‘You’re very philosophical about it,’ Blackstone said, with grudging admiration.
‘I’m a realist, Inspector,’ Charlotte Devaraux replied. ‘Do you think I would ever have taken a rich lover, so much older than myself, if I wasn’t?’
‘And you’re also very honest,’ Blackstone said.
‘I try to be. We thespians live in a world of illusion, but we should never mistake that for the world which lies just beyond the stage door.’ Charlotte checked the mirror once more, then swung round on her stool to face Blackstone. ‘Still no real signs of the inevitable decline quite yet, so what can I do for you, Inspector?’
‘I’d like you to look at these,’ Blackstone replied, stepping into the dressing room and laying the police artist’s two sketches of the old man on the dressing table. ‘Does he look familiar to you?’
‘Do you know, he looks like he might almost be old Mr George,’ the actress said.
‘He may look like it, but he isn’t,’ Blackstone replied. ‘Thaddeus George has been safely locked away in Bethlehem Hospital for the last two years, and this man was very much at liberty only two days ago. So is there anyone else you know who he might remind you of?’
Charlotte Devaraux laughed. ‘I’m afraid not. The social circle in which I move is a young social circle, Inspector, and all my friends and acquaintances are my own age or even younger.’
Except for Lord Bixendale, of course, Blackstone thought — but he kept the comment to himself.
‘It was such a shame about what happened to Mr George,’ Charlotte Devaraux said. ‘I liked him a great deal, you know. I was most terribly upset when he was committed.’
What a hypocrite, Blackstone thought.
‘Most terribly upset, but not upset enough to stop the committal,’ he said aloud.
Charlotte Devaraux seemed surprised by the statement. ‘How could I have stopped it?’ she asked. ‘And why would I have stopped it, even if I had been able to? Surely, once poor Mr George had gone mad, the lunatic asylum was the best place for him.’
‘He didn’t go mad,’ Blackstone said.
‘But if he was —’
‘He wasn’t mad when they committed him, and — by some miracle, considering all he’s been through since then — he’s not mad now. And I should know. I was talking to the old man less than two hours ago, and I can assure you that he’s easily as sane as we are.’
‘But that’s… that’s too horrible!’ Charlotte Devaraux said, looking truly aghast. ‘If he’s not mad, then he should not be in the asylum.’
She was an actress, Blackstone reminded himself, yet her shock really did seem to be genuine.
‘I’d assumed that you knew,’ he said, ‘but now I’m beginning to have my doubts.’
‘Knew what?’
‘The truth about what happened to Thaddeus George. What exactly were you told?’
‘Why, that old Mr George had begun to act strangely, and though, at first, Sebastian thought he could care for him at home, he soon came to realize that the old man was in need of professional care.’
‘What actually occurred was that Thaddeus George was foolish enough to cross your “friend” Lord Bixendale,’ Blackstone said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You asked Bixendale to use his influence to get you bigger roles in the productions, didn’t you?’
‘No, I… I may have said that I wished I had bigger roles, but I never expected him to’
‘He went to see Thaddeus George, and said that he was willing to invest money in the theatre if you were made the leading lady. Thaddeus wouldn’t agree to that, but Sebastian was willing enough to go along with it. The only problem was that it was Thaddeus, not Sebastian, who was in charge.’
‘Are you saying that Sebastian George… that Sebastian George… ’
‘I’m saying that Sebastian George and Lord Bixendale conspired with two crooked doctors to have him locked away.’
‘I don’t believe you!’ Charlotte Devaraux said angrily. ‘I simply won’t believe you!’
‘Don’t take just my word for it, then,’ Blackstone said. ‘If you need confirmation, all you have to do is ask Lord Bixendale.’
‘No, that wouldn’t do any good,’ Charlotte Devaraux said, calmer and sadder now. ‘He tries to shield me from all the unpleasantness of life, and so he would only deny it.’
‘But you sound like you’re at least starting to believe I’m telling the truth,’ Blackstone said.
‘I am,’ Charlotte Devaraux admitted. ‘Now I’ve had time to get used to the idea, it all makes sense. I never expected Sarah Tongue to leave the company — or, at least, not quite in the way that she did.’
‘And what way was that?’ Blackstone wondered.
‘Suddenly. Out of the blue. One day she was there, the next day she was gone. I assumed she’d been poached by one of the other theatre companies. That kind of thing does happen, now and again. I kept expecting to see her name up on the marquee of the Theatre Royal or the Criterion, but that never happened.’
‘It didn’t occur to you she’d been given the push?’
‘No, why should it have done? She was a very good actress, and the audiences loved her. Theatre managers always tend to stick with what’s tried and tested, and there would have been no point in Sebastian George getting rid of someone as well-established as Sarah was.’
‘Unless Lord Bixendale had told him to,’ Blackstone pointed out.
‘Yes, unless that happened,’ Charlotte Devaraux agreed. She looked up at Blackstone. Her eyes were wide with innocent confusion, and there were tears in them. ‘I didn’t know what had happened to old Mr George,’ she continued. ‘You must believe me, I didn’t know.’
‘I think I do believe you,’ Blackstone said. ‘But now you know, what are you going to do about it’? Is it your intention to right the terrible wrong that’s been committed?’
‘Of course.’
‘So you’ll tell Lord Bixendale that you’ve finally learned the truth, and you’ll insist on Thaddeus George being set free.’
Charlotte Devaraux shook her head. ‘No. If I went about things in the manner you suggest, I’d never get the poor old man released.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because Lord Bixendale is the kind of man who always has to be right, and by giving in to a demand like that, he would almost be admitting that he had been wrong.’
‘So what will you do?’
‘I’ll begin by telling Robert just how much I miss old Mr George — how I used to value his guidance, and how Sebastian is no more than a rather poor substitute for him. Then I’ll let matters rest for a while.’
‘How long is “a while”?’
‘A few days. Perhaps a week. It will depend when Robert next takes me to his bed, and how he performs once we are there.’
‘How well he performs?’ Blackstone asked. ‘Or do you mean how well you perform?’
Charlotte Devaraux laughed. ‘You don’t know much about old men — and how they react — do you?’ she asked. ‘But then, why should you? You are a long way from being an old man yourself.’
‘Tell me about the way old men react,’ Blackstone suggested.
‘If they perform badly, they feel the shadow of death hovering over them, and fall into a depression. If they perform well, it is almost as if they have recaptured their youth. After a good performance, they see the world as a golden place, and want to make others as happy as they are themselves. That is the time you should ask them for favours.’
‘And what favour will you ask him for?’
‘I won’t ask him for any, directly,’ Charlotte Devaraux said. ‘Or, rather, I won’t call it a favour. I’ll say that while it is beyond dispute that old Mr George was mad when he was committed to the asylum, isn’t there a possibility that he has since regained his sanity? I will suggest that it might be a good idea to have him re-examined. And Lord Bixendale will agree, because, at that moment, he would agree that black was whi
te, if he thought it would please me.’
‘So you’re confident you’ll be able to get Thaddeus George released?’ Blackstone asked.
‘Oh, yes,’ Charlotte Devaraux replied. ‘It may take a month or so — it might be even longer than that, but eventually the gates of the asylum will swing open, and he will walk out a free man.’
‘You do you realize, don’t you, that if you succeed, you’ll probably be cutting your own throat?’ Blackstone cautioned.
‘By which you mean that once old Mr George takes control of the theatre again, he may well decide that, though I eventually helped him, I am still as responsible for his two years of hell as Lord Bixendale and Sebastian are — and I might be out of a job?’
‘That’s right.’
Charlotte Devaraux shrugged. ‘As with the knowledge that one day I’ll lose my looks, it’s something I’ll just have to learn to come to terms with it. And I’m a good actress — possibly even a great one — so there’ll be other companies which will want to employ me.’
‘I’m sure there will,’ Blackstone said.
‘But should they all turn me down, I can always persuade Lord Bixendale to buy a theatre of his own, and install me in it as its brightest star.’
‘That would be good.’
‘Yes, it would be — at least, until he grew tired of me.’
* * *
A long, excited queue had already formed outside the ex-undertaking establishment on the Mile End Road, but Ellie Carr and Jed Trent ignored it and walked right up to the door.
The weedy-looking money collector was no longer alone, but now had an assistant — a big East End bruiser — and it was the assistant, not the money collector, who stepped out to block Ellie and Jed’s passage.
‘If yer want ter see the show, it starts in fifteen minutes,’ he told Ellie. ‘It’ll cost you a tanner each to get in, an’ you’ll ‘ave to join the queue just like everybody else.’
‘A tanner!’ Ellie said. ‘Sixpence!’
‘That’s right.’
‘But I thought this was a penny sideshow.’
‘Yes, that’s exac’ly what it was,’ the tough agreed. ‘But then it got itself into the papers, didn’t it?’
‘There was a time when you’d have killed for a tanner, Lew,’ Jed Trent said. ‘What’s the going rate these days?’
The tough stopped looking at Ellie, and turned his attention on to her companion.
‘Mr Trent!’ he exclaimed. ‘I ain’t seen you in years. I ‘card you’d left the Force.’
‘And so I have,’ Trent agreed.
‘But I’m still a hard man, and I can still take you — if I have to.’
‘There’s no need for that kinda talk, Mr Trent,’ the tough said. ‘If yer want to stand right ‘ere at the front o’ the queue, that’s perfec’ly all right wiv me. An’ if yer want to go in wivout payin’ — you an’ your lady-friend both — well that’s all right wiv me as well.’
‘What if we don’t want to see the show at all?’ Trent asked. ‘What if we just want to talk to the princess?’
‘Then you shall,’ the tough said magnanimously. ‘You always played fair wiv me when you were on the Force, Mr Trent, an’ —’
‘Always played fair with you, did he?’ Ellie interrupted, with an amused expression coming to her face.
‘He did, Miss. Fair as fair could be. He never once — an’ yer goin’ to ‘ave to pardon my French ‘ere, Miss — he never once beat the shit outta me when I didn’t deserve it beaten out. So if I can’t do ‘im a little favour now, what kind of bloke would I be?’
‘Appreciate it, Lew,’ Trent said.
‘But there is just one fing I’d like to clear up before you go in, Mr Trent,’ the bruiser said.
‘And what might that be?’
‘I never killed nobody for no tanner piece, like what you just suggested I done.’
‘You’re quite right,’ Trent agreed amiably. ‘It was an insulting thing to say, and I apologize wholeheartedly for it.’
‘S’all right, Mr Trent,’ the tough said, mollified.
‘As if you’d kill a man for sixpence!’ Trent scoffed. ‘Whatever could I have been thinking of? A gold guinea was your usual rate, wasn’t it?’
‘It depended on the circum —’ the tough began. Then he stopped, and pointed a jocular — though accusatory — finger at Trent. ‘Nearly caught me out there, Mr Trent. Good fing yer not still on the Force, ain’t it?’
‘A very good thing,’ Trent agreed.
* * *
Princess Tezel was wearing a faded floral dress which even a scullery maid would have thought twice about before putting on in public. She was sitting in a cane chair which had only three legs and owed its dubious stability to a house brick which had been jammed under the fourth corner. She showed no interest at all in the fact that the master of ceremonies had led Ellie and Trent into the room, and nor did her two attendants — both still wearing only their loincloths — who were flanking her.
‘This lady is a scientist,’ the master of ceremonies explained to the princess. ‘She wants to buy some of your frogs.’
Not a muscle moved in the princess’s carved face, but one of her attendants said, ‘What is siretist?’
The master of ceremonies looked helplessly around the room as he searched for the right word.
‘Scientist? I’m not sure I can explain it exactly,’ he said finally. ‘She’s… she’s a kind of witch doctor.’
‘He’s not far off the mark with that one,’ Jed Trent said, in a whispered aside to Ellie.
The Indian spoke to his mistress in a guttural whisper, and she answered with a few equally unintelligible words of her own.
‘Frogs not for sale,’ the Indian said.
‘Well, there you have it, the frogs are not for sale,’ the master of ceremonies said. ‘Shall I show you the way out?’ he continued, hopefully.
‘Ask her why she was willing to sell one earlier, but she won’t sell any now,’ Ellie said, speaking directly to the Indian.
The Indian consulted his mistress. ‘Not do for money,’ he said. ‘Do it for make enemy feel bad.’
‘When she talks about an enemy, I think she means the hooligan in the audience who was causing her some grief during the performance,’ the master of ceremonies explained. ‘It was his dog that ate the frog.’
‘Tell her I will not harm the frogs, and she can have them back when I’ve finished with them,’ Ellie said to the Indian. ‘Tell her I need them because I have enemies, too.’
After this message was conveyed, the princess studied Ellie for a full minute before she spoke again.
‘You want poison enemy?’ the interpreter asked.
‘No, I want to use the frogs to help me catch him. And when I have caught him, I will hang him by the neck until he is dead.’
‘You’ve missed out a few steps in the judicial process, but I suppose that’s accurate enough, in its own way,’ Jed Trent whispered.
‘Quiet, Jed!’ Ellie hissed.
‘Come to princess,’ the interpreter said. ‘You must kneel at feet.’
‘All right,’ Ellie agreed.
‘You’re never going to kneel before a heathen, are you?’ Jed Trent asked, outraged.
‘This is no time for you to be showing your prejudices, Jed,’ Ellie said sharply. ‘The woman is a princess, whatever her religion’
‘So she claims!’
‘I see no reason not believe her. You shouldn’t be so narrow-minded as to expect all royalty to be a carbon copy of our own, Jed. And you can’t even be sure she’s a heathen. For all you know, she could be solidly Church of England, with her own private pew in her local church.’
Ellie Carr crossed the room, and knelt down at the princess’s feet.
The Indian woman put her hands flat on Ellie’s head, and appeared to be massaging her skull. Then the hands moved on to her face, and gently glided over her features. Apparently satisfied, she removed her hands, and said a few m
ore words to her interpreter.
‘Princess say go back,’ the Indian told her.
Ellie climbed to her feet again, and rejoined Jed Trent. ‘Never seen anything so disgusting in my life,’ Trent whispered. ‘You’re probably covered with lice now.’
‘I don’t think so. She was very clean — if a little strange-smelling,’ Ellie whispered back.
‘Princess say you are sister,’ the Indian told her. ‘She say your enemy her enemy. Take frogs.’
‘How much money do you think I should give her?’ Ellie asked the master of ceremonies.
‘The man who bought one earlier paid a gold guinea, and that was for only one frog,’ the master of ceremonies replied. ‘If you are taking more than one, I think it would more than reasonable to ask for at least —’
‘No money,’ the Indian said. ‘Not from sister. But when you kill enemy, you bring her present.’
‘What kind of present?’ Ellie asked.
The Indian shrugged. ‘Not matter. Not big, like head. Enemy finger. Enemy toe. Something small.’
‘What!’ Jed Trent exploded.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Ellie promised.
Chapter Twenty-One
The balloon was hovering high above the stage — though, thanks to the illusion created by the sinking tent and bushes, not as high as it appeared to be — and Pittstock was clinging desperately on to the basket.
Lady Wilton produced the sheath from her handbag, pulled the dagger from it, and held the blade above her head, so that the whole audience could see the cruel, naked blade.
‘With this knife, I will have my revenge for the evil you have visited on me,’ her ladyship said.
There was not a sound from the auditorium — not a cough, not a shuffling of feet.
The whole audience knew the knife was probably a clever fake. But they also knew that just once — for one performance only — it had been real, and it had killed. And tonight, perhaps, if they were lucky, it would kill again.
Lady Wilton swung the dagger.
There had to be a point, somewhere in the arc of that swing, at which the blade retracted, thought Blackstone as he watched the performance from the wings. But he was damned if he could spot exactly when that point was.
Blackstone and the Stage of Death (The Blackstone Detective series Book 5) Page 17