Fall of Angels

by Barbara Cleverly

  In Redfyre’s artistic fantasy of the model before him, Rossetti had replaced Botticelli as painter of choice. She would be fitting as Fair Rosamund, The Blessed Damozel, Lady Lilith—any Romantic Lady of Sorrows who had ever fallen victim to man’s malevolence. He was quite certain that, from the top of her shining head to the two pink feet showing below the drab hospital gown, she was offering him a calculatedly alluring picture of innocence. What was it about her that put him on the defensive, that triggered his instinct to pull down his visor, seat his lance and take aim?

  The lies, perhaps? Her assumption that his profession was an indicator of a lumbering intelligence?

  “Wonderful flowers,” he commented as he settled. “Heaven knows where they find them at this time of year.”

  “Oh, in hothouses,” she explained. “That’s where. We have roses and lilies in December! Hyacinths from Holland! The Dutch are so clever with flowers.”

  Clearly, any conversational crumb he threw out, however dry, would be picked up and chewed over.

  “And what it must have cost! People are so kind,” she added, her good eye swimming with tearful emotion.

  Redfyre would have liked to take a closer look at the signatures and messages attached to the various bunches. Who knew about her narrow escape? Whose concern was sharp enough to prick him or her into ordering an expensive mark of esteem so swiftly? There came to mind Doctor Beaufort’s story of the coffin-carrying villain, reveling in a final closeness with his victim. Redfyre put forth the question to himself: if he’d arranged this girl’s death, but despite his best efforts, she’d lived on to play another day, would he then have sent a fragrant token of his regard and wishes for her swift recovery? Celebrating his chance to try again? To enjoy a second bout? It was always unpleasant to dive into the depths of the criminal psyche, but yes, he rather thought his criminal alter ego would have done just that.

  The would-be killer’s name could well be written en clair within arm’s reach, and the only thing preventing Redfyre from seeking it out was crippling good manners.

  “I didn’t bring any flowers—I thought you might already have an overload.” He fished in his pocket. “Thought you might prefer these.”

  She took the brown paper bag from him with the exaggerated expectation of a little girl at a birthday party. “Oh, you shouldn’t have! What is this—a police bribe?” She stuck in a hand. “Ah! A bag of sherbert lemons! Not a bribe, then. Four ounces of sherbert lemons won’t buy you much in the way of corruption. And there’s something else—what’s this? A book! Oh, thank you!”

  “Something tells me that you like a good mystery. Do I have that right? That’s the latest Agatha Christie. I’m not much of an admirer myself, but this one looks entertaining.”

  She read out the title. “The Secret Adversary? Hmm . . .”

  “We all have one,” he said blandly. “Some of us even are the adversary.”

  Her playfulness evaporated. “You think I don’t know that?” she said in a sharp tone he would have thought her incapable of. Evidently, he’d touched a nerve. “Almost all of you are the secret adversary, the undeclared enemy of the female sex. Unscrupulous cheats who will resort to any underhanded tricks to prevail! To come first, to carry off the prizes, to win!”

  “Well, that’s croquet players for you! We’ll risk our reputations to be first to strike the centre peg,” he said, jovially obtuse. “You’re right. When it comes to a game of skill with the mallet, we just can’t bear to be out-croqueted.” He hoped that his frivolous comment would lower the developing tension, but he suspected it might provoke another outburst.

  “There! You see! You’re a fine example! Devious and dismissive! ”

  He put his hands up, miming surrender. “Not to add: defeated! I admit to pegging out first on many occasions using underhanded methods. Though never so frequently or duplicitously as my Aunt Henrietta. I tend to play games as though my life depended on it; sometimes it does. It’s a reprehensible, though notably successful, technique we must all adopt in these lean times, I’m afraid. And, miss, I have noted that it’s not the exclusive preserve of men to stake life and limb to achieve an essential goal or to win the laurel wreaths they deserve.”

  She looked at him in surprise and mistrust. “Not many men have that self-knowledge. They will never admit that they are adversaries, in life or games. Not many can even grasp it. But those who are aware are the ones to be feared. They understand, but having understood, they accept and condone. The very rare one amongst you takes up arms—secretly. Now, what is this? A formal interrogation?”

  “Miss Proudfoot, you must know by now that your friend, Miss Stretton, has shown me the anonymous threatening messages you received before last evening’s performance at St. Barnabas.”

  “Yes, Inspector Redfyre, she told me she had. I know what you’re tying yourself in knots to say, so I beg you to be more direct and stop tangoing about the topic. I hate the tango! All averted gaze, dramatic poses, sporadically kicking your partner in the shins while pretending to be dying of lust!”

  Redfyre was growing weary of the barely disguised derision, but nevertheless, the corner of his mouth twitched in suppression of a smile. Very well, if directness was what she was looking for, he would supply it. “Sorry to hear that! We must have learned the dance in different classes, you and I. I do the version I learned in Paris night clubs after the war. It was called the ‘one-step’ there. Teeny-tiny dance floors they have in Montmartre! And always crowded. No space for dancing—bodily interaction was just about all that could be achieved in the circumstances. You had no choice but to cling closely to your partner. Anyone posing dramatically or delivering a scissor kick would have been thrown out. Though dying of lust was not discouraged.”

  He was pleased to see the small feet retreat under the hem of her gown. Instinctively, she tugged the fabric up to cover her exposed left shoulder. Annoyingly, this caused it to slide off her right. He could have sworn she was trying not to laugh.

  “Message received,” she said simply. “Very well. Suits me. Dance on—but let’s do a two-step rather than your version of a one-step, which sounds a bit indelicate to me.”

  “Starting with the first letter . . . Where precisely did you receive it?”

  “At Earwig’s. I was staying with her, as I often do. We were at school together, same dorm, and we’ve been friends ever since. Sometimes she stays with me in London. My family has a house in Bloomsbury. Nothing smart like Earwig’s place, but it’s on the underground now and very handy for Oxford Street. The letter came in the post addressed to me ‘care of Melford Manor.’ Cambridge postmark. It arrived, oh, three weeks before the performance. Very shortly after—about a week after—we’d been granted permission to stage the concert. Christopher had been trying to get it for ages—St. Barnabas being his own college, he thought they could hardly refuse, but the master had always dug his heels in. Said Christopher could perform whenever he liked, but it was the femaleness of the trumpeter half of the duo that stuck in his craw. In the end, there was only just time to arrange the tickets and advertising. We were thrilled to have pulled it off. Quite a coup! Pity it had to end like this. Still, the ice is broken. A precedent has been set. More women will feel able to perform in public now. My sacrifice was worth it, every scratch.”

  “How greatly would it spoil your achievement if it were to get about that the master of Barnabas had not himself granted permission?”

  “Oh, you know about that? My! You’ve learned an awful lot in a very short time, Inspector.” She shook off momentary dejection. “Very well. I admit that the master was incommunicado in the middle of the Indian Ocean at the time, and I know it must look as though we took advantage.” She encountered his raised eyebrow and instantly became the rebellious child caught with a hand in the biscuit tin. “But it still counts! The dean was his appointed stand-in and he came up with the consent—after much cajolin
g. Christopher is a wonderfully persistent cajoler, and found just the right moment to approach him.”

  “The right moment? And what would be the right moment to approach a dean? Do tell! Sounds like a useful piece of knowledge to have in this town.”

  “Oh, I don’t have dealings with deans. You’d better ask Christopher. They probably exchanged male shibboleths.” Seemingly growing uncomfortable, she retaliated with a blunt question. “How did you find out?”

  “Henningham told me himself.”

  “Urgh! Is he angry? He was very kind to me when I came tumbling down. I was hoping . . .”

  “I didn’t get the impression that he was after your blood. He’s discreet. I’m sure he won’t make a fuss or denounce you in the local press. He may have a sharp word for the dean, however. And I wouldn’t hold out any hope for a repeat booking if I were you. But to continue with our one-step—give me, will you, an account of what happened on the darkened staircase? You decided to make the descent while the crowd was inconveniently milling about and on its way to the exit, and despite the fact that the non-appearance of the gentleman officiating had left the stairs in complete darkness. Some would have thought it prudent to wait. Or to call for assistance.”

  “I had a train to catch. The audience wasn’t likely to get in my way; Cambridge people are very sensible, you know. Not the types to bother you to sign their programs or stand about, ogling. I’d been up and down those stairs all day rehearsing. Knew them well. No problems at all. They were very sound. Did you inspect them?”

  “Yes, of course. Sound as a bell.”

  “So I set off. I was carrying my trumpet case in my right hand. I suppose I could have caught it on something and knocked myself off-balance, but I don’t think so. I think I dropped it.”

  “You did. I retrieved it four steps from the bottom of the stairs where it had settled, and handed it to Coote for safe-keeping.”

  “Thank you. Then I’m left with my strongest impression: Something tripped me. It was high up on the stairs, so I had farther to fall. Makes awful sense, I suppose. I’d just started to feel my way down. It must have been at shin level. If you think about it—and lying here, I’ve had time to—any obstacle stretched across the stairs at waist level or above would have resulted in a slide rather than a trip, don’t you agree? I’d have come down feetfirst, slithering on my satin-sheathed bottom.”

  Redfyre stared. Such language! Was she teasing? He looked into the innocent blue eye trained on him and decided—yes, she was playing him like a skillful angler. Though he had no quarrel so far with her reasoning, which corresponded with his own.

  “Ah, yes. A well-rounded assertion to which I cannot possibly object,” he murmured and waited for her to go on.

  “A very undignified entrance into the hall, but I wouldn’t have been so bashed about. Pride heals faster than a sprained wrist. No, it must have caught me below the knee.”

  “What exactly was it below the knee?”

  “Well, you know! I’m sure I handed it to you when I became conscious again.” She concentrated and went through a series of mimed gestures to help her memory. “Yes, I did. It was wound round my arm. The left one. I must have grabbed it as I fell, wrenched it from its moorings and dragged it down with me. What on earth was it?”

  “This? Is this what you remember?”

  Redfyre produced from his pocket a dark-green length of shining, twisted fabric with a loop at each end and laid it across the foot of the bed.

  “Hah, that’s it! Some villain stretched it across the staircase. Thought as much!” She gulped. “Inspector, this could have been—it was intended to have been much more serious, wasn’t it?”

  “I have yet to inspect the scene in daylight, but for the moment, I’m thinking that if what happened was as you describe and had been successful, you could indeed have died of a broken neck or a cracked skull. If this was the method, we have to establish at what point of the evening it was fixed in place.”

  “I can tell you exactly. I’ve been going over and over it. The interval was half an hour long for the audience. Christopher and I took twenty minutes. I changed into my red satin in the robing room they’d set aside for me, and Chris brought along a flask of tea, which we shared. Then we went back into the hall together rather early to get up to our places in the loft and tune up our instruments so that we could make a snappy start on the second half. I had a train to catch and didn’t want the performance to trail on.”

  “Remind me—did Coote climb the stairs before you?”

  “Of course! A gentleman always precedes a lady on a staircase, up or down. We wouldn’t want to risk inflaming him with a flash of ankle, now would we? There’s no chance that Christopher could have laid a trap.”

  “You and Doctor Coote work together with the professional ease of a vaudeville double act, I observe. Though which is the stooge and which the straight man is hard to say. It’s not even clear to me whether I’m dealing with a comedy turn or a magic act.”

  She chose not to be offended and replied calmly, “We have a certain ease of communication because we’ve known each other for years. We went to the same music school. And we’ve performed together abroad once or twice since the war ended and travel to the continent became possible again.”

  “Ah, those wonderful organs in ancient northern European towns you spoke of?”

  “Yes. Christopher has the entrée to the very best. Germany, Poland, Bavaria—they’ve always welcomed good musicians. Some of the audiences don’t even care if one of the players is wearing a skirt. And if she has fair hair done up in plaits reminiscent of a Nordic goddess, that’s nothing but good news. People forget that young Mozart toured the European capitals with his very talented sister, and no one ever attempted to trip up Marianne! And while we’re speaking of the other half of the duo, Christopher did not push me, trip me, or try to kill me in any conceivable way! You’re to write that down. And I’d like you to tell Christopher I’ve spoken up for him.”

  “Thank you. If we can return to the evening’s routine? The college official with the lantern did his stuff following the interval?”

  “Yes. Don’t ask me to describe him. I wasn’t paying attention, and there were two or three . . .”

  “Five on duty, in fact. I have their names. The man who attended you was a musician named Thomas Tyrrell, and I’ve already spoken to him.”

  “Well, Tyrrell shone his light and we went up. After that . . .” She shrugged. “We were making so much noise with our tuning, we wouldn’t have noticed if the Grand Old Duke of York and his ten-thousand men clattered up the stairs after us. But in the eight or so minutes before the bell rang, anyone could have slipped through the curtains, crept up the stairs and fixed that thing across them. You’ll have to check for fixing points when you go up again. People were drifting back into the hall, wandering about greeting friends, swapping places, generally stirring about. Would anyone have been aware of someone ducking between the curtains and reappearing a few seconds later? You were on the front row, Mr. Policeman. Surely you would have noticed.”

  “Almost certainly not. Not if he or she moved with confidence, looking as though they were at home there or had a job to do. Many of the audience were at home there—college members. Some were on duty, and not a few were flouncing about in gowns. Look, as you say, I was sitting on the front row with Earwig. Would I have paid attention to anyone looking confident enough to climb those stairs? No. I’m sharp-eyed and suspicious by nature, but if I’d even noticed, I wouldn’t have questioned. If I’d questioned, I’d have found an easy answer: ‘Hey, Chris! You left your lucky rabbit’s foot in the gents—here it is.’”

  “Someone dressed as Father Christmas? A man in a gorilla suit?”

  “All part of the Cambridge scene! You must have noticed the general weakness for fancy dress! Ermine-lined gowns, rusting chain mail, Eastern robes—ten a penny
down King’s Parade on a Friday night. Over cocktails, I once paid a delicately pointed compliment to a friend of mine on his fashion sense, and he said to me in surprise, ‘Oh, this little number? I’m going on somewhere afterwards.’ The Queen of the Nile is always a popular character at some of the loucher establishments in town.”

  “Really? I shall have to take your word for it.”

  “So, we have eight minutes available and about a hundred unremarkable characters on hand to fix the booby trap. Hmm. The world and his wife had the opportunity, so we’d better look for the motive. Finding that should reduce the candidates.”

  She shook her head sadly and handed him the copy of the newspaper. “If you’re seeking a motive, look no further. Here, take this. Have you seen it yet? The reporter makes a rather startling claim. But it appears less startling when I hear you making your own deductions. It’s bubbling again, isn’t it, John? The hatred and violence. The college—or some element of the college—tried to contrive my death last night. Not because they object to me, Juno Proudfoot. They don’t know me or wish to know me, but they hate what I represent. I’m a woman. Despicable creature! An unclean, incomprehensible victim of the moon and her courses! And worse, I’m a woman with a particular talent, which in their minds, is reserved for the male sex. Jezebel was thrown to her death from her tower, and the righteous rejoiced. Three thousand years later, and still out there in this sophisticated city is a soul of iron. A cold, unbending Jehu. A man who would delight in my death.”

  She looked at him for the first time with fear in her expression. “I’ve made it easy for them. Shown my face on their tower top and blasted out a challenge. Right there in their inner sanctum. I’ve been chosen, haven’t I, John, as a symbolic victim? I’ve flaunted myself, like Jezebel. And the only person who has seen through them, deduced their—what does he call it?—their collegiate conspiracy, is this reporter. What’s his name?”