Peter Lovesey - Abracadaver

Comfortable now in bowler and flannels, Thackeray led the way along Kensington Palace Gardens to Philbeach House. A perfect autumn afternoon, the leaves flashing unbelievably crimson in their twisting descent. Really no occasion for Cribb to niggle over cab-fares. A uniformed nanny passed, pushing a three-wheeled pram. Thackeray raised his bowler, and she almost ran over the infant toddling in front.

‘I’m damned if you’re listening,’ said Cribb. ‘Where is this rest-home then? Time we get there, I’ll need somewhere to put my own feet up.’

Thackeray gave an artificial cough. ‘Told you it was a long way from the bus stop, Sarge.’ Privately he recalled Cribb’s dramatic statement at the beginning of the afternoon. ‘The Yard has watched and waited long enough. An immediate entry to this house is imperative. Time for action, Constable.’ So they set off at once to Westminster Bridge Road. And waited twenty minutes to take a three-penny bus ride to Kensington.

But the moment came when they stood importantly at the front door of Philbeach House and Cribb pulled the bell-handle. ‘Police,’ he announced to the manservant who fractionally opened the door. ‘Kindly inform the tenant, would you?’

The face had the scarred and brutalised look of an ex-pugilist. Comprehension dawned on it slowly. Dumbly it withdrew.

‘D’you hear anything?’ Cribb asked.

Thackeray removed his hat and put an ear to the door. ‘Sounds like singing, Sarge. Hymns, I expect. Sunday afternoon.’

Cribb disagreed. ‘Tommy Make Room for Your Uncle ain’t in my hymn-book.’

The face reappeared: ‘Mistress says come in.’

‘Mistress?’ Cribb mouthed the word, arched his eyebrows, snatched off his bowler and stepped forward. They were ushered ungraciously through a tiled hall, flanked by rows of wilting shrubs in brass pots polished to inspection standard. Framed music hall posters lined the walls like reward bills at Scotland Yard. From somewhere ahead of them the singing swelled into a chorus, emphatically not ecclesiastical. In another part of the house someone was hammering.

The servant shambled to a stop, leaned against a door and mumbled. ‘Then two coppers,’ as it opened. Then he turned about, shouldered the detectives aside as though they were baize drapes, and slouched away. If he was a former star of the halls he kept his talents well-hidden.

Cribb pushed the door further open and they entered a remarkable room. The obligatory drawing-room furniture was there: sideboard, table and chairs in ebonized mahogany; velveteen-covered arm-chairs and couches; piano, display-cabinet and screen. But the ornamentation was so unexpected that they stopped, momentarily stunned. Where there should have been some unobtrusive flock paper, the walls were hand-decorated with hundreds of individualised human faces staring expectantly inwards, a dazzling parade of pink and orange blotches, broken by shadowy patches representing hats, cravats and whiskers, and all becoming smaller and less prominent towards the ceiling to give the effect of depth. It was like straying on to a stage in front of a packed auditorium.

After that sensation came others. More faces, white, expressionless faces, a row of plaster death-masks under glass domes, ranged on the sideboard, one grotesquely decked in a crepe wig, another topped with an old silk hat. Each labelled in gilt with the name of a deceased star of the halls. The piano-top supporting a small army of egg-shells painted to represent yet more faces, miniatures of comedians and clowns in full make-up, with bits of horse-hair glued on for realism. And the cabinets cluttered with puppets and ventriloquists’ dummies, bolt-eyed, staring blankly ahead with the rest.

One face among the hundreds stirred. ‘Please step in. It is a little unnerving, I believe, if you are not a theatrical. Most of us are, at Philbeach, you see. My name is Body. Widowed, seven years. What is yours?’ She spoke from the centre of a large winged arm-chair, a doll-like figure enveloped in a black shawl, with the legs tucked out of sight on the chair-seat. The face was precise, finely moulded, radiant, though what was rouge and what the glow of firelight was impossible to tell. Hair too blonde to be natural framed the features in a profusion of curls, like a child-study by Reynolds.

‘Cribb, Ma’am. Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackeray. Checking on missing persons. I understand that this is a home for destitute music hall performers.’

‘That is correct.’ Mrs Body’s elocution, like her hair, was a fraction too fussy. ‘The singing you can hear is part of an entertainment they are rehearsing. One never really retires from the theatre, you know. The banging is not part of the performance. I have the gasman here.’

‘On Sunday, Ma’am? That’s irregular.’

‘Yes, but leaks of gas are no respecters of Lord’s Day observance. The gasman tells me it could be dangerous if neglected. Now please sit down and tell me how I can help you.’

Thackeray selected an upright chair to the side of the arm-chair Cribb took. Upholstered furniture seemed inappropriate to the rank of constable when solid woodwork was available. Mrs Body addressed him: ‘You are sitting on one of our most precious relics, Mr Thackeray. No, it is quite in order for you to use it. Do not get up. That is the very chair W. G. Ross used to sit on in the forties when he sang the Ballad of Sam Hall at the Cider Cellars.’

‘The condemned sweep,’ said Cribb.

‘You remember it! Splendid! Mr Cribb, you are a connoisseur of the variety stage, I declare!’

‘That would be overstating it, Ma’am. My interest in Sam Hall is more for his criminal record than his legend in song. It’s a fine collection of music hall items that you have, even so. Would that be a lime-tank doing service as a coal-scuttle in the grate, there?’

She clapped her hands. ‘You are knowledgeable! They must have sent you specially. I do hope I can help you find some of your missing persons and then you can keep coming back to talk to me.’

The Sergeant’s interrogations rarely took such a personal turn. Was that a touch of colour rising to his cheeks? Thackeray forbore from peering too closely. Firelight, surely.

Applause broke out in the room next door, strikingly raucous for Sunday afternoon, even among music hall performers. But this gave way to a rich bass-baritone rendering of one of John Orlando Parry’s most popular polite comic songs.

‘Wanted a governess, fitted to fill—’ when, inexplicably, an outbreak of giggling interrupted the soloist. He managed to sing ‘The post of tuition with competent skill’ and was again forced to stop for the noisy reaction of his audience. ‘In a gentleman’s family highly genteel,’ he began again, ‘Where ’tis hoped that the lady will try to conceal—’ when ungovernable laughter made it impossible to continue. How a simple ballad gave rise to such guffaws defied the imagination.

‘Excuse me.’ Mrs Body got up decisively from her chair, crossed the room to the connecting door and marched into the uproar, which stopped almost at once. Only the hammering from a room on the opposite side continued.

‘Look at the gasman quick!’ ordered Cribb, striding to the door Mrs Body had used. ‘I’ll stand watch.’

Thackeray reacted instantly, almost upending W. G. Ross’s chair in the process. He opened the door, and looked into a long, panelled dining-room. Several tables were laid for dinner. Silver candelabra stood among the table-ornaments. At the near end, in a fine mist of dust, was the gasman, in overalls, standing knee-deep in the foundations, half-a-dozen floor-boards prised open around him. He turned, hammer in hand, and winked. Major Chick!

‘Slap bang in the enemy camp, eh?’ said the Major in a stage-whisper. ‘I’m full of surprises, Constable.’ Thackeray closed the door and gave a long-suffering nod in answer to Cribb’s uplifted eyebrows.