The Lately Deceased (3 page)

Gordon, scowling at Prince, glanced at the clock.

‘Getting on for one. Plenty of time yet. We can have another lark around and, then take it easy until breakfast. I told Edwards to start getting bacon, eggs and coffee ready at about four.'

For a long time, the party ticked over on a steady diet of dancing, drinking and necking. Groups broke up and new ones formed. Martin Myers went to sleep in an armchair, and Leo took full possession of Pearl. Walker frowned when he saw them and went over to where Geoff was sitting with Eve.

‘Come on, Geoff, let's get this other damn game going,' he said.

Geoff Tate got up and stood on a chair.

‘Right, everybody, next event coming up. Everyone under starter's orders!'

His voice rose over the buzz of noise in the room.

‘We're going to play “Courting” now. You all wanted it earlier, so let's get on with it. Anyone not know the rules?'

This was greeted by ‘What rules?'

‘It's quite simple,' Geoff went on. ‘Each girl has to take twelve cocktail sticks from the bar and go hide somewhere. After a decent interval, the men set off after them. Remember this chaps – every girl you find must give you a kiss and a cocktail stick. After fifteen minutes, the bell rings and we all come back here. The chap with the most sticks is the winner and gets a quart of beer to drink without taking breath. The girl with fewest sticks must be a brazen hussy and will have to pay a suitable forfeit.'

With a buzz of approval, the girls collected their cocktail sticks and fled to the bedrooms and the rest of the flat. In due course, the men went in raucous pursuit and again the barman was left with his thoughts and his makeshift gong. At the appointed time, he rang it and the revellers came drifting back, more quickly this time.

The brawny young man from Features won and unhesitatingly drank the prize. Eve had the fewest sticks but conveniently forgot the forfeit. People were getting sleepy and were content to pair off quietly and listen to the background music. Only two stalwart pairs persisted in creeping around the dance floor, their arms wrapped around each other's necks.

Gordon had reclaimed Pearl, as she was now contrite and loving, huddled against him on a sofa in the corner.

From the bar, Pearl's husband, now noticeably the worse for drink, stared at her owlishly for a minute, and then called across to her.

‘Do you have to behave like a tart, Pearl? Can't you wait till we've all gone home?'

‘He's drunk,' said Gordon. ‘Take no notice; he only wants to start something.'

He was fondling Pearl's ear sleepily.

‘It's nice not to have lumps of jewellery in it for a change, darling,' he murmured.

The remark struck a chord in her hazy mind. ‘Where is it then?'

She put up a hand to her ear, felt for herself and then sat bolt upright.

‘It was a diamond one, darling. Where is it?' The other earring, a diamond cluster shaped like a feather, was still in place.

‘It'll be around somewhere,' said Gordon, unconcerned. ‘Not to worry.'

‘But, darling, I do worry. Come on, we must find it.'

Pearl got to her feet and dragged the unwilling Gordon into the corridor.

‘Where did you go in the last game?' he asked, anxious to get the search over with and return to the settee.

‘I can't remember exactly; upstairs in one of the bedrooms, I forget which,' she replied, her recent good humour quickly fading.

Upstairs, all was in deep gloom. Muffled sounds came from one of the rooms. Gordon switched on the light in the first and hastily put it out again with a muttered ‘Sorry.'

‘I know, it was in here,' Pearl said suddenly, pointing to a door ahead of them. ‘I was hiding behind the wardrobe.'

She pulled him towards the end room and switched on the light. The room was unoccupied and Pearl looked around and then pointed to the floor.

‘There it is, on the carpet by the wardrobe,' she exclaimed eagerly.

Gordon stooped to pick up the earring and, as he did so, his shoulder touched the wardrobe door. The door began to swing slowly open. Pearl, restored to good humour by the finding of her diamonds, put a hand out to close it.

‘Watch it, darling,' she said. ‘Oooh, Gordon, look!'

She was pointing into the wardrobe. Gordon pulled the door wide, so that he could see inside. There, slumped half-sitting, half-lying, against the inside wall of the cupboard, was the inert form of Margaret Walker.

Chapter Three

Gordon began to laugh, quietly at first, then with great roars, swaying on his feet, reaching out to Pearl for support.

‘Well, well, my dear wife!' he said, when his mirth had subsided a little, ‘I never thought I'd see straight-laced Annie tight in a cupboard. Blotto in a grotto!' He roared with laughter again.

‘Well, aren't you going to get her out?' giggled Pearl.

‘We'd better dump her on the bed to sleep it off, I suppose.'

He stooped and lifted the small figure out of the wardrobe and dropped it unceremoniously on to the bed.

‘God, she really is right out; not a twitch! That's how it takes you when you're not used to the stuff.'

‘Are you sure she's all right, darling?' asked Pearl rather anxiously.

‘There's nothing wrong with her that a few hours flat on her back won't put right. Come on, sweet, back to the party.' They switched off the light and went back to the lounge.

The party was ebbing to a sleepy finish; the guests who didn't want to stay to breakfast were beginning to leave. The dancers had now given up and all were dozing, waiting for the reviving coffee and food. At four thirty, Edwards began bringing it from the kitchen, setting it out on the bar and some small tables. People had just started to eat, when there was a muffled scream from the floor above. This was followed by a frantic clatter of heels on the stairs. The next moment Lena Wright, one of the studio girls, dashed into the lounge.

She looked wildly around until she found her boss.

‘Gordon, it's Margaret, upstairs on the bed. Go up quickly.'

Gordon lowered his coffee cup and smiled reassuringly.

‘It's all under control, Lena, I've seen her already. I put her on the bed myself to sleep it off.'

Lena became agitated in her effort to convince.

‘You don't understand, Gordon. Please come up with me. She's not just drunk … she's dead!'

‘No, Lena,' Gordon said with slow and studied patience, ‘Not dead, just very, very drunk.'

‘She's dead, I tell you!' the girl screamed hysterically. ‘Gordon, you must come up. Please? Oh, anybody, listen to me – please come up and look at Margaret!'

‘Lena, dear, it's all quite all right,' said Gordon, slowly as if talking to a small child. ‘Pearl and I found her hours ago in the wardrobe. She's passed out, that's all that's wrong with her.'

‘She's not, I tell you, she's dead! I know she's dead!' urged Lena. She tried to calm herself to give weight to her words. ‘Look, I used to be a nurse, I know when a woman's dead. Please, go up and have a look!'

Geoffrey Tate came in from the kitchen carrying a large jug of coffee. His glance went at once to Lena, standing there wild-eyed and distraught.

‘What's going on, Lena? You look upset,' he asked, cheerfully.

Gordon cut in, his mouth full of bacon and fried bread.

‘We found dear Margaret drunk in one of the bedrooms some time ago. Now Lena here has found her again and thinks she's dead!'

‘Geoff, please come up with me, there's something dreadfully wrong.'

The sincerity of her voice was unmistakable. Geoff gently shook Gordon's shoulder and said firmly, ‘Come on, we must make sure that Margaret really is all right.'

Several others in the room, now sobering up, trooped after Lena and the two men, to the floor above. In the end bedroom, Margaret Walker lay in exactly the same position as she had been left. Lena moved hesitantly around the foot of the bed and pointed mutely.

Looking deathly pale and still, Margaret lay with her head on the pillow, a brown stain spreading over the coverlet from her mouth. The thin face, with its high cheekbones, looked ghastly in its pallor, and the tightly clenched hands seemed to be holding desperately on to the last threads of life as they had ebbed away. It seemed beyond doubt that she was dead.

Geoff knelt down at her side and gently felt her pulse. After a moment, he beckoned to Lena to come nearer and pointed at the neckline of Margaret's dress.

The former nurse placed a trembling hand on the upper part of the older woman's breast and stared at the floor in concentration for a moment. There was a deep silence in the room, all the more impressive after the hours of clamour that had gone before.

‘Nothing, Geoff,' whispered Lena. ‘No beats … and she's so cold!'

Geoff stood up and faced Gordon, who had been standing at the door, his face tense, the muscles at the sides of his jaw clenching irregularly.

‘I'll phone for a doctor at once,' Geoff said. ‘But I'm afraid he can only confirm what Lena said. She's dead, Gordon. Come on back to the lounge.'

But Gordon began trembling violently, then rushed out to the nearby bathroom, where he could be heard being sick. The other members of the party began talking in low voices; the sombre cloud of death had suddenly appeared in the house and they made unobtrusive haste to get out of the room.

Geoff Tate was left alone with Lena, the only one of the guests to show any practical sense. She bent over the body and cleaned the mouth with a handkerchief. Then she clasped the cold hands together in front.

‘Now for the telephone,' said Geoff. ‘I wonder who their doctor is?'

Gordon was still in the bathroom, though the sounds of sickness had stopped. Geoff hesitated outside, then decided that the doctor was the more urgent need and hurried down to the lounge. All the guests were standing, waiting expectantly.

‘A bad business, folks,' he explained briefly. ‘I'm going to get a doctor, but I'm afraid it's no use. Will you go up and see if Gordon is better now, Pearl? You go with her, Barbara. Does anyone know of a doctor in the neighbourhood?' Nobody did and, as there seemed to be no immediate hope of finding the name of the Walkers' own practitioner, he rang the night operator at the telephone exchange.

‘There's a dozen within walking distance of you,' came the helpful reply. ‘Got any preference?'

‘No, any qualified man will do?'

‘Well, how about this chap … Weinkaatz? Covent 0213.'

‘Weinkaatz will do fine. Many thanks.'

He rang off and then dialled the Covent number. After some minutes the phone was answered by an impatient voice speaking with a heavy accent.

After a few words of explanation from Geoff, the voice said, ‘Very well. I come. Ten minutes, maybe.'

Geoff replaced the receiver and turned to the other guests.

‘He's coming right away,' he said. ‘You'd better stick around for a bit.'

While they waited, everybody seemed to voice what was uppermost in their minds.

‘What happened to her? I didn't see her after the first game?'

‘Poor old Gordon took it very badly. I wouldn't have thought that he cared about her all that much.'

‘Well, he's lived with her for ten years – officially, anyway. And it's his house and his party; that's enough to turn up anybody.'

‘Felt pretty queer myself, looking at her lying there like that. Wonder what she died of? She was just drunk according to Gordon.'

Lena, by virtue of her two years as a probationer nurse, now became a medical authority in the eyes of the others.

‘I think she may have choked,' she said quietly. ‘I remember seeing a drunk in casualty once who choked because he couldn't clear his throat when he was sick. Either that or she had a heart attack.'

At this moment, a pale and shaky Gordon came back into the room, followed by Pearl and Barbara. He was quite in control of himself now and went over to ask Geoff about the doctor. His presence seemed to embarrass the majority of the guests, who didn't seem to know what to say to him. One by one, or in couples, they muttered excuses, found their coats, and left. By the time the doctor had come, considerably later than his ten-minute promise, only Geoff, Lena and the Leighs were left with Gordon. The barman, Edwards, was also there and had quietly begun to tidy up the mess left after the party.

The doctor turned out to be a middle-aged Austrian with a brusque manner. He was short, wore a long dark overcoat with an immense thick grey scarf, and had a wide-brimmed black hat pulled down over his eyes. He could have stepped straight from the pages of a secret service thriller.

Taking his hat off to reveal a large nose and gimlet-bright eyes, he strode into the flat, speaking as he came.

‘Ver iss ze body, pliss?'

Geoff aimed him in the direction of the stairs and walked alongside as the little man rapidly pattered along. He explained the circumstances as they went. Reaching the bedroom, the doctor entered and made a circuit of the bed without stopping, conducting his examination en route. He flashed a hand onto the forehead and felt the pulse briefly; so briefly that, if there
had
been any pulse, he would have had time to detect about half a throb at the most. Finally he prodded the chest with his stethoscope for what seemed little more than a second.

‘Much drink, you say? How old? Forty-five, hah! Any pains in chest, no? Pity! Yes, vomitus on ze face, much to drink, aaaah … well, well!'

With that soliloquy, he left the room and set off down the stairs again. Reaching the lounge, he struck a professional pose and addressed Geoff, who once more took the burden of responsibility.

‘Must be heart attack … very sorry. I will have to inform ze coroner. Who iss zair own doctor?'

Geoff turned to the silent Gordon.