The Comedy Club Mystery

by Peter Bartram

  “I’d like to talk to you about the murder of Danny Bernstein. I believe he is your agent.”

  Jessie’s eyes darkened. “Was. Now there is a gobshite.”

  It looked as though Sidney might be right. Jessie looked like she could be as tough as a blacksmith’s apron.

  “You had an affair with him?” I said.

  “Yeah. Why ask the question if you already know the answer? But you’re wrong. It wasn’t an affair. It was a matter of business. You know how many girls want to get on in show business? More than you’ll ever pass the time of day with.”

  “You’re answering your own questions now.”

  “Got a problem with that? Because I haven’t. I’ve been asking and answering those questions since that gobshite made me pregnant.”

  “But you lost the baby?”

  “That’s one way of putting it. It wasn’t the only thing I lost. I didn’t want Bernstein near me. But he made life difficult. He put the word around and so now I’ve got no agent – and precious few bookings. This competition is my one big chance to get back as a headline act.”

  “You must hate Bernstein,” I said.

  Jessie slapped her thighs. It was a derisive gesture. “You’re quick,” she said.

  “Where were you on Monday morning when Bernstein was killed?”

  “Think I killed the bastard, do you?”

  “I’m just trying to build background for an article on the killing.”

  “Yeah! Okay! I understand. I was out walking. I walk when I’m building an act. Movement helps me to think.”

  “Where were you walking?”

  “Here and there. Along the seafront mostly.”

  “With anyone?”

  “Like Greta Garbo I wanted to be alone.”

  “Did you see anyone you know?”

  “Yeah! All my muckers from Liverpool were down for a day by the sea.”

  So Jessie didn’t have an alibi for the time of the killing.

  I said: “I need to build a picture of Bernstein. I know you hate the man, but is there anything you can tell me about him?”

  A cloud of indecision passed over her face. Her eyes flicked from side to side. She was wondering whether to tell me something.

  “There is one thing…” she began.

  But before she could continue, the door opened and a man wearing a stained dinner jacket, grubby white shirt and black bowtie lurched into the room. He was carrying what looked like a small man dressed in country tweeds. The small man had a waxen face, stiff lips and eyes that swivelled mechanically from side to side. There was a monocle over the left eye.

  Ventriloquist Teddy Hooper and dummy the Honourable Percival Plonker had made an unwanted entrance, stage right.

  Hooper staggered a couple of steps and steadied himself. His left arm swung free. His right arm had disappeared up the nether regions of Plonker.

  Jessie flicked him a disgusted glance and said: “This isn’t your room, Teddy. And you’re drunk.”

  Plonker’s eyes twizzled towards Hooper, then back to Jessie. They seemed to open wider.

  “A drop hasn’t touched my lips. I poured it straight down my throat.”

  Hooper voiced Plonker like an upper-class English aristocrat. As if to emphasise the point, he went into his routine.

  “Where did you get that accent, old boy?” he asked Plonker.

  “Eton, old sausage.”

  “Then you’d better stop eating old sausage.”

  “I have since I bought that sausage last week.”

  “What was wrong?”

  “On the packet it said ‘Prick with fork’. But there wasn’t a fork.”

  “That’s very rude, Percival. There’s a lady present.”

  “I’ve never had a lady for a present. But I’m willing to try one.”

  “Not with your luck.”

  “Yesterday I backed a horse at ten to one. It came in at quarter past four.”

  “You should take it easy.”

  “I sleep like a log. I wake up in the fireplace.”

  “But you’re in good health.”

  “I went to the doctor’s last week and asked him if he could give me anything for wind. He handed over a kite.”

  Jessie moved towards them. She was on fire.

  She said: “If that’s the best you can do, you’ll stand no chance in the competition. That’s if you ever stagger on to the stage, you’re so pie-eyed.”

  “Dear me,” crowed Plonker’s haughty voice. “The young virgin is having one of her turns.”

  Jessie’s arm moved like a blur. She slapped Plonker’s face his head slipped sideways and rested on his shoulder.

  “You’ve killed Percy,” Hooper whined.

  His arm foraged inside the dummy to regain control and the head snapped back into position.

  Jessie looked like she was lining herself up for another attack.

  I moved between her and Hooper.

  “No gentleman speaks to a lady like that,” I said to Plonker. Realised I was talking to a lump of wood and turned to Hooper. “You owe Jessie an apology,” I said to him.

  Hooper slurred something that sounded like “Solly.” Then he turned and staggered out of the room.

  “Is he always like that?” I asked Jessie. Her eyes were still blazing.

  “You’ve caught him on a good day,” she said. “The man’s poison – but not half as toxic as the words he puts into the mouth of that gargoyle he carries around with him.”

  “Not a fan, then,” I said.

  A single tear trickled down her cheek. “Now there’s someone I’d really like to see dead.”

  I never thought to ask whether she meant Hooper or Plonker.

  Chapter 10

  I left Jessie planning to rehearse her act again and went in search of Hooper and his poison pal.

  I found them in a small room on the top floor. The place had grubby lino and whitewashed walls. It was lit by a single bulb hanging by a flex. I’d seen more comfortable prison cells. But I guessed if the rehearsal rooms hired by the hour this would be one of the cheapest.

  And Hooper didn’t strike me as the kind of man for whom paying rent would be a high priority.

  Right now, he was sitting on the room’s single chair. He had Plonker on his right arm and a half-bottle of Johnnie Walker in his left hand. He glugged from the bottle as I walked into the room.

  Plonker’s head swivelled around as I stepped through the door. His eyes widened, then he turned back to Hooper.

  “Aren’t the servants supposed to knock before they enter?” Plonker asked in his put-on posh voice.

  Hooper nodded and took another pull from the bottle.

  “Aren’t gentlemen supposed to be chivalrous to a lady?” I said.

  Plonker took a sly glance at Hooper. “Miss O’Mara is no lady,” he said. “The word trollop comes to mind.”

  “The word murder comes to mind,” I said.

  This time Hooper gave Plonker a hard look. Hooper swigged some whisky.

  Plonker said: “Stap my vitals! I do believe the fellow’s making accusations against a member of the aristocracy.”

  “You’re no aristocrat. The nearest you ever came to the landed gentry was being part of a tree on one of their estates.”

  I stood there astonished at myself. I suddenly realised what I’d just said. I was having an argument with a wooden doll. I needed to get a grip.

  I moved closer to Hooper and said: “I’d like to ask you rather than your alter ego here some questions.”

  “Who are you?” They were the first words Hooper had said in his own voice since I’d come into the room.

  “Colin Crampton, Evening Chronicle. I’m writing an article about the killing of Danny Bernstein and I want to talk to artistes who’d been on his books.”

  “Were on his books,” Hooper said.

  “We had to move on,” Plonker added. “’At last he rose and twitched his mantle blue, Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.’ I
’d wager a king’s ransom you don’t know who wrote that, peasant.”

  “John Milton,” I said.

  “A little education makes the lower classes uppity,” Plonker complained.

  I turned to Hooper. “When Bernstein smashed your dummy…”

  “Language!” Plonker interjected. “Who’re you calling a dummy?”

  I gave him a dirty look – I don’t know why, I couldn’t help myself – and continued: “Smashed your dummy, you must have wanted to kill Bernstein.”

  Plonker gave a derisive laugh. He turned to Hooper. “Murder is for folks with cash in the bank, isn’t it my old retainer?”

  Hooper shrugged. Not easy with a dummy on one arm and a bottle of whisky in the other hand. But he managed it.

  “Couldn’t afford to kill Bernstein,” he said. “I needed money to repair Percy.”

  “I said he should’ve taken out private medical cover,” Plonker said. “Instead you borrowed money from Bernstein to make me well. But then instead of paying it back, you spent your earnings on the demon drink.”

  “I need a glass after a day dealing with you,” Hooper told Plonker.

  “So it’s my fault that Bernstein sacked you when you couldn’t repay him? And now we’re living in reduced circumstances. And rehearsing in shitholes like this. Pardon my French.”

  I said: “Where were you on the morning Bernstein died?”

  “In my box enjoying a dream – rather naughty actually – about Pinocchio. Oh, what one could do with that nose.”

  “Not you,” I said. “Mr Hooper, where were you on Monday morning?”

  Hooper took a long pull from his bottle. “I believe I was in the land of nod. I’d had a busy evening previously. Rehearsing hard, you understand.”

  “Of course. Was anyone with you?”

  “Naturally. I always sleep with the Honourable Percival Plonker – although I want to stress there is nothing unnatural in our relationship.”

  “Taken as read.” When dealing with a madman, humour him. “So there is no-one who could provide an alibi for you in court?”

  “I would speak from the witness box on my friend’s behalf,” Plonker said.

  I was about to explain that wooden dummies weren’t allowed to give evidence in court, when the door opened and a man stormed in.

  He was more than six feet tall. He had a shock of red hair, parted to the left in a casual way which had left a quiff over his forehead. He had piercing blue eyes. He had a tight little mouth that could look cruel when he was angry. And he was angry now.

  He was wearing a checked jacket and grey trousers. He had a show handkerchief in his breast pocket.

  He strode up to Hooper. I thought he was going to thump the man. Or possibly he was going to strangle Plonker.

  He said: “You’ve upset Jessie, you fork-tongued old sot.”

  Hooper gazed at the man through bleary eyes.

  Plonker swivelled his head. “Well, by Jove, if it isn’t Peter Kitchen, the scourge of the mean and the mighty everywhere. And he’s here in the role of knight errant.”

  “You shut up, or I’ll rip your head off,” Kitchen said.

  “Ouch! Peter’s in a temper,” Plonker said. “Is it because you still can’t get on that television satire show? Which one is it now? That Was The Week That Was. No, you missed out on that one. But then, you’ve missed out on all of them.”

  I stepped forward. “I’d heard you had a bit of a temper,” I said.

  Kitchen turned on me. “And who the hell are you?”

  “Colin Crampton, from the Evening Chronicle, not from Hell. Although it sometimes seems like it.”

  “And what are you doing here?”

  “I’ve been trying to interview Teddy Hooper about Danny Bernstein’s murder. But now that you’ve turned up, I’d like to ask you a question.”

  “I’ve got nothing to say about Bernstein,” Kitchen said.

  “That’s because he turned you down as a client,” Plonker chipped in.

  “Is that true?”

  “I prefer to manage my own career.”

  “You don’t have a choice,” said Plonker. “And with no agent, you’ll never get on TV.”

  “Shut that dummy’s mouth or I’ll shut yours,” Kitchen roared at Hooper. “By the time you go on stage people won’t be able to tell whether you move your lips ‘coz you won’t have any.”

  Hooper took a swig of his whisky.

  I said: “Shall we have a civilised discussion?”

  “Not possible with a peasant,” Plonker said.

  “I’ve got nothing to say to you,” Kitchen said.

  “Have the police asked you where you were on Monday morning when Bernstein was killed?” I asked.

  “Yes. I’ve told them I was having my morning run up on Devil’s Dyke.”

  “Alone, I suppose.”

  “He’s always alone,” Plonker said. “He’d be alone even if he was smoking a cigarette in those vulgar television advertisements.”

  “If you’re talking about the TV ads with that slogan ‘You’re never alone with a Strand’, they’ve stopped making them,” I said.

  “The adverts?” Kitchen asked.

  “No, the cigarettes.”

  “I don’t smoke anyway.”

  “We’re getting off the point,” I said. “Did you have any witnesses to your run on Monday?”

  “There were a few sightseers up there. Don’t know who they were. Some may have recognised me.”

  “Ha, bloody, ha,” Plonker said.

  There was a gurgling sound as Hooper guzzled the last of his whisky. He slipped off his chair and slumped on the floor. His arm stayed inside Plonker.

  Hooper looked like he was out of it for the next few hours. But Plonker’s head turned towards me. And his eyes slowly closed.

  Kitchen and I exchanged puzzled glances.

  “I’ve got nothing more to say to you,” Kitchen said.

  He stormed out of the room, just like he’d entered it.

  I glanced back. Hooper was asleep on the floor, snoring like a steam engine. Plonker was silent.

  I wasn’t going to get any more out of either of them. A welcome respite in the case of Plonker.

  I stepped outside and went in search of room four where Billy Dean was supposed to rehearse. But when I opened the door, there was nobody there.

  I headed back down stairs.

  Jessie O’Mara was at the foot of the stairs looking up.

  She said: “I heard shouting followed by a crash.”

  I said: “Peter Kitchen was defending your honour to Teddy Hooper. Teddy fell off his chair and is now snoring on the floor.”

  Jessie shook her head. “There are times when comedy is a funny business.”

  “I’m not sure which way to take that.”

  We fell silent. Jessie looked like she was thinking. Like she had a decision to make.

  I said: “When we were talking earlier you were going to tell me something.”

  “Was I?”

  “Yes. It was something about Danny Bernstein.”

  “It’s probably not important.”

  “I sensed it was important. You weren’t sure whether you should mention it. You still aren’t.”

  Jessie gave a resigned nod. “You’re right.”

  “Do you want to tell me now?”

  Jessie nodded again. “Okay. But not here.”

  We left the rehearsal rooms and walked up Trafalgar Street to the railway station.

  We sat at a corner table in the station’s buffet. I ordered coffee and cheese sandwiches. The sandwiches had gone curly at the edges.

  We sipped our coffee. Ignored the sandwiches. Jessie looked like all the troubles of the world were heaped on her shoulders. She didn’t look like the Laughing Lass from Liverpool. More like a Miserable Miss from the Mersey.

  She put down her cup and said: “If I tell you this, you don’t let on that it came from me.”

  “You have my word.” I reached over
the table and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.

  “I have to be certain. What I’m going to tell you involves some bad people. Seriously nasty.”

  I said: “Jessie, informants have told me about seriously nasty people before. I’ve written about those people and what I’ve written has helped to put them in jail – away from people they’d otherwise harm. The most sacred pledge in the journalists’ code is that we don’t reveal our sources.”

  Jessie picked up a spoon and gave her coffee an unnecessary stir. Something to do while she thought about what I’d said.

  I sat silently trying not to let my tension show. But it’s always like this when you think someone is about to tell you something that will set you on the trail of a big story.

  Jessie said: “All this happened when I was having… well, you know, that thing I had with Bernstein. I wish I hadn’t…”

  She broke off. Took out a handkerchief. Wiped a tear from her eye.

  I said: “Don’t let regrets ruin your life. Be strong – like Edith Piaf.”

  Jessie managed a thin smile. “Je ne regrette rien,” she said. “But she died young. I don’t want that to happen to me.”

  “It won’t,” I said.

  Jessie nodded. “Then I’d better let it all out.”

  I relaxed a bit. Decided not to take out my notebook yet. The thought her words were being taken down might make Jessie nervous about what she said. Instead, I had a sip of my British Rail coffee. It tasted much the same as their tea.

  Jessie said: “I wasn’t the only girl Bernstein had in his office. And when I say ‘had’ I think you know what I mean.”

  I nodded.

  Jessie said: “There were girls who used to come to the office looking for work. Most of them were daft little dolls with their heads stuffed full of dreams about showbiz. They wanted to be dancers, singers, chorus girls. Most of them couldn’t dance or sing or kick their legs up in the air like the Tiller Girls. But if Bernstein liked the look of one, he’d promise her work, after she’d had a special audition.”

  “A special audition on the casting couch?” I asked.

  Jessie nodded.

  “And then shown the door?” I asked.

  “No, that’s where Bernstein was clever. He knew that if he had his wicked way with girls, then turned them out on the street with nothing, one of them would eventually blab.”