Death and the Maiden

by Q. Patrick

  “It’s pretty full,” said Trant, appearing at my side again. “But I managed to get two seats in the balcony.”

  We were later than I thought, for the second and last act of the play had already begun as we pushed past protesting knees and apologized our way to our seats.

  Although I had never seen Pinafore, it had the same nostalgic brightness of the other Gilbert and Sullivans. I forgot Grace; forgot Lieutenant Trant and his subtly laid plots. I just sat back and enjoyed the show, remembering rehearsals for the Gondoliers in the Newhampton. Assembly Hall; remembering my moment of triumph when Jerry, a very young and handsome gondolier, had rushed me out for an ice cream soda after our performance, completely forgetting a date with the local siren, Emily Clarke.

  Even the story of Pinafore was reminiscent of the Gondoliers,all hinging on misalliances and mistaken identities. There was a gallant captain, a lovelorn daughter and a gallant, but low-born tarwho was equally lovelorn. The captain discovered the romance and threw the sailor in irons. And then, at the crucial moment, an old nurse revealed the fact that the captain and the sailor were mixed up at birth and it was the common tar who was really the well-born one. And so, despite obvious discrepancies in their ages, there was a jubilant switching around. The captain became demoted to a sailor and the sailor got made captain with the captain’s daughter thrown in as a bonus.

  It was only then, toward the very end, that I really started seeing the play as a show running on Broadway, with live actors who were not just pleasant ghosts from my own past. And, as I began to take the right sort of interest again, realized with a slow stirring of alarm just what had been behind Lieutenant Tram’s quixotic invitation to the theater.

  The old nurse had just made her announcement. The chorus were grouped around the center of the stage. Suddenly they parted and the actor who had played the common sailor made his entrance from the rear. His sailor slacks and blouse had been replaced by the full dress regalia of a captain of “the Queen’s navee.”

  Until this moment I had not noticed that particular actor. I had not looked at his name in the program, and it had never occurred to me that I might have seen him before.

  Now, of course, there was no shadow of doubt as to when or where I had seen that almost too glossy reddish hair, that obviously handsome profile, that trim naval uniform with its golden arm bands and braid.

  The most elusive of all the figures in the obscure tragedy of Grace Hough had materialized at last. The man who might so very easily have murdered my roommate was an unknown operatic actor. He was there on the stage in front of my eyes—singing a gay love song on the stage, his arm round the waist of the captain’s daughter.

  I felt Lieutenant Trant’s gaze fixed on my face. I felt his fingers on my sleeve. Then his voice, very quiet, very sure of itself, whispered:

  “Am I right?”

  Everyone was singing now. The stage was a blaze of light and color. The orchestra tripped frivolously into the finale of H. M. S. Pinafore.

  “Yes,” I whispered back, “you’re right. That is the man who was with Grace at the Cambridge Theater the night she died. That is the—naval officer with the red hair.”

  XVI

  As I stared in fascination at the red-haired actor, I realized just why I had felt that instinctive distrust of him when I had first seen him with Grace Hough on the steps of the Cambridge Theater.

  Grace’s mysterious date had been with an imitation naval officer—a comic-opera sailor!

  Lieutenant Trant had produced his hat from under the seat. “We’re going,” he said, and obediently I followed him past the protesting knees again and down the dark aisle toward a glowing Exit sign.

  Outside the theater we turned down a bleak little alley which led to the stage door. Lieutenant Trant said to the doorman: “Mr. David Lockwood.” When the man looked doubtful, he flashed his detective badge and I heard an instant: “First room at the top of them stairs. He’ll be off in a minute.”

  We found the dressing room. It was small, rather squalid. A pair of sailor pants and. a sailor blouse made a white pool on the floor where the red-headed actor had tossed them after his quick change into officer’s uniform. Stuck around the mirror were several flattering portraits of that too-familiar face, signed in a large, flourishing hand—David Lockwood.

  I turned to Lieutenant Trant and asked: “But how on earth did you guess?”

  The detective tapped a cigarette against the top of a powder box. “I suppose it’s what you would call deductio ad absurdum.I was puzzled from the beginning by the fact that Grace’s naval escort left the theater without a hat. I learnt on the best authority that Uncle Sam’s naval officers just don’t run around in full dress uniforms without hats. That gave me the idea of looking for our friend either among the guests of a fancy dress dance or in some theatrical show. When I examined the theatrical notices for the Wednesday in question and found that Pinafore was playing that night at the Vandolan—right next door to the Cambridge—well, it was fairly simple, wasn’t it?”

  Measured in actual time I couldn’t say how long it was we sat there in that dressing room, waiting for David Lockwood. For me it seemed hours—uneasy hours recreated from the past. In my mind I was living through stray scenes with Grace Hough. I thought back to that time, just after the Christmas holiday, when the extraordinary special delivery letters started to arrive from that unknown admirer. I thought of the strange, excited gleam in Grace’s pale eyes as she used to rip open the envelopes and sneak off by herself to read those close-written pages.

  At that point in my reflections the door was pushed open. A man strode in, a red-haired youngish man in full naval uniform. His eyes fixed Lieutenant Trant with a blank stare, then they moved to me, recognition slowly dawning….

  I had never seen a man’s expression change like that. The greasepaint seemed suddenly to harden and to set in deep lines running from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth.

  “I expect you’ve guessed, Mr. Lockwood,” said Trant quietly. “We’ve come to talk to you about Grace Hough.”

  “The police!” David Lockwood’s hollow laugh was in the best dramatic tradition. “So you’ve caught up with me at last.”

  “Before you make any statement,” said Trant in that soft, level voice of his, “it is my duty to warn you that you’re under no obligation to talk to me or anyone except the Wentworth police.”

  “Why shouldn’t I talk?” With extreme facility David Lockwood had assumed an arrogant composure. He flourished a match to a cigarette. “My dear fellow, I can’t possibly keep it bottled up inside me any longer. If I don’t talk I’ll—I’ll go stark, staring mad.”

  “You might,” suggested Trant mildly, “have saved yourself from insanity by coming forward a little earlier.”

  “How could I possibly come forward?” Lockwood ran a hand through his thick red hair and started pacing furiously up and down the room. “I’m an actor, I’m playing repertory, I have performances and rehearsals continuously, Patience, Gondoliers, Mikado, Pirates. When could I get the time to go to the police?” He kicked savagely at the limp sailor pants on the floor. “You know how the police are—so confoundedly muddle-headed. They keep you sitting for hours in smelly rooms waiting for the right person to turn up.”

  “You seem to have considerable experience of police methods,” said Trant drily.

  “Good Lord, no.” He swung round. “No more than anyone else. Dog licenses—an occasional ticket for speeding. But I’ll be perfectly frank with you. There’s another reason. A girl in Philadelphia. I’m engaged to her and—well, perhaps you don’t know how girls in Philadelphia are. But she’s Main Line—society and all that. It wouldn’t look so good in print.”

  “I can imagine,” remarked Trant, “that it wouldn’t look so good in print or out of print to any girl you were engaged to—in Philadelphia or out of Philadelphia. You’d have had a tough time explaining that theater date with Grace Hough.”

  “A date with Grace Ho
ugh!” David Lockwood’s cigarette hung poised in mid-air. “That is an arrant lie.”

  “I suppose you never wrote her any special delivery letter either?”

  Trant’s voice was terrifyingly casual. I leaned forward in my chair, my pulses stabbing, as I waited for Lockwood’s reply.

  He was staring at the detective, his eyes wide with exaggerated astonishment. “My dear man, it has never during the whole course of my natural or unnatural life occurred to me to write a special delivery letter to Grace Hough.”

  “Indeed?” said Trant.

  “And what is more, I deny ever having heard of that wretched girl’s existence before last Wednesday night when she accosted me on the steps of the Cambridge Theater.”

  “So that is your platform, Mr. Lockwood?” he said quietly. “It makes things rather interesting.”

  “Newspapers blazing headlines about a mysterious naval officer. The police suspecting me of performing mayhem, murder and heaven knows what. My voice going to hell through sheer, nervous exhaustion. And the man calls it interesting.” Lockwood dropped into a chair, holding his head in his hands. “Well, I’ve learnt my lesson all right. Never be moved by the pathos of lonely young females.”

  He looked up, his face a study in cynical resignation.

  “I’ll tell you what I know about Grace Hough. Then try and make out I could have come forward and unbosomed myself to the police.”

  David Lockwood was at the dressing-table again. He plunged his fingers into a bowl of cold cream and started smearing it over his face.

  “It was all because I was crazy to see Roulane’s work in Phèdre.Our matinees clashed and it was utterly impossible for me to get to the Cambridge except on Pinafore nights. The management here run Cox and Box after the main show and that lets me out just before ten. Last Wednesday I decided to make a dash for it and catch the third act of Phèdre. I didn’t wait to get out of this uniform. I just ripped off the epaulettes, discarded the captain’s peaked hat—or whatever you call the damned thing—and sprinted over to the Cambridge.”

  He began rubbing cold cream into the sides of his nostrils. It gave his voice a weird, blurred intonation.

  “I hadn’t the slightest idea that anything so crazy was going to happen. I got to the Cambridge just before the second act was through. The foyer was empty. Suddenly I remembered that I hadn’t got a pass to go in and, what was worse, I didn’t have a nickel in these darn pants. Then, like an answer to prayer, a girl came out of the theater, a girl in a light fur coat.”

  “Grace Hough,” put in Lieutenant Trant.

  “As I learnt later—to my cost.” Lockwood gave a throaty laugh. “She didn’t mean anything in my young life then. I figured the uniform must have puzzled her, for she stopped and stared in a queer sort of way. It was a bit embarrassing, so I thought I’d better explain I was a Savoyard. That got her all excited. She fumbled around in her pocketbook and got out a bit of paper and a fountain pen. She said she collected autographs. Wouldn’t I please give her mine.”

  “But,” I broke in involuntarily, “that’s crazy. Grace didn’t collect—”

  “There wasn’t anything crazy about it,” he said stiffly. “I am constantly being asked for my autograph. I did give this girl my autograph and, since she appeared to be leaving the theater, I asked her if I couldn’t have her ticket for the last act. She said she wasn’t leaving, but she had an extra ticket and I was welcome to it. She fished it out of her bag.”

  As his story progressed Lockwood became increasingly dramatic.

  “Until then our Grace had behaved like a civilized human being. Imagine my surprise when she clutched at my arm without the slightest warning and said: ‘Some girls I know are at the Amber Club and they’ll be over here any minute. Please, please talk to me as if you knew me and—since you’re an actor—play up to whatever I say. It’s desperately important.’”

  He tossed back his chestnut hair and eyed me with a kind of vague distaste. “A short time later this young lady—Miss Lovett, or whatever her name is—came pushing through the crowd toward us. Grace Hough introduced me to her. I did my best to talk naturally to Miss Lovett, but as soon as she was gone I demanded an explanation. Grace explained. And a very touching little story it seemed to me then.

  “Apparently these other girls and Miss Lovett knew she had been coming to the theater to meet a boy friend. This friend hadn’t been able to turn up at the last minute, and Grace had been desperately eager for the other girls not to know that she had been stood up.”

  “So after Grace made that explanation, Mr. Lockwood, the two of you went in to see the final act of Phèdre?”

  “We did, and Roulane was superb, one of the greatest experiences the modern stage has to offer.” Lockwood’s voice took on an ecstatic note. “When it was over I decided I simply had to drop round backstage and pay my respects. I hoped to shake off the Hough girl. But, oh no, Grade wasn’t missing a trick. She wanted Roulane’s autograph, she said. Couldn’t she come too? I had to give in, though it was a bit too much when she kept me hanging around after the show while she dashed off to talk to Miss Lovett again.”

  That “Lovett” was making me want to scream.

  “My name is Lovering,” I said as patiently as I could.

  He frowned at me as though I were far too inconspicuous to have the right to any name at all. Then he turned to Trant. “Finally we did get backstage, officer. La Roulane was delighted to see me of course.”

  “Just a minute,” broke in Trant hastily. “Did Roulane give Grace her autograph?”

  “Of course. As a rule she’s very difficult with autographs, but anyone she meets through me—” His shrug expressed just how intimate he was with the great Roulane.

  “She signed her name on the same piece of paper as you?”

  “I imagine so. The Hough girl pulled it out of her bag.”

  “And she put it back in her bag?” asked Trant.

  “Presumably.” Lockwood’s tone was impatient.

  For a moment I did not see why Trant had asked those questions. Then I understood. When we had discovered Grace’s pocketbook in the quarry it had contained no autographed piece of paper. That was what was worrying the detective. To me it seemed just another of a dozen unexplained details. I had no means of telling until later just how vitally important those missing actors’ autographs were destined to become.

  Lockwood had removed most of the paint from his face now. Without it he looked older and less handsome. “Roulane was really responsible for what happened next. She got it into her head that the Hough girl was my fiancée from Philadelphia. Before I had time to explain, she invited herself to my apartment to throw a party in honor of my engagement. I suppose I could have made her see she’d got it all wrong but—” he flushed—“well, it’s quite an honor having Roulane come to one’s place. So I let it stand, planning to straighten it out later.”

  David Lockwood swung himself onto the radiator. “That girl clung like a leech. I hoped to give her the slip when I came back here to change into civilized clothes. But she was hanging around outside the stage door all right and she tagged along to my apartment. We sat there waiting for Roulane, waiting for hours and hours. At last I couldn’t bear it any longer. I guess it was about one-thirty. I called Roulane’s suite at the Waldorf. And imagine! She’d forgotten all about it. Her maid told me she’d gone to a supper party given for her by Guthrie McClintic ànd Kit Cornell.”

  Lockwood pushed himself off the radiator and resumed his caged animal progress up and down the small room. “By that time I was getting pretty worried about the Hough girl. Not that she didn’t seem quite a decent sort then. But I didn’t want to have her on my hands for the rest of my life. I went back to her, told her about Roulane; that gave me my let-out. I said hadn’t she better go home? She didn’t answer right away. Then she said she’d have to be going soon, but could she have a drink first.”

  That remark, trivial as it sounded, was one of the strangest of all
the strange things I had heard in that dressing room. I had known Grace Hough for twenty of the twenty-two years of her life. And I knew that she disapproved of liquor as staunchly as she disapproved of cosmetics. And yet, on the night of her death she had not only worn make-up, but she had also asked for a drink. What was the extraordinary sea-change that had come over my roommate in her long, fantastic trail toward disaster?

  “I got her a highball,” Lockwood was saying. “She gulped it down as if she darn well needed it. I guess I’m soft-hearted, but I felt kind of sorry for her. She seemed dejected and lonely. That’s where I made my big mistake. I started sympathizing, said I knew it must be tough to have been stood up by her boy friend.”

  He whistled. “Did that make her mad? You wouldn’t have known her. I guess maybe it was partly the highball, but her eyes were simply blazing. She said she hadn’t been stood up at all. It was just that this friend of hers had had a previous engagement. I tried to soothe her, but I didn’t get to first base. Finally she dashed across the room to her fur coat and pulled a letter out of the pocket. ‘Read that,’ she said, ‘if you don’t believe he’s crazy about me.’”

  I drew in my breath. It seemed forever before Lieutenant Trant asked the question I knew he was going to ask.

  “You saw the envelope? It was a special delivery letter?”

  “I think so. It had a lot of stamps on it.”

  “And you read it?”

  “I glanced at it, yes. It began Grace Dearest and went on about how she was to try to forgive this fellow and how she was the only girl in his life.”

  “You saw the signature on the letter, Mr. Lockwood?”

  “No, I didn’t. I only looked at the first page.”