Death in the Spotlight

by Robin Stevens

  Daisy gestured to me and I crowded next to her with my ear pressed to the receiver.

  ‘Hello, Uncle Felix,’ I said.

  ‘Hazel, Daisy, what mischief have you got yourselves into now?’ asked Uncle Felix, half amused and half concerned.

  ‘No mischief!’ cried Daisy. ‘Really, Uncle F. We’re helping a poor woman from the Rue who’s ill with the flu, and Bridget is with us. It was her idea!’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Uncle Felix. ‘Why do I never want to trust you, dear niece?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ said Daisy. ‘I am utterly trustworthy! It’s your own suspicious mind. Anyway, we’re in Lambeth now, but we’ll be home as soon as ever we can, when the doctor arrives. We haven’t got into any trouble at all!’

  ‘I find that hard to believe, Daisy,’ said Uncle Felix – but I thought he was smiling at the other end of the line. ‘All right. Come home soon, and don’t get mixed up in any crimes on the way!’

  Which, as Daisy points out now, was a deeply ironic thing for him to say.

  4

  The first hint we had that something truly dreadful had happened at the Rue was when we arrived at the stage-door entrance on Sunday morning. Jim was sitting at his desk, looking quite haggard with worry.

  ‘What’s up, Jim?’ asked Daisy curiously.

  ‘It’s happened at last,’ he said to Daisy. ‘My mind’s begun to go. I always hoped I’d be spared, but that’s the way of life. The rot sets in. Might as well retire now and book my space in the graveyard.’

  ‘Are you dying?’ I asked, alarmed.

  ‘Might as well be,’ said Jim. ‘What use is a doorman who can’t watch the door? I swear I never left my post last night until the theatre was locked up and I went to bed, not once, but – although I never saw her go – she went. It’s witchcraft.’

  ‘Who went?’ asked Daisy. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Rose Tree left halfway through rehearsal last night, according to the signature in my book,’ said Jim bitterly. ‘And she’s not come back in this morning. Miss Crompton says she must be ill, same as half the cast. But – it’s all wrong!’

  ‘Goodness me!’ said Daisy. ‘How very … interesting. Hazel, come along!’

  But when we rushed into our dressing room, both dying to discuss Rose’s mysterious disappearance, Martita was already there, painting her eyes on in the mirror as the gas jets sputtered and flickered.

  ‘I suppose you’ve heard that Rose hasn’t bothered to turn up today,’ said Martita, looking at us in her reflection. ‘Good riddance! I hope she never comes back.’

  ‘Why don’t you think she’ll come back?’ I asked. ‘Isn’t she just ill?’

  ‘Who knows!’ said Martita. ‘I don’t much care.’

  ‘Will you play Juliet today, since she’s not here?’ I asked. I was looking at Martita and wondering. I knew Martita wasn’t lying when she said that she hoped Rose would never come back. But surely Rose could not really have gone?

  ‘I suppose I will,’ said Martita, and she smiled thoughtfully at herself in the mirror. ‘If I have time. Theresa’s still ill, so I’ve got to fetch and carry for Frances today as well as speak the Nurse’s lines. The way this production is going, I shall end up playing the Nurse and Juliet in the same scene. Avant-garde as anything!’

  ‘We can help you!’ said Daisy. ‘I – I could play the Nurse, if you’d like.’

  ‘Or we could look for Rose,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Martita. ‘Don’t bother. She’ll be off somewhere, sharpening her claws, waiting for the perfect moment to come back and ruin our lives. She knows how to make her entrances and exits, does Rose Tree.’

  I told myself she was right. Rose must be somewhere in the swirl and bustle of London. But then why were the hairs on my arms prickling?

  ‘What happened last night?’ Daisy asked. ‘When did Rose leave?’

  Martita sighed.

  ‘She was being a diva as usual,’ she said, turning round from the mirror. She had not quite finished doing her right eye, and the effect was rather alarming. ‘Moping about on her cut foot when I know she was faking. I saw her walk on it perfectly easily in the corridor, but when she came out on the stage she behaved as though she’d never walk again. She made the balcony scene impossible – Lysander was stuck clinging to the trellis, looking as though he wanted to murder her, and I could have hit her myself.

  ‘Then she decided her costume wasn’t right, and I had to call Annie out of Wardrobe to fix it. Not right! A thread was loose on the bodice, that was all. We had to wait while Annie fiddled with it and talked us to death. I didn’t see what happened after that – as soon as I was backstage I had to run about helping Frances. Everything ran as normal until after our break at the beginning of Scene Five, when Rose came on stage still wearing her nightdress costume from Scene Two and marched straight back off again. She was in a rage about something. I went to her dressing room after her, to persuade her on, but she wouldn’t come. She was in a fury about something. She shrieked at me to leave her alone, so I did.

  ‘Twenty minutes or so later I went back in to get her, but by then she wasn’t there. We had to pause the rehearsal while we all searched, and then Frances went and looked at Jim’s signing-out book and found Rose’s name written in it. She’d just gone home without telling anyone! So of course rehearsal was over for the night, and we all went home as well. I tell you, she’s playing with us. She’ll come back.’

  I wanted to believe it was as simple as that, but the detective side of me did not. When I looked at Daisy, I knew that she didn’t either.

  Rose had gone, but no one had seen her leave. Jim never missed anything, but he had missed her. She had cut her foot yesterday afternoon, and blamed Lysander for leaving glass on her dressing-room floor. The people who had been left in the theatre when we took Theresa home were Inigo, Miss Crompton, Lysander, Simon, Martita, Annie and Jim, and, of those, at least four of them disliked Rose. And someone had been threatening her …

  There was a knock on our dressing-room door. It was Miss Crompton, and her face was drawn and solemn.

  ‘Martita,’ she said. ‘I’ve just been on the telephone to Rose’s boarding house. She hasn’t been back since she left to come to the Rue on Saturday morning.’

  The hairs on the back on my neck stood up. So Rose had definitely not gone home last night. Where could she be?

  Daisy’s hand closed around my wrist in an iron grip, and she hissed into my ear. ‘Hazel! Come with me. I’ve had an idea. It is a very terrible one, and I hardly want it to be correct, but – come on!’

  She dragged me through the corridors of the Rue, down and down and down the stairs into the dark, quiet set of under-rooms, the last of which was the well room.

  ‘They looked for her last night!’ I protested. ‘She can’t still be in the theatre!’

  ‘They looked for her,’ said Daisy grimly. ‘Which probably just means called for her in each room, assuming she could respond. They were looking for a live woman who could speak to them. But what if they were looking for the wrong thing?’

  I shuddered. I have never wanted Daisy to be incorrect so desperately.

  The door to the well room was shut, and the room was dark and quiet when we pushed it open. We had to climb down the little ladder to the stone floor, which was rough and uneven under my feet. The room smelled stale, a little of cigarettes, a little of greasepaint and cold cream, a little of cold stone and a little of iron.

  ‘Daisy!’ I said. We swung our torches around, and saw that the dirt on the floor had been disturbed and kicked up since we had last visited. There was one print clearly visible in the dust – a bare foot with something blurring the middle of it. Something like a bandage.

  ‘Draw that,’ snapped Daisy, all business. She swung her torch back to the little exit ladder, and we both saw a white thread that had become caught on one of the rungs. Daisy pulled out her handkerchief and stepped towards it.

  ‘Daisy!’
I hissed. ‘Leave it! It might be important.’

  ‘That’s why I want to take it!’ protested Daisy, but she stepped back empty-handed. We did not even need to mention that the police would be called.

  Only then did we turn to the closed well.

  ‘I don’t want to look,’ I whispered.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Daisy. ‘On three. One – two – three—’

  We pushed off the cover and swung our torches down into it – and saw what we knew we would.

  5

  My breath was loud in my ears and the hand that held my torch trembled. Far below a pale shape was caught half in and half out of the dark, glistening water. I could see the sodden hem of a white gown, and two feet sticking up, the right one bound with gauze. It looked like the posters come to life – but this was no joke. I felt very ill.

  ‘It’s Rose,’ I gasped. ‘Daisy, we’ve found her!’

  I stepped away, and crouched down with my head pressed against my knees in their scratchy woollen tights, but Daisy didn’t move.

  ‘That,’ she said, ‘is quite horrid.’

  ‘Daisy, stop looking!’ I whispered.

  ‘Don’t be silly!’ said Daisy. ‘She’s dead – she doesn’t care.’

  But I found that I cared for her. I felt hot and itchy, as though there were spiderwebs all over me. I hate corpses.

  Daisy paced about the well slowly, shining her torch across the floor. Once she knelt, and quickly stood up again. I sat with my arms wrapped round my legs and watched her. Daisy has no problem with crime scenes at all – in fact, she relishes them. I sometimes worry about that.

  She turned and paced her way back across the floor, stepping carefully round the footprint and the scuff marks. ‘You have sketched this, haven’t you, Hazel?’ she asked.

  I got out my notebook and drew – one version of the whole room, with the well and the print marked, including the location of the white thread, and one close-up version of the bare footprint, its measurements taken with string. I would have done it earlier, but the body had distracted me. I was on edge, my head aching and my skin prickling.

  Daisy stood over me and sighed.

  ‘Don’t, Daisy!’ I said. ‘Don’t say it! You know I don’t like this part!’

  ‘I have said, time and time again, that you must develop a thicker skin …’ Daisy began. I glared up at her in the torchlight, and she paused and then went on. ‘But I do know that you are trying. Now, what have we learned here?’

  ‘Rose fell down the well,’ I said faintly. ‘She’s stuck upside down.’

  ‘All true, Watson, but that’s not all. Rose might have overbalanced and tipped in on her own – were it not for the fact that the well cover had been carefully put back on afterwards. That, combined with this pattern of scuff marks, tells us a different story.’

  ‘Rose was here with someone else,’ I said slowly. ‘These marks – they might be from a fight. And then … Rose didn’t fall into the well. She was pushed.’

  I imagined the scene, and it made me feel iller than ever. ‘Ugh!’ I cried. ‘This is awful, Daisy! It’s a murder!’

  ‘Murder is always awful,’ snapped Daisy, ‘which is why we must detect it. Now, what happened next? The murderer stayed for long enough to cover the well, hiding the body from last night’s quick search, but not long enough to notice the footprint on the floor or the white thread on the ladder. Why?’

  ‘Perhaps they didn’t have a torch?’ I suggested. ‘Or they had a candle that went out?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Hazel. There’s no wax on the floor,’ said Daisy briskly. ‘No, they must have had a torch, and they must have been forced to leave before they had finished tidying the scene.’

  ‘What if they were running for their cue?’ I asked. I said it simply because I had got so used to the Rue that my life seemed measured out in lines and scenes now, instead of the Deepdean bell. But Daisy started and clapped me on the back.

  ‘Oh, excellent, Watson!’ she cried. ‘Of course! Rose must have died some time during last night’s rehearsal. Front of house is all locked up until opening night, and the only other way in or out is through the stage door – but Jim would have noticed if someone else had come in off the street. That means that the only suspects we have for this crime are the people who were still in the Rue last night. Now, we just need to discover the last moment Rose was seen alive! Oh, if only we’d been here last night!

  ‘Well, Hazel, I think there’s only one thing we can do now. We must make the discovery known to the rest of the company, and there is a neat way to do this and test the sound qualities of this room. We have been professional actresses for nearly two weeks. Now is the time to use all that Martita has taught you about projecting your voice, so I hope you’ve been listening to her. On three again, Watson. One, two, THREE!’

  6

  Truly, I thought that I had not learned much about projecting anything. Martita had despaired of me only the day before in the kindest way possible, not even shouting, and it made me despair of myself too. When I am onstage, I have barely learned to stop looking down at my feet. But, all the same, the shriek that came out of my mouth made me jump. I suppose it was the pent-up horror of being in another dark room with another dead body, as though my real life is the same nasty dream I must keep living.

  No one answered.

  We waited thirty seconds by our wristwatches and then screamed again, even louder. Daisy’s scream was so piercing that I had to cover my ears.

  ‘Good heavens,’ she said, out of breath. ‘This room really is blocked off from the rest of the theatre. An ideal place to murder someone! Make a note of that. All right, this time I shall climb the ladder and open the door first. Remember, Hazel, when everyone else comes running, you are a very frightened little girl who has just seen something absolutely dreadful. If you can manage it, cry.’

  ‘I know, Daisy!’ I said.

  ‘I’m only saying it because I am convinced that you can do it,’ said Daisy. ‘I believe in you, dear Watson.’

  She winked at me, rubbed a little dust into her cheek and rumpled her hair, then scaled the iron rungs of the ladder and threw the heavy door open, letting out another piercing scream.

  ‘HELP!’ she shrilled. ‘OH, HELP, SOMEBODY, HELP!’

  ‘HELP!’ I echoed, following her up and out of the well room. I felt foolish. I knew that anyone would take one look at me and know that I was acting. But my foot caught on the top step of the ladder and I thumped to the ground, tears starting in my eyes. I bit my cheek and by the time I was on my feet again I hardly needed to act.

  This time the company heard us. People began to pelt down the stairs.

  Miss Crompton arrived first, brandishing her keys and a torch. She is always very well prepared. Inigo, cloak flapping, was just behind her.

  ‘Whatever is it?’ Miss Crompton cried. ‘Daisy, Hazel, what is all this?’

  ‘Body!’ I gasped. ‘We’ve found Rose’s body in the well!’

  Daisy very subtly shoved me aside and took centre stage in the dusty, tightly packed little corridor, just as Simon and Martita arrived. Lysander was behind them with most of the rest of the cast, and Annie and the stagehands brought up the rear. The corridor was now as crowded as a train carriage, and I had an odd, whole-body memory of that evening on the Orient Express, although the Rue’s basement was as different to the gorgeous Orient Express as anywhere could be.

  ‘ROSE IS DEAD!’ screamed Daisy. ‘She’s in the well, just like the posters said! Oh, it’s too horrid! I can’t bear it!’

  ‘WHAT? Don’t toy with us!’ roared Inigo, throwing his hands in the air.

  ‘I’m not lying!’ said Daisy, slightly too annoyed for the part she was playing. ‘It’s absolutely true – you can see for yourself! We pushed open the cover and there she was!’

  ‘That’s a joke, right?’ asked Simon. He reached for Martita’s hand, but she flinched away. She was standing still, her lips pulled tightly together and her eyes nar
rowed as she watched Daisy. She looked … guarded, as though she didn’t want to give anything of herself away.

  Annie threw her hands over her face in horror, and Lysander’s mouth gaped, his lips opening and closing silently.

  Miss Crompton simply pushed us all aside, her face set, and strode towards the well room.

  ‘LIGHTS!’ she shouted briskly, and there was a scramble as everyone hunted for more torches and candles and then piled inside behind her.

  ‘Watch the crime scene!’ cried Daisy. ‘Er – I mean – do be careful!’

  With light and shadow dashing about across its walls, the well room looked eerier than ever, as though it was full of ghosts. I shivered and drew close to Daisy, who put her arm round me tightly. I knew that she was still just acting, but all the same it was comforting.

  Miss Crompton, clutching her own torch in her hand, moved towards the well.

  ‘This had the cover on when you found it?’ she asked.

  Daisy and I nodded. Miss Crompton stood by the edge of the well and peered down into its depths. Everyone was deadly silent.

  When she stepped backwards and turned round, her face was very drawn. She suddenly seemed much older.

  ‘It’s true,’ she said in a voice so quiet it was almost a whisper. ‘She’s there.’

  There was uproar. Annie screamed, and so did Lysander.

  ‘WE MUST LIFT HER OUT!’ Inigo was bellowing.

  ‘No! We have to telephone the police!’ cried Miss Crompton.

  Martita turned and walked towards the well. She had a torch too, and she shone it down into the far water.

  And then she said something that made my skin crawl.

  ‘Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low,

  As one dead in the bottom of a tomb.

  Either my eyesight fails, or thou lookest pale.’