Black Eye (A Johnny Black Mystery)

by Neville Steed

  ‘So what were Seagrave’s reactions?’ I asked impatiently.

  ‘Difficult to tell, old boy. Tell you one thing. Didn’t like him. Not one bit. Not a man’s man, if you get my meaning, old bean. Though, I suppose, I can see he could wow the odd lady or so. That is, if she goes for looks, rather than the old pedigree.’

  ‘But he must have said something, PC. You can’t more or less tell a man he’s under suspicion for a girl’s murder and not get some reaction.’

  PC put his glass down. ‘He just asked how we could be certain the body washed up on the beach in Guernsey was that of Miss Phipps. I had to tread carefully then, old boy. Like we rehearsed.’

  ‘I know. I know, but did he rise to the story at all? I mean, do you think he accepted that Daphne Phipps’ body could have been in the English Channel? Because if he murdered her, he would know, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Couldn’t see his eyes, old chap. More’s the pity. Stood at the French windows with his back to me a lot of the time. So, I only had his old voice to go on.’

  ‘Didn’t his old voice give anything away?’ I asked, slightly irritably and then instantly regretted my tone. For I had known before I’d started that PC’s strength lay more in physical action than mental intuition.

  ‘He didn’t laugh the idea out of court, old boy, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘How did you answer his question?’ Tracy interceded.

  ‘Oh that. Well, you see, old girl, Johnny and I realised we couldn’t possibly know in what state this girl had been dumped in the sea. That is, if she had been at all.’

  ‘Clothed, unclothed. How she was killed. Was her body weighted down, etcetera?’ I rapidly explained to help PC along.

  ‘So I said,’ PC continued, ‘that though her body was legless — we concocted that bit, old girl, to try to cover how a body could wash ashore, if it had been weighted by the feet — her estimated age and physical characteristics more or less matched those of the missing Phipps girl. And we would be checking her old dental records, directly we had shipped her remains back to Plymouth.’

  ‘How did he react to your connecting his name with hers, in the first place?’

  ‘Didn’t deny he knew her, old bean, if that’s what you mean. Quite the contrary. Admitted he had seen her a few times recently. Said it was because he was thinking of going into the dance business himself. In a big way. Nationwide. Sort of “Fred Astaire” academies to cash in on the dance crazes. Said he’d always been fascinated with dancing. Been a hoofer once himself, he said. Knew a bit about it.’

  I sipped my drink reflectively. ‘Quite a smart cover,’ Tracy commented. ‘And all ready prepared to trot out in case the girl’s body was ever found.’

  ‘How did he react when you went on to the actor’s disappearance?’ ‘Quite a different kettle of fish, old boy. Flatly denied knowing him, meeting him or having anything to do with him. Got quite cross at this point. Made me a bit nervous, I can tell you. And then, when that ginger moustache poked its face round the door!’

  ‘Did he actually dare to come in?’ I asked in some amazement. ‘I thought he would hide away in the house somewhere, until what he thought were the police had vamoosed.’

  ‘No, he didn’t come right in. Seagrave sort of gave him a frown and he closed the door again. I think, old boy, he was just checking I wasn’t slapping the old handcuffs on his friend.’

  ‘Did you mention Tom Dawlish at all?’

  ‘No. We agreed I wouldn’t, remember, old bean? You said it was a bit too early for the police to have latched on to him.’

  I downed the last of my drink. ‘Maybe I was wrong,’ I sighed. ‘Anyway, go on. Tell us what else happened.’

  ‘Nothing much. Oh, naturally, he asked right at the outset why on earth we, the police, had come to him at all. He said he doubted very much that the body would prove to be of Miss Phipps. And even if it did, what had the girl’s drowning got to do with him? He has a point, old love. After all, it’s only your guess that she might have been blackmailing him and you said even you were a bit unhappy about the old thought, because you couldn’t see how she could possibly have known anything about the way his wife died.’

  I suddenly got up. ‘Yes, yes, I know. It’s worried me from the start. But go back a bit, PC. Repeat the exact words Seagrave used after he had said, “Even if the body did turn out to be that of Miss Phipps’’. Now I want you to remember the precise wording. It’s important.’

  He uncrossed his long legs and thought for a moment. It seemed like hours.

  ‘Now, as I recall it, old boy, it went like this ... “Even if you discover ... the body is Miss Phipps’ ... then what has a girl’s drowning got to do with me?”’

  I went to his chair. ‘PC, are you certain he said “a girl’s drowning’ and not just “a girl’s death” or “girl’s accident”, or — ?’

  He cut me off. ‘No, old bean, I distinctly remember he said “drowning”.’

  ‘Think it’s significant?’ Tracy asked. ‘I mean, when a body is found in the water, it’s pretty natural to assume it’s drowned.’

  ‘Yes, I know that. But if you’re the person who caused the death ...’

  ‘... you know how they died,’ Tracy completed my thought.

  ‘Yes.’ I threw up my hands. ‘Oh, maybe I’m just clutching at straws. But somehow or other, if Daphne Phipps is dead and her body is ever found, it could be we’ll discover drowning was the cause of death.’

  PC frowned. ‘What are you saying, old boy? That you now think the girl may have drowned accidentally?’

  ‘No, not quite,’ I smiled. ‘Just that she may have been still alive when she hit the water.’

  ‘You mean she was tipped in, bound and gagged, or what?’ Tracy asked.

  ‘Something like that. Maybe she was offered an evening trip in the seaplane by Tom Dawlish. Romantic idea to a girl like Daphne Phipps. He could feign having engine trouble and alight in mid channel. Ask her to get out of her cockpit and onto the floats to help him do something or other connected with the engine, then a smart shake and a quick take-off and she would not have a chance. Verdict: death by drowning.’

  PC enquired, ‘Couldn’t we check, old boy, whether anybody saw her getting into that seaplane or — ?’

  ‘I doubt if she was seen,’ I cut in. ‘Seagrave would have been too careful to risk that. And you’ve been over to his place now. His house is isolated and his land goes down to the sea. In all probability, he’s got a jetty there. Most big houses on land bordering the sea have somewhere for their boats.’

  ‘Seagrave’s got a housekeeper. Couldn’t we somehow ask her whether the girl was around that evening?’

  ‘We could. But if you plan to murder someone, I guess you would first make sure your housekeeper isn’t around. Like you’d give her the night off or you’d arrange for her to be away somewhere.’

  ‘I’ll do some checking,’ Tracy offered.

  I wagged my finger at her. ‘Now don’t you go taking any risks, Tracy. I feel bad enough letting old PC here go into the lion’s den this morning.’

  ‘Enjoyed it, old bean. Just hope my little attempt at acting will bear some fruit.’

  ‘Well, that was the general idea,’ I smiled weakly. ‘If it doesn’t, we’re back to square one.’

  ‘Which is where?’ PC queried.

  ‘God knows,’ I replied. ‘Or maybe, I should have said the Devil.’

  *

  Soon after we all repaired to the Cott Inn at Dartington for a dram or two and some ploughman’s. Then PC roared off back to Brooklands in his Bugatti and Tracy and I La Sailed back to the cottage.

  There, we mulled over the whole Seagrave affair until we were almost blue in the face, but knew, in reality, all we could do now was wait. That is, except for one little detail. As PC had reminded us, we should not really let poor Miss Susan Prendergast continue in total ignorance of the kind of man on whose words she seemed to be hanging. For, as PC said, if he wasn’t a murderer
, we could at least prove he was a hell of a bounder.

  Tracy and I tossed up who should make the call to Burgh Island Hotel. I won. A few minutes later, Mr Prendergast had been summoned from the Ganges bar to be warned by an anonymous caller with a theatrical cockney accent, that his daughter was in considerable moral danger through her contact with an ex-thé dansant hoofer and philanderer by the name of Michael Seagrave — and that he should put a stop to it forthwith if he had his daughter’s interest at heart. By the snorts of surprise and bellows of indignation from the other end of the line, I gathered dear Susan had told her father next to nothing of Seagrave’s past history and background. Maybe she did not even know it herself.

  I had only just put back the receiver on the hook when the phone rang. It was Tubby Trouncer and he sounded in a considerable tizzy.

  ‘You must have heard the news, Johnny. It’s dreadful ... dreadful.’

  ‘What news?’ I asked. ‘I’ve been out most of the day.’

  ‘About poor Henry Swindon.’

  I instantly glanced at Tracy. She got the message and bent her ear to the receiver.

  ‘What about Henry Swindon?’

  ‘Oh God, you haven’t heard, then? He’s been murdered. Least, that’s what the police think.’

  ‘Murdered? By whom?’

  ‘By that convict fellow they recaptured yesterday. He was wearing old Henry’s jacket, when they picked him up. And he had tried to pass a fiver from his wallet at a shop in Widdecombe. That’s how the police got on his trail.’

  I bit my lip. The reply was certainly not one I’d been expecting. ‘Have they found Swindon’s body?’

  ‘Not yet. They’re still combing the boggy parts of the moor — that’s where the convict swears he found the jacket.’

  ‘So the convict hasn’t confessed to killing him?’

  ‘Not as far as I could glean from Inspector Wyngarde. He was here ages this morning, interviewing the cast, going through Henry’s things.’

  ‘So the con claims he just found the jacket?’

  ‘Yes, I know. Doesn’t sound a likely story, does it? I mean, people don’t just discard jackets and leave them on the moor, do they? Especially with wallets with a fiver inside.’

  ‘Does it seem likely to you, Tubby, that Henry Swindon would carry a fiver in his wallet, anyway? Pound notes, maybe, but hardly a fiver.’

  ‘Didn’t occur to me, old chap. But now you mention it, not many people carry fivers around with them, do they? Unwieldy things. Don’t suppose half the population have ever even seen one.’

  ‘But they haven’t found any other sign of Henry?’ I asked, as my brain buzzed with wild imaginings.

  ‘Not yet. But the Inspector reckons the body has probably sunk down into some bog up there. The convict’s legs were covered in mud and mire up to his crutch, he said.’

  I thought for a second. ‘Does the Inspector have any idea as to how Henry Swindon got up onto Dartmoor? After all, he hadn’t taken the Trojan that he shares.’

  ‘He didn’t say, old chap. But it’s a hell of a point, now you mention it. Maybe he got a lift or something.’

  ‘It’s the “or something” that’s worrying me,’ I muttered.

  ‘Of course, old Henry could have just taken off his jacket somewhere and left it by mistake, I suppose. And the con just had the luck to come across it.’

  I didn’t comment. I didn’t want to upset old Tubby any more than he was already. But he went on, ‘You got any guesses, Johnny? I mean, you’re in the business, so to speak.’

  ‘Let’s wait a bit and see. Too early to jump to any conclusions.’

  ‘Henry wouldn’t have gone up on Dartmoor for nothing, old bean. Hardly a bird fancier or nature lover is our Henry Swindon. Hey, it wouldn’t have anything to do with the case you’re working on, would it? I mean —’

  I had to cut him off. ‘Look, Tubby, I’ve got to go. Sorry. Ring me if you hear any more and I’ll do the same for you.’ And that’s how we left it.

  Tracy took hold of my hand, as I hung the receiver back on the hook.

  ‘Hell’s bells, Johnny, you don’t think —?’

  I nodded. ‘Could be, couldn’t it? One body dropped into the English Channel, another dropped into an English bog.’

  ‘So you don’t reckon the convict can have killed him?’

  ‘Of course, it’s possible. But it’s not very probable that a man on the run would find a convenient lone actor wandering about on Dartmoor with fivers in his wallet, now is it? Especially as the actor lived miles away in Torquay and hadn’t taken a car. I guess the Inspector will have to admit that sooner or later.’

  ‘Just convenient, I suppose, to blame a multiple murderer on the loose for yet another killing.’ She suddenly frowned. ‘Hang on a minute, Johnny. If you’re thinking Seagrave and Dawlish killed Swindon and Dawlish tipped the body out of an aircraft into a bog, how is it that the convict found his jacket? Wouldn’t that have sunk too?’

  ‘That’s exactly what makes me think Swindon could have been thrown from a plane.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Ever parachuted?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I have. Before the canopy opens, you’re falling at about a hundred miles an hour. Now you know the effect of wind at that kind of speed from driving your SS with the windscreen folded. It tears at you like it’s got claws. Anything not firmly fixed to you, will rip off. Your flying helmet would go if it wasn’t firmly fastened. So a corpse might well shed some of its loose clothing in its hundred-mile-an-hour drop. Nowadays, young men tend to do up only the centre button of their jackets.’

  Tracy sighed. ‘If you’re right, that means the jacket could have fallen to the ground quite a distance from the body and that poor Henry Swindon may never be found.’

  ‘Could be. One of the things worrying me though, about my theory, is why Seagrave wouldn’t have taken the precaution of removing anything and everything that might identify the body should it be found sometime. If he’s been so successful at faking his wife’s death, surely he would have thought of things like that.’

  ‘Isn’t there an old saying about murderers always making one slip?’

  I grinned weakly. ‘The saying about St Swithin’s day doesn’t always rain true.’

  Tracy rose from her chair and came over to me. ‘What are we going to do now, Johnny?’ she asked, with a note of despair in her voice.

  ‘I’m going to keep my eyes and ears peeled for any move Seagrave and his pal may make down here. After all, if they’re guilty, PC’s little visit must have unnerved them more than somewhat. And with the news of the finding of Henry Swindon’s jacket, they must be as jumpy as grasshoppers.’

  She put her arm affectionately round my waist. ‘Well, I’ll see whether I can make some kind of contact with Seagrave’s housekeeper —’

  ‘No, you don’t, old girl,’ I cut in rather sharply, then smiled. ‘The grasshoppers might jump you right now. Besides I’d like you to go up to London, if you will.’ She looked disappointed. ‘London? What for?’

  ‘To see that agent fellow, Trenchard.’

  ‘Trenchard? We’ve seen him. Why see him again?’

  I took her hand and, rather self-consciously, told her.

  Thirteen

  After Tracy had gone, I immediately rang Diana Travers, but could get no reply. I sat and communed with Groucho for a bit, over the problems of private eyes who couldn’t afford to employ tails for all their suspects, but all I got as solace were a couple of ‘Hello, baby’s, a ‘Drop’em’ and one ‘Aren’t I a pretty boy?’. Then I rang my employer once more, but the tring-trings just went on forever. It worried me a little that not even her maid was around, but we aren’t living in Victorian times, so I supposed she had to have a half day off sometime or other. And what better day than when her mistress was going out?

  I then rang Bobby Briggs to see if our little police impersonation had triggered any prowlings around his yard by the gi
nger moustache, but he reported all was quiet, indeed too quiet for him ever to make a crust. He asked about the shreds of cloth he had found in the Frazer-Nash. I had to admit to him I had not given them a moment’s more thought. But directly I had put the phone down, I repaired the omission and took the grease-marked envelope out of a drawer of my desk. At least it would fill in some time until I rang Diana Travers’ number once more.

  The slivers of cloth looked even more insignificant in my cottage than they did in his yard. Just blackened, greasy strands chewed small by the Nash’s chain drive. As they were making my fingers filthy, I took them to the kitchen sink and washed them in an old pudding basin with a little Oxydol. Through the suds, I soon began to see colours replacing the black, one set of strands appearing to be a mid-blue, like the Royal Dutch Airlines use, the other set as red as Swissair’s tail fins. What’s more, when they were washed, the threads were patently different from each other in both weave and texture.

  I placed both sets to dry on the edge of one of Groucho’s spare feeding bowls, then went to the phone and rang my Black Eye office. I had almost given up waiting, when Babs at last replied.

  ‘Hello,’ she piped. This is the Black Eye Detective Agency. Mr Black is out of the office on one of his most important cases, right now, but I am his assistant, Barbara Mason, and will be only too happy to take down your message or enquiry, your name, address and telephone number. Mr Black will then contact you immediately he’s —’ ‘Babs,’ I interrupted, ‘this is me.’

  ‘Me?’ she queried. ‘How do you spell that? M, double E?’

  ‘No, M with one E.’

  ‘I take it that’s your surname, Mr Me? Now if you give me your address and telephone number ...?’

  ‘It’s Rose Cottage, Darlington,’ I sighed. ‘Dartington 7003.’

  ‘I’ll just repeat that. Mr Me, Rose Cottage, Dartington. Telephone num —’ She stopped suddenly and gasped. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, Johnny. It’s you, isn’t it?’