THE BODY WAS in the manager’s office. Milly led me there, where I found Mrs. Landon outside the first office door on the landing, giving anyone who considered going in the sort of look that made them decide they really wanted to be somewhere else. I took my mask off so it might seem a little less strange.
Milly made the introductions. “This is the cousin I was telling you about. Cassie, you remember Mrs. Landon, the director of the company?”
I nodded.
Mrs. Landon looked ready to say something, then seemed at a loss for words and turned to unlock the door. She stepped aside so we could lead the way into the room. The office was small, tucked into the edge of the hallway, with faded green wallpaper that had peeled away from the wall in spots and been stuck back on with varying degrees of care and a scuffed floor sprinkled with rugs that had seen better days and a lot of shoes. It was not nearly as well-maintained as the more public areas of the theater. There was a fireplace on the wall to our left, and a large desk in the middle of the room, facing the fireplace. A smaller apothecary cabinet had been squeezed in against the wall to our right, and a set of bookshelves along the wall we were facing, mostly filled with bound copies of plays, novels that were probably being considered for plays, ledger books with various color bindings, and leather folders giving no clue as to their contents. There was a series of locked banker’s boxes along the top shelf, and a safe in the corner behind the desk.
The body was stretched out on the hearth rug. I couldn’t tell anything about it, other than there was a silver dagger sticking out of the chest. There seemed to be a bit of paper clutched in the hand, but I tried not to look at it and draw attention to it. I didn’t want anyone trying to get a look at it—or worse, take it away—before the police arrived. Otherwise, it was wearing a long, loose, black domino cloak and a beaked mask, a plague-doctor mask I thought they were called, the sort of thing that reminded me of paintings of carnival in Venice. There was the littlest bit of trouser visible under the cloak and the toe of a soft leather boot. “Has anyone made certain he’s dead?” I asked.
“I felt for a pulse,” Mrs. Landon answered. “I didn’t find one.”
One less thing for me to do, then. I tried to think of the next logical question. “Do we know who it is?”
“I don’t,” Milly said.
“No one I saw at the party was dressed like that,” Mrs. Landon said. “But of course, a cloak is an easy thing to slip over another costume. I thought I might ask the guard at the door if he remembers anyone coming dressed like that, but I thought I ought to wait to see what you said.”
I wondered what Milly had told her about my investigations. “I don’t think we should remove the mask ourselves. The police will probably want to do that. So it’s probably a good idea to see if anyone out there knows who it is. And they’ll want to be certain everyone stays until they’ve been questioned, so if you could be sure no one leaves.”
“I can tell them to do his best, but if some of the guests want to leave, I’m not sure they can stop them.”
It was the sort of party with the sort of guests that could be difficult. “Anything you can do. And the police will want a guest list and a list of people who’d already left.”
Mrs. Landon nodded and left the room.
Milly turned to me. “We have to summon the police.”
“We do,” I agreed. But I had the feeling she meant we as in the two of us, not a more general sort of we.
“So could you send a note? I mean, if it was Inspector Burrows...”
I nodded. This was the sort of group that would respond well to Inspector Burrows. “I don’t know if he’s on duty tonight, but it wouldn’t hurt to at least try to get him here.” There was paper on the desk, which did not seem to match the scrap in the corpse’s hand, but I knew better than to touch anything in the room. I brought Milly back outside so we wouldn’t have to stare at the body and fished a notebook and pencil out of my handbag. By the time Mrs. Landon had returned, I’d composed a quick note saying there was a dead body at the Melpomene Theatre party and we needed a police inspector. If Inspector Burrows was there, he would recognize my handwriting, as would a surprising number of other people at Scotland Yard. It was the best I could do.
“Did anyone at the door recognize the costume?” Milly asked when Mrs. Landon was close enough that we could speak privately.
“No one came in wearing a domino, so either he snuck in or changed here.”
“Could he have gotten a costume like that here?” Milly asked.
Mrs. Landon nodded. “We have several cloaks like that downstairs. We use them when we want to hide costumes so a group of actors can mingle in the background of a scene without really changing in and out of their main costume.”
So someone who knew their way around the theater could have gotten it. “Did anyone have a bag big enough to hide the costume?” I asked.
Mrs. Landon’s shoulders slumped slightly. “I didn’t think to ask that.”
“Well, the police will, so that’s fine.”
“Cassie’s sending a note,” Milly explained.
I cut Milly off before she could say too much. “Do you know where I could find someone to take the message?”
“The accounting office has a few mechanical birds. I can unlock it for you.”
“That would be perfect.” When Mrs. Landon looked ready to leave at once, I realized I’d have to remind everyone of everything, “Can we lock this door so no one stumbles in on him?” I didn’t think I needed to add that we didn’t need any guests finding him and panicking or the killer returning and taking away some valuable clue.
“Oh, of course.” Mrs. Landon leaned over and used her key to lock the office door.
As I watched Mrs. Landon lock the door, I realized the first question I needed to ask. “Was the office locked during the party?”
“Oh yes. I didn’t want any of the guests getting in here.”
That led to the next logical question, “And who had the key?”
“I’m the only one here tonight with a copy.”
“And could anyone else have gotten a copy of it?”
Mrs. Landon looked surprised at that question. “I suppose so. There’s a spare, but it’s well hidden.”
I had the feeling it wasn’t as well-hidden as she thought. “Where?”
“On top of that cabinet on the landing. There.” She pointed to the cabinet I’d been standing near for part of the night. Not a secure location at all, even if it was a rather tall cabinet.
“And who knew it was there?” I had the feeling I wasn’t going to like the answer.
“Most of the members of the company, I would think. It’s there so people can get into the office when we store things in there for shows.”
So any member of the company could have gotten into the office during the party, and anyone not in the company who was friendly enough with someone in the company who might have told them. Not particularly helpful.
Mrs. Landon must have sensed that this was not a line of questioning that was going well for her. “I’ll show you the way to the accounting office.”
~ * ~ * ~
Mrs. Landon led me downstairs, to the back of the lobby, past the buffet, to a door half-hidden under the stairs. It led to the backstage area of the theater. I followed Mrs. Landon through a maze of hallways, past the dressing rooms, to a small door at the end of the hallway. I realized it must be at the end there to have convenient windows for the mechanical birds. Apparently, the bookkeepers didn’t mind being in the middle of nowhere. While Mrs. Landon went through her keys and unlocked the door, I tried to get a look at any of the dressing rooms or any bit of backstage business. When I turned back to Mrs. Landon, she was staring at the door looking slightly confused.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“I didn’t feel the lock click when I turned the key. Or I don’t think I did. I’m so used to opening it, I don’t know that I would notice. And I wasn’t really paying attention. It’s the body and...” She shook her head. “I’m just a bit off. Don’t mind me.” She led the way into the office, which was larger than I was expecting, but crowded and clearly also used to store any bits and pieces of theater ephemera that didn’t belong anywhere else. “The birds are over here.”
But I did pay attention to what she’d said. No doubt she’d unlocked the door hundreds of times, which meant if she thought it had felt different, it probably had. “You might want to have a look around while I get the note for Scotland Yard sent, just in case something’s out of place.”
Mrs. Landon was prepared to tell me she was sure she was mistaken, and I could see the moment when she remembered there was a dead body upstairs. She nodded and led me over to the shelf where the theater’s mechanical birds were kept. I found the book that said which bird traveled to which part of London and the way to arrange the wing feathers so it would go where I wanted it to, then found the correct silver sparrow and slipped my note inside. Mrs. Landon returned while I was winding the bird.
“Everything looks as it should. But the prop master, Mr. Morgan, is the one who would really know if something was out of place.”
“I’m sure the police will ask him later,” I assured her. “Where do I send this off?”
Mrs. Landon brought me over to the window that would line up with the instructions in the book and allow the bird to get where it was supposed to be, and I released it into the night, hoping Inspector Burrows was on duty, or Inspector Hamilton, although even Inspector Wainwright would be better than nothing.
~ * ~ * ~
Mrs. Landon led me back through the maze of hallways to the lobby where the party was still going on, oblivious to the drama upstairs. As we approached the staircase, someone in a jester’s costume stopped to ask Mrs. Landon something, glancing at me as he did so. Taking the hint, I moved away from Mrs. Landon. She turned and said, “You’ll let me know when he gets here?”
I knew she meant whoever Scotland Yard sent over and didn’t want to mention the murder until she had to. “Of course.”
Mrs. Landon turned back to the jester, and I put my mask back on so I wouldn’t stand out in the crowd, and considered what to do next. It all depended on whom Scotland Yard sent. So that meant the best thing to do was wait for the police and be ready to greet them when they arrived. At least then I’d know who we were dealing with and I could get them to the crime scene as quickly and quietly as possible.
On my way to the front doors in the foyer, I spotted Milly near the buffet table, where there was still a surprising amount of food. They were certainly keeping it well stocked. I made a quick detour and caught Milly over by the desserts. “Why were you going into the office with Mrs. Landon?”
“I wasn’t,” Milly said as she filled her plate. “I went up on the landing to try and find someone. She was going in as I was walking past and I saw her reaction. And I’ve seen enough people find bodies to know what it looks like. So I went in and told her it wasn’t my first body, or yours either, and I’d see if I could find you to help. She was glad of the help, right up until I told her you’d tell her to make certain no one leaves. This isn’t really the sort of crowd you want to tell they can’t leave, even if they weren’t planning on it for hours. I suppose we won’t see the singing now. I was looking forward to that. Oh well. I suppose you’re going to wait for the police too? I hope it’s Inspector Burrows. Try one of the cream cakes. They’re really good.”
The cream cakes did look good, so I put a couple on a plate with a few almond cakes and some sort of tartlets and brought them over to the front doors to wait for the police. I wanted to see whom my note brought. Milly followed me with a plate of cakes of her own.
When we got to the main entrance, I didn’t see anyone trying to leave the theater. Mrs. Landon must have managed to keep news of the body from the majority of the guests. I went into the foyer with Milly right behind me. One of the footmen whom I’d taken to be guards stepped in front of us at once. “No one can leave. Go back in.”
“You could be a bit politer about it,” Milly said around a mouthful of cake. “None of this crowd is going to listen if you throw your weight around. They’ll just tell you all about the people they know in government or on the board or something.”
The footman from the coat check came over, the one who’d dealt with the scarves and wrote out our claim check. “She’s right, you know, Harrison. And then they’ll get you fired.” He turned to us. “But you do need to stay. They had a little incident that needs clearing up.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Milly said. “But we’re here to wait for the police. Cassie here knows all of them.”
Both men turned to me, one curious, one completely disbelieving.
“Not all of them,” I corrected, “but I am the one who just sent them a note, so I want to be here when they arrive.”
“See?” the footman said. “Not leaving. Just the opposite.”
Harrison looked like he wanted to disagree but wasn’t sure how. He settled on, “Stay out of this, Bexley.”
I took that to be the footman’s name. As he seemed friendlier, I addressed myself to him, knowing the guard Mr. Harrison would hear all of it anyway. “Mrs. Landon will want to see them as soon as they arrive, so I thought I’d meet them and help them find her. Then she won’t have to leave the guests before it’s necessary.”
Mr. Harrison definitely wanted to object to that, but mentioning his employer for the night had the desired effect and he went back to looming by the door. I took off my mask so I wouldn’t seem to be hiding anything from the police and tied the ribbons in a bow so I could drape it over my arm while I leaned against the inner door and started on my cakes. Milly noticed I’d taken my mask off and did the same, then leaned against the coat check counter and started asking Mr. Bexley about someone named Ryan while I watched the door and tried to avoid looking at Mr. Harrison.
~ * ~ * ~
By the time the hansom cab pulled up outside the theater, Mr. Harrison had given up trying to get me to leave and Milly had disappeared somewhere behind the coat check counter, presumably to find Ryan. I went to the door to try and see who was getting out, only to have Mr. Harrison block my way. I considered saying something then decided it wasn’t worth it and waited to see who would be coming in.
We were in luck. The police constable who opened the theater door was Constable Lipson, with Inspector Burrows paying the cab outside. I ignored Mr. Harrison and went to greet Constable Lipson. “You don’t know how glad I am to see you.”
Inspector Burrows came through the door in time to hear that. “You’ll understand when I say I am not the least bit glad to see you here. Where is it and who is it? And do I want to know how you happen to be here?”
The last was easiest to answer, so I started there. “Milly’s fault.”
“Then I am doubly sorry to see you here. It’s not because of a gentleman, is it?”
“In a roundabout way. They were his tickets to the party.”
“And you didn’t chop his head off? Or order it done?”
I’d forgotten my costume in the confusion. “I assure you, no. But Milly is on borrowed time.”
“I’ll remind her to always say, ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’”
“That might help. Come on. I’ll introduce you to Mrs. Landon—she runs the company, and she found the body, so she can show you where he is.”
I could feel Mr. Harrison frowning as I led Inspector Burrows and Constable Lipson inside. It seemed he’d thought showing the police around would be his job, but he hadn’t been there when the body was found, and he would have been welcome to it if he had.
We were barely through the foyer when Milly came out of the hallway on the left. “Inspector Burrows! We were hoping it would be you.”
“So I heard. It is nice to be wanted. That doesn’t happen very often when a policeman shows up. But the two of you seem to turn up around dead bodies with alarming frequency. Now, Miss Pengear was going to introduce me to a Mrs. Landon.”
“Oh yes. She’s waiting by the office. I thought we should guard the door.”
Guarding the door was a good idea; I just hoped Milly remembered that we weren’t sure of Mrs. Landon yet. And Mrs. Landon had the key. And if Milly had left Mrs. Landon guarding the door, she probably hadn’t.
As we walked, Inspector Burrows started questioning us. “Do we know who it is?”
“Not yet,” I told him. “It’s a man, we could tell that much. But he’s wearing a mask, so we thought you’d want to take that off yourself.”
“I would. Who found him?” Inspector Burrows asked, looking at me.
“Mrs. Landon. But Milly was there when she found him.” I turned to Milly so she could finish the story.
“No, it was just after Mrs. Landon found him. I saw her coming out of the office and I’ve seen enough people leaving a crime scene to know the signs.”
Inspector Burrows scribbled that in his notebook. “So that’s why I’m speaking to Mrs. Landon first.”
“Exactly. Come on. I’ll show you the way.” Milly took off for the main staircase without waiting to see if we would follow, but of course we did.
Mrs. Landon was indeed waiting by the door to the office, just as Milly had said. She turned as we rounded the corner of the staircase, so she was paying attention to who was around. There was a flicker of nerves when she saw it was us, then she pasted on the same smile she’d given us in the receiving line and waited for us to approach while pleating and unpleating the ribbons on the sleeve of her dress.
I did the introductions to get them out of the way quickly. “Mrs. Landon, this is Inspector Burrows of Scotland Yard. Mrs. Landon, the company director.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Inspector Burrows said. “I’m told you found the body?”
“Yes.” Mrs. Landon stopped fiddling with her ribbons.
“Then I’ll want to hear all about it. And I’ll need to talk with anyone who was in the area. Is there somewhere we can set up to take names and addresses and question anyone who might have information?”
Mrs. Landon looked startled at that request. She must not have realized Inspector Burrows would be questioning everyone. But she recovered quickly. “I have a list of the names and addresses of the people who bought the tickets. Will that do?”
Inspector Burrows considered it for a moment. “I’ll have one of my constables at the door as people leave to check that we have all the correct information.” He could see Mrs. Landon was going to object and added, “Unless you have the names of all the guests the ticket buyers invited along and confirmed that the people who attended are the ones who originally bought the tickets?” His eyes flickered to Milly and me. He was preparing to use us as an example if he needed to.
“We didn’t check that carefully,” Mrs. Landon admitted. “We didn’t think we’d need to.”
“And why would you? You couldn’t have known something like this would happen. So we’ll get the information as they leave. Now, I will need to question some people more thoroughly. It would be best to have someplace private.”
Mrs. Landon must have realized she wasn’t going to be able to prevent that. “Normally, I’d say to use the office, but I suppose that won’t be possible here. Perhaps you could use one of the opera boxes?”
“It’s not ideal, but I think we can make it work. Constable? If you would?”
Mrs. Landon took her keys out and took one off the ring. “Is box four good? It’s fairly central.” She handed Constable Lipson the key.
“It sounds perfect. Thank you. Now, let’s see what we’re dealing with. I’m told you have the key to this office?”
Mrs. Landon pulled out her key ring again. Inspector Burrows held out his hand, leaving Mrs. Landon with few options. She removed the key in question from the ring and handed it over.
Inspector Burrows took the key from Mrs. Landon. “Who else has a key to this office?”
Mrs. Landon looked over at us, no doubt wondering if we remembered what she’d told us. Milly nodded for her to go on.
Mrs. Landon must have realized we’d tell Inspector Burrows anything she didn’t. “Anyone who knows the theater would have known where to find the spare.”
“And where is it kept?”
“On top of the cabinet in the hallway off the landing. It isn’t visible unless you’re standing on a chair or something, but you can feel it if you know where it is. We keep it there in case anyone in the company needs to get in here to leave something safely.”
“I see.” If Inspector Burrows thought that defeated the purpose of locking the door in the first place, he didn’t let it show. He slid the key into the lock and opened the door.
Inside, everything looked the same, so guarding the door must have had some effect. Inspector Burrows went over to the body and looked at it. “Is this how you found him?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Landon said. “It was quite a shock.”
“What happened?”
“I was coming in here to get a list of the plays we’re doing this season for one of the guests, and there he was.”
“Did you know he was dead?”
“Oh yes. I’ve seen enough stage deaths to recognize a real one when I see it.”
There was something I hadn’t thought of. The idea that the death had been staged. But if Milly had been watching the door...
“And then what happened?” Inspector Burrows asked.
“I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to disrupt the party. It’s one of our largest fund-raisers of the season. But I couldn’t leave him there until morning. I stepped out of the room to think without having to look at him, and Miss Prynne was in the hallway. She asked what had happened, and I don’t know why, but I told her. She said she’d get her cousin who had solved murders before. I suppose I thought she was related to a policeman.”
“So it was a surprise when Miss Pengear turned up?” Inspector Burrows asked.
“Yes, I suppose it was.”
“It usually is. What did you do then?”
“Miss Prynne said to wait by the door, so I did. She brought Miss Pengear, and we had another look inside. Miss Pengear said not to touch anything and asked how she could send word to you. We have some mechanical birds in the accounting office behind the dressing rooms, so I locked up the office here and took her there. I think Miss Prynne stayed here?”
“I was guarding the door,” Milly told him.
Mrs. Landon went on, “After I brought Miss Pengear to the lobby, I wasn’t sure what to do. There were quite a few people wanting to talk to me about nothing important, so I didn’t want to go back to the party, and Miss Pengear seemed to have summoning you sorted out, so I came back here to the office. Miss Prynne was outside the door, and she asked if Miss Pengear had said anything, so I told her about going to the accounting office and getting the note sent. Then Miss Prynne told me to keep watch while she went to see if Miss Pengear needed any assistance. I stayed near the door to make certain no one went in and tried not to let any of the guests know something was wrong.”
“And before you found our unfortunate fellow here, when was the last time you were in the office?”
“Earlier in the day. Before the party. I locked away some records from the ticket office when it closed and got a copy of the guest list for the guards at the door so they could be sure only people with tickets and their guests came in.”
Inspector Burrows wrote that down. “Will I be able to get a copy of that list?”
“I’ll have someone make one for you.” She saw Inspector Burrows’s expression and added, “Unless one of your men would like to make a copy now?”
“Yes, I think that would be best. Then he can check it against the information guests give as they’re leaving the theater. Where is it?”
“I left a copy in the top desk drawer.”
Inspector Burrows went to retrieve it, meaning Mrs. Landon wouldn’t have to lean over the body and he could be certain no one would disturb any evidence. “Is this it?”
Mrs. Landon looked at the list he held out. “Yes, that’s the most recent.”
“Were there many changes?”
“No more than usual. A couple of last-minute buyers. It happens all the time. They’re the names at the bottom.”
Inspector Burrows glanced at the names, then handed me the list to hold onto and turned back to the body. “Now, I know you can’t see it very well from there, but do you recognize the dagger? Is it something from the theater?”
Mrs. Landon hesitated then leaned in a little. “I think it’s from the prop room. There’s a mate to it that’s dull and collapses into itself. We use them when we want to have the knife cut something and then stab an actor.”
“And could someone have been playing a joke and used the wrong one on him?”
“No one from the theater. The safe dagger has a red stone embedded in the bottom. It’s one of the tricks of using it that the actor has to keep it hidden so the audience can’t tell it’s a different knife. But Mr. Morgan gets very upset if someone wants to cover it for a performance, and rightly so.”
“And someone outside the theater?”
“It’s locked away in the prop room. They’d have to know where the key was and where it was stored.”
“And where is the key?”
“In the desk over there.” Mrs. Landon pointed to the long drawer just under the writing surface of the desk. The drawer was probably locked, but the key was in the lock, so not the most secure of places. Still, someone would have to know where to look.
Inspector Burrows turned his attention back to the body. “We won’t touch anything else yet, but I think we need to see who we’re looking at here.” He leaned over and gently pulled on the mask. It came away immediately, trailing the ribbons used to tie it on behind it. So the victim hadn’t been wearing it. It must have been put on him after death. I wondered what that meant. Then I risked a glance at the body. It was a man, late middle-age, dark hair. He seemed relatively fit and healthy. And he seemed calm. I didn’t think he’d put up much of a fight when he’d been stabbed. I wasn’t sure what any of that meant, but Inspector Burrows was focusing on something else.
He looked up at Mrs. Landon. “Do you recognize him?”
Mrs. Landon didn’t hesitate. “Yes, of course. That’s Robert Craddock. He works for the theater maintaining the effects and random things backstage.”
“How well do you know him?”
“Not very. He works here when we need him. He was helping us get things ready for the next play. There are a couple of effects, nothing particularly difficult, mainly a rising bit in the stage. He was helping to test the mechanics of it.”
“And the rest of the time?”
“He works for other theaters on the street. Most of them, I think. I don’t know of any other sort of places he might work. I think he picks up enough from the various theaters that he doesn’t stray too far from them.”
“Did he have any problems with anyone that you know of?”
Mrs. Landon shook her head. “I never had any complaints. There was no gossip that reached me about him. Some of the other stagehands might know more.”
Inspector Burrows nodded. “And do you know where he lived?”
“We would have that in the personnel records. I can get it for you when I can access the files. Or Mr. Morgan might know. He was the one who would usually decide when they needed the extra help and bring him in.”
Inspector Burrows nodded again. “Is he at the party?”
“Yes. I can point him out to you.”
“That would be helpful. Thank you.” Inspector Burrows leaned over to look at Mr. Craddock’s hand, the one with the bit of paper in it. but he didn’t touch it. As he looked, I could see it was torn, gray, and had a small bit of writing on it, maybe one word, but I couldn’t read it. Inspector Burrows turned away from the body and picked up the mask again, weighing it in his hand. Then he started playing with it, shifting it back and forth and then balancing it on his hand. It took me a moment to realize he was trying to figure out something to do with the beak. “Miss Ferris isn’t here, is she?”
I shook my head. “Not as far as I know.”
“Then do either of you have any small tools? Something that could take the bottom off of this mask without damaging it?”
I hadn’t been able to put much in my handbag—all the bits Kate had needed to put inside to hold the mechanical head to the front of the bag didn’t leave much room for an actual functioning handbag—but Milly swung hers up onto the table and started to root through it. “How about a button hook? Or a bodkin?” As she named each item, she put it on the table beside the bag. “Or a penknife? Or a nail file? Or an ice pick?” I didn’t want to know why she had that in her bag. “Or a hatpin? I have three sizes. What about tweezers?”
Inspector Burrows went from amused to impressed as Milly continued to pull things out of her bag. He settled on the button hook to start and worked it along the edge of the beak. When he hit a point where the corner of the beak met the body of the mask, the bottom of the beak popped away from the rest. Inspector Burrows quickly tipped the mask up to be sure nothing would fall on the floor then carefully poured the contents into his hand. “What do you make of this?” He held out a handful of sparkling gems.
“Those are off of some of our costumes,” Mrs. Landon said at once.
“How can you tell?”
“The colors, for one. That green was very tricky to find, but we needed it to match the silk for Ophelia’s gown. I had to allocate extra money to get them. And the shape of those red ones. They needed to fit along the edge of the collar for the Duke of Calabria. I think the rest have been used more than once.”
“Do you know if any are missing from either of those costumes?”
“Mrs. Garrick would know. I think Mr. Nelson is wearing Calabria’s tunic. I don’t know about the Ophelia dress, but I haven’t seen it tonight.”
“We can check.” Inspector Burrows gave Milly back her button hook.
Milly started repacking her handbag. “Why would he be stealing gems off of the costumes?”
Inspector Burrows turned to Mrs. Landon. “You don’t use real gems?” He sounded as if he knew the answer but needed it confirmed.
“Of course not. We can barely afford paste as it is.”
“Have the costumes been anywhere recently? On tour, perhaps, or loaned out?”
Mrs. Landon shook her head. “You mean could the gems have been switched at some point? They’ve been in storage at the theater then backstage in the dressing rooms when people chose them for the masquerade. It would be quite a coincidence for someone to steal gems that looked exactly like the sort of thing we have on our costumes.”
“And these costumes were in storage? Not newly made?”
“That’s right. We had those two in particular made three years ago when my late husband put on a series of tragedies. There were some alterations made at various times to fit the cast, but nothing major. That was when the gems were bought. The others could be from any of a dozen costumes.”
Inspector Burrows poked at the stones with his finger, spreading them across his palm so we could see each of them. “And you recognize all of them?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Landon said. “I mean, I’m not an expert, someone could have had a glass gem cut to mimic one of ours. But why? It would make more sense the other way around.”
“Fake gems mimicking the real thing is certainly more normal,” Inspector Burrows agreed.
“Why would someone hide paste gems in a mask then leave it on him?” I asked.
“Maybe there’s something hidden inside the gems,” Milly suggested. “A secret code, or a formula, or a real gem.”
Inspector Burrows held one up to the light so we could see that there was nothing inside. They were clear except for the cuts that made them sparkle under the lights. “Could it be something to do with the mask and completely unrelated to his death?”
“Why?” Mrs. Landon asked. “They would change the balance of the mask and make it harder to wear, not easier. And masks are best when they’re light, so they don’t interfere with what the wearer is doing.”
“So there wouldn’t be some reason to put some weight in the beak, like a poorly balanced mask?”
“Not at all. And we used that mask when we did Merchant of Venice a couple years ago, and it worked very well.”
“Did it have the panel then?”
“Yes, that’s when it was added. The person who was wearing it needed to hide one of the props. We had to get rid of it quickly and that was the best we could do.”
“And would Mr. Craddock have known about it?”
“He worked on the production, so he might even have been the one who modified it.”
Inspector Burrows took another look at the gems, then pocketed them. He put the mask down on the desk. “Then I think that’s all I can do in here for now.” Inspector Burrows stepped away from the body and gestured for us to go back out onto the landing. No one wanted to stay with the body longer than we had to, so we all cleared the room. When we were all safely outside and the door was closed, Inspector Burrows turned to Mrs. Landon. “I’ll keep the key. We’ll need to keep everyone out until I can do a proper search, and I’ll get you a receipt for the stones and anything else I take as evidence. But I would think you’d like me to start by interviewing the party guests so they can leave.”
Mrs. Landon clearly didn’t like either option. “Can you not mention the murder to the donors?”
Inspector Burrows considered the request for a moment. “I’ll say there was an incident. They’ll read about it in the papers, though. Something like this won’t be kept out of them for long.”
“But if we can wait until...” Mrs. Landon wasn’t sure how to finish that thought.
“Until they don’t feel they can ask for refunds?”
Mrs. Landon looked sheepish but nodded.
“I’ll do my best. I will want to speak to everyone while the evening is fresh in their minds, but if I have names and addresses, I could probably call on some of them in the morning.” So Inspector Burrows didn’t think most people would have seen anything. That was probably right. And even if they had seen someone hanging around the office, with the costumes and masks, they wouldn’t be likely to have recognized anyone. “And tell the members of the company and the men you have on the doors that I’ll be talking to all of them tonight.”
“Of course.” Mrs. Landon looked slightly relieved as she left us.
Inspector Burrows turned to the door and locked it and slipped the key into his pocket. He then went to the cabinet Mrs. Landon had mentioned and felt along the top.
“Oh, it’s not there,” Milly said as he felt around.
“And you know that because?”
“I have it here. When Cassie went with Mrs. Landon to send for you, I took it. We don’t want the murderer to go back in and mess around with the clues, do we?”
“Definitely not.” Inspector Burrows came back to where we were and held out his hand for the spare key. I could tell Milly had been hoping to keep it, but she handed it over, and Inspector Burrows pocketed it with the other one. “Miss Pengear, did you have the list I gave you?”
I handed him the guest list. He turned, and Constable Lipson came out from behind the urn where I had been hiding for the first part of the evening. “Would you take this down to Constable Jones and tell him to make a copy of this, then go stand at the door and check the information against the guests as they leave? Make sure he gets all of the guests’ guests as well.”
“Right away.” Constable Lipson took the list and started downstairs.
Inspector Burrows turned back to us. “Now, let’s begin at the beginning. Miss Prynne, Miss Pengear, if you would come with me.” He didn’t wait to see if we would follow, but of course we did.