Carver's Truth

by Nick Rennison

  He must, Adam thought, have eyes like a cat to move with such speed in the enveloping blackness. He hauled himself into a sitting position and rubbed his back. Nothing, he decided, had been broken in the fall. He reached out his hand and felt for the lantern. His groping fingers grasped it thankfully when it came to hand. Its flame had been extinguished when it had crashed to the floor. He took his silver match safe from his pocket and lit it again. Holding onto the back of a seat, he pulled himself to his feet and held out the lantern at arm’s length.

  The light flashed across the rows of the stalls. Adam was just wondering whether or not he should follow the man in black, now doubtless long departed from the building, when it fell on what looked like a pile of clothing on the stage. He moved further along the aisle. There was definitely something there. He reached the end of the rows of seats and walked swiftly to the short flight of stairs on the right that gave access from the auditorium to the stage. He climbed up them and onto the projecting apron.

  Somebody was spread-eagled on the boards, apparently staring up at the elaborate plaster decoration of the Grand’s ceiling. He walked across the stage and directed the light from his lantern onto the face of the sprawled figure.

  There was no doubt about it. It was the girl in the photograph that Sunman had given him. He had finally found Dolly Delaney.

  Adam set down the lantern and knelt by her side. Picking up her arm, he felt for a pulse. There was none. He moved his hand cautiously across her body, thinking as he did so that, even though the girl was clearly dead, this seemed like an unpardonable liberty. As he reached her left side he could feel a damp stickiness. Holding up his hand, he could see that the palm was covered in dark, viscous blood. More blood had pooled on the boards beneath her. The girl had been stabbed, and her life had leaked away on the stage of this shabby provincial theatre. The noise he had heard ten minutes before had been her cry of pain as the knife had entered her heart.

  Adam took a handkerchief from his pocket and tried to wipe away the blood. He could not do so. It seemed to be everywhere. He then realized that he was kneeling in it and, with a shudder of distaste, stood up. As he stared down at the red patches soaking into his trousers, there was a loud call from the auditorium.

  ‘You there! Stay exactly where you are.’

  Adam held out the lantern at arm’s length, peering into the gloom it only half illuminated. Two men were approaching, moving down one of the side aisles at a swift pace. The one who had shouted out to him, tall and well-built, was dressed in a brown tweed suit that had seen better days. A brown bowler was perched on his head. His companion, a stout figure in navy blue, was a police constable.

  ‘We need to have a word with you.’

  * * * * *

  ‘So, you say the girl was already dead when you found her.’ The man in tweed, who had introduced himself to Adam as Inspector Moughton of the York Police, was gazing mournfully at Dolly’s body. He looked like a preacher about to remind his congregation of the brevity of human life.

  ‘She was, Inspector. The man who bowled me over – he must have stabbed her while I was in the passageway outside. I heard a cry but it took me some time to get to the stalls. When I did so, this wretch came at me before I knew what was happening. By the time I recovered myself, he was gone and poor Dolly was lying in her own blood.’

  ‘Ah yes, the fellow who knocked you down. The man in black.’ Moughton beckoned to the constable to approach him. ‘Could that have been who spoke to you, Thirlwell? Told you there was a disturbance in the theatre. A man in black.’

  ‘Might have been, sir.’ The constable spoke slowly, as if pondering his superior’s question from a number of philosophical standpoints. ‘The gent that spoke to me had on a black cape of sorts.’

  ‘He was a gent, though, was he?’

  ‘He spoke very genteel-like, sir. He said he’d seen a light in the Grand and heard noises. He thought I should go and see what was going on.’

  ‘So you alerted our fellow guardian of the law, Bassett, who’s now outside.’ Moughton gestured in the direction of the exit. ‘And you and Bassett go beetling along Goodramgate until you bump into me on my way back to the station. And all three of us come to the Grand. So here we all are, no more than two minutes after the gent first spoke to you.’

  ‘That’s about the size of it, sir.’

  ‘And you never thought to ask this gentleman in the black cape to accompany you to the theatre?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘You just let him waltz off into the night?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Thirlwell spoke stolidly in a Yorkshire accent. He seemed unaware of any implied criticism in Inspector Moughton’s words. ‘As I say, sir, he was very genteel-like.’

  Moughton turned back to Adam and raised his eyebrows very slightly, as if to suggest something about the calibre of the men he was obliged to employ. ‘So you see, Mr—?’

  ‘Carver.’

  ‘You see, Mr Carver, we don’t have too much in the way of corroborating evidence for the man in black who knocked you down. Constable Thirlwell saw a gent in a black cape. But half the gents in York have black capes. And we don’t know that this particular gent was ever inside the theatre. He might have been doing exactly what he said he was – just passing by the Grand when he heard a disturbance. So he does the public-spirited thing and tells Thirlwell here.’

  ‘He must have been the man who struck me to the floor.’

  ‘We find the stage door open. We come in and we find you.’ Moughton was ignoring the young man’s remark. Instead, he nodded in the direction of the handkerchief Adam was still holding. ‘Red-handed, you might say.’

  ‘You have it all wrong, Inspector.’

  ‘Do I, now? That would be your argument, of course, but I ain’t so sure. I’m inclining more to the idea that I’ve got it all right.’

  ‘I have spent much of the past fortnight looking for this poor woman. Her name is – was – Dolly Delaney. I wanted to speak to her, not kill her.’

  The inspector had moved away from the girl’s body and was standing centre stage, his eyes moving restlessly across the boards. ‘What’s this?’ he asked suddenly.

  Another handkerchief was lying several feet away from the body. In his shock at finding Dolly, Adam had not seen it. Moughton picked it up. ‘There’s something on it.’ He sniffed the handkerchief cautiously. ‘Chloroform,’ he said. ‘Somebody drugged the girl first. Maybe she was carried onto the stage.’

  ‘She was most definitely stabbed here.’ Adam pointed to the blood stains.

  Still holding the white handkerchief, the police inspector returned to the body and gazed down at it once again. ‘Aye, you’re right there,’ he said.

  ‘Can we not remove the poor girl to a better place than this?’

  ‘She’ll have to go to the morgue.’ Moughton beckoned to his constable. ‘Go and find a doctor, Thirlwell.’

  ‘They’ll all be abed, sir.’

  ‘Well, get one out of bed, man! We need someone to look at the body here before it can be moved.’

  Constable Thirlwell looked as if he might have more to say but, noting the expression on his superior’s face, decided against it. He turned and headed towards the exit. The inspector watched him depart before addressing Adam again.

  ‘You had been looking for this Delaney woman, you say?’ Moughton was clearly intrigued. He seemed to be reassessing his original judgement of the situation.

  Adam wondered how much more to tell him. Sunman had warned him against speaking to the police but this was probably a situation in which he had no choice. The man from the Foreign Office would surely not expect him to remain silent under suspicion of murder. ‘There are people in London who wished to speak to her.’

  ‘Are there indeed?’ Moughton sounded as
unimpressed as it was possible to be by the thought of people in London. ‘Not much chance of speaking to her now, is there?’

  There was no time for Adam to reply. Another constable was approaching from the back of the stalls. Trailing behind him was Quint. The pair climbed the steps to the stage.

  ‘Found this one skulking about t’stage door,’ the policeman said. ‘He give me lip when I asked him what he were doing.’

  ‘Oh, he did, did he?’ Moughton eyed Adam’s servant suspiciously before addressing him directly. ‘And who might you be? Loitering around the theatre in the early hours of the morning when all respectable folk are tucked into their cotton sheets?’

  Quint said nothing, staring stonily into the wings.

  ‘The man is my servant, Inspector.’

  Moughton spun on his heel as if he had forgotten Adam’s presence and was startled to hear a voice from behind him. ‘Your man, is he? Any idea why he’s doing all this loitering?’

  ‘None whatsoever, Inspector. Perhaps he was unable to sleep.’

  Moughton said nothing in reply but beckoned the newly arrived constable to his side. The two policemen moved across the stage, the inspector guiding his junior colleague with a hand on his arm. By now, some of the gas lights in the auditorium had been lit. Other officers, Adam could see, were standing phlegmatically in the stalls, awaiting the orders of their superior.

  ‘What the devil are you doing here, Quint?’ he hissed. ‘I thought I told you to stay at the hotel.’

  Quint shrugged. ‘Thought it was a better idea to follow you.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t. Now we’re both being treated as suspicious characters.’

  There was silence as Adam glared at his manservant and Quint unconcernedly scratched his ear. On the other side of the stage, Moughton and his constable were still deep in whispered conversation.

  ‘Found out one thing, mind,’ Quint said eventually.

  ‘And that is?’

  ‘Not just me following you. Summ’un else was as well.’

  ‘Are you certain?’ Adam sounded surprised. ‘Who was this mysterious person stalking me?’

  ‘Couldn’t tell. It was black as Satan’s boots out there. I could just see a shadow. Stopping when you stopped. Moving when you moved.’

  ‘What happened to the shadow when I reached the theatre?’

  ‘Disappeared. Round about the time you was fumbling with that key I got you.’

  ‘Perhaps it was simply some honest burgher of York making his way home through the city streets, unaware that you were misinterpreting his actions as those of a felon dogging my tracks. When he disappeared, it was because he had left the theatre behind him and was well on the way to his bed.’

  ‘No, it was ’cos ’e was up a drainpipe.’

  ‘I thought you said just this moment that he had disappeared.’

  ‘’E ’ad’,’ Quint said, ‘but ’e come back. Leastways, I saw ’im again. You’d just got in the door. He was shinning up a pipe at the side of the theatre. On the side by the alleyway. Then ’e ’auled ’imself in through one of the winders.’

  ‘The dressing rooms are on that side, are they not?’

  Quint nodded.

  ‘Timble tours the theatre after everyone has departed for the night. He makes certain all the doors and windows are locked.’

  ‘Well, ’e must ’ave missed one.’

  ‘The man up the pipe had no difficulty getting himself into the building?’

  ‘’E just slipped right through.’ Quint made an odd, undulating movement with his upper body. ‘Wriggling like an eel in a basket.’

  Adam glanced across the stage. ‘Hush now. We will talk of this later. The constabulary is returning.’

  * * * * *

  There were voices outside and the door of the cell opened. A burly constable, his face like a slab of raw meat, appeared in the entrance. Adam recognized him as one of those who had been present in the theatre.

  ‘Inspector Moughton wants to see you,’ the man said, pointing upwards, as if his superior officer might be floating somewhere near the ceiling.

  In the corridor outside was another policeman, tall and silver-haired, whom Adam had not seen before. The two constables escorted him past a row of barred doors and up a flight of stone steps. At the top of these was another corridor, but the doors on this one clearly did not lead to cells. One of them was half open and the silver-haired constable pushed at it. It swung back against the wall and he gestured to Adam to enter. The room was empty save for a wooden desk and two chairs, on one of which Quint was sitting. He looked tired and disgruntled.

  ‘I’ve seen better ’orse boxes than those bleedin’ cells,’ he remarked. ‘And most of them smelled better.’

  Before Adam could make any comment of his own, there were the sounds of steps outside and Inspector Moughton appeared in the doorway. ‘You’re a lucky man, Mr Carver,’ he said.

  ‘Am I, Inspector? I am not certain that I feel particularly lucky this morning.’

  ‘You have friends who are men of influence,’ Moughton said, sounding less than delighted to acknowledge the fact. ‘We did as you asked and telegraphed the Honourable Richard Sunman at the Foreign Office. Eight o’clock this morning, back comes a message, quick as a flash – “Release the prisoner immediately or face the consequences,” it says. Or words to that effect. I was all for facing the consequences, seeing as how we’re talking about a murder case. But my superintendent, he’s more of a cautious man, more of a diplomatic man.’

  ‘So, I’m free to leave?’

  ‘Yes, you’re free to leave. You and your . . . confederate.’ Moughton nodded in the direction of Quint, who was scratching the crotch of his trousers and looking bored.

  ‘I had nothing to do with the death of that girl, Inspector,’ Adam said, taking his hat and coat from the silver-haired constable.

  ‘So you said last night.’

  ‘However, I assure you I shall find the person who did kill poor Dolly.’

  ‘Aye, and we shall all of us catch larks when the sky falls,’ Moughton said wearily.

  * * * * *

  Quint brought his master a drink.

  ‘Brandy and water. Now there’s a reviver for the spirits,’ Adam said, as he sank into a chair by the fire of his hotel room. ‘Pour yourself one, Quint. We both need reviving after a night like that.’

  ‘I ain’t feeling too bad,’ Quint said. ‘I spent a month in Coldbath Fields back in ’58. Grindin’ the wind on one of them bleedin’ treadmills.’

  ‘So a night in York Gaol is unlikely to discompose you?’

  Quint shook his head disdainfully, as if to suggest that only a milksop would worry about an overnight stay in a cell. Despite his claim that he was none the worse for his experience, he was nonetheless pouring himself a generous measure of brandy. ‘You look bleedin’ awful, though,’ he said now, to Adam, downing the drink in one gulp. ‘Eyes like burnt holes in a blanket.’

  Ignoring his servant’s comment, Adam continued to sip his brandy and water. In his mind, he re-ran the events of the last few hours. He tried to picture what had happened in the Grand. Dolly must have been standing on the stage, peering into the darkness of the auditorium. Her assailant had moved out of the wings and approached her. Before she had had time to register that there was someone behind her, the chloroform-soaked handkerchief would have been clamped over her mouth. Within moments she would have been unconscious. So the noise he had heard could not have been made by Dolly – he had assumed initially that he had heard her cry of pain as she had been stabbed, but he had clearly been wrong. The chloroform would have rendered her insensible. So if it had not been Dolly, was it her killer who had called out? But that was surely an absurd idea. Why should he? Killers did not usua
lly wish to draw attention to themselves. And so, if the noise had not been Dolly and it was not her attacker, then there was only one other conclusion: there had been someone else in the Grand in the early hours of the morning. The person Quint had seen climbing through the open window? Or had that been the murderer? But would the intruder have had time to reach the stage and stab Dolly? The answer was probably yes. There had been more than enough time between Adam opening the stage door and his entering the auditorium through the curtains for the person to have made his way down from the dressing rooms and attack Dolly. But what about Dolly herself? What had she been doing in the theatre? She must surely have arranged to meet someone there. Her assailant? Or somebody else? The person who had called out?

  Adam moved to the window of the hotel room and looked down into the street below. Two riders passed beneath him, the sound of their horses’ hooves ringing against the cobbles. A lone woman, her head covered by a grey shawl, was walking down Coney Street towards the Mansion House. He thought again about the cry in the dark of the theatre. The murderer must have heard it as well. He would have been standing on the stage, the young girl bleeding at his feet. He would, doubtless, have frozen in position, desperately struggling to decide the direction from which the sound had come. And then he would have become aware of Adam himself, stumbling along the aisle of the stalls. He would naturally have assumed that it was Adam who had called earlier. He had struck the young man down and made his escape.

  Unlike Adam, he would still be unaware that there had been a fourth person in the theatre. ‘I must find that fourth person,’ Adam said to himself. Other questions continued to course through his mind, however. Why had the girl gone to the theatre at all, so long after the final curtain call of the night? How had she been able to get into the building? Adam had entered without trouble, but he had been in possession of the key Quint had filched from Timble and copied. Dolly would not have had that advantage. Was it not more likely that she had been in the Grand during the performance? She might have simply stayed behind when the show was over. Hidden herself, perhaps, in one of the dressing rooms and emerged when everybody else had left. If that was the case, Adam could think of only two explanations for her behaviour: she had wished, as he had, to search the theatre during the few hours when it was quiet and deserted; or she had arranged to meet someone she trusted. If she had indeed known Cyril Montague from London, as Adam was near certain she had, it might have been him. Or a lover, perhaps? Could it even have been Vernon, her middle-aged Lochinvar from the Foreign Office, who had travelled up to York? At the very least, her rendezvous would have been with someone she knew, and knew well. And, in all likelihood, that someone had betrayed her trust and killed her.