âI think we need a breath of fresh air,' Evangeline decided as we left the theatre.
âAnd a long walk to calm down,' I agreed.
âI am perfectly calm.' Evangeline gave me a haughty look. âWhich is more than can be said for some. That director is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, as well she might be.'
âIt's too bad,' I said. âTeddy is unbalancing the whole play. No timing, no voice projection, no ⦠fire. He should be replaced.'
âNot so easy to do when it's her husband.' Evangeline paused reflectively. âI hope, for her sake, he has some of that fire she wants in private life. He certainly isn't wasting it on his stage performance.'
âWe haven't actually seen her yet,' I said, âbut she sounds a lot more dynamic than he does. Of course, that wouldn't be hard. They seem an oddly matched couple.'
âSo many of them are, but she has only herself to blame. He was engaged to another woman when Frella snatched him away. Another strong dominating woman â he seems to go for that type.'
âOr they go for him.' I could see Teddy as the natural prey of dominating women. The guy who couldn't say no. âI suppose Cecile filled you in on all the gossip.'
âAnd then some!' Evangeline stopped and quirked an eyebrow at me. âWould you care to guess who that other woman was?'
âNo!' I gasped. There was only one other woman in this scenario who could truly be called domineering. âNot â ?'
âSoroya!' Evangeline confirmed. âNot only that â guess what she gave him for an engagement present when
they
became engaged?'
I could only stare at her. My mind was boggling.
âA rare foreign breed of cat â the only known one in this country â she brought back from a location trip to Japan.'
âCho-Cho-San! So that's why she says the cat belongs to her!'
âShe has a point. It used to be customary to return the gifts when the engagement was broken.'
âHah! I'll bet she didn't return the ring!'
âThat's different.' Evangeline was always on the acquisitive side. â
He
was the one who broke it off. She's perfectly entitled to keep the ring â and I'd say she has a strong claim to the cat, too.'
âShe doesn't care a thing about Cho-Cho and Teddy really loves that cat. She just wants to spite him.'
â“Hell hath no fury ⦔'
Had she been furious enough to consign Cho-Cho to Stuff Yours? Furious enough to bash the taxidermist's head in when he demurred? To set the place on fire? That went beyond fury ⦠into madness.
âAnd you can't get much more scorned than finding your lover has eloped with someone else,' Evangeline continued. âCecile says there's been a custody war over the cat ever since. They're forever kidnapping it from each other. The cat doesn't seem particularly bothered, although she favours Teddy.'
âShe's such a dear little thing,' I sighed, âwith such a sweet placid temperament.'
âTouch of the geisha there, I'd say. If she were human, that's undoubtedly what she'd be.'
I couldnât deny it. It seemed only too likely. Cho-Cho was a friend to everyone, settling into Eddie's arms as readily as into Soroya's ⦠or mine.
âCheer up!' Evangeline said. âLook around you and enjoy the scenery.'
We were strolling through the warren of little side streets clustered around the theatre and I have to admit it was my favourite sort of scenery. It was a delight to see so many idiosyncratic shops lining the streets after the boredom of London's borough high streets which chain stores had so colonized that they all looked alike. By tacit consent, we slowed down to window shop.
Antiques lurked enticingly at the back of dusty window displays, jewellery glittered under spotlights, shock and schlock clothing by hopeful young designers draped mannequins and partial body forms in a lot of the shops. A delicatessen/sandwich shop in the midst of it all probably did a thriving business with all the shopkeepers and their customers. And still the shops stretched on, featuring candles, incense, crystals, New Age accessories, more antiques, more designers, more â
âViola!' I gasped, halting before a silversmith's. There, on a black velvet neck form, rested a beautiful silver-and-enamel necklace of delicately pretty violas. The perfect gift for my lovely granddaughter.
âThe shop's closed,' Evangeline pointed out. âWe'll have to come back another day.'
âBut will we ever find it again?' We seemed to have taken so many twisting and turning paths that I despaired momentarily. âWhere are we?'
âThere's a street name on the corner.' Evangeline started towards it and I followed reluctantly, looking back over my shoulder at the exquisite little trinket. A namesake necklace for my beautiful little Viola. I couldn't bear to lose it.
âRegency Close,' Evangeline announced, squinting up at the sign. Then she stiffened. âTrixie â do you smell smoke?'
âSort of.' I lifted my head and inhaled deeply. Smoke, yes, but not a real-and-present-danger sort of smoke. More like a memory of smoke.
Sniffing like bloodhounds, we turned down another narrow street and followed the scent. I was not particularly surprised when we reached the source of it.
âI didn't realize the taxidermist's was so close to the theatre,' I said. We looked at the blackened ruins, little pools of water still marking hollows in the debris.
âWe should have known. Cecile has been too busy at the theatre to get around much.' Evangeline's face was grim as she surveyed the scene.
âIt must be what gave her that gruesome idea.' I shivered and not just at the thought of a stuffed Fleur. The sun had dropped below the horizon and darkness was swooping over us. Moreover, the wind was rising, chill and relentless. Suddenly I yearned for home â even our temporary home at Matilda's.
âEvangeline,' I began, âlet's â '
âHalt!' A slight quaver in the voice rather undermined the command. âWho goes there?'
âGoes where?' Evangeline swung around irritably. âWho the devil are you and what do you think you're playing at?'
âJust what I was going to ask you.' Strangely, Evangeline's burst of temper seemed to reassure our challenger. He stepped forward smartly, with a soldier's gait and still with that faint air of relief. âWhat are you doing here?'
âWhy shouldn't we be here?' Evangeline wasn't going to let him get away with that. âAnd who are you?'
âPerhaps he's the night watchman,' I ventured, as he seemed in no hurry to answer.
âDon't tell me this dump ever ran to a night watchman!' Evangeline snorted. âNot even in its heyday!'
âTrue, madam, true,' the old boy agreed. âOnly too true.'
âThen who are you?' Evangeline demanded.
âAn interested party. A neighbour. A householder, who doesn't want his property devalued by the presence of ghosts.'
âGhosts?' I stared at him incredulously. âYou're kidding!'
âA man died in this fire, you know. Gone before his time. That sort can leave a restless spirit behind them.'
âNonsense!' Evangeline's tone was robust, but I noticed that she moved a little closer to me. My own shiver wasn't entirely due to the icy wind.
âYou may think so, but there are those who claim to have seen them. Yes, and just where you're standing.'
âHave you?' she demanded. âIf anything haunted this place, I should think it would be the shades of all those poor benighted animals who were skinned and â '
âDon't!' I saw Cho-Cho's bright trusting face before me and couldn't bear the thought of the fate she had so narrowly escaped. If we hadn't come along â¦
âNo,' he said. âThey'd have no reason to remain here. They were peacefully departed before they ever came here. There's no harm from them.'
Were they? Cho-Cho hadn't been.
âHarm?' Evangeline was quick to pick him up on it. âSo, it's not just a simple ghost, it's a malevolent one.'
âWhy shouldn't it be, departing like that? If it happened to you, I dare say you'd be back in no time and howling for blood.'
âHe's got your number,' I couldn't resist saying.
âNo,' he continued, âit's been quiet, so far. But when I saw the two of you â from a distance, dark shapeless forms, just like him â I thought he'd come back and brought a friend with him.'
âReally?' Evangeline was huffy because of that shapeless remark. âI've never heard of ghosts in pairs. They're usually alone or, if not, centuries apart and unaware of each other.'
Come to think of it, she was right. Your average ghost isn't really the matey sort. At least, not with his peers, although he might occasionally try to cosy up to the living â when not content merely to scare the living daylights out of them.
âNot always. There are well-documented sightings of
entire Roman legions marching along the old roads they built. And then there was the case of â '
âWe are not here to discuss ghosts,' Evangeline said frostily.
âThe question is: what was the ghost doing here?' I broke in quickly before he asked us what
we
were here for.
âSwooping about, bobbing up and down, pinpoint lights flashing all around him. Sometimes he looked ten feet tall, then he'd sort of retract and become just a bump in the ground.'
âOr a bump in the night,' Evangeline said tartly. âWere there any sound effects to this appearance or was it all visual?'
âI didn't want to get too close,' he said defensively. âI kept my distance but, when the wind blew in my direction, there seemed to be a sort of moaning and sobbing.'
âAn emotional ghost,' Evangeline sniffed. She didn't believe a word of it.
âYou might shed a tear or two if you'd been cut down in your prime.'
âHe was a young man, then?' I realized we were in danger of letting irrelevancies spoil an opportunity for gathering first-hand information. âYou knew him? What was he like?'
âI wouldn't say I knew him. He kept himself to himself, but he always spoke pleasantly enough when you saw him. Sightings were fairly rare, though, he was the night owl type. Shop could get pretty lively after dark. Lots of comings and goings, mostly through the back door.'
âUp to no good!' Evangeline deduced instantly.
âI didn't say that.' He stepped back nervously
âYou implied it.' Evangeline advanced on him. âWhat do you think he was â '
âYou seem to keep a pretty close eye on this place.' I came to a deduction of my own. âYou don't happen to be the one who saw a taxi leaving here on the day of the fire?'
âNothing ⦠No â¦' Unnerved by our concerted attack,
he swung around and began to walk away as fast as he could without actually running.
âWell, now we know the busybody who called the police and ratted on Eddie.'
âAnd he knows us! Your question would have made him suspicious. Any minute he may remember that we were around on that day, too, and call the police again.' She glared at me and I glared back.
Nasty looks and recriminations notwithstanding, we were rapidly moving away from the scene.
âTurn here!' Evangeline whirled us around a corner and then another before we began to slow down a bit. âUp here!' It was only a small hill but we were already panting. The smell of stale smoke had receded, however, and the whole episode was beginning to assume a dreamlike quality.
âDown here!' The territory was becoming more and more familiar. As we turned the final corner, I recognized it.
âThe stage door! We've come in a circle. We're back at the Royal Empire!'
âStuff Yours had to be nearby for Cecile to know about it.' Evangeline nodded. âShe isn't the sort to go out of her way exploring. Unlike you.'
âI like to know where I am, in relation to everything around me.' I couldn't understand people who didn't.
âIt's all those gangster films you were in,' Evangeline said severely. âYou're always looking for a quick way out in case of trouble.'
âNothing wrong with that.' It had come in useful more than once in our immediate past. And she knew it, even if she didn't want to admit it.
âShall we go in?' Evangeline looked at the stage door.
âBetter not. We know our way back from here and, I don't know about you, but I'm tired. I can do without any more histrionics.' Famous last words.