Abracadaver (9 page)
‘What are you doing here?’ whispered Thackeray.
‘There’s nowhere the Army won’t go, brother. I’m here for every performance and all the rehearsals I can manage. Ah, the opportunities for a man of my calling! You see the black-haired one in red, third from the left? I’m counting on a conversion before Christmas. Stunning, ain’t she? You can’t see a young creature like that selling herself to perdition, can you? I say, you ain’t her father, are you?’
‘Good Lord, no,’ said Thackeray. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me. Half these fellows sitting around us are related to the corps de ballet. Husbands and fathers, you know. They like to keep a watch on Plunkett, but he’s harmless, I tell you. It’s family entertainment at the Paragon. Nothing worse than you’re watching now. Of course, the hall’s in a better-class area than most. The girls in some halls are beyond all hope of redemption. If you’ll pardon the expression, I’ve seen pimps and procurers, men of iniquity, eyeing the chorus at places like the Alhambra. Who’s the cove with the sharp nose sitting on your right?’
Thackeray turned to see whether Cribb was listening. He appeared to be absorbed in the dance. ‘Just come in to get out of the cold, I think.’
A missionary gleam entered the young man’s eye. ‘Would he like a soup-ticket, do you think? We look after a lot of his kind at our shelter in the Blackfriars Road.’
‘I’m sure you do,’ Thackeray said out of the corner of his mouth, ‘but he don’t look like a soup-drinker to me.’ He nudged the sergeant. ‘This gentleman was telling me he watches all the performances.’
‘Does he?’ said Cribb, touching his hat. ‘Tell me, do they have a barrel-dancer on the bill here?’
‘Barrel-dancer?’ repeated the young man. ‘Never seen one at the Paragon.’
‘Sword-swallower, then?’
‘I can’t remember one, brother.’
‘Trapeze artiste?’
‘Yes, we had one of them. Called himself the English Leotard. Wasn’t much good, though.’
‘You don’t recall any women performers on the trapeze?’
He gave Cribb a look of distaste. ‘No, praise the Lord.’
‘I like comedians myself,’ said Thackeray, changing tack with unusual skill. ‘Comic singers in particular. That Sam Fagan’s a real caution!’
‘Never seen the bloke here,’ said the young man. ‘There’s always a comic turn, mind you, but he’s a new one on me.’
The dance reached its climax. To a fortissimo accompaniment each girl in turn made two full revolutions and ended with a low curtsey, the cut of the bodices adding profoundly to the effect. In a crowded hall the forward dips would certainly have been performed to clashes of cymbals and a succession of cheers. Instead, there was just the spirited pounding of a small piano. Even so, the charm of the finale caught the C.I.D. unprepared. Both detectives were too wrapt in the spectacle onstage to observe the approach of Mr Plunkett. He boomed at them from the end of their row, ‘Perhaps you gentlemen would kindly replace your eyeballs in their sockets and explain what you’re doing in my hall.’
Thackeray blew his nose. Explanations were a sergeant’s job.
Cribb stood up. ‘We didn’t like to interrupt you, sir. My friend and I simply wished to have a word with you. Accordingly we sat down here to wait for a suitable moment to approach you.’
‘So you squatted in the back row and had a squint at my girls?’ said the manager, with more than a hint of sarcasm. ‘Would you like them to perform the dance again, or have you seen enough? Perhaps you would care for a tour of the dressing-rooms?’
Thackeray’s indignation rose like sherbert in a glass. Cribb hastily replied, ‘That won’t be necessary. It’s tickets we came for.’
‘Then why didn’t you go to the ticket-office in the foyer?’ snapped Plunket. He turned and clapped his hands. ‘You girls can go now,’ he shouted. ‘Report at six sharp tomorrow.’
Cribb brushed a trace of cigar-ash from the sleeve of his overcoat. ‘I have always found,’ he said with all the dignity he could muster, ‘that a personal approach to the manager is to be recommended. Invariably he can advise you in the matter of selecting tickets. We wouldn’t want to see a bill that is less than the best you offer.’
‘All my shows are tip-top entertainment,’ said Plunkett, his tone more conciliatory. ‘What did you want exactly?’ He had the build of a navvy, but the speed of his responses suggested a livelier intelligence.
‘The best you can offer,’ answered Cribb. ‘We can pay.’
Plunkett’s eyes travelled over Cribb and Thackeray, assessing them. Offers of payment were apparently not enough at the Paragon.
Cribb spoke again: ‘You have a show tomorrow—’
‘Who told you that?’ demanded Plunkett, all aggression again.
‘You did,’ said Cribb. ‘You just told the dancers to report tomorrow evening at six o’clock. That’s not for rehearsal, I take it.’
‘Six? Ah yes. The overture begins at half past seven. If that’s the bill you’re wanting tickets for, you’d better see my daughter in the office. I’m a busy man.’
‘Thank you,’ said Cribb. He raised his bowler. ‘We shall look forward to it. They’re a handsome line of dancers. My friend here is a fine judge of a figurante.’
Thackeray was uncertain of the allusion, but suspected that in some way Cribb was having his revenge for the reference to Salvation Army soup. Plunkett sniffed, took one more speculative look at the intruders and stumped back to his table. The detectives nodded to the young Salvationist and made their way to the office in the foyer, where a surprise awaited them. Their knock was answered by a young woman each recognised but momentarily could not place. She was exceedingly pretty. Her hair, fine, the shade of fresh primroses, was dressed high, showing the line of her neck to advantage.
Cribb clapped his hand to his forehead. ‘Got it! Miss Blake, of the Grampian!’
‘You have the advantage of me—’ she began. ‘Why, of course! Albert’s gallant rescuers! Please come in, gentlemen. What are you doing here?’
‘Looking for Mr Plunkett’s daughter, Miss. We hope to purchase some tickets. May I ask you the self-same question?’
She laughed. ‘Of course you may. Samuel Plunkett is my father. You were looking for me.’
‘You, Miss?’ Cribb frowned.
‘You’re confused by my name? It is pure invention, I confess. Blake is my stage-name. Even Papa had to admit I wouldn’t get many billings as Ellen Plunkett, romantic vocalist. Now please sit down and tell me why you really came to the Paragon. And don’t call me Plunkett, will you?’
‘Very well, Miss.’ Cribb carefully lowered himself on to a battered upright chair, which was evidently a reject from the table-section of the hall. Miss Blake having taken the only other chair, Thackeray settled on a property-basket. ‘But I should like to make it plain,’ Cribb went on, ‘that it’s tickets we came for.’
Ellen Blake shook her head. ‘You can’t convince me, Sergeant. Great Scotland Yard and its workings are another world to me. but I feel quite sure its officers cannot afford the time to trail round London music halls, without very serious matters being under investigation.’
Thackeray wished he shared Miss Blake’s confidence. On the wall behind her was a bill listing the week’s entertainment. Not a single name was known to him. None of the turns suggested any connexion with the inmates of Philbeach House. No air-borne sisters, no barrel-dancer, no voice on a swing, no strong man. Not even a bulldog.
Cribb shrugged. ‘We get two days’ leave a month in the Force, Miss. They try to make sure every man gets one Sunday a month, but his other is liable to be a weekday. If he spends that day buying music hall tickets, it’s a tribute to the quality of the entertainment, I say.’
‘It couldn’t possibly be that he suspects another accident?’ said Miss Blake.
Cribb side-stepped her irony. ‘Have you heard from your young man, Miss? He seems well content with his new lodgings.’
‘Albert?’ She coloured. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have spoken, Miss. I thought he would have told you. Albert moved out of Little Moors Place yesterday morning.’
‘Moved out? Where to?’
‘Kensington, Miss. A retreat for music hall performers. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. It’s a slap-up place.’
Ellen Blake briefly closed her eyes. She whispered, ‘Philbeach House.’
‘The very same, Miss,’ Cribb said, airily. ‘There’s sure to be a letter on its way to you.’
‘But I thought you were—’
‘Protecting him, Miss? That’s right. Thackeray here followed him all the way to Kensington. We paid him a visit to make sure he’s comfortable. Frankly, Miss Blake, he’s living like a regular swell. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there but—Good Lord! Thackeray, your handkerchief!’
Miss Blake had tried to hold back tears by biting her lip, but they came nevertheless. ‘I beg you to excuse me,’ she said, after some attention with the handkerchief. ‘It was so unexpected. He told me nothing of this. Nothing.’
‘Seems to have been quickly arranged, Miss,’ said Cribb by way of consolation. ‘Albert ain’t the sort to hurt a lady’s feelings. But I promise you no harm’ll come to him at Philbeach House. Why, he’s got his mother and the dog with him. No-one in his right senses would lay a hand on Albert when Beaconsfield’s around, I tell you.’
Thackeray shifted uneasily on his basket. Cribb would have to do better than that. The prospect of Beaconsfield going to anyone’s defence was remote. It took an explosion to lift that animal off its haunches.
‘You wanted tickets?’ said Miss Blake, making an effort to recover her composure. ‘There are performances three nights a week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.’
‘Does the programme change at all?’ Cribb asked.
‘It changes very little, unless someone happens to be ill. The turns are as announced on the bill here, whichever night you choose.’
‘Then we choose tomorrow,’ said Cribb firmly.
‘Tuesday.’ She hesitated. ‘Why Tuesday?’
‘Why not?’ said Cribb. ‘It’s a night when both of us can get along. Is there something wrong with Tuesday?’
Miss Blake got up to unlock a metal box. ‘No, no. Every night is the same. What price of ticket would you like? There’s everything from the sixpenny gallery to a table for a guinea. Boxes are five shillings.’
Five shillings! They had paid two at the Grampian.
‘It’ll have to be a cheap seat for us, Miss,’ said Cribb. ‘Have you got any at a shilling downstairs?’
‘That would admit you to the promenade, but you’ll need another shilling for a seat in the pit.’
‘The promenade’ll do,’ declared the sergeant, producing a florin. ‘Shall we see you performing, Miss?’
‘Not in my father’s hall. I concentrate on the business side of things at the Paragon. My career as a singer is pursued at other halls. I want to make my own way, you see. Here are your promenade tickets. Perhaps I shall see you on Tuesday. I could take you backstage if you would like that.’
‘That’s uncommon generous of you,’ said Cribb, rising. ‘We’ll look forward to that, won’t we, Thackeray?’
‘Er—yes, Sarge.’ There was not much enthusiasm in Thackeray’s reply. He massaged the back of his trousers. The basket-weave pattern was firmly imprinted on his person.
As they prepared to leave, there was a heavy rap on the door. Miss Blake asked Cribb to open it. Two tall men stood there. For the second time that morning, Cribb and Thackeray experienced that sensation of recognising a familiar face but being temporarily unable to identify it. Yet there was something significant in the clothes, the black overcoats, patent leather boots, black kid gloves. Why, the men only wanted crepe hatbands attached to their top hats to look like—what they were! No doubt about it. The Undertakers, from Philbeach House.
Cribb stepped aside to allow them to address themselves to Miss Blake.
‘A special delivery, Miss. Mr Plunkett said you would sign for it.’
‘Certainly. What have you brought?’
The first Undertaker signalled to his companion. They withdrew, and re-entered, carrying between them a box-shaped object draped with a small Union Jack. There could be no doubt what it was: Beaconfield’s basket.
CRIBB’S PENNY-PINCHING LED to certain complications at the Paragon the following evening. His theory was that two tickets for the promenade fulfilled all the conditions for thorough-going detection. For the modest outlay of two shillings, he and Thackeray could patrol the entire outer gangway of the house throughout the evening. Unfortunately, the facilities were also enjoyed by the better-off ladies of the town. The result was that when the Yard promenaded, the sisterhood converged, and in effect Cribb and Thackeray found themselves penned at the bar on one side of the hall, where further expenditure was necessary to establish themselves as imbibers, rather than seekers of pleasure. Even there, they were several times accosted for ‘a glass of gin neat’ which they strenuously refused; it was not C.I.D. policy to take on auxiliaries.
The painted promenaders were noticeably better-dressed than the wives and sweethearts of the mechanics and shopkeepers who sat in the place of virtue, within the railing. And they were infinitely smarter than the contingent who paraded in the aisles of the Grampian, across the river. Fallen women they may have been, Formosas every one, but they were decently gloved and fashionably gowned and—one was compelled to admit—not without charm. The men conversing with these women looked to be mostly of good class, and prepared to spend freely. There was talk of late suppers of game and native oysters in the Cafe de l’Europe, washed down with moselle and champagne. Thackeray looked steadfastly into his pint of Kop’s ale and promised himself that virtue was rewarded too.
Behind the footlights the entertainers went through their repertoire without attracting much interest from the bar. Conversations animated by gin were altogether too distracting. So, too, were warm waves of perfume, jostlings and giggles. A stiff-lipped ventriloquist and his dummy were no match for a whiff of Paris at one’s shoulder and the flutter of eyelashes brushed with lamp-black. Like everyone around them, the detectives shouted in appreciation whenever the ballet appeared, and crashed their pewter-pots on the bar-counter each time a dancer flung a leg higher than her companions; authenticity demanded it. But by mid-evening the shimmering fumes above the footlights increasingly set the performers apart from the audience. That, at least, was what Thackeray supposed after five pints of Kop’s, though the cigar smoke and gin vapours closer to hand may have played a part. Whatever the cause, it was devilishly difficult to concentrate. His memory was unaccountably slow, too. He knew the words of all the choruses, but for some reason they came from him a little late. People were beginning to move away from him.
‘It’s a disappointing show, ain’t it, Sarge?’ he confided to Cribb. ‘We might have paid five bob for a blooming box, too. I wouldn’t give twopence for this lot.’
‘Music hall’s more than a list of performers, Thackeray. It’s everything around you,’ the sergeant lectured him, wiping the ale from his chin. ‘Your kidney-pies and conversation are just as vital to it as that fellow up there making a mess of Dear Old Pals. D’you think your gallery boys and their donahs are particular about whether they’re watching acrobats or animals or ruddy clog-dancers? They’ll pelt ’em with oranges if they’re no good, but that’s all part of the enjoyment. They’re just as pleased to see ’em on the bill next time so they can pelt ’em again. It’s participation that counts. Look at ’em in the middle there. Worthy shopmen and clerks decked out in their dress-suits and sitting at the guinea tables. That’s what they call “high ton”. Next week they’ll be back in the gallery, but they’ve lived like swells tonight. They’re not disappointed in the show.’
Thackeray sipped his drink in silence. There never was much point in arguing with Cribb, least of all during one of his homilies. Mercifully there was an interruption, a woman’s voice from behind them: ‘Good evening, gentlemen. I seem to remember an arrangement between us.’
‘Indeed!’ said Cribb, turning about. The sauce of some of these madams left him speechless. That was just as well on this occasion, because the speaker was Miss Ellen Blake. The rebuke on his lips dropped clean away like the Tay Bridge.
‘I was merely suggesting that you might like to see behind the scenes’ she said, smiling. ‘I hope I make myself clear. In half an hour I must leave for the Grampian. I’m no longer first on the bill, you know, so there is just time, if you are still interested.’ Wrapped in a black opera-cape trimmed with fur, she had a freshness of appearance that quite eclipsed the perfumed and powdered company around her.
‘Nothing would please us better,’ said Cribb.
‘We will go through the canteen, then.’ She led them towards the stage. Thackeray fully in control of his movements, but wishing that the slope of the promenade were not quite so steep. On the stage, a black-faced comedian in an ancient grey hat was talking in monotone, a theatrical plain-chant. ‘There is nothing like a wife. I say to all of you, young and old, get a wife, anybody’s wife. Marry, marry early and marry often. Get a wife, marry and have children. Bring ’em up, bring ’em all up and in your old age they’ll repay you by bringing you down.’ To the left of the orchestra-pit there was a door. They descended a spiral flight of iron steps and ventured beneath the stage.
After the brilliance upstairs, the canteen was shadowy, illuminated by four feeble gas-burners with orange shades. Drinks were being served from a semicircular bar to soldiers in uniform, who took them to wooden benches where young women sat.
‘It serves as a green-room,’ Miss Blake explained. ‘Those are the ballet-girls in the grey waterproof cloaks. Do you see their white slippers and tights? They are mostly the figurantes, who can’t dance a bit. They’re paid about fifteen shillings a week, so they’re very pleased to be bought champagne. The soldiers are their friends, nearly all of them officers in the Household troops. The girls come down here between dances. We shall go up the staircase on the opposite side.’
They emerged in the wings in time to see the comedian take his bow to desultory applause. A pale woman with a pair of cockatoos on her arm prepared to take his place. Thackeray was standing directly under the lime-boy’s perch, and had to brush down his jacket, which was peppered with white dust.
‘If you’ll come this way,’ said Miss Blake, ‘I can show you one of the dresssing-rooms. In many small halls they have to manage with two, but Papa has six. The ballet girls are all downstairs, I think, so we can look into their room without embarrassment.’
As they followed Miss Blake along a narrow passage between a scene dock and a collection of property-baskets, Cribb unexpectedly stooped to tie a shoe-lace. Thackeray blundered into him and only avoided pitching forward over Cribb’s back by snatching at a dustsheet to his right. ‘Well done,’ muttered the sergeant. ‘Cover ’em up again quick.’ Under the sheet a pile of barrels was revealed, freshly varnished. The name ‘G. Bellotti’ was clearly inscribed on the top one in pink enamel. There was a positive swagger in Cribb’s gait as he marched ahead.
Miss Blake approached a door marked Ladies’ Dressing Room. Gentlemen Strictly Not Admitted, pushed it open fractionally, peered inside and then beckoned conspiratorially. They stepped into a narrow room, some forty feet in length, divided by a clothes-line, over which the day-garments of the ballet were draped, drab gowns of serge and kersey, and cambric chemises, fraying and stained at the hem from use in London streets. Cheap scent lingered in the room, but the reek of clothes was stronger. A row of shelving round the walls at a height of three feet served as dressing-tables, with tarnished pieces of mirror, candles, hair brushes and pots of grease to indicate each girl’s territory. A few had beer-crates for stools. Corsets, garters and stockings littered the stone floor. Thackeray cleared his throat.
‘Does it surprise you?’ Miss Blake asked. ‘When you see them on the stage in their tinsel and tissue you probably don’t imagine them slinking back to their lodgings in these rags. It surprises their officer-friends at the end of the evening, I can tell you. There isn’t much glamour about them then, poor things.’
‘You said that the figurantes got fifteen shillings a week,’ said Cribb. ‘What does your father pay the better dancers?’
‘The coryphees? Thirty shillings if they’re in the front row, and that’s generous by music hall standards. Out of that they provide their own shoes and tights. You can’t buy a pair of silk tights for less than ten shillings.’ Miss Blake took Cribb’s arm. ‘Come and see what they use for making up their faces.’ She picked up a jar from the shelf. ‘Powdered chalk as a base, with rouge. A penny cake of Indian ink. A packet of Armenian blue. Fuller’s earth to dust off with.’
‘Then what is the burnt newspaper for?’ asked Cribb.
‘For lining and shading the face. Some of them also burn a candle against a porcelain bowl and use the brown deposit for an eye-shadow. Don’t look so shocked, gentlemen. It all comes off afterwards with butcher’s lard. It’s a cheap recipe for beauty, you must admit. Sometimes I look at the so-called fallen women who parade in the promenade where I met you and I find myself hating them, Sergeant. Hating them for their expensive perfumes and lacquered lips and rows of jewels, while these poor creatures have to darn their tights and patch their clothes and sit downstairs with soldiers if they want to be treated with consideration. Try telling them that virtue is rewarded as they stand shivering in the street tonight, watching those Jezebels being handed into carriages.’
Impassioned outbursts from young women about social matters were becoming fashionable, but one hardly expected such arguments from the singer of Fresh as the New-Mown Hay. Even the young Salvationist had not spoken with half the fervour of Ellen Blake.
‘There’s only one way to change things, Miss,’ said Cribb, ‘and that’s to persuade your father not to admit unaccompanied females to his hall. But in my estimation that’s the next step to bankruptcy. They’re trying to run the old Victoria across the river on temperance lines, and I hear they’re playing to half-empty houses. The fact is that when a hall closes, the ballet-girls lose their jobs, while the women of the other sort simply move on to the Casinos and the Cremorne and such places.’
Miss Blake re-arranged the cosmetics on the shelf. ‘There is really no question of my father discouraging such women from the Paragon. If I have a conscience about what happens here, Sergeant, I can assure you I did not inherit it from Papa.’
‘Well if it’s any consolation, Miss, Thackeray and I see a rare amount of the seamier side of London life in our profession, and there aren’t many of your promenaders that’ll escape the poorhouse or the river, I can tell you. Remember their faces as they strut up and down in your father’s hall. One of these days you’ll see the same faces looking down at you from the threepenny gallery at the Grampian—’
‘The Grampian!’ said Miss Blake. ‘Good gracious, I must leave. And there won’t be time to show you the wardrobe or the prop-room.’
‘That’s all right, Miss. We’ll make our own way back through the canteen. You’ll need to hurry or you’ll have Mr Goodly to face. Can we pass on a message to Albert for you?’
‘Albert?’ Miss Blake was visibly upset at the mention of his name. ‘But he is—’
‘Laid up at Philbeach House, Miss? Of course. I simply thought that if we should have occasion to visit there—to clear up certain outstanding matters, you know—we might pass on your good wishes for his recovery.’
‘Of course. Please do.’ She composed herself, shook their hands, said, ‘You do know the way?’ and left them.
Cribb remained in the attitude of contemplation for several seconds, his left hand supporting his right elbow and his right forefinger poised on the bridge of his nose. At length, he said, ‘Wouldn’t do to be found in the Ladies’ Dressing Room, Constable. Let’s proceed with the inspection.’
Thackeray was about to observe that Miss Blake had expected them to return directly to the promenade, and that wandering about backstage unaccompanied might be regarded as a suspicious, not to say improper, practice, when he recognised a particular expression in the sergeant’s features, a flexing of the usually quiescent muscles to the fore of his side-whiskers. The twitch of Cribb’s cheek was the equivalent of the order to take aim aboard one of Her Majesty’s gunboats. Thackeray put on his hat and followed him.
They had not gone many yards along the corridor when Cribb stopped at a door, listened, pushed it open, stepped inside and pulled Thackeray after him. He sniffed in the darkness. ‘Carpenter’s shop. Shouldn’t be disturbed here. I want a good look round this hall. We’ll wait till the show’s over, and they’ve all gone. Should be a bench here somewhere. Ah, yes. Careful where you sit. Carpenters are uncommon careless with chisels. Now, Constable, what are your observations?’
A pause, followed by the sound of a beard being scratched.
‘Come on, man. You saw Bellotti’s barrels, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, Sarge.’
‘And Beaconsfield’s basket yesterday? And the Undertakers?’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you deduce, then?’
More scratching. ‘Well, Sarge, I think there could be a connexion with Philbeach House.’
‘The devil you do! What other evidence are you hoping for—Mrs Body in a tutu? A copper shouldn’t drink on duty if it slows up his thinking, Thackeray. Of course there’s a connexion, man. If the barrels are here, Bellotti won’t be far behind ’em. They’re no good to anyone else, are they?’
‘But barrel-dancing ain’t on the bill, Sarge.’
Cribb sighed. ‘Nor are bulldogs, nor any of Mrs Body’s guest-list. Did you expect to see ’em up there tonight? But I’ll lay you a guinea to a shilling that there’s a room here somewhere stuffed with their props.’
Inspiration descended on Thackeray in the darkness. ‘Maybe they’re preparing for a return to the stage, Sarge! Mr Plunkett lets ’em use the hall for rehearsals. It’s only in use three nights a week, remember. When they’ve got their confidence back they can go on the halls again.’
‘You’re forgetting something, Constable. It’s not their confidence that matters. They can rehearse as much as they like, but it ain’t likely to do much for the confidence of the music hall managers. Performers who’ve been laughed off the stage aren’t going to get another London billing that easily. The best they can hope for is to change their names and their acts and start again in the provinces. Besides, Plunkett doesn’t strike me as a charitable man. He won’t have his hall cluttered up with down-and-outs and their baggage, unless there’s profit in it.’