by Ngaio Marsh
‘Where’s his mother?’ Alleyn asked.
‘They say, on her way.’
‘She’s difficult, I’m told. Don’t leave the boy before you’re relieved. If he speaks, get it.’
‘They say he’s not likely to speak, sir.’
‘I know. I know.’
A nurse approached with a covered object.
‘All right,’ Alleyn said, ‘I’m off.’
He went to the Yard, treating himself to coffee and bacon and eggs on the way.
Fox, he was told, had come in. He arrived in Alleyn’s office looking, as always, neat, reasonable, solid and extremely clean. He made a succinct report. Jobbins appeared to have no near relations but the landlady at The Wharfinger’s Friend had heard him mention a cousin who was a lock-keeper near Marlow. The stage-crew and front-of-house people had been checked and were out of the picture. The routine search before locking up seemed to have been extremely thorough.
Bailey and Thompson had finished at the theatre where nothing of much significance had emerged. The dressing-rooms had yielded little beyond a note from Harry Grove that Destiny Meade had carelessly tucked into her make-up box.
‘Very frank affair,’ Mr Fox said primly.
‘Frank about what?’
‘Sex.’
‘Oh. No joy for us?’
‘Not in the way you mean, Mr Alleyn.’
‘What about the boy’s room?’
‘He shares with Mr Charles Random. A lot of horror comics including some of the American type that come within the meaning of the act respecting the importation of juvenile reading. One strip was about a well-developed female character called Slash who’s really a vampire. She carves up Olympic athletes and leaves her mark on them – “Slash”, in blood. It seems the lad was quite struck with this. He’s scrawled “Slash” across the dressing-room looking-glass with red greasepaint and we found the same thing on the front-of-house lavatory mirrors and on the wall of one of the upstairs boxes. The one on the audience’s left.’
‘Poor little swine.’
‘The landlady at The Wharfinger’s Friend reckons he’ll come to no good and blames the mother who plays the steel guitar at that strip-tease joint behind Magpie Alley. Half the time she doesn’t pick the kid up after his show and he gets left, hanging round the place till all hours, Mrs Jancy says.’
‘Mrs – ?’
‘Jancy. The landlady. Nice woman. The Blewitts don’t live far off as it happens. Somewhere behind Tabard Street at the back of the Borough.’
‘Anything more?’
‘Well – dabs. Nothing very startling. Bailey’s been able to pick up some nice, clean, control specimens from the dressing-rooms. The top of the pedestal’s a mess of the public’s prints, half dusted off by the cleaners.’
‘Nothing to the purpose?’
‘Not really. And you would expect,’ Fox said with his customary air of placid good sense, ‘if the boy acted vindictively, to find his dabs – two palms together where he pushed the thing over. Nothing of the kind, however, nice shiny surface and all. The carpet’s hopeless, of course. Our chaps have taken up the soiled area. Is anything the matter, Mr Alleyn?’
‘Nothing, Br’er Fox, except the word “soiled”.’
‘It’s not too strong,’ Fox said, contemplating it with surprise.
‘No. It’s dreadfully moderate.’
‘Well,’ Fox said, after a moment’s consideration, ‘you have a feeling for words, of course.’
‘Which gives me no excuse to talk like a pompous ass. Can you do some telephoning? And, by the way, have you had any breakfast? Don’t tell me. The landlady at The Wharfinger’s Friend stuffed you full of newlaid eggs.’
‘Mrs Jancy was obliging enough to make the offer.’
‘In that case here is the cast and management list with telephone numbers. You take the first half and I’ll do the rest. Ask them with all your celebrated tact to come to the theatre at eleven. I think we’ll find that Peregrine Jay has already warned them.’
But Peregrine had not warned Jeremy because it had not occurred to him that Alleyn would want to see him. When the telephone rang it was Jeremy who answered it. Peregrine saw his face bleach. He thought: ‘How extraordinary: I believe his pupils have contracted.’ And he felt within himself a cold sliding sensation which he refused to acknowledge.
Jeremy said: ‘Yes, of course. Yes,’ and put the receiver down. ‘It seems they want me to go to the theatre, too,’ he said.
‘I don’t know why. You weren’t there last night.’
‘No. I was here. Working.’
‘Perhaps they want you to check that the glove’s all right.’
Jeremy made a slight movement, almost as if a nerve had been flicked. He pursed his lips and raised his sandy brows. ‘Perhaps,’ he said and returned to his work-table at the far end of the room.
Peregrine, with some difficulty, got Mrs Blewitt on the telephone and was subjected to a tirade in which speculation and avid cupidity were but thinly disguised under a mask of sorrow. She suffered, unmistakably, from a formidable hangover. He arranged for a meeting, told her what the hospital had told him and assured her that everything possible would be done for the boy.
‘Will they catch whoever done it?’
‘It may have been an accident, Mrs Blewitt.’
‘If it was, the Management’s responsible,’ she said, ‘and don’t forget it.’
They rang off.
Peregrine turned to Jeremy who was bent over his table but did not seem to be working.
‘Are you all right, Jer?’
‘All right?’
‘I thought you looked a bit poorly.’
‘There’s nothing the matter with me. You look pretty sickly, yourself.’
‘I daresay I do.’
Peregrine waited for a moment and then said: ‘When will you go to The Dolphin?’
‘I’m commanded for eleven.’
‘I thought I’d go over early. Alleyn will use our office and the company can sit about the circle foyer or go to their dressing-rooms.’
‘They may be locked up,’ Jeremy said.
‘Who – the actors?’
‘The dressing-rooms, half-wit.’
‘I can’t imagine why but you may be right. Routine’s what they talk about, isn’t it?’
Jeremy did not answer. Peregrine saw him wipe his hand across his mouth and briefly close his eyes. Then he stooped over his work: he was shaping a piece of balsa wood with a mounted razor blade. His hand jerked and the blade slipped. Peregrine let out an involuntary ejaculation. Jeremy swung round on his stool and faced him. ‘Do me a profound kindness and get the hell out of it, will you, Perry?’
‘All right. See you later.’
Peregrine, perturbed and greatly puzzled, went out into the weekend emptiness of Blackfriars. An uncoordinated insistence of church bells jangled across the Sunday quietude.
He had nothing to do between now and eleven o’clock. ‘One might go into a church,’ he thought, but the idea dropped blankly on a field of inertia. ‘I can’t imagine why I feel like this,’ he thought. ‘I’m used to taking decisions, to keeping on top of the situation.’ But there were no decisions to take and the situation was out of his control. He couldn’t think of Superintendent Alleyn in terms of a recalcitrant actor.
He thought: ‘I know what I’ll do. I’ve got two hours. I’ll walk, like a character in Fielding or in Dickens. I’ll walk northwards, towards Hampstead and Emily. If I get blisters I’ll take a bus or a tube and if there’s not enough time left for that I’ll take a taxi. And Emily and I will go down to The Dolphin together.’
Having come to this decision his spirits lifted. He crossed Blackfriars Bridge and made his way through Bloomsbury towards Marylebone and Maida Vale.
His thoughts were divided between Emily, The Dolphin, and Jeremy Jones.
II
Gertrude Bracey had a mannerism. She would glance pretty sharply at a vis-à-vis but only f
or a second and would then, with a brusque turn of the head, look away. The effect was disconcerting and suggested, not shiftiness so much as a profound distaste for her company. She smiled readily but with a derisive air and she had a sharp edge to her tongue. Alleyn, who never relied upon first impressions, supposed her to be vindictive.
He found support for this opinion in the demeanour of her associates. They sat round the office in The Dolphin on that Sunday morning, with all the conditioned ease of their training but with restless eyes and overtones of discretion in their beautifully controlled voices. This air of guardedness was most noticeable, because it was least disguised, in Destiny Meade. Sleek with fur, not so much dressed as gloved, she sat back in her chair and looked from time to time at Harry Grove who, on the few occasions when he caught her eye, smiled brilliantly in return. When Alleyn began to question Miss Bracey, Destiny Meade and Harry Grove exchanged one of these glances: on her part with brows raised significantly and on his with an appearance of amusement and anticipation.
Marcus Knight looked as if someone had affronted him and also as if he was afraid Miss Bracey was about to go too far in some unspecified direction.
Charles Random watched her with an expression of nervous distaste and Emily Dunne with evident distress. Winter Morris seemed to be ravaged by anxiety and inward speculation. He looked restlessly at Miss Bracey as if she had interrupted him in some desperate calculation. Peregrine, sitting by Emily, stared at his own clasped hands and occasionally at her. He listened carefully to Alleyn’s questions and Miss Bracey’s replies. Jeremy Jones, a little removed from the others, sat bolt upright in his chair and stared at Alleyn.
The characteristic that all these people had in common was that of extreme pallor, guessed at in the women and self-evident in the men.
Alleyn had opened with a brief survey of the events in their succession, had checked the order in which the members of the company had left the theatre and was now engaged upon extracting confirmation of their movements from Gertrude Bracey with the reactions among his hearers that have been indicated.
‘Miss Bracey, I think you and Mr Knight left the theatre together. Is that right?’ They both agreed.
‘And you left by the auditorium, not by the stage-door?’
‘At Perry’s suggestion,’ Marcus Knight said.
‘To avoid the puddles,’ Miss Bracey explained.
‘And you went out together through the front doors?’
‘No,’ they said in unison and she added: ‘Mr Knight was calling on the Management.’
She didn’t actually sniff over this statement but contrived to suggest that there was something to be sneered at in the circumstance.
‘I looked in at the office,’ Knight loftily said, ‘on a matter of business.’
‘This office? And to see Mr Morris?’
‘Yes,’ Winter Morris said. Knight inclined his head in stately acquiescence.
‘So you passed Jobbins on your way upstairs?’
‘I – ah – yes. He was on the half-landing under the treasure.’
‘I saw him up there,’ Miss Bracey said.
‘How was he dressed?’
As usual, they said, with evident surprise. In uniform.
‘Miss Bracey, how did you leave?’
‘By the pass-door in the main entrance. I let myself out and slammed it shut after me.’
‘Locking it?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. As a matter of fact I – I re-opened it.’
‘Why?’
‘I wanted to see the time,’ she said awkwardly, ‘by the clock in the foyer.’
‘Jobbins,’ Winter Morris said, ‘barred and bolted this door after everyone had left.’
‘When would that be?’
‘Not more than ten minutes later. Marco – Mr Knight – and I had a drink and left together. Jobbins came after us and I heard him drop the bar across and shoot the bolts. My God!’ Morris suddenly exclaimed.
‘Yes?’
‘The alarm! The burglar alarm. He’d switch it on when he’d locked up. Why didn’t it work?’
‘Because somebody had switched it off.’
‘My God!’
‘May we return to Jobbins? How was he dressed when you left?’
Morris said with an air of patience under trying circumstances: ‘I didn’t see him as we came down. He may have been in the men’s lavatory. I called out good night and he answered from up above. We stood for a moment in the portico and that’s when I heard him bolt the door.’
‘When you saw him, perhaps ten minutes later, Mr Jay, he was wearing an overcoat and slippers?’
‘Yes,’ said Peregrine.
‘Yes. Thank you. How do you get home, Miss Bracey?’
She had a mini-car, she said, which she parked in the converted bombsite between the pub and the theatre.
‘Were there other cars parked in this area belonging to the theatre people?’
‘Naturally,’ she said again. ‘Since I was the first to leave.’
‘You noticed and recognized them?’
‘Oh, really, I suppose I noticed them. There were a number of strange cars still there but – yes I saw – ’ she looked at Knight. Her manner suggested a grudging alliance, ‘– your car, Marcus.’
‘What make of car is Mr Knight’s?’
‘I’ve no idea. What is it, dear?’
‘A Jag, dear,’ said Knight.
‘Any others?’ Alleyn persisted.
‘I really don’t know. I think I noticed – yours, Charles,’ she said, glancing at Random. ‘Yes. I did, because it is rather conspicuous.’
‘What is it?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘A very, very old, old, old souped-up Morris sports,’ said Random. ‘Painted scarlet.’
‘And Miss Meade’s car?’
Destiny Meade opened her eyes very wide and raised her elegantly gloved and braceleted hands to her furs. She gently shook her head. The gesture suggested utter bewilderment. Before she could speak Gertrude Bracey gave her small, contemptuous laugh.
‘Oh, that,’ she said. ‘Yes, indeed. Drawn up in glossy state under the portico. As for Royalty.’
She did not look at Destiny.
Harry Grove said: ‘Destiny uses a hire-service, don’t you, love?’ His manner, gay and proprietary, had an immediate effect upon Marcus Knight and Gertrude Bracey who both stared lividly at nothing.
‘Any other cars, Miss Bracey? Mr Morris’s?’
‘I don’t remember. I didn’t go peering about for cars. I don’t notice them.’
‘It was there,’ Winter Morris said. ‘Parked at the back and rather in the dark.’
‘When you left, Mr Morris, were there any cars apart from your own and Mr Knight’s?’
‘I really don’t know. There might have been. Do you remember, Marco?’
‘No,’ he said, widely and vaguely. ‘No, I don’t remember. As you say: it was dark.’
‘I had an idea I saw your mini, Gertie,’ Morris said, ‘but I suppose I couldn’t have. You’d gone by then, of course.’
Gertrude Bracey darted a glance at Alleyn.
‘I can’t swear to all this sort of thing,’ she said angrily. ‘I – I didn’t notice the cars and I had – ’ she stopped and made a sharp movement with her hands. ‘I had other things to think of,’ she said.
‘I understand,’ Alleyn said, ‘that Miss Dunne and Mr Jay didn’t have cars at the theatre?’
‘That’s right,’ Emily said. ‘I haven’t got one anyway.’
‘I left mine at home,’ said Peregrine.
‘Where it remained?’ Alleyn remarked, ‘unless Mr Jones took it out?’
‘Which I didn’t,’ Jeremy said. ‘I was at home, working, all the evening.’
‘Alone?’
‘Entirely.’
‘As far as cars are concerned that leaves only Mr Grove. Did you by any chance notice Mr Grove’s car in the bombsite, Mi
ss Bracey?’
‘Oh, yes!’ she said loudly and threw him one of her brief, disfavouring looks. ‘I saw that one.’
‘What is it?’
‘A Panther ‘55,’ she said instantly. ‘An open sports car.’
‘You know it quite well,’ Alleyn lightly observed.
‘Know it? Oh, yes,’ Gertrude Bracey repeated with a sharp cackle. ‘I know it. Or you may say I used to.’
‘You don’t think well, perhaps, of Mr Grove’s Panther?’
‘There’s nothing the matter with the car.’
Harry Grove said: ‘Darling, what an infallible ear you have for inflection. Did you go to RADA?’
Destiny Meade let out half a cascade of her celebrated laughter and then appeared to swallow the remainder. Morris gave a repressed snort.
Marcus Knight said: ‘This is the wrong occasion, in my opinion, for mistimed comedy.’
‘Of course,’ Grove said warmly. ‘I do so agree. But when is the right occasion?’
‘If I am to be publicly insulted – ‘ Miss Bracey began on a high note. Peregrine cut in.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘Shouldn’t we all remember this is a police inquiry into something that may turn out to be murder?’
They gazed at him as if he’d committed a social enormity.
‘Mr Alleyn,’ Peregrine went on, ‘tells us he’s decided to cover the first stages as a sort of company call: everybody who was in the theatre last night and left immediately, or not long before the event. That’s right, isn’t it?’ he asked Alleyn.
‘Certainly,’ Alleyn agreed and reflected sourly that Peregrine, possibly with the best will in the world, had effectually choked what might have been a useful and revealing dust-up. He must make the best of it.
‘This procedure,’ he said, ‘if satisfactorily conducted, should save a great deal of checking and counter-checking and reduce the amount of your time taken up by the police. The alternative is to ask you all to wait in the foyer while I see each of you separately.’
There was a brief pause broken by Winter Morris.
‘Fair enough,’ Morris said and there was a slight murmur of agreement from the company. ‘Don’t let’s start throwing temperaments right and left, chaps,’ Mr Morris added. ‘It’s not the time for it.’