Peter Lovesey - Abracadaver

‘Does it surprise you?’ Miss Blake asked. ‘When you see them on the stage in their tinsel and tissue you probably don’t imagine them slinking back to their lodgings in these rags. It surprises their officer-friends at the end of the evening, I can tell you. There isn’t much glamour about them then, poor things.’

‘You said that the figurantes got fifteen shillings a week,’ said Cribb. ‘What does your father pay the better dancers?’

‘The coryphees? Thirty shillings if they’re in the front row, and that’s generous by music hall standards. Out of that they provide their own shoes and tights. You can’t buy a pair of silk tights for less than ten shillings.’ Miss Blake took Cribb’s arm. ‘Come and see what they use for making up their faces.’ She picked up a jar from the shelf. ‘Powdered chalk as a base, with rouge. A penny cake of Indian ink. A packet of Armenian blue. Fuller’s earth to dust off with.’

‘Then what is the burnt newspaper for?’ asked Cribb.

‘For lining and shading the face. Some of them also burn a candle against a porcelain bowl and use the brown deposit for an eye-shadow. Don’t look so shocked, gentlemen. It all comes off afterwards with butcher’s lard. It’s a cheap recipe for beauty, you must admit. Sometimes I look at the so-called fallen women who parade in the promenade where I met you and I find myself hating them, Sergeant. Hating them for their expensive perfumes and lacquered lips and rows of jewels, while these poor creatures have to darn their tights and patch their clothes and sit downstairs with soldiers if they want to be treated with consideration. Try telling them that virtue is rewarded as they stand shivering in the street tonight, watching those Jezebels being handed into carriages.’

Impassioned outbursts from young women about social matters were becoming fashionable, but one hardly expected such arguments from the singer of Fresh as the New-Mown Hay. Even the young Salvationist had not spoken with half the fervour of Ellen Blake.

‘There’s only one way to change things, Miss,’ said Cribb, ‘and that’s to persuade your father not to admit unaccompanied females to his hall. But in my estimation that’s the next step to bankruptcy. They’re trying to run the old Victoria across the river on temperance lines, and I hear they’re playing to half-empty houses. The fact is that when a hall closes, the ballet-girls lose their jobs, while the women of the other sort simply move on to the Casinos and the Cremorne and such places.’

Miss Blake re-arranged the cosmetics on the shelf. ‘There is really no question of my father discouraging such women from the Paragon. If I have a conscience about what happens here, Sergeant, I can assure you I did not inherit it from Papa.’

‘Well if it’s any consolation, Miss, Thackeray and I see a rare amount of the seamier side of London life in our profession, and there aren’t many of your promenaders that’ll escape the poorhouse or the river, I can tell you. Remember their faces as they strut up and down in your father’s hall. One of these days you’ll see the same faces looking down at you from the threepenny gallery at the Grampian—’

‘The Grampian!’ said Miss Blake. ‘Good gracious, I must leave. And there won’t be time to show you the wardrobe or the prop-room.’

‘That’s all right, Miss. We’ll make our own way back through the canteen. You’ll need to hurry or you’ll have Mr Goodly to face. Can we pass on a message to Albert for you?’

‘Albert?’ Miss Blake was visibly upset at the mention of his name. ‘But he is—’

‘Laid up at Philbeach House, Miss? Of course. I simply thought that if we should have occasion to visit there—to clear up certain outstanding matters, you know—we might pass on your good wishes for his recovery.’

‘Of course. Please do.’ She composed herself, shook their hands, said, ‘You do know the way?’ and left them.

Cribb remained in the attitude of contemplation for several seconds, his left hand supporting his right elbow and his right forefinger poised on the bridge of his nose. At length, he said, ‘Wouldn’t do to be found in the Ladies’ Dressing Room, Constable. Let’s proceed with the inspection.’

Thackeray was about to observe that Miss Blake had expected them to return directly to the promenade, and that wandering about backstage unaccompanied might be regarded as a suspicious, not to say improper, practice, when he recognised a particular expression in the sergeant’s features, a flexing of the usually quiescent muscles to the fore of his side-whiskers. The twitch of Cribb’s cheek was the equivalent of the order to take aim aboard one of Her Majesty’s gunboats. Thackeray put on his hat and followed him.

They had not gone many yards along the corridor when Cribb stopped at a door, listened, pushed it open, stepped inside and pulled Thackeray after him. He sniffed in the darkness. ‘Carpenter’s shop. Shouldn’t be disturbed here. I want a good look round this hall. We’ll wait till the show’s over, and they’ve all gone. Should be a bench here somewhere. Ah, yes. Careful where you sit. Carpenters are uncommon careless with chisels. Now, Constable, what are your observations?’

A pause, followed by the sound of a beard being scratched.

‘Come on, man. You saw Bellotti’s barrels, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, Sarge.’

‘And Beaconsfield’s basket yesterday? And the Undertakers?’

‘Yes.’

‘What do you deduce, then?’

More scratching. ‘Well, Sarge, I think there could be a connexion with Philbeach House.’

‘The devil you do! What other evidence are you hoping for—Mrs Body in a tutu? A copper shouldn’t drink on duty if it slows up his thinking, Thackeray. Of course there’s a connexion, man. If the barrels are here, Bellotti won’t be far behind ’em. They’re no good to anyone else, are they?’

‘But barrel-dancing ain’t on the bill, Sarge.’

Cribb sighed. ‘Nor are bulldogs, nor any of Mrs Body’s guest-list. Did you expect to see ’em up there tonight? But I’ll lay you a guinea to a shilling that there’s a room here somewhere stuffed with their props.’

Inspiration descended on Thackeray in the darkness. ‘Maybe they’re preparing for a return to the stage, Sarge! Mr Plunkett lets ’em use the hall for rehearsals. It’s only in use three nights a week, remember. When they’ve got their confidence back they can go on the halls again.’

‘You’re forgetting something, Constable. It’s not their confidence that matters. They can rehearse as much as they like, but it ain’t likely to do much for the confidence of the music hall managers. Performers who’ve been laughed off the stage aren’t going to get another London billing that easily. The best they can hope for is to change their names and their acts and start again in the provinces. Besides, Plunkett doesn’t strike me as a charitable man. He won’t have his hall cluttered up with down-and-outs and their baggage, unless there’s profit in it.’

‘He seemed to have something to hide, Sarge.’

‘That’s why we’re here, Constable. A man of my standing doesn’t risk his reputation parading in music hall promenades without damned good reason. There’s things going on this evening that Plunkett doesn’t want us to know about. Remember yesterday, when I asked for tickets? Perfectly simple request, yet the fellow’s eyebrows jumped like grasshoppers when I mentioned tonight. His daughter was just as nervous, too. Never mind your secret rehearsals, Thackeray. I want to know what’s going on tonight.’

‘Shouldn’t we get back and watch the performance, then, Sarge? There might be another accident while we’re hiding here.’

Cribb produced an odd sound of contempt by vibrating his lips. ‘Most unlikely, in my opinion. No need for us to be there anyway. There’s a perfectly capable man watching for something like that.’