Another Woman's Shoes

by Francis Durbridge

  His interview with Jaime Mainardi, QC, had been brief and infuriating. With difficulty he had kept control of his temper. Sammy Spears had been right, the man was a ham and should never have been engaged to defend a difficult client like Harold Weldon. Whether Weldon was guilty of murder or not Mike Baxter had not the faintest idea; but after his short, exasperating interview with Weldon’s legal brains Mike was ready to side with at least one of Sammy Spears’s theories, that the accused had been extraordinarily badly handled.

  What had appalled Mike more than anything else was Mainardi’s bland acceptance of his client’s fate. It must no doubt be galling for a lawyer to lose a case, but this was no ordinary divorce wrangle or libel suit: a man’s life had hung in the balance, the death penalty had been pronounced. He had expected to find some traces of regret, if not deep remorse, in Mainardi’s chambers but all he had sensed was calm indifference.

  He hailed a taxi, told the driver to take him to Scotland Yard, and climbed in.

  Mainardi’s astonishingly urbane summing up as he brought the brief interview to an end still resounded in his ears. ‘Really, Mr Baxter, you must excuse me if I cannot give you very much of my time, but I am a business man like any other and my bread and butter is earned by accepting briefs from new clients, not in trying to console clients whose cases I have unfortunately lost.’ And then, to crown it all, the man had had the effrontery to ask, in a far from delicate manner, just how soon payment of his legal fees might be expected.

  ‘No doubt you’ll get paid before they put the rope round Weldon’s neck,’ Mike had snapped.

  The barrister had popped his cheeks dramatically and laid an eloquent hand to his forehead, as if he were affronted by Mike’s abruptness. ‘Forgive me for saying so, Mr Baxter, but for my part I cannot quite understand what your interest in this case is.’

  ‘For my part,’ Mike had replied, ‘I’m just beginning to understand. Good day.’

  As the taxi wound its way down Whitehall, Mike forced himself to cool down. The fact that Weldon’s defence had been placed in the hands of a slipshod ham by no means proved the architect’s innocence. The same verdict might have been returned had he been superbly defended. Yet Mike found himself probing deeper and deeper into the affair, unable to resist (as Linda had put it) the whiff of cannon-fire and the sound of distant battle. Most of all he felt an imperative urge to meet Harold Weldon in person. As he paid off his taxi and entered the Yard he was wondering if Goldway could arrange a visit to Pentonville.

  The Sergeant on duty knew Mike well and after the usual formalities he was shown upstairs to Goldway’s room overlooking the river.

  The tall, white-haired, distinguished-looking Superintendent was busy on the telephone as Mike entered, but shot him a welcoming smile and waved him to a vacant chair. When the phone call ended Goldway stood up and shook hands, offering Mike a cigarette and inquiring after Linda’s health. Knowing the pressure under which Goldway worked Mike came straight to the point and told him of Hector Staines’s visit which had prompted his first stirrings of interest in the Weldon case.

  ‘I know it doesn’t sound very much to go on, John, but the truth is I’ve nibbled at the bait and now I can’t quite let go.’

  ‘Always was a chronic weakness of yours, Mike,’ said Goldway with a benevolent smile. ‘However, we’ve been glad enough of your assistance in times gone by, so I think the least I can do now is to offer some co-operation when you ask for it. I must point out, purely as a formality, that the Weldon case is officially closed, of course.’

  ‘Of course. But to a dyed-in-the-wool criminologist like myself no case is ever fully closed. We’re still arguing about some of the verdicts of the eighteenth century; and in this case the condemned man still has a week or two to live.’

  ‘Quite so. Let’s say your interest is purely academic. Now about this Lord Fairfax notion of yours; I’ve put some good men on running it to earth if it does exist, and I should think they’ll come up with a definite answer before the day is out.’

  Mike looked crestfallen. ‘No word yet? I was hoping for a lead there. Supposing my theory is accurate and the Fairfax is a pub or something, instead of a person, it would be rather intriguing to know just whom Lucy Staines was planning to meet there, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Possibly. But I wouldn’t bank on it if I were you. As far as visiting Weldon in Pentonville goes, I can arrange that for you if you insist, though I don’t think you’ll find him much of a charmer. The man has a positively fiendish talent for getting one’s back up. There’s another man you might like to meet, though, who could be useful.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Detective-Inspector Charles Rodgers. He was in charge of the case.’ Goldway picked up the internal telephone and spoke quietly into it, adding aside to Mike, ‘Don’t expect him to be delighted to make your acquaintance either; he’s a busy fellow and right up to his neck in a vicious stabbing case at the Elephant and Castle at the moment. I’ll see if he can spare us a minute.’

  Rodgers proved available and arrived within a few minutes of Goldway’s summons. Mike’s impression as he shook hands with the Inspector was of a tough, hard-driving, and extremely efficient man in his middle forties, a careless dresser, heavy smoker (from the nicotine stains on his fingers), a man of few words, in love with his job to the exclusion of most other interests.

  Goldway completed the introductions with, ‘As I said, Mike, Rodgers was in charge of the case.’

  ‘Right from the beginning, Inspector?’ Mike asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I see. The snag is, I wasn’t at the trial,’ Mike went on, ‘so I don’t know all the details. I know Weldon and his fiancée had a bad row – Staines told me all about that – and then they went to dinner and to the theatre. What exactly happened after that?’

  Rodgers’s mouth tightened in a slight grimace of annoyance and he glanced rather obviously at his watch.

  Goldway put in smoothly, ‘I don’t think this will take more than five minutes of your time, Inspector. Mike is an old friend of mine, and I’ve told him how pushed you are lately.’

  Rodgers grunted and rubbed the palm of his hand hard on his short-clipped hair. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Weldon and Lucy Staines left the theatre before the show finished, at about ten o’clock. According to Weldon’s first statement their quarrel came to a climax outside the theatre and Lucy turned her back on him and walked away. Weldon got into his car and drove home. He said – mark you, this was his first statement – that he arrived home at about half-past ten.’

  ‘Weldon had a flat in New Cavendish Street which he shared with a friend named Victor Sanders,’ Goldway put in.

  ‘Sanders failed to confirm Weldon’s story,’ the Inspector continued. ‘He said that Weldon didn’t get home till about half-past twelve. We tackled Weldon on this point and he changed his statement. He said he left Lucy outside the theatre at ten o’clock, drove round the West End a bit, parked his car in St James’s Square, and then went for a walk. He says he got back to the Square at about a quarter-past twelve. That’s practically a two-hour walk, you’ll note. Then he got in his car and drove home. No one saw him, and no one saw the car.’

  ‘In other words he couldn’t account very convincingly for his movements between ten o’clock and twelve-thirty,’ Mike said.

  ‘Quite so,’ Goldway answered. ‘Medical opinion has established beyond all doubt that it was during this period that the murder took place. Go on, Inspector.’

  ‘Two days after the murder Weldon sent a suit to be sponged and pressed. I went to see the cleaners and found a handkerchief in one of the pockets. It had blood on it. The blood was tested and found to belong to the same group as the murdered girl’s. Weldon admitted it was his handkerchief, but he couldn’t account for the blood.’

  ‘Excuse me … but I thought Lucy Staines was strangled?’

  ‘She was. But she must have put up some kind of a struggle. There was a bad scratch down the s
ide of her face. That accounted for the blood.’

  ‘Who discovered the body, Inspector?’

  ‘A woman called Nadia Tarrant. She has a flat in Soho Square. She was taking a short cut across the bomb-site just after midnight when a man came out of the shadows, pushed past her, and ran down Greek Street. She was able to give us a description of the man and we put Harold Weldon amongst others in an identity parade. She picked him out without a moment’s hesitation. We also found Weldon’s fingerprints on Miss Staines’s handbag. There were five pounds in the purse and a gold powder compact. Also she was wearing a nice little diamond clip.’

  ‘Was anything missing?’ Mike asked.

  ‘No. That ruled out assault with intent to rob.’

  Goldway interrupted as Rodgers lit himself a cigarette. ‘There was actually one thing missing, oddly enough. But it doesn’t appear to be relevant.’

  ‘Why, John? What was it?’

  ‘Her shoe.’

  Rodgers blew out a cloud of smoke and nodded. ‘Yes, I forgot that. She was only wearing one shoe, on her right foot. The other must have fallen off during the struggle. Strangely enough we never found it.’

  Mike frowned thoughtfully. ‘What a curious thing for a murderer to take. What use is one shoe? Could be damning evidence too.’ He caught Inspector Rodgers looking at his watch and said hastily, ‘Inspector, you’ve been very generous with your time. Many thanks for putting me in the picture.’

  Rodgers nodded surlily and left with a curt, ‘Good day.’

  On leaving the Yard Mike took a taxi to his garage where his car, a new E-type Jaguar, was being given a grease-job, then drove in deep thought back to Sloane Street where a cold lunch prepared by Linda and served by Mrs Potter awaited him.

  That afternoon, mindful of his deadline, he thrust all thought of the Weldon case out of his head and put in a good two hours’ work on his book. The only interruption was a telephone message from Linda telling him not to expect her back at the flat and asking him to pick her up at Conway and Racy’s some time after three o’clock.

  Finding a place to park near Bond Street was hopeless but eventually Mike saw a gap in Hanover Square and dived at it like a Rugby wing forward, beating two rivals by sheer effrontery and superior acceleration. By the time he had walked to Conway and Racy’s Linda had finished her final fitting for the two-piece grey suit she referred to as her ‘Cannes stunner’. It would be delivered on the following day and Mike grimly reminded himself that the bill was likely to be a stunner too.

  ‘How did you fare at the Yard?’ Linda asked him as she came out of the changing booth.

  ‘Only so-so.’

  ‘You look depressed. Haven’t they found a Lord Fairfax hotel?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not only that; my brief chat with Mr Jaime Mainardi was enough to put a blight on the day. I’ll tell you all about it once I’ve steered you successfully past the hat department and out of this criminally expensive emporium.’

  Linda giggled and took his arm. ‘Too late, darling, I’ve already visited the hat department.’

  Mike sighed heavily. ‘What did you buy? – Two feathers, and a wisp of veil direct from Paris?’

  ‘Nothing as bad as that, honestly.’ She turned for support to a well-groomed blonde assistant in her late thirties who was hovering near by and making vaguely helpful gestures; she was obviously the Department Supervisor who had arranged Linda’s fitting. She favoured Mike with an exceedingly arch smile that involved a lot of teeth and brilliant lipstick. Linda introduced her as Miss Long.

  ‘I think you’ll like the hat, Mr Baxter. It really looks most distinguée on your wife.’

  ‘You’re the expert,’ said Mike. ‘Oh, by the way, Miss Long, do you have a young lady working here, as a model, I think, by the name of Peggy Bedford?’

  Miss Long hesitated for a second, then said, ‘Yes, we do. She’s in the lingerie department.’

  ‘I wonder if I might have a word with her?’

  ‘By all means, Mr Baxter. The only trouble is, she’s not here today.’

  ‘Is she ill?’

  ‘No; at least I don’t think so.’

  ‘You don’t happen to know where I might be able to contact her?’

  A fleeting shadow of doubt crossed the blonde assistant’s face and Linda stepped gallantly to the rescue. ‘Don’t worry, Miss Long, if she’s too attractive I’ll keep my husband on a very short leash.’

  Miss Long giggled nervously. ‘Well, it isn’t usual, of course, but in the circumstances there’s really no reason why I shouldn’t give you her address. She has a flat in Plymouth Mansions, just off Baker Street. She’s probably there; our models sometimes work very irregular hours.’

  ‘Thank you, you’ve been most kind. I believe Peggy Bedford was a close friend of Lucy Staines, wasn’t she?’

  Miss Long’s expression changed. ‘Er … yes, that is so. What a dreadful business that was. It cast the most fearful gloom over – Oh, excuse me, Mr Baxter, there’s the house phone, I must answer it. Goodbye, Mrs Baxter, I do hope you have a lovely holiday.’

  Outside in Bond Street Mike took his wife’s arm and led her to where the car was parked in Hanover Square.

  ‘Are we going straight home, darling?’ Linda asked.

  ‘More or less. With a little detour via Baker Street, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Peggy Bedford? What do you hope to get out of her?’

  ‘Maybe she can shed some light on who L. Fairfax was, assuming my original hunch was wrong. At least she should be able to give me some idea of Lucy Staines’s habits, her interests, what sort of circles she moved in.’

  They drove to Baker Street and after several fruitless inquiries succeeded in finding Plymouth Mansions. It was an imposing building set some distance off the main street. Linda’s eyes widened as she stepped out of the car and gazed at the impressive entrance.

  ‘Rather an expensive address for a fashion model, isn’t it?’ Mike said, running his finger down the list of tenants’ names in the entrance hall.

  ‘I suppose we shouldn’t be too surprised. Staines said the girls earn good money.’

  He quickly found the name he wanted. ‘Here we are! – Peggy Bedford. Flat 37. We’ll take the lift, unless you want to climb three flights.’

  A surly, uniformed porter with a permanent scowl took them up and gruffly jerked his head towards the corridor leading to Flat 37.

  Mike pressed the bell and they waited in silence. No answering steps came. They rang again, and after a few moments Linda bent impatiently to try to peer through the keyhole.

  ‘That’s odd,’ she muttered, ‘it’s plugged with paper or something.’ She dropped on one knee and sniffed at the base of the door. Then she exclaimed in alarm, ‘Mike, I think I smell gas!’

  Mike dropped quickly to the floor and confirmed her suspicion. ‘Linda, get that porter as quickly as you can! Tell him to bring a pass-key!’

  Throwing his weight against the door he tried to burst in, but it was well constructed and resisted his efforts. A few seconds later came the sound of the lift doors opening and Linda ran down the corridor towards him waving the key.

  ‘He refused to give it to me so I just grabbed it and ran. I told him to phone for an ambulance.’

  ‘Fine. Hold your breath – here goes!’

  Holding a handkerchief in front of his mouth and nose Mike swung open the door and groped his way towards a dimly visible window. He heaved it open and found he was in the kitchen. All the taps of the gas oven were on and he quickly shut them off.

  As he turned his heel stepped on something soft … It was the hand of a woman whose body lay partly concealed under the kitchen table. Coughing back the fumes he made for the window, then returned once more and managed to lift the body. Choking for breath he dragged her through the hall and outside into the corridor. With Linda’s help he began trying to revive the girl.

  ‘Keep her head up high, darling.’

  ‘Where the hell is that
ambulance?’

  ‘It’ll be here in a minute. Do you think she’s dead?’

  ‘Pretty close, I should say. If that porter doesn’t get a move on she won’t have much chance.’

  They heard shouts and running footsteps which grew nearer. A small crowd of excited onlookers, led by the porter, rushed up.

  ‘Did you phone for an ambulance? Is there a doctor handy?’ Mike shouted, waving them away from the girl.

  The porter gulped nervously and managed to croak some sort of affirmative.

  ‘Do you know this girl?’ Linda asked him.

  The porter nodded and his Adam’s apple jerked convulsively. ‘It’s the Bedford tart, Flat 37. Always did say she’d come to no good, I did.’

  ‘Never mind that now!’ Mike cried. ‘Help me carry her out into the fresh air. Come on, what are you dithering about?’

  Whilst the porter was still muttering to himself, other, more capable, hands from amongst the crowd helped Mike carry the girl to the lift and swiftly down and out into the fresh air.

  Above the howl of a siren and the clangour of an approaching ambulance bell Mike said angrily to Linda, ‘What the blazes was that fool muttering about? Is something missing?’

  ‘You could say that,’ replied Linda, looking down at the inert figure.

  He followed her glance and saw that the girl was wearing only one shoe.

  Chapter Three

  Mike Baxter and Linda were lost in deep thought as they drove back to their flat. They were none too pleased to find that they had a visitor waiting for them.

  Mrs Potter was very apologetic. ‘Tried to send him on his way, I did, but he wouldn’t budge. I’ve put him in the study.’

  ‘All right, Mrs Potter. What did you say his name is?’

  ‘Mr Victor Sanders, he says. Never set eyes on him before and I don’t care how long it is before—’

  ‘Do you know him, Mike?’ Linda interrupted.