Murder At The Music Hall: (Auguste Didier Mystery 8) Read online

  ‘I’ve arrived. Come here.’ The stage door went back with a crash. Auguste, standing at the doorway of Will’s room, was privileged to see the arrival of Little Emmeline and all six fluttering fairies (albeit prosaically clad in button-through wool skirts). He did not obey the summons.

  A gleam appeared in Little Emmeline’s eye. She marched over to him, but not in a spirit of defeat. ‘I’m hungry. I want a chop.’

  ‘When I return to the kitchens, I will ask my assistant to bring you one.’

  ‘Now.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Now.’

  ‘Non.’ He folded his arms.

  Emmeline eyed him. ‘You,’ she whirled on a fairy. ‘Go and get me a chop.’

  ‘Tell Miss Lizzie, mademoiselle, that Miss Emmeline requires a most succulent, dainty chop, fit for an artiste. And that I, Auguste Didier, say so.’

  The fairy scuttled off, Auguste went into Will’s room and closed the door.

  Emmeline smarted. It was not a good day. Her mother had forbidden her to buy that nice red corset on the grounds that her public expected her to be a little girl, and a little girl in a corded bodice she should be. Her parents were determined to milk the golden goose that had so unexpectedly fallen their way. Emmeline was commercially minded enough to appreciate this argument, young enough to kick and scream as a result.

  She had failed to kick Auguste, so she looked around for someone else. Her fairies did not answer this need for they did not dare kick back. Where, oh where, would she find someone who would? Grumpily she changed into her fairy-queen costume, pouting anew at the straining bodice, and emerged in search of a worthy opponent. Fate was kind. She crept up and tapped Mariella on the behind with the point of her wand. The point was sharp and Mariella’s costume was not thick.

  ‘If you do that again, you little cow, I’ll give you a good spanking.’

  Little Emmeline was delighted, especially as she remembered the interesting scene she had overheard yesterday. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’ Scorn dripped from every syllable.

  ‘Wouldn’t I? Better still, I’ll get Fernando to do it.’

  Little Emmeline grinned maliciously. ‘I’ll tell Miguel of you.’

  ‘What about?’ Mariella asked sharply.

  ‘What I heard yesterday, that’s what.’

  Mariella relaxed a little, then panic began to set in. Where had she heard her? ‘You didn’t hear anything. It was your imagination,’ she replied offhandedly.

  This was a mistake, for she had played into Emmeline’s hands. ‘I’m going to tell Miguel about how you’re leaving with Will Lamb at the end of the week.’

  ‘Nonsense.’ Mariella eyed her warily. This might be serious.

  ‘And about something else.’

  Worse. ‘What?’

  ‘You know what.’

  Mariella wondered why this monster had not been strangled at birth, or exposed on a hillside. ‘I’ll give you a sovereign if you won’t tell. At the end of the week,’ she added prudently.

  ‘Don’t want money.’

  ‘There must be something you’d like.’

  Emmeline considered. Imagination roved, hovered, centred. ‘As a matter of fact, I want a red corset.’

  ‘What?’ Mariella giggled.

  ‘You heard,’ Emmeline snapped frostily.

  ‘I’ll get you a corset for tomorrow night,’ Mariella agreed hastily, rapidly sizing the monster up physically and mentally.

  ‘All right. Then I won’t tell Miguel you-know-what.’

  ‘You’d better not,’ Mariella said viciously.

  ‘I won’t,’ said Emmeline meekly. The fairies could have warned Mariella that Emmeline was never meek without a purpose. The purpose this time was that she hadn’t promised not to tell anyone else.

  ‘There is no need to stay, Mr Didier. I shall be quite all right.’ And as Auguste showed no signs of moving, ‘There is someone I have to see before the curtain rises.’

  ‘Someone you trust?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Will looked surprised. ‘After all, Bill Terriss was killed on his way in to the theatre, not inside it.’

  ‘But that does not mean to say someone might not plan to harm you inside the theatre,’ Auguste pointed out baldly.

  ‘“If it be not now it will be to come”,’ Will quoted softly. ‘I will knock on Nettie’s wall every five minutes. Will that make you happy, Mr Didier?’

  ‘It is certainly better,’ Auguste conceded, ‘but I would like to—’

  ‘There, you see?’ Will cut across him firmly. ‘Always a solution somewhere, even under the darkest bush.’

  Defeated, Auguste went to report to Nettie, who nodded absently when he told her Will’s plan.

  ‘Is anything wrong, Miss Turner?’ he asked hesitantly, noticing that she seemed preoccupied.

  ‘Quite a lot, chum, but nothing you can do.’ She sighed.

  ‘I can listen,’ he offered.

  She glanced at him. ‘That’s good of you. Tomorrow, perhaps? What was it you were saying about Will?’

  ‘He will knock on the wall every five minutes to let you know he’s safe. He is expecting a visitor.’

  ‘Daft old fool he is,’ she said softly. ‘Mariella, that’s for sure. Anybody other than Will, and they’d want a quick curtain-raiser. Will just wants to hold her hand. She knows what she wants, that young lady. She’s planning something with Will, I don’t know what it is, but I don’t like it. He’s excited and worried at the same time. Still, I suppose there’s no need to worry. She’s not going to bump off the golden goose, is she? He’s safe enough in that way. She’ll guard his life like a coster his pennies.’

  True enough, but his uneasiness did not evaporate. Lizzie must cope by herself. He would stay here, in the backstage area, watching Will’s door. Though there were other more insidious ways of entry, it occurred to him. ‘What about poison, Miss Turner? Could anyone harm Mr Lamb that way?’

  She shook her head. ‘He only takes water at a performance, and I had some from his flask earlier on.

  ‘And his props?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘There’s only the dagger, and he guards that like a baby. The stage manager comes for it before the performance starts, and takes it up to be flown.’

  ‘And the windows?’

  She snorted. ‘Doubt if these windows have been opened since the coronation. Victoria’s. Look at ’em.’ He agreed she was right. They seemed welded shut by greasy dirt.

  From the noise, the doors to the hall had opened and the rush for seats was beginning. The noise was not all good-humoured. A knock at the door, and Fernando filled the threshold, trousers and waistcoat donned over his leopardskin.

  ‘Me front of house.’

  ‘You do that, Fernando,’ Nettie approved. ‘It’s going to be one of those nights,’ she said as he went. ‘He doubles as thrower-outer.’

  ‘I must leave too, Nettie.’ Auguste was uneasy. True, it was unlikely harm could come to Will in a dressing-room so politically situated, and with so little time to spare. But for the first time in his life, he almost regretted that he was a cook, as he turned back to his post to check preparations for the interval rush.

  ‘My dear fellow,’ Horace said, apparently pained, as he appeared in the wings to find Pickles gazing in terror at the curtain buckling with the weight of thrown missiles. All too shortly it would be drawn to reveal him. ‘I’m merely offering to let you have the best position on the programme, and take this somewhat venturesome one myself.’

  ‘Why are you so big-hearted all of a sudden?’ snarled Pickles.

  ‘I’ve explained. This is my last week. My timing of my turn at the Lyle cuts it extremely fine after my own turn here is over. I’m prepared to change places, that’s all.’

  ‘Like when you did me out of my place on the bill at the Ratcliffe Metropole.’

  Brodie shrugged. ‘The best man won in a straight race.’

  ‘You set that chirruping mob on me. Ruined my career.’
r />   ‘Last week I understood you to say Will Lamb had had that honour.’

  At this affecting moment, Little Emmeline arrived sparkling in pink satin and sequins. She saw her opportunity. ‘You’ll be safe now, Mr Pickles. He’s leaving.’

  The two men broke off and gazed at her plump confident face.

  Brodie cleared his throat. ‘I shall merely be here for a few more days, Miss Emmeline,’ he said agreeably, ‘but Mr Pickles will be far from safe when I have departed. He will not have me to rescue the performance from disaster after his turn.’

  ‘Not you,’ Emmeline said impatiently, forestalling Pickles’ outburst. ‘Old Lamb, Mr Mutton himself.’ She giggled at her joke.

  ‘Push off, nipper,’ Pickles told her rudely. ‘Don’t you think I bloody know Lamb’s only here for a week?’

  ‘He’s going away for good,’ Emmeline shrieked in temper. ‘With someone. A lady.’

  ‘Who?’ Brodie asked, interest captured.

  ‘My lips are sealed,’ Emmeline announced importantly. After all, she hadn’t received her corset yet.

  ‘Mariella?’ Brodie demanded.

  ‘Bet you he’s got his eyes on Nettie, Horace,’ Pickles exploded momentarily, overlooking his feud with Brodie. ‘Bloody man ruined my career, now he ruins my life.’ Tears of self-pity ran down his cheeks. ‘Nettie,’ he moaned. ‘My Nettie.’ He meant ‘my allowance’.

  ‘Why don’t you stop it?’ Brodie appeared amused.

  ‘Stop it? How?’

  ‘Put your foot down,’ Brodie explained kindly. ‘Insist on your husbandly rights and on keeping your allowance or you’ll sue her for divorce, and drag both their names through the mud.’

  Pickles gazed at Brodie. ‘Horace, you’re my friend. It’s him, that Lamb, that’s evil. I want you to know I’ll not forget this, old mate.’

  ‘Splendid,’ murmured Brodie. ‘Now, shall I go on or will you?’

  Beyond the curtain the noise level was rising.

  Apart from finding his assistant cook eating a mutton chop at a table rather than preparing to cook for others, all seemed to be in order, Auguste found.

  ‘Oh, Mr D,’ Lizzie shouted, pink with excitement. ‘I put a touch of sage in the gravy, just like you said.’

  ‘Did I?’ His mind went blank, but if it pleased Lizzie . . . ‘Splendid, ma fille. Perhaps tomorrow, rosemary.’

  ‘When you’ve a moment, Auguste,’ Egbert remarked somewhat caustically, ‘not that I’d want to interfere with the course of true cuisine.’

  ‘I thought, Egbert, you were growing interested in the art yourself.’

  ‘I’ve resigned.’

  Auguste sat down opposite Egbert, averting his eyes from the slapdash arrangement of cutlery and plates that was acceptable in the Old King Cole, despite his best endeavours to build Rome in a day.

  ‘Shall I do yer an ’erring, Mr D?’ Lizzie sang out.

  ‘Thank you, no.’ A little soup when he reached home, the fricassee perhaps, but nothing, nothing here. There was the potage de Crecy he had made yesterday when John was absent . . . A faint interest in food revived – but not in herrings. Perhaps one of his own pies, however. The faint interest grew stronger and he hurried to get one for himself. This, as he bit into it, this was what a mutton pie should taste like.

  ‘We paid a visit to young Miguel’s home today. Quite upset he was.’ Egbert ploughed on with his chop.

  ‘What did you find?’

  ‘Not a thing. Professes himself a true follower of the Portuguese crown, but too busy working to have time for politics. Besides, he’s British, he claims, now he has a British wife.’

  ‘And the fakers Monsieur Higgins recommended?’

  ‘Twitch was busy all the afternoon, but so far nothing. All regular customers – he had to tread carefully, you understand. The only special order was one by Sir Henry Irving. But it was a cross.’

  ‘Somehow I don’t see Sir Henry being involved in stealing relics from Windsor Castle.’

  ‘Very perspicacious of you, Auguste. He said he was playing Thomas a Becket, apparently. On the whole, my money’s still on our Miguel. Sometimes, as I said, a chop is really a chop.’ Egbert gazed irritably down at his plate with its unprepossessing remains. ‘Who bought this meat? I reckon Edith’s Mr Pinpole could do better.’

  Smarting at this slur on his meat-purchasing abilities, Auguste hurried to his other post once more. Having refused to let his good friend Horace risk his own reputation, Pickles was in full voice on stage. So unfortunately was the audience; for once regulars and Shadwell Mob were of like mood. The Tumbling Twins, awaiting their turn, paled.

  ‘Perhaps we should take our tights off?’ Violet whispered hopefully but audibly to Marigold.

  Auguste’s immediate reaction was that even this drastic measure would have no effect tonight. It sounded bad out there.

  ‘Would you like me to go on before you, ladies?’ the Great Brodie inquired generously. ‘I would suggest your asking Mr Lamb, but he, alas, is too overcome by love to be sensible to others’ needs.’

  ‘What do you mean, Horace?’ the girls cried in unison with some excitement, his generous offer side-tracked for the moment.

  ‘I have it on good authority that he is leaving with his loved one at the end of the week.’ He looked at them archly. ‘Is one of you the happy lady, I wonder?’

  By the look on their faces it was not.

  ‘I am happy to take your turn, ladies, if it would assist you,’ he hastily reverted to his first subject.

  ‘Yes, please, Horace,’ Marigold accepted coolly.

  ‘No need, no need. I am here to help.’

  Evangeline, smug in bright green silk, bore down upon them. All three regarded her with dismay. ‘I have told the accompanist at the piano I shall render “The Lost Chord”. That will silence the ruffians.’

  ‘Not for long,’ Brodie muttered, as Pickles escaped his stage torment, cast a look of hatred at Horace, remembered he was his friend, and managed a weak grin.

  ‘I shall go.’ Evangeline prepared to sally forth.

  ‘By George, you shall not, madam.’ Horace’s words might have had no effect, did not the twins’ forceful pinioning of her arms succeed in persuading her, not in the interests of the Old King Cole, but in the hope there would still be an audience of sorts to perform to once they ventured forth themselves.

  Sheer surprise stopped the Shadwell Mob. Horace strode on and tipped his top hat nonchalantly in their direction. No one had informed the stage manager that the Tumbling Twins announced on the board was turning into a lion comique. The belated strains of ‘Don’t Wait Up’ hastily switched from the Mikado’s ‘Three Little Girls from School Are We’, temporarily appeased the mob. Unfortunately it mystified, then enraged Miguel, who arrived panic-stricken in the wings. He clutched Evangeline. ‘I have missed my turn,’ he moaned. ‘Never, never before.’

  ‘No, you haven’t.’ Evangeline rather enjoyed being closely clutched by a young man of such romantic ancestry. ‘Horace changed places with the twins.’

  ‘Then I’m running late.’ He gazed at her, hypnotised. ‘How dare he? He has upset everything.’ Miguel’s evening had been carefully timed, and it did not allow for this. Everything would have to be planned again.

  ‘It is his fault,’ hissed the lady, glaring at the stage. ‘He has come between me and my dearest Will. Will will not hear me sing for him now. He will already have left the theatre before my turn.’

  ‘Why should he want to listen to your caterwauling?’ Mariella smirked, fresh from her delivery of one red corset to that repulsive child, and joining the group in the wings.

  Marigold giggled, earning a reproachful look from Evangeline. ‘Will likes younger ladies, doesn’t he, Violet?’

  Miguel looked darkly from Violet to Mariella, who seemed to be concentrating on her fingernails. ‘Which lady in particular?’ he muttered.

  ‘Me,’ said Evangeline, Violet and Marigold in unison. Mariella laughed outright.r />
  Auguste, one eye on the stage manager emerging from Will’s room with the precious dagger, wondered how a simple man of forty-odd like Will Lamb could attract such feminine devotion. Yet how far did Will’s simplicity go, Auguste wondered? He was rich by his own talents, he wrote his own songs, he sold the publishing rights, largely organised his own business affairs, save for a booking agent. He remained an enigma enclosed in a circle of admirers. As he went to knock on Will’s door, the Great Brodie strode offstage into the wings, and the twins, emboldened by his success, insisted on adhering to the original programme order, despite Miguel’s fury.

  ‘Do come in, Mr Didier,’ Will said, as Auguste opened the door. ‘I am still alive, as you see.’

  Alive yes, but he looked ill. He was pale, his eyes despondent, and he was slumped in his chair, not yet made up.

  ‘Are you feeling ill, Mr Lamb? Let me fetch you some tea, camomile perhaps.’

  ‘No, thank you, Mr Didier.’ He hesitated. ‘Perhaps a dose of Nettie might help.’

  Nettie was with him in a moment after Auguste’s summons. She shut the door politely but firmly on Auguste. ‘Some things,’ she said, ‘are better done by a woman. Even when she’s not a chef.’

  Little Emmeline twirled round, hugging her parcel. Where should she hide it till tonight so no one found it? Suddenly she had a brilliant idea. Who was on stage now? She could hide it, and be back ready for her turn. It would fit in very neatly. She pranced out of the dressing room gleefully, expecting to hear the Great Brodie on stage. Instead, to her surprise, Miguel was throwing his silly plates around, and only Fernando was watching in the wings. That meant Will was still in his dressing-room and she would have to talk to Fernando. She was a little wary of Fernando. There had been one occasion when she had removed his leopardskin from the gentlemen’s dressing-room and the resounding thwack when he discovered it adorning one of Mariella’s dogs had lingered for a long time. She had complained to her father, but the result had been disappointing. He had been oddly unwilling to tell Fernando what he thought of him. Fortunately Miguel came offstage at that moment, colliding with Dolly who had belatedly heard the news of the change of order. Another brilliant idea struck her: with her booty clutched in her arms, she could make further capital out of her secret.