After the Exhibition: A Jack Haldean 1920s Mystery (A Jack Haldean Mystery) (23 page)

‘God knows,’ said Colin, with another snort of impatience. ‘I’m not a psychologist but I’m beginning to think she needs one. I used to think Betty was a nice, straightforward girl. I used to feel sorry for her, for Pete’s sake! I don’t feel sorry for her any longer. She’s either subject to nightmares or she’s looking for attention.’ He gave a little shiver. ‘To be honest, it scares me a little, she’s so determined. She … well, she can’t have had such an easy time of it with Mrs Lythewell. I don’t know. Maybe she really does just want attention.’

Bill thought of Betty Wingate. She must be having a hard time at home. ‘We did find evidence that there’d been a crime.’

Colin Askern made a dismissive noise. ‘So Betty says, but I’d like to know exactly what evidence there was. I don’t see how there can be any.’ Bill was aware that Askern was watching him very closely. ‘There isn’t any real evidence, is there?’ said Askern acutely. ‘None that Betty couldn’t have put there herself.’

Although Bill could’ve sworn his expression had given nothing away, Askern smacked his fist down on the desk in triumph. ‘I knew it!’ He pushed his chair back and, standing up, rubbed his tired eyes with his hand. ‘Look, when I said I felt sorry for Betty, I meant it. She’s had a rotten run of luck and it can’t be easy, living at her Aunt Maud’s beck and call. It wouldn’t be surprising if it did drive her mental. Maybe she really does need a psychologist. I could understand that, but what I can’t understand is why my father’s being hounded. I want it to stop.’

Bill put his head to one side. ‘I don’t think you’re in a position to tell me what to do.’

Askern drew a deep breath. ‘Maybe not. But I’ll tell you this. Betty didn’t understand the true facts about the relationship between my mother and myself. I hardly like to say as much, but she thought there was an affair of sorts going on.’

‘Almost everyone did think that, as far as I can make out,’ said Bill dryly.

Askern had the grace to look abashed. ‘All right, but I’d told Betty there was nothing to worry about. If the silly girl had only taken me at my word, she’d have saved herself a lot of heartache.’ He rubbed the side of his nose in embarrassment. ‘Don’t you understand? Betty was jealous. Despite everything I’d said, she was jealous of my mother.’

‘And?’

‘Jealous women are capable of just about
anything.
As I said, God knows what’s going on in Betty’s mind, but she could’ve seen exactly what she wanted to see and have trumped up some so-called evidence to prove it when no one believed her. It’s possible, you know.’

Was it possible? Just about. Perhaps.

Askern saw the question in Bill’s eyes and pressed home the advantage. ‘My father’s not a strong man. If you’re going to formally charge him with bigamy, then charge him. At least he’ll have something concrete to fight. But this cloud of suspicion has to be lifted, otherwise there’s every chance you’ll send him over the edge.’

‘Are you going to charge Mr Askern with bigamy?’ asked Jack, when Bill reported the conversation to him. ‘It sounds suspiciously like a challenge or a diversion to me.’

‘I don’t see how we can, unless we’ve got some hard evidence.’ Bill paused. ‘How d’you mean? A challenge or a diversion?’

‘To take your eye off the real crime, dumb-bell.’

‘If there is a real crime,’ Bill said gloomily. ‘Askern was quite right, you know. There wasn’t anything we turned up in Signora Bianchi’s cottage that Miss Wingate couldn’t have placed there herself.’

Jack laughed dismissively. ‘Come off it, Bill. That didn’t occur to you before you spoke to Askern.’

‘As a matter of fact, it did. When Miss Wingate first told me her story, I did wonder how much of it was real and how much imagined.’

‘You’ve changed your mind since then, though.’

Bill sighed. ‘I
had
. If only we could find the body, Jack. That would make all the difference. You can’t argue with a body. At the moment, we can’t do a damn thing. It’s all suspicion and hearsay and ifs, mights and buts. I’m tired of the whole wretched business.’

‘Cheer up,’ said Jack encouragingly. ‘You never know what tomorrow might bring.’

The next day, Miss Betty Wingate, letter in hand, walked into the small lobby of Dorian House, the block of flats that straddled the corner of Ransome Gardens and Buchanan Street. The hum of traffic from Tottenham Court Road faded as the door closed behind her. There was a porter’s desk and chair in the lobby, but the chair was empty. On the desk was a bell with a notice beside it:
Please ring for attention.

Betty reached out her hand, then hesitated, looking at the letter once more. The instructions in the letter were perfectly clear and she wanted a few moments to compose herself.

Flat 22. Three o’clock. Knock and enter.

She didn’t really need anyone to show her the way to the second floor, did she? And she was grateful for these last few moments to gather her thoughts, to think exactly what she was going to say, without interruption.

Flat 22. Three o’clock. Knock and enter.

Miss Betty Wingate mounted the stairs.

It was twenty past six when Jack’s telephone rang.

‘Jack?’ It was Bill Rackham. ‘I’m at 22, Dorian House. It’s a block of flats on the corner of Ransome Gardens and Buchanan Street. Do you know it?’

‘Buchanan Street? Near Tottenham Court Road?’

‘That’s the one. Can you get over here? Now, I mean? It’s important.’

Jack mentally rearranged his evening. Bill’s voice sounded urgent. ‘Yes, of course. What’s happened?’

‘I’d rather not say over the phone. Just get here as fast as you can.’

What the dickens was all this about? There was a police constable on duty in the lobby of Dorian House who politely directed him upstairs, but who equally politely refused to give him any details.

It has to be murder or a death at least, Jack thought, as he took the stairs two at a time. Nothing else would warrant the constable’s bland, official secrecy, and surely –
surely
– it had to do with what he had privately labelled the Chantry Case. But where did Dorian House fit into that?

Dorian House was a good, solid Victorian building divided into good, solid apartments which, judging from the lobby, stairs and hallways, were kept up to a high standard. The rents probably ran to six or seven pounds a week. They were the sort of flats where he’d expect the occupants to have a maid or a man-servant. To the best of his knowledge, no one had ever mentioned Dorian House before.

The door of number 22 stood ajar and Jack could hear voices coming from the flat. He pushed open the door and went along the hallway to the sitting-room.

Bill was standing to one side of the room, beside a chintz-covered armchair. With him was a man Jack recognised, the police surgeon Dr Roude. Beside him, packing away his camera, was a police photographer, three uniformed constables and two plain-clothes officers, who, from their briefcases, Jack thought were probably the fingerprint men.

‘Jack!’ said Bill as he came in, stepping away from the armchair.

In the chair, sitting with his head thrown back, a man was slumped. Round his throat, wrapped very tightly, was what looked like a woman’s blue silk scarf with a knotted fringe. His posture seemed that of sleep, but the utter rigid stillness of his hands on the arms of the chair told its own story.

Jack stopped short. ‘It’s
John Askern
,’ he said incredulously. He gazed at Bill in bewilderment. ‘John Askern? But damnit, that’s impossible.’

‘Impossible or not, here he is.’

‘But Bill, we’d had him pegged as a likely murderer, not a victim.’ He glanced at Dr Roude. ‘It is murder, isn’t it? I mean, it looks pretty unlikely, but there’s no chance he could have committed suicide, is there? I could’ve believed that.’

Dr Roude shook his head. ‘None whatsoever, I’d say, Haldean. Inspector Rackham asked me the same question.’

‘It has to be murder,’ said Bill. ‘You can see for yourself, Jack, that a man simply couldn’t commit suicide in that position.’

‘Could he have been moved after he died? Could he have been put in the chair?’

‘That occurred to me,’ said Bill, ‘but the doctor says that, medically speaking, there’s no indication the body’s been moved. I examined the area around the chair pretty closely, as you can imagine, but there’s no scuff marks on the carpet or anything else to suggest that he was carried or dragged here.’

Jack’s mind was racing. It seemed impossible that John Askern could’ve been murdered, and yet here he was.
You can’t argue with a body.
Bill had said that only yesterday. ‘How long has he been dead?’

‘I saw him at twenty to five,’ said Dr Roude. ‘I’d estimate that by that time he’d been dead for about two and a half to four hours or so. That’s the absolute outside. Certainly not earlier, but I can’t be more accurate than that. There’s too many variable factors to take into account.’

‘Would three o’clock be a possible time?’ asked Bill.

Dr Roude pulled a face. ‘I’d veer to an earlier time, perhaps, but three is certainly possible, yes.’

‘And it’s murder,’ said Bill. ‘Murder by strangulation.’ He reached out and touched the blue silk scarf with his forefinger. ‘He was strangled with this, despite the fact he looks so peaceful.’

Dr Roude cleared his throat. ‘To be technical, what I believe actually occurred was attempted strangulation, causing compression of the vagus nerve, which runs alongside the jugular vein. That led to over-stimulation of the heart, so the cause of death was actually heart failure, which explains the lack of usual signs of asphyxia.’ He snapped his briefcase shut. ‘Which, I may say, is a relief for all of us, as an asphyxiated victim is not a pleasant sight. We’ll probably find he had a weak heart, but that’s something which I only can ascertain in the P.M.’ He looked at Bill. ‘If you don’t need me for anything else, I’ve finished here.’

‘No, that’s fine, Doctor,’ said Bill. He looked up as a knock sounded on the door and a constable came in.

‘The mortuary men are outside, sir.’

‘Good.’ He looked at the fingerprint men. ‘Can the body be taken away now?’

‘Yes, sir, we’ve finished,’ said one of the men. ‘You can touch anything you like now.’ He nodded towards the photographer. ‘We’ve got it all on record.’

‘Good,’ said Bill. He turned to the uniformed constables. ‘Ask the mortuary chaps to come and remove the body, then return to making enquiries at the other flats, will you? Let me know right away if anything new turns up.’

The mortuary men came in, loaded the mortal remains of John Askern onto a stretcher, covered the body with a green canvas cover and took it away.

Once everyone had gone, the flat seemed very quiet.

Bill lit a cigarette and, sinking into an armchair, tossed his cigarette case over to Jack. ‘Help yourself. This is a turn up for the books, isn’t it? All our theories kicked into touch.’

‘That poor beggar Askern,’ said Jack, taking a cigarette and striking a match. ‘I know I suggested he was the villain of the piece, but it was horrible to see him like that.’ He shook his head impatiently, as if to rid himself of the image.

‘Incidentally, it’s kind of you to say
our
theories,’ he added glumly, after a pause. ‘It’s me who was so damn certain John Askern was our man. I wouldn’t say I had it all worked out, but I was getting there. Mrs McAllister seemed to fit so well as the victim in Signora Bianchi’s cottage. I’d guessed that she’d been a servant, perhaps in old Mr Lythewell’s household, perhaps elsewhere in Whimbrell Heath, but certainly somewhere she knew John Askern in a context associated with art.’

Bill looked at him acutely. ‘I see. That explains why she said what she did outside the exhibition. That’s not a bad explanation, Jack.’

‘I thought it was credible. It’d do as a working hypothesis, at any rate. However …’

‘Carry on,’ said Bill. ‘You’ve not spelt your ideas out for me like this before.’

‘No? That’s because ideas are all they are – or were, I should say. There’s damn all I can prove. It was no secret that John Askern had been married, but I guessed Joan McAllister may have found out Colin’s mother was alive. And you know I thought John Askern had seen off old Mr Lythewell to have a crack at Lythewell’s treasure?’

Bill nodded. ‘D’you still think that?’

Jack shrugged. ‘I think it’s feasible. I thought Joan McAllister had guessed either that Colin’s mother was alive or the truth about Lythewell’s death, two facts that Askern would want kept quiet. John Askern bought her off and Joan McAllister went to America. Then, years later, she sees him outside the exhibition and – bingo! She recognises him and starts to cash in. Askern, already worried to death by the reappearance of Signora Bianchi, found Joan McAllister popping up again just about the last straw. So, knowing that Signora Bianchi’s cottage is unoccupied, he asks her to meet him there and bumps her off, disposing of her body God knows where. And that, Bill,’ he said, flicking the ash off his cigarette, ‘was more or less it. The fact that poor old Askern was murdered himself does make me think I was on the wrong lines.’

‘Unfortunately,’ said Bill, ‘you are. Which is a pity, because it sounds very plausible. You aren’t in possession of all the facts, though.’

Jack looked up with a cynical smile. ‘That sounds as if you’re awarding me a pat on the back, an A for effort and a gold star. Go on. What facts am I lacking?’

‘Well, you haven’t asked me who this flat belongs to, for instance.’

‘I was going to. We’re obviously firmly in upper middle-class territory. It didn’t belong to John Askern, did it?’

‘Not as far as we can tell. Not unless he was the man who really paid the rent, if you see what I mean. The porter tells me the flat belongs to a Colonel and Mrs Pearson, but they’re in Egypt for six months. The Colonel and his wife approached a lettings agency to let the flat while they were away.’ Bill couldn’t help but pause. ‘You’re going to love this, Jack. The flat was taken three weeks ago by none other than Mrs Joan McAllister.’

If Bill had been hoping for a reaction, he certainly got one. Jack gaped at him. ‘
Who?
’