The Comedy Club Mystery

by Peter Bartram

  I left him to it and made my way backstage.

  Ernie Winkle was in his room. He held a glass with two fingers of whisky. Actually, it looked more like the whole fist. He took a good pull at the whisky and let out a contended sigh.

  He glowered at me as I stepped into the room.

  I said: “I guess being trussed up like the Christmas turkey makes a guy thirsty.”

  Winkle gulped the rest of the whisky. “Yeah! I was ecstatic about that. Two hours before the fuzz turned up to untie me.”

  “How’s Cilla?”

  “How should I know? After the cops had got the ropes off us, she slapped my face, raided the till behind the bar for her back wages, and cleared off.”

  Inwardly, I gave a little cheer. Cilla struck me as the kind of girl who’d cut herself a determined path in life. She was too good for Winkle’s deadbeat club.

  I said: “At least you had a tale to tell your fellow comics today.”

  “Yeah! They thought that was hilarious. Now they all know I had a copy of the Blue Book. Thanks to your paper, they think I was in league with Bernstein to screw St Dunstan’s out of a million quid. They don’t know whether to hate me or pity me. But they made it clear they don’t want me in the competition. I’ve had to pull out.”

  “Worst of all, the bearer bond got burnt,” I said.

  Winkle pulled a rueful smile. “I suppose that’s what you call hot money.”

  “Too hot for you,” I said.

  I left him pouring another slug of scotch and headed back to the auditorium.

  Kitchen had finished his act. There was a hiatus while the others milled around and argued about who should perform next.

  Evelyn scribbled notes at her table. She looked like someone who longed to be elsewhere. Like on a sinking ship. Or trapped down a coal mine.

  I walked up to her, pulled up a chair, and sat down.

  She had a face on her like a mediaeval hangman’s.

  I said: “I’d like to take you away from all this. We need to talk. Somewhere private would be best.”

  She tossed her pen on the table and said: “Anything you have to say to me can be said here.”

  I shrugged. “Have it your own way. I wanted to describe to you how you killed Danny Bernstein.”

  She flashed me a look of pure hate. It felt like the heat from a solar flare.

  “I don’t have to listen to this,” she snapped.

  She shuffled her papers together untidily and stood up.

  I said: “Sit down.”

  My voice carried around the auditorium, like I was a sergeant major who barked out orders on a parade ground.

  The air in the auditorium suddenly felt colder. Everyone stopped talking. All eyes focused on Evelyn.

  The silence was so thick you could have bottled it and sold it to insomniacs.

  Evelyn glanced around. Saw the others giving her their hard stares. She dumped the papers on the table and sat down.

  I said: “When Danny Bernstein realised he’d received what everyone thought was Max Miller’s Blue Book – the one with his best jokes – he did something you found unforgivable.”

  “And what was that supposed to be?”

  “He refused to share it with you.”

  “That was his business,” Evelyn said.

  “Yes, it was. But you’d worked with Danny since the war. You knew more about his business than he knew himself. And for the first time, he’d cut you out of something. And not just something ordinary. Potentially, the sensational Blue Book. That must have made you very bitter.”

  Evelyn shrugged. “We had some words about it.”

  “But you never got to see the Blue Book because Danny locked it in his desk drawer.”

  “I accepted it was none of my business.”

  “But you didn’t accept it. It fuelled your resentment of Bernstein. That resentment turned to hatred. It led to everything that followed.”

  Billy Dean and Jessie O’Mara moved closer and sat down. This was going to be better than anything they’d hear on stage.

  Evelyn shot them a contemptuous glance. “I might have known you’d want to stick your noses in.”

  I said: “You wanted to talk here. But let’s get back to the Blue Book. A couple of weeks ago, you did get a glimpse of it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I was told Danny liked a drink at lunchtime. Often, he’d fall asleep in his office for an hour afterwards. One day, I imagine, he failed to replace the Blue Book in the locked drawer before he had his kip. He left it on his desk – long enough for you to see what it really was. Not a book of jokes, but a message and a code. And a code that could lead anyone who solved it to a million dollars.”

  Evelyn said nothing. She fiddled with the papers on the table.

  Teddy Hooper and Plonker joined Dean and O’Mara on the nearby chairs. They leaned forward to catch every word.

  Peter Kitchen came into the auditorium from behind the stage. He grabbed a chair, turned it round and sat astride holding on to the back. He stared at Evelyn. She ignored him.

  I said: “But that wasn’t all. One afternoon Ernie Winkle came calling. Winkle hadn’t been on good terms with Danny since the time they’d fallen out over the Blue Book. You realised there was only one reason they were getting together again. They needed to use their joint knowledge of Max Miller to solve the code and pocket the cash.”

  “That’s a crazy flight of fancy.”

  “Is it? I think that afternoon you decided that if a couple of lame-brains like Bernstein and Winkle couldn’t solve the million-dollar code you’d do it yourself. But you needed sight of the Blue Book for long enough to copy the contents. And you had to do it without Bernstein suspecting. I’m not sure how you got a key to Bernstein’s desk drawer. I expect when he wasn’t around, he’d leave it in the lock. When he wasn’t looking, perhaps you slipped into his office and inserted a similar looking key while you borrowed the real one and had it copied. Dockerill’s is near your office and they cut keys. I expect when we question them, they’ll remember you.”

  “You wish,” Evelyn said. “You can’t prove it.”

  “In fact, I think we can. The cops found a key in the desk drawer’s lock. But they also found a key for the desk drawer in Bernstein’s key folder. The second key – the one in the lock – must have come from somewhere. And the most likely explanation is that it was copied by someone who could lay their hands – if only briefly – on the original.”

  “That’s terrible,” Hooper said.

  “Little Miss Thief,” Plonker said.

  Evelyn turned on them. “And you can shut your mouth. Both of them.”

  I said: “But getting a key to Bernstein’s desk drawer wasn’t the most difficult part of your plan. You needed access to the drawer when Bernstein wasn’t around – and there was little danger of anyone else interrupting you. That wasn’t easy because Bernstein used to arrive late in the morning and work into the early evening. Sally, the receptionist, used to watch people come and go. You decided to make an early morning visit to the office in the hope you’d avoid Bernstein and trick Sally into thinking you weren’t there.”

  “This is rubbish,” Evelyn said. She pointed at the comedians. “Each of them had a motive to kill Bernstein. It could have been any one of them.”

  I said: “It was very convenient for you that there were several suspects – each with a good motive for killing Bernstein. And each of them could have had the opportunity – because none had an alibi for the time of the killing. But none of the comedians killed Bernstein.”

  Evelyn tossed her head like she thought I was an idiot. “They may not have had an alibi. But I certainly did. I was in my flat in Eastern Road. I didn’t reach the office until at least half an hour after Danny was killed. Sally confirmed that.”

  “But that’s not how events panned out,” I said. “You’d managed to get into Bernstein’s office without Sally realising you were in the building
. You’d used the desk drawer key you’d had made and you’d found the Blue Book in the drawer. You were about to start copying it when something completely unexpected happened.”

  “And what was that supposed to be?” Evelyn asked. Her voice dripped with contempt.

  “Bernstein arrived at the office early,” I said. “I don’t know why he broke the habit of a lifetime. But I expect it was because he had the code in the Blue Book on his mind. The prospect of pocketing a million dollars encourages people to get out of bed. In any event, he found you in the office and was furious. He’d worked with you for decades. He thought he could trust you. And now you were about to ruin the one hope he had of a comfortable retirement. He seized the Indian club from the wall and advanced on you. But you grabbed the sword and were quicker. You lunged at Bernstein to ward him off, but he came on faster than you’d expected. The sword pierced his heart and he fell dead in his chair.”

  “I wonder whether they’ll ever make a film of this,” Plonker crowed.

  “Shut up you twisted lump of wood,” Jessie said.

  I said: “You now had a serious problem. You’d killed Bernstein. The idea of copying the Blue Book and replacing it as if nothing had happened had flown out of the window. Perhaps you thought of that very window image. Perhaps that gave you the idea. You would make it look as though the theft of the Blue Book was the motive for Bernstein’s killing. After all, there were plenty with a motive. You opened the window and tossed the cigar box which had contained the book into the yard. Then you grabbed the Blue Book and made your escape.”

  Evelyn sat up straight and looked at me like she wanted to see me pecked to pieces by ravens.

  “None of this makes any sense,” she said. “Sally saw me arrive at the office minutes after Danny had been killed.”

  I grinned. “Yes, she did. Because she was meant to see you arrive on that occasion – and not before.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “So people constantly tell me, but I still seem to land the big stories. And this will be one of the biggest.”

  “Get on with it,” Dean chipped in from the next table. “We want to know what happened.”

  “Shut your gob,” Jessie snapped.

  I fixed Evelyn with my evil eye. “Earlier, I mentioned this case was rather like Alice Through the Looking-Glass, where time runs backwards. And this is when I realised how clever you’d been. You’d murdered Bernstein in his office shortly after half-past eight. But if you could make time run backwards in your life – if you could make it seem that you’d arrived at the office at nine-thirty when you’d really been there shortly after eight-thirty – it would provide you with the perfect alibi.”

  “If she could do that on stage, she’d make a fortune,” Kitchen said.

  I ignored the interruption and said: “An hour before Sally saw you arrive at the office, you slipped in through the front door. Sally was busy signing for a registered letter the postman had delivered so only caught a glimpse of a figure slipping up the stairs. You crossed the corridor on the first floor and came down the backstairs to the ground floor close to Bernstein’s office. It was the perfect way for you to get into the office without Sally taking a close look at you.”

  “Now you really are mad,” Evelyn said. “The police and all press reports say it was a man who went upstairs. And he left a few minutes later.”

  “Yes, but in your Looking-Glass world you are a man, aren’t you Evelyn? At least you were in your stage act before the War. You were a male impersonator – not as famous as Vesta Tilly or Hetty King whose playbills hang on your office wall – but you got bookings under your stage name of Valentine Redcar. I noticed the playbill on the wall of your office – next to Tilly’s and King’s. If you were as good as them, you could pass as a man at a few yards, certainly enough to fool Sally as long as she didn’t get a good look at your face.”

  “And how would I manage that?” Evelyn snapped. “Every time someone walks through the door, Sally looks up to greet them.”

  “But you arranged it so that she wouldn’t be looking up. You sent a registered letter to yourself. Then you hung around outside the office until the postman arrived. You hurried in after him, knowing that Sally’s attention would be diverted. But she did see enough to believe it was a man who’d slipped upstairs. And she saw you come back down the stairs wearing a raincoat you didn’t have on when you came in.”

  “Why should I do that?”

  “Yeah! What is she – some kind of a magician as well as a male impersonator?” said Jessie.

  “She thought she was a mistress of misdirection,” I said to Jessie. “But the raincoat wasn’t part of her plan. It became necessary when Evelyn slayed Bernstein with the sword. The cops told me the blood splatter was the worst they’d seen. Evelyn would have been covered and she needed something to hide it. So she hurried to retrieve Bernstein’s raincoat which he’d left, as always, in the cupboard under the backstairs. Only someone familiar with Bernstein’s routine would have known where his coat was.”

  I turned back to Evelyn. “After you’d donned the raincoat, you went through the door to the backstairs, taking care to bolt it after you. Then you raced along the first-floor corridor and down the front stairs. You crossed the foyer towards the street door. From the angle of her desk, Sally could only see your back as you left. So there was no danger that she would see through your disguise. You hurried back to your flat, changed into your skirt and blouse, and returned to the office – as far as anyone knew, for the first time that day.”

  Evelyn raised her hands and started to applaud. Slow and rhythmical. A taunting clap. She knew that, as it stood, I didn’t have a shred of evidence that would withstand cross-examination in court.

  Plonker’s eyes popped at the applause. “I didn’t think it was that good,” he said to Hooper.

  “Shut up,” Hooper said.

  “You can’t prove any of that,” Evelyn said.

  “But I can,” said a new voice.

  Everyone turned to see who’d spoken.

  Ted Wilson stood framed in the doorway. There were two uniformed cops behind him.

  He held up a book.

  A Blue Book.

  He crossed the room to where we were sitting.

  He said: “Miss Stamford, can you explain how this book came to be in your flat?”

  Evelyn looked from me to the comedians. She glanced at the papers on the table. And at a single spotlight that lit the stage.

  She threw back her head and laughed. The laughter built inside her until each convulsion shook her body. Tears ran from her eyes. Her cheeks grew red. And still she laughed.

  Her shrieks echoed off the roof and the walls. It was a laugh without humour. Without warmth or compassion. Without humanity.

  The laugh of a cold-blooded killer.

  The comics sat goggle-eyed. For once, none of them had anything to say.

  Evelyn stood up and took a slow bow to all corners of the room.

  Ted Wilson and the uniformed cops moved towards her.

  She threw back her head and declaimed in her loudest voice. “La commedia è finita. The comedy is over.”

  Chapter 24

  I handed Shirley a copy of the night final edition of the Evening Chronicle.

  I said: “That headline will sell another twenty thousand copies of the paper.”

  The headline read: WOMAN DRESSED AS MAN TO KILL.

  It was early evening and we were in Prinny’s Pleasure. After a hectic afternoon, it was the one place in Brighton we could guarantee some peace and quiet.

  The place was empty. Jeff perched on a stool. He had his elbows on the bar and his head in his hands. We could hear his snores from our table by the door.

  Shirley said: “I can see why Figgis wanted you back on the paper. What I can’t figure out is why that Evelyn Stamford thought she’d ever get away with stealing the bearer bond.”

  I said: “Brandenburg J Bekker had sent the Blue Book with the puzzle priva
tely to Max Miller. But then both of them died within a few days of one another. Bekker never foresaw that. I expect Max had hidden the Blue Book in the cigar box while he worked on solving the puzzle. The news of Bekker’s death would have come as a shock to him. But before he’d decided what to do about it, he pegged out himself. So then nobody knew about the Blue Book – and the hidden bearer bond – until Bernstein opened the cigar box.”

  “And I guess those great cobbers at St Dunstan’s wouldn’t have known that a million smackeroos were heading their way.”

  “That’s right. A bearer bond effectively belongs to anyone who has it. It’s not like a cheque made out to a payee.”

  Shirley hoisted her lager and took a good pull at it. “But Evelyn knew Bernstein and Winkle were working on the code. She must’ve thought she could crack it before them. What would have happened then?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess with a million dollars in her purse, Evelyn would have taken off into the wide blue yonder, never to be heard of again. Bernstein and Winkle wouldn’t have been in a position to complain about that.”

  “But Winkle could have made trouble after Evelyn killed Bernstein,” Shirley said.

  “Remember that Winkle wouldn’t have known who’d killed his partner in crime. And he certainly couldn’t make a fuss. As he stood to gain, he could even be a suspect. The cops might think he’d got greedy and wanted the full million for himself.”

  “Evelyn seemed to have it all worked out,” Shirley said.

  “And she’d have got away with it if Bernstein hadn’t unexpectedly turned up early at his office. Nobody would have known that she’d copied the Blue Book.”

  “She nearly got away with it anyway. What with dressing up like a guy. Say, did girls really dress up as men on the stage?”

  “Yes, it started in the music halls in Victorian times.”

  I told Shirl how Vesta Tilly and Hetty King had been stars in their day.

  I said: “Evelyn, under the stage name Valentine Redcar, was never in their class. She never achieved their star status, but she was good enough to fool enough people into believing she was a man.”

  “Evelyn must’ve been devastated when she read in the Chronicle that the bearer bond had been burnt,” Shirley said.