Pageant of Murder (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “So what it all boils down to is that everybody in the cast except the two women has a watertight alibi, but only if the murder was committed during the interval. If it was committed before the interval…”

  “It wasn’t committed during the interval, Laura. The police have taken dozens of statements—everybody backstage has been interviewed, even the Tots—and, but for Falstaff himself, there isn’t one single, solitary person, man, woman, or child, who was alone for an instant during the interval except under the usual, unavoidable circumstances—and even then there was a queue, the Town Hall facilities being limited. There’s no doubt whatever that Falstaff was killed either before the interval or else he was spirited away—which doesn’t seem likely—and was killed when the show was over and everybody had gone home.”

  “Do the police still suspect Gordon and Spey?”

  “As we think it was done before the interval, yes, but, of course, Spey is out of the picture, in one sense, now that he’s dead. Remains Gordon. The only other solution…”

  “Is that an outsider saw Spey and Gordon nip over to the pub as soon as they had carted Falstaff off the stage…”

  “And got in by the side door, stabbed Falstaff, and plonked the body and then the basket in the Thames. Yes. The only snag there is the Yale lock, unless the murderer had already concealed himself on the premises or had a key to the side door.”

  “Yes, of course. But what did he stab him with?—not that it requires much thinking out.”

  “Exactly. What did he stab him with? And, as you suggest, there’s an obvious answer. Two real swords must have been borrowed and only one accounted for. The murderer did the borrowing and hung on to the extra sword. Our lads have been to Squire’s Acre and interviewed the Colonel and his lady and also the nephew who lives with them at the Hall, and have closely inspected their armoury. The answer’s a lemon, so you’d better see what Kitty can dredge up. Instruct her to put her subconscious mind to work. It’s possible that something may come to the surface. Motive is what we’re after.”

  “Right. Well, now, what about Henry VIII? Anything—any pointer there?”

  “Well, the police have had a go at his wife, poor woman. What with spending weeks nursing a sick mother and now the shock of Spey’s death, she’s in a pretty poor way. She is certain her husband had no enemies. She thinks he was killed by a madman and has asked the police to keep a watch on her house. She’s run down, grief-stricken, and terrified. I’m sure she’s got nothing helpful to tell us, so I’ve suggested that we ship her back to her mother’s house. She’ll feel safer there, and the old lady seems to have recovered from her illness, so I’m sure it’s the best thing to do. The doctor wouldn’t hear of our showing her Spey’s body, so, as it was quite easy to get it identified by three independent witnesses, we conceded the point, and I’m jolly glad we were able to.”

  “Is there any indication of where the murder and the decapitation of Spey took place?” Dame Beatrice enquired.

  “Nothing at all, so far, except in the negative sense that neither took place in the ducal back-lane where the body was found. The neighbours think they heard Spey go out on that Friday night, but he often did while his wife was away, so they thought nothing of it and didn’t even notice the time.”

  “So they would not be able to tell you whether he was carrying a suitcase,” said Dame Beatrice.

  “A suitcase? Oh, you mean for the fancy dress outfit he had on when he was killed.”

  “Yes. It might have occasioned no surprise to passers-by to see a protagonist strolling about in period costume on the night of the pageant, but, on a normal Friday evening, the spectacle of Henry VIII striding along Brayne high street would have occasioned remark, one would suppose.”

  “You’re right. The point about the suitcase is a good one. I’ll put the lads on to it. I wish the neighbours would pin down the time for us, though.”

  “I doubt very much whether they did hear him go out on that particular evening.”

  “You mean that, in view of the fact that the charwoman’s note was still open on the kitchen table when Gordon and Kitty’s nephew went into the house, the inference is that Spey went straight off somewhere after school and did not enter his house on the Friday evening at all?”

  “It seems to me quite possible.”

  “So it does to me, but that means he must have taken the Henry VIII outfit with him to school on the Friday morning. The school has scarcely come into the enquiry as yet. We’d better have a detective go round and interview the headmistress, unless—no, I’ll tell you what! I wonder whether you and Laura would undertake that bit of investigation for us? A couple of women visitors in and around a school invite no speculation or comment, whereas a couple of Brayne policeman, even in mufti, would almost invariably be noticed. Could you do that for us, do you think?”

  “Certainly,” Dame Beatrice agreed. “All we shall establish is that Spey had a suitcase with him when he arrived at school in the morning.”

  “In the morning? Oh, yes, of course, it was one of his days for having sandwiches at the pub. You might be able to find out whether he accounted for the suitcase in any way.”

  “He would give a simple and obvious reason for taking it to school.”

  “Going to spend the weekend with his wife and her mother. Yes. Hm! That won’t get us much farther.”

  “Why wouldn’t he have said he was going to have his photograph taken in the Henry VIII costume?” demanded Laura.

  “He’d have been hooted out of the Staff-room, I should think,” her husband replied.

  “That’s a pity, because, if he’d come clean about the photograph, he might also have said where he was going to have it taken.”

  “True. Oh, well, if you and Dame Beatrice are willing to have a go at the school, I’ll be very much obliged.”

  * * *

  There was nothing to be gained at the school except the information that Spey had had a suitcase with him when he turned up on the Friday morning. No questions had been asked by his colleagues about this, and no information had been volunteered by Spey. It was assumed by Gordon, in common with others, that Spey proposed to spend the weekend with his wife and her sick mother, and that this accounted for the suitcase. He repeated his former theory, however, that Spey had retained the Henry VIII costume in order to be photographed in it.

  On the following day Laura went along to see Kitty.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Mistress Ford and Mistress Page

  “The Butts Common was frequently used for sports of this description.”

  “So that’s it, Dog, is it?” asked Kitty earnestly. They were just finishing lunch at Kitty’s Knightsbridge flat.

  “So that’s it,” Laura agreed. “And now, old school friend and college chum, what about it?”

  “What about what?”

  “Who did in those two blighters, and why?”

  “You shouldn’t call them blighters, Dog.”

  “Oh, yes, I should. I’ve just been reading a book [A Calendar of Murder—Criminal Homicide in England since 1957—Terence Morris and Louis Blom-Cooper.] about all this. The victim almost always contributes to his own death. It’s all rot to think that the victim is always innocent. Unless the killer is a madman, the victim is as guilty as the chap who killed him. Look at Neary and Howard.”

  “How can I, Dog? I didn’t know either of them.”

  “Be yourself,” said Laura, sternly. “What was it about this Falstaff and this Henry VIII that should have made some person or persons (unknown) decide to murder them?”

  “But, Dog, how on earth should I know?”

  “Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood. You must have seen something, or heard something…Think! Bend the brain!”

  “Look, Dog, I didn’t see or hear a thing. I grant you there was the usual give and take in that drama club, but there was nothing that could possibly lead to murder. You’ve got a bee in your bonnet, as usual.”

  “I neve
r have a bee in my bonnet. I see things steadily and I see them whole.”

  “But you don’t, Dog. You’re too imaginative. Now I,” said Kitty smugly, “am a practical working woman.”

  “Granted. Now tell me what you suspect. I shan’t do anything about it. I shall simply refer it to Mrs. Croc., so be of good cheer, brave heart.”

  “That’s all very well, Dog, but you can’t just count on a hunch.”

  “Why not? I always do. What hunch did you have?”

  “Well, I’m not exaggerating, Dog, when I tell you that I always had a feeling.”

  “What sort of feeling?”

  “I’ve told you before. I never have liked the idea of this pageant. I don’t really know why I took it on. I was talked into it by Julian. He said it was my bounden duty. Well, you know how it is, Dog. You’re sitting pretty, minding your own business, and raking in a certain amount of well-earned cash, and then comes along some persuasive nephew and tells you there are people worse off than yourself, which of course, you readily agree that there are—most of them their own fault, but some of them not—and he talks you into doing something about it, which you don’t want to do, and can’t do, anyway, not to your own satisfaction, and where does it get you?”

  “Into producing a pageant, but where’s this leading us?”

  “Into these murders, of course. Where did you think I was leading you?”

  “I don’t know. Carry on, then. Let’s have it all.”

  “Don’t rush me, Dog. My mills grind slowly…”

  “Well, but do they have to grind so exceedingly small?”

  “You wouldn’t know it, Dog, but that remark is blasphemous.”

  “And this from the woman who thought Saint Lawrence was a former parish priest of Brayne?”

  “Well, I still don’t see why he shouldn’t have been,” said Kitty, sturdily. “Anyway, back to what I was saying.”

  “And that was?”

  “These rows, Dog. Oh, nothing that could possibly lead to murder, as I’ve already said, but, well, there were difficulties.”

  “How, exactly? And what kind of difficulties? Be specific, dear heart.”

  “Well, there was this row about Falstaff.”

  “Oh, there was, was there? What was the trouble? Everybody wanted the part?”

  “No, that’s just it. Nobody wanted the part. They all saw themselves as Romeo, or Henry V, or something. Nobody wanted to be a fat old knight in a basket of stinking washing. Not that the drama club let it stink, of course.”

  “Why on earth did they fix on The Merry Wives, if nobody wanted to play Falstaff?—not that I believe it!”

  “It seems there were wheels within wheels.”

  “There always are, in these local affairs. Be explicit.”

  “But I am, Dog. I’m telling you as fast as I can. It was only at secondhand I got it, of course. It was all signed, sealed, and settled by the time I came on the scene, so there was nothing on earth I could do about it. So far as I can make out, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page were the trouble. You see, they knew the parts they wanted, so they were at the back of this Merry Wives business. There doesn’t seem much doubt about that.”

  “They were responsible for the choice of play, were they?”

  “Well, I imagine so. You see, they were much too old to play Juliet—and that would only be one of them, anyway. And it takes someone like Dame Edith Evans to get away with the part of Juliet’s nurse. So Romeo and Juliet was out of it. As for Henry V, well, there again, you see, things sprang a leak.”

  “As how?”

  “Well, these two women, as you could see for yourself, are all of forty summers, and, even if they weren’t, only one of them could play Katherine.”

  “There’s the Queen of France.”

  “If you think one of those two would agree to play the part of the other one’s mother…!”

  “What about Mistress Quickly?”

  “Really, Dog!”

  “Well, she gets a marvellous speech anent the death of Falstaff. Anyway, go on about the casting. Did those two pick the men? You seem to think they did.”

  “You’d have to ask them. Their names are Brenda Gough and Dorothy Collis. The husband Gough doesn’t belong to the drama club. The husband Collis had the part of Page.”

  “I’d better ring them up. What are the Collis initials?”

  “P.E.”

  “Right. Thanks. I’ll do both the women before I tackle anything else. I wonder what’s the best excuse for trying to get in touch?”

  “Ask about joining the club. After all, you live in Kensington some of the time, and that isn’t such a long way from Brayne. Oh, and you can spread yourself on how much you admired their acting.”

  “The recording angel wouldn’t like that very much, and, anyway, I don’t think I’ll suggest that I’d like to join the club. I know these enthusiastic amateurs. Before you know where you are, you find you’ve paid the subscription and signed on the dotted line, and are let in for shifting the scenery. Never mind, I’ll think up some way of obtaining speech with them. Which shall I tackle first?”

  “Well, Brenda Gough giggles and Dorothy Collis moans.”

  “So you pays your money and you takes your choice. I’ll have a shot at Mrs. Collis. You get on to her and introduce me.”

  “As what?”

  “A serious student of the drama, of course. Ask her when she will be at liberty, and tell her I’ve got a wonderful idea for a five-act tragedy in blank verse.”

  “Oh, Dog! You haven’t, have you?”

  “No, but I can easily get hold of one, if necessary. Any respectable literary agent must get dozens of the things sent in. Hope springs eternal in a playwright’s breast. In any case, I can think out a basic plot while I’m on my way to see her—that’s if she’ll have me. What does she moan about?”

  “You’ll know when you get there, Dog. The difficulty would be to tell you what she doesn’t moan about. Oh, well, if you’re set on it, here goes.”

  Laura listened respectfully to Kitty’s professional “telephone voice,” and, having heard it, she was not in the least surprised when Kitty replaced the receiver and announced, with a sunny smile, that Mrs. Collis would be delighted to entertain Mrs. Gavin and Mrs. Trevelyan-Twigg to afternoon tea at four o’clock, if that would be convenient.

  It proved that Mrs. Collis lived in a pleasant little cul-de-sac not very far from Squire’s Acre. She greeted her visitors with enthusiasm, led them into a well-furnished drawing-room and introduced to them her friend Mrs. Gough. Laura was both surprised and delighted. “Two birds with one stone,” she signalled to Kitty, in the (except to initiates) almost indecipherable code of Cartaret Training College for Teachers. Kitty raised iconoclastic eyebrows, but this gesture merely increased Laura’s determination (as she expressed it later) of batting on a far from sticky wicket.

  Tea was brought in by an expansive and semi-capable Mrs. Mopp, and, over the teacups, buttered scones, thin bread-and-butter, jam, fish paste, layer cake, Dundee cake, and chocolate biscuits, conversation flourished. There was no need of Laura’s well-planned schemes for introducing the object of her visit, for Mrs. Gough, passing her cup for a second instalment of tea, remarked,

  “Didn’t I see you in front with Mrs. Trevelyan-Twigg when we did our scene from Shakespeare?”

  “Yes, you did,” Laura replied. “Personally, when I’m on the stage (which isn’t often), I can’t distinguish anybody in the audience at all. How do you manage it?”

  “Oh, it’s quite easy, especially in the Town Hall. The stage lighting is thoroughly weak, so that it doesn’t blind you, and, in any case, I always look out for my husband.”

  “Oh, yes. Your husband is not a member of the drama club, I believe?”

  Mrs. Gough laughed happily. It would be unfair to class it as giggling, Laura thought.

  “Trevor? He lives to play golf and to work in the garden. The Muses are not for him, poor man. He has no feeling whatev
er for the arts. I took him once to a Picasso exhibition, but I had to warn him that I didn’t want any funny remarks. He did point out what he insisted on calling Pop-Eye the Sailor, and, of course, the Fish Hat, but we got out of the place without being lynched, which was something, I suppose.”

  Laura’s heart began to warm towards Mrs. Gough. Kitty, she felt, had misrepresented her.

  “Talking of lynching,” she said, “is there any known reason why the poor little chap who played Falstaff was done in on the night of the pageant?—apart from the alleged horseplay, I mean.”

  “We’ve worried and worried about it,” said Mrs. Collis. “We’ve all been given a most horrible time. The police, you know. They now seem to think that, because two of our members have been murdered, the guilty person must be one of us, but, Henry VIII or no Henry VIII, I don’t concede that for one moment. As for the horseplay, that’s nonsense. Nobody in the club would be such a fool.”

  “I suppose you can’t think of anybody from outside who doesn’t like the club very much, and who would be glad to know that your members were having a bad time?”

  “Yes, there’s your husband, Brenda, isn’t there?” said Mrs. Collis nastily. “He hates you to come to rehearsals and to hear you read your part. You’ve often told me about it.”

  Brenda Gough laughed, but not in her former pleasant fashion.

  “Poor old boy!” she said. “Yes, he does kick up a shindy sometimes, but I can’t imagine him killing poor little Luton. Besides, if he had, he would have told me long before now. Anyhow, what about your own husband? Didn’t he want to do the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, or something else utterly unsuited to his age and appearance?” At the end of this question came the giggle prophesied by Kitty.