The Comedy Club Mystery by Peter Bartram

Author:Peter Bartram
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: action & adventure, comedy crime mystery, cozy crime, murder mystery, amateur sleuth mystery, English murder mystery, fun crime caper
Publisher: The Bartram Partnership
Published: 2019-05-24T04:00:00+00:00

I headed back front-of-house feeling irritated by my meeting with Dean.

I hadn’t learnt as much as I’d hoped. But, at least, I now knew he’d had no credible alibi for the time of Bernstein’s murder. But none of them did. Dean hadn’t provided any new information about the Hardmanns either. I wasn’t narrowing the field. I was as far as ever from nailing the true killer. So Sidney would have to sweat it out in the cop shop’s cells for a little longer.

I stepped back through the door into the club. The band was playing something from Oklahoma. Or it may have been Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. I get them mixed up. It sounded like the band had the same problem.

I hustled between the tables back to the alcove.

Came to a sudden stop. Gawped at the table. Swallowed nervously. Approached cautiously.

Shirley had been joined by two men.

One had a bruiser’s face with deep-set eyes and a pencil moustache above thin lips. He had slicked-back hair. He wore a double-breasted dinner jacket with a red carnation in his button hole. He looked like the kind of man who enjoyed nothing more than pulling the wings off butterflies.

The other one looked exactly the same. I mean like they’d been cast from the same mould. Like they were identical twins.

There was a large ice bucket with a bottle of champagne on the table. It hadn’t been there when I’d left.

Shirley’s eyes flashed a warning as I stepped up to the table.

But I was already on red alert.

As I approached, the one I’d spied first, rose from the banquette and extended his hand. “I’m Terry Hardmann,” he said.

The other one got up and stuck out his arm. “I’m Tommy Hardmann.”

“We saw this little lady sitting all alone, so we guessed we ought to extend some old-fashioned hospitality,” Terry said.

“We bought a bottle of champagne for her,” Tommy said.

“I told you I don’t want your champagne,” Shirley said. “It makes me fart like a jackaroo who’s had a double helping of bean stew.”

Terry smiled at that. And Tommy smiled in exactly the same way.

I smiled in a different way. The way that says thanks for the drink but don’t try anything.

“We’re leaving now,” I said.

“Well, that might be a little difficult,” Terry said.

“If you look over towards the door, you’ll see two large gentlemen. They wouldn’t like you to leave just yet,” Tommy said.

I clocked them straight away. They were a pair of bouncers. They looked like gorillas in dinner jackets. They radiated trouble.

Terry said: “You see, Old Jim, our stage door keeper, told us Clarice, one of our strippers, checked in early for her act. Except she wasn’t Clarice.”

Tommy said: “And she had a man with her - a gay pimp, Old Jim said. But Ditzy Dora said she saw a man with the same description backstage while she was hunting for her missing tassel.”

“So we thought we’d better investigate,” Terry said.

“And now we have a proposition to put to you – all civilised like, over a glass of champagne,” Tommy said.

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