The Instrument allowed his hand to be seized and shaken. He glowered at Monty and moved his ankles to a more inaccessible position.
‘Fair dinkum, cobber?’ he growled.
32
With Ace Barron unobtrusively standing by, Winstanley Fortescue returned to the Chesterton and joined in the rehearsals. Gradually, life returned to a semblance of normal and the show began to take shape again. The occasional news about Peter Farley was encouraging, if not quite so good as might be desired: he was recovering slowly, but not fit to do any talking yet. If people had their own opinions as to whether or not this was the truth, they kept them to themselves.
‘I don’t know,’ Rufus said moodily at the end of the week. ‘Something seems to be missing. It’s not quite right.’
‘Is it ever?’ Davy asked. ‘What’s missing is the audience. Once they see faces out there in the auditorium, the cast will perk up no end.’
‘You may be right.’ But Rufus narrowed his eyes at the way Winstanley Fortescue was slumped in an armchair, half-asleep now that his scene was over.
‘Oh, I do still worry about Win, dear.’ Tottie ventured a mild criticism. ‘Look at him, sitting there like a puppet with its strings cut every time he’s not in a scene. You don’t think you’re working him too hard, do you?’
‘He’s conserving his energy,’ Davy said, with more certainty than he felt. ‘Don’t worry about Win, he’s a pro to his fingertips. He’ll be all right on the night.’
‘We don’t have much choice, anyway,’ Rufus said. ‘We’re opening next Wednesday. What the hell—’ He slapped his hands together decisively. ‘I’ve bet on longer odds than this!’
‘Dress Rehearsal this afternoon, Win.’ Miranda smiled brightly at her husband.
‘Oh—’ He seemed to grope for a reply—or perhaps the proper accent in which to convey it. Madame Rosetti had been keeping his vocal cords to the grindstone; perhaps too much so, he was beginning to develop a faintly haunted look in his offstage hours.
‘Oh, good.’ He waited to see if this was the right response.
‘I’ve arranged an impromptu little party afterwards,’ Miranda went on. ‘Quite apart from the Opening Night party, I mean. That will be Rufus’s. This will be ours, our thanks to the cast and backstage staff for all their help and patience. It ought to cheer them all up.’
‘Oh. Good.’
‘I knew you’d be pleased.’ Miranda kept her smile bright. Would Win ever speak in polysyllables again? ‘I’ve ordered all your favourite foods. And champagne.’
‘Oh. Good.’ He held out his arms to her with that melting smile, and she duly melted. Did words matter all that much, after all? Here was the real Win and he needed her as he had never needed her before. Everything else would follow … in time.
‘I do wish you’d stop prowling around and settle,’ Tottie scolded. ‘There are no hot bricks around here, although you act like you’re dancing on them. Come on now, Monty, give it a rest. It’s wearing me out, just watching you.’
Then stop watching me! That was the trouble with this place: no privacy anywhere. They were all watching each other with varying degrees of mistrust. The Minder was watching everyone. Would the killer try to strike at Winstanley Fortescue again before the opening?
It was already Dress Rehearsal; the Opening was tomorrow night. He had every right to be nervous. He had to be vigilant and ready to protect The Instrument from the danger that might strike from any quarter. Absently, he sharpened his claws on one of the sawhorses that had been set up in the foyer.
‘Don’t do that!’ Tottie aimed a half-hearted blow at him.
He didn’t bother to dodge; she had no intention of hitting him.
‘Here we are, Tottie.’ Two of the stage hands appeared, carrying the long boards that were to be set across the sawhorses to make a trestle table.
‘Fine. Just put them there.’ Tottie gestured unnecessarily; they knew what was to be done. She held the long length of material that was going to double as a tablecloth all ready to spread out over the boards. ‘The caterers will be arriving any minute.’
Caterers? A party? The cat retracted his claws and moved away as the stage hands set up the table and Tottie covered it. Why were they getting ready so early? The Opening wasn’t until tomorrow night and the public would be thronging the foyer. The table would be in everybody’s way. And the caterers shouldn’t be arriving tonight. The party should be held backstage after the performance, as usual. The food would spoil—or be very tired—-if it was going to hang around for twenty-four hours. What was going on?
Someone rattled the main entrance doors and Tottie went to open them. A small procession filed in bearing film-shrouded trays of buttered rolls and fancy breads, platters of sliced roast beef, smoked salmon, chicken and ham; bowls of potato, rice, three-bean and green salads.
‘Don’t just stand there,’ Tottie directed the stage hands. ‘Go and help them bring everything in.’
The augmented procession continued, with bottles of champagne borne in, along with ice buckets, trays of petits-fours, cheesecakes, gâteaux, fruit salad, coffee urns. They were all distributed along the table. A groaning board, indeed.
The cat backed into a corner, forgotten, and watched the preparations, salivating.
Oh yes, it was a party. Tonight. He closed his eyes in ecstasy. He loved parties.
The pièce de résistance, an enormous bowl of caviar in a bed of ice, was placed in the centre of the table. Fragrant aromas seeped from beneath the plastic wrapping with promise of tasty titbits to come from his friends.
Uuugh! Another smell violated his delicate nostrils. Ugly, appalling, vile—he hardly needed to open his eyes to know that Woody had appeared on the scene.
‘What’s all this, then?’ Woody demanded.
‘Oh yes.’ Tottie faced him. ‘Trust you to come along when all the work’s done.’
‘What work? Nobody told me anything.’
‘It’s a surprise party. Miranda and Win are giving it for everyone. To cheer us all up before the Opening.’
‘Huh!’ Woody grunted. ‘Think they can buy friends, do they?’
Ugh! He was a ghastly creature! Stupid and uncouth—and he smelled of horrible things. Hatred and turpentine and paint stripper and—
Ugh! The cat retreated from the abomination until he was crouched against the wall. Woody reeked of dog!
There was a shout from the auditorium.
‘That’s the scene change coming up,’ Tottie said. ‘You’d all better get in there and do your stuff. Not a word of this, mind you. Miranda wants it to be a surprise.’
Dear Miranda … always so sweet and thoughtful. How typical of her. So generous to her friends—our friends. Our dear sweet friends … now there was a thought … a party for our friends …
He watched Tottie make a few minor adjustments to the table arrangement, then bestow permission on the catering staff to slip inside the auditorium for a sneak preview of the show.
They would all be completely absorbed until the end of the Dress Rehearsal. At least another hour … Heh-heh-heh.
‘Oh God!’ Cynthia shrieked. ‘The cats are in the caviar! That’s disgusting!’
Who paid for it, for Bast’s sake? Monty raised his head and glared at her briefly.
‘One of them’s yours,’ Tottie pointed out. ‘You can’t talk.’
The Duchess of Malfi gulped greedily at the caviar without looking up to respond to the voice she knew so well. Butterfly quivered, but also stood her ground, such delicacies did not come her plebeian way often.
‘Oh no!’ Miranda was half way between laughter and tears. She had wanted everything to be so perfect.
Geoffrey quickly turned a laugh into a cough.
‘That cat!’ Rufus groaned. ‘That bloody cat!’
Just returning a bit of hospitality. What’s wrong with that? My dear little ladies are as entitled to a party as you are—perhaps more so.
‘Filthy beasts!’ Woo
dy started forward menacingly. ‘I’ll take care of them!’
Winstanley Fortescue gave a sudden hoot of laughter and charged forward to join the friends he recognized as his. He bumped into Woody and sent him flying without even noticing that he had done so. Woody cursed him.
Butterfly and Malfi moved over unconcernedly to make room for The Instrument to join them, recognizing in some mysterious female way that, although he was in an unfamiliar form, he was not unknown to them.
The Instrument thrust one finger into the rapidly depleting bowl of caviar and brought out a generous dollop. He started to lick at it but, meeting Monty’s censorious eye, he changed his mind and thrust it into his mouth.
‘That’s right, Win.’ Miranda was becoming adept at covering for these outbreaks of eccentricity. ‘It’s a staff party! And Monty is part of the backstage staff. Why shouldn’t he invite his friends to join us?’
Giggles broke out from the watching crowd; the ice was broken and everything was a joke.
‘Oh, well,’ someone said. ‘There’s lots of other goodies.’ They broke ranks and advanced on the table.
‘That’s right,’ Rufus said resignedly. ‘There’ll be more caviar tomorrow—and we’ll keep a better guard on it.’
33
‘They say a bad Dress Rehearsal means a good Opening,’ Tottie sighed. ‘But it wasn’t really bad enough to be bad—’
‘Or good enough to be good,’ Davy agreed. ‘All we can do is hope for the best.’ He frowned. ‘I just wish I didn’t have the feeling that Win is … well, losing interest. As though, at any performance, he might just stroll offstage and go somewhere else. The way Monty does when he’s lost interest in whatever he’s doing.’
Bast damn it! It was only too possible. More so than Davy knew. It was a problem he had noticed in himself. Monty’s attention span was limited and his own attempted concentration on a subject was too often over-ruled by the cat’s desire to curl up and sleep or go and satisfy his curiosity about what was happening elsewhere.
‘All I’m going to worry about right now is tonight’s performance,’ Tottie said firmly. ‘The rest of the run can take care of itself.’
There was the familiar air of supercharged excitement backstage; the build-up of tension and near-hysteria which would find release when the house lights dimmed, the curtains parted, and the performance began. For good or ill.
The Stage Door opened and closed constantly; flowers were delivered, messages of goodwill arrived, friends and hangers-on popped in ‘just for the teeniest minute to wish you good luck’, the Front of House staff rushed back and forth with all the last-minute errands and duties.
Chaos! Bedlam! The breath of Life! And, all too soon, the call: ‘Five minutes, please.’
As the curtains parted and the applause erupted, the cat watched silently, yearningly, from the wings. Ace Barron just watched. The performance began.
Not bad. Not bad. Could have been worse. A lot worse. The cat had retreated to the star dressing-room after the performance to savour the triumph. He sat half-hidden behind the umbrella stand, his nose vaguely complaining at the scents drifting his way. The perfumes and after-shave lotions some people wore!
‘Darlings, you were wonderful!’
‘Marvellous, darlings, marvellous!’
‘A triumph—it will run for ever!’
‘Absolutely brilliant!’
The babble of voices was deafening. If only the reviews were half as enthusiastic as the flattery of friends, the show was a hit.
And so it should be. As the sound of applause struck his eardrums, Winstanley Fortescue’s reflexes and expertise had taken over. No one would ever know how brilliant his performance actually was because no one would ever know the difficulties he had been labouring under.
Oh, give Monty his due. A lesser cat might have turned tail and run as the barrage of sound hit him. Thank Bast, Monty was a theatre cat; he had always been fond of the noise and excitement, to the extent that he had had to be actively discouraged from strolling across the stage during performances and garnering his own round of applause. Now he had it all to himself.
‘Win! Miranda! Darlings! Better, much better than one dared to hope!’ Dame Theodora lowered her voice to a modified shriek in order to be heard over the background noise. ‘Even Oliver liked it!’
‘I liked it very much—and I’m going to say so!’ Oliver Crump beamed approval.
‘Darling, I’m sorry to bring the skeleton—if I can call him that—to the Feast,’ Dame Theodora apologized to Miranda. ‘But the show was sold out! I couldn’t get a ticket, so I had to come on Oliver’s extra ticket. That meant I couldn’t get out of bringing him backstage to the party. Don’t worry—he really is going to do you a super review.’
‘I’m not worried,’ Miranda laughed. They had come through triumphant. Everything was wonderful. Everyone was her best friend—even Oliver Crump. ‘You’re both welcome!’
‘We’ll pop along to the other dressing-rooms and spread the good word,’ Dame Theodora said. ‘See you at the champagne buckets!’
Oliver hardly winced as he dutifully followed his aunt.
Really, there was nothing more boring than watching other people being the centre of attention. Even when those people were Win and Miranda. The cat yawned, then looked up hopefully, aware that someone had come to stand beside him.
No, no petting or handouts there. It was Ace Barron, still very much on duty. And this was one of the best vantage-points in the room. All was well and would continue to be well while Ace was on guard.
No need for both of us to keep watch here. Besides, he wanted to look in on Geoffrey and see how the boy was enjoying this first flush of success. The cat stretched and sauntered out into the corridor.
Faugh! How could he have forgotten that Antoinette would be here? Geoffrey was her son, too. (Sorry about that, my boy—but fortunately, you take after me.)
He slid into the dressing-room, keeping his distance from Antoinette, but bestowing a friendly ankle rub on Jennet. Friends of Geoffrey were also there and the television escapee had his own coterie surrounding him. It was too crowded here; he could make contact with Geoffrey later. Well, at least, he could hop into Geoffrey’s lap at a quiet moment and purr congratulations and rub his head against Geoffrey’s chin. Geoffrey would recognize the affection without ever knowing why it was so fervent.
Ah well … even in this condition, there were compensations … He poked his head round the door of Cynthia’s dressing-room. It, too, was jammed with well-wishers, filled with laughter, excitement and the deep steady throb of success that pulsed through the Chesterton now. They all knew they had a big hit.
There was one oasis of peace amid the hubbub. From a wicker basket on a table in corner, a pair of sapphire eyes looked out through a latticed door. Malfi, dear Malfi. From both lives, he remembered the drill: Cynthia always shut the Duchess of Malfi safely into her cat basket so that she should not get over-excited and run away during the confusion of all the visitors pouring into the dressing-room. Later, when the crowd had thinned out and the party started, Cynthia would release Malfi and carry her in to join the party and partake of nibbles of all the glorious bountiful food.
He met those sapphire eyes; they blinked—winked—at each other and the message flashed between them: See you later …
34
Under Tottie’s supervision, the stage hands had pushed back the scenery and furniture and set up the trestle table at the back of the stage. Front of House staff came round for their share of the festivities. The atmosphere was electric with gaiety; everyone knew they had a hit on their hands, even before the early editions of the morning papers were brought in to confirm it.
‘I phoned my review in from Win’s dressing-room.’ Oliver Crump basked in unaccustomed popularity. ‘Well deserved, all of you. I honestly couldn’t fault a thing.’
Jilly kept close to Rufus, aware that she was only being tolerated because of her new status under his protec
tion. On the one occasion when she tried to sidle up to Winstanley Fortescue, Miranda suddenly appeared on one side of him, Tottie on the other, and the cat materialized at his feet. Before their combined hostility, Jilly had gasped and backed away, quickly returning to Rufus, who was too busy to pay attention to her; she left shortly afterwards.
A most entertaining soirée. The sort everyone would like to have go on for ever and, for a while, it seemed that it might. But from the trees outside the dawn chorus began hailing the first pale streaks of light in the sky. Yawns were smothered and the first of the party-goers left, rapidly followed by more. There were little items to be taken care of—like getting some sleep before telephones began ringing, with congratulatory calls in the later morning.
Tottie and the stage hands waited to clear away the debris, dismantle the table, replace the set … and get some sleep themselves. While they waited, the stage hands slipped outside for a quick cigarette and Tottie returned to the Wardrobe to replenish Monty’s dishes for the night.
The cast retired to their dressing-rooms to get ready to leave. The remaining guests melted away. So did everyone else.
A good party, a very good party. The cat suddenly found himself alone on the stage. The table was still set up, lots of platters and bowls still on display. Wonder if they’re all empty? He had done quite well with friends slipping him titbits, but still … might as well see what was left. Waste not, want not, heh-heh-heh.
He leaped effortlessly on to the table and lifted his head, letting delicious aromas waft through his sensors. I do believe there are some prawns left … yes, yes, there are … there were, heh-heh-heh.
What’s that? A sharp vile odour struck his nostrils. He became aware that he had heard the Stage Door open and close and a strange scuffling sound immediately afterwards. It was coming closer, so was the horrible smell.
Dog! Savage dog! He identified the smell just as he heard the rattle of a choke chain being unclipped and pulled back.
‘Your turn to eat, Rambo,’ Woody said softly. ‘Get the little bastard! Kill, Rambo, kill!’
Nine Lives to Murder Page 17