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

by T E Kinsey

  ‘Yes. It’s not like you to be disheartened. You’re one of the most determined people I’ve ever met, apart from Aunt Adelia. You don’t know the meaning of the word “daunted”.’

  ‘True, but I never let my poor vocabulary put me off. But no, I was just venting my frustration. You’ve got to admit that all we’ve got going for us is a love of Blanche. We got into this to help a bloke we barely know on the say-so of your pal and her best mate, not because we’re experts or anything. When it started it was a bit of a lark – deserters, uncut diamonds, hidden treasure. Then when Blanche was killed it all got very personal. I’m more determined than ever to see it through now . . . I was just getting a bit weary.’

  ‘She’s your pal, too,’ said Ellie.

  He laughed. ‘That was the part you latched on to? Determination? Finding Blanche’s killer? That’s what it’s about. We’ve got to do something ourselves, haven’t we. The police are useless. Lavender’s most creative thought was that it was Danny and Puddle. Who were in it to . . . to what, exactly? To rid the world of all the other female sax players so Puddle could reign supreme? You know he thinks Danny poisoned Vera from the Finchley Foot-Tappers, too?’

  ‘It was Barty who thought that. And Eustace.’

  ‘Was it? Oh. Well, it’s still bleedin’ stupid.’

  ‘Then we need to redouble our efforts. When’s Barty getting here?’

  ‘Not till four.’

  ‘Why don’t you send him a telegram and get him down here for lunch instead. We’ll have a confab before we go back to Tipsy Harry’s.’

  Skins went out to the hall to telephone the telegram office.

  Dunn, meanwhile, was sitting in Mrs Cordell’s parlour, playing her piano. Against her repeated protests that he didn’t ought to be wasting his money on frivolities like that, he paid to have it tuned at least twice a year. She thought it was a scandalous expense, but was secretly proud to have the best-sounding piano on the street.

  He was working on a new song. He’d intended to try an upbeat dance number for the band, but his fingers had found their way to something more suited to a sentimental ballad. He shook his head and launched into his own interpretation of ‘Daisy Bell’.

  Mrs Cordell knocked on the door and came in bearing a cup and saucer.

  ‘Here you are, love,’ she said. ‘I had the kettle on and I thought you might like a nice cup of Rosy Lee.’

  ‘Ta, Mrs C.’

  ‘I’ll put it over here on the table.’

  He carried on playing, taking the old familiar tune through some chord changes never envisaged by the music-hall artistes who had once sung about inviting Daisy on to their bicycle built for two.

  ‘You’re ever so talented, love,’ said Mrs Cordell, ‘but I do wish you wouldn’t do all that jazz stuff with the old songs. Play me something I can sing along to.’

  ‘What do you fancy?’

  She put her hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s ten years ago today,’ she said. ‘Play me “Long, Long Trail”.’

  ‘Oh, Mrs C,’ said Dunn. ‘I’m so sorry. I’d completely forgotten. Are you sure?’

  ‘They sung it to me the night before they left,’ she said. ‘It helps me remember.’

  The Cordell brothers had been killed together on the tenth of June 1915, when an Ottoman shell hit their trench on Cape Helles. It had taken weeks for the news to make it back to London, and Phyllis Cordell had received both telegrams together. She was still coming to terms with the loss of her beloved husband, who had been a stoker on the Lusitania when it was sunk by a German U-boat that May.

  Dunn began the introduction. He knew Mrs Cordell’s range from playing for her regular sing-songs with her pals ‘round the old Joanna’, and he picked an appropriate key. He’d heard the song played often in the trenches as a jaunty march, but this wasn’t the time for jaunty, and his fingers were in the mood for melancholy anyway. Mrs Cordell began confidently, her rich contralto voice singing about the lonely nights and wearyingly long days listening for their song. She made it as far as the nightingales singing in the white moonbeams in the chorus before her voice cracked and the tears began to fall.

  She leaned against Dunn as she wept. He made to stop playing to comfort her, but she urged him to carry on and he picked up the melody himself, singing softly. He shuffled aside to let her sit next to him and she put her arm around his shoulders as he finished the song.

  ‘I’m sorry, my love,’ she said when he reached out to hold her. ‘I don’t know what come over me. I’m a silly old biddy. I ought to be used to it by now, but in ten years not a day goes by when I don’t think about those three lummoxes.’

  She blew her nose noisily into a handkerchief that had appeared as though by magic from the sleeve of her housecoat.

  ‘It’s only natural, Mrs C. I’m not sure I could have coped with it half as well as you have. I’m in a state over losing a friend – I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose a husband and two sons in the space of a month.’

  ‘We all muddle on, don’t we?’ she said, sniffing. ‘Come on, let’s have a cheerful one. What about “Tipperary”? And give it plenty of the old oompah. Make it a lively one.’

  Dunn launched into an energetic rendition of “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary”, and was pleased to see Mrs Cordell laughing as he adopted a comic voice to sing a harmony part in the chorus.

  He thought he could hear some sort of knocking sound as they began the last verse, but he was having too much fun to stop and find out what it was. As they launched into the naughty version of the final chorus, there was a sharp rap on the window.

  They turned to see a red-faced telegram boy angrily beckoning them to open the door. They both laughed.

  ‘I’d better go and see what he wants,’ said Mrs Cordell. ‘He don’t look too happy to be kept waiting.’

  Dunn arrived at the Maloneys’ Bloomsbury house an hour later clutching the telegram.

  ‘I’m being summoned by wire now?’ he said with a grin. ‘That makes me feel oddly important. Like some government official.’

  ‘Make yourself at home, honey,’ said Ellie. ‘And if you had a telephone, we wouldn’t have to cable you.’

  Dunn sat in his usual armchair. ‘You know that real people don’t have telephones, don’t you? Mrs C would be the only person on the street with one. The only one in the whole neighbourhood. People would queue up at her door for the chance to come in and admire it.’

  ‘She’d be the talk of north London.’

  ‘She would.’

  ‘So she should get one. She seems like the sort who’d love the attention.’

  ‘And how would she pay for it? Who would she call?’

  ‘You’d pay for it – it’s not like you’ve anything better to spend your money on. And you’d call us.’

  ‘It seems like an expensive way of keeping in touch with you two. I think we’ll stick with telegrams. There’s talk of them installing one of the new telephone boxes near our place – I can use that to call here.’

  Ellie harrumphed.

  ‘Where’s his lordship?’ asked Dunn.

  ‘Attending to matters of state.’

  ‘With the luxury of indoor plumbing. I envy you.’

  ‘You could live somewhere nicer if you wanted,’ said Ellie. ‘You don’t have to live in a little two-up two-down in Wood Green. The band’s doing well now – you can afford to move.’

  ‘I like living with Mrs C,’ he said. ‘And what would she do without me?’

  ‘She’d get another lodger.’

  ‘Someone who messes her about and doesn’t pay the rent. She’s got no one to look after her.’

  ‘You’re an old softie, Bartholomew Dunn, and I love you for it.’

  Dunn said nothing, but his face reddened ever so slightly.

  Skins returned. ‘There’s the lad himself. You been offered tea yet?’

  ‘No,’ said Dunn. ‘Mrs Maloney was too busy having a go at me for not having a telephone.’


  ‘What can I say? She likes to be able to contact people. But do you want a cuppa?’

  ‘Go on, then. Why not?’

  Skins rang the bell. Mere moments later there were running footsteps in the hall and Lottie burst breathlessly into the room.

  ‘Tea for three, please, Lottie,’ said Ellie. ‘And there’s really no need to run.’

  ‘Right you are, ma’am,’ said Lottie. ‘Although I do like to run. Good for the heart, me mum says.’

  Ellie smiled. ‘As long as you don’t think you’ll be in trouble if you don’t. Just be careful you don’t fall.’

  ‘I takes care, ma’am, don’t worry.’ She hovered.

  ‘Yes, dear?’

  ‘Mrs Ponton says do you want lunch early, what with you havin’ a guest an’ everythin’?’

  She smiled shyly at Dunn.

  Dunn smiled back.

  ‘No, thank you,’ said Ellie. ‘Two o’clock will be fine, as always.’

  ‘Very good, ma’am.’ Lottie curtsied and left.

  ‘How are you feeling now?’ said Ellie.

  ‘Me?’ asked Dunn. ‘Right as rain. Why?’

  ‘You lost someone you care about only a couple of weeks ago. I worry about you.’

  ‘Oh, I’m fine,’ he said, blithely. ‘Tough as old boots, me.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it. But don’t . . . you know . . . overcompensate.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘She means leave our housemaid alone,’ said Skins.

  Dunn laughed. ‘She’s got to be half my age. Give me some credit.’

  ‘You’ve got form when it comes to housemaids, matey boy.’

  ‘I have? Oh, that one in Gloucestershire. I was younger then.’

  ‘Well, just don’t lead her on,’ said Ellie. ‘It might be flattering that she’s taken a shine to you, but she’s a good worker and I don’t want to lose her over a broken heart.’

  ‘She’s safe around me,’ said Dunn. ‘I promise.’

  Ellie frowned. ‘Ivor and I were just talking about the police investigation.’

  ‘Or the lack of it,’ said Skins.

  ‘No one’s heard anything else, then?’ said Dunn.

  ‘As usual, not a tweety bird,’ said Ellie.

  ‘Dicky bird, love,’ said Skins.

  ‘Really? That’s a real phrase? I just thought people kept getting it wrong. Puddle said it the other day and it was all I could do to stop myself correcting her.’

  ‘No, it’s your actual rhyming slang. Dicky bird – “word”.’

  ‘It’s nonsense, that’s what it is. What on earth’s a dicky bird?’

  ‘It’s a bird. A little one. Barty?’

  ‘Don’t ask me, mate,’ said Dunn. ‘What do I know?’

  ‘You live alone. You read books.’

  ‘But not books about dicky birds.’

  ‘The point is, though,’ said Ellie, ‘that no one’s heard a word about the case. This Lavender guy doesn’t seem to be doing anything that anyone can see.’

  ‘He might just be playing his cards close to his chest,’ said Dunn. ‘It’s not like he’s got any obligation to tell any of us anything.’

  ‘Close to his vest,’ said Ellie.

  ‘His what?’ said Skins. ‘His . . . oh, what do you lot call them? Undershirt?’

  ‘No, his vest,’ said Ellie. ‘Like a . . . oh, what do you lot call them? Waistcoat?’

  ‘We definitely say “chest”,’ said Dunn. ‘No one wants to be talking about a bloke’s string vest. But he might be, mightn’t he? He might have solved it by now. We don’t know anything about the investigation.’

  ‘We could find out, though,’ said Ellie. ‘We could ask Sunderland.’

  ‘We could, I suppose,’ said Dunn. ‘But I’d feel more comfortable about it if we had something to offer him in return.’

  ‘Like what?’ said Skins. ‘We’ve got nothing.’

  ‘We’ve got everything,’ said Ellie. ‘We’ve found our man.’

  The two musicians looked at each other. Then at Ellie.

  ‘Well, it’s one of two. Which is better than one of five. And a heck of a lot better than one man somewhere in England.’

  ‘And the two are . . . ?’ said Dunn.

  ‘It’s obviously either Charlie or Danny.’

  ‘Then let’s talk to Sunderland and you can explain why,’ said Skins. ‘I’ll call him and make an appointment.’

  Superintendent Sunderland had asked them to come to Scotland Yard straight away. He offered to send a car but they decided a taxi would be quicker, and by half past one they were sitting in his office with yet more tea. This time, there were chocolate digestives to go with it.

  ‘Thank you, Superintendent,’ said Ellie as she took a biscuit from the tray. ‘I thought you said you were opposed to the idea of putting chocolate on biscuits.’

  ‘I was,’ he said. ‘And there’s part of me that still is – it feels very much against the natural order to adulterate the perfect biscuit like that. But I have to concede that they’re delicious.’

  Ellie smiled and took another.

  ‘I’m rather glad you contacted me today,’ Sunderland said as he took a sip of his tea. ‘I have news.’

  ‘Blanche?’ said Dunn.

  ‘In a way, yes. I’ve taken over the murder inquiry. Lavender has been . . . well, one doesn’t like to air the force’s dirty laundry in public, but he’s facing disciplinary action for . . . other matters. I can’t say more, but his cases have been divvied up and I said I’d take this one, what with my team having an interest in the club. I convinced his superiors that the murder and my jewel theft are related.’

  ‘You think they are?’ said Skins.

  ‘It’s like I said before – I’m not keen on coincidences. I’ve still no proof of any connection, but I can’t get past the idea that one serious crime is one too many, but two in the same place is even harder to swallow.’

  ‘How were his enquiries progressing?’ asked Ellie.

  ‘Not well. He still hadn’t figured out how the poison was administered. You remember he was convinced it was in the food or drink you were served at the club? Probably the drink, since the cocktail was the only thing that only one of you had.’

  ‘The Sidecar,’ said Skins.

  ‘The Sidecar, yes. But the police surgeon said there was no trace of the poison in the stomach. If she’d drunk it, that’s where it would have been, but he found none.’

  ‘So how . . . ?’ said Dunn.

  ‘That’s our problem in a nutshell – how? Until we know how she was given the poison, the surgeon can’t even begin to speculate on the who, when, and where of it.’

  ‘Was there any in her mouth?’ asked Ellie. ‘Or on her skin?’

  ‘On her skin?’ said Skins.

  ‘Some poisons can kill you just by you touching them,’ she said.

  ‘Blimey.’

  ‘The police surgeon is looking now,’ said Sunderland. ‘I’ll let you know what he finds in case it jogs any memories.’

  ‘And what about the diamond deserter?’ said Dunn. ‘Any news about him?’

  ‘A little,’ said Sunderland. ‘I’ve had confirmation from the War Office about some of the chaps you told me about.’

  ‘And they’re not your deserter,’ said Ellie.

  ‘Probably not, no.’ He opened one of the many files on his desk. ‘Let me see,’ he said. ‘Ah, yes. Your man Cornelius Rawson—’

  ‘Alfie,’ interrupted Dunn.

  ‘Alfie, yes. His official record confirms that he was in the Essex Regiment exactly as you said. Decorated at Gallipoli for safely leading his men out of a deadly ambush. Finished his war in France.’

  ‘Still as a first lieutenant,’ said Skins.

  ‘Despite being decorated for gallantry,’ said Dunn.

  ‘Yes. It seems they thought about making him up to first lieutenant, and later straight up to captain when things got even dicier and they were short of suitable men to do the job
, but officers in the field counselled against it. There’s a confidential note from an Australian colonel who saw him during the action at Gallipoli, saying, “Nice enough bloke, and brave as they come, but he’s not quite the full shilling. Give him the gong, but don’t promote him too high or he’ll start getting men killed.” A major in Egypt said much the same.’

  ‘He’s a lovely man,’ agreed Ellie. ‘But they’re right – he’s not terribly bright.’

  ‘Indeed. So, given that your assessment of his abilities matches theirs, I’m inclined to believe you’ve met the real Alfie,’ said Sunderland. ‘So I don’t think he’s our man. Who’s next? James Albert – Bertie. He’s the fellow Skins thought was a real member of the tank regiment, and it seems he was. There was a Major James Albert of the Royal Tank Regiment, formerly of the Royal Field Artillery. Served with distinction.’

  ‘And you’re sure it was the same man?’ said Ellie.

  ‘His description matches, right down to the overuse of pomade. Who else have we got? Ah, yes, Edwin Cashmore of Cashmore Engineering. They’re a very well-known firm up at the War Office and he’s been personally vouched for by one of the bigwigs there.’

  ‘Which leaves our two main suspects,’ said Skins. ‘Charlie and Danny.’

  ‘Just so,’ said Sunderland. ‘And the main records aren’t a great deal of help. There’s no army record for a Dudley Daniels at all. Nothing for the navy, either. Not even the Royal Flying Corps.’

  ‘What about the Secret Service Bureau?’ said Ellie.

  Sunderland frowned. ‘The what, madam?’

  ‘Oh, don’t try that,’ she said. ‘Our mutual friend works for them. And my aunt has had dealings with them. You know exactly who I mean.’

  He smiled. ‘I’m afraid I’m unable to comment, but if it were possible to make enquiries of a non-existent government body, I’m sure we’d be making them.’

  ‘But it could be him,’ said Skins.

  ‘It could,’ said Sunderland. ‘Just as it could be Robert Chandler.’

  ‘Charlie,’ said Dunn.

  ‘Yes. There are a couple of records for Robert Chandlers. One was a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, the other was an infantry captain. The naval Chandler served in the North Atlantic; the infantry Chandler spent most of his time in France.’