The Kingdom of Bones

TEN

The Prince of Wales Theatre ran a variety bill, and The Purple Diamond had been brought in to provide the second half of it. The first part of the program included Felix’s troupe of Siberian Wolf Hounds, Nelly Farrell, the Glittering Star of Erin, Medley the Mimic, and “musical wonders” The Avolo Boys. They were short of a second-spot comedian, so Gulliford had seized the chance to resurrect his old act and the baggy suit he performed it in. To his dismay, the suit was no longer quite so baggy as it once had been. But he went over well at the first matinee, so the management engaged him to double up his jobs for the rest of the run.

Friday night brought the best house of the week. Doors opened at six and the entertainment began at six-thirty. There was little for Sayers to do once the play was settled into a new venue, but he would always stand ready to give a correcting hand to any problem that might arise. Sometimes, when everything was running smoothly backstage, he would go around to the rear of the auditorium and watch the show for a while.

As Bram Stoker had so astutely remembered, Sayers had been a performer once. When injury had cut short his sporting career, he had taken to the stage in a sketch dramatizing the events surrounding his most famous bout. Although he was hardly a born actor, he was at least up to the challenge of representing his own history. He’d been a popular fighter, and now found enough success on the Halls to square his debts and discover a new living.

Having managed his own troupe, he now managed others. While he sometimes felt a pang of envy for those to whom the limelight seemed a natural home, he knew that his dramatic talent had already been exploited to its limit.

Sayers stood at the back of the house and watched as Nelly Farrell sang of how one black sheep shall never spoil the flock. She was a strong-featured, short-haired, can-belto performer of Irish comic songs, and Louise Porter’s opposite in almost every way.

He listened to a couple of her verses, and then turned and wandered through into the bar where a smaller crowd, drinks in hand, watched the stage through the auditorium pillars.

Sayers felt restless this evening. He often did, when everything was in order and there was little left to occupy him. Without the usual mass of practical detail to engage his thoughts, they tended to turn inward and there, they found uncomfortable issues to fasten upon.

Like, this present occupation of his—how long would it last? Old boxers seemed to fall into two classes: those who’d succeeded and sank their prize money into some enterprise like a small hotel or a beerhouse, and those eternal contenders who stayed too long in the ring, looking forward to success that never came.

As far as Sayers could see, he’d fit into neither category. Nor into any other that he could imagine.

“Tom?” he heard, and turned his head. A woman had called his name from behind the bar counter and was looking at him. Her face was instantly familiar, but for a moment he struggled to place it exactly.

“Lily?” he said, moving over to the counter. “Lily Collins?”

“Lily Haynes, now,” she said, and held up a hand to show him a well-worn wedding band that looked as if it had passed through a generation or two, if not a pawnshop or three. “How are you, Tom?”

“Lucky old Albert,” Tom said. “I’m doing fine.”

Lily Collins. It had been five or six years since he’d last seen her. They both leaned on the bar so that they could converse without too much disturbance of those facing the stage. And then whenever the bar crowd joined in a chorus, they had to pause because it became too difficult to be heard.

Lily had toured with Sayers’ first company, playing in A Fight to the Finish as Hester Chambers, the jilted country-girl sweetheart of Tom’s opponent. She’d entered the theater as a dancer, and back then she’d been slight and slim and could pass for a girl of seventeen despite her dozen or more years in the profession. Albert Haynes was a tumbler in a three-man act, and whenever their engagements coincided, it was obvious to everyone that they were a destined pair. She’d grown more matronly since then. But her eyes still held their sparkle.

“So you’re off the road now?” Tom said.

“Albert got the flu,” she said. “It left him deaf in one ear. He could never balance proper after that. He’s all right in himself. But he used to stand on one hand, and now I have to watch him on the stairs.”

After a pause for a roaring chorus, she told him of how they’d married and put their savings into a pub on Langworthy Road. Albert ran it, and Lily brought in some extra money by working here three nights a week.

“Come and see us,” she said. “Any time. Don’t worry if we’re busy. We’ll always make time for you, Tom.”

“I will.”

“Don’t just say it.”

“I truly will.”

She was looking at him strangely. Not so much at him, as into him. Sayers had always found Lily Collins to be one of those women of intuitive honesty, with an uncanny sense of it in others. They make valued friends. But a woman who can always spot when a man’s deceiving himself makes for a discomforting companion.

“How are you really, Tom?” she said. “Are you happy? Tell me you are.”

He laid aside all pretense.

“I believe,” he said, “that in time I will be.”

“Well,” Lily said, raising her voice to compete with the final chorus from the Glittering Star of Erin, “That’s probably all any of us can ask for. Knowing what will make you happy and feeling you’re on the way to it. Everything else is memories.”

The end of Nelly Farrell’s act brought a surge of customers to the bar, and with quick good-byes and equally quick promises Lily had to abandon Sayers and return to her work.

When Medley the Mimic came bouncing on and started with his imitations, Sayers slipped out to the foyer and made his way backstage. By the time he got there, Medley was off again and the Avolo Boys were out trying to repair the damage.

“Bloody Salford ’eathens,” cursed Medley as he pushed his way past Sayers, raw egg dripping from his jacket. “If it don’t sing or fall on its arse, they don’t want to know.”

Sayers checked to see that the Purple Diamond stage crew would be ready for an early call, and then made his way back to the green room to give the same warning to the cast.

Most were ready anyway. As he might have guessed, the only one not present was James Caspar.

The dressing rooms were at the side of the building, with high windows overlooking the alley that divided the theater from the public house next door. Sayers climbed the stairs, almost hoping not to find Caspar there. If he wasn’t, then Whitlock would either have to cancel the performance or send on a substitute, book in hand. It would be a disaster for the company and the most serious professional lapse imaginable; yet there was something in Sayers that weighed one night’s pain against Caspar’s permanent departure.

His father had taken on the work of reclaiming him for God, but died with it barely begun. I swore to him that I would continue the work until its end. I pledged my own soul to the task.

Sayers did not believe one word of it. There had to be some more credible explanation for the hold that Caspar had on the boss. Whatever it was, Sayers would welcome any reason that might cause the “task” to be abandoned.

Reaching the top of the dressing-room stairs, he hesitated. The door to Caspar’s room was open, and the man was not alone. Sayers could see him reflected in the dressing-room mirror. It was a cheap, old glass and Caspar’s image was like that in a dirty window. He was in costume, but his stiff collar was sprung open. Sayers heard him snap his fingers and say, in an imperious manner, “Stud.”

“Yes, sir.” It was the voice of Arthur, the callboy. Sayers’ view was momentarily blocked as Arthur moved across with a stud to fasten the collar.

He heard Caspar say, “Where’s my press book?”

“Still working on it, sir,” Arthur said. The business with the collar seemed to be a struggle.

After a few moments Caspar said, “You’re a slow little weasel, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Slow of hand, slow of wits. I think I’ll ask Edmund to dismiss you. Would you like that?”

“No, sir.”

“‘No, sir,’” Caspar mimicked. “Get out.”

“Yes, sir.”

Arthur came out of the dressing room like a boy with a reprieve from the dentist’s chair, and almost ran into Sayers at the top of the stairs. Sayers must have seemed to appear out of nowhere because Arthur leaped back, startled like a buck at a gunshot.

“Beginners, please, Arthur,” Sayers said.

“Yes, Mister Sayers,” the boy said, and looked faintly stricken at the thought of having to turn around and go back into the presence he’d just escaped.

“Be on with you,” Sayers said. “I’ll give Mister Caspar the call.”

“There’s no need,” said James Caspar from the dressing-room doorway. Arthur shot off down the stairs. Caspar primped his wing collar, tugged down his white waistcoat, and shot his cuffs. He looked as sharp as a barber’s razor.

“It seems that your services are hardly required at all, Mister Sayers,” he said, and moved forward. Sayers had to step aside to let him by.

A dozen rejoinders occurred to him as he followed Caspar down toward the stage, but the moment to use any of them had already passed.

The Prince of Wales had its own pit orchestra, so the company’s musical director foreswore the piano and picked up the baton for their overture and effects. The Purple Diamond overture was a bespoke piece for the play and had not a lick of original music in it, being a mishmash of classic themes and familiar tunes. And a very successful mishmash it was; not a note in it that wasn’t tried and tested and free of all copyright fees. It tweaked the mood of every audience. If you like this kind of thing, it seemed to say, then here comes the kind of thing you’ll like.

For each member of the acting company, it was an unconscious metronome guiding them to their places and preparing their minds for the performance. Hearing it backstage, they drifted to their entrances like theater ghosts. The curtain would rise on the Low Comedian as the butler, who had a belowstairs monologue to set up the story. Then on came Louise, and the lovers’ plot would be got under way. Whitlock would enter then, as the detective in disguise. He usually got a vocal greeting from the audience, but on this run Sayers had sensed the boss’s irritation that his reception was matched by the one given to the Low Comedian at the play’s beginning, the reason being that they recognized him from his first-half turn as baggy-trousered comedian Billy Danson. But the boss could see that it was to the benefit of the play’s overall effect, so he’d made no changes.

As Louise stood in the wings and waited for her cue, James Caspar seemed to float out of the darkness to appear behind her. She did not see his approach; rather, she suddenly sensed his presence. It startled her. Caspar’s first cue was a good ten minutes away, and he was to enter from the opposite side of the stage.

He leaned close, so that he might speak and not be heard from beyond the wings.

“I’m sorry if I surprised you,” he said. His breath brushed her ear. Louise felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise.

“Mister Caspar,” she whispered back. “There is nothing to apologize for.”

“I wanted to ask you something.”

“Oh?”

“Your song tonight. Would you sing it for me?”

She did not know how to respond. He seemed to sense her confusion, and did not press for a reply.

By the time that she had gathered herself, Caspar had turned away and faded back into the shadows.

In the bar at the back of the auditorium, Police Superintendent Clive Turner-Smith stood among a group of strangers and watched the curtain rise on The Purple Diamond. He’d arrived at the theater too late to see the Low Comedian’s first-half spot, so he was mystified by the cheers that greeted the sight of a butler in an apron, busy polishing the silverware in a country-house kitchen. Having little interest in the play itself, he scanned the audience. Common folk all, out for nothing more than a good evening’s entertainment. One or two types he’d be inclined to keep an eye on, had this been his own patch.

As the butler launched off into one of those Oh mercy me, talking-to-myself but really talking to the audience monologues, Turner-Smith became aware of a touch at his sleeve. He looked and saw that a shaven-headed, skull-faced man had appeared by his side and was holding out the same note that he’d sent backstage some ten minutes earlier. It had been opened, and a return message had been scribbled on it.

Turner-Smith took it, read the scribble, and then folded the note and tucked it into an inside pocket.

He said, “I’ll be waiting in the saloon bar next door. Tell no one else about this. Do you understand?”

The man remained silent, but inclined his head in assent.

Turner-Smith left the auditorium and crossed the foyer, emerging onto the street by the theater box office. He’d arrived in Manchester little more than an hour earlier. He’d told no one of his arrival, but immediately took a cab across the river and into Salford. He’d made the same journey twenty years before when, as a provost marshal, he’d been in pursuit of a deserter who’d killed a sergeant in barracks and run for home. He could remember a four-roomed terraced house full of children and having to face down the deserter’s mother, a woman more formidable than many a man in his regiment. She’d denied seeing her son when, in truth, he was hiding in the privy in a neighbor’s backyard. The boy had fled as Turner-Smith’s men began to search, and drowned himself later that afternoon. The river Irwell divided the borough from the city; a drowning would bring out the two sets of police with boat hooks, one squad of men on each bank, ready to shove the body toward the opposite shore for their neighbor force to deal with.

Liverpool Street was a wide thoroughfare, with broad stone pavements and tram rails set into the cobbles. Ahead of him, a girl of around eleven was pushing along an old pram loaded with firewood. More children could be seen outside the commercial hotel next door. They sat on the steps, they sat on the kerbstones with their feet in the road. Younger ones played in the care of their older siblings, all waiting for parents who were spending the evening in the public bar.

Turner-Smith bypassed the public bar for the more respectable saloon, where the drink came from another side of the same counter, but the extra penny bought a better class of room with upholstered seating, mahogany paneling, and waiter service. He settled alone in a three-sided booth, ordered a glass of Madeira wine, and paid for it when it came.

He said to the waiter, “I shall be joined by a gentleman, name of Sayers. He’ll be coming over from the playhouse. Make sure he can find me when he gets here, will you?”

The waiter dipped his head and went away. Turner-Smith laid his stick across the seats beside him, stretched out his bad leg, and settled back to wait. Behind him in the next booth was a party of commercial travelers; he eavesdropped on their conversation for a while, but soon felt his attention start to wander.

Children of the poor. They were everywhere. He’d been met by a crowd of them begging outside the railway station, and seen them scatter at the approach of a special constable. It was as if the growth of cities was like a gaseous reaction; for a certain volume of prosperity, an even greater volume of poverty was produced. The result was great public works and proud civic buildings and range upon range of desperate hovels, all standing as one under the same dirty sky.

After a while, he took out his watch and checked it. Sayers had undertaken to meet him during the play’s second act. He’d addressed his note to the owner of the Purple Diamond company, but it was this Sayers who’d responded. More than half an hour had passed since then.

Someone was standing over him. He looked up as the waiter spoke. “The gentleman is here now, sir,” the waiter said, and moved aside for his visitor.

“I’m Tom Sayers,” the man said, and took a seat on the opposite side of the booth. The waiter hovered for a moment, but the newcomer shook his head.

When the waiter had moved away, the man faced Turner-Smith and said, “What can I do for you, Superintendent?”

“I’d been hoping to speak to Mister Whitlock himself.”

“I’m Edmund Whitlock’s acting manager. I handle all the company’s practical affairs. If I can’t help you with it, then it probably can’t be done.”

Turner-Smith considered the man before him for a moment, and then decided that he could speak as one gentleman to another. They were more likely to have interests in common than in conflict.

“Take a look at this, please, Sayers,” he said, and placed before him one of the pasted-up sheets that suggested a link between paupers mutilated without apparent motive and the stage company’s progress around the country.

The other man read for a while, and then glanced up.

“Some of our less notable receptions.”

“The dates, Mister Sayers. Look at the dates.”

He read on for a while. Then he sat back in the attitude of a man conceding an argument that had already been won. “This is very revealing,” he said.

And Turner-Smith, who for the past minute had been given the opportunity for a closer study of his visitor, said, “Are you by any chance wearing greasepaint, Mister Sayers?”

The man threw the paper onto the table between them.

“Ah,” he said. “There you have me.”

Under the table, Turner-Smith reached out for his sword stick. He took care not to signal his intention. “Yet you are not listed on the playbills among the actors,” he said.

“Very true.” The man smiled. “I can see that you are too good a detective for me, Superintendent.”

A few moments later, the man rose from the booth and walked out of the saloon. The four commercial travelers in the next booth were laughing so hard at a story that none of them noticed his departure. One took a draft from his mug and leaned back in his seat, only to splutter it out all over the table.

His fellows were slow to catch on. Their humor ebbed, where his had vanished in a flash.

“What the devil?” he said. “Something pronged me!” And he turned in his seat to find out what it was.

All clustered for a closer look at his discovery. An inch of pointed blade protruded from the horsehair back of the bench on which he’d been sitting. “Lor’, Jack,” said the one with the walrus mustache. “They’ve sat you in one of them iron maiden thingies.”

“Iron maiden be buggered,” said the wounded one, and stood up to look over into the next booth.

There sat the white-haired, stern-looking man who’d come limping in on a stick about three-quarters of an hour before. His back was to them, his head bowed.

The stick was in two pieces now. The hollow shaft lay across the table by his emptied glass. The other, the blade and handle part, had been thrust through his chest and had him pinned in place like a bug.

James Caspar was across the alleyway and in through the stage door in no more than a dozen strides. The Silent Man pulled the door shut behind him and then followed along a snaking route through the backstage areas toward the wings. As he walked, Caspar shed his jacket, his cravat, and his collar. He let them fall and the Silent Man collected all of them in his wake. Out came the cuff links, his sleeves shaken loose. Up five steps and through a door, and ahead of them the fly ropes and the lights of the stage. He put his hand in his hair and tousled it, as befitted a man who’d been unjustly condemned at the end of the first act and was now being returned to life and honor, thanks to the remarkable insight and unstinting efforts of a sixty-year-old detective with rouged cheeks and a corset.

Out on stage, Whitlock had already spoken Caspar’s cue. It came at the end of an entire page of speech, delivered to a grieving Louise and building to a rip-roaring climax that usually brought the house to its feet as the lover she’d thought hanged was restored to her with a flourish.

Seeing no sign of Caspar, the Low Comedian had drawn breath for an ad lib to cover a stage wait. Before he could deliver it, Caspar sprang into view, not so much entering from the wings as being ejected from them. He flung down the hooded cloak of the mysterious beggar who had been seen outside the window in the middle of the second act—all part of the detective’s brilliant plan to fool the true culprit into revealing himself—and threw out his arms to receive Louise. She ran to him and hit him like a train, and as the audience cheered their embrace, Whitlock quietly moved upstage of the pair ready for his next revelation.

At the back of the auditorium, Sayers had returned to the spot where he’d been standing earlier. As those around him whooped and whistled, Sayers nursed a heart like a heavy stone. The reason for this was a short conversation that he’d had with Louise in the brief interval between the play’s two acts.

It had gone like this:

Tom!

What is it?

I need to ask you something.

Anything.

Do you think James—Mister Caspar—likes me at all?

A silence.

Tom?

But everybody likes you, Louise.

Later, when the evening’s entertainment was over and the players were all leaving the theater, they were confronted by a considerable police presence around the public house next door. Two wagons were drawn up on the street and a large number of uniformed men had surrounded the building and were turning onlookers away. Lanterns had been set for extra light, and sheets and a stretcher were being taken inside. A man from the Salford Chronicle was talking to people on the pavement, trying to separate fact from fiction and getting some of the most enthusiastic accounts from those who had been nowhere near the events. It was a fight over a woman; it was the work of a gang over from Regent Road; two people were dead; three people were dead; everyone in the pub had been massacred. A drunk had run amuck with a knife. Sailors had fought with locals. It was the so-called Buffalo Bill’s Gang, local scuttlers stirred to a violent frenzy by their unreasoning passion for the penny-dreadful magazines.

Sayers made it his business to get the women away as quickly as possible.

Caspar was nowhere to be seen.