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

  ‘And you didn’t hear them through the wall?’

  ‘No. Only voices.’

  ‘Male or female?’

  ‘I think one of each, but, as I said, I wasn’t concentrating on that. I had a visitor too. The woman might have been the Portuguese tart.’

  ‘Mariella Gomez?’

  ‘Correct, Mr Didier. It was her got poor old Will here in the first place.’

  ‘Not Mr Jowitt?’

  ‘I don’t know whose idea it was, but I do know it was that Jezebel who persuaded him. Will told me she’d come to see him.’

  She remembered Harry had boasted that it had been his idea to get Will back at the Old King Cole. She grimaced. That’s who her visitor had been, and it had not been pleasant. Threats, whines, and more threats. And not just against her, she recalled uneasily. Still, Harry wasn’t so daft as really to be jealous of Will, was he? He must know how keen Will was on Mariella. Just what had Harry been playing at? It wasn’t in Mariella’s interest to kill Will, but Harry – if he was crazy enough – just might have thought it in his.

  Violet and Marigold sniffled inelegantly into handkerchiefs. ‘Now we’ve missed our turn at the Shadwell Grand,’ Violet sobbed. ‘We’ll be blacklisted. What’s going to become of us now Will’s gone?’

  ‘How does that affect you?’ Egbert Rose asked mildly.

  ‘He was our friend,’ they cried in unison.

  ‘Enough of a friend for you to pop in and see him before the performance tonight?’

  They regarded him in astonishment. ‘That was last night. Mr Didier was there.’

  Egbert lifted an eyebrow at Auguste, who nodded.

  ‘Did you notice where he kept the dagger while you were there?’

  ‘No,’ very firmly. ‘Anyway, why should we want to kill darling Will? He was going to help us. My sister is expecting a little foreigner,’ Violet added in hushed tones.

  ‘Gomez?’ asked Rose.

  ‘A baby,’ Violet explained impatiently.

  ‘And Will was the father?’

  ‘Oh no!’ Marigold looked horrified. ‘But he was going to give us money to keep us all, and get Violet a turn at the Tivoli and the Alhambra and the—’

  ‘Might I ask who is the father, then?’ Rose cut in. You never knew, it might be relevant.

  ‘One might not,’ Marigold replied tartly.

  Evangeline was not quite such tough meat – metaphorically speaking, at any rate. The large handkerchief at her eyes proclaimed her grief.

  ‘Did you visit Mr Lamb in his dressing-room before the performance began, Mrs Yapp?’

  ‘I did not. That man –’ she looked scornfully at Auguste, ‘– refused to let me in. Yesterday he came between Will and me. I think he did this terrible thing himself.’

  ‘Mr Didier was only trying to do his best for Mr Lamb.’ Egbert kept a straight face.

  ‘I loved him, and he adored me.’

  Auguste kept a discreet silence.

  ‘Mr Lamb?’

  ‘Certainly I speak of Mr Lamb. I am the reason he returned to the Old King Cole. Did you not realise that?’

  ‘No,’ said Egbert simply. Nor did he believe it.

  ‘My husband naturally was –’ Evangeline grew a little pink, torn between the excitement of being fought over and practical self-survival which told her that in the unavoidable permanent absence of Will Lamb, she would once again be needing the services of Thomas Yapp ‘– very fond of Will,’ she finished lamely.

  Mariella swept graciously into Rose’s makeshift office with the air of a tragic heroine.

  ‘I understand Will Lamb was a friend of yours.’

  ‘A dear, dear friend.’

  ‘Did you see him before the performance tonight?’

  She hesitated fractionally. Auguste could almost see her weighing up pros and cons. ‘Yes,’ she said brightly. ‘I fear my husband was not pleased, but Will and I were great friends. Will was a kind man, but I could not give him the love he so desperately sought.’ She opened large blue piteous eyes. ‘Find his murderer,’ she ordered.

  ‘Oh, we will, miss. So you had no plans to – er – deepen that friendship here?’

  ‘I am a married woman.’ She spoke with dignity.

  ‘Was it you suggested he come here?’

  ‘No, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘Yet Mr Didier tells me you were the one sent to ask him.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she agreed fervently, casting Mr Didier a filthy look, and then a second, less antagonistic one. ‘I believe it was felt I might have most influence. His landlady was present, naturally. It would have been most improper otherwise for me to have visited him in his rooms.’

  ‘And naturally, there was nothing improper in your relationship with him?’

  ‘Oh no, Inspector.’ She raised shocked eyes to him. The eyes that lingered appraisingly on Auguste did not display shock at all.

  ‘Then I won’t keep you from your birthday celebrations any longer,’ Rose cordially informed her.

  She rose with great alacrity, only asking in some puzzlement, ‘My what, Inspector?’

  The rumpus outside the temporary office grew too loud to ignore. Shouting men was one thing, a bawling youngster was quite another. Especially one that Auguste recognised all too clearly. Outside he found Little Emmeline, squaring up pugnaciously to Grey’s best men, and not, for the second time, getting her own way. Miguel had been extremely reluctant to buy her a bust improver, when she proposed this in return for her silence. Six fairies were prudently keeping a discreet distance away.

  ‘What’s this all about, little girl?’ Rose inquired impatiently.

  ‘Little girl’ were not words likely to fly straight to the heart, if deep down one lay buried, of Little Emmeline. She fixed Rose with a vicious eye. ‘You’re really a copper?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Then tell these geezers I want my property out of there.’ She jerked her finger towards Will’s dressing-room.

  ‘And what property do you have in there, might I ask?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘Then you can’t have it.’ Rose prepared to close the door, and Emmeline hastily reconsidered and changed tactics. She wept.

  ‘It’s something I hid in there, something private.’

  ‘What?’ Rose asked.

  She sobbed unrelenting. ‘A red corset.’

  Rose guffawed, and not knowing the reason, Emmeline naturally took it amiss. She reverted to character and screamed with temper.

  ‘You’re a silly old man, and I know something you don’t know.’

  ‘You must tell the Inspector, Emmeline,’ Auguste said firmly, ‘if it’s about Will Lamb.’

  ‘Only if I get my corset back,’ Emmeline crowed in high glee.

  ‘Tell us what it’s doing in Will Lamb’s room first. Did he borrow it?’

  Emmeline stared at him in amazement. ‘Whatever for? I hid it there, silly.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I needed a hiding-place. No one would look there.’

  ‘Now tell me what you know about Will Lamb.’

  ‘He was running away at the end of the week with Mariella,’ Emmeline said impatiently.

  Rose glanced at Auguste. ‘You’re sure? How did you know?’

  ‘Everyone knows,’ Emmeline replied innocently.

  ‘Auguste,’ Rose said briskly, ‘go and get this nice young lady her corset.’

  The Old King Cole by drab early morning light was shorn even of the distancing mystery and excitement lent to it by the lighting flares that beckoned so enticingly on the theatre front by night. Even the Shadwell fish market had lost its appeal this Thursday morning, as Auguste finished ordering his modest requirements and returned to the theatre to meet Egbert. Silent and grey, the building smelled of stale tobacco and unwashed plates, a fact Lizzie was already busy rectifying, cheerfully singing ‘Beautiful Dreamer’ while she did so. Auguste’s arrival brought an instant halt to her song as she guiltily remembered Mr Lamb.r />
  ‘I told me dad,’ she greeted him. ‘He was ever so sorry; he remembered him here in the old days. And Miss Turner. But he said it was no more than could be expected ’ere on the old ’Ighway. There were this sailor,’ she explained lugubriously, ‘who started killing folks. A poor old draper and his wife and tiny little baby, and then other geezers. Everyone locked their doors and there were lots, lots more ’orrible murders. They got him,’ she finished with relish.

  ‘As we shall find the murderer of Will Lamb.’

  ‘I ’ope you’re a better rozzer than cook,’ she said lugubriously.

  ‘Lizzie, I am indeed a cook, even though you do not approve of my pies. We are both artistes, you and I, in our own way. But I also assist Inspector Rose in some of his cases, like this one. So I cannot be present to assist you,’ he put it diplomatically.

  ‘Mibow will.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Me beau. I’m allowed to have followers, ain’t I?’ She stuck her chin out aggressively. ‘I’m a woman.’

  Auguste looked at Lizzie, the new dress nowhere to be seen, the new apron carefully shielded by the ragged old one. Hair stuck out in lumps under the cap and above the shining hopefulness of Lizzie’s eyes.

  ‘You are indeed a woman, Lizzie,’ he informed her. ‘And if the follower is the gentleman you met last evening, you have my full approval.’

  Lizzie giggled. ‘Garn.’

  Horace Brodie and Harry Pickles glared at each other outside what had been Percy’s office, and was not commandeered by the law. The rapport of the previous evening was over. They had virtually collided on the doorstep, summoned by Grey’s men to attend the Old King Cole this morning. Brodie took it as a natural tribute that his presence was requested. He had seen the news of Will’s death blazoned in his morning newspaper, and was thus hardly surprised at the summons.

  ‘My movements, Inspector. Certainly. My humble turn is usually fourth on the bill here, but due to exceptional rowdiness last night, I decided to play earlier.’

  ‘Isn’t that Mr Jowitt’s decision?’

  Brodie frowned his displeasure. ‘Normally, yes. At the Old King Cole, however, we tend to fix such matters ourselves. Old Jowitt tends to have money on his mind,’ he added confidentially.

  ‘So you were at the theatre early?’

  ‘I usually am. It is my first engagement of the evening. I then leave for the Lyle in Cable Street immediately after my turn.’

  ‘Did you have any reason to see Mr Lamb in his dressing-room before or during the performance?’

  Brodie looked surprised. ‘No. I remained in the dressing-room so far as I recall.’

  ‘Anyone see you in there?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’ He looked supremely bored. ‘Various people wandered in and out. You could ask Mr Pickles.’

  ‘I will.’ Rose didn’t take to Brodie. ‘And you weren’t here when Mr Lamb was killed?’

  ‘No. Usually I take a cab to my next engagement, timing being right, but with more time at my disposal I decided to walk. This is my good-bye to the dear old place, my last week here. Percy will see me no more. The thorn in Mr Pickles’ side is about to be removed.’

  Rose began to see Pickles’ point of view.

  Until he talked to Pickles. He’d met the type many times before. Hail fellow well met, but a shifty look in the eye that made you hang on to your wallet.

  ‘Did you go to see Will Lamb before the show started, Mr Pickles?’

  ‘How could I do that?’ he snarled. ‘I were on first.’

  ‘He was alone for some time before the curtain rose.’

  ‘What would I want to see him for? Couldn’t stand the bloke.’

  ‘So you weren’t in favour of his coming back here?’

  A silence while Pickles mulled this over. ‘I was,’ he said at last. ‘Thought Nettie’d come too.’

  ‘She was very friendly with Will Lamb, then?’

  ‘She weren’t that friendly,’ her loving husband snarled, ‘and he’s a liar that says so.’

  Rose changed tack. ‘And what time did you leave yesterday?’

  ‘Same as normal. After my turn. Or a bit later, maybe. In time for my turn at the Shadwell Palace, anyway.’

  ‘Anyone vouch for your movements before the curtain rose?’ Rose asked mildly.

  ‘Yus. Nettie.’

  ‘For all the thirty minutes or so Will Lamb was alone?’

  ‘Probably.’ He grinned.

  Fernando was a refreshingly straightforward change after Brodie and Pickles. ‘Me no like Will Lamb,’ he told Rose confidingly.

  ‘Why’s that, Mr Fernando?’

  ‘He take Mariella away.’

  ‘Only with her consent, I’m sure.’

  Fernando’s face darkened as he grappled with this idea. ‘No,’ he decided.

  ‘Did you visit Will Lamb in his dressing-room before the performance yesterday?’

  Fernando stared at him, puzzled, and shook his head. ‘Fernando no remember.’ He thought about Will Lamb with some pleasure. Now he was dead, Mariella would stay here where he could see her. That was all he cared about.

  Down below, Percy Jowitt sat miserably in his new temporary office, which he was sharing with a ventriloquist’s dummy left behind by some performer years before and never reclaimed. He left it there, because it might come in useful some day, you never knew. That’s if he had a theatre left, which looked increasingly unlikely. No Wednesday takings and no Will Lamb on the programme tonight. Suddenly there came the sound of the stage door opening and a booming female voice shouting. ‘Anyone here?’

  He had to play butler in his own theatre now. Percy gloomily went out to investigate. From outside came the sound of a carriage rattling away, having disgorged its occupant. But the sight before him occupied his whole attention. Waving a threatening umbrella was a tall middle-aged woman of commanding physique, richly dressed in a Worth gown, covered in expensive furs. Moreover she was a familiar-looking woman.

  ‘Where’s the manager?’

  He pulled himself together and straightened up. ‘At your service, ma’am.’ Didn’t he know that voice? ‘Percy Jowitt.’

  ‘Well, Mr Jowitt, I’ve come to step into the breach, as you might say. I shall do Will Lamb’s turn.’

  His eyes glazed over. ‘Very good of you, ma’am,’ he said weakly. One Evangeline was enough; as he would hardly expect this grand lady to do a comedy act with a dagger, it seemed likely grand opera was her forte.

  ‘Don’t you recognise me, man?’ she asked impatiently.

  ‘Naturally, madam, but my programme is full,’ he ad-libbed hastily.

  ‘Nonsense. It’s got a huge hole, you’re going bankrupt, man, and I’m stepping in. No two ways about it.’

  ‘But who—?’

  ‘I’m the Magnificent Masher.’

  Percy’s rheumy eyes almost wept at his good fortune, as he speedily vacated his office, ceding it to Lady Westland. He bounced with every excited step, as optimism returned. Almost dancing, and certainly humming in his joy, he set out first to find himself a new office, and then instantly to design a new poster: The Return of the Magnificent Masher. At last, the true potential of the Old King Cole would be appreciated by the press. He spared a passing thought for the unfortunate occurrence that had given rise to this happy event, and salved his conscience by persuading himself that Will, as a man of the theatre, would be spurring him on. He owed it to Will to make the most of the increasing presence of newspapermen outside his beloved theatre.

  Now, where should his office be? A small props cupboard somewhere? The water closet? He stopped abruptly. Standing inside the front door were two gentlemen identically clad in brown bowler hats, green checked trousers and jackets, and brightly coloured spotted waistcoats. His mouth dropped open.

  One swept off his hat. ‘We’re your new turn,’ he growled.

  ‘I don’t need any new turns,’ Percy cried faintly.

  ‘Yes, you do, laddie.’

  Perc
y Jowitt gazed at them. What was the world coming to?

  ‘We’re bailiffs, you see,’ his companion added.

  Percy Jowitt saw immediately. ‘I’m delighted to welcome you to the Old King Cole,’ he told them despairingly.

  Chapter Six

  Auguste sniffed the air appreciatively. It was not, he admitted, the best air in London, being rather full of the less inviting riverside smells, but after the gloom of the Old King Cole this morning, it was like Escoffier’s Carlton kitchen. Moreover, as he turned into a narrow street leading to Cable Street, enticing smells of luncheon from the terraced houses on both sides of the street beguiled him. Were he to investigate further, he consoled himself, those smells, once traced to their source, would probably be of far less interest. When he returned last night, he had not been hungry – fortunately. John had not left a fricassee, nor even his soup de Crecy. He had left a selection of cold meats, left over, he suspected, from the servants’ roast luncheon. The Duke of Davenport had obviously been a long-suffering man.

  In Cable Street, he passed a small Italian eating-house in which, as he peered curiously in, Signora was doing the cooking, and the array of ingredients lined up suggested a visit might well be worthwhile – if unconducive to detection work. Egbert had once again left the Old King Cole, and this was a good opportunity to follow up an idea of his own. True, Twitch would be on the same trail too in the course of routine, but this did not concern him greatly.

  The Lyle was built on a grander scale than the Old King Cole, its imposing turrets promising much that its interior failed to provide. It had obviously buried its ambitions and was content with the same standard of clientele as the Old King Cole, judging by the shabbiness, and, more importantly, its inferior eating-room. Auguste averted his eyes from the unappetising array of cold pies and tired sausages, and concentrated on his task. The system of music-hall bookings, and the lack of anyone at the Old King Cole, at least, to monitor arrivals, together with the chaotic comings and goings backstage meant that it was going to be difficult to work out who had and who had not been at the theatre in time to tamper with the dagger before the performance, and also be there to carry out the search of Will’s dressing-room while he was on stage. As difficult as disentangling the ingredients of a tapenade sauce from its taste.