Quick Curtain

by Alan Melville

  “Inspector Wilson?” asked Miss Davis. “I’m sorry to trouble you—I understand you’re in charge of the Brandon Baker affair?”

  “That’s right,” said Mr. Wilson. “At least, I was.”

  “Why—aren’t you now?”

  “It appears to be closed now,” said Mr. Wilson.

  “That’s just why I came to see you,” said Miss Davis. “I’d like a word with you—alone, if you could.”

  Miss Davis cast a meaning eye at Mr. Wilson, junr.

  “My son and heir,” said Mr. Wilson. “He’s on a newspaper, but you can trust him for all that. Sit down, won’t you?”

  Miss Davis chose the best armchair and crossed one shapely and expensively clad leg over another of the same.

  “My name’s Davis—Millicent Davis,” she said. “I was in the show Blue Music—”

  “I remember,” said Derek pleasantly. “You were the lady who did that tap-dance on the revolving stage, weren’t you?”

  “No,” said Miss Davis. “That was Miss Owens. Thanks for the compliment, all the same. But my tap-dancing days are over. I was Madame du Cregne, of the Harem. You remember?”

  “Perfectly,” said Mr. Wilson. “I enjoyed your performance tremendously.”

  “Thanks,” said Miss Davis. “It’s about this verdict at the inquest to-day. It’s all wet.”

  “Wet?” said Mr. Wilson.

  “She means it’s all bolony,” explained Derek.

  “Hilary Foster no more murdered Brandon Baker than the cigarette-box on that table.”

  “You see?” said Mr. Wilson to his son. “What did I tell you? How d’you know he didn’t, Miss Davis?”

  “I don’t know. I just know he wasn’t that kind of man. He hadn’t the guts, for one thing. He was scared stiff of even having to hold a dummy revolver, let alone a real one.”

  “You seem to know a good deal about Mr. Foster,” said Mr. Wilson.

  “’Course I know a lot about him. He—he was my husband.”

  “Really? I’d never have thought so,” said Mr. Wilson, referring presumably to Miss Davis’s complete absence of mourning.

  “Well, when I say he was my husband,” said Miss Davis a little uncomfortably, “I mean—well, hardly anyone knew that we lived—very few people knew about it, you understand?”

  “Perfectly,” said the Wilsons, senr., and junr., in unison.

  “Well,” said Miss Davis, “I know he wouldn’t do a thing like that. He hadn’t a grudge in the world against Brandon Baker. They hardly knew each other. Baker was a top-liner and he knew it. He hardly spoke to any of the small-part people in the show. That’s the way he was. I don’t expect Hilary and he spoke more than a dozen words to each other in their whole lives. The whole dirty business was a rotten frame-up.”

  “Frame-up?” said Mr. Wilson.

  “That bullet was planted in the revolver. He was made to kill Brandon Baker.”

  “You see?” said Derek. “What did I tell you, Inspector?”

  “But the—the unfortunate happening afterwards, Miss Davis?”

  “I know. It’s difficult to explain that. But…well, Hilary was in a hell of a mess one way and another. Money, principally. Other things, too. He’d threatened once to do himself in when I was over at his flat—when he was with me, I mean. His nerves were all to hell over it all. A thing like this, happening all of a sudden as it did—it would be enough to send him nuts, you understand?”

  “Quite,” said Mr. Wilson. “Nuts?”

  “Loopy,” said Derek. “Batty. Dippy. Gaga. Mental.”

  “He’d be out of his mind, you understand, Inspector…he wouldn’t know what he was doing—all he’d realize was that he’d shot a man dead. So he went and—”

  “I see,” said Mr. Wilson. “So you think the revolver was tampered with before the scene commenced, do you?”

  “I don’t think,” said Miss Davis—“I know. And I know who did the tampering.”

  Mr. Wilson, senr., and Mr. Wilson, junr., said, “Who?” again in perfect unison.

  “The stage manager,” said Miss Davis coolly. “Herbert.”

  “What?” said Mr. Wilson.

  “Herbert. The stage manager. I was in Hilary’s dressing-room in the interval between the first and second acts. I used to go there a good deal because—well, you know. Herbert came in and said he wanted all Hilary’s props ready in the wings. He’d gone on without the gun one night in Manchester. He was always doing that kind of thing. Just before the second act began he handed the gun back to Hilary—the gun, and a dagger thing he had to carry in his other hand. It wasn’t the same gun. I’m sure of that.”

  “Very interesting,” said Mr. Wilson.

  “Don’t you see? He’d changed the dummy revolver for a real honest-to-goodness one, and given it back to Hilary so that when he shot at Brandon Baker it would mean—amen. If only I’d realized that at the time—I never thought—”

  “Why didn’t you realize and think in time to give evidence at the inquest?” said Mr. Wilson. “It might have helped, you know.”

  “I know,” said Miss Davis. “I’d been thinking it over since it happened. There didn’t seem any use—I mean, Brandon was dead and Hilary was dead. And I didn’t want to get mixed up in anything—you know. And then I saw the verdict in to-night’s paper—‘Murdered by Hilary Foster’. And it kind of got me all het up. I couldn’t let that go by without doing something about it. Because it’s a rotten, lousy lie!”

  “All right,” said Mr. Wilson, who had a rooted objection to women when they started to scream. “All right. I’m very glad you’ve come and told me this, Miss Davis. I’ll probably want to have another chat with you some time. Where can I find you?”

  “Two hundred and thirteen, Lancaster Avenue.”

  “Thanks very much. You just leave this in my hands. If I don’t settle it, my son will. Good night.”

  “Good night,” said Miss Davis. “It was that man Herbert, Inspector…I’m certain of that.…”

  Mr. Wilson closed the door thoughtfully.

  “Startling Developments,” said Derek. “Inspector Wilson is believed to be in possession of new and sensational developments in the Brandon Baker case, and an arrest is thought to be imminent.”

  “Arrest Herbert?” said Mr. Wilson. “Derek, in the language of our departed guest, you’re all wet.”

  “Thank you. What d’you think of her?”

  “Nothing,” said Mr. Wilson. “Nasty stink she’s left behind her. You’d get precious little sympathy and understanding out of that lady, I’m thinking. No tears for Hilary, were there? Even if they were only living together…and the idea of fixing the thing on Herbert, of all people—”

  “Listen,” said Derek. “Cut out the exchange of revolvers theory for a minute. Who was standing in the wings when it happened—in exactly the spot where you stood that time and held your pipe as if it were a revolver? Go on, answer me—don’t stand there like the Statue of Liberty.”

  “Well—who was?” demanded Mr. Wilson.

  “Herbert,” said Derek. “Who called the late Brandon Baker several kinds of dirty names and said he was the sort of thing you found when you changed the stones in the rockery? Herbert. Who was so damned quick at cleaning up the mess and so damned eager to help with the murder-from-the-mountain idea? Herbert. Who was it that—”

  “Derek,” said Mr. Wilson, “shut up. And go and answer the telephone. It’s been ringing for the last two minutes.”

  Mr. Wilson, junr., shut up and answered the telephone as directed. He was away for rather less than a couple of minutes, during which time Mr. Wilson, senr., went through his usual methodical rites of cleaning and filling and lighting his briar pipe, wasting a great many matches, and strewing the carpet with surplus tobacco in the process.

  “Who says policemen have no s
ex-appeal?” demanded Derek on his return.

  “Who was it?” said Mr. Wilson.

  “What is it about you, I wonder, that’s made you so popular with the fair sex all of a sudden? Is it those strong, manly features, do you think? Or those large, manly feet? Or—”

  “Who was it?” asked Mr. Wilson, thoroughly peeved.

  “Gwen Astle. The leading lady herself. Was that Inspector’s Wilson’s house? It was, sez I. Was Inspector Wilson at home? He was, sez I. Could she speak to him for a minute—very important, it was? Inspector Wilson speaking, sez I.”

  “Derek!”

  “Well, there didn’t seem any point in getting you to the ’phone. It’s not every day a young lad like me gets the chance of chatting to a musical-comedy star—henna or no henna.”

  “What the blazes did she want?”

  “You,” said Derek dramatically.

  “Me?” said Mr. Wilson, leaping from his chair like a man impaled.

  “She wants to make a date with you, at least. Really, you modern parents…Miss Astle—Gwen to you—would be very much obliged if Inspector Wilson could come round to her apartment this evening, as she has something to tell him about the Brandon Baker case that she thinks might be important.”

  “The devil she has!” said Mr. Wilson. “What’s the address?”

  “Three hundred and eighteen, Chalmers Street, N. Top flat.”

  “And what time?”

  “Any time to-night, she said. She’s staying in the whole evening for you. I don’t know what things are coming to—first of all the Head Girl of the Harem drifts in here, and now you’re spending the night with the leading lady.”

  “If I go now,” said Mr. Wilson, rising with some dignity, “there will be no necessity to spend the night. Boy, my hat!”

  “What about me?” said Derek.

  “Well—what about you?” asked Mr. Wilson.

  “Hard words from a father to his only son. I mean—what about me coming along with you?”

  “Were you invited?”

  “No…but I don’t like the idea of you alone in the top flat with Gwen. If it had been the second top flat or the bottom flat I shouldn’t have worried at all. But the very top flat…”

  “Idiot!” said Mr. Wilson. “All right, come along.”

  The Wilsons arrived at Chalmers Street at a quarter past eight, having taken rather more than one hour over the journey. Mr. Wilson, under the impression that he knew the locality off by heart, had insisted on taking the tube to some practically obsolete station which (so Mr. Wilson said) landed you bang opposite No. 318. Mr. Wilson, junr., who gave the impression of having lived in and around Chalmers Street since early childhood, recommended a bus, changing from this to another bus at the corner of East Trevor Street, and walking the rest of the way—a mere yard or so, Mr. Wilson, junr., said. After a fairly thorough trial of both bus and tube services, Mr. Wilson, senr., lost his temper and hailed a taxi. It was much the best idea of the night.

  No. 318 Chalmers Street turned out to be a large block of very modern service-flats. Mr. Wilson knew at once that they were very modern, for all the chromium-plated nameplates at the main entrance were devoid of capital letters. “mr. anthony messingham”, said one. “mr. and mrs. john vanzimmer”, remarked another. “mr. noel arkwright, osteopath and manipulative surgeon”, announced a third. And high up on the door-jamb, “miss gwen astle”, said a fourth.

  There was, of course, a lift. It took some time to collect anyone to work the lift, and when this was eventually done it proved to be a gentleman in a navy-blue uniform with red collar and cuffs. Derek put the age of the gentleman down as roughly one hundred and fifteen, and that of his uniform at perhaps ten years less. It is a peculiar thing about these ultra-modern service-flats that they go in for such ultra-antique and unserviceable porters. The lift, however, behaved excellently once the porter had been persuaded to start it, and Mr. Wilson and Derek were shot up to the top flat at a fine speed.

  “That there,” said the porter, pointing to the door opposite. “Not that there. That there.”

  And, having settled this satisfactorily and beyond any possible argument, the centenarian shuffled back inside the cage of the lift, closed the doors tenderly, and vanished downstairs.

  “Bright lad,” said Derek. “Another fifty years and he’ll be making way for the younger blood. Snappy line in carpet slippers, hadn’t he?”

  “Ring the bell,” said Mr. Wilson.

  Derek rang the bell. Mr. Wilson waited patiently. He heard the lift arrive at the end of its journey far below, listened to the doors being opened and shut. Then the ultra-modern block of service-flats was wrapped in ultra-silence.

  “Ring again,” said Mr. Wilson.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” said Derek, and rang again. While the first attack on the bell had been a mere prod, this was a good, honest bit of work, reminiscent of Wagner at his most boisterous moments. Nothing happened.

  “Ring again,” said Mr. Wilson. “And knock.”

  Derek rang again, this time more in a musical-comedy strain, in the hope that it would appeal more to Miss Astle’s ear. He also knocked. Several times. Still silence.

  “What is the date, anyway?” said Derek.

  “June twenty-second. What the hell has that to do with it?”

  “I thought it might be April first. What a shame—the first time in our innocent young lives that we get a chance of spending an evening with a Real Live Actress, and it all turns out a bum.”

  “What an expression!” said Mr. Wilson. “You’d better go down and get hold of that hall porter, if he’s still alive.”

  “Just a minute,” said Derek. “After ringing and knocking, always try the handle. Failing that, enter by lavatory window. Rules for Would-Be Journalists, Number Seven. There you are!…What did I tell you?”

  The door to Miss Astle’s apartment was unlocked. Mr. Wilson, junr., stepped neatly inside.

  “You ought to have a warrant for doing this,” said Mr. Wilson, senr. “If anyone comes, I can arrest you for housebreaking. Dear me!”

  Mr. Wilson’s expletive (if “Dear me!” can be reckoned as such) was caused by the fact that the hall of Miss Astle’s flat was in a state of what is called, in European politics and other circles, flux. Or chaos. Three chairs lay upturned on the carpet. The contents of a large table standing against one wall were scattered across the hall. A slightly suggestive alabaster statuette lay at the foot of the staircase, broken in two places at a most important junction of its anatomy. Lying beside it was what Mr. Wilson diagnosed as one of Miss Astle’s new Paris gowns.

  “Early for spring-cleaning, isn’t it?” said Derek.

  “Late, you mean,” said Mr. Wilson. “Come on in here.”

  Miss Astle’s sitting-room was rather worse than Miss Astle’s hall. A meal had been set on a small table near the fire. The past perfect is the right tense to use, for it seemed that someone in a moment of pique had taken a tight hold on a corner of the table-cloth and pulled in a highly successful manner. There was a lot of what seemed to have been an omelette lying in spilt coffee all over the fireplace. There was also a good deal of ink. Ordinary blue-black ink. Mingling with the omelette and the coffee, it provided an even brighter colour scheme to the tiles of the fireplace than had originally been the case.

  “Why ink?” said Mr. Wilson thoughtfully.

  “She’d been writing,” said Derek brightly.

  “You amaze me,” said Mr. Wilson. “So she had. Isn’t that it, on the carpet?”

  Derek stooped down and rescued the half-sheet of notepaper from any danger of a spreading larva of omelette. Not that much more could have been done to the paper, for quite seven-eighths of it was covered in an enormous blot where the ink-pot had misbehaved itself.

  “Hey!” said Derek. “Have a look at this.”

  There we
re four words only written on the sheet of paper. The rest was blot. Mr. Wilson read the four words slowly.

  If Inspector Wilson comes—

  “Aggravating,” said Mr. Wilson. “Very aggravating.”

  Chapter Six

  “Derek,” said Mr. Wilson, “go and fetch Methuselah up here.”

  Fetching Methuselah up here turned out a much trickier job than it sounded. Derek landed on the ground-floor level at the exact moment when the electric clock on the entrance hall took it upon itself to announce—by one of its ultra-modern clucking noises—that the time was exactly eight-forty-five. Exactly eight-forty-five happened to be the hour at which Mr. Bowker (that being the hall porter’s name) went down to the bowels of the building, untied his bootlaces, removed his red-and-navy jacket, and called loudly for a spot of grub. His wife Agnes had just taken a well-laden plate of steak and chips from the gas stove and planted it in front of Mr. Bowker when Derek appeared on the scene.

  “Hoi!” said Derek. “Hey, you!”

  Mr. Bowker was not in the habit of young men appearing suddenly and saying, “Hey, you!” when he was on the verge of getting going with his supper. He gave a grunt of displeasure, and stacked a neat pile of chips on the edge of his knife.

  “’Smatter?” asked Mr. Bowker. “Can’t you see when a bloke’s busy?”

  “I want you,” said Derek. “Upstairs. Top flat. At once.”

  Mr. Bowker steered his knifeful of chips safely through the undergrowth of his walrus moustache, masticated loudly for a moment, and then said, “What for?”

  “Never mind what for. My old man wants to see you on the top flat. Right away. Come on—rally round. Shove the old chips back in their newspaper and they’ll be nice and hot for you when we’ve finished.”

  Mr. Bowker wiped his moustache and said that it was a bit thick and no mistake. If a hard-working man of his age couldn’t take a half-hour off to have his supper and a read at the evening paper without a continual stream of complete strangers barging into his kitchen and forcing him to go up to the top floor, then there was something wrong somewhere. Mr. Wilson, junr., agreed affably, plucking a loose chip from Mr. Bowker’s plate and putting it neatly away. Mr. Wilson, junr., added that it might be of interest to Mr. Bowker to know that the tall gentleman with the large feet who was waiting on the top landing was a detective from Scotland Yard, and that if he didn’t get a move on and stop stoking chips inside him he was liable to find himself eating his next meal inside a prison cell. Where, Mr. Wilson, junr., concluded, steak and chips were rarely, if ever, found on the menu.