* * *
‘When will someone in authority be here?’ Blackstone asked his old ‘friend’, Spotty Wilberforce.
‘Somebody in authority’s already here,’ the porter said, prodding his own chest with his thumb.
Blackstone sighed. ‘I’m sure you do have a great deal of authority, So… Thomas,’ he conceded, ‘but, even so, you probably don’t have the information that I require.’
‘Oh, do you think so? And what information might that be?’ Wilberforce asked.
‘A list of the members of the company who went on the tour of South America.’
The porter opened the drawer of his desk, and riffled through the thick sheaf of papers it contained.
‘As a matter of fact, I do have such a list,’ he said. ‘I wrote it out myself, personal.’
‘And why would you have gone to the trouble of doing that?’ Blackstone wondered.
‘For the same reason I make out all my lists. Because it’s important information, and one day somebody might need it.’
Spotty Wilberforce insisted that the two detectives should examine the list in his office (‘Don’t want valuable pieces of paper like that leaving here. You never know where they might end up!’), but he did agree, with some show of reluctance, to remove himself from the scene while they discussed it.
The list contained a number of names already familiar to Blackstone and Patterson, as well as many they had never seen before. Wilberforce — driven, no doubt, by both an obsession for detail and an almost insane belief in his importance as chronicler — had added extra information to most of the names when he considered it appropriate.
Martin Swinburne (actor, dead)
William Kirkpatrick (actor, murdered)
Tamara Simmons (actress)
Piers Dalaway (dresser, left the company)
Samuel Horton (stage manager, fired for drunkenness)….
‘There must be around fifty names here,’ Blackstone said, studying the list. ‘And most of them still work for Sebastian George.’
‘And we can’t even say that the murderer is definitely one of the people who went on the company’s tour of South America,’ Patterson pointed out. ‘He could just have easily have overheard those who were on the tour talking about poison frogs once they’d returned to England.’
Blackstone nodded despondently. He’d been half-hoping in one of those uncharacteristic bouts of optimism which afflicted him occasionally - that one of the names on the list would jump out at him.
And indeed, one of the names had!
Charlotte Devaraux’s name had not only leapt from the page, but had practically flown around the room, singing sweetly and seductively as it went.
But that had little - or nothing - to do with any theatrical tour of distant parts, and a great deal - or everything - to do with the events of the previous evening, Blackstone thought.
What a night they had spent together! What things they had said to each other - and done to each other!
It was one of the hardest decisions he had ever made, to leave her apartment that morning - and though he could come up with at least half a dozen explanations for his actions, he was still not entirely sure which one of them was the truth.
The phone rang.
Blackstone reached out for it automatically. But before his hand had even made contact with it, Spotty Wilberforce who must have been hovering outside - had flung the door open, and grabbed it.
‘It’s my telephone that’s ringing,’ he said, by way of explanation. ‘In my office.’
‘You’d better answer it, then,’ Blackstone suggested.
‘Just what I was thinking,’ Wilberforce replied. He lifted the ear-piece, and seemed quite disappointed at what he heard come through it.
‘Well?’ Blackstone asked.
‘It’s for you,’ the porter replied. ‘Some woman.’
Blackstone took the phone from him. ‘If you wouldn’t mind excusing us again, Mr Wilberforce… ’ he said.
‘Bloody liberty, that’s what it is,’ Wilberforce muttered, stepping out into the corridor.
‘It’s Ellie,’ said the caller.
‘I thought it might be,’ Blackstone replied.
‘I was a little abrupt with you, when you called me last night, wasn’t I, Sam?’ Ellie asked, and giggled uncomfortably. ‘I’m sorry about that.’
‘I’m sorry, too,’ Blackstone said.
‘You’re sorry? Why? What have you got to be apologetic about?’ Ellie wondered.
‘Nothing that I’d want to talk about over the phone.’
‘Oh, we are being mysterious all of a sudden, aren’t we?’ Ellie said, her nervous giggle transforming itself into a genuinely-amused chuckle. ‘But I really am sorry, Sam,’ she added, growing more serious again. ‘I get so wrapped up in my work sometimes that I can become really objectionable.’
She paused for a moment to give him a chance to respond to her, but he said nothing.
‘Speaking of work,’ Ellie continued, awkwardly, ‘would you like to hear my preliminary findings?’
‘If you wouldn’t mind.’
‘Well, they are very preliminary at the moment, but as far as I can tell from my experiments, the longer the gap between harvesting the toxin and using it, the slower the poison works.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Well, for example, I kept the last batch exposed for a full two hours before I used it, and forty minutes after it was introduced into the rat’s bloodstream, the little bugger’s still very much alive.’
‘Dear God!’ Blackstone groaned.
‘Is something wrong, Sam?’ Ellie Carr asked, alarmed. ‘Yes,’ Blackstone said. ‘I’m afraid that something is very very wrong.’
* * *
‘The last time I talked to you, you told me that all kinds of strange creatures somehow managed find their way into this theatre,’ Blackstone said to Horace, the general factotum.
‘It’s like the London Zoo in here sometimes,’ the boy agreed. ‘And one of those strange creatures was a frog?’
‘That’s right. I don’t know where he was, exactly, ‘cos I never saw him for myself, but he was croaking away like billy-o.’
‘Could you say roughly where you think he was?’
‘My best guess is that ‘e was somewhere near the dressing rooms.’
‘Or actually in one of the dressing rooms?’
‘Might ‘ave been, I suppose. But you’d ‘ave thought ‘ooever was in that room would have noticed for themselves.’
‘Yes, you would,’ Blackstone agreed. ‘Now I want you to think carefully about the next question I ask you. All right?’ The boy nodded. ‘All right.’
‘Was it on the night that William Kirkpatrick was murdered that you heard the frog?’
‘No,’ the boy said, without a moment’s hesitation.
‘Then when was it?’
‘I think it was a couple of nights — or maybe three — before the murder.’
‘And you definitely didn’t hear it on the night that William Kirkpatrick was killed?’
‘Definitely.’
That didn’t make any sense at all, Blackstone thought, especially after what Ellie had told him about the toxin growing less effective the drier it became.
And then — suddenly — it did make sense!
Perfect sense!
What he was dealing with here was actors, Blackstone reminded himself. And before the first performance before an audience — before the first real performance — actors always had dress rehearsals.
In order to spot any faults!
So they could iron out any difficulties they might encounter!
And that was just what had happened here. A couple of nights before the murder, the killer had brought the frog into the theatre, and soon realized that it made a noise which other people might easily hear. On the actual night of the murder, therefore — the night of the live performance — the frog had been kept somewhere enclosed, where its croak wo
uld be muffled.
There were just a couple more pieces of the jigsaw puzzle to be slotted into place before he would have the whole picture. And Patterson had already been dispatched to collect one of those pieces.
‘My sergeant’s just nipped off to Scotland Yard, but he should be back within the half-hour,’ Blackstone told the boy. ‘And when he does get back, there’s just one more little thing I’d like you to do for me.’
‘What is it?’ Horace asked.
‘I’d like you go though exactly the same routine that you went through in the last hour before the murder. Do you think you’ll be able to manage that?’
Horace grinned. ‘No problem at all,’ he said confidently. ‘It’ll be good training for when I’m an actor.’
* * *
Sebastian George had taken elaborate and careful pains over the planning for his morning’s work.
His own appearance had been his very first consideration. The flamboyant style of dress he normally adopted might look well enough in the glamour of the theatre, but it would make him stand out like a sore thumb on mundane Hampstead Heath — and the last thing he wanted, once it was all over, was for anyone to remember seeing him there.
So the flowery waistcoats and heavy cotton jackets had had to be temporarily abandoned, and instead he was dressed in a second-hand frock coat and a felt hat with a curled brim, both of which blended in perfectly with what the other men out on the Heath that morning were wearing.
His cloth holdall, too, was an integral part of what he thought of as his cunning disguise. It was highly improbable than anyone would even notice it, but if they did, they would be more than likely to assume that he was some sort of craftsman — a master plumber, for example — and that the bag contained the tools of his trade. Or perhaps they would take him to be a door-to-door salesman — cutting across the Heath as he moved from one part of his sales territory to another — and assume that the bag housed his samples.
Both assumptions would, of course, be very far from the truth. What the bag actually held was something altogether more deadly.
The final touch to his disguise had been to exchange the long, fat cigars he habitually smoked for a packet of cheap cigarettes. It had not been an easy decision — a man under stress instinctively reaches for those things which bring him comfort — but it had certainly been a wise one. With his cigars sitting safely on his desk back at the theatre, he had completely eliminated the risk of absent-mindedly leaving a butt behind — and so providing a valuable clue for the legion of policemen who would undoubtedly be swarming all over the area in an hour or so. Besides, cigarettes were the right prop for this role, far more in keeping with the persona he had temporarily assumed than even small cigars would have been.
George glanced across the Heath, up to Parliament Hill. As yet, the event he had planned — the disaster he had planned — was still in its early stages.
He watched as the ground crew from the hot air balloon company began to inflate the silk envelope which would lift the wicker gondola high into the air. He noted the arrival of several of the reporters and photographers who were to cover the flight.
There was still no sign of Charlotte Devaraux, but that did not overly concern him: after the way he had deliberated goaded her that morning, he was certain that she would be there.
George licked his index finger and held it up in the air.
There was a stiff breeze blowing from the east, which meant that the hot air balloon would inevitably move in a westerly direction.
Excellent!
The clump of trees he had already picked out would provide the perfect cover for him, when the time came to do what he had to do.
But even if the wind should suddenly decide to change direction, there would be no cause for panic, because he had already scouted out several other locations — on other parts of the Heath — which would serve his purpose just as well.
The kind of careful advanced planning he had been involved in that morning was all-important if a successful outcome was to be achieved, he told himself, with just a hint of self-congratulation. Soldiers knew that, grouse-shooting parties knew that — and assassins certainly knew that.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The props were laid out on the prop table, as they always were before a performance, but the trick knife which Charlotte Devaraux had used — on every occasion but one — had been removed from its leather sheath and replaced by the knife that Patterson had brought back with him from Scotland Yard.
Blackstone stood close to the prop table. From somewhere up the corridor, he heard the sound of whistling.
Horace was on the way. And probably whistling exactly the same tune now as he had been whistling on the night of William Kirkpatrick’s murder, if Blackstone knew anything about him.
Horace knocked on the door, opened it, and said a cheery, ‘Good evenin’, Mr Foster. ‘Ow are yer doin’ tonight?’
Patterson, who was standing in for the props master, said nothing.
‘He’s talking to you,’ Blackstone told his sergeant.
‘Oh, right!’
‘Answer him, then.’
‘Good evening, Horace,’ Patterson said, woodenly. ‘I’m doing fine, thank you.’
Despite the serious purpose behind the exercise, Blackstone could not help grinning. Horace might well make an actor of himself yet, he thought, but Patterson had been very wise to choose a career in the Met instead.
‘I’ll take the knife to Miss Devaraux now, shall I, Mr Foster?’ young Horace asked.
‘Yes, you take it,’ Patterson said, even less convincingly like the props master than he had been earlier.
Horace went over to the table, and carefully picked up the sheathed dagger by the handle.
Blackstone held his breath as the boy, seemingly unaware that there had been any substitution made, walked towards the door.
‘Could I be wrong?’ the inspector asked himself silently. ‘Given the way the evidence was pointing, could I really have got it so wrong?’
Horace suddenly stopped in his tracks and looked suspiciously down at the dagger.
No, Blackstone told himself, he hadn’t been wrong at all!
The boy held the dagger up, and examined it thoughtfully. Next, he balanced it on the palm of his hand, and bounced it up and down.
‘Is this some kind of test yer puttin’ me through, Inspector?’ he asked worriedly.
‘Now what would make you think that?’ Blackstone wondered.
‘You must be testin’ me,’ the boy said. ‘Uvverwise you wouldn’t ‘ave given me a different knife.’
‘A different knife?’ Blackstone said non-committally.
‘It ain’t the knife wot I normally take to Miss Devaraux,’ Horace told him. ‘It looks almost the same… ’
‘Almost?’
‘It don’t quite fit in the sheath as well as the uvver one did.’ He held it up for Blackstone to examine. ‘Yer can see just a tiny bit of blade stickin’ out above the leather. Yer don’t get that wiv the real one… I mean… wiv the fake one.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Blackstone assured him. ‘Is there any other way that it’s different?’
‘The weight an’ the balance. Some’ow, it just don’t feel quite right.’
‘Clever of you to spot all that,’ Patterson said approvingly. ‘You’re quite right that that’s not the knife you normally take to Miss Devaraux. But it is the one you took to her on the night of the murder, isn’t it?’
‘No, it ain’t,’ the boy said firmly.
‘You’re sure?’
‘If it ‘ad ‘ave been, I’d ‘ave noticed it then, just like I’m noticin’ it now.’
Of course he would, Blackstone thought, because however skilful the knife-maker had been, he’d never have produced a perfect copy when he was only working from a photograph.
‘Do you know what time Miss Devaraux is due to arrive at the theatre?’ he asked.
‘She’s already bin ‘ere,’ the bo
y told him. ‘Come in earlier to pick up ‘er costume, didn’t she?’
‘Why would she do that?’
‘So she’d look the part for the balloon ride.’
‘What balloon ride?’
‘The one on ‘Ampstead ‘Eath. The one that Mr George fixed up for ‘er. It’s like, an advertisement for the play.’ How could she have been so stupid? Blackstone wondered. How could she have told Sebastian George that she was determined to pursue a course of action which was bound to ruin him, and then been so bloody stupid as to agree to take a balloon ride that he’d arranged?
‘We have to get to Hampstead Heath as quickly as we can,’ he told Patterson urgently. ‘We could already be too late!’
* * *
Quite a crowd — spectators as well as newsmen — had gathered at the top of Parliament Hill by the time Charlotte Devaraux arrived, and their enthusiastic applause did just a little to help settle her queasy stomach.
The aeronaut, however, was not so reassuring. He was a big, bluff fellow — the sort of man who had never known fear himself, and found it almost inconceivable that anyone else could.
‘The best time for a flight like this is either the early morning or the early evening,’ he explained to her.
‘Is it? Why?’
‘The air temperature’s cooler then, so it’s easier to get the lift. And you avoid having to deal with all those awkward thermal currents we’ll probably come across once we’re up. Still, Mr George did insist it had to be now. I suppose he thought we’d get a bigger crowd if we took off in the afternoon.’
‘Just what exactly are thermal currents?’ Charlotte Devaraux enquired, apprehensively.
‘Don’t worry your pretty little head about that,’ the aëronaut said. ‘That’s what I’m here for.’
‘But I do worry,’ Charlotte insisted. ‘How high up will we be going in that dangerous thing?’
‘A hundred feet. Maybe a bit more.’
‘But we’ll still be safely moored to the ground, won’t we?’
‘Those are my instructions,’ the aëronaut said, looking away from her.
The envelope was now fully inflated, and the gondola had been attached to the webbing which covered it.
Blackstone and the Stage of Death (The Blackstone Detective series Book 5) Page 21