You choose a name – and unless your audience is very patient, it had better be a short one – of some well-known character. Say, Job. Then you act in dumb show a character beginning with J, then one beginning with O, then one beginning with B. Then you act Job, and the spectators guess that Job is what you mean, and applaud kindly. That is all. Light-hearted people, with imagination, can get a lot of fun out of it.
Bob Lester was having a birthday party – his mother and sister and about twenty intimate friends squashed into the little flat at Hammersmith. Everybody was either a writer or a painter or an actor of sorts, or did something or the other quite entertaining for a living, and they were fairly well accustomed to amusing themselves with sing-songs and games. They could fool wittily and behave like children, and get merry on invisible quantities of claretcup, and they were all rather clever and all knew each other extremely well. Cyril Markham felt slightly out of it, though they were all exceedingly nice to him and tried to cheer him up. It was nearly six months since Jane had died, and though they all sympathised terribly with him for her loss (they had all loved Jane), he felt that he and they were, and ever would be, strangers and aliens to one another. Dear Jane. They had found it hard to forgive him for marrying her and taking her away to Cornwall. It was terrible that she should have died – only two years later – of gastroenteritis. Jane would have entered into all their jokes. She would have played absurd games with them and given an exquisite personal grace to the absurdest. Markham could never do that. He felt stiff, awkward, cruelly self-conscious. When Bob suggested ‘Nebuchadnezzar’, he courteously asked Markham to make one of his team of actors. Too kind, too kind. Markham said he preferred to look on, and Bob, sighing with relief, went on to pick up a side of trusted veterans.
The two front rooms of the flat had been thrown into one by the opening of the folding doors. Though it was November, the night was strangely close, and one of the three tall balconied windows overlooking the river had been thrown open. Across the smoke-filled room and over the heads of the guests, Markham could see the lights of the Surrey side dance in the river like tall Japanese lanterns. The smaller of the two rooms formed a stage for the players, and across the dividing doorway a pair of thick purple curtains had been hung. Outside, in the passage, the players scuffled backwards and forwards amid laughter. Waiting for the game to begin, Markham stared at the curtains. They were familiar. They were surely the curtains from his own Cornish cottage. Jane had hung them across the living room to screen off the dining part from the lounge part. How odd that Bob should have got them here. No, it wasn’t. Bob had given Jane her curtains for a wedding present, and this must be another pair. They were old ones, he knew. Damask of that quality wasn’t made today.
Bob drew back the curtains, thrust out a dishevelled head, announced ‘The Nebuchadnezzar has four letters’ and disappeared again. In the distance was heard a vigorous bumping, and a voice called out, ‘There’s a clothes line in the kitchen!’ Somebody standing near the door of the room switched off the lights, and the damask curtains were drawn aside for the acting of the first letter.
A Japanese screen at the back of the stage, above which appeared the head of Lavinia Forbes, elegantly attired in a silk scarf, bound round the forehead with a cricket belt, caused Mrs Lester, always precipitate, to exclaim, ‘Romeo and Juliet – balcony scene!’ Everybody said ‘Hush,’ and the supposed Juliet, producing from behind the screen a mirror and lipstick, proceeded to make up her face in a very lavish manner. In the middle of this, her attention appeared to be distracted by something in the distance. She leaned over the screen and pointed eagerly in the direction of the landing, whence, indeed, some remarkable noises were proceeding. To her, amid frenzied applause, entered, on hands and knees, the twins, Peter and Paul Barnaby, got up regardless of expense in fur coats worn with the hair outside, and champing furiously upon the clothes line. Attached to them by stout luggage straps was a basket chair, which, after ominous hesitation and creaking between the doorposts was propelled vigorously into the room by unseen hands, so that the charioteer – very gorgeous in scarlet dressinggown, striped sash and military sabre, with a large gravy strainer inverted upon his head – was nearly shot on to the backs of his steeds, and was heard to mutter an indignant ‘Steady on!’ through his forest of crêpe beard. The lady, from behind the screen, appeared to harangue the driver, who replied with a vulgar and regrettable gesture. A further brief exchange of pantomime led to the appearance of two stout parties in bath robes and turbans, who proceeded to hoist the lady bodily over the screen. Somebody said, ‘Look out!’, the screen rocked and was hastily held up by one of the horses, and the victim was deposited on the floor with a thud, and promptly died with a considerable amount of twitching and gasping. The charioteer cracked his umbrella across the backs of his horses and was drawn round the room and off again in a masterly manner. A loud barking from the wings heralded the arrival of three savage doormats, who, after snuffling a good deal over the corpse, started to devour it in large gulps as the curtain fell.
This spirited presentation was loudly cheered, and offered little difficulty to the spectators.
‘Jezebel, of course,’ said Tony Withers.
‘Or Jehu,’ said Miss Holroyd.
‘I do hope Lavvie wasn’t hurt,’ said Mrs Lester. ‘She came down an awful bump.’
‘Well, the first letter’s J, anyhow,’ said Patricia Martin. ‘I liked the furious driving.’
‘Bob looked simply marvellous,’ added Bice Taylor, who was sitting just behind Mrs Lester. Then, turning to Markham:
‘But one does so miss darling Jane. She loved acting and dressing up, didn’t she? She was the gayest wee bit of a thing.’
Markham nodded. Yes, Jane had always been an actress. And her gaiety had been somehow proof against the solitude of their cottage and his own morose temper. She always would sing as she went about the house, and it had got so terribly on his nerves that he had snarled at her. He had always wondered what she found to sing about. Until, of course, he had found those letters, and then he had known.
He wished he had not come to this party. He was out of place here, and Tom Deering knew it and was sneering at him. He could see Tom’s dark, sardonic face in the far corner against the door. He must be remembering things too, the sleek devil. Well he, Markham, had put a spoke in Deering’s wheel anyhow, that was one comfort.
In spite of the open window, the room was stifling. What did they need with that enormous fire? The blood was pumping violently through his brain – he felt as though the top of his head would lift off. There were far too many people for the place. And they made so much noise. Something fearfully elaborate must be in preparation, to judge by the long wait and the running of feet on the landing. This was a tedious game.
The lights clicked off once more, and a voice announced ‘Second letter’, as the curtains drew apart.
The apparition of Betty Sander in an exiguous pair of pale pink cami-bockers, with her hair down her back, embracing the deeply embarrassed George P. Brewster in a tight-fitting gent’s union suit, was hailed with happy laughter.
‘The bedroom scene!’ exclaimed Mrs Lester, prematurely as usual. After an affecting exchange of endearments, the couple separated, George retiring to the far side of the piano to dig industriously with the coal scoop, while Betty seated herself on the sofa and combed her hair with her fingers. Presently there advanced through the door the crimson face of Peter Barnaby, worming along at ground-level, with energetically working tongue. Behind it trailed an endless length of green tablecloth, whose slow, humping progress proclaimed the presence within it of yet another human engine – probably the second Barnaby twin. This procession advanced to the sofa and rubbed itself against Betty’s leg – then reared itself up rather awkwardly in its mufflings and jerked its head at the aspidistra on the occasional table. Betty registered horror and refusal, but presently yielded and took from amid the leaves of the aspidistra a large apple, which she proceeded
to eat with expressions of enjoyment, while the combined Barnabys retired behind the sofa. At this moment, George, wiping the honest sweat from his brow, returned from his labours, with the coal scoop over his shoulder. On seeing what Betty was about, he dropped the scoop and flung his arms to heaven. After some solicitation, however, he accepted his share of the feast, carefully polishing the apple first on his union suit. After this, he appeared to be suddenly struck by the indelicacy of the union suit and, moreover, proceeded to point the finger of scorn and reprimand at the cami-bockers. Betty, dissolved in tears, pushed to the aspidistra, tore off two large leaves (‘Oh, the poor plant!’ cried Mrs Lester) and attached them severally, with string, about the waists of George and herself. Then, from behind the Japanese screen appeared the awful presence of Bob, in the scarlet dressinggown and a bright blue tablecloth, and wearing a large saucepan lid tied to the back of his head. An immense beard of cottonwool added majesty to his countenance. The delinquents fell flat on their faces, and the curtains were flung to amid rejoicings.
‘Now, was that Adam and Eve?’ demanded Miss Holroyd.
‘I think it was Eve,’ said somebody. ‘Then the whole word might be Jehu.’
‘But we’ve had Jehu.’
‘No, we haven’t, that was Jezebel.’
‘But they can’t be giving us Jehu and Jezebel again.’
‘JE, JA, JE, JA … ’
The lights were on again now. Queer, how white and unnatural all their faces looked. Like masks. Markham’s fingers pulled at his collar. Jezebel, Adam – Wanton woman, deluded man. J, A, Jane. So long as the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel and her witchcrafts are so many. If Deering had known that those letters had been found, would he be smiling like that? He did know. That was why he was smiling that dark smile. He knew, and he had put Bob up to this. Let the galled jade wince. Jade: J, A, Jade. J, A, Jane. Jade, Jane, Jezebel. The dogs shall eat Jezebel in the portion of Jezreel. Dogs. Dogging his footsteps. The Hound of Heaven with a saucepan lid on his head. Jehovah. JAH. J, A, Jane …
The lights went out.
They had draped a sheet over some chairs to form a little tent. At the door sat Bob, in the dressinggown and the white beard, but without the saucepan lid. Paul Barnaby, wearing a handkerchief over his head and a short tunic with a sash round the waist, presented him with a frugal meal of two dried figs on a plate. In front of the tent stood a tin bath full of water and surrounded with aspidistras.
A noise of mingled instruments heralded the approach of George, in an Oriental costume of surpassing magnificence and a headdress made of a gilt wastepaper basket. Attended by a train of Oriental followers, he approached Bob, and indicated, with gestures of distress, some livid patches of flour on his face and arms. Bob examined him carefully, clapped him cordially on the shoulder and indicated the tin bath, going through a pantomime of washing. George seemed to be overcome with indignation and contempt. He kicked the bath scornfully and spat vulgarly into the aspidistras. Then, shaking his fist at Bob, he stalked away in high dudgeon in the direction of the piano.
‘Hi!’ shouted Tony Withers, ‘where’s your chariot, old man?’
‘Shut up!’ returned George, disconcerted, ‘we can’t do that horse business over again.’
Lavinia, modestly attired in a kind of yashmak, now took the stage. Kneeling at George’s feet, she gently expostulated with him. The other Oriental followers joined their petitions to hers, and presently his frown relaxed. Returning to the tin bath, and being solemnly supplied with a piece of soap and a loofah, he scrubbed the flour from his face. On observing the effect in a shaving-mirror, he was transported with joy, prostrated himself before Bob and offered him a handsome collection of cushion covers and drawing-room ornaments. These being refused, he went away rejoicing, followed, surreptitiously, by Paul Barnaby. Bob appeared gratified by this result, and was just sitting down to read the Evening News in his tent when he observed Paul slinking back through the door with an armful of cushion covers. Overcome with righteous anger he rose to his feet and, dexterously drawing from behind the newspaper a bag of flour, flung it over Paul’s face, thus closing the episode.
Markham vaguely heard the applause, but his eyes were fixed on the purple curtains. He knew them so well. They were heavy and swung into thick, rich folds. Jane had adored those curtains. He had always said they were dark and gloomy, but she would hear nothing against them. Nowadays people lived so publicly, behind thin casement cloth and stuff like that; but that old-fashioned damask was made for concealment. Curtains like those kept their secrets forever.
Bice Taylor spoke almost in his ear.
‘I don’t believe it’s either Naaman or Elisha. I think it’s Abigail, don’t you? The little maid, you know. Not so obvious. It might be J, E, A, something. Jean somebody, or the French Jean.’
J for Jezebel, A for Adam, N for Naaman the leper. J, A, N, Jane, Janitor, January. This was November. Jane died in June.
‘What nonsense – Abigail was somebody quite different. It’s Gehazi, of course.’
‘Gehazi? My dear child – there’s no name in four letters beginning JEG or JAG.’
‘Yes, there is. There’s JAGO.’
‘Who’s Jago?’
‘I don’t know. Somebody wrote a book called John Jago’s Ghost. I do know that.’
‘It isn’t a book. It’s a short story by Wilkie Collins.’
‘Oh! is it? I only remember the title.’
‘But who was Jago, anyway?’
‘I don’t know, except that he had a ghost. And what was the point of bringing Gehazi in if it isn’t Gehazi?’
‘Oh, that’s just to make it more difficult.’
Gehazi – Naaman – He went out from before him a leper as white as snow One felt like a leper among all these people who hated one. Leper. See the leopard-dog-thing something at his side, a leer and a lie in every eye. It was so queer that nobody would look at him. They looked round and over him at each other. That was because he was a leper – but they need never know that unless he told them. He had never noticed the pattern on the curtains before, but now the strong light showed it up – damask, damascened like a sword, damn the lot of them. How hot it was, and what a stupid oaf Bob Lester looked, playing childish games. But it was really horrible, the way these people pretended not to know that it was J, A, N, Jane. They did know, really, all the time and were wondering how long he would stick it. Let them wonder! All the same, he must think out what to do when it came to the complete word. J, A, N. Of course, if the last letter wasn’t E … but it was bound to be E. Well, it would be a relief in a way, because then he would know that they knew.
The fourth scene was, for a change, medieval and brief. Betty in white robes, her long hair loosed, oared on the spare-room mattress across the parquet to where Arthur’s Court stood grouped by the piano. Bob, simply but effectively armed in corrugated cardboard, weeping fat tears out of a sponge.
‘Well, that’s obvious,’ said Mrs Lester. ‘The Lady of Shalott. Now, dear me, what can the word be?’
‘Oh, dear Mrs Lester. Not Shalott. It’s Lancelot and Thingummy.’
‘Oh, Lancelot, is it?’
‘Or, of course, Thingummy.’
‘Especially Thingummy,’ said Deering.
‘Have you guessed it, Tom?’
‘Yes, of course. Haven’t you?’
‘Well, I think so, but I’m not absolutely certain.’
‘You mustn’t say until the end.’
‘No, all right.’
Oh, yes, thought Markham. Deering would have guessed it, of course. Lancelot and Elaine. Elaine the lovable. Jane, Elaine. J, A, N, E, Jane. But it was all wrong, because Elaine was pure and faithful and died of love. Died. That was the point. Elaine was dead. Jane was dead. Jane, Elaine as Jane had lain.
He fixed his eyes on the damask curtains. There was one point where they did not quite meet, and the light from the stage showed through. Somebody called ‘Are you ready?’ and turned off the switch on the
side of the spectators. Markham could not see them any longer, but he could hear them breathing and rustling about him, packed close like wolves, pressing in upon him. The point of light still shone between the curtains. It grew larger, and glowed more intensely, yet as though from an enormous distance.
Then, very slowly this time, and in absolute silence, the curtains parted. The whole word at last.
They had done a wonderful piece of staging this time. He recognised every object, though the blaze of the electric globe had been somehow subdued. There was the bed and the dressing-table and the wardrobe with its tall glass door, and the low casement on the right. It was hot, and the scent of the syringa – philadelphus, the books said, but Jane called it syringa – came billowing in from the garden in thick puffs. The girl on the bed was asleep. Her face was hidden, turned to the wall. Dying people always turned to the wall. Too bad to have to die in June, with the scent of the syringa coming in through the window and the nightingale singing so loudly. Did they do that with a bird-whistle, or was it a gramophone record?
Somebody was moving in the shadows. He had opened the door very gently. There was a glass of lemonade on the table by the bed. It chinked against the bottle as he picked it up, but the girl did not move. He walked right forward till he stood directly beneath the light. His head was bent down as he shot the white powder into the glass and stirred it with a spoon. He went back to the bedside, walking like Agag, delicately. A, G, A, G, Adam and Gehazi. Jezebel, Adam, Naaman, Elaine, J, A, N, E. He touched the girl on the shoulder and she stirred a little. He put one arm behind her shoulders and held the glass to her lips. It clinked again as he set it down empty. Then he kissed her. He went out, shutting the door.
He had never known such silence. He could not even hear the wolfpack breathing. He was alone in the room with the girl who lay on the bed. And now she was moving. The sheet slipped from her shoulders to her breast, from her breast to her waist. She was rising to her knees, lifting herself up to face him over the footboard of the bed – gold hair, sweat-streaked forehead, eyes dark with fear and pain, black hollow of the mouth, and the glittering line of white teeth in the fallen jaw.
Ten Classic Crime Stories for the Festive Season Page 19