The Riddle at Gipsy's Mile

by Clara Benson

  ‘Well, it had better be the last, too,’ said Angela. ‘Look at how you ruined things for poor Marguerite.’

  ‘Oh, she’ll get over it,’ said Freddy. ‘She’s not the type to dwell on her sorrows. And I’m sorry about Vassily’s statue, but—well, it serves him right for being such a hot-headed ass. I do hope Lady Alice gets better soon, though. I don’t mind admitting that I feel rather a worm about that. You won’t tell anybody, will you, Angela?’ he said suddenly. ‘I’ve learned my lesson, and I promise I’ll be a good boy from now on.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Angela reluctantly, seeing that he was genuinely contrite. ‘But I shall be keeping an eye on you, and if I find out that you have been getting up to any more tricks I shall tell Marguerite about what you did.’

  ‘Thank you. Now that’s two things you have to blackmail me about,’ said Freddy, with a return to his usual good humour. ‘Tell me—when do I get to blackmail you?’

  ‘Never. I live a life of unparalleled virtue,’ said Angela. ‘Compared to you, at any rate,’ she added.

  Freddy pulled a face and went out. Angela followed him slowly, shaking her head. She was not at all sure that she had done the right thing in agreeing to keep quiet, but consoled herself when she saw Freddy making efforts to commiserate with Marguerite later, and heard him offer to write about the exhibition without mentioning either the possible prosecution for obscenity or the subsequent brawl. It was an empty gesture, she knew, since it would be difficult to prevent Cynthia from dwelling on it in gleeful detail in her society column; still, it showed that Freddy was sincere in his repentance—at least for the present.

  Angela went back up to London on Monday, and on Tuesday dined with Inspector Jameson, who frankly admitted that the case against Johnny Chang was looking very weak, since they had been unable to find any evidence of his having ever gone to Kent; moreover, one of the waiters at the Copernicus Club was almost sure that he had seen Johnny on one of the days in question, coming downstairs from his mother’s flat and into his own—although he would not swear to it.

  ‘I don’t like it at all,’ he said, ‘and I don’t mind telling you that I should rather let a murderer go free than hang the wrong man.’

  ‘Do you think you have got the wrong man, then?’ said Angela, who had been wondering how to approach the subject.

  The inspector sighed.

  ‘It’s a poser, I admit it,’ he said. ‘Of course, the affair between them means that he is far and away the most likely suspect, but there are so many things we still don’t know. Was he the only man Lita was meeting, for example? Nobody has been willing to give us any other names, but she must have come into contact with lots of men in her job at the club. And then there is the fact that we have very little information about her last few hours. If only we knew why she had gone down to Kent, and what she did when she got there. However,’ he went on, ‘to answer your question—although logic says Johnny Chang must have done it, I myself am not convinced of it. I never rely on my intuition, but I have often found it to be correct in the past.’

  ‘It’s a pity no handbag was found,’ said Angela, thinking. ‘There might have been a clue there. I wonder what happened to it. She must have had one at one time, since she was carrying no money or anything in her pockets. But yes,’ she went on. ‘I’m afraid I agree with you, inspector. I don’t think Johnny Chang did it either.’

  ‘Well, it’ll be a hell of a job trying to find out who did do it,’ said Jameson glumly.

  ‘What about her brother? Was he unable to help in any way? I assume she never told him about her men friends.’

  ‘No,’ said Jameson. ‘I think he preferred to know as little as possible about what his sister was getting up to, and she certainly never volunteered the information.’

  ‘What will happen to her son now?’

  ‘Bertie? I don’t know,’ said Jameson. ‘His grandmother and his mother are both dead, and his uncle is unable to spare the time to look after him. If he stays at home, I dare say he will have to learn to shift for himself—he must be eight or nine, and so is certainly old enough, although it is hard for a young lad to grow up without a mother.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Angela. ‘Poor things. Both of them, I mean. Lew and the boy,’ she explained in response to Inspector Jameson’s inquiring look.

  They finished dinner and left the restaurant, and the inspector escorted Angela to where William was waiting with the Bentley.

  ‘Mrs. Marchmont!’ came a call, and they turned to see a young woman wearing an enormous fur coat hurrying towards them.

  ‘Why, it’s Gertie!’ said Angela, as she recognized the girl.

  Gertie McAloon stopped somewhat breathlessly before her. She was looking very demure in comparison with the last time they had met, but this was easily explained when Angela saw the girl’s companions, a rather smart and stiff-looking man and woman, who stood some distance away regarding the little group with suspicion.

  ‘Oh, don’t mind them,’ said Gertie, when she saw Angela looking across at them. ‘It’s just Mother and Father. They brought me out this evening so I could show them that I can be trusted to behave myself. It’s all gone swimmingly well—why, I haven’t so much as smoked a cigarette or said “damn,” once. With any luck, I’ll be allowed out without them by Christmas. Listen, Angela, I haven’t had the chance to thank you for getting Walter and me out of prison the other week.’

  ‘Oh, pray, don’t mention it,’ said Angela, trying not to laugh at Inspector Jameson’s look of astonishment.

  ‘Angela sprang us, you know,’ said Gertie to the inspector, quite unabashed. ‘Neither of us had any money, and if Angela hadn’t come to the rescue we should still be in gaol now, quite probably.’

  ‘Indeed—er—Miss?’ said Jameson.

  ‘This is Lady Gertrude McAloon,’ said Angela. ‘Gertie, this is Inspector Jameson of Scotland Yard. I should be careful what you say if I were you.’

  ‘Oh, nonsense,’ said Gertie briskly. ‘Why, we’re all paid-up and square. You’ve got nothing on me, inspector.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Jameson, understanding. ‘You must be the young lady who had the little trouble at the Copernicus Club.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Gertie. ‘All jolly good fun, except for the night in prison, of course. That was rather a bore, but I might have got away with it if the magistrate hadn’t insisted on making me give my full name to all those reporters. I’d been rather hoping that Father wouldn’t find out. I always knew it was a silly name, but it sounds even more ridiculous when recited out loud in court. Lucrèce, indeed! She was a great-aunt of mine, you know. Apparently she was a mistress of Napoleon the Third, although I don’t know why they insisted on inflicting her name on me.’

  ‘Come along, Gertie, dear, or we shall be late,’ called the woman.

  ‘Just coming, Mother,’ said Gertie over her shoulder. ‘Well, thank you, anyway, Angela. I shan’t forget it.’

  She flashed Angela and Jameson a wicked and unrepentant grin and ran off.

  ‘Rather a lively young lady,’ remarked the inspector. ‘I shouldn’t like to have the charge of her, I must say.’

  Angela did not reply. She was staring after Gertie with a puzzled frown on her face.

  ‘What is it?’ said Jameson.

  She turned back to him, and Jameson was struck by her odd expression. Then she returned to herself and smiled.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘I just had the most extraordinary and disturbing thought, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh? About what?’

  She did not reply directly, but merely said, ‘I was thinking of something you said earlier. I wonder, now—’ she hesitated.

  ‘Do you have an idea about the murder?’ said Jameson.

  She appeared to come to a decision.

  ‘Look here, inspector,’ she said. ‘I should hate to waste your time by sending you on a ridiculous wild-goose chase. I’d like to do a little research on my own account first. May I call yo
u tomorrow if anything turns up?’

  ‘You’re not going to put yourself in danger, I hope?’ said the inspector in some alarm.

  ‘Oh, no, nothing like that,’ she assured him.

  ‘I seem to remember your saying the same to me during the Underwood House case. You nearly got killed, then, don’t you remember?’ he said.

  ‘I’d forgotten about that,’ said Angela with a guilty laugh. ‘But no—this time I shall just be taking a little trip to the Strand.’

  ‘And you will call me tomorrow?’

  ‘If I have anything to tell,’ she replied. ‘I’m almost certain I’m wrong, but there’s no harm in making sure.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Early the next morning Angela received a telephone-call from Cynthia Pilkington-Soames, who was still full of the events in Littlechurch and wanted to find out whether Angela could tell her anything more before she submitted her gossip column for that week to the Clarion. Angela wondered what Cynthia would say if she knew her own son had been behind the fiasco, but held her tongue.

  ‘Vassily’s been given thirty days,’ said Cynthia breathlessly. ‘Marguerite went along and pleaded his case, saying that they ought to make allowances for the artistic temperament, but the magistrate would have none of it. He merely said that if that was what the modern artistic temperament looked like, then perhaps a spell in prison would dampen it down a little; furthermore, if Mr. Constable was perfectly able to confine his artistic temperament to canvas without feeling the need to express it with his fists too, then he saw no reason why Vassily oughtn’t to be held to the same standards.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Angela. ‘How did Marguerite take it?’

  ‘She was upset, naturally, but she seems to think that the sentence will furnish Vassily with plenty of new material and inspiration, and spur him on to further heights of creativity. At least, that’s what she called out to him when they were leading him off to gaol. I’m not sure whether he was convinced, though.’

  ‘Poor Marguerite,’ said Angela. ‘I know she wanted her exhibition to attract attention, but I don’t suppose that was the sort she had in mind.’

  ‘Oh, but I quite forgot the other news,’ went on Cynthia excitedly. ‘Did you know that Gil Blakeney has run off?’

  ‘What?’ said Angela in surprise. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Nobody has seen him since Sunday. Lucy is tearing her hair out.’

  Angela felt a chill at her heart.

  ‘But are you quite sure he’s run off, and not just gone away on business or something, and forgotten to tell anybody?’ she said.

  ‘Oh, quite sure,’ said Cynthia. ‘He left a note, saying that he had to get away and that he was sorry to leave them all in the lurch, especially with his mother being so ill and all that, but he had felt for some time that he wasn’t good enough for Lucy and that he should bring her only misery. He said he was going away for a while to straighten things out in his mind, and that they shouldn’t try to look for him.’

  ‘I see. And don’t Herbert or Miles have any idea where he might have gone?’ said Angela.

  ‘None that they will admit to,’ said Cynthia in exasperation. ‘They are as thick as thieves, those two, and it’s no good trying to pry anything out of them when they want to keep it under their hats. Believe me, I’ve tried!’

  Angela listened in silence, thinking hard. She got rid of Cynthia as soon as was decently possible and called William, who presented himself promptly.

  ‘We are going to Somerset House this morning,’ said Angela, ‘although I have the feeling we may be too late.’

  ‘Too late, ma’am?’ inquired William.

  ‘Yes. If I am right in my supposition, then we have missed our chance.’ She saw the young man’s blank look and said, ‘Never mind. I shall explain all about it on the way, and you can help me look things up when we get there.’

  Some time later, Angela sat in the back seat of the Bentley as they returned home, struggling with conflicting emotions. On the one hand, it was gratifying to have been proved right, and to feel that there was something she could usefully do to help Inspector Jameson with his investigation; on the other hand, though, there was the fact of the thing she had found out—a fact that could only cause hurt to several, if not many people.

  ‘It’s a very unpleasant situation, William,’ she remarked. ‘I almost wish I hadn’t poked my nose into it now.’

  ‘No,’ said William emphatically, somewhat to her surprise. ‘You were right to do it, ma’am. Nobody deserves to die like she did—thrown aside like a piece of garbage as though she were of no importance. Don’t you think she deserved better? From what we found out this morning, it looks as though all she wanted to do was to try and make a comfortable life for herself and her son. Surely she had the right to do that? And then to be killed just because she was an inconvenience—it’s not fair.’

  ‘You are quite right,’ said Angela. ‘I oughtn’t to let myself be influenced by social conventions, but—well, one can’t help it at times. I shall telephone Inspector Jameson as soon as we get back.’

  She was as good as her word. Jameson listened to what she had to say in astonishment, then let out a long whistle at the other end of the line.

  ‘Good Lord!’ he exclaimed. ‘Why, that changes everything! But pardon me—are you quite sure?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Angela. ‘There’s no doubt of it. Lily Markham married Gilbert Blakeney in April 1918 at the Westminster Register Office.’

  ‘Then the boy is presumably his son,’ said Jameson.

  ‘According to his birth certificate, yes he is,’ said Angela. ‘His name is also Gilbert Blakeney.’

  ‘Bertie! Of course,’ said the inspector. ‘I wonder it didn’t occur to me at the time.’

  ‘But why should it?’ said Angela. ‘Gil was never a suspect as far as I am aware. But I have met him several times, as he is a friend of some friends of mine, and so it was easier for me to make the connection—at least once I knew that the little boy was known as Bertie. It always seemed strange to me that Lita should have been found down in Kent, where she had apparently no connections, especially since no evidence has ever been found of her having gone down there in company with Johnny Chang. But now, you see, we have a perfectly good reason for her having been in the area. She must have come to see Gil—it can’t possibly be a coincidence, surely.’

  ‘And so this Blakeney fellow is engaged to be married to another young lady?’

  ‘Yes, a Lucy Syms. It is considered by everybody concerned to be an eminently suitable match.’

  ‘Which naturally gives Blakeney a thumping motive to put his wife out of the way and try to pretend that the inconvenient first marriage never took place at all.’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ said Angela soberly.

  ‘I wonder why they parted so soon after the wedding,’ said Jameson.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Angela. ‘At any rate, for some reason she must have decided to communicate with him again quite recently.’

  ‘That must be what she meant when she talked about her prospects,’ said Jameson. ‘She must have gone down to Kent to claim her rightful position as his wife—or perhaps even to blackmail him. We may never know which. And so he killed her.’

  ‘That’s very much what it looks like,’ agreed Angela.

  ‘I shall call the Kent police immediately and have them issue a warrant for Gilbert Blakeney’s arrest,’ said the inspector. ‘We must act as quickly as possible.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Angela. ‘That was another thing I wanted to tell you. Apparently he’s gone missing.’

  ‘What?’

  She told him of the telephone-call she had received from Cynthia Pilkington-Soames that morning.

  ‘Naturally, there was no sense at all in reporting it to you until I was sure that it was something that you need worry about,’ she said hurriedly, ‘so I went to Somerset House to look at the documents as quickly as I could, and—well—I’m sorry to say I wa
s right.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry,’ he said. ‘You must remember that none of this is your fault, and that you may well have saved an innocent man from the noose. That is the most important thing.’

  This was true, but Angela felt it to be scant comfort just then in comparison with the blow that was about to fall on the Blakeneys, Lucy, and even Miles and Herbert.

  ‘I’m most awfully grateful to you for this,’ Jameson went on. ‘I must go now, but I shall let you know how things turn out. In the meantime, if you have any idea where Gilbert Blakeney might have gone—but perhaps it’s not fair to ask that of you, since he is by way of being a friend of yours.’

  But Angela was having none of it.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said firmly. ‘If I can report someone I know as a possible murderer, I’m hardly likely to baulk at telling you where he is if I happen to find it out.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jameson sincerely, and rang off, leaving Angela to her own uncomfortable thoughts. She went over to the window and looked out. It was a grey, gloomy day and the clouds were lowering, a state of affairs which matched her mood to perfection. There was no doubt that things looked very bad for Gilbert Blakeney, but she had enjoyed his hospitality at lunch only a few weeks ago, and it seemed terribly ungrateful to repay it with an arrest for murder. How would Lucy take it? Would she hide her feelings as usual, and arrange for the finest defence counsels in the land to plead his case? Or would the fact of his having been married and presumably kept it a secret from her prove too much and induce her to abandon him to his fate? Angela did not know. And what about Lady Alice? According to Cynthia, she was still very ill and barely even conscious half the time. Would they tell her what had befallen her only son, or would they deem it more of a kindness to keep it from her?

  Angela sighed and turned away from the window. She had no desire to spend the rest of the afternoon cooped up at home in company with her own reflections. Perhaps a turn in the fresh air would do her good. Accordingly, she went out and set off for the Park, intending to shake off her grim mood and guilty feelings with a brisk walk. It was chilly, so she walked quickly to warm up, and then slowed down so that she could observe what was going on around her. The place was busy with its usual complement of nursemaids, children, servants on their day out, flirting sweethearts and delivery-boys taking short-cuts, and Angela found some entertainment in watching their activities as she passed. Soon enough, she reached the Serpentine, and here her pace faltered, for to her surprise she spotted a figure she recognized: a large man with a bald head and a moustache, who was standing by the edge of the lake and gazing absently into the water.