Farriers' Lane - Anne Perry [131]
“No, I didn’t see ’im proper,” he replied when Pitt asked him about the man on the far side of the street who had sent the boy over with the message. “Jus’ looked like a big geezer in the shadow o’ the wall opposite.”
“Can you remember anything about him?” Pitt pressed. “Close your eyes and imagine it again. Go through your mind, exactly as it happened. You were standing at the doorway, making sure everyone left so you could lock up. Kingsley Blaine came out. Was he the last?”
“Oh, yes sir.”
“What about Miss Macaulay?”
“She come out a few minutes before,” Wimbush replied. “Mr. Blaine went back for ’is gloves wot ’e left on the table. I got Miss Macaulay an ’ansom and she was gone before Mr. Blaine came back. I said good-night to ’im, an’ ’e were about ter go and look for a cab ’isself, when this skinny little lad, about eleven or twelve years old, come scarperin’ across the street an’ pulled at ’is sleeve. I were about to tell ’im ter clear orf, when ’e said as ’e’d got a message from a Mr. O’Neil, and to say as ’e were sorry about the quarrel they’d ’ad, and Mr. Blaine were right after all. An’ would Mr. Blaine meet ’im at Dauro’s Club right away and they’d make it up.” He shrugged his thin shoulders. “So Mr. Blaine said yes ’o course ’e would, thanked the lad an’ gave ’im a couple o’ pence, then ’e set orf along the path towards Farriers’ Lane, poor devil. And that’s the last I ever saw of ’im alive.”
“And the man who sent the message? Did he look like Mr. O’Neil to you?”
Wimbush pulled a face. “Can’t say as ’e did. I can’t say as it looked like Mr. Godman neither. It were just a shape in the shadow, big like, with an ’eavy coat on. But I’ll tell you this—either it were a toff or someone got up to look like one.”
“So everyone assumed it was someone who knew Mr. Blaine,” Pitt said as civilly as he could. He should not have been disappointed, but he was.
“Yer asked me what I remembered,” Wimbush said with injured sensibility. “I told yer, ’e were a toff. Top ’at, silk scarf. I remember seein’ the light on it—all white ’round ’is neck.”
“Did Mr. Godman have a top hat and a silk scarf?”
“Not unless ’e were goin’ somewhere special.” Wimbush’s lips curled in a smile heavy with contempt. “ ’E were ’ere to work. Even gents don’t go to work in top ’ats and silk scarves.”
“And that night?” Pitt said, trying to keep the urgency out of his voice. Lambert would already have asked this, even if Paterson had not.
“No ’e didn’t,” the doorman replied. “But then you’ll just say as ’e got one out o’ the dressers’ room or summink. That’s what they said before. Although why ’e should do that no one bothered wi’ askin’! Just make ’im more like to be noticed, I’d say. Them rozzers don’t think like ordinary folks.” He cleared his throat as if he were about to spit, then glanced at Pitt’s face and changed his mind.
“Did you see Mr. Godman leave that night?”
“No, I didn’t. Wish I ’ad. Leastways I spec’ I saw ’im, but I didn’t take any special notice.”
“I see. Thank you.” He must remember to ask if Godman had had a scarf on when he was arrested.
He spoke to Tamar Macaulay again, but she repeated what she had said before, and he found himself embarrassed for the cruelty of having to remind her of an act which had robbed her at once of both her brother and the man she loved. Her dark face was unreadable as she stood in the dust of the stage wings, the bare boards drafty, the huge canvas backdrops hanging on their pulleys over their heads, the limelight dead. He could see her only in the yellow glare of a gas bracket on the passageway towards the dressing rooms. Some theaters were already lit with electricity, but this was not one of them.
He looked across at the strength in her, the hollows of her eyes, the perfect balance of nose, cheek and jaw which gave her face its power. Her tenderness, her laughter, would be worth waiting for, worth earning. How had Kingsley Blaine ever imagined he could play with such a woman and then expect to walk away