Killer Dolphin (25 page)

“It does appear that on her own admission to Knight, she’s a buyer on a colossal scale under the museum-piece counter.”

Winter Meyer spread his hands. “We all have our weaknesses,” he said. “So she likes nice things and she can pay for them. Marcus Knight should complain!”

“Well!” Alleyn ejaculated. ’That’s one way of looking the Big Black Market in the eyes, I must say! Have you ever met Mrs. Guzmann, by the way?”

Winter Meyer had rather white eyelids. They now dropped a little. “No,” he said, “not in person. Her husband was a most brilliant man. The equal and more of Conducis.”

“Self-made?”

“Shall we say self-created? It was a superb achievement.”

Alleyn looked his enjoyment of this phrase and Meyer answered his look with a little sigh. “Ah yes!” he said. “These colossi! How marvellous!”

“In your opinion,” Alleyn said, “without prejudice and within these four walls and all that: how many people in this theatre know the combination of that lock?”

Meyer blushed. “Yes,” he said. “Well. This is where I don’t exactly shine with a clear white radiance, isn’t it? Well, as he’s told you, Charlie Random for one. Got it right, as you no doubt observed. He says he didn’t pass it on and personally I believe that. He’s a very quiet type, Charlie. Never opens up about his own or anybody else’s business. I’m sure he’s dead right about the boy not knowing the combination.”

“You are? Why?”

“Because as I said, the bloody kid was always pestering me about it.”

“And so you would have been pretty sure, would you, that only you yourself, Random, and Mr. Conducis knew the combination?”

“I don’t say that,” Meyer said unhappily. “You see, after that morning they did all know about the five-letter word being an obvious one and — and — well, Dessy did say one day, ‘Is it “glove,” Winty? We all think it might be? Do you swear it’s not “glove.” ’ Well, you know Dessy. She’d woo the Grand Master to let the goat out of the Lodge. I suppose I boggled a bit and she laughed and kissed me. I know. I know. I ought to have had it changed. I meant to. But — in the theatre we don’t go about wondering if someone in the company’s a big-time bandit.”

“No, of course you don’t, Mr. Meyer: thank you very much. I think we can now return your office to you. It was more than kind to suggest that we use it.”

“There hasn’t been all that much for me to do. The press is our big worry but we’re booked out solid for another four months. Unless people get it into their heads to cancel we
should
make out. You never know, though, which way a thing like this will take the public.”

They left him in a state of controlled preoccupation.

The circle foyer was deserted, now. Alleyn paused for a moment. He looked at the shuttered bar, at the three shallow steps leading on three sides from the top down to the half-landing and the two flights that curved down from there to the main entrance; at the closed safe in the wall above the landing, the solitary bronze dolphin and the two doors into the circle. Everything was quiet, a bit muffled and stuffily chilly.

He and Fox walked down the three canvas-covered steps to the landing. A very slight sound caught Alleyn’s ear. Instead of going on down he crossed to the front of the landing, rested his hands on its elegant iron balustrade and looked into the main entrance below.

His gaze lighted on the crown of a smart black hat and the violently foreshortened figure of a thin woman.

For a second or two the figure made no move. Then the hat tipped back and gave way to a face like a white disc, turned up to his own.

“Do you want to see me, Miss Bracey?”

The face tipped backwards and forwards in assent. The lips moved, but if she spoke her voice was inaudible.

Alleyn motioned to Fox to stay where he was and himself went down the curving right-hand stairway.

There she stood, motionless. The fat upsidedown cupids over the box-office and blandly helpful caryatids supporting the landing made an incongruous background for that spare figure and yet it crossed Alleyn’s mind, her general appearance was evocative, in a cock-eyed way, of the period: of some repressed female character from a Victorian play or novel. Rosa Dartle, he thought, that was the sort of thing: Rosa Dartle.

“What is it?” Alleyn asked. “Are you unwell?”

She looked really ill. He wondered if he had imagined that she had swayed very slightly, and then pulled herself together.

“You must sit down,” he said. “Let me help you.”

When he went up to her he smelt brandy and saw that her eyes were off-focus. She said nothing but let him propel her to Jeremy Jones’s plushy settee alongside the wall. She sat bolt upright. One corner of her mouth drooped a little as if pulled down by an invisible hook. She groped in her handbag, fetched up a packet of cigarettes and fumbled one out. Alleyn lit it for her. She made a great business of this. She’s had a lot more than’s good for her, he thought, and wondered where, on a Sunday afternoon, she’d get hold of it. Perhaps Fox’s Mrs. Jancy at The Wharfinger’s Friend had obliged.

“Now,” he said, “what’s the trouble?”

“Trouble? What trouble? I know trouble when I see it,” she said. “I’m saturated in it.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“Not a question of me telling you. It’s what
he
told you. That’s what matters.”

“Mr. Grove?”

“Mr. W. Hartly Grove. You know what? He’s a monster. You know? Not a man but a monster. Cruel. My God,” she said and the corner of her mouth jerked again, “how cruel that man can be!”

Looking at her, Alleyn thought there was not much evidence of loving-kindness in her own demeanour.

“What,” she asked with laborious articulation, “did he say about me? What did he say?”

“Miss Bracey, we didn’t speak of you at all.”

“What
did
you speak about? Why did he stay behind to speak to you. He did, didn’t he? Why?”

“He told me about his overcoat.”

She glowered at him and sucked at her cigarette as if it were a respirator. “Did he tell you about his scarf?” she asked.

“The yellow one with H. on it?”

She gave a sort of laugh. “Embroidered,” she said. “By his devoted Gerts. God, what a fool! And he goes on wearing it. Slung round his neck like a halter and I wish it’d throttle him.”

She leaned back, rested her head against the crimson plush and shut her eyes. Her left hand slid from her lap and the cigarette fell from her fingers. Alleyn picked it up and threw it into a nearby sandbox. “Thanks,” she said without opening her eyes.

“Why did you stay behind? What do you want to tell me?”

“Stay behind? When?”

“Now.”

“
Then
, you mean.”

The clock above the box-office ticked. The theatre made a settling noise up in its ceiling. Miss Bracey sighed.

“Did you go back into the theatre?”

“Loo. Downstairs cloaks.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

She said very distinctly: “Because it didn’t matter.”

“Or because it mattered too much?”

“
No
.”

“Did you see or hear anyone while you were in the downstairs foyer?”

“No. Yes, I did. I heard Winty and Marco in the office upstairs. They came out. And I left, then. I went away. Before they saw me.”

“Was there someone else you saw? Jobbins?”

“No,” she said at once.

“There was someone, wasn’t there?”

“No.No.
No
.”

“Why does all this distress you so much?”

She opened her mouth and then covered it with her hand. She rose and swayed very slightly. As he put out a hand to steady her she broke from him and ran hazardously to the pass-door. It was unlocked. She pulled it open and left it so. Alleyn stood in the doorway and she backed away from him across the portico. When she realized he wasn’t going to follow she flapped her hand in a lunatic fashion and ran towards the car park. He was in time to see her scramble into her mini-car. Someone was sitting in the passenger seat who caught sight of Alleyn and turned away. It was Charles Random.

“Do you want her held?” Fox said at his elbow.

“No. What for? Let her go.”

“I
think
that’s the lot,” Peregrine said. He laid down his pen, eased his fingers and looked up at Emily.

The bottom of Phipps Passage having turned out to be windy and rich in dubious smells, they had crossed the bridge and retired upon the flat. Emily got their lunch ready while Peregrine laboured to set down everything he could remember of his encounters with Mr. Conducis. Of Jeremy there was nothing to be seen.

Emily said: “ ‘What I did in the Hols. Keep it bright, brief and descriptive.’ ”

“I seem to have done an unconscionable lot,” Peregrine rejoined. “It’s far from brief. Look.”

“No doubt Mr. Alleyn will mark it for you. ‘Quite G. but should take more pains with his writing.’ Are you sure you haven’t forgotten the one apparently trifling clue round which the whole mystery revolves?”

“You’re very jokey, aren’t you? I’m far from sure. The near-drowning incident’s all complete, I think, but I’m not so sure about the visit to Drury Place. Of course, I was drunk by the time that was over. How
extraordinary
it was,” Peregrine said. “Really, he
was
rum. Do you know, Emmy, darling, it seems to me now as if he acted throughout on some kind of compulsion. As if it had been he, not I, who was half-drowned and behaving (to mix my metaphor, you pedantic girl) like a duck that’s had its head chopped off.
He
was obsessed while
I
was merely plastered. Or so it seems, now.”

“But what did he
do
that was so odd?”

“Do? He—well, there was an old menu card from the yacht
Kalliope
. It was in the desk and he snatched it up and burnt it.”

“I suppose if your yacht’s wrecked under your feet you don’t much enjoy being reminded of it.”

“No, but I got the impression it was something
on
the card—” Peregrine went into a stare and after a long pause said in a rather glazed manner: “I think I’ve remembered.”

“What?”

“On the menu. Signatures: you know? And, Emmy, listen.”

Emily listened. “Well,” she said. “For what it’s worth, put it in.”

Peregrine put it in. “There’s one other thing,” he said. “It’s about last night. I think it was when I was in front and you had come through from backstage. There was the disturbance by the boy—catcalls and the door-slamming. Somewhere about then, it was, that I remember thinking of
The Cherry Orchard
. Not
consciously
but with one of those sort of momentary, back-of-the-mind things.”

“
The Cherry Orchard
?”

“Yes, and Miss Joan Littlewood.”

“Funny mixture. She’s never produced it, has she?”

“I don’t think so. Oh,
damn
, I wish I could get it. Yes,” Peregrine said excitedly. “And with it there was a floating remembrance, I’m sure — of what? A quotation: ‘
Vanished with a
— something
perfume and a most melodious
—’ what? I think it was used somewhere by Walter de la Mare. It was hanging about like the half-recollection of a dream when we walked up the puddled alleyway and into Wharfingers Lane. Why? What started it up?”

“It mightn’t have anything to do with Trevor or Jobbins.”

“I know. But I’ve got this silly feeling it has.”

“Don’t
try
to remember and then you may.”

“All right. Anyway the End of Hols essay’s ready for what it’s worth. I wonder if Alleyn’s still at the theatre.”

“Ring up.”

“O.K. What’s that parcel you’ve been carting about all day?”

“I’ll show you when you’ve rung up.”

A policeman answered from The Dolphin and said that Alleyn was at the Yard. Peregrine got through with startling promptitude.

“I’ve done this thing,” he said. “Would you like me to bring it over to you?”

“I would indeed. Thank you, Jay. Remembered anything new?”

“Not much, I’m afraid.” The telephone made a complicated jangling sound.

“What?” Alleyn asked. “Sorry about that twang. What did you say? Nothing new?”

“Yes!” Peregrine suddenly bawled into the receiver. “Yes. You’ve done it yourself. I’ll put it in. Yes. Yes. Yes.”

“You sound like a pop singer. I’ll be here for the next hour or so. Ask at the Yard entrance and they’ll send you up. ’Bye.”

“You’ve remembered?” Emily cried. “What is it? You’ve remembered.”

And when Peregrine told her, she remembered, too.

He re-opened his report and wrote feverishly. Emily unwrapped her parcel. When Peregrine had finished his additions and swung round in his chair he found, staring portentously at him, a water-colour drawing of a florid gentleman. His hair was curled into a cockscomb. His whiskers sprang from his jowls like steel wool and his prominent eyes proudly glared from beneath immensely luxuriant brows. He wore a frock coat with satin reveres, a brilliant waistcoat, three alberts, a diamond tie-pin and any quantity of rings. His pantaloons were strapped under his varnished boots, and beneath his elegantly arched arm his lilac-gloved hand supported a topper with a curly brim. He stood with one leg straight and the other bent. He was superb.

And behind, lightly but unmistakably sketched in, was a familiar, an adorable façade.

“Emily? It isn’t—? It must be—?”

“Look.”

Peregrine came closer. Yes, scribbled in faded pencil at the bottom of the work:
Mr. Adolphus Ruby of The Dolphin Theatre. “Histrionic Portraits” series
, 23
April
1855.

“It’s a present,” Emily said. “It was meant, under less ghastly circs, to celebrate The Dolphin’s first six months. I thought I’d get it suitably framed but then I decided to give it to you now to cheer you up a little.”

Peregrine began kissing her very industriously.

“Hi!” she said. “Steady.”

“Where, you darling love, did you get it?”

“Charlie Random told me about it. He’d seen it in one of his prowls in a print shop off Long Acre. Isn’t he odd? He didn’t seem to want it himself. He goes in for nothing later than 1815, he said. So, I got it.”