A Poisoning In Piccadilly

by Lynda Wilcox

  Time passed. Despite her earlier misgivings about being deployed to entertain a brash American, Eleanor soon found to the contrary. Eisenbach was a cultured and kindly individual.

  “Have you ever been to the States, Lady Eleanor?” he asked at one point.

  “No, I’m afraid not, though I heard a lot about Ann’s trip to New York last year and I’m determined to visit at some time in the future. I have a cousin who lives over there, Kay Dorsey.”

  “Really? Hey, that’s swell.” Eisenbach threw out his arms as if in surprise, sweeping her bag off the table and onto the floor It spilled open, scattering the few items within. “Tchah! How clumsy. I’ll see to it.”

  He put an arm on her shoulder as Eleanor moved to retrieve it and then dived under the table to gather everything up and return it to her.

  “Forgive me. I hope everything is okay.”

  “No harm done, I’m sure.”

  Eisenbach stopped a passing waiter and took two glasses off his tray. “Well, please let me know if and when you do visit.” He put a glass in front of Eleanor and raised his own. “It would be real swell if I could have the honour of showing you around Pittsburgh as my guest. New York, too. I keep a suite there for when I’m in town for business and I’m more than happy to put that at your disposal.”

  “You are very kind.”

  Amid shrieks of laughter, the two younger Eisenbachs returned to the table and flopped into their seats.

  “Aw, come on, Carolyne.” A different young man than the one she’d first departed with tugged at her wrist.

  “I’m pooped. Maybe later.” She brushed perspiration off her brow with the back of her hand.

  It was certainly warming up in the ballroom. Eleanor noticed that Mr Eisenbach was also sweating.

  “Thank goodness for that.” Eisenbach said, as the band started a slow dance tune. “I don’t hold with all this jumping and jitterbugging, but if your ladyship would do me the honour...” He got to his feet and held his arms wide. “It’s a long time since I’ve danced with a beautiful woman in my arms.”

  In one graceful movement, Eleanor rose and stepped into his embrace and they twirled onto the floor. Over his right shoulder she risked a glance at her wristwatch. It was twenty minutes to eleven.

  For a brief moment they had the floor to themselves, previous dancers having fled to the bar, the restrooms, or a seat at a table where they could get their breath back.

  It wasn’t to last and, although at first Eleanor had thought her partner a good dancer, before too long he appeared to be stumbling and unsteady on his feet. Fearing that perhaps he had had one cocktail too many, she pulled back to look at him.

  His forehead was still beaded with sweat, his pupils wide as dinner plates, and when he tried to speak his words slurred together.

  “Can’t breathe, legsh funny.”

  She let out an involuntary squeal as he collapsed, legs folding at the knees. He gripped her arms tightly, his weight dragging her down.

  “Help! Somebody help!”

  She held on to Eisenbach clutching him to her and bending with him, trying to lay him gently on the floor as those around them pulled away and stared.

  “Mr Eisenbach! What is it?”

  His eyes were fearful before staring sightlessly past her.

  “Let me through, please, I’m a doctor. Quickly now.”

  A young man in smart tuxedo and bow tie forced his way through the crowd and knelt beside them.

  Ann arrived next, flustered and concerned.

  “What’s the matter? Has he had too much to drink? Is he ill? I’d better find Howie and Carolyne.”

  Eleanor got to her feet and stood back to let the doctor attend to his patient, but she knew it was hopeless. She turned to face her hostess.

  “I’m sorry Ann. Mr Eisenbach is dead.”

  The doctor looked up, sharply. “You know?”

  Eleanor nodded. She’d seen sudden death too often not to recognise it. “Was he...”

  “I think so.” The doctor looked back at Ann. “You’d better get the manager as well, Lady Carstairs. Ask him to send for the police. Unless I miss my guess, this man was poisoned.”

  Chapter 3

  Despite the tragedy that had unfolded within his establishment, the hotel manager was not one to flap. He extended his sympathies to the bereaved, calmed the other party-goers — at the same time instructing them not to leave until the police had arrived — then, against the advice of both Eleanor and the doctor, arranged for the removal of Mr Eisenbach to an empty office.

  Eleanor took herself off to the powder room, wanting a moment’s peace and quiet in which to come to terms with the events of the last hour or so. There was nothing she could have done to save the American, so why did she feel responsible, why this sense of guilt?

  More importantly, how had it happened? She thought the doctor right when he’d announced death by poisoning, but where and when had it been administered?

  Taking a safety-pin out of her bag, she made a stop-gap repair to a seam in her dress that had parted company when Eisenbach had clutched and dragged at it. Then she splashed her face with water, reapplied her lipstick, and went to the bar.

  She was probably in shock, but in need of something to brace her, asked for a champagne cocktail.

  “I’ll get that for you, Eleanor. I could do with one myself, or maybe even half a dozen.” Ann joined her at the counter and signalled to the barman. “God, what a night.”

  “Yes, it certainly wasn’t the gay, happy affair we were all expecting.” Eleanor took a deep breath. “I’m sorry about your friend, Ann.”

  “Oh, he was hardly that, but Henry wasn’t a bad old duffer.” She paused as the barman placed two glasses in front of her, then pushed one towards her friend. “I’m sorry for sticking him on you, like that. I wasn’t to know —”

  “Of course not.”

  “Oh, well, the police have just arrived. No doubt they’ll soon have it sorted.”

  Eleanor cast a glance over her shoulder. A press of people in the doorway obstructed her view of the ballroom. “They’ve been quick,” she remarked.”

  “Scotland Yard is only just around the corner.” Ann took a sip of her drink, then stared disconsolately into its depths. “Even so, it’s going to be a long night.”

  “Come on, old lamb. It can’t be any worse than what the Germans threw at us.”

  Ann’s reply was cut short by the sound of a deep masculine voice through the microphone in the other room. Amid an echo of ‘hushes’ the hubbub stilled.

  “I’m sorry that your partying has been cut short, ladies and gentlemen. I’m Chief Inspector Blount of Scotland Yard. If you know anything, or observed anything about the death of an American gentleman by the name of Henry T. Eisenbach, then I would like to hear from you. The rest of you are free to leave, once you’ve given your name and address to the constables stationed at the hotel’s front doors. Thank you.”

  The bar started to empty, though a few still called for more drinks.

  “Come on,” said Ann, lifting her glass. “We’d better go next door and make ourselves known. I really ought to be out there to see everyone off. They were my guests, after all.”

  Eleanor followed her friend into the rapidly emptying ballroom, skirting the queue lining up by the cloakroom.

  “Here, take my glass, will you,” Ann said. “I’ll come back for it later, but I’d better circulate and see what’s happening, then I'll go and do my duty at the front. If the police want me they can come and find me.”

  Eleanor nodded, and with a glass in each hand, looked around for an empty table as far from where she had been sitting with the Eisenbachs as she could possibly get. Spotting one not far from the stage she walked across and set the glasses down. Then she lowered herself into a chair, rested her elbows on the table and put her head in her hands.

  All of a sudden she felt desperately tired and sad. Only with the greatest difficulty did she resist the urge to weep.


  “Are you all right, Miss?”

  A dark shadow loomed over her. She sat back.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “I’m Chief Inspector Blount.” He scrutinised her closely. “And you are?”

  Eleanor sat up a little straighter in her chair and tried not to wilt under his glare. “I’m Lady Eleanor Bakewell.” She indicated the chair opposite and he sat down.

  “Then you are the young lady I’m looking for. The doctor informs me that you were with the vic- er... Mr Eisenbach when he died. Is that so?”

  “Yes, that’s right, I was.” The more she thought about it the more convinced she’d become that the American had died before she’d managed to lay him on the floor and the doctor had reached them.

  “Did you know Mr Eisenbach well?”

  “No, not at all. We’d only been introduced an hour earlier.”

  Blount scowled and moved his lower jaw from side to side. “In that case, would you tell me what happened, please, from how you came to meet him until his death.”

  Eleanor told her story with a simplicity and a clarity that surprised the Chief Inspector. An astute man, he realised that she was no blushing violet, though her shock was all too apparent.

  She was deathly pale.

  Most of the populace that had lived through the Great War had seen death in one form or another, but Blount was a fair man, and prepared to admit that observing the casualties of war did not prepare you for having a man die in your arms while you were dancing.

  He gently probed her tale, letting her tell it in her own way before he started to ask questions. Then he surprised her by letting her go.

  “All right, your ladyship. That will do for now, thank you. There will probably be more questions later, but I know where to find you.”

  He lumbered to his feet and waited while she rose.

  “Thank you, Chief Inspector.”

  He gave her a kind smile. “May I suggest you go home and get some rest.”

  “You may, I can certainly do with it. And you? When will you get rest?”

  “Pfft” He blew out his cheeks, the stubble already forming on the smooth skin. “Not before daybreak, I doubt, but you know what they say about a policeman’s lot.”

  “Indeed.” She offered him her hand and he sketched a bow over it. “Good luck, Chief Inspector, and a happy New Year to you.”

  She wandered over to the cloakroom and reclaimed her wrap before going in search of Ann by the front door.

  “I’ve left your drink on a table by the stage.” Eleanor informed her friend. “The police have finished with me for now, so I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going home.”

  Ann, still seemingly as perky as she had been all those hours ago at the start of the evening, grinned at her. “Let you off for good behaviour, have they? Or did the Chief Inspector fall for your womanly charms and your femme fatale act?”

  On any other occasion Eleanor might have joined in with Ann’s laughter. That night, or rather that morning, as it was fast approaching two o’clock, she found the humour heavy-handed and misplaced. She ran a hand over her pale forehead and pulled on her gloves.

  “He was actually very nice, as you’ll discover when it’s your turn.”

  “Ann, old bean!” Tommy Totteridge and his mate Fortescue came ambling towards them. Totters had an arm around the other man’s shoulder, though which one of them he was attempting to hold upright hard to judge. Both looked the worse for drink. “Fabulous party.”

  “’cept for the bloke what died, what?” Fortescue slurred his words. Perhaps that explained their crassness. Eleanor looked sharply at him.

  “Going home, Lady Eleanor? Care to share a taxi?”

  An icy slick of frost covered the pavement outside the hotel, but Eleanor shook her head. There was no way she was going to sit in a cab with the pair of them.

  “No, I haven’t far to go, thanks.” She looked back through the plate glass door. “There’s one just pulling up. You’re in luck, but you’ll need to hop to it.”

  The doorman standing outside opened the door, letting in a freezing blast of cold air, and with hurried goodbyes, the two men bustled out.

  Eleanor waited until they had driven off and then followed them out. Another cab pulled up almost immediately and she got in. Inside a quarter of an hour, she was letting herself into her apartment, delighted to be home at last.

  “Good morning, my Lady. Did you have a good evening?”

  Tilly Walton, Eleanor’s maid and confidante, roused herself from a chair by the fire where she had been awaiting her mistress’s return.

  Eleanor took off her wrap and threw it over the arm of the settee. “No, Tilly, I’ve had a God-awful, stompingly foul, and bloody awful evening.”

  Tilly’s bright button eyes examined Eleanor keenly. “Oh, as good as that was it?”

  Then, as Eleanor sat down and the tears finally came, the maid walked to the drinks trolley and poured a large brandy. She thrust it towards her mistress.

  “You’ve probably had plenty already tonight, but get that down your neck, my Lady. It will do you good.”

  She disappeared into a bedroom and came back with a clean cotton handkerchief. Shaking it out, she dangled it in front of Eleanor, who took it and wiped her streaming face before taking a gulp of finest French brandy.

  “Do you want to talk about it, shall I run you a bath, make you an omelette, get you another drink, or would you just prefer it if I stopped imitating the Spanish Inquisition?”

  Despite herself, Eleanor laughed. “Tilly, you’re priceless. If you don’t mind, though, I’m just going to bed.”

  She drained her glass then, with a cough, rose to her feet. “Good night, my dear, and a happy New Year.”

  Chapter 4

  Despite the different cards that life had dealt them, Eleanor and Tilly had much in common. Similar in age, height, and build, they had been together a long time, sharing an upbringing and even an education at the Bakewells’ stately home. Tilly was the daughter of Lord Bakewell’s cook and the two little girls had been inseparable playmates, Eleanor going so far as insisting that they also share lessons together, hence the maid’s thorough, if somewhat unusual, education.

  She put it to good use the next morning when she woke her mistress by announcing, “Bonjour, my lady. Le petit déjeuner sera prêt en dix minutes. Voici le café.”

  The smell of French coffee roused Eleanor, who groaned and clutched her head. “Must you be so loud in the mornings?” She held out her hand for the cup, downed the contents in two gulps and handed it back. “More, please.”

  “Very well, but your bath is ready, and breakfast — bacon, eggs, toast and marmalade — won’t take long. You have a lunch appointment with Mrs Welling, at one.”

  “All right, all right,” Eleanor grumbled as she threw back the covers. “I shan’t take long.”

  She padded along to the bathroom and stepped into the rose-scented warm water, but did not luxuriate for long. The coffee had begun to kick in and with it came the memory of the previous evening, sharp, clear and horrifying.

  In spite of the steamy warmth, Eleanor shivered and got out of the water. She towelled herself briskly dry and dressed in the clothes that Tilly had left out for her in the bedroom. She donned the calf-length blue woollen skirt and a white blouse, leaving the matching long-line jacket with its lavish golden embroidery at hem and cuffs on its hanger. Her head ached abominably.

  She went into the kitchen. “Do we have any headache powders, Tilly?”

  “Bad head, eh? That’s your own fault, my lady, for drinking too much.”

  Eleanor glowered at her maid. She allowed no one else to speak to her in that way and only let Tilly do so because of their long friendship and the fact that it reflected the maid’s genuine concern.

  “Hmm. Do I employ you for your sympathetic soul, or is there some other reason I put up with you? One that escapes me, temporarily?”

  “Oh, you employ me for lots of
reasons, my lady. As you’re always telling me, my skills are too numerous to list.” Tilly grinned, enjoying the banter, and pointed to the table. “Sit down and eat your breakfast and I’ll find a powder for you. They shouldn’t be taken on an empty stomach anyway.”

  Grimacing at the thought of food, Eleanor did as she was told and soon found herself feeling much better. She accepted two aspirin tablets, a glass of water, and more coffee and sat back.

  “Thanks, Tilly.”

  “You’re welcome. Now, would you like to tell me what happened at the party that got you so upset and smock-ravelled? I didn’t expect you to come home in such a tizz.”

  “Well, I was introduced to a Mr Eisenbach, a rich American. He was a nice man, and we chatted for a while, but while we were dancing he collapsed and died.”

  “Blimey!” Tilly’s eyes widened. “I could see that might set anyone off into conniptions.”

  “But that wasn’t the worst of it, Tilly. A doctor was on hand and he thought Mr Eisenbach had been poisoned.”

  “Deliberately?”

  Eleanor lit a cigarette. “Ah, Tilly, my bright young thing, there’s the rub. The police were sent for and I suppose it’s up to them to decide.”

  Tilly sniffed and moved used pots into the small scullery. “Well, they can’t think you did it.”

  “I hope not.”

  “They’ll be bigger bloomin’ idiots than I take them for if they do. What did you stand to gain by his death?”

  The door bell rang before Eleanor could answer what she assumed was a rhetorical question. But was it? It was a question the police themselves were probably pondering right now.

  She stubbed out her cigarette and got to her feet as Tilly bustled off see who was calling.

  “Lady Ann Carstairs, my lady. I’ve shown her into the morning room.”

  The serviced apartments at Bellevue Mansions comprised a mere six rooms, none of which could truly be described as a morning room. The letting agent listed two reception salons, one of which Eleanor had turned into a small study. The other did duty as the main lounge cum living area.