Murder in Piccadilly (31 page)

“Righto,” he said, cheerfully. “If I can help I'm your man. I must say, inspector, you surprised me by putting the derbies on Billy the Dancer. I should never have suspected him.”

He talked all the way and so cheerfully and naturally that he did not notice his companion's taciturnity.

“Not taking it down so that it may be used in evidence, inspector?” was his last attempt at humour as they entered the portals of the building overlooking the Embankment.

He left it two hours and three-quarters later and in the freer air of Whitehall lit a cigar as an oblation to Victory. And it had been a memorable victory, too.

At the beginning of the contest of wits between the combined forces of the superintendent, Wake, and a silent and observant Detective-Sergeant Clarke and the ex-pugilist, the last-named had been in a state of fright which had actually proved helpful, for it had prevented him talking before he had had time to think. But once he had been clever enough to ignore his surroundings he had never feared for the result.

“Of course, I know Billy the Dancer. Of course, I know Bobbie Cheldon.” There were numerous other “of courses” to preface the statement that he had had no hand in the murder of Massy Cheldon.

“Ask Billy himself,” he had hurled at Wake.

The inspector had merely smiled slightly, but in the smile Nosey had read a confession that Billy was keeping the silence that outwits all curiosity.

“Yes, I know you've traced the dagger to Billy, but what of that? Didn't he sell it for a bob to an out of work Italian waiter? No, I don't know the name of the buyer. That was days before the murder. Oh, you say, Billy was seen in the Underground on the Monday night.” He laughed. “That's new to me, inspector, and probably is to Billy also.”

These were mere snatches of a conference which at times had developed into meaning silences and meaningless duologues. But out of everything emerged the one glorious fact, Nosey Ruslin was free and unfettered, and Billy the Dancer had more than a good chance of hearing an Old Bailey foreman of the jury pronounce the life-saving words, Not Guilty.

The police court proceedings were not, however, encouraging to Nosey. Wake obviously left a great deal unsaid, and there were many hints of “developments.” On the credit side was Billy's calm demeanour, in itself a delicious surprise to the ex-pugilist, who had expected to see a half-fainting prisoner carried into court. To Nosey, who had had a large, if chiefly vicarious experience of docks, the police court investigation was only a formality which meant little. He knew that no matter what happened Billy Bright must be committed for trial.

“And then the real fight will begin,” he said to himself as he passed the dock and smiled reassuringly to his dupe while the magistrate was sending the accused for trial.

The enormous crowd outside the police court frightened Nosey out of his assumption of bodily and mental ease, and he lurked within the precincts of the grim building until weariness overcame curiosity and the street emptied.

On his way home he reviewed immediate events with the object of deriving information if not inspiration from them. That Bobbie Cheldon had not been called as a witness was an indication that the prosecution did not intend to trouble a judge and jury with a motive for the crime.

“Have they sufficient evidence to convict Billy without showing that he had a motive?” he asked himself. “I wonder young Cheldon didn't turn up. 'Fraid to, I suppose.”

He walked on, seeking diversion now and then by reminding himself that he was being shadowed by two plainclothes men, and was ever confident and almost urbane.

At nine o'clock he left his flat for a meal at Greville's; and on the doorstep of the restaurant was handed a document which acquainted him with the decision of the prosecution to call him as a witness.

“That means they can't cross-examine you unless you give yourself away,” said his solicitor, a bibulous failure whose main source of supply came from fees earned on behalf of swindling bookmakers who tricked foolish backers into entrusting their commissions to them.

“Thanks,” said Nosey, and pocketed the piece of official paper again. “I'll be all smiles and help and nothin'.”

But for all his affectation of confidence and peace the days of Nosey Ruslin were days of fear, with nights rendered sleepless by thoughts which he could not take captive. He was almost afraid to read the newspapers with their terrifying references to “unexpected developments” into which the ex-pugilist read sufficient to bring the perspiration to his forehead.

To add to his fears there was a curious sense of loneliness which fifty acquaintances could not banish because they did not include in their ranks either Nancy or Bobbie Cheldon. He felt and not for the first time that his natural allies had deserted him. In a state of indecision he sat down and wrote another letter to Billy offering to help him all he could.

“Wake will read it and see I'm not afraid of him,” he said with a smirk which was not prolonged. “I want them all to know that I don't desert a pal in trouble. But I'd like to see Nancy. She can't be thinking of marrying that young fool, Cheldon, now.”

But Nosey Ruslin was only one of many persons to whom the impending murder trial at the Old Bailey was a source of perpetual worry. In Bobbie it bred a torture which nearly drove him frantic as he waited fearfully with his mother in the cottage twenty miles from London they had exchanged for the dismal Mansions of Galahad. When Mr. Parker, the official solicitor of the Cheldon family, wrote to announce that Annie Cheldon,
née
Smithers, and formerly Hortense Delisle, was with her massive infant installed in Broadbridge Manor, Bobbie hardly felt surprise or annoyance. The story had become old and stale, and there was the overwhelming competition of the constant preparation for his appearance in the witness-box when Billy Bright was on trial for the murder of Massy Cheldon.

But he still could think of Nancy with a wistfulness that hopelessness intensified. If only…

He had come to London for the day to settle accounts with the agent for Galahad Mansions when he met Nancy outside the Trocadero. Their encounter was no coincidence, for he had been pacing her regular haunts for nearly four hours on the chance of running into her.

“Oh, it's you, is it?” was her ungracious recognition of him.

Nancy had been and still was utterly bewildered by the inexplicable blow Chance had dealt her, but she had a suspicion that she had been tricked by someone, and that someone, Bobbie Cheldon.

“I am a pauper now, Nancy,” he said with the passion of the weak and the feckless for sentiment and self-pity. “I am thinking of going abroad and—”

She left him standing and phrase-making, but within ten minutes she was smiling and happy. A penny exchanged for an evening paper had effected the transformation.

“The beautiful young dancer,” she read from the latest information about the forthcoming sensational Old Bailey murder trial. “Well known and popular in London's exclusive Bohemian circles.”

She could not resist the lure of lavish praise.

“Poor Bobbie,” she said to herself as she examined the coins in her handbag and went in search of a tobacconist who stocked her favourite brand of cigarettes.

The days sped by to the date of the trial as London waited impatiently for the fulfilment of the promises of sensations. Nosey Ruslin grew haggard and apprehensive to such an extent that when he was at last ushered into the witness-box and was confronted by what seemed to be several acres of faces he could hardly hear his own voice, and on his return to the corridor outside was none the wiser for his experience. But a few hours later as he and Nancy were having tea together an evening newspaper explained to him why the jury had found Billy Bright guilty in less than twenty minutes. Five witnesses whose names Nosey had never heard of before had identified Billy as the man they had seen near Massy Cheldon at the time of the murder, and three more witnesses had proved that instead of selling the weapon to an out of work waiter the prisoner had had it in his possession on the evening of June the eighth, the last day of Massy Cheldon's life.

“Bit of luck for me that that all came after Billy had sworn in the witness-box he'd never mentioned Massy Cheldon to me or to anyone else. He couldn't go back on that without pleading guilty, and he couldn't guess what the jury would say.” He mopped his forehead, and watched sympathetically the tears in Nancy's eyes.

“Have another cup of tea,” he said gently. “It's all right. There's no one looking our way.”

They had a table in the corner of a gigantic teashop in the Strand at a time when most tea-drinkers had departed satiated, and already the conviction of Billy Bright was nearly as stale as the result of the three-thirty race.

“I can't help feeling sorry for Billy,” she whispered, all the colour gone from her cheeks and all the life from her eyes.

“You must forget, Nancy. Go away and forget. You are too lovely and dainty for this sort of thing.” He patted her cheek and she smiled her gratitude.

“I'm going to stay and remember,” she said with an attempt at pertness. “Loneliness would kill me.”

“You're not—not marrying—”

She made a gesture of impatience.

“Marry a chap I'd have to keep? Not bloomin' likely, Nosey.”

He smiled placidly.

“If I were only twenty years younger, Nancy.”

She laughed now.

“You dear old thing! If you were twenty years younger you'd have been married long ago. But still, Nosey, you can be a darling.” Her mood and her tone changed suddenly. “Coming along to the ‘Frozen Fang' tonight?”

“Is it re-opening?”

“Yes, and it'll be an extra-special night, too. I'm to be the star. Old Battray is shouting about it already. He's expecting a crowded house and a triumph for me. I'll not disappoint him, Nosey. I won't let him down. I'll dance as I never danced before.” The light vanished and the eyes became dull. “Poor Billy,” she sobbed, collapsing.

“Don't,” he implored her, embarrassed by her too spectacular emotion.

She rose to her feet and they walked out together, Nancy with averted face and Nosey erect and scowling.

“You mustn't cry, Nancy,” he whispered in the street, and drew her into the shelter of a convenient doorway. “It's all in the game, you know. I might have been in Billy's place and he in mine. The next time I may not be lucky, for you never know. Look at yourself. It was only the other day I was thinking of you as a great lady with a rich husband and a mansion. And now what's the position?”

Nancy pressed the arm she was holding and met his gaze with a smile.

“It's the ‘Frozen Fang' and the struggle again, Nosey, but I shan't mind. It's what I love most. I want to be with my pals and not with people who look down on me. See, I'm not crying now. I'm brave and happy. Let's have dinner and talk before we go to the ‘Frozen Fang'. If you're broke I have a quid which Battray advanced me. He's paying me five to dance tonight, Nosey. More than I've ever had before.”

“Will the boy friend be there?” he asked, attempting to introduce a less serious note.

Nancy made a grimace.

“The boy friend won't be able to afford it. His darling mother whispered to me as we were leaving the court that as he's got to earn his own living she hopes to get him a job in the colonies. But no colonies for me, Nosey, as long as London's where it is.”

“Good old London,” he murmured sentimentally.

“And good old ‘Frozen Fang',” she said, almost reverently. “But see you later, Nosey. Must run home and change.”

At a quarter past eight they had their favourite table at Greville's.

“Tell me honestly, Nosey,” said Nancy, “which of my dances do you think is the best? I simply love the Dancing Apache, but that requires a partner.” She looked at him earnestly as he carefully considered the question before replying.

And at that moment Billy Bright, lying under sentence of death, was almost dead with terror; Ruby Cheldon was explaining to Bobbie that he was well out of it; Bobbie himself was declaiming that he had lost his faith in women, and at Broadbridge Manor Mrs. Massy Cheldon,
née
Smithers, was beginning to learn how irksome and how difficult it was to be a lady at short notice. All four were miserable, but Annie was nearly the most miserable of them all.

“How I wish I could get back to Nancy and Tessie and all the old crowd,” she muttered to herself when West, the stately butler, entered in a procession of one bearing a silver salver on which reposed the telegram from the family solicitor announcing the result of the trial of Billy Bright for the murder of her husband.

And as Annie was opening the envelope Nancy in the Soho restaurant was anxiously awaiting her companion's reply to her question.

“Why not revise the Silken Dagger dance?” he said solemnly. “It used to go with a bang.”

“Nosey, you're a genius,” she exclaimed rapturously. “It's the very thing. I wonder I didn't think of it myself.” Then her face clouded. “It was Billy who taught me how to do it,” she mumbled tearfully.

“Never mind about Billy now,” he said impatiently. “You must think of your art, Nancy.”

She smiled with pleasure.

“Yet I can't help thinking of poor Billy.” She sighed and played with some crumbs on the table. “Nosey?”

“Yes?”

“There's one thing about the—the case that puzzles me.” She hesitated again.

“Well, what is it?” he said good-humouredly.

“Who was the woman who screamed just before old Cheldon was knifed?”

Nosey waggled a playful finger in her direction.

“You mustn't be jealous, darling,” he said, capturing her waist. “Waiter, another bottle of wine. Nancy, we must drink to your success tonight. May it be the beginning of good fortune.”