Murder in Piccadilly (7 page)

“She certainly helped to make things hum so far as the young people were concerned,” she remarked. “And she's very pretty.”

“If she were merely pretty she wouldn't be dangerous, Ruby, but with her cleverness she'll play the deuce with Bobbie and—you.”

He laughed and drank a libation to his sense of the ironic.

“But what am I to do? Thank Heaven, she won't marry Bobbie unless he can afford to keep her.”

“She's dangerous,” he repeated, leaning against the sideboard and staring at her. “Ruby, you'll think I'm an old fool, but I'm afraid of Nancy Cheldon.”

“You are certainly foolish,” she retorted with a laugh. “What is there to be afraid of?”

“I hope you're right, but you can't look at things from my standpoint. You're the fond, doting mother who can think no evil of her son, and I am the not too affectionate uncle who can think anything good or bad of his nephew. Ruby, this girl has done more than make Bobbie fall in love with her—she's transformed him, and I believe she's got sufficient influence over him to drive him to any extreme.”

A haunting dread passed over her like a spasm of impulsive terror, and she tried to banish recollections of it by endeavouring to be facetious.

“You're an incorrigible leg-puller,” she said, speaking rapidly because her state of nerves would not allow her to think first. “Why, you'll be hinting next that to get the Cheldon property Bobby would—” She stopped dead, frightened by what she had already blurted out, and her fright was not lessened when her brother-in-law caught her by the left arm and drew her towards himself.

“So it's occurred to you, too, has it?” he asked, in a voice consistent with the sudden return of greyness to his cheeks. “Ruby, the position is too serious for us to play hide and seek with mere words. Let me put it this way. Bobbie has not only to be saved from this adventuress but from himself. He's weak and easily influenced, and his weakness is all the more apparent because he poses as strong. There's no knowing what he may try to do to gratify this harpy. He may even—”

“I won't listen,” she cried, putting her hands to her ears.

He smiled to reassure her.

“I'm not angry with you, Ruby, and certainly not with Bobbie. I don't believe I've anything to fear from him, but if you allow him to get into bad company there's no knowing what he may do. The weak can often become strong in the hands of the unscrupulous. Bobbie will never injure me—he won't have the pluck. Now you're making a face.” He laughed again. “Do you wish me to say that he will attempt to abbreviate my existence on this earth? Oh, you women, there's no pleasing you.” He turned and removed from the decanter the inch of whisky it contained.

Ruby Cheldon went over to the window, not because she wished to inspect the curtains or by parting them feast her eyes on Juniper Street by moonlight. The act was due entirely to a wish to get as far away as possible from her brother-in-law and to escape from her disturbing thoughts. The latter, however, only doubled in strength and numbers.

Until the last few days she had never quite realised the exact importance of Massy Cheldon to her son. For one thing she had never thought of the possibility of her brother-in-law dying. He was only a few, a very few years older than herself, and to have contemplated his decease would have meant coupling with it musings on her own. To her the Cheldon inheritance had been something which in the ordinary and usual course of events might devolve on her son when he was middle-aged. The last three holders of the property had been round about sixty when they had succeeded. Bobbie was twenty-three. It would be time to indulge in golden daydreams when he was in the late forties. But now!

She shrank from repeating the word “Murder” to herself, but it had forced itself on her that afternoon Bobbie had casually related an epitome of Florence's latest amatory problem, for as he had spoken of the sudden accession to wealth of Florence's faithless follower she had seen in his eyes the envy and longing created by the irresistible comparison with his own problem. The hated word had then swum into her brain and there it had lurked ever since. And now it repeated itself so distinctly as to be almost vociferous.

Murder. Murder. Murder.

The murder of Uncle Massy. Florence had lost her lover because he had come into money by means of an accident which she continued to characterise as a deliberately planned crime.

Murder. Murder. Murder.

“Oh. I wish you wouldn't talk about it!” she exclaimed, forgetting that she was not alone.

“About what?” She quivered. “Bobbie's affair with this soiled fairy from the underworld?” She looked her relief.

“Please, don't be so hard on her,” she pleaded, momentarily generous because she was under the sway of a feeling of relief bordering on ecstasy.

“I apologise, my dear. After all, I mustn't forget that one day she may be your daughter-in-law and a Cheldon. Shades of Lady Emily!”

“Don't be ridiculous!” Ruby protested. “Really, Massy, you might be more helpful. You're the only male member of the family I can appeal to, and I thought with all your cleverness and knowledge of the world—” She paused to wipe her eyes.

“I'll do what I can,” he said, without emotion and quite unaffected by her tears. “But I'm certain you'll not approve of anything I'll do for you. First of all, you wish me to break the engagement between your son and the night club dancer; then I'm to find Bobbie a job that'll enable him to be independent and rush into the girl's arms. For heaven's sake, don't worry about anything I've said about Bobbie and the Cheldon property. It was only a mere surmise of mine without any foundation. Bobbie hasn't the pluck to earn a living and he hasn't the pluck to imitate the gentlemen who specialise in the higher walks of crime. I'm not afraid of him and you needn't be either. But, as I have said, he needs to be protected against himself.”

With a sudden stiffening of her body and a look of determination he had not seen in her face for years she confronted him.

“Massy, I won't have this creature kidnapping Bobbie. Something's got to be done to part them, and I look to you to do it.”

“But what can I do?”

“Your brother appointed you his guardian,” she reminded him.

“Until Bobbie was twenty-one. He's now twenty-three.”

She threw up her arms in despair, but she had not the opportunity to speak, for a familiar banging of a door heralded Bobbie.

“Sylvia and I've been chatting at the corner,” he explained as he explored the whisky decanter without success. “But at last I got her a taxi. Mrs. Carmichael took Kitty. I say, uncle, you and mother have walked into the whisky.”

He flopped on to a chair.

“Bit of a frost, mother, eh? What a collection! If Nancy hadn't turned up what a ghastly binge it would have been! But that reminds me. Uncle, what do you think of her?”

“Assuming that by ‘her' you mean the young lady whose acquaintance I made tonight,” Massy Cheldon began with an effort at one a.m. pomposity. But Ruby interrupted to save him from blundering.

“Your uncle has been admiring her, Bobbie,” she said hurriedly. “He thinks she's very pretty and very clever.”

The boyish features glistened with the pleasure and pride that animated him from crown to sole.

“Everybody says the same,” he murmured, too happy to be more than articulate. “Nancy's one in a million.” He bent his head over his knees, his hands clasped before him. “Can you wonder I'm crazy to marry her? Don't you see now that I must marry her—that without Nancy hell would be preferable to life?”

His uncle patted him on the shoulder.

“Bobbie, the first move is to get you a job.” He would have continued in the same avuncular strain and pose had not Bobbie jumped to his feet and seized the limp hand in a double grasp.

“That's awfully good of you, uncle!” he cried, in a paroxysm of affectionate gratitude. “Of course, I must have a job. Without one I couldn't marry Nancy.”

Massy Cheldon recaptured his physical freedom.

“It's too late to talk now, and my chauffeur must be swearing at me. Look here, Bobbie, come down to Broadbridge for next Friday to Monday and we'll talk things over then.”

“Thanks awfully, uncle. I'll be delighted. Yes, we'll have a good pow-wow. I can see it's all Nancy's doing, but I knew she'd win you over at first sight. She does that with everybody.”

“Bobbie,” said his mother with a cold detachment of manner, “will you see if your uncle's car is waiting outside?”

He raced out of the room and Ruby's thoughts went back to her son's schooldays and her eyes became moist.

“Massy,” she whispered, almost angry with him now for some reason she did not wish to discover, “is this invitation a trap or a—?” She stopped, unable to complete or further interpret her suspicions.

“Or a test? Is that what you mean, Ruby?” He smiled slightly, and the best of his smiles was never pleasant to look upon. “That is for Bobbie to decide. But perhaps you don't wish him to come?”

“Of course I do.” She stiffened again. “I must face realities, as you've been fond of telling me. Here's Bobbie.” She held out her hand. “Good-bye, Massy, and thanks for dropping in.”

She was alone in the room for nearly five minutes, but was quite unable to do anything with her solitude. Her thinking faculties failed her and she could only listen for the sound announcing that her brother-in-law's car was moving away from the front of Galahad Mansions. The moment, however, Bobbie re-entered she became alive with doubts, anxieties, disturbing thoughts and perplexing questions.

“Now, mother, will you ever say again that there's no such a thing as a miracle?” He positively danced around her. “Just think of it! Uncle Massy falling for Nancy! Isn't it wonderful? But then, Nancy's one hundred per cent wonderful and I'm going to tell her so!”

“What, now?” she exclaimed, as he made for the door.

“Absolutely.” He came back and kissed her. “Nancy's got to be told the amazing news that Uncle Massy is going to help me to a position which will enable me to marry her.”

Words of warning clamoured for enunciation, but she had not the courage to disillusion him.

“Oh, all right, Bobbie,” she murmured, weakly and wearily. “Don't be too late.” She yawned in spite of her efforts.

From the doorway he smiled back on her, and when the outer door closed she was still reproaching herself with cowardice.

Chapter Three

As he strode through the too infrequent streets Bobbie lost himself in the happiness of realised dreams. Even the first ecstasies of his capitulation to Nancy Curzon seemed tame in comparison with the sense of triumph and achievement which animated him now. Life was something more than mere living; earth, including the Fulham particle of it, was more to be desired than heaven; he was a conqueror with wealth and success at his mercy because Nancy was his forever.

She had captivated his uncle, and that meant that the path to the altar would be strewn with roses; he would taste many of the pleasures of Broadbridge long before the Cheldon property was his own; he would be able to crown the girl he loved with luxury, and, above all, she would be his alone forever and forever.

Inspiration failing him he was more than satisfied to fill in the spaces of his mind with a mechanical repetition of his plans and prospects. To Massy Cheldon he gave a large size in wings and a larger portion of virtue than that incorrigible egotist had ever claimed for himself. To everyone else he would have given something of his happiness could he have done so, for it was of the kind that increases as it is shared.

In a turning off the King's Road he found a taxicab, and although it was bearing him to Nancy he half regretted the curtailing of his delightful fantasia. But behind all his delirium of joy was a dread which he contrived temporarily to suppress, a dread lest he was deceiving himself and was too much of a coward to give his intelligence full rein.

The cab stopped outside a tobacconist's shop in one of the offshoots of Shaftesbury Avenue and Bobbie stepped out and sought a lamp-post and under its guidance selected the essential coins. Then he glanced around him, glad of the unusual loneliness, grateful for the shutters of the adjoining shops, and happy in the solitude that seemed to make Nancy exclusively his. Somewhere underground and below a ham and beef shop was the “Frozen Fang”, London's newest night club or at any rate the latest addition to Bobbie's list of nocturnal refuges. Suddenly he became uneasy. Would Nancy be waiting for him? He had had no idea it was so late. London appeared to be empty or unconscious, and the policeman in the light of a distant street lamp a swollen toy. It must be nearly three, and the “Frozen Fang” was not sufficiently well known to last much beyond two in the morning. He listened anxiously and heard nothing except the patter of the policeman's boots. By now the cab had disappeared and save for fitful lights on top floors London had ceased to exist.

He took a step forward and paused as a well remembered voice floated towards him from the basement. It was Nancy's and she was cursing someone, but the infatuated lover heard only the voice.

“What, you?” was her ungracious greeting as Bobbie presented himself at the top of the stairs leading from the subterranean imitation of Bohemia. “I wonder the lady-mother let you out of her arms.”

The sneer was as coarse as the voice was tired and angry, but Bobbie was not in the mood to quarrel with anyone, and certainly unable to discover blemishes in the most perfect of creatures.

“I've got wonderful news for you, Nancy,” he whispered, as yet unaware that two men were emerging after her.

“You don't mean to say that someone's shot that skinny uncle of yours?” She half turned her head. “Nosey, listen to the bearer of good news!”

Before Bobbie could attempt to interject a pleasantry of a kind likely to restore her good humour a stoutish, heavily-built man with a flavour of the forties about him panted to her side. As the street lamp was directly in front of the exit from the “Frozen Fang” Bobbie had no difficulty in guessing that the reason for his sobriquet was the pronounced flattening of his nasal organ. But as if to compensate he had large and bulging eyes, a sensual mouth, and ears that resembled a couple of cauliflowers waiting their turn to be washed. Bobbie took an instant and fearsome dislike to him, but the dislike lasted little more than a moment, for Nosey as soon as he reached the pavement extended a brawny hand and shook his sympathetically.

“Don't you mind her, Mr. Cheldon,” he said in a voice pregnant with good nature. “She's in one of her tantrums. Best little girl in creation but apt to go off the deep end if everything doesn't come her way.”

Nancy gave him a playful tap on the cheek.

“I can't be angry with you, Nosey,” she said, and when Bobbie heard her careless laughter he could have hugged the ex-pugilist.

But the “Frozen Fang” now disgorged Billy Bright, Nancy's dancing partner, a young man of sallow complexion and dressed in evening clothes and grease. He was only Nancy's height and looked a couple of inches shorter, but Billy Bright bore himself with conscious pride, and his attitude towards Bobbie was one of patronising toleration.

“Hello, Cheldon!” he said lazily, giving his dark moustache a twist and a pat at either end. “Quite a little party. I suppose you'll come along to my rooms? We're going to discuss a new contract over a bottle of whisky.” Bobbie shuddered in the safety of the gloom.

“Thanks,” he said, feeling that nearly all the romance had been rubbed out of his fairy story. “I could do with a livener.”

With an insolence too blatant to be resisted Billy took possession of Nancy, and Bobbie was compelled to follow with Nosey, who had the easiest of tasks in widening the distance between them and the couple in front. The ex-pugilist walked slowly, but of a purpose, and it was only when he could speak without being overheard that he opened a conversation on the only subject that interested his companion.

“She's a fine girl, Mr. Cheldon, a top-notcher. Got a great future before her in the profession—unless, of course, she marries.”

Bobbie's heart had sunk, but now it rose.

“Perhaps, she's told you I want to—to—”

“Marry her? Of course. We've been talking about you all the evening, Mr. Cheldon.” Bobbie warmed to him. There was no familiarity, no coarseness and no insolence. Nosey might not be of the Cheldon type of gentleman, but he spoke and behaved like one. Bobbie could award him no praise greater than that.

“And why shouldn't you marry her if you can give her a better time than she can give herself?” Nosey continued. “You're a gentleman and you have education and position. Nancy talks as if you hadn't any money, but as soon as she told me all about the Cheldon estate I said to her, ‘Don't you be a fool and chuck away the chance of a lifetime. The lad's the right sort and the money will be there or thereabouts.'”

“Thank you, Mr.—er—” Bobbie laughed from sheer embarrassment. How could he address him as “Mr. Nosey?”

“Ruslin—Peter Ruslin,” said Nosey introducing himself. “Partner in the firm of Ruslin & Oakes, theatrical agents. Used to be a pug.”

A great light dawned on Bobbie, but it was not a comforting light.

“Have you got her the contract she mentioned?” he asked nervously.

Nosey Ruslin nodded expressively.

“A chance to make her name in two continents,” he answered, oracularly. “Name in electric letters. You know the sort of thing. If she produced the goods her salary would jump sky-wards. But, of course, you'll marry her, and you're to be envied.” He lowered his voice. “Between you and me, Mr. Cheldon, I want to get her away from Billy Bright. I can't stomach foreigners. It ain't English. Not a good influence. No, not at all. D'you know, tonight she was actually talking of marrying Billy if there was nothing better for her.” He knew Bobbie was shivering but pretended not to notice it. “Of course, my contract is for the pair of them. After all, Billy does know how to dance, and he's got ideas. It's Bright & Curzon, you know. They'd have to travel Europe together, and that would mean marriage first. Then there's America and—”

Billy Bright's flat had now been reached and it soon engulfed them.

“Whisky? Nosey, I've a bottle of champagne to celebrate.” Billy was doing the honours as if posturing in front of an audience.

“Better not open it until we've decided one way or the other,” said Nosey genially. “But I'll join you in a whisky.”

Nancy had disappeared, and the three men were looking at their empty glasses when she returned.

“Got anything to eat, Billy?” she asked in a voice that sounded hoarse and disagreeable. “Well, Bobbie, what's the news? Uncle in the pink and feeling fit to live for another fifty years?”

Bobbie tried to smile, but he failed to do more than produce a slight distortion of his features.

“Uncle's the goods, Nancy,” he said impulsively. “After you went he promised to do his best for me. Couldn't say too much about you. You should have heard him. Pretty and clever and fascinating.” He was not the first editor to improve on his text.

The girl eyed him suspiciously. At nineteen she knew something about men and their world; at twenty-three Bobbie knew nothing about women and their intuitions.

“He said that to you, did he?” she muttered. Then aloud, “I wonder what exactly he meant by it?”

A grating laugh from Billy Bright emphasised the sympathetic silence of Nosey Ruslin.

“What you ought to ask, Nancy,” said her dancing partner, “is, what did he mean in hard cash by that?”

“You mind your own business!” snarled Bobbie, losing his temper.

Billy Bright, yellow-streaked through and through, was not afraid with a girl on the premises.

“Whatever concerns Nancy is my business,” he retorted truculently. “And it's because it's my business we're here now. Nosey, tell him about that contract.”

“No, you won't.” Nancy stepped forward into the centre of the room. “I'll have no quarrelling about poor little me.”

“I'm sorry, Nancy,” said Bobbie, penitently. “I shouldn't have forgotten you were present. I wanted to see you alone and—”

“We're all friends here,” she declared meaningly, but her wink was reserved for Billy and Nosey, and Bobbie was unaware of it as he was ignorant of the meaning she put into her tone.

“That's right, Nancy, that's right,” wheezed Nosey, selecting the only armchair and filling it completely. “Let's sit down and have a quiet chat. Nice rooms you have here, Billy.”

The diversion was diplomatic, and by the time the tenant had expatiated on the advantages of living above a grocer's shop Nancy was back again in her usual humour.

“Now listen to me,” Nosey said when he had emptied his glass for the third time, “I want to talk business and I want Mr. Cheldon to butt in whenever he likes. I'm a business man first and last, and I want to link up with Bright & Curzon.”

“Curzon & Bright,” murmured Nancy, who had her pride.

“I can give you two the chance of a lifetime—a long continental tour beginning in Paris and ending in Monte Carlo with a possibility of America to follow.” He stopped to glance covertly at Bobbie's uneasy expression. “Now, Nancy, I know you too well to talk big when there's nothing really big on the premises, and so I'll not be coy in mentioning the actual salary. It'll be a hundred a week, and when you've deducted my commission there'll be ninety left. Out of that you'll have to pay your own expenses, and these will average twenty quid a week.”

“That'll be thirty-five a week clear for each of us,” Billy Bright translated to his partner.

A cry of delight burst from her lips.

“Oh, Nosey, I could hug you!” she cried, springing up and suiting the action to the word. “You're a perfect dear! Thirty-five quid a week and living in the best hotels! It'll seem like fairyland.”

“But if you score a win, Nancy,” the agent explained, “it'll be double thirty-five for the American tour, and I'm certain you and Billy will be a wow. Your act is distinctive—a sure winner.”

Bobbie's heart was making his boots feel overcrowded, and his depression was not lightened by an impression that his companions had forgotten he was in the room.

Thirty-five pounds a week plus luxury in first-class hotels, continental travel with all its novelties and allurements! It would be ridiculous to offer in competition the salary he would earn in the situation which Uncle Massy had almost guaranteed to obtain for him.

“Nosey,” said Billy, rising, “I want you to see some photographs I've had taken and framed. They're hanging up in the dining-room.”

For the first and only time in his life Bobbie's heart warmed towards Nancy's dancing partner, but the moment he was alone with her he had no thought of anything except the crisis which confronted him.

“Nancy,” he said in a tone of supplication, “you won't sign that contract? You won't go abroad with Billy Bright?”

“If you mean I'm likely to do the tour without first marrying him then all I can say is that you're a—”

He stopped the verbal garbage with a kiss.

“I meant nothing of the kind, darling,” he said, “I only want to hear you promise to marry me and let me take care of you.”

She melted into his arms according to plan.

“I don't want to leave England and I don't want to dance, Bobbie,” she whispered with an attempt at the intonation of a child. “But what else is there for me? I hate poverty.” She shivered and the shiver was genuine. “It's all very well for you to talk, but you don't know what poverty is. Ten living in a room and meat once a week if you're lucky. Dirt and starvation and misery. I'd rather die than be poor. I want the best things life has to give a girl.”

“I will give you the world if only you will wait,” he said earnestly. “Nancy, can't you realise how much I love you? I've been in love before, but my love for you is different, higher, purer. I'll slave for you.”

“Slaves don't get paid,” she said impatiently.

“Uncle Massy is our friend.” He was pathetically serious and proud. “With him behind us everything will be all right.”