The Comedy Club Mystery

by Peter Bartram

  “So Bernstein was a friend as well as an agent to Max?”

  “Yes.”

  “One to whom Max would like to leave his Blue Book?”

  Evelyn gave me a wary glance. “You already know that it arrived in the cigar box. But, yes, I believe that Max would have welcomed the knowledge that it was owned by an old friend.”

  “Why did Mr Bernstein never share its contents with other Max Miller fans?” I asked.

  “I think he felt that as Max had kept the contents private during this life, that wish should be honoured in his death.”

  “Do you know what Mr Bernstein intended to do with the Blue Book on his death?”

  “He never confided that in me. But whatever his intentions, they’ve been thwarted by the thief who took it and killed him.”

  “His death must’ve come as a big shock to you.”

  Evelyn nodded gravely. “When I arrived at the office at half past nine to find the police swarming over the building, I felt sick to the pit of my stomach.”

  Evelyn glanced at her watch. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do. Someone has to serve our clients.”

  “The show must go on,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said in a deadpan voice. “The show has to go on.”

  For the first time, Evelyn looked as though the emotion was getting to her.

  I said: “Just one more question. Do you think Sidney Pinker killed Mr Bernstein?”

  “Mr Pinker reacted badly when Danny refused to show him the Blue Book. There were angry phone calls. I could hear Danny shouting down the phone in his office. And then Pinker wrote that disgraceful article in your newspaper. It’s no wonder that Danny had had enough and decided to sue. I suppose it pushed Pinker over the edge. I understand Sally found him with the murder weapon and splashed with blood. That’s what I call being caught red-handed.”

  Half an hour later, I was in the Chronicle’s morgue, the place where thousands of press cuttings were filed.

  There hadn’t seemed much more to say after Evelyn Stamford had delivered her damning verdict on Pinker. Her mind was closed to any other explanations. And I was struggling to think of one anyway.

  I’d persuaded Henrietta Houndstooth, who ran the morgue, to pull the cuttings we held on Max Miller and Daniel Bernstein. As I’d suspected, the Miller file was three inches thick. The Bernstein file was its skinny relative.

  I’d expected Bernstein’s murder to be the talk of the morgue. But Mabel, Elsie and Freda, Henrietta’s assistants, who clipped and filed the cuttings, were taking a stroll down memory lane. The three, known around the paper as the Clipping Cousins, turned out to be fans of Max Miller.

  “He was outrageous,” Mabel said. “I remember seeing him about fifteen years ago at the Hippodrome. He came on stage wearing that floral jacket and plus-four trousers. He looked more camp than a row of tents. I was sitting in the fourth row of the stalls. I was laughing as soon as he came on. He pointed at me and said, ‘If you’re wondering, ducks, I’m not. But I help ‘em out when they’re busy.’ I just shrieked. So did the rest of the audience.”

  Elsie said: “I saw him at the Finsbury Park Empire on a trip to London. I thought a lot of his jokes were corny, but his personality was so warm, you wanted to be his friend.”

  Freda said: “The best bit was when he sung his closing song.”

  “Mary from the Dairy,” Elsie said.

  “That’s right,” Mabel said.

  “I loved that song,” Freda said.

  “Whenever I’d seen Max Miller I used to hum it all the way home,” said Mabel.

  They looked at one another… and burst into song. “I fell in love with Mary from the Dairy…”

  I turned to Henrietta and said: “As it seems to be cabaret time, I’ll take these cuttings back to the newsroom.”

  Henrietta smiled and shook her head in mock despair.

  But the way my mission to save Pinker was going, I should’ve been the one in despair.

  At my desk in the newsroom, I started to study the press cuttings.

  Max Miller had been a big personality in Brighton. So Henrietta had been thorough in compiling cuttings about him. She’d included items from the theatrical newspaper The Stage, and the legal eagle’s journal The Law Society Gazette, which I hadn’t seen before.

  The tips of my fingers became inky as I flipped through the flaking clippings.

  Miller, it seemed, had lived his life in a spotlight, but he’d created a world of shadows after his death. The first mystery was where all his money had gone. He’d earned millions as a star of stage and screen. But he’d left just £27,000, a fraction of the wealth that had passed through his hands.

  He’d left £7,000 to his former secretary, Ann Graham. His wife Kathleen had been well provided for in the will, the Law Society Gazette informed me, but had remained tight-lipped about Ann’s bequest.

  Then there was the mystery of the Blue Book. I already knew that it had been hidden in the cigar box. But if it had the value Bernstein had told Pinker, why hadn’t Kathleen tried to get it back? The Law Society Gazette hinted at some reasons. Perhaps Kathleen was miffed at the money Ann had received and didn’t want to draw any more attention to Max’s financial affairs. Perhaps she was doubtful whether she could legally reclaim what she’d given as a gift. And if she could get it back, Bernstein would already know its content – which was where its real value lay.

  But a further cutting deepened the mystery. There was another claim to the Blue Book. That came from Ernie Winkle, a comedian who’d regularly appeared as a supporting act on the same bill as Miller.

  I leaned back in my captain’s chair as I read a cutting from The Stage. “Comedian Ernie Winkle is taking legal advice about suing for the Blue Book,” The Stage reported. The cutting noted that Winkle owned a comedy club in Brighton, the Last Laugh. I’d seen the place in one of the side streets that ran off Marine Parade. But I’d never been inside.

  The Stage cutting went on: “Mr Winkle said, ‘I worked with Max Miller for years, and appeared with him all over the country. A load of the gags in that book will be ones I told Max. He promised me I’d have the book when he passed on. And now I want that promise honoured. I will do anything to get the Blue Book.’”

  Did “anything” include murder? I wondered. It was time to pay Winkle a visit.

  Perhaps I would have the last laugh at the Last Laugh.

  Chapter 6

  My Australian girlfriend Shirley Goldsmith flashed me a smile and said: “I like a laugh but the one thing I can’t stand is mother-in-law jokes.”

  I said: “You mean like the one about the two men in a pub.”

  “Don’t say it,” Shirley warned.

  But I like to live dangerously, so I continued: “The first man said, ‘My mother-in-law is an angel.’ His friend knocked back his beer and said, ‘You’re lucky mate. Mine is still alive.’”

  Shirl gave me a not-so-playful punch on the arm.

  We were walking along Marine Parade towards the Last Laugh comedy club. It was one of those November evenings when you think stories about English weather can’t all be true. There was a cloudless sky and a full moon. The moonbeams cast long fingers of light across the sea. The waves broke on the shingle with a soothing rhythmic splash. A breeze as gentle as an angel’s sigh wafted in from the south-west.

  Shirley said: “It’s not fair that mothers-in-law are always the butt of weak comedians. They should even up the score. Why are there no father-in-law jokes?”

  I said: “There are.”

  “Prove it.”

  “A woman is talking to her best friend. She says, ‘Every time my father-in-law comes to dinner, he criticises my cooking. But, actually, I’ve got a soft spot for him. It’s that patch of earth by the trees in the cemetery.’”

  Shirley said: “If you ever give up journalism, don’t apply for work in comedy.”

  “No danger of that. Frank Figgis is the only stand-up comic around the Chronicle
. And even he doesn’t know why people laugh at him.”

  “Yeah, your Figgis sounds like a joke. But I don’t get it. When you said you were taking me to a club, I thought we’d be dancing. That’s why I’m wearing this funky gear.”

  Shirley had dressed in a silver print mini-dress with crazy flared sleeves. She was wearing knee-length black disco boots. She had a silver band in her blonde hair. She looked every inch the fashion model she’d become in the past year. I was tempted to scrub the Last Laugh and take her to Sherry’s.

  But there’d be time to play after I’d landed my story. I only hoped Shirley would see it that way. I hadn’t yet told her that we wouldn’t only be watching the show. I had work to do.

  We crossed the road and headed up the street towards the Last Laugh.

  Shirley said: “If I were opening a comedy club, I wouldn’t call it the Last Laugh. That makes it sound like someone is getting one over on a sucker. I hope it’s not us.”

  “I hadn’t looked at it like that. But if I were a comedian, I’d be more worried about getting the first laugh.”

  We found the Last Laugh half way up the street. The club was housed in a run-down old cinema. But the ghosts of John Wayne and Katharine Hepburn would have left long ago. The place looked like it had been put up when cinemas used to be called bioscopes and Rudolph Valentino made audiences swoon. The women, that is. And, as we were in Kemp Town, some of the men, too.

  There was a pair of swing doors underneath an awning to keep the rain off queues of eager filmgoers. Above the awning, we could see the rust marks where the cinema’s name had once been spelt out in lights: CORONATION.

  “I wonder whose coronation that was,” Shirley said.

  “George the Fifth’s I shouldn’t wonder,” I said.

  There were glass display cases on each side of the doors. The cases would once have displayed playbills announcing next week’s attraction. Perhaps Boris Karloff in Frankenstein. Perhaps Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind. Perhaps Errol Flynn in Robin Hood. More ghosts from the past.

  The display case on the left held a poster which had faded with age. It showed a picture of a man with a lined face, a scrawny neck, and hunched shoulders. He was looking straight at the camera with a leery grin. His black hair had been plastered with so much hair cream it looked like his head had been coated with tarmac.

  The foot of the poster delivered the punchline:

  ERNIE “Mind your manners” WINKLE

  Merry moments with Brighton’s main mischief maker

  Shows nightly

  So this was the owner and star attraction of the Last Laugh.

  Perhaps the place wasn’t so badly named after all.

  Shirley pointed at a poster in the display case on the right. “Hey, look there’s going to be a Laugh-a-thon.”

  “A what?”

  I switched my attention from the mischief maker.

  “A Laugh-a-thon. It’s a joke telling competition. According to this, five comics battle it out to raise laughs. The winner gets a spot on Sunday Night at the London Palladium.”

  “That’s a top TV show. Millions tune in every week to watch,” I said.

  I took a closer look at the poster. It showed thumbnail photos of the five finalists – Billy Dean, Teddy Hooper, Jessie O’Mara, Peter Kitchen and the mischief-maker himself, Ernie Winkle.

  “I’ve never heard of any of these,” I said. “I wonder whether Sidney Pinker knows anything about them.”

  “You can find out in three days,” Shirley said. “That’s when the Laugh-a-thon takes place – and it’s here.”

  “I wonder whether this is in the Chronicle’s news diary.”

  This was the kind of story Sidney Pinker would usually file. But Sidney had other things on his mind at present.

  We pushed open the swing doors and stepped into the foyer.

  The place had one of those ceilings with lots of swirls and curls in the plaster work. The walls had been covered with red flock wallpaper, probably before the projector had shown its first “talkie”. Half a dozen portraits of Hollywood stars lined one wall. I spotted Veronica Lake, Humphrey Bogart and Bette Davis among them.

  Between Humphrey and Bette there was a dog. I suppose that must have been Lassie.

  To the right of the foyer, there was a ticket kiosk. It was one of those old-fashioned ones with a glass front and a small hole in the glass to talk through. The hole is usually too low so you have to bend down to buy your ticket. It makes you look like Uriah Heep begging for a favour.

  Meanwhile the ticket seller inside is sitting on a comfy seat. No doubt the bending and crawling makes them feel superior.

  The young woman in the ticket booth had curly fair hair, brown eyes, and a bored expression. Her name badge read Cilla Mullen.

  I leant over and said: “Are you fully booked?”

  Cilla’s eyes lit up, like a battery had been turned on in her head. She he-hawed like a horse with a sense of humour.

  She said: “Fully booked? That’s the funniest thing I’ll hear tonight. You, too.”

  I glanced at Shirley. She rolled her eyes.

  I said to Cilla: “The show’s that bad?”

  Cilla said: “Let me put it this way. I’ve had more laughs having a tooth pulled.”

  Shirl nudged me in the ribs. “Let’s beat it. We can grab a drink somewhere and then go bopping.”

  I shook my head. “I need to see this.”

  “Like you need to watch a puddle drying.”

  I said to Cilla: “Two tickets, please.”

  Shirley said: “Hold hard, buster. Before you book me into this fun palace, what’s the score?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why are we here?”

  “To see the show.”

  “There’s more to it than that. It’s time to level with me, bozo.”

  I shrugged. “I wasn’t going to mention it in case we couldn’t get in, but I need to find a way to interview Ernie Winkle.”

  “What would you want with the merry moments mischief maker?”

  “It’s to do with Sidney Pinker.”

  “Your guy who’s on a murder rap?”

  “He’s not my guy. And Tomkins is fitting him up for a killing he never committed. I’m trying to get to the bottom of it.”

  Shirley’s eyes flared. “Well, you can get to the bottom by yourself. And stay there, as far as I’m concerned. You said we were going to a club and I’m dressed to dance. And that’s what I’m gonna do. Perhaps I’ll find a guy who knows how to have fun without tying work on the end of it. See ya!”

  She flounced through the swing doors and out into the night.

  I stood with my jaw hanging loose while the swing doors squeaked to rest.

  Cilla tapped on the kiosk window.

  “Will it be just the one ticket now?” she asked.

  I pushed through the door into the auditorium clutching my single ticket.

  I didn’t feel much like any kind of laugh, let alone a last one.

  I was annoyed with myself more than Shirley. I should have levelled with her from the start that this wasn’t going to be a fun night out. But the fact was, there’d been too many cases lately when our date had ended as a work fixture. I knew Shirl was fed up when we finished an evening with a dash to the Chronicle to file copy. Or to the cop shop to get a quote from Tomkins or Ted Wilson. Or, worst of all, to a back-street house or a lonely spot in the woods where some unlucky passer-by had just found a dead body.

  Shirl was a trooper, but she wasn’t a traipser. And I could understand why she was less than enchanted with the prospect of traipsing around after my stories.

  The auditorium had the same faded red flock walls as the foyer. There were those wall lamps which look like half a fruit bowl stuck to the wall. They gave out a reluctant yellow glow. At the front of the place, there was a small proscenium arch with a heavy curtain hanging behind it. The auditorium seats were arranged in rows. There was a little table between each seat.
There were half a dozen glum looking punters dotted around the place. I noticed most were nursing drinks, which made me brighten up a bit.

  If there were drinks, there must be a bar. I peered through the gloom – and, sure enough, there it was at the back of the room. I made my way up the aisle towards it.

  Behind the bar, Cilla from the ticket kiosk was sitting on a stool and staring into space. She had the kind of eyes I imagine you get when your body has been taken over by aliens.

  I walked up and clicked my fingers in a friendly way. As though I were Sigmund Freud bringing a patient out of hypnosis to tell him he was cured and no longer wanted to make love to his mother.

  Cilla snapped back into the real world with a lop-sided grin.

  I said: “You looked like you were out of it.”

  She said: “I wish I were. I hate working in this dump.”

  “It doesn’t tickle your funny bone anymore?”

  I asked for a gin and tonic - one ice cube, two slices of lemon.

  Cilla served my drink and said: “Ernie Winkle has never got a laugh out of me. I tell a lie. I did laugh at him once.”

  “When was that?”

  “It was the seventeenth of June 1963. He was playing the last house more drunk that usual. He fell off the stage and broke his arm. I laughed so hard the tears ran down my legs.”

  “I heard he was big in his day.”

  “Only in his own imagination. And then only when he’d made a dead man of his bottle of whisky. He’d have spent a lifetime playing second string working men’s clubs in places like Rotherham if Max Miller hadn’t taken him under his arm.”

  I took a sip of the G and T and asked: “Why was that?”

  “It was long before my day, but the way I heard it, Max felt sorry for him. I only met Max once – he came here shortly after Winkle opened the joint. He was a kind man. But you’d expect that of a bloke who’d seen cruelty at its worst. He served in the trenches in the First World War, you know. He was nearly blinded in one attack. He couldn’t see at all for three days. I guess if you go through something like that, you count your blessings and extend the hand of kindness now and then.”