Murder Offstage (19 page)

Twenty-Two

The journey took around twenty minutes.

Posie had no doubt as to where they were driving to: with
the police still crawling all over the
La Luna
club and the house in
Soho, they were headed to the Mews House in Chelsea. The men in the car were
silent the whole journey long, and Posie sensed a strained tension hanging
between them in the cold air.

The car lurched all over the place: Caspian della Rosa was a
very bad driver. As the car jolted suddenly, Posie sensed the change of
direction and guessed they were now following the river along the Embankment,
moving westwards through the town. She smelt the snow in the air, and the
sharper tang of the briny river water filling her nostrils, and she knew they
must nearly be there.

The car came to an abrupt halt, sending the three in the
back seat nearly flying into the glass divide, and the man to her right cursed
under his breath.

‘I know where we are,’ Posie said boldly from behind her
hood. ‘Don’t think I don’t know.’ She was determined to retain the upper hand.

‘Where, then?’ drawled Caspian, as if enjoying a joke.

‘Winstanley Mews, SW3,’ she replied curtly.

There was a stunned silence in the car. The man to her right
sighed wearily. ‘We must give you credit, Miss Parker. You really are very good
at this detective game.’

They all bundled out of the car, and Posie was pushed
forwards, blind-folded, over slippery cobbles. The air changed suddenly around
her and she knew she had been pushed through a front door into a warm hallway.
She was inside the very Mews House she had been meaning to visit this afternoon
with the police in tow.

But how long would it take the police to get here now? She
had not had the chance to share her information with anyone, and she knew that
getting a Search Warrant for the club in St James could take a while; hours
maybe.

She comforted herself with the knowledge that Inspector
Lovelace would eventually find this address in the Members’ Address Book at the
club, hopefully within the next few hours: she felt sure she would be able to
keep herself alive for that long, at least.

She was pushed roughly up several narrow flights of stairs
and as she took slow baby steps she breathed in a warm fuggy scent which she
half-recognised: the smell of zirconium, very strong here; a lingering note of
cat-nip; and above it all, a sweet, heavy perfume she knew must have been Lucky
Lucy’s, and which, rather like a restless ghost, would not leave the place.

They went up at least three levels, and Posie realised this
must be a very large Mews House indeed by London standards. She found herself
standing at last on a flat, level surface and she was shoved roughly alongside
a sharp-edged table, and manoeuvred backwards clumsily into a chair. Her bound
hands were tied tightly to the chair behind her. A door closed somewhere and
footsteps receded. She sat in the dark isolation of her black hood. Posie
strained her ears for the sound of voices or for a hint of birdsong or the
occasional horn of a car on the road outside. But there was only silence. She
was left alone for what seemed like an age, with only the scared thumping of
her heartbeat to keep her company.

The room was very hot, and the stink of zirconium was strong
here. Posie started to feel drowsy, and against her will she felt herself
nodding off. She had no idea how long she sat like that. She woke as the door
behind her was yanked open and footsteps pounded the wooden floorboards around
her.

Was that a muffled protest she could hear? Someone being
dragged along? Someone struggling, shuffling along against their will? Was she
at last going to be reunited with Len? With Dolly?

‘Who’s that?’ she shouted from behind the hood. ‘Who’s
there?’

She heard more muffled sounds; it was a girl’s silenced
voice, of that she was sure. She sensed someone squirming to her left, possibly
at another seat, and she smelt the rancid stink of old sweat and fear. Dolly?
Praise be if it was.

Suddenly she felt a familiar furry twisting motion at her
feet and she heard loud purring.

‘Mr Minks!’ she cried with undisguised joy and was rewarded
by the cat climbing against her legs, scratching her ten-denier stockings to
pieces.

There was a clanking, clinking sound, as of teacups being
set out around her. What sort of strange drama was taking place now?

Suddenly and surprisingly the hood was pulled off her head
and she opened her eyes, expecting to blink against strong daylight, for it
could only be early afternoon at the latest. But the room that met her eyes was
dark; drawn with heavy curtains and blackout blinds and her eyes refocused in
the dim light.

She surveyed the scene in a quick expert half-second: she
was seated at one end of a long glass table and it was huge; it could have
seated at least twelve comfortably. Directly opposite her sat Caspian della
Rosa, smart in a dark suit, and beside him sat a smallish, plump man she had
never seen before, although he seemed perhaps just a little familiar; his face
was in the shadows, and he was immaculate in a pinstriped suit of an exquisite
cut. Her eyes took in the shiny revolver which rested innocently on the glass
table just in front of the Count’s crossed arms. Her stomach lurched.

In the same half-second she looked quickly to her left and
sure enough, a few seats along and looking absolutely dreadful was Dolly.
Relief flooded through Posie like a surge of fresh energy, but where was Len?
Would he be brought out later as some final party piece? But at least Dolly was
alive, just. Tears pricked Posie’s eyes at the sight of her friend, and at the
memory of the disloyal doubts she had been harbouring towards her. The small
girl was almost unrecognisable in her dirty and torn Pierrot costume from the
night at the
La Luna
club; her small pretty face was a mask of pure
terror, and her thick white and black days-old greasepaint was smeared and
blurred by the tracks of many tears. She was bound and gagged and tied to her
chair and she was staring at Posie with a mixture of relief and abject horror
in her eyes.

‘It’s all right, Dolly,’ whispered Posie, horribly aware
that she could be heard clearly at the other end of the table. ‘We’ll get out
of here in time for supper. Just you see.’

Caspian della Rosa threw back his head and laughed. A third
man was darting around pouring coffee into fine bone-china cups. Posie
recognised him as the lanky man who had been dressed up as a policeman earlier,
who had convinced her to get in the ‘police car’. A cup was set down in front
of her and the coffee was poured, although Dolly did not get any. The lanky man
then left the room.

A quick glance around told her she had been right: the Mews
House was enormous; it must originally have been two houses which were then
knocked together. Count della Rosa must be impossibly rich, richer than she had
thought likely. The top floor of the house was one gigantic room, but it was
not like a room from a normal house: its walls were covered on all sides by the
same lead casing she had seen everywhere at the
La Luna
club,
sound-proofed. Pieces of paper were taped up all over the metal walls. It was a
workroom, a base. It had the effect of looking like a police investigation
room, but more sinister.

Out of the corner of her eye on the nearest wall Posie saw
maps: maps of Europe and what looked like South Africa and South America.
Arrows and notes were pinned up over all of them.

‘Tell me how I’m supposed to drink this with my hands bound
behind me?’ Posie said flatly, indicating with her eyes downwards at the coffee
and then looking directly at the Count.

‘First, tell me you’re going to help me. Then I’ll see what
I can do.’

The Count smiled and played with the gun in front of him
casually, like a toy. The man to his side flicked it very softly and it spun
neatly out of the Count’s reach and into the shadows. Dolly shrieked beneath
her gag. It was the first audible noise she had made.

‘
Me
? What can
I
do for you, Count della Rosa?’
Posie answered, genuinely surprised.

The Count laughed again. Dolly had started squirming
frantically in her seat and was flashing warning looks at Posie. She was
squeaking loudly under her gag like a petrified canary.

‘Be quiet, woman,’ the Count barked at Dolly, his irritation
showing for the first time. He smiled his wolfish smile. His eyes, even in this
dim light, were blazing.

‘You took something which belonged to me earlier,’ he
smiled. ‘Now tell me where it is and I’ll see about that coffee.’

‘The black diamond of the Maharajah, you mean?’ Posie said,
head held high. She sensed both men across the table stiffen with tension. She
continued assuredly:

‘It isn’t yours. You know that the Earl of Cardigeon has it.
I expect that horrid little Manager at the No 11 club in St James has already
told you. You weren’t as clever as you thought you had been, were you? I
managed to track you down there, through a spider-web of documents. I know all
about you, Count della Rosa! You don’t scare me at all. You’re nothing but a
lousy show-off and a murderer to boot: whatever Lucky Lucy did to you, she
didn’t deserve to die like that. You beast.’

Dolly was squeaking furiously now behind her gag, her eyes
rolling in fear. Something Posie had said caused something in the Count to
snap, and his smiles and laughter were now gone. He stood up angrily. His eyes
flashed violently:

‘Tell me
where
he will put it. Back in the bank vault
in the name of his idiot son?’

‘Sorry. I’m not telling you,’ Posie replied tartly. ‘And
where is Len exactly?’

The Count looked faintly amused for a second, then thumped
the glass table furiously. He clawed to his right and searched for the gun in
the shadows. For some reason he couldn’t locate it. Instead, he marched around
the table empty-handed, furious, and untied Dolly from her chair, pulling her
upwards by her short crop of bleached hair. She screamed behind the gag.

He pulled Dolly along, behind where Posie was sitting. As he
passed Posie’s chair he leant over and hit her coffee cup deliberately, causing
it to smash. Splinters of china and scalding hot coffee ran across the
table-top, and cascaded down over Posie’s lap. Mr Minks mewed in terror and
leapt away. Posie could only twist and turn, trying to avoid the hot liquid as
best she could, feeling her good tweed coat absorbing the worst of the flow.

Suddenly there was a CLICK, and the area next to their glass
table was brightly flooded with harsh electric light.

Posie twisted her body around to look at what was happening.
The Count had marched Dolly over to a long rough-wood trestle table which had
previously been hidden in the shadows, and Posie now saw that the room was
used, among other things, as a developing studio for photography. Shallow trays
ran the length of the trestle table containing shimmering liquids and dark
viscous solutions. No wonder the air in here was so noxious.

A pile of finished photographs were stacked neatly at the
end of the table. With one hand still gripping Dolly’s hair, the Count grabbed
at the top photograph.

‘Recognise yourself?’ he sneered and threw it at Posie. The
photo was a blurry snap of Posie at the Ritz Hotel, stepping over the body of
Lionel Le Merle, on her way to find Rufus on the Monday afternoon. So then: she
had been trailed by this lunatic since this whole sorry mess had started.

‘Or these?’ Caspian della Rosa was throwing others her way
in a manic rush: a photo of Posie standing petrified, arms outstretched on the
top step of the club at St James on Monday evening; a picture of her squatting
near the body of Lucky Lucy at the
La Luna
club on Tuesday night, among
policemen and photographers; a snap of her walking in the street, among crowds
and umbrellas, turning around, looking nervous. That had probably been taken
yesterday, after the Inquest.

‘Still not scared? You see, Miss Parker, I know all about
you, too. And there are more. Many more.’

She looked at the Count full-on and did her best to shrug as
if it meant nothing to her.

‘You don’t frighten me.’

‘Don’t I? Oh, but I should. Oh, dear. I seem to have
misplaced my gun temporarily. But there is more than one way to skin a cat,
Miss Parker, is there not?’ he smirked. ‘If you will forgive my choice of
words.’

He grabbed Dolly’s head and pushed her face almost fully
into one of the trays on the table, holding her just centimetres above the
gloopy liquid. He emitted a manic burst of laughter. Was it possible the man
was actually deranged? Dolly was whimpering like a dog who knows its final hour
has arrived.

‘Do you know what this chemical is, Miss Parker? It is pure
liquid cyanide. If I hold your little friend’s face under for just a couple of
seconds the show will be all over. Don’t believe me? I’ve had lots of
experience. Most recently here on Monday afternoon when Georgie, who you know
as Lucky Lucy, took a little bath in the stuff. I think it took about three
seconds for her to die. Not much of a curtain call for an actress, would you
say?’

Posie gasped, her heart was thudding like a hammer against
her chest.

‘So tell me about the diamond.’

‘Of course!’ she stuttered, her words running over
themselves, her horrified gaze never leaving Dolly’s stricken face.

‘The Earl doesn’t want it in his family’s possession any
longer. It will be returned to the Maharajahs who originally owned it. It will
leave on the first boat out of England, on course for India.’

‘When?’ snapped the Count. Posie shrugged:

‘Look up the newspaper listings. Perhaps as early as
tomorrow? Now let Dolly go.’

For a second the Count looked across to where he had been
sitting before, at the glass table in the far corner.