Death of a Dancer

by Caro Peacock

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He’s worried, Liberty. He says there’s nothing we’ve found so far that Charles Phillips will be prepared to bring out in court on Monday.’

  ‘What about the earrings? What about Marie disappearing?’

  ‘He says Phillips is too fly to try to ride wild horses in opposite directions. Either we produce one theory – and I mean one theory – with evidence to support it, or all we can rely on is Phillips’ eloquence in picking holes in the case against Jenny.’

  ‘And is he hopeful?’

  Kennedy shook his head.

  ‘Have you told Daniel this?’

  Another headshake.

  I sank down in the chair, feeling bone weary.

  ‘Couldn’t we have the case delayed?’

  ‘I asked that. Not much hope there either, unless we can produce a strong argument that delay would bring in fresh evidence.’

  ‘But it will. For one thing, we might find Marie.’

  ‘What good would that do? The police have already questioned her and let her go. We don’t have a shred of evidence that they were wrong.’

  I stared down at the floor. The newspaper he’d dropped was yesterday’s Chronicle. When I bent to pick it up from simple tidiness, my own surname leapt out at me from the advertisement columns on the front page.

  If Mr Lane has information which he wishes to

  impart, he may meet the gentleman referred to in

  his advertisement in the same locality at four

  o’clock on Friday afternoon.

  I stood frozen with the newspaper in my hand. If there’d been a reply at all, I’d expected it to come to my home by messenger. It hadn’t occurred to me that it might be by another advertisement.

  ‘What is it, Libby?’

  I showed him.

  ‘Another wild horse, perhaps the wildest of the lot,’ I said. ‘It’s the man who thinks Pauline killed Columbine.’

  ‘That’s a wild leap on your wild horse. He might easily have other reasons for trying to strangle the woman. Has it occurred to you that she might be trying to blackmail him?’

  ‘Then why did he bring the newspaper with him? There must have been something in that report that made him murderously angry with Pauline.’

  ‘If he thinks he has proof, why hasn’t he taken it to the police?’ Kennedy said.

  ‘How do I know? Perhaps he wants to take his own revenge. Perhaps he’s an old lover or even a long-lost brother. But it must be somebody who really cared for Columbine.’

  ‘You are not keeping this appointment.’

  ‘I most certainly am. It’s the most promising development so far.’

  ‘By your own account, the man’s dangerous.’

  ‘Only to Pauline, or whoever killed Columbine.’

  ‘He’s expecting to meet a man. I’ll go in your place.’

  ‘No, you won’t. With luck it will unsettle him, meeting me. But you can come with me, if you insist.’

  He did insist, which suited me because I was by no means as confident about the meeting as I pretended. The Rotunda gave me the shivers, and I thought it a sinister sign that the man had chosen to meet there again. After some more arguing, we agreed to meet at Kennedy’s lodgings the following afternoon.

  At home, there was a message from Amos Legge waiting for me.

  With ruspect, I saw our man. Something to tell you.

  Realising the effort it cost him to write, I knew the information must be important, so I put on my cloak and bonnet and walked across the park to the livery stables on the Bayswater Road. One of the grooms told me that Legge was out with some ladies, but was expected back soon. Rancie was looking out from the half-door of her loosebox. She made her familiar soft whickering sound when she saw me and I fed her the apple that I’d stolen from Mrs Martley’s store. The black cat, Lucy, was stretched out comfortably on Rancie’s back as usual, purring loudly enough to be heard over the apple-munching. Like Rancie, she’d adapted to London life and looked as sleek as a panther. Amos and his two ladies arrived back in the yard soon afterwards. He was riding a dock-tailed chestnut cob, wearing his cream-coloured stock, soft-topped boots and tall black hat with silver lace cockade. He gave me a wave with his riding switch as he dismounted, then concentrated on helping the two ladies down from their saddles. It seemed to take a long time and an immoderate amount of giggling. Eventually he disposed of them and the three horses and walked over to join me by the loosebox door.

  ‘I saw our man yesterday evening,’ Amos said. ‘Taylor, his name is. Queer old quist someways, but friendly enough over a glass or two. He’s found a place with a livery stables out Oxford way, so I was lucky to ketch him before he flew, like.’

  ‘And you got him talking about Hardcastle?’

  ‘Wasn’t difficult. Apart from not getting his wages paid and the late nights and his lordship’s friends being sick in the phaeton and having to be cleared up after, he didn’t dislike him on the whole. So I agreed that it was hard being kept up all hours with him drinking and playing cards and so on, but I didn’t suppose he was bothered with too many early mornings.’

  I could imagine them sitting over their beer, Amos playing the country innocent to lead his man on.

  ‘He laughed at that and said no, he couldn’t recall he was ever needed before eleven o’clock in the morning, except just the once. So I said I supposed that was a long time ago. Not so long, he said, only a few weeks ago. He remembered it because it was the last long drive he took in the phaeton. He liked that phaeton, only he didn’t often get much chance to drive it because in the morning Mr Hardcastle would usually drive it himself.’

  ‘A long drive?’ I couldn’t resist putting in a question.

  ‘All the way out to Hampstead at seven o’clock in the morning, and this was a month ago when it was still dark then. That’s why he wanted his driver with him. He didn’t care for going out in the country in the dark.’

  A month ago. That would make it about two weeks before Columbine died. I bit my tongue.

  ‘“What was Mr Hardcastle doing, going all the way to Hampstead on a dark winter morning?” I said. And he gives me a look as if he’s not saying, only I can see he doesn’t mean it and just wants to be persuaded. So I buy him another pint of the gnat’s piss they call beer here and I say, “It sounds as if he was up to no good.” “Up to no good? That depends what you mean,” he says. “Any rate, he looked like a man who was going to be hanged.”’

  ‘Going to be hanged!’

  ‘He looked as if he hadn’t been to bed the night before, cravat all rumpled and wine-stained. Stamping around impatient because Taylor’s fingers were cold and it took him a while to get the lamps lit on the phaeton. All the way out to Hampstead he kept on at him to go faster and kept taking out his watch, trying to see the time on it in the dark. Anyways, they got there just as the clocks were striking eight. There’s a public house at the bottom of the hill, just before you turn to go up to Jack Straw’s Castle. Mr Hardcastle tells him to pull up there and wait for him. Says he’ll be back in twenty minutes or so. Then he gets down, crosses the road and walks off.’

  ‘He doesn’t like walking,’ I said, thinking of the occasion in Piccadilly.

  ‘That’s just what occurred to Taylor. He couldn’t see, after all this fuss and bother, why he didn’t just have himself driven to where he was going. So he gets curious. If the public house had been open and Taylor could have gone in for a drink, that might have been another matter, but it wasn’t. Any rate, he waits a few minutes, then he drives off in the direction Mr Hardcastle went, just for a look, like. And what do you think he comes to?’

  He paused. Rancie approached the door and rubbed her nose against his sleeve. He started talking to her.

  ‘How are we then, girl? Not been out today?’

  He was being deliberately infuriating, making me wait.

  ‘Never mind her,’ I said. ‘What did he come to?’

  ‘Nothing much down
that way at all, except a few houses with nobody about. And a church, with a closed carriage waiting outside.’

  We were there at last. Amos looked sideways at me, enjoying the effect of his story.

  ‘There were lamps lit inside the church, at that time in the morning and not a Sunday. So Taylor says to himself, “Ho-ho, that’s his game, then!” and he turns the phaeton round double quick and gets back to where he was supposed to wait. Ten minutes later, up comes Mr Hardcastle, puffed out from walking fast. He slumps himself down in the seat and tells Taylor to get back home and look sharp about it. Doesn’t say a word all the way back.’

  ‘Hardcastle was on his own?’

  ‘He was.’

  ‘What about the closed carriage?’

  ‘Taylor didn’t see any more of it. He supposed it was still waiting outside the church.’

  ‘Could he describe it? Was there a coat of arms, for instance?’

  ‘He didn’t get that close, in case Mr Hardcastle came out of the church and saw him. All he knows is that it was drawn by a couple of bays.’

  As were half the carriages in London, so that was no help. Still, what he had given me was pure gold.

  ‘Amos Legge, you’re a wonder of the world.’

  He nodded, taking it as no more than his due.

  ‘Does it help, then?’

  ‘A lot.’

  However secret a marriage, for it to be legal it must be entered in the church register, including the bride’s maiden name. It would be a simple matter to go out to Hampstead and find the church nearest to where the phaeton had waited. One glance in the book and we would have the name of Hardcastle’s rich bride.

  ‘How soon can we ride out to Hampstead?’ I said.

  Amos considered.

  ‘We could do it tomorrow, if you liked.’

  I was about to say yes when I remembered the meeting in the Rotunda.

  ‘Sunday morning, then,’ Amos said. ‘We’re all booked up here on Saturday.’

  The day before the trial, but it would have to do. Another thought came to me.

  ‘Amos, are you doing anything at four o’clock tomorrow afternoon?’

  ‘Nothing that can’t be got out of.’

  ‘There’s a gentleman I’m meeting in Leicester Square. He’s tried to kill somebody.’

  He nodded, as if that were something quite normal.

  ‘Just point me his way and I’ll have him trussed like a Michaelmas goose soon as you can say kiss your hand.’

  ‘I don’t want him trussed up. I just want to make sure he stays put long enough to answer a question or two.’

  ‘He’ll stand like he’s grown roots and been planted.’

  I said I’d meet him in Leicester Square at a quarter to four and he rode off whistling as if I’d given him good news.

  I hardly slept that night. Next morning I gave music lessons to my usual Friday family, but my mind wasn’t with them. I was on Kennedy’s doorstep at three o’clock. He’d met Amos Legge in the past and approved my idea of adding him to the party. As we walked towards Leicester Square, Kennedy and I discussed Hardcastle’s marriage. He was inclined to believe the groom’s story, but pointed out that it weakened the case against Hardcastle.

  ‘If he married two weeks or so before Columbine died, it wouldn’t matter if she was trying to blackmail him or had compromising letters. He’d caught his rich bride and Columbine couldn’t do anything about it.’

  ‘Why was he so concerned to keep it secret then?’ I said. ‘As soon as the marriage register is signed, he could get his hands on his wife’s money and laugh at the bailiffs. Why should he wait?’

  We were still discussing it when we came to Leicester Square. Amos was waiting under a tree by the builders’ yard.

  ‘Hello, Mr Kennedy,’ he said. ‘Still fiddling then?’

  Kennedy replied politely that yes, he was still playing the violin.

  I stared across at the Rotunda. A lamp over the door was lit, illuminating the sign board, but there was nobody going in or out.

  ‘We’ll wait until just after four,’ I said. ‘If our man hasn’t gone in by then, we’ll assume he’s already inside. We’ll go in together, like any normal customers. We’ll let Mr Kennedy go on ahead up the staircase, because our man is expecting to meet another man. I’ll follow him. Mr Legge, would you kindly wait at the bottom of the stairs, unless you hear one of us shouting. If a man tries to run out, hold him.’

  Amos just nodded. Kennedy raised objections.

  ‘It would be safer if Mr Legge and I went upstairs to confront him and you waited downstairs.’

  ‘It most certainly would not be safer.’ I had a vivid memory of the dark shape pushing past me and of Pauline slumped on the floor. ‘He might be downstairs. That’s where he was last time. A fine thing, if he came out of the shadows to attack me and you two were up in the gallery.’

  Four o’clock struck, the chimes from various clocks spaced out over three minutes or more. Nobody had gone inside the Rotunda.

  ‘He’s in there already, then,’ I said.

  We walked towards the entrance, Toby Kennedy and Amos Legge on either side of me. I hoped whoever was on duty wouldn’t recognise me. In an effort to look as unlike one of the soiled-dove sisterhood as possible, I’d put on my plainest bonnet and scraped my hair back so tightly that it put a permanent frown on my forehead. A different boy, but just as bored as the first one, took our money and didn’t give me a second glance. We passed the cash desk and stopped at the foot of the stairs. On either side of us, the corridor curved into shadows. I held up my hand for us to listen and wait. For a few seconds there was only the hiss and splutter of the gas-lamps; then, from the gallery upstairs, the sound of footsteps. A few steps one way, pause, then a few steps the other way. Heavy but tentative, like a man waiting. Then he must have moved in front of one of the gas-lamps, because a long shadow wavered over the palace of Imperial Peking.

  Kennedy caught my eye. I nodded, and he walked upstairs quite normally, like anybody going to see the panorama. His steps sounded firmly round the gallery above our heads, then his voice, polite but pitched loudly so that we could hear.

  ‘Good evening, sir. May I ask if you are waiting to meet Mr Lane?’

  That was my signal. I put a warning hand on the arm of Amos, who looked inclined to follow me, then ran upstairs. Toby Kennedy was doing well, but I’d conjured up this witness and the next step belonged to me. My blood was racing. If things went well we might have our man inside a lawyer’s office within the hour, telling us why he was so convinced of Pauline’s guilt that he’d tried to strangle her.

  In the gallery, I had my first sight of the man. He was wearing a thick black coat and carrying a top hat in his hand. He would have been tall, probably six foot or more if he’d stood upright, but his shoulders were hunched and his whole posture was that of a man run to seed. He might have been in his forties or older. He seemed to ooze a lifetime’s disappointment: cheeks drooping, deep creases from his nostrils to his down-turned mouth, thin hair combed carefully across a balding head. His complexion looked more yellowish than brown, but that might have been the gaslight. He was staring at Kennedy, who had his back to me. If he’d answered Kennedy’s question, his voice had been too low to carry to me.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ I said. ‘I put the advertisement in. Do you remember me from last week?’

  His eyes switched from Kennedy to me. I walked up and stood beside Kennedy, so that between us we were blocking the gallery.

  ‘You must have loved Columbine very much,’ I said.

  I wasn’t acting on impulse; I’d thought it out carefully. That this man had loved Columbine and hoped to avenge her was the only thing that made sense. He’d see, at any rate, that it was no use pretending not to know what we wanted. I was prepared for almost anything – curses, denials, an attempt to get away. What I hadn’t expected was the blank stare he was giving me. I thought that by the sheerest ill luck we’d caught some innocent strang
er who’d come to pass an instructive half-hour in Peking. Then he opened his mouth and, before he even said a word, I knew we had the right man. The few remaining teeth in his head were as rotten as pig-swill apples and his breath reeked like an old dog’s.

  ‘Love?’ The word came out as a wavering yell, echoing round the dome. ‘Love her?’

  Then, while we were still reeling from the sound, he lurched at us, head down. It was a clumsy charge, but we were caught by surprise and fell back. He blundered on towards the staircase and, at the top of it, cannoned into Amos Legge, who’d come running up, alerted by the outcry. A lesser man might have pitched backwards downstairs, but Amos was immoveable. He put his hands on the man’s shoulders.

  ‘Settle down now. Nobody’s looking to hurt you.’

  He spoke gently, as if dealing with a nervous horse. The boy called up from the cash desk to ask what was happening.

  ‘Gentleman come over a bit kecky,’ Amos said. ‘Don’t you worry, boy, we’re taking care of him.’

  There were padded benches all round the gallery, for people to study the panorama at leisure. Amos steered the man to the nearest one and sat him down. The effort of running, or perhaps the impact of Amos, had taken all the fight out of him. He leaned over wheezing, his hands dangling between his knees.

  ‘Flask,’ he said. ‘Flask in pocket.’

  Kennedy gave me a glance, then felt in the man’s pocket and produced a hip flask. When he uncorked it, the smell of brandy filled the air round us. The man took it, glugged several mouthfuls and coughed.

  ‘Do you want a doctor?’ I said.

  I didn’t want him to die on us. He shook his head and handed the flask to Kennedy for re-corking.

  ‘Quacks, all of them.’

  The brandy gave him enough strength to sit upright, more or less. I sat beside him. Amos moved in close to the bench.

  ‘So you didn’t love her?’ I said.

  From Kennedy’s face, he thought I was being callous in persisting, but then he hadn’t been there when this man had almost throttled a woman. The man looked me in the face. His eyes might have been his best feature once upon a time, if you liked lap-dog’s eyes in a man’s face.