“Oh yes.”
She stopped, pulling against his arm. “And you have the impertinence to bring me with you! I know I am a policeman’s wife, but I do not frequent places like this! I’ll have you remember that there are a great many things men may do and women may not! Now you have had your rather cheap joke. I accept that it was tasteless and cruel of me to ask what happened to your sister. You have your revenge, and my apologies. Now please take me home!”
He held on to her arm tightly, too tightly for her to break away.
“Don’t be so pompous,” he said quietly. “You aren’t any good at it. You wanted to know what happened to Ottilie. I’m going to tell you, and prove it. Now stop making a scene and come in. You’ll probably even enjoy it, if you let yourself. And if you don’t want to be seen here, then don’t stand in the entranceway where everybody can look at you making a spectacle of yourself!”
His logic was irrefutable. She jerked her head in the air and sailed in on his arm, looking neither right nor left, and permitted him to seat her at one of the numerous tables in the center of the floor. She was dimly aware of tiers of boxes and balconies, like a theater, of a brilliantly lit stage, of gaudy colors, flounced dresses low off the shoulders, and the black and white of rich men’s clothes mixed with the duller browns of those less comfortable, and even the checks of men come from the local streets. Waiters wove their way through the throng, glasses sparkled as they were raised and lowered, and all the time there was the murmur of voices and the lilt of music.
Inigo said nothing, but she was conscious of his bright face watching her, curiosity and laughter so close to the surface she could feel it as if he touched her.
A waiter came over and he ordered champagne, which in itself seemed to amuse him. When it came, he poured, lifted his glass, and toasted her.
“To detectives,” he said, his eyes silver in the light. “Would to God all mysteries were so simple.”
“I’m beginning to think it is the detectives who are simple!” she replied acidly, but she accepted the champagne and drank it. It was pleasantly sharp, neither sour nor sweet, and she felt less angry after it. When he poured more, she accepted that too.
Presently a juggler came onto the stage, and she watched him without particular interest. She granted that what he was doing was extremely difficult, but it seemed hardly worth the effort. He was followed by a comic who told some very odd jokes, but the audience seemed to find them hilarious. She had a suspicion she had failed to understand the point.
The waiter brought more champagne, and she became aware that she was beginning to find the colors and the music rather pleasing.
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 at her face across the table, that half of her rather wants everyone to know, especially him.”
“But you put them back?” she said urgently. “You promised—”
“Of course I did, once I knew where they belonged. No one else knows.” He turned to Charlotte. “I’m afraid my mother has a regrettable habit of picking up small things that do not belong to her. I do my best to replace them as soon as possible. I’m also afraid I took rather longer than usual with your mother’s locket, because she said nothing about losing it so I didn’t know to whom it belonged. I doubt I need to explain all the reasons for that?”
“No,” Charlotte said quietly. “No, better not.” She was puzzled. She liked Ambrosine Charrington. “Why on earth should she resort to petty stealing?”
Inigo pulled over another chair, and he and Ottilie sat down. Seeing them so close together, Charlotte realized the resemblance was quite marked. There could be no doubt who “Ada Church” was.
“Escape,” Ottilie said simply, looking at Charlotte. “Perhaps you can’t understand that? But if you had lived with Papa for thirty years, you might. Sometimes you get to feel so imprisoned by other people’s ideas and habits and expectations that part of you grows to hate them, and you want to break their ideals, smash them, shock those people into really looking at you for once, reaching through the glass to touch the real flesh beyond.”