by E.
The Judge interposed at this point. “You must not introduce any matter relative to a prosecution, or investigation, not before this court, Doctor Manson,” he said.
Doctor Manson: “I will take great care of that, my Lord.”
The Doctor then proceeded to describe how he found that a woman had been associated with da Costa in certain activities up to the production of the pantomime, and how, in the course of investigations, he had identified the woman as Miss de Grey. After December, he added, he discovered that another woman was associated with da Costa in the same activities. The change corresponded with a date on which a photograph of da Costa had disappeared from Miss de Grey’s dressing-room. He told how a photograph had been taken surreptitiously of da Costa and the second woman.
“Inspector Kenway identified the woman as Nina Francetti,” said Doctor Manson. “He identified her, also, as an actress who had played various parts, including those in the children’s play Alice.
“This opened up a very important line of investigation, because many parts in that play are animal rôles. Miss Francetti had, in fact, not only played animal rôles, but had actually played the Cheshire Cat. I was convinced that she had played the Cat on this occasion of Miss de Grey’s death, particularly as she had been at pains to get into the cast on this night. I was working on that assumption.”
The Attorney-General: “What led you to change your mind, Doctor?”
Doctor Manson: “The discovery that Miss Francetti had danced all through the ballet. That was vouched for by the seven other local girls. She could not, therefore, have been in the Cat’s skin. She was away from the other girls only for about four minutes and that was before, and not during, the fatal scene.”
The Attorney-General: “So you transferred your attentions to Madame Scarlatina?”
Doctor Manson: “I transferred them so far as the actual murder was concerned to another woman. It had to be a woman because of the woman’s hairs from the Cat’s skin. And it had, of course, to be someone inside the theatre.”
The Attorney-General: “And your suspicions then became directed against the older woman prisoner?”
Doctor Manson: “There were one or two incidents for which I could see only one explanation after Miss Francetti was eliminated from the actual deed. Someone had taken the make-up box and the glass and bottle from Enora’s room. Someone had to assist the pseudo Cat into the skin of Enora.
“Now, the one person who could carry a make-up box and a bottle and glass without attracting attention is a dresser, part of whose job it is to fetch and carry drinks for the artistes, and, on occasions, carry make-up materials to the stage for a quick change. When I came to consider whether a dresser might have removed the articles on this occasion, I discovered that on the night of the murder Miss de Grey’s dresser had not accompanied the Principal Boy to the stage for the Highgate Hill scene, which had been her invariable custom, to put the finishing touches to the costume. Her explanation, made to the inspector on the night of the murder, when everyone was questioned, was that Miss de Grey had asked her to get some stout and sandwiches in her dressing-room ready for when she came off, and had said that she would manage for herself at the side of the stage. Now, this was not true, because Miss de Grey always had a glass of stout and sandwiches during the interval, and the dresser had procured them without fail after she had attended to Miss de Grey, and while the Highgate Hill scene was in progress. I asked myself why the woman had lied, and what was the real reason for her absence from the stage that night.
“Taken in conjunction with the time of her alleged going for the sandwiches and drinks while Miss de Grey was ‘managing for herself’, the absence for some four minutes of Miss Francetti at the same time, seemed to me to be a matter of high suspicion.”
The Attorney-General: “You did not know that the dresser was Madame Scarlatina?”
Doctor Manson: “No, sir. But I recalled the statement of the variety agent, in the course of inquiries into Miss Francetti that, although she had played animal rôles she was ‘not good at it’ but that the mother was ‘the one for that’. She had played all the parts in Alice. Now, a considerable number of those parts are animal rôles, and I elicited that Madame had been a great performer as the Cheshire Cat.
“I came to the conclusion that the dresser had been the actual murderer because she was the only one in the theatre with the opportunity, and because she could leave the theatre without question, and because by so doing she could carry away without suspicion the bottle and glass and the make-up box and the hypodermic syringe.
“I came to the conclusion that the poison had been supplied by Miss Francetti, who had gone to so much trouble to get into the theatre, and who could have obtained it during her employment in a photographic studio, where such stuff is used.
“Finally, I came to the conclusion that the dresser must be someone whom Miss Francetti knew would never betray her, and who could play the part of a cat—a difficult part—perfectly and without arousing suspicion, and would not have to leave the theatre afterwards, thus arousing suspicion, but could mix freely with the other people. I therefore came to the belief that Helen Brough, the dresser, was Miss Nina Francetti’s mother. I was quite sure that if that was so she would come forward when her daughter was charged with the murder. She did so.”
“Then there’s a bit about the fellow da Costa,” went on Mr. Barnson. He continued reading the report:
Mr. da Costa denied any knowledge of the murder. He said that Miss Francetti had previously been his mistress and that he had discarded her for Miss de Grey. “Then I got tired of Miss de Grey’s extravagance, and wanted to break with her,’’ said da Costa, “but she was blackmailing me because she knew too much about the fires business. I met Miss Francetti in the street, and she asked to come back to me. I told her I couldn’t break with Norma because she knew too much about me. I didn’t really want either of them.
“I said jokingly to Miss Francetti that if she rid me of Norma de Grey I’d even marry her. I knew nothing until I read of the death of Norma and Miss Francetti came to me and told me that she had carried out her part of the bargain. I didn’t mean when I said get rid of her that she was to murder the girl. I meant get rid of the blackmail part.”
The Attorney-General: “And knowing that she had, according to her confession, or your version of it, killed that unfortunate girl, you took her to live with you?”
Da Costa: “Yes.”
“Overture and Beginners, please,” came the voice of the call-boy.
“Buck up, Freddie,” begged Miss Prue. “Is there any more?”
“Only a bit about the dresser. I’ll read it quickly, Pruey.”
Madame Scarlatina, in evidence, said: “I had not seen my daughter for some time, because she had been living with da Costa, who was a man I did not like or think well of. She did not know that I had taken a job as a dresser. You see, the theatre is in my blood, and when I could no longer act, I still wanted to be in it. When I saw her in the passage dressed for the part of the chorus, I got her in the laundry-room and asked her what it was all about. She told me that she was going to have a baby by da Costa and the only way to get him to marry her was to get rid of Norma de Grey who was blackmailing da Costa into marrying her. She said she had come to kill Norma and she told me she meant to play the Cat and do it that way, because she had watched from the front of the house and knew it could be done once she got into the theatre. I tried to dissuade her, but she said it was either that or she would commit suicide.
“I knew she couldn’t play the Cat without being found out, and anyway, the absence of the real chorus girl would be found out. When she still said that she would commit suicide and kill the unborn baby at the same time, I said I would do it for her, if she would help me to dress in the skin. I wanted to save her name; we have always been a respectable family, and I wanted to give her baby a future, for I knew I could make da Costa marry her if Miss de Grey was out of the way. So I did it. I car
ried the glass and bottle back to the Green Man after the Hill scene, and broke up the syringe at the same time and dropped the remainder down one of the street sewers.”
Mr. Barnson put down the paper.
“That’s all,” he said.
“Poor old soul,” said Miss Prue. “That’s a mother all over. Sacrificed herself for her daughter.”
“Everybody on the stage, please. Come along, ladies and gentleman,” called the stage-manager.
From in front of the curtain the strain of the opening bars came liltingly to the company.
“Stand by, everybody.”
The eyes of stage-manager Mr. Trimble looked round his domain at the wailing players. Everybody was present.
He pressed a button.
The curtain rose.
T H E E N D
About The Authors
EDWIN ISAAC RADFORD (1891-1973) and MONA AUGUSTA RADFORD (1894-1990) were married in 1939. Edwin worked as a journalist, holding many editorial roles on Fleet Street in London, while Mona was a popular leading lady in musical-comedy and revues until her retirement from the stage.
The couple turned to crime fiction when they were both in their early fifties. Edwin described their collaborative formula as: “She kills them off, and I find out how she done it.” Their primary series detective was Harry Manson who they introduced in 1944.
The Radfords spent their final years living in Worthing on the English South Coast. Dean Street Press have republished three of their classic mysteries: Murder Jigsaw, Murder Isn’t Cricket and Who Killed Dick Whittington?
By E & M.A. Radford
and available from Dean Street Press
1. Murder Jigsaw
Buy from Amazon.com / Buy from Amazon.co.uk
2. Murder Isn’t Cricket
Buy from Amazon.com / Buy from Amazon.co.uk
3. Who Killed Dick Whittington?
Buy from Amazon.com / Buy from Amazon.co.uk
E & M.A. Radford
Murder Jigsaw
“Jiminy! He’s going to fish for him.”
A small Cornish fishing hotel, The Tremarden Arms, is renowned for its adjacent waters where guests fish for salmon and trout. The unpleasant Colonel Donoughmore is found drowned in a salmon pool in the hotel grounds. He was dressed for fishing and his rod was on the bank nearby. The local Police concluded it was an unfortunate accident but Doctor Manson finds two peculiar circumstances which convinced him that this was a skilfully contrived murder. There were fellow fishermen out on the river banks near to where the Colonel was found dead, two of whom had publicly uttered threats against him. Furthermore, several other hotel guests had strong financial motives for removing him.
Murder Jigsaw was originally published in 1944. This new edition includes an introduction by crime fiction historian Nigel Moss.
“Murder Jigsaw is a return to the type of detective story of which we have not had enough lately” Elizabeth Bowen
“If these Radfords can keep writing thrillers of this class, they are going to take their rightful place very near the top” Liverpool Evening Express
“This reader found Doctor Manson’s methods of working quite absorbing” Queen
Murder Jigsaw
CHAPTER I
THE COLONEL ALIVE
At ten minutes to six on a July evening the lounge of the Tremarden Arms showed no indication of the tragedy that was soon to envelop its guests in an evil cloud of mystery and suspicion.
A babel of bustle and sound came from it. Men sprawled in armchairs, tired feet, a’weary from much walking, resting in slippers as they gathered in groups discussing the day’s “business.”
With the ticking of every minute the door from the hotel yard swung open to admit other figures to the company; strange figures, perspiring in water-proof trousers reaching up to the armpits, and with water-proof coats; and, at the other end, nail-studded, sodden brogues. They called for “George!” He pulled off brogues and tugged waders from nether limbs as he had done at this hour of the day for more than twenty years. The thirsty newcomers, freed from the trammels, joined the babel in the lounge.
Winding a way between this restless kaleidoscope, waitresses came and went, tray-loads of glasses, sparkling with the colours of the rainbow, raised perilously above the heads of the crowd. The conversational babel deteriorated for a moment into a single phrase, “Good health,” only to break out again with renewed enthusiasm a minute later. Cocktail time was in full swing in the Tremarden Arms.
If you know the Tremarden Arms (and if you don’t, then you should do) you will be under no necessity of eavesdropping on the chatter. For the people who stay at the Arms come under three classes only; they are either fishermen, or commercial travellers, or they are London folk, bound for the Cornish coast, breaking their journey for a night.
And since, at six o’clock, the commercial travellers are busily engaged copying out the orders decoyed from the Tremarden tradespeople—for the post goes out at seven o’clock—and the night sojourners are washing the dirt of the long trek from the metropolis in the hotel bathrooms before dinner, that leaves only the fishermen to fill the lounge. Therefore, the talk is FISH.
From April until the end of September the lounge of the Tremarden Arms echoes to “fish,” as the anglers gather round the circular table beneath the great palm tree, which reaches up into the glass canopy, twenty feet above. “Walter” ministers at the table. As though by sleight of hand a plate or a dish appears in Walter’s hands at the sight of an entering fisherman. One by one, the trout are taken, almost reverently, from the creel, and laid in speckled lines on the plate to occupy a show-place among the score of other collections on the table. In long, shallow dishes in the centre, salmon glisten like silver in pride of place above the plates. For the display of the fruits of a fly and a cunning hand has been a ritual of the Tremarden Arms for a generation, and each angler adds his devotions, whether he returns with a brace of trout or a score of brace. And the fight is fought over again as the fishermen recognise an old campaigner from the pools, now laid low.
This, then, was the scene in the Tremarden Arms on the evening of 21st July, just before dinner gave the first inkling (although it was not until next day that it was known to be an inkling) of tragedy.
The day had been an ideal one for the Prince of Sports. A warm sun had been tempered by a zephyr wind, which gave the water just enough ripple to cover the angler, and disguise the artificial fly from the less plentiful natural insect! Some hundred brace of trout lay on the table; light-speckled from the swift and clear-running waters of the Inney; others, sandy-hued, from the reddish-stained, shallow Lyner; and the dark-backed and larger fish which had lost in game fight in the slower and deeper waters of the Tamar.
A little group of men stood beside the table, apart from the throng of drinkers. “A nice day’s sport, Major,” commented the tallest of the group.
Major Smithers nodded. His practised eye surveyed the catch. “And mostly Linney fish, Sir Edward,” he said. “I’m glad to see the old stream is picking up again. We’ve had a pretty thin time in there this last year or two. Eh, Padre?” The major smiled across at the grey-suited figure of a clergyman.
“Indeed, yes,” was the reply. “I could not catch them myself.” A chuckle greeted the reply, for the padre’s prowess with trout was almost a legend. Where others, who prided themselves as experts, came back with half-a-dozen brace of trout, the padre would table a creel of a couple of dozen brace. The local tackle shops coined a fortune from flies which were sold as “The Reverend Williams pattern.” He had once, years ago, in a turn of elfish humour, condoled with a despondent journalist, who had only a brace of anaemic trout for his day’s labour. The padre brought in a laden creel.
“How the devil do you catch them, Padre?” the disgruntled journalist had asked.
“Well, I tie my own flies,” was the guarded reply.
The journalist subsequently regaled a company with the padre’s “secret.” A day later,
the padre missed half-a-dozen of his flies; within a week the fly-drawers of the local retailers were filled with the “Reverend William’s pattern” in Pheasant Tails, Red Spinners, March Browns, and the other varieties of fly bait. That they were not any different, but generally not so good, as any other flies did not matter! What the padre did not tell the journalist was that he had been whipping the waters of the Tremarden Arms for thirty years, and knew them as well as he knew his prayer-book. But to return to the group.
“Well, if you couldn’t catch ’em on the Williams fly they must have been scarce.” Sir Edward Maurice accompanied the compliment with a dig at the old story. “What d’ye think was the reason?”
The padre frowned. “I think Franky had too much timber cut back,” he said. “You’ve got to have cover for trout, especially in the Linney’s crystal water.”
Major Smithers nodded.
“You don’t think it was the bad angling we had?” Sir Edward frowned as he made the suggestion. “Remember the bunch of doggers we endured. And they nearly all fished the Inney. Said there was room to cast there.” Sir Edward snorted. “I saw one fellow ploughing through the water with enough wake to put down every trout for a mile ahead.”
“No,” the padre replied. “I think it was cutting back the timber. And Franky is doing it down at Three Bridges this year.”
“The devil he is,” ejaculated Sir Edward. “Where is he?” He turned his head and, catching the eye of Frank Baker, beckoned him across.
