Murder Offstage (22 page)

Friday 18th February, 1921

Twenty-Five

The Maharajah diamond had been insured for travelling
by Brigg & Brooks, and was entrusted into the care of one Captain Grace of
The
Galactic
, an ocean-going liner bound for Bombay, which had not been
advertised for sailing in any of the newspapers.

It was due to leave shortly after the
HMS Endeavour
,
and policemen had swarmed the decks and checked the passenger-lists of both
ships to try and hunt down Count della Rosa or any of his possible associates
who might have been deployed to steal the jewel. Happily, they had drawn a
blank.

The Earl of Cardigeon had personally accompanied the jewel to
the London Docks, and, as he stood on the scrubby concrete side of the vast
berth at Poplar, he had breathed a huge sigh of relief as the lumbering bulk of
The Galactic
disappeared off into the distance.

It would arrive in Bombay in around two and a half month’s
time, and he had already written to the Maharajah at Gwilim to inform him to
expect the arrival, and to ensure he or a trusted servant would be able to
receive the jewel from the hands of Captain Grace.

****

All charges brought by Scotland Yard against Rufus
Cardigeon were dropped, and the bail money of five thousand pounds was in the
process of being returned.

The Earl of Cardigeon had already had his valet pack up his
things. He had had enough of London and was looking forward to returning to the
fields and freedom of his stately home at Rebburn Abbey in the north. He was
leaving that very evening, and had told Rufus that he would be delighted if he
would join him. Rufus, clear-headed and full of purpose, had agreed, but he had
begged a few days alone: he had things to sort out first in town.

The police had kept searching the river-ways for Count della
Rosa and in mounting desperation had informed all British ports and airports to
be on the look-out for him. But no-one reported a sighting. It was as if he had
disappeared into the very air or earth itself.

The cells at Scotland Yard were almost empty again, as the
orchestra players had all been released without charge: murky though some of
them were, there were not enough or certain enough grounds to hold them for any
longer. Mr Blake and his lackey Reggie had also been released without charge,
turned out to face an uncertain future without the theatre featuring in it. At
least without the Athenaeum Theatre, anyway.

But Scotland Yard were still holding onto Mr Eames, the
dodgy diamond-dealer, and they were still combing the ghostly shell of the
La
Luna
club for further traces of diamonds or smuggling activities, hoping
for a possible lead.

The bright young things of London were already talking about
some new and hopefully illegal hotspot for dancing and celebrity-spotting. It
was over near a power-station, on the other less famous side of the river, in
thrillingly unknown territory…The furore over the
La Luna
club was
almost forgotten about in the excitement of this new next thing…

****

Late on Friday morning, Inspectors Oats and Lovelace
had found themselves pleasantly surprised to be invited to a slap-up
celebration lunch at Simpson’s on the Strand by none other than the Earl of
Cardigeon himself. They accepted readily.

The other guests at lunch included the Earl, Rufus, Posie,
Len, and Dolly Price. Over coffee and chocolate mint-thins at the end of the
meal Posie asked Inspector Lovelace what the real chances of finding Count
della Rosa ever were. He replied in a half-whisper, so only they could hear:

‘Needle in a haystack territory, Posie. I dare say he was
out of the country and on course for another destination by the time we were
all tucked up in our beds last night. One thing’s for certain: we won’t be
seeing him again on our shores for a while. But it wasn’t all bad. At least one
of the biggest crime and smuggling rings in London has been broken, and one of
the ring-leaders, this Mr Chicken, will be troubling us no more. We’re still
investigating the nightclub, and maybe there’ll be some new leads there…we’ll
certainly be kept busy anyhow.’

‘Good!’ said Posie decisively. She was still thinking about
how close she had come to becoming the next Lucky Lucy, and how she had stood
staring at the scrunched-up note Count Caspian had left for her last night in
her bed-sit, for hours after she should have been fast asleep.

It was time to go. It was still snowing outside and people
lingered in the warm porch of the restaurant: Dolly and Rufus were murmuring sweet
nothings at each other; Len was looking bored, and somehow the Earl and
Inspector Oats had to be prised apart, having found an unlikely common interest
in chub fishing. Inspector Lovelace helped Posie on with her coat. He pulled on
his hat, and smiled.

‘As usual, Posie, it was a pleasure working with you. Not
bad for a week’s work, eh? I may have leaked a story of my own by the way, so
don’t be surprised if you have a rush of new clients off the back of it.
Hopefully that will make up for the fact you’re probably not going to get paid
by the tight-fisted Earl for all your hard work this week and for finding his
flipping diamond. Oh, I almost forgot!’

He scrabbled in his inside coat pocket and drew out an
envelope.

‘It’s from Sergeant Rainbird. He said you asked him to find
the answer to something yesterday. I’m not even going to ask what it is.
Good-day!’

Out on the street Posie and Len found themselves alone at
last. It was a ten-minute walk up through the narrow dark lanes of Covent
Garden back to the Grape Street Bureau.

Len had seemed tightly wound since yesterday, and was
obviously very put out that he had arrived late on the scene, and that Rufus
had managed not only to get there on time, but to play the part of the hero so
convincingly that Len couldn’t even risk bad-mouthing him. Len was unusually
quiet. It didn’t suit him.

As they crossed the Strand, avoiding the horse-carts and
motor taxis, Posie started to laugh. She felt a huge sense of relief, and after
all, Len was here and unhurt, and surely that was the biggest gift of all? She
took his arm as they started to wind up the cobblestone streets. He suddenly
darted over to a news-stand where the lunchtime edition of the
Associated
Press
was being sold.

He paid his penny, and shook out his copy in disbelief:

‘Thought so! Look at this! Your name on the
front page
!
Your photo too! Says you found and broke an international jewel smuggling ring!
Single-handed!’

Posie nestled in, reading. She smiled. The Inspector had
been as good as his word. He had even contacted Sam Stubbs to write the piece.
Len put his arms around Posie, and looked down into her eyes, his green gaze
intense:

‘Say, shall we go and celebrate someplace, Po? Champagne?
Just the two of us?’ he smouldered.

‘My feelings for you haven’t changed, even if you nearly did
run off with a Count yesterday! We need to pick up what was interrupted on
Tuesday, remember?’

‘How could I forget?’ she whispered back.

‘But first, we need to do something really quite horrible.’

****

Twenty-Six

The papers from Sergeant Rainbird lay spilled on her
desk between them. However many times they read the contents it didn’t get any
better: they had been taken for fools. Used and abused.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Len said, dragging his fingers through his
hair. ‘It’s my fault we ever took Babe on. You had misgivings at the start and
yet I told you it was all nonsense! This is worse than we ever could have
imagined.’

Posie nodded. What he said was true. And worse, he had made
her doubt her usually impeccable judgement. Outside in the outer office, Babe
was beavering away, making it look as if she were busy typing up Len’s invoices
for his lawyer clients.

Posie looked at her watch. It was almost three o’clock.
‘Let’s get this over with. It’s almost time.’

She had used a telephone in an office on the way back to
call Scotland Yard. And now Sergeant Rainbird was due here any minute. Posie
didn’t really like confrontation: she was a peace-maker at heart, it had been
embedded in her by her father. It had even been written over her the night she
was born, when the stars spelled out a Libra sky.

But they had no choice.

‘Babe! Can you come through for a minute, please,’ Posie
trilled calmly. The girl loomed sulkily in the doorway after a couple of
minutes, a wad of typing in her hand, as if to illustrate the point that she
was too busy to see them. She took the chair indicated and looked from Posie to
Len, who sat together in a row opposite her, behind Posie’s desk.

‘Why do you think you’re here?’ Posie said flatly.

Babe shrugged. ‘Gee, I’m sure I dunno. Am I in trouble?
Something to do with that cat, I’m thinking? But I told you everything I knew.’

She pouted and played with a bracelet. Today it was a
delicate, sparkling affair set with red stones and shimmering white dew-drops.
To be honest, apart from the Valentine’s Day pearls Babe had worn at the
Athenaeum Theatre earlier in the week, Posie had never given much thought to
the extraordinary way the secretary dressed herself. Now Posie stared very
hard.

There was no use beating about the bush.

‘I’ll come straight to the point. For some time now I have
questioned your motives in working for us here. A beautiful girl like you, you
could have been working for a fashion house, or a big firm who could pay you
big bucks. Why work for a tiny Detective Agency stuck in a dusty street in
Bloomsbury? Time and time again in the last couple of months I have doubted
you, and each time you were gallantly defended by Mr Irving here. We decided to
trust you, and you have abused our trust. Today we have found out the extent of
that abuse.’

Posie waved the police reports vaguely in Babe’s direction.

Babe looked from one to the other, eyes like a
rabbit-in-the-headlights, and made to move from her chair. Posie had no idea if
Rainbird was here yet, but she hoped so, otherwise she would have to bluff this
one out:

‘There’s no point in running, Babe. Policemen from Scotland
Yard are here now. Just like yesterday. Did that scare you, then, too? Having a
real-life policeman sitting in our waiting room? Did you think I was on to you
already then? That I knew your
real identity
?’

Panic filled Babe’s face but she remained silent.

‘Is that why you sent the policeman out on an urgent false
errand when those other men asked you to do so? To keep the coast clear so they
could kidnap me? Did they pay you again? How much was it, another five pounds?’

Babe coloured first red, then a dark beetroot purple.

‘And all the other bad things you’ve done, to deliberately
thwart me in my business:
not
sending telegrams I dictated; losing
incoming telegrams; lying about receiving messages. And in all of this you were
simply obeying instructions! You were trying to ruin me, to ruin my business.’

Posie’s voice was getting higher and higher, tighter and
tighter. Len decided it was a good time to take over. He picked up the papers
from Sergeant Rainbird.

‘You are not an American from New York called Babe
Sinclair,’ he said quietly. ‘No such person exists. We have the intelligence
from the police here. The immigration logs have all been checked. You are
Nellie Foster, of Dalston, London. You have been impersonating someone else,
and you were good at it too. And now we know why. You were an actress for
years, bit-parts mainly, but you were sometimes on the London stage.’

Posie was near to tears. Babe continued to stare stupidly,
risen half-up from her chair.

‘And I thought at points that you might be working for Count
della Rosa this last week,’ Posie added. ‘But I was wrong. It was worse than
that.’

The door to Posie’s office opened and Sergeant Rainbird came
in. In the waiting room other uniformed men were hanging around. The Sergeant
clipped across the room, handcuffs outstretched.

‘Thank you, Miss Parker,’ he smiled. ‘It’s not every day a
mere Sergeant gets to arrest a criminal and gets his hands on some of the
world’s most valuable stolen loot at the same time, is it?’

‘We know who you are,’ he smiled grimly at Babe, clicking
the handcuffs into place. ‘You are the  sister of Bernie Foster, the mastermind
behind the theft of the jewels of Countess Faustina Carino in the Burlington
Arcade at Christmas.’

He grinned from ear to ear. ‘And while your brother and his
pals were put away in jail for a good long time because of Miss Parker’s
investigations, we had no idea where the jewels had ended up. Now we know! They
were turning up at Grape Street nearly every day, being paraded about; flaunted
by the woman whose brother probably told her to look after them and keep them
safe!’

‘And he also told you to get his revenge on me, out of sheer
spite,’ added Posie. ‘Which you have tried to do, on a daily basis. Oh, just
take her away! I can’t bear it!’

Babe didn’t struggle. She hung her black head and moved off
with the Sergeant meekly. But at the door she turned and stared at Len and
Posie and then gave a horrible throaty cackle.

‘But I very nearly got away wiv’ it, din’ I?’ she said in a
broad cockney accent, and gave Len a horrible lecherous wink before heading out
of the door.

The quietness in the offices after the last policeman had
hob-nailed his way downstairs was strange. Neither of them moved from their
chairs.

‘I’ll find someone else. A good secretary this time around,’
Posie said in a soft, quiet voice. ‘I think we’re going to need help with all
the extra work which will hopefully come our way now. But
I’ll
interview
her, if you don’t mind.’

‘What about Dolly Price?’ asked Len, sweetly. ‘She’ll be out
of a job now the theatre’s closed down, and you two get along together like a
house on fire. That might work?’

Posie laughed aloud. ‘You’ve changed your tune!’ she said.
‘You thought she was a bad hat before, and now she’s the best thing since
sliced bread?’

‘Maybe I was wrong. It happens,’ Len said contritely.

‘No,’ Posie shook her head. ‘It would be lovely, but
something tells me Dolly will have bigger fish to fry than working at the Grape
Street Bureau.’

Len laughed too. He stood up and got his hat. ‘Tell me over
a drink. Where shall we go? Come on. We deserve it after that ordeal.’

There was a loud rap at the outside office door.

‘I’ll go,’ Len said, as Posie dived for the glamour attack
and was already applying her lipstick. Posie heard the familiar friendly tones
of a girl from the office downstairs, and then the girl’s retreating steps on
the stairs.

‘Just a telegram!’ he said cheerfully, coming back into the
office, ripping the paper open.

Posie sprayed herself in parma violet and mussed her hair.
She was almost ready. She would come back later to feed Mr Minks.

Just then she looked up and her heart skipped a beat as she
saw Len, stricken-faced, crumple into a chair.

****