by Evelyn James
“What did you really see that night when you left the stage?” Clara asked.
The woman hefted her shoulders up and down, indicating she had not seen much.
“I left the stage with everyone else and headed for my dressing room. I had to change costume, retouch my make-up and have a cup of tea before the second half. I was also trying to avoid Audrey.”
“Aladdin? Why?”
“She isn’t very nice, that’s all. She likes to critique my performance,” Grace snorted. “I saw nothing and that’s the truth. Now, could you let me get on with this?”
Grace flicked a hand at the make-up pots before her. Clara decided she had heard enough. For the moment she had no more questions.
She left Grace’s dressing room and stood in the corridor, still feeling as far away from an answer as when she began her investigation.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Since Clara had no safe means of getting a message to Brilliant Chang, being uncertain if she was watched or followed, she decided that for the moment she would have to push aside the troubling problem of Jao Leong and hope that Chang contacted her soon. She headed for home to spend some time contemplating the Hutson case and try to find a strand of logic to the whole, sorry situation.
Annie was pleased to see her home; it had been lonely in the house without Tommy and Annie was only truly at her best when she had other people to fuss around. As much as Clara might have liked to nudge Annie into doing a bit more with her life, in reality she was quite content seeing that everyone around her was well fed, warm, wearing clean clothes and altogether happy. As she had told Clara firmly, if everyone was a detective or did important things, the world would come crashing down around their ears, so it was jolly good that some people found delight in caring for others. Clara could not argue with that.
Bramble bounced up at her leg as Clara entered the kitchen and sat down at the table to join Annie for tea.
“No progress then?” Annie asked sympathetically.
“Is it that obvious?” Clara groaned. “I know that more than likely a woman killed Hutson. I just can’t say which woman. My current array of clues has dried up.”
“Well, a cup of tea will give you the chance to think things over, and it is best to be out of that filthy weather. Did you get a new umbrella?”
Clara’s mind jumped back to her meeting with Jao Leong at the mention of umbrellas and she was surprised she did not reveal to Annie her anxieties, they felt very plain to her, but Annie made no mention of noticing her fears.
“There is a shocking lack of umbrellas for sale in Brighton,” Clara answered her, trying to forget that buying a brolly had been completely knocked from her mind by Leong hiring her.
“Oh dear,” Annie frowned. “No wonder you look like a drowned rat and you smell like… chemicals?”
“I went to the morgue,” Clara explained.
Annie gave a very deliberate shudder.
“I don’t know how you can bear it, being around all those corpses.”
“I don’t find them frightening or disgusting,” Clara shrugged. “They are just people who have stopped living. Often they just look like they are asleep.”
“Sounds ghoulish to me,” Annie repeated the shudder and held her head up as if such antics were beneath her.
“You forget that someone has to take care of us when we are gone in spirit, if not in body. They must be certain we were not encouraged to our ends by foul play and then prepare us for our final departure, either to earth or fire. That is surely a very noble thing?”
Annie shifted uncomfortably.
“Well, there is that,” she muttered. “Still I am glad I am not responsible for them.”
She wandered off to retrieve warm scones from the oven. Clara smirked to herself, even though Annie had been home alone, with no one to cook for, she could not help herself but continue to bake. And, somehow, she had timed her scones to perfection, so they would be available when Clara walked in.
“You have a touch of the clairvoyant about you, Annie,” Clara chuckled.
Annie looked at her baffled.
“You seem to have known when I was coming home and made sure there were warm scones wanting,” Clara elaborated.
Annie gave a huff through her teeth.
“This is my third batch,” she laughed. “I offered to make scones for the church’s winter fair this weekend.”
“Oh,” Clara said, somewhat disappointed that Annie had not been magically in tune to her arrival home. “How many more have you got to make?”
“I am aiming for one hundred, just to be on the safe side.”
Clara could not hide her astonishment at this mammoth task Annie was undertaking.
“Surely the fair will not sell through one hundred scones?” She said.
“They will once people get a taste of mine,” Annie said proudly. “And they sell them cheap, so everyone who comes in buys one. Last year they sold seventy-six scones and were having to bake more there and then. That won’t happen this year.”
Annie smiled with satisfaction at her latest batch of scones, certain that she would be able to over-provide for the winter fair and prove her worth as a cook. For if there was one think that Annie did see as her purpose in life, it was demonstrating to Brighton that she was the finest cook the town had ever seen. A church fair was just one step on the journey.
“Can I try one?” Clara asked.
Annie cast a scowl in her direction.
“You will not touch my scones, Clara Fitzgerald, you will mess up my count.”
Clara smiled to herself. It had been worth a try.
While Annie was putting the scones to one side to cool, there was a knock on the front door. Annie pulled a face as she debated whether to abandon her tray of scones or answer the door. Clara resolved the matter for her.
“I’ll get it.”
She had it at the back of her mind that the person at the door might be someone she would prefer Annie not to meet. Her stomach was in knots as she tried to walk calmly down the hall. Had Leong sent someone to harass her? Or was this a messenger from Chang? How had she become caught between the pair of siblings? Clara was beginning to wish she had never heard the name Brilliant Chang, but you can’t change the past.
She braced herself as she opened the door and was infinitely relieved to see that the person on the doorstep was Captain O’Harris.
“This is a nice surprise,” Clara smiled, her trepidation evaporating like smoke.
“Sorry to disturb you, I needed to have a word.”
“John, I am never sorry to see you and you must feel free to interrupt my day at any time,” Clara told him gently.
Captain O’Harris paused for a moment, then a boyish grin appeared on his face.
“You called me John.”
“Well I am not going to go around calling you ‘captain’, that would be insufferable, and O’Harris is much too formal for us these days, would you not say? After all, you call me Clara.”
O’Harris was still grinning as he stepped inside, delighted by Clara’s informality. The pair of them were still getting used to the idea of being more than just friends. The torturously slow rate they were discovering their feelings for one another was driving Annie and Tommy slightly mad, but nothing was going to rush them. Both needed time to come to terms with the idea of not being independent loners anymore, and both were a little wary of making themselves vulnerable to another person.
“Come into the kitchen, it’s warm there. But don’t expect a scone, Annie is being fiercely protective of them,” Clara declared as she led him to the back of the house.
Annie heard the statement and gave her another scowl, before smiling at O’Harris.
“We’ll need more tea,” she said. “The scones are for the church winter fair, that’s why they are off-limits. You know full well, Captain O’Harris, that you are welcome to my scones any other time.”
O’Harris reddened a little, finding the statement somewhat
alarming, even though Annie had no notion of what she had said. Clara muffled a snort of laughter.
“Take a seat,” she said in a strangled voice and O’Harris joined her at the table.
“I hoped I would catch you in, I needed to talk to you,” O’Harris said as he took his chair, his humour was rapidly replaced by a morose expression. “After what you said yesterday, I took this idea into my head that I should follow the inspector and see if there was any truth to the accusations you had been told.”
Annie appeared at the table with a teapot, her face fallen.
“What is this?”
Clara had also become sombre.
“Someone has accused Inspector Park-Coombs of taking bribes from this new gang in Brighton,” Clara explained to her, seeing no reason Annie should be kept in the dark. “It is obviously a very serious thing.”
“I know you were not convinced by the accusation, yet it worried you and I hoped to be helpful,” O’Harris continued. “I was not trying to interfere, as such, but thought a fresh pair of eyes on the matter might be useful.”
“I fear you are going to tell me something I would rather not hear,” Clara said softly.
“Honestly, Clara, once I was out there loitering by the police station, I thought myself the biggest fool there ever was. I really thought I was quite crazy, and I nearly went home, but then Park-Coombs emerged from the police station and I followed him instead.”
O’Harris paused for a long time.
“Clara, I saw something that I really think suggests Park-Coombs is working against us in this matter.”
Annie thudded the teapot down on the table and Clara suspected she had nearly dropped it.
“No, that can’t be!”
“I can only tell you what I saw,” O’Harris said, hearing the anger in her tone. “I followed Park-Coombs to the picture house, the one near the alleyway where Peterson was attacked. He went down a side road, a dead-end next to the building and he was joined there by two men I can only describe as thugs. While I did not see what happened, I heard them talking and know they gave Park-Coombs an envelope. I think it contained money. I think they were paying him off.”
“I won’t believe it!” Annie snapped. “Not of the Inspector. There are constables on the force I would hesitate to trust, for sure, but not Inspector Park-Coombs. You are wrong, O’Harris!”
“All right Annie,” Clara calmed her. “John was only doing what he felt was right and trying to help us.”
Annie did not look satisfied; she had a deep frown on her face.
“The matter does seem suspicious,” Clara said to O’Harris. “I never would have believed it had it come from anyone other than you. You cannot tell me anything more?”
“Not really, only that they agreed to meet in a different place next time and from the sound of it, these were regular meetings. I’m sorry Clara, I don’t think I really expected to find the Inspector up to anything untoward,” O’Harris gave a deep sigh. “I was angry with him, wanted to get back at him because of the whole affair with Peterson. I was so keen to find out he was a traitor to the force, and yet, once I did, I felt so awful.”
“I think you are wrong,” Annie said in a quiet but firm voice. “I think there is an honest explanation for what you saw.”
“That would be good, Annie,” O’Harris said gently. “I would like that.”
Clara was struggling to get what O’Harris had told her into her head. The words were there, but the meaning refused to stick. To think that the inspector, a man she had trusted so much, a man she considered a friend, would meet with thugs and accept money broke her a little inside. She tried to see some other reason for the meeting, but why would they be giving him an envelope of money if it was not a bribe?
Clara felt betrayed and that blossomed into anger. How could he do this? How could he destroy all he had worked for? For the sake of money?
Clara closed her eyes, the implications sitting on her like a lead weight. She felt someone reach out and clasp her hand. Opening her eyes, she saw O’Harris was staring at her with a worried expression.
“I am really sorry,” he said.
“This is not your fault. I just…” Clara could not say that she was disappointed that Brilliant Chang had been correct, and that it was him who had first raised her suspicions. “I am angry with the inspector. I feel he has let us all down.”
“And I think you are judging him too quickly,” Annie said sharply. “Maybe you ought to get his side of the story before jumping to conclusions? Has he not been a good friend to us? He deserves to be able to defend himself at least.”
Annie’s anger, which was for a wholly different reason to that which Clara was suffering, made her stop and think. Annie was right, the situation was easy to misinterpret, there could be another reason why he was taking money from thugs – couldn’t there?
“If it was you Clara, wouldn’t you want to be given the chance to explain yourself?” Annie persisted. “Wouldn’t you want to be judged on your past actions, rather than on suppositions and an overheard conversation? No offence to you, Captain O’Harris, but it is all too easy to read the wrong thing into a situation, especially if you have a preconceived idea already in your mind. We see what we want to see sometimes.”
“Fair point, Annie,” O’Harris gave her a placating smile. “I don’t take offence for your logical argument. Had there not been this accusation spoken to Clara…”
“And who told Clara that? Is this person someone you would trust above and beyond the inspector, Clara?” Annie demanded.
Clara had a very simple response to that.
“No. I don’t trust this person, nor did they tell me who gave them the information in the first place.”
“Chinese whispers!” Annie said, casting up her hands as if that solved the problem. She had no idea how close she had come to the truth. “Well, I would have thought the inspector had earned a little more respect than that. Surely he deserves the benefit of the doubt?”
“You are right Annie,” Clara said, finally making up her mind. “He does deserve that. I think recent events have muddled all our thoughts and left us feeling… distrustful. The inspector has his flaws, but I have never considered him anything but honest.”
Clara turned to O’Harris.
“That does not mean I doubt what you saw, John, just that we must be careful how we interpret it. I am trying to think of an innocent reason, and I am not succeeding, but I agree with Annie that I must not leap to conclusions.”
O’Harris nodded.
“That is for the best, I would hate to condemn a man on so little. After all, if these rumours spread, this could end the inspector’s career and land him in prison.”
That was a sobering thought, one that really caught Clara’s attention.
How useful to Chang would it be if the inspector was considered corrupt?
How useful, indeed.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Tommy arrived home late that evening. It had been a long tiring day for him, and he walked through the front door looking shattered. Tommy’s war wounds had left him with a slight limp that most of the time was virtually unnoticeable, but when exhausted the defect became more pronounced. Clara could see by the way he was dragging his leg just how weary he was.
“Have you had any supper?” Annie declared the second she saw him, taking his coat and hat from him before he was barely out of them. “Sit down and I shall cook you some bacon and eggs. Food on trains is terrible. You’ll need a good strong cup of tea too. Did you eat the sandwiches I sent you with?”
Assailed by this string of questions and statements, Tommy had no idea what to say. He stumbled into the front room and slumped in a chair, grateful to be back in his own home. Annie disappeared, talking about making up a hot water bottle for his stiff leg.
Clara sat down opposite her brother.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Sorry?” He opened one tired eye.
“I didn’t think
about how exhausting this would all be for you. It was selfish of me to send you.”
Tommy made a scoffing noise.
“I might be a little travel sore, but it certainly won’t kill me. Anyway, don’t you want to know what I turned up?”
“I do,” Clara leaned forward in her chair. “Anything that could point to the killer?”
“Possibly. I went to various theatres asking about Stanley Hutson, most people were extremely talkative. On the whole he seems to have been well liked, just a touch of professional jealousy here and there.”
“From other dames?” Clara asked.
“You got it,” Tommy grinned. “Some felt he was overrated, stated that quite bluntly. Others mentioned his drinking habits, though from what I can tell that was largely in the past.”
“Anyone mention the incident with him and Mervyn Baldry?”
“A couple of people, but the general consensus was that the pair had remained friends afterwards. Stanley had forgiven Mervyn and Mervyn was keen to make amends. There was no suggestion of a lasting grudge.”
“Not terribly helpful,” Clara sighed. “Other than to make it seem less likely Mervyn was the murderer.”
“True, but that wasn’t the only gossip I came across.”
Clara brightened up.
“Do go on, I hope it is good. Something terribly scandalous that will explain all this.”
“Well, you shall have to decide that,” Tommy flipped over his hands in a gesture of uncertainty. “The rumour I heard came from several sources, but it was a little vaguer than I would like. The gist of it seemed to be that many years ago, back when Stanley was just beginning to make his name, he stole some of his characteristic quirks or performance techniques, whatever you call them, off another actor.”
“Stole,” Clara took care over the word. “Was that precisely what was said?”
“Yes, the people who offered this information used that word. You see, I went in with the premise that Stanley was being threatened, that I was working for Mr Maddock to determine the origin of these threats and whether Mr Hutson was in any danger. I told people that the word ‘thief’ had been used in these threats.”
