Murder at the Mikado (13 page)

Benton looked at her, then at the chief inspector. No doubt Birdsong had asked all of these same questions at least once already, but he seemed content to hear Benton answer them again.

The actor blinked. “I was going over my lines.”

“Why?” Drew asked. “You had to have done
The Pirates of
Penzance
at least a hundred times before. More, I daresay. And you want us to believe you didn’t know your lines?”

“I haven’t ever played the Pirate King before.” Benton shrugged. “Well, when I was at school I did once, but that was a long while back. At the Tivoli, Ravenswood was always the Pirate King. I was always Frederic. I did all the juvenile leads. Now we have Hazeldine taking on my parts and me taking on Ravenswood’s. The lyrics aren’t bad to remember; the music helps them stay in one’s head. But the lines not so much. It’s not that I haven’t heard them time and again, just that I only ever really paid attention to the bits that were cues for me. And I kept wanting to do Frederic rather than the Pirate King. I had a couple of near misses during
the dress rehearsal last night, and I thought I had better run through the whole thing again on my own. Hazeldine was helping me.”

“We’ve already questioned Mr. Hazeldine,” Birdsong put in.

Drew nodded and turned again to Benton. “And did you go through everything?”

“No. We were only about a third of the way into it. Where the pirates first come across Mabel and her sisters.”

“Why did you stop there?”

“I thought I heard someone in the corridor. The wardrobe room is down the hall from my dressing room. From all the dressing rooms. I thought perhaps Tess was coming in, so I opened my door to tell her good morning.”

“That was when you saw—”

“I didn’t see anything actually, so I went to the wardrobe room to see if she had already gone in, but I didn’t see anyone in there.”

“What made you open the closet?” Drew asked quietly.

“There was something caught in the door. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew Tess wouldn’t be happy about it. She was very careful of the costumes. So I opened the door and that’s . . .” Benton’s face contorted again, and tears welled in his eyes. “I found her there at the bottom of the closet.”

“You didn’t see a sign of anyone else being there?” Madeline asked.

Benton shook his head.

“And was she still there when you left last night?” Drew glanced at the chief inspector. “Are you certain?”

“Yes, I told her good-night. She said she was going to be a bit longer. I don’t know what she was working on exactly. Sometimes one of the costumes had to be mended, either
from something that happened onstage or just from rough handling while being put on and taken off in a hurry. She generally tried to get it done and the wardrobe room tidied up before she’d leave for the night. I know because sometimes I would stay with her and talk until she was ready to go. That way I could make sure she got home all right. I didn’t like to think of her on the street that late.” He paused and wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I didn’t want anything to happen to her.”

“But you didn’t stay last night?” Madeline asked.

“No.” He sniffled and caught a hard breath and then calmed somewhat. “No, I wanted to get to sleep since we were supposed to open today. Of all the nights to leave her there on her own . . .”

“Was anyone else there last night?” Drew asked. “After you left?”

Benton shrugged. “Just Alf. He would have been there.”

“Alfred Penrose, the night watchman,” Birdsong supplied. “We’ve spoken to him. He saw Mr. Benton leave. He was the last of the company to leave, excepting Miss Davidson of course. And Penrose spoke to her right after Benton left.”

Drew nodded. “And he didn’t see anyone come in?”

“No,” Benton said. “Alf’s been with the Tivoli a long time, same as Grady. He mostly finds himself a chair in a warm corner and sleeps. Everyone knew it.” His expression turned bitter. “Even Fleur.”

“Why do you think Mrs. Landis would want to kill Tess?” Drew said, watching his eyes.

“Because of Johnnie. Obviously.”

Drew raised an eyebrow. “Obviously?”

“Tess must have seen Fleur when she killed him. That, or
she had some evidence that would have proven Fleur killed him. Probably threatened to go to the police. Knowing little Tess, she’d have told Fleur to turn herself in and hope for mercy from the court. I expect Fleur found it more convenient just to kill her, too.”

“And you know of no one else who might have had reason to?”

“No.” Benton crossed his arms over his chest, looking as if he wanted to curl into himself. “Who would want to kill her except the person who killed Johnnie? Two murders here, one following after the other, and you expect me to believe they aren’t tied together?”

Drew smiled just the slightest bit. “No, that would be quite a coincidence. Not at all likely. Still, are you certain? She didn’t have someone she was seeing? Someone who might have been jealous?”

Benton shook his head slowly. “She wasn’t the type. Mostly went straight home when she was done at the theater.”

“Perhaps so,” Drew mused. “But there was Ravenswood.”

With a curse, Benton leaped to his feet and shoved Drew against the wall, chair and all, making a framed photograph hanging there go crashing to the floor.

“Here now!” Birdsong grabbed Benton’s shoulder and pushed him back down.

Benton huddled in his seat, his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees. “He has no right to say those things about Tess. She was a good girl. So Ravenswood led her astray. She wasn’t the first to fall for his charm, but you make it sound as though she would go with anyone. It’s not right, I tell you, and I won’t have it!”

“Yes, yes,” Birdsong told him. “All right.”

“I do beg your pardon, Benton.” Drew bowed his head. “I meant nothing against Miss Davidson. Just trying to keep my facts straight.”

“Mind you do then, that’s all.”

“Is there anything else you’d like to say about the case?” the chief inspector asked.

Benton drew a deep breath and then let it out, shoulders sagging. “I don’t suppose there’s any more to say. You have the killer locked up now, even if it is too late for poor Tess.” His lips quivered, and tears again filled his eyes. “Poor Tess.”

“Come along, Mr. Benton.” Birdsong took him by the arm and helped him to his feet. “You go on home now, and someone will telephone you if there is anything else we need to know.”

Benton dragged the back of his hand across his eyes and then under his nose. “You get it right this time, Inspector, do you understand? Fleur is behind this, I know she is, and I’ll swear to it before the court, before God if you like.”

“No doubt, no doubt.” The chief inspector put his hand on the actor’s shoulder. “We’ll see to things from here.”

“If you lot had seen to things, Tessie wouldn’t be dead just now, would she?” Benton wrenched out of Birdsong’s grasp and stormed out of the office.

“That went well,” Drew said brightly.

Birdsong merely nodded, looking rather disgusted. “Well, he tells the story the same every time at any rate.”

“The same words and all?” Drew asked. “As if he were speaking lines?”

“No, no. I can spot those a mile off. But he tells the details the same. Most of the time that means he saw what he says he saw.”

“Then he saw Fleur,” Madeline said. “Or thinks he did.”

Drew took her hand and looked into the clear depths of her eyes. “You believe him?”

“I believe he’s telling the truth,” she said. “Whether or not he’s mistaken, I don’t know, but I don’t think he’s lying.”

“I suppose the girl’s family have been contacted by now, eh?” Drew asked. “I don’t know who she had for family, except that her father was a parson of some kind.”

“In Dover, according to our records,” the chief inspector said. “We’ve sent someone to speak to him. Of course, he’ll want to see to the arrangements.”

Drew sighed. “Poor girl. Well, as the Mikado says, ‘It’s an unjust world, and virtue is triumphant only in theatrical performances.’ ”

He hadn’t always agreed with the Mikado on this point, but as he and Madeline drove back to Farthering Place, he wondered if the Mikado hadn’t been right all along.

Sunday was quiet, and Drew and Madeline stayed home except for the morning service at Holy Trinity. Funnily enough, the text had been that same one from Proverbs he and Nick had talked about just a few days before: “Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned?” Odd that old Bartlett would choose that verse just now. Drew had foolishly scooped fire into his lap when he met Fleur, but those embers had gone cold six years ago and the burnt clothes were thrown into the dustbin. He had the scars, of course, and even now it seemed there were consequences of his foolishness still to be borne. But he was thankful for the divine mercy that covered those scars and that foolishness and assured him he
was forgiven. He wished he could be as sure of Madeline’s forgiveness as he was of God’s. There was something strained between them. There had been since Fleur had showed up.

The next day, while Madeline and Aunt Ruth were upstairs with the dressmaker, Drew made his way, as usual, from the back of the newspaper to the front. He couldn’t help a sardonic grin when he saw that the Tivoli’s production of
H.M.S. Pinafore
in repertory with
The Pirates of Penzance
was scheduled to open tomorrow. Apparently the show must indeed go on.

When he turned to the front page, he stopped short.
ARREST MADE
IN RAVENSWOOD MURDER
, the headline blared. There was the usual photograph of Ravenswood, the one in profile from the marquee at the theater. There was also a photograph of Fleur. It must have been from her days onstage. She was younger then and looking fatally glamorous.

Drew glanced down the page and stopped at a third photograph, this one obviously more recent than the other two. It showed Brent Landis coming out of a church, a fair-haired little boy clutched in his arms, hiding his face against Landis’s neck while a group of men with cameras and notepads surrounded them. Landis himself looked flustered and rather desperate to get away. Drew didn’t blame him.

“This reporter finds
it cause for concern that Mr. Landis, presumably with nothing
to hide, declined to comment.”

Jaw clenched, Drew tossed the paper onto the breakfast table. What absolute and utter swine reporters could be. He stopped to have a quick word with Denny and then went out to the Rolls. A few minutes later, he was at Farlinford Processing, being waved through by Landis’s secretary, who was in the middle of a telephone conversation.

He knocked briskly on the frame of Landis’s open office door. “Might I have a word?”

Landis was immediately on his feet. “Certainly, certainly. Come in, Mr. Farthering.”

Drew shut the door behind him and sat in the chair Landis offered. “I understand you’ve had some unpleasantness with the press.”

“I’m afraid so.” Landis sank back down into his own chair. “I suppose some of them must be decent enough chaps, but there were three or four yesterday afternoon who were rather unpleasant. I ask you, on a Sunday hardly outside the church?”

Drew frowned. Rather unpleasant indeed. “I’m sorry.”

“And I had my boy with me. They scared him enough to make him cry, poor little fellow.”

“Oh, I say, that
is
too bad. I, ah, I don’t suppose you have someplace you and the boy could go? Just to keep out of the public eye, as it were. Until things have calmed a bit.”

Landis shrugged. “Not really. I haven’t any family even remotely close, save the uncle I told you about. Neither has my wife. But we’ll do well enough. I have my work to do, of course, and I don’t want to be too far from where they’re keeping Fleur until all of this is put right.”

“And Peter?”

“He’s got his nurse to look after him. She’s a good girl, devoted to him, you know.”

“It would be a shame, though, to have the little fellow kept indoors all the time because of these reporters.”

Drew had already thought this all out. Landis shouldn’t have to go through this on top of what was happening with his wife. And there was the child to be thought of.

“You know, Landis, you and the boy might come and stay with us at Farthering Place until all this is settled.”

Landis blinked. “Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly consider—”

“Why not?” Drew asked, a smile spreading across his face. “You’d still be close enough to the office and to Mrs. Landis. No one would bother you there. They needn’t even know where you are.”

“We’d be a terrible nuisance,” Landis said, shaking his head. “It’s grand of you to offer, I’m sure, but—”

“But what? We’ve just acres of spare rooms. Lots of places for the boy to play. Does he like animals?”

“Keen on them,” Landis admitted. “But Fleur doesn’t care to have them about the house.”

“Well, we have dogs and horses and several cats. Sheep and cattle, as well. They could all do with some attention, I daresay.”

“But we have no way of knowing how long it might be.” Landis shook his head again. “Clifton says sometimes it takes weeks to sort these things out. Months even.”