Unnatural death
eleven, by which time Mrs. Forrest has usually gone out.”
“Doesn’t anybody ever see her?”
“Oh dear, yes! The people in the flat below and the girl at the
flower-shop were able to give me quite a good description of her. Tall,
over-dressed, musquash and those abbreviated sort of shoes with jewelled
heels and hardly any uppers—you know the sort of thing. Heavily
peroxided; strong aroma of origan wafted out upon the passer-by; powder
too white for the fashion and mouth heavily obscured with sealing-wax
red; eyebrows painted black to startle, not deceive; finger-nails a
monument to Kraska—the pink variety.”
“I’d no idea you studied the Woman’s Page to such good purpose,
Charles.”
“Drives a Renault Four-seater, dark green with tapestry doings. Garages
just round the corner. I’ve seen the man, and he says the car was out on
the night of the 27th. Went out at 11:30. Returned about 8 the next
morning.”
“How much petrol had been used?”
“We worked that out. Just about enough for a run to Epping and back.
What’s more, the charwoman says that there had been supper for two in
the flat that night, and three bottles of champagne drunk. Also, there
is a ham in the flat.”
“A Bradenham ham?”
“How do you expect the charwoman to know that? But I think it probably
is, as I find from Fortnum & Mason’s that a Bradenham ham was delivered
to Mrs. Forrest’s address about a fortnight ago.”
“That sounds conclusive. I take it you think Bertha Gotobed was
inveigled there for some undesirable purpose by Mrs. Forrest, and had
supper with her—”
“No; I should think there was a man.”
“Yes, of course. Mrs. F. brings the parties together and leaves them to
it. The poor girl is made thoroughly drunk—and then something untoward
happens.”
“Yes—shock, perhaps, or a shot of dope.”
“And they bustle her off and get rid of her. It’s quite possible. The
post-mortem may tell us something about it. Yes, Bunter, what is it?”
“The telephone, my lord, for Mr. Parker.”
“Excuse me,” said Parker, “I asked the people at the flower-shop to ring
me up here, if Mrs. Forrest came in. If she’s there, would you like to
come round with me?”
“Very much.”
Parker returned from the telephone with an air of subdued triumph.
“She’s just gone up to her flat. Come along. We’ll take a taxi—not that
death-rattle of yours. Hurry up, I don’t want to miss her.”
The door of the flat in South Audley Street was opened by Mrs. Forrest
in person. Wimsey recognised her instantly from the description. On
seeing Parker’s card, she made no objection whatever to letting them in,
and led the way into a pink and mauve sitting-room, obviously furnished
by contract from a Regent Street establishment.
“Please sit down. Will you smoke? And your friend?”
“My colleague, Mr. Templeton,” said Parker, promptly.
Mrs. Forrest’s rather hard eyes appeared to sum up in a practised manner
the difference between Parker’s seven-guinea “fashionable lounge
suiting, tailored in our own workrooms, fits like a made-to-measure
suit,” and his “colleague’s” Savile Row outlines, but beyond a slight
additional defensiveness of manner she showed no disturbance. Parker
noted the glance. “She’s summing us up professionally,” was his mental
comment, “and she’s not quite sure whether Wimsey’s an outraged brother
or husband or what. Never mind. Let her wonder. We may get her rattled.”
“We are engaged, Madam,” he began, with formal severity, “on an inquiry
relative to certain events connected with the 26th of last month. I
think you were in Town at that time?”
Mrs. Forrest frowned slightly in the effort to recollect. Wimsey made a
mental note that she was not as young as her bouffant apple-green frock
made her appear. She was certainly nearing the thirties, and her eyes
were mature and aware.
“Yes, I think I was. Yes, certainly. I was in Town for several days
about that time. How can I help you?”
“It is a question of a certain bank-note which has been traced to your
possession,” said Parker, “a £5 note numbered x/y58929. It was issued to
you by Lloyds Bank in payment of a cheque on the 19th.”
“Very likely. I can’t say I remember the number, but I think I cashed a
cheque about that time. I can tell in a moment by my cheque-book.”
“I don’t think it’s necessary. But it would help us very much if you can
recollect to whom you paid it.”
“Oh, I see. Well, that’s rather difficult. I paid my dressmaker’s about
that time—no, that was by cheque. I paid cash to the garage, I know, and
I think there was a £5 note in that. Then I dined at Verry’s with a
woman friend—that took the second £5 note, I remember, but there was a
third. I drew out £25—three fives and ten ones. Where did the third note
go? Oh, of course, how stupid of me! I put it on a horse.”
“Through a Commission Agent?”
“No. I had nothing much to do one day, so I went down to Newmarket. I
put the £5 on some creature called Brighteye or Attaboy or some name
like that, at 50 to 1. Of course the wretched animal didn’t win, they
never do. A man in the train gave me the tip and wrote the name down for
me. I handed it to the nearest bookie I saw—a funny little grey-haired
man with a hoarse voice—and that was the last I saw of it.”
“Could you remember which day it was?”
“I think it was Saturday. Yes, I’m sure it was.”
“Thank you very much, Mrs. Forrest. It will be a great help if we can
trace those notes. One of them has turned up since in—other
circumstances.”
“May I know what the circumstances are, or is it an official secret?”
Parker hesitated. He rather wished now, that he had demanded point-blank
at the start how Mrs. Forrest’s £5 note had come to be found on the dead
body of the waitress at Epping. Taken by surprise, the woman might have
got flustered. Now, he had let her entrench herself securely behind this
horse story. Impossible to follow up the history of a bank-note handed
to an unknown bookie at a race-meeting. Before he could speak, Wimsey
broke in for the first time, in a high, petulant voice which quite took
his friend aback.
“You’re not getting anywhere with all this,” he complained. “I don’t
care a continental curse about the beastly note, and I’m sure Sylvia
doesn’t.”
“Who is Sylvia?” demanded Mrs. Forrest with considerable amazement.
“Who is Sylvia? What is she?” gabbled Wimsey, irrepressibly.
“Shakespeare always has the right word, hasn’t he? But, God bless my
soul, it’s no laughing matter. It’s very serious and you’ve no business
to laugh at it. Sylvia is very much upset, and the doctor is afraid it
may have an effect on her heart. You may not know it, Mrs. Forrest, but
Sylvia Lyndhurst is my cousin. And what she wants to know, and what we
all want to know—don’t interrupt me, Inspector, all this
shilly-shallying doesn’t get us anywhere—I want to know, Mrs. Forrest,
who was it dining here with you on the night of April 26th. Who was it?
Who was it? Can you tell me that?”
This time, Mrs. Forrest was visibly taken aback. Even under the thick
coat of powder they could see the red flush up into her cheeks and ebb
away, while her eyes took on an expression of something more than
alarm—a kind of vicious fury, such as one may see in those of a cornered
cat.
“On the 26th?” she faltered. “I can’t—”
“I knew it!” cried Wimsey. “And that girl Evelyn was sure of it too. Who
was it, Mrs. Forrest? Answer me that!”
“There—there was no one,” said Mrs. Forrest, with a thick gasp.
“Oh, come, Mrs. Forrest, think again,” said Parker, taking his cue
promptly, “you aren’t going to tell us that you accounted by yourself
for three bottles of Veuve Clicquot and two people’s dinners.”
“Not forgetting the ham,” put in Wimsey, with fussy self-importance,
“the Bradenham ham specially cooked and sent up by Fortnum & Mason. Now,
Mrs. Forrest—”
“Wait a moment. Just a moment. I’ll tell you everything.”
The woman’s hands clutched at the pink silk cushions, making little hot,
tight creases. “I—would you mind getting me something to drink? In the
dining-room, through there—on the sideboard.”
Wimsey got up quickly and disappeared into the next room. He took rather
a long time, Parker thought. Mrs. Forrest was lying back in a collapsed
attitude, but her breathing was more controlled, and she was, he
thought, recovering her wits. “Making up a story,” he muttered savagely
to himself. However, he could not, without brutality, press her at the
moment.
Lord Peter, behind the folding doors, was making a good deal of noise,
chinking the glasses and fumbling about. However, before very long, he
was back.
“’Scuse my taking such a time,” he apologised, handing Mrs. Forrest a
glass of brandy and soda. “Couldn’t find the syphon. Always was a bit
wool-gathering, y’know. All my friends say so. Starin’ me in the face
all the time, what? And then I sloshed a lot of soda on the sideboard.
Hand shakin’. Nerves all to pieces and so on. Feelin’ better? That’s
right. Put it down. That’s the stuff to pull you together. How about
another little one, what? Oh, rot, it can’t hurt you. Mind if I have one
myself? I’m feelin’ a bit flustered. Upsettin’, delicate business and
all that. Just another spot. That’s the idea.”
He trotted out again, glass in hand, while Parker fidgeted. The presence
of amateur detectives was sometimes an embarrassment. Wimsey clattered
in again, this time, with more common sense, bringing decanter, syphon
and three glasses, bodily, on a tray.
“Now, now,” said Wimsey, “now we’re feeling better, do you think you can
answer our question, Mrs. Forrest?”
“May I know, first of all, what right you have to ask it?”
Parker shot an exasperated glance at his friend. This came of giving
people time to think.
“Right?” burst in Wimsey. “Right? Of course, we’ve a right. The police
have a right to ask questions when anything’s the matter. Here’s murder
the matter! Right, indeed?”
“Murder?”
A curious intent look came into her eyes. Parker could not place it, but
Wimsey recognised it instantly. He had seen it last on the face of a
great financier as he took up his pen to sign a contract. Wimsey had
been called to witness the signature, and had refused. It was a contract
that ruined thousands of people. Incidentally, the financier had been
murdered soon after, and Wimsey had declined to investigate the matter,
with a sentence from Dumas: “Let pass the justice of God.”
“I’m afraid,” Mrs. Forrest was saying, “that in that case I can’t help
you. I _did_ have a friend dining with me on the 26th, but he has not,
so far as I know, been murdered, nor has he murdered anybody.”
“It was a man, then?” said Parker.
Mrs. Forrest bowed her head with a kind of mocking ruefulness. “I live
apart from my husband,” she murmured.
“I am sorry,” said Parker, “to have to press for this gentleman’s name
and address.”
“Isn’t that asking rather much? Perhaps if you would give me further
details—”
“Well, you see,” cut in Wimsey again, “if we could just know for certain
it wasn’t Lyndhurst. My cousin is so frightfully upset, as I said, and
that Evelyn girl is making trouble. In fact—of course one doesn’t want
it to go any further—but actually Sylvia lost her head very completely.
She made a savage attack on poor old Lyndhurst—with a revolver, in fact,
only fortunately she is a shocking bad shot. It went over his shoulder
and broke a vase—most distressin’ thing—a Famille Rose jar, worth
thousands—and of course it was smashed to atoms. Sylvia is really hardly
responsible when she’s in a temper. And, we thought, as Lyndhurst was
actually traced to this block of flats—if you could give us definite
proof it wasn’t him, it might calm her down and prevent murder being
done, don’t you know. Because, though they might call it Guilty but
Insane, still, it would be awfully awkward havin’ one’s cousin in