• • •
“Stockton may have wanted to get back at Clifton and Glenn by killing our top stars that night and making people afraid to attend MacMillan theatres,” Cissie explained excitedly to Phipps and Layton, sitting in Layton’s room. “He could have conspired with Browne and Reville to destroy MacMillan’s talent sitting there that opening night. He bloody well had a motive to do such a thing.”
“You did pillage the Hall Syndicate,” said Phipps. “It wasn’t just Sunny.”
“I suppose we did. Look, this is a cutthroat business. That’s the way things are done. You make the opposition’s stars and their agents feel like they’re being underpaid and underappreciated, and then you steal ’em.”
“How badly did your little coup hurt the Hall Syndicate?” Phipps asked. “They didn’t go bankrupt, did they?”
“No, but losing Sunny and Amy made it look like they weren’t a number one chain anymore. Lots of artistes jumped ship after that. The Johnson Collies, a big dog act, the Four Armattos, Clive and Clive, the comics… Really buggered ’em sideways.”
Phipps started pacing the carpet. A seemingly unconscious habit, Layton thought. He did it whenever he was pondering, again reminding Layton of Sherlock Holmes and he as Dr. Watson.
“You said that Peter’s appointment book had entries with the name Shaw?” Phipps said. “May I see it?”
Layton nodded and retrieved the book from the bedroom nightstand. Phipps sat once more and read carefully through it, dog-earing some pages as he went.
“There are appointments with the name Shaw,” said Phipps. “From then on, the appointments don’t list a name, just the letter S. Some of them are after working hours. Here are two with Reville.”
“S could be for Shaw—or Stockton,” interjected Cissie.
“Shaw could have caused the collapse,” said Layton. He was beginning to believe it was Shaw who had the biggest motive for revenge.
“Both faced financial ruin and wanted revenge,” added Phipps.
Cissie opened her mouth again to speak but was cut off by Phipps, who drew out his pocket watch and gave a muffled curse. Rising to his feet, he handed the appointment book back to Layton.
“You’ll have to excuse me,” he said. “I’ve a building committee meeting about the new Imperial Hospital in Chelsea—I damn near forgot. The Prince of Wales is on the board; he’ll be attending. But as soon as I can, I’ll be back.”
36
Ronald cut through White Horse Street to the corner of Piccadilly and turned east. At every block, something caught his interest. He stopped to peer into storefront windows, to watch a man chalking Big Ben on the sidewalk, to speak to a blind and begging Boer War veteran. On Shaftesbury Avenue, he examined the theatre bills along the way. At a sweets vendor cart, he counted out coins for a bar of Cadbury chocolate.
“Keep following with the motor, Bolton.”
“Yes, Lady Edwina.”
Odd to see her son in such a setting, Edwina Layton thought. Off by himself, strolling along as he pleased… It annoyed and fascinated her at the same time.
Edwina was a busy woman; her weeks were full. So full that she barely had time for Ronald. Today, for instance, she was preparing for Lady Alstyne’s ball. She had purchased a special gown for the occasion from Paquin, which she knew would greatly please her husband-to-be, Lord Percival. Her son was far from her mind; in fact, she had no idea where Ronald was supposed to be this afternoon. Nanny took care of all that. If her chauffeur hadn’t turned down Park Lane, she never would have seen—or thought of—her son. Ever more intrigued, Edwina leaned closer to the window.
The carriage and motor traffic was crawling along. Given all the stops he took and the forest-green jacket and shorts he wore, it was easy to keep the boy in sight.
Following Ronald felt like a kind of lark to Edwina. Whatever was he up to? Perhaps he was going to a store to buy himself something or maybe a special place he wanted to eat. No. She shook her head. Her son had never been to a restaurant in his life.
She stuck her head and elegant feathered hat out the window of the motor, her eyes glued to her son. He was headed for the West End. Might he be going to the theatre in secret? How little she knew about Ronald, she thought. Sometimes, he seemed as inscrutable as a Chinaman, his facial expressions giving nothing away.
“He’s on Shaftesbury, m’lady,” the chauffeur said.
“Keep following, but at a distance. We’ll run our little fox to ground yet.”
On Shaftesbury and Rupert, alongside a music hall, two men and a woman stopped to say hello to Ronald, as though they were old friends. Soon after, a man in a derby patted him affectionately on the head. A look of great consternation contorted Lady Edwina’s lovely, high-cheekboned face. Nanny had warned Ronald never to talk to strangers.
But then, these people didn’t seem like strangers.
Ronald abruptly turned left into an alley behind a theatre.
“Speed up, Bolton,” Edwina commanded.
The motor drew up alongside the alley as the boy sprinted down it. Alarmed, Edwina got out and followed. She watched as her son leapt like a gazelle into the arms of a tall man by the stage door, who swung him around and hugged him. Ronald was giggling; she saw the innocent joy on his face. After a moment, the man set him down, and the boy offered him a piece of Cadbury. Edwina rushed forward, ready to intervene, but stopped in her tracks.
The thin, clean-shaven man looked vaguely familiar. He had spectacles and chestnut-colored hair, and yet…
The boy and the man were about to open the metal stage door. Edwina moved closer, some twenty feet away. Ronald disappeared into the building, but as the man was about to follow, his eyes locked with Edwina’s. An expression of surprise, then hatred and loathing came over him, which had the effect of a punch to Edwina’s nose. She recoiled. He stared at her for five seconds more, then smiled and slammed the stage door defiantly behind him.
As people streamed by her on both sides, Edwina stood there in complete shock. Douglas!
Edwina turned and shuffled back to the motor. She was baffled, angry, and about to burst into a flood of tears. By going through that stage door, it was as if Ronald had crossed the River Styx and lost himself to her.
Settling back against the rolled leather seat, Edwina looked up at the theatre, taking in the glories of its ornate stonework. From where she sat, she could see the bill listing the performers on the sidewall. She half expected to see Layton, her ex-husband, appearing as a conjurer.
For she now knew the truth: her ex-husband was back in London. She would never ever forget Douglas’s expression. It had said defiantly This is my son. Try to take him away from me!
After all this time, she had never expected him to appear again. He’d been meant to vanish from her life forever, in punishment for the unbearable humiliation he’d brought upon the family. Surprising, really, how quickly the shame had erased her love for Douglas. Edwina had—she believed—once been in love with him. But maybe, she thought, staring at the theatre lights, she’d never truly loved him in the first place.
In a way, she had married Douglas to annoy her father. Edwina had always been intimidated by her father and always did what he demanded. Douglas was quite a good-looking chap and a brilliant architect to boot, but he wasn’t the ideal selection. In her world, a real gentleman was not supposed to work for a living. The tribal customs in upper-class British society believed that marriages weren’t supposed to be based on love but on the right social connections to titled men of means, to increase the wealth and bloodlines of the families. But Edwina had learned in her husband hunting that rank did not equal mettle. Many suitors from the aristocracy and gentry were weak in will and nature, while Douglas was the direct opposite, and that was what she really liked about him. But she knew rebellion toward her father played a part in the decision as well.
Lord
Litton had raged about the Britannia accident for months, shocked and horrified that a member of his family was a convicted murderer. He forbade Edwina from seeing him, not even allowing her to explain to Douglas that she was divorcing him. Ronald would be told he died in a boating accident. Litton’s continued fury had mentally battered Edwina; she shuddered at the memory. Any remaining love for her husband had died then; she was glad he was in Mulcaster, out of sight and out of mind. The truth was that she didn’t care what happened to him. She wanted to get on with her life and maintain her position in society by marrying the Earl of Gainsford.
As a girl, her mother had taught her to ignore bad things. Eventually, they would go away. But now a bad thing was back, and she had to face it.
And why the devil was Douglas in a music hall of all places?
Edwina didn’t ask herself why Ronald was there. The answer was obvious: Nanny Hawkins. She’d been a child of privilege too, and her nanny had been her real mother, just as Mrs. Hawkins was Ronald’s. Nanny liked Douglas and thought him a caring father, which Edwina knew was true. Douglas had been a wonderful father to Ronald, probably better than she was a mother. She had applied the mothering skills that her mother had used in her childhood, which were based on the notion that children were an annoying fact of life one left to the nanny’s attention.
Stroking her ostrich-feathered boa, she stared at the back of Bolton’s head, her mind replaying the memory of Ronald’s face as his father swooped him up in his arms.
“Drive on, Bolton,” she said at last. “Lady Alstyne awaits.”
“Yes, m’lady.”
Back at her father’s house in Mayfair, she passed Nanny Hawkins on the great mahogany stair.
“Afternoon, m’lady,” said Mrs. Hawkins with a slight bow of the head.
Edwina stripped her gloves from her hands in silence. Then, about five steps past Mrs. Hawkins, she turned and said, “Nanny, I think a boy does need his father.”
“I’m glad you understand, m’lady,” said Mrs. Hawkins with another small and graceful bow.
37
December had once been Layton’s least favorite month. Every one of the five Christmases he’d spent in prison had depressed him severely. Fond memories of holidays at Edwina’s family estate in Kent with the tall tree in the three-story entry hall, of watching Ronald rip the wrapping off his gifts and shout with excitement, became a punishment.
In Mulcaster, he’d been surprised by the many inmates who made Christmas a special time. They’d get their mates little things—a pack of fags, a deck of cards, a bar of soap. Gifts that were taken for granted on the outside had a special significance in prison.
Now, at last, Christmas would be special again. Ronald was back in his life, and this would be his first Christmas with Cissie. He couldn’t wait to give them their gifts. Layton had kept an open ear the last few weeks, hoping to find both of them the perfect gifts they really wanted for Christmas. Most of the presents he’d exchanged in the past with his family were tokens, a scarf or a tie, nothing that meant anything. Edwina had come close once, bless her heart, buying him a volume on Bernini’s architecture. But it was the Palladio book he’d wanted. So he had wound up buying it for himself.
Despite Layton’s resolve to be cheerful, the winter fog made Decembers in London hard. The usual fog was bad enough: raw, dark, damp, and dismal. But the winter variety came with a numbing cold that deadened the limbs, like soaking one’s bones in an ice-cold bath.
Hands thrust deep in his pockets, chin tucked into his scarf, Layton pushed on, back to his digs in Bayswater. The night fog robbed London of its shape and form. The street was enveloped in a murky gloom; the buildings he passed oozed dampness, and the street seemed slippery with slime. One could barely see two feet ahead. Pedestrians would emerge from the gloom in front of him, then disappear just as suddenly, vanishing in the mist like phantoms.
In the last week, conditions had gotten so bad that an army of “linkboys” had taken to the streets in force; these chaps held torches or lanterns and for sixpence would light the way through the fog. Layton had already passed two of them, leading groups, pointing their lights down to avoid the puddles in the gutters. Many had thought that with the invention of gas and later electric street lighting, there would be no need for linkboys. But the fogs at night were so intense that even streetlamps were no help.
Layton was walking west now, alongside Hyde Park, which was enshrouded in fog, not a tree to be seen. He pulled the collar of his greatcoat more tightly around his neck, but still he was chilled to the bone. He couldn’t wait to be home before the fire, a cup of cocoa warming his hands.
As he walked, he tried to sort matters out, but things had become muddled.
With the discovery of what Hugh Rice was doing to them, Clifton and Glenn seemed likely to be the murderers. Even though the balcony failure had scared away customers for a short while, getting Rice off their backs was worth the pain in the long run. From his prison years and his more recent run-ins with Archie Guest, Layton knew that once the underworld got its hooks into you, it never let go. Rice was the person that had to go. Maybe unbeknownst to each other, the owners also arranged for some other troublesome people in their lives to be eliminated that night.
But the builder, Alec Shaw, could also have easily orchestrated the collapse. He was the one who actually built the balcony. His hatred of Layton, for whom he blamed his financial ruin, was almost insanely intense, maybe putting him over the edge to do such a heinous act. His desire for revenge must have been all-consuming.
Now Stockton, the rival theatre circuit owner, came into the picture. Cissie insisted his hatred of Clifton and Glenn could have driven him to conspire with Peter and Reville to bring down the balcony. After losing so much talent that he’d discovered to MacMillan, he wanted revenge. His plan would have been twofold, to embarrass the circuit on an opening night and to try to kill the turncoat performers.
Layton turned right on Leinster Terrace, now just ten minutes from home, the question still beating at his mind. Who was the murderer—Clifton and Glenn, Shaw, or Stockton?
Carriages and motors loomed out of the mist, appearing in an instant and vanishing just as swiftly. As Layton stepped off the curb, he was so lost in thought that a motor appeared out of nowhere and came close to running him over.
When he got back to his digs, he rushed up the stairs, because he couldn’t wait to get in front of the fire. He felt as though he were entombed in a block of ice. While he was unlocking the door, he began taking off his wet greatcoat, since he was in such a hurry to warm up. As he swung the door open, his foot stepped on something. He looked down to see an envelope. Mail that came for the lodgers was routinely shoved under their door. But Layton had never received any mail until this moment. He stood there staring down at the envelope like it was a one-hundred-pound note he had come across in the street. Layton pondered—who would send him a letter? A performer and friend who had moved on to another theatre? Or maybe his father or brother? That was highly unlikely. Then it came to him—Edwina. She had seen him in the alley with Ronald that day. She was writing to tell him that she was glad he was out of prison and could see Ronald anytime he wished. Yes, that was it! With a big smile on his face, he closed the door, snatched up the envelope, and eagerly tore it open.
YOU WILL DIE FOR WHAT YOU DID, said the unsigned letter.
38
“You know there are graphologists—people who can match a person’s handwriting,” said Phipps, holding the death threat in the air.
“Tom, please hide that note.” Layton didn’t like the fact that Phipps was waving the note around at the theatre.
To Phipps’s delight, Layton had taken him to the backstage of the Queen’s while the show was going on. Layton could tell that the architect was thrilled to see the show from this vantage point, with all the hustle and bustle of the show’s operation. He was fascinated by
the sight of the performers waiting for their turn and the stagehands raising cloths and moving props. He insisted on bringing the note with him in the hopes of coming across anything with similar handwriting. He even began asking the performers for their autographs to find a link. He looked about for notes that stagehands may have written. On the rear brick wall of the backstage was a chalkboard marked with daily instructions, and he examined it for similarities.
Layton saw no hope in all that. The note was deliberately done in crude, oversize block letters. It would be impossible to trace, but he liked Phipps too much to throw cold water on his idea.
At the moment, Phipps wasn’t interested in handwriting analysis. With a smile stretched ear to ear, he was standing next to Layton, watching the act that was on the stage. An attractive middle-aged woman stood near them with a stopwatch in her hand.
“Every morning, me mum would get up at six, eat her breakfast, and go to work. Then me brother Tom would get up and go. At half past six, me brother Charlie would go to work. Then at seven, me dad would get up. By that time, I had the bed all to meself.” A ripple of tittering arose from the audience.
Ally Bransby, Master of Mirth, had two minutes to go in his turn. From the stage, he glanced at his wife, Sybil, who waited in the wings with a stopwatch. Layton knew that she was calculating the length of the applause after each joke, a common way of honing timing and choosing the best material.
“You know, they’re making all these ladies’ hats with bird feathers all over ’em. Now they’re making a new kind of hat with a live pigeon on top. If you don’t pay the bill, the hat flies back to the shop.”
The Fallen Architect Page 23
