1 Murder Offstage Read online

  ‘Really?’ she breathed back, captivated.

  For once, the Earl and Len seemed to agree on something and both let out a great derisive snort.

  Rufus and Dolly stood only inches apart, as if a magnetic force were holding them together. Len started muttering about how gullible people were, believing in the power of possessions.

  ‘Who the devil are you anyway, girl?’ the Earl asked Dolly rudely.

  Dolly snapped out of the trance quickly and stammered out her name and her position at the theatre as if she was being interviewed for a new job.

  At the mention of the Athenaeum Theatre the Earl emitted a low groan and gave Dolly a venomous stare before turning to Rufus:

  ‘Wretched boy! Step away now! You seem to have a thing about bottle-blondes, and if there’s some unsavoury connection to the theatre, so much the better. You’ve had your fingers burnt once, my boy. Dash it all – can’t you learn from your mistakes?’

  Meanwhile, Posie had read the telegram and passed it to Len.

  He read it aloud:

  NOT BEST PLEASED TO GET YOUR TELEGRAM THIS MORNING. WHY YOUR SUDDEN INTEREST IN LA LUNA?

  OF COURSE I KNOW ABOUT IT. IT’S THE HOTTEST CLUB RIGHT NOW IN LONDON.

  THE LOCATION IS A SECRET. HALF MY UNDERCOVER BOYS ARE READY TO CASE THE JOINT AS SOON AS WE GET A TIP-OFF. STAY OUT OF IT POSIE. PLEASE.

  BEST, R. LOVELACE

  P.S. I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF THIS COUNT DELLA ROSA CHAP YOU ASKED ABOUT. NOT A DICKY-BIRD.

  Dolly beamed.

  ‘But that’s exactly what I’ve come about! I hurried over as fast as I could. When I got back to the theatre I happened to be passin’ the Green Room. The wind section of the orchestra were all in there. I thought I heard the words “La Luna” muttered, so I took it upon myself to hang around outside the door. And I was right,’ she nodded proudly.

  ‘One of the men told another that “it” was on tonight, that they would go after the performance was finished. And not to forget the oboes.’

  ‘The oboes?’ Len repeated, gobsmacked. ‘What does that mean? Is it a code? You sure you heard right?’

  ‘Mnn-hmnn,’ said Dolly, nodding, blowing smoke rings. Rufus was still looking at her adoringly. Posie shook her head in disbelief, trying to sort out facts from what seemed like chaos.

  ‘Hang on a minute, Dolly,’ she said calmly, ‘did you happen to get an address? An indication of where the club might be? Any clue?’

  ‘All I heard him say was “the usual”. And then “four sharp raps”.’

  Posie let out a defeated sigh. ‘What a shame! So near and yet so far! I’m sure the nightclub is at the heart of this mystery. Too bad we can’t locate it.’

  ‘Well, never mind. Let’s just follow them,’ Len said simply. ‘Easiest thing in the world. I spend my life shadowing people. We’ll follow on in a taxi behind these orchestra chappies when they leave the theatre and see where they go.’

  Dolly was nodding enthusiastically. ‘I’ll come with you. Give you a sign when they leave,’ she announced and looked hopefully over at Rufus, egging him on in the action. He started to beam back but the Earl positioned himself between Rufus and Dolly like a small round boulder:

  ‘You’ve enough on your plate, young fellow, without getting even further mixed up in bad goings-on. Don’t forget, you’re still out on bail! Tonight you are staying with me at No 11, St James. No drinks, no action. An early night is in order.’

  For once, Posie was inclined to agree with the Earl.

  ‘Fine, let’s do it,’ Posie said, hearing resolve in her voice. ‘But I need to telephone Inspector Lovelace. This is the tip-off he’s been waiting for. I owe him this favour. He can follow on from the Athenaeum Theatre in an unmarked car. I’ll tell him to be subtle.’

  ‘If you must,’ sulked Len half-heartedly, for he and the police were on no great terms. He liked to go things alone.

  ‘You know, Posie lovey, you’ll need a disguise tonight,’ said Dolly as Posie was buttoning up her tweed coat again, ready to run downstairs to an office on the corner where they let her use their recently installed telephone equipment.

  Posie turned and smiled. ‘You know, I was just thinking the same thing. Caspian della Rosa has never seen Len, but he’s clearly marked my card. If he’s mixed up in this, as I think he is, then he’ll probably be there tonight, so I should either sit this one out or change how I look if I’m serious about searching for Lucky Lucy.’

  ‘I could dye your hair blonde, like mine? It’s all the rage,’ Dolly offered eagerly. Posie shook her head and laughed:

  ‘You’re not a Wardrobe Mistress for nothing – I’m sure you’ll find something convincing for me.’

  Just as she was about to leave, secretly hoping that everyone else would take her cue and leave too, she heard Rufus explode behind her in an almost wild scream.

  ‘What is it, deary?’ Dolly was asking.

  ‘By jove, it’s from HER!’ he was stammering. ‘The blue letter! It’s her handwriting! I’d know it anywhere. It’s from my fiancée. It’s news!’

  Posie stepped back into the room: she had totally forgotten about the blue letter.

  ****

  Eight

  They crowded around the desk. The letter in its pale blue envelope was addressed to Posie, so she opened it with her father’s old college letter-opener. They all peered to read:

  Dear Miss Parker,

  Stop sticking your nose into matters which don’t concern you.

  Take this as a warning. Get off my case. IF NOT, YOU WILL BE SORRY.

  Someone you love will be badly hurt, or worse.

  Yours,

  LL

  ‘Nice tone she has,’ Len said, arms crossed. ‘Talk about theatrical!’

  Posie turned the envelope over. ‘Look! It was sent by this morning’s post. It has a London postmark on it too. So she hasn’t gone far then. Unless of course…’

  ‘Unless WHAT?’ shouted the Earl. Rufus had gone white, and silent.

  ‘Unless Lucky Lucy wrote it, and someone else posted it,’ Posie said thoughtfully, ‘or, perhaps she was made to write it.’

  Posie sniffed at the paper. It was cheap, thin notepaper; the sort you could buy at any Post Office counter, as delicate as tissue. There was something familiar about the smell, too: a chalky, sulphurous smell which reminded her of something recent.

  ‘What’s that smell?’ she asked Len, shoving the letter under his nose.

  ‘It’s zirconium! The element used to make the flash for taking photos! I’d know it anywhere. When I have to use it in my line of work I can’t get the smell off my hands for days – even scrubbing with carbolic soap is no use.’

  ‘So? What does that prove?’ asked Rufus, confused.

  Posie remembered the bright white light on the steps of No 11, St James yesterday, the smoky tang in the air afterwards.

  ‘I think it proves that Lucy, or her accomplices, have been following me. Staying abreast of whatever I’ve been up to.’ Posie briefly and rather reluctantly told them about the footsteps she had heard the night before, the photographer outside the club.

  Len groaned. ‘You should have told me this earlier. The whole thing looks much more sinister now we know she’s got you directly in her sights. I was hoping this might be an empty threat.’

  ‘That’s why the police need to be involved,’ Posie said reassuringly, patting his arm. The letter didn’t really worry her in the slightest.

  Len merely rolled his eyes.

  Posie frowned at Rufus. Something was niggling at her brain:

  ‘You sure you don’t want to tell me whatever it was from earlier? Something you had discovered?’

  He hung his head and grimaced. ‘It’s nothing. It can keep.’

  ‘Fine, then. If you’re sure. I’ll keep you up to date with developments at the nightclub tonight. Who knows? Maybe we’ll even find Lucky Lucy for you?’

  Rufus smiled but there was no hope in his eyes.

  �
�I wish you’d ruddy well stop calling her Lucy,’ he said, miserably. ‘I even saw her official documents once. I think it was a passport, but not one I’d ever seen before: it said Georgie on it. Georgie le Pomme.’

  ****

  It was ten-thirty at night and Len and Posie sat together in the back of a parked cab. The road alongside the Stage Door outside the Athenaeum Theatre was very dark. It was quiet enough for them to hear the sound of the audience spilling out of the theatre around the front.

  ‘Almost time,’ said Len, squinting at the luminous dials of his wristwatch in the dark.

  Behind them sat another parked cab, but this one was driven by a police-driver, and filled with Inspector Lovelace and two of his underlings from Scotland Yard, all dressed in black dinner suits.

  Posie had her eyes fixed on the Stage Door, which so far hadn’t opened once. She felt strange, and she knew she looked strange: the proof had been when she had got into the taxi twenty minutes earlier and Len had fixed her with an incredulous, wide-eyed look before turning quickly away without commenting. She wore a long black wig fixed at the nape of the neck in an exotic bun, and her skin had been wiped twice all over with dark walnut tanning- oil, banishing her pale English-Rose complexion immediately. Dolly had tut-tutted when Posie had protested that it was all hideously over the top:

  ‘No, no, lovey! Who cares if you look like a flamenco dancer? The thing with theatrical people, you can never be too over the top. The key is to blend in among them – it’s a whole other level. If you’re dressed down you’ll stand out.’

  So Posie found herself armed with dark sunglasses, a very garish red lipstick and a low-cut crimson gown in a clingy mousseline fabric, all courtesy of Dolly. Strings of glittering fake red pearls covered her modesty a little up top, but she found herself wishing for a sensible pair of shoes and a skirt she could actually move her legs in.

  Len had come as himself tonight, but he looked more than usually gorgeous: he wore a dinner suit and sported a red rose in his buttonhole. Posie had never seen him look so lovely. Just now he reminded her of a nervous bloodhound, ears and eyes and all senses visibly alert for any sign of action, his whole body tensed in anticipation of the next move; she felt his desire to pound the pavements, pace the streets, get close to the action. He must be like this when he works as a shadower, she thought to herself briefly with a stab of wonder, and she felt relieved that she only ever had to see him in his more cheerful, relaxed, off-duty hours. He was starting to make her feel nervous.

  Suddenly, the Stage Door was flung open and four men came out quickly, their dark silhouettes picked out against the bright light of the inside. Then they were hugging the wall and melting into the shadows of the night. Out of nowhere a dark cab with no headlamps bumped against the kerb where they were lurking and the four men bundled in, in a frantic hurry. They seemed weighed down with musical instruments.

  ‘Start up the engine!’ hissed Len to the driver. ‘Follow that cab! Remember, no headlights. Go!’

  ‘What about Dolly?’ asked Posie fearfully, chewing one end of her sunglasses. Len just shrugged, and as the engine shook itself into life and they started to move off, the Stage Door flew open again and a tiny figure shot out, hurling itself towards them. Posie opened the door wide and a breathless Pierrot Doll jumped in. Behind them the second taxi full of policemen had started moving, and as they turned they saw it was following closely behind, bumper to bumper.

  ‘I can’t believe you were gonna go without me!’ Dolly squeaked, adjusting her black skull hat which had come askew.

  ‘Shhh! Keep your voice low,’ Len whispered at her, crossly.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ whispered Dolly to Posie, the painted black eyebrows on her white grease-painted face rising comically. Posie sniggered, ‘I think he’s in work mode. He can’t see the funny side of anything right now.’

  Len ignored them both and a nervous silence settled in their cab. The snow meant less than the usual amount of people were out and about in town, but the roads were still fairly busy with groups coming out of theatres and restaurants. The cab ahead of them swung out of the Theatre District and passed through Trafalgar Square before turning onto the Strand. It started to pick up speed and drove along at a fair old pace.

  ‘Keep your distance! Keep your distance! We can’t have them know we’re following them!’ said Len to the driver as the cab up ahead passed by the Law Courts and the entrance to Fleet Street. St Paul’s, the greatest cathedral on earth, glowed like a beacon in the distance at the top of Ludgate Hill.

  All the newspaper buildings and printing presses in London were crammed together here on Fleet Street and Posie noticed how the lights in most of the buildings were still on, casting long blue shadows out over the snowy street. Vans were parked waiting and lads with carts and horses were standing ready outside most of the buildings. There was a frantic, festive Christmassy atmosphere.

  ‘Late-night copy,’ said Len knowledgably, glancing up quickly at the huge art-deco black and white clock which dominated the entrance to the London Evening Press building they were passing. It was almost eleven o’clock. ‘Tomorrow’s morning editions are coming hot off the press right now. Now, hang about…where’s he heading now? This is very roundabout!’

  The cab up ahead had turned quickly left and was racing up Chancery Lane, taking its bends and corners at speed. At the top it hurtled onto High Holborn and then turned another sharp left before the Holborn Viaduct. This part of town was much quieter as it mainly consisted of office buildings and residential flats.

  The cab in front was now noticeably slowing down, and ambling along next to a deserted snowy square. In the darkness ahead it came to a sudden halt. There was a flurry of movement as the four men got out and the cab skittered off again into the night.

  ‘Wait!’ ordered Len. ‘We’ll count to ten before we get out. Understand? We can’t just jump on them. We need to follow them, not ambush them.’

  Their own taxi moved in stately darkness to the same kerb, and they got out. The police cab behind them did the same, and deposited Inspector Lovelace and his two tuxedoed Sergeants on the pavement before sailing off again to wait in the shadows. There was no sign anywhere now of the four men from the theatre.

  Posie kept off her dark glasses; she needed all of her keen eyesight right now to try and squint at the place they had come to. It didn’t seem much, to be honest: a small quiet cobbled square surrounded on two sides by snow-clad skeletal trees, a few empty iron benches scattered around the place, and a shuttered wooden cabin at the back on the left, with a large painted sign saying ‘TEAS AND SANDWICHES SOLD HERE’. It was a typical workers’ lunchtime spot.

  The square was illuminated weakly by one street lamp which cast a fragile amber glow over the frozen snow. There were no people anywhere. It was very dark and there was no moon above them.

  Inspector Lovelace came up behind them, his Sergeants hanging back. When he had first learnt of the outing that afternoon he had spent almost half an hour trying to dissuade Posie from having anything to do with it, and when he realised she wouldn’t be shaken off lightly he had finally given in with a begrudging acceptance. He didn’t look too happy at the total lack of any sign of the nightclub, but to his credit he didn’t try and apportion any blame.

  ‘Looks like we lost them, eh?’ he said flatly, blowing on his hands for warmth.

  ‘Never mind. It was always a longshot. I guess they realised they were being followed; so they jumped ship and scarpered. Thought they’d lead us a merry chase across town first. There’s nothing here. We’re way off the mark. Let’s be heading homewards.’

  ‘No,’ whispered Len, shaking his head, and holding back his ear as if he was listening for birdsong.

  ‘Listen carefully. Can you hear that? What’s that noise?’

  They all looked at Len as if he were slightly mad, but then, in the quiet of the snowy silent square, they heard a distinct but muffled BOOM.

  Then again, at regular
slow intervals: BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.

  ‘It’s a bass!’ whispered Dolly excitedly. ‘Or maybe a drum. It’s music, anyhow. Nightclub music! But from where? This place is dead as a dodo.’

  They all started frantically looking around the dark square.

  ‘Rainbird! Binny! Off you go!’ instructed Inspector Lovelace.

  The two men headed over to the sandwich hut, reminding Posie of a couple of flat-footed black crows trying not to skid across the ice. They came back bemused when they found nothing.

  Then Posie and Dolly walked around the whole square, leaning on each other so as not to go flying on their heels on the puddles of black ice. And then Posie saw it, ahead.

  ‘That must be it,’ she muttered to herself, and headed over to the very back of the square, at the far left, next to the sandwich hut.

  A black wrought-iron staircase led downwards, with an old-fashioned gothic Victorian sign welded into an arch above:

  GENTLEMEN

  ‘It’s just a toilet!’ hissed Dolly, following her friend’s gaze, peering down uncertainly. At the bottom of the dark, damp concrete steps was an old wooden trapdoor covering a space no bigger than two foot square. The trapdoor looked damp and rusty around the edges. The toilet had obviously been boarded up years ago. At the top of the steps, near their feet, was a length of metal chain and a broken padlock, kicked to one side in a slushy pile of old sandwich wrappers and cigarette ends.

  ‘No. It’s a closed-up toilet,’ Posie said, ‘there’s a huge difference.’

  Just then there was another BOOM, this time very close. They felt the ground tremble just a little underneath their feet. Posie rushed across and herded the group back towards the old toilet in a state of some excitement:

  ‘It’s here! I’m certain of it.’

  Inspector Lovelace looked uncertain. ‘There’s no light though, is there? I’d expect to see light coming up from the cracks…’ He was studying the trapdoor from the top of the steps. Just then there was another BOOM.

  ‘Yep. It’s here all right,’ nodded Len, looking pleased as punch. Inspector Lovelace nodded too and snapped into action: