Night at the Vulcan ra-16

by Ngaio Marsh

  “What sort of condition was he in?”

  “Damned unpleasant Oh, you mean drunk or sober? I should say ugly-drunk. Ben was a soak. I’ve never seen him incapacitated, but really I’ve hardly ever seen him stone-cold either. He was in his second degree of drunkenness: offensive, outrageous and incalculable. He’d behaved atrociously throughout the first and second acts.”

  “In what way?”

  “As only a clever actor with too much drink in him can behave. Scoring off other people. Playing for cheap laughs. Doing unrehearsed bits of business that made nonsense of the production. Upon my word,” said J.G. thoughtfully, “I wonder Adam or the Doctor or poor little Parry, if he’d had the guts, didn’t get in first and give him what he deserved. A perfectly bloody fellow.”

  “Was it because of his performance that you hit him?”

  J.G. looked at his finger-nails and seemed to ponder. “No,” he said at last. “Or not directly. If I thought you’d believe me I’d say yes, but no doubt you’ll talk to her and she’s so upset anyway—”

  “You mean Miss Gainsford?”

  “Yes,” said J.G. with the oddest air of pride and embarrassment. “I mean Gay.”

  “Was it on her account you dotted him one?”

  “It was. He was damned offensive.”

  “I’m sorry,” Alleyn said, “but you’ll realize that we do want to be told a little more than that about it.”

  “I suppose so.” He clasped his hands and examined his bruised knuckles. “Although I find it extremely difficult and unpleasant to go into the wretched business. It’s only because I hope you’ll let Gay off, as far as possible, if you know the whole story. That’s why I asked to see you alone.” He slewed round and looked discontentedly at Fox.

  “Inspector Fox,” Alleyn said, “is almost pathologically discreet.”

  “Glad to hear it. Well, as you’ve heard, I’d managed to get hold of a bottle of aspirins and I brought them to her, here, in the second interval. Gay was sitting in this chair. She was still terribly upset. Crying. I don’t know if you’ve realized why she didn’t go on for the part?”

  “No. I’d be glad to have the whole story.” J.G. embarked on it, with obvious reluctance, but as he talked his hesitancy lessened and he even seemed to find some kind of ease in speaking. He described Gay’s part and her struggle at rehearsals. It was clear that, however unwillingly, he shared the general opinion of her limited talent. “She’d have given a reasonable show,” he said, “if she’d been given a reasonable chance but from the beginning the part got her down. She’s a natural ingenue and this thing’s really ‘character.’ It was bad casting. Adam kept the Doctor at bay as much as possible but she knew what he thought. She didn’t want the part. She was happy where she was in repertory but Ben dragged her in. He saw himself as a sort of fairy-godfather-uncle and when she found the part difficult he turned obstinate and wouldn’t let her throw it in. Out of vanity really. He was very vain. She’s a frail little thing, you know, all heart and sensitivity, and between them they’ve brought her to the edge of a breakdown. It didn’t help matters when Miss Martyn Tarne appeared out of a clear sky, first as Helena Hamilton’s dresser and then as Gay’s understudy and then — mysteriously, as some of the cast, Ben in particular, thought — as Adam’s distant cousin. You noticed the uncanny resemblance but you may not know the part in the play requires it. That was the last straw for Gay. She’d been ill with nerves and fright and to-night she cracked up completely and wouldn’t — couldn’t go on. When I saw her in the first interval she was a bit quieter but in the second act little Miss Tarne did very well indeed. Quite startling, it was. Incidentally, I suppose her success infuriated Ben. And Gay heard everybody raving about her as they came off. Naturally that upset her again. So she was in tears when I came in.”

  He leant forward and rested his head in his hands. His voice was less distinct “I’m fond of her,” he said. “She’s got used to me being about. When I came in she ran to me and — I needn’t go into the way I felt. There’s no explaining these things. She was sobbing in my arms, poor bird, and God knows my heart had turned over. Ben came in. He went for her like a pickpocket. He was crazy. I tried to shut him up. He didn’t make a noise — I don’t mean that — matter of fact what he said streamed out of him in a whisper. He was quite off his head and began talking about Helena — about his wife. He used straight-out obscenities. There’d been an episode in the afternoon and — well, he used the sort of generalization that Lear and Othello and Leontes use, if you remember your Shakespeare.”

  “Yes.”

  “Gay was still clinging to me and he began to talk the same sort of stuff about her. I’m not going into details. I put her away from me and quite deliberately gave him what was coming to him. I don’t remember what I said. I don’t think any of us said anything. So he went out nursing his jaw and they called me for the last act and I went out too. During this last act, when we were on together, I could see the bruise coming out under his make-up.”

  “What was his general behaviour like during the final act?”

  “As far as I was concerned he behaved in the way people do when they play opposite someone they’ve had a row with off-stage. He didn’t look me in the eye. He looked at my forehead or ears. It doesn’t show from the front. He played fairly soundly until poor Parry got out of position. Parry is his butt in the piece, but of course what Ben did was outrageous. He stuck out his foot as Parry moved and brought him down. That was not long before his own exit. I never saw him again after that until he was carried out. That’s all. I don’t know if you’ve believed me but I hope you’ll let Gay off any more of this stuff.”

  Alleyn didn’t answer. He looked at the young-old actor for a moment. J.G. was lighting a cigarette with that trained economy and grace of movement that were part of his stock-in-trade. His head was stooped, and Alleyn saw how carefully the silver hair had been distributed over the scalp. The hands were slightly tremulous. How old was J.G.? Fifty? Fifty-five? Sixty? Was he the victim of that Indian Summer that can so unmercifully visit an ageing man?

  “It’s the very devil, in these cases,” Alleyn said, “how one has to plug away at everyone in turn. Not that it helps to say so. There’s one more question that I’m afraid you won’t enjoy at all. Can you tell me more specifically what Bennington said about — I think you called it an episode — of the afternoon, in which his wife was concerned?”

  “No, by God, I can’t,” said J.G. hotly.

  “He spoke about it in front of Miss Gainsford, didn’t he?”

  “You can’t possibly ask Gay about it. It’s out of the question.”

  “Not, I’m afraid, for an investigating officer,” said Alleyn, who thought that J.G.’s delicacy, if delicacy were in question, was possibly a good deal more sensitive than Miss Gainsford’s. “Do you suppose Bennington talked about this episode to other people?”

  “In the condition he was in I should think it possible.”

  “Well,” Alleyn said, “we shall have to find out.”

  “See here, Alleyn. What happened, if he spoke the truth, was something entirely between himself and his wife and it’s on her account that I can’t repeat what he said. You know she and Poole were on-stage at the crucial time and that there’s no sense in thinking of motive, if that’s what you’re after, where they are concerned.”

  Alleyn said: “This episode might constitute a motive for suicide, however.”

  J.G. looked up quickly. “Suicide? But — why?”

  “Shame?” Alleyn suggested. “Self-loathing if he sobered up after you hit him and took stock of himself? I imagine they’ve been virtually separated for some time.”

  “I see you have a talent,” said J.G., “for reading between the lines.”

  “Let us rather call it an ugly little knack. Thank you, Mr. Darcey, I don’t think I need bother you any more for the moment.”

  J.G. went slowly to the door. He hesitated for a moment and then said: “If you’
re looking for motive, Alleyn, you’ll find it in a sort of way all over the place. He wasn’t a likeable chap and he’d antagonized everyone. Even poor little Parry came off breathing revenge after the way he’d been handled, but, my God, actors do that kind of thing only too often. Feeling runs high, you know, on first nights.”

  “So it would seem.”

  “Can I take that child home?”

  “I’m sorry,” Alleyn said, “not yet. Not just yet.”

  “Well,” Alleyn said when J.G. had gone, “what have you got at your end of the table, Br’er Fox?”

  Fox turned back the pages of his note-book.

  “What you might call negative evidence, on the whole, Mr. Alleyn. Clearance for the understudies, who watched the show from the back of the circle and then went home. Clearance for the two dressers (male), the stage-manager and his assistant, the stage-hands and the night-watchman. They were all watching the play or on their jobs. On statements taken independently, they clear each other.”

  “That’s something.”

  “No female dresser,” Mr. Fox observed. “Which seems odd.”

  “Miss Tarne was the sole female dresser and she’s been promoted overnight to what I believe I should call starletdom. Which in itself seems to me to be a rum go. I’ve always imagined female dressers to be cups-of-tea in alpaca aprons and not embryo actresses. I don’t think Miss Tarne could have done the job, but she comes into the picture as the supplanter of Uncle Ben’s dear little niece, whom I find an extremely irritating ass with a certain amount of low cunning. Miss Tarne, on the other hand, seems pleasant and intelligent and looks nice. You must allow me my prejudices, Br’er Fox.”

  “She’s Mr. Poole’s third cousin or something.”

  “The case reeks with obscure relationships — blood, marital and illicit, as far as one can see. Did you get anything from Bennington’s dresser?”

  “Nothing much,” said Fox, sighing. “It seems the deceased didn’t like him to hang about on account of being a secret drinker. He was in the dressing-room up to about seven and was then told to go and see if he could be of any use to the other gentlemen, and not to come back till the first interval when the deceased changed his clothes. I must say that chap earns his wages pretty easily. As far as I could make out the rest of his duties for the night consisted in tearing off chunks of cotton-wool for the deceased to do up his face with. I checked his visits to the dressing-room by that. The last time he looked in was after the deceased went on the stage in the third act. He cleared away the used cottonwool and powdered a clean bit. In the normal course of events I suppose he’d have put Mr. Bennington into the fancy dress he was going to wear to the ball and then gone home quite worn out.”

  “Was he at all talkative?”

  “Not got enough energy, Mr. Alleyn. Nothing to say for himself barring the opinion that deceased was almost on the D.T. mark. The other dresser, Cringle, seems a bright little chap. He just works for Mr. Poole.”

  “Have you let them go?”

  “Yes, sir, I have. And the stage-hands. We can look them out again if we want them, but for the moment I think we’ve just about cleaned them up. I’ve let the assistant stage-manager — A.S.M. they call him — get away, too. Wife’s expecting any time and he never left the prompting book.”

  “That reduces the mixed bag a bit. You’ve been through all the rooms, of course, but before we do anything else, Br’er Fox, let’s have a prowl.”

  They went into the passage. Fox jerked his thumb at Bennington’s room. “Gibson’s doing a fly-crawl in there,” he said. “If there’s anything, he’ll find it. That dresser-chap didn’t clear anything up except his used powder-puffs.”

  They passed Bennington’s room and went into Parry Percival’s, next door. Here they found Detective-Sergeants Thompson and Bailey, the one a photographic and the other a finger-print expert. They were packing up their gear. “Well, Bailey?” Alleyn asked. Bailey looked morosely at his superior. “It’s there all right, sir,” he said grudgingly. “Complete prints, very near, and a check-up all over the shop.”

  “What about next door?”

  “Deceased’s room, sir? His prints on the wing-tap and the tube. Trace of red greasepaint on the rubber connection at the end of the tube. Matches paint on deceased’s lips.”

  “Very painstaking,” said Alleyn. “Have you tried the experiment?”

  “Seeing the fires are back-to-back, sir,” Fox said, “we have. Sergeant Gibson blew down this tube and deceased’s fire went out. As in former case.”

  “Well,” Alleyn said, “there you are. Personally I don’t believe a word of it, either way.“ He looked, without interest, at the telegrams stuck round the frame of Parry’s looking-glass and at his costume for the ball.

  “Very fancy,” he muttered. “Who’s in the next room?”

  “Mr. J. G. Darcey,” said Thompson.

  They went into J.G.’s room, which was neat and impersonal in character and contained nothing, it seemed, of interest, unless a photograph of Miss Gainsford looking insouciante could be so regarded.

  In the last room on this side of the passage they saw the electric sewing-machine, some rough sketches, scraps of material and other evidences of Martyn’s sewing-party for Jacko. Alleyn glanced round it, crossed the passage and looked into the empty room opposite. “Dismal little cells when they’re unoccupied, aren’t they?” he said, and moved on to Gay Gainsford’s room.

  He stood there, his hands in his pockets, with Fox at his elbow. “This one suffers from the fashionable complaint, Fox,” he said. “Schizophrenia. It’s got a split personality. On my left a rather too-smart overcoat, a frisky hat, chi-chi gloves, a pansy purse-bag, a large bottle of one of the less reputable scents, a gaggle of mascots, a bouquet from the management and orchids from — who do you suppose?” He turned over the card. “Yes. Alas, yes, with love and a thousand good wishes from her devoted J.G. On my right a well-worn and modest little topcoat, a pair of carefully tended shoes and gloves that remind one of the White Rabbit, a grey skirt and beret and a yellow jumper. A hand-bag that contains, I’m sure, one of those rather heartrending little purses and — what else?” He explored the bag. “A New Zealand passport issued this year in which one finds Miss Tarne is nineteen years old and an actress. So the dresser’s job was — what? The result of an appeal to the celebrated third cousin? But why not give her the understudy at once? She’s fantastically like him and I’ll be sworn he’s mightily catched with her. What’s more, even old Darcey says she’s a damn good actress.” He turned the leaves of the passport. “She only arrived in England seventeen days ago. Can that account for the oddness of the set-up? Anyway, I don’t suppose it matters. Let’s go next door, shall we?”

  Cringle had left Poole’s room in exquisite order. Telegrams were pinned in rows on the walls. A towel was spread over the make-up. A cigarette had been half-extracted from a packet and a match left ready on the top of its box. A framed photograph of Helena Hamilton stood near the glass. Beside it a tiny clock with a gay face ticked feverishly. It stood on a card. Alleyn moved it delicately and read the inscription. From Helena. To-night and to-morrow and always — bless you.

  “The standard for first-night keepsakes seems to be set at a high level,” Alleyn muttered. “This is a French clock, Fox, with a Sèvres face encircled with garnets. What do you suppose the gentleman gave the lady?”

  “Would a tiara be common?” asked Fox.

  “Let’s go next door and see.”

  Helena’s room smelt and. looked like a conservatory. A table had been brought in to carry the flowers. Jacko had set out the inevitable telegrams and had hung up the dresses under their dust sheets.

  “Here we are,” Alleyn said. “A sort of jeroboam of the most expensive scent on the market. Price, I should say, round about thirty pounds. ‘From Adam.’ Why don’t you give me presents when we solve a petty larceny, Foxkin? Now, I may be fanciful, but this looks to me like the gift of a man who’s at his wit’s en
d and plumps for the expensive, the easy and the obvious. Here’s something entirely different. Look at this, Fox.” It was a necklace of six wooden medallions strung between jade rings. Each plaque was most delicately carved in the likeness of a head in profile and each head was a portrait of one of the company of players. The card bore the date and the inscription: From J.

  “Must have taken a long time to do,” observed Fox. “That’ll be the foreign gentleman’s work, no doubt. Mr. Doré.”

  “No doubt. I wonder if love’s labour has been altogether lost,” said Alleyn. “I hope she appreciates it.”

  He took up the leather case with its two photographs of Poole. “He’s a remarkable looking chap,” he said. “If there’s anything to be made of faces in terms of character, and I still like to pretend there is, what’s to be made of this one? It’s what they call a heart-shaped face, broad across the eyes with a firmly moulded chin and a generous but delicate mouth. Reminds one of a Holbein drawing. Doré’s sketch in the Greenroom is damn good. Doré crops up all over the place, doesn’t he? Designs their fancy dresses. Paints their faces, in a double sense. Does their décor and, with complete self-effacement, loves their leading lady.”

  “Do you reckon?”

  “I do indeed, Br’er Fox,” Alleyn said and rubbed his nose vexedly. “However. Gibson’s done all the usual things in these rooms, I suppose?”

  “Yes, Mr. Alleyn. Pockets, suitcases and boxes. Nothing to show for it.”

  “We can let them come home to roost fairly soon, then. We’ll start now to see them separately. Blast! I suppose I’ll have to begin with checking Darcey’s statement with the Gainsford. She gives me the horrors, that young woman.”

  “Shall I see her, Mr. Alleyn?”