The Kill Fee

by Fiona Veitch Smith

  The bus pulled up outside Waterloo station and she got off, then waited for a gap in the traffic to cross the road and head down to the Old Vic Theatre. After a lovely blue Aston Martin passed, she was on her way. One day, Poppy thought, I might drive something like that. Or is that also a dream…

  Since her appointment as the arts and entertainment editor at The Daily Globe, she had become a familiar face at the Old Vic Theatre, and thanks to her positive reviews and thoughtful, balanced journalism, she had free access to backstage. She entered the foyer and waved to the clerk in the box office, who was selling advance tickets to The Cherry Orchard, which was opening in three weeks.

  Chekhov’s famous play about the demise of a Russian aristocratic family first played in 1904 in Moscow, on the eve of the 1905 Russian uprising. It sounded a warning to the tsarist regime that if it did not reform it would die. Now, sixteen years later, Chekhov’s prophecy had come to pass and the London performance was being met with great anticipation. How would the old text read in light of recent events? Would Stanislavski make any overt references to the Bolshevik takeover through staging, costume or set? Would Peter Trofimov – played by Delilah’s boyfriend, Adam – move from being a mere left-leaning reformer to a full-on Bolshevik? Poppy doubted the famous Russian director would go as far as amending the text – which would be tantamount to theatrical heresy – but there were other ways of building sub-text into the production. Poppy was eager to see what these would be and she could hardly wait for the press preview in a fortnight.

  In the meantime, she reminded herself, she was working on another story, which coincidentally starred the same leading lady: Princess Selena Romanova Yusopova. Poppy headed for the actress’s dressing room. En route she passed the Green Room, where some members of cast and crew were smoking and drinking tea. Adam spotted Poppy and waved. She waved back, but didn’t go in. Unperturbed, Adam returned to his conversation with a man Poppy recognized as the prop manager. Past the Green Room Poppy could hear the sultry tones of Delilah Marconi, then a deep Russian voice admonishing: “Too sexy. Far too sexy. Be an innocent, Delilah. Try to remember what that was like!”

  Gosh, Delilah’s not going to like that, thought Poppy. As she passed the rehearsal room and spotted Delilah’s red-flushed face as she turned away from Stanislavski, she knew she was right. Poor Delilah. She would talk to her about it later. The man had practically called her a floozy! And although the Maltese girl was a fun-loving bright young thing, she was certainly not a floozy.

  Eventually Poppy came to the dressing room. Selena was obviously in, as a sign hung from the door: Do not disturb. Well, disturb her she must. This cat-and-mouse game had gone on far too long. Poppy had a job to do and she wasn’t going to allow a prima donna like Selena to stand in her way.

  She decided against barging in unannounced and instead knocked lightly. Perhaps too lightly, as only silence answered. She tentatively turned the knob – it was unlocked, good – and pushed open the door. “Selen–” she began, then gagged on her own scream.

  There, sprawled across a pink chaise longue, was Selena, her white satin dressing gown splayed to reveal a pair of fleshy thighs and an ample bosom drenched red with blood.

  CHAPTER 15

  The amber liquid burned Poppy’s throat. It was the first time she’d tasted cognac, and she hoped it would be the last. Stanislavski had thrust the drink upon her after he had responded to her screams. A man used to drama on and off the stage, he seemed to take the death of his leading lady in his stride. To him the dressing room was a theatre that needed to be managed; the unfolding events after Poppy’s discovery of the body, a play to be devised.

  The central character lay in repose like the Swan Queen with an arrow in her heart. But there was no arrow; only a red stain over her chest. “Stabbed through the heart” was Stanislavski’s diagnosis, as if he had seen a myriad other victims with similar fatal injuries. The rest of the cast and crew that came in and out of the dressing room before the police arrived confirmed the great director’s assessment.

  “Certainly looks that way,” said Adam, offering Poppy a refill of the cognac. She declined.

  Delilah came in and announced that the theatre manager, Lilian Baylis, and the police had been called and they were on their way. No one should touch anything – she had been instructed – and the dressing room, but not the theatre, was to be evacuated.

  “Evacuated? I shall not be evacuating anything,” declared Stanislavski, and he plopped himself down on the dressing table stool and folded his arms. “The rest of you, though, should go.”

  “But the policeman said –”

  “I do not give two hoots what the policeman said, Miss Marconi. My Lyubov has been murdered. My Lyubov. And we open in two weeks! I knew it was a mistake to rehearse at the same time as the auditions for the Scottish Play.” He shuddered.

  Poppy recalled the name of the Shakespeare directed by Robert Atkins that was to follow The Cherry Orchard.

  “First Bernice falls into the orchestra pit, and now this!” Stanislavski gestured to Princess Selena with a sweep of his arm, then rested his forehead on the heel of his hand, as despondent as Macbeth on the edge of Birnam Wood.

  Adam gingerly patted him on the shoulder and then picked up a box of chocolates from Selena’s dressing table and offered them to him. “Come on, old chap – er, Monsieur Stanislavski – I’m sure we can find another Lyubov. Here, have a chocolate. She won’t be needing them any more.”

  “Er, Adam, maybe you shouldn’t do that,” suggested Poppy. “It might be evidence.”

  “Evidence of what?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe the killer brought them in with him – or her. They haven’t been eaten yet, and –”

  But it was too late. Monsieur Stanislavski plucked a foil-wrapped chocolate from the box and started unwrapping it.

  Adam gave Poppy an apologetic shrug and looked as though he was about to continue offering them around the room.

  Annoyed, Poppy snatched the box from Adam and put the lid firmly back on, placing it, as best she could, in its original spot.

  “Sorry, Poppy,” he muttered.

  “Hmmm,” said Poppy. “Well, let’s not move anything else, shall we? The police need to find everything as close to –” she cast a glance at the unfortunate Selena and bit her lip – “as close to the time of death as possible.”

  Everyone looked at her expectantly, as if she were now an authority on crime scene investigation. Golly, what did she really know, apart from what she’d read in detective novels? A woman had died! Should they really all be standing around discussing it as if it was simply a rehearsal for a murder mystery play? But what else could they do? Poppy felt that perhaps she should not be taking such a leading role in this. Surely Monsieur Stanislavski should be in charge. She tried to catch his eye, to defer to him, but the director was too busy trying to pick a fiddly piece of foil wrapping off his chocolate to notice. Should she tell him not to eat the chocolate? Did she have a right to?

  But before she could finish her musings on the chain of command, the director flicked the piece of foil away and popped the chocolate into his mouth.

  Oh well, thought Poppy, that’s that then.

  But that wasn’t that. Stanislavski gagged and clutched his throat.

  “You all right, Monsieur?” asked Adam and patted him on the back. The gagging continued and the director started turning an alarming shade of puce. Poppy suddenly recalled a scene from The Mysterious Affair at Styles involving poisoned coffee. Good heavens, could it be…? Poppy leapt up and threw her arms around Stanislavski’s waist, clutching both hands into a fist, and pushing upwards into his solar plexis again and again until a glob of half-eaten chocolate truffle cannoned out of his mouth and splattered against the dressing-room mirror. Poppy then thrust the tumbler of cognac at him and instructed him to gargle and spit it out. He did.

  “Bravo, Poppy! Bravo!” said Delilah to the accompaniment of applause from the cast and crew. />
  As the director gulped down the cognac, Adam helped him sit down, enquiring as to his health. His health? If it weren’t so serious it would be comical, thought Poppy. But then she started shaking. Golly, had she just done that? Her heart was beating ten to the dozen and she steadied herself against the dressing table.

  Stanislavski slumped beside her, his face as white as cold cream, his shapely lips an unnatural blue. Adam patted his hand, muttering worried platitudes.

  “Where did you learn to do that?” asked the props master, edging in to see the action.

  “First aid training when I helped out at the convalescent home during the war,” Poppy mumbled, then took a swig of cognac herself. She braced herself as the burning liquid lined her throat. Then she remembered something else from The Mysterious Affair at Styles. She opened the chocolate box lid and sniffed. Golly, could that really be…? “I think you’d better call an ambulance, Delilah. We should get Monsieur Stanislavski checked out. I can smell almonds in the chocolate box. Can you?”

  Delilah had a sniff. “Yes. So what? There are usually almonds in chocolate boxes.”

  Of course, Delilah was right. But Poppy was not going to take any chances. Stanislavski did not look well and there was, after all, a murderer on the loose…

  “Yes, but just in case.”

  “You mean…” whispered Stanislavski.

  “I’m afraid I do, sir. There’s a chance these chocolates might have been poisoned.”

  Adam snorted. “I know this is a theatre, Poppy, but don’t you think you’re being a tad melodramatic? Monsieur Stanislavski simply swallowed without chewing properly. He’s fine now, aren’t you, sir?”

  “I’m not sure, Mr Lane,” said Stanislavski. “I feel quite ill.”

  “But surely that’s just –”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Adam, what if Poppy’s right? Selena’s already dead; we don’t want two corpses on our hands.” Delilah nodded an apology to Stanislavski, then lowered her voice. “Better safe than sorry, anyway. I’ll call the ambulance.”

  Relieved that at last someone was taking her seriously, Poppy picked up the box of chocolates again and examined it. She used a silk handkerchief to hold it, aware that whatever fingerprints were left after Adam and Stanislavski had manhandled it – and she to rescue it – needed to be preserved. It was an expensive-looking package with a small card tucked into the corner of the ribbon wrapped around the lid. She doubted anyone had touched the card during the recent debacle, so she extracted it carefully using the corner of the handkerchief. It might be the best chance of getting some clear fingerprints. In small, earnest handwriting was inscribed: “To Princess Selena Romanova Yusopova, the Old Vic Theatre. From a repentant fool.”

  How very strange, thought Poppy. She read the card again; not to make sense of the message but to try to dispel the nagging feeling that she had seen the handwriting before. Surely it couldn’t be… Poppy looked around. The rest of the theatre folk were attending to Stanislavski, the body of the leading lady no longer centre stage. The police would be here soon. She should hand the card over for evidence. But instead of slipping it back into the ribbon she wrapped it in the handkerchief and deftly slid it into her coat pocket, hoping no one had seen her. She felt a wave of guilt, but then justified herself immediately with the thought that she just needed to check something before the police put two and two together and came up with five. And as she did, the dressing room door opened and Lilian Baylis and Detective Chief Inspector Jasper Martin entered, followed by half a dozen Bobbies.

  Martin took in the scene immediately. “Get that man to hospital!”

  “Someone’s gone to call an ambulance,” offered Adam.

  Martin knelt down and examined Stanislavski, sniffing the air around him like a bloodhound. “No time for that,” said Martin, gesturing his men to pick Stanislavski up. “Take him in the Black Mariah. Go with him, Miss Baylis.” Then he swept the room with an interrogative glare. “As far as I can tell, you are the only one here who isn’t a suspect.”

  As Stanislavski was carried from the room, followed by a visibly shaken Lilian Baylis, Martin turned his full gaze on Poppy. He sneered. “I see the press are here already. Escort her out of here, sergeant, but don’t let her out of the theatre just yet.”

  Poppy took a step back. “But Inspector Martin –”

  “But nothing. I don’t want details of this in the papers before I’ve even had a chance to examine the crime scene. Sergeant…”

  “But Poppy was the one who found the body,” offered Adam, stepping between Poppy and the advancing sergeant. “Surely she should stay.”

  Martin grunted, sticking his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets and thrusting out his chest. “Just my luck,” he muttered before barking orders to his team to clear everyone from the room. He held up his hand. “Not you, Miss Denby. I want to talk to you.”

  Two hours later, Inspector Martin declared that he was finished with the witnesses for now, and let them all go. Poppy declined Delilah and Adam’s offer to accompany them to Oscar’s to steady their nerves.

  “No, I need to get back to the office. Rollo will never forgive me if we get scooped by The Courier.” Poppy spotted Lionel Saunders standing on tip-toe, trying to look over the police cordon that now surrounded the theatre – and behind him was Daniel. She motioned for the photographer to meet her across the road from the theatre. As she waited to cross, a maroon Chrysler pulled up, and out stepped the interim Russian ambassador Vasili Safin and his security chief Andrei Nogovski. Although there was a break in the traffic, Poppy lingered to see if there would be any drama between the Russians and the constabulary. She was disappointed that there was not.

  Safin demanded to see DCI Martin. A Russian national had been killed and he wanted answers. The Bobby didn’t argue, and ushered him in. Nogovski followed, his face grim.

  Poppy looked up to see Daniel already across the road, waving to her. She waved back, quickly crossing to join him, then filled him in on everything that had happened.

  “Good golly, Poppy! You mean you were there from the very beginning? You discovered the body? Rollo will be on cloud nine!” Then he looked at her, his face concerned. “Are you all right? It must have been a bit of a shock.”

  Poppy smiled, grateful for his concern. “I’m fine, thanks.” She almost added: Don’t worry, I’ve had some cognac, but wisely held her tongue. Instead she said: “I’d better get to Rollo. When you’re finished here can you go to the hospital to check on Constantin Stanislavski, then telephone the office to tell us how he is? I hope I managed to get most of the poison out of him, but he might still have ingested some, and he wasn’t looking very well.”

  Daniel looked into her eyes, clearly still worried, but then nodded. “Of course. I’ve got all the shots I can now anyway, since they’ve removed the body. And the police aren’t letting us in any closer.”

  “Righto. I’ll see you back at the office later.” She said her goodbyes and waved down a cab. There was no time to waste on waiting for buses, and a story like this would be worth the expense.

  CHAPTER 16

  Daniel was right: Rollo was on cloud nine. “This on top of the Crystal Palace robbery? What are the odds, Poppy? What are the odds?” The little editor was pacing to and fro across the small area of clear space that surrounded his desk, among the sea of files and paraphernalia that filled the rest of his office. Vicky Thompson, who had been hired to replace Poppy as his assistant after she had been promoted to arts and entertainment editor, had made little headway in bringing order to the American’s domain.

  He rubbed his large hands together in glee.

  Poppy frowned. “Let’s not forget that someone actually died today, Rollo. I know it’s a good story, but…”

  Rollo’s shaggy red eyebrows came together in contrition. “Of course, you’re right, Poppy, and I realize she was a friend of your aunt’s –”

  Her aunt? Oh crikey! She’d better ring Aunt Dot, or she’d have her gu
ts for garters. The older woman would never forgive her if someone else in her social circle heard the news first.

  “Can I make a telephone call, Rollo? Before we continue?”

  “Of course,” said the editor, his momentary chagrin forgotten as he began to make frantic notes about how The Globe was going to announce to the world that a White Russian princess had been murdered. He crossed out a word and wrote another. No, how a White Russian princess had been assassinated. He quivered in delight.

  ***

  “Oh Poppy! How absolutely ghastly!” declared Aunt Dot from the other end of the telephone line. “Poor, poor Selena. Someone will have to tell her family. Should I do that, darling?”

  “The police might have done so already, Aunt Dot, but there’s no harm in you contacting them too.”

  “Then I shall. Felix, Irina and Selena might have had their differences, but in the end, blood is thicker than water.”

  Poppy wondered if it was, but kept her suspicions to herself.

  “I’m sure they will break it to the empress gently. The poor woman has had enough tragedy to deal with lately. This on top of poor Nicky and Alix and the children…”

  Poppy heard her aunt sigh, and although fraught with theatricality, she didn’t doubt its sincerity.

  “And then there’s poor Victor Marconi… he and Selena were close for a while… And George, Norman and Marjorie… To think we only had dinner together less than a week ago!” Aunt Dot started to cry.