Abracadaver

CHAPTER

7

‘SCOTLAND YARD AIN’T THE Bank of England,’ grumbled Sergeant Cribb. ‘Four shillings! That’s what I pay for a week’s rent in married men’s quarters. I don’t know what came over you, Constable, lording it across London in a hansom. How can I put that down as reasonable expenses? You might at least have taken a bus back.’

Thackeray accepted the rebuke. Better to be shamed by the rough edge of Cribb’s tongue than by a bus journey in knickerbockers. He would never disclose the real reason for that expensive return-journey. Confidences of that nature were best kept from Cribb.

Comfortable now in bowler and flannels, Thackeray led the way along Kensington Palace Gardens to Philbeach House. A perfect autumn afternoon, the leaves flashing unbelievably crimson in their twisting descent. Really no occasion for Cribb to niggle over cab-fares. A uniformed nanny passed, pushing a three-wheeled pram. Thackeray raised his bowler, and she almost ran over the infant toddling in front.

‘I’m damned if you’re listening,’ said Cribb. ‘Where is this rest-home then? Time we get there, I’ll need somewhere to put my own feet up.’

Thackeray gave an artificial cough. ‘Told you it was a long way from the bus stop, Sarge.’ Privately he recalled Cribb’s dramatic statement at the beginning of the afternoon. ‘The Yard has watched and waited long enough. An immediate entry to this house is imperative. Time for action, Constable.’ So they set off at once to Westminster Bridge Road. And waited twenty minutes to take a three-penny bus ride to Kensington.

But the moment came when they stood importantly at the front door of Philbeach House and Cribb pulled the bell-handle. ‘Police,’ he announced to the manservant who fractionally opened the door. ‘Kindly inform the tenant, would you?’

The face had the scarred and brutalised look of an ex-pugilist. Comprehension dawned on it slowly. Dumbly it withdrew.

‘D’you hear anything?’ Cribb asked.

Thackeray removed his hat and put an ear to the door. ‘Sounds like singing, Sarge. Hymns, I expect. Sunday afternoon.’

Cribb disagreed. ‘Tommy Make Room for Your Uncle ain’t in my hymn-book.’

The face reappeared: ‘Mistress says come in.’

‘Mistress?’ Cribb mouthed the word, arched his eyebrows, snatched off his bowler and stepped forward. They were ushered ungraciously through a tiled hall, flanked by rows of wilting shrubs in brass pots polished to inspection standard. Framed music hall posters lined the walls like reward bills at Scotland Yard. From somewhere ahead of them the singing swelled into a chorus, emphatically not ecclesiastical. In another part of the house someone was hammering.

The servant shambled to a stop, leaned against a door and mumbled. ‘Then two coppers,’ as it opened. Then he turned about, shouldered the detectives aside as though they were baize drapes, and slouched away. If he was a former star of the halls he kept his talents well-hidden.

Cribb pushed the door further open and they entered a remarkable room. The obligatory drawing-room furniture was there: sideboard, table and chairs in ebonized mahogany; velveteen-covered arm-chairs and couches; piano, display-cabinet and screen. But the ornamentation was so unexpected that they stopped, momentarily stunned. Where there should have been some unobtrusive flock paper, the walls were hand-decorated with hundreds of individualised human faces staring expectantly inwards, a dazzling parade of pink and orange blotches, broken by shadowy patches representing hats, cravats and whiskers, and all becoming smaller and less prominent towards the ceiling to give the effect of depth. It was like straying on to a stage in front of a packed auditorium.

After that sensation came others. More faces, white, expressionless faces, a row of plaster death-masks under glass domes, ranged on the sideboard, one grotesquely decked in a crepe wig, another topped with an old silk hat. Each labelled in gilt with the name of a deceased star of the halls. The piano-top supporting a small army of egg-shells painted to represent yet more faces, miniatures of comedians and clowns in full make-up, with bits of horse-hair glued on for realism. And the cabinets cluttered with puppets and ventriloquists’ dummies, bolt-eyed, staring blankly ahead with the rest.

One face among the hundreds stirred. ‘Please step in. It is a little unnerving, I believe, if you are not a theatrical. Most of us are, at Philbeach, you see. My name is Body. Widowed, seven years. What is yours?’ She spoke from the centre of a large winged arm-chair, a doll-like figure enveloped in a black shawl, with the legs tucked out of sight on the chair-seat. The face was precise, finely moulded, radiant, though what was rouge and what the glow of firelight was impossible to tell. Hair too blonde to be natural framed the features in a profusion of curls, like a child-study by Reynolds.

‘Cribb, Ma’am. Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackeray. Checking on missing persons. I understand that this is a home for destitute music hall performers.’

‘That is correct.’ Mrs Body’s elocution, like her hair, was a fraction too fussy. ‘The singing you can hear is part of an entertainment they are rehearsing. One never really retires from the theatre, you know. The banging is not part of the performance. I have the gasman here.’

‘On Sunday, Ma’am? That’s irregular.’

‘Yes, but leaks of gas are no respecters of Lord’s Day observance. The gasman tells me it could be dangerous if neglected. Now please sit down and tell me how I can help you.’

Thackeray selected an upright chair to the side of the arm-chair Cribb took. Upholstered furniture seemed inappropriate to the rank of constable when solid woodwork was available. Mrs Body addressed him: ‘You are sitting on one of our most precious relics, Mr Thackeray. No, it is quite in order for you to use it. Do not get up. That is the very chair W. G. Ross used to sit on in the forties when he sang the Ballad of Sam Hall at the Cider Cellars.’

‘The condemned sweep,’ said Cribb.

‘You remember it! Splendid! Mr Cribb, you are a connoisseur of the variety stage, I declare!’

‘That would be overstating it, Ma’am. My interest in Sam Hall is more for his criminal record than his legend in song. It’s a fine collection of music hall items that you have, even so. Would that be a lime-tank doing service as a coal-scuttle in the grate, there?’

She clapped her hands. ‘You are knowledgeable! They must have sent you specially. I do hope I can help you find some of your missing persons and then you can keep coming back to talk to me.’

The Sergeant’s interrogations rarely took such a personal turn. Was that a touch of colour rising to his cheeks? Thackeray forbore from peering too closely. Firelight, surely.

Applause broke out in the room next door, strikingly raucous for Sunday afternoon, even among music hall performers. But this gave way to a rich bass-baritone rendering of one of John Orlando Parry’s most popular polite comic songs.

‘Wanted a governess, fitted to fill—’ when, inexplicably, an outbreak of giggling interrupted the soloist. He managed to sing ‘The post of tuition with competent skill’ and was again forced to stop for the noisy reaction of his audience. ‘In a gentleman’s family highly genteel,’ he began again, ‘Where ’tis hoped that the lady will try to conceal—’ when ungovernable laughter made it impossible to continue. How a simple ballad gave rise to such guffaws defied the imagination.

‘Excuse me.’ Mrs Body got up decisively from her chair, crossed the room to the connecting door and marched into the uproar, which stopped almost at once. Only the hammering from a room on the opposite side continued.

‘Look at the gasman quick!’ ordered Cribb, striding to the door Mrs Body had used. ‘I’ll stand watch.’

Thackeray reacted instantly, almost upending W. G. Ross’s chair in the process. He opened the door, and looked into a long, panelled dining-room. Several tables were laid for dinner. Silver candelabra stood among the table-ornaments. At the near end, in a fine mist of dust, was the gasman, in overalls, standing knee-deep in the foundations, half-a-dozen floor-boards prised open around him. He turned, hammer in hand, and winked. Major Chick!

‘Slap bang in the enemy camp, eh?’ said the Major in a stage-whisper. ‘I’m full of surprises, Constable.’ Thackeray closed the door and gave a long-suffering nod in answer to Cribb’s uplifted eyebrows.

‘You will excuse me, rushing out like that?’ said Mrs Body, re-entering. ‘They were quite unaware that their little concert was disturbing us.’

‘Are your guests exclusively masculine?’ asked Cribb, fingering a pair of ballet-shoes that were attached to the side of the mantelpiece with several others, reminiscent of shot rats on a barn door.

‘No, no. I take anyone who is temporarily incommoded. As it happens, I have nine ladies in residence at present. But there has never been a breath of anything improper at Philbeach House, you understand.’

‘That goes without saying,’ said Cribb.

Thackeray nodded too.

‘How charming. You know, Mr Cribb, you remind me so strikingly of Mr Body, my late-lamented husband, except that he was not so tall as you and wore spectacles. Your sight is quite in order, is it?’

‘I believe so, Ma’am.’

‘Do not count on it. Nusquam tuta fides, as Mr Body used to tell me often. “Our confidence is nowhere safe”—and he lost his spectacles in Hyde Park, and drowned in the Serpentine. How can I help you, Mr Cribb?’

‘Do you keep a register of your guests, Ma’am?’

‘A register? Nothing so formal, I am afraid. I can tell you who they are, however.’

‘Very good. Thackeray, you’ll need your notebook. Perhaps you would begin with the ladies, Mrs Body?’

She clapped her hands to her cheeks. ‘Oh dear, a notebook! That is enough to make me forget my own name, quite apart from the names of guests.’

‘Just forget Thackeray’s here, Ma’am,’ suggested Cribb. ‘Think of him as one more painted face on the wall. You can remember the names for me, can’t you?’

She wriggled with pleasure in her large chair. ‘Now that you put it that way, I think I can. Well, there are my longest residents, Beatrice and Alexandra. They are singers, you know.’

‘Surnames, Ma’am?’ requested Thackeray.

Cribb glared at him. ‘When did they arrive?’

‘Oh, eighteen months ago, at least,’ said Mrs Body. ‘They are sisters, you know. Their name is Dartington. I have two sets of sisters here at present. The others are trapeze artistes, Lola and Bella Pinkus. If it were not making an old music hall joke I would describe them as highly strung. Decent girls, but spirited, you know. I think they miss the exercise they used to get.’

‘They’re out of work, then?’

‘Yes, poor waifs. One small mishap at the Middlesex and they were asked to leave. They couldn’t pay their rent or find other work so we offered to let them come here. It was the same with most of the others—Miss Goodbody, Miss Archer, Miss Tring—’

‘The Voice on the Swing?’ said Cribb.

‘But yes! How thrilled Penelope will be when I tell her you know her name! She was in a dreadful state when she arrived here—an unendurable experience on her swing, you know—but we are trying to laugh her out of it in our cheerful fashion.’

‘I’m sure you are,’ said Cribb. The noise in the next room, already reasserting itself, was evidence of that. ‘That makes seven ladies. Who are the others?’

Mrs Body made a rapid inventory of her guests on her fingers. ‘Ah! Miss Harriett Morris, the song and dance artiste—such deplorable misfortunes that poor child has suffered—and then there is my latest guest who arrived after lunch, and I must confess that I don’t yet know her name. She is the mother of a strong man who was savaged by a dog and brought here this morning.’

‘The great Albert,’ said Cribb. ‘Who brought him to you, then?’

‘Why, the Undertakers! I haven’t surprised you, have I gentlemen? You must have heard of the Undertakers, George and Bertie Smee, one of the most whimsical comic turns in London until their accident two months ago? They’re frightfully good company and so helpful. They went all the way to Lambeth in a cab to persuade Albert to come here and convalesce.’

‘Really? And how did you come to hear of Albert’s injury?’

Mrs Body produced a beatific smile. ‘There are more Good Samaritans in the music halls than you would believe, Mr Cribb. When an artiste suffers an injury, you may be sure that someone in the same company or in the audience will have heard of Philbeach House. In this case it happened to be a personal acquaintance of Sir Douglas Butterleigh.’

‘Your benefactor?’

‘The very same. We see very little of Sir Douglas, but he has many friends, and some of them like to associate with our philanthropy. They prefer to remain anonymous.’

Cribb nodded in a way that showed he had expected as much. ‘Did your informant give you Albert’s address as well? You got him here uncommon fast.’

There was a pause while Mrs Body twisted one of her curls around her left forefinger. ‘Mr Cribb, you ask such suspicious questions. Do you think that you will trap me into saying something indiscreet? I believe I rather relish the prospect of being trapped by a real policeman. What would you like me to say?’

Thackeray’s pencil slipped from his fingers and rolled across the floor. He muttered an apology and recovered it. How could you behave like a wall-painting when your superior was being subjected to moral danger?

‘I merely inquired how you got Albert’s address, Ma’am,’ said Cribb.

‘From his agent, of course,’ said Mrs Body. ‘Every artiste makes sure that his agent has his latest address. Do you know, Mr Cribb, I have something upstairs that would interest you, as a lover of the variety stage. You must have visited the old Alhambra in Leicester Square before it lost its music and dancing licence? Well I have a small sitting-room furnished as a perfect replica of a box at the Alhambra, complete with hangings and chairs that I bought from the owner.’

‘I don’t know that I’ve time today, Ma’am—’ began Cribb.

‘Perhaps on a future occasion, when you desire to interrogate me further,’ ventured Mrs Body. ‘You can understand my wish to escape from my responsibilities from time to time. That is when I retreat to my little box upstairs.’

Thackeray blew his nose stridently.

‘But you will want to know the names of my male guests,’ Mrs Body said, her thoughts evidently deflected by the interruption. ‘I doubt whether I can remember all of them. I accommodate most of the old Alhambra orchestra, you see.’

‘I understand you, Ma’am,’ said Cribb, with conviction. ‘But they wouldn’t feature on my list. Would you have an Italian barrel-dancer—name of Bellotti?’

‘Yes, yes!’ She opened her arms expansively. ‘How splendid! You can cross him off your list! He is a missing person no longer.’

‘And a comedian named Fagan?’

‘Sam Fagan! That is Sam’s voice you can hear in the next room.’

‘That’s very good news,’ said Cribb. ‘Could we go in?’

Mrs Body lifted a hand. ‘Not this afternoon. Rehearsal, you know. They insist on private rehearsals.’

‘What are they rehearsing for, Ma’am?’

Momentarily Mrs Body seemed confused. ‘What for, Mr Cribb? Why, for their return to the footlights, when they are quite restored. Some of them may never be hired again, but it would be cruel indeed if we denied them their slim hope.’

This somewhat pathetic view of the guests was difficult to reconcile with what was now issuing from next door. A voice, presumably Sam Fagan’s, was endeavouring to articulate a poem by the late Mr Thackeray. Like the song, it was being most oddly received.

‘But of all the cheap treasures that garnish my nest, (recited Mr Fagan)

There’s one that I love and I cherish the best;

For the finest of couches that’s padded with hair

I never would change thee, my cane-bottom’d chair.’

—at which hoots of indecorous laughter held up the rendition. It was impossible to believe that a familiar parlour-poem could be so received.

‘’Tis a bandy-legg’d, high-shoulder’d, worm-eaten seat,

With a creaking old back, and twisted old feet; (persisted the speaker)

But since the fair morning when Fanny sat there

I bless thee and love thee, old cane-bottom’d chair.’

‘Extraordinary!’ declared Cribb, not at the poem, but at the persistent under-current of giggling that accompanied it, women’s voices as prominent as the men’s. Was some unexplained pantomine being performed in accompaniment?

‘If chairs have but feeling in holding such charms,

A thrill must have pass’d through your wither’d old arms!

I look’d, and I long’d, and I wish’d in despair;

I wish’d myself turn’d to a cane-bottom’d chair.’

A veritable pandemonium of horse-laughs provoked the expected reaction from Mrs Body. ‘Excuse me, gentlemen. They are getting beyond themselves again.’

She had not reached the door when she was halted in her tracks by a shattering explosion from the opposite direction.

‘The Major!’ said Thackeray, and ran to the dining-room door. Dust billowed out as he opened it. For a moment it was impossible to see anything. Then the results of the blast were revealed: ripped floorboards, upturned tables and broken windows. There was no sign of the Major, but an open window gave grounds for hope.

‘Get to the main and turn off the gas!’ ordered Cribb to the first startled face to appear from the room next door. The man had the good sense to obey at once. ‘Look after Mrs Body, will you?’ Cribb asked someone else. The room was rapidly filling with people, blundering into each other in the enveloping dust.

‘I’ve shut the door, Sarge,’ said Thackeray, when he had found the sergeant. ‘The Major seems to have gone. I don’t think it was violent enough to have . . .’

‘Blasted him to bits? I doubt it,’ said Cribb. ‘What’s that under your arm?’

Thackeray rearranged the burden he was carrying. ‘I think it’s Beaconsfield, Sarge. I nearly tripped over him a second ago. The poor brute’s quivering like a jelly.’

‘Damned ridiculous he looks, too, with that pink ribbon tied round his throat. My guess is that he’s shaking with mortification.’

The atmosphere in the room was clearing, though a babble of excited conversation persisted. Two young women in tights were attending to Mrs Body, who lay in her chair in a state of shock.

‘Ain’t that Albert, Sarge, in that group over there?’ said Thackeray.

‘Probably. Best not to recognise him openly. There’s a lot more we can learn with Albert’s help. And watch out for his mother. If she comes this way you’d better drop Beaconsfield and make for the front door. Stupid slobbering animal’s liable to ruin everything. Are you partial to bulldogs or something?’

‘Not particularly, Sarge. He just seemed to lack confidence in all the confusion.’

Cribb gave the dog a withering look. ‘That’s his natural condition.’

On the other side of the room Albert had caught Thackeray’s eye.

‘Albert seems concerned about something, Sarge. D’you think he’s all right? I believe he pointed at me. I say, those are the men who were in the cab with him.’

Cribb regarded the group with interest. Messrs Smee, the Undertakers, were difficult to picture as a comedy turn. Albert was standing between them, easing his collar with his forefinger.

‘Got some dust down his shirt by the look of things,’ said Cribb. ‘Don’t stare. They all know we’re bobbies. Put the dog down and we’ll see if we can recognise anyone. Those must be the Pinkus girls.’

A moment later, Thackeray stubbornly returned to the subject of Albert. ‘Sarge, he’s scratching his neck like a blooming monkey. It ain’t natural. He’s taking off his collar.’

‘His collar?’ Cribb jerked round. ‘Good Lord! What the hell have you done with Beaconsfield?’

‘I set him down as you asked, Sarge,’ said Thackeray, bewildered to the point of despair. The dog was not in sight.

‘Well find him again quick, for God’s sake! Albert’s signalling to us. There’s got to be something hidden under that ribbon round the bulldog’s neck. Where’s the ruddy animal gone now?’

Each detective set off on a different route around the room in the ape-like gait customarily adopted by members of the Force when rounding up strays. One of the young women in tights bending over Mrs Body straightened up and gave Thackeray a long, hard look, but otherwise the prevailing confusion deflected interest from the search.

It was Cribb who located Beaconsfield, panting behind a screen. He put a hand towards the ribbon. ‘Easy, now. Easy.’

Beaconsfield growled. Cribb withdrew his hand. ‘Ah! There you are, Constable! Kindly feel underneath that ribbon at once!’

The dog permitted Thackeray to approach. He removed a scrap of paper from under the ribbon and handed it to Cribb.

‘Well, blast his eyes!’ said the sergeant when he had read it. ‘What do you think of that?’

Thackeray read the message: ‘Everything in perfect order. Thank you for your interest. Albert.’