York Theatre Royal was ringing with the sound of Christmas music. The orchestra was rehearsing Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, and Clara popped her head into the auditorium to see two young dancers going through the steps of the ‘Waltz of the Flowers’. One of the characters, she knew, was her namesake. Clara shuddered as she thought back to her ill-fated foray into ballet as an eight-year-old when she was cast as the fictional Clara in her school play. The teachers thought it would be charming. Her mother had been delighted. Clara still had nightmares about it.
The opening night, when she stood in the spotlight and wet herself with fear, was eternally etched in her memory, and that of her brother who teased her mercilessly about it for the next two decades. Fortunately, for the sake of the show, there had been an understudy all prepped and ready to go, allowing Clara to withdraw in humiliation. The following year, when Clara said she would much rather help make the props, no one argued with her.
By the look of it, this dancing Clara would have no such problems: she was a professional, performing jetés and ronds de jambe with ease. The real Clara, although still cringing at the memory, had no illusions that she had squandered her last chance at fame. She would never have been a dancer. She never wanted to be. She had always wanted to be a scientist. And now, here she was, not quite a research scientist, but an investigator who used science, confident in her own skills – even if most of the people she met weren’t.
Clara had had no problem gaining access to the theatre this time round and she was soon sitting once again in Mr Iceton’s office. The theatre manager was serious and subdued. He had already heard about Sybil Langford’s death.
‘We are naturally all devastated, Miss Vale. It has come as such a shock.’
‘When did you find out?’
‘Saturday afternoon. Between the matinee and the evening performance. The police came to tell me. And to question me. They went over much the same material as you did two days before. And I told them much the same: the last I saw of Sybil Langford was on stage the previous Saturday. And the last person to see her in the theatre was Billy. They have questioned him too. The police think it was suicide, you know. I think they’re right. So it seems that your job is over, Miss Vale. Sybil has been found.’
Clara nodded, noncommittally. ‘Yes, suicide is certainly a possibility. And by all accounts I’ve heard, Sybil was in a disturbed state of mind. But that’s something, ultimately, the coroner will decide at the enquiry. For now though, I just want to tie up a few loose ends. I’m trying to trace Sybil’s last steps.’
Iceton’s eyes narrowed. ‘Are you working with the police on this, Miss Vale?’
‘I shall certainly be sharing my findings with the police when I have finished my enquiries, yes.’ That was completely true, but Clara knew that’s not what Iceton was really asking. However, the theatre manager appeared to take her reply at face value.
‘All right, how can I help you, Miss Vale?’
‘Well, firstly, I want to make sure that Billy really was the last person from the theatre to see Sybil alive. I was wondering if there was anyone else missing from the after-party. Can you think back to that night?’
Iceton leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. ‘Hmmm, let me think. Well, as far as I recall, all my crew were there. All the backstage people, that is. As for the Starlight Players … hmmm … well, I can’t say I know them all, and there was a big component to the chorus – from local am dram groups – but one person I noted wasn’t there for a while, but who did come in later, towards the end of the party, was Wally Ransom. The actor who plays Buttons.’
Clara caught her breath and leaned forward. ‘Really? Why do you recall that?’
Iceton shrugged. ‘Because he’s normally first to the bar and last to leave. He wasn’t that night. But I can’t imagine he would have been with Sybil. It was well-known they disliked one another. Still, perhaps he bumped into her. Have you asked him?’
Clara nodded. ‘I have spoken to Mr Ransom, yes. But I wasn’t aware he was absent from the after-party. I shall speak to him again. Thank you. And I would also like to speak to the person who received the letter for Sybil at the box office. Are they here today?’
Iceton said they were and asked Clara to accompany him. Five minutes later they were in the foyer where a man was unpacking stacks of programmes for The Nutcracker, accompanied by the ‘March of the Toy Soldiers’, as the orchestra were still hard at work. Iceton made introductions.
‘So Mr Marston, can you remember who delivered the note for Miss Langford on the last night of the pantomime?’ asked Clara.
Marston scratched his head. ‘’Twas a fella, miss. Can’t remember much more.’
‘Old, young, middle-aged?’
Marston carried on scratching. ‘I couldn’t say. I wasn’t taking much notice.’
Clara bit back her annoyance at the man’s lack of memory. ‘All right, so you can’t remember what he looked like, but might you recall what he said?’
The man wafted a programme as if it were a fan on a hot summer’s night. ‘Not much, just can I give this to Miss Langford. I didn’t have time to do it meself, people was lining up, so when Mr Iceton passed the office I gave it to him and asked him to pass it on.’
‘And you don’t remember anything about this man?’
Marston shrugged apologetically. ‘I’m sorry, miss, I can’t. As I said, I was busy. Do you think it might have something to do with Miss Langford’s death? If it does, I’m awfully sorry.’ The man looked crestfallen.
Clara smiled at him. ‘That’s all right, Mr Marston. At least we know it’s a man. That’s cut out half the population already.’
But as Clara and Iceton readied to go, a flash of memory lit up Marston’s eyes. ‘He had a funny accent.’
Clara turned on her heel: ‘Funny how?’
‘I don’t really know. He didn’t sound local. But he didn’t sound southern like you, miss. Foreign, maybe.’
‘Could it have been Dutch?’
‘It might have been. But I couldn’t say for sure. Just foreign. Does that help?’
Clara nodded enthusiastically. ‘It does, Mr Marston, it helps a lot. Thank you very much.’
Iceton thanked Marston and told him to carry on with his work. ‘Let us know if we can be of any further help,’ said the manager, escorting Clara to the door. Clearly her time was up. The man had a theatre to run.
Clara was just saying goodbye when a man wearing a brown worker’s jacket rushed towards them. ‘Oh, Mr Iceton, Mr Iceton, come quick! Someone’s broken into the props store. We’ve been robbed!’
Clara, Iceton and the props manager hurried through the labyrinthine corridors of the theatre until they reached the Aladdin’s cave that was the props department. Part workshop, part treasure trove, part museum of curiosities, the York Theatre Royal props store was filled with the magical, the macabre and the mundane. From brandy snifters to stuffed tigers, from glass slippers to salt cellars, there was every possible thing needed to put on a show. But whatever order had been there previously was in complete disarray. It looked like a bull had been let loose – with the proverbial china smashed all over the floor.
‘Good God,’ said Iceton. ‘When and how did they get in?’
The props manager pointed to the door where the lock had been drilled through. ‘They used a drill to open the door. I found it like this when I arrived at twelve o’clock. Who knows when they actually arrived – I was last in here Saturday night. Yesterday was me day off.’
‘Have you touched the lock?’ asked Clara.
‘No.’
‘Good. There’s a chance I can get some fingerprints from it. And the police will no doubt want to do the same when they get here, so be careful not to touch it,’ instructed Clara.
Both men looked at her in surprise. ‘Miss Vale, it seems, is a private investigator,’ said Iceton, drily. ‘She’s looking into the Sybil Langford case.’
The props man’s eyes opened in shock. ‘Do you think it might be connected to that?’
‘I don’t know yet,’ said Clara. ‘Do you know if they took anything?’
The props man gestured to the chaos with every box, shelf and railing appearing to have been rummaged through. ‘I’ll have to go through it all to know for sure, miss, but there is something I’ve noticed already, and thinking of Miss Langford, it might make sense.’
‘And what’s that?’ asked Iceton.
‘This.’ The props manager pointed to a cardboard box with the label ‘fairy wands’ on it. It was lying empty in the middle of the floor. ‘There were three or four wands in there. They’re all gone.’
‘Fairy wands?’ asked Clara. ‘Like what the fairy godmother in Cinderella would use?’
‘Aye, miss. Exactly so.’
‘Then I’d better call the police,’ said Iceton.
‘And I’d better look for fingerprints,’ said Clara.
Clara tried not to look like a guilty puppy that had been caught having a tiddle on the carpet when the two police officers arrived. But she’d learned before on her previous case that if she waited to ask the police if she could take fingerprints, the answer would be ‘no’. She had worked as quickly as she could, dusting the handle, lock and surrounding door – and then the fairy wand box – for prints, before photographing them. The props manager, intrigued by what she was doing, had been all too willing to allow her to take his prints for elimination purposes, and then called his two assistants to do the same. By the time the York City police arrived, Clara’s kit and camera were back in her satchel, but the iron oxide dust could not be hidden.
‘Oi, oi, what do we have here?’ asked the sergeant while the constable’s eyes ranged over the props store and settled on Clara.
‘I have dusted for prints,’ said Clara.
‘And who are you, miss?’ asked the sergeant.
‘My name is Clara Vale. I have been working with Dr Charlie Malone, the Newcastle police pathologist, and I have been in York with Dr Malone at the invitation of Dr Bone.’ All of that was true. But if Clara thought it would satisfy the sergeant, she was wrong.
‘I don’t care if you’re the Virgin Mary herself. What gives you the right to interfere in a crime scene?’
Clara, since her last run-in with the police, had been reading up on her rights as a private citizen and where the police’s authority stopped and started. She was ready for this question. ‘Well, Sergeant, as I’m sure you know, this is not legally a crime scene until the supervising police officer declares it one. Are you declaring it one?’
‘I bleedin’ well am!’
Clara nodded. ‘Good, then I shan’t interfere with it.’
The sergeant’s face was turning an alarming shade of puce. Clara knew she ought to withdraw before he exploded. ‘Well, I’ll be on my way then. You’ll find there are some very good prints on the door. And I’ll be in touch with Dr Bone if there is anything to discuss further.’
Clara slung the satchel over her shoulder, nodded her thanks to Mr Iceton and the props manager, and scampered off before the sergeant decided to take any further action.