by E.
Inspector Bradley leaned forward with his elbows on the table, and his chin cupped in his hands. He eyed the company pleasantly.
“I know that you are all tired after the wonderful performance you have given tonight. I think this is the best pantomime and company we have ever had in Burlington,” he said. “I enjoyed it tremendously the other night, and I am sorry for the reason that I am here now, and also for the fact that I have to keep you from your suppers and beds.”
He smiled slightly. “I’ve had a hard day myself, but I am afraid that I shall still be up when you are, at last, in bed.” He smiled again at a company now more or less at its ease. They had feared a policeman; but felt that Mr. Bradley was an understanding soul. The inspector was a bit of a psychologist—a detective-inspector has to be—and he sensed the more comfortable feeling that had come over his audience.
“Now, the reason I asked you to be gathered here, is because some of you, as the manager said, were on the stage at a crucial moment, and others were near and around Miss de Grey and the Cat, and I want to get from you answers to a few questions while the happenings are clear in your minds, and before you have had time to think over the occurrence and imagine more than you actually saw.”
He paused.
“Oh yes. You’d be surprised at the things people say they saw which they never did see. Quite clever and sensible people, too, who wouldn’t exaggerate for anything on earth. What happens is that, in thinking about an action, they begin to wonder whether so-and-so could have been done, and when they are questioned twenty-four hours later, they put forward the ideas that have come into their minds as things which they really believe did happen. I’ve known my own policemen do it. So if we have a few questions now, before you have a night to think things over, we’ll be on safer grounds.
“Now, firstly, will all the people who were on the stage in the Highgate Hill scene, please stand up?”
A number of the company rose to their feet. The inspector eyed them for a few seconds, and turned to the manager with a question. He listened to the reply, and nodded.
“I gather,” he said, “that the tall ladies are the chorus, and the smaller ones the dancers—the Twinkle Belles,” he added, with a little bow. “Would you all please sit together in your groupings, one group on either side of the room.”
There was a general post round with chairs, and the inspector waited while order was restored. He turned to the single figure still standing. “You will be, of course, the Fairy Queen,” he acknowledged. “Miss . . .” His voice invited an answer.
“Heather Low, Inspector.”
“Well, Miss Low, where were you standing when Miss de Grey lay on the bank in the scene?”
“On the right of her, just off the revolve, sir.”
The inspector looked puzzled. “Off the revolve?” he asked.
The manager came to his assistance. “We have a modern stage here, Inspector,” he explained. “A large circular portion of it revolves. Thus, we can set a scene at the back part of the revolve while the scene in the front half of it is being played, and when the scene has to be changed, the stage is just turned round. It saves time, and also allows transformation effects as in the dream scene of Whittington. Miss Low means that she was standing just off the circular portion to avoid being carried round when the stage revolved. She had to remain downstage.”
The inspector nodded. “I see,” he acknowledged. “So you would be fairly close to Miss de Grey?”
“Quite close, Inspector.”
“How close?”
The Fairy Queen considered the question speculatively. Before she had decided, however, the manager spoke. “I should say about six or seven feet, Inspector.”
Inspector Bradley’s eyes sought the darkened stage ponderingly. He appeared to be thinking introspectively. “Let me see,” he said presently. “If I remember the scene correctly, Dick Whittington comes on followed by the Cat, and walks to the bank. The stage is otherwise empty. Is that correct?”
The manager agreed with a nod.
“And it is not until Whittington is asleep with the Cat that the others come on?”
“That is so.”
“Where are you, Miss Low, before you come on?”
“In the wings, waiting, Inspector.”
“For your cue?”
“Well, it is not exactly a cue. The lights change, the stage revolves a half-turn, and then I enter.”
“So I gather that you would be facing across the stage in readiness, and looking at the progress of the scene?” He paused for any correction, and none being forthcoming, proceeded. “Whittington, I suppose, came on the stage from the side opposite to you. Did you see her come on, or was there any obstruction to your view?”
“Oh no, Inspector; there was no obstruction. I saw her walk into the scene, as I always did.”
“Ah! Now will you tell me, Miss Low, in your own words, just what you saw on this occasion. How Miss de Grey came on, what she did, and how she did it. Think a moment first, and describe it exactly as it happened.”
The girl stood for a few seconds, her brow wrinkled. Her eyes wandered to the stage, and the inspector, watching, saw them turn right and left, following her mental acting of the scene. Finally, they looked straight into his own.
“Well, sir, there was nothing different to the usual,” she replied. “I went to my place, down-stage in the wings. Miss de Grey was waiting on the other side. She was buttoning her jerkin and straightening her cap. The front cloth turn came off. Then the lights dimmed, the front cloth went up, and Miss de Grey walked on, as usual.”
“Did she say anything?”
“Of course. She said her lines, ‘Come along, pussy, here’s a bank. We’ll rest awhile’. Then the Cat came. She laid down, said her good night lines, and closed her eyes. The Cat did his stuff and laid down with her. Then the revolve came, I made my entrance, spoke my lines waving the wand. Then the second revolve came, and I went back into the wings. . . .” She paused.
“Then what?” asked the inspector.
“Well, Miss de Grey did not wake up as she should have done . . . and . . . and . . . I said her lines, and the curtain came down.”
“Now, Miss Low, did Miss de Grey do anything different at all on this occasion—anything that she had not done before?”
“Definitely not, Inspector.”
“You did not see her eat or drink anything before she walked on, or while she was lying on the bank? She didn’t, for instance, seem to slip a sweet into her mouth?”
“Not that I saw. And I think I should have seen it had she done so.”
“Did she move at all after she laid on the bank?”
“No . . . I . . . don’t think so.”
“But you aren’t quite sure, eh?”
“I wasn’t watching her that closely, of course.”
“Did she speak at all—I mean, outside the lines in the script?”
“No . . . well . . .” Miss Low paused. There was embarrassment in her voice.
The inspector seized upon it quickly. “She did say something,” he questioned sharply. “What was it?”
The Fairy Queen faltered. “Well, it wasn’t really very much,” she replied. “She just said, in a loud whisper to the Cat: ‘Don’t stick your damned claws into me, and get off my legs. You laddered my tights the other night.’”
“Did the Cat make any reply?”
“He said something, but I couldn’t hear what it was.”
That concluded the questioning of Miss Low, and the inspector turned to the Twinkle Belles ballet girls.
“You little ladies danced round Dick and the Cat while they lay sleeping, didn’t you?” he asked.
A chorus of shrill “yes’s” answered him.
“You went closer to her than the Fairy Queen, didn’t you? Did you see Miss de Grey do anything unusual?”
“Oh no!” Another chorus of reply.
Inspector Bradley scratched a worried head. He paused a second or two in t
hought—and evolved a brainwave. “Was there anything that she didn’t do that she usually did?” he asked.
Nine voices sounded another concerted “No”. The quick eyes of the inspector noticed the puckered lips of the tenth. He pointed a finger at her. “What is your name, my dear?” he asked.
“Mary Lee, sir.”
“I think, Mary, that you are not so sure as your friends. Did you see something missing in Miss de Grey’s actions in the dream scene tonight?”
“I . . . I . . . I don’t really know, sir,” was the hesitant reply. “Only Miss de Grey generally watched us dancing, and sometimes winked at us when we passed her. But she didn’t open her eyes at all tonight.”
The inspector’s face lost its amiable softness. An alertness came into them, and they sought the face of the dancer and held it. “She did not open her eyes at all?” he asked. “Not once?”
“No, sir. I looked at her each time I passed in the ballet, and she kept them closed.”
The chorus ladies, next to be questioned, collectively, could throw no further fight on the death scene, nor could any of the stage-hands who had been waiting in the wings for the change of scenery. The inspector looked at his watch. “There is just one more person I want to see—Miss de Grey’s dresser,” he announced.
A plump woman rose in answer to the request, and faced the officer. “And you are?” he asked.
“Helen Brough, sir. And it has nothing to do with me. I know nothing whatever about Miss de Grey, or her life. I was engaged to dress her, and I knew my place. I do not want to be mixed up in the business at all.”
She stopped for breath, and the inspector was able to get a word in.
“Nobody is saying that it has anything to do with you, Mrs. Brough,” he apologized. “And I can understand your desire to have nothing to do with the business. But, unfortunately, you cannot do that. After all, you dressed Miss de Grey, and knew more of her than most people in the theatre. What we want to know is something about Miss de Grey’s actions just before her death. Did you, for instance, go down to the stage with her for the Highgate Hill scene?”
“No, sir, I did not,” was the reply, “although, as a rule, I did go down, and stayed there until Miss de Grey went on in the scene. I generally used to put a last few touches to her costume and make-up.”
“Then why did you not do so on this occasion?” asked the inspector.
“Because Miss de Grey had asked me to get her a glass of stout and some sandwiches ready for when she came off. She said that she would manage her costume herself for the scene.”
“And you got them?”
“They are in her room still,” the woman answered.
“Had she drunk anything before going down for the scene?”
“Not a drop—at least, not while she was in the theatre this evening.”
“Or eaten anything?”
“No, nothing.”
“Any sweets, for instance?”
“No. Only throat lozenges, which I got from Mr. Perkins, the chemist, on Monday.”
“Where are those lozenges?”
“On the table in the dressing-room.”
The inspector turned to his sergeant, who had been taking shorthand notes of the questions and answers. “The room’s locked?” he asked.
“Yes, Inspector. The keys are in my pocket.”
“Then I think that is all for now, ladies and gentlemen,” he announced. “Thank you all very much. But I shall want you all here again tomorrow morning—say at eleven-thirty o’clock, so that we shan’t interfere with your lunch.”
The company made for the stage door. The inspector turned to the manager.
“I am going through the dressing-rooms of Miss de Grey and the Cat,” he announced. “And I think you had better be present.”
The manager led the way; the inspector and his sergeant followed.
CHAPTER IV
MYSTERY ON MYSTERY
Two o’clock a.m. chimed before Inspector Bradley and the sergeant left the stage door of the Pavilion, and they had little to show for their search of the dressing-rooms of the two stars. True, their departure was accompanied by several packages tied up in paper and carefully guarded; but the inspector had collected them more as a matter of routine than as likely to provide any clues. He said so to the manager and the sergeant.
“We must not let anything go by us,” he commented, “though I don’t think there is anything lethal about the lozenges, the powder, or the lipstick. Still . . .”
The articles thus designated had been taken from dressing-room Number 1, in which Dick Whittington had queened to visitors of both sexes who sought introductions via the stage door. The visitors, it was disclosed, were mostly men of varying ages, and chiefly local men with money to burn on glamour. The manager had known most of them. None, he insisted, were likely to have had any reason to kill Miss de Grey, and, anyway, they were certainly not on the stage when it happened. Nobody was allowed on the stage except the company and the stage-hands.
Miss de Grey’s room had presented a fairly tidy appearance as dressing-rooms go, because it was the Principal Boy’s custom to have one or two visitors during the interval; and the dresser accordingly usually cleared away articles of clothing in readiness. The lozenges, powder, and lipstick had been on the dressing-table, quite openly, alongside her make-up box. The table itself, with large mirror and swinging side-mirrors was covered with a clean cloth and a chintz covering ran round it, dropping to floor level. A straight-backed chair was set in front of the table, and an armchair and another straight-backed one, were set near by. There was, as well, the long lounge, also chintz-covered, and on which the body of Miss de Grey had been laid.
“Miss de Grey’s furnishings, or the theatre’s?” asked the inspector.
“Ours,” was the reply. “We like to make our artistes comfortable.”
It was the sergeant who had suggested taking the powder and the lipstick for analysis. “Suppose, sir, the poison is in either of them. Ladies of the stage like to pat their faces with a powder-puff, and put on a bit of rouge before they go on. Mebbe she did so while she was waiting her cue, and . . . well, there you are.”
“And how do you know all these habits of ladies of the stage, Sergeant?” the inspector asked, interestedly.
“Well, sir. I used to do a bit of stage-door haunting at the old Majesty’s before I was married.”
The inspector smiled. “Oh,” he said. “Nevertheless, the idea is a good one, and we’ll take the stuff. But after what the doctor said about the time of death, I don’t think we’ll get much from it.”
Inspection of the bathroom, which was curtained off from the dressing-room, disclosed nothing likely to assist in the investigations; and with a last look round, the company left, the sergeant again locking the door behind them.
The Cat’s room provided even less in the way of possible clues. It was a small room at the end of a long passage. Though clean and comfortable, it had no chintz coverings, no armchairs or other trimmings. A tin of vaseline and another of cold cream stood on the dressing-table, together with a watch propped up against the mirror. The skin of Whittington’s Cat lay crumbled and forlorn on a settee; as crumpled and shapeless as if it, too, had given up its life with its master Whittington. The inspector looked at it, and then placed it in the wardrobe which he locked, handing the key to the sergeant.
The Cat’s ordinary coat, waistcoat, and trousers, and his shirt and undervest lay over a chair. Hanging from a hook behind the door was another, and dirty, combination undergarment. The inspector eyed it dubiously.
“His spare garment for the skin, Inspector,” the manager explained. “It’s pretty warm working in that skin, you understand, and the wearer perspires copiously. He generally changes after a scene, and then at night the suits are washed through and left for him next evening. He was, of course, wearing the other set when he was taken to hospital.”
The inspector nodded. “Quite,” he said. “Well, I’d like
both these rooms kept locked and sealed. My men will come along later for any finger-prints there may be going. And when we’ve got a bit more from the doctor, we may have to make a more thorough search. Perhaps we’ll have a bit more to go on.”
Fixing a string and seal to the door, the three men retraced their steps to Number 1 room, and with this, also, sealed, passed through the stage door. The theatre echoed to the bang of it; they left the stage silent for the ghosts of the dead to play again their roles on the darkened boards. Who shall say what unseen miming the spirits of Thespis display when the silent hours come upon the stage, and the watchman is beyond seeing or hearing on his rounds?
Inspector Bradley’s hopes that the doctor’s report would give him a little more definite line on which to begin his investigations were quickly realized. It was hardly ten o’clock when the police surgeon was awaiting his arrival at the police-station. He greeted his police colleague with something like enthusiasm.
“This is a darned interesting corpse you’ve sent me, Inspector,” he suggested.
The police chief stared. “Interesting?” he asked. “How? Doctor McBane said it was a simple death from prussic acid.”
“Prussic acid, it certainly was, Inspector. And there isn’t anything unusual in that. Lots of people have died from the effects of prussic acid. Photographic dark-room people have taken it in mistake for water, and people have inhaled the gas of it. There have been wrong prescriptions such as potassic cyanide instead of potassic chloride, and there have been people who tried a powder with the tip of the tongue, and found out too late that it was hydrocyanic acid. Oh, there’s nothing unusual in prussic acid poisoning, accidental, suicidal, or murderous. But what is unusual in this girl’s death is this: in every case of prussic acid poisoning I have known the stuff has been taken by the mouth, either drunk in liquid, inhaled as gas, or swallowed as crystals. But . . .”