The constable brought the package over. Cribb unwrapped it carefully, without touching the fragments. He sniffed several times at a circular piece that had formed the base of the tumbler. ‘This will need to be analysed. The conjurer’s fluid—what was it?’
‘Water, with a dash of cochineal for effect,’ answered Plunkett.
Cribb sniffed again. ‘It’s got a sickly sweet smell, for cochineal.’
Plunkett dipped his finger towards the glass. Cribb jerked it away. ‘I wouldn’t do that, sir.’
‘Why ever not?’
‘I’m no scientist, Mr Plunkett, but if I see a healthy young woman die in a matter of seconds and I can’t find a sign of a bullet-hole I think of poisons. And when I see the centres of the eyes dilated as these are and the cheeks this bluish colour, I go through the list of symptoms I keep in my head, sir, and I come up with Prussic Acid. If that’s what this is and you get a spot on your finger and lick it, we’ll have two corpses for post mortem tomorrow morning, not one.’
The manager was plainly impressed. He thrust his hands immediately into his pockets. ‘But I know you,’ he told Cribb, ‘and your friend. You were skulking at the back of my theatre during rehearsal yesterday, both of you. I sent you away to get some tickets, but that was for the first house, not this one. How the devil did you get in for this performance? And what is this person doing in the uniform of one of my staff?’
‘Voluntary unpaid stage-remover,’ explained Cribb. ‘If he hadn’t been here I shouldn’t have known what was going on, should I? Your audience out there still don’t know Miss Pinkus is dead.’
Plunkett’s manner changed abruptly. He put a hand on Cribb’s shoulder. ‘No need for them ever to know, eh? We can handle things discreetly between us, can’t we?’ He pulled out his wallet. ‘Dammit, this doesn’t have to be a police matter, does it?’
‘If you’re suggesting what I think you are,’ said Cribb, ‘I ought to warn you that it’s a criminal offence. We’ve our duty to do, sir, and we’ve every right to ask for your cooperation. That’s not to say we’ll stop the goings-on behind the footlights, even though I’ve serious doubts about ’em.’
‘Come, come now,’ said Plunkett. ‘It’s a private performance. Besides, there’s nothing in my show that you can’t see in other halls.’ From his look of injured innocence he might have been staging a temperance concert.
Cribb nodded. ‘I’ll grant you that, sir. Such performances can sometimes be seen in penny gaffs in the backstreets of Cairo. But I ain’t here to reminisce. Where’s the conjurer this girl worked with?’
‘Professor Virgo? I had him escorted to his dressing-room. He was more than a little upset, of course, and I didn’t want a panic backstage. As it is, only a handful of people know about this, you see.’
‘Who would they be?’
‘Why, the two trap-men who work down here, yourselves, Professor Virgo and me.’
‘What about the dead girl’s sister?’
‘Bella? Good Lord, I’d forgotten. Nobody’s told her. She’ll be down here looking—’
Cribb reacted quickly. ‘That sheet, if you please, Thackeray. She’ll be shaken enough at the news, without actually seeing the body. Will you tell her, Mr Plunkett, or shall I?’
‘I’d rather you did, if you’ve no objection.’
‘Very well. You’d better question Virgo, Thackeray. Find out what you can about the man himself, and then go over the performance with him step by step.’ In case the responsibility went to his constable’s head, he added, ‘And get your jacket and trousers on. You look ridiculous.’
Nevertheless it was with a justifiable feeling of importance that Thackeray tapped on Professor Virgo’s door a few minutes later. Constables capable of conducting important interviews were by no means thick on the ground in the Metropolitan area.
The Professor was sitting at a small dressing-table made from a tea-chest, a bottle of whisky in his left hand, and a wand in his right, with which he was moodily prodding a fat white rabbit in a hutch. Thackeray cleared his throat in a business-like way. He knew all about questioning suspects. You had to be in control from the start, establish your official status and then keep the questions going like revolver shots. ‘Detective Constable Thackeray, sir, of Scotland Yard. I have some questions for you.’
‘Questions?’ Professor Virgo twitched in surprise. So did the rabbit.
‘Will you kindly tell me how long you’ve been on the bill at the Paragon, sir?’ A good opening question, requiring a short statement of fact. Get them into the way of repeating facts and they’d be hard put to introduce evasions later.
There was a lengthy pause.
‘You heard me, sir?’
Several seconds later, Virgo spoke: ‘W-when I am nervous I develop an im-p-p—’
‘—pediment?’ God, what appalling luck! His first major interrogation and he had landed a stutterer.
‘About six weeks is the answer to your qu-qu—’
‘I believe you’re a sword-swallower by training?’
Virgo nodded.
‘And you had an accident?’
‘At the Ti-Ti—’
‘Tivoli Garden. Then what happened, sir?’
‘S-s-sore—’
‘—throat. Yes, I can believe that, sir. You was taken to Philbeach House in Kensington, wasn’t you?’ Putting words into their mouths was not the recommended procedure, but this interview was liable to last all night if he didn’t.
Another nod.
‘Someone there offered you an engagement at the Paragon. Am I correct? Good. Now who was that?’
‘Mrs B-B—’
‘Body. Thank you. Now where did you first meet the Pinkus sisters—at Philbeach House? Right. Did the suggestion that they worked with you come from them or from you?’
‘From them.’
‘I see. And when did you first appear with them at the Paragon?’
Virgo held up his fingers. ‘Th-th—’
‘Three days ago? No? Three weeks. Very good. Are you still feeling nervous? What’s the name of your rabbit? Never mind. Look here, Professor Virgo, I need to hear your account of what happened tonight, from the moment you got to the theatre. Are you able to manage that? Have a drop of your whisky. Not for me, thanks. I’m on duty, you see.’
When he had upended the bottle for several seconds, Virgo seemed to recover some of his confidence. He was a decent-looking man, with regular features, but desperately thin. He wouldn’t last long in Newgate, Thackeray reflected.
‘G-got here about eleven. They didn’t want us here while the other show was in p-p—’
‘—progress.’
‘I wasn’t the first turn so I had some time to get my things ready. I put them outside the door here for the p-propman to collect and take downstairs.’
‘That would be your swords,’ recalled Thackeray, ‘and your table, with the wand, your hat, gloves and the glass of magic fluid. What was in that fluid, sir?’
‘W-water, and a little colouring.’ Virgo produced a small bottle of cochineal.
‘May I have it, sir? I’ll see that it’s returned. Now when were your props taken to the stage?’
‘During the m-m—’
‘Monologue. I see. Do you know who moved them?’
Virgo shook his head.
‘So they was probably waiting in the wings about twenty minutes, That’s a long time. Don’t people ever tamper with a conjurer’s tricks when they’re lying about like that, sir?’
‘Oh yes. You get lots of jokers in the theatre. That’s what happened to my swords at the Ti-Ti—’
‘Tivoli Gardens. Yes, sir. Then why did you allow your props to go down there so long before you did?’
Virgo raised his finger confidentially. ‘Ah, there wasn’t much they could do with those few things, was there? They could only add something to the magical fluid, and that’s a chance you take. Why, my assistant once swallowed a glass of d-disappearing liquid and found later it was dosed with ca-ca-cas—’