Requiem for a Dummy Page 3

Carter said nothing. Well, he really had nothing to say to this fellow, so why invent?

  ‘I’d like to ask a favour.’

  Carter placed the case containing Charlie Dokes down on the ground but still remained silent. He wondered how long it could be before he told this person to get lost.

  ‘I know I have no right to ask you but … I am sort of desperate.’

  ‘Sort of desperate…?’ Carter deliberately failed to keep the sneer out of his response. ‘Perhaps you should see me when you are actually desperate.’

  Manville was unsure how to respond to this barbed quip. Instinctively, he would have liked to punch the arrogant vent on the nose, but that would not do his cause any good.

  ‘I need money. I need money badly, I’m afraid.’

  ‘You are paid by the BBC, are you not?’

  Manville winced. ‘Yes but I’m not as careful with my pennies as I should be.’

  Carter rolled his eyes. He had heard all about Manville’s obsession with the horses – the gee–gees. How he spent most of his income on that dead cert which would make him a rich man – all those dead certs which turned out to be dead losses.

  ‘It’s my wife,’ he said, taking a step nearer to Carter, causing him to step back. This, thought the ventriloquist, was taking on the dimensions of a Victorian melodrama. He envisaged Manville producing a violin at any minute to accompany his own sad tale.

  ‘My wife is very ill. Dying, in fact. She is being cared for in a private sanatorium. She needs special treatment, you see.’

  Carter saw but said nothing.

  Manville nervously clasped his sweaty hands in front of him. ‘The fees are rather steep, I’m afraid and … well, I’ve not been able to keep up with them.’

  ‘That was rather careless of you, Manville. I presume you prefer to spend your time pouring cash into the bookies’ pockets….’

  ‘I bet on the horses in the hope I’ll win enough to see Margaret all right. It … it just hasn’t worked out.’

  ‘From what I hear, it hasn’t worked out on a regular basis.’

  Manville flushed and stared at his feet. ‘I need a hundred pounds urgently. The sanatorium says I must take Margaret away unless I pay my arrears by the end of the month. The situation is making her worse. She is literally worrying herself to death.’

  ‘That is a sorry state of affairs.’

  Manville, failing to catch the note of dry sarcasm in Carter’s words, was encouraged by what he thought was a sympathetic response and came to the crux of his plea. ‘I wonder, Raymond, if you could see your way to lending me – I stress lending – one hundred pounds to help me out of this difficult situation. I assure you that I’ll pay you back as soon as I’m able.’

  Carter grinned. ‘As soon as that elusive winner comes in first past the post, eh?’

  ‘It would mean so much if you could see your way—’

  ‘I’m sorry, Manville, I can’t see my way. Only an idiot would lend an inveterate gambler a hundred pounds. It would be like throwing the money down the drain. No sooner had you got your greedy hands on the cash than you’d be off squandering it on some useless nag.’

  Manville shook his head desperately. ‘No, no. I assure you. It is for Margaret. For the sanatorium.’

  ‘You should have thought of her before, shouldn’t you? Didn’t give her or the sanatorium much consideration while you were throwing your money away at the races. How many other suckers have you tapped for money, eh? You have a bit of a reputation as a scrounger: a ten-bob note here, a couple of quid there … a fiver. But now you’re going for the jackpot. One hundred smackers.’

  Manville took a step nearer, close enough for Carter to smell his sweat. ‘Please,’ he begged, his eyes moistening, ‘I need the money for Margaret. I promise I won’t gamble it away.’

  Carter was tired of this now. He wanted to end this unpleasant and inconvenient interview. ‘The answer is no. No, I will not lend you a hundred pounds. In fact, I will not lend you half a crown. No.’

  Suddenly Manville stepped forward and grabbed the lapels of Carter’s overcoat. ‘I beg you. If not for me, for my dying wife. Please.’

  Carter pushed the little man off him with a cry of disgust. ‘Don’t you dare touch me,’ he snapped, anger now taking the place of disdain. ‘I said no. And I damned well meant no.’ Flicking his hands down his lapels to straighten them, he picked up the Charlie Dokes case, turned and walked away down the corridor, leaving the cringing and defeated Gilbert Manville frozen in a despondent posture.

  ‘You bastard,’ Manville said at length. His voice was quiet, a whisper almost but it was full of hatred and passion. ‘You rotten bastard.’

  Carter let himself into the flat with his own key. Evelyn Munro, wearing a cream silk dressing-gown, appeared in the tiny hallway holding a gin and tonic. She looked far from the demure girl she had appeared to be in the recording studio.

  ‘You took your time,’ she said coldly, moving past Carter into the sitting-room. Sloughing off his overcoat and leaving his suitcase containing Charlie Dokes in the hallway, Carter followed her.

  ‘I had a little business to attend to.’

  ‘Oh?’ Evelyn raised a quizzical eyebrow, as she lounged back on the sofa, her dressing-gown falling open to reveal that she had nothing on underneath apart from her underwear.

  ‘Nothing that need bother you,’ remarked Carter casually, as he helped himself to a gin and tonic from the small drinks trolley. He took a quick slug and then leaned over Evelyn and gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead.

  ‘It’s a secret then,’ said Evelyn, with thinly veiled petulance, the kiss having failed to melt the ice.

  Carter threw himself down in the chair opposite her and took another sip of his drink. ‘No secret from you, my darling. I’ve just been talking to Simmons about Keating.’

  ‘That piss artist.’

  Carter smiled. ‘Language, Miss Munro,’ he said, using his Charlie Doke’s voice.

  ‘Stop that. I’ve told you about talking like the dummy. You know it spooks me.’

  Carter was tempted to continue with Charlie’s voice and make some smutty comment about Evelyn’s legs, which looked particularly desirable, but he knew that would really unnerve her. She hated the dummy and had insisted that whenever Carter called round to her flat, Charlie stayed in his case in the hallway.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘So … what about Keating? What have you said to Simmons?’

  ‘I want the little drunk out of the show. He’s unreliable.’

  ‘That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it? I know he likes a drink, but his monologues are funny and popular.’

  ‘A bit too popular.’

  ‘Oh.’ It was Evelyn’s time to smile. ‘Frightened he might be sharing too much of Raymond Carter’s limelight, eh?’

  ‘You could say that. I’ve got to protect my interests, haven’t I? Anyway, I’ve laid it on the line with Simmons. I want Keating out. So I reckon next week will be Keating’s last. Then he can drink himself to death for all I care.’

  ‘You get your way when you want to, don’t you? I’d better watch my back, then. It could be me for the chop next.’

  ‘You watch your back, Evie darling, and I’ll watch your front.’ He gave her a Groucho Marx leer.

  She giggled as he moved to her side, kneeling down on the floor by the sofa, his hand slipping beneath the thin material of the dressing-gown to caress her breast.

  ‘Ooh, Mr Carter, what are you about?’ she purred in a little girl voice.

  ‘With a bit of luck, I’m about to seduce you.’

  ‘About time, too.’ Evelyn snaked her arm around Carter’s neck and gently pulled his face closer to hers so that she could kiss him. He responded easily and passionately. He still had difficulty believing his luck. Here he was about to make love to a beautiful young girl, twenty years his junior who wouldn’t have given him the time of day two or three years ago when he was struggling on the halls. But that was Raymond Carter B
AW – Before Al Warren. Before Al Warren had transformed his act and his life. He owed a lot to that young man, including indirectly the sexual favour he was about to enjoy. Carter was not naïve enough to think that Evelyn was actually in love with him, or even liked him that much. No doubt she saw him as a rung on her ladder to show-business success. It was good for her to have a headline name on her side. In practical and cynical terms, Carter knew that they were both using each other for their own ends but, what the hell, it was beneficial to them both and certainly he derived a great deal of pleasure from the arrangement.

  They had both kept their affair a secret from the rest of the cast for Carter knew that such relationships had a habit of unsettling the dynamics of the team. He wanted nothing to jeopardize the success of his radio show. Besides, their affair was only just over a month old. It was really in the honeymoon period. He felt sure that one or the other of them would get bored with it sooner rather than later. It was not going to lead to a nice little cottage in the country with roses around the door and nappies on the line.

  Evelyn rose from the sofa, allowing the dressing-gown to slip from her shapely frame. ‘Let’s go to the bedroom,’ she murmured, and linking hands with Carter she led him away.

  Once inside the bedroom, he began disrobing while she closed the door firmly, conscious that a few feet away in the hallway was Carter’s case containing that horrid doll.

  An hour later, Carter was smoking a cigarette in the sitting-room and sipping a small gin and tonic. He was waiting for Evelyn to get dressed in the bedroom before they set out for the final rehearsal and the recording at the Paris studio. The love-making had been good – mutually enjoyable he believed – and he felt relaxed again after what had been a fairly stressful day. He was always tense on the day of a recording but those blasted messages – the threatening telephone call and the words scrawled on his script – had jangled his nerves further. He didn’t know what they meant, but they were obviously some crank’s idea of a nasty joke. As these thoughts were sifting though his mind, the telephone rang.

  Evelyn hurried out of the bedroom in a light-blue dress that still needed fastening up the front. She snatched up the phone. ‘Hello,’ she said, a little breathless. Then she frowned and gazed over at Carter. ‘It’s for you,’ she said uneasily, covering over the mouthpiece. ‘How did anyone know you were here at my place?’

  Suddenly the feeling of ease which had been blossoming within Carter wilted and died. He rose awkwardly, his features darkened by concern. ‘I don’t know. I told no one.’ He held out his hand for the receiver.

  ‘Hello,’ he said briskly.

  ‘Ah, hello my old friend.’ It was Charlie Dokes’s voice again. ‘How was the little girlie? She’s a lovely piece of meat, ain’t she?’

  Carter slammed the phone down.

  ‘What’s going on? What’s the matter?’ Evelyn’s brow furrowed with concern.

  ‘Some crazy idiot. I don’t know. He’s rung me before. Forget about it.’

  ‘But how did he know you were here? That’s what worries me. I don’t want “some crazy idiot” ringing my number.’

  ‘I told you I don’t know. He certainly didn’t get the information from me.’

  ‘You don’t think you were followed?’

  The words ‘of course not’ died on his lips. It was something he had not considered. But now that he did think about it, he saw that it was a possibility.

  ‘What does he want, Ray, this “crazy idiot”?’

  Carter shook his head. ‘I’ve no idea. To upset me, I suppose.’ He stared down at the telephone as though the instrument would reveal the answer; and on cue it rang shrilly, the sharp piercing bell seeming to fill the whole room.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ said Carter. He lifted the receiver to his ear and listened.

  ‘Now that wasn’t very polite, was it, Raymond, old boy: slamming the telephone down on me?’ It was the same voice. ‘And here was me just ringing to do you a favour. To give you … a warning. It won’t be long now, Raymond. Not long now before you go to that great theatre in the sky. You see, I’m coming to get you. I’m coming to kill you.’

  THREE

  * * *

  My visitor entered hesitantly. As he surveyed the place, his expression changed from apprehension to dismay. It was clear that he thought he’d made a major mistake coming into this shabby little office with an even shabbier one-eyed bloke on duty. For a moment he looked as though he was about to turn on his heel and without a word make a bolt for it, but I rose quickly to my feet and extended my hand in readiness to shake his – and hang on to him. One of the first rules of being a private detective is to grab hold of prospective clients and keep them in your clutches until they cough up a fee.

  ‘Good morning, I’m John Hawke. Do take a seat,’ I said, with studied politeness. The honey trap worked. After a fashion. He looked too embarrassed to refuse my offer. With a certain amount of reluctance, the poor devil perched on the chair opposite my desk. He was quite a good-looking fellow. Well, he had the advantage of two eyes for a start. He also possessed regular features, a masculine square chin and a good head of neatly groomed hair, which was tinged with grey at the temples. I put his age around forty-five, but his skin was fairly smooth and without too many of the blemishes that time can give it. I could tell that there was a certain amount of humour in the blue-grey eyes although at the moment they stared at me with a mixture of embarrassment and uncertainty. There was also something faintly familiar about his face as though I’d met this fellow before. But where, I could not fathom … for the moment.

  ‘I’m not sure I should be here,’ he said earnestly.

  An opening I’d heard many times before.

  ‘Well,’ I replied, with what I hoped was reassuring warmth, ‘something prompted you to visit a private detective this morning, something that’s given you a bad night’s sleep [the dark shadows under his eyes clearly indicated this] so perhaps it might be useful to get whatever’s troubling you off your chest. I don’t start charging until you hire me.’

  A ghost of a smile haunted his lips momentarily. ‘It’s not your fee that makes me uncertain; I’m just not sure whether I’m making a mountain out of a molehill.’

  ‘Let’s find out, shall we? What do you think is the problem?’

  ‘I think someone is going to kill me.’

  ‘Well, that’s certainly a mountain and not a molehill. Have you any idea who this person is?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘And how do you know they intend to kill you?’

  ‘Because they’ve told me.’ He shook his head with frustration. ‘Look, I’d better start at the beginning.’

  ‘Good place.’

  ‘I don’t know whether you’ve heard of me but I’m Raymond Carter …’ He passed over his card, but I didn’t need to look at it. I recognized him now.

  ‘Of course you are,’ I exclaimed foolishly. ‘You’re Charlie Dokes’s keeper.’

  ‘I suppose you could say that.’

  ‘I have a little twelve-year-old friend who never misses your radio show and spends tuppence every week on Charlie’s comic.’

  Raymond Carter smiled indulgently. This wasn’t what he was here for: to be told he had a young fan. Time to get down to business.

  ‘OK, Mr Carter. Tell me about these death threats.’

  ‘They only began yesterday. Only a couple of telephone calls. I suppose it could be just a crank.’

  ‘Cranks can be dangerous. What does he say? It is a man, I suppose?’

  ‘Well, that’s part of the mystery. I’m not sure because whoever it is uses Charlie’s voice.’

  I frowned. ‘You mean he imitates … you? Your dummy?’

  Carter nodded.

  ‘What does he say?’

  ‘He warns me that I haven’t got much time left. Says my days are numbered. That sort of thing. And in the last one he said that he was coming to kill me.’

  ‘All in the voice of your doll, Charli
e Dokes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you are absolutely certain that this isn’t some kind of joke, some colleague pulling your leg?’

  ‘It’s not a very funny kind of joke, is it? No, I’m certain that this is serious. Whether it’s a colleague, I’m not sure. I did find a written message on a page of my radio script yesterday at the studio.’

  ‘What did it say?’

  Carter reached inside his overcoat pocket, retrieved a sheet of paper and passed it to me. It was a typewritten page of script, but at the bottom scrawled in red ink in uneven writing, obviously a disguised hand, were the words: ‘Not long now’.

  ‘I had read the script at home and the message wasn’t there then. But when I used it in the studio, it was.’

  ‘The script must have left your possession at some point.’

  ‘I probably put it down in the studio before the rehearsal began.’

  ‘Well, that narrows things down. Whoever scribbled these words must have been present at the rehearsal.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Have you any notion of who it might be? Is there anyone who has a grudge against you?’

  ‘Not enough to want to kill me. But who can say? People harbour all sorts of feelings under the surface.’

  ‘As yet you’ve not felt any direct physical threat.’

  ‘The words, “I’m coming to kill you” seem awfully physical.’

  I sat back in my chair, allowing my finger to make a thin trail in the dust on my desk, while my mind did some assessing.

  ‘Have you told anyone else about these threats?’ I asked at length.

  ‘No. I sort of didn’t want to believe they were true, but having slept on it, I realize I need to do something about them.’

  ‘Why have you come to me and not the police?’

  ‘I suppose because … at the moment at least the whole thing is intangible. I want the matter to be investigated in a discreet fashion. I don’t want the Press to get a whiff of this; it could be harmful to the act.’

  I understood his motives, but I was well aware that no matter how discreetly one approached such cases, once someone began sniffing around looking for a potential murderer, curiosity is aroused, questions are asked and the truth had an unpleasant tendency to reveal itself.