Dandy Gilver and the Unpleasantness in the Ballroom Read online

  There was, I decided after doing so, nothing to see. He might have been a schoolmaster or a lawyer’s clerk.

  ‘They’re not gentlemen of the press,’ said Alec.

  ‘They’re not gentlemen at all,’ I murmured.

  The woman in the row behind leaned forward then and spoke in an undertone.

  ‘Do youse really not know who that is?’ she said. Alec and I both turned round more fully to see who was talking. ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Don’t draw attention. He’ll know we’re talking about him.’

  ‘But who—’ I began. I was cut off by Lorrison and his speaking trumpet before I could finish my question.

  ‘Now that we are all here,’ he said, and I thought he glanced at the four men, ‘let us begin. The first round will be that most beautiful and romantic of all the ballroom dances, everyone’s favourite, the Quick Waltz.’

  The four men were forgotten in the rustle of appreciation and delight as the dance band struck up and the eleven couples spaced themselves out around the floor. The house lights were snapped off as though we were at the theatre and one by one, as gently as dandelion seeds taking flight in a breeze, all the couples began to eddy around the room to the swell of the music. It was breathtaking.

  ‘Dandy,’ said Alec, after a while, ‘who are you watching?’

  I snapped back to attention with a guilty start, for it had been one of the elderly couples whose twirling and whirling circuit of the floor had been mesmerising me. I retrained my eyes on Tweetie and Roland. They were dancing with great gusto, spinning so fast that one imagined they must be dizzy, and changing directions apparently as if communing by some sort of telepathic magic. Grant and Barrow were looking rather ragged as they tried to keep up and Tweetie threw a look of irritation over Roly’s shoulder as Grant and Barrow bungled a corner and prevented the other couple from haring off again as they clearly wanted to.

  ‘It’s like watching a flat race,’ said Alec. ‘I’m not surprised Leo fainted, doctored hankie or no.’

  ‘And Grant isn’t the best sailor I’ve ever met,’ I said. ‘I don’t know how much more of that spinning she’ll be able to do.’

  At last, once the spectators were reeling with dizziness and one could only marvel that any of the dancers were still on their feet, the music swelled to a final flourish and the band fell silent.

  The judges sat stony-faced for a full minute staring at the couples, who stood on the floor looking like condemned men waiting for the axe to fall. And fall it did. Once the other three had passed slips of paper to Mr Silvester and he had scribbled and shuffled for a while, he fixed his gimlet eye just above the dancers’ heads and barked out a series of numbers. The message made no sense to me but the crowd sighed with relief or groaned with disappointment and one of the also-ran couples took a deep, grave bow and left the floor, trailing disconsolately towards the cloakroom to take off their costumes and try to cast their minds towards next year and greater glory.

  The remaining couples gave their comrades looks which comprised a veneer of sympathy thrown over a smile of glee, then turned their attention back to Lorrison. He called for a quickstep and then skipped into the front row of seats as the elderly couple, as spry as spring lambs, bore down on him quite ruthlessly and obviously with no intention of swerving to avoid him.

  Grant and Barrow did better this time, I thought. For in the quickstep one could decide for oneself where to go and how fast to get there, marching like centurions from one end of the ballroom to the other if it so pleased one. And then, once in place, there were endless fidgety little steps that could be used to stay there. They stuck to Tweetie and Roly like wasps to a jampot lid and stared hard over one another’s shoulders at all the other dancers too. Such a marvellous job did they do that at the end of the dance, after Silvester and the other vultures had culled the toffee-apple woman and her broken umbrella, he spoke a whispered word in Lorrison’s ear. Lorrison raised his eyebrows but delivered the message anyway, through his speaking trumpet.

  ‘Couple number three have received a first warning for obstruction,’ he said.

  Tweetie nodded vehemently, glaring at Grant who flushed in deep patches all over her milky décolletage. I had never known her suffer from embarrassment before, but perhaps she had become swept up in the competition or perhaps she judged that her task was only possible if she stayed on the dance floor and would be dealt a knock-out blow by her being sent off. In any case, she and Barrow stayed well away from Tweetie during the first half of the tango that followed.

  The second half of the tango was never danced. We failed, Alec and I. We failed more badly than ever in our detecting careers before. We sat in our little gilt chairs and watched a murder.

  19

  It happened quietly when the time came.

  For a couple of minutes, the nine remaining couples stalked around the room, haughty expressions on their faces, stamping like lunatics – it really was the most ludicrous display I had ever seen and I suspect that my amusement distracted me. Tweetie and Roly were cheek-to-cheek, or temple to jaw anyway given the disparity in their heights, and they prowled around with their joined hands stuck out in front of them like two people trying to reach the top note on the same trombone. She was clutching him so tightly that probably he stayed on his feet for quite some time longer than he might have done without her. I noted his distress at the same time as Alec did.

  ‘He’s swaying,’ was the first thing he said.

  Roly certainly did not look fierce and jagged any more as one must in that silly dance. He was softening, his knees beginning to bow outwards. Tweetie, grim-faced, held him against her, and took a couple of faltering steps. I could see the cords standing out on her arms from the strain and the wild look in her eyes. At last, Grant noticed and she broke out of Barrow’s arms and ran over. At that, the other couples all hesitated and half of the band members stopped playing, leaving just the piano and the trumpet blaring.

  All of a sudden Tweetie was screaming. She let go of Roly and he slumped to the ground and lay in a huddled heap. Then she started yelling at the top of her lungs, taking huge mustering breaths before screaming again like a factory whistle. I wanted to slap her; her panic was panicking other people now, a good third of the women watching starting to sob or whimper. I leapt up and started towards her but before I could reach her, the rest of the dancers converged and made a barrier, shouting and jostling. Some of the crowd too started to surge on to the floor to see. Lorrison was bellowing through his trumpet, causing even more upset with his harsh voice and harsh words.

  ‘Keep in your bloody seats, for the love of God,’ he said. ‘Keep away or you’ll get what’s coming!’ It did not work. No one was left on the sidelines now except the four men in the front row, all of whom were watching the uproar with a calm lack of interest. They had stood up for a better view, but no more. I stared at them, transfixed, for it is not often that one sees utter cold-heartedness not troubling to hide itself. They saw me looking and even then did not muster a frown. Then my attention was hooked away by the sight of someone opening the door to the hallway and slipping out. As I shook my head thinking my eyes were playing tricks on me, Alec grabbed my arm.

  ‘Never mind him now,’ he said. ‘Help me break through this lot, will you?’

  Together, as determined as the tango dancers, we bludgeoned through the wall of tailcoats and ball gowns and reached Tweetie. She was crouching beside Roly, who lay face down and quite still, and she was rummaging in his top pocket. She pulled out his handkerchief, put it to her face and breathed in deeply.

  ‘Theresa!’ I said, horrified by her recklessness, but she took the handkerchief away and gave me a wobbly smile.

  ‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘It’s fine. He’s only fainted. He was so anxious. He’s just fainted.’

  Alec, beside me, took hold of Roly’s shoulders and turned him over. Then the crowd, those close enough to see, drew back with a collective gasp of horror. Whatever was wrong with Roland Wentw
orth, he had certainly not just fainted. His face was contorted in agony and was a deep livid colour unlike anything I had ever seen. He was struggling to breathe, his chest hitching and catching and his mouth wide open in a silent scream. He had been nobbled, like Leo before him, but it was something much worse than chloroform this time. Theresa stood like a pillar, her breathing very fast and shallow, staring down, unable to move.

  ‘Roland?’ said Alec. ‘Roly? Can you hear me?’ The poor man’s eyes were closed but at the voice he waved a hand, clawing desperately at the air, until Alec grabbed hold of him and held him fast. ‘Hang on, old chap,’ he said. ‘Help is on its way.’

  ‘Can someone ring for an ambulance?’ I shouted, staring around at the ring of faces. ‘Mr Lorrison?’ Lorrison was standing with his speaking trumpet hanging down at his side.

  ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Mick?’ He nodded at one of the bandsmen, who trotted to the back of the stage and through the door, dodging Bert who was, at that moment, returning from somewhere in the back regions.

  Roly was beginning to make a dreadful gurgling noise and his heels were drumming on the floor.

  ‘Steady on, old man,’ said Alec. ‘It won’t be long now.’ Then over his shoulder: ‘Dandy, can’t you get rid of some of these people, for God’s sake? Give him some bloody room and stop gawking.’

  Where Lorrison had failed, Alec succeeded. Whether his voice was more commanding or the pain in it touched an answering humanity in others was hard to say but, in dribs and drabs, the watchers shuffled back until they were near the edges of the room again, some of them taking their seats. Only the dancers were left on the dance floor. Grant and Barrow stood stricken among them, their faces deathly pale.

  ‘Is there a doctor in the house?’ said Alec, but his voice held no urgency, almost as though it were a benediction he was giving.

  In fact, it served as such. After he had spoken Roly gave a strangled sound as though his whole throat were clenching and then his body went rigid until it seemed as if only his heels and the back of his head touched the floor. He held that dreadful pose for an impossible silent stretch of time and then he sank down and his head lolled sideways, a small trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth and pooling on the floor.

  We were all silent except for some weeping from among the women. Lorrison ran his hand over his mouth and gave a glance to the four men still sitting in the front row. At last, one of them spoke. It was the mild man.

  ‘Where’s Beryl?’ he said.

  Bert started into action, looked over and mumbled an answer. ‘She ran out,’ he said. ‘I went after her but she kept on going.’

  ‘Sensible lass,’ said the mild man and he got to his feet, his supporters scrambling up as he did.

  ‘Perhaps she went to telephone for help,’ I said.

  ‘Naw, she’ll have got herself away out of this like I will too,’ said the man.

  I was puzzled by him. He seemed interested in Beryl but not at all concerned for her, which was an odd combination. As to why he denied my assumption of her helpful impulse, I could not imagine.

  ‘Sir?’ said Alec. He had laid his handkerchief over Roly’s face and now stood up. He looked rather yellow – with his colouring he never goes white exactly – but steady enough. ‘I don’t think anyone should leave. The police will want to speak to all witnesses to this murder.’

  ‘Murder?’ said the man. ‘It looks like a heart attack to me.’

  I boggled at him. It looked about as much like a heart attack as it did a case of measles. The poor man had been poisoned, perhaps not in his hankie and not with chloroform this time, but certainly there was foul play. I searched around the gathered faces of the dancers. Most were simply shocked and miserable. Had one of them really killed two men? Tweetie was hugging herself, her arms wrapped tightly, rocking to and fro. Bert stumbled over to her and put a friendly arm around her but she shrugged him off, stepping away out of his reach.

  The four men were leaving. In a row they walked across the floor and one of the thugs held the door open for the others.

  ‘Mr Lorrison,’ I cried. ‘Are you really going to let them leave? The police—’

  ‘The police’ll find them,’ Lorrison said.

  I swung round to face the little dais where the judges were sitting. ‘Mr Silvester?’ I said. ‘Since Lorrison has turned into a jellyfish, that leaves you in charge. Will you run after those people and detain them?’

  ‘I think I should let the police handle this,’ said Silvester. ‘I shall leave my card. I can be contacted if they need me.’ With that he rose and started to pluck at his cuffs and waistcoat to return himself to the pitch of dapper perfection.

  ‘You’re not leaving!’ said Tweetie, looking horrified.

  ‘I’m very happy to help the police with any questions they might have,’ said Silvester, ‘but this kind of unpleasantness is very—’

  ‘But what about the Champs?’ said Tweetie. ‘You’re the head judge.’

  A horrified murmur rippled through the crowd.

  ‘Miss Stott,’ said Alec gently, but he was unable to go on for there was no way to say it without risking hysteria.

  ‘I can dance with Bert,’ said Tweetie. ‘If Beryl’s taken off and Roly isn’t fit to go on.’

  I could not help glancing at the still form which lay at our feet, his face covered with Alec’s handkerchief. ‘Not fit to go on’ was something of an understatement.

  ‘Tweetie,’ I said. ‘The competition can’t continue. There has been a crime and it must be investigated.’

  ‘He fell,’ said Tweetie. ‘He fainted and hit his head.’

  Her voice was taut with desperation and as I took a closer look at her she seemed suddenly to be not quite in what one could call a normal state of mind. Her eyes were very round and staring and not only her limbs but her jaw also were trembling. Her skin was pouring with streams of sweat too, the cloth of silver clinging to her and growing dark.

  ‘Theresa, my dear,’ I said. ‘You are in shock. You don’t know what you’re saying. We need to get you home or perhaps even to a doctor. At least come and sit quietly until help arrives, hmm?’

  At that moment, though, we heard footsteps, heavy and hurried, coming along the corridor and all of us, as though our chins were hooked to a line, turned to see. It was not a doctor, however. Nor was it a pair of ambulance men with a stretcher which would have been even better. It was three policemen, burly and grim-faced, who burst in at the door with their truncheons held at the ready.

  ‘Const—’ Alec began, but before he could finish, Tweetie – still looking utterly crazed and running with rivers of perspiration now – was screaming at the top of her voice.

  ‘They’re going to arrest us all,’ she shrieked. ‘We’ll all be flung in jail. You can’t do that. We’re innocent. They’re letting the murderer get away to kill again. Run! Run! Save yourselves.’

  I could have smacked her. In a second flat, the scene in the Locarno changed from horrified calm with everyone in their seats and poor Roly on the floor, to one of sheer chaos, spectators up and running, barging into each other, swarming the stage to escape that way, and all of them shouting. Tweetie went down in the midst of a particularly determined front of young women who barrelled past her with linked arms, kicking at Roly’s body until it was turned on its side and the handkerchief floated away. Alec, horrified, dropped to his knees and gathered up the young man into his arms to protect him from further atrocities. At the same time, I struggled over to the main doors to try to close them or to somehow make a shield of myself to prevent all these witnesses from escaping.

  Then my nerve failed. I could not understand it but these people, dressed to the nines, out to watch the dancing, had turned into a mob, easily capable of pulling me to pieces if I obstructed them. Thankfully, before my resolve was forced to do battle with my common sense, one of the policemen sounded his whistle, a painful, piercing shrill which brought everyone back to their senses.


  ‘Anybody that sits down quiet now and answers our questions can get home to their own fireside just as soon as we’re done,’ he said. ‘Any bloody eejit that keeps running about and yelling’ll get three nights in the cells till a magistrate gets a wee look at them on Monday morning. It’s up to youse!’

  It was an unanswerable argument and the crowd subsided, jostling back into their seats, shaken and muttering.

  ‘And as for you!’ said another policeman to Tweetie, taking out his little book and snapping it open with a resounding thwack of its elastic.

  ‘I am Miss Theresa Stott,’ said Tweetie, full of dignity, even though she was sitting on the floor with one shoe off and her feathered dress in tatters. She had lost her headdress too and her hair was a tangle of pins and spangles, like the nest of a magpie with a taste for glitter. ‘I am the daughter of Sir Percy Stott and he will have plenty to say if you are mean to me.’

  ‘I couldn’t care if you’re the Princess Elizabeth and your faither’s the king,’ said the policeman. ‘I’ve never seen such a display of—’

  ‘Constable,’ said Alec. ‘That’s all very well and I agree that Miss Stott did not help matters but the thing is that matters have changed for the worse since Miss Bonnar rang you. This man is dead. And it looks very much like murder.’

  ‘Miss Bonnar?’ said the third policeman, exchanging a glance with his colleagues. ‘Beryl Bonnar? She’s never said peep. It was a man that called this in. What’s Beryl Bonnar got to do with it?’

  I should not have pegged him as a ballroom dancing aficionado, but he certainly knew who Beryl was and seemed struck enough by the mention of her name that he was sidetracked from the matter in hand.

  ‘Look,’ said Alec, finally letting go of Roly’s shoulders and letting him drop back to the floor. His face had relaxed into death in the minutes that had passed and the look of anguish had faded, leaving only the cherry-coloured flush on his skin and the trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. There was a small rusty spot on Alec’s shirt front where it had soaked in.