‘Mrs Gilver,’ I said, ‘and this is Mr Osborne. Are you the stage-manager?’
‘No, no, no,’ said the little man. ‘I’m the door-keeper. What name’ll we have you down by? Here – you’re not amateurs, are you? We haven’t come to that?’
‘Oh, no – you misunderstand,’ I said, ignoring Alec’s quiet chuckle. ‘We’re not an act. Goodness me, no! We’ve come to talk to . . . well, you, I suppose. How fortunate that we came upon you right away.’
‘You’re not an act?’ said the man, looking between the two of us and the two dogs. ‘Pity. I’d have liked to see it. And God knows what we’ll end up with Tuesday night, because half our next week’s show was coming up from Bradford and the other half was coming down from Dundee and now Mr Moss is having to scrape up what he can from round-about. But no amateurs so far, I’m glad to say.’ He turned away in the middle of this and shuffled back towards a small office, more of a cubby-hole really, set to one side of the door. His shawl, at the back, trailed almost to the floor and ended in a tassel. At second glance it might have been a curtain; certainly one edge showed puckered fading as though it had been gathered onto tape in an earlier incarnation. This, I thought, boded very well, for surely toddling about draped in old curtains was the sort of thing one would come to after long years. If he had taken this job the month before and was just settling into it, such behaviour would not have occurred to him.
He let himself down into a battered armchair inside his little kingdom with a rheumatic groan and puffed in and out a bit until he had recovered from his excursion.
‘So what can I do for you?’ he said. ‘Autographs, is it? Who’re you after?’ He gestured around himself at the walls where photographs, half-covered with fading endearments in looped handwriting, were tacked up six deep almost to the ceiling. Right behind his head in pride of place was a garishly tinted portrait of Marie Lloyd blowing a kiss.
‘We’re after someone in a manner of speaking,’ I said, ‘but not an autograph. We’re trying to find someone, or find out if he ever appeared here.’
‘Well, you’ve come to the right place,’ said the man. He stuck out his hand and gripped first mine, then Alec’s, then a paw each of Bunty and Millie. ‘Joe Crow,’ he said. ‘Fifty years and counting. I was here the night the old Empire burned down and I was first back in after the painters left when they finished the new one. There hasn’t been an act through here since 1876 that I don’t remember.’ He tapped his head (a remarkable red colour for anyone, let alone someone who was seventy if a day). ‘It’s all up here. Ask away.’
‘You are a godsend,’ said Alec, wringing his hand again and this time passing a folded banknote as he did so. This is the kind of thing one is always very glad to have Alec around for; I could never manage it without fumbles and blushes. I didn’t see what denomination of note it was but it caused old Joe to turn up the gas ring under a tea kettle and to gather three cups, wiping them out with a corner of his velvet curtain.
‘It’s a man by the name of Ernest Faulds?’ Joe shook his head. ‘Or perhaps he used a stage-name. But we do know what the act was. It was forgery of some kind. Copy-cat handwriting. Off-the-cuff, perhaps taking members of the audience and mimicking their hands?’ Joe was shaking his head again, very determinedly.
‘And this act said he did a turn at the Empire?’ he said. ‘Someone’s been having you on, missus. I’ve never seen it. I’m not saying you couldn’t work it up to an act if you put your mind to it – that would all depend on the patter – but I’ve never seen such a thing. Not here.’
He sounded horribly sure and I looked at Alec only to find him gazing back at me.
‘Ernest Faulds,’ I said again, slowly, hoping that something would jog a memory out of the old fellow. ‘A Cornishman. Very pleasant-looking chap, turned-up nose, red lips, twinkling eyes, wavy black hair.’
‘Sounds like a comic,’ said Joe.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I know he’s not a comic or a song-and-dance man. I only wish I had a picture of him to show you.’
The kettle was boiling and Joe was spooning great heaps of tea into a battered pot.
‘Coals to Newcastle, that would be,’ he said, ‘I’ve a picture of every act that’s ever trod the Empire stage. I put the cream of the crop up on my walls, like Miss Lloyd here.’ He paused in the act of pouring in the water on top of the tea and shook his head. ‘I still can’t believe she’s gone,’ he said. ‘Can’t believe I won’t ever see that little face looking up at me and hear that little voice, always with a chuckle in it. “What do you know – it’s Joe Crow!” she used to sing out whenever she stepped inside the door there and saw me.’
Alec and I murmured in sympathy and after a respectful pause, I led him back to the point again.
‘The cream of the crop are on your walls as you said, Mr Crow, but what of the others? Where are they?’
‘In my albums here,’ he said, patting the table where the teapot, caddy, milk bottle and packet of sugar lay. ‘Well, scrapbooks really. I’ve saved every one. Even managed to get them out the night of the great fire.’
I was puzzled, but Alec leaned forward and lifted the tablecloth and then, with a sinking heart, I saw. It was not a table at all but a stack of cardboard albums, three across, as many deep and half-a-dozen high with a cloth thrown over them.
‘It would be a very great inconvenience, I know,’ I said, ‘but I don’t suppose you would let us look through them to see if we can spot the chap, would you?’
Joe’s eyes, still glistening from his thoughts of Marie Lloyd, filled to the brim again, and for the third time he pumped Alec’s hand.
‘My eyes, missus, sir,’ he said. ‘You’ve no idea how happy you’ve made me today. It’s been years since anyone’s wanted to look at my pictures and hear my stories. You’ve made my day for me. Now, just take your tea – and drink it while it’s hot, mind you – and let me get this lot cleared off. Will we start now and work our way back or start in the ’70s and go through in proper time?’
I tried as gently as I could to nip this in the bud, telling him that for now we would have to begin five years ago and work backwards for perhaps twenty before we would be forced to admit defeat in our quest.
‘But if you would be so kind,’ I said, ‘another day I should love to come and look at the very oldest ones. What a treat! And I can bring a drop of something too, for us to share. You just name your poison, Mr Crow.’
For all the velvet shawl and the shuffling he was admirably efficient once he had got the spirit of our enquiry and he found the book for 1921 within a minute or two. Then – thank the Lord! – he was called away to his business (a very dramatic-sounding voice hailing him from the stage-door) and Alec and I were left to flick through the heaps of pictures on our own.
Joe looked in on us now and then and was unperturbed by the growing disarray of his little domain as the ‘table’ was dismantled and the albums we had finished with grew up into tottering piles all around and, until he was called away again, would lean against the door-jamb having a quiet smoke and making little observations about the faces as we turned them over.
‘Flirty and Gertie,’ he said. ‘They could hold the splits through an entire song. Three verses with a chorus in between each. Don’t recall him – fine set of muscles, though, eh? Ah, Miss Allakamba and her snakes. She was a lovely lady. And who’s that? Another comic? What does it say his name is? Oh, yes, I remember him like my brother. And that’s Sarah . . . Sarah . . . Oh, now, Sarah . . . ?’
The main impediment, in fact, was that we were only interested in the men and Joe only remembered the names of the women, and so every Sarah and Gertie and lady with her snakes which we should have laid aside without a glance had an associated chuckle and reminiscence to be waited out before we could get on.
‘Sarah Pretty!’ said Joe. ‘How could I forget that? You only have to look at her – Oh, you’ve moved on, have you, missus. Well, you go back and see if it’s not Sarah Pretty that signature says, now you know what you’re reading.’
After half an hour when my hopes were beginning to flag, Alec gave a cry, plucked a photograph from a page – ripped it right off its anchoring – and held it up, letting the rest of the album slide off his lap onto the littered floor.
‘Got him!’ he said. ‘Hah! Got him.’
I snatched the photograph out of his hand and felt a surge spread through me, for it was indeed Mr Faulds; there was no mistaking it. He was dressed in a turban with a long feather and a satin tunic of rich ornamentation, and was staring out of the photograph with a piercing gaze.
‘We’ve found him, Mr Crow,’ I said. ‘This is him! We’ve got him now.’
Then Alec and I met one another’s eyes, both remembering at the same time that really we had got nothing. We had already known Faulds was on the stage. Finding a picture had got us nowhere.
‘Unless . . .’ said Alec. He nodded towards Joe who was peering over my shoulder at the picture of Faulds.
‘Indeed,’ I said. ‘Now Mr Crow, if you please. What was this man’s act? Can you remember? Was it anything to do with handwriting of any kind?’
Joe Crow shifted from foot to foot and rubbed his finger along under his nose.
‘Oh, it’s all up here,’ he said. ‘Never you fear. Now. Now then. You just read me what it says on the picture there, missus, for these aren’t my reading specs I’m wearing.’
I looked in dismay at the faded ink of the signature and the message above it. It was a scrawl, like a ball of wool after a kitten at play, and I could imagine Mr Faulds, halfway out the stage-door, late for his train, dashing off a word for ‘old Joe on the door’ without a moment’s real attention.
‘
To
. . .’ I began, pretty sure of that much. ‘And then the next bit is probably
Something Joe. Dearest
, Alec? Could that be
dearest Joe
?’
‘Ah, he was a sweet laddie, I remember,’ said Joe, making me want to kick him.
‘
With something something
. Actually
with somethingest something
. . .’
‘
Fondest regards
,’ said Alec. ‘
From
. . . ?’
‘
Mister
,’ I said. ‘The next word is definitely
Mister
.’
‘And then
something something something hands
,’ said Alec.
‘Handwriting?’ I said. ‘No, it’s not, is it? It’s just
in something hands
. Could that be a reference to handwriting?
Writing in many hands
?’ Alec screwed his face up and I had to agree; this was stretching things.
‘Anyway,’ he said. ‘I think it’s
in my hands
, don’t you?’
‘Mister, mister, mister . . . ?’ said Joe. ‘I remember him well. He threw it all up, you know. Left the stage behind him.’
‘His name starts with
Mes
or
Mis
or perhaps
Mef
or
Mif
,’ said Alec.
‘
To dearest Joe with fondest regards Mister mifsomething. Something –
maybe
your? – something in my hands.
’
‘His own name was plain enough,’ said Joe. ‘It’s on the tip of my tongue. And here’s another thing – he lives in Edinburgh now. I met him on the street once and passed the time of day.’
Alec and I both turned to stare.
‘He does,’ I said. ‘That’s right, Joe.’
‘Didn’t I just tell you?’ said the old man. ‘It’s all up here. I remember everything. He was a clever enough act but he couldn’t give up on the high life he was born to. Now, money, you see, wouldn’t be no good to most in this game – top billing and your name in electric bulbs is something it just can’t buy – but he went back to it in the end. Back to his family. Oh, his name’s on the tip of my tongue.’
‘No, he’s not with his family,’ said Alec. ‘He took a position here. A live-in job.’
‘And why would he be doing that when he was in for a fortune? I’m telling you, he lives with a relation. A cousin, he told me. And his real name’s . . .’
‘George Pollard,’ said Alec and I together, and Alec went on, under his breath, ‘My God, Dandy. We’ve got him.’
‘George Pollard!’ said Joe. ‘That’s him. You might have told me if you knew it all along. That’s the chap. Georgie Pollard – from Cornwall – came from a rich tin-mining family down there.’
‘And his act, Joe?’ I said softly, hoping that now the floodgates had opened it would all come pouring.
‘Mister Mesmero,’ said Joe. ‘That’s the one. “Your mind in my hands”. Best stage hypnotist I’ve ever seen. He could twist you round his little finger and you never knew a thing about it.’
17
The police station at Gayfield Square was buzzing like a hive, with special constables – undergraduates in high spirits and armbands – milling around and getting under the feet and on the nerves of the desk sergeant. So while, on an ordinary Sunday morning, it might have taken some fast talking to get two strange and breathless civilians, a spaniel and a Dalmatian upstairs to the superintendent’s private room, today the poor man just lifted the counter and waved us through.
Hardy was sitting with his head in his hands staring down at a desk covered with sheets of paper, and when he looked up we could see that he had transferred great patches of carbon ink from his hands to his cheeks. I strode over to the desk and put the photograph down on top of the litter.
‘George Pollard,’ I said. ‘Balfour’s cousin. A hypnotist.’
‘A what?’ said Hardy. He peered at the photograph. ‘This is Faulds, isn’t it?’
‘A mesmerist, Superintendent,’ said Alec. ‘A brainwasher. He used to do it as a music-hall act eight shows a week and now he plays a longer game for higher stakes.’
‘You can’t be serious!’ Hardy said. ‘You think he could hypnotise a man into changing his will? Hypnotise another into cutting his own throat?’
‘No, not that,’ I told him. ‘But into writing a suicide note and then bending obligingly over a sink and letting someone else cut it. Certainly. And into believing one had been assaulted and was carrying a child, had been made to sleep in a cold car, had been threatened with the sack . . . he even hypnotised me last night. I woke up this morning convinced that I had suspected Stanley all along and I still can’t shake it off even though I
know
it didn’t happen. I read the report in my own handwriting that
told
me it didn’t happen.’ I shook myself. ‘And when I tried to ask him this morning about . . . Good Lord, yes, about odd things in people’s handwriting, he started again. Look into my eyes, he said. Listen to my voice. But Eldry disturbed us and told him Mr Osborne was looking for me, otherwise . . .’