Night at the Vulcan ra-16

by Ngaio Marsh

  “Yes.”

  “And there are new dividing walls? And ventilators, now, in the dressing-rooms?”

  “Yes,” said Clem unhappily and added, “I suppose that’s why he used his coat.”

  “It does look,” Alleyn said without stressing it, “as if the general idea was to speed things up, doesn’t it? All right, Mr. Smith, thank you. Would you explain to the people on the stage that I’ll come as soon as we’ve finished our job here? It won’t be very long. We’ll probably ask you to sign a statement of the actual discovery as you’ve described it to us. You’ll be glad to get away from this room, I expect.”

  Inspector Fox had secreted his note-book and now ushered Clem Smith out. Clem appeared to go thankfully.

  “Plain sailing, wouldn’t you say, Mr. Alleyn,” said Fox, looking along the passage. “Nobody about,” he added. “I’ll leave the door open.”

  Alleyn cubbed his nose. “It looks like plain sailing, Fox, certainly. But in view of the other blasted affair we can’t take a damn thing for granted. You weren’t on the Jupiter case, were you, Gibson?”

  “No, sir,” said Gibson, looking up from his notebook. “Homicide dressed up to look like suicide, wasn’t it?”

  “It was, indeed. The place has been pretty extensively chopped up and rehashed, but the victim was on this side of the passage and in what must have been the room now taken in to make the Greenroom. Next door there was a gas fire backing on to his own. The job was done by blowing down the tube next door. This put out the fire in this room and left the gas on, of course. The one next door was then re-lit. The victim was pretty well dead-drunk and the trick worked. We got the bloke on the traces of crepe hair and greasepaint he left on the tube.”

  “Very careless,” Fox said. “Silly chap, really.”

  “The theatre,” Alleyn said, “was shut up for a long time. Three or four years at least. Then Adam Poole took it, renamed it the Vulcan and got a permit for renovation. I fancy this is only his second production here.”

  “Perhaps,” Fox speculated, “the past history of the place played on deceased’s mind and led him to do away with himself after the same fashion.”

  “Sort of superstitious?” Gibson ventured.

  “Not precisely,” said Fox majestically. “And yet something after that style of thing. They’re a very superstitious mob, actors, Fred. Very. And if he had reason, in any case, to entertain the notion of suicide—”

  “He must,” Alleyn interjected, “have also entertained the very very nasty notion of throwing suspicion of foul play on his fellow-actors. If there’s a gas fire back-to-back with this—”

  “And there is,” Fox said.

  “The devil there is! So what does Bennington do? He re-creates as far as possible the whole set-up, leaves no note, no indication, as far as we can see, of his intention to gas himself, and — who’s next door, Fox?”

  “A Mr. Parry Percival.”

  “All right. Bennington pushes off, leaving Mr. Parry Percival ostensibly in the position of the Jupiter murderer. Rotten sort of suicide that’d be, Br’er Fox.”

  “We don’t know anything yet, of course,” said Fox.

  “We don’t, and the crashing hellish bore about the whole business lies in the all-too-obvious fact that we’ll have to find out. What’s on your inventory, Gibson?”

  Sergeant Gibson opened his note-book and adopted his official manner.

  “Dressing-table or shelf,” he said. “One standing mirror. One cardboard box containing false hair, rouge, substance labelled ‘nose-paste,’ seven fragments of greasepaint and one unopened box of powder. Shelf. Towel spread out to serve as table-cloth. On towel, one tray containing six sticks of greasepaint. To right of tray, bottle of spirit-adhesive. Bottle containing what appears to be substance known as liquid powder. Open box of powder overturned. Behind box of powder, pile of six pieces of cotton-wool and a roll from which these pieces have been removed.” He looked up at Alleyn. “Intended to be used for powdering purposes, Mr. Alleyn.”

  “That’s it,” Alleyn said. He was doubled up, peering at the floor under the dressing-shelf. “Nothing there,” he grunted. “Go on.”

  “To left of tray, cigarette case with three cigarettes and open box of fifty. Box of matches. Ash-tray. Towel, stained with greasepaint. Behind mirror, flask — one-sixth full — and used tumbler smelling of spirits.”

  Alleyn looked behind the standing glass. “Furtive sort of cache,” he said. “Go on.”

  “Considerable quantity of powder spilt on shelf and on adjacent floor area. Considerable quantity of ash. Left wall, clothes. I haven’t been through the pockets yet, Mr. Alleyn. There’s nothing on the floor but powder and some paper ash, original form undistinguishable. Stain as of something burnt on hearth.”

  “Go ahead with it then. I wanted,” Alleyn said with a discontented air, “to hear whether I was wrong.”

  Fox and Gibson looked placidly at him. “All right,” he said, “don’t mind me. I’m broody.”

  He squatted down by the overcoat. “It really is the most obscene smell, gas,” he muttered. “How anybody can always passes my comprehension.” He poked in a gingerly manner at the coat. “Powder over everything,” he grumbled. “Where had this coat been? On the empty hanger near the door, presumably. That’s damned rum. Check it with his dresser. We’ll have to get Bailey along, Fox. And Thompson. Blast!”

  “I’ll ring the Yard,” said Fox and went out.

  Alleyn squinted through a lens at the wing-taps of the gas fire. “I can see prints clearly enough,” he said, “on both. We can check with Bennington’s. There’s even a speck or two of powder settled on the taps.”

  “In the air, sir, I dare say,” said Gibson.

  “I dare say it was. Like the gas. We can’t go any further here until the dabs and flash party has done its stuff. Finished, Gibson?”

  “Finished, Mr. Alleyn. Nothing much in the pockets. Bills. Old racing card. Cheque-book and so on. Nothing on the body, by the way, but a handkerchief.”

  “Come on, then. I’ve had my belly-full of gas.” But he stood in the doorway eyeing the room and whistling softly.

  “I wish I could believe in you,” he apostrophized it, “but split me and sink me if I can. No, by all that’s phoney, not for one credulous second. Come on, Gibson. Let’s talk to these experts.”

  They all felt a little better for Jacko’s soup, which had been laced with something that, as J. G. Darcey said (and looked uncomfortable as soon as he’d said it), went straight to the spot marked X.

  Whether it was this potent soup, or whether extreme emotional and physical fatigue had induced in Martyn its familiar complement, an uncanny sharpening of the mind, she began to consider for the first time the general reaction of the company to Bennington’s death. She thought: “I don’t believe there’s one of us who really minds very much. How lonely for him! Perhaps he guessed that was how it would be. Perhaps he felt the awful isolation of a child that knows itself unwanted and thought he’d put himself out of the way of caring.”

  It was a shock to Martyn when Helena Hamilton suddenly gave voice to her own thoughts. Helena had sat with her chin in her hand, looking at the floor. There was an unerring grace about her and this fireside posture had the beauty of complete relaxation. Without raising her eyes she said: “My dears, my dears, for pity’s sake don’t let’s pretend. Don’t let me pretend. I didn’t love him. Isn’t that sad? We all know and we try to patch up a decorous scene but it won’t do. We’re shocked and uneasy and dreadfully tired. Don’t let’s put ourselves to the trouble of pretending. It’s so useless.”

  Gay said. “But I did love him!” and J.G. put his arm about her.

  “Did you?” Helena murmured. “Perhaps you did, darling. Then you must hug your sorrow to yourself. Because I’m afraid nobody really shares it.”

  Poole said: “We understand, Helena.”

  With that familiar gesture, not looking at him, she reached out her hand. When he had ta
ken it in his, she said: “When one is dreadfully tired one talks. I do, at all events. I talk much too easily. Perhaps that’s a sign of a shallow woman. You know, my dears, I begin to think I’m only capable of affection. I have a great capacity for affection, but as for my loves, they have no real permanency. None.”

  Jacko said gently: “Perhaps your talent for affection is equal to other women’s knack of loving.”

  Gay and Parry Percival looked at him in astonishment, but Poole said: “That may well be.”

  “What I meant to say,” Helena went on, “only I do sidetrack myself so awfully, is this. Hadn’t we better stop being muted and mournful and talk about what may happen and what we ought to do? Adam, darling, I thought perhaps they might all be respecting my sorrow or something. What should we be talking about? What’s the situation?”

  Poole moved one of the chairs with its back to the curtain and sat in it. Dr. Rutherford returned and lumped himself down in the corner. “They’re talking,” he said, “to Clem Smith in the — they’re talking to Clem. I’ve seen the police surgeon, a subfusc exhibit, but one that can tell a hawk from a handsaw if they’re held under his nose. He agrees that there was nothing else I could have done, which is no doubt immensely gratifying to me. What are you all talking about? You look like a dress rehearsal.”

  “We were about to discuss the whole situation,” said Poole. “Helena feels it should be discussed and I think we all agree with her.”

  “What situation pray? Ben’s? Or ours? There is no more to be said about Ben’s situation. As far as we know, my dear Helena, he has administered to himself a not too uncomfortable and effective anaesthetic which, after he had become entirely unconscious, brought about the end he had in mind. For a man who had decided to shuffle off this mortal coil he behaved very sensibly.”

  “Oh, please,” Gay whispered. “Please!”

  Dr. Rutherford contemplated her in silence for a moment and then said: “What’s up, Misery?” Helena, Darcey and Parry Percival made expostulatory noises. Poole said: “See here, John, you’ll either pipe down or preserve the decencies.”

  Gay, fortified perhaps by this common reaction, said loudly: “You might at least have the grace to remember he was my uncle.”

  “Grace me no grace,” Dr. Rutherford quoted inevitably, “and uncle me no uncles.” After a moment’s reflection, he added: “All right, Thalia, have a good cry. But you must know, if the rudiments of reasoned thinking are within your command, that your Uncle Ben did you a damn shabby turn. A scurvy trick, by God. However, I digress. Get on with the post mortem, Chorus. I am dumb.”

  “You’ll be good enough to remain so,” said Poole warmly. “Very well, then. It seems to me, Helena, that Ben took this — this way out — for a number of reasons. I know you want me to speak plainly and I’m going to speak very plainly indeed, my dear.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “Please, but—” For a moment they looked at each other. Martyn wondered if she imagined that Poole’s head moved in the faintest possible negative. “Yes,” Helena said, “very plainly, please.”

  “Well, then,” Poole said, “we know that for the last year Ben, never a very temperate man, has been a desperately intemperate one. We know his habits undermined his health, his character and his integrity as an actor. I think he realized this very thoroughly. He was an unhappy man, who looked back at what he had once been and was appalled. We all know he did things in performance to-night that, from an actor of his standing, were quite beyond the pale.”

  Parry Percival ejaculated: “Well, I mean to say — oh, well. Never mind.”

  “Exactly,” Poole said. “He had reached a sort of chronic state of instability. We all know he was subject to fits of depression. I believe he did what he did when he was at a low ebb. I believe he would have done it sooner or later by one means or another. And in my view, for what it’s worth, that’s the whole story. Tragic enough, God knows, but, in its tragedy, simple. I don’t know if you agree.”

  Darcey said: “If there’s nothing else. I mean,” he said diffidently, glancing at Helena, “if nothing has happened that would seem like a further motive.”

  Helena’s gaze rested for a moment on Poole and then on Darcey. “I think Adam’s right,” she said. “I’m afraid he was appalled by a sudden realization of himself. I’m afraid he was insufferably lonely.”

  “Oh, my God!” Gay ejaculated, and having by this means collected their unwilling attention she added: “I shall never forgive myself. Never.”

  Dr. Rutherford groaned loudly.

  “I failed him,” Gay announced. “I was a bitter, bitter disappointment to him. I daresay I turned the scale.”

  “Now in the name of all the gods at once,” Dr. Rutherford began, and was brought to a stop by the entry of Clem Smith.

  Cem looked uneasily at Helena Hamilton and said: “They’re in the dressing-room. He says they won’t keep you waiting much longer.”

  “It’s all right, then?” Parry Percival blurted out and added in a flurry: “I mean there won’t be a whole lot of formalities. I mean we’ll be able to get away. I mean—”

  “I’ve no idea about that,” Gem said. “Alleyn just said they’d be here soon.” He had brought a cup of soup with him and he withdrew into a corner and began to drink it. The others watched him anxiously but said nothing.

  “What did he ask you about?” Jacko demanded suddenly.

  “About what we did at the time.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Well, yes. He — well, in point of fact, he seemed to be interested in the alterations to the theatre.”

  “To the dressing-rooms in particular?” Poole asked quickly.

  “Yes,” Clem said unhappily. “To them.”

  There was a long silence, broken by Jacko.

  “I find nothing remarkable in this,” he said. “Helena has shown us the way with great courage and Adam has spoken his mind. Let us all speak ours. I may resemble an ostrich but I do not propose to imitate its behaviour. Of what do we all think? There is the unpleasing little circumstance of the Jupiter case and we think of that. When Gay mentions it she does so with the air of one who opens a closet and out tumbles a skeleton. But why? It is inevitable that these gentlemen, who also remember the Jupiter case, should wish to inspect the dressing-rooms. They wish, in fact, to make very sure indeed that this is a case of suicide and not of murder. And since we are all quite certain that it is suicide we should not disturb ourselves that they do their duty.”

  “Exactly,” Poole said.

  “It’s going,” Darcey muttered, “to be damn bad publicity.”

  “Merciful Heavens!” Parry Percival exclaimed. “The Publicity! None of us thought of that!”

  “Did we not!” said Poole.

  “I must say,” Parry complained, “I would like to know what’s going to happen, Adam. I mean — darling Helena, I know you’ll understand — but I mean, about the piece. Do we go on? Or what?”

  “Yes,” Helena said. “We go on. Please, Adam.”

  “Helena, I’ve got to think. There are so many—”

  “We go on. Indeed, indeed we do.” Martyn felt rather than saw the sense of relief in Darcey and Percival.

  Darcey said: “I’m the understudy, Lord help me,” and Percival made a tiny ambiguous sound that might have been one of satisfaction or of chagrin.

  “How are you for it, J.G.?” Helena asked.

  “I know it,” he said heavily.

  “I’ll work whenever you like. We’ve got the weekend.”

  “Thank you, Helena.”

  “Your own understudy’s all right,” said Clem.

  “Good.”

  It was clear to Martyn that this retreat into professionalism was a great relief to them, and it was clear also that Poole didn’t share in their comfort. Watching him, she was reminded of his portrait in the Greenroom: he looked withdrawn and troubled.

  A lively and almost cosy discussion about re-casting had developed. Clem Smith,
Jacko and Percival were all talking at once when, with her infallible talent for scenes, Gay exclaimed passionately:

  “I can’t bear it! I think you’re all awful!”

  They broke off. Having collected their attention, she built rapidly to her climax. “To sit round and talk about the show as if nothing had happened! How you can! When beyond those doors, he’s lying there, forgotten. Cold and forgotten! It’s the most brutal thing I’ve ever heard of, and if you think I’m coming near this horrible, fated, haunted place again, I’m telling you here and now that wild horses wouldn’t drag me inside the theatre once I’m away from it. I suppose someone will find time to tell me when the funeral is going to be. I happen to be just about his only relation.”

  They all began to expostulate at once, but she topped their lines with the determination of a robust star. “You needn’t bother to explain,” she shouted. “I understand only too well, thank you.” She caught sight of Martyn and pointed wildly at her. “You’ve angled for this miserable part, and now you’ve got it. I think it’s extremely likely you’re responsible for what’s happened.”

  Poole said: “You’ll stop at once, Gay. Stop.”

  “I won’t! I won’t be gagged! It drove my Uncle Ben to despair and I don’t care who knows it.”

  It was upon this line that Alleyn, as if he had mastered one of the major points of stage technique, made his entrance up-stage and centre.

  Although he must have heard every word of Gay’s final outburst, Alleyn gave no sign of having done so. He and the young constable came in and, as if he had walked into somebody’s flat, he took off his hat and put it on a table near the door. The young constable looked round and then went off-stage, returning with two chairs which he placed, one in a central position for Alleyn, and one in the O.P. corner for himself. To Martyn he had fantastically the air of an A.D.C. As he settled himself he gave her another of his friendly smiles.

  Clem and Parry had got uncomfortably to their feet and now sat down again in a faintly huffy manner. With the exception of Dr. Rutherford, the company reorientated itself, unobtrusively, on Alleyn.