‘On Sunday, Ma’am? That’s irregular.’
‘Yes, but leaks of gas are no respecters of Lord’s Day observance. The gasman tells me it could be dangerous if neglected. Now please sit down and tell me how I can help you.’
Thackeray selected an upright chair to the side of the arm-chair Cribb took. Upholstered furniture seemed inappropriate to the rank of constable when solid woodwork was available. Mrs Body addressed him: ‘You are sitting on one of our most precious relics, Mr Thackeray. No, it is quite in order for you to use it. Do not get up. That is the very chair W. G. Ross used to sit on in the forties when he sang the Ballad of Sam Hall at the Cider Cellars.’
‘The condemned sweep,’ said Cribb.
‘You remember it! Splendid! Mr Cribb, you are a connoisseur of the variety stage, I declare!’
‘That would be overstating it, Ma’am. My interest in Sam Hall is more for his criminal record than his legend in song. It’s a fine collection of music hall items that you have, even so. Would that be a lime-tank doing service as a coal-scuttle in the grate, there?’
She clapped her hands. ‘You are knowledgeable! They must have sent you specially. I do hope I can help you find some of your missing persons and then you can keep coming back to talk to me.’
The Sergeant’s interrogations rarely took such a personal turn. Was that a touch of colour rising to his cheeks? Thackeray forbore from peering too closely. Firelight, surely.
Applause broke out in the room next door, strikingly raucous for Sunday afternoon, even among music hall performers. But this gave way to a rich bass-baritone rendering of one of John Orlando Parry’s most popular polite comic songs.
‘Wanted a governess, fitted to fill—’ when, inexplicably, an outbreak of giggling interrupted the soloist. He managed to sing ‘The post of tuition with competent skill’ and was again forced to stop for the noisy reaction of his audience. ‘In a gentleman’s family highly genteel,’ he began again, ‘Where ’tis hoped that the lady will try to conceal—’ when ungovernable laughter made it impossible to continue. How a simple ballad gave rise to such guffaws defied the imagination.
‘Excuse me.’ Mrs Body got up decisively from her chair, crossed the room to the connecting door and marched into the uproar, which stopped almost at once. Only the hammering from a room on the opposite side continued.
‘Look at the gasman quick!’ ordered Cribb, striding to the door Mrs Body had used. ‘I’ll stand watch.’
Thackeray reacted instantly, almost upending W. G. Ross’s chair in the process. He opened the door, and looked into a long, panelled dining-room. Several tables were laid for dinner. Silver candelabra stood among the table-ornaments. At the near end, in a fine mist of dust, was the gasman, in overalls, standing knee-deep in the foundations, half-a-dozen floor-boards prised open around him. He turned, hammer in hand, and winked. Major Chick!
‘Slap bang in the enemy camp, eh?’ said the Major in a stage-whisper. ‘I’m full of surprises, Constable.’ Thackeray closed the door and gave a long-suffering nod in answer to Cribb’s uplifted eyebrows.
‘You will excuse me, rushing out like that?’ said Mrs Body, re-entering. ‘They were quite unaware that their little concert was disturbing us.’
‘Are your guests exclusively masculine?’ asked Cribb, fingering a pair of ballet-shoes that were attached to the side of the mantelpiece with several others, reminiscent of shot rats on a barn door.
‘No, no. I take anyone who is temporarily incommoded. As it happens, I have nine ladies in residence at present. But there has never been a breath of anything improper at Philbeach House, you understand.’
‘That goes without saying,’ said Cribb.
Thackeray nodded too.
‘How charming. You know, Mr Cribb, you remind me so strikingly of Mr Body, my late-lamented husband, except that he was not so tall as you and wore spectacles. Your sight is quite in order, is it?’
‘I believe so, Ma’am.’
‘Do not count on it. Nusquam tuta fides, as Mr Body used to tell me often. “Our confidence is nowhere safe”—and he lost his spectacles in Hyde Park, and drowned in the Serpentine. How can I help you, Mr Cribb?’
‘Do you keep a register of your guests, Ma’am?’
‘A register? Nothing so formal, I am afraid. I can tell you who they are, however.’
‘Very good. Thackeray, you’ll need your notebook. Perhaps you would begin with the ladies, Mrs Body?’
She clapped her hands to her cheeks. ‘Oh dear, a notebook! That is enough to make me forget my own name, quite apart from the names of guests.’
‘Just forget Thackeray’s here, Ma’am,’ suggested Cribb. ‘Think of him as one more painted face on the wall. You can remember the names for me, can’t you?’
She wriggled with pleasure in her large chair. ‘Now that you put it that way, I think I can. Well, there are my longest residents, Beatrice and Alexandra. They are singers, you know.’
‘Surnames, Ma’am?’ requested Thackeray.
Cribb glared at him. ‘When did they arrive?’
‘Oh, eighteen months ago, at least,’ said Mrs Body. ‘They are sisters, you know. Their name is Dartington. I have two sets of sisters here at present. The others are trapeze artistes, Lola and Bella Pinkus. If it were not making an old music hall joke I would describe them as highly strung. Decent girls, but spirited, you know. I think they miss the exercise they used to get.’
‘They’re out of work, then?’
‘Yes, poor waifs. One small mishap at the Middlesex and they were asked to leave. They couldn’t pay their rent or find other work so we offered to let them come here. It was the same with most of the others—Miss Goodbody, Miss Archer, Miss Tring—’
‘The Voice on the Swing?’ said Cribb.
‘But yes! How thrilled Penelope will be when I tell her you know her name! She was in a dreadful state when she arrived here—an unendurable experience on her swing, you know—but we are trying to laugh her out of it in our cheerful fashion.’
‘I’m sure you are,’ said Cribb. The noise in the next room, already reasserting itself, was evidence of that. ‘That makes seven ladies. Who are the others?’
Mrs Body made a rapid inventory of her guests on her fingers. ‘Ah! Miss Harriett Morris, the song and dance artiste—such deplorable misfortunes that poor child has suffered—and then there is my latest guest who arrived after lunch, and I must confess that I don’t yet know her name. She is the mother of a strong man who was savaged by a dog and brought here this morning.’
‘The great Albert,’ said Cribb. ‘Who brought him to you, then?’
‘Why, the Undertakers! I haven’t surprised you, have I gentlemen? You must have heard of the Undertakers, George and Bertie Smee, one of the most whimsical comic turns in London until their accident two months ago? They’re frightfully good company and so helpful. They went all the way to Lambeth in a cab to persuade Albert to come here and convalesce.’
‘Really? And how did you come to hear of Albert’s injury?’
Mrs Body produced a beatific smile. ‘There are more Good Samaritans in the music halls than you would believe, Mr Cribb. When an artiste suffers an injury, you may be sure that someone in the same company or in the audience will have heard of Philbeach House. In this case it happened to be a personal acquaintance of Sir Douglas Butterleigh.’
‘Your benefactor?’
‘The very same. We see very little of Sir Douglas, but he has many friends, and some of them like to associate with our philanthropy. They prefer to remain anonymous.’