didn’t say anything until we were clear of the rest.
‘Do you think it was Suter that the trombone fellow saw earlier?’
‘It might have been,’ I said. ‘Daniel wanted me to ask the women about Jenny. Perhaps he hoped to see some of the dancers on their way in and ask them himself.’
‘If Blake’s right and the magistrates let the maid go, the police will have to ask more questions.’
We walked in silence for a while, thinking about it.
‘What is it about the syllabub?’ I said. ‘Isn’t that a strange thing to have in a dressing room?’
‘Exactly to Columbine’s taste, I should think: whipped cream, sugar and sherry,’ Kennedy said. ‘It was all part of her affectation. She insisted it was the only thing she could eat on rehearsal or performance days. The maid always prepared it at home and brought a big bowl of it in with her.’
‘And everybody at the theatre knew that?’
‘Of course. It was a standing joke.’
Columbine had been altogether a joke, or perhaps something worse than that. But I couldn’t get out of my mind the picture of those silk-stockinged feet sticking out.
‘Do you know anything about her? Was she always like this?’
Kennedy had been part of London’s artistic circles most of his life and had a love of gossip.
‘There’s usually been some scandal circulating round her. I remember when she first appeared on the London scene – must have been twenty years ago. She was about seventeen at the time and bewitchingly pretty.’
‘Where did she come from?’
‘Nobody knew. She simply turned up on an old lord’s arm at the opera one night, dressed in red satin and more diamonds than all the rest of the women put together. He put it about that she was the daughter of an Italian count, but there were rumours that she was a milkmaid from his estates in Dorset.’
‘Did she try to get him to marry her?’
‘He had a wife already, also down in Dorset.’
‘Were he and Columbine together long?’
‘Almost a whole season, until he killed himself.’
‘Killed himself?’
‘Got out of his carriage and jumped off London Bridge one night. She said he was drunk and trying to show her how he used to dive off a bridge at home when he was a boy.’
‘Did people believe her?’
‘There was no proof to the contrary, and he was always eccentric. The town said suicide but the jury brought in death by misadventure.’
‘Do you think she pushed him?’
‘No. She had a lot to lose by his death. While he was alive he could cut down his forests to buy her more diamonds, but the estate was entailed, so once he died it went to his heir.’
‘What happened to her then?’
‘That was when she decided to become a dancer. She was never very good, but people would always pay to look at her because of her beauty and her reputation. And of course various men became her protectors. She always had the best in houses and carriages.’
We crossed Leicester Square, trying to keep clear of the worst of the mud. A chanter was still hawking the Columbine ballad by the light of a guttering tallow candle. In an attic somewhere, a man who’d dreamed in his youth of being a poet was no doubt already working on its sensational sequel.
‘You said people paid to look at Columbine because of her reputation,’ I said. ‘There are plenty of scandalous women. Why was she special?’
Kennedy thought for a while before answering.
‘You know the fascination cliffs or precipices have for some people? All the more if poor fools take to flinging themselves over them. It was like that with Columbine.’
‘The old lord wasn’t the only one, then?’
‘No. There was one scandal not so long ago, about a cavalry officer who turned to forgery on her account.’
‘How long ago?’
‘About five years, I think. It’s a strange thing that, now and again, even women like Columbine can fall for a man’s looks instead of his money. Maybe it’s a kind of a holiday for them, who can tell? Rainer, the name was. Major Charles Rainer of the Household Cavalry. He was a handsome devil, all the swagger in the world, best horseman in London, killed two or three men in duels. All the usual nonsense.’
‘What did he forge?’
‘Bills. You know what a bill is?’
‘A legal promise to pay. They’re what they keep passing around to each other in the City.’
‘Just so. Forging them’s a serious business. In theory, you could still hang for it. This man took to forging them to pay for all the presents he was giving Columbine. At least, that’s what he said in the dock at the Old Bailey. He tried to get the jury’s sympathy, saying he’d been tempted away from his honourable career by a wicked and ungrateful woman. It goes without saying that she’d taken up with another man by then.’
‘And did it get the jury’s sympathy?’
‘Of course not. He was found guilty and sentenced to ten years’ transportation. He yelled out from the dock, cursing her.’
Five years since Rainer was transported, nearly twenty years since the old lord died. It didn’t seem likely that either of those scandals would be of interest to Disraeli and his friends now. We walked in silence along Piccadilly, up Berkeley Street and through Grosvenor Square. Candlelight glowed softly behind the curtains of the great houses. It was quite possible that in one of them Mr Disraeli was sitting with the gentlemen over their port, no more than a few yards away. Well, I had some information for him, and some questions.
When Kennedy and I parted at the foot of my stairs in Abel Yard, he promised to get word to me as soon as he had news. He patted my arm and told me not to worry.
‘And you – are you taking your own advice?’ I said.
He didn’t answer.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The next day, Tuesday, brought no word from Kennedy or anybody else. It was the dreariest of days, the grey sky seeming to press itself against the window, and the smell of sewage coming up through the building along with the damp.
It was raining on Wednesday morning when I went out and bought the Morning Chronicle. The report was there on page three, a column and a half.
Police are continuing to investigate the poisoning on Monday night of the popular dancer, Madame Columbine, who died in her dressing room at the Augustus Theatre. The
