1 Murder Offstage

by L. B. Hathaway

  Pall Mall this evening was indeed serene, with only a few chauffeured cars and taxis waiting politely in the snowy shadows for their aristocratic owners to emerge at any given hour. There was no sign now of the hoards of women who had famously chained themselves to the iron railings here, demanding the vote for women in 1914, before the Great War had come and changed everything.

  Posie found No 11 and turned in quickly.

  And there it was again – that tap of brogues close behind her, the soft cat-like stepping on snow, coming to a sudden halt a second too late. Like an echo.

  So, she hadn’t been mistaken. Someone was following her.

  She looked out into the street. The burning torchlights at the club entrance blinded her, and beyond, on the street, all was pitch darkness.

  ‘Who is it?’ she called out sharply, uselessly; her heart hammering up into her throat.

  No-one replied of course, but a sliver of shadow, just the merest flicker of black, slipped past the entrance of No 11 and slithered into the darkness beyond. Even now Posie knew that a pair of unknown eyes were watching her, boring into her.

  But why?

  Posie stared numbly into the space where the shadow had hidden, and just as she had decided that whoever it was had passed on into the night, or on to trail more exciting quarry, a blinding flash of light pierced the darkness, illuminating her in a white split-second on the stone steps.

  A photographer’s lamp whirred in the background and she could smell the chalky residue from the used flashbulb. Who on earth was trailing her and taking pictures of her too?

  Posie was more scared than she could remember. She ran up the yellow stone steps and was begrudgingly whisked through the glass door by a miserable-looking doorman in a top hat.

  ‘You can only go into the lobby, Miss,’ said the doorman with a degree of smug satisfaction. ‘Women aren’t allowed beyond.’

  ‘I do know that,’ she snapped back, more tetchily than she might have done in other circumstances.

  Inside, the dimly lit entrance hall was empty, and closer inspection revealed tall wood-panelled walls, bearing shelves full to bursting of highly polished silver trophies and sporting cups. Brown-faded photographs from the turn of the century were stuffed on every available surface. Posie went over to the shelves and saw that most showed teams of cricketers posing on the village greens of Kent and Surrey. The whole place reminded her of the games room at her brother’s prep school when she had visited him there once. He had proudly pointed himself out to her in just such a photograph: poor dead Richard.

  ‘Can I help you, madam?’ asked an ancient-looking Butler, shuffling in, disapproval and admiration flashing in equal measures across his face. Disapproval won. She asked for the Earl of Cardigeon and watched as the Butler moved off, looking nervous.

  Posie realised suddenly that she was not entirely alone in the lobby: a telephone booth at the very back on the left was occupied, and she could just see the bottom half of a man’s black tuxedo-clad legs and shiny black brogues below a green baize curtain. She listened hard but couldn’t make out any actual conversation going on.

  And to the right, behind a discreet wooden-topped counter, a club servant had suddenly appeared, frantically making notes and sorting telegrams into a hive of small pigeon-holes behind him.

  A hidden door on the left swung open.

  ‘What’s this all about? And who the hell are you, anyway? Damned interfering womenfolk! I thought I was free of you all in this place, at least.’

  Rufus’ father was clutching a glass of dark malt whisky and he gave Posie a brutal, insolent stare. Short and toady-looking, he was still wearing his country tweeds and had obviously been at the bottle for a good part of the afternoon and evening. He was redder in the face, rougher and altogether more rotund than when Posie had last met him as a child. She was relieved to find that there was something slightly comical about him now though, rather than scary. Probably to do with the fact that now she towered over him, rather than the other way around.

  Posie quickly explained who she was, and was rewarded by a very slight thawing of the frostiness. The Earl nodded a pinch of recognition: he had always approved of Posie’s brother Richard as being a steadying influence on Rufus in the past, and now that Richard was dead he was, of course, beyond reproach. Not like poor old Rufey.

  ‘I’m here to talk about Rufus. He’s in a great deal of trouble,’ she whispered down into the Earl’s hairy ear. ‘Is there anywhere we can talk here, sir, privately?’

  ‘No, of course not!’ the Earl bellowed. ‘You’re not allowed anywhere past the entrance hall, anyway. Out of bounds. Say what you need to here, girl.’

  Posie sighed and indicated towards the man’s legs behind them in the cubicle, and at the club servant bustling away with his papers in the corner.

  The Earl swatted the air dismissively as if attacking a fly.

  ‘No problem with those folk. Make it snappy.’

  Posie talked hurriedly in as low a voice as possible.

  She took the fateful telegram from Brigg & Brooks out of her bag, and passed it to the Earl. She bit her lip as he read it. His face went first white, then red and then redder. Posie thought he might be about to explode. Or faint.

  ‘I thought you ought to know it was uninsured. I don’t think Rufus got around to telling you.’

  The Earl was rocking on his feet and Posie quickly clutched a dark wicker ornamental chair. She hoped it was up to bearing his weight. He slumped down into its delicate frame. He started to fan himself with the crumpled telegram. Posie squatted down next to him.

  ‘There’s something else sir.’

  The Earl groaned.

  ‘There’s a hearing tomorrow morning, at Scotland Yard. Rufus needs you.’

  The toady eyes looked at Posie for the first time with something approaching hope, or at least indicating a smidgen of gratitude.

  ‘What does he need? A lawyer? I’ll get the best in town to get my boy out of jail. Clear his name.’

  Posie shook her head grimly: ‘I think they are happy for him to leave jail, as long as he doesn’t leave London, sir. He’s still not officially off the list of suspects for murder. It’s a bail hearing. They want a bond.’

  The Earl rubbed his eyes in tired, whisky-soaked disbelief.

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Five thousand pounds, sir.’

  Posie stood up as the Earl started to rock to and fro on the chair, judging it best to give him a little room for whatever reaction he might spring. He reminded her a little of a nightmarish Rumpelstiltskin, about to go up in a puff of smoke. Eventually, he got up and stared at Posie for a long, hard moment as if this were all her fault.

  She gulped, but fished in her bag again and brought out her business card. It was small and neat with clipped square corners, and unlike Mr Irving’s, she had made sure that the print was of a quality such that it would never come off over your hands.

  ‘Take this, my Lord. You can find me at the address there. I promised to help Rufus, and help him I will. I never break my promises. I will clear his name, and try my best to get the missing item back for you, sir. I already have a few leads in this case.’

  (The extravagant truth.)

  The Earl stuffed her card into one of his tweedy jacket pockets without giving it a second glance.

  ‘What the hell can you do, girl?’ he barked at her rudely. The Earl turned on his heel and made for the hidden door he had come through. Just as it seemed he was about to disappear without even saying goodbye, he turned and half-laughed over his shoulder:

  ‘You take my advice and stay well out of this mess. You know that the wretched thing has a curse on it? Blights everyone it touches.’

  Posie stood still for a moment after the door had slammed shut in her face, thinking hard. She was just about to leave and brave the night (and her possible stalker) when she heard an unfamiliar voice calling her name softly across the lobby floor.

  Mystified, she turned aroun
d. No-one else could possibly know she was here.

  The most handsome man she had seen in her life (after Len, of course), was standing leaning by the telephone cubicle, one hand casually holding the baize curtain aside. She recognised the smart tuxedo trousers, the shoes. It was the man who had been on the telephone the whole time. Or at least, pretending to be.

  She raised an eyebrow.

  The man walked across to her. He was lithe on his feet, and he moved like a ballet dancer. He was about thirty, with a leonine head of slicked-back black hair, worn slightly long about the neck.

  ‘Caspian della Rosa,’ he smiled, extending a white-gloved hand, and Posie detected a slight foreign accent underneath his casually assured tones. Behind him the club servant was fluttering very closely, arranging papers on a tray: he didn’t look up once.

  Poise took his hand gingerly. ‘Can I help you? You seem to know my name.’

  ‘Yes,’ he murmured, not letting go of her hand.

  ‘Have a drink with me. It is still Valentine’s Day, after all, and a beautiful girl like you should be out on the town. Funny how we should meet here like this, is it not? Sometimes, you know, the most beautiful, the rarest treasures in the world are to be found right under our very noses. They need no guarding, no protection: they exist, fabulously, alone. You, bella, are just such a creature.’

  Caspian della Rosa did not take his eyes from her face once, and Posie realised there was something slightly wolfish about him, dangerous almost. When he smiled, his canine teeth, slightly too long for conventional beauty, were revealed. His black eyes flashed fire, promising adventure. Posie felt her heart skip a little faster for a second, and she allowed him a rare smile, a flutter of her unpainted eyelashes.

  ‘Come with me, bella. You should not be chasing after disgusting old men in clubs such as these, or searching for horrid old diamonds. Let me take you to a little place I know.’

  Posie froze. He had mentioned diamonds, but she knew very well that in all of the whispered conversation with the Earl neither of them had mentioned the word once. She had been careful not to do so. And anyway, how on earth did this man know who she was? She had whispered her name under her breath to the Earl. No, there was something far more sinister at play here than just casual eavesdropping.

  Her gut feeling told her the man was truly dangerous. She must get away.

  She was conscious of her hand still clasped in what now felt like his iron grip, and of the dark eyes boring into her, demanding her full attention.

  ‘Thank you, Mr della Rosa,’ she smiled gratefully, pulling her hand away gently but firmly and pretending to adjust her headband a little, patting the fake fur on her coat down. Casual movements.

  ‘I am afraid I am otherwise engaged this evening. This was not my only stop tonight. I am meeting a friend in town.’ She put special emphasis on the word ‘friend’. All the while thinking of Len, damn him.

  The man smiled his wolfish grin again:

  ‘So, you are a very busy lady. I should have guessed as much. Some other time? Could I perhaps have one of the business cards you gave to your friend the fat Earl just now? So I can contact you?’

  She shook her head. ‘I am afraid that was my only one.’ Posie almost flushed at the lie. Her bag had a good few tucked inside a silk inner pocket.

  ‘No matter. I will find you anyway,’ he said, shrugging a half-smile. Posie breathed hard at the implied threat.

  ‘Good night, then, Miss Parker,’ and Caspian della Rosa bowed low to her before disappearing fast through the same hidden door the Earl had used earlier.

  Posie stared after him, feeling relieved and shaken all at the same time. Then she saw something shiny on the floor which had not been there a minute before, something which must have fallen from a pocket in the flurry that Caspian della Rosa had departed in. She was sure it was his. She bent to pick it up, and saw a small black fold of matches. A crescent moon was embossed in rich silver foil on the cover, with a distinctive ‘LL’ written underneath. It was a favour or a souvenir from some fancy nightclub somewhere, she supposed.

  Posie looked around for the aged Butler who had greeted her on arrival, or for the club servant to hand the matches to, but both had disappeared.

  She headed over to the pigeon-holes behind the wooden counter, stuffed full with notes and brown-paper parcels. She scoured the many names of the club members. But Caspian della Rosa, even allowing for other variations of that name, was not listed there. Instead, and suddenly feeling very tired, she dropped the matches into the big pocket of her fake fur coat.

  ****

  With no money left for a taxi, and the thought of her possible stalker still lurking around outside, Posie did the only thing she could – she wrapped herself up against the chill and ran for it. She ran back to the bright electric lights of Piccadilly Circus as fast as her high-heeled shoes could carry her, and jumped on the back of a Number Ten bus which happened to be passing. She sat close to the driver the whole way home, scanning the other passengers continually for anyone who might be being paid to follow her, or showing a modicum too much interest.

  ‘You all right, love? You seem awful jumpy,’ said the conductor in his friendly cockney voice when he punched her travel coupon. She nodded a smile at him but continued to be on her guard.

  She got off at South Kensington and walked the two minutes to the house she lodged at in Nightingale Mews.

  It was only when she was inside and had bolted the door behind her that she found she could breathe easily again. The sound of her landlady, Mrs Rapier, singing along loudly with her radio programme, normally so annoying, and the smell of fried fish wafting up from underneath the tiny kitchen door downstairs were strangely comforting in that very moment.

  Just before getting into bed, Posie checked the street outside, peering through her thin blue-and-white checked curtains nervously, as if expecting to see a shadowy stranger lurking for her under the street lamp directly opposite.

  But all she could see was thick snow coming down, and yet more snow.

  ****

  Tuesday 15th February, 1921

  Five

  The bail hearing early the next morning in the small Court at Scotland Yard was a subdued, dismal affair, with Rufus looking so wretched in his handcuffs and greasy dinner suit that the Tenth Earl seemed almost eager to stump up the five thousand pounds required for his release.

  Posie sat at the back, in the small empty public gallery, and watched both father and son leave through a door on the left when it was all over. She had no wish to intrude on their privacy, and she was just getting ready to leave when she realised that Inspector Oats was standing in front of her, clutching a piece of paper. She recognised his black ‘OATS – CONFIDENTIAL’ file from the night before. It had looked less sinister then.

  He cleared his throat pompously:

  ‘It seems I have you to thank for the name of the murder victim at the Ritz,’ he said in what sounded less like a thank you and more like an accusation. He shook the note at her:

  ‘And Lovelace says that you’ve found out that Lucky Lucy was working in a theatre here for the past year?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Posie demurely, ‘at the Athenaeum Theatre. So was Mr Le Merle, the victim. But Lucky Lucy left a few weeks ago. You might want to investigate the theatre itself – it seems a strange place. The Theatre Manager, Mr Blake, is definitely a shady character: he knows more than he was willing to tell me, anyway.’

  The Inspector snorted, placing the note into his file with a brisk snap.

  ‘Listen to me, girlie. If I was to spend my days chasing after every shady character and every strange place in London I’d never get any real police work done. Now, you take it from me: there’s no need to investigate the theatre. That particular bird has flown the coop, no point spending valuable time gallumphing around in an empty nest. I’ll put my men on other active leads…we’ll see if we can dig Lucky Lucy out. Like a fox from a hole.’

  Posie was on the cusp of
asking what other leads he might possibly have, having only just found out the identity of the victim, but she buttoned her lip. The Inspector wagged his finger at her.

  ‘Lovelace seems to think you’re quite the bees’ knees. But don’t go getting ideas about fooling around in my investigation. I always hate Private Dicks, but I’ve never yet met a female one, thank goodness. Take my advice, and stay away.’

  Inspector Oats made to leave.

  ‘But what about the Maharajah diamond?’ Posie asked. ‘Can’t you look for that at the same time as Lucky Lucy, at least?’

  The Inspector looked like he was chewing a wasp. Then he spoke to Posie slowly, as if she were a particularly dim-witted child:

  ‘Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that. Your pal has gone off with his father to file a missing item report. Once the paperwork goes through I’ll add it to my list of things to do; maybe I’ll notify my contacts in Hatton Garden where the diamond dealers hang out. But to tell you the truth I’m not going to get myself in a spin over it, and if I was you I wouldn’t go getting your hopes up. It’s probably left the country by now, on its way to be cut up into a million little pieces and resold in Antwerp or New York.’

  The Inspector put on his homburg hat, that regulation Scotland Yard staple. He looked at Posie smugly.

  ‘The beauty of a diamond is in its transportability, like drugs. Not as cumbersome as gold. Now, I can’t be standing here all day, talking to you. Good-day to you, Miss Parker, and remember what I’ve told you.’

  As she watched his trench-coated back retreating further down the grim Court room, Posie was struck by something the Inspector had said to her, but she couldn’t think what exactly. It was as if the Inspector had given her a clue, ripe for the picking, but it was obscured by a particularly heavy cloud.