Night at the Vulcan (20 page)

“You mean he was drunk?”

“Yes, I do.”

“And abusive?”

“I didn’t care. I understood him.”

“Did he talk about Miss Hamilton?”

“Obviously J.G.’s already told you he did, so why ask me?”

“We like to get confirmation of statements.”

“Well, you tell me what he said and I’ll see about confirming it.”

For the first time Alleyn looked at her. She wore an expression of rather frightened impertinence. “I’m afraid,” he said, “that won’t quite do. I’m sure you’re very anxious to get away from the theatre, Miss Gainsford, and we’ve still a lot of work before us. If you will give me your account of this conversation I shall be glad to hear it; if you prefer not to do so I’ll take note of your refusal and keep you no longer.”

She gaped slightly, attempted a laugh and seemed to gather up the rags of her impersonation.

“Oh, but I’ll tell you,” she said. “Why not? It’s only that there’s so pathetically little to tell. I can’t help feeling darling Aunty — she likes me to call her Helena — was
too
Pinero and Galsworthy about it. It appears that poorest Uncle Ben came in from his club and found her in a suitable setting and — well, there you are, and — well, really, even after all these years of segregation, you couldn’t call it a seduction. Or could you? Anyway, she chose to treat it as such and raised the most piercing hue-and-cry and he went all primitive and when he came in here he was evidently in the throes of a sort of hangover, and seeing J.G. was being rather sweet to me he put a sinister interpretation on it and described the whole incident and was rather rude about women generally and me and Aunty in particular. And J.G. took a gloomy view of his attitude and hit him. And, I mean, taking it by and large one can’t help feeling:
what
a song and dance about nothing in particular. Is that all you wanted to know?”

“Do you think any other members of the company know of all this?”

She looked genuinely surprised. “Oh yes,” she said. “Adam and Jacko, anyway. I mean Uncle Ben appeared to have a sort of nation-wide hook-up idea about it but even if
he
didn’t mention it,
she’d
naturally tell Adam, wouldn’t you think? And Jacko, because everybody tells Jacko everything. And he was doing dresser for her. Yes, I’d certainly think she’d tell Jacko.”

“I see. Thank you, Miss Gainsford. That’s all.”

“Really?” She was on her feet. “I can go home?”

Alleyn answered her as he had answered J.G. “I’m sorry, not yet. Not just yet.”

P. C. Lamprey opened the door. Inevitably, she paused on the threshold. “Never tell
me
there’s nothing in atmosphere,” she said. “I
knew
when I came into this theatre. As if the very walls screamed it at me. I
knew
.”

She went out.

“Tell me, Mike,” Alleyn said, “are many young women of your generation like that?”

“Well, no, sir. She’s what one might call a composite picture, don’t you think?”

“I do, indeed. And I fancy she’s got her genres a bit confused.”

“She tells me she’s been playing in
Private Lives, The Second Mrs. Tanqueray
and
Sleeping Partners
in the provinces.”

“That may account for it,” said Alleyn.

An agitated voice — Parry Percival’s — was raised in the passage, to be answered in a more subdued manner by Sergeant Gibson’s.

“Go and see what it is, Mike,” Alleyn said.

But before Lamprey could reach the door it was flung open and Parry burst in, slamming it in Gibson’s affronted face. He addressed himself instantly and breathlessly to Alleyn.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I’ve just remembered something. I’ve been so
hideously
upset, I just simply never gave it a thought. It was when I smelt gas. When I went back to my room, I smelt gas and I turned off my fire. I ought to have told you. I’ve just realized.”

“I think perhaps what you have just realized,” Alleyn said, “is the probability of our testing your gas fire for finger-prints and finding your own.”

Parry stood inside the door and pinched his lips as if he realized they were white and hoped to restore their colour.

“I don’t know anything about finger-prints,” he said. “I never read about crime. I don’t know anything about it. When I came off after my final exit I went to my room. I was just going back for the call when I smelt gas. We’re all nervous about gas in this theatre and anyway the room was frightfully hot. I turned the thing off. That’s all.”

“This was after Bennington tripped you up?”

“I’ve told you. It was after my last exit and before the call. It wasn’t—”

He walked forward very slowly and sat down in front of Alleyn. “You can’t think that sort of thing about me,” he said, and sounded as if he was moved more by astonishment than by any other emotion. “My God,
look
at me. I’m so hopelessly harmless. I’m not vicious. I’m not even odd. I’m just harmless.”

“Why didn’t you tell me at once that you noticed the smell of gas?”

“Because, as I’ve tried to suggest, I’m no good at this sort of thing. The Doctor got me all upset and in any case the whole show was so unspeakable.” He stared at Alleyn and, as if that explained everything, said: “I saw him. I saw him when they carried him out. I’ve never been much good about dead people. In the blitz I sort of managed but I never got used to it.”

“Was the smell of gas very strong in your room?”

“No. Not strong at all. But in this theatre — we were all thinking about that other time, and I just thought it was too bad of the management to have anything faulty in the system considering the history of the place. I don’t know that I thought anything more than that: I smelt it and remembered, and got a spasm of the horrors. Then I felt angry at being given a shock and then I turned my fire off and went out. It was rather like not looking at the new moon through glass. You don’t really believe it can do anything but you avoid it. I forgot all about the gas as soon as I got on-stage. I didn’t give it another thought until I smelt it again during the Doctor’s speech.”

“Yes, I see.”

“You do, really, don’t you? After all, suppose I — suppose I had thought I’d copy that other awful thing — well, I’d scarcely be fool enough to leave my finger-prints on the tap, would I?”

“But you tell me,” Alleyn said, not making too much of it, “that you don’t know anything about fingerprints.”

“God!” Parry whispered, Staring at him. “You do frighten me. It’s not fair. You frighten me.”

“Believe me, there’s no need for an innocent man to be frightened.”

“How can you be so sure of yourselves? Do you never make mistakes?”

“We do indeed. But not,” Alleyn said, “in the end. Not nowadays on these sorts of cases.”

“What do you mean these sorts of cases!”

“Why, I mean on what may turn out to be a capital charge.”

“I can’t believe it!” Parry cried out. “I shall never believe it. We’re not like that. We’re kind, rather simple people. We wear our hearts on our sleeves. We’re not complicated enough to kill each other.”

Alleyn said with a smile: “You’re quite complicated enough for us at the moment. Is there anything else you’ve remembered that you think perhaps you ought to tell me about?”

Parry shook his head and dragged himself to his feet. Alleyn saw, as Martyn had seen before him, that he was not an exceedingly young man. “No,” he said. “There’s nothing I can think of.”

“You may go to your dressing-room now, if you’d like to change into — what should I say? — into plain clothes?”

“Thank you. I simply loathe the thought of my room after all this but I shall be glad to change.”

“Do you mind if Lamprey does a routine search before you go? We’ll ask this of all of you.”

Parry showed the whites of his eyes but said at once: “Why should I mind?”

Alleyn nodded to young Lamprey, who advanced upon Parry with an apologetic smile.

“It’s a painless extraction, sir,” he said.

Parry raised his arms in a curve with his white hands held like a dancer’s above his head. There was a silence and a swift, efficient exploration. “Thank you so much, sir,” said Mike Lamprey. “Cigarette case, lighter and handkerchief, Mr. Alleyn.”

“Right. Take Mr. Percival along to his room, will you?”

Parry said: “There couldn’t be a more fruitless question, but it would be nice to know, one way or the other, if you have believed me.”

“There couldn’t be a more unorthodox answer,” Alleyn rejoined, “but at the moment I see no reason to disbelieve you, Mr. Percival.”

When Lamprey came back he found his senior officer looking wistfully at his pipe and whistling under his breath.

“Mike,” Alleyn said, “the nastiest cases in our game are very often the simplest. There’s something sticking out under my nose in this theatre and I can’t see it. I know it’s there because of another thing that, Lord pity us all, Fox and I can see.”

“Really, sir? Am I allowed to ask what it is?”

“You’re getting on in the service, now. What have you spotted on your own account?”

“Is it something to do with Bennington’s behaviour, sir?”

“It is indeed. If a man’s going to commit suicide, Mike, and his face is made up to look loathsome, what does he do about it? If he’s a vain man (and Bennington appears to have had his share of professional vanity), if he minds about the appearance of his own corpse, he cleans off the greasepaint. If he doesn’t give a damn, he leaves it as it is. But with time running short, he does
not
carefully and heavily powder his unbecoming makeup for all the world as if he meant to go on and take his curtain-call with the rest of them. Now, does he?”

“Well, no sir,” said Mike. “If you put it like that, I don’t believe he does.”

By half past twelve most of the company on the stage seemed to be asleep or dozing. Dr. Rutherford on his couch occasionally lapsed into bouts of snoring from which he would rouse a little, groan, take snuff and then settle down again. Helena lay in a deep chair with her feet on a stool. Her eyes were closed but Martyn thought that if she slept it was but lightly. Clem had made himself a bed of some old curtains and was curled up on it beyond the twisting stairway. Jacko, having tucked Helena up in her fur coat, settled himself on the stage beside her, dozing, Martyn thought, like some eccentric watch-dog at his post. After J.G. silently returned from the Greenroom, Gay Gainsford was summoned and in her turn came back — not silently, but with some attempt at conversation. In the presence of the watchful Mr. Fox this soon petered out. Presently she, too, fell to nodding. Immediately after her return Parry Percival suddenly made an inarticulate ejaculation and, before Fox could move, darted off the stage. Sergeant Gibson was heard to accost him in the passage. Fox remained where he was and there was another long silence.

Adam Poole and Martyn looked into each other’s faces. He crossed the stage to where she sat, on the left side, which was the farthest removed from Fox. He pulled up a small chair and sat facing her.

“Kate,” he muttered, “I’m so sorry about all this. There are haresfoot shadows under your eyes, your mouth droops, your hands are anxious and your hair is limp, though not at all unbecoming. You should be sound asleep in Jacko’s garret under the stars and there should be the sound of applause in your dreams. Really, it’s too bad.”

Martyn said: “It’s nice of you to think so but you have other things to consider.”

“I’m glad to have my thoughts interrupted.”

“Then I still have my uses.”

“You can see that chunk of a man over there. Is he watching us?”

“Yes. With an air of absent-mindedness which I’m not at all inclined to misunderstand.”

“I don’t think he can hear us, though it’s a pity my diction is so good. If I take your hand perhaps he’ll suppose I’m making love to you and feel some slight constabular delicacy.”

“I hardly think so,” Martyn whispered, and tried to make nothing of his lips against her palm.

“Will you believe, Kate, that I am not in the habit of making passes at young ladies in my company?”

Martyn found herself looking at the back of Helena’s chair.

“Oh yes,” Poole said. “There’s that, too. I make no bones about that. It’s another and a long and a fading story. On both parts. Fading on both parts, Kate. I have been very much honoured.”

“I can’t help feeling this scene is being played at the wrong time, in the wrong place and before the wrong audience. And I doubt,” Martyn said, not looking at him, “if it should be played at all.”

“But I can’t be mistaken. It has happened for us, Martyn. Hasn’t it? Suddenly, preposterously, almost at first sight we blinked and looked again and there we were. Tell me it’s happened. The bird under your wrist is so wildly agitated. Is that only because you are frightened?”

“I am frightened. I wanted to ask your advice and now you make it impossible.”

“I’ll give you my advice. There. Now you are alone again. But for the sake of the law’s peace of mind as well as my own you must take a firm line about your blushing.”

“It was something he said to me that morning,” she murmured in the lowest voice she could command.

“Do you mean the morning when I first saw you?”

“I mean,” Martyn said desperately, “the morning the photographs were taken. I had to go to his dressing-room.”

“I remember very well. You came to mine too.”

“He said something, then. He was very odd in his manner. They’ve asked us to try and remember anything at all unusual.”

“Are you going to tell me what it was?”

In a few words and under her breath she did so.

Poole said: “Perhaps you should tell them. Yes, I think you should. In a moment I’ll do something about it, but there’s one thing more I must say to you. Do you know I’m glad this scene has been played so awkwardly — inaudible, huddled up, inauspicious and uneffective. Technically altogether bad. It gives it a kind of authority, I hope. Martyn, are you very much surprised? Please look at me.”

She did as he asked and discovered an expression of such doubt and anxiety in his face that to her own astonishment she put her hand against his cheek and he held it there for a second. “God,” he said, “what a thing to happen!” He got up abruptly and crossed the stage.

“Inspector,” he said, “Miss Tarne has remembered an incident three days old which we both think might possibly be of some help. What should we do about it?” The others stirred a little. J.G. opened his eyes. Fox got up. “Thank you very much, sir,” he said. “When Mr. Alleyn is disengaged I’m sure he’ll— Yes? What is it?”

P. C. Lamprey had come in. He delivered a message that the dressing-rooms were now open for the use of their occupants. At the sound of his brisk and loudish voice they all stirred. Helena and Darcey got to their feet Jacko sat up. Clem, Gay and Dr. Rutherford opened their eyes, listened to the announcement and went to sleep again.

Fox said: “You can take this young lady along to the Chief in three minutes, Lamprey. Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you’d care to go to your rooms.”

He shepherded Helena and Darcey through the door and looked back at Poole. “What about you, sir?”

Poole, with his eyes on Martyn, said: “Yes, I’m coming.” Fox waited stolidly at the door for him and, after a moment’s hesitation, Poole followed the others. Fox went with them.

Mike Lamprey said: “We’ll let them get settled, Miss Tarne, and then I’ll take you along to Mr. Alleyn. You must be getting very bored with all this hanging about.” Martyns whose emotional processes were in a state of chaos, replied with a vague smile. She wondered disjointedly if constables of P. C. Lamprey’s class were a commonplace in the English Force. He glanced good-humouredly at Gay and the three dozing men and evidently felt obliged to make further conversation.

“I heard someone say,” he began, “that you are a New Zealander. I was out there as a small boy.”

“Were you, really?” Martyn said, and wondered confusedly if he could have been the son of a former governor-general.

“We had a place out there on a mountain. Mount Silver, it was. Would that be anywhere near your part of the world?”

Something clicked in Martyn’s memory. “Oh
yes
!” she said. “I’ve heard about the Lampreys of Mount Silver, I’m sure, and—” Her recollection clarified a little. “Yes, indeed,” she added lamely.

“No doubt,” said Mike with a cheerful laugh, “a legend of lunacy has survived us. We came Home when I was about eight, and soon afterwards my uncle happened to get murdered in our flat and Mr. Alleyn handled the case. I thought at the time I’d like to go into the Force and the idea sort of persisted. And there you are, you know. Potted autobiography. Shall we go along and see if he’s free?”

He escorted her down the passage to the Greenroom door, past Sergeant Gibson, who seemed to be on guard there. Mike chatted freely as they went, rather as if he were taking her into supper after a successful dance. The star-bemused Martyn found herself brightly chatting back at him.

This social atmosphere was not entirely dispelled, she felt, by Alleyn himself, who received her rather as a distinguished surgeon might greet a patient.

“Come in, Miss Tarne,” he said cordially. “I hear you’ve thought of something to tell us about this wretched business. Do sit down.”

She sat in her old chair, facing the gas fire and with her back to the table. Only when she looked up involuntarily at the sketch of Adam Poole did she realize that young Lamprey had settled himself at the table and taken out a note-book. She could see his image reflected in the glass.

Inspector Fox came in and went quietly to the far end of the room, where he sat in a shadowed corner and appeared to consult his own note-book.

“Well,” Alleyn said, “what’s it all about?”

“You’ll probably think it’s about nothing,” Martyn began, “and if you do I shall be sorry I’ve bothered you with it. But I thought — just in case—”

“You were perfectly right. Believe me, we are ‘conditioned,’ if that’s the beastly word, to blind alleys. Let’s have it.”

“On my first morning in this theatre,” Martyn said, “which was the day before yesterday… no, if it’s past midnight, the day before that.”