“I drove him to the airport myself on Thursday morning.”
“Where did you drop him off ?”
“Outside the British Airways terminal.”
“Did you see a ticket?”
“Mr. Reddit from the play bought him his ticket,” she informed Rex with a defiant lift of the chin. “What are you suggesting? That he didn’t get on a plane? He’s contacted me several times from LA.”
“Where is he staying?”
“With an old friend from an acting class.”
Was she protecting her son or had she been duped along with everyone else? “Thank you, Mrs. Brewster, I won’t take up more of your time.” Her guard was up and Rex didn’t feel she would give him more information, nor did he wish to appear to be harassing her.
She rose abruptly from her chair and escorted him back to the front door.
“Good day to you.” Rex walked away from the bungalow and regained the Renault with deliberately measured steps, attempting to conceal his excitement.
Why would Darrell lie to his mother unless he had some terrible secret? It could not be he was simply embarrassed to admit that his hoped-for part had fallen through. Much as he felt sorry for Doreen Brewster, Rex felt worse for Mrs. Chase. Doreen could always visit her son in prison.
He looked back and saw she was still standing in the doorway, staring after him. He waved before he got in the car and heard her slam the front door.
On the drive back to Barley Close, Rex reflected on the unusual nature of this case. Now that he had all but solved the whodunit portion, he needed to prove the how-dunit part, which would require the entire cast’s participation; and the sooner the better.
First, he needed Inspector Fiske to grant him full access to the stage. To that end, he had to convince him that Darrell was a viable suspect, and told him over the phone everything he had collated.
“I may know how he managed to get onstage without anyone noticing, and this is the only way to find out,” Rex concluded.
“Well, I’ll be,” Fiske said without finishing his sentence. “If you really think it’s Darrell Brewster, we need to find him. I’ll get my sergeant right on it. To tell you the truth, we were looking at Trey Atkins again and getting ready to bring him in for a polygraph.”
“I think perhaps you don’t give young Trey enough credit,” Rex said. “He could have walked away when he discovered Cassie was being stalked and had a dependent mother, but instead he chose to support her.”
“Young love. Doesn’t it make you feel nostalgic?”
“Aye, well, unfortunately Darrell put an end to the happy future they had planned.”
“I’m all ears to find out how.”
Rex outlined his proposal.
“I’ll see you shortly,” Fiske said.
As Rex heard the click of the phone at the inspector’s end, he knew he had not only stuck his neck out but had put it squarely on the block. Everything rested on the success of his plan. Next, he called Penny on her mobile number and asked if she was home.
“Not yet,” she told him. “I’m in the car.”
“Penny, I have a huge favour to ask of you. The last, I hope.”
“Ask away. I have Bluetooth.”
“I need you to call an emergency meeting of all the people involved in putting on the play on Friday night.”
“When you say ‘emergency’…?”
“I’d like everyone at the community centre by half past seven this evening. I’ve cleared it with Inspector Fiske. He’ll be there.”
“But why?”
“It’s to prove a theory. I think Darrell Brewster murdered Cassie and I want to do a little re-enactment. I’m sure now he never went to LA.” Rex could hear traffic in the background of Penny’s phone as he waited for her response. “I’ll get hold of Paul Reddit, Ron Wade, and Timothy Holden. And Trey. If you can convene the rest …” he urged.
“For seven thirty,” Penny confirmed dubiously.
“I know it’s a tall order, but I’m relying on your organizational skills.”
“Flatterer. And what should I tell them?”
“That the inspector and I urgently require an hour or so of their time, and to bring reliable watches.”
“Are the actors to wear their costumes?”
“Preferred, but not required. And don’t forget Bill, Ben, and Tony.”
“And myself, right?”
“Naturally. I plan to have a grand reveal.”
“Sounds intriguing. I just hope they can all make it.”
“Tell them it’s for Cassie. We hope to bring her killer to justice before he absconds for good, and this just might be the clincher. But don’t tell them who it is.”
“Okay. I’ll call you in an hour with an update. I’m turning into my street now.”
Rex hung up and got to work at his end. There was no time to lose. Doreen would no doubt have tried to contact her son by now to tell him about the Scotsman’s troubling visit to their home.
twenty-five
“Thank you so much for coming at short notice.” Rex addressed the actors gathered around him backstage. “I see that most of you are in costume or close to it, which lends verisimilitude to our re-enactment, and that you have all brought watches. Good. I don’t want the distraction of mobiles, so if you could please mute them and place them on the tea table, Tony will keep an eye on them. Dennis, Rodney, and Andrew,” he said to the three fictional detectives, “you will need to keep yours. I will be giving all of you your cues and directing the proceedings. Inspector Fiske and my wife are here as spectators.”
“But we’re not doing the whole first act, right?” asked Ben, who, along with his fellow stagehand, wore the stencilled tee-shirt, jeans, and trainers of Friday night.
“No, just the behind-the-scenes part that came after. Mr. Welsh, could you make sure the lights onstage are exactly as they were on opening night for the final scene of Act One, and flip on the projector.” Bill hurried over to the back steps leading up to the stage. “Mr. Holden, you have the lead role tonight, which is why I specifically requested that you wore your Father Brown costume.”
A shyly pleased look overtook Timothy Holden’s bland face.
“Only you won’t be playing the Timothy Father Brown,” Rex went on to explain. “You’ll be playing the Darrell Father Brown.”
“You what?” Holden said, blinking in confusion behind his glasses.
“He played you, and now you’re going to play him.”
“Darrell?” echoed several of the cast.
Rex surveyed the intent faces before him: Paul Reddit studious, his niece incredulous. Trey looked as though he were holding his breath. Ada watched with her mouth slightly open. Susan Richardson, in her stiff costume, but with her hair and makeup done naturally, stood with a hand on her chest, a stunned expression freezing her arresting features. Ben stared in curiosity. Dennis Caldwell, without his Poirot stage makeup, frowned with his half-grown eyebrows.
“I say,” said Andrew Forsythe in his upper-crust voice. “This is a turn-up for the books, what? Still, so long as it’s not one of us.”
“Darrell Brewster?” Snyder, in his Sherlock tweeds, glanced over at Susan, apparently linking their names together. He turned back to Rex. “How?”
“That’s what we’re about to find out,” Penny told him.
“You mean ee’s not in LA?” Bill asked, re-joining the group.
“You finally twigged. Good lad,” Ben teased his friend.
“A person says ee’s going to America, I believe him. I hoped ee’d go to Hollywood and become famous, so we could all say we knew him back when.”
“‘Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well,’” Snyder misquoted snidely.
“Thank you, Rodney, for the Shakespearean aside,” Rex said, “but we’re on the clock and I need you
all to take your places. The shot was fired at seven forty-five, so let’s synchronize our watches. It’s now seven thirty-five. Ron, who is unable to join us due to a sales meeting, we’ll just assume is in the car park getting his migraine pills. Tony, please take your seat at the table and work on your lesson plans.”
The art teacher sat down and poured over some imaginary papers, his chin cupped in his right hand, a pencil in his left. Rex had not previously noticed he was left-handed. He turned back to the group.
“Could those of you who did not remain backstage after coming off the first act please take up position where you were on Friday at seven forty-five, as best you can remember; and from that moment proceed just as you did that night. We’ll pretend that ‘Timothy Father Brown’ is with Miss Marple and Aunt Clara down the corridor. The three other male detectives, stay here. Mr. Ells, on the steps, if you please.”
The butler in the play moved towards the stairs while Paul, Bobbi, and the stagehands followed Ada and Susan through the dressing room door.
Rex turned to Helen and Inspector Fiske. “The best vantage point is probably from this wall facing the back of the stage. Mr. Holden, I need you to come with me.”
He led Timothy up the steps and alongside the stage, which was enshrouded in shadow, and asked him to hide behind one of the black panels close to the control button for the curtains, which had remained closed since the final performance. “Flat up against the wall, now, so I can’t see you.” Rex stood by the projector, as Bill had done on the opening night, and consulted his stopwatch. “Can you hear me, Mr. Holden?”
“Yes,” replied a muted voice.
“Come out now and reach for the button, but don’t push it, and then wait fifteen seconds, the time it would take for the curtains to close. I timed it from the DVD.”
Father Brown emerged from his hiding place and put his hand to the button. Rex counted off the seconds on his stopwatch. “Now run onstage and stop in front of the chalk outline, and when you hear my stopwatch go off, pretend to shoot.” The ring sounded. “This is where it gets tricky. Open the trap door and get down as quickly as you can, but watch you don’t trip up.” Rex re-set the stopwatch.
Father Brown pulled on the hook in the floor and wrenched open the door, and then scrambled down the ladder in his black cassock. Rex scooted down after him.
“Creep along the wall to the front of the trap room,” he instructed. “Wait. Put on your priest hat in case someone spots you.”
Holden pulled it from his garment. Rex followed his shadowy form in the dark, bowing his head to avoid the rafters. When he peered out of the trap room, he saw Dennis and Andrew on their phones looking up at the back of the stage, just as they would have been after the shot was fired. Rodney, his face likewise upturned and phone in hand, was standing at the foot of the steps talking to Ells, the butler, whose black trouser legs were visible further up, the rest of him hidden from view.
Tony got up from his chair at the table, strode to the dressing room door, and asked the person inside if they had seen Ben. Trey in his Henry Chalmers costume came out, and he and Tony dashed past the trap room towards the stairs. Rex heard the stampede of feet mounting the steps and running overhead. Ignoring Helen and Mike, who were watching the pantomime, he pushed Father Brown towards the dressing room door, which he closed noiselessly behind them.
“Into the end cubicle,” he directed, hearing a commotion in the corridor. “Hurry! Close the curtain.” The outer door opened to admit Aunt Clara and Miss Marple. “Assume I’m Timothy returning with you,” he told them, ushering them into the storage area.
He closed the door on them and told Father Brown to exit the cubical. “Into the corridor. Go, go, go!” They both fled down the linoleum tile. “Open the emergency exit.”
“Mr. Reddit’s out there with Bobbi, Bill, and Ben,” Holden informed him, peering through the glazed panel in the fire-escape door, which was propped open a fraction.
“Correct. So, where to now?”
Holden looked to his right. “Up the stairs?”
“Right you are.”
Father Brown hitched up his cassock and hurried, huffing and puffing, up the staircase leading to the upper storey of the building. “How far?” he called down.
“Until you’re out of sight. That’s fine. Crouch down.” Rex went to stand on a bottom step.
“How long for?” Holden gasped, his face, red with exertion, pressed between the wooden balusters.
“A few more minutes.”
The fire-escape door opened from the outside and Paul Reddit, his niece, and the stagehands filed into the corridor.
“Seven fifty-three on the nose,” Rex said approvingly, studying his stopwatch.
“The time I gave you,” the solicitor said, walking towards the door to the dressing room, with the others behind him.
“The coast is clear,” Rex called to Holden after the last of them had disappeared from view.
Father Brown traipsed clumsily down the stairs, holding up his hem in one hand while he held on to the bannister rail with the other.
“Time to hop on the bike,” Rex told him. “Out you go.”
“There is no bike,” Holden replied, letting the heavy door swing back on its hinges onto Rex, who pushed it open again.
“There’s no bike because Darrell took it.” Rex stopped his watch at the birch tree. “Did your bike have a basket?”
“A wire one at the front.” Holden expelled a loud breath. “I’m knackered!”
Rex smiled in sympathy. Darrell was younger and more agile, which would have shaved off several seconds from the last leg of his escape. No doubt he had got out of his cassock, having worn ordinary clothes beneath to make up some bulk, stowed the costume in the basket, and cycled across the grounds to the playing fields, where he had dropped one of the latex gloves he had worn for the crime. Inspector Fiske had not mentioned bicycle tracks, but by the time the police found the glove, it had rained.
“Right. Time to re-join the others.” Rex put a friendly hand on Holden’s shoulder and guided him back towards the building. “That was extremely helpful in that it proved it could be done.” He held the fire-escape door open for him.
“By Darrell? But why’d he do it in the first place?”
“That, my friend, will become obvious in my summation.”
The two men headed back to the storage area where the others were eagerly waiting.
twenty-six
“Thank you all for being so professional.” Rex stood before the cast and crew with his back to the stage. “The reason behind choreographing your movements was to show how Darrell Brewster was able to pull off the shooting without anybody realizing he was ever here. How?” he asked rhetorically. “He arrives before five, dressed up as Father Brown in case anyone sees him, which someone does”—Rex turned to Penny—“and mistakes him for Timothy. He has the real gun concealed under his cassock, perhaps up his sleeve, and his large black hat pulled forward over his face. He waits for the main door to be unlocked and presumably enters the stage via the hall while Timothy is changing in the dressing room.
“Throughout the first act, he bides his time near the front of the stage behind the floating black panels until he hears the scrim for the attic scene roll down, the trap door open, and the projector click on. But then Bill hurries past where he’s hiding, and Darrell realizes he’s forgotten to close the curtains. He can’t shoot Cassie from the wings and risk missing his target, nor can he step onstage in full view of the audience if he hopes to get away with it, and so, after waiting a few seconds for Bill to come back, he pushes the button himself. This accounts for the slight delay on opening night. He whips off his hat so his will be the last face Cassie ever sees on this earth, steps forward into the light cast by the projector, and, lifting the gun, aims for her heart. Cassie screams, as she is supposed to, but from real fear this time,
and he fires. While the unsuspecting audience applauds, he opens the trap door, pulling it shut after him, and hides below while those backstage rush up the steps to investigate the loud bang.
“When the coast is clear, he sneaks into the dressing room, diving into a cubicle when Ada, Susan, and his double pass through. He goes into the corridor and hides at the top of the main stairs until the smokers among you re-enter the building, and then makes his escape before Ron returns last of all at seven fifty-five. By then, most of the spectators would have been back in the hall. I had Timothy act it all out to see if it was feasible.”
Rex tapped his stopwatch. “The crime took less than ten minutes, from firing the gun to pedalling away to freedom on Timothy’s bike. You could say luck was with the devil that night! But perhaps he never intended to get away with it. He may have been planning to shoot himself as well, but lost his nerve.”
“But why?” Dennis Caldwell asked. “What motive could he possibly have had to kill Cassie of all people?”
“He was the jilted ex-boyfriend, vindictively jealous of Trey for winning Cassie’s hand in marriage, and probably resentful, too, that his rival got the part of Henry Chalmers. I would not be surprised if one of the reasons he decided to shoot Cassie onstage was to sabotage Penny’s play out of spite. And what’s more dramatic than doing it in front of a theatre audience, especially if he intended to die along with her à la Romeo and Juliet?”
“I didn’t know there had been something going on between Darrell and Cassie,” Penny said in surprise.
“Nor I,” added Tony, who was standing behind her with his hand on her shoulder.
“That was all over last year,” Trey told them. “For Cassie, at any rate. We did our best to play down our relationship, knowing how he’d react. Obviously, we didn’t know how far he would actually go.”
“Of course not,” Ada said in a consoling voice, rubbing his back.
Penny gave a helpless sigh. “Well, that explains a lot, doesn’t it? He was waiting in the wings, figuratively and literally.”
“And exit Lady Naomi for good,” Forsythe chimed in, rather inappropriately, as Rex thought.
Upstaged by Murder Page 17