“It’s too expensive, that’s why. Oh, well, someday, when our ships come in.”
“That depends on who’s navigating. Want some cake? I feel like some ginger cake.”
“No, thanks. You go ahead.” Nigel got up and Basil watched him as he swivel-hipped his way through the luncheon crush to the food display. There are times when Violet is unmentionable. Old sly puss indeed. Very astute old sly puss. That’s why he’s in charge and we aren’t.
Alma hadn’t eaten much lunch, and Brunhilde commented as she removed the folding table which she had placed earlier in front of Alma in the drawing room, “Cook favors people who belong to the Clean Plate Club.”
So there’s a cook, thought Alma. That meant there were three she knew of on the premises now that Blinky was gone. It was nice to know that the man with the tic had the opportunity every so often to blow his own horn. “I don’t have much appetite,” said Alma. “My apologies to the cook.”
“I’m the cook.”
So there were still only two on the premises, Brunhilde and Dempsey. “Oh. Well, then, my apologies. I say, are there any newspapers about?”
“There’s nothing about you in them.”
“I was thinking of my husband.”
“Nothing about him either.”
Strange, thought Alma; how very strange.
Brunhilde said, “There’s a wireless in that wall panel near the bar, if you want to listen to it. The wall panel slides back. Just give it a nudge.”
“Thank you.” When Brunhilde had left, Alma crossed to the wall panel, nudged it, and the wireless materialized. She switched it on and came in at the end of the news break. A symphonic concert was announced, and Alma sat in a chair and tried to enjoy it, but her mind was elsewhere. She was back in Munich when they were shooting The Pleasure Garden. She was seeing Rudolf Wagner at the piano, and she was standing over him as he played his haunting little melody. Her face screwed up, she was trying to remember something, and then it came to her: the man with the disfigured face suddenly appearing from behind the scenery and then as suddenly disappearing again. The face. The murder. The melody. She switched off the wireless and crossed to the piano.
Do mi fa sol… sol fa sol.
She picked out the tune with her index finger. She didn’t hear Brunhilde returning.
La-la-la-la… la-la-la…
“Pretty little tune, that,” said Brunhilde, startling Alma, who turned and saw the big woman wielding a carpet sweeper.
“Yes, it is pretty. Do you know it?”
“Never heard it before in my life,” was the reply Alma got, and Alma was thinking, Brunhilde, you lie.
Peter Dowerty stood at the opposite side of Jennings’ desk, staring down at his superior, who was speaking on the phone to Sir Arthur Willing. He said an occasional “I see” or “That’s good” or sometimes a noncomittal “Urn,” and then thanked Sir Arthur and hung up. Jennings told Dowerty, “They’re at the circus, Hitchcock and the woman.” He sat back in his swivel chair. “A village named Lingate.”
“Don’t know it, sir.”
“Didn’t expect you would. What’s your problem? You look a bit anxious.”
“It’s Angus McKellin’s da. He’s been on to me from Glasgow. He wants Angus shipped home right away.”
“I’ve ordered the autopsy. It’s a matter of form.”
I told his father there’d have to be an autopsy and he told me where to shove it.”
“Sounds as if we could use the old boy here.”
“He didn’t have kind words for us, Mr. Jennings.”
“So few people do, Dowerty, so few people do.” He sighed and then said, “You can make arrangements to ship the body. It’ll be ready to travel by around five o’clock or so.”
It’ll be ready to travel, thought Dowerty as he left the office, ready to travel. He thought of his mother when he told her he was intending to join the force and remembered her admonishing words, “I don’t want you coming home in a pine box. If you’re planning on coming home in a pine box, don’t come home at all. Why can’t you be a ribbon clerk like your brother Percy?” Because it’s seeing Percy as a ribbon clerk that drove me to a more masculine pursuit, that’s why, Mum. He wondered if Jennings would object to his passing the hat to raise the money for a wreath for Angus McKellin.
Before reaching the circus, Hitch phoned Jennings and detailed his progress. He learned the false Lemuel Peach had been knifed to death. Poetic justice, thought Hitchcock. “Be careful, be very careful,” warned Jennings. Hitchcock assured him he would, hung up, and rejoined Nancy Adair. Almost immediately, they found the circus in a meadow at the other end of Lingate. There was to be one performance only, and that wasn’t due to start for another hour, but people were beginning to arrive. To Hitchcock, the one-ring tent looked somewhat shaky, and the adjoining tent that housed the freaks looked even shakier. There was a line of kiosks and wagons offering games and refreshments, and spielers were barking their wares. For some strange reason, the small circus orchestra, drum, piano, pipe organ, two trumpets, and a saxophone player, were all in blackface, like members of a minstrel show. They were placed on a platform at the entrance to the main tent and would move inside just before the performance began. They weren’t very good, but they were loud and were playing the circus staple, “The March of The Gladiators.”
“Does this bring back your childhood?” Hitchcock asked Nancy, assuming there was a childhood to bring back, whether she wanted it retrieved or not.
“I never went to the circus,” said Nancy, her nose wrinkling with distaste at the odor coming from the animal compound. “What a terrible smell. Where are we going?”
“I thought I’d have my fortune told.” He was pointing to a sign over a tepee that read,
MADAME LAVINIA.
FORTUNES TOLDSIXPENCE.
“And what am I to do while you’re
