Murder of a Movie Star

by L. B. Hathaway

  ‘Mnnn.’ Dr Poots nodded and stared at the plant. ‘It could be. I won’t know for sure until I can check the body back in my laboratory. What are these things doing in here, anyhow? They’re deadly! I see the water is missing. Even drinking that could have caused death. It would certainly explain the blue tinge.’

  Dr Poots had gone on: ‘She’d only have had to drink a very little bit to die. She might not have noticed it, although the taste of Foxtrot orchid is bitter. This water glass smells like it’s had lemon or orange in it, to me. Or honey? Maybe with gin, too. Perhaps one of those new fashionable cocktails? That would have masked the bitterness all right.’

  ‘My gosh! A Bee’s Knees!’

  The Chief Inspector had harrumphed. ‘If we’re treating this as a murder. She could have concocted the stuff herself, and drunk it herself.’

  Posie had turned, disbelieving. ‘You think so, sir? It seems an unusual way to choose to die. Poisoning oneself is a terrible way to go.’

  ‘She might have been unhinged. A mad, crazed sort of a fan, despite her professional affiliations here. That’s my initial guess. Explains the outfit, anyhow.’

  Dr Poots had snapped his bag shut. ‘I’m inclined to agree with Miss Parker, Lovelace. For once, mind. It’s not for me to tell you how to do your job but there are certainly easier ways to die; she would have suffered a good deal of pain, plus terrible hallucinations and palpitations before expiring here. Poor lass, whoever she was. I’ll have more for you later. I’ll send my report directly to you.’

  Posie was re-running the Pathologist’s words over and over as they entered the Green Room, led inside by Bertie Samuelson. A police constable from Richmond stood guarding the door.

  Inside, the place was spacious and lived up to its name: every couch and rug in the place was a different colour green, and the muslin curtains hanging at the windows which blotted out the bright morning sun made the place feel like a murky fish-bowl. It felt distinctly underwater, and it was very hot.

  Lovelace had been joined by Constable McCrae who was holding his pad aloft, eagerly awaiting the taking of notes. They all sat down quickly and without ceremony around the coffee table. The Inspector got straight to the point.

  ‘I’m afraid that the dead woman is one of your employees, Mr Samuelson. A Miss Elaine Dickinson?’

  The big man looked aghast. Beads of sweat were breaking out all over his face. ‘Elaine? Elaine? Goodness me.’

  He had balled his hands up into fists and was rubbing at his eyes. He composed himself and took a cigar from his pocket, taking his time to cut and light it. He took a drag. ‘Please excuse me, it’s rather a shock, that’s all. How did she die?’

  ‘We don’t know as yet, I’m afraid. You knew her well, sir?’

  ‘Not well, no. But she was with me from the off, you see. She was always in charge of the female movie stars here, for dressing and personal needs and the like. When I opened up here in 1914, just before the Great War, she came and asked me for work. She was never the brightest spark, was never going to set the world alight, and in truth, I felt sorry for her, but she was a decent worker and a real film fan. She lived her life through the cinema: knew all the stars and the movies like the back of her hand. She would have worked for free if I hadn’t paid her her wages. She once told me she felt she was really at home here, living a sort of dream.’

  Posie thought of the drooping little woman with her bright shoes and wondered what sort of dream it had been to end up like that. She bit her lip.

  ‘What can you tell me about Miss Dickinson, sir?’ asked the Chief Inspector. ‘Did she seem quite herself of late? Any mood swings? Depressions? Anything which might have meant she wanted to end it all?’

  Posie sighed: Lovelace was obviously sticking to his guns about it being an elaborately-dressed up suicide.

  Bertie Samuelson was puffing away. ‘Gracious, no. I wasn’t with her all the time, of course, but I’d say quite the opposite was true.’

  He thought for a ponderous minute.

  ‘It’s only been these last couple of months, since Brian’s been filming Henry the King, in which I’d noticed the change in her. A change for the better, mind.’

  ‘I see.’

  Constable McCrae was writing furiously, but Posie hadn’t got her notebook out. She was too busy thinking. She jumped straight in:

  ‘Two questions, sir. You don’t happen to know if she had taken to wearing an engagement ring, do you?’

  Bertie Samuelson shook his head. ‘No, I don’t. Sorry. But you can look in her room here, of course. Maybe you’ll find what you’re looking for up there?’

  ‘Her room?’ Posie spoke more sharply than she had intended to.

  Bertie Samuelson nodded. ‘That’s right. She’s had the same room since we opened up here. Nine years now. She didn’t really have a family to speak of, that was one of the reasons I felt sorry for her in the first place; just a brother in a very unfashionable line of work. As I said, this was her home. What was your second question, Miss Parker?’

  ‘Would you say that Elaine Dickinson got on well with her current female star? Silvia Hanro? Enough to want to dress like her, to pretend to be her?’

  The owner of Worton Hall looked at Posie and then shrugged. ‘I really couldn’t say, Miss Parker. I know she respected Miss Hanro and tried to serve her well, but I don’t think it went as far as copying her. Adulation, you mean? A fixation?’

  Posie nodded.

  ‘No.’ The big man shook his head. ‘I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. If anything it was the male stars Elaine had a crush on. She was besotted with Robbie Fontaine. She was known for it, these last three months. Well, all women are, aren’t they?’

  Posie managed a smile.

  ‘Thank you. That was most helpful.’

  Lovelace nodded approvingly. ‘Indeed, sir. Most helpful. That will be all. We’d better call for Mr Langley now, as the man who discovered the body. Can you go and find him, McCrae?’

  But before Mr Samuelson could leave, there was an almighty ruckus outside. The Richmond policeman on sentry duty put his head round the door, chortling.

  ‘There’s someone outside, sir, claiming she’s a Lady-so-and-so. A likely story! You should see what she’s wearin’! But I thought you should know. She insisted on seein’ you. Says she’s got somethin’ important.’

  ‘Dolly!’ gasped Posie. ‘Thank goodness!’

  ‘Let her in, Constable. And that Lady so-and-so is Lady Cardigeon, and you’ll get a dashed good talking to about this later, lad, you mark my words. I don’t think we need your sort of cover on the door: best be without you if you’re going to act like that. You’re discharged.’

  The bobby retreated, shame-faced, and Dolly rounded the door, looking small and bright and triumphant. Her arms were loaded down with several items.

  ‘What is it, my Lady? And please, in future, stick with either Posie or myself. We’ve got enough on our plates without losing you into the bargain.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Dolly merrily. ‘Sorry! You asked what I was up to: well, I put two and two together and made five and realised it must be Elaine, that little frump, who was in the dressing room, dead as a doornail. So I did some fishin’ of my own.’

  ‘Where?’ cried the Chief Inspector. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Up in her room, upstairs, of course,’ said Dolly, a touch defensively. ‘And you’ll be glad I did. Because look what I found.’

  She came over to the coffee table and tipped the contents of her haul over it.

  ‘That could have been key evidence from a crime scene, my Lady!’ bleated the Inspector uselessly. ‘What were you doing up there, rootling around?’

  ‘He’s right,’ said Posie, but without much conviction. Instead, she was staring hard at the collection of things on the table. The objects were damning.

  A bottle of green ink and a pen.

  A few pieces of script paper of the same type and size and with the same writing o
n them as the death threats which had been received by Silvia Hanro, but these had blottings-outs and lines and marks on them: practice versions.

  A small roll of gold foil, the same as had been wrapped around the severed finger which had been sent, and the same as which had been found wrapped around the finger of Elaine herself.

  A few scrappy pieces of paper with many attempts at a signature on them. The same signature, over and over:

  Silvia Hanro.

  And most tellingly of all, a small sheet of headed notepaper with a quick scrawled note below it, which had obviously accompanied a grisly little cargo all of its own.

  J.R.R. DICKINSON – FUNERAL DIRECTOR, RICHMOND

  Elaine,

  Can’t think what you want this for. Practical joke, is it?

  It won’t be missed here, but you owe me, big time.

  Joe.

  ‘See?’ said Dolly. ‘As well as a dead body we’ve found our person making the death threats and sending fingers!’

  ‘It certainly looks like it,’ said the Chief Inspector grimly.

  ****

  Twenty-Five

  ‘I told you her brother was in a distinctly unfashionable line of work,’ said Bertie Samuelson, picking up the Funeral Director’s note distastefully.

  He nodded. ‘I remember now. Elaine was going to have to join him as an assistant if I didn’t give her a job. She said it gave her the creeps – dead bodies, I mean.’

  Dolly raised an eyebrow. ‘Obviously she changed her mind, though, didn’t she? If she was prepared to send bits of bodies to the woman she worked for? It couldn’t have affected her that much, could it?’

  Bertie Samuelson was splaying his hands. ‘This doesn’t make any sense. It’s strange. I just can’t imagine Elaine would be behind something like this.’

  The Chief Inspector tsk-tsked. ‘Once you’ve been in a job like mine for long enough, Mr Samuelson, you’ve seen it all: strange things, odd things, things there don’t seem any motive for.’

  ‘But that’s just it,’ cut in Posie sharply. ‘Why would Elaine go to the trouble of sending elaborate death threats to Miss Hanro – which, I admit, it looks like she has done – only to kill herself before she could bring the plan to fruition? If those telegrams to Sam Stubbs and his friends at the other newspapers are to be believed, she had wanted as big an audience in place as possible for her final showdown. So why end it all before that? Seems a lot of work for nothing, if you ask me.’

  Inspector Lovelace shrugged. ‘I stand by my initial theory that Miss Dickinson was somehow not quite right in the head. Maybe the movie world had got too much for her? Or maybe she felt guilty about what she had done, and decided to end it all.’

  ‘Mnnn,’ Posie muttered in a quietly disbelieving sort of way. She was unconvinced. It was very neat. Or neat-ish, anyhow. She only half-heard the snatches of conversation which continued around her:

  ‘I’ll ask this brother, Joe, to come here now, to tell us whether or not this is actually Elaine’s writing on the death threats; then we’ll know, wont we?’ nodded the Inspector. ‘And while he’s about it he can formally identify the body.’

  ‘I’ll call him if you like.’ Mr Samuelson nodded bleakly, turning towards the door, ‘I was her employer, after all.’

  Posie kept thinking of the gold-foil ring around Elaine’s finger, and she couldn’t shake the image off. Why would a girl like Elaine, a nobody, try and threaten a star like Silvia Hanro? What exactly had she hoped to achieve with the threats and the finger?

  What was it that Posie couldn’t see? Or what was it she wasn’t meant to see, something which was obliterating the truth?

  ‘I’d like to see her room, sir,’ Posie said, and Lovelace simply nodded at her.

  ‘I’ll show you up, lovey,’ said Dolly, keen to help. But just as she and Dolly were about to leave with Mr Samuelson, Lovelace put a finger to his lips.

  ‘Shhhh! Listen. What’s that?’

  And sure enough, a strange and whispered argument between a man and a woman could be heard going on somewhere outside in the corridor. But every word came through clear as a bell. Posie remembered the talk she had had with the odious Hector Mallow, how he had overheard an argument out in this very corridor while waiting in the Green Room, how by the chance of some strange acoustics at Worton Hall secrets didn’t always remain secrets.

  Posie, listening, felt a sharp sense of relief flooding through her.

  ‘Can it be?’ cried Posie. ‘Is it her? Oh, praise be!’

  It was Brian Langley arguing outside, with Silvia Hanro. They’d obviously just bumped into each other by accident.

  ‘Where the very devil have you been? I was going crazy with worry!’

  They all listened in intently, eager eavesdroppers. Brian Langley sounded largely relieved, but more than anything, furious:

  ‘I reported you missing to the police, you little idiot!’

  Silvia Hanro replied snappishly, her cold whispers not quite masking her fear. ‘Is it any of your business where I go or what I do?’

  ‘I’d say so, wouldn’t you? Today of all days! Today can make or break both of us. As you well know!’

  ‘Well, I’m here now. You said nine o’clock, and I’m here on the dot, ready for filming. Like usual. Ready to face what may come: death included. But you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I can’t think what you mean.’

  ‘Yes, you do. I know what you’ve done, Brian. Those notes were meant to scare me, weren’t they? All that wretched symbolism designed to frighten me. Well, you haven’t succeeded. It’s done now. You’ll just have to deal with it. Like it or lump it.’

  ‘You absolute fool. How could you? You succumbed? I warned you about this on Sunday, out in the woods. You don’t know what you’ve done.’

  ‘I know absolutely what I’ve done. And for once, I’m not playing by your rules or listening to your advice. What’s going on here, anyhow? Why are policemen crawling all over the place? Surely you didn’t call them all in for me? Or for the party? Bit over the top, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not everything revolves around you, although most things seem to, admittedly. I found a body, this morning. I thought it was you, initially. It was awful. There’s a rumour going around the place now that it’s Elaine Dickinson.’

  ‘Elaine? What? My Elaine?’

  And then the voice of Constable McCrae could be heard outside, asking Brian Langley to step into the Green Room.

  ‘Blast!’ Posie groaned at the Constable’s efficiency. It had all started to get interesting. And surprising.

  ‘Stay,’ ordered Lovelace, motioning over at Posie and Dolly, although Bertie Samuelson was allowed to leave.

  Brian Langley entered the room looking harried and threw himself down on an old couch, and crossed his arms. He stared at Posie for a second, as if seeing her anew for the first time, then he looked at the Chief Inspector.

  ‘So is it Elaine, then?’

  ‘We believe so, Mr Langley.’

  ‘How did she die?’

  ‘I couldn’t say. But I think I heard Miss Hanro just now outside, so that’s a relief for all concerned, isn’t it?’

  The Producer blew out his cheeks and finally nodded. ‘I’ll say.’

  The Inspector continued: ‘Especially for Mr Fontaine, I’d imagine. He looked positively off his mind with grief, or something, this morning. It must be the devil of a thing, having a fiancée go missing on you. He must be over the moon just now. As are you, I expect.’

  Brian Langley stared at the policeman through narrowed eyes but refused to be drawn. If he suspected that the Chief Inspector knew the truth about Silvia Hanro’s relationship with Robbie Fontaine then he kept his cool and stayed silent. He lit a cigarette.

  After answering a few routine questions about where he had been the evening before, particularly around midnight, to which he replied he hadn’t left Worton Hall all night, and whether he had known the dead girl at all, to which he had replied i
n the negative, he sat sulkily smoking.

  Posie cut in.

  ‘I understand that it was you who found the body, Mr Langley. And you thought it was Miss Hanro, without any doubt?’

  Brian Langley shrugged. ‘Well, don’t forget –- I didn’t get very close –- I saw the body and then I called for help.’

  He seemed to think for a second or two. Then, removing his cigarette, he spoke softly, so Posie had to lean right in to hear him.

  ‘But take note of this: I’m not often fooled, Miss Parker. And I have a sense for what looks convincing or not, otherwise I’d be in a different job. So when I say I found that girl and thought it was Silvia Hanro lying there, I’m telling you that it looked pretty darn convincing.’

  He took a deep, thoughtful drag. ‘I had no idea the girl could dress herself up so well: she obviously had an eye for detail. And the dramatic. It looked like the work of a professional. It’s a shame,’ he continued smoothly, ‘I could have used her as a cheap double in one of my films if I’d known she was that good.’

  He looked at Posie in a frank, appraising way, as if he was buying fish, or meat, or maybe one of his prize orchids in a special market. ‘You too, maybe.’

  Posie shuddered.

  ‘I like your hair, Miss Parker. Very now. You look quite the ingénue. Maybe lose some weight and I’ll think of hiring you on my next film as an extra, or, if you’re lucky, as a double. If you’ve given up detecting by then, of course. Which you might well do: I’ve seen precious little evidence of your work so far in what I asked you to do. I’ve half a mind to ask for my money back.’

  Posie flushed with embarrassment and stifled down the urge to slap the man but before she could do so the Chief Inspector jumped in:

  ‘Miss Parker has been absolutely instrumental in finding the source of the death threats made to Silvia Hanro. I think you will find that the danger is now past, absolutely never to return.’

  ‘What?’ Brian Langley stared from Posie to Lovelace in what looked like disbelief.

  ‘You mean…’