Rutland Place - Anne Perry [85]
A chorus of girls appeared and performed a song she was sure she had heard before, and then a man popped up and twisted himself into the oddest contortions.
At last there was silence and then a roll of drums. The announcer held up his hands.
“Ladies and gentlemen, for your exclusive entertainment and enchantment, the culmination of your entire evening, the quintessence of beauty, of daring, of sheer dazzling delight—Miss Ada Church!”
There was a thunder of applause, even whistles and shouts, and the curtain went up. There was only one woman on the stage, slender with a tiny waist and long, long legs encased in black trousers. A tailcoat and white shirt hid nothing of her figure, and a top hat was perched at a rakish angle on a pile of flaming red hair. She was smiling, and the joy seemed to radiate out of her to fill the whole hall.
“Bravo, Ada!” someone shouted, and there was more clapping. As the orchestra started to play, her rich, throaty voice rang out in a gay, surging, bawdy song. It was less than vulgar, but there was an intimacy to it, full of suggested secrets.
The audience roared its approval and sang the chorus along with her. By the third song, Charlotte found to her horror that she was joining in as well, music swelling up inside her with a pleasant, tingling happiness. Rutland Place seemed a thousand miles away, and she wanted to forget its darkness and its miseries. All that was good was here in the lights and the warmth, singing along with Ada Church, and the vitality that conquered everything.
It would have shocked Caroline rigid, but now Charlotte was singing as loudly as the rest in the rollicking chorus: “Champagne Charlie is my name!”
When at last the curtain came down for the final time, she stopped clapping and turned to find Inigo staring at her. She ought to have felt embarrassed, but somehow she was so exhilarated it did not seem to matter.
He held up the last bottle of champagne, but it was empty. He signaled for the waiter to bring another. Inigo had barely opened it when Charlotte saw Ada Church herself walking toward them, giving a little wave of her arm, but gracefully avoiding the hands stretched out at her. She stopped at their table, and Inigo stood up immediately and offered her his chair.
She kissed him on the cheek, and he slipped an arm around her.
“Hello, darling,” she said casually, then turned a dazzling smile on Charlotte.
Inigo bowed very slightly. “Mrs. Pitt, may I present my sister Ottilie? Tillie, this is Charlotte Pitt, the daughter of one of my neighbors, who has rather let her family down by marrying into the police! She fancied we had done away with you, so I brought her here to see that you are in excellent health.”
For once, Charlotte was staggered beyond words.
“Done away with me?” Ottilie said incredulously. “How absolutely marvelous! You know, I do believe the thought occurred to Papa, only he didn’t have the nerve!” She began to laugh; it rose bubbling in her throat and rang out in rich delight. “How superb!” She clung onto Inigo’s arm. “Do you mean the police are actually questioning Papa as to what he did with me, because they suspect him of murder? I do wish I could see his face as he tries to explain himself out of that! He’d almost rather die than tell anyone what I really am!”
Inigo kept his arm around her, but suddenly his humor vanished.
“It’s a good deal more than that, Tillie. There has been a murder, a real one. Mina Spencer-Brown was poisoned. She was a Peeping Tom, and it rather looks as if she saw something worth killing to keep secret. Not unnaturally, it occurred to the police that your disappearance might be that something.”
Ottilie’s laughter vanished instantly, and her hands tightened over his arm, long, slender hands with knuckles white where they gripped the stuff of his sleeve.
“Oh God! You don’t think—”
“No,” he said quickly, “it’s not that. Papa has no idea—and I really don’t think Mama cares. In fact, it has occurred to me, looking