Ha'penny by Walton Jo

Author:Walton, Jo [Walton, Jo]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780765358080
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2010-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

18

The Siddons was a slightly shabby eighteenth-century theater on the Strand, opposite the Strand Palace Hotel, where Carmichael had once successfully apprehended a jewel thief. He didn’t think he’d ever been to the Siddons. It tended to show highbrow and slightly depressing plays. The facade was painted to be enticing, but in the full sunlight it looked a little overblown. “Have you ever been inside here, sergeant?” he asked Royston.

“Saw a French thing about a miser here a few years ago with my Mrs.,” Royston said. “Very funny.”

The front doors to the theater were firmly closed. There was a man up a ladder fixing letters on the theater’s marquee. “Ask him where we go in,” Carmichael instructed Royston.

“Oy,” Royston called, and when he had the man’s attention, “how do we get inside?”

“Theater’s closed for rehearsals,” the man called down.

“We’ve an appointment with Mr. Bannon,” Carmichael said.

The man peered down at them. “Oh. Well, go around the back to the stage door, then.”

“Where’s that?” Royston asked.

“The stage door,” the man repeated, more loudly, in the tone used for addressing idiots and foreigners. He pointed down an alley.

“After you, sergeant,” Carmichael said.

The back of the theater was black, dingy, and run-down. Evidently all the attractions were kept for the front. The stage door was opened to their knock by a uniformed doorman.

“We have an appointment to see Mr. Bannon,” Carmichael said.

“He’s rehearsing,” the doorman said, dubiously, looking them up and down.

“Tell him Inspector Carmichael and Sergeant Royston, of Scotland Yard,” Royston said.

“Well, you’d better come in then,” the doorman said, ungraciously.

“Did you know Lauria Gilmore?” Carmichael asked.

“Seen her a time or two,” the doorman said. “And she wasn’t a communist, no matter what they’re saying. She used to tip well, and everybody knows communists don’t tip.”

“So where do we go?” Carmichael asked.

“Down the corridor, past all the doors, straight on through the pass door, and straight on again until you come to the other pass door at the end. Then go down the stairs. That’ll put you in the stalls. Mr. Bannon will either be there, or on the stage, depending if he’s acting or directing, and if he’s on the stage you can call up to him. But I wouldn’t if I were you. Jackie, that’s his assistant, she’ll be in the stalls. I’d have a word with her and she’ll pick her moment to interrupt.”

“Thank you,” Carmichael said.

As they walked down the ill-lit passage, he murmured to Royston, “Did you know that communists don’t tip?”

“I’d heard it before, sir,” Royston admitted. “Apparently they see it as a sign of thinking people are below them. An insult to the worker, that kind of thing.”

“So nobody tips in Red Russia?”

“Ah. I heard that in Red Russia there’s a lot of outright bribing going on if you want to get things done. It’s communists here make a point of thanking people under them, but not tipping.” Royston pushed open the first pass door. “It doesn’t make them very popular, as you might imagine.”

“Is it actually true?” Carmichael asked, going through into another dimly lit stretch of corridor.

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