'The Boy I Love' was composed by George Ware in 1885 and made popular by Marie Lloyd.

An interesting historical side note is that it was also apparently sung by Belle Elmore, the wife of Dr. Crippen.

Chapter Two — The Murder of Beatrice d'Auray.

“'Fraid there's no electricity connected. No bloody wiring that you'd dare to connect it to, come to that. We've rigged up a temporary, rather basic, circuit that does provide a little light in the stage, auditorium, and foyer areas.”

Mr. Scrivener was rather portly, his eyes a washed blue behind rimless half lenses, small chubby hands clasping a mock leather folder. A lesser Pickwick without the benevolence.

“So you'll probably need a torch for the darker recesses. And anyway the light goes at about 6 o'clock, although doubtless you'll want to be out and away before then.”

They were standing at the front of the stage looking out across the auditorium. It was more or less intact with even a few rows of seats at the rear. Above it the galleries loomed, already dark in shadow and, high above them, the richly sculpted roof

The man smiled. “I'll manage. I have a lantern torch for emergencies but generally I'll be gone. I have another appointment at six. With a bombardier. And I should have finished the survey tomorrow long before that.”

“Here's the keys. Remember to lock up when you do leave. And drop them into our offices when you've finally finished; we don't want any repetition of kids getting in creating mayhem.”

“Getting killed?” suggested the man gently

“Yes. Silly little bleeders. Although what their parents were thinking of, letting them roam around at that time of night I don't know. No discipline. What can you expect?” Mr. Scrivener concluded gloomily.

“Bad for business I imagine?” But the sarcasm was lost. Had little chance against the irritation engendered by the memory.

“I'll say. We were on the point of concluding a contract when it happened but the purchaser didn't want to know after the little blighters were killed. It had been bad enough before, but that was the last straw.”

“Before?”

Mr Scrivener snorted.

“It had, has, a reputation. For deaths. An unenviable track record .... I shouldn't be telling you this I suppose .... You working for the new buyers .... Don't want to put the kybosh on that too .... Leave it empty for another twenty years.”

“Don't mind me. I'm just a surveyor. I don't make buying decisions. I just tell them how big it is, whether it is going to fall down, or how much it would cost to knock it down. That sort of thing.”

“Well it's nothing really .... just that it has this reputation. After the V2 ended its days as a theatre, it served for as a cinema until the projectionist got pissed one night and got badly burned, blinded, in a fire caused by his own drunken incompetence. It was briefly a Bingo Hall until the caller fell dead on stage with a massive coronary and his replacement went the same way two months later ....”

“But that must have been decades ago .... Surely ....?”

“There were gaps. Then someone would try again. It had the advantage of being dirt cheap. Spells as a warehouse which invariably ended in a fire, usually with someone getting killed, usually a night watchman suffocated by the resulting toxic fumes. Or just found dead 'by natural causes' without need of fire. An amateur Theatrical Group tried to revive it about thirty years ago and the lighting engineer fell from the flies and was killed on the Opening Night. Not to mention at least five workmen killed at one time or another during its many restorations, damage repairs, patchings-up, making safe, call them what you will.”

“I was speaking to someone ...,” the man began tentatively, “who told me that there was another death. Before the V2. Sometime earlier in the war ....”

“Yes there was. The murder of Beatrice d'Auray .... During the Blitz .... On the night that Havelock Road copped it.”

“Murder?”

“Murder. She was stabbed to death. Here. In her Dressing Room. She was top of the bill. A bit of a star in her day.”

Mr. Scrivener paused. Took of his spectacles, wiped and replaced them. Settling them on his nose, adjusting their balance. Considering. Then.

“I come from around here. Born in Cawnpore Terrace. It was all long before my time of course, but my folks remembered. Not that they talked of it much. But they knew. Everybody did. It had .... had made an impression.”

He looked embarrassed. More human.

“I .... I .... as a lad, a young man even .... I wanted to be an actor. Was passionate about anything to do with the stage. When other kids were kicking a ball about, I played with Pollock Theatres, dreamt of being an actor .... And so I took an interest.”

A nervous laugh; the embarrassment deepening.

“I know it sounds silly. I'm not exactly cut out to be a leading man, and when you're seventeen it's a long wait before you can qualify for character parts. And yet I was .... passionate about it.”

The surveyor made an encouraging, soothing noise, intended to express mild dissent from this over modest assessment of thespian ability.

“I was part of the cast here that Opening Night. When the lighting engineer was killed. Just had a walk-on part of course. And only an amateur. The nearest I ever got .... And I know a little about Beatrice d'Auray. Even have a copy of the old play bill .... She was a male impersonator .... in the style of Vesta Tilly .... she sang straight as well of course, but her speciality was male impersonation. At the beginning of the war there was quite a vogue for old fashioned acts harking back to the Music Hall days.”

“Finding comfort in the security of a Golden Age. Far-flung Empire on which the Sun Never Sets. Britannia Rules the Waves. Thin Red Line o' Heroes sort of thing I suppose?”

“I suppose so. I leave that to the psychologists. Or you might say that there is a limit to the number of times an audience will listen to 'There'll be White Birds Over' and 'Run Rabbit Run', whilst 'Hang out Your Washing on the Siegfrieg Line' enjoyed a rather short time span.”

The man nodded, smiled. “Yes. Perhaps that's more likely. But you were telling me about Beatrice d'Auray?”

“I doubt if that was her real name. Anyway there isn't much more to tell. She had three spots in the evening. One straight, one where she sang duets with another girl called Lucy Sheldon who also served as her understudy, and finally she closed the show in her rá´le as a male impersonator. ”

“And that's all?”

“All I know. Perhaps all anyone knows now. That last act. And when the curtain came down on her last song, it also came down on her and .... and on the glory days of the Old Alhambra. It was never the same again. Perhaps nothing was ever the same again.”

“At least it all ended with a song.”

The surveyor moved to the front of the stage. Looked up to the sweeping semi circles of the galleries tiered above him. Tried to imagine what it must have been like on that last of the glory days.

Mr. Scrivener moved up alongside him.

“I suppose it did. But even that .... even that is a little odd.”

“How can a song be odd?”

“Well .... inappropriate perhaps.” Mr. Scrivener hesitated. “Her last song would have been her signature. It's mentioned on the play bill. An old Marie Lloyd number and not really suitable for a male impersonator. It should be sung from a female perspective.”

“Perhaps the audience just liked it. Must have done I suppose. Anyway it's not as if they thought she was really a man is it? As you said she did have a straight act also and on the same bill.”

“Of course. Anyway it doesn't matter. It is just that I have always thought it a bit .... odd.” He smiled. Looked more like Mr. Pickwick. Almost benevolent.

“What was the song? Do you remember?”

“Oh yes. It's well known. I'm not sure of the title but the refrain starts 'The boy I love is up in the gallery.'”

“.... in the gallery.”

“Yes I know it. And that really was all?

“That really was all. On that night .... October 15th 1941 .... when the curtain came down that was the end. She went to her dressing room and no-one saw her again. No-one except her murderer that is.”

“And they never found him .... or her. Never found out who did it?

“No. Not surprising really. One hundred and seventeen other people died that night in Havelock Road and neighbouring streets. And many more wounded, maimed and crippled. Mostly women and children. The men were away at war of course. One more death was neither here nor there.”

“ I don't care...”

“And I don't suppose there were many coppers around either. Away at the war along with everyone else, including the criminals. London was never so crime-free, safe as houses it would have been. Although of course the houses weren't.”

Mr Scrivener nodded. “The Old Alhambra had been hit too. A couple of small bombs and the usual incendiaries starting small fires. Beatrice was found amongst some rubble in the corridor leading from the dressing rooms. She .... she had been burnt quite severely. It was only by chance that the stab wounds were noticed. How you died in those days wasn't so important. Finding the living and burying the dead took precedence.”

“ So they didn't really look?

“...looking down at me.”

“Look for what? Who could it have been? Where would they start? It was largely a transient population. Most who had lived here were away, most of those here came from elsewhere, where just passing through. The Old Alhambra was damaged and the other performers scattered to the four winds. And they, what police there were, had no resources. Other things to do. Just bury the dead before the bodies rot and hope that the next day someone wouldn't have to bury you or your family.”

Mr. Scrivener shook his head sadly in a kind of wonderment at the horror.

“I suppose,” he continued, “that they just put it down to an intruder, or a thief, or maybe even a thwarted admirer or lover ....

“...I've got a lover.”

.... or who knows? There was a rumour that she was with child so perhaps ....”

“If her murder made no impact at the time, why do people still remember it? Seems still to be regarded as a turning point, something to be in awe of .... seems to have gained in importance?”

It was Mr. Scrivener's turn to stare into the darkness of the high vaulted ceiling.

“Because there was something else. I suppose you could call it a sort of legacy,” he said quietly, as if speaking to himself. Reluctantly exploring an old suspicion.

“After about three months they reopened the Old Alhambra. A bit battered. Missing a lot of gilt and plaster cherubs. And with smoke and water stains evident on some of the seats. But open for business. They had cleaned up the dressing rooms too; carefully redecorated the one which Beatrice d'Auray had used. Only .... only no-one would use it. Not for longer than for one performance they wouldn't. So it was locked up. And barred. As were later the adjoining ones. And things happened, things went wrong, there were accidents .... A trapeze artist was killed, a dancer fell into the orchestra pit and broke her spine. There was talk of a jinx, a curse. Word spread until the acts didn't want to come here any more. Wouldn't come any more. Whatever the money offered.”

“...a lot of money.”

“I'm not surprised,” the man said. “If the acoustics were like this then .... Do you hear it?” He asked. “Or is it just me?”

“Hear what?”

“I keep hearing a faint echo .... distorted .... not quite right. I thought I was imagining things at first .... but .... I keep hearing it.”

“No. I can't hear anything. Nothing at all. You must be imagining it.”

Mr. Scrivener moved away, back down stage. Distancing himself. Suddenly all business-like again.

“I must be getting on. Not paid to stand here gossiping all day. The rest you know anyway. The V2 finished a theatre that was, to all intents and purposes, already moribund.”

Then “You'll be needing this.”

He slipped the folder from underneath his arm and handed it the surveyor.

“The building's details, including floor plans, are all here. Just one thing. They finally bricked up the corridor to the end dressing rooms. They had to .... to get any acts at all. We opened it up again last week but the end room .... her room, Beatrice's room .... is locked. We're trying to sort out the keys, we have a box of them, or they might even be amongst those I gave you, but if you can't wait ....”

“ ...whilst you wait.”

“There it is again .... Surely you ....?”

“No. Nothing,” Mr. Scrivener said abruptly. “The wind must be getting up. Old buildings play tricks. Always creaking as things settle. It's structurally unsafe I expect. And I must go. Late already.”

Already heading off the stage towards the corridor leading to the side exit, he half turned “If you can't wait, just force it. The door. Nobody's going to mind now.”

A few more steps then, over his shoulder, “Remember to lock up. And don't leave it too late ....

“...allow me to state.”

“.... Not after dark. You won't be able to see anything then and .... and ....”

His voice faded away, his parting words lost as he turned a corner and disappeared.