Conjurer's Coffin

Book 117: Murder Room

by Guy Cullingford

Genres: Mystery; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

In the cheerful, grubby backstreets of Soho, Jessie Milk finds herself a most unsuitable occupation as a receptionist in a hotel frequented by unsuccessful variety artists. Among the hotel's regulars is a dyspeptic conjurer with a plain wife and pretty assistant, both of whom drive him to distraction and encourage his professional and lethal tendencies . . . Miss Milk confides her troubles to a retired Merchant Navy captain, now employed as a store detective. Combining their resources they are pursue the murderer in the bustle and crush of Coronation week.

Release date: November 14, 2015

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 253

Sample

A LARGE black shape slid up and obscured the view of the street from the reception desk. The squares of glass in the swing doors darkened into inky
pools. There were two violent slams, a short pause, and in they came, bringing a blast of the cold evening air with them; a very small, pretty girl fantastically dressed, a very small, plain girl
in a drab coat and a dyspeptic-looking man.

With their entrance, the coffin-shaped lobby which up to then had held but three sounds – a subdued sizzling from the radiator, the tick of the moon-faced clock and the occasional rustle
of the receptionist’s Sunday paper – became animated. And Madame’s Lulu, who had been napping in a nest of her own moulted hairs on one of the lounge chairs, came trotting briskly
forth to investigate.

A small miracle took place. The door to the lounge which had been wide open was now closed and the dyspeptic man leaned with his back against it. In his dirty mackintosh with a muffler round his
neck he gave the impression of an out-of-work on a street corner, permanently fixed in the glue of his own despondency. There was nothing to testify to the extraordinary dexterity of his act but
the outraged muffled yappings of a frustrated Lulu. His disagreeable expression had not changed, neither did it as he remarked:

‘I don’t intend to put up with the slobberings and slaverings of that disgusting animal after all day on the road.’

‘It always barks at me,’ observed the pretty girl.

‘Knows you’re not to be trusted. Where’s the ancient?’

Miss Milk, who had slipped down from her high stool on their arrival and now found that she was suffering from acute pins and needles, swayed on cotton-wool feet and said severely:

‘If you mean Madame Lefevre, she’s upstairs resting. But I can show you to your rooms. I expect you’ll be Mr and Mrs Gorman and Miss Shelley.’

The pretty girl thrust her face into the aperture of Miss Milk’s hatch and subjected her to a bright-eyed scrutiny.

‘You’re new. What happened to the peroxide blonde?’

At these close quarters Miss Milk, who was not exactly a fool, despite her somewhat frumpish appearance, was aware of a personality powerful for its size. She admitted frankly that she
didn’t know.

‘Came to a bad end, I shouldn’t be surprised,’ hazarded the pretty girl with a wink. ‘Everybody does, who works here.’

‘Oh, come on, Gay,’ urged the plain one. ‘Let’s get on with it. I’m frozen to death. And Gene’s got to put the car away.’

Miss Milk made a brief play of consulting the primitive chart left for her guidance by the trainee. This consisted of a list of numbers running from top to bottom of the torn-out page of an
exercise book. Alongside each number was either a blank, a name, or a remark.

‘Don’t tell me I’ve got 12A again!’ said Gay’s voice near her ear.

Miss Milk shrank back to gain as much privacy as she could within her circumscribed limits and ran her pencil down the list. Opposite number 12A was the letter S
and a scrawled comment, terse but instructive: ‘Sure to grumble – have to put up with it.’

‘I’m afraid that one of them seems to be 12A,’ she admitted.

The pretty girl withdrew her short-curled nob from the interior of the desk and threw up her hands in theatrical despair.

‘Oh gee! Gene, isn’t it the end? That old she-devil swore blind that she’d never put me there again. I’m still black and blue from last time. 12A!
You can see the 13 under the paint, and that damned mattress is a filthy old sack stuffed with door-knobs and dictionaries.’

She appealed to Miss Milk.

‘Be a sport. Find something else. I don’t mind if it’s on the top floor.’

Clutching the list, Miss Milk pretended to give the matter earnest consideration. Even as a complete novice in the hotel business she could not help thinking that the trainee’s methods
might be improved upon.

‘I’m afraid that it just isn’t possible, madam. We’ve got a lot of people from the ballet staying here . . . ’

‘Ballet? What ballet?’

‘The Bohemian Ballet.’

‘If that isn’t the last straw! Got to share this dump with a bunch of lousy gypsies. Gene, I tell you I won’t stand it.’

‘If you think I’m going farther at this time of night, you’re demented, my good girl,’ replied Mr Gorman.

‘Just a second,’ begged Miss Milk, this time genuinely engrossed in a study of the list. It had suddenly occurred to her that the mystic S attached to 12A referred to the capacity of the room, and misled by Gay’s constant appeals to Mr Gorman, she now announced triumphantly: ‘12A is the single, not
the double.’

The pretty girl’s pencilled eyebrows rose half an inch; she slapped her elegantly trousered leg and began to guffaw loudly.

‘Bless her maiden heart! She’s giving me to you, Gene. You’ve made a mistake, pet. This is Mr and Mrs Gorman. I’m Miss Shelley.’

Miss Milk blushed for her blunder, and wondered why on earth she should have jumped to the conclusion that Miss Shelley and the man called Gene were the united couple. Now she had made everybody
feel uncomfortable, including herself. The real Mrs Gorman’s cheeks were stained a dusky red. The dyspeptic man observed grimly:

‘I wouldn’t be married to that piece of thistledown for a fortune,’ and his wife added: ‘She hasn’t got a fortune anyway.’

‘Nonsense,’ retorted Miss Shelley, unabashed. ‘We’ve all got fortunes, haven’t we, ducky? Which reminds me . . . I haven’t seen a paper all day. Mind if I
borrow yours?’

She thrust a long arm into Miss Milk’s cubicle to take possession of the Sunday paper which she then shed page by page on to the floor, with the exception of a single sheet, which she
proceeded to study.

‘I must just see what the stars have in store for me,’ she confided. ‘Don’t object, do you, dear? This chap’s cute: he knows all the answers. Now, let’s see,
must get the dates right. Here we are. “A hard week ahead of you.” What did I tell you? . . . Puts his finger straight away on that damn mattress. “A long journey”, blimey,
we’ve just had it. “Financial crisis.” Now what’s he mean by that?’

‘In words of one syllable – no cash,’ explained Mr Gorman with deadly patience.

‘The man’s a wizard!’ cried Miss Shelley.

‘Oh, come on, Gay,’ begged the plain girl. ‘Stop showing off.’

‘Don’t be impatient, Stella. Anyway I haven’t got a room to go to yet. I’m going to have it out with that old so-and-so first. She’ll have to wake up from her forty
winks. Give her a tinkle on the blower, Miss-in-the-desk.’

While Miss Milk was hesitating over the propriety of this suggestion, a disembodied voice from the head of the stairs inquired in a harsh croak:

‘’Oo ’ave you got down there, huh?’

It sounded accusing, as if Miss Milk might be making merry with gentlemen friends. But this was Madame’s normal tone, and signified nothing more than a distrust of humanity in general.

The volatile Gay to whom the tone was familiar was already half-way up the stairs, abandoning the last page of the paper as she ran to greet the face which now hung as if decapitated over the
banisters. Miss Milk was amazed to hear them behaving like mother and daughter restored to each other’s arms after a long enforced separation. Amid a host of endearments in which appeared no
word of complaint about room 12A, she distinguished an invitation to partake of a drink in Madame’s own apartment.

‘You hear that, Gene?’ Mrs Gorman asked her husband, brightening.

‘You go on up then. I’ll follow later.’

Miss Milk and Mr Gorman were left alone.

‘How happy could I be with neither!’ misquoted Mr Gorman.

Miss Milk pretended not to have heard him.

‘Your room is number 26,’ she said. ‘Shall I give you a towel and a piece of soap?’

‘What about the nailbrush and pumice stone?’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry . . . I didn’t mean . . . It’s only that it’s the rule, and I’m so terrified of forgetting anything. I haven’t been here long. In
fact,’ she added with a rush of candour, ‘this is my second day.’

‘Give you a week,’ said Mr Gorman.

‘Am I as bad as that?’ she asked in dismay.

Mr Gorman considered the matter coolly.

‘I shouldn’t say that you’re any dumber than the others, but you’re certainly less hard-boiled. The odds are against you. I’ve been coming here off and on for years
now, and I’ve never seen the same face in this box twice, apart from the family, of course.’

‘Except Gus . . . and the night porter.’

‘Oh, they’re permanents. I should have said the same female face.’

‘Can you be a permanent trainee?’ asked Miss Milk, innocently.

‘You can here,’ replied Mr Gorman darkly. ‘Where is friend Gus, by the way?’

‘I’m afraid that he’s gone to the pictures. Is it anything that I can do?’

‘I wanted some help with the luggage. Those dreams never think of carrying in their own suitcases.’

‘I can do it if they’re not too heavy.’

‘It’s only the small stuff. I shall leave the props in and they can go straight round to the theatre to-morrow. Thanks a lot.’

‘I’ll fasten the doors back to make it easier. I daren’t usually because of Lulu running out and getting lost, but it’s all right so long as she’s shut
in.’

‘Darned animal gives me the jitters. Never could stick dogs that thrive on soft chocolates and stewed tea. Come along then. I want to get rid of the car and into bed. I’m all
in.’

It was chilly in the street, and Miss Milk lacked the nerve to suggest that she should go and fetch her coat. She was sorry for Mr Gorman; she thought that he looked really ill, but she felt no
confidence in the amiability of his disposition.

The car was an old station wagon packed to the roof with assorted luggage.

‘Come all the way from Blackpool to-day. Here, catch this.’

‘What is it like up there?’ inquired Miss Milk.

‘Lousy as ever,’ replied Mr Gorman. ‘Here’s another. This fancy piece with stripes belongs to Shelley. Looks like it, too.’

Backwards and forwards from car to hall went the obliging Miss Milk, loaded to the chin with baggage that ranged from suitcases to paper parcels. A hairbrush stuck out from the corner of a
shoebox which from its clinking contained small bottles or jars of cosmetics. There were several loose apples and a hamper with its lid jammed down on some squeezed half-pounds of margarine. Miss
Milk’s legs were still cramped, and she felt as if her gait must resemble Lulu’s who had the stiffish trot peculiar to ancient Pomeranians. As she put down yet another bundle on the
linoleum, she thought that she could hear the animal snuffling at the gap between door and floor-boards, and was unable to restrain a feeling of pleasure. Short as their acquaintance had been, she
had already come to regard Lulu as a spy acting on behalf of the management. The little creature had a way of standing with its front legs planted at an angle and a rude stare on its sharp,
spiteful face, as if it were waiting an opportunity to carry tales to its doting mistress.

Just as they had finished unloading everything, and Miss Milk and Mr Gorman were regarding the results of their labours in a speculative manner, one of the aluminium-painted balls on the
old-fashioned telephone exchange dropped ominously, and the machine began to emit a buzzing sound.

‘Oh dear, I suppose I must answer it,’ said Miss Milk, and began to clamber over hard-cornered suitcases with such speed that she jagged a ladder in her second-best stockings. The
only thing in her new job of which Miss Milk was really terrified was this box of mahogany and vulcanite. She had been instructed in its use by the trainee, but as his instructions had consisted in
squatting down on the stool in front of it with a half-smoked cigarette dangling from his mouth, and depressing switch after switch at an alarming rate while he said, ‘’S’easy.
’S’easy as pie. See?’ Miss Milk was not at all clear as to the actual process.

Now, I must keep my head, she said to herself. I mustn’t let myself be flurried. Just concentrate. It isn’t as if it were a big switchboard. It’s all perfectly simple. Just
depress the switch belonging to the number of the ball which has dropped, so. Now, there’s nothing to worry about. ‘Hullo! Hullo!’ Oh dear, I shouldn’t have said Hullo.
Un-businesslike. But I can’t hear anything. Nothing at all. Perhaps I’ve got the wrong switch. Better put it up again.

As soon as the switch was released the thing began to buzz again.

All Miss Milk’s good resolutions were swept away by frenzy. She started to depress switches at random. Thank goodness, it isn’t the exchange, she thought; only one of the bedrooms.
At last she heard something. ‘Pardon. What was it you said, sir? Tea? Oh, coffee. Coffee! I’m so sorry. I didn’t quite get it. No. Of course I’ll get it for you. For two?
I’ll get it at once. No, won’t be long. I’ll be as quick as I can.’

Heaving a sigh of relief, Miss Milk concluded the conversation and triumphantly released the switch. The thing was silent. She turned round to find Mr Gorman regarding her with sardonic
amusement.

‘Oh!’ she ejaculated in dismay. ‘Oh!’ She covered her face with her hands.

‘What is it now?’

‘I said that I’d take him a pot of coffee for two, and I don’t know his number. I never even looked at the number.’

‘Try the second from the right on the third row.’

Miss Milk shot him a look of ecstatic gratitude.

‘It’s fourteen. Oh, how kind of you!’ She started to fumble among the telephone directories.

‘Now what’s the matter?’

‘Well, fourteen isn’t really fourteen. There’s a list somewhere. Ah, here it is. Fourteen’s really twenty, you see.’

Mr Gorman looked skywards for help, and saw Miss Blanche descending. Miss Milk also saw Miss Blanche in the mirror placed to the right of her desk to allow supervision of the stairs. She was a
little nervous of Miss Blanche, but at this moment thankful to see her.

Miss Blanche cast a glance of scorn at Mr Gorman’s belongings, and asked:

‘What’s all this?’

‘It’s to go upstairs,’ said Mr Gorman.

‘Then you’ll have to make several trips,’ said Miss Blanche firmly. ‘I can’t have it here blocking the gangway, and Gus is out.’ She turned to Miss Milk.

‘Who was it on the telephone?’

Mr Gorman gave a grunt, tucked several bags under his arms and started upwards.

‘The gentleman in number 20,’ said Miss Milk. ‘He wants a pot of coffee for two.’

‘Then go down to the kitchen and ask the cook for it,’ advised Miss Blanche. ‘And tell him we shall all be having poached eggs for supper.’

‘Would you like me to help Mr Gorman with some of his things?’

‘No. He can quite well do it himself. He’s only on artists’ terms.’

After nearly breaking her neck on the kitchen stairs which were in complete darkness, Miss Milk found Chef sitting on a broken-backed chair in the gloom of the kitchen. He was reading the
sporting news in a paper at least a week old. He had on a very dirty white hat and a coat to match with a sweat cloth round his neck. He looked as old as Lulu but less sharp. He surveyed Miss Milk
from rheumy eyes, and wiped his weary moustache with the back of a not overclean hand. He said nothing.

‘Good evening,’ began Miss Milk, brightly. ‘Could I have a pot of coffee for two, please?’

‘Coffee for two,’ he repeated, not moving.

‘Shall I wait for it?’ inquired Miss Milk.

‘Do as you like,’ he replied without malice. He did not budge.

‘Would you like me to get the tray ready?’

‘Do as you like.’

Miss Milk found a tray, rubbed off as many stains as she could with a nearby rag, and set on it cups, a sugar-basin and a milk-jug. She also found a coffee-pot with a chipped spout. These
objects were kept in a sort of pantry off the kitchen. She returned and found Chef still sitting where she had left him.

‘Where’s the saucepan?’ she asked helpfully.

‘Where is it likely to be?’

Miss Milk paused for thought.

‘Would you like me to make the coffee?’ she said at last.

‘That would be one way,’ he agreed.

As it appeared the only way, Miss Milk now set about boiling a kettle and heating the milk. She found a tin of coffee.

‘It’s a teaspoon to a cup,’ said Chef. ‘That’s my orders. A teaspoon to a cup.’

Miss Milk complied with his orders. It took a long time, but eventually the coffee was made and she bore it off. At the foot of the stairs she halted, having remembered her instructions.

‘Miss Blanche said that they were all having poached eggs for supper,’ she said.

This put some life into the old man. ‘They want poached eggs and me a chef,’ he said, carefully folding up the sporting news. ‘That’s a nice thing. Ask a chef to poach an
egg.’

Miss Milk found the light switch and hurried off upstairs with her tray. She was afraid that if she stayed any longer she might find herself poaching eggs.

‘You’re after your time,’ said Miss Blanche severely when she arrived back in the lobby. Miss Blanche was now in the reception desk, knitting a ribbed
vest.

‘What a good idea,’ said Miss Milk. ‘Would you mind if I started some knitting too? It’s not such a waste of time as reading.’

‘Do what you like,’ said Miss Blanche coldly. ‘But now put on your coat and go home.’

‘Should I put down the coffee in the book? The gentleman didn’t pay for it.’

‘I’ll see to that.’

‘Oh, and I never asked Mr Gorman and the others to sign the register. I quite forgot, I’m afraid. Miss Shelley isn’t an American, is she? I mean, she doesn’t have to sign
the special form.’

‘What makes you think she’s American?’ asked Miss Blanche, mildly amused.

‘I don’t know. She used the word “gee”. And she called Mr Gorman “Gene”.’

‘She’s as American as anyone can be, born in Brixton. Why’s the door to the lounge shut? We like it kept open.’

‘Poor Lulu! I forgot all about her!’ exclaimed Miss Milk. ‘Mr Gorman shut the door.’ A brief hesitation led Miss Milk into a falsehood: she didn’t like to say
exactly why Mr Gorman had shut the door. ‘We thought that she might run out into the street when we were bringing in the luggage.’

‘You’d better let her out before you go,’ said Miss Blanche. ‘My mother will be expecting her upstairs.’

‘Oh dear, yes, of course I must,’ said Miss Milk.

Her hand closed on the thick white china knob. She opened the door and peered in. Her glance went first to Lulu’s favourite chair; but the cushion, although it bore the small round
impression of Lulu’s occupation, was empty. Miss Milk looked round the room quickly. Then, incredulous, her glance shifted to the unswept corners and back again to the centre where the lustre
pendant was kept permanently lit from dusk onwards. The lounge had the dismal appearance of a room furnished for people to wait in without expectation or hope until discomfort drives them out. It
had a marble chimney-piece on which reposed a marble clock permanently stopped, and exposing its utilitarian back in a tremendous, spotted glass framed in gilt. In the fireplace below was fixed a
very small electric fire. There were a number of small tables bearing out-of-date periodicals, a writing-desk, and about half a dozen mixed chairs of varying degrees of decrepitude. There was a
glass vase containing paper daffodils, and an antique piano with a fretted front made by Collard and Collard.

All these things were in their appointed places. But there was no Lulu.

There was no Lulu.

Miss Milk turned round aghast to Miss Blanche, who was engaged in counting rows in her knitting, and said:

‘She isn’t there. Lulu isn’t there. Wherever can she have gone to?’

‘You must have let her run out of the door when the Gormans came in. I warned you about it. My mother won’t be pleased.’

‘Whatever shall I do?’ asked the stricken Miss Milk. ‘Shall I go out in the street and look for her?’

‘You’d never find her. She’s probably round the dustbins in some alley.’

Remembering how dark the street had been when she had been out helping with the luggage, Miss Milk recognized that the chances of finding Lulu were remote indeed.

‘But I can’t understand it,’ she said. ‘I know she was in there. I heard her snuffling at the door when I put down two of the suitcases.’

Miss Blanche shrugged her shoulders.

‘If she isn’t there now, she must have got out somehow.’

‘But I didn’t leave the desk after that. I was here all. . .