I showed Smith the picture of Henry Bellrush I’d gotten from his wife. “That’s Henry,” said Smith. “Has something happened to him?”

“Was he a regular?” I asked to move us on.

“He’s an artiste,” said Smith. “A musician. Beautiful, beautiful cornet player. He does this act with this lovely girl called Peggy. Very classy, just him on the cornet and her moving as he played. She could hold an audience transfixed just by taking her glove off. They used to sigh when she went topless ’cause they knew it was almost over.”

“And their relationship was strictly business?” I asked.

“You keep using the past tense,” said Smith. “Something has happened, hasn’t it?”

I explained that Henry Bellrush was dead and that I was conducting routine inquiries.

“Well, that’s a shame,” said Smith. “I wondered why they hadn’t turned up for a while. In answer to your question, those two were strictly professional, he liked playing and she liked dancing. I think that’s as far as it went.”

He also liked buying her the costumes, or perhaps he saw it as an investment. I wondered whether I should tell his wife or not.

I asked if he had any publicity pictures of the mysterious Peggy but, although he was sure they existed, he didn’t have any at the club.

I asked when their last gig was and he gave a date back at the start of the month, less than a day before Bellrush died. “Was it here?” I asked. Fourteen days was a long time for transient vestigia to be retained, but it was worth a try.

“No,” said Smith. “Much more classy than this—it was part of our Summer Burlesque Festival at the Café de Paris. We hold one every year to raise awareness of burlesque among the public.”

I EMERGED blinking into weak afternoon sunlight and before I could get my bearings I was ambushed by Simone Fitzwilliam.

“Constable,” she said brightly, and slipped her arm through mine. “What brings you to my neighborhood again?” Her arm was warm and soft against my side, and I smelled honeysuckle and caramel.

I told her I was still investigating some suspicious deaths.

“Including poor Cyrus?” she asked.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Well, I’m determined to put that behind me,” she said. “Cyrus wouldn’t have wanted me to mope. He believed in living in the moment and double-entry bookkeeping. But then if we were all the same, where would be the fun in that? So where next will our sleuthing take us?”

“I need to check out the Café de Paris,” I said.

“Oh,” she said. “I haven’t been there for such a long time. You must take me, I could be your plucky sidekick.”

How could I argue with that.