Vintage Murder (5 page)

It was really a very large party. Twelve members of the company, as many more guests, and the stage staff, whom Carolyn had insisted on having and who sat at a separate table, dressed in their best suits and staring self-consciously at each other. Candles had been lit all down the length of the tables and the lamps turned out. It was all very gay and festive.

When they were settled Meyer, beaming complacently, rose and looked round the table.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” shouted little Ackroyd, “pray silence for His Royal Highness, Alfredo de Meyer.”

Much laughter from the guests who expected a comedian to be a comedian.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” said Meyer. “I suppose this is quite the wrong place for a speech but we can’t have anything to drink till I’ve made it, so I don’t need to apologise.”

“Certainly not”—from Mason.

“In a minute or two I shall ask you to drink the health of the loveliest woman and the greatest actress of the century — my wife.”

“Golly!” thought Alleyn. Cheers from everybody.

“But before you do this we’ve got to find something for you to drink it in. There doesn’t appear to be anything on the table,” said Meyer, with elaborate nonchalance, “but we are told that the gods will provide so I propose to leave it to them. Our stage-manager tells me that something may happen if this red cord here is cut. I shall therefore ask my wife to cut it. She will find a pair of shears by her plate.”

“Darling!” said Carolyn. “
What
is all this? Too exciting. I shan’t cause it to rain fizz, shall I? Like Moses. Or was it Moses?”

She picked up the enormous scissors. Alfred Meyer bent his fat form over the table and stretched out his short arms to the nest of fern. A fraction of a second before Carolyn closed the blades of the scissors over the cord, her husband touched a hidden switch. Tiny red and green lights sprang up beneath the fern and flowers, into which the jeroboam was to fall and over which Meyer was bending.

Everyone had stopped talking. Alleyn, in the sudden silence, received a curious impression of eager dimly-lit faces that peered, of a beautiful woman standing with one arm raised, holding the scissors as a lovely Atropos might hold aloft her shears, of a fat white waistcoated man like a Blampied caricature, bent over the table, and of a red cord that vanished upwards into the dark. Suddenly he felt intolerably oppressed, aware of a suspense out of all proportion to the moment. So strong was this impression that he half rose from his chair.

But at that moment Carolyn cut through the cord.

Something enormous that flashed down among them, jolting the table, Valerie Gaynes screaming. Broken glass and the smell of champagne. Champagne flowing over the white cloth. A thing like an enormous billiard ball embedded in the fern. Red in the champagne. And Valerie Gaynes, screaming, screaming. Carolyn, her arm still raised, looking down. Himself, his voice, telling them to go away, telling Hambledon to take Carolyn away.

“Take her away, take her away.”

And Hambledon: “Come away. Carolyn, come away.”

No, don’t move him,” said Alleyn.

He laid a hand on Hambledon’s arm. Dr. Te Pokiha, his bronze fingers still touching the top of Meyer’s head, looked fixedly at Alleyn.

“Why not?” asked Hambledon.

George Mason raised his head. Ever since they had got rid of the others Mason had sat at the end of the long table with his face buried in his arms. Ted Gascoigne stood beside Mason. He repeated over and over again:

“It was as safe as houses. Someone’s monkeyed with it. We rehearsed it twelve times this morning. I tell you there’s been some funny business, George. My God, George, there’s been some funny business.”

“Why not?” repeated Hambledon. “Why not move him?”

“Because,” said Alleyn, “Mr. Gascoigne may be right.”

George Mason spoke for the first time.

“But who’d want to hurt him? Old Alf! He hasn’t an enemy in the world.” He turned a woebegone face to Te Pokiha.

“You’re sure, doctor, he’s — he’s — gone?”

“You can see for yourself, Mr. Mason,” said Te Pokiha; “the neck is broken.”

“I don’t want to,” said Mason, looking sick.

“What ought we to do?” asked Gascoigne. They all turned to Alleyn. “Do I exude C.I.D.?” wondered Alleyn to himself, “or has Hambledon blown the gaff?”

“I’m afraid you must ring up the nearest police station,” he said aloud. There was an instant outcry from Gascoigne and Mason.

“Good God, the police!”

“What the hell!”

“… but it was an accident!”

“That’d be, finish!”

“I’m afraid Mr. Alleyn’s right,” said Te Poldha; “it is a matter for the police. If you like I’ll ring up. I know the superintendent in Middleton.”

“While you’re about it,” said Mason with desperate irony, “you might ring up a shipping office. As far as this tour’s concerned—”

“Finish!” said Gascoigne.

“We’ve got to do something about it, Ted,” said Hambledon quietly.

“We built it up between us,” said Mason suddenly. “When I first met Alf he was advancing a No. 4 company in St. Helens. I was selling tickets for the worst show in England. We never looked back. We’ve never had a nasty word, never. And look at the business we’ve built up.” His lips trembled. “By God, if someone’s killed him — you’re right, Hailey. I’m — I’m all anyhow — you fix it, Ted. I’m all anyhow.”

Dr. Te Pokiha looked at him.

“How about joining the others, Mr. Mason? Perhaps a whisky would be a good idea. Your office—?”

Mason got to his feet and came down to the centre of the table. He looked at what was left of Alfred Meyer’s head, buried among the fern and broken fairy lights, wet with champagne and with blood. The two fat white hands still grasped the edges of the nest.

“God!” said Mason. “Do we have to leave him like that?”

“It will only be for a little while,” said Alleyn gently. “I should let Dr. Te Pokiha take you to the office.”

“Alf,” murmured Mason. “Old Alf!” He stood there, his lips shaking, his face ugly with suppressed emotion. Alleyn, who was accustomed to scenes of this sort, was conscious of his familiar daemon which took little at face value, and observed much. The daemon prompted him to notice how unembarrassed Gascoigne and Hambledon were by Mason’s emotion, how they had assumed so easily a mood of sorrowful correctness, almost as if they had rehearsed the damn’ scene, said the daemon.

They got Mason away. Te Pokiha went with him and said he would ring up the police. The unfortunate Bert, the stage-hand who had rigged the tackle under Meyer’s and Gascoigne’s directions, was hanging about in the wings and now came on the stage. He began to explain the mechanics of the champagne stunt to Alleyn.

“It was like this ’ere. We fixed the rope over the pulley, see, and on one end we fixed the bloody bottle and on the other end we hooked the bloody weight. The weight was one of them corner weights we used for the bloody funnels.”

“Ease up on the language, Bert,” suggested Gascoigne moodily.

“Good-oh, Mr. Gascoigne. And the weight was not so heavy as the bottle, see. And we took a lead with that red cord from just above the weight, see, and fixed it to the table. So when the cord was cut she came down gradual like, seeing she was that much heavier than the weight. The weight and the bottle hung half-way between the pulley and the table, see, so when she came down, the weight went up to the pulley. It was hooked into a ring in the rope. We cut out the lights and used candles so’s nothing would be noticed. We tried her out till he was sick and tired of her and she worked corker every time. She worked good-oh, didn’t she, Mr. Gascoigne?”

“Yes,” said Gascoigne. “That’s what I say. There’s been some funny business.”

“That’s right,” agreed Bert heavily. “There bloody well must of.”

“I’m going up aloft to take a look,” said Gascoigne.

“Just a moment,” interrupted Alleyn. He took a notebook and pencil from his pocket. “Don’t you think perhaps we had better not go up just yet, Mr. Gascoigne? If there has been any interference, the police ought to be the first on the spot, oughtn’t they?”

“My God, the police!” said Gascoigne.

“I think I’ll go and see how Carolyn is,” said Hambledon suddenly.

“They’re all in their dressing-rooms,” said Gascoigne.

Hambledon went away. Alleyn completed a little sketch in his notebook and showed it to Gascoigne and Bert.

“Was it like that?”

“That’s right, mister,” said Bert, “you got it. That’s how it was. And when she cut the bloody cord, see…” he rambled on.

Alleyn looked at the jeroboam. It had been cased in a sort of net which closed in at the neck, and was securely wired to the rope.

“Wonder why the cork blew out,” murmured Alleyn.

“The wire was loosened a bit before it came down,” said Gascoigne. “He — the governor himself — he went aloft after the show specially to do it. He didn’t want a stage-wait after it came down. He said the wire would still hold the cork.”

“And it did till the jolt — yes. What about the counterweight, Mr. Gascoigne? That would have to be detached before the champagne was poured out.”

“Bert was to go up at once and take it off.”

“I orfered to stay up there, like,” said Bert. “But ’e says ‘No,’ ’e says, ‘you can see the show and then go up. I’ll watch it.’ Gawd, Mr. Gascoigne—”

Alleyn slipped away through the wings. Off-stage it was very dark and smelt of theatre. He walked along the wall until he came to the foot of an iron ladder. He was reminded most vividly of his only other experience behind the scenes. “Is my mere presence in the stalls,” he thought crossly, “a cue for homicide? May I not visit the antipodes without elderly theatre magnates having their heads bashed in by jeroboams of champagne before my very eyes? And the answer being ‘No’ to each of these questions, can I not get away quickly without nosing into the why and wherefore?”

He put on his gloves and began to climb the ladder. “Again the answer is ‘No.’ The truth of the matter is I’m an incurable nosey parker. Detect I must, if I can.” He reached the first gallery, and peered about him, using his electric torch, and then went on up the ladder. “I wonder how she’s taking it? And Hambledon. Will they marry each other in due course, provided— After all, she may not be in love with Hambledon. Ah, here we are.”

He paused at the top gallery and switched on his torch.

Close beside him a batten, slung on ropes, ran across from his gallery to the opposite one. Across the batten hung a pulley and over the pulley was a rope. Looking down the far length of the rope, he saw it run away in sharp perspective from dark into light. He had a bird’s-eye view of the lamp-lit set, the tops of the wings, the flat white strip of table; and there, at the end of the rope in the middle of the table, a flattened object, rather like a beetle with a white head and paws. That was Alfred Meyer. The other end of the rope, terminating in an iron hook, was against the pulley. The hook had been secured to a ring in the end of the rope, and the red cord which Carolyn had cut was also tied to the ring. The cut end of the cord dangled in mid-air. On the hook he should have found the counterweight.

But there was no counterweight.

He looked again at the pulley. It was as he had thought. A loop of thin cord had been passed round the near end of the batten and tied to the gallery. It had served to pull the batten eighteen inches to one side. So that when the bottle dropped it was slightly to the right of the centre of the table.

“Stap me and sink me!” said Alleyn and returned to the stage. He found Ted Gascoigne by the stage-door. With him were two large dark men, wearing overcoats, scarves, and black felt hats; a police officer, a short pink-faced person who was obviously the divisional surgeon. “Do they call them divisional surgeons in this country?” wondered Alleyn.

They were some time at the stage-door. Gascoigne talked very fast and most confusedly. At last he took them on to the stage, where they were joined by Te Pokiha. From the wings Alleyn watched them make their examination. It gave him a curious feeling to look on while other men did his own job. They examined the end of the rope which was still knotted into the net enclosing the bottle, and the piece of red-bound wire cord that lay on the table. Gascoigne explained the mechanism of the descending jeroboam. They peered up into the grid. Gascoigne pointed out the other end of the red cord.

“When Miss Dacres cut it, it shot up,” he explained.

“Yes,” said the detective. “Ye-ees. That’s right. Ye-ees.”

“Out comes the old notebook,” said Alleyn to himself.

“Hullo,” said a voice at his elbow. It was Hambledon.

“Carolyn wants to see you,” he whispered. “What’s happening out there?”

“Police doing their stuff. Wants to see me, does she?”

“Yes. Come on.”

He led the way into the usual dark wooden passage. The star dressing-room was the first on the left. Hambledon knocked on the door, opened it, and led the way in. Carolyn sat at her dressing-table. She still wore the black lace dress she had put on for the party. Her hair was pushed back from her face as though she had sat with her head in her hands. Old Susan Max was with her. Susan sat comfortably in an arm-chair, radiating solid sense, but her eyes were anxious. They brightened when she saw Alleyn.

“Here he is, dear,” she said.

Carolyn turned her head slowly.

“Hullo,” she said.

“Hullo,” said Alleyn. “Humbledon says you want me.”

“Yes, I do.” Her hands were trembling violently. She pressed them together between her knees.

“I just thought I’d like you here,” said Carolyn. “I’ve killed him, haven’t I?”

“No!” said Hambledon violently.

“My dear!” said Susan.

“Well, I have. I cut the cord. That was what did it, wasn’t it?” She still looked at Alleyn.

“Yes,” said Alleyn in a very matter-of-fact voice, “that was what set the thing off. But you didn’t rig the apparatus, did you?”

“No. I didn’t know anything about it. It was a surprise.”

She caught her breath and a strange sound, something like laughter, came from her lips. Susan and Hambledon looked panicky.

“Oh!” cried Carolyn. “Oh! Oh!”

“Don’t!” said Alleyn. “Hysterics are a bad way of letting things go. You feel awful afterwards.”

She raised one of her hands and bit on it. Alleyn picked up a bottle of smelling-salts from the dressing-table and held it under her nose.

“Sniff hard,” he said.

Carolyn sniffed and gasped. Tears poured out of her eyes.

“That’s better. You’re crying black tears. I thought that stuff was waterproof. Look at yourself.”

She gazed helplessly at him and then turned to the glass. Susan gently wiped away the black tears.

“You are a queer one,” sobbed Carolyn.

“I know I am,” agreed Alleyn. “It’s a pose, really. Would you drink a little brandy if Hambledon got it for you?”

“No.”

“Yes, you would.” He looked good-humouredly at Hambledon, who was standing miserably by her chair. “Can you?” asked Alleyn.

“Yes — yes I’ll get it.” He hurried away.

Alleyn sat on one of the wicker baskets and spoke to old Susan.

“Well, Miss Max, our meetings are to be fraught with drama, it seems.”

“Ah,” said Susan with a sort of grunt.

“What do you mean?” asked Carolyn. She turned to the mirror and, very shakily, dabbed at her face with a powder-puff.

“Mr. Alleyn and I have met before, dear,” explained Susan. “Over that dreadful business with Felix Gardener, you know.”

“Yes. We spoke about it that night on the train.” Carolyn paused, and then she began to speak rapidly, urgently and with more command over her voice.

“That’s why I wanted to see you. That night on the train. You remember what — he — said. Someone had tried to kill him. Have you thought of that?”

“I have,” said Alleyn.

“Well then — I want you to tell me, please, is this anything to do with it? Has someone — the same someone — done to-night what they failed to do on the train? Mr. Alleyn — has someone murdered my husband?”

Alleyn was silent.

“Please answer me.”

“That’s a question for the police, you know.”