‘The Paragon? I think we’ve formed a pretty clear picture of what goes on there, sir. We’ve seen it for ourselves and we’ve documented the goings-on there in thirty or more statements.’
‘Please enlighten me.’
‘Well, sir, to most of the world it’s a run of the mill music hall, a trifle more expensive than some of the halls, but offering the same kind of entertainment three nights a week as hundreds of others. It has its promenade, of course, and there’s an element of license in that quarter, but otherwise the whole thing’s as nice as ninepence—if you like music halls, that is.’
‘I assure you that I don’t, but go on.’
‘The owner of the Paragon is the gin magnate, Sir Douglas Butterleigh. It seems he has an affection for the halls. He started a home for destitute performers in Kensington, Philbeach House. You may have heard of it. Now his idea was that artistes falling ill or suffering an accident could be rescued from the poor-house and put in the care of a certain Mrs Body at Philbeach House. When they were sufficiently restored they’d return to the stage at the Paragon. The manager there is a Mr Plunkett, and I got his account of the Paragon from him the other evening. Now Plunkett’s a hard-headed businessman, and in no time at all he saw Butterleigh’s idea wasn’t going to fill that music hall three nights a week.’
‘Philanthropists rarely visualise their charity in commercial terms,’ Jowett observed from the centre of a cloud of smoke.
‘Well, Plunkett persisted for a few months, but the bill at the Paragon wasn’t responding very well to charity. Three-quarters of the guests at Philbeach House were singers—and poor ones at that. You can’t recruit a music hall company from singers alone. So importations were made and soon the Paragon was operating like any other hall, and attracting a regular audience. Sir Douglas Butterleigh didn’t know much about it because he was an invalid and out of the way. To salve his conscience, I suppose, Plunkett decided he would have to find something to occupy the dregs and lees at Philbeach House. He conceived the idea of a special performance just to show ’em they weren’t forgotten.’
‘In addition to the regular show?’
‘Exactly. But this was a quite different class of audience. Plunkett made it clear he was offering a charitable entertainment. He priced his tickets high, put Sir Douglas’s name on them and then did the rounds of London society. He promised ’em a midnight show, strictly for a good cause, and every ticket was sold inside a week.’
‘Really. I find that difficult to account for.’
‘So did I, sir, until Plunkett told me what he told his customers: that since they were buying tickets for a private show they might expect something different in the way of entertainment. What he’d done, in fact, was to persuade a couple of lady vocalists to be transported across the stage with little more on ’em than a ray of limelight.’
‘-’Pon my soul, what an extraordinary idea!’
‘My sentiments entirely, sir, but there’s no accounting for taste. Plunkett tells me the turn was a roaring success. The audience wouldn’t let the show go on until those two had been pushed back and forth a dozen times, like the favourite frame in a magic lantern. And when the evening came to an end he was bombarded by requests for tickets for the next one. He realised he’d discovered a gold-mine. A secret music hall for the well-to-do, with certain additional attractions.’
‘That’s ingenious, by George.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Cribb, ‘but Plunket was too smart a showman to believe it could continue very long like that. Even if he persuaded all the females in residence at Philbeach House to play the part of living statues—and most of ’em were sufficiently close to penury to do it—his customers were going to tire of the entertainment before long. Like any other bill, his midnight show needed variety. But he couldn’t turn singers into sword-swallowers overnight. Nor did he want to recruit performers in the usual way, through their agents. That could only complicate his plans. No, the company for the midnight show had to come from Philbeach House. Once a performer was sufficiently unfortunate to be living on charity he wasn’t likely to argue over the kind of work you offered him. Plunkett’s problem was that Mrs Body’s guest-list didn’t provide the variety he wanted. There wasn’t a tightrope walker or a trapeze-artiste among ’em.’
‘Singularly unfortunate,’ said Jowett. ‘Can I offer you some more coffee, gentlemen?’
‘We never have a second cup, sir. Now it was about three weeks ago that I first began to be interested in a baffling series of accidents to music hall performers—a sword-swallower, a trapeze-act, a comedian, a conjurer and so on. I might not have investigated any further if someone hadn’t warned me of an impending accident at a particular theatre—the Grampian, in Blackfriars Road. They put it in unduly strong terms. “Sensational Tragedy Tonight”, the note said, and what we got was a strong man bitten in the leg by a bulldog, but that set me asking questions, sir. I began to look for similarities in the accidents. Was it just a joker at work, or was there more to it? Thackeray, tell the Inspector what we decided about the accidents.’
The constable jerked up in his chair. ‘The accidents? Oh yes, Sarge. Well, sir, we was able to establish that they all happened at different theatres. And all the victims, if I may call ’em that, was put out of work. They all did quite different turns on the halls, too. And later on we learned they all got taken in at Philbeach House.’
‘And one more thing,’ said Cribb with an air of significance. ‘The nature of their accidents was such that none of ’em was likely to be hired again for a long time. The common factor was ridicule, sir. These unfortunate people were laughing-stocks—the comedian with the wrong words on his song-sheet, the sword-swallower who coughed, the trapeze-girls who collided with each other, the barrel-dancer who couldn’t even stand on his barrels, the strong man who got bitten and fell through his platform, and the unfortunate girl on the swing.’
‘What happened to her?’ inquired Jowett.
‘Words fail me, sir. Like all the rest, though, she’s finished as a performer unless she changes her name and does a different turn. That ain’t easy.’
Jowett drew heavily from his pipe and slowly exhaled. ‘Let me get this clear, Sergeant. Are you suggesting that Mr Plunkett engineered all these accidents himself, in order to bring these people to Philbeach House?’
‘I can’t be sure of that yet, sir. He wouldn’t admit that much to me. But six of ’em were performing at the Paragon the other evening, including the late Miss Lola Pinkus.’
‘I will admit that you make it sound most plausible. How do you account for this young woman’s death, however? Was it another accident that perhaps went wrong?’
‘Emphatically not, sir. I’ve had the report on the post mortem. She died of Prussic Acid poisoning. Almost instantaneous. That was no accident.’
‘Indeed!’ Jowett’s eyes narrowed to slits, the wrinkles creasing around them. All the indications were that he was about to make a profound observation. ‘Then it was suicide. She killed herself. How very fortunate that the conjuring trick removed her from public view at the critical moment. The sudden demise of a performer must have a most unsettling effect upon an audience.’
‘She screamed, sir,’ said Cribb, ‘but it was hardly heard above the drum-roll. The audience still don’t know what happened. Most of ’em were taken in by the illusion and thought they were looking at Lola when Bella appeared in the gallery. Even if some of ’em guessed the secret they didn’t know Lola was dying when she hit the mattress under the stage.’