by T E Kinsey
‘Harry has written,’ she said. ‘Ehrlichmann hasn’t been seen in London for a few days, but his sources say that say he’s been spotted in Portsmouth, probably trying to catch a boat back to the Continent.’
‘So we shouldn’t worry?’ I asked.
‘So Harry thinks.’
‘I must say, it’s something of a relief. Perhaps it’s all over.’
‘Perhaps, perhaps. But what’s not over is this blessed business at the circus.’
‘No. It was almost possible to forget about it for a while last evening, though, wasn’t it. Tell me you didn’t have the most marvellous time.’
‘I confess it was rather more enjoyable than I had expected,’ she said. ‘Although I must say that slightly more enjoyable was your reaction to it all. I had no idea you were so keen on circuses.’
‘Ever since I was little,’ I said. ‘I’ve not been keeping it a secret, it’s just never come up before. What was your favourite part?’
She laughed. ‘I enjoyed it all, but if I’m completely honest my favourite part was when the Chinese acrobat told that filthy joke in Mandarin.’
I grinned. ‘Lady Farley-Stroud wondered what he was saying and I briefly considered translating for her, just to see which part of her exploded first.’
‘You made a wise choice not to, I think. Although I do wonder if she’d have known what it all meant even if he’d told it in English. She doesn’t look the type to go in for all that nasty, messy business, somehow.’
It was my turn to laugh.
‘I think perhaps we ought to give some more thought to the murders, though,’ she said. ‘Perhaps more tea and crumpets and a look at the board, do you think? I’ll get dressed while you ready the sustaining comestibles.’
A quarter of an hour later we were in the dining room revising the crime board.
‘There just doesn’t seem to be any reason for it all,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘I mean to say, what had those two men got in common aside from their membership of this inner circus circle? There must be some connection, don’t you think? Or does that mean it must be someone from outside the group?’
‘There’s nothing I can see, my lady. I can see a reason for Noakes to kill Parvin, and for Bernbaum to kill Noakes. But Bernbaum was nowhere near the circus when he died and anyway that would mean two killers instead of one.’
‘Hmm. How about–’
The doorbell rang.
It was one of the stable lads from the circus with a note from Colonel Dawlish. I gave the lad a ha’penny and took the note through to Lady Hardcastle who was still sitting in the dining room, staring at the board.
‘He says, “Dearest Ems...” I do wish he’d not call me that. Emily’s quite an easy name to say. Persephone, now that’s quite tricky. I knew a Persephone when I was young. We called her Percy. Quite an unfortunately hairy girl. Married a clergyman, I believe...’
‘“Dearest Ems”,’ I repeated, trying to get her back on track.
‘Quite so, dear. “Dearest Ems...” Do you know, it’s not like he’s always done it. It’s not like it’s an old pet name from when we were younger. He’s only started recently...’
‘“Dearest Ems”,’ I said, slightly more firmly than perhaps I should.
‘All right, pet, don’t get agitated. “Dearest Ems, Thank you so much for coming last night and bringing such an enthusiastic local crowd with you. Box Office takings were our highest ever for an opening night and we’ve sold out for the rest of the week. I do hope you enjoyed yourselves. Would you both care to come over for elevenses and we can discuss your progress with the case before the rozzers start to get too overwrought? Shall we say eleven o’clock? That’s when we usually have our elevenses. Perhaps that’s why they’re called that. There shall be coffee. And cake. Or perhaps biscuits. I’ll speak to Babble. See you soon, love Georgie.” There, now, you see, “Georgie”, that’s what I used to call him. I just don’t know where Ems has come from.’
I looked at the clock on the mantel. ‘It’s a quarter-to already, my lady.’
‘So it is. He doesn’t give a lady much notice with his invitations, does he? Heigh-ho. Hats, gloves, and best feet forwards. I wish I hadn’t had that extra crumpet now, I rather like Babble’s cakes. It seems to be drizzling. Umbrellas will be needed.’
‘Lady Hardcastle...’
‘...and Miss Armstrong. How absolutely...’
‘...lovely to see you...’
‘...both.’
Milly and Molly were already working in the box office. I could just about see through the window that they were each doing something beneath the counter and went in for a closer look. They were knitting.
‘Good morning, ladies,’ I said. ‘What are you knitting?’
‘Baby...’ said Milly.
‘...bootees,’ finished Molly.
‘One each. It gets so...’
‘...boring to have to knit...’
‘...two of them.’
‘They’re for our...’
‘...grand niece. She’s expecting her...’
‘...first in a few...’
‘...months.’
Please pass on my best wishes,’ I said. ‘She’s lucky to have such delightful aunts.’
‘Great aunts,’ they said together.
‘Great indeed,’ I said with a laugh.
‘Colonel Dawlish is...’ began Molly.
‘...expecting you, he said...’
‘...you know the way to...’
‘...his tent.’
‘We do, thank you,’ I said. ‘Enjoy your day, and try not to get too bored of your knitting.’
‘We shall...’ said Milly.
‘...and we shan’t,’ finished Molly. It took me a second or two to work out what they meant, but they were clearly sharper than I gave them credit for.
We walked through the camp. Most of the performers and crew were still asleep so it was much quieter than we’d seen it thus far, but a few were beginning to stir and waved to us in greeting as we passed.
Colonel Dawlish was in fine spirits when we reached his tent and was already pouring coffee into tin mugs as we approached. He had tied back the flaps of the tent and everything within was in perfect military order.
Lady Hardcastle rapped on the tent pole with the handle of her umbrella.
‘Come on in, Ems darling. Tent’s open.’
‘Thank you, dear.’
We ducked under the tent flap and sat in the comfortable canvas chairs he had waved us to. He brought the coffee and offered delicious-looking oatmeal biscuits from an enamelled tin plate.
He was boyishly excited. ‘What did you think of the show?’
We gushed, gushingly. It really wasn’t difficult to be very enthusiastic and complimentary. Lady Hardcastle told him the joke the acrobat had told.
When he had finally finished guffawing, he wiped his eyes and said, ‘Those cheeky beggars. I always wondered what all that chatter was about. I thought they were explaining their great acrobatic tradition or something.’
‘There was certainly an element of acrobatics involved,’ she said with a grin.
He began giggling again and was about to say something further when there was a tap on the tent pole. We looked over and saw a grim-faced Mickey O’Bannon waiting to attract our attention.
‘Ah, Mickey,’ said Colonel Dawlish. ‘Lady Hardcastle was just telling me what those blighters the Chinese acrobats are saying every night.’
‘Filthy jokes in Mandarin, sir,’ replied Mickey, flatly.
‘You knew? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I was worried you might stop them, sir. I was rather enjoying them.’
‘I see. Heigh ho.’
‘Sorry, sir, but I’m afraid I’ve bad news.’
‘Not today, Mickey. No bad news today, I forbid it.’
‘Sorry, sir, but you’d better come. You, too, Lady Hardcastle. And Miss Armstrong.’
‘What is it, Mickey?’ asked Colonel Dawlish, hi
s buoyant mood deflating rapidly.
‘Just come, sir. The Big Top.’
Reluctantly, Colonel Dawlish put down his coffee and gestured for us to follow. We made our way in silence to the main circus tent and entered through a tied-back tent flap which led into the artists’... the artists’ what? I wondered. It would be the green room in a theatre, I suppose; it was a sort of marshalling area where they readied themselves before stepping out into the spotlight to perform. We carried on through and I caught sight of Colonel Dawlish’s increasingly anxious face as we passed a row of large mirrors. Presently we entered a canvas tunnel and emerged into the ring.
A small group of lads was clustered in a circle near the edge of the ring to our right. They looked round when they heard us enter and then shuffled aside to reveal something large and oddly glittery on the sand between them. As we approached I saw that it was a body in a black leotard with gold-sequinned trim. A few steps more and I realized with a shock that it was the large, muscular body of Abraham Bernbaum, twisted and broken, and very obviously dead.
Colonel Dawlish knelt by the body and touched the skin of his face. ‘Who found him?’ he asked.
‘I did, Colonel,’ said the young stable lad we’d spoken to the day before. ‘I was just coming in to rake the sand for Sabine and there he was.’
Colonel Dawlish looked up at Lady Hardcastle. ‘He’s been dead a while, I’d say. His skin’s cold to the touch.’
‘The doctor will be able to get a better idea,’ she said, ‘but it doesn’t help much. It just means he died in the middle of the night like Mr Parvin. It’s unlikely anyone would have seen anything. Mr O’Bannon, have you sent for the police?’
‘Yes,’ said Mickey. ‘I sent one of the lads off while I was fetching you.’
It seemed obvious that Abraham had fallen from a great height and I looked up to see where he might have been. Almost directly above the spot where he lay was one of the trapeze platforms.
‘Ladies,’ said Colonel Dawlish standing up, ‘we need to talk privately. Mickey, take care of everything here. As it stands it looks as though Abe killed the others and topped himself out of guilt. Suggest strongly that this wraps things up but don’t commit to anything. If the sergeant asks, we’ll be in my tent, but don’t volunteer it unless he actually does ask. I need to do some thinking.’
‘Right you are, Colonel,’ said Mickey.
We left the way we had come.
Colonel Dawlish had stopped at the mess to collect a fresh pot of coffee and was pouring it for us as we sat once more in his canvas chairs.
‘What do you think, then, Emily? Suicide? Is he our man? Can we draw a line under all this?’
‘It would be tragic but convenient, that’s certain,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘He killed Parvin in the lion cage, stove Noakes’s head in with an iron weight and then, overcome with guilt, took his own life by jumping from the trapeze. I know of an Inspector in Bristol who would be more than happy to close the case based on that.’
‘But what do you think?’ he asked.
‘I’m still not happy with it at all. I don’t pretend ever to know what goes on in the mind of my fellow man, but from everything I do know, murder is rarely without reason. Even the insane man kills according to his own private logic. But we have no reason to think that Abraham was insane, and I can see no sane motive for his having killed Parvin. If he bore any grudge at all – and the more I’ve heard about him over the past days, the less I believe him capable of even that – it was against Augustus Noakes, the lion tamer. We had our convoluted hypothesis about his trying to implicate Noakes in Parvin’s murder, but I think that sank without trace when we found Noakes dead.’
Something about the murders was niggling at me, a half-understood idea that I couldn’t quite place. And then, ‘Oh!’ I said suddenly, reminding myself of Veronica.
‘Yes dear?’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘Am I imagining it, my lady, or is there a pattern?’
‘There are always patterns. Sometimes they’re patterns we imagine, but there are always patterns. What’s yours?’
‘Well,’ I said, trying to marshal my thoughts, ‘The juggler was killed by lions. The lions were tended to by the lion tamer and the lion tamer was crushed with heavy weights. The heavy weights are part of the strongman’s act, and the strongman was killed by a fall from the trapeze platform. The first two deaths are related to the second two victims. Do you see?’
‘I think so,’ she said, slowly. ‘But how does that help us?’
‘Well what if the trapeze lady… what was her name?’
‘Prudence,’ said Colonel Dawlish.
‘Prudence, that’s it. What if she were next? Did she have any grudge against Abraham?’
‘Only of the vaguest sort. Prudence’s brother was crippled in a fall from a poorly secured platform and the original story was that Abraham had been responsible for the accident by not checking the rigging as he had been supposed to. But the investigation found that there was a fault with one of the cables and that Elias Hallows had been too drunk to notice it when he went up there. It was nothing to do with Abe, but he was briefly blamed at the time.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘So Augustus Noakes had a reason to kill Hubert Parvin, and Abraham Bernbaum had a reason to kill Augustus Noakes. And now Bernbaum is dead and Prudence Hallows had a reason to kill him.’
‘Hell’s bells!’ exclaimed Colonel Dawlish, jumping to his feet and going out to the walkway between the tents. ‘Runner!’ he shouted.
Within just a few moments a stable lad arrived.
‘Find Mickey O’Bannon,’ said Colonel Dawlish. ‘Tell him to organize a search for Prudence Hallows. Immediately. I want reports every five minutes, and I want her found. Her life may be in danger.’
‘Yes, Colonel,’ said the lad and ran off as fast as he had arrived.
‘I’m still a step or two behind,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘You’re saying that the murders are forming some sort of bizarre chain of death?’
‘Something like that, my lady,’ I said. ‘I think that the apparent motives for the murders are coincidence or smokescreen or something. I think it’s the sequence that’s important.’
‘Then you’re right to be concerned, George,’ she said. ‘We must find Prudence Hallows. And we need to find out who’s responsible.’
‘More than ever,’ he said.
‘Do you trust O’Bannon?’
‘With my life,’ he said. ‘He was one of my company sergeants in Bengal.’
‘And although I ought to suspect everyone, I can’t seem to bring myself to think that it’s you, so who does that leave us? The prize fighter is a trusted NCO, the juggler, the lion tamer and the strongman are all dead. The trapeze artist might be next. The fat lady and the dwarf could be in it together, but I’m beggared if I can think why. The clown seems more interested in the equestrienne than in anyone or anything else. The equestrienne herself is obnoxious but I suspect is more inclined to wound with harsh words than heavy weights. And the contortionist... quite the most charming and delightful little thing I’ve ever met. I know that doesn’t rule the girl out, but she really is adorable. Don’t you think, Flo?’
‘She’s the one I sat next to at dinner on Sunday?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘Yes, she was very sweet. And tiny – I couldn’t see her lifting that weight and dropping it on Noakes.’
‘Quite so. But those are our suspects.’
‘Then there are the one hundred and twenty-eight other members of the circus,’ I said. ‘We can’t rule them all out. Then the people of this village. And Woodworthy. And Chipping Bevington. And strangers from anywhere the circus has ever visited who might have followed it here.’
‘True, true,’ she mused. ‘But it’s got something to do with this group, I’m sure of it.’
We sat in contemplative silence for a few more minutes and were interrupted by the arrival of the stable lad.
‘Nothing t
o report, Colonel,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Mr O’Bannon says he’s doing it systemagically but he’s found nothing yet. He said to tell you that Sergeant Dobson has gone, too.’
‘Thank you, Jimmy,’ said Colonel Dawlish. ‘Carry on.’
The boy disappeared again.
‘If there’s no danger of running into the sergeant and getting embroiled in official police doings,’ said Colonel Dawlish once the lad had gone, ‘we ought to join the search. You don’t really think she’s been done in, do you, Flo?’
‘I don’t think anything, sir,’ I said. ‘But if there really is a pattern, she’s the next on the list.’
‘I hope you’re wrong, dear girl, I really do.’
‘We all do, George, darling, but we’ll never find anything sitting here. Where should we start?’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I imagine Mickey would have started from the Big Top and worked outwards, so we would probably go to one of the corners and work our way back in.’
‘Then off we go. Servant, bring brollies.’
We got up to leave with Lady Hardcastle leading the way.
‘Does she always talk to you like that?’ asked Colonel Dawlish.
‘Always, sir. Treats me awful, she does,’ I said.
‘You poor thing. Come and work for me in the prize fighting ring.’
‘I can still bally well hear you,’ said Lady Hardcastle over her shoulder.
We began our search in the corner of the camp we’d first entered on Sunday. When we’d seen it before it was just a collection of tents and caravans like any other in the circus but in the intervening days it had been transformed into a miniature, travelling Chinatown. Red banners, red ribbons, red bunting was everywhere. Golden letters embroidered on the banners proclaimed it to be the home of “Imperial China’s Greatest Acrobats” with various other pictograms for prosperity and good fortune painted on panels and fluttering flags. Having sent me to squeeze between the farthest tent and the canvas fence in case there was anything there, Lady Hardcastle rapped her umbrella handle on one of the tent poles. There was no response from within so she poked her head through the flap.