The Golden Age

Chapter 11: A New Arrival

In England another day had passed. A train sped through the Hampshire countryside. Sally Fellows stared out of the carriage window. The apple green locomotive with “SOUTHERN 928” in gold letters on the side of its tender seemed to take no effort pulling its load. Sally was looking forward to a well earned rest; a few days of sea air and sunshine with luck and best of all some time with her best friend, Alice.

Sally tossed the novel she was reading onto the seat opposite her. By the time her employer's books made it into print she had typed and retyped them so many times that she really didn't know why she bothered to read them. There was no doubt, however, that this latest one had been well received. ‘The Strange Affair At Gates', as it was titled, marked the debut of the latest eccentric detective from the pen of Agnes Crystal. It was a lady golfer this time. Agnes had said why not – we've had Belgian detectives, clerics, members of the House of Lords, why not a sporting detective and a lady at that? Sally had thought it most unlikely at first but had been drawn in by Agnes Crystal's writing as all her audience were. In the end she had enjoyed it – and if the letters from Agnes's publisher were anything to go by, so had thousands of others.

The train slowed as it emerged from a cutting. A sharp blast from the locomotive's whistle was followed by a slow swing to the left as the train rounded a curve. The wheels of the carriage clacked as the train ran over points on the approach to Stourside Town station. Sally hauled her small, battered, brown, suitcase down from the rack over her seat and, as the train stopped, stepped down onto the platform.

Half a dozen others alighted from the train. Sally looked up and down the platform in vain, hoping to see Alice . She sent her a letter only the day before saying which train she'd be on. “She might have come down to meet me,” thought Sally without malice. “but I expect she's forgotten. She's just so vague.”

She picked up her case and began walking to the ticket barrier. She passed the newspaper kiosk on the platform. In front of it stood a hoarding for the local newspaper – “Tragedy of Air Girl's Suicide” it said.

Alice fumbled in her handbag for her ticket as she got to the barrier. Curiously, a policeman was waiting there. As she gave her ticket in, the policeman said; “Miss Fellows? Miss Sally Fellows?”

She replied, yes, and then the policeman had said, “I'm afraid I have some bad news for you….”

The next thing she knew was that she was in the station's waiting room. A concerned porter and the policeman were trying to help her recover. A woman was waving smelling salts under her nose. The pungent small made her cough. “Miss Fellows, Miss Fellows, you're all right. You just fainted. There, please stay still and breath deeply,” the woman was saying.

Sally sat up on the waiting room bench. “Oh, I'm sorry Constable, everybody, you must think me very stupid.”

“Not at all Miss, of course it will have been a nasty shock. We did try to get word to you in London but you had already left. We found your letter in Miss Mottram's flat. It all looks rather tragic I'm afraid.”

Sally listened numbly as the Constable explained the tragic events surrounding Alice Mottram's disappearance. She had met with Jean Alardyce, she had obviously become infatuated with the woman, she had been at the airfield for the take off of Jean's ill-fated flight. A few days later she seemed to have walked into the sea, distraught at the thought of her heroine's death.

“I can't believe it,” said Sally, “it's not like Alice at all. She just wouldn't do something like that. It just doesn't make sense.” She turned around as another man in a trench coat and trilby entered the waiting room.

“Miss Fellows?” he asked, removing his hat. “I'm Detective Sergeant Alnwick of Stourside Police. I can see you're distressed but I wonder if we could ask for your help?”

Sally collected herself. “Well, I'll try Sergeant.”

“It's just that we have Miss Mottram's clothes and some of her belongings down at the Station and we'd like you to identify them – if that wouldn't be too upsetting for you, of course.”

“Well.., I.. , yes of course. There might be a clue perhaps something else happened that I might notice.”

Sergeant Alnwick smiled sympathetically. “Thank you, Miss,” he said. “But I wouldn't get too hopeful, real life isn't often like detective stories. Oh, you dropped this,.” He handed her the copy of ‘The Strange Affair At Gates' that she had been reading on the train. It had fallen from her handbag when she fainted.

Sally blushed and took the book. “I've a car outside now if you feel well enough. We can run you on to your hotel or bring you back here if you decide to go back to London tonight.”

“”Yes, that's fine. I'd just as soon do things now.” The Constable picked up her case and carried it out to the station car park as Sergeant Alnwick led the way to his Riley.

Sally found the business of staring at her friends abandoned clothes deeply upsetting but she could do no other than confirm that they were indeed Alice 's. She looked at pictures of the scene where the clothes had been found but could see nothing that was not her friend's. She really couldn't give the police any reason why she might not have killed herself, given the evidence from the beach. Sergeant Alnwick thanked her for her help and offered to take her back for the London train. Sally decided to go on to the hotel, however. There was someone she had to see, someone she had to give her sympathy to. She really felt she had to talk to Bertie Graham. If Alice 's letters were to be believed they'd become very firm friends. He was bound to be upset - she really had to talk to him.

A telephone call to Bertie's flat and Sally's generous spirit led her to the bar of the Connaught Hotel. The Connaught sat on the cliff top overlooking the town. Brand spanking new, its white concrete exterior gleaned in the floodlights that shone across it. The rows of steel framed windows and the sharp low lines of the building made it look like an ocean liner had come to rest on the East Cliff instead of in the nearby harbour. In the bar chrome and glass sparkled. Sally was perched on a chrome stool at the bar beside Bertie. The tuxedoed barman finished shaking a cocktail and poured it intuita the two chilled, long stemmed glasses that stood waiting.

“ Alice 's favourite,” said Sally, picking up her glass.

“Yes,” said Bertie, doing the same “bottoms up.” Several more cocktails followed; then a dinner of reminiscences and red wine. Finally Bertie and Sally staggered into the Hotel's lounge for brandy. A gramophone in the corner gave out a crackly version of One O'Clock Jump.

“Oh Bertie, thank you for this evening,” Sally slurred as the sounds of the Count Basie Orchestra faded away. “This afternoon was just too, too horrible. Alice 's clothes with all those little brown labels on and those photographs of the beach, just too horrible.

“Quite, quite, old thing, just dreadful. But I think you and I have reminisced enough. If I have another brandy I shall be completely reminisced.” He chortled and Sally giggled.

“Well gallant sir, you must see me to my room for I fear that I too am so reminisced that I may well arrive on the wrong floor and cause great consternation to some matronly lady or other early to bed.”

Bertie helped Sally to her feet. The bar man watched, them leave and then turned his attention to the other couples, all in a similar state, distributed languidly around the hotel lounge.

On the third floor, Bertie was helping Sally along the deserted corridor. “D'you know Bertie,” Sally said. ”I've just thought.”

“What's that, old thing?”

“There was one puzzling thing about those pictures. Something one of Agnes's detectives would think very odd.”

Bertie hiccoughed and apologised. “Oops, sorry old thing, do go on.”

“Yes it was her clothes. There was a trail right across the beach down to the water line but it looked in the photos as if she had some how taken off her stockings and then staggered all the way down the beach before she took off her shoes. Very odd indeed really now I think about it. Don't you?” She had reached her room and was fumbling in her purse for the door key. “Look why don't you pop back to the bar and pick up a bottle of fizz. I'm far too plastered to think any more tonight and still too sober to go to bed.”

Bertie, was only too glad to agree. He was happy to have a few minutes to himself. After Sally's last comment he knew there was one thing he had to do. Before he went back into the bar he slipped drunkenly through the door of one of the small booths that opened off the hotel's lobby. He picked up the telephone and called Clegg.