Kitabı oku: «Another Woman’s Shoes: Based on Paul Temple and the Gilbert Case»

Chapter One

As far as Press and public were concerned the Weldon case was finished.

Harold Weldon, an impetuous architect in his early thirties, had been tried and found guilty of strangling his fiancée, a fashion model named Lucy Staines. The customary appeal addressed to the Home Secretary had been made, considered, and rejected.

No murder trial can possibly be dull, and the violent death of a beautiful young girl such as Lucy Staines had attracted a fair amount of attention. If the case had failed to reach the bigger newspaper headlines this was in some way due to a particularly nerve-racking international crisis, the kidnapping of a famous TV star’s pet poodle, and the audacious daylight robbery of a City bank.

All the same, the Weldon case might have claimed more space on page one had there been a greater element of mystery involved – perhaps a missing corpse, a nation-wide manhunt, or a fascinating trail of clues to whet the appetites of all amateur detectives. But none of these factors had been present. It had all the semblance of an ‘open-and-shut case’. One summer’s evening before going to the theatre Weldon had been seen and heard quarrelling violently with his fiancée; a few hours later her body had been found near a deserted bomb-site in Soho Square, and a witness had seen Weldon running wildly from the Square shortly after the medically established time of the killing. Harold Weldon had been arrested, the witness had identified him beyond any doubt, the police had found bloodstains on one of his handkerchiefs which he had carelessly left in a suit sent all too hurriedly to the cleaners, and the accused’s alibi had failed to stand up to interrogation.

The trial might have gone better for the young architect if he had cut a better figure in Court. Weldon, however, had taken almost palpable pains to rub everyone up the wrong way. His aggressive, sarcastic tongue had not only succeeded in losing him the sympathy of Judge, Jury and public but had eventually upset even his own Defending Counsel. His frequent outbursts of rage, instead of helping to prove his innocence, had only added fuel to the Prosecution’s fire – there you have standing before you, it was forcibly hinted, a clear-cut example of a heavily opinionated young man unable to control his violent emotions. The verdict was a foregone conclusion, and there was no popular wave of feeling to support the appeal submitted by Jaime Mainardi, Weldon’s Defending Counsel. A date for the hanging had been officially announced; the book containing the story of Harold Weldon’s short and stormy life was about to be closed.

This was the precise situation when Mike Baxter, criminologist and ex-Fleet Street crime reporter, entered the case. Interested as he was in all aspects of crime – since they were grist to the mill of the crime articles and books by means of which he earned a very respectable income – he had nevertheless paid the trial only scant attention. His publishers and literary agents were pressing him over the deadline of a book that was overdue, and his wife, Linda, was pressing him to take a holiday which was equally overdue. When the phone rang one morning as he was half-way through typing the final chapter he mentally heaped mild abuse on Linda for being absent and irritably picked up the receiver.

‘Conway and Racy’s heah,’ sang an overbred, fluty, female voice.

‘Who?’ he muttered. It sounded like a firm of racing bookies. Mike did not go in for gambling, except on certainties.

‘Is that the home of Mrs Baxter?’ the fluty voice went on.

‘My wife’s out at the moment,’ said Mike politely.

‘Oh … I see. Well, I wonder if you would be so good as to deliver a message to Modom—’

‘I’m very busy. Could you ring again?’ Mike cut in, realising that it was his wife’s Bond Street dressmakers on the phone.

The smooth female voice faltered. ‘I … er … I don’t think you quaite understand, Mr Baxter … This is Conway and Racy’s of Bond Street—’

‘Very well, if it’s urgent,’ he sighed. ‘But make it as brief as you can.’

At that moment he heard the door of his study open and, glancing over his shoulder, saw Linda enter the room.

‘… Could Modom come for a final fitting tomorrow afternoon?’ came the unhappy voice at the end of the wire. ‘Perhaps three o’clock would be convenient for Modom?’

‘Certainly,’ Mike said hastily. ‘I’ll tell her.’

As he hung up Linda sat down in the leather-upholstered chair opposite his desk and gave him a searching glance.

‘What’s the matter, Mike?’ she said. ‘You’re looking frustrated.’

‘Nothing, darling. Just trying to earn a little honest bread and butter at my typewriter, in between answering calls from your hairdressers, dressmakers and such-like all over Town. Conway and Racy’s want you for a fitting at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon.’

‘Darling, that’s my new suit! The one I’m going away in … with you, remember? On holiday, the day after tomorrow. You no doubt recall the arrangements?’

‘Yes, dear, I recall.’

Something in his tone make her look up. ‘Darling, we are going to the South of France as planned, aren’t we?’

‘Yes, dear.’

‘You don’t sound very enthusiastic. Just look me square in the eyes and give me your solemn promise—’

‘If I am granted just a few hours’ undiluted concentration on this laggard opus of mine, we may just about make it.’

Linda stood up, leant forward, and kissed him lightly on the forehead. ‘Sorry, darling. I won’t disturb you any more. I’ve a thousand things to do if we’re to be ready on time.’

As she turned to go there was a tap on the door, and Mrs Potter, the housekeeper, came in.

‘Excuse me, Mr Baxter, but there’s a gentleman outside wants to see you.’

Mike groaned. ‘Now I know why Dickens never finished Edwin Drood. Who is it, Mrs Potter?’

For answer Mrs Potter handed him a small visiting-card.

‘Hector Staines, Assistant Sales Director, Keane Brothers,’ Mike read out. ‘Aren’t they the refrigerator people? Tell him we’ve already got two, Mrs Potter.’

‘If you were to ask me, sir, I don’t think he wants to sell you anything. Doesn’t talk like a salesman. Seems all het up, says he’s got to see you – said something about it being a matter of life and death.’

Mike’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Did he now? What’s he look like?’

‘Oh, quite the gent. Tall, grey-haired, frozen-faced type. Walks with a stick. Shouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t got a gammy leg.’

Mike exchanged glances with his wife, sighed, and pushed the portable typewriter to one side. ‘This obviously is not my morning. You’d better show him in, Mrs Potter.’

‘Want me to stay, darling?’ Linda asked.

‘Maybe you’d better, just in case he starts using his stick when I refuse to buy a fridge.’

Mrs Potter’s description of the man who entered the room was, as usual, lacking in respect but remarkably accurate. Obviously public school, Mike found himself thinking as they shook hands, not at all like a refrigerator salesman. And obviously, as Mrs Potter had put it, ‘all het up’.

‘You’ll have to excuse my butting in on you like this,’ Staines began, bowing stiffly towards Linda, ‘but this is a matter of great urgency.’

‘What can I do for you, Mr Staines?’ Mike asked politely, glancing at his watch.

‘I’ll come straight to the point, for I’m sure you’re a busy man.’

‘He is,’ said Linda meaningly.

Mike frowned at her and gestured his visitor to a chair. The elderly man shook his head and began pacing the room nervously. The limp was not very noticeable, but it was there.

‘I don’t know if you’ve been following the papers in the past few weeks, Mr Baxter?’

‘Not enough to lose any sleep over the international situation. It’ll soon blow over.’

‘I wasn’t referring to politics. I’m talking about the Weldon case. They are going to hang an innocent man.’

‘Whom did you say?’

‘Harold Weldon.’

Mike glanced at the card in his hand. ‘Wait a moment … Are you connected with Weldon in some way?’

‘Yes. Lucy Staines was my only daughter,’ said the visitor quietly.

There was silence in the room for several seconds. Then Mike said: ‘From what I remember of the case you were one of the principal witnesses against Weldon. Your evidence helped convict him, didn’t it?’

‘I am aware of the paradox,’ the elderly man answered shortly. ‘That’s what makes it all so damnedly … difficult. I have no very great sympathy for the young man, but I don’t think he killed my daughter. Not any more.’

‘Just one moment, Mr Staines, before we go any farther. I think I should tell you, whatever you may have heard to the contrary, that I’m not connected with Scotland Yard in any official capacity. If you have any fresh evidence which makes you think Weldon is innocent, then it’s your duty to go to the police without a moment’s delay.’

‘That’s just it,’ Staines answered, his stiff features crumpling into an expression of unhappy despair. ‘I don’t have any fresh evidence, at least not to speak of.’

‘Then what exactly brings you here?’

‘Simply that I don’t believe any more that he was the murderer.’

‘He was given a fair trial before Judge and Jury, wasn’t he? The verdict appears to be clear enough.’

‘Juries can make a mistake. It has been known to happen. Mostly they find out when it’s already too late.’

Mike nodded thoughtfully. ‘True enough. But I fear the Home Secretary would hardly find this intuition of yours sufficient grounds for reopening the case. Will you be a bit more explicit? You must have something to go on or you wouldn’t have bothered to come and see me.’

Staines broke off his pacing up and down and sank into a chair, his head sunk low on his chest, the stick at his side. He had obviously been bred in the strict school where to show one’s emotions is a crime of the worst possible taste. His rather high voice was strained and impersonal and he did not look up as he spoke.

‘I suppose it’s partly my conscience that is driving me. When you lose your only daughter, Mr Baxter, the world collapses like a shattered building around you. The shock is quite indescribable.’

‘I’m sure it is,’ said Linda sympathetically.

‘When the shock recedes, there is a terrible reaction, an urge to lash out, a burning desire for revenge. A voice cries out inside you – “Someone must be made to pay for this!”’

There was another tense silence, which Mike broke, speaking quietly but clearly. ‘Are you trying to tell me you gave false evidence against your proposed son-in-law, Mr Staines?’

‘Good God, no! I told the truth, as I had sworn to do, in answer to all the questions put to me.’

‘The truth as you saw it at that time?’

‘Since then, since the verdict, I’ve lain awake at nights, worrying about that unfortunate young man sitting in the death cell, waiting for the hangman’s steps. And my conscience torments me – was it my evidence that put him there? My daughter is gone, nothing can bring her back to me … but have I the right to add another death to the misery that has already occurred?’

‘Surely,’ said Mike, choosing his words carefully, ‘you have nothing to reproach yourself with? You only did your duty, unpleasant though it must have been.’

‘I’ve tried telling myself that. It doesn’t help. I keep going over it all in my mind.’

Linda and Mike exchanged glances as the elderly man buried his face in his hands.

Linda said, ‘Mr Staines, my husband and I have been rather busy of late, so we didn’t follow the trial as closely as some people. Would you tell us exactly what happened on the night of the murder?’

Staines lifted his head and the pain was clearly visible in his pale grey eyes. ‘Harold and Lucy had been engaged for about six months and were going to get married next spring. They saw quite a lot of each other, as much as their respective jobs would permit. Harold is a junior partner in a firm of architects. I don’t much care for his work, it’s too modernistic; he seems to regard himself as a sort of angry young man of design, but that’s neither here nor there. Lucy, as perhaps you know, earned her living as a fashion model. She loved her work, every bit as much as he did his. On the night she was killed they had a dinner appointment, with a theatre to follow. Harold called at the house for her around six o’clock. I should perhaps explain that Lucy and I had lived alone since my wife died during the Blitz. I offered them both a drink, then I had to go upstairs on some errand or other, and I heard them talking. Their voices grew rather heated and it was soon clear they were having a fair-sized row. It was not the first quarrel they had had.’

‘Could you hear what they were talking about?’

‘Shouting, not talking.’

‘And what was the topic of the quarrel?’

‘The same thing they always fought about: Harold wanted Lucy to give up her job once they were married. She refused. She loved the work, and quite frankly liked the money; it’s a firm that pays very well. Lucy always insisted that she was going to stay on there after they got married. It was a big thorn between them and neither was willing to give in. Lucy always was a high-spirited, independent sort of girl and Harold is too self-opinionated ever to be able to see anyone else’s point of view. It was an ugly row and frankly I was glad when they left the house to go to the theatre, or rather to have dinner first.’

‘What time was that?’

‘About a quarter to seven. As it happened, some people we know saw them at the restaurant, and they also bumped into some chance acquaintances at the theatre. Apparently they hadn’t patched things up. It must have been an unpleasant sort of evening. I expect you know the rest of the story: early next morning the police found Lucy strangled on a demolition-site in Soho. Harold tried to lie about his alibi but the police tripped him up. He had to retract his first statement. He was quite unable to give a satisfactory account of his actions between leaving the theatre and the time of the murder.’

‘I seem to remember the tangle he got into over his alibi,’ Mike put in.

‘Mr Staines, may I ask you something?’ Linda said. ‘Did your daughter have any close friends?’

‘If you mean was she consorting with other young men, the answer is no,’ came the blunt reply. ‘Weldon’s smarmy Counsel tried to insinuate something like that but he had no proof.’

‘I was thinking more of girlfriends, actually.’

‘Oh, I see. Yes, she saw quite a lot of another young girl who also works as a model at the same place in Bond Street.’

‘Do you know the girl’s name?’ Mike asked.

Staines appeared to consider for a moment, at the same time taking out his white pocket handkerchief and mopping his brow. ‘I believe her name is Peggy Bedford. Something like that.’