The Poisoned Arrow (2 page)

It was highly unlikely that he’d be heading this way on a purely social visit. If Tom Bland was coming to see me, it was pretty certain that he was in need of my detective services
again!

A few moments later, there was a sharp knock at my shed door. ‘Come in, Tom!’ I called.

The door opened and Tom bounced in. ‘How did you know it was me?’ he gasped.

‘Just a lucky guess,’ I said, shrugging. ‘What’s the problem? How can I help you?’

He started pacing about the floor of the shed. Not an easy thing to do in a shed with so little space.

‘Catastrophe!’ he cried. ‘Calamity! Ruin! Disaster stares me in the face at this very moment! Er, not meaning you, Saxby . . .’

‘No, understood,’ I said.

‘I don’t mean
you’re
a disaster or anything,’ he burbled.

‘No, understood,’ I said. ‘Calm down. Start at the beginning. Give me some background information.’

I hoisted the heap of case notes off my knees and on to the desk. I offered Tom my Thinking Chair. He sank into it, striking a pose like a troubled soul in a Victorian painting, the back of his
hand brushing at his forehead.

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I must give you the facts of the case. That’s the vital thing with detectives, isn’t it, making sure you give them the facts of the
case?’

‘Quite right,’ I said, encouragingly.

He took a deep breath and his hands took long symmetrical scoops out of the air in a deliberate I-am-calm gesture. He spoke as if addressing an audience of eager, wide-eyed fans.

‘As you know, Saxby, I’m someone with a great interest in the world of the theatre.’

‘Yes, I’d spotted that,’ I said quietly.

He nodded. ‘And as part of my preparations for my long-term career in the acting profession, I’m heavily involved in the Rackham Road Amateur Dramatic Society. It’s mostly for
adults, I’m the only regular under-sixteen member.’

‘Is that the one which puts on plays at that weird-looking building? Whassitcalled, the Turtle-Shell?’

‘That’s the one, yes. We presented a splendid production of Shakespeare’s
Much Ado About Nothing
last year. I was terrific in it. Of course, it’s amazing I managed
to combine my appearances at Rackham Road with my work on the school play. It’s a wonder I didn’t collapse from sheer exhaustion, but no doubt —’

‘A-hem, the facts of the case . . .’ I prompted.

‘Oh, yes, sorry,’ he said. ‘Anyway, we’re currently staging a production of
The Poisoned Arrow
. Do you know it?’

‘Nope.’

‘It’s an action-packed historical drama, set in the Middle Ages. Lots of sword fights and shocked facial expressions – it’s very good. I play Wilbert, a poor peasant boy
who overcomes enormous odds to gain the throne of the kingdom, when the villainous landowner Baron Thornicroft tries to —’

He glanced at me. I was frowning.

‘Facts of the case, right,’ he said. ‘Are you sure you don’t know
The Poisoned Arrow
? It did really well in the West End of London a couple of years ago.’

‘Nope,’ I said.

‘Hmm. Anyway, we’re doing this play. And the production is hugely, gigantically, vastly important for all of us at Rackham Road, for three reasons. Reason one: we’re only doing
one perfomance, and it’s for charity. Our theatre runs on donations and voluntary help and it’s always been short of money. But now debts have mounted up and we need a pile of cash to
stop the place from being demolished. If we go bust, the place gets sold to some money-mad corporation and turned into flats. Reason two: because it’s for charity, we’ve got none other
than the marvellous Sir Gilbert Smudge himself playing King Lionel. Reason three: because it’s for charity, and because a professional actor as famous as Sir Gilbert is involved, the audience
is going to be filled with every important person for miles around. The mayor, lots of local business people, three Members of Parliament . . . all sorts of influential types. There’s a long
and very impressive guest list. Sir Gilbert’s even got some of his old celebrity pals coming up from London. There’ll be bow ties, dinner jackets, ladies dripping with pearl necklaces,
the works.’

‘Wow,’ I said. ‘Sounds like it’ll be quite an event. Even I’ve heard of Gilbert Smudge. He’s in all those old movies and TV series that keep getting shown on
ITV3, right?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Tom, bright-eyed with enthusiasm, ‘he’s had a very distinguished career. He’s won every award going. Marvellous actor. Nice man, too. Full of
interesting theatrical stories. Got an odd smell of paint about him, though, can’t quite work that one out. But a marvellous actor.’

‘So, umm, at the risk of sounding a bit rude,’ I said, ‘if he’s so very famous and distinguished, why is he appearing with the Rackham Road Amateur Dramatic Society?
Charity performance or not, that’s an odd thing to find someone like him doing, isn’t it?’

Tom squirmed slightly in the armchair. His face wriggled with embarrassment. ‘Yes, well,’ he said at last, ‘times have been a little hard for him recently. He’s not as
young as he was, as my granny would say. Offers of acting roles have been rather thin on the ground for him, and some of the parts he’s accepted in the last few years haven’t always
been a wise move. He should never have agreed to play Mr Squitty in that
Masked Avenger
movie. It dented his reputation as a serious actor. Then he was a giant rabbit in
The Happy Bunnybears II: Bobo’s Journey
, and since then the work has dried up almost completely. Sad, very
sad. Marvellous actor. I think this performance is something of a last chance for him. He’s hoping it will get him some good reviews and lead to better things. We’ve got quite a few
media people coming. Newspapers, radio and so on.’

‘So I assume the perfomance is going to be very exclusive?’ I said. ‘Eye-poppingly expensive tickets, that sort of thing?’

‘Ah, no,’ said Tom, wagging a finger. ‘Sir Gilbert suggested a different idea, based on something he did for one of those TV charity nights about ten years ago. The tickets
are only a few pounds each, and the people on the guest list are getting in for nothing.’

‘So where does the fund-raising come in?’ I asked.

‘During the interval, Sir Gilbert is going to give the audience a please-give-generously speech, then go around collecting donations personally. The guests are expecting it – the
details are all printed on the back of the tickets.’

‘I get it,’ I said, smiling. ‘With all those influential people there – most of them pretty wealthy – he’s likely to collect a small fortune. They’ll
probably start competing to be thought of as the most generous. Especially once the media start taking pictures. Clever.’

‘Exactly,’ said Tom with a grin. ‘Everyone wins. The posh folk get to look important, Sir Gilbert makes a triumphant comeback, the Turtle-Shell is saved from the bulldozers,
and the Rackham Road Amateur Dramatics Society scores the biggest hit in its history.’

‘I must say,’ I said, ‘it’s all looking very impressive.’ I paused for a moment. ‘So, what’s this calamity you were on about? What’s
happened?’

Tom slumped back in the Thinking Chair, looking all pale and feeble. ‘It’s a nightmare,’ he whispered. ‘A living nightmare. The whole event is threatened!’

‘Let me guess,’ I said. ‘Ummmm, someone has broken into the building during the night and stolen all the costumes?’

‘No,’ said Tom.

‘The sets have been sabotaged?’

‘No.’

‘Sir Gilbert Smudge has been kidnapped and held to ransom?’

‘No.’

‘OK, so what crime
has
been committed?’ I asked.

‘None,’ said Tom. ‘None at all.’

I gave Tom the same narrow-eyed look I’d been giving that teetering pile of paint pots in the corner. ‘So . . . why are you here? What’s the calamity?’

‘Oh, there’s
going
to be a crime,’ said Tom. ‘I can feel it in me bones, as my grandad would say. On Friday night,
The Poisoned Arrow
is going to be turned
into a major disaster by evil forces as yet unidentified.’

If I’d narrowed my eyes any more, I’d have been unable to see. ‘Let me get this straight,’ I said. ‘You want me to investigate a crime which
hasn’t been
committed
?’

‘Y
ET
,’
CORRECTED
T
OM
. ‘H
ASN’T
BEEN
committed
yet
. That’s why I need your help. You must identify the evil forces at work and stop them.’

I let out a long, slow breath and pressed my knuckles to my eyes like you see them do in gritty police dramas on TV. ‘You want me to unmask someone who hasn’t actually done anything
wrong yet?’

‘That’s about it, yes,’ said Tom.

‘You want me to go after an
innocent
person?’ I cried.

‘They won’t be innocent after Friday,’ protested Tom. ‘They’re out to ruin the performance!’

I wasn’t sure whether to let out an almighty scream or just curl up and whimper quietly for a while. ‘I can't even
begin
to list the things that are wrong with that
idea,’ I muttered. I suddenly felt as if I was trapped in one of those science fiction stories in which someone gets arrested for murdering their great-great-grandmother twenty years before
they were born.

‘I’ve got evidence,’ said Tom. ‘I’m not imagining this whole thing, you know.’

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Evidence. OK. Give me your evidence.’

Tom leaned forward on my Thinking Chair. He glanced sideways, as if he expected to find half a dozen villains in black eye masks looming over his shoulder.

‘The play’s director, Morag Wellington-Barnes, is acting
very
suspiciously.’ He nodded slowly, wide-eyed, as if he’d just demonstrated the answer to a stunningly
difficult maths problem.

I sighed. ‘Tom, that’s not evidence. That’s just you.’

‘She’s up to something,’ said Tom. ‘She’s been one of us Rackham Roaders for years, since before I joined, so I know her quite well. She’s gone very odd. Even
odder than usual. She keeps losing her temper, biting her nails – revolting habit – and staring off into nowhere with a vacant expression on her face.’

‘Surely she’s just nervous?’ I said. ‘There’s every reason to be.’

‘You won’t say that when you meet her,’ said Tom. His nostrils flared into a semi-sneer. ‘I know I’m thought of as arrogant at school, it’s no use protesting
. . .’

(He was right. I wasn’t about to.)

‘. . . I simply have high standards,’ said Tom, loftily, ‘but Morag Wellington-Barnes is more fearsome than a sergeant major in a platoon full of marines. However, she’s
very good at organising plays, so everyone puts up with her. Obviously, whenever I’m involved in a play, I’m always coming up with superb ideas for improvements to scenes. She rarely
listens to me at the best of times but at the moment she’s making one crackpot decision after another and nobody can change her mind.’

‘What sort of crackpot decisions?’ I asked.

‘Well, she’s reduced the cast, for one thing,’ said Tom. ‘
The Poisoned Arrow
has nineteen speaking parts – it’s quite a large-scale production – but she’s cut out eight of them. All the minor roles have simply been
taken out. Madness! I feel sorry for Mrs Smoth – she was looking forward to playing Cackling Old Crone in scene six and now she’s out. She’s ninety-six, you know.’

‘Maybe Morag thought the play was too long or something?’ I shrugged.

‘Rubbish!’ cried Tom. ‘This play was a huge hit in London. Solid drama and excitement from beginning to end. If anything, it’s not long
enough
! And as well as
that, Morag’s ruined the play’s whole staging. She’s scrapped all the lighting effects. Insanity! She’s insisting that the whole performance is done with the house lights
up!’

‘The what-lights?’ I asked.

‘House lights,’ repeated Tom. ‘The lights where the audience sits. The ones that normally go out in a theatre or cinema when the performance starts, those are called the house
lights. Morag is insisting they’re left on, right the way through the play! The atmosphere will be ruined!’

‘Hmm, well, yes, I guess that’s unusual,’ I said. ‘But she
is
the director. Isn’t that simply her approach to the play?’

‘I told you,’ said Tom, ‘she’s normally
good
at this sort of thing. Do these sound like good ideas to you?’

I shuffled uncomfortably. ‘You’re talking about, what’ya’callit, artistic differences. You say there’s crime involved, but there’s
no crime whatsoever
involved in what you’ve told me. And no, before you say it, a crime-against-the-theatre is
not
an actual crime!’

Tom shook his head. ‘You misunderstand me. I really
do
think there’s going to be an actual crime committed. A real, serious crime. Look, I have more evidence here.’

He pulled a couple of small sheets of folded-up paper from his pocket and handed them over to me. ‘I found these backstage,’ he said. ‘Someone had obviously dropped them by
mistake but I don’t know who.’

Curious, I unfolded the first one. It was a plan of the theatre. It showed the road at the front of the building and the large open field at the rear (which was part of a neighbouring farm). It
also showed three ways of getting into the theatre – the main entrance at the front, and two emergency doors (one to each side of the audience seating area). A set of large double doors, in
the unseen-from-the-audience area behind the stage, were shown to open out on to the field, but they were marked:

These only open from inside. Their is no way in here.

‘Well,’ I said, examining the sheets more closely, to see if there were any clues to be had from the paper itself, ‘the only thing we can say for sure about this person is that
they didn’t pay attention during English lessons.
Their is no way
ought to be
There is no way
. This first paper was torn from an ordinary spiral-bound jotter pad. Nothing unusual, and no [
sniff!
], no sign of perfume or
aftershave. From the way they’re slightly crumpled and curved, I’d say they’d been carried in the back pocket of someone’s trousers.’