Murder and Mascara Read online

  “Then you are certain that someone came up to the scaffold later on and unscrewed the bolts?”

  “It has to be that way. I know I checked them all, I know!” Mr Taversham pulled his lips back in a scowl. “I did not neglect my duty!”

  “Do you think one of your workmen might have unscrewed the bolts?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not the sort of thing you want to contemplate,” Mr Taversham moped. “Someone could have been seriously hurt. This is a dangerous business and I can’t imagine why anyone would put a colleague at deliberate risk. Accidents happen frequently enough without causing them deliberately.”

  “What about the box of lipsticks being moved?” Clara changed tack.

  “I don’t know who moved that and none of my men will admit to it. It could have all been the result of miscommunication.”

  Clara had to agree that was always a possibility.

  “Have you noticed anyone suspicious about the Pavilion?” Clade hoped for something, anything. She needed a clue, a sign to let her know which direction to wander in to solve this crime. She was hopeful that Taversham could offer that clue.

  “There was a newspaperman,” Taversham shrugged. “Newspapermen are always suspicious.”

  “But he was picked out by Abigail swiftly enough and expelled.

  “If you say so,” Taversham shrugged.

  Clara could see she was not going to get a lot from him.

  The foreman was looking agitated and wanted to get on with his work. Clara insisted he give her a list of all the workmen at the site, just in case.

  “None of my workmen did this,” Mr Taversham grumbled.

  “And you have proof of that?” Clara queried.

  The way Taversham turned his head made her suspect that he was thinking she was a damn silly and interfering woman. And if she was not careful, he would refuse to speak to her at all in future. Clara let her last question go unanswered and agreed that they were done. Mr Taversham wrote out his list of names for her and departed from the room with an indignant grumble about being made to feel guilty just because he was a man. Clara would have liked to explain how everyone she interviewed came in for her own brand of suspicion, but she guessed now was not the time. She let Taversham go and set off for home. There was something very odd afoot in the Pavilion. Betrayal and murder, that was the gist of the matter. But who felt betrayed and were they the murdering sort, or had Esther been killed by someone else entirely? Clara concluded that knowing more about Esther might be helpful. If the woman proved to have enemies, that was something worth pursuing. In a way she hoped the crime against Esther was not as random as it seemed. It troubled Clara a lot to think of a person just killing someone else for no better reason than that it would delay Abigail and her tight deadline. It was an awful thing to think.

  Clara walked home enjoying the warm sun on her shoulders. She would have to get her best dress out for the meal, but she had an ominous feeling that she was going to look very out-of-place among the Albion ladies. Never mind, she had work to do. A killer had to be found and the meal would provide the prime opportunity to get a good look at some of the suspects in this case. She just hoped nothing sinister would happen before that time came.

  Chapter Five

  The dinner did not begin until eight o’clock. Clara had a lot of time to burn that afternoon. Theoretically she could have been working on the case, not that she had much of a notion where to begin. Inspector Park-Coombs would be investigating the background of the victim and also making enquiries into disgruntled employees of Albion Industries. Clara had to make do with talking to people here, in Brighton, and she had a feeling everyone at the Pavilion would be too busy to speak to her.

  Besides, there was something else she ought to be doing. Something that had weighed on her mind since she had learned that Captain O’Harris was alive and back in Brighton.

  She had grieved for the Captain, nearly broken her heart over him. He had been so alive and so very enthralling. She could have a good argument with him, if she wanted. He had been a good counter to her sometimes overly determined investigating. For a man she had barely known, he had felt like an old friend. And then he had been gone, just gone. She had imagined all the ghastly things that could have occurred to him over the ocean, everything from his plane catching fire to him ditching into shark-infested waters. Those thoughts had been bad enough. To now know he had been alive but lost for nearly a year made her despair even more, for the authorities had stopped looking for him when they concluded he was dead, and all the time he had been waiting, hoping for rescue.

  Clara could not be certain, after all this time, after being abandoned, that Captain O’Harris would want to see her, or that he would be the same man she remembered. The thought crushed her with dread and made her hesitate to go and see him. She considered this a type of cowardice, but she could not shake it from her heart.

  Fortunately, Clara was pragmatic and sensible enough to know that this was not all about her. Whatever her feelings on the subject, Captain O’Harris deserved a visitor. There were few others close to him in Brighton to go to his hospital bed. Captain O’Harris’ parents were dead. His uncle and aunt, who had offered him a home when he was orphaned, were also deceased. He had no other family and having only returned to Brighton shortly after the war to take up residence in the old manor house, he had yet to make any firm friendships outside of Clara and her brother. Captain O’Harris was a self-confessed loner. His personal demons, created by the war, prevented him from easily making attachments to others. O’Harris kept his distance from the world and, in return, it kept its distance from him. Clara doubted he had had any visitors to the hospital, except perhaps for Colonel Brandt; an old family friend of the O’Harrises. If Clara did not pay him a call, who would?

  Clara resolved herself to the effort. Perhaps O’Harris would not want to see her. That would have to be endured.

  Clara arrived at Brighton’s General Hospital in time for the afternoon visiting hour. She noted, as she walked up the steps to the front doors, that there were several suspect individuals loitering around. They looked like pressmen, probably hoping for a scoop. It reminded Clara that she had to find the newspaperman who was nosing about the Pavilion. She avoided eye contact with the loiterers. Most of them knew her on sight from her various cases and also knew she had been a friend of O’Harris. She expected to be harangued by them when she exited the building, but it did not worry her unduly.

  Clara introduced herself to the girl on the hospital’s reception desk. She explained the purpose of her visit and that her name had been supplied by Inspector Park-Coombs as one of those allowed to see the Captain. The girl double-checked, nonetheless, then agreed that Clara could go upstairs to see the patient. She was given the number of a private room on the first floor where O’Harris was residing. Clara thanked the girl and went upstairs.

  The hospital smelt of bleach and various types of antiseptic. Clara had worked in a hospital as a voluntary nurse during the war and the smells were so familiar that they rapidly disappeared into the background for her and she no longer noticed them. Clara stopped an orderly and asked if she was heading in the right direction for the private room where O’Harris was staying. She was given new directions and hurried on. Finally she came to a door marked 115.

  Clara took a deep breath. Even now her nerve threatened to leave her, but Clara was not to be defeated. She had come this far and she had a friend on the other side of this door. She rapped on the white painted wood. A voice from within croaked that she might enter.

  The moment between turning the handle for the door and pushing it open seemed to take an eternity. It was an eternity filled with dread and excitement. Hope and fear. Her stomach went over as she trembled at what she might see when she was presented with O’Harris. As the door crept open so the hospital bed came into view, then the red itchy wool blankets the hospital provided, and then, at last, Captain O’Harris himself. Clara stood in the doorway and just stared.
He was the same as always. Dashing, dark haired, a handsome face that was etched with the woes of a man who has been to war. The lines seemed no deeper, but Captain O’Harris’ smile seemed to take a while to reach his eyes. He slowly took in the person standing on the threshold of his room.

  “Clara,” he really did smile now.

  Clara was filled with relief. She entered the room and shut the door before hurrying to his bedside where there was a chair set out for visitors.

  “Inspector Park-Coombs told me you were here,” she said softly. “I…”

  Clara had to stop herself because her voice had cracked with emotion and she was not about to burst into tears before the captain. She had to remind herself that this visit was not about her, it was about him.

  “I suppose I am rather a shock,” O’Harris said. He seemed to have only just woken from a doze and his voice was hoarse. He coughed. “I am rather a shock to myself.”

  “You silly fool, where have you been?” Clara asked tearfully, her emotions disobeying her determination to remain in control of herself.

  Captain O’Harris grinned at her.

  “I missed you Clara. Thoughts of you scolding me for disappearing sustained me through many a long night. I did promise I would come back.”

  “You never said it would take nearly a year!”

  The grin faded a little.

  “I never expected that myself,” the captain admitted. “Actually, until recently, I had no concept of how long it had been. It felt a lot longer.”

  “What happened?” Clara asked, desperate for explanations. “Where were you?”

  “I don’t remember all of it,” O’Harris explained tentatively. “There are large blanks in my memory. One of the doctors said it was a normal side effect from the trauma I have been through. Considering what I went through during the war, you would think I would be able to cope better with one rather mediocre plane crash.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Clara told him stoutly. “None of us know how dramatic events will affect us. Even the bravest and most daring of souls can suffer. It is not something to be ashamed of.”

  “I missed you telling me off,” O’Harris laughed. “You are the only person, aside from my aunt, who has been confident enough to do that!”

  “It is not confidence,” Clara replied. “Just honesty.”

  O’Harris fell silent. Suddenly he reached out and took her hand. He squeezed it tight.

  “I was afraid, foolishly enough, that you would not come and see me. I thought that perhaps you had moved on, found someone else…”

  Clara, who had very nearly not come, squeezed his hand back.

  “If it is any consolation, I was afraid you would not want to see me.”

  “Right pair of fools we are then!” O’Harris gave her that boyish grin of his, that hinted at mischief, but yet was oh so enticing.

  Clara smiled in return.

  “What happened John? On that day when you disappeared?”

  O’Harris pulled himself upright in bed a little more and took a moment to compose himself. He never let go of Clara’s hand.

  “The White Buzzard’s engine packed up. I’ve thought about it over and over. The hows and the whys. In the early days I had almost convinced myself she had been sabotaged. Now, with a more rational head on my shoulders, I perceive it as just pure bad luck. Aeroplanes malfunction, it is one of the awful risks we pilots must take. We can check them and maintain them as often as we like and then, one day, something just fails or breaks,” O’Harris gave a sigh. “I suppose it could have been worse. I mean, crashing into an ocean is pretty bad, but it is better than ploughing into the ground.

  “She started to stutter the second day we were over the ocean. I mentioned the issue to my co-pilot, but what could we do? We had nowhere to land and make repairs. We just had to carry on and hope. We debated about turning around, heading back to England. But we had a tail wind driving us on, and turning back into it would likely have slowed us down considerably. We thought it was about as broad as it was long, so we carried on towards America. The White Buzzard stuttered all day and as night fell I was certain she was losing momentum. The steering felt less responsive, it might have been my overworked imagination, but I felt she was no longer pulling so strongly.

  “During the night we lost height. That might have been a coincidence, judging height in the dark over an ocean is challenging with a perfect engine, let alone with one that has developed a cough. When dawn came we were so close to the waves we could feel spray hitting us. I tried to pull the Buzzard back up, but the effort was too much for her. She spluttered and gave out a death groan, then her valiant engine gave up. She stalled. I knew that was the end. All I could do was try and glide her down into the water. She fell like a stone and we were both thrown from our seats into the cold water.”

  O’Harris paused, his eyes wandering to the hills and valleys of the hospital blanket where it rested over him.

  “I lost sight of my co-pilot pretty quickly. We had life vests on, fortunately. There was a good chance we would not drown, at least not swiftly, and the water was not as freezing as I had feared. But the currents swept us apart and the wreckage of the Buzzard sank within minutes. It suddenly dawned on me, as I found myself alone, that I was now floating in a vast expanse of water. A mere speck to any chance passer-by. What were the odds someone would see me?” O’Harris grimaced. “I felt more guilty about my co-pilot, feeling I had dragged him on this foolish mission. That was all I could think about as I floated. I cursed myself, cursed my luck. That was when thoughts of sabotage started to spring to mind. I became convinced I had been the victim of a vindictive rival, no matter how far-fetched that seemed.”

  “How long were you floating in the sea?” Clara asked gently.

  “I couldn’t say,” O’Harris shrugged his shoulders. “Time meant nothing and towards the end I slipped in and out of consciousness. The life vest kept me afloat, else I would have drowned. I mean to write a letter to the company that supplied them, informing them of the quality of their product.”

  O’Harris paused to laugh at himself.

  “What nonsense I think of!”

  Clara squeezed his hand, assuring him it was not nonsense.

  “Anyway, at some point the currents took me to this little island where I washed ashore. It was somewhere off the coast of America, one of those little sandy places where indigenous people still make their home. I was starving and close to dying of thirst. Someone, one of those natives, kindly dragged me ashore and I was taken into a village. There I remained, I can’t say how long. My memory of the time is hazy. I was tended by a native woman who, in my delirium, I sometimes imagined was my late aunt. Everything is so very muddled in my mind about that,” O’Harris waved his free hand at his head, indicating how fluffy his thoughts had been back then. “I can’t even recall if the woman spoke English or not. I think perhaps I had a fever, or some tropical sickness that clouded my thoughts. I know I was well looked after. Placed in a bed, fed with soups and stews, the like of which I had never tasted before, and given plenty of water. I had to be helped to eat and drink. I was helpless, all my strength gone. I was so racked with guilt over my co-pilot that a part of me did not even care if I lived. But half the time I was so out of my mind I could not remember who I was, let alone what had happened to me.

  “Once a month a mission from the mainland would come to the island to deliver supplies and offer medical aid to anyone who was sick. One time they came and they were shown to me. I don’t remember it, I was told about it later. Through the mission arrangements were made to take me to an American hospital…”

  Captain O’Harris was interrupted by a bell that rang to let everyone know visiting time was over. Clara pulled a piteous face, she did not want to leave. O’Harris glanced at her sadly.

  “Will you come again?”

  “Of course!” Clara declared.

  “Tonight?”

  Clara felt her heart sink as she explained.
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  “I cannot. I have to attend a dinner being hosted at the Pavilion. But, if you would like, Tommy wants to visit you and he could come tonight?”

  O’Harris had looked disappointed, now he brightened again.

  “I would like to see Tommy,” he agreed.

  Clara left him with promises that she would soon return and that he would have Tommy for company that evening. She made her way out of the hospital with some haste, avoiding the newspapermen who, predictably, sprang on her the instant she set foot outside. She ignored them, refusing to answer their questions, and was soon on the pavement and hurrying home. Her heart was beating fast, a sensation of happiness and joy filling her. O’Harris had been glad to see her. Nothing could have made her happier. There was a new spring to her step as she walked along smiling to herself.

  Chapter Six

  Abigail Sommers stopped outside the doors of the hastily prepared dining room and turned to Clara.

  “I hope you enjoy this. I am finding it hard to keep my enthusiasm going after…” Abigail tailed off.

  It was half past seven in the evening and the specially invited guests were slowly arriving for the dinner party. Abigail had promised it would be a feast to be remembered, but it was apparent that she had lost all interest in the event after recent developments.

  “When I have a chance, I am going to compose a letter to Esther’s parents. I feel I should,” Abigail pulled a face, it was clearly a task she did not relish. How could she explain that it was while she was in charge of the trade fair that Esther Althorpe had met her unfortunate end? “I really don’t know what to say.”