She stood almost as tall as Dunn, and the dark hair peeping artfully from beneath her fashionable cloche hat was streaked with grey.

  ‘Lady H,’ said Skins delightedly. ‘Wonderful to see you, old girl.’ They kissed cheeks.

  ‘And you, dear boy,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘And Eleanora, darling. You look simply marvellous.’ Cheeks, once more, were kissed.

  ‘And dear, dear Barty. It’s been, what, a year?’

  ‘Something like that,’ said Dunn.

  ‘We really should get to London more often, shouldn’t we, dear?’

  This last was addressed to the smaller woman standing, as ever, in her friend’s shadow. This was Florence Armstrong, whose name in certain circles was often prefaced with ‘the redoubtable . . .’ She, too, was fashionably dressed, though her own dark hair showed a good deal less grey. Her smile was warm, and Skins could still see the mischievous light in her eyes that had attracted him when they first met nearly twenty years earlier.

  ‘All right, Flo?’ said Skins. ‘I didn’t see you down there.’

  ‘Come here, you cheeky bugger,’ she said, and hugged him. ‘How are you? You missed my birthday party.’

  ‘We were working,’ he said. ‘We tried to get out of the gig. Didn’t we try?’

  ‘They did try,’ agreed Ellie. ‘I was so sad to miss it.’

  She hugged her old friend warmly. They had known each other for fifteen years, since Emily Hardcastle and Flo had saved her life at Weston-super-Mare when Ellie was just sixteen. Ellie and Flo had written at least once a month – often once a week – ever since, with only the same wartime restrictions that had slowed Ellie and Skins’s correspondence getting in the way.

  ‘Well, I shall entertain no such excuses for missing my sixtieth,’ said Lady Hardcastle.

  ‘You’re never sixty,’ said Skins. ‘Really?’

  ‘No,’ said Flo, ‘she’s not. And she won’t be for another two years, but she’s already planning the party. The seventh of November, 1927. Put it in your diaries.’

  ‘There’s a three-line whip on that one,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘We’ve already agreed with the Farley-Strouds to use The Grange.’

  ‘Is that where we played that time? The engagement party?’ said Dunn.

  ‘That’s the place.’

  ‘And it’s still the same people who own it?’ said Skins. ‘They were ancient when we were there.’

  ‘I’ve never been entirely certain how old they are, but I’d say they were well into their late seventies by now and still going strong,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘They’ve got years in them yet. But come, we haven’t travelled all the way to this fine establishment to stand in the foyer and talk about birthday parties, no matter how much marble there is. There’s a table in one of their splendid dining rooms with my name on it. We must eat.’

  ‘I’ll not argue with that,’ said Skins, and they followed her as she strode off to find someone to take them to their table.

  They were seated with some ceremony by a cloud of waiters. Lady Hardcastle, it seemed, was a regular and rather popular guest.

  ‘That’s enough fussing for the moment, dear,’ she said, as she shooed the last of them away from rearranging her cutlery and glassware. ‘I appreciate the attention, really I do, but consider my ego well and truly stroked for now. If you want to be properly useful you could be an absolute pet and bring us a couple of bottles of that champagne I like.’

  ‘The ’22, my lady?’ said the waiter with a small bow.

  ‘Good lord, no. The ’21. Unless you have any of the 1915 left?’

  ‘I shall see what the sommelier has to say, my lady. I’m sure he can find something extra-special for you and your . . . guests.’ This last word was delivered with the tiniest hint of disdain as he inspected the rather-too-fashionable attire of the three strangers at the table.

  ‘Cheeky little bleeder,’ said Skins once the waiter had scurried away. ‘My wife’s a bloody millionairess, I’ll have you know.’

  ‘Not quite, dear,’ said Ellie. ‘And don’t go running away with the idea that we’ll be dining in places like this all the time when they finally release my inheritance.’

  ‘I’d be happy with a saveloy and a ha’porth of chips if I was eating it with you, my sweet. But . . . I mean . . . really. Looking at us like we was nobodies.’

  ‘I am a nobody,’ said Dunn. ‘And proud of it. But if you’re going to carry on being soppy like that, I might have to send the pair of you out for your saveloy and chips while I stay here with the ladies.’

  Skins harrumphed.

  ‘He’s right,’ said Ellie. ‘That was a bit saccharine even for you.’

  ‘You’re a miserable couple of bleeders as well,’ said Skins. ‘No romance in you, that’s the trouble.’

  ‘No saveloys for us,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Unless you really want them, of course. It’s entirely up to you. Feel free to indulge yourselves. It seems a shame to come to somewhere like this for lunch and not have whatever one wants.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Ellie.

  ‘Nonsense, dear. If one can’t treat one’s friends, then what on earth is money for?’

  After a minute or two of silence, during which everyone carefully examined their menus, Skins leaned over towards Ellie. ‘What are you going to have?’

  ‘None of your business,’ she said.

  ‘What do you think of the langoustines?’

  ‘I haven’t seen them yet.’

  He pointed at her menu. ‘There. Above the mussels.’

  ‘So they are,’ she said, distractedly.

  ‘Or the chicken liver parfait?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There,’
he said. ‘Right there. Look. Chicken liver parfait.’

  ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘That definitely says chicken liver parfait.’

  ‘So what are you going to have?’

  ‘Ivor, for the love of all things holy, will you shut up for a minute. You do this every time. It doesn’t matter what I’m going to have. Have whatever you want.’

  ‘I’m just interested.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’m going to have. I can’t read the menu because someone keeps asking me what I’m going to have and then pointing things out on another part of the page.’

  ‘What are you going to have, Barty?’ said Skins.

  Dunn just looked at him and shook his head.

  ‘We spoke to Inspector Sunderland this morning—’ began Lady Hardcastle.

  ‘Superintendent,’ Flo interrupted.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. What did I say?’

  ‘You know full well what you said.’

  Lady Hardcastle sighed. ‘Superintendent Sunderland and I had a chat this morning. He’s jolly grateful to you for helping him out with his deserter case.’

  ‘Can’t really say we’ve done very much,’ said Skins.

  ‘We’ve narrowed it down to a handful of possibilities,’ agreed Dunn. ‘But he could have done that himself in less time than it’s taken us.’

  ‘Well, he’s grateful anyway,’ she said. ‘And I’m sorry to hear about your friend. And quite flattered that you thought to ask us two for help. Or that Eleanora did, at any rate.’

  ‘Oh, they thought of it, all right,’ said Ellie. ‘But you know what they’re like. They left it to me to send the cable.’

  ‘And I’m jolly pleased you did. I know we have something of a reputation for this sort of thing, but I’m still surprised and delighted that you thought of us.’

  ‘Well, it’s not the first time we’ve had a bandmate bumped off,’ said Skins. ‘And you were the ones who worked it out last time.’

  ‘With help from the police,’ said Flo. ‘But we have a certain knack.’