Murder in the Limelight (8 page)

Not for nothing was Robert Archibald a theatre manager. With great self-control he merely sent round a note by the call-boy, requesting the presence of certain principals and musical staff in his office the following morning.

‘Let them stew in their juice, eh, Didier?’ he said thickly,
mournfully mulling over his problems in the kitchen of the restaurant.

‘That is generally a good thing, monsieur,’ said Auguste. ‘But there is one problem – the meat is tough if allowed to stew without great care. You must be careful,
hein
?’

Robert Archibald regarded him balefully. ‘Might have known you’d drag the kitchen into this.’

‘La cuisine
is the epicentre of the world, monsieur. As Brillat-Savarin so rightly says: “The destiny of great nations is directed by what they eat”.’

But Archibald was in no mood for Brillat-Savarin. He could not bear even to walk through his beloved theatre that night so, locking the communicating door, he donned his bowler hat and ulster, and walked out into the gaslit night.

‘I saw you,’ shouted Florence. ‘I saw you laughing with her – with that show girl in the wings. Laughing at me, your own wife.’

‘Dearest, I wasn’t laughing,’ said Thomas patiently. Indeed he wasn’t; he was horrified. His muttered aside to Edna (who had indeed been laughing) was for her to mind his gloves while he rushed on to save Florence from ignominy. He gazed, helpless and aghast, at his wife’s pretty face now distorted with an anger he had never seen on it before. Was this the quiet girl he had married, whom everybody loved? He tried to reason with her.

‘Everyone’s against me. Mr Archibald, Mr Hargreaves, Percy – because he only wanted to get back at Mr Hargreaves – even Herbert, and now you. It’s too much. Making eyes at a show girl while I’m in trouble.’

‘I wasn’t—’

‘Yes you were. You can’t wait to get near her. Touching her, cuddling her.’

It was so unfair. ‘I wasn’t—’

‘You were. You know you were. Just like you were with
Christine Walters. If you prefer them to me, just tell me. Just tell me.’

‘I don’t.’

‘I daresay she’s waiting for you now. Waiting for you to take her out to dinner. Then you’ll see her home. And then you’ll – you’ll screw her.’

Appalled, Thomas gaped at his wife as if seeing her for the first time. That she even
knew
these words. His gentle Florence. He was shaken and hurt by the injustice of it all. After all, he hadn’t yet taken Edna to bed. She’d refused him – so far.

‘Very well,’ he managed to say coolly, ‘if that’s what you think of me, I
will
take her out to dinner. Edna thinks more of me than you seem to . . .’

Alone, Florence burst into tears. She wept for a long time. How could they? Nobody loved her. They played horrible jokes on her. Now they’d gone and left her alone. All was quiet in the corridor. Deathly quiet. She must be the last one left. She called out to the girls but there was no reply. She looked at her little French clock. Even Obadiah would have left now. The night watch should be here, but suppose he wasn’t? She might be alone in the building.

She was suddenly scared. Usually Thomas was with her. He came to the theatre with her; he went home with her. They had dinner when they got home. Now she’d have to summon a hansom and go home alone. Could she do it? She’d never summoned one before in her cosseted life. She supposed she could. It was just a matter of pulling herself together, of getting out of this horrible empty place. Just a matter of walking down that corridor, down the stairs, and finding her way out.

She began to wipe the paint from her face, then to bathe her eyes, to remove the tearstains so that she could leave. She realised she was still in her costume. Rapidly, illogically nervous, each sound she made seeming magnified in the empty room, she stripped off her costume. Fool to tell her
dresser to go home, because she couldn’t bear to face her after the disaster! She slipped the mauve woollen day dress over her head and began to fasten the many buttons, fingers nervously fumbling. She pulled on her boots, picked up the long button hook, her stays digging in viciously, and began the tedious task.

She stopped and straightened up. Quite clearly through the door, which was ajar, she heard the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. Heavy footsteps. Her heart in her mouth, she tried to subdue her rising panic.

‘Watch?’ she cried out interrogatively. It must be the fireman who kept guard during the night once Obadiah had gone home. ‘Watch?’

But there was no reply.

The footsteps advanced along the corridor. A male shadow fell across the doorway. Petrified, Florence sat there, steel button hook in hand, and watched the door slowly open . . .

An early morning butcher’s boy whistled cheerfully through his short cut from Newcastle Street to Wych Street at the back of the Olympic Palace Theatre, a favourite route since he often found old programmes amongst the trash thrown out by the theatre. There was an extra large pile this morning. Kicking it in the way of all errand boys, he felt something hard and, curious since the litter was generally paper, bent down to find the reason for this hardness.

It was only relatively hard. It was a woman’s body.

He gurgled, then gagged. At his feet, eyes bulging in a purple face, was the body of a woman. Her hands, neatly folded across her chest, were tied into place with thick rope.

Robert Archibald had risen on this Thursday morning with a new determination. A night’s sleep and the calm ministrations of Mrs Archibald had restored to him his sense of proportion. One mistake in a performance did not mean the end of the Galaxy. Something was undoubtedly wrong in the state of Denmark, but it should not be beyond his powers to discover what and put it right. There was a bad ’un somewhere, but close questioning of those involved should reveal who it was. You could always trace these ripples back to their source. With these cheering thoughts, he entered the Galaxy with more or less his usual sprightly step.

‘Morning, Mr Archibald.’

‘Good morning, Bates.’

‘Gentleman waiting to see you.’

‘What?’ Irritation replaced geniality. ‘Good God, Bates, you know my rule. Not before eleven, and particularly not today.’

‘Police, sir,’ replied Bates with some relish.

It says much for the state of Mr Archibald’s preoccupation with the problem of Miss Penelope’s marionette song that it was a little while before his brain could diagnose any possible reason why the Law should wish to see him. Then, as he strode along the corridor to the office, he recalled the disappearance of Christine Walters and the subsequent routine call by the police.

His worst fears were realised as he entered his office to find Egbert Rose studying the photographs of Daisie
Wilton (in her tights) adorning the walls, his bowler laid carelessly on the desk on top of the box office returns for the first night. Two things came to Archibald’s mind: this was clearly not a police constable, and it was clearly going to be a bad day.

Just how bad neither he nor Egbert Rose could possibly imagine, but Rose’s present mission was quite enough for the moment.

‘Murdered?’ Robert Archibald was aghast. ‘Poor girl, poor girl,’ he said, shaking his head sadly. He felt it as a personal loss. The girls were his concern, his family. After they left the Galaxy he might lose all interest in them, but while working under its portals everything about them – their health, their happiness, their private lives – were all part of the Galaxy so far as he was concerned. And if she had died while in Galaxy employ, then Christine Walters was most definitely his concern.

‘When?’ he asked abruptly. He thought of the dreadful probability that the girl must have gone straight from the Galaxy to her death.

‘Can’t say, sir. Been in the water, you see. About the time you reported her missing, though. That was’ – Rose glanced at his notebook – ‘30th September, and you said you last saw her on the 27th.’

The 27th, the day after the opening of
Lady Bertha’s Betrothal.
Such had been the excitement, the ferment at the Galaxy at the unexpected popularity of this new piece, of the possibilities for an entirely new kind of entertainment, that so far Archibald had scarcely spared a thought for the missing girl. To him she was an empty place in the show girl line. Even though he reported it as a matter of form, since she had sent no explanation of her disappearance, he had assumed that she had gone off with a man. She was a flighty little filly. Lived in lodgings on her own. He always discouraged that among his girls. But all that time she had been dead. Strangled. There was a pause while Archibald’s mind conjured up unpleasant pictures.

‘I’ll have to talk to your staff, the cast,’ said Rose, watching conflicting emotions run over the manager’s face. His hand was absent-mindedly stroking the large drooping moustache, the pride of his life after the Galaxy and Mrs Archibald, carefully preserved with Oldridge’s Balm.

‘It’s changed,’ said Archibald. ‘We’ve a new show now. But you talked to them at the time.’

‘Not me,’ said Rose. ‘Different department. Missing girl, thousands go missing every year. They don’t all end up murdered in the Thames though,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘And since bodies tend to go into the Thames at night, and it’s a noticeable fact that the old river runs mighty close to this theatre, we’ll have to do a bit of investigation. Talk to the men in particular. And I’d like a list of any of the gentlemen who were here then, who aren’t here now. Any you remember as being special friends of hers, if you get my meaning.’ He stood up and clapped his bowler on his head. ‘One more thing, Mr Archibald. Do you keep rope around this theatre?’

Archibald blinked. ‘Rope?’

Rose produced a short length of rope from his pocket. ‘She was tied up, you see. Hands bound across her chest.’ He glanced up to see Archibald’s face slowly turning paler. ‘Ah, I see that means something to you, sir.’

Half-an-hour later found Rose walking gloomily along the Strand. It was a mild day and the pavements were crowded with workers and shoppers. Ah, he could remember the days when the Strand really was something, a majestic sight with the old Temple Bar dominating it. He was just a young police constable then, all eyes, long gangly limbs, and far from the heftiest lad in the force. But Williamson had spotted him. ‘An eye for the villains, you’ve got, lad,’ he’d said when Rose proudly brought in that bit faker.

Now Temple Bar was long since gone, and the Strand was losing its dignity to progress – traffic, traffic and more
traffic. Mind you, St Mary’s in the early morning was still worth a dawn rising to enjoy its quiet before the rush of London’s workers poured out from Charing Cross. What was it Dr Johnson had said? “The full tide of existence is at Charing Cross.” His eyes would have popped out of his head if he could have seen Charing Cross Railway Station today. But the Old Thames never changed . . . Rose brought his mind back to the unpleasant case ahead of him – the girl, poor lass, and now these dolls.

They might just be dolls, but it was too close to what had happened to Christine Walters for his liking. Archibald seemed to think them just a joke directed against Miss Lytton. His superiors might scoff, but all the same it didn’t look like a joke to Rose. In a sense it made his job easier, though, for it looked like someone inside the theatre. A nasty business. Menacing. Something not quite sane about it. He greeted a crossing sweeper with surprising cheerfulness considering the nature of his thoughts and made his way to the Yard.

Reports had been piling up on his desk, but he did not get past the first one. Young girl, body found in Maypole Alley. He sighed. Another courting couple, passions flaring, too much force . . . He read on. He’d been wrong. The description of the clothing did not sound like a market girl. Nor the fur. By the time he got to the end of the report, his worst fears were confirmed. Her arms had been bound across her chest. So as news of the first murder had not been released, it was odds on it was the same villain. He hardly bothered to read the rest of the report for he knew what would be in it. The contents of her handbag revealed her to be a member of the Galaxy.

Edna Purvis would never fulfil her ambition to become the wife of a lord.

Auguste Didier had been right in his analysis of the stew. The meat had grown tough. Overnight the principal actors had become entrenched in their positions. They were not speaking to each other. Percy was now convinced of his rightness in
supporting Florence. Edward Hargreaves was implacable about defending his integrity as composer and conductor. Thomas Manley found it impossible even to face his beloved Florence. Florence felt persecuted by the whole world, while Herbert Sykes now had no option but to commit himself wholeheartedly to the support of Edward Hargreaves.

Their first sight of Robert Archibald was not reassuring. The interview was clearly going to be tough. Each mentally wriggled more firmly into position. Lesser deities in the presence of Jupiter, they waited for Archibald to speak.

‘Our Miss Walters, it appears, did not disappear.’ He smiled deprecatingly as though reluctant to give such bad news. ‘She was, I regret to say, murdered.’

Herbert replied first. ‘
Murdered
, Mr Archibald?’

‘Drowned, strangled. And in circumstances which – ah – look as if the matter might have something to do with this theatre.’ He forbore to say exactly what circumstances. There was little point in alarming Florence unnecessarily.

‘The theatre!’

Edward and Florence spoke with one voice, the marionette song, if not forgotten, laid aside.

‘But surely –’ Florence paused delicately, ‘Miss Walters was well known to – ah – have a wide variety of gentlemen friends.’ She did not look at Thomas. ‘Why is the Galaxy involved?’

Robert Archibald shifted uncomfortably.

Herbert could hardly remember Christine Walters. Tall, he remembered, classical features until one looked more closely and saw the mean jaw, the insufficient space between the eyes – the coarse mouth that had spoken slightingly of Miss Lytton. Florence. He closed his eyes briefly. The horror of last night still filled his every thought. He would never forget. How cruel women were.