Rose Campion and the Christmas Mystery

by Lyn Gardner

  “The doctor will be here very soon, Ivy. He’ll soon patch you up, and you’ll be back dancing right as new,” said Rose soothingly.

  Ivy shook her head sadly. “That bullet had me name on it. It’s like I said, Rose, we don’t know what fate has in store for us.” She had a faraway look in her eyes. “But least I made my mark. Not everyone can say that they were top of the bill at Campion’s.”

  “Not just top of the bill, Ivy,” said Thomas gruffly, “but top of the bill for nine weeks solid. That’s quite a feat.”

  Ivy tried to smile. “I was hoping to break the record.” Thomas had taken Ivy’s other hand. She was clearly finding it difficult to breathe, but she wouldn’t be silenced. “I know I haven’t been easy to like, but I’ve liked being at Campion’s all right. I’ve loved it. It’s been the best nine weeks of my life.”

  “You’ll be back, Ivy. You’ll recover. You’ll have another nine weeks at the top. At least. You’ll probably break the record,” said Thomas.

  A tear rolled down Ivy’s cheek. “You’re just humouring me, Thomas Campion.” Ivy’s voice was becoming fainter. She smiled weakly at Rose. “I’ve been such a cow, Rosie. Everyone will be pleased to see the back of me.”

  Rose squeezed her hand. “Don’t be silly, Ivy,” she said. “Of course they won’t.”

  Ivy made a sound like a chuckle. “Well, Rose Campion, I must have upset someone good and proper. They’ve only gone and shot me.”

  “Ivy,” said Rose urgently. “Do you know who could have had a reason to shoot you?”

  Ivy gave another chuckle. “Everyone, ducky. You included, Rosie Campion. Way I’ve behaved over the last nine weeks, there ain’t nobody at Campion’s who wouldn’t want to shoot me if they got the chance. Not even that damn cat, Ophelia, if she could hold a pistol in her paw.” She began to laugh. “You can have the tiger cub, Rosie, if you can find her. Call her Ivy. Something to remember me by. Hope that tiger is better tempered than me.”

  She laughed again, and this time the laughter turned to gasping. Blood began to bubble at the corners of her mouth. She struggled to raise herself up.

  “I’d have loved another week top of the bill…” Her voice faded, and she sank back again with her eyes closed, just as the ballet girls launched into the cancan.

  Dr Neagle hurried through the stage door, and, spotting his patient at the side of the stage, he knelt down by Ivy and held her wrist, looking for a pulse. He frowned and slipped a small mirror from his pocket and held it against her lips. There was no misting breath. He shook his head and then peered at the wound below her neck. “Bullet went down into the lung by the look of it.” Thomas picked up one of Ivy’s seven veils and covered her face gently with it. His voice cracked, as he said fiercely, “However Ivy behaved, she didn’t deserve this. Who would do such a monstrous thing? Who would shoot a defenceless young woman in cold blood?” He nodded at Luke. “Run to Inspector Cliff at Scotland Yard and tell him to come quickly: there has been a murder at Campion’s.”

  It was two days after Ivy’s death. Campion’s was still closed as a mark of respect and wouldn’t reopen until the next day. Ivy had been lowered into the frozen ground in St Olave’s churchyard that afternoon amid flurries of snow. The mourners, huddled together against the icy wind, had mostly been from Campion’s.

  Thomas had been to Ivy’s lodgings and spoken to her unhelpful landlady, whose only concern had been for the fact that Ivy was a week behind with her rent, which Thomas paid. He sorted through Ivy’s meagre belongings in the hope of discovering a family address, but there was nothing. It appeared that Ivy had either been quite alone in the world, or had cut all ties with her family.

  Lottie ensured that the entire chorus turned out for the funeral, arguing that while Ivy had done little to endear herself to them, it would be mean-spirited not to give her a good send-off. Most of the stagehands had turned up. Edward sent a wreath and came in person, and Grace was there too, with Perdita Black beside her. More surprisingly, Sir Godfrey had attended, which rather softened him to Rose. He must have a kind heart, she thought, to come to the funeral of a chorus girl he had never met. He further endeared himself when Grace asked to see Effie’s mother’s gravestone, and Effie and Rose took the engaged pair to see it. Grace had almost slipped on an icy patch and when she put her hand on Iris Madley’s tombstone to steady herself it rocked, revealing a deep hole under the left-hand side.

  “We should fill that in before the headstone falls over and cracks,” said Sir Godfrey, and he called over one of the gravediggers and watched until it was filled in to his satisfaction. Then he thumped the top of the headstone to ensure it was stable.

  The funeral was a glum occasion enlivened only by the moment when Thomas stepped forward to lift the first spadeful of earth on top of the coffin, and the tiger cub – which so far had evaded all attempts at capture – suddenly made an appearance on the wall of the graveyard, and for a moment sat quietly watching, as if paying its final respects. Then it swaggered sleekly along the top of wall with its tail in the air, before jumping down and disappearing from sight. Rose, arm in arm with Aurora and Effie, hoped that the tiger was a female, because when the Zoological Gardens did finally capture the animal she was determined to get Thomas to do everything in his power to ensure that it was named after Ivy.

  They had gone to back to Campion’s for pies and sandwiches, which Sir Godfrey had insisted on paying for. He had suggested that anything left over should be distributed to the mudlark children.

  “Those poor little mites,” he said, “out by the river in all weathers. It breaks my heart to think of them.”

  He had only stayed a few minutes more, apologising as he hurried away, saying he had unexpected urgent business to attend to arising from one of the charity committees he sat on in the seaside towns of Margate, Herne Bay and Whitstable on the Kent coast. He would be away for some time, returning only in time for the dinner in Grace’s honour before the wedding. He had kissed Grace’s hand as he bade goodbye and said, kindly but – Rose couldn’t help thinking – rather pompously, “Goodbye, my dear. Enjoy yourself – and do not forget that on Boxing Day you will become Lady Caskins.”

  Rose caught Perdita’s eye. There was something in the way that Perdita gazed at Sir Godfrey that made Rose murmur wickedly, “It’s not as if as soon as he’s left, Grace is going to leap on the trapeze and hang upside down showing everyone her knickerbockers. Although I’d love it if she did.”

  Perdita suppressed a grin. “Sir Godfrey is a man who sets great store by his reputation and good name.”

  “But good name aside,” asked Rose, “is he also a good man?”

  Perdita replied quickly. “He is a very charitable one by all accounts, and he always treats Grace with kindness.”

  Rose felt relieved. Sir Godfrey may seem a little stuffy, but kindness went a long way. Without Thomas taking her in as a baby, Rose would probably have died. More than anyone, she knew the value of kindness.

  “Are you named after Shakespeare’s heroine in The Winter’s Tale?” Rose asked, changing the subject.

  “Yes,” said Perdita softly. “For my sins, I am. Did you know Shakespeare made the name up? It means ‘the lost one’,” she said, and a faraway look came into her eye.

  “It’s such a pretty name,” said Rose.

  “And you, Rose, are a real-life Perdita, or so I hear from Rory. I don’t know why Thomas didn’t think of calling you that, given his love of Shakespeare and the way he found you abandoned as a tiny baby.”

  Rose laughed. “Probably because he didn’t plan to bring me up as a shepherdess in Southwark and was confident that I wasn’t a real-life princess.”

  Perdita smiled. “But Aurora turned out to be a lady. So why shouldn’t you be a princess?”

  Rose made a face. “I’d hate that. It must be awful being a princess. All that bowing and curtseying and never being able to climb on to a roof when you want.”

  “Grace told me that you’ve be
en searching for your mother but that the trail has gone stone cold. You should never give up on your dream of finding her, Rose.”

  “Oh, but I haven’t given up,” said Rose fiercely. “I won’t give up until I find her, or know for certain that she is dead. Because I don’t believe she would give up on me.”

  Perdita looked sad, and Rose wondered whether she too had lost someone in her life.

  “I hope you find your mother eventually,” said Perdita, before making her excuses and joining Grace’s side.

  It was later in the day and Rose, Thomas, Edward, Aurora and Effie were seated around the table in Thomas’s study with Inspector Cliff and his assistant, Billy Proctor. A copy of The Stage lay on the table, its headline screaming: “Desiree dead in on-stage shooting.” They all knew Inspector Cliff well. He had investigated the theft of the Doomstone from Campion’s and the murder of the magician Gandini. Although he had proved himself rather bumbling in many regards – at one point even arresting Effie for Gandini’s murder – he was a likeable man. As Rose was fond of saying, he always did his best, even if his best sometimes turned out to be inadequate.

  “The bullet could have been fired from anywhere in the hall,” said Cliff. “It wouldn’t be hard to conceal a small pistol. It makes my job all the more difficult. We couldn’t detain everyone present at Campion’s on the night Ivy was shot, and by the time my men and I arrived, many had left, and the murderer almost certainly slipped away in the crowd. Our only real hope is to discover the motive for killing Ivy and hope that leads us to her killer.” He paused and looked around the table.

  “I know from what I’ve been told that Ivy hadn’t endeared herself to her fellow performers here at Campion’s, but everyone protests their innocence and appears to have alibis. Of course, we will be cross-checking those alibis very carefully.”

  “I find it hard to believe that anyone at Campion’s killed Ivy,” said Thomas. “It would have been difficult for someone connected with the theatre to slip into the auditorium completely unseen. Somebody – the bar staff or the box-office staff – would likely as not spot them. It would be a risky strategy. Unless people are colluding with each other to provide alibis.”

  Inspector Cliff nodded. “Quite so. Maybe they are. It’s clear that most people working at Campion’s held a grudge against Ivy, and a grudge is always a reason to kill.”

  Rose frowned. “Look, Inspector,” she said. “Nobody liked Ivy very much, but that doesn’t mean they wanted to murder her, even if they joked out loud about it. Hall folk are used to dealing with prima donnas. There are feuds and fights all the time over who has got top billing or the better dressing room, or who the crowd likes best. Even who is getting paid what. Ivy was unpopular, but we’ve had plenty of acts here at Campion’s who have behaved worse, and they haven’t ended up dead on stage like Ivy Puddlewick.”

  “But Ivy did die, and unless there’s a madman out there taking potshots at music-hall stars, she died for a reason,” said the Inspector. “Whoever shot her was a fine marksman. They were dead on target from some distance. The gun had to be fired at the very moment that the audience were clapping to cover the sound. That requires real expertise. Somebody must have seen something. What surprises me is that nobody has come forward as a witness.”

  “It shouldn’t do,” said Rose. “After all, the Doomstone was stolen in full view of five hundred people and nobody noticed. It’s the same with poor Ivy. Nobody saw someone pull a pistol because they were all fixated on her dancing. Done discreetly enough, whoever was responsible would have an excellent chance of avoiding being spotted.”

  The Inspector nodded. “Can any of you think of anything unusual that’s happened over the last few days or weeks?”

  “There was the tiger,” said Effie excitedly.

  Inspector Cliff smiled and put his hand up to stop her. “Except the tiger. Everyone, without fail, has told me about the tiger cub. And the note attached. It’s intriguing, I agree, particularly the way Ivy is referred to as a tiger and the writer calls themself a tiger hunter. I would like to find whoever sent the note and the animal. But I have a hunch that the reason Ivy was killed lies at Campion’s. Somebody wanted to get rid of Ivy. The question is, why?”

  The Inspector stood up and turned to Edward. “I have appointments tomorrow to interview everyone who was in your party, sir.”

  “I bet some of them aren’t at all happy about the police turning up on their doorsteps,” said Rose.

  “Some have made that quite clear,” replied the Inspector. “But I intend to find Ivy’s murderer, and whether they are a pauper or a toff I will bring them to justice. It is the least that Ivy deserves.”

  Everyone stood up and Edward and Aurora left to go back to Silver Square. Thomas and Rose and Effie lingered for a little with the Inspector.

  “I have some news for you all. The Duchess has been released from prison.”

  Effie’s eyes darkened with fear. She had met the Duchess before, when they had both been incarcerated in Holloway prison, and she had been chilled by her ruthlessness.

  Cliff continued. “I’m afraid those crooked lawyers of hers found a legal loophole that got her released. I’m sure she is no threat to any of you at all, but I thought I would mention it as both of you, Rose and Effie, had some contact with her, and she was always so interested in Campion’s.”

  “But surely that was only because of the Gandini connection?” asked Rose.

  “That’s probably the case,” said the Inspector. “But I thought I’d mention it in case there is anything more to it.”

  There was something about the look on his face that made Rose feel certain he was hiding something.

  “There is something else. What is it?” she demanded.

  Cliff hesitated for a moment.

  “As I said, the Duchess was released because of a legal loophole, and perhaps because she has a hold over some people in high places. But in the process of the negotiations for her release, Billy visited her several times in Holloway. Of course, the Duchess will always try to manipulate people for her own ends. She’d betray her own flesh and blood if she thought there was an advantage to be gained. But during their conversations, the Duchess did tell Billy that Lizzie Gawkin, the woman who we know stole you as a baby, Rose, occasionally did small jobs for her. Petty stuff. Nothing significant.”

  Rose felt a prickle down her spine. She saw Thomas become more alert.

  “So do you think she might know who my mother was? Is?” asked Rose. The words came out croaky because her mouth was so dry.

  “I’m afraid I can’t say,” said the Inspector. “It’s why I hadn’t planned to say anything at this stage. But Billy thinks she almost certainly has more information than she is letting on.”

  Billy Proctor nodded.

  “At the very least, she may know from outside which London theatre you were snatched. If we had that information, even with the time that has elapsed, we would have a far greater chance of discovering the identity of your mother. I suspect she does know. She never forgets a face or a piece of information that she thinks may be of use to her in the future. If your mother is still alive, I reckon the Duchess may know who she is and where we might find her. Whatever happens, we’re going to be keeping a close eye on her. She was a close associate of Ambrose Skelly before her arrest. We hope she may lead us to him.”

  Rose felt her stomach tighten. She wasn’t sure if she felt excited by the news or anxious. She felt a strong urge to wrap her arms around Thomas and hug him.

  “Ambrose Skelly? The Cobra?” asked Effie excitedly, who, since she had learned to read, had become an avid reader of the more sensational stories in The Illustrated Crime News. “The theory is that he skipped to France and is living the high life in Monte Carlo. Has Crime News got it wrong, Inspector?”

  The Inspector smiled. He had a soft spot for Effie, which Rose suspected was well oiled by guilt after he had mistakenly arrested Effie for the murder of Gandini. She would still b
e languishing in Holloway prison today if it had not been for Rose’s determination to prove her friend innocent.

  “Maybe he is in Monte Carlo,” said Inspector Cliff, “but I rather doubt it. We had all the ports watched. My hunch is that he’s lying low somewhere. I only wish I knew where. I can’t help feeling that he’s somewhere under our noses and we just can’t see him. That’s why we’re trying to keep an eye on the Duchess, though she’s a slippery character and a mistress of disguise. But I just can’t help feeling that the two of them might try to make an alliance. Although of course if it ever came down to it, one would betray the other without the slightest qualm if it suited them.”

  After Thomas had seen the Inspector and Billy Proctor down to the door he came back up to his study to find Rose sitting quite alone. He took one of her hands.

  “Rose,” he said gently. “I know how much you want to find your mother, and if the Inspector does get more information, you know I will support you in your search, wherever that might lead.”

  Rose looked into Thomas’s kind, gentle face. She knew that he was telling her that even if finding her mother took her away from him, he would bear it for her sake. His generosity made her want to weep.

  “I know you will, Thomas. I have never doubted it.”

  Rose and Effie walked along Lant Street in the direction of Campion’s with a skip in their step. Snowflakes danced around their faces in the darkness. Some of the small terraced houses already had wreaths made out of holly on their doors for Christmas. Although Inspector Cliff appeared to have made no further progress in his investigation, and the atmosphere at Campion’s was a little odd, as if everyone was eyeing each other up as a potential murder suspect, they were both looking forward to tonight. Madame Elenora de Valentina was making her debut, and Pru Smith – or rather, Belle Canterbury –was also back on the bill.