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

by Sally Spencer

  ‘You’re right,’ Blackstone agreed morosely. ‘What I keep forgetting is that we’re not dealing with normal people here. Instead, we’re dealing with theatricals — and almost everything they do is theatrical.’

  Patterson looked at his watch. ‘The night-time telephone operators will be reporting for duty soon, so it’s time I set off for the telephone exchange again,’ he said. ‘What will you do, sir? Go and see the play again?’

  ‘No, I think I’ll give it a miss tonight.’

  ‘And why’s that? Have you had enough of the magic of the theatre for one day?’

  ‘It’s not the theatre I can’t face,’ Blackstone said, ‘it’s the audience. Or, more particularly, one member of the audience.’

  ‘Of course! Sir Roderick Todd!’

  Blackstone nodded. ‘Our beloved Assistant Commissioner will be there in the Royal Box — reaping his reward for being a good little boy and allowing the theatre to stay open despite the fact that a murder inquiry’s going on.’

  ‘Are you’re afraid that if you see him, he’ll ask you how the investigation’s going?’

  ‘Not exactly. I’m afraid that if I do see him, I won’t be able to resist the temptation to smash him in his big, fat, stupid face. And that could be very bad for my career, you know.’

  ‘Yes, it might be something of a set-back to promotion,’ Patterson agreed. He stood up and adjusted his waistcoat over his still-ample girth. ‘There is just one more thing we haven’t discussed yet, sir,’ he said.

  ‘And what might that be?’

  ‘The little old man. I still don’t quite see how he fits into the picture that we’re building up.’

  Blackstone looked at him blankly. ‘What little old man are you talking about?’ he asked.

  ‘The one who the knife-maker described.’

  ‘You’re still talking in riddles,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘The constables who were sent out to question the knife-and sword-makers have found the man who made the murder weapon. It’s in all their report. Haven’t you seen it?’

  ‘Obviously not,’ Blackstone said. It’s probably sitting on my desk back at the Yard. So what did this knife-maker have to say for himself?’

  ‘That he made the knife on a commission. And that the person who commissioned it was a little old man.’

  ‘A little old man?’ Blackstone repeated.

  ‘Apparently.’

  Blackstone put his head in his hands. ‘This was never going to be an easy case to solve,’ he said, to nobody in particular, ‘but at least we knew where all the suspects were. Now this little old man pops up from out of nowhere. Isn’t that just what we bloody-well needed?’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Many of the books Ellie Carr had withdrawn from UCH’s library earlier that day had lain undisturbed on the shelves for years. Now, still coated with the dust of neglect, they stood in dangerously unstable towers on every available inch of her desk.

  Ellie looked at the books with something akin to mild despair.

  ‘Bloody toxicology,’ she said loudly to herself. ‘Bloody, bloody — buggering — toxicology.’

  The word itself was simple enough to explain, she thought: toxicology, from the Greek, toxicon, meaning poison for arrows.

  ‘But the subject itself is far from simple,’ Ellie informed her empty room. ‘In fact, there’s so much written on toxicology that a bright young doctor could go completely off her head trying to read it all!’

  Her tired eyes needed a rest — or, at least, a change — and she forced herself to tear them away from the heavy book in front of her and focus on the far wall of her office.

  It had taken her a long time to accept the room for what it was. As her office! As her office!

  She remembered being shown it for the first time, by the hospital administrator — remembered the lump that had formed in her throat as she looked around.

  It was the sheer size of the place which had overcome her. The office, which had been designated for her use alone, took up almost as much floor space as the rented rooms in which she’d been brought up — rooms in which she, her mother, and her seven brothers had not only eaten and slept, but also worked.

  In those rooms they had made hat-boxes and paper flowers when there had been a call for them, and produced scrubbing brushes when there hadn’t. They had boiled up beetroot, and sold it down at the market on a Friday night. They had — to put it simply — done just about anything and everything that they could to keep their heads above water.

  The whole family had known, even then, that Ellie was brighter than the rest of them put together. But not one of them had ever even dreamed that she would someday have an office like this one. And they still couldn’t quite comprehend it.

  Her mother was dead, and two of her brother had succumbed to the endemic illnesses of the slums in their early teens. But five brothers were still alive — three of them soldiers, the other two stokers on transatlantic steamships — and whenever they were in London and came to visit her, they looked around this office with expressions on their faces which said — more clearly than words — that not only did they have no right to be in this posh place, but they strongly suspected that she didn’t, either! And the worst thing of all was that, from time to time at least, she almost half-agreed with them.

  ‘Don’t you think it’s time that you called it a day?’ a voice asked from the doorway.

  Ellie peered at Jed Trent through the space between two towers of musty books.

  ‘I can’t just abandon my grand tour of the poisons of the world when I’ve only got as far as Africa,’ she said.

  ‘Why not? You haven’t actually learned anything very useful, now have you?’ Trent asked.

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘Because if you had, I wouldn’t have heard you saying “Bloody, bloody, buggering toxicology” when I was walking past.’

  ‘Was I that loud?’ Ellie asked, slightly embarrassed.

  ‘Everybody with an office on this corridor would have heard you, if they’d been there to hear,’ Trent said. Tut, of course, they’re not there. They’ve all gone home — and it might be a good idea if you followed their example.’

  ‘Did you know there’s a poison called ricin which has been round for thousands of years?’ Ellie asked.

  ‘No, I can’t say that I did. Nor can I honestly say I feel any better for knowing it now.’

  ‘There are references to it in something called the Susruta Ayurveda, which was written in Sanskrit in the sixth century BC!’

  Jed Trent held up his hand. ‘Please, Dr Carr, don’t feel under any obligation at all to enlighten me further on the matter,’ he said, even though he knew it was a waste of breath.

  It’s made from the castor oil plant, and there are records of its use in East Africa to poison unwanted children. But — and this is much more significant, Jed — there have been cases in India of people stabbing their enemies’ cattle with rusty nails which have been smeared with extract of the castor bean.’

  ‘And this ricin is what you think was used to poison William Kirkpatrick, is it?’

  ‘Regrettably not,’ Ellie Carr admitted. Its toxic effects have a latent period. They take at least two hours — and possibly as much as twenty-four — to develop. Kirkpatrick, on the other hand, died almost immediately. But at least I seem to be on the right lines, don’t I?’

  ‘Do you?’ Trent asked. ‘Being as I’m just a simple ex-bobby, I wouldn’t know. And another thing I don’t know — don’t think I’ll ever know — is why you push yourself so hard.’

  Ah, but you would know if you’d seen the house I was brought up in, Ellie Carr thought.

  * * *

  The morning visit to the telephone exchange had been a depressing and disillusioning experience for Sergeant Patterson. The women operators — who had always been, in his mind, the high priestesses of the religion of new technology — had refused to see themselves in the role he’d assigned to them,
and instead treated their sacred task as if it were nothing more than just an ordinary job.

  The evening visit was even worse. The women had at least had a little respect for the expensive equipment they had been entrusted with — if only because it was expensive — but the swaggering and posturing male operators of the night shift showed no respect of any kind at all.

  ‘What do they matter — these panels with their flashing lights and bits of wire hanging from them?’ their very attitude proclaimed loudly. ‘The mere machinery is nothing at all without the heroes who are here to operate it.’

  The night supervisor was a man called Blaine, and like the men who worked under him, seemed to Patterson to have a highly inflated opinion of his own importance.

  Miss Dobbs, the sergeant was sure, would have addressed her team of operators as a strict schoolmarm might have lectured her pupils — firmly but kindly, with her eyes moving from one face to the next as she spoke, and her index finger occasionally wagging to emphasize a point. Blaine, on the other hand, spoke to his operators with his hands on his hips and his eyes fixed on the distance — as if he were the captain of a whaling ship which was braving stormy seas.

  ‘The police need our help,’ he said, his tone almost suggesting that the police were actually quite useless, and what they really needed was for the operators to do their job for them. ‘They want to know about a call which was placed at about half past eight last night to the George Theatre. Which of you men was it who handled that call?’

  The operators looked first at each other, and then at Mr Blaine. None of them spoke.

  ‘Since the call was made, one of you must have handled it,’ Blaine said impatiently.

  And if he doesn’t admit to it now, it’s ten strokes of the cat-o’-nine-tails for him, followed by an invigorating keelhauling, Patterson added silently.

  ‘The George Theatre!’ Blaine said, as if simple repetition would make things clearer. ‘Last night!’

  The operators continued to look blankly at him, except for one man — a thin-faced, shifty-eyed character — who didn’t look at him at all.

  ‘What’s your name, sir?’ Patterson asked, pointing at him.

  The man jumped, as if he’d suddenly become aware of the fact that he was sitting on a needle.

  ‘Me?’ he asked.

  ‘You,’ Patterson confirmed.

  ‘H… Henry Woodbine.’

  ‘Is there somewhere I could speak to Mr Woodbine in private?’ Patterson asked Blaine.

  ‘Will it take long?’ the supervisor replied.

  ‘I rather imagine that’s up to Mr Woodbine,’ Patterson told him enigmatically.

  ‘I don’t like being one man short on a busy shift like this one,’ Blaine grumbled.

  ‘I imagine you don’t,’ Patterson agreed. ‘I not sure that I would care for it myself.’

  ‘So I don’t see how I can —’

  ‘But I’m sure that if any man can manage being shorthanded in a time of crisis, that man is you,’ Patterson added.

  The exchange supervisor bit back the rest of the comment he’d been about to make. ‘You’re a very shrewd judge of human nature — for a policeman,’ he said grudgingly. ‘All right, you can take him. But make sure I get him back as soon as you’ve finished with him.’

  * * *

  The play was done, the cast was already on its way home — and Sebastian George sat in his office, smoking a big cigar and mentally adding up the day’s takings.

  The knock on the door shattered his mood of self-congratulation, and his annoyance was only increased when he saw who it was that had come calling on him.

  ‘What can I do for you, Miss Simmons?’ he asked brusquely.

  Tamara Simmons advanced into the room and simpered. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me to sit down, Mr George?’ she said.

  Before Martin Swinburne’s death, she wouldn’t have dared to come to his office at all without an invitation, Sebastian George thought crossly. Now she not only expected him to give up his free time to listen to her inane wittering’s, but wanted to sit down as well.

  He was in half a mind to tell her she wouldn’t be there long enough to need a seat, but then the more cautious — and rarely seen — side of his nature took over, and he heard himself say, ‘By all means, make yourself comfortable.’

  Tamara Simmons sat, and placed her hands on her lap like a demure Sunday school teacher.

  ‘One of the policemen — the chubby one — bought me afternoon tea today,’ she said.

  ‘That was very nice of him,’ George replied, thinking to himself that if Patterson imagined he could get Tamara into his bed for the price of a cup of tea and a piece of cake, he was heading for disappointment.

  Tamara Simmons looked surprised at his comment. ‘Oh, he didn’t do it because he wanted to be nice to me,’ she said.

  ‘He did it because he wanted to question me.’

  Alarm bells were starting to ring in George’s head. ‘Question you?’ he repeated. ‘What about?

  ‘What do you think it was about? He asked me about Martin Swinburne and William Kirkpatrick.’

  ‘And what did you tell him?’

  ‘That Mr Swinburne was my lover, and William Kirkpatrick wanted to take his place in my affections.’

  ‘Do you think he believed you?’

  ‘Of course he believed me! I’m an actress, after all, aren’t I? And a very good one.’

  George kept silent.

  Tamara Simmons tapped the toe of her shoe impatiently on the floor. ‘In case you didn’t hear me, Mr George, I said I’m a very good actress, aren’t I?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sebastian George agreed reluctantly. ‘You are indeed a very good actress.’

  ‘So, if that’s the case, then why am I still only playing minor parts?’ Tamara Simmons wondered.

  ‘I wouldn’t say you were only playing minor parts at all, Tamara, my dear.’ George said, with sudden fake joviality.

  ‘Why, in this current play alone, you have two major roles.’

  ‘Major roles? Is that what you call them’? The maid, and Lady Wilton’s cousin?’

  ‘Neither character may have that many lines, but — as I’m sure you fully appreciate yourself — both roles are absolutely pivotal to the development of the drama.’

  ‘Maybe they are, but I’m not likely to set the West End alight with them, am I?’

  George sighed. She wasn’t likely to set the West End alight with any roles he gave her, he thought.

  ‘So you’re saying that you’re not happy with the parts I’ve given you, are you?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And what other role did you have in mind?’

  ‘Have you noticed how tired Miss Devaraux’s been looking since the murder?’ Tamara Simmons asked.

  ‘Good God, you surely don’t want to take over the lead, do you?’ George exploded.

  Tamara Simmons laughed, quite prettily. ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Good!’

  ‘That would be very selfish of me, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘That’s certainly one way of putting it.’

  ‘But I did think I could take over the role in the some of the matinée performances — just to give Miss Devaraux a rest’

  ‘I’m afraid that wouldn’t be —’

  ‘And later on, of course, she might do the matinées, and I might do the evening performances.’

  ‘Do be sensible,’ George coaxed. ‘The only reason this play is suddenly such a great success is because the public want to see Charlotte. And why do they want to see her — and her alone? Because she’s the one who actually stabbed William Kirkpatrick. They’d feel cheated if they saw anybody else — and I can’t say that I’d entirely blame them.’

  ‘All right, she can keep the lead for the run of this play,’ Tamara Simmons conceded graciously. ‘But what about the lead in the next one you put on? Who’ll be given that?’

  ‘I haven’t even thought about it yet.’

/>   ‘Well, I think you should. And I’d like you to know that if I’m not given the leading role myself, I shall be very disappointed indeed.’

  ‘I said you were a good actress, and so you are,’ George said, keeping his temper under control — but only just. ‘However, you must see yourself that Charlotte Devaraux is more than that — she is a great actress.’

  ‘And so will I be… given time.’

  The jumped-up little snot! George thought. The talentless little tart. Had she no concept of gratitude’?

  ‘Hell will freeze over before you’ll be ready to fill Charlotte Devaraux’s shoes,’ he said.

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘I do! She is as different to you as chalk is to cheese.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ Tamara Simmons replied airily. ‘In fact, I think we have many things in common.’

  ‘You have nothing in co —’

  ‘And one of those things is that we both have the power to bring this company to its knees, should we choose to.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Now, I don’t think Charlotte would ever do that. Why should she want to destroy the company, when — as the leading lady — she has so much to lose? But for the moment, you see, I do have not have quite as strong an incentive to keep my own mouth shut.’

  Sebastian George felt the blood in his veins turning to ice. ‘You’re not as stupid as you sometimes seem, are you?’ he asked.

  Tamara smiled. ‘No, I’m not,’ she agreed.

  ‘And it’s because I’m now coming to appreciate you for your intelligence that I’ve just decided to take the time to explain something to you,’ Sebastian George continued.

  There was a new, hardened edge to his tone, and Tamara Simmons suddenly began to look a little less confident.

  ‘Go on,’ she said, hesitantly.

  ‘You’ve been here long enough to remember when my father was in charge of this theatre, haven’t you’?’

  ‘Yes, I —’

  ‘And what did you think of him?’

  ‘He… he was a nice old man.’

  ‘Yes, he was,’ Sebastian George agreed. ‘He was a very nice old man indeed. And I loved him deeply — as only a son can love a father. But he did have one fatal failing, didn’t he?’