Murder Offstage (4 page)

The Foyer was very busy as the theatre staff made ready for
the waiting audience to come in. Cigarette-girls and programme-sellers were
hastily fixing their trays, the ticket staff standing ready, their arms loaded
with dusty-looking red roses.

‘Remember!’ shouted a thin young man with a shock of very
dark spiky hair, ‘It’s Valentine’s Day! People will be in the mood for BUYING!
Press the red roses on the gentlemen. Make them feel guilty if they don’t buy
one for their lady-friends. Work the whole theatre!’

Posie felt slightly sick at the calculated cynicism on
parade. She peered outside through the gold gilded doorway. It was just
starting to snow again. Suddenly she heard a newly-familiar voice behind her.
It was Dolly:

‘You forgot your coat, Miss!’ Dolly called out convincingly.
Posie looked at Dolly in bewilderment, but Dolly was already shrugging onto
Posie’s shoulders a magnificent black fur coat, luxuriously warm and cut in a
very modern swing style.

‘It’s a fake, but it’s a good one,’ Dolly whispered, close
up. ‘I noticed you didn’t have one with you. Give it back to me tomorrow. I’ve
borrowed it from the theatre wardrobe. It won’t be missed. Otherwise you’ll
freeze to death out there.’

Posie smiled a thank you, and turned the collar up against
the night.

The queue outside was long, and people were bunching up
under the awning of the theatre to keep warm. Posie was just trotting down the
steps, already searching the street for a cab, when she heard a peal of
high-pitched laughter she recognised.

Turning to her left, she saw the black shingled head of
Babe, her laughter carrying across the crowd. With a pang Posie realised how
very beautiful the girl was: she was getting all sorts of attention from most
of the men in the crowd, much to the obvious annoyance of their wives and
girlfriends. Babe was dressed up to the nines. Posie gaped a little as she saw
the many fine strands of creamy pearls around Babe’s neck and the snow-fox fur
cape around her shoulders. It was, unlike hers, obviously
not
a fake.
But how on earth could her secretary afford such things on the meagre salary
they paid her?

Posie noticed that Babe was also holding a huge bouquet of
red roses. Well, that was to be expected, wasn’t it? Posie muffled herself up
as much as she could under the fake fur, anxious not to catch Babe’s attention
and be placed in an embarrassing situation. A taxi was just coming past – if
she was lucky she could catch it. It slowed, and Posie ran over and gave her next
destination to the driver. A prickling feeling told her that someone was
watching her from the queue.

In fact, she felt eyes boring into her back.

She turned and met the gaze of Len, standing next to Babe, a
pair of brightly coloured tickets clutched in his hand. Posie stared back, her
heart racing. So then, they had come together, for Valentine’s Day.

She continued to hold Len’s gaze. What was it she read there
in his handsome face? He was looking at her imploringly,
willing
her to
understand something. But what was there to understand?

She saw Babe take Len’s arm, lead him up the steps,
tottering unsteadily to and fro on her sky-high heels. Len tore his gaze away
from Posie reluctantly.

Posie clambered into the cab.

‘Please, driver. Fast as you can!’ she called through the
glass divide, blinking back a flood of hot, useless tears.

****

Four

As the taxi rolled through the big iron gates of New
Scotland Yard, Posie caught sight of a familiar trench-coated figure bowling
his way out, scarf wrapped up over his face. He was lit up by the car lights
against the driving snow, heading in the direction of the Victoria Embankment,
beside the frozen river Thames.

‘Stop! Wait!’ she called to the driver. Pressing a handful
of change into his hand, she jumped out of the cab and pursued the man through
the snow.

‘Inspector Lovelace!’

The Inspector halted under a lamp-post, and turned in
surprise. His posture was of one poised for flight. Posie came panting up to
him.

‘I’m sorry I’m late, I was delayed. I don’t blame you for
leaving, you’d probably given up on me.’

‘Posie?’ asked the Inspector in surprise, raising his black
felt homburg briefly and peering very uncertainly at her. Posie realised he
could only see her eyes, and even those not very well. She brushed the
snowflakes from her eyelashes.

‘Yes. It’s me! I said in my telegram I’d be here at
seven-thirty but I’m late.’

‘Let’s go back to my office. Better get a brew on,’ he said,
turning on his heel. Inspector Lovelace sighed wearily. He had been heading
home to his wife for a Valentine’s dinner in their smart new house in the
Clapham suburbs. Not anymore, though.

The Inspector strode over the snow-covered courtyard to the
imposing buildings of Scotland Yard. A few lights were still on here and there
in the office windows, blinking through the darkness. Rufus was here too,
somewhere. Mouldering away in a tiny jail cell, like a real criminal. Posie
shivered despite herself. Inspector Lovelace gave her a quick sideways glance:

‘Just so you know. I wasn’t expecting you. You seem to think
I received a telegram from you? Well, I didn’t.’

The Inspector was a good-natured man in the very early
forties, a large man, nice-looking in a rugged-sort-of-way, with pale freckly
skin and red coppery hair. He laughed, taking the curved stone steps at a fair
old pace, like a young lad, two at a time. ‘I’d say whoever sent that telegram
of yours deserves a good beating.’

Posie laughed lightly alongside him but it was a hollow
sound.

‘Only joking, mind!’

Wretched Babe. What was she playing at exactly? Was this
deliberate sabotage on her part or mere uselessness? However you looked at it,
either way was bad.

****

‘So, what’s this all about then?’

Inspector Richard Lovelace sank heavily down in his creaky
leather chair and passed a beaten-up tin of biscuits across to Posie. She was
clutching a steaming mug of tea he had just made. She couldn’t remember when
she had last eaten a proper meal, and she dived on the biscuits ravenously.

Inspector Lovelace eyed her with a look of half-amusement,
half-concern. Posie reminded him very much of a nurse he had taken a fancy to
in the Field Hospital at Passchendale when he had spent some months there in
1917, lying injured, and he knew this fond remembrance made him not entirely
impartial to Posie and her sometimes unorthodox methods.

‘You should take more care of yourself, my girl. Eat
properly. Otherwise you’re no help to anyone. Who
are
you helping,
anyway? I take it that there is something important behind your scurrying here
after office hours? And more importantly, what’s it got to do with me?’

Posie explained between mouthfuls of biscuit about her day
so far. Inspector Lovelace nodded grimly: he had heard all about the murder at
the Ritz, it had been the talk of the whole station.

She opened her bag and pulled out the photo of ‘Georgie’.
She pushed it across the desk and told the Inspector where she had just got it
from.

‘Turns out Lucky Lucy
was
working as a chorus girl
after all, at the Athenaeum Theatre. I know Inspector Oats had his doubts. So
she didn’t lie to Rufus about everything.’

Inspector Lovelace picked the photo up and studied it
carefully under his green-glassed reading lamp. He whistled softly.

‘You’re right – that’s Lucky Lucy Gibson, for sure. I’d
recognise that face anywhere, even though she’s cut all her hair off and dyed
it white, and done something different to her eyes.’

He passed the photo back. ‘She’s on the most-wanted list of
every police station across London, and every British border control has an
order to seize her. One of the most dangerous, difficult creatures you’re ever
likely to encounter: like a ghost, never leaves traces, never incriminates
others. But wherever she goes, she leaves a path of destruction behind her. And
you say she’s been here, in London, this whole past year? Right under our
noses?’

‘That’s right. On the stage almost every night.’

‘No wonder poor old Oats was in a bad mood! Letting her slip
away like that at the Ritz must have been galling. So near and yet so far.
She’s a clever girl.’

‘But what about Rufus? He’s been wrongfully imprisoned for a
murder! And what about the Maharajah diamond? We need to search for it!’

Inspector Lovelace smiled kindly.

‘We can’t do anything about the missing gem until its owner
files a stolen report. And as for Rufus himself, wait here a minute.’

Two minutes later the Inspector was back, a big black file
in his hands. A white sticker read ‘OATS – CONFIDENTIAL’ down one side.

‘I just “borrowed” this from Oats’ office along the
corridor,’ he said tapping his nose comically. He flipped through the file for
a few minutes, and then closed it. He folded his arms. He looked grim.

‘Oats isn’t a bad policeman, you know. Just unimaginative.
And he hates toffs – that’s a known fact. But he’s got your pal in the cells
here as an accessory to this murder because he has no other leads. He’s hoping
your pal will blab something useful.’

‘But Rufus was duped!’ Posie wailed. ‘He knows nothing about
the murder. He knows nothing about his fiancée, either, as it turns out.
I
know more than Rufus right now about pretty much everything – and that’s not
saying much!’

‘They will hold a preliminary hearing tomorrow morning,
here. Oats has made notes recommending that your pal should be set free if his
father stumps up some bail money. But are you
sure
Rufus isn’t caught up
in this malarkey?’

‘What
possible
motive could he have?’

The Inspector shrugged. ‘Loyalty to the girl, perhaps?
Perhaps he’s covering up for her? Someone like Lucy would be pretty persuasive,
let me tell you. Rufus could have helped arrange her getaway plan, onto a boat
or a plane to South America, perhaps? He has plenty of money to arrange
things…it wouldn’t be too difficult.’

‘You’re forgetting she’s robbed him of a priceless jewel,’
Posie snapped. ‘So just where in the getaway plan was that?’

‘An elaborate cover-story on the side? A nice little earner?
He can just claim the insurance money, anyhow.’

Posie shook her head resolutely and gritted her teeth. She
snapped the catch of her bag and pulled out the telegram from Brigg &
Brooks. As the Inspector read it his eyes widened, just for a second.

‘Fine. I agree my theory was far-fetched. But from the file
here your pal is in a bad way. He’s blind drunk most of the time; there are
hotel bar-bills here which make my eyes water just reading them. He’s in and
out of seedy pubs all day long, too. Tell me, just
why
exactly are you
bothering with him?’

A sudden wave of anger flared up hotly, spreading out over
Posie’s head and neck in a vivid red flush. She counted to five and swallowed
the anger down. When she spoke it was quietly and with absolute conviction:

‘Don’t ever ask me that again, please. What your dear
colleague Inspector Oats seems to have overlooked is the fact that Rufus
Cardigeon is one of the bravest men this country has ever known. He’s a
national hero! Does it say in that file that he was awarded the Victoria Cross
not once but
twice
for his services in the Great War? The highest honour
for bravery a man can get! I bet that’s not in the file notes! And as for the
drinking – I know he’s a wretched soul just now, but he wouldn’t be the first
or the last man to hit the bottle as a way of forgetting some of the dreadful
things he’s seen, would he?’

Posie stared at Inspector Lovelace who held her gaze calmly.
Eventually he nodded, as if in agreement.

‘How much do they want for bail?’

‘Let me see,’ Inspector Lovelace placed a finger on a page
and jabbed at a paragraph. The figure he quoted made Posie’s eyes water. Her
heart sank. She knew Rufus’ father was rich, but he was notoriously tight. He
would
not
be pleased. With any of this.

‘It says here that they still don’t know
who
the
murder victim was. Poor sausage.’

Some horrible photos slipped out of the pocket of the file
onto the desk.

‘What ho! Some good old blood-and-guts here. Poor fella.’

The Inspector had picked the photos up and studied them
under his lamp, passing them to Posie casually as if they might be a theatre
programme. She had seen the real body only hours earlier, and she had been so
preoccupied with Rufus at that point that she hadn’t felt time to feel shocked
or sick at the grisly murder. Now, strangely, presented with the image of the
body in graphic black and white frames, Posie felt the full horror of the
murder sink in.

‘Poor man,’ she sighed, flipping through, feeling distinctly
queasy at some of the close-ups. She looked up, and saw a look of puzzlement
spreading over Inspector Lovelace’s large, kind face. He had a photo in his
hand and scrabbled in his desk for a magnifying glass.

‘Thought so!’ he said triumphantly. He passed the photo and
eye-glass to Posie.

‘Tell me what you see.’

Posie sat and stared. She could see nothing of any note. The
photo was of the murder victim’s torso and his blood-spattered white
dress-shirt. As she had noted to herself earlier, the clothes were old but of a
very good quality. The man had died with his hands outstretched uselessly, as
if to defend himself from his attacker.

‘Nope. Nothing. Sorry.’

Inspector Lovelace nodded. ‘It’s very unusual, I’ll give you
that. No wonder you missed it. It’s the
hands
. See how carefully
manicured they are? How the nails are cut right down to the quick?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, but I don’t see…’

‘And the thick, crusty callouses on the fingers? He was a
musician
.
Only years of being a musician can do that to hands. I’d say this chappie had
been a musician of some sort for getting on for more than forty years. Mnnn, I
wonder. Strings, definitely…perhaps the guitar, or perhaps…’

‘…the VIOLIN!!’ Posie shouted, interrupting.

‘Yes! Exactly. Good thinking at last. So our victim is a
musician. Shouldn’t be too difficult to find out who he was. We’ll put out a
notice to all the orchestras in town, all the bands and nightclubs too.’

‘There’s no need,’ Posie said, sitting bolt upright. ‘I’d
swear sure as bread is bread that this man is Lionel Le Merle, First Violin at
the Athenaeum Theatre! He didn’t show up at work today. Apparently that was
very unusual.’

The Inspector was looking at Posie seriously.

‘So he knew Lucky Lucy, you mean, at work?’

Posie nodded, bright as a button. ‘But this was no bust-up
between workmates. There’s more to it than that, I’m certain. The whole thing
stinks.’

Inspector Lovelace nodded.

‘I’m inclined to agree.’ He looked at his wristwatch and
cursed, reaching for his hand-knitted woollen scarf and wrapping it around his
neck.

‘I’ve got to get going; my wife Molly will kill me
otherwise. I’ll tidy up here and leave a note for Oats with this man Lionel’s
name on it. I’ll tell him you’ll be along in the morning for the bail hearing,
shall I? I can’t imagine you’ll be missing that?’

Posie nodded, gathering up her fur coat. Time to make
tracks: she wasn’t yet done for the night.

‘You want me to get you a cab?’ Inspector Lovelace asked.
Posie thought of the cold snowy evening outside, and jangled her last few coins
together in her pocket. She shook her head – she had already depleted the
contents of the office strong-box enough for one night.

‘No. But thank you. It’s only a ten-minute walk.’

‘Very well. But keep warm. And Posie?’ Inspector Lovelace
looked up from scribbling his note on top of the black file, ‘Take care. Keep
your powder dry. If you find anything out, let us know. Anything at all. Don’t
go this alone. It could be very dangerous. Promise me?’

Posie nodded dutifully, but she had secretly crossed her
fingers behind her back.

****

She was heading off to visit Rufus’ father at his
club: No 11, St James. On Pall Mall.

But she had lied to the Inspector. It wasn’t a ten-minute
walk at all. It
might
have been in the summer, when the parks which were
useful as shortcuts stayed open late; when she could have run through St
James’s Park, past the artificial island which was home to a hundred pelicans
and over the hump-backed bridge. In the harsh reality of the snowy February
evening, however, it was half an hour’s brisk walk.

Posie turned sharply onto Whitehall and walked along as fast
as she could without losing her footing. London was covered in its thick,
white, fuggy blanket and still yet more snow was falling. As so often happens
with fresh snow, the world suddenly seemed ridiculously quiet. Even the chimes
from the tower of Big Ben, so close, announcing to the world that it was
eight-thirty, seemed very small and far away; a tiny, tinny little sound which
belonged to a doll’s house clock.

It was as if everybody had left town in a hurry.

The government offices which ran down both sides of the
broad street looked shut-up and deserted, and even the Prime Minister’s house
on Downing Street was in total darkness. All the way along Whitehall, normally
so busy, Posie was passed by just one other person, a bent-against-the-wind
government worker in a flapping black coat, wielding a useless umbrella. One
cab passed by in a tearing hurry, but otherwise there was silence. There was
something uncanny about it.