The Magic Chair Murder Read online

  Hugh Allonby received this news with an exasperated clicking of his tongue, then glanced around the big entrance hall of the hotel, temporarily at a loss. Through the French doors he could see a tail-end group of delegates drifting back to the Wordsmith Room in readiness for the next lecture. The group to whom he had confided his concerns a few minutes before had just come in from the terrace too, but were clearly hanging back for news. He strode across to them, confiding in a low voice: ‘It’s most peculiar. There’s no sign of her anywhere. Her room appears to have been cleared, but the boy at the desk claims that she hasn’t checked out.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘There’s nothing to be done now. Come along. We can’t hold up the next lecture.’ Allowing no opportunity for further discussion, Allonby strode into the hall, leaving the others to file in after him, exchanging doubtful glances as they found their seats.

  As the next lecturer, a Cambridge professor, was introduced, Fran puzzled over what Hugh Allonby had just said. Surely Linda Dexter hadn’t got cold feet and done a runner? It was only the Robert Barnaby Society, after all, not the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture. Of course, some people did freeze at the thought of speaking in public, but surely not Linda Dexter, who had been so enthusiastic when first invited, and had appeared to be her usual confident self over dinner the night before. Fran recalled the conversation clearly. They had been talking about the forthcoming general election and the annoying way in which the press were describing all the newly enfranchised women as ‘flappers’, leading Miss Robertson to comment that it would be good to see more women being offered a chance to take to the platform at the Barnaby Society meetings, a sentiment with which Linda Dexter had agreed wholeheartedly. Couldn’t she see, Fran thought angrily, that if she chickened out at the last minute, it would look bad for the whole of the women membership?

  It was not as if she had been pressured into speaking. On the contrary, the original impetus had come from Mrs Dexter herself, who had talked in somewhat enigmatic terms about some research that she had been doing into the provenance of Robert Barnaby’s famous ‘magic chair’. ‘You should put a paper together, for the conference,’ Fran had suggested, to which Linda had replied, ‘Yes, I’ve found out some things which the members would find very interesting.’ Far from being a reluctant speaker, Linda Dexter had appeared keen. She had placed considerable emphasis on those words ‘very interesting’, and when formally approached to speak she had accepted without any apparent hesitation.

  She wouldn’t just clear out without saying anything, Fran thought. There’s something … wrong about this. She realized that she had already lost track of the presentation in progress (Robert Barnaby and Walter de la Mare: Parallel Paths or Divergent Expeditions?) and spent most of the next forty-five minutes wondering what the hell was going on with Linda Dexter. Maybe Mr Allonby was mistaken? Could he have got the wrong room? Then again, it was an unexpectedly lovely morning – perhaps Linda had merely gone for a walk? But Linda never normally missed the lectures. So … maybe she had been unexpectedly called away but still intended to get back in time to deliver her own lecture in the afternoon? If someone had telephoned for her in the middle of the night, she naturally wouldn’t have wanted to disturb anyone else … but of course the call could only have come through the hotel reception, so they would have known that she had been called away, and the same thing applied to the arrival of a telegram. It was ridiculous, of course, but Fran could not help entertaining the awful foreboding that something bad had happened to her.

  While the learned professor quoted from ‘The Listeners’ to a rapt audience in the Wordsmith Room at the Furnival Towers Hotel, Sergeant Graydon, who had been recalled to the scene by PC Hamilton, was probing the charred remnants of what had once been a suitcase full of women’s clothing. It could have been worse, he thought. Car fires occasionally left them with far nastier things than cremated underwear to deal with. As he lowered the lid of the Talbot’s boot, a puff of ash escaped, like a visible sigh.

  ‘Pretty fancy car,’ Hamilton said. ‘Funny that no one’s got in touch about it.’

  ‘I suppose the owner must have walked back to the main road and managed to flag a lift from someone after the car caught fire.’ Graydon was phlegmatic. ‘No doubt someone will come back to claim it soon enough.’

  THREE

  Linda Dexter had been a regular attender since the society’s inaugural conference in 1926, so it was inevitable that her absence would be noticed by others beyond the executive committee, and speculation about her possible non-appearance had begun to thread its way through the lunchtime conversation. While the other delegates were lingering over their coffee, Hugh Allonby called the committee together again in the hotel lobby.

  ‘The difficulty which faces us is that Mrs Dexter’s presentation, The Magic Chair: Fact or Fiction’ (he winced as he spoke the title, as if confronted by an unpleasant odour), ‘is no more than twenty minutes away, but there is still no sign of Mrs Dexter.’

  Fran, who had originally recommended Linda as a possible speaker and could feel a mantle of blame descending upon her, felt obliged to speak up for the absent member. ‘I can’t believe that she won’t be here in time to give her talk. I don’t know her all that well, but she just doesn’t seem the type to go off without a word. If she’d been called away, or taken ill, or something, she would surely have left word for us. She wouldn’t just buzz off.’

  ‘As the hotel has no record of any such message,’ said Hugh Allonby, pure acid lacing his tone, ‘I am unclear as to how you can advance such a statement.’

  Fran, however, was only half listening, because as she finished speaking she had caught sight of Jean Robertson’s anxious expression. Whereas Hugh Allonby cared only for the conference, it was evident that some people were becoming concerned for other reasons.

  ‘Look here, Allonby old chap, she may have just gone off somewhere for the morning.’ Tom Dod spoke up. ‘There’s nothing to say that anyone has to sit through everything on the programme.’

  Fran flashed him a look of gratitude for his support.

  ‘And taken all her luggage?’ Hugh Allonby was contemptuous. ‘I’m afraid we have to face up to the fact that dear Mrs Dexter has got cold feet and made a run for it. That’s the last we’ll hear of The Magic Chair: Fact or Fiction. In fact, after this debacle, it wouldn’t surprise me if it isn’t the last we hear of Mrs Dexter.’

  For some reason, Fran noticed, he seemed to find this conclusion oddly satisfying, in spite of the immediate problem that this presented them with.

  ‘Well, I really think that it is perfectly awful of her to let us down like this.’ Sarah Ingoldsby simpered up at Allonby. ‘Thank goodness Mr Allonby has offered to step in.’

  ‘Maybe she sat in the magic chair and got spirited away?’ Gareth Lowe was a hale and hearty member, who appeared to think it incumbent upon him to introduce an element of humour into every proceeding. He adopted a costume from a different poem each year and was currently wearing a white cotton bedsheet, which had been fashioned into a floor-length robe, and which might have been an attempt to conjure up anything from a citizen of Ancient Rome to a druid.

  Partly as a welcome respite from looking at a middle-aged man making a complete fool of himself, the whole group turned away from Gareth and looked towards the large carved chair which took pride of place in the hotel lobby – the famous magic chair itself. More of a throne than a chair, carved in oak and painted in scarlet and gold, it was generally acknowledged to be the inspiration for Robert Barnaby’s famous magic chair, in which the child characters who peopled his poems were transported into the past for a series of adventures. The chair and indeed the hotel itself were a magnet for fans of Barnaby’s work. Though archetypally English, Barnaby’s work had been acclaimed all over the English-speaking world, and tourists from as far afield as America and Australia had been known to drive out to Furnival Towers in order to gaze at and even to sit in the famous chai
r. The discovery of the chair had indirectly led to the foundation of the society itself and the hotel had, of course, been the automatic venue for the society’s annual conferences, each of which bore witness to the power of the chair upon the imagination of the author’s fans. Of course, with Barnaby himself lost in the Great War – one of the many casualties of the conflict whose last resting place remained unknown – the chair provided a place where one might pay homage. Some people approached it deferentially, as one might a holy relic, reaching out tentatively to stroke its arms, and of course everyone wanted to take a turn at sitting in it. Just at that moment, however, the chair stood in splendid isolation at the centre of the lobby.

  ‘I must go and check the platform.’ Sarah Ingoldsby invariably managed to make the provision of a couple of glasses and a jug of water sound like a major feat of organization. She turned away, followed by Hugh Allonby.

  ‘Just time for another cup of coffee, I think,’ said Gareth Lowe.

  As the group dispersed, Fran found herself standing alone with Tom Dod. Like Linda Dexter, he was someone she knew no more than slightly, but they had begun to gravitate together at society meetings and soon discovered that they shared a similar outlook, for though Fran loved Barnaby’s books, enjoyed the society’s quarterly journal, the lectures and visits which were arranged, she found it difficult to take it all quite so seriously as some of the leading lights and had instantly warmed to Tom when, at one meeting where the discussion became somewhat heated, he had dared to comment that, ‘We are only a small literary society – it’s hardly something to fall out about,’ a sentiment completely out of step with Hugh Allonby and his immediate circle, who took themselves and the society very seriously indeed. The more intense among them vied to outdo one another’s knowledge of Robert Barnaby’s life and work. It was said that one member, if supplied with any line from a Barnaby poem, could immediately quote the following line straight off the top of his head. The ‘literary’ members spoke pompously of ‘the canon’ when referring to Barnaby’s work en masse, and the pseudo religious analogies did not end there. Every issue of the society’s quarterly journal seemed to include at least one piece penned by a Barnaby devotee explaining how they had first encountered Barnaby’s work – often in tones which conjured up the road to Damascus rather than a childhood visit to a bookshop or a public library. One woman had gushed about the ‘life-changing’ nature of Barnaby’s work, while several had written pieces for the journal which spoke of their embarkation on ‘literary pilgrimages’ to sites associated with the poet’s life and work.

  As soon as Tom Dod sensed that he and Fran were on the same wavelength, he had given her the full benefit of his irreverent asides. It was Tom who had privately coined the orders of Barnaby-ites, starting with the High Priests – led by Hugh Allonby – people who for one reason or another were perceived as having a special insight into Barnaby lore, followed by the Acolytes, led by silly little Sarah Ingoldsby, who fluttered around the High Priest, hanging on his every word. The joke had reached the point where Tom had only to nod in the direction of a member and whisper the words ‘a true pilgrim’ for Fran to be convulsed. Just lately, she had begun to wonder whether she didn’t get more fun out of Tom Dod’s wicked observations on the society than the actual business of belonging to it.

  ‘Trust old Allonby to step up,’ said Tom in a voice low enough that only she could hear him. ‘Another chance to hog the spotlight and be the Saviour of the Society.’

  ‘Oh dear – I bet it’ll be The Time I Met Robert Barnaby again.’

  ‘I’m afraid so. But you know how the pilgrims love it – and at the end he gets to do that thing where he walks down the central aisle, shaking hands with people so that they can touch the hand that once touched the hand of the Great Man himself. Seriously, though …’ Tom’s expression changed. ‘It does look jolly strange, Mrs Dexter going off like this. What do you think’s happened? Could it just be cold feet?’

  ‘She might have gone for a walk or something. I know Hugh Allonby said she’d taken all her things, but you know that men never look properly for anything – and he does tend to exaggerate if there’s a chance of creating a drama; besides which, he’s absolutely dying to take centre stage himself. Maybe she had advance notice that listening to the professor would be about as exciting as wading through treacle?’ Even as she spoke, Fran knew that she was clutching at straws.

  ‘Maybe … What sort of car does she drive?’

  ‘It’s a big saloon. Two shades of blue, quite flashy. Why?’

  ‘Do you mean that rather jolly Talbot? Why don’t we have a look and see if it’s still in the car park?’ he suggested.

  Furnival Towers had originally been a private country house, built with a generous carriage drive which swept up to the front door, but the majority of its clientele now arrived by motorcar and charabanc, and to accommodate this change a car park had been cut into the hill, on a lower level to the building and masked from the terrace by a great bank of rhododendrons. As they descended the stone steps together, Tom said, ‘I’ll take the far end and you try along the side nearest the hotel. If I find a two-tone blue saloon I’ll give you a shout and you can see if you recognize it.’

  It took them no more than a couple of minutes to establish that the vehicle they sought was not there. As they came together again at the foot of the steps, Fran decided that the time for speculating about country walks was past. ‘I know it sounds silly,’ she said, ‘but I have the creepiest feeling about this. Why on earth would someone go off without saying anything to anyone? And I can’t believe she just got nervous. She’s never struck me as the nervous type.’

  ‘Not nervous.’ He hesitated. ‘But I’ve always thought there was something a little bit odd about her. Something I could never quite put my finger on.’

  Both of them glanced back to the top of the steps, where Gareth Lowe and a companion could be seen crossing the terrace, the former having hitched up his robes to reveal a pair of hairy knees, which were no match for the hairy trousers worn by his friend in the home-made Viking helmet.

  ‘Hmm … a member of the Robert Barnaby Society accused of being a bit odd – now there’s a first,’ Fran mused, and they both laughed. ‘What do we do now?’ she asked when they had fallen silent again.

  ‘There’s not much we can do. Go inside and listen to old Allonby pontificating, I suppose.’

  When they got back to the entrance hall, they found that another hasty conclave had been assembled, including Marcus Dryden, the owner of Furnival Towers, an avowed Barnaby fan and enthusiastic society member. Sarah Ingoldsby was in the middle of telling Jean Robertson that even if Linda Dexter did appear, she had forfeited her right to speak after causing everyone so much upset. ‘Some people think only of themselves.’

  ‘Not much chance of her showing up, I’m afraid,’ Tom cut in. ‘We’ve just checked around the grounds and her motor is definitely not there.’

  ‘Perhaps there’s been an accident,’ Jean Robertson said doubtfully. ‘Perhaps she slipped out for a wee while this morning and something happened on the road.’ Fran noticed again that, apart from herself and Tom, only Jean seemed to be genuinely concerned that something unfortunate might have befallen their missing speaker.

  ‘Surely someone would have let us know—’ Marcus Dryden began.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Fran cut in. ‘If there’s been an accident the police wouldn’t think to contact us here. They would try to contact her family first.’

  ‘Does anyone know anything about her family?’ This from Tom. ‘Is there someone we could contact to ask if they’ve heard from her – just to make sure that she’s all right?’

  Doubtful glances were exchanged. When members of the society got together, they talked about Robert Barnaby and various other literary matters, seldom mentioning their private lives. After a brief silence, Sarah Ingoldsby said dismissively, ‘It’s just a case of nerves. She’s run off and left us in the lurch. I always thought sh
e was a rather unreliable person.’

  ‘I’m sure we would all much rather hear Hugh speak anyway,’ said Marcus – and something in the way he said it pulled Fran up short again. For some reason, people – or at least some people – didn’t seem to be all that sorry about missing Linda Dexter’s talk. If anything, Marcus sounded almost pleased.

  FOUR

  Saturday evenings at the Barnaby Society Annual Conference were traditionally formal affairs. (It was the one occasion in the society’s calendar from which Hugh Allonby had managed to banish character costumes entirely.) The majority of the men wore evening dress, and even the more faded lady academics managed to search out a posh frock. The Lancashire weather was seldom kind, and Furnival Towers was notoriously draughty, but at this, the 1929 annual conference, they had been blessed with unusually fine weather and members sipping cocktails or pre-dinner sherry in the Lacelady Bar were treated to a perfect sunset, with the dark, humped backs of the Pennines standing out against a cloudless sky. At each of the previous conferences, the vista had been obscured by lashing rain, so it was hardly surprising that a good many of the gathering had taken up vantage points near the windows, to admire the very views which Hugh Allonby had assured them that afternoon had inspired Robert Barnaby when he had stayed here himself as a young man.

  Fran had joined the group which included Tom Dod, and was thinking how well a dinner jacket and high collar suited him. There’s something about a man in evening dress, she thought. She had temporarily forgotten all about Linda Dexter, whose disappearance had proved something of a nine-minute wonder among the rest of the delegates. If anything, the general consensus seemed to be that Mrs Dexter had behaved badly, Hugh Allonby had saved the day and the whole business was better forgotten. Besides which, most members were already looking forward to a good feed, followed by the after-dinner speaker, who was a regular broadcaster on the wireless and could currently be seen standing near the bar, where he was being fawned over by Sarah Ingoldsby.