Quick Curtain

by Alan Melville

  “Yes, madam,” said the proprietress. “I’ll tell Willie to bring the drink up to your room.”

  “Oh, never mind,” said the leading lady, changing her mind as leading and other types of ladies will. “I’ll go down and get it myself. Don’t you forget that taxi now. Two p.m. on the dot. And choose one with a cushion. It’s got to take me all the way back to London.”

  “Mr. Wright and you leaving, madame?” asked the proprietress.

  “I’m leaving,” said the lady at the doorway. “Mr. Wright can stay here and rot for all I care. But I’m going back to London just as soon as I’ve got my scanties packed. And that’s that.”

  And that, apparently, was that, for the hair, eyes, nose and lips withdrew and the commercial-room door shut with a slam that very nearly wakened Willie the oaf in the bar parlour below in time to have Miss Astle’s drink ready before she asked for it.

  “Not the usual type of visitor we get here, Mr. Wilson,” said the proprietress apologetically.

  “Do you know who that was?” demanded Derek.

  “Yes, sir. A Mrs. Wright. Her husband comes here quite a bit, but it’s the first time she’s been here. And he’s such a nice, quiet—”

  “Mrs. Wright my Great-aunt Maggie,” said Derek. “That hennaed hussy was Gwen Astle, the musical-comedy star.”

  “Oh no, sir,” said the proprietress. “You’re mistaken, I’m sure, sir. I’ve never seen Gwen Astle on the stage, but I’ve seen her pictures in the papers many a time, and that’s not her, sir. Why, she’s real pretty—Gwen Astle, I mean, sir.”

  “Did you ever see a photograph of an actress that was anything like the original? If that isn’t Gwendoline Astle then I’m Nazi and you’re a Storm Trooper.”

  “I’m sure you’re wrong, sir. That woman’s not a bit—”

  “What’s the man like who’s with her?” said Derek.

  “Mr. Wright, sir?”

  “Mr. Wright, if you like it that way.”

  “Quite young, sir. Tall and thin. Good-looking, in a way, sir. And travelled, sir, to judge from all the labels on his suitcase. Well dressed, sir. Nice grey double breasted suit—”

  “Light-grey overcoat and black felt hat?”

  “Yes, sir. I think so, sir. How did you know that?”

  “Saw them hanging in the hall downstairs,” said Derek. “Right, Mrs. Baker, I mustn’t keep you any longer. Thanks very much for telling me what you did.”

  “That’s the first time I’ve been called Mrs. Baker for ten years, I think,” said the proprietress. “My, it did sound queer. And you won’t put anything in the newspapers, sir, will you?”

  “I promise,” said Derek. “You’re the first actress or ex-actress who has uttered such an extraordinary statement, but I promise not to. Cheerio.”

  “Good morning, sir,” said the proprietress, and roused the vacuum once again into a pitch of excitement.

  Outside the door, Derek collided with Willie the oaf.

  “’Nuther tellygram, sir,” said Willie.

  Sorry hear aches mattress grapefruit try pumping proprietress any signs Belshazzar Salome Dad

  “Is that you, Willie?” said the proprietress, peeping her head out of the commercial-room door.

  “Yes, mum. Tellygram for the gent, mum,” said Willie.

  “Go round to Thompson’s and order a taxi for two o’clock. It’s to take Mrs. Wright to London.”

  “Can’t, mum. She’s down in the bar mopping ’em up fast as I can turn ’em out. I’ll send Jackie, mum.”

  The oaf shambled off downstairs. Derek put telegram (ii) in his pocket, where there would be no chance of anyone reading the words “try pumping proprietress”. He did not approve of pumping people, especially when the pumping was as easy and as successful as had been the case this morning. “Any signs Belshazzar Salome?” Signs of Salome, anyway. And if he didn’t hustle and send off telegram (iii) the signs would have vanished in the direction of London. And ten to one Belshazzar too. Derek set off downstairs. He had gone half-way down when he turned suddenly, ran back to the top landing, and opened the door of No. 8 bedroom.

  “What the hell do you want?” asked Ivor Watcyns, sitting on the edge of his bed pulling on a rather gay silk sock.

  “I’m sorry,” said Derek, in what he hoped was a hiking accent. “Isn’t this Number…oh no, neither it is…I say, I am sorry…I’d no idea.…Mine’s across the landing.…I am sorry.…Good morning.”

  “Good morning,” said Mr. Watcyns viciously.

  Splendid. Both Belshazzar and Salome on the premises. Salome leaving for town at two o’clock. Belshazzar presumably staying on. Cue for telegram (iii).

  Miss Prune recognized him with a slightly nervous smile. “Proprietress gives many interesting saidelaights,” she read, “Nebuchadnezzar’s praivate laife.…Nebuchadnezzar’s praivaite laife, sir?…”

  “That’s right,” said Derek. “The same chap as before. Nebuchadnezzar. Neb. to you. Carry on, brightness.”

  “Praivaite laife,” Miss Prune carried on. “Henry Eighth…words or figures for thet, sir?”

  “Figures, I think,” said Derek. “He would have liked it that way, don’t you think?”

  “Pardon?” said Miss Prune.

  “I mean he was rather hot on figures, wasn’t he?”

  “Pardon?” said Miss Prune.

  “Never mind,” said Derek. “Don’t worry. It doesn’t matter. Put it in words.”

  “Quaite, sir,” said Miss Prune. “Henry Eighth femily men in comperison Belshezzar Selome both here but Selome returning London this aefternoon send ten quid incidental expenses beer excellent Derek.…Three-and-a-penny, if you please, sir.”

  “Three-and-a-penny? There’s three-and-six. Give me the Daily Gazette, will you?”

  “Certainly, sir. Fourpence change, sir. Good morning.”

  “Good morning,” said Derek and negotiated himself past a barrel of apples and a rack of Local Views and out into the street.

  Left alone, Miss Prune decided it was neither blasphemy nor high spirits, but just sheer common or garden lunacy. Extremely good for business, all the same. There hadn’t been two telegrams of over a shilling sent from Craile Post Office in the same day since that time when the Colonel’s steward wired the Colonel about the Colonel’s cattle having anthrax.

  Derek sauntered back to the “Craile Arms” and ordered a pint from William. Expressing the opinion that it was rather stuffy in here, and that he would prefer to drink his beer outside if William had no objections, Derek left the bar parlour and parked tankard and self on the wooden bench which ran outside the front of the hotel. He was flanked on either side by two local gentlemen who were obviously rivals for the honour of being Craile’s Oldest Inhabitant. Derek was not particularly interested in the conversation of these two lads, which seemed to run on two tracks only: (a) that Lunnon must Be a Rare Place and No Mistake, and (b) that Them There Motor-Cars were Fair Stomach-Turning and No Mistake. Nor was he really anxious to sit beside the “Craile Arms” while he wrapped himself around his beer, for the wind was chilly and the wooden bench exceedingly hard.

  The real reason for sitting on this uncomfortable bench, drinking beer in the presence of a couple of centenarians, was that Derek wished to have a ringside seat from which to view the departure to London of Miss Astle, alias Mrs. Wright. At what the wireless people tried to make us call thirteen-forty-five, he began to realize that something had gone wrong with the arranged departure. Either Miss Astle had changed her mind again. Or Mr. Watcyns had changed it for her. Or the taxi had developed carburettor trouble before reaching the hotel. Or the exit had been made by the back of the hotel. Or something. Derek got up, assured the two centenarians once and for all that London was one of the dullest spots on earth and that the motor-car was one of the most praiseworthy inventions of modern civilization, bade them a
polite good-day, and went to seek out the proprietress. He found her in the hotel kitchen, in a thick haze which smelt strongly of both tomato soup and steak and onions.

  “What’s happened to Gwe—to the lady in Number eight?” he asked. “She doesn’t seem to have left as she arranged.”

  “No, sir,” said the proprietress. “She’s not going now, sir. Mr. Wright came down and got her out of the bar and took her upstairs. An awful scene they made, sir. Locked her in the bedroom, and her screaming fit to wake the dead, sir, so Matilda here tells me.”

  “Fit to wake the dead, sir,” corroborated Matilda, appearing gradually through the soup haze. “He’s a-beating of her, sir, that’s what he’s doing, sir. It made my blood run cold, sir, so help me Gawd if it didn’t.”

  Derek, having pushed away as much of the atmosphere as possible with a wave of his hand, decided—on inspecting Matilda—that her blood had probably seldom run very hot and that she might be a good teller of tales but a bad relater of facts.

  He went into the dining-room and had lunch. Tomato soup (canned). Steak and onions or cold roast and beetroot. Pears (tinned) and cream (canned). After a spot of bother through asking for black coffee (an unheard of commodity in the village of Craile), he trotted back to the post office to seek out the Prune for telegram (iv). As you already know, the Prune was not to be found, being away at the Church Hall for the midweek meeting of the Dorcas Society and very busy indeed, putting elastic in a pair of knickers destined eventually to cover part of a young lady in the Fu-Chow Mission Field.

  Apparently Miss Prune had not had time to instruct her younger sister in the strange ways of the young man who kept on sending Biblical telegrams to someone in London, for Derek had to start all over again at the beginning and spell Nebuchadnezzar to the younger Prune.

  “Two z’s,” said Derek patiently. “One for zebra. And then another one, just like the first, for Zam-buk. And after that it gets easy again. Z-z-a-r. Nebuchadnezzar. There.”

  “…Nebuchadnezzar’s death suggests search his flat, Derek,” said the younger Prune. “Two shillings and sevenpence, please, sir. Thank you. Good afternoon, sir.”

  “Good afternoon,” said Derek, wondering if there was any chance of Sir Kingsley Wood reintroducing the penny post as a result of all this sudden rush of business.

  From that moment on Derek behaved rather more like the hiker he appeared to be than the journalist son of a detective that he actually was. Roughly speaking, his time-table for the rest of the day ran something like this: 3 p.m., leave Miss Prune’s shop and visit Eliz. ruins; 3.30 p.m., sit down on Eliz. ruins and sleep; 5.15 p.m., return to “Craile Arms” for high tea (finnan haddock); 6.30 p.m., conversation in bar with William and two centenarians about the Battle of Waterloo and present state of potato crops; 8.45 p.m., supper; 9 p.m., witnessed departure of Mr. Watcyns and Miss Astle (or Mr. and Mrs. Wright) in high-powered car, presumably to London; 9.20 p.m., surprise return of Mr. Watcyns alone. Gathered from conversation in bar that Mr. Watcyns had put Miss Astle on the London train, but was himself staying on at Craile for some days; 9.30 p.m., rather dull symphony concert on wireless set in hotel lounge; 10.50 p.m., walk through village before turning in—somewhat surprised to notice Mr. Watcyns’ car standing alone and neglected at entrance to Craile Woods, a mile or so out of the village. And 11.45 p.m., contact with the barbed-wire mattress.

  A dull afternoon and evening, you say. And dull it certainly was compared with the evening put in by the chambermaid Matilda and her lover, Police-constable Lightfoot, of Aylesbury. First of all there was the business of Getting Out, this not being Matilda’s official night off and the missis being that strict about that kind of thing. The lavatory window and the co-operation of William had to be brought into use before the escape was successfully managed. Then there was the meeting. This took place by arrangement behind the larger of the Colonel’s two cowsheds, and lasted a little over an hour and a quarter. Police-constable Lightfoot was a slow mover in matters of the heartbeats, as well as ordinary beats. And then there was the question of Where To Go. Matilda, it seemed, favoured Craile Woods. And P. C. Lightfoot, it seemed, was all for the Eliz. ruins., it being rather damp underfoot. But Matilda won the night, saying that the ruins were far too bare and open and you never knew who would be coming on you suddenly, and anyway she felt like the woods to-night. So the woods it was. What these two young people did, or thought, or said is none of our business. Indeed, if you make it your business to be your business you would find it all extraordinarily dull. The main thing is that they enjoyed themselves.

  At ten to twelve Police-constable Lightfoot said, “Time we was getting along, love.” He had been saying this at intervals since about a quarter to eleven, but this time he apparently meant it. He pushed Matilda’s head from the position it had taken up round about the second and third buttons of his tunic, and he buttoned the top button, and straightened his hair, and found his helmet, and removed a slug from the lining of the helmet, and got up stiffly, shook himself, and pulled Matilda up after him. Matilda shook herself, and found her beret, and pulled it on, and powdered her nose, and pulled down her skirt, and put her arm round P. C. Lightfoot’s ample circumference, and together the love-birds set off on the homeward track, deciding to go back through the short cut by the side of the little brook which ended up by being a water-supply for the Colonel’s livestock. Because there was something about moonlight shining on the water (although the brook happened to be completely dried up at the moment), and, in any case, it took nearly a quarter of an hour longer if you went back to the village by the short-cut instead of by the ordinary path through the woods.

  On they went, then, in a completely satisfied silence. They had been meandering along for five minutes or so, when P. C. Lightfoot’s anything-but-light feet tripped over something at the side of the brook, and he thundered to earth like a ton of coals being shot down a chute. He brought Matilda down with him, and the pair of silly young asses lay for quite a time in the long grass giggling happily. And then P. C. Lightfoot picked himself and the future Mrs. P. C. Lightfoot up, and fumbled for his lantern, and switched it on to see whether it was a tree or a log or what that he had tripped over. And Matilda’s giggle changed suddenly to a high-pitched shriek that wakened a family of crows in the trees above and sent them cawing in a complaining and irritated manner. It was not a tree. Nor a log. It was the body of a dead woman.

  Chapter Ten

  Mr. Wilson, Senr., arrived in Craile by car at eleven-fifteen the following morning. Being July, precious little water had flowed under the inadequate little bridge which crossed the river at the entrance to the village. On the other hand a great deal of things had happened in the village itself. By eleven-fifteen Miss Prune was in a state of complete and utter collapse, being revived by smelling-salts in the back room of her shop. Having led a calm unruffled life for every morning of the past fifty-eight years, it had all been too much for Miss Prune. First of all the news of the Murder. Miss Twigg had brought that in a hazy version at first, when she looked in for lettuce at a quarter past nine. There had been a murder last night in Craile Woods. “Oh, good God!” Miss Prune said—the first time she had used the name of the Deity outside the scope of her work as a member of the church choir and a teacher of the Sunday-school infant class. But who? Or whom, or whatever it was? An Unknown Female, said Miss Twigg, and dashed off to ferret for further details, forgetting her lettuce in the heat of the excitement. Then there had been the vicar’s sister. But the vicar’s sister had been most disappointing, not knowing a thing about the Murder, not knowing even that such a thing had taken place, and merely expressing the opinion, when Miss Prune told her the news, that she hoped it was an ill-founded rumour, as it was things like that which gave the village a bad name. Miss Prune had been pretty peeved by the lack of interest shown by the vicar’s sister, had given her half a dozen of the doubtful eggs that she had intended sending back to Mr. Mitche
ll at the dairy, and a penny short in the change, and had bundled her out. And then, only ten minutes later, there had been the strange young man who was stopping at the hotel and who had kept on sending these weird telegrams full of people in the Old Testament.

  The strange young man hadn’t heard, either. In a way that was a disappointment to Miss Prune, although it was nice to be the first to break the news. Miss Prune, somehow, had been quite sure that the strange young man was mixed up somewhere in the business. In fact, she’d been rather surprised at seeing him bounce into the shop like that at all, for Miss Prune had inwardly put him down as the Man Who Did It, and had imagined him well away from Craile by this time and on board a ship on his way to the Continent.

  She would have to give evidence at the inquest, she supposed: “Yes, your Honour, or your Worship, or whatever it was, he came repeatedly into my shop and sent strange telegrams to an address in London. In code, I think they were. Yes, sir, raight from the start I was suspicious of him. He was dressed laike a haiker, but he didn’t talk the least bit laike one. I’ve hed a great deal of experience with haikers in my shop in the lest few years, and you cen’t deceive me.” Yes; at the inquest she would wear her navy-blue velour. (At the trial, if they got him…) But in bounced the strange young man at twenty to ten, looking really very nice and clean and attractive and not a bit like a murderer. So Miss Prune passed on the news, partly because that was what news was for, and partly to note his reactions (was that the right word?). He had, of course, heard about the dreadful affair last night? No?

  Well, they’ve found the body of an Unknown Female lying dead in the copse at the back of Craile Woods. And reaction? Wagon-loads of the stuff. The strange young man had stopped twiddling with the rack of Local Views, one penny each, and had stared at Miss Prune and shot out the word “Murder?” Yes, murder, Miss Prune had repeated. And then there had been a perfect salvo of questions flung over the counter at Miss Prune, to very few of which she knew the answer, but to all of which she managed somehow to reply.