Extraordinaires 1 Read Free Page B

and were swept towards the lights of Alexandra Road ahead.
    â€˜Coming with you. You’re my project, after all.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜You interest me, Kingsley Ward. Strange behaviour always does.’
    A man who had been leaning against the brick wall of the theatre straightened and waved. ‘Mr Ward! I have to speak to you!’
    The man was small – five feet five or six – and well dressed, with distinctive oval wire-rimmed spectacles. He had a thick moustache and Kingsley recognised him as the man in the balcony, the one who had been watching so attentively.
    â€˜Sorry, sir,’ Evadne called, hustling Kingsley along, ‘we’re on a mission.’
    â€˜A mission?’ Kingsley asked. He looked back, but the little man had disappeared, swallowed up in the tide of performers. ‘Where?’
    â€˜The station first.’ She pushed her spectacles up on her nose. They were small and rectangular and slightly tinged blue, which Kingsley found odd. Hadn’t they been clear when she found him under the stage curtain? ‘Then we’re off to London.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜I’m coming with you. It’ll give Mr Bernadetti a chance to calm down. Then I can have a nice chat with him and get your career back on track.’
    â€˜Because I’m your project.’
    â€˜That’s part of it.’
    â€˜You’re sure he’ll overlook this fiasco?’
    â€˜Sure?’ Evadne donned a pair of blue gloves she took from the pocket of her coat, then put a finger to her very pale lips. Not as pale as her skin, Kingsley noted, but with only a ghost of rosiness, the merest blush of colour. ‘I wouldn’t say that. Certainty is the refuge of the small minded.’
    â€˜Really?’ Kingsley rallied. This breathtaking young woman needed to know that he wasn’t entirely a dunderhead. ‘Are you sure it isn’t the capital of Siam?’
    She eyed him. ‘A nice attempt at levity, in a non sequitur kind of way, and a sign you’re recovering from whatever overcame you.’ She held up a hand, interrupting him. ‘No explanations, not yet. Let me talk Billy Bernadetti around. He won’t want his dirty laundry aired and I happen to know where he keeps stuff that should never see the light of day.’
    Kingsley glanced back down the lane. Artistes were still plunging out of the stage door, most of them in costume – plenty of feathers, tassels, that sort of thing. His fears were assuaged somewhat by the carnival atmosphere.
    He frowned.
    â€˜What is it?’ Evadne asked.
    â€˜That man. The one with the spectacles. Have you seen him before?’
    â€˜Him?’ Evadne made a face. ‘He’s been here all week, sniffing about. I thought he might be one of Maisie’s beaus.’
    â€˜Don’t you like Maisie?’
    Maisie was the most famous performer on the bill, a sweet-voiced and pretty singer who had done well in West End theatres until, Kingsley had been told by one of the more gossipy mime artists, a mysterious falling out with a certain music hall owner.
    â€˜It’s not her. It’s her monkey.’
    â€˜It’s a harmless pet,’ he said, and remembered how on his first rehearsal he’d barely avoided being sconed by an orange it had accidentally dropped from the fly tower. Or had it been accidental?
    â€˜I can’t abide monkeys. They disquiet me.’
    â€˜Monkeys? Give them a banana and they’re your friend for life.’
    â€˜They’re too human, to my way of thinking. Made pets of or caged up, scheming and thinking vengeful thoughts.’
    â€˜Vengeful thoughts? Really?’
    â€˜Really.’
    Kingsley looked back. The little man had gone. To see a singer about a monkey?
    â€˜Did he look familiar to you?’
    Evadne looked thoughtful. ‘Perhaps.’ She shrugged. ‘Maisie’s beaus tend to be prominent men. He’s probably a