Chapter Thirty-Seven

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

W ilbur Bowman had been a reporter long enough to know a stunt when he saw one, but he had to admit that this one had a bit of the old Treadwell stardust about it.

‘Do you think so?’ Jack said brightly when Wilbur told him so on the pavement outside the restaurant. Along the High Street, the town clock struck nine.

Jack waited for the photographer to capture him turning the key, then ushered them inside. The transformation was complete. What had been the dance floor was now home to a series of low polished shelves, a bar was set up to serve tea, coffee and buns, and the old booths had their walls raised so they were a series of independent little units, each with a wind-up portable gramophone screwed to the table.

Between the shelves and the booths were a series of scattered tables, all dark polished wood. No starched linen and fresh flowers, Wilbur noticed, but clean and pleasant nonetheless. Even empty, it had an atmosphere: something younger and more informal than the Lyons teashops, more homely than a nightclub.

‘And that,’ Jack pointed to the far end of the room, ‘is where we record. Everyone’s waiting.’

‘Why did you have to unlock the door, then?’ Wilbur asked.

Jack didn’t even blush. ‘I thought it might make a nice picture. Did it, Pete?’

‘Aye.’

Mabel Mills was drinking coffee with her fellow band members; Lillian and Nikolai were in the musicians’ den while Dixon moved microphones backwards and forwards a few inches. Wilbur flipped a page on his notebook.

‘Miss Mills, how have you found recording with the new microphones?’

She sipped her coffee. ‘You’ll never get the heat of a performance in a club on to a disc, that I know. But Mr Wells gets us close. Come and sit with us, Mr Bowman.’

She patted the chair between her and Lillian and Wilbur sat down a little nervously while the photographer took more frames of them, a bristle of microphones at their backs.

‘Now, Lillian and I were just speaking of the something extra these microphones can bring to our music, weren’t we?’ Mabel leant forward and spoke softly.

‘And what is that?’

‘Intimacy,’ Lillian said in a low whisper. Wilbur’s pencil slipped. ‘Even with the whole band playing, I can sing like I’m sitting this close to you.’

‘Works for the players, too,’ Mabel added. ‘We don’t have to project to the back of the stalls or the club. We can be softer.’

Softer , Wilbur wrote with a trembling hand.

‘Or mix it up. We can play like we’re setting the street on fire, then Joshua, my crooner, can sing like he’s whispering a lullaby to our baby girl, and when you play the record, you’ll hear us and him both fine. One of our new records is “Mabel’s Lullaby”, and it’s ready to go on sale today.’

Lillian waited until Wilbur had taken that down, then stood up. ‘But this morning we are doing something rather special. Nikolai and I are going to record “The Sunrise Song”, as arranged by our own Ruby Rowntree, and featuring Miss Mills.’

‘It is a celebration of our upcoming wedding,’ Nikolai said, ‘and of this new enterprise.’‘Not unlucky, though?’ Wilbur asked. ‘I understand you sang it to prevent a riot in The Empire when the machinery broke.’

There was an awkward silence.

‘We’re reclaiming it as our victory song!’ Jack declared, clapping his hands together. ‘Now, Wilbur, come and see the recording lathe.’

Wilbur would write many stories in his career that were more important; he would write many more that were more important that year. He very rarely wrote one which was as much fun.

The recording process itself was fascinating. Dixon explained it to him – and so to his readers – and after the master was made, Jack drove them up to the Lassiter’s site like the Hounds of Hell were after them. And after a breathless few minutes, while the master was being checked and no one would talk to him, Tom Lassiter took over to give Wilbur the tour of the plant.

Jack retreated into Tom’s office.

‘How is it going so far, Jack?’ Ruby said from the desk. ‘Lord, you look worn out. Sit down. Have the comfy seat, dear.’

Jack fell into her armchair and pulled her patchwork throw around his shoulders.

‘I was up all night guarding the shop! No sign of any trouble. What about here?’

Ruby reached out and patted him on the shoulder. ‘We had a visit. From Constance’s secretary. He had a bottle of vitriol with him, and the key to the shed.’

Jack threw off the quilt. ‘Good God! Did you call the police?’

Ruby shook her head. ‘Calm down, Jack. And I shan’t say anything more until you settle again.’

The armchair was very comfortable. With a show of reluctance, he settled back down into it and pulled the quilt over him. ‘There. I am cocooned as ordered.’

‘Good. No. He claimed to be checking all was secure, and as the landlord’s representative, he has a right to be holding the key. We’ve changed all the locks, though, and given him warning the factory will be guarded at night. Tom dealt with him.’

‘So . . .’ Jack yawned. ‘I suppose that means Joe was right, that Constance is behind some of our reversals?’

Ruby made a note in her book. ‘Yes, it does. And Tom is rather heartbroken. He knew his mother didn’t like him much, but to actively attempt to sabotage the factory . . . Honestly, Jack, I don’t have the words. As I understand it, if this man had added the vitriol to the mix, it would have just looked as if the shellac had failed.’

‘I’m very glad Tom has you, Ruby,’ he said, and yawned again. ‘So she probably bribed someone at Turnbull’s, and at Hallam’s, to sabotage the work at the theatre. And the chicken episode, I imagine, too.’ He felt his eyelids begin to close. ‘I wonder if she had anything to do with our director getting run out of the country, but how on earth would she manage that?’

Grace had to sit on her hands to stop herself from biting her nails. An hour until opening, and there was nothing else for her to do. It was torture. The empty shelves had been stacked with the Mabel Mills recordings, popular favourites brought in from EMI, and a dozen of Ruby’s songs. The great speeches section included an old friend, Ivor French, doing ‘To be, or not to be. . .’ and Miss Pritchard and Miss Gardiner’s reading of extracts from Sonnets from the Portuguese .

There were two prominent display stands at the front of the shop, one filled with copies of ‘My Love Awaits Me’ from Cairo Nights , and the other still empty, waiting for the freshly pressed copies of ‘The Sunrise Song’. Miss Chisholm sat next to her, and even in her usually calm demeanour, Grace sensed a tremor.

‘It’ll be splendid,’ Grace said firmly, and Miss Chisholm shot her a shy smile.

‘I do hope so. Did you see the telegram from Miss Stanmore?’

Grace had. And it was the second time Miss Chisholm had asked. It had given no indication of where Stella was, or if she intended to come to Lillian and Nikolai’s wedding in a little over a week, and consisted of only three words: Good luck, darlings!

‘I did.’

‘I’m so terribly sorry to hear about Mrs Constance Lassiter,’ Miss Chisholm said in a whisper. ‘I went to the Metropole first thing, and Bertram’s. They aren’t sure who she might have been dealing with. I had to be rather vague, of course, but they assure me dealings with The Empire will be handled only by their most trusted employees in the future.’

‘Thank you,’ Grace said. ‘And for your discretion. It is a terrible thing. I honestly think there is nothing Constance would not do to harm us. A rather terrifying thought, considering Lassiter Enterprises still manufactures armaments for the government.’

‘Goodness!’

‘Don’t worry, Miss Chisholm,’ Grace said. ‘I’m beginning to think that Constance is a little mad, but I don’t think she’d risk a violent assault. She’s a businesswoman, not a soldier.’

‘Indeed. I suppose that’s some small comfort.’

The girls on the cash desk and coffee counter wore dark green aprons with gold trim, and a small sign standing next to them advertised MILKSHAKES! THE AMERICAN SENSATION! Small cakes and tiny pork pies sat waiting for the peckish under large glass domes, and the tea urn was already steaming.

‘Mrs Treadwell, have you looked outside recently?’

Grace looked up to see Mr Poole bending towards her, hands behind his back. He looked terribly serious.

‘Oh, has no one turned up? But we spent an absolute fortune on announcements! We offered coupons!’ She looked at her watch. Still forty minutes till they opened.

‘Perhaps they’re waiting until the last moment?’ Miss Chisholm suggested.

‘Oh, the final photographs will look terrible if it’s just an empty shop!’ Grace groaned.

‘No, it’s not that,’ Mr Poole said. ‘Lord, you and Mr Treadwell are always jumping ahead of a person! Do come and see for yourself.’

He led the two women up the stairs, past the old ma?tre d’s station, unhitched the chain wrapped around the doors, and pulled it open.

Grace blinked. The pavement was heaving. Dozens of men, women and children were gathered around the entrance in a great mass. They were not the usual habitués of the theatre, Grace noticed, but older women in plain coats holding the hands of small children, young men in caps and without collars. Girls and boys hardly out of the schoolroom.

‘Oh, my! Any word from the factory?’ Miss Chisholm asked.

‘They’re checking and packaging the records, according to Marcus, who seems to be in constant communication with Mr Lassiter’s boy there. I can’t imagine what the girls at the telephone exchange think of them. Anyway, sounds like they shan’t be long.’

‘We meant to have the crates of “The Sunrise Song” and the customers come in at the same time,’ Miss Chisholm said, stepping back a little so Mr Poole could close the door again.

‘It’ll be a stampede if we wait,’ he replied. ‘Do that and you’ll have turned ankles, spilled goods, and every sort of folderol. The energy of crowds should not be trifled with, Mrs Treadwell. Scientists say so.’

Grace made a decision. ‘Well, if scientists say so, Mr Poole, who are we to disagree?’ Then she turned to the store and clapped her hands.

‘Ladies and gentlemen! It looks like we’re going to be busy, so we’re going to open early. Now remember, be calm and cheerful. I want every person who comes through those doors to get their shilling’s worth of entertainment. Miss Chisholm, we’re going to need more cakes. Buy everything they can give us, including the macaroons, and then biscuits will have to do after that. Mrs Briggs, if you would concentrate on the teacups. Now Mabel and Josie will be signing records over there. They’re at the Metropole – can someone go and fetch them? And Miss Chisholm, on your way to the bakery, could you pop up to Lady Lassiter’s office and tell her and Nikolai we’re opening early?’

Grace felt that quiver in the air – the feeling of being alive from the top of your head to the soles of your feet. Constance disappeared from her mind like smoke.

‘What shall I do?’ Dixon was hovering near the door of the recording area.

‘Stay there, Dixon, and keep the doors open so customers can have a look in and ask questions about the recordings.’

‘What if they touch things?’ he asked in tones of tangled panic.

‘Fear not, Mr Wells,’ Mr Poole said, raising a hand. ‘We shall fetch stanchion ropes to keep back the throng. Marcus! Go!’

Marcus hightailed it through the shop in pursuit of the velvet ropes and brass posts.

Grace tried to sound bracing. ‘We’re going to let everyone in now.’ She looked around at the faces in front of her – a mix of excitement and nerves. Jack was supposed to make these sorts of speeches. She decided to keep it simple.

‘Don’t worry, everyone, this is going to be magnificent.’

She nodded to Mr Poole, and he flung open the doors.