Cold, Lone and Still

13: Suggestions for a Replay

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It was Laura who kept the ball rolling. ‘It’s a long time since we saw much of Sally,’ she said. ‘She has popped in for an occasional lunch, but she hasn’t stayed here since you both went to Sir Humphry Calshott’s house and she let herself in for hunting a Loch Ness monster at Tannasgan. Do you remember?’

‘It is not an experience to be forgotten,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘and, when it was over, Sir Humphry (against his better judgement, I suspect) published Sally’s first novel. Time passes like an ever-rolling stream, but the flotsam it leaves behind stays with us. I wonder what arrangements can be made for Sally and Mr Bull to get together over this autobiography?’

‘I think there is only one course open to them,’ I said. ‘Miss Lestrange is a free agent; Bull is not. It looks to me as though she will have to go to the hall of residence to jot down his reminiscences if she takes on the job. Once term starts, Bull won’t be able to get away from his duties and he lives in.’

‘And all those wild-eyed, frenzied male polytechnic students will be back,’ said Laura. ‘The girl must be chaperoned.’

‘Exactly,’ said Dame Beatrice, leering at her secretary.

‘Ah!’ I said. ‘So that’s it, is it? Well, I’m delighted to hear it. It’s high time someone with an open mind investigated the circumstances of Carbridge’s death.’

‘I had the impression you didn’t like him much,’ said Laura.

‘It’s because of that.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, the police never really had anything on Bull, and Bingley knew it. He only arrested him as a gesture. Now he’s got to find somebody else to stick the label on. As soon as somebody — probably under pressure — blows the gaff and tells him I knocked Carbridge for six at Crianlarich, I’m in the cart.’

‘Yes,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘you had attacked him. You probably had the best of reasons, but those will not weight the scales of justice in your favour; you were present at the students’ party and it was you who found the body.’

‘I have an alibi from the midday onwards. Carbridge must have been dead long before Hera and I showed up at the party. We shopped, had a late lunch together and went to a cinema. I’m sure I can prove all this. Besides, until I was told of the unlocked back door, the students’ entrance to the hall of residence, I knew nothing about how to get into the house except by ringing the front-door bell.’

‘What?’ said Laura. ‘That plea won’t hold water. Oh, not that I don’t believe you, but the police will argue that you could have heard about a way in by a back door from the students who walked The Way with you. They’ll say they don’t remember talking about it, but things do come out in conversation and seem so trivial at the time that nobody takes any notice unless something blows up later.’

‘Where, in London, is the hall of residence to be found?’ asked Dame Beatrice. I gave her the address and Laura wrote it down. She said that she would get in touch with the warden. ‘I take your point about the autobiography,’ she said. ‘As Mahomet cannot, by reason of his occupation, go to the mountain, Sally must go to Mahomet. But I shall see to it that she does not go alone.’

‘Sally would hardly relish being called a mountain,’ said Laura. ‘I wonder what the warden thinks about this autobiography business?’

‘I wonder how much he knows about the whole project,’ I said.

Next morning at the office Sandy spoke to me on a subject which had crossed my own mind more than once, but which, because of Hera, I had never raised. He came into my room, waited while I finished dictating a letter to Elsa, gave her some envelopes and said, ‘I’ve looked through this lot and some of it needs a woman’s tactful approach. Tell Minster and Wynn that, if they think Tacitus Player will agree to staying on the same advance for his next three books, they’ve got another think coming; and, if Latter and Day don’t pay up soon on that textbook they commissioned from Seppie Leveret, proceedings are jolly well going to be taken which will make them as sick as mud. Put it all in your own winsome way, dear. We don’t want any hard feelings. All the same, tell M. and W. that Player can sell his stuff anywhere nowadays, and that if they don’t want him on their list there’s plenty as does. As for Seppie Leveret, the poor woman has been an angel of patience. She spent two years writing that damn book for them and she has to eat and clothe herself and keep the home fires burning, just like the rest of us. Sock it to them good and proper, but always the kid glove, not the iron gauntlet, on the hand which manipulates the hosepipe.’

‘Don’t he talk lovely!’ said Elsa. She blew him a kiss and went out, taking her sheaves with her. Sandy waved me to a chair, went to a cupboard and took out bottles and glasses.

‘Those letters will keep her busy for a bit,’ he said. ‘I wanted to get her out of the way. Comrie, don’t you think it’s time we offered that girl a partnership?’

‘I think it is. I’ve thought so for a long while. Anchor her down, you mean.’

‘Oh, I didn’t know she’d had offers to leave us.’

‘Lord, yes. She told Hera so when she took Hera home the other day, and Hera told me. She thought it was a plank in her platform and said as much. She said that, if Elsa went, there would be a hole which she herself could fill.’

‘Did she say that to Elsa?’

‘I shouldn’t think so.’

‘It isn’t like Elsa to talk about her own affairs.’

‘Oh, you know what women are. Even the best of them, given the chance to let their back hair down, will let it toss in the wind like the mane of Odin’s horse.’

‘I don’t believe Elsa would. If you don’t mind my saying so, I think Hera made the whole thing up.’

‘Quite possibly. You can see what a spot I’m going to be in, though, if we do make Elsa a partner. I’m all for it, mind you, but I’m in for a pretty rough time when it happens.’

‘Still, fair’s fair. She didn’t tell Hera about any offers she’s had, I’m certain of that. Her whole training is geared to her never talking out of turn. All the same, I’m prepared to bet that she has had offers and, human nature being what it is, one of those offers has only got to be big enough, if you see what I mean —’

‘Perfectly. Right, then, let’s go ahead. That’s what I meant when I talked of getting Elsa anchored here. We can’t afford to lose her.’

‘What about the name of the firm? Won’t she expect to have hers added to ours?’

‘Not at first, anyhow. I like the name Alexander Comrie and don’t want it altered. We could make that a condition, I think, but she’ll probably see for herself the point of keeping the name we’re known by. She’s a very sensible girl.’

So Elsa, obviously delighted, was added to the managerial strength and was adamant that the name of the firm should not be changed.

‘It wouldn’t inspire confidence,’ she said. ‘Alexander Comrie has such a nice, solid, Scottish sound about it and it’s known and respected all over the place.’ So Alexander Comrie we remained and all was gas and gaiters until Hera found out that we had made Elsa a full partner and that her name, although not in our trade title, was on our stationery.

‘What’s all this, and since when?’ she demanded one evening. She was spending the evening at my flat and turning it upside down as usual on one of her tidying-up blitzes.

‘What’s that?’

She had been tidying the shelves in my wardrobe — an operation I thought completely unnecessary, but one which she insisted upon carrying out from time to time, and had come upon a piece of paper on which I had scribbled down a list of things for my charwoman to send to the laundry. I had meant to copy the list on the official card the laundry always enclosed in the package when the washing came home, but had procrastinated.

‘What’s this on the agency’s notepaper?’ She came towards me and held out the scribbled-on sheet. I took it and looked it over.

‘Only a tentative laundry list,’ I said, as off-handedly as I could.

‘I can see that. You haven’t altered the trade name, but what is Elsa Moore’s name doing after Sandy’s full name and yours?’

‘You would hardly expect it to come in front of ours, would you?’

‘Oh, don’t hedge! You’ve made her a partner and I want an explanation.’

‘No explanation is due to you, my dear girl. If I had appeared at your flat with lipstick on my face, or if, in this quite unnecessary tidying-up which you know I hate, you had found a girl’s pants which you knew were not yours, you might be in order in asking certain questions, but what is on our official notepaper is our business, Sandy’s and mine, not yours.’

‘So that’s it! You have made her a partner!’

‘Yes, of course that’s it. Elsa has been with us and served the firm wonderfully well for more than five years. We decided to give some slight recognition to that fact, that is all. And now, for heaven’s sake, stop messing about with my shirts and ties and let’s have a drink.’

I folded the piece of paper, put it in my pocket and waited for the next outburst, but all she said was ‘You’ll be sorry for this.’

‘I am sorry — sorry that you found the laundry list, if you don’t like its printed heading. As a matter of fact, it was Sandy’s suggestion that we should let Elsa in and put her name on our notepaper, but, of course, I agreed. It is only to safeguard ourselves.’

‘Against what?’

‘Against losing her to another firm, of course. You know there was always the danger of that.’

‘Oh, yes? And you have never seen me as an efficient substitute? Oh, well!’

She accepted a drink in her usual graceful way and the only further reference she made to the unfortunate laundry list was to tell me to include the loose covers on the two armchairs in the bedroom. She left earlier than usual and, although I saw her home, she did not suggest that I should go in, so I knew that we had not finished with the subject of Elsa and the partnership.

Sally Lestrange turned up at the office two days later. She had made an appointment over the telephone and was received by Elsa and passed on to me. She was a pleasantly direct and business-like young woman and came to the point at once.

‘What are the chances of publication?’ she asked. ‘I don’t want to spend a lot of time on something which is never going to see the light of day. I’ve made that clear to Bull.’

‘As I told the man himself, it depends upon the material and upon how it’s handled. You know as much about that sort of thing as I do,’ I said.

‘Yes, but the material itself. I’ve talked to Bull and I can’t believe he’s got much to offer.’

‘Then turn him down.’

‘My grandmother would be disappointed if I did. No, I must carry on, I think. I just wondered what chance the thing might have.’

‘I’ll tell you what chance it could have,’ I said, struck by a sudden inspiration. ‘Make it clinical.’

‘Make it what?’

‘Turn it into a case history. Let Bull tell his story in his own way. Don’t sub-edit. Take him down verbatim if your shorthand will stand the strain of his vowels and elisions and then get Dame Beatrice to write an introduction to the book as a study of the psychology of a hangman’s assistant. Bull will be tremendously flattered and if she will do it we shall achieve publication all right. Some of her views are refreshingly unorthodox and will provoke controversy not only among the cognoscenti, but in the popular press.’

‘A bestseller!’ breathed Miss Lestrange.

‘Don’t count the chickens, of course, but at any rate, if you can get Dame Beatrice to agree, there will be no doubt about publication.’

‘She will agree. She wants to get in on this murder which seems to have happened where Bull lives and works. He tells me that it was this murder which sparked off the idea that he should write his memoirs. One thing does lead to another, doesn’t it?’

She was right enough there. The thing which led to another in my case was the new partnership. My private correspondence, delivered at my flat a couple of days later, included a registered packet which contained the engagement ring I had put on Hera’s finger some months earlier. It was her answer to the appointment of Elsa to our board of directors, as Sandy now grandly termed it.

I was not unduly disturbed. I was sorry that Hera was taking the matter so much to heart, but I had expected a vigorous reaction. It had come, so that was a relief. Besides, I felt that she would have second thoughts when she had had time to cool off. I felt sure that, when she had had a chance to think things over, she would have sense enough to realise that, if we were going to admit anybody to partnership, Elsa was the obvious choice. She had the knowledge and the experience. Besides, not only Sandy and myself, but the rest of the staff got on well with her. She was hardworking and conscientious and, better than that, she had flair, a wonderful way with difficult authors and a grand sense of humour.

I wrote in brief acknowledgement of the registered package and ended the letter ‘Love, C.’ I posted it on my way to the office and told Sandy about it when I got there. He expressed concern, but I said I was sure she would come round when she had thought matters over.

‘She was dead nuts on coming in with us, of course,’ I said. ‘Perhaps we ought to have waited a bit before we co-opted Elsa.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ said Sandy. ‘We might have lost Elsa if we’d waited much longer.’

That morning Polly brought my coffee.

‘To what are we indebted?’ I asked, as she set down my cup. Usually one of the juniors brought it.

‘That pullover-and-jeans is here again,’ she replied, ‘and Miss Moore has got an author.’ She made it sound as though Elsa was suffering from a sick headache and, knowing some of our authors, I thought it more than likely that this was so. ‘Anyway, it’s you he wants to see,’ Polly went on, ‘so I told him I’d find out. You drink that coffee and let him wait.’

‘You might possibly give him a cup, too. It will help him pass the time,’ I suggested.

‘Do you know what fresh-ground coffee costs these days?’ she asked tartly. ‘Still, all right, if you say so.’

‘It will be a treat for the poor boy,’ I said. ‘Surely your motherly heart goes out to him?’

‘I don’t like young men in horn-rims.’

‘That is mere prejudice.’

‘He dresses like a tramp that’s lost all self-respect, and yet if those horn-rims cost a penny under sixty pounds I should be surprised. It’s what they call inverted snobbery.’

‘He’s a student of geology.’

‘No wonder he looks so grubby.’ She waited while I drank my coffee, then she took away the cup and added, ‘Shall I send him in?’

‘Yes, when he’s finished the coffee you are going to give him. You might add a couple of substantial biscuits. I expect he’s hungry. Boys always are.’

When Trickett came in, he was obviously the bearer of tidings. His thin face was flushed and his spectacles glittered. He reminded me of Gussie Fink-Nottle contemplating a particularly fine collection of newts.

‘I say, you know,’ he said, ‘we’ve had a Visitation, you know.’

‘Come, come!’ I said. ‘The time of the final apocalypse is not yet. I suppose you mean Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley has shown up at the hall of residence.’

This deflated him. He took a chair and said in disappointed tones, ‘Oh, you knew. Yes, she turned up with the woman who is going to write up Bull’s life story. The warden has given full permission to them both and is all over the old lady. He’s already arranged for her to give a talk to the students when term starts. It seems she is very well known in her own circles, but she’s not going to talk on her own subject. She’s going to talk about murder.’

‘Well, that is her subject — a subsidiary one, perhaps, but, nevertheless, her own. She is a noted criminologist and murderers are her speciality.’

‘I say, that’s fine! Everybody loves a good murder. The rest of the poly lot will be as envious as Cassius when they know we’ve actually been mixed up in one.’

‘They probably know already. The story has been in all the papers.’

‘Still, the walkers and the orchestra were the only ones of our lot who were actually there when it happened. Dame Beatrice is fearfully interested. She wants to find out how we all reacted and will add what we tell her to round out her talk. We’re going to have another party before she gives her talk, but she’s giving it herself. She wants me to give out most of the invitations, though. It’s to be held at a restaurant where they will give us a private room — La Carpe Heureuse. Do you know it?’

‘Yes. I’ve taken Hera there several times. Marvellous food.’

‘Ah, Miss Camden, yes. Do you think she will come? Todd is invited, too, of course. He took Patsy Carlow to a nightclub the other evening, as term hasn’t started yet, and Miss Camden and Freddie Brown were invited as well. I suppose their job was to keep the party clean. Patsy is only too apt to step high, wide and plentiful if anybody treats her to champagne. She told Coral she had bedded down with Todd, but Coral says that was only wishful thinking. Will you pass the invitation on to Miss Camden? Six thirty on Wednesday for seven. Black ties or a dark suit. The warden and his wife are coming.’

‘Is Detective-Inspector Bingley to be one of the company?’ I asked facetiously.

‘I shouldn’t think so. He would rather cramp our style, don’t you think?’ said Trickett seriously.

‘What about Bull, who is on the threshold of becoming a bestselling author?’

‘Poor old Bull! No, he won’t be there, but Dame Beatrice is bringing Miss Lestrange and Mrs Gavin.’

‘Mrs Gavin? — oh, of course, Laura!’

‘They wondered whether your partner would like to come — Mr Alexander, isn’t it?’

‘Storey, actually. We combine our first names for business purposes. Yes, I think he would very much like to come. Are the members of the orchestra invited?’

‘Dame Beatrice has left it to me, so I think not. Ostensibly the thing is my party, so I’ve decided that the only poly people will be those who went on the walk. Dame Beatrice particularly wants Perth to come and has sent him a return ticket and will book him in for Wednesday night at an hotel. Well, with our people, including you and Todd and Miss Camden, the warden and his wife, Miss Lestrange, Mrs Gavin and Dame Beatrice herself, we shall be quite a large enough gathering, I think. I say, who is the stunning young woman who looks like the Queen of Sheba and makes me feel as though I’m six years old and have jam on my face?’

‘Our junior partner, Miss Elsa Moore.’

‘Is she Jewish?’

‘Irish, I would have thought.’

‘I bet she had a Jewish mother, then. You can’t mistake the arrogance of that type of Jewish girl, you know, when they’re as good-looking as that and so damned brainy with it.’

‘Good gracious, Elsa isn’t arrogant! Far from it. She’s the quietest, most amenable person.’

‘All the same,’ he said, ‘I bet she ties your authors up in knots if they come here looking for an argument. I say! You wouldn’t like to bring her to the party, would you? I can invite anybody I like, you know, and I do admire Miss Moore most awfully.’

‘I can’t bring Elsa if Hera is going to be there.’

‘Ah,’ he said, taking off the horn-rims which Polly had criticised and gesturing with them at me.’Like that, is it?’

‘Just like that, but not for the reason you seem to think,’ I said. He smiled pityingly and shook his head.