Abracadaver

CHAPTER

13

CRIBB’S INITIATIVE SUFFERED A temporary rebuff that afternoon at Philbeach House. The same battle-scarred manservant who had confronted the detectives on their first visit announced in a tone of finality that the Mistress was engaged. She was not to be disturbed. The visitor should return another afternoon. There the assignation would have foundered if Cribb had not thoughtfully placed his foot against the door. Did he have a visiting-card then? He had no card, but his C.I.D. identification was proof of respectability. Was this an official visit? No, social: Mrs Body had invited him to call. In that case he might wait inside, but there was no certainty she would see him. She could not be disturbed on any account before tea-time.

So he was admitted to a small anteroom furnished with upright chairs, a table and a whatnot neatly stacked with theatrical periodicals. A large marble timepiece on the mantelshelf ticked with an emphasis quite disproportionate to the size of the room. He selected a chair with its back to the clock and thumbed the pages of The Bill of the Play for 1880. Just as the journals in doctors’ waiting-rooms were invariably filled with terrifying quack-medicine advertisements, so Mrs Body’s literature was lavishly illustrated with embracing actors and actresses. When Cribb came to an advertisement depicting corsets he snapped the book shut.

The servant could not be blamed for having failed to recognise Cribb when he arrived at Philbeach House. Not only was he without his unforgettable assistant (who was biting his nails to shreds at Paradise Street Police Station); he was dressed in an altogether more flamboyant style, purple cravat with matching handkerchief, checkered Norfolk jacket and trousers, all topped with a Glengarry cap. And a yellow rose in his lapel. He kept his hat and umbrella with him, as etiquette demanded.

Presently there was another caller. The servant shuffled to the door. A woman’s voice. Familiar. Cribb crossed to the door and listened. More footsteps and the swish of skirts barely gave him time to stand away when the door opened. She was ushered in without much grace and left there with Cribb.

‘How d’you do, Miss Blake.’

‘Sergeant! What a pleasant surprise.’ Her face, dampened by rain, glowed pink under her velvet bonnet. ‘Pleasure’s all mine, Miss. You’ve come to call on Albert, I dare say.’

‘That’s right. It’s a strange state of affairs when a lady calls on her young man, isn’t it? But you know the circumstances here. None of the guests are allowed out except the Smee brothers.’

‘The Undertakers?’

‘Yes. And they’re more staff than guests. So if I want to see Albert I have to call here myself. I’m allowed to converse with him in the drawing-room. Mrs Body is usually there as chaperon.’

‘Very proper, Miss. How’s Albert getting on?’

Ellen Blake’s eyes glistened. ‘He seems to be adjusting very well to the life here. He doesn’t complain at all.’

‘I believe it’s a regular life of luxury, Miss. He’s certain to enjoy it for a while, after his digs in Lambeth. He’ll tire of it though, soon as he’s fit enough to be back on the halls.’

‘I pray that you’re right in your opinion, Sergeant. There are things about this house, and some of the people in it, that make me fear for Albert. Why are you here? Has it anything to do with that tragic event at my father’s music hall?’

Cribb shrugged his shoulders. ‘Social call, Miss. Mrs Body invited me to come and see some of the architectural features.’ He winked. ‘She’ll be too busy for chaperoning.’

‘You were there the other night, weren’t you, Sergeant? You stayed on for the second house. Father told me. He doesn’t allow me to attend the benefit performances, but I have some notion of what goes on. The police are sure to put a stop to it all now, aren’t they?’

‘I couldn’t say, Miss. That’s someone else’s concern.’

The door was thrust open again. The manservant’s ugly countenance leered in. ‘Mistress just called down on the speakin’-tube. Says she’s free now. You can go up.’

Cribb picked up his cap and umbrella. ‘My regards to Albert, Miss. I trust he’ll soon be fit enough to leave this place.’ He gave a slight bow and walked out to his meeting with Mrs Body with the panache of an Elizabethan nobleman going to the block.

‘This way,’ grunted the manservant, shambling ahead. He, in his turn, would made made a most convincing attendant at executions. They crossed the hall and passed through a door marked Private into a narrow carpeted passage. There was a spiral staircase at the end.

‘Up them stairs, copper. ’Er room’s at the top.’ With that, Cribb’s escort backed away and slammed the door shut.

He started up the stairs, gripping his umbrella as if it were a sword and keeping close to the curving wall on his left, where the footing was broadest. This was the interior of a turret-like extremity, just visible from the front of the building in Kensington Palace Gardens. Leaded slit-windows let in some illumination at intervals. The carpeting on the stairs muffled his tread.

More than midway up, he stopped. Rhythmic thuds above his head indicated for sure that someone was descending the stairs. A tread too deliberate for a woman. A man coming down from Mrs Body’s private room? Cribb went down four steps and positioned himself in the shadow against the side, with a clear view of the shaft of light admitted by the window on the facing wall, some eight feet above him. Whoever was coming down would be clearly visible at that point. Presumably he knew that Cribb was on his way up, but he could not know how far he had got. If the sergeant kept his position, he had a momentary advantage. The steps continued to descend, though somewhat irregularly. Cribb watched, like a naturalist trapping a moth in a lantern-beam.

Then the face and figure were there, dressed in spectral white, a pale face with piercing blue eyes. And a crop of grey hair standing up like fresh lavender.

‘Major Chick, by God!’ said Cribb, running up to meet him.

‘Scotland Yard late on the bloody scene, again, I notice,’ mumbled the Major, his breath reeking of gin. He wore a rumpled white duck-suit, with the shreds of a red carnation in his buttonhole. His cravat was untied. So were his shoelaces. ‘You’ve got to think ahead in this blasted job, Sergeant. No damned good messing about checking on poison-books by the hundred.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘’Sintelligence that traps the criminal.’

Cribb held him by the shoulders, deciding whether it was safe to let him descend the rest of the way unaided.

‘What’s this?’ demanded the Major, poking Cribb’s buttonhole with his forefinger. ‘I’d take it off if I were you, Sergeant. Look what happened to mine. She isn’t interested in the blasted holly on top. It’s the plum-pudding she wants.’ With that he pushed Cribb aside and continued confidently down the stairs.

Shaking his head in disapproval, the sergeant watched the Major until he was out of sight. Then he directed his attention upwards. He climbed two steps, paused, frowning, removed the rose from his lapel and put it in his pocket, before tackling the rest of the stairs.

The small hinged door-knocker on the outside of Mrs Body’s suite was cast in brass from a champagne-cork.

‘That sounds suspiciously like the arrival of the detective department,’ called Mrs Body from within. She opened the door. Cribb, two steps below her level, was still a head taller than she. ‘What an agreeable surprise, Mr Cribb! I am delighted that you took my invitation seriously. Welcome to my little snuggery.’

‘Charmed, Ma’am.’

He stepped into a modest-sized circular room lit by gas. Crimson curtains were draped from ceiling to carpet round two-thirds of the walls. To his right, built out from the remaining wall-space, was the box from the Alhambra, a magnificent wood and stucco construction in the baroque style, with gilt-painted muses as side-supports to a canopy of cherubs. Heavy silk drapes in gold were gathered to the sides in lush folds.

‘Takes your breath away,’ said Cribb.

‘Not for long, I hope,’ said Mrs Body. ‘Come and see the interior.’ She led the way behind one of the muses into the box itself. It was furnished with total authenticity: two high-backed chairs with striped satin seats, a small table for drinks, the walls papered in an ornate red and gold design.

Cribb glanced at the lacquered door behind the chairs. ‘Where does that lead to—the foyer?’ he joked.

‘No,’ said Mrs Body. ‘My bedroom. But I should warn you that there is a steep descent.’

‘I shall bear that in mind, Ma’am.’

‘Please sit down, and put your things on the table. I can draw the curtains if you find it cosier. I don’t suppose these curtains were drawn in ten years before I bought them. What can I offer you to drink?’

There were no decanters in sight. Mystified, Cribb asked for gin.

‘White satin?’ said Mrs Body. ‘There is plenty of that here. Butterleigh’s, of course.’

‘Naturally.’

She moved the curtain a fraction and put a speaking-tube to her mouth. ‘Send up two gins, please.’ Turning back to Cribb she asked, ‘Did you meet the Rear-Admiral on your way upstairs?’

Cribb nodded. ‘Ah. So that was who it was.’

‘A personal friend of Sir Douglas. Strange for a nautical man to be affected by drink. Perhaps I should have offered him rum.’ There was the sound of machinery from somewhere. ‘Good. That will be our waiter.’ She got up and opened a small door, impossible to detect in the intricate wall-decoration. Two glasses were waiting on a serving-lift. ‘I am in contact with everyone, you see, but secure from intruders. Would you like to see my other contrivances?’

Cribb hesitated, half-looking at the door behind his chair.

‘You’re not nervous, Mr Cribb?’ She pulled at a cord on her left, and the curtains on the wall facing them parted some six feet, revealing the bare, whitewashed wall. ‘Now, if you will kindly turn down the gas above your head. Thank you. There!’

With the lowering of the light to a modest blue flame, a singular effect appeared on the white wall opposite, a coloured panorama with moving trees and minute figures in motion crossing green lawns.

‘Kensington Gardens to the life!’ said Cribb.

‘A camera obscura,’ explained Mrs Body. ‘The camera is above our heads and looks out from the top of the tower. The image is projected on to the wall by an arrangement of mirrors and lenses. By working a lever I can turn the camera through the full sweep of landscape visible from the tower, including my neighbours’ houses and gardens. Sometimes it can provide diverting entertainment.’

‘That I can believe,’ said Cribb. ‘I was wondering how you passed the time, sitting in a box like this, staring at a blank wall. It’s most ingenious. Scotland Yard could do with some of them, mounted on the higher landmarks of London.’

‘Ah yes. What a pity Mr Body has gone over to the majority. He could have worked miracles for Scotland Yard. He was a man of science, you know. I have a weakness for men with inventive minds. Why, there is a room downstairs still filled with his contraptions and chemicals. I have a magic lantern he made. I show the pictures on the wall here. There are several melodramas in sets of frames, and some whimsical figure-studies which you may care to see later, after more drinks. My gentlemen-friends usually—’

‘You won’t mind my addressing myself to you in a personal way, Ma’am?’ Cribb suddenly said.

‘Not in the least, my dear.’ Mrs Body drew her chair closer to Cribb’s. She was wearing black satin that rustled each time she moved.

‘Seeing that you’ve been so friendly as to show me your boudoir here, Ma’am—’

‘That is my pleasure, Mr Cribb.’

Cribb coughed over his gin. ‘Quite so. I thought it right to warn you that certain complications could arise from something that happened at the Paragon music hall last Tuesday.’

‘The accident to Lola Pinkus?’

‘No accident, Ma’am. Murder, almost certainly. The manager there, Mr Plunkett, could find himself in a deal of trouble. In a statement he made to the police he mentioned a connexion with you—’

‘Outrageous! My reputation is beyond reproach.’

‘Nothing of an indelicate nature, Ma’am,’ Cribb hastened to add. ‘No-one would suggest anything of that sort. May I turn up the light a fraction? No, the connexion in question is purely of a business nature, Ma’am. I believe the artistes at Mr Plunkett’s midnight shows are conveyed to the Paragon from Philbeach House in a private omnibus.’

‘God forgive me, yes.’ Mrs Body picked up a large fan and fluttered it in a frenzied way. ‘It is the only time they leave the house. They have all agreed not to step outside these walls. They have every convenience here.’

‘What would happen if one disobeyed the rules, Ma’am?’

‘He would be asked to leave. But my guests are not foolish, Mr Cribb. They are here because they are unemployable. They would starve if they left.’

‘So they have no choice.’

Mrs Body called into the speaking-tube, ‘More gin, if you please. Send up the bottle.’

‘It sounds rather institutional, Ma’am—to an outsider, I mean.’

‘Not at all. The guests come here of their own volition. I am paid to see that they are well looked after and there are no complaints. They are given work by Mr Plunkett. I even permit visitors to come, if they are respectable. Ah, here’s the gin. Let me fill your glass.’

‘I suppose you wouldn’t have much knowledge of the benefit performances at the Paragon?’ said Cribb.

‘No knowledge at all, Mr Cribb, beyond what I overhear being rehearsed downstairs. Is there anything irregular in the shows?’

‘I’d rather not comment, Ma’am. You’ve never attended any of the performances, then?’

‘My duties keep me here, you see. George and Bertie, the Undertakers, escort the artistes to the Paragon. I really know nothing of what goes on there.’

‘You’ve nothing to fear then, Mrs Body. You can still help me, though. Tell me what sort of girl young Lola Pinkus was. Did she get along with the other guests? Was she a good mixer, would you say?’

Mrs Body giggled slightly. ‘Pardon my amusement, Mr Cribb. Lola’s achievements as a mixer are unparalleled in my experience.’

‘You mean that she . . .’

‘Flirted outrageously, Mr Cribb. One hesitates to speak uncharitably of the departed, but, frankly, all members of the opposite sex were like curtain-calls to Lola, every one a fresh delight. Sam Fagan, Bellotti, Professor Virgo, almost the entire orchestra of the Paragon. It led to some bitterness here, I assure you. She and her sister had promised Bellotti they would assist him in his barrel-dancing act. You may imagine the poor boy’s disappointment when Lola took up with the Professor instead.’

‘Ah,’ said Cribb. ‘He was jealous, then.’

‘It quite ruined Bellotti’s act. A man on barrels isn’t much of an attraction without a pretty assistant, is he? I believe they pelted him with champagne-corks at the Paragon.’

‘Did he argue with Virgo over the girls?’

‘No, no,’ said Mrs Body. ‘Bellotti knew that the Professor hadn’t taken the girls from him. How they wheedled their way into the sword-swallowing act I do not like to speculate, but the trick they made the Professor do was quite out of keeping with the rest of his act. He is an orthodox sword-swallower and fire-eater, not a conjurer. The poor man was thoroughly miserable about it, but Lola had some way of compelling him to co-operate, I’m sure of that.’

‘You’re sure it wasn’t Bella who persuaded him?’

Mrs Body shook her head emphatically. ‘Bella had no initiative whatsoever. She was entirely dominated by her sister. Oh, they had arguments enough, and bitter ones, too. Such language, Mr Cribb! But Lola always had the last word. There was just one occasion when she met her match and that was last Monday.’

‘How was that?’

‘Did you meet my new guests, Albert, the strong man, and his mother? They arrived on Sunday, bringing their bulldog with them. I do not usually encourage pets, but as Beaconsfield has trodden the boards like the rest of us and was a working member of the troupe, I made an exception. The lady is extremely attached to the animal, you understand, and she asked me whether it could recline at her feet under the table at dinner on Monday evening. I had no objection myself, because it looked a placid beast, but naturally I said that if any of my guests objected, Beaconsfield would have to leave the dining-room. I was thinking of Professor Virgo, a man of nervous sensibilities, you know.’

‘So I believe.’

‘Well I made sure Beaconsfield was installed under the table before I sounded the gong. All credit to that animal; it did not make a sound. I suppose it must have fallen asleep. The Professor took his seat—naturally Lola had reserved a place for herself next to him—and all went perfectly until we got to the final course, the fruit and meringues. Then Lola must have been afflicted by some muscular spasm, for her meringue jumped from her plate and rolled under the table. “Oh,” she said. “My meringue!” Professor Virgo—a gentleman through and through—ducked beneath the tablecloth to retrieve it. It all happened before any of us had time to think. We heard a yelp from the dog and an expression of surprise from the Professor, followed by a bump as he endeavoured to stand up. Man and dog were agitated beyond belief, Mr Cribb, and Lola was laughing like a child at the pantomime.’

‘Most regrettable.’

‘But Albert’s mother was more incommoded than anybody. She plainly believed Lola had cold-bloodedly set the meringue rolling in Beaconsfield’s direction. If people couldn’t bring a decently-behaved pet into a dining-room without some vicious girl shying meringues at it, she said, she intended to take her meals in her room in future and she advised everyone else to do the same. Whereupon Lola retorted that a dining-room was not the place for—pardon me, Mr Cribb—stinking animals. In that case, said Albert’s mother, Lola herself should leave the room, for Beaconsfield at least had a fortnightly bath. It was the only time I ever saw Lola lost for a reply. Somehow one knew that whatever she said would be bettered by Albert’s mother.’

‘A formidable lady,’ agreed Cribb. ‘I don’t think they use her to the best advantage at the Paragon, swinging her about in a balloon-basket. She’s a rare sight as Britannia, when Albert’s lifting his dumbbells.’

‘I have good news for you, Mr Cribb. She will soon be accompanying her son again in a new series of tableaux, arranged specially for the Paragon. His leg has improved beyond all expectation with the help of a whisky rub and he is already lifting again. He should certainly be fit for next Tuesday.’

‘Tuesday?’ queried Cribb.

Mrs Body placed her hand on Cribb’s knee. ‘My, Scotland Yard is slow this afternoon. The next benefit at the Paragon, you dilatory detective! You know all about that, surely?’

Cribb was open-mouthed. ‘Do you mean that they’re continuing with these exhibitions, Ma’am?’

She laughed aloud. ‘Well, they’d find it difficult to cancel Tuesday’s engagement, wouldn’t they?’

Cribb stood up. ‘I don’t know what you mean, Ma’am. A young woman murdered on the stage, and they’re callously planning the next performance! That’s a cool way of going on, in my view.’

‘Perhaps it seems like that to you, Mr Cribb, but really there is no choice. The show was arranged before Lola’s untimely death. My information is that the Paragon is to receive a visit from a most distinguished patron next Tuesday night. He cannot possibly be disappointed. It is, in effect, a command performance.’

Cribb paled. ‘My Lord! Not the . . .’

‘He is quite old enough to have a mind of his own, Mr Cribb. If he chooses to take an interest in the Paragon we must not disappoint him. That is why Albert has made such efforts to be fit. The honour, you see. What on earth are you doing, Mr Cribb?’

‘Climbing over the edge of your box, Ma’am. I can’t stay, I’m afraid. Urgent matters to attend to, by Heaven!’

‘Send me another bottle of gin,’ called Mrs Body plaintively into the speaking-tube, when Cribb’s footsteps had receded altogether.