When he reached his aunt’s house in Camden Town, he opened his briefcase and pulled out a stack of the unit’s files. Bryant had perversely embedded his private notes into illustrated cryptograms representing Offenbach’s theatre posters. To provide the reader with clues, he had painted sections of the posters in the wrong colours to their originals. He had taken Davenport’s precautionary measures to a ludicrous degree, without disobeying his orders. Codes, encryptions, puzzles, everything was a game to him, thought May as he began to sort through the material, wondering if Bryant, wherever he might be, was thinking of the files and chuckling at his partner’s confusion.
He sat on the candlewick bedspread and laid the posters before him, trying to plot a new direction through the details of the case. He could hear his aunt on the landing outside, polishing the lino for the third time in a week. Perhaps as a response to the chaos outside, she had become obsessed with keeping the house immaculate. She made her own cleaning fluid from Castile soap, saltpetre and ammonia, and mixed up polishes and liniments from turpentine and vinegar until the entire house stank. He felt trapped in the dark little terrace, too broke to be able to take a girl anywhere, unable to get away from the blighted city, unwilling to knock mugs with the sanctimonious doomsayers and patriots who gathered around the piano in the corner pub.
His best bet, he knew, was to sort out the mess at the Palace and get a recommendation out of the unit. He thought of the way he had arrived at Bow Street the previous Monday, full of expectation for the days ahead. Instead he felt lost and abandoned. Arthur Bryant was the most annoying man he had ever met, but at least he was fun to be around. May lacked the confidence to continue without him. Now all he saw in the days ahead was failure and shame.
The door of Helena’s office burst open, and Harry ran in. ‘Can you come quickly?’ he gasped. ‘The Phantom, we’ve got him cornered.’
It was the middle of Monday morning, and the first rehearsal after the start of the run was in as good a shape as could be expected. Reviews were in, a combination of outrage and ecstasy in equal measure. Sandwiched between cheering articles about opera singers becoming train drivers and church wardens who had narrowly missed being hit by bombs were the sexy photographs that Helena Parole had approved for use. The scantily clothed chorus girls were already being nicknamed ‘Dante’s Infernettes’, and had prompted outraged calls to the Public Morality Council. This august body already had its in-trays full, thanks to the problem of ‘undesirable women’ approaching servicemen in the West End, and had formally asked the Provost Marshal for military police to help close London’s illegal gambling and drinking dens. Without the Lord Chamberlain to back them, the council could only acknowledge complaints against the theatre and suggest that it was carrying out investigations into the matter of public indecency.
Harry excitedly led Helena up the central staircase and down through the upper circle. ‘Look over there,’ he cried, pointing up into the gantry that ran along the right side of the stage. ‘One of the profile spots came loose and fell onto the stage, missed Eve by inches. Luckily she’d just been called back by Ben Woolf.’
‘What was he doing up onstage?’
‘I don’t know, giving her some kind of legal advice, I think. The stagehands saw someone up on the rear gantry, moving about by the lights. He’s trapped against that far wall.’ A dark shape could be discerned caught in the crossbeams of torches.
‘He’s making weird noises,’ said Harry. ‘Nobody’s had the nerve to go and challenge him because the walkspace is very narrow, and the rails are low.’
‘Can’t you get more light on him?’ asked John May, beckoning to Biddle.
‘We can put the house lights up and all the backstage ones, but it’ll take a few minutes. Half the areas near the top of the house will still be in darkness,’ warned Biddle.
‘All right, let me think. Sidney, how’s your foot?’
‘I can be pretty sharp on it if I have to be.’
‘Then you can give me a hand. Get Crowhurst off the stage door. You go up to the balcony.’
Sidney hobbled forward as the others approached the figure behind the torchlights.
‘I know who it is,’ Harry announced as they stepped onto the gantry. ‘It’s that rude critic who wrote about us being cursed and snored through the second half on opening night. He trod on my foot at the intermission, rushing to get to the bar, without so much as a by your leave.’
‘Gilbert Riley?’ asked Helena Parole. ‘Are you sure? What’s he doing up here? Mr Riley, is that you?’