A Case of Blackmail in Belgravia (A Freddy Pilkington-Soames Adventure Book 1)

by Clara Benson

  After an abortive attempt to flag down a private motor-car, Freddy eventually managed to procure himself a taxi. He was just about to pronounce his destination to the driver, when he was rudely shoved aside.

  ‘Pont Street,’ said a familiar voice. ‘Come on, Freddy, get in. You’re holding the man up.’

  It was his friend Mungo Pruitt, who had leapt into the conveyance before him, and who now reached out and pulled him in. The driver set off. Freddy’s mind was not working as fast as it ought, and it took him a good few moments to realize that Pont Street was in the opposite direction from the one he wanted, for Freddy worked an honest living as a press-man of sorts, and had recently taken rooms near the offices of his newspaper, so as to be saved the inconvenience of having to spend more than five minutes in travelling to work of a morning.

  ‘But I don’t want to go to Pont Street,’ he said, moving his mouth carefully, since his faculty of speech was not at its best at present. ‘Pont Street is in quite the wrong place.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ said Mungo. ‘It’s where I live.’

  ‘But I want to go to Fleet Street,’ said Freddy.

  ‘Fleet Street be damned,’ said Mungo. ‘Why would anybody want to go to Fleet Street at this time of night? Or at any time, in fact? It’s full of oily little men with pencils and cameras, whose only object in life is to catch one in the act of doing something unspeakable.’

  This was a point with which Freddy could not truthfully disagree, and yet the fact remained that he did not wish to go to Pont Street. By the time he had succeeded in formulating in his head an unanswerable argument for getting his own way, however, the taxi had already arrived at Pont Street and Mungo had leapt out.

  ‘Listen,’ said Freddy, who was now ready to present his case. He jumped out after Mungo, preparing to give a long and impassioned speech as to the desirability of having instructed the driver to go East first, rather than West, but before he could begin, Mungo had paid the driver and the taxi had pulled away without him.

  ‘Hi! Dash it,’ said Freddy, waving desperately at the departing vehicle. ‘Mungo, you ass, what the devil did you do that for?’

  ‘Do what?’ said Mungo. ‘We’re home, aren’t we?’

  ‘You might be,’ said Freddy. ‘But I’m not. I want to go to Fleet Street.’

  ‘Oh, do you? I thought you were joking,’ said Mungo. ‘Still, I’m sure there must be a taxi around here somewhere. And now it’s off to bed for me. Don’t stand there too long, old chap. It’s cold out here. Cheerio!’

  And with that, he was off, leaving Freddy standing in a deserted street, a good three miles from home. Lesser men might have railed against a similar inconvenience; not Freddy. The night was cold and all he wanted at present was to find a comfortable bed—any bed might do—and collapse into it for eight hours or so. If Fleet Street were denied him, then let another sanctuary receive him. A short distance away was the house his mother used when she was in London, for which he had a key. She would most likely be tiresome about his current condition, but it was late, and perhaps he could creep in without being heard.

  He set off unsteadily down Chesham Street, and within a very few minutes was turning into Eaton Terrace. The house was dark; perhaps nobody was at home—which possibility suited Freddy very well, since he was more afraid of his mother’s sharp tongue than he cared to admit. He felt in his pocket for a key and, after a few false tries, succeeded in inserting it into the lock. It turned, and the door gave way more suddenly than he had expected. It immediately hit an obstacle—something soft yet unyielding—and at the same time he heard a shriek. He pushed at the door and felt someone push back from the other side.

  ‘Go away!’ a voice said frantically. Freddy recognized it as that of his mother.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Freddy. ‘Let me in.’

  ‘Freddy!’ exclaimed Cynthia. ‘You frightened me half to death! Quick, come in!’

  The door opened a little way and he was able to squeeze in. The entrance-hall was almost dark, with only a little light coming in through the glass above the door.

  ‘Why are you standing here in the dark?’ said Freddy. ‘And who’s this on the floor?’ For he could feel with his foot that the obstacle blocking the front door was human.

  ‘Shh! Not so loud!’ hissed Cynthia. ‘It’s Ticky.’

  ‘Ticky?’

  Freddy’s brain was by no means operating at full capacity, but he felt it might matter less if he could see. He groped along the wall and switched on the light. Cynthia gave a little squeak. Freddy regarded his mother, who was shrinking against the wall, wide-eyed, still in her evening-dress and fur coat, and then turned his attention to the thing on the floor. Ticky was lying still and supine on the black and white tiles, eyes closed. His face was white.

  ‘You’re right, it is Ticky,’ said Freddy. ‘Why’s he sleeping there? He’ll be awfully stiff and cold when he wakes up.’

  ‘He’s not asleep, he’s dead,’ said Cynthia. ‘And please keep your voice down, darling. There’s a policeman walking up and down outside. I had to run out and clean up the mess quickly while his back was turned. It was quite horrid. You know how I hate that sort of thing.’

  ‘Dead?’ said Freddy. ‘Are you sure? Perhaps he’s just unconscious.’

  He bent over unsteadily to peer at the motionless figure at his feet, then straightened up sharply.

  ‘Oh, he’s dead,’ he said in surprise.

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you,’ said Cynthia. ‘He died on the steps and I had to drag him inside. He was awfully heavy. And now I don’t know what to do with him.’

  ‘Why, call someone to take him away, surely? A doctor, perhaps? Or the police. Didn’t you say there was a bobby just outside?’

  ‘No!’ exclaimed Cynthia. ‘We can’t call the police!’

  ‘But why on earth not? You can’t leave him here. He’s not exactly ornamental, and he’s blocking the doorway. The police will tidy him away nicely and soon it’ll be as though he’d never been here, you’ll see.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Freddy. It’s not funny. We need to get rid of him somehow, but without the police.’

  Freddy’s head was starting to spin, and he had the feeling there was something about the situation that he had not quite grasped fully.

  ‘Look here, it’s late,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we ought to leave him here and go and sleep on it. Then we can call someone tomorrow with a clear head, and they’ll come and fix everything for you, and you won’t have to think about it any more.’

  But his mother was shaking her head vehemently.

  ‘No!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s Mrs. Hanbury’s day tomorrow, and you know what a dreadful old cat she is. If she turns up and finds a dead body here she’ll tell your grandfather, and he’ll be terribly cross with me. You know how long it took me to persuade him to let us use the house again after we held our “Rainbow Joy” party last year. I never meant everyone to start throwing paint at each other, but you remember the mess, and the bill for redecoration was rather high. It won’t take much to set him off again. We must get Ticky out of here tonight.’

  ‘But why don’t you want the police?’ said Freddy. ‘And how did he die, anyway?’ he added as an afterthought.

  ‘Poison,’ said Cynthia. ‘At least, I think so.’

  ‘Poison?’ said Freddy. He stared, as the reality of the situation began to seep in slowly. ‘You don’t mean to say you killed him?’

  ‘Don’t be absurd, darling,’ said Cynthia, although she looked a little uncomfortable. ‘Why on earth would I kill Ticky?’

  ‘But then how do you know?’

  ‘Because he told me so himself. He was ill in the taxi on the way back, and when he got here he collapsed and was sick, and then he exclaimed, “Poisoned!” just like that, and died.’

  ‘Good God!’ said Freddy.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Cynthia. ‘It was awfully sudden. We were out, a group of us, you see, for his birthday,
and he ate far too much—between you and me it was rather revolting and I could hardly bear to watch it—and there was lots of wine and champagne, and that dreadful Van Leeuwen woman was there—I don’t know who invited her—and of course then I was left without a lift and so I ended up in a taxi with Ticky. He spent half the journey drinking brandy out of the flask we gave him, because he didn’t feel well, but it wasn’t until he dropped dead outside the house that I found out just how ill he was. At any rate, it looks most suspicious that I was the last person to see him alive, so you see why we can’t go to the police.’

  ‘I don’t actually,’ said Freddy, who was struggling to keep up. ‘Why can’t we go to the police?’

  ‘Why, because everyone will think I did it. I’ll probably be arrested at the very least, or taken off for questioning, but I’m supposed to be going to Marjorie Belcher’s reception tomorrow afternoon, and you know how strait-laced she is, and she’s got Mr. Bickerstaffe in her thrall, and he’ll probably give me the sack, and to be perfectly frank, darling, I could do with the money at the moment. Oh!’ she exclaimed suddenly.

  ‘What?’ said Freddy.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Cynthia. ‘I’ve just thought of something, that’s all. Never mind. There’s nothing I can do about it now. I shall just have to think about it later. In the meantime we have to get rid of Ticky. I suggest you go and leave him outside his front door. Then they’ll think he died there and nobody need ever know he was here. It’s only two hundred yards or so. I’ll keep a look-out, if you like.’

  ‘What do you mean, you suggest I leave him outside his front door?’ said Freddy. ‘What has all this to do with me?’

  ‘Well, naturally, I can’t carry him, darling. What an extraordinary idea! You must do it.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Freddy, I simply insist. You know perfectly well—’ She suddenly stopped and her eyes narrowed. ‘Have you been drinking?’ she said accusingly.

  ‘No,’ lied Freddy.

  ‘You have, haven’t you? I can always tell. Oh, Freddy, and just when I needed you. I feel you’ve let me down, somehow.’

  ‘It was only—I couldn’t help—Mungo insisted—look here, Mother, can’t a man go for a perfectly innocent cocktail or two without—’

  ‘Oh, never mind that now,’ said Cynthia. ‘We’ll just have to do the best we can with what we’ve got. I only wish you’d had the sense to remain sober.’

  Her tone was reproachful.

  ‘Well, if you’d told me in advance you were planning to do away with someone, I might have,’ said Freddy. ‘Where’s Father, by the way? Doesn’t he usually dispose of your victims for you?’

  ‘Don’t be impertinent,’ said Cynthia. ‘As a matter of fact, your father was supposed to come this evening, but he had to take Mr. Fosse out for dinner at the last minute, and he said he would go straight back down to Richmond afterwards. Now, it’s getting late and I’d rather like to go to bed, so let’s get this over and done with instead of standing here talking. You pick him up and I’ll just peep round the front door to make sure the policeman isn’t still there.’

  There is no doubt that Freddy had engaged in some, not to say many, morally dubious activities in his time; nonetheless, let the record show that he was not as a rule the sort of young man to aid and abet in the disposal of a dead body—at least, not while sober and in his right mind. However, his defences were always low when he was in drink, and in such a condition he was easily taken advantage of; moreover, Cynthia Pilkington-Soames was not a woman to be easily resisted at the best of times, since she had a tendency to talk incessantly until she got her own way. At present, therefore, Freddy’s mind was fastening very hard on the only facts it would comfortably hold: the first being that there was a corpse cluttering up the entrance-hall, and the second, that he would not be allowed to go to bed until it had been tidied away. He sighed and resigned himself to the inevitable.

  ‘Oh, very well, then,’ he said. ‘But I should like to make it clear that I do this on sufferance.’

  He bent over Ticky and prepared to do as his mother said. According to his imagination, it ought to have been an easy matter to hoist the body up and fling it over his shoulder, but as he now discovered, picking up a corpse is not as easy as it sounds, since a dead weight is just that; and even fully sober it is unlikely that he would have been able to lift Ticky, who had not been a small man. After a certain amount of grappling that many would have considered not only unseemly but also highly disrespectful to the dead, Freddy stood back, panting.

  ‘It’s no good,’ he said. ‘I can’t lift him.’

  ‘But then what shall we do?’ said Cynthia. ‘Can you drag him instead?’

  ‘What, and wake the entire street with the noise?’ said Freddy. ‘I might as well perch him on a barrel-organ and play it as we go. At least the money might pay for my bail.’

  ‘Now you’re being silly,’ said Cynthia.

  But talk of a barrel-organ had given Freddy an idea.

  ‘What about a wheelbarrow?’ he said. ‘Where might we find such a thing?’

  ‘I couldn’t tell you,’ said Cynthia. ‘Not around here.’

  ‘My wagon!’ exclaimed Freddy.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You haven’t thrown it away, have you? My little wagon, that I used to ride in. Do you remember? You had to pay the man when I ran over his dog. He was very annoyed.’

  ‘Oh, that! I dare say it’s still upstairs somewhere. Most likely in the attic. Why—’

  But Freddy had already disappeared. He reappeared five minutes later, bearing a child’s toy cart, and set it down on the floor. They regarded it dubiously.

  ‘Will it hold his weight?’ said Cynthia.

  ‘We shall just have to try it,’ said Freddy. ‘You take his feet.’

  ‘Oh, goodness,’ said Cynthia, wrinkling her nose in distaste.

  With some effort they managed to load Ticky into the wagon. His limbs were starting to stiffen, and he sat at an almost comical angle, his head tipped quizzically to one side as though he were wondering what was going on.

  ‘Now, have a look outside. If there’s no-one out there, I’ll make a run for it,’ said Freddy.

  Cynthia opened the door and looked up and down the street.

  ‘The policeman has just turned into Eaton Gate,’ she said in a whisper.

  ‘Go out and watch him,’ said Freddy.

  Cynthia hurried quietly down the steps and went to the corner of the street. She watched for a moment, then gesticulated wildly to signal that the coast was clear. Freddy pulled the wagon with difficulty over the threshold and bumped it down the steps, then stopped to rearrange Ticky, who had begun to slide out. He looked about him nervously, but saw nobody.

  ‘Well, here goes,’ he muttered.

  The string on the little cart had long since frayed through, so there was nothing for it but to bend over and push. The wood creaked and buckled under Ticky’s weight, but held, and the strange procession moved down the street, slowly at first, then faster. Cynthia was still standing at the corner, glancing about, as Freddy stopped to catch his breath.

  ‘Go, darling,’ she said, and Freddy did so. Now was the time to move as quickly as possible. Eaton Gate was deserted; presumably the policeman had turned into another street. Freddy braced himself and pushed Ticky across the road. It was hard work, for the wagon refused to maintain a straight course and was doing its best to veer off in any direction that took its fancy; moreover, every time it did so Ticky slid a little further out, and Freddy had to keep stopping to adjust him. He continued down Eaton Terrace and turned right into Caroline Terrace. Ticky lived not quite halfway along, at number 25. Freddy straightened the wagon carefully and, with one last burst of effort, bent almost double, broke into a run. He picked up such a turn of speed that he almost shot past the house, and had to stop suddenly. The wagon skidded and came to a standstill—unlike Ticky, who slid off and landed with a thud on the ground. Freddy winced and glanced around,
for it seemed to him as though he must have drawn the attention of everyone in the street. Fortunately for him there was still nobody about, but Ticky was lying on the pavement for anyone to trip over who happened to be passing later. With a sigh, Freddy hefted him up under the arms and dragged him laboriously up the front path, where he propped him against the railings as best he could. Ticky was home at last.

  Cynthia was on the landing in her dressing-gown when Freddy arrived back at the house, and seemed surprised to see him.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, darling,’ she said over the banister. ‘Did you have a good evening?’

  Freddy opened his mouth to reply, but could think of none suitable.

  ‘I suppose it’s too late to get back to your rooms now,’ she went on. ‘You may have the blue room, but try and keep it tidy. Don’t forget that Mrs. Hanbury is coming to do tomorrow, and she gets very upset if there’s any mess. Goodnight.’

  And with that she went into her room and shut the door, leaving Freddy standing in the hall, tired, dishevelled and with an incipient headache. At length he went upstairs and into the nearest bedroom, where he collapsed onto the bed, fully dressed, and was asleep within minutes.