Wouldn't It Be Deadly (33 page)

Lady Gresham's butler stood knocking on Rosalind's dressing room door. It appeared Eliza wasn't the only one waiting to see Miss Page.

Blimey. Why couldn't Harrison dislike actresses as much as he disliked his actor brother? She remembered the Marchioness said he was eager to see Miss Page perform as Ophelia. And that he'd been given the night off so he could wear his best clothes. Eliza sighed as she watched him from around the corner. Dressed in black tie and tails, he looked anything but a servant. No doubt Lady Gresham had sent him to the best tailor in London. Even when doing his duties as a butler, Harrison was twice as handsome as most men. Tonight he appeared more princely than Hamlet.

She spied a large bouquet of flowers in his hand. Obviously Harrison thought he'd be a fine match with Rosalind. Ain't he in for a surprise, Eliza thought. Time was running out. Rosalind would exit the stage any moment. If she waited here, Harrison would see the actress at the same time as Eliza, and she'd lose her chance to speak with Rosalind in private.

Better beat him to the punch. If she took a shortcut through the costume area, then descended the stairs, Eliza would be right offstage as soon as the curtain came down between acts.

A burst of distant applause signaled the burial scene had ended. She quickened her steps through the clothes racks standing along the corridor. Confronted with the armor of the ghost, Eliza snuck around it but her skirt got caught. She tugged to release it. Instead she felt herself pulled forward. Reaching through the racks to find what had snagged her gown, Eliza let out a strangled cry when someone grabbed her arm. A second tug pulled her through the rack itself and into the next row of hanging costumes.

In horror, she stared at Major Redstone.

*   *   *

Higgins hadn't been this bored since his mother forced him to sit through a performance by the Ballets Russes with that Nijinsky fellow decked out as a blasted rose. At least Rosalind Page was prettier to look at, and her Ophelia was impressive. Even he found her mad scene moving. But he couldn't forget that her best performance was not as the Shakespearean heroine, but playing Rosalind Page herself. If the audience knew how great an actress she was, they'd bring the house down at curtain call. Then there was that abysmal man starring as Hamlet. Couldn't they find a better actor in London to play the melancholy Dane? This fellow's performance was weak as mother's milk. He did enjoy Mr. Barrymore's Guildenstern. Such a shame the young man preferred light comic roles. Higgins suspected he'd make a passable Hamlet.

The time passed even slower when Pickering and Redstone never arrived. Just how delayed were those Welsh trains anyway? If only Eliza was in the box with him. She'd keep him entertained, especially if he asked her to mimic all the actors. And since she'd memorized the play, he was sure she would be far more interesting than what was actually happening onstage. But the poor girl was stuck with the Eynsford Hills tonight. Every time he looked down to where she sat, Freddy was fast asleep beside her. It almost made him like the silly boy.

Higgins gave a great sigh, and his mother threw him a forbidding look. He hadn't seen Jack Shaw since the play began. Numerous times Higgins borrowed his mother's opera glasses to scan the theater, but he caught no sign of the inspector. He whiled away a good hour trying to figure out which of the men in the audience were Scotland Yard detectives. Another hour was spent guessing where each of the actors hailed from. Polonius was Aberdeen born and bred, while Queen Gertrude was a native of Coventry. Higgins found it amusing that an actress as talented as Miss Ellen Terry had not managed to erase traces of her West Midlands dialect.

He didn't dare converse with his mother; she abhorred anyone who spoke during a theatrical performance. Just now, she seemed riveted by Hamlet and Laertes struggling with each other in Ophelia's grave. A pity Laertes couldn't kill Hamlet a scene early and save the audience from another thirty minutes of bad acting. At least the swordfight in the final scene ought to liven things up.

Playing about with the opera glasses again, Higgins heard the door to their box swing open. He swiveled around. “It's about time, Jack. I wondered where you were all this time.”

“It's me, old fellow,” a voice whispered back.

Colonel Pickering tiptoed into the box and sat in the chair behind him. “Sorry to be so infernally late,” he said in Higgins's ear. “The train was delayed for hours in Cardiff.”

Higgins looked at the door to the box, but no one else came in. “Where's Redstone?”

Pickering nodded a greeting to Mrs. Higgins, who cleared her throat in irritation. The Colonel leaned forward again. “Reddy needed to stop at the club first. His shoes got mud spattered in Cardiff. He has an extra pair in the trunk he keeps at his rooms there.”

“Have you seen Inspector Shaw?” Higgins asked, growing alarmed.

Pickering shook his head. “I assume he's in the theater.”

“Gentlemen, please,” Mrs. Higgins said, a note of warning in her voice.

Higgins stood. “What are you doing, Henry?” his mother whispered.

He leaned over the box, scanning the seats, aisles, and other galleries with the opera glasses. On his third sweep, he spotted a familiar profile. Jack sat on the aisle near the rear of the theater. “Inspector,” Higgins said in a loud voice.

Several people glanced over at him. “Shhh.”

Fortunately Jack looked up. Higgins waved and said, “Get your men and meet me in the lobby.”

Jack sprang out of his seat.

“Henry, I am never coming to the theater with you again,” Mrs. Higgins said.

He next turned the opera glasses on the orchestra seats up front. Higgins was reassured to see Mrs. Eynsford Hill and Clara as restless and distracted as ever. And Freddy was still asleep. But the seat beside Freddy was empty.

“Bloody hell!”

“Henry, whatever is the matter?” Pickering stood beside him.

Higgins pointed below. “Eliza's gone.”

 

NINETEEN

“What are you doing here, Major Redstone?” Eliza fought to keep her voice calm.

“I might ask you the same.” Redstone's smile seemed as kind as ever. But his gaze was too intense. “And why so formal? I thought we were friends, Eliza.”

She hesitated. “Why are you backstage, Aubrey?”

“When I saw you leave your seat, I assumed you were heading for the lobby salon. But you slipped through a side door instead. I thought it rather curious.”

Eliza didn't like the fact that he had been watching her rather than the play. Freddy would have a proper fit when he heard, assuming she lived to tell him. “I came backstage to have a word with Miss Page. I find it strange you're hiding in the wardrobe racks.”

“Hiding? Hardly that. I followed you because we need to speak.”

His grip on her arm relaxed, and Eliza let out a sigh of relief. “Calling out my name would have frightened me less than pulling me into these costumes.”

“I never meant to frighten you, my dear. But I didn't want to spoil the performance. If we make too loud a racket, the actors onstage might hear us.”

Thank heaven for that, Eliza thought. If he didn't let her go in another minute, she planned to yell as loud as a Covent Garden fishmonger. “I can't breathe among all this fabric. Why don't we talk in the hallway? No one will hear us there.”

He gave her a knowing look. “But we wouldn't be alone, not with that butler hanging about Miss Page's door.”

“What do you want to say to me?” she asked.

Redstone stared at her for a long moment. “The book of poems missing from my luggage at the club. Did you think I wouldn't find out you had stolen back
The White Rose,
Eliza?”

Hang the performance. With a murderer clinging to her arm, Eliza didn't give a fig about
Hamlet
. She started to yell, but Redstone clapped his hand over her mouth. He pulled her tight against his chest. Eliza was certain he could hear her heart pounding with fear. How stupid not to scream as soon as she saw him. That was the problem with trying to be a well-mannered young lady. Being polite was a bloody nuisance.

She should have kicked the blighter in his orchestra stalls the moment he pulled her in among the cloaks and armor. It was not too late. Squirming to get free, Eliza landed several hard kicks to his shins. That made him only tighten his grip.

“Stop, Eliza. I won't hurt you.”

“Not bloody likely,” she tried to say, but his hand still covered her mouth.

“Are you mad? I never harmed a lady in my life. And I certainly would not lay a hand on you.”

At that obvious lie, Eliza stared hard at him.

A sheepish expression crossed his face. “My apologies for the manhandling, but you leave me little choice. You have only yourself to blame for taking the book.”

She jerked her face free long enough to yell, “It's my book!”

He clapped his hand once again over her mouth. “You have no right to that book, nor did Nepommuck. I've only taken back what rightfully belongs to me. Or did you never wonder who that anonymous poet might be?”

Eliza stopped struggling.

“Yes, that's right. I was the poet. I wrote those poems fifteen years ago for the only woman I have ever loved. And I had just two copies printed and bound: one for me, one for her. The fact that it came into the possession of that vile Hungarian is intolerable.”

As Eliza twisted about, Horatio's doublet from Act 2 fell over their heads. They both jumped. “Damn, this won't do,” Redstone muttered.

Holding her close, he peeked out from the hanging costumes, then dragged her around the corner to the prop room. Once he shut the door behind them, it was dark as night. Eliza panicked. The cramped room, fear, and the lack of air made her dizzy. When Redstone turned on the electric light overhead, her knees buckled. She must have blacked out for a second. There was no other explanation for how she found herself perched on the velvet stool Ophelia used in Act 1.

Redstone crouched before her. Perspiration beaded his high forehead, and he looked as unhappy and frightened as she did.

“Please don't yell or scream, Eliza. And don't make me gag you. I don't enjoy holding you prisoner.”

“Then let me go.”

He shook his head. “I never meant for you to be involved in this. But you are.”

Eliza wiped her damp brow. “Nepommuck simply gave me the book to use for my lessons. I never asked for it. And I was going to give you the blooming book. Don't know why you up and stole it.”

“The longer it remained in your possession, the more likely the police would discover it. Even a cursory investigation would reveal where the book was written and by whom.”

“Were you afraid they'd find out you came from Lancashire and not Northumberland?”

Redstone looked startled. “How do you know that?”

“Professor Higgins told me. You were lucky he wasn't there that night when you lied about being from Northumberland.”

“No doubt he also figured out exactly where in Lancashire.”

She nodded. “Rossendale. Just like the White Rose.”

He frowned. “My ill luck to share the hospitality of a man renowned for his knowledge of English dialects.”

“What does it matter if you came from Rossendale? Unless you committed some horrible crime there.” She grew more nervous. “Did you?”

“My only crime was being born into a family that boasted an ancestry as ancient as the Earl of Thornton, but not as wealthy. If I had been richer, Arabelle Brandt's parents would have allowed us to wed. But the Redstone properties weren't enough. The Brandts were distantly related to the House of Saxony, although they'd grown impoverished in their native Germany. They sold their angelic girl to that English pig of an earl.”

His face contorted with rage. Eliza shrank back. She didn't understand what he was talking about. Who were the Brandts?

“My poor Arabelle was barely seventeen and innocent,” he continued. “Far too innocent to be handed over to a man who had already brutalized three wives. How do you think I felt to see her married off to that monster? That's why I left England when I was twenty-two and never returned until now. I couldn't bear being on the same continent as the Earl of Thornton, let alone the same country.”

Eliza glanced at the closed door. Didn't they need any of these props for the final act? At some point, she hoped even Freddy woke up from his nap and came looking for her. She'd also like to know what in blazes Jack and his detectives were doing out front. Wasn't the plan to keep an eye on Redstone as soon as he arrived? She didn't blame Higgins. Sometimes Scotland Yard seemed as useless as a suffragette in a sporting house.

Best stall for time. Eventually the play must end, and someone out there might notice she was missing. “You wrote the poems for this Arabelle lady?”

He nodded. “I called her my white rose because her golden hair turned white in the sunlight. We fell in love soon after we met. I wrote
The White Rose
when I thought her family would agree to our marriage. The book of love poems was meant to be a wedding gift to my bride. Then the Brandts refused my suit. I begged her to run away with me, but she lived in terror of the Earl. She feared what he would do to her family—and her—if she was caught trying to leave him. So she became the fourth wife of the Earl of Thornton. And I joined the army and went to India.”

“But I don't see why the police would care that you wrote love poems.”

Redstone gave her a sardonic look. “Because the book links me to Nepommuck.”

“How did Nepommuck get his hands on it?”

“Although I left England, I never forgot about Arabelle. We corresponded secretly for years with the help of a trustworthy maid. That was how I learned of Thornton's increasing hatred of her German accent. He brought in one private tutor after the other to make her speak like an Englishwoman. But none were successful until last year when he hired a Hungarian aristocrat to journey to Lancashire and rid his wife of her coarse German speech.”