Mrs. Jeffries Takes the Stage (11 page)

Lilly Coltrane wasn’t a very pretty girl. With her round, pudgy face; frizzy, dull brown hair and bulbous, watery blue eyes, she looked dim-witted, but Betsy had realized after only a few moments of speaking to the maid that she was as sharp as they come.

She’d deliberately cornered the girl when she’d spotted her leaving the Hinchley house, a shopping basket tucked under her arm. Getting Lilly in a conversation was as easy as snapping your fingers. “So did you like working for Mr. Hinchley?” Betsy asked. She leaned against the railing on the bridge over the canal.

Lilly shrugged. “Just as soon work for him as most.
Of course, the last three months has been dead easy, what with him being gone to America. Quite a shock it give Rather and me when he turned up all sudden like on Saturday afternoon.” She laughed. “Luckily, the house was turned out proper, excepting for the rooms we’d closed off.”

“I heard that Mr. Hinchley was a real nasty sort,” Betsy ventured. Though Lilly dearly loved the sound of her own voice, she hadn’t said much that was useful.

Lilly shook her head. “He weren’t that bad. He weren’t the sort to forget a slight, I’ll say that for him. But he could be quite kind. When my mum took sick last year, he gave me the money to make sure she had a proper doctor and all. I was quite grateful.”

“Then how come all them actors and such hated him?” Betsy persisted. She was going to get Lilly talking about this if it was the last thing she did.

Lilly waved her hand. “Oh, them. They was always coming round and having a go at him. Silly sort, aren’t they? I mean, take that actor—Remington, his name is. Almost came to blows with Mr. Hinchley.”

“Did this Mr. Remington actually strike Mr. Hinchley?”

“And risk being hit in the face?” She laughed. “Not blooming likely. All he did was scream and carry on loud enough to wake the dead.”

“Guess this Mr. Remington didn’t like Mr. Hinchley’s review.”

“It weren’t about a review,” Lilly said eagerly. “It were about money. That’s what was so odd about it. Seems this actor claimed Mr. Hinchley owed him some money and he wanted to collect it before he went off to America. Well, they got so loud with their shoutin’ and all that Mr. Mickleshaft, our next door neighbor, he come
over and told them if they didn’t quiet down so he could get some sleep, he’d have the police on them for disturbing the peace. So Mr. Remington left.”

Betsy’s mind whirled with the information. “That’s not very smart, having a row in the middle of the night like that.”

“It weren’t the middle of the night. Mr. Mickleshaft doesn’t sleep at night. To hear him complain about it he doesn’t sleep at all. He’s one of them silly types that’s always ailin’ but hasn’t really been sick a day in his life. Insomnia—who ever heard of such a thing!” Lilly snorted derisively. Then she started toward the other side of the bridge. “Well, I can’t stand here chattin’ all day. I’d best be getting back. Even with Mr. Hinchley dead there’s things that need doing.”

“So you’re staying on, then?” Betsy asked as she hurried to keep up with the girl’s quick steps.

Lilly smiled widely. “This is the easiest position I’ve ever had. Especially now that Hinchley’s dead. I’m staying until that ruddy solicitor sells the house and tosses me out. I hope it takes a long time. They’re going to be selling off his house and furniture, not that they’ll get much for some of that silly stuff Mr. Hinchley had about.” She snorted again. “Looks like something out of a picture book, the stuff in the drawing room does.”

“Oh,” Betsy said quickly. “Really? Strange tastes, had he?”

“Not just in furnishings, either.” Lilly smiled slyly. “If you know what I mean.”

Betsy could guess. “At least you didn’t have to worry about him trying to paw you,” she said, giving the girl a knowing woman-to-woman look. “Not like some households.”

Lilly nodded. “Of course, the footman, he used to lead
him a merry chase. Oh, well, live and let live, that’s what I always say. And like you said, it kept him from bothering me that way. Give me a bit of peace. As long as I minded myself and pretended not to notice all his silly ceremonies, he left me alone to do my work.”

“What ceremonies?” Betsy asked. She noticed that despite Lilly’s protests that she had to get back, the girl dawdled so she could continue talking.

They’d come to the other side of the bridge. Lilly stopped and gazed at Betsy thoughtfully. “You’re asking a lot of questions,” she said.

Betsy gave her a wide, innocent smile. “Sorry if I’m nosy. It’s just that you’ve such an interesting way of telling things, I can’t help myself.”

“I do have a way with words,” Lilly agreed. “Everyone says so. My mum used to say I could tell a tale better than anyone.”

“And it’s dead boring where I work,” Betsy said earnestly.

“Most houses is when you’re a maid,” she replied. “I always liked working for Mr. Hinchley, even though sometimes he could be nasty. He left me alone as long as I minded my own business and did me work, and his house was a lot more interestin’ than most places.”

“Tell me about his secret ceremonies,” Betsy said eagerly.

Lilly looked a little sheepish. “Well, he didn’t have all that many,” she admitted. “Just the one, and then only on the nights when he was reviewing a new play.”

“What’d he do then?” Betsy prompted.

“He had a complete routine,” Lilly said. She started walking again. “It never varied and he was right strict about it, too. First of all, he always left the house at exactly the same time, half past six. We was under instructions
that once he was gone, we was to carry on, have our dinner and then go to bed. He didn’t want no one waiting up for him. Right before we locked up for the night, Rather was to unlock the side door and make sure the boiler was fired so there’d be plenty of hot water for his bath.”

“Is that it then?” Betsy was disappointed. “He took a bath when he came home from the theatre?”

Lilly giggled. “He took a bath all right, but he made sure he had someone there to scrub his back. That’s why he insisted the side door be kept unlocked. He wanted his friend to be able to slip in without anyone seeing.”

Betsy steeled herself to keep asking questions. But she had a fair idea where this was leading and it made her half sick to her stomach. She knew from her days in the poverty-stricken East End the kind of sick, ugly games the rich could buy for themselves. The fact that a side door was kept unlocked and the servants instructed to go to bed told her one thing. Whoever came to Hinchley’s house wasn’t a real friend; it was someone who was being paid. Probably someone who hated it and probably hated Hinchley as well.

Lilly gave Betsy a sharp look when she kept silent. “I’m not makin’ this up, you know. I seen it with my own eyes. One night I had to get up and go do my business, you see, and there right in the hallway was this young man. ’Course I knew if Mr. Hinchley knew I’d spotted the fellow I’d get sacked, so I flattened meself against the shadows at the top of the stairs. A few minutes later I heard Mr. Hinchley call out that he was through writing the review and the lad could come in and help him get in the bath.” Lilly broke off and stared in the distance, her giggling brightness suddenly gone. “Upset me, it did. The idea of someone being about to buy another
person like that. Don’t know why. God knows, us poor people don’t have much choice—it’s either sell your labor if you can or sell your body.”

“Are you absolutely sure it was Mr. Hinchley you saw getting in the hansom?” Witherspoon asked the man. “You couldn’t have been mistaken, Mr. Packard?”

“Know his face as well as I know me own,” Packard replied. “Everyone that works in the business knew Hinchley. That man had closed more shows than a smallpox epidemic.”

“Really?” Witherspoon found that quite odd. He could understand that actors and playwrights might know the critic, but he was quite amazed to find a limelighter who did. “Everyone?”

Packard grinned, revealing several tobacco-blackened teeth. “Hinchley had a lot of influence, Inspector. But even if he didn’t, we would have known who he was. Mr. Swinton made sure we all knew who he was. We was under orders to make sure Hinchley didn’t get backstage.”

“Goodness, Mr. Swinton gave you those instructions Saturday night?”

“Nah,” Packard replied. “He give us those instructions months ago. Different play here then, but that didn’t make any difference to Mr. Swinton. Hated Hinchley. Didn’t want him nosing about the place.”

“Did he say why?”

“Didn’t say and none of us asked,” Packard said with a casual shrug.

“But surely you’ve some idea?”

Packard glanced over his shoulder toward the stage. It was empty. “Well, my guess is he didn’t want Hinchley
having a close look at the scenery or the props. We cut a few corners here and there, you know. Got to make ends meet.”

“The theatre is in financial difficulties?”

Packard laughed. “That’s a polite way of puttin’ it. There hasn’t been a money-makin’ production here in five years. Part of that’s due to Hinchley’s bad reviews. Part of it’s due to the fact that this theatre ain’t what she used to be. Don’t attract the top drawer anymore, the cream, so to speak.”

“That’s interesting,” Witherspoon said. “But back to your identification of Mr. Hinchley. You’re certain you saw him getting into a hansom right after the performance, is that correct?”

“Right.” Packard pointed toward the side of the auditorium. “It were right out in the alley. I’d gone out and gotten a hansom for Miss Vaughan and was seein’ her off when all of a sudden, Hinchley comes strolling out the side door, saunters up the alley and hails a hansom. Well, blow me for a game of tin soldiers, I thought. If Mr. Swinton had seen Hinchley comin’ out that door instead of the front, there’d be some heads rolling around here. I were only glad it weren’t going to be mine.”

“So Hinchley must have gotten into the backstage area,” Barnes said. “Otherwise he couldn’t have come out the side door.”

“That’s right. ’Course when I asked round in here, no one would admit to seein’ him.” Packard crossed his arms over his chest. “They might have been telling the truth too; everyone’s pretty busy right after the curtain goes down. But my guess is Hinchley slipped into the back, had a good gander at the scenery and whatnot and then took himself off without so much as a by-your-leave.”

“And this was directly after the performance?” Witherspoon wanted to be absolutely, positively clear about the time.

“Not more than five minutes. Miss Vaughan asked me to get her a hansom right after she come off the stage. By the time I got him round to the side, she was waiting there to go.”

“Packard, I told you to fix this ruddy door.” The director’s sharp voice boomed from the side of the stage. “What are you doing larking about? We’ve got a performance in a few hours and I don’t want this thing sticking again in the first act.”

Witherspoon stared at Albert Parks as he stepped into view from the side of the stage. “Mr. Packard is speaking to us,” he called out. “Please don’t be angry with him. He’s answering a few questions.”

“I’d best get back to work,” Packard muttered as he edged away.

“Thank you for your assistance, sir,” Witherspoon said. “You’ve been most helpful.” He turned back toward the stage. “Mr. Parks, may I have a word with you?”

“Me?” Parks’s eyes bulged. “Why on earth would you want to speak to me?”

“It’s merely routine, sir,” the inspector assured him. Gracious, how on earth did people think the police actually solved murders if they didn’t ask questions? “We won’t take too much of your time.”

Parks stared at them sourly. “Oh, all right, if I must. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

“Too bad Mr. Swinton and Mr. Delaney aren’t here,” Barnes muttered softly. “This one doesn’t look like he wants to tell us anything.”

“Very few people do, Constable,” Witherspoon said. “And I’m a tad annoyed that the other gentlemen are
gone. We told them we’d be back this afternoon to ask more questions.”

Parks, pointedly looking at the watch on his waistcoat, came hurrying toward them. “Do please make this quick, sir. I’ve not much time.”

“But it’s hours before tonight’s performance,” Barnes pointed out.

Parks tucked his watch in. “And there’s an enormous amount of work to do yet. Just because the actors aren’t emoting all over the stage doesn’t mean I’m not busy.”

“Mr. Parks,” Witherspoon began, “we’ll try not to in-convenience you too much. But we’ve a few questions we must ask. How well did you know Mr. Hinchley?”

Parks thought about it for a moment. “I knew of him, of course. Everyone in the theatre did. But I didn’t know him all that well. Not personally.”

“Did you like him, sir?” Barnes asked.

“He was a critic.” Parks sneered the last word. “Of course I didn’t like him.”

“Had he reviewed any of your previous productions?” Witherspoon asked.

Parks hesitated. “He reviewed my production of
Hamlet.
He didn’t like it overly much. But Hinchley was kinder to me about it than to Remington. He actually said Remington’s performance in the title role was so bad that if Shakespeare were alive to see it, he’d have died of apoplexy on the spot.”