Murder At The Music Hall: (Auguste Didier Mystery 8) (33 page)

‘Why is he singing of skate?’ he whispered to Egbert, as the Great Brodie took his bow and sauntered from the stage.

‘Skate? You’ve got food on the brain. It’s called “Hooray, Hooray, Hooray”.’

Auguste looked puzzled, then laughed at himself. The trouble with being brought up with two languages was that they mixed all too easily. He had fastened on the syllable ‘ray’, but heard
‘raie’.
He had purchased some delightful skate at Shadwell. Its flavour—

‘Here she comes,’ Egbert said gloomily, easing his bow tie with his finger. It was warm in here.

At first Auguste hardly recognised Emmeline. If not dressed in a red corset, at least she was allowed to be her age, instead of a precocious eight-year-old. Emmeline had been transformed into a cheeky thirteen-
year-old, dressed in school uniform. Her former fairies, looking rather frightened in their new role, were similarly clad, their eyes glued to their leader as she barged around the stage, full of bewilderment and patter on the ludicrous doings of ‘grown-ups’. Particularly Ma and Pa. These self-same respectable bodies in real life were in fact sitting further along in the front row of the dress circle, as out of place here as they were in the Old King Cole. Auguste could not find it in himself to be sorry for them as Emmeline launched into a catchy song, howled with an effective tunelessness, on the peccadilloes of Ma and Pa in kissing milkman and parlourmaid respectively, with a chorus catchphrase of ‘Emmeline, that isn’t very nice!’ This was the former fairies’ sole opportunity to shine, as drilled into unison they bawled the last line with her.

Nettie’s vitality which poured out over the footlights during her turn was just as it had been at the Old King Cole, but her style had been tailored for her audience. They approved it, and it made it all the harder for Auguste and Egbert to fight their way in past the guard at the stage door after the performance. None of the happy-go-lucky ways of the East End here. The guard was obviously a former soldier who took his duties very seriously. He looked dubiously upon Chief Inspector Rose’s credentials and was ostentatiously surprised when a message came back via the messenger boy that Miss Turner was willing to see them.

Nettie was already in evening dress, awaiting them, and her face, devoid of greasepaint, was still showing that curious empty look that Auguste remembered from his days at the Galaxy Theatre; it lingered for a while
after greasepaint was removed, as if the mask torn off, the real person needed time to step back into its face. Nevertheless her eyes looked more lively than Auguste had seen them since Will’s death. ‘What did you think?’ she demanded.

‘You were magnificent.’

‘Not me,’ she interrupted impatiently. ‘Young Emmeline.’

‘A remarkable transformation. You have worked hard.’

‘It was worth it to see the look on her parents’ faces,’ Nettie said with glee. ‘You should have heard what they had to say to me after the first performance. “Oh, Miss Turner, we do admire your style,” she whined, “but we regret we cannot approve of your songs.” “What song had you in mind?” says I. “That lewd one about the animal.” “My Donkey Song?” says I indignantly. “Nothing wrong with that. Listen. ‘Whoa, Nelly, don’t you go too far’.” ’

She sang it for them now with tears in her eyes for the dear old donkey’s health; the body that had wriggled so suggestively, now trembled with emotion. ‘That got them,’ she said complacently. ‘Loud, maybe. Never lewd. Now what was it you want to see me about? Caught Will’s murderer, have you?’

‘We’re smelling the fox,’ Rose told her.

‘Anyone I know?’ she asked steadily.

‘Probably, yes.’

‘Pickles,’ she burst out. ‘That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’

‘No. Max Hill.’

‘Max?’ she repeated, startled. ‘What’s the old geezer
been up to? You’re not telling me
he
murdered Will, are you?’

‘It’s possible. He’s disappeared. We thought he might have come to you for help,’ Auguste explained.

‘Me? Why?’

‘You’re part of his old circle of friends. You were all at the Old King Cole together. You were Will’s friend and his. If he were going to contact anyone, it would be you. You or Brodie, and I wouldn’t count much on Brodie having a sympathetic ear for old friends. He couldn’t go to Mariella Gomez.’

‘I’ve not set eyes on him, and I don’t think Horace has. He’d have told me – if only to protect himself.’

‘You don’t like him?’

Nettie shrugged. ‘He’s all right. Good fun, provided you agree to put Mr Brodie first. Can’t blame him for that, but I’m getting too old to be made a stepping stone of.’ She paused. ‘Why did Max disappear?’

‘Because of Miguel Gomez’s death.’

‘I don’t see him doing it.’

‘Tell us about Max Hill’s background, if you would, Miss Turner.’

‘There’s not a lot I know. Only as much as one knows of those you worked with on and off over a long period. He was a middle-aged man when Will and I started at the Old King Cole, and as high in the tree as he was going to go, so he had time to help us both. I don’t think we knew anything of what he was like outside the halls. He was just there, part of the scene. With some people you get to know a lot about their private lives, and with others, like Max, you don’t.’

‘A mystery man?’

‘Far from it, I’d say. We just never asked. How much do you know about that inspector of yours, Stitch, isn’t it? You work with him, you don’t go to the zoo with him.’ Egbert grinned. ‘Max is a kind man, that’s what I’d say. Always willing to do you a good turn – without overlooking a chance of doing one for himself. That help?’

‘Even if it were against the law?’

She nodded. ‘Probably. Especially if there were a laugh in it.’ She paused. ‘The halls are hard taskmasters, Inspector. We need our laughs. Look at this face of mine. What has it got?’

Auguste looked at her, first the bright lively eyes, then her round, almost homely face. ‘Character,’ he said firmly.

‘A nice way of saying I’ve got a lot of deep lines. No Ellaline Terriss, am I, all soft pink and white baby face? This is what the halls do to you. It’s all right when you’re young, but you don’t age well. Mine’s a hard face, and so are all of those you see in music hall. First comes the illusion on the stage and offstage, when the greasepaint’s off the painted gargoyle, you see the truth. We wouldn’t have it any other way, though. Underneath Max’s devil-may-care character is a tough man.’

‘Romanos.’ The Great Brodie looked round in satisfaction. ‘You know, gentlemen, I’ve waited twelve years for this, and by Jove, I’m going to enjoy it twelve times as much.’

Auguste began to warm towards him. In the light of what Nettie had said, he saw now how great a leap Brodie had made from the Old King Cole. Supper at Romanos, even if enjoyed in the company of a Scotland
Yard Chief Inspector and a half-French chef, represented an achievement. He was almost sorry he had not taken them to his old
maitre’s
beloved Carlton.

Brodie puffed his cigar after the meal in pure satisfaction. ‘And now, gentlemen, you may be permitted to tell me why my company is so desirable this evening.’

‘Max Hill. He’s disappeared. We thought you might have seen him.’

‘I have not. Max and I are old colleagues, but hardly bosom friends. Why do you think he disappeared? Guilt?’

‘Possibly.’

‘Of Gomez’s death. Will Lamb?’

‘Unlikely the second.’

‘Why?’

‘He has no motives, and he wasn’t at the theatre at the time the dagger must have been tampered with.’

‘Ah. I believe it is common knowledge now that Max was concerned with this unfortunate cross business and that Will Lamb was also. Does that not constitute grounds for a motive? And as for the second – Inspector, Nettie is an admirable person, but in her loyalty is so strong, her usual integrity may occasionally be compromised.’

‘Meaning?’

‘As you will, Inspector.’

‘He was appearing at the same halls as you, wasn’t he, the week of Lamb’s murder?’

‘The Old King Cole and the Lyle, yes.’

‘Was he with you?’

‘Did he accompany me, do you mean? No. However, last week he should have appeared, I recall, at the end of the first half of the Lyle, and in the second half at the
Amy Myers
Old King Cole. I appeared in the first half at both, and at a third hall late in the second.’

‘Should have?’ Rose picked up sharply.

‘Managers change order to please themselves from time to time, or to cover for non-appearing artistes. Max and I, for example, have a long-standing arrangement whereby he would from time to time cover for me, if I have a particularly tight schedule, or on occasion, I confess, an affair with a young lady.’

Auguste promptly unwarmed towards him, thinking of poor Dolly Dadd.

‘Did this happen the day Lamb died?’ Rose wasn’t feeling overwarm either.

‘Oddly enough it did. I didn’t mention it, since I could not see how it would affect the timing of the murder, but Max did ask me to change for the Wednesday performance. He asked me the evening before. Said he had to meet someone in a pub and didn’t think he could get there in time. Could he do my spot, and I his? I agreed.’

‘And you thought this didn’t affect the murder?’ Rose said grimly.

‘There is no way it could have done, Inspector. I understand the dagger was tampered with before the performance, or some time up to the point where the stage manager collected the dagger.’

‘Which was during your own turn that night, the second spot. I saw him!’ Auguste agreed.

‘Max would have had plenty of time to reach the Lyle to play my turn, or his own, if he’d come in to see Will before the performance. However, I think you will find he had other business afoot, and that was during and
after his usual appearance at the Lyle. You must look elsewhere for your murderer, I fear.’

‘But not your impersonator, Mr Brodie.’

‘My what?’

‘Max Hill may have impersonated you in a little crooked business on the Saturday, the twentieth.’

Brodie was suddenly guarded. ‘What crooked business?’

‘The Windsor cross.’

Brodie threw back his head and laughed. ‘In this case, I am only too glad to pin the blame on Max. He is an excellent impersonator.’

‘We’re missing something, Auguste,’ Egbert remarked gloomily, over a last drink, once they were alone.

‘What?’

‘If I knew that we wouldn’t be missing it. Too much of a coincidence, surely, that Max asked to switch the very night of Lamb’s death?’

‘Perhaps it was to do with the cross.’

‘You mean he’d found out that Gomez was double-crossing Special Branch, and that it was something to do with that?’

‘Yes.’

‘And if he found out Gomez had been intending to murder Frederick, then he, Max, he reckoned, could be next on the programme. So he killed him and decided to take an even closer interest in the cross. Like running away with it. A lot of ifs, but they all add up to the fact that Max Hill is no innocent man. I’m beginning to think you’ve provided the missing factor.’

‘But Mariella probably has the cross,’ Auguste quickly
pointed out, aware he didn’t want Max to be guilty.

‘Not her. The lady would be doing something about it if she had. My men have followed her on a good few trips to Bond Street, but nothing more.’

‘These ingredients do not yet make a recipe, Egbert,’ Auguste maintained defiantly. ‘I am
sure
there is still some flavouring we are overlooking.’

‘Only your imagination, Auguste. The ingredients in my larder taste all right to me.’

Auguste forbore to say that with Edith’s cooking, the results of Egbert’s larder were seldom of the happiest.

When he arrived home, he found Queen Anne’s Gate ablaze with lights. Tatiana blithely ignored cost. She enjoyed electric light so much it seemed every single one had to be on to be enjoyed to the full in case this new and marvellous source of energy disappeared again.

‘Some friends of mine dislike it,’ she had told him. ‘It is too harsh for their complexions. But I find it is most useful for studying the underneath and insides of motorcars.’

‘Here?’

‘In the booklet. I wish to study the details of the new Panhard.’

‘Then why are you sitting eating that horrible-looking eclair?’

‘Because John has made them today.’

Auguste eyed her with great suspicion. ‘They are edible?’

‘Certainly. Auguste, you must get over your distrust of our chef.’

‘Why?’ he asked belligerently.

‘He will leave.’

‘That will be a disaster?’

‘Yes. He will be the
eighth
to do so, and we have only been married just over a year.’

‘I could take his place.’

‘You could not.’

‘
Ma mie
, we are quarrelling.’ There was reproach in his voice.

‘Sometimes married people do,’ she replied darkly. ‘
When
it is justified.’

‘But you are being unreasonable . . .’ Auguste stopped. Tatiana with a whisk of skirts was departing. Unwillingly, she hesitated as she remembered what she had to tell him. ‘We are going out tomorrow.’