Mornings in London Page 4

  I like the north light from the big, rather dirty windows. I like the paint-encrusted floors and tables, and the jars full of brushes, and the row of palette knives, and the canvases facing the wall. I like their beautiful, whole meal-colored backs and the excitement of turning each one around and seeing the work, even though I’m aware that Maurice is not a top-class painter.

  “Here you are!” He had found a newspaper under his easel. It was all spattered with paint, but there on page three was the late Freddie Bosworth, looking as sly as ever, and a shot of Larkin Manor, picturesquely bucolic, and in a boxed insert, my very own Inspector Carstairs, addressing the press. The photo was a small profile, but it helped, and before I had quite corrected the line of the nose and the placement of the eyes, I realized that I would have an even better resource in Nan’s scrapbook.

  As one of the discoverers of the late Freddie, I’d merited a line in print—sufficient for inclusion in the scrapbook—and if I remembered correctly, there had been a larger shot of Carstairs in the very first report. When I got home, I wasn’t disappointed. There was Carstairs’s full face in newsprint, and with Nan’s magnifying glass, I brought up the pattern of dark and light of his features. I cut out the photo, pinned it to my easel, and started revising the canvas I’d brought from Maurice’s studio.

  What a difference! Suddenly, I wasn’t painting my memory of Carstairs but a rectangle of gray, black, and white that I could distort and exaggerate to bring up the inner man. I worked for several hours with great excitement and enthusiasm, and when I took a break and studied the result, I saw I’d done something interesting.

  “Is he capable?” Nan asked with a glance at the easel when she brought in a cup of tea. My nan follows the leading detectives the way punters follow horses.

  “I’ve nothing much to compare him with.” The last time police had questioned me about a body had been in a mix of German and English, and I’d been a good deal more upset than I’d been about Freddie.

  “I’m surprised you were all allowed to leave so promptly. Not that I wasn’t delighted you got home, dear boy.”

  I gave her a hug. “Goes without saying.”

  “But it’s odd, isn’t it?”

  “Very, although except for Poppy and me, everyone had an alibi of sorts and lacked an obvious motive. The police were interested in the quarrel between her and Freddie, but I don’t think they took it too seriously. The thing is, it must have been hard to kill Freddie, given that he was found practically touching the base of the tower. There was no sign he’d been moved and how anyone except of great size and strength could have surprised him right there and cut his throat is beyond me. And, leaving aside the fact that Poppy is small compared to Freddie and that I am no athlete, making a blood-soaked return unnoticed would have been almost impossible. Larkin Manor has a big and attentive staff.”

  Nan looked thoughtful. “Lucky about that for you. Could two people have managed it?”

  “Don’t suggest that to the police.” My nan sometimes has more imagination than a nanny requires. Of course, that was exactly why she was ideal for me.

  “They’d have thought of it themselves if they’d had any sense. Incriminating garments, mysterious bonfires, ashes left in the grate in summertime—” Nan savored the thought, before adding, “Those trip up murderers. Unless there was careful planning.”

  “I don’t think anything could have been planned. Freddie had been due to stay the weekend. After the quarrel with Poppy, he up and asked to be driven to the station for the midmorning train.”

  “But he returned. On foot.”

  “Must have done, unless someone unknown gave him a lift. Thorne, the chauffeur, was back promptly.”

  “The police need to know why Mr. Bosworth returned. That’s the key,” said Nan. “Know that, and you’ll know who killed him.”

  A good theory but not a popular one. “Around Larkin Manor, a passing stranger is the favored explanation.”

  “I’m sure, but most people are murdered by their associates.”

  Freddie certainly had a wide range of associates. The only problem I could see was that the ones running to grievous bodily harm were mostly back in London. “With the exception of yours truly, all the Larkin Manor guests were people of influence,” I suggested.

  “Possibly a finger on the scale of justice,” agreed my nan. “See you steer clear of that whole outfit.”

  My intentions exactly.

  Over the following days, I worked on my “portrait” of Carstairs, which became more and more what I think of as a real painting, more a thing of pigment and emotion and less a record of a rural inspector, capable or not. Otherwise, I spent nights with Maurice and afternoons in the design showroom: ordinary life, in short. The events at Larkin Manor gradually slipped from my awareness and also from the press. SHOCKING DISCOVERY IN SUSSEX became CONTINUING MYSTERY OF BOSWORTH MURDER before slipping into silence as other sensations claimed the front pages. There was a brief note about a memorial service up north after the body was released, then nothing more.

  When I thought that I’d heard the last of Freddie and his unsolved murder, an unexpected visit raised his name again. I was back in my studio, working on a commissioned desk design, when I heard the bell dingle. I’d reached an impasse over the hardware, and I called to Nan that I would take the showroom.

  A couple had arrived, a short, plump man in a good suit and a tall woman wearing a beautiful yellow day dress and a black hat with a black dyed pheasant feather. They were looking at the rugs, and I didn’t need Nan to tell me this was good solid money.

  “Good afternoon,” I said.

  The woman turned around. “Blimey! It is you!”

  I gave her a big hug. “Muriel!”

  “The same!” She burst out laughing and kissed me on both cheeks. Muriel saved my life in Berlin in a rather comic fashion. “I saw the name in the paper after the Bosworth murder, but I wasn’t sure it was the Francis I knew.”

  “How well you look. Gorgeous as ever! Still dancing?”

  “I’m too old for the Windmill Theater and skimpy costumes. I’m lucky to be retired.” She put her hand on the man’s shoulder. “Thanks to my husband, Ben, Ben Mendelssohn. My friend Francis. My talented friend! But you got out. With my dress,” she added and gave me a poke in the ribs.

  A borrowed outfit had aided my escape from a sticky situation.

  “The dress came to a bad end, but I’ll give you a discount on a rug,” I offered.

  “A businessman,” said her husband in a jovial tone. He had a heavy German accent and an uncertain vocabulary; we conducted the rest of our conversation in a mix of German and English.

  That was a profitable afternoon. Herr Mendelssohn had been the proprietor of a furniture store in Berlin. “Mendelssohn’s—one of the very best,” said Muriel. But he’d read the tea leaves and liquidated his stock. “I made him leave,” said Muriel. “I told him I wouldn’t marry him anywhere but London.” He was now in the East End with a furniture factory, and he turned out to know my suppliers. “Small world,” said Muriel.

  They bought a rug, and after Ben took a look at my desk design, he made some suggestions and gave me a very fair price for the fabrication. We ended with handshakes all around before tea and scones with Nan. Then Ben stepped out to get a cab and I was left with Muriel for a moment.

  “It is so good to see you,” I said. “And I like your husband.”

  Her expression darkened. “He is a good man. I thought he would be safe in London, but now I’m not sure.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Despite our marriage, Ben is an alien without right of residence here.”

  “But you are English!”

  “Huh,” she said. “I am an Englishwoman born and bred, but as Mrs. Mendelssohn, I am a noncitizen.”

  “That’s appalling!”

  �
�Dark Ages stuff. What’s worse is Ben had an enemy. That’s how we found you. We read in the paper about Freddie Bosworth, and we thought our troubles might be over. But—”

  The door opened then and Ben called to Muriel, who gave me a warning look. I went to the street with them and waved good-bye. When they were gone, I was thoughtful. What had Poppy said? Freddie quite worships Mussolini? And Mosley. Hadn’t she and I nearly quarreled about Oswald and his Blackshirts in the British Union of Fascists, better known as the BUF? Ridiculous acronym and a ridiculous outfit, though maybe not so comic for a refugee Jew in the East End. Not even for a rich one.

  Could I see Freddie parading about in a black outfit? Threatening cut-price shopkeepers and harassing political exiles? Not likely somehow. Behind the scenes where there was money lying about? That was another matter, and I thought about the country house party that had featured an Italian diplomat, an ex-­government functionary from the City, a furniture manufacturer, several fascist sympathizers, and Freddie.

  Poppy and yours truly were the only people—unless one exempted the major, whose whole interest appeared to be architectural—without connections to Conservative politics, the Italians, the BUF, or big money. I decided to see Poppy as soon as possible. She’d gone back to her family’s home just off Sloane Square, so I sent a note there.

  The response came in the morning and Poppy herself appeared in the showroom a few hours later. She was wearing a plaid dress in muted colors, a jaunty red hat, and matching heels. She came into the studio and gave me a kiss before wandering around, lifting my sketches, examining the pencils, and pulling strands out of the hanks of wool samples.

  “Mother’s been driving me crazy.”

  I shrugged. I’m unfamiliar with maternal anxiety.

  “Oh, and she wanted to be remembered to you.”

  “Greetings to Mater.” Perhaps I’d come up in Aunt Theresa’s estimation. “So are you going to move back to your flat?”

  At this, she crossed her arms with a nervous gesture. “I’m frightened, Francis. I don’t know what to do. I can’t stand living at home much longer, but I’m nervous every time I’m at the flat.”

  “That’s maybe natural, Poppy. You’ve had a terrible shock. Two, really.”

  “That’s not it,” she said sharply. “I’m over Freddie, believe me. No, I’m being watched. I know I am. When I’m on the street, sometimes, I’ll see a car or a man. And then I’ll see the same car, the same man again a few blocks later. If I take notice, the car pulls out and drives off.”

  “And the man?”

  “I’ve seen him in Harrods twice, and each time, I’ve had the feeling he’d followed me inside. I’ve noticed him outside our house, too, hanging about, smoking, and I saw him again yesterday, walking in the park. I am sure it’s the same man. I never really see his face because he wears a fedora pulled down, but I recognize him. Something about his walk, as if he might have a bad back, something stiff and distinctive. Same man, same out-of-date brown suit, same brown hat with a stained band.”

  I thought there must be fifty thousand men in London sporting roughly the same wardrobe.

  “You think I’m a nervous Nellie,” she said, “but here’s the other thing: Someone has been in my flat.”

  “Besides your landlady, you mean?”

  “My landlady does not leave a smell of . . . motor oil, I think it is. It smells like Major Larkin’s garage when Thorne’s been working on the car. And that’s not all. I’ve a blouse missing.”

  “Poppy, you have a bedroom in your parents’ house and one at your flat and closets and bureaus in both. Likely the blouse’s just gone missing in the laundry.”

  “No. I went first to my flat, remember, when we came back from Sussex? I left the clothes I’d worn at the Larkins there. I never wanted to wear them again, especially that wretched blouse and skirt I’d had on when we found Freddie. Just the look of them makes me feel sick.”

  “You didn’t chuck them to the rag and bone man, did you?”

  “I wish I had. Two weeks ago, I went to the flat to pick up these shoes. When I unlocked the door, there was an odd smell, and I could tell that someone had gone through my things. The blouse was missing. Not the skirt, just the blouse. Like you, I assumed I’d been mistaken. I checked at home and asked about the laundry. Annie hadn’t seen the blouse, although she remembered it, because she’d monogrammed in for me when I first got it. The whole thing bothered me enough that I stopped on the way here and checked again. No blouse and—I don’t know, Francis—just a sense that someone had disarranged things. Carefully maybe, but disarranged just the same.”

  “What did your landlady say?”

  “She was very put out, insisted that she’d let no one into the flat.”

  I thought that’s what she would say and also that various clever folk could open a door without a key.

  “She said the smell was probably gas, and she’d have the company check the line.”

  “It’s possible, Poppy.”

  “Possible, yes. But I want you to come to the flat with me,” she said. “I want to see what you think.”

  Chapter 4

  Poppy’s flat was in a converted town house not far from the British Museum, a four-story white stone building with a handsome front entrance and an overgrown back garden. Poppy was on the second floor, two rooms, plus kitchenette, bathroom, and WC, rather posh. Despite her complaints about her mother, Poppy enjoyed a sizable allowance; I could see why Freddie had been tempted.

  We went through the flat carefully. Any smell of oil or gas had dissipated, her landlady having aired the place, and everything looked spotlessly neat. I couldn’t see anything amiss.

  “It’s just a feeling,” Poppy kept saying. “See here.” She opened a drawer with various lacy underthings, her little leather contraceptive box, and a pretty lavender sachet. “My governess trained me to be neat.”

  The slips and panties and such were not jumbled together but not folded perfectly, either. I lifted the top layer of garments one by one, set them aside, and started on the second layer before I noticed a faint oily black smear on one of the slips. “Have you been doing engine repair in your skivvies?” I sniffed the fabric; under the pervasive odor of lavender and French cologne was a hint of petrol. “Too bad it’s not a fingerprint.”

  “I was right! I knew it.”

  “So your apartment’s been searched. What’s missing?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all. That’s what frightens me, Francis. Burglary, I understand. I don’t understand this at all. Is it to scare me? Someone who blames me for Freddie’s death?”

  “I doubt Freddie had such devoted friends.” I sat down on one end of her bed. “Freddie returned that day after he’d given every indication that he was leaving for good. Right?”

  She nodded.

  “So why come back? Was he hoping to be reconciled with you?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  I didn’t, either. Freddy had certainly seemed angry but not at all like a man with a broken heart. “I agree, because, otherwise, wouldn’t he have called from the station and had Thorne collect him? What about his luggage?”

  “Left at the station,” said Poppy. “The inspector had me identify the bags.”

  “So he wasn’t returning to stay. He hadn’t changed his mind about that.”

  “He came back to see someone else?” Poppy suggested.

  “Or for something he’d left. Could he have forgotten something important in the heat of the moment?”

  “Same objection,” said Poppy. “Why not call and get picked up? Or better yet, ask Thorne to deliver whatever it was to the station?”

  Good question. I took a breath. “You remember that when I warned you about Freddie, I wasn’t terribly specific.”

  “You were damn unspecific.” Poppy found her cigaret
tes and lighted up.

  “I only indicated that he had a bad reputation.”

  “You certainly didn’t tell me that he was buggering Italian diplomats.”

  “Diplomatic sex, per se, is not immoral in my book, but there were some nasty rumors. No matter what he hinted about family properties up north or in Ireland or wherever, Freddie had to earn a living. How he did that was mysterious, and one suggestion was blackmail.”

  Poppy looked at me. “He was threatening a kiss-and-tell book like a fading actress?”

  “More likely he was set to contact the tabloids. Perhaps with photos to sell.”

  Poppy sat down beside me, her shoulders slumped, and said nothing for a moment. “You think he was blackmailing someone at the Larkins’ party?”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  “One of his friends?”

  “Friends of a sort. They’ve certainly made it clear since that they hardly knew him. Perhaps he’d hidden the evidence and forgotten to collect it.”

  “That creepy Rinaldi killed him!” she exclaimed, leaping up again. “He used a knife like the Borgias! It fits, Francis! It does!”

  “The Borgias preferred poison, but I think Rinaldi took another approach.” I told her about spotting the Italian at the door of Freddie’s room. “He pretended to be returning a book.”

  “Ha, that’s rich! That is a lie! Freddie never read anything but the papers and only politics and the racing results. He was even more ignorant than I am, and that’s saying something.” She went on a bit about her faithless fiancé, whom she’d surprised in the garden with Rinaldi, a suggestive but not conclusive scene. She hadn’t been convinced until she saw Freddie at the door of Rinaldi’s room on the morning they went riding. He’d claimed to be settling up a few pounds after a card game.

  “Owed to him or to Rinaldi?” I asked.

  “What does it matter!” she cried. “Everything was a lie with Freddie! A man should at least be faithful before marriage.”

  A Wildean note for certain! I interrupted her discourse on fidelity and marriage. “Do think for a minute, Poppy. I have a reason for asking.”