1 Murder Offstage Read online

  But as she struggled to remember what it might be, she drifted off on a wave of blissful, welcome, long-overdue sleep.

  ****

  Wednesday 16th February, 1921

  Eleven

  Grey morning light filtered into the office, and Posie woke blearily, stiff as a board in front of the cold, extinguished fire. A flurry of snowy hail smattered against the window.

  The office clock showed it was eight a.m., and Posie rustled to her feet, still wearing the red mousseline dress from the night before. She picked up her work clothes from the back of her chair and headed off to the little bathroom to change. She felt grimy and tired, and she was longing for a hot bath, but she made do with splashing her face with ice-cold water and Pears’ soap in the tiny cracked basin.

  Len was singing in the kitchen, and passing by, Posie saw him making tea. He grinned at her and passed her a mug, leaning back companionably against the green melamine counter-top.

  ‘Good morning!’

  ‘So you’ve forgiven me then, have you, for selling the story last night to the nincompoop? You ought to watch it, you know; you’re turning into Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.’

  Len shrugged. ‘I’m sorry. I guess I was tired. And I figure you must have your reasons. You’ve never been wrong yet.’

  The strength of the sweet tea seemed to revive them both, and Posie was just turning to leave when she remembered:

  ‘Where’s Mr Minks? It’s not like him to miss reminding me it’s breakfast time.’ She strode over to the tattered velvet curtains he liked climbing in and shook them, as if he might have hidden himself in their folds.

  ‘I thought he was in with you last night,’ said Len, frowning anxiously. He cared more about the cat than he would admit to anyone.

  That was what had been wrong last night, Posie realised with horror. The office just wasn’t the same without Mr Minks. And he had been missing, even then.

  They looked at each other in slow-dawning panic, before running in opposite directions. They searched all over, which didn’t take long – the three little offices, the waiting room, the kitchen, the landing and its tiny bathroom. Len ran up and down the stairs several times, Posie hammered on the door of the office downstairs and she searched the ground-floor entrance hall to the building. But no-one had seen the cat.

  Back upstairs they started all over again. Cupboards and drawers and even the fireplaces were searched frantically.

  ‘What if he got out on the window-ledge looking for a piece of chicken and fell off?’ Posie voiced quietly, trying to disguise the tremor in her voice that was breaking through.

  ‘Impossible,’ said Len, hauling up the sash window and gulping at the huge drop. ‘We’re always careful never to leave any windows open. It’s the rule here. Two years and we’ve never had a problem. Mr Minks would never stray anywhere, he knows he has it too good here. What changed?’

  Just then a terrible thought entered both their minds. Babe.

  As if on cue, Babe could be heard fumbling at the office front door, jangling her key in the lock. They darted out into the waiting room and stared at her accusingly. She turned and looked at them with a big-eyed stare, then smiled uncertainly.

  ‘I picked up these for you downstairs, off the mat, just now. One’s a hand-delivery. Say, is something kinda wrong with you all? Gee, I’m not late, am I?’

  Posie grabbed the two envelopes without really looking, never taking her eyes off the girl’s face:

  ‘Mr Minks is missing,’ she said levelly. ‘Do you know anything about it, Babe? And you’d better tell me the truth. You locked up yesterday. Did you leave any windows open when you left? Have you anything unusual to report?’

  Babe stared at both of them, and shook her head, but for a brief second a high pink colour flushed her face. Then she burst into tears, sobbing uncontrollably. Posie sighed, and Len uncrossed his arms and went across to pat the secretary on the shoulder.

  Either this girl is a very good actress, Posie thought wearily, or else she really doesn’t know what’s happened to the cat. What was it with actresses and the theatre at the moment? They seemed to be surrounding her.

  Posie ripped open the first envelope. It was a telegram from Inspector Lovelace informing her there would be a formal Inquest into Lucy Gibson’s death at eleven o’clock at Victoria, and their attendance was required, as they had been the first people to find the body. He went on to say that Inspector Oats had re-arrested Rufus and that he was being held in the cells again at Scotland Yard, on very tenuous grounds. Posie was so wrapped up in thinking about this terrible latest piece of news that she was halfway through automatically ripping open the second, hand-delivered letter when Len stopped her with a panicked shout:

  ‘Wait! Stop! What do you notice?’

  Posie looked down at the envelope. It was blue, cheap, like tissue paper. It was addressed to her in exactly the same hand as yesterday’s letter.

  ‘Oh my goodness. It’s from Lucky Lucy!’

  She pulled out a single folded sheet of blue paper, but before she could open it a wad of pale and silky cream-and-brown Siamese cat hair slipped out, falling to the floor in shimmering strands. Babe yelped, and Posie felt a fist of fear grabbing at her throat, tears pricking her eyes.

  ‘Oh Mr Minks! Oh no!’

  Len was on the floor gathering up the cat hair, his mouth set in a grim line.

  ‘Read the letter,’ he said quietly. Posie read aloud:

  Dear Miss Parker,

  I warned you someone would get hurt if you didn’t butt out. I have the cat, as you can see. It’s safe for now, if a little bald in places.

  Drop the whole case and the cat will be returned to you unharmed. To indicate acceptance, wear a yellow rose in your buttonhole today where I can clearly see it. If not, accept the consequences. This is only the first bad thing to happen to you: it will get worse, I promise you.

  Yours,

  LL

  Posie sunk down on the visitors’ couch. She put her head in her hands. When she looked up she saw Len was opposite her, looking worried. He was more shaken than he was letting on. Babe was nervously pulling at a large and shiny amber choker around her neck, twisting it over and over. Posie ignored her.

  ‘Something doesn’t add up,’ she said at last, irritably. ‘Dead girls don’t write letters about missing cats.’

  ‘She wrote it before she died, obviously,’ Len snapped. ‘Thing is, where did she hide Mr Minks? There was no sign of a cat, dead or alive, in that wretched nightclub yesterday. Maybe whoever killed her killed the cat too?’

  ‘No, no, that’s not the problem. Lucy was dead as a doornail late last night. Remember? But this letter was hand-delivered just now. Both you and I went up and down the stairs earlier this morning, and there were no letters on the mat downstairs in the hall at all. So the letter has only just arrived.’

  Len nodded. Posie went on, insistently:

  ‘Either there was a hitch in delivering this note from Lucy, and it got delayed, or else, it wasn’t written by Lucy Gibson at all, but by someone else masquerading as her; perhaps someone who doesn’t realise she is dead, or who does know, but thinks we don’t yet know that...’

  ‘They do a pretty ruddy good job of imitating her writing then – Rufus believed it was the real deal when he saw the letter yesterday. But what I don’t understand is why take Mr Minks at all? Why?’

  Posie crossed to her office, frowning uncertainly.

  ‘Either to frighten me, as the letter says, or more likely, to show they are in control. They must have realised how much the cat meant to me.’

  ‘I don’t like this,’ Len said angrily. ‘If it wasn’t Lucky Lucy who took the cat it could have been anyone.’ His eyes rested momentarily on Babe, before coming back to Posie. ‘Where do we start? I think we need to cast the net widely for suspects. Think of some of your new friends…perhaps?’

  He gathered up his camera.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I have to go out and take photos of a
naughty Lord a-leaping in someone else’s bed. Want me to buy you a yellow rose while I’m out in Covent Garden market?’

  Posie turned and gave him a watery smile.

  ‘Of course I don’t, you idiot! We’ll get Mr Minks back somehow or other. Alive. See you at the Inquest.’

  ****

  At her desk Posie sat thinking, making a steeple of her hands.

  The priority, of course, was clearing Rufus of both of these murders, but she couldn’t stop thinking about poor old Mr Minks…

  She frowned and picked up the cheap blue letter again. Should she have more of a suspicious mind?

  Should she, like Len, distrust people she felt in her heart were good people and cast the net wider than Babe Sinclair for potential suspects? What if – could it be possible – could Dolly perhaps have written that note, and stolen the cat, for that was who Len suspected, wasn’t it? Her new friend…

  An image of Dolly rose up before her as she had first encountered her; her black and silver crescent-moon-tipped cigarette dangling from her silver-painted fingertips. A nocturnal, strange creature, whose natural habitat would surely be somewhere like the La Luna club…

  Len had indicated that he didn’t trust the Wardrobe Mistress one jot, and it was true that Dolly hadn’t been seen since last night; since before the shoot-out at the nightclub, giving her ample time to steal the cat and organise delivery of the note. And Dolly wouldn’t necessarily know they had found Lucky Lucy’s body last night, either, leaving her wide open to misguidedly deliver the note to Grape Street this morning.

  But for what reason? Simply for money?

  Posie found her thoughts were running away in crazy suspicious directions, tumbling over each other in a hurry. Was Dolly acting alone in this? Or perhaps, as Len had suggested last night, Dolly was in the pay of Caspian della Rosa after all…part of some bigger plan. It was true that Dolly was a tough cookie; a born survivor. And she had seemed short enough of money to do anything. She worked at the Athenaeum Theatre too, and Posie only had Dolly’s word for it that she had never been to the La Luna club before, and that she was scared of Count Caspian: perhaps she too was just a very good actress?

  But would Dolly really stoop to such methods of intimidation, even for a nice pay-check? Posie shivered and felt goose-bumps break out over her skin.

  Get a hold of yourself, she told herself briskly. When the only thing you had in this world was your conviction about someone’s character, your trust in them, you had to hold onto that. She remembered Dolly’s kindness with the fake fur coat. Of course Dolly was who she said she was.

  Posie vowed she would make contact with Dolly later in the day. She felt rather guilty that in all the fiasco of finding Lucky Lucy’s body they had not even managed to put Dolly safely home-bound in a taxi. She would arrange another tea with the girl, and invite Len too, so he could put any remaining doubts he might have about her to rest. Something told her Dolly was set to become a good friend of hers, for a long time…

  Seeing the time, Posie hurriedly smartened herself up for the Coroner’s Court. The weather outside was changing; cloud was shredded all across the sky, ragged fragments of purple-grey, promising a storm.

  She grabbed her black umbrella and charged out of the door.

  ****

  Twelve

  The Coroner’s Court was near Victoria Station, housed in an old, dark, forbidding stone building behind black-painted wrought-iron fencing.

  Two uniformed policemen stood outside the door and ticked Posie off a shortlist of names. The overpowering smell of disinfectant and a horrible undertone of rank sweat hit her as she stepped inside, and Posie was pleased she had never had occasion to visit the place before.

  She spritzed herself liberally with her sweet violet perfume and entered the Court.

  ****

  ‘First, I call Miss Rosemary Parker, Private Investigator.’

  Posie got to her feet and stood solemnly in the dark wooden witness stand at the front of the tiny white-tiled Coroner’s Court. She faced the Coroner, a beady-eyed little man who reminded her of a sleek black raven, trained to miss nothing. The Court Official continued pompously:

  ‘Miss Parker is a key witness and was first to find the body of the woman known as Lucky Lucy Gibson. Now, give me your right hand and swear on the Bible that what you tell this Inquest will be the truth, and nothing but the truth. Do you understand?’

  Posie gave her account of the night before, and was followed by Len, who gave a similar account. Neither of them were asked any questions, and she saw the Coroner taking notes, nodding grimly.

  Sitting down again she took some time to survey the other people attending the Inquest. It was a ‘closed Court’, which meant all of the people there had been invited specially, and there was no public gallery, which meant no nuisance from journalists. There were fewer than twenty people in all, including herself and Len. She caught sight of Inspector Lovelace and Inspector Oats sitting together on a wooden bench opposite, both of them looking like they wished they were not in the other’s company.

  Behind them sat a senior-looking black-uniformed man in his late fifties, taking notes, and Posie guessed he must be their Scotland Yard superior – a Commissioner or an Assistant Commissioner, perhaps? She spied Sergeants Binny and Rainbird sitting further back, and a couple of other policemen whose faces she recognised from the La Luna raid. The Police Pathologist and the Forensics Specialist, both of whom she had seen at the crime scene the night before, sat on the third wooden bench which made up the connecting arm of the horseshoe-shaped gallery. Along from where Posie and Len were sitting, and almost totally obscured from view, sat Rufus, head bent low, handcuffed miserably between two uniformed policemen. The Tenth Earl was nowhere to be seen: he had probably not been allowed in, which was probably for the best.

  Next to Posie sat a fat little priest wearing a black cassock and an old-fashioned black Biretta hat, ceaselessly click-clacking an enamelled string of rosary beads through his fingers. A Catholic then; Posie found herself surprised at his presence. Why was he here? Was he a witness? Was he going to tell the Inquest something interesting about Lucky Lucy? The large hat almost obscured his face but from the side, Posie caught a glimmer of gold round-framed spectacles and a pudgy, slack profile. The heavy scent of church incense wafted up from the folds of his black clothes, strangely reassuring in the unfamiliar surroundings. The occasional sucking sound which came from underneath the Biretta, which she had taken at first to indicate the wearing of badly fitting false teeth, turned out to be a fondness for pear drops, a crumpled pink bag of which the priest brought out at regular intervals, as if in a cinema.

  The Inquest was running along nicely – the Coroner was an efficient man who wanted to be out in time for his lunch. The Police Pathologist, Dr Poots, was called to the stand, bearing a heavy-looking file which the Coroner looked at with distaste. He came straight to the point:

  ‘So, was it suicide or murder? Don’t bore me with the contents of that whole file. Cut to the chase, man.’

  ‘It was murder, your Honour. Superficially it looked like a shooting, but I can confirm that in fact it was murder by potassium cyanide, which accounts for the very pale flushed blue colour in the face. I think she was forced to drink something, and she put up a fight. Evidenced by the state of the fingernails. A horrible, painful death – poor kid. But quick.’

  There was a collective intake of breath.

  The Pathologist continued:

  ‘The shot-gun wound to the head was incurred after death – it was purely cosmetic. A clumsy attempt to make it appear as if it were a suicide; placing the revolver in the right hand, closing the fingers around it. But our murderer made an obvious mistake. Perhaps a rushed job?’

  ‘He made a mistake?’

  ‘Yes, your Honour. The gunshot wound was on the right side of the head, but there’s no way Lucy could have shot herself in that manner. She was left-handed.’

  ‘You have proof?’
r />   ‘Yes. Everything indicates she was left-handed, your Honour. Her left-hand middle finger bore the typical pronounced callouses associated with writing, or some kind of artistic employment requiring use of the hands. Actually, I was quite surprised – you’d normally only see that on a writer, a journalist, a printer, or an academic person perhaps… And she smoked with her left hand too; there were singe marks from cigarettes on the middle and index fingers of her left hand.’

  The Coroner took careful notes, ticking his way down a green piece of paper.

  ‘So what time did she die exactly, Dr Poots? And spare me the medical mumbo-jumbo, man.’

  The Pathologist nodded, unperturbed.

  ‘Earlier than we first thought, your Honour. Although she was found last night, tests indicate she had been dead at that point for over twenty-four hours. In fact, I can be more accurate. She died of poisoning by cyanide on Monday 14th, somewhere between around two o’clock and five o’clock in the afternoon.’

  ‘WHAT?’ bellowed Inspector Oats, standing up and propping himself up on the wooden barrier. ‘That cannot be right!’

  ‘Silence in the Court!’ thundered the Coroner, his pen jabbing the air violently, and Posie strained to hear the black-uniformed Commissioner whispering angrily:

  ‘Get a grip of yourself, Oats. An utter disgrace…’

  Inspector Oats had turned puce but sat down again, defeated. His prime suspect had just been given the all-clear. Indeed, Rufus had been locked up inside the tiny jail cell at Scotland Yard during the whole afternoon of Monday the 14th, and you couldn’t ask for a better, more cast-iron alibi than that. In fact, Inspector Oats was the alibi for Rufus, and Posie smiled in satisfaction at the bitter irony of it. She watched with pleasure as Sergeant Binny looped around the back of the wooden benches to quietly inform the uniformed policemen that they could set their prisoner free and unshackle him. She heard a sound somewhere between a sob and a hiccup from Rufus’ direction, but there would be time for comforting him later.