The Corpse at the Crystal Palace

by Carola Dunn

  “How nice.”

  “Nice! It’s revolutionary. Think of—”

  “Phil, you could spend the rest of the day explaining and I daresay I still wouldn’t have a clue why you’re excited about it. Remember ‘nature study’ was the only science we had at school.”

  “Nature study! That’s not science. I suppose you were learning to pour tea properly instead. Yes, thanks, I’ll have another cup. And boys’ schools teach Latin and Greek instead of physics and chemistry. Just think how advanced we’d be if—”

  “Please, Phil, another time. You claimed to be in a hurry to get to Bristol, and I’m dying to know what you found out at your club.”

  “Oh, well, it wasn’t all that much, really. Some of the fellows were playing billiards and someone started talking about Teddy Devenish, wondering whether his heirs would be selling his car for a song, wanting to get rid of it.”

  “How callous!”

  “It is the RAC, you know, old dear. All the fellows are frightfully keen on cars or they wouldn’t be members, and Teddy’s was a 1927 Mercedes-Benz S-Type Sportwagen with a supercharger clutch and—”

  “Phil!”

  “Oh, sorry. Anyway, they were calling him ‘poor devil’ so they weren’t completely callous. Though none of them sounded as if they liked him much, I must say. He was always kicking up larks—Well,” Phillip said tolerantly, “all young fellows do, and of course, it goes without saying, there were plenty to egg him on. No one ever proposed a bet he didn’t accept, I gather. The thing is, he always managed to do it in a way that caused the most inconvenience to everyone else.”

  “Such as?”

  “They were all laughing about the time he set loose half a dozen monkeys in Harrods. He put numbered collars on them, but left out number one, so even once they’d collared the lot, they thought one was missing.”

  “I did hear something about that, though I didn’t know it was Teddy.” Daisy tried not to giggle. “It must have been pretty funny.”

  “I daresay, if he hadn’t picked the week before Christmas, when everyone’s doing their Christmas shopping. Lots of customers left to shop elsewhere. It must have been quite a big loss for Harrods.”

  “All the same, if that’s the worst they had to say—”

  “Not by a long shot. One of the chaps blamed him for leading this other young fellow astray.”

  “Which young fellow?”

  “Ricky, they called him. Not a member, I gathered. Not anyone I know. One of the chaps was a great pal of his older brother, Lord Somebody, it seems. And at one time Devenish used to bring him—the younger brother—to the club now and then, so several of them were acquainted with him.”

  “Ricky? Is that his surname?”

  “I don’t believe so. A lot of the young chaps call each other by ridiculous nicknames. I don’t know what the world’s coming to.”

  “If it never comes to anything worse than that,” Daisy said pointedly, “it’ll be in good shape. But what was Ricky’s surname?”

  “I never heard it, and I didn’t care to ask. Thought Fletcher wouldn’t be any too pleased with me if I let on I was interested.”

  “Nor his brother’s title, I take it.”

  “I’ve forgotten,” Phillip apologised. “It was something very ordinary and it didn’t stick in my head.”

  “Too full of automotive glass, I suppose. Blast! Ricky sounds like a good candidate. Did they say in what way Teddy led Ricky astray?”

  “It seems to have started with gambling. First the gees, then when he lost, lent him a bit and suggested he could pay it back by winning big on the illegal stuff.”

  “Of course he lost.”

  “Of course. All those games are rigged. Beats me how anyone can expect to beat the house. If he’d been a gentleman, Devenish would have told him to forget the debt and stay away from both the tables and the horses. Instead— Mind you, old thing, I’m just putting all this together from snippets I overheard. Don’t go telling Fletcher it’s gospel.”

  “I won’t, Phil. But do go on, it’s fascinating in a morbid sort of way and it fits to a T what I know of Teddy.”

  “It does? No wonder someone bumped him off.”

  “He must have had a down on poor Ricky for some slight, very likely imaginary. Getting even for things most people would barely notice seems to have been his modus operandi.”

  “I thought your education excluded Latin,” Phillip said suspiciously, “as well as maths and science.”

  “It did. That’s just one of those phrases one hears. Go on, about Teddy and Ricky.”

  “Ricky got to the point where he moved out of his rooms and into a cheap lodging house. Even so, he had to hock anything worth a few pounds, including his best clothes. He’d been a medical student, but he dropped out when he couldn’t afford the fees, and without decent clothes he couldn’t get a decent job. Devenish found him some sort of job to tide him over, so that he could redeem his togs and look about for something better.”

  “Did they happen to mention what the job was?”

  “I gather Devenish was very secretive about it, wouldn’t drop a hint.”

  “I suspect I know, then.” By this time Daisy was convinced “Ricky” was Miss Fanshawe’s Ray Richmond, alias Mr. hyphen-Clark. Richard something-Clark, she presumed. “I must say, Phil, you’re making a beautifully dramatic story out of your few overheard snippets. I never knew you had such narrative skills.”

  “Yes, well, I was thinking about it on the drive up from Sunderland, putting it all together, because I knew you’d want to know as soon as I got back.”

  “How right you were, except that Alec wanted to know the day before yesterday. Did you gather whether Ricky appealed to his family for help?”

  “No, but he’d worn out his welcome among his friends, having never repaid the odd fiver, so I daresay it was the same with the family.”

  “Very likely. Besides, if he was very down-at-heel, he was probably ashamed to go home or to approach his friends in person, and a begging letter never goes down well. I suppose with so much to gossip about, no one said anything about his being an athletic type.”

  “As a matter of fact, they did. One of the fellows said Ricky was hopeless at billiards, which was odd because he was a demon at squash.”

  “It all fits together.” Daisy frowned in thought. “He’s Mr. hyphen-Clark all right. But it doesn’t answer the main question.”

  “Mr. what?” asked Phillip, baffled.

  “Mr. hyphen-Clark. It’s all we have—all Alec has of the name of a suspect. One of many, however. Still, it should help them find him. Do have some more shortbread and another cup of tea?”

  “Yes please. Dash it, old girl, the fellow can’t be a murderer. He’s a gentleman even if he’s on his uppers. He’ll be a lord when his brother dies.”

  “Really, Phil, you are naïve!”

  The comment provoked a childish squabble that took Daisy back to the days when Phillip was her big brother’s best friend and tried to lord it over her on the basis of his five years’ advantage.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Early as Alec reached Scotland Yard that morning, he found Ernie Piper already at work. He had prepared a list of people who ought to be interviewed a second time, neatly divided into groups according to their whereabouts, with suggestions as to which of the available sergeants should tackle each group.

  “I wasn’t sure, Chief, whether you’d want me to take on some of them or stay here and keep track of stuff as it comes in.”

  “On the whole, you’re more valuable here, Ernie, but as DI Mackinnon has vanished into the wilds of Yorkshire, I want you to come with me to see the Russians again. We should catch them if we go just after lunch, don’t you think? I’ll brief the men now, and then I’ve got some thinking to do. Send for coffee, will you?”

  “Right, Chief.”

  While waiting, he glanced through Ernie’s lists of names, discussed a few with him, and approved his suggestions. Coffee
and several detective sergeants arrived at the same moment.

  “You all know by now what we’re looking for,” he said as Ernie distributed their lists, which included brief descriptions of what was known of all those on them. “All these people have been checked once and picked out for a second visit. If you receive any information you consider significant, report by telephone immediately after the interview. Speak to Piper if he’s here—he and I will be out for a while but in his absence a shorthand typist will be on duty. Is anything not clear?”

  He answered a couple of questions and sent them on their way, then settled at his desk with lukewarm coffee and copies of all Ernie’s files. Knowing the way he worked, Ernie had sorted them into three sets, labelled “possible,” “maybe,” and “unlikely.” The third was the most numerous, Alec was glad to see. He started going through those, hoping as always to knock suspects off his list.

  Happily, he was able to set three-quarters aside and add a few from the second set, to be returned to as a last resort. He was halfway through the third pile when Ernie brought him a couple of sandwiches and yet another cup of coffee.

  With a sigh, Alec pushed back his chair and stretched. “I don’t believe I have ever in my life come across anyone who made so many people’s blood boil.”

  “Dunno that I’ve ever come across anyone who seemingly set out on purpose to make people’s blood boil.”

  “And was by all accounts hugely successful. No, no one over the age of fifteen or so. There are plenty who don’t care whom they upset, but that’s another matter. What’s this?” He started unfolding waxed paper. “The canteen’s best cheese and pickle?”

  “I sent out, Chief. Best roast beef and plenty of it. It’s still raining. Shall I order a car to go to the Russkis?”

  “If you brought your raincoat, we’ll walk. It’s not far and I need to stretch my legs.”

  * * *

  When they reached the shop, the OPEN sign was in the window. They stepped inside out of the rain, the bell announcing their arrival.

  Its clangour went unanswered.

  For a nasty moment, Alec thought he had guessed wrong and the Zverevs, with or without Petrov, had skipped. They could hope to submerge themselves in the reclusive community of Russian exiles, or even go abroad where they undoubtedly had friends. Their pockets full of gems, they would be welcomed anywhere.

  On the other hand, with an elderly invalid travel would be difficult at best, perhaps impossible, and they must realise that if they lay low in England the police would find them sooner or later. Besides, they would hardly have hung out the OPEN sign and left the door unlocked if they had fled.

  They waited a few minutes, then, at a nod from Alec, Ernie opened and closed the door again, setting off the summons of the bell.

  This time it had immediate effect. One of the maidservants instantly popped through the curtained doorway. “I’m ever so sorry to keep you waiting, sir,” she said breathlessly. “Miss called me upstairs for a minute just when the bell rung the first time and I didn’t know which to answer so I goes up and tells ’er and she sends me down and then you rung again. I been watching the shop, see, ’cause Miss is looking after the master, poor ol’ man! His friend died last night and ’e’s took to ’is bed with the doctor.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Oh, he was ever so old, even older than the master. Wait half a mo’. I forgot to switch on the light. Be forgetting me own ’ead next! There, that’s better. Oh, it’s you, sir! The copper what come round before.”

  “It’s Nancy, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right. I’m to ask what you want and go tell Miss.”

  “I want to talk to her. And Sergeant Piper here wants to talk to you, so you can stay here and have a word with him while I go up to Miss Zvereva. I’d rather not ask her to come down when she’s busy.” Without further ado, Alec went through to the back room.

  It was in a state of chaos that suggested the prince’s confinement to his bed had been seized on as an opportunity for spring cleaning. Nancy had not been idle while waiting for the bell to ring. Alec stepped over a rolled rug and made for the stairs.

  Miss Zvereva stood on the small landing at the top of the flight, her back to the light. He couldn’t make out her expression, but her voice enlightened him as to her feelings.

  “Again you! What you want now? You know my father ill?”

  “Nancy told me. I’m sorry.”

  “Bah!”

  “I shall not disturb him.” He recalled the difficulty of getting the cripple up and down stairs. “His bedroom is on this floor? Come down and talk to me below.”

  “‘Talk to me.’ Always ‘talk to me.’ Everything I have said already.”

  “No, you haven’t. You are concealing something. Come down.”

  “‘Concealing’?”

  “Hiding.”

  “I have tell you all that is your business.”

  “You will have to let me be the judge of that.” Alec turned and descended the stairs. Behind him, he heard slow, reluctant footsteps.

  At the bottom, he waited to hand her down the last step. She almost refused the courteous gesture but at the last moment thought better of it and laid her hand lightly on his arm, for just a second. Then she swept past him and went to the ever-steaming samovar.

  “You will drink tea.”

  “Thank you.”

  She was an extraordinary creature, tall, elegant, self-possessed. Alec found it hard to believe that, barely out of girlhood, she had undergone the terrible flight from Russia and the harrowing odyssey from country to country with an ailing father, losing her mother en route.

  Her survival proved her strength of mind. Whether the experience had hardened her—to the point of committing murder without turning a hair—he couldn’t be sure.

  Her back to him, she said, “What you want to ask me?”

  “Please come and sit down.” He retrieved a couple of seat cushions from a corner and replaced them on the recently brushed-down chairs.

  “One moment.”

  The samovar gurgled. Outside, rain gurgled in the gutters and pattered on the paving. Through the gloom shone the lights in the goldsmith’s workshop. Petrov was at home. He was, of course, the next target.

  Miss Zvereva handed him a glass of tea and waved him to a chair. She hesitated before seating herself in the other. “I am ready.”

  “Tell me about Teddy Devenish.”

  Exasperation exploded from her. “I have told all I know! And more—I have told what I think about him.”

  “Tell me again. From the moment you met him. No, let’s start before that. Had you ever heard his name mentioned?”

  “If I hear, I not remembered.”

  “All right, your first meeting.”

  She repeated the story of the tiepin and her unwillingness to set the large stone he wanted. “I do not say is vulgar. One does not speak so to customer. I tell him is not fashion in present, and he say he will set fashion. He does—did—not appear angry, but now I believe was then he decide to pretend he is in love.”

  “Why? What makes you think he was not sincere right from the beginning?”

  She shrugged. “‘Intution’ is word?”

  “Intuition.”

  “Da. I feel it. Also, later is no reason for change. Fall in love, fall out love, is possible. To change from love to … to…”

  “Spite.”

  “To spite, this is not natural.”

  Alec was far from certain that it was not natural for Teddy Devenish. If apparently genuine admiration could turn to spite, why not love? He found it hard to fathom a mind that could spend a good deal of money on works of art and then turn on the artists and wreck their current work.

  However, his job was to fathom that mind only to the extent that it suggested the proximate motive of his murderer. Even that was not essential to the case, but it was necessary to an investigation more often than not.

  Motive was not hard to
find in this investigation, however. The wonder was that no one had bumped Teddy off sooner. The trouble was that too many people had motives.

  Alec’s brief silence while he pondered did not stampede Miss Zvereva into inconsidered speech.

  “How did you feel when you realised his courtship was a sham, a pretence?”

  “Much relief, like I tell you before. I dislike. Father wants me to marry. Is not so easy in Russian culture for daughter to disobey father’s wish. So I am happy that Teddy does not want to marry me.”

  “And your father?”

  “He is blaming me more than Teddy. If you ask hundred times, will be always same answer, because is truth.”

  “All right.” Alec dropped that line for the present. “Tell me about Mr. Clark. He was a friend of Teddy Devenish?”

  “Clark?” She was startled. “Teddy introduce him. He comes … came again with Teddy, only one time more, I think.”

  “He came only twice? Two times?”

  “Only twice with Teddy. Then Teddy stop to come. Mr. Clark came few more times.”

  “You didn’t mention this before.”

  “I forget. Is not memorable person.”

  Petrov had used the same word, Alec recalled. “His last name is Clark. With or without a final E, do you know?”

  She shook her head. “Never I see in writing.”

  “His other names?”

  “Always I call him Mr. Clark. My maid announce him as Mr. Clark and Teddy call him Clark.”

  What on earth could the man’s name be that was so elusive? “Please describe him,” Alec requested.

  “Is difficult. You look, you see English gentleman, not … I forget correct word.”

  “Individual?”

  “Da. See gentleman, see good clothes—very proper but old, fair hair, good manners. Thin, not fat. Not tall, only medium, but holds self very straight. Face is … ordinary.”

  “Colour of eyes?”

  “Grey, I think. Maybe blue.”

  “Moustache? Beard?”

  “Not either. No hairs on face.”

  “Age?”

  “Young. I make guess: twenty-one, twenty-two. Younger than Teddy.”

  “He went on calling after Devenish stopped?”