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

  ‘Hallo, Miguel,’ she smirked. ‘I know something you don’t know.’

  ‘I am sure you do.’ He tried to smile, but it came out as a grimace. He was still smarting over the ruin of all his careful planning.

  ‘About Will Lamb,’ she added temptingly. This time she succeeded in gaining his attention. ‘He’s going away with a lady at the end of the week.’

  A moment’s dead silence. ‘Mrs Turner?’ inquired Miguel.

  ‘No. And far, far away,’ she emphasised. ‘And she has red hair.’

  ‘You are mistaken, I think,’ Miguel said pleasantly.

  Fernando was taking her seriously. He took a plod onwards, and she retreated involuntarily as she saw the expression on his face. ‘Red?’ he repeated heavily.

  ‘It’s a secret,’ Emmeline said, delighted with the result of her bait.

  ‘Mariella!’ Fernando grunted.

  ‘Nonsense!’ There was fear in Miguel’s face, and he dropped the juggling balls. One rolled back on to the stage to the alarm of poor Dolly.

  Emmeline grinned happily, as Miguel dived after the ones that were retrievable. ‘And there’s another secret too,’ she added.

  ‘What is that, Little Emmeline?’ Miguel hissed.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said truthfully, but unconvincingly.

  ‘I am sure you do, my little one. Something to do with the lady and Mr Lamb, perhaps?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She was hiding something?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Emmeline perceived she was going too fast too quickly.

  Fernando was still way back in the conversation. ‘Mariella is leaving with Will Lamb?’

  ‘No.’ Miguel nimbly leapt between the girl and the advancing strong man. ‘It’s someone else, isn’t it, Emmeline?’

  ‘Yes,’ she cried gratefully, having seen Fernando’s expression.

  Fernando stopped and thought this out. ‘I will ask him.’ He lumbered towards the dressing-room.

  ‘And there’s nothing else to tell me, dear Emmeline?’ Miguel’s voice was silky sweet.

  ‘There may be,’ Emmeline said brightly, regaining confidence, ‘but I don’t remember it now.’

  ‘I could give you a present.’

  More corsets? No, what did she want? Emmeline thought quickly. ‘I’ll let you know, Mr Gomez,’ she promised grandly.

  Fernando believed in the quickest solution for any problem. The dressing-room door was thrown open with a crash.

  ‘Good evening, Fernando.’ Will greeted him pleasantly, but with an effort, and Auguste, sensing trouble, edged forward.

  ‘You, Mariella,’ Fernando said. ‘True you go?’

  Will clung to the image of Mariella. She was the only good thing in his life, his hope, his salvation. ‘Yes,’ he replied, sure Fernando would share his joy. ‘Isn’t that nice? I hope Miguel won’t mind.’

  Fernando did not seem to agree it was nice. He turned, and blindly strode out again as Dolly ran offstage. He was intent on strangling the entire Shadwell Mob from the look on his face, Auguste thought, alarmed. From now on he would not leave Will’s side.

  Will too seemed nervous. Auguste looked at the trembling hands and the anxious eyes, and wondered how troubled his mind was. Enough to push him over the brink? He seemed perilously close.

  ‘I have to go on stage,’ Will explained carefully. ‘They want me. I can hear them.’

  What he could hear was in fact the Shadwell Mob wreaking its fury on Fernando in order to earn a respite while Will was on.

  Will stopped at the door, and clung to it for support. ‘I suppose I shall have to see my solicitor,’ he said forlornly and inconsequentially. He shook his head in a kind of daze, until the pull of the stage overtook him and he slipped into character.

  Auguste accompanied him into the wings, and found not only Emmeline but, surprisingly, Miguel there watching. Emmeline greeted him enthusiastically. She had decided she liked Auguste. When she wore her new corset he would stop thinking of her as a little girl. She’d wear a long dress, thin stockings, and she’d drop the Little. Just Emmeline and her fairies. Then he’d love her. And she would scorn him, just like Mariella did to men who liked her. Meanwhile she nestled up to him. Auguste promptly decided to go through to one of the boxes to get a better view of the stage. There was nothing he could to do protect Will there, and he was worrying unnecessarily about that dagger. It had been in the stage manager’s, then the flymen’s care since the beginning of the performance. In the box he found Nettie who greeted him abstractedly, eyes fixed on the stage. She too looked worried.

  On stage, Will’s preoccupations dropped away, as he launched into patter. ‘Romeo, I ask you, what a name. He killed Tybalt, you know. With a dagger. Shakespeare was like that. Saved on props. Mean, I call it. Same dagger as in that Scottish play. Is this a dagger that I see before me? Now, you all know what a Scottish play is, I’m sure. Of course. It’s a tale about playing bagpipes. Bonnie Prince Macbeth goes over the sea to Skye. Is this his dagger? Now I ask you, why doesn’t the fellow know? Overrated is Shakespeare. Will Shakespeare – that’s my name too. Not the Shakespeare. Lamb. Will Lamb. Lamb’s tales from Shakespeare.

  ‘There’s that dagger again. I can see it, you can see it. Why can’t this fellow Macbeth? I mean, a playwright has to be realistic, or he gets nowhere. But what else can you expect from a dead author? They’re not around to grumble at.’

  Despite himself, Auguste found himself laughing with the audience. The Mob suspended animosity for the duration of Will’s act, and were noisily guffawing with a different kind of laughter in their own testament to Will, as the dagger danced merrily on the end of its string.

  Auguste watched Will’s antics until he could not see for tears running from his eyes. He drew out his handkerchief, impatient not to miss anything. Through the mist of his eyes, he saw Will Lamb’s lunge towards the dagger, saw him miss it. Will looked wildly round at the audience, his hand outflung and drawn back again. He turned his back in high disdain: ‘Who wants a silly old dagger anyway?’ The dagger promptly danced above his head, retreated bashfully once more as Will went to grasp it, then dropped to the floor, hovering there, just as Will stumbled, tripped, and fell upon it.

  The applause rang out, but Will did not get up to receive it. Auguste registered first the silence, the moment’s stillness when there should be the beginnings of movement. Did he shout then, or not until he saw the red splash, realised the curious curve of Will’s body? His shout brought footsteps running from the wings, and even as he himself jumped up, the curtain fell. With leaden feet, as in a dream, he rushed backstage followed by Nettie. Someone called for a doctor, even as Auguste, pushing onlookers away, stared down at Miguel crouched over the body. Miguel looked up at him. ‘I fear he is dead.’

  But the lips moved, and Miguel dropped his head to listen, blocking Auguste’s view. By the time he too was on his knees, Will Lamb was indeed dead, and only Miguel could have heard his last words.

  Chapter Five

  Someone screamed. The sound died in the appalled silence.

  Behind the hastily dropped curtain even the Shadwell Mob were quiet, and the audience shifted restlessly at this abrupt change of mood, still not convinced that the clown would not get up to take his bow. By the body, Auguste slowly rose to his feet, pulling Miguel after him. There was no doubt in his mind now. Will Lamb was dead. Nettie, kept back with the others, pulled herself free, and ran to them. He could hear her stage coster costume rustling. She looked down expressionlessly at the body of her friend, and then at Auguste.

  ‘The dagger?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But it couldn’t be.’ The stage manager, spearheading his small band of four backstage staff, hurried to defend his own. ‘It was nothing to do with us,’ he gabbled wildly.

  ‘Calm yourself, monsieur,’ Auguste said gently. ‘You must talk to the police.’ Egbert would be here soon enough, the news would have reached him by now.

  These words may
have calmed the stage manager, but they had the opposite effect on Percy Jowitt whose paper-white face peered over Nettie’s shoulder. ‘Police? But it must have been an accident – the blade must have stuck, not retreated back into the sheath?’ There was desperate appeal in his eyes, but no one reassured him. Least of all Egbert Rose, now hurrying from the wings towards the group.

  ‘This is not your department, Inspector,’ Percy moaned. ‘We are beyond such matters as debt collection, I fear.’

  Rose ignored him. ‘Off the stage please, everyone but Mr Didier.’ It was a vain hope as more of the Old King Cole company arrived led by Evangeline, rushing in importantly.

  ‘My husband wishes to know what is hap— he’s still there! Oh . . .’ The sight of Will’s motionless body sent her into a scream that hit the top G more effectively than her rendering of ‘Marble Halls’. Emmeline, all her sobbing fairies, the twins and Fernando peered curiously at the body. The fairies and the twins promptly burst into tears, but Emmeline and Fernando kept silent. Apart from them, standing by herself, was Nettie, her body rigid, her face expressionless – or so Auguste thought until he caught her eye by chance and saw there just for a second the private woman, never suspected on stage, but who gave her the strength to fight the world, and who was grieving for a beloved friend.

  ‘Do you have a telephone here?’ Egbert demanded of Jowitt.

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘You’re not sure?’

  ‘Bailiffs, you know.’ Jowitt trembled. ‘A misunderstanding over payment. So unfair.’

  ‘Then let’s find out. Now, Mr Didier, stay here, if you please. Everyone else into the dressing-rooms, please. Miss Turner, Mr Jowitt, see to it, will you?’

  Nettie said nothing, but instantly set about obeying, with only Emmeline resisting.

  ‘Why?’ She stuck her hands truculently on her plump hips.

  ‘Because, miss, I’ll arrest you if you don’t.’

  ‘You’re only a cook.’

  Egbert gazed at her, nonplussed. ‘I’m a Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard.’ His tone of voice did not invite contradiction.

  ‘What have you been doing here, then?’ There was hostility in Evangeline’s voice, and in the faces of all around.

  ‘Yard business.’ Not theirs, he implied. ‘This is going to be part of it.’ He looked quietly down at Will’s body.

  Was it part of it? Auguste was left with the softly hissing gas lights, and the hunched horror at his feet. There was nothing to connect the Navigator’s cross with Will’s death, yet two major but independent crimes in one week both connected with the Old King Cole seemed unlikely. But then unlikely things did occur. Someone had wished Will dead, and despite efforts to keep him away, that someone had succeeded. The life of a generous, talented man had been snuffed out, and he, Auguste Didier, had been unable to prevent it. In the last resort, he tried to reason, murder would always find its way to its victim, if it were determined enough. No obstacle put in its way could ultimately prevent it. But here, alone, he wept that it should be so.

  ‘I’m letting the audience go home, Auguste.’ Egbert was quickly back. ‘Just as soon as Grey’s men get here. They can take names and addresses – if those ruffians out there part with them – but I can’t see I’m justified in holding the whole audience.’ He grinned slightly. ‘I told old Jowitt they ought to have their money back. He’s not too keen on the idea.’

  ‘Grey?’

  ‘Stepney Division. Stitch is on his way too.’

  ‘Good.’

  Egbert raised an eyebrow. ‘Get you a badge, shall I? KOT? Keen on Twitch?’

  ‘Inspector Stitch can be an asset,’ Auguste replied with dignity. ‘For certain tasks,’ he qualified.

  ‘Mr Rose, this geezer says he wants to see yer.’ Lizzie, eyes shining, hurried across the stage, dragging a youth with a shock of red curls underneath his ancient cap. She gave him a friendly dig in the ribs with her elbow. He grinned, then his eyes widened, and he tore off his cap as he looked down at the floor of the stage. Lizzie looked down too. ‘Oo-er! He’s dead,’ she whispered.

  Auguste turned to her, but the youth forestalled her, putting his arm round her waist.

  ‘It’s Mr Lamb. I never realised,’ she wailed. ‘How’d he do that, poor old blighter? Git that arm orf.’

  It was removed.

  ‘I regret it looks as if someone did it for him, Lizzie.’

  ‘What do you want, lad?’ Egbert asked impatiently.

  ‘Laundry.’

  Egbert’s eyes sharpened. ‘Ma Bisley?’

  ‘Yus. I’m Joe. Here.’ He handed over a small bag.

  Egbert Rose eyed him thoughtfully. ‘Right, Joe.’ He frogmarched him to the wings. ‘See that door?’ He pointed to Will’s dressing-room. ‘Stand guard over it. No one goes in, no one.’

  ‘Yessir.’ Joe glanced back. ‘Tomorrow, miss?’ he whispered mysteriously to Lizzie.

  Lizzie tossed her slight figure in something that in another might have been coquettishly. ‘After I done the kippers.’

  ‘Back to the kitchen, Lizzie,’ Auguste commanded gently. ‘This is no place for you.’

  She hesitated. ‘I could help yer find ’im.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The geezer wot dun this. Ain’t right.’

  ‘It might have been an accident, Lizzie.’

  ‘Garn. That’s why you’re ’ere, ain’t it? I could tell you wasn’t a cook.’

  Auguste blenched. ‘Indeed?’

  ‘Never made a mutton pie in yer life. I tasted one of them you did today. Mind you, you got the makings.’

  ‘Off!’ Egbert interposed, seeing Auguste struggling for words.

  Lizzie saluted smartly – and obeyed.

  Rose gave all his attention hastily to Ma Bisley’s bag. It contained no laundry, merely a sketch. A sketch of a pin man – with what appeared to be a sword of Damocles hanging perilously over his head.

  The dressing-rooms were oddly quiet, when Auguste, at Egbert’s bidding, went to check the company was still assembled there. In the women’s room fairies sat disconsolately on the floor, Mariella perched on a table, Nettie sat in state like a gaoler at the door, and Dolly sobbed quietly in one corner with Evangeline’s arm round her. The twins forlornly held hands. The men’s dressing-room contained Miguel, who stood, arms crossed, while Fernando watched him with a puzzled expression. Orsini and Clarence Bishop had arrived early for their second-half appearances, and clearly wished they hadn’t. It was too early for Max to have arrived. The stage manager and his gallant band of helpers stayed apart from the performers, as unwritten etiquette required.

  ‘Mr Brodie and Mr Pickles?’ Auguste asked Jowitt.

  ‘Already left,’ Percy said uninterestedly. ‘Mr Pickles has an engagement at the Ratcliffe Metropole and Mr Brodie at the Lyle.’

  Not helpful, Auguste reasoned. While those that appeared in the second half could reasonably be exonerated from having tampered with the dagger, those in the first half most certainly could not – unless the tampering had taken place last night.

  Outside, he could hear the arrival of new voices, voices attached to heavy boots, what’s more. He hurried out, to see whether it was Grey’s men or Twitch’s. It turned out to be both.

  Twitch’s face fell at this double blow after encountering Grey in the street outside. ‘Evening, Mr Didier,’ he said viciously. This French chap was always turning up on his patch. The man with him, who fixed Auguste with a baleful eye, must be Inspector Grey, Auguste realised, wondering why he was ignoring him; then he realised that with his cook’s apron he was probably being taken for a part of a music-hall turn.

  ‘Evening, Grey,’ Rose greeted him, as Auguste led them through to the stage. ‘Another body for you, and this one’s no casual. I take it you’ve no objection to my taking over? Jointly, of course.’

  Objections Grey had in plenty at seeing the crown of glory so expertly whisked away. He opened his mouth to express them.

  ‘Be a
pity if it turned out to be linked to that other matter,’ Rose continued. ‘The Palace would not be happy with any of us.’

  Grey closed his mouth again. The Palace was one thing, but the Section Superintendent, who would undoubtedly be on the side of Majesty, was quite another.

  Auguste quietly returned to the dressing-rooms after a word with Joe, still guarding Will’s dressing-room as though the whole of the Shadwell Mob armed with knobkerries were about to batter it down. The Stepney and Scotland Yard men were taking over now. He had officially nothing to do. Doctors and photographers would be hard at work, while Rose and Grey conferred. What he could do was ask that burning question that remained still to be answered. He made his way to the dressing-rooms but he was not to be allowed to ask it, for Rose noticed his absence.

  ‘Mr Didier,’ he yelled.

  Auguste rushed guiltily back.

  ‘I want the stage manager and flymen now.’

  Auguste flew back to the dressing-room to summon them, whence three men, the stage manager and two flymen, emerged as if expecting instant execution.

  ‘Stop that!’ barked Rose as the doctor appeared to be about to remove the dagger.

  Grey looked alert. ‘Fingerprints?’

  ‘Mine will be on it,’ bleated the stage manager and underlings almost in unison. The Strand Magazine had made everyone aware of the infinite possibilities of medical scientific evidence.

  Will now lay face upwards, eyes staring in reproach at his would-be protector, or so it seemed to Auguste. Less than an hour earlier he had been helplessly laughing at the man whose corpse now lay before him. Where were those laughs now? He jerked himself back to practical matters. There was the only way to help Will now.