The premiere of Orpheus was still planned for tonight, come incendiary bombs, hellfire murders or the Lord Chamberlain himself. The day was grey and dull, the skies louring with the threat of rain. Everyone was praying for a deluge to dampen the fires, and for clouds to hide the city.
An Orpheus lyric rattled around in Bryant’s brain. ‘The Metamorphoses Rondo’, in which Cupid sings, ‘What do these disguises prove? Only that you find yourself so ugly that whenever you want to be loved, you daren’t show yourself as you really are.’ If Andreas Renalda’s brother was here, he could have adopted the identity of anyone. Tonight the theatre would open for the grand premiere, and the invited public would be admitted. How much harder would it be to spot a rogue face in the crowd?
Bryant studied the water, watching the chromatic petrol ripples of a passing boat blossom on the surface in diseased ziggurats. Then there was the matter of the missing girl, lost in a city of missing people. If Jan Petrovic had been kidnapped, why had no one heard from her abductor? What was to be gained from removing someone so unimportant to the production? He thought back to Edna Wagstaff’s nervous chatter about the ghosts of the theatre, and how they walked through walls. How had someone been able to enter and leave the Palace unnoticed? When the building wasn’t locked up, the two entrances had staff posted at them. There were two pass doors between the backstage area and the front of house, and one of those was kept permanently locked. The doors to Petrovic’s flat were also locked from the inside. It was as if . . .
Edna had spoken of desperation, but someone desperate to do what? The police at Bow Street and West End Central were far too busy to help the unit. Sergeant Nasty-Basket Carfax next door had laughed in his face when he had requested assistance. Suppose Minos Renalda had infiltrated the staff of the theatre? He would be forty now, which eliminated quite a few members of the orchestra, about half of the cast and all but one of the house staff. Forthright was checking the ages of the backstage crew.
Bryant let his mind roam loose. In 1922, the Palace had premiered The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Gilbert and Sullivan longed to trump Offenbach, and set Thespis among the gods of ancient Greece, but Thespis was now lost. The painting in the Palace Theatre’s foyer was The Concert, a Greek revival subject. Offenbach’s hero helped Jason to find the Golden Fleece. The brown interiors of the Palace were rubbed gold by the hands of patrons. Mythic links but also Masonic links, the compass and the globe. Orpheus’s mother was Calliope. The Maenads tore Orpheus limb from limb for preaching male love, and his head floated down the River Hebrus still singing. Which Greek goddess carried a scythe? Wasn’t a scythe like a razor?
His mind was reeling with impossible associations. But there was a more prosaic possibility. The show was already being accused of blasphemy, indecency, blatantly unwholesome sexuality. Could some guardian of moral standards really have become so incensed by its perceived perversions that they were prepared to kill? The idea didn’t sit well with him. The crimes felt passionless, almost accidental. It was as though anyone could have died in place of Capistrania and Senechal.
‘I thought I’d find you here,’ said May, laying a hand on his shoulder and passing him a silver flask. ‘This’ll warm you up.’
‘I’m trying to think, old bean. Am I to be allowed no privacy?’ Bryant grumbled, but unscrewed the cap and took a swig. ‘This business is giving me the pip. If I had to paint a picture of the person we’re looking for,’ he said, passing the flask back, ‘I’d reckon we were up against an older male, middle class, with some kind of grudge against the play itself.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Traditional theatre, by which I discount the music halls and picture palaces, is largely ignored by working-class youths. It’s not really a public place but a sealed arena. Unless you’re a paying customer or a member of the production, there’s no easy way in or out of the building. Our killer acts with the kind of confidence that comes with experience. He’s male because of the sense of distance from his victims. He’s unemotional. Statistically, women make passionate murderers. He has a grudge against the play because the players themselves are unimportant to him. There’s a plan, and we haven’t seen its culmination yet.’
‘Do you see any way of stopping it?’
‘The theatre opens its doors tonight. The time for deciphering clues is over.’
‘All we can do is be vigilant,’ May agreed. ‘Every attack points in a different direction.’