Murder at the Mikado

by Julianna Deering

  “Are you angry with me for agreeing to help her or because she exists at all?”

  She looked at him, her forehead wrinkled. “I suppose I ought to forgive her, too.” She laughed under her breath. “Until a few days ago I didn’t even know she existed. And now, knowing how she treated you, knowing that she . . .” She broke off, refusing to say whatever else she was thinking.

  “It was all a very long time ago, darling. Oughtn’t we both to let it go?”

  There was something distant and dark in her expression. “I can’t stand even the thought of her.”

  “Poor darling.” He kissed her temple. “If Landis weren’t such a grand chap, I’m afraid I wouldn’t have considered helping Mrs. Landis, either. What a pair of reprobates we are, eh?”

  After a long pause, she said, “Maybe that’s the point of this whole thing, Drew, helping anyone who needs us. Not just the ones we particularly like.”

  “Maybe.” He smiled. “No, not maybe. I’m certain of it.”

  She nestled closer to him. “I’m sorry I was mad at you.”

  “I’m sorry you were too, darling. Sorry you have to deal with any of this just now actually. I expect all you want to do is enjoy being a bride and everything that comes with it.”

  They said nothing more until they were almost at the door to the dining room. He stopped her before they went in.

  “You needn’t be involved in this case at all if you’d rather not. I’m just going to see what I can find out. I expect Nick will lend a hand when he’s not enmeshed in estate business or figuring out what to do about Barbie Chalfont. I’m certain, for the little bit I plan on doing, I won’t really need him.”

  “Oh, no. You’re not doing anything on this case without me. The more help you have, the quicker you’ll be done with the whole thing.”

  He beamed at her. “Then you’ll help me?”

  “Of course I will,” she said, but without even a hint of her usual cheekiness. “Try and stop me.”

  He brought her hand to his lips. “Wouldn’t dream of it, darling. Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “So where do we start?”

  He thought for a moment as he settled her in a chair. “I suppose the scene of the crime is the recommended place.” He sat down beside her and put his napkin in his lap. “What did that article in the newspaper say? The Tivoli?”

  “The Tivoli?” Nick said as he came into the room. “The Ravenswood murder, isn’t it? Oh, I say, Drew, you are going to let me come along too, aren’t you?”

  Drew nodded. “Provided you can tear yourself away from estate business for the afternoon. We’d better get this all resolved before the other little maids from school arrive.”

  Madeline gave him a reluctant smile. “That’s not for another two weeks.”

  “Plenty of time,” Drew assured her. “If not, I would say bring Miss Holland along, but then I suppose Miss Brower would have to be asked too, and then we’d look rather like a touring party.”

  “I adore the girl, you know,” Nick said, leaning against the doorframe, “but when it comes to fussing about with murder investigations, I’m sure Miss Holland would be most grateful to be spared. I know Barbie wouldn’t hear of being part of so pedestrian a pastime.”

  “More than likely. Not every girl is as suited to sleuthing as mine. Have you and Barbie patched things up?”

  “Ah.” Nick winced just the slightest bit. “Not as such.”

  “Well, perhaps Miss Holland would be a better match anyway.” Drew stood and tucked Madeline’s arm into his. “What do you say, darling? Shall we see what secrets are hidden behind the stage curtain?”

  The Tivoli was a rather small theater located on Jewry Street in Winchester. Bright posters advertised The Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan, with John Sullivan Ravenswood written in bold letters at the top. But the word CLOSED had been pasted across each of the posters. The marquee was blank, and there was a handwritten sign in the ticket window:

  Due to the recent tragedy, the Tivoli’s presentation of The Mikado has been canceled. Refunds for unused tickets will be given between the hours of two and four o’clock in the afternoon, Sundays and Mondays excepted.

  The Management

  “Not much of a place,” Nick observed, looking up at the bland white-brick front. “Looks more like a hotel than a theater. Ever been inside?”

  “A time or two.” Drew shrugged. “I brought Daphne Pomphrey-Hughes here three or four years ago. She cried all through The Pirates of Penzance.”

  “Was the production that bad?” Madeline asked.

  “Not at all,” Drew said. “Quite good actually. She said she just felt very, very sorry for all those orphans.”

  “Orphans? The pirates? They ended up all right, didn’t they?”

  “True enough, but she was of the opinion that even if they were all noblemen who had gone wrong, returning to the House of Peers would not make up for the anguish caused by their parentless childhoods.”

  Madeline could only shake her head.

  Drew laughed. “Dear Daphne is an earnest soul, yet the mysteries of comic opera are far above her head.”

  “In other words,” Nick said, “she didn’t get the joke.”

  Drew tried to open the front door and found it locked, so they went round to the stage door. That too was locked, but then a spindly little man opened the door at Drew’s third bout of knocking. He looked his three visitors up and down.

  “Miss Cullimore,” he said with a sniff, “don’t give autographs exceptin’ after performances. Good afternoon.”

  “Good afternoon,” Drew said, tipping his hat and deliberately misunderstanding the pointed dismissal. “We didn’t come for autographs.”

  The man looked at him with mild disgust. “She don’t talk to nobody about Mr. Ravenswood neither ’less they’re with the police. Are you with the police?”

  “Not as such,” Drew admitted. “However, I—”

  “Thought not,” the man said, grimly pleased. “Good afternoon.”

  Madeline gave him her prettiest smile. “I know it’s your job to keep people from bothering the players, but we’d be awfully obliged to you if you’d let us have just the teensiest look around.” Her smile turned conspiratorial. “You might not have noticed, but I’m from America. I’d just love to see the inside of this fine old theater. We don’t have anything like it back in Chicago where I’m from. Have you ever been to Chicago?”

  “No, miss,” the man said. “Been to Finchley, but I don’t reckon that’s quite the same.”

  “Well, you must come sometime. You’d love it.” She slipped her arm through his and walked into the theater beside him. “But tell me about this place. It looks more like a hotel than a theater.”

  “It was at one time, miss. Back sixty or seventy years ago. This lot have been putting on Gilbert and Sullivan here for five years now. In fact, it was their anniversary they was celebrating that night Mr. Ravenswood was killed.”

  Nick smirked at Drew as they followed Madeline inside.

  “And before that it was variety,” the man continued. “Mr. Memory, trained dogs, all that. Now, in my father’s day, we had Miss Jenny Lind, we did. Saw her once myself, and bless me if she weren’t a true nightingale. But that was some while ago.”

  “What about last week?” Drew said. “They were playing The Mikado, I believe.”

  “They were. And now Mr. Benton has got to take on all of Mr. Ravenswood’s roles and train up Master Hazeldine for the juvenile leads.”

  “Master Hazeldine?” Nick raised one eyebrow. “Young, is he?”

  Their guide made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a snort. “Says he’s twenty-one. Don’t know that he could be more than seventeen. Mightn’t be that even, and likely a runaway. Still, he does fair enough, and I’m not saying he don’t, even if he does come a bit flat on some of the higher notes. There’s not so many as notices that, and the young ladies swoon over him already.”

  Drew tried to hide a gr
in. “And Benton?”

  “Well, he can still play the young’uns, if you don’t look too close.”

  “So he’s doing all of Ravenswood’s old roles now?” Nick asked. “Does he have that sort of voice?”

  The man gave him a gap-toothed grin. “The orchestra’s had to raise the key on some of the songs, but Mr. Benton’s not half bad. Come along and hear for yourself.”

  Drew hurried after as the man led them presumably toward the stage. “Mr. . . . ?”

  “Name’s Grady.”

  “Very well, Mr. Grady, I would—”

  “Not Mr. Grady. Grady Hibbert.”

  “I see. Mr. Hibbert then. I would—”

  “Nope. Just Grady. My granddad was Mr. Hibbert. My dad was just Pop. He kept this stage in Queen Victoria’s time, God bless her, and if he didn’t need no surname, then I’ll do without as well.”

  “Grady it is.” Drew shook his hand to seal the bargain. “Now, I would very much like to find out about how the stage is set up and the arrangement of the dressing rooms and so forth. What would you say to letting me and my friends here have a look round inside? Scene of the crime and all that? We needn’t stay long.”

  Grady scratched behind one ear. “I dunno. They’re rehearsing. Going into Penzance and Pinafore starting Saturday. Not that they don’t know ’em already, but just polishing up, as it were.”

  “I see,” Drew said. “Mind if we have a peep? We’ll try to stay quiet at the back.”

  “They’ll never know we’re there,” Madeline promised, bright-eyed.

  “Well . . .”

  Drew jingled the coins in his pocket, and Grady gave him that gap-toothed smile again.

  “Well, if you put it that way, don’t like to say no to a gentleman. Mind you, if you’re seen you have to swear you snuck in on your own.”

  Drew slipped him a half a crown. “Your secret is safe with us. Come along, Madeline. Nick.”

  The four of them crept into a dim, narrow hallway. Grady tapped the side of his nose, warning them to silence, and led them around the side of the stage and down another longer hallway into the lobby.

  “Quiet as mice now,” he whispered.

  He opened the door to the theater just enough for them to squeeze through. As stealthily as they could, Drew, Madeline, and Nick stole to the back row of seats and sank down. On the stage, swords crossed, stood two men. One was lithe and catlike and looked to be thirty or so, handsome and well made. He had to be Conor Benton. Drew fought a smile. He did have a bit of a weak chin.

  The other was not so graceful and looked quite young, eighteen at most. There was still a bit of that awkwardness about him, though it would probably not have been so noticeable with anyone else onstage.

  “No! No!” Benton said. “Don’t clomp around as if you were mucking out a stable! A little grace, man! A touch of style, if you can manage it.”

  The young man jabbed his sword at the air next to Benton’s head, and Benton turned it away with an easy flick of his wrist.

  “Sorry,” Hazeldine murmured, pushing his hair back from his damp forehead and taking a better grip on his blade. “Let me try again.”

  “All right.” Benton crossed the stage and stood next to Hazeldine. “We’ll do it together. The police say, ‘So to Constabulary, pirates yield!’ And then the girls have their line.”

  He looked at the rather bland young woman sitting at the corner of the stage, script in hand, her legs curled under her. She had her eyes fixed on him, and there was a certain wistfulness in her expression that Drew had seen before in stagestruck young ladies.

  Benton raised his eyebrows. “The girls? Tess?”

  “Oh, sorry, Conor. Sorry.” She glanced at the script. “ ‘Oh, rapture!’ ”

  He gave her an encouraging smile and then turned back to Hazeldine. “Right. Now, the minute the girls do their line, you lunge at Dave with your sword. Don’t let it drag.”

  A sturdy-looking man with a handlebar mustache gave Hazeldine a nod.

  “Now,” Benton said. “ ‘So to Constabulary, pirates yield!’ ”

  “ ‘Oh, rapture!’ ” the girl called Tess chimed in.

  Benton and Hazeldine lunged in unison toward the man with the mustache. He gave a comic leap straight into the air and then parried both their swords with his truncheon.

  “That’s it,” Benton said as he and Hazeldine continued the fight at a snail’s pace, upstage and downstage. “Better, better. One, two, count in your head, five, six, seven, eight. Good.”

  Finally, Dave lay prostrate at Hazeldine’s feet. The boy was looking at Benton again, waiting for Benton’s assessment.

  “Not so much like a cart horse that time,” Benton said. “Now if our police sergeant would—”

  Drew stepped forward. “I beg your pardon.”

  There was a sudden silence onstage, and then a lanky blonde stepped out from behind some scenery and shaded her eyes, squinting into the darkness of the house. “Who’s there?”

  Drew nudged Madeline, and she and Nick both stood.

  “Miss Cullimore,” Drew said. “Good afternoon. My name is Drew Farthering, and this is my fiancée, Madeline Parker, and my friend, Nick Dennison.”

  Benton narrowed his eyes. “This is a private rehearsal. How did you lot get in here?”

  “How do you know my name?” the blond woman asked. “Are you with the police?”

  “No,” Drew said. “But we are looking into the death of your husband.” Drew turned his hat in his hands. “I’ve seen you onstage before. Do accept my condolences.”

  “Farthering?” She looked him up and down. “Who sent you? You aren’t newspapermen, are you?”

  Nick chuckled, and she gave him a poisonous glare.

  “No,” Drew assured her. “We’re making a private investigation, trying to make sure the guilty party is discovered as quickly as possible and that the innocent are let alone.”

  “Who are you working for?” Benton asked, arms crossed. “Whoever it is, we haven’t time for your nonsense. We open day after tomorrow, and we’ll hardly get everything done as it is. Now, if you’ll let us carry on.”

  He looked pointedly toward the doors, but the blonde crossed over to him and put one hand on his arm. “Who did you say you were working for?” she asked Drew.

  “I didn’t, in point of fact, but it’s a Mr. Landis. I doubt you’ve heard of him, but—”

  The woman laughed. “The Landis who’s married to Fleur Hargreaves? He sent you?” She nodded, eyes narrowed again. “I shouldn’t wonder. He sent you to clear her?”

  “That was rather his hope,” Drew said. “I merely said I’d look into the thing. I couldn’t possibly make him any guarantees.”

  “Farthering.” She nodded several times. “I knew I’d heard that name before, and now I remember. You fancy yourselves detectives, don’t you? You and your friend there? And that must be the American girl. Your fiancée, is she? Frightfully lucky girl.”

  “Come on, Simone,” Benton said. “We don’t have to—”

  “No, let them stay.”

  She smirked at Drew, and Benton scowled in return.

  “I’ve got better things to do just now than spend the afternoon talking to a bunch of toffs who fancy themselves Sherlock Holmes.” He stalked down the center aisle and out the lobby door, calling back to them, “Don’t think we’re even near being ready to open on Saturday.”

  “Come along then,” Miss Cullimore said, evidently amused by him. “Come up here, everyone, and we’ll all have a nice chat.” She motioned with both hands. “Gather round, children.”

  The players made a semicircle around her, and Drew realized there weren’t all that many present. Benton, the Pirate King, had already taken himself off, but that left Hazeldine as Frederic, Dave as the First Policeman, the man they called Clive as the Sergeant. Drew assumed the rather rotund and red-faced older man was the Major General, and Miss Cullimore herself was playing the dewy-eyed Mabel. At least for rehearsal purposes,
it seemed the script girl, Tess, was everyone else.

  “Now,” Simone said, “Mr. Farthering is going to ask us questions, and we’re going to tell him everything we know. Won’t that be fun?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Simone,” said the older man. “You should let the police see to things about Johnnie’s death.”

  “It’s all right, Ronald. The police don’t seem to be moving very quickly on this case. Perhaps Mr. Farthering and his friends can find some evidence they’ve overlooked.”

  Drew glanced at Nick. “And just who do you think is the guilty party?”

  “Fleur,” Simone said. “At least Conor says so.”

  Madeline glanced at Drew but kept silent.

  “Do you believe him?” Nick asked.

  “Why shouldn’t I? I don’t know who else would.” Simone sat down on a plaster boulder. “She and my husband had been at odds for a while now. He didn’t much care what she did, but she hated him with a true passion.”

  Drew looked up at her. “Because . . . ?”

  “It was hardly a secret, you know. Not round here. He’d been seeing her off and on from the time they were in that company together in Oxford—can’t remember what it was called now—until about four or five years ago. Then she up and marries this Landis fellow. Only one explanation for that, if you ask me.”

  “Which is?”

  She gave Drew a knowing look. “She was being an unbearable nuisance, making demands on him, insisting he leave me and marry her. I don’t know why she’d think he’d do that. He didn’t do that for any of the others. Why should he for her?”

  “Then you knew about their . . . liaison at the time?”

  “I always knew. He wasn’t exactly very good at keeping secrets, and it’s not as if he even tried to keep that sort of thing from me. He and I were over years ago. I think he married me only because I told him he couldn’t have me any other way. And I meant it. But I shouldn’t have expected to change him. I knew how he was. We weren’t married long before he’d fairly much moved on to someone else. And someone else, and someone else.” She glanced at the script girl. “Once he made one of his conquests, it didn’t take long for him to start looking for the next challenge.”