‘Do you think it likely that any of them could have climbed the gantry to the globe and cut it loose?’
‘I don’t see how,’ interrupted May. ‘The gantry is clearly visible from the stage.’
‘Then there’s someone we haven’t accounted for,’ said Bryant, prodding his partner in the shoulder. ‘Someone else in the theatre. Someone up there, in the dark.’
23
OFF TO THE REALM OF DARKNESS
‘Have you heard? They’re killing all the poisonous snakes and reptiles at London Zoo, in case the cages get bombed,’ Betty Trammel, one of the Orpheus chorus girls, told John May that afternoon. Like most of the other female dancers, she had long legs, a tiny midriff and shapely breasts that the detective found himself covertly watching. ‘And they’ve had to put sandbags around the pink flamingos because they’re suffering nervous breakdowns.’ She smiled at the detective and rolled her enormous eyes. They were set in a heart-shaped face, framed with blond curls. ‘I used to cut home through Regent’s Park to my place in Camden, but they’ve closed the public path past the zoo. It’s getting so a girl doesn’t know what’s safe any more.’ Betty spoke with more refinement than the other chorines. She had a smile that could put a froth on a cup of coffee, and she knew it.
‘I’m in Camden. I can walk you home if you like,’ May offered gallantly.
‘I might just take you up on your proposal.’ She placed her hands on spangled hips and grinned. ‘Give me two minutes to get changed.’
Bryant watched in disgust as Betty bounced off into the wings. ‘What is it,’ he asked, ‘that makes girls go so damnably gooey-eyed over you? I don’t understand it. You only have to stand next to them and they start rolling bits of themselves about like Betty Boop.’
‘I think they just feel, you know, comfortable around me,’ said May, surprised by his own powers.
‘Well, they don’t do that with me,’ Bryant complained, scratching the back of his ear in puzzlement. ‘I can’t see why not. I’m a bloody good catch. I have prospects. I have an enquiring mind. You’d think that would be appealing.’
May stared at the aisle carpet, embarrassed. He could not tell his new friend that there was something about his fierce energy that disturbed people. The more Bryant tried to be sympathetic, the less believable he was. It was an unfortunate effect that was to bedevil him throughout his life.
‘And the types that go for you,’ Bryant continued, ‘well!’
‘What’s wrong with their “type”?’ asked May, offended.
Bryant searched the air, almost at a loss for words. ‘You can’t see it? My dear fellow, they’re so—obvious.’
‘Look, if it bothers you that much, I don’t see why you don’t find a date of your own. Go down to the box office and ask Elspeth out, she’s keen as mustard. I’ve seen the way she looks at you.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’ Bryant poked his pipe-stem down into his top pocket, considering the idea. ‘Do you really think so?’
‘I’m sure of it. Go on, ask her. She’ll be glad to get out of here.’ The blackout made houses stuffy and airless at night. Even in a building as large as the Palace, the still atmosphere weighed heavily in the lungs.
‘All right,’ vowed Bryant, grinning bravely, ‘I will. I’ll go and ask her right now.’ And he did.
She turned him down. It didn’t take her long either. He was gone for only two minutes.
‘She has to look after a sick relative,’ said Bryant on his return. ‘I wasn’t convinced.’ He grumpily kicked at the ground. ‘Here’s your bit of fluff.’
Betty had rouged her cheeks and changed into a fox-fur coat. Divested of her blond wig, she was revealed as a mousy brunette. She waltzed into the company office and seized May’s arm as though it was a lifebelt. ‘Are we going for a drink, then?’ she asked cheerfully, pinching May’s cheek.
May was almost pulled through the doorway. ‘I’ll see you in the morning, Arthur,’ he volunteered. ‘Stay out of the light.’
‘Yes, you go and have fun. I still have a police investigation to run.’ Bryant shoved his trilby onto his head. ‘I think I’ll go back to Bow Street and ruin Biddle’s evening.’
By the next morning, the mood of the company had become morose and belligerent. To have a member of the cast killed by a stage prop was not unheard of, but after a long night of bombing raids that frayed the nerves and lasted until dawn the idea of it panicked everyone. Performers were at the mercy of stagehands when there were a large number of scene changes to incorporate in the action. Three years earlier, two members of a Belgian dance troupe had been fatally injured at the Albert Hall when a vast steel wheel had collapsed on them. The scenery at the Covent Garden Opera House, with its newly overhauled hydraulic system, had nearly decapitated one of its principal players in front of a horrified first-night audience. Recently, a trapdoor in the Palladium stage had opened without warning, dropping a chorus girl down a dozen steps, breaking both her ankles. Players were superstitious and productions easily made bad reputations for themselves.