Vintage Murder
Vintage Murder
Ngaio Marsh
A touring theatre company in New Zealand forms the basis of one of Marsh’s most ambitious and innovative novelsNew Zealand theatrical manager Alfred Meyer is planning a surprise for his wife's birthday - a jeroboam of champagne descending gently onto the stage after the performance. But, as Roderick Alleyn witnesses, something goes horribly wrong. Is the death the product of Maori superstitions - or something more down to earth?
NGAIO MARSH
VINTAGE MURDER
COPYRIGHT (#ulink_e2a6b815-5c20-53f4-8d96-ef3c8f7f68cb)
HARPER
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2009
Vintage Murder First published in Great Britain by Geoffrey Bles 1937
Copyright © Ngaio Marsh Ltd 1937
Ngaio Marsh asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of these works
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HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780006512554
Ebook Edition © MAY 2013 ISBN: 9780007344420
Version: 2016-08-18
DEDICATION (#ulink_7438c5bc-79bc-5ada-b56c-75ba6324b7c3)
For Allan Wilkie andFrediswyde Hunter-WattsIn memory of a tour in New Zealand
CONTENTS
Cover (#u4d64bc49-563b-57fc-80e2-11e294dd692f)
Title Page (#u5a40377d-e823-5467-b546-72b576dbbdd9)
Copyright (#u4c0b453a-560e-5fa8-962a-2f9dd71f80ea)
Dedication (#u3af8ae68-4767-527c-9b2b-80350b85ff34)
Cast of Characters (#ud2fb546d-60c4-55f4-b877-9a740764ed6d)
Foreword (#uf819645a-b168-528d-8bb9-b70a644d7399)
1. Prologue in a Train (#uc81c47ef-d10e-5a77-b330-c57323225ffc)
2. Mr Meyer in Jeopardy (#ua9adda3c-7398-51d9-9e1f-92c359e4216d)
3. Off-stage (#ubf98c432-dd3b-5136-bb19-bd4ed4de8b6b)
4. First Appearance of the Tiki (#ua9b294ff-67ee-55d4-8f60-eefcf52af7b4)
5. Intermezzo (#ucdc4251e-3afb-550b-b866-9a89ed990874)
6. Second Appearance of the Tiki (#u91937310-b522-5358-b3c4-e8d708da12bb)
7. Wardrobe-room Muster (#litres_trial_promo)
8. Money (#litres_trial_promo)
9. Courtney Broadhead’s Scene (#litres_trial_promo)
10. The Case is Wide Open (#litres_trial_promo)
11. St John Ackroyd and Susan Max (#litres_trial_promo)
12. Liversidge Fluffs his Lines (#litres_trial_promo)
13. Miss Gaynes goes Up-stage (#litres_trial_promo)
14. Variation on a Police Whistle (#litres_trial_promo)
15. Six a.m. First Act Curtain (#litres_trial_promo)
16. Entr’acte (#litres_trial_promo)
17. Change of Scene (#litres_trial_promo)
18. Duologue (#litres_trial_promo)
19. Carolyn Moves Centre (#litres_trial_promo)
20. Exit Liversidge. Enter Bob Parsons (whistling) (#litres_trial_promo)
21. Business with Props (#litres_trial_promo)
22. Fourth Appearance of the Tiki (#litres_trial_promo)
23. Alleyn as Maskelyne (#litres_trial_promo)
24. Dr Te Pokiha Plays to Type. Warn Curtain (#litres_trial_promo)
25. Alleyn Speaks the Tag (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CAST OF CHARACTERS (#ulink_99da81f6-8bbb-5101-b2b7-191e74f3356d)
(in the order of their appearance)
FOREWORD (#ulink_cb8fd712-fb6c-509d-8bec-4c2086da2d42)
Although I agree with those critics who condemn the building of imaginary towns in actual countries I must confess that there is no Middleton in the North Island of New Zealand, nor is ‘Middleton’ a pseudonym for any actual city. The largest town in New Zealand is no bigger than, let us say, Southampton. If I had taken the Dacres Comedy Company to Auckland or Wellington, Messrs Wade, Packer, and Cass, to say nothing of Dr Rangi Te Pokiha, might have been mistaken for portraits or caricatures of actual persons. By building Middleton in the open country somewhere south of Ohakune, I avoid this possibility, and, with a clear conscience, can make the usual statement that:
All the characters in this story are purely imaginary and bear no relation to any actual person.
CHAPTER 1 Prologue in a Train (#ulink_30012ee0-93cf-545f-92c1-2a5dfed401ec)
The clop and roar of the train was an uneasy element somewhere at the back of the tall man’s dreams. It would die away – die away and fantastic hurrying faces come up to claim his attention. He would think ‘I am sure I am asleep. This is certainly a dream.’ Then came a jolt as they roared, with a sudden increase of racket, over a bridge and through a cutting. The fantastic faces disappeared. He was cold and stiff. For the hundredth time he opened his eyes to see the dim carriage-lamps and the rows of faces with their murky high-lights and cadaverous shadows.
‘Strange company I’ve got into,’ he thought.
Opposite him was the leading man, large, kindly, swaying slightly with the movement of the long narrow-gauge carriage, politely resigned to discomfort. The bundle of rugs in the next seat to the tall man was Miss Susan Max, the character woman. An old trouper, Susan, with years of jolting night journeys behind her, first in this country, then Australia, and then up and down the provinces in England, until finally she made a comfortable niche for herself with Incorporated Playhouses in the West End. Twenty years ago she had joined an English touring company in Wellington. Now, for the first time, she revisited New Zealand. She stared, with unblinking eyes, at the dim reflections in the window-pane. The opposite seat to Susan’s was empty. In the next block George Mason, the manager, a dyspeptic, resigned-looking man, played an endless game of two-handed whist with Ted Gascoigne, the stage-manager.
And there, nodding like a mandarin beside old Brandon Vernon, was little Ackroyd, the comedian, whose ill-temper was so much at variance with his funny face. Sitting in front of Mason, a pale young man fidgeted restlessly in his chair. This was Courtney Broadhead. ‘Something the matter with that youth,’ thought the tall man. ‘Ever since Panama—’ He caught the boy’s eye and looked beyond him to where Mr Francis Liversidge, so much too beautifully dressed, allowed Miss Valerie Gaynes to adore him. Beyond them again to the far end of the long carriage were dim faces and huddled figures. The Carolyn Dacres English Comedy Company on tour in New Zealand.
He felt very much an outsider. There was something about these people that gave them a united front. Their very manner in this night train, rattling and roaring through a strange country, was different from the manner of other travellers. Dozing a little, he saw them in more antiquated trains, in stage-coaches, in wagons, afoot, wearing strange garments, carrying bundles, but always together. There they were, their heads bobbing in unison, going back and back.
A violent jerk woke him. The train had slowed down. He wiped the misty window-pane, shaded his eyes, and tried to look out into this new country. The moon had risen. He saw aching hills, stumps of burnt trees, some misty white flowering scrub, and a lonely road. It was very remote and strange. Away in front, the engine whistled. Trees, hills and road slid sideways and were gone. Three lamps travelled across the window-pane. They were off again.
He turned to see old Susan dab at her eyes with her handkerchief. She gave him a deprecatory smile.
‘Those white trees are manuka bushes,’ she said. ‘They bloom at this time of the year. I had forgotten.’
There was a long silence. He looked from one dimly-lit slumping figure to another. At last be became aware of Hambledon’s gaze, fixed on himself.
‘Do you find us very queer cattle?’ said Hambledon, with his air of secret enjoyment.
‘Why do you ask that?’ said the tall man quickly.
‘I noticed you looking at us and wondered what were your thoughts. Do you think us queer cattle?’
In order not to disturb Susan Max and to make himself heard above the racket of the train, he bent forward. So did the tall man. With their heads together under the murky lamp, they looked like conspirators.
‘That would be an ungracious thought,’ said the tall man, ‘after your kindness.’
‘Our kindness? Oh, you mean George Mason’s offer of a seat in our carriage?’
‘Yes. The alternative was a back-to-the-engine pew by a swinging door, among commercial travellers, and next a lavatory.’
Hambledon laughed silently.
‘Ah well,’ he said, ‘even queer cattle may be preferable to all that.’
‘But I didn’t say I thought—’
‘If you had it would not have been very strange. Actors are a rum lot.’
‘The last man I heard say that was an actor – and a murderer,’ said the tall man.
‘Really?’ Hambledon raised his head. ‘You don’t by any chance mean Felix Gardener?’
‘I do. How did you guess—?’
‘Now I know who you are. Of course! How stupid of me! I have seen your photograph any number of times in the papers. It’s been worrying me.’
His companion looked at Susan Max. Her three chins were packed snugly down into her collar and her eyes were closed. Her whole person jogged rhythmically with the motion of the train.
‘She knew me,’ he said, ‘but I asked her not to give me away. I’m on a holiday.’
‘I should have guessed from your name of course. How inadequate one’s memory is. And without your – your rank—’
‘Exactly. They spelt me wrongly in the passenger list.’
‘Well, this is very interesting. I shan’t give you away.’
‘Thank you. And at any rate we part company in Middleton. I’m staying for a few nights to see your show and look round, and then I go on to the South Island.’
‘We may meet again,’ said Hambledon.
‘I hope so,’ said his companion cordially.
They smiled tentatively at each other, and after an uncertain pause leant back again in their seats.
The train roared through a cutting and gathered speed. ‘Rackety-plan, rackety-plan,’ it said, faster and faster, as though out of patience with its journey. The guard came through and turned down the lamps. Now the white faces of the travellers looked more cadaverous than ever. The carriage was filled with tobacco smoke. Everything felt grimy and stale. The shrill laughter of Miss Valerie Gaynes, in ecstasy over a witticism of Mr Liversidge’s, rose above the din. She stood up, a little dishevelled in her expensive fur coat, and began to walk down the carriage. She swayed, clutched the backs of seats, stumbled and fell half across George Mason’s knees. He gave her a disinterested squeeze, and made a knowing grimace at Gasgoigne who said something about: ‘If you will go native.’ Miss Gaynes yelped and got up. As she passed Hambledon and the tall man she paused and said:
‘I’m going to my sleeper. They call it “de luxe”. My God, what a train!’
She staggered on. When she opened the door the iron clamour of their progress filled the carriage. Cold night air rushed in from outside bringing a taint of acrid smoke. She struggled with the door, trying to shut it behind her. They could see her through the glass panel, leaning against the wind. Hambledon got up and slammed the door and she disappeared.
‘Have you taken a sleeper?’ asked the tall man.
‘No,’ said Hambledon. ‘I should not sleep and I should probably be sick.’
‘That’s how I feel about it, too.’
‘Carolyn and Meyer have gone to theirs. They are the only other members of the company who have risked it. That young woman has just go to be expensive. Valerie, I mean.’
‘I noticed that in the ship. Who is she? Any relation of old Pomfret Gaynes, the shipping man?’
‘Daughter.’ Hambledon leant forward again. ‘Academy of Dramatic Art. Lord knows how big an allowance, an insatiable desire for the footlights and adores the word “actress” on her passport.’
‘Is she a good actress?’
‘Dire.’
‘Then how—?’
‘Pomfret,’ said Hambledon, ‘and push.’
‘It seems a little unjust in an overcrowded profession.’
‘That’s how it goes,’ said Hambledon with a shrug. ‘The whole business is riddled with preferment nowadays. It’s just one of those things.’
Susan Max’s head lolled to one side. Hambledon took her travelling cushion and slipped it between her cheek and the wall. She was fast asleep.
‘There’s your real honest-to-God actress,’ he said, leaning forward again. ‘Her father was an actor-manager in Australia and started life as a child performer in his father’s stock company. Susan has trouped for forty-five years. It’s in her blood. She can play anything from grande dame to trollop, and play it well.’
‘What about Miss Dacres? Or should I say Mrs Meyer? I never know with married stars.’
‘She’s Carolyn Dacres all the time. Except in hotel registers, of course. Carolyn is a great actress. Please don’t think I’m using the word “great” carelessly. She is a great actress. Her father was a country parson, but there’s a streak of the stage in her mother’s family, I believe. Carolyn joined a touring company when she was seventeen. She was up and down the provinces for eight years before she got her chance in London. Then she never looked back.’ Hambledon paused and glanced apologetically at his companion. ‘In a moment you will accuse me of talking shop.’
‘Why not? I like people to talk shop. I can never understand the prejudice against it.’
‘You don’t do it, I notice.’
The tall man raised one eyebrow.
‘I’m on a holiday. When did Miss Dacres marry Mr Alfred Meyer?’
‘About ten years ago,’ said Hambledon, shortly. He turned in his seat and looked down the carriage. The Carolyn Dacres Company had settled down for the night. George Mason and Gascoigne had given up their game of two-handed whist and had drawn their rugs up to their chins. The comedian had spread a sheet of newspaper over his head. Young Courtney Broadhead was awake, but Mr Liversidge’s mouth was open and those rolls of flesh, so well disciplined by day, were now subtly predominant. Except for Broadhead they were all asleep. Hambledon looked at his watch.
‘It’s midnight,’ he said.
Midnight. Outside their hurrying windows this strange country slept. Farm houses, lonely in the moonlight, sheep asleep or tearing with quick jerks at the short grass, those aching hills that ran in curves across the window-panes, and the white flowering trees that had made old Susan dab her eyes. They were all there, outside, but remote from the bucketing train with its commercial travellers, its tourists and its actors.
‘The fascination of a train journey,’ thought the tall man, ‘lies in this remoteness of the country outside, and in the realisation that it is so close. At any station one may break the spell of the train and set foot on the earth. But as long as one stays in the train, the outside is a dream country. A dream country.’ He closed his eyes again and presently was fast asleep and troubled by long dreams that were half broken by a sense of discomfort. When he woke again he felt cold and stiff. Hambledon, he saw, was still awake.
Their carriage seemed to be continually turning. His mind made a picture of a corkscrew with a gnat-sized train twisting industriously. He looked at his watch.
‘Good lord,’ he said. ‘It’s ten past two. I shall stay awake. It’s a mistake to sleep in these chairs.’
‘Ten past two,’ said Hambledon. ‘The time for indiscreet conversation. Are you sure you do not want to go to sleep?’
‘Quite sure. What were we speaking of before I dozed off? Miss Dacres?’
‘Yes. You asked about her marriage. It is difficult even to guess why she married Alfred Meyer. Not because he is the big noise in Incorporated Playhouses. Carolyn had no need of that sort of pull. She had arrived. Perhaps she married him because he was so essentially commonplace. As a kind of set-off to her own temperament. She has the true artistic temperament.’
The tall man winced. Hambledon had made use of a phrase that he detested.
‘Don’t misunderstand me,’ Hambledon continued very earnestly. ‘Alf is a good fellow. He’s very much liked in the business. But – well, he has never been a romantic figure. He lives for the firm, you know. He and George Mason built it between them. I’ve played in I.P. productions for twelve years now. Eight pieces in all and in five of them I’ve played opposite Carolyn.’
He had the actor’s habit of giving full dramatic value to everything he said. His beautiful voice, with its practised inflexions, suggested a romantic attachment.
‘She’s rather a wonderful person,’ he said.
‘He means that,’ thought his companion. ‘He is in love with her.’
His mind went back to the long voyage in the ship with Carolyn Dacres very much the star turn, but not, he had to admit, aggressively the great actress. She and her pale, plump, rather common, rather uninteresting husband, had sat in deck chairs, he with a portable typewriter on his knees and she with a book. Very often Hambledon had sat on the other side of her, also with a book. They had none of them joined in the all-night poker parties with young Courtney Broadhead, Liversidge and Valerie Gaynes. Thinking of these three he turned to look up the dim carriage. There was young Broadhead, still awake, still staring at the blind window-pane with its blank reflections. As if conscious of the other’s gaze he jerked his head uneasily and with an abrupt movement rose to his feet and came down the carriage. As he passed them he said:
‘Fresh air. I’m going out to the platform.’
‘Young ass,’ said Hambledon when he had gone through the door. ‘He’s been losing his money. You can’t indulge in those sorts of frills, on his salary.’
They both looked at the glass door. Broadhead’s back was against it.
‘I’m worried about that boy,’ Hambledon went on. ‘No business of mine, of course, but one doesn’t like to see that kind of thing.’
‘They were playing high, certainly.’
‘A fiver to come in, last night, I believe. I looked into the smoke-room before I went to bed. Liversidge had won a packet. Courtney looked very sick. Early in the voyage I tried to tip him the wink, but he’d got in with that bear leader and his cub.’
‘Weston and young Palmer, you mean?’
‘Yes. They’re on the train. The cub’s likely to stick to our heels all through the tour, I’m afraid.’
‘Stage-struck?’
‘What they used to call “shook on the pros.” He hangs round Carolyn, I suppose you’ve noticed. She tells me his father – he’s a Sir Something Palmer and noisomely rich – has packed him off to New Zealand with Weston in the hope of teaching him sense. Weston’s his cousin. The boy was sacked from his public school, I believe. Shipboard gossip.’
‘It is strange,’ said the tall man, ‘how a certain type of Englishman still regards the Dominions either as a waste-paper basket or a purge.’
‘You are not a colonial, surely?’
‘Oh, no. I speak without prejudice. Hullo, I believe we’re stopping.’
A far-away whistle was followed by the sound of banging doors and a voice that chanted something indistinguishable. These sounds grew louder. Presently the far door of their own carriage opened and the guard came down the corridor.
‘Five minutes at Ohakune for refreshments,’ he chanted, and went out at the near door. Broadhead moved aside for him.
‘Refreshments!’ said Hambledon. ‘Good lord!’
‘Oh, I don’t know. A cup of coffee, perhaps. Anyway a gulp of fresh air.’
‘Perhaps you’re right. What did he say was the name of the station?’
‘I don’t know. It sounded like a rune or incantation.’
‘Oh – ah – coo – nee,’ said Susan Max, unexpectedly.
‘Hullo, Susie, you’ve come up to breathe, have you?’ asked Hambledon.
‘I haven’t been to sleep, dear,’ said Susan. Not really asleep, you know.’
‘I’d forgotten you were an Australian.’
‘I am not an Australian. I was born in New Zealand. Australia is a four-day journey from—’
‘I know, I know,’ said Hambledon with a wink at the tall man.
‘Well, it is provoking, dear,’ said Miss Max huffily. ‘We don’t like to be called Australian. Not that I’ve anything against the Aussies. It’s the ignorance.’
A chain of yellow lights travelled past their windows. The train stopped and uttered a long steamy sigh. All along the carriage came the sound of human beings yawning and shuffling.
‘I wish my father had never met my mother,’ grumbled the comedian.
‘Come on,’ said Hambledon to the tall man.
They went out through the door. Courtney Broadhead was standing on the narrow iron platform of their carriage. His overcoat collar was turned up and his hat jammed over his eyes. He looked lost and miserable. The other two men stepped down on to the station platform. The cold night air smelt clean after the fug of the train. There was a tang in it, salutary and exciting.
‘It smells like the inside of a flower shop,’ said Hambledon. ‘Moss, and cold wet earth, and something else. Are we very high up in the world, I wonder?’
‘I think we must be. To me it smells like mountain air.’
‘What about this coffee?’
They got two steaming china baths from the refreshment counter and took them out on to the platform.
‘Hailey! Hailey!’
The window of one of the sleepers had been opened and through it appeared a head.
‘Carolyn!’ Hambledon walked swiftly to the window. ‘Haven’t you settled down yet? It’s after half past two, do you know that?’
The murky lights from the station shone on that face, finding out the hollows round the eyes and under the cheek bones. The tall man had never been able to make up his mind about Carolyn Dacres’s face. Was it beautiful? Was it faded? Was she as intelligent as her face seemed to promise? As he watched her he realised that she was agitated about something. She spoke quickly, and in an undertone. Hambledon stared at her in surprise and then said something. They both looked for a moment at the tall man. She seemed to hesitate.
‘Stand clear, please.’
A bell jangled. He mounted the platform of his carriage where Courtney Broadhead still stood hunched up in his overcoat. The train gave one of those preparatory backward clanks. Hambledon, still carrying his cup, hurriedly mounted the far platform of the sleeper. They were drawn out of the station into the night. Courtney Broadhead, after a sidelong glance at the tall man, said something inaudible and returned to the carriage. The tall man remained outside. The stern of the sleeping-carriage in front swayed and wagged, and the little iron bridge that connected the two platforms jerked backwards and forwards. Presently Hambledon came out of the sleeper and, holding to the iron rails, made towards him over the bridge. As soon as they were together he began to shout:
‘… very upset … most extraordinary … wish you’d …’ The wind snatched his voice away.
‘I can’t hear you.’
‘It’s Meyer – I can’t make it out. Come over here.’
He led the way across the little bridge and drew his companion into the entrance lobby of the next carriage.
‘It’s Meyer,’ said Hambledon. ‘He says someone tried to murder him.’
CHAPTER 2 Mr Meyer in Jeopardy (#ulink_0900d62f-a549-5ed8-a94a-7b465ba994cf)
The tall man merely stared at Hambledon who came to the conclusion that his astonishing announcement had not been heard.
‘Someone has tried to murder Alfred Meyer,’ he bawled.
‘All right,’ said the tall man. He looked disgusted and faintly alarmed.
‘Carolyn wants you to come along to their sleeper.’
‘You haven’t told her—?’
‘No, no. But I wish you’d let me—’
The inside door of the little lobby burst open, smacking Hambledon in the rear. The pale face of Mr Alfred Meyer appeared round the side.
‘Hailey – do come along. What are you – oh!’ He glanced at the tall man.
‘We are both coming,’ said Hambledon.
They all lurched along the narrow corridor off which the two sleepers opened. They passed the first door and Meyer led them in at the second. The “de luxe” sleeper was a small cabin with two narrow bunks and a wash-basin. Carolyn Dacres, wearing some sort of gorgeous dressing-robe, sat on the bottom bunk. Her arms were clasped round her knees. Her long reddish-brown hair hung in a thick twist over her shoulder.
‘Hullo!’ she said, looking at the tall man. ‘Hailey says he thinks you’d better hear all about it.’
‘I’m sure you’d rather talk over whatever has happened among yourselves. I assure you I’ve no desire to butt in.’
‘Look here,’ said Hambledon, ‘do let me explain – about you, I mean.’
‘Very well,’ said the tall man, looking politely resigned.
‘We all knew him as “Mr Allen” on board,’ began Hambledon. ‘That’s what he was in the passenger list. It was only tonight, in the train, that I realised he was Roderick Alleyn – E Y N – Chief Detective-Inspector, CID, and full musical honours with a salute of two sawn-off shotguns.’
‘My God!’ said Mr Meyer plaintively. It was his stock expression.
‘Why–’ said Carolyn Dacres, ‘why then you’re – yes, of course. “The Handsome Inspector.” Don’t you remember, Pooh? The Gardener case? Our photographs were side by side in the Tatler that week, Mr Alleyn.’
‘The only occasion,’ said Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn, ‘on which I have felt there was any compensation for newspaper publicity.’
‘Any compensation,’ broke in Mr Meyer. ‘My God! Well now, as you are an expert, will you listen to this? Sit down for God’s sake. Move up, Carol.’
Alleyn sat on a trunk, Hambledon on the floor, and Meyer plumped down beside his wife. His large face was very white and his fat hands shook slightly.
‘I’m all upset,’ he said.
‘I’ll try to explain,’ said Miss Dacres. ‘You see, Hailey darling – and Mr Alleyn – Alfie-Pooh sat up late. He had a lot of correspondence to get through, and he brought his typewriter in here. Some time before we got to the last station he thought he would go out to that shocking little platform for a breath of fresh air. Didn’t you, darling?’
Mr Meyer nodded gloomily.
‘We were at that time travelling up or down a thing that I think they call the corkscrew. The guard, who is an exceedingly nice man, and so, so well informed, told us all about it. It appears that this corkscrew—’
‘Spiral,’ corrected Mr Meyer.
‘Yes, darling. This spiral is quite remarkable as railway lines go. One is continually catching one’s own tail and the guard’s wagon is quite often in front of the engine.’
‘Really, Carolyn!’ expostulated Hambledon.
‘Something of the sort, darling. However, that is of no real importance as far as this story goes. The only thing we must all remember is that when it is corkscrewing the train keeps on turning round and round.’
‘What can you mean?’
‘Cut out the comedy, Carolyn,’ begged Mr Meyer. ‘This is serious.’
‘Darling, of course it is. You see, Mr Alleyn, Alfie went out on the little platform and stood there, and all the time the train kept turning corners very fast and it was all rather impressive. Alfie was very excited and thrilled with the view, although it was so dark he could not see much, except the other parts of the train corkscrewing above and below him. He heard a door bang, but he did not look round because he thought it was just someone going along the train. He was holding on very tight with both hands. Luckily. Because otherwise when this person pushed him he would have—’
‘Here!’ said Mr Meyer firmly. ‘I’ll tell them. I was on the platform facing outwards. I noticed the iron door to the steps was opened back and there was nothing between me and God knows all. It was blowing a gale. I kind of knew people were going past me on their way through the train, but I didn’t look round. We came to one of these hairpin-bends and as we swung round someone kicked me on the behind. Hard. By God, I nearly went over. As nearly as damn it. I tell you I lurched out over the step. I grabbed at the door with my left hand, but I must have pulled it away from the catch on the wall as if I was going through and shutting it after me. See what I mean? I clutched the platform rail with my right hand – just caught it close to the iron stanchion by the steps. It seemed to last a lifetime, that hanging outwards. Then the train swung round the opposite way and I got back. Of course when I was all right again and turned round the man had gone. God, I’m all to pieces. Look in that case there, Hailey. There’s a bottle of brandy.’ He turned pale bulging eyes on Alleyn.
‘What the hell do you make of that?’
‘Extremely unpleasant,’ said Alleyn.
‘Unpleasant! Listen to him, will you!’
‘My poor Alfie,’ said his wife. ‘You shall have quantities of brandy. Pour it out, Hailey. There are glasses there, too. We shall all have brandy while Mr Alleyn tells us who tried to assassinate my poor Pooh. Don’t spill it, Hailey. There! Now, Mr Alleyn?’
She looked up with an air of encouragement at the chief inspector. ‘Is she being deliberately funny?’ Alleyn wondered. ‘She’s not really one of those vague women who sound like fools and are as deep as you make them. Or is she? No, no, she’s making a little “cameo-part” of herself, for us to look at. Perhaps she has done it for so long that she can’t stop.’
‘What I want to know is, what do I do?’ Meyer was saying.
‘Stop the train and tell the guard?’ suggested Carolyn, sipping her brandy. ‘You pull the communication cord and pay five pounds and then some woman comes forward and says you attempted to—’
‘Carolyn, do be quiet,’ begged Hambledon, smiling at her. ‘What do you think, Alleyn?’
‘You are quite sure that you were deliberately kicked?’ asked Alleyn. ‘It wasn’t someone staggering along the train who lost his balance and then his head, when he thought he’d sent you overboard?’
‘I tell you I was kicked. I bet you anything you like I’ve got a black and blue behind.’
‘Darling! We must put you in a cage and take you on tour.’
‘What ought I to do, Alleyn?’
‘My dear Mr Meyer, I – really I don’t quite know. I suppose I ought to tell you to inform the guard, and telegraph the police from the next station. There are some very tight footballers farther along the train. I wonder—’
‘Of course,’ said Carolyn with enthusiasm. ‘How brilliant of you, Mr Alleyn. It was a drunken footballer. I mean, it all fits in so splendidly, doesn’t it? He would know how to kick. Think of the All Blacks.’
Mr Meyer listened solemnly to this. Hambledon suddenly began to laugh. Alleyn hurriedly lit a cigarette.
‘It’s all very well for you to laugh,’ said Mr Meyer. He felt his stern carefully, staring at Alleyn. ‘I don’t know about the police,’ he said. ‘That’d mean the Press, and we’ve never gone in for that sort of publicity. What do you think, Hailey? “Attempted Murder of Well-known Theatrical Manager.” It’s not too good. It isn’t as if it had been Carolyn.’
‘I should think not indeed,’ agreed Hambledon with difficulty.
‘So should I think not indeed,’ said Carolyn.
‘Mr Meyer,’ said Alleyn, ‘have you any enemies in your company?’
‘Good God, no. We’re a happy little family. I treat my people well and they respect me. There’s never been a word.’
‘You say that several people went past you while you were on the platform,’ said Alleyn. ‘Did you notice any of them in particular?’
‘No. I stood with my back to the gangway.’
‘Do you remember,’ asked Alleyn after a pause, ‘if there was anyone standing on the opposite platform, the one at this end of our carriage that was linked to yours by the iron bridge?’
‘I don’t think so. Not when I went out. Someone might have come out later. You know how it is – all dark and noisy and windy. I had my hat pulled down and my scarf up to my eyes. I simply stood with my back half turned to that platform looking out at the side.’
‘How long was it before we got to the last station – Okahune?’
‘I should think about half an hour.’
‘What time was it,’ Alleyn asked Hambledon, ‘when I woke up and we began to talk? I looked at my watch, do you remember?’
‘It was ten past two. Why?’
‘Oh, nothing. We got to Okahune at two-forty-five.’
Hambledon glanced sharply at Alleyn. Carolyn yawned extensively and began to look pathetic.
‘I’m sure you are longing for your beds,’ said Alleyn. ‘Come on, Hambledon.’
He got up and was about to say good night when there was a bang at the door.
‘Mercy!’ said Carolyn. ‘What now? Surely they can’t want to punch more holes in our tickets. Come in!’ Valerie Gaynes burst into the little sleeper. She was dressed in a shiny trousered garment, covered with a brilliant robe, and looked like an advertisement for negligées in an expensive magazine. She made a little rush at Carolyn, waving her hands.
‘I heard you talking and I simply had to come in. Please forgive me, darling Miss Dacres, but something rather awful has happened.’
‘I know,’ said Carolyn promptly, ‘you have been kicked by a drunken footballer.’
Miss Gaynes stared at her.
‘But why—? No. It’s something rather awkward. I’ve – I’ve been robbed.’
‘Robbed? Pooh darling, this is a most extraordinary train. Do you hear what she says?’
‘Isn’t it too frightful? You see, after I had gone to bed—’
‘Valerie,’ interrupted Carolyn. ‘You do know Mr Alleyn, don’t you? It appears he is a famous detective, so he will be able to recover your jewels when he has caught Pooh’s murderer. Really, it is very lucky you decided to come to New Zealand, Mr Alleyn.’
‘I am glad you think so,’ said Alleyn tonelessly. ‘I’d be extremely grateful,’ he added, ‘if you kept my occupation a secret. Life’s not worth living if one’s travelling companions know one is a CID man.’
‘Of course we will. It will be so much easier for you to discover Valerie’s jewels if you’re incog., won’t it?’
‘It’s not jewels, it’s money,’ began Miss Gaynes. ‘It’s quite a lot of money. You see, Daddy gave me some English notes to change when I got to New Zealand because of the exchange, and I kept some of them out for the ship, and gave some of them to the purser, and the night before we landed I got them from the purser and – and – they were all right, and I – I –’
‘Have some brandy?’ invited Carolyn suddenly.
‘Thank you. Daddy will be simply livid about it. You see, I can’t remember when I last noticed I still had them. It’s all terribly confusing. I put them in a leather folder thing in my suitcase when I got them from the purser.’
‘That was a damn’ silly thing to do,’ said Mr Meyer gloomily.
‘I suppose it was, but I’m awful about money. Such a fool. And, you see, this morning, before I shut the suitcase, I felt the folder and it rustled, so I thought, well, that’s all right. And then, just now, I couldn’t sleep in this frightful train, so I thought I’d write a letter, and I got out the folder and it was full of paper.’
‘What sort of paper?’ asked Carolyn, sleepily.
‘Well, that’s what makes me wonder if it’s just a low joke someone’s played on me.’
‘Why?’ asked Alleyn.
‘Oh!’ said Miss Gaynes impatiently, ‘you must be too pure and clean-minded at Scotland Yard.’
Hambledon murmured something to Alleyn who said: ‘Oh, I see.’
‘It was the brand they had in the ship. I noticed that. I call that pretty good, don’t you? I mean, to notice that. Do you think I’d make a sleuthess, Mr Alleyn? No, but really, isn’t it a bore? What ought I to do? Of course I’ve got a letter of credit for Middleton, but after all one doesn’t like being burgled.’
‘Did you look at your folder, or whatever it was, after breakfast this morning?’ asked Meyer suddenly.
‘Er – no. No, I’m sure I didn’t. Why?’
‘How much was in it?’
‘I’m not sure. Let me think. I used four – no, five pounds for tips and then I paid Frankie ten that I lost at—’
She stopped short, and a kind of blankness came into her eyes.
‘Oh, what’s the use, anyway,’ she said. ‘I suppose it was about ninety pounds. It’s gone. And that’s that. I mustn’t keep you up, darling Miss Dacres.’
She made for the door. Alleyn opened it.
‘If you would like to let me see the leather case—’ he said.
‘Too sweet of you, but honestly I’m afraid the money’s gone for good.’
‘Well, I should let him see it,’ said Carolyn, vaguely. ‘He may be able to trace it directly to the murderous footballer.’
‘What murderous footballer?’
‘I’ll tell you in the morning, Valerie. Good night, I’m so sorry about your money, but Mr Alleyn will find it for you as soon as he has time. We’ve all had quite enough excitement for one night. Let us curl up in our horrid little sleepers.’
‘Good night,’ said Miss Gaynes and went out.
Alleyn looked at Carolyn Dacres. She had shut her eyes as soon as Valerie Gaynes had gone. She now opened one of them. It was a large, carefully made-up eye, and it was fixed on Alleyn.
‘Good night, Carol,’ said Hambledon. ‘’Night, Alf. Hope you get some sleep. Not much of the night left for it. Don’t worry too much about your adventure.’
‘Sleep!’ ejaculated Mr Meyer. ‘Worry! We get to Middleton in an hour. Scarcely worth trying. I can’t lie down with any hope of comfort and you’d worry if someone tried to kick you off a train on the top of a mountain.’
‘I expect I should. Coming, Alleyn?’
‘Yes. Good night, Miss Dacres.’
‘Good night,’ said Carolyn in her deepest voice.
‘So long,’ said Mr Meyer bitterly. ‘Sorry you’ve been troubled.’
Hambledon had already gone out into the little corridor, and Alleyn was in the doorway, when Carolyn stopped him.
‘Mr Alleyn!’
He turned back. There she was, still looking at him out of one eye, like some attractive, drowsy, but intelligent bird.
‘Why didn’t Valerie want you to see the leather writing-folder?’ asked Carolyn.
‘I don’t know,’ said Alleyn. ‘Do you?’
‘I can make a damn’ good guess,’ said Carolyn.
CHAPTER 3 Off-stage (#ulink_9188d9a4-e42e-551a-8a21-590e1bc053c1)
The Dacres Company arrived at Middleton in time for breakfast. By ten o’clock the stage staff had taken possession of the Theatre Royal. To an actor on tour all theatres are very much alike. They may vary in size, in temperature, and in degree of comfort, but once the gas-jets are lit in the dressing-rooms, the grease-paints laid out in rows on the shelves, and the clothes hung up in sheets on the walls, all theatres are simply ‘theatre’. The playhouse is the focus-point of the company. As soon as an actor has ‘found a home’, and, if possible, enjoyed a rest, he goes down to the theatre and looks to the tools of his trade. The stage-manager is there with his staff, cursing or praising the mechanical facilities behind the curtain. The familiar flats are trundled in, the working lights are on, the prompter’s table stands down by the footlights and the sheeted stalls wait expectantly in the dark auditorium.
Soon the drone of the run-through-for-words begins. Mechanics peer from the flies and move, rubber-footed, about the stage. The theatre is alive, self-contained and warm with preparation.
The Royal, at Middleton, was a largish playhouse. It seated a thousand, had a full stage and a conservative but adequate system of lighting and of overhead galleries, grid, and ropes. Ted Gascoigne, who was used to the West End, sniffed a little at the old-fashioned lighting. They had brought a special switchboard and the electrician morosely instructed employees of the local power-board in its mysteries.
At ten o’clock Carolyn and her company were all asleep or breakfasting in their hotels. Carolyn, Valerie Gaynes, Liversidge, Mason and Hambledon stayed at the Middleton, the most expensive of these drear establishments. For the rest of the company, the splendour of their lodgings was in exact ratio to the amount of their salaries, from Courtney Broadhead at The Commercial down to Tommy Biggs, the least of the staff, at ‘Mrs Harbottle, Good Beds’.
George Mason, the manager, had not gone to bed. He had shaved, bathed, and changed his clothes, and by ten o’clock, uneasy with chronic dyspepsia, sat in the office at The Royal talking to the ‘advance’, a representative of the Australian firm under whose auspices the company was on tour.
‘It’s going to be big, Mr Mason,’ said the advance. ‘We’re booked out downstairs, and only fifty seats left in the circle. There’s a queue for early-door tickets. I’m very pleased.’
‘Good enough,’ said Mason. ‘Now listen.’
They talked. The telephone rang incessantly. Box-office officials came in, the local manager of the theatre, three slightly self-conscious reporters, and finally Mr Alfred Meyer, carrying a cushion. This he placed on the swivel chair, and then cautiously lowered himself on to it.
‘Well, Alf,’ said Mason.
‘’Morning, George,’ said Mr Meyer.
Mason introduced the Australian advance, who instantly seized Mr Meyer’s hand in a grip of iron and shook it with enthusiasm.
‘I’m very glad to meet you, Mr Meyer.’
‘How do you do?’ said Mr Meyer. ‘Good news for us, I hope?’
The reporters made tentative hovering movements.
‘These gentlemen are from the Press,’ said Mason. ‘They’d like to have a little chat with you, Alf.’
Mr Meyer rolled his eyes round and became professionally cordial.
‘Oh, yes, yes,’ he said, ‘certainly. Come over here, gentlemen, will you?’
The advance hurriedly placed three chairs in a semi-circle close to Meyer, and joined Mason, who had withdrawn tactfully to the far end of the room.
The reporters cleared their throats and handled pads and pencils.
‘Well now, what about it?’ asked Mr Meyer helpfully.
‘Er,’ said the oldest of the reporters, ‘just a few points that would interest our readers, Mr Meyer.’
He spoke in a soft gruff voice with a slight accent. He seemed a very wholesome and innocent young man.
‘Certainly,’ said Mr Meyer. ‘By God, this is a wonderful country of yours…’
The reporters wrote busily the outlines for an article which would presently appear under the headline: ‘Praise for New Zealand: An Enthusiastic Visitor.’
II
Two young men and a woman appeared in the office doorway. They were Australians who had travelled over to join the company for the second piece, and now reported for duty. Mason took them along to the stage-door, pointed out Gascoigne, who was in heated argument with the head mechanist, and left them to make themselves known.
The stock scene was being struck. The fluted columns and gilded walls of all stock scenes fell forward as softly as leaves, and were run off into the dock. An Adam drawing-room, painted by an artist, and in excellent condition, was shoved together like a gigantic house of cards and tightened at the corners. Flack, flack, went the toggles as the stagehands laced them over the wooden cleats.
‘We don’t want those borders,’ said Gascoigne.
‘Kill the borders, Bert,’ said the head mechanist, loudly.
‘Kill the borders,’ repeated a voice up in the flies. The painted strips that masked the overhead jerked out of sight one by one.
‘Now the ceiling cloth.’
Outside in the strange town a clock chimed and struck eleven. Members of the cast began to come in and look for their dressing-rooms. They were called for eleven-thirty. Gascoigne saw the Australians and crossed the stage to speak to them. He began talking about their parts. He manner was pleasant and friendly, and the Australians, who were on the defensive about English importations, started to thaw. Gascoigne told them where they were to dress. He checked himself to shout:
‘You’ll have to clear, Fred; I want the stage in ten minutes.’
‘I’m not ready for you, Mr Gascoigne.’
‘By – you’ll have to be ready. What’s the matter with you?’
He walked back to the stage. From up above came the sound of sawing.
Gascoigne glared upwards.
‘What are you doing up there?’
An indistinguishable mumbling answered him.
Gascoigne turned to the head mechanist.
‘Well, you’ll have to knock off in ten minutes, Fred. I’ve got a show to rehearse with people who haven’t worked for four weeks. And we go up tonight. Tonight! Do you think we can work in a sawmill. What is he doing?’
‘He’s fixing the mast,’ said the head mechanist. ‘It’s got to be done, Mr Gascoigne. This bloody stage isn’t—’
He went off into mechanical details. The second act was staged on board a yacht. The setting was elaborate. The lower end of a mast with ‘practical’ rope ladders had to be fixed. This was all done from overhead. Gascoigne and the head mechanist stared up into the flies.
‘We’ve flied the mast,’ said the mechanist, ‘and it’s too long for this stage, see. Bert’s fixing it. Have you got the weight on, Bert?’
As if in answer, a large black menace flashed between them. There was a nerve-shattering thud, a splintering of wood, and a cloud of dust. At their feet lay a long object rather like an outsize in sash-weights.
Gascoigne and the mechanist instantly flew into the most violent of rages. Their faces were sheet-white and their knees shook. At the tops of their voices they apostrophised the hidden Bert, inviting him to come down and be half killed. Their oaths died away into a shocked silence. Mason had run round from the office, the company had hurried out of the dressing-rooms and were clustered in the entrances. The unfortunate Bert came down from the grid and stood gaping in horror at his handiwork.
‘Gawdstreuth, Mr Gascoigne, I don’t know how it happened. Gawdstreuth, Mr Gascoigne, I’m sorry. Gawdstreuth.’
‘Shut your – face,’ suggested the head mechanist, unprintably. ‘Do you want to go to gaol for manslaughter?’
‘Don’t you know the first – rule about working in the flies? Don’t you know—?’
Mason went back to the office. One by one the company returned to their dressing-rooms.
III
‘And what,’ said the oldest of the three reporters, ‘is your opinion of our railroads, Mr Meyer? How do they compare with those in the Old Country?’
Mr Meyer shifted uncomfortably on his cushion and his hand stole round to his rear.
‘I think they’re marvellous,’ he said.
IV
Hailey Hambledon knocked on Carolyn’s door.
‘Are you ready, Carol? It’s a quarter past.’
‘Come in, darling.’
He went into the bedroom she shared with Meyer. It looked exactly like all their other bedrooms on tour. There was the wardrobe trunk, the brilliant drape on the bed, Carolyn’s photos of Meyer, of herself, and of her father, the parson in Bucks. And there, on the dressing-table, was her complexion in its scarlet case. She was putting the final touches to her lovely face and nodded to him in the looking-glass.
‘Good morning, Mrs Meyer,’ said Hambledon and kissed her fingers with the same light gesture he had so often used on the stage.
‘Good morning, Mr Hambledon.’ They spoke with that unnatural and half-ironical gaiety that actors so often assume when greeting each other outside the theatre.
Carolyn turned back to her mirror.
‘I’m getting very set-looking, Hailey. Older and older.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Don’t you? I expect you do, really. You think to yourself sometimes: “It won’t be long before she is too old for such-and-such a part.”’
‘No. I love you. To me you do not change.’
‘Darling! So sweet! Still, we do grow older.’
‘Then why, why, why not make the most of what’s left? Carol – do you really believe you love me?’
‘You’re going to have another attack. Don’t.’
She got up and put on her hat, giving him a comically apprehensive look from under the brim. ‘Come along now,’ she said.
He shrugged his shoulders and opened the door for her. They went out, moving beautifully, with years of training behind their smallest gestures. It is this unconscious professionalism in the everyday actions of actors that so often seems unreal to outsiders. When they are very young actors, it often is unreal, when they are older it is merely habit. They are indeed ‘always acting’, but not in the sense that their critics suggest.
Carolyn and Hambledon went down in the lift and through the lounge towards the street door. Here they ran into Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn, who was also staying at the Middleton.
‘Hullo!’ said Carolyn. ‘Have you been out already? You are an early one.’
‘I’ve been for a tram ride up to the top of those hills. Do you know, the town ends quite suddenly about four miles out, and you are on grassy hills with little bits of bush and the most enchanting view.’
‘It sounds delicious,’ said Carolyn vaguely.
‘No,’ said Alleyn, ‘it’s more exciting than that. How is your husband this morning?’
‘Still very cross, poor sweet. And black and blue, actually, just as he prophesied. It must have been a footballer. Are you coming to the show tonight?’
‘I want to, but, do you know, I can’t get a seat.’
‘Oh, nonsense. Alfie-Pooh will fix you up. Remind me to ask him, Hailey darling.’
‘Right,’ said Hambledon. ‘We ought to get along, Carol.’
‘Work, work, work,’ said Carolyn, suddenly looking tragic. ‘Goodbye, Mr Alleyn. Come round to my dressing-room after the show.’
‘And to mine,’ said Hambledon. ‘I want to know what you think of the piece. So long.’
‘Thank you so much. Goodbye,’ said Alleyn.
‘Nice man,’ said Carolyn when they had gone a little way.
‘Very nice indeed. Carol, you’ve got to listen to me, please. I’ve loved you with shameless constancy for – how long? Five years?’
‘Surely a little longer than that, darling. I fancy it’s six. It was during the run of Scissors to Grind at the Criterion. Don’t you remember—’
‘Very well – six. You say you’re fond of me – love me –’
‘Oughtn’t we to cross over here?’ interrupted Carolyn. ‘Pooh said the theatre was down that street, surely. Oh, do be careful!’ She gave a little scream. Hambledon, exasperated, had grasped her by the elbow and was hurrying her across a busy intersection.
‘I’m coming to your dressing-room as soon as we get there,’ he said angrily, ‘and I’m going to have it out with you.’
‘It would certainly be a better spot than the footpath,’ agreed Carolyn. ‘As my poor Pooh would say, there is a right and wrong kind of publicity.’
‘For God’s sake,’ said Hambledon, between clenched teeth, ‘stop talking to me about your husband.’
V
Before going to the theatre young Courtney Broadhead called in at the Middleton and asked for Mr Gordon Palmer. He was sent up to Mr Palmer’s rooms, where he found that young man still in bed and rather white about the gills. His cousin and mentor, Geoffrey West, sat in an arm-chair by the window, and Mr Francis Liversidge lolled across the end of the bed smoking a cigarette. He, too, had dropped in to see Gordon on his way to rehearsal it seemed.
The cub, as Hambledon had called Gordon Palmer, was seventeen years old, dreadfully sophisticated, and entirely ignorant of everything outside the sphere of his sophistication. He had none of the awkwardness of youth and very little of its vitality, being restless rather than energetic, acquisitive rather than ambitious. He was good-looking in a raffish, tarnished sort of fashion. It was entirely in keeping with his character that he should have attached himself to the Dacres Comedy Company and, more particularly, to Carolyn Dacres herself. That Carolyn paid not the smallest attention to him made little difference. With Liversidge and Valerie he was a great success.
‘Hullo, Court, my boy,’ said Gordon. ‘Treat me gently. I’m a wreck this morning. Met some ghastly people on that train last night. What a night! We played poker till – when was it, Geoffrey?’
‘Until far too late,’ said Weston calmly. ‘You were a young fool.’
‘He thinks he has to talk like that to me,’ explained Gordon. ‘He does it rather well, really. What’s your news, Court?’
‘I’ve come to pay my poker debts,’ said Courtney. He drew out his wallet and took some notes from it. ‘Yours is here too, Frankie.’ He laughed unhappily. ‘Take it while you can.’
‘That’s all fine and handy,’ said Gordon carelessly. ‘I’d forgotten all about it.’
VI
Mr Liversidge poked his head in at the open office door. He did not come on until the second act, and had grown tired of hanging round the wings while Gascoigne thrashed out a scene between Valerie Gaynes, Ackroyd, and Hambledon. Mr Meyer was alone in the office.
‘Good morning, sir,’ said Liversidge.
‘’Morning, Mr Liversidge,’ said Meyer, swinging round in his chair and staring owlishly at his first juvenile. ‘Want to see me?’
‘I’ve just heard of your experience on the train last night,’ began Liversidge, ‘and looked in to ask how you were. It’s an outrageous business. I mean to say—!’
‘Quite,’ said Meyer shortly. ‘Thanks very much.’
Liversidge airily advanced a little farther into the room.
‘And poor Val, losing all her money. Quite a chapter of calamities.’
‘It was,’ said Mr Meyer.
‘Quite a decent pub, the Middleton, isn’t it, sir?’
‘Quite,’ said Mr Meyer again.
There was an uncomfortable pause.
‘You seem to be in funds,’ remarked Mr Meyer suddenly.
Liversidge laughed melodiously. ‘I’ve been saving a bit lately. We had a long run in Town with the show, didn’t we? A windfall this morning, too.’ He gave Meyer a quick sidelong glance. ‘Courtney paid up his poker debts. I didn’t expect to see that again, I must say. Last night he was all down-stage and tragic.’
‘Shut that door,’ said Mr Meyer. ‘I want to talk to you.’
VII
Carolyn and Hambledon faced each other across the murky half-light of the star dressing-room. Already, most of the wicker baskets had been unpacked, and the grease-paints laid out on their trays. The room had a grey, cellar-like look about it and smelt of cosmetics. Hambledon switched on the light and it instantly became warm and intimate.
‘Now, listen to me,’ he said.
Carolyn sat on one of the wicker crates and gazed at him. He took a deep breath.
‘You’re as much in love with me as you ever will be with anyone. You don’t love Alfred. Why you married him I don’t believe even God knows, and I’m damn’ certain you don’t. I don’t ask you to live with me on the quiet, with everyone knowing perfectly well what’s happening. That sort of arrangement would be intolerable to both of us. I do ask you to come away with me at the end of this tour and let Alfred divorce you. Either that, or tell him how things are between us and give him the chance of arranging it the other way.’
‘Darling, we’ve had this out so often before.’
‘I know we have but I’m at the end of my tether. I can’t go on seeing you every day, working with you, being treated as though I was – what? A cross between a tame cat and a schoolboy. I’m forty-nine, Carol, and I – I’m starved. Why won’t you do this for both of us?’
‘Because I’m a Catholic.’
‘You’re not a good Catholic. I sometimes think you don’t care tuppence about your religion. How long is it since you’ve been to church or confession or whatever it is? Ages. Then why stick at this?’
‘It’s my Church sticking to me. Bits of it always stick. I’d feel I was wallowing in sin, darling, truthfully I would.’
‘Well, wallow. You’d get used to it.’
‘Oh, Hailey!’ She broke out into soft laughter, but warm soft laughter that ran like gold through every part she played.
‘Don’t!’ said Hambledon. ‘Don’t!’
‘I’m so sorry, Hailey. I am a pig. I do adore you, but, darling, I can’t – simply can’t live in sin with you. Living in sin. Living in sin,’ chanted Carolyn dreamily.
‘You’re hopeless,’ said Hambledon. ‘Hopeless!’
‘Miss Dacres, please,’ called a voice in the passage.
‘Here!’
‘We’re just coming to your entrance, please, Mr Gascoigne says.’
‘I’ll be there,’ said Carolyn. ‘Thank you.’
She got up at once.
‘You’re on in a minute, darling,’ she said to Hambledon.
‘I suppose,’ said Hambledon with a violence that in spite of himself was half whimsically-rueful, ‘I suppose I’ll have to wait for Alf to die of a fatty heart. Would you marry me then, Carol?’
‘What is it they all say in this country? “Too right.” Too right I would, darling. But, poor Pooh! A fatty heart! Too unkind.’ She slipped through the door.
A moment or two later he heard her voice, pitched and telling, as she spoke her opening line.
‘“Darling, what do you think! He’s asked me to marry him!”’ And then those peals of soft warm laughter.
CHAPTER 4 First Appearance of the Tiki (#ulink_85ddec77-eb49-57be-9204-2e9776462d9f)
The curtain rose for the fourth time. Carolyn Dacres, standing in the centre of the players, bowed to the stalls, to the circle and, with the friendly special smile, to the gallery. One thousand pairs of hands were struck together over and over again, making a sound like hail on an iron roof. New Zealand audiences are not given to cheering. If they are pleased they sit still and clap exhaustively. They did so now, on the third and final performance of Ladies of Leisure. Carolyn bowed and bowed with an air of enchanted deprecation. She turned to Hailey Hambledon, smiling. He stepped out of the arc and came down to the footlights. He assumed the solemnly earnest expression of all leading actors who are about to make a speech. The thousand pairs of hands redoubled their activities. Hambledon smiled warningly. The clapping died away.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ began Hambledon reverently, ‘Miss Dacres has asked me to try and express something of our’ – he looked up to the gallery – ‘our gratitude, for the wonderful reception you have given the first play of our short’ – he looked into the stalls – ‘our all too short season in your beautiful city.’ He paused. Another tentative outbreak from the audience. ‘This is our first visit to New Zealand, and Middleton is the first town we have played. Our season in this lovely country of yours is, of necessity, a brief one. We go on to – to–’ he paused and turned helplessly to his company. ‘Wellington,’ said Carolyn. ‘To Wellington, on Friday. Tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday we play The Jack Pot, a comedy which we had the honour of presenting at the Criterion Theatre in London. Most of the original cast is still with us, and, in addition, three well-known Australian artists have joined us for this piece. May I also say that we have among us a New Zealand actress who returns to her native country after a distinguished career on the London stage – Miss Susan Max.’ He turned to old Susan, who gave him a startled look of gratitude. The audience applauded vociferously. Old Susan, with shining eyes, bowed to the house and then, charmingly, to Hambledon.
‘Miss Dacres, the company, and I, are greatly moved by the marvellous welcome you have given us. I – I may be giving away a secret, but I am going to tell you that today is her birthday.’ He held up his hand. ‘This is her first visit to Middleton; I feel we cannot do better than wish her many happy returns. Thank you all very much.’
Another storm of hail, a deep curtsy from Carolyn. Hambledon glanced up into the OP corner, and the curtain came down.
‘And God forbid that I should ever come back,’ muttered little Ackroyd disagreeably.
Susan Max, who was next to him, ruffled like an indignant hen.
‘You’d rather have the provinces, I suppose, Mr Ackroyd,’ she said briskly.
Old Brandon Vernon chuckled deeply. Ackroyd raised his comic eyebrows and inclined his head several times. ‘Ho-ho. Ho-ho!’ he sneered. ‘We’re all touchy and upstage about our native land, are we!’
Susan plodded off to her dressing-room. In the passage she ran into Hailey Hambledon.
‘Thank you, dear,’ said Susan. ‘I didn’t expect it, but it meant a lot.’
‘That’s all right, Susie,’ said Hambledon. ‘Go and make yourself lovely for the party.’
Carolyn’s birthday was to be celebrated. Out on the stage the hands put up a trestle-table and covered it with a white cloth. Flowers were massed down the centre. Glasses, plates, and quantities of food were arrayed on lines that followed some impossible standard set by a Hollywood super-spectacle, tempered by the facilities offered by the Middleton Hotel, which had undertaken the catering. Mr Meyer had spent a good deal of thought and more money on this party. It was, he said, to be a party suitable to his wife’s position as the foremost English comedienne, and it had been planned with one eye on the Press and half the other on the box office. The pièce de résistance was to be in the nature of a surprise for Carolyn and the guests, though one by one, he had taken the members of his company into his confidence. He had brought from England a jeroboam of champagne – a fabulous, a monstrous bottle of a famous vintage. All the afternoon, Ted Gascoigne and the stage hands had laboured under Mr Meyer’s guidance and with excited suggestions from George Mason. The giant bottle was suspended in the flies with a counterweight across the pulley. A crimson cord from the counterweight came down to the stage and was anchored to the table. At the climax of her party, Carolyn was to cut this cord. The counterweight would then rise and the jeroboam slowly descend into a nest of maiden-hair fern and exotic flowers, that was to be held, by Mr Meyer himself, in the centre of the table. He had made them rehearse it twelve times that day and was in a fever of excitement that the performance should go without a hitch. Now he kept darting on to the stage and gazing anxiously up into the flies, where the jeroboam hung, invisible, awaiting its big entrance. The shaded lamps used on the stage were switched on. With the heavy curtain for the fourth wall, the carpet and the hangings on the set, it was intimate and pleasant.
A little group of guests came in from the stage-door. A large vermilion-faced, pleasant-looking man, who was a station-holder twenty miles out in the country. His wife, broad, a little weather-beaten, well dressed, but not very smart. Their daughter, who was extremely smart, and their son, an early print of his father. They had called on Carolyn, who had instantly asked them to her party, forgotten she had done so, and neglected to warn anybody of their arrival. Gascoigne, who received them, looked nonplussed for a moment, and then, knowing his Carolyn, guessed what had happened. They were followed by Gordon Palmer, registering familiarity with backstage, and his cousin, Geoffrey Weston.
‘Hullo, George,’ said Gordon. ‘Perfectly marvellous. Great fun. Carolyn was too thrilling, wasn’t she? I must see her. Where is she?’
‘Miss Dacres is changing,’ said Ted Gascoigne, who had dealt with generations of Gordon Palmers.
‘But I simply can’t wait another second,’ protested Gordon in a high-pitched voice.
‘Afraid you’ll have to,’ said Gascoigne. ‘May I introduce Mr Gordon Palmer, Mr Weston, Mrs – mumble-mumble.’
‘Forrest,’ said the broad lady cheerfully. With the pathetic faith of most colonial ladies in the essential niceness of all young Englishmen, she instantly made friendly advances. Her husband and son looked guarded and her daughter alert.
More guests arrived, among them a big brown man with a very beautiful voice – Dr Rangi Te Pokiha, a Maori physician, who was staying at the Middleton.
Alleyn came in with Mason and Alfred Meyer, who had given him a box, and greeted him, after a final glance at the supper-table. They made a curious contrast. The famous Mr Meyer, short, pasty, plump, exuded box-office and front-of-the-house from every pearl button in his white waistcoat. The famous policeman, six inches taller, might have been a diplomat. ‘Magnificent appearance,’ Meyer had said to Carolyn. ‘He’d have done damn’ well if he’d taken to “the business”.’
One by one the members of the company came out from their dressing-rooms. Most actors have an entirely separate manner for occasions when they mix with outsiders. This separate manner is not so much an affectation as a persona, a mask used for this particular appearance. They wish to show how like other people they are. It is an innocent form of snobbishness. You have only to see them when the last guest has gone to realise how complete a disguise the persona may be.
Tonight they were all being very grown-up. Alfred Meyer introduced everybody, carefully. He introduced the New Zealanders to each other, the proprietor and proprietress of the Middleton to the station-holder and his family, who of course knew them perfectly well de haut en bas.
Carolyn was the last to appear.
‘Where’s my wife?’ asked Meyer of everybody at large. ‘It’s ten to. Time she was making an entrance.’
‘Where’s Carolyn?’ complained Gordon Palmer loudly.
‘Where’s Madame?’ shouted George Mason jovially.
Led by Meyer, they went to find out.
Alleyn, who, with Mason, had joined Hambledon, wondered if she was instinctively or intentionally delaying her entrance. His previous experience of leading ladies had been a solitary professional one, and he had very nearly lost his heart. He wondered if by any chance he was going to do so again.
At last a terrific rumpus broke out in the passage that led to the dressing-rooms. Carolyn’s golden laugh. Carolyn saying ‘O-o-oh!’ like a sort of musical train whistle. Carolyn sweeping along with three men in her wake. The double doors of the stage-set were thrown open by little Ackroyd, who announced like a serio-comic butler:
‘Enter Madame!’
Carolyn curtsying to the floor and rising like a moth to greet guest after guest. She had indeed made an entrance, but she had done it so terrifically, so deliberately, with a kind of twinkle in her eye, that Alleyn found himself uncritical and caught up in the warmth of her famous ‘personality’. When at last she saw him, and he awaited that moment impatiently, she came towards him with both hands outstretched and eyes like stars. Alleyn rose to the occasion, bent his long back, and kissed each of the hands. The Forrest family goggled at this performance, and Miss Forrest looked more alert than ever.
‘A-a-ah!’ said Carolyn with another of her melodious hoots. ‘My distinguished friend. The famous—’
‘No, no!’ exclaimed Alleyn hastily.
‘Why not! I insist on everybody knowing I’ve got a lion at my party.’
She spoke in her most ringing stage voice. Everybody turned to listen to her. In desperation Alleyn hurriedly lugged a small packet out of of his pocket and, with another bow, put it into her hands. ‘I’m making a walloping great fool of myself,’ he thought.
‘A birthday card,’ he said. ‘I hope you’ll allow me—’
Carolyn, who had already received an enormous number of expensive presents, instantly gazed about her with an air of flabbergasted delight that suggested the joy of a street waif receiving a five-pound note.
‘It’s for me!’ she cried. ‘For me, for me, for me.’ She looked brilliantly at Alleyn and at her guests. ‘You’ll all have to wait. It must be opened now. Quick! Quick!’ She wriggled her fingers and tore at the paper with excited squeaks.
‘Good lord,’ thought Alleyn, ‘how does she get away with it? In any other woman it would be nauseating.’
His gift was at last freed from its wrappings. A small green object appeared. The surface was rounded and graven into the semblance of a squat figure with an enormous lolling head and curved arms and legs. The face was much formalised, but it had a certain expression of grinning malevolence. Carolyn gazed at it in delighted bewilderment.
‘But what is it? It’s jade. It’s wonderful – but—?’
‘It’s greenstone,’ said Alleyn.
‘It is a tiki, Miss Dacres,’ said a deep voice. The Maori, Dr Rangi Te Pokiha, came forward, smiling.
Carolyn turned to him.
‘A tiki?’
‘Yes. And a very beautiful one, if I may say so.’ He glanced at Alleyn.
‘Dr Te Pokiha was good enough to find it for me,’ explained Alleyn.
‘I want to know about – all about it,’ insisted Carolyn.
Te Pokiha began to explain. He was gravely explicit, and the Forrests looked embarrassed. The tiki is a Maori symbol. It brings good fortune to its possessor. It represents a human embryo and is the symbol of fecundity. In the course of a conversation with Te Pokiha at the hotel Alleyn had learned that he had this tiki to dispose of for a pakeha— a white man – who was hard-up. Te Pokiha had said that if it had been his own possession he would never have parted with it, but the pakeha was very hard-up. The tiki was deposited at the museum where the curator would vouch for its authenticity. Alleyn, on an impulse, had gone to look at it and had bought it. On another impulse he had decided to give it to Carolyn. She was enthralled by this story, and swept about showing the tiki to everybody. Gordon Palmer, who had sent up half a florist’s shop, glowered sulkily at Alleyn out of the corners of his eyes. Meyer, obviously delighted with Alleyn’s gift to his wife, took the tiki to a lamp to examine it more closely.
‘It’s lucky, is it?’ he asked eagerly.
‘Well you heard what he said, governor,’ said old Brandon Vernon. ‘A symbol of fertility, wasn’t it? If you call that luck!’
Meyer hastily put the tiki down, crossed his thumbs and began to bow to it.
‘O tiki-tiki be good to little Alfie,’ he chanted. ‘No funny business, now, no funny business.’
Ackroyd said something in an undertone. There was a guffaw from one or two of the men. Ackroyd, with a smirk, took the tiki from Meyer. Old Vernon and Mason joined the group.
Their faces coarsened into half-smiles. The tiki went from hand to hand, and there were many loud gusts of laughter. Alleyn looked at Te Pokiha who walked across to him.
‘I half regret my impulse,’ said Alleyn quietly.
‘Oh,’ said Te Pokiha pleasantly, ‘it seems amusing to them naturally.’ He paused and then added: ‘So may my great grandparents have laughed over the first crucifix they saw.’
Carolyn began to relate the story of Meyer’s adventure on the train. Everybody turned to listen to her. The laughter changed its quality and became gay and then helpless. Meyer allowed himself to be her foil, protesting comically.
She suddenly commanded everyone to supper. There were place-cards on the table. Alleyn found himself on Carolyn’s right with Mrs Forrest, for whom a place had been hurriedly made, on his other side.
Carolyn and Meyer sat opposite each other halfway down the long trestle-table. The nest of maiden-hair fern and exotic flowers was between them, and the long red cord ran down to Carolyn’s right and was fastened under the ledge of the table. She instantly asked what it was there for, and little Meyer’s fat white face became pink with conspiracy and excitement.
It was really a very large party. Twelve members of the company, as many more guests, and the large staff, whom Carolyn had insisted on having and who sat at a separate table, dressed in their best suits and staring self-consciously at each other. Candles had been lit all down the length of the tables and the lamps turned out. It was all very gay and festive.
When they were settled Meyer, beaming complacently, rose and looked round the table.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Meyer, ‘I suppose this is quite the wrong place for a speech, but we can’t have anything to drink till I’ve made it, so I don’t need to apologise.’
‘Certainly not’ – from Mason.
‘In a minute or two I shall ask you to drink the health of the loveliest woman and the greatest actress of the century – my wife.’
‘Golly!’ thought Alleyn. Cheers from everybody.
‘But before you do this we’ve got to find something for you to drink it in. There doesn’t appear to be anything on the table,’ said Meyer, with elaborate nonchalance, ‘but we are told that the gods will provide so I propose to leave it to them. Our stage-manager tells me that something may happen if this red cord here is cut. I shall therefore ask my wife to cut it. She will find a pair of shears by her plate.’
‘Darling!’ said Carolyn. ‘What is all this? Too exciting. I shan’t cause it to rain fizz, shall I? Like Moses. Or was it Moses?’
She picked up the enormous scissors. Alfred Meyer bent his fat form over the table and stretched out his short arms to the nest of fern. A fraction of a second before Carolyn closed the blades of the scissors over the cord, her husband touched a hidden switch. Tiny red and green lights sprang up beneath the fern and flowers, into which the jeroboam was to fall and over which Meyer was bending.
Everyone had stopped talking. Alleyn, in the sudden silence, received a curious impression of eager dimly-lit faces that peered, of a beautiful woman standing with one arm raised, holding the scissors as a lovely Atropos might hold aloft her shears, of a fat white-waistcoated man like a Blampied caricature, bent over the table, and of a red cord that vanished upwards into the dark. Suddenly he felt intolerably oppressed, aware of a suspense out of all proportion to the moment. So strong was this impression that he half rose from his chair.
But at that moment Carolyn cut through the cord.
Something enormous that flashed down among them, jolting the table. Valerie Gaynes screaming. Broken glass and the smell of champagne. Champagne flowing over the white cloth. A thing like an enormous billiard ball embedded in the fern. Red in the champagne. And Valerie Gaynes, screaming, screaming. Carolyn, her arm still raised, looking down. Himself, his voice, telling them to go away, telling Hambledon to take Carolyn away.
‘Take her away, take her away.’
And Hambledon: ‘Come away. Carolyn, come away.’
CHAPTER 5 Intermezzo (#ulink_c622865f-6b56-56e6-bb37-9c0517410125)
‘No, don’t move him,’ said Alleyn.
He laid a hand on Hambledon’s arm. Dr Te Pokiha, his bronze fingers still touching the top of Meyer’s head, looked fixedly at Alleyn.
‘Why not?’ asked Hambledon.
George Mason raised his head. Ever since they had got rid of the others Mason had sat at the end of the long table with his face buried in his arms. Ted Gascoigne stood beside Mason. He repeated over and over again:
‘It was as safe as houses. Someone’s monkeyed with it. We rehearsed it twelve times this morning. I tell you there’s been some funny business, George. My God, there’s been some funny business.’
‘Why not?’ repeated Hambledon. ‘Why not move him?’
‘Because,’ said Alleyn, ‘Mr Gascoigne may be right.’
George Mason spoke for the first time.
‘But who’d want to hurt him? Old Alf! He hasn’t an enemy in the world.’ He turned a woebegone face to Te Pokiha.
‘You’re sure, Doctor, he’s – he’s – gone?’
‘You can see for yourself, Mr Mason,’ said Te Pokiha; ‘the neck is broken.’
‘I don’t want to,’ said Mason, looking sick.
‘What ought we to do?’ asked Gascoigne. They all turned to Alleyn. ‘Do I exude CID?’ wondered Alleyn to himself, ‘or has Hambledon blown the gaff?’
‘I’m afraid you must ring up the nearest police station,’ he said aloud. There was an instant outcry from Gascoigne and Mason.
‘Good God, the police!’
‘What the hell!’
‘…but it was an accident!’
‘That’d be finish!’
‘I’m afraid Mr Alleyn’s right,’ said Te Pokiha; ‘it is a matter for the police. If you like I’ll ring up. I know the superintendent in Middleton.’
‘While you’re about it,’ said Mason with desperate irony, ‘you might ring up a shipping office. As far as this tour’s concerned—’
‘Finish!’ said Gascoigne.
‘We’ve got to do something about it, Ted,’ said Hambledon quietly.
‘We built it up between us,’ said Mason suddenly. ‘When I first met Alf he was advancing a No. 4 company in St Helens. I was selling tickets for the worst show in England. We never looked back. We’ve never had a nasty word, never. And look at the business we’ve built up.’ His lips trembled. ‘By God, if someone’s killed him – you’re right, Hailey. I’m – I’m all anyhow – you fix it, Ted. I’m all anyhow.’
Dr Te Pokiha looked at him.
‘How about joining the others, Mr Mason? Perhaps a whisky would be a good idea. Your office—?’
Mason got to his feet and came down to the centre of the table. He looked at what was left of Alfred Meyer’s head, buried among the fern and broken fairy lights, wet with champagne and with blood. The two fat white hands still grasped the edges of the nest.
‘God!’ said Mason. ‘Do we have to leave him like that?’
‘It will only be for a little while,’ said Alleyn gently. ‘I should let Dr Te Pokiha take you to the office.’
‘Alf,’ murmured Mason. ‘Old Alf!’ He stood there, his lips shaking, his face ugly with suppressed emotion. Alleyn, who was accustomed to scenes of this sort, was conscious of his familiar daemon which took little at face value, and observed so much. The daemon prompted him to notice how unembarrassed Gascoigne and Hambledon were by Mason’s emotion, how they had assumed so easily a mood of sorrowful correctness, almost as if they had rehearsed the damn’ scene, and the daemon.
They got Mason away. Te Pokiha went with him and said he would ring up the police. The unfortunate Bert, the stage-hand who had rigged the tackle under Meyer’s and Gascoigne’s directions, was hanging about in the wings and now came on the stage. He began to explain the mechanics of the champagne stunt to Alleyn.
‘It was like this ’ere. We fixed the rope over the pulley, see, and on one end we fixed the bloody bottle and on the other end we hooked the bloody weight. The weight was one of them corner weights we used for the bloody funnels.’
‘Ease up on the language, Bert,’ suggested Gascoigne moodily.
‘Good-oh, Mr Gascoigne. And the weight was not so heavy as the bottle, see. And we took a lead with a red cord from just above the weight, see, and fixed it to the table. So when the cord was cut she came down gradual like, seeing she was that much heavier than the weight. The weight and the bottle hung half-way between the pulley and the table, see, so when she came down, the weight went up to the pulley. It was hooked into a ring in the rope. We cut out the lights and used candles so’s nothing would be noticed. We tried her out till we was sick and tired of her and she worked corker every time. She worked good-oh, didn’t she, Mr Gascoigne?’
‘Yes,’ said Gascoigne. ‘That’s what I say. There’s been some funny business.’
‘That’s right,’ agreed Bert heavily. ‘There bloody well must of.’
‘I’m just going aloft to take a look,’ said Gascoigne.
‘Just a moment,’ interrupted Alleyn. He took a notebook and pencil from his pocket. ‘Don’t you think perhaps we had better not go up just yet, Mr Gascoigne? If there has been any interference, the police ought to be the first on the spot, oughtn’t they?’
‘I think I’ll go and see how Carolyn is,’ said Hambledon suddenly.
‘They’re all in their dressing-rooms,’ said Gascoigne.
Hambeldon went away. Alleyn completed a little sketch in his notebook and showed it to Gascoigne and Bert.
‘Was it like that?’
‘That’s right, mister,’ said Bert, ‘you got it. That’s how it was. And when she cut the bloody cord, see …’ he rambled on.
Alleyn looked at the jeroboam. It had been cased in a sort of net which closed in at the neck, and was securely wired to the rope.
‘Wonder why the cork blew out,’ murmured Alleyn.
‘The wire was loosened a bit before it came down,’ said Gascoigne. ‘He – the governor himself – he went aloft after the show specially to do it. He didn’t want a stage-wait after it came down. He said the wire would still hold the cork.’
‘And it did till the jolt – yes. What about the counterweight, Mr Gascoigne? That would have to be detached before the champagne was poured out.’
‘Bert was to go up at once and take it off.’
‘I orfered to stay up there, like,’ said Bert. ‘But ’e says “No,”, ’e says, “you can see the show and then go up. I’ll watch it.” Gawd, Mr Gascoigne—’
Alleyn slipped away through the wings. Off-stage it was very dark and smelt of theatre. He walked along the wall until he came to the foot of an iron ladder. He was reminded most vividly of his only other experience behind the scenes. ‘Is my mere presence in the stalls,’ he thought crossly, ‘a cue for homicide? May I not visit the antipodes without elderly theatre magnates having their heads bashed in by jeroboams of champagne before my very eyes? And the answer being “No” to each of these questions, can I not get away quickly without nosing into the why and wherefore?’
He put on his gloves and began to climb the ladder. ‘Again the answer is “No.” The truth of the matter is I’m an incurable nosy parker. Detect I must, if I can.’ He reached the first gallery, and peered about him, using his electric torch, and then went on up the ladder. ‘I wonder how she’s taking it? And Hambledon. Will they marry each other in due course, provided – After all, she may not be in love with Hambledon. Ah, here we are.’
He paused at the top gallery and switched on his torch.
Close beside him a batten, slung on ropes, ran across from his gallery to the opposite one. Across the batten hung a pulley and over the pulley was a rope. Looking down the far length of the rope, he saw it run away in sharp perspective from dark into light. He had a bird’s-eye view of the lamplit set, the tops of the wings, the flat white strip of table; and there, at the end of the rope in the middle of the table, a flattened object, rather like a beetle with a white head and paws. That was Alfred Meyer. The other end of the rope, terminating in an iron hook, was against the pulley. The hook had been secured to a ring in the end of the rope, and the red cord which Carolyn had cut was also tied to the ring. The cut end of the cord dangled in mid-air. On the hook he should have found the counterweight.
But there was no counterweight.
He looked again at the pulley. It was as he had thought. A loop of thin cord had been passed round the near end of the batten and tied to the gallery. It had served to pull the batten eighteen inches to one side. So that when the bottle dropped it was slightly to the right of the centre of the table.
‘Stap me and sink me!’ said Alleyn and returned to the stage. He found Ted Gascoigne by the stage-door. With him were two large dark men, wearing overcoats, scarves, and black felt hats; a police officer, and a short pink-faced person who was obviously the divisional surgeon. ‘Do they call them divisional surgeons in this country?’ wondered Alleyn.
They were some time at the stage-door. Gascoigne talked very fast and most confusedly. At last he took them on to the stage, where they were joined by Te Pokiha. From the wings Alleyn watched them make their examination. It gave him a curious feeling to look on while other men did his own job. They examined the end of the rope which was still knotted into the net enclosing the bottle, and the piece of red-bound wire cord that lay on the table. Gascoigne explained the mechanism of the descending jeroboam. They peered up into the grid. Gascoigne pointed out the other end of the red cord.
‘When Miss Dacres cut it, it shot up,’ he explained.
‘Yes,’ said the detective. ‘Ye-ees. That’s right. Ye-ees.’
‘Out comes the old notebook,’ said Alleyn to himself.
‘Hullo,’ said a voice at his elbow. It was Hambledon.
‘Carolyn wants to see you,’ he whispered. ‘What’s happening out there?’
‘Police doing their stuff. Wants to see me, does she?’
‘Yes, come on.’
He led the way into the usual dark wooden passage. The star dressing-room was the first on the left. Hambledon knocked on the door, opened it, and led the way in. Carolyn sat at her dressing-table. She still wore the black lace dress she had put on for the party. Her hair was pushed back from her face as though she had sat with her head in her hands. Old Susan Max was with her. Susan sat comfortably in an arm-chair, radiating solid sense, but her eyes were anxious. They brightened when she saw Alleyn.
‘Here he is, dear,’ she said.
Carolyn turned her head slowly.
‘Hullo,’ she said.
‘Hullo,’ said Alleyn. ‘Hambledon says you want me.’
‘Yes, I do.’ Her hands were trembling violently. She pressed them together between her knees.
‘I just thought I’d like you here,’ said Carolyn. ‘I’ve killed him, haven’t I?’
‘No!’ said Hambledon violently.
‘My dear!’ said Susan.
‘Well, I have. I cut the cord. That was what did it, wasn’t it?’ She still looked at Alleyn.
‘Yes,’ said Alleyn in a very matter-of-fact voice, ‘that was what set the thing off. But you didn’t rig the apparatus, did you?’
‘No. I didn’t know anything about it. It was a surprise.’
She caught her breath and a strange sound, something like laughter, came from her lips. Susan and Hambledon looked panicky.
‘Oh!’ cried Carolyn. ‘Oh! Oh!’
‘Don’t!’ said Alleyn. ‘Hysterics are a bad way of letting things go. You feel awful afterwards.’
She raised one of her hands and bit on it. Alleyn picked up a bottle of smelling-salts from the dressing-table and held it under her nose.
‘Sniff hard,’ he said.
Carolyn sniffed and gasped. Tears poured out of her eyes.
‘That’s better. You’re crying black tears. I thought that stuff was waterproof. Look at yourself.’
She gazed helplessly at him and then turned to the glass. Susan gently wiped away the black tears.
‘You’re a queer one,’ sobbed Carolyn.
‘I know I am,’ agreed Alleyn. ‘It’s a pose, really. Would you drink a little brandy if Hambledon got it for you?’
‘No.’
‘Yes, you would.’ He looked good-humouredly at Hambledon, who was standing by her chair. ‘Can you?’ asked Alleyn.
‘Yes – yes, I’ll get it.’ He hurried away.
Alleyn sat on one of the wicker baskets and spoke to old Susan.
‘Well, Miss Max, our meetings are to be fraught with drama, it seems.’
‘Ah,’ said Susan with a sort of grunt.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Carolyn. She turned to the mirror and, very shakily, dabbed at her face with a powder-puff.
‘Mr Alleyn and I have met before, dear,’ explained Susan. ‘Over that dreadful business with Felix Gardener, you know.’
‘Yes. We spoke about it that night on the train.’ Carolyn paused, and then she began to speak rapidly, urgently and with more command over her voice.
‘That’s why I wanted to see you. That night on the train. You remember what – he – said. Someone had tried to kill him. Have you thought of that?’
‘I have,’ said Alleyn.
‘Well then – I want you to tell me, please, is this anything to do with it? Has someone – the same someone – done tonight what they failed to do on the train? Mr Alleyn – has someone murdered my husband?’
Alleyn was silent.
‘Please answer me.’
‘That’s a question for the police, you know.’
‘But I want you to tell me what you think. I must know what you think.’ She leant towards him. ‘You’re not on duty. You’re in a strange country, like all of us, and far away from your job. Don’t be official, please don’t. Tell me what you think!’
‘Very well,’ said Alleyn after a pause. ‘I think someone has interfered with the tackle that was rigged up for – for the stunt with the champagne, you know.’
‘And that means murder?’
‘If I am right – yes. It looks like it!’
‘Shall you speak to the police? They are there now, aren’t they?’
‘Yes. They are out there.’
‘Well?’
‘I regard myself as a layman, Miss Dacres. I shall certainly not butt in.’ His voice was not final. He seemed to have left something unsaid. Carolyn looked fixedly at him and then turned to old Susan.
‘Susie, darling, I want to talk to Mr Alleyn. Do you mind? You’ve been an angel. Thank you so much. Come back soon.’
When Susan had gone Carolyn leant forward and touched Alleyn’s hand.
‘Listen,’ she said, ‘do you feel friendly towards me? You do, don’t you?
‘Quite friendly.’
‘I want you for my friend. You don’t believe I could do anything very bad, do you? Or let anything very bad be done without making some effort to stop it?’
‘What is in your mind?’ he asked. ‘What are you trying to say?’
‘If I should want your help – yes, that’s it – would you give it me?’
Her hand was still on his. She had patched up the stains made by her tears and her face looked beautiful again. He had seen her lean forward like that on the stage; it was a very characteristic gesture. Her eyes seemed to cry out to him.
‘If I can be of any help,’ said Alleyn very formally, ‘of course I shall be only too glad—’
‘No, no, no. That’s not a bit of good. Sticking out all your prickles like that,’ said Carolyn, with something of her old vigour. ‘I want a real answer.’
‘But, don’t you see, you say too much and too little. What sort of help do you want from me?’
‘I don’t know, I don’t know.’
‘Come,’ said Alleyn, ‘I’ll promise to stay in Middleton a little longer. When do you go on to Wellington?’
‘When? We were to open there next week, but now – I don’t know.’
‘Listen to me. I give you one piece of advice. Don’t try and keep anything in the dark, no matter what it is. Those fellows out there will want to talk to you. They’ll have to ask you all sorts of questions. Answer them truthfully, no matter what it means, no matter how painful it may be, no matter where you think their questions are leading you. Promise me that and I’ll pledge you my help, for what it’s worth.’
Carolyn still leant towards him, still looked straight at him. But he felt her withdrawal as certainly as though it had been physical.
‘Well?’ he asked. ‘Is it a bargain?’
But before she could answer him Hailey Hambledon came back with the brandy.
‘The detectives want us all to wait in the wardrobe-room,’ he said. ‘I don’t know about you, Alleyn.’
‘You haven’t given me away to anyone, have you?’ asked Alleyn.
‘No, no. Only we three realise you’re a detective.’
‘Please let it stay like that, will you?’ asked Alleyn. ‘I’m most anxious that it should be so.’
‘I’ll promise you that,’ said Carolyn.
Their eyes met.
‘Thank you,’ said Alleyn quietly. ‘I’ll join you later.’
CHAPTER 6 Second Appearance of the Tiki (#ulink_a7ff6763-7ed7-54a0-a0d7-513c6cd6a79e)
‘Who’s that?’ demanded the largest of the three detectives. ‘Just a minute there, please.’ He was on the stage and had caught sight of Alleyn through the open door of the prompt entrance.
‘It’s me,’ said Alleyn in a mild voice and walked through. The detective, Te Pokiha, and the police doctor, were all standing by the table.
‘Who’s this gentleman, Mr Gascoigne?’ continued the detective.
‘Er – it’s – er—Mr Alleyn, Inspector.’
‘Member of the company?’
‘No,’ said Alleyn, ‘just a friend.’
‘I thought I said no one was to come out here. What were you doing, sir? Didn’t you understand—?’
‘I just thought—’ began Alleyn with that particular air of hurt innocence that always annoyed him when he met it in his official capacity. ‘I just thought—’
‘I’ll have your full name and address, if you please,’ interrupted the inspector, and opened his notebook. ‘Allan, you said. First name?’
‘Roderick.’
‘How do you spell—?’ The inspector stopped short and stared at Alleyn.
‘A-l-l-e-y-n, Inspector.’
‘Good God!’
‘New Scotland Yard, London,’ added Alleyn apologetically.
‘By cripes, sir, I’m sorry. We’d heard you were – we didn’t know – I mean –’
‘I shall call at headquarters when I get to Wellington,’ said Alleyn. ‘I’ve got a letter somewhere from your chief. Should have answered it. Very dilatory of me.’
‘I’m very, very sorry, sir. We thought you were in Auckland. We’ve been expecting you, of course.’
‘I changed my plans,’ said Alleyn. ‘All my fault, Inspector—?’
‘Wade, sir,’ said the inspector, scarlet in the face.
‘How do you do?’ said Alleyn cheerfully, and held out his hand.
‘I’m very very pleased to meet you, Chief Inspector,’ said Inspector Wade, shaking it relentlessly. ‘Very very pleased. We had word that you were on your way, and as a matter of fact, Superintendent Nixon was going to look in at the Middleton as soon as you came down. Yes, that’s right. The super was going to call. We’ve all been trained on your book.
(#litres_trial_promo) ‘It’s – it’s a great honour to meet the author.’
‘That’s very nice of you,’ said Alleyn, easing his fingers a little. ‘I should have called at your headquarters on my arrival, but you know how it is in a new place. One puts off these things.’ He glanced through the wings on to the stage.
‘That’s right. And now we meet on the job as you might say. Ye-ees.’
‘Not my job, thank the Lord,’ said Alleyn, ‘and, look here. I want to hide my job under a bushel. So – if you don’t mind – just don’t mention it to any of these people.’
‘Certainly, sir. I hope you’ll let the boys here meet you. They’d be very very pleased, I know.’
‘So should I—delighted. Just tip them the wink, if you don’t mind, to forget about the CID. And as I’m a layman, I suppose you want to ask me a few questions, Inspector?’
The New Zealander’s large healthy face again turned red.
‘Well now, sir, that makes me feel a bit foolish but – well – yes, we’ve got to do the usual, you know.’
‘Of course you have,’ said Alleyn very charmingly. ‘Nasty business, isn’t it? I shall be most interested to see something of your methods if you will allow me.’
‘It’s very fine of you to put it that way, sir. To be quite frank I was wondering if you would give us an account of what took place before the accident. You were in the party, I understand.’
‘A statement in my own words, Inspector?’ asked Alleyn, twinkling.
‘That’s right,’ agreed Wade with a roar of laughter, which he instantly quelled. His two subordinates, hearing this unseemly noise, strolled up and were introduced. Detective-Sergeants Cass and Packer. They shook Alleyn’s hand and stared profoundly at the floor. Alleyn gave a short but extremely workmanlike account of the tragedy.
‘By cripes!’ said Inspector Wade with great feeling. ‘It’s not often we get it like that. Now, about the way this champagne business was fixed. You say you made a sketch of it, sir?’
Alleyn showed him the sketch.
‘Ought to have worked OK,’ said Wade. I’ll go up and have a look-see.’
‘You’ll find it rather different, now,’ said Alleyn. ‘I ventured to have a glance up there myself. I do hope you don’t mind, Inspector. It was damned officious, I know, but I didn’t get off the ladder and I’m sure I’ve done no harm.’
‘That’s quite all right, sir,’ said Wade heartily. ‘No objections here. We don’t have Scotland Yard alongside us every day. You say it’s different from your sketch?’
‘Yes. May I come up with you?’
‘Too right. You boys fix up down here. Get the photographs through and the body shifted to the mortuary. You’d better ring the station for more men. Get a statement from the stage-manager and the bloke that rigged this tackle. You can take that on, Cass. And Packer, you get statements from the rest of the crowd. Are they all in the wardrobe-room?’
‘I think they will be there by now,’ said Alleyn. ‘The guests have gone, with the exception of a Mr Gordon Palmer and his cousin Mr Weston who, I believe, are still here. Mr George Mason, the business manager, has a list of the names and addresses. The guests simply came behind the scenes for the party and are casual acquaintances of the company. Mr Palmer and his cousin came out in the same ship as the company. I – I suggested that perhaps they might be of use. They were,’ said Alleyn dryly, ‘delighted to remain.’
‘Good-oh,’ said Wade. ‘Get to it, you boys. Are you ready, Mr Alleyn?’
He led the way up the iron ladder. When he reached the first gallery he paused and switched on his torch.
‘Not much light up there,’ he grunted.
‘Wait a moment,’ called Alleyn from below. ‘There’s a light-border. I’ll see if I can find the switch.’
He climbed up to the electrician’s perch and, after one or two experiments, switched on the overhead lights. A flood of golden warmth poured down through the dark strips of canvas.
‘Good-oh,’ said Wade.
‘It is extraordinary,’ thought Alleyn, ‘how ubiquitous they make that remark. It expresses anything from acquiescence to approbation.’
He mounted the iron ladder.
‘Well now, sir,’ said Wade, ‘it all looks much the same as your sketch to me. Where’s the difference?’
‘Look at the rope by the pulley,’ suggested Alleyn, climbing steadily. ‘Look at the end where the counterweight should be attached. Look—’
He had reached the second platform where Wade sat, dangling his legs. He turned on the ladder and surveyed the tackle.
‘Hell’s gaiters!’ said Alleyn very loudly. ‘They’ve put ’em back again.’
A long silence followed. Alleyn suddenly began to chuckle.
‘One in the eye for me,’ he said, ‘and a very pretty one, too. All the same it’s too damn’ clever by half. Look here, Inspector, when I came up here twenty minutes ago the counterweight was not attached to the rope over there, and the pulley had been moved eighteen inches this way by a loop of cord.’
‘Is that so?’ said Wade solemnly. After another pause he glanced at Alleyn apologetically. It’d be very dark then, sir. No lights at all, I take it. I suppose—’
‘I’ll go into the box and swear my socks off and my soul pink,’ said Alleyn. ‘And I had a torch, what’s more. No – it’s been put right again. It must have been done while I was in the dressing-room. By George, I wonder if the fellow was up here on the platform when I came up the ladder. You had just got to the theatre when I went down.’
‘D’you mean,’ asked Wade, ‘d’you mean to tell me that this gear was all different when we came in and someone’s changed it round since? We’d have known something about that, Mr Alleyn.’
‘My dear chap, but would you? Look here, kick me out. I’ve no business to gate-crash on your job, Inspector. It’s insufferable. Just take my statement in the ordinary way and I’ll push off. Lord knows, I didn’t mean to buck round doing the CID official.’
Wade, whose manner up to now had been a curious mixture of deference, awkwardness, and a somewhat forced geniality, now thawed completely.
‘Look, sir,’ he said, ‘you don’t need to make any apologies. I reckon I know a gentleman when I meet one. We’ve read about your work out here, and if you like to interest yourself – well, we’ll be only too pleased. Now! Only too pleased.’
‘Extraordinary nice of you,’ said Alleyn. ‘Thank you so much for those few nuts and so on. All right. Didn’t you stay by the stage-door for a bit, when you came in?’
Yes, that’s right, we did. Mr Gascoigne met us there and started some long story. We didn’t know what was up. Simply got the message, there’d been an accident at the theatre. It took me a minute or two to get the rights of it and another minute or two to find out where the body was. You know how they are.’
‘Exactly. Well now, while that was going on, I fancy our gentleman was up here and very busy. He came up under cover of all the hoo-hah on the stage some time after the event. He was just going to put things straight, when he heard me climbin’ up de golden stair, as you might say. That must have given him a queasy turn. He took cover somewhere up here in the dark and as soon as I went down again he did what he had to do. Then, when you were safely on the stage and shut off by the walls of scenery, down he came pussy-foot, by the back-stage ladder, and mixed himself up with the crowd. Conjecture, perhaps—’
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Ngaio Marsh
A touring theatre company in New Zealand forms the basis of one of Marsh’s most ambitious and innovative novelsNew Zealand theatrical manager Alfred Meyer is planning a surprise for his wife's birthday - a jeroboam of champagne descending gently onto the stage after the performance. But, as Roderick Alleyn witnesses, something goes horribly wrong. Is the death the product of Maori superstitions - or something more down to earth?
NGAIO MARSH
VINTAGE MURDER
COPYRIGHT (#ulink_e2a6b815-5c20-53f4-8d96-ef3c8f7f68cb)
HARPER
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/)
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2009
Vintage Murder First published in Great Britain by Geoffrey Bles 1937
Copyright © Ngaio Marsh Ltd 1937
Ngaio Marsh asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of these works
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780006512554
Ebook Edition © MAY 2013 ISBN: 9780007344420
Version: 2016-08-18
DEDICATION (#ulink_7438c5bc-79bc-5ada-b56c-75ba6324b7c3)
For Allan Wilkie andFrediswyde Hunter-WattsIn memory of a tour in New Zealand
CONTENTS
Cover (#u4d64bc49-563b-57fc-80e2-11e294dd692f)
Title Page (#u5a40377d-e823-5467-b546-72b576dbbdd9)
Copyright (#u4c0b453a-560e-5fa8-962a-2f9dd71f80ea)
Dedication (#u3af8ae68-4767-527c-9b2b-80350b85ff34)
Cast of Characters (#ud2fb546d-60c4-55f4-b877-9a740764ed6d)
Foreword (#uf819645a-b168-528d-8bb9-b70a644d7399)
1. Prologue in a Train (#uc81c47ef-d10e-5a77-b330-c57323225ffc)
2. Mr Meyer in Jeopardy (#ua9adda3c-7398-51d9-9e1f-92c359e4216d)
3. Off-stage (#ubf98c432-dd3b-5136-bb19-bd4ed4de8b6b)
4. First Appearance of the Tiki (#ua9b294ff-67ee-55d4-8f60-eefcf52af7b4)
5. Intermezzo (#ucdc4251e-3afb-550b-b866-9a89ed990874)
6. Second Appearance of the Tiki (#u91937310-b522-5358-b3c4-e8d708da12bb)
7. Wardrobe-room Muster (#litres_trial_promo)
8. Money (#litres_trial_promo)
9. Courtney Broadhead’s Scene (#litres_trial_promo)
10. The Case is Wide Open (#litres_trial_promo)
11. St John Ackroyd and Susan Max (#litres_trial_promo)
12. Liversidge Fluffs his Lines (#litres_trial_promo)
13. Miss Gaynes goes Up-stage (#litres_trial_promo)
14. Variation on a Police Whistle (#litres_trial_promo)
15. Six a.m. First Act Curtain (#litres_trial_promo)
16. Entr’acte (#litres_trial_promo)
17. Change of Scene (#litres_trial_promo)
18. Duologue (#litres_trial_promo)
19. Carolyn Moves Centre (#litres_trial_promo)
20. Exit Liversidge. Enter Bob Parsons (whistling) (#litres_trial_promo)
21. Business with Props (#litres_trial_promo)
22. Fourth Appearance of the Tiki (#litres_trial_promo)
23. Alleyn as Maskelyne (#litres_trial_promo)
24. Dr Te Pokiha Plays to Type. Warn Curtain (#litres_trial_promo)
25. Alleyn Speaks the Tag (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CAST OF CHARACTERS (#ulink_99da81f6-8bbb-5101-b2b7-191e74f3356d)
(in the order of their appearance)
FOREWORD (#ulink_cb8fd712-fb6c-509d-8bec-4c2086da2d42)
Although I agree with those critics who condemn the building of imaginary towns in actual countries I must confess that there is no Middleton in the North Island of New Zealand, nor is ‘Middleton’ a pseudonym for any actual city. The largest town in New Zealand is no bigger than, let us say, Southampton. If I had taken the Dacres Comedy Company to Auckland or Wellington, Messrs Wade, Packer, and Cass, to say nothing of Dr Rangi Te Pokiha, might have been mistaken for portraits or caricatures of actual persons. By building Middleton in the open country somewhere south of Ohakune, I avoid this possibility, and, with a clear conscience, can make the usual statement that:
All the characters in this story are purely imaginary and bear no relation to any actual person.
CHAPTER 1 Prologue in a Train (#ulink_30012ee0-93cf-545f-92c1-2a5dfed401ec)
The clop and roar of the train was an uneasy element somewhere at the back of the tall man’s dreams. It would die away – die away and fantastic hurrying faces come up to claim his attention. He would think ‘I am sure I am asleep. This is certainly a dream.’ Then came a jolt as they roared, with a sudden increase of racket, over a bridge and through a cutting. The fantastic faces disappeared. He was cold and stiff. For the hundredth time he opened his eyes to see the dim carriage-lamps and the rows of faces with their murky high-lights and cadaverous shadows.
‘Strange company I’ve got into,’ he thought.
Opposite him was the leading man, large, kindly, swaying slightly with the movement of the long narrow-gauge carriage, politely resigned to discomfort. The bundle of rugs in the next seat to the tall man was Miss Susan Max, the character woman. An old trouper, Susan, with years of jolting night journeys behind her, first in this country, then Australia, and then up and down the provinces in England, until finally she made a comfortable niche for herself with Incorporated Playhouses in the West End. Twenty years ago she had joined an English touring company in Wellington. Now, for the first time, she revisited New Zealand. She stared, with unblinking eyes, at the dim reflections in the window-pane. The opposite seat to Susan’s was empty. In the next block George Mason, the manager, a dyspeptic, resigned-looking man, played an endless game of two-handed whist with Ted Gascoigne, the stage-manager.
And there, nodding like a mandarin beside old Brandon Vernon, was little Ackroyd, the comedian, whose ill-temper was so much at variance with his funny face. Sitting in front of Mason, a pale young man fidgeted restlessly in his chair. This was Courtney Broadhead. ‘Something the matter with that youth,’ thought the tall man. ‘Ever since Panama—’ He caught the boy’s eye and looked beyond him to where Mr Francis Liversidge, so much too beautifully dressed, allowed Miss Valerie Gaynes to adore him. Beyond them again to the far end of the long carriage were dim faces and huddled figures. The Carolyn Dacres English Comedy Company on tour in New Zealand.
He felt very much an outsider. There was something about these people that gave them a united front. Their very manner in this night train, rattling and roaring through a strange country, was different from the manner of other travellers. Dozing a little, he saw them in more antiquated trains, in stage-coaches, in wagons, afoot, wearing strange garments, carrying bundles, but always together. There they were, their heads bobbing in unison, going back and back.
A violent jerk woke him. The train had slowed down. He wiped the misty window-pane, shaded his eyes, and tried to look out into this new country. The moon had risen. He saw aching hills, stumps of burnt trees, some misty white flowering scrub, and a lonely road. It was very remote and strange. Away in front, the engine whistled. Trees, hills and road slid sideways and were gone. Three lamps travelled across the window-pane. They were off again.
He turned to see old Susan dab at her eyes with her handkerchief. She gave him a deprecatory smile.
‘Those white trees are manuka bushes,’ she said. ‘They bloom at this time of the year. I had forgotten.’
There was a long silence. He looked from one dimly-lit slumping figure to another. At last be became aware of Hambledon’s gaze, fixed on himself.
‘Do you find us very queer cattle?’ said Hambledon, with his air of secret enjoyment.
‘Why do you ask that?’ said the tall man quickly.
‘I noticed you looking at us and wondered what were your thoughts. Do you think us queer cattle?’
In order not to disturb Susan Max and to make himself heard above the racket of the train, he bent forward. So did the tall man. With their heads together under the murky lamp, they looked like conspirators.
‘That would be an ungracious thought,’ said the tall man, ‘after your kindness.’
‘Our kindness? Oh, you mean George Mason’s offer of a seat in our carriage?’
‘Yes. The alternative was a back-to-the-engine pew by a swinging door, among commercial travellers, and next a lavatory.’
Hambledon laughed silently.
‘Ah well,’ he said, ‘even queer cattle may be preferable to all that.’
‘But I didn’t say I thought—’
‘If you had it would not have been very strange. Actors are a rum lot.’
‘The last man I heard say that was an actor – and a murderer,’ said the tall man.
‘Really?’ Hambledon raised his head. ‘You don’t by any chance mean Felix Gardener?’
‘I do. How did you guess—?’
‘Now I know who you are. Of course! How stupid of me! I have seen your photograph any number of times in the papers. It’s been worrying me.’
His companion looked at Susan Max. Her three chins were packed snugly down into her collar and her eyes were closed. Her whole person jogged rhythmically with the motion of the train.
‘She knew me,’ he said, ‘but I asked her not to give me away. I’m on a holiday.’
‘I should have guessed from your name of course. How inadequate one’s memory is. And without your – your rank—’
‘Exactly. They spelt me wrongly in the passenger list.’
‘Well, this is very interesting. I shan’t give you away.’
‘Thank you. And at any rate we part company in Middleton. I’m staying for a few nights to see your show and look round, and then I go on to the South Island.’
‘We may meet again,’ said Hambledon.
‘I hope so,’ said his companion cordially.
They smiled tentatively at each other, and after an uncertain pause leant back again in their seats.
The train roared through a cutting and gathered speed. ‘Rackety-plan, rackety-plan,’ it said, faster and faster, as though out of patience with its journey. The guard came through and turned down the lamps. Now the white faces of the travellers looked more cadaverous than ever. The carriage was filled with tobacco smoke. Everything felt grimy and stale. The shrill laughter of Miss Valerie Gaynes, in ecstasy over a witticism of Mr Liversidge’s, rose above the din. She stood up, a little dishevelled in her expensive fur coat, and began to walk down the carriage. She swayed, clutched the backs of seats, stumbled and fell half across George Mason’s knees. He gave her a disinterested squeeze, and made a knowing grimace at Gasgoigne who said something about: ‘If you will go native.’ Miss Gaynes yelped and got up. As she passed Hambledon and the tall man she paused and said:
‘I’m going to my sleeper. They call it “de luxe”. My God, what a train!’
She staggered on. When she opened the door the iron clamour of their progress filled the carriage. Cold night air rushed in from outside bringing a taint of acrid smoke. She struggled with the door, trying to shut it behind her. They could see her through the glass panel, leaning against the wind. Hambledon got up and slammed the door and she disappeared.
‘Have you taken a sleeper?’ asked the tall man.
‘No,’ said Hambledon. ‘I should not sleep and I should probably be sick.’
‘That’s how I feel about it, too.’
‘Carolyn and Meyer have gone to theirs. They are the only other members of the company who have risked it. That young woman has just go to be expensive. Valerie, I mean.’
‘I noticed that in the ship. Who is she? Any relation of old Pomfret Gaynes, the shipping man?’
‘Daughter.’ Hambledon leant forward again. ‘Academy of Dramatic Art. Lord knows how big an allowance, an insatiable desire for the footlights and adores the word “actress” on her passport.’
‘Is she a good actress?’
‘Dire.’
‘Then how—?’
‘Pomfret,’ said Hambledon, ‘and push.’
‘It seems a little unjust in an overcrowded profession.’
‘That’s how it goes,’ said Hambledon with a shrug. ‘The whole business is riddled with preferment nowadays. It’s just one of those things.’
Susan Max’s head lolled to one side. Hambledon took her travelling cushion and slipped it between her cheek and the wall. She was fast asleep.
‘There’s your real honest-to-God actress,’ he said, leaning forward again. ‘Her father was an actor-manager in Australia and started life as a child performer in his father’s stock company. Susan has trouped for forty-five years. It’s in her blood. She can play anything from grande dame to trollop, and play it well.’
‘What about Miss Dacres? Or should I say Mrs Meyer? I never know with married stars.’
‘She’s Carolyn Dacres all the time. Except in hotel registers, of course. Carolyn is a great actress. Please don’t think I’m using the word “great” carelessly. She is a great actress. Her father was a country parson, but there’s a streak of the stage in her mother’s family, I believe. Carolyn joined a touring company when she was seventeen. She was up and down the provinces for eight years before she got her chance in London. Then she never looked back.’ Hambledon paused and glanced apologetically at his companion. ‘In a moment you will accuse me of talking shop.’
‘Why not? I like people to talk shop. I can never understand the prejudice against it.’
‘You don’t do it, I notice.’
The tall man raised one eyebrow.
‘I’m on a holiday. When did Miss Dacres marry Mr Alfred Meyer?’
‘About ten years ago,’ said Hambledon, shortly. He turned in his seat and looked down the carriage. The Carolyn Dacres Company had settled down for the night. George Mason and Gascoigne had given up their game of two-handed whist and had drawn their rugs up to their chins. The comedian had spread a sheet of newspaper over his head. Young Courtney Broadhead was awake, but Mr Liversidge’s mouth was open and those rolls of flesh, so well disciplined by day, were now subtly predominant. Except for Broadhead they were all asleep. Hambledon looked at his watch.
‘It’s midnight,’ he said.
Midnight. Outside their hurrying windows this strange country slept. Farm houses, lonely in the moonlight, sheep asleep or tearing with quick jerks at the short grass, those aching hills that ran in curves across the window-panes, and the white flowering trees that had made old Susan dab her eyes. They were all there, outside, but remote from the bucketing train with its commercial travellers, its tourists and its actors.
‘The fascination of a train journey,’ thought the tall man, ‘lies in this remoteness of the country outside, and in the realisation that it is so close. At any station one may break the spell of the train and set foot on the earth. But as long as one stays in the train, the outside is a dream country. A dream country.’ He closed his eyes again and presently was fast asleep and troubled by long dreams that were half broken by a sense of discomfort. When he woke again he felt cold and stiff. Hambledon, he saw, was still awake.
Their carriage seemed to be continually turning. His mind made a picture of a corkscrew with a gnat-sized train twisting industriously. He looked at his watch.
‘Good lord,’ he said. ‘It’s ten past two. I shall stay awake. It’s a mistake to sleep in these chairs.’
‘Ten past two,’ said Hambledon. ‘The time for indiscreet conversation. Are you sure you do not want to go to sleep?’
‘Quite sure. What were we speaking of before I dozed off? Miss Dacres?’
‘Yes. You asked about her marriage. It is difficult even to guess why she married Alfred Meyer. Not because he is the big noise in Incorporated Playhouses. Carolyn had no need of that sort of pull. She had arrived. Perhaps she married him because he was so essentially commonplace. As a kind of set-off to her own temperament. She has the true artistic temperament.’
The tall man winced. Hambledon had made use of a phrase that he detested.
‘Don’t misunderstand me,’ Hambledon continued very earnestly. ‘Alf is a good fellow. He’s very much liked in the business. But – well, he has never been a romantic figure. He lives for the firm, you know. He and George Mason built it between them. I’ve played in I.P. productions for twelve years now. Eight pieces in all and in five of them I’ve played opposite Carolyn.’
He had the actor’s habit of giving full dramatic value to everything he said. His beautiful voice, with its practised inflexions, suggested a romantic attachment.
‘She’s rather a wonderful person,’ he said.
‘He means that,’ thought his companion. ‘He is in love with her.’
His mind went back to the long voyage in the ship with Carolyn Dacres very much the star turn, but not, he had to admit, aggressively the great actress. She and her pale, plump, rather common, rather uninteresting husband, had sat in deck chairs, he with a portable typewriter on his knees and she with a book. Very often Hambledon had sat on the other side of her, also with a book. They had none of them joined in the all-night poker parties with young Courtney Broadhead, Liversidge and Valerie Gaynes. Thinking of these three he turned to look up the dim carriage. There was young Broadhead, still awake, still staring at the blind window-pane with its blank reflections. As if conscious of the other’s gaze he jerked his head uneasily and with an abrupt movement rose to his feet and came down the carriage. As he passed them he said:
‘Fresh air. I’m going out to the platform.’
‘Young ass,’ said Hambledon when he had gone through the door. ‘He’s been losing his money. You can’t indulge in those sorts of frills, on his salary.’
They both looked at the glass door. Broadhead’s back was against it.
‘I’m worried about that boy,’ Hambledon went on. ‘No business of mine, of course, but one doesn’t like to see that kind of thing.’
‘They were playing high, certainly.’
‘A fiver to come in, last night, I believe. I looked into the smoke-room before I went to bed. Liversidge had won a packet. Courtney looked very sick. Early in the voyage I tried to tip him the wink, but he’d got in with that bear leader and his cub.’
‘Weston and young Palmer, you mean?’
‘Yes. They’re on the train. The cub’s likely to stick to our heels all through the tour, I’m afraid.’
‘Stage-struck?’
‘What they used to call “shook on the pros.” He hangs round Carolyn, I suppose you’ve noticed. She tells me his father – he’s a Sir Something Palmer and noisomely rich – has packed him off to New Zealand with Weston in the hope of teaching him sense. Weston’s his cousin. The boy was sacked from his public school, I believe. Shipboard gossip.’
‘It is strange,’ said the tall man, ‘how a certain type of Englishman still regards the Dominions either as a waste-paper basket or a purge.’
‘You are not a colonial, surely?’
‘Oh, no. I speak without prejudice. Hullo, I believe we’re stopping.’
A far-away whistle was followed by the sound of banging doors and a voice that chanted something indistinguishable. These sounds grew louder. Presently the far door of their own carriage opened and the guard came down the corridor.
‘Five minutes at Ohakune for refreshments,’ he chanted, and went out at the near door. Broadhead moved aside for him.
‘Refreshments!’ said Hambledon. ‘Good lord!’
‘Oh, I don’t know. A cup of coffee, perhaps. Anyway a gulp of fresh air.’
‘Perhaps you’re right. What did he say was the name of the station?’
‘I don’t know. It sounded like a rune or incantation.’
‘Oh – ah – coo – nee,’ said Susan Max, unexpectedly.
‘Hullo, Susie, you’ve come up to breathe, have you?’ asked Hambledon.
‘I haven’t been to sleep, dear,’ said Susan. Not really asleep, you know.’
‘I’d forgotten you were an Australian.’
‘I am not an Australian. I was born in New Zealand. Australia is a four-day journey from—’
‘I know, I know,’ said Hambledon with a wink at the tall man.
‘Well, it is provoking, dear,’ said Miss Max huffily. ‘We don’t like to be called Australian. Not that I’ve anything against the Aussies. It’s the ignorance.’
A chain of yellow lights travelled past their windows. The train stopped and uttered a long steamy sigh. All along the carriage came the sound of human beings yawning and shuffling.
‘I wish my father had never met my mother,’ grumbled the comedian.
‘Come on,’ said Hambledon to the tall man.
They went out through the door. Courtney Broadhead was standing on the narrow iron platform of their carriage. His overcoat collar was turned up and his hat jammed over his eyes. He looked lost and miserable. The other two men stepped down on to the station platform. The cold night air smelt clean after the fug of the train. There was a tang in it, salutary and exciting.
‘It smells like the inside of a flower shop,’ said Hambledon. ‘Moss, and cold wet earth, and something else. Are we very high up in the world, I wonder?’
‘I think we must be. To me it smells like mountain air.’
‘What about this coffee?’
They got two steaming china baths from the refreshment counter and took them out on to the platform.
‘Hailey! Hailey!’
The window of one of the sleepers had been opened and through it appeared a head.
‘Carolyn!’ Hambledon walked swiftly to the window. ‘Haven’t you settled down yet? It’s after half past two, do you know that?’
The murky lights from the station shone on that face, finding out the hollows round the eyes and under the cheek bones. The tall man had never been able to make up his mind about Carolyn Dacres’s face. Was it beautiful? Was it faded? Was she as intelligent as her face seemed to promise? As he watched her he realised that she was agitated about something. She spoke quickly, and in an undertone. Hambledon stared at her in surprise and then said something. They both looked for a moment at the tall man. She seemed to hesitate.
‘Stand clear, please.’
A bell jangled. He mounted the platform of his carriage where Courtney Broadhead still stood hunched up in his overcoat. The train gave one of those preparatory backward clanks. Hambledon, still carrying his cup, hurriedly mounted the far platform of the sleeper. They were drawn out of the station into the night. Courtney Broadhead, after a sidelong glance at the tall man, said something inaudible and returned to the carriage. The tall man remained outside. The stern of the sleeping-carriage in front swayed and wagged, and the little iron bridge that connected the two platforms jerked backwards and forwards. Presently Hambledon came out of the sleeper and, holding to the iron rails, made towards him over the bridge. As soon as they were together he began to shout:
‘… very upset … most extraordinary … wish you’d …’ The wind snatched his voice away.
‘I can’t hear you.’
‘It’s Meyer – I can’t make it out. Come over here.’
He led the way across the little bridge and drew his companion into the entrance lobby of the next carriage.
‘It’s Meyer,’ said Hambledon. ‘He says someone tried to murder him.’
CHAPTER 2 Mr Meyer in Jeopardy (#ulink_0900d62f-a549-5ed8-a94a-7b465ba994cf)
The tall man merely stared at Hambledon who came to the conclusion that his astonishing announcement had not been heard.
‘Someone has tried to murder Alfred Meyer,’ he bawled.
‘All right,’ said the tall man. He looked disgusted and faintly alarmed.
‘Carolyn wants you to come along to their sleeper.’
‘You haven’t told her—?’
‘No, no. But I wish you’d let me—’
The inside door of the little lobby burst open, smacking Hambledon in the rear. The pale face of Mr Alfred Meyer appeared round the side.
‘Hailey – do come along. What are you – oh!’ He glanced at the tall man.
‘We are both coming,’ said Hambledon.
They all lurched along the narrow corridor off which the two sleepers opened. They passed the first door and Meyer led them in at the second. The “de luxe” sleeper was a small cabin with two narrow bunks and a wash-basin. Carolyn Dacres, wearing some sort of gorgeous dressing-robe, sat on the bottom bunk. Her arms were clasped round her knees. Her long reddish-brown hair hung in a thick twist over her shoulder.
‘Hullo!’ she said, looking at the tall man. ‘Hailey says he thinks you’d better hear all about it.’
‘I’m sure you’d rather talk over whatever has happened among yourselves. I assure you I’ve no desire to butt in.’
‘Look here,’ said Hambledon, ‘do let me explain – about you, I mean.’
‘Very well,’ said the tall man, looking politely resigned.
‘We all knew him as “Mr Allen” on board,’ began Hambledon. ‘That’s what he was in the passenger list. It was only tonight, in the train, that I realised he was Roderick Alleyn – E Y N – Chief Detective-Inspector, CID, and full musical honours with a salute of two sawn-off shotguns.’
‘My God!’ said Mr Meyer plaintively. It was his stock expression.
‘Why–’ said Carolyn Dacres, ‘why then you’re – yes, of course. “The Handsome Inspector.” Don’t you remember, Pooh? The Gardener case? Our photographs were side by side in the Tatler that week, Mr Alleyn.’
‘The only occasion,’ said Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn, ‘on which I have felt there was any compensation for newspaper publicity.’
‘Any compensation,’ broke in Mr Meyer. ‘My God! Well now, as you are an expert, will you listen to this? Sit down for God’s sake. Move up, Carol.’
Alleyn sat on a trunk, Hambledon on the floor, and Meyer plumped down beside his wife. His large face was very white and his fat hands shook slightly.
‘I’m all upset,’ he said.
‘I’ll try to explain,’ said Miss Dacres. ‘You see, Hailey darling – and Mr Alleyn – Alfie-Pooh sat up late. He had a lot of correspondence to get through, and he brought his typewriter in here. Some time before we got to the last station he thought he would go out to that shocking little platform for a breath of fresh air. Didn’t you, darling?’
Mr Meyer nodded gloomily.
‘We were at that time travelling up or down a thing that I think they call the corkscrew. The guard, who is an exceedingly nice man, and so, so well informed, told us all about it. It appears that this corkscrew—’
‘Spiral,’ corrected Mr Meyer.
‘Yes, darling. This spiral is quite remarkable as railway lines go. One is continually catching one’s own tail and the guard’s wagon is quite often in front of the engine.’
‘Really, Carolyn!’ expostulated Hambledon.
‘Something of the sort, darling. However, that is of no real importance as far as this story goes. The only thing we must all remember is that when it is corkscrewing the train keeps on turning round and round.’
‘What can you mean?’
‘Cut out the comedy, Carolyn,’ begged Mr Meyer. ‘This is serious.’
‘Darling, of course it is. You see, Mr Alleyn, Alfie went out on the little platform and stood there, and all the time the train kept turning corners very fast and it was all rather impressive. Alfie was very excited and thrilled with the view, although it was so dark he could not see much, except the other parts of the train corkscrewing above and below him. He heard a door bang, but he did not look round because he thought it was just someone going along the train. He was holding on very tight with both hands. Luckily. Because otherwise when this person pushed him he would have—’
‘Here!’ said Mr Meyer firmly. ‘I’ll tell them. I was on the platform facing outwards. I noticed the iron door to the steps was opened back and there was nothing between me and God knows all. It was blowing a gale. I kind of knew people were going past me on their way through the train, but I didn’t look round. We came to one of these hairpin-bends and as we swung round someone kicked me on the behind. Hard. By God, I nearly went over. As nearly as damn it. I tell you I lurched out over the step. I grabbed at the door with my left hand, but I must have pulled it away from the catch on the wall as if I was going through and shutting it after me. See what I mean? I clutched the platform rail with my right hand – just caught it close to the iron stanchion by the steps. It seemed to last a lifetime, that hanging outwards. Then the train swung round the opposite way and I got back. Of course when I was all right again and turned round the man had gone. God, I’m all to pieces. Look in that case there, Hailey. There’s a bottle of brandy.’ He turned pale bulging eyes on Alleyn.
‘What the hell do you make of that?’
‘Extremely unpleasant,’ said Alleyn.
‘Unpleasant! Listen to him, will you!’
‘My poor Alfie,’ said his wife. ‘You shall have quantities of brandy. Pour it out, Hailey. There are glasses there, too. We shall all have brandy while Mr Alleyn tells us who tried to assassinate my poor Pooh. Don’t spill it, Hailey. There! Now, Mr Alleyn?’
She looked up with an air of encouragement at the chief inspector. ‘Is she being deliberately funny?’ Alleyn wondered. ‘She’s not really one of those vague women who sound like fools and are as deep as you make them. Or is she? No, no, she’s making a little “cameo-part” of herself, for us to look at. Perhaps she has done it for so long that she can’t stop.’
‘What I want to know is, what do I do?’ Meyer was saying.
‘Stop the train and tell the guard?’ suggested Carolyn, sipping her brandy. ‘You pull the communication cord and pay five pounds and then some woman comes forward and says you attempted to—’
‘Carolyn, do be quiet,’ begged Hambledon, smiling at her. ‘What do you think, Alleyn?’
‘You are quite sure that you were deliberately kicked?’ asked Alleyn. ‘It wasn’t someone staggering along the train who lost his balance and then his head, when he thought he’d sent you overboard?’
‘I tell you I was kicked. I bet you anything you like I’ve got a black and blue behind.’
‘Darling! We must put you in a cage and take you on tour.’
‘What ought I to do, Alleyn?’
‘My dear Mr Meyer, I – really I don’t quite know. I suppose I ought to tell you to inform the guard, and telegraph the police from the next station. There are some very tight footballers farther along the train. I wonder—’
‘Of course,’ said Carolyn with enthusiasm. ‘How brilliant of you, Mr Alleyn. It was a drunken footballer. I mean, it all fits in so splendidly, doesn’t it? He would know how to kick. Think of the All Blacks.’
Mr Meyer listened solemnly to this. Hambledon suddenly began to laugh. Alleyn hurriedly lit a cigarette.
‘It’s all very well for you to laugh,’ said Mr Meyer. He felt his stern carefully, staring at Alleyn. ‘I don’t know about the police,’ he said. ‘That’d mean the Press, and we’ve never gone in for that sort of publicity. What do you think, Hailey? “Attempted Murder of Well-known Theatrical Manager.” It’s not too good. It isn’t as if it had been Carolyn.’
‘I should think not indeed,’ agreed Hambledon with difficulty.
‘So should I think not indeed,’ said Carolyn.
‘Mr Meyer,’ said Alleyn, ‘have you any enemies in your company?’
‘Good God, no. We’re a happy little family. I treat my people well and they respect me. There’s never been a word.’
‘You say that several people went past you while you were on the platform,’ said Alleyn. ‘Did you notice any of them in particular?’
‘No. I stood with my back to the gangway.’
‘Do you remember,’ asked Alleyn after a pause, ‘if there was anyone standing on the opposite platform, the one at this end of our carriage that was linked to yours by the iron bridge?’
‘I don’t think so. Not when I went out. Someone might have come out later. You know how it is – all dark and noisy and windy. I had my hat pulled down and my scarf up to my eyes. I simply stood with my back half turned to that platform looking out at the side.’
‘How long was it before we got to the last station – Okahune?’
‘I should think about half an hour.’
‘What time was it,’ Alleyn asked Hambledon, ‘when I woke up and we began to talk? I looked at my watch, do you remember?’
‘It was ten past two. Why?’
‘Oh, nothing. We got to Okahune at two-forty-five.’
Hambledon glanced sharply at Alleyn. Carolyn yawned extensively and began to look pathetic.
‘I’m sure you are longing for your beds,’ said Alleyn. ‘Come on, Hambledon.’
He got up and was about to say good night when there was a bang at the door.
‘Mercy!’ said Carolyn. ‘What now? Surely they can’t want to punch more holes in our tickets. Come in!’ Valerie Gaynes burst into the little sleeper. She was dressed in a shiny trousered garment, covered with a brilliant robe, and looked like an advertisement for negligées in an expensive magazine. She made a little rush at Carolyn, waving her hands.
‘I heard you talking and I simply had to come in. Please forgive me, darling Miss Dacres, but something rather awful has happened.’
‘I know,’ said Carolyn promptly, ‘you have been kicked by a drunken footballer.’
Miss Gaynes stared at her.
‘But why—? No. It’s something rather awkward. I’ve – I’ve been robbed.’
‘Robbed? Pooh darling, this is a most extraordinary train. Do you hear what she says?’
‘Isn’t it too frightful? You see, after I had gone to bed—’
‘Valerie,’ interrupted Carolyn. ‘You do know Mr Alleyn, don’t you? It appears he is a famous detective, so he will be able to recover your jewels when he has caught Pooh’s murderer. Really, it is very lucky you decided to come to New Zealand, Mr Alleyn.’
‘I am glad you think so,’ said Alleyn tonelessly. ‘I’d be extremely grateful,’ he added, ‘if you kept my occupation a secret. Life’s not worth living if one’s travelling companions know one is a CID man.’
‘Of course we will. It will be so much easier for you to discover Valerie’s jewels if you’re incog., won’t it?’
‘It’s not jewels, it’s money,’ began Miss Gaynes. ‘It’s quite a lot of money. You see, Daddy gave me some English notes to change when I got to New Zealand because of the exchange, and I kept some of them out for the ship, and gave some of them to the purser, and the night before we landed I got them from the purser and – and – they were all right, and I – I –’
‘Have some brandy?’ invited Carolyn suddenly.
‘Thank you. Daddy will be simply livid about it. You see, I can’t remember when I last noticed I still had them. It’s all terribly confusing. I put them in a leather folder thing in my suitcase when I got them from the purser.’
‘That was a damn’ silly thing to do,’ said Mr Meyer gloomily.
‘I suppose it was, but I’m awful about money. Such a fool. And, you see, this morning, before I shut the suitcase, I felt the folder and it rustled, so I thought, well, that’s all right. And then, just now, I couldn’t sleep in this frightful train, so I thought I’d write a letter, and I got out the folder and it was full of paper.’
‘What sort of paper?’ asked Carolyn, sleepily.
‘Well, that’s what makes me wonder if it’s just a low joke someone’s played on me.’
‘Why?’ asked Alleyn.
‘Oh!’ said Miss Gaynes impatiently, ‘you must be too pure and clean-minded at Scotland Yard.’
Hambledon murmured something to Alleyn who said: ‘Oh, I see.’
‘It was the brand they had in the ship. I noticed that. I call that pretty good, don’t you? I mean, to notice that. Do you think I’d make a sleuthess, Mr Alleyn? No, but really, isn’t it a bore? What ought I to do? Of course I’ve got a letter of credit for Middleton, but after all one doesn’t like being burgled.’
‘Did you look at your folder, or whatever it was, after breakfast this morning?’ asked Meyer suddenly.
‘Er – no. No, I’m sure I didn’t. Why?’
‘How much was in it?’
‘I’m not sure. Let me think. I used four – no, five pounds for tips and then I paid Frankie ten that I lost at—’
She stopped short, and a kind of blankness came into her eyes.
‘Oh, what’s the use, anyway,’ she said. ‘I suppose it was about ninety pounds. It’s gone. And that’s that. I mustn’t keep you up, darling Miss Dacres.’
She made for the door. Alleyn opened it.
‘If you would like to let me see the leather case—’ he said.
‘Too sweet of you, but honestly I’m afraid the money’s gone for good.’
‘Well, I should let him see it,’ said Carolyn, vaguely. ‘He may be able to trace it directly to the murderous footballer.’
‘What murderous footballer?’
‘I’ll tell you in the morning, Valerie. Good night, I’m so sorry about your money, but Mr Alleyn will find it for you as soon as he has time. We’ve all had quite enough excitement for one night. Let us curl up in our horrid little sleepers.’
‘Good night,’ said Miss Gaynes and went out.
Alleyn looked at Carolyn Dacres. She had shut her eyes as soon as Valerie Gaynes had gone. She now opened one of them. It was a large, carefully made-up eye, and it was fixed on Alleyn.
‘Good night, Carol,’ said Hambledon. ‘’Night, Alf. Hope you get some sleep. Not much of the night left for it. Don’t worry too much about your adventure.’
‘Sleep!’ ejaculated Mr Meyer. ‘Worry! We get to Middleton in an hour. Scarcely worth trying. I can’t lie down with any hope of comfort and you’d worry if someone tried to kick you off a train on the top of a mountain.’
‘I expect I should. Coming, Alleyn?’
‘Yes. Good night, Miss Dacres.’
‘Good night,’ said Carolyn in her deepest voice.
‘So long,’ said Mr Meyer bitterly. ‘Sorry you’ve been troubled.’
Hambledon had already gone out into the little corridor, and Alleyn was in the doorway, when Carolyn stopped him.
‘Mr Alleyn!’
He turned back. There she was, still looking at him out of one eye, like some attractive, drowsy, but intelligent bird.
‘Why didn’t Valerie want you to see the leather writing-folder?’ asked Carolyn.
‘I don’t know,’ said Alleyn. ‘Do you?’
‘I can make a damn’ good guess,’ said Carolyn.
CHAPTER 3 Off-stage (#ulink_9188d9a4-e42e-551a-8a21-590e1bc053c1)
The Dacres Company arrived at Middleton in time for breakfast. By ten o’clock the stage staff had taken possession of the Theatre Royal. To an actor on tour all theatres are very much alike. They may vary in size, in temperature, and in degree of comfort, but once the gas-jets are lit in the dressing-rooms, the grease-paints laid out in rows on the shelves, and the clothes hung up in sheets on the walls, all theatres are simply ‘theatre’. The playhouse is the focus-point of the company. As soon as an actor has ‘found a home’, and, if possible, enjoyed a rest, he goes down to the theatre and looks to the tools of his trade. The stage-manager is there with his staff, cursing or praising the mechanical facilities behind the curtain. The familiar flats are trundled in, the working lights are on, the prompter’s table stands down by the footlights and the sheeted stalls wait expectantly in the dark auditorium.
Soon the drone of the run-through-for-words begins. Mechanics peer from the flies and move, rubber-footed, about the stage. The theatre is alive, self-contained and warm with preparation.
The Royal, at Middleton, was a largish playhouse. It seated a thousand, had a full stage and a conservative but adequate system of lighting and of overhead galleries, grid, and ropes. Ted Gascoigne, who was used to the West End, sniffed a little at the old-fashioned lighting. They had brought a special switchboard and the electrician morosely instructed employees of the local power-board in its mysteries.
At ten o’clock Carolyn and her company were all asleep or breakfasting in their hotels. Carolyn, Valerie Gaynes, Liversidge, Mason and Hambledon stayed at the Middleton, the most expensive of these drear establishments. For the rest of the company, the splendour of their lodgings was in exact ratio to the amount of their salaries, from Courtney Broadhead at The Commercial down to Tommy Biggs, the least of the staff, at ‘Mrs Harbottle, Good Beds’.
George Mason, the manager, had not gone to bed. He had shaved, bathed, and changed his clothes, and by ten o’clock, uneasy with chronic dyspepsia, sat in the office at The Royal talking to the ‘advance’, a representative of the Australian firm under whose auspices the company was on tour.
‘It’s going to be big, Mr Mason,’ said the advance. ‘We’re booked out downstairs, and only fifty seats left in the circle. There’s a queue for early-door tickets. I’m very pleased.’
‘Good enough,’ said Mason. ‘Now listen.’
They talked. The telephone rang incessantly. Box-office officials came in, the local manager of the theatre, three slightly self-conscious reporters, and finally Mr Alfred Meyer, carrying a cushion. This he placed on the swivel chair, and then cautiously lowered himself on to it.
‘Well, Alf,’ said Mason.
‘’Morning, George,’ said Mr Meyer.
Mason introduced the Australian advance, who instantly seized Mr Meyer’s hand in a grip of iron and shook it with enthusiasm.
‘I’m very glad to meet you, Mr Meyer.’
‘How do you do?’ said Mr Meyer. ‘Good news for us, I hope?’
The reporters made tentative hovering movements.
‘These gentlemen are from the Press,’ said Mason. ‘They’d like to have a little chat with you, Alf.’
Mr Meyer rolled his eyes round and became professionally cordial.
‘Oh, yes, yes,’ he said, ‘certainly. Come over here, gentlemen, will you?’
The advance hurriedly placed three chairs in a semi-circle close to Meyer, and joined Mason, who had withdrawn tactfully to the far end of the room.
The reporters cleared their throats and handled pads and pencils.
‘Well now, what about it?’ asked Mr Meyer helpfully.
‘Er,’ said the oldest of the reporters, ‘just a few points that would interest our readers, Mr Meyer.’
He spoke in a soft gruff voice with a slight accent. He seemed a very wholesome and innocent young man.
‘Certainly,’ said Mr Meyer. ‘By God, this is a wonderful country of yours…’
The reporters wrote busily the outlines for an article which would presently appear under the headline: ‘Praise for New Zealand: An Enthusiastic Visitor.’
II
Two young men and a woman appeared in the office doorway. They were Australians who had travelled over to join the company for the second piece, and now reported for duty. Mason took them along to the stage-door, pointed out Gascoigne, who was in heated argument with the head mechanist, and left them to make themselves known.
The stock scene was being struck. The fluted columns and gilded walls of all stock scenes fell forward as softly as leaves, and were run off into the dock. An Adam drawing-room, painted by an artist, and in excellent condition, was shoved together like a gigantic house of cards and tightened at the corners. Flack, flack, went the toggles as the stagehands laced them over the wooden cleats.
‘We don’t want those borders,’ said Gascoigne.
‘Kill the borders, Bert,’ said the head mechanist, loudly.
‘Kill the borders,’ repeated a voice up in the flies. The painted strips that masked the overhead jerked out of sight one by one.
‘Now the ceiling cloth.’
Outside in the strange town a clock chimed and struck eleven. Members of the cast began to come in and look for their dressing-rooms. They were called for eleven-thirty. Gascoigne saw the Australians and crossed the stage to speak to them. He began talking about their parts. He manner was pleasant and friendly, and the Australians, who were on the defensive about English importations, started to thaw. Gascoigne told them where they were to dress. He checked himself to shout:
‘You’ll have to clear, Fred; I want the stage in ten minutes.’
‘I’m not ready for you, Mr Gascoigne.’
‘By – you’ll have to be ready. What’s the matter with you?’
He walked back to the stage. From up above came the sound of sawing.
Gascoigne glared upwards.
‘What are you doing up there?’
An indistinguishable mumbling answered him.
Gascoigne turned to the head mechanist.
‘Well, you’ll have to knock off in ten minutes, Fred. I’ve got a show to rehearse with people who haven’t worked for four weeks. And we go up tonight. Tonight! Do you think we can work in a sawmill. What is he doing?’
‘He’s fixing the mast,’ said the head mechanist. ‘It’s got to be done, Mr Gascoigne. This bloody stage isn’t—’
He went off into mechanical details. The second act was staged on board a yacht. The setting was elaborate. The lower end of a mast with ‘practical’ rope ladders had to be fixed. This was all done from overhead. Gascoigne and the head mechanist stared up into the flies.
‘We’ve flied the mast,’ said the mechanist, ‘and it’s too long for this stage, see. Bert’s fixing it. Have you got the weight on, Bert?’
As if in answer, a large black menace flashed between them. There was a nerve-shattering thud, a splintering of wood, and a cloud of dust. At their feet lay a long object rather like an outsize in sash-weights.
Gascoigne and the mechanist instantly flew into the most violent of rages. Their faces were sheet-white and their knees shook. At the tops of their voices they apostrophised the hidden Bert, inviting him to come down and be half killed. Their oaths died away into a shocked silence. Mason had run round from the office, the company had hurried out of the dressing-rooms and were clustered in the entrances. The unfortunate Bert came down from the grid and stood gaping in horror at his handiwork.
‘Gawdstreuth, Mr Gascoigne, I don’t know how it happened. Gawdstreuth, Mr Gascoigne, I’m sorry. Gawdstreuth.’
‘Shut your – face,’ suggested the head mechanist, unprintably. ‘Do you want to go to gaol for manslaughter?’
‘Don’t you know the first – rule about working in the flies? Don’t you know—?’
Mason went back to the office. One by one the company returned to their dressing-rooms.
III
‘And what,’ said the oldest of the three reporters, ‘is your opinion of our railroads, Mr Meyer? How do they compare with those in the Old Country?’
Mr Meyer shifted uncomfortably on his cushion and his hand stole round to his rear.
‘I think they’re marvellous,’ he said.
IV
Hailey Hambledon knocked on Carolyn’s door.
‘Are you ready, Carol? It’s a quarter past.’
‘Come in, darling.’
He went into the bedroom she shared with Meyer. It looked exactly like all their other bedrooms on tour. There was the wardrobe trunk, the brilliant drape on the bed, Carolyn’s photos of Meyer, of herself, and of her father, the parson in Bucks. And there, on the dressing-table, was her complexion in its scarlet case. She was putting the final touches to her lovely face and nodded to him in the looking-glass.
‘Good morning, Mrs Meyer,’ said Hambledon and kissed her fingers with the same light gesture he had so often used on the stage.
‘Good morning, Mr Hambledon.’ They spoke with that unnatural and half-ironical gaiety that actors so often assume when greeting each other outside the theatre.
Carolyn turned back to her mirror.
‘I’m getting very set-looking, Hailey. Older and older.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Don’t you? I expect you do, really. You think to yourself sometimes: “It won’t be long before she is too old for such-and-such a part.”’
‘No. I love you. To me you do not change.’
‘Darling! So sweet! Still, we do grow older.’
‘Then why, why, why not make the most of what’s left? Carol – do you really believe you love me?’
‘You’re going to have another attack. Don’t.’
She got up and put on her hat, giving him a comically apprehensive look from under the brim. ‘Come along now,’ she said.
He shrugged his shoulders and opened the door for her. They went out, moving beautifully, with years of training behind their smallest gestures. It is this unconscious professionalism in the everyday actions of actors that so often seems unreal to outsiders. When they are very young actors, it often is unreal, when they are older it is merely habit. They are indeed ‘always acting’, but not in the sense that their critics suggest.
Carolyn and Hambledon went down in the lift and through the lounge towards the street door. Here they ran into Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn, who was also staying at the Middleton.
‘Hullo!’ said Carolyn. ‘Have you been out already? You are an early one.’
‘I’ve been for a tram ride up to the top of those hills. Do you know, the town ends quite suddenly about four miles out, and you are on grassy hills with little bits of bush and the most enchanting view.’
‘It sounds delicious,’ said Carolyn vaguely.
‘No,’ said Alleyn, ‘it’s more exciting than that. How is your husband this morning?’
‘Still very cross, poor sweet. And black and blue, actually, just as he prophesied. It must have been a footballer. Are you coming to the show tonight?’
‘I want to, but, do you know, I can’t get a seat.’
‘Oh, nonsense. Alfie-Pooh will fix you up. Remind me to ask him, Hailey darling.’
‘Right,’ said Hambledon. ‘We ought to get along, Carol.’
‘Work, work, work,’ said Carolyn, suddenly looking tragic. ‘Goodbye, Mr Alleyn. Come round to my dressing-room after the show.’
‘And to mine,’ said Hambledon. ‘I want to know what you think of the piece. So long.’
‘Thank you so much. Goodbye,’ said Alleyn.
‘Nice man,’ said Carolyn when they had gone a little way.
‘Very nice indeed. Carol, you’ve got to listen to me, please. I’ve loved you with shameless constancy for – how long? Five years?’
‘Surely a little longer than that, darling. I fancy it’s six. It was during the run of Scissors to Grind at the Criterion. Don’t you remember—’
‘Very well – six. You say you’re fond of me – love me –’
‘Oughtn’t we to cross over here?’ interrupted Carolyn. ‘Pooh said the theatre was down that street, surely. Oh, do be careful!’ She gave a little scream. Hambledon, exasperated, had grasped her by the elbow and was hurrying her across a busy intersection.
‘I’m coming to your dressing-room as soon as we get there,’ he said angrily, ‘and I’m going to have it out with you.’
‘It would certainly be a better spot than the footpath,’ agreed Carolyn. ‘As my poor Pooh would say, there is a right and wrong kind of publicity.’
‘For God’s sake,’ said Hambledon, between clenched teeth, ‘stop talking to me about your husband.’
V
Before going to the theatre young Courtney Broadhead called in at the Middleton and asked for Mr Gordon Palmer. He was sent up to Mr Palmer’s rooms, where he found that young man still in bed and rather white about the gills. His cousin and mentor, Geoffrey West, sat in an arm-chair by the window, and Mr Francis Liversidge lolled across the end of the bed smoking a cigarette. He, too, had dropped in to see Gordon on his way to rehearsal it seemed.
The cub, as Hambledon had called Gordon Palmer, was seventeen years old, dreadfully sophisticated, and entirely ignorant of everything outside the sphere of his sophistication. He had none of the awkwardness of youth and very little of its vitality, being restless rather than energetic, acquisitive rather than ambitious. He was good-looking in a raffish, tarnished sort of fashion. It was entirely in keeping with his character that he should have attached himself to the Dacres Comedy Company and, more particularly, to Carolyn Dacres herself. That Carolyn paid not the smallest attention to him made little difference. With Liversidge and Valerie he was a great success.
‘Hullo, Court, my boy,’ said Gordon. ‘Treat me gently. I’m a wreck this morning. Met some ghastly people on that train last night. What a night! We played poker till – when was it, Geoffrey?’
‘Until far too late,’ said Weston calmly. ‘You were a young fool.’
‘He thinks he has to talk like that to me,’ explained Gordon. ‘He does it rather well, really. What’s your news, Court?’
‘I’ve come to pay my poker debts,’ said Courtney. He drew out his wallet and took some notes from it. ‘Yours is here too, Frankie.’ He laughed unhappily. ‘Take it while you can.’
‘That’s all fine and handy,’ said Gordon carelessly. ‘I’d forgotten all about it.’
VI
Mr Liversidge poked his head in at the open office door. He did not come on until the second act, and had grown tired of hanging round the wings while Gascoigne thrashed out a scene between Valerie Gaynes, Ackroyd, and Hambledon. Mr Meyer was alone in the office.
‘Good morning, sir,’ said Liversidge.
‘’Morning, Mr Liversidge,’ said Meyer, swinging round in his chair and staring owlishly at his first juvenile. ‘Want to see me?’
‘I’ve just heard of your experience on the train last night,’ began Liversidge, ‘and looked in to ask how you were. It’s an outrageous business. I mean to say—!’
‘Quite,’ said Meyer shortly. ‘Thanks very much.’
Liversidge airily advanced a little farther into the room.
‘And poor Val, losing all her money. Quite a chapter of calamities.’
‘It was,’ said Mr Meyer.
‘Quite a decent pub, the Middleton, isn’t it, sir?’
‘Quite,’ said Mr Meyer again.
There was an uncomfortable pause.
‘You seem to be in funds,’ remarked Mr Meyer suddenly.
Liversidge laughed melodiously. ‘I’ve been saving a bit lately. We had a long run in Town with the show, didn’t we? A windfall this morning, too.’ He gave Meyer a quick sidelong glance. ‘Courtney paid up his poker debts. I didn’t expect to see that again, I must say. Last night he was all down-stage and tragic.’
‘Shut that door,’ said Mr Meyer. ‘I want to talk to you.’
VII
Carolyn and Hambledon faced each other across the murky half-light of the star dressing-room. Already, most of the wicker baskets had been unpacked, and the grease-paints laid out on their trays. The room had a grey, cellar-like look about it and smelt of cosmetics. Hambledon switched on the light and it instantly became warm and intimate.
‘Now, listen to me,’ he said.
Carolyn sat on one of the wicker crates and gazed at him. He took a deep breath.
‘You’re as much in love with me as you ever will be with anyone. You don’t love Alfred. Why you married him I don’t believe even God knows, and I’m damn’ certain you don’t. I don’t ask you to live with me on the quiet, with everyone knowing perfectly well what’s happening. That sort of arrangement would be intolerable to both of us. I do ask you to come away with me at the end of this tour and let Alfred divorce you. Either that, or tell him how things are between us and give him the chance of arranging it the other way.’
‘Darling, we’ve had this out so often before.’
‘I know we have but I’m at the end of my tether. I can’t go on seeing you every day, working with you, being treated as though I was – what? A cross between a tame cat and a schoolboy. I’m forty-nine, Carol, and I – I’m starved. Why won’t you do this for both of us?’
‘Because I’m a Catholic.’
‘You’re not a good Catholic. I sometimes think you don’t care tuppence about your religion. How long is it since you’ve been to church or confession or whatever it is? Ages. Then why stick at this?’
‘It’s my Church sticking to me. Bits of it always stick. I’d feel I was wallowing in sin, darling, truthfully I would.’
‘Well, wallow. You’d get used to it.’
‘Oh, Hailey!’ She broke out into soft laughter, but warm soft laughter that ran like gold through every part she played.
‘Don’t!’ said Hambledon. ‘Don’t!’
‘I’m so sorry, Hailey. I am a pig. I do adore you, but, darling, I can’t – simply can’t live in sin with you. Living in sin. Living in sin,’ chanted Carolyn dreamily.
‘You’re hopeless,’ said Hambledon. ‘Hopeless!’
‘Miss Dacres, please,’ called a voice in the passage.
‘Here!’
‘We’re just coming to your entrance, please, Mr Gascoigne says.’
‘I’ll be there,’ said Carolyn. ‘Thank you.’
She got up at once.
‘You’re on in a minute, darling,’ she said to Hambledon.
‘I suppose,’ said Hambledon with a violence that in spite of himself was half whimsically-rueful, ‘I suppose I’ll have to wait for Alf to die of a fatty heart. Would you marry me then, Carol?’
‘What is it they all say in this country? “Too right.” Too right I would, darling. But, poor Pooh! A fatty heart! Too unkind.’ She slipped through the door.
A moment or two later he heard her voice, pitched and telling, as she spoke her opening line.
‘“Darling, what do you think! He’s asked me to marry him!”’ And then those peals of soft warm laughter.
CHAPTER 4 First Appearance of the Tiki (#ulink_85ddec77-eb49-57be-9204-2e9776462d9f)
The curtain rose for the fourth time. Carolyn Dacres, standing in the centre of the players, bowed to the stalls, to the circle and, with the friendly special smile, to the gallery. One thousand pairs of hands were struck together over and over again, making a sound like hail on an iron roof. New Zealand audiences are not given to cheering. If they are pleased they sit still and clap exhaustively. They did so now, on the third and final performance of Ladies of Leisure. Carolyn bowed and bowed with an air of enchanted deprecation. She turned to Hailey Hambledon, smiling. He stepped out of the arc and came down to the footlights. He assumed the solemnly earnest expression of all leading actors who are about to make a speech. The thousand pairs of hands redoubled their activities. Hambledon smiled warningly. The clapping died away.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ began Hambledon reverently, ‘Miss Dacres has asked me to try and express something of our’ – he looked up to the gallery – ‘our gratitude, for the wonderful reception you have given the first play of our short’ – he looked into the stalls – ‘our all too short season in your beautiful city.’ He paused. Another tentative outbreak from the audience. ‘This is our first visit to New Zealand, and Middleton is the first town we have played. Our season in this lovely country of yours is, of necessity, a brief one. We go on to – to–’ he paused and turned helplessly to his company. ‘Wellington,’ said Carolyn. ‘To Wellington, on Friday. Tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday we play The Jack Pot, a comedy which we had the honour of presenting at the Criterion Theatre in London. Most of the original cast is still with us, and, in addition, three well-known Australian artists have joined us for this piece. May I also say that we have among us a New Zealand actress who returns to her native country after a distinguished career on the London stage – Miss Susan Max.’ He turned to old Susan, who gave him a startled look of gratitude. The audience applauded vociferously. Old Susan, with shining eyes, bowed to the house and then, charmingly, to Hambledon.
‘Miss Dacres, the company, and I, are greatly moved by the marvellous welcome you have given us. I – I may be giving away a secret, but I am going to tell you that today is her birthday.’ He held up his hand. ‘This is her first visit to Middleton; I feel we cannot do better than wish her many happy returns. Thank you all very much.’
Another storm of hail, a deep curtsy from Carolyn. Hambledon glanced up into the OP corner, and the curtain came down.
‘And God forbid that I should ever come back,’ muttered little Ackroyd disagreeably.
Susan Max, who was next to him, ruffled like an indignant hen.
‘You’d rather have the provinces, I suppose, Mr Ackroyd,’ she said briskly.
Old Brandon Vernon chuckled deeply. Ackroyd raised his comic eyebrows and inclined his head several times. ‘Ho-ho. Ho-ho!’ he sneered. ‘We’re all touchy and upstage about our native land, are we!’
Susan plodded off to her dressing-room. In the passage she ran into Hailey Hambledon.
‘Thank you, dear,’ said Susan. ‘I didn’t expect it, but it meant a lot.’
‘That’s all right, Susie,’ said Hambledon. ‘Go and make yourself lovely for the party.’
Carolyn’s birthday was to be celebrated. Out on the stage the hands put up a trestle-table and covered it with a white cloth. Flowers were massed down the centre. Glasses, plates, and quantities of food were arrayed on lines that followed some impossible standard set by a Hollywood super-spectacle, tempered by the facilities offered by the Middleton Hotel, which had undertaken the catering. Mr Meyer had spent a good deal of thought and more money on this party. It was, he said, to be a party suitable to his wife’s position as the foremost English comedienne, and it had been planned with one eye on the Press and half the other on the box office. The pièce de résistance was to be in the nature of a surprise for Carolyn and the guests, though one by one, he had taken the members of his company into his confidence. He had brought from England a jeroboam of champagne – a fabulous, a monstrous bottle of a famous vintage. All the afternoon, Ted Gascoigne and the stage hands had laboured under Mr Meyer’s guidance and with excited suggestions from George Mason. The giant bottle was suspended in the flies with a counterweight across the pulley. A crimson cord from the counterweight came down to the stage and was anchored to the table. At the climax of her party, Carolyn was to cut this cord. The counterweight would then rise and the jeroboam slowly descend into a nest of maiden-hair fern and exotic flowers, that was to be held, by Mr Meyer himself, in the centre of the table. He had made them rehearse it twelve times that day and was in a fever of excitement that the performance should go without a hitch. Now he kept darting on to the stage and gazing anxiously up into the flies, where the jeroboam hung, invisible, awaiting its big entrance. The shaded lamps used on the stage were switched on. With the heavy curtain for the fourth wall, the carpet and the hangings on the set, it was intimate and pleasant.
A little group of guests came in from the stage-door. A large vermilion-faced, pleasant-looking man, who was a station-holder twenty miles out in the country. His wife, broad, a little weather-beaten, well dressed, but not very smart. Their daughter, who was extremely smart, and their son, an early print of his father. They had called on Carolyn, who had instantly asked them to her party, forgotten she had done so, and neglected to warn anybody of their arrival. Gascoigne, who received them, looked nonplussed for a moment, and then, knowing his Carolyn, guessed what had happened. They were followed by Gordon Palmer, registering familiarity with backstage, and his cousin, Geoffrey Weston.
‘Hullo, George,’ said Gordon. ‘Perfectly marvellous. Great fun. Carolyn was too thrilling, wasn’t she? I must see her. Where is she?’
‘Miss Dacres is changing,’ said Ted Gascoigne, who had dealt with generations of Gordon Palmers.
‘But I simply can’t wait another second,’ protested Gordon in a high-pitched voice.
‘Afraid you’ll have to,’ said Gascoigne. ‘May I introduce Mr Gordon Palmer, Mr Weston, Mrs – mumble-mumble.’
‘Forrest,’ said the broad lady cheerfully. With the pathetic faith of most colonial ladies in the essential niceness of all young Englishmen, she instantly made friendly advances. Her husband and son looked guarded and her daughter alert.
More guests arrived, among them a big brown man with a very beautiful voice – Dr Rangi Te Pokiha, a Maori physician, who was staying at the Middleton.
Alleyn came in with Mason and Alfred Meyer, who had given him a box, and greeted him, after a final glance at the supper-table. They made a curious contrast. The famous Mr Meyer, short, pasty, plump, exuded box-office and front-of-the-house from every pearl button in his white waistcoat. The famous policeman, six inches taller, might have been a diplomat. ‘Magnificent appearance,’ Meyer had said to Carolyn. ‘He’d have done damn’ well if he’d taken to “the business”.’
One by one the members of the company came out from their dressing-rooms. Most actors have an entirely separate manner for occasions when they mix with outsiders. This separate manner is not so much an affectation as a persona, a mask used for this particular appearance. They wish to show how like other people they are. It is an innocent form of snobbishness. You have only to see them when the last guest has gone to realise how complete a disguise the persona may be.
Tonight they were all being very grown-up. Alfred Meyer introduced everybody, carefully. He introduced the New Zealanders to each other, the proprietor and proprietress of the Middleton to the station-holder and his family, who of course knew them perfectly well de haut en bas.
Carolyn was the last to appear.
‘Where’s my wife?’ asked Meyer of everybody at large. ‘It’s ten to. Time she was making an entrance.’
‘Where’s Carolyn?’ complained Gordon Palmer loudly.
‘Where’s Madame?’ shouted George Mason jovially.
Led by Meyer, they went to find out.
Alleyn, who, with Mason, had joined Hambledon, wondered if she was instinctively or intentionally delaying her entrance. His previous experience of leading ladies had been a solitary professional one, and he had very nearly lost his heart. He wondered if by any chance he was going to do so again.
At last a terrific rumpus broke out in the passage that led to the dressing-rooms. Carolyn’s golden laugh. Carolyn saying ‘O-o-oh!’ like a sort of musical train whistle. Carolyn sweeping along with three men in her wake. The double doors of the stage-set were thrown open by little Ackroyd, who announced like a serio-comic butler:
‘Enter Madame!’
Carolyn curtsying to the floor and rising like a moth to greet guest after guest. She had indeed made an entrance, but she had done it so terrifically, so deliberately, with a kind of twinkle in her eye, that Alleyn found himself uncritical and caught up in the warmth of her famous ‘personality’. When at last she saw him, and he awaited that moment impatiently, she came towards him with both hands outstretched and eyes like stars. Alleyn rose to the occasion, bent his long back, and kissed each of the hands. The Forrest family goggled at this performance, and Miss Forrest looked more alert than ever.
‘A-a-ah!’ said Carolyn with another of her melodious hoots. ‘My distinguished friend. The famous—’
‘No, no!’ exclaimed Alleyn hastily.
‘Why not! I insist on everybody knowing I’ve got a lion at my party.’
She spoke in her most ringing stage voice. Everybody turned to listen to her. In desperation Alleyn hurriedly lugged a small packet out of of his pocket and, with another bow, put it into her hands. ‘I’m making a walloping great fool of myself,’ he thought.
‘A birthday card,’ he said. ‘I hope you’ll allow me—’
Carolyn, who had already received an enormous number of expensive presents, instantly gazed about her with an air of flabbergasted delight that suggested the joy of a street waif receiving a five-pound note.
‘It’s for me!’ she cried. ‘For me, for me, for me.’ She looked brilliantly at Alleyn and at her guests. ‘You’ll all have to wait. It must be opened now. Quick! Quick!’ She wriggled her fingers and tore at the paper with excited squeaks.
‘Good lord,’ thought Alleyn, ‘how does she get away with it? In any other woman it would be nauseating.’
His gift was at last freed from its wrappings. A small green object appeared. The surface was rounded and graven into the semblance of a squat figure with an enormous lolling head and curved arms and legs. The face was much formalised, but it had a certain expression of grinning malevolence. Carolyn gazed at it in delighted bewilderment.
‘But what is it? It’s jade. It’s wonderful – but—?’
‘It’s greenstone,’ said Alleyn.
‘It is a tiki, Miss Dacres,’ said a deep voice. The Maori, Dr Rangi Te Pokiha, came forward, smiling.
Carolyn turned to him.
‘A tiki?’
‘Yes. And a very beautiful one, if I may say so.’ He glanced at Alleyn.
‘Dr Te Pokiha was good enough to find it for me,’ explained Alleyn.
‘I want to know about – all about it,’ insisted Carolyn.
Te Pokiha began to explain. He was gravely explicit, and the Forrests looked embarrassed. The tiki is a Maori symbol. It brings good fortune to its possessor. It represents a human embryo and is the symbol of fecundity. In the course of a conversation with Te Pokiha at the hotel Alleyn had learned that he had this tiki to dispose of for a pakeha— a white man – who was hard-up. Te Pokiha had said that if it had been his own possession he would never have parted with it, but the pakeha was very hard-up. The tiki was deposited at the museum where the curator would vouch for its authenticity. Alleyn, on an impulse, had gone to look at it and had bought it. On another impulse he had decided to give it to Carolyn. She was enthralled by this story, and swept about showing the tiki to everybody. Gordon Palmer, who had sent up half a florist’s shop, glowered sulkily at Alleyn out of the corners of his eyes. Meyer, obviously delighted with Alleyn’s gift to his wife, took the tiki to a lamp to examine it more closely.
‘It’s lucky, is it?’ he asked eagerly.
‘Well you heard what he said, governor,’ said old Brandon Vernon. ‘A symbol of fertility, wasn’t it? If you call that luck!’
Meyer hastily put the tiki down, crossed his thumbs and began to bow to it.
‘O tiki-tiki be good to little Alfie,’ he chanted. ‘No funny business, now, no funny business.’
Ackroyd said something in an undertone. There was a guffaw from one or two of the men. Ackroyd, with a smirk, took the tiki from Meyer. Old Vernon and Mason joined the group.
Their faces coarsened into half-smiles. The tiki went from hand to hand, and there were many loud gusts of laughter. Alleyn looked at Te Pokiha who walked across to him.
‘I half regret my impulse,’ said Alleyn quietly.
‘Oh,’ said Te Pokiha pleasantly, ‘it seems amusing to them naturally.’ He paused and then added: ‘So may my great grandparents have laughed over the first crucifix they saw.’
Carolyn began to relate the story of Meyer’s adventure on the train. Everybody turned to listen to her. The laughter changed its quality and became gay and then helpless. Meyer allowed himself to be her foil, protesting comically.
She suddenly commanded everyone to supper. There were place-cards on the table. Alleyn found himself on Carolyn’s right with Mrs Forrest, for whom a place had been hurriedly made, on his other side.
Carolyn and Meyer sat opposite each other halfway down the long trestle-table. The nest of maiden-hair fern and exotic flowers was between them, and the long red cord ran down to Carolyn’s right and was fastened under the ledge of the table. She instantly asked what it was there for, and little Meyer’s fat white face became pink with conspiracy and excitement.
It was really a very large party. Twelve members of the company, as many more guests, and the large staff, whom Carolyn had insisted on having and who sat at a separate table, dressed in their best suits and staring self-consciously at each other. Candles had been lit all down the length of the tables and the lamps turned out. It was all very gay and festive.
When they were settled Meyer, beaming complacently, rose and looked round the table.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Meyer, ‘I suppose this is quite the wrong place for a speech, but we can’t have anything to drink till I’ve made it, so I don’t need to apologise.’
‘Certainly not’ – from Mason.
‘In a minute or two I shall ask you to drink the health of the loveliest woman and the greatest actress of the century – my wife.’
‘Golly!’ thought Alleyn. Cheers from everybody.
‘But before you do this we’ve got to find something for you to drink it in. There doesn’t appear to be anything on the table,’ said Meyer, with elaborate nonchalance, ‘but we are told that the gods will provide so I propose to leave it to them. Our stage-manager tells me that something may happen if this red cord here is cut. I shall therefore ask my wife to cut it. She will find a pair of shears by her plate.’
‘Darling!’ said Carolyn. ‘What is all this? Too exciting. I shan’t cause it to rain fizz, shall I? Like Moses. Or was it Moses?’
She picked up the enormous scissors. Alfred Meyer bent his fat form over the table and stretched out his short arms to the nest of fern. A fraction of a second before Carolyn closed the blades of the scissors over the cord, her husband touched a hidden switch. Tiny red and green lights sprang up beneath the fern and flowers, into which the jeroboam was to fall and over which Meyer was bending.
Everyone had stopped talking. Alleyn, in the sudden silence, received a curious impression of eager dimly-lit faces that peered, of a beautiful woman standing with one arm raised, holding the scissors as a lovely Atropos might hold aloft her shears, of a fat white-waistcoated man like a Blampied caricature, bent over the table, and of a red cord that vanished upwards into the dark. Suddenly he felt intolerably oppressed, aware of a suspense out of all proportion to the moment. So strong was this impression that he half rose from his chair.
But at that moment Carolyn cut through the cord.
Something enormous that flashed down among them, jolting the table. Valerie Gaynes screaming. Broken glass and the smell of champagne. Champagne flowing over the white cloth. A thing like an enormous billiard ball embedded in the fern. Red in the champagne. And Valerie Gaynes, screaming, screaming. Carolyn, her arm still raised, looking down. Himself, his voice, telling them to go away, telling Hambledon to take Carolyn away.
‘Take her away, take her away.’
And Hambledon: ‘Come away. Carolyn, come away.’
CHAPTER 5 Intermezzo (#ulink_c622865f-6b56-56e6-bb37-9c0517410125)
‘No, don’t move him,’ said Alleyn.
He laid a hand on Hambledon’s arm. Dr Te Pokiha, his bronze fingers still touching the top of Meyer’s head, looked fixedly at Alleyn.
‘Why not?’ asked Hambledon.
George Mason raised his head. Ever since they had got rid of the others Mason had sat at the end of the long table with his face buried in his arms. Ted Gascoigne stood beside Mason. He repeated over and over again:
‘It was as safe as houses. Someone’s monkeyed with it. We rehearsed it twelve times this morning. I tell you there’s been some funny business, George. My God, there’s been some funny business.’
‘Why not?’ repeated Hambledon. ‘Why not move him?’
‘Because,’ said Alleyn, ‘Mr Gascoigne may be right.’
George Mason spoke for the first time.
‘But who’d want to hurt him? Old Alf! He hasn’t an enemy in the world.’ He turned a woebegone face to Te Pokiha.
‘You’re sure, Doctor, he’s – he’s – gone?’
‘You can see for yourself, Mr Mason,’ said Te Pokiha; ‘the neck is broken.’
‘I don’t want to,’ said Mason, looking sick.
‘What ought we to do?’ asked Gascoigne. They all turned to Alleyn. ‘Do I exude CID?’ wondered Alleyn to himself, ‘or has Hambledon blown the gaff?’
‘I’m afraid you must ring up the nearest police station,’ he said aloud. There was an instant outcry from Gascoigne and Mason.
‘Good God, the police!’
‘What the hell!’
‘…but it was an accident!’
‘That’d be finish!’
‘I’m afraid Mr Alleyn’s right,’ said Te Pokiha; ‘it is a matter for the police. If you like I’ll ring up. I know the superintendent in Middleton.’
‘While you’re about it,’ said Mason with desperate irony, ‘you might ring up a shipping office. As far as this tour’s concerned—’
‘Finish!’ said Gascoigne.
‘We’ve got to do something about it, Ted,’ said Hambledon quietly.
‘We built it up between us,’ said Mason suddenly. ‘When I first met Alf he was advancing a No. 4 company in St Helens. I was selling tickets for the worst show in England. We never looked back. We’ve never had a nasty word, never. And look at the business we’ve built up.’ His lips trembled. ‘By God, if someone’s killed him – you’re right, Hailey. I’m – I’m all anyhow – you fix it, Ted. I’m all anyhow.’
Dr Te Pokiha looked at him.
‘How about joining the others, Mr Mason? Perhaps a whisky would be a good idea. Your office—?’
Mason got to his feet and came down to the centre of the table. He looked at what was left of Alfred Meyer’s head, buried among the fern and broken fairy lights, wet with champagne and with blood. The two fat white hands still grasped the edges of the nest.
‘God!’ said Mason. ‘Do we have to leave him like that?’
‘It will only be for a little while,’ said Alleyn gently. ‘I should let Dr Te Pokiha take you to the office.’
‘Alf,’ murmured Mason. ‘Old Alf!’ He stood there, his lips shaking, his face ugly with suppressed emotion. Alleyn, who was accustomed to scenes of this sort, was conscious of his familiar daemon which took little at face value, and observed so much. The daemon prompted him to notice how unembarrassed Gascoigne and Hambledon were by Mason’s emotion, how they had assumed so easily a mood of sorrowful correctness, almost as if they had rehearsed the damn’ scene, and the daemon.
They got Mason away. Te Pokiha went with him and said he would ring up the police. The unfortunate Bert, the stage-hand who had rigged the tackle under Meyer’s and Gascoigne’s directions, was hanging about in the wings and now came on the stage. He began to explain the mechanics of the champagne stunt to Alleyn.
‘It was like this ’ere. We fixed the rope over the pulley, see, and on one end we fixed the bloody bottle and on the other end we hooked the bloody weight. The weight was one of them corner weights we used for the bloody funnels.’
‘Ease up on the language, Bert,’ suggested Gascoigne moodily.
‘Good-oh, Mr Gascoigne. And the weight was not so heavy as the bottle, see. And we took a lead with a red cord from just above the weight, see, and fixed it to the table. So when the cord was cut she came down gradual like, seeing she was that much heavier than the weight. The weight and the bottle hung half-way between the pulley and the table, see, so when she came down, the weight went up to the pulley. It was hooked into a ring in the rope. We cut out the lights and used candles so’s nothing would be noticed. We tried her out till we was sick and tired of her and she worked corker every time. She worked good-oh, didn’t she, Mr Gascoigne?’
‘Yes,’ said Gascoigne. ‘That’s what I say. There’s been some funny business.’
‘That’s right,’ agreed Bert heavily. ‘There bloody well must of.’
‘I’m just going aloft to take a look,’ said Gascoigne.
‘Just a moment,’ interrupted Alleyn. He took a notebook and pencil from his pocket. ‘Don’t you think perhaps we had better not go up just yet, Mr Gascoigne? If there has been any interference, the police ought to be the first on the spot, oughtn’t they?’
‘I think I’ll go and see how Carolyn is,’ said Hambledon suddenly.
‘They’re all in their dressing-rooms,’ said Gascoigne.
Hambeldon went away. Alleyn completed a little sketch in his notebook and showed it to Gascoigne and Bert.
‘Was it like that?’
‘That’s right, mister,’ said Bert, ‘you got it. That’s how it was. And when she cut the bloody cord, see …’ he rambled on.
Alleyn looked at the jeroboam. It had been cased in a sort of net which closed in at the neck, and was securely wired to the rope.
‘Wonder why the cork blew out,’ murmured Alleyn.
‘The wire was loosened a bit before it came down,’ said Gascoigne. ‘He – the governor himself – he went aloft after the show specially to do it. He didn’t want a stage-wait after it came down. He said the wire would still hold the cork.’
‘And it did till the jolt – yes. What about the counterweight, Mr Gascoigne? That would have to be detached before the champagne was poured out.’
‘Bert was to go up at once and take it off.’
‘I orfered to stay up there, like,’ said Bert. ‘But ’e says “No,”, ’e says, “you can see the show and then go up. I’ll watch it.” Gawd, Mr Gascoigne—’
Alleyn slipped away through the wings. Off-stage it was very dark and smelt of theatre. He walked along the wall until he came to the foot of an iron ladder. He was reminded most vividly of his only other experience behind the scenes. ‘Is my mere presence in the stalls,’ he thought crossly, ‘a cue for homicide? May I not visit the antipodes without elderly theatre magnates having their heads bashed in by jeroboams of champagne before my very eyes? And the answer being “No” to each of these questions, can I not get away quickly without nosing into the why and wherefore?’
He put on his gloves and began to climb the ladder. ‘Again the answer is “No.” The truth of the matter is I’m an incurable nosy parker. Detect I must, if I can.’ He reached the first gallery, and peered about him, using his electric torch, and then went on up the ladder. ‘I wonder how she’s taking it? And Hambledon. Will they marry each other in due course, provided – After all, she may not be in love with Hambledon. Ah, here we are.’
He paused at the top gallery and switched on his torch.
Close beside him a batten, slung on ropes, ran across from his gallery to the opposite one. Across the batten hung a pulley and over the pulley was a rope. Looking down the far length of the rope, he saw it run away in sharp perspective from dark into light. He had a bird’s-eye view of the lamplit set, the tops of the wings, the flat white strip of table; and there, at the end of the rope in the middle of the table, a flattened object, rather like a beetle with a white head and paws. That was Alfred Meyer. The other end of the rope, terminating in an iron hook, was against the pulley. The hook had been secured to a ring in the end of the rope, and the red cord which Carolyn had cut was also tied to the ring. The cut end of the cord dangled in mid-air. On the hook he should have found the counterweight.
But there was no counterweight.
He looked again at the pulley. It was as he had thought. A loop of thin cord had been passed round the near end of the batten and tied to the gallery. It had served to pull the batten eighteen inches to one side. So that when the bottle dropped it was slightly to the right of the centre of the table.
‘Stap me and sink me!’ said Alleyn and returned to the stage. He found Ted Gascoigne by the stage-door. With him were two large dark men, wearing overcoats, scarves, and black felt hats; a police officer, and a short pink-faced person who was obviously the divisional surgeon. ‘Do they call them divisional surgeons in this country?’ wondered Alleyn.
They were some time at the stage-door. Gascoigne talked very fast and most confusedly. At last he took them on to the stage, where they were joined by Te Pokiha. From the wings Alleyn watched them make their examination. It gave him a curious feeling to look on while other men did his own job. They examined the end of the rope which was still knotted into the net enclosing the bottle, and the piece of red-bound wire cord that lay on the table. Gascoigne explained the mechanism of the descending jeroboam. They peered up into the grid. Gascoigne pointed out the other end of the red cord.
‘When Miss Dacres cut it, it shot up,’ he explained.
‘Yes,’ said the detective. ‘Ye-ees. That’s right. Ye-ees.’
‘Out comes the old notebook,’ said Alleyn to himself.
‘Hullo,’ said a voice at his elbow. It was Hambledon.
‘Carolyn wants to see you,’ he whispered. ‘What’s happening out there?’
‘Police doing their stuff. Wants to see me, does she?’
‘Yes, come on.’
He led the way into the usual dark wooden passage. The star dressing-room was the first on the left. Hambledon knocked on the door, opened it, and led the way in. Carolyn sat at her dressing-table. She still wore the black lace dress she had put on for the party. Her hair was pushed back from her face as though she had sat with her head in her hands. Old Susan Max was with her. Susan sat comfortably in an arm-chair, radiating solid sense, but her eyes were anxious. They brightened when she saw Alleyn.
‘Here he is, dear,’ she said.
Carolyn turned her head slowly.
‘Hullo,’ she said.
‘Hullo,’ said Alleyn. ‘Hambledon says you want me.’
‘Yes, I do.’ Her hands were trembling violently. She pressed them together between her knees.
‘I just thought I’d like you here,’ said Carolyn. ‘I’ve killed him, haven’t I?’
‘No!’ said Hambledon violently.
‘My dear!’ said Susan.
‘Well, I have. I cut the cord. That was what did it, wasn’t it?’ She still looked at Alleyn.
‘Yes,’ said Alleyn in a very matter-of-fact voice, ‘that was what set the thing off. But you didn’t rig the apparatus, did you?’
‘No. I didn’t know anything about it. It was a surprise.’
She caught her breath and a strange sound, something like laughter, came from her lips. Susan and Hambledon looked panicky.
‘Oh!’ cried Carolyn. ‘Oh! Oh!’
‘Don’t!’ said Alleyn. ‘Hysterics are a bad way of letting things go. You feel awful afterwards.’
She raised one of her hands and bit on it. Alleyn picked up a bottle of smelling-salts from the dressing-table and held it under her nose.
‘Sniff hard,’ he said.
Carolyn sniffed and gasped. Tears poured out of her eyes.
‘That’s better. You’re crying black tears. I thought that stuff was waterproof. Look at yourself.’
She gazed helplessly at him and then turned to the glass. Susan gently wiped away the black tears.
‘You’re a queer one,’ sobbed Carolyn.
‘I know I am,’ agreed Alleyn. ‘It’s a pose, really. Would you drink a little brandy if Hambledon got it for you?’
‘No.’
‘Yes, you would.’ He looked good-humouredly at Hambledon, who was standing by her chair. ‘Can you?’ asked Alleyn.
‘Yes – yes, I’ll get it.’ He hurried away.
Alleyn sat on one of the wicker baskets and spoke to old Susan.
‘Well, Miss Max, our meetings are to be fraught with drama, it seems.’
‘Ah,’ said Susan with a sort of grunt.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Carolyn. She turned to the mirror and, very shakily, dabbed at her face with a powder-puff.
‘Mr Alleyn and I have met before, dear,’ explained Susan. ‘Over that dreadful business with Felix Gardener, you know.’
‘Yes. We spoke about it that night on the train.’ Carolyn paused, and then she began to speak rapidly, urgently and with more command over her voice.
‘That’s why I wanted to see you. That night on the train. You remember what – he – said. Someone had tried to kill him. Have you thought of that?’
‘I have,’ said Alleyn.
‘Well then – I want you to tell me, please, is this anything to do with it? Has someone – the same someone – done tonight what they failed to do on the train? Mr Alleyn – has someone murdered my husband?’
Alleyn was silent.
‘Please answer me.’
‘That’s a question for the police, you know.’
‘But I want you to tell me what you think. I must know what you think.’ She leant towards him. ‘You’re not on duty. You’re in a strange country, like all of us, and far away from your job. Don’t be official, please don’t. Tell me what you think!’
‘Very well,’ said Alleyn after a pause. ‘I think someone has interfered with the tackle that was rigged up for – for the stunt with the champagne, you know.’
‘And that means murder?’
‘If I am right – yes. It looks like it!’
‘Shall you speak to the police? They are there now, aren’t they?’
‘Yes. They are out there.’
‘Well?’
‘I regard myself as a layman, Miss Dacres. I shall certainly not butt in.’ His voice was not final. He seemed to have left something unsaid. Carolyn looked fixedly at him and then turned to old Susan.
‘Susie, darling, I want to talk to Mr Alleyn. Do you mind? You’ve been an angel. Thank you so much. Come back soon.’
When Susan had gone Carolyn leant forward and touched Alleyn’s hand.
‘Listen,’ she said, ‘do you feel friendly towards me? You do, don’t you?
‘Quite friendly.’
‘I want you for my friend. You don’t believe I could do anything very bad, do you? Or let anything very bad be done without making some effort to stop it?’
‘What is in your mind?’ he asked. ‘What are you trying to say?’
‘If I should want your help – yes, that’s it – would you give it me?’
Her hand was still on his. She had patched up the stains made by her tears and her face looked beautiful again. He had seen her lean forward like that on the stage; it was a very characteristic gesture. Her eyes seemed to cry out to him.
‘If I can be of any help,’ said Alleyn very formally, ‘of course I shall be only too glad—’
‘No, no, no. That’s not a bit of good. Sticking out all your prickles like that,’ said Carolyn, with something of her old vigour. ‘I want a real answer.’
‘But, don’t you see, you say too much and too little. What sort of help do you want from me?’
‘I don’t know, I don’t know.’
‘Come,’ said Alleyn, ‘I’ll promise to stay in Middleton a little longer. When do you go on to Wellington?’
‘When? We were to open there next week, but now – I don’t know.’
‘Listen to me. I give you one piece of advice. Don’t try and keep anything in the dark, no matter what it is. Those fellows out there will want to talk to you. They’ll have to ask you all sorts of questions. Answer them truthfully, no matter what it means, no matter how painful it may be, no matter where you think their questions are leading you. Promise me that and I’ll pledge you my help, for what it’s worth.’
Carolyn still leant towards him, still looked straight at him. But he felt her withdrawal as certainly as though it had been physical.
‘Well?’ he asked. ‘Is it a bargain?’
But before she could answer him Hailey Hambledon came back with the brandy.
‘The detectives want us all to wait in the wardrobe-room,’ he said. ‘I don’t know about you, Alleyn.’
‘You haven’t given me away to anyone, have you?’ asked Alleyn.
‘No, no. Only we three realise you’re a detective.’
‘Please let it stay like that, will you?’ asked Alleyn. ‘I’m most anxious that it should be so.’
‘I’ll promise you that,’ said Carolyn.
Their eyes met.
‘Thank you,’ said Alleyn quietly. ‘I’ll join you later.’
CHAPTER 6 Second Appearance of the Tiki (#ulink_a7ff6763-7ed7-54a0-a0d7-513c6cd6a79e)
‘Who’s that?’ demanded the largest of the three detectives. ‘Just a minute there, please.’ He was on the stage and had caught sight of Alleyn through the open door of the prompt entrance.
‘It’s me,’ said Alleyn in a mild voice and walked through. The detective, Te Pokiha, and the police doctor, were all standing by the table.
‘Who’s this gentleman, Mr Gascoigne?’ continued the detective.
‘Er – it’s – er—Mr Alleyn, Inspector.’
‘Member of the company?’
‘No,’ said Alleyn, ‘just a friend.’
‘I thought I said no one was to come out here. What were you doing, sir? Didn’t you understand—?’
‘I just thought—’ began Alleyn with that particular air of hurt innocence that always annoyed him when he met it in his official capacity. ‘I just thought—’
‘I’ll have your full name and address, if you please,’ interrupted the inspector, and opened his notebook. ‘Allan, you said. First name?’
‘Roderick.’
‘How do you spell—?’ The inspector stopped short and stared at Alleyn.
‘A-l-l-e-y-n, Inspector.’
‘Good God!’
‘New Scotland Yard, London,’ added Alleyn apologetically.
‘By cripes, sir, I’m sorry. We’d heard you were – we didn’t know – I mean –’
‘I shall call at headquarters when I get to Wellington,’ said Alleyn. ‘I’ve got a letter somewhere from your chief. Should have answered it. Very dilatory of me.’
‘I’m very, very sorry, sir. We thought you were in Auckland. We’ve been expecting you, of course.’
‘I changed my plans,’ said Alleyn. ‘All my fault, Inspector—?’
‘Wade, sir,’ said the inspector, scarlet in the face.
‘How do you do?’ said Alleyn cheerfully, and held out his hand.
‘I’m very very pleased to meet you, Chief Inspector,’ said Inspector Wade, shaking it relentlessly. ‘Very very pleased. We had word that you were on your way, and as a matter of fact, Superintendent Nixon was going to look in at the Middleton as soon as you came down. Yes, that’s right. The super was going to call. We’ve all been trained on your book.
(#litres_trial_promo) ‘It’s – it’s a great honour to meet the author.’
‘That’s very nice of you,’ said Alleyn, easing his fingers a little. ‘I should have called at your headquarters on my arrival, but you know how it is in a new place. One puts off these things.’ He glanced through the wings on to the stage.
‘That’s right. And now we meet on the job as you might say. Ye-ees.’
‘Not my job, thank the Lord,’ said Alleyn, ‘and, look here. I want to hide my job under a bushel. So – if you don’t mind – just don’t mention it to any of these people.’
‘Certainly, sir. I hope you’ll let the boys here meet you. They’d be very very pleased, I know.’
‘So should I—delighted. Just tip them the wink, if you don’t mind, to forget about the CID. And as I’m a layman, I suppose you want to ask me a few questions, Inspector?’
The New Zealander’s large healthy face again turned red.
‘Well now, sir, that makes me feel a bit foolish but – well – yes, we’ve got to do the usual, you know.’
‘Of course you have,’ said Alleyn very charmingly. ‘Nasty business, isn’t it? I shall be most interested to see something of your methods if you will allow me.’
‘It’s very fine of you to put it that way, sir. To be quite frank I was wondering if you would give us an account of what took place before the accident. You were in the party, I understand.’
‘A statement in my own words, Inspector?’ asked Alleyn, twinkling.
‘That’s right,’ agreed Wade with a roar of laughter, which he instantly quelled. His two subordinates, hearing this unseemly noise, strolled up and were introduced. Detective-Sergeants Cass and Packer. They shook Alleyn’s hand and stared profoundly at the floor. Alleyn gave a short but extremely workmanlike account of the tragedy.
‘By cripes!’ said Inspector Wade with great feeling. ‘It’s not often we get it like that. Now, about the way this champagne business was fixed. You say you made a sketch of it, sir?’
Alleyn showed him the sketch.
‘Ought to have worked OK,’ said Wade. I’ll go up and have a look-see.’
‘You’ll find it rather different, now,’ said Alleyn. ‘I ventured to have a glance up there myself. I do hope you don’t mind, Inspector. It was damned officious, I know, but I didn’t get off the ladder and I’m sure I’ve done no harm.’
‘That’s quite all right, sir,’ said Wade heartily. ‘No objections here. We don’t have Scotland Yard alongside us every day. You say it’s different from your sketch?’
‘Yes. May I come up with you?’
‘Too right. You boys fix up down here. Get the photographs through and the body shifted to the mortuary. You’d better ring the station for more men. Get a statement from the stage-manager and the bloke that rigged this tackle. You can take that on, Cass. And Packer, you get statements from the rest of the crowd. Are they all in the wardrobe-room?’
‘I think they will be there by now,’ said Alleyn. ‘The guests have gone, with the exception of a Mr Gordon Palmer and his cousin Mr Weston who, I believe, are still here. Mr George Mason, the business manager, has a list of the names and addresses. The guests simply came behind the scenes for the party and are casual acquaintances of the company. Mr Palmer and his cousin came out in the same ship as the company. I – I suggested that perhaps they might be of use. They were,’ said Alleyn dryly, ‘delighted to remain.’
‘Good-oh,’ said Wade. ‘Get to it, you boys. Are you ready, Mr Alleyn?’
He led the way up the iron ladder. When he reached the first gallery he paused and switched on his torch.
‘Not much light up there,’ he grunted.
‘Wait a moment,’ called Alleyn from below. ‘There’s a light-border. I’ll see if I can find the switch.’
He climbed up to the electrician’s perch and, after one or two experiments, switched on the overhead lights. A flood of golden warmth poured down through the dark strips of canvas.
‘Good-oh,’ said Wade.
‘It is extraordinary,’ thought Alleyn, ‘how ubiquitous they make that remark. It expresses anything from acquiescence to approbation.’
He mounted the iron ladder.
‘Well now, sir,’ said Wade, ‘it all looks much the same as your sketch to me. Where’s the difference?’
‘Look at the rope by the pulley,’ suggested Alleyn, climbing steadily. ‘Look at the end where the counterweight should be attached. Look—’
He had reached the second platform where Wade sat, dangling his legs. He turned on the ladder and surveyed the tackle.
‘Hell’s gaiters!’ said Alleyn very loudly. ‘They’ve put ’em back again.’
A long silence followed. Alleyn suddenly began to chuckle.
‘One in the eye for me,’ he said, ‘and a very pretty one, too. All the same it’s too damn’ clever by half. Look here, Inspector, when I came up here twenty minutes ago the counterweight was not attached to the rope over there, and the pulley had been moved eighteen inches this way by a loop of cord.’
‘Is that so?’ said Wade solemnly. After another pause he glanced at Alleyn apologetically. It’d be very dark then, sir. No lights at all, I take it. I suppose—’
‘I’ll go into the box and swear my socks off and my soul pink,’ said Alleyn. ‘And I had a torch, what’s more. No – it’s been put right again. It must have been done while I was in the dressing-room. By George, I wonder if the fellow was up here on the platform when I came up the ladder. You had just got to the theatre when I went down.’
‘D’you mean,’ asked Wade, ‘d’you mean to tell me that this gear was all different when we came in and someone’s changed it round since? We’d have known something about that, Mr Alleyn.’
‘My dear chap, but would you? Look here, kick me out. I’ve no business to gate-crash on your job, Inspector. It’s insufferable. Just take my statement in the ordinary way and I’ll push off. Lord knows, I didn’t mean to buck round doing the CID official.’
Wade, whose manner up to now had been a curious mixture of deference, awkwardness, and a somewhat forced geniality, now thawed completely.
‘Look, sir,’ he said, ‘you don’t need to make any apologies. I reckon I know a gentleman when I meet one. We’ve read about your work out here, and if you like to interest yourself – well, we’ll be only too pleased. Now! Only too pleased.’
‘Extraordinary nice of you,’ said Alleyn. ‘Thank you so much for those few nuts and so on. All right. Didn’t you stay by the stage-door for a bit, when you came in?’
Yes, that’s right, we did. Mr Gascoigne met us there and started some long story. We didn’t know what was up. Simply got the message, there’d been an accident at the theatre. It took me a minute or two to get the rights of it and another minute or two to find out where the body was. You know how they are.’
‘Exactly. Well now, while that was going on, I fancy our gentleman was up here and very busy. He came up under cover of all the hoo-hah on the stage some time after the event. He was just going to put things straight, when he heard me climbin’ up de golden stair, as you might say. That must have given him a queasy turn. He took cover somewhere up here in the dark and as soon as I went down again he did what he had to do. Then, when you were safely on the stage and shut off by the walls of scenery, down he came pussy-foot, by the back-stage ladder, and mixed himself up with the crowd. Conjecture, perhaps—’
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Ngaio Marsh
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: A touring theatre company in New Zealand forms the basis of one of Marsh’s most ambitious and innovative novelsNew Zealand theatrical manager Alfred Meyer is planning a surprise for his wife′s birthday – a jeroboam of champagne descending gently onto the stage after the performance. But, as Roderick Alleyn witnesses, something goes horribly wrong. Is the death the product of Maori superstitions – or something more down to earth?