David Brawn – The Mayfair Mystery: 2835 Mayfair (страница 3)

Frank Collins Richardson was born in Paddington, Middlesex (as it was then) on 21 August 1870. He went to Marlborough College, where impending unpopularity amongst his peers from a ‘versatile incompetence’ at both games and work was seemingly averted by his ability to invent and tell vivid stories after lights out in the dormitory. After being ‘superannuated’ at Marlborough, he failed to get into Trinity, Oxford, where one Professor declaimed: ‘Richardson, you will always be a fool, but your sense of humour may prevent you from being a damned fool.’ However, he did get into Christ Church, but got out without a degree, and thanks to his father, the (inevitably bewhiskered) Chairman of the North Metropolitan Tramways Company, trained as a barrister and got work in all Courts, Parliamentary Bar, Chancery Bar, the Queen’s Bench and the Old Bailey.

A consistent failure, however, or so he maintained, Richardson took up playwriting, with moderate success, and a breakthrough with the publication of a couple of short stories led to him being invited to write novels. Choosing subjects he knew, but with a comedic twist, his first, The King’s Counsel, was published by Chatto and Windus in 1902, and three more followed in 1903, all with a strong vein of satire and gratuitous references to whiskers. Richardson is credited as coining the term ‘face-fungus’, and Punch called him ‘Mr Frank Whiskerson’. His ability to write caricatures also developed into drawing them, and his later books and articles often featured his own sketches.

Like so many clowns, however, Richardson’s life ended tragically. Widowed before he turned 40, his appetite for writing had all but dried up by the time he published a book of poetry, Shavings, in 1911. Although he may have exhausted his peculiar topic of humour, he had remained a popular figure, opening fêtes, signing books, drawing cartoons and judging seaside beauty contests. But on Thursday 2 August 1917, The Times announced his death, aged 46: ‘Mr Frank Collins Richardson, barrister, and novelist, was found dead in his chambers in Albemarle-Street, Piccadilly, yesterday. An inquest will be held.’ The next day, Westminster Coroner, Ingleby Oddie, heard evidence from Richardson’s sister and ex-valet which showed he had been suffering from depression and was given to ‘alcoholic excess’, despite his successful business interests as director of two flourishing companies: a cataract had robbed him of sight in one eye, and he feared it would spread and he would go blind. He had died on 31 July from a cut to his throat, and the jury returned a verdict of suicide whilst of unsound mind.

Published in the second batch of Detective Story Club titles in November 1929, The Mayfair Mystery was the only one of Frank Richardson’s books acquired by Collins for a reissue. Though none of his others were deemed suitable for the list, its predecessor, The Secret Kingdom (1906), set in the imaginary country of Numania, featured Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson in one of their earliest parodies, and might have been an interesting contender.

DAVID BRAWN

April 2015

CHAPTER I

THE DEAD MAN

THE body of a man in evening-dress lay on the dull, crimson carpet.

The black eyes were staring fixedly at the electric light hanging from copper shades. The jaw had dropped. The dead man’s face was remarkably handsome. The forehead was broad, and indicative of considerable intellectual power. Strongly-marked black eyebrows jutted perhaps a little too far over the aggressive, aquiline nose. The chin was strong and determined. The close-cut, shiny black hair was silvered at the sides. But for a slight, almost dandified moustache, one would have thought that the features were those of a barrister, of an ideal barrister.

The small room in which the corpse lay had evidently been newly decorated. A smell of varnish was in the air. It was furnished simply and in good taste. The walls were panelled in dark oak, and the few ornaments proved their owner to be a man of excellent judgment in matters of art. A few books, the latest novels, illustrated and scientific papers, lay on a Sheraton table. In the grate burnt a fire of ship’s logs, emitting a fragrant scent that battled with the smell of paint.

In Who’s Who? the dead man’s biography was as follows:

OAKLEIGH, Sir Clifford, First Baronet; created 1903. G.C.B., D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S. Physician-in-Ordinary to the Princess of Salmon von Gluckstein. Born 21st August 1870. Son of John Oakleigh of Aberdeen and Imogen B. Stapp of Chicago. Education: Eton, Christ Church, Oxford. First-class First Public Examination 1891; First Class Greats 1892; Edinburgh University, Gillespie Prizeman. Recreations: shooting, yachting and hypnotism. Address: 218 Harley Street. Clubs: Athenaeum, United Universities, Garrick, Beefsteak, Gridiron and Arthur’s.

CHAPTER II

CONCERNING THE CORPSE

‘THANK God, I’ve found you!’

As the servant closed the door, Reggie Pardell, in evening-dress, his flabby face pallid, almost ashen, sank into a chair.

George Harding rose hastily.

The K.C. looked down at the frightened figure in the chair, went into the dining-room, and returned with a brandy-and-soda.

‘Drink that,’ he said.

While Reggie drank with long gulps, his eyes stared at the gaunt barrister.

As he scanned the clear-cut, intellectual face, with its piercing grey eyes, its long, sinister, thin nose and tight-shut vigorous mouth, he felt a sensation of returning confidence. At the same time, also, there floated through his mind a feeling of irrelevant despair. Each was thirty-eight years of age. They had been at Christ Church together. George was a brilliant advocate and Reggie was—well, Reggie was an ex-black sheep. A passion for backing losers had been his undoing.

Harding took away the glass.

‘Feel better?’ he asked.

The other nodded.

‘What’s the trouble now?’

It was eleven o’clock, and from the library one could hear the sound of carriages and cabs passing along South Audley Street. In the home there was complete silence.

Reggie shook his head.

‘It’s not a trouble of mine this time, not directly. But it’s the most awful thing that’s ever happened. That’s why I’ve come to see you.’

Harding smiled. His friends always came to him in time of trouble. There was something in the man’s vigorous personality that invited sympathy; his vast reputation for acumen and knowledge of human life rendered him an invaluable adviser in moments of difficulty or danger.

He went back to his chair and lit a cigarette, waiting for his friend to speak.

The first words that came from Reggie’s lips were:

‘Clifford Oakleigh is dead.’

‘Dead!’ cried Harding, aghast at the news that his best friend at Eton and Oxford, and indeed in the world, had died. Horrified, he pressed for particulars.

‘When did he die? How do you know?’

‘I have just come from his house.’

‘From Harley Street?’

‘He doesn’t use that as a house.’

‘I know. He lives at Claridge’s.’ The K.C. corrected himself.

Reggie shook his head.

‘He has lately taken, or rather built, a little house in King Street, Mayfair; just near here. Didn’t he tell you?’

‘Never a word.’

‘Well, he only moved in a week ago.’

‘But what were you doing there? I thought that you and he were not quite…’

‘No,’ said Reggie, grimly. ‘But he has been very good to me one way and another. He has lent me a lot of money; I wouldn’t have gone to him again, but…the fact is I’m his valet.’

The barrister gazed at him in surprise.

‘I was his valet,’ repeated Reggie. ‘He engaged me as a valet.’

‘You were his valet?’

Harding stared at the prematurely fat young man with three pendulous chins and an unbecomingly large waist. It seemed incredible to him that Sir Clifford Oakleigh, one of the most famous physicians of his day, one of the most brilliant men of all time, had selected that mountain of adiposity as his valet. Further, it struck him as extraordinary that a man like Reggie Pardell, a scion of one of the oldest families in England, should be willing to perform these duties.

Reggie explained.

‘You see it was like this, George…Harding. I was absolutely stony. Of course, I’d got clothes, and the run of my teeth, and so on. But I was broke to the world. Poor Clifford met me one day at Arthur’s and he guessed how things were. He made me a sporting offer. He said: “Look here, old chap, you have failed at most things. The only thing you do understand is clothes. Come and be my valet. I will give you £500 a year.” At first, I thought he was joking. But he wasn’t, and he installed me in this little box of his in King Street. Only part of the house is furnished; his sitting-room and bedroom and my bedroom. He never has his meals there. The charwoman comes in every day and sees to the place; all I had to do was to look after his clothes. It really was the most extraordinary arrangement that I’ve ever come across. It was philanthropy on poor old Clifford’s part, because my time was entirely my own.’

The other reflected.