I was surfeited with tea and teacake by then, but this was the price one paid for information. I pretended to sip tea enthusiastically and paid her compliments on the cake — actually, it was stale and overly sweet — which she had made herself. She placed my tray near the window, so the sunlight would strike the glass beads and baubles, and for a time she agonized over a choice between a blue brooch and a red one.
I opined that either would look lovely on her, and I offered her an irresistible discount on a second brooch if she bought the first. That taken care of, she was pleased to have someone to talk with, and she described the workings of the household while I continued to simulate tea drinking.
According to Effie, Halstead was even more miserly than the neighbouring servants thought. Whenever she threatened to quit, he would raise her salary, but he often failed to pay her. He was always gadding about.
“Where does he go?” I asked.
“To plays or to the opera. Sometimes he’s away for two or three days to see plays in Paree or Oxford.”
“My word, that must cost money,” I said.
She snorted. “’E’s got no money. That’s what ’e always says. Can’t pay ’is bills. Tradesmen pestering me all the time, threatening to cut ’im off. But ’e’s got money for plays.”
“Does he go to plays every night?”
“Noooo. ’E couldn’t beg or borrow enough money for that.”
“What about last night?”
“’E went to a play. Went directly from work so ’e wasn’t ’ome for supper. Out late too, as usual after a play. That’s when ’e meets ’is club.”
“What club is that?”
“The Two ’Undred. ’E’s always talking about ’em. They meets after the play at some restaurant and talks about all the mistakes the actors made.”
That was as much as I could get.
I returned the unsold stock to my friendly shopkeeper, paid her, and went back to Connaught Mews, where I told Lady Sara, “If Halstead went to a play and then joined the Two Hundred afterwards, he has an alibi, but either proving it or disproving it may be difficult.”
“Other members of his club should be able to help us, but I’ve never heard of the Two Hundred. Have you?”
“No.”
“Then we’ll have to find someone who has,” she said.
She sent a telegram to Max Beerbohm, an old friend who was dramatic critic of The Saturday Review and knew everyone and everything connected with London’s theatrical scene. He dropped by that evening on his way to the theatre — impeccably dressed, sprightly in manner, exuding the air of a man who loves his work and is about to enjoy doing it. This was a false front. He hated his work, and Thursday, the day of the deadline for his weekly article, was a day of torment for him.
He had never heard of the Two Hundred, but he promised to enquire about it.
“If you can turn up the names and addresses of one or two members, that would be most helpful,” Lady Sara told him.
In the meantime, Rick and Charles were exploring their lists of former tenants at 12 Maxton Place. They returned home to report three negatives each. If Langley Halstead really had gone to the theatre, Lady Sara’s random shot at a venture was a complete miss.
The following day the police were no closer to the identification of the murdered man than they had been in the beginning. Charles, Rick, and I did the only thing we could do to avoid doing nothing at all. We performed a thorough investigation of Langley Halstead just in case he hadn’t been at the theatre.
He was indeed a spectacularly unsuccessful solicitor. He seemed to have no interests beyond the theatre and opera. There was no woman in his life except Effie, his maid/cook/housekeeper, who despised him. Charles turned up the only reference we found to a relative, a cousin who spent his summer somewhere in the Lake District. Halstead had once mentioned to an acquaintance, an estate agent whose office was in the same building as his, that his cousin was about to visit him.
On the strength of that, Lady Sara sent Charles off to the Lake District at once to see what he could turn up there, which was an even longer shot at a venture. The Lake District was more heavily populated in summer than in winter, but that population was spread over an impressively large mountainous area. It seemed rather early in the investigation for such a desperate measure, especially when we were far from exhausting possibilities in London.
Late that afternoon, Max Beerbohm told us all we needed to know about the Two Hundred. It was an informal group of theatrical enthusiasts who attended as many plays as possible and met after the performances in the beer salon in the basement of the Monica — the restaurant at 19 Shaftesbury Avenue, entrance in Piccadilly Circus — to discuss them. There actually were about a hundred and fifty members, but the membership was constantly in a state of flux. Some members of the group were certain to be at one or the other of London’s theatres whenever there was a performance, and twenty or thirty would gather at the Monica afterwards.
Max had managed to secure names and addresses of two of the members.
“We must see at least one of them immediately,” Lady Sara said.
I drew the name of Edward Fallowby, who lived on Half Moon Street. I went in the four-wheeler, with Old John driving, and had the good luck to find him at home.
He was an elderly gentleman and the third son of an Earl, but he had spent his life trying successfully not to look the part. He lived a Bohemian existence in rather shabby rooms, and his limited income barely stretched enough to cover his many interests. He painted pictures, wrote plays and poetry, and played the violin, all without noticeable success. He went to plays as often as the miserly allowance given him by his brother the Earl allowed.
I learned all that and more on our way back to Connaught Mews. He was immensely flattered that Lady Sara, whom he knew by reputation, wanted to see him.
When she got him settled comfortably, she came to the point at once. “One of the members of the Two Hundred is Langley Halstead. Do you know him?”
“Tolerably well,” Fallowby murmured. “Tolerably well. I usually see him once or twice a week. He is on an even more restricted budget than I am, but we both are devoted to the theatre.”
“So I have heard,” Lady Sara said. “I’m going to tell you something in strict confidence. Can I rely on you?”
“Of course,” Fallowby said.
“Your friend Langley Halstead is suspected of a serious crime. He may be completely innocent. We don’t want to trouble him on the basis of mere suspicions, which may be groundless, and we don’t want word of this investigation rumoured around and damaging his reputation. We are attempting to prove his innocence. Our information indicates that he went to the theatre last night and joined the Two Hundred afterwards at the Monica. If he did both, he is not guilty of the crime, and the police can look elsewhere. Can you help us?”
Fallowby took a moment to meditate. “He did join the Two Hundred after the play. There were perhaps twenty-five of us there, and we had attended four or five plays between us. He had seen Beerbohm Tree’s production of The Woman Who Won, which is a new play, it opened only last Thursday, and our members are already making book on when it will close. It is not a success. We spent the best part of two hours discussing plays — that one and the others we had seen.”
“But was Langley Halstead actually at the theatre?” Lady Sara persisted.
“He said he was. He talked at length about the play.”
“From his talk, would you judge that he had actually seen the play?”
Fallowby took a moment to reflect. “Yes, I would. I would say that he certainly had seen it. He was both perceptive and articulate about it. No one who hadn’t seen it could have talked about it the way he did.”