Death at the Pantomime

by Evelyn James

  “About the assault on Stanley? Yes, Mr Baldry, I do,” Clara kept her tone neutral, wanting no hint of her own feelings to appear, not yet, anyway. “However, what has happened in the past need not have any bearing on the present. If you would talk to me for a bit, we might be able to understand this mystery better.”

  “I don’t know who killed Stanley, if I did, I would have brought them to the police myself,” Mervyn said bleakly.

  “Then, maybe talking will help me to understand you better, Mr Baldry, and by understanding you, I might be able to see what really went on the other night in the theatre.”

  Mervyn shook his head.

  “I don’t see how I can be any use to you.”

  “I only want to talk,” Clara persisted. “You seem to have accepted this situation too readily.”

  “I am a realist,” Mervyn shrugged his shoulders with a sigh. “I see the way the police mind is working. Too many black marks against my name.”

  “That does not mean you should give up and allow Stanley’s real killer to escape justice,” Clara pointed out. “Even if you have lost hope for yourself, surely you owe it to Stanley to help find out who did this?”

  Mervyn was silent. He stared at the floor of his cell, shuffled his feet, looked like a man who has simply accepted the woes life has thrown at him. His depression was alarming and Clara was not sure how to combat it.

  “Stanley persuaded you to come back to the stage, didn’t he, Mervyn?” Clara had dropped formalities in an attempt to connect with the man before her.

  Mervyn scraped at a dark spot on the concrete floor with his toe.

  “He did, does that make things worse or better?”

  “I can’t say,” Clara admitted. “Did you want to come back to the stage?”

  “Not so much want,” Mervyn lifted his chin a little, thoughtful. “I needed to come back, needed to prove to myself I was still a real actor. Stanley called it fighting my demons, I called it proving a point to myself. I wanted to remind myself that I was not a washed-up has-been.”

  “And Stanley had missed you. He had never met a performer who matched him as well as you did.”

  Mervyn nodded, though the movement was so subtle it could have been a twitch.

  “We worked well as a double-act. Stanley never hid the fact he missed performing with me. You know, even after what I did, he was always there for me,” Mervyn’s mouth twisted with sorrow. “You don’t get many friends like Stanley Hutson. I’m not sure I even deserved his forgiveness, but that was Stanley for you. He never gave up on me. I’m nothing without him.”

  Mervyn’s voice wobbled and Clara saw that his depression and despondency was as much a product of grief for a lost friend, as it was a result of his current situation. Mervyn had given up because he could not face life anymore, not without the one person who had supported him and given him strength through the darkness.

  “I am very sorry Mervyn,” Clara said softly. “You have lost a good friend.”

  Mervyn smiled sadly.

  “No one is going to believe that though, everyone is just going to see the distorted truth the police will present and they will say I killed him. That I lost my head. What else could you expect from a drug fiend?”

  “But you are not a drug fiend now, are you?” Clara leaned against the bars of the cell, as close as she could get to Mervyn to watch his face.

  “No, not since that night…” Mervyn tailed off. “Was hell getting clean. Stanley saw me through it.”

  “Tell me again about the last time you saw him,” Clara continued.

  Mervyn’s eyes took on a distant look.

  “We had finished the final scene before the interval. Stanley was shaky because of that earlier nonsense of being booed. He could suffer terrible nerves on stage and it did not take much to knock his confidence. People don’t realise that, they don’t realise how difficult it can be to act,” Mervyn sniffed. “That’s why I was away from the stage so long. I lost my nerve. Couldn’t face an audience, not without the drugs. I was running away, while hating myself for doing it.”

  “What did Stanley do as he left the stage?” Clara asked.

  Mervyn had slipped away again into his own self-pity, he slowly roused himself.

  “He turned away from me. I mean, our dressing rooms were next to each other, so he should have walked with me to them, but he turned the opposite direction. I didn’t think about it at the time as I was lost in my thoughts. I had been having a little trouble with my lines and I wanted to go to my dressing room and run through the script for the second-half.”

  “You didn’t follow him?”

  “No. I went straight to my dressing room,” Mervyn insisted, at last a little spark of fight returning to his eyes. “I was there when Mr Maddock told us we all had to get out of the theatre because of the fire.”

  “He saw you?”

  “No, he was in a rush. He just banged on the door, told me to get out,” Mervyn shrugged again. “It was all a big panic. Everyone was scurrying around. You could smell the smoke.”

  “You went straight to the alleyway?”

  Mervyn’s face fell, as he considered his response.

  “No, actually,” he hesitated, a look of concern drifting over his face. “I was more concerned with rehearsing my lines. I glanced out of my dressing room, decided there was no urgent danger and then continued revising my lines for a while. Then the smoke started to become stronger and I thought I better leave.”

  Clara did not need to tell him that that complicated matters. It meant the police could argue that Mervyn was unaccounted for during the vital time when Hutson was killed.

  “What was Stanley’s relationship like with the rest of the cast?” Clara changed the subject. “Were there any problems?”

  “Not that I saw,” Mervyn replied. “I don’t think Stanley had worked with many of them before. Maybe Eustace Drake, the one playing the vizier, but I can’t think of any difficulty between them. Stanley, as actors went, was fairly easy going and got along with most folk.”

  “Someone had a serious dislike for him,” Clara observed.

  Mervyn pulled his morose face again.

  “I told you, I don’t know anything and thus I am useless to you.”

  Clara was beginning to agree with him. Mervyn had offered her nothing to explain the scraps of evidence that were pointing at his guilt, nor any means to prove him innocent.

  “Had you ever heard anyone call Stanley a thief?” She asked.

  Mervyn, for the first time, looked puzzled rather than depressed.

  “Thief? That’s an odd thing to call a man.”

  “Not if someone believed Stanley had stolen something from them,” Clara explained. “Has anyone ever accused Stanley of doing that?”

  Mervyn seemed genuinely confused. He shook his head after a moment.

  “I really don’t know. I’ve never heard that said.”

  Clara endeavoured not to sigh. Mervyn was the most hopeless case she had come across. Most men, or women, were only too keen to protest their innocence and offer as much information as they could think of to help her discover the true culprit in a case. In contrast, Mervyn seemed utterly resigned to his fate. She was beginning to think he would almost willingly be convicted of the crime, as if he somehow deserved the punishment for living a worthless life. Without Stanley’s friendship, he appeared to be quietly happy to contemplate a short drop through a trapdoor. Could it be that he didn’t even care to live anymore?

  “Mervyn, I need you to think over this long and hard. If you come up with anything, anything at all about that night that you think is relevant, please, let me know,” Clara took a card from her handbag and offered it through the bars to Mervyn.

  He didn’t take it.

  “Mervyn,” Clara was starting to lose patience, “have you forgotten that someone murdered your friend and you owe it to him to discover the truth.”

  “What does it matter anymore?” Mervyn said weakly. “Stanle
y is gone, he doesn’t know what I do or don’t do anymore. Maybe he is better off anyway. This world is cruel and lonely. It’s no fun to grow old, to see the spotlight shine on someone else, someone younger.”

  “The spotlight was shining on you last night,” Clara reminded him. “It would still be shining on you had someone not told lies about you. If you only would wake up from this melancholy and realise that you are allowing someone to get away with murder.”

  Clara would have liked to have given him a shake, but the bars prevented her. She was still holding out the card towards him, but he made no move to take it.

  “Listen, you never followed Stanley last night, not even for a moment?”

  “I told you,” Mervyn grumbled. “He went the wrong way. I don’t know why he went that way. I shall never know why. There was nothing down that corridor that could have interested him.”

  “Someone suggested he might have gone for a drink,” Clara was badgering him now, seeing that getting him worked up was a means of making him talk. “What about you?”

  “Me? I don’t drink. At least, not in the sort of way you mean. I might have a pint at the pub from time to time, but alcohol was never my crutch,” Mervyn shot her a hard look. “All this is getting us nowhere, why don’t you leave me alone?”

  “All right, Mr Baldry,” Clara had returned to formal. “I’ll leave you alone, just after you answer this last question. Why would anyone wish to see you hang for a crime you did not commit?”

  “What?” Mervyn frowned.

  “Someone is attempting to frame you. Why would they want to do that?”

  “I don’t know,” Mervyn snapped.

  “So, it was just coincidence that the killer chose to lay the blame on you? Just convenient? Not because they have a grudge against both you and Stanley Hutson and by murdering Stanley and framing you for it, they would do away with two birds with one stone?”

  Mervyn looked astonished by the suggestion, but the talk had stirred his mind at last. He was thinking finally.

  “Someone hated us both? Plotted for me to be accused?”

  “Maybe,” Clara said casually. “After all, you two were a double-act for many years. Supposing something happened that involved you both and left someone wanting revenge?”

  Mervyn was considering this possibility and a spark was returning to him. He turned to Clara with wide eyes.

  “Revenge,” he hissed. “That’s a nasty word.”

  “And it all too often leads to murder,” Clara remarked. “Think about all this Mervyn, think about someone who might have a bone to pick with you and Stanley. When you come up with a name, let me know.”

  She wagged the card at him. At last Mervyn took it from her fingers.

  “You’re talking about someone on the cast hating us both?” He said carefully.

  “I am. Though it is also possible it was someone among the stagehands. Whoever it was, they could move around backstage unnoticed.”

  Mervyn turned the card over in his fingers, like a magician preparing for a conjuring act.

  “Tell me, before you go,” he said, for the first time being the one to push along the conversation. “How did Stanley die?”

  “The police haven’t said?”

  “They seem to assume I know,” Mervyn narrowed his eyes. “For obvious reasons.”

  Clara nodded, of course.

  “Stanley Hutson had his throat cut with a shard of glass. The killer then used Stanley’s blood to daub the word ‘thief’ upon the apron of his dame costume and then hid the body. There is no doubt this was a savage and violent murder, but it was not impulsive, of that I am sure. I think the killer planned this very carefully, including how they might throw suspicion off themselves.”

  Mervyn had gone pale as she described how his friend had died.

  “That’s…” he swallowed hard. “Nasty, just nasty. Stanley did not deserve that. What could he have done to make someone that angry?”

  “I was really hoping you would tell me,” Clara sighed. “No matter, I shall find out. In the meantime, you must keep hopeful Mr Baldry. There is a future out there for you, if you would only stop moping and embrace it. Stanley didn’t encourage you back onto the stage just for you to end up wishing yourself dead.”

  Mervyn seemed too dazed to reply. Clara left him with her card turning in his fingers. Maybe he would remember something, maybe he wouldn’t. That would not stop Clara from finding the real killer.

  Chapter Twenty

  Feeling at an impasse in the Hutson case, Clara rose the next morning to say goodbye to Tommy, hopeful he would find some clue to the mystery in London.

  “What are you going to do?” He asked Clara before he left.

  “Visit Dr Deáth and see if he can tell me anything else about Hutson’s murder, other than that, I am not sure quite where to look next.”

  Tommy gazed at her as if he guessed there was more on her mind than just the Hutson case, then he nodded.

  “I’ll do my best to find the solution for all this in London,” he said. “Take care, avoid the rain.”

  He tilted his head to the window, outside where huge black clouds loomed. Clara sighed, it looked like she would need to go out and buy a new umbrella urgently.

  She was in the high street as the shops were opening, feeling the threatening early spots of a heavy rainstorm just waiting its moment to drench the unlucky. There was a hint of thunder in the air, just to improve things. Clara darted into the nearest shop that sold umbrellas and found she was not alone in trying to purchase a brolly; the rain had placed the notion in a lot of people’s heads and they were all jammed around the umbrella display. Clara sighed again; it was the day for deep sighs. She did not have the energy or inclination to try to push through the throng, so she waited her turn, only to discover the brollies had all been sold by the time she reached the stand.

  Amused rather than disheartened by her ironic bad luck, she stepped back outside and discovered the heavens had opened. The temptation was to loiter in the shop doorway until the foul weather had passed, but by the looks of the grey clouds, she suspected the rain had set in for the day. Bracing herself for the inevitable, she stepped out onto the pavement, head down and hoping to make a dash for the next shop that sold umbrellas. She had not gone far when someone stepped out of a side street, directly in front of her. She stopped sharply, nearly running into the person, which was when she realised there was now a large umbrella over her head.

  “Might I be of assistance, Miss Fitzgerald?”

  Clara stared into the face of a pretty Chinese woman. Since Brighton was not renowned for its Chinese residents, and since the woman knew her name, Clara could make a reasonable guess who she was. But she remembered herself sufficiently to recall that she should not know who the woman was, and so played dumb.

  “Thank you,” she said. “That is most kind. My umbrella has a leak.”

  “Most unfortunate, where are you headed?”

  The woman had only the faintest trace of an accent, though some of her words sounded a little odd when she spoke, as if she placed the emphasis in the wrong place.

  “The nearest shop that sells an umbrella,” Clara shrugged with a laugh. “I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

  “No inconvenience,” the Chinese woman smiled. There was something cruel about that smile. “I believe the shop just here sells them.”

  They crossed the road together.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know your name,” Clara said carefully. “Have we met before?”

  “No, Miss Fitzgerald, I am aware of you by your reputation. You can call me Miss Leong.”

  Clara made no indication that her suspicions had been confirmed.

  “Well, I appreciate this kindness Miss Leong, it is never fun to get wet,” they had reached the door of the shop and Clara was moving away, she was not sure what Jao Leong wanted, but she was not going to make it easy for her. If she intended to threaten Clara, she could do it among other people.

>   “Before we part,” Leong paused her, “I would like to ask for your assistance.”

  Clara hesitated; this was an unexpected turn of events. She managed to keep the frown of confusion from her face. She was a detective, after all, people asked for her help all the time, showing worry or bafflement might tip Leong off that she knew more than she was letting on.

  “Of course, you have a case for me?” She said.

  Leong’s smile broadened, like she had just heard a trap snap shut around her prey.

  “I do, might we go somewhere quiet to discuss it? There is nothing worse than trying to explain personal matters in the street.”

  Clara had no intention of going anywhere alone with Leong, fortunately she saw a solution just across the road.

  “Why don’t we go into the Lyons teashop? It will be quiet at this time of day, and warm.”

  She feared Leong would protest, even though she had made the suggestion as casually as she could. Leong, however, simply nodded.

  “I think a cup of tea might be welcome to take off the chill of the day, yes?”

  Clara agreed that would be pleasant and they crossed the road.

  Inside the teashop, Clara pointed out a table by the window, away from the only other customer present and removed from the service counter, yet also within view of everyone. Leong made no protest at the choice and they sat down. It was not long before a Lyons tea maid came over and took their request for a pot of tea. Seated, Clara noticed what she had failed to take in before, that she was considerably taller than Leong. The woman was remarkably petite and could have passed for a girl of fourteen, had Clara not known she was older.

  Leong carefully propped her umbrella against the window and turned to Clara.

  “English weather.”

  “It’s what makes the grass green,” Clara replied. “Though rain is much more endurable when you are tucked up at home by the fire.”

  “Yes,” Leong chuckled to herself. “I had not planned to venture out today, but urgent business called, which was fortuitous, as it meant I spotted you and I had hoped to speak to you at some point.”