'Miss Hood? Dead? Why should she be?' Lord Alexander looked very worried. 'Was she ill? You should have told me!'
'I'm talking about the maidservant. Meg.'
'Oh, her,' Lord Alexander said absently, then frowned at his pipe. 'Do you recall those Spanish cigars that were all the rage when you were fighting against the forces of enlightenment in Spain?'
'Of course I do.'
'You can't get them anywhere, and I did like them.'
'Try Pettigrews in Old Bond Street,' Sandman said, sounding annoyed that his friend had ignored his concerns about Meg.
'I've tried. They have none. And I did like them.'
'I know someone who's thinking of importing them,' Sandman said, remembering Sergeant Berrigan.
'Let me know if they do,' Lord Alexander blew smoke towards the gilded cherubs on the ceiling. 'Are your friends in the Seraphim Club aware that you are pursuing Meg?'
'No.'
'So they have no cause to find and kill her. And if they had wished to kill her at the time of the Countess's murder, supposing that they did, indeed, perform that wicked deed, then they would have left her body with her mistress's corpse so that Corday could be convicted of both murders. Which suggests, does it not, that the girl is alive? It occurs to me, Rider, that your duties as an Investigator demand a great deal of logical deduction, which is why you are such a poor choice for the post. Still, you may always consult me.'
'You're very kind, Alexander.'
'I try to be, dear boy.' Lord Alexander, pleased with himself, beamed. 'I do try to be.'
A cheer sounded as boys went round the theatre extinguishing the lamps. The musicians gave a last tentative squeak, then waited for the conductor's baton to fall. Some of the audience in the pit began to whistle as a demand for the curtains to part. Most of the scene-shifting was done by sailors, men accustomed to ropes and heights, and, just as at sea, some of the signals were given by whistles and the audience's whistling betrayed their impatience, but the curtain stayed obstinately shut. More lamps were extinguished, then the big reflective lanterns at the edges of the stage were unmasked, the drummer gave a portentous roll and a player in a swathing cloak leapt from between the curtains to recite the prologue on the stage's wide apron:
'In Africa, so far from home,
A little lad was wont to roam.
Aladdin was our hero's name…'
He got no further before the audience drowned him in a cacophony of shouting, hissing and whistling. 'Show us the girl's pins!' a man yelled from the box next to Sandman. 'Show us her gams!'
'I think Vestris's supporters are here!' Lord Alexander shouted in Sandman's ear.
Mister Spofforth was looking ever more anxious. The newspaper writers were beginning to pay attention now that the crowd was in full cry, but the musicians, who had heard it all before, began to play and that slightly calmed the audience, who gave a cheer as the prologue was abandoned and the heavy scarlet curtains parted to reveal a glade in Africa. Oak trees and yellow roses framed an idol that guarded the entrance to a cave where a dozen white-skinned natives were sleeping. Sally was one of the natives, who were inexplicably dressed in white stockings, black velvet jackets and very short tartan skirts. Lord Alexander bellowed a cheer as the twelve girls got to their feet and began dancing. The Wheatsheaf's customers in the pit also cheered loudly and Vestris's supporters, assuming that the cheers came from Spofforth's paid claque, began to jeer. 'Bring on the girl!' the man in the next box demanded. A plum arced onto the stage to splatter against the idol, which looked suspiciously like a Red Indian's totem pole. Mister Spofforth was making helpless gestures to calm an audience that was determined to make mayhem, or at least the half who had been rented by Vestris's supporters were, while the other half, paid by Mister Spofforth, were too cowed to fight back. Some of the crowd had rattles that filled the high gilded hall with a crackling and echoing din. 'It's going to be very nasty!' Lord Alexander said with relish. 'Oh, this is splendid!'
The theatre's management must have believed that the sight of Miss Sacharissa Lasorda would calm the tumult, for the girl was pushed prematurely onto the stage. Mister Spofforth stood and began to applaud as she staggered out of the wings and his claque took their cue and cheered so lustily that they actually drowned the catcalls for a while. Miss Lasorda, who played the Sultan of Africa's daughter, was dark-haired and certainly pretty, but whether her legs deserved to be as famous as Vestris's was still a mystery, for she was wearing a long skirt embroidered with crescent moons, camels and scimitars. She seemed momentarily alarmed to find herself on stage, but then bowed to her supporters before beginning to dance.
'Show us your gams!' the man in the next box shouted.
'Skirt off! Skirt off! Skirt off!' the crowd in the stalls began to chant, and a shower of plums and apples hurtled onto the stage. 'Skirt off! Skirt off! Skirt off!' Mister Spofforth was still making calming gestures with his hands, but that only made him a target and he ducked as a well-aimed volley of fruit spattered his box.
Lord Alexander had tears of joy running down his cheeks. 'I do so like the theatre,' he said, 'dear sweet God, I do so love it. This must have cost that young fool two thousand pounds at the very least!'
Sandman did not hear what his friend had said and so leant towards him. 'What?' he asked.
He heard something smack into the wall at the back of the box and saw, in the shadows there, a puff of dust. It was only then that he realised a shot had been fired in the theatre and astonished, he gaped up to see a patch of smoke in the dim heights of an upper gallery box. A rifle, he thought. It had a different sound from a musket. He remembered the greenjackets at Waterloo, remembered the distinctive sound of their weapons, and then he realised someone had just shot at him and he was so shocked that he did not move for a few seconds. Instead he stared up at the spreading smoke and realised that the audience was going silent. Some had heard the shot over the raucous din of rattles, whistles and shouts, while others could smell the reeking powder smoke, then someone screamed in the upper gallery. Miss Lasorda stared upwards, mouth open.
Sandman snatched open the door to the box and saw two men running up the stairs with pistols in their hands. He slammed the door. 'Meet me in the Wheatsheaf,' he told Lord Alexander, and he swung his legs over the box's balustrade, paused a second, then jumped. He landed heavily, turning his left ankle and almost falling. The audience cheered, thinking Sandman's leap was part of the entertainment, but then some in the stalls began to scream for they could see the two men in Lord Alexander's box and they could see the pistols.
'Captain!' Sally shouted, and pointed to the wings.
Sandman stumbled. There was a pain in his ankle, a terrible pain that made him stagger towards the idol guarding the cave mouth. He turned to see the two men in the box, both pointing their pistols but neither dared fire onto the stage which was crowded with dancers. Then one of the men threw a leg over the box's gilded lip and Sandman limped into the wings where a man dressed as a harlequin and another with a blackened face, a tall crown and a magic lamp waited. Sandman pushed between them, staggered through a tangle of ropes, then down some stairs and, at the bottom, turned into a passage. He did not think his left ankle was broken, but he must have twisted it and every step was an agony. He stopped in the passage, his heart beating, and flattened himself against the wall. He heard the screams from the dancers on stage, then the pounding of feet down wooden stairs, and a second later a man came round the corner and Sandman tripped him, then stamped hard on the back of his neck. The man grunted and Sandman took the pistol out of his suddenly feeble hand. He turned the man over. 'Who are you?' he asked, but the man merely spat up at Sandman, who struck him with the pistol barrel, then fished in the man's pockets to find a handful of cartridges. He stood, wincing from the pain in his left leg, then limped down the passage to the stage door. More footsteps sounded behind him and he turned, pistol raised, but it was Sally running towards him with her street clothes bundled in a cloak.
'You all right?' she asked him.
'Twisted my ankle.'
'Bleeding ruckus back there,' Sally said, 'there's more fruit on the bloody deck than there is in the market.'
'Deck?' he asked.
'Stage,' she explained shortly, then pulled open the door.
'You should go back,' Sandman said.
'I should do a lot of bleeding things, but I don't,' Sally said, 'so come on.' She tugged him out into the street.
