Wouldn't It Be Deadly

by D. E. Ireland

  Jack nodded. “That’s Sir Wilfred Dunningsworth. I knew they were friends, but they look a bit cozier than that.”

  “What a quaint way of phrasing it, Inspector.” Mrs. Higgins threw a scornful look at the couple over her shoulder. “Verena and Sir Wilfred had a liaison over forty years ago, back when they were part of those now moribund layabouts known as the Marlborough House Set. I’d forgotten about their romance until this moment. It’s difficult to keep count of the men Verena has cut a swath through. During Cowes Week in 1890, Alice Keppel found her in a compromising position with the Prince of Wales. Any fool ought to know it is bad form to cross the mistress of the future monarch. When Alice went to the Marquess with the tale, it nearly cost Verena her marriage.”

  “You never told me any of this,” Higgins said.

  “As if I would speak of such things to my son.” She shuddered. “I only bring them up now because I may be forced to wreak a bit of havoc on Verena’s reputation.”

  “You’d expose the Marchioness publicly to save your son?” Eliza hugged the older woman. “You’re what I call a real lady.”

  “Thank you, dear, but I see no need to expose her publicly. In our circles, a private word in the right ear causes far more damage. And I know exactly which ears will be the most receptive.” She adjusted the gold and emerald brooch on her gown. “Distasteful business, but if Verena goads Wilfred into arresting Henry, I shall go to battle for him like Athena Nike.”

  Now it was Henry’s turn to embrace his mother. “And you wonder why I never married. How could I find any woman to match you?”

  Mrs. Higgins gave him a playful push. “They don’t need to match me, dear boy. I only care that whatever woman you choose doesn’t irritate me too much.” She sighed. “Lord and Lady Isling are trying to get my attention. No doubt they wish to bore me with another tale of their suffragette daughter. Luckily the play is due to begin, so I shan’t be trapped long.”

  “I rather like your mother,” Jack said as Mrs. Higgins went to greet the couple.

  Higgins nodded. “How could you not?”

  Eliza looked relieved. “I feel better now that I know she has a plan. And once the Major shows up and you question him, we’ll have another good suspect to consider.”

  “Speaking of which, there’s young Nottingham,” Jack said.

  The dapper fellow was flirting shamelessly with several young women on the mezzanine stairs. “I’m not surprised to see him,” Eliza said. “All the Maestro’s students were thrilled about Rosalind Page. I bet most of his pupils are here tonight.” She paused. “Except for Kollas and Finch, of course. But since you figured out about the bank robbery Nottingham planned, why haven’t you arrested him?”

  “I can’t arrest him for a crime he has neither committed nor admitted to planning. For now, I am giving the brash boy enough rope to hang himself.”

  “Oh, there’s Freddy. I’m sure he’s looking for me.”

  Eliza turned to go, but Jack grabbed her arm. “Wait.”

  Higgins leaned close. “Your cousin has something quite interesting to show you.”

  She looked at them both with a curious expression.

  Jack cleared his throat. “As you’re aware, my men and I have done several exhaustive searches of Major Redstone’s bedroom at Wimpole Street, but turned up nothing.”

  “I know,” Eliza said. “I went through his things about a dozen times last night myself.”

  “Lizzie, you didn’t! I told you yesterday to stay out of the investigation.”

  “I am sure she will,” Higgins said. “Eventually.”

  With a weary shake of his head, Jack pulled a small book from his jacket and handed it to Eliza.

  “Crikey!” She turned to the dedication page where the inscription ‘To the White Rose of Rossendale’ stared up at her. “Where did you find it, Jack?”

  “At Colonel Pickering’s club. Redstone had originally booked rooms there, and he still uses it as a study. We went through them this afternoon and found the book.”

  Jack told Higgins earlier about the book. While he was relieved the mystery of the theft was solved, the discovery had shaken him. So much for his detecting skills. Now he felt a combination of anger and fear. Perhaps they had been living under the same roof as a murderer all week. A chill ran up his spine. Redstone had had ample opportunity to be alone with Eliza. They should be grateful the poor girl hadn’t been harmed.

  Eliza grew pale, and Higgins knew she had realized her own danger at last. “So the Major killed Nepommuck,” she said in a sad voice.

  “We don’t know that. All we know is that he broke into your classroom and stole this.” He took the book back from Eliza. “Whatever else he may be guilty of, the police will handle it. When Redstone shows up tonight, act as if nothing has happened. I have a half dozen men at the theater right now. As soon as the curtain falls, we will take him to the Yard, hopefully without incident or notice.”

  Eliza bit her lip. “Maybe he was only another person Nepommuck was blackmailing, and the poems are connected to that. He could just be a liar and a thief, like Nottingham.”

  “I don’t care if he’s a blooming street sweeper, Lizzie. Steer clear of him until we get him to the Yard.”

  “Listen to him, Eliza.” Higgins gave her his sternest look.

  Freddy burst in upon them, breathless as always. “My darling girl, I’ve been looking all over for you.” He kissed her cheek, and Eliza leaned against him. “Don’t know why it took me so long since you are the most exquisite lady here.”

  The lights in the lobby flickered once, and a uniformed usher stood on a small podium announcing, “Curtain,” in a booming voice.

  “The show is about to begin,” Higgins said.

  “Did you know Eliza has memorized every line of Hamlet?” Freddy kissed her again. “Isn’t she amazing?”

  She smiled up at him. “I want to see if any of the actors miss their lines. They won’t get anything past me.”

  Freddy stared at her in adoration. “I don’t think there is any young woman as marvelous as my Eliza. I hear everyone in the theater going on about how pretty this Rosalind Page is, but she cannot hold a candle to the beauty and magic of Eliza Doolittle.”

  “Garn,” she murmured.

  Higgins rolled his eyes. “We are all fond of Eliza, but if you persist with this drivel, you will make us quite sick.”

  “I agree,” Jack said.

  Eliza stuck out her tongue. “Come on, Freddy. Some gents don’t appreciate a cultured young lady like you do.”

  “Remember what I said, Lizzie,” Jack called after her. “You’re only here tonight to watch the play.”

  She took Freddy’s arm. “Of course. Like Hamlet says, ‘The play’s the thing to help me catch the conscience of the king.’”

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” Jack said while they watched Eliza and Freddy disappear into the crowd.

  Higgins sighed. “And she misquoted, too.”

  * * *

  As long as Rosalind Page was onstage, Eliza followed the play with rapt attention. In full makeup and costume—with the stage lights making her almost luminous—Rosalind seemed like an angel come down from the heavens. The audience actually gasped when she made her entrance in Act 1. Every time she walked onstage, a murmur ran through the crowd. The unlucky fellow who played Hamlet didn’t have a chance. Eliza couldn’t even remember his name, although she had read the program twice. A pity they couldn’t retitle the play Ophelia.

  But it wasn’t fair to say all this attention was due solely to Rosalind’s beauty. Eliza bawled like a baby in Act 4 when poor Ophelia went mad. And she wasn’t the only one choking back a sob in the audience. Rosalind was a fine actress indeed if she could wring tears while looking like a goddess with all those flowers in her long red curls.

  Of course, with such a stunning Ophelia, it made no sense when Hamlet rejected her. Blimey, as if any bloke would turn down a looker like that. It made Hamlet seem even more
balmy on the crumpet than Shakespeare had written him. Eliza already thought Hamlet a weak-kneed fool when she read the play. Cor, some dodgy uncle marries Hamlet’s mum after doing in his father, then the uncle gets to be king into the bargain. If this happened in Whitechapel, the uncle would be lying outside the Ten Bells with his head bashed in by the end of the first act.

  Eliza was also glad she had memorized the play, thanks to Major Redstone’s gift. She bet most folks sitting in the theater didn’t know those cheeky actors were cutting lines in every act. Either they forgot the words, or the actors wanted to ring down the curtain and get to the pub early. Thinking about the Major reminded her that he had stolen the book of poems, and lied to her about where he was from. Whenever Rosalind or that exciting ghost wasn’t onstage, Eliza’s thoughts wandered back to the murder investigation.

  Maybe Rosalind knew something important about Major Redstone. After all, when she and Higgins visited the actress the other day, they asked only about Nepommuck’s students. They didn’t bother to discuss anyone else. Rosalind may have heard the Maestro mention Redstone at some point, or heard a reference to that blooming book dedicated to the White Rose. A snore sounded beside her. She jabbed Freddy with her elbow. The sweet man was clearly not a fan of Shakespeare; he’d been asleep since Act 3. And Freddy didn’t wake up at her latest nudge, either.

  She peeked over at his mother and sister, who both sat on the other side of Freddy. Mrs. Eynsford Hill was deep in conversation with the lady next to her, while Clara played with the beads on her fan. Onstage, Hamlet held up the skull of Yorick, which meant that soon Ophelia’s dead body would be brought to her grave. Since Rosalind’s character didn’t appear in the play’s final scene, it seemed a perfect opportunity to dart backstage and ask her about Redstone.

  Before she could talk herself out of it, Eliza gathered up her skirt and stepped past the other people in her row as quickly as possible. Trying not to attract the attention of an usher, she made straight for a side door near the orchestra pit. On Monday, she and Higgins were given an extensive tour of the Drury Lane. She felt confident that she could find Rosalind’s dressing room without any problem.

  Once backstage, it was darker than she expected. Walking with caution over cables, coiled ropes, and sandbags, Eliza was surprised at the number of props and equipment scattered on all sides. She heard the actors’ muffled voices while they fought over Ophelia’s body onstage, and hoped she wouldn’t knock anything over to disturb their performance. The helmet belonging to the ghost of Hamlet’s father blocked her way. Eliza hitched up her skirts and took a giant step over it. Once she found the stairs, she’d be standing right outside the dressing room door before the actress even arrived.

  A moment later, she barged into a storage room. She was lost. Retracing her steps, Eliza caught sight of the actor who played Polonius. He wore a robe over his costume and held a mug of tea. Deciding to follow him, she grinned in relief when he led the way up the steps to the dressing rooms. As he disappeared through a door on the left, Eliza continued down the dimly lit corridor. She stopped short.

  Lady Gresham’s butler stood knocking on Rosalind’s dressing room door. It appeared Eliza wasn’t the only one waiting to see Miss Page.

  Blimey. Why couldn’t Harrison dislike actresses as much as he disliked his actor brother? She remembered the Marchioness said he was eager to see Miss Page perform as Ophelia. And that he’d been given the night off so he could wear his best clothes. Eliza sighed as she watched him from around the corner. Dressed in black tie and tails, he looked anything but a servant. No doubt Lady Gresham had sent him to the best tailor in London. Even when doing his duties as a butler, Harrison was twice as handsome as most men. Tonight he appeared more princely than Hamlet.

  She spied a large bouquet of flowers in his hand. Obviously Harrison thought he’d be a fine match with Rosalind. Ain’t he in for a surprise, Eliza thought. Time was running out. Rosalind would exit the stage any moment. If she waited here, Harrison would see the actress at the same time as Eliza, and she’d lose her chance to speak with Rosalind in private.

  Better beat him to the punch. If she took a shortcut through the costume area, then descended the stairs, Eliza would be right offstage as soon as the curtain came down between acts.

  A burst of distant applause signaled the burial scene had ended. She quickened her steps through the clothes racks standing along the corridor. Confronted with the armor of the ghost, Eliza snuck around it but her skirt got caught. She tugged to release it. Instead she felt herself pulled forward. Reaching through the racks to find what had snagged her gown, Eliza let out a strangled cry when someone grabbed her arm. A second tug pulled her through the rack itself and into the next row of hanging costumes.

  In horror, she stared at Major Redstone.

  * * *

  Higgins hadn’t been this bored since his mother forced him to sit through a performance by the Ballets Russes with that Nijinsky fellow decked out as a blasted rose. At least Rosalind Page was prettier to look at, and her Ophelia was impressive. Even he found her mad scene moving. But he couldn’t forget that her best performance was not as the Shakespearean heroine, but playing Rosalind Page herself. If the audience knew how great an actress she was, they’d bring the house down at curtain call. Then there was that abysmal man starring as Hamlet. Couldn’t they find a better actor in London to play the melancholy Dane? This fellow’s performance was weak as mother’s milk. He did enjoy Mr. Barrymore’s Guildenstern. Such a shame the young man preferred light comic roles. Higgins suspected he’d make a passable Hamlet.

  The time passed even slower when Pickering and Redstone never arrived. Just how delayed were those Welsh trains anyway? If only Eliza was in the box with him. She’d keep him entertained, especially if he asked her to mimic all the actors. And since she’d memorized the play, he was sure she would be far more interesting than what was actually happening onstage. But the poor girl was stuck with the Eynsford Hills tonight. Every time he looked down to where she sat, Freddy was fast asleep beside her. It almost made him like the silly boy.

  Higgins gave a great sigh, and his mother threw him a forbidding look. He hadn’t seen Jack Shaw since the play began. Numerous times Higgins borrowed his mother’s opera glasses to scan the theater, but he caught no sign of the inspector. He whiled away a good hour trying to figure out which of the men in the audience were Scotland Yard detectives. Another hour was spent guessing where each of the actors hailed from. Polonius was Aberdeen born and bred, while Queen Gertrude was a native of Coventry. Higgins found it amusing that an actress as talented as Miss Ellen Terry had not managed to erase traces of her West Midlands dialect.

  He didn’t dare converse with his mother; she abhorred anyone who spoke during a theatrical performance. Just now, she seemed riveted by Hamlet and Laertes struggling with each other in Ophelia’s grave. A pity Laertes couldn’t kill Hamlet a scene early and save the audience from another thirty minutes of bad acting. At least the swordfight in the final scene ought to liven things up.

  Playing about with the opera glasses again, Higgins heard the door to their box swing open. He swiveled around. “It’s about time, Jack. I wondered where you were all this time.”

  “It’s me, old fellow,” a voice whispered back.

  Colonel Pickering tiptoed into the box and sat in the chair behind him. “Sorry to be so infernally late,” he said in Higgins’s ear. “The train was delayed for hours in Cardiff.”

  Higgins looked at the door to the box, but no one else came in. “Where’s Redstone?”

  Pickering nodded a greeting to Mrs. Higgins, who cleared her throat in irritation. The Colonel leaned forward again. “Reddy needed to stop at the club first. His shoes got mud spattered in Cardiff. He has an extra pair in the trunk he keeps at his rooms there.”

  “Have you seen Inspector Shaw?” Higgins asked, growing alarmed.

  Pickering shook his head. “I assume he’s in the theater.”

  “Gentle
men, please,” Mrs. Higgins said, a note of warning in her voice.

  Higgins stood. “What are you doing, Henry?” his mother whispered.

  He leaned over the box, scanning the seats, aisles, and other galleries with the opera glasses. On his third sweep, he spotted a familiar profile. Jack sat on the aisle near the rear of the theater. “Inspector,” Higgins said in a loud voice.

  Several people glanced over at him. “Shhh.”

  Fortunately Jack looked up. Higgins waved and said, “Get your men and meet me in the lobby.”

  Jack sprang out of his seat.

  “Henry, I am never coming to the theater with you again,” Mrs. Higgins said.

  He next turned the opera glasses on the orchestra seats up front. Higgins was reassured to see Mrs. Eynsford Hill and Clara as restless and distracted as ever. And Freddy was still asleep. But the seat beside Freddy was empty.

  “Bloody hell!”

  “Henry, whatever is the matter?” Pickering stood beside him.

  Higgins pointed below. “Eliza’s gone.”

  NINETEEN

  “What are you doing here, Major Redstone?” Eliza fought to keep her voice calm.

  “I might ask you the same.” Redstone’s smile seemed as kind as ever. But his gaze was too intense. “And why so formal? I thought we were friends, Eliza.”

  She hesitated. “Why are you backstage, Aubrey?”

  “When I saw you leave your seat, I assumed you were heading for the lobby salon. But you slipped through a side door instead. I thought it rather curious.”

  Eliza didn’t like the fact that he had been watching her rather than the play. Freddy would have a proper fit when he heard, assuming she lived to tell him. “I came backstage to have a word with Miss Page. I find it strange you’re hiding in the wardrobe racks.”

  “Hiding? Hardly that. I followed you because we need to speak.”

  His grip on her arm relaxed, and Eliza let out a sigh of relief. “Calling out my name would have frightened me less than pulling me into these costumes.”