Blackpool (A Jules Poiret Mystery Book 27)

by Frank Howell Evans

  Mrs. Williams gazed out over the Irish Sea, feeling the faint breeze against her face, her eyes shut, the white sand warm between her bare toes. The place was beautiful beyond belief, but it was still unable to ease the sorrow she felt as she thought of her life.

  She had married Joshua Williams right there three years before to the day. Dressed in an expensive white wedding dress, miniature white roses attempting to tame her long dark curls, she had been happier than she had ever thought possible. Joshua was in a grey tailcoat and utterly irresistible. His dark hair slightly ruffled and his eyes full of adoration as he looked at his bride to be. The vicar had read their vows as they held hands and laughed at the sheer joy of being young, in love and starting a new life together in Blackpool. They had seen the years blissfully stretching ahead of them, together forever. They planned their children, two she said, he said four so they compromised on three, two girls and a boy of course. They had found their dream house, where they would live, it was all certain, so they had thought then.

  But that seemed such a long time ago now. A lot had changed in just a few years and had driven a wedge through even their deepest love. Three years to the day and they had returned for a few days and would leave in a week for Germany.

  Mrs. Williams let out a sigh that was filled with pain and regret.

  “What can I do but move on and find a new life and a new dream to hold on to?”

  The old one was beyond repair. She wondered how that beautiful place, with its lush green coastline, eternity of azure blue sea and endless sands had turned into a place for the agony she felt now.

  Captain Harry Haven stood watching from the edge of the road. He couldn’t take his eyes off the dark-haired woman he saw standing at the water’s edge, gazing out to sea as though she was waiting for something, or someone. She was beautiful, with her slim figure dressed in a loose flowing cotton dress, her hair, blowing in the wind and bright blue eyes not far off the color of the sea itself. It wasn’t her looks that attracted him though. He came across many beautiful women in London. It was her loneliness and intensity that lured the gentleman, the white knight in him. Even at some distance he was aware that she was different from any other woman he would meet during his holiday in Blackpool with his friend, detective Jules Poiret.

  Mrs. Williams sensed the man approaching even before she turned around. She had been aware of him standing there staring at her and had felt strangely calm about being observed. Looking up, Mrs. Williams could see her pain reflected in the man’s eyes. For the first time in months she didn’t feel alone, she felt the unbearable burden begin to lift from her, only a bit but it was a start. She began to believe that maybe she had a future after all and maybe it could be with this man, with his kind eyes. He walked slowly towards her and they held each other’s gaze. It felt like meeting a long lost friend, not a stranger on a strange beach.

  They began to talk. First pleasantries, the weather, the quality of the food and the theatre shows. Their conversation was strangely hesitant considering the naturalness and confidence of their earlier meeting. Onlookers, however, would have detected the subtle flirtation as they mirrored each other’s actions and spoke directly into each other’s eyes. Only later, after they felt more at ease, did the conversation deepen.

  Suddenly a voice screamed, “Ahoy, there!”

  Haven looked in the direction of the sound and saw a rather rotund man about his age, with a red face, wearing a white suit, walking their way. When he looked back at the lady, she was touching her forehead and he noticed the ring on her finger. She was married and the man angrily stomping their way was her husband for sure. For a moment Haven thought of beating a hasty retreat.

  “I say, Haven, you here, old man?”

  “Joshua Williams! You here?”

  They shook hands as Williams introduced his old mate to his wife. They had worked as clerks in a bank together, when they both had first arrived in London.

  “Are you here on holiday?” asked Haven.

  “No, we live here, old chap. I’m in the hotel supplies trade,” replied Williams. “You absolutely must come and have dinner with us tonight. Shouldn’t he, Idina?”

  “Yes, I should say so,” she agreed.

  “I,” said Haven hesitantly, then continued after a short pause, “I accept.”

  Dinner would’ve been pleasant, if it had not been for Idina. Every time her husband left the room, she looked at Haven and talked to him in a way that made him uncomfortable, now that he knew she was a married woman. She sensed his retreat and at last asked him, boldly, “I thought I interested you.”

  Haven looked around, then said, “You did, but you’re married.”

  She looked at him, then understood his character. He was a square.

  Detective Poiret and Captain Haven were walking to the Williams’s house on a grey weird morning when the mists were slowly lifting. It was one of those mornings, when the light of dawn appeared as something mysterious and new. The scattered trees outlined themselves more and more out of the vapor, as if they were first drawn in grey chalk and then in charcoal. At yet more distant intervals appeared the houses on the broken fringe of the suburb. Their outlines became clearer and clearer until they recognized the Williams mansion.

  They had been there together, Haven did not dare to reject a second invitation to dinner and also didn’t dare go alone, so he had invited his friend to accompany him. Dinner went well and Joshua Williams, a fellow gourmand had made a good impression on the master detective. On his table he had an assortment of fifteen different spices, each in its own silver cruet. Haven only wished for a pinch of salt, but Poiret, happy to meet a man, who had the same high standards where it came to food, joyfully like a child accepted his host’s invitation to try each and every one of the spices, he had gathered on his table.

  All through dinner, Haven had seen Idina’s face grow darker and darker, till she must’ve boiled over as when she stood up to pour more wine in Poiret’s glass, her hand slipped and the bottle and glass emptied on Poiret’s clothes. Poiret had been angry, his host had been apologetic and the culprit had been beside herself in self-reproach. The incident had ended the dinner party and the two men had gone back to their hotel. Not two hours later, Poiret had knocked on Haven’s door to tell him that he had forgotten his glasses at the residence of their hosts and they had to retrieve them as their hosts would leave for Brighton later that day.

  As they came near the house with a veranda and wide ornate garden, they heard a noise that made them stop. It was the unmistakable noise of a pistol being discharged. But it was not this that puzzled them most. The first noise was immediately followed by a series of fainter noises. Haven counted about six. He supposed it must be the echo, but the odd thing was that the echo was not in the least like the original sound. It was not like anything else that he could think of. It was the noise made by a person attempting to conceal laughter. Which seemed to make not much sense.

  Haven was a man of action, who was as modest as a primrose and as punctual as a clock, who went his small round of duties and never dreamed of altering it. There was also Poiret, a man of reflection, who was much more extravagant but much stronger, who could not easily be stopped. His world class mind was always busy. He could not help, even unconsciously, asking himself all the questions that there were to be asked, and answering as many of them as he could. This went on like his breathing or circulation.

  “Vite, Haven!” said the little detective.

  They rushed forward, Poiret leaning heavily on his artfully crafted walking stick. Then the grey sky brightened into silver, and in the broadening light they reached the garden gate,
and made for the front door.

  Half-way down one side of the house stood out a projection. It was a large dustbin. Round the corner of this came a figure, at first a mere shadow in the mist, apparently bending and peering about. Then, coming nearer, it solidified into a figure that was, indeed, rather solid. It was unusually solid. Joshua Williams was a bald-headed, bull-necked man, short and very broad, with one of those rather huge faces that are produced by a prolonged attempt to combine good wine with good food without the necessity to look at the costs. The face, however, was a good-humored one, and even now, though evidently puzzled and inquisitive, wore a kind of innocent grin. He was clad only in a very colorful suit of striped scarlet and yellow pajamas, which, though nice enough to look at, must have been, on a fresh morning, pretty chilly to wear. He had evidently come out of his house in a hurry, and the detective was not surprised, when he called out without further ceremony, “Did you hear that noise?”

  “Yes,” answered Haven. “My friend Poiret has forgotten his glasses and we were on our way here to retrieve them, when we heard it.”

  Joshua looked at him rather strangely with his good-humored gooseberry eyes.

  “What do you think the noise was?” he asked.

  “It sounded like a gun or something,” replied the other, looking at Poiret with some hesitation, “but it seemed to have a singular sort of echo.”

  Joshua was still looking at him quietly, but with protruding eyes, when the front door was flung open, releasing a flood of light. Another figure in a nightgown tumbled out into the garden. The figure was much leaner, and more athletic. The clothes were comparatively tasteful, being of white with a light lemon-yellow stripe. The woman was haggard, but beautiful and a slight air of oddity arose from the expression on her face as she saw Poiret and Haven. All this Poiret absorbed in detail more at leisure. For the moment he only saw one thing about Mrs. Williams, which was the revolver in her hand.

  “Idina,” exclaimed Joshua, staring at her, “did you fire that shot?”

  “Yes, I did,” retorted the black-haired woman, softly, “and so would you in my place. If you had seen the devil in the night.”

  Joshua seemed to intervene rather hurriedly. “Our dinner companions are back,” he said.

  The detective asked innocently, “Did you, Madame, hit anything?”

  “I thought so,” answered Idina with some gravity.

  “Did he…” asked Joshua in a lowered voice, “did he fall or cry out, or anything?”

  Mrs. Williams was looking at her husband with a strange and steady stare. “I’ll tell you exactly what he did,” she said. “He sneezed.”

  Poiret’s hand went half-way to his head, with the gesture of a man remembering something. He knew now what it was that sounded like laughter in the night.

  “Well,” said Joshua, “I never heard before that being shot at was a thing to be sneezed at.”

  “Nor I,” said Haven. “It’s lucky you didn’t turn your gun on him or you might have given him quite a bad cold.” Then, after a bewildered pause, he said, “Who was he? A burglar?”

  “Let us go inside,” said Mr. Williams, rather sharply, and led the way into his house.

  The interior exhibited a paradox, the rooms seemed brighter than the sky outside, even after Joshua had turned out the light in the front hall. Poiret was surprised to see the whole dining-table set out as for a festive meal, with napkins in their rings, and wine-glasses of some six different shapes set beside every plate. It would’ve been common enough, at that time of the morning, to find the remains of the previous night’s banquet, but to find it freshly spread so early was unusual.

  While he stood wavering in the hall Mr. Williams rushed past him and sent a raging eye over the whole of the tablecloth. At last he spoke, spluttering, “All the silver’s gone!” he gasped. “Knives and forks, gone. My cruet-stand’s gone. Even the old silver cream-jug is gone.”

  His wife said, “So I did shoot at a burglar.”

  Joshua patted her on the shoulder with a gesture almost peculiar to the soothing of a sick child, and said, “It was a burglar. Obviously it was a burglar.”

  “The burglar with the bad cold,” observed Poiret. “That will assist the police to trace him in the neighborhood.”

  Mr. Williams shook his head in a somber manner. “He must be far beyond trace now, I fear,” he said.

  Then, as the restless woman with the revolver turned again towards the door in the garden, he added in a husky, confidential voice, “I doubt whether I should send for the police, for fear my wife here has been a little too free with the bullets, and got on the wrong side of the law.”

  “I suppose we’d better look for him outside,” Haven said. “It won’t do leaving him out there bleeding and all that.”

  Poiret and Haven went out into the morning light, which was now even tinged with sunshine, and while Haven strolled unobtrusively around the garden, the detective took an equally indolent turn, which took him round the corner of the house to within a yard or two of the huge dustbin.

  He stood looking at this dismal object for some minute and a half. He looked at his clothes. He had changed them after last night’s accident. They looked immaculate. He took his handkerchief and then he stepped towards the bin, lifted the lid and put his head inside. Dust shook upwards as he did so. Poiret, who never walked past a mirror without observing his own appearance shrieked in horror.

  “Mon Dieu!”

  After dusting himself off, he again looked into the dustbin and remained thus for a measurable period, as if engaged in some mysterious search. Then he came out again, with some ashes on his receding hair, which with the aid of a small pocket-mirror and a small comb he removed and walked away, looking satisfied, until he looked at his white shirt and saw a dark stain.

  “Mon Dieu!” he cried again and looking at his dirty hands he walked round to the front door. There he found the others standing, talking. It was in no way a reassuring sight. Joshua Williams had managed to plunge into a proper shirt and trousers, and a light jacket. His red festive face seemed bursting with cordiality. He was indeed excited, but then he was talking to his cook, whose huge and rather careworn face contrasted quaintly with her snow-white cap and costume. The cook might well be careworn, for cookery was her master’s hobby. He was one of those amateurs who always knew more than the professional. Poiret turned to look for his wife. In the new presence of daylight and people clothed and in their right mind, the sight of her was rather a shock. The tall and elegant woman was still in her night-garb, with tousled black hair, and now walking about the garden, still looking for traces of the burglar. To all appearance, she went to the dustbin and looked inside, striking the side with her hand in anger at not finding him. Seeing Poiret gazing at her, she joined the group standing at the front door.

  “My cruet set has been stolen and the cook has no spices in store,” said her husband.

  “It serves you right,” she answered. “I always told you to throw away that old-fashioned cruet-stand.”

  “I prefer it,” said Williams, placidly. “I’m old-fashioned myself.”

  She retorted, “Well, if you are not going to bother about the burglar, I shouldn’t bother about lunch and you won’t enjoy what you call a meal with a lot of hot spices.” She looked at the small watch on her wrist. “It’s almost eight o’clock and I haven’t finished packing. Can you men manage alone?”

  “Oh yes, we can, my dear,” said Joshua, looking at her very amiably. “Cook has all the ingredients for a fine breakfast. You mustn’t be a housekeeper every hour of the day. We will manage.”

  “I need to dress,” she said, with rather severe eyes and disappeared inside the house.

  She was one of those beautiful women, who would always be beautiful, because the beauty was not in her words or charm, but in the very structure of her head and features. But though she was not yet thirty and her auburn hair was full in form and color, there was a look in her eyes, which suggested that some
sorrows wasted her, as winds waste the flowers and the trees in autumn. The little domestic difficulty of which she was now speaking so decisively was rather comic than tragic. Poiret gathered, from the course of the conversation, that her husband, though, they had to leave before lunch-time, was not to be done out of a final feast and had arranged for a special meal to be set out and consumed in the course of the morning.

  There was nothing in all the conversation that could conceivably concern the tragedy in Mrs. Williams face and by a half conscious instinct, Poiret turned again to her husband, who had now walked around the corner of the house. When Poiret strolled after him, he saw him grubbing about in the rosebushes of the garden. The unbrushed head was lifted abruptly, as if in some surprise at his continued presence. And indeed, Poiret, for reasons best known to himself, had followed him against what rules of politeness required, or even, in the ordinary sense, permitted.

  “Well,” cried Mr. Williams, with wild eyes, “I suppose you think I’m mad?”

  “Monsieur,” answered the little man, composedly, “you must have the reasons for searching amongst the bushes for something, it is unknown.”

  “What do you mean?” snapped Williams quite savagely.

  “The madman,” explained Poiret, “he always encourages his own madness, but you are trying to find the traces of the burglar, even when there are none. You want what no madman, he wants.”

  “And what is that?”

  “You want to be proved wrong,” said Poiret.

  Williams staggered to his feet and looked at the detective with agitated eyes. “On my word, but that is a true word!” he cried. “They are all at me here that the fellow was only after the silver, as if I shouldn’t be only too pleased to think so! She’s been at me,” and he tossed his red face towards Idina, inside the house, but the other knew who he meant. “Look here, I’ve never seen you before, but you shall be judge of the whole story. I’m a bit anxious, nervous, if you will. But things happen. Curious things.”

  Haven joined them, hearing his old friend’s last words.