A Darker God (10 page)

The actor fished about under his grey cape and produced a card. He held it out to Gunning, and there was a distinct but instantly suppressed flash of irony in his voice as he announced: “Deus ex machina. At your service. I think you’re going to need some divine help. I’ll be glad to be of assistance.”

He swept off his mask, revealing features which, though certainly not godlike, were impressive. A clever face with a decisive nose, was Letty’s first impression. Intense eyes below straight black brows were the most striking feature in a face moulded in strong, smooth planes. Not in the first flush of youth, he had frown lines between his brows, but this severity
was offset by a slight ironic lift of the mouth. It was a face the equal of the voice she had admired. The slyly confident face of an opponent who is just about to pronounce “Checkmate!” A face ruthless enough to make her want to look aside.

Gunning looked from the card in his hand back to the man, who was quietly watching for his reaction, and he read out, loudly enough for Letty to hear and clearly struggling to master his disbelief: “Chief Inspector Percival Montacute, Scotland Yard, Whitehall, London. Well, I’m blowed!”

“Percy,” said the leader affably. “Or Chief Inspector … depending on how our relationship develops.”

“You’re a long way from home, aren’t you? But what the devil …? How on earth do you come …? I don’t understand …”

Gunning was cut short by Montacute. “Later. We’ll go into all that later. There are excellent reasons for my being here, lurking in the shrubbery so to speak, but first things first, eh? Corpse on our hands … Sure you’ve realised that much. Where’s that Greek boy assistant got to? The one who does the lighting effects?” Montacute shouted his name and when the lad appeared he instructed him in fluent Greek to run to the police station, alert the officer in charge, and request backup at once in the form of a murder squad.

“And now, I think Miss Talbot was showing us the way … preparing to take the next step … We all know what has to be done,” he said. “Gunning, would you join me at the tub? You know the cast, I believe? You will be able to identify the poor fellow who’s concealed below that frightful wig.”

The two men went to stand one on either side of the bathtub, and carefully Montacute began to peel the fall of black hair upwards over the forehead. With a last tug, he separated it from the thick mass of greying fair hair underneath.

A chorus of exclamations burst from the spectators, and Gunning, shaken and trembling, made the sign of the cross
over the body, murmuring instinctively the ritual phrases of farewell to the departed.

Identification had been at the forefront of everyone’s mind—an imperative—and yet, strangely, with the familiar features exposed for all to see, no one breathed his name. The discovery had the effect of silencing every member of the group, isolating each in his own shock and disbelief. Grief and mourning would come much later, with acceptance; for now, all they could do was stare and look aside, praying that their senses were misdirecting them, and stare again and be forced to confront the truth.

Stage left, Clytemnestra made low keening noises into a trailing sleeve of her robe. Stage right, Letty stood frozen in an unnatural rigidity, eyes huge in her pale face and focussed on the bloodied body, making no sound.

The inspector looked from one to the other with interest. And looked again.

“That’s quite
enough!
You’ve had your fun! Now will you please all stop larking about and put an end to this.” The clarion voice rang out, sounding a note of farce. “It’s an absolute disgrace! I resent wasting another moment on your buffoonery! Whatever will you come up with next? Pigs’ bladders and water pistols? This is a drama, not a satyr play …” Maud Merriman had, at last, decided to make her appearance. She advanced, with a torrent of complaints, limping along with the aid of her stick (a support on those days when arthritis struck), and the cast moved aside to let her through. In minutes, all roles had been reversed and the audience was onstage, acting out a tragedy, while the actors could do no more than look on, aghast, dreading the outcome.

Maud joined Gunning at the bathtub and peered in.

“I thought as much! This prep-school humour is undignified and has to stop!” She struck the side of the bath with her stick and the ringing note triggered a quiver of distaste that
ran through the crowd. “Get up! Ugh! The man’s quite naked under all that paint! Will someone please pass him a robe?” She bent her head and spoke directly to the body of Agamemnon in an eerie echo of the queen’s waspish address to her dead husband.

“Andrew! You begin to be an embarrassment! Joke’s over. You’re to get out of there at
once!”

Chapter 8

I
t was Montacute who moved to respond to the first of Maud’s commands. The inspector took off his own grey cape and draped it, shroudlike, over the limbs.

The formality of the draping and the finality of the age-old gesture seemed to convey its stark message and Maud fell silent. Her face showed the fearful resignation of someone who has seen a flash of lightning and is now waiting for the thunderclap that must follow it.

“Lady Merriman …” he began.

“Montacute,” she interrupted, “you knew my husband. In Salonika. You came to dinner with us … What are you telling us?”

“I did indeed know him, madam. And I can, of course, identify him myself. I counted him my friend. But it would be more fitting, perhaps, if you were to confirm that the man you have just seen is your husband—Professor Sir Andrew Merriman?”

“Of course I can. I recognise my own husband!” And then, softly: “He’s not play-acting … he’s dead, isn’t he?”

“I’m afraid he is.”

“This is ludicrous! Andrew has no business being in the
bathtub! Why isn’t it that obscene dummy of Laetitia’s in there? Or Geoffrey? Geoffrey Melton was the one supposed to die … Geoffrey!” Maud called out, rapping her stick sharply on the stone flags. “Where are you?”

“I’m here, madam. Did I miss my cue?”

Already nervous, the cast jumped perceptibly as the voice that had only minutes before shaken them with its prolonged death screams responded to her challenge. Geoffrey Melton, still adjusting the black velvet robe of the villain Aegisthus around his shoulders, made his way out of the shadows and onto centre stage. The other players instinctively shuddered away from him as he moved between them. He stalked on careful feet to the bath and there was a rustling sigh from the gathering as Aegisthus with terrible inevitability produced his entrance line:

“‘What a brilliant day this is for retribution! My eyes feast on this man, this victim, snared by the vengeful Furies’ net!’”

He paused and peeled off his linen mask, though Letty thought he might just as well not have bothered; the face beneath was no more revealing than the emotionless, chalk-white painted fabric.

“Hey! What’s going on here?”

“It’s
you
who must answer
that
, man!” Maud snapped. “How do you account for this? What do you have to say for yourself? You were on the spot. Andrew’s dead. You must have seen or heard him expire. Could you not have called for assistance? Did you just stand by and let him die? Were you too involved with your own dramatic death rattle to notice his dying gasp?”

Her staccato demands betrayed to all onstage an irrationality out of character with the calculating and correct lady they knew, and their drooping heads and averted eyes expressed a quiet understanding. The challenge on Melton showed a certain mad gallantry which impressed but alarmed
Letty. Geoffrey Melton was not one to tolerate such an attack, even from a distraught woman. He was a splendid actor, but he kept himself apart from the rest of the cast by means of a cold and supercilious attitude. And here he stood, improbably tall in his built-up leather theatre sandals, towering over Maud, even dressed as the very figure of villainy.

Letty moved forward to stand protectively by Maud’s side, though she could not rationally explain her impulse. She was not alone in feeling the threat, apparently, as Montacute held up a warning hand and stepped himself between the widow and the object of her scorn. Once again, the London policeman found himself, in rôle, squaring up to a figure of royal authority.

There was obvious relief when Melton chose to make a soft response. He leaned over the body, his gold chains clanking, and moved the cloak aside to take a close look at the remains, taking his time. Then he straightened, made the sign of the cross, and murmured in his light baritone:

“A fine man, Lady Merriman. I am truly astonished and devastated to see Andrew like this. A huge loss.”

“We thank you for your sentiments, Mr. Melton,” said Montacute, responding for all. “But now, may I ask you to step aside, join the rest of the cast, and hold yourself ready for questioning?” He turned back to Maud and took her comfortingly by the arm. “Now, madam, you may have heard me send for my colleague in the Athens police force. The moment he arrives, we will instigate an enquiry into the circumstances of your husband’s death.”

“The Athens police force?” Maud’s eyebrows shot up. “I
wasn’t aware they had one. And why would you be needing them? You should summon a competent doctor.” She shrugged off his arm. “May I recommend, Montacute, since you appear to have put yourself in charge of some sort of an enquiry, my friend Dr. Peebles, who has his offices on the Queen Sophia Avenue? He is Andrew’s doctor also, and if you send for him he will be pleased to come along and ascertain the circumstances for you.”

A swift skirmish with Scotland Yard seemed to be just what Maud needed to put her back in control of herself once more. Rallying, she went to take a further look at her husband and no one had the nerve to stop her. Tugging the cloak to one side, she stared down, expressionless, at the blood-slathered corpse.

“Heart attack,” she pronounced. “You’ll find he died of a heart attack. Now—William? Where are you? You were about to run me up to the villa in the motor, I think?”

Montacute exchanged an imperceptible nod with Gunning.

“Military men,” thought Letty. “How easily they recognise each other.”

Clearly on the point of collapse, Lady Merriman put a hand on Gunning’s arm to steady herself. She paused to look over her shoulder and direct one last instruction at Laetitia. She even managed a stiff smile. “Do feel free to stay on and be of any assistance you can to the inspector, Letty, my dear. I appoint you my stand-in. I’m sure you will be able to provide answers to any questions he may have about the professor. And some answers which might even be outside my own experience and knowledge.” She turned on a sweet smile and directed it at the inspector, adding: “Laetitia is an archaeologist, you know. One of her many skills. And she likes to make herself available. You’ll find her very willing, Inspector.”

They all stood, heads bent in quiet respect, as the widow turned and tapped her way offstage, hearing her say conversationally to Gunning: “Ox blood. They brought it here in a flask, you know. I was just telling Letty …”

    The silence rolled back as they left and were lost to sight in the thick stand of trees and bushes that cut the theatre off from the Avenue of Dionysus.

The cast looked at one another, wary and uncertain. The London policeman seemed to catch their mood and began to speak to them in a reassuring tone.

“For those of you who don’t know me yet, let me introduce myself: Detective Chief Inspector Montacute of Scotland Yard. Criminal Investigations Department. I’m here in Athens on secondment. I and two British colleagues are working with the Athenian police force at the invitation of the Greek government to establish a certain Britishness of practice in the local force and train their detective branch in the latest forensic methods. Not for the first time—there’s a tradition of cooperation between the two forces going back half a century.”

He paused, aware of a shuffling of feet and increasingly agonised glances drawn ever towards the bathtub. He was losing their attention. With the stage sense of an actor, he walked off to a point on the floor away from the body. They turned automatically towards him, backs now to the distraction, eyes fixed on his face. Having captured his audience, he kept them. He abandoned his lecturing style and addressed them with a change of tone and speed of delivery. “But Aeschylus? Do policemen spout Aeschylus?” he wanted to know. “Well, here’s one who does! But let me assure you, because I’m certain some of you will already have begun to wonder, that my appearance here is entirely fortuitous—”

“Oh, yes?” drawled a wearily sceptical tenor voice from the chorus. “Is that what you’re saying? In that getup, some might well suspect there was a bit of cloak-and-dagger work going on. An extraordinary coincidence? A certain inexplicable anticipation of a tragic event, perhaps? Anything you’d like to confess, Montacute?”

The speaker, still masked, was taking no trouble to hide a scorn, a dislike even, that Letty found ill-timed and ill-judged. Whoever this character was, she would have liked very much to rap his knuckles.