1 Murder Offstage

by L. B. Hathaway

  ‘Rainbird, go and get back-up, urgently. Find a telephone and call the Yard: we need armed men here in plainclothes. We also need lads from the drugs squad, the liquor squad and our specialist in late-night licences. I’m sure this lot are breaking every rule in the book. Everything about this place is illegal, and I’m going to pin them for it.’

  ‘Are you calling for Inspector Oats to come too?’ asked Posie, fearfully.

  ‘Nope,’ he shook his head. ‘This hasn’t got anything to do with him. Not yet.’

  ‘Just one thing, Inspector,’ cut in a nervous-sounding Rainbird, ‘Where are we exactly, sir?’

  The Inspector looked uncertain too for a moment. ‘Radnor Square,’ he said quickly to his Sergeant, his eyes alighting with relief on the black and white enamelled plaque behind them.

  ‘I’d say we’re at the back of Hatton Garden,’ said Len, trying to be helpful. Rainbird nodded and ran off into the darkness.

  ‘Hatton Garden, eh?’ muttered the Inspector. Posie caught a gleam of interest flash across his face. But before she could ask him more, out of the corner of her eye she saw cars drawing up, over on the far side of the square.

  ‘We’d better hurry. More people are coming now. We’ll draw attention to ourselves if we just stand here lurking around. Like we don’t know the score.’

  ‘Well, they’d be right about that!’ said Len crossly.

  ‘Come on. I know what to do,’ Posie was bluffing, but she knew they had to move fast. ‘Follow me, all of you.’

  The sound of the car doors slamming in the distance had spurred her into action. She linked arms with Len and dragged him down the steps. Before he could say anything she rapped sharply on the trapdoor four times. She put her sunglasses on quickly.

  For a horribly long second nothing happened. She was aware of Dolly pressed in close behind her, her face sweating with fear under her thick greasepaint, despite the cold; Inspector Lovelace and Sergeant Binny were pressed tightly on either side.

  Then the door moved.

  There was no creaking, no swing of rusted hinges. Instead, it curved upwards and to the left smoothly. Posie saw at once that the old wooden trapdoor was a mere decoration: thick shining metal casing and a rubber seal ran around the underside. From the exposed square in the ground a smoky greenish light emanated upwards. It looked like the entrance to a submarine.

  ‘What on earth?’ whistled Len beside her, and just then the head of a big burly man popped up.

  ‘Password?’ he snapped impatiently. He appeared to be balancing at the top of a staircase or a ladder. He was holding a list of names and was brandishing a stubby pencil in his hand.

  Jeepers, thought Posie. No idea. She felt Len tensing beside her.

  ‘Darling!’ she said, laughing light-heartedly, bluffing for her life. ‘I’ve no idea! Caspian just told me to come here tonight and knock four times on this funny little door! There was no mention of passwords. He gave me these, though.’ She brandished the matches she had fortunately remembered to bring.

  ‘What’s yer name, then?’ the man asked gruffly.

  Oh, hell’s bells. They hadn’t thought of this. Stupidly. Posie suddenly remembered her exotic Spanish disguise.

  ‘I am a Countess,’ she said haughtily, and raised her sunglasses a smidgen to give the man what she hoped was her best withering glance. ‘Countess Faustina,’ she added in a clear autocratic voice, supplying the only Countess’ name she could think of on the spur of the moment; the aristocratic victim of the Carino Affair. She surprised herself with the fluency of her performance. Beside her she heard Len stifle a laugh.

  ‘No,’ the man said, scanning his guestlist. ‘No Faustina here. Sorry, love. You and your mates ’ad better scarper, quick-like.’

  Posie felt for a horrible fluttering second that she had lost the battle. Behind their little group a crush of fabulously dressed people were gathering, spilling down the steps in a drunken riot.

  ‘Hurry up, you oaf!’ shouted a man with a very plummy voice from the back of the group. Posie pressed on:

  ‘Look, mister. You go and find Caspian now. Tell him who I am, and that you locked me out of here. He’ll be mad as hell, I promise you. I didn’t like to mention it before, but he’s my first cousin.’

  Posie heard Dolly’s sharp intake of breath behind her. At the same time a slight glimmer of fear crossed the man’s face.

  ‘You just tell him his cousin the Countess is here. You’ll lose your job in a second, believe me.’

  The man looked quickly back at the gathering crowd, and then nodded at Posie:

  ‘All right, yer grace. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Please come on in.’

  The man disappeared from view and Posie looked down into the green misty light. She saw a burnished metal staircase, wide and modern, twisting away to one side.

  She gathered up her tight red skirts and stepped down into the hole. She felt a cool smooth bannister under her hand. She continued walking about twenty steps down into the smoky green light, thankfully aware of Len close behind her. At the bottom the ground hollowed out.

  And what she saw there made her gasp in surprise.

  ****

  Nine

  ‘Great Scott!’ Len was standing beside her. ‘It’s enormous!’

  A long, low, cavernous space stretched out before them. The room was the size of a full-scale theatre, with a bar running the length of the right-hand side, and a glittering spangled-curtained stage at the far end. It was very crowded: there were probably over seventy people gathered at the bar alone and another two hundred or so sitting in clusters at the round tables which were scattered tightly across the space.

  The guests were dressed fabulously, theatrically – an angel here, a devil there. There was even a girl in a mermaid’s outfit, replete with a complicated hinged tail. Dolly had been right: to have been underdressed here would have been a mortal, noticeable crime.

  The walls and floor were entirely lined in a silvery thick metal casing. Posie looked upwards; the ceiling too was covered in it, punctured every now and then with a tiny crescent moon-shaped hole.

  ‘Miniscule airvents,’ Inspector Lovelace muttered in wonder. ‘My God, they’re clever! I’ll give them that. This is all lead casing: the place is almost totally soundproofed! It’s as if it didn’t exist. Must have cost a fortune…’

  ‘There’s a free table here, sir,’ said a pretty waitress, coming up to Len, and directing him to the very middle of the room. The girl was dressed in a teeny-tiny dress of black and silver crepe which did very little to contain her ample curves – it was little more than a bathing costume really – and Posie was glad of her dark walnut oil to hide the flush she could feel spreading hotly across her face.

  ‘What can I get you all?’ the girl asked when they were sitting down.

  ‘We’d just like the usual, please, Miss,’ said Posie, holding her nerve and nodding with conviction. She didn’t usually smoke but she took a gasper quickly from Dolly’s silver case which was lying on the table. Sergeant Binny offered her a light: she hoped no-one noticed her hands were trembling, and that the smoke caught in her throat.

  ‘Very well,’ nodded the girl, purring in approval. ‘Back in a tick.’

  ‘I say, you should’ve been on the stage as well,’ said Len grudgingly. ‘Countess Faustina, my hat! You’ve got some nerve.’

  In their own ways, all of them were busy checking out the nightclub, while trying to act normally. The Jazz band up on the front stage were coming to the end of their set, playing their final crescendo. The nightclub was dark, lit by a single green revolving Pier Light placed at the end of the stage; its beam, normally used to guide ships home, was powerful enough to penetrate to the back of the place, cutting through the heavy smoke-filled air.

  Their drinks arrived. Five thick, syrupy sour-apple Martinis – the drink of choice for all of London just now, it seemed. Len slapped a pound note down on the table casually as if he had reels of them to spare. The waitr
ess smiled and flung some change down. Posie took a sip of her drink and almost choked.

  ‘Look!’ whispered Dolly, excitedly. ‘Look who’s in the front row!’

  They craned their necks and saw a crowd of fawning women surrounding a table right up against the stage. A man had just arrived. He was shrugging off a big black fur coat, the green light illuminating his face for a second: a beautiful face, framed by black hair curling back in waves like a Greek God. It was a face currently printed on the cover of every magazine in town, on billboards outside all the cinemas and on nearly every London bus.

  ‘Ivor Novello!’ said Sergeant Binny excitedly. ‘Jeepers! Wait ’til I tell the missus! We just saw him at the cinema in Carnival – a real film star!’

  ‘Calm down Binny, for goodness’ sake!’ said Inspector Lovelace gruffly, trying not to show his own excitement. ‘Act naturally. As if you see film stars every day of the week.’

  The Inspector nodded around in admiration, surprised.

  ‘It’s quite the respectable gaff, this place, isn’t it? Stars at every turn. Quite frankly, I’m impressed. I was expecting something distinctly second-rate.’

  As they watched, Novello ran lightly up the little stairs at the side of the stage. The Jazz band had now finished, and Novello clicked on a microphone, adjusted the piano stool and sat down. A spotlight from nowhere swivelled onto his face. He turned to the audience, cracked a beautiful smile and then started playing some of his well-known numbers from the time of the Great War. The whole club erupted in applause and cheering. In all the excitement Posie and Len took the opportunity to scan the crowd for Lucky Lucy, a girl they had never seen in the flesh before, which made matters difficult. After a couple of minutes of hard searching, Posie felt sure Lucy was not among the many young beauties gathered around.

  ‘That’s Mr Blake, the Theatre Manager, over there at the bar,’ she said to Inspector Lovelace discreetly. ‘And that lad with the shock of spiky black hair, I recognise him too from the theatre. He’s Reggie. He organises the sales of the programmes.’

  On closer inspection it seemed that many of the people milling around, even the barman behind the bar, were actually staff from the Athenaeum Theatre, transplanted into this dim, green subterranean world as if by magic. A cluster of well-known bright young things were led with much bowing and scraping by Reggie the programme-seller towards a table at the very front of the club.

  ‘Everybody who is anybody in London is in this place tonight,’ Len whispered.

  Posie nodded. ‘If Lucky Lucy is still in London, this is where she’ll be,’ she said, ‘otherwise, she’s long gone and that letter sent to me today was planted.’

  Novello was standing now, bowing and laughing as the applause rippled over him in waves. He was joined on stage by a tiny, breathtakingly lovely blonde girl. The whole club seemed to take a collective intake of breath. A spotlight hovered over her.

  ‘Is that her?’ Len hissed at Dolly, his jaw practically on the floor. ‘Is that Lucky Lucy Gibson?’

  Dolly shook her head, frowning. ‘No. Although she’s very similar.’

  ‘Please give a big welcome to Miss Kitty La Roar. With one of my new songs!’ Novello announced into the microphone. The crowd cheered as he sat back down at the piano.

  Miss La Roar was dressed in a silver-sequinned dance-dress, and her every move across the stage made it seem as if an army of fireflies were following her. She grabbed a microphone and jumped on top of Novello’s grand piano and reclined luxuriously. At Novello’s first chord, she started to sing upside-down: the sultry tones carried easily through the strange green-filtered air. It was an old-fashioned dance song, and couples had started to move towards a clearing near the stage.

  ‘Don’t look now,’ said Inspector Lovelace easily, his eyes glued to Kitty La Roar at the front, ‘but we’re being watched. Several men on the serving side of the bar have had their eyes fixed on our table for the last couple of minutes. My guess is that any minute now someone will come across and ask you some specific questions about your exact relationship with this chap you mentioned, Count Caspian della Rosa. You might want to make yourself scarce, Posie. Or else, find the ladies’ room…’

  ‘Or dance,’ said Len decisively, hauling Posie to her feet so quickly she thought her flamenco wig might fall off. ‘Countess Faustina, we are going to dance. They can’t interrupt us out there in front of everybody.’

  As Posie followed him she heard Dolly start in surprise behind her:

  ‘Why! The men watching us are all members of the Athenaeum Theatre! Orchestra members! I know them all!’

  Posie caught a brief glimpse of a length of plate-glass mirror running behind the bar, and a shadowy line of perhaps ten men pressed up against it, their heads swivelling in her direction, following her every move. Her heart started to beat faster.

  ‘Relax,’ Len ordered, leading her onto the dance floor. In one fluid movement he had positioned himself around her with the obvious ease of an expert. He pressed his hand into the small of her back, forcing her body very close to his. He led her around in time to the music, smiling calmly, his movements liquid, only an occasional flicker of his eyes over Posie’s shoulder betraying his nerves.

  Posie hated dancing – she feared she looked a fool – but her fear of being found out and her sheer relief at having Len with her forced her to smile, to try and look like she was loving every minute of it. She was so close to Len that she could feel the steady beating of his heart, and at the small of her back, where he held her very tight she could feel…what on earth?

  ‘What have you got crammed into your cuff?’ she hissed crossly. ‘It’s hurting me. Move your hand up a bit. Oh my goodness…’

  She almost came to a standstill, knocking into another couple as she realised with a jolt that Len was carrying a revolver.

  ‘A gun?’ she whispered crossly. ‘When did you start toting weaponry around with you? This isn’t the Wild West, you know!’

  ‘No,’ Len said, turning her quickly in an expert spin, ‘it could be a whole lot more dangerous. Besides, I always carry it with me. It was my service revolver. I never gave it back.’

  Posie gasped at this revelation, but at the very moment Len twirled her again to face the audience, she saw that all hell was breaking loose.

  ‘It’s a raid!’ someone shouted.

  A stream of what seemed like hundreds of policemen were rushing down the metal stairs at the back of the club and guests were running in all directions, screaming. The long plate-glass mirror behind the bar suddenly pivoted inwards, and the men behind the bar disappeared inside the secret space it revealed before it swung firmly shut again.

  ‘Move, boys, move!’ Inspector Lovelace was shouting at his men as they hurtled over to the bar in a great mass. For a brief moment Posie saw the leonine head of Caspian della Rosa silhouetted against the bar, his hands resting on the burnished metal worktop, surveying everything around him with the air of a Captain on a sinking ship. In that moment she knew for certain that the club was his. It was his baby, his masterpiece; the mysterious, magnificent jewel in his crown.

  Then there was sudden and absolute darkness. People were screaming.

  ‘Get down!’ whispered Len urgently, and he and Posie lay on the dance floor. She heard the ‘click’ of his revolver as Len loaded the barrel next to her.

  Girls were still screaming when the lights went on again, but this time it was not the green Pier Light which was used; instead, a stark unforgiving white light flooded the club, giving it the air of a bright hospital ward, or a vast refrigeration unit, with the cold metal walls shining horribly. Upturned tables and smashed drinks covered the floor. But thankfully no-one appeared to be hurt. Up on the stage, Ivor Novello and Kitty La Roar were still sitting as they had been before Scotland Yard stormed in, both sipping champagne at the piano.

  Over at the bar, Inspector Lovelace had handcuffed Mr Blake and Reggie, and both were looking murderous. Several burly policemen were throwi
ng themselves against the plate-glass mirror, trying to break it down or force it open, but it looked like a thankless task.

  ‘Nobody leave! Stay where you are!’ shouted Sergeant Binny uselessly, as people scrammed in every direction. A cigarette-girl who had been squatting down next to them on the floor obviously judged this as a good time to go, but Len grabbed her by the arm:

  ‘We need to leave too, Miss. Any idea if there’s another exit, apart from the main stairs to Radnor Square up there?’

  The girl nodded and beckoned. ‘There’s an emergency exit, down this corridor, past the cloakroom. Quick. But follow me, this place is enormous and has hundreds of tunnels everywhere: you could easily get lost.’

  Len and Posie followed, elbowing their way through the crush of people who had started to file down a long, dark corridor. On their left a series of identical small doors were cut into the metal walls, each with a tiny crescent-moon window in the top. They lost the cigarette-girl in the scrum. Len looked pleased:

  ‘We may as well try and have a nosy around while everyone is tied up in that ruckus back there, don’t you reckon, Po? We won’t get the chance again. This place will be closed down as a crime scene.’

  ‘What about Caspian della Rosa?’ Posie asked fearfully. She had no wish to run into him after Inspector Lovelace’s spectacular rumble, which she was indirectly responsible for.

  ‘Pah! Him and his cronies will be long gone! They won’t hang around here waiting to get arrested. You heard that girl; there are loads of secret ways out of here.’

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ Posie said, feeling uneasy suddenly. ‘I can’t believe I forgot! What about Dolly? We should go back for her. I don’t know if she’s safe.’

  ‘No,’ Len said in such a forceful way that Posie gasped.

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘I don’t like her, I don’t trust her. And frankly, I’m surprised you do so easily. You don’t know the girl at all! She’s too innocent-seeming by half. Naïve. Likely it’s an act. Who’s to say she’s not in with this mysterious Caspian della Rosa after all? She told us about tonight. Got us to come here. It could all be a trap. Take my advice and stay away from her.’