The Lights of London (39 page)

‘You’ll have to tell the police.’

‘I can’t. The bloke what saw her was turning the place over.’

‘So what difference …’

‘I’d told him to do it. And he ain’t the sort to go to the law. Believe me. But even if I could force him, I know what he’s like, he’d put all the blame on me somehow. I just know he would.’

‘You’ll have to slow down, Tibs. I don’t understand. Why did you get this man to break into the house?’

‘I wanted to get something on Tressing.’ She shook her head. ‘What is it they say? Mind what you wish for, you might just get it. And I’ve got it all right. Aw, Kit, this is all such a mess.’

‘But if he’s not stopped someone else is going to get hurt.’

Jack called Kitty’s name. She looked over her shoulder and signalled that she wouldn’t be long.

‘The only choice I’ve got is me saying that I saw her. But if I go to the police, what are they gonna think, a known bride grassing on a posh doctor? It’ll go wrong and Tressing’ll take it out on Polly. I’ve already done enough to that poor little darling to last a lifetime without risking making things worse.’

‘Look, Tibs, I’ll tell the police that it was me who saw her going in there.’

‘You can’t.
And what use’ll the police be anyway? All they’re interested in is aggravating girls who’re just trying to earn a living.’

‘We’ve got to do something and we haven’t got any other choice. We both know you can’t get involved, but I’ve never even been in a police station before. They’ve got nothing on me. Now, I’m going over to tell Jack and Archie. We’ll get some extra locks on the way home and they can put them on the doors.’

‘Maybe we should ask Jack or Archie to go.’

‘What would they be doing in Belgravia?’

‘What would you be doing there?’

Kitty shrugged. ‘Meeting a stage-door Johnny?’

‘It’s too dangerous. Jack won’t let you do it.’

‘Tibs, I’m not that little mouse any more. I do what I want to do. What I think’s right. And this is right.’

Kitty stared at her uniformed reflection in the looking-glass. ‘It doesn’t seem right us doing a show so soon after Marie …’

Tibs put her hand gently on Kitty’s shoulder. ‘Listen, love, I reckon Marie would have understood. Especially after you going to the police like that. She’d have been proud of you. You was right brave doing that.’

Kitty shook her head. ‘I don’t know, Tibs.’

‘And we’ve gotta do it for Jack. He’s been so good to us, giving us all last week off. He must have lost a fortune.’

‘I still …’

‘Look, I’m not being hard, Kit, but the world has to keep turning and this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, when all’s said and done. The end of the bloody century. We can’t not do a show. It wouldn’t be right.’

‘I suppose we do have to pay back Jack for everything he’s done for us.’

‘And it’ll be a good start to the New Year. A chance to brush all the old rubbish that’s happened over the past few years right out the door.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘I know so. Just think how things are working out for us at last. Marie would have been pleased about that, wouldn’t she?’

‘She would. She was a kind sort of a girl. Everyone liked her, didn’t they. I know Jack’s been right upset about it all.’

‘And now the police know all about that Tressing bastard because of you, and we don’t have to worry about him no more. He’s the sort who’ll have friends on the force. Important friends. And he’ll be long gone now he knows they’re after him.’

Kitty looked a bit brighter at that thought.

‘And Polly’s safe and sound, back with me. I’ve got a job where I don’t have to take me drawers off no more and Jack’s given us that rise. So don’t let’s tempt fate, eh, Kit, by getting the hump on a night like tonight. And it’s only the one late show we’re doing.’

Kitty smiled. ‘You’re right, Tibs. As usual.’

Archie had just gone into the empty theatre to begin setting up and testing the lights before the musicians came in to start tuning up, but was first checking that nobody was lurking behind the curtains or in the little back room where the turns waited to go on.

He and Jack had taken what Kitty had told them about Tressing very seriously, which was more than a certain young policeman had done.

When Kitty had talked to Constable Browning at the local station he had promised faithfully to pass on her information –
her allegations
, as he had called them – to his superior, but had actually been more interested in getting her to promise that she’d send him a signed photograph. It wasn’t every day of the week that he got to meet an up-and-coming star of the music-hall – even if she was a country girl and a bit barmy.

But honestly, murders in the East End being done by a doctor living over in Belgravia? Old Sergeant Miller would never stop taunting him if he passed on that little nugget.

Miller had been at the station twelve years ago, when every kind of nutcase reckoned they knew who Jack the
Ripper was and drilled into all the new recruits, Browning included, that you never, ever took notice of an hysterical woman. It would only end in tears or, he had hinted, in something far worse.

Archie was standing facing the proscenium arch with his back to the main door into the theatre, fiddling with the row of limelights along the front of the stage, when someone spoke to him in the unmistakably plummy tones of Dr Bartholomew Tressing. ‘Miss Wallis. Where is she?’

Archie twisted round and stared.

‘Are you stupid as well as crippled?’ Tressing asked, striding towards Archie, his snow-dampened opera cloak flapping about him like great satin-lined bat’s wings. ‘I made myself quite clear, didn’t I? I wish to speak to Kitty.’

Archie thought quickly. ‘Wait here and I’ll get her.’

‘I’d rather … surprise her.’

‘I don’t think so …’

‘Is this any of your business?’

‘Look, I’m sorry, but I work for Mr Fisher and if I let you …’

‘If you let me
? Get out of my way.’ Tressing pushed Archie roughly to one side, wrong-footing him and sending him crashing to the ground.

He fell on his shoulder with a painful whack.

Tressing was almost at the door of the waiting-room at the side of the stage. ‘Kitty?’ he called. ‘Kitty? Are you in there?’

This was Archie’s opportunity. If he could just push him inside he could lock the door and trap him while he called the law.

Scrambling to his feet, Archie lunged across the stage at Tressing’s legs.

‘I’m going through to the theatre to fetch Polly’s dolls,’ said Tibs, buttoning her thick topcoat up to her neck and slipping her hands into her fur-lined muff. ‘She loves them toys. It was so kind of Archie giving them to her.’

‘How did they get left in the theatre?’ asked Kitty, putting the final touches to her hair with the curling tongs.

Tibs shrugged. ‘I had ’em in me bag earlier and must have just forgot.’

‘So you didn’t leave them there on purpose to have an excuse to go in and talk to Archie on the quiet?

Tibs grinned. ‘You’re getting worse than me, you are, Kitty Wallis.’

‘Well? You two do seem to be getting very close lately.’

‘No closer than you and Jack.’

Kitty said nothing, she only smiled happily to herself.

‘If Archie’s there I might just see if he fancies coming out for a bit of supper with us after the show. Don’t exactly feel like celebrating, but we’ve still gotta eat.’

‘What happened with that Harry Fitz-Whatsisname who asked you out tonight? The one with all the money.’

‘I can’t be bothered with them flashy types.’

‘You like Archie a lot, don’t you?’

Tibs nodded. ‘Yeah, Kit, I do. You know, for a while I was right dubious about him. But I admit, which ain’t easy for me, that I was wrong. Very wrong. I misjudged him. He’s a good man. Kind and all.’

‘And Polly thinks the world of him.’

Tibs dropped her chin and said softly, ‘And so do I, Kit. Trouble is, after the life I’ve had I’m suspicious of people.
But it don’t always mean I’m right though, does it?’

‘Go on, Tibs, go and find him. But don’t go slipping over in the snow. I don’t fancy having to go on solo.’

Tibs stamped her feet on the coconut mat inside the pub door, knocking the snow off her boots, took her hands out of her muff and shook it dry, then ran up the stairs and into the theatre. She looked around, but had trouble seeing in the dim light that was coming from the single row of lamps fronting the stage. ‘Archie?’ she called, squinting into the semi-darkness. ‘You in here?’

‘Tibs, get out! Go and get someone,’ she heard Archie yell from the wings. ‘Get help.’

Then there was a loud crack, a grunt of pain and the sound of something, or someone, crashing heavily to the ground.

Instead of doing as Archie had told her, Tibs ran to the stage and clambered up over the lights.

There in the wings she saw Tressing, with his sword stick drawn back, ready to thrust it into Archie, who was lying unconscious at his feet. ‘Leave him alone!’ she screamed.

Tressing spun round, his face distorted with madness. ‘You, a trollop, dare tell me what to do? Me, Dr Bartholomew Tressing. The greatest surgeon who has ever lived.’ He stepped over Archie and moved towards her, with the sword stick flashing in the limelight above his head as though he were the demon king in the pantomime.

Tibs screamed at the top of her lungs as she stumbled backwards, desperate to get away from the wild-eyed lunatic advancing determinedly towards her.

She was at the edge of the stage with nowhere else to go.

Again she screamed.

Tressing raised the sword and thrust the blade at her.

With a terrified wail, Tibs fell to the ground and rolled over to the edge of the stage. Her coat snagged in one of the lights and caught her there, a dead butterfly pinned to a board.

By the time Jack and Kitty came bursting into the theatre, in answer to Tibs’s frantic screams, Tressing was gone, already outside the pub and melting into the crowds who were gathering to celebrate the coming of the new century.

Kitty stood in the doorway, staring at Tibs lying on the stage, with blood soaking through the sleeve of her coat, illuminated by the ghostly glow of the limelight.

‘Tibs?’ she breathed. ‘Tibs?’

Then she started running.

She fell on her knees at her friend’s side, whimpering like a wounded animal,
‘Jack
, please. Do something. Please.’

She climbed on to the stage and cradled Tibs’s limp body in her arms, rocking her back and forward like a baby. ‘Tibs, wake up. Wake up.’

Jack ripped off his jacket and gently put it round Kitty’s shoulders.

‘She’ll be all right, won’t she, Jack?’ Kitty looked up at him, her eyes wide with fear and dread.

‘I don’t know, Kit …’

‘Jack. Jack.’ It was Archie, he was staggering across the stage towards them, holding his head. ‘Tressing. He came in here. Looking for Kit.’

‘It was my fault,’
she wailed.

‘Where did he go?’ Jack demanded.

‘Down the stairs,’ he gasped, his words coming in short, winded breaths. ‘Only a minute or so ago. Go and find him. Go and find the bastard.’

Jack vaulted off the stage and sprinted after him. ‘You. Go and get the law,’ they heard him holler to someone in the bar.

Archie knelt down and took Tibs’s hand in his and touched it to his face, tears flowing unchecked down his cheeks. ‘I’ll see him hanged for this,’ he sobbed. ‘He was bragging,
bragging
about all these people he done in. Even that Albert.’

‘He said that?’

Archie nodded, the tears pouring down his cheeks. ‘I never told her, Kit, but I loved her. I’ll always love her.’

Her shock giving way to grief, Kitty too was now crying. ‘And she loved you, you know, Archie.’

‘No,’ Archie wailed. ‘No.’

‘Yeah, Arch, I do.’ Tibs’s eyes flickered open.

‘You’re alive!’ Kitty screamed.

‘Course I am, you silly daft cow.’ Tibs gasped with pain and clutched her wounded side. ‘Who’d look out for you if I wasn’t about?’

Jack pushed his way through the crowds. There were no toffs in silk top hats around the dock area tonight, they were all too busy celebrating the eve of the new century in their fine houses and posh clubs in the West End.

Jack was shivering, about to give up when, as if it were the most normal thing in the world, he spotted Tressing walking perfectly calmly down towards the river bank in the direction of Tower Bridge.

It took Jack less than a moment to decide what to do. Silently, he followed the doctor until they were well away from the crowds.

Joe, the young barman whom Jack had ordered to get the law, had found Sergeant Miller who was on his way home from Leman Street Police Station and Sergeant
Miller was not best pleased about it. Especially as the only information that he could get from the impossibly soft-spoken Irishman was some rambling story about a murder in a theatre. He wasn’t exactly sure whether it was a crime or a play he was being taken to. But the barman was insistent.

The sergeant sighed. Why him? Not only was it bloody parky out, but he was already in Mrs Miller’s bad books, having explained that he would be on duty when her sister and brother-in-law arrived to share the celebrations with them. Now he was going to be back late as well. He could just imagine the earful he had to look forward to.

Joe was practically dragging the sergeant into the Dog, when Jack caught up with them. ‘I saw the man who attacked the girl,’ he panted.

‘So there
was
an attack?’

Jack nodded, trying to get his breath back. ‘I chased him down to the bridge, but couldn’t catch him.’

The sergeant rolled his eyes. The bridge. Bugger. It would be bitter down by the water. ‘So where is he now?’

‘He threw himself into the river.’

Yes! Sergeant Miller could barely suppress a grin of relief. ‘This is a job for the river police.’ Let them freeze their arses off.

Jack nodded again. ‘I’ll send Joe to tell them while you come in for a drop of something to warm you up, officer.’

Joe didn’t look too thrilled with Jack’s idea, but Sergeant Miller could have kissed him. Legitimate business and he’d be in a pub! Mrs Miller, her sour-faced sister and her big-nosed brother-in-law would just have to get on without him.