Paul Magrs - Mystery Lady

I told him that wasn’t all. The publisher himself had requested a meeting with me – in two days’ time.

‘Face to face?’ asked Timothy. ‘Is that usual?’

I shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea. Perhaps they want more from me than just one story? I’ve no idea! But one thing’s for certain – I’m going to travel down tomorrow and make that meeting in Bloomsbury and find out!’

Now Uncle Sayeed and his immaculate waiting staff were heading our way with steaming silver platters of pink pilau rice and all kinds of wonderfully fragrant dishes.

Timothy said: ‘Oh, do you know what? I have to be in London for the weekend anyway. I’m on another show on Friday night. Just as a guest this time. Why don’t I come with you on the train? We can make a lovely trip of it, Dodie?’

To me that sounded like a splendid idea.

Cassandra said that she fully approved of the plan, too, as she wafted about dreamily, breathing in the mingled scents of the curries and mooning over Timothy…

I liked to be properly organised. None of this last minute nonsense for me. A leisurely journey to London with my friends and dinner somewhere fancy tomorrow evening would suit me fine. Then I’d be all rested and fresh for my meeting with the Chief Editor at Mephistopheles and Company the following morning.

As I lay in bed late on Wednesday night a breeze ruffled in from the swaying trees of Heaton Moor. Mephistopheles & Co were the best publisher of all. Back in the 1920s they published the mystery tales of Lady Lucrezia Noggins. Nowadays they were having a huge success with the strange adventure stories of Oswald Arthur. I would be in very esteemed company if I managed to sell a whole book to them.

Perhaps this short story of mine was a foot in the door…

Though it was a very strange story indeed… I was surprised anyone wanted to buy it. I only sent it in on a whim. It was, perhaps, the most phantasmagorical thing I had ever written… and certainly the most personal and heartfelt. Perhaps that it is why it had caught the attention of the editor, Fox Soames. Underneath the macabre surface, perhaps he had detected a note of authenticity..?

Gradually I dropped off to sleep, thoughts of my career whirling round my head. As I lay tangled in my satin sheets the insistent thumping of all those ‘Smashing Tunes’ was still ringing in my ears and I reflected upon an almost perfect evening…

Next thing I knew there was light flooding into the room and Cassandra was bustling about, packing an overnight bag for me. There was a cup of hot coffee on my nightstand and she was calling my name.

‘Goodness, Cassie. You’re not my housemaid. You don’t have to go to all this trouble.’

She was trying to fold a negligee and bundling stockings. ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter. I like helping. It’s not much bother. I’m very grateful to you, Dodie. Who else but you would give me a job?’

‘What?’ I sat up in bed, alarmed by her tone. ‘What’s the matter, dearest?’

A small squeak of anguish escaped from my amanuensis. ‘It’s just…’ she began, and wrung a very expensive silk blouse between her fists until it looked like a rag. ‘I’m pretty hopeless, aren’t I? As a secretary or as anything, really? I never quite get things right. Like these train times I found. I scribbled them all down in my pad, and I can’t even read my own scrawl.’

‘That doesn’t matter, Cassie,’ I told her. ‘The thing you have to learn about life is that everything becomes so much simpler if you simply behave as if nothing really matters.’

‘Really?’ she looked sceptical.

‘Well, of course,’ I said, hopping towards my en suite bathroom. ‘You must never let the world at large see what it is you care about. And then it can’t be taken away from you.’

I left this thought with her as I plunged into my shower: a delicious, frothing, perfumed torrent that quickly sluiced away the fug of my slumbers.

When I emerged I found that not only had the dear girl packed my case, she had laid out the most exquisitely chosen travelling outfit. A lemon two-piece with a dinky hat.

We met Timothy at WH Smith on the platform at Piccadilly. The daft boy had gone to extreme lengths to ensure he wasn’t recognised by members of the public. He was in a huge overcoat, scarf and hat, with a comically large pair of dark sunglasses hiding most of his face. He looked like an idiot as he perused the papers.

For the first time, I really considered the idea that my friend was becoming a famous person. That day he was much better known than he was the day before.

‘Hopefully we can nab a compartment to ourselves,’ I told him. ‘And so you won’t be bothered by your many fans.’

He nodded solemnly. ‘I’ve bought us some licorice allsorts.’ Also, I noticed, all the papers, so he could read reviews of his performance last night.

As we left the newsagent and drifted towards Platform Ten, Cassie looked perplexed. ‘That was strange at the ticket counter. Why do we only need tickets for you two?’

‘Oh, it’s a special offer. Writers’ assistants travel free this month. Isn’t that great?’

We were only just in time. Tearing down the long concourse under the iron girders of the curving roof. The noise everywhere of departures and welcomes, whistles and dashing footsteps.

There’s something I love about setting off on a journey…

What we don’t know at this point, though, is that this journey is more than a quick jaunt to London for a meeting. This journey is going to go on and on. It’s going to turn into a dangerous quest, this one.

But as we set off from Manchester Piccadilly on that bright October morning, we have absolutely no inkling of this.

Which is just as well.

Ahh, I look back on myself that day and I think – Cassandra, you had no idea what was in store. You had no idea about anything at that point. You didn’t know anything at all, did you?

All around us, others were boarding the train to London, and finding their compartments and getting themselves comfy.

Everyone looked perfectly normal and respectable.

And so, once Dodie and the handsome Timothy are settled into their compartment, and he has divested himself of some of his layers of disguise, I drift along the corridors with the ostensible excuse of finding the dining compartment. Though I daren’t trust myself carrying tea things back to the others. Have I mentioned yet how terribly clumsy I am? I always seem to drop simply everything…

I had a little walk up and down the length of the train to stretch my legs once we were underway and I peeped through windows and had a good nose around. I’m a very curious person and Dodie says it’s one of the things she values about my being her assistant. I quite often notice things that she has been oblivious to.

And it’s while I’m on this little reconnaissance mission that I see a very strange pair of travelers indeed.

They are a few doors down from our compartment. They’re shut in together but they aren’t a pair, if you see what I mean. She is a very large lady with a vast shelf of a bust and very long, delicate fingers. Her hair is in a bun and she is wearing a tweed suit. Very businesslike, like a gigantic, drab old bird, pecking at the pile of papers in her lap. She’s working on the train, making marks on a vast typescript with a blue pencil.

The man sitting opposite her is staring furiously at every move she makes. When I look into his face I recoil at once.

He has blue-purple lips like old bits of liver, shiny and wet. He has a skinny black moustache under a scarlet hooked nose. He’s gurning at the large lady and blazing his eyes. A very skinny man in a business suit. Very smart. He even has a silver-headed cane with him. The woman in tweed isn’t paying him one jot of attention, but surely she can’t be unaware of him?