The cymbals made me think of our assailant again. I risked another peek around the edge of the brickwork. I fancied I could make out a pistol barrel protruding from the far corner of the corridor – by the other side of the stage, presumably. I withdrew, but then heard the same hurrying and hissing, and looked again to see two more girls in the same outfits going through the same performance, hesitating over the unconscious policeman then hurrying on. One, of course, came my way. She glanced uncertainly at me – I murmured a courteous ‘evening, officer’ at her and she smiled – and continued onwards to wait for her cue at the edge of the stage.
Treating his shoulders a little more gently, I turned Quinn so that the light from the stage caught him better.
‘Really just a scratch, sir.’
‘Clumsy ass.’
It really was just a scratch, mercifully, across the outside of his arm. There was blood, but it wouldn’t bleed much more. I wrapped my handkerchief around the wound, and used my pocket pencil to wind the dressing tighter until Quinn hissed his discomfort.
‘How does the land lie, sir?’ His voice was almost normal volume, just to make himself heard over the crashing music.
‘Rough, Quinn.’ I finished tidying the dressing. ‘Bad man at the opposite end of the corridor, with pistol and not afraid to use it.’ I tapped his arm. ‘Our options are limited.’ I peered around in the gloom, trying to shield my eyes from the glare from the stage. ‘Non-existent, indeed. There’s no other way out, except the corridor, or the stage. Don’t know any songs, do you Quinn?’
‘None fit for public performance, sir.’
‘We can either make a run for it down the corridor and hope that he keeps winging you.’ I took my Webley back from him. ‘Or we can exchange potshots with him, and wait until the rest of the constabulary arrives to arrest us.’
From the box which the chorus girl had used, I picked out another policeman’s helmet. Holding the brim in finger and thumb, I slowly extended the helmet out round the corner into the corridor.
The shot was immediate, and the helmet was ripped out of my hand and clattered against the brickwork. I dropped to my knees, extended my gun arm and one eye round the corner and let off a snap shot towards the end of the corridor. A cloud of dust began to drift and settle where I’d grazed the wall. I stayed where I was, body shielded by the corner and pistol up, but he didn’t re-emerge from his end.
What did emerge was another half-dozen girls, from the passage halfway along the corridor. They made the usual performance of bewilderment over the unconscious policeman at their feet – except this time he groaned and rubbed his head. He must have thought he’d gone to policeman heaven, bunch of pretty girls in regulation constabulary jackets fussing over him; he didn’t see legs like those in the Bow Street washroom. Alas for him they had to hurry on, half one way along the corridor and half the other, as per. I lowered my pistol and stood as they came past me.
‘What act are you?’ one of them murmured.
‘Er… Hotshot, er, Harry,’ I said. ‘Catch bullets in my teeth, that sort of thing.’
‘What’s up with him?’ hissed another, nodding at Quinn’s bandage.
‘He fails to catch bullets in his teeth.’
Another verse or two had passed, and there was another fanfare and clash of cymbals, and the girls donned their helmets and followed onto the stage. God alone knew what the sketch or dance was; I was almost regretting having ducked out of our box so early.
I pushed the Webley back into Quinn’s hand. ‘Another option has occurred to me,’ I said. ‘Use the helmet and the pistol barrel to keep him interested. Try not to get shot this time, old fellow.’
‘I’ll keep my head well back, sir.’
‘Not the head I’m interested in, Quinn. Your trigger finger is much more important.’
‘What about you, sir? Off to join your lady friends or something?’
I smiled.
Then I picked up another helmet from the box beside us, put it on, and took a deep breath and a long step forwards.
I rather fancy that on the madness of that stage, behind the line of charming young ladies doing some sort of can-can business while half dressed as policemen, not a single member of the audience noticed a chap sauntering across behind them with a policeman’s helmet and an occasional attempt at a sort of rhythmic two-step shimmy. I can’t have made the performance any less interesting or more bizarre, and the audience were the least of my worries. Halfway across I heard what I thought were shots – the noise from the band and the audience and the girls was deafening, and I couldn’t be sure – so it seemed that Quinn was holding the gunman’s attention nicely.
I escaped off the stage and into the darkness of the wings with considerable relief. I took a moment to remove the policeman’s helmet – in general I’m reluctant to sail under a false flag, so to speak – and for my eyes to re-adjust. Two steps brought me nicely behind the gunman.
I tapped him on the shoulder, he spun round and I punched him in the face.
‘I’ve no idea what you’re up to,’ I said as he staggered back and I caught him with the sharp left jab, ‘and I might not have cared,’ – another sharp left – ‘but no-one’ – I concluded with the swinging right and he collapsed into a hat-stand – ‘no-one shoots my valet.’
Groggily, he started trying to clamber his way out of the wreckage of the hat-stand. Quinn was making his way towards us along the corridor. I turned and retrieved the pistol, which the gunman had dropped with my first punch. He’d made it half-upright now, fell against a wardrobe, wrestled his way round it, and staggered on towards Quinn.
For about three seconds I really felt, for the first time in days, on top of things. I had a live miscreant under my control, and with him I had a much better chance of finding out what was going on and a much better chance of clearing my own name.
For about three seconds, as I say – until the policeman stood up.
He must have had one hell of an evening, what with getting lamped twice by a well-built Cornish valet, repeatedly stampeded by some lady policemen, and then waking up to find himself in the middle of a gunfight. Presumably now he had quite a headache, too. But he was obviously a determined sort of chap, and he’d had a breather to regather his strength, and the inspiring vision of all those dancers’ legs hurrying over him, and so he was looking in reasonable shape as he came upright.
It couldn’t last. The first thing he would have seen was Quinn, Webley in hand, advancing towards him. The second thing he would have seen, and felt, was our assailant, who was still stumbling along the corridor and now collapsed into his arms.
The third thing the policeman would have seen would have been me, but he didn’t, because as I saw his face turning dazed towards me I ducked into the wardrobe.
Mine was the only face he knew, and I had no doubt that collaring me would make his whole evening worthwhile. He’d almost got me twice, suffered both times, and badly needed to restore his pride. So the wardrobe it had to be, before he clocked who I was.
I’d one bit of luck: the gunman, equally bewildered, had pulled himself up and found himself staring into the face of a policeman. He’d shoved the policeman aside, and lurched off down the side passage. I had to hope that the policeman would see him as the more interesting threat, and follow, and that Quinn would see the importance of keeping tabs on him too.
And so it worked out. In my wardrobe I could hear the thump and blare of the orchestra from the stage, but the corridor seemed to have gone silent. After half a minute, I risked opening the door. I stepped out, gun in hand.
Right in front of Annabella Bliss. She gave the slightest gasp, and recovered. ‘Looking for a new costume?’ she said.
‘You… You cannot begin to know what–’
‘Save it.’ She was curt. ‘Inflict yourself on me as you like, but never get in the way of my performance.’
I nodded. She turned, and I watched her go, that tight-strung back pale in the gloomy corridor a
s she made for the stage. I needed to get after Quinn and his policeman and the gunman and sort out that muddle somehow, but Bliss was a momentary glimpse of another life.
I was still focused on the far end of the corridor, when my vision filled with Inspector Bunce, stepping out of the side passage in front of me.
‘Well well,’ he said. He looked awfully pleased with himself.
I took an instinctive, weary step backwards. The gun was still in my hand, and he saw it, considered it, and took a step towards me regardless. I took another step back.
I surely couldn’t shoot him, could I? I retreated, back out of the corridor and into the darkness by the side of the stage. A dead end.
I kept the gun level, an automatic reaction to the threat, pointing at his chest. And still he walked on towards me.
This damned policeman had made himself my enemy, the embodiment of the mad injustice of recent days, and a pain in the backside. Somehow both infuriating and dangerous. But in that moment, as he stood there alone and willing to face down an armed man whom he knew to be a multiple murderer, I had to admire his nerve.
‘Come along then, Sir Henry: you’d better add me to your charge sheet, or throw in your hand.’
If ever a pestilence deserved shooting, it was Inspector Bunce in that moment.
‘Ain’t that the way of it? So much easier in the back, eh?’
The pistol wavered, as I considered shooting him in the leg, as much for his impertinence as to get him out of the way.
‘No? The hangman it is, then, unless you’d like to save him the trouble.’
There was an explosion of applause and cheers and squeals and a cloud of helmeted tutu’d girls burst out in front of me and engulfed Inspector Bunce. I last saw him flailing and wrestling among them, trying to get at me while they with giggles and scolds hurried past him for their next costume change. Not a bad way for a chap to go, all things considered. While he couldn’t see me, and with nowhere else to go, I stowed the pistol and made for the stage. There were various props and bits of light scenery in the wings. I grabbed up an urn with a large plant in it and strode onto the stage, face full of leaves, placed it carefully in the centre and carried on and off the other side.
The orchestra started up, piano and violin, something melodramatic. I glanced back across the stage; Bunce didn’t seem to have seen me go.
Something stabbed hard into my spine.
‘Don’t move. Don’t turn.’
I didn’t move. I didn’t turn.
‘I’m afraid my man’s got my ticket,’ I said.
‘I would prefer your pistol.’ The voice was quiet, calm, and close behind me. ‘Finger and thumb.’
Finger and thumb only, I pulled the pistol out of my coat.
‘Just drop it.’
This chap knew what he was doing, unfortunately. No chance of a scuffle; not a move I could make before his bullet would shatter my spine.
The stage in front of me, and a man with a pistol behind. My eyes were finding it hard to make anything out in the gloom of the wings with the glare of the stage still dominating. A ladder going up. Umpteen ropes. A rickety set of shelves, with assorted props on them no doubt, but I couldn’t see anything useful and couldn’t have reached it anyway.
The stage went dark, and I knew it had to be my chance. But immediately the pistol jammed harder against my spine, and the lights came up again, and as I blinked in the glare I saw that Bliss was standing on stage.
She was alone, next to a wooden lamp-post; poised ready to sing. If she was surprised by the potted plant sharing the limelight, she hid it like a pro.
For a second, I forgot the killer behind me and saw just her.
Then a flurry of whispers and feet nearby – the chorus coming our way – and again the pistol hard in my back, and a hand on my collar. He hesitated; he was almost as short of options as I was.
‘Up!’ he hissed, and pushed me forwards.
In front of me was the ladder: a simple wooden thing, leading up into the gloom. The pistol stabbed into its familiar position. I started up.
As I climbed, I heard the voice of Annabella Bliss, helping me heavenwards. Jolly lovely it was too, and I’d have enjoyed it in other circumstances – any circumstances, that is, other than my imminent death. If I’m going to go, let it be in the arms of someone like her, not plugged by some scoundrel. And dear God let the accompaniment be something other than Marie bloody Lloyd.
I came level with a walkway: a wooden affair hanging in space somehow, two planks wide with no obvious hand-rail. I glanced down. My fair-haired angel of death was climbing steadily after me. It wasn’t easy for him to keep the pistol out, but he was doing well enough. He used it to beckon me onwards; upwards.
I went on upwards.
I was climbing into a strange forest of the stage: dozens of ropes, and painted backdrops ready to be lowered on the ropes, and sandbags at various heights acting as counter-weights for the backdrops. The only light came from the glare of the stage below.
I was climbing out of options. I considered dropping onto my assassin; easy enough. But he had less far to fall than I did, and he’d be doing it without a bullet in his arse.
I came level with another walkway, the path of boards stretching away narrow and dusty in front of me. I glanced down again. This time he gestured me forwards, onto the walkway.
I swung on, and steadied myself. Normally I’ve no particular problem with heights, but the rickety planks were not inspiring, and it was damned peculiar to be perched up in the darkness, with the glare of the stage far beneath.
‘The boy I love is up in the gallery…’
I watched him come. I looked for the chance to kick his head off as he came level, but his mind was at least as devious as mine. He came on cautiously, pistol steady on me all the time, and as he reached the walkway he gestured me away.
Gingerly, I worked my way backwards on the walkway. Around me the forest of ropes, and the occasional sandbag where something had been lowered to the stage, sending its counterweight up into my gloomy heaven.
Fair hair swung himself onto the walkway, and it shuddered, and we both staggered for our balance. I saw that he’d wrapped something around his face – a scarf, perhaps. If he had to bully his way out they’d find it hard to identify him.
We faced each other on the walkway, eight or ten feet between us.
‘…The boy I love is looking now at me,
There he is, can't you see, waving his handkerchief,…’
What was he planning to do? He couldn’t hope for subtlety: a gunshot, or me falling to my death on the stage far below, there was no… Then I saw his eyes.
He didn’t care. These people had proved themselves game for any outrage, if it achieved their ends. Right now, all that he cared about was my death. And there was nothing to stop him succeeding, and within a very few seconds.
Gazing around me, I saw a sandbag suspended near my ankles, its rope running up beside me to some pulley above. And so I stepped off the walkway. I grabbed the rope, found a vague foothold on the sandbag, and clutched on desperately as a pulley above me creaked and turned, and rope and sandbag started to swing and lurch, and I dropped slowly below the level of the walkway. Whatever was on the other end of the pulley was lighter than me and my sandbag, but enough to keep my descent steady. Clinging to my rope, I looked for the lower walkway. As I gazed around, I saw the wooden lamp-post rising to meet me on the other end of the rope. God knows what the audience thought. The lower walkway was getting near now, and I waited for my chance to catch it as I dropped.
I never reached it. I was still a few feet above it, my leg starting to swing out ready for the step, the lamp-post looming beside me, when my descent stopped with a jerk. Fair hair must have… But then, slowly at first, and then more briskly, I started to rise.
The lamp-post dropped, and I rose. My assassin had done as I had done, but on the other side of the pulley. Scoundrel plus lamp-post being heavier – as Archimedes wou
ld have put it – than distressed baronet plus sandbag, he was now coming down and I was on the up. Except that he wasn’t actually dropping. He must have been quite the athlete, for he’d obviously pocketed his pistol and was climbing the rope as it dropped. So he stayed level, while the lamp-post returned to the stage.
Which meant my chance had to be when I regained the upper walkway. If the rope was suddenly free of my weight… As soon as the walkway was at my waist-level I started to scramble on to it, one hand and foot, and the other foot flailing, but it wouldn’t come free of the rope, and the sandbag was dragging it upwards as I clung to the walkway, and I struggled wildly with my face full of dust and splinters and eventually got loose and pulled myself forwards and further along the walkway and wriggled round.
He hadn’t fallen. A yard or two away, thanks to the wild swings of the rope and our desperate scrambles, my killer had managed to regain the walkway during my escape from the rope, and now he was getting to his feet. He stopped in the crouch, and saw me. His hand went instinctively into his jacket, and he liked what he found there.
Somewhere far below me, I heard laughter. The lamp-post had just landed serenely on the stage beside Bliss. Gamely, she sang on.
I came up clumsily, desperate, looking for the last chance, and lurched into a sandbag hanging nearby. It swung away from me, as I came upright.
And now he was upright too, just six feet away, the pistol levelled at me. The heat was fat around us.
‘…As merry as a robin that sings on a tree.’
I’d nothing left. He couldn’t miss. From his eyes alone, I knew he was smiling.
I hope he enjoyed it. Because in the next moment the sandbag swung back in, on the gentle arc on which I’d sent it, and caught him on the side of the head. The gentlest knock, but it was enough to send him off balance and as the walkway started to sway I dropped and clung on and he toppled away. His scream went on forever, as he plummeted down towards the stage, but at last it reached a crescendo as, with an explosion of woodwork and chords, he smashed into the piano.
Death and the Dreadnought Page 10
