The Chelsea Murders

by Lionel Davidson

  Leigh Hunt.

  ‘Fairies robbing an orchard?’ the C.C. said.

  ‘Leigh Hunt?’ said Warton.

  ‘I’m not sure that I –’

  ‘Can’t be. It’s got to be Algernon. Or Whistler. It’s got to be, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Eh?’ the C.C. said.

  Warton was racing through Kisses again.

  Stolen K. much completer. 266:1.

  Fairies robbing the bloody orchard, all right! But who was this Hunt? How had he sneaked in? Was he even on the Residents’ List? A swift check showed Hunt’s credentials in order there.

  HUNT, Leigh. Essayist & Poet.

  22 Upper Cheyne Row, Chelsea.

  But this was crazy. On the Residents’ List; not on the Murder List. Not on their murder list, anyway. Feeling himself beginning to chime not just thirteen, but fourteen and fifteen, Warton realized that events had taken a slightly new turn.

  The advice note here was for a murder not yet delivered.

  ‘Coffee, sir?’ Summers said, bloodhounding in.

  *

  A few minutes later, Warton was putting a lifetime’s concentration into trying to keep his face straight. He was well aware of the gravity of the event, but the manner of it was so delightful, a few moments’ enjoyment was surely in order.

  In the twinkling of an eye, without need for plea or argument, the contents of his plate had been transferred to the C.C. ‘s plate. The switch was so dexterous, so supernaturally swift and dire, it might almost have been ordained by some great Incident Room above. Huge pinnacles of crap seemed silently to form and reform on the C.C.’ s plate, fresh accretions joining by the moment. The C.C. didn’t, as yet, seem to realize what was happening on his plate.

  Well, give him a minute, Warton thought.

  ‘What’s your view, Ted?’

  ‘Ng,’ Warton said neutrally, sipping his coffee.

  ‘Practical joke?’

  ‘Same joker, if so.’

  ‘What do you intend doing about it?’

  ‘Well,’ Warton said, and cleared his throat. Begin count-down. Ten, nine, eight … ‘Have to take instructions from you on this one, sir.’

  ‘Instructions? What instructions?’

  ‘Question of policy, sir.’

  Seven, six, five …

  ‘What policy?’

  ‘Press.’

  ‘Would you like to be more specific, Ted?’

  Certainly would.

  ‘You’ll want to publish, will you, sir?’

  ‘Eh?’

  Four, three, two, one …

  Blast-off! We have a launch. We have a perfect launch. Hoo-hoo-hoo! Top o’ the morning.

  ‘Or won’t you want to publish, sir?’

  ‘Oh.’

  That’s it. Got it. Now, I want to see every bit of that crap eaten up. Eat up all your nice crap and you’ll grow up into a fine useful little crap-eater.

  ‘Well, in the case of a practical joke,’ the C.C. said, anxiously scanning Warton’s face.

  Warton offered nothing at all.

  ‘What would you do, Ted?’

  ‘Feel bound to apply to you for instructions, sir.’

  ‘Well, I’ll, uh, turn this over in my mind, Ted.’

  That’s the form. Also in the bowels. Relaxing week-end recommended. Somewhere like Tibet. Take the pressure off.

  ‘Much appreciate your coming in, sir.’

  ‘I’ll call you, uh, tonight, Ted. Be in, I hope?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Warton said, face immense with gravity. ‘Very serious matter.’

  ‘Yes. Yes,’ the C.C. said, and went on quietly murmuring it as he was escorted from the premises. Warton watched the dazed figure entering his car in Lucan Place, and nodded.

  Knew that feeling.

  17

  MOONEY altered her voice whenever the Globe rang that weekend, which was often, to let them know she wasn’t in.

  Nothing was going off at half-cock this time. People had to take what was good for them; couldn’t have all their chocolate at once.

  She’d seen the mileage they’d got out of her item on Friday. The Saturdays showed the field in full cry; and the police had said nothing. She hadn’t expected them to. No, all hers at the moment. And a first-class moment.

  A nasty one, true, had come from Wertmuller. Her moves on the rapture front had been planned for Sunday, but he rang on Saturday to say he had to go to Huddersfield to see an Atkinson.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A harp, Mary. A most beautiful specimen. It needs restoring.’

  ‘Oh, does it?’ Mooney said, dully.

  ‘It’s a great privilege, Mary,’ Wertmuller told her seriously, ‘just to be asked to lay hands on such an instrument.’

  ‘Well, in that case –’

  ‘Mary, if you wish me to leave the Atkinson –’

  ‘Of course I don’t. You must go and lay hands on it. I won’t hear another word,’ Mooney said, knowing pretty well what would happen to the Atkinson if she laid hands on it.

  ‘Can our evening still take place – perhaps on Monday?’

  ‘Of course it can, Otto.’

  ‘Ah. I’ll just wait till then, Mary, dear.’

  Well, damn it, just listening to him was a benison. And after all it was only two days to – whacko! – Monday. Then the great restorer could really crack on.

  Meanwhile, she had plenty to occupy her.

  *

  So did Frank, who had an interesting wheeze of his own going just then. He’d made a new chum at Shaft, so it was a busy week-end all round.

  And the same for Artie, who continued dishing out the duck, Chez Georges, without allowing it to interfere with his other plans.

  Steve carried on selling jeans all Saturday, and all Sunday carried on with what was best for Steve.

  Abo just carried on having a lovely time.

  *

  Warton put in some hours at the office, and then some more in the garden, thinking steadily.

  His spirits darkened as he thought.

  His correspondent, whoever he was, was either having a game with him, or seriously planning a murder. He couldn’t tell which.

  The message had to be taken seriously, in any case.

  L.H. of Chelsea had to be contacted and warned. A glance through the telephone directory, with its close-packed Halls, Hammonds and Harrisons, and the numbers of them with L initials, had already shown phoning not to be a valid way of doing this; even if everyone in Chelsea was connected to a phone.

  An early thought was that the message might portend action at joke level. It might herald an In Memoriam announcement; perhaps for Leigh Hunt himself. The dates had proved unlikely here (Hunt was found to have died in August 1859, and it was now late October); however, the idea had suggested a valid procedure, so Warton had written out a chit.

  First thing Monday morning, all classified ads booked in the London dailies and in the local press would be checked. (Cover: fraud or public mischief, at Summers’s discretion.)

  He had set some other procedures going at joke level.

  At fatality level there was only one procedure: publication.

  There were such stunning arguments against this, that as he got the wallflowers (now very stalky) out of their boxes and into the ground, Warton simply wished the C.C. the best of luck.

  First and foremost was that if no attack took place, it would show the C.C. as a colossal bloody idiot. It would produce not only the alarm he wished to avoid, but a harvest of similar warnings from that brigade who regularly dispatched hearses to people still alive and fire engines to places not on fire.

  All would have to be investigated; grossly misusing manpower, muddying trails.

  And there were some good trails. Steady work had already identified where paper and lettering might have come from.

  The paper, of limited make and discontinued style, had gone four years ago to just two London wholesalers apart from the main art schools.

  All the art school
s’ supplies had been exhausted long ago. The wholesalers had none left, but two art shops in the King’s Road, Winsor & Newton’s, and Brierley Bros., still had some.

  The type style had proved unexpectedly more difficult. Though unusual, small quantities had been widely dispersed, and some hundreds of man-hours had gone into tracking it down. What had been established was that within a fifteen-mile radius, only two outlets had it; Chelsea Art School, and Brierley Bros.

  More to the point, Brierley’s old-fashioned duplicate invoice book showed that six sheets of cartridge paper and six sheets of Letraset, type unknown, had been sold on Wednesday morning. The dozy assistant whose initials were on the carbon copy couldn’t remember the sale, and as stock-keeping was not up to par, there was no other evidence.

  Still, Warton’s money was on Brierley’s.

  It was near the post office. It was notably disorganized and dusty. It had both sets of materials and actually a specimen of Letraset Gothic still curling in the window.

  Not conclusive, of course, but nothing was conclusive here.

  There was an abstract glee about the messages that disturbed him. The sender had a special point to make: a person not bound by normal considerations. A dangerous person.

  He thought that par for the course, as far as the C.C. was concerned, would be about ten o’clock. He’d ring by then.

  The C.C. rang at a couple of minutes to.

  ‘I think we have to take it as a practical joke, Ted?’

  Warton caught the interrogative, but he simply said, ‘I see, sir.’

  ‘After the nonsense in the Information Room, it would look as if we’re being particularly sensitive – h’m?’

  ‘Ng.’

  ‘You don’t take it seriously, then?’

  ‘I do. I take it very seriously.’

  ‘Well, that’s my view at the moment.’

  ‘Appreciate your telling me, sir,’ Warton said, and hung up, pleased at his forecast; at the same time even more disturbed by it.

  The young lady with the head had two weeks to go then.

  *

  He got in early on Monday, and the Incident Room quite soon began to come up with items.

  The classified columns of the Telegraph were due to carry a four-liner for a Lancelot Horniman who had taken off after sufferings bravely borne (no flowers); and the Chelsea News was to commemorate in its Friday issue the tenth anniversary of the death of Leslie Hoop (We linger here with Thoughts so Sad, As constantly we Mourn you, Dad): both genuine.

  The evenings, when they arrived, were a bit of a mystery. News and Standard both niggly, though naturally sketchy so early in the day: they carried the same agency photo of Mrs Thatcher chatting up a young copper outside her door. The Globe was strangely subdued; little piece by their bloke Packer, obviously written after Friday’s shenanigans in the Yard’s Information Room.

  Something must be going on there.

  *

  ‘Damn it, tell her I want to speak to her myself.’

  ‘Well, I’ll try, Jack.’

  ‘What is this bloody uppity nonsense?’

  ‘She can’t blow her sources, Jack, is what she’s –’

  ‘On the paper, she can’t blow them?’

  ‘She isn’t on the paper. That’s what she’s –’

  ‘Put her on that bloody phone right away. Isn’t there any bloody loyalty in the world? If I make myself bloody clear?’

  ‘Crystal bloody clear, Jack.’

  But when Chris got through, Mooney said she couldn’t speak just then; which was the case, because not only Len Offard (Sun), but Pip Stewart and Rex Goddard and Sheila Cohen (stringers, respectively, for the Express, News and Guardian) were all watching her like hawks from the double-banked lines of roll-top desks. So she hopped round the corner, and called Jack from a phone box there.

  On the two occasions that she’d previously spoken to him, she’d had to wait ten minutes. He was in her ear immediately now.

  ‘Mary!’ Jack said. ‘What are your problems, darling?’

  ‘You see, Jack,’ Mooney said huskily, using his given name for the first time, ‘it’s very difficult for –’

  ‘You have to understand how we’re fixed, Mary. With a story like this, one has absolutely got to piss or get off the pot. We must have more, darling. Now, I want you to come in and see me right away.’

  ‘Well, if it’s humanly –’

  ‘Have you got more?’

  ‘I’m getting it. I can’t –’

  ‘From police sources?’

  ‘No. Really, Jack, I –’

  ‘Maniac sources?’

  Mooney had a quick double-take. Maniac?

  ‘It’s so delicate, Jack,’ she said, almost instantaneously, ‘that I’d sooner you didn’t press. I don’t feel free to –’

  ‘Feel free,’ Jack said.’ I want you to. If there’s any professional problem, I want it sorted out. We can’t get stuck like this! I hope you’re getting the point, Mary. If there’s something you particularly want, you have my assurance –’

  Mooney got the point, but she wanted better assurances, and at another time, so she said urgently, ‘I’m going now.’

  ‘Mary!’ Jack hollered. ‘You’re sure of those notes?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘There hasn’t been another, has there?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mooney said, after the slightest pause. ‘But –’

  ‘Oh, my God, bloody come in here, darling! … Darling?’

  But Mooney had hung up, and was looking through the dusty glass into humdrum Fulham, with a feeling of distinct unease.

  *

  She hadn’t meant to mention other notes.

  However, she had, and at the Globe a new front page took shape.

  *

  Warton heard about it a couple of hours before he saw it.

  The C.C. didn’t call himself. He put Warton’s immediate superior, a Commander, on to the job.

  ‘Their chap Packer here has been asking questions, Ted. Where are they getting it from?’

  ‘A girl called Mooney, their stringer. I told the C.C

  ‘Where is she getting it?’

  ‘Give me a direct order, sir, and I’ll ask her. That would mean confirming her stuff. Which is why I want the direct order.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll see what I can do.’

  But no order came, so Warton did nothing; and in the afternoon the Globe did.

  MANIAC: HE SIGNALS AGAIN.

  Warton read thoroughly through the stuff. All innuendo and barrel scrapings. They hadn’t got much, but they’d evidently got something. He wondered at the primary source of even this little.

  He stayed till a quarter-to seven, and went home, and had just entered the house when the phone rang for him.

  Rose had barely taken his mac, and she stood with it watching as, with a strange half-scowl which she knew to be a sign of satisfaction, he said, ‘That so? Is that a first name or – Ng. Mrs, eh? Okay. Coming in.’

  Mrs Louisa Honey was the latest. Manresa Road, Chelsea.

  18

  HONEY was a cleaner in the chemistry labs of Chelsea College, but she also put in a couple of evenings at the bar of the Students’ Union. There was a social that night (a birthday), but she had only been able to stay till seven.

  As she hurried out in the dark, an arm came round her waist. Some of the students had been a bit high when she’d left. She said, ‘Here – cheeky young devil!’ and turned.

  As she did so, another hand covered her face.

  She gazed up, astonished. A huge head loomed above her. It had an open cupid’s mouth, radiantly smiling; and rank upon rank of finely waved hair.

  As she drew breath to scream, she felt her senses going. Just before she passed out, the cupid’s mouth bent tenderly to her own.

  *

  She was still hysterical when Warton saw her, in her flat at World’s End at half-past eight.

  ‘Chloroformed, sir,’ the sergeant said.

&nb
sp; The police doctor had already seen her; she was mildly sedated but still coming out with small whooping cries.

  It had been someone ‘ever so tall’. He had had a big hair style and a face of peculiar chalky whiteness (mask?).

  With the odd ‘ng’ here and there, Warton had built up a fairly complete picture.

  The person who was ever so tall was also very slim; there was a funny smell about him, hardly like a man at all. Warton had asked if she’d ever had chloroform before, and apparently she hadn’t. While she was swooning away, this tall person had continued kissing her. His lips were horrible, like rubber. In view of Honey’s distinctly homely appearance, some eyebrows were raised at this.

  Warton’s conclusion was that her account was accurate. He thought that the tall person with the chalky white face and the rubbery lips had certainly given her a kiss, and also an insufficient whiff of chloroform on a pad.

  He pushed his way through the Pressmen in the courtyard of the tenement block, and later found another gang of them at his HQ. When he emerged, it was almost eleven, and the reporters were still waiting for him. Many local stringers had been alerted and were also present; but their ranks did not include Mooney.

  Mooney, by then, was into a different scene.

  *

  Wertmuller had arrived prompt at eight with a bunch of chrysanthemums.

  He seemed more massive than ever in the small flat, and also rather awkward and constrained. A glass of sherry didn’t do much to improve this, so Mooney put a slug of Martell into him, and also in to herself.

  This seemed the right fuel, and after another (with a graceful exit to keep the oven under control), she had him humming along; harps and Huddersfield, harmony and Hamburg.

  She’d hesitated over what background music to put on. The classics seemed to be coming it a bit, even Vivaldi, which she’d ringed him as, but something along gentle ballad lines couldn’t hurt; so a clutch of troubadours discreetly alighted one after the other on to the turntable.

  As they inoffensively warbled, and fantastic Otto, as she noticed, got mildly pissed, she stationed herself companionably nearer him, though at a lower level, in fact on the floor, where without inconvenience he could knead a little if the inclination took him, and she could rest her glass on his knee. In no time at all one long finger was stroking her wrist, and a whole handful of them her hair.