Murder at the Mikado

by Julianna Deering

  “Pardon me, sir. There is a telephone call for you in the study.”

  Madeline pushed herself away from him and turned to lean against the balcony railing.

  Drew cleared his throat. “Who is it?”

  There was a definite aura of disdain on Dennison’s normally impassive face. “The gentleman declined to say, sir. I told him that unless he was willing to identify himself, I would not be able to connect him. He claims you will want to speak to him regardless.”

  Drew glanced at Madeline, standing at the balcony railing, her arms around herself, looking fragile and uncertain. Before he could tell Denny he was otherwise occupied, she excused herself and hurried inside. Drew turned to the butler with an exasperated sigh.

  “Shall I tell the caller you are not available to answer the telephone?” Dennison asked, perfectly composed.

  “No, no, it’s all right. I’ll speak to him.”

  Drew went into the study and picked up the receiver.

  “Is this Mr. Farthering?”

  Drew didn’t recognize the voice, but he couldn’t help thinking he had heard it somewhere before. “Who’s speaking, please?”

  “This is Lew Zuraw from the Tivoli. You may not remember me, but I manage things financially for Miss Cullimore.”

  “Oh, yes.” Drew remembered the man’s slight accent from their brief conversation. “Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Zuraw?”

  There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line. “I was wondering if I could speak to you in person,” the man said finally. “At my office in the theater. I’ve uncovered some evidence here that I think you will find . . . interesting.”

  “Very well.” Drew checked his watch. “What time did you have in mind?”

  “Now, if it isn’t inconvenient. Go to the stage entrance and tell Grady to bring you round to my office. There’s a performance going on, so I know nobody will bother us.”

  “I can be there in a few minutes. Mind if I bring along a friend or two?”

  “That girl you had with you before?”

  “Yes,” Drew said. “And one more.”

  “All right. No harm in that. Just come quickly. While they’re all busy with the show. I don’t want . . . well, you’ve got to get here right away, that’s all.”

  “Right. See you in a moment.”

  Drew hung up the phone and then hurried back into the parlor.

  “I say, Nick, old man, care to take a little drive into Winchester?”

  Nick’s eyebrows went up. “If I didn’t know better, I’d mistake you for a man who’s picked up a fresh scent.”

  Drew nodded, unable to keep the excitement out of his eyes. “Got it in one.” He bowed formally in front of Madeline, who was sitting before the fire without her usual book. “How would you like to go to the theater, darling?”

  She glanced at Nick and then stood. “Who was that on the telephone?”

  “Mr. Zuraw, the business manager at the Tivoli. He says he’s got something terribly important to tell us, and he wants us up there right away. Are you still in on the game?”

  Again she looked to Nick, and her smile seemed suddenly more genuine. “The sooner we go, the sooner we’ll have the case solved and be able to forget all about it.”

  They bundled into their wraps and were soon motoring up to Winchester. They made good time, and the Tivoli was blazing with lights when Drew pulled the Rolls up in front of the theater. Even from the street, the familiar music was discernible. “Things are seldom what they seem . . .”

  “It’s Pinafore tonight, I see.”

  They knocked at the stage door several times before Grady opened it.

  “Oh, it’s you.” He scratched behind one ear and eyed both Madeline and Nick. “Brought everyone along this time, eh?”

  “Good evening, Grady,” Drew said. “We’ve come to see Mr. Zuraw.”

  Grady gawked at them for a moment longer and then shrugged. “Well, come in then, I suppose. Mr. Zuraw didn’t say anything to me about visitors, but I’ll take you round to his office if you like. Mind you keep the noise down while the show is on. Not such a problem when the music’s going, but there are times when it’s just dialogue, and then the audience can hear most anything that happens back here.”

  The music stopped just then, and they could hear the actors speaking their lines as well as the audience’s laughter. One finger to his lips, Grady led the visitors down the dim corridor and stopped at the last door on the right.

  “Mr. Zuraw?” He tapped softly when he got no answer. “Mr. Zuraw?”

  “Zuraw?” Drew called a little more loudly, ignoring Grady’s scowl. “Are you there?”

  “Perhaps he’s gone out,” Madeline suggested, but Drew shook his head.

  “He asked us to come. He wouldn’t have left until after we talked.” Drew tried the door, but it was firmly locked. “Do you have a key?”

  Grady looked mildly offended to even be asked the question. “I have keys to all the locks in this building, save what was Mr. Ravenswood’s dressing room.”

  He pulled a large ring from his pocket and started sorting through the keys, finally separating a section of them from the rest.

  “These here are for the storage rooms and offices. This door’s number twelve.” He selected a key and thrust it into the lock, but it wouldn’t turn. “Hmmm.”

  He pulled the key out and squinted at it. He then counted from the key on the left until he got to twelve. He tried that key in the lock, the same one he’d tried before, Drew was certain, and still it would not turn.

  “How many keys to that section?” Drew asked, making a swift count.

  “Fifteen in this hallway,” Grady replied. “Seven odds left, seven evens right, and number fifteen at the end. They’re not marked that, but that’s how I keep ’em straight.”

  “Only fourteen keys there now.” Drew nodded toward the one in the lock. “May I?”

  “Suit yourself,” Grady grumbled.

  Drew took the key from the lock and tried it in the last door on the left. It opened easily. “That’s number thirteen, not twelve.” He indicated the key next to it. “And I daresay this one is number eleven.”

  He tried that key in the door to the left of the one he’d just opened. It too swung open without protest.

  “So someone took the key to Mr. Zuraw’s office.” Madeline tightened her hold on Drew’s arm. “You don’t suppose he’s . . . in there, do you?”

  “He’d just rung up to say he had some information on the case and now he’s not answering the door?” There was a knowing glimmer in Nick’s eyes. “I can tell you what would be in there if this were one of Mrs. Christie’s stories.”

  Madeline pursed her lips. “Oh, Nick, stop.”

  “Does anyone besides Zuraw have a key?” Drew asked, knowing they were all thinking the same thing Nick was.

  “The night watchman, Alf,” Grady said. “But he won’t be on duty until after midnight when I go off.”

  “Better break it down,” Nick said, and Drew nodded.

  “Here now!” Grady protested, but Nick was already throwing his shoulder against the door. In another moment, with a splintering crack, the door gave way.

  The room was empty, silent but for the muted sound of Simone Cullimore singing. “The hours creep on apace . . .”

  They made a quick check of the space under the desk and behind the curtain, but there were no bodies concealed anywhere. The only thing out of place was the green-shaded desk lamp. It was lying on its side and had no cord.

  “No place else in here to hide anyone,” Drew said, frowning at the lamp. “He seems to have tidied up a bit since we were here last. The desk at least.”

  Instead of the whirlwind of clutter, everything on the desk had been arranged into neat stacks now.

  “He might have been embarrassed for us to have seen it that way,” Madeline suggested.

  Nick looked around the room again. “Perhaps he did just step out for a while. Ter
ribly inconsiderate of him, if you ask me. So, do we wait until he comes back or—”

  There was a clatter from somewhere outside the room.

  “Drew!” Madeline gasped, and then there was the sound of a slamming door. “Down there. Hurry.”

  Drew sprinted down the corridor toward the door that led to the alley behind the theater. “Come on, Nick. Stay with Grady, darling.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” Madeline muttered.

  With her right behind them, Drew and Nick burst through the door and then stopped short. The alley was empty and silent. A quick search told them there was no one lurking behind dustbins or in any of the locked doorways to either side of them or across the way. A second door from the alley to the theater was also locked.

  Nick shook his head. “Gone. Whoever it was.”

  Drew turned back to Madeline and took her arm. “What exactly did you see, darling?”

  “It was hardly anything.” She shrugged. “I’m sure someone was there, but all I could see was a streak of black going down the hall and then turning to the door that leads out here.”

  “Black?”

  “Yes, or at least very, very dark. And flowing. Like a cloak.”

  “Like Mrs. Landis’s cloak?” Drew asked.

  “I . . . I don’t know. I didn’t really see much.”

  He looked again up and down the alleyway, and then they all went back into the theater.

  Grady was still standing in the doorway to Zuraw’s office. “See anyone?”

  Drew shook his head. “What are the rest of these rooms? Offices?”

  “A couple of them. Most are storage rooms. If they’re needed, though they usually aren’t, they’re sometimes dressing rooms for the chorus. They’re a bit out of the way to be handy to the stage.”

  “I say, Drew?” Nick stood next to the first door on the left, number one. “This wasn’t open before, was it?”

  The door was open just a crack, and no light came from the room.

  Drew glanced back at Grady. “A storage room, did you say? Is it usually kept locked?”

  “Might be. Might not.” The stageman shot out his lower lip and shook his head. “Depends on who’s been in and out and if they do as they’re supposed to and lock up behind themselves.”

  “I suppose that crash could have come from in here,” Nick said. “Mind if we have a look?”

  “I don’t mind,” Grady said, yet he looked as though he did.

  With Drew and Madeline beside him, Nick pushed the door open with his foot and turned on the light. Sprawled in the middle of the floor was Lew Zuraw, his face black with blood, an electrical cord around his neck.

  From the stage came the faint sound of a baritone singing. “Kind Captain, I’ve important information. . . .”

  Thirteen

  Grady peered into the room from the corridor, rheumy eyes wide. “Mr. Zuraw,” he breathed. “Love a duck.”

  Drew looked at the two chairs that were overturned beside Zuraw, careful not to touch anything. “That’s what must have made the clatter.” He knelt beside the body and then looked over at Grady. “You might want to give the police a ring.”

  The stageman turned to go.

  “I say, Grady,” Drew added, “do they generally keep those in here?” He nodded at the low handcart in the corner of the room.

  “Not usually,” Grady said. “They’re kept backstage or in one of the main storerooms. Might be used anywhere in the theater, of course, but wouldn’t be kept here. This is mostly costumes for the shows we don’t have on at the moment. Everything from Thespis to The Gondoliers.” He glanced at the body. “I’ll have the police right out. I just hope they can keep the noise down until the show is over.”

  He hurried away, and Nick shook his head. “I should hate to see his reaction if the production had to be halted.”

  “Heaven forfend,” Drew said. “Now, since we have a moment or two before the gendarmerie arrive, let’s see what there is to see. What do we notice right away?”

  “He’s obviously been strangled,” Nick said. “Nasty bit of work.”

  “Yes, but not here.” Madeline stepped around the body, examining the crime scene from a different angle. “Everything here is too neat. I mean, boxes and racks and things look like they haven’t been touched in a long time. Except for those chairs—and we heard them fall over before the killer ran out of the room—everything in here seems to be where it belongs. Mr. Zuraw had to have fought against whoever strangled him, even if he was taken by surprise.”

  Drew nodded. “Which explains why that cart is in here. The killer used it to move the body, but from where?”

  “It wasn’t his office. It was perfectly in order, except for the desk lamp and the cord missing from it,” Nick said. “And there’s little doubt what’s become of that.”

  “I don’t know.” Drew knelt again beside the body. “Compared to when we saw it last, his office was too neat. Perhaps he was strangled there and brought here. But why? And by whom? It obviously wasn’t Mrs. Landis.”

  “Someone who wanted us to think it was Fleur?” Nick mused.

  “Yes, but why?” Drew’s forehead wrinkled. “Locked up, Mrs. Landis has the only truly iron-clad alibi of the lot.”

  “But Drew,” Madeline said, “I saw someone. I’m sure of it, and in a black cloak of some kind, like the one Fleur had.”

  “A black cloak that’s locked up at the moment as well, I daresay.” Drew leaned closer to the dead man, head tilted to one side.

  “It’s strange,” Madeline said. “He didn’t pay much attention to people at all, from what he said when we spoke to him earlier. I wonder what it was he wanted to tell us.”

  “Maybe it was something pretty obvious, if he noticed it,” Nick offered. “That must be why he was killed.”

  “One would assume,” Drew said.

  “I see you’ve beaten me to it again.”

  Drew looked up to find Chief Inspector Birdsong standing in the storage room doorway, arms crossed over his chest.

  “Tell me, Mr. Farthering, do people ring you up to let you know they’re about to be murdered, just so you can hurry over and find them afterwards?”

  “I can see how it might look that way, Chief Inspector, but no. He did ring me up, but only to say he had some information I might want to hear.”

  “What did he say precisely?” Birdsong asked as one of his men began to photograph the body.

  “He just said he wanted to talk to me while the performance was going on, and that it was important for us to get here right away. ‘While they’re all busy with the show.’ ”

  Another song wafted in from the stage: “Carefully on tiptoe stealing . . .”

  “What happened once you arrived?” Birdsong asked.

  Drew motioned toward the stageman. “Grady here let us in, brought us back to Zuraw’s office, but it was locked up tight. And someone had stolen the key off Grady’s key ring.”

  Grady nodded, a look of disgust on his face. “Easy as you please, and no beggin’ your pardon.”

  Birdsong took out his notebook and began writing. In the brief silence, the music from the stage grew in volume and became very clear.

  “Goodness me,” sang the chorus. “Why, what was that?”

  A baritone voice answered, “Silent be, it was the cat!”

  “Then what?” asked the chief inspector.

  “We broke down the door to Zuraw’s office and found the room empty. The cord was cut off the desk lamp.” Drew glanced at the victim and then back up at Birdsong. “It’s almost certainly this one.”

  “Right.” The chief inspector jotted down something in his notebook. “And then?”

  “We heard a clatter,” Drew explained, “and Madeline caught a glimpse of someone running down the corridor to the alley door. We chased after, but there was no one there. We think whoever it was must have knocked over these chairs in getting away.”

  Nick gave him a grim smile. “It wasn’t the cat, at an
y rate.”

  Madeline frowned at him and moved a little closer to the body. “Whoever I saw, Inspector, was wearing something dark and hooded, like a cloak.”

  Birdsong narrowed his eyes at her. “Could you tell anything about this person? Height? Weight? Male or female?”

  “It was barely more than a glimpse, I’m afraid.” She gave him an apologetic shrug. “He—or she—was around the corner and out the door in a flash.”

  “And out into the alleyway?” Birdsong asked.

  Madeline nodded.

  “You all searched out there, did you?”

  “We did,” Nick replied. “Locked doors all round and not a soul stirring.”

  Birdsong jerked his chin at the constable, who had accompanied him. “Take a torch and have a good look out there.”

  “Right, sir.” The constable hurried away, almost running into the coroner as he came in.

  “Well?” Birdsong asked after the man had made a brief examination.

  “Strangulation,” the coroner said matter-of-factly.

  “Time of death?”

  “I won’t know for certain until I have him on the table, but I’d say between half an hour and two hours ago.”

  “I spoke to him on the telephone no more than an hour ago,” Drew said.

  “Very well,” the coroner said. “Between a half hour and an hour ago. Once I’ve given the body a proper going-over, you’ll have my report.”

  “Right.” Birdsong made another note. “We’re done with things here, I reckon.” He signaled his men, who quickly moved into place and began lifting the body onto a stretcher.

  “Wait!” said Drew. “What’s that under him?”

  “Don’t touch it,” Birdsong warned.