Abracadaver Read Free

to a Gracious Personage I cannot as a loyal subject repeat in an open report. I committed them to my notebook, which Inspector Fredericks has secured in a sealed envelope in the station safe. Unfortunately the eighteen hundred members of the audience had sung three-quarters of the song before they realised the appalling significance of the words. Fagan was thereupon showered with fruit and booed from the stage. It was then that the assault on the stagehand took place.” What do you think the words said, Sarge?’
    ‘Better not speculate, Constable,’ warned Cribb, ‘but if it’s what I suppose, you can take it from me she wouldn’t like it.’
    Thackeray thought it prudent to turn to the next report.
    ‘This was on the following Monday, Sarge, September 20th. The sword-swallower, if you recall. I think this was downright mean. It must be painful enough pushing a blade down your throat to earn a living, without someone smearing a line of mustard halfway up the blade. The poor cove must have coughed something dreadful.’
    Cribb’s hand stole to his own throat in sympathy. ‘Bad enough when a fishbone goes astray,’ he said. ‘Where did this happen? The Tivoli Garden, wasn’t it? Near enough to Charing Cross Hospital, anyway. Now, what reports are left?’
    ‘The other incidents happened two weeks later, at the beginning of October, Sergeant. There was this—er—misfortune to Miss Penelope Tring, the Voice on the Swing. What a predicament! The constable on duty seems to have been quite well-placed to report it all so accurate.’
    ‘Damn it, Thackeray, you’re looking wistful. You weren’t at the Royal that night and we can’t stage it all again for your benefit.’
    ‘D’you think it could have been a pure accident, Sarge, not connected with the other happenings?’ He saw at once that Cribb did not.
    ‘I can see you got no further than the account of what happened to Miss Tring,’ Cribb admonished him. ‘If you’ll read on, you’ll see that the garment had been tampered with in three places. As soon as it came under pressure—’
    ‘Unspeakable!’ murmured Thackeray. ‘Quite so. It ain’t surprising she chose to jump off her swing. Landed in the stalls, broke her arm in two places and knocked out one of the audience. Don’t suppose she even felt the pain, though.’
    There was a moment’s pause while each detective lamented the mishap to Miss Tring. Cribb made a clicking sound with his tongue and Thackeray contemplatively straightened his shirt-cuffs. Then he cleared his throat. ‘Last of all there’s the accident at the Canterbury on October 9th. If this was deliberate I think we’re after a lunatic, Sarge. The girl in the box could have died. D’you really think it’s connected with the other incidents?’
    Cribb shrugged. ‘Can’t say. But if it is, we’re holding the wrong man in Newgate jail.’ His off-hand manner came a shade too readily. Thackeray had a sharp ear for deception.
    ‘There’s something else, ain’t there, Sarge? You wouldn’t trouble yourself with penny gaff performers getting blushes and broken limbs here and there unless something else was bothering you.’
    Cribb responded with a glare, and then produced a folded sheet of paper. ‘This was delivered to Stones End Police Station this morning.’
    Thackeray unfolded the paper, a tattered music hall bill for the Grampian in Blackfriars Road. Twenty or more acts were listed, none of any distinction, so far as he could tell.
    ‘D’you see the rings?’ Cribb asked.
    He examined the bill again. The second turn listed was ‘Gleaming Blade—Sensational Redskin Hatchet-Thrower.’
    ‘Sensational’ was ringed in black ink. Lower down, the word ‘Tragedy’ was similarly marked in a reference to ‘Jason Buckmaster, Tragedy Actor and Rhetorician.’ A third ring had been drawn around the single word ‘Tonight’, which appeared in heavy ornate type at the foot of the sheet.
    Thackeray spoke the three words