by Simon Brett
But Antony Wensleigh’s had never been a strong directorial hand. And Felicity Kershaw saw the stage direction as an opportunity to aggrandize her part and to make more of a political statement. On this particular night, fired by the militancy of the director who had spent the night with her, she embroidered more than usual.
‘Oh, a sherry for me. Just a teensy-weensy sherry. I do hope it’s South African. I really do so approve of South Africa – at least it’s an ordered society. Like it used to be here. Till all these trades unions started to take over with all their unhealthy leftist talk . . .’
She thought that was probably sufficient to make her ironic point and cause discomfort amongst any plutocrats in the audience who would realize that they were being pilloried, so she returned to the line they had rehearsed. ‘Yes, just a small sherry, please.’
The trouble with that sort of ad libbing is that the ‘ensuing dialogue’, the dialogue which is meant to be heard, is lost completely. But since this main dialogue conformed to Leslie Blatt’s usual standards, it didn’t matter that much.
When they were all supplied with drinks, Lady Hilda raised her sherry glass and said, ‘What is the toast to be?’
This was the cue for the spectral entrance of Miss Laycock-Manderley, with the line, ‘How about absent friends?’
But Miss Laycock-Manderley did not appear. There was an ugly pause.
‘Um, how about “Cheers”?’ offered Felicity Kershaw, trying to save the situation.
‘Or “Prost!”?’ suggested Professor Weintraub, rather overdoing the character bit.
‘“Your good health” maybe?’ was Lady Hilda’s suggestion.
James De Meaux realized it was one of those awful moments when he ought to do something. Everyone else had had a go; he had to come up with something. ‘What about “Bottoms Up”, mater? “Down the hatch” . . .? “Here’s mud in your eye” . . .? Um . . .’
He was saved from further meanderings through The Book of Your Favourite Toasts by the belated appearance of Miss Laycock-Manderley. She was meant to look spectral at this point, but it was a shock to all the cast just how spectral she looked. She was in a state of shock, wide-eyed and trembling.
‘How about . . .’ she quavered, ‘. . . absent friends?’
‘I find that in rather bad taste, Miss Laycock-Manderley, rebuked Lady Hilda, homing in again on Leslie Blatt’s text.
‘Simply honouring the dead, Lady Hilda.’ Miss Laycock-Manderley’s teeth were chattering now, as she continued, ‘And those about to die.’
Lady Hilda looked at her curiously. ‘Would you care for a drink, Miss Laycock-Manderley?’
‘Yes, please. A small sherry would be most welcome.’
Looks more like she needs a massive brandy, thought Wilhelmina, as she poured out the apple juice.
‘Or, no – I think I’ll have a whisky.’
Wilhelmina changed decanters and started to pour the cold tea.
‘What did you mean, Miss Laycock-Manderley, when you spoke of “those about to die”?’
‘Ha, Lady Hilda. Do you really believe we have seen the last death of this weekend at Wrothley Grange?’ As she spoke, she swayed, threatening to fall.
Wilhelmina took the cold tea across to her. ‘Are you all right?’ the maid hissed.
‘Terrible news. Just heard backstage,’ was all that could be hissed back before Lady Hilda had finished saying, ‘I think you’re being overdramatic, Miss Laycock-Manderley.’
‘I wish you were right, Lady Hilda. Excuse me . . .’ She fumbled in her handbag. ‘I have a slight headache and will just take one of my pills.’
‘You can’t be serious about more deaths.’ Felicity Kershaw clutched at her vitals as she spoke.
‘Oh yes.’ Elaborately Miss Laycock-Manderley put a pill in her mouth and tried to wash it down with cold tea. Her hand was shaking so much the liquid slopped all over her dress.
‘What on earth’s up with her?’ James De Meaux whispered to his mother.
‘The bottle, I would imagine,’ Lady Hilda replied through closed teeth, before continuing, ‘No, I think the sequence of deaths has ended. What is more, I think that James and I know who is responsible for them. Perhaps you would like to tell us, Miss Laycock-Manderley, what you were really doing while you were meant to be taking a walk with Miss Kershaw?’
‘What?’ Miss Laycock-Manderley’s hand flew to her throat. Given the state she was in, it was hard to tell whether this was acting or not.
‘And also,’ James De Meaux chipped in, ‘what you were actually doing at the time of my father’s death last night when you were supposed to be playing patience in the library?’
‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’ She started to sway and totter. She was meant to sway and totter at this point in the play, but the rest of the cast, who had never seen her sway and totter before in quite the same way. watched, mesmerized.
‘Are you all right, Miss Laycock-Manderley?’
‘No, I . . . er . . .’ With another clutch at her throat, she slumped down on to a convenient sofa.
Wilhelmina knelt beside her and loosened her collar. ‘For Christ’s sake, what’s happened?’
‘It’s awful. I just heard . . .’’
‘WHAT?’ Wilhelmina hissed in frustration, as she felt the slumped figure’s pulse.
‘Is she all right, Wilhelmina?’
The maid rose. ‘She’s dead, milady.’
‘Good God!’ James De Meaux crossed over to them. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Certain.’
James De Meaux picked up the bottle from which Miss Laycock-Manderley had taken the pill and sniffed it.
Wilhelmina, to the surprise of the rest of the cast, because she had never done it before, again knelt down by the latest victim of the Wrothley Grange murderer. ‘Tell me what’s happened!’
‘Cyanide,’ James De Meaux announced with the air of a connoisseur of fine wines.
Miss Laycock-Manderley’s lips didn’t move as she murmured the news. ‘Tony Wensleigh’s shot himself!’
‘Good God,’ said James De Meaux.
And Leslie Blatt’s dialogue showed more sense of dramatic timing than usual as he went on. ‘It was suicide!’
Chapter Thirteen
‘WHY DID YOU find the body, Mr Paris?’
‘Why?’ The detective gave him a long-suffering look. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I see what you mean. You mean why did I go up to the administrative office in the middle of a performance?’
‘Precisely.’
‘I went because I was worried about what Tony was going to do.’
‘You suspected that he might be about to kill himself?’
‘No. I suspected that he might be about to kill someone else.’
The detective sighed. There is no natural affinity between policemen and actors. With an expression of long-suffering, he asked, ‘Who did you think he was about to kill?’
‘Perhaps I’d better explain from the beginning.’
‘That might help.’
Briefly Charles outlined his encounter with the Artistic Director in the props store, concluding, ‘Because he was waving the gun around and talking about ending the pressure and sorting things out, I thought he meant he was going to commit murder . . . but I see now that most of what he said could have referred to suicide.’
‘Yes. You hadn’t had a quarrel in the props store?’
Charles looked bewildered. ‘No. What made you ask that?’
The detective became fascinated by the end of his pencil. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I just thought you might have been friends and . . . you know . . . had an argument and he might have . . .’
Oh, I see. The old all-actors-are-gay syndrome. The detective was trying to find a lovers’ tiff as an explanation for the suicide.
‘No. If you’re looking for a motive, I’m afraid you don’t have to be as devious as that. Tony Wensleigh was under a lot of pressure in his job. There was a Board Meeting planned for tomorrow evening
, when it seemed likely that certain questions were going to be raised about his running of the theatre.’
The detective looked interested for the first time. This sounded like something he could understand. ‘What, you mean he’d got his hand in the till, he was ripping the theatre off?’
Though this coincided closely with Charles’ conjecture, he had no proof and reckoned the dead deserved some loyalty. ‘I don’t know.’
‘But this meeting was going to put him on the spot?’
‘Certainly. It was the culmination of a long, unhappy period of conflict.’
‘Conflict with who?’
‘With the theatre’s General Manager, Donald Mason. They had rather different methods of running the Regent and I think these were going to be discussed at tomorrow’s meeting.’
‘And you reckon this Mason had caught Wensleigh on the fiddle?’
‘I don’t know. You’d have to ask Donald.’
‘Yes, I’ll do that. But, anyway, this meeting tomorrow looked like being a showdown?’
‘Yes.’
‘So, if Wensleigh knew he was going to lose, that’d give him the perfect motive for suicide.’ The detective sounded pleased to have got that sorted out so quickly.
‘It might do,’ said Charles cautiously.
‘And when you said you thought he was intending to murder someone, you were thinking of this Donald Mason?’
‘Yes. But I misunderstood him rather seriously.’
‘Hmm. Could we just go through your movements again, after your conversation in the props store?’
‘Okay. Well, after he fired the gun at me –’
‘Do you think he did actually intend to hit you?’
‘No, I don’t. I did at the time, which was why I ran out, but, in retrospect, I don’t think he even intended to fire it. He looked very surprised when the gun went off.’
‘Right. But you ran, anyway . . .’
‘Yes. I got right down as far as the stage. Then, since he obviously wasn’t following me, I went back up again.’
‘Why?’
‘To talk with him further. To reason with him. He was obviously in a very emotional state. I thought I might be able to help him.’
‘Hmm.’
‘But when I got up there, I found the props store door locked, so I assumed that he had gone forward to the administrative office.’
‘Where he shot himself.’
‘Yes.’
‘But you thought he was going forward to commit a murder.’
‘Yes. I was wrong. It was just that Donald Mason was quite likely to be in the office.’
‘But he wasn’t.’
‘I gather not. I met him backstage later: He’d been there most of the evening.’
‘I see. So let’s just get the time-scale sorted out. After you’d found the props store locked, what did you do?’
‘I went back down the ladder and then, after a bit, I went round the outside of the theatre, in through the front doors and up the stairs to the administrative office.’
‘“After a bit”, Mr Paris?’
‘Yes, well, I wasn’t quite sure what to do next. I went to my dressing room for a moment. I . . . dithered.’
‘You thought a murder was about to take place and you dithered?’
‘Yes.’
The detective did not add any verbal comment to this; it seemed unnecessary.
‘So how long would you say elapsed between your last seeing Wensleigh in the props store and finding his body?’
‘Ten, fifteen minutes. I know when I went out of the Stage Door to go round the front, they were just getting to the end of Act Two, just about to do the hanging. And I remember a line I heard while I was up in the gallery, so we could work it out exactly from the running time of the play.’
‘Probably won’t be necessary, but it might be useful. So let’s move on to when you got to the administrative office. Was everything exactly as when we arrived?’
‘Yes. It was clear what had happened. There was so much blood, I could see be was dead, so I didn’t touch him. I didn’t touch anything.’
‘Not even the telephone?’
‘No. I phoned for the police from backstage. I thought I should tell someone official before I contacted you, so I went back backstage and found Donald. In fact, Councillor Inchbald was also there, so I was able to tell him.’
‘Right. Could you just describe Wensleigh’s posture when you found him?’
‘He was sitting in his chair, slumped forward over the desk. The top drawer of the desk was slightly open. There was blood everywhere. The gun was in his right hand – or rather half-out of his right hand, lying on the desk.’
‘That sounds about right. And you didn’t read the note?’
‘I didn’t see a note, let alone read it.’
‘Ah.’ The detective took out of his file a polythene bag containing a white Regent Theatre envelope. ‘It was in the drawer.’
‘I see. What did it say?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t think I should really tell you that, Mr Paris. There is a certain privacy about these things. If you were his widow, of course you should see it, but . . .’
‘Okay, don’t worry.’ Charles looked at the detective. ‘It was a suicide note, I take it?’
‘I think there’s little doubt about that, Mr Paris. Self-recrimination, apologies for his life . . . Always a great relief when they do leave a note – makes our job easier.’ The detective rose. ‘You’ve been most helpful, thank you. I’ve got to talk to other people, obviously, and I may need to ask you a few supplementary questions.’
‘Fine.’
‘And you’ll almost definitely be required for the inquest.’
‘Yes. Any idea when that’s likely to be?’
‘Next few days. Can’t say exactly.’
‘Okay.’
The detective rubbed his hands. ‘No, this is really a very satisfactory case, as suicides go. Clear statement of intent from the victim – though in fact you misunderstood it. Clear motive, in that he was building up to a crunch meeting which threatened his career And, just to put the cherry on the cake, a nice note, as well. All in all, nice, straightforward little suicide.’
Frank Walby made it to Fleet Street again on the Friday morning. Just.
He had been seized by the hold-the-front-page glamour of the suicide at the Regent Theatre, talked to anyone who would talk to him there, used his contacts in the local police and, with a bottle of whisky by his typewriter just like in the movies, hammered out a dramatic couple of columns for the national press.
He had then rung it through to an old Fleet Street contact, now a night editor, and finished the bottle of whisky in celebration of his scoop.
The next morning the story appeared, subbed down to two lines, without Frank Walby’s by-line. It was dropped completely from later editions.
No one really expected there to be a rehearsal for Shove It on the Friday morning, so most of the cast went to the theatre to see if there was any notice on the Green Room board to tell them what to do.
There was. Donald Mason was too efficient to allow his company to go wandering around like lost sheep, whatever the disruption. A meeting would be held on stage at eleven o’clock to outline future plans. The company sat around until then making coffee and comparing previous theatrical disasters. Laurie Tichbourne told how he had once played Rosencrantz with a cracked bone in his toe, ‘undiagnosed for a whole week’.
Charles wandered round restlessly backstage. He had slept badly and was still in a state of mild shock after discovering Tony’s body. Mimi’s so-called kedgeree hadn’t helped. He also felt a pang of useless guilt. If only he’d understood what Tony had been saying, he might have been able to do something to prevent the suicide. If only . . . sometimes he reckoned that’s what he should have engraved on his tombstone.
He met Donald Mason, who was just finishing a conversation on the backstage pay-phone. The General Manager grimaced as he put t
he receiver down. ‘Just ringing round the Board members to tell them the meeting’s off. Not an ideal place to work from.’
‘Police still checking out your office?’
‘Yes. Say I may be able to get back in late this afternoon. It’s a bloody nuisance, though. All the files I need are up there.’
‘Yes.’
‘I should be ringing round to try and find a new director to come in and salvage Shove It.’
‘Yes, of course. I hadn’t thought of that.’
‘I mean, I don’t think we’ll manage to open on Wednesday, but if we could just postpone for a couple of days . . . The one thing we mustn’t do is have the theatre dark. That’d be playing right into the hands of the anti-theatre lobby. Have to be seen to be doing something, or the Regent’s finished.’
‘You’re right. Did you have a long session with the police?’
‘Not that long. They seemed to think everything was pretty cut and dried. It’s an absolute disaster, though. It never occurred to me that Tony’d do something like that. And I feel terrible for hounding him so much. I was just trying to make him a bit more efficient, get the theatre back on to an even keel . . . Now I almost feel as if I’ve driven him to it.’
‘I feel I should have been able to stop him too.’
‘Yes.’ The General Manager sighed. ‘Poor old Tony. He was inefficient – and possibly even worse – but he really did care about the Regent. As much as I do. I suppose the best I can do for his memory is to ensure that the theatre survives – and make it as successful as it’s in my power to make it.’
Herbie Inchbald addressed the eleven o’clock meeting. The little man with the mane of hair took his responsibilities as Chairman of the Regent Board seriously, and obviously enjoyed giving his team-talks, even under such clouded circumstances.
‘I think you’ll all have heard by now what happened last night. I was one of the first to hear the news backstage, and if you’re feeling the same sort of shock as I’m still feeling, I know you must be pretty shaken.