The Mangle Street Murders Part 23

*You may fool your young lady but you will not fool a professional.' Mr Grave held a magnifying gla.s.s up to Sidney Grice's forehead. *Mr Grave has been observing it sliding about since the moment you came in.'

*I do not wear a wig.'

*Let Mr Grave pull it then.'

His hand shot out but Sidney Grice whacked it aside with his cane. *If you touch my hair...'

*Thank you for your help, Mr Grave,' I said. *We had better leave you to your work.'

*Mr Grave understands,' he said. *You are trying to make yourself look more youthful for the benefit of your young lady. Come back without her and Mr Grave can do you something much more realistic.'

Sidney Grice s.n.a.t.c.hed the wig back.

*Good day,' he said and spun away.

*Would you like me to have it cleaned?' Mr Grave said and Sidney Grice turned on him.

*I should like you to go to your namesake. Come along, Miss Middleton.'

Sidney Grice glared at me when we got outside.

*This is certainly no laughing matter,' he said, but it seemed like one to me.

32.

Broken Wings The new Gloucester theatre was anything but new. Its most modern feature was the paintwork, which showered brown-red flakes when Sidney Grice rapped three times with the Face of Tragedy knocker.

*It looks deserted,' I said, and a panel in the door was opened by a very short man, so plump as to be almost spherical.

*You are late,' he said, admitting us through the opening into a large dusty foyer.

*We are not expected,' Sidney Grice said, and the round man looked him up and down.

*So you are not the comedy cow?'

My guardian raised his cane. *How dare-'

*Neither comedy nor cow,' I said hastily. *May we have a word?'

*So who are you?'

My guardian stepped forward. *I am Sidney Grice, the personal detective. Are you the manager of this establishment?'

*If you have come to arrest me, I am not. Otherwise I might be.'

My guardian opened his satchel and brought out a brown paper bag.

*I am looking for the owner of this.' He produced the wig. *And I have reason to believe that he played a part in your recent production of Verdi's dreary melodrama.'

*Not a part.' The manager took out a brilliant yellow handkerchief. *The part. This hairpiece was worn by Rigoletto himself. He was our greatest success before he ran off and left us in the lurch.'

*Do you remember his name?' I asked.

*How could I forget?' he replied, wiping his hands on the handkerchief.

*What was it?' Sidney Grice snapped.

*James Hoggart.'

*Hoggart does not sound very Italian,' my guardian said.

*Nor does it,' the manager agreed, leaning his shoulder against a mock marble pillar but pulling away when it wobbled.

*So he is not Italian,' I said.

*He was no more Italian than I, and I am not Italian,' the manager said. *He did tend to talk like one, though a said it made it come more natural on the stage.'

*How well do you know him?' I asked.

*Enough not to want to know him better.' The manager picked up a broom. *He was a deuced fine Rigoletto a his voice could blow the b.u.t.tons off your s.h.i.+rt a and he could act the eyebrows off the rest of the cast, but was he ever happy?' He propped the broom, unused, against an autographed photograph on the wall.

*I imagine not,' I said.

*You have a good and accurate imagination then, miss,' the manager said. *Not is the very word. James Hoggart was not a happy man. His dressing room was too cold and he must have a fire lit. Then the fire is too smoky and we must have the chimney swept. Then he must have lilies brought in fresh every day. Then the pollen makes him sneeze and they must be removed and a bowl of lavender water put on his dressing table. And would he learn his lines like anybody else? Well, would he?' He threw out his arms.

*I would guess not,' I said, and he picked up the broom again and put it down.

*You are an exceedingly fine guesser, miss. Any tips for the two thirty?'

*Broken Wings might be worth a s.h.i.+lling each way at six to one,' I told him, and Sidney Grice shot a glance at me and said, *Do you know where James Hoggart is now?'

*Dead,' the manager said, *and buried for all I care. Though there's a lot of people would like to find him. I never knew a man so fond of gambling and so expert at losing. He owed money to every bookie this side of the English Channel, not counting the shopkeepers and publicans he had talked into opening a slate. Then he got involved with the moneylenders. That was when things turned nasty.'

*You have not heard anything from or about him since he went missing?' I asked.

*Not a cat's whisper.' The manager clicked his fingers. *He could have gone back to Italy, for all I know.'

*But you told us he was not Italian,' Sidney Grice said.

*So I did and so he is not' a the manager whisked his handkerchief out again a *but he trained in Italy and always said he might return.'

*Do you know where he lived?' Sidney Grice asked. *Or the names of any of his friends?'

*No and no.' The manager tucked the handkerchief back into the same pocket.

*Do you know of any reason other than money why he might have disappeared?' Sidney Grice asked and the manager flapped his arms.

*What other reason could he need?'

*The possibilities are manifold,' my guardian said. *I myself have written a paper ent.i.tled Twenty-six Causes of Voluntary Concealment.'

The manager pursed his lips. *Don't think much of the t.i.tle.'

*In what way would he not learn his lines like anybody else?' I asked, and Sidney Grice sighed and said, *Does it matter?'

*I am interested,' I said, and there was a tap at the door.

*He always insisted that somebody read his lines out to him' a the manager found a pencil on the booking-office countertop a *whilst he lay on his sofa with his eyes closed. He said he had to hear the words rather than see them. Broken Wings, you say?' He wrote the name on his s.h.i.+rt cuff.

*What did he look like?' Sidney Grice asked.

*Why, just like anybody else.' The manager pulled his sleeve down. *He had a very big head and a very big nose, and when he wore his wig he had very big curly red hair indeed. Without his wig he did not. It was ratty like yours, miss.'

There was another tap at the door and the manager opened the panel, and a small woman came in with a cow's head under her arm.

*I know that face,' she said to my guardian. *You play the hurdy-gurdy at King's Cross with a child dressed as an ape.'

*I would have thought you were sufficiently bovine without the need of a costume,' Sidney Grice said, stepping outside.

*Are you his new monkey?' she asked me.

*Something like that,' I said.

33.

The Old Ca.n.a.l Just as Albert had predicted, the glue factory was easy to find and the smell was truly appalling. We clamped our handkerchiefs over our noses and I wished I had had the foresight to perfume mine.

*Allow me.' Inspector Pound sprinkled a few drops from a dark blue bottle on to a white cloth for me.

*What is it?'

*Camphor.' He showed me the handwritten label. *I always keep some with me. You come across some horrible things in my job.'

*But few more horrible than boiling bones,' Sidney Grice said. *Do you have any of that to spare, Inspector?'

*I am afraid not, Mr Grice.' Inspector Pound slipped the bottle back into his brown coat pocket.

There were two constables with us as we made our way along the towpath. They carried coils of rope and grappling hooks.

*Not much of a place for soppy girls,' one of them said.

*Just as well there are no soppy girls here then,' I said.

*You won't get the better of her, Perkins.' Inspector Pound laughed. *Do you really think this is worth pursuing, Mr Grice?' He hopped over a puddle. *I've got a couple of very nasty murders and an attempted arson that need my urgent attention.'

*I am sure of it.' Sidney Grice flicked a maggot-ridden cat with his stick into the slimy black water where it came up to the surface and pitched on its back, grinning up at us. *And this must be the barge.'

We made our way to the back of a rotten hulk, half-sunk in sludge, with a tawny tangle-haired mongrel standing on the broken prow.

*There were two families living in that last winter,' Inspector Pound told us, *and they were being charged rent for it. The week before Christmas the collector came and found all twenty-four of them dead from the river fever. The owner tried to rent it out again, but the bottom caved in when the parish cleared their bodies and two men drowned.'

The dog barked and crouched and snarled and jack-in-the-boxed in our direction, but did not attempt to follow us.

*There's the jetty.' Inspector Pound pointed. *So, if young Albert was telling the truth, he found the wig somewhere around here, and if there is a body it would not drift far in this stagnation.'

The ca.n.a.l widened into a circle about thirty feet across, where the narrow boats would have turned when the stretch was in use.

*What is that?' I pointed to a slight mound in the thick algae and weeds a yard or so from the far bank.

*Could be a log or a dead donkey,' Sidney Grice said, *but I would not wager on it being either of those.'

Inspector Pound called one of his constables over. *Think you can reach that, Perkins?'

*My granny could reach that,' the constable said, *and she's not been out of bed these last three years. Excuse me, miss.'

I stood back and Perkins began to swing the grappling iron, four arrow-headed hooks on a thick rope. Faster and faster it windmilled at his side until with a faint grunt he let it go, sailing high in the air to splash into a patch of reeds just short of the target.

*Should have brought your granny,' the second constable said.

*I was just getting the measure of it,' Perkins said, hauling his iron back, clogged with soggy debris.

*Let me show you how it's done.' The second constable let his iron fly across the basin, over the mound and into a willow tree, jutting out of a tumbled-down shed on the opposite bank. He muttered under his breath and pulled, but the hooks were tangled in the branches and the tree shook and bent towards him but would not let it go.

Perkins laughed and said, *My granny wouldn't have done that. Stand back, Maybury, and let the expert show you how it's done.'

Perkins swung again, higher but even shorter this time. He wound back in, his rope soaked with stinking water, while Maybury pulled harder but with no better results.

*The manager of the New Gloucester could use these two comedians,' Sidney Grice murmured to me and Inspector Pound looked at him sharply.

*Get on with it, Perkins.'

*Yes, sir.' Perkins swung his hook a third time and got the distance, but was over to the right of his target.