Murder in the Limelight Read online

  ‘Tell you what, Auguste, you’re not so bad, for a Frenchman.’

  ‘You do me too much honour, chérie,’ he murmured. ‘But do not forget, I had an English mother.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true,’ said Maisie prosaically, and Auguste laughed to himself. Lovely Maisie. Lovely, cuddly, dependable, oh so English Maisie, with her full breasts, ample figure and generous loving heart. ‘You don’t think she went to France then, to the Folies Bergères? That’s what she was always boasting she would do.’

  ‘No, I think not, ma chérie. She was not the type, that Christine, to go to a foreign land on her own.’

  ‘With someone then? And anyway, Auguste, why should that have any effect on us here now?’

  ‘I do not know. But something, just something, is making this lovely mayonnaise of a theatre curdle.’

  Another custom instituted by Robert Archibald for the good of his company – and his plays – was the company luncheon. For, so his straightforward thinking went, if the company and stage hands were together for this meal, the resultant unity would weld them together for afternoon and evening – and however long it took to get the dress rehearsal perfect.

  The restaurant, all that Monday morning a silent empty cave, was suddenly full of life as chorus girls, show girls and principals erupted into it, filling the air with scents that vied fiercely with the aromas emanating from Auguste’s kitchen. If they were on edge for the rehearsal that afternoon – or for any other reason – they gave no hint of it as they settled at the long tables set out thus to unify the company. Yet it was noticeable that however democratic the theory, in practice principals sat in due order of precedence, the chorus and show girls and musicians well below the salt, the stage staff at another table by unspoken agreement.

  ‘Mr Brian.’ Florence Lytton paused behind the chair occupied by the young pianist. ‘Do you think my marionette song at the end of the second act – just a little slower, perhaps? Like this – pa, pa, pa, pa, pa pom!’

  This had been a controversial issue throughout rehearsal. But who could resist an appeal from Florence Lytton? No one. Not even Percy Brian, though his preferences lay in another direction altogether from the pretty flaxen-haired blue-eyed heroine of the play. So – even though it would annoy Edward – Percy wavered. His eyes went momentarily to Edward Hargreaves, the composer and leader of the band, listening stonily to a show girl’s chatter. He would placate Edward at home tonight. He could talk Edward into anything.

  ‘I do dislike asking,’ Florence added disarmingly.

  She did indeed, for she liked to be liked. Not that there was any difficulty about that. She was the darling of the Galaxy gods and had only to trip on to a stage, pause delightfully for that moment of applause and breathless anticipation, then sing in her beguiling, tremulous voice – and the house was at her feet. Everybody loved Florence, even the manager, an unusual state of affairs for the London theatre and one of which Archibald, recipient of the tantrums of Florence’s predecessors, was devoutly glad. Her husband too loved Florence.

  Yet Auguste, superintending the arrival of le turbot, noticed that for once Thomas Manley’s eyes were not on his wife. Seated several places away, he was talking with unusual animation to one of the show girls.

  ‘I think your best moment’s in the third act,’ said Edna Purvis with practised artless charm. ‘When you come on like that, singing “Take my heart, little bird” – oh, it’s wonderful. You look so – so—’

  ‘Do you really think so?’ Thomas’s good-looking face, reminiscent of a Greek god ranking rather junior in the Olympian hierarchy, flushed with gratification.

  ‘I do. Why, if you were my husband I’d—’

  She broke off in maidenly confusion, leaving Thomas to reflect that, wonderful though Florence was, all too often he found himself telling her how beautiful she looked without receiving any reciprocal assurances, and that her – quite understandable – exhaustion after a performance contrasted rather sharply with Edna’s playful exuberance. Momentarily he imagined himself in bed with the handsome Miss Purvis, then hastily dismissed the idea, shocked at his thoughts. Florence was his sweetheart, his wife, his only love. All the same, Edna’s obvious admiration was very pleasant. He edged his chair very slightly closer so that in adjusting his napkin his hands might accidentally brush her satin-clad thigh.

  He hastily restored his hand to a more proper position when he noticed Herbert Sykes’ watchful eye on him. Herbert’s total devotion to Florence was well known. Her bull-dog, Florence called him, giggling about her admirer. Poor Herbert; he always looked so sad, so deadly serious, yet he had only to walk on stage and make the slightest gesture for the house to collapse with laughter. Like the great Grimaldi, he did not need words for his art. He was one of nature’s natural clowns. Thomas didn’t resent his paying attention to Florence. There could, after all, be no danger from Herbert. At only five foot two inches, and aged around forty, his roly poly figure typecast him for the role of unrequited lover. All the same, there was something in Herbert’s eyes that made Thomas uneasy. What, after all, did they know about him? Was he married? Where did he live? He said nothing about himself – and somehow Thomas had never liked to ask.

  ‘Mr Sykes,’ Florence appealed to Herbert and he was instantly all watchful attention. ‘Do you not agree with me? The dance in the last act—’

  ‘A trifle heavy, Miss Lytton. Like Mr Didier’s puddings.’

  Everybody laughed – except Auguste, who frowned. Not so much at the slur on his puddings, perhaps not quite his forte, but because it was not like Herbert to make a joke that might hurt, that smacked of impoliteness. The Galaxy was a united company.

  Wasn’t it?

  ‘For you, miss.’

  Props pressed his daily floral tribute into Florence’s hand and, as was usual, darted away.

  ‘Props!’

  This time Robert Archibald’s roar stopped him.

  He turned slowly in his tracks, apparently unwilling to face his master, or perhaps Miss Lytton. A rather weaselly-featured, tall, thin young man, William Ferndale gawped helplessly in the presence of his idol, tongue-tied at being forced from the shadows.

  Robert Archibald came panting up the corridor. ‘Dolls, Props.’

  Props blinked.

  ‘Two missing.’

  Still Props said nothing.

  ‘There are two dolls missing,’ repeated Archibald patiently.

  Props stood, twisting his hands nervously together.

  ‘I’m not blaming you, Props. Just find them,’ said Archibald firmly.

  ‘A-a-all there this m-morning, Mr Archibald,’ Props managed to stutter, with an air of finality. Props was as perfectionist in his way as Mr Archibald in his.

  ‘I don’t doubt it. But they’re not now. Find them.’ It was a command. Props, interpreting the tone aright, hastened through the wings to the stage to check the set, muttering to himself in bewilderment.

  He had checked only the left-hand shelves when a scream pierced the air, silencing the chatter in the chorus girls’ and show girls’ dressing rooms, and percolating to the far side of the theatre where the men’s dressing rooms were situated.

  Identifying the shriek through experience, Thomas rushed down the stairs and, ignoring protocol, up the steps towards his wife’s dressing room. Props too identified the source and stood gazing up the staircase. Even Obadiah Bates came out of the stage door keeper’s cubbyhole, though without abandoning his post totally. A female scream was not worth that dereliction of duty.

  Auguste Didier, interrupted in the midst of a boudin de volaille, followed Thomas up the steps, his curiosity for once overcoming the exigencies of his art.

  Florence was standing at the door of her room, her dresser in mild hysterics by her side. She was staring at the mantelshelf, where a goodwill offering had been placed ready to greet her as she came into the room.

  One of the missing dolls was found. But Props would have his work cut out before she could adorn t
he set of Mr Hoggis’s toyshop once more. For the doll had been neatly strangled, its china head split open and half twisted from its torso. Its arms had been torn out of the flimsy muslin dress in order that they might be neatly crossed and tied across its breast.

  ‘It’s just a nasty practical joke, my dear,’ said Robert Archibald comfortingly to a distraught Florence, who was sitting with Thomas’ arm around her shoulders and taking calming sips of Auguste’s camomile tea.

  ‘Yes,’ he repeated, as if convincing himself, ‘that’s what it was, a practical joke.’

  ‘But why me?’ wailed Florence afresh. ‘Why me?’ She looked piteously at Thomas, then at Archibald, then at Auguste.

  None of them could supply the answer.

  A thoughtful Auguste made his way downstairs, leaving Robert Archibald surreptitiously regarding the pocket watch he held in one hand, and patting Florence ineffectually on the back with the other. Seeing Obadiah still standing at the doorway of his cubbyhole, Auguste instinctively paused, the detective in him coming to the fore. Then he reconsidered. He was a chef, a maître, not a detective, good though he was at solving mysteries. On the other hand, just one or two questions perhaps . . .

  ‘Could anyone have come in from outside, Obadiah?’ he asked, having explained the reason for the commotion.

  ‘No one gets in past that door without my seeing. You know that, Mr Didier. And you, Miss Maisie,’ he added, seeing her come up behind Auguste. Maisie was a particular favourite of his, hence this sign of favour in addressing her by her Christian name. Invalided out of Roberts’ army in the Khyber Pass, he was now, at sixty, a veteran of the Galaxy, having manned the stage door with a fierce pride for the last fifteen years.

  He was as much an institution as the Galaxy Girls themselves. No stage door Johnnie escaped his gimlet eye. No trick they might invent for entering the forbidden precincts escaped him. He would sort out the good ’uns from the bad ’uns, give the girls invaluable advice about their escorts, rid them of unwanted admirers, and tactfully deal with broken hearts both sides of the stage door.

  ‘But are you sure, Obadiah? No errand boys, no outside people at all since this morning?’

  ‘No, Mr Didier. No one at all.’

  ‘So this – joke – must have been played by one of us. One of the company.’

  ‘No one would play a wicked trick like that,’ said Obadiah reprovingly. ‘Not at the Galaxy. And at a dress rehearsal?’

  ‘I thought we only held second place in your heart, Obadiah,’ laughed Maisie. It was an established theatre joke that Obadiah’s heart belonged principally over the road at the Lyceum, and that he had been broken-hearted when the opening of the restaurant had necessitated the moving of the Galaxy’s stage door to Catherine Street which meant he could no longer hope to see his idol, Henry Irving, walk along Wellington Street by the sacred portals of his theatre.

  ‘I’m part of the Galaxy, miss,’ said Obadiah with dignity.

  ‘But you don’t like the plays.’

  ‘I saw this new one on Saturday, miss. Saw Miss Lytton singing away: “If only you could hear . . .” I remember that. Then I had to get back – can’t trust these youngsters on the door for long.’

  ‘Did you enjoy it, though, Obadiah?’

  ‘You all looked very nice, Miss Maisie,’ he said carefully. ‘But give me something classical. King Lear now. “Howl, howl, howl, howl, howl”.’ His eyes strayed longingly in the direction of the Lyceum.

  Auguste laughed. ‘Half the doorkeepers in London would exchange places with you for no wages at all, just to be amongst the lovely ladies of the Galaxy.’

  Obadiah eyed him gloomily, then said kindly, ‘Of course, you’re French, Mr Didier,’ as though that explained it. ‘We’re like a family here, Mr Didier.’

  ‘Of which one member has a perverted sense of humour,’ observed Auguste thoughtfully.

  ‘Five minutes, Miss Lytton. Five minutes, ladies.’

  A concerted shriek went up from the dressing rooms, followed by: ‘My hare’s foot, where’s my hare’s foot?’

  ‘My osprey!’

  ‘My button hook!’

  The dovecote heaved under the turmoil as the Galaxy Girls fluttered into position.

  Florence, fingers still slightly trembling, adjusted a strand of hair and rose to her feet purposefully. The play depended on her. She must not give way.

  On the gentlemen’s side, Herbert Sykes averted his gaze from the mirror that told him remorselessly how unattractive he was, and that he could be of no interest whatsoever to Florence Lytton. But he made her laugh, he reminded himself stoutly. Manley never made her laugh. And, somewhat cheered, he left for the stage.

  In the orchestra pit Edward Hargreaves smoothed his sleeves nervously over his impeccable cuffs. He wished he didn’t have this horrible feeling that everything was going to go wrong. He enjoyed dress rehearsals normally as he enjoyed everything at the Galaxy – that is, when he could forget his awful fear that their secret might be discovered. It was all very well for Percy. He liked living dangerously.

  Robert Archibald had taken his seat in the stalls. He gave the signal to Hargreaves. The baton came down, the orchestra struck up and, at the piano, Percy Brian moistened his lips excitedly. Soon his fingers would be on the keys again, swept away in the wonder of his music – or rather Edward’s music. But it would be interpreted as only he, Percy Brian, could interpret it.

  Another dress rehearsal at the Galaxy was under way, and no one spared a thought for Christine Walters.

  ‘I’ve come to London town, my fortune here to seek . . .’

  A simply-clad girl in white bought a bunch of violets and placed them with a charming gesture in her bosom, before turning winningly to the ‘audience’ in order to confide that: ‘My fortune is not gold, but the love of a true sweetheart’.

  Thirty ladies and gentlemen of the chorus, resting their voices after their lusty opening, ‘Piccadilly Parade’, melted tactfully into the background, and thankfully away from the direct heat of the gas battens above them, to leave Florence to her discovery of the toyshop.

  In the wings Thomas Manley fell in love anew with his wife as she tripped lightly across the stage. Behind the backdrop Herbert dedicated himself once more to her service. In the stalls Robert Archibald nodded approvingly and thanked the gods for the lucky day that had sent him Florence.

  Waiting for her cue Edna looked jealously at Florence. She was lucky. She had everything, including Thomas Manley. Not that Edna wanted him. She was far too shrewd to waste time on a married man, and was determined to marry a peer. There was always the Honourable Johnny, of course, if the worst came to the worst, but he was only a younger son so there would be no title for him. Summerfield was a much better prospect. Summerfield – a slight feeling of unease took hold of her. Wasn’t there something –? Yes, Christine Walters. Christine and Summerfield. And afterwards Christine had gone away – to Paris, it was rumoured. Strange how unexpectedly she’d gone, after only two performances of Lady Bertha. Edna dismissed the thought and concentrated on funny old Herbert’s caperings on stage.

  ‘Quickly, young woman, her ladyship’s waiting. Get on with you.’

  Herbert was in the midst of displaying his comic genius as Mr Hoggis, the toyshop owner for whom Lady Penelope (in disguise, of course) works.

  Florence tripped lightly across the stage once more.

  Swept away by the tension and excitement of a new Galaxy play, no one was prepared for what they heard next. Not the dainty strains of one of Edward’s best tunes but yet another scream and gurgle from Florence’s pretty throat as she stared aghast at the thing in her hand. It fell to the floor with a thud. She turned as if in appeal to the darkened auditorium, her hands outstretched, then burst into tears and ran off the stage.

  Thomas reached the object first. The doll had its head half twisted off, a scarf viciously twisted round its neck, and for good measure a stage dagger stuck into its bosom in the V left between the two bound
, crossed hands.

  Chapter Two

  For once Auguste was not concentrating solely on the exciting task in hand: preparing a sauce for the chicken à la belle vue to be served at the banquet after the first night that evening. He was thinking back to the previous night. Not so much of Maisie – delightful though that had been – but of their conversation after they had returned to his small suite of rooms in lodgings at the end of Wellington Street.

  ‘I don’t like it, Auguste,’ Maisie had said, sitting on the bed and easing her feet out of their purple satin slippers with a sigh of satisfaction.

  Auguste looked at her worried, honest brown eyes and sat down beside her, taking her hand in his own.

  ‘Nor I, ma mie. Perhaps it is as Mr Archibald says, a practical joke.’

  ‘That’s all smoke, gammon and spinach! We’ve never had practical jokers before. Why now? Why that? Why Miss Lytton? She hasn’t any enemies. Everyone likes her. You should see some of the leading ladies I’ve worked with. More temperament than a pepper pot. But not Miss Lytton.’

  ‘Jealousy perhaps?’

  ‘Amongst us, you mean?’ she asked shrewdly. ‘The show girls and chorus girls? No. And even if one of us wanted to upset her, they’d choose something different. There’s a ton of tricks you can play, without being gruesome.’

  ‘There are many people in the theatre on a dress rehearsal day: errand boys, telegraph boys, fitters. Any one of them might have—’

  ‘But why?’ Maisie asked practically.

  ‘A rejected lover?’

  Maisie looked at him indignantly. ‘All round my ’at! You know Florence is devoted to Thomas. No one would get close enough to her even to be rejected.’

  She stopped suddenly as an unpleasant thought struck her. ‘Except – Auguste, you don’t think Props might have . . .?’ Her voice trailed off.

  Auguste considered. Props, with his well-known fanatical devotion to Florence Lytton. It was obvious he had only taken the job at the Galaxy to be near her, since he had been a furniture maker previously. Yet he never spoke to her, never approached her except to press a posy of violets into her hand. He was accepted as a harmless eccentric.