The Book of Extraordinary Amateur Sleuth and Private Eye Stories Page 4

  As for Rufus, he was away like the wind, the wind of this bracing February day in the flattest county in England, a curious landscape of lakes, canals, marshes, fenland, eroding coastline, and isolated sandbars. He hastened to the Theatre Royal, the oldest playhouse in Norwich, where Professor Ching, the first magician to use limelight in a performance, was booed off stage after appearing to swallow his own head in an act entitled “Harlequin in the Shades.” That was in 1828, almost a century ago, and after the appalling horrors of the Great War, local audiences, full of veteran soldiers, were much more tolerant of such diabolical sights.

  Rufus had friends who worked in this theatre. Although a shipping clerk, he had an abiding interest in drama and often read plays secretly at work, hiding them under the greater bulk of ledgers whenever his boss came into the office. At the moment he was engrossed in the peculiar work of a continental playwright, Michel de Ghelderode, an author obsessed with puppets, mannequins, automatons, devils, skeletons, masks, and infernal contrivances. It was strong stuff.

  Rufus felt that they contained the answer to why some men murder others, though he was unable to pinpoint why he felt this.

  Jaspers would have been shocked, for although no stranger to the bookshop that decent citizens never entered, he preferred the yearnings and nostalgia of Housman to the febrile terrors of the macabre decadents.

  Rufus worked his way to the rear of the theatre, to the entrance used by the actors, and mounted the steps of the narrow stairway to a corridor where he was noticed by a friend and invited into a cluttered back room. The floor of this room sagged from the combined weight of the objects it contained. It was packed with battered props of all kinds, rails of costumes, stage machinery.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, Rufus?”

  The speaker was in a state of undress.

  “Girls,” said Rufus.

  “Ah, but I can’t arrange that for you here.”

  Rufus was out of breath. He shook his head, raised his arm, and pointed at one of the costumes hanging from a rail.

  Then he inhaled deeply and exhaled the fateful words:

  “I want to transform my friends.”

  “Into gold?” The actor winked. His name was Bevins, a burly man with scars, and he had survived the Battle of Jutland with no other impairments, unlike many of his comrades, who could now barely speak without stuttering. Why he had chosen such a surprising new career after he was discharged was a mystery even to him. He thought that it might be because the war had seemed like theatre too, a mere rehearsal for the roles he was given by his manager.

  Bevins always played the villain, usually a pirate or bandit or murderer. Rufus had invited him to join the Reconstruction Club, but Bevins claimed to be too busy to take on extra work, and this was doubtless true.

  “Into girls,” said Rufus.

  “Well, that’s no trouble, none at all. I thought you were going to ask me for a hard favor, but this is an easy one. I merely need to know the sizes of your friends. That’s something you do know, I trust?”

  Rufus shook his head. “Not precisely, but I can estimate.”

  “Unsatisfactory,” declared Bevins.

  “How so? This is for a reconstruction. We don’t really need to fool anyone else. I mean, they don’t have to be pretty.”

  “Dainty shoes can pinch, Rufus, surely you appreciate this? Loose stockings will fall down. Skirts might not reach the knee. Blouses will ruffle in the wrong places if the measurements aren’t right. It’s a nightmare. But I can do my best, as I always do. Just don’t blame me if it looks absurd.”

  “Absurdities are perfectly acceptable in this case.”

  Bevins rummaged in the piles.

  “One particular type of girl,” added Rufus.

  And he whispered a word.

  It was a stage whisper, the kind Bevins was most attuned to, and the big man didn’t miss a beat as he plowed on through the masses of costumes. These clothes had slowly accumulated over the decades. Most of them hadn’t been used for fifty years and wouldn’t be missed by anyone. Six particular outfits were collected by Bevins before Rufus announced that this was enough.

  “There are seven members in your club?” Bevins objected.

  “I will remain a man,” said Rufus.

  Bevins pushed the costumes into a large canvas bag, handed it to Rufus, grinned, and returned to what he was doing before Rufus had come up the stairs, which was trying on a tunic for the evening’s performance. Some comedy by Pinero, resurrected after a period of neglect for that amusing writer.

  Rufus hefted the bag onto his shoulder and felt the straps cut into his flesh. It was heavier than he had expected, and he wondered if he would be able to carry it all the way home, and then back to Livingstone Street next Sunday. But he could always use a cab if necessary, though he resented the extra expense. He almost tripped down the steep staircase and then he was back out in the winter. Murder in the coldest season always seemed worse, he didn’t know why.

  He stopped often to lower the bag to the ground and rest.

  On one occasion he passed a house that was being repaired by workmen balanced on scaffolding. The scaffolding encased the building like an elaborate framework of the medical kind he had seen holding together shattered men, most recently after the unfortunate mishap that had put Jaspers in hospital. On the highest level, a wind-up gramophone was warbling out popular songs.

  What did workmen do for music before the invention of the gramophone? Almost certainly they whistled or sang, and perhaps one day, when the technology was better and the units smaller, they would employ radios, but for now the gramophone was the builder’s friend. Rufus paused and craned his neck upwards. One of the workmen saw him and called out a greeting. Why not?

  On impulse, Rufus gripped a steel bar and hauled himself up. He climbed rapidly, despite his inexperience, and soon he was on the same level as the workers. Nobody seemed to resent his presence. He sat and dangled his legs over the side and jammed his empty pipe into his mouth and said:

  “Great view,” as he gestured at the spread of Norwich.

  They agreed. He shielded his eyes.

  The sun was weak but there was glare from the low clouds, a bright haze that was reflected off the cleaner buildings of the city. It was as if Rufus was observing a scene after it had been treated in a photographer’s studio, the contrast levels high, the grimy houses among the brood below much more in focus. He tried to pretend he was above Paris, looking down on the City of Light. The cathedral in the distance could be the Eiffel Tower, conceivably, but what about the other landmarks, the Arc de Triomphe or the Sacre Coeur? It was less easy to imagine those. He squinted to the west and at last he found what he was hoping to see.

  The windmill of Little Melton. A tiny dot, irregular.

  No, that was a tautology.

  And a logical contradiction. All dots are tiny. None are irregular.

  Don’t lose your mind, he warned himself.

  But it was the windmill, for sure, and he might as well be sitting on the balcony of the highest room in a tall apartment block on a fashionable boulevard and scrutinizing the Moulin Rouge in its niche near Montmartre. That was the effect he wanted. With a sigh of satisfaction he looked down at the canvas bag he had left on the pavement and asked the worker nearest to him, “If you wanted to pull that thing up here, how would you do so, in the most efficient way?”

  “Rope and pulley, of course,” came the reply.

  And the fellow indicated the pulley that was attached to a steel bar above them, a rope of rough fibers coiled next to it.

  “And it wouldn’t require too much force, would it?”

  The worker rubbed his chin.

  “What sort of a question is that, if you don’t mind me asking? It requires as much force as necessary, no more and no less.”

  That was a
good answer.

  Rufus climbed back down, the pipe still between his lips. When he reached the ground, he shouldered the bag, lumbered on. He was a bachelor, just as Jaspers and Gertie were, and his house was no bigger than the one in Livingstone Street, but it was furnished far more comfortably. He emptied the bag on the floor of his bedroom upstairs and sorted through it. Bevins had done well. These costumes were very good indeed. And the various sizes seemed right.

  Well, that remained to be seen, on the appointed day.

  The week passed, the weather improved slightly. When Sunday came, Rufus was up very early indeed, and he managed to carry the bag by himself to the clubhouse. It was still only six thirty when he paused in front of the door to fumble with his key in the lock. The metal plate he had fixed on the brick above the door was dull and the sign engraved on it was difficult to make out.

  It was an equals sign, the official symbol of the club.

  Yet Rufus now realized that it ought to consist of two wavy lines rather than two straight parallels, because reconstruction wasn’t exact equivalence. Reconstruction was an approximation. Was it too late to alter the plate? Maybe he would get round to it one day. But who else would care?

  He expected to be the first to enter the house, but Jaspers was already there, on the sofa, on the comfortable side. Rufus frowned.

  “What time did you arrive?”

  Jaspers smiled weakly. He looked very ill.

  “I never left. I’ve been here since the last session. I was too weak. I managed to go to the kitchen a few times, drink water, and heat up soup. There are tins in cupboards, but they are very old. Hideous, awful.”

  He grimaced, and Rufus made a decision. “I don’t think you should come with us to Little Melton today. You haven’t recovered fully. Don’t push it, dear boy. I brought a costume for you, but you don’t need to wear it. Five will be enough. There are five strapping fellows who will fit the bill.”

  “Costumes?” gasped Jaspers.

  “I plan to dress you all as girls, dancing girls.”

  “Ah, that’s a novelty.”

  “Have you been following the newspapers since I last saw you?”

  “I haven’t been able to.”

  “Of course not! How idiotic of me. The victim has finally been named. A certain Jean-Marc Duclos. He was the accountant of the Moulin Rouge cabaret. Now that is the interesting detail, as far as I’m concerned. The accountant. Why would anyone in their right mind wish to murder an accountant? Not as a crime of passion, not because of love, but surely for reasons connected with money. And I don’t mean robbery. His wallet was still on him when he was found, and it was still full of money. No, I expect the truth is concerned with corruption.”

  “Tax evasion, that kind of thing? Embezzlement?”

  “Probably. But we still have to determine the mechanism of the thing, the modus operandi, and I fear it will be beyond your present capabilities. You can barely stand, so how will you dance the can-can?”

  And Rufus threw back his head and laughed.

  The cheeks of Jaspers reddened and, contrasted with the general pallor of the rest of his face, the effect was grotesque.

  The door opened. It was Chunder. Every member had his own key. He was out of breath. He had very nearly overslept. Beastly came next, ten minutes later. Then it was the turn of Pollard, Diggs, and Gertie. They wasted no time in brewing tea. Rufus emptied the sack and explained what he wanted them to do. There was an embarrassed silence, then Chunder cleared his throat.

  “Are you quite serious?”

  “Perfectly. I want you to dress as chorus girls. All five of you. Jaspers has been let off. Then we will take a bus to Little Melton. We will stand beneath the windmill and you will dance. This is a mandatory requirement of the reconstruction. Before Duclos was murdered, he was present during the most erotic section of the performance. The girls kicked their legs high, showing their knickers, and you must do the same. I will play the part of the unfortunate Duclos.”

  “Well, this is a pretty pass indeed,” growled Pollard.

  “Not so pretty without lipstick.”

  Rufus knew they were committed to the ideals of the club and would do what he wanted. But it was inevitable they would grumble for a few minutes and he ought to let them do so, work the outrage out of their system. They bristled as they undressed and put on the theatrical clothes. The bloomers were elasticized and fit well. The stockings were held on with garters. The shoes were the biggest problem, but nothing happened that might lead to a cancellation of the venture. They were all ready at last. Out they trooped and along the street.

  Curtains twitched in neighboring windows. An unseen voice shouted an insult. A distant group of young boys playing football stopped and pointed. Five chorus girls and an accountant reached Dereham Road and waited at a bus stop. The cheeks of the five glowed with humiliation. The bus came, they climbed aboard, and Rufus paid for all their tickets. That was his duty. He was the accountant. The driver began whistling and it was unclear if he was being satirical.

  The other passengers pretended to ignore them, faces shut tight.

  The journey was short but bumpy.

  The village was little more than a handful of buildings strung out along the road. The bus stopped and they dismounted and walked unsteadily toward the majestic windmill, its sails turning slowly, dispassionately, as if cooling the brow of angels. It was a neat conceit, for Rufus had begun to think of his chorus girls as celestial, stars in the firmament of amateur sleuthing.

  A shriveled man sat against the base of the windmill. Perhaps he was the village idiot. As they approached, he licked his lips. “Ah, me lovelies, me lovelies,” and then he drooled, so they moved a little way around the base of the structure, to render his attentions less destructive of the reconstruction. Yet Rufus knew that the real cabaret in Paris would have been witnessed by at least some filthy and incoherent minds. The shriveled man was an authentic audience member. Rufus instructed his girls to form a straight line. “Now kick your legs high!”

  Chunder exchanged glances with Diggs, Pollard with Beastly, Gertie blinked his own dismay to himself. Rufus repeated the order. One by one, they obeyed. At first they were badly coordinated, but most of them had fought in the Great War, it didn’t take them long to move smoothly. They had been drilled too often. Rufus clapped his hands and began wordlessly singing the tune.

  “It’s the can-can, is it?” spluttered the withered man, but he made no effort to shift position. He grinned without teeth and nodded in time. Rufus increased the tempo of the melody, the legs kicked faster and faster.

  “Higher too!” he cried. “Show the cream of your thighs.”

  “We’re tired now,” objected Diggs.

  “Indeed you are!” Rufus was triumphant. “It’s damn hard work dancing like that all night. Keep going. I want you sore before we are finished. Now look up at those sails turning grandly above us. Wouldn’t it be a great help if strings were connected from the mechanism to the ends of your shoes? The sails would turn and up would go your legs. The sails would keep turning and down would go your legs. Up and down, up and down, matched exactly to the cycle of the rotation. Invisible strings that the audience can’t see in the dim interior light.”

  Beastly gasped, “I certainly would welcome the help.”

  “Me too,” puffed Pollard.

  “String us up,” wheezed Diggs and Gertie.

  Chunder was too exhausted to make any remark at all, but Rufus kept urging them on, and they kicked as hard as they could, but it was clear that the legs weren’t going up as high as before, that they were gradually sinking. Then Rufus took his pipe out of his pocket and gestured with it.

  “I am Monsieur Duclos, and I have been employed by the manager to take care of the accounts. But I am growing uneasy. I begin to note that my employer is unethical. He employs dancing girls and in order
to maximize his profits he works them far too strenuously. He overworks them. Conditions are terrible. They are exhausted, but he won’t let them rest. He arranges for their legs to be operated mechanically, yanked up and down by strings connected to the axle of the revolving windmill in the roof over their heads. These strings dangle through holes in the ceiling. The unscrupulous rogue is therefore able to make a lot of money by working his girls longer than he should, harder than he should. And the audiences never notice. It’s too dim in there, smoky, and the patrons are often tipsy. The strings are never detected. But I know about them and it makes me shudder. And one night—”

  “We’ve had enough,” said Pollard, and he stopped dancing.

  The others stopped too. Rufus added:

  “No strings attached, that’s why you were able to stop. Imagine if you hadn’t been able to rest when you desired? Imagine if there were strings tugging your legs up and down, up and down, against your will?”

  “Heinous,” said Beastly.

  “Yes! And eventually Duclos thought so too. He decided to do something about it. He resolved to report his employer to the police. But his employer had never trusted his new accountant. He had taken measures to silence the fellow if Duclos ever made a move against him. The accountant was being carefully watched. He left the club in disgust, intending to make his way to the nearest police station. A thug on the top of the windmill was ready, a thug who worked for the same employer. Down came the noose, it snared Duclos, the other end was already attached to the windmill, and off his feet the accountant was lifted, spun around a few times, then the cord broke and he was catapulted right over a house.”

  “But who was the employer?” Diggs asked.

  “I don’t know yet. But we can find out easily enough. We know that he was the murderer and that means our reconstruction has been totally successful, agreed? Yet there is something vital still missing.”