“Good Lord,” said Harry, voice low. “Wonder how long this has been going on? In Mydworth no less!”
Kat pushed open the doors, Harry right behind her – but as she did, the woman turned and saw them.
“Carry on girls!” she called. “Chins up! Smile! Breathe! Stand tall!”
Then she hurried over, all dark hair, flashing eyes, and jewellery.
“Come in! Come in! Take a seat, please! Mothers always welcome!”
Kat stepped forward, then saw the woman step front of Harry, one hand gently resting on his chest, the air now drifting with heavy perfume.
“But no fathers, I’m afraid,” she said, in Kat’s opinion, rather coyly. “Ladies only, I must insist. Perhaps father can divert himself with a stroll around the lovely market until the class is over?”
Kat smiled sweetly at Harry. “I’m sure my husband completely understands. Don’t you, darling?”
“But of course,” said Harry. “I can be very good at diverting myself. See you downstairs, darling.”
Kat watched him bow slightly then retreat through the double doors. She turned back to the woman.
“Welcome to the De Souza Travelling Academy of Dance and the Dramatic Arts!”
*
Harry sauntered down the marble steps of the Town Hall, then leaned against one of the pillars in the reception area, wondering what to actually do while Kat checked out the dance academy.
“Talented young things, aren’t they?” came a man’s voice from behind him.
He turned, to see a short, wiry man – late twenties perhaps – with a waxed moustache, in a pinstripe suit and sharp shoes.
“Beg your pardon?” said Harry.
The man came closer.
“Upstairs,” he said. “The young dancers. All that… enthusiasm too.”
“Ah yes,” said Harry. “Very talented.”
“She kick you out, did she?” said the man, nodding to the rooms above.
“She did,” said Harry. “My wife was given leave to remain, but I…”
“Constanza doesn’t hold with any chaps hanging around. Can’t say I blame her. Men, you know? Makes sense.”
“Constanza?”
“De Souza. Lady what runs the academy.”
“Ah. You know her?”
“Do I,” said the man. He handed Harry a business card which Harry took and read: Oliver Pleasance. Talent Scout. Affiliated to The Grosvenor Talent Agency, London W1.
“Nice to meet you, Oliver.” Harry did a quick edit to his next words. “Harry Mortimer.”
“Pleased to meet you too, Harry. Smoke?”
Harry saw him slip a silver cigarette case from his jacket pocket and proffer it. “No thanks, I don’t indulge.”
He waited while the man flicked a petrol lighter and lit the cigarette.
“What’s the game then?” said Pleasance. “Got a young ’un of your own that you want to get rid of on a Saturday morning, eh? Maybe… give you and the wife a bit of a lie in?”
Harry stared for a second, then – since the response appeared to be expected – he laughed.
Little humouring of the oily character here might go a long way, he thought.
“Ha, not exactly. But I suppose that’s how it works for some is it?”
“Tell me about it! Gets the kids out the house for a couple of hours, you see. Keeps a marriage sweet, that does. Or survivable, at least. Not that I’d know. No trouble and strife for me!”
“Lucky chap!” said Harry, keeping up the “boys together” act. “What brings you down here though?”
“Part of the circuit, Harry.”
“Circuit?”
“There’s dance academies all over the country these days. Kids go to the talkies, see them glamour girls up on the silver screen, can’t stop ’em signing up for lessons. All got stars in their eyes.”
“Ah, I see. They think they can make it big, eh?”
“Too right,” said Pleasance. Then a look of caution – and he said, “And for some, well, you never know.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes, I’ve seen it happen. If they got real talent – and they’re hard workers – ‘sky’s the limit’, I always say.”
He took a puff of his cigarette.
“Tricky for a girl here though, surely? Mydworth’s hardly New York!”
“True. But, see, that’s where I come in, Harry old boy. I spot the ones with the nous – I get ’em up to town, see an agent. He puts ’em in a show, like a try-out, and if they do well, everybody’s happy and the world goes round.”
“And you get a commission?”
“Spot on. Finder’s fee. Chap’s gotta earn a decent crust.”
“Of course,” said Harry, smiling at the man. “You ever have any luck round here?”
“Now and then. Sent one or two girls on the ‘path to glory’ as I call it.”
“How amazing. From Mydworth!”
“Who knows? Might see ’em up there with Fred Astaire one day!”
“I’ll look out for them!”
Pleasance looked at Harry as if trying to gauge whether he was serious.
“So, like I said, what’s your game then?” said Pleasance. “If you haven’t got a daughter who wants to learn the Charleston?”
“Me?” said Harry, thinking fast. “Oh, well, my wife, she’s actually looking for dance lessons. For me too, I fear. Says I’m a bit of a fuddy-duddy on the dance floor.”
“Ha, well good luck, mate. These new crazes… gotta be fitter than a butcher’s dog the way they jump around!”
Harry laughed and whacked him on the shoulder, playing his role. “Exactly my fear!”
Then he heard footsteps coming down the stairs.
“Ah, I fancy that’s her,” he said. “Better scoot.”
“Me too,” said Pleasance. “Grab myself a nice pork pie off one of them stalls for my breakfast.”
“Good chatting to you, Oliver. Maybe see you again soon?”
“Righto, old chap. Look forward to it, Harry,” said Pleasance.
In fact, I’m pretty certain I will, thought Harry as he watched the man head out through the doors into the square.
He turned as Kat reached the bottom of the stairs.
“Any luck?” he said.
“Nothing really,” said Kat, shrugging. “Constanza claims to know nothing at all about Lizzie’s trip to London. But, listening to her, I’m thinking she’s not telling the whole truth.”
“You know, that might make sense. I’ve just had a very interesting little talk down here. A talent scout. Supposedly. How about I tell you all about it on the way?”
“Can’t wait,” said Kat.
And together they walked out of the Town Hall, down the steps into Market Square.
Halfway across the square, as they threaded their way through the busy stalls, Harry felt Kat’s hand on his arm.
“Don’t look round for a second Harry,” she said.
“What is it?” He knew she’d spotted something important.
She moved to one of the stalls selling jars of honey and jam, feigning an interest.
He moved closer to her.
“What is it?” he said.
“Over by that hardware store, in the doorway,” she said, holding up a jar as if for him to inspect.
He casually took the jar, read its label, smiled, put it back on the counter, then glanced across at the old ironmonger’s shop, thirty yards away.
There, in the shadow of the canopy over the windows, stood a man, hat pulled down over his face, watching them.
Aubrey Spence.
“I thought I saw him earlier,” said Kat. “But I wasn’t sure.”
“It’s him all right,” said Harry. “Curious.”
“Very,” said Kat.
She took his arm and they headed back to the Dower House and their car, all packed and ready for London.
4. Pied-à-Terre
Kat looked out the window as the narrow roads of the countrys
ide gave way to larger roads, and finally the streets of London.
“On your left – Waterloo Station,” said Harry, as they emerged from one of his shortcuts onto a wide street lined by tall railway arches and soot-blackened buildings.
“Wow! I thought Manhattan was busy.”
Kat held tight as Harry threaded the Alvis through the traffic. Cars and noisy motorbikes edged past trucks making deliveries. Red trams and buses crammed tight with passengers, shared the road with boys pushing handcarts, and men in horse-drawn carriages with full crates of leafy produce in the back.
On the pavements, a jostling crowd of Saturday workers and shoppers spilled onto the streets. And on every surface – the sides of buses, buildings and trams – were placards, adverts and posters.
“I know,” Harry said, as he accelerated onto Waterloo Bridge, “that you’ve spent time in Paris, Istanbul and even a stint in Berlin, but this city is going to be pretty special.”
“Already is,” she said, not knowing which way to look as they crossed the Thames. To one side, in the distance, she could see St Paul’s Cathedral, with its marble-white dome.
“Houses of Parliament, t’other way,” said Harry, nodding to her left.
“And your office?”
“’Fraid you won’t see it from here. Tucked round the back of the War Office, behind those big buildings there.”
Kat’s eye was drawn to the river, bustling with traffic: motor boats, barges, cargo boats, ships docking, cranes at work.
“And just there,” said Harry, pointing as they headed towards the Strand, “most important… the Savoy Hotel. Oh, you’ll love the bar.”
“Can’t wait,” said Kat, overwhelmed by all these famous landmarks.
“Drury Lane,” said Harry as they came off the bridge and the street narrowed.
“I’ve heard of it,” said Kat. “Didn’t know it was real.”
“Oh, it’s real all right,” said Harry, flicking the car through a quick left and a right to avoid traffic jams.
With the window open, Kat heard music, a violin, the tune cutting the noise and bustle of the crowded streets.
“Look there,” she said. “That musician.”
“He’s just trying to pick up a few bob from passers-by. See a lot of that these days. Ah – nearly there.”
Harry turned the steering wheel of their sporty Alvis and went down the tightest of streets, before taking another sharp turn.
Kat saw a mammoth building straight ahead.
“And what is that?”
“Oh, that old thing? Just the British Museum. All the world’s treasures, you know. The loot of an empire. We must put a visit there into our diary. I mean,” he turned to her, “even in the Cairo Museum, I doubt that they have as many mummies as that place does.”
He turned back.
“And I thought our Museum of Natural History was big,” she said.
“Ah, here we are,” said Harry. “One more turn. Have you at our little flat in a jiffy.”
Our little flat, Kat thought. Their getaway apartment in London.
Now that was something.
“You’re going to love it,” Harry said, favouring her with a smile as they passed through a great square with wooded gardens in its centre. “Welcome to Bloomsbury.”
This whole city, with its lettered and numbered sections – so orderly – and the quaint names that she knew of only from books: Mayfair, Soho, Notting Hill, Shepherd’s Bush.
Love it?
She already did.
*
Harry pulled up beside a long terrace of tall, perfectly matched red-brick apartment blocks. The stone trims of the windows and doors were painted a brilliant white; and the steps leading up to those doors were accompanied by a long-spiked metal railing.
“Our flat is here?”
“Yes. Nothing too flashy, of course. Six floors – we’re on the first. What you Americans call the second floor of course. But it does have a lift.”
“Think we’ll manage the climb without that. Did I ever tell you about that apartment I had in the Lower East Side? Just a sub-let for a few—”
“Sub what? Oh – imagine you mean a short let?”
She laughed. Funny this game they had of using terms that the other didn’t have a clue about.
All kind of fun.
“Right. I was just, you know, renting for a few months. Five-storey walkup, it was called.’
“Ah, that’s where you got so fit.”
“Hated those stairs. But loved the apartment.”
Harry killed the ignition, and climbed out.
“Time for Lady Mortimer to inspect the premises. We’ll come back for the bags.”
Kat opened her door, and stepped onto the pavement. Down the street, a woman was using some kind of brambly broom to sweep the sidewalk.
Sweeping it like it’s a carpet, Kat thought.
And she followed Harry up the spotless tiled steps as he got out a key to open the front door.
*
Harry pulled the grating of the tiny lift closed and fastened it shut.
“You know,” Kat said, “we could have just walked up.”
“And miss all the excitement in here? The ride up? Besides, you need to know how to operate this contraption. See, won’t work unless this gate is latched, then you just hit the button like this and—”
“Harry, if you remember… I have lived in buildings with elevators.”
“Yes, right. Well, voila. Up we go.”
The lift shook and Harry felt Kat tumble into him.
This city, the flat, the time we’ll spend here… So looking forward to showing her, thought Harry.
Hopefully to be as much a part of their life as Mydworth.
He looked at her. Inches away. Perfect time for a kiss, he thought.
As the lift reached the first floor, someone stood waiting: a woman in a grey hat that looked like a stack of pancakes, topped with a faux faded rose; her face looking as rumpled as her hat. A matching grey skirt and jacket, and formidable shoes – ladies’ brogues – completed the look.
Her eyes glowered as if her wait for the lift had been caused by them.
So, all in all, maybe a good thing he hadn’t stolen that kiss.
One can risk only so much opprobrium.
With the lady looking on, he undid the gate and they stepped out, squeezing past the bulldog of a woman.
“Good afternoon, madam,” he said to her, full-on charm.
“Hmmph,” she said, stepping into the lift and sliding the metal grates shut.
“We’re this way,” he said to Kat, both of them trying not to giggle, as the woman gave them one last withering look before she disappeared en route to the ground floor, and Harry took Kat to the door of their London pied-à-terre.
*
Kat walked into the apartment, expecting a tight corridor, a tiny sitting room, and a small kitchen and bedroom nearby.
But this was something else.
The entry foyer was open – spacious – with a vase of flowers on a small table by the door. The wide corridor ahead led to a sitting room facing the street below.
She walked directly to that room and took it in: its curve of nearly ceiling-high windows, sheer curtains letting in light while preserving privacy, hardwood floor, Turkish rugs, sleek furniture. At one end, a fireplace and sofas – at the other, a dining table.
Modern art on the walls. Abstracts. In a corner, a small cocktail bar and a gramophone-radio.
She turned to Harry.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Think it will do at a pinch?”
“I’ll say.”
Then she walked into a small kitchen. Not a place to prepare a meal for a lot of guests, but certainly serviceable for the two of them.
“Oh,” Harry said, standing by the windows, backlit by the afternoon sun. “Actually, it has a bedroom, too, you know.”
Striding past Harry, noting his cheeky grin, she entered the bedroom, the be
d topped with a shiny, Asian-themed purple coverlet. An Art Deco dressing table and mirror stood to one side, and the en suite WC to the other.
“Harry. This place…”
“Pass muster?”
“I love it. But I have a few questions.”
“I’m all answers.”
“You had this furnished all by yourself?”
“Suppose I did, really. Put it together over the years. Bit of help from a local decorator to freshen up the place a few months back. And, yes, while I was still away, Maggie popped up to town, checked things over for me.”
Kat wasn’t surprised that Harry’s housekeeper took an interest in the place.
“And the flowers?”
“Oh, these buildings, the flats, all have a handy ‘madame’ to attend to regular cleaning, accepting packages, tending to things like the need for roses and daffodils. Just have to ring ahead.”
Then Kat had another thought.
A very different kind of question.
“Harry, you’ve had this pied-à-terre a long time?”
“Been in the family for years. Aunt Lavinia used to live here, and then, you know, when my parents died she moved down to Mydworth Manor, to look after me. Then, after the war, she was pretty settled down in Sussex so I took over the lease. Handy for the office, you know?”
“Not what I meant,” she said.
And at that, she saw a cautious look cross Harry’s face.
“Okay, what then, Lady Mortimer?”
“You having this flat – I mean when you were younger. While you were working at the Foreign Office. Ever use it for—”
“Ah, said the fox. You mean, did I ever, in my wild London days, lure someone up here, perhaps for a spot of brandy…?”
“And whatever?”
Harry crossed the room.
“Well, excellent question, my dear. Very sharp. I can report, with total confidence, that I have only brought one female up here with any thought of a brandy and – who knows.” He paused, raising a hand to her cheek. “And that person, is you.”
Tour over, things to be done, it was Kat who leaned close and kissed her ever-surprising husband.
*
Harry sat down at the dining-room table, with its leaves now folded down – a perfect table for two.
Mydworth Mysteries--London Calling! Page 3
