At Bertram's Hotel

  In Elvira Blake, he thought, everything had been driven inward. Bess Sedgwick had got through life by imposing her will on it. Elvira, he guessed, had a different way of getting through life. She submitted, he thought. She obeyed. She smiled in compliance and behind that, he thought, she slipped away through your fingers. “Sly,” he said to himself, appraising that fact. “That’s the only way she can manage, I expect. She can never brazen things out or impose herself. That’s why, I expect, the people who’ve looked after her have never had the least idea of what she might be up to.”

  He wondered what she had been doing slipping along the street to Bertram’s Hotel on a late foggy evening. He was going to ask her presently. He thought it highly probable that the answer he would get would not be the true one. “That’s the way,” he thought, “that the poor child defends herself.” Had she come here to meet her mother or to find her mother? It was perfectly possible, but he didn’t think so. Not for a moment. Instead he thought of the big sports car tucked away round the corner—the car with the number plate FAN 2266. Ladislaus Malinowski must be somewhere in the neighbourhood since his car was there.

  “Well,” said Father, addressing Elvira in his most kindly and fatherlike manner, “well, and how are you feeling now?”

  “I’m quite all right,” said Elvira.

  “Good. I’d like you to answer a few questions if you feel up to it; because, you see, time is usually the essence of these things. You were shot at twice and a man was killed. We want as many clues as we can get to the person who killed him.”

  “I’ll tell you everything I can, but it all came so suddenly. And you can’t see anything in a fog. I’ve no idea myself who it could have been—or even what he looked like. That’s what was so frightening.”

  “You said this was the second time somebody had tried to kill you. Does that mean there was an attempt on your life before?”

  “Did I say that? I can’t remember.” Her eyes moved uneasily. “I don’t think I said that.”

  “Oh, but you did, you know,” said Father.

  “I expect I was just being—hysterical.”

  “No,” said Father, “I don’t think you were. I think you meant just what you said.”

  “I might have been imagining things,” said Elvira. Her eyes shifted again.

  Bess Sedgwick moved. She said quietly:

  “You’d better tell him, Elvira.”

  Elvira shot a quick, uneasy look at her mother.

  “You needn’t worry,” said Father, reassuringly. “We know quite well in the police force that girls don’t tell their mothers or their guardians everything. We don’t take those things too seriously, but we’ve got to know about them, because, you see, it all helps.”

  Bess Sedgwick said:

  “Was it in Italy?”

  “Yes,” said Elvira.

  Father said: “That’s where you’ve been at school, isn’t it, or a finishing place or whatever they call it nowadays?”

  “Yes. I was at Contessa Martinelli’s. There were about eighteen or twenty of us.”

  “And you thought that somebody tried to kill you. How was that?”

  “Well, a big box of chocolates and sweets and things came for me. There was a card with it written in Italian in a flowery hand. The sort of thing they say, you know, ‘To the bellissima Signorina.’ Something like that. And my friends and I—well—we laughed about it a bit, and wondered who’d sent it.”

  “Did it come by post?”

  “No. No, it couldn’t have come by post. It was just there in my room. Someone must have put it there.”

  “I see. Bribed one of the servants, I suppose. I am to take it that you didn’t let the Contessa whoever-it-was in on this?”

  A faint smile appeared on Elvira’s face. “No. No. We certainly didn’t. Anyway we opened the box and they were lovely chocolates. Different kinds, you know, but there were some violet creams. That’s the sort of chocolate that has a crystallized violet on top. My favourite. So of course I ate one or two of those first. And then afterwards, in the night, I felt terribly ill. I didn’t think it was the chocolates, I just thought it was something perhaps that I’d eaten at dinner.”

  “Anybody else ill?”

  “No. Only me. Well, I was very sick and all that, but I felt all right by the end of the next day. Then a day or two later I ate another of the same chocolates, and the same thing happened. So I talked to Bridget about it. Bridget was my special friend. And we looked at the chocolates, and we found that the violet creams had got a sort of hole in the bottom that had been filled up again, so we thought that someone had put some poison in and they’d only put it in the violet creams so that I would be the one who ate them.”

  “Nobody else was ill?”

  “No.”

  “So presumably nobody else ate the violet creams?”

  “No. I don’t think they could have. You see, it was my present and they knew I liked the violet ones, so they’d leave them for me.”

  “The chap took a risk, whoever he was,” said Father. “The whole place might have been poisoned.”

  “It’s absurd,” said Lady Sedgwick sharply. “Utterly absurd! I never heard of anything so crude.”

  Chief-Inspector Davy made a slight gesture with his hand. “Please,” he said, then he went on to Elvira: “Now I find that very interesting, Miss Blake. And you still didn’t tell the Contessa?”

  “Oh no, we didn’t. She’d have made a terrible fuss.”

  “What did you do with the chocolates?”

  “We threw them away,” said Elvira. “They were lovely chocolates,” she added, with a tone of slight grief.

  “You didn’t try and find out who sent them?” Elvira looked embarrassed.

  “Well, you see, I thought it might have been Guido.”

  “Yes?” said Chief-Inspector Davy, cheerfully. “And who is Guido?”

  “Oh, Guido…” Elvira paused. She looked at her mother.

  “Don’t be stupid,” said Bess Sedgwick. “Tell Chief-Inspector Davy about Guido, whoever he is. Every girl of your age has a Guido in her life. You met him out there, I suppose?”

  “Yes. When we were taken to the opera. He spoke to me there. He was nice. Very attractive. I used to see him sometimes when we went to classes. He used to pass me notes.”

  “And I suppose,” said Bess Sedgwick, “that you told a lot of lies, and made plans with some friends and you managed to get out and meet him? Is that it?”

  Elvira looked relieved by this short cut to confession. “Sometimes Guido managed to—”

  “What was Guido’s other name?”

  “I don’t know,” said Elvira. “He never told me.”

  Chief-Inspector Davy smiled at her.

  “You mean you’re not going to tell? Never mind. I dare say we’ll be able to find out quite all right without your help, if it should really matter. But why should you think that this young man, who was presumably fond of you, should want to kill you?”

  “Oh, because he used to threaten things like that. I mean, we used to have rows now and then. He’d bring some of his friends with him, and I’d pretend to like them better than him, and then he’d get very, very wild and angry. He said I’d better be careful what I did. I couldn’t give him up just like that! That if I wasn’t faithful to him he’d kill me! I just thought he was being melodramatic and theatrical.” Elvira smiled suddenly and unexpectedly. “But it was all rather fun. I didn’t think it was real or serious.”

  “Well,” said Chief-Inspector Davy, “I don’t think it does seem very likely that a young man such as you describe would really poison chocolates and send them to you.”

  “Well, I don’t think so really either,” said Elvira, “but it must have been him because I can’t see that there’s anyone else. It worried me. And then, when I came back here, I got a note—” She stopped.

  “What sort of a note?”

  “It just came in an envelope and was printed. It said ‘Be on your g
uard. Somebody wants to kill you.’”

  Chief-Inspector Davy’s eyebrows went up.

  “Indeed? Very curious. Yes, very curious. And it worried you. You were frightened?”

  “Yes. I began to—to wonder who could possibly want me out of the way. That’s why I tried to find out if I was really very rich.”

  “Go on.”

  “And the other day in London something else happened. I was in the tube and there were a lot of people on the platform. I thought someone tried to push me onto the line.”

  “My dear child!” said Bess Sedgwick. “Don’t romance.”

  Again Father made that slight gesture of his hand.

  “Yes,” said Elvira apologetically. “I expect I have been imagining it all but—I don’t know—I mean, after what happened this evening it seems, doesn’t it, as though it might all be true?” She turned suddenly to Bess Sedgwick, speaking with urgency, “Mother! You might know. Does anyone want to kill me? Could there be anyone? Have I got an enemy?”

  “Of course you’ve not got an enemy,” said Bess Sedgwick, impatiently. “Don’t be an idiot. Nobody wants to kill you. Why should they?”

  “Then who shot at me tonight?”

  “In that fog,” said Bess Sedgwick, “you might have been mistaken for someone else. That’s possible, don’t you think?” she said, turning to Father.

  “Yes, I think it might be quite possible,” said Chief-Inspector Davy.

  Bess Sedgwick was looking at him very intently. He almost fancied the motion of her lips saying “later.”

  “Well,” he said cheerfully, “we’d better get down to some more facts now. Where had you come from tonight? What were you doing walking along Pond Street on such a foggy evening?”

  “I came up for an Art class at the Tate this morning. Then I went to lunch with my friend Bridget. She lives in Onslow Square. We went to a film and when we came out, there was this fog—quite thick and getting worse, and I thought perhaps I’d better not drive home.”

  “You drive a car, do you?”

  “Yes. I took my driving test last summer. Only, I’m not a very good driver and I hate driving in fog. So Bridget’s mother said I could stay the night, so I rang up Cousin Mildred—that’s where I live in Kent—”

  Father nodded.

  “—and I said I was going to stay up overnight. She said that was very wise.”

  “And what happened next?” asked Father.

  “And then the fog seemed lighter suddenly. You know how patchy fogs are. So I said I would drive down to Kent after all. I said good-bye to Bridget and started off. But then it began to come down again. I didn’t like it very much. I ran into a very thick patch of it and I lost my way and I didn’t know where I was. Then after a bit I realized I was at Hyde Park Corner and I thought ‘I really can’t go down to Kent in this.’ At first, I thought I’d go back to Bridget’s but then I remembered how I’d lost my way already. And then I realized that I was quite close to this nice hotel where Uncle Derek took me when I came back from Italy and I thought, ‘I’ll go there and I’m sure they can find me a room.’ That was fairly easy, I found a place to leave the car and then I walked back up the street towards the hotel.”

  “Did you meet anyone or did you hear anyone walking near you?”

  “It’s funny you saying that, because I did think I heard someone walking behind me. Of course, there must be lots of people walking about in London. Only in a fog like this, it gives you a nervous feeling. I waited and listened but I didn’t hear any footsteps and I thought I’d imagined them. I was quite close to the hotel by then.”

  “And then?”

  “And then quite suddenly there was a shot. As I told you, it seemed to go right past my ear. The commissionaire man who stands outside the hotel came running down towards me and he pushed me behind him and then—then—the other shot came…He—he fell down and I screamed.” She was shaking now. Her mother spoke to her.

  “Steady, girl,” said Bess in a low, firm voice. “Steady now.” It was the voice Bess Sedgwick used for her horses and it was quite as efficacious when used on her daughter. Elvira blinked at her, drew herself up a little, and became calm again.

  “Good girl,” said Bess.

  “And then you came,” said Elvira to Father. “You blew your whistle, you told the policeman to take me into the hotel. And as soon as I got in, I saw—I saw Mother.” She turned and looked at Bess Sedgwick.

  “And that brings us more or less up-to-date,” said Father. He shifted his bulk a little in the chair.

  “Do you know a man called Ladislaus Malinowski?” he asked. His tone was even, casual, without any direct inflection. He did not look at the girl, but he was aware, since his ears were functioning at full attention, of a quick little gasp she gave. His eyes were not on the daughter but on the mother.

  “No,” said Elvira, having waited just a shade too long to say it. “No, I don’t.”

  “Oh,” said Father. “I thought you might. I thought he might have been here this evening.”

  “Oh? Why should he be here?”

  “Well, his car is here,” said Father. “That’s why I thought he might be.”

  “I don’t know him,” said Elvira.

  “My mistake,” said Father. “You do, of course?” He turned his head towards Bess Sedgwick.

  “Naturally,” said Bess Sedgwick. “Known him for many years.” She added, smiling slightly, “He’s a madman, you know. Drives like an angel or a devil—he’ll break his neck one of these days. Had a bad smash eighteen months ago.”

  “Yes, I remember reading about it,” said Father. “Not racing again yet, is he?”

  “No, not yet. Perhaps he never will.”

  “Do you think I could go to bed now?” asked Elvira, plaintively. “I’m—really terribly tired.”

  “Of course. You must be,” said Father. “You’ve told us all you can remember?”

  “Oh. Yes.”

  “I’ll go up with you,” said Bess.

  Mother and daughter went out together.

  “She knows him all right,” said Father.

  “Do you really think so?” asked Sergeant Wadell.

  “I know it. She had tea with him in Battersea Park only a day or two ago.”

  “How did you find that out?”

  “Old lady told me—distressed. Didn’t think he was a nice friend for a young girl. He isn’t of course.”

  “Especially if he and the mother—” Waddell broke off delicately. “It’s pretty general gossip—”

  “Yes. May be true, may not. Probably is.”

  “In that case which one is he really after?”

  Father ignored that point. He said:

  “I want him picked up. I want him badly. His car’s here—just round the corner.”

  “Do you think he might be actually staying in this hotel?”

  “Don’t think so. It wouldn’t fit into the picture. He’s not supposed to be here. If he came here, he came to meet the girl. She definitely came to meet him, I’d say.”

  The door opened and Bess Sedgwick reappeared.

  “I came back,” she said, “because I wanted to speak to you.”

  She looked from him to the other two men.

  “I wonder if I could speak to you alone? I’ve given you all the information I have, such as it is; but I would like a word or two with you in private.”

  “I don’t see any reason why not,” said Chief-Inspector Davy. He motioned with his head, and the young detective-constable took his notebook and went out. Wadell went with him. “Well?” said Chief-Inspector Davy.

  Lady Sedgwick sat down again opposite him.

  “That silly story about poisoned chocolates,” she said. “It’s nonsense. Absolutely ridiculous. I don’t believe anything of the kind ever happened.”

  “You don’t, eh?”

  “Do you?”

  Father shook his head doubtfully. “You think your daughter cooked it up?”

  “Yes. B
ut why?”

  “Well, if you don’t know why,” said Chief-Inspector Davy, “how should I know? She’s your daughter. Presumably you know her better than I do.”

  “I don’t know her at all,” said Bess Sedgwick bitterly. “I’ve not seen her or had anything to do with her since she was two years old, when I ran away from my husband.”

  “Oh yes. I know all that. I find it curious. You see, Lady Sedgwick, courts usually give the mother, even if she is a guilty party in a divorce, custody of a young child if she asks for it. Presumably then you didn’t ask for it? You didn’t want it.”

  “I thought it—better not.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t think it was—safe for her.”

  “On moral grounds?”

  “No. Not on moral grounds. Plenty of adultery nowadays. Children have to learn about it, have to grow up with it. No. It’s just that I am not really a safe person to be with. The life I’d lead wouldn’t be a safe life. You can’t help the way you’re born. I was born to live dangerously. I’m not law-abiding or conventional. I thought it would be better for Elvira, happier, to have a proper English conventional bringing-up. Shielded, looked after….”

  “But minus a mother’s love?”