Murder in the Limelight (11 page)

The leason failed. He frowned. Two Galaxy Girls dead and Miss Lytton threatened, perhaps the next to fall victim to the strangler. A policeman could not guard her all the time. Against the sudden attack by a stranger, yes, but what of those nearest to her, her friends, her fellow actors – her husband?

He thought of Rose’s parting words: ‘I think we have to look for our joker inside the Galaxy. That rope came from Props’ room – he don’t deny that, Mr Didier. And those dolls, not much doubt they must be linked. But how – well, I reckon that’s your job to find out. You know these people, Mr Didier.’ Yes, he knew them. Or thought he did. Until yesterday he had thought them all straightforward, simple people, a mistake Rose never made. Today, he was not so sure.

‘No one gets past my door,’ said Obadiah firmly. That appeared to be the end of the matter as his eyes flickered from one to the other of them uncertainly. Yet it was a
statement made more by rote than from total conviction. His wrinkled face peered at them, incongruously framed by two enormous baskets of fruits built into pyramids with flowers.

Egbert Rose grunted, eyeing the old man for a moment to get his measure. ‘You think our villain’s one of the Galaxy then,’ he said finally. ‘No doubt about it if you’re right. There’s the rope the poor lasses were bound with. Came from here.’

Torn between his own pride and his loyalty to the Galaxy, Obadiah was constrained to say reluctantly: ‘I don’t say it couldn’t ever happen, mind, that someone sneaks past.’

‘But a risk, eh?’ supplied Rose for him jovially, now that he had won his point. ‘But no one could blame you, Mr Bates, not with the watchful eye I’ve heard you keep. Heavy responsibility, isn’t it? All these lovely ladies about.’

‘Look after them like they was me own daughter, sir, God rest her soul,’ replied Obadiah gravely.

‘We must make sure there are no more murders, Obadiah. For the Galaxy’s sake, as well as the girls’,’ said Auguste, noticing the look of anguish on Obadiah’s face. He was taking it hard, as a personal failure. Cerberus had been circumvented.

‘It’s got to stop, Mr Didier. Oh, yes.’

‘So no one gets past your door, Mr Bates.’ Rose kept a grave face. ‘Except for the Galaxy ladies and gentlemen. That it?’

‘And the regulars, of course,’ said Obadiah.

‘Regulars?’ enquired Rose resignedly.

‘Oh yes, sir.’ Obadiah was eager to please. ‘There’s Charles Baker Morning Coats. Then Archie Spenser – that’s the sandwich boy – brings in the sandwiches for the young ladies and gentlemen. Mr Archibald, he always tries to get them to eat a proper meal, but they won’t, not even when he paid for them to have cheap lunches at Romano’s – before you came that was, Mr Didier,’ he
added hastily, seeing the thundercloud pass over Auguste’s face. ‘He’s that generous, Mr Archibald’ – his eyes moistened – ‘that generous.’

‘And Madame Swaebe’s Dressmakers,’ he continued. ‘Miss Fortescue, hats and millinery. And, of course, Willie Clarkson the wigmaker. And there’s the delivery men. Wood, paints, properties, that sort of thing.’

‘In fact, half of London,’ said Rose sourly.

‘Oh no, sir, they wouldn’t get past me. Except that Mr Beauville,’ Obadiah added disgustedly. ‘Came in here in a cake, he did.’

‘When these – er – regulars have passed your door, with your say so of course, Mr Bates, do you see where they go?’

Obadiah’s face brightened. He was on firmer ground here. ‘I see what you’re getting at, sir. There was that case of the young lad pretended he was from Blurtons Gents Shoes, but he weren’t no bootboy – turned towards the dressing rooms he did. It was that Johnnie Perkins the Guv’nor sacked for making improper advances towards one of the young ladies. Very strict, Mr Archibald is.’

‘So you would recognise most of the regulars.’

‘Not the delivery men of course,’ said Obadiah doubtfully. ‘I wouldn’t recognise them.’

‘And could they go straight into the property room?’

‘He runs a tight ship, does Props. No one crosses his threshold without his say so. You’ll have to see him about that. Bright lad. Got the makings.’

‘Anyone else cross your threshold, Mr Bates?’

‘Mr Archibald’s callers, sir. I looks after them. He gets a powerful lot. He looks to me to turn them away. “Bates”, he says, “I can just make the two o’clock at Epsom” – fond of racing is the Guv’nor. No callers, mind. Soft heart, the Guv’nor. Knows it too. So he looks to me to sort out the deserving from the undeserving. We understand each other all right.’

‘Any such callers on Monday, the day those dolls were attacked?’

Obadiah considered. ‘There was that vicar thought he’d like to go on the stage. Guv’nor saw him. There was Miss Fawcett, poor lass, down on her luck. Used to be in the chorus but thought she could do better. Went off with this so-called lord. Didn’t marry her, of course. Came to ask for her job back. Not two pennies to rub together. She learned the error of her ways. Pearls and coronets ain’t everything.’

‘Now about the ladies’ gentlemen friends. Do they wait inside or outside the stage door? Those they’re expecting.’

‘I let them stand in the hallway if it’s raining, sir. If I know them, that is.’

‘Including, I assume, the Honourable Mr Beauville and Lord Summerfield?’ Rose shot at him.

‘Lord Summerfield? He waits in his carriage round by the Lyceum in Wellington Street. Thinks no one’ll see him there. Just one of his little ways.’

‘And Mr Beauville?’

‘He comes in often, sir. Very chatty gentleman. When he’s not in a cake, that is.’

‘And what about Monday, the day of the dress rehearsal? Or Wednesday when Miss Purvis disappeared?’

‘I don’t recall, sir,’ said Obadiah, with a note of finality in his voice. ‘But he wouldn’t have got out of this hallway. I’d have been after him.’

‘You’re a friend to these young ladies, Mr Bates. In their confidence, that sort of thing. Do they tell you who their escorts are?’

‘I keeps my eye on ’em, sir,’ said Obadiah. ‘Part of my job. I warn ’em against the bad ’uns. The Galaxy looks after its young ladies.’

‘Not well enough,’ said Auguste unthinkingly until he saw Obadiah’s reproachful eye on him and added hastily: ‘It’s not your fault, Obadiah. You are only responsible for the stage door, not what happens to the girls after that.’

‘That’s right, sir. I have to go home, sir.’

‘When do you leave? When everyone has gone?’

‘Not always, sir. Watch sometimes sees the last one or two out. Door’s locked, of course, when I go.’

‘Did you see Miss Purvis leave on Wednesday evening, the night she died?’

‘Yes, sir. I delivered His Lordship’s bouquet earlier, and Miss Purvis was that pleased about meeting him, but as I said, sir, His Lordship waits in Wellington Street. I understand he has a mother and likes to keep his life to himself, so I don’t know whether Miss Purvis met him or not.’

Egbert Rose sighed. ‘And how about Miss Walters? I understand His Lordship had arranged to see her too.’

‘Very probably, sir. Some of the young ladies like titles very much.’ He shook his head in disapproval. ‘Keep to their own class, they should. Nothing but bad will come of it. That’s what I say.’

‘And you’re sure Lord Summerfield did not come in to the theatre on either occasion?’

‘Quite sure, sir, unless he was disguised as a chrysanthemum!’ Obadiah laughed at his little joke.

‘Would he or Mr Beauville know where Props’ room is?’

‘Most likely, sir. Always a lot of comings and goings to Props’ room. You can’t see the actual door from here, of course, it’s round the corner, but there’s no mistaking what it is.’ He hesitated. ‘Beg pardon, sir, but this rope – no doubt it came from Props’ room? Not from the wings or flies?’

‘No doubt at all,’ said Rose. ‘Why?’

‘No reason, sir. No reason.’ Obadiah was paying great attention to the bouquets and telegrams in front of him.

‘Obadiah, if there is anything,
anything
that seems strange to you, – just a little fact, perhaps, that seems unimportant – you must tell us. After all, the whole future of the Galaxy is at stake perhaps,’ Auguste added as the surest way to impress Obadiah.

Obadiah raised his head and looked Auguste straight in the eye guilelessly. ‘There’s nothing, sir, nothing. I’ve told you everything.’

‘Interesting,’ said Rose.

‘Ah, yes,’ said Auguste putting the finishing touches to a Mephistophelean sauce. ‘You understand, the final addition of the bay leaf—’

‘Lord Summerfield and those two girls,’ said Rose firmly.

‘You are right, Inspector. I remember Maître Escoffier saying, “Seek the obvious solution, the simplest course”. And the simplest course is Milord Summerfield.’

‘But the dolls, Mr Didier, don’t forget the dolls. He’d have to be popping in and out all day. Unless they are just a nasty coincidence, which don’t seem at all likely to me.’

‘Unless—’ Auguste broke off and stared thoughtfully at the plate of raw liver in front of him.

‘That’s a nice looking colour,’ said Rose, momentarily diverted.

‘
Mais oui
, not many people like the sight of raw meat but to a chef it is poetry. What ballads can be composed from it. What songs—’

‘Not that. The bottle. I like a nice drop of rosé.’

Auguste stared at him, then with a smile said: ‘Then you’ll take a glass, Inspector.’ He whipped down a glass from the shelf and filled it. ‘Côtes de Provence, Inspector. From my home village.’

‘And very nice too. I just like a sip—’

A sip was all he took. He coughed and spluttered as the harsh liquid found its way down his throat.

‘What in the name of thunder is that?’ he said reproachfully. ‘None of your deadliest poisons known to man, I hope?’

‘Forgive me, Inspector. No, it is simply raspberry vinegar for the marinade
pour la foie de veau.
My own recipe. It will
do no harm. Indeed, much good if you have a cough.’

‘I haven’t, or rather I didn’t,’ Rose grunted, still spluttering. ‘French concoctions!’

‘No, Inspector, an old English remedy. Your own Mrs Beeton recommends it. A lady of whom I greatly disapprove in most matters – but with this I concur. But enough of cooking – you see how this helps our case? You believed it was Côtes de Provence because you saw what looked like a rosé wine and because I told you it was Côtes de Provence. Now Obadiah believes these delivery men are delivery men because he is told so, and because they look like delivery men. They have the uniform. But suppose it is not a delivery man. Suppose it is Lord Summerfield.’

Rose was unforgiving. ‘Here we go again, Mr Didier. You and your complicated ideas. Just you look at the commonsense side of it. It ain’t just a matter of stealing into the theatre past Obadiah. Our villain’s got to find his way into Props’ room when it’s unoccupied, creep around the theatre behind the scenes, wander all over the stage.’

‘Once past Cerberus at the stage door,’ said Auguste, ‘it is not difficult. This theatre is an ant heap teeming with people. One ant is much like another. They are all so busy keeping their own place in the line they will never check anyone else, provided he seems to know where he is and what he is doing. Come, I will show you.’

He led the way to his own special larder where none but he was allowed and which was therefore concealed from the gaze of the curious. Once inside he swung open a false set of shelves to reveal the secret door.

‘I show you this, Inspector Rose,’ he said grandly, ‘because I know you will not take advantage of it. It is possible but unlikely that someone other than myself and Mr Archibald knows of the existence of this door and could perhaps have used it. But I, I am a greater Cerberus than Obadiah. No one comes through my kitchen without my knowing it.’

‘Contravening the Licensing Act, 1872. Have to remember that, Mr Didier,’ said Rose, coughing slightly. ‘Raspberry vinegar.’

Auguste cast him a suddenly nervous glance and decided to proceed down the steps and along the corridor running under the foyer to the other side of the theatre. It brought them past Props’ room and the corridor to the stage door, and through a door into the wings. ‘Now, Inspector, I will show you how easy it is to be one of these ants. Take off your hat, and your overcoat, and roll up your sleeves.
Voilà
! You are a workman with business to do in this building.’

It took a moment to accustom themselves to the dimly lit wing space, and in that time Rose managed to trip twice over the paraphernalia of theatre; the prosaic facts behind the magic. Auguste took his arm and led the way on to the Galaxy stage lit by a solitary gas tee light. Rose stood as one bemused, gazing over the darkened footlights into the cavernous auditorium.

‘Fancy,’ he said at last in an awed voice. ‘You’re standing where that enormous cloud came down in
By Jupiter
and roughly where Bluebeard’s Castle stood. Yet it’s quite small when you look round. Where does all that scenery go?’

Auguste pointed up, way up, to the roof fifty feet above them. ‘Up Inspector, or down to the cellars.’

‘How do they get it down?’

‘I will show you, Inspector.’ Down on the mezzanine floor a dozen or more cellarmen were moving around, busily oiling machinery, greasing traps, hoisting ropes. It was a vast underground factory of industry. No one took any notice of them.

‘This is the star trap,’ whispered Auguste, pointing to a star shape in the floor above their heads, and the machinery underneath it. ‘For the demon king – or the villain. We don’t use it now. But in the burlesques it was invaluable. The down traps also. And others.’

‘Could someone hide down here, and get up on stage when all was quiet?’

‘It is possible, yes,’ said Auguste, considering. ‘But you would have to know a lot about the cellar and how to remove the rebates to clamber on to the stage. And then you could not shut it behind you. In theory it is possible. The stage is one mass of moving parts. Most of these boards remove to make sloats for raising scenery. And down traps. We even have a grave trap. Our villain could shoot up like the demon king through the star trap, or he could go up to the flies, strap himself to a travelling iron and fly down.’