Blackstone and the Stage of Death (The Blackstone Detective series Book 5)

by Sally Spencer

  The dream — Tamara knew that she should remove herself to some other part of the theatre as quickly as she possibly could, but just like the real Tamara back then, she found herself unable to move.

  ‘You can’t come in,’ the old man says, with an edge of fear evident in his voice now.

  ‘They will come in,’ Sebastian George tells him.

  And then he takes a step forward, and pushes the old man — pushes his own father — back into the office.

  He enters the office himself the doctors follow him, and Sebastian George closes the door behind them.

  Tamara Simmons moves a few steps closer in order to be able to hear what is going on.

  For some minutes, all she can discern is the soft mumble of’ voices from the other side of’ the door Then voices begin to he raised.

  ‘I won’t submit to this!’ the old man screams.

  ‘Restrain him before he does himself any damage,’ the doctor who is an alienist shouts.

  There is the sound of a struggle — tables being over-

  turned and glass being shattered.

  And then there follows an heavy, unnatural silence which chills Tamara to the hone.

  The door swings opens again — almost in slow motion — and still Tamara cannot bring herself’ to move away. Then she sees something that makes her wish she had.

  Sebastian George is in the doorway, and just behind him is his father, standing between the two doctors like a thin piece of meat sandwiched between two thick slices of bread.

  And then she realizes that he is not standing at all — that the two doctors have his arms clasped firmly, and are holding him up.

  Old Mr George is not protesting. Not struggling. He is doing — and saying — nothing at all. But that is hardly surprising, because, judging from the blank look on his face, he has been doped.

  Sebastian George sees Tamara .for the first time. ‘What are you doing here?’ he demands.

  ‘My script,’ she burbles, holding it up to him as proof’ that she is not lying. ‘I forgot my script.’

  ‘You should be more careful,’ Sebastian George tells her with a menace in his words that has nothing to do with her .forgetfulness.

  ‘I will he,’ she says.

  ‘And now I would like you to get out of the way, so that these two doctors can take my father to the hospital.’

  ‘Of course,’ Tamara says, and she knows full well that it is not an ordinary hospital they will he taking the old man to, hut a lunatic asylum.

  The doctors push past her They are handling Mr George as if he were a sack of potatoes or a side of beef rather than a weak and doped old man.

  Later, Sebastian George will tell the cast that his lather has been taken suddenly ill, and it may he some time before he returns to the theatre.

  But Tamara knows that he will never return.

  She was sitting bolt upright in bed. Her body was soaked in sweat, and her eyes full of tears.

  It had been a mistake to even try and put pressure on Sebastian George, she told herself in a panic. He had locked away his own father without a second’s thought, and he would have absolutely no hesitation in doing the same to her.

  She would go to see Sebastian George again, the first thing in the morning, she resolved. She would tell him that she was perfectly happy with the roles she had been given in the plays so far, and would be equally happy with whatever roles he might choose to give her in the future.

  And she would do more than that. She would promise to continue telling the same lies for him that she had been telling all along.

  She might go even further, if this did not seem to reassure him, she thought, looking down at her trembling hands.

  She might promise that she would say or do anything — however reprehensible or degrading it might be — if that meant she could avoid the same fate as had befallen his father.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Other people, who knew no better, might sometimes refer to Marcus Leighton as the ‘police artist’, but it was certainly not a term that he would ever have used about himself.

  In his opinion, the two words — one of them potentially sublime, the other invariably crude — could not coexist happily in a single phrase. Even used in the same sentence, they required at the very least to be separated by a preposition and a definite article. Thus, when asked about his occupation, he would invariably reply by describing himself as ‘artist to the police’.

  But for all his quibbling over the terminology, he quite liked the work. For a start, it paid well. Furthermore — with the exception of those rare occasions when the Met failed to keep the lid on the barrel and crime spilled out all over London — it left him ample time to pursue his own experiments in painting. Most importantly of all, the police did not want the pictures he produced to flatter the subject — as so many of his patrons had done in the past — they instead prized accuracy above all else, and he was more than happy to provide them with it.

  That morning, he had produced two sketches. They had been drawn from descriptions provided by two separate witnesses, though he was pretty sure that both those witnesses had been describing the same man, and when he laid out the sketches on Blackstone’s desk, it was obvious — from the way the inspector immediately compared them — that he thought so, too.

  ‘Which is which?’ Blackstone asked.

  ‘That one comes from the description given by the knife-maker,’ Leighton said, pointing to one on the right, ‘and the other is based on the telephone operator’s impressions.’

  ‘Splendid work, as always,’ Blackstone said approvingly. ‘We’ll call you when we need you again.’

  ‘Try not to make that too long,’ Leighton replied. ‘There’s no shame in being a starving artist, but I’d rather avoid that fate myself, if at all possible.’ He ran his eyes quickly up and down Patterson’s frame. ‘Speaking of starving, have you lost weight, Archie?’

  Patterson positively beamed with pleasure. ‘Nice of you to notice, old chap,’ he said.

  ‘I’m trained to notice,’ Leighton said dryly. ‘And you’ve still got a long way to go before I’d consider sculpting you in expensive marble.’

  * * *

  Blackstone and Patterson spent the next ten minutes examining the sketches from all angles.

  ‘They’re not exactly the same,’ Patterson said finally.

  ‘They never are,’ Blackstone agreed. ‘We all see what we think we see, or expect to see, or would like to see, so no two witnesses’ descriptions will ever be a perfect match. But by and large, Marcus’s sketches are usually a pretty good likeness of the man we eventually end up arresting.’

  ‘We don’t know that we actually want to arrest this bloke,’ Patterson pointed out.

  ‘True,’ Blackstone agreed. ‘But the fact that he’s now popped up twice in the investigation is an indication that he has more than a casual connection with the murder.’

  ‘I’m not sure I quite follow the logic of that, sir,’ Patterson admitted. ‘Would you mind explaining it to me?’

  ‘I’d be glad to. My working theory up to now has been that the murderer didn’t order the knife himself, because that would leave a trail leading right back to him. So, instead, he hires the little old man to do it. But why, when he needs to bribe the telephone operator, does he use the same little old man?’

  ‘Because good help is hard to find?’ Patterson suggested.

  ‘I don’t think so. Both tasks were fairly simple ones, after all. So what made the murderer expose himself to a potential witness — which is what the little old man is — more than he had to? Why give the old chap so many chances to study him? Why not use a second old man — or a young woman, for that matter — to bribe the telephone operator?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Patterson confessed.

  ‘It can only be because the little old man isn’t merely peripheral to our inquiry at all. It has to mean that he’s a member of the team which planned the murder!’

  ‘And how
many people do you think there are on this team?’ Patterson wondered.

  ‘There may only be two of them — the old man himself, and his accomplice in the theatre.’

  ‘But the old man must have some connection with the theatre, even if it’s only in the dim and distant past,’ Patterson said.

  ‘That’s just what I was thinking,’ Blackstone agreed.

  * * *

  Granville Smith, the editor of the London Evening Chronicle, gazed down fondly at the letters’ page of the paper’s most recent edition.

  What a fine thing the letters’ page really was, he thought. It was both a haven and a forum for those members of the reading public who felt offended or insulted, cheated or lied to. And when a new outrage was exposed — and one was exposed nearly every week — letters would positively flood in from men and women who bared their souls and signed themselves ‘A Loyal Subject’, ‘An Honest Rate-Payer’ or ‘A Seeker After Justice’.

  Like most other editors, he recognized that some of his correspondents were undoubtedly being unreasonable, and that others were clearly verging on the insane, but — for reasons which were economic rather than journalistic — Smith would happily publish the letters anyway.

  ‘We need something to fill up the space between the advertisements, and letters will do that just as well as articles could,’ he would tell his assistant. ‘The only difference between the two is that the people who write the articles expect to be paid, and the ones who write the letters don’t.’

  There were other advantages to publishing the letters, too. A man who has written one will invariably buy the newspaper to see if it has been printed. And even those readers who had not written to the paper themselves would enjoy the letters from those who had, since they tended to cater to one of the most characteristic of all English virtues: a strong sense of grievance. But best of all — though only very occasionally — the letters would even point him in the direction of a story which it was worth paying one of his reporters to write.

  The latest controversy, concerning the penny sideshows, was just such a story. These shows had existed in London for as long as Smith could remember, and he himself had sometimes paid his penny to see the living skeleton, midget family, bearded lady or lion-jawed man. But lately, there seemed to have been a spate of them, and his correspondents were up in arms.

  My local undertaker has recently died, one man had written, and his establishment is currently up for sale. I have no objection to this.

  The dead undertaker will be highly relieved about that, Granville Smith thought.

  But in the meantime, while a respectable buyer is being sought, the establishment has been rented out to one of those disgraceful businesses which calls itself a Penny Sideshow, the writer continued. Since this ‘so-called’ show opened, I have not known a minute’s tranquillity. I will not comment on the quality of the exhibits on display (I have not seen them myself, though it seems to be me that in a God-fearing nation like this one, such things should not be allowed), nor on the fact that many of these entertainers appear to hail from foreign parts. But I feel I must complain about the noise. A barrel organ has been placed on the pavement outside the ‘show’, and from early evening until late into the night, it churns out hideous tunes. And even worse are the customers of this ‘entertainment’. They are drawn from the lowest elements of our society, as is only to be expected. They know no language but the language of the gutter, and, not content with uttering their filth, must scream it at the tops of their voices, regardless of the hour. My wife no longer feels safe, my children are now using words they have certainly not learned from me, and I think it is time that the so-called government did something about closing down these affronts to civilized behaviour.

  Yours faithfully

  A true and moral Englishman.

  Granville Smith put the newspaper down on his desk and looked across at the man who was sitting opposite him, waiting for an assignment.

  ‘Freak shows!’ the editor said.

  ‘Freak shows?’ Talbot Hines repeated. ‘What about them, sir?’

  ‘They’re a disgrace. An affront to civilized behaviour.’

  ‘Are they? Since when?’

  ‘Since our readers started getting hot under the collar about them. I want you to write an article which demonstrates that we can be just as moral - and just as disapproving - as the idiots who buy this paper.’

  Talbot Hines did not look exactly overjoyed at the prospect — and indeed, he wasn’t. Editors on crusades were dangerous editors, he thought, because when the crusade blew up in their faces - when the people they’d been crusading against started to fight back - it was usually the poor bloody reporter who had to take the blame for things going wrong.

  ‘Is there any particular angle you’d like me to take on the story, sir?’ he asked cautiously.

  Smith sighed. ‘For God’s sake, why are you asking me that? You’re supposed to be a reporter.’

  ‘I’d still like some guidelines,’ Hines persisted.

  ‘I should have thought it was obvious. For openers, you could write about the hooligans who go to see these shows.’

  ‘So you don’t want anything me to actually say anything about the shows themselves?’

  ‘I said that was just for openers, Cloth Ears. Most of the article will be about how wicked the shows are.’

  ‘But what if they aren’t wicked?’

  Smith sighed again. ‘I sometimes wonder why I ever bother employing you people at all,’ he said. ‘I could train a dog — and a very slow one, at that — to do what you do.’

  ‘With respect, sir, that’s not really an answer to my question,’ Hines said, determined not leave the office until he had the editor’s explicit permission to commit whatever outrage against the truth he would be required to commit in the interests of his story.

  ‘A good journalist reports on all the news that there is to report,’ Smith explained. ‘But if other people aren’t making any news to report on, then that same journalist will make it for them.’

  ‘You’re still not being very clear, sir,’ Hines said stubbornly.

  ‘If they’re not acting wickedly when you get there, make sure they are by the time you leave.’

  It was not the sweeping endorsement Hines had been looking for, but he supposed it would have to do.

  ‘Got it, sir,’ he said.

  * * *

  Lord Bixendale looked around Blackstone’s office, then walked over to the window to admire the Thames. He did not seem entirely comfortable in these surroundings, the inspector thought.

  ‘So this is what Scotland Yard looks like from the inside, eh?’ Lord Bixendale said.

  ‘You’ve never been here before, my lord?’

  ‘No, I must admit that I haven’t. Though I have served in most branches of Her Majesty’s Government in my time, it has never been my lot to hold a position in the Home Office.’

  The message behind that short speech was perfectly clear, Blackstone decided. I’m an important man, Inspector, Bixendale was saying indirectly, and even though I’ve done you the honour of coming here to see you — rather than summoning you to see me — you’d be wise not to forget exactly who you’re dealing with.

  ‘Is there anything specific I can do for you, now that you’re here, my lord?’ he wondered.

  ‘Specific? No, I don’t think so. But I’d be interested to know what progress you’re making with the case.’

  ‘It’s early days yet,’ Blackstone said, noncommittally.

  ‘I worry about Miss Devaraux, you see,’ Bixendale said awkwardly. ‘She’s almost like a daughter to me.’

  ‘Yes, I noticed a certain amount of affection passing between you when I observed you standing together on the stage, yesterday morning,’ Blackstone said, wishing, almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth, that he’d bitten off his own tongue.

  Bixendale gave him a hard stare. ‘You saw that, did you?’ he asked quizzically. ‘Did you, indeed?’r />
  ‘I thought at first that it was no more than regard — yours for her as an artiste, hers for you as a patron of the arts,’ Blackstone said, ladling on false sincerity with a trowel. Tut the more I saw of it, the more I realized that it was closer to the sort of affection that a father and daughter might have for one another.’

  Bixendale nodded, as if he believed him — or at least was prepared to pretend that he did.

  ‘What happened during that performance was a terrible shock to Miss Devaraux,’ he said. ‘Even when she does manage to fall asleep at night, it is a troubled sleep.’ He paused. Then, perhaps afraid that he might have given the right impression, he continued, ‘At any rate, that is what she told me, and I see no reason to disbelieve her.’

  ‘She struck me immediately as a very truthful and candid lady,’ Blackstone said.

  ‘For that reason, and that reason alone, I am most concerned that the murderer should be apprehended as quickly as possible,’ Bixendale continued. ‘Only when he is safely dangling from the end of a rope in Pentonville Prison will Charlotte — will Miss Devaraux — feel at peace.’

  ‘I can quite understand that is how she might feel,’ Blackstone said sympathetically.

  ‘And yet you still feel unable to tell me anything with which 1 can reassure her?’

  He’s about a minute away from demanding to see the file, Blackstone thought. And if he asks for it, I don’t see how I can refuse him.

  ‘As I said, there’s very little to tell,’ he replied, feeling his way as he went. ‘But there may perhaps be a way in which you yourself could help to speed up the inquiry.’

  ‘You have only to make your request,’ Bixendale said. ‘What is it that you require? More policemen to be drafted into the investigation? That should be no problem at all. I will speak to Sir Roderick Todd — who is a close personal friend of mine — immediately.’

  Everybody seems to be a close friend of Sir Roderick Todd’s except me, Blackstone thought.

  ‘At this stage of the inquiry, I’m not sure that having more men at my disposal would be of much use,’ he said aloud. ‘It was as a witness that I thought you might be able to help me.’