Agatha Christie Investigates Omnibus

by Alison Joseph

  He blushed pink. ‘Well… Thank you, madam. Thank you.’ He stumbled away. Agatha watched him take his seat next to his wife, similarly large, with chemically red hair and a mouth that seemed set into habitual disapproval.

  Isabella gave a shrug. ‘Pushing at the boundaries,’ she said. ‘A voice in the wilderness. And sometimes, just sometimes, I realize that it is all worthwhile.’ She rested her hand on Patrick’s arm.

  They made their way to their seats. Patrick sat in between them, handed Agatha the programme.

  Agatha flicked through the list of acts. She wondered at Patrick’s life. How long had he known this Isabella woman? Something about their mothers being old friends… Was it Isabella who’d introduced him to this dance company? And then, the way that thin blonde dancer had touched his shoulder, the way he’d not been able to take his eyes from her…

  Bereavement, she thought. No one to keep an eye on him. And now, knowing only about Bronze Age Persia, an innocent abroad, he’s stumbled into this world of temperament and beauty and people being voices in the wilderness…

  She listened to the orchestra tuning up. A dancer, she thought, found dead. My next crime novel. A dancer, tall and auburn-haired, found drowned. A silver shoe, with bows, floating in the shallows.

  There would be no shortage of suspects—

  The houselights dimmed. There was a hush of expectation.

  The curtains rose on a set of painted trees, in which hung bright points of coloured lights. Onto the set walked a dancer, which Agatha realized, after a moment, was Cosmina. Her hair was tightly pinned, and she was wearing a frilled green dress, and shoes which made a clacking noise against the bare stage boards.

  The orchestra began to play its opening notes of fiery, Latin American music. Cosmina took up a pose of elegant defiance, as if inhabiting an entirely new character. As she stood, a man leapt from the wings and landed at her side. She gave him her hand, but with a toss of her head that made it seem a challenge, and they began a dance, a flamenco-based, toe-tapping, combative duet.

  Agatha glanced at Patrick. He was staring at the stage, leaning slightly forward, his eyes fixed on Cosmina as she circled and stamped around her partner.

  Agatha felt a sense of unease. Perhaps it was the heat in the theatre, the packed seats, she thought. Or perhaps it was the awareness that Patrick was out of his depth, that an academic archaeologist, with an orderly life, a slightly shabby house in Highgate piled high with books, had somehow become besotted with a variety dancer from Eastern Europe, enabled by a rather unconvincing old friend from the United States.

  On the stage, the dance progressed, with leaps and turns, and now Alexei had lifted Cosmina up and was circling, holding her aloft. The energy crackled between them.

  At her side, Patrick seemed to be hardly breathing. Agatha wished she were back home in Chelsea with her notebooks and a nice pot of tea.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘She can’t bear him.’

  They were sitting in the bar, Patrick, Isabella and Agatha. The show had been wonderful, they all agreed. Cosmina’s flamenco, Sian and Stefan’s ballet, a pas-de-deux set to music by Tchaikovsky, a tenor singing arias, Luca Belotti the illusionist managing to make the audience laugh at his failed attempts to saw off his own leg and then gasp with wonder when he appeared to succeed…

  ‘Cosmina and her partner,’ Patrick went on, refusing even to name him. ‘They hate each other. Absolute murderous hatred,’ he said.

  Isabella laughed. ‘It’s often the way. That tinderbox crackle of energy.’ She got to her feet. ‘I need to stretch my legs,’ she said.

  Patrick stood up too. ‘I’m going to get a drink,’ he said. He headed to the crowded bar.

  Agatha sat alone. The auditorium doors were open, and just inside, Agatha noticed Isabella, standing in the shadows, deep in conversation with a man. He wore a black tailcoat, and she recognized him as the show’s director, the Varieties manager, who had taken a bow at the end.

  They looked serious, animated. At one point he seemed almost angry, a wave of his hands, as if pleading with her. She turned on her heel, left him standing there, joined Patrick at the bar.

  Agatha glanced at her watch. She wondered how soon she could find a taxi to take her back to Chelsea.

  There was a sudden flurry of activity. Stage hands ran to and fro, calling to each other, the waiters in the bar seemed pale and nervous, and then several uniformed police officers appeared in the foyer and ran through into the theatre.

  Patrick and Isabella joined Agatha at their table, each holding a martini.

  ‘What the devil’s going on?’ Patrick’s gaze was fixed on the auditorium doors.

  ‘There seems to be…’ Agatha began, as a police officer appeared, clearing his throat, preparing to address the crowd.

  ‘Ladies and Gentlemen,’ he began.

  ‘I knew it.’ Patrick was on his feet, white-faced.

  ‘Shhh—’ Isabella had taken his hand.

  ‘I’m sorry to interrupt your evening’s entertainment,’ the police officer said. He was tall, with a genial face and thinning brown hair. ‘I’m afraid there’s been a serious event backstage. I must ask you all to leave—’

  ‘Cosmina.’ Patrick shouted. ‘Tell me it isn’t true.’

  The policeman’s eyes settled on Patrick. Around them there was the scrape of chairs, as the crowd began to disperse, subdued, murmuring.

  ‘Excuse me, sir.’ The policeman had approached their table. ‘You knew her? Cosmina Balan?’

  Patrick’s face was fixed in a mask of shock. ‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’

  The policeman nodded. ‘I’m afraid so, sir.’

  ‘How? What?’

  The policeman spoke gently. ‘Perhaps you and the two ladies would accompany me inside.’

  *

  The theatre auditorium seemed faded and worn, as if all the colour and glamour had drained away with the crowd. The sidelights glowed in the dusty gloom.

  Agatha thought about her Chelsea home, her comfortable bed.

  ‘If you’d come this way, ladies, sir…’

  The police officer led them to the side of the stage and through a door.

  There was noise, human voices, the creak of scenery, and, somewhere, a quiet sobbing.

  ‘I need an explanation.’ Patrick’s voice cut through it all.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, we’ve only just arrived on the scene ourselves—’ The policeman was joined by a fellow officer. ‘—Inspector,’ he added, with a touch of his cap.

  ‘Inspector Joyce,’ the newcomer said. He shook Patrick’s hand. ‘Soho team. And this is Detective Sergeant Byrne. He’s told you what we know?’

  ‘Only the lady’s name, sir.’

  ‘Cosmina Balan,’ the inspector said. ‘Found in her dressing room. Strangled. The killer must have struck at some point during the performance this evening.’

  ‘We saw her on stage.’ Isabella spoke up. She looked calm, stately and unruffled. ‘It must have happened after that.’

  The inspector eyed her. ‘Yes, madam. The body was still warm, if you’ll forgive the unpleasant detail.’

  Patrick uttered a cry – of grief, of rage. Isabella placed a hand on his arm, helped him to a stool that was by the wall. ‘I told her I’d rescue her,’ he murmured. ‘I promised her…’

  The detective inspector watched him. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said.

  Patrick raised his eyes, blank with shock. ‘What happens now?’

  The inspector exchanged a glance with his sergeant. ‘Ideally…’ he began. ‘I’d like to keep you here. With your two companions, if you prefer. Perhaps the hotel…’ He glanced at his colleague, who tipped his cap and headed purposefully towards the door.

  There was still the sound of weeping. Agatha looked across the stage. Sitting on the floor, her back against the plain white-painted wall, was Sian, wearing her tutu. Next to her, on one side, was her dance partner, his arm around her.

  On the other side was
a motherly blond-haired woman in a blue dress, also pale with shock.

  Standing at a distance was Luca Belotti. He was still in make-up, white-faced, with dark-circled eyes and slicked-down black hair. He was holding a ventriloquist’s dummy encircled in his arms, and he appeared to be talking to it, whispering against its wax-moulded face.

  *

  The sergeant returned, and exchanged a few words with his superior. The inspector turned to Agatha.

  ‘We’ve organized rooms for you all at the hotel. I hope it’s not a terrible imposition, but we will need to talk to your friend in the morning, and in all honesty I’m reluctant to let him go.’

  Agatha nodded, acquiescent.

  She was joined by Patrick and Isabella. A detective constable, a brisk young man in uniform, came and led them next door to the hotel.

  The hotel’s main hall had a black-and-white tiled floor and an ornate ceiling. Isabella went with the policeman to the reception desk.

  Patrick turned to Agatha.

  ‘I knew she was in danger. I said I’d rescue her. She teased me about being a knight in shining armour. I damned well wish I’d been brave enough…’

  Isabella reappeared with his room key. She handed it to him, patted his shoulder. ‘We’ll meet at breakfast, no doubt,’ Isabella said. ‘And perhaps after that they’ll let us get on with our lives.’

  *

  Agatha was shown to her room by a sweetly smiling young woman in a black maid’s uniform.

  ‘I hope this does for you ma’am,’ she said. ‘It’s got the river view at least. You may have to get used to it if you’re all stuck here till they catch the murderer. It’s like one of those novels, isn’t it? Well, I hope you sleep well. Good night, ma’am.’

  The door closed behind her.

  Agatha sat on the wide, crisply laundered bed. Beyond the window, the lights of the Thames, the illuminated clock of Big Ben against the night sky.

  She felt her spirits lift.

  No one knows where I am, she thought.

  ‘…all stuck here till they catch the murderer.’

  A reason to disappear.

  There was a small table by the window. I could work here, she thought. I could hide away, from tax affairs and editors, from endless correspondence, from my nosy neighbour across the road who knocks on my door and then goes on about her window boxes.

  Divorced, she thought. A single woman. So completely the opposite of anything I intended, for me and for my daughter.

  It did not turn out the way I thought it would. I did not expect my husband to want to marry another woman.

  She went to the window.

  She stared out at the lights on the river, listened to the bustle of the city evening. She thought about her novel, a carefully planned mystery concerning a death, a drowning, an inheritance. She remembered her conversation with Isabella, ‘I’m thinking of writing something more real,’ she’d said. And Isabella had urged caution, ‘One has to be careful with such things.’

  She recalled the illusionist, Luca Belotti. There had been a gasp at the denouement of his trick, a collective gasp of wonder, a murmured ‘how did he do that?’ On stage he had been solitary, mournful, childlike, and apparently failing. But at the moment when he appeared to have succeeded, when his severed leg was apparent for all to see – for that moment we all believed it.

  Sleight of hand, she thought. Hiding in plain sight. Somehow, we only saw the completed trick when Mr Belotti wished us to, and not before.

  She glanced at her notebooks, sitting on the table.

  ‘Utterly unlikely,’ the critic had said. ‘A plot like clockwork.’

  She thought about Mr Belotti’s clown persona, the charm of the magician. Perhaps I should talk to Mr Belotti, she thought. As a writer of detective fiction, I have much in common with him.

  She gazed out across the Thames.

  The moon had risen; the blackness of the river was flecked with silver.

  She thought about Isabella, and Patrick; their familiarity and friendship, and Isabella’s deep concern.

  And Cosmina, with her elfin looks and sinewy strength.

  While we all sat there, filled with wonder at the dancing, the magic, the beauty of the singing… While we all applauded and laughed – someone, somewhere backstage, was committing a terrible crime.

  She gave a shudder, turned away from the window.

  She thought about the touch between Cosmina and Patrick, the brief resting of her delicate fingers against his black jacket.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘We need one of your detectives, Mrs Christie. That’s what we need.’ Chief Inspector Joyce sat down heavily at the breakfast table.

  Morning sunlight streamed across the hotel restaurant. The starched white cloths, the sparkle of silver tableware seemed to assert that whatever chaos lurked in the theatre next door, at least here there was order and calm.

  ‘That’s what we need,’ the inspector repeated. ‘We need an answer.’

  Agatha surveyed the dining area. Around them, the soft hubbub of fellow guests living their ordinary lives. So far there’d been no sign of either Patrick or Isabella.

  ‘I fear it’s not so simple,’ she said.

  ‘Of course, you’ll want to know.’

  ‘Well, I—’

  ‘Dancers, you see,’ the policeman said. ‘She was twenty-six, poor girl. From Romania, one of those industrial towns there. Cosmina Balan. She seems to have fled from poverty in order to continue her dancing. She met her partner here, Alexei Fyodor Petrovich. They danced so beautifully, but it was no secret they could hardly bear each other. The lads are having a chat with him now. The stagehands say that they heard them having a very loud and angry exchange of words just before they went on last night.’ He looked up as Isabella approached the table, then turned back to Agatha. ‘It may be all this will be solved more quickly than one of your stories, Mrs Christie.’

  ‘Oh dear, I do hope they let us out soon.’ Isabella flung herself into a chair, yawning, theatrically. Her hair was loose, flowing across her shoulders. ‘I was hoping to go to the zoological gardens, the insect house.’ She turned to Inspector Joyce. ‘Moths,’ she said. ‘I have a passion for them.’ She scanned the restaurant in search of staff. ‘And you, Mrs Christie. What will you do today? Assuming they release us.’

  Agatha turned to Inspector Joyce. ‘I was rather hoping to go home,’ she said. ‘I have work to do—’

  ‘Agatha—’ Patrick’s voice was loud across the wide space. ‘There you are. What is to be done?’ He looked haggard, his eyes shadowed with sleeplessness.

  ‘Poor, poor Patrick.’ Isabella stroked his arm, as he joined them at the table.

  ‘As you’re all here—’ Inspector Joyce straightened his shoulders— ‘I have to say, sir, we do need to ask you some questions.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Well, all of you…’ the inspector looked at Agatha, then at Isabella. ‘As you were there. And you, Miss Maynard, you seem to know the company, or at least some of them…’

  A flicker of annoyance crossed Isabella’s face, softened into a smile. ‘Of course, Inspector. I’d be happy to help. But first, coffee.’ She got to her feet, lithe in her loose trousers, the wide silk stripes of her tunic top. She wandered off. Agatha saw her talking to a waitress.

  ‘Do you mean to say—’ Patrick had turned to the inspector. ‘Do you mean to say – it’s preposterous – that any kind of suspicion—’ The colour had risen to his face.

  ‘Not suspicion, sir, not by any means. We already have our theories, between you and me. But we need the help of anyone who might know anything at all about this terrible event…’

  Patrick breathed out, his shoulders slumped. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘I see.’

  ‘If I might suggest that after you’ve breakfasted, the three of you meet me and my staff at the theatre? Shall we say ten o’clock?’

  Patrick looked at Agatha.

  ‘Yes,’ Agatha said. ‘Of course. We’ll
be there.’

  *

  At a quarter to ten, Agatha was shown through the stage door of the Embassy Theatre by a young man in blue overalls. ‘Nothing but coppers, ma’am,’ he said. ‘All night long. And us with a show to put on. Mr Georgie hasn’t slept a wink, not that you’d know to see him. Cool as an icebox, he is.’

  She found herself standing in the wings. The theatre space that last night had been the scene of magic, of castles and trees and lights, was now just plain brick. She was aware of the height stretching away above her, the ropes and rails and sheets of canvas all ready to create their next illusion.

  ‘The smell of the greasepaint—’

  A woman was crossing the stage towards her. She was blonde, petite, with a sweet, maternal face and a well-cut blue dress. ‘The theatre,’ she said. ‘It gets to you.’ She reached out a hand. ‘Alicia Nethersall. Costume department.’

  Agatha recognized her as the woman who’d been comforting the weeping Sian the night before.

  Agatha shook her hand. ‘Agatha Christie,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’ Miss Nethersall nodded gravely. ‘It’s to be hoped that the police will do their job and leave us in peace,’ she added. ‘Isn’t it, Hywel,’ she said, as a man approached them. He was tall, broad shouldered and hazel eyed, and Agatha realized he was the singer, the Welsh tenor who had sung so beautifully the night before.

  ‘Isn’t it what, my dear?’ He bestowed a warm, twinkling smile on his friend.

  ‘We hope the police will do their job and go,’ she said to him.

  ‘Georgie’s furious,’ he said. ‘He wants them out of his theatre, he keeps saying. Furious at the cancellation. One night only, he says. Tomorrow, we’re back on.’

  ‘We are?’ Alicia blinked at him.

  He nodded. ‘Boss’s orders,’ he said. ‘The show must go on.’

  ‘But we’re one act down—’

  ‘He’s booked a substitute.’

  ‘Already?’ Alicia was wide-eyed. ‘Who?’

  ‘He’s got Saffra the Levitating Queen. You know them, Terry and Gladys Snell.’

  ‘He’ll stop at nothing Georgie. He’s wanted to book them for months,’ she said.