The Chelsea Murders

by Lionel Davidson

  Stanley was walking suspiciously over.

  ‘You want that stuff brought down, then, Denny?’ he said.

  Stanley had protuberant eyes, which missed little; also a big Adam’s apple and an adenoidal voice, none of which Denny liked.

  ‘Okay, I come show you,’ Denny said, impassive face registering neither like nor dislike.

  A consignment of their own stuff had arrived not many days before. It was still packed in the big bales, and they got it down from the upper shelves with the small block and tackle. There was no need to measure any of this stuff, but Denny did measure a bit, for sheer pleasure. Every one went thirty inches. ‘Extleme,’ he said.

  *

  The early lunchers began drifting in at twelve-thirty. Denny remained in high spirits.

  ‘Little bastard’s in his rutting season,’ Stanley said, as they watched him take money from a blonde. When in London, Denny alone took money in the shop. When not, his Chinese partner Chen came and took it. ‘He’ll be doing a few in-seams today, you watch.’

  ‘Stanley, you’re awful,’ Wendy said, passing at that moment.

  Stanley was awful, but right enough here, Steve saw. In cheerful mood, the chairman did show increased activity on the in-seam front. The term was a trade one for inside leg measurement, and Denny did it in the largest, lockable, fitting room below. He preferred willowy blondes, and showed uncanny perception for those not averse to in-seam research.

  ‘Ay-ay,’ Stanley said presently, as the chairman lurched impassively below, arms full of jeans, in the wake of a likely number. Stanley’s Adam’s apple was oscillating, his protuberant eyes hungry. He’d never quite mustered the nerve to try himself.

  Stanley had some other theories, to do with black dollars, about the large fitting room, probably also correct; certainly Denny was always closeted there with his partner after returns from the orient.

  Steve objected to none of this and only rejoiced to see the chairman so cheerful. His opportunity came in the dead period after three.

  ‘Come upstairs now, Steve,’ Denny said.

  Denny’s office was behind the stock room. To make room for extra shelving, the ceiling had been removed, all the rafters visible in Denny’s room, too. The place was quite cheerful. Long banners with flights of duck, and calligraphy, gracefully twirled.

  Denny seated himself behind his desk.

  ‘Sit, Steve. Been thinking a rot.’

  Steve sat. The chairman’s face was puckered.

  ‘People in this country razy. Need somebody English with energy, blain. Might make partner. In China people work hard. Might take you there, show you. Make there, sell here. Big scale. Biggest. Whatever you want to do. Ah?’

  ‘Well, Denny, that’s very handsome, but –’

  ‘I know. You want films. Understand. Young man, actlesses. Understand. But needs business, Steve. Needs money. Fantastic business here – only beginning. Whatever you want – chain stores? Make chain. Crever young man. With me together – dow!’

  ‘Well, damn it, Denny, I don’t know what to say …’

  ‘Come here, Steve. Just rook down there.’

  He had stood and gone to the window, and Steve joined him.

  The King’s Road slowly swarmed below in autumnal sunlight.

  ‘Brue, ah?’

  ‘Brue?’

  ‘Every one. Brue stuff. No Chairman Mao here. Do it all themselves. Ah?’

  He turned and resumed his seat, and so did Steve.

  Denny now stared very impassively, saying nothing.

  Steve realized that the crunch had come, and panted a little.

  ‘What is actually bugging me at the moment,’ he said, ‘is that I’m stuck in this film and we need two hundred pounds.’

  Denny maintained the silence.

  ‘Which isn’t very much,’ Steve said. He looked frantically all over Denny’s face in search of some expression. Not a trace showed. ‘That’s what’s bugging me,’ he said.

  ‘Disappointed, Steve,’ Denny said at last.

  ‘Well, it’s a proposition, Denny. Over a year’s work, you know. Night and day. Have to finish with it.’

  Denny got up and went to the window, and came back and sat down again. ‘What ploposition?’ he said.

  ‘I wondered, firstly, if you’d lend it.’

  ‘Not a money-render,’ Denny said.

  ‘Alternatively, invest it.’

  ‘Don’t invest what I don’t know.’

  ‘Only two hundred quid. Say four hundred dollars. In notes,’ Steve said, pushing it a bit. ‘Not much, is it, Denny?’

  Denny stared longer.

  ‘What dollars?’ he said.

  ‘Four hundred.’

  ‘Why dollars?’

  ‘Two hundred quid.’

  After a pause, Denny said, ‘Disappointed, Steve.’

  ‘Denny, you said you understood. If you understand that I’m stuck in this thing –’

  ‘Understand,’ Denny said.

  Nothing much had happened to his face, but some damned thing had happened. It had switched off.

  Steve put in a last effort.

  He said, ‘Look, Denny, I don’t understand business. But you weren’t looking for a business brain, were you?’ ‘No. I business blain,’ Denny said.

  ‘It needs your sort of brain. Let Artie come and explain the facts and figures to you. He’s got all that stuff. I mean, there is money in it, I’m sure. And we’ve done so much.’

  Denny opened a drawer and took out a diary.

  ‘Wednesday,’ he said.

  ‘It’s only Friday now, Denny.’

  ‘Seven o’crock. No, Chen is coming. Seven-thirty. Wednesday.’

  Denny didn’t say any more, and he didn’t seem to expect Steve to say any more.

  They returned silently to the shop together.

  *

  They worked late Friday and Steve felt distinctly knackered as he left. He’d brooded all afternoon over his handling of the interview, and he knew he shouldn’t have mentioned dollars. Still, his expectations hadn’t been high.

  He bought a Globe in the street.

  SCOTLAND YARD BAFflED ran the headline, and above it two other racing lines: Is mad genius behind Chelsea Killings? As coded notes reach police …

  Still standing in the street, he read the first bold paragraph.

  A deranged genius may be responsible for the recent spate of murders in Chelsea. News exclusive to the Evening Globe indicates that the police have received ‘coded notes’ revealing detailed knowledge of the pattern of murder. Although Scotland Yard would neither confirm nor deny the report, evidence of an ‘extraordinary intelligence’ is believed to be shown by …

  Steve read on, all down the column, fascinated.

  *

  Frank read it, too, similarly fascinated.

  So did Artie.

  And Mooney.

  As was soon obvious, the C.C. had read it, too.

  ‘Well, Ted,’ he said on the phone. ‘Where did they get it?’

  ‘Inquiries going on now.’

  ‘Information Room here is a madhouse at the moment. We need a discussion, Ted.’

  ‘Ng,’ Warton said.

  ‘Can’t have you here. They’ll think you’re being carpeted. Are you getting the Press there any more?’

  ‘A few hanging about at the moment. Waiting for me to leave, I expect.’

  ‘Do you expect ’em in the morning?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning?’

  ‘I’m prepared to give up a Saturday. Are you?’

  ‘Well, naturally, sir,’ Warton said slowly.

  ‘Let’s leave it till noon. They’ll have gone by then. I’ll drive myself, private car.’

  ‘Fine, sir. And thank you.’

  Warton hung up and considered. Coming to Chelsea. Could easily have seen him at some neutral location. Wanted to see the procedure, Incident Room. That was perfectly okay. Wouldn’t find a better one anywhere.

  He was uneasy, tho
ugh.

  What he had expected to happen hadn’t happened yet.

  16

  DESPITE his strong dislike for the job, Warton was a considerable innovator in it. He had to go about and see bodies, which was offensive enough, but apart from this, he believed in placing himself at several removes from the actuality of crime; of sanitizing himself. This called for a pretty strong sanitation squad, and one of the hallmarks of a Warton investigation was both the size of his field force and of the administrative staff to back it up.

  Like Montgomery of El Alamein, he believed in numbers; and the proper use of them meant efficient communications and a well-run Incident Room. He hadn’t himself invented the latter term, but he’d invented many of the procedures now standard in criminal investigation departments everywhere.

  Few carried them out as formidably as Warton himself.

  On out-of-town jobs, his first demand was for the installation of twenty extra phones; then for the drafting in of staff to man them, and secretaries to type the information, and clerks to index it.

  In the metropolitan area this wasn’t often necessary; and at Chelsea the headquarters were almost to his own design. All he’d had to do was send Summers along to open the suite of rooms, take the locks off the phones, and start the Journal.

  All the rest, on his standing instructions (pasted into the front of the Journal), automatically followed: the checking of the Telex link with Scotland Yard’s computer, the delivery of office machines and stationery, arrangements for twenty-four-hour canteen facilities, and so on.

  A case sergeant, under Summers’s direct instructions, was the second draftee; and the investigation was under way. It was the function of the case sergeant to keep the Cumulatives. There were two of them, one a simple narrative, summarized from the Journal, and the second the annotated one which detailed Main Card numbers for the cross-filing index.

  The filing system, a reflection of Warton’s very soul, broke things down exceeding small. There were cards for everything.

  There was a card for Pickles (as missing from Miss Jane Manningham-Worsley’s).

  There was a card for Semen (as removed from Miss J.M.W.).

  There was a card for Spit. A spit-test had been carried out on the husband and also the eldest son of Miss J.M.W.’s daily; saliva an accurate guide to semen.

  There was a series of cards for Miss J.M.W.’s bank-drawings over a period of three years. The daily had said that no sums were missing; but had the old lady drawn sums which she had not used?

  From the cards it was possible to see, to within about fifteen minutes, what every resident of Bywater Street had been doing on the night when Alvin C. Schuster had been wrapped round the lamp-post.

  Warton didn’t believe much in flair or hunch; all the same it was his way to sit and try to visualize the circumstances of a crime. In the case of A. C. Schuster he had visualized a jolly-ole-pal threesome proceeding along Bywater Street, deceased Schuster as middle man. (Card, Drunks.) Or a car reversing rapidly down one-way Bywater Street for the minute or two necessary to deposit Schuster; with another car blocking the entrance so that exit was guaranteed. (Cards, Reversing Vehicles; Obstructing Vehicles; Taxis – Reports.)

  Even in the case of a lady so limited socially as Miss J.M.W. there were upwards of 150 cards. Schuster ran to over 700; Germaine to over 1800. This was because of her gregarious nature, and the Colbert-Greer connection; and through him, the film operation with its many ramifications.

  Colbert-Greer’s movements, within a period of one hour and ten minutes, had alone filled twenty-seven cards, including one detailing the radio programme that Mrs Hester Bulstrode had been listening to when rudely interrupted in the lavatory. Mrs B. had half a dozen cards to herself; her landlord, Mr Shankar B. Singh, had three. The central heating firm replacing the defective boiler on the premises had two cards. The old lady had complained of the boiler to Singh (one of his cards), and also, of the inflammation risk, to the Borough Surveyor and Goshawk Road police station (two further cards).

  The cards revealed everything; and they also revealed Warton, and the reason why this dogged man would not easily be deflected from what he wanted.

  What he wanted was a nice room at New Scotland Yard supervising some general aspect of Order; with respectability, and regularity, and anonymity, and a vase of flowers from his garden. And he bloody meant to get it.

  So he was up in good time next day, giving himself a careful shave, and a steady look. His hand was pretty steady, too, though he was nervous.

  He deliberately didn’t ring Lucan Place, and he took his time getting there. But he still managed it by eleven-thirty.

  What he had expected to happen had still not happened.

  *

  The C.C. was the soul of affability in the Incident Room. He was in a tweed jacket and slacks. So was Warton, and so was Summers. Several of the young shits were in jeans, of course; still, matter of form these days, and they were all plain-clothes men, and it was Saturday after all.

  ‘Very interesting. Lot on this fellow Artie Johnston.’

  ‘The blackie, sir. Mentioned him.’

  ‘Rocking with Rimbaud, eh?’

  ‘Book of poetry he wrote.’

  ‘M’m.’

  ‘Other one interested in poetry, too, sir,’ Summers volunteered. ‘Colbert-Greer.’

  ‘So I see.’

  ‘The poetry of a particular period, sir. It’s known as the Pre-Raphaelite period,’ Summers solemnly offered.

  ‘Yes. I’ve heard of it.’

  ‘Involving Rossetti.’

  ‘Quite.’

  Warton silently seethed. What Summers needed was his arse kicking; preening like this; Saturday or no Saturday.

  ‘Why all the cross-references to “Shaft”?’ the C.C. said.

  Warton waited one moment, silently glowering, to see if Summers felt like pirouetting up and down the room while explaining this one; but he evidently read the look and said nothing.

  ‘It’s a gay club, sir, both sexes,’ Warton said. ‘Germaine Roberts was a member. So is Colbert-Greer. We’ve got a few things going forward there. Adjacent to Cremorne Wharf.’

  ‘Ah.’

  The C.C. dutifully examined the waiting murder bags, and the Journal, continuously being compiled from the chits that were handed in, and said, ‘Well, Ted.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Care for coffee, sir?’ was Summers’s final fling.

  ‘Why not? Thanks.’

  ‘Ng,’ Warton said. Rough time for Summers next week.

  The two of them went through to Warton’s room, where as a matter of course, and quite casually, the C.C. took the superintendent’s chair behind the desk, and Warton seated himself in the visitor’s chair.

  ‘Now then, Ted,’ said the C.C. ‘Perhaps you’d favour me with your views.’

  Both the tone and the content of this remark lowered Warton’s spirits, which had been sinking at a rapid rate anyway.

  What he had expected hadn’t happened. He had confidently counted on – would have pledged his pension on – the arrival of another quotation. Clever bastards like this didn’t stop. They couldn’t, any more than boozers or drug addicts. Forty-eight hours was the average time Warton would have given him, seventy-two the maximum. He’d hung around last night waiting for the next quotation.

  Well, where was it?

  He’d been so sure, he’d taken the trouble to indent for an Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, and to browse through for the expected shafts of wit. Miss J.M.W. would evidently produce a few pithy words from J. M. Whistler; A. C. Schuster a fiery dart from Algernon C. Swinburne.

  But nothing had come.

  ‘Well, sir,’ he said heavily, ‘we established – fairly rapidly, I may say – that all three people the girl in the library told could have seen the list the following day. Colbert-Greer, of course, worked in the same room –’

  ‘Quite. This newspaper report, Ted.’

  ‘Well, my view there, si
r …’ Warton said. ‘You’ll recall it was the Globe that sprang the story.’

  ‘Yes, I can recall that.’

  ‘Almost certainly supplied by their stringer on the Chelsea Gazette. A girl called Mooney. Now, she’s been pretty solidly covering this film, which seems to imply that all three were quite well –’

  ‘You’re not suggesting the chap is telling her what he’s doing?’

  ‘No, sir, no,’ Warton said, sweating, and at that moment was interrupted by bloody Summers with the coffee.

  Except it wasn’t coffee.

  Summers, looking like one o’clock struck, had some familiar stuff in his hands; a white envelope and a sheet of cartridge paper. Barely listening to the babbling coming out of him, Warton took it, between the two pieces of Kleenex with which it was proffered. Four lines of Letraset Gothic:

  Stolen sweets

  are always sweeter,

  Stolen kisses

  much completer.

  Well, thank you, God, Warton thought devoutly.

  ‘Just arrived?’ he said pleasantly.

  ‘Yes, sir. Posted last night. Some mess-up at the post office that we can’t quite –’

  ‘Coffee coming?’

  ‘Yes, sir. But I thought –’

  ‘Whenever it’s ready,’ Warton said, snout indicating the doorway through which, with all expedition, Summers might now take himself off; which he did, still silently chiming thirteen.

  The C.C. seemed to be chiming, too.

  ‘No fingers if you don’t mind, sir,’ Warton said, offering it.

  He was already reaching for the Oxford.

  ‘What is it?’ the C.C. said.

  ‘Another from our friend, I rather fancy,’ Warton said. And top o’ the morning to you, sir, he silently added.

  Kisses, eh?

  Old Algernon was the hot one for kisses.

  Kiss; Kissed; Kisses …

  He went down the column.

  Stolen K. much completer. 266:1.

  He turned adeptly to page 266, quotation 1.

  Stolen sweets are always sweeter,

  Stolen kisses much completer,

  Stolen looks are nice in chapels,

  Stolen, stolen, be your apples.

  ‘Song of Fairies Robbing an Orchard’.