Death of a Dancer

Kennedy looked at me and pulled a wry face. He guessed, as I did, that although Daniel was forbidden the theatre, he’d hoped against hope to see somebody who knew Jenny’s whereabouts. I asked Kennedy if the ballets were being performed in Columbine’s absence, wondering about my chances of talking to the other dancers.

‘They’re still being performed in her presence, God help us.’

‘But I heard her telling Blake she wouldn’t set foot on stage again,’ I said.

‘He knew the remedy for that.’ He mimed the passing over of money. ‘A hundred pounds per performance.’

‘What! I doubt if even Taglioni gets that much.’

‘No, but then, as far as I know, Taglioni has never picked a fight with another dancer on stage.’

An ordinary dancer, like Jenny, might get four shillings a performance if she was lucky, with no pay for all those hours of rehearsals. I recalled Columbine’s conversation with Blake; whatever her failings as a dancer, she was certainly astute when it came to business matters.

‘Blake must think she’s worth it, just for the buzz,’ Kennedy said. ‘He’s even found another red-headed dancer in Jenny’s place to keep the audience hoping.’

I asked Kennedy how Columbine had performed in the first ballet.

‘As badly as ever. Clumsier, if anything.’

I decided to leave any attempt at questioning the dancers about Jenny until after the second ballet, because there wasn’t much time left before they’d be on stage again. The players who had left during the interval were returning now and the audience were taking their seats, Rodney Hardcastle and his friends trailing in after the rest, as usual.

The head of the stagehands tapped the boards to signify to Kennedy that the scene change was complete, and the musicians launched into the introductory music. The curtain should have begun rising at the beginning of the last repeat. It stayed down and immobile, not even twitching. Accustomed to these little hitches, Kennedy signalled to play the repeat again. At the end of it, with the curtain still stubbornly down, they played the whole introduction again. By now, the gallery were getting restive. When at last Barnaby Blake, looking hot and worried, came out in front of the curtains he was greeted with catcalls and booing. He raised his hand for silence. The musicians put down their instruments.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, we regret that we have had to cancel the second ballet. Madame Columbine is indisposed.’

‘Oh, that confounded woman,’ Kennedy whispered.

There was more booing. Under cover of it, Blake hissed down to the pit: ‘Acrobats’ music. Loud.’

He disappeared behind the curtain. Minutes later it rose on the Two Peas, hastily spinning themselves into an extra routine. The gallery went on shouting and booing for a while, then gradually decided it wasn’t worth rioting over.

It seemed to me a useful opportunity. As the dancers were not needed for the second ballet, they should have time on their hands and be ready to talk. I slipped quietly up the stairs from the pit, into the dressing-room corridor. It was blocked by a huddle of fluttering gauze and goose-pimpled flesh, as the dancers gathered to stare at something I couldn’t see. A cold draught blew along the corridor. Beyond them, a woman was screaming, a continuous high-pitched sound. I touched the shoulder of the nearest dancer.

‘Who’s that screaming?’

‘Her maid. She won’t stop.’

It was the small dark-haired dancer who’d remembered Jenny’s basket. She was shaking from cold or fear. Over her shoulder, I saw that they were all looking at the closed door of Columbine’s dressing room.

‘What’s happened?’

‘She’s dead. There’s a policeman in there.’

‘Who’s dead?’

The dark-haired girl stared at me as if I should have known.

‘Columbine.’

CHAPTER SIX

The yellow-haired dancer, Pauline, was at the front of the huddle. She looked more self-possessed than the other girls and had taken time to wrap a shawl round her shoulders. When she turned to look at me there was a glint in her eyes, as if she were enjoying the excitement.

‘She’s been poisoned,’ she said.

‘Who said so?’

‘The doctor’s in there, with the policeman. I heard him asking Mr Blake if anybody knew what she’d been eating and drinking.’

‘That doesn’t mean she was poisoned,’ one of the girls said.

‘She was raving before she died,’ said Pauline, annoyed at being doubted. ‘Going on about bleeding and people not seeing.’

‘How do you know?’ I said.

Silence, then one of the other girls said, maliciously, ‘Pauline was looking in at the door.’

Pauline turned on her.

‘Somebody had to do it, didn’t they? We’d heard she’d been taken ill, so there we all were, wondering whether the ballet was on or off. Of course nobody thinks to tell us anything. So I said I’d go and ask Mr Blake if everybody else was too scared to. But when I got to her room the door was open and Marie was crying and Mr Blake was inside and Mr Surrey with his face all covered in black make-up. Columbine was stretched out on her couch in her under things. Her eyes were black, black as burnt chestnuts, and she was babbling away in this odd voice, but not making any sense.’

‘Did anybody say then that she’d been poisoned?’ I said.

‘No. I thought she’d had a fit. I asked could I do anything and Mr Surrey said to go and get some strong coffee …’

‘Coffee? Why?’

‘I don’t know. Anyway, the nearest coffee stall’s half a mile away, but then the doctor came in anyway so we forgot about the coffee and the doctor said everybody was to go out except her maid. Mr Blake told me to go back to the dressing room and tell the other girls that Madame was very ill and there’d be no ballet. So I did.’

The maid Marie had stopped screaming. In the calm that followed I heard the whisper for the first time, ‘Jenny’. It came from one of the other girls, I didn’t know which, and at the sound the whole group of them went still and quiet.

‘Has Jenny been here tonight?’ I asked.

Only the dark-haired girl spoke.

‘If she has, we didn’t see her.’

I asked the girls to let me through and started to walk along the corridor. Pauline asked where I was going, but I didn’t answer. The door to Columbine’s room opened and the actor who played Othello, Robert Surrey, came out in costume. His face was covered in black cork makeup, with lips showing pinkly through. He had an arm round Marie and she was curled up against him, her face contorted with shock and grief, as if she wanted to burrow into his padded doublet for safety. He led her past me, into another room. Almost at once, Barnaby Blake appeared from the direction of the stage, with Rodney Hardcastle walking behind him. Hardcastle seemed angry and confused.

‘She was all right this afternoon. Are you sure it’s not some kind of game she’s playing with us?’

Blake, grim-faced, simply answered by opening Columbine’s door to let Hardcastle see inside. I took a few steps forward and looked too. Columbine was lying on a couch. Somebody had covered her with a silk shawl, but it wasn’t quite long enough and her feet and ankles in their white silk stockings stuck out. Hardcastle said nothing at first, then he suddenly retched and sprayed a fountain of claret-pink vomit all over the walls and corridor so violently that it spattered my shoes. There was a nervous-looking police officer standing by the couch and a thin, grey-haired man dressed in dark clothes sitting quietly on a chair. The grey-haired man got up when he heard Hardcastle retching and came out, carrying a black bag and closing the door carefully behind him. The doctor, staying piously by the corpse of the patient he’d failed to save. Was it piety, or simply as good a place as any to wait for the arrival of a more senior police officer? He took a disapproving look at Hardcastle, now leaning on his elbow against the wall.

‘Who’s this?’

Blake explained to him in a whisper and the doctor looked even more disapproving.

‘He’d better be taken somewhere quiet.’