I tiptoed down the staircase, wincing when my foot knocked against a riser. From the chair rose more spirals of smoke. I heard two prolonged sighs, the second of which was almost a groan. The lament of a troubled spirit, perhaps? I hesitated. The occupant of the chair began to hum, tunelessly at first, and then mournfully took up the words of a song.
‘“The sigh of mid-night trains in emp-ty stations – silk stockings thrown aside, dance in-vi-tations – oh, how the ghost – of – you clings, – these foolish things –” Harriet! Good God! Creeping up like that – nearly gave me a heart attack! Gently with the paternal neck – Now, now, my darling, there’s no need to cry. Thank God, time and the hour, though they’ve taken their time about it, have finally run through the roughest – ahaa! hoo, hoo!’ Whatever else my father might have been going to say was lost as he, too, succumbed to uncontrollable weeping.
THIRTY-TWO
The moment I woke I heard the changed note of the wind. It blew steadily but calmly, not rattling the windows but softly shaking the uppermost branches of the yews. My stomach felt light and empty. Then I remembered. Pa was free. Not only free but in this very house, in the Mordakers’ old room. I turned on my side to tell Cordelia the marvellous news. Her cheeks were faintly pink, her eyelashes clinging together in sleep. It would be a pity to wake her. But I wanted to hear myself say it and then I could be certain it was true. I was tempted to run along the gallery, to open the door a crack and steal a look at him.
But last night, after the first electrifying moments of our reunion were over, it had become apparent how exhausted he was. Rupert had brought a decanter of brandy and a plate of cheese sandwiches into the drawing room just as Pa and I were struggling to pull ourselves together and behave like sensible people. We sat on the sofa, Pa’s arm round my shoulder, my hand on his knee, and every minute or so he had pressed his handkerchief or his sleeve to his face. He had tried to be his old ebullient self but the act would not have deceived a baby.
‘These sandwiches are terrible,’ said Pa. ‘I’ve just eaten a lump of butter the size of an egg. And the bread’s as thick as a telephone directory. Rupert, my boy, you’ll never make a cook.’
‘I hope not.’
‘I think they’re delicious,’ I said. My mouth was filled with food and my heart with gratitude because he had returned my father to me.
‘You’ll never make a liar,’ said Rupert.
‘We had a strange journey.’ My father wiped his eyes again. ‘There was a frightful woman sitting opposite us on the train with a parrot in a cage. It was completely fascinated by Rupert. It fixed him with its beady eye and lambasted him with impertinent comments. “Naughty boy. Bad boy. Give us a kiss then. Oh, you saucy thing!” People were staring, quite hypnotised. I think they were beginning to wonder if the parrot knew something the rest of us didn’t.’
Rupert laughed. ‘I must say, its attentions were so particular I started to feel quite uncomfortable.’
‘It was the voice of conscience,’ said Pa.
‘I’ve always wanted a parrot.’ I realised that my father was anxious to avoid anything like a serious discussion.
‘Surely Dirk is enough for anyone,’ said Rupert. ‘Where is he, by the way? He made an awful racket when we arrived. The patent method still not mastered, evidently.’
‘I was asleep. But I dreamed about him barking.’
‘Sleep!’ said my father. ‘Now that’s something I could do with. Any chance, Harriet, of a pillow on which to lay my head?’
I took him upstairs.
‘Lovely. Marvellous old stuff, isn’t it? Siberian temperature, though.’ He prodded the mattress and yawned while I put a match to the kindling in the grate. ‘I hope the Pyes won’t be too put out to find an unexpected increase in the household.’
‘Sir Oswald adores having people to stay. And Maggie’s the kindest, gentlest person in the world. Besides, they’ll be thrilled it’s you.’
My father sighed. ‘Will they? I wonder.’ He took off his jacket. I opened his suitcase and laid his pyjamas on the bed with his dressing gown and slippers. ‘Thanks, darling. No, I don’t bother with a hairnet these days.’ He rubbed his hand over his bristly white hair. ‘Christ, I’m so bloody tired! I couldn’t sleep at all last night, hoping – wondering if …’ His eyes filled again.
I put my arms round him and kissed the top of his head, to hide my own tears. ‘I’ll get you some towels. Then I’ll show you where the bathroom is.’ When I returned he was lying on the bed, asleep. I wrapped the bedclothes around him, put a guard before the fire and turned out the light.
Downstairs I found Rupert pouring himself a second glass of brandy. ‘I shouldn’t be having this really. I’m shattered.’ He stood before the fire, stretching his arms and back. ‘It’s been a long, long day.’ He stirred Dirk’s stomach with his foot. ‘I found this hound from hell in the kitchen, polishing off the cheese which I’d forgotten to put away. He deserves to have nightmares.’
‘Can you bear to tell me quickly what’s been happening? I shall sleep so much better if I know … if I know … goodness, I’m sorry to be so wet. It’s just that it’s all been such a shock.’
He handed me his handkerchief. ‘Don’t apologise. And for heaven’s sake, don’t sniff!’
‘Sorry. That’s why you wanted me to wait up, wasn’t it? So I could meet him without everyone else being there. It was so kind of you.’
‘One hardly wants an audience for these things. I except Cordelia.’
I smiled. Selfishly I longed to pour out my gratitude and relief but I was certain he would dislike it.
‘I couldn’t say anything on the telephone,’ he went on in matter-of-fact tones, unaware of my swelling heart. ‘I didn’t want to raise your hopes for nothing. It was touch and go whether he’d be let out today.’ I dried my eyes and tried to be calm. Rupert rolled the brandy about on his tongue. ‘I must say, Oswald knows a thing or two about cognac. Where were we? Ah, yes. Charles Foy was extremely helpful. If he hadn’t spent half the day on the telephone, speeding things up, we wouldn’t have made the train this evening. But you needn’t worry. It’s all over. It really is.’ I bit my lip, unable to speak for fear of breaking down. Rupert glanced at my full eyes and then down at his glass. ‘The press, naturally, are swarming. Foy set up a smokescreen so we could leave by a side door and be driven straight to the station. I’m afraid you’re going to have to go through all that again.’
‘It doesn’t matter. We got used to it; we were quite friendly with some of them.’ I thought I could even be pleased to see Stan now that Pa was free.
‘It’s lucky no one here has spotted you and tipped them off.’
‘Mrs Whale did recognise me from my photograph in the newspapers. But she’d never do such a mean thing.’
‘I hope you’re right. As it happens, Waldo’s gone from the top of the list of suspects to the very bottom. In fact, of the entire company your father is one of only four who couldn’t have killed Basil.’
I begged him with my eyes to go on. Rupert put his hand into his inside breast pocket and took out a cigar. ‘Mind if I smoke?’ I shook my head. Rupert sat in Miss Tipple’s chair and went through the process of lighting it. Then he prodded the fire into a volcano of sparks. I ate the last cheese sandwich, hoping it would have a calming effect. ‘Foy’s being very secretive,’ Rupert went on. ‘It’s important that no one says anything to the media.’
‘Don’t worry. I’ve learned my lesson.’
‘He still doesn’t know who murdered Basil,’ Rupert went on, ‘if it was murder. But he knows how Basil was killed. He gave me a hint and the rest is my own surmise. But it was clever!’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Very clever.’
‘Might it have been an accident?’
‘Foy’s convinced it was deliberate But he’s doubtful about being able to prove it. Forensic are working on it now. Of course, every judicial department was closed over Christmas, or Waldo would have been let out sooner.’
/> I was much too relieved that he was out now to nurse a grudge against the holiday-makers. Rupert blew a cloud and ran his hand over his forehead as though to smooth away the exhaustion of the day.
‘You see,’ he paused to savour the fumes from his glass, ‘finding Waldo kneeling by the body, covered with blood, with a blood-spattered piece of metal in his hand was enough to blunt everyone’s thinking processes. There was nothing else on the stage that could have been used to bludgeon Basil to death. The police not being theatre folk, an alternative weapon never occurred to them. But I must admit it I didn’t think of it either, though knowing a little about the production, perhaps I should have.’
‘The production?’
‘The stage sets, particularly.’ Rupert drew on the cigar until the tip glowed red. He put one arm behind his head, stretched out his long legs and stared reflectively at the ceiling. ‘Lear is essentially a pagan play. The gods invoked are always generic and plural – Zeus, Apollo, Juno, Hecate and so on. Nature is presented as a wilful goddess, divinised by both Lear and Edmund at different stages in the play. The director of this production hit on the idea of doing a Lear in the Baroque style. A boldly unfashionable conception.’
I thought about this. I could not grasp the significance of what he had said.
‘One of the remarkable things about this story,’ Rupert went on, ‘is that it was you who gave Foy the vital clue.’
‘Me?’
‘I must say I respect the man. Foy, I mean. Despite things looking so black for Waldo, Foy was prepared to back his hunch that he didn’t do it, that he didn’t have the right psychological profile for a murderer. When you told him about that séance, about Basil’s spectral weather reporting, he didn’t dismiss it out of hand as so much hysterical rubbish.’ I crinkled cheeks that felt stiff with salt into a smile, to show I was not offended. ‘He thought about it long and carefully. Despite being a policeman, Foy is a literary man. He got the feeling there might be something in the play itself that would give him the clue. So he went back to the theatre alone. He stood on the stage, on the spot where Basil was killed. He turned over in his mind all you’d told him. Like a bolt from the blue it came to him – the connection between the séance and the play. And then he looked up.’
‘Yes?’ I leaned forward, gripping the sofa arm. Several wild and half-formed possibilities filtered through my brain, none of them, as it turned out, anywhere near the truth.
‘That’s all he told me and I’m not going to say anything more. It’s a triumph of inductive reasoning on Foy’s part and I mustn’t steal his thunder. I distinctly got the impression he wants to tell you himself.’ Rupert twirled the cigar between his fingers, then looked briefly at me. Was there something speculative in that gaze?
‘But what did you mean when you said that my father was one of the four people in the company who couldn’t have done it? If I could only be sure that he was absolutely safe, I think I could bear to be left in suspense.’
‘Remember the wardrobe mistress and the two understudies who were standing together behind the backcloth? The stage was invisible but they could see who went on and came off. They saw Waldo follow Basil. Those three can provide unshakeable alibis for each other and Waldo. Whoever killed Basil was not on the stage at the time.’
I breathed out slowly. ‘Then it really is all right.’ My brain was teeming with questions but I could see that Rupert was dog-tired.
‘Let’s go to bed,’ I said. ‘We can fill in the gaps in the morning.’
He threw his cigar into the fire. ‘Filthy things. I don’t know why I like them so much. I shall feel like hell tomorrow.’
‘Rupert, I’m sorry I was cross before you went away.’
‘Were you?’ He looked surprised. ‘Oh yes, you were grumpy and disagreeable, now I think of it. I assumed you were sulking because of Max Frensham’s departure.’
‘It wasn’t that – at least, not in the way you think. I shouldn’t have been angry with you. It was only hurt pride and I shan’t be so silly again. It was ungrateful. I’m so conscious of how much I – we owe you, not just money but time and – and what a lot you’ve had to put up with –’
‘That’ll do.’ Rupert turned away from me to rake out the embers with the poker. ‘Grateful speeches may make you feel better – I’m sure I hope they do – but they’re quite unnecessary. And rather tedious to have to listen to, frankly.’
‘You really do know how to be abominably rude!’
‘Uh-uh. Remember, you were never going to be angry with me again?’
I frowned but then spoiled it by laughing. ‘All right. I won’t be. But you oughtn’t to be such a brute.’
‘But it’s so enjoyable.’
‘Sadist!’
‘You see. It is fun, isn’t it?’
Breakfast was later than usual, to accommodate the weary travellers. When I came down Rupert was already in the dining room, firmly behind an open newspaper.
‘Good morning,’ I said brightly, longing to share my new-found happiness. ‘Isn’t it a lovely day?’
Rupert glanced towards the window. ‘It’s snowing.’ He returned his eyes to the paper.
The main headline on the front page said ‘Waldo Byng Innocent’. Beneath it was a photograph of Pa, taken several years ago when he was playing Shylock. In heavy makeup, wig and beard he looked sly and wicked, every inch a murderer. Unable to contain my curiosity I sat down next to Rupert, leaned low over the table and twisted my head at an angle so I could read the rest of the article. In smaller letters it said ‘Triumph of Detective Work’. I felt a pleasurable pride in seeing Inspector Foy’s brilliance trumpeted before the world. I rested my chin on the tablecloth so I could go on reading. ‘London’s theatre world has been in suspense since November when one of England’s most famous actors, the Shakespearean tragedian, Sir Basil Wintergreen’ – a fold in the page prevented me reading further. I prodded it gently with a finger.
Rupert lowered the paper. His expression was savage. ‘Don’t do that!’
My father came in then, with Cordelia hanging on his arm. He looked pale and tired. He winked at me and laid a hand briefly on Rupert’s shoulder. Rupert grunted in reply. Cordelia pulled out a chair for Pa, brushed away an invisible crumb and arranged a napkin over his knees. Then she ran to the sideboard to reel off the contents of the dishes in a loud voice as though announcing winners past the post. She made a terrible clatter with the lids, dropped a spoon, burned herself pouring coffee and complained loudly about the ensuing pain. I saw Rupert close his eyes and breathe deeply. Cordelia sat down beside Pa and, while he ate, sang ‘See the conquering hero comes! Sound the trumpets, beat the drums!’ to the tune of ‘Hark! the herald-angels sing’, tapping a teaspoon on a plate by way of accompaniment. Rupert threw down the newspaper and left the room.
I grabbed it. The article, despite running on to page two, was disappointingly vague when it came to facts, and the inspector’s reported comments were cryptic, adding nothing to what Rupert had told me last night. But I was delighted by a fulsome description of my father’s genius and by the paragraphs of tributes from his fellow actors that followed. They all insisted they had never for a moment believed him guilty and raved about his arrest and imprisonment being a disgraceful miscarriage of justice. You would have thought that instead of sending flowers and pretending urgent appointments elsewhere, they had been thronging his cell, bombarding newspapers with angry letters of protest and petitioning the Home Secretary to come to his senses.
‘It’s an odd photograph to have chosen. It isn’t like you at all.’ I held up the paper so he could see it. ‘I mean, you’re wearing a false nose.’
My father gave a bleat of a laugh, shaking his head when I asked if he wanted to read it. ‘I don’t think I’m quite ready yet for Waldo the Innocent. I’ve only just got used to being Waldo the Butcher.’
Cordelia refused to look at me. She was angry because I had denied her the chance to reprise the role of Roberta in
The Railway Children, whose father had been wrongfully imprisoned. If I had been any sort of sister I would have arranged things so that she could have screamed ‘Daddy! Oh, my daddy!’ in front of the assembled household – into whose hearts the cry would have gone like a knife. Instead of which I had sent her in to see him alone before he came down, and a heaven-sent opportunity was for ever lost.
Portia had not been in her room, nor had her bed been slept in.
‘Oh! Look!’ My eye had fallen on a paragraph further down. ‘How amazing! A picture of Rupert! Listen to this! “The English Opera House announced yesterday that Rupert Woovespurges –” they’ve spelled it wrong – “has been appointed its new artistic director. Wolvespugs, 32 –” golly, they’ve made even more of a mess of it – “is the youngest man to hold this prestigious title in this company’s long and venerable history. Wolvyprigs’s credentials are unusual in that he has never before held a permanent position but has several times been a guest director for highly acclaimed performances in London and New York. So far he has been unavailable for comment. He replaces Tristram Lobe, who resigned amid controversy recently and has been admitted to the Simmer Down Nursing Home in Sussex –” blah, blah, blah! Well! What a dark horse! Did you know, Pa?’
‘He didn’t say a word. I didn’t even know it was a possibility! I’ve lost touch with things, rather.’ He smiled. ‘I’m extremely pleased for him. It’s a great feather in his cap.’
I noticed, not for the first time, that Pa’s smile was lopsided now. It lifted only half his mouth while the other side remained turned down, as though he could not be wholeheartedly happy any more.
‘Waldo!’ Archie came in then, looking striking in an aubergine moleskin suit with black velvet lapels and cuffs. ‘Rupert has told me the good news! I rejoice that you are no longer captive. And the hair!’ He examined, from several angles, my father’s head, which had a quarter-inch of growth like hoarfrost. Archie frowned so that his widow’s peak was especially prominent, which gave him the appearance of a benevolent vampire. ‘So chic! Fancy turning white overnight like Marie Antoinette! My dear, the romance of it!’
Clouds among the Stars Page 50