by Joan Smith
Prance’s toplofty butler, Soames, was soon showing Coffen into Sir Reginald’s dainty drawing room. Sir Reginald was abovestairs with Villier trying a new arrangement of the cravat. Soames sent a footman abovestairs to notify him he had a caller. Knowing Mr. Pattle’s insatiable thirst and hunger, the butler just nodded at the wine carafe and left Coffen to it. Before helping himself to a glass, Coffen looked about the room for the blue notebook. He could hardly believe his luck that it was sitting right there on the sofa table. He picked it up and there, on the first page, he read the names and addresses of his three actors. Prance had even left his patent pen with the book. No doubt he had been jotting down notes. He memorized Corbett’s address, then decided he might as well find out where the others lived while he was there. Pattle was thorough when it came to crime.
One address he could remember. Three required a written reminder. What he couldn’t find was a piece of paper. Without a moment’s hesitation he tore a page out of the blue notebook and jotted down the three addresses. Chloe and Sean had the same street address but different flat numbers. He barely had time to put the book and pen back and stuff the addresses in his pocket before Prance joined him.
“Coffen, we haven’t seen much of you recently. I’ve lost touch with society. How does the world wag? I am completely immersed in Shadows.”
“Why don’t you light some lamps?”
“I was referring to my play, Shadows on the Wall. Between working on the script for Drury Lane and directing my rehearsals, I have lost touch with the world.”
“You’re not missing a thing. I’m not doing anything at all, Prance. Bored to flinders if you want the truth, with you and Black and Corrie all working like navvies. And of course Luten is always busy with his politics. Take tonight, now, what are you doing?”
“Work, work, work. I have a meeting with some chaps from the theatre. I want to give George — that’s George Edwards, the producer, a few ideas I’ve come up with. I realize, too, that some of the speeches in the novel that read well are not euphonious.”
Coffen said, “Eh?”
“I hadn’t realized there was such a discrepancy between reading and speaking. I must fine-tune my script. Some of my lines don’t translate well to the spoken word. The arguments between hero and villain lack vitriol. I want harsher consonants and rougher vowel sounds, whereas the love scenes lack euphony. I am aiming for a sweet, mellifluous flow of consonants there, with soft vowels for the love scenes.”
Coffen blinked and said, “Eh?” again.
“Sorry, just professional tinkering with the script, of no interest to the layman. That’s why I’m having these rehearsals, to see how my lines read.”
“I thought they read fine myself.”
“When I say ‘read’, I mean spoken.”
“You mean out loud?”
“Yes, on the stage.”
“You’re saying they don’t sound as good as they look.”
“Something like that. I fear I am only a dramatist manqué.”
“You’re too hard on yourself, Reg. You’re nothing like a monkey. More like a greyhound.”
“Are you calling me a dog?” Prance asked, but in jest. He knew Coffen didn’t always say what he meant.
“Devil a bit of it. So what are the others doing tonight?”
“Lady Tremaine is having a rout party. I expect Luten and Corrie will drop in there. Were you invited?”
“I haven’t opened my invitations. What I meant was, what do your actors do at night? Do they sit home and work on them vitriols and eu-things as well?”
“They merely say the words, Coffen. Surely you realize they don’t write them. That is the dramatist’s job. Only William could put to paper such words as ‘To be or not to be.’ I should have thought even you —”
“Shakespeare,” he said, to show he at least knew who Prance meant by William.
“Or in this case, Sir Reginald.”
“Funny they didn’t make Shakespeare a Sir, him being so famous.”
“Oh surely a duke at least. Posthumously of course,” Prance said with a sad shake of his head.
“Very likely,” Coffen said, quite at random. Before Reg could sink into further obscurities, he said, “But about the actors, what would they do of a night?”
“You do know Chloe is engaged to Sean?” Prance assumed Coffen wanted to go out with Chloe. His admiration for actresses was no secret.
“I heard that. Besides she ain’t my type. She don’t seem like a real actress. Not friendly, I mean. About the men, though, would they be at home?”
“I doubt it. Sean and Chloe have an active social life. He mentioned they were going to a friend’s party. Some chap they know is planning a tour of the provinces for the autumn. They’re always trying to make connections in the theatre. It helps, knowing people in the business.”
“Will Corbett be going to this party as well?”
“Not likely. He isn’t interested in touring. He prefers to work in London, where the big directors and producers can see him. He hopes to get the role of Maldive with Drury Lane when Shadows opens there. It will be rehearsing in the autumn, so he wouldn’t accept a touring engagement at this time.”
“I wonder what he does with himself of a night.”
“I understand he cadges a box at one of the theatres most nights. He took Miss Lipman to see School for Scandal last night. Unlike the rest of the country, he didn’t find Sheridan’s humour amusing.”
“Then he won’t be going there tonight.”
“No, but I doubt you’d enjoy his company, Coffen, if that’s what you mean by these questions. He’s not your type at all. Always carping and picking faults.”
“Ah, more your type,” Coffen said, with no thought of giving offence.
“You haven’t heard me complain about you recently. I find a remarkable improvement in your toilette since Black has taken your servants in hand. You no longer look as if you had tumbled out of a rag bag.”
“Why thankee, Prance. Not every day I pry a compliment out of you.”
Prance took a closer look at Coffen’s cravat that was stained with red wine by afternoon, examined his tousled hair and dusty topboots and said, “Well, you begin the day looking like a gentleman at least.”
His ingenuity exhausted, Coffen rose. “So you don’t know what Corbett’s up to tonight?”
“I really wouldn’t advise you to strike up any friendship with him, Coffen.”
“I don’t intend to.”
Prance gave a sly smile. “Ah, I see! You and Black are planning to search his flat. Why didn’t you say so? You won’t find the T’ang horse there. It’s turned up in the gold salon, but it might not be a bad idea to see if he’s snitched anything else from Luten’s place. Nothing else has been reported missing, but if he’s taken anything, I shall be responsible and will have to repay Luten. Be careful, though, Corbett will raise almighty hell if he finds out you were there. Do you have his address?” He reached for his blue notebook.
“I do, thankee, Prance. If there’s lights showing at his place, we won’t go in.”
“I believe I can arrange that he’s not home. I mentioned I’m meeting a few chaps I know who are involved in the theatre tonight to discuss Shadows. Edwards is producing Shadows and Jeremy Ferrar does some casting for Drury Lane. Corbett won’t refuse a chance to meet them. I’ll send an invitation along right away.”
“That’s good of you, Prance. Appreciate it. Does he have any servants?”
“He never mentioned them, and he would have — nine or ten times. No, I think it’s safe to say he looks after himself. And turns out remarkably well groomed too.”
“What time is the meeting, and how long will it last?”
“An after dinner meeting. I can keep them busy till midnight.”
“Good. I’ll be off then. I’ll let you know if we find anything. I believe I’d recognize any little toys from Luten’s place. Been running tame there any time these ten years.” He escap
ed before Prance noticed he had torn a sheet out of the notebook. He was very fussy about his belongings.
“Got it,” he announced to Black when he returned, and related how helpful Prance had been.
“He suspects this Corbett then,” Black said at once.
“He didn’t say so.”
“He wouldn’t, but Sir Reginald isn’t one to go out of his way to help unless there’s something in it for him.”
“He did mention he’d be responsible if Corbett had snitched anything from Luten’s. Anyhow we know where he lives and that he has no servants and he won’t be home till midnight, so what time do we leave?”
“We’ll set out at ten. Might be wise to take a hackney cab. We don’t want Fitz on the loose in your carriage for the half hour or so it’ll take us, not if we want a drive home. No telling where he’d have got to.”
Fitz was proving the least teachable of Mr. Pattle’s servants. With the best spirit in the world, he just couldn’t learn or remember directions. East, west, north and south had no more meaning for him than if they were higher mathematics. He now hopped to open doors and let down the step without being reminded, but once he had the ribbons in his hands, the passengers were at his mercy.
“I’ll be home for dinner,” Black said as he rose to return to Luten’s. “I’ve asked Cook to make your favorite toad in the hole.”
“Kind of you, Black,” Coffen said, and the two were back on their usual friendly footing.
* * *
Chapter 10
After dinner that evening Black and Coffen changed into the dark clothes they wore for what Black called ‘rough work’. Black made a flying visit across the street to Luten’s library to check out safety precautions before whistling to summon a hackney. At the dot of ten he and Coffen headed to Vance Corbett’s little cottage on Keeley Street, within easy walking distance of the two major theatres.
This inelegant area, close to Wild Street, was familiar to them both. It was not so perilous an area to traverse as Long Acre. No footpads were seen but the cab set a livelier pace once it left the purlieus of polite London.
Corbett’s cottage was at the north end of a street that was trying to prevent sliding into a slum, or recover from having been one. Most of the windows in the modest cottages still held their glass panes. Some of them had had the front door painted in a display of optimism. One of them even sported a shiny new brass door-knocker. Only three of the front windows had signs offering rooms to let. The street held less litter and fewer derelicts than a real slum, but it was far from genteel.
“I wager he don’t bring Miss Lipman home for tea,” was Black’s opinion of the place when the cab reached it.
“There’s no light, let us go in,” Coffen said, reaching for the draw cord.
“Nay, a cab would be a rare thing in a place like this. Folks would take notice of it. We’ll go on a block and walk back. In these duds we’ll pass for locals.”
Black being the acknowledged expert in matters of this sort, Coffen didn’t argue. The street was dark and the moon, obscured by clouds, didn’t offer much illumination. A wind, brisk but not actually cold, gave them a push from behind and sent dust swirling up around their feet. They met only one man, and he didn’t seem dangerous. He even said, “Good evening,” in a polite voice.
At the rundown cottage, Black’s practised hand was soon inserting a twisted piece of metal into the lock to open the door. No unpleasant odour of human squalor greeted them, but the lingering scent of bacon and coffee. They entered the first archway they came to and searched around in the darkness, found lamps and tinderbox and lit two lamps.
They were in the main room of the cottage, furnished in a strange mixture of dilapidated pieces with a few genteel touches. The window hangings were of some faded material that defied identification as to either colour or material. A Persian carpet no bigger than a table placed on the oilskin floor covering stood out like a brooch on a dirty smock.
On the back of the sagging sofa Corbett had tossed a fine fringed shawl of Paisley design. Two piles of reading material littered a rickety sofa table. Leafing through a stack of journals, Black noticed several items relating to theatrical matters were outlined in black pen, some with notes written by hand in the margins. A quick perusal of the notes told him Corbett had made scornful comments of any actor who received a good review. “Overwrought”, “awkward movements”, “nasal voice” and such slurs told his opinion of the performers. He had also marked anything referring to a coming production that was likely to give him a lead on a role.
While Coffen walked around the room looking for purloined objects, Black thumbed through the magazines, noticing Corbett’s other interests. A men’s fashion magazine, a Chippendale furniture catalogue and a sporting magazine — the same sort of reading material to be seen at Luten’s and Prance’s houses. He had seen the same sporting magazine at Mr. Pattle’s. There was also a stack of well-thumbed books on art and antiques, a novel by Walter Scott and a book on landscaping by Repton. Whatever about the other items, Corbett obviously had no need for a book on landscaping. There would scarcely be room for a flowerpot out front. It was four pence to a groat he only rented the place in any case.
Coffen came and peeked over his shoulder. “A bookish fellow,” he said, flickering a disinterested eye over the books.
“He’s been reading up to see how gentle folks live,” Black said. “Ambitious, that’s what he is. Wanting to rise above hisself.”
Black had first-hand knowledge of this behaviour. Having mastered the basics of polite society himself, he was presently studying French to add lustre to the thin patina of a gentleman.
“Let’s get busy and look about,” Coffen said, and taking up their lamps, they prowled around the small room. Corbett did have a few elegant items scattered about the main room. Some pretty vases, an oil painting in a fancy frame, a landscape that neither Black nor Coffen recognized as an imitation Turner. None of the objects came from Luten’s house.
The kitchen held only the most basic necessities. A table and two chairs, a stove and a few shelves holding dishes and a little food. There was no dining room. They went abovestairs and found one empty bedroom, one furnished with some comfort but in the simplest style. Mr. Corbett wasn’t wasting much money on the essentials. The wardrobe, however, held three decent jackets and the dresser revealed a number of shirts and cravats. The essentials of a man’s toilette sat below a small mirror — shaving equipment, comb, brush, a bottle of Steeke’s lavender water. In his business it would be important to keep up a good appearance.
What they did not discover was anything taken from Luten’s house.
“He must keep his papers somewhere, papers that could tell us something about him,” Coffen said. “Everybody has a few important papers — birth certificates, bills and so on. Wasn’t there a little desk in that living room?”
“There was, with a lamp on it.”
“We’ll try the drawers.”
The desk drawers held the papers Coffen had hoped to find. No birth certificate but papers from St. Alban’s Orphanage in Devon giving an approximate date of birth and “parents unknown”, a diploma from the same institution. After a lapse of some years, there were clippings of plays in which he had appeared with good reviews of his performance, a ticket from a pawn shop for a pocket watch. No indication of what he had been up to during those years between leaving the orphanage and becoming an actor.
It was Black who made the more interesting discovery when he returned to the sofa for a rest. Noticing little bits of paper protruding from the pages of an illustrated art book, he opened the book at the marked places and stared. There, big as life, was a picture of that funny looking horse statue they were all making such a fuss about. And there it was in black and white, “belonging to the Marquess of Luten.” He turned to the next marked page, and saw a description of what Black called a jug, and the book called a Grecian urn. It wasn’t a dead ringer for one of Luten’s, but close enough to
be its brother. It was in a little cabinet in a niche outside the library. Corbett must have spotted it when he was taking that silver table piece to the library for Miss Lipman. He had a sharp eye! The other marked pages also held objects suggestively similar to items in that cabinet.
Corbett had been taking stock of what small items he thought were worth stealing, and was reading up on them. He had also marked a few of the paintings. Now it would be interesting if — Yes, there it was, that portrait of a dark-browed foreigner by someone called Caravaggio that hung in Luten’s salon. All you could see was the man’s face and hands, and that face wasn’t one to give much pleasure. Black had heard of Rembrandt and Leonardo daVinci. He didn’t care much for either of them, but at least they were famous.
The name Caravaggio meant nothing to him, but if it was good enough to be in a book it must be worth stealing. The picture was a yard tall and wide, did Corbett think he could stick that under his jacket? Nossir, he planned to break into the house a few months after the rehearsals were over, so that he wouldn’t be blamed. Or perhaps he worked for ken smashers, fingering likely pickings for them.
When he had figured this out, and it didn’t take long, he said, “I believe I’ve found something here, Mr. Pattle. Come and have a look.” He flipped through the various marked pages and explained his thinking.
“He took that horse sure as I’m a Christian, and when a stink was raised he brought it back so as not to make them suspicious,” Black said. “He’s planning to make off with more than that horse. We’ll have to tell Luten about this.”
“And Prance,” Coffen added. “He’ll have to turn the fellow off. He won’t like it, but since he says he’ll have to repay Luten if any of his crew make off with valuables, he’ll do it all right.”
“I’d say this was a good night’s work, Mr. Pattle. We’ve earned ourselves a wet.”
“I could do with a bite first.”