Sparkling Cyanide Read online

  She ran out of the room and returned a few moments later with a folded letter in her hand. She thrust it on him.

  ‘Read it. See for yourself.’

  He unfolded the slightly crumpled sheet.

  ‘Leopard darling…’

  He read it twice before handing it back.

  The girl said eagerly:

  ‘You see? She was unhappy—broken-hearted. She didn’t want to go on living.’

  ‘Do you know to whom that letter was written?’

  Iris nodded.

  ‘Stephen Farraday. It wasn’t Anthony. She was in love with Stephen and he was cruel to her. So she took the stuff with her to the restaurant and drank it there where he could see her die. Perhaps she hoped he’d be sorry then.’

  Race nodded thoughtfully, but said nothing. After a moment or two he said:

  ‘When did you find this?’

  ‘About six months ago. It was in the pocket of an old dressing-gown.’

  ‘You didn’t show it to George?’

  Iris cried passionately:

  ‘How could I? How could I? Rosemary was my sister. How could I give her away to George? He was so sure that she loved him. How could I show him this after she was dead? He’d got it all wrong, but I couldn’t tell him so. But what I want to know is, what am I to do now? I’ve shown it to you because you were George’s friend. Has Inspector Kemp got to see it?’

  ‘Yes. Kemp must have it. It’s evidence, you see.’

  ‘But then they’ll—they might read it out in court?’

  ‘Not necessarily. That doesn’t follow. It’s George’s death that is being investigated. Nothing will be made public that is not strictly relevant. You had better let me take this now.’

  ‘Very well.’

  She went with him to the front door. As he opened it she said abruptly:

  ‘It does show, doesn’t it, that Rosemary’s death was suicide?’

  Race said:

  ‘It certainly shows that she had a motive for taking her own life.’

  She gave a deep sigh. He went down the steps. Glancing back once, he saw her standing framed in the open doorway, watching him walk away across the square.

  Chapter 7

  Mary Rees-Talbot greeted Colonel Race with a positive shriek of unbelief.

  ‘My dear, I haven’t seen you since you disappeared so mysteriously from Allahabad that time. And why are you here now? It isn’t to see me, I’m quite sure. You never pay social calls. Come on now, own up, you needn’t be diplomatic about it.’

  ‘Diplomatic methods would be a waste of time with you, Mary. I always have appreciated your X-ray mind.’

  ‘Cut the cackle and come to the horses, my pet.’

  Race smiled.

  ‘Is the maid who let me in Betty Archdale?’ he inquired.

  ‘So that’s it! Now don’t tell me that the girl, a pure Cockney if ever there was one, is a well-known European spy because I simply don’t believe it.’

  ‘No, no, nothing of the kind.’

  ‘And don’t tell me she’s one of our counter-espionage either, because I don’t believe that.’

  ‘Quite right. The girl is simply a parlourmaid.’

  ‘And since when have you been interested in simple parlourmaids—not that Betty is simple—an artful dodger is more like it.’

  ‘I think,’ said Colonel Race, ‘that she might be able to tell me something.’

  ‘If you asked her nicely? I shouldn’t be surprised if you’re right. She has the close-to-the-door-when there’s-anything-interesting-going-on technique very highly developed. What does M. do?’

  ‘M. very kindly offers me a drink and rings for Betty and orders it.’

  ‘And when Betty brings it?’

  ‘By then M. has very kindly gone away.’

  ‘To do some listening outside the door herself?’

  ‘If she likes.’

  ‘And after that I shall be bursting with Inside Information about the latest European crisis?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. There is no political situation involved in this.’

  ‘What a disappointment! All right. I’ll play!’

  Mrs Rees-Talbot, who was a lively near-brunette of forty-nine, rang the bell and directed her good-looking parlourmaid to bring Colonel Race a whisky and soda.

  When Betty Archdale returned, with a salver and the drink upon it, Mrs Rees-Talbot, was standing by the far door into her own sitting-room.

  ‘Colonel Race has some questions to ask you,’ she said and went out.

  Betty turned her impudent eyes on the tall grey-haired soldier with some alarm in their depths. He took the glass from the tray and smiled.

  ‘Seen the papers today?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Betty eyed him warily.

  ‘Did you see that Mr George Barton died last night at the Luxembourg Restaurant?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir.’ Betty’s eyes sparkled with the pleasure of public disaster. ‘Wasn’t it dreadful?’

  ‘You were in service there, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I left last winter, soon after Mrs Barton died.’

  ‘She died at the Luxembourg, too.’

  Betty nodded. ‘Sort of funny, that, isn’t it, sir?’

  Race did not think it funny, but he knew what the words were intended to convey. He said gravely:

  ‘I see you’ve got brains. You can put two and two together.’

  Betty clasped her hands and cast discretion to the winds.

  ‘Was he done in, too? The papers didn’t say exactly.’

  ‘Why do you say “too”? Mrs Barton’s death was brought in by the coroner’s jury as suicide.’

  She gave him a quick look out of the corner of her eye. Ever so old, she thought, but he’s nice looking. That quiet kind. A real gentleman. Sort of gentleman who’d have given you a gold sovereign when he was young. Funny, I don’t even know what a sovereign looks like! What’s he after, exactly?

  She said demurely: ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘But perhaps you never thought it was suicide?’

  ‘Well, no, sir. I didn’t—not really.’

  ‘That’s very interesting—very interesting indeed. Why didn’t you think so?’

  She hesitated, her fingers began pleating her apron.

  So nicely he said that, so gravely. Made you feel important and as though you wanted to help him. And anyway she had been smart over Rosemary Barton’s death. Never been taken in, she hadn’t!

  ‘She was done in, sir, wasn’t she?’

  ‘It seems possible that it may be so. But how did you come to think so?’

  ‘Well,’ Betty hesitated. ‘It was something I heard one day.’

  ‘Yes?’

  His tone was quietly encouraging.

  ‘The door wasn’t shut or anything. I mean I’d never go and listen at a door. I don’t like that sort of thing,’ said Betty virtuously. ‘But I was going through the hall to the dining-room and carrying the silver on a tray and they were speaking quite loud. Saying something she was—Mrs Barton I mean—about Anthony Browne not being his name. And then he got really nasty, Mr Browne did. I wouldn’t have thought he had it in him—so nice-looking and so pleasant spoken as he was as a rule. Said something about carving up her face—ooh! and then he said if she didn’t do what he told her he’d bump her off. Just like that! I didn’t hear any more because Miss Iris was coming down the stairs, and of course I didn’t think very much of it at the time, but after there was all the fuss about her committing suicide at that party and I heard he’d been there at the time—well, it gave me shivers all down my back—it did indeed!’

  ‘But you didn’t say anything?’

  The girl shook her head.

  ‘I didn’t want to get mixed up with the police—and anyway I didn’t know anything—not really. And perhaps if I had said anything I’d have been bumped off too. Or taken for a ride as they call it.’

  ‘I see.’ Race paused a moment and then said in his gentlest voice:
‘So you just wrote an anonymous letter to Mr George Barton?’

  She stared at him. He detected no uneasy guilt—nothing but pure astonishment.

  ‘Me? Write to Mr Barton? Never.’

  ‘Now don’t be afraid to tell about it. It was really a very good idea. It warned him without your having to give yourself away. It was very clever of you.’

  ‘But I didn’t, sir. I never thought of such a thing. You mean write to Mr Barton and say that his wife had been done in? Why, the idea never came into my head!’

  She was so earnest in her denial that, in spite of himself, Race was shaken. But it all fitted in so well—it could all be explained so naturally if only the girl had written the letters. But she persisted in her denials, not vehemently or uneasily, but soberly and without undue protestation. He found himself reluctantly believing her.

  He shifted his ground.

  ‘Whom did you tell about this?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I didn’t tell anyone. I’ll tell you honest, sir, I was scared. I thought I’d better keep my mouth shut. I tried to forget it. I only brought it up once—that was when I gave Mrs Drake my notice—fussing terribly she’d been, more than a girl could stand, and now wanting me to go and bury myself in the dead of the country and not even a bus route! And then she turned nasty about my reference, saying I broke things, and I said sarcastic-like that at any rate I’d find a place where people didn’t get bumped off—and I felt scared when I’d said it, but she didn’t pay any real attention. Perhaps I ought to have spoken out at the time, but I couldn’t really tell. I mean the whole thing might have been a joke. People do say all sorts of things, and Mr Browne was ever so nice really, and quite a one for joking, so I couldn’t tell, sir, could I?’

  Race agreed that she couldn’t. Then he said:

  ‘Mrs Barton spoke of Browne not being his real name. Did she mention what his real name was?’

  ‘Yes, she did. Because he said, “Forget about Tony”—now what was it? Tony something…Reminded me of the cherry jam cook had been making.’

  ‘Tony Cheriton? Cherable.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘More of a fancy name than that. Began with an M. And sounded foreign.’

  ‘Don’t worry. It will come back to you, perhaps. If so, let me know. Here is my card with my address. If you remember the name write to me at that address.’

  He handed her the card and a treasury note.

  ‘I will, sir, thank you, sir.’

  A gentleman, she thought, as she ran downstairs. A pound note, not ten shillings. It must have been nice when there were gold sovereigns…

  Mary Rees-Talbot came back into the room.

  ‘Well, successful?’

  ‘Yes, but there’s still one snag to surmount. Can your ingenuity help me? Can you think of a name that would remind you of cherry jam?’

  ‘What an extraordinary proposition.’

  ‘Think Mary. I’m not a domestic man. Concentrate on jam making, cherry jam in particular.’

  ‘One doesn’t often make cherry jam.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, it’s inclined to go sugary—unless you use cooking cherries, Morello cherries.’

  Race gave an exclamation.

  ‘That’s it—I bet that’s it. Goodbye, Mary, I’m endlessly grateful. Do you mind if I ring that bell so that the girl comes and shows me out?’

  Mrs Rees-Talbot called after him as he hurried out of the room:

  ‘Of all the ungrateful wretches! Aren’t you going to tell me what it’s all about?’

  He called back:

  ‘I’ll come and tell you the whole story later.’

  ‘Sez you,’ murmured Mrs Rees-Talbot.

  Downstairs, Betty waited with Race’s hat and stick.

  He thanked her and passed out. On the doorstep he paused.

  ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘was the name Morelli?’

  Betty’s face lighted up.

  ‘Quite right, sir. That was it. Tony Morelli that’s the name he told her to forget. And he said he’d been in prison, too.’

  Race walked down the steps smiling.

  From the nearest call-box he put through a call to Kemp.

  Their interchange was brief but satisfactory. Kemp said:

  ‘I’ll send off a cable at once. We ought to hear by return. I must say it will be a great relief if you’re right.’

  ‘I think I’m right. The sequence is pretty clear.’

  Chapter 8

  Chief Inspector Kemp was not in a very good humour.

  For the last half-hour he had been interviewing a frightened white rabbit of sixteen who, by virtue of his uncle Charles’s great position, was aspiring to be a waiter of the class required by the Luxembourg. In the meantime, he was one of six harried underlings who ran about with aprons round their waists to distinguish them from the superior article, and whose duty it was to bear the blame for everything, fetch and carry, provide rolls and pats of butter and be occasionally and unceasingly hissed at in French, Italian and occasionally English. Charles, as befitted a great man, so far from showing favour to a blood relation, hissed, cursed and swore at him even more than he did at the others. Nevertheless Pierre aspired in his heart to be no less than the head waiter of a chic restaurant himself one day in the far future.

  At the moment, however, his career had received a check, and he gathered that he was suspected of no less than murder.

  Kemp turned the lad inside out and disgustedly convinced himself that the boy had done no less and no more than what he had said—namely, picked up a lady’s bag from the floor and replaced it by her plate.

  ‘It is as I am hurrying with sauce to M. Robert and already he is impatient, and the young lady sweeps her bag off the table as she goes to dance, so I pick it up and put it on the table, and then I hurry on, for already M. Robert he is making the signs frantically to me. That is all, monsieur.’

  And that was all. Kemp disgustedly let him go, feeling strongly tempted to add, ‘But don’t let me catch you doing that sort of thing again.’

  Sergeant Pollock made a distraction by announcing that they had telephoned up to say that a young lady was asking for him or rather for the officer in charge of the Luxembourg case.

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Her name is Miss Chloe West.’

  ‘Let’s have her up,’ said Kemp resignedly. ‘I can give her ten minutes. Mr Farraday’s due after that. Oh, well, won’t do any harm to keep him waiting a few minutes. Makes them jittery, that does.’

  When Miss Chloe West walked into the room, Kemp was at once assailed by the impression that he recognized her. But a minute later he abandoned that impression. No, he had never seen this girl before, he was sure of that. Nevertheless the vague haunting sense of familiarity remained to plague him.

  Miss West was about twenty-five, tall, brown-haired and very pretty. Her voice was rather conscious of its diction and she seemed decidedly nervous.

  ‘Well, Miss West, what can I do for you?’

  Kemp spoke briskly.

  ‘I read in the paper about the Luxembourg—the man who died there.’

  ‘Mr George Barton? Yes? Did you know him?’

  ‘Well, no, not exactly. I mean I didn’t really know him.’

  Kemp looked at her carefully and discarded his first deduction.

  Chloe West was looking extremely refined and virtuous—severely so. He said pleasantly:

  ‘Can I have your exact name and address first, please, so that we know where we are?’

  ‘Chloe Elizabeth West. 15 Merryvale Court, Maida Vale. I’m an actress.’

  Kemp looked at her again out of the corner of his eye, and decided that that was what she really was. Repertory, he fancied—in spite of her looks she was the earnest kind.

  ‘Yes, Miss West?’

  ‘When I read about Mr Barton’s death and that the—the police were inquiring into it, I thought perhaps I ought to come and tell you something.
I spoke to my friend about it and she seemed to think so. I don’t suppose it’s really anything to do with it, but—’ Miss West paused.

  ‘We’ll be the judge of that,’ said Kemp pleasantly. ‘Just tell me about it.’

  ‘I’m not acting just at the moment,’ explained Miss West.

  Inspector Kemp nearly said ‘Resting’ to show that he knew the proper terms, but restrained himself.

  ‘But my name is down at the agencies and my picture in Spotlight…That, I understand, is where Mr Barton saw it. He got into touch with me and explained what he wanted me to do.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He told me he was having a dinner party at the Luxembourg and that he wanted to spring a surprise on his guests. He showed me a photograph and told me that he wanted me to make up as the original. I was very much the same colouring, he said.’

  Illumination flashed across Kemp’s mind. The photograph of Rosemary he had seen on the desk in George’s room in Elvaston Square. That was who the girl reminded him of. She was like Rosemary Barton—not perhaps startlingly so—but the general type and cast of features was the same.

  ‘He also brought me a dress to wear—I’ve brought it with me. A greyish green silk. I was to do my hair like the photograph (it was a coloured one) and accentuate the resemblance with make-up. Then I was to come to the Luxembourg and go into the restaurant during the first cabaret show and sit down at Mr Barton’s table where there would be a vacant place. He took me to lunch there and showed me where the table would be.’

  ‘And why didn’t you keep the appointment, Miss West?’

  ‘Because about eight o’clock that night—someone—Mr Barton—rang up and said the whole thing had been put off. He said he’d let me know next day when it was coming off. Then, the next morning, I saw his death in the papers.’

  ‘And very sensibly you came along to us,’ said Kemp pleasantly. ‘Well, thank you very much, Miss West. You’ve cleared up one mystery—the mystery of the vacant place. By the way, you said just now—“someone”—and then, “Mr Barton”. Why is that?’

  ‘Because at first I didn’t think it was Mr Barton. His voice sounded different.’