The Death-Cap Dancers (Mrs. Bradley) Read online

  The scene was lively and the bar was crowded and very busy. It was hardly the best time to make enquiries, but Ribble wanted to press on. It did not seem to him that he had made much progress so far. Checking the activities of Giles and Plum at the church hall and Peggy’s hairdressing appointment would have to wait until the morning and, in any case, he expected little to come from either. His chief hope was to gain further knowledge of the man who had inspected the buckled bicycle. The girl Marion might have noticed something which had escaped Adam Penshaw. The trouble might be to trace her, which was his reason for going to the pub. Ribble had little doubt that the bicycle had been the property of the dead woman. The turning to Wayland which Adam had mentioned seemed to prove it.

  The bar was being attended to by a man and woman. Ribble waited until he could order his beer from the latter. When he received his pint from her he asked whether she knew a girl named Marion.

  “She was in here yesterday between twelve and one with a young fellow named Penshaw,” he said. “Looks about eighteen.”

  “Oh yes? I don’t recollect the name,” she said. “What’s this about Marion? Of course I know her. She’s always in here. Picks up fellows and gets a lot of free drinks that way. I don’t think she picked up your fellow, though. She wouldn’t reckon on a lad of that age having enough money to treat her in the way she was accustomed, and she’s never one to waste her time.”

  “Would you know her address?”

  “Sorry. Any way, I’m wanted.” A customer at the other end of the bar was becoming insistent. “If you want her she’ll be in here tomorrow at her usual time. Hang on! That’s her just coming in. The girl in the cherry-coloured trousers.”

  Ribble made his way over. The girl was unaccompanied, he was glad to see. In passing her as she made tracks for the bar, he jostled her and turned with a courteous apology.

  “All right,” she said. “No harm done. You’ve spilt your drink, though.”

  “Not on you, miss, I’m relieved to notice. Perhaps you would do me the honour?”

  “Oh, well, I don’t mind if I do. Help to heal my bruises, won’t it?”

  They made their way to the dispensers of refreshment, Ribble this time getting the barman to serve him, and then found a vacant table in a far corner. Conversation of a light-hearted nature followed and then Ribble bought another round of drinks.

  “How did you get on with young Penshaw yesterday?” he asked. “He told me about you and how you went out on the back of his motorbike. Did you have a good time?”

  “Depends what you call a good time. The blessed bike broke down. At least, he said it did.”

  “Oh?”

  “And he had no right to take a girl out and leave her kicking her heels in a rotten little public park in Gledge End while he went off to get the thing fixed. I did think a gentleman would have given a girl some lunch in a hotel and left me in the lounge with some magazines or something. Do you know he was gone for a good hour and a half! And it not being the time of year for a girl to sit out in a public park kicking her heels while a fellow gets a motorbike mended, well, I stayed there the hour and a half, like I said, it not being my way to stand a fellow up, but then I got cold and fedup and went to the bus stop and got on the bus. I didn’t know how long it might take to get the bike mended, not knowing what had gone wrong with it, and I hadn’t had no proper lunch or me tea, so I reckoned I was justified not waiting about. I come in here last night and midday today thinking I’d see him, but nothing doing. Perhaps he thought I might give him a piece of my mind, keeping a girl hanging about like that, but I’m not that sort and I will say for him that he was good company and proper larky.”

  “So you haven’t seen him again,” said Ribble. “Well, I’ve got to get back. Can I drop you anywhere?”

  “Oh, well, p’raps you can, then, but I’m a respectable girl, you know. Thanks for the drinks; but it’s one kiss on the doorstep and no admission to the old bedsitter.”

  Ribble drove her home under her directions and, possibly to her disappointment, offered no kiss on the doorsteps. He now had her address if he needed it, although he did not think she could help him.

  — 9 —

  ACRID LOBELIA

  Ribble’s Saturday began with another visit to Mrs. Beck’s cottage. So far the only address he had taken down was that of the dead woman, Judy Tyne. As his next port of call was to be the hairdresser visited (according to her account) by Peggy, he needed her surname too, and thought he had better check the rest of the addresses as well.

  Mrs. Beck went over to the hostel and returned with the cards which the troupe had previously handed in. Although they had not taken their departure, they were not staying another night. Ribble sat down and wrote busily, adding the home addresses to the names of Giles Tranmire, Willie Nicolson, Peter Hutton, Plum (Pelham) Redman, Mick (Michael) Mardon, Ronald Brawby, Peggy (Margaret) Raincliffe, and Pippa (Philippa) Mardon, Mick’s sister.

  At the hairdresser’s, as he had other calls to make and time was pressing, he produced the evidence of his official standing to an enquiring young person at the appointments desk and asked her to verify that “a Miss Raincliffe had booked a hair-do lasting about an hour on last Thursday morning, if you will be so good, miss.”

  The girl said that she would have to ask. She went to a tall woman who was doing complicated things involving clips and rollers and murmured to her. Ribble heard her say: “He’ll have to wait until I get Mrs. Rollins under the drier.”

  Ribble walked over to them.

  “I am investigating a serious accident,” he said. “All I want to know is at what time this customer, Miss Raincliffe, came in here on Thursday and at what time she left. It only means looking her up in your book.”

  “Very well, if that’s all,” said the tall woman. “Nothing to do with a complaint, I hope.”

  “Unless you call death a complaint,” said Ribble, taking the receptionist back to the desk. “Now, miss, if you would kindly turn back to Thursday, Raincliffe is the name I’m looking for.”

  “I’ll check, but I don’t remember it. No, it’s not down in the bookings.”

  “What about Wednesday?”

  “No, not Wednesday neither.”

  “You haven’t turned back to Wednesday, miss.”

  The girl flipped back a page in the ledger. A line was drawn diagonally across the sheet.

  “On account we’re closed Wednesday because we’re open all day Saturday,” she explained.

  “Well, concerning Thursday, is it possible for ladies to get a hair-do without booking beforehand?”

  “If it was only a trim we might be able to fit a person in, or if there was a cancellation, not otherwise.”

  “Do you remember anybody dropping in like that on Thursday?”

  “I’m sure nobody did.”

  “Have you an assistant here named Marcelle?”

  “Marcia, not Marcelle.”

  “Point her out to me, please.”

  “She don’t do hair, she only washes it, not being full-trained. She’s at the far basin. You better wait ‘til she’s done the second shampoo and rinse.”

  Ribble had no time for these niceties. He walked over to the hair-washer and said, “No need to stop what you’re doing. Did you have a client named Raincliffe at about midday on Thursday?”

  The girl suspended operations, but only for a second.

  “Nope,” she said, and went on with her job.

  “Are you absolutely certain?”

  “Yup.”

  “Is there another assistant with a name something like yours?”

  At this point the woman who appeared to be in charge came up to them and said briskly, “Mrs. Rollins is under the drier. What can I do for you?” She led the inspector back to the desk.

  “I am trying to trace the movements of a lady named Raincliffe,” he said in official tones, “and the operative day is last Thursday, the time probably between twelve and one. This lady may have come with
out having made an appointment.”

  “Most unlikely and, last Thursday, quite impossible.” She drew the appointments book towards her. “We were fully booked and there were no cancellations.”

  “You fitted in a trim, perhaps?”

  “We are seldom able to do that, and certainly did not on Thursday.”

  “Are there other ladies’ hairdressers in the town?”

  “There is an establishment in Dale Street, but the class of client who come here would hardly patronise it.”

  Ribble thanked her, sought out the “establishment in Date Street” and drew another blank when he repeated his questions.

  “Only Antoine’s,” said the receptionist. “Not that there is an Antoine, or ever will be. It belongs to the manageress. I suppose she thinks a man’s name, and Frenchified at that, sounds better, but she isn’t above pinching my best assistants when I’ve trained them. The tips are better there, you see, because of all the councillors’ wives. I suppose they get their hair done out of the rates. You never know how many fiddles go on when it’s rate-payers’ money they’re spending. A Miss Raincliffe? We have never had a client of that name.”

  “I always go there,” quoted Ribble to himself, referring to Peggy’s statement regarding Antoine’s. It had been a stupid, witless lie. Obviously Antoine’s had never heard of Peggy Raincliffe and, in any case, the shop was miles and miles from Peggy’s home address. The girl must have had some reason for lying. Besides, if she had not cycled to the hairdresser’s and back during what must have been the time of Judy Tyne’s death, where had she been, and why did it need to remain a secret?

  He drove back to the hostel but, as he had anticipated, by the time he got there the troupe had collected their belongings and their cards and gone. Application to Mrs. Beck resulted in the information that, so far as she knew, the dancers and musicians were over at Gledge End for a morning’s rehearsal in the church hall before they gave their afternoon performance at three.

  There were other things he could do before he made contact with Peggy Raincliffe. There were the men’s movements to check. He thought at first that it would be of no use to go to the cinema at that time of day, but then he remembered that on Saturday mornings cinemas often opened to project a special programme for children. He expected little to come of his errand. It was most unlikely that the girl in the box-office would have any recollection of selling tickets to Willie and Mick, let alone having noted the times of their arrival and departure; nevertheless, as a conscientious police officer, he felt bound to make the enquiry.

  He was right about the children’s matinee, and wrong about the memory of the girl in the box-office. Yes, this was the only cinema in the place. Thursday afternoon? Well, it was only pensioners mostly, wasn’t it? Sure she remembered two young men coming in. Describe them? She couldn’t say as to that. They had come in as soon as the commissionaire opened the doors. First in the queue she reckoned they were. One was sort of tallish and dark and the other, well, really more like a girl until he spoke. Lovely silky blond hair and, well, lots of girls wore trousers and sweaters nowadays, didn’t they?

  She had fixed the time of their arrival, but about the time of their departure she was unhelpful. People came and went. Oh, yes, she had to stay on duty, the picture being continuous and people coming in at any old time. If she had been issuing tickets when the young men left she would not have noticed them go out, and, besides that, although there was only one entrance, there were other exits.

  “Have to be. Suppose there was a fire?” she said impressively. “You don’t want panic, do you?”

  Ribble tried the commissionaire.

  “My job is to control the queue, if any,” said that official. “Yes, I remember the two young fellows because they went in soon as I opened the doors. See ’em leave? Not as I recollect. I daresay they used one of the other exits. Besides, they might not have exited together. They came together, oh, yes, certainly they did, but that’s not to say they exited together. Young chaps don’t always have the same fish to fry, do ’em? Mind you, when I first seen ’em I thought they was two of a kind, if you take my meaning, so perhaps they did leave together, but I wouldn’t know, would I, being solicitous in my dooty and earning my money non-union, which is to say without benefit of shop steward.”

  The idea that, before the end of the programme, the two young men might have separated had already occurred to Ribble. If Mick really had fallen asleep, there could have been nothing to prevent Willie from slipping out. The question was whether he had been able to slip back to wake Mick up and take him and the tandem back to the hostel. The inspector applied again to the box-office.

  “Look,” said the girl somewhat austerely, “are you a debt-collector or something?”

  “I am a police officer. I only want to know whether either of the young men you described asked for re-admission, having left the cinema either by the main entrance or one of the exits early on. He couldn’t get back in again through one of the emergency exits, could he?”

  “If he could, I should be out of a job, because if he could, so could everybody else, couldn’t they?”

  “Ask a silly question!” thought Ribble. He thanked the girl and drove to the swimming pool. Here he was no luckier. Thursday, the girl at the guichet reminded him, was early-closing day in the town. What with that, and the schools being on half-term holiday, the pool had been so well patronised that it was impossible for her to remember any particular customers.

  “These would be strangers to you,” Ribble pointed out, “so I thought perhaps you might have noticed them.” However, she remained firm. The only people she was at all likely to remember, she said, were those who hired towels and that happened very seldom and had not happened on Thursday. As for strangers, what did he expect in a holiday town? There were always strangers coming along for a swim.

  “You would hardly swim in the sea this time of year,” she reminded him, “so, of course, they come here.”

  “In October?”

  “Well, not so much as in the summer, but, like I said, we get a lot of custom. Why not,” she concluded, “when we’ve got a nice clean heated pool so handy, and diving boards and a chute and showers and everything.”

  Ribble agreed and reflected that blest were they who expected nothing, for they could not be disappointed. He went back to his car and drove to the church hall. Here a man with a wheelbarrow was tidying up the churchyard which was adjacent to the ground on which the hall had been built. Ribble asked where he could find the caretaker of the hall.

  “That’s me,” said the man, “but the churchwardens does the lettings. Their addresses is on the board.”

  “I am a police officer.”

  “We’re fully licensed and the fire regulations is adhered to.”

  “Last Thursday—Thursday of this week—two young fellows came to arrange the chairs for a show which is to be put on in the church hall this afternoon. How would they have got admission to the hall to do that?”

  “Same as any other hirers get in. My name and address is on the notice-board too, and they had the key off of me, having produced their letter which the churchwardens had signed up. Everything was in order, you can bet on it.”

  “So you saw and spoke with them. Are they here now?”

  “I reckon the whole lot’s here. There’s eight of ’em been at it all the time, a fiddle and a penny whistle and sometimes the piano thumping out, and tapping with their sticks and jingling the little bells on their trouser-legs and thudding on the floor with their hopping and jumping and giving a sort of a shout every now and again, you never heard such a racket. I peeped in once or twice and they was always hard at it ’cepting when they knocked off to have an argy-bargy about what somebody was doing wrong. They’re arguing now, I reckon. There don’t seem to be no music, nor stamping, nor jingling, nor nothing. Come on in, if you want to see ’em.”

  They found the company resting their legs but not their tongues. A lively discussion was goin
g on.

  “I tell you,” said Pippa, that my flute is perfectly adequate for the hornpipe. I know we used to have your violin, but that’s beside the point now, because you’re wanted for the dance in Judy’s place.”

  “The flute sounds silly for the hornpipe,” said Peggy. “Failing Judy’s concertina, the fiddle is the only thing. Whoever heard of a hornpipe being danced to the flute?”

  “Well, somebody can play the piano, then,” said Willie.

  “Oh, no, they can’t” said Giles. “It would be a complete anachronism or worse. Whoever heard of deck-hands dancing to a piano? It would be better to have three men dance the hornpipe and let Peggy fiddle for us, only unfortunately that can’t be done, unless Mick will do it as a girl. The tiny little shorts and middy blouse that Judy used to wear would look ridiculous on anyone else and we simply haven’t got another pair of bell-bottoms for a man to wear.”

  “I can’t get into Judy’s rig, as you know very well,” snapped Peggy, “so, unless Mick will do it, that’s that.”

  “You’ve got navy shorts of your own and I can lend you a white sweater. The audience likes having a girl in the middle. Actually the rather rakish cap is the only thing that really matters, apart from the girl’s legs, and you’ve got very nice legs, Peggy. I’ve often noticed them,” said Giles.

  “Oh, you have, have you?”

  “Going back to the flute,” said Pippa, “I don’t want to start an argument, but actually the hornpipe wasn’t originally a dance at all. It was a musical instrument, one of the ancestors of the oboe. It was a pipe with holes at the mouth end and a real cow’s horn at the bell-end, so you see a flute would really be much more in keeping than a fiddle, anyway, as I’ve always pointed out.”

  “The sailors always danced to the fiddle. It’s traditional,” said Peggy. “Anyway, I am not going to wear navy shorts and Giles’s white sweater. Besides, the hornpipe is really a solo dance. Think of Wayne Sleep.”