Murder in Piccadilly (11 page)

“Chap of the name of Ruslin!”

“Any Christian name?”

“I don't know. His friends call him Nosey.” Bobbie didn't smile.

“And did Mr. Nosey Ruslin—if I may be familiar—lend you the loaded revolver so that you might shoot me?”

“Of course not.” Bobbie looked scared as though afraid his tone would provoke his uncle. “I mean, he hadn't the faintest notion. Mr. Ruslin was talking to me in his office when he opened a drawer in his desk to look for something and found the revolver. He'd forgotten all about it and hadn't a licence. As I have—shooting down here, you know—I offered to take care of it until he'd moved to his new offices. That's all, uncle, and it's the truth.”

Massy Cheldon knew it was, but he would not surrender an inch of his highly moral position.

“Sounds dangerously akin to a conspiracy,” he muttered, “but I'll accept your explanation. Where does this person exist?”

“I really don't know, uncle. I hardly know him at all.”

“But you must have met him somewhere.” The reproof was conveyed in a bark of irritation.

“Oh, yes, of course. The ‘Frozen Fang', a new night club in Wardour Street. Mr. Ruslin is a well-known theatrical agent.”

“Money?”

Bobbie's smile was genuine.

“Rolling in it.” Memories of the lunch and the loan of twenty-five pounds comforted him now.

“Very well. I suppose if I address the weapon to Mr. Ruslin at the ‘Frozen Fang' it will reach him. I can't allow you to handle it again. I shall remove the ammunition first.” A handy tumbler served to conceal that part of his face which smiled knowingly.

“You won't—”

“Don't give another exhibition of your more obvious asinine qualities,” was the swift retort. “Good night.”

Bobbie rose obediently.

“I will see you after breakfast. Go for a stroll in the rose gardens and wait there for me.” He yawned. “I must have rest,” he added, in a natural and therefore complaining tone. “After the nerve-wracking experience I have gone through I shouldn't be surprised if I collapsed altogether. I am of a sensitive nature. There's poetry in my composition, but no one believes it. Because they think I am rich they think me incapable of anything which cannot be expressed in money. Clear off.”

When Bobbie flung himself on the bed for the second time that night his whole frame was shivering and his state of mind that of a man who has had an even narrower escape from death than his uncle had had. The fabric of his glorious dreams had vanished and had been replaced by something too hideous, revolting and dangerous for contemplation. Ugly thoughts clamoured for expression. He fought to repel them and cried aloud when he heard his own tongue mumbling some of them.

Uncle Massy might change his mind. Uncle Massy was mean and cruel. Uncle Massy hated him. Uncle Massy…. It was Uncle Massy a thousand times until the moment the door opened and a footman brought in a tray.

“Why, sir!” he gasped, staring at the recumbent figure he had awakened out of a prolonged nightmare.

“Too tired to undress,” Bobbie murmured sleepily. “Pour me out a cup of tea and get the bath ready.”

The well-trained servant worked with speed.

“He is having breakfast in his own room, sir,” West, the butler, explained in reply to a natural question, an hour later. “The master told me he had had a most disturbing night.”

Bobbie bent well over his plate of bacon and eggs, but the food had not been more than prodded when he rose and lighted a cigarette. When West turned his back he beat a strategic retreat to the gardens.

Had he been in the mood to appreciate the glories of antiquity decorated by the skill of a scientific gardener with a regiment of assistants Bobbie must have enjoyed the hour and three-quarters available to him for an outside inspection of Broadbridge Manor and a tour of the beautiful grounds. The sweeping carriage drive entrance from the ancient gateway had been a source of gratification and pride on former occasions. Now he paced it moodily and never troubled to raise his eyes to the old world building which had been a ducal mansion for nearly two centuries until the all-conquering Jonathan Cheldon arrived from India with a bankful of gold coins and a boxful of jewels with which to displace the last Duke of Weybridge who had tempted his luck a hundred times too often at Crockford's. But the nervous, frightened guest had no heart for the noble façade, the artistic gables, mullioned windows and intricacies of wood and stone such as delight the architect. He was conscious that at that very moment Uncle Massy was deciding his fate, and Bobbie could guess that that fate would not be a pleasant or a comfortable one.

In due course he wandered to the rose gardens which were perfect, although the roses had yet to arrive, and he was lingering between two expansive beds when the atmosphere seemed to become thick with the approach of the master of Broadbridge Manor.

“So you're there!” was his substitute for a greeting. “Bobbie, I've been thinking things over and I've made up my mind.” He spoke incisively after the manner of an imitation dictator.

“Yes, uncle.” The tone was diplomatically submissive.

“I've already made a parcel of the weapon and dispatched it from the post office. I took it myself to prevent the servants talking. Your friend with the curious name will receive it tomorrow. Pity it won't be so easy to dispose of you.” He looked careworn. “But one must face one's problems and difficulties, however undeserved they may be. Bobbie, I cannot undertake to settle the date when you start work, but as soon as I can see Sir James Honkin, who is one of my fellow-directors on the board of the rubber company, I will fix up everything. He is sure to let me have my own way. You are, of course, prepared to start work in the office at a day's notice?”

“Certainly, uncle.”

“I will try and get you a commencing salary of fifty shillings a week, but the manager may raise objections. I know he usually pays only thirty shillings to beginners until they prove their worth. But as you're my nephew he will understand and make allowances.” He left the sense incomplete, but Bobbie was not especially interested now.

“Hard work will make a man of you,” Uncle Massy continued with a pretentious solemnity that suited his mean soul. “You won't know yourself in six months' time.” He struggled with a reluctant laugh. “Why, I shouldn't be surprised if you'll soon be refusing to let me continue the allowance I make your mother. A miracle is always possible.”

“And do I remain for the weekend, uncle?”

“Of course. If you left you'd only alarm your mother and the servants would talk. Besides, I've asked some mutual friends in tonight and it would look odd if you didn't turn up. But I suppose you have no more death-dealing weapons in your possession?” The tone was facetious and Bobbie stared at him in amazement. “Ha! ha! You little thought that your uncle Massy had the courage of a lion. ‘Courage and Loyalty', the old Cheldon motto. ‘Courage and Loyalty'.” Another chuckle and he retraced the path back to the house.

Bobbie stood with his hands behind his back to hide his clenched fists and in his heart a hatred a thousand times more murderous than that which had sent him creeping on tip-toe to his uncle's bedroom the night before.

“I hope I won't fail next time,” he muttered, but the voice was weak and almost passionless.

Chapter Five

Nosey Ruslin stopped at the doorstep of the ham and beef shop, below which the premises of the “Frozen Fang” lay bathed that moment in stale tobacco smoke and neutral exhalations. There was no sign of life anywhere until he had opened and closed a second door and then a solitary specimen of humanity revealed himself in a touzled-haired young man with his body enshrouded in a sheet of green baize and his hands lazily attempting to control the epileptic movements of a veteran and wounded carpet-sweeper.

“Oh, it's you, Mr. Ruslin! Good afternoon, sir.” The speaker readily paused to draw a hand across his mouth.

“Looked in as I was passing, Tom,” said Nosey, his comparative freshness and animation enhanced by his surroundings. “Case there was anything for me—message or anything, you know.”

The slow-motion human transferred his hand to his hair, and memory and intelligence being thus tickled into activity, he uttered an exclamaton which Nosey did not trouble to translate.

“Why, yes, of course, Mr. Ruslin! Funny you should call now. There's a registered parcel for you.” He shuffled into outer darkness and returned with the parcel. With a nod that concealed his surprise Nosey reduced his capital to three shillings and a halfpenny.

“Thanks, Tom, see you later, I expect,” He sauntered out, unperturbed if his demeanour could be accepted as a guide, but actually puzzled and even suspicious, and for a moment or two even frightened.

What could the parcel contain? Not money. He was sure of that. Not an infernal weapon? He was none too sure now.

Perhaps as a precautionary measure he ought to immerse it in a bucketful of water. Bombs had been sent by registered post before now and a man who had scored the successes he had must expect to have enemies.

He sought an unfrequented offshoot of Shaftesbury Avenue and examined the outside closely. Then he shook the parcel but not a sound came to suggest a clue to the mystery.

“I'll chance it,” he muttered, and strength reinforced by curiosity he burst the string with one wrench. The paper parted in his fat fingers and he saw the revolver he had entrusted to Bobbie Cheldon.

“The fool!” he spluttered, in his reaction from fear. That quickly passed and he smiled. “Frightened him a bit, I guess. He's that kind. Mother's darling and no guts. What's this? Oh, a letter from Little Lord Fauntleroy. Love and kisses, I suppose.”

The smiling contempt vanished when he had read the letter, and his smile rose to triumphant heights when he had grasped the meaning of the signature.

“
Dear Sir
,” wrote Massy Cheldon in his clear, classical handwriting,

“
I am returning the revolver you lent my nephew and in doing so may I be permitted to point out that to entrust a deadly weapon to a young man on a visit to an uncle whose corpse is worth ten thousand a year to him is to subject him to severe temptation. He yielded to that temptation last night, but the Cheldon motto is ‘Courage and Loyalty,' and I proved that I lived up to the first part at any rate. May I suggest that in future you look after your armoury yourself?

Yours faithfully
,

Massy Cheldon
.”

The writer's reluctance to miss a chance of boasting of his courage was responsible for a letter which only a fool and a cad could have written without thinking of the danger. Not that Massy Cheldon would have been distressed by a suggestion that it might have an unpleasant sequel for his nephew if he put a statement of his guilt in writing. “He deserves it,” he would have retorted, and at a hint of blackmail would have laughed. “You can't blackmail a pauper,” would have ended the argument.

But now Nosey Ruslin stood on the pavement close to one of Shaftesbury Avenue's poor relations and gazed rapturously at the sheet of notepaper which took all the bitterness out of the wind and filled the air with the gracious warmth of desired companionship.

“Nosey's luck holds good,” he murmured with a smile in which the whole of his face participated. “Properly used that letter is worth a fortune. I'll be able to retire sooner than I expected.”

Fresh plans formed themselves with the minimum of assistance of his mind, and under their influence he returned to his lodgings off Oxford Street and buried the revolver under the floor of his neighbour's room, the weapon deriving its danger not from the absence of a licence, but solely from the fact that it had been stolen.

From his lodgings he came forth in search of Billy Bright and he found him within half an hour of dinner time.

“Borrow a quid off Nancy,” Nosey ordered with some acerbity when the dancer had wasted minutes voicing his depression. “Hurry up, Billy. You don't suppose it's only to look at you that I want you to dine with me?”

It was a one-sided and inaccurate summary of their arrangements, but Nosey had a habit of assuming the pose of host even when the waiter did not bring the bill to him. But anyhow Billy was indebted to him for scores of meals and for much real cash, and so the dancer had no option but to waylay his partner and coax the pound note which was Nosey's minimum for a dinner for two in his present frame of mind.

They were the earliest arrivals at a small and not too popular restaurant within sound of Piccadilly, where Nosey had his usual flattering reception and a choice of tables which befitted a generous patron. In the fewest words he sketched the menu, ordered a couple of cocktails, and as he sipped his, surveyed the ground and estimated the hearing distance of their scattered fellow lunchers.

“Billy,” he said suddenly, with his eyes on the table to the left, “you're not going to be a success as a dancer. Your day is over. Isn't that the reason for the face?”

“I've been to nine agents since I saw you last,” Billy said, sourly. “And not a date.”

“What about the films?”

“No good either. They say it'ud be only crowd work for me, and I couldn't come down to that.”

“Nancy is very pretty,” Nosey said gravely. “Pity she can't act.”

Billy emitted a sound which might have been contempt.

“I wish I were not so fond of Nancy,” he said, and he meant it. “It's been my professional ruin. Oh, yes, I know what you'd say, Nosey, and I'd agree with every word. She's a real peach and no mistake about it. She has personality and pep, but she's not a dancer. Good enough up to a point, but after that.” He shrugged his shoulders.

“Why not get another partner then?”

“And let Nancy go to some fellow who'd kid her into marrying him!” The tone was a whine of contempt. “That's not my game, Nosey. I want Nancy and I'm going to have her.”

“But what about this young Cheldon? She's rather keen on him, isn't she? Wants to be a lady, you know.”

The sneer on the younger man's face amounted to distortion.

“He's only a half-wit; perhaps not even half. He'll never be able to marry Nancy, and she'll chuck him when she wakes up.”

“But what can you give her, Billy? It won't be long before you'll have to tell her the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” Billy shuddered.

“I wish you wouldn't talk like that,” he complained. “It reminds me.”

“Never mind, here's the fish.”

The interlude proved comforting and when the dishes ceased and Billy was sipping the coffee he used as a minor drug he was in the best of good tempers.

“You were saying, Nosey?” he urged gently.

“That it was time you and me thought about settling down. Me for a quiet life in the country with a valet and a chicken farm. You with Nancy as Mrs. Billy Bright and a honeymoon at Monte Carlo and a racehorse or two of your own.” It was his way of touching lightly on the more obvious features of the life genteel as understood by both of them.

The small eyes glistened feebly.

“No more looking for engagements—no more insults from agents—no more smelly night clubs with chaps throwing things at you because they're too drunk to see genius in two feet,” the ex-pugilist whispered lyrically.

“That's it, Nosey, that's it,” Billy breathed.

“Plenty of money in the bank with real ladies and gents anxious for to make your acquaintance and the county crowding round your beautiful wife.” Nosey was working himself up into an hysteria of bad poetry. “The police touching their helmets to you.”

The master-stroke dazzled Billy, who was more accustomed to police regarding him from under their helmets with an acquisitive expression.

“You'll be able to draw your cheque for a thousand quid and more and not think nothing of it either.” Nosey once had had that blissful experience during the brief period when he had given promise of contesting the heavyweight championship of England.

“No more shaking hands when you'd rather be shaking fists,” the ex-pugilist continued excitedly, but never once allowing his excitement to control his voice. “No more of dirty London streets, but the London you and me ought to be in now, Billy.”

They both leaned back in their chairs to enjoy for as long as they were permitted the rapture of anticipation.

“But how are we to bring it off, Nosey?” asked Billy when he touched his empty glass and it symbolised to him the finish of the feast.

“Read that.” The letter from Massy Cheldon changed hands. “Understand? Well, listen.” The voice that annotated the letter and supplied explanatory notes never rose above a pawnshop whisper, but not a word escaped the dancer, whose sallow countenance deepened or lightened as hope or fear held sway. The powerful and penetrating optimism of his companion was not always able to prevent Fear rearing its head, but when at last there was nothing left even for the imagination his thoughts rose to the earthly paradise for two which Nosey had presented for his delectation and he pledged his enthusiastic co-operation in the achieving of it.

“But fancy Algy the Ass going in for that strong arm stuff!” he said with genuine admiration. “It only shows you that you never know.”

Nosey rested both his elbows on the table.

“Billy, I've been thinking a lot of late about this here crime wave and do you know the conclusion I've come to?”

Billy waited for the exposition in silence.

“That to commit murder in a crowd is the only safe way of doing it.” He laughed. “Not that you and me are thinking of that. Oh, no. That's someone else's job.”

“Young Cheldon's?”

Nosey winked.

“Look at all them unsolved murder mysteries. I've counted fifteen of them in the last few years, and not an arrest, in some cases not even a clue. And, Billy.” He paused impressively. “All of them was murders committed in crowded streets. There was that chap Creed, I think his name was, murdered in a shop with hundreds of people passing. There was the landlady of a Chelsea pub and we know Chelsea ain't exactly a desert isle. The girl, Vera Page, murdered in Kensington with thousands of people swarming round. And many others. Now take the country. Not many unsolved murder mysteries there. And why? I'll tell you. A chap kills someone in a lonely village where everybody knows him and he's missed if he doesn't turn out for his beer and a fag at the local pub. Supposing he's a stranger to the place? Well, everybody who sees him stares at him and remembers him. There's the difference between a village and London. You and me see thousands of men and women every day but we take no notice of 'em. Now if we lived in Sausage-cum-Chips we'd spend the evenings talking about a strange chap we saw standing outside the Pig and Whistle or inquiring the shortest cut to the farm where hours later the body was found. If he asked us a question or passed the time of day we'd make conversation out of it for a fortnight, and if there was a murder we'd be able to tell what the stranger looked like, and he'd be copped inside an hour. If he wasn't a stranger we'd know all about his quarrel with his wife's sister-in-law's uncle and the whole village would turn out to give evidence about the knife he sharpened on the stone above the river near the church. No, Billy, if you want to do a chap in do it in London where nobody takes no notice of nobody and it ain't anyone's business to talk about everybody's. If I wanted to commit murder,” the articulation was barely audible. “I'd do it in the middle of Piccadilly when there was a big traffic jam worrying the peelers. I wouldn't go down to Muck-on- the-Ridge and have the fifty inhabitants talking of nothing else but my visit. London has always been good enough for me, and don't you forget it.”

“I see your point,” said Billy, nervously. “But where does young Cheldon come in?”

“We've got first to bring him in before he can come in,” was the reply. “This letter's good enough but another one from him on top of it would be much better. I want my little plan to be fool proof and police proof. I want no mistakes. It's a scheme in a thousand with a bit of a risk that isn't a risk at all if you look at it the right way. But Billy, there's a fortune for us, and Mr. Bobbie Cheldon will hand that fortune out when we call on him at Broadbridge Manor and he's just finished paying the death duties on his uncle's—er—death.” He smiled, and for the first time in their acquaintance Billy discovered that Nosey Ruslin could smile horribly.

“You can rely on me,” he whispered.

“That's a certainty,” said Nosey with a grimness that his companion resented but refrained from revealing.

“How much do you think it ought to be, Nosey?” The tone was most conciliatory.

“Share and share alike—you and me, and me and you, it'll be a matter of at least three thousand a year—I'm hoping it may be five. At least, that's how I reckon it. We're going to help Cheldon to inherit the family estate before he's too old to enjoy it, and he'll have to agree that it is worth dividing the money in equal shares.”

“You're a marvel, Nosey, a right down, hundred per cent marvel, and no mistake,” exclaimed his audience.