The Curious Death of Henry J. Vicenzi
R. A. Bentley
COPYRIGHT
First published in Great Britain June 2019
Copyright © R. A. Bentley
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be circulated in writing of any publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This book has been produced for the Amazon Kindle and is distributed by Amazon Direct Publishing
Chapter One
At first it was a tiny thing, diving out of the sun. Dottie Pickles, who knew about aeroplanes, glanced up with mild interest, wondering what sort it was. Strangely, it was quite silent, as if its engine had cut out and it was gliding to earth. But where would it land around here, in suburban London?
Enlightenment came too late, for with shocking suddenness it was upon her, causing her first to duck, then throw herself ignominiously to the ground. There was an anguished cry from somewhere nearby, a scamper of shoes on gravel and a splintering crash.
'Oh no, not again!' piped a juvenile voice. And rather belatedly. 'I say, are you all right?'
Dottie found herself addressing some remarkably grubby knees. 'I'm probably crippled for life,' she told them crossly. 'And it knocked my hat off.'
'I'm sure you won't be crippled,' said the child, recovering the hat. 'Not unless you have brittle bones. Have you got brittle bones?'
'Not that I know of,' admitted Dottie.
Scrambling to her feet, she discovered the standard sort of boy of eleven or twelve, with scuffed shoes, stockings at half mast, and shirt-tail hanging out. A minor variation was provided by wire-framed spectacles, the expression behind them polite but impatient. 'I've got to go now, if you don't mind,' he said, 'before someone confiscates it.'
She followed him across a rose bed to examine the damage. The aeroplane, quite large, was lodged inside a shattered, ground-floor window.
'Could have been worse; it's only the pantry this time,' said the young pilot philosophically. 'I'll need to repair the propeller, though, and the fabric in places.'
'Doesn't it get rather expensive?' she asked. 'The glass.'
The boy nodded. 'The last one was two and sixpence. Fortunately I have savings. I can't seem to get the rudder setting right. It's necessary, you see, to constantly experiment, like the Wright Brothers. One can't count the cost. Oh, hello Dad, I'm really sorry about this.'
Dad, it transpired, was George Jessup, the household's chauffeur-butler, now advancing balefully on his offspring. 'He hasn't been bothering you has he, miss?'
Dottie smiled and shook her head. 'Not unless you count being mown down by a de Havilland DH53. I take it that's what it's supposed to be?'
The boy turned to her in surprise. Yes it is! How did you know that?'
'My father used to build aeroplanes,' explained Dottie.
'Gosh!' enthused the boy. 'You could be really useful. My name's Dennis, what's yours?'
'Call me Dottie,' said Dottie.
'He'll do no such thing,' said Jessup reprovingly. 'He'll call you Miss Pickles. Not that he'll get much chance because I'm about to lock him in the cellar. There are spiders down there the size of dinner plates.'
'Oh, but you mustn't punish him!' cried Dottie. 'Suppose there was another war? This young man might be the saving of us. I'll pay for the broken window.' She searched in her bag. 'Here you are, half a crown.'
'Really, Miss Pickles, you shouldn't—' began Jessup, clearly embarrassed.
'Yes I should. That's what money's for, to do good things with. And if there's any change you can put it towards the next one.'
'Thanks awfully, Miss Pickles,' said Dennis shyly. 'Though I don't mind spiders.'
'I do,' shuddered Dottie. 'I don't like them at all.'
'I don't like them either,' confided the butler. 'I have to get the maids to dispatch them for me.'
Dottie laughed. 'I don't believe a word of it.' She looked around her. 'I was supposed to be meeting Lewis.'
'That's what I came to tell you, miss. Mr Lewis sends his apologies and he'll be out in a minute or two. Come on you hooligan; you've got some apologising to do. And it's very kind of you, Miss Pickles; it's very much appreciated.'
Left alone, Dottie returned to her previous occupation which was contemplating the house. She had a little home of her own and loved it dearly, but this was a mansion by comparison. Built probably eighty years before, it was a fine-looking detached property of the type generally described by estate agents as a "gentleman's residence," being large enough for a numerous Victorian family and their servants and for entertaining on a respectable scale. If it were hers, she decided, she would fill it with happy, laughing children, and when it wasn't raining they'd be able to play in the substantial garden. There were apple trees! First, however, she'd have to change that dreadful green woodwork.
She smiled at herself. Here she was, sizing up the man's assets on barely three weeks' acquaintance! She couldn't have it anyway, as his older brother and sister would no doubt want their share. Still, it made him more interesting somehow, if not quite on the level of a Mr Darcy. His name, Vicenzi, had a similar sort of ring to it, she thought, nicely solid but with a touch of the exotic. She tried it out: Mrs Lewis Vicenzi. Yes, she could live with that. And he was tall and dark and frightfully handsome, rather as she imagined Mr Darcy to be, with a magnificent physique that made her feel quite weak at the knees just to contemplate it, which she frequently did.
She had met him through her friend Irene, the attraction both mutual and instantaneous, but she hadn't been able to see him much since – a couple of theatre dates and another of Irene's crowded soirées – so that when he'd invited her for an entire weekend she'd jumped at it. She felt sure that this was going to be 'the one.' But then, she reminded herself, she always did.
She stood aside while Jessup backed the car out of the garage, just as Lewis finally appeared. He looked her up and down with evident approval. 'Ready then?' he asked. 'It's all right, Jessup, we won't need you today.'
Jessup opened and closed the car door for her and stood politely to attention as they motored away down the gravel drive. 'I'm sorry I was so long,' he said. 'Sometimes I wish the telephone hadn't been invented.'
'That's all right. I've been talking to your butler's lad about his Humming Bird.'
'Is that what it is? Tin hats are becoming a requirement. Still, it's a constructive hobby I suppose. How do you like your room?'
'It's lovely, and so are the flowers. Where are we going?'
'Glad you approve. I hope you don't mind but it's my turn to go into work. Father insists that one of us puts in an appearance on a Saturday morning. It won't take long and I'd like to show you the place anyway. As for the rest of the day, I'm open to suggestions. Dinner tonight with the family I'm afraid, but you'll probably survive that. Tomorrow it's the bathing trip, weather permitting, and Esme's party in the evening.'
'This is her twenty-seventh?'
'Yep, old maid.'
'Don't be rotten; twenty-seven is no age. Has she got anyone?'
'There's this creepy curate hanging around, Cedric Curry, but I don't suppose it'll come to anything. Hope not anyway. Here we are.'
They drove up the High Street, the pavements busy with Saturday morning sh
oppers, and passing the impressively long shopfront of Pumfreys, the department store, turned under an archway into its yard. A couple of large vans were unloading, but Lewis eased the car past them and parked in a marked bay.
'Why is it called Pumfreys and not Vicenzis?' asked Dottie.
'The Pumfreys were the original owners. It's Vicenzi and Drake on the brass plate.'
'Drake?'
'Father's business partner. Here we go then. Prepare to worship in this temple of commerce.'
Smoothing her frock, Dottie followed him through some swing doors. They emerged into "Wools, fabrics and haberdashery," its staff already dealing with small queues of shoppers. 'Doing well,' she smiled, looking about her.
Lewis chuckled. 'If you can't sell haberdashery on a Saturday you might as well give up. Mr Fenner, have you got a moment?'
'A smiling, pinstriped little man came to greet them. 'Good morning, sir.'
'Miss Pickles, I'd like you to meet Mr Fenner, the department manager. Looking brisk, Fenner.'
'Not too bad so far sir,' said Fenner. 'How do you do, Miss Pickles?'
'Miss Pickles is hoping to see a well-run emporium.'
'Then you've come to the right place, miss,' beamed Mr Fenner.
'Any requests?' asked Lewis.
'Only the usual, sir, the lace.'
'We're still chasing it, promise.'
Thus they proceeded upwards through the shop, leaving no doubt in anyone's mind that Mr Lewis had a new lady friend, until they arrived on the management floor. Here there was a generous open space with office doors on three sides and a kind of balcony on the forth, over which one could look down into the store.
'Handy for spying on shoplifters,' chuckled Lewis, who was in high good humour.
'Do you get much of that?' asked Dottie.
'Despite constant vigilance, yes. The times we live in, alas. Come and see my office. Not that it's wildly exciting.'
But at that moment a weary-looking man, probably in his sixties, with thinning, iron-grey hair emerged from one of the offices and came up to them. 'I thought I heard your voice,' he said. 'I need to speak to you, Mr Lewis, with some urgency.'
Lewis raised an eyebrow. 'Then you'd better had, I suppose. Miss Pickles, this is Mr Crossland, our chief accountant.' He indicated some chairs and a low table spread with magazines. 'Could you wait for me here? If you get bored you can always explore the shop. I shouldn't be long. What's it all about, Crossland? I was hoping for a quick in and out.'
Watching them enter the accountant's office, Dottie glanced through the magazines and finding them not to her taste, wandered over to the balcony to gaze down at the floor below. It wasn't as busy as it had been in haberdashery or clothing – mostly soft furnishings by the look of it – and some of the assistants were standing around with their arms folded or trying to look busy, waiting for a customer. She wondered what it would be like working in a place like this. Meeting people would be quite interesting, she supposed. She had been a little surprised at their attitude to Lewis; a rather exaggerated sort of respect, as if they were slightly frightened of him, but perhaps it was like that in shops. She had worked for a while in her father's design office but the atmosphere there had been quite different; all chums together and the excitement of a shared undertaking. One couldn't imagine these people laughing and joking and throwing paper darts at each other, or working late into the night to finish a project on time.
She drifted back towards the table and the magazines. A worried man, Mr Crossland, she thought, with no time to be obsequious like the others. It would have to be today, wouldn't it? It was quiet up here, but for a distant typewriter or two, and she could hear the drone of their voices, or rather Mr Crossland's voice, with Lewis chipping in now and again. They began to sound a bit annoyed with each other. Then, as time passed, more so. Whatever could it be about?
Next to Mr Crossland's door, she noted, was Lewis's, followed by his brother, Mr Andrew Vicenzi, and finally, Mr Henry Vicenzi, their father. Presumably people knew what each Vicenzi did as there was nothing on their doors but their names. She knew that Lewis was "general manager," but not the others. She was just gazing at the next one, belonging to Mr Charles Drake, when a smartly-dressed, somewhat corpulent man with a florid complexion and curly white hair, stepped out of it, carrying a briefcase. 'Did you, er?' he enquired, pointing at himself. He had a deep, orotund voice that suited his shape.
'Sorry, no. I'm with Lewis,' said Dottie. 'He's been showing me around the store but he was called away. I was wandering about waiting for him. Are you Mr Drake?'
Mr Drake agreed that he was. 'And you are?'
'Dottie Pickles. I'm staying with the Vicenzis.'
'Mr Drake smiled, enlightened. 'Then we shall meet again. I'm attending Esme's birthday party tomorrow.' He turned and carefully locked his door. 'I could show you around myself,' he said, 'but I don't suppose he'd think much of that.'
Dottie agreed that he probably wouldn't. He seems quite nice, she thought, as she watched him enter the lift. She wandered back to the balcony for a while but there was little of interest to see and she had just decided to go further afield when one of the department managers that she'd met earlier appeared, escorting two women. One was expensively dressed and bag-laden, clearly a customer, and the other was quite young, wearing the navy and white uniform of a counter girl. The manager knocked on Lewis's office door, and getting no reply stuck his head round it before looking over at Dottie. 'In there,' she said, pointing. The man nodded and tried the accountant's door instead.
'It was Lewis who opened it. 'Oh, hello, Robson. Did you want me?' And to the invisible Mr Crossland, 'Are you going to be here? All right, I'll see you shortly. I'll want the original figures though.' And with a face like thunder he entered his own office, ushering the two women into it.
Five minutes later the customer emerged looking grimly triumphant and marched away. Lewis held the door open for the girl. 'But I never said any of that, sir,' she protested, 'just that she might try a size forty. She's making it up.'
'Miss Critchley, I'm sorry,' said Lewis, 'but we simply can't tolerate that sort of behaviour here and I'm not prepared to discuss it. You can collect your cards on Monday. Good morning.'
The girl made as if to speak then scuttled away, her chin already quivering.
Seeing Dottie staring at him, Lewis attempted a smile. 'Sorry about that. Not the sort we want at Pumfreys, I'm afraid.'
'She looked like a forty to me,' said Dottie. 'Why didn't you believe her?'
Lewis shrugged. 'The customer is always right. They know that. Look, I'm sorry, but something has come up and I'm going to have to stay on for a while. I'll have Jessup come and fetch you and I'll see you later. Is that all right?'
'I'll wait downstairs,' said Dottie.
I won't let it bother me, she told herself. I won't! I won't! But she found the girl in the ladies' room, weeping piteously.
*
'Come in,' called Dottie. She'd been expecting Lewis, but it was a woman who with a smiling little shrug slipped into the room. Tall, fair and aged about thirty, she was dressed for dinner in gold-trimmed green silk chiffon.
'Hello, I'm Stella Vicenzi, Andrew's wife,' she said, shaking hands. 'Gosh, flowers! He must be keen.'
'Don't all his girls get the treatment?' asked Dottie cynically. 'Best room, flowers, box of chocs.'
Stella shook her head, amused. 'You may not believe it, dearie, but you're the first to stay here, and I can quite see why. He'll be blowing his buttons off.'
'Thank you,' said Dottie, surprised. 'Worth the bus fare then?'
'Oh, I should think so, definitely. Mind you,' she added, 'I don't know what he does away from home. They do say that tucked in a little flat above Pumfreys is a sloe-eyed eastern concubine, trained in the arts of . . . But no, I won't destroy your illusions.'
'Oh, she's just for business hours, I expect,' said Dottie. 'She doesn't count.' They laughed companionably, already friends. 'Do you th
ink I'll be all right in this?' she asked, spreading her arms. 'I mean, it's not too flashy or anything? I don't really know what to expect.' She was also in fashionable chiffon, hers patterned in blue and black and trimmed with blue satin.'
'You look smashing,' said Stella reassuringly. 'And if that doesn't suit, there's something wrong with him.'
'I was thinking more of the others.'
'Oh, they don't matter. Do you like mine?'
'I was just admiring it,' said Dottie. 'You're lucky; you've got the height for it.'
'The height's all right,' agreed Stella, looking wryly down at herself. 'It's the rest of me that's the problem. Bosoms are out this year apparently, but no-one has told mine. I've been deputed to fetch you, by the way. Lewis says he's sorry and he'll be along—'
'In a few minutes,' finished Dottie.
'You learn quick, sister.'
Jessup was at the sideboard, pouring the sherry, and Andrew Vicenzi had already requisitioned one. Dottie knew he'd been wounded in the war, or she might have been more shocked by his appearance. He came to greet her with a twisted sort of limp and was as thin, white and peaky-looking as Lewis was brawny and brown. Stella, best described as statuesque, would have made two of him. 'We've been looking forward to meeting you,' he said, 'He's talked of little else for weeks.'
'You'll make me blush, you two,' laughed Dottie. 'Gosh! who is this?
A very bent and ancient lady had now arrived and was looking brightly about her. In one hand she held a large and bulging carpet bag and in the other a polished blackthorn walking stick. Her buttoned boots were from an earlier age, and her faded black dress hung in swags from her shrunken frame. Behind her came Lewis.
'Sorry I'm late,' he said. 'Meet Grandmamma. Mrs Entwistle, may I present Miss Dorothy Pickles?'
'Eh?' croaked Mrs Entwistle, and rooting in her bag produced an immense ear trumpet.
'Dorothy Pickles, Grandmamma,' shouted Andrew, addressing himself to the trumpet, and the brothers grinned at each other.
The Curious Death of Henry J. Vicenzi (The Inspector Felix Mysteries Book 5) Page 1
