Murder at Madame Tussauds

by Jim Eldridge

  Daniel turned and looked at the woman, sipping at her port. Every now and then she turned to look at the clock, then at the door, before turning back to her drink.

  ‘Whose was she?’ asked Daniel. ‘Eric’s or Walter’s?’

  ‘Eric’s. That’s why she’s here. He usually comes in around this time.’ He hesitated, then asked, ‘Will you tell her? But be gentle. She was very fond of him. They were almost like a married couple.’

  ‘Almost?’

  ‘Well, she has her own business to look after.’

  ‘Does she have a minder?’

  The barman shook his head. ‘Eric wouldn’t allow it. You know what these minders can be like.’

  Daniel nodded; he knew only too well from his time at Scotland Yard. He’d lost count of the number of prostitutes whose bodies he’d viewed at the mortuary, most killed by a client, or more often than not, by their so-called minder.

  ‘Elsie what?’ he asked.

  ‘Harkness.’

  ‘What’s she drinking? Port?’

  The barman nodded. Daniel produced a coin, but the barman waved it away, then poured a port. ‘This one’s on the house,’ he said. ‘Eric spent more than enough here.’

  Daniel carried the glass of port across to the table.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ he said.

  She shook her head. ‘Sorry, I’m waiting for a friend.’

  ‘Yes, so I understand. Eric Dudgeon.’ She looked up at him, concern on her face. Daniel put the glass of port on the table in front of the woman. ‘I believe you’re Elsie Harkness.’

  ‘You got a message from Eric?’ she asked.

  ‘In a way,’ said Daniel, sitting down opposite her. ‘My name’s Daniel Wilson and I’m a private investigator hired by Madame Tussauds wax museum.’

  ‘That’s where Eric works,’ she said.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Daniel. ‘I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you.’

  ‘Bad news?’

  Daniel looked at her and gave a sympathetic sigh. ‘I’m afraid there’s no easy way to say this, but there’s been a tragic accident at the museum. Eric’s dead.’

  She stared at him, her mouth dropping open in shock, and then she shook her head.

  ‘No,’ she said, firmly. ‘I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it until I hear it from Walter.’

  ‘And Mr Bagshot has disappeared,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Disappeared?’ she repeated, bewildered.

  ‘Eric was found this morning in the Chamber of Horrors, dead. There’s been no sign of Walter Bagshot, but I’ve been told the police are looking for him.’

  ‘No!’ she whispered in horror. ‘Not Walter! He’d never hurt Eric! Never!’ Suddenly she began to cry, her whole upper body shaking as tears rolled down her heavily-rouged cheeks. Daniel produced a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to her.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry to be the bearer of such bad news.’

  She refused his offer of the handkerchief and instead lifted the sleeve of her fur coat and buried her head in it, sobbing, before wiping the sleeve across her face. She looked at Daniel, still uncomprehending, her make-up smeared and smudged. ‘He was my Eric,’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ said Daniel. ‘That’s why I need to find out as much as I can about him in order to catch the person who did it. Had you known him long?’

  ‘About a year,’ she said.

  ‘Before he went to work at Madame Tussauds?’

  She nodded. ‘When him and Walter were on the railways.’

  ‘Did they work here at Marylebone?’ asked Daniel.

  ‘No, they were mainly at King’s Cross and St Pancras. They worked on the Gasworks Tunnel.’

  ‘The Gasworks Tunnel?’ queried Daniel.

  ‘At King’s Cross. I don’t know what they did there; they told me but I didn’t follow it. I don’t know much about that sort of work.’

  ‘Why did they leave the railways and go to work at Madame Tussauds?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Were the wages better?’

  ‘I can’t see how,’ said Elsie. ‘They were getting good money on the railway. I remember when they told me they were changing jobs, it was about three weeks ago. Walter started to say how there’d be a lot of money coming, but Eric shut him up, then made a joke about it. But I could tell there was something in it. Walter had had a bit too much to drink that night and it had made him a bit merry. It was like he was celebrating something.’

  ‘What?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. And I didn’t ask. They were always coming up with ideas for making money, ideas they’d joke about and laugh at, but really they were happy living the way they did. Earning enough to pay their rent and have a good night out. Though all that changed when they started doing the night job at Tussauds, of course. They had to be at work for nine o’clock at night, so there weren’t any late nights boozing any more. But they used to come in after they’d finished their shift. Well, lunchtime, after they’d gone home and got a few hours’ kip.’

  ‘Did they ever talk about their army experiences?’

  She gave a soft, sad chuckle. ‘All the time. I think that was when they were happiest. They went all over the world, you know.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Boy first encountered the Lady when leaving work. He walked out of Morton’s of London Wax Museum and found a smartly-dressed man standing by the kerb next to an expensive-looking carriage. The man moved away from the carriage to join him.

  ‘Someone wants to see you,’ he said. ‘She’s inside.’

  ‘What’s she want with me?’ asked the Boy, puzzled and also wary.

  ‘She’ll tell you that herself,’ said the man, and he took the Boy by the arm and steered him towards the carriage.

  ‘Who is she?’ asked the Boy, apprehensively, wondering: what is this? What have I done wrong?

  ‘She’s the Lady,’ said the man, and he opened the door.

  The Boy looked in, suspiciously. A very well-dressed woman in her early fifties sitting inside smiled at him and said, ‘Do come in. You’ll find it far more comfortable than walking.’

  The Boy climbed in, still wary, then sat on the seat opposite her. The man shut the door and the Boy heard him climbing up to the driver’s seat, then the carriage began to roll.

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked the Boy.

  ‘That depends on you,’ said the Lady. ‘I can take you to your home, or we can go to my house where we can have tea and cake.’

  ‘Why?’ asked the Boy suspiciously.

  ‘Because I have a proposition to make to you,’ said the Lady.

  ‘What sort of proposition?’

  ‘About your work. In wax. I’ve heard good things about you. I understand they call you the Boy.’

  The Boy nodded, but with a scowl.

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Thirteen,’ said the Boy.

  ‘And you are an apprentice at Morton’s wax museum.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Boy.

  ‘What’s your real name?’

  ‘Thomas.’

  ‘Which do you prefer to be called: Thomas or the Boy?’

  ‘Thomas,’ he said. ‘The Boy makes me sound like a pet or something. I think it started as a joke because I was younger than everyone else, and I’m small for my age, but they all started calling me it.’

  ‘And you don’t like it.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why don’t you work somewhere else? Somewhere where they’ll call you by your name?’

  ‘Because I’ve got to finish my apprenticeship. I signed a paper.’

  ‘You can write?’

  The boy nodded.

  ‘I’ve been told that you’re an orphan,’ said the Lady.

  Again, he nodded.

  ‘And you live in lodgings with a Mrs Wicksteed in Paddington.’

  Again, the Boy – Thomas – looked at her suspiciously. ‘How do you know so much about me?’
>
  ‘I made it my business, especially after I heard good things about you. So, do you want me to take you to your lodgings, or would you like to come home with me and have tea and cake and listen to my proposition?’

  ‘Your place,’ said Thomas.

  The Lady smiled. ‘Excellent,’ she said.

  Daniel’s last port of call was to the address in Somers Town he’d been given for Donald Bruin and Steven Patterson. As he expected, he was told they’d left two weeks previously, and left no forwarding address.

  ‘A pity to see them go,’ said their landlord, a Mr Possick. ‘Decent blokes. Always paid their rent. But there you are. That’s people for you.’

  ‘Did they give any idea of where they were going?’ asked Daniel. ‘Or what they’d be doing?’

  Possick shook his head. ‘No, and I didn’t ask. Ask questions and you get a reputation for being nosey, and tenants don’t like landlords who are nosey.’

  From Somers Town it was just a few minutes’ walk home, and Daniel found Abigail already there and with the kettle on the range.

  ‘How did you get on?’ she asked.

  ‘Bruin and Patterson seem to have vanished, and I’m not at all sure that Walter Bagshot has run off, as Inspector Jarrett seems to think.’ He filled her in on what he’d discovered at the men’s lodgings, and at the Railway Tavern. ‘It’s not just that everyone says how close the two men were, it’s the fact he left everything behind. Including a regimental flag.’ He pulled out his notebook and read the motto. ‘Ubique Quo Fas Et Gloria Ducunt.’ He looked at her enquiringly. ‘I’m guessing it’s Latin.’

  ‘It is,’ she said. ‘It means “Everywhere whither right and glory lead”.’ She frowned. ‘But I don’t know what it means, in this context.’

  ‘It’s the motto of the Royal Engineers,’ said Daniel. ‘It’s obviously precious to both men, so that’s another reason I don’t think Walter ran off of his own accord. I can’t see him leaving that behind.’

  ‘So what do you think’s happened to him?’

  ‘I think he was either killed or abducted. What about you? How did you get on?’

  ‘I went to see a friend of mine at the British Museum, Erasmus Black. We met when we were on a dig together at Hawara. He was making a study of wax modelling in ancient Egypt.’

  ‘It goes that far back?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Abigail. ‘Wax figures of the deities were used in funeral rites, and many are on display in museums.’

  ‘They last that long?’

  ‘They do indeed. Beeswax is a wonderful medium. Anyway, as I hoped, Erasmus, who’s got a passion for wax modelling, knows all about the Tussaud family and their wax museum. Right from the very early days.’

  ‘Do we have to know about their early days?’ asked Daniel apprehensively.

  ‘Yes, we do,’ Abigail told him firmly.

  ‘It always takes so long,’ complained Daniel.

  ‘The more we know about the past the better we can understand the present,’ said Abigail.

  ‘Yes, but …’ began Daniel. Then he gave a resigned sigh. ‘All right.’

  ‘It seems that Marie Grosholtz – that was Madame Tussaud’s maiden name – was born in Strasbourg, France on 1st December 1761. Nothing is really known about her father except his name, Joseph. Marie claimed he was a soldier who died two months before she was born. Her mother, Anne Marie, was eighteen years old and in domestic service. Soon after Marie was born, her mother went to work as a housekeeper for a young bachelor doctor, Philippe Guillaume Curtius, who was Swiss. Curtius was also a very skilful maker of wax miniatures. One of his admirers invited him to move to Paris to develop his work in wax, and exploit it. Which Curtius did, taking with him his housekeeper and her young daughter, who was now six years old. She showed an aptitude for also working in wax, and she became Curtius’s apprentice. By her teens she was at least as good as he was in modelling lifelike figures. The thing she learnt from Curtius was getting the flesh tones right.’

  ‘This is all very interesting, but I’m not sure how it relates to the murder,’ posed Daniel.

  ‘You’re the one who’s always said we need to know the background of the people involved,’ countered Abigail.

  ‘Yes, but there’s background and there’s ancient history,’ Daniel complained.

  ‘Unless you know everything, you won’t know which parts to ignore and which bits are relevant,’ insisted Abigail.

  I can already tell, thought Daniel wearily, but wisely he chose not to say that aloud.

  ‘Curtius’s wax displays became the talk of Paris, with all the leading people coming to see them, and sitting for their likenesses to be made,’ Abigail continued. ‘This included the French royal family; the king and queen and their immediate relatives, and you couldn’t get any higher than them. And then came the revolution.’

  ‘With the royal family going to the guillotine,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Exactly.’ Abigail nodded. ‘The revolutionaries decided they wanted the heads of their hated enemies preserved in wax, and so poor Marie Grosholtz was given the job. Which meant handling the bloody originals, with all that entailed.’

  ‘That must have been harrowing for her.’

  ‘Indeed. But she did such a good job that later, when the revolution was over and its leaders – Robespierre, Danton and the rest – were themselves beheaded by that same guillotine, it was Marie who was given the task of preserving their heads in wax.’

  ‘How did she manage to cope with all that bloodshed and having to handle the mangled heads?’

  ‘By having an iron will and a strong sense of self-preservation, I guess. But she was acutely aware that things in France were politically unstable, and that today’s hero was tomorrow’s villain, and that could equally apply to her.’

  ‘She was under the threat of execution?’

  ‘Everyone was. It only needed someone to pass an adverse comment about someone, someone who’d been upset and was feeling bitter, or jealous, and that person soon found themselves in a tumbril on their way to the scaffold.

  ‘In 1794, Curtius died, and he left his wax figures and everything to do with his wax model business to his apprentice, Marie, who was now thirty-three years old.

  ‘The following year, Marie married François Tussaud, a man eight years her junior. He was described as an engineer, but by all accounts the only engineering he did was financial.’

  ‘Financial?’

  ‘He wheedled money out of Marie and her waxwork business. Basically, he was a sponger, full of grandiose schemes to make money, all of which failed, and for all of them he used Marie’s money.

  ‘The couple had two sons, Joseph, who was born in 1798, and Francis in 1800. In 1802, Marie had the opportunity to take her wax exhibits to England, in partnership with a showman called Philipsthal. I won’t go into details because they’re too long, but Philipsthal turned out to be another financial parasite, one it took years for her to get rid of ,because he’d got her to sign a contract.

  ‘The bottom line is that in 1802 she left for England, taking her eldest son, Joseph, but leaving her youngest, Francis, behind in the care of her mother and husband. She never returned to France, and it was twenty years before she saw Francis again.’

  ‘My God, this woman’s life was one tragedy after another!’ burst out Daniel.

  ‘Not completely. She did find success later in life,’ Abigail pointed out.

  ‘But look at what she had to endure before she found it! When did she finally manage to open her museum in London?’

  ‘In 1835, and in Baker Street, just round the corner from the present museum site.’

  ‘What about her two sons? They must have been in their thirties by this time.’

  ‘They were. Francis came to England to be reunited with his mother in 1822. In that same year Joseph, now in his mid-twenties, married an English girl, Elizabeth Babbington, and they went on to have three children. Francis married a woman called Rebecca Smallpage
and they had their first child in 1831. By the time the wax exhibition opened at Baker Street Marie’s family had grown. Eventually she had twelve grandchildren, and all of them came into the Tussaud family business.’

  ‘Any bad blood between the different branches of the family? I’m thinking about Mr Tussaud’s reaction when I mentioned brothers falling out.’

  Abigail shook her head. ‘Not as far as I could find. John Theodore Tussaud is the elder brother, Louis Tussaud the younger. Both worked as wax figure sculptors at Tussauds, but in 1889 the company was sold to a conglomerate of businessmen headed by a man called Edwin Josiah Poyser.’

  ‘Sold? Who sold it?’

  ‘The boys’ father, Joseph, Marie’s grandson, although by this time they weren’t really boys. John Theodore was thirty-one and Louis was twenty.’

  ‘What had happened to Marie, the matriarch? Didn’t she have any say in it?’

  ‘She died in 1850, aged ninety.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Daniel. ‘Yes, I forgot how old she would have been.’

  ‘Poyser appointed John Theodore as chief artist and manager of the museum, and Louis decided to leave and branch out on his own,’ continued Abigail. ‘He set up Louis Tussaud’s waxwork museum in Regent Street …’

  ‘I remember it!’ exclaimed Daniel. ‘It burnt down soon after it opened.’

  ‘It did,’ confirmed Abigail. ‘Six months after, in fact.’

  ‘Any suggestion of foul play?’ asked Daniel.

  Again, Abigail shook her head. ‘No, it appears it was just an accident. I can’t find any reports of accusations of any wrongdoing, and the two brothers still appear to be on good terms, which wouldn’t be the case if there was anything doubtful about the fire.

  ‘Since then, Louis has been working on recreating his models, determined to open his own wax museum again. But not in London, from what I hear. I believe he’s intending to open in a seaside town. Less competition from the established Madame Tussauds.’

  ‘Why did the boys’ father sell it to this business conglomeration?’

  ‘It seems that by 1883 the museum’s previous site in Baker Street was getting too crowded, not just with exhibits but the people flocking to see them. So their father decided to move the whole lot to the museum’s present site in Marylebone Road. He had a new building constructed, very grandiose, but the cost spiralled so much that he had to look for funding. He formed a limited company to try to raise funds, but it didn’t work. So he was forced to sell. Not that our Mr Tussaud here, John Theodore, lost out. As I’ve said, he retained his roles as chief artist and manager, so effectively the Tussauds are still in charge, setting the tone for the museum.’