Posie turned to Tom and smiled.
‘Because it had happened, hadn’t it, Mr Moran? Your affair with Elaine Dickinson? Over the last three months? Sheila Fontaine spoke the truth to your not-yet-wife.’
‘Be quiet!’ roared Silvia Hanro, stubbing out her cigarette furiously on the marble top of the fireplace. ‘Tell them it’s not true, Tom!’
But Tom simply smiled lopsidedly. ‘What makes you say that, Miss Parker? Why would you think I had an affair with that little woman at Worton Hall? It doesn’t make sense.’
Posie sighed heavily.
‘Because when you left the specialist hospital where you were being treated for mental health issues, just over three months ago, you were a wreck. You came back to Worton Hall at Silvia’s insistence, not knowing what else to do. But everything was different; too different, wasn’t it? Even Silvia was different with you, and your physical relationship had dwindled to almost nothing. You suspected she was only staying with you out of pity, and that was confirmed to you last night, in her note, when she ran off, wasn’t it? It was terrible. Awful, really.’
Posie looked over at Silvia who she saw was licking at her lips nervously. Posie turned back to Tom.
‘You were completely unprepared, and the situation you were in hit you like a steam train. You weren’t a superstar anymore, but you didn’t want to be Mark Paris in his new altered state, did you? Didn’t want the world’s sympathy.’
‘Can you blame me?’
Posie shifted in her seat, tried to look sympathetic. If truth were told she was finding the going pretty sticky. ‘Yours was truly an unenviable lot, I agree, but it might have been better to be truthful. For yourself, I mean. You took another, slipshod identity and you got on with things. Only, you weren’t happy, were you?’
At Tom’s silence she continued:
‘It felt awful pretending to be someone else, didn’t it? So when Elaine Dickinson told you that she knew who you really were, and that she had loved you for years – you had been her hero – you were flattered. Bertie Samuelson was right when he told me that Elaine didn’t have a crush on Miss Hanro, only on the male movie stars. But he got it slightly wrong: it had only ever been you for Elaine, never Robbie Fontaine. She had loved you like no other in those giddy, glamorous pre-war days. You were relieved that someone knew who you were, what you had been. And then you took things to the next level.’
‘No!’ whispered Silvia, rooted to the spot. ‘I don’t believe it!’
Posie was focused on Tom. She nodded. ‘And then you kept the affair going, didn’t you? You couldn’t stop it once it was in full-flow. Elaine was intoxicating in her adoration for you, even if she was dreary, laughable, even. And she adored you completely. Isn’t that right? Why, she told her own brother that all her dreams had come true at last! She started to dress more glamorously, to wear what she thought were fashionable things to keep your attention. Her brother told me that she was a changed girl. Elaine couldn’t believe her luck.’
‘Tom?’ shrieked Silvia, a good deal choked up. ‘Is this true?’
The man turned, looking pained. His shattered face was screwed up and tears weren’t far off. He took off his broken blue glasses and rubbed at his one good eye with his right hand.
‘Of course not, my love.’
‘Oh, but it is,’ said Posie in a low, carrying voice, looking over at Silvia. ‘Although I’m sorry to have to tell this tale. This affair with Elaine was the reason Sheila wanted to blackmail him. She tried on Sunday.’
Posie looked back at Tom. He shook his head slightly. Posie carried on, regardless:
‘It wasn’t anything to do with Sheila revealing your true identity as Mark Paris, was it? She had found out all about your little tryst on one of her jaunts up to Worton Hall, or, more likely, her friend, the cook, Mrs Thynne, had observed what was going on and had told her. She had the room next door to Elaine, after all, and apparently the walls there are paper thin.’
‘So Sheila Fontaine tried to blackmail Tom over a tin-pot affair? And then she told my sister about it later?’ cut in Pamela incredulously. Tom Moran was now shaking his head over and over.
‘That’s right.’ Posie nodded. ‘Sheila Fontaine tried to blackmail both sides. But she failed straightaway with Tom. You wouldn’t play ball, would you, Tom? I think I’m right in saying that you laughed off her accusations by saying Silvia would never believe it – they sounded ridiculous – and you had a big row with Sheila Fontaine outside the Green Room at Worton Hall on Sunday morning. It was overheard by an extra – Hector Mallow – who mentioned it in passing to me, not quite understanding what was being said. He had heard the words “squalid little carry-on!” But Sheila was vengeful, wasn’t she? She realised that if she couldn’t blackmail you, she’d hurt you instead. She’d ruin you with a piece of devastating information, and tell you it out of spite.’
Tom continued to regard Posie in a stiff, hurt, silence. Golly, this is just awful, thought Posie to herself.
‘She told you about the baby, didn’t she?’ Posie stared at Tom now. He choked for a moment, and then whispered:
‘Baby? What baby?’
‘Don’t play dumb. About the baby Silvia had borne Brian Langley, in 1918, while you were away recovering from having your face blown apart on the front line.’
‘DON’T!’ Silvia shrieked and covered her eyes, her face burning visibly red beneath the paint and powder. ‘This is too, too much!’
Tom Moran turned and looked at Silvia for a few seconds, willing his wife to look at him. He looked like he was pleading with her, silently.
Brian Langley was making strange swallowing noises, as if in real discomfort, and at his side Pamela Hanro crossed her arms. She stared at Posie with venomous eyes.
‘I can’t bear this. Is it really necessary to drag everyone’s secret stories out into the light, Miss Parker? Can’t we leave it there and all go home?
‘Not really, I’m afraid. Because that piece of information, about the baby, triggered a chain of events which have led to at least three deaths since then. Have led us right here, right now. And we’re only just holding on by the skin of our teeth. But it’s not over yet, is it?’
Posie paused.
‘Is it, Mr Langley?’
****
Thirty-Five
The Producer stared at Posie.
‘You still think all of this was me, do you? Foolish girl! All because of that ruddy gun in my hands when the lights went up?’
‘No.’ Posie shook her head. ‘I realised, later admittedly, that it was you who shouted out “What is this, now?” when the lights first went off at the Wrap Party. That was crucially important to my understanding of all of this. You had been thrown the gun under cover of darkness, hadn’t you? It was your own gun admittedly, which the killer had managed to take from your house, from your gun cupboard, by bribing your oriental manservant. It was dashed clever. You were fixed up and it looked as if you were caught red-handed.’
Brian Langley brightened visibly. ‘Thank goodness! You believe me!’
‘And the handcuffs? Was that your idea? I’m all agog for details.’
Brain Langley’s eyes creased in vexation. He shook his head. ‘I simply can’t tell you, Miss Parker. I can remember nothing beyond staring down at my gun in my hands in complete surprise…the rest is a total blank.’
‘How convenient,’ muttered Posie. Then aloud:
‘But you knew very well when you called me in to Worton Hall what you were dealing with. Those death threats: you knew who was behind them, didn’t you? You knew what the writer was capable of, and you wanted to protect Silvia and you wanted to protect them from themselves.’
Brian Langley hung his head.
‘It’s the same reason you reported Silvia officially missing last night. You were genuinely worried about her, weren’t you? As you believed her to be in grave danger. We overheard you this morning telling Silvia that she was an absolute fool, that she didn’t know wha
t she had done, when she told you about her marriage.’
Posie continued:
‘That outburst wasn’t just a question of professional annoyance; you realised the danger Silvia had put herself into. You’re a good man, Mr Langley. Even if you do stick a horrible stinking mask over your kindnesses: even if I couldn’t see it in the first place. It’s why both of the women in this room love you more than they can ever tell you. Why you’re a national hero and you’ve been decorated. Even if you can’t bear that. You’re a good man.’
Posie stood up sharply.
‘Not like the monster chained at your side.’
Posie stared down at the man with the wrecked face in front of her, the man she had found wonderful, a ruined fantasy. She was barely able to say the words. They came out quietly and slowly, as if she had a furry tongue after a bad cold.
‘It was you, Tom Moran. Or Mark Paris, as you were. You did all of this. You were planning on killing your own wife today at that Wrap Party. But you missed. It proved dashed difficult in the event, didn’t it? With your badly shaking hand? And the sluggishness caused by the opium still in your veins?’
Silvia had gone completely silent. Tom laughed amiably.
‘My dear girl, you’re quite wrong. Even if I was dallying with the dresser – which I wasn’t, for the record – surely it wasn’t enough to want to kill my wonderful wife over? You’re making a big mistake here.’
Posie shook her head. ‘I’m not wrong. Unfortunately.’
Posie glanced over at the doorway to the landing. Feeling very alone, she continued:
‘After you had heard Sheila’s bombshell about the baby you were angry, desperately so. Rage drove you on to do what you did next, didn’t it, Tom? Rage at having discovered what the two people you trusted most in the world had been doing behind your back in 1918.’
Posie was more certain of the puzzle pieces now.
She remembered Tom’s words to her the day before when he had been telling her how wonderful Silvia was: ‘she’s made me what I am: I owe her all of this.’
But at the time Posie hadn’t realised he was being sarcastic.
Posie nodded to herself in the tremulous silence.
‘But you had come to bitterly despise Silvia even before this shocking news about the baby, hadn’t you? This whole thing has been a good deal about hate for you, hasn’t it, Tom? You hated Silvia more and more over the last three months. You blamed her entirely for your current circumstances; your lack of standing, your measly pay packet each month which wasn’t enough to feed your opium habit, your lack of any real possessions. Even the flat she had bought you was just a plaything for herself! She had brought you back to Worton Hall, and for what? And to make matters worse, she had gone on to become a movie star of epic proportions. Talk about a role reversal since those days in Flicker Alley! You had spent all of your own earnings on drugs in those pre-war days, I’m guessing. You felt it was all her fault. Even if things weren’t going entirely her way now, and even if her star was shining a little dimmer.’
Posie walked about a little, tamping down her nerves. She noticed that somehow Tom had managed to light up a Turkish cigarette, one handed. He inhaled deeply.
‘This is crazy.’
‘No, it’s not really. You needed your wife dead and you’d been thinking about how to do it for a while. Hadn’t you?’
‘Of course not!’
‘Why?’ came the barely-audible whisper of Silvia, whose eyes were saucer-like in their fright, horribly reminiscent of the take which had been played again and again at the Wrap Party.
Posie waved the lawyers’ note. ‘This is the part of the puzzle which concerns money. It concerns the Hanro Family Trust.’
Silvia and Pamela both followed the note with their eyes. Posie continued:
‘Another of the five key facts I realised was important today concerned Silvia Hanro’s age. You’re thirty next month, aren’t you, Miss Hanro? Not too old, you protest, to be a star. But it is old to be unmarried and in receipt of a trust’s income and capital, according to the fusty bunch of people who drew up the Hanro Family Trust years and years ago. You are the current beneficiary, but if you don’t marry by age thirty, both income and capital pass immediately to your sister Pamela.’
Silvia stared. ‘Is this important?’
‘It is if you want the money. Or should I say, if a potential husband wants the money. Which he would receive, by the way, if you married him and then pre-deceased him. And Tom Moran wanted that money bigtime. He didn’t want to be palmed off with a paltry little London flat in the Albany. He wanted serious money: the whole Hanro Trust.’
‘This is all news to me,’ said Silvia, her nerves holding.
‘Your lawyers received letters asking for clarification on this point recently, apparently signed by you. I’m guessing that Elaine Dickinson, judging by the practice signatures up in her room, was a dab hand at imitating your writing. She must have been in on this whole idea with Tom. She was very much part of the plan, and a good little actress in her own right: careful not to be seen around the place with Tom, careful to be seen visibly lusting after Robbie Fontaine.’
Posie then explained that answers had been sent to Silvia from the lawyers, but that these had simply disappeared en route, most likely ending up in other, interested hands. Very interested hands.
Posie looked directly at Tom.
‘You had been meaning to convince Silvia to marry you in secret before her thirtieth birthday, anyhow, hadn’t you? To break the rules Sunstar Films and the film industry in general had put in place about marriage. You had another month to go before her birthday. But anger at that revelation about the baby changed the whole plan. You had to act quickly now.’
‘What plan?’ whispered Silvia, audibly enough for them all to hear a sick fear in her voice.
Posie chewed at her lip. The whole truth was distinctly unpalatable.
‘Initially, Tom here had been planning on marrying you, and then killing you, but much later, in private, after a good long while. He would have got the Hanro Trust money, and then married Elaine, I’m guessing. Or at least, that’s what he told her, to judge by the clippings of wedding dresses up in her room. Her brother certainly thought she was going to marry.’
Silvia gasped.
‘But the truth about the baby changed things. Tom saw a way not only to kill you and get your trust money, but a way to get revenge upon both you and Brian Langley in the most public, most humiliating of ways, with all the press watching. You’d be dead, and Brian Langley would be ruined, both as a man and as a Film Producer. And if Tom could plant enough evidence on Brian, he’d be had up for your murder. And Brian would hang. That was the most important thing. So time was of the essence: Tom had to act straight away. But you needed to be married first.’
Posie shook her head in quiet disbelief.
‘I’m not sure quite how he did it, Miss Hanro, but I assume Tom forced you to agree to marry him on Sunday, despite your misgivings about going against film industry rules. I guess he told you he’d kill himself if you didn’t marry him? Did he put a gun to his own head? Did you feel you had to go along with the marriage because you knew Tom might actually pull the trigger, based on his very recent mental health issues? And you felt guilty, of course. So you promised him you’d apply for the licence the very next day, the Monday, and get married on Wednesday. As quickly as the Registry Office would allow.’
Silvia stared at the floor in silence. Brian Langley nodded and tried to pull away from the man at his side, uselessly. ‘That’s right, Miss Parker. Spot on.’
He looked over at his leading lady with a mixture of scorn and choked emotion.
‘Silvia came to tell me what was going on on Sunday afternoon and I advised her against it, of course. I knew Mark Paris of old, and while I felt sorry for him, what had happened to him in the war, I knew what he was capable of. He was always a man who sought his own satisfaction above all others. He had shown ruthlessnes
s at every stage in his career and had lived the high life. You’re right: I believe he spent all of his considerable film wages before the war. On drugs, I think. Silvia knew that, too: must have been terrified he’d become addicted again. I saw it again these last couple of weeks, the slide into drugs. I could smell it on him, see his apathy. At least in the hospital he couldn’t touch those sorts of drugs. When I saw him there he was obviously in a bad way, but not as bad as this.’
‘You visited him in the hospital?’
‘Of course. As often as I could. His going to war had been a huge publicity attraction for Sunstar Films: we had no idea what sort of war it would be. I knew Silvia couldn’t bear to visit him, and he was alone: he had no other family that I knew of. He didn’t tell you about my visits?’
‘No.’
Brian Langley shrugged. ‘It goes without saying that I didn’t want Silvia to marry him. I assumed he might be after Silvia’s film earnings, I didn’t even know about a Trust Fund. I told her that the suicide threats were a load of old rot and to ignore them. Which she didn’t, obviously.’
Posie nodded grimly. ‘She succumbed. So with the secret wedding set for the Wednesday morning, Tom began, with the enthusiastic help of Elaine, to send death threats to his future wife, as a way of establishing a legitimate background if it was investigated later. You knew it was him, didn’t you, Mr Langley? You wanted, in hiring me, to warn Tom off.’
‘That’s right. I knew he was dangerous. I wanted to nip it in the bud. I thought he’d get scared with you around, and stop.’
‘I must have been a gift for you.’ Posie smiled tightly, looking at Tom straight on. ‘A lady detective, inefficient and bumbling, yet a credible witness to the situation, if needed, later on. It was indicative to you that Brian Langley was at least a bit rattled, wasn’t it? And at least the police weren’t brought in, sniffing around. For you were skating on thin ice, weren’t you? Things were already going wrong for you yesterday. Badly wrong. Unravelling.’
Tom smoked reflectively, then ground out his stub on the floor. At his calm silence Posie continued:
Murder of a Movie Star Page 33
