The Magic Chair Murder Read online

  Not everyone had forgotten Linda Dexter, however. Just as the gong sounded to summon them to dinner, Jean Robertson appeared at Fran’s side. ‘I was wondering – you’re friendly with Mrs Dexter – do you know if she is on the telephone at home? Perhaps there is someone we could get in touch with? It would be good to know that she made it safely home and is all right.’

  ‘I don’t know her all that well,’ said Fran. ‘I believe she lives on her own.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Jean. ‘She’s a widow, then.’

  It was the obvious assumption, Fran thought. The war had left so many widows, and Linda Dexter, who was probably in her mid-thirties, fitted the age profile perfectly. But we are not all widows, we married women who live alone, Fran thought, a little crossly. Aloud, she said, ‘I’m fairly sure that she is on the telephone. Her number may be in the membership directory, but I don’t have mine with me.’

  Though she had adopted her helpful face, in truth Fran was slightly irritated by Miss Robertson’s enquiry. She wanted to have another drink and forget all about Linda Dexter. I only know the woman through society meetings, the same as everyone else, she thought. Just because I happened to stumble across the fact that she had been doing some research into Robert Barnaby’s life, and suggested that she present a paper at the conference, everyone now seems to infer that we are bosom pals. She pushed her unease at Linda’s absence to the back of her mind. If she got separated from the group which included Tom Dod as they were going into dinner, she might end up sitting next to a Barnaby bore, rather than next to Tom Dod as she intended.

  ‘Well, now, who might have the number, do you think?’ Jean Robertson mused, either not noticing, or choosing to ignore, Fran’s somewhat discouraging tone.

  ‘How about trying Mr James?’ Fran suggested.

  ‘I don’t think he has ever met her,’ Jean demurred. ‘This is the first conference he’s ever been to.’

  ‘I know, but he’s the membership secretary now. If anyone has a membership list with them, it will surely be him.’

  ‘That’s a good idea. There he is, by the door – why don’t we go and ask him?’

  Fran did not see why it had to be ‘we’, but as she couldn’t think of a way to extricate herself from the errand without being rude, she reluctantly accompanied the Scottish branch chairman across the room.

  John James was in the process of downing the last of his sherry. Fran realized that he was standing on his own and, remembering that it was his first conference, she felt a pang of guilt at not making more of an effort to include him and introduce him to people. He hadn’t arrived until that morning and evidently wasn’t a natural mixer.

  ‘You don’t have the membership list here, do you?’ she asked. ‘Telephone numbers, that kind of thing?’

  ‘We’re a wee bit concerned about our missing speaker,’ added Jean Robertson.

  ‘Belinda Dexter still not turned up?’ he asked.

  ‘Linda,’ Fran corrected.

  ‘Of course – Linda. The full list’s in my room. Do you want me to go and have a look at it now?’

  ‘Well, if it wouldn’t be too much nuisance …’ wheedled Jean.

  ‘We really don’t have time,’ Fran objected. ‘People are starting to go into dinner. We can’t hold everyone up.’ Across the room, she could see the tall figure of Tom Dod being borne along by the tide heading for the dining room.

  ‘You ladies go along in,’ John James said. ‘It won’t take me a minute to go back to my room and, if I have a number, I’ll jot it down and perhaps one of you can pop out between courses and ask the boy at the desk to try it.’

  The membership secretary was as good as his word, but though Fran had them try the number between the spring vegetable soup and the roast lamb, word came back from the telephone operator at the exchange to say that there was no reply.

  As the soup plates were being cleared at Furnival Towers, PC Hartley was cycling towards an address two counties further north. What with one thing and another, police constable Hartley of the Cumberland force had not been able to cycle across to Ivegill until well into the evening, and it was almost dark by the time he arrived at the gate of Langdale House, where he had been sent to acquaint a Mrs Dexter with the news that her Talbot 105 had been found burned-out near some village that he’d never heard of in the Pennines. Even from the gate, the house looked deserted, with the curtains not drawn and no lights burning, so it came as little surprise to him when his summons on the doorbell elicited no response. Further confirmation that there was no one at home came a moment later when a telephone bell began to ring inside and went unanswered. Evidently he was not the only person looking for this Mrs Dexter.

  The unusual sight of a policeman in the centre of a small village invariably attracts attention, and by the time PC Hartley had given the bell another pull and followed that up with two or three good, hard bangs on the front door, an elderly woman had appeared from a cottage across the street and was approaching her front gate.

  ‘Are you looking for Mrs Dexter?’ she called across. ‘I think she’s away. I saw her putting a suitcase into her motorcar on Friday.’

  God bless the eyes and ears of the world, thought Hartley. Every village should have its busybody.

  ‘Going away for long, was she?’

  ‘I don’t know. It wasn’t a very big suitcase. Perhaps just for a weekend.’

  ‘Thank you very much, madam. I’ll make sure someone pops back on Monday.’

  Inwardly, he shook his head at the downright giddiness of some folk. Perhaps by Monday morning this Dexter woman might have noticed that her car was missing and bothered to report it.

  ‘Of course,’ Jean Robertson said when Fran relayed back the information that there had been no answer on the telephone. ‘If she was overcome with nerves and fled back home, she must be feeling pretty silly by now, so perhaps she wouldn’t answer her phone.’

  Fran couldn’t help thinking that if this was Miss Robertson’s favoured theory, then there had been no point in her breaking away from the table and initiating a telephone call in the first place. She had been lucky inasmuch that she had managed to get a place at the same table as Tom Dod, where she was seated between Richard Finney, the society’s journal editor, who could always be counted on for intelligent conversation, and Maggie Lawson, a history teacher, whose encyclopaedic knowledge of children’s literature was leavened with a rich sense of humour.

  The conversation was lively and their group lingered longer than most at the table, then kept together when they finally moved into the bar. Several cocktails later, with Tom sitting opposite to her across their little circle, Fran found that she was imagining herself swaying against him on a semi-darkened dance floor while the band played ‘Stardust’.

  ‘But what about Edith Nesbit?’ Maggie was asking. ‘Don’t you think she has had a huge influence? Not so much with “The Railway Children” but the Bastables …’

  Fran pulled herself back to reality and tried to concentrate on the discussion, but a few minutes later Richard Finney checked his watch and discovered that it was after midnight. This seemed to be the signal for several people to decide that it was time to retire. As the little group broke up, Fran found Tom Dod standing next to her.

  ‘I can’t believe how fast the evening’s gone,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. It’s been a good one.’

  ‘The conferences just seem to get better and better each year.’

  ‘Don’t they?’

  They had fallen behind the rest of the group as they crossed the big entrance hall, and when she reached the foot of the stairs, Fran realized that Tom had stopped walking. She hesitated, one foot poised on the bottom step. ‘Aren’t you coming upstairs?’

  He grinned. ‘Not without an invitation. My room’s on the ground floor.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Good night, then.’

  ‘Good night.’

  They turned away in unison: he along the downstairs corridor, she to climb
the stairs.

  A few minutes later, as she unfastened her frock and pulled it over her head, Fran relived the exchange. Perhaps if she had given Tom Dod just a bit of encouragement, he might have been helping her out of her frock right now. Then again, if he had been joking about the invitation, she could have made a terrific fool of herself – and if any of the others had overheard them, or seen him entering her room, it would have caused one hell of a scandal. Besides which, she was not the kind of woman who invited men up to her room.

  ‘You’ve had too much to drink,’ she told her reflection as she cleaned her teeth at the washstand in the corner of the room. For some reason, this reminded her of Linda Dexter. Linda saying that she wouldn’t have another drink, thank you. It had been the first night of the conference. A group of them had been sitting together in the bar, and someone was buying a round of drinks, but Linda had declined, saying that she was going to bed. Was that really only just over twenty-four hours ago? Where on earth had Linda Dexter gone? Why had she gone?

  FIVE

  After breakfast on Sunday morning, there was a familiar end-of-conference feeling in the air. Fran navigated her way across the lobby, pausing several times in order to exchange farewells, to say nothing of negotiating the obstacle presented by a very large American delegate complete with cabin trunk, who was in earnest conversation with Maggie Lawson about the works of Louisa May Alcott, and then avoiding the dull but earnest member from Derbyshire, who was determined to explain the workings of his camera to a very elderly gentleman who only wanted to be photographed sitting in the magic chair.

  Tom Dod had been among the early departures, but Fran was booked on the charabanc for the station. It was not due to depart until 10.30 a.m., and this left her with ample time to order another pot of tea in the hotel lounge. She was awaiting its arrival when Miss Dora Leonard and Miss Amy Coward, wispy spinsters of uncertain age, who always travelled together, came into the room. Miss Leonard and Miss Coward were longstanding devotees of Robert Barnaby’s work and to Fran they always seemed to inhabit a sunlit world, not unlike a work of children’s fiction, in which everything was wonderful and a source of mutual delight.

  ‘Congratulations on your election to the executive committee, my dear,’ Dora Leonard beamed.

  ‘Thank you. Although I’m not sure they’re in order. It was an uncontested election, after all. No one ever really wants to join committees. I’m not sure how I got talked into it.’ It was because you’d heard that Tom Dod had agreed to do it, said a treacherous voice in her head.

  ‘Oh, no!’ exclaimed Amy Coward. ‘You must look on it as an honour.’

  Fran could not be sure whether Amy was joking or not. Probably not. She and Dora epitomized the body of members which Tom had dubbed the ‘true pilgrims’.

  As the two ladies fluttered around the table, they were joined by the more solid presence of Jean Robertson, the Scottish chairman, who, like Fran, was awaiting the departure of the station bus.

  ‘I thought you would already be on your way, Miss Robertson. Such a long way back to Dumfries,’ said Dora Leonard.

  ‘It’s not so bad. I’ll get the ten past eleven and easily be home by three.’

  ‘Did anyone find out what happened to Mrs Dexter?’ Amy Coward asked, dropping her voice as if confiding a scandal. ‘Such strange behaviour. I heard that she just took herself off without a word to anyone.’

  ‘We asked dear Mr Dryden about it,’ said Dora Leonard. ‘Thinking that as the owner of the hotel, he would know the facts of the business, but apparently none of the staff saw her go. She left her room key on the chest of drawers, and the girl who does the rooms found it there the next day. Of course, she had paid on arrival, so there was no problem about the bill.’

  ‘I’m afraid we know no more than you do,’ said Miss Robertson.

  Miss Coward clicked her tongue. ‘It’s so very inconsiderate. There is too much of that sort of thing nowadays. It’s everywhere – even in the Robert Barnaby Society. First Jennifer Rumsey, now this.’

  ‘Miss Rumsey had a sick relative,’ Jean Robertson said quickly. ‘She had to stand down.’

  ‘Oh.’ Amy Coward appeared reluctant to retract the criticism. ‘I rather got the impression from dear Mr Allonby that she had left the society in the lurch.’

  ‘Fortunately Mr James was able to step in.’ Jean Robertson sounded both brisk and reassuring at the same time.

  ‘That new man?’ said Miss Leonard. ‘This was his first conference, wasn’t it?’

  ‘He’s not such a new member,’ said Jean Robertson. ‘I believe he joined a couple of years ago but he’s never managed to get to any meetings before. Rather a high pressure kind of job, I think. That’s why he didn’t arrive until very late on Friday night and no one set eyes on him until breakfast on Saturday morning.’

  ‘Well, he seems a thoroughly nice man,’ said Amy Coward, while Fran thought privately that Miss Coward would probably have declared Kaiser Bill himself a thoroughly nice man if he had turned up and professed enthusiasm for the work of Robert Barnaby. ‘And I’m sure we’re all grateful to him for taking on Miss Rumsey’s role,’ Miss Coward continued. ‘It can’t be easy, being membership secretary.’

  ‘He’s a real find,’ Jean Robertson agreed. ‘He made most of the arrangements for this weekend. No mess-ups over who was in which room this year.’

  ‘Of course, everyone on the committee works hard,’ Miss Leonard put in. ‘We ordinary members are not nearly as appreciative as we should be, and all the little extra surprises that add to our fun … Mr Lowe coming into dinner on Friday night dressed as the Barbary Pirate. I’m not sure who he was supposed to be on Saturday, but he does put heart and soul into it, doesn’t he? And I suppose he was the Black Shadow too?’ She looked to Jean and Fran for confirmation, but neither had anything to add. Gareth Lowe’s escapades were all undertaken entirely on his own initiative without the prior knowledge of anyone else. ‘Though I must say it gave me quite a turn for a moment, when I saw him climbing in at that window.’ Miss Leonard might have elaborated further, but at that point several others joined the group and, as the chairs were shunted into a wider circle in order to accommodate these extra bodies, Fran forgot to ask Miss Leonard what she meant about Gareth Lowe and the window.

  Half an hour later, with her final round of farewells made, Fran carried her suitcase down the stone steps to the waiting motor coach. The driver was talking to someone at the door of the bus, so she hoisted her own small suitcase into the boot and was startled when she straightened up and turned to find someone standing right next to her.

  ‘Sorry, did I make you jump?’ It was Stephen Latchford – ‘Stephen-with-a-ph’ as Tom Dod referred to him, owing to Stephen Latchford’s habit of specifying the correct spelling whenever he introduced himself.

  Knowing that she had visibly jumped, a denial was pointless. ‘I didn’t see you,’ Fran said.

  ‘Ahh.’ He gave a knowing smile. ‘That’s because I’m like the Black Shadow. I can melt in and out of the scene at will.’

  Though references to the Black Shadow, villain of the Barnaby stories, were de rigeur at society events, for some reason Fran found this second mention within the space of half an hour unnerving.

  ‘I didn’t realize until this weekend that we live within twenty miles of one another,’ Stephen-with-a-ph continued. ‘I can give you a lift home if you like – save you getting the train. We should definitely travel together in future. Much more economical. Friendlier, too.’

  Fran regained some personal space by taking a couple of steps backwards, and forced a smile. ‘That’s very generous of you, but I have a driver booked to collect me from the station. We’ll have to think about it next time.’

  ‘To next time then. Safe journey.’ He raised his hat and continued to stand alongside the coach, as if waiting to wave off an old friend. Fran didn’t consider Stephen Latchford a particular friend. If anything, she had always thought him a little creepy. An obsessive B
arnaby fan, his speciality was finding references to Barnaby in other people’s work. He kept a log of all the Robert Barnaby mentions he had discovered in books, newspapers and periodicals, and was always tediously eager to share his latest finds. Funny, she thought, that until now she had never realized that he lived anywhere near her. Well, forewarned was forearmed. She would have to keep an excuse ready prepared in case the suggestion of sharing his motorcar arose again in the future.

  The annual conference generally left her in high spirits, but she felt curiously depressed as the motor coach began bumping along the lanes which meandered across the moor away from Furnival Towers. She did not want to think that it was on account of Tom Dod, but she could not help admitting to herself that she had been disappointed when he had left immediately after breakfast, saying no more than a collective ‘goodbye’ which had encompassed a whole group of people who happened to be around at the time, including herself.

  The Barnaby Society – and Tom Dod if he had only known it – had been a lifeline during these past months since Michael had left her. She had a few other friends, of course, but the sheer escapism of the Barnaby Society had plucked her right out of the miserable world which she had been inhabiting elsewhere. Unlike other friends and relatives one ran into, members of the Barnaby Society knew nothing of one another’s private lives and troubles. Their conversation focused almost exclusively on books in general and Robert Barnaby’s books in particular, which made it easy to forget everything else.

  Then there was Tom Dod himself. She found him attractive in all sorts of ways, and she had occasionally considered the possibility that it might be mutual, but he had never made a move. Then again, she thought, neither have I. On reflection, she didn’t even know how these things worked. She had been married at twenty-one, after a short but conventional courtship, enacted under the watchful eye of her mother. She supposed now that she and Michael had never been ecstatically happy together, but she had always assumed them to have been happy enough, and therefore the news that he intended to leave her for the horrid little woman with whom he had started an affair had blown her world apart.