The Tango School Mystery Read online

  "And the fact the front door was unlocked?"

  "I imagine Clapham was expecting a short visit. No point in relocking the door if he was leaving after just a few minutes."

  Ted nodded. "Sounds reasonable."

  "There's another point," I said.

  "Which is?"

  "There was no sign of a struggle in the flat. The killer took Clapham by surprise. Add that to the fact that Clapham knew him and wasn't expecting him to stay for long and my guess is that the killer called expressly to croak him."

  "But why? What's the motive?"

  "The clue to that must lie somewhere in that flat," I said.

  "The fact the killer lingered after the killing suggests he was looking for something."

  "I agree," I said. "If we knew what it was, we'd understand the motive for the killing. But I suspect he didn't find it. The killer would never have expected Clapham's blood to seep through the floorboards the way it did. He'd think he had time for a good search and then to leave quietly, closing the front door politely behind him."

  "Instead, you blundered onto the scene," Ted said.

  "Appeared presciently is the way I'd put it. In any event, it meant he had to make an unscheduled exit through the kitchen window."

  "You might have tried to stop him."

  "Would have done, if I hadn't tripped over that damned tabby. Is it still up there?"

  "Probably. Seems to be hiding somewhere."

  "Safest way with your finest on the scene. One thing, though, no matter where this story leads, that's the last I want to hear about cats."

  Shirley said: "So what's the big secret?"

  I tried to look all innocent. "What big secret?"

  We'd left the Sussex Grill and were strolling along the seafront. There was a freshening breeze coming in from the south-west. A high-tide was pounding on the shingle. It set up a rumbling roar as millions of pebbles shifted with the waves. The lights from Palace Pier cast a kaleidoscope of colour onto the sea.

  It was good to get some salty air into my lungs after the hot fusty fug of Clapham's apartment.

  Shirley reached for my hand and squeezed it. "Before you raced upstairs to Clapham's place, you told me something had happened earlier today at the Chronicle. What was it?"

  "I've been given a job to find a man."

  Shirley shot me a sideways glance. "Like a missing person type of guy?"

  "Yes."

  I told Shirley about my morning meeting with Figgis. About how Figgis passed on an order from Pope to trace Gervase. And about how His Holiness was worried that Gervase was going to kill Sir Oscar Maundsley.

  "You're being asked to sweep their doo-doos under the carpet," Shirley said.

  "It feels like it - and that's why I think it's bad. It's not part of a reporter's job to run personal errands for his editor. Especially not this kind of errand. But now that I've been in Clapham's flat, it's not as bad as that."

  "Tell Pope to shove his job where the kookaburra parks his bum."

  "I'd like to, but he'd make my life a misery."

  "He'd fire you?"

  "It would be worse than that. He'd change my job. Suddenly, I'd discover I wasn't reporting on crime. I'd find myself covering parish councils or writing the gardening notes. No thank you."

  "So leave the paper. You've often said you want to work for a national."

  "One day. But not yet. There are more stories I want to cover in Brighton. Besides, there are other reasons for staying here."

  I put my arm around Shirley's shoulder and she rested her head on me. We sat on a bench and looked out to sea.

  "You know my modelling work needn't keep me in Brighton," Shirley said. "I could just as easily move to London."

  "But you've made a name for yourself here," I said.

  "True, and a lot of magazines choose Brighton for fashion shoots. So that's great for me."

  We fell silent for a moment and listened to the sea. The churning shingle sound reminded me of Matthew Arnold's poem about Dover Beach: "…the grating roar, of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, at their return, up the high strand". Just as well he hadn't chosen Brighton beach. He'd have had to throw in the sound of kids screaming on Palace Pier's roller-coaster and drunks singing sea shanties in the Fortune of War pub on the Esplanade.

  Dover Beach was no poem to think about when you needed cheering up. Like after discovering a dead body or being given a job you didn't want. But it was a poem to bring you closer to someone you loved.

  So I leant towards Shirley and kissed her. She kissed me back and for a few moments the sound of the sea didn't seem so raucous.

  An old boy walking a basset hound said: "Ain't young love wonderful?"

  I didn't reply. I think he was talking to the dog.

  But Shirley and I turned and smiled at him.

  We stood up and strolled on towards West Street.

  She said: "How are you going to find this Gervase? Missing people aren't easy to track down."

  "That's what I've been thinking about. The thing about missing people is that they're only missing to people who want to know where they are."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that lots of people could know where Gervase is but don't think anything is amiss because, as far as they know, he's not missing."

  "So Gervase might not be missing at all - perhaps he's just gone on holiday without telling anyone."

  "Normally, I'd buy an explanation like that. But it doesn't account for Pope's belief that Gervase is going to kill Maundsley. And, from what His Holiness told Figgis, Gervase certainly has a motive."

  We turned into Clarence Square where Shirley rented a garden flat. The "garden" consisted of a dead begonia in a flowerpot in the small back yard. But, in estate agent-speak, call a basement a garden flat and you add an extra thirty bob a week to the rent.

  "So where are you going to start?" Shirley asked.

  "I think I have to search Gervase's flat. He may have left something behind which gives a clue to where he is now."

  We reached the steps leading down to Shirley's front door.

  "Do you want to come in?" she said.

  "Yes, but I can't. I've got to drop by the office and bat out something about Clapham's murder for tomorrow's paper before I head for my own bed."

  "Good luck with that," Shirley said.

  She kissed me, turned and hurried down the steps.

  I trudged off towards the Chronicle thinking of the intro I'd write for the piece that would splash on the front page tomorrow.

  I imagined the headline Figgis might put on the story:

  MURDERED MAN'S NECK SLASHED BY KNIFE

  The knife! The killer would have needed a fearsome blade to inflict the wound I saw. But there was no such knife in the apartment. Not one that I saw.

  I wondered where it was now.

  It gave me something other than Gervase to think about.

  It was nearly midnight before I reached my own lodgings in Regency Square.

  I had rooms on the top floor of a Victorian town house that seemed to have gone into decline about the same time as the good Queen.

  Still, it suited me. Beatrice Gribble, my landlady - the Widow as she was known to her tenants, but never in her hearing - had her parlour and bedroom on the ground floor. I always tried to keep out of her way.

  I inserted my key in the front door, opened it, and stepped silently into the hall. I was surprised to see a light under the Widow's parlour door. I'd expected her to be in bed by this time. One of her wise old saws was the chestnut about "early to bed, early to rise, makes a woman healthy, wealthy and wise". As far as I could see, it hadn't worked in her case.

  I crept towards the stairs hoping that she'd fallen asleep in a chair and wouldn't hear me.

  But before I could put my foot onto the first tread, the parlour door swung open. The widow stood in the doorway dramatically lit by her reading lamp. She was wearing a long red silk dress slit to the thigh. The dress was
cut low and her bosom was pushed together so her cleavage looked like a split in the skin on a rice pudding. The slit in the skirt revealed legs clad in fishnet stockings. The stockings were held by suspenders that had a cheeky scarlet bow fixed above the fastening button. She tottered forward in six-inch killer stilettos in two-tone black and white leather.

  Her hair was waved in severe Marcel curls and held in place by a headband. The headband included a single bird's feather. Probably from some long extinct species. Like a dodo. The Widow's face had been whitened with face powder. She had blue eye shadow and carmine lipstick. When she opened her mouth it looked like a traffic light winking at me.

  She had a long-stemmed rose clenched between her teeth.

  I said: "You normally eat Welsh rarebit for a late supper. If you're going to scoff that rose, you'd better have your indigestion tablets handy."

  The Widow grabbed the rose out of her mouth. Her lips twisted into an irritated pout.

  "I wasn't eating the rose. It was for dramatic effect."

  "What effect? To prove your dentures can hold a flower in place without coming loose? Why don't you give yourself a tougher test and try it with a vegetable marrow?"

  The Widow crossed her arms under her bosom in an angry gesture. She didn't like anyone knowing she had false teeth. But I'd spotted an empty tin of denture cleaning powder in the dustbin one day.

  She said: "Surely you can see what I'm dressed for."

  "A French knocking shop?"

  "Mr Crampton, kindly moderate your language in my house. Remember that the photo of my late husband Hector resides on my mantelpiece. What would he say to such a suggestion?"

  I'd seen the photo. It showed a bald-headed bloke with the beaten expression of someone who knows he will always be on the wrong end of unreasonable demands.

  "I'd say that if he'd seen you dressed like that his spirits wouldn't have been the only thing perking up."

  "If you must know, I've decided that enough time has now passed since Hector passed on…"

  The Widow made it sound as though the old boy had just slipped next door.

  "Enough time has elapsed, Mr Crampton, for me to find another husband. So I've joined a tango class. It's a way to meet the right type of gentleman."

  "And where do these right types hang out?"

  "I have already met several refined gentlemen at the Dolores Esteban Tango Academy in Kemp Town. In fact, this evening I had the privilege of dancing with Miss Esteban's partner Conrad Montez. He is an Argentinian gentleman and he complimented me on my chassé."

  "Are you sure it was a compliment? I thought it was buses and railway carriages that had chassis."

  The Widow stamped her foot so hard a button pinged off her suspender and one of her stockings fell down.

  "Really, Mr Crampton, that is a disgraceful remark. Besides, I can't let you see my bare leg. It could give you the wrong idea."

  She stomped back into her parlour and slammed the door.

  I'd had a basinful of wrong ideas during the day so I didn't see that one more would make much difference.

  I climbed the steps to my room suspecting I hadn't heard the last of the Widow's encounters with the tango.

  Chapter 5

  There's nothing like a good night's sleep for clearing the mind.

  I only wished I'd had one. But the Widow had been playing her tango music on the gramophone until the early hours. I'd been kept awake by the whine of soulful violins and the incessant beat of the four-four time.

  So by the time I reached the Chronicle newsroom the following morning, I still wasn't any clearer in my mind about how I was going to find Gervase. And now I had an important running story - the Clapham murder - to cover.

  I sat down in my old captain's chair and looked around. The newsroom was ramping up for the first deadline of the day. Phil Bailey rolled copy paper into his typewriter and pounded the keys like he wanted them to die. Sally Martin whispered seductively into the telephone. She was teasing indiscretions out of some poor sap of an interviewee. When he saw his quotes in the paper he'd vow never to speak to a journalist again. But he would. Susan Wheatcroft hurried in from the tea room carrying a plate with two giant buns and a mug of coffee. She gave me one of her saucy winks as she sashayed across the room to her desk.

  I'd already filed copy on the Clapham story the previous evening, but I needed to check whether there'd been any developments overnight. So I lifted my telephone and dialled a number at Brighton police station.

  Ted Wilson's rustic voice answered the phone.

  I said: "I suppose it's too much to hope that you've made an arrest."

  He said: "It's too much to hope that we even know who to collar. But if you quote me on that, I'll find a way to throw you in the cell with the rats and cockroaches."

  I ignored Ted's empty threat and said: "Anything interesting from the search of Clapham's flat?"

  Ted paused. Then said stiffly: "It's too early to say."

  "It usually is," I said.

  Ted would have seen Clapham's Hitler book and drawn his own conclusions.

  I replaced the receiver. A frustrating call, but at least there was no new information to add to the story I'd already written.

  Which meant I could turn my attention to the hunt for Gervase.

  I stood up and headed for the Chronicle's morgue, where the press cuttings were filed.

  When I walked into the morgue, Henrietta Houndstooth was sitting at her desk.

  She had a sheaf of press clippings in front of her and was sorting them into three piles.

  Henrietta ran the morgue with the aid of three women known around the paper as the Clipping Cousins. They weren't blood related, but they shared a love of gossip and cream cakes. But the table in the centre of the room where they sat clipping newspapers was empty.

  I walked up to Henrietta and asked: "Where are the Cousins?"

  Henrietta looked up from the cuttings piles and said: "Mabel is being fitted with a new surgical stocking, Elsie has a day off - she's taking her niece and nephew to Chessington Zoo - and Freda is at the dentist. She dislodged her crown yesterday while eating a toffee."

  I said: "Perhaps it's just as well they're not here. I've got a confidential enquiry which I'd like you to keep to yourself."

  Henrietta brushed a stray strand of auburn hair away from her eyes and grinned. That grin always transformed Henrietta's middle-aged schoolmarm look. Instead, she looked more like an impish schoolgirl about to ping an ink pellet from the end of her ruler. At least, she would if you overlooked her tweed skirt, the delicate embroidery on her cream blouse, and her sturdy brown walking shoes.

  "They don't call me Old Button Lips for nothing," she said.

  Henrietta had been on the paper for years and knew where the bodies were hidden. But she had a reputation for discretion.

  I said: "You'll need zip-fastened lips for this one. I need to know whether we've got a clippings file on one Gervase Pope."

  Henrietta's eyes widened but only a little. Anyone who didn't know her as well as I did would have missed it.

  She said: "Do you mean our esteemed editor's brother?"

  "You know about him, then?"

  "Yes. Despite the fact His Holiness would rather I didn't. In fact, when he was appointed editor he went to great lengths to try and prevent me finding out."

  This was new. When Figgis had briefed me the previous day, there'd been nothing about Pope keeping information about his brother under wraps.

  I pulled up Henrietta's guest chair and sat down.

  I said: "Tell me more."

  Henrietta pushed the piles of cuttings to one side and leaned back in her chair.

  "I expect you know that Pope was made editor eight years ago," she said.

  I nodded. "Long before I joined the paper."

  "He'd been a surprise choice for the job. There'd been some talk of Frank Figgis being promoted, but Pope's appointment came out of nowhere. He'd had little experience of newspapers and nob
ody thought he'd been given the job on merit."

  "But he knew the right people?" I said.

  "Yes, the rumour was that his father had known our proprietor's father. And the proprietor's father owed Pope's father a favour."

  "You scratch my back, and I'll tickle your tummy."

  "Or something like that. Anyway, I was intrigued, as you can imagine. As soon as I heard about the appointment, I went into the filing stacks to see whether we had any clippings on this Gerald Pope who was now going to be our boss."

  "And did you?"

  "No. But we did have one clipping about a Gervase Pope. It wasn't clear immediately from the clipping whether Gervase was Gerald's brother, but there were clues to follow up. The clipping mentioned that Gervase had lived at a manor house near Mayfield, up in the Sussex Weald. I contacted an old friend of mine who worked at County Hall in Lewes. I asked her to check old electoral registers for Mayfield."

  "And discovered that Gerald was Gervase's brother."

  "Yes."

  "So what was in the file?"

  "It was a news report of an appeal committee hearing in 1942. The committee was considering an appeal from Gervase Pope against his internment under Defence Regulation 18B."

  "That's the regulation the government used during the Second World War to intern people they thought might pose a threat to the security of the country," I said. "About a thousand fascists and suspected fifth columnists were detained."

  "That's right. They were mostly prominent Britons who'd campaigned with the fascists in the nineteen-thirties. The cutting revealed that Gervase had been one of them."

  "But this committee took place in 1942, three years after the war started. Why wasn't Gervase interned at the start, like many of the other fascists?"

  "The appeal committee hearing threw some interesting light on that. The assessors heard that during the 'thirties Gervase had written some letters to a fascist friend. The letters made it clear that Gervase was a zealot - a true believer. He yearned to do more than march through the streets and wave banners. He wanted to attack those people he thought were the enemies of fascism. In one of the letters, he set out plans to assassinate leading anti-fascist politicians. The plans were pure pie-in-the-sky stuff, but nobody was prepared to excuse that in 1942. The very survival of the country was under threat. The committee had no qualms about turning down his appeal."