Текст книги "An Expert in Murder"

Автор книги: Nicola Upson

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

‘But Alice did once mention something that she asked me not to tell anyone.’ All eyes turned to Betty Simmons, and her husband looked at her questioningly. ‘Every year, on Elspeth’s birthday, Walter got a letter with some money in it. The letter was never signed and Walter wouldn’t tell her who it was from, although he always denied it was from her parents. One year, when Walter was particularly ill, Alice got to the envelope first and opened it. There were ten five-pound notes inside, and a letter that just said, “You know where I am if you change your mind.” Walter was furious when he found out she’d opened it, but he refused to explain what it meant; he just told Alice not to worry, that if she wanted Elspeth to be happy she should forget all about it. That’s why she begged me not to say anything,’ she added by way of explanation to Frank. ‘She was terrified she might lose the child.’

Penrose was quiet for a moment as he considered the implications of Betty Simmons’s secret. The most obvious explanation for the money was that it had been sent by Elspeth’s real parents to help with the cost of bringing her up, but the message in the note made a nonsense of that: surely if they had wanted her back they could have just taken her, particularly as there was no legal agree-91

ment to protect Walter and Alice. ‘You’re sure the letter said “I”

and not “we”?’ he asked.

‘Yes, at least I’m sure that’s what she told me it said,’ Betty replied with certainty. ‘I remember wondering if one of her parents hadn’t really wanted to give her up and was trying to get her back, but I didn’t say that to Alice. It would have only worried her even more.’

The same thought had occurred to Penrose, who was developing a growing respect for Mrs Simmons’s intelligence. Josephine took advantage of the pause in his questioning. ‘When we were having lunch on the train,’ she began, ‘Elspeth seemed very excited about a young man she’d met quite recently. Do you know who he is?’

‘You must mean Hedley,’ said Frank. ‘Hedley White. He works backstage at Wyndham’s and the New. They met a couple of months ago when Elspeth and I were queuing for an autograph.

He took her programme to get it signed, and when he came back with it he asked her if she’d like to have tea with him. After that, he took her out whenever she was down here. He’s a nice lad, and Elspeth was smitten. Nobody had ever shown much interest in her in that way before, and he always seemed to treat her well. Betty and I never worried when she was out with him.’

‘She was seeing him tonight, wasn’t she?’ Josephine asked.

‘Yes, they were going to the theatre together. He’d got top-price seats as a treat because he knew how much she loved your play.

She was quite upset when she heard it was going to end, and Hedley wanted her to have the chance to see it again once or twice before it finished. In fact, she wasn’t supposed to come down until next week but he got her here early, sent her the train ticket and everything. She was so excited, Alice said. She’d never travelled in first class before. That’s what I mean about him treating her well –

he was thoughtful. It must have cost him a fortune.’

Yes it must, thought Josephine, who – in spite of her reassuring words to Elspeth – had always thought first-class travel a terrible waste of money. The only time she used it herself was when she was invited to London to discuss her work. For some reason, Bernard Aubrey seemed to think that bringing her down in com-92

fort would soften her up a little before each contract negotiation and she had never had the heart to tell him it made no difference to her which part of the train she sat in. But a first-class ticket on a backstage wage must have made quite a hole in Hedley White’s pocket, even if he was in love.

‘You’ll have to tell him, Frank. He’ll be devastated,’ Betty said.

‘He can’t know yet or he’d have been in touch.’

‘If you don’t mind, Sir, I’d like to do that myself,’ Penrose said.

‘Was he coming here to pick her up, or had they arranged to meet somewhere else?’

‘They were meeting in town later on when Hedley finished his afternoon shift. I was going to drop Elspeth off at the theatre, then they were going to the Corner House in Shaftesbury Avenue to have a bite to eat after the show. You’ll tell him gently, Inspector, won’t you? He’ll blame himself when he knows, just like I do. It won’t take him long to realise that if it wasn’t for him Elspeth would never have been on that train at all.’

Quite, thought Penrose, who had no intention of being remotely gentle when he caught up with Hedley White. ‘Do you mind if I use your telephone, Mr Simmons? I’d like to ask one of my colleagues to get over to the theatre and see if they can find the young man before he leaves work. And perhaps you have a home address for him?’

Betty showed Penrose to the telephone and went to get the information he had requested, leaving Josephine alone with Frank Simmons. ‘Try not to blame yourself,’ she said quietly.

‘Even if you’d been waiting on the platform, there was nothing you could have done. I keep wishing that I hadn’t been in such a hurry to get a taxi myself. If I’d kept her talking for longer, perhaps this would never have happened. But we can’t know what fate has waiting for us, Frank. All we can do is make the people we love as happy as possible while we’ve got them, and you did that for Elspeth. She made that clear to me even in the short time I spent with her.’

He smiled at her gratefully. As Penrose returned, the sound of the shop bell reached them from the floor below. ‘That’ll be my 93

Sergeant,’ he said. ‘He’s made it through the traffic at last. We’ll leave you in peace now, but I’ll let you know right away if there’s any news.’

‘You don’t want to speak to me any more?’ asked Simmons, who had been dreading a much tougher round of questioning from the Inspector.

‘No, Sir, not at the moment. We’ve checked with the Coventry Street Lyons and the waitress there has confirmed the details of your delivery. I’ll need to speak to your sister-in-law when she gets here, but that can wait until you’ve had some time to be together.

Have a safe journey, Mrs Simmons. I’ve arranged for a car to pick you up in half an hour now the traffic’s settled down a bit, but if there’s anything else you need just give the Yard a call.’

‘Thank you Inspector, you’ve been very kind,’ said Betty. ‘I’ll tell Alice that I know you’ll catch who did this to us. It won’t give her Elspeth back, but it’ll be some consolation.’

As they took their leave, Penrose wished he shared her confidence. He brought Fallowfield up to date, but the rest of the journey back to St Martin’s Lane was made in silence. For once, Fallowfield’s optimism fell on deaf ears.

94

Seven

Theatre is a self-obsessed medium at the best of times, but this was not the best of times. By the time the curtain fell on another packed matinee, news of the murder and its sinister echoes of the play had broken into the little world of the New Theatre, courtesy of young Tommy Forrester and the crisp five-pound note which a far-sighted reporter had seen fit to slip into his pocket. The story reached the auditorium first, as the audience shuffled the lunchtime edition from row to row with a delicious sense of melodrama and no discrimination between fourpenny and shilling seats.

Gradually it filtered backstage, where certain members of the company experienced the uncomfortable sensation of talking about something other than themselves. They dealt with the novelty in different ways and according to type: Aubrey acknowledged the tragedy whilst considering the logistics of extending the run by a week or two; Esme McCracken – incensed at yet more notoriety for the play she so despised – slammed her notebook down in the prompt corner and scribbled furiously throughout the final act, while her second-in-charge left ashen-faced for his evening off; Lydia was shocked to the core, while Marta – with all the empathy expected of a lover – found herself equally horrified; and Terry, who had crept into a box to watch his understudy at work before going into battle with Aubrey, swore at Fleming for a lacklustre opening and went upstairs with an arrogance unusual even for him. Meanwhile, in the foyer, the kiosk attendant was recovering from an unexpected rush on souvenir dolls.

As six o’clock approached, Josephine could think of nothing she needed less than food or gossip. Nevertheless, conscious of a 95

guest’s obligations and resigned to a hefty helping of both, she dressed for dinner and set out for the restaurant, never once allowing her thoughts to linger on the performance that lay just the other side of the meal. Still a little unsteady after the drive back from Hammersmith, she decided to brave the rain and walk the half mile or so to Percy Street, taking pleasure in the distractions of Saturday-night London. The city was at its good-humoured best, the pavements growing steadily more crowded with a tangle of umbrellas and laughter as people emerged from buses and underground stations, determined to enjoy themselves. Gladly, she allowed herself the luxury of joining them, if only for the time it took her to reach a small, unassuming restaurant just off the Tottenham Court Road. The Motley sisters were by no means the only members of their profession for whom it was a favourite haunt: in fact, it was often said that a bomb hurled randomly through the doors of the Eiffel Tower would instantly dim the lights at half the theatres in the West End. Full of gaiety and chatter, the Tower admitted no sign of the jazz-age sophistication which had driven artists into public houses all over the city, and consequently remained the ultimate spot in which to see and be seen, even to eat and drink.

Lettice and Ronnie were already seated at a corner table when Josephine arrived, and she was touched by the concern that replaced their banter as soon as they saw her. Ronnie, who possessed the covetable knack of dealing with head waiters together with a firm belief that bubbles could console as well as cheer, wasted no time in ordering a bottle of Moet and Chandon, while Lettice looked solicitously at her friend. ‘This is hardly the celebration we had planned for you,’ she said, as Josephine sat down next to her. ‘You must have had an awful day.’

The table was for four but it was a smaller party than planned.

Reluctantly, Archie had made his apologies and he and Fallowfield had returned to the Yard. His absence was quickly noted by the Tower’s ubiquitous proprietor, Rudolf Stulik, whose expression of desolation was hardly a good advertisement for the Champagne that brought him to the table.

96

‘The Inspector is on his way?’ Stulik asked hopefully in the thick Viennese accent which, along with an impressive moustache and even more impressive waistline, made him a walking cartoon of a restaurant proprietor. With the exception of a scant regard for licensing regulations, Stulik was unswerving in his devotion to this rather handsome embodiment of the law, and had been ever since Penrose had uncovered a gang of extortionists who had targeted his restaurant a couple of years back. The adoration – a source of much mirth and mischief to his cousins – was a huge embarrassment to Archie, so much so that only the prospect of Josephine’s company would have got him to the restaurant at all.

‘No, Rudy, I’m sorry – he can’t get away tonight,’ said Josephine, managing to keep a straight face. ‘But he asked me to apologise and he sends his regards.’

‘And he’d like a table for next Wednesday to make up for missing out on tonight.’ Ronnie’s revenge on Archie’s earlier bad humour was merciless. ‘Can you fit him in?’

Stulik, who was sadly removing the fourth place setting, brightened a little. ‘Of course. I will see to it right away and make sure I’m here to look after him personally.’ He bustled away, satisfied that the world was not as cruel a place as it had briefly seemed.

Josephine raised an eyebrow accusingly from behind the menu.

‘That was positively wicked, even for you.’

‘I know,’ said Ronnie, lighting another cigarette. ‘Sometimes I surprise even myself.’

Josephine laughed in spite of her day and ordered the turbot, bringing forth a culinary invective from Ronnie about a Scottish life being one perpetual Friday. After Lettice had dallied between the noisettes d’agneau and the caneton à l’orange sufficiently long for Stulik to suggest half a plateful of each, Josephine succinctly brought the Motleys up to date with the bare bones of Elspeth’s murder, leaving out the more sensitive points of the investigation but outlining the facts that signalled a connection with Richard of Bordeaux, most of which they had already gleaned from the newspaper. The cocoon of the restaurant, with the constant chink of glass and clatter of knives against forks, went a little way towards 97

anaesthetising her audience against some of the more chilling details, but not against the tragedy of a young girl’s death. As Josephine gave the victim the flesh and blood which had been missing from the lurid but faceless newspaper account, Lettice and Ronnie realised how involved she felt with the crime, and saw through her impatient dismissal of Archie’s concern for her.

‘We all know he’s ridiculously soft on you and always has been,’

said Ronnie with her usual directness, ‘but he’s also a bloody good policeman, much as it shames me to have one in the family. If he’s genuinely worried, then you should take him seriously and be careful. Or, if it suits your pride better, at least humour him until he’s proved wrong.’

‘It’s not a question of pride, just common sense. One afternoon with her relatives gave Archie more than enough time to raise plenty of questions about Elspeth’s life. If he finds the answers to those,’ she counteracted, unconsciously echoing Spilsbury’s advice,

‘I have no doubt he’ll understand why she died, and catch whoever’s responsible. In fact,’ she continued, looking at her watch,

‘he may have already done so. He was off to track down Elspeth’s boyfriend when he left me. You’ll know him, I should think. He works backstage at the theatre.’

‘Surely you don’t mean Hedley?’ asked Lettice, so shocked that her fork was temporarily halted in its relentless ascent from the plate. ‘He wouldn’t hurt a flea – it’s just not in him.’

‘And even if he did, he certainly wouldn’t be clever enough to get away with it,’ added Ronnie, for whom kindness was no adequate substitute for wit. ‘If the girl had been walking out with McCracken, I could believe in a crime passionnel –the woman just oozes spite, and if she’s got a murderous streak then none of us are safe. But I can’t see Hedley taking up arms, and you know me –

happy to see the bad in anyone.’

Long practised at ignoring her sister’s asides, Lettice pressed on with her questioning. ‘Is it really Hedley’s girlfriend who’s been killed? None of us ever saw her, but he’s blossomed since they met and Lydia says he absolutely worships the ground she walks on.

She was teasing him about it just the other day, daring him to 98

show her off to us. He’ll be devastated: I can’t believe he had anything to do with it.’

‘But he was in a very funny mood this afternoon,’ Ronnie said.

‘And he rushed off like a bat out of hell, although I gather he was due a bollocking from Aubrey over something so you can’t blame him for a hasty exit. Well, well – Hedley White. It just shows, doesn’t it?’ she added inconclusively.

‘Don’t make me regret telling you that by spreading it around,’

said Josephine. ‘If he turns out to be completely innocent, he’ll have enough to cope with without every Tom, Dick and Harry looking at him as though he should have a noose around his neck.

And anyway, I’m not going to start imagining that people are waiting for me in dark corners all over London just to please Archie.

Let’s face it,’ she added caustically, ‘the ones we have to deal with in broad daylight are behaving badly enough at the moment.’

Josephine’s reference to the bickering amongst cast and crew at the theatre was not lost on the Motleys, who had seen her attitude towards those involved in her play go from excitement to admiration to irritation over the last year. With the exception of Lydia, who was the most established of the cast when the run began and who had remained gracious in the face of its unprecedented success, those who had gained fame and fortune through the play had not impressed its author with their tantrums and jealousies and determination to cash in on every opportunity it offered – and she had made that perfectly clear. Not that she had any moral objections to commercial success – she believed wholeheartedly that the purpose of telling a story was to entertain an audience and the money had given her the freedom to do what she most loved – but its trappings bored her and she simply did not need that many complications, or that many people, in her life. All in all, the experience had made her approach the staging of another work in a very different spirit, one that questioned the sense of doing it at all.

The solitary appeal of the novel, which required her to rely on no one but herself and Brisena, grew stronger by the day.

Nothing that the Motleys had to report about the afternoon’s meeting was likely to change her mind. ‘I know your day wasn’t 99

easy,’ said Lettice, ‘but at least it was less fractious than the one you were supposed to have. Bernard kept us waiting for ages while he made some telephone calls and then, when he finally did call us all in, I’ve never seen anybody less in the mood to compromise.

It’ll be a wonder if he has any staff left by curtain-up.’

‘I’ve got better things to do with my life than listen to your childish arrogance,’ boomed Ronnie in a passable impression of Aubrey. ‘Then he stormed out, giving Johnny no chance to have the full tantrum he’d been planning so carefully. He had it anyway, of course, but without the audience it was meant for.’

‘Don’t tell me nothing was agreed,’ Josephine said impatiently.

‘I think it would be more accurate to say decided than agreed,’

said Lettice, wiping the contrasting sauces from her plate with the last piece of bread. ‘Bernard made it quite clear from the start that any changes to the plans for a tour of Richardwere quite out of the question. He’s insisting that if any money is to be made from it out of London, then it must go now on the back of the momentum it has here and it must go with the cast that people have heard so much about and will pay to see. He said he owed that much to you, if nothing else.’

‘There was a time when I would have appreciated that,’ said Josephine. ‘Now, with everything that’s happened, it can’t be over too soon for me. But he’s right about the timing of a tour, of course. I can see why Johnny needs a change, but this is the moment and Aubrey was never going to let him out of a signed contract. Anyway, it’s only eight weeks, for God’s sake. Surely he can grin and bear it for that long without ruining his career?’

‘You’d think so, although from what he was saying I got the impression that Johnny’s worries at the moment have more to do with money than artistic integrity. He’s usually so choosy about where he wants to go next, but there was a touch of the desperate about him today. He wants this film for the money, pure and simple. If it comes off, he knows how pathetic a stage salary – even his

– will seem by comparison.’

‘In the meantime, he’ll just have to stay strapped like the rest of us because there’s no doubt that your name, Richard’s glory and 100

Johnny’s frustration will all be enjoying April in Manchester. The Producer has spoken,’ Ronnie summarised neatly, ‘and that is the script we’ll be using.’

‘And a murder doesn’t affect his plans?’ Josephine asked. ‘No, you’re right, of course,’ she continued, matching Ronnie for sarcasm. ‘I suppose the only inconvenience that death seems to be causing is by coming at the end of the run. As a publicity stunt, it really would have been so much more beneficial for those quiet matinees just after Christmas.’

‘Although to be fair,’ said Lettice, a little more charitably,

‘Aubrey doesn’t realise it was Hedley’s girlfriend. I know we lapped up the drama of it all when we saw the latest account in the paper, but it’s turning out to be a lot closer to home than we could have suspected. He’s really taken that boy under his wing in the last couple of months, and whether he has to deal with Hedley’s guilt or just his grief, it won’t be easy for him.’

There was no telling which it would be at this stage, thought Josephine, although she had found it difficult to reconcile either Lettice’s opinion of Hedley White or Elspeth’s obvious affection for him with the person who possessed enough nerve and malice to carry out the murder which had been described to her. She wondered how Archie and Fallowfield were getting on in their search for the boy: he was all they had to go on at the moment, but she could not believe in her heart that the solution was as simple as a lovers’ quarrel. In just one short meeting, it had seemed evident to her that the Simmonses were a complex family in which relationships existed on very fragile foundations. Secrets – between husband and wife, between mother and daughter, between brothers –

were in plentiful supply, and she could not forget the hurt in Frank Simmons’s eyes when he realised that his wife knew more about Elspeth’s past than he did. How had he really felt at the prospect of losing the cherished company of his niece to another man? And a man who so obviously shared her passions and could open the door for her to a living, breathing theatre rather than to one enclosed in a glass case. As fascinating as it was, she could not help but feel that Simmons’s extraordinary pocket of nostalgia was a lit-101

tle obsessive, to say the least. She thought again about the alibi that he had given to Archie: was a waitress – run off her feet in a busy coffee shop – really able to put reliable timings on anything, particularly something that was part of an established routine?

Dessert arrived, Stulik needing no further prompting to bring three hot, sweet soufflés to his favourite table. ‘It is all in the steel of the nerve and the strength of the hand on the whisk,’ he said modestly, shrugging off their admiration and remaining oblivious to Ronnie’s smirk.

‘I hardly dare ask if the boys got round to discussing Queen of Scots,’ Josephine asked, when the only evidence that remained of Stulik’s mastery with a whisk was a light dusting of icing sugar on Lettice’s top lip.

‘Oh, they certainly did,’ Ronnie replied, passing her napkin across to her sister. ‘But that just dealt another blow to any prospect of negotiation. When he couldn’t get anywhere with the film, Johnny tried to throw his weight about on the casting for your next play. He demanded that Rafe Swinburne play Bothwell and threatened to walk out if he didn’t get his way.’

‘That’s when Bernard really lost his temper. He said that Swinburne was never getting another job from him, and that he refused to have his theatres used as a . . . as a . . .’

‘As an expensive rehearsal for a cheap fuck was the phrase I believe he used,’ said Ronnie, gleefully jumping in as her more modest sister faltered. ‘Anyway, Aubrey just pointed out that if Lewis Fleming would have been good enough to tour as Richard, then he’d be perfectly fine to stay here as Bothwell.’

‘So the stage is set for another triumphant night in the West End,’ said Josephine with a heavy dose of irony. ‘A happy cast, an untroubled crew and death in the wings – what more could we ask for? But at least it sounds like this film is dead in the water: I can do without that sort of fate-baiting at the moment.’

‘Oh no dear, you haven’t heard the best bit yet.’ Ronnie’s pause to look for her lighter had the desired dramatic effect on Josephine, who impatiently offered her own in exchange for the rest of the story. ‘Well, I couldn’t decide if Aubrey was simply flex-102

ing his muscles or if he really thinks it’s a good idea,’ she said, inhaling deeply, ‘but his final move was his deadliest. He calmed down after the cheap fuck exchange, and announced very firmly that he had every intention of financing a film of Richard, but he wasn’t certain that Johnny was the right man for the role on screen.’

‘Darling, you should have seen the look on Johnny’s face. I thought he was going to hit him,’ Lettice said with feeling before looking questioningly at Ronnie, who nodded slightly. ‘And that’s not the only disappointment, I’m afraid. He’s made it clear that he wants Lillian Gish for Anne of Bohemia, not Lydia. He says she has all the qualities on screen that Lydia has on stage, and that she’s a bigger name in the film world. I really don’t know what’s come over him.’

‘And that, my dear, was that,’ finished Ronnie with a flourish.

‘Aubrey stormed out, muttering something which had

“McCracken” and “bitch” in the same sentence, and we were left to mop up what was left of Johnny.’

As they paid the bill, Josephine was speechless. She loathed the extent to which she was losing control of her work, but could see no way out of the tangle of triumph and disillusionment that seemed to be its inevitable companion. Even if she refused to have anything to do with a film of her play, there was nothing to stop Aubrey asking another writer to produce something along the same lines. As she had argued successfully against Vintner in court, there was no copyright on history. And anyway, in a sense the damage had already been done. Film or no film, in a circle as small as this one, there was no way that Lydia could be protected from the knowledge that she had been overlooked – and for a woman who had been at the top of her profession since the age of fifteen, the journey down was bound to be a painful one.

On the way out, they looked for their host to thank him but Stulik’s attention had already been diverted to another party, recently arrived and headed by a distinguished elderly gentleman around whom the proprietor clucked like a mother hen.

‘Look! It’s Sickert,’ exclaimed Lettice, less subtly than she could 103

have. ‘Thank God Lydia’s not here or he’d be all over us. I can’t believe she spent all that time alone with him. There’s something very shifty about him, don’t you think?’ she asked with a shiver.

Josephine glanced at the painter, who had recently completed an impressive portrait of Lydia as Queen Isabella of France, falling quite naturally under her spell as he did so. Try as she might, the finely cut, sensitive face and untidy white hair revealed to her none of the evil intent which seemed so obvious to Lettice. Before her friend could place London’s most celebrated artist at King’s Cross with something more lethal than a paintbrush in his hand, Josephine told her not to be so ridiculous and led the way purposefully to the door.

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Eight

The telephone on the dark oak desk in Bernard Aubrey’s office rang at exactly seven o’clock. Wearily, he lifted the receiver halfway through the third peal, then brightened as the voice at the other end identified itself.

‘There’s really no need to explain,’ he said, cutting short the apologies with which the caller opened the conversation. ‘It’s very good of you to bother on Saturday night. Do you have what I’m looking for?’

He listened carefully as the woman on the other end gave a succinct but comprehensive response to his questions, his fingers idly tracing the outline of numbers which had been scribbled on the blotting pad in front of him during the last few days. ‘You’re sure about that?’ he asked when she stopped talking. ‘There’s no possibility of a mistake?’ Reassured by her certainty, he thanked her again and carefully replaced the handset. The whole conversation had lasted barely five minutes, but he had all the details he needed.

The only question now was how best to act on them.

Reaching for the bottle of whisky which always stood on his desk, Aubrey noticed how quickly its contents had dwindled. He had never been a heavy drinker, preferring the habitual comforts of tobacco and sufficiently aware of the toll that one addiction had taken on his health to know that the acquisition of another was unwise. But he had long since ceased to care about his own well-being, and the peat-filled warmth of the Scotch soothed him now, taking the edge off the cold that had hovered at the back of his eyes and throat since he awoke that morning and centring his thoughts on the evening ahead: he would get through the performance with-105

out allowing his anxiety to distract him, and he would speak to Josephine and Lydia after the show. His recent behaviour towards them both had been so out of character that he needed to make his peace; his fears, in all truth, were not their concern. He must promise Josephine that she would not have to endure again any of the unpleasantness which had plagued her introduction to theatre, that the madness which had begun with Vintner’s ludicrous allegations was a one-off occurrence. In any case, he knew instinctively that the distorted success of Bordeauxwas unlikely to be repeated and certainly not by the play which was soon to go into rehearsal; Queen of Scotswould do moderately well, but it lacked the charm of its predecessor and would, he was sure, have a looser grip on the public’s affections. Lydia would be more difficult to appease, simply because the shadow that he had cast over her future in a moment of unnecessary harshness was genuine: it washard for an actress in her forties, even one as accomplished and versatile as she was, but they were friends and he would find a way to reassure her.

Then there was Hedley to consider. The boy had not come to see him after the show as he had been asked, but he did not think any less of him for that. In love for the first time, he was bound to act out of character but, like anyone who has been given an unexpected chance in life and is anxious to please, he learned his les-sons quickly and well: the reprimand he had already received seemed to have hit home, and there would be no need to refer to the subject again. In fact, he had wanted to make amends for his earlier anger by allowing Hedley to take his girl backstage, to show her the dressing rooms and let her walk on the stage with the lights full on; from what he had been told about her, he knew how much that would mean to Elspeth and how pleased Hedley would be to be able to offer it. Never mind – it could wait until next week; she was staying in London for several days. As far as he could see, the couple stood a good chance of making a go of it: neither was particularly used to excessive kindness or affection, but nor had they been trained to distrust it through those scarring acts of cruelty and betrayal. They were surprised when the love which they had seen in the picture houses and read about in magazines 106