Bellamy slammed his fist down on the file in front of him. I think it was the first time I had ever seen any real emotion in him.
“And you think we don’t care? We will have you know, Mr. Rivers, that we have spent some considerable time on this case and have by no means written off your Mr. Gossett. The fact that this Billy Weston is now very much in the picture is, of course, of interest to us, and we thank you for advising us of it. But now would you please leave the work of detection to the professionals and get back to your stage-managing duties?”
We sat for a long moment glaring at each other before I came to realize that there was much truth in what he said. It was his bailiwick, not mine. I think I had the grace to be the first to back down. I reclined in my seat and spoke softly.
“You are right, Inspector. My apologies. I hope you can understand the emotional stress that is placed on our whole theatre when one of our own goes missing, especially in this case where it may be that the young man in question is possibly placing himself in harm’s way.”
Bellamy grunted, and his fist relaxed into an open hand on the file in front of him.
“If there is any way . . .” he started to say. I jumped on it.
“Would you be kind enough just to let me know where you think Mr. Gossett might be? Just for information’s sake?” I forced a smile at him.
He grunted again and flipped open the file. He scanned the information on the top sheet and then relayed it to me.
“Our last investigation showed a strong possibility that the young gentleman in question had almost certainly returned to his hometown of Langley Mill.” He looked up again and held my gaze. “We do not, however, Mr. Rivers, want to learn that you have gone running off up north after him. We will take advisedly the report of your Mr. Weston now being missing and proceed with our own investigation. But as we said before, leave these matters to the professionals.”
I thanked him and made my departure. Leave it to the professionals? I thought. But they were the ones who were unmoved by the disappearance of Nell Burton. They were not directly responsible for her murder, but they certainly did not hurry themselves to search for her, initially.
I made my way back to the Lyceum and to Mr. Stoker’s office, determined not to sit back and wait for Scotland Yard to solve the case of the missing stagehand.
* * *
“It’s ludicrous!”
It was seldom, though not completely unknown, that Mr. Stoker became angry, but I found him in a surly mood when I returned to the theatre.
“What do you think the Guv’nor has decided, Harry?” Before I could hazard a guess he told me. “He has acceded to Mr. Booth’s request. Actually, as I understand it, it was his manager Colonel Cornell’s request.”
“And what was that?” I managed to ask.
“To take on a completely untrained actor. Oh, just in crowd scenes I grant you; no lines or anything likely to befoul a scene, but still . . .”
I could understand my boss’s feelings. There were plenty of seasoned performers who would love to work in the Lyceum company. Why hire an amateur?
“Who is this person?” I asked. “Why does Mr. Booth want him aboard?”
“The colonel said something about making Mr. Booth feel ‘comfortable,’ whatever that is supposed to mean.”
I shrugged. “So is that so terrible?” I asked. “Perhaps Mr. Booth just feels happier with another American in the cast. Granted, it’s unprofessional, but perhaps that’s how they do things on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.”
“Well, this is this side of the Atlantic Ocean, Harry. We play by British rules.”
“You say the Guv’nor has agreed to it?”
He nodded resignedly. “I think there was some sort of a deal. The colonel is apparently a Freemason, a member of that fraternity, and has agreed to coach the Guv’nor on all their shenanigans in return for us broadening our crowd scenes.”
I looked up sharply. “The colonel coaching the Guv’nor? I wouldn’t think Mr. Irving would need coaching in anything.”
“Oh, they have all sorts of secret handshakes, grips, and so on,” he said, offhandedly.
“Is this a good thing?”
Stoker’s expression darkened, and he peered at me from under his bushy eyebrows. “That is not for you nor me to say, Harry. All I know is that I have a bad feeling about this. My old granny always told me to pay attention to my feelings. She had the sight, did I tell you?”
“Actually, several times, sir.”
He ignored me. “She had the sight just like her granny before her, or so she told me.” He nodded, in agreement with himself. “We must stay on our toes, Harry.”
“Yes, sir.” I waited to see if there was more to come, and then, when it seemed there wasn’t, I told him of my visit with Inspector Bellamy.
“The man is an ass, Harry. Don’t forget that.”
“No, sir.”
“Young Billy has not reappeared?”
“No, sir.” I told him of the observation made by Rupert Melville. Stoker looked concerned.
“Where exactly is Langley Mill?” he asked.
“I looked it up. It’s between Derby and Nottingham.”
“And young Nell Burton had come from Nottingham. Leastwise, she had done some work at the Theatre Royal there. Hmm.” He tugged on his ear and screwed up his face, as he did when thinking things through. “Harry, Hamlet is running smoothly—as it should be after all this time. I would like you to go up to Langley Mill and see if you can intercept our Billy Weston before he does something foolish.”
“Up to Derbyshire, sir?” I had visions of missing yet another weekend with Jenny, but then chided myself for putting my simple pleasures before consideration of Billy’s possible predicament.
“I know. I know. You’ve barely got back from Liverpool, and I hate suggesting you leave again.”
“That’s all right, sir,” I mumbled, unconvincingly. After all, it was only Wednesday. I might even be able to make it back by Sunday, if I could locate Billy quickly enough. “You are certain this is necessary?”
“I am, Harry. I am. I think it will be for the best. Again, I hate to ask it of you.”
I didn’t mention that Inspector Bellamy had expressly forbidden me to go north in search of Billy. Then I comforted myself in the fact that the inspector had actually forbidden me to chase after Ben Gossett, not our Billy. Splitting straws, perhaps, but one does what needs must. Or as the Bard says: “He must needs go that the devil drives.”
* * *
I put my head around the corner of the greenroom. Act Three had not yet been called. The young ladies who made up some of the Players were huddled in a corner. Arthur Swindon, the Ghost of Hamlet’s Father, sat alone in another corner draining his flask and studying, with bleary eyes, the paint flaking off the wall next to him. I approached the group of girls.
“Miss Abbott?”
“Oh! Mr. Rivers. Yes, sir. We haven’t been called yet.”
“I know,” I said. “I don’t mean to interrupt your short break but, er, I was wondering . . .”
“You want me to read the cards, Mr. Rivers?”
The other girls giggled. I ignored them.
“It’s just that . . . well, I have to go somewhere for Mr. Stoker and I wondered . . .”
“Say no more, Mr. Rivers. Here! Make room, you lot.”
The other girls pulled back. I saw that Edwina already had her cards out; she was probably reading them for one of the group. I felt bad for interrupting, but I did not have a great deal of time. Miss Abbott scooped up the cards, shuffled them expertly, and then fanned them out and offered them to me. I hesitated a moment, my hand hovering along the display, and then I pulled one that seemed to beckon to me. She put aside the others and lay down the one card, faceup, on the small table in front of her. The girls all leaned inward,
and there was a collective gasp.
“What? What is it?” I was suddenly concerned.
“Oh, don’t pay them no nevermind,” said Edwina. “They get excited no matter what the card.”
We all looked down at the pasteboard, which depicted five swords; nothing more. What did they mean? I wondered. I looked up at Edwina.
“Five épées,” she said. “That’s what Auntie Jessica called them.”
“So what do they mean?” I had difficulty containing my curiosity.
“Well, first of all they’re in the Minor Arcana. Don’t ask me what that means, but it’s just that they ain’t court cards, if’n you take my meaning.”
“But they are significant?” I asked.
“Oh yes. They are all significant. But the thing with these here Minors is that it means there ain’t no big forces at work. Nothing major, Auntie would say.”
“I’m still not sure . . .” I began.
“Forces change around us all the time,” explained the girl. “But with big forces, like the Major Arcana, there really ain’t no changing them. What you see is what you get. With these little ones, you can do things to make changes happen. Do you follow me, Mr. Rivers?”
I was not sure. “I—I think so,” I said. “You mean that with the court cards it shows what is set in stone, as it were, whereas with these smaller ones, things are still fluid; still changing.”
“That’s it! You got it, Mr. Rivers.”
“Well, that’s good . . . I think. But then what do the five swords actually signify?”
Her brow wrinkled as she studied the card. “The card is upside down. It’s not easy to see with these Minors, but I can tell you it’s not right side up.”
“Is that bad?”
“Needn’t be. Hmm. It says that there’s a possible problem, a misfortune, that could happen to a friend.” She looked up at me. “You got someone as you are worried about, Mr. Rivers?”
I nodded. Billy Weston, I thought, though I didn’t say his name out loud. “What can you tell me about him?” I asked.
“Draw another card,” she said and, picking up the rest of the deck, fanned them again.
I ran my fingertip along the backs of them, dithering over the choice.
“Beginners, Act Three!” came young Edward’s voice, as he moved past the greenroom door.
Edwina scooped up the cards and slipped them into a pocket in her skirt. With the rest of the girls, she ran out of the room, calling back over her shoulder: “Sorry, Mr. Rivers. Mr. Irving doesn’t like us to be late.”
They disappeared toward the steps leading up to the stage. I had no idea what that next card might have been.
I saw that Arthur Swindon was slumped in his chair, snoring. I didn’t think he was needed onstage, so I left him.
Chapter Ten
Langley Mill is a small village in the Amber Valley. To the left, as the train chugs into Langley Mill, may be seen the ruins of Codnor Castle, a desolate site on a hill surrounded by wheat fields. The village is right on the border of Derbyshire (of which it is a part) and Nottinghamshire, and is on the River Erewash. It has little to commend it, to my mind.
It was noon when I disembarked at the railway station. I was beginning to hate rail travel. I had left London’s St. Pancras Station before the morning had fully arrived and then suffered a hard seat on a slow-moving train of the Midland Railway’s L.N.W. route. The stop before Langley Mill was Derby. I would have preferred to have done my investigating in that city, with its large hotels and restaurants, but Inspector Bellamy had assured me that Ben Gossett had gone to earth in Langley Mill, so that was where I needed to be. That was where Billy Weston would be drawn.
In the village there were but two rooms offered at the Black Swan Inn, locally referred to as the Muddy Duck. I was lucky to find one of those rooms vacant.
After a surprisingly edible ploughman’s lunch at the inn, I set off along the High Street in search of my prey. When I had queried the landlord, he had assured me that he knew the Gossett family but had not seen Ben for a few weeks. The boy, he said, had lived with his aged mother and an aunt and had scraped a living doing odd jobs.
“Never amounted to much,” he said. “Not surprised ’e went off to London.”
“But I hear he has returned,” I said.
He sniffed and concentrated on slicing cheese. “I ain’t seen nothin’ of ’im, if’n ’e ’as,” he said.
So I passed along the High Street in the direction the landlord had indicated. The Gossett farm was a half mile beyond the last house in the village, and I found it to be in very run-down condition. I presumed there were no longer animals there, since the barn roof had fallen in and the chicken house leaned at a precarious angle. I was surprised, therefore, to hear sounds coming from the dilapidated pigsty.
It took a number of raps on the farmhouse door to elicit a response. Finally, an elderly lady dressed all in black, stooped and obviously arthritic, squinted at me from red-rimmed eyes, one of which was white and cloudy.
“’Oo is it?” she demanded.
I introduced myself. “I was wondering if young Mr. Ben Gossett was at home?” I said. “I believe he has been away in London, but I have been led to believe that he has recently returned here.”
“What?” she said, cupping a hand to her ear.
I sighed and repeated myself, leaning in toward her and raising my voice a little.
“Ben?”
“Yes, ma’am. Ben Gossett.”
“You’d best come in and speak to his mam.”
She turned and shuffled away back into the darkness of the passageway. I stepped inside and followed, closing the door behind me. This left me in almost total darkness, despite the brightness of the sun outside. I could make out the woman’s white cap as she moved away, and I followed it. She led me into the parlor, where a small amount of light fought its way into the room through heavy, dark-colored curtains that almost entirely covered the window.
A second elderly lady, looking much like the first, also dressed in black but with bright, intelligent eyes, sat in a rocking chair knitting something large and multicolored. The click-clack of her needles did not pause as she acknowledged my presence with a bob of her head.
“Young feller says it’s about our Ben,” said the woman who had led me in.
Another bob of the head.
I looked about me but could see no empty seat—I believe there were one or two chairs, but each supported a cat—so I remained standing.
“Yes, ma’am. I understand that Ben has newly returned from London?”
The bright eyes looked at me, and she smiled; the needles continued their tattoo.
“Is that correct?” I pressed.
“She don’t ’ear too well,” volunteered the first lady. “Best if you talk to me.”
I was bewildered. Hadn’t she just told me to speak to Ben’s mother? Yet here Ben’s mother couldn’t, or wouldn’t, speak. I mentally shook myself and counted to ten. I smiled.
“Of course. Forgive me,” I said. I took the liberty of shooing an overweight calico cat off the nearest chair and sitting down. The ladies didn’t seem to take it amiss.
I told my story of needing to contact Ben and of the possibility of Billy following him and wishing him harm.
The aunt—for that is whom I took the first lady to be—repeated my tale, sentence by sentence, to the mother. It seemed to me that she did not speak any louder than did I, yet the mother appeared to hear and understand her. Leastwise, the mother kept nodding her head and smiling as she worked her knitting needles.
“So is Ben here?” I persisted. “May I speak with him?”
“He’m out and about,” said the aunt. “Best you leave it with me. I’ll let him know you was askin’ after him.”
I was more than “asking after him”; I was there to warn
him of a possible attempt on his life. I did not feel comfortable just “leaving it” with her. But what was I to do? I got to my feet. Ben’s mother’s head bobbed as she smiled at me.
“When do you think he will be back? I really would like to have a word with him myself.”
“Of course you would,” agreed the aunt, but she made no suggestion on how to proceed.
“Look,” I said, “I am staying at the Black Swan, in town. Would you please ask Ben to come and see me there? And I’ll come back here tomorrow just in case. Is that all right?”
“He’ll be out and about,” said the aunt agreeably, starting to struggle to her feet, ready to see me off.
I held up my hand. “Please don’t trouble yourself. I can see myself out. I hope, perhaps, to visit with you tomorrow.” I gave a half bow and then turned and left, the sound of the knitting needles fading away as I exited the house.
“You won’t get nowhere with Mam and Auntie A,” said a voice.
I looked around. A tall, thin young man with an unshaven chin and straggly attempt at a mustache stood leaning on the top rail of the fence around the pigsty. He looked as though he hadn’t washed in two or three days and I noticed that his fingernails were black with grime.
“Are you Ben?” I asked.
“That’s what they call me. And ’oo might you be?”
I moved forward, resisting the impulse to extend my hand to shake his. “Harry Rivers,” I said. He remained slumped forward on the fence rail. “I’m from the Lyceum Theatre in London. I came here . . .”
“Aye. I know all about that. I’ve ’eard of you.”
“You have?” I was surprised. I didn’t think my fame had spread so far. In truth, I didn’t think I had any fame! “Might I ask, from whom?”
“Billy,” he said. “Billy Weston.”
My face must have registered my surprise.
“Don’t look so flabbergasted, mate. ’E says good things about you.”
“When—when did you speak with him?” I gasped.
“Just yester-evenin’. We was sharing a jug at the Muddy Duck.”
Dead for a Spell Page 11
