Blackstone and the Stage of Death (The Blackstone Detective series Book 5)

by Sally Spencer

  ‘I apologize, my lord,’ he said, in a shaky voice. ‘I meant no harm, I can assure you of that —’

  ‘That is not how it appeared to me.’

  ‘— though I fully realize, of course, that I may, by implication, have given the wrong impression. In truth, I fully appreciate, as you do yourself, that whilst Miss Devaraux may be an actress, she is, as you have yourself stated — first and foremost — a lady.’

  Sebastian George was wise to stick to the business of managing theatres, Blackstone thought, because, as his current performance was quite clearly demonstrating, acting in them was certainly not his forte.

  ‘Your apology is accepted,’ Bixendale said graciously.

  ‘But I still feel that you are underestimating Miss Devaraux’s tremendous fortitude and true strength of character if you believe that last night’s upset will in any way —’

  ‘I have reached my decision and am not to be moved from it, especially by such a man as you,’ Bixendale interrupted. ‘However, I will ensure that you do not suffer financially as a result of it —’

  ‘That’s more than generous of you, my lord,’ George gushed. and since you probably appreciate that having a theatre without Charlotte is better than having no theatre at all, you would be wise to give that decision your full support.’

  It was at that moment that Blackstone noticed that Charlotte Devaraux had appeared in the wing opposite the one in which he was standing.

  It was almost as if she had been waiting for her cue, he thought. And perhaps she had!

  She could have seen him as clearly as he was seeing her, but never so much as glanced his direction. Instead, she appeared to be looking into herself — preparing for the role which she was just about to play.

  Her preparation completed, Charlotte Devaraux glided across the stage like a tragic heroine who was crossing a dark and desperate place.

  ‘Charlotte, my dear!’ Lord Bixendale exclaimed. ‘We were just talking about you.’

  ‘Were you, Robert?’ the woman asked.

  Robert! Blackstone noted. She did not call him ‘my lord’ — as Sebastian George had wheedlingly done — but Robert.

  ‘I have just been addressing George here on the subject of the distress you were made to endure on stage last evening, Charlotte,’ Bixendale said. ‘I have, furthermore, been pointing out to him the obvious fact that you are in need of a complete rest.

  ‘I’m not sure —’ Charlotte Devaraux began.

  ‘And he agrees with me completely, don’t you, George?’ Lord Bixendale interrupted.

  ‘Yes, my lord, I certainly do,’ Sebastian George said, swallowing hard as he spoke.

  ‘And so I have taken it upon myself to reserve a suite for you in a private sanatorium in the Scottish Highlands,’ Lord Bixendale continued. ‘There, you will get the tranquillity you sorely require, and perhaps, after a little while, you will feel strong enough to return to London.’

  ‘But I couldn’t go away now!’ Charlotte Devaraux said. ‘My public demands that I appear before them nightly.’

  ‘Your public will have to learn to do without you,’ Bixendale told her. ‘I know what is best for you, and I want no arguments about it.’

  The tragic stance which Charlotte Devaraux had been assuming began to melt away, and was replaced by one that was altogether less dramatic and much more human.

  ‘But you’d miss me if I was away, Robbie,’ she said, in what was almost a little girl’s voice. ‘You know you would.’

  ‘I will bear it all with fortitude, because I understand that it is for your benefit,’ Bixendale said. ‘Besides, I have every expectation of being in Scotland myself, later this month.’

  Blackstone was beginning to think that perhaps he’d been rather too hasty in judging Sebastian George to be a poor actor, for though the manager was still standing where he had been all along, he had somehow contrived to make himself appear almost invisible.

  Charlotte Devaraux reached up, and gently stroked one of Bixendale’s silver whiskers with her index finger.

  ‘It would be wonderful to have you there in Scotland with me, Robbie,’ she cooed. ‘Indeed, if you could stay there all the time, I don’t think I would ever want to leave the place myself. But your visit will be no more than a short one, won’t it? How could it be otherwise?’

  ‘Well, I… ’

  ‘A man of your importance has a great many responsibilities and duties that he must attend to in the capital. And you have never been one to shirk your duty, Robbie, however much you might wish to.’

  ‘It’s true that I don’t think I could stay in Scotland for much more than a week,’ Bixendale admitted.

  ‘And what would I do up there in those Highlands — entirely on my own — once you’d gone away again?’ Charlotte Devaraux asked, as her index finger moved under his chin and began to caress it gently.

  ‘You’d soon get used to it, Charlotte,’ Bixendale said, though it was quite obvious to Blackstone that the more the woman’s finger explored his jaw line, the harder the noble lord was finding it to concentrate on the subject under discussion.

  ‘I should go quite mad, if I were left alone,’ Charlotte Devaraux said. ‘I know that 1 should. And what would happen then? Would you want to take a mad woman out to dinner with you? Would you invite a mad woman to visit you in your private apartments.’

  ‘Well, I… ’

  Charlotte removed her finger from under Bixendale’s chin, and placed one of her hands on each of his shoulders.

  ‘Don’t be cruel to your little Lamb-Chop, Bobbity,’ she implored. ‘Let me stay where you know I’ll be at my happiest.’

  Bixendale hesitated, but it was more than clear that he had already lost the battle.

  ‘We’ll let you continue performing for another week, and see how it goes,’ he conceded.

  ‘Thank you! Thank you so much!’

  ‘But if I feel that you’re under any strain at all, I shall insist that you abandon this foolishness and go straight to the sanatorium in Scotland.’

  Charlotte stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the nose. ‘That’s my wonderful Bobbity,’ she said tenderly.

  He’d seen enough, Blackstone decided, stepping quietly backwards out of view.

  More than enough.

  It was possible that Charlotte Devaraux did have some genuine affection for the older man, but still he could not wipe completely from his mind the idea that what he’d just witnessed was a little drama which could have been entitled The Whore, her Pimp and her Lover.

  Chapter Eight

  Patterson was sitting in the bar of the Crown and Anchor Tavern, a pub often used by officers from Scotland Yard, and facing him across the table was Detective Sergeant Hector Chichester.

  Archie Patterson had always had mixed feelings about Chichester. On the one hand, he was forced to admit that Chichester was a good bobby, who worked hard at his job, would never have thought for a moment of taking a bribe, and sometimes found solutions to crimes that a duller policeman might have overlooked entirely. In addition — and still trying to be completely fair to the man — he was a loyal comrade, who watched your back as well as his own, and wouldn’t think twice about doing you a favour.

  On the other hand, there were things about him that made Patterson occasionally wish he could bundle the bloody man into a sack and drop him over the side of the nearest paddle steamer. He could be smug — no one admired him more greatly than he admired himself — and he could be superior. When he had been clever, he went out of his way to let you know it. And — though Patterson accepted this should not have tipped the balance of judgement about him one way or the other — most women took one look at him and fell swooning at his feet.

  ‘Are you sure you want to drink that stuff, Archie?’ Chichester asked, looking down with disdain on the glass of soda water which Patterson held in his hand, but was otherwise ignoring.

  ‘It’s all right once you get used to the taste of it,’ Patterson said unconvincingly. �
�Anyway, I haven’t come here to be sociable. I want some information.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On the tragic and dramatic death of one Martin Swinburne, as it occurred in the latter part of the play Taking Wing.’

  ‘Almost sounds like the title of a play in itself,’ Chichester said.

  ‘Clever of you to notice that,’ Patterson countered, feeling as if he’d scored a point. ‘You were part of the team that investigated that particular case, weren’t you, Hector?’

  ‘I most certainly was,’ Chichester confirmed. ‘What would you like to know?’

  ‘Well, we could start with you telling me whether or not you think it really was an accident,’ Patterson suggested.

  ‘It could have been,’ Chichester said enigmatically.

  ‘Does that mean that you think it was an accident or that you don’t?’

  ‘It means that I can’t be sure one way or the other.’

  ‘But you must have an opinion.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Chichester said, looking as if he thought he ‘d scored a point. ‘By their very nature, opinions must be at least based on facts — and the facts in this case are very murky indeed.’

  ‘Even so… ’

  ‘Look at it this way, young Archie — by their very nature, sensationalist effects are dangerous things to perform. Would you like me to explain to you why that should be so?’

  ‘You can do — or perhaps I could explain it to you,’ said Patterson, not wanting to give his old comrade any more opportunities to show off than he absolutely had to.

  ‘Go right ahead,’ Chichester invited.

  ‘The audience knows it’s not a real steam train -- or a real flying machine — that they’re watching on stage,’ Patterson said, ‘but they don’t want that fact rubbed in their faces by seeing too many ropes and wires. So the people who create the sensationalist effects have to do without a lot of the things they could use — and that would make the effects safer in the interests of making them look more realistic.’

  Chichester smiled encouragingly, as if Patterson were a pupil of his who had made surprisingly good progress. ‘Most of the time, the designers get away with cutting corners,’ he said. ‘But sometimes, they don’t.’

  ‘You’re not really telling me anything more than I could have worked out for myself in the comfort of my own office,’ Patterson said, ‘and frankly, I’m a little disappointed.’

  ‘I can’t help that, my old mate,’ Chichester said cheerfully.

  ‘All I can give you is the facts of the case, and they are that Martin Swinburne was killed because a couple of hooks broke, and a bloody big weight — an electrical motor — fell right on top of him. Now, did the hooks break because they weren’t strong enough to hold up the machine? Or did they break because somebody had weakened them before the performance? I don’t know, but there certainly wasn’t any direct evidence that it was a murder.’

  ‘What about indirect evidence?’ Patterson said hopefully. ‘Are you asking me who had the opportunity to murder him, and might also have had a motive?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘The flying machine was only on stage for the one scene in the whole play, so if somebody had wanted to doctor it, they could have done it at any time in the previous twenty-four hours. And that means that anybody connected with the theatre would have had the opportunity to do it.’

  ‘What about motive?’

  ‘The ground’s still shaky, but there is a little bit more to go on there. A couple of nights before Swineburne met with his accident —’

  ‘Or before he was murdered!’

  ‘— or before he was murdered, he got into a fight with another member of the company. It was quite a bloody fight, by all accounts, and if they hadn’t been quickly separated by some of the other actors, they could have done each other some serious damage.’

  ‘What was the fight about?’ Patterson asked.

  The superior smile was back on Chichester’s face. ‘There are only two things that most men will ever fight over,’ he said. ‘Do you know what they are, Archie’? Or have you forgotten at least one of them now that you’re engaged?’

  ‘No, I haven’t forgotten,’ Patterson said. ‘The two things most men fight over are women and money.’

  ‘And in this case, it was a woman.’

  Patterson took a sip of his soda water, and wished it was beer. ‘Tell me more,’ he said.

  ‘Her professional name’s Tamara Simmons, though it wouldn’t surprise me if she’d been christened something far more ordinary, like Nellie Clegg. She’s twenty-one years old, if I recall correctly. At the time, she wasn’t one of the leading actresses, by any manner of means — the only opportunity she’d ever had to be at centre stage, she told me, was when she’d stood in for the principal actors during rehearsals — but she was a lovely-looking girl, with a figure that makes me go all a-quiver, just thinking about it.’

  Patterson grinned. ‘You’re showing all the signs of eventually turning into a dirty old man,’ he said.

  Chichester seemed to be trying to choose between being amused and annoyed at the remark. ‘I have many years left to me yet as a dirty young man,’ he said, opting for the former, ‘but when the time does come for me to make the change, I trust I shall play that role with honour and dignity.’

  Patterson laughed. ‘You’re full of shit,’ he said.

  ‘We all are,’ Chichester countered. ‘It’s a biologically established fact. But to get back to Tamara Simmons —’

  ‘Yes, I wish you would.’

  ‘These theatre girls are not like the girls that you and I know. Our girls are virgins — or at least have the decency to pretend to us that they are. These theatre girls, on the other hand, have lovers left, right and centre, and make absolutely no bones about it at all.’

  ‘And this Tamara Simmons had a lover?’

  ‘She did. It was Martin Swinburne. But it seems that one of the other actors was sniffing around her — not that I can blame him for that — and she told Swinburne all about it. Swinburne didn’t like that at all, as you can imagine, and that’s how the fight started.’

  ‘Is Tamara Simmons still a member of the company, or did she leave it when her lover died?’ Patterson asked.

  ‘She’s still a member of the company. In fact, she’s done rather well for herself since his death. She’s still not one of the stars, but she is getting much bigger roles these days.’

  ‘Now how would you know that?’ Patterson wondered.

  Chichester grinned, self-consciously. ‘I happened to run into her in a tea shop on the Strand.’

  ‘Did you now’? That is strange.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because, knowing you as I do, I can’t see you even going into a tea room through choice.’

  ‘All right, I followed her from the theatre, and made it seem as if I’d bumped into her by accident,’ Chichester admitted.

  ‘And whatever made you do that?’

  ‘What do you think made me do it’? We got on well when I was interviewing her — very well, as a matter of fact — and I thought that if I gave her a little time to get over Swinburne’s death, she might be open to new offers.’

  ‘And was she?’

  Chichester shook his head sadly. ‘No.’

  ‘Now that is surprising,’ Patterson said, sarcastically.

  ‘The only reason is that I’d left it too long, isn’t it?’ Chichester said, on the defensive for once.

  ‘Is it?’ Patterson asked. ‘How would that work?’

  ‘Like I said, she’d gone up in the world since we last met, and a detective sergeant — even a detective sergeant as incredibly handsome as I am — obviously wasn’t good enough for her any more. Oh, she was polite enough to me, but I could see that she couldn’t get away from me quickly enough.’

  ‘I think I’ll have a word with her myself,’ Patterson said. ‘You!’ Chichester scoffed.

  ‘Yes, me!’ Patterson retorted.
r />   ‘Look, I don’t want to seem rude, my old mate, but you’ve absolutely no chance of succeeding where I’ve failed,’ Chichester warned him. ‘Besides, Rose would kill you if she ever found out. Or even worse than that — she might take it into her head to do some permanent damage to your wedding tackle.’

  ‘It’s not that kind of word I want,’ Patterson said severely. ‘I wish to speak to her in a purely professional capacity.’

  Chichester grinned. ‘We’ve all used that line in our time,’ he said, ‘but good luck to you, anyway. You’ll certainly need it.’

  ‘You never told me the name of the man who was sniffing round her — the man Martin Swinburne got into a fight with,’ Patterson reminded him.

  ‘Didn’t I?’ Chichester asked, as if he were about to deliver a punch-line to a very good joke.

  ‘No, you didn’t.’

  ‘It was William Kirkpatrick — the bloke who got himself murdered last night.’

  Chapter Nine

  London was not really a city at all, Ellie Carr thought, as she stood at the corner of two roads and looked down a street of dilapidated terraced houses.

  Ancient Athens was a city, and so was classical Rome, but this was a collection of different towns — of different worlds, almost — which touched, but did not merge. The boundaries which existed between these independent entities did not, it was true, appear on any of the official maps — but they were there, right enough. And woe betide anybody who was foolish enough to cross one of these boundaries without realizing that the rules had changed — that the laws of this land were not the same as the one they had just left behind them on the previous street.

  She turned to the man who was standing rigidly next to here. ‘This is as far as you go, Jed,’ she said.