Beach Apples

by Vera Loy

The Clue of the Dancing Robber

  Author’s Note. The prompt for this story was a 1940s style thriller, with apologies to Cluedo.

  “Secretary Murders Widowed Mistress in Adelaide LoveNest!” Vivian Sherlock glanced from the screaming headline on her daily newspaper to the pale young man sitting on the other side of her desk. He was perched on the edge of his seat, his clenched hands well on the way to ruining the brim of his hat. His Adam’s apple bobbed nervously.

  Vivian blew a perfect smoke ring through pursed red lips and frowned. She studied him for a moment before shifting her feet off the heavy desk and stubbing out her cigarette.

  “Say that again?” she asked.

  “Nigel is innocent!” insisted the young man. His voice began to rise. “He’s a civilised man. Sensitive. He would never hit someone on the head like that, not with a spanner! All that blood!” he shuddered.

  Vivian looked at the paper again. “It says here the police have an eyewitness,” she said flatly.

  “They can’t have, it must be a mistake.” The young man swallowed. “Nigel had no motive. Despite what the papers say, he wasn’t her lover.”

  Vivian raised a sceptical eyebrow. A blush rose in the cheeks of the young man opposite, but he continued to meet her gaze. “Maybe not,” she conceded, “But he was caught with a gold snuff box in his pocket. Robbery could be motive enough!”

  “It was a gift!” protested her would-be-client. “My aunt loved to dance. Nigel is an elegant dancer and sometimes he would escort her to dances. She promised it to him, as a token of her thanks.” His cheeks were now scarlet. “I am her sole heir, and I say it was a gift.”

  Vivian turned her eyes back to the newspaper. Who was the investigating officer? A flicker of interest crossed her face for the first time. It was her old nemesis, Inspector Felix. A picture of his foxhound face and toothbrush moustache rose into her mind. She remembered the last time they had crossed paths, when he had dared to call her ‘love’ and told her to go home and stop meddling in police business. She ground her teeth at the memory. The nerve of the man! Which one of them had years of experience working undercover for the government during the war, for heaven’s sake?

  Until that moment, Vivian had been going to regretfully decline. It seemed the case was open and shut and she didn’t want to take a punter’s money for nothing. She had some standards, after all.

  “Will you take the case?” the young man was asking, a sense of desperation in his voice.

  She changed her mind and smiled at the young man. “Very well, Mr Ainsworth. I’ll take the case.”

  A couple of hours later, Vivian stood outside the door of Number 56 Fitzroy Terrace. She was wearing a smart red jacket over stylish grey trousers, so much more practical than a skirt. A red beret sat jauntily atop her dark blond curls. A stately butler opened the door, and looked down his patrician nose at her. He probably disapproved of women in trousers on principle.

  “Good afternoon,” said Vivian, confidently. “My name is Vivian Sherlock. I have been engaged by Mrs Peacock’s nephew, Mr Ainsworth, to look into the circumstances surrounding his aunt’s death.”

  The butler’s eyes popped. Without waiting for an invitation, Vivian strode past him and entered the house.

  “You must be Mr Henderson,” announced Vivian, smoothly. “Have you been with the family long?”

  “Twenty years, Miss,” Henderson found himself replying automatically, swept away by her air of authority.

  “You must find all this very upsetting,” she commiserated.

  “Yes, Miss,” the butler drew a white handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed his eyes. “Very upsetting. Not at all what we are used to.”

  “Can you tell me what happened? What you saw yourself, on the night in question?”

  “Unfortunately, I saw nothing. I was downstairs in the kitchen.” He sniffed as Vivian whipped out a small black notebook.

  “Let me see. You served dinner at... what time?”

  “Eight o’clock, Miss. Madam had a nice omelette and a chicken pie.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Madam retired to the library to write letters and I went downstairs, to make sure everything was tidied away, ready for breakfast in the morning.”

  “Nothing seemed out of the ordinary?”

  “No, Miss.”

  “Who found the body?”

  “Ellen, Miss, the parlourmaid. She went upstairs with Madam’s glass of cognac‒Madam always took a small nightcap before bed‒and found that fellow Travers, right in the middle of his dastardly deed!” A satisfied expression flashed across his face for an instant.

  “Goodness me!” exclaimed Vivian in suitably shocked tones. “Can I speak to Ellen now? I need to hear her story from her own lips.”

  “Of course, Miss. Follow me.” Henderson lead the way downstairs to a small pantry. “I don’t know what Master Fergus is thinking,” he mused in a faintly questioning tone. “The police have Travers locked up all nice and tight. There’s no doubt they have the guilty man.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” murmured Vivian placatingly. “I’m sure Mr Ainsworth just wants to be certain in his own mind.”

  “Hmph!” In a lesser man, that would have been considered a snort.

  Ellen was a small young woman, a girl really, with wispy brown hair and a red nose. When Henderson ushered her into the pantry and bade her sit down and tell Miss the truth without any of her nonsense, she looked on the verge of fainting dead away. For the first five minutes, all she could do was bury her face in her hands and murmur that she was a good girl, she was.

  Eventually, Vivian shooed the butler outside and poured the maid a small tot of cooking sherry.

  “Here, drink that up and pull yourself together, Ellen. No-one’s accusing you of anything. I need your help!” Vivian spoke in bracing tones.

  “Oh, Miss!”

  Vivian watched as she drank the sherry. A little colour came into her pale cheeks.

  “There, that’s better. Now tell me what you saw that night, in your own words.”

  After a few more tears and false starts, Vivian was able to take Ellen back over the events of that fateful evening; starting with the simple tasks she had performed, tidying up before dinner, and leading her gently up to the crime she had supposedly witnessed.

  “I took Madam’s glass up to the library, and... I- I opened the door.” Ellen paused to gulp. “And there he was! Mr Travers! Standing over her.” Her eyes flickered for an instant. “Poor Madam! Lying on the floor she was, blood all over her,” added Ellen.

  “Tell me what you saw when you first came into the room,” invited Vivian. She had not missed that slight hesitation. “Step by step, exactly what you saw.”

  “Yes, Miss. Like I said, I pushed open the door to the library-”

  “It wasn’t locked?” interrupted Vivian.

  “Oh no, Miss, not even properly closed. Almost, but not quite latched, if you know what I mean.”

  Vivian nodded and Ellen continued, more easily now. “I could see Mr Travers, behind the desk. I wondered what he was doing there!” She paused for an instant, before continuing, “That’s when I looked down and saw the blood.”

  “What was Mr Travers doing when you saw him?”

  A peculiar look crossed Ellen’s face.

  “Tell me, Ellen, it’s important,” pressed Vivian.

  “Well, Miss, Mr Henderson did say I must have imagined it but, honestly, it looked like he was dancing!”

  “Dancing?”

  Ellen looked defiant for the first time. “Well, he was then. At least, that’s what it looked like,” she retreated hastily. “I’m sure I was mistaken, like Mr Henderson said.”

  “Don’t worry about Mr Henderson,” urged Vivian. “Let’s go up to the library and you can show me what Mr Travers was doing. As best you can. You are an important witness, you know,” she encoura
ged.

  Ellen lead the way up to the library, her squeamishness overcome by the momentary thrill of being important. Vivian stood in the passage and watched as Ellen repeated her actions of the fateful night, a pretend glass in her hand. After an initial show of reluctance, Ellen was persuaded to venture behind the desk and try and recreate what she had seen.

  Once behind the desk, Ellen took a few hasty steps back and forth and around in a small circle, her hands held up at shoulder height. Vivian had to admit, it did look for all the world as if she was dancing. That is, unless you knew better.

  “Mrs Peacock was found behind the desk, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes, Miss.”

  “So when you went into the library, you couldn’t actually see her from the door?”

  “No, Miss. Just the pool of blood.”

  “Thank you, Ellen, you’ve been very helpful. You can go now,” Vivian murmured absently. She spent a few moments studying the library. Apart from the large desk in the centre, there was a mantelpiece above a cosy fireplace on her left, with two silver candlesticks in prime position and a few small ornaments. Hundreds of leather bound books lined the walls. On the desk itself, was a leather writing pad with a silver letter opener at the side. The rest of the desk was empty, evidently cleared away by the police.

  Vivian pursed her lips.

  She had a lot to think about. She was almost certain that Inspector Felix had got the wrong man.

  Vivian looked around with satisfaction at the small group which she had gathered in the drawing room,. On her left was Inspector Felix, still smarting over the fact that he had been ordered to attend by the Chief of Police himself. Apparently his son had been up at Oxford with Ainsworth and Travers, or some such nonsense.

  On her right was Fergus Ainsworth, still pale and trying desperately hard not to let his eyes drift sideways to those of Nigel Travers who was sitting stiffly upright next to the Inspector. In between the two young men, completing the circle, sat all the servants, most of whom looked utterly bewildered.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for coming,” she bestowed an especially sweet smile on Inspector Felix who grimaced but kept silent.

  “We are here tonight to discover who killed Mrs Peacock.”

  Everyone turned to look at Nigel Travers, but before anyone could voice a protest that they already had the killer, Vivian continued. “Let me explain why Nigel Travers could not possibly be the murderer.”

  “What nonsense is this?” protested Henderson. “He was caught red-handed!”

  “Not quite,” answered Vivian. “If you’ll all be patient a little longer, I will explain. Firstly, the motive, the story that he was Mrs Peacock’s lover was not true. Mr Travers has... other interests. Secondly, why a spanner? As soon as I saw the library it struck me immediately. The room was a virtual arsenal of weapons ready to hand. There were heavy candlesticks on the mantelpiece, a paper knife on the desk. This was not a crime of passion, resulting from a sudden argument, no, ladies and gentlemen, this murder was premeditated, carried out in cold blood! The murderer brought the weapon with him.” She paused to look steadily at every face in the room. No-one moved. Ainsworth for one was hanging on her every word, hope daring to raise its head for the first time since Nigel had been arrested.

  “The third, and most conclusive piece of evidence, I think, is the testimony of Ellen May.” Everyone turned to look at Ellen, who covered her face nervously with her apron. “What Ellen saw, was not a murderer with the bloody spanner in his hand, but a man who had entered the library to take a snuffbox and who had just discovered the body! In fact he nearly tripped over it. From Ellen’s description, he had to move his feet pretty smartly to stop from stepping on Mrs Peacock. I call it the clue of the Dancing Robber.”

  “So who was the murderer then?” Inspector Felix couldn’t hold back any longer.

  “I think you’ll find the butler did it,” answered Vivian with satisfaction, as Henderson sprang to his feet.