Gallows Court

by Martin Edwards

  Before he’d fretted long enough to become queasy, the car pulled up in Shaftesbury Avenue, next to the squat columns guarding the entrance to the Inanity. Extraordinary! He’d never guessed his destination would be that palace of popular entertainment, the vast Edwardian theatre where Sara Delamere wove her magic in the guise of an Egyptian queen, and where poor Dolly Benson had once flaunted herself in the chorus line.

  The chauffeur got out, and opened the door for him. His expression was unreadable.

  ‘In you go.’

  Relief prompted an impudent grin. ‘Sorry, I didn’t bring any change, or I’d give you a tip.’

  The chauffeur gave him a hard stare, and the smile died on Jacob’s lips.

  ‘Is – is Rachel here?’

  ‘Miss Savernake to you.’ A massive thumb jerked in the direction of a uniformed flunkey at the door. ‘Give her name to the boy, and he’ll escort you.’

  Jacob did as he was told, and was whisked upstairs in the lift. Standing at the door of the lounge bar, he scanned the crowd, increasingly conscious that he was the least smartly dressed man in the room. It was just as well that working as a journalist had thickened his skin.

  At last he caught sight of Rachel, and moved swiftly to her side. ‘Good evening, Miss Savernake.’

  ‘Ah, there you are! Trueman timed your arrival to perfec­tion. The curtain will be up in five minutes.’

  ‘I wasn’t expecting—’

  ‘A pleasant evening at the theatre? Ah, Mr Flint, I’m full of surprises.’

  He considered her. ‘You never spoke a truer word.’

  ‘We have a box to ourselves,’ Rachel said. ‘Just the two of us. Such a generous gesture on the part of William Keary.’

  ‘I’m honoured,’ Jacob said. ‘Keary is a friend of yours?’

  ‘Of my late father, to be precise,’ Rachel said coolly. ‘Let’s go in.’

  *

  They took their places at the front of the bow-fronted box. The plush upholstery and the lampshades on gilt brackets were the colour of ripening plums; the enclosed space reeked of decadence masquerading as luxury. Marble cherubs and nymphs adorned the vast proscenium arch below. Peering at them through a pair of opera glasses, Jacob fancied that the sculptor had captured a mischievous look in their eyes. As the lights dimmed, Jacob seized the chance to whisper in Rachel’s ear.

  ‘Can we talk in private?’

  ‘Not now, and there is no interval in this performance. Let’s just sit back and enjoy the entertainment. This evening should supply you with excellent copy.’

  She was playing a game, but he had no idea of the rules. He found himself retorting, ‘A pity I’m not a drama critic.’

  In the darkness, he glimpsed her smile, and felt a tide of anger well up inside him. There was so much he wanted to know. Why had the woman invited him to the Inanity, if she didn’t want to speak to him?

  The musky whiff of French perfume was tantalising. He felt light-headed, as if Elaine’s joke about Rachel Savernake putting a spell on him was coming true.

  He glanced across at the boxes on the opposite side of the theatre. There were enough famous faces in the audience to make an autograph hunter swoon. It was almost a pity that Elaine wasn’t here. He recognised a distinguished opera singer and a man who opened the batting for England, as well as Sir Godfrey Mulhearn from Scotland Yard.

  A drum rolled, and the blood-red curtain rose; moments later, the orchestra was in full flow. Tap-dancers with shoes like polished mirrors twinkled around the stage, but his mind kept wandering back to his conversation with Sara Delamere. Even if Rachel knew about Pardoe’s inexplicable threats, he couldn’t imagine why, with Pardoe dead, she’d want to spend the evening at the Inanity.

  Unless, perhaps, she was already aware that Sara had a story to tell, and intended to interrogate her after the show. This seemed plausible. Perhaps he should take Rachel at her word, and simply enjoy the performances. She’d reveal her hand when it suited her.

  One of the secrets of the Inanity’s success was that its programme changed each week. Jacob recalled a couple of the acts from his visit with Elaine, but parts of their routines had changed, and other artistes were new to him. A troupe of dwarf acrobats tumbled into a large triangle which collapsed as the acrobats split apart like falling cards. The Flying Finnegans from Fermanagh performed gravity-defying stunts on creaking trapezes with silvered ladders, and a fat comedian from Pudsey had the audience rolling in the red-carpeted aisles with innuendo-laden quips fired out one after the other, as fast as bullets.

  Below their box, Jacob saw people all around, laughing until the tears flowed. Beside him, Rachel Savernake clapped politely, and smiled at every punchline, but her thoughts seemed elsewhere. Only when it was time for the final act of the evening did she lean forward, rapt eyes fixed upon the stage, as the curtain fell before rising again. The shifting of scene to an ancient temple, with desert sand in the background, and the arrival, to a steady drumbeat, of Nefertiti, Nubian Queen of Magic and Mystery.

  ‘Magic fascinates me,’ Rachel murmured.

  ‘Me too,’ Jacob whispered, thankful they’d found common ground, if only for a moment.

  Meek, apprehensive Sara Delamere was unrecognisable as the brown-skinned, swan-necked beauty in a clinging silk gown, virginal white with a vivid red sash, and brilliant blue eyeshadow to match her tall, tapering crown. She never spoke to the audience, but danced around the stage in between performing her tricks with a histrionic flourish. A flock of doves flew out from an empty casket, and a dozen sheets of papyrus ripped from an ancient tome formed magically into a single banner bearing hieroglyphs which suddenly changed to spell Nefertiti. She even indulged herself in one of the oldest tricks of all, shimmying up a rope until she disappeared out of sight, only to emerge seconds later from behind a huge replica of the Sphinx.

  As the applause died down, the orchestra launched into a sombre theme pregnant with menace, and Anubis emerged from the far wing. He had a black jackal’s head, with long, pointed ears and a tapering muzzle, and the lean, bronzed body of a man. He wore nothing but a yellow loincloth and, on his left index finger a jade scarab ring. Nefertiti feigned shock at his arrival, and the Sphinx rolled away to reveal, in front of a pyramid, a large stone sarcophagus raised above the ground by four low pillars.

  The Queen and the Death God danced in an exotic court­ship ritual; one moment she cowered from him in fear, the next she became coquettish and coy. As the music became deafening, Anubis strove to seize hold of her, but each time he was thwarted as she slipped from his grasp. Finally, she stood her ground, and faced him down with a broad smile. Bowing in triumph, she mouthed a few words, and the jackal head nodded. A wager had been struck in mime.

  Suddenly, she produced from nowhere a steel chain, and neatly snapped it around his wrists like a pair of handcuffs. The music died away as, for the benefit of the audience, she took hold of a ring on the top of the sarcophagus. With one strong pull, she’d lifted the heavy lid, and with it, the top half of the side of the sarcophagus. While Anubis struggled in vain to free himself, she directed the audience’s attention to a tiny opening in the lower part of the side of the sarcophagus.

  At the snap of her fingers, two boys in Egyptian costume ran onto the stage. One handed to Nefertiti four pieces of firewood, the other a burning touch. Nefertiti hurled the wood into the sarcophagus, before goading Anubis towards it with the torch. She drove him to wriggle his way up and into the stone coffin. Once the whole of his body was inside, she pulled down the lid, and the music built as she danced ecstatically with the torch of flame.

  Jacob and Elaine had found the cremation illusion breath­taking, and he marvelled all over again, even though he knew what came next. Nefertiti would push her torch through the opening in the side of the sarcophagus to start a fire inside it. While members of the audience held their breath, she’d lift the lid to admire her handiwork. A skeleton would be revealed, with a burning jackal’s head and a jade scarab r
ing on its left index finger. And then Anubis would stride out from the shadows at the rear of the stage, and tear off his chain, ready to take his conquest into the desert. Familiarity with the trick didn’t breed contempt. Jacob tensed as Nefertiti waved the burning torch, before sliding it through the side of the sarcophagus.

  Next to him, Rachel exhaled. She closed her eyes, as if uttering a silent prayer.

  Everyone in the theatre could see underneath the sarcoph­agus, as well as all around it. The flames were so fierce that they burst out from beneath the lid. The audience gasped. Anybody inside must be burned to ashes. How could Anubis possibly escape? Jacob couldn’t work out the secret of the trick. For all her modesty, Sara Delamere was a gifted illusionist.

  ‘Amazing,’ he murmured in Rachel’s ear.

  ‘Unforgettable,’ she breathed.

  Cymbals clashed, and Nefertiti raised the stone lid of the sarcophagus. Jacob recalled that last time, the skeleton had sat up for a moment, a jade scarab ring glinting on one of its bony fingers. Horror had rippled through the shocked onlookers.

  Tonight, something was different. Despite the heat from the dying flames, Nefertiti had frozen. She was staring down into the sarcophagus. This time the skeleton did not sit up. The music stuttered, and then the orchestra fell silent.

  Everyone was leaning forward in their seats, waiting to see what came next. Several women gasped, and the cherubs on the proscenium arch grinned down at the stage with malevolent delight. Only Rachel Savernake was unmoved.

  Rachel knows, Jacob thought. She was expecting this, like an enchantress waiting for her prophecy to come true.

  And was his imagination working overtime, or was there wafting up towards them the smell of charred flesh?

  Nefertiti screamed, and he had his answer.

  17

  ‘Are you absolutely certain that William Keary was deliber­ately murdered?’ Sir Godfrey Mulhearn tugged at his mous­tache, as if ripping it off his upper lip might somehow solve the mystery. He prided himself on being able to pass for fifty, but a disrupted night had left him with the haggard look of a man who had spent every day of his sixty-two years in back-breaking toil.

  ‘Not a shadow of doubt, sir.’ Superintendent Chadwick lowered himself into a chair on the other side of the desk with elephantine care. His very ponderousness was reassuring. ‘Oakes and his men are tidying things up as we speak. There is still work to be done, but the essentials are clear. Keary was killed in the most vicious manner possible, and the culprit was one of his own stagehands.’

  ‘This man Barnes? The fellow who wanted to marry that poor wretch Dolly Benson?’

  ‘And whom we arrested prior to Linacre’s suicide,’ Chad­wick said, his grammar as punctilious as his demeanour. ‘I always fancied he was a bad lot.’

  ‘Was there any talk of ill will between him and Keary?’

  ‘Not a whisper, that’s the strangest feature of the whole business. Keary’s treatment of Barnes was exemplary. Far from sacking the fellow when he was suspected of killing his young lady, he paid for Barnes to be legally represented. And that was certainly not out of character. Keary had a reputation as a first-rate employer.’

  Sir Godfrey indulged in a further bout of moustache-torturing. ‘Barnes must have gone mad. Losing the woman he loved, coupled with the distress of being suspected – even if only for a short time – of having killed her, that would be enough to turn any man’s mind.’

  ‘Possibly, sir.’ Chadwick sounded unconvinced.

  ‘I mean, dash it all.’ Sir Godfrey banged his fist on the desk. ‘Look at the method he used to murder Keary. Burning the fellow to death when his hands were chained, and he was trapped on stage in a stone tomb. Absolutely barbarous. No sane Englishman could contemplate such a crime.’

  ‘I understand the argument, sir.’ Chadwick was a seasoned diplomat. ‘Yet the case has curious features. Barnes clearly planned his actions in detail. Not only the crime, but his means of escape. For a madman, he seems to have been exceptionally well organised.’

  ‘Even a maniac can display low cunning,’ Sir Godfrey grunted. ‘Have you established precisely how he committed the murder?’

  ‘I take it you understand how the illusion is performed, sir?’

  ‘I presume the girl who plays the part of Nefertiti isn’t actually capable of performing miracles,’ came the testy reply, ‘but no, I don’t know the secret of the cremation shenanigans.’

  ‘Let me explain.’ Chadwick settled back in his chair, like a grandfather telling a fairy story to a child. ‘Cremation illusions come, I’m led to believe, in various forms. This one is tailored to the Egyptian theme. At the rear of the sarcophagus is a panel which can be moved from inside.’

  ‘Ah!’ Sir Godfrey’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘Once Keary, playing the part of Anubis, God of Death,’ – here, Chadwick coughed to convey his opinion of such ill-judged frivolity – ‘slid into the container, he shifted the panel. In effect, it’s a trapdoor. His collaborator, the woman pretending to be Queen Nefertiti, gives him all the time he needs by prancing around the stage with her burning torch. This distracts the audience. They can’t see what else is happening behind her, because the bulk of the sarcophagus conceals everything. A stagehand concealed in the fake pyramid to the rear of the stage runs out a ladder which connects with the opening in the sarcophagus. The sarcophagus is elevated from the ground, so people can see by looking underneath it and towards the pyramid – but there’s a blind spot. Keary squeezes through the opening at the back of the sarcophagus, and the stagehand pulls back the ladder, conveying Keary into the pyramid, and safety. Crucially, the illusionist is at the front of the stage, distracting the audience. She is a very handsome woman. People can’t take their eyes off her.’

  ‘Indeed. Her costume was… scanty. Not indecent, mind you, nothing to agitate the Lord Chamberlain. But rather suggestive.’ Sir Godfrey coughed. ‘How can she make sure that her accomplice is safe?’

  ‘Good question, sir. The moment Keary reaches the pyra­mid, the stagehand presses a button which releases a puff of smoke into the air. It means nothing to the audience, but Nefertiti is waiting for the signal.’

  ‘And did Barnes give the signal last night?’

  Chadwick nodded. ‘We’re not merely relying on the woman’s word. Two other stagehands waiting in the wings confirm it. Unfortunately, their positions meant they could not see that Keary had failed to make his escape. She had every reason to believe it was safe to thrust the burning torch into the sarcophagus.’

  ‘Poor creature.’

  ‘She is quite demented. Gabbling wildly, and blaming herself. In my judgement, however, she was an innocent dupe.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, sir. When we pieced together her story, it made perfect sense. She believed Keary was strolling round to the back of the auditorium, as usual, ready to make a dramatic reappearance on the stage while the spectators were still awestruck by the sight of the skeleton in flames inside the sarcophagus.’

  ‘Tell me about the skeleton,’ Sir Godfrey demanded.

  ‘The skeleton is a stage prop, sir. In the lid of the sarcophagus is a hidden compartment. Inside is a skeleton dressed in a tattered version of the Anubis costume – complete with jackal head and duplicate jade scarab ring. The stagehand presses a lever concealed within the pyramid which releases the door of the compartment, and activates the skeleton, which has a mechanism enabling it to sit up in order to horrify the audience.’

  Sir Godfrey blinked. ‘Quite clever, I suppose.’

  ‘Barnes’ scheme was simple. He fixed the sliding panel in the rear of the sarcophagus so that Keary could not shift it an inch. It’s meant to move at a touch. The lid is close-fitting and heavy, and although it’s hinged, so that the woman can open it without undue difficulty, there is no means of opening it from within. Keary’s hands were chained, and although you can do some jiggery-pokery with the chain to release yourself, it would take Keary, with all hi
s experience, at least half a minute. But the task would become impossible for a man sick with terror and pain as the fire took hold.’

  ‘He must have screamed in agony.’

  ‘I’m sure he did, sir, but the music was reaching a crescendo.’

  Sir Godfrey winced. ‘So while we watched, it drowned out his cries.’

  ‘Quite so. Barnes made sure that Keary was burned to a crisp, and then calmly walked away. I gather pandemonium broke out when the girl – Delamere – opened the lid and realised that Keary was inside.’

  Sir Godfrey sighed. ‘When I made my way down to the stage, the stench was indescribable. Everyone was in a blue funk. Nobody could understand what had happened.’

  ‘As you know, it took a few minutes for Barnes to be missed. He’d made his way to the back of the building, and left via the stage door. In the uproar, nobody paid any attention.’

  ‘This car he had waiting close to the theatre. Did it belong to him?’

  ‘We’ve established that he bought the vehicle forty-eight hours ago. An Invicta, sir, a very natty sports car. The salesman couldn’t believe his luck. Barnes struck him as a rough diamond, but when it became clear he had the money to buy outright, the chap bit his hand off.’

  ‘I wonder,’ Sir Godfrey said. ‘Did Barnes drop any hint about his intentions?’

  ‘He certainly failed to mention that he was planning to murder his employer in the most dreadful way imaginable, sir.’ Sir Godfrey glared, but the superintendent’s rugged features betrayed no trace of sarcasm. ‘What he did say was that he planned to go touring. Witnesses tell us that the Invicta was parked a hundred yards away from the Inanity, and it appears that he set off at a cracking speed, on his way to Croydon.’