‘Yes, that’s him. He said he wanted to marry me– told the world, in fact.’
The soprano gave her an astute look. ‘And you? Have you told the world that you said “yes”?’
‘I’m still thinking about it.’
‘What is holding you back, if you don’t mind me asking?’
Now did not seem the time to lie, with death and destruction around them. ‘Old loyalties– and fear.’
Madame Catalani crossed her arms, foot tapping. ‘That I can understand. But in the end, is it not quite simple?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean. Think about it. I’d better go and see what we can do for the poor victims of this evening’s events.’
With that, she patted Dora’s arm and went back to join her friends packing up from the débâcle. It was unfair that herarrangements had been blown apart. Still, the concert would get more inches in the newspapers the next day, so Madame Catalani might not think it quite so much a disaster of an evening when she read flattering comments in the column about her standing strong under fire.
Dora looked around her for the backstage crew. They were loading the piano onto a wagon to be taken back to the music room. Who was the one to set up the live round for the gun? That was what she now had to find out. She headed for them, brimming with questions.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Bruton Mews
Dora and Jacob sat in the office, taking a late breakfast in the sunshine that came through the open door. Alex and Kir were outside, playing knucklebones on the step. Alexseemed to get a vast deal of pleasure from revisiting childhood games and was teaching Kir how to maximise his points as they tossed up the little bones and tried to catch as many as possible. Jacob could understand the attraction of something entirely unrelated to murderous plots. It was good to be doing something normal after the upsetting events of the night before and they all found it cleansing to hear a child laugh. Even so, Jacob couldn’t help but think of the little boy who would play no more games and the parents who had lost their child in such a senseless way.
Dora brushed his arm. ‘You couldn’t do anything for him.’
He gave her a humourless smile. ‘Reading my thoughts now?’
‘They are not hard to guess when you stare at Kir like that.’
He sighed. ‘All we can do is go forward– work out what is really going on. Let’s go over what we learned about last night.’
‘Let’s make a fresh pot of tea for me and coffee for you, and then decide our next step.’
Before they could get to that, Miss Austen rushed in, her bonnet ribbons flying behind her.
‘Have you read the news?’ she asked, waving a newspaper. ‘An attack on Madame Catalani! What is the world coming to?’
‘Good morning to you too,’ said Dora, getting up to greet her. ‘It was a little more than that, I’m afraid, Jane. We were at the concert and were just discussing it. I can say with absolute certainty that Madame Catalani was not the target, but we and our investigation might have been.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Miss Austen’s hazel eyes rounded in shock as she held on to Dora’s hands.
‘Miss Austen, please do take a seat.’ Jacob held one out for her.
‘You had better hear the full story.’ Dora told their visitor about the events of the night before while Jacob fetched a clean cup from the scullery. He poured the tea for the ladies.
‘Thank you, Dr Sandys. I need this to steady my nerves.’ The cup did rattle a little in Miss Austen’s hand so she put it down on the table. ‘They are my old friends when it comes to rude shocks, but today they are in such a flutter hearing how close you both came to death. And the authorities can’t trace the gunner?’
‘No, unfortunately not. It was a scene of great confusion and many witnesses slipped away before anyone thought to follow up on this. I questioned the stage crew and the musicians who were still there,’ said Dora. ‘They don’t normally have a gun as part of their orchestra, so no one was surprised by a stranger turning up to fire it. They assumed the management had arranged for it, or the singers. The first time they met him was at the dress rehearsal and he only fired the gun once to check it was working. They didn’t want to waste the ammunition as it was a crown a pop.’
‘Did anyone get his name?’ asked Miss Austen.
‘No. He barely spoke and kept himself to himself.’ Dora looked at Jacob. ‘That’s one thing we must do this morning: find out who engaged him.’
Jacob made a note. ‘Indeed so– the fact that he went missing immediately afterwards is suspicious.’
‘Was he scared of getting the blame?’ wondered Dora.
