Death of a Dancer

by Caro Peacock

  After some time, a face appeared at the window nearest the door. It was a man’s face, round and bright-eyed, grimacing and mouthing what was probably a request to go away. I stayed where I was and after a minute or so the door opened halfway. The round-faced man was wearing a shirt unbuttoned at the neck, breeches and stockings, with a blanket like a shawl round his shoulders. He was thin and below average height. He wore no shoes and grimy toes stuck out through the holes in his stockings. It looked as if I’d woken him from a nap.

  ‘If you’ve come about the furniture, you can tell him he’s not getting it,’ he said, in a voice that sounded like rattling pebbles.

  ‘May I speak to Marie Duval?’ I said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Columbine’s maid.’

  He opened the door wider and came out on the step.

  ‘Never heard of her. All the lady’s servants were gone by the time I was put in here, along with anything they could carry. Curtains, cushions, silverware, all her clothes – just stripped the lot like caterpillars on a cabbage.’

  He sounded quite cheerful about it.

  ‘You were put in here?’

  ‘By Messrs Hodge and Pertwee, furniture supplied to the value of three hundred and fifty-nine pounds, sixteen shillings and tuppence ha’penny.’

  ‘You’re a bailiff’s man?’

  ‘That’s right, miss.’

  ‘Do you think you could possibly let me in for a look round?’

  He hesitated. I felt in my pocket and parted with a shilling. He grinned.

  ‘Not much to see, there isn’t.’

  I followed him inside. There was enough left in the downstairs rooms to show that Columbine’s house must have been comfortable and luxurious: fine carved mantelpieces, patterned wallpaper, large cupboards and dining tables in walnut and mahogany. But the floors were bare, fireplaces stripped of their fenders and fire irons, no rugs, no cushions. All the soft, colourful things had been taken so that there was no trace of personality left. Columbine might have been ten years rather than nine days dead. The only souvenirs of her were a delicate coffee cup lying broken in the corner and a piece of pink ostrich feather stuck between two floorboards. A nest of scruffy blankets in the corner of the room showed where the bailiff’s man slept.

  ‘Didn’t she have any family?’ I said.

  ‘None that I know of.’

  ‘Was this her own house?’

  ‘Nah. Had it rented for her, didn’t she?’

  ‘By Mr Hardcastle?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘And he still owes for the furniture?’

  ‘He does. They’re taking it back once they get the order from the lawyers, then I can move on somewhere warmer, thank gawd. Would you care for a dish of tea, madam?’

  I thought he was joking, but he led the way into the kitchen. The shelves were empty and the cooking range cold as a stone, but he had a small fire in the hearth and a can of water warming at the sullen heart of it. He took tea leaves in a screw of blue paper from a tin on the table and whittled with a bone-handled knife at the remnant of a loaf of sugar.

  ‘How long have you been here?’ I asked him.

  ‘I was put in a week ago today.’

  Just two days after Columbine died.

  ‘Have there been any other people round asking about Columbine?’

  ‘A wine merchant who reckons he’s owed two hundred. He’ll have to whistle for that, ’cos the wine’s all gone.’

  ‘You haven’t by chance seen anything of a middle-aged man with a brown face?’

  ‘Nah.’

  He lifted the can of water from the fire with an old pair of tongs, stirred in the tea leaves.

  ‘Or a young woman with yellow hair?’

  ‘Strewth, lady, what do you think this is? The Argyll Rooms? We don’t go in for visitors a great deal.’

  ‘And I suppose you’ve seen nothing of Mr Hardcastle himself?’

  ‘Nah, only his valley.’

  He poured brown liquid from the can into a tin mug and a cracked china cup and divided sugar shavings carefully between the two of them.

  ‘Mr Hardcastle’s valet came here? When?’

  He passed me the cup. The tea was thick with leaves, like a gutter in autumn.

  ‘Two or three days after I was put in.’

  He took a long gulp of tea, his body quivering with the satisfaction of it. Now he didn’t see me as a threat, he seemed happy enough with my presence and my questions. I suppose being a bailiff’s man is a lonely job.

  ‘What did the valet want?’

  ‘Hardcastle’s razors and hairbrushes. I’d have had to let him take those – personal effects, see – only her servants must’ve cleared them out along with the rest.’

  ‘So the valet had to go back to Mr Hardcastle empty-handed?’

  ‘He wasn’t going back at all. Saved him a journey, he said.’

  ‘He was leaving his employment? Why?’

  ‘He said he hadn’t been paid for six months and all he’d got for his pains was a lady’s earring.’

  ‘Earring?’

  ‘Yes. According to him, he said he’d leave unless he got paid. Hardcastle said it wasn’t convenient to give him the money at the present time and fobbed him off with this earring instead. He asked my advice on where he might find an honest pawn shop. Same place as you’d find a flying pig, I told him.’

  ‘Did he show you the earring?’

  ‘Yes. He had it in his pocket.’

  ‘Did it look valuable?’

  ‘Little diamonds in a circle, and a bigger one about the size of a grain of barley hanging down. I don’t know about jewellery.’

  I knew a little about the value of jewels, having had occasion to sell some over the past year, and was doing calculations in my head.

  ‘If they were real diamonds, that might come to more than six months’ wages for a valet.’

  ‘He wasn’t pleased. He reckoned Hardcastle owed him a sight more than that. Besides, what’s the use of one earring?’

  ‘So you couldn’t help him about the pawn shop?’

  ‘I mentioned a couple in Broad Court, off Drury Lane. Don’t suppose they’d rook him any worse than the rest.’

  ‘Do you know where he might be now?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you have forwarding addresses for any of the servants here?’

  ‘Nah.’

  I finished my tea and thanked him. He led the way to the front door. The bare boards of the corridor were littered with bits of dead leaf that had blown in, with a square of white among them. I bent and scooped it up. It was a note addressed to Marie Duval.

  ‘May I take this? I’m looking for her and could give it to her if I find her.’

  He shrugged, so I put it in my pocket and wished him good afternoon. When I was back on the other side of Kensington Road I opened the note.

  Dear Miss Duval,

  You would oblige me if you could arrange to

  pack up and move your mistress’s costumes and

  possessions from her dressing room as soon as

  possible since it is needed for other artistes.

  The address at the top was the Augustus Theatre, the signature Barnaby Blake’s, and the date two days after Columbine’s death. So Marie hadn’t gone back to Columbine’s house.

  Where was she?

  ‘Most people, when the police let them go, they’re off like dingle bats in case they change their minds and take them in again,’ Amos said.

  I was talking the problem over with him as we went for our ride on Thursday morning.

  ‘She could be anywhere in London, or in the country, come to that,’ I said. ‘For all we know, she could have gone back home to France.’

  ‘I could try and sniff something out for you. Depends whether she went on two feet or four.’

  ‘Four?’

  ‘If she went in a cab, carriage or cart she’d have to have someone driving her. I’ll put the word
around.’

  I thanked him, but suspected that, wherever Marie had gone, it had most likely been on her own two feet. There was, however, better news about Hardcastle.

  ‘He’s got rid of his groom on account of not having horses or a carriage any more,’ Amos said. ‘Friend of mine’s finding out where the man goes for a drink, then I’ll take a drink in the same place and see what happens.’

  ‘So he’s had to part with his valet and his groom,’ I said. ‘You could almost feel sorry for the man.’

  Amos shook his head.

  ‘Sorry for that one? Don’t go pouring good cream on rotten raspberries.’

  When I got back, there was another note from Daniel tucked into the door, short and to the point this time.

  Dear Liberty,

  As far as we’ve been able to establish,

  Columbine left no will. At any rate, nothing has

  been filed yet. Nobody seems to know if she had

  any family.

  I wasn’t entirely surprised. Somebody as self-centred as Columbine wouldn’t think about making a will because she couldn’t imagine the world going on without her. As for family, she’d presumably left them behind along with her milking pail. What concerned me more was that Daniel must have come to leave the note at a time when he knew I’d be out riding, and that meant he was anxious not to see me. More than that, he didn’t want me asking questions. That scared me.

  Trying not to think about it too much, I came back to the question of Columbine’s possessions. A woman in her position would usually have most of her assets in jewels. It was a reasonable guess that jewels were what somebody had been looking for when he (or she) slashed the muff and couch in her dressing room. A single diamond earring was a strange thing for a gentleman to give his valet. It was a strange thing for a gentleman to own in the first place. I thought about it all through Friday, between lessons, and on Saturday afternoon set off for Drury Lane and Broad Court.

  There were several pawn shops in the street, which was less broad than its name, most of them with saucepans, washboards, articles of clothing and the occasional musical instrument piled haphazardly behind windows that needed cleaning. Small queues were forming, the more respectable sort coming to redeem their Sunday suits and boots for their weekly outing before returning them on Monday, the less respectable hugging armfuls of anything that might fetch enough for a few pints of beer.

  The first shop that the bailiff’s man had named looked more run-down than the rest and had just one customer, an old man in a felt hat with his elbows on the counter as if prepared to wait all day. The shopkeeper, a man as pale and thin as a paper cut-out, was going slowly through a pile of handkerchiefs, holding each one up to the lamplight and staring at it. Most of them were so thin and worn that you could have read a newspaper through them. They both turned when I walked in.

  ‘See to the lady first,’ the old man said, then fell into a fit of coughing from the effort of speaking.

  I said I was interested in a diamond earring that a young man might have brought in recently.

  ‘Stole from you, was it?’ the ghostly man said.

  ‘No. Have you seen it?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Don’t get much in the way of diamonds.’

  Looking round the shop, which was piled high with bundles of curtains, flat irons, a dress-maker’s dummy with the stuffing coming out, I could easily believe him. I wished them good afternoon and went back into the street.

  The window of the second pawnbroker looked more hopeful. The glass was clean and somebody had taken the trouble to arrange the stock more temptingly inside. Silver teaspoons, none of them matching, were spread out in a fan shape backed by a row of silver-plated jugs and pewter mugs. A card covered with black velvet had pieces of jewellery pinned to it – a charm bracelet, a few watch chains, a garnet pendant. The sign on the door said Best prices given for items of jewellery and quality silverware. I pushed it open, setting a sweet-toned bell tinkling, and walked in. The man behind the counter didn’t look like most people’s idea of a pawnbroker. He was no more than thirty years old or so, with an athletic set to his broad shoulders that contrasted with the delicacy of his long-fingered hands. He was polishing a silver watch with a chamois leather and looked up from it to smile and wish me good afternoon. I found myself smiling back.

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you. I’ve come to ask about a diamond earring.’

  ‘Five small stones and a pendant drop? Was it yours?’

  His smile had faded.

  ‘No. It might have belonged to … to a person I knew. But how did you know?’

  ‘I’m not offered many items of that quality. I suppose you’re going to tell me it was stolen?’

  ‘No. That is to say, it might have been, but that isn’t what concerns me. I was hoping I might be allowed to look at it, even sketch it, to see if it really did belong to this woman I knew.’

  ‘It was a man who brought it in,’ he said. ‘Servant-type, seemed quite respectable. He said it had been given him by his employer in lieu of back wages.’

  ‘He was telling the truth about that. Do you think it would be possible for me to have a look at it?’

  The wall behind him was entirely made up of pigeonholes with cloth-wrapped bundles inside them. I hoped one of them might contain the earring. If I could describe it to Bel or one of the other girls I could at least establish if Columbine had been seen wearing it.

  ‘I haven’t got it,’ the man said. ‘The person made it quite clear that he wanted to sell it, not pledge it.’

  ‘It’s gone already?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. But if it’s a sketch you want, I can do you that from memory.’

  He put down the watch and took a pencil and paper from under the counter. As he worked, I looked at the things in the window, especially a Venetian glass mermaid hanging from a string, reflecting spangles of lamplight over bracelets and silver teaspoons when a current of air swayed her. I wondered who had owned her and in what circumstances they’d had to part with her.

  ‘There – pretty rough, but it will give you an impression.’

  It was an accomplished sketch, not rough at all. If Columbine had worn such an earring, it would be enough to identify it. I thanked him and folded it away in my pocket.

  ‘It’s odd that somebody should buy a single earring so soon,’ I said.

  He smiled and picked up the watch.

  ‘It’s not single any more. We found its pair.’

  ‘What?’

  He sounded as pleased as if he’d reunited a pair of lost lovers.

  ‘Yes, I like diamonds. I don’t see many of them here, but I have friends in Hatton Garden and on Saturdays we look at anything they’ve got and talk about what’s come in from Amsterdam and so on. This morning, I took the earring along out of curiosity – not that it was anything very special, but just in case anybody knew where to match it up. Would you believe, somebody did!’

  ‘Another pawnbroker?’

  ‘The man who knew was a diamond broker, but he’d had an inquiry the day before from a man who’d bought an earring from a pawnbroker over in the Borough.’

  Southwark, that was, south of the river and a pretty rough area. By London standards, that was as far from the world of Columbine and Hardcastle as could be.

  ‘I don’t know the pawnbroker in question,’ the man went on. ‘I gather he runs an ordinary kind of shop and wasn’t used to diamonds. He had just enough sense to consult somebody who did. The man he consulted bought the earring off him and showed it to my friend.’

  ‘Where are the earrings now?’

  ‘On sale in Hatton Garden. I can give you the address, if you’re interested.’

  ‘No, thank you. What I need is the address of the other pawnbroker.’

  He raised his eyebrows.

  ‘It’s not an area where ladies go much. I gather the name’s Black, in Borough High Street, not far from the market.’

  ‘When was it
brought in to him?’

  ‘I’m not sure. About a week ago, I think.’

  That would make it about five days after Columbine’s murder.

  ‘Did you hear anything about the person who brought it in?’

  ‘Yes. I was curious about that, wondering if it was stolen. If something valuable comes from that area, the assumption is that it was. But apparently Black swore it wasn’t. He hadn’t seen the woman before. She was quite respectable, nervous and soft-spoken and a foreigner. French, he thought.’

  ‘French!’

  ‘That’s what he told the man who spoke to my friend, but I shouldn’t put too much weight on it if I were you. To a man like that, probably all foreigners are French.’

  I thanked him again and walked out into the Saturday bustle of Broad Court, mind whirling. London was full of foreigners, thousands of them French, and probably about half of those female. Of those, a fair proportion could probably be described as respectable, nervous and soft-spoken. But add the earring and there was no reasonable doubt about it.

  The woman who’d walked into the Southwark pawn shop was Columbine’s maid, Marie.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I’d intended to go straight from the pawn shop to the Augustus Theatre to see if any of the girls could identify the earring. This changed my plans. The whole case was turned upside down again and I needed time to think. I’d assumed throughout that Marie was innocent. The magistrate himself had come to that conclusion in a couple of hours. But if so, what had she been doing with Columbine’s earring? One possibility was that she’d looted it after Columbine’s death, but that was unlikely. First she’d been in police custody, then apparently so scared that she’d run away and hidden herself. Another was that she’d been given it by Hardcastle. It made more sense. He’d got his hands on some of Columbine’s jewellery – probably by stealing it from her dressing room after her death – used one earring to pay his debt to his valet, and given the other to Marie. Why? Nobody who knew Hardcastle would believe it was a kind or sentimental gesture. If he’d given it to Marie, it would have been because he owed her a debt too. More than that, she was in a position to make him deliver payment. Payment for services rendered?