Chapter 21 The Dome of Discovery #3
“You did, Flynn. Miss Dubois was in the habit of stopping by the Lamb and Flag every evening for a drink on the way home, regular as clockwork and always on her own. And then, that night of all nights, she turns up with you, scuppering our plans. We were caught on the back foot, I’ll admit, especially when she left suddenly.
Your company must have been very boring. ”
Before he could protest, she said, “Oh, here’s Arthur,” and Arthur Stamp emerged from the shadows at the back of the Parlour. Mrs. Betty opened one eye and gave a low growl, and then went back to sleep.
“I was just telling Mr. Flynn here how much trouble he’s caused us, one way or another.”
“Aye.”
“As you can tell, Flynn, Arthur’s a man of few words. Aren’t you, Arthur?”
“Aye.”
“Do you remember what happened after Delphine left in that cab?”
“I went back into the Lamb and Flag. Finished my drink.”
“Not just your drink. You downed hers as well. Thus you were entirely the architect of your own misfortune.”
It dawned on him (rather slowly). “The Ricard? It was her drink that was doped? The Micky Finn wasn’t meant for me?”
“Of course it wasn’t. We needed your French girlfriend docile to get her out of the pub.
I imagine she would have fought like a mad cat if we’d tried to take her against her will.
Arthur Stamp was the one who drugged her drink.
You didn’t notice him—no one does—he was sitting in a corner of the pub playing Patience, as quiet as a mouse.
Unfortunately, as very occasionally happens, the drug seemed to have the opposite effect on you. ”
“Aye, you kicked up a right bloody fuss, pal.”
“You beat me up.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Flynn,” Lydia said, grinding her cigarette into the ashtray on the table (a big cut-glass one, heavy enough to cause brain damage if wielded with intent).
“Nobody beat you up. You tripped on a curb on Garrick Street, fell and hit your head. Arthur, out of the goodness of his heart, got you home and put you to bed.”
“When I should have been making sure I got our little songbird safely in her cage.”
“Arthur feels bad. He’s Scottish. They’re a remorseful people. You were your own worst enemy, Flynn. Ours, too. You blundered in, hampering us at every step.”
“Did Dangerfield kill her?” Flynn asked. “She said she was meeting him. Zheel.”
“Deluded thinking on her part. He was certainly desperate to shake her off, but he was in the Athenaeum all night. The cream of London society can vouch for that.”
“And it wasn’t Braithwaite, because he was in the drunk tank overnight in Bow Street, according to Tommy Gammage, the barman at the Lamb and Flag. Let me guess—you’re going to ‘persuade’ him to turn King’s evidence and commit perjury to put Dangerfield on the gallows for conspiracy?”
“Well, that was certainly the idea.”
To her credit, Lydia had the grace to look discomfited.
“What?”
Lydia lit another cigarette, still didn’t offer one to Flynn. “Regretfully, Mr. Braithwaite suffered a heart attack while in custody.”
“And the moon is made of green cheese.” (Something that Veronica apparently believed.)
“I swear to God, Flynn, Braithwaite was not a healthy man, several doctors will attest to that. Very handy for us, though.”
“Aye.”
“Stamp’s not your real name, is it?” Flynn said to Stamp. He gave a bark of laughter that dissolved into a phlegmy cough.
“Of course it’s not,” Lydia said. “Anyway, Arthur here wanted to retire from the game and we didn’t want anyone going looking for him—he’s done some rather questionable things for us in his time—below-the-board stuff that we’d rather not admit to—so we popped his ration book in Braithwaite’s pocket, plus a couple of other odds and ends—”
“Stuck a knife in him,” Arthur Stamp added.
“Stuck a knife in him and Bob’s your uncle.
‘Arthur Stamp’ is lying dead in an alley somewhere.
They did the same kind of thing in the war.
The greater good and so on. Of course, we hadn’t factored in your enthusiastic Inspector Vigo and his sidekick, or indeed the plodding Constable Hopkins, all keen to catch Arthur Stamp’s supposed murderer—i.e.
, you. That took a bit of dealing with. I cannot tell you how much time I’ve wasted trying to get you out of the mess you made for yourself. ”
Flynn suddenly recalled the hearse outside Bow Street the other evening and the man in the evening suit who had got out of it. He had come for Braithwaite. We’ve got a gent to collect. Not to bury him, but to turn him into Arthur Stamp. And Maud Ogilvie must have been there for the same reason.
“That man you were talking to in the Rose and Crown, you said he was ‘no one’ but he was MI5, picking up Braithwaite’s corpse for you, wasn’t he? And Maud Ogilvie was there in Bow Street too, when she was supposed to be nursing a toothache. She works for you.”
Lydia and Arthur Smart exchanged an amused look. “The other way round, I’m afraid,” Lydia said. “She’s awfully good, isn’t she? Been in the game since Methuselah.”
“So who did kill Delphine, then?” Flynn puzzled. (It was beginning to feel like Twenty Questions.) “Archie?”
“Your Major was at a wine auction in St. James’s—bid on a case of excellent Barolo, I’m told, followed by a solitary dinner in Quaglino’s, where he kept the waiters on their toes. Tucked up in his bed by one in the morning. Iron-clad alibis all round, I’m afraid.”
“Alibis don’t mean much in your world, Lydia. It’s easy enough to get someone to write a receipt for your life. Or tear one up, although I doubt that even you can cast a spell of forgetfulness over the whole of the Athenaeum.”
“If I have to, yes, Flynn, I can.”
She was fiddling with the pearl in her right ear. It was a tell, Flynn realized. He had a sudden flash of intuition. “You don’t actually know who killed Delphine, do you?”
“No. But whoever they were, they certainly found the perfect idiot to try and lay the blame on.”
“Aye,” the man of few words said.
“So after Badger phoned, you went to Half Moon Street, scooped up Delphine’s body and put it on ice somewhere?”
“Something like that.”
“And now what? Defrost her and dump her somewhere, probably back in the love nest in Half Moon Street, along with a bundle of evidence that points to Dangerfield’s presence, and then accuse him of murder? Even if he’s innocent?”
“I’d hardly call Dangerfield innocent, Flynn. He has a tremendous amount of blood on his hands from the war. Gallons of the stuff. Let’s just call it delayed justice, shall we? I have to go.” She stood up abruptly.
“So what about Archie, Lydia? What’s going to happen to him?”
“Well, your Major’s certainly guilty of something. Aiding and abetting. Interfering with an investigation. Quite a smorgasbord to choose from, as they might say in Sweden.”
“Pacifists,” Arthur Stamp muttered.
“He tried to pin a murder on me.”
“But he didn’t succeed, did he? So all’s well that ends well, as they say.”
She sighed as if she had been handed an unlooked-for burden. “Of course, there are still a few loose ends, but are we all square now, Flynn? I really do have to go. Those oranges won’t sell themselves.”
“Who’ll buy your wares?” Arthur Stamp said and laughed. More coughing.
“Oh, Arthur,” Lydia said with an affection that surprised Flynn. “Time to disappear, you’re supposed to be long gone by now. I told you someone would see you.”
“Had to say goodbye.”
“The Highlands and Islands, isn’t it? The good clean Scottish air will benefit those lungs. Perhaps I’ll visit. Very nice if you get the weather.”
“Lydia?”
She sighed impatiently. “What, Flynn?”
“Where’s the twist?”
“The twist?”
“You have to have a twist.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do.”
—
And still no Veronica.
Flynn reckoned she would follow her stomach, and so he did the rounds of every restaurant and café on site.
He hadn’t realized there were quite so many or that so many people would be patronizing them.
An orgy of eating and drinking was taking place.
He failed to find Veronica, but he did run into Archie, who had gone to ground in the Garden Café and was dolefully contemplating a cup of cold coffee.
“Tastes like engine oil,” he said when Flynn sat down next to him.
“We used to buy our coffee from Harrods. They’d grind my own blend for me. Kenyan. Did I tell you that?”
“You did.”
“The game’s up for me, Flynn, isn’t it?”
“They might come after you for aiding and abetting your pal Dangerfield.”
Archie frowned. “Aiding and abetting Dangerfield? How? I’ve barely seen the man since the war.”
“He’s going down for Delphine Dubois’s murder.”
“Is he? That’s great news, although of course Mitzi will be devastated.
” (He ran a gamut of emotions from elation to despair in the course of the one sentence.) “She still holds a candle for him, you know. So…they think Dangerfield murdered the French mam’selle.
That’s excellent. Still, I am going to have to abandon poor Mitzi, Flynn.
I’m devoted to the old girl, you know. I really wanted to get those photos back for her.
She’s baking that ruddy cake as we speak.
She’s such a trooper. Will you keep an eye on her for me?
” He gave an enormous, heartfelt sigh. A weary bull entering the ring for the final time.
“Shouldn’t have taken the gun with her. Take a gun somewhere and you always end up using it, in my experience.
Jealousy, you know. Terrible thing in a female. ”
“What are you talking about, Archie? Are you saying that Mitzi killed Delphine Dubois?”