Dandy Gilver and the Unpleasantness in the Ballroom

by Catriona McPherson

  I sat up, turned on the lamp and reached for my notebook. Perhaps if I concentrated on the sense of the case the horrors would let me alone. Alec had thought there was some little loose thread somewhere around Foxy Trotter; if I could find it perhaps the rest of the puzzles would fall into place and I would get some sleep before morning.

  Why did Foxy suspect that we were referring to her headdress?

  How did Tweetie come to feel like a daughter to her?

  Why did she not take Leo to hospital?

  What does Sir Percy hold over his wife?

  Why did Tweetie break the engagement?

  Why did Tweetie ever make the engagement?

  Why did Julian go to the dance-hall?

  Why did Julian pretend not to know?

  Why did Julian blanch when I met him?

  Why wouldn’t Tweetie stop dancing when the threats began?

  Why did Tweetie start dancing in the first place?

  If Beryl got away with one murder why did she run the second time?

  If not Beryl, then who?

  Did Jeanne have a motive to kill Leonard Munn?

  Did Miss Thwaite have a motive to kill either of them?

  Why did Bert start to follow Beryl and then give up?

  There were so many of them. So many secrets stubbornly hidden, so many unaccountable decisions. In fact, the only person I had met since taking up this case who had not puzzled me, the only little pocket of reason and clarity, was Simon Bonnar. He frightened everyone because he was frightening. Fright made everyone pander to his daughter, overlook his and her transgressions and smooth his path, even if it meant turning a blind eye to murder. He made perfect sense, but the rest of them were a hopeless tangle. I told myself that even organising matters into a list of questions was no mean feat and I should count it as progress. Then I turned out the light and returned to my dreams again.

  ‘You look dreadful,’ said Alec the next morning at breakfast. ‘Are you ill?’

  ‘Alec, dear,’ I said, ‘just in case you were wondering, it is never a good idea to tell a woman she looks dreadful. Never.’

  ‘Very well, then,’ Alec said. ‘I retract it. Dandy, you look almost ethereal enough to call it “wan”. It’s utterly captivating, of course, but one worries that perhaps you are ill.’

  ‘Oh shut up,’ I said. ‘I’d rather listen to insults than that tripe. And I’m not ill; just tired. I was awake half the night trying to make head or tail of this dratted case, of course. Weren’t you?’

  ‘I fell asleep like a baby after all that whisky,’ he said. ‘But I do need my eggs and bacon to see off its effects.’ He craned around the dining room for a waitress and, seeing one, summoned her with a smile.

  I could never get used to ordering breakfast instead of peering under the covers to see what looked tempting and so, although I was sure I would regret it before luncheon, I asked only for toast and made up the deficit by putting rather a lot of sugar in my coffee.

  ‘Where did you get to after all your deliberations?’ Alec said, but, before I could reply, he sailed on. ‘I’ve only had my shaving time of course, so all I’ve come up with is that we needed an explanation for why Tweetie started dancing. And I was thinking about the fact that Foxy Trotter said she was like a daughter. And then there’s the fact of Tweetie picking a very similar name to Foxy’s – the same template, sort of thing – and in short I think there’s a connection there that we’ve missed so far.’

  ‘Does it explain anything?’ I said, rather brusquely, for it was irritating to hear that Alec had made more sense of things during his morning shave than I had managed to, sitting up half the night, furiously scribbling.

  ‘It must,’ Alec said. ‘If something’s being kept secret, then necessarily it’s something we should know about.’

  I was so very tired and he sounded so very confident that I found myself nodding my head dumbly for a moment or two. Then, finally, roused to something like my full capacity by the sweet strong coffee, I began shaking it instead.

  ‘Rot,’ I said. ‘If I’ve learned something in the last decade, Alec, it’s that everyone is hiding something and it’s usually nothing that’s of the slightest interest to you and me. There very likely is something between Foxy and Tweetie that we don’t know and they don’t want us to know but unless it leads to Beryl then we can leave that stone unturned.’

  ‘Of course it could lead to Beryl!’ Alec said. ‘A connection between them might very well reveal a better motive than mere professional jealousy.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ I said. ‘And the same goes for Julian too. We’re just assuming that he was at the Locarno to watch Tweetie but if whatever it is he’s hiding leads to Beryl then we should know it.’

  ‘It doesn’t,’ Alec said. ‘Remember what the urchins told us? Julian summoned the police. He’d hardly do that if he were in cahoots with Beryl, now would he?’

  ‘He still troubles me,’ I said. ‘He was terrified when he met me. And Tweetie gave him the sack. And he was where he didn’t belong. Those are three puzzles I’d like to have solved.’

  The waitress arrived then with our breakfast plates and Alec made a great business of making space on the little table, and thanking her and making sure I had butter to hand and generally fussing around so much that the moment passed and the subject of Julian Armour was dropped.

  When we arrived at Balmoral half an hour later, we had no particular plan beyond knowing that we should have to press Tweetie harder than would feel kind the day after her ordeal.

  ‘Miss Stott,’ I said, once we had been shown in. I suppressed a shudder, finding the scene a little too reminiscent of the worst of my nightmares, what with Tweetie reclining, the elder Stotts close by with knitted brows and Jeanne off to the side with her mending basket.

  ‘Do you have news?’ said Tweetie.

  I felt my breath catch as I got a good look at her in the strong morning light. If she faded any more she would be positively transparent and I did not wonder at her parents’ looks of anxious concern.

  ‘We have news of Mr Armour,’ said Alec. ‘We saw him last night and he’s utterly heartbroken. Quite undone.’

  Tweetie snorted, rather a robust noise to come out of one so frail-looking.

  ‘I’ll bet he is!’ she said.

  It was an extremely puzzling remark and I looked to her parents’ faces, sure that I would find there the same frown that had twitched at mine. How could a girl feel such scorn for the misery she had caused? It was not only callous; it was senseless too. Sir Percy and Lady Stott however gazed at Tweetie with a sort of diffident appeal on their faces, looking like naughty children or perhaps dogs who have chewed a slipper. Most puzzling.

  ‘But I’m afraid that it’s questions we’ve come with rather than news,’ Alec went on.

  ‘Well,’ I said, cutting in. ‘We do have the news that Beryl has fled the city.’

  Tweetie looked up quickly at that and once again her demeanour seemed quite at odds with what the moment required. Her eyes – just for a second – danced in her pale face. I could not for the life of me see how such an expression of mischief and delight fitted into this sorry mess.

  ‘They’ve let her skip off then, have they?’ said Sir Percy. ‘Glasgow’s fine constabulary. It’s come to a pretty pass when a man can hold a town to ransom that way.’

  It appeared that the more indelicate ramifications of Tweetie’s dancing – the falling in with gangsters – were now to be spoken of freely. I could not help a flash of irritation that, had matters been so from the start, we should have found our task easier and a young life might have been spared.

  ‘She got away before the police were ever called,’ I said to Sir Percy. ‘She left in a van waiting for her in the back lane.’

  Tweetie gaped at me and swallowed hard. ‘Gosh,’ she said. ‘I’ve rather scorned you, up until now. “Private detectives”, you know. It all seemed pretty silly, but how on earth do you know that?’

  ‘She w
as seen by a pair of witnesses and we found them,’ said Alec. ‘Now we must decide the best way to proceed. Sir Percy, if you are correct in your view of the local police, do you think perhaps we should put the information in the hands of a different force? We have connections in both Edinburgh and Perthshire who might be more willing to press matters. And since Beryl is no longer in Glasgow, if her father is to be believed, it’s going to be another force who tracks her down anyway.’

  ‘No police,’ said Lady Stott. ‘We’ve told you that from the start.’

  ‘But it’s a murder case now,’ I said. ‘And with the greatest respect, it’s no longer your place to decide.’

  ‘My place?’ said Lady Stott. ‘My place? Bounce, are you going to sit there and let this woman talk to me that way?’

  ‘But she’s right, my dear,’ said Sir Percy. ‘In fact, it’s probably been a murder case all along, hasn’t it? What with Munn last time.’

  ‘What is it you need to ask?’ said Lady Stott, turning like a bird in mid-flight.

  ‘It’s about Mr Armour,’ I said.

  Tweetie snorted again and both her parents shot her an anxious look.

  ‘He was there yesterday,’ said Alec. ‘At the Locarno. Did you know?’

  ‘I knew,’ said Tweetie. ‘I saw him, as no doubt I was supposed to. It wasn’t very subtle.’

  ‘Now, darling, don’t upset yourself again,’ said her mother.

  I was tussling with it and I thought it began to make a little sense at last. ‘He came to display his knowledge of your secret, is that right?’ She nodded. ‘With a view to what, though?’

  ‘With a view to making a great show out of forgiving me,’ said Tweetie. ‘If I made it worth his while, naturally.’

  ‘Blackmail,’ said Sir Percy. ‘An ugly word for an ugly deed. We were sorely taken in by Julian Armour, I’m afraid to say. And we’re glad to see the back of him.’

  ‘Do you mean he hoped to get a better settlement out of you?’ I asked.

  ‘He hoped to rob our darling girl of her life and all her happiness!’ said Lady Stott. ‘He’s a devil. He’s a monster.’

  ‘Oh, Mother,’ said Tweetie.

  ‘That is rather conniving of him certainly,’ I said. ‘But if you could have seen him last night, Miss Stott, you wouldn’t doubt for a moment that he really does care for you.’

  There was a silence then and all four of them, the three Stotts and Alec, shifted their gaze around the room in a very fidgety fashion. Sir Percy even explored the inside of his mouth with the tip of his tongue in an attempt to look nonchalant. They did everything but whistle. Clearly, they all knew something that I did not, but I had better prospects of discovering it from Alec and so I decided to leave it until I could tackle him alone.

  ‘Miss Stott,’ I said, ‘if you are able to, do you think you could go over the events of yesterday with us? Who was where when, and what you saw. Every little detail might be of help, you see.’

  ‘She’s far too tired,’ said Lady Stott, just as Sir Percy said, ‘Of course she’ll help.’

  ‘I can’t really remember anything,’ said Tweetie. ‘I felt so dizzy and ill.’

  ‘But before that,’ I said. ‘Perhaps you could just run through everything you remember.’

  ‘But why?’ said Lady Stott. ‘If Beryl Bonnar has killed twice and got away with it, what good will it do to torment Tweetie and make her relive her ordeal?’

  ‘I do understand your concern,’ I said. ‘Gosh, of course I do. I’m a mother myself. But the more complete a theory we can place in the hands of the police the better. And the plain fact of the matter is that this deed can’t possibly have been carried out by one person, working alone. There was an accomplice and that person must be found just as Miss Bonnar must be.’

  ‘An accomplice?’ said Tweetie.

  I was aware, out of the corner of my eye, that Jeanne had lifted her head from her sewing for the first time and was looking over.

  ‘Someone to drive the motor she left in,’ I said.

  ‘But then that person wasn’t inside,’ said Lady Stott. ‘And Tweetie can’t have seen him.’

  What I did not say was that someone must also have stitched the ludicrously absorbent headband and that there was a candidate sitting in this very room, and sitting with an unnatural stillness, just watching. Thankfully, before I was forced to fill the silence, we all heard the telephone bell out in the hall and listened as the baize door was opened and Mary trotted across the hall. She answered politely and then approached the open door of the morning room.

  ‘It’s your sister, madam,’ she said. ‘Ringing up to ask after Miss Stott.’

  ‘Really, Mary,’ drawled Tweetie. ‘“Your sister” is not how you refer to a member of the family. You should—’

  ‘Tweet!’ said Lady Stott. ‘That’s quite enough. Tell her I’ll be there directly, Mary.’ She stood and bustled out.

  ‘There now,’ said Alec. ‘There’s nothing like one’s family, is there? To rally round in troubled times.’

  It was a sentiment of extraordinary banality for him and I could not help wondering what lay beneath his decision to give voice to it. He was standing, I noticed, and before I had the chance to gather myself and stand under my own steam he had grabbed me by the elbow and hauled me to my feet.

  ‘We must dash,’ he said, dragging me towards the door. ‘Not to be rude, but once a case really begins to move we need to keep pace with it, you see.’

  Mary hardly had time to give Alec back his hat and certainly none to open the door. We were out on the gravel again while she was still crossing the hallway.

  ‘I’ve got it, Dandy,’ he said. ‘I have got it at last.’

  ‘Splendid,’ I said. ‘Got what? And where are we haring off to? I need to know, if I’m to drive there.’

  ‘Just round the corner out of sight,’ said Alec. ‘I had to get out and get this off my chest for fear I’d explode or forget it again.’

  Obedient as ever, and also agog, I drove around the nearest corner and parked the motorcar on another of the quiet streets with which this suburb was so plentifully endowed.

  ‘I know why Tweetie started dancing,’ Alec said. ‘Roly almost told us the truth when he said it was down to Jeanne’s mother. In other words, her aunt. He was lying but only just. It really was Tweetie’s aunt.’

  ‘Who?’ I said.

  ‘Foxy Trotter,’ said Alec triumphantly. ‘There were three of them – Foxy, the dashing fair-haired brother who was called Goldie to the end of his life, and Puddy, the little round dumpling who goes by the name of Eunice these days, which is not much better. We already knew that Foxy and Tweetie are close – like a daughter, she said. And at last it explains how two people we thought were quite separate can each have one of those ridiculous headdresses. And we don’t need to twist ourselves into a knot to suspect poor little Miss Thwaite.’

  ‘It fits …’ I said doubtfully.

  ‘Listen,’ said Alec. ‘I’ve hardly started. When Foxy heard about the threats to Tweetie, “Lady Stott’s sister” telephoned Balmoral. It was the same day! And Sir Percy reminded his wife pretty sternly that Leonard wasn’t part of their family. Do you remember that? And Jeanne said that Lady Stott’s sister was a respectable widow living alone.’

  ‘Jeanne!’ I said.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Alec, with deep relish. ‘We couldn’t imagine why Jeanne would have a motive to threaten Foxy and kill her partner. But now we know—’ He broke off midstream and sat back. ‘Huh,’ he said. ‘Actually, what do we know? There’s still no motive.’

  ‘But there’s a connection,’ I said. ‘There’s somewhere to search for a motive. Foxy is Jeanne’s aunt and Tweetie is Jeanne’s cousin and oh!’

  ‘What?’ said Alec, still looking a little crestfallen.

  ‘The printer with the golden tresses!’ I said. ‘Jeanne’s father was a lay preacher, wasn’t he? And her sainted mother was a Sunday school teacher. Just exactly the sort of people who�
��d have those sentimental little prayer cards lying around. And they were a bookish family who’d have Cock Robin too, weren’t they? You really have cracked it wide open, Alec. It might very well be Jeanne.’

  If anything he looked further deflated. ‘My first proper epiphany and you thought of at least half of it,’ he said. ‘It’s awfully dispiriting to be outdone all the time, Dandy.’

  ‘Oh, nonsense,’ I said. ‘You’ve picked up every ball I’ve ever found and run further with it than I ever could have.’ I had no idea if that were true but I had got used to delivering such flattery from years of being the mother of two boys who had been rivals their whole lives and now, with Alec as it always did with Donald and Teddy, it was working.

  ‘Really?’ he said, cheering up. ‘One hardly notices when one’s doing it, I suppose. Very well, then. Pats on the back for both of us.’

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ I said, ‘is the connection between Beryl and Jeanne. Beryl was on the spot to do the actual deed with the cyanide, as she was last year with the chloroform, and Jeanne might have done the preparatory sewing. But, why would those two be in cahoots?’

  ‘No idea,’ said Alec. ‘Let’s go and ask Foxy. She must know something. She probably suspects Jeanne already, don’t you think? Or at least she knows without knowing and just needs a nudge.’

  ‘Ah, now,’ I said, when we were under way, ‘speaking of who knows what. What is it that everyone in that morning room knew about Julian Armour and his blackmail, but which eluded me?’

  Alec drew his pipe out of his pocket, filled it, tamped it and lit it. I wound down the window ostentatiously, although the truth is that I do not mind Alec’s pipe smoke as much as Hugh’s for it is a sweeter blend and he is a great deal more fastidious about cleaning out the bowl while refilling.

  ‘Yes,’ said Alec. ‘Well, you see the thing is, I rather suspected this but the Stotts’ demeanour this morning confirmed it for me. Tweetie, we know, met Roly first and through him, Julian.’