by Lynda Wilcox
“What’s the date today Tilly?”
“It’s the sixth of January, my lady.”
“Why is that important?”
“I’ve no idea.” The maid shrugged, spreading her arms wide. “It is Twelfth Night.”
“No, no.”
“Umm, perhaps you have a date with Howard Eisenbach.”
Eleanor’s blue eyes gleamed. “Bless you, Tilly, I don’t, but I’m going to. Go and get the coats and your revolver and I’ll get my pistol. And hurry, Tilly. Whatever you do, hurry.”
While the maid obeyed her instructions, Eleanor phoned Peter Armitage.
“Major, get yourself to Croydon Aerodrome as soon as possible. The bird is about to fly. I suggest you have Chief Inspector Blount and a few policemen there as well. At all costs you must delay the noon flight to Paris. I’ll explain when I get there.”
She replaced the receiver, giving him no time to argue or ask questions.
On the way downstairs to the garage, she told Tilly that she’d finally made sense of things and intended driving to the Ritz and asking if Mr Jensen was still on the premises.
“I doubt he will be,” she said. “I heard him making arrangements to be on that Paris flight when I first called on Carolyne and Howard. It was just a snatch of conversation that I overheard and I thought I’d forgotten about it, but it must have lodged in my mind somewhere until you mentioned Howard.”
“And if Jensen is there, my lady?”
“Then I’ve got this whole thing wrong. If he's gone, however, then we’ll follow him to the aerodrome.”
“Very well, my lady.”
Jensen wasn’t at the Ritz, but Howard was. The American was fuming.
“No, Dad’s secretary ain’t here. He’s done a bunk. Packed a suitcase and left not twenty minutes ago, and I haven’t the faintest idea why or where he’s gone.”
“I know where he’s going and I’m on my way there now.”
As Eleanor had hoped, Howard volunteered to go with her.
“All right, I could do with the back-up. Come on. No time to waste.”
She hurried him out of the suite and down the stairs. The car waited on the kerb outside, its motor still running.
“Want me to drive?” Howard eyed the sleek lines of the Lagonda with longing.
“Certainly not.” They got in and Eleanor gunned the motor. “Hang onto your hat, Tilly.”
Convinced her mistress would get them all killed, the maid cowered in the back as Eleanor’s foot hit the accelerator and they roared down Piccadilly and through the streets towards the river.
They crossed the Thames at Vauxhall Bridge and headed south on the A23. Despite her sense of urgency, Eleanor drove within the statutory speed limit at least until they had cleared the city. An officious policeman flagging her down for speeding would put paid to her hopes of getting to the aerodrome in time.
She concentrated on the road, while from the seat beside her, Howard plied her with questions about the absconding Jensen.
“How do you know where Jensen’s heading? Why did he clear out like that? Carolyne and I can’t understand it. What on earth had got into him?”
Eleanor had her answers ready. They contained no hint of espionage or stolen papers.
“He’s wanted by the police.”
Howard’s jaw dropped and he turned in his seat to face her.
“Jensen is? Well, I’ll be blowed. Whatever for?”
“For attacking a woman in the street and robbing her of her purse.”
“Really? I find that hard to believe.”
Eleanor went through the gears as the Lagonda sailed up Brixton Hill. “Oh, it’s true. Believe me.” She gave him a brief direct glance before returning her attention to the road.
“What? You don’t mean...” The penny took a moment to drop. “He attacked you, Lady Eleanor?”
“Yes, and he used chloroform.” Perhaps because she could still smell the cloying scent of that pad near her nose, that fact alone stung her far more than her grazed knees had done.
She stamped on the accelerator at the thought and caught a whimper from the back seat as they sped through the suburbs.
“What a bounder. I suppose he murdered Dad, as well, did he?”
Eleanor was non-committal. “He might have done, yes.”
The aerodrome lay on the outskirts of Croydon on the road to Purley. Eleanor nosed the car forward and a line of wooden huts appeared to their right, together with the control tower and tall radio mast.
She braked and turned into the field. A row of aeroplanes, all bearing the Instone Air Line name, was parked against the boundary hedge, while a single aircraft, its tail towards them, waited on the runway in the middle of the broad swathe of grass. The pilot looked on as an engineer and an official went through the necessary safety checks.
At the far end of the field, passengers and porters poured out of the Customs building, following a member of staff pushing a set of metal stairs on wheels. They made their way across the grass towards the readied aircraft.
“Can you see him?” Howard asked.
Eleanor scanned the sea of moving figures. “Not yet.”
Nor could she see any sign of Ferit Fortescue, the Major, or any police. She checked her watch. It lacked ten minutes to noon.
“Are you sure this was where he was heading for?” Howard asked.
“Quite sure.” Eleanor drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. Had something gone wrong? If Jensen and Ferit had changed their plans, she would not now be too popular with either Major Armitage or Chief Inspector Blount.
“I see him!” Howard leaned forward to peer through the windscreen. “He’s on the far side of that group over there beyond the woman with a little girl in a white hat.” He pointed ahead to a second group of passengers coming out of the wooden building.
“Hang on,” Eleanor said, as the American made to get out of the car. “I’ll need to park.”
She selected reverse gear and swung the car round so quickly that Howard was flung back in his seat. At the same time, the welcome sound of a police siren reached her ears.
They got out of the car. Without waiting for the women, Howard strode away towards the knot of people and the place where he had last seen Jensen. Eleanor had already noticed the weasel-faced Fortescue walking next to the secretary.
Good. That meant the police could arrest everyone at the same time.
Two black sedans pulled up in front of Eleanor and her maid. Chief Inspector Blount was at the wheel of the first, but it was his passenger Major Armitage who called out.
“Where are they? Are they here?”
Eleanor pointed towards Howard’s broad back. “Follow Eisenbach. He’s got them in his sights.”
The cars pulled away and she hurried after them. “Don’t forget, Tilly,” she called back over her shoulder.
“No, my lady.”
At a shout from Blount the small group of passengers came to a halt, all except for Jensen and Ferit. They tried to make a run for it, but Howard and a couple of policemen from the second car were faster and soon caught up with them. A brief scuffle took place with Howard punching Jensen and Fortescue lashing out wildly. Eleanor heard shouts and curses, in more than one language, but the spies were surrounded and eventually subdued and handcuffed.
After this, the bemused passengers were allowed to embark for their journey to Paris, while the police and their captives headed for the two cars.
It was with a degree of satisfaction, Eleanor noted, that the Chief Inspector arrested Jensen and Ferit on charges of espionage and murder.
“I haven’t killed anyone.” Jensen snarled. “Besides, you cannot arrest me, I’m an American citizen.”
Blount’s jaw worked from side to side. “Mr Jensen, I don’t care if you’re a citizen of the moon. If you’ve committed murder on my patch then I’m within my rights to arrest you.”
Eleanor drew level with the group.
“Actually, Chief Inspector, I�
��m not so sure that Mr Jensen has committed murder, though he is certainly guilty of attacking a woman in the street, trying to chloroform her, and stealing her handbag. Nor is he an American citizen.” Eleanor focused her narrow-eyed gaze on the secretary. “You’re German, aren’t you? “Wo sind sie? you said the night you attacked me. I was too groggy at the time to realise you were asking me where the papers were in your own language.”
Blount jerked a thumb at the other man. “So, it was this gent that committed the murders?”
“He goes by the name of Freddie Fortescue, but that is almost certainly false. I believe he is a Turk and his first name is Ferit. He killed Harry Lamb, the cloakroom attendant, after bribing him to search Henry Eisenbach’s overcoat. I suspect that Lamb wasn’t satisfied with that and tried a little blackmail when the American was murdered, thus leading to his own death.”
“So, who poisoned Eisenbach?” Armitage spoke for the first time.
Eleanor gave a tight lipped grimace. “Oh, Mr Eisenbach wasn’t murdered for his papers, but for his money. Howard killed him, which is why I made sure I brought him with me today.”
The young American might have been able to talk his way out of things, and a good attorney would certainly have done so but, as Eleanor reached for the pearl-handled pistol in her pocket, he was foolish enough to draw his own gun and grab hold of her. Using her as a shield, he dragged her with him towards the plane.
“Back off coppers,” he said. “I’m getting on that aircraft and if you try and stop me it will be curtains for her ladyship here.”
“I warn you, Howard, that my maid is a crack shot.”
“Eh?”
Unfortunately, Howard had forgotten that servants are invisible and by the time he remembered, Tilly had crept behind him. She rammed the muzzle of her gun into his backbone.
“Put ‘em up.”
The surprise was enough to throw Howard off balance. As Eleanor kicked backward, the police rushed forward and quickly overpowered him.
Blount watched as this latest captive was handcuffed and taken to a car, then turned to Tilly with a disbelieving glare.
“Put ‘em up? You’ve been going to that cinema and watching them new pictures too often. That was a damn risky thing to do, young lady.”
Eleanor held up a hand. “Don’t blame my maid, Chief Inspector. I thought Eisenbach might pull a trick like that once I’d accused him. She did exactly as I told her to do.” She grinned. “Though, I’ll admit that the words were all her own.”
With three prisoners now to take back to London, there was no room in the police vehicles for Major Armitage. Much to Tilly's disgust he begged a lift from Eleanor, who could hardly refuse him.
“That was good work, ladies. Well done and thank you.” He smiled at them both as he got into the car. “You'll have to explain that business with the second poison bottle, though. Neither Blount nor I could make head nor tail of it.”
“Oh, that was a bit of copycat, employed to muddy the waters.” Eleanor put the car in gear and pulled away from the aerodrome.
“Howard poisoned his father around lunchtime on New Year's Eve. When it hadn't taken effect by the time they left for the Rudolph that evening, he slipped the bottle into his father's overcoat pocket as a way of getting rid of it, and also to hint at suicide.
“When this fact became known, Ferit Fortescue thought he'd use it to throw suspicion on the cloakroom attendant. It might have worked if he hadn't been stupid enough to stab him. I think a knife is probably that young man's usual modus operandi.”
“What made you think that Howard was the killer?”
Eleanor waved a hand. “That came when I started to think of this affair as two separate cases and not one. Besides, in his exhilaration at driving around Brooklands, Howard admitted it. Then he tried to pass it off as a reference to leaving Carolyne in London.”
She spared a thought for the young girl at the Ritz, soon to be deprived of both her menfolk. After all that had happened, and all she had still to go through, Carolyne deserved a chance at happiness. Eleanor hoped she'd get it, one day.
Armitage nodded. “Yes. I see. Well I'm glad that, thanks to you, we've caught him and the two enemy agents.”
Eleanor felt a strange mix of weariness and elation now that it was all over. Armitage's praise and thanks meant nothing to her. She had solved the case for her own satisfaction, and because she thought she owed it to Henry Eisenbach.
Only one niggle remained. Now that the case was finished, there would be no reason to see the major again. That would please Tilly, but Eleanor had to admit to a sense of disappointment at the thought.
“Where would you like me to drop you, Major? Scotland Yard?”
“Yes, if you would, please. I hope that I'll see you again before too long.”
Eleanor's lips twitched, not only at his words, but at the sniff from the back seat.
“You know where to find me, Major, and if I'm not at home, I shall be at a party — somewhere in London.”
THE END
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Also by Lynda Wilcox
Agnes Merryweather Mysteries
Murder by Request
The Gemini Detectives
The Lockington Legacy
The Melbourne Medallion
The Lady Eleanor Mysteries
A Poisoning in Piccadilly
The Verity Long Mysteries
Strictly Murder
Organized Murder
Scouting for Murder
Married to Murder
Long Drive to Death
Long Cold Death
Long Deathly Christmas
Long Tramp to Murder
An Appetite For Murder
A Novel Way to Die
Murder by the Glass
Standalone
Chamaeleon: Time Walker
Watch for more at Lynda Wilcox’s site.
About the Author
Lynda Wilcox's first piece of published writing was a poem in the school magazine. In her twenties she wrote Pantomime scripts for Amateur Dramatic groups and was a founder member of The Facts of Life, a foursome who wrote and performed comedy sketches for radio. Now she concocts fantasy stories for older children (10-13) and writes funny whodunits for adults. Lynda lives in a small town in England, in an untidy house with four ageing computers and her (equally ageing but very supportive) husband. She enjoys pottering in the garden where she grow brambles, bindweed and nettles along with roses and lilies. Oh! And slugs! Slugs that feed well on everything but the brambles and weeds. Most of all, she loves to write — it gets her out of doing the housework. She also reads a lot and enjoys good food and wine.
Read more at Lynda Wilcox’s site.
