Blood and Circuses (4 page)

Robinson scanned the face, trying to avoid the gaze of the eyes. She had been quite tall, slim, with manicured hands. Her hair was cropped short and there was an odd, oily glaze on the skin. He touched the cold cheek and sniffed. Cold cream. At least the beautifully formed face bore no expression but faint surprise. The faces that had died hard still grimaced in Robinson’s sleep.

Constable Harris, who had searched the floor, carefully avoiding the pool of drying blood, produced his findings. A small bottle which had contained a proprietary sleeping drug, now empty, two crumpled handkerchiefs, a sleeve link, two buttons, a torn strip of flimsy paper with a little blood on the edge, a stick of kohl, and a small notebook covered in red suede.

‘That paper might have been used to wrap the knife,’ observed Robinson. ‘Nothing else? No? In that case, Sergeant Grossmith, you’ll want to start searching for the murder weapon. You heard the description, Terry?’

Sergeant Grossmith nodded. He left, taking the second constable with him. Robinson returned to the corpse. The wound which had killed her was terrible. The little doctor was rendered almost pleasant in the face of such sudden death. ‘She can’t have felt a thing,’ he murmured. The blue eyes in the wax doll’s face stared Robinson out of countenance.

Constable Tommy Harris had opened the wardrobe and was examining the garments. He called to Robinson, who left the dead woman thankfully.

‘Yes, what is it?’

‘There must have been two people living in this room, sir. Look. Gents’ trousers and suits and ties and shoes. And ladies’ clothes and er . . . garments and shoes, too.’

The constable blushed a little and Robinson grinned. He laid a pair of trousers over his charm and measured them against a close-fitting dress.

‘I think it’s stranger than that, son. I haven’t seen you before. What’s your name?’

‘Constable Harris, sir.’

‘Who lives in the house and where are they?’

‘Sir, the landlady Mrs Witherspoon, she was took sick and she’s lying down. A showgirl called Miss Minton, she’s with the old lady. A bloke who’s a stage magician—Sheridan is his real name—he’s downstairs in the parlour. And a lady called Miss Parkes who’s an actress is there too, and my partner’s with them. Sir.’

‘Good. And what’s all this about the roof?’

‘Er . . . I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t just someone oversleeping, sir, so I climbed out on the roof and it was steeper than I thought and real slippery. When I saw him—I mean her—lying all bloody, I lost balance and Miss Parkes ran out onto the roof and got me back. She’s as light as a cat on them glassy leads.’

‘I see. Unusual skill for an actress.’

Robinson eyed the uncomfortable Harris. There was something that he was not telling his superior in rank. Finally Tommy Harris said reluctantly, ‘I recognised her, sir. She’s the woman who killed her husband in the circus, ten years ago. Her name was . . .’

‘Oh, indeed. Mrs Fantoccini. So they let her out, did they? I remember that case. Her husband beat her and was unfaithful and stole her earnings and gambled them. Nasty. Then he suggested that she supplement their income in an unacceptable way. No wonder she greased his trapeze. I went to see her when the kids were young. She was as graceful as a bird, used to do somersaults in the air. Hmm. And she had no difficulty walking that very dangerous roof?’

‘No, sir.’

Robinson replaced the garments and went to examine the window. It was open.

‘Was the window open when you looked in?’ he asked.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘No dust on the sill. Mrs W keeps a clean house. Pity. Not a smear. No sign that something has come in. Or someone. Doctor?’

‘Yes, what is it?’

‘Could a woman have struck that blow?’

The little doctor pushed his glasses up onto his forehead and stared. ‘She’d have to be a pretty unusual woman. That blow would have felled an ox.’

‘Ah, but the woman I have in mind is unusual,’ said Detective Inspector Robinson. ‘Come on, Constable. I want to meet Miss Parkes.’

He left the police surgeon filling out his certificate and walked down the corridor, with Constable Harris plucking at his sleeve. At the head of the stairs he turned.

‘Well, Constable?’

‘Sir . . . Miss Parkes . . .’

‘Yes, what about her?’

‘Sir, she saved my life.’

‘Yes,’ said Detective Inspector Robinson and went down the stairs. ‘So she did.’

In the drinking pit called the Blue Diamond, further down Brunswick Street, Mr Albert Ellis was taking a dim view of certain political developments. His employees were nervous. Hell’s foundations were prone to quiver when the boss of the Fitzroy Boys took a dim view of a situation.

Mr Ellis was small, dark and dressed in a navy suit. His distinguishing feature, according to the criminal history sheet kept by Sergeant Grossmith, was teeth like a rat. He was acutely aware of these intrusive dental adornments, so he never smiled.

Wholesale Louis, the trader in dubious goods, looked at the Mad Pole, whose name was Janucz and who could bend sheet metal in his hands. The Mad Pole looked at Mr Ellis, as it was no use expecting sense from his bench mate Cyclone Freddy. It was well known that since Freddy had wound up his career as a tent fighter by king-hitting the local constable into next week, he had not been as acute as formerly, which was not very acute anyway. He was also prone to take offence if anyone looked at him. No sensible man wanted to cause Cyclone Freddy to take offence.

‘What’s the problem, Boss?’ asked Louis.

‘It’s like this. The Brunnies have been moving into our territory. They pulled that payroll robbery at the shoe factory. I just got word from a dog about it. It was Jack Black Blake’s boys. They got inside information from that bitch Pretty Iris.’ Wholesale Louis nodded. The others sat waiting to be told what to do. Albert Ellis aimed and fired at his men like a sniper. ‘We can’t have that. Can we?’ He raised his eyes. ‘Well, can we?’

‘No, Boss,’ said Wholesale Louis, and the others echoed him. ‘But,’ added Louis, ‘we’re short-handed with Jonesy gone into the bush on that job. When you expecting him back, Boss?’

‘When the job’s done. Might be a couple of months. That don’t matter, Louis. We can handle the Brunnies one-handed. Something will have to be done,’ said Mr Ellis slowly. ‘I got an idea. Is Lizard Elsie still in the front room?’

CHAPTER THREE

And I the aged, where go I
A winter-frozen bee, a slave
Death-shapen as the stones that lie
Hewn on a dead man’s grave:

Euripides (translation, Gilbert Murray)
The Trojan Women

Miss Amelia Parkes and Mr Robert Sheridan were sitting uncomfortably on the edge of the horsehair sofa in Mrs Witherspoon’s plush parlour. The magician was practising passes. The constable left to watch the pair was fascinated by the way an ordinary coin flickered and vanished in his long fingers. The room smelt of fatigue. Miss Parkes had composed herself, feet together, back straight, eyes fixed on the door. Mr Sheridan muttered, ‘Oops-a-daisy,’ and produced an egg from the constable’s ear.

The magician was suitably tall and dark, with an oval face and the beginnings of a double chin. His hair was as black as stove-polish and he had dark brown eyes. His skin was pale, his hands long and fine, and his whole person neat and stylish. Even with the stress of murder and his own apparent grief, he was, Miss Parkes reflected disagreeably, as crisp as though he were straight out of his box. She herself was conscious that her sojourn on the roof had not improved her stockings and that her hair was standing on end. She was also cringingly afraid to her soul of the law and the police. Even the cool, official tone of the detective inspector’s voice outside the door flooded her system with terror, so that she thought she might faint. She shivered.

‘I say, Miss Parkes, are you all right?’ asked Mr Sheridan.

‘No, I’m not all right,’ she snapped. ‘There’s been a murder in the house. That can really ruin a nice peaceful Sunday. And I liked Mr Christopher.’

‘No need to bite a chap’s head off,’ he said, hurt. ‘You know how long I have loved her. I’m all jittery with the thought that she’s dead . . . my beautiful Christine. I even muffed that simple pass. My hands are shaking. I wonder how long they’re going to keep us here?’

‘Until they are ready to talk to us.’

‘You look white as a sheet. Would you like to lie down?’

‘No. I’m quite all right, Mr Sheridan.’

‘You don’t look it,’ he said. ‘You sure that you . . . ?’

‘For God’s sake, man, leave me alone!’ Her voice rose to a dangerous pitch and Mr Sheridan moved from beside her to a chair near the door. He was frightened of hysterical women. Miss Parkes’s eyes were glittering and her hands were clutching at the arms of the sofa.

The constable standing by the door said soothingly, ‘Not long now, Miss, I can hear them coming down the stairs. Then I can get that half-witted girl to make you some tea.’

‘Who is the officer in charge?’

‘Detective Inspector Robinson, Miss.’

The name evidently meant nothing to Miss Parkes. She clutched even harder at the sofa and said, ‘What are they doing, Constable?’

‘Searching the house, Miss. Looking for the murder weapon.’

‘Weapon?’ she asked through lips that seemed to be numb.

‘Yes, Miss. The knife.’

‘I see.’

Footsteps sounded in the hall and the door opened. Tommy Harris looked in.

‘Mr Sheridan, the detective inspector would like to see you now,’ he said. ‘Hello, Miss Parkes. I’ve brought you a cuppa.’

The attending constable accompanied Mr Sheridan out of the room. Constable Harris gave Miss Parkes a cup of strong, sweet tea and said, ‘You drink that, Miss, and you’ll feel better.’

Miss Parkes, who had learned to be obedient to authority, drank the scalding tea and began to feel better, as ordered.

The magician was ushered into the presence of an affable policeman. He had brown hair, brown eyes and utterly undistinguished features, but his voice was deep and pleasant.

‘Mr Robert Sheridan, is it? Sit down, sir, we won’t keep you long. Now, you’re the only man in the house and so we have to ask you to do something unpleasant. I hope you’ll help us.’

‘Yes?’ asked Sheridan.

‘We understood that the occupant of the room was a male person but it seems that the corpse is a woman. We want an identification. Can you do that for us?’

‘Yes,’ said Sheridan, ‘but . . .’

‘But?’

‘I don’t think that you understand about Christine,’ said Sheridan slowly. ‘She was . . . he was . . . one of them that is born wrong. Born both, if you see what I mean. Christine and Christopher as well. Nothing for her to do but join the circus.’

‘You mean that the woman was a man?’ asked Grossmith incredulously. Robinson smiled.

Mr Sheridan protested. ‘She was so beautiful, I can’t believe she’s dead. She wouldn’t ever look at me, of course. She had the best attributes of both sexes. But she was a freak,’ he said flatly.

‘And Mrs Witherspoon knew about him? I mean, her?’

‘Of course. Christine worked for Farrell’s Circus. She had a turn, half-man and half-woman, you know.’

‘Androgyne,’ said Robinson. ‘I’ve heard of it.’

‘She wasn’t an “it”,’ protested the magician. ‘She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I loved her and I don’t care who knows it and you can keep your sneers to yourself, you stupid cop!’

Terence Grossmith snorted. ‘He was a freak, as you said. Someone did him a favour, killing him.’

Mr Sheridan howled and lunged for Grossmith’s throat, who subdued him without difficulty and sat him down on the chair. The magician muffled his face in a silk handkerchief out of which another dove fluttered. Detective Inspector Robinson turned on his colleague a glare of such actinic brilliance that he subsided with a muttered apology.

‘Calm down, Mr Sheridan,’ said Robinson. ‘Now, tell me about yourself. You work for Farrell’s Circus?’

‘I am a stage magician,’ said Mr Sheridan loftily, putting his handkerchief back in his sleeve with an automatic flourish. ‘I have worked for all the big circuses. Sole Brothers. Wirth’s. But they were unappreciative of my talents. So I condescended to join Farrell’s. Farrell’s is not what I am used to, but some experience in these smaller shows can give a magician a new freshness.’

Robinson knew overmuch protestation when he heard it. Mr Sheridan was evidently not the best of circus magicians, and his affectations of speech were beginning to grate on the policeman.

‘Come along, Mr Sheridan, let’s have a look at the deceased.’

‘I can’t stand the sight of blood,’ said Sheridan edgily. ‘Especially not hers, not Christine’s.’ He began to sob again. ‘Couldn’t you ask Miss Parkes? Cool as a cucumber in emergencies, she is. Blood never bothered her. I remember when Tillie cut off half her finger with a chopper. Miss Parkes was the only one who kept her head. She held the cut together, got the silly minx to a doctor and saved the finger too. And she hauled your constable off the roof—and that’s thirty feet high. I would have been terrified.’

‘That’s very interesting,’ observed the sergeant. ‘Not afraid of the sight of blood, eh? And her with a . . . sorry, sir.’

Detective Inspector Robinson reflected that only Providence knew how he was tried by his colleagues. He switched off the glare and escorted Mr Sheridan upstairs.

The pool of blood was drying. The police photographer had hauled his apparatus up the stairs and down again. The police surgeon had made a discovery.

‘I say, Robinson, look at this,’ he said, revealing the lower part of the corpse. ‘I was wrong about her being female. This is an hermaphrodite. Perfect blend of male and female—oh, I do beg your pardon,’ he added as he sighted Mr Sheridan. He drew the blankets up and stood aside to allow Sheridan sight of the face.

Mr Sheridan paled and leaned on his attendant constable.

‘That’s Christine. Oh, Lord, Christine, my Christine!’ he gasped. ‘My hat, look at all that blood . . .’ and he fainted into a tidy heap in the doorway.

Detective Inspector Robinson was admitted into Mrs Witherspoon’s room. It was dark, reeked of roses, and was the most cluttered room he had ever seen. The walls were hung with theatrical posters. Every available space was filled with tables which supported vases and knick-knacks and souvenirs and framed photographs, most of them depicting a buxom young Mrs Witherspoon beaming at the camera. On the wall was a large oil painting of the same subject, dressed in flowing draperies and contemplating a sheaf of lilies. Miss Minton, subdued and scared, was sitting beside a large bed heaped with pillows, in the depths of which Mrs Witherspoon lay, retching weakly and crying like a torrent.