Have His Carcase (27 page)

give me my gigolo, give me
l’amo-o-ur
! Like a
mouton
bleating in a field. If

they knew!

Harriet laughed.

‘You’re right, M. Antoine. I don’t believe
l’amour
matters so terribly, after

al.’

‘But understand me,’ said Antoine who, like most French-men, was

fundamentaly serious and domestic, ‘I do not say that love is not important. It

is no doubt agreeable to love, and to marry an amiable person who wil give

you fine, healthy children. This Lord Peter Wimsey,
par example
, who is

obviously a gentleman of the most perfect integrity –’

‘Oh, never mind
him
!’ broke in Harriet, hastily. ‘I wasn’t thinking about him.

I was thinking about Paul Alexis and these people we are going to see.’

‘Ah!
c’est différent
. Mademoisele, I think you know very wel the

difference between love which is important and love which is not important. But

you must remember that one may have an important love for an unimportant

person. And you must remember also that where people are sick in their minds

or their bodies it does not need even love to make them do foolish things.

When I kil myself, for example, it may be out of boredom, or disgust, or

because I have the headache or the stomach-ache or because I am no longer

able to take a first-class position and do not want to be third-rate.’

‘I hope you’re not thinking of anything of the sort.’

‘Oh, I shal kil myself one of these days,’ said Antoine, cheerfuly. ‘But it wil

not be for love. No. I am not so
détraqù
as al that.’

The taxi drew up at the Winter Gardens. Harriet felt a certain delicacy about

paying the fare, but soon realised that for Antoine the thing was a

commonplace. She accompanied him to the orchestra entrance where, in a few

minutes’ time, they were joined by Leila Garland and Luis da Soto – the perfect

platinum blonde and the perfect lounge-lizard. Both were perfectly self-

possessed and incredibly polite; the only difficulty – as Harriet found when they

were seated together at a table – was to get any reliable information out of

them. Leila had evidently taken up an attitude, and stuck to it. Paul Alexis was

‘a terribly nice boy’, but ‘too romantic altogether’. Leila had been ‘terribly

grieved’ to send him away, he ‘took it so terribly hard’ – but, after al, her

feeling for him had been no more than pity – he had been ‘so terribly timid and

lonely’. When Luis came along, she realised at once where her affections realy

lay. She roled her large periwinkle eyes at Mr da Soto, who responded by a

languishing droop of his fringed lids.

‘I was al the more sorry about it,’ said Leila, ‘because poor darling Paul –’

‘Not darling, honey.’

‘Of course not, Luis – only the poor thing’s dead. Anyway, I was sorry

because poor Paul seemed to be so terribly worried about something. But he

didn’t confide in me, and what is a girl to do when a man won’t confide in her?

I sometimes used to wonder if he wasn’t being blackmailed by somebody.’

‘Why? Did he seem to be short of money?’

‘Wel, yes, he did. Of course, that wouldn’t make any difference to me; I’m

not that sort of girl. Stil, it’s not pleasant, you know, to think that one of your

gentleman friends is being blackmailed. I mean, a girl never knows she may not

get mixed up in something unpleasant. I mean, it isn’t quite nice, is it?’

‘Far from it. How long ago did he start being worried?’

‘Let me see. I think it was about five months ago. Yes, it was. I mean, that

was when the letters started coming.’

‘Letters?’

‘Yes; long letters with foreign stamps on them. I think they came from

Czechoslovakia or one of those queer places. It wasn’t Russia, anyway,

because I asked him and he said no. I thought it was very funny, because he

said he’d never been in any foreign country except Russia when he was quite a

little boy, and in America, of course.’

‘Have you told anybody else about these letters?’

‘No. You see, Paul always said it would do him harm to have them

mentioned. He said the Bolsheviks would kil him if anything got out. I said to

him, “I don’t know what you mean by that,” I said, “I’m not a Bolshie,” I said,

“and I don’t know any people of that sort, so what harm would it do to tel me

about it?” But now he’s dead it can’t do any harm, can it? Besides, if you ask

me, I don’t believe it was Bolshies at al. I mean, it doesn’t seem likely, does it?

I said to him, “If you expect me to swalow
that
story, you’re expecting a lot,”

I said. But he wouldn’t tel me, and of course, that did make a little coolness

between us. I mean to say, when a girl is friends with a man, like me and Paul,

she does expect a little consideration.’

‘Of course she does,’ said Harriet, warmly. ‘It was very wrong of him not to

be perfectly frank with you. I realy think, in your place, I’d have felt justified in

trying to find out who the letters were from.’

Leila played delicately with a piece of bread.

‘As a matter of fact,’ she admitted, ‘I did take a tiny peep once. I thought I

owed it to myself. But they were al nonsense. You couldn’t make a word of

them.’

‘Were they in a foreign language?’

‘Wel, I don’t know. They were al in printing letters and some of the words

hadn’t any vowels in them at al. You couldn’t possibly pronounce them.’

‘It sounds like a cipher,’ suggested Antoine.

‘Yes, that’s just what I thought. I did think it was terribly funny.’

‘But surely,’ said Harriet, ‘an ordinary blackmailer wouldn’t write letters in

cipher.’

‘Oh, but why shouldn’t they? I mean, they might have been a gang, you

know, like in that story,
The Trail of the Purple Python
. Have you read it?

The Purple Python was a Turkish milionaire, and he had a secret house ful of

steel-lined rooms and luxurious divans and obelisks–’

‘Obelisks?’

‘Wel, you know. Ladies who weren’t quite respectable. And he had agents

in every country in Europe, who bought up compromising letters and he wrote

to his victims in cipher and signed his missives with a squiggle in purple ink.

Only the English detective’s young lady found out his secret by disguising

herself as an obelisk and the detective who was realy Lord Humphrey

Chilingfold arrived with the police just in time to rescue her from the loathsome

embrace of the Purple Python. It was a terribly exciting book. Paul read lots of

books like that – I expect he was trying to pick up ideas for getting the better of

the gang. He liked the talkies too. Of course, in those stories, the hero always

comes out on top, only poor dear Paul wasn’t realy a bit like a hero. I said to

him one day, “It’s al very wel,’ I said, “but I can’t see
you
venturing into a

Chinese opium den ful of gangsters, with a pistol in your pocket, and being

gassed and sandbagged and then throwing off your bonds and attacking the

Underworld King with an electric lamp. You’d be afraid of getting hurt,” I said

to him. And so he would.’

Mr da Soto snickered appreciatively.

‘You said a mouthful, honey. Poor Alexis was a friend of mine, but courage

was just what he didn’t have. I told him, if he didn’t stand out of my way and let

little Leila pick her own sweetie, I would give him a sock on the jaw. I give you

my word, he was scared stiff.’

‘So he was,’ said Leila. ‘Of course, a girl couldn’t feel any respect for a man

that didn’t stand up for himself.’

‘Remarkable!’ said Antoine. ‘And this young man, so timid, so complaisant,

cuts his throat with a big, ugly gash because you turn him down.
C’est inoui
.’

‘I suppose you believe his Bolshie story,’ said Leila, offended.

‘I? I believe nothing. I am agnostic. But I say that your portrait of Alexis is

not very logical.’

‘Antoine always talks about logic,’ said Leila, ‘but what I say is, people

aren’t logical. Look at al the funny things they do. Especialy men. I always

think men are terribly inconsistent.’

‘You bet they are,’ said Mr da Soto. ‘You’re just dead right, sweetest. They

have to be, or they wouldn’t be bothered with naughty little girlies like you.’

‘Yes, but the letters,’ said Harriet, sticking desperately to her point. ‘How

often did they come?’

‘About once a week, sometimes oftener. He kept them locked up in a little

box. He used to answer them, too. Sometimes when I went round to see him,

he’d have his door locked, and old Ma Lefranc said he was writing letters and

wasn’t to be disturbed. Naturaly, a girl doesn’t like her gentleman friend to

behave like that. I mean, you do expect him to pay a little attention to you and

not shut himself up writing letters when you come to see him. I mean, it wasn’t

the sort of thing you could expect a girl to put up with.’

‘Of course you couldn’t baby,’ said Mr da Soto.

Antoine smiled, and murmured unexpectedly:

‘
Mais si quelqu’un venoit de la part de Cassandre
,

Ouvre-luy tost la porte, et ne le fais attendre
,

Soudain entre dans ma chambre, et me vien accoustrer
.’

Harriet smiled back at him and then, struck with an idea, asked Leila:

‘When did the last of these letters arrive?’

‘I don’t know. I wasn’t friends with him any more after I got friendly with

Luis. But I expect Ma Lefranc would tel you. There isn’t much goes on that

Ma Lefranc doesn’t know about.’

‘Did you and Alexis live together when you were friendly?’ demanded

Harriet, bluntly.

‘Of course not; what a dreadful thing to ask a girl.’

‘I mean, in the same house.’

‘Oh, no. We used to go and see each other quite often, but of course, after

Luis and me became friends, I said to Paul that it would be better if we didn’t

see each other any more. You see, Paul was so fond of me, and Luis would

have been imagining things – wouldn’t you, Luis?’

‘You bet your life I would, honey.’

‘Haven’t you told the police about these letters?’

‘No, I have not,’ replied Miss Garland, decidedly. ‘I don’t say I mightn’t

have told them if they had asked properly, but the way that fat Umpelty went

on, you’d have thought I wasn’t a respectable girl. So I said to him, “I know

nothing about it,” I said, “and you’ve got nothing against me,” I said, “and you

can’t make me answer your sily questions unless you take me down to your

dirty old police-station and charge me,” I said.’ Miss Garland’s carefuly

modulated tones escaped from control and became shril. ‘And I said, “It

wouldn’t be a scrap of good if you did,” I said, “because I know nothing about

Paul Alexis and I haven’t seen him for months,” I said, “and you can ask

anybody you like,” I said, “and what’s more, if you get bulying a respectable

girl like this,” I said, “you’l get yourself into trouble, Mr Rumpelty-Bumpelty,” I

said, “so now you know where you get off.” That’s what I said, and it’s a good

thing there’s a law in this country to protect girls like I.’

‘Ain’t she the snail’s ankles?’ asked Mr da Soto admiringly.

There seemed to be no further information to be gathered from Leila

Garland, whom Harriet put down in her own mind as ‘a regular little gold-

digger and as vain as a monkey’. As for da Soto, he looked harmless enough,

and did not seem to have any pressing reason for doing away with Alexis. One

never knew, of course, with these slinky people of confused nationality. Just as

she was thinking this, da Soto drew out his watch.

‘You wil excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. I have a rehearsal at two

o’clock. As always, Tuesdays and Thursdays.’

He bowed and left them, with his lithe walk, between a lounge and a

swagger. Had he deliberately mentioned Thursdays in order to direct attention

to an alibi for Thursday, 18th? And how did he know the time for which an alibi

was required? That particular detail had not been alowed to get into the

papers, and it was not likely to do so until the inquest. And yet – could one

attach any importance to the remark? An alibi depending on an orchestra

rehearsal was so easily established or refuted. Then an explanation occurred to

her: the police would already have asked da Soto about his movements last

Thursday. But surely they would not have emphasised the crucial time to that

extent. They had agreed that the less anybody knew about the time the better –

it would be helpful in the inquiry if anyone were to come forward ostentatiously

flourishing an alibi for two o’clock.

Harriet returned with Antoine, stil not quite knowing what to make of da

Soto. It was stil only a quarter past two; she had time to carry out a new plan

which she had formed. She put some clothes in a suit-case and went round to

interview Paul Alexis’ landlady, Mrs Lefranc.

The door of the cheap-looking lodging-house was opened to her by an