TP Fielden - Resort to Murder - A must-read vintage crime mystery

‘. . . single?’ Betty was saying, adjusting the broad belt which held in her billowing skirt – how lovely he looked with his slim figure, borrowed suit and polished shoes! She was not one to waste time on irrelevancies.

‘Been in the Army,’ said the young man, ‘not much time for all that.’ It was clear to Miss Dimont, though not to Betty, that this was not the moment to turn on her headlights.

‘Can I help?’ Judy interrupted, nodding Betty away.

‘Matter of nomenclature,’ said Valentine.

‘What’s the difficulty?’

‘It’s supposed to be a murder. But it’s an accidental death. Though it could be a murder,’ he said. He went on to explain his arrival at Temple Regis Police Station, his briefing by the ever-garrulous Sergeant Gull (murder) followed by a second briefing by the taciturn Topham (accidental).

‘Which do I call it? Murder? Or accidental?’

‘Well, just wait a minute now,’ said Miss Dimont, suddenly very interested. ‘Who is it who’s supposed to have been murdered?’ She had, after all, some experience in such matters.

‘Young lady, possibly early twenties. Bad head injuries, found in the middle of a big wide beach.’

This sounded very odd.

‘Mystery death,’ ordered Miss Dimont crisply. ‘If even the police can’t find the word for it, then it’s a mystery. Tell me more.’

Waterford described the discovery of the body, details kindly supplied by Sergeant Gull. Then he reported the deliberate downplaying by Inspector Topham: ‘Rather angry about it he was, actually. Reminded me of my sergeant-major.’

‘He was a sergeant-major.’

‘That would explain it.’

‘When’s the inquest?’ ‘Inquest?’

He’s rather sweet, thought Miss Dimont, but he knows nothing. ‘Anything unusual about a death,’ she explained, ‘there’s a post-mortem. The coroner opens a public investigation into the circs.’

‘Excellent. There’s a lot to learn, isn’t there? And my journalism training course doesn’t start until I’ve been here three months.’

So you’re going to be a dead weight until then, thought Miss Dimont. ‘You know how to make a cup of tea?’

‘Er, yes.’

‘Jolly good,’ she said briskly. The boy wonder took the hint and slid away.

Miss Dimont paused for a moment to consider what she’d just been told. Though she made little of it, she was no stranger to death; and since her arrival in Temple Regis she’d figured significantly in the detection of a number of serious crimes. Within recent memory there was the case of Mrs Marchbank, the magistrate, who had managed to do away with her cousin in the most ingenious fashion. The fact that the police couldn’t make up their minds whether this new case was murder or accidental set the alarm bells ringing, but first she must finish the job in hand.

It took less than an hour to turn out six hundred words on the Lass O’Doune ’s battles against nature, her triumphant victory in bringing food to the mouths of the nation, and the safe return from tumultuous seas. Miss Dimont made no mention of her own part in hauling in the rough and seething nets, her drenching by the ocean deep, the souvenir piece of turbot which she and Mulligatawny would share tonight – she did not believe in writing about herself.

Betty had no such qualms: she was always ready to illustrate her stories with a photograph or two of her digging a hole, baking a cake, riding a bicycle or anything else the photographer demanded. Actually she had one of those faces which looked nicer in photographs than in real life, and her editor often took advantage of her thirst for self-publicity. By comparison Judy Dimont was disinclined to make a display of herself: her elusive beauty was more difficult to capture, though Terry Eagleton, the chief photographer, had taken some gorgeous portraits of her only recently.

While she’d been finishing the fishermen piece, Valentine Waterford was having his copy rewritten by the chief sub-editor. He returned to discover Miss Dimont’s tea cold and untouched. ‘Perhaps a cup of coffee instead?’ he asked anxiously. ‘I’ll get the hang of it, I expect.’

‘Well,’ said Miss Dimont, ‘you better had. We all take turns to make the tea and,’ she added pointedly, ‘some people round here are quite fussy.’

‘I’ve decided on Ford,’ he replied, looking again as all young reporters do at his first story in print, and marvelling. ‘It fits into a column better.’

‘Good idea. Now come and tell me more about this dead body.’

The drab, bare hall behind St Margaret’s Church had never seen anything like it. Where normally baize-topped card tables were laid out for the Mothers’ Union weekly whist drive there were racks of clothes and a number of long mirrors. The hooks containing the choir’s cassocks and surplices had been cleared, in their place a selection of skimpy bathing costumes. Hat boxes littered the floor, the smell of face powder filled the air, and a number of young ladies in various states of undress could be seen bad-temperedly foraging for clothing, hairpins and inspiration.

‘Season gets earlier and earlier,’ said one grumpily. ‘Ain’t going down well with my Fred.’

‘Lend us your Mum rolette, dear.’

‘Certimly not. That’s personal.’

‘Oh go on, Molly, I always pong otherwise. Nerves, you know.’

‘Shouldn’t have nerves, the length of time you’ve been at this malarkey.’

They’d all been at it too long, if truth be told. But fame is a drug, and the acquisition of fame just as addictive. You had to look – and smell – your best at all times.

Molly Churchstow was looking a little long in the tooth today. Her life had become a triumph of hope over experience, for the longed-for crown which came with the title Queen of the English Riviera continued to elude her. But she remained determined: so determined, in fact, that her Fred had given up hope of ever marrying her, for the rules clearly stated that a beauty pageant contestant must be single. Even the merest glimpse of an engagement ring meant she would be jettisoned in the early rounds, once the maximum publicity of her enforced departure had been squeezed out of the local newspapers. Beauty queens must forever be single and available to their adoring public!

Molly hoped to be this year’s Riviera queen, having previously triumphed in the hotly-contested title fights for Miss Dawlish, Miss Teignmouth, and Miss Dartmouth, but it had been a long struggle with diminishing rewards. It would unkind to suggest that over the years she’d become a prisoner of her ambition – for Molly had a bee in her bonnet about being loved, being admired, and becoming famous.

Most of the girls in the grey-painted hall had a similar tale to tell. Each had tasted the mixed blessing of being a beauty queen: you got your photograph in the paper, people stopped you in the street for your autograph, you got a better class of boyfriend, usually with a car, and your love life was destined always to be a disaster.

But oh the thrill! The parades with mounted police, the brass bands, the motorcades through the town! The popping flashbulbs and your name in the papers!

‘Oh Lord, my corns,’ said Eve Berry, and sat down heavily. ‘How long are Hannaford’s giving you off? Or are you havin’ to do overtime to make up for the days off?’

‘Stocktaking in the basement with that lecher Mr French. It’s never very pleasant. You?’

Molly did not reply to this but hissed back, ‘Watch out, here comes The Slug.’

Looking not unlike like his nickname, Cyril Normandy elbowed his way through a dozen girls, his heavy feet crushing girdles, make-up bags, lipsticks and anything else which had fallen to the floor in the melee. Another man of his age and girth might dream and dream of sharing a room so filled with temptation, but not Normandy. Greed was etched into every line on his fat face and he looked neither to left nor right.