by Ngaio Marsh
They stared at each other, their faces quite close together—Random’s guarded, shuttered, wary and Trevor’s faintly impertinent.
“You’ve got a bruise on your cheekbone,” Random said.
“That’s nothing. You should see the rest.”
“Keep you quiet for a bit.”
“That’s right.” Random turned his head slowly and looked at Alleyn. “Police are taking a great interest, I see,” he said.
“Routine,” Alleyn rejoined. “Merely routine.”
“At a high level.” Random drew back quickly from Trevor, who giggled and opened his bundle of comics. “Oh, fabulous,” he said. “It’s ‘Slash.’ Z-z-z-z-yock!” He became absorbed.
“That being that,” Random said, “I shall bow myself off. Unless,” he added, “the Superintendent is going to arrest me.”
Trevor, absorbed in his comic, said: “You never know, do you? Cheerie-bye and ta.”
Random moved towards the door. “Get better quick,” he murmured. Trevor looked up and winked. “What do you think?” he said.
Random opened the door and disclosed Miss Bracey on the threshold.
They said, “Oh, hullo, dear,” simultaneously and Random added: “This gets more like a French farce every second. Everyone popping in and out. Wonderful timing.”
They both laughed with accomplishment and he went away.
Gertrude behaved as if she and Alleyn had never met. She said good morning in a poised voice and clearly expected him to leave. He responded politely, indicated the bedside chair, called Trevor’s attention to his visitor and himself withdrew to the window.
Miss Bracey said, “You have been in the wars, dear, haven’t you?” She advanced to the bedside and placed a small parcel on the table. Trevor lifted his face to hers, inviting an embrace. Their faces came together and parted and Miss Bracey sank into the chair.
“I mustn’t stay too long: you’re not to be tired,” she said. She was quite composed. Only that occasional drag at the corner of her mouth suggested to Alleyn that she had fortified herself. She made the conventional inquiries as to Trevor’s progress and he responded with an enthusiastic account of his condition. The worst case of concussion, he said importantly, that they’d ever seen in the ward.
“Like what you read about,” he said. “I was—”
He stopped short and for a moment looked puzzled. “I was having a bit of fun,” he began again. “You know, Miss Bracey. Just for giggles. I was having old Jobbins on.”
“Yes?” said Miss Bracey. “That was naughty of you, dear, wasn’t it?”
“But,” Trevor said, frowning. “You know. You were there, weren’t you?” he added doubtfully.
She looked anywhere but at Alleyn. “You’re still confused,” she said. “You mustn’t worry about it.”
“But weren’t you, Miss Bracey? Down there? In front? Weren’t you?”
“I don’t know when you mean, dear.”
“Neither do I. Not quite. But you were there.”
“I was in the downstairs foyer on Saturday night for a minute or two,” she said loudly. “As I told the Superintendent.”
“Yeah, I know you were,” Trevor said. “But where was I?”
“You didn’t see me. You weren’t there. Don’t worry about it.”
“I was. I was.”
“I’d better go,” she said and rose.
“No,” Trevor almost shouted. He brought his small fist down on the bed-tray and Jeremy’s microcosms fell on their faces. “No! You’ve got to stay till I remember.”
“I think you should stay, Miss Bracey,” Alleyn said. “Really.”
She backed away from the bed. Trevor gave a little cry. “There!” he said. “That’s it. That’s what you did. And you were looking up—at him. Looking up and backing away and kind of blubbing.”
“Trevor, be quiet. Be quiet. You don’t know. You’ve forgotten.”
“Like what you’re always doing. Miss Bracey. Chasing him. That’s right, isn’t it, Miss Bracey? Tagging old Harry. You’d come out of the downstairs lav and you looked up and saw him. And then the office door opened and it was Mr. Meyer and Mr. Knight and you done—you did a quick scarper, Miss Bracey. And so did I! Back into the circle, smartly. I got it, now,” Trevor said with infinite satisfaction. “I got it.”
“How,” Alleyn said, “did you know who he was? It must have been dark up there.”
“Him? Harry? By his flash coat. Cripey, what a dazzler!”
“It’s not true,” she gabbled and stumbled across the room. She pawed at Alleyn’s coat “It’s not true. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. It wasn’t Harry. Don’t listen. I swear it wasn’t Harry.”
“You’re quite right,” Alleyn said. “You thought it was Harry Grove but it was Jobbins you saw on the landing. Grove had given Jobbins his overcoat.”
Her hands continued for a second or two to scrabble at his coat and then fell away. She looked into his face and her own crumpled into a weeping mask.
Alleyn said: “You’ve been having a bad time. An awful time. But it will ease up. It won’t always be as bad as this.”
“Let me go. Please let me go.”
“Yes,” he said. “You may go now.”
And when she had gone, blowing her nose, squaring her shoulders and making, instinctively he supposed, quite an exit, he turned to Trevor and found him, with every sign of gratification, deep in his comics.
“Do I have to see the others?” he asked. “It’s getting a bit of a drag.”
“Are you tired?”
“No. I’m reading.” His eye lit on Gertrude Bracey’s parcel. “Might as well look it over,” he said and unwrapped a tie. “Where’d she dig that up?” he wondered and returned to his comic.
“You are a young toad, aren’t you?” Alleyn remarked. “How old are you, in Heaven’s name?”
“Eleven and three months,” Trevor said. He was helping himself to a crystallized plum.
A slight rumpus broke out in the passage. Peregrine put his head round the door. “Marco and Harry are both here,” he said and cast up his eyes.
When Alleyn joined him at the door he muttered: “Marco won’t wait. He didn’t want to come. And Harry says he got here first. He’s up to his usual game,” Peregrine said. “Knight-baiting.”
“Tell him to shut up and wait or I’ll run him in.”
“I wish to Heaven you would, at that.”
“Ask Knight to come along.”
“Yes. All right”
“No sign of Conducis as yet?”
“No.”
When Marcus Knight came in he did not exhibit his usual signs of emotional disturbance: the flashing eye, the empurpled cheek, the throbbing pulse and the ringing tone. On the contrary he was pale and as near to being subdued, Alleyn felt, as he could be. He laid his offering upon the now filled-to-capacity bed-tray. Fruit: in season and a gilded basket. He brusquely ran his fingers through Trevor’s curls and Trevor immediately responded with a look that successfully combined young Hamnet and Paul Dombey.
“Oh Mr. Knight,” he said, “You honestly shouldn’t. You are kind. Grapes! How fab!”
A rather stilted bedside conversation followed, during which Knight gave at least half his uneasy attention to Alleyn. Presently Trevor complained that he had slipped down in his bed and asked his illustrious guest to help him up. When Knight with an ill-grace bent over him, Trevor gazed admiringly into his face and wreathed his arms round his neck. “Just like the end of Act I come true,” he said, “isn’t it, Mr. Knight? I ought to be wearing the glove.”
Knight hurriedly extricated himself. A look of doubt crossed Trevor’s face. “The glove,” he repeated. “There’s something about the real one—Isn’t there? Something?”
Knight looked a question at Alleyn, who said: “Trevor doesn’t recall the latter part of his adventures in the theatre on Saturday night I think Jay has explained that we hope one of you may help to restore his memory.”
�
��I am remembering more,” Trevor said importantly. “I remember hearing Mr. Knight in the office with Mr. Meyer.”
Marcus Knight stiffened. “I believe you are aware, Alleyn, that I left with Meyer at about eleven.”
“He has told us so,” Alleyn said.
“Very well,” Knight stood over Trevor and imposed upon himself, evidently with difficulty, an air of sweet reasonableness. “If,” he said, “dear boy, you were spying about in front while I was with Mr. Meyer in his office, and if you heard our voices, you doubtless also saw us leave the theatre.”
Trevor nodded.
“Precisely,” Knight said and spread his hands at Alleyn.
“People come back,” said the treble voice. Alleyn turned to find Trevor, the picture of puzzled innocence, frowning, his fingers at his lips.
“What the hell do you mean by that!” Knight ejaculated.
“It’s part of what I can’t remember. Somebody came back.”
“I really cannot imagine, Alleyn—” Knight began.
“I-don’t-think-I-want-to-remember.”
“There you are, you see. This is infamous. The boy will be harmed. I absolutely refuse to take part in a dangerous and unwarranted experiment. Don’t worry yourself, boy. You are perfectly right. Don’t try to remember.”
“Why?”
“Because I tell you,” Knight roared and strode to the door. Here he paused. “I am an artist,” he said, suddenly adopting a muted voice that was rather more awful than a piercing scream. “In eight hours’ time I appear before the public in a most exhausting role. Moreover I shall be saddled throughout a poignant, delicate and exacting scene with the incompetence of some revolting child-actor of whose excesses I am as yet ignorant. My nerves have been exacerbated. For the past forty-eight hours I have suffered the torments of hell. Slighted. Betrayed. Derided. Threatened. And now—this ludicrous, useless and important summons by the police. Very well, Superintendent Alleyn. There shall be no more of it. I shall lodge a formal complaint. In the meantime—Goodbye.”
The door was opened with violence and shut—not slammed—with well-judged temperance.
“Lovely eggzit,” said Trevor, yawning and reading his comic.
From outside in the corridor came the sound of applause, an oath, and rapidly retreating footsteps.
Alleyn reopened the door to disclose Harry Grove, gently clapping his hands, and Marcus Knight striding down the corridor.
Harry said, “Isn’t he superb? Honestly, you have to hand it to him.” He drew a parcel from his pocket. “Baby roulette,” he said. “Trevor can work out systems. It is true that this is a sort of identification parade?”
“You could put it like that I suppose,” Alleyn agreed.
“Do you mean,” Hairy said, changing colour, “that this unfortunate but nauseating little boy may suddenly point his finger at one of us and enunciate in ringing tones: ‘It all comes back to me. He dunnit’ ”
“That, roughly, is the idea.”
“Then I freely confess it terrifies me.”
“Come inside and get it over.”
“Very well. But I’d have you know that he’s quite capable of putting on a false show of recovery smartly followed up by a still falser accusation. Particularly,” Harry said grimly, “in my case when he knows the act would draw loud cheers and much laughter from all hands and the cook.”
“We’ll have to risk it. In you go.”
Alleyn opened the door and followed Harry into the room.
Trevor had slithered down again in his bed and had dropped off into a convalescent cat-nap. Harry stopped short and stared at him.
“He looks,” he whispered, “as if he was quite a nice little boy, doesn’t he? You’d say butter wouldn’t melt. Is he really asleep or is it an act?”
“He dozes. If you just lean over him he’ll wake.”
“It seems a damn shame, I must say.”
“All the same I’ll ask you to do it, if you will. There’s a bruise on the cheekbone that mystifies us all. I wonder if you’ve any ideas. Have a look at it.”
A trolley jingled past the door and down the corridor. Outside on the river a barge hooted. Against the multiple, shapeless voice of London, Big Ben struck one o’clock.
Harry put his parcel on the tray.
“Look at the bruise on his face. His hair’s fallen across it. Move his hair back and look.”
Harry stooped over the boy and put out his left hand.
From behind the screen in the corner there rang out a single, plangent note. “Twang.”
Trevor opened his eyes, looked into Harry’s face and screamed.
ELEVEN
The Show Will Go On
Harry Grove had given no trouble. When Trevor screamed he stepped back from him. He was sheet-white but he achieved a kind of smile.
“No doubt,” he had said to Alleyn, “you will now issue the usual warning and invite me to accompany you to the nearest police station. May I suggest that Perry should be informed. He’ll want to get hold of my understudy.”
And as this was the normal procedure it had been carried out.
So now, at Alleyn’s suggestion, they had returned, not to the Yard but to The Dolphin. Here for the first time Mr. Conducis kept company with the actors that he employed. They sat round the circle foyer while, down below, the public began to cue up for the early doors.
Peregrine had called Harry Grove’s understudy and he and the new child-actor were being rehearsed behind the fire curtain by the stage-director.
“I think,” Alleyn said, “it is only fair to give you all some explanation since each of you has to some extent been involved. These, as I believe, are the facts about Saturday night. I may say that Hartly Grove has admitted to them in substance.
“Grove left the theatre with Miss Meade and her party, saying he would go to Canonbury and pick up his guitar. He had in fact brought his guitar to the theatre and had hidden it in a broom cupboard in the Property Room where it was found, in the course of his illicit explorations, by Trevor. Grove got into his open sports car, drove round the block and parked the car in Phipps Passage. He re-entered the theatre by the pass-door while Mr. Meyer and Mr. Knight were in the office. He may have been seen by Jobbins, who would think nothing of it as Grove was in the habit of coming round for messages. He was not seen by Miss Bracey who mistook Jobbins for him because of the coat.
“Grove remained hidden throughout the rumpus about Trevor until, as he thought, the theatre was deserted except for Jobbins. At eleven o’clock he dialled his own number and let it ring just long enough for his wakeful neighbour to hear it and suppose it had been answered.
“It must have given him a shock when he heard Trevor, in the course of his fooling, pluck the guitar string. It was that scrap of evidence, by the way, when you remembered it, Jay, that set me wondering if Grove had left his instrument in the theatre and not gone to Canonbury. A moment later he heard the stage-door slam and thought, as Mr. Jay and Miss Dunne and Jobbins did, that Trevor had gone. But Trevor had sneaked back and was himself hiding and dodging about the auditorium. He saw Miss Bracey during his activities. Later, he tells us, he caught sight of Harry Grove and began to stalk him like one of his comic-strip heroes. We have the odd picture of Grove stealing to the broom-cupboard to collect his guitar, flitting like a shadow down a side passage, leaving the instrument ready to hand near the front foyer. Inadvertently, perhaps, causing it to emit that twanging sound.”
Peregrine gave a short ejaculation but when Alleyn looked at him said: “No. Go on. Go on.”
“Having dumped the guitar Grove returned to the stairway from the stage to the circle, climbed it and waited for midnight in the upper box. And, throughout this performance, Trevor peeped, followed, listened, spied.
“At midnight Jobbins left his post under the treasure and went downstairs to ring Police and Fire. Grove darted to the wall panel, opened it, used his torch and manipulated the combination. There had been a lot of talk about the
lock after the safe was installed and before the treasure was put into it. At that time it was not guarded and I think he may have done a bit of experimenting, after hours, on the possible ‘glove’ combination.”
Winter Meyer knocked on his forehead and groaned. Marcus Knight said: “Oh God!”
“He opened the safe, removed the display-stand with its contents and I think only then realized he had engaged the switch that operates the front doors and the interior lighting. At that moment Trevor, who had stolen quite close (just as he did to me when I looked at the safe), said— It is his favourite noise at the moment— ‘Z-z-z-z-yock. Slash.’
“It must have given Grove a nightmarish jolt. He turned, saw the boy standing there in the darkened circle and bolted into the foyer clutching his loot. Only to find Jobbins rushing upstairs at him. He pushed the dolphin pedestal over and down. As Jobbins fell, Trevor came out of the circle and saw it all. Trevor is still not quite clear here but he thinks he screamed. He knows Grove made for him and he remembers plunging down the central steps in the circle. Grove caught him at the bottom. Trevor says—and this may be true—that he snatched the display-stand and threw it overboard before Grove could recover it. The last thing he remembers now is Grove’s face close to his own. It was the sight of it this morning, near to him, in association with the single twang effected by my colleague, Inspector Fox, who was modestly concealed behind a screen, that bridged the gap in Trevor’s memory.”
“A faint perfume,” Peregrine said loudly, “and a most melodious twang.”
“That’s Aubrey, isn’t it?” Alleyn asked. “But shouldn’t it be a curious perfume? Or not?”
Peregrine stared at him. “It is,” he said, “and it should. You’re dead right and why the hell it’s eluded me I cannot imagine. I heard it, you know, when Jobbins was hunting the boy.”
Emily said: “And, of course, it’s a single plangent note that brings down the curtain on The Cherry Orchard.”
“You see, Emily?” said Peregrine.
“I see,” she said.
“What the hell is all this?” Knight asked plaintively.