‘Anything I find out will be reported back to you,’ said Peter. ‘It is your enquiry. It’s just that people aren’t always at their most confiding when talking to policemen. Chief Inspector Parker will, I am sure, make sure you get the credit for it.’
‘Certainly,’ said Charles.
‘Thank you, sir. And as for taking credit, Chief Inspector, Lord Peter, we haven’t got it cleared up yet. We have to find the young woman first. And at the moment she has gone without trace. A flighty young woman could have gone anywhere, with anyone, got into any kind of trouble. Time enough to talk about taking credit when we’ve got to the bottom of it.’
‘You are absolutely right, Inspector. I stand rebuked,’ said Peter, meekly.
Larry Porsena opened his door to Lord Peter in his pyjamas, said, ‘Oh, hell! Excuse me a moment,’ and retreated, closing the door again. Lord Peter stood patiently on the landing and waited. The landing was in a lodging house: ‘A Residential Hotel for Theatre People’, as it called itself on the board outside. A card picked up from the table in the hallway proclaimed that hot meals would be available in the residents’ rooms until two in the morning; that a friendly family atmosphere would prevail, but that drunkenness would not be tolerated; that young ladies and young gentlemen would be accommodated on separate floors; that laundry would be charged extra; that Mrs Malloney would ensure that the place was a home from home. One week’s notice to be given on vacating a room.
Peter had read this far when the door was opened again, revealing a wiry, dark-haired young man with large features, dressed like Hamlet in a flowing white shirt and a black leotard.
‘Stage clothes,’ he said, gesturing vaguely at his attire. ‘Malloney has impounded my trousers. I rather hoped you were my brother come to advance me the rent.’
‘I am afraid not,’ said Wimsey, offering his card.
‘Golly!’ said Porsena. ‘Thank heaven! You’re a famous sleuth, aren’t you? Perhaps you can find her. I take it this is about Pheeb?’
Wimsey blinked, and Porsena said, ‘Phoebe. Gloria.’
‘Yes. I think you should hope that I shall not be able to find her.’
Porsena frowned for a second, and then sat down abruptly, and dropped his head in his hands. ‘Oh, God,’ he said.
‘Let’s hope I’m wrong,’ said Wimsey. He waited for the young man to recover himself. The room was spectacularly untidy, and decorated with theatre bills and autographed photographs of the great and famous. Ashcroft and Olivier smiled glamorously across the bed. Gloria herself smirked at him over a naked shoulder rising from a deeply décolleté gown. Porsena’s own publicity photographs looked back at her across his bed.
‘I did tell the police everything I could think of,’ said Porsena.
‘I’d like to ask you rather different things,’ said Wimsey. ‘About her frame of mind in the previous few days. And on the day itself. Was she acting oddly in any way?’
‘Several ways, actually. How did you know? I thought she’d gone round the bend.’
‘She must have been very excited about the part in Dance until Dawn.’
‘You bet she was. It was the big break. Everyone is longing for a big break. But it was only a short run, you know. If the critics slated her she would be back at the agency door, well down the queue. Only it went to her head. She didn’t see it like that at all. She kept saying she was set up for life, and when I tried to make her see reason she just said, “Wait and see.”
‘Mr Porsena—’
‘Oh, do call me Larry. Everyone does.’
‘Larry, did she say anything to give you an impression, even a ghost of an impression, that she was about to – well, abandon her old friends on a new cloud of glory?’
‘Dump me for somebody more famous, you mean? Or at least somebody in work? Naturally, that’s what I was afraid of. I was very fond of her, Lord . . . I don’t know what to call a lord. Will Peter do?’
‘Peter will do, within these four walls.’
‘Well, Peter, we weren’t exactly love’s young dream. Just very good pals. Ever since I first bought her a coffee in the lunch break at college. We had a lot of fun together, and we had a sort of pact. You’re a man of the world, I can tell you things I wouldn’t tell the police. Anyone would realise that a girl living on her own in London might need an escort. But a young man in my position can find it useful to have a girlfriend too. It looks better. It allays certain fears. Of course I was afraid she would dump me – for her sake as much as for my own.’
‘What do you mean by that, Larry?’
‘Well, she was scatty. She hadn’t quite got a grip on the hard world. You know the kind of thing: everyone was going to be kind to her, and nobody would be jealous, and it was going to be wonderful fun and never any hard work. Her parents’ fault, if you ask me.’
‘Bringing her up badly?’
‘Bringing her up well. Letting her think the universe revolved around her.’
‘And the result was she needed a protector, and you were it?’
‘Got it. You’re jolly quick on the uptake, Peter, aren’t you?’
‘I do my humble best. Anyway, you were saying you were afraid she might . . .’
‘Only it took her just the opposite way. She was saying she would get me good parts; she would fix us both up, and we didn’t have to worry again. I thought she’d gone bananas. I kept telling her it was only a part that she’d got. I don’t know what you reckon, Peter, but I reckon that even very famous actresses, even the Gertrude Lawrences and Dorothy Lamours of the world, don’t really have that much pull. I mean no doubt they get taken out to lunch, and into bed, if they want, I dare say, and no doubt they get seen around with powerful people, but I don’t think they make casting decisions.’
‘And she was talking like this on the basis of her first ever good part?’
‘Exactly. Riding for a fall, I thought.’
‘Nevertheless, she did have an audition for a part to take over when Dance until Dawn finishes?’
‘So she said. I don’t know what to think. When she didn’t come out after a couple of hours, I went in there and they said there hadn’t been any audition all morning.’
‘Yes, I have read your statement to the police. What do you think had happened to her?’
‘Well, it’s damned odd. I got a bit stroppy when the janitor gave me the brush-off like that, and he said, “See for yourself.” So I went in and looked for her. In the auditorium, of course, and the foyer. The street doors were all locked up, by the way, so she couldn’t have walked out that way. So then I ran along the corridors and opened all the dressing-room doors in turn, and the manager’s office, and the wardrobe mistress’s den – every door I could find. I was yelling for her, too. I ran around backstage. No luck. I don’t know how she got out without my seeing her, but she wasn’t there.’
‘It wouldn’t be easy to search a theatre completely, though,’ said Lord Peter, musingly.
‘You mean she could have been hiding?’
‘Or hidden.’
‘That’s a terrible thought,’ the young man said. ‘I don’t like that at all.’
‘Sorry, and all that. Don’t like to bring black thoughts. One more thing, though: did she do anything unusual in the week or so before she disappeared? Go anywhere she hadn’t been before? That sort of thing?’
‘Not as far as I know. She went home to fetch some clothes one evening – home to Hampton, I mean. I wouldn’t go with her, I don’t like suburbs much. I wanted to go drinking with some chums in town.’
‘Thank you, Larry, you’ve been a great help,’ said Wimsey, taking his leave. As he went, he tapped on the landlady’s door, strategically situated beside the door to the street, and negotiated the release of Mr Porsena’s trousers. There are some indignities from which he felt obliged to protect his fellow-men.
A little way down the street he slipped into a telephone box, and dialled the number for Scotland Yard. He spoke, not to Chief Inspector Parker, b
ut to Inspector Bollin, and asked him to obtain a complete list of keyholders to the Cranbourne Theatre.
‘Harwell’s been having a bonfire,’ said Charles, angrily.
‘Where?’ asked Wimsey. ‘Surely those flats don’t have open fireplaces, and there are no gardens.’
‘He has a garden in Hampton,’ said Charles grimly.
‘Have you put a tail on him, Charles, in spite of telling me emphatically that I was barking up quite the wrong tree? Very wise of you.’
‘Yesterday he drove himself down to Hampton and lit a fire in the garden. I told my man not to let himself be seen, so he had trouble seeing exactly what was going on. A lot of garden rubbish was burned, and a bundle of something from the boot of Harwell’s car. Harwell didn’t stay long, and he didn’t enter the bungalow. The moment he left, we raked out the ashes, of course.’
‘Bloodstained clothing,’ said Peter. ‘Canine blood.’
‘Yes, probably. Clothing certainly, but the bloodstains might be gone beyond the scope of proof. It was a good fierce blaze. And perhaps there was something else in it as well.’ Charles produced an envelope, and carefully slid the contents on to his blotting pad. A little scrap of darkly scorched fabric, no bigger than a postage stamp lay there. ‘This doesn’t look like part of a rich man’s clothing to me.’
‘Hmm,’ said Wimsey. ‘It’s some kind of buckram, isn’t it? I won’t touch it, but I suppose it is stiff. Perhaps the kind of thing a tailor would use to interface lapels?’
‘Ho. I hadn’t thought of that. We’ll get a Savile Row fellow to look at it.’
‘What does Harwell say he was doing?’
‘Getting himself into the open air for a bit. Clearing up fallen leaves. No law against it; there is a law against harassment. Why don’t we concentrate our minds on getting Amery behind bars? You can imagine the sort of thing.’
‘Only too well,’ said Wimsey. ‘But Charles, there must be something wrong with that alibi. If the porters won’t budge, perhaps we should have another go at Amery.’
‘To confirm what, exactly?’ asked Charles. ‘Oh, by the by, Wimsey, talking of confirmation, a lorry driver has turned up to confirm giving the jolly blackmailers a lift away from the scene of the crime well before eleven. So that eliminates them from the enquiry.’
‘Well, we didn’t really include them anyway, did we?’
‘I suppose not. And I can’t even nail them for blackmail, because Mr Warren won’t press charges.’
‘Won’t he?’ said Wimsey, astonished. ‘Whyever not?’
‘He seems to have got religion, and be in a mood to forgive his enemies,’ said Charles. ‘And for that, Peter, I blame you.’
‘Dear my lord,
Make me acquainted with your cause of grief,’
said Harriet.
‘Am I musing and sighing with my arms across?’
‘Well, I can see something is wrong.’
‘Can you? And I thought I was making such a good job of keeping it to myself.’
‘But why should you? Why not confide in your wife?’
‘Because I am ashamed of myself. I’m behaving like a dog, Harriet. Selfish to the point of ugliness.’
‘Because you ought to be pleased for Bunter, instead of grieving over him?’
‘How did you know? Harriet, if you are going to see through my poor pretences like this, how ever shall I keep your good opinion?’
Harriet laughed. ‘Peter, I don’t think any less of you for discovering that Bunter’s extraordinary devotion is repaid by attachment on your part. In fact, do you remember that moment in Pride and Prejudice when Elizabeth finally realises that she has been just plain wrong about Darcy?’
‘No; remind me.’
‘She is listening to an encomium from his housekeeper.’
‘Bunter’s devotion is my character reference? Of course I wish him every happiness,’ said Peter. ‘But it’s almost impossible to imagine anyone else in his place.’
‘Peter, look, all these traditions, all these rules that say a servant can live in, and a non-servant can’t, and they must use pseudonyms, and so on and so on – do we have to be bound by them? Can’t we change anything?’
‘The servants like rules,’ he said. ‘They know where they are then, and exactly what they must do to give satisfaction. It makes for a peaceful household, and I wanted a peaceful household; I wanted you to be free to work.’
‘Your mother told me that it was up to you to make a home for me and bring me to it; not up to me to make a home for you. And I was relieved, because I didn’t feel up to making the sort of home you would be used to; I was overwhelmed by it. But now I’m here . . .’
‘Now you’re here it is your establishment,’ said Peter. ‘You are the mistress of the house, and you do what you like in it.’
‘Without regard to you?’
‘Traditionally, if I don’t like it, I retreat to my club. That’s what men’s clubs are for, and why they are populous.’
‘Well, would you retreat to your club if I suggested that Bunter and the future Mrs Bunter could be installed in the mews?’
‘I – well, I hadn’t thought of that.’
‘It would combine Bunter’s continuing proximity with a separate roof over their heads.’
‘Harriet, it would be a wonderful idea. I’m sure Bunter . . . but would the young woman accept it? Wouldn’t it be a bit demeaning? I mean, I don’t know what she’s like, but . . .’
‘I think you will like her, Peter. And I have reason to think she would accept a mews cottage with its own front door.’
‘Have you now?’ he said.
‘I rather rashly mentioned the possibility of doing it up very smartly.’
‘That’s no problem; it would be fun, and come to that a good investment in the property. But there would be problems in day-to-day living, I suppose,’ he said.
‘But surely four intelligent people can find a modus vivendi.’
‘What does Bunter think?’
‘I don’t know. You must ask him.’
Moments later she saw from the drawing-room window man following master down the rain-slicked garden path, through the darkening garden. Then a flickering light, like torchlight, showed successively in the three floors of the mews.
‘All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well,’ said Peter, returning to her an hour later. ‘I have married a practical genius.’
‘You would have thought of it yourself any minute,’ said Harriet.
‘But that’s just the thing; I don’t suppose I would. My sort’s very hide-bound, you know. Running in ancient ruts. It’s very liberating to be married to someone who is unimpressed by tradition.’
‘Well, the news that I can alter things is going to my head rather. Could we change the tradition that puts us at opposite ends of the table when we lunch or dine alone? It’s ridiculous that I have to get myself asked out to lunch by my husband to sit near enough to him for easy conversation.’
‘Meredith shall be instructed to place us face to face across the middle of the board,’ said Peter gravely. ‘The king’s palace shall be a queen’s garden. I shall abdicate in your favour.’
‘Couldn’t we reign co-equal? There doesn’t seem to be enough disagreement between us to justify revolutions and abdications.’
‘A lesson, love, in love’s philosophy? I am consumed with curiosity. What is the prospective consort of Bunter actually like?’
‘Rather like me, I think. Perhaps from circumstances somewhat tighter than mine. Needed to earn a living, found a satisfactory way to do it; interesting to talk to. Holds Bunter in high regard. In different circumstances she could have been a woman don . . . But, Peter, tell me what Bunter said.’
‘I have never seen him evince so much feeling in twenty-odd years. He is overjoyed. I told him it was your idea.’
‘You needn’t have done that.’
‘It is true my self-esteem is at a low ebb at the
moment, but I am not so craven as to need to steal credit from my wife.’
‘What has dented your self-esteem, my lord?’
‘Harwell’s alibi. But enough of that. Has the capable Robert Templeton plumbed the depths of Highgate Ponds?’
‘I couldn’t make that work in the end. I’m having to transfer the weirs to the outfall of a rural reservoir.’
‘Too bad. I’ll put the map away then.’ Peter moved across to the side table where his old map of London was spread out.
‘It’s fascinating for its own sake,’ she said. ‘Did you know the London Hippodrome used to have water shows, and they could flood the tank from a river running below the building?’
‘No, I didn’t. I had heard of unwholesome smells from below the stage of the . . .’ Peter glanced at the map as he began to roll it up. Then he stopped, and switched on the table lamp. Harriet heard him whistle faintly. She got up and joined him looking.
‘What is it, Peter?’
‘Here,’ he said, pointing.
Flowing across the Seven Dials area on the map, which was marked as a marsh, was a dotted blue line, and the words ‘Course of the Cranbourne?’ It was one of a web of speculative water courses shown as tributaries of the Fleet.
Peter said, bleakly, ‘Harriet, I think there might after all be a way out of the Cranbourne Theatre other than through the doors, and in that case, I think I know where Charles ought to be looking for Gloria Tallant.’
17
In Stygian cave forlorn,
’Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy
JOHN MILTON
The Fleet flows out into the Thames at Blackfriars Bridge. There is nothing to be seen of it but a cavernous black void giving out on to the slimy, grey, low-tide bank of shingle below the bridge. The water at low tide, and in dry weather, is shallow, seeping rather than flowing towards daylight and liberation in the Thames. Almost unrecognisable in thigh boots, and Water Board oilskins and tin helmets, Chief Inspector Parker and Inspector Bollin and Lord Peter Wimsey followed Mr Snell, the linesman, wading abreast in a wide tunnel in which the damp brick archway rose ten feet or so above their heads. Gradually the tunnel narrowed and darkened, and they needed their torches. The weight of water round their ankles taught them a sliding gait, shuffling rather than raising their feet. Caught in the torch beams, rats scuttled along a jutting course of bricks, staring undaunted at the light, giving back loathing for loathing. When the little party stopped, a chorus of echoing drips and trickling outfalls resounded in the cavernous space.
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