The Plain Old Man

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “Isn’t it fun that we’re all three doing a show together? The family that sings together clings together. How about that, Daddy?”

  Emma Kelling gave the struggling girl a quick pat. “Yes, Jenny dear, it’s lovely. Go call Parker and Sebastian. I want them ready and waiting in the wings before Gillian finishes her number. Honestly, Jack, at your age, one might have thought you’d know better.”

  It was not an auspicious beginning. Sarah hoped the senior citizens weren’t in for too big a letdown. She reckoned without Aunt Emma.

  Precisely what Emma Kelling said or did backstage to make Jack Tippleton quit making a fool of himself, to turn Gillian Bruges into a model of propriety, to sort out Cousin Frederick’s two left feet and put some starch into Martha Tippleton’s wilting backbone, Sarah never knew. Her aunt had ordered her out front, to monitor the performance from the audience’s point of view.

  Whatever it was, it worked. There were rough spots, naturally, since this was the first opportunity the performers had had to run through the entire show from the auditorium stage. On the whole, though, the dress rehearsal went as well as any amateur group could expect, and no doubt a good deal smoother than most.

  The star of the evening, to everyone else’s astonishment and his own dismay, was Frederick Kelling. The instant he set foot onstage, the children from his school began applauding. Those whose infirmities didn’t allow them to clap managed to cheer, scream, pound the floor with their crutches, or beep the horns on their wheelchairs.

  Sarah didn’t mind their noise a bit. At least it was keeping her awake. Last night had caught up with her, even the coffee she’d had with the boys wasn’t helping. She kept dropping off and waking up with a jerk. It was a good thing she’d picked a seat well toward the rear so the cast and the rest of the small audience couldn’t see her disgracing herself.

  Her makeups weren’t bad, Sarah decided. She’d done a better job than some of the cast who’d put on their own, Jenicot Tippleton in particular. Jenny’s voice might not be up to Gillian’s, but she was far and away the prettier of the two. Onstage tonight, though, she wasn’t coming off anywhere near so well. Gillian must have had more stage experience than she’d admitted to, or else she was an awfully quick learner. As a further else, Jenicot’s makeup might have been all right to start with, and she’d messed it up.

  By crying, Sarah decided after she’d slipped halfway down the aisle to get a better look. The tears wouldn’t have been from a premature case of first-night nerves, either. There’d been that anguished little scene at the makeup table: Jenicot trying to wheedle her father into helping her pretend they were a loving, united family; Martha either in despair or in some mood close enough to it as made no difference; Jack paying no attention to either one of them.

  Could Jenicot be imagining Jack was more serious about Gillian Bruges than he’d been about any of his previous infatuations? Sarah could have told her differently. She’d received enough sighs and glances herself during the past couple of days to convince her that Jack was willing to bestow his attentions elsewhere at the drop of an eyelash. She didn’t think Gillian could have any real illusions about the duration of the romance, either, and she didn’t think Gillian cared much one way or the other. Jack was just somebody who liked to play the same kind of game Gillian did. It would be over soon. After having seen so many other sexy soubrettes come and go, didn’t Martha and Jenicot realize this one would dance herself offstage too?

  There was such a thing as reaching the saturation point. Perhaps Martha had simply taken all she could stand. Sarah could remember altogether too well how her own first husband had finally given way under the load he’d been carrying for perhaps as many years as Martha had been married to Jack. Alexander had behaved much like Martha before his breakdown, going through the motions politely, mechanically, sinking into total apathy once he’d forced himself to the limit. He’d frightened Sarah then. Was Martha frightening Jenicot now?

  Anyway, Jack Tippleton’s affair was not Sarah’s. Her business right now was with Aunt Emma’s stolen Romney and whether Charlie Daventer’s death had anything to do with it. Whatever ailed Martha Tippleton must be something quite apart. Mustn’t it?

  Martha Tippleton didn’t have any money of her own. Sarah had gleaned that bit of information from Cousin Frederick, and Frederick had got it straight from Cousin Dolph. Suppose Martha needed cash in a hurry?

  Suppose she did? Swiping Ernestina would be about the nuttiest way to get it one could possibly imagine. To begin with, she could never possibly have managed without help. Whom could she get for a job like that? Martha would hardly involve her own daughter. Besides, she was one of Emma Kelling’s closest friends.

  And what if she was? Best friends were the easiest people in the world to steal from, just because they never dreamed their best friends would betray them. Having easy access to Emma’s treasures, though, Martha would also have Emma’s pocketbook at her disposal. Everybody knew how readily Emma Kelling would come to the rescue in time of need. Was there some kind of twisted ethic that made it more honorable to steal than to beg?

  Sarah wished she knew more about burglar alarms. She tried to remember some of the things Max had told her, but all she could think of was Max. He’d come home, she was running to meet him. He’d brought her the Swan of Tuonela for a souvenir. The swan was making a dreadful racket.

  But not a swanlike racket. Good heavens, those were the children screaming again. Cousin Frederick was back onstage for the finale. She’d slept through almost the whole show. Sarah tried to pull herself together, hoping her aunt hadn’t missed her. During the intermission, those backstage would, she hoped, have thought she was busy with the youngsters and oldsters out front. No doubt she ought to have been, though they all looked pretty well able to take care of themselves. She tried to concentrate on what was left of the performance.

  The spell was broken. The ill-matched couples had got themselves sorted out. Frederick was paired off with Martha and looking pleased as Punch about it. On the other hand, he might just be relieved to have survived the performance. Anyway, Martha had brightened up, too, as she linked arms with him and did a discreet jig step. Alexis and Aline were together again, Lady Sangazure had Sir Marmaduke firmly in tow. Constance Partlett had been united to the rosy-nosed Dr. Daly and the Sorcerer had been banished with his evil spirits to the infernal regions under the trapdoor at the rear of the stage.

  Sarah had always thought this punishment a rank injustice, considering it had been Alexis who’d talked the Sorcerer into preparing his mischievous potion in the first place. Alexis was being self-righteous and triumphant as befitted a member of the aristocracy who’d got what he wanted and need not concern himself with the tribulations of the working class. Parker was carrying it off with panache too; he could act as well as sing. Sarah found it interesting that a nice, diffident boy like Parker Pence could project so much arrogance. Maybe the acting was in the diffidence, but why would he do that?

  Never mind Parker, she’d better attend to her business. Should she go backstage now, or wait for the end? Sarah decided to wait, she liked the rollicking bun number. She liked them all, for that matter. How could she have slept through so much of the performance?

  Max could drop off at odd times for quick naps, but she herself had never caught the knack. Sarah wondered for a second whether Guy might have slipped something into her peppermint ice cream, then decided she was simply tired. How Aunt Emma had kept up the pace year after year was more than Sarah could imagine. On the other hand, Aunt Emma hadn’t been up half the night trying to help Cousin Frederick investigate her old sweetheart’s murder.

  Horrible reminder: Sarah had promised Sergeant Formsby she’d call on Cousin Mabel. It would be an agonizing exercise in futility, but a promise was a promise. Besides, if there was anything that could possibly be told to the detriment of anybody in the cast, she could absolutely count on Cousin Mabel to tell it.

  There, the finale was conclude
d, and nicely too. The curtains closed, then reopened to show the entire cast, chorus and principals. No, not the entire cast. The Sorcerer was missing and Sarah could see that the smile on Lady Sangazure’s face was forced. She left her seat and ran around backstage.

  They were just coming off. The first person she met was Emma Kelling, definitely unsmiling now. “Where’s Ridpath?” she panted.

  “I don’t know,” said her aunt. “He was supposed to pop up through the trapdoor. Go see if it’s stuck, quickly while we start our individual bows.”

  Sarah knew the trapdoor led down by a few ladderlike steps into the T-shaped funnel through which the musicians entered the orchestra pit. With openings at both sides of the stage as well as the one into the pit, it seemed impossible he’d got trapped down there. She practically leaped the short staircase that led down from the wings and entered the tunnel.

  “Ridpath, are you here?”

  “Yes! For God’s sake, help me.”

  “What happened? Did you fall?”

  “I damned near killed myself. Look.”

  Sarah gaped. “What’s wrong with the stairs?” The top one was hanging askew.

  “A screw must have come out,” Ridpath told her. “It looked all right when I stepped down, but it pivoted and threw me when I put my weight on it.”

  “Oh, Ridpath! Can you walk?”

  “I didn’t dare try. Help me, will you?”

  With the orchestra blaring the finale outside, his groans were, Sarah hoped, drowned. She got him to his feet and made him take a step or two. As far as she could tell, it was merely a sprain.

  “My trousers are the worst casualty,” Ridpath admitted. “They’re split from stem to gudgeon. I can’t possibly take a curtain call.”

  “You must. Those children out front would think you’d really died. Come on.”

  She hustled him back upstairs as fast as she dared, parked him in the wings, and grabbed three of the spectres’ thrown-off shrouds.

  “Here, wrap this around you. Come here, you two.”

  There were a couple of hearty-looking young men working the lights and ropes. Sarah draped them hastily in the phosphorescent gauze, made them hoist Ridpath between them, handed him one of the artificial calla lilies Aline had carried in the betrothal scene, and stood by to dim the stage lights. As Emma came offstage with blood in her eye, the Sorcerer gave her a gallant wave of his lily and let himself be escorted onstage by his ghostly bearers. Even Cousin Frederick hadn’t got a bigger ovation.

  When he came off, Emma hugged him. “Ridpath, you rogue! That was magnificent. We’ll do it tomorrow. However did you get the idea?”

  “Needs must when the devil drives,” he told her. “Thank you, my stalwart men-at-arms. Tomorrow night I’ll get a couple of my creditors to help. They’ve been carrying me for years. Just an old joke I’ve always wanted to work off on somebody, Emma dear; you needn’t offer me a loan. But you had better get those steps under the trapdoor seen to.”

  “What do you mean? I tested them myself, this afternoon. Ridpath, you didn’t slip and fall?”

  “Not precisely, no. It’s all right, Emma. Let’s not make a fuss.”

  “A screw came loose and he twisted his ankle,” Sarah put in quickly. “Stick it in a bucket of cold water as soon as you’ve changed, Ridpath. Do you want to get out of your costume before you hold the cast conference, Aunt Emma?”

  “Yes, why don’t we all? Then we can go straight home afterward without having to bother. Hang your costumes up carefully everyone, please, so we shan’t have to press them again tomorrow. Back onstage as soon as you’re dressed. We don’t want to be here all night.”

  A few people were asking Ridpath for details of his accident, but Emma shushed them up and shooed them toward the dressing rooms like an elderly goose girl herding her flock. Sarah was glad they were getting away from the wings. With so many clustered in such a narrow space, the press of bodies and the smell of greasepaint was getting on her nerves.

  “Am I supposed to take their makeup off for them?” she asked her aunt.

  “Only if they scream for help. I myself shall start screaming if I don’t get out of this straitjacket pretty soon. I’d no idea a bustle was such a responsibility.”

  “What’s that you’ve got sticking to your rumble seat, Emma?” Ridpath Wale asked her. “I don’t recall having seen it when you came offstage.”

  “What are you talking about?” Emma reached around behind her, as far back as she could manage. “How odd. Sarah, what am I touching?”

  “Somebody’s idea of a joke, I think.” Sarah could feel a sudden dryness in her mouth. “It’s a note, skewered on with an old-fashioned hatpin. I expect it says ‘Kick Me,’ or something equally brilliant. No, Ridpath, you scoot on ahead and do something about your ankle. I’ll take care of the note. If the pin should catch, that old taffeta might split.”

  She was not about to let him find out what that alleged hatpin really was. She’d recognized it at first glance. That had been one of Uncle Bed’s little games with her, letting her trace the spiraled pattern with one finger and teaching her to say, “Ka-nurled ka-nob.” He’d never let her handle the paper knife to which the knurled knob was attached, though, because little girls must never handle dangerously sharp objects for fear of cutting their tender hands.

  Sarah waited until Ridpath had limped behind one of the folding screens from which dressing rooms had been improvised before she pulled the knife out of the bustle. She waited again until she and her aunt were shut into the only bona fide separate dressing room, the one Emma Kelling always reserved for herself, before she opened the note that had been skewered to the cloth.

  This one was typed. TWO DOWN, ONE TO GO. PAY UP OR YOU LOSE MORE THAN YOUR PAINTING.

  Emma stared at the paper. “Sarah, whatever can this mean?”

  “Do you honestly want to discuss it now?”

  “Sarah Kelling, if you know something I don’t, you tell it to me this instant.”

  “All right, then. I’m afraid it means Ridpath Wale wasn’t supposed to survive that fall just now. Cousin Frederick and I don’t believe Charlie Daventer’s death was any accident, either.”

  “Help me out of my costume.”

  Sarah obeyed, unfastening hooks and eyes and tiny buttons as she talked. Emma stood there in her whalebone and petticoats, stoic as the Roman soldier at Pompeii ignoring the molten lava as it flowed around his legs. When Sarah paused for breath, all she said was, “Go on.”

  Sarah went on until she had nothing left to tell. At the end, Emma’s comment was, “Don’t let my dress drop to the floor unless you’re prepared to press it. Get up on that chair and pull it over my head. Make sure the legs are on tight.”

  Chapter 12

  THIS SINGLE-MINDED CONCENTRATION on the project at hand was a trifle scary. What would happen once the show was behind them and Emma Kelling turned her full attention to tracking down her old cavalier’s murderer, as she was sure to do? Sarah was wondering about that as she undid the bustle’s complicated moorings and helped her aunt into a pink plissé kimono so she could get her stage makeup off without messing her clothes.

  Now that the cat was out of the bag, Sarah showed Emma the other message printed on the bustle tapes. Reading it off, she remarked on what a trivial bit of nonsense it sounded in comparison to the typewritten threat with the dagger driven through it.

  Emma thought so too. “Rather a waste of powder and shot, wouldn’t you say?”

  Sarah nodded. “Two notes on the same bustle do seem a bit much. And they’re so different. Almost as if—”

  She was interrupted by a knock on the door and Jenicot’s voice calling, “Mrs. Kelling?”

  “Yes, Jenny?”

  The door opened and the girl’s head appeared. “Mother sent me to tell you everybody’s ready. Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize you weren’t dressed.”

  She pulled back and shut the door in a hurry. Sarah was amused.

  “Aunt Emma, I h
adn’t realized you’re such a martinet. That girl looked positively scared to death.”

  “They know I don’t like to be bothered in my dressing room,” Emma mumbled through a faceful of cold cream. “Reach me that box of tissues, will you?”

  That ended any talk about the two notes. Emma had to be hurried into her clothes and rushed onstage for the postoperative consultation, as Sebastian Frostedd insisted on calling it. Sarah was relieved he didn’t say postmortem. She discovered she was not only expected to attend with the rest, but to make intelligent observations based on what she was supposed to have noticed from the front of the house. These took a bit of doing, since she had a natural reluctance to let the cast know how much of their performance she’d slept through.

  She did manage to dredge up a suggestion that Gillian refrain from maneuvering herself upstage and thus forcing Dame Partlett to turn her back to the audience. That gave her a small and transient satisfaction and earned her a glance of approval from Frederick, who appeared to have taken Martha under his wing along with his schoolful of handicapped children. She dug up a few more scraps of corroborative detail to add verisimilitude to an otherwise unconvincing report, added quite truthfully that the audience had loved the show, and backed herself off with a compliment on Frederick’s stellar performance that embarrassed him a good deal.

  It was interesting to watch Emma Kelling take the show apart and put it back together again without hurting anybody’s feelings, though Sarah was awfully glad when she’d finished. It wasn’t until they’d shut off the stage lights and were going out to the parking lot that Emma showed any sign of nerves.

  “Frederick, I wish you’d come back and spend the night with us.”

  “What for?” was his gracious reply.

  “Because we need you. Please, Frederick.”

  It wasn’t like Emma to beg a personal favor. Frederick gave her a sharp glance, then nodded. “I’ll have to stop by my flat and pick up my razor.”