Black Eye (A Johnny Black Mystery)

by Neville Steed

  After Diana Travers had gone, I insisted we chew the Seagrave cud for a bit, before I obeyed Tracy’s strict instructions to get some sleep. For there were quite a few things worrying me since Trenchard’s and my employer’s revelations and I couldn’t rest until I had explored them. In essence, they boiled down to two main questions, as I explained to Tracy.

  ‘One, I can’t quite believe, old thing, that Diana’s sister died because one of Seagrave’s hangman games went wrong. It doesn’t feel right, somehow. What’s more, if the different coloured shreds from the Frazer-Nash transmission are anything to go by and we are interpreting them rightly, Seagrave wouldn’t need to carry out a dress rehearsal of the scarf trick, if his wife’s death was accidental. Nor would he really have the time between her death and the drive along the beach in the car.’

  ‘Yes, that occurred to me as well,’ Tracy agreed, curling up at the end of my bed like a very luxurious cat. Tell me your other worries. I may share those too.’

  ‘Well, I also don’t imagine that anyone would go to the lengths of murdering two other people just to cover what was, in reality, an accident, albeit an embarrassing and sordid one. Nor can I see that Tom Dawlish would be willing to risk his neck — quite literally — for that kind of cover-up.’

  ‘I agree. But we’ve no proof that the Phipps girl and the actor have been murdered, have we? If they’re still alive and kicking somewhere, then that objection goes out the old window.’

  ‘All right,’ I went on, ‘let’s turn to Daphne Phipps, for a moment. She was pretty obviously black-mailing somebody and that somebody really has to be Seagrave. Now what could she know about the sister’s death that could pull that many fivers out of him? After all, the drive on the beach in the car took place very early in the morning. She can hardly have witnessed it, can she? She’s not the type to be up and out at the crack of dawn, let alone miles away from where she lives and works.’

  Tracy shrugged. ‘So what are you saying, Johnny?’

  I put a hand to my bandage. ‘I don’t really know. The old brains are still a bit addled.’

  ‘I told you to take a rest.’

  I smiled and went on. ‘Yet the actor must have thought it was all something to do with the Frazer-Nash, mustn’t he? After all, he’d sent for the catalogue.’

  ‘Maybe he wrong-guessed what Daphne Phipps was up to. Tried to get in on the act with what he supposed was the trigger for her sudden flush of funds.’

  ‘Maybe. Hell, it’s all too damned confusing.’

  ‘Not just too confusing, my darling, too damned dangerous. We should go to the police and tell them all we know and —’

  ‘We still don’t know anything, Tracy. They’re not going to take the slightest notice of anything we say until we’ve got a shred of evidence of something.’

  ‘How about your coloured shreds?’ From her mischievous grin, I knew I didn’t need to answer.

  She tried again. ‘Your car’s brakes?’

  ‘Anybody could have done that. The police would put it down to a vandal or someone with a grudge against me or big showy cars. How can we prove Seagrave, or more probably, Dawlish, did it?’

  She sighed and curled up once more.

  ‘What we need is at least a body,’ I ruminated. ‘And not that of Diana’s sister. Even then, we’ll be lucky if either of the bodies can be connected with Seagrave or Dawlish.’

  On that pessimistic note, we left it. A moment later, Tracy left me to ‘get some sleep, or else’.

  Little did I imagine that whilst I was in the old Land of Nod, one of the bodies would, indeed, be turned up.

  Fifteen

  That night, Tracy insisted on staying and slept on the camp bed. We didn’t need the blanket curtain. Least, I didn’t. My mind was too busy repairing itself from the bang on the windshield to wander up any other avenues.

  Next morning, she got up early and brought me breakfast in bed. I could hear Groucho complaining downstairs the whole time I ate my bacon and eggs. For he usually likes to share the odd breakfast titbit with me. I had hardly downed the last forkful, when I heard a car pull up outside, quickly followed by the sound of another. I instantly put down my tray and leapt out of bed, much to Tracy’s surprise.

  ‘What on earth — ?’ she began, then got the message.

  We both went to the window and peered out from behind a curtain. To our immense relief, it wasn’t Seagrave or Dawlish come to teach us both a violent lesson. We saw, surprise, surprise, Mrs Briggs getting out of the first car, a big black 1934 Buick and Bobby Briggs getting out of the second, the infamous Frazer-Nash. Tracy, being fully dressed, went downstairs to let them in.

  To cut a long story short, dear Mrs Briggs — I guess to somewhat repay my favour to her over the phantom lover affair — had convinced her husband that, in my line of work, I needed a car. So she had persuaded him to lend me one of the better motors from his stock of restored wrecks, whilst my La Salle was being patched up.

  ‘Saw to it he gave you a nice big powerful job, so you wouldn’t miss your own swanky one too much,’ she had smiled.

  ‘Don’t you go gate-crashing with this one, Johnny boy,’ was her husband’s only comment. ‘It’ll fetch a good hundred and seventy-five pounds in a week or two’s time, when I’ve got your La Salle back on the road.’

  I was overwhelmed by their generosity and could only stutter a few lame words of thanks before Bobby sped off back to his scrapyard in the Frazer-Nash, his wife clinging onto the old sides of the car’s seat, as if her life depended on it. The way Bobby drove that thing, I guessed it might, at that.

  After they had gone, I turned on the wireless for the nine o’clock news. The first report was of a speech by a bombastic Herr Hitler, pretending yet again he wasn’t really after an Anschluss with his native country, Austria. I’d almost lost interest by the time the second item came up, but luckily, not quite. For it was what we had been waiting for. The discovery of a body. That of Henry Swindon, recovered from a bog on Dartmoor. Apparently in a hell of a state and with a multitude of broken bones, which were attributed to a frenzied attack by his assailant. The report ended with a quote from the police that a man who had been detained some days ago would be charged with the murder at the Crown Court at midday.

  ‘Hell,’ I swore. That ruddy convict would go and muddy the water by stealing poor Swindon’s jacket. It’s too convenient for the police to sew it all up by adding just one more murder to the old convict’s list.’

  Tracy got up from my bed, a determined look on her face. ‘Well, that does it, my darling. You stay here. I’m just going out for a bit. Shouldn’t be long.’

  I swung out of bed and grabbed her hand.

  ‘Now, hang on, Tracy. I’m going out myself now. I’ve been in bed far too long already.’

  ‘You shouldn’t get up. Just look at your eye. It looks like a black balloon.’

  I stripped off my pyjama jacket and started to dress.

  ‘You’ve got to be careful, Tracy. Tell me where you’re going. If it’s just shopping, then —’

  She looked up and smiled, but her eyes weren’t saying what her mouth was. ‘It’s just food shopping. You’ve got almost nothing left in the house.’

  ‘Don’t try and fool old Johnny,’ I said rather crossly, as I turned away from her to don my trousers. You’re up to something and it stands out a mile.’

  ‘I’m not up to anything. And you shouldn’t be dressing.’

  She made for the door but I crossed over to it just in time, my trousers only held up by one hand.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere, Tracy, until you tell me the truth. You’re going to try to do a Myma Loy act, aren’t you? Solve the old case while dear old William Powell stays home with Aster and rests up in his silk pyjamas.’

  ‘Jealous?’ she grinned.

  I’m afraid I lost my temper.

  ‘Tracy, this isn’t a bloody game. We’re not actors where the worst that can happen to us is to get covered in ketchup. Th
is is deadly serious, with the whole ruddy emphasis on the “dead” bit.’

  She put her hands on her hips and glowered back at me.

  ‘I’m not a child, Johnny. I know it’s bloody serious, just as well as you do. But that doesn’t mean to say I can’t make my own decisions about what I should and should not do. You’ve made all the running so far. I’ve never tried to horn in ever. Just be around to help out now and then when you want me. Well now, after yesterday’s little drama, you have to admit, you’re a marked man. Whatever you say, if you go on like this, you’ll end up like poor Henry Swindon.’

  ‘So you admit you’re not going shopping?’

  ‘I admit nothing.’ She tried to prise me from the door. ‘Now come on, Johnny. Let me go. You don’t own me, you know. I’m a free spirit. I can do what I please.’

  I stood my ground. ‘Tracy, I forbid you to get any further involved with —’

  But I never got any further than that. For she suddenly reached out and yanked my trousers down to my knees. Whilst I was trying to cover my embarrassment, she made her escape. A moment later, I heard the growl of her SS100 as it accelerated off down the lane. And I knew by the time I got to the Buick, I would never be able to catch her.

  *

  The big, black car seemed like a hearse after the low and racier La Salle, but uncannily, its sombre and funereal appearance seemed apt for the occasion and my mental and physical condition. But the big straight eight that powered it was renowned for its silky power and it certainly was no geriatric on the road.

  All the way into Torquay, my mind was alternately taken up with Tracy and what I’d been brooding over since fitfully waking in the night. And the latter was concerned with the now only remaining missing person — Daphne Phipps. For somehow or other, I felt she must be the key to unlocking the Seagrave cause. I cursed the fact I really knew so little about her.

  I felt certain that if I could only discover what lever she was using to prise those fancy white fivers out of Seagrave, then I would be close to solving the riddle. For if my theories were correct, Henry Swindon had only tried to carry on where his old girlfriend had left off, or correction, where he assumed she had left off. I realised now that I should have given him far more of a grilling than I did — whilst he was still alive. Maybe that way, I could have prevented his death.

  So if Daphne Phipps was the key, how the hell was I going to find out anything more about her, now she’d disappeared? By the time I’d had the row with Tracy, I had realised my only way was through the dancer’s friends or relations. I doubted I would learn very much more from her parents in Plymouth, though I was quite prepared to try if my first bet failed. And my first — and perhaps last — resort was the nervous girl who had, seemingly, put hair-washing ahead of lunch with me the previous Saturday.

  *

  I had been waiting in the Buick, just up from the dancing school, for almost half an hour before she appeared. At first, I didn’t recognise her, for despite the gayness other little pillbox hat, she looked nigh on ten years older, her face gaunt and her walk slow and ponderous.

  I slipped out of the car and caught up with her. She looked round and her cherry-red mouth gaped open at my battered appearance.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, Mr Conway.’ She pointed to my face. ‘Have you been in an accident?’

  ‘Sort of,’ I said. ‘And remember my name is not really Conway. It’s Black. Johnny Black.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry, Mr, er, Black. I remember now.’

  Her face suddenly perked up.

  ‘Have you come to tell me Daphne has turned up? That’s it, isn’t it? Daphne’s turned up, alive and well.’

  I shook my head, I shouldn’t have. I still had lead balls inside my skull.

  ‘No, Dolly, I’m sorry, she hasn’t. That’s why it’s urgent I see you.’

  She looked around nervously, as if she was somehow afraid of the springtime shoppers bustling along past us.

  ‘I’m just going for a bite to eat, Mr Black. I don’t know how I can help you anyway —’

  I took her arm. ‘Look, Dolly. It may be a matter of life or death. I have to talk to you. And right away. I’ll buy you lunch while we’re chatting.’

  I did not wait for a reply, but almost frog-marched her back to the Buick.

  ‘Where are you taking me? This isn’t your car.’

  She looked really frightened now, as if I was kidnapping her.

  ‘My La Salle was in a smash.’ I pointed to my eye. ‘That’s how I got this. Now please, get in. We’re only going up to the Imperial. I’ll drop you back in time so that Mr Feather doesn’t “Gott in Himmel” all over you. I promise.’

  Her face twitched with indecision, making the powder on her face seem to almost separate from her skin.

  ‘I can’t help you, Mr Black. I really can’t,’ she pleaded.

  ‘You don’t know unless you try,’ I said, then tried the sucker punch. ‘You owe it to Daphne.’

  It worked. She hesitated, then got in. As I drove on up to the Imperial, she seemed to be very close to tears.

  *

  Ted Shilling just did not believe my eye when I walked in -1 had to admit myself it was more of a crowd stopper than the bandage. But I tipped him the wink to cool his comments, for I had no wish to further frighten Dolly Randan with a run-down of my previous day’s misadventures. So, wearing a somewhat frustrated and querying look on his face, Ted poured us our drinks, a Scotch for me and a sweet sherry for my companion. Then promised to bring us over a plate of fresh crab sandwiches when they were ready; Dolly’s lunch break quite clearly not extending to a full four-course luncheon in the Imperial restaurant.

  I showed Dolly to a table in the corner — the same one, in fact, at which I had sat with Daphne Phipps. Her hand shook as she raised her sherry to her lips.

  ‘I shouldn’t be doing this,’ she said in a voice hardly above a whisper. ‘Mr Feather doesn’t like us drinking lunch time. Says if he ever gets a complaint about our breath from our dancing partner —’

  ‘I’ll square you with Mr Feather, don’t worry.’

  She put down her glass and dabbed her mouth delicately with her finger. Even so, the lipstick smeared a trifle on her bottom lip, the red feathering like a graze against her powder-white and worried face.

  ‘You’ve got to tell me about Daphne,’ I began. ‘Everything you know ... anything she may have done or said recently that may give us a clue as to what has happened to her.’

  She shook her head. ‘I told you I don’t know anything more. Really. You must believe me. You know about the money she suddenly seemed to have. That’s all there is.’

  She picked up her glass and shakily took another sip. I could hardly believe she was the same girl I had met the first time I visited the dancing school.

  ‘What’s the matter, Dolly?’ I asked softly. ‘There’s something the matter, isn’t there?’

  She didn’t reply, but fumbled in her handbag for a handkerchief. ‘No, nothing,’ she sniffed. ‘It’s nothing. I just don’t feel very well, that’s all.’

  She held her handkerchief to her nose, but I knew once I looked away, she would move it up to her eyes.

  ‘Maybe the sherry will buck me up,’ she added, with a weak smile.

  ‘Are you frightened of something, Dolly?’ I persisted. ‘If you are, now’s the time to tell me. Has someone been getting at you ... threatening you?’

  She shook her head and her hatpin loosened in her hair. Reaching up to fix it, she said, ‘No, nobody’s threatening me. I’m all right really.’

  I reached across the table and took her hand.

  ‘Dolly, I’m here to help you. You’ve got to tell me what’s worrying you. It could be the very thing that will help us save Daphne.’

  She looked up and now I could see a tear in the corner of her eye. ‘Save?’ she whispered.

  Yes. Save. I have reason to believe Daphne has put herself in the most terrible danger.’ I did not add that it was probably
far too late, for then she would have little, if any, reason to come clean.

  ‘You think she might still be all right?’

  I changed course. ‘Look, Dolly, I think you know who Daphne was blackmailing. It was Michael Seagrave, wasn’t it? The man whose wife was strangled by a scarf.’

  She closed her eyes and hid them behind her handkerchief.

  I went on. What did Daphne know that Seagrave was afraid of? Was it about his wife’s death?’

  She didn’t reply, or move a muscle.

  ‘You know, don’t you, Dolly? That’s what is tearing you apart, isn’t it? You feel guilty about something. Is it because you’ve kept silent?’

  She suddenly looked up, her face now a mask of anguish.

  ‘No, no,’ she uttered, under her breath. ‘No, that’s the trouble. If I had kept silent, none of this would have happened.’

  I quickly looked round the bar again. To my relief, it was still pretty empty. I leaned forward across the table.

  ‘If you’d kept silent about what, Dolly? Tell me. You must tell me. It’s the only way.’

  She closed her eyes once more. ‘About my friend. In Croydon. She was a dancer too. Very good she was — caught Cochrane’s eye. He put her in the chorus.’

  I suddenly remembered something the agent Trenchard had said when Tracy and I had visited him. ‘She was a friend of Seagrave’s, wasn’t she?’

  She gave a slight nod. ‘She loved him. She’d have done anything for him, except ...’

  ‘Except what, Dolly?’

  She burst into tears and hid her face in her hands. The pillbox hat tilted at a perilous angle.

  ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this. Any more than I should have told Daphne. Oh God ...’

  I pushed her sherry glass towards her. ‘Here, finish your drink. It might buck you up a bit.’

  She blew her nose, then downed the rest of her sherry.

  ‘Now, what did you tell Daphne? Please. I must know.’

  She took a breath, then went on, ‘Maudie — that was my friend — she was always a bit of a scream. The things she used to do and say. You never knew whether to believe her or not. Still, she was a good friend, until she ...’