Christmas Pudding and Pigeon Pie

  It would be difficult to do better, for an account of the Wig Inquest than to switch over, as they say on the wireless, to the columns of the Evening Runner.

  INQUEST ON WIG MURDER

  VALET’S STATEMENT

  ONLY CURLED LAST WEEK

  WAS MURDERED MAN THE KING OF SONG?

  ‘The “colonel’s lady and Judy O’Grady” fought for places at the inquest today on the body, which was found last Friday in Kew Pagoda, and which is presumed to be that of Sir Ivor King, “the King of Song”. The body was so extensively mutilated that a formal identification was impossible, although Mr Larch, Sir Ivor’s valet, swore that he would recognise that particular cranium anywhere as belonging to the “King”.

  ‘HIS MASTER’S VOICE

  ‘Giving evidence, Mr Larch, who showed signs of great emotion, said that Sir Ivor had left Vocal Lodge to go to London at two o’clock on Friday afternoon. He had seemed rather nervous and said that he had to keep a very important appointment in town, but that he would be back in time to change for a local sing-song he had promised to attend after tea. His master’s voice, said Mr Larch, had been in great demand with A.R.P. organizations, and Mr Larch thought that what with so much singing, and the evacuations in the Orchid House, Sir Ivor had been looking strained and tired of late. By tea-time he had not returned. Mr Larch did not feel unduly worried. “Sir Ivor had the temperament of an artiste, and was both unpunctual and vague, sometimes spending whole nights in the Turkish bath without informing his staff that he intended to sleep out.”

  ‘HIS FAVOURITE WIG

  ‘ “When the children brought in the wig,” went on Mr Larch, “I thought it was eerie, as it was his favourite wig; we only had it curled last week, and he would never have thrown it away. Besides, I knew he had no spare with him. I immediately notified the police.” Here Mr Larch broke down and had to be assisted out of the court.

  ‘Mr Smith, taxi-driver, said that the old person first of all told him to go to the Ritz, but stopped him at Turnham Green and was driven back to the gates of Kew Gardens where he paid the fare, remarking that it was a fine day for a walk. He was singing loudly in a deep tenor all the while, and seemed in excellent spirits.

  ‘A VERY HIGH NOTE

  ‘Mr Jumont, a gardener at Kew Gardens, said that he was manuring the rhododendrons when he heard the “King” go past on a very high note.

  ‘The Coroner: “Did you see him?”

  ‘Mr Jumont: “No, sir. But there was no mistaking that old party when he was singing soprano. Besides, this was his favourite song, ‘When I am dead, my dearest’.” (Music by the Marchioness of Waterford.)

  ‘At these words there was a sensation, and hardly a dry eye in court. Some fashionably dressed ladies were sobbing so loudly that the Coroner threatened to have them evicted unless they could control themselves.

  ‘Continuing his evidence, Mr Jumont said that Sir Ivor seemed to be walking in the direction of the Pagoda, the time being about 3 p.m.

  ‘A WONDERFUL THATCH

  ‘Mr Bott, another employee at Kew Gardens, told how he had found the body. Just before closing time he noticed some blood stains and one or two blond curls at the foot of the Pagoda, then saw that the Pagoda door, which is always kept locked, stood ajar. He went in, and a trail of blood on the stairs led him to the very top where the sight which met his eyes was so terrible that he nearly swooned. “More like a butcher’s shop it was, and it gave me a nasty turn.”

  ‘Coroner: “Did it seem to you at the time that this might be the body of Sir Ivor King?”

  ‘Mr Bott: “No, sir. For one thing the old gentleman (who, of course, I knew very well by sight) always seemed to have a wonderful thatch, as you might say, for his age, but the only thing I could clearly see about the individual on the Pagoda was that he hadn’t a hair to his name.”

  ‘Mr Bott said, in answer to further questioning, that it had never occurred to him Sir Ivor King’s hair might have been a wig.

  ‘One or two more witnesses having been examined, the Coroner’s jury, without retiring, returned a verdict of murder by person or persons unknown.

  “The Coroner said there was an overwhelming presumption that the corpse was that of Sir Ivor King.’

  Next day, the Daily Runner, in its column of pocket leading articles called BRITAIN EXPECTS, in which what Britain generally Expects is a new Minister for Agriculture, had a short paragraph headed:

  ‘MOURN THE KING OF SONG

  ‘A very gallant and loved old figure has gone from our midst. Mourn him. But remember that he now belongs to the past. It is our duty to say that in the circumstances of his death there may be more than meets the eye. One of our Cabinet Ministers may be guilty of negligence. If so, we should like to see a statement made in Parliament.

  ‘Our grief must not blind us to his fault. For remember that we belong to the future.’

  There was more than met the eye. Sure enough, the very next day it was learned from reliable sources that the King of Song has been a trump-card in the hand of the Government. He had, in fact, been about to inaugurate, in conjunction with the B.B.C., Ministry of Information, and Foreign Office, the most formidible campaign of Propaganda through the medium of Song that the world has ever seen. The British and French Governments, not only they, but democrats everywhere, had attached great importance to the scheme. They had estimated that it would have a profound effect upon neutral opinion, and indeed might well bring America into the war, on one side or another. Without the King of Song to lead it, this campaign would fall as flat as a pancake, no other living man or woman having the requisite personality or range of voice to conduct it. It must, therefore, necessarily be abandoned. Thus his untimely and gruesome end constituted about as severe a blow to the Allied cause as the loss of a major engagement would have done.

  The horrid word Sabotage, the even horrider word Leakage, were now breathed, and poor Fred, who was given no credit for having conceived the idea, was universally execrated for not having delivered it. In the same way that the First Lord of the Admiralty is held responsible for the loss of a capital ship, so the death of Sir Ivor was laid at poor Fred’s door. He made a statement in the House that mollified nobody, and Britain Expected every morning that he would resign. Britain did not expect it more than poor Fred expected that he would have to; however, in the end he got off with a nasty half-hour at No. 10. It was now supposed that the King of Song had been liquidated by German spies who had fallen into Kew Gardens in parachutes, and Sophia said ‘I told you so’ to Luke, and hardly dared look out of her bedroom window any more.

  Sophia was really upset by the whole business. She had loved her old godfather, and having always seen a great deal of him she would miss him very much. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that she found a certain element of excitement in her near connection with so ghastly and so famous a murder – especially when, the day after the inquest, Sir Ivor’s solicitor rang her up and told her, very confidentially, that Vocal Lodge and everything in it had been left to her. She had also inherited a substantial fortune and a jet tiara.

  Sophia now considered herself entitled to assume the gratifying rôle of mourner in chief. She took a day off from the Post, instructed Rawlings to fill up the car with a month’s ration of petrol, and drove round to the Brompton Oratory. Here she spent an hour with a high dignitary of the Roman Church arranging for a Requiem Mass to be held at the Oratory. The dignitary was such a charmer, and Sophia was so conscious of looking extremely pretty in her new black hat, that she cast about for ways of prolonging the interview. Finally she handed over a large sum of money so that masses could be sung in perpetuity for the old gentleman’s soul; and when she remembered the eternal basting to which he had so recently condemned her, she considered that this was a high-minded and generous deed on her part. The transaction over, she made great efforts to edge the conversation round to her own soul, but the dignitary, unlike Florence, seemed completely uninterested in so personal a subject, and very s
oon, with tact and charm but great firmness, indicated to her that she might go. Sophia, as she drove away, reflected that whatever you might say about Popery it is, at least, a professional religion, and shows up to great advantage when compared with such mushroom growths as the Boston Brotherhood.

  On her way to Vocal Lodge she went to pick up Lady Beech who had consented to accompany her on her sad pilgrimage. She was to meet the solicitor there, see Sir Ivor’s servants and make various arrangements connected with her legacy. Lady Beech lived in Kensington Square. She was evidently determined to take the fullest advantage of Sophia’s petrol ration, for, when the car drew up at her front door, she was already standing on the steps beside an enormous object of no particular shape done up in sacking.

  ‘Very late,’ she said. ‘Most unlike you. I know, darling, that you won’t mind taking this little bed to Heal’s on our way.’

  This rather delayed matters. It became evident, during the course of the drive, that Lady Beech very much wished that Vocal Lodge had been left to her instead of to Sophia.

  ‘Oh, darling, what a pity,’ said Sophia; ‘silly old gentleman not to think of it. Of course I’m going to give it to the Nation, don’t you think that’s right, really? To be kept exactly as it is, a Shrine of Song, and I am giving some of the money he left to keep it up. He left nearly a quarter of a million, you know, so I am going to build an Ivor King Home of Rest for aged singers, and an Ivor King Concert Hall as well. Don’t you think he’d be pleased?’

  ‘Very wonderful of you, my dear,’ said Lady Beech gloomily. ‘Tell me, now, had it occurred to you what a very much more interesting gift to the Nation Vocal Lodge would be if somebody lived in it – I mean somebody rather cultivated, with rather exquisite taste? She could preserve the spirit of the place, don’t you see? Like those châteaux on the Loire which have their original families living in them.’

  Sophia said she had just the very person in mind, an old governess of her own, who was extremely cultivated and had perfectly exquisite taste. Lady Beech sighed deeply.

  When they arrived at Vocal Lodge, Sophia was closeted for some time, first with the solicitor and then with Sir Ivor’s servants, whom she begged to stay on there for the rest of their lives if it suited them. Larch took her upstairs and showed her all Sir Ivor’s wigs laid out on his bed, rather as it might have been a pilgrimage to view the body. He was evidently, like Sophia, divided between genuine sorrow and a feeling of self-importance.

  ‘The Press, m’lady,’ he said with relish, ‘awful they’ve been. Nosing round everywhere and taking photos. And the lies they tell, I don’t know if you saw, m’lady, they said cook had been with Sir Ivor ten years. It’s not a day more than seven.’

  ‘I know,’ said Sophia. ‘I can’t go outside the house for them. Why, look at all the cars which have followed us down here.’ And indeed there had been a perfect fleet, greatly incommoded, Sophia was glad to think, by the roundabout and, to them, surely rather baffling journey via Heal’s.

  Lady Beech meanwhile had not been idle. It was quite uncanny what a lot of Sir Ivor’s furniture, books, knick-knacks and even cooking utensils had been lent to him by Lady Beech. The house was really nothing but a loan collection. She had, with great forethought, provided herself with two packets of labels, stick-on and tie-on, and by the time Sophia had finished her business, these appeared like a sort of snow-storm, scattered through all the rooms.

  ‘Darling, I have just labelled a few little things of my own which dear Ivor had borrowed from me from time to time,’ she said, putting a sticky one firmly on to the giant radiogram as she spoke.

  ‘Very sensible, darling.’ Sophia secured the jet tiara, an object which she had coveted from childhood. ‘Goodbye, then, Larch,’ she said. ‘Keep the wigs, won’t you, and we’ll send them to the Ivor King Home of Rest. The aged singers are sure to need them, and I feel it’s just what he would have liked.’ Larch evidently thought that this idea was full of good feeling, and held open the door of the car with an approving look.

  They motored back to London in silence, Sophia loved Lady Beech and would have done almost anything for her, but she knew that it would be useless to present Vocal Lodge to the Nation if Lady Beech was always to be there, sighing at whatever visitors might venture in.

  ‘ST. ANNE’S HOSPITAL FIRST AID POST

  ‘Darling Rudolph darling,

  ‘Well, the Memorial Service, I mean Requiem Mass. Did you see the photograph of Luke and me with the glamorous Mgr? I thought it was quite pretty. The object behind us in silver foxes was Florence in my ex-ones. You never saw anything like the crowds outside the Oratory, and inside there were people all over the statues. When we arrived at the front pew reserved for us, who do you think was in it dressed as what? Of course Olga as a Fr. widow. You should have seen the looks darling Lady Beech gave her. She would keep singing just like one doesn’t in Papist churches, and Serge was crying out loud into a huge black-edged handkerchief, fancy at eleven in the morning, but I believe it’s really because of his Blossom they say he can’t stop.

  ‘As we all came down the aisle Olga threw back her veil, and, supported by Fred, gave plucky little smiles to right and left. I forgot to say poor Fred turned up late, looking too guilty and hoping nobody would recognise him, and of course Hamish insisted on bringing him all the way up to our pew where there wasn’t room, and after fearful whisperings Luke had to give up his place to the Minister. Then on the way out Olga felt faint so that she could cling to him as you will note if you see the Tatler.

  ‘The whole of the stage world was there, of course, as well as all of us. Just think how old Ivor would have enjoyed it. What waste we couldn’t have had it while he was alive, can’t you see him choosing which wig he would wear? But you know, funny as it was in many ways I couldn’t help feeling awfully sad, especially when we got outside again and saw those huge silent mournful crowds. There’s no doubt the dear old creature was a sort of figurehead, and I suppose there can hardly be a soul in England who hasn’t heard that – let’s face it – slightly cracking voice. I thought The Times put it very nicely when it said that the more that golden voice was tinged with silver, the more we loved it. I hope those fiends of parachutists killed him quickly before he knew anything about it – they think so at Scotland Yard because of no cry being heard and no sign of a struggle.

  ‘As soon as Fred had shaken off Olga she came floating up to us in her veil and began hinting that she knew more than she cared to reveal about Ivor’s death. I’m afraid I was rather rude to her but really I’m getting tired of Olga in the rôle of beautiful female spy – it’s becoming a bore. I’ve just sent her a telegram saying “Proceed John o’ Groats and await further instructions. F.69.” Hope she proceeds, that’s all. Darling, what a heavenly idea that Floss might be a B.F.S. – so teasing for Olga if she were. Now get some leave soon and we’ll proceed to her bedroom and investigate.

  ‘Love my darling from your darling

  ‘SOPHIA.

  ‘PS. Did I tell you Luke is proceeding to America on a very secret mission for the F.O.? Fancy choosing that old Fascist. I must get him some Horlick’s malted tablets for the 100 hours in an open boat which will almost certainly be his fate – I keep advising him to go rowing on the Serpentine to get his hand in. So here I shall be, left all alone with Florrie and her gang, isn’t it terrifying for me? Should you say Heatherley and Winthrop are ones too?’

  6

  Sophia was now designated by the newspapers as ‘Wig Heiress’. The reporters pursued her from the pillars of her own front door to the Post, where Sister Wordsworth finally routed them with a hypodermic needle, in an effort to find out how she intended to dispose of her legacy. As she refused to make any statement, they invented every kind of thing. Ninety-eight Granby Gate was for sale, and Sir Luke and Lady Sophia Garfield would take up their residence at Vocal Lodge. They were only going to use it as a summer residence. They were going to pull it down and build a block of flats. (The Georgian
Group, wrapped in dreams of Federal Union, stirred in its sleep on hearing this, and groaned.) They were shutting it up to avoid the rates. They were digging for victory among the Lesbian Irises. Only the truth was not told.

  Luke, who really hated publicity, even when it took the form of a beautiful studio portrait of Sophia in Vogue, because, he said, it did him harm in the City, became very restive, and speeded up his arrangements for leaving England. Sophia spent a busy day shopping for him. Her heart smote her for not having been much nicer to him, as it did periodically, so she tried to atone in Harrod’s man’s shop, and he left England fully equipped as a U-boat victim. Florence saw him off at his front door and presented him with the balaclava helmet but Sophia, who accompanied him to the station, threw it out of the taxi window explaining that there was a proper machine-made one in his valise. She kissed him goodbye on the platform to the accompaniment of magnesium flares which, rather to her disappointment (because although she always looked like an elderly negress in them, she liked to see photographs of herself in the papers), were prevented by the Ministry of Information from bearing any fruit. Luke’s mission was a very secret one. As a final parting present she gave him a pocket Shakespeare to read, she explained, on the desert island where his open boat would probably deposit him.

  ‘And if you hear a loud bang in the night,’ she added, as the train drew out of the station, ‘don’t turn over and go to sleep again.’

  ‘Luke hates jokes and hates the war,’ she said to Mary Pencill who was also on the platform, seeing off one of Trotsky’s lieutenants, ‘so isn’t he lucky to be going to America where they have neither?’

  Mary carried Sophia off to her flat when the train had gone, and they had a long and amicable talk during which they managed to avoid the subject of politics. Sophia, who was considered absolutely red by those supporters of Munich, apologists for Mussolini and lovers of Franco, Fred and Ned, was apt to feel the truest of blue Tories when in the presence of Mary whose attitude of suspicion and obstruction always annoyed her.