“Very lively gentlemen, theatre gentlemen—good Lord, what’s that?”
It was a resounding crash they had heard. Along the passage a door burst open. A youngish man with tousled hair bounced out and turned to shake his fist furiously at the room from which he had just emerged.
“It’s murder,” he bawled. “Sheer murder—I refuse absolutely. Absolutely.”
“Sir, sir, if you please—” wailed the manager, hurrying towards him.
Longton shot out of the room into the passage. He was clutching his tie with both hands, as if preparing to strangle himself, but he spoke more quietly:
“Can’t you get into your thick head,” he demanded, “that my job is to translate this lousy tripe of yours into terms of the—theatre?” and on this last word his voice rose to a shout that out-shouted the best efforts of them all.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” implored the manager, while the receptionist rang for the porter in case more help was needed.
“What’s it all about?” Bobby asked, coming up.
“Hullo, you’re the Scotland Yard chap, aren’t you?” inquired Longton amiably. “I wasn’t expecting you yet awhile.” To the young man with the tousled hair, he said: “Have another chat after lunch, shall we?”
“O.K.,” said the young man. “Of course, I’ll rewrite it if you really think it would go better.”
“Well, dear boy,” Longton purred, “I do really think it’s most awfully jolly good the way it stands, and of course I would keep it like that if you publish in book form, but you have to consider the mechanics of the stage, haven’t you?”
“I suppose so, I suppose so,” said the young man, and went off whistling with his hands in his pockets. “See you after lunch,” he called as he disappeared.
To Bobby, Longton said beamingly:
“You can nearly always choke ’em off when they start meddling with their stuff by talking about the mechanics of the stage. Good tip to remember.”
“I’ll try,” Bobby promised. “But who are they?”
“Oh, authors,” Longton explained. “Irresponsible sort of Johnnies.” He shook his head. “Never know where to have ’em,” he said. “You wanted to see me about poor old Baldwin Jones, didn’t you? Shocking affair. I don’t know there’s much I can tell you, though.”
CHAPTER XX
CERTAIN EXPLANATIONS
LONGTON LED THE WAY back into the room he had just left. On the floor lay an overturned chair which had apparently in falling knocked over the large Chinese vase, now in fragments on the floor. The cause and origin, Bobby supposed, of that thunderous crash which a few moments before had startled both him and the hotel manager. Longton kicked the pieces together, shaking his head disapprovingly as he did so.
“All that,” he said, “merely because I told him he would have to cut three or four pages of what he called the best dialogue he had ever written and turn his old Oxford don into a retired pig-dealer—and I know a man who is top hole as a retired pig-dealer. Impossible,” lamented Longton, still busy collecting the more scattered bits of the disintegrated vase, “impossible to make these author chaps understand that the theatre has to be anchored to the facts. Facts, that’s the essential. Seem to live in a world of their own, authors, I mean.” He completed his task and again shook a grieved head over the heap of fragments that once had been a vase. “Bury’s will have to pay up,” he announced firmly. “No reason why I should, and I don’t suppose the other bloke can. Not a bean probably; authors never have.”
“Bury’s?” repeated Bobby. “That’s a big theatrical firm, isn’t it? Seven productions—three American, three revivals, and one translation?”
“Interested in the theatre?” Longton asked, very pleased as he began to hope Bobby might be a kindred spirit.
“Oh, very,” Bobby replied, and indeed he went sometimes when he felt he could afford it, which was seldom. “But, of course, only from the outside, which is really why I’m here. What counts in our work is getting the background right. If the perspective is wrong, then the whole picture we try to build up gets out of focus. As you are both connected with Bury’s, I take it you know Mr Oxendale?”
“Well, in a way I do,” Longton answered. “I know he reads for Bury’s. He has a desk there, but I don’t suppose I’ve spoken to him half a dozen times. You’re not thinking he has anything to do with this Baldwin Jones business, are you?”
“He was on the spot,” Bobby replied, and added: “Like you.”
“Me?” exclaimed Longton, and looked both startled and uneasy. “Good Lord,” he exclaimed. “What the devil—in heaven’s name—what the hell does that mean?”
“What it says,” Bobby retorted, filled inwardly with admiration for so nice an assortment of phrases. “Everyone who had knowledge of and possible access to the weapon used—the Golden Dagger, as they call it—or who had anything to do with the dead man, has naturally to be interviewed. Which,” Bobby added wearily, “does not mean they are going to be arrested next minute. It simply means that every possible scrap of information is required. For instance, is there any special reason why both you and Mr Oxendale should be here in this neighbourhood at this particular moment?”
“Well, what about it?” demanded Longton. “Why shouldn’t we be? Free country, isn’t it?”
“I’ve tried to explain,” Bobby answered patiently, “that in these cases background is all important. I believe one bit of background in your case is that you are in the habit of proposing marriage to Miss Maureen Carton at frequent intervals?”
“Who told you?” Longton grumbled, and without waiting for the answer, which showed no sign of coming, he went on: “I suppose a good many people knew—some silly fools tried to make a joke of it.” He was again grabbing at his tie with both hands, still as if taking the necessary preliminary steps towards strangling himself. “Well, it’s handy here for that author bloke and then she’s a damn little vixen.”
“Oh come,” protested Bobby, slightly shocked. “That’s not the way to talk about a young lady.”
“Young lady,” growled Longton. “Anyone can be a young lady. She wants to be an actress—a lot more difficult. She never will, though, unless I can get hold of her and put her nose to the grindstone and keep it there. If I’ve got to marry her to do it, I don’t mind,” he added carelessly. “She knows it, and out of sheer devilry she gives me the go-by and instead she asks that Oxendale cub to stay at Cobblers.”
“Does he want to marry her, too?” Bobby asked.
“Well, of course,” Longton said gloomily. “Anyone would. Like his damn cheek, though.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Bobby, “he is like you and thinks he might be able to help her in her career?”
“Who? Him?” demanded Longton. “What on earth gave you that idea? Why, he knows no more about acting than he does about—” But there he paused, unable to think of anything on earth, above it or below, about which the ignorance of Mr Oxendale could be more abysmal.
“Well,” Bobby explained mildly, “I understood his job was to read the plays submitted to Bury’s and report on them—though I was told, too, that his reports are never read.”
“Wouldn’t be any good if they were,” Longton pointed out. “Impossible to tell from reading the script how a play will pan out. You might as well try to guess what the weather will be like by listening to a B.B.C. forecast. All you want from a script,” he went on to explain, “is a foundation for producer and actor to work on. The theatre would be a lot healthier if we could do without plays altogether—and authors,” he added with a yearning, far-away look in his eyes.
“Well, then, in that case,” Bobby asked, “why do Bury’s pay Mr Oxendale to read manuscripts?”
“Oh, well,” Longton said, and looked as if this were a problem he had never before considered and now found puzzling. Then he brightened up. “Noblesse oblige,” he said simply.
“I don’t think I quite follow,” Bobby remarked, feeling more and more at a loss.
“Oh, well,” Longton repeated patiently, obviously trying to explain what he felt should require no explanation to anyone of even normal intelligence, “Bury’s are the leading managers and they do feel in a way responsible and that they must do their bit for the British drama.”
“I see,” Bobby said, giving it up. “Sorry to ask so many questions that don’t seem to have much to do with what’s happened, but I do feel rather lost with you literary and theatrical people. I had never even heard of Bury’s till now. Nor, for that matter, very much about Mr Tudor King. You know there are a lot of rumours about him in the village? He didn’t write plays, did he?”
“If he didn’t, he’s about the only author bloke who doesn’t,” Longton answered. “I don’t know. Never heard of him as a dramatist. Sort of disappeared or something, hasn’t he? Well, there’s a suspect ready to hand for you if you must cast someone round about here for the part.”
“I don’t think we can say he has disappeared,” Bobby said. “He hasn’t arrived at his bungalow yet, that’s all. Do you know anything about Mr Baldwin Jones?”
“Nothing much, poor devil,” Longton replied. “I may have met him at some cocktail party. I don’t remember. I knew of him. That’s all. He had the name of trying to pick up bits of gossip to sell to the Press. I kept clear of him myself because of that, but I expect people tried to be civil, or bought him a drink now and then, on the chance of getting their names in the papers. I don’t think anyone knew much about him. I did hear he had something to do with films, but I asked one producer. He hadn’t heard of him.”
“Did you know he was trying to blackmail Miss Maureen?” Bobby asked.
“Oh, Lord, you know about that?” Longton exclaimed. “Kept it up your sleeve all this time? Jolly good curtain,” he continued with professional approval. “Hardly fair, though?”
“Mr Longton,” Bobby said, and now his voice had taken on a harder note. “I am investigating murder and I am not doing it under any Queensberry Rules. Murder is outside the rules.”
“Oh, well,” Longton muttered sulkily, “you might have told me, all the same.”
“Told you what?” asked Bobby. “That a man has been murdered? Perhaps, too, I wanted to be sure how far I could trust you to be wholly frank with me. You knew the dead man was a blackmailer and you must have realized that was important. Yet you never mentioned it. Miss Maureen rang you up to ask you to say nothing about it, didn’t she?”
“No, she didn’t; not like that, anyway,” Longton retorted defiantly. “How do you know?” Bobby did not answer. He saw no reason to explain that it had been a simple deduction from what he knew of Maureen. Longton continued: “All she said was that you were nosing around and I had better not say anything more than I could help. I wasn’t sure what she meant. She sounded upset. I was meaning to go over after lunch and ask what it was all about. I don’t see where it comes in, anyhow. I mean, the filthy trick he was trying on. Unless you think Maureen did it herself?”
This was plainly meant as a purely rhetorical question—a kind of reductio ad absurdum. Bobby was not inclined to look at it wholly in that light. He said.
“My information is that Baldwin Jones was recently engaged in a scuffle of some sort. His face seems to have shown bruises inflicted some time before death. Do you care to say anything?”
“Trying to catch me out again?” Longton complained. “If you must know, Maureen told me what he was up to, so I hunted him up and told him he had better hand the letters over right away. There was a bit of an argument and very likely he did get a bit damaged. Nothing to speak of.” Longton was tugging at his tie so fiercely that Bobby was growing quite concerned lest he should really succeed in choking himself. He went on: “You know such a hell of a lot, you may as well know the rest if you want to. I said I would wring his neck if he worried Maureen any more. I think I meant it. Literally. I think he was a bit scared. It was all rather nasty. I mean, a girl’s name, reputation—whatever you like to call it. A story like that at the beginning of her career might have put paid to all her chances. The theatre”—Longton always said that word all in capital letters, so to speak—“the theatre is getting jolly careful these days. Puritanical.”
Bobby was slightly surprised by this statement, but did not attempt to dispute it. Instead he said:
“Then I may take it that if Miss Maureen says it was her umbrella was responsible and that it was because he tried to kiss her, that is what it would be polite to call an imaginary reconstruction?”
“You mean she told you it was her?” Longton asked. “Good Lord, of course it wasn’t. She wouldn’t know how, and if she did, she would have been so sorry she would probably have been busy ever since nursing him.”
CHAPTER XXI
SPREADING SCANDAL
THAT ENDED THE INTERVIEW, and Bobby drove off towards Cobblers, telling himself that both Maureen and Longton were troubled and uneasy and that each was doing his or her best to protect the other.
But what conclusion was to be drawn? That each believed the other implicated in the murder? Or in one case was it not so much belief as knowledge? Or was it simply the not unnatural reaction of two high-spirited young people to unfounded and resented suspicion? Or again, did it mean no more than that Maureen had sought the help of a young man who had protested his devotion to her, and that there had resulted what Longton had described as a bit of a scrimmage neither of them wished should become generally known?
No way of resolving that problem at present. Cobblers came in sight and this time Bobby had no need to knock, for he had hardly alighted from his car when the Cobblers door opened and Maureen appeared.
She stood waiting for him in the open doorway, and when he approached she said in no welcoming voice:
“I thought you would be turning up again.”
“I expect Mr Longton rang up to tell you I’ve had a talk with him?” Bobby remarked. Maureen nodded, and Bobby went on: “Apparently he claims the credit for the Baldwin Jones black eye that you told me was your doing.”
“Well, it was me practically,” Maureen argued. “It was perfectly true really. If I hadn’t told Jack it would never have happened, would it? So it was really, truly me, wasn’t it?”
“But not your umbrella stumpy or otherwise,” Bobby suggested.
“I think that’s rather a quibble,” Maureen told him, her voice heavy with rebuke.
“It leaves me with the impression,” Bobby said, “that you each want to protect the other—a kind of mutual cover-up. So I wonder why?”
“There is far too much gossip about the theatre as it is,” Maureen answered, looking very wise and grown-up and evidently quoting something she had heard. “Even the smallest scandal does harm and we of the theatre can’t be too careful.”
“Very true, I’m sure,” Bobby agreed. “Have you told Lord Rone and Saine about your letters to Baldwin Jones?”
Maureen nodded again, and, with one of her lightning changes, now took on the aspect of a hurt child.
“He was most awfully upset,” she admitted ruefully. “I wouldn’t have minded so much if he had rowed, but he hardly said a word, just sat there and worried. He seemed to think I had practically abolished the House of Lords all on my own. Not that I should have cared; stuffy old place. Talked about the family honour. In the last few centuries, we’ve had two murders, two trials for treason, three public executions, I think it is”—she was counting on her fingers—“one witch, one bigamy, one abduction, and I expect a whole heap of other things that got hushed up. So I don’t see why burning a few old letters”—these last words accompanied by a defiant nod at Bobby—“matters such an awful lot.”
“Times change,” Bobby said. “Do you think I could have a word with Lord Rone?”
“Wouldn’t be much good saying ‘No,’ would it?” Maureen countered.
“None at all,” Bobby agreed. “There’s Mr Oxendale, too. He might be able to help if I could see him as well for a few minutes.”
“Well, you can’t,” retorted Maureen with considerable satisfaction. “He went to London this morning. I expect he’ll be back some time to-day,” she added. “Uncle Bill told him he had to be or else the police would think he was running away, and then they would be sure he did it.”
“Oh, it’s not quite so bad as all that,” Bobby protested; and Maureen looked as if it were much worse, made a sound that if she had been a young man and not a young lady could have been described as a grunt, and led the way to her father’s room. There Lord Rone was busy dictating letters to Dick Moyse, who had very much the air of being by now comfortably settled in as private secretary. On Bobby’s entrance he got up to withdraw. Lord Rone suggested that he might go down to the village on an errand fairly obviously invented for the occasion. When he had gone, Bobby said:
“In cases like these, it is always wise to take every possible precaution.”
“A most unfortunate affair,” Lord Rone said. “Journalists have been calling here—’phone calls, too. Most embarrassing; most annoying. Most. My daughter tells me you are aware that he had possession of certain letters?”
“Letters that the young lady has very foolishly destroyed,” Bobby interposed.
“Very naturally so,” Lord Rone retorted, bristling at once in his daughter’s defence. “An extreme step perhaps, but most understandable in the circumstances. After all, they were her property.”
“No,” Bobby said. “The copyright may have been hers—that is, she could have prevented publication. But the actual letters, the paper they were written on, that is, had become part of Baldwin Jones’s estate and her action was legally indefensible.”
“Mere hair-splitting,” Lord Rone declared. “Such legal niceties are of no importance or interest. I agree that it was an extreme step, but I consider fully justifiable in the circumstances.”
The Golden Dagger: A Bobby Owen Mystery Page 14