Walking the streets of York, Adam struggled to make sense of what he had learned since he had arrived in the city. What did he know for certain? One indisputable fact was that Dolly had made her way there and had spurned the employment offered to her by the unsympathetic Ridgewell. She had attempted instead to find the kind of work to which she was accustomed. She had approached Mr Timble at the Grand, but he had been unable to help her. Where had the young woman gone after that? She might have stayed in York; she might have returned to London.
Adam would, he thought, put money on her staying. Why should she return to London when she had been so eager to leave? And what of Cyril Montague? When Adam had called upon him, the dissipated actor had been in an opium-induced world of his own, but the young man was sure that Montague had recognized the girl in the photograph he had shown him.
Perhaps he did not know her as Dolly Delaney, but he knew her. And he had seen her in York, Adam was sure of it.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
With a flourish of his cape, Adam strode into the wings. He had, he knew, forty minutes before his presence was next required. During all that time, Cyril Montague would be on stage.
Several days had passed since he and Quint had joined the company. Although Adam had found no trace of Dolly Delaney, they had been eventful days. He had found a ready acceptance in the company at the Grand: Mrs Skeffington, a kindly woman twice her husband’s size, had taken an almost motherly interest in him; Miss Delgado had flirted incomprehensibly with him in what he had originally assumed was her native tongue but turned out to be her own idiosyncratic version of English; and Cyril Montague, on being formally introduced, had looked at him as if he was sure he knew him but couldn’t quite place where they had met before. The other male actors had initially viewed him with suspicion but they were all good-natured, effervescent young men and had been unable to maintain their antagonism for more than twenty-four hours.
Adam’s debut in The Spectre Bridegroom was soon upon him, filling him with nervousness, but he found that Timble had been largely correct. As long as he could remember his lines, which, since he was a spirit returned from the grave, were few in number, and could avoid bumping into the props, he could play his part. And he found the applause that greeted him when he took his bow before the curtains at the end of the evening surprisingly rewarding. He had always thought that he was someone who would not enjoy public acclaim, but it appeared he had been mistaken.
Tonight was the third performance of The Spectre Bridegroom. Adam had decided to use the time when he was offstage to search Cyril Montague’s rooms.
Adam strode through the stage door and out into the street. A respectably dressed man and his wife gazed at him in astonishment as he marched past them. For a moment, he was puzzled. He did not usually attract such surprised attention from passers-by. Then he recalled that he was dressed in his stage clothes and daubed with greasepaint applied by the enthusiastic hand of Skeffington’s make-up man. As he was, after all, supposed to be a spectral bridegroom, he could expect curious stares, at the very least, from any citizens he might encounter. Luckily, few seemed to be about on Goodramgate and, walking swiftly, he soon turned into the courtyard he had visited a few days earlier.
Once again, Adam found the building in which Montague had his lodgings. As he had expected, its main door was open: the place was home to a score of people other than the actor and all would need access day and night. Adam climbed up to the attic room, stumbling twice on the creaking stairs. On both occasions he cursed under his breath and paused, waiting for someone to emerge from the rooms he had just passed, although no one did. There was the sound of a child crying from one of them and the voice of a man calling for beer from another, but their doors remained closed. Everyone in the building, Adam guessed, was so used to the sounds of their fellow lodgers coming and going that he would have to do far more than merely trip on a stair to attract attention.
He reached Cyril Montague’s door. Unlike the one downstairs, it was locked. Adam crouched to peer at the lock. He saw immediately that it was so ancient it would present no barrier even to a housebreaker as inexperienced as he was. He took his penknife from his pocket, opened the blade and inserted it in the lock. After pushing the knife up and down a few times, with a click the door opened.
The sweet, sickly smell of opium rolled out of the room as Adam pushed the door open and entered. He looked around. The place was as he remembered it. It would not take long to search. Other than the horsehair sofa and the table on which the actor’s opium lamp stood, it contained only one other piece of furniture: a battered chest of drawers. There was nowhere very much to hide anything.
Quickly, Adam crossed to the sofa and felt down the back of it. Nothing but dust, two toothpicks and a bent farthing came to hand. He picked up the lamp briefly and turned it over in his hands, wanting to see how it worked. His curiosity satisfied, he replaced it on the table and turned his attention to the chest of drawers. He pulled out the first drawer, full of clothes, and rummaged through it. There was nothing else there. The second drawer was the same. The bottom drawer was empty save for a large scrapbook.
Adam took it out and carried it to the window, where the faint evening light allowed him to see what was in it. Rather touchingly, the book contained newspaper cuttings of the reviews Montague had received in the days of his glory. Adam read a few of them, noting how someone, presumably the actor himself, had circled in red ink certain words and phrases such as ‘brilliancy’, ‘animation of spirit’ and ‘striking display of thespian genius’. He closed the scrapbook and walked across the room to put it back in the drawer.
Turning, Adam surveyed the shabby garret in which Montague now spent his days, lost in opium dreams of former triumphs. Was there anywhere else where he could be hiding anything of interest? He looked down at the ragged carpet which half covered the floor. One of its corners was curled up. Adam bent down and pulled it further back. Underneath, lying flat on the floorboards, was a brown envelope. It had clearly been placed there recently – after his visit to the actor’s rooms, perhaps?
The young man reached his fingers into the envelope and drew out a large, folded sheet of paper. He unfolded it and spread it out on the floor. It was a playbill, advertising performances of The Bohemians of Paris at the Gaiety Theatre the previous year. In large red letters, towards the top of the bill, the name of Cyril Montague was prominent. At the bottom, in much smaller black letters, were the words: ‘Featuring the rest of the Gaiety’s very own company of pulchritudinous Terpsichoreans: Miss Bella Tremayne, Miss Marie La Touche and Miss Dolly Delaney’.
* * * * *
‘There is some clue to Dolly’s whereabouts in Montague’s dressing room. I am convinced of it.’
Quint emitted one of his repertoire of expressive grunts. It was the one that signified doubts about the validity of what the previous speaker had said.
‘Montague knows the girl,’ Adam insisted. ‘He has denied it but he could scarcely have appeared in the same play as her last year without knowing her well enough to recognize her when she arrived in York. Why else would he be hiding the playbill from the Gaiety? And he knows that she is still in the city.’
‘Well, what we goin’ to do about it, if he does? Follow ’im round town? ’E never goes anywhere ’cept the Grand and those poky lodgings around the corner. If ’e ain’t on stage, ’e’s at ’ome with a pipe in his chaffer.’
‘And I have ransacked his rooms without finding anything that would help us in our search beyond that playbill. Ergo I need to look in the theatre. After it has closed and everyone has left. How am I to do that?’
‘A key might be ’andy,’ Quint said.
‘A key would be very handy,’ Adam agreed. ‘But I am scarcely in a position to take possession of one.’
‘Who ’as ’em?’
‘Well, Skeffington has one, of c
ourse. However, it is Timble who takes responsibility of the others that exist. And, as much goodwill as that gentleman bears me for stepping into the breach after Bellingham’s abrupt departure, I doubt if it would extend to giving me a key so that I can roam through the Grand on my own in the early hours of the morning.’
‘Mebbe ’e could give you one without knowing it,’ Quint said.
Adam looked at his servant, who tapped the side of his nose with his forefinger.
* * * * *
Quint peered through the glass frontage of the barber’s shop. Its floor was strewn with red sand. Two chairs were standing in the centre of the room. Around their legs, entangled in the red sand, were clumps of hair. One chair was empty; in the other was Timble, his face lathered with shaving cream. He had removed his jacket – it was hanging from a large wooden coat-stand at the back of the room – and the barber was poised above him, razor in hand. There could be no doubt that Timble would be otherwise engaged for the next twenty minutes at least. Quint had more than enough time to make his way back to the Grand and go through the drawers and cupboards in the manager’s office. He stepped back from the barber’s window and retraced his steps to the theatre.
At this time in the morning, there were few people in the Grand. Bunn, the aged and decrepit doorman, recognized Quint and nodded briefly as he passed. The manservant, who had soon made himself as familiar with the labyrinth backstage as he was with the more unsavoury streets of London, walked swiftly to Timble’s office. At the door, he looked right and left. There was no one in sight. He turned the handle and found, to his relief, that it opened. He stepped into the room, closing the door behind him.
In sharp contrast to Skeffington, Timble kept his office tidy and organized. On one wall was a row of pigeonholes, each filled with correspondence. The manservant was tempted, from mere curiosity, to examine the contents of one or two of these but decided against it. Where would Timble keep his keys? Quint scanned the room. There was a table in the middle with a heavy, fringed cloth hanging over it. There was nothing else in the office apart from a wooden coat-stand, a battered secretaire which looked twice as old as he was, and a chair that was even more ancient. The front of the secretaire was open to reveal the writing desk within and a small stack of paper sitting on it. Beside the paper was an inkpot and pen. Quint glanced at the top sheet on the pile. It seemed to be the draft of a letter to a theatrical costumier in Leeds. Further inside the secretaire was a row of little compartments. Each had a key in it.
Quint bared his teeth in a grin. Timble had made it easy for him. Not only was the front of the secretaire unlocked and open, but in his obsession with order and organization, the theatre manager had labelled each of the keys. Quint took out the one marked ‘Stage Door’ and felt in his pocket for the wax mould he had brought with him. He placed the mould on the writing desk and pressed the key firmly into it. After a few moments, he prised the key out and stared with satisfaction at the shape it had left. He put the key back into the small compartment and thrust the mould deep into the pocket of his fustian jacket.
He was about to leave when he heard footsteps in the passageway. They stopped outside Timble’s office. Quint just had time to throw himself under the table and its fringed drapery before the door opened.
Someone entered the room. It was not Timble. From his position on the floor Quint could see the man’s legs, and the well-tailored black trousers and polished boots did not belong to the rather down-at-heel theatre manager. The legs moved across the room. The man, Quint judged, was now standing by the secretaire. Several minutes passed. From the slight sounds he could hear, he guessed the new intruder was leafing through the pile of papers on the writing desk. Quint was just starting to feel the first twinges of cramp when he heard a brief curse, then the legs passed once more across his field of vision and exited the room. The door closed. Quint waited a little while before hauling himself from under the table. He groaned slightly as he stood and straightened his back. He was getting too old for this game.
* * * * *
‘I didn’t see anything but ’is legs, did I?’ Quint was indignant. ‘’Ow am I s’posed to reckernize a pair of bleeding legs?’
‘You say they were clad in black cloth. Were they long legs? Short legs? Fat legs?’
‘They was just legs.’
‘But you think they were attached to someone who had no more business being in Timble’s office than you had?’
‘’E was after something, same as me,’ Quint opined. ‘Not one of the keys, mind. I could ’ear paper rustling. ’E was scrabbling through the papers on the desk.’
‘And what were they? Were they letters? Invoices? Business papers?’
Quint shrugged. ‘Didn’t look at ’em,’ he said. ‘I was after getting this.’ He held up the wax mould.
Adam peered at it with interest. ‘And that will be sufficient to enable you to produce a key to open the stage door after the theatre has been locked for the night?’ His servant nodded. The young man took the mould and turned it over in his hands.
‘Watch it,’ Quint said. ‘You don’t want to spoil the pressing.’
Adam handed it back.
‘And how does the process work?’ he asked.
Quint once again tapped the side of his nose. ‘Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no fibs,’ he said.
‘Ah, well, like any great craftsman, you must have your secrets, Quint, and I shall enquire of you no further. But you will present me with the key before tonight’s performance?’
‘You’ll ’ave it by seven,’ his servant promised. ‘And it’ll fit the lock like a finger in mud.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Adam ran his fingers across the key in the pocket of his coat. Not for the first time, he marvelled at the varied skills of his manservant. Few of Quint’s talents were those which society chose to admire or reward, but several of them had proved invaluable in recent weeks. Exactly how he had been able to produce this copy of the key to the stage door, Adam did not know. He had seen the wax mould with the shape of the key impressed into it; he was now clutching the finished object in his pocket. The precise steps that had led from one to the other were unclear to him. His servant had simply left the hotel room at five in the evening with the wax impression he had made in Timble’s office and returned two hours later with a key he said would open the door to the theatre.
It was now well gone one in the morning and Quint’s claim was about to be put to the test. Adam took the key from his pocket and fitted it into the lock. He smiled to himself as he felt it turn. Quint had been right.
The stage door opened and Adam entered the Grand. Closing the door behind him, he used a safety match to light the dark lantern he had brought with him. The now familiar corridors and passageways of the Grand’s backstage area loomed out of the darkness. A staircase to the left led up to dressing rooms, and Adam was just about to put his foot on its first step when something made him freeze into immobility. There had been what sounded like a cry in the distance. Surely there could be no one else in the theatre, could there? At this hour? The performance had finished soon after 11.30 p.m.; the audience would have left by midnight; the players and the theatre staff within another half-hour. Who could still be here?
Adam strained his ears to catch any further sounds. There was nothing. He was about to dismiss what he thought he had heard as no more than the result of an overactive imagination and climb the stairs when there was the unmistakeable noise of someone moving around further in the building. He stopped again.
The noises had come, he decided, from the auditorium. Adam slid the screen across the dark lantern, covering its light. In the resulting blackness, moving gingerly along the passage that led towards the stalls, it felt as if a pit might open beneath his feet at any moment. Adam took step after exaggerated step, like an actor miming extreme stealt
h, until, reaching one hand ahead of him, the other still holding the lantern, he touched the velvet of a curtain. It was the one, he realised, which hung across the doorway to the stalls. Groping his hand around in the fabric, he could sense that the double doors were open, each one pushed back against the wall as they would be before a performance. He slipped through the curtain and entered the auditorium.
The faintest of lights was illuminating the theatre. From where was it coming? Adam was puzzled at first but, peering through the darkness, he noticed that the main drapes on the stage appeared to be up. The glimmer of light was in the wings. He began to make his way down the central aisle of the stalls, feeling his way from one row of seats to the next. As he reached the tenth row, he stumbled and the lantern clattered against the back of a seat.
Immediately, there was a sound from the stage and the weak light disappeared completely.
Adam remained where he was. There could be no doubt that someone else was in the theatre, and he wondered whether or not to call out and make himself known to his fellow intruder. He stood in the middle of the aisle, debating what was best to do, for a minute or more. The darkness was complete.
Once again, he strained to hear any sounds of movement but there was nothing. This is ridiculous, he thought. He could not stand there, frozen in Cimmerian blackness, until the morning. With a decisive gesture he pushed back the screening panel on his lantern, and its light shone forth.
Its beam travelled down the aisle towards the stage and lit up the shape of a tall man dressed in black. Adam was startled, and the man reacted more quickly than he did. He ran swiftly and directly towards Adam, who had no time to move before the figure crashed into him. The lantern went flying and darkness returned as Adam was propelled backwards, the other man falling heavily on top of him. He gasped beneath the weight, catching the smell of meat and wine on the breath of his attacker as he tried to hold onto him, but the man twisted and turned in his grasp and was up on his feet before Adam had fully recovered from the shock of their collision. He disappeared into the dark, leaving his victim still stretched, wheezing, on the carpet. Moments later, Adam heard the sound of the curtain on the stalls entrance being torn aside and footsteps walking rapidly down the corridor outside. A door slammed and his assailant was gone.
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