by Mike Ashley
He grinned, and produced one. “Just ask for Johnny,” he said, and left.
I’d saved the next interview till last, partly because after coping with all those strangers, I needed to see a friendly face; and unless you’re of an age to remember the likes of Emily Fowler and Jessie Bond, no friendlier face has ever graced the London stage than that of my final witness.
“Hello, Jill,” I said. “Darling,” she replied, registering pleasant surprise. “I didn’t know you were on board.”
I shrugged. “It was all terribly last-minute. A royal summons.” I lowered my voice. “Ziegfeld.”
“Oh, dear.” She pursed her lips. “Putrid?”
“So I’m told,” I replied, “though of course I’ve yet to view the body, so the extent of the putrefaction remains to be seen. But it must be pretty rotten, or he wouldn’t have sent for me.”
She nodded. “I’d heard rumours,” she said. “But you hear that sort of thing about every big show.”
“So you do,” I said. “You’re not in it, are you?”
She laughed. “Heavens, no,” she said. “Nothing so splendid, I’m afraid. Just some run-of-the-mill old thing that Jerome and Plum and Bill are putting together, and which’ll probably close in Newark.”
“I doubt it,” I said, politely. “Anything good for you in it?” She shook her head. “I bounce on in the middle of the first act clutching a tennis racket,” she replied, “and it sort of goes downhill from there. There’s supposed to be a nice dance routine somewhere in Act Two, but it’ll probably be cut by some interfering play-doctor.”
“Those brutes,” I said sympathetically. “Still, it’s America. Splendid chance to bag a millionaire or two.”
She gave me a look. I rose above it.
“Seriously,” I said. “Sooner or later, one of those goofy-eyed young exhibits I’m always seeing clustered round the stage door is going to wear you down by sheer force of persistence, and then who am I going to write smart soubrette patter-songs for?”
She thought for a moment. “Jessie Matthews,” she said. “No, really,” she added, “she’s much better than people give her credit for. Excellent diction.”
I shrugged. “I hope you’re right,” I said. “It’s hard enough as it is without knowing that your words are going to be chewed up and swallowed by some lisping half-wit who never learned how to breathe.”
She smiled. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I have no plans to retire just yet. But come on,” she added briskly, “aren’t we supposed to be talking about this dreadful business with poor Julia?”
“I suppose we should,” I replied. “England expects, and so forth. Very well.” I sat up straight, just the way my mother would have liked. “You were with the deceased on the boat deck at approximately ten forty-five last night?”
“Yes, officer.”
“Known her long?”
“Oddly enough, no,” she replied. “I may have bumped into her at parties, but I don’t remember saying two words to her before we met up on this boat.”
I nodded. “How about the other three harpies in your little throng?” I looked down at my scrap of paper. “Cynthia Berry, Diana Butler and Jane Armitage. I spoke to them all just now, of course, but I couldn’t tell ’em apart if you paid me. Who are they?”
She smiled. “Nobody much,” she said. “People’s wives, I think. Let’s see; I played baccarat with Diana and Jane the night before last, and Julia played bridge with Cynthia and Jane two nights before that.” She sighed. “That’s the hellish thing about being on a boat,” she said. “You’re cooped up with people, and can’t just remember a prior engagement when they want to be your friend.”
“Dire,” I agreed. “So, all five of you, chance acquaintances.” I paused. “You’ve got a gold Cartier cigarette case.”
“Had,” she replied with a frown. “That tiresome captain made me give it to him, which means I’ve had to smoke beastly Sullivans all morning. Do you think you could be terribly sweet and get it back for me?”
“It might be possible,” I said. “In fact, here it is, hiding under my notes.”
“Angel,” she said, and reached for it; but I held it back, and opened it.
“Help yourself,” she said.
“Not just now, thanks,” I replied. “You will please remember that I’m still on duty, and therefore not at liberty to accept offers of refreshment from members of the public. This was the case you handed round last night?”
She nodded. “Julia had run out, and the other three are all the most frightful cadgers, but one must be polite.”
I glanced down at the open case. There were ten cigarettes on the right side; the left side was empty. “And the other three – Diana and Cynthia and whatever her dratted name is – they all helped themselves and no ill effects.”
“And me too,” she pointed out.
“And you too.” I looked at her. “So it’d have been impossible for some horrible murdering person to have slipped a poisoned cigarette – cyanide, for instance – into this case, on the slim chance that Lady Julia would pick that particular cigarette, smoke it and die.”
“Well, of course.” She raised her eyebrows at me.
“That clears that up, doesn’t it?” I sniffed the cigarettes, then closed the case and slipped it into my pocket. She watched me, but didn’t say anything.
“The problem is,” I said, “that we’ve got a dead body, and what looks depressingly like a murder, but not the faintest whiff of a motive. Can you think of one, Jill, dear?”
“No,” she said. “But of course, I don’t know the first thing about her.”
“You’d never met her before this voyage,” I replied.
“That’s what I just said.” A slight pause; then, “Don’t you believe me?”
“Of course I believe you. But.” I hesitated. After all, it really was none of my business. It was the most infernal liberty on the captain’s part, conscripting me to be his master sleuth when all I want to do with what’s left of my life is earn a little money and spend it pleasantly. One has a duty, of course, to society; but I maintain that I discharged that duty for good and all, one foggy morning in 1917, when my hopeless sense of direction led me astray in a muddy hellhole in France. Death did well out of me that day, and I owe him no more lives.
Nevertheless; “But,” I repeated, “I have an idea that you did know Julia Harkness quite well. At second hand, I mean; by report.”
“Not really. She’d retired by the time – ”
“Quite so. She retired, I think, in ’04 – wasn’t the last thing she did that Pinero revival? – and married her fabulously wealthy war profiteer, the way you wonderful actresses do, and suddenly came over all respectable; and although her husband died relatively young and their union was never blessed with issue, I seem to remember reading or hearing somewhere that there’s a couple of nephews – young fellows, about your age – who stand to inherit, of course, now that the old lady’s popped off.”
“Is that so? I don’t – ”
“I believe so,” I said. “Which would be a stroke of luck for them, I suppose, if either of them was contemplating what my dear mother used to call an injudicious marriage; you know, someone a bit shady, with a reputation, an actress or something of the sort. I suppose it’s the old poacher-turned-gamekeeper thing, but I’d heard that Lady Julia had a positive horror of the family money falling into the paws of some wretched little gold-digger. Imitation, presumably, not being the sincerest form of flattery, in her view.”
“I have no idea,” she said coldly, “what you’re talking about.”
“Of course not,” I said. “But another thing I remember, just a snippet of silly gossip; some fool was telling me that you’d been seeing rather a lot of young Bertie Allsop, and wasn’t his mother – ?”
She gave me a look I won’t forget in a hurry. “Mary Ormerod, yes,” she said. “What a memory you have, to be sure.”
“Only for the trivia of my profession,”
I replied. “From memory, the Ormerod sisters started off in the Gaiety chorus in eighty-something, but Mary married a solicitor or something awful like that, and it was Julia, always reckoned the plainer of the two, who went on to make a name for herself.” I laced my fingers together, rather too tightly for comfort. “May I take it that congratulations are in order?”
She was quiet for a long time; then she laughed. “Splendid, darling,” she said. “And you’re quite right, Bertie and I were secretly engaged at Christmas, but of course we didn’t dare tell the old hag about it, she’d have cut Bertie off without a shilling. So yes, I couldn’t be more pleased that wretched Julia dropped dead, positively at my feet, like a scene out of one of her dreadful melodramas. And of course,” she went on, “you’re thinking that perhaps I had something to do with it.”
“The thought had crossed my mind,” I confessed.
“In that case,” she said sweetly, “you might care to tell me how I did it.”
“You poisoned her,” I said. “Cyanide, which you’d brought with you from England, in a cigarette.”
“Really.” She looked at me as though I was a poor idiot child. “And maybe you can tell me how I contrived matters so that she got the poisoned one, rather than me or Cynthia or Jane or – what was that stupid woman’s name?”
“Diana,” I said. “Actually, I can, and it’s really rather simple. At first,” I went on, “I wondered if the other three were in it with you, but I scrubbed round that pretty quickly; they genuinely were perfect strangers to you, and it could have messed things up dreadfully. Fortunately, they were women of excellent taste, and so everything was all right.”
“Please don’t talk drivel, darling. It’s giving me a headache.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m quite prone to headaches myself, as it happens. For instance, I always get a headache when I smoke those revolting Turkish cigarettes that are so popular these days. Honestly, I don’t know what people see in them.”
“Neither do I.”
“Of course. But,” I went on, “lots of people adore the filthy things, which is why the pleasant custom has grown up of filling one’s cigarette case with Turkish on one side and Virginia on the other. Curiously, according to the maid who cleaned her cabin, Lady Julia only ever smoked Balkan Sobranie – such a misleading name, because of course they’re as Turkish as the Blue Mosque. Which made me wonder; what if there was a cigarette case with plenty of Virginia on one side, and just one solitary, sad little Turk on the other? Assuming, of course, that the other ladies in your circle have the good taste to smoke God’s own Players.”
“Rather a big assumption, don’t you think?”
“Lucky guess,” I replied, “but also borne out by the maids who empty their bedside ashtrays. I give you full credit for high-class fieldwork, by the way; watching who Lady Julia spent time with, taking note of what they smoked.”
She was looking me straight in the eye. It was like staring down a deep well. “What a simply wonderful imagination you have,” she said, “and such a pity you don’t use it in your work. I suppose you have something by way of proof of all this?”
I sighed. “That’s awkward,” I replied. “I’d hoped to find the cigarette itself, of course, but no luck at all. I searched, but it wasn’t there. The captain said it probably fell overboard when Julia keeled over; but quite by chance I found the match she used to light it with. All you fashionable things have lighters, of course, but Julia preferred a good old-fashioned lucifer. Anyway, judging by where she fell, if the match was still there, I’d have expected to find the cigarette as well. There was always the chance that the ship had tilted over, the way they do, and the silly thing had rolled off into the sea. So I went to the trouble of having a word with the chappie who steers the boat, and he told me the sea’s been as calm as a millpond since early yesterday evening. I can only conclude, therefore, that some wicked person took care to kick the dratted thing over the side when everyone else’s attention was distracted.”
She smiled beautifully at me. “So,” she said. “No proof.”
“No proof,” I agreed sadly. “Well, actually, I tell a lie. Now,” I went on, “this is a rather curious story, so bear with me. It so happens that aboard this ship we have a genuine American bootlegger, a charming gentleman whose name I won’t bore you with. Now he took it into his head to plant thirty cases of rather good Scotch in one of the lifeboats, shortly before we left Liverpool. He thought he was being terribly clever, but what the silly fellow failed to realize was that safety procedures on a ship like this dictate that the lifeboats have to be checked regularly throughout the voyage. Must’ve come as rather a shock to him when he found out; and as soon as he heard about it, he hurried down to the boat deck in the hope of being able to shift at least some of his hoard to a better hiding-place before some officious swine stumbled across it. He’d got as far as untying one of the tarpaulins, but then you and Julia and your crowd came butting in, and he had to abandon operations and wait for you all to go away. It was sheer bad luck that when you kicked that horrid cigarette off the deck, it landed in the curl of the tarpaulin; worse luck that the sea-spray inside put it out before it could burn away; and the final touch of insult to injury when the captain told me to investigate some mysterious American who’d been hanging about the scene shortly before the crime took place. If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have gone poking about in the tarpaulin,” I said, reaching into my top pocket and taking out two thirds of a wet Sobranie, “and found this.”
The Austin Murder Case
JON L. BREEN
I was very tempted at the outset to include several parodies and pastiches of famous 1920s sleuths, especially Poirot and Wimsey, but decided better of it. However, I was then reminded of the following story by Jon L. Breen. The biggest-selling writer of detective fiction in the 1920s, bar none, was S.S. van Dine with his books featuring the dilettante amateur sleuth Philo Vance. He appeared in The Benson Murder Case (1926), the first of twelve novels of which perhaps the best – certainly the most complicated – is The Bishop Murder Case (1929). So popular were the books that there was an instant parody with The John Riddell Murder Case (1930) by Corey Ford, writing as John Riddell. Van Dine wrote no short stories featuring Vance so, forty years later, mystery aficionado and Professor of English, Jon L. Breen, decided to rectify that omission. Breen has written other parodies of famous detectives, and you can find them in Hair of the Sleuthound (1982). Apart from his own novels, he has written several indispensable reference books of the mystery field including What About Murder? (1981) and Novel Verdicts (1984).
Of all the curious and inexplicable crimes that came to the attention of Philo Vance during the incumbency of his friend John F.-X. Markham as District Attorney of New York County, there is wide disagreement as to which one was the most bizarre, which one permitted the greatest exploitation of his deductive powers. Perhaps because of the brevity of the investigation and the speed with which Vance was able to put his finger on the guilty person, the murder of Jack Austin, or as it was often called in the press, “The Talkie Murder Case”, has often been ignored in such discussions. But some feel, among them Vance himself, that his exposition of the vital clue in this case was one of the most dazzling strokes of his career.
Our connection with the Austin murder case began, as did so many of Vance’s exploits, with a visit from District Attorney Markham. But this time it was not a worried Markham, puzzled over some unfathomable crime, but a more jovial District Attorney, passing along an invitation to a social engagement.
“It’s a little masquerade party, Vance, at the home of Jack Austin, a week from Thursday night. He thought that you and Mr Van Dine, both of whose works he admires very much, would like to come.”
“Most ingratiatin’ of you to extend the invitation, Markham old chap, but to tell you the truth I don’t find the idea altogether thrillin’. I can find better things to do with my time, don’t y’know, than to dress up and go to a costume party a
t the digs of a most annoyin’ and irritatin’ vaudevillian. Thanks anyway, old dear.”
“Mr Austin will be most disappointed. I dare say you’re the only person in the city of New York who would turn down an invitation to Jack Austin’s last party before he leaves Manhattan.”
“Actu’lly leavin’ ol’ New York? Not altogether distressin’ idea, y’know, but may I ask where he’s goin’?”
“Hollywood. To make talking pictures.”
Vance puffed his Régie and sniffed disgustedly. “If one of the talkin’ cinema’s first accomplishments will be to allow that chap’s nasal off-key singin’ to be heard by millions of people throughout the world, it’s just another proof of the mistake the film industry’s makin’ in desertin’ true cinema.”1
“Quite so, Vance. Since you have such an enthusiasm for the silent film, though, perhaps you’ll find the party more intriguing than you had at first thought.”
“Might I?” rejoined Vance languidly. “And why might that be?”
“Each guest will come as his favorite movie star. I, for instance, am going as Tom Mix. Judge Peter Hawley will be there as Henry B. Walthall. Austin himself will impersonate Charlie Chaplin.”
Vance turned to me. “ ‘Pon my word, Van, it might be an inter’stin’ time at that I have always wanted to become Douglas Fairbanks for an evening, and here an unprecedented opportunity presents itself. Respectin’ your desire to remain inconspicuous, we might find a less dynamic star for you to impersonate – Jack Mulhall, Donald Keith, or one of those chaps.”2
“Sporting of you to accept, Vance!” Markham exclaimed. “I’ll relay your response to Jack Austin.”
A week later Vance and I made our appearance at Jack Austin’s stately Manhattan mansion. The first person we met as we entered was Stitt, the Austin butler, who set the tone for the evening’s proceedings with his Keystone Kop costume.3 As soon as we entered the mansion’s immense ballroom, decorated in a motion-picture soundstage motif, Jack Austin himself rushed over to greet us. His costume of battered hat, baggy pants, cane, and old shoes, together with the small moustache and duck-like walk he had affected for the occasion, gave us the sensation that it was Charlie the little tramp himself who cordially held out his hand and said, “Mr Vance and Mr Van Dine! How good of you to come!”
