"So it is a man?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"And he's a travelling stage magician. He operates under the disappointingly unoriginal nom de plume of 'The Mysterious Alfonso'."
Newbury smiled around the rim of his teacup. "Oh dear, that is rather fanciful. So tell me, how is this travelling magician associated with the missing girls?"
" He's not. Well, at least not directly. But there are a few too manly coincidences to easily rule out his involvement. Firstly, the dates and locations of his travelling stage show coincide exactly with the dates and places that the girls went missing.
And secondly, many of the families of the missing girls reported that the last thing the girls did before they disappeared was attend a travelling show. They were never seen again."
Newbury studied Veronica's face. She was clearly passionate about bringing the case to a successful conclusion. She'd been on the trail of the missing girls ever since Sir Charles Bainbridge, Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard and a close friend of Newbury's, had brought the case to their attention.
A string of young females, aged between seventeen and twentythree, had been disappearing from towns al over the Home Counties, and as yet, no one had been able to piece together any pattern. It had been going on since Christmas, and the disappearances showed no signs of abating.
Many of the families were declaring witchcraft, and it was for this reason that Bainbridge had stopped by to seek Newbury's advice. Newbury, however, had felt that there was no evidence of supernatural wrong-doing, and was himself engaged with an entirely different case involving an infestation of ghostly spirits at a manor house in Cambridgeshire. Veronica had been aiding him on the Huntington case, of course, but for some reason had been unable to put aside her desire to help Bainbridge solve the mystery of the missing girls. Convinced that there were never any supernatural elements involved in the case, she had set to work looking for patterns in the web of disappearances, and since the successful conclusion of the Huntington case she had spent almost every waking hour at her desk, looking for clues in the statements and police reports. Newbury, of course, had been given other assignments to contend with, but he had allowed Veronica to pursue her quest, and now, it seemed, she had finally found something that resembled a lead.
"Are you planning to call on Sir Charles?"
Veronica frowned. "Not yet. Not until I know that the man is definitely involved. It wouldn't do to set Scotland Yard on him unnecessarily."
Newbury placed his teacup down on its saucer with a clatter. “I’m not convinced that is the wisest course of action, my dear Miss Hobbes. We can't have you putting yourself in any danger.
This is a police matter. Besides, how do you intend to go about proving this magician fellow is actually involved?"
Veronica smiled. "That's easy. He's here in London. It's my intention to attend his performance this evening."
Newbury looked thoughtful for a moment. Then his face cracked into a wide grin. "Well, Miss Hobbes, you find me at your disposal. I fear I am without a dinner date for this evening, And I've always enjoyed the theatre. Would you mind terribly if I escorted you to the show?"
Veronica laughed. "Indeed not. I have two tickets." Her eyes glittered. "If you can bear to tear yourself away from your Ancient Egyptian mystery, it would be a pleasure to be escorted to the event."
"Then we shal take it in together. A most satisfactory resolution." He glanced at his pocket watch. "But now, I suspect old Peterson wil have found his way to his desk, and I rather think it would be opportune to catch him before he al ows himself to wander off again."
Veronica laughed. "I knew you wouldn't be able to resist!"
Newbury shrugged. "Well, we can't just leave that young Mr. Purefoy to sensationalise the whole affair in the national press, can we? Someone is going to have to set the record straight. I doubt very much it wil be Winthrop." He got to his feet. "Until this evening, then?"
Veronica nodded. "Until this evening."
Smiling, Newbury set off to find Claude Peterson, one of the British Museum's foremost experts on Ancient Egyptian ritual. He had a notion to question the man on the strange carvings he had seen on some of the ushabti statues the previous evening, and to see if Peterson found any significance in the red markings on the outer casket of the mummy.
Then, later, he would return to his Chelsea lodgings to prepare for an early evening trip to the theatre. He wondered what bizarre treats The Mysterious Alfonso would have up his sleeves, and whether he would prove to be forthcoming in his interview. The case of the missing girls was certainly disturbing and had entirely consumed Veronica these last few weeks. He hoped for the sake of all involved that she had finally found her man, and that soon they would be able to bring the episode to a tidy conclusion. Most of al, he hoped that whatever it was that had caused Veronica to become so emotional y embroiled in the case would be resolved at the same time. He missed her companionship. And her support.
Chapter Four
The Archibald Theatre in Soho transpired to be rather more bohemian than Newbury had been expecting. In fact, it was so far removed from the austere splendour of Drury Lane that he could hardly bring himself to consider it a theatre at all. Nevertheless, there was a stage – which, considering the condition of the rest of the building, he assumed had been erected specifical y to accommodate the new show – and an auditorium, of sorts, to seat the raucous crowd. The rest of the facilities were a little basic, to say the least, and it was clear the interior decor had seen better days. The floor was sticky, the seats uncomfortable and the smell almost as unpalatable as the stench he had encountered at the train station earlier that day. The space was dimly lit by a series of gas lamps mounted in a row along the rear wal, and whilst the venue was sizeable enough, the conditions still felt cramped and uninviting.
With a sigh, Newbury surveyed the audience around him. The crowd was comprised of a mix of both men and women, workers who had spil ed out of the factories and cookhouses just an hour or so before and were now engaged in quaffing extraordinary amounts of gin and heckling the magician with a continuous stream of jibes and cheers. For his part, though, the magician appeared to revel in all of the attention, responding to the cheers of his audience with increasingly impressive sleights of hand. So far they had seen a host of elaborate illusions, ranging from a bunch of flowers being pulled out of a sleeve, to card tricks, to doves being made to disappear and reappear beneath a red silk sheet. The Mysterious Alfonso was a consummate performer who had clearly spent years perfecting his act, and even longer learning how to engage the crowd. His thick Italian accent added a sense of the exotic and his little flourishes at the end of each trick – a roll of the arm followed by a brisk bow to the front row – showed clearly that he understood how and when to give his audience a cue to applaud. Duly, they showered him with praise.
Newbury leaned back in his uncomfortable seat. The show was impressive, yet it offered him nothing that he had not seen before, and whilst he sat in the midst of the noisy audience, jostled from side to side by the people around him, he found himself growing impatient. He was keen for the show to be over so that he and Veronica could attempt to get backstage and interview the showman about his possible connection to the missing girls. He shook his head. He was starting to think like Charles.
He studied Veronica for a few moments. She appeared to be increasingly enraptured by the magician's trickery, and had allowed herself to be carried along by the audience, applauding loudly at each appropriate juncture and general y accepting the show for the entertainment it was.
Newbury envied her that. He simply didn't have a mind that would allow him to enjoy such trivial pursuits without first attempting to analyse exactly how the trick had been carried out, what the basis of the illusion was, or how his eye had been tricked into believing something contrary to what had really occurred. He knew the tricks were nothing but illusions – as complex as they may be – and that was enough to dispel any sense of enjoyment for him. There was nothing truly mysterious, arcane or occult in what he was seeing down on the stage. Added to that, he was surprised that Veronica should engage with the show in such a way, given the reason for their visit to the theatre; unless, of course, she were feigning enjoyment as a means of gaining access to Alfonso, after the show.