A Poisoning In Piccadilly

by Lynda Wilcox

  “Oh yes, but it were only for a moment or two. I took him out through the door and stood on the steps, pointing out the route he had to take.”

  And while he had his back to the door, his accomplice had got in and raced up the stairs.

  “Did he keep you talking long?”

  The doorman winced and shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Well, he did repeat everything, just to make sure he’d got it right. He said something to the effect of not wanting to get lost, and he passed the time of day with a few pleasantries. I’m sure you know the sort of thing, but I wasn’t outside for more than a minute or two.”

  But it had been long enough.

  “All right, thank you.”

  Eleanor made her way back upstairs. Whoever had broken in was either still in the building or, more likely, had left by the fire escape. She checked the door on the first floor landing. It was closed but unbolted, and the bolt was on the inside, of course.

  She pushed the door open and stepped out onto the metal landing plate. Ladders ran in both directions, up and down. Where the downward handrail met an upright, a scrap of woollen cloth that might have come from a man’s overcoat had caught on a rivet. Eleanor lifted it free.

  So, the villain was a man in a ripped grey overcoat. She sighed. He should be easy to spot amongst the hundreds of thousands of others in London.

  But who was he? Who was Jensen’s accomplice?

  There had been a time when she had suspected dear old Tommy Totteridge of being mixed up in the espionage business. If she had not exonerated him already, then today’s events had certainly done so. Tommy could not have broken into Eleanor’s apartment while at the same time chatting to her in his own.

  Perhaps the most obvious candidate for the second man was Howard Eisenbach, but that flamboyant young man seemed ill-suited to the role of spy.

  What a puzzle it all was. Was their burglar the same man that had attacked her? She would lay good money that it hadn’t been Howard who’d snatched her bag.

  And where, if anywhere, did Fortescue fit into the mystery? Perhaps he had merely been chatting to the attendant that night at the Rudolph, passing the time with the bored man behind the counter, with no connection to spies or murder.

  Would she ever sort everything out?

  With a sigh, Eleanor gave a glance up and down the fire escape, then went back inside and bolted the door.

  Back in the apartment, Tilly had done sterling work in the kitchen, the floor was clear and freshly mopped and the kettle sang on the hob.

  “What did the doorman have to say for himself, my lady?”

  Eleanor reached into the biscuit tin and took out a triangle of shortbread. “From the description he gave me, one of the men appears to have been Jensen.”

  “One?”

  “Yes, he distracted the doorman by asking for directions while his accomplice came up here and did this.” She swept an arm around and pointed into the rest of the apartment. “That gentleman then got away by climbing down the fire escape from the first floor.”

  “Huh. It was no gentleman responsible for this, my lady.”

  “I know, Tilly. I was being sarcastic.”

  “I’ll be more than sarcastic with him, if I ever lay my hands on the miscreant.”

  Eleanor nibbled her biscuit and hoped for the villain’s sake that her maid never got hold of him. “I’ll make a start on the drawing room now.”

  “Very well, my lady, I’ll bring the tea in when it’s ready.”

  “Thank you. Then, perhaps you can make us both a sandwich and I’ll take you out to Alfredo’s for dinner tonight. You probably won’t feel like cooking after all the extra work this has caused.”

  Altogether it took them the better part of two hours to restore the apartment to some semblance of normality. Surprising little damage had been done, though the search, if hurried, had been thorough.

  It was while Eleanor was tidying the bedroom that she noticed something missing for the first time. Like many women she had a lot of handbags. Some were stout leather affairs for daytime use, others more elegant fabric affairs, often covered in sequins or embroidery for evening. All of them had been dragged from the shelf at the top of the wardrobe where Eleanor stored them and left littering the bed and floor. All, that is, except one.

  “Damn! That’s two bags stolen in as many days.”

  She walked back into the drawing room. “I thought we’d got away with it, Tilly, but one of my bags has gone.”

  “Oh? Which one?”

  “The peacock blue leather with the embroidery on it.” Eleanor clenched her fists and flopped onto her chair by the fire side. “And that was my favourite bag, blast their eyes.”

  “No, my lady, it’s all right. Don’t you remember? You used that bag on New Year’s Eve and it became soiled, so I took it for cleaning.”

  “That’s right, so you did, but where is it now?”

  Tilly grinned. “In the airing cupboard. I put it there to dry after I sponged it and then forgot all about it.”

  “Then you’d better check to see if it’s still there.”

  The airing cupboard was little more than a tall rectangular cupboard, situated in the scullery, housing a hot water tank with a shelf above. Tilly stored her towels and tea-towels here and anything else that needed airing after washing. She already knew that the thief had failed to search the scullery, or if he had, he’d refrained from rifling through the linen. Her ironing board, which hadn't been moved, stood against the airing cupboard door, obscuring it.

  The bag was still where she’d put it, nestling between two bath towels wrapped in a clean cloth.

  “Here you are.” She passed the bag to her mistress.

  “Excellent, thank you. What happened to the contents?”

  They were still in the bag. Tilly had removed the few items while she sponged it clean and replaced them almost immediately afterwards.

  Eleanor opened it. Too tired to stand up and reach for a cigarette from the box on the mantelpiece, she reached inside for her cigarette case and matches.

  “Hello? What’s this?”

  Upending the bag, she emptied the contents into her lap. Besides the items that satisfied her craving for nicotine were a comb, a lipstick, and a small silvery key.

  “Good heavens.” Eleanor let out an unladylike whistle. “Oh, Mr Eisenbach. What a clever, clever man you were.”

  Chapter 27

  “What’s that you’ve got?” Tilly leaned forward, peering at the items on her mistress’s skirt.

  Eleanor held up the key. “This, unless I’m very much mistaken, is what all the fuss is about. By the looks of it, it’s the key to a safety deposit box. I must have missed seeing it when I opened my bag in the rest room that evening. I only took out my lipstick.”

  “That’s not surprising. You’d be in shock, my lady.”

  “I certainly wasn’t thinking what I was doing. I just went through the motions I suppose.” She cleared her skirt, and returned everything, including the key, to the bag.

  “Are you going to phone Major Armitage?”

  Eleanor shook her head. “Not yet. I’d rather he waited until I had this whole case clear in my mind. Either way, tomorrow will be soon enough.”

  Tilly looked doubtful. “What if the burglar comes back for it?”

  “They won’t. By now they should be convinced I haven’t got what they are looking for. They’ve attacked me and taken my bag, they’ve broken into my home and ransacked the property, and even if they knew that Eisenbach had lodged the documents in a secure place, they must be sure after the lengths they’ve gone to that I haven’t got the key.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right. I shall wedge a chair under my door knob tonight and I’m going to sleep with a revolver under my pillow.”

  Eleanor hid a smile at the picture this conjured up.

  Any burglar seeing Tilly wearing fleecy pyjamas with her hair in curling papers sitting up in bed and waving a gun at him would deserve
all he got.

  “I think that’s very wise.”

  Tilly, though, was still worried. “Please, my lady, won’t you call Major Armitage and get rid of that key. I’d feel so much safer if it weren’t in the flat. If the spies have got this place watched...”

  The sight of a normally stalwart Tilly standing in front of her with scared eyes and twisting fingers, was too much for Eleanor’s resolve.

  “Yes, all right, if you’d rather I did.”

  Eleanor picked up the phone and asked the operator for Armitage’s number. While she waited to be connected she worked out what she would say. She settled on asking him to call on her that evening around nine o’clock. The least said over the phone, the better.

  By the time that the Major arrived a new door and lock had been fitted and dinner at Alfredo’s was over. Eleanor and Tilly were back in the apartment which, to their unspoken relief, had not been entered by anyone in their absence.

  “You asked to see me, my lady,” he said, as Tilly took his coat. He waved away the offer of a drink and took the fireside chair opposite Eleanor’s.

  “Yes. Peter, I’ve found a safe-deposit key. I think Eisenbach must have slipped it into my bag that evening at the Rudolph. I remember he managed to sweep the bag off the table at one point. I thought it was an accident, but it must have been a ruse because he bent to pick it up and returned it to me. That must have been when he put the key inside.”

  “What did you do with the bag? What happened when you got up to dance?”

  “I left it on the table,” she said.

  Armitage’s eyebrows rose. “What?”

  “There was nothing of value in it. My cigarette case and lighter, lipstick, a few pounds. That’s all. Anyway, when I got home my maid noticed that the fabric had become soiled so she emptied it out, including the key, so that she could sponge it. She’s only just told me about it”

  “But you must have given him the password.”

  “No I didn’t. How could I? I don’t know your passwords.”

  “Then you must have said something that sounded like it to Eisenbach.”

  Eleanor glared at him. “Yes, of course. I accept that, but I’ve still no idea what the bally password is. For all I know I could be repeating it to all and sundry.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Very well. I'll give you a clue. The French Foreign Ministry.”

  “What? I said nothing about the — oh!” Realisation of the way that Eisenbach had been misled swept over her. “Oh!” she said again, and clasped her face between her palms

  The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs was often referred to simply by its address in Paris. It was situated on the Quai D’Orsay.

  “I told Mr Eisenbach about my friend in the United States. Her name is Kay Dorsey.”

  “Blimey! Of all the rotten tricks for chance to play on us.”

  Now that she’d had time to let it sink in, Eleanor nodded. “Quite, though you do realise it’s probably for the best?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Even though it’s meant me being interrogated at Scotland Yard, attacked in the street, and having my door broken open and my home ransacked.”

  “What?” He got to his feet, and paced in front of the fireplace.

  “Altogether a small price to pay for the return of your wretched papers, don’t you think?”

  He stopped and spun around to face her. “No, I don’t. Dammit, Eleanor, when I said I could use your help on this case, it was because I thought you could keep your ear to the ground in high places. You remember I told you who did have the password?”

  “Yes.” Two Government ministers, who should have been above suspicion. Not to Armitage, though. Eleanor wondered if he suspected everybody.

  In the normal course of events, Eleanor might meet both gentlemen on any number of occasions. Armitage was correct that she was ideally placed to listen, overhear, and eavesdrop. She moved in the right circles to pick up the society gossip, the whisperings of the mighty, and pass it on to him.

  She thought he was looking in the wrong place.

  “I didn’t realise the danger I was putting you in. We haven’t been able to get to grips with this case. Even though we’ve now got Eisenbach’s key to his safety deposit box — and I trust the documents we were expecting from him are in there — we still aren’t sure who’s behind all this.”

  “Have you checked out Jensen, the secretary? I’ve already told you that I believe he has to be involved.”

  “Yes, I think you’re right, but he isn’t working alone, and his confederates remain a mystery.”

  “Couldn’t you arrest him, anyway, and get him to tell you?”

  Armitage let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “This isn’t a police state, my lady. We aren’t allowed to torture people to get information out of them. No, for the moment, we are leaving Jensen at large, in the hope that he will lead us to the rest of his gang.”

  “And Collingwood Place?”

  “Is pretty much what you’d expect, a quiet residential area, full of dowagers, and families with children and nannies. I’ve had it watched since you mentioned it to me, but Jensen’s never been seen there.”

  The major left soon after, taking the precious key with him. Eleanor asked Tilly to join her and then poured herself a brandy and settled down to think.

  “Haven’t you worked it out, yet?” Tilly took the seat that Armitage had recently vacated and stared across at the blonde young woman with the troubled eyes. “Don’t frown so, my lady. You’ll put lines on your face.”

  Eleanor laughed. “Oh, they’re the least of my worries. Actually, I think I’m fairly close to solving this.”

  “And the Major isn’t?”

  “I don’t say that, but perhaps he hasn’t fully appreciated how much human nature and blind chance have taken a hand in these events.” She sat back, cradling the brandy glass against her chest. “We know two things.”

  Tilly, used to being a sounding board for her mistress, supplied the necessary prompt.

  “And they are?”

  “That there was a plot to relieve Mr Eisenbach of important documents, and that he was murdered. But what if the plot had gone horribly wrong?

  “Maybe, Mr Eisenbach didn’t die when he was supposed to. If he’d died in the afternoon, then the secretary would have had a chance to search his room and his clothing.”

  “He could have done that when the family left that evening.” Tilly pointed out, not unreasonably.

  “Drat! So he could.” Eleanor took a sip of brandy. “Never mind. Let’s stick, for now, with the plot that went wrong.”

  “Perhaps Mr Eisenbach was supposed to dance with someone else.”

  Eleanor considered Tilly’s suggestion, but shook her head. “Possible, but unlikely. If he was robbed while he was dancing then it would have taken a fairly deft pickpocket. Lady Carstairs knew everyone present and I doubt she would have invited anyone she considered a dodgy specimen, let alone a criminal. I even thought it might be a party trick, someone good at sleight of hand, but Ann put that idea to rest.”

  “What about the doctor?”

  “Yes, I wondered about him, but according to Armitage, Chief Inspector Blount checked him out thoroughly and he really is a medic. Besides, I watched him try and revive Mr Eisenbach. He went nowhere near the man’s pockets.” She paused, marshalling her whirling thoughts. “I think Jensen alerted his fellow conspirator to be at the Rudolph, just in case. He gave Mr Eisenbach the poison, he would know the man hadn’t long to live.”

  “But he couldn’t rely on his mate being the first on the scene.”

  “No, which is why this whole farrago doesn’t make any sense at all. Whoever the conspirators were, they do seem a bunch of incompetents.”

  She sipped more brandy and considered Jensen again. His predecessor had been injured in an accident just before the trip to London. Had that been engineered, in order to get the spy Jensen into the steel magnate’s employ?

  Howard had s
aid that Jensen had come to them from an agency which presumably checked out the people they supplied, but even his father had complained about the man’s work on one occasion. Perhaps his credentials had been fraudulent.

  Another thought struck her. Maybe the agency had a real Jensen on its books, but he’d been intercepted and an imposter had taken his place.

  It was all coming together, but there was another name she needed to add. Who was the other spy?

  Not Totteridge, dear old Totters, he would never be a traitor any more than Eleanor herself. Besides, she’d already discounted him, on the grounds that he could not have broken into her apartment. No, it must be Freddy Fortescue with his swarthy skin and oily manner. When he’d touched her the other night at Olivia’s party she had flinched, as much at his effrontery as at the way her flesh had crawled.

  He’d said then that the last time they met had been at the Rudolph. Eleanor was beginning to think it had been the first time. Everyone seemed to know the man, but nobody knew where from.

  She gazed into the fireplace, watching the flames flicker and dance, something niggling at the back of her mind.

  Ferret, they called him and Eleanor had assumed that was due to his resemblance to the rat-like creature of the same name. Now she wasn’t so sure. If memory served, Ferit was a Turkish name and Turkey had been one of Germany’s allies during the war.

  And although Tommy only thought he’d been at school with him, he’d known where Ferit lived. What’s more, Tommy had gone to make a phone call almost as soon as they’d arrived at his house that morning.

  Was it to alert his pair of henchmen that the coast was clear?

  Chapter 28

  Eleanor did not sleep well. She awoke feeling slow and sluggish and full of foreboding.

  She dragged herself from her bed only with the greatest reluctance and bathed and dressed without thought or care to her appearance.

  As was so often the case, the observant Tilly came to her rescue and at the smell of bacon frying in the kitchen, Eleanor soon perked up.

  After breakfast she prowled around the drawing room, unable to settle, possessed by a dreadful sense of time rushing on. When the clock on the mantelpiece chimed the hour at ten o’clock, she hurried into the kitchen.