‘But why should that change anything?’ I asked.
‘BECAUSE!’ cried Daisy, clearly enjoying herself. ‘I think someone else at the Rue was part of the events of that day. Every murder needs a murderer, does it not? And that person would have to shut Rose and Annie up once they realized they both knew what had really happened. The murderer must think that they’ve succeeded. But they’ve reckoned without us!’
‘But why would someone want to murder Rose’s parents?’ I asked.
‘Well, we shall just have to work that part out,’ said Daisy. ‘But, really, don’t you think it’s possible? It would make everything fit in the most marvellous way!’
‘It could be,’ I said. ‘It could!’
We had made important strides forward in the case. But, since we were forbidden from continuing the investigation, what were we to do with what we had discovered?
SUSPECT LIST
1. Miss Crompton. MOTIVE: She was Rose’s greatest ally at the Rue Theatre and seems sad that she is dead – but she has also been honest about the fact that Rose’s death will be good for business, and will help the Rue’s money troubles. She clearly cares most about the Rue, and about her company – might she have been willing to hurt one member of it to help everyone else? OPPORTUNITY: She seems to have an alibi from 9 p.m. until just before Rose was discovered missing at 9.30 p.m. – she was onstage with Inigo – but she did also go to the loo for a few minutes. Could this be enough time for her to have gone to the well room with Rose and killed her there? This is NOT enough time – unless her alibi is a lie! NOTES: She did not visit Jim at the stage door until after Rose’s disappearance that evening, meaning that she had no clear opportunity to forge Rose’s name in the book. But could she be working with someone else – like Inigo? RULED OUT: She has an alibi for the night of the second murder – and, since Inigo has one too, she certainly can’t be involved.
2. Simon. MOTIVE: He does not like Rose. He hinted, and Inigo confirmed, that he was supposed to play Romeo until Rose objected to the colour of his skin. Was he angry enough with her to do something terrible? OPPORTUNITY: He was with Inigo when they overheard the argument between Martita and Rose, but afterwards left him and went upstairs to his own dressing room until the alarm was raised at 9.30. Could he have left it to murder Rose? From our re-enactment of the crime, we know it would have taken him approximately twelve minutes to go down to the well room, murder Rose and go back to his dressing room. NOTES: Visited Jim’s cubbyhole and so could have forged Rose’s name in the book. ANNIE’S MURDER: He was at a jazz club in Soho, but he only arrived there at 12.30 a.m. on the morning after Annie’s murder. He could have gone to meet her on the bridge and killed her, and then gone on to the club.
3. Annie (Wardrobe). MOTIVE: No clear motive. Rose was friendly with her – but she did seem to be uncomfortable with Rose’s behaviour towards other members of the company. OPPORTUNITY: She was in the loo on the first floor when Martita and Rose had their argument, but was then alone in Wardrobe at the crucial time. It would have taken her approximately twelve minutes to get down to the well room and back again. She has no alibi! NOTES: Visited Jim’s cubbyhole and so could have forged Rose’s name in the book. RULED OUT: Annie has become the second victim. She was seen walking towards Westminster Bridge just before midnight last night; her handbag, coat and hat were found beside the river this morning, and a body which we believe to be hers was found in the estuary. The Inspector thinks she committed suicide – there was a note in her handbag – but we are not so sure. Annie was behaving oddly yesterday, and saying she was afraid. Did she know something about the murder? Has she been shut up by the murderer? We now think that she did know something – about a murder nine years ago! We suspect that Rose’s parents were killed, and Annie witnessed some part of it!
4. Inigo. MOTIVE: He disliked Rose intensely and says that she is the reason why Simon was not able to play Romeo. He also wants to use her death as publicity. OPPORTUNITY: He was with Simon and Miss Crompton when they heard the argument between Rose and Martita, and he says that after this he went back onstage to talk to Miss Crompton until he left to see Jim just before the alarm was raised by Martita at 9.30. If this is true, then he may not have had time – unless he was working with Miss Crompton. He could have gone down to the well room, murdered Rose and gone back onstage in approximately eleven minutes. NOTES: Visited Jim’s cubbyhole and so could have forged Rose’s name in the book. RULED OUT: He has an alibi for the second murder! He was at a dinner at midnight, and so could not have left to kill Annie.
5. Lysander. MOTIVE: He had been flirting with Rose, but Daisy and Hazel noticed that they had been arguing more and more lately. He is a very threatening person, and he was angry with Rose. OPPORTUNITY: He was in his dressing room, alone, during the time Rose must have been murdered – he does not have an alibi! NOTES: Was at Jim’s cubbyhole when the alarm was raised, and so could have forged Rose’s name in the book. He behaved threateningly towards Daisy yesterday – he seems capable of violence. It would have only taken him approximately twelve minutes to go down to the well room, murder Rose and go back to his dressing room. ANNIE’S MURDER: He does not have an alibi for the time of Annie’s death. He was at a pub near Westminster Bridge.
6. Jim (stage door). MOTIVE: He did not like Rose, and resented her being part of the Rue. But did he feel strongly enough about her to murder her? OPPORTUNITY: He says he was at his post all evening, Is this true? RULED OUT: He has a limp. He would have needed more time to kill Rose than anyone else, but he was not away from his post for more than nine minutes on the evening of the murder. Even the closest of our other suspects could not have murdered Rose in under eleven minutes.
7. Martita. MOTIVE: She hated the fact that Rose was playing Juliet. She felt that the part should have been hers, and was jealous that Rose was allowed to be the star. OPPORTUNITY: She left the stage when Rose refused to come on to rehearse Scene Five. Inigo, Simon, Miss Crompton and Annie all say that they heard her arguing with Rose in Rose’s dressing room at about 9.05. We do not know where she went after that. Could she have murdered Rose before she raised the alarm at 9.30? NOTES: Visited Jim’s cubbyhole and so could have forged Rose’s name in the book. It would have only taken her approximately twelve minutes to go down to the well room, murder Rose and go back to her dressing room. Rose walked to the well room rather than being dragged there – would she have gone with Martita? ANNIE’S MURDER: Martita stormed out of Miss Crompton’s Lambeth flat late that evening, and was alone, on the streets of London, all night, until Miss Crompton found her in a café at 4 a.m. the next morning. She could have gone to Westminster Bridge to meet Annie – she has no alibi. Once again, she cannot yet be ruled out.
PLAN OF ACTION
1. Check Jim’s stage-door book and ascertain whether Jim can be trusted.
2. Look at timings and decide which of our suspects had enough opportunity to commit the crime.
3. Go back to the scene of the crime and re-enact the murder.
4. Visit Rose’s dressing room and look for clues.
5. Talk to suspects – decide if any of them could be working together.
6. Find out which of our remaining suspects have alibis for the time of Annie’s death.
7. Rule out Martita! (NB Daisy wrote this!)
8. Discover the killer.
9. Find out the truth of what happened to Rose’s parents. Are they the key to this mystery?
10. Get back to the Rue Theatre!
1
I can tell that Daisy is still sick – but not with flu. She is quite ill with worry about the case, and she is trying very hard to hide it from me. She has spent a really un-Daisyish amount of time staring into space. She has covered the newspapers around her bed with anxious scribbles. Some of them are plans of London and of the Rue theatre (which I have taken and copied out nicely in this casebook), some of them are disjointed odd notes (What about the white thread? WHAT IS THE MOTIVE??) and some of them are simpl
y Martita’s name, traced again and again in pencil and pen until the word almost goes through the paper.
‘I am not obsessed!’ said Daisy when I picked up one particularly intricate page and stared at it. ‘I do not do that sort of thing. That is Hazelish behaviour. I am merely thinking carefully.’
We had managed to get a letter to Alexander and George in with the Tuesday evening post, asking them to investigate our last three suspects more carefully. Conveniently, Daisy was being dosed with hot lemon and honey drinks, so it was not particularly difficult for me to make up a batch of invisible ink, or for Daisy to slip my completed letter in with all the other post.
Find out all you can about the backgrounds of Lysander Tollington, Simon Carver and Martita Torrera, real name Marta Pao! Write back as soon as you can!
We had been trying to keep away from Uncle Felix, but on Wednesday morning Daisy could bear it no longer. She went striding into the dining room as he was eating breakfast, her hands on her hips and her cheeks pink with resolution.
‘Uncle Felix!’ she cried. ‘I am perfectly healthy. I have not coughed for three hours and I can do five jumping jacks without getting tired. Look!’
As the three of us watched, she flung herself into the air five times.
‘As you will observe, I am absolutely better!’ she said triumphantly, panting.
‘You are not absolutely better,’ said Uncle Felix. ‘What do you want?’
‘I want you to stop pretending you need to protect us,’ said Daisy. ‘Uncle Felix, the first performance of Romeo and Juliet is tonight, and we have to be there. We’re in the middle of solving the case! We know that you’ve threatened Inspector Priestley to make sure that he doesn’t let us go back to the Rue and it simply isn’t fair of you. He’s an excellent policeman – in as far as there are excellent policemen – and he is good at his job. But we are better.’
Uncle Felix sat frozen, his cup of tea halfway to his lips.
‘It’s not fair!’ Daisy went on passionately. ‘You never have to tell our parents and I promise Hazel and I won’t get hurt and we’ll really do our best from now on to stay out of trouble if you’ll only let us do this one thing. This case needs us, and I promise to never, ever ask you for anything again! Please!’
‘Daisy, you are exhausting,’ said Uncle Felix. ‘You are a child, and Hazel is a child, and even very clever children cannot be detectives in murders. Nice child detectives stick to smuggling cases, haven’t you heard? Hazel’s exploits yesterday proved to me that you are danger to both yourselves and others. The only place you will be going today is your room.’
‘But I said please!’ cried Daisy, incensed. ‘And anyway, when you were my age you would have done exactly the same thing!’
‘Not exactly the same,’ said Uncle Felix. ‘When I was fifteen, I was climbing out of windows in my boarding house every night. When your mother was fifteen, she tried to run off to France with her dance instructor – but of course they went the wrong way and ended up in Lisgard. However, just because we did foolish things ourselves doesn’t mean that you can.’
‘That is absolutely unfair!’ howled Daisy. ‘I SAID PLEASE!’
I looked at Aunt Lucy, who had ducked her head and was making marks on the ordnance survey map she had spread out in front of her.
W I L T
A W S I
I I O T
T L R X
I blinked. I read it down the lines, left to right, twice, and it still said the same thing. WAIT. I WILL SORT IT.
Aunt Lucy scrubbed it all out, and then she stood up and said, ‘Excuse me, Daisy, Hazel. Felix my love, will you come into the other room with me for a moment?’
There was toast in front of us, but for once I could not bear to eat a bite. Daisy and I sat in hushed silence, glancing nervously at each other. What was Aunt Lucy doing?
Bridget came in and dropped the post in front of us, and I snatched up the letter addressed to me in Alexander’s handwriting.
‘I shall read it later,’ I said, stuffing it into the waistband of my skirt. Daisy nodded stiffly.
Then Aunt Lucy and Uncle Felix came back into the dining room.
Uncle Felix was scowling and Aunt Lucy was smiling gently to herself. I stared at her, hardly daring to hope, but Aunt Lucy gave nothing away.
‘Felix, dear?’ she said.
Uncle Felix cleared his throat.
‘You are my niece,’ he said to Daisy.
‘Ugh, more’s the pity!’ hissed Daisy, narrowing her eyes at him.
‘By which I mean, although you are not precisely my child, you are related to me. And I have been made to see that there are – certain familial similarities between us.’
I glanced at Aunt Lucy then, and I saw her smiling into her hand. I swallowed down a giggle.
‘It has been brought to my attention,’ Uncle Felix went on, ‘that if a dead body had landed at my feet when I was fifteen years old, I should have stopped at nothing to uncover the truth of what had happened to it. My youth would not have concerned me, and – I can understand that you do not see in quite the same way I do how very young you are.’
‘I’m not young!’ howled Daisy. ‘I’m older than EVER!’
‘Quiet!’ said Uncle Felix, so sharply that Daisy and I both jumped. ‘I am trying to see the matter from your point of view – the point of view I would have had at your age. I am trying to remember that you have already had certain detective successes. I am trying to tell myself to care about your safety a little less fiercely than I do. But don’t you see, Daisy – you are my beloved and only niece. I can’t go to Selfridges and buy another one of you if something goes wrong.’
‘Beloved!’ said Daisy, gaping.
‘Only,’ said Uncle Felix, clearing his throat and looking away.
I held my breath. Daisy had gone a funny colour.
‘And?’ prompted Aunt Lucy, looking up at last.
‘And I suppose I see that allowing you back to the Rue for tonight’s performance – under the supervision of Inspector Priestley, with myself and Lucy watching over you from the stalls – might be acceptable. If you promise in the strongest terms not to put yourself in any more danger than you have to, and to tell us the moment you’ve uncovered the truth in the case … it looks very much as though you will be making your stage debuts tonight, after all.’
‘YES!’ cried Daisy, leaping out of her seat with a most unladylike shriek. ‘Oh, Uncle Felix, you BRICK!’ She flung herself on him, and Uncle Felix went slightly pink.
I could feel my heart pounding with my breath. Were we truly being allowed to finish the case?
I turned to Aunt Lucy.
‘Thank you so much!’ I whispered. ‘Will it really be all right?’
‘I will make sure it is. You’re good girls, and good detectives,’ said Aunt Lucy quietly. ‘You deserve one more chance. Now – promise me not to die?’
2
‘Back at the Rue!’ cried Daisy, spinning round and round and round on the empty stage. ‘Marvellous!’
I simply stood and breathed in its lovely greasepaint-and-powder-and-wood smell, something a little hot and a little dry, something wide and huge, as though my nose could tell that beyond the lowered curtain in front of us was echoing space, rows of waiting seats all the way up to the gilded rafters.
I heard someone step through the stage door behind us, and turned to see Martita.
For once, she was smiling at us, and she looked so nice that I struggled to believe she was really one of our last three suspects.
‘Welcome back,’ she said. ‘Do you know, the dressing room felt too big without you.’
‘I told you it would,’ said Daisy rather giddily, leaning towards Martita very slightly like a plant to the sun, and then she looked embarrassed at her own boldness.
‘Are you better?’ asked Martita, still smiling. ‘Truly? I don’t need germs around me, you know.’
‘I am entirely recovered,’ said Daisy.
‘Sh
e really is,’ I agreed.
‘Well, come on then!’ cried Martita. ‘Let’s go and get you ready!’
As we rushed through the backstage corridors, past the props room where people were making last-minute changes to sets and swords and candles, past Miss Crompton, who strode by, barking, ‘Welcome back, girls,’ everything seemed almost unchanged – but there was an eerie, missing feeling to the Rue, for Rose was gone, and so was Annie.
Wardrobe on the first floor was very quiet when we went in to get our costumes. Everything was rather disarranged, for the new dresser had just started, and she did not know the theatre yet. Half the wig stands were empty, the dresses pulled off their racks, pins and needles dropped across the floor in careless haste. Only Juliet’s other nightgown still stood on its mannequin, creepily upright, like a reproach to us. We hadn’t solved Rose’s case, and now Annie was dead too.
‘Someone else’s been at it,’ said Daisy, peering. ‘Martita, have you been trying to let it out? Look, these stitches are a bit clumsy.’
I got another funny feeling in my stomach at that. Daisy shouldn’t be asking Martita a question like this, not when she was under suspicion.
‘Of course I haven’t,’ said Martita. ‘Simon! Come in here! Have you been altering my dresses?’
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Simon, poking his head round Wardrobe’s door. ‘Where is that new dresser? I can’t find her and she has my doublet. Hey, Daisy, Hazel! Welcome back!’
‘Did you sew this dress?’ asked Martita.
Simon laughed. ‘No way!’ he said. ‘Why, does it look like I did?’ He grinned at us – but again, I got the same feeling: that underneath his jollity Simon was really not cheerful at all.
‘Is Simon all right?’ I asked quietly, once he had gone.
‘None of us are all right, Hazel darling,’ said Martita. ‘But – no. He’s been … well, he’s got a problem. You see, he’s got an alibi for Annie’s death, but he can’t use it.’
Death in the Spotlight Page 19
