Now impatient, Saffron asked, “And you recognized the description of the man Wells was drinking with as someone you saw at the gambling room?”
“Yes, darling!” Elizabeth beamed. “The barkeep described him quite inadequately, but I’ve heard of him. He’s a middle-aged man who walks with a limp. He frequents the gaming room. Everyone just calls him Alfie.”
“Alfie,” Saffron repeated, wracking her brain for if she’d heard that name recently.
“We’ve got to go to Le Curieux Cabaret and speak to Alfie. Having unfriendly talks with a dead man is definitely suspicious!”
It took ten minutes of Elizabeth coaxing and cajoling her until Saffron had to agree there was some merit in the idea. It wasn’t incredible that a second-rate cabaret might have a secret casino hidden in the back. Such things were reported in the papers—which Elizabeth was sure to point out to her, as she’d usually at least heard of the places, if not actually visited—she just didn’t see how it could possibly relate to the lab.
Elizabeth was convinced, however, and ready with a plan. Considering she’d already taken it upon herself to search out clues relating to Petrov’s and Wells’s deaths twice now, Saffron was sure Elizabeth would end up asking questions around the gaming room regardless of whether Saffron agreed to accompany her.
The actual plan, Saffron was even less confident about.
Alexander had mentioned he would not be available to see her that evening—he planned to go to Kingston to check in on his brother—thus she’d stayed at the laboratory late. Elizabeth didn’t think that was a problem in the least. She refused to telephone her brother’s hotel, saying breezily, “We don’t need him to sit down at the card table.”
They did need an escort, however, and Elizabeth’s suggestion of who ought to accompany them surprised Saffron, even more so when he agreed to go with them to Le Curieux Cabaret.
Yet there Lee was, waltzing into their flat at a quarter to ten that evening, decked out in his evening kit and looking as fresh as a daisy.
“Everleigh,” he said, dropping a kiss on her cheek. “Elizabeth, a pleasure.” He kissed her hand.
Despite her frequent protestations that she despised Lee, Elizabeth grinned. She and Saffron were already dressed in their third-best gowns on Elizabeth’s orders, and Elizabeth was sipping a sherry. She handed Lee his own glass. “Ready for a bit of fun?”
“I would have agreed had you stopped at cabaret, my dear,” he said, lifting the sherry in a toast. “But add in a secret casino and nefarious characters, and you would have to pry me loose from the pair of you.”
Saffron glanced warily between her two friends as they drained their glasses. She had the suspicion that, of the three of them, she would be the most reasonable, and that was absolutely unnerving.
CHAPTER31
Le Curieux Cabaret was no Criterion Club, which Saffron had joined Elizabeth in visiting a number of times, but the owners had done their best to make the space elegant. It was housed in a large building that Saffron guessed had once been a bank, or something like it, as it had tall ceilings decked with columns and entablature whose flaking paint had been painted over, giving it an oddly crackled texture. Deep red fabric hung from high points on the walls, gathered and lit to create dynamic shadows that rippled slightly each time someone passed them by. It was an interesting solution to the problem of either damaged walls to hide or a lack of pleasing artwork. The round tables covered in white cloths were crowded, and the air smelled of smoke, sweat, and too-sharp scent.
The wood dance platform, built overtop the stone floor, was empty of dancers, save for one.
A girl danced in the center, a spotlight trained on her as she leaped and hopped. It wasn’t the dancing that arrested Saffron’s interest—though it was rather avant-garde—it was her outfit. Saffron had known she was in for an interesting experience, coming to a cabaret where things were rumored to get particularly lurid, but this was something else altogether. The dancer was dressed in what was essentially a pair of tap pants and a brassiere top—both made of white fur. Matching fur ears attached to a fluffy bandeau wrapped around her head and a delicate tail, no doubt lined with wire to keep it at a jauntyangle, was attached to her behind. It bobbed with each of her skittering leaps.
“Absolutely incredible,” Lee murmured as the girl did a jump that forced her legs parallel to the floor.
A moment later, a tall, lithe man emerged from a little structure on the platform Saffron hadn’t noticed. He rose to his full height, stretching languorously, which allowed his skintight white suit painted with brown and black spots to hug his impressive figure. The man finished his stretch, then froze as he apparently caught sight of the feline dancer. They stared at each other, the tension between them emphasized by a few short blasts from a trumpet. Then the music broke, and the man—clearly a dog, now that Saffron saw he wore floppy ears—scampered over to the woman. The crowd tittered as he caught her, then swept her up and over his head. The cat dancer lunged backward. The man swung her up and over his head again, then, with startling efficiency, tossed her into a series of acrobatic maneuvers that made Saffron’s head spin.
She’d seen some strange things in Elizabeth’s company, but this had to top them. She glanced at Elizabeth, but she was murmuring into the ear of a handsome, tuxedoed waiter.
Meanwhile, the female dancer had wrapped her legs around the male’s neck as he spun, leaving the woman suspended in midair. A glance at Lee told her that he was ready to burst from either laughter or amazement.
Elizabeth leaned over to whisper in her ear. “We’re to wait until the end of this number, then that fellow will show us in.” She nodded to the waiter she’d spoken to, now lurking in the corner, avidly watching the dancers.
At the conclusion of the number, to the blaring of trumpets and crashing of drums as the canine dancer swung the feline dancer into his arms one final time and then retreated with her into the little doghouse structure at the edge of the dance floor, Elizabeth got up. She looped her arm through Saffron’s, and Lee trailed them as they followed the waiter.
He wove between pillars and past tables until they reached a stretch of the room that was more populated by potted palms thanpeople. The waiter stopped before an open door that led to a dark hall.
“Second door on the left. Knock twice,” he instructed in a thick Cockney accent that didn’t match his suave appearance. He slipped away.
Elizabeth squeezed Saffron’s arm. “Let’s see if we can find Alfie.”
Saffron might just keel over, Elizabeth thought the moment they entered the smoky back room of Le Curieux Cabaret. And Lee might just kiss her for bringing him here.
It was just as she remembered. Green baize poker tables stacked with chips, roulette wheels spinning away, and dice flying across hazard tables—there was no doubt what this place was, though they likely had clever ways to hide the obvious gambling paraphernalia should the police ever come knocking. Elizabeth guessed that the cheap wood paneling lining the walls hid a number of places to stash the stuff. Though alcohol was still plenty legal in England, unlike across the ocean, gambling raids were a common thing. A number of her friends had spent uncomfortable nights in jail cells because of them, and Elizabeth had no intention of joining their ranks. If there was a sniff of trouble, she’d kick their way out if she had to.
But it wasn’t the prospect of a police raid that had Elizabeth eyeing Saffron—it was the girls working the floor of the room. They were clad mostly in beads, and those beads did not hide much. It was surprisingly well done, making the girls look exotic rather than tawdry, Elizabeth thought. But Saffron, for all her modernity, could be frightfully naïve at times despite Elizabeth’s best efforts to educate her.
