As if by Magic

by Dolores Gordon-Smith

  George looked equally puzzled. ‘But no one’s been here.’

  Jack held out the cup. ‘There’s sugar in the bottom of this cup and lipstick on the rim.’

  ‘Lipstick?’ repeated George in surprise. He took the cup and looked at it by the light from the window. ‘What are you talking about? I can’t see any lipstick.’

  ‘I wiped it off. It’s on my fingers,’ said Jack with growing impatience.

  George shrugged and handed the cup back. ‘It must be something else. There certainly haven’t been any girls up here, if that’s what you mean.’ He gazed at Jack, drawing himself up in reaction to his puzzled hostility. ‘I’m telling you the truth. No one’s been here all morning. I don’t know about lipstick but you know I never have sugar. You must have had it. I certainly didn’t.’ Jack didn’t reply. ‘Look,’ added George. ‘We had breakfast, then you went out. You must have had a coffee before you left. All I’ve done this morning is walk to the newsagent’s for the paper. No one’s called, Jack. I’d tell you if they had.’ He glanced at the clock again. ‘Come on, we’ve got to go.’

  Jack let his breath out in a long whistle, shrugged and put down the cup. He wasn’t mistaken about the lipstick. Yes, he’d had coffee at breakfast but not only had that cup been collected with the rest of the breakfast things by Mrs Pettycure, but, like George, he never had sugar in either tea or coffee. Someone – presumably a woman – had called and that someone had stayed long enough to drink a cup of coffee. Why on earth should George deny it?

  Anne Lassiter, Roger Maguire and Stella Aldryn were waiting for them in the entrance hall of the Continental. ‘I’m sorry we’re late,’ said Jack, handing his coat to the cloakroom attendant.

  ‘Not at all,’ replied Anne politely, immediately undermining her words by glancing at her watch. ‘Shall we go in? Roger’s booked the table.’

  A waiter showed them to their table and handed out the menus. Jack looked round with interest. The place was larger than he had thought, with a separate bar and a dance floor beside which a five-piece band was playing ‘I Love My Chili Bom Bom’ with a good deal of zip. The outside was ordinary enough, the ground floor of a four-storey brick building, but the inside was colourful with brightly painted and very well-executed murals.

  ‘They specialize in European food,’ said Maguire, looking at the menu. ‘That’s one of the reasons I like it here. It’s virtually all good, but there’s a Spanish dish with rice and prawns I particularly like.’

  Jack looked at him in surprise. ‘Paella? I’ve never come across that outside Spain.’

  ‘I like that Italian one,’ said Anne Lassiter. ‘Escalope something or other.’

  George studied the menu dubiously. ‘I hope there’s not too much garlic. I can’t stand the stuff.’

  ‘You can hardly avoid it in a place like this,’ retorted Jack shortly. That coffee cup still rankled and puzzled him in equal measure. He leaned back in his chair, looking at his surroundings.

  The club was split up into separate areas and each area had a European scene painted directly on to the white plaster walls. The Continental. They were sitting under the leaning tower of Pisa. Spain was represented by a bullfight and a fairy-tale castle stood high above the Rhine.

  ‘What shall we have to drink?’ asked Maguire. ‘There’s Chianti, if you want to try an Italian wine – that’s red – or there’s hock, of course, and there’s always champagne.’

  The Colosseum stood for Rome and Mont Blanc for Switzerland. Gondoliers plied the waterways of Venice and the Brandenburg Gate indicated Berlin. Berlin, eh? Ah well, the war had been over for ages . . .

  ‘So we’ll have a bottle of hock and a bottle of Chianti,’ said Maguire. ‘Is that all right with you, Major?’

  The little mermaid of Copenhagen, an Alpine pasture in springtime, a Dutch windmill and polder and the Parthenon. ‘Yes, that’s fine,’ agreed Jack, his mind roaming across Europe. Why did a bullfight stand for the whole of Spain? You could have the Alhambra, Madrid, Barcelona, Toledo . . . He looked at the menu and concentrated on food. ‘I’ll have the paella.’

  Stella Aldryn pursed her lips. ‘I think I’ll be adventurous and try it too.’ She inserted a cigarette into a holder that seemed to be about a foot long and leaned across the table for him to light it. ‘Mr Haldean, I must tell you how much I enjoy your stories. When George told me who his friend was I was really excited.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Jack with a grin. ‘I hope you don’t feel let down now you’ve met me in the flesh, so to speak.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Oh no, Mr Haldean. You’re famous. George told me. He said you’d been in the newspapers.’ She heaved a sigh. ‘I’ve always wanted to write but I’ve never had the time to sit down and do it.’

  ‘D’you think it would be better than working?’ asked Jack wickedly. He had come across this curious idea before, that all anyone needed to write successful fiction was a chair and time.

  ‘Well, it must be more fun than working,’ she began then stopped awkwardly. ‘That is . . . I suppose for you it is work, in a sort of way.’

  ‘To be honest, it is more fun than working,’ replied Jack, throwing her a lifeline. ‘I know, because I work as well. I’ve got a job on a magazine.’

  ‘Oh, have you?’ she said with less enthusiasm and rather more respect. ‘That must be so interesting.’ She plunged into a series of questions.

  Jack answered her readily enough – Do you really make up all those stories? How long does it take you to write one? Where do you get all those clever ideas from? – but he was actually thinking about Stella Aldryn. She really was a corker, with that classic English rose peaches-and-cream complexion and a heart-shaped face. The only thing which made him wary was the occasional hard glint in those lovely eyes as she glanced at George. There was a calculation there that sat oddly with her open innocence. A gold-digger? In that case he’d have expected her to make a play for Nigel Lassiter.

  He glanced at George. George wasn’t rich exactly, but the boss’s grandson wasn’t a bad bet and was probably a damn sight easier material to work on than the boss’s son. There was his legacy, too. Jack was willing to bet George had told her about that and, however remote it now seemed, it wouldn’t diminish his charms.

  His discussion of the literary life came to a welcome end and he sat back, watching her as she chatted animatedly to George. He looked round the room once more. There was a little niggle of dissatisfaction at the back of his mind. Something wasn’t quite right and he couldn’t work out what it was. He dismissed his train of thought and paid attention to Anne, who was, he had to admit, rather more interesting.

  She was talking about the Pegasus. Nigel had confounded Joe Hawley and the rest of the aviation press by announcing that he was going ahead not only with the press presentation on Tuesday, the day he’d originally announced, but with the airborne dinner in the Pegasus, too. That was to take place on Friday the following week and would mark the official maiden flight of the aeroplane.

  Nigel, according to Anne, wanted to give the impression that everything was proceeding as planned. So it was, on the surface, but production on the Urbis and LE series had stopped while all the workforce was drafted in for a supreme effort. Nigel himself hadn’t been home for the last few nights. Stella Aldryn pitched in with a couple of anecdotes illustrating Nigel’s dedication and Maguire topped it off with a wry recital of his own experience of Nigel’s complete absorption in his work and indifference to everyday affairs.

  It was all very friendly and the food was excellent, but Jack was unsettled. George was simply being George, as open, good-humoured and seemingly honest as ever, and he couldn’t understand why he’d denied having a visitor.

  ‘Would you care to dance?’ Maguire said politely to Stella once the meal was over. George escorted Anne on to the floor and Jack was left momentarily to his own devices. The dance hostess, who was employed for just such occasions, saw he was alone and stopped by the table. S
he might have been an attractive girl, if her face hadn’t been hidden under a fashionable mask of dead-white make-up.

  George, seeing him put a pound note on the table for the hostess, glowered disapprovingly from the dance floor as Jack stood up. The look annoyed him. What right had George to approve or disapprove? Mainly because he was irritated with George, Jack danced twice with the hostess, who called him Dharling! and whose name, she confided in a low, supposedly thrilling, husky whisper, was Isadora. He didn’t want to be unfair to the girl but, in addition to leaving white make-up on the shoulder of his jacket, she did nothing to improve his temper.

  ‘Dharling, what’s wrong?’ she murmured as they shimmied round the floor to the tune of ‘Don’t Keep Me Guessing, Baby’. ‘Is it something I have done?’

  Jack made an effort to kick his bad temper into touch. After all, it wasn’t the girl’s fault that George had been caught out in a silly lie. ‘Look,’ he said with a rather forced smile, ‘d’you mind if we sit the rest of this dance out?’ She nodded willingly and allowed herself to be steered to a table.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, drawing out a chair for her. ‘What with one thing and another I’m not really in the mood for dancing.’ He leaned forward and lit the cigarette she was holding out to him. ‘I’ve got a few things on my mind.’ She attempted to look interested and he suddenly grinned. Professional dancers, like barbers, shop assistants and the priest in the confessional, had to at least pretend to be interested in their clientele; they didn’t have any choice. The poor girl must be used to having blokes maunder on about Life and what was wrong with it.

  ‘Such as?’ she asked huskily.

  Struck by a sudden thought he took out the photograph of Culverton he carried in his inside pocket. ‘For one thing, this chap. I don’t suppose you recognize him, do you?’

  She took the little cardboard picture, turning it round to the light. He saw the way her fingers suddenly gripped down on her cigarette holder and heard the quick intake of breath. ‘No. No, I don’t,’ she said quickly. The husky accent vanished leaving a sharp London twang behind.

  Jack looked at her curiously. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yeah, perfectly sure.’ She put the photograph face down on the table and pushed it back to him. ‘Look, I might have seen him, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him here. I can’t remember everyone who’s been, mind, but I don’t think I’ve seen him.’ She took her cigarette from its holder and crushed it out. ‘Sorry. I can see somebody waiting. I’ll have to go.’

  With almost indecent haste she got up and hurried across the room towards the door marked Staff by the bar. Thoughtfully he got up and strolled back to his table, where the others were sitting. They had ordered coffee in his absence. If that girl didn’t know something, he was a Dutchman.

  ‘Are you okay?’ asked George, as he sat down.

  ‘Fine,’ he said absently, his mind still on Isadora, forgetting for the moment that George had been the cause of his bad temper.

  ‘Would you like some coffee?’ asked Anne Lassiter, picking up the pot. ‘I told the waiter to leave the tray. Do say yes. Roger never drinks coffee and always makes a fuss about ordering it, but I told him the rest of us wanted some, including you.’

  ‘Too much coffee is the cause of a lot of over-excitement and nerve trouble,’ said Maguire. ‘I’ve explained that before, Anne.’

  ‘Yes, but I still like it. Major Haldean?’

  ‘I’d love some, thanks, if Dr Maguire thinks my nerves can stand it,’ he said with a smile. ‘Black, please, with no sugar.’

  ‘Are you sweet enough?’ put in Stella Aldryn with an arch little giggle.

  Jack privately winced. Even if she was a corker, he didn’t see how George could put up with this sort of thing. ‘Ruddier than the cherry, sweeter than the berry,’ he quoted. ‘I presume that’s a coffee berry.’ Stella Aldryn giggled again and put her cup down in the saucer. Jack idly watched her actions, then froze. Almost immediately he relaxed, anxious not to arouse anyone’s attention. Ruddier than the cherry . . . A morello cherry. Surely that was a trace of dark red lipstick on the rim of her cup? ‘Would you care to dance, Miss Aldryn?’ he asked. He saw her glance at the cup in his hand and smiled. ‘I wouldn’t mind letting this cool down before I drink it.’

  He escorted her on to the floor. As they started to dance, Jack felt a surge of triumph. Her perfume was unmistakable. That was the scent that had clung to the cup. ‘I like these paintings,’ he said, indicating the scenes on the walls. He nodded towards the fairy-tale Rhine castle. ‘I’ve got one very similar to that in my rooms.’

  ‘Have you? I . . .’ she began to say, then stopped abruptly.

  ‘You didn’t see it?’ he finished with a lift of his eyebrows.

  She bit her lip in vexation. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ She drew away from him. ‘I think I’d better sit down.’

  Jack gently pulled her back. ‘No, wait. Please wait. Look, I knew George had a visitor and I thought it might be you. For some reason he didn’t want to tell me about it. I don’t know why.’

  She flushed. ‘I’ve got to be careful.’ He looked at her enquiringly. ‘I don’t suppose it would matter if I was a lady like Mrs Lassiter or someone,’ she said with a trace of bitterness. ‘It’s different if a girl’s got to earn her living. Everyone’s very quick to find fault and if it was known I’d been alone with a gentleman in his rooms, it’s only too easy to put the wrong construction on it. I met him this morning on the Strand and he suggested I might like to call in for a few minutes.’ She looked at him with wide appealing eyes. ‘I wasn’t there for long and there wasn’t anything wrong, Major Haldean, there really wasn’t.’

  ‘I don’t suppose for a minute there was,’ he reassured her. ‘It’s just that George annoyed me by insisting no one had called.’

  She smiled. ‘That was very sweet of him.’ She looked at him sharply. ‘How did you guess?’

  ‘The coffee cup. It had lipstick on it.’

  ‘The coffee cup?’ Her face cleared. ‘I see I shall have to be careful. I know you write detective stories, but I don’t know if I really like you detecting me.’

  ‘From now on I’ll only do it with your permission,’ he said gravely and was relieved to see her smile once more.

  ‘Were you detecting earlier? I saw you talking to that dancer.’

  ‘I was trying to,’ he said lightly. ‘I was remarkably unsuccessful.’

  ‘Bad luck. Major Haldean, would you mind if we sat down? And please don’t be too cross with George. I asked him not to mention it and he promised he wouldn’t. Please don’t say anything.’

  ‘Trust me,’ he promised, mentally crossing his fingers.

  They went back to the table. Jack picked up his coffee and drank it, looking thoughtfully at George and pushing down a sense of unease. He’d had no idea that George could be such a damn good liar. Yes, he probably was concerned about Stella Aldryn’s reputation and, although it was a mere convention, she could be criticized for being alone with an unmarried man in his rooms. George knew that. It was likely that the conservative and South African George was rather more alive to the conventions than most men of their age, but even so, it seemed an exaggerated reaction.

  He had his opportunity to bring the subject up when the band started to play ‘Whoops, Daisy, That Was Me’. Anne Lassiter turned to Maguire with a broad smile. ‘We’ve just got to dance to this, Roger. It’s from Hurry Along! I loved the show.’

  Once they had gone, Stella Aldryn stubbed out her cigarette, fiddled for a few moments with the clasp of her bag and then announced she was off to powder her nose.

  ‘Why the dickens,’ said Jack, watching her depart, ‘didn’t you tell me that it was Miss Aldryn who had called?’

  George frowned at him. ‘Called? Telephoned, you mean?’

  ‘No, of course I don’t mean telephoned. I mean called. She called this morning when I was out.’

  George stared at him. ‘She did no su
ch thing. Jack you’re getting an absolute been in your bonnet about this. Miss Aldryn didn’t call and neither did anyone else.’

  Jack started to feel annoyed. ‘For heaven’s sake, George, stop pretending, will you? I couldn’t care less if she calls or not but I do mind you denying it.’

  George shook his head. ‘But it’s the truth.’ A note of indignation crept into his voice. ‘It’s the absolute truth. We went through this earlier. Drop it, Jack. I didn’t have a visitor. I don’t know why you won’t believe me.’

  His face was so earnest and his voice so compelling that, even though he knew he was right, Jack felt his belief momentarily shift. This was frankly incredible. Until this morning he would have sworn – sworn in any court of law and on any number of bibles – that George was utterly and completely honest. Damn it, he knew George. He’d trusted him, both as a fellow officer and as a friend. He’d relied on his courage, his skill and, underpinning all that, his integrity. A sliver of uncertainty icicled into his mind. Was George subject to delusions? After all, he knew George still believed in his heart of hearts that he’d seen a murdered girl in the kitchen that night. Yes, he’d been ill, but he still believed it. Jack felt suddenly chilled. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘All right.’ He put his hands palms outwards and tried to smile. ‘Just as you say.’

  George sat back, mollified. ‘Thank God for that.’ He looked round for a distraction and saw the waiter. ‘Will you have another drink?’

  Jack stood up. ‘Look, d’you mind if I don’t?’ What he really wanted was to get away, to think things over, and he had to tell Bill Rackham about Isadora. He was sure she knew something. ‘I’ll see you back at Chandos Row, George.’

  He made his goodbyes, collected his hat, stick and coat and walked out on to Tilford Lane. The short November afternoon was rapidly turning to dusk but there was about an hour of daylight left. He turned down Saffron Place, past the huddle of alleyways at the back of Tilford Lane and on to the Embankment. The seagulls swooped over the barges on the Thames and the wash of the boats left broad wakes of dull pewter. He was glad to be out of the stuffy, overheated restaurant. He felt stale and ill at ease. Even if George was honest, in the sense of not telling deliberate lies, it was scarcely more comforting to think that he was subject to delusions on such a scale. He shook himself. He needed a walk and set off on a circuitous route home.