Death and the Cyprian Society (19 page)

“Remarkable,” Wellesley agreed. “Although, mind you, there are any number of legitimate reasons to attend the theater. I, for one, put in an appearance in order to attend upon Miss Beaumont—I say, may I come over there, Miss Beaumont? —but I’m also deuced fond of the intervals.”

The others heartily concurred, and Arabella indicated that she was willing that Mr. Wellesley should visit her box.

“Speaking of intervals,” said Poodle Byng. “Is it nearly time for the first one?”

“No,” said Arabella, observing the stage through her opera glass. “But I believe we are about to have an unscheduled break.”

Apparently, the play was so bad that the cheap seats were staging a riot. With cries of “Boh!” “We want action!” and “I’ll slice
your
pie, you cream puff!” persons in the pit and front rows were climbing onto the stage and chasing the poor little dinner rolls into the wings.

As Arabella had predicted, the interval was called early, in order to clear the theater and pitch out the troublemakers. But that was just fine with the audience. The wave of outraged, upper-crust humanity washed back down the staircase again, to revel in champagne and oysters. Arabella had no sooner descended the last step, when a man rushed up to her. He was a short, rather stout fellow, with a florid face and a flat head top, and she instinctively recoiled, recalling Elliot’s warning and her unpleasant street encounter with the wagon driver.

“Miss Beaumont, I must speak with you!” he said. Then he bowed, with exaggerated deference. “My name’s Cackletub. My professional name, that is. Clifford Cackletub, but do call me ‘Cliff.’ I had to find you and congratulate you upon the magnificence of this theater. It would be
parfait
—just right, you know—for staging the play I wish to produce, and I should like to talk to you about engaging your premises for that purpose.”

“Then you should speak with the business manager.”

“Oh, of course! But first I wanted to tell
you
about it!
You
are the genius behind everything! One word from you and the business manager will have no choice but to accept my proposal.”

Arabella was fond of hearing herself referred to as a genius.

“What play do you propose?” she asked. Not that it mattered. But she had privately decided to have no more bake shop productions. Happy audiences tended to be better behaved, and consequently less destructive than angry ones.

“
The Quadrupeds, a Tragedy for Warm Weather.”

He was trying to deceive her by referring to the play’s second and third titles only, but Arabella was not fooled. It was
The Tailors,
that infamous production that eight years previously had so insulted London’s hard-working tailors that they had arrived in a body to prevent the performance, nearly destroying the Haymarket in their fury. In the end, it had been necessary to call in the Life Guards.

“No,” said Arabella, turning away. “I won’t have that.”

“Oh, but I am changing the incendiary elements!” cried Cackletub, running after her. “It’s not even
about
tailors anymore!”

“Why on Earth,” said Arabella, rounding on him, “would you want to revive anything Samuel Foote produced?”

“Because I love to make people laugh!”

“People do not generally laugh whilst they are rioting,” said Arabella, “and I do not share Mr. Foote’s brand of humor. In a word, Mr. Cackletub, it is lowbrow.”

“Exactly, miss. That’s the sort that sells tickets!”

Arabella paused, and looked at him. Sometimes commercial considerations must supersede aesthetic standards, and this might be one of those times.

“Very well,” she said. “How do you propose to change this terrible piece so that people will queue up to see it?”

“Spectacle, miss! Live horses! The four quadrupeds of the Apocalypse, swung out over the audience on chains!”

“That might create a
slight
problem, you know. The audience will be
underneath
the horses, after all, and the poor beasts are apt to be frightened out of their wits.”

“Yes!” cried Cackletub, barely able to contain his mirth. “But that’s the cheap seats, do you see? Most entertaining for the people in the boxes!”

Arabella sighed. “I am afraid that is a bit
too
lowbrow for me, Mr. Cackletub. Oh, Richard!” she called, waving her program at the playwright/director of her current disaster. “I must speak with you!”

Cackletub still refused to give up. “We could always clear the first five rows!”

But Arabella was walking away from him, again. “In that case,” she said, “we shouldn’t be able to sell as many tickets, should we?”

“Dead
horses!” he cried, galloping after her. “We could get them from the knackers!”

“I would never be able to justify backing such a bad play to my investors,” she said, over her shoulder. “Has no one ever discussed with you the futility of flogging lifeless equines?”

“Oh, that’s all right, miss!” he called out. “I got the backing, all right! Madame Zhenay owes me a favor!”

At the sound of the name, Arabella stumbled on a ruche in the carpet. Someone grabbed her arm, and she felt a sudden, sharp pressure on the left side of her rib cage. A man with a knife—where had he come from?—lifting his arm to stab her again. Then she was knocked to the floor by sheer force. People were screaming and exclaiming, running toward her, or running away. From her strange viewpoint—face-up, ankle-level—Arabella saw two men apprehend her assailant, force the knife from his grip, and secure his hands behind him with a pair of manacles. The third man, the one who had shielded her from further assault and who was now lying on top of her, raised up on his arms and smiled into her face.

“Are you hurt?” asked the American, apparently knowing she wasn’t, and using a tone of voice normally reserved for bedrooms. He rose when she shook her head, and helped her to her feet.

“I do not think so,” she said. “It was my . . . the roses on my gown. Do you see? They are so thick, just here, that they prevented the knife from penetrating my . . .” She touched herself beneath the breast, and her protector’s gaze eagerly followed the movement of her hand.

“What a dress!” he said approvingly. “A brilliant design! Practical, too.”

By this time, a crowd of concerned onlookers had gathered round them.

“Excuse me a moment,” said Arabella, and she turned to thank the two rather elegant fellows who had caught her would-be murderer. “How came you to have manacles with you this evening?”

“Mr. Elliot sent us, Miss Beaumont. We have been looking after you all night, though we very nearly bungled it. You see,
we
were watching the other fellow, the one who kept talking about dead horses and following you about. This villain had us completely fooled: He’s dressed all wrong, you see. One doesn’t expect murderers to wear evening clothes. Well, as they say, one shouldn’t judge a sausage by its skin!”

“Nor constables.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Haven’t you come from the police station?”

The two smiled slightly, in the manner of nobility who’ve been mistaken for delivery boys.

“Not exactly, madam. But we
are
headed there now, in order to see that our distinguished companion here is suitably accommodated, according to his merits.”

Arabella knew better than to pursue her saviors’ identities, for they were, after all, connected with Cecil Elliot.

“Well, thank you again, gentlemen,” she said. “I am
very
much obliged to you. And please thank Mr. Elliot for me. Now I should like to have a word with this fellow, before you take him away.”

They waited, whilst Arabella inspected her assailant’s countenance. “You’re the same man who chased me down the street, aren’t you? The man with the cudgel. Who sent you after me?”

She knew the answer, of course, which was just as well, as the man declined to provide one. He refused to speak at all, and persisted in staring stonily at a spot on the ceiling, above Arabella’s head.

“That’s all right, miss,” said one of his captors. “I expect we’ll be able to get the truth out of him without too much trouble!”

And so, nearly everyone left the theater happy that night: Elliot’s men had caught the attacker, the audience had been treated to smoked oysters and a really terrible play, a few lucky persons had nearly got to see a murder, Arabella had the satisfaction of a brilliant grand opening, and when the American left the theater, her hand was safely tucked within the crook of his arm. Only the playwright and the hired killer were completely unhappy. Also, our heroine’s triumph was just a
little
marred, for her beautiful gown had been ruined beyond all hope of repair.

 

The trouble with summer in the south of England, thought Constable Norton, as he made his way along the marine parade under threatening skies, was its blasted unreliability. Yesterday had been fair; today it looked like rain. You never knew where you stood with the weather down here. It was like a woman. Like a capricious blonde woman, utterly spoilt and vicious when crossed. Like Maddy, he thought, with sudden rancor, who’d refused him and run off with an aerialist. The part of his mind that had been wont to think of her tried to fill the void by searching the crowds for faces like hers. Mrs. Walter Fairbottom’s, for instance. She was a newlywed, and the spit and image of Maddy, who may well have been a newlywed herself by this time.

Constable Norton had researched the Fairbottoms. He had found out their names, where they were staying, and what their routine was. Thus armed, he made a point of swinging past their accustomed promenade when he knew they were likely to be there, and entertained himself by inventing little tragedies in which, after Mr. Fairbottom was swept out to sea, the good constable stepped in to comfort the grieving widow.

Blast and damnation! It was starting to rain! The Fairbottoms would not be taking their accustomed walk today. When it rained, they stayed inside and behaved like newlyweds. Well, there was no point in staying out here to get soaked. He would repair to a coffee stall and flirt with the waitress until the sun decided to show itself.

But he had no sooner turned around, when what should appear but a vision! Mrs. Fairbottom, the lovely Mrs. Walter, running toward him, obviously in acute distress, without her husband, her hair all wet, her gown soaked right through and clinging to her body most suggestively! And screaming against the rising wind, those magical words: “Constable! Come quickly, for God’s sake! There’s been an accident!”

 

Arabella kept the American with her until late the next day. Her brush with death had produced a peculiar effect upon her emotions, and when she learned that his middle name was “Kendrick,” she wanted him by her side for as long as possible.

Garth Provenson claimed to be nineteen (she had thought he was older) and said he had come over with his mother in the hopes of making his fortune.

“Most people go
to
America
from
here to do that,” said Arabella. They were lolling about in her big, soft bed, drinking madeira and nibbling cheese before breakfast.

“Well, it’s kind of a problem when you start out over there,” Garth replied. “You see, Momma and I thought we were rich, but when Poppa passed over, it all popped like a soap bubble. The creditors moved in right after the funeral, and left us barely enough to pay our passage to England.”

“But why come here?” she persisted. And that’s when she learned, to her consternation, that Garth was godson to Madame Zhenay.

He’s not going to kill me, she thought. If he had wanted to, he had the perfect opportunity when we were alone in my box. He shielded me at the theater. He wouldn’t have done that, unless . . . unless Zhenay instructed him to win my confidence first. But why do that?

“Are you . . . fond of your godmother?” asked Arabella.

“Heck, no! I never even knew she existed till Momma told me about her a few weeks ago. I guess I must’ve met her at my christening, but I don’t remember much about that. My parents took me to America when I was just a tad.”

“Pardon?”

“A tadpole. You know; a baby. I’m not even sure how Momma knows Zhenay. They don’t seem very chummy. But I have to act nice to her, on account of . . . well, you know.”

“The money,” said Arabella. “Of course.”

“Well, yeah. All the way over, Momma kept saying how we were going to be all right—better than all right, because my relations on both sides were really, really rich. She had her facts wrong,” he said, “as usual. I’m related to the Ea-gans on my father’s side.”

“They’re
not wealthy,” said Arabella.

“No, I know. Still, Pierce is a great sportswriter. I’m prouder of that than if he was the richest man in the world! On Momma’s side, there is your neighbor, Judge Harbuckle. That’s who I was going to see the day I first saw you in . . . the window.”

“Harbuckle?” cried Arabella. “He’s the meanest man alive!”

“Yeah. So I learned. My visit was a short one, though he
was
kind enough to tell me the name of the beautiful woman who lived at this house.”

Arabella was pleased. “Really? You asked Justice Harbuckle about me?”

Garth nodded. “I didn’t know anything about you, except where you lived, and I
had
to meet the owner of the most bewitching little—”

“So it was lust, then, that drove you on?” she asked.

“What do you think?”

Once again, Arabella found herself pinned under that wonderful physique, and she abandoned herself to the moment. But before they got totally carried away, she sensibly suggested that they dress and go down to breakfast.

“I am certain that things will turn round for you, Garth,” she said. “In the meantime, at least you can still afford to dress well.”