by Heron Carvic
A third coffin teetered upright. The cymbals clashed. There was a pause. The lights were flashing ANGLETERRE. The cymbals clashed again. Another pause. The twins ran up and one swung wide the coffin lid. The cymbals rushed in with another clash. Still nothing happened. Then slowly an umbrella leaned from the coffin to clatter, handle downward, on the stairs. A handbag toppled after it.
There were muffled snorts from among the press; the backers sat up in surprise; the director stood transfixed.
“Mais non,” breathed Mme de Brillot. “Ah non, ça—pas possible.”
Thrudd Banner put his hands on the back of her seat. “Oh, yes it is,” he whispered. “With that congenital little liar all things are possible.”
Les Cyrcil Twins went forward. Each took a finger ring of the transparent covering, spreading wide the almost Union Jack. They looked behind it; they exchanged a glance. Where did they go from here?
“O-o-h.” Miss Seeton moaned gently. Oh, her head did hurt. And she felt, she was afraid, a little sick. She opened her eyes: light blazed and blinded her, making her headache worse. She tried to move but found there was no floor in front of her. Strong hands gripped hers, supporting her. She looked down. She was on steps. But everything shone so. And there was some colored material in front of her. She couldn’t see. Where was she? What had happened? The sustaining hands eased her down two steps, then stopped her.
“Stay there, ducky,” said a voice.
“Just for a sec,” said another.
“We’ll be back,” said the first.
Cecil and Cyril let go Miss Seeton’s hands, leaned backward, ripping the Gossamer Union Jack in half, crumpled the pieces and flung them over their shoulders behind the girls grouped on the stairs. As one they sprang two steps up; Cecil collected the handbag, Cyril the umbrella, and Les Cyrcil Twins were back, kneeling in devotional attitudes one step below their charge.
The orchestra had completed the first three bars of “Rule Britannia” and the contralto had informed the company in execrable English that Britannia ruled the waves, when the Union Jack was swept aside. After the old-fashioned umbrella and the practical handbag, the revelation of Miss England as the apt if incongruous little figure in a shapeless hat, a serviceable suit and sensible shoes, surprised guffaws from the press, laughs from the backers and chuckles from the theater personnel. The director collapsed into a seat.
The musical conductor glared at the stage and smacked his baton down, halting the orchestra. If the producer could make last-minute changes and introduce farce without warning him, then so in the name of the good God could he. He tore the sheet music of “Rule Britannia” and flung it from him; bent forward and eyed the musicians venomously.
“‘Heureux tous les deux,’” he hissed, raised his baton and swung them into “I Want to Be Happy.”
Miss Seeton, left alone, saw the staircase as a tinsel precipice; vertigo assailed her and she swayed, pitching forward. Reassuring hands caught her again, held her, closing her fingers round the handle of her own umbrella, the strap of her own handbag. The stairs were lined with young women with next to nothing—some with nothing—on. Memory stirred. Of course. She had been following Mme de Brillot behind the scenes . . . and a lot of nude models . . . and some iron stairs . . . and one of them—the models, that was—had been called . . .? Lilianne. That was it. And had been wearing a sort of wrapper like a Union Jack. That would account for the material she’d thought she’d seen in front of her. Yes, that explained everything. The steps, the naked women and the Union Jack. This was some silly, stupid dream, and . . . Oh, her head did hurt.
Had she slipped on those stairs and hit her head? And yet . . . And yet—that didn’t seem quite right. Surely she’d been at the bottom of the stairs and seen something—or someone—important and Mme de Brillot must be told. Yes, that was it, and she’d asked the young woman by some gold boxes like coffins—such a morbid idea—yes, Lilianne . . . and . . . she couldn’t remember any more.
The Cyrcil Twins had not missed the laughter from the “house.” They were sensitive by training to audience reaction, and the rehearsal had already told them that the revue would fail. Explanations could wait, but meanwhile they were determined to take advantage of the situation and play this new angle, this chance for its survival, to the hilt. In triumph and slow tempo they led the dazed “Miss England” down, to raucous appreciation from the front of the house.
Cecil’s eyes slid to his right. “Join in and sing, you dilly cows,” he ordered the girls.
Cyril’s eyes slid left. “Chantez, belles bêtes,” he commanded the chorus near him. The girl with the eager smile grasped the idea.
“Tous ensemble,” directed Cecil.
Falteringly, then with gathering enthusiasm, the company straggled into song. Owing to numerous revivals, many of them actually knew the English words.
“Ay von tew bee yappy . . .,” they chanted.
Even the contralto in the corner, who had considered the interruption of her scene as a direct insult, caught the infection, threw offended dignity to the winds and boomed in, stamping to the rhythm in a personalized version of Knees-up Mother Brown.
“Miss England” reached the bottom of the stairs. Still holding her hands, the twins swung round and knelt facing her, blond heads thrown back in seeming adoration.
“Ducky, do something,” begged Cecil.
“Something funny,” pleaded Cyril.
“We don’t know who you are—”
“Or why you’re here—”
“But you’ve wowed ’em.”
“The angels are in front—”
“And so’s the press—”
“And this dead duck of a show—”
“Might lay a golden egg.”
“Whatever you do—”
“We’ll play along—”
“Until someone has the sense—”
“To wake up—”
“And ring down on us.”
“So meanwhile—”
“Please do—”
“Please, please do—”
“Something funny.”
Something funny . . .? She didn’t understand. It was dawning on Miss Seeton that this was no dream but that somehow, in some dreadful fashion, she was, in fact, upon the stage. If only she didn’t feel so muzzy—and if only her head . . . Something in the kindness in those supporting hands, something of the message in those imploring eyes penetrated. She would help, if she could. . . . But, there was nothing. . . . The insistent melody carried her back to her childhood, when her aunt had taken her for a birthday treat to see a musical production called No, No, Nanette. She remembered so well that clever Miss Hale twisting her legs around each other and how, in her bedroom later, she had tried to do the same and had fallen down. So curious that now one knew the movement as part of a yoga balance posture called the Eagle and did it frequently. In automatic reflex, without thought, Miss Seeton crossed her legs and locked one foot behind the other ankle.
From the stalls two or three shouts of approval greeted this achievement. The twins surged forward, gathered Miss Seeton up, hoisted her in jubilation and sat her on their shoulders. For a moment she stayed there, her arms waving to keep a precarious balance and inadvertently belaboring first one twin and then the other with her handbag and umbrella. A glance of communication between the two young men: their eyes rolled up and, legs widening into splits, they slithered to the floor in feigned unconsciousness. Miss Seeton, her legs still interlocked, subsided with them and the stage manager, aroused at last, rang down the curtain.
There was a splatter of applause from different parts of the theater; some members of the press catcalled or wolf-whistled and among the backers one angel wiped his eyes. The director, ignoring the fulminating conductor, gained the stage in three bounds and disappeared through the tabs. Mme de Brillot sprang to her feet.
“Going round to congratulate the new star?” asked Thrudd. “I’ll tag along.”
“You will not.�
� She edged quickly between the seats and reached the aisle. “I do not know how you have followed us here . . .”
“Easy. You told the porter at the Ritz-Palace the address to give the taxi and”—he rubbed a thumb and forefinger together—“he told me.”
Backstage was pandemonium. The cast, the stage manager and the staff demanded explanations. The stagehand from below, expecting to be blamed, loudly denied responsibility, accusing the girls’ dresser of switching the body in his box. The dresser counterattacked inveighing against Lilianne. And if it wasn’t a deliberate prank or plot, then where was Lilianne? No one knew, though the nude with the expressive eyes was ready with suggestions.
The director, bursting through the curtains and shouting louder then the rest, quelled the tumult. The front-of-house manager, catching sight of Mme de Brillot, rushed forward, seized both her hands and pumped them. Her friend, her friend, her friend, he enthused, superb, superb, superb.
Mme de Brillot reclaimed her hand and eyed him stonily. Where was Miss Seeton?
He looked about him, made inquiries. Everyone looked around, asked questions, but all denied any idea of Miss Seeton’s whereabouts. Where were the Cyrcil Twins? But, evidently, where would one expect them to be but in their dressing room? And there, evidently, was the answer. The lady they were seeking must be there too.
Cecil turned an artless face toward his visitors. Miss Seeton? Was that her name? Really he couldn’t say. She’d popped up on stage like a fairy godmother with an umbrella for a wand and then when the tabs came down she’d vanished—probably in a puff of smoke.
“But,” insisted Mme de Brillot, “you must have seen her.” Cecil giggled. “Didn’t we all? Lovely sense of timing, but”—he frowned, mock serious—“do you really think she’s got the stamina for a run?”
“The question does not arise.”
Cecil’s eyes gleamed. “Oh, but it will. You’ll see. With this dead duck of a show and then that little ducky suddenly gaying it up d’you think the angels’ll sit back and let all their lovely lolly go flushing down the loo? They’ll sign her up—you’ll see.”
Mme de Brillot examined the dressing room. “What is in there?” She pointed to a door behind a rack of costumes to one side of the mirrored makeup bench with its two stools.
“Cyril,” replied Cecil. He reached into the air and pulled an imaginary chain. “Having a shower,” he explained. He went and banged on the door. “Cyril, ducky, come out—it’s my turn.”
There was the sound of running water, much splashing, and a light tenor began to sing:
“If you were the only man in the world
And I was the only boy . . .”
Cecil hammered again, the singing stopped. The door opened a few inches and a face half covered with dripping blond hair peered round.
“Oops,” cried Cyril, “company.” The head vanished, to reappear a moment later swathed in toweling. Pulling his dressing gown cord tighter, Cyril apologized. “Sorry, duckies, didn’t know anybody was here.” He perched among the makeup and waved to an overstuffed chair and a stool. “Won’t you park?”
Thrudd Banner felt that the twins were overplaying it—covering up. “Hang on,” he called. “Mind if I look in there?”
Cecil ogled him and held the bathroom door invitingly. “Of course, ducky—come in and scrub my back. Such a thrill.”
Thrudd took a step forward, hesitated; he could see most of the small room from here. “All right, forget it.”
Cecil pouted. “How could I, ducky—ever?” He gave Thrudd a last languishing look, skipped into the bathroom and closed the door. More water ran and his voice took up the song:
“. . . was the only boy,
Nothing much could happen in this world today;
The population problem would be solved that way . . .”
Questioned, Cyril was professing to know no more than Cecil, when they were interrupted by the stage manager with a message: there was to be an hour’s break in the rehearsal for a conference, after which a company call; everybody on stage, please. Cyril turned to Mme de Brillot.
“There you are, ducky; there’s your answer. You’ll find your friend swilling champers and discussing terms with the management.”
The twins’ dresser, Gustave, an elderly man, gray-haired, minced in with a loaded tray. He set it on a low table by the armchair and looked around in surprise. He opened his mouth to speak but Cyril cut in quickly and dismissed him, explaining that their friends weren’t staying and that Cecil would arrive in a second because though the coffee might keep, the omelets wouldn’t. Would he conduct their friends to where the conference was taking place since they, in their turn, were in search of a friend who would undoubtedly be there. And then to come back.
Mme de Brillot and Thrudd Banner found themselves ushered out and escorted down the corridor before they had time to think of further questions.
The twins were delighted with themselves. They surveyed Miss Seeton, who lay back deeply asleep in an overstuffed armchair behind the bathroom door.
“We didn’t give her too much?”
“Only one tablet,” said Cyril. “Give her a lovely kip for an hour or so—and give us time to think.”
They closed and locked the bathroom door, then settled to their meal .
Mme de Brillot was in a quandary. She did not wish to enlist the aid of the police. There was little she could adduce but intangibles to support her present worry. Miss Seeton had appeared upon the stage—by accident, it must have been by accident—she then had disappeared. But the police would argue understandably that in such a crowd it could not have been by force and that having, as she must have done, left of her own free will, she would in her own time return to the hotel. If Miss Seeton proved not to be in the theater—and by now she had the impression that this hope was doomed—she would probably do better to return to the hotel herself and direct the search from there. Mr. Banner had thought that there was something bizarre about the behavior of Les Cyrcil Twins; she had sensed the same, but it was something—something about the dressing room itself that bothered her; something that for all her recapitulation of the scene she could not indicate exactly; something about the room itself . . . No, it would not come. Meanwhile she could justifiably alert the police in regard to Lilianne’s disappearance—there must be some connection—and the undoubted connection between Lilianne and Librecksin would stir them into action.
• • •
Lilianne went ahead to reconnoiter. There was no occupied parked car near the building, no loitering figure, no—unlikely at this hour—road sweeper or repair van for electricity or gas. This was not to say that her apartment was unobserved from some window opposite the front or from the back, but it reassured her and would give confidence to Anatole. She signaled; he joined her and they climbed the stairs.
Lilianne thrust Librecksin’s hat on a peg in the three-by-four-foot space which the landlords termed the vestibule, opened the door of the living room and switched on the top light instead of the muted roseate glow of lamps, as was her wont.
This was a business deal, not an assignation. The harsh glare was unkind to the surroundings, showing wear on the tawdry furniture; brutal to her, stressing the disarray of her elaborate coiffure, her heavy makeup, the soiled coveralls and the ridiculous glints from the silver sandals with their encrusted paste heels below the trousers. She drew unfortunate comparison to an overcooked tart with wilted garnishing served on a chipped plate.
Lilianne was jolted to learn that Librecksin wished to borrow money; it was usurping her prerogative. Money, in cash or kind, was an asset she was accustomed to receive for favors bestowed rather than to dispense, however good the collateral. She was risking her job, would probably be sacked and for that she must be compensated. That Paris was dangerous for Anatole at this juncture she allowed and agreed to raise what wind she could next morning if he would leave the diamonds, or some of them, in her safekeeping. He refused and the argument grew acrimonious. T
hat he proposed to send Mantoni to work in England, where he himself could follow and negotiate in safety for the canvases with the Arab buyers who had already agreed on terms with Tolla; that from England it would be simple for him to cross to Antwerp and dispose of sufficient diamonds for his immediate needs; that he would then be in a position to reimburse her tenfold—did not impress Lilianne. England and Holland were far away. She was in Paris, where Anatole was afraid—and once the hunt was on would be still more afraid—to show his face. In sum, to her mind, she was likely to be bilked. She grew shrill and Librecksin, conscious of the neighbors, gave in, admitting the force of her arguments, produced the diamonds, sorted them and handed her one-third. She decided not to press her advantage further. He was holed up at the Hôtel de l’Europe et de la Rose, small and cheap, in a courtyard behind the Boulevard des Italiens. She promised to come there on the following day with what money she could muster before he was due to leave for the airport to catch the evening flight to London, the bargain was sealed with a perfunctory kiss and while Lilianne fingered the stones in rapt contemplation Librecksin crossed the room, retrieved his hat in the vestibule and banged the outer door.
The girl reflected: Anatole was—and would be—of no further use to her. She slipped the diamonds into an envelope. These she could keep; need never acknowledge. But—if she sold him, and the rest of the stones were recovered, she would finish in good odor with the police and gain the reward from the insurance. She reached for the telephone. Slowly, silently the handle turned and the door to the sitting room was eased ajar. Librecksin stood listening, heard the dialing, a pause, then:
