‘Then you were arrested?’
‘Yes!’ said Woolston in a shocked voice. ‘In her discomfort the wretched girl became positively vindictive towards me, and several times accused me of deliberately arranging the injury. It was just too preposterous! I thought nobody would believe such a thing! She wasn’t her normal self at all.’
‘Had you known her a long time?’
‘Eighteen months—which is a confounded long time in the theatre, Sergeant.’
‘Had you quarrelled recently?’
‘Quarrelled? Well, hardly quarrelled. Earlier that evening we had a few wry words together, you might say.’
‘What about?’
‘Her figure, Sergeant. I told her she was putting on too much weight, and she was, damn it. Chocolates and gingerbread, you know. One has no business being overweight when one’s in a box trying to avoid being skewered by half a dozen swords.’
‘Did she object to being told about her figure?’
‘Without going into details, yes. I was right, though, wasn’t I? It seems she was too blasted heavy for that secret flap. It’s odd, though. I thought it would have taken much more weight than that. I check the hinges and supports regularly.’
‘Did you check ’em that evening?’
‘Well, not that evening, Sergeant.’
‘I see. How many people knew the secret of your trick?’
‘Very few,’ said Woolston. ‘The carpenter who made it for me. A stage-hand or two. And Lettice.’
‘And the girl before Lettice?’
‘Oh yes, Hetty. And Patty before her, now you mention it.’
Cribb sighed. ‘Did you examine the flap after the accident?’
‘In the confusion, no.’
‘Pity.’
‘You won’t be able to find it now, Sergeant. No stage-manager keeps useless wood backstage. The whole trick will be firewood by now.’
‘Evidence shouldn’t be destroyed,’ commented Cribb. ‘It’s probably saved. What were you charged with?’
‘Assault. Didn’t you know? But I was told that other charges are to be preferred. The damned girl’s not in any danger, is she?’ he added on an impulse.
‘I believe not,’ said Cribb. He studied Woolston’s face. ‘You wouldn’t have wanted to hurt her, would you?’
The conjurer considered the point. ‘Not at that moment, and in those circumstances.’
Cribb lifted an eyebrow. ‘In other circumstances, perhaps?’
Woolston paused, wary of a trap. ‘Now listen to me, Sergeant. I am a professional illusionist, known throughout the London halls, and that girl was a first-class assistant— magnificent proportions, a wonderful suffering expression and legs she wasn’t coy about displaying. But you have to train a girl, and training’s a matter of discipline, like any form of schooling. Without me, she’d still be just a figurante at the Alhambra on ten shillings a week, taking drinks from soldiers between dances.’
‘She was in the ballet, was she?’
‘Until I rescued her, yes. She has a lot to be grateful for. I lavished hours of my time teaching her to move in that box. Hours, gentlemen.’ He scanned both his listeners for a glimmer of sympathy. Cribb was expressionless; Thackeray plainly regarded packing young women in boxes as no hardship. ‘In the end,’ continued Woolston, unabashed, ‘she knew that movement better than any dance-step she’d ever executed.’
‘More’s the pity she put on weight,’ commented Cribb, nudging the conversation in the direction he wanted.
‘Feckless female! Yes.’
‘Wouldn’t put it beyond a man of your application to teach a girl like that a sharp lesson.’
‘By Jove, yes!’ exclaimed Woolston enthusiastically. ‘A scolding’s no use at all.’ Then, recovering himself, ‘I wouldn’t do anything on stage, though. You don’t think I’d destroy the act for a silly little slut that can’t keep her hands out of a chocolate-box?’
‘What I think ain’t of any consequence,’ said Cribb, who had heard all he wanted, ‘but I’m grateful for your plain-speaking.’ He got to his feet. ‘Well now, Thackeray, we won’t detain Mr Woolston any longer. I’m not much of a sorcerer myself, but if my nose is any guide there’s a pot of Newgate stew being cooked not far from here, and I wasn’t planning to stay for lunch.’
CHAPTER
3
SERGEANT CRIBB, IN OPERA hat and Inverness cape, whistled a music hall tune to the rhythm of the cab-horse’s canter along Southwark Street, while Constable Thackeray, equally dazzling beside him, wrestled with insubordinate thoughts. The plain clothes allowance for detective-constables was a shilling a day: generous on the face of it, even allowing that there were long intervals of uniformed duty. Indeed, his total allowances for this year must have come close to Cribb’s statutory ten pounds. But plain clothes, in Thackeray’s opinion, were plain clothes. When a man spent a week’s wages on a swallow-tail suit for an occasional evening’s melodrama at the Lyceum he did not expect to be ordered to wear it to a common music hall. Scotland Yard might own you body and soul, but it was a confounded liberty to assume they owned your best suit as well.
He was not comforted by the spectacle of the crowds along the approach to the Grampian. Each Saturday evening the unwashed of south London converged there in hundreds for threepenny gallery tickets. On a wet evening like this one, when they huddled together under the gaslamps, you could positively see a noxious yellow vapour rising from their clothes. It was all very well for Cribb to make a lofty promise to book a stage-box. What was that worth against a jostling from a coal-bargee’s corduroys as you struggled through the lobby? For Thackeray at that moment, in his tailor-made twill, it was very nearly a resignation issue.
At the entrance, an enormous Corinthian portico, quite outrageous in the architecture of Blackfriars Road, you had to pass a phalanx of salespeople before you even joined the throng struggling to obtain tickets. The cabman had scarcely reined in when a barefoot boy jumped on to the step, wrenched open the door and demanded a tip. Behind him converged match-girls, and walnut-men, beggar-boys and a troupe of young women who gave Thackeray sufficient grounds for arresting them at once. Instead, he observed a studied indifference, nonchalantly stroking his beard while Cribb paid the fare.
At what cost to his suit Thackeray dared not contemplate, he edged towards the first-class box-office behind Cribb, grimly clutching the brim of his hat. The stench of the crowd brought water to his eyes; he was ready to abandon the sergeant altogether if they were unable to book a box, where the fumes rising from the footlights usually obliterated all other odours. At length they arrived at a hole in the wall and Cribb pushed a florin forward. An oddly-illuminated face inside creased into a grimace. Perhaps for a small consideration the two gentlemen might like the management to arrange for a pair of dainty companions to share their box? Cribb turned and lifted a wicked eyebrow. Thackeray shook his head so emphatically that he felt his hat slip round. He hoped to Heaven Cribb was joking.
Taking the numbered tin disc which served as a ticket, an old crone, their boxkeeper, led them through a darkened passage not unlike the corridors of Newgate, except that this one was lined with unaccompanied young ladies. The detectives marched resolutely past, their feet crunching on a carpet of walnut-and filbert-shells. They mounted some stairs, paid the old woman her due and entered their box.