Fault in the Structure mb-52

by Gladys Mitchell

  She almost tripped over her own feet as she approached the perfidious Macheath, and her opening remark: ‘You baish man, you!’ was delivered with such concentrated venom that even Laura, accustomed as she was to Melanie’s histrionics, was surprised and startled by the outburst and by the slurred sibilant, and when the next bit of the diatribe came out as: ‘How can you look me in the faish after what hash parshed between ush?’ surprise turned to certainty.

  ‘My gosh!’ said Laura in a whisper. ‘The fool’s as tight as a tick!’ She left her seat, crouching low, and slipped round to the back of the stage. In the wings she found Ernest Farrow literally wringing his hands.

  ‘What on earth are we to do?’ he said. ‘Melanie is drunk.’

  ‘Superbly so,’ agreed Laura. That this was no overstatement was proved a moment or so later. Upon the words: ‘I could tear thy eyes out!’ Melanie caught Lawrence a smack across the face which made him recoil and then she followed this up with a furious attack upon him which gave a vivid impression that she intended to carry out this threat.

  Laura hissed at the students who were manipulating the curtain. As it came down, she and Ernest dashed on stage and pinioned the fermenting Lucy Lockit and hustled her into the wings, where she collapsed into a heap at the top of the O.P. stairs and broke into noisy, tipsy weeping.

  Laura said to Ernest: ‘I’ll find Marigold Tench and tell her to get into my Mrs Peachum costume and stick some make-up on. You push out in front and tell the audience that Melanie has a temperature and can’t continue. Crave their indulgence for a few minutes.’

  At this moment Hamilton Haynings, who had been waiting on the Prompt side for his entrance as Lockit, Lucy’s father, came across to them.

  ‘What’s happened?’ he asked. ‘Is she ill?’

  ‘Yes. Get on and say so. All right, Ernest. You just put the word round backstage that we shall be resuming as soon as Marigold is ready.’ She pulled the weeping Melanie to her feet. ‘Come on. The dressing-room for you,’ she said. There was a chaise longue in the dressing-room. There was also Marigold Tench. Laura pushed Melanie on to the former and tackled the latter.

  ‘Put my costume on. We’re much of a height,’ she said. ‘You know the book of words and the solos and duets as well as she does. This is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party. I’ll help you dress.’

  ‘I feel sick,’ moaned Melanie from the chaise longue.

  ‘Then for pity’s sake go and be it,’ said Laura, hauling her up and dragging her towards the lavatory.

  To the credit of the cast, nobody panicked or fluffed. The new Lucy proved more than adequate. She had had enough to drink to excite without intoxicating her and she put up what, under the circumstances, was a most meritorious perforamnce. The audience applauded her warmly, not only out of kindness to an understudy who had been called upon without warning, but as a tribute to a good performance.

  As for Hamilton Haynings, he was seen that evening at his best. Going in front of the curtain in the lugubrious rusty black coat and breeches of the master gaoler, he had assumed the Friend and Champion of the People rôle which had served him so well in his public speeches before council elections. He was sorry, he said, for the hold-up. A doctor was in attendance upon Miss Cardew and had diagnosed a temperature of one hundred and three degrees. It had been very plucky of Miss Cardew to attempt to play the part when she was feeling so ill, (applause, for which he waited), but it was impossible for her to continue. He craved the indulgence of the audience for just a few minutes and bowed himself off to further applause.

  The opera continued on its course. Having fulfilled the promise of Trinculo’s foul bombard and shed her liquor, Melanie had fallen asleep on the chaise longue. The costume of Mrs Peachum proved to fit Marigold well enough, and Laura returned to her seat next to Dame Beatrice and was soon leading the applause for Lucy Lockit. She had been doubtful whether Marigold’s esprit de corps would prove equal to the demands made upon it and was grateful that her doubts had been dispelled. Eventually a speech from Macheath, ‘Tell the sheriff’s officers I am ready’, had brought the opera to the verge of its final scene.

  Willing student hands trundled the fatal cart up the ramp and into position centre-back of the stage, but then came the second hold-up.

  ‘Where are those wedges for the wheels?’ demanded a voice:

  ‘In the corner, top of the stairs, where we always put them,’ came a reply.

  ‘They aren’t there now.’

  ‘Well, ask the stage manager.’

  But the wedges had disappeared.

  ‘Look, the show must go on. We don’t really need the wedges. They’re only an extra precaution. The rope will hold the cart and two of you can stand by while Macheath mounts it. He’s only up there a matter of minutes, anyway,’ said Ernest Farrow, a speech which was remembered against him later. ‘Do let’s get the scene going. The chaps are ready in the corridor with the bouquets and we’re running late already. Some of the audience have trains and buses to catch and the town hall staff expect to be off duty at ten-thirty.’

  Backstage Macheath was proving recalcitrant.

  ‘I don’t want that beastly thing over my head and I don’t want my hands tied,’ he said.

  ‘Of course you do,’ said Ernest Farrow, hastening over to him. Two stalwart students, taking their cue from this, pinioned him, merely looping the cord over itself as they had done at the other performances. They crammed the white cap over his head and ears, and patted him on the back.

  ‘Up you go, sir,’ they said, hoisting him bodily on to the cart which, lacking the wedges for its wheels, wobbled a little but was immediately steadied by the students, one of whom arranged the loop around Lawrence’s neck. It transpired, later, that he had not performed this simple act before, for the students who acted as stage-hands were changed each evening and depended upon the unlucky Ernest Farrow for their orders. He himself left them so that he could appear in front of the curtains where he was joined by the student who was acting as the Player.

  Denbigh had cut this scene, as Laura knew, to a minimum. Each actor was to make two speeches only and then the curtain was to rise on Denbigh’s pièce de résistance, Macheath on the hangman’s cart and the ‘rabble’, hearing of the reprieve, rushing rejoicingly on to the stage – ‘although, actually,’ Denbigh had once confessed to Laura, ‘I think they’d have been pretty shirty at being done out of the fun of a hanging.’

  Before any of this could happen, Laura had gone backstage to wait in the corridor with James Hunty for the curtain-calls – there were to be three, at least, on this the last evening, more if the applause warranted them. The Beggar and the Player were already half-way through their short dialogue in which Macheath’s reprieve was to be announced, but on this occasion the dialogue did not get finished in its original form, but sustained a surprising modern addition. It ended with these words:

  Player: But, honest friend, I hope you don’t intend that Macheath shall be really executed?

  Beggar: Most certainly, sir. To make the piece perfect, I was for doing strict poetical justice. Macheath is to be hang’d; as for the other—

  ‘Good God! Look out!’ But he spoke too late. Something hit his companion from behind the curtain and, taken utterly by surprise, the unfortunate Player was precipitated into the orchestra pit where he found himself spreadeagled across the top of the harpsichord.

  Behind the scenes there was immediate and utter confusion. The audience did not know whether to laugh at what some regarded as a rehearsed effect, or whether to view the Player’s mishap with concern. Dame Beatrice, among the latter, darted forward to ask whether the Player was hurt. Reassured, she took the route she had seen Laura take and she and her secretary met face to face in the wings. Laura seized her employer’s skinny arm and said:

  ‘Quick! Lawrence! Do something! He’ll hang himself!’

  Together they hastened on stage.

  CHAPTER 18

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  The anxiety of continual questioning

  The inquest was fixed for the following Thursday, but before it could take place there was a police enquiry in which the whole cast, the stage-hands, the electricians and Dame Beatrice herself were involved.

  ‘What caused you to go straight away behind the scenes, ma’am?’

  ‘I was sitting in the front row of the auditorium and heard Mr Farrow, who was playing a part which took place in front of the curtain, exclaim: “Good God! Look out!” ’

  ‘What did you make of that?’

  ‘I realised that a fairly heavy property, which was behind the curtain and was mounted on wheels, must have got loose. I could hear the sound of it as clearly as could the two actors.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘One of the actors had his legs taken from under him by the force of the impact and was precipitated off the front of the stage. I am a qualified medical practitioner, so I went forward to see whether he was hurt.’

  ‘But then you went backstage.’

  ‘Yes. I realised that we had been witnessing an unrehearsed effect—’

  ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘I had been present at one of the rehearsals. I wanted to find out whether the actor who had been standing on the cart had suffered injury.’

  ‘And he had, of course.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. He was dead within moments of my arrival.’

  ‘Further medical evidence indicates that he died of cerebral suboxia. Would you agree?’

  ‘Certainly, although I think, in any case, he might have died of shock.’

  ‘As the doctor first on the scene of the accident, you will be required to give evidence at the inquest.’

  The next persons to be questioned were the two students who had been in charge of the cart.

  ‘Did you not realise the possible danger of slipping a running noose over a pinioned and blindfolded man’s head?’

  ‘We only did what the stage manager had told us to do. We’d never done the job before. We didn’t know it ought to have been just a loop and not a running noose. Somebody boobed, but it wasn’t us.’

  ‘You put the white hood over the actor’s head, pinioned his arms behind his back and adjusted the rope around his neck. What else did you do?’

  ‘We held on to the cart and helped him mount.’

  ‘Why did you need to hold on?’

  ‘Well, we didn’t really think we needed to, because we’d been along to make sure the cart was securely fastened.’

  ‘And was it?’

  ‘Well, it seemed to be, but we weren’t asked to test the fastenings. They looked all right.’

  ‘So why did you hold on to the cart?’

  ‘Well, rope gives a bit when you put any strain on it, and the cart wobbled a bit when he mounted it.’

  ‘And after he had mounted it?’

  ‘We left the stage, as we’d been told to do.’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘Oh, well, over the road to get a quick one before the pub closed. When we came back to help with the clearing up, there was all this schemozzle – people talking, girls crying and the poor chap done for.’

  That seemed to be all from the two students. The police then turned their attention to Ernest Farrow.

  ‘Wasn’t it a risky thing to entrust the safety precautions to two inexperienced students, Mr Farrow?’

  ‘But I didn’t!’ exclaimed Ernest, too indignant at this suggestion to feel alarmed by the presence of police. ‘I never liked that cart and the noose. The opera doesn’t call for it and I’ve always been against any tampering with the text. Still, the producer wanted it that way, so, as stage manager, I was bound to carry out his orders.’

  ‘So you really tested the safety measures yourself?’

  ‘Certainly I did. The cord which anchored the cart was perfectly secure. The person to blame for this regrettable affair is the practical joker who hid our wedges and untied the cord which fastened the cart to the back of the stage. I only hope his conscience is giving him hell. All the same, I can’t understand what could have happened. The wedges were only an extra precaution, after all. We had held more than one rehearsal without them, and the rake of the stage isn’t enough to send the cart careering away like that.’

  ‘Why, then, did you decide to use them?’

  ‘One of the girls – the ladies – got nervous, so I had them made just to pacify her.’

  ‘But at that last performance they were missing?’

  ‘Yes. We couldn’t hold up the opera looking for them, so we carried on, but I assure you, Detective-Superintendent, that the cart was perfectly safe when I left it. I secured it myself and inspected my fastenings just before I had to go on in front of the curtain for my last bit of dialogue.’

  ‘The cord was knotted to secure it?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Are you an expert on knots, Mr Farrow?’

  ‘I wouldn’t claim that, but I was a Scout and knowing about knots was part of Scout training.’

  ‘So what kind of knot did you use to secure the cart?’

  ‘The same as I would use to secure a boat – a round turn and two half-hitches. You can’t have anything much more secure than that.’

  ‘What, in your opinion, then, caused this fastening to come undone and release the cart?’

  ‘Human agency, as I said, Detective-Superintendent. A stupid, thoughtless, pinheaded practical joke by one of the students. I only wish Denbigh could find out which one.’

  ‘We’ve inspected the stage, sir. As you say, it slants gently down towards the footlights. Is that usual?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. It gives a better view of the people coming on-stage from near the back.’

  ‘Is the stage at the College where, I understand, the earlier rehearsals took place, similarly tilted?’

  ‘No. It’s just a flat platform. It’s not the College stage; just a big dais in the music room.’

  ‘So a student might not have realised the danger at the town hall. Thank you, sir. I think that’s all. Oh, one more thing.’

  ‘Yes? I may tell you, Detective-Superintendent, that the thriller programmes put out by the BBC have familiarised me with that particular gambit.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘This business of pretending you’ve finished with a witness and then suddenly throwing a question at him, thinking him to have been disarmed.’

  ‘Oh, dear me, sir, we don’t work along those sort of lines, I assure you. Still, if you feel like that, I will save my question for another time.’

  ‘No, no. Out with it, please. I am not a nervous man, but I dislike being left on tenter-hooks.’

  ‘Very well, sir. You are an officer of your operatic society, I believe?’

  ‘I’m the honorary treasurer, yes.’

  ‘I notice that you are inclined to place the blame for what has occurred on the College, sir. I suppose you’re quite sure none of your members might have had a spite against the gentleman?’

  ‘Enough to murder him? Good heavens, no, of course nobody has!’

  ‘I had no thought of murder in mind, sir, but, suppose the accident had not ended fatally, could it not have made this Mr Crashaw look rather ridiculous, with his cart running away from him and he left hanging on to the backdrop, or something of that sort?’

  ‘The cast would know how dangerous that would be,’ said Ernest, after a pause for thought. ‘His hands weren’t really tied, of course – the bonds were just looped over – but even so, taken by surprise, he might not have had time to release himself and clutch at the halter round his neck to save himself from strangulation. Oh, and that’s another thing! That halter was never meant to have a slip-knot. Everybody in the cast knew that, and we are all mature, responsible people, all old enough to know better than to play stupid practical jokes such as changing a fixed loop into a running noose.’

  ‘Even the schoolboy, Thomas Blaine, sir?’

  ‘I assure you, m
y dear chap,’ said Dr Philip Denbigh, ‘that my students are not involved. I have instituted, in collaboration with the principal of the College, the senior staff and the head students, man and girl, the strictest and closest enquiries. You yourself have done the same. There is no student who was present at the performance who cannot be accounted for by witnesses. Apart from that, the students in question are third years. They have sat their final examinations and are intending to teach children. They all know better than to play dangerous practical jokes, I do assure you.’

  ‘Mr Farrow tells me the same about his members. Your students are young and high-spirited, though, sir, wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘Certainly they are, but they are not dangerous lunatics, Superintendent.’

  ‘One or other of them took the wheels off that cart at the dress rehearsal, sir.’

  ‘You have no proof of that.’

  ‘And somebody hid those wedges which were supposed to be put under those same wheels on the last night of the performance. Even if somebody had accidentally or deliberately pushed against the cart, the wedges would have held it.’

  ‘You must look elsewhere for your culprits. My students are not responsible for the tragedy which has occurred.

  ‘Perhaps you can suggest who is responsible, then, sir.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘No offence, sir, but you, as producer of this opera which, I understand, has been in rehearsal for several weeks, must have had your finger on the pulse, so to speak. Were there any little rifts, for example, between the deceased and anybody else in the cast? Clashes of temperament, jealousies, quarrels?’

  ‘Not so far as I am aware. Mr Crashaw was not my first choice for the part, but when I gave it to him there was little or no ill-feeling among the others.’

  ‘What happened to your first choice, then, sir? Couldn’t he fill the bill?’

  ‘Oh, it was nothing like that. He was fooling about on a trampoline at his school – he’s a teacher – fell off it awkwardly and was taken to hospital with a fractured leg. It was a very nasty crack, I believe, silly young ass!’