Death of a Dancer

Blake seemed ready enough to let the doctor take charge and suggested they should all go into his office. Kennedy had arrived by now, and I could tell from the expression on his face that the news had reached the musicians.

‘I’m going for a look outside,’ he said. ‘Go back and wait for me in the pit.’

I knew he was going to see if Daniel might be waiting there, as he had been earlier in the evening. Instead of heading for the pit, I followed him along the corridor. Billy the doorkeeper came in from the street, followed by two more police officers. They pushed past us and went into Columbine’s room.

Kennedy and I looked up and down the street but there was no sign of Daniel or anybody but a few loiterers, wondering why the police had arrived in a hurry. We’d closed the door and turned back into the corridor when a sob sounded from inside Billy’s shadowy cubicle by the door.

‘Who’s that?’ Kennedy said.

A pale face looked up at us, then a plump boy of about ten years old got up from the floor and came out, cuddling a tabby cat and crying. I recognised the cat as Billy’s but couldn’t place the boy. He was clutching the cat close to his chest for comfort, tears running down on to its fur. I asked him what was the matter.

‘The girls say the poison was in her syllabub,’ he said. ‘Is that true?’

‘Who are you?’

‘David Surrey.’

That placed him: the son of Othello and Desdemona. It was a surprise that he should be grieving so much for Columbine, or perhaps it was simply shock.

‘Is there anybody to look after you?’

‘My mother’s in our dressing room, but…’

I put a hand on his shoulder, and guided him to the door he indicated. It was the room where Robert Surrey had taken the maid Marie. When I knocked and opened the door I had a glimpse of Marie sitting on a chair and a woman in bodice and petticoats kneeling beside her with an arm round her shoulders. I pushed the boy gently into the room, complete with cat, but before I could close the door on him, a police officer came pounding along the corridor and shoved me aside. He went up to Marie, took her wrist and pulled her to her feet. The other woman cried out and Surrey asked what he was doing, but the policeman took no notice. He dragged Marie into the corridor and towards the outside door. Marie was too shocked to cry now, almost past walking. The door to Columbine’s dressing room opened and another policeman came out, carrying a glass bowl with a silver cover. Blake followed, face grim.

‘What’s happening?’ Kennedy asked him.

‘He’s arresting Marie.’

‘Why Marie?’ I said. ‘What’s the proof?’

Blake glanced towards the policeman with the bowl.

‘They think that is.’

‘What is it?’

‘Columbine’s syllabub,’ he said. ‘Marie says it’s the only thing she ate or drank all evening, and then only a spoonful or two.’

‘But why would Marie admit that, if she’d poisoned it?’

By now, Blake was following the police constable and Marie down the corridor. I fell in behind them.

‘Cab,’ the leading policeman said. ‘Somebody call a cab.’

Bow Street police office was so close that they could have walked to it in a few minutes, but the policeman was trying hard to do things properly. He clung to Marie’s wrist as if scared she’d escape although she had no more energy in her than a ragdoll. Billy went to the door and let out a piercing whistle, and almost at once an old cab came rattling down the street. The policeman bundled Marie into it, got in beside her and signalled to the cab driver to close up the apron on them both. At the last minute he remembered the bowl and gestured to his colleague to hand it over.

‘Bow Street,’ said the policeman, clutching the bowl like an invalid with a basin of gruel.

Pauline suddenly appeared beside us, in her outdoor cloak, hair tucked under her feathered bonnet. She stared at the bowl.

‘What’s in it? Is it arsenic?’

There was something brutal about her curiosity. Blake must have felt it too, because he snapped at her to go back inside.

‘Why should you think it was arsenic?’ I said.

Her cold eyes swept over me.

‘Just interested.’

The cab driver swung himself back into the driving seat and they clattered away over the cobbles.

‘I don’t believe Marie did it,’ I said to Blake. ‘Besides, she seemed to like Columbine.’

‘As it happens, I agree with you. Marie was entirely devoted to Columbine.’

‘Then why did you let him arrest her?’ I said.

‘I had no choice in the matter. When a police officer is called to a murder, he can hardly leave without arresting somebody.’

‘Even if it’s the wrong person?’

Blake sighed. He looked tired, as I suppose we all did, and possibly he’d even liked Columbine. He certainly liked the money she’d brought in.

‘I don’t believe Marie will spend long in the cells. The police will have to bring her before a magistrate and he’ll have a higher standard of proof than an inexperienced constable.’

I hoped he was right. He walked rapidly towards the stage, telling the various by-standers who were crowding the end of the corridor to get out of the way. Gradually they dispersed, with the smell of Hardcastle’s vomit still poisoning the air.

The rest of the performance was cancelled. Toby Kennedy insisted on escorting me home, though he’d have a long walk back from Mayfair to his lodgings in Holborn. We left the theatre along with a dazed crowd of artistes, all talking nineteen to the dozen. There wasn’t much grief for Columbine expressed and, now that the first shock had worn off, most of them seemed full of excitement at having first-hand knowledge of an event that would be the talk of the town.

Kennedy didn’t say anything until we were clear of the rest.

‘Do you think it was Suter that the trombone fellow saw earlier?’

‘It might have been,’ I said. ‘Daniel wanted me to ask the women about Jenny. Perhaps he hoped to see some of the dancers on their way in and ask them himself.’

‘If Blake’s right and the magistrates let the maid go, the police will have to ask more questions.’

We walked in silence for a while, thinking about it.

‘What is it about the syllabub?’ I said. ‘Isn’t that a strange thing to have in a dressing room?’

‘Exactly to Columbine’s taste, I should think: whipped cream, sugar and sherry,’ Kennedy said. ‘It was all part of her affectation. She insisted it was the only thing she could eat on rehearsal or performance days. The maid always prepared it at home and brought a big bowl of it in with her.’

‘And everybody at the theatre knew that?’

‘Of course. It was a standing joke.’