by Myers, Amy
With Stitch also present, Thomas began to appreciate he was firmly wedged into a quartet which was probably all hostile. ‘What can I do for you?’ he asked, a little less confidently.
‘Quite a lot, Mr Yapp. Why didn’t you tell us you were Will Lamb’s brother?’
‘Ah.’ Thomas looked vaguely around. ‘I was afraid if I did you might believe I had something to do with his death.’
‘And you didn’t, of course.’
‘Naturally not.’ Thomas looked shocked. ‘He was my brother. Anyway,’ descending to practicalities, ‘how could I? I was out front all the evening.’
‘You could have doctored that knife before the performance began.’
Thomas considered this. ‘I didn’t.’
‘Your wife had the opportunity to do the same.’ Rose was in mean mood.
‘But Evangeline did not know,’ he yelped. ‘That was the whole point.’
‘What point?’
‘I did not want her to know about my relationship with Will or—’ He stopped.
‘The money?’
‘My relationship with Will,’ he repeated defiantly.
‘Why not?’
Thomas Yapp hesitated. ‘My wife,’ he began, ‘is a much misunderstood woman.’
‘In what way?’
‘In every way. She is warm-hearted, impulsive, lovable—’ He broke off, aware he might be overdoing things. ‘She has a great need for affection. I sometimes fear I disappoint her,’ he added sadly. ‘She fancied she was in love with Will, and I decided not to spoil these daydreams. Especially the one that he loved her. It seemed the least I could do. How could I tell her that I was actually Will’s brother, when I discovered it? She would have been in love with her brother-in-law, and it would have spoiled the dream if it had no possibility of a happy ending.’
‘But it might have given her another one,’ Rose pointed out.
‘And what is that?’
‘Will was a rich man.’
‘You mean she would have had hopes of Will’s giving us money. But I would never have allowed it. She would realise that.’
‘Did she know he’d bequeathed so much money to you?’
‘No,’ he said sharply. ‘I had no idea myself, so how could she?’
‘Suppose she found out?’
‘How?’
‘Will might have told her to keep her quiet.’
Thomas Yapp rose in wounded dignity. ‘I shall go now.’
‘Sit down.’
Thomas obeyed. Very few would have the nerve not to, faced with Egbert Rose in this mood.
‘Kindly explain how you and your wife had no idea of your kinship to Will for so long.’
‘That’s easy,’ Thomas said, relieved. ‘I’m older than Will was. Our parents were clog-dancers, but my mother ran off and took Will, being a baby, with her. I was left with my father. He gave up clog-dancing and became a chairman instead. The first time I saw him I knew that was my role in life too. He never mentioned my mother or my baby brother after that, and I forgot all about them. The name Lamb meant nothing to me since it was the name our mother took when she left.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘Mr father told me just before he died.’
‘And what did you do about it?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing? Your brother is the famous Will Lamb, and you did nothing? You expect us to believe that?’ Stitch decided to take part.
Thomas looked anxious. ‘Yes. It’s the truth.’
‘So Will came to find you?’
‘Yes. Well, not quite like that. He came to my father’s funeral. It’s very simple really,’ Thomas said apologetically.
‘Too simple.’
‘Some things are.’ There was a touch of defiance in Thomas’s voice.
‘And what happened then?’
‘Will got me a job at the Old King Cole. I was very pleased for it was my first regular assignment. And only one, of course,’ he added sadly.
‘Didn’t Will tell your wife he was your brother?’
‘No.’
‘Why the need for secrecy now?’
‘I’ve told you. Evangeline. You wouldn’t tell her, would you?
‘Are you aiming to give up your inheritance? Won’t she think it a little odd?’
‘No. Evangeline thinks it was really for her, and given to me merely to save her reputation.’
Rose’s good humour was restored. The corners of his mouth twitched, but were controlled. Thomas was not getting away quite so easily. ‘You were one of those suggested Will Lamb was invited back.’ There was no query in his statement, and Thomas looked alarmed.
‘I wanted to see my brother again.’
‘You could have seen him any where. Why here?’
‘I used to meet him in London sometimes, but I never dared suggest the notion. He was famous. I thought if Percy asked, it would be good for the Old King Cole.’
‘Although it would stir up your wife?’ Rose asked grimly.
Thomas did not reply, and Rose, to Auguste’s surprise, did not press it.
‘Believe him?’ he asked Auguste after Thomas had left. ‘Think he’s capable of murder, of frightening Max into running away?’
‘I think many people are capable of murder if the incentive is strong enough,’ Auguste said gravely. ‘But Thomas was out front before the performance. He saw Will on Tuesday, not Wednesday. It’s unlikely he could have tampered with the dagger.’
‘And Max?’
‘No one saw him at the Old King Cole early on.’
‘True. Doesn’t mean he wasn’t there, though. Pickles?’
Auguste shook his head. ‘He could have done it, but has little motive.’
‘Fernando?’
‘That is more likely.’ He thought of the scene he had witnessed.
‘Mariella?’
‘She has the ruthlessness.’
‘If Max is innocent, Auguste, why doesn’t the blighter tell us what he knows to protect himself? He didn’t run away for nothing.’
‘Perhaps he feared he would incriminate himself in some way.’
‘But we already know he’s implicated.’
‘He doesn’t know we know.’
‘Why on earth would we be chasing him otherwise?’
‘He thinks we believe him guilty of murder.’
‘So he ran for sanctuary like Thomas à Becket, eh?’
‘And hasn’t found it.’
Egbert considered. ‘If I were Max, where else would I seek sanctuary?’
‘Only one place, mon ami.’ There was no need for Auguste to say more. There was only one place to which Max Hill would run.
‘How do you fancy a night at the halls, Auguste? I’ll treat you.’
Chapter Eleven
The Alhambra was as far removed from the music-hall world of the Old King Cole as the Empire. Its Moorish architecture and large auditorium would have quelled the Shadwell Mob before they were over the threshold, for all the Alhambra’s long-standing Bohemian reputation. As Auguste craned his head upward to gaze at the enormous sun-burner in the domed ceiling, he recalled it was here that the acrobat Leotard had inspired audience and song as the daring young man on the flying trapeze flew above the audience’s heads. From their seats in the dress circle he and Egbert had an excellent view of the stage, and the audience was both large and excited. Music hall might be less prominent now at the Alhambra than ballet and spectacle, but when the programme boasted Nettie Turner a full house could be instantly guaranteed. The rest of the programme was almost immaterial, especially when it included the dubious attractions of a young lady called Emmeline. There was, hardly to their surprise, no Max Hill featured on the programme, though the Great Brodie appeared early in the first half.
His turn had not changed greatly since they had last seen it at the Old King Cole, and perhaps his cross between the coarse and the ambitious masher was pitched even better for West End audiences than for Stepney. He launch
ed himself on to the stage, immediately starting with ‘Don’t Wait Up’. Hearing its by now familiar strains, gave Auguste a strange feeling as though one of Soyer’s soup-kitchen meals had had the temerity to present itself under an Escoffier silver salver. But the audience was responsive, and his airy confidence made them more so. The Great Brodie could well be on his way to top of the bill, Auguste decided without enthusiasm. Doubtless he was being unfair, for the man had had a long struggle to get where he now was. Auguste’s attention began to wander, and was only recalled to the stage as the Great Brodie launched into a song apparently about fish.
‘Why is he singing of skate?’ he whispered to Egbert, as the Great Brodie took his bow and sauntered from the stage.
‘Skate? You’ve got food on the brain. It’s called “Hooray, Hooray, Hooray”.’
Auguste looked puzzled, then laughed at himself. The trouble with being brought up with two languages was that they mixed all too easily. He had fastened on the syllable ‘ray’, but heard ‘raie’. He had purchased some delightful skate at Shadwell. Its flavour—
‘Here she comes,’ Egbert said gloomily, easing his bow tie with his finger. It was warm in here.
At first Auguste hardly recognised Emmeline. If not dressed in a red corset, at least she was allowed to be her age, instead of a precocious eight-year-old. Emmeline had been transformed into a cheeky thirteen-year-old, dressed in school uniform. Her former fairies, looking rather frightened in their new role, were similarly clad, their eyes glued to their leader as she barged around the stage, full of bewilderment and patter on the ludicrous doings of ‘grown-ups’. Particularly Ma and Pa. These self-same respectable bodies in real life were in fact sitting further along in the front row of the dress circle, as out of place here as they were in the Old King Cole. Auguste could not find it in himself to be sorry for them as Emmeline launched into a catchy song, howled with an effective tunelessness, on the peccadilloes of Ma and Pa in kissing milkman and parlourmaid respectively, with a chorus catchphrase of ‘Emmeline, that isn’t very nice!’ This was the former fairies’ sole opportunity to shine, as drilled into unison they bawled the last line with her.
Nettie’s vitality which poured out over the footlights during her turn was just as it had been at the Old King Cole, but her style had been tailored for her audience. They approved it, and it made it all the harder for Auguste and Egbert to fight their way in past the guard at the stage door after the performance. None of the happy-go-lucky ways of the East End here. The guard was obviously a former soldier who took his duties very seriously. He looked dubiously upon Chief Inspector Rose’s credentials and was ostentatiously surprised when a message came back via the messenger boy that Miss Turner was willing to see them.
Nettie was already in evening dress, awaiting them, and her face, devoid of greasepaint, was still showing that curious empty look that Auguste remembered from his days at the Galaxy Theatre; it lingered for a while after greasepaint was removed, as if the mask torn off, the real person needed time to step back into its face. Nevertheless her eyes looked more lively than Auguste had seen them since Will’s death. ‘What did you think?’ she demanded.
‘You were magnificent.’
‘Not me,’ she interrupted impatiently. ‘Young Emmeline.’
‘A remarkable transformation. You have worked hard.’
‘It was worth it to see the look on her parents’ faces,’ Nettie said with glee. ‘You should have heard what they had to say to me after the first performance. “Oh, Miss Turner, we do admire your style,” she whined, “but we regret we cannot approve of your songs.” “What song had you in mind?” says I. “That lewd one about the animal.” “My Donkey Song?” says I indignantly. “Nothing wrong with that. Listen. ‘Whoa, Nelly, don’t you go too far’.” ’
She sang it for them now with tears in her eyes for the dear old donkey’s health; the body that had wriggled so suggestively, now trembled with emotion. ‘That got them,’ she said complacently. ‘Loud, maybe. Never lewd. Now what was it you want to see me about? Caught Will’s murderer, have you?’
‘We’re smelling the fox,’ Rose told her.
‘Anyone I know?’ she asked steadily.
‘Probably, yes.’
‘Pickles,’ she burst out. ‘That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’
‘No. Max Hill.’
‘Max?’ she repeated, startled. ‘What’s the old geezer been up to? You’re not telling me he murdered Will, are you?’
‘It’s possible. He’s disappeared. We thought he might have come to you for help,’ Auguste explained.
‘Me? Why?’
‘You’re part of his old circle of friends. You were all at the Old King Cole together. You were Will’s friend and his. If he were going to contact anyone, it would be you. You or Brodie, and I wouldn’t count much on Brodie having a sympathetic ear for old friends. He couldn’t go to Mariella Gomez.’
‘I’ve not set eyes on him, and I don’t think Horace has. He’d have told me – if only to protect himself.’
‘You don’t like him?’
Nettie shrugged. ‘He’s all right. Good fun, provided you agree to put Mr Brodie first. Can’t blame him for that, but I’m getting too old to be made a stepping stone of.’ She paused. ‘Why did Max disappear?’
‘Because of Miguel Gomez’s death.’
‘I don’t see him doing it.’
‘Tell us about Max Hill’s background, if you would, Miss Turner.’
‘There’s not a lot I know. Only as much as one knows of those you worked with on and off over a long period. He was a middle-aged man when Will and I started at the Old King Cole, and as high in the tree as he was going to go, so he had time to help us both. I don’t think we knew anything of what he was like outside the halls. He was just there, part of the scene. With some people you get to know a lot about their private lives, and with others, like Max, you don’t.’
‘A mystery man?’
‘Far from it, I’d say. We just never asked. How much do you know about that inspector of yours, Stitch, isn’t it? You work with him, you don’t go to the zoo with him.’ Egbert grinned. ‘Max is a kind man, that’s what I’d say. Always willing to do you a good turn – without overlooking a chance of doing one for himself. That help?’
‘Even if it were against the law?’
She nodded. ‘Probably. Especially if there were a laugh in it.’ She paused. ‘The halls are hard taskmasters, Inspector. We need our laughs. Look at this face of mine. What has it got?’
Auguste looked at her, first the bright lively eyes, then her round, almost homely face. ‘Character,’ he said firmly.
‘A nice way of saying I’ve got a lot of deep lines. No Ellaline Terriss, am I, all soft pink and white baby face? This is what the halls do to you. It’s all right when you’re young, but you don’t age well. Mine’s a hard face, and so are all of those you see in music hall. First comes the illusion on the stage and offstage, when the greasepaint’s off the painted gargoyle, you see the truth. We wouldn’t have it any other way, though. Underneath Max’s devil-may-care character is a tough man.’
‘Romanos.’ The Great Brodie looked round in satisfaction. ‘You know, gentlemen, I’ve waited twelve years for this, and by Jove, I’m going to enjoy it twelve times as much.’
Auguste began to warm towards him. In the light of what Nettie had said, he saw now how great a leap Brodie had made from the Old King Cole. Supper at Romanos, even if enjoyed in the company of a Scotland Yard Chief Inspector and a half-French chef, represented an achievement. He was almost sorry he had not taken them to his old maitre’s beloved Carlton.
Brodie puffed his cigar after the meal in pure satisfaction. ‘And now, gentlemen, you may be permitted to tell me why my company is so desirable this evening.’
‘Max Hill. He’s disappeared. We thought you might have seen him.’
‘I have not. Max and I are old colleagues, but hardly bosom friends. Why do you think he disappeared? Gui
lt?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Of Gomez’s death. Will Lamb?’
‘Unlikely the second.’
‘Why?’
‘He has no motives, and he wasn’t at the theatre at the time the dagger must have been tampered with.’
‘Ah. I believe it is common knowledge now that Max was concerned with this unfortunate cross business and that Will Lamb was also. Does that not constitute grounds for a motive? And as for the second – Inspector, Nettie is an admirable person, but in her loyalty is so strong, her usual integrity may occasionally be compromised.’
‘Meaning?’
‘As you will, Inspector.’
‘He was appearing at the same halls as you, wasn’t he, the week of Lamb’s murder?’
‘The Old King Cole and the Lyle, yes.’
‘Was he with you?’
‘Did he accompany me, do you mean? No. However, last week he should have appeared, I recall, at the end of the first half of the Lyle, and in the second half at the Amy Myers Old King Cole. I appeared in the first half at both, and at a third hall late in the second.’
‘Should have?’ Rose picked up sharply.
‘Managers change order to please themselves from time to time, or to cover for non-appearing artistes. Max and I, for example, have a long-standing arrangement whereby he would from time to time cover for me, if I have a particularly tight schedule, or on occasion, I confess, an affair with a young lady.’
Auguste promptly unwarmed towards him, thinking of poor Dolly Dadd.
‘Did this happen the day Lamb died?’ Rose wasn’t feeling overwarm either.
‘Oddly enough it did. I didn’t mention it, since I could not see how it would affect the timing of the murder, but Max did ask me to change for the Wednesday performance. He asked me the evening before. Said he had to meet someone in a pub and didn’t think he could get there in time. Could he do my spot, and I his? I agreed.’
‘And you thought this didn’t affect the murder?’ Rose said grimly.
‘There is no way it could have done, Inspector. I understand the dagger was tampered with before the performance, or some time up to the point where the stage manager collected the dagger.’