Death at the Opera

by Gladys Mitchell

  The Headmaster nodded. He opened a drawer in his desk and produced a box of cigarettes.

  “Excuse me one moment,” said Mrs. Boyle. “My form. I’d better set them some work.”

  “Oh, let ’em rip,” said Mr. Cliffordson easily. “Who goes in to them next? Poole? Oh, that’s all right. He’ll blow the flames out. They won’t hurt for half an hour. Do ’em good to be on the loose for a bit!”

  “They’ll have the roof off,” said Alceste, uneasily. She had never entirely accommodated herself to the free-and-easy methods at the school.

  “My dear girl, don’t worry yourself. I don’t care, so why should you? Take a cigarette, and do let us hear a little more about this frightful business,” said the Headmaster, who firmly believed that a noisy child is a good child and that silence breeds sin.

  “Well, Mr. Cliffordson,” Alceste said, studying the burning tip of her cigarette, “to explain myself I shall have to tell you a story, and then throw myself on your mercy. I shall also have to refuse to answer a question which you are certain to ask me.”

  “Carry on,” said the Headmaster.

  “When the school was first opened I applied for the post of English Mistress, and got it,” Mrs. Boyle began. “I was a childless widow, and was content. My married life, without being in the least sensational, was not an unqualified success, and when my husband, an Irish doctor, died in Limerick during an influenza epidemic there, I had no desire, I discovered, to return to the stage, so I came to England, and for some time was very happy in this school. Then I fell in love with a man who was not free to marry me. We have spent every holiday—Christmas, Easter and Summer—together, and when I say ‘together’ I mean that we have lived in every sense—physical, mental, spiritual—as man and wife. This has been going on for the past eleven years. I was young, hopeful, headstrong, passionately in love when all this began. Now, at the end of eleven years of it—eleven years of treasuring it up, keeping it secret, looking forward, even in the dreariest term, to the coming holiday-time when I could be myself and fulfil myself—I discover that it has not been a secret at all. For several years Miss Ferris knew of it. When I heard that she was dead I went to her lodgings and asked to rent her rooms, because I wanted to find her diary and destroy it. I communicated with the—the man, and he tried also to rent the rooms when they were refused to me. . . .”

  Mrs. Bradley had a mental audition of the landlady’s voice, a trifle high-pitched and peevish, saying: “Several people have been after the rooms, but they were all these nosey-parkers who only wanted a thrill out of staying a week or so where a suicide had lived. . . .”

  “. . . . but the landlady wouldn’t have him either. So I never got hold of the diary.”

  “Had you seen the diary previously, do you mean?” asked Mr. Cliffordson. “Had you seen it before Miss Ferris’s death?”

  Alceste shook her head.

  “She let out by accident that she knew. It was after she had ruined Mr. Smith’s clay figure on the night of the dress-rehearsal.”

  “What?” exclaimed the Headmaster. “She ruined Smith’s model? Not his Psyche, surely?”

  Alceste Boyle nodded.

  “Wasn’t it dreadful?” she said. “It was absolutely an accident, of course, and I know she was terribly distressed. But the point is that she brought me in to comfort Smith—as though one could!—and it was then that I learned she knew the truth about me and about my affairs. Smith isn’t the man, by the way, although I believe he loves me.” Her dark-blue eyes challenged the world. “Oh, and I lent him two hundred and fifty pounds to compensate for the loss of the little Psyche.”

  “Did Miss Ferris attempt to make capital out of her knowledge of your affairs?” inquired Mrs. Bradley, interestedly.

  “Not in the least. She made the most off-hand remark about them, as though she had known for ages and took it for granted that I should have a lover. She was a bit like that, you know. She was so meek and docile and colourless herself that she took it for granted that other people were different. I never had the slightest idea that she would make capital out of her knowledge, but as soon as she was dead I could not help wondering whether she had left some record of her discovery. I didn’t want my secret to be broadcast, and she was just the type to keep an elaborately written and thoroughly indiscreet diary—indiscreet in the gossiping sense, I mean. And people are not scrupulous when they are going through dead people’s belongings, are they? I was afraid of what might be said.”

  Mrs. Bradley had taken out her notebook and pencil and was rapidly filling a page with her own personal shorthand signs. The Headmaster was leaning back in his chair, his pipe between his teeth, and his eyes fixed on the top row of volumes in his book-case.

  “Then there was Miss Camden and the netball match,” Alceste went on. “I don’t suggest Miss Camden killed Miss Ferris. I am sure she didn’t; but she could have done, over the result of that match.”

  “What match was that?” Mr. Cliffordson inquired, for the incident of Miss Ferris, Miss Camden and the girl Cartnell had entirely faded from his mind. Mrs. Boyle reminded him of the occurrence.

  “Oh, that business—yes! But, my dear Mrs. Boyle, it had no real importance. A most trivial affair?”

  “Not for Miss Camden,” said Alceste. “She’s a tortured, warped, ambitious sort of girl, and this is the fourth year she’s tried for the inter-school trophy. We have never got into the semi-final before, and, with the girl Cartnell in the team, she thinks we might have figured in the final, and even won it. Considering there wasn’t a netball team at all in the school when she came, I think she’s worked wonders. It was very hard luck to have a team girl kept in on the day of the match.”

  “Well, I don’t believe in competitive sports,” said the Headmaster heavily; “and as long as I am in command here they will be relegated to their proper place. It’s a lot of nonsense, pitting teams of children one against the other, and fosters entirely the wrong spirit. And if it reacts like this upon the staff, well, the least said in its favour the better.”

  He was evidently riding a hobby-horse, thought the sharp-eyed listener with the notebook, and made a note of the Headmaster’s prejudice against competitive sports.

  “My point is this,” said Mrs. Boyle, after a short pause. “Even if Miss Ferris was inoffensive, yet she did manage to upset one or two people rather seriously. There might be others, of whom we know nothing, and who had far more reason to bear her a grudge than had Miss Camden, Mr. Smith or myself. After all, even inoffensive people have to make some contacts, and it is quite possible that the result may be that fur will fly or sparks set fire to tinder. Don’t you think so?”

  Mr. Cliffordson nodded gloomily. Then he said abruptly, because he felt he was exceeding his rights as a Headmaster:

  “Who is the man with whom you spend your holidays?”

  Alceste Boyle stubbed out the end of her cigarette on an ash-tray and rose to her feet. She smiled. No wonder two men were in love with her, thought Mrs. Bradley sympathetically.

  “I told you there would be a question I should not answer,” Alceste said. “You need not worry about him, though. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  As soon as she had gone the Headmaster said morbidly:

  “Well, there’s the solution, I suppose. I’m not going to do anything about it. Smith’s not a murderer. He’s a temperamental fellow who flew off the handle in a fit of rage. People shouldn’t go about ruining other people’s work. The man she’s in love with is Hampstead. I’ve known that for years.”

  “You think Mr. Smith was the murderer?” asked Mrs. Bradley innocently.

  “What else can one think?” demanded Mr. Cliffordson.

  “Well, I haven’t seen Mr. Smith yet, except at a distance of about forty-five feet, you know,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Besides, if he is as temperamental as you say, why should he wait from Tuesday until Friday to take vengeance on a Philistine? The whole trouble about temperamental people, of the kind you mean, is th
at they act swiftly, heedlessly, in the sudden heat and under the sudden compulsion of the moment. I should say that by Friday, Mr. Smith was getting over it. But I had better see the gentleman.”

  The Headmaster pressed the buzzer again.

  “Please ask for Mr. Smith. The art-room,” he said to his secretary.

  The first thing Mrs. Bradley noticed about Mr. Smith was that he was obviously ill-at-ease. He looked from the Headmaster to Mrs. Bradley, and seemed inclined to turn tail and run.

  “You sent for me, Headmaster?” he got out, at last.

  “Ah, Smith. Yes. Come in, and shut the door, my dear fellow.” Mr. Cliffordson, thoroughly embarrassed, was more genial than the occasion warranted, and the wretched Art Master, his tie askew, his lank black hair in an untidy flop over his left eye, looked more hunted and miserable than before. He did not appear to have noticed the Headmaster’s suggestion, so Mrs. Bradley said gently, in her deep, full voice: “Shut the door, dear child.”

  Smith started, brushed the back of his hand across his eyes and then obeyed.

  “Now sit down over there,” said Mrs. Bradley, pointing to a chair. “Now tell us why you wanted to kill Calma Ferris.”

  Smith blinked.

  “Did I want to?” he said. Then his face cleared. “Oh, yes, so I did. She walked into my Psyche and shoved her on to the floor. Ruined her, of course. Yes, I was angry. But it was all right. Alceste lent me the money to pay Atkinson. I didn’t care awfully for the Psyche, as a matter of fact. She was commissioned. I hate working on a commissioned figure.”

  “I see,” said Mrs. Bradley. “So you didn’t kill Miss Ferris?”

  “I don’t think so, you know,” replied Smith. “Did Moira Malley say I did? I like that girl. She’s got a sense of perspective. More than you can say about most of these oafish kids here. You’d scarcely believe,” he continued, turning to Mrs. Bradley as though he found hers a sympathetic presence, “how few of these boys and girls can draw. And I can’t teach ’em. I’m a first-rate artist and a rotten teacher. I wouldn’t stick it if it weren’t for Alceste. She thinks I’d starve if I didn’t draw a regular salary, you know, so I stay to please her. Besides”—he blinked rapidly and clawed the air—“I must be near her! I must! I must!”

  “Why did you ask Moira Malley not to say anything about the way you cannoned into Miss Ferris and knocked her glasses off and cut her face?” demanded Mrs. Bradley. Smith blinked again.

  “Did I say that?” he asked. “I can’t remember. I remember barging into Miss Ferris round a corner. . . . Oh, yes! I know. I was afraid it was my fault she committed suicide. You see, she’d spoilt my Psyche, and I thought perhaps the sight of me, coupled with the fact that she had to go into the water-lobby to bathe her face, might have given her the idea that she should drown herself, and I didn’t want to be asked a lot of questions. It’s just an act of lunacy to ask me questions, because I never remember things five minutes after they have happened.”

  “I see,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Go on, child.”

  “I’ve nothing more to say,” said Smith. He glanced up at the portrait of a florid, self-satisfied man looking over the table.

  “You took the name-part in the opera, I think?” said Mrs. Bradley. She produced a programme from her skirt pocket and flourished it at him.

  “The name-part? Oh, yes, I was the ‘Mikado,’” answered Smith.

  “Yes. You had not to make your first entrance until the beginning of Act Two,” said Mrs. Bradley.

  Smith nodded.

  “And during the interval Miss Ferris was found dead.”

  “But was she dead?” asked the Art Master.

  “Oh, yes,” said the Headmaster quickly, before Mrs. Bradley could speak. “You remember the medical evidence at the inquest?”

  Smith shook his head.

  “Oh, well, it was definitely established that Miss Ferris had met her death at least two hours before the doctor examined the body. That means that she died before the interval, you see.”

  “I didn’t know that doctors cared to commit themselves to the extent of giving an exact time of death,” protested Smith. He held up his thin long hand before either of the others could speak. There was a slight flush on his high cheekbones, but his voice did not change as he continued: “Please don’t mistake me. I do know what you’re driving at. You think Miss Ferris was murdered. So do I. And you think”—he turned and addressed Mrs. Bradley—“that as I had the whole of the First Act with nothing to do, I filled up the time by revenging myself on Miss Ferris for damaging that clay figure of mine. You weren’t joking a few moments ago when you asked me why I wanted to kill Miss Ferris. You meant that you thought I had killed her. Well, I didn’t.”

  He smiled very nervously. Mrs. Bradley could see that his hands were trembling.

  “Very well, Mr. Smith,” said Mrs. Bradley soothingly.

  “May I go, Headmaster?” asked he. Mr. Cliffordson was about to answer when Smith continued: “By the way, perhaps you would advise me. Really, I know very little about the law and crime. . . . Ought I to get into touch with a solicitor about all this? Ought I to tell him my version of the story and get him to watch proceedings, or anything?”

  Mrs. Bradley grinned mirthlessly and waved a skinny claw.

  “One moment, Mr. Smith. I understood you to say that you agreed with us in our belief that Miss Ferris was murdered?”

  “I do believe it,” said Smith.

  “Can you give us any reason for your opinion?”

  “Only that I’m certain she did not commit suicide,” said the Art Master. “I think one is sensitive to that aspect in people. The only person on this staff at all likely to commit suicide, except for myself, is Miss Camden, the Physical Training Mistress.”

  “Then it is merely surmise on your part that Miss Ferris was murdered?” asked the Headmaster. He sounded disappointed. Mr. Smith shrugged. He appeared less nervous.

  “It’s the electric light going wrong,” he said slowly. “Something more than coincidence, don’t you think, that the electric light should go wrong in the place that houses a dead woman?”

  “Indeed, yes,” said Mrs. Bradley. She wrote swiftly for a moment, and then intimated that the interview was at an end by saying:

  “And consult a solicitor if it will relieve your mind, dear child, but if your conscience is clear and your mind at rest, I shouldn’t think you will need to consult anybody.”

  “Well,” said Smith, with a wry smile. “I hope the wrong man won’t get hanged.”

  “Stranger things than that have happened,” said Mrs. Bradley, as the door closed behind the Senior Art Master. “I suppose you didn’t see the electrician?” she asked suddenly. The Headmaster shook his head.

  “I can give you his address,” he said. “‘The light that failed,’ of course?”

  “No,” replied Mrs. Bradley succinctly. She drew her chair closer to the small table at which she was seated. “It comes to this,” she said. “If we think that Miss Ferris was murdered, the murder could only have been committed by some person or persons”—she cackled—“who had business in that part of the building during the performance. I spent a good deal of time yesterday evening in reading the script of The Mikado, and, granted that the actual drowning could have been done in two minutes, we have the following interesting data:

  “1. The ‘Mikado,’ Mr. Smith, had the whole of the First Act in which to commit the murder.

  “2. The curtain operator, who happened to be the schoolkeeper, had almost as long.

  “3. The electrician had at least as long as the curtain operator.

  “4. Madame Berotti, the make-up woman, was in a similar position.

  “5. ‘Pish-Tush,’ Mr. Kemball, had the smallest male part, and so might have had plenty of time during his off-stage periods.

  “6. Mrs. Boyle, the producer, is at present a dark horse.

  “7. ‘Ko-Ko,’ Mr. Poole, had until his first entrance, but once he had made his first appeara
nce he was on the stage a great deal, and may or may not have had the opportunity for murder. I should be inclined to count him out if it could be proved that Calma Ferris was alive when he first came on the stage, because there were no stage waits, I imagine?”

  “None at all. All the actors were ready on every occasion,” replied Mr. Cliffordson.

  “Good. That simplifies things,” remarked Mrs. Bradley.

  “Does it? I am glad to hear you use the word ‘simplifies’! I never knew a more complicated business,” said Mr. Cliffordson.

  “‘Pooh-Bah’ (yourself, Mr. Cliffordson) had little opportunity to commit the murder. He was on the stage a great deal during the whole of the act, with, on the whole, too short an interval between any two of his stage entrances for him to have been able to risk leaving the wings in order to kill Miss Ferris. I think we might almost count you out, you know.”

  She gave vent to her harsh cackle.

  “Thank you,” said the Headmaster.

  “Not at all. ‘Nanki-Poo,’ Mr. Francis Henry Hurstwood, Sixth Form boy, had as much opportunity, perhaps, as anybody else to commit the murder, for he had a lengthy interval after his exit just before the first entrance of Ko-Ko.’ Mind you, that delayed first entrance of’Ko-Ko’ may be important. If that little man had any motive for killing Miss Ferris—”

  “Yes, yes,” said the Headmaster, a trifle impatiently, “but what about this boy? You don’t really imagine he could have had any hand in the affair, surely?”

  “Meaning,” said Mrs. Bradley shrewdly, “that you do! Come, out with it, dear child. What about the poor boy?”

  “I—don’t—know,” said Mr. Cliffordson. “In fact, I wish you’d have a talk with the lad. Mind, I don’t really imagine for one moment that he did have anything to do with Miss Ferris’s death, but he is highly strung and rather unbalanced and emotional. For instance, I happen to know—although neither of them suspects that I do know it!—that the unfortunate lad cherishes a hopelesss passion for my niece, Miss Cliffordson, the Junior Music Mistress. You’ve met her, of course?”