Like a little boy who’d been told off, he returned to his seat.
“You can go, Pinchbeck,” he said.
“I’d rather he stayed,” I said.
Piddinghoe snorted. “Damned fellow’s giving orders to my servants now.”
Pinchbeck shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. “Should I go or stay, my lord?” he asked.
“Better stay,” Piddinghoe said. “Let’s get it over with.”
I said: “Frances will have told you about our adventure last night – about the fire on the houseboat and how Clarence
Bulstrode died.”
“No great loss from what I hear,” Piddinghoe said. “The fellow was a bit weak up top. Couple of candles in the chandelier had burnt out years ago, from what I’ve heard.”
“Clarence had been devoted to his mother,” I said. “To be frank, she’d smothered him, worshipped him to the point where he’d developed a distorted view of himself. He found it difficult to deal with other people. Even to develop his own thoughts. That’s why he fell back all the time on quotations. And it’s also, in my opinion, why he took his mother’s dying words too literally.”
“What dying words?” Venetia said.
“When Marie was close to death in the Royal Sussex County hospital, she mumbled something about Clarence finding his fortune on the pier. He took it to mean Palace Pier.”
Venetia turned to Fanny. “Did you know about this?”
Fanny’s cheeks coloured. “Not until last night, Grandmama.”
I intervened swiftly. “Without Frances’s brave help, I might not be here now,” I said.
“That’s the trouble with good deeds,” Piddinghoe grunted. “Cads and bounders get the benefit.”
I ignored him and said: “In searching for his fortune on the pier, all Clarence found was an old What the Butler Saw film called Milady’s Bath Night. He stole it, examined the pictures closely frame by frame, but couldn’t find anything in it that would make him a penny, let alone a fortune. And, in any event, all the pictures Clarence had stolen perished in last night’s fire. All except the title card.”
For the first time since I’d known her, Venetia gave a smile that looked as though it contained genuine pleasure. “So those disgusting pictures are gone for ever,” she said.
“Good riddance to bad rubbish,” Piddinghoe added.
“But it wasn’t the end of the story for Clarence,” I said. “Two nights after he’d stolen Milady’s Bath Night, he returned to the pier. He had convinced himself that there must be something else that would make his fortune. While he was hiding in the coconut shy, he was surprised by the pier’s night-watchman, Fred Snout. There was a struggle and Fred was killed.”
“I’m sorry for poor Mr Snout,” Venetia said. “But I can’t see what this has to do with me.” Her hand swept expansively around the room. “With any of us.”
“But you know that’s not true, Lady Piddinghoe,” I said. “Because the root of all this trouble is Milady’s Bath Night. And the star of the film is not your twin sister Marie Richmond.”
I paused.
“It is you, Lady Piddinghoe.”
The colour drained from Venetia’s face. Her hands shook. When she spoke, her voice was little more than a whisper. “That’s ridiculous.”
“More than ridiculous!” roared Piddinghoe. “It’s an actionable slander. Pinchbeck, throw this gutter journalist out.”
Wilson stepped forward. “I don’t think that would be advisable.”
Toole-Mackson moved to block the door.
Fanny had risen from the writing desk and crossed the room. Now she sunk into an armchair. Her eyes had filled with tears. She looked at Venetia: “Can this be true?”
Venetia ignored her. Put the evil eye on me. “You dare to smear my name without a shred of proof. You’ve just said the pictures burnt to ashes. I’ll sue you and that rag you work for until your bank accounts run as dry as the desert.”
“Don’t call your lawyer just yet,” I said. “The What the Butler Saw pictures certainly burnt, but they’d been made from a sixteen-millimetre celluloid film. I have seen a copy of that film. I was surprised to discover that the final four seconds of it hadn’t been included in Milady’s Bath Night. In the early years of the century, silent films were usually shot at sixteen frames a second. So that means there are sixty-four individual frames – you could call them still photographs – of the actress in those last four seconds.”
“I’ve had enough.” Venetia stood and headed for the door.
“Stay.”
The room fell silent. The cry had come from Fanny. Her face was stricken. “Please stay. I need to hear the truth,” she said. “Please, Grandmama. No more secrets. No more lies. Tell me the truth. Whatever it is.”
Venetia paused. Returned to the divan. Sat down again.
I said: “As well as the original film from which Milady’s Bath Night was made, I’ve also seen a letter which your sister wrote to her son Clarence. Marie had intended that Clarence should read the letter after her death. In the event, he died before he could do so. In the letter, Marie tells Clarence to pay particular attention to the last four seconds of the film. At first, I hadn’t been able to understand why the last four seconds hadn’t been included in Milady’s Bath Night. Especially as the model gives a charming little wave to say farewell. I thought it was because there wasn’t room on the What the Butler Saw machine for all the individual photographs that had to be made from the film. But that wasn’t the reason was it, Lady Piddinghoe?”
“No,” she said.
“It was because the last four seconds gave away who the actress really was. Your left hand hadn’t been visible in the rest of the film. It was either in the bath water, hidden by a towel, or tucked seductively behind your back. In fact, not visible until you raised your left hand to wave.”
“Call that proof,” Piddinghoe grunted. “Millions wave with their left hand. Even women,” he added, as if that proved the matter beyond doubt.
“True,” I said. “But no other left hand bears a distinctive engagement ring.” I pointed across the room. “The same ring Lady Piddinghoe proudly shows off in the Orpen portrait above the fireplace.”
Venetia’s elegant shoulders slumped. Her eyelids drooped. Her mouth dropped open. For the first time since I’d met her, she looked fully her seventy-nine years. Slowly, she looked around the room at each of us. At me last. She stiffened her back. Pulled herself together.
She held the room in silence. Then she said: “Yes, I appeared in the film.”
“Grandmama, you didn’t!” Fanny’s eyes brimmed with unshed tears.
“Cavorting in a bathroom like a common strumpet.” Piddinghoe’s face flushed. “And watched by a fellow with a film camera.”
Venetia looked sadly at Piddinghoe. “Charles, I’m so sorry.”
I said: “Why didn’t you remove the ring while the film was being shot?”
Venetia sank back on the divan’s cushions. “It’s a question I’ve asked myself a thousand times over the years. Partly I think it was because I had no idea what the filming would involve. It never occurred to me that viewers would be able to identify a ring. But mainly it was because the ring had become part of me from the moment Algernon slipped it on my finger. Something that would never leave me until the day I died – and, perhaps, not even then.”
I said: “The story you told us yesterday – about a liaison – with Edward the Seventh was a lie, wasn’t it?”
“Strictly speaking, yes,” Venetia said.
“But it was a very subtle lie, one that is based on truth. You told us that Marie took your place for a liaison with King Edward. In fact, it was you who took Marie’s place in the film. That was a clever inversion of the truth. But you never had a romantic liaison with the King. You were already in love with Algernon, your future husband.”
“Yes. It seemed like a dream. The draper’s daughter marrying into one of the finest of England’s aristocratic f
amilies. I lived every moment to the full. I toured the salons of London and Paris buying the finest gowns. I was determined that everywhere Algernon took me as his fiancée, I would dress to make him proud. Ascot, Henley, Goodwood – shooting parties in Scotland, yachting at Cowes – the summer of 1908 seemed endless. Everywhere I went I dressed to show I was worthy of being an earl’s fiancée – and one who would, in the fullness of time, have every reason to expect she would become a marchioness.”
“And these fine clothes from Worth and Givenchy and the like would have cost many hundreds of pounds.”
“Thousands. If you include the hats. The boots and shoes. The gloves. The evening bags. The riding clothes. I had a wardrobe fit for a princess.”
“But not the bank balance to pay for it,” I said.
“No. In due course, I planned to approach my father. He’d always been generous in the past. I truly believed he would help me to meet my financial obligations. I’d have explained that my allowance was inadequate. That I needed to make an impression in the right circles. And that because I was to make such a good marriage, he would have no further financial responsibility for me.”
“But then, shortly after your engagement, your father went bankrupt. No doubt he’d been hiding his financial problems in the way proud men do. Much worse, he killed himself.”
Venetia raised a surprised eyebrow. “You know about that?”
“I’ve done my research,” I said. I didn’t mention Toupée Terry.
“Research? Snooping I call it,” Piddinghoe said.
“Be quiet, Charles,” Venetia snapped.
“So you agreed to appear in Milady’s Bath Night for money.”
“How did you know?” Venetia asked.
“Because it’s the main reason why women agree to take their clothes off on film.”
“But that’s close to being a…a harlot,” Fanny said.
Venetia swung round towards her, eyes blazing: “How dare you!” she screamed. “Don’t presume to judge me from the comfort of your pampered upbringing. Good home. Good family. Expensive education. You’ve had everything. I had to fight for every tiny advantage. Don’t ever think you know what it was like for me.”
Fanny collapsed in tears. She leapt from her chair and rushed from the room. I moved to follow her. Then checked myself. Time to console Fanny later. My business here wasn’t finished.
I moved closer to Venetia and said quietly: “Tell us what it was like.”
She shrugged. “I was facing ruin. I owed seven hundred pounds, had little income and no way of repaying my debts. Unwisely, I had taken out loans from certain gentlemen in the City of London who specialised in lending money to young women in the kind of position I found myself.”
“With expectations,” I said.
“You have my point, Mr Crampton. But with my father bankrupt – and dead – no allowance, and my marriage still several months off, these gentlemen became very pressing in their demands.”
“Could you not have asked your future husband for help?”
“I considered the possibility. He would have seen my plight, but his father was a man of Victorian rectitude and thrift. I knew that he would disapprove of my financial folly. And if he withdrew his consent to the marriage… I dismissed the prospect of borrowing from my future in-laws out of hand. And then Sybil – Marie as she was then universally known – came to see me.”
I said: “She was already a successful music-hall star and siren of the silent-movie screen. Surely she would have money she could’ve lent you?”
“My sister and I had reached a position where we tolerated one another,” Venetia said. “It was a position that was to worsen as the years rolled by, but at the time, we did no more than accept one another’s company. I knew that if I borrowed from her, she would hold an obligation over me for life. She was that kind of woman.
“But, as it was, Marie came to me with a proposition which seemed, at first, as fortuitous as it was outrageous. It is true that it was she rather than I who attracted the favourable attentions of a certain royal personage. I had already heard the tittle-tattle. In those days, society gossip transmitted rumours faster than Mr Marconi’s wireless apparatus.
“What I didn’t know was that Marie had also developed a scheme which made money at a rate faster than I foolishly spent it. It transpired that some wealthy gentlemen were prepared to pay for private films to be made for their personal enjoyment.”
“Films? You mean indecent films that would be seized by the police?” Piddinghoe said.
“Yes. Films that would put a rise in the Old Bill’s truncheons,” I said.
Venetia sniffed as though the whole thing was beneath her. “In any event, Marie had developed a profitable trade in these…entertainments. She had been commissioned by a mill owner from Bradford to make a film of her bathing. The arrangement was always that the film would be made on the strict understanding that it would be viewed by no one other than the gentleman who commissioned it.
“Arrangements had been made with a film-maker from Paris who specialised in this discreet work to come to London. But on the day the filming was due to take place, Marie received an urgent command to accompany her royal mentor to a house party in Scotland. She was beside herself. On the one hand, she could not refuse the King – not without being banished from his circle for ever. On the other, she had taken the advance payment of seven hundred and fifty pounds from her client.
“She bluntly proposed that I should take her place in the film. We were identical twins. She had never met the Parisian film-maker before. And the mill owner had only ever seen her at a distance on the music-hall stage. She proposed to give me five hundred pounds of the fee. Naturally, I argued for all of it. But Marie was as tough as she was capricious. We finally settled on six hundred pounds. It was enough to settle my most pressing debts and see me through until my marriage. It went against every fibre of my being, but what was the alternative? And, in any event, the film would always purport to be of Marie. The buyer had promised totally secrecy. And Marie herself vowed she would never mention it to a soul.”
“So you became a star of the silver screen?”
“Reluctantly, yes, Mr Crampton.”
“But the film did not remain secret?”
“No. Although I have every reason to believe the mill owner was as good as his word.”
I said: “But when Marie’s career collapsed, she revealed that she had kept a copy of the film herself. And that unless you were prepared to pay her ‘a pension’, as she no doubt called it, the film and your part in it would become public.”
I barely heard Venetia’s whispered: “Yes.”
“And, initially, you refused,” I said. “But then Marie demonstrated how serious she was. She piled pressure on you by having a What the Butler Saw version of the film displayed on Palace Pier. But she left out the final frames which identified you.”
I looked around the room. Pinchbeck was twitching from foot to foot by the drinks table. Piddinghoe, in his wing chair, stroked his moustache nervously. Venetia sat pale and composed on the divan. Wilson had taken up a position by a bureau where he could watch all of them. Toole-Mackson blocked the door.
I said: “And it was at this point, Lady Piddinghoe, that Milady’s Bath Night led you to murder.”
Chapter 26
Lord Piddinghoe shot out of his chair and wagged his finger at me. “The fellow should be put down like a mangy mongrel.”
The whisky veins in his cheek strobed like neon lights. A bead of spittle appeared at the side of his mouth. “I’ll be in the library.” He moved towards the door.
Venetia rose from the divan. “I’ll deal with this, Charles.” She turned to me. “Mr Crampton, your presence is no longer required. Get out of my house and never return.”
I frowned: “Not just yet. I’m the guest who won’t leave until he’s had his say.”
Wilson stepped forward: “Everyone will stay where they are.”
Pidding
hoe subsided into his chair. Venetia sat on the divan, composed her hands on her lap and studied her nails. Pinchbeck fidgeted from foot to foot by the drinks table.
I said: “Your reluctant decision to appear in Milady’s Bath Night rescued you from your debts, Lady Piddinghoe, but it came back to haunt you. And, as you saw it, threaten everything you held dear – the love of your husband, the respect of your family, your place in society.”
I had Venetia’s attention again. Her nails could, apparently, wait. “The fact of the matter is that I couldn’t bear my late husband to know what I’d done,” she said. “I’d hidden it from him before our marriage. I couldn’t face telling him after. I felt ashamed about appearing in the film. I had to save my husband from sharing in that shame. That’s why I paid Marie for so many years. And that is the truth.”
“But it is not the whole truth, Lady Piddinghoe. Back in 1936, you had two meetings with Marie, didn’t you?”
“I seem to recall that is so.”
“The evidence I have is that the first meeting was cool but civilised. I infer that Marie laid out her financial predicament, mentioned the fact that she held a copy of Milady’s Bath Night, and made a polite request for her ‘pension’. You would have been shocked to learn that Marie had a copy of the film. But you would have wanted time to consider the implications of that news. Most importantly, to consider what you could do about it. From what I’ve seen of you, Lady Piddinghoe, you are a woman who calculates carefully before making a move.”
Venetia bowed her head slightly to accept the compliment.
“But you had forgotten that identical twins don’t only look alike,” I said. “Sometimes they think alike. And Marie was a calculator, too. I expect she worried that now you knew about the existence of a second copy of Milady’s Bath Night, you would make an attempt to steal it. I learnt from the late Clarence that it was a few years before the last war when Marie arranged for the locks to be changed at her flat and bars put over some of the windows.”
“I may have done many things, Mr Crampton, but I am not a thief.”
Stop Press Murder Page 27
