Ghost Song (68 page)

She had not had to be carried, of course; she had walked slowly and rather carefully, but she was in her seat, looking about her with bright-eyed delight. Caley Merrick was with her; he was not saying much, but he was listening to what people were saying, and when Judy Randall leaned forward to make some remark to Madeleine, Hilary saw him laugh.

The lights went down and the stage lights came up, and with a sigh of pure delight, Hilary plunged completely and marvellously into the Tarleton's past.

In the first interval Robert said, very quietly, ‘Hilary. Before the scrum in the bar I want you to see this. I found it on the internet about a week ago and I've saved it for tonight, because I wanted to give it to you here, inside the Tarleton.' He passed her a single sheet of paper, a printout of a website. The heading was ‘Debt of Honour Register: 1914–1918'. Hilary did not read the rest of the heading, because directly beneath it were the words:

Awarded to Leo Rinaldi (b.1890) Distinguished Conduct Medal for distinguished conduct and bravery in the field of battle and secret intelligence during the years, 1916–1917.

Distinguished conduct. Secret intelligence in the field of battle. Emotion swept over Hilary in a huge engulfing wave, so she was quite unable to speak. I think I've found you, Toby, she thought, staring at the printed words. I can't be absolutely sure, but I think this is you. Bravery and secret intelligence…

As the audience reassembled and the music began for the closing item, she looked up at the stage, and saw it through a blur of tears.

The audience listened with interest to the brief introduction explaining that the finale for tonight's performance was an almost lost fragment of a Chance and Douglas song, which it was not thought had ever been performed in public before. ‘An intriguing set of lyrics,' the compere said. And then, as Hilary had asked, he said, ‘We are performing it tonight in memory of Frank Douglas and Toby Chance.'

The music rolled in; there had been no melody to work from, but Hilary had asked that it be tried to the tune of the old song, ‘The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo', as Toby's letter had suggested, and although she had not yet heard it played or sung, the pianist had told her it worked very well.

It was instantly plain that the audience liked this song, and liked the hint that there might be something more to it than just a music-hall song. The cameras whirred and the journalists leaned forward to write the words in their notebooks.

This is it, then, Toby, thought Hilary. This is what you wrote all those years ago and what you wanted people to hear one day. Only they never did because it somehow got put into a box of papers and photographs and no one realized what it was.

When they threw the bomb and fired the shot,

The Kaiser shouted out, ‘Mein Gott—

That's another Habsburg who's got shot,

We're losing really quite a lot.

And it isn't even the dead of night

Not a floosie or hunting lodge in sight,

So I think I'll find new arms and go a-warring.'

Hilary looked round. Did they all recognize the subtle references—the tragedy of the Mayerling hunting lodge death affair in the 1880s, that offhand reference to the Kaiser's crippled arm? Some would.

When the cards are dealt, the Hand is Black,

The joker's invisible in the pack,

But he's hiding there, be sure of that.

And he's got his own plan of attack;

There were people who were counter-plotted,

Outwitted and almost garrotted:

They're not wolves inside the lambskins, they're assassins.

Jokers and counter-plots, thought Hilary. And ‘the Hand is Black'. That's the secret Serbian organization formed in 1911—I didn't know about that when Caley gave me the lyrics, but I know it now because I read about it. It had other names, but was known as the Black Hand. That one's too far back for the audience, I suppose, but it doesn't matter.

As the car went down the long Appel Quay

The Archduke said, ‘My goodness me,

They're assassins I believe I see

And of several nationalities.

But although I look with all my might

There is never an Englishman in my sight.

There is never a Chance of the English trying to kill me.'

Never a Chance. Toby had written that with an unmistakable upper-case C which wasn't, of course, apparent in the singing. You were counter-plotted, Toby, thought Hilary. Because there were jokers in the pack, and they nearly outwitted you. That's what you wanted to say to anyone who eventually heard this. We don't know who they were, those plotters, and we'll probably never know. But we know you survived. And your theatre's survived as well.

As people were filing out, heading for the Oyster Bar or Linkman's, Robert said very softly, ‘Hilary. Look up there.'

‘Where?'

‘The stage box,' he said.

‘We didn't open any of the boxes,' said Hilary. ‘There're only six anyway, and apparently no one ever used the stage box except the owners, so we thought we'd stay with the tradition and not use it either.'

‘There's someone there, though,' said Robert. ‘I don't know how long he's been there—I noticed him when they started the Archduke song. He liked it. I saw him nod and I think I saw him smile.'

‘But there's no one—' began Hilary, and then stopped, aware of an extraordinary sensation.

Standing in the stage box, not quite in the light of the auditorium but not quite in the shadows, was the figure of a man wearing what looked like a long, rather old-fashioned evening cloak. He was just visible against the folds of the box's curtain and as Hilary stared she thought he half turned his head, and for a mind-splintering second she had the impression of dark, slightly too-long hair and of mischievous eyes smiling straight at her. Then the lights came fully up, and after all there was nothing there.

Only the fall of the curtain.

All the characters and events portrayed in this work are fictitious.

GHOST SONG

A Felony & Mayhem “Wild Card” mystery

PRINTING HISTORY

First U.K. print edition (Simon & Schuster): 2009

Felony & Mayhem print and electronic editions: 2012

Copyright © 2009 by Sarah Rayne
All rights reserved

E-book ISBN: 978-1-937384-11-1

For ‘Frank Douglas'
1899–1963

Grateful thanks are due to Tony Duggan, for help with information on early-twentieth-century sound recordings, and also for ‘Tranz', and to Paul Smith, company archivist at Thomas Cook's, for details on early-twentieth-century travel.

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