6

It was an early Friday night at Campion’s – over a week after what the newspapers, the penny dreadfuls and the latest edition of the Illustrated Police News had christened “the crime of the century”. There was so much newspaper interest that Thomas joked that at least half the Campion’s audience was made up of journalists, all of them on expenses, which was why the bar-takings had been so staggering over the last few nights. Rose thought he may be right. Inspector Cliff certainly did. He had asked everyone at Campion’s to be circumspect about talking to people he referred to as “the gentlemen of the press”, because that was the way rumours were spread that might not be helpful to his investigation. Inspector Cliff clearly didn’t like the journalists, and they showed little sign of liking him. There had been much baiting in the press about his failure to discover the whereabouts of the Doomstone and make an immediate arrest.

Thomas had another reason for wanting to keep anyone connected with Campion’s from gossiping to the newspapermen. He feared for Campion’s reputation. Earlier in the year he had faced huge debts and had almost lost Campion’s. Although the immediate danger was past, the fact that he had been in financial difficulty was well known, and he knew that with the disappearance of the Doomstone, journalists would be looking to rake up any muck they could about him or Campion’s. He didn’t want anything to threaten Campion’s future.

Rose gazed around as she helped to stack glasses. On stage, the Fabulous Flying Fongolis were more than living up to their name as they tossed each other across the stage with acrobatic flair. Campion’s was packed out again, as it had been for every performance since the disappearance of the Doomstone, even though Gandini had not once topped the bill since that night.

Gandini said that he wanted to get used to working with Effie as his assistant before he performed again. He and Effie could be found together every morning, working either in his dressing room or on the Campion’s stage, where onlookers were not welcomed – although that didn’t stop Inspector Cliff loitering whenever he wanted.

Rose wondered whether the press might be right, and Inspector Cliff wasn’t entirely on top of the investigation. She had told him about the man in the peacock waistcoat who had spoken to her and the others at the Pall Mall, and how the man had turned up at Campion’s and then mysteriously disappeared. But although the inspector had made a note of what she said, she could tell that the policeman wasn’t as interested as she thought he should be in what she had told him. He had seemed dismissive when she said she had seen the man talking to Billy Proctor, and that he might know his identity.

Inspector Cliff had conducted no further formal interviews or searches. He simply seemed to be hanging around Campion’s a great deal, stopping to chat to people in a casual way and watching the everyday activities that went on around the music hall. That included sometimes watching Effie and Gandini try out the new act. Gandini didn’t seem to mind or, if he did, he was disguising it very well.

“Ah, Inspector Cliff,” he said with a smile one morning, as Rose was passing through the bar area, “soon you will know all my secrets.”

“Do you have something to hide, Mr Gandini?” answered the inspector affably, and Gandini had roared with laughter.

“Ah, Inspector, you do like your little jokes.”

Rose was reminded of two big cats warily circling each other, both respectful but both determined to come out on top in any fight.

The inspector wasn’t the only one lurking around. She had walked upstairs that morning looking for Thomas, only to find Billy Proctor just slipping out of Thomas’s study. He had looked startled to see her, which had made her suspicious, and her mistrust of him had increased when she opened the door and discovered that Thomas wasn’t there. What had Billy been doing in there? Maybe Thomas had asked him to fetch something for him? She wondered whether she should tell Thomas what she’d seen, but she feared that Thomas, who always thought the best of everyone, would think her a mean-minded sneak.

Every spare minute she had, Effie was busy practising in any empty corner of Campion’s she could find. Thomas said it was a good thing because it would keep her from fretting about her mother. Sometimes, when she got stuck on a basic move, Lottie, who had once filled in as a magician’s assistant for a few weeks, or Jem, would try and help her.

“Lottie’s almost as hopeless as me. But Jem ain’t bad. He ain’t a great magician, not like Gandini,” said Effie sagely, “but he’s bin a real help. An’ he’s got really good at card tricks. Says Gandini has been giving him some top tips.”

Rose and Aurora had tried to get Effie to spill some secrets, but she shook her head and refused to tell them what she and Gandini were going to be performing.

“Will he saw you in half?” demanded Rose.

“Will he make you disappear?” asked Aurora.

“I’ll make you two disappear if yer keep on asking me,” grinned Effie and she leaned forward and produced an egg from behind Rose’s ear. Aurora and Rose goggled.

“That’s pure magic, Effie,” said Aurora.

“Nah,” said Effie, “it ain’t. Fact is, more I learn from Gandini, more I think magic and prigging are pretty much the same. Them’s both a deception. It’s just one’s for gain and other’s for entertainment.”

“What do you mean?” asked Rose.

“It’s like this. If you’re going to prig you need sharp fingers and sharp eyes. But you also need a sharp mind. When a prigger wants to filch a pocket watch, they don’t just choose the first pigeon them sees walking down the street. They choose their mark carefully, someone who they think will be easier to fool. An then they distract ’im. Same with magic. Just with magic, the audience are more than up to be fooled and the magician plays on that.”

“Oh, Effie,” said Rory longingly. “Please, please tell us one of Gandini’s secrets. Just a little one.”

“All right,” said Effie with a goblin smile, “but yer must cross yer hearts and promise never to tell a soul.”

“We promise,” chorused Rose and Rory, their eyes alight with excitement at the thought that they were at last going to discover every detail of one of Gandini’s tricks.

“Well,” said Effie, her face solemn, “that Gandini uses hair dye. His hair ain’t black at all. I’ve seen the empty bottles.”

“Oh,” said Rose, deflated. “That’s not an interesting secret at all.” She thought it quite likely that half the performers who passed through Campion’s were dyeing their hair, and the other half were probably using assumed names or had lost their original name. After all, Rose Campion wasn’t even her real name, but the name Thomas had given her when he found her abandoned on Campion’s doorstep.

Thinking about that conversation as she collected glasses, Rose began speculating in her head what her mother might have called her. She rather hoped it was a name from Shakespeare, like Viola or Portia. It would be a terrible disappointment to discover she was an Ethel or a Eunice. She chuckled to herself. Effie was certainly learning how to fool her and Rory. Thomas had been right – learning to be Gandini’s assistant was good for Effie. In just a few days she had so much more confidence.

Rose glanced at the clock and hoped that Rory would come back soon. She missed her. Later, she and Rory would be performing their bicycle act. They did it much less often now that Rory and Edward spent more time at Silver Square.

After Edward and Rory had been reunited and Edward had taken charge of his inheritance, he and Aurora quickly decided that they didn’t want to live at Easingford Hall in Yorkshire. Rose didn’t blame them. She had visited Easingford, and as far as she could see there was nothing but sheep and moorland for miles around, which was fine for a holiday, but she wouldn’t want to live there. After the constant clamour of London she had found the silence quite deafening.

Rose and Effie had been thrilled by Aurora and Edward’s decision to make a permanent return to London. But even though he was appearing on the West End stage, which some considered a rackety profession, Edward was already moving in far grander circles, meeting daily with people who thought his acting was a charming pastime for a man with a considerable personal fortune, an extensive country estate, a London town house and one of the oldest titles in the land. Acting only added to Edward’s glamour. Aurora was being swept into this orbit, and Rose saw less and less of her at Campion’s. An image crossed her mind of her and Aurora meeting accidentally one day many years hence, and of being like strangers with nothing to say to each other, even though for so many years their fates had been entwined, and for months they had squeezed top to tail in a bed at Campion’s, laughing uproariously together.

She glanced back at the bar. Jem was standing by it, surrounded by a large group of men, including Gandini, and he appeared to be ordering them all drinks from Billy Proctor, who had just let another glass slip through his butterfingers. Billy Proctor had told Thomas he was an experienced barman, and had given Thomas references from The Anchor at Rotherhithe to prove it, but he barely seemed competent. Rose wondered if Thomas had actually taken up the references. Billy handed Jem four glasses of brandy and two tankards of ale. She frowned, wondering where Jem’s new-found wealth had come from. It certainly wasn’t from what he was being paid at Campion’s, even though Thomas prided himself on paying all who worked for him rates above all but the biggest and most successful music halls. She wondered whether Thomas had noticed that Jem was flashing the cash around.

The door swung open and Aurora, Edward and Lydia walked in together, followed by Amy. Rose’s mouth almost dropped open. Aurora was dressed like a smart young society lady in a sapphire silk tea gown edged with navy damask. Her outfit was completed by navy silk gloves and a chic matching little bonnet. She looked like a small replica of Lydia, who was also dressed in shades of blue, and she would not have been out of place on the streets of St James. Aurora hadn’t spotted Rose, and Rose didn’t call out a greeting, but she watched as the party progressed across the hall, attracting lots of interest. As they passed the bar, she thought she saw Gandini give an almost imperceptible nod towards Amy, who was lagging behind the main party looking glum in her dull mustard dress. Rose’s eyes came back to rest on Aurora. She couldn’t help thinking that Lydia’s recent appearance in Edward’s life was hastening the process of Aurora moving out of Campion’s and settling permanently in Silver Square. She thought you’d have to have your eyes shut not to notice just how besotted Edward and Lydia were with each other.

She was in such turmoil that she barely registered the voice at her side.

“It’s Rose Campion, isn’t it,” said a young man wearing a bowler hat and a creased tweed jacket. He had a trim little moustache and sharp terrier-like eyes. He nodded around the auditorium. “Another packed house, I see. Since the Doomstone was stolen, Campion’s has been overflowing every night.”

“Long may it continue,” said Rose tersely.

“You were here, weren’t you, on the night the Star of the Sea was stolen?”

“Yes,” said Rose impatiently, piling glasses on to her tray. The man was obviously a reporter. “I was here, and like everyone else I didn’t see anything. Not a thing, so I can’t help you.”

The man shook his head. “Strange that, ain’t it? It’s very convenient that everybody at Campion’s was struck blind on the very night the Doomstone was stolen.”

“If it has been stolen,” said Rose darkly, her mind still on Rory in that silk dress. Rory was transforming into a lady more and more each day.

“What do you mean?” asked the man.

Rose shook her head impatiently, eager to get rid of the man. She felt his attention like a buzzing fly that she longed to bat away quickly. “Well, the Doomstone is definitely missing, but do we know that it’s definitely been stolen?”

The man’s eyes brightened. “You mean it could be an inside job?”

Rose laughed derisively as if she thought the man was being stupid, and shook her head as she expertly balanced the last few glasses on the tray. She was keen to go backstage and find Rory.

“I think,” she said scornfully, “we can safely assume that whoever took the diamond was in the hall that night, don’t you? After all, it’s not as if the Doomstone could have been spirited away by magic, is it?” She stalked off, leaving the man, who immediately got out his notebook and began scribbling in it feverishly.

Thinking no more of the conversation, Rose took the glasses back to the bar and put them carefully on the polished mahogany surface.

“There you are, Billy, I’ve collected these for you,” she said. He didn’t offer a grunt of thanks. She turned to head off backstage when there was an almighty clatter and the sound of broken glass. Billy had knocked the entire tray off the bar.

“It’s all your fault,” he snarled. “You shouldn’t have left them balanced so precariously. You better clear it up; you can see we’re rushed off our feet here.”

Rose sighed and picked up the broom. She was furious with Billy Proctor, but she didn’t want to make a scene.