movement. Archibald turned, a puzzled look on his face, and then his expression relaxed. The head waiter appeared at our table. Beside him was a young man in a cheap, ill-fitting suit. He had a light fuzz of hair in the middle of his chin, very pale skin and small brown eyes.
‘Sir, this fellow says he has a message for you.’
‘Yes, thank you, Cartright,’ Archibald said, standing up. ‘Please leave us.’
The man took two steps backwards and then turned with a flourish, called over an underling and strode towards the kitchen.
‘Harry,’ Archibald said to me, returning to his seat and indicating to the young man that he should sit for a moment, ‘this is one of my lads from the office — James Shallworthy.’ He turned to the young man. ‘What is it, Jim?’
‘I’m sorry to …’
Archibald waved his hand again. ‘Just get on with it.’
‘Sir, there’s been an ’orrible murder.’
Archibald shot me a glance, then fixed the messenger with a stern stare. ‘Where?’
‘Just down the road in Charin’ Cross, sir.’
It was a double murder. You must have read about it in the newspaper, dear lady; your husband’s newspaper, in fact. It was not an incident to be easily forgotten. A double killing: of the actor Donald Peters and his lover and co-star Mildred Nantwich. The murderer, Mildred’s estranged husband Norman Nantwich, was imprisoned the same evening when he turned up at Charing Cross Police Station to confess to the murder, his hands, face and coat still covered with blood.
Archibald sent his assistant back to the newspaper office and hailed a hansom on Pall Mall. We were at the murder scene within a few minutes. The deed had been done in Donald Peters’s dressing-room at Toole’s Theatre on William IV Street. There was a hubbub in front of the venue with police escorting away theatre-goers who were angrily waving tickets for the cancelled matinee performance.
‘We’ll take the back entrance,’ Archibald said as we alighted from the cab. ‘I know the owner, John Toole, very well.’
Archibald also evidently knew his surroundings, because within a few moments we were inside without a single person preventing us. He led the way through a maze of corridors and up a flight of stairs. At the top a corridor led to the actors’ dressing-rooms.
We could hear sounds coming from one of the rooms on the left, and then two policemen emerged. Immediately behind them appeared a tall, well-built man with a massive handlebar moustache. He was heavily jowled and greying. ‘But this is preposterous!’ I heard him say, his voice little more than a growl.
Archibald strode along the passageway towards them. I stood where I was, just watching, intrigued.
‘Toole, old chap,’ I heard Archibald boom.
The two policemen and the theatre-owner turned as one.
‘Thomson?’ the man responded. ‘What the devil …?’
One of the policemen stepped forward with his hand held out to prevent Archibald’s approach. ‘I’m afraid, sir …’
‘Oh really, officer,’ he snapped. ‘I’m a newspaper editor.’
‘I don’t care who …’
‘Look here, Thomson. This really isn’t the time,’ Toole interrupted.
‘There
‘Well, yes, but …’ the theatre-owner blustered.
‘Sir,’ the policeman said again. He stepped forward and placed a restraining hand against Archibald’s chest. The newspaper man simply looked down at it and then gave Toole a hard look.
‘If you want an accurate report on this incident written by a friend, John, I would suggest you let me in.’
Toole gazed back at him. From where I stood, I could see the lines of strain on the theatre-owner’s face, and his eyes looked wild. He was clearly struggling to contain his panic. I could sense the fear in him. It was quite a heady sensation, actually.
‘Officer,’ Toole said, ‘the gentleman has my permission to remain.’
‘That’s not really the point, sir,’ the policeman began, but Archibald was already in the room. In all the commotion, I too approached the door to the dressing-room, completely ignored, and stepped inside.
I shuddered and must have made a sound because Toole noticed me then.
‘And who the hell are you?’ he snapped.
‘He works for me,’ Archibald interceded.
I ignored them all, intent on soaking up the scene. It was a beautiful thing to behold. Both victims had been stabbed. The woman lay over the dead man. A knife was still embedded in her back. She was wearing a petticoat stained red. The walls were splashed with blood, the mirror over the dressing table was crimson-spattered, as though an artist had taken a brushful of paint and flicked it randomly. It took me only a moment to record the entire scene in my mind, every detail noted.
Toole was shaking his head. ‘All right, Thomson,’ he was yelling, ‘that’s quite enough, old chap.’
One of the policemen grabbed me by the arm and I saw the other take a grip on Archibald’s shoulder.
‘You really should talk to me, John,’ Archibald insisted as he was turned towards the door.
I caught a glimpse of Toole as I was escorted through the doorway to the corridor. He had lowered himself on to his haunches in the corner of the room, his head in his hands, sobbing quietly.
It was growing dark by the time I reached my lodgings on Wentworth Street. I lit the single gas lamp, moved my table directly beneath it and began to sketch.
I was so absorbed in my work that I completely lost track of time. When I pulled out my watch and looked at it, I was amazed to find that it was past midnight. It was only as I returned to the real world that I realised how cold and hungry I felt. But I was indifferent to my own condition. Staring into space, I relived the delicious scene at Toole’s Theatre. The sketches of it were very good. I was pleased with them. And then I began to think about Archibald, and our conversation at the Reform Club. Suddenly it all seemed to fall into place. What glorious serendipity it had been that I should meet your gracious husband, dear lady. What delectable good fortune that he should have seen my sketches from the Pav, and liked my work. What a splendid coincidence that he should want to have an artist working on his newspaper in the way in which I worked. He had unwittingly put me in the perfect position to facilitate my plans. For, during the course of the two days between meeting Archibald and going to lunch with him, I had drawn up my list of victims. I had catalogued their movements; ensured that they would each be suitable models for my work. And now, thanks to my new friend, the half-mad newspaper proprietor, I had a perfect excuse for being at the scene of any murders that might — by pure chance, of course — start occurring in and around Whitechapel. What a splendid prospect that was.
Chapter 32
London, Monday 26 January, evening
The theremin concert was held in one of the smaller halls of the Barbican. It was sold out. Pendragon had been secretly sceptical before the event, but after a few minutes he found himself enjoying it. He had heard of the theremin, though he knew very little about it. He remembered reading once that it was the only instrument played without any physical contact being made between the musician and the instrument itself. Instead, the performer moved their hands close to a pair of antennae, which modulated both sound and volume. But, not wishing to seem ignorant, he had done his homework in a spare five minutes at the station, reading what Wikipedia had to say about the instrument — how it had been a spin-off from a Russian government-funded experiment into proximity sensors. The instrument had become quite popular in the 1930s then fallen out of fashion, though Robert Moog, inventor of the synthesiser, had attributed his youthful fascination with the theremin as a key influence on his own innovation.
Tonight’s theremin player was the leading proponent of the art, a French woman named Francoise Guillaume. It helped that she was strikingly beautiful with long blonde locks and what was obviously, even from eight rows
