For his part, Layton was enjoying Timmy’s turn. He and Mangogo stood in the wings, stage left. The cold London weather had been hard on the Pygmies; the MacMillan circuit had had to provide them with coats. Sizing proved difficult; Mangogo’s greatcoat, which he wore inside because of the theatre’s cold draughts, almost touched the floor.
Two stagehands carrying a crate bustled past; Layton moved out of their way and found himself next to the prompt corner. On the desk was a newspaper a crew member had left behind, and a headline at the bottom of the front page caught Layton’s eye.
GRUESOME DISCOVERY AT BUILDING SITE IN KING’S CROSS
He started to scan the first paragraph, then snatched up the paper and ran to the scene shop. In privacy, he read:
Two days ago, workmen on the construction site of the Hall Syndicate’s new Victory Hippodrome Theatre made a horrific discovery. Brickmasons noticed three human fingers protruding through the cement in a section of newly poured footing. Police ordered the men to break up the footing and discovered the naked body of a man, approximately sixty years old with a ginger mustache, embedded in the cement. The man had a large bruise on his forehead.
The body has been identified as that of Edward Beverly of Lambeth, a worker at the Cook Foundries in Wapping. His wife, Mabel, had come to Metropolitan Police headquarters to report her husband missing and made the identification.
Police are making inquiries. All information is welcome.
• • •
The next morning, Layton found himself on Reardon Street, gazing at the massive brick buildings that housed the Cook Foundries, the mill that had supplied the Britannia’s steel.
Taking a deep breath, he walked through the wide iron gate into the rear yard. The workers were busy loading metalwork into wagons and paid Layton no attention. They likely thought he was a reporter, Layton guessed, looking for information on the murder of their coworker.
In his days as an architect, Layton had visited such places to inspect ornamental metalwork before it was installed on his buildings. In the yard were stacks of finished work ready to be shipped: metal fencing, steel beams and girders, iron doors, and window gratings. Out of habit, Layton examined the goods, which were of the best quality and workmanship. He could always tell the quality by looking closely at the metal’s grain. Good quality iron was smooth and tight, with no pitting or voids.
A wide opening at the rear of the building led to a massive three-story fabrication plant, whose furnaces and forges were going full tilt. Layton strolled inside, acting as though he owned the place, and passed slowly by the equipment. On this damp, miserable December morning, the place was hot as an inferno. Crucibles and furnaces boiled furiously; the red-and-yellow molten steel and iron would be poured into molds or cooled and hammered, making scores of machine parts, tools, sheet iron, and boilerplate. On Layton’s first visit to a foundry in Dorchester as a young architect working for John Hicks, he’d thought it the perfect image of hell.
Like all fabrication plants, this one was dirty and cluttered, with piles of raw bar stock and plate metal scattered all about. A layer of thick, gray soot covered everything, including the cups on the table where workers took tea breaks. Imagine the lungs of these men, Layton thought, coated with years of dust like a coal miner’s.
As he walked past a long table filled with tools and wooden crates, a crate of rivets stopped him in his tracks. Picking one from the pile, Layton stared at it in amazement, as if he’d found a legendary South African diamond on the sidewalk. He rubbed his fingers over the rounded head, feeling its slightly rough texture, then slid them along the smooth, cylindrical shaft.
Rivets were the primary means of fastening steel, a new construction material that had come into wide use just before Layton went to prison. A metalworker would use iron tongs to place a red-hot rivet in a predrilled hole; by hammering the end of the shaft, he could create a new head and tightly fasten down the metal plate. Rivets were excellent for carrying loads perpendicular to their shaft, or shear loads, which made them ideal for bridge and building construction.
But, Layton knew, a chain was only as strong as its weakest link. He threw the rivet up in the air and caught it again. And as it spun end over end, he realized what had happened.
Rivets had been used in the steel cantilever beams of the Britannia’s balconies. They had spliced together two sections of beams in Section C of the dress circle, sitting directly on the great, curved girder that stretched from wall to wall. Extending out sixteen feet from the girder were the cantilevered balcony beams, with concrete steps to attach the seating. It was this section of balcony that had snapped off, breaking as easily as a breadstick, killing and maiming the people in the stalls below. The rivets at that point on the girder, Layton thought, his fist closing tight around the one in his hand, must have failed because of poor-quality metal.
It reminded Layton of a great oak in a field near his home in Puddletown. The tree was huge, its thick, long boughs radiating out from its enormous trunk. As a boy, Layton thought it the strongest thing on earth. So he was shocked one day, walking back from the village, to see a massive bough lying at its foot. Puzzled, he’d examined the end of the branch, where it had snapped, and found it rotten at its core. The bough that had looked so mighty and solid was basically hollow, and its own dead weight had brought it down.
The rivets in the Britannia balcony had been the same—so strong-looking on the outside, but weak at the core.
Outside, rain had begun to beat down, hammering the dirt in the yard so hard that puddles formed almost immediately. The men retreated indoors.
“Rainin’ stair rods out there, eh, guv?”
Layton turned to face a workman with a bulbous red nose and a mop of stringy gray hair.
“Good morning,” he said, holding up the rivet. “Everybody was so busy that I decided to have a look around on my own. I’m looking for someone to do foundry work—rivets. Like these.”
“Aye, guv, you’ve come to the right place, but at a bad time. One of our mates has passed on.” The speaker doffed his cap and pressed it to his chest as he spoke.
“So sorry to hear that, old chap. Was he a rivet maker?”
“Aye, that was our Eddie’s specialty, but he could make anything,” the man said. “Good with any kind of metal. Twenty-one years I worked with him, and never did I meet a finer man. His rivets was of the finest quality. He was like a bloomin’ scientist; could make any kind of cast iron, steel, you name it, guv.”
Layton nodded. Metallurgy was a complex science, in which the chemical composition of iron was altered with carbon to make it stronger—or weaker. Ferrous alloys like cast iron had high carbon content; wrought iron’s was low. Steel contained carbon, but if the proportions were lowered even slightly, the steel quality would become inferior and lose its ability to withstand applied forces.
Metallurgy was as much art as science. One could manipulate metal as much as one wanted to get the desired result. In the case of the Britannia, that result had been a structural failure.
“Thank you for your time, sir,” Layton said, his voice hollow. “You’ve been most helpful. Again, I’m dreadfully sorry for your loss.”
“Thanks, guv. He loved his job,” said the worker, a sad expression on his sagging, weather-beaten face. “Never pulled a sickie in all my years here.”
In the foundry yard, the rain had slowed to a drizzle. Layton walked in a daze, the rivet still in his hand. He’d said that this was all a giant puzzle. Well, slowly, the pieces were fitting together.
It was apparent now that the bad rivets had been installed at the splice point on the girder. And Browne and Reville…or Shaw could have made sure that happened at the building site, Layton thought. For a great deal of money—or because he was being blackmailed—Beverly could have altered the rivets.
After five years, like Peter, Beverly must have been so guil
t-ridden that he was ready to confess. Or he might have had no conscience at all but had approached the murderer for more hush money. Either way, he’d wound up in the footing.
Was it time to approach Scotland Yard? No. Layton shook his head. Despite all his labors, he still had no real proof of the murderer’s identity. He himself couldn’t figure out which one it was. All had motives. And if he played his cards too early, the police could have him committed to Broadmoor—Britain’s lunatic asylum for criminals.
42
“This is magnificent.”
Layton and Phipps stood in the rotunda of the almost completed Royal Physicians Hall. Above them soared four stories of balconies, topped by a ribbed dome. Each rib was done in gold leaf gilt; between were murals depicting milestones in medical history. Workmen were busy setting the green-and-white marble floor and staining the oak arches and columns that framed the entry foyer.
What a tremendous feeling, to watch a design on paper transformed into a real building! Layton had almost forgotten the rush. Strange. For almost ten years, he had seen design after design built. Each gave him the confidence to do something better, bolder. How could he have lost sight of that experience?
Beside him, Phipps gazed up at the dome, a pleased expression on his face. Layton didn’t fault him; he’d have been proud to design such a place. This was the first of his buildings Phipps had shown him; he realized now how talented his friend really was. To be so young and such an important British architect! From what he’d told Layton, he had built hospitals, men’s clubs, a corn exchange, banks, and country estates.
A feeling of sadness came over Layton like a cold draught. He would never design anything again.
“Thank you, Doug,” said Phipps, giving a slight bow. “A compliment from you means a lot to me.”
“The way you detailed the directors’ conference chamber was topping. And that fireplace is stunning.”
All architects lapped up compliments like a cat at a saucer of milk. Phipps beamed at Layton and said, “I’m on a run of luck. Not all my buildings are as fancy as this. I’m doing an electric power plant in Manchester right now.”
They continued to stroll through the building with Phipps occasionally stopping to give instruction to a worker. Back in the grand entry foyer, he turned to Layton.
“You’re right about Beverly,” he said. “He probably tampered with the rivets at the cantilever splice, and he wanted more money to keep quiet. So he got the snuff, poor bugger. Buried alive in cement.” Phipps gave a tiny shudder of disgust. “Terrible way to go.”
“But who murdered him?” Layton said. “I can’t make it out.”
“The more I go over it, the more I put my money on Clifton and Glenn. To both of them, Rice was the biggest threat. And they had other scores to settle too.”
“But then again,” Layton countered, “Shaw hated me so much, he wanted to frame me for murder of all those people. He could have easily set up the collapse. His name was in Peter’s appointment book too. And Stockton wanted to destroy the chain, to put them out of business. It was his bad luck that most of the top stars didn’t show up that night.”
“True,” Phipps said. “But a man has to be full of hate to do something like that to a rival.” He shook his head. “Whoever it is, we need proof.”
43
The cheering was almost deafening. As Helen McCoy, now atop the bill at the Queen’s Palace, took her bows, every single person in the house was on his or her feet.
Helen scanned the stalls below, then, to everyone’s amazement, walked down the little side stairs at the end of the stage, went to a boy in the first row, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Ronald Layton flushed red like a beet.
“Ronnie,” Helen said sweetly, “you come backstage to my dressing room. I have some Cadbury for you.”
“Oh yes, Helen! Thank you,” Ronald cried.
Nanny Hawkins smiled and put her hand on his shoulder. Some of the nearby audience members looked jealous; others patted him on the back joyfully—he’d been kissed by the Piccadilly Lilly and thus turned into a talisman. Ronald felt very grown-up. To be paid attention by adults! It was a wondrous thing. In his world, children were invisible.
Helen skipped up the stairs and gave another wave before disappearing into the wings. Her dressing room, which she shared with no one, was filled with flowers of every description. So brilliant were the colors that she might have been in the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew.
Mildred, her former lady’s maid from Suttonfield and now personal assistant, helped her out of her feathery white satin gown and carefully removed the tiara from her chestnut-brown hair. Helen had been offered ten pounds for a lock of that hair but had indignantly refused the gentleman.
“Your ladyship, will you be wanting your black gown for tonight’s party?”
Helen had given up her efforts to get Mildred to call her by her first name. It wasn’t proper, Mildred always said firmly, and she wouldn’t do it. Now, to Helen’s dismay, other variety hall performers were calling her “your ladyship” too.
“No, I’ll have the lavender gown, please, Mildred,” Helen said, applying a blob of Pond’s Extract to her cheek. As she wiped away her makeup, she asked, “Do you think ‘I Would Like to Marry You’ came off well tonight, Mildred?”
“It’s not my favorite song, but you sang it in a very sweet way, m’lady. I’d perhaps add in another one, though.”
Mildred never hesitated to give her frank opinion of her mistress’s performances. Helen liked that. A singer needed one person to be honest with them, instead of kissing their bum, like a lot of performers’ so-called friends.
“‘Goodbye, Sweetheart, Goodbye’?” she offered, raising an eyebrow.
“Now, that’s the ticket, m’lady.”
Having finished her toilette, Helen and Mildred made their way down the corridor toward the stage door. Ahead, a familiar female voice was lifted in outrage.
“You bloody shite, if you ever plant applauders in the house again, you’ll never set foot on a stage in England, Ireland, Scotland, or anywhere else on God’s green earth.”
Cissie and the stage manager, Wilding, had Clive St. Clair, the Superb Card Trickster, backed up against the corridor wall.
“I’d never do such a thing,” wailed St. Clair.
“Bollocks. No one’s cheered that loudly for your act in years. I know a plant when I see one, my boy,” said Wilding.
Helen and Mildred exchanged a significant glance. Sometimes, when an act’s popularity faded, the performer would pay people to cheer extra loudly—usually a quid, plus admission. Six paid applauders clapping and cheering could lead the rest of the audience to join in.
The trick worked the other way too, Helen knew. Some performers would pay people to heckle competing acts in other theatres to drive them out of business. All the Queen’s Palace artistes knew that Bimba Bamba, the magician, had arranged for plants to boo his rival, Voldor, at the Majestic in Islington.
“Remember, mate, you’ve been warned,” growled Cissie. But her expression turned from hateful to happy when she spied Helen. “Hello there, luv. I’ve wonderful news. We want you to move over to the Metro.”
Helen could hardly contain her joy; she beamed enormously at Cissie and squeezed Mildred’s hand. The Metropolitan Royal Theatre off Leicester Square, the circuit’s flagship theatre, could seat almost four thousand. Playing there was every performer’s dream. In less than six months as a professional, she had made it.
And to think, she thought wryly, she owed it all to Lionel Glenn’s wife, who’d forced her husband to attend a society recital, raising money for Boer War veterans. Helen—or Gladys, as she was then known—had volunteered to do a song, and Glenn had almost fallen off his chair when he heard her beautiful soprano voice singing “The Boy I Love Is Up in the Gallery.” By dogged persistence, over the course of a year, he’d
persuaded her to go onstage.
“Oh, Mrs. Mapes, when do I start?”
“The first of next month, ducks. We’ll talk about the details later,” said Cissie and turned her attention back to St. Clair, who was still cringing against the wall.
Outside the stage door, as usual, many gentlemen in evening dress were milling about. When they saw Helen, they all started talking at once.
“Miss McCoy, would you do me the honor of supper tonight?”
“Miss McCoy, my carriage is at your disposal.”
Laughing sweetly, Helen started to explain about her evening engagement. But she stopped abruptly; beyond the circle of men was a figure, standing in the shadows of the alley: an elegantly dressed woman, with a veil covering her face.
Helen stormed through her ring of admirers, straight toward the figure.
“Mother, what are you doing here?” she gasped.
Without lifting her veil, the woman replied, “Gladys, my dear, please stop this at once and come home to Suttonfield. Your poor father will take you back, I swear it.”
Helen lifted the veil and looked into the cornflower-blue eyes she had inherited.
“Mother, I’ve made my decision. I want a career on the stage. I’m good at what I do, and I’m proud of my talent. I’m not chucking it all for the sake of the family name.”
“You must come home,” her mother said, clutching desperately at the lapels of her daughter’s coat. “Your father rages every minute about the disgrace you’ve brought upon us. He’s gone crazy, I fear.”
“He’ll recover in time, Mother. There are worse things that can happen,” Helen said airily. “It’s not like I had a child out of wedlock with a servant.”
“Never even think of such a thing,” shrieked her mother.
“Mother, you should come one night and hear me sing,” Helen said earnestly, pressing her cheek against her mother’s. “I would ever so much like that.”
The Fallen Architect Page 25