‘What, may I ask, are all these piles of paper, sir?’ Adam picked one sheet out of the many on the chair and looked at it. He could make little sense of the words on it.
‘Plays, Mr Carver, plays. Wretchedly written plays. Plays of pitiably poor quality. Plays that no theatre company will ever perform.’ The actor gestured at the manuscripts with all the contempt of Coriolanus scorning the plebeians of Rome. ‘You can have no conception of the number of would-be dramatists Yorkshire holds. And every one of them feels it incumbent upon himself – or herself, for the fair sex is as likely to feel the promptings of the muse as the other – to despatch his – or her – theatrical lucubrations to Alfred Skeffington. I am a man beset by bad drama.’
‘Are there not works amongst them that might interest you?’ Adam had removed the piles of paper from the chair and lowered himself gingerly into it.
‘Not a one! None that shows any understanding of the art of the theatre.’ Skeffington seized a handful of the nearest manuscript, waved it in Adam’s direction and then hurled it over his own shoulder. ‘There’s no mileage in a play that has nothing but words. That is what they do not comprehend. Sensation, Mr Carver, sensation! That is what is required. Scenic effect and mechanical effect must thrill the eye. Words, alas, come a very poor second. Sometimes I wish that this were not so, but it is.’
There was a pause as the actor took a turn about his paper-strewn office. He picked up a couple of pages from one of the many manuscripts he had been sent, glanced at them, snorted with disdain and cast them away with a gesture of impatience.
Adam watched as they settled on a different pile of papers from the one on which Skeffington had found them. ‘A melodrama, perhaps, is what theatregoers most enjoy,’ the young man observed after a further moment’s silence.
‘A sensational melodrama, sir, a sensational one.’
‘Such as The Skeleton in the Cave,’ Adam suggested.
‘Indeed, indeed,’ the actor said complacently. ‘Our own production is sensational indeed. And it has the added bonus that it is a story set in Yorkshire. Even in matters of murder, I find that the average Yorkshireman believes the best is only to be found within the bounds of his own county.’
‘For my own part,’ Adam ventured, ‘I do not always find myself in agreement with the majority. I have not often found such theatrical works very convincing.’
‘You are right yet again, Mr Carver, they are not. What stories they tell us!’ Skeffington beamed at Adam. ‘Rich and poor babies exchanged, with surprising frequency, by conniving nursemaids. Innocence and loveliness perpetually pursued by vice and debauchery. Wicked squires wearing tail coats and waxed moustaches. Not, I suspect, a very accurate portrayal of life in our villages and country houses. Even in Yorkshire. But audiences lap it up, sir, lap it up.’ The actor suddenly clutched his stomach. Turning away from Adam, he fumbled in the drawer of a baize-covered desk, piled high with more papers. Pulling a small brown bottle from it and uncorking it, he raised it to his mouth.
‘Are you well, Mr Skeffington? Should I call for assistance?’
The actor shook his head, still imbibing from the bottle. Eventually, with a smack of his lips that suggested deep satisfaction with what he had just drunk, he lowered it.
‘Dr Collis Browne’s Chlorodyne,’ he said, holding up the small flask for Adam’s inspection. ‘A miraculous concoction. Twenty drops of the good doctor’s medicine and the inner man is wonderfully soothed. For years, I suffered most dreadfully from the gripes. “All goodness is poison to thy stomach” – Henry VIII, Act 3, Scene 2. I owe my new well-being to Dr Collis Browne. He is one of the great benefactors of the age. If ever your inner man should turn upon you, I recommend this elixir unreservedly.’ He returned the bottle to the desk drawer.
‘I shall certainly bear your recommendation in mind, sir.’
‘Do, my dear boy, do. What is it, Jesmond?’
A figure had appeared at the door to Skeffington’s room. It was that of a man in middle age, with greasy and thinning fair hair and a protuberant paunch. He scowled at the actor before replying to him. ‘You ain’t forgot you’re visiting the Townswomen’s Guild this afternoon, have you?’
Skeffington clapped his hand to his brow and let out a long moan. ‘I had forgotten, Jesmond, I had. The merciful waters of Lethe had washed over the memory of that particular appointment. But here you come with your cruel reminder of it. Have you no pity, Jesmond, no compassion for your suffering fellow man?’
‘All I know is they’re expecting Shakespeare’s Tragic Heroes at three o’clock.’ Jesmond turned on his heel and left the dressing room as abruptly as he had arrived in it. Skeffington shook his huge head like a lion worrying its prey. He stared mournfully at Adam. ‘You can have no idea, sir, of the humiliations heaped upon us poor players,’ he said, suddenly plunged into apparent despair. ‘As if it was not enough to parade oneself before the swinish multitude in some witless comedy, to listen to the cachinnation of fools as one struts and frets one’s hour upon the stage, I am also required to hold forth on Lear, Othello and the Dane to an audience of portly matrons and twittering maiden aunts.’ The actor sighed deeply. ‘It is no profession for any man of real distinction.’
‘And yet you perform an undoubted service, Mr Skeffington.’ Adam felt obliged to offer some consolation, so miserable the man now seemed. ‘Think of the pleasure you give to thousands.’
Skeffington brightened immediately. ‘You are right, sir, of course. Your sturdy common sense recalls me to myself. There are many in this hurly-burly world of ours who suffer from what Mr Carlyle calls, in his inimitable way, “asphyxia of the soul”. And there are plenty of souls here in York that are well and truly asphyxiated. It is our job to help these poor, stifled souls to breathe again. To inspire them with a love of art and beauty and the finest things in this life.’ Skeffington gestured grandly in the direction of the poster advertising The Skeleton in the Cave. ‘And now, like Milton’s uncouth swain, I must away to fresh woods and pastures new. It has been a delight and a privilege to talk to you, young man.’
‘Before you go, sir, may I ask you again to look at the girl’s photograph?’ Adam held out the card and this time the actor, taking a monocle from his pocket, condescended to squint in its direction.
‘A pretty girl,’ he acknowledged. ‘There are so many pretty girls who wish to take to the stage. They come to visit me, bedizened with their tattered finery. I always advise them against it.’
‘But have you seen this particular pretty girl, sir? Has she asked to join your company recently?’
‘You must speak to Mr Timble, sir. The estimable Mr Timble. Not a sparrow falls, metaphorically speaking, in this great theatre but Timble knows of it.’ Skeffington cast off the purple dressing gown, revealing a dark jacket and trousers beneath. He took a huge black cape, seemingly several sizes too large for him, from a peg on the door, swirling it about his tiny body and all but disappearing within it. Only his leonine head remained within view. ‘As for myself, I have an appointment. In Bottom’s immortal words – the Dream, Act 4, Scene 1 – “I must to the barber’s, monsieur, for methinks I am marvellous hairy about the face”.’
‘I had hoped, Mr Skeffington, that you would be able—’
The actor thrust his right arm out of the enormous cloak and held it aloft. ‘No more, Mr Carver. The barber’s chair awaits me. I cannot visit the fairest ladies of this fair city with my locks untrimmed. Timble, sir, Timble is the man for you.’ With one last flourish of the giant’s cape, he turned and stalked out of the room.
* * * * *
‘Skeffington’s all right,’ Timble said grudgingly.
After the actor’s abrupt departure for the barber’s shop, Adam had returned once more to the lobby where the elderly cleaner was still busy with his broom. The man had seemed unsurprised to see hi
m again and had cheerfully pointed him in the direction of his new quarry.
Adam had found Timble sitting at a desk in a small room tucked away behind the dressing rooms. He was methodically making his way through what looked like a large pile of bills.
‘Gets some strange ideas in his head, that’s all. If I told you what he wanted for the show last Christmas, you wouldn’t believe me.’ The theatre manager, a mournful-looking man in late middle age, with straggly grey hair and a beard, gazed at Adam.
After a brief silence, the young man realized that he was waiting for him to ask the obvious question. ‘What did he want, Mr Timble?’
‘Animals. Wild animals. A bear and a camel. For the pantomime.’
‘I suppose it must have been difficult to obtain them.’
‘We got the camel from Jamrach’s in the Ratcliffe Highway. Had it sent up here on the train. Caused quite a stir, I can tell you.’
‘I imagine it did.’
‘Ever had any dealings with camels?’
Adam confessed that he had not.
‘Nasty brutes. They spit everywhere. The pit was awash.’ Timble picked up one of the bills from the desk, examined it, sighed and placed it back on the pile. ‘It only lasted two nights. The orchestra was up in arms. We had to send the beast back to Jamrach’s. Cost us a bloody fortune.’
‘What about the bear?’
‘Oh, the bear was no trouble. He’s still here somewhere.’
Adam looked hurriedly over his shoulder.
‘In York, I mean. We sold him to a street performer. I saw him in Petergate the other day.’ Timble now had two large pieces of paper, one in his left hand and one in his right. He looked from one to the other, then stood up and moved across his office to a small stove in the corner. He opened the grate on its front and thrust both papers into the stove’s fire. Slamming the grate shut, he walked back to his chair. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve come to talk about camels and bears, though. You say the old man told you to see me?’
Adam nodded. ‘Mr Skeffington thought that you might know a woman for whom I am searching.’ The young man gave the theatre manager the photo of Dolly.
Timble was in no hurry to give judgement. He held the cabinet card first in his right hand and then in his left. He moved it nearer to his face and then further away. He tilted it slightly to one side and, shifting his head to the same angle, peered myopically at the girl. ‘Yes, I’ve seen her,’ he said eventually. ‘She come here a few days ago. Calling herself Jessie Smith. Not her real name, of course. Never thought it was. Said she could sing and dance and wanted a job. She’d talked to Skeffington and he sent her to me.’
‘And did you find a job for her?’
‘Nothing going,’ Timble said. ‘No vacancies at present. No call for dancers in a murder story. We might need some for a show Skeffington’s thinking of for the summer. I told her to come back in a month.’
‘And she left the theatre immediately once you had told her this?’
The theatre manager nodded.
‘Did she give any indication of where she was staying? Or of her future plans?’
‘She just went. I’ve no notion where.’
Adam sighed with disappointment. He was wasting his time in pursuit of this girl. He began to think that his best option was simply to take the train back to London and tell Sunman that he couldn’t find her. And then he could return to his old life, to his photography and his writing, and forget that there was such a young woman as Dolly Delaney.
And he could shake the truth about his father out of that wretch Job Benskin.
Yet did he want to return to London with his tail between his legs? To admit to Sunman and Waterton that he had failed them? He did not. For the present, he would continue to look for Miss Delaney. He tipped his hat politely to Timble. ‘Thank you for your time, sir. I am sorry to have troubled you.’
‘Think nothing of it. I wish I could be of more help. She seemed a nice young thing.’
Adam had turned and opened the door to Timble’s ramshackle office and was halfway through it when the theatre manager spoke again.
‘There was one thing. She said she knew Cyril Montague. From London.’
The young man came back into the room.
‘Aye,’ Timble said. ‘She’d worked with him at the Gaiety, according to her account. She must have thought it would change my mind for me. But when there’s no dancing job to be had, it don’t matter a fig who you know or don’t know. There’s just no job.’
‘Cyril Montague? The name sounds familiar. Who is Cyril Montague?’
‘Maybe you saw him in London yourself, sir. Quite the nob in his day, Cyril. A few years ago. Name in the papers, crowds of admirers at the stage door. But his habits got the better of him. Or the worst.’ Timble mimed a man smoking furiously.
‘Tobacco?’ Adam asked, puzzled.
‘Opium,’ Timble said. ‘It’s the very devil for making a man forget. Poor Cyril kept forgetting on the stage of the Gaiety. So now he’s up in York, forgetting his lines every night on stage here and driving Skeffington to distraction. Standing there like a dying duck in a thunderstorm, trying to remember what he’s supposed to be saying. Some nights the only time he shows any spark of interest is when the play ends. He’d elbow the Devil himself out of the way to take a curtain. The old man’ll lose patience with him soon, but Cyril’s still hanging on by his eyelashes.’
‘Is Mr Montague in the theatre at present?’
Timble began to wheeze and shake his head. It took Adam several moments to realize that the mournful-looking theatre manager was laughing. ‘Cyril in the house?’ he said through the wheezes and gasps. ‘At this hour? We’re lucky if he arrives for curtain up. In any case, tonight is the one night in the week he isn’t on stage.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘There is one question which I failed to ask Timble when I saw him.’
Quint, who had just finished hanging his master’s frock coat in the hotel room’s solid mahogany wardrobe, turned as he heard his voice.
Adam was sprawled on a long sofa beneath the window, smoking a cigarette. ‘I forgot to inquire whether or not Dolly had said she would return to the theatre.’
‘Ain’t very likely, is it?’ Quint closed the wardrobe door with a crash. ‘Didn’t you say this Timble cove told ’er there was no work to be had?’
‘Ah, but that is not exactly the case. He told her there was no work to be had at present. However, he also claimed that he had mentioned the company would need dancers in the summer. He advised her to come back in a month’s time. But did she say anything that suggested she would take his advice? I omitted to ask him.’
Quint’s bored grunt said as eloquently as any words might have that he couldn’t see that this mattered very much.
‘But it is of significance,’ Adam said, in reply to the grunt. ‘If she said she would return, then she was planning to stay in York. We are not wasting our time in looking for her. I should have asked him.’
‘Go round the Grand and ask ’im in the morning.’
‘It would be better to put the question to him more immediately.’
‘Go round the Grand this evening, then.’
‘I cannot. I am determined this evening to speak to Cyril Montague. Tonight, I am told, is the only night in the week when he is not on stage. I have no time to go in search of Timble. You must find him, Quint.’
‘And ’ow the devil am I supposed to do that? You’re forgetting I ain’t ever clapped eyes on ’im.’
‘Everybody at the theatre knows him. Someone will point him out to you.’
‘And if he ain’t at the theatre, I jest go round asking every cully in York if ’is name’s Timble, I suppose?’ Quint spoke with heavy sarcasm.
&n
bsp; ‘If he isn’t in the Grand, he will be somewhere close. Montague may be having a night off, but the play goes on. Timble will want to be on hand. Try the local alehouses. You will enjoy that.’
* * * * *
Quint entered the bar and peered about him.
He had been to the Grand but his quarry had not been there. Luckily, the man in the box office had seen Timble leave and had known where he would be going. He would, the man had said, be in the Punchbowl in Stonegate.
The pub had only a handful of customers and only one of them fitted the description Quint had been given. He was sitting at a corner table, reading a copy of the York Herald, a half-empty bottle and a glass in front of him. He looked up as Quint approached and stood by the table, eyeing him like a funeral director measuring a corpse for its coffin.
‘Can I help you, sir?’ Timble asked, peering over the top of his newspaper.
‘The name’s Quint Devlin,’ the manservant said. ‘You’ve already spoke to the cove I works for. Gent called Carver. There was a question ’e was going to ask you and never did. ’E’s told me to come along and ask it for ’im.’
Timble looked Quint up and down. He seemed slightly surprised but not perturbed by his appearance in the pub. ‘Well, good evening to you, Mr Devlin,’ he said eventually. ‘I’m sure I’m happy to oblige your master if I can.’ He gestured to the other chair pulled up at the table. ‘Would you like to join me in a drop of the gin?’
Quint nodded and sat down. The theatre manager beckoned to the barman and another small glass was brought to the table. Timble filled it with gin. Quint raised the glass in a half-toast and then upended its contents swiftly into his mouth. He banged it back on the table top, making the gin bottle wobble slightly, and let out a whistle of appreciation.
‘Nice drop of the lightning,’ he said.
‘Would you like to wet the other eye, Mr Devlin?’ Timble asked, making as if to pour a second glass from the gin bottle.
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