Die Laughing

by Carola Dunn

  “When is the cook due back?”

  “Six o’clock.”

  “Right-oh, Tom, you wait here for her, and in the meantime take a look around the rest of the house. I wish I could talk to Mrs. Talmadge. Failing that, I’ll have a go at Creighton. Mackinnon is checking with the neighbours. When Ernie gets back, he can start on the patient files.”

  “Making a list of all the eligible females?”

  “All those between eighteen and forty, at least. Though unfortunately it has been suggested that Talmadge probably wouldn’t fall for a patient.”

  “Pity! Where do we start looking?”

  “We may have to ask the press for help,” Alec said reluctantly. “See if you can find a photograph of Talmadge so that we don’t have to use one of the body. He was distinctive enough for people to remember seeing him and with luck someone will be able to describe his companion.”

  “Let’s hope.”

  “We won’t do it unless we have to.”

  “You going to have a word with the press boys out front now?”

  “No, it can wait till tomorrow. Maybe by then we’ll have more idea of whom we’re looking for. Anything else?”

  “When Mrs. Fletcher rang up about the bonfire, she also told me there’s an alley out the back that errand-boys use for a shortcut, and she gave me the name of the employer of a lad she met there. I took a look at the path, but it’s paved, so no help there.”

  Alec checked his watch. “The shops’ll be closing any minute. You’d better get on to the boy first thing in the morning.”

  “Right, Chief.”

  Tom went off to search the rest of the house. While Alec waited to hear from Ernie Piper, he had a closer look at the contents of the cabinet. At the end of the top shelf, he found two file boxes marked Personal.

  One contained documents pertaining to the ownership of the house, showing that Mrs. Talmadge had inherited the freehold from her father. The other contained various other papers, including Talmadge’s discharge from the Royal Army Medical Corps and two wills. The latter were dated just after the beginning of the War, nearly ten years ago. Raymond Talmadge’s left everything to his wife; hers left everything to him except for two hundred pounds to Hilda Kidd.

  Alec wondered whether either had made a new will since then. He was noting down the solicitor’s name when the ’phone rang. It was Piper, reporting that Lord Henry Creighton, youngest son of the Marquess of Addlestoke, resided in a service flat in Mayfair.

  “I talked to the man who valets Creighton, Chief. He says his lordship is generally home between six and half past seven, preparing for an evening out. His lordship dines out practically every evening during the Season. A very popular and sociable gentleman, his lordship is.”

  Always willing to make up a hostess’s numbers at the last minute, Alec guessed cynically. “Good job,” he said. “I’d better get over there right away. And I want you back here to go through the files.”

  “Now, Chief? Have a heart, it’s rush hour.”

  “Get something to eat in the canteen before you come. It’s going to be a long evening.” Alec explained what he wanted Ernie to look for, then hung up.

  He went to tell Tom he was leaving. Tom had found a studio portrait of Talmadge in Medical Corps uniform. The cap hid the pale hair which was his most conspicuous feature.

  “It’ll do in a pinch, but see if you can find something without a hat. I’m off to see Creighton. Ernie should be here soon. When Mackinnon comes in, he’d better go back to his station and write up a report. Do you think you can work with him?”

  “Seems like a good enough lad. As long as he exhibits the deference due to the position of a Yard man—”

  “And to your age and girth, of course. Right-oh, I’ll put in a request to have him seconded to me for the case. I’ll ’phone here after I’ve talked to Creighton, and either come back here or meet you at the Yard, depending on what we’ve discovered.”

  “Why do these things always happen on steak-and-kidney pud night?” Tom mourned.

  “Be nice to Mrs. Thorpe,” Alec advised, “and maybe you’ll get whatever she’d planned for the Talmadges.”

  He had left the Baby Austin in the street at the front, so he had to leave that way. A glance from the window of the study had shown him that the throng of gentlemen of the press had thinned somewhat.

  Assisted by Constable Atkinson, Alec ploughed through the diminished crowd. He placated them with confirmation that Scotland Yard was investigating a suspicious death and a promise of a statement in the morning. As he drove off, they scattered to quiz the neighbours. In this affluent neighbourhood they were not likely to get much satisfaction except, perhaps, from the servants.

  Thinking back on the faces he had recognized, he realized that those who had departed earlier were the evening rags’ reporters. The late editions’ stop-press columns would be full of the death of a dentist, sinister or mysterious, according to taste. Neither the Evening Standard nor the Evening News was noted for waiting for official confirmation. They would undoubtedly announce that the Yard was on the spot.

  If Creighton was involved in Talmadge’s death, he would surely have bought a paper. By now he knew that—largely thanks to Daisy, Alec admitted—the police had not been fooled into dismissing murder as an unfortunate but foreseeable accident.

  8

  Creighton lived in Mayfair, in one of the blocks of flats erected where a Zeppelin raid had leveled most of a street of gracious Georgian town houses. The marble lobby, too cramped to be elegant, was guarded by a Commissionaire in the full glory of his braided, brass-buttoned, and bemedaled uniform.

  Alec asked for Lord Henry Creighton.

  “Is his lordship expecting you, sir?”

  “No.” At least, he hoped not.

  “I’ll just ring through on the house ’phone.”

  “No, don’t do that. I’m a police officer. I have a few questions to ask Lord Henry and I’d prefer to do so without prior warning.” He presented his credential.

  One hand that reached for it had two fingers missing and both were badly scarred. The man shook his head dubiously. “Well, I’m sure I dunno, sir. As a general rule we don’t like police in the house. When we get ‘em, it’s usually a summons for driving a motor-car without due care and attention, or pinching a bobby’s helmet on Boat Race night, or summat like that.” He studied the warrant card with a worried frown. “Detective Chief Inspector—This wouldn’t be anything like that, I s’pose.”

  “Not exactly.”

  Looking up, the man noticed Alec’s tie and his face cleared. “Royal Flying Corps, sir? That’s where I ended up, transferred out of the Navy. Flight Sergeant Cummings, sir.”

  “Happy to see you’ve fallen on your feet, Sergeant.”

  “Wait a bit—Fletcher—not Arrow Fletcher, sir? The only spotter that always brought home the goods?”

  “Usually,” Alec amended. Flying a single-seater observer aeroplane during the War, he had become renowned as one of the few who actually found their objectives most of the time.

  He was glad that he had dashed home to change his tie. Failing a public school Old Boys’ tie, he found his RFC colours often made his intrusions just a trifle less obnoxious to the upper levels of society.

  “What’s this Lord Henry like, Sergeant?”

  “A nice, quiet gentleman, sir, always a pleasant word. Can’t see him doing nothing as’d interest a Scotland Yard ’tec.”

  “He probably hasn’t. We spend as much time clearing the innocent as catching the guilty. Does Lord Henry do much entertaining?”

  “Not what you might call a lot, sir. These here service flats, they’ve got dining rooms you couldn’t swing a cat in—if so be you was wanting to do such a nasty, crule thing—and the kitchens is no more than a place to boil a kettle or wash up a few glasses. His lordship has a friend or two in for drinks now and then, and maybe once or twice a month a luncheon or dinner for four sent up from our restaurant. We got al
l the facilities right here on the premises.”

  “Very convenient.”

  “If that’s what you likes. I’m a family man meself.”

  “So am I,” Alec hastened to assure him. “Any ladies visiting Lord Henry?”

  “His mother, the Marchioness, and his sisters, Lady Ann and Lady Alice. Then there’s a married couple, Captain and Mrs. Dixon.” Flight Sergeant Cummings’s craggy face managed to look coy. “And there’s another lady comes with ’em, often as not. I never heard her name.”

  “A looker, is she?”

  “Dunno, sir. She always wears this veil on her hat that hides her face, like ladies wear for motoring. As for the rest of her, as you might say, she dresses very smart and her shape’s what’s fashionable nowadays, though we’d’ve called it skinny in my young day.”

  Alec thought with gratitude of Daisy’s cuddlesome curves. “This mysterious lady always arrives with the Dixons?” he asked. Dixon!—the name might almost as well be Smith, even with the “Captain” before it, if he had to run the couple to earth.

  “Ah, now, as to that I can only speak to my shift, which is eight in the morning till eight at night, Tuesdays off and half day Saturday. I never seen her without them, coming or going, which ain’t to say Bert, that’s on night shift, hasn’t. Which ain’t to say he’ll tell you if he has, being PBI and sour as an unripe gooseberry.”

  A Poor Bloody Infantryman, looked down on by every other branch of the services, was not to be won over by an RFC tie, Cummings implied. Alec grinned at him. “I came at the right time. You’ve been most helpful, Sergeant. I’ll go on up now and see what Lord Henry has to say.”

  “Right you are, sir. Fifth floor, second door to your right.”

  Alec went on to the lift, where a cheeky-looking lift boy had been standing watching his conversation with Cummings. “Fifth floor, guv? ’Ang on tight!”

  The lift cage jerked into motion and they moved with ponderous stateliness upwards past floor after floor. The corridors visible through the door were narrow but carpeted, with prints on the walls. This was definitely an expensive place to live. Creighton might be a younger son but he was not a poor man.

  Alec considered asking the lift boy for further information about Creighton. Better not, he decided. The lad couldn’t be expected to adhere to the code of discretion required of the old soldiers of the Corps of Commissionaires. If he knew, the world would soon hear of Scotland Yard’s interest in the Marquess of Addlestoke’s youngest son. Alec wasn’t unduly impressed by aristocratic rank, but unnecessary tittle-tattle would not please his superiors, already annoyed by Daisy’s involvement.

  He could always question the lift boy later if the information he needed was not forthcoming directly from Creighton.

  Delivered to the fifth floor, Alec rang Creighton’s doorbell. The man who opened the door could have stepped straight from a Punch caricature. Tall and thin, with too much nose, not enough chin, and a pronounced widow’s peak, he wore a midnight blue silk dressing gown over his shirt, waistcoat, and trousers. He peered at Alec through a gold-rimmed monocle.

  “I say, my dear fellow, am I expecting you?”

  “Not exactly, sir.” Alec handed over his card.

  “Oh, right-oh. The fact is, I’ve a rotten memory for appointments—need to get a secretary, eh, what?—and people do get upset if you don’t remember they’re coming. As a matter of fact,” he went on apologetically, “I usually take my bath about this time.”

  “I hope I shan’t have to take up much of your time, sir.” Alec advanced into the small entrance hall.

  He thought Creighton was going to stand firm, but after a moment his lordship took a step backwards. Then he turned away with a gentle sigh, raising Alec’s card towards his face. Pushing the door shut behind him, Alec watched and thought he saw Creighton stiffen but could not be sure.

  “New Scotland Yard?” he murmured. “Do come in and sit down, Chief Inspector. To what do I owe the honour?” His tone was gently ironic, the first hint that the man was not the fool he appeared.

  Alec glanced around the spacious room. One long wall was entirely occupied by theatrical memorabilia. Playbills and posters vied with photographs of actors and actresses in and out of costume. Lord Henry appeared in some of the photos, and some were inscribed, presumably to him, in showy handwriting.

  Below this display, low shelves ran the length of the room. On top stood a number of busts. Thanks to his university studies of the Georgian age, Alec recognized three nearby as Goldsmith, Sheridan, and Edmund Kean; presumably the rest were also theatrical luminaries. The lower shelves held books. The few titles Alec could read without going closer were plays and books about the theatre.

  The opposite wall had two doors with a fireplace between them where a welcoming fire flickered. Above the mantelpiece hung a portrait of Sarah Bernhardt as Cleopatra. Comfortable chairs were grouped about the fireplace.

  Alec walked the length of the room to take a seat on the straight chair at the escritoire between the two tall windows. He turned it to face an easy chair placed to catch the light from the window. On the occasional table beside the armchair lay a book with a leather bookmark protruding.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Creighton followed and sat in the designated seat. “Well?” he asked.

  “Have you read an evening paper, sir?”

  “No. As a rule I only see the Morning Post, unless I have a review in one of the others. I review plays. Er … Was there something of interest to me in the late news?”

  Alec said bluntly, “The death of a suburban dentist.”

  Creighton blinked. His face, naturally pale, was very hard to read because of the monocle, which made one eye look smaller than the other and distorted the whole picture. Behind the impassive façade his brain was alert, for only a few seconds passed before he sighed and said, “I assume I can guess the dentist’s name, and that he did not die a natural death, or you would not be here. Mrs. Talmadge told me her husband occasionally indulged in a whiff of laughing gas. I suppose he took an accidental overdose.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Don’t tell me he killed himself? How perfectly dreadful!”

  “I’m afraid not, sir. We are fairly certain it was murder.”

  “Murder.” Creighton pronounced the word without a tremor, then fell silent, contemplating it. Alec waited. “Mrs. Talmadge told you we lunched together?”

  That was easy, Alec thought. “I’m glad to have confirmation of that, sir. I hope you can also confirm times and places?” He took out his fountain pen and notebook, wishing he had Piper, or even Daisy, to take notes for him.

  Creighton’s face remained calm, but he started to tap steadily with one finger on the arm of his chair. He was beginning to realize the complications of his position.

  If he had been unaware of Talmadge’s death, he could have no idea when it took place or whether the dentist’s wife was involved. Thus, assuming he cared for her deeply, he could not know whether he ought to try to provide an alibi for her, and if so, for what period.

  On the other hand, if Creighton had been involved in the planning or execution of the murder, he and Daphne Talmadge would surely have concocted a credible story. In that case, he only had to worry about her remembering the details correctly. It would have been easiest to cover as brief a period as possible. So if Creighton presented an alibi covering only luncheon, that would seem to point to his guilt, or at least to knowledge of his mistress’s guilt.

  “We met at eleven,” he said, “or a few minutes after. Mrs. Talmadge took a taxi to New Bond Street and I was waiting when she arrived.”

  “New Bond Street?”

  “Yes, we went to a preview of an auction at Sotheby’s. As you may be aware, Sarah Bernhardt died last year. Her collection is to come under the hammer, including the manuscripts of the two plays she herself wrote. Here.” He took a catalogue from under the book on the table beside him, and handed it to Alec. “You’ll see my notes on the
various items.”

  Alec riffled through the pages. “I see, sir, but I’m afraid this doesn’t prove that you were there today. Did you see anyone you know?”

  “Most people one knows go in the afternoon.”

  “So no one can confirm your whereabouts.”

  “Oh, I expect Truscott, their theatre expert, will remember me. I spoke to him. I thought you meant the sort of people one knows.”

  “Truscott.” Alec wrote down the name. “An auction room seems an odd place for a rendezvous with a lady.”

  “Daph—Mrs. Talmadge is as great an aficionado of the theatre as I am. She found the preview fascinating. Her husband, alas, is not interested, so I take her to a matinee now and then. She is an old friend.”

  “You went to a matinee this afternoon?”

  The tapping finger stilled. Alec guessed the questions racing through Creighton’s mind: Did Daphne go straight home? What time did she get there, and do the police know it? What time did Raymond Talmadge die? What time did Raymond Talmadge die?

  Unless, of course, he was actually thinking: How did they know it wasn’t an accident or suicide? What went wrong?

  Creighton played for time, the tapping finger resuming its betrayal. “Let’s take things in their proper order. When we had seen enough at Sotheby’s, we decided to lunch, although it was still rather early.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “We strolled up to Oxford Street and popped into the first restaurant which appealed to her.”

  “Which was … ?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea, Chief Inspector. I seldom eat in that part of town and I didn’t notice the name of the establishment. Nor can I recall what we ate. She … We had a great deal to talk about.”

  Murder? “I see, sir. Well, I dare say we can find the place. And which theatre did you go on to?”