‘I’ll wager that it belongs to you, Draycott,’ said Colbeck, guessing what must have happened. ‘You’re employed by Mr and Mrs Grayston, aren’t you? I wonder if they know that you can get from their garden into ours and back again with relative ease. I believe that, on the first day we had Anstey, you came back when nobody was looking and moved some tools from the shed to the other side of those bushes. Then you had the gall to accuse him of a crime.’
‘I told you it wasn’t me,’ said Anstey.
Draycott gave a nervous laugh. ‘It was only in fun,’ he said. ‘I was playing a little joke, that’s all. I never really meant to get him into trouble.’
‘Well, I mean to get you into trouble,’ said Colbeck, clapping a hand on his shoulder. ‘You’ve been hiding beer in the shed, gaining illegal access between this garden and the one next door, subjecting Mr Anstey to threatening language and behaviour, contriving to incriminate him and lying your head off when you’re caught out. I’m sure that I can think of a few other charges to add to the list. But don’t worry,’ he continued, ‘it’s only in fun. It’s my little joke.’ Draycott hung his head in shame. Colbeck’s gaze shifted to Anstey. ‘It seems that we’ve just lost a gardener. I don’t suppose that you’d care to help us out a little longer, would you?’
‘Yes, please!’ cried Anstey in delight.
‘The first thing you can do is to repair that gap between the two houses. Like us, our neighbours are entitled to privacy. Neither we nor they want anyone coming in from next door whenever they choose.’
‘Oh,’ said Madeleine, fondling the dog, ‘I think there’s something we must do before that. We must find Sam another bone. He deserves it. I yield to none in my admiration of my husband’s abilities as a policeman but — just for today — Sam is the real detective.’
SONGS FOR A SWEDISH NIGHTINGALE
‘Jenny Lind?’
‘Even you must have heard of her,’ said Colbeck.
‘No, sir, I haven’t.’
‘She’s one of the most famous sopranos in the world, Victor. Have you never heard mention of the Swedish Nightingale?’
‘I’m not very interested in birds,’ said Leeming.
‘It’s the nickname of Jenny Lind because she sings with the purity of a nightingale. People used to fight to get tickets to see her. Her operatic career made her a fortune. When she was in America, she’s reputed to have earned enormous amounts of money.’
Leeming was astounded. ‘She got all that just for imitating a bird?’
‘Even the most gifted nightingale couldn’t sing the great arias that she made her own. As for the money,’ said Colbeck, ‘she gave a large amount of it away to found and endow scholarships in Sweden. I once had the privilege of hearing her in La Sonnambula …’
He broke off as he saw the look of bewilderment on the sergeant’s face. It was not Leeming’s fault that he was ignorant of opera. Detectives at Scotland Yard were not well paid and someone like Leeming would need every penny of his wage to house, clothe and feed his young family. There’d no money left to indulge an interest in classical music and opera. Colbeck chided himself for boasting about the fact that he’d actually heard the Swedish soprano. It was unfair on a man to whom names of such operatic luminaries as Jenny Lind, Alboni, Mario and Grisi meant nothing whatsoever.
‘What has this lady got to do with us, Inspector?’
‘We are going to accompany her to Birmingham,’ replied Colbeck.
‘Why?’
‘Her husband, Mr Goldschmidt, has requested police protection for her.’
Leeming was dismayed. ‘That’s no job for us,’ he protested. ‘A pair of country constables could look after her, leaving us to solve serious crimes.’
‘In this case,’ explained Colbeck, ‘we’re there to prevent a crime rather than solve one. It seems that there have been threatening letters, some of them no doubt sent by jealous rivals and therefore written out of spite. Whether or not there’s any real danger, I don’t know, but we have been assigned to look after her.’
‘The superintendent will be very annoyed to lose us on such trivial grounds.’
‘It was his idea that you and I should be chosen.’
Leeming was flabbergasted. ‘His idea?’
‘Yes, Victor, and it was a surprise to me as well. Tallis is so hostile to the female sex in general that I couldn’t believe he actually admired a member of it. But he does, apparently, and her name is Jenny Lind.’
‘Then I’ll be very pleased to meet her. If she can arouse the superintendent’s interest, she must be a very special lady.’
‘She is,’ said Colbeck. ‘That’s why we must take great care of her.’
When she boarded the train at Euston station, Jenny Lind wore a hat with a veil in order to avoid recognition by any admirers. She was travelling with her husband, Otto Goldschmidt, a composer and conductor of international standing. The Swedish Nightingale was going to Birmingham to perform in a concert at the Town Hall. She was a short woman in her late thirties but motherhood had robbed her of her earlier daintiness. Her face was quite plain in repose but, when she smiled, it became radiant. With her veil lifted up and with her delightful broken English, she entranced Victor Leeming. He and Colbeck shared a first-class compartment with the pair. Goldschmidt was younger, taller and wore muttonchop whiskers but the detectives paid him scant attention. Their eyes were fixed on his wife.
‘It’s a pity that we’re not going to Brighton,’ suggested Colbeck.
‘Oh?’ said Jenny. ‘Why is that, Inspector?’
‘Because we might be taken there by a locomotive that bears your name. As you know, the original Jenny Lind was built just over a decade ago for the London Brighton and South Coast Railway. It was such a success that its design was adopted for use on other railways. In other words,’ he said, gallantly, ‘both on the track and on the stage, you have set the standard.’
‘There is only one Jenny Lind,’ said Goldschmidt, proudly.
‘I couldn’t agree more, sir. I had the good fortune to see your wife giving a recital in London. It was a memorable experience.’
‘Thank you.’
Conscious that Leeming was being excluded from the conversation, Colbeck sought to bring him into it by recalling an investigation they’d once made into a major crash on the Brighton line. What Leeming remembered most about the case was that it resulted in a rare treat for his family.
‘The railway company was so grateful when we’d arrested the man who’d caused the crash that it gave us first-class return tickets to Brighton. My children are still talking about our day by the seaside.’
Jenny Lind was prompted to talk about her own children and of the difficulty of leaving them — now that she and her husband had settled in England — when she had engagements in various parts of the country. One of the reasons she’d had no qualms about ending her operatic career was that she wished to spend time with her family. Colbeck suspected that she also found the concert platform more congenial and less exhausting. Once started on the subject of parenthood, Jenny and her husband talked at length and Leeming compared his own situation as a father with the problems they faced.
It was a paradox. In seeking to draw the sergeant into the conversation, Colbeck had effectively excluded himself because he and Madeleine had no children as yet and he could not therefore join in the discussion. He did not mind in the least. Even if she were not singing, it was a joy to hear Jenny Lind’s voice and he was pleased that Leeming was relishing a train journey for once instead of complaining about it. Ostensibly, the detectives were there to act as bodyguards but Colbeck couldn’t believe that anyone would wish to inflict harm on such a remarkable lady as the one sitting opposite him. Keeping an eye on her was the most rewarding assignment that he’d ever had.
As soon as they arrived at the station in Birmingham, it was clear that a veil would be unable to act as an effective disguise for the singer. Word of her arrival had spread and a large crowd of well-wishers had gathered for a glimpse of her. Reporters from local newspapers were there, autograph hunters were poised and someone had set up a camera on a tripod. Among those waiting to welcome her was Charles Rosen, the impresario who had persuaded Jenny Lind to perform in the city. He was a big, stout, flamboyantly dressed man in his fifties with a cigar in his mouth. When the train steamed into the station, he raised his top hat in triumph. She had arrived.