Murder in Piccadilly

by Charles Kingston

  “That was a narrow escape, indeed,” said Mr. Davidson sarcastically.

  “It was. Quite knocked me off my grub with anxiety and nervous strain.” Freddie Neville was incapable of identifying sarcasm even when it was being aired at the expense of others. “But won’t it be jolly when Bobbie’s married to Nancy? We’ll all be able to see her dance for nothing. A jolly crowd these night club birds, and quaint. One’s an ex-pug, you know.”

  They did not know, and Mrs. Carmichael, in particular, did not wish to know. Freddie’s oratory only bored her, but then so would have the most polished of speakers if Massy Cheldon happened to be in her company.

  “You’ll marry one day, Freddie,” she said sweetly. “All you men want looking after, particularly Mr. Cheldon.”

  “I have twenty servants to look after me,” he said, and growled as he reminded himself of their cost to him.

  “They only look after themselves,” said Ruby, with a laugh.

  “It’s not good for a man to be alone,” Mrs. Carmichael ventured. “That’s in the Bible, but it’s not one of the Ten Commandments although it ought to be.”

  “Why will you women always bring up the subject of marriage?” said Massy Cheldon testily. “One would think it was the best substitute for paradise. You should see some of the married couples at Broadbridge. They live like pigs.”

  “Is that their fault?” asked Bobbie, moodily.

  “Of course it is,” snapped his uncle. The tone angered Bobbie who had to find revenge in a pose of philanthropist and idealist.

  “If I owned Broadbridge I’d be ashamed to admit that some of my tenants lived like pigs,” he growled. “I’d give them decent houses.”

  “And have them turned into pigstyes within a year! But then, Bobbie, it’s so easy to be generous with another man’s money. Of course, I’m not popular at Broadbridge, and don’t I know it! They would prefer for their landlord some romantically-minded young ass who would pauperise them and at whom they’d be the first to laugh. They don’t want a shrewd, level-headed, clear-thinking man who keeps them up to the scratch.”

  “People who live in pigstyes must have to do an awful amount of scratching,” said Mrs. Carmichael in an effort to ease the situation.

  “And, of course, they grunt,” said Ruby.

  “They grunt right enough—at me,” said Massy Cheldon gloomily. “But unfortunately or fortunately all the pigs are not at Broadbridge.” He glared at his nephew.

  “I say, populace,” protested Freddie Neville in a plaintive voice, “aren’t we getting a bit personal talking about pigs?”

  “Speak for yourself, Freddie,” interjected Sylvia Brand.

  “Perhaps, you’re right, Freddie,” said Massy Cheldon rising.

  It was the signal for the breaking up of the party, and Mr. Davidson began the farewell proceedings.

  “Just see Sylvia and Kitty home,” whispered Ruby to Bobbie. Her brother-in-law still lingered, the last of the guests after Mrs. Carmichael had been conducted to the custody of her chauffeur.

  “Well what do you think of her?” Ruby asked with a wan smile.

  “My dear Ruby,” he answered, seizing the whisky decanter, “there’s not the slightest need for me to tell you that. You’ve been too long one of the Cheldons not to know the Cheldon standard. Can you fancy her at Broadbridge Manor? Does she fit in with our rules and traditions?”

  “She’s dreadfully common.” Ruby sighed. “Oh, dear, I do wish she was even passable. Massy, you remember her ‘perfect lady’ and ‘perfect gentleman’ and her manners!”

  “She’s clever though, Ruby, devilishly clever, and we’ve got to bear that in mind. Bobbie is infatuated with her. We both know what a young snob he is, and yet he gloated in her gaucheries. Was actually proud of them.”

  “She certainly helped to make things hum so far as the young people were concerned,” she remarked. “And she’s very pretty.”

  “If she were merely pretty she wouldn’t be dangerous, Ruby, but with her cleverness she’ll play the deuce with Bobbie and—you.”

  He laughed and drank a libation to his sense of the ironic.

  “But what am I to do? Thank Heaven, she won’t marry Bobbie unless he can afford to keep her.”

  “She’s dangerous,” he repeated, leaning against the sideboard and staring at her. “Ruby, you’ll think I’m an old fool, but I’m afraid of Nancy Cheldon.”

  “You are certainly foolish,” she retorted with a laugh. “What is there to be afraid of?”

  “I hope you’re right, but you can’t look at things from my standpoint. You’re the fond, doting mother who can think no evil of her son, and I am the not too affectionate uncle who can think anything good or bad of his nephew. Ruby, this girl has done more than make Bobbie fall in love with her—she’s transformed him, and I believe she’s got sufficient influence over him to drive him to any extreme.”

  A haunting dread passed over her like a spasm of impulsive terror, and she tried to banish recollections of it by endeavouring to be facetious.

  “You’re an incorrigible leg-puller,” she said, speaking rapidly because her state of nerves would not allow her to think first. “Why, you’ll be hinting next that to get the Cheldon property Bobby would—” She stopped dead, frightened by what she had already blurted out, and her fright was not lessened when her brother-in-law caught her by the left arm and drew her towards himself.

  “So it’s occurred to you, too, has it?” he asked, in a voice consistent with the sudden return of greyness to his cheeks. “Ruby, the position is too serious for us to play hide and seek with mere words. Let me put it this way. Bobbie has not only to be saved from this adventuress but from himself. He’s weak and easily influenced, and his weakness is all the more apparent because he poses as strong. There’s no knowing what he may try to do to gratify this harpy. He may even—”

  “I won’t listen,” she cried, putting her hands to her ears.

  He smiled to reassure her.

  “I’m not angry with you, Ruby, and certainly not with Bobbie. I don’t believe I’ve anything to fear from him, but if you allow him to get into bad company there’s no knowing what he may do. The weak can often become strong in the hands of the unscrupulous. Bobbie will never injure me—he won’t have the pluck. Now you’re making a face.” He laughed again. “Do you wish me to say that he will attempt to abbreviate my existence on this earth? Oh, you women, there’s no pleasing you.” He turned and removed from the decanter the inch of whisky it contained.

  Ruby Cheldon went over to the window, not because she wished to inspect the curtains or by parting them feast her eyes on Juniper Street by moonlight. The act was due entirely to a wish to get as far away as possible from her brother-in-law and to escape from her disturbing thoughts. The latter, however, only doubled in strength and numbers.

  Until the last few days she had never quite realised the exact importance of Massy Cheldon to her son. For one thing she had never thought of the possibility of her brother-in-law dying. He was only a few, a very few years older than herself, and to have contemplated his decease would have meant coupling with it musings on her own. To her the Cheldon inheritance had been something which in the ordinary and usual course of events might devolve on her son when he was middle-aged. The last three holders of the property had been round about sixty when they had succeeded. Bobbie was twenty-three. It would be time to indulge in golden daydreams when he was in the late forties. But now!

  She shrank from repeating the word “Murder” to herself, but it had forced itself on her that afternoon Bobbie had casually related an epitome of Florence’s latest amatory problem, for as he had spoken of the sudden accession to wealth of Florence’s faithless follower she had seen in his eyes the envy and longing created by the irresistible comparison with his own problem. The hated word had then swum into her brain and there it had lurked ever
since. And now it repeated itself so distinctly as to be almost vociferous.

  Murder. Murder. Murder.

  The murder of Uncle Massy. Florence had lost her lover because he had come into money by means of an accident which she continued to characterise as a deliberately planned crime.

  Murder. Murder. Murder.

  “Oh. I wish you wouldn’t talk about it!” she exclaimed, forgetting that she was not alone.

  “About what?” She quivered. “Bobbie’s affair with this soiled fairy from the underworld?” She looked her relief.

  “Please, don’t be so hard on her,” she pleaded, momentarily generous because she was under the sway of a feeling of relief bordering on ecstasy.

  “I apologise, my dear. After all, I mustn’t forget that one day she may be your daughter-in-law and a Cheldon. Shades of Lady Emily!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Ruby protested. “Really, Massy, you might be more helpful. You’re the only male member of the family I can appeal to, and I thought with all your cleverness and knowledge of the world—” She paused to wipe her eyes.

  “I’ll do what I can,” he said, without emotion and quite unaffected by her tears. “But I’m certain you’ll not approve of anything I’ll do for you. First of all, you wish me to break the engagement between your son and the night club dancer; then I’m to find Bobbie a job that’ll enable him to be independent and rush into the girl’s arms. For heaven’s sake, don’t worry about anything I’ve said about Bobbie and the Cheldon property. It was only a mere surmise of mine without any foundation. Bobbie hasn’t the pluck to earn a living and he hasn’t the pluck to imitate the gentlemen who specialise in the higher walks of crime. I’m not afraid of him and you needn’t be either. But, as I have said, he needs to be protected against himself.”

  With a sudden stiffening of her body and a look of determination he had not seen in her face for years she confronted him.

  “Massy, I won’t have this creature kidnapping Bobbie. Something’s got to be done to part them, and I look to you to do it.”

  “But what can I do?”

  “Your brother appointed you his guardian,” she reminded him.

  “Until Bobbie was twenty-one. He’s now twenty-three.”

  She threw up her arms in despair, but she had not the opportunity to speak, for a familiar banging of a door heralded Bobbie.

  “Sylvia and I’ve been chatting at the corner,” he explained as he explored the whisky decanter without success. “But at last I got her a taxi. Mrs. Carmichael took Kitty. I say, uncle, you and mother have walked into the whisky.”

  He flopped on to a chair.

  “Bit of a frost, mother, eh? What a collection! If Nancy hadn’t turned up what a ghastly binge it would have been! But that reminds me. Uncle, what do you think of her?”

  “Assuming that by ‘her’ you mean the young lady whose acquaintance I made tonight,” Massy Cheldon began with an effort at one a.m. pomposity. But Ruby interrupted to save him from blundering.

  “Your uncle has been admiring her, Bobbie,” she said hurriedly. “He thinks she’s very pretty and very clever.”

  The boyish features glistened with the pleasure and pride that animated him from crown to sole.

  “Everybody says the same,” he murmured, too happy to be more than articulate. “Nancy’s one in a million.” He bent his head over his knees, his hands clasped before him. “Can you wonder I’m crazy to marry her? Don’t you see now that I must marry her—that without Nancy hell would be preferable to life?”

  His uncle patted him on the shoulder.

  “Bobbie, the first move is to get you a job.” He would have continued in the same avuncular strain and pose had not Bobbie jumped to his feet and seized the limp hand in a double grasp.

  “That’s awfully good of you, uncle!” he cried, in a paroxysm of affectionate gratitude. “Of course, I must have a job. Without one I couldn’t marry Nancy.”

  Massy Cheldon recaptured his physical freedom.

  “It’s too late to talk now, and my chauffeur must be swearing at me. Look here, Bobbie, come down to Broadbridge for next Friday to Monday and we’ll talk things over then.”

  “Thanks awfully, uncle. I’ll be delighted. Yes, we’ll have a good pow-wow. I can see it’s all Nancy’s doing, but I knew she’d win you over at first sight. She does that with everybody.”

  “Bobbie,” said his mother with a cold detachment of manner, “will you see if your uncle’s car is waiting outside?”

  He raced out of the room and Ruby’s thoughts went back to her son’s schooldays and her eyes became moist.

  “Massy,” she whispered, almost angry with him now for some reason she did not wish to discover, “is this invitation a trap or a—?” She stopped, unable to complete or further interpret her suspicions.

  “Or a test? Is that what you mean, Ruby?” He smiled slightly, and the best of his smiles was never pleasant to look upon. “That is for Bobbie to decide. But perhaps you don’t wish him to come?”

  “Of course I do.” She stiffened again. “I must face realities, as you’ve been fond of telling me. Here’s Bobbie.” She held out her hand. “Good-bye, Massy, and thanks for dropping in.”

  She was alone in the room for nearly five minutes, but was quite unable to do anything with her solitude. Her thinking faculties failed her and she could only listen for the sound announcing that her brother-in-law’s car was moving away from the front of Galahad Mansions. The moment, however, Bobbie re-entered she became alive with doubts, anxieties, disturbing thoughts and perplexing questions.

  “Now, mother, will you ever say again that there’s no such a thing as a miracle?” He positively danced around her. “Just think of it! Uncle Massy falling for Nancy! Isn’t it wonderful? But then, Nancy’s one hundred per cent wonderful and I’m going to tell her so!”

  “What, now?” she exclaimed, as he made for the door.

  “Absolutely.” He came back and kissed her. “Nancy’s got to be told the amazing news that Uncle Massy is going to help me to a position which will enable me to marry her.”

  Words of warning clamoured for enunciation, but she had not the courage to disillusion him.

  “Oh, all right, Bobbie,” she murmured, weakly and wearily. “Don’t be too late.” She yawned in spite of her efforts.

  From the doorway he smiled back on her, and when the outer door closed she was still reproaching herself with cowardice.

  Chapter Three

  As he strode through the too infrequent streets Bobbie lost himself in the happiness of realised dreams. Even the first ecstasies of his capitulation to Nancy Curzon seemed tame in comparison with the sense of triumph and achievement which animated him now. Life was something more than mere living; earth, including the Fulham particle of it, was more to be desired than heaven; he was a conqueror with wealth and success at his mercy because Nancy was his forever.

  She had captivated his uncle, and that meant that the path to the altar would be strewn with roses; he would taste many of the pleasures of Broadbridge long before the Cheldon property was his own; he would be able to crown the girl he loved with luxury, and, above all, she would be his alone forever and forever.

  Inspiration failing him he was more than satisfied to fill in the spaces of his mind with a mechanical repetition of his plans and prospects. To Massy Cheldon he gave a large size in wings and a larger portion of virtue than that incorrigible egotist had ever claimed for himself. To everyone else he would have given something of his happiness could he have done so, for it was of the kind that increases as it is shared.

  In a turning off the King’s Road he found a taxicab, and although it was bearing him to Nancy he half regretted the curtailing of his delightful fantasia. But behind all his delirium of joy was a dread which he contrived temporarily to suppress, a dread lest he was deceiving himself and was too much of
a coward to give his intelligence full rein.

  The cab stopped outside a tobacconist’s shop in one of the offshoots of Shaftesbury Avenue and Bobbie stepped out and sought a lamp-post and under its guidance selected the essential coins. Then he glanced around him, glad of the unusual loneliness, grateful for the shutters of the adjoining shops, and happy in the solitude that seemed to make Nancy exclusively his. Somewhere underground and below a ham and beef shop was the “Frozen Fang”, London’s newest night club or at any rate the latest addition to Bobbie’s list of nocturnal refuges. Suddenly he became uneasy. Would Nancy be waiting for him? He had had no idea it was so late. London appeared to be empty or unconscious, and the policeman in the light of a distant street lamp a swollen toy. It must be nearly three, and the “Frozen Fang” was not sufficiently well known to last much beyond two in the morning. He listened anxiously and heard nothing except the patter of the policeman’s boots. By now the cab had disappeared and save for fitful lights on top floors London had ceased to exist.

  He took a step forward and paused as a well remembered voice floated towards him from the basement. It was Nancy’s and she was cursing someone, but the infatuated lover heard only the voice.

  “What, you?” was her ungracious greeting as Bobbie presented himself at the top of the stairs leading from the subterranean imitation of Bohemia. “I wonder the lady-mother let you out of her arms.”

  The sneer was as coarse as the voice was tired and angry, but Bobbie was not in the mood to quarrel with anyone, and certainly unable to discover blemishes in the most perfect of creatures.

  “I’ve got wonderful news for you, Nancy,” he whispered, as yet unaware that two men were emerging after her.

  “You don’t mean to say that someone’s shot that skinny uncle of yours?” She half turned her head. “Nosey, listen to the bearer of good news!”

  Before Bobbie could attempt to interject a pleasantry of a kind likely to restore her good humour a stoutish, heavily-built man with a flavour of the forties about him panted to her side. As the street lamp was directly in front of the exit from the “Frozen Fang” Bobbie had no difficulty in guessing that the reason for his sobriquet was the pronounced flattening of his nasal organ. But as if to compensate he had large and bulging eyes, a sensual mouth, and ears that resembled a couple of cauliflowers waiting their turn to be washed. Bobbie took an instant and fearsome dislike to him, but the dislike lasted little more than a moment, for Nosey as soon as he reached the pavement extended a brawny hand and shook his sympathetically.