Full Dark House

∨ Full Dark House ∧

46

FALSE IDOL

“As you can imagine, I’m rather busy,” said Geoffrey Whittaker, unsnagging his cardigan from a nail and racing ahead. “Can’t Madeline help you?”

“It’s you I need to talk to,” said May, ducking beneath a low pipe as they passed along the narrow corridor at the head of the orchestra pit.

“It’s the assistant stage manager’s job to know everything I know,” Whittaker called over his shoulder. “Mind out.” They passed a set of ten vicious-looking steel costume hooks, part of a quickchange area that had not been altered since the theatre’s construction.

“This won’t take a minute. I was wondering about the keys to the pass doors. I understand you’re the only person who gives them out.”

“That’s right. The left door got painted over, and then the lock broke. It was never much used because the company office and the stalls-level dressing rooms are to the right.”

“I need to know who you’ve given the keys out to this week.”

“That’s easy enough. I can tell you from memory. Miles Stone asked for one a couple of days ago.”

The day the boy fell from the balcony, Bryant noted. “How long did he have it?”

“A couple of hours. He wanted to store a suitcase, and it was too heavy to take the long way around. Helena borrowed the other one because she was shifting stuff out of dressing room two to make room for Mr Renalda’s memorial thing. Sometimes it’s quicker to do a job yourself than wait for the stagehands to do it.”

“How long did she have the key?” asked Bryant.

“She’s still got it, as far as I know,” Whittaker replied as he vanished through an arch. “She wears the trousers around here.”

Bryant stepped back and trod on Biddle’s foot. “Do you need me here, Mr Bryant?” Biddle asked. He looked very fed up.

“While you’re still under the unit’s jurisdiction, Mr Biddle, you remain on duty until we’re through. Do we understand each other?”

“How can I help when you haven’t told us what we’re looking for?” asked Biddle angrily. “I’d be more use filing DS Forthright’s interview slips.”

“I realize it’s boring for you.” The boy’s attitude exasperated Bryant. “Perhaps you’d rather be sitting in front of a nice big pile of paperwork. A lot of our tasks are the same as you get in any police unit, foot-slog stuff, standing around and waiting. It requires a sharp eye for detail, a good memory and an ability to judge character. But we have the power to leap off the rails of traditional thought and head into darkness. Once you’ve done it a few times you’ll be hooked. Now go down to the floor below and watch out for anything unusual.” Considering there was a ten-foot-high threeheaded purple dog god growling on the stage above their heads, it was a little like asking a clown to keep an eye out for any funny business.

Eurydice was imprisoned in Pluto’s palace with her gaoler, John Styx. Jupiter had called for the three judges of Hades, and set about questioning Cerberus, Hell’s doorkeeper. The gigantic six-eyed dog owned by Hecate was a mechanical device winched up onto the stage in three sections that slotted together as they met. It was a feat of engineering to rival the construction of a Spitfire, but with less practical purpose.

♦

John May scanned the darkened auditorium through the velvet curtains and spotted Andreas Renalda seated in the royal box with several middle-aged men in smart black suits, who were busy ogling the chorus girls’ exposed thighs. The front rows were filled with corpulent broadsheet critics taking notes, writing without removing their eyes from the stage. The orchestra performed beneath their steel mesh cage, a precautionary measure taken because the apron had been brought out to the edge of the pit, and some of the dancers came very close to the edge, much to the pleasure of the woodwind section.

May left the corridor and made his way to the rear of the stalls. He could see Bryant’s tufted head poking over the parapet of the converted cigar kiosk.

“I thought you were keeping an eye on the backstage area,”

Bryant whispered.

“There’s nowhere to stand without being in the way. Did some body check the fly wires on Senechal’s replacement?” In the next part of the tableau, Jupiter was due to turn himself into a bluebottle in order to squeeze through the keyhole into Eurydice’s cell. This involved him being swung out over the heads of the audience on a rig.

“I mentioned it to Geoffrey Whittaker this morning. They’re using a double rig with a second set of cables attached. Did you hear about Senechal’s wife suing the company for negligence?”

“Can’t say I blame her. Gladys said she’d get in touch if she had any news on Petrovic. The girl Phyllis is adamant that she’s been abducted. I’d like to know how her kidnapper got in and out of the house.”

“The same way he got in and out of here,” Bryant muttered.

“Maybe he’s a magician.”

Onstage, there was a fiery explosion as Jupiter vanished through the floor and reappeared as a rather overweight insect. He rose from the ground and gracefully swung out across the front row of the audience, his wires glimpsed in the beam of the spotlights.

Bryant held his breath, half expecting something terrible to happen, but the god made it safely back, flapping across to down right in order to duet with his lover. Bryant watched John Styx exiting the stage left centre with a silver hoop of prison keys in his hand. “Tell me, who’s got the keys to the top-floor offices?” May thought for a moment. “You’ll probably find them in the box in the company manager’s office. Why?”

“Something I’ve been meaning to do,” Bryant whispered, bypassing May’s question. “I’ll use the pass door to the lift, I’m not facing all those stairs with my ticker.”

“Can’t you get Biddle to run up for you?”

“No, I have to find it myself. Hang on here and enjoy the show. It’s nearly the end of the scene.” Bryant felt his way out of the booth as a swarm of human flies invaded the stage and buzzed into a sprightly chorus.

The curtain fell at the close of the tableau, and reopened as the applause died down. Now they were at Pluto’s orgy on the banks of the Styx, and once again the stage had filled with cavorting golden-breasted women. There were worse things, May decided, than guarding a theatre on a cold winter’s night.

♦

Bryant tried the lights, but nothing worked on the top floor. The oppressive darkness increased his heart rate. He pushed open the door to the archive and shone his torch inside. Beneath the photographs and programmes he found Cruickshank’s desk. Beside it were piled damp-swollen books of building plans, blueprints filled with intricate arabesques of the understage structures, technical designs for a mechanized age too complex and cluttered for practical use. Bryant wedged the torch between his knees and flipped through the volumes, setting them aside one after the other. Finally he came to the volume he had been hoping to find, the one containing details of the building’s exterior.

There, at the pinnacle of the roof, was the statue and a set of accompanying notes. Her designation, the name that had eluded everyone, was Euterpe, and suddenly everything began to fall into place.

He had been fooled – who wouldn’t have been? – by the flaming torch she held aloft, because it wasn’t supposed to be there at all.

According to the typescript pinned beside the picture, the statue was a copy. The original figure had been removed by the impresario Émile Littler, who had wanted it for his garden, but it had been smashed to pieces on its journey. A replacement statue had been commissioned, but a mistake was made. Euterpe was holding a flaming torch instead of her traditional double flute. Bryant shook his head in wonder.

Euterpe, the Muse of lyric poetry. He found himself a sheet of paper and began hastily scribbling notes in the torchlight.