Peter Lovesey - Abracadaver

So Thackeray decided to dispense with the messenger and fetch Cribb himself. That meant abandoning the body for a few minutes and taking the risk of someone interfering while he was gone, but really there was no other possibility. What disturbed him more was the prospect of venturing among the audience in his yellow livery.

He opened a door leading to the canteen. From the atmosphere of noisy gaiety it was clear that the news of Lola’s death had not reached there. Girls of the chorus sat as usual on the knees of army officers, one hand waving a glass of gin, the other trifling with regimental whiskers. Thackeray threaded his way through, dreading that at any moment the red-headed Miss who had helped him with his scene-mounting would spring up from somewhere and fling herself upon him. However, he reached the other side unmolested and mounted the stairs leading to the auditorium.

Fortunately the turn in progress on the stage had the undivided concentration of the audience. A young woman he did not recognise was giving a male impersonation. The song was innocuous enough; indeed, he had often hummed the melody himself as he pounded the streets of Bermondsey. But the emphasis the singer was giving to certain words quite distorted the original meaning but delighted the audience, ready by now to see innuendoes in anything. Thackeray could not hope to slip past the tables completely unnoticed in his satin, but at least the entertainment drew most eyes away. His main concern now was whether even Cribb was too caught up in the performance to notice him.

It was when he was almost mid-way through the cluster of tables that he first thought he recognised one of the audience. Bald head, aquiline profile, a good crop of whiskers. Yes, a face he knew from somewhere, though it was difficult to trace the connexion. No friend of his could afford champagne by the magnum and a courtesan dripping with diamonds. Not wishing to appear rude, he looked away— and spotted another face which he recognised at once. Two others at the table were familiar too, though not the female companions they had with them. He now knew all four men from a period he had once spent with B Division, Westminster. What had brought them here he did not like to contemplate, for they were Honourable Members of a quite different House, where music halls were spoken of as dens of iniquity.

When he reached the promenade Cribb was waiting for him, hands on hips, eyes aflame with all the fury of an officer confronting a deserter in the field of battle.

‘Sarge, you’ve got your case,’ Thackeray blurted out, ‘and I think it may be murder.’

Within a minute they were entering the trap-floor, where someone was bending over Lola’s body. Above their heads the boards thundered to the rhythm of the cancan.

‘Step aside, if you please, Mr Plunkett. We are police officers.’

The manager was so startled that he almost tipped forward on to the mattress himself. ‘You are what?’

‘If it’s identification you require, I’ll thank you to wait until I’ve examined this unfortunate young woman. Have you touched anything?’ Without waiting for a reply Cribb put his face close to Lola’s and sniffed at her mouth.

‘I merely cleared away the pieces of glass,’ said Plunkett.

‘Glass?’

‘Yes. She must have still been holding the tumbler as she came through the trap. It shattered on the floor.’

Cribb rounded on him. ‘Where are the pieces?’

‘Why I wrapped them in newspaper and put them on the ledge over there for safety.’

‘If you please, Thackeray,’ said Cribb.

The constable brought the package over. Cribb unwrapped it carefully, without touching the fragments. He sniffed several times at a circular piece that had formed the base of the tumbler. ‘This will need to be analysed. The conjurer’s fluid—what was it?’

‘Water, with a dash of cochineal for effect,’ answered Plunkett.

Cribb sniffed again. ‘It’s got a sickly sweet smell, for cochineal.’

Plunkett dipped his finger towards the glass. Cribb jerked it away. ‘I wouldn’t do that, sir.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘I’m no scientist, Mr Plunkett, but if I see a healthy young woman die in a matter of seconds and I can’t find a sign of a bullet-hole I think of poisons. And when I see the centres of the eyes dilated as these are and the cheeks this bluish colour, I go through the list of symptoms I keep in my head, sir, and I come up with Prussic Acid. If that’s what this is and you get a spot on your finger and lick it, we’ll have two corpses for post mortem tomorrow morning, not one.’

The manager was plainly impressed. He thrust his hands immediately into his pockets. ‘But I know you,’ he told Cribb, ‘and your friend. You were skulking at the back of my theatre during rehearsal yesterday, both of you. I sent you away to get some tickets, but that was for the first house, not this one. How the devil did you get in for this performance? And what is this person doing in the uniform of one of my staff?’

‘Voluntary unpaid stage-remover,’ explained Cribb. ‘If he hadn’t been here I shouldn’t have known what was going on, should I? Your audience out there still don’t know Miss Pinkus is dead.’

Plunkett’s manner changed abruptly. He put a hand on Cribb’s shoulder. ‘No need for them ever to know, eh? We can handle things discreetly between us, can’t we?’ He pulled out his wallet. ‘Dammit, this doesn’t have to be a police matter, does it?’

‘If you’re suggesting what I think you are,’ said Cribb, ‘I ought to warn you that it’s a criminal offence. We’ve our duty to do, sir, and we’ve every right to ask for your cooperation. That’s not to say we’ll stop the goings-on behind the footlights, even though I’ve serious doubts about ’em.’

‘Come, come now,’ said Plunkett. ‘It’s a private performance. Besides, there’s nothing in my show that you can’t see in other halls.’ From his look of injured innocence he might have been staging a temperance concert.

Cribb nodded. ‘I’ll grant you that, sir. Such performances can sometimes be seen in penny gaffs in the backstreets of Cairo. But I ain’t here to reminisce. Where’s the conjurer this girl worked with?’

‘Professor Virgo? I had him escorted to his dressing-room. He was more than a little upset, of course, and I didn’t want a panic backstage. As it is, only a handful of people know about this, you see.’

‘Who would they be?’

‘Why, the two trap-men who work down here, yourselves, Professor Virgo and me.’

‘What about the dead girl’s sister?’

‘Bella? Good Lord, I’d forgotten. Nobody’s told her. She’ll be down here looking—’

Cribb reacted quickly. ‘That sheet, if you please, Thackeray. She’ll be shaken enough at the news, without actually seeing the body. Will you tell her, Mr Plunkett, or shall I?’

‘I’d rather you did, if you’ve no objection.’

‘Very well. You’d better question Virgo, Thackeray. Find out what you can about the man himself, and then go over the performance with him step by step.’ In case the responsibility went to his constable’s head, he added, ‘And get your jacket and trousers on. You look ridiculous.’

Nevertheless it was with a justifiable feeling of importance that Thackeray tapped on Professor Virgo’s door a few minutes later. Constables capable of conducting important interviews were by no means thick on the ground in the Metropolitan area.

The Professor was sitting at a small dressing-table made from a tea-chest, a bottle of whisky in his left hand, and a wand in his right, with which he was moodily prodding a fat white rabbit in a hutch. Thackeray cleared his throat in a business-like way. He knew all about questioning suspects. You had to be in control from the start, establish your official status and then keep the questions going like revolver shots. ‘Detective Constable Thackeray, sir, of Scotland Yard. I have some questions for you.’