“So, caution’s the motto for the present, Littlejohn,” continued the Chief Constable. “Preedy was just going out when my man called to check his poison-book. It’s his afternoon off, and he was going golfing on the Hinster’s Ferry course. The man found the discrepancy almost at once, and said Preedy seemed candidly surprised, and said he’d speak to Miss Latrobe, his dispenser, about it when she came in. With that, he asked if he could get going. Well, my man rang me up from a call-box about it. I didn’t quite know what to do. We couldn’t arrest him at that and we didn’t want to scare him by showing him we were shadowing him. So, I said right, let him go for his golf. If he bolts it’ll be evidence of guilt and we’ll soon pick him up. I told the constable just to keep an eye on him and see that he went in the right direction to Hinster’s Ferry. He was in his car and drove off on the road that takes you over the toll-bridge some three miles up-river …”
“What puzzles me, though, is why should Preedy so obviously poison him, if he’s guilty of doing it,” said Littlejohn. “Why! He might just as well have shot him in the middle of the promenade as fuss about injecting delayed-action poison. He might have guessed the first person you’d be after would be him …”
Boumphrey was just opening his mouth to reply when the telephone bell rang.
“Yes. Chief Constable … speaking, man, speaking. Get on with it!”
His face grew blacker and blacker, and his mouth opened slowly as the tale was told by the distant voice.
At length Boumphrey hung up the receiver and sitting back in his chair gasped for breath like a fish out of water.
“Miss Latrobe’s been murdered on the pleasure-beach!!” he whispered at length.
CHAPTER TEN - MURDER IN THE HOUSE OF NONSENSE
Grace Latrobe tidied up the dispensary, changed into outdoor clothes and, after wishing Dr. Preedy a good afternoon’s golf, left the house. She felt jaded from over-work and worried about the events which had shaken the town and which intimately concerned the doctor as Sir Gideon’s medical adviser. As she crossed Oxford Crescent to the flat she shared with a friend in a nearby block, the habitual idlers, who occupied the benches under a clump of trees in the middle of the crescent, noted that her comely face was without its customary smile. They watched her trim figure vanish round the corner and then began to chatter about her.
“Why don’t you have a real afternoon on the razzle,” said her friend, Phoebe Watson, noticing that Grace looked down in the mouth. “Do the round of the pleasure beach. Mix with the revellers. They’ll take you out of yourself.”
Phoebe was a big, well-built blonde, whose head was a mass of long, cylindrical curls set with consummate art, and she made the old rips on the promenade twirl their moustaches and the young bloods try to catch her eye when she passed. She worked in the Town Clerk’s Office. Mr. Kingsley-Smith was famous for the bevy of beauties in his department.
“I think I will. It’s some time since I had a ride on the roundabouts. It’ll blow the cobwebs away. That’s a good idea!”
“Well, I’ll see you on your way, then,” replied Phoebe, pulling her lips into a frightful shape to make quite sure that they were evenly plastered with the lipstick she skilfully applied. “If I leave you here, you look ready for a good mope and you’ll probably not turn out at all.”
They parted at the door of the Town Hall, and Miss Latrobe strolled along the promenade to the Amusement Park. Crowds surged everywhere, enjoying the hot sunshine and the festive atmosphere. The beach was thick with people, sprawling, sitting, lolling in every kind of garb from the blatantly indecent to the formal attire, winged collar and spats of a man who suffered from a phobia and was afraid he’d lose his paternal dignity and look a fool if he loosed-up and wore flannels and a sports coat.
A motley crowd of humans and animals was actively engaged on the tide-line. Donkeys running with shouting children on their backs, belabouring them for more speed. Dogs prancing about, barking and snapping at the waves. Youngsters paddling happily, with their elders gingerly following suit, holding their garments desperately and hobbling over the sea-washed pebbles as though they were hot coals.
Far along the promenade, the loftier amusements of the pleasure beach could be seen hard at it. The Figure Eight or Velvet Coaster, with its little cars whizzing and winding along its tortuous and precipitous tracks. Swing-boats almost, but not quite, describing a complete circle in their rhythmic plunging. The helter-skelter, built like a lighthouse with a Union Jack flying from the top and a long succession of screaming clients flying from the bottom at the end of a performance not unlike inverted skiing. Along the breeze as it waxed and waned, rose and fell the strains of a score of mechanical organs mingled with the screams of those enjoying the many sensations provided. The same light wind passed over the town, gathering in its embrace the smells of boiling cooking fats, cabbage water and stale fish and gently bathing the occupants of the sands and promenade in this aroma before it wafted over the sea and was finally swamped by ozone.
“It’s a land breeze today,” said the weatherwise. “Not so good for the health, you know.”
Miss Latrobe, avoiding the ocular invitations of scores of amorous and prowling males on the way, joined the stream of pleasure-seekers pouring through the three-ply portals of Westcombe’s Coney Island. Gradually the huge crowd absorbed her, she forgot her own troubles and surrendered herself to the mass emotions of physical pleasure, dare-devilment and worship of the great god Luck.
Three-quarters of an hour after she had entered the throng, a very different Grace Latrobe was thoroughly enjoying herself. Her pretty face was flushed, her eyes sparkled and her auburn hair escaping from the band which was supposed to keep it under control, fell about her face most becomingly. The crowd jostled her good-naturedly, hot, struggling bodies pressed her on every side, and voices cheered her efforts at various games of skill or luck. She won fourpence on a dart-board, a woollen doll on the Hoop-la stall, three packets of Woodbines at a shooting-range where pop-guns were used instead of rifles, and received the condolences of the crowd when she just failed to coax an automatic monkey up a stick in time to carry-off a gloriously decorated plant-pot.
A young man in an open-necked shirt and grey flannel trousers attached himself to Grace as she joined the queue for the Figure Eight. She accepted him as her escort over the track, clutched his arm and screamed like the rest as the cars made their spectacular descents at shattering speeds, and then deliberately lost him in the crowd at the exit, for she did not want any entanglements on that trip.
At length, she arrived at the House of Nonsense, which judging from the shouts, screams and hysterical laughter coming from within, was living up to its reputation. It was a two-storied wooden structure, large in size, with an ornate portal and cash-desk. At the latter stood Harry Wragg, the proprietor, taking the sixpences for admission.
“Roll-up, roll-up, ladies and gents,” bawled Mr. Wragg. “A real tonic waitin’ fer yer all inside … Split yer sides and get scared at the same time. Blow the cobwebs away. Roll-up … Continuous show.”
Wragg was a little, fat man, always in a sweat, with a habitually loud husky voice, developed into a mighty organ through encouraging passers-by to hand over their money. He wore pebbled glasses over small button eyes, like those of teddy-bears or rag dolls. His spectacles were large and like great pools of light, reminding one of the reflecting apparatus worn by opticians on their brows when they inspect the insides of patients’ eyes.
Above Mr. Wragg’s head was displayed a small portion of what was going on within the side show. It consisted of a small balcony across which tripped contorted customers, their limbs quaking as they fought to maintain their balance on an undulating floor and keep their clothing decent and in order against a strong current of air which blew around their legs. Their faces, as they suddenly found themselves in the open before a gaping, howling crowd of onlookers, were comic and registered surprise, horror, shame or delight according to temperament.
Now and then, Alfred Whatmough, the man in charge of the machinery which kept up the tremendous agitation, emerged from the dark depths of the interior through a side-door, breathed the fresh air deeply, wiped his dirty face on an oily rag and retired again to continue the nonsense.
Grace Latrobe by this time was drunk with the exhilaration of her round of pleasures and sensations. She paid her sixpence to Mr. Wragg and entered his show.
As soon as the new victim passed the main entrance, she was taken in hand by a moving floor, like an object of mass-production being passed from process to process and, after making the surprised transit of a corridor ornamented with gargoyles under green lights, found herself in a room illuminated in ruby-red, from the roof of which dangled skeletons and models of hideous marine objects, like squids, dogfish and herring-sharks. She felt quite unmoved so far and wondered whether or not she had paid her money for a mere childish entertainment of coloured lamps and synthetic horrors.
As if to dispel disappointment the next surprise of the tour was a passage through a wind-tunnel which almost blasted the clothes from one’s body. This place was well illuminated and the sound of the air currents was totally drowned by the shouts and screams of the suffering holidaymakers. The men were too busy with their own jackets and trousers to notice that the skirts of their lady friends were whisked from their knees to their waists! The exit was in the form of a cakewalk, two steps forward, one step back, through the door in the balcony and into full view of the spectators outside.
Inside again, Miss Latrobe found herself in the Hall of Mirrors. Mirrors concave and mirrors convex, reflecting the onlooker as a dwarf, tortured, contorted, obese, leering, ghastly. Then, stretched out like a piece of chewing-gum, every grimace mournfully magnified. Other parties entered and stood quaking with mirth, awestricken, or shamefaced before their distorted reflections and then the lot passed on to the relief of the Mirror-Maze, a nightmare of real and unreal scenes, false images and fantastic tracks, somewhere in the midst of which lay the right way to the next sensation. By keeping her attention on the floor and thus discovering where the mirrors were set, Grace Latrobe soon made her way through the labyrinth into the dark corridor outside. Here, in spite of the concentrated horrors and nonsense, lovers were cuddling in dark corners.
The end was near. Miss Latrobe passed through a primitive kind of revolving door into a room dimly lighted by dark-green lamps in imitation of torches. This place was intended to give you the creeps before you reached the open-air and sanity again. From the roof dangled rubber trailers like the tentacles of an octopus, cold, slimy and revolting, caressing your head, face and neck as you traversed the chamber. Couples were fighting their way, squealing and laughing, through this childish device, which nevertheless, judging from the noises it provoked, was effective in many cases. Miss Latrobe thought it utter nonsense, but after all, she had paid her sixpence for nonsense, so couldn’t complain. She rather impatiently brushed aside the obscene trailers which wrapped themselves round her hair and throat …
Almost at the last of the show, she struggled to free herself from one of the clinging objects, which seemed more persistent than the rest. It wound itself completely round her neck and she tried to brush it aside with a strained giggle. The giggle changed to a note of terror, for the grip tightened. A new bit of Wragg’s nonsense? She screamed. But the hysterical yelling of other tortured customers of Mr. Wragg’s House drowned her cries or, synchronising them with their own shouts, caused no alarm …
Through the trap-door and down the chute to the well-padded end of the adventure swept Miss Latrobe, but she remained prone on her face instead of struggling to rise. Mrs. Wragg hurried to assist and turned Grace over …
The crowd screamed like one man and Mrs. Wragg fainted on the spot, subsiding on the coconut matting with a loud thud.
Miss Latrobe was no longer pretty. Her tongue peeped horribly from between her livid lips and was gripped between her teeth; a rope bit cruelly into her shapely throat; her eyes protruded, staring in glassy horror.
The crowd stood petrified for a brief second, unbelieving. Then two more women fainted, another four went off into screaming hysterics, and utter pandemonium broke loose, spreading to and convulsing every part of the Pleasure Beach.
With monotonous regularity the final trap-door continued to click and eject the remaining occupants of the House of Nonsense. There was no one to ease their fall at the end of the chute. Instead, they found themselves physically entangled in the uttermost horror. The whole building was empty by the time the police arrived. Every one of the fellow-revellers of the dead woman had melted into the crowd and gone. There only remained Mr. Wragg and Alfred Whatmough. The one was weeping at the condition of his wife and tearing his hair at the ruin of his business which the murder would probably bring. The other was still somewhere in the heart of the nonsense, for he had not been notified of the tragedy and was busy keeping alive the commotion for no one at all.
CHAPTER ELEVEN - INQUEST
The tragic death of Grace Latrobe caused a great sensation in Westcombe.
At first, there was some doubt as to whether or not the whole amusement park ought to close down for a period of mourning, if not for the victim, then for itself as the sufferer from a startling and uncertain blow to its light-heartedness. After a meeting between the Amusement Caterers’ Alliance and the Watch Committee, however, it was decided that the entertainers should not be prevented from making hay while the sun shone, so, after an hour or two of confused wrangling and police investigation, the roundabouts began to rotate again, and the swings to plunge to and fro, and the hundred and one other diversions to pursue their usual courses.
Thereafter, the pleasure grounds were crowded. At first, sightseers flocked there out of morbid curiosity to inspect the gruesome scene and seek details of the horrible deed. They were thereupon drawn into the vortex of sensation and excitement and surrendered themselves to the search for pleasure whilst life was theirs. The caterers thus saw the genesis of a season of phenomenal profit which made them long for a murder every day. The House of Nonsense, after sustaining a terrified taboo for two or three days, burst forth into a frenzy of renewed activities. Mr. Wragg’s inventions then began to enjoy a period of exceptional popularity, which stimulated him to add two more items to his repertoire of nonsense, one being a haunted room and the other The Dance of Death performed by skeletons to the strains of Dance Macabre and Orpheus in the Underworld.
The police drew a complete blank in their investigations on the Luna Park of Westcombe. None of the usual methods could be applied, albeit the officers attempted to adhere to them. To talk of fingerprints, alibis, witnesses, was greater nonsense than that retailed by Harry Wragg, who alone from the hundreds of onlookers at the time of the crime, was identified and questioned. Of the multisonant clamour raised when the corpse was thrown to the public after the murder, Wragg was left to testify alone. True, in response to a broadcast appeal later, a flock of would-be assistants arrived at the Town Hall to give particulars of what they saw and what they did on the terrible occasion, but nothing of any use remained as a residue after fatiguing sifting of information. The case was considerably confused by the sudden decision of Boumphrey half way through it to conduct it himself. Taking it over from his underlings, he converted order into chaos, arriving like a man who suddenly leaps from a fast-moving bus and is compelled to run like mad along the pavement to keep his balance. He thus caused a great commotion, for even the smallest remark of an onlooker was treated with a maximum of officiousness quite out of keeping with the extent or importance of it.
There was one obvious point
of contact between the deaths of Ware and Miss Latrobe. Preedy was the common denominator!
Littlejohn sought out the doctor again as soon as possible after the second murder. He found him in a state of great distress and confusion. The interview differed vastly from the previous one, in that Preedy’s cold cynicism had given place to rage and despair.
“I may as well tell you, Inspector, that Miss Latrobe and I planned to get married as soon as conditions permitted,” he said almost at once.
“Indeed!” replied the surprised detective. “I’m very sorry, doctor, and assure you of my sympathy. But what do you mean by conditions?”
The doctor sighed and flung out his arms in hopeless abandon.
“You might as well know everything. It’s bound to come out now. Miss Latrobe was already married to a damned swine of the name of Faber. He left her—he was an actor—and ran away with his leading lady in a touring company. Grace sued for divorce and the decree would have been made absolute in about a month. Now, what’s the use?”
“Are you in touch with this Faber?”
“Yes. The petition wasn’t defended. He’s still touring. We kept track of him for our own purposes. This week he’s at Wimbledon. We didn’t tell anyone of the engagement … King’s Proctor and all that, you understand.”
“I see. I’m truly sorry about it. I must make enquiries about Faber’s whereabouts at the time of the crime.”
“You don’t mean to say …”
“No. Just routine, doctor. Now, do you mind telling me where you were at 3.30 today?”
“I’m afraid I’ve a poor tale to tell, Inspector. It was my afternoon off. Miss Latrobe and I weren’t knocking about together alone until after the decree. You follow, don’t you? She went off early on her own; I went to play golf at Hinster’s Ferry.”
“Did you have an appointment with anyone?”
“No. I can’t as a rule make hard-and-fast arrangements. Anything might happen to upset things in our job. I just have to take pot luck.”
He'd Rather Be Dead Page 10
