Frequent Hearses (4 page)

With a doleful nod Johnny vanished, and Miss Flecker relaxed gratefully in her chair. “At last,” she said. “And I really do apologise.”

“Not at all,” said Humbleby. “It’s we who should apologise for interrupting you.” He produced a notebook and a gold propelling pencil and cleared his throat premonitorily. “Now as regards this girl…”

“Are you in a position”—Miss Flecker spoke a trifle warily—“to tell me why you want to know about her?”

“Certainly.” And Humbleby eyed her in an innocent-seeming way which in reality masked swift and shrewd powers of observation. “She has committed suicide.”

For a moment there was silence. Clearly Miss Flecker was shocked, though the only sign she gave was a slight lifting of the eye-brows.

“Suicide,” she murmured—and during a brief interval seemed preoccupied with rapid inward calculation. “Any reason given?”

“No. Can you yourself think of any?”

Miss Flecker hesitated. “The gossip is that she was going to have a baby, but I don’t believe much of what I’m told in this place, so don’t rely on it. In any case, I suppose that an autopsy—”

“Just so.” Humbleby was at his most judicial. “But may we start at the beginning, please? Your name—” He poised his pencil expectantly.

“Is Judith Annecy Flecker. Age twenty-six. Occupation, Secretary to the Long Fulton Music Department.”

“Good. And the name of this girl whose picture you saw in the paper is Gloria Scott.”

“She called herself that, yes.”

Humbleby glanced up from the notebook. “That was just a stage name, you mean?”

Miss Flecker crossed her admirable legs and contemplated them for a moment with a satisfaction in which Fen, who does not scorn simple pleasures, abundantly participated. “I
think
it was only a stage name,” she said, “but you’ll have to ask someone who knew her better than I did. And if it
was,
I’ve not the ghost of a notion about her real name, I’m afraid.”

“You didn’t know her well, then?”

“Only very casually. But I thought I’d better ring you up about her, because I know what the people here are like. Half a hundred of them will have seen and recognised that photograph, and they’ll all be studiously engaged in leaving the job of communicating with you to someone else. So I thought I’d forestall their havering.
Did
anyone else from here telephone you, by the way?”

“No one had when I left,” said Humbleby. “But mind you, that was some time ago, and you got in early. I shall ring up Charles in a moment—that’s the Superintendent in charge of the case—and ask him if anything else has come through from here. In the meantime”—he smiled with real charm—“I’m very pleased to be able to talk to you. And if you’ll just tell me anything you know about the girl…”

Miss Flecker nodded, and her gaze moved reflectively about the pleasant, untidy room, with its severely functional windows, its murmurous radiators, its book-case of manuscript musical scores. “Well, you won’t want me to describe her,” she said, “because you’ve got that photograph. It flatters her, of course, but it’s a fair likeness. She was about—oh, nineteen, I imagine.”

“Married, or engaged?”

“Neither.”

“Any particular man?”

Miss Flecker smiled wryly. “Gossip ascribes her to Maurice Crane and Stuart North, but how much truth there is in it I don’t know. Possibly none. I’ve seen her with both of them, but that means nothing.”

“And to which of them does gossip ascribe her—um—hypothetical pregnancy?”

“As far as I know,” said Miss Flecker decorously, “opinion is evenly divided. It’s no use my pretending,” she added with sudden candour, “that I don’t listen to gossip, because I do. I pass it on, too—as you’ll have noticed. But as to believing it, that’s another matter. So I ought to warn you… Oh, damn.”

She broke off as the telephone rang again, and picked it up with a movement of irritation.

“Johnny, I thought I said I wasn’t to be disturbed… Oh. That’s different… Yes, you did quite right. Sorry.” She held out the instrument to Humbleby. “It’s for you.”

“Hullo, Charles,” said Humbleby. “What news?” And for a full minute he remained silent while the receiver, like a witch’s familiar, muttered insinuatingly into his ear. “All right as far as it goes,” he commented at last. “Have there been any further calls from here? None? …No”—he glanced at Miss Flecker—“apparently that was to be expected… Yes, I’m enjoying myself very much, thank you… Don’t expect me till after lunch. If anything interesting develops I’ll phone you… No, not so far: we’re only just getting down to it now… Yes, all right. Good-bye.”

He rang off. “Gossip was right in one respect, anyway,” he said drily: “they’ve done the autopsy, and she was about three months on the way… Poor silly child. Does that sort of thing happen very often in this profession?”

“No, it doesn’t,” said Judy. “In spite of popular superstition on the subject, we’re a very respectable community, even if a rather simple-minded one. That’s the reason, really, why there’s been so much talk about Gloria Scott… I suppose that now you’ll be aiming to find out where Gloria and Stuart and Maurice were three months ago.”

“Exactly. Christmas—which ought to make it a bit easier.” Humbleby was tapping the end of his pencil meditatively against his thumb-nail. “From what you know of the girl, now, do you think this pregnancy could be a motive for her killing herself? Was she the sort of person to get hysterical over a thing like that?”

“Mm, that’s awkward.” Judy took a cigarette from the case which Fen offered her, and, murmuring thanks, lit it with a heavy table lighter. “You see, I didn’t know her all that well: we had lunch together once or twice in the Club here, and that’s about all. But from what I did see of her, I should say the answer to your question was No. She
was
emotionally unstable—or anyway, that was how she struck me—but not, I fancy, along quite those lines… I’m afraid all this must sound very woolly and unsatisfactory, but you asked for my impression, and for what it’s worth, that’s it.”

“But if the man concerned had refused to—to—”

“To make an honest woman of her? We-ell… She’d certainly have been
upset,
but I can’t see her going so far as to kill herself.”

Fen, who up to now had been unwontedly silent, said briefly and directly: “Why not? “

“Because—well, because she was one of those people whose emotional life is less important to them than—other things.”

“Ah,” said Fen, “this is more to the point. In her case, less important than what other things?”

“Well—than her career, say.”

“She was very ambitious, then?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Was she liked?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Why wasn’t she liked? “

“She was conceited—aggressively conceited. A lot of people in this business are, but they mostly manage to conceal the fact. She didn’t.”

“And the faults we most dislike in others,” Fen murmured, “are generally those we unwittingly display ourselves.” He paused to consider this citation, and apparently found it, or his own gratuitous use of it, in some fashion distasteful. “But you yourself—did you like her?”

“Yes. I did.” Miss Flecker made this admission with a certain reluctance. “She was very young”—Miss Flecker’s twenty-six years were as she spoke mysteriously transmuted to an infinity of rich experience—“and very eager. Oddly defenceless, too, as single-minded people so often tend to be. Yes, I liked her. But there weren’t many other people who did.”

“With the exception, presumably”—Humbleby’s intrusion on this nebulous duologue was clearly designed to restore a sense of realities—“of Mr. Crane and Mr. North.” And he contemplated Fen with the satisfaction of a man who at one blow has expelled metaphysics with common sense. Fen, however, was unabashed.

“You miss the point, Humbleby,” he said waspishly. “Sane people commit suicide only from motives which seem to them, rightly or wrongly, to be overwhelmingly important. And Miss Flecker, as a result of my own intelligent questioning, has indicated that in Gloria Scott’s case those motives were probably bound up with her career.”

“Which leads us,” said Humbleby, not at all perturbed by this reproof, “to enquire what professional set-backs she has suffered just recently.” And he looked enquiringly at Miss Flecker.

But she shook her head. “It’s rather the reverse, I’m afraid. After she came here—”

“Wait, wait,” said Humbleby, applying himself hurriedly to his notebook. “When
did
she come here?”

“About a year ago, I think. She was taken on as an extra, to start with.”

“And where did she come
from?”

“I’ve an idea she was in repertory, but which repertory I can’t say.”

“We ought to find that out easily enough… Sorry to interrupt. Go on.”

“As I say, she was taken on as an extra. After that she got a cameo part in a film called—damn, what was it?” Judy flicked her fingers irritably. “Oh, I remember—
Visa for Heaven.”

“A cameo part?”

“Yes, you know: the film equivalent of a bit part on the stage. Something just a little more important than merely walking on. And then the last thing I heard—though I wouldn’t swear to its being true—is that Jocelyn Stafford signed her up for quite a good part in this Pope film.”

Fen looked up. “Really? Do you know what part?”

“Martha Blount, she said.”

“It’s a role which gets more and more etiolated,” said Fen cheerfully, “as one script conference follows another. But even so, not a bad chance for a girl who’s virtually unknown. Have you any idea how she came by the job?”

“Yes, I rather fancy it was Maurice Crane’s doing.”

“We seem to be hearing a great deal about this fellow,” Humbleby complained, “but I’m sorry to say that I for one haven’t the remotest idea who or what he is. Do please explain.”

“He’s Madge Crane’s youngest brother,” said Judy, “the other two being Nicholas Crane, who’s a director, and David Crane, who’s something very minor in the Script Department. Maurice is a camera-man—and a very good one, which means that he’s an influential person hereabouts.”

“Do you suppose that his getting Gloria Scott this part would be an attempt at reparation for—um—coercing her into maternity?”

“It might be. If in fact he was responsible for that.”

“There’s another candidate, of course.” And Humbleby sighed dejectedly. “Of the two men, which would be the more adversely affected by the publication of Miss Scott’s—um—condition? “

“Stuart North, certainly. Camera-men, however good, aren’t celebrities. Actors are.” Judy replied so promptly that for a moment the tangential nature of the question did not strike her; when it did, she said inquisitively: “Why do you ask that?”

“It’s possible,” Humbleby answered with reserve, “that someone may have made an attempt to conceal the motive for Gloria Scott’s suicide.”

“You mean torn up a suicide note, or something like that?”

“Something like that.”

“Stuart North would certainly have more reason for doing that than Maurice Crane. On the other hand—” Judy’s grey eyes widened suddenly. “Hell, what a fool I’m being! I’ve just remembered.”

“Remembered what?”

“That Stuart North was in America during December and January, doing a short run of a Shaw play on Broadway. And Gloria was very definitely in England. So we’ve been maligning Stuart.”

“You think, then, that Maurice Crane—”

“He or someone else.”

“I suppose”—Humbleby scratched his nose ruefully—“that you can’t think of anyone, Crane apart, who would be likely to
know?”

“There’s one possibility, yes—a girl called Valerie Bryant, who was Gloria’s particular friend.”

“Where can we find her?”

“I’ve an idea she’s working on a film now—a musical comedy called
Gaiety Sue.”

“Lumme,” said Humbleby; it was his affectation to relapse occasionally into the milder forms of plebeian slang. “Is she an actress, then?”

“A chorus girl.”

“And it would be possible for me to meet her this morning, would it?”

“That depends on the shooting schedules. The film’s on the floor all right, but they mayn’t today be doing anything she’s concerned in. I can find out for you.”

“I wish you would.”

Judy resorted to the telephone. “Johnny,” she said, “get me someone who’s working on
Gaiety Sue
, will you?… Yes, Weinberg will probably do.” There was a pause; with her hand over the microphone, “Weinberg is the jazz end of this department,” Judy explained. “He’s—Oh, hello, Sam. I want to know what, they’re doing with
Sue
today. Is the chorus here? …It is? Good. What stage are they working on? …Five? Right. Thanks very much. Bye-bye.”

She returned the instrument to its cradle. “All’s well,” she said. “Johnny’ll take you across as soon as you want to go, and rout out the Bryant girl for you. I warn you, she’s pretty dumb… Well. Is there anything else?”

“Let’s see where we’ve arrived.” Ceremoniously Humbleby consulted his notebook. “Gloria Scott had been given this part in the Pope film… Now, how long ago did that happen?”

“Not more than a fortnight ago,” said Judy definitely. “Perhaps less.”

“And she was pleased?”

“Lord, yes—on top of the world. A few days back I met her by chance on the way here, and she told me about it then. It had quite gone to her head, silly infant, and she was so exasperatingly vain about it I could have spanked her.”

“You get the impression that it was genuinely a
fait accompli?
That”—Humbleby gestured vaguely—“that things had been signed?”

“Oh, certainly.”

“She couldn’t have been making it all up? Have been—um—anticipating the event?”

Judy shook her head. “She
could
have been—she was quite capable of counting her chickens before they were hatched—but in this case I’m almost sure she wasn’t. The thing to do would be to go to the Legal Department and look for the contract.”

“I’ll do that, yes.” Humbleby made a note. “Because if that contract
does
exist, it makes her suicide somewhat unaccountable.”

“Exactly what I was thinking,” said Judy. She got up and began to pace restlessly about the room. “From what I know of her, I shouldn’t have imagined that any motive, however overwhelming, would have been sufficient to offset that contract.”