It had been a long, tiring day. It was only nine o’clock and the hotel dance band was still playing with gusto – a feisty foxtrot for the guests to kick up their heels – yet Clara was already in bed. She had begged off pudding and after-dinner drinks and had left Danskin to fend for himself. If he had any notions that the meal was anything more than a business meeting then Clara’s abrupt withdrawal, after she’d finished the last of the guinea fowl, put paid to that. She had instead ordered coffee to her room – a pot for one – and was now finishing off the last of the brew. She ordinarily wouldn’t drink coffee so late, but she wanted to stay awake a little longer to look at the Whittaker file.
What Danskin had told her about her uncle’s failing judgement during the last months of his illness troubled her. Mr Jennings had not mentioned that to her. If Uncle Bob had indeed not been of sound mind, where did that leave the will? She laid aside the file and took out the letter he had written to her.
My dearest niece,
If you are reading this, it will be because I have died. As I write, I have no intention of leaving this world before my time – and have no plans to do so – but time is not our own to make. I have been unwell these last few months; the doctor says it is my heart. However, he says that if I look after myself I could still live a good long time …
It was dated 21st June 1929. That was seven weeks after the fire at the Carousel Picture House and just three weeks before Uncle Bob died. She reread the letter. He certainly didn’t sound confused, and Mr Jennings would surely not have taken the letter as an addendum to the will if he had considered him to be. But, if what Danskin said was true, then surely he would have been showing signs of the confusion by this time … if what he said was true … but why would he lie about something like that? Unless it was to cast doubt on Uncle Bob’s investigation into the Carousel Picture House fire.
With a notebook and pen to hand, Clara picked up the file and opened it. She skimmed through the contents and noted there was a series of photographs of different parts of the picture house: the shreds of the burned screen, the fire-ravaged auditorium, a fire bucket, the gutted projection room with what looked like the remains of circular tins – the film reel canisters? – the charred window frame with the intact glass. If there were any signs of jimmying on the lock they would be hard to see after the fire damage.
Then there were copies of reports from the fire chief and the insurance company. She noted the final report was dated only four weeks after the fire. Was it normal to wrap up an investigation that quickly? Clara had no idea, but it did feel rushed. Unless, in what were open-and-shut cases, it was done quickly. And from what the series of reports said, it was – as Jack Danskin had told her – clear the authorities believed it to be so. According to all of them, Richard Whittaker had left out film canisters and a desk lamp had been left plugged in in the projection room, leading to overheating and the plug catching alight. This had spread to the film canisters, some of which weren’t even properly closed, never mind put in the fireproof chest.
Uncle Bob’s notes included the comments: When was lamp plugged in? How could window have opened from fire but glass not shattered? NB: lock charred, but not warped.
All very good questions, Uncle Bob, thought Clara. And then, there was one further note: chemical formula C12H26−C15H32 circled with a large question mark next to it, and the comment ‘why not noted in reports?’
Kerosene, thought Clara. Now where had she seen that before? And then she remembered: it was in Uncle Bob’s basement laboratory. He’d made a note of it there, next to a sample near the microscope. What criminalistic science had he been up to? A thrill of excitement ran through her like an electric current. Perhaps Uncle Bob knew exactly what he was doing when he left his business to her in the will. He knew she was a scientist. He knew that she, unlike most other detectives, would be able to continue with the scientific investigations. In fact, he had said that her scientific training would prove useful. So why then hadn’t he mentioned the laboratory and that aspect of his work in the letter to her? She contemplated getting up then and there and going to Uncle Bob’s house, but it was now after eleven o’clock and time to call it a night.
However, Clara struggled to sleep. A combination of the later-than-usual caffeine and the unexplained threads of the investigation spinning a web in her mind, meant that it was well after midnight before she finally dropped off. And when she did it was to be embraced by dreams of the woman from the poster on the train, welcoming her to Whitley Bay – she with the impossibly long legs and white smile, wearing an orange bathing suit and cloche hat, and waving to her from a beachside promenade. The woman morphed into the Canary swinging backwards and forwards on a swing over the auditorium of the Carousel Picture House, engulfed in flames. And then, suddenly, Clara herself was on the swing going faster and faster, mere inches above a sea of fire. And all the while, from a balcony, Jack Danskin, with a hand-held movie camera, filmed the whole thing.