She looked him over. “Indeed you do pass muster, Sam. The jacket fits perfectly.”
Sam wore a ready smile and Billie sensed this was a part of his job he rather enjoyed. He had on his new white double-breasted shawl-collar dinner jacket, worn over a button-down shirt, black bow tie, and satin-stripe black tuxedo pants. His shoes shone. Yes, he looked the part in his summer whites, and that was precisely why Billie had had the jacket made for him early in his employment with her. A keen amateur seamstress herself, she had good connections with tailors, some of whom owed her favors. She’d had one good day suit and one formal wardrobe made for Sam. This was the first outing for the black-tie ensemble. Far from a luxury, Sam’s wardrobe was as vital to his work for Billie as a wrench was to a plumber. They needed to be able to fit in anywhere without raising eyebrows; tonight they had to slide into the top end of town. With freshly combed hair and a sparkling white jacket, Sam looked every bit the leading man, though his gloved hand gave him a slightly dark edge, which was not entirely unwelcome considering where the trade sometimes took them. She pushed back her chair and stood, and he looked her over briefly, keeping his appraisal polite and professional. “Ms. Walker, I must say you look as pretty as a diamond.”
“You do have a way with words, Sam.” Billie smoothed down her silk dress and caught a glimpse of the shining sapphires at her throat. She dearly hoped her mother would never need to sell them, though she knew her jewelry collection was dwindling as fast as her furniture. “It’s balmy out,” she said. “Shall we walk?”
“You can walk in that?”
“Watch me.” She grabbed her stole and tossed it elegantly around her shoulders.
Billie never sacrificed mobility for style, just as she wouldn’t sacrifice style for much of anything. These were practicalconsiderations, after all. If she didn’t look the part, she wouldn’t get far at their destination, and if she couldn’t get far in her shoes, she might miss some vital clues. She shared her mother’s belief that attractive shoes needn’t be ankle breaking. In fact, the baroness still wore the low 1920s style, which was a bit out of date for Billie’s taste. She didn’t need to do the Charleston all night; she just needed to walk four level city blocks, and who knew how much farther later on. Her shoes had a two-inch heel, a little satin bow above the toe, and fabric soles. Leather was still quite dear, having been needed for men’s boots. But equally, fabric was quiet. Billie liked quiet shoes. Not for her those clanging leather soles that announced your arrival like a marching band.
“What’s this about tonight?” Sam asked as they stepped onto the street. It would take little more than ten minutes to hit the theater district.
“Our boy was hanging around The Dancers, apparently, and spoke with a doorman. I’d like to know what he was doing there and what was said,” Billie explained.
“Really? Was he looking for a job as a dishwasher?”
“Precisely my first thought, but no. He was trying to get in as a customer, it seems.”
Sam’s eyebrows went up. “Now, I haven’t met the kid, but I reckon he’d have more success tattooing a soap bubble than getting served at The Dancers.”
Billie grinned. Sam was absolutely right, but that didn’t always stop young men from trying things, particularly if there was a girl involved.
In no time they were upon the George Street theater district, which was in full swing, most of the theaters having just let out. Asthey crossed Liverpool Street, Billie pushed out the crook of her elbow and Sam linked his arm with hers. A couple of actors on a mission, they walked arm in arm to the narrow Art Deco street entrance of The Dancers on Victory Lane, as the passage off George Street was colloquially known, smiling and looking for all the world like any other couple coming from the shows. A Rolls-Royce was pulling in as they neared the entry, and a uniformed doorman who was as thin as a shadow opened the door to greet a gray-haired gentleman and his somewhat younger platinum-haired female companion. “That might be our doorman,” Billie remarked under her breath, and they waited for him to turn but missed the opportunity to talk to him as he escorted the couple inside.
Sam nodded and Billie held on to his arm with imitation intimacy.
They made their way through the portal to a plush emerald-colored carpeted staircase that led to the next level. Sam stayed close at Billie’s side as they made their way past the wordless doormen guarding the entry to the main floor. The doormen bowed slightly and white-gloved hands pushed open the white-and-gold doors in well-trained unison, the ballroom opening up before them, almost blindingly white for a moment compared to the darkness of the stairway.
Billie sensed Sam’s awe as they entered.
The Dancers was one of those joints that aimed to feel international, and mostly succeeded. The walls were covered with illuminated murals of glamorous cities—Paris, Cairo, Athens—and everything from the waiters’ crisp white bow ties and dinner jackets to the palm motifs of the carpet, crockery, and napery conspired to give patrons the impression they were on an expensive holiday.
There was a slightly American feel about the place, Billie thought, not for the first time. It had probably been designed to please the US troops who’d come here with their money after ’41. It wasn’t a place a lot of Aussie diggers could afford, and the clientele these days seemed mostly to be the types who were too well connected to have seen a front line—judges, barristers, men and women of leisure, and anyone they wanted to impress. The Dancers had a reputation for catering to wealthy gentlemen on the other side of the law, too, including those who claimed to be “legitimate businessmen” despite notorious reputations. The club gave the impression of being exclusive, though as far as Billie could tell that meant they’d let in anyone with enough cash, fame, or glamour to make the place look good. If you dressed well you could get in, but if you behaved badly or didn’t like buying drinks, you wouldn’t stay long. Little wonder Adin and Maurice never made it past the second set of doors. If she could find out just why this place was of such interest to the missing boy, and imbibe a good champagne cocktail in the process, it would be an evening well spent.
They made their way past the circular dance floor, which was dotted with extravagantly adorned patrons, and came to the long bar on the other side. It seemed The Dancers, despite the name, was not really the place to carve up the dance floor. This was a place for expensive swaying, Billie decided. Or at least it was now that the war had done its work and trimmed down the customer base. She turned her back on the crowd and slid onto a stool at the gleaming bar, her silk dress settling smoothly around her hips and long legs. A crisply uniformed bartender with one of those curiously old-young faces looked to Sam for their order.
“Champagne cocktail, please,” Billie cut in before Sam couldspeak. The bartender tilted his head, taken by surprise, though not at all put out by her ordering her own drink.
“Whatever the lady wants, the lady shall have. And for the gentleman?”
“I’ll have a planter’s punch,” Sam said.
“Oooh, getting adventurous,” Billie teased her assistant quietly as the bartender moved away to get the ingredients he’d need.
“Ihavehad a cocktail or two, you should know,” Sam said, slightly defensive.
She grinned mischievously. Sam was more of a beer kind of guy, but he was acting the part well enough tonight. Swiveling around on their stools, they turned their backs to the bar for a moment to take in the room from their new vantage point. The Dancers had the round dance floor as its focus, with white-clothed circular tables all around it, the majority of them taken. There was a raised stage for live bands along part of one wall to their right, which might be two musicians deep, but the focus was that floor, and when an act came on they walked out there, lit by a spotlight to captivate the room. Billie had seen a show here at the start of the year. It was top-shelf.
Billie surveyed the tables. The ones closer to the middle were especially exclusive. She recognized two judges at one such table. Gray-haired and sitting in that puffed-up way older gentlemen sometimes did, they were very familiar, but she couldn’t quite get their names to surface. Not connected with any of her recent cases, thankfully, though her mother would likely know them.
The maître d’ was fussing over another central table and drew Billie’s eye. Champagne flowed there. The real French drop, no pretenders. A well-fed and smooth customer in tails—the only tails Billie had seen so far in the joint—was brandishing a small, velvet-covered box. On one side of him a lean man wore summer whites, like Sam, but would look more at home in denim and an Akubra, astride a horse. His face was deeply lined, tanned, and weathered, as if being indoors was a habit he avoided. He seemed relaxed, and he appraised the box with faint interest, holding his coupe glass in a rough hand that almost engulfed it. Beside him was a blond woman with a somewhat fussy veil-and-flower combination on her head, reminiscent of the top of a wedding cake. She wore a glass-eyed fox fur over an apricot gown and looked positively taken with whatever was in the rotund man’s box. Gems, Billie guessed. The blonde leaned over to the grazier type and said something in his ear. He smiled languidly. A large, glittering ring flashed on her finger. A well-to-do country couple come to town for some solid spending, Billie decided.
Across from the assumed grazier, and on the other side of the tails-wearing, rosy-cheeked gentleman, was his absolute opposite: a tall, slender, pale man with almost iridescent skin and a snow-white head of hair that his body and neck looked a touch too young for. Billie caught the side of his face, and it looked strange, pulled. An honorable war wound, no doubt. A skin graft for airman’s burn, she speculated, thinking of the lift operator, John Wilson. Those damned planes had a habit of catching fire on a whim. Perhaps he was one of the lucky, unlucky ones who’d made up Dr. Archibald McIndoe’s Guinea Pig Club in Sussex? Maybe it was a plastic job. She’d seen many of those since 1945. Wars provided surgeons with an influx of test subjects and much had changed since the Great War. What a man could survive these days was remarkable. The pale man sat stiffly and sipped from his glass, holding it gently at the base in the French way, so the champagne would not warm in his hand.Beside him a fifth figure padded out the small table but seemed not to belong. It was a young brunette woman in a violet couture number. Though beautiful, the clothing had the effect of a dress-up. Had that ravishing dress been made for someone else? Billie wondered what her story was. She sat among this interesting circle of characters but looked at none of them, appearing almost bored and wishing she was elsewhere.
“If you were trying to blend in, you shouldn’t have worn that dress,” Sam commented quietly, pulling Billie’s attention back to him.
She turned swiftly, eyebrow arched. “I say, you can be an impudent young man,” she scolded playfully. “Except that you may be right. Ella said the same.” A few heads at the closer tables were craning their way, possibly drawn to that ruby red. It was better than the beaded option, though. She still felt sure about that.
