Murder At The Music Hall: (Auguste Didier Mystery 8)

by Myers, Amy

  ‘The real one or the fake?’ Auguste asked.

  ‘I’m getting tired of those words. The real one, they think. The idiots gave the fake to Gomez, and are convinced I’ve found it. I told ’em Gomez probably gave it back to Irving.’

  Auguste laughed, just as Twitch burst in, eager to impart news.

  ‘I thought you should know immediately, sir.’

  Below at the music-hall entrance, there seemed to be some kind of disturbance. Cries of pleasure – or horror were they? Auguste could distinguish Jowitt’s voice and he was certainly pleased about something.

  ‘I’ve done as you asked,’ Twitch told Egbert loudly, ignoring Auguste, ‘and went to Somerset House. And you, sir, were quite right. There is a link.’

  Auguste’s attention was torn between his desire to discover the meaning of the commotion below, and to hear Twitch’s news. Once before he had been instrumental in sending Twitch to Somerset House, with far less dramatic success.

  ‘Lamb must have been a stage name,’ Twitch continued. ‘When I tracked back – hard work it is, sir – there’s no doubt. Thomas Yapp is Will Lamb’s brother.’

  ‘Well done, Stitch,’ Rose said cordially.

  ‘You’ve worked hard, Inspector Stitch,’ Auguste said. He meant it. The transitory world of the stage impersonated real life and could successfully bury its secrets. Disinterring them could be difficult. Impersonated real life? Impersonated! ‘Egbert,’ he cried, ‘what did Sir Henry Irving and the Great Brodie have in common?’

  ‘Is this a riddle?’ Twitch asked, annoyed his great news had not had the reception it deserved.

  ‘No, Stitch. I think,’ Rose replied after a moment, ‘Mr Didier means they were both probably recognised by their voices.’

  Before Stitch could frame his come-back, the door was flung open once more and Lady Westland swept in, with Percy pink with excitement at her heels.

  ‘The Magnificent Masher has returned to help me again,’ he cried with jubilation. ‘Lady Westland insists on telling you the good news herself.’

  ‘No, I don’t, you old fool,’ Gwendolen said crossly. ‘Nettie wanted me to play here this week to keep houses up. And now I find Max Hill’s not here yet, and he should be. Percy told him he was playing number two spot.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Lady Westland. We’ll change the order,’ Percy offered eagerly. ‘You go on just when you wish.’

  ‘Never mind about the order. Where’s Max?’ she demanded.

  Rose looked at Auguste. ‘Impersonators. Where’s Max, Auguste?’

  Chapter Nine

  Too late. Why did he always have his best ideas too late? Like adding the ginger to the ecrevisses a la Maisie just as the sauce was ready to serve?

  ‘Max might just have been delayed or be ill,’ Auguste pointed out.

  ‘Max is a trouper, Mr Didier,’ Gwendolen said. ‘He is never ill. Or if he is, he would send a replacement, or at the very least ample warning.’

  ‘I heard nothing,’ Jowitt wailed plaintively. ‘It is too bad of Max, and I will tell him so. I will dock his wages. No, I can’t. I haven’t paid him recently. He’s a good chap. He hasn’t complained.’

  No, merely worked for Gomez instead, Auguste thought, with sinking heart. All so obvious, now he thought back. Max the Portuguese ambassador, Max who took the cross to have the fake made, Max who took the cross to Frederick Wolf. ‘Surely he is not a murderer, Egbert?’

  ‘It’s hard to see him in that role, I grant you,’ Egbert agreed reluctantly. ‘But he hasn’t wasted much time making himself scarce, has he?’

  ‘Nonsense.’ Lady Westland decided to intervene. ‘Of course Max is not a murderer. Nettie and I have known him for years.’

  ‘Perhaps he’d never had occasion to murder anyone before, ma’am,’ Egbert pointed out. ‘Surprising what people will do when they’re scared.’

  ‘Scared of what?’ she asked.

  ‘Discovery, perhaps. Any idea where he might have gone?’

  ‘I do not.’ Gwendolen said stiffly. ‘That is your task, Inspector. And mine is to do something about that terrible rumpus in the auditorium.’

  ‘Rumpus?’ Jowitt repeated plaintively. ‘I heard nothing.’ He listened. There was certainly noise, and it was certainly growing. Evangeline must be on. She and Orsini were the natural targets for the Shadwell Mob’s mirth. They hadn’t given up. They seemed to be good-humoured at the moment, but working up to something else.

  ‘We should have closed the place down after Lamb’s murder,’ Egbert said to Auguste, as Gwendolen marched purposefully downstairs to her dressing-room.

  ‘I would doubt if that would have saved Miguel, mon ami.’

  ‘Perhaps it would, and perhaps saved Max too.’

  ‘Max? You think he’s in danger? But from whom once Miguel was dead?’

  ‘It might be connected with Miguel’s death.’

  ‘You mean you think he might have done it?’

  ‘He could have fallen out with his old pal.’ Auguste was silent. ‘I know you like him, Auguste,’ Egbert added kindly. ‘But that’s not relevant, you know that.’

  Auguste did. It underlined the difference between them, Egbert the professional, himself the amateur. In the last resort, Egbert played with chessmen on his board; friend or foe had to be immaterial. Auguste had the privilege – if that was the word – of choice, but not if he were playing in Egbert’s team.

  ‘Max did not leave when Will was killed,’ he said at last.

  ‘He liked Will. He didn’t care for his being murdered and believed Miguel had done it. That’s my theory.’

  ‘So Max then killed Miguel?’

  ‘Any proof to the contrary?’

  ‘No,’ said Auguste unwillingly.

  ‘Who are his chums round here? You’ve seen more of him that I have.’

  ‘He was often in the eating-room with Clarence Bishop, lightning sketcher and ventriloquist.’

  ‘One of those lads who draws you in two ticks of a puppy dog’s tail? One of them got Edith to the life. She didn’t like it because he left two of the cherries off her new hat.’

  ‘Clarence Bishop is not a pavement artist. He tells a story and does sketches of the scenes on the pad, and also sketches animals and people, using them as his ventriloquist’s dummy.’

  ‘Sounds rather high falutin’ for the Old King Cole.’

  ‘Perhaps that is why his turn is buried in the middle of the second half.’

  ‘Then we’d better talk to him now. At least he may know where Max lodges, which is more than Percy seems to.’

  Auguste ran downstairs to find the Magnificent Masher, clad in a makeshift costume of check trousers left behind by Brodie, Pickles’ waistcoat (too small for the Masher’s now ample bosom), and Percy’s battered top-hat, striding purposefully past him. She did not notice him, not did it occur to him to wonder why she had not brought her costume with her. All her energy was concentrated on the stage and the need to woo an audience that was quite sure it had already won whatever battle it imagined it was fighting tonight.

  From his vantage point in the wings, Auguste saw the tip of the cane shooting on to the stage, its owner, back to him, out of sight to the audience. Things were bad. The well-known signal made no difference. The noise paused, then redoubled. Gwendolen took a deep breath, signalling to the orchestra to strike up with ‘I’m a Mayfair masher . . .’

  She strode on to the stage, then rested, bored, on her cane. She twirled it idly. She made no attempt whatsoever to quell the audience, but let them roar away. When a well-aimed potato hit her, she removed her gloves, and examined her hands, then replaced the gloves with great care. Finally in sheer astonishment at her indifference, the Shadwell Mob ceased their shouting and waited to see what would happen next.

  ‘You may be wondering where I got these trousers . . .’ She glanced down at the check in disgust. ‘Well, I’ll tell you – if you listen.’

  It appeared, eventually, they would; and by the time they
had been told a rigmarole of money-lenders, betting gentlemen, drinking bars and Newmarket, they were laughing and singing with her.

  Clarence Bishop was not singing. He was shivering in his shoes in the eating-room at the thought of being thrown to the lions in the increasingly near future.

  Auguste caught him by the arm, and led him firmly upstairs. ‘When people are in that mood, anything will set them off. There’s nothing you can do to avert it. You will not believe this, but one evening last week some came into my eating-room and threw tomato catsup everywhere. I did not take it personally, however.’

  That is not what Lizzie would have said, had she been privy to this conversation, as she had been to the hurt pride of Auguste Didier that evening. He had, after all, put the catsup (his own recipe) on the tables himself and had not expected it to be literally thrown in his face.

  ‘It’s hard not to take it personally,’ Clarence said dolefully, ‘when a rotten tomato arrives smack in the face of your hippopotamus.’

  ‘Je m’excuse?’

  ‘Hippopotamus. I do an excellent hippopotamus roar when I do my sketch of exciting adventure in Africa. They didn’t seem to like it on Saturday, however.’

  ‘You are destined for better things.’ Auguste clapped him heartily on the back. It was all he could think of to say.

  Clarence brightened. ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘I do,’ Auguste confirmed quickly, as he ushered him up to Egbert’s office.

  ‘Ah. You’re Max Hill’s chum,’ Rose greeted him.

  ‘I’m not responsible for his not being here,’ the chum squawked quickly. ‘All artistes are responsible for their own timekeeping.’

  ‘It’s not timekeeping we’re concerned with. It’s where he is.’

  ‘I don’t know, I’m sure. How can I?’ Clarence looked even more alarmed. ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’

  ‘You’re related to Max Hill then?’

  ‘No!’ yelled Clarence.

  ‘Live with him?’

  ‘No . . .’ There was some hesitation this time.

  ‘But you know where he lives.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where?’

  Clarence looked for escape and found none. ‘In the same lodgings as myself. Bethnal Green is very nice. We all lead separate lives. Mrs Bistle will tell you that.’

  ‘And who might Mrs Bistle be?’

  ‘Our excellent landlady. Sometimes we go to the theatre together, sometimes we don’t, depending on our engagements. Max and I, that is. Not Mrs Bistle. She doesn’t come to the theatre, of course,’ he ended in a nervous whinny of laughter, ‘unless we invite her.’

  ‘Did you see Max Hill today?’

  ‘Of course. He was there while you were telling us about Miguel. I was to meet him in Mr Didier’s excellent eating-room afterwards,’ he added ingratiatingly.

  Auguste, relishing appreciation of whatever standard of sincerity, suddenly realised it was no longer his eating-room. It was Lizzie’s eating-room, and whether her burgeoning talent would be up to it it was too early to say. Good teacher though he was, he could hardly flatter himself he had instilled enough technique into that young lady in a week to set her up for life. Moreover she was showing distressing tendencies of being distracted by young love.

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Did I what?’

  ‘Meet him in the eating-room?’

  ‘I met him, but he wanted to go to a pub,’ Clarence was forced to admit. ‘So we went out and had a drink together, and a pie.’

  ‘One of Mrs Jolly’s?’

  Clarence regarded Auguste doubtfully, looking for a trap. ‘The Cock and Dragon doesn’t have any ladies. Not ladies, if you see what I mean.’

  Auguste did. A peep into some of the nearby pubs had quickly told him that the only ladies present were those in hope of immediate employment supplying the needs of seamen coming off the ships.

  ‘And what then?’ Rose asked, impatient with pies.

  ‘We parted. He said he’d see me tonight as usual.’

  ‘Did he say where he was going?’ Rose asked urgently.

  ‘He said he had one or two things to do.’ Clarence was only too well aware he was, not for the first time, disappointing his audience. He looked alarmed. ‘He’s all right, I suppose? You don’t think he’s had an accident?’

  ‘What sort of accident?’

  ‘He might have been murdered,’ Clarence cried shrilly. ‘A lot of people have, you know.’

  Rose did know.

  The Shadwell Mob were recklessly risking their earnings from the managers of rival music halls by abandoning barracking for cheers of approval. Gwendolen was coming off the stage, bathed in triumph, as Auguste came backstage to meet her. ‘Nasty crowd,’ she said gleefully. ‘I had to work hard, remembering all my old tricks. I’ve been away too long, and there’s not much call for music-hall technique in the peerage.’ She paused. ‘Tatiana returned, has she?’ she asked, apparently inconsequentially.

  ‘She has, I am delighted to say.’

  ‘I’m in the doghouse, am I, for bringing you down here?’

  ‘She has no objection at all.’ Lady Westland’s eyebrows arched in surprise. ‘Naturally,’ he added, as if it hardly mattered, ‘I have not mentioned to her that I was a cook here.’

  ‘I do understand,’ she replied gravely.

  ‘Tatiana visited His Majesty this morning,’ he added, to underline his point the more heavily.

  ‘What about?’

  It was not the reply he expected, but he saw no harm in telling her. After all, thanks to the efficiency of the Harmsworth Press the whole of England knew about the theft of Prince Henry the Navigator’s cross from Windsor Castle, though, it occurred to him, few people at the Old King Cole yet seemed to.

  ‘His Majesty is naturally eager to hear about Tatiana’s motor races in France,’ he began diplomatically.

  ‘Of course,’ Lady Westland murmured, then briskly said, ‘Do not let me keep you from your great love, Mr Didier.’

  ‘Madame?’

  ‘Your eating-room, of course. Were you not intending to visit it to ensure everything is in order for the after-performance diners?’ She marched off, swinging her cane and chuckling heartily, though for the life of him he could not see why. Suddenly, she stopped and returned to him, and said to him seriously, and incongruously in her check-trousered outfit, ‘I want Max found, Auguste. I’ve known him for a long time, and I can’t afford to lose a friend.’

  Auguste, somewhat puzzled, hurried back through the corridors to the eating-room, telling himself he must remember he was no longer in a position of power. He merely wished to see whether Lizzie required extra assistance, but if one of Mrs Jolly’s pies were by chance still available . . . Also, he admitted to some curiosity as to whether the new-found love of Charlie and Lizzie had survived the testing ground of the evening.

  The latter point was soon settled. Auguste’s eye immediately fell on the plump, reasonably white-uniformed shape of Charlie, offhandedly turned the odd chop with one hand and cuddling Lizzie with the other. As Auguste hurtled through the door, agonised as to what the diners might find – if anything – when the performance ended, Charlie turned a slow warm intimate smile on his beloved. A technique surely far beyond his years, Auguste thought enviously. He himself had not perfected it until he met Violetta, and then had been at least twenty-six. He had first attempted it, he recalled, while demonstrating a cailles aux raisins. Six months later they had parted over acrepe Jeannette. She had mistakenly taken the latter to be a rival. (There had been one, but her name was not Jeannette.)

  He coughed gently. ‘Lizzie, is everything in order?’

  She spun round, her face red – either from love or guilt. ‘Naturally, Mr Didier,’ she said fervently. ‘Charlie is wonderful. You’re going to stay, aren’t you, Charlie?’

  ‘Try and keep me away, Miss Eliza. You spice an eel as good as Auntie, and that’s saying something.’

  Lizzie flushed at
this over-lavish praise, and wriggled modestly.

  ‘There’s a lady waiting for you, Mr D,’ she sang out, as belatedly she recalled her duties and fled down the stairs. She jerked a thumb as she went. ‘Over in the corner,’ her disembodied voice cried.

  ‘Lady?’ Auguste turned round curiously, and was startled to see Tatiana, as out of place here as an ortolan in a pile of mutton chops. Her dark coat and hat did not stand out from those around her, her bearing and lively face did.

  ‘You don’t mind my coming here, do you, Auguste?’ she asked innocently as he sat down.

  ‘Ma mie, I am delighted to see you.’ He glanced nervously at his surroundings, and relaxed. After all, he could be here for some totally innocent purpose, not for cooking purposes. True, a certain familiarity with the cook might be misinterpreted, yet he was a detective, he reminded himself, and entitled to speak to everyone.

  ‘I have been enjoying the performance.’

  ‘Enjoying?’

  She laughed. ‘Parts of it. Gwendolen was superb, and there was someone else—’

  Auguste thought quickly through the other artistes – if that was the right word, and could not immediately think who she had in mind. ‘Our Pickles?’ he asked doubtfully.

  ‘No. That child.’

  ‘Emmeline?’

  His astonishment was so great, she giggled. ‘She is a terrible dancer, but talented all the same. She is a natural comedienne, and no one has realised it. I shall tell Gwendolen.’

  ‘Why?’ Auguste asked faintly, horrified at the thought of Emmeline’s beady eyes intruding into his life.

  ‘I wonder if she can sing.’

  ‘Gwendolen?’

  ‘Emmeline.’

  ‘I doubt it. Where would she buy songs?’

  ‘That’s where Gwendolen might help.’

  Auguste decided to relegate this minor matter to the back of his mind. ‘I feel sure Little Emmeline is not what brought you here, ma fleur.’

  ‘If I have something to eat and a glass of ale, I might remember what brought me. A chop?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘A chop? But, ma mie, I could prepare you a delicate omelette aux truffes with a petite salade—’