Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 6: Opening Night, Spinsters in Jeopardy, Scales of Justice

The doctor who, until now, had seemed to share the general feeling of oppression and shock, appeared to cheer up with indecent haste. He was, in fact, clearly enchanted: ‘Definite, definite, well-educated infant,’ he quoted exultantly.

‘I mean that in court, sir, we swear by the Book. But I’m afraid, sir,’ added the young constable apologetically, ‘that I’m not much of a hand at “Bardinage”. My purse is empty already. If you’ll excuse me,’ he concluded, with a civil glance round the company, ‘I’ll just –’

He was again about to withdraw when his sergeant came in at the OP entrance.

‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,’ the sergeant said in what Martyn, for one, felt was the regulation manner. ‘Very sorry to keep you, I’m sure. Sad business. In these cases we have to do a routine check-up as you might say. My superior officers will be here in a moment and then, I hope, we shan’t be long. Thank you.’

He tramped across the stage, said something inaudible to the constable and was heard to go into the dock. The constable took a chair from the prompt corner, placed it in the proscenium entrance and, with a modest air, sat on it. His glance fell upon Martyn and he smiled at her. They were the youngest persons there and it was as if they signalled in a friendly manner to each other. In turning away from this pleasant exchange, Martyn found that Poole was watching her with fixed and, it seemed, angry glare. To her fury she found that she was very much disturbed by this circumstance.

They had by this time all cleaned their faces. Helena Hamilton with an unsteady hand put on a light street make-up. The men looked ghastly in the cold working lights that bleakly illuminated the stage.

Parry Percival said fretfully: ‘Well, I must say I do not see the smallest point in our hanging about like this.’

The constable was about to answer when they all heard sounds of arrival at the stage-door. He said: ‘This will be the party from the Yard, sir,’ and crossed to the far exit. The sergeant was heard to join him there.

There was a brief conversation off-stage. A voice said: ‘You two go round with Gibson then, will you? I’ll join you in a moment.’

The young constable reappeared to usher in a tall man in plain clothes.

‘Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn,’ he said.

II

Martyn, in her weary pilgrimage round the West End, had seen men of whom Alleyn at first reminded her. In the neighbourhood of the St James’s Theatre, they had emerged from clubs, from restaurants and from enchanting and preposterous shops. There had been something in their bearing and their clothes that gave them a precise definition. But when she looked more closely at Inspector Alleyn’s face, this association became modified. It was a spare and scholarly face with a monkish look about it.

Martyn had formed the habit of thinking of people’s voices in terms of colour. Helena Hamilton’s voice, for instance, was for Martyn golden, Gay Gainsford’s pink, Darcey’s brown and Adam Poole’s violet. When Alleyn spoke she decided that his voice was a royal blue of the clearest sort.

Reminding herself that this was no time to indulge this freakish habit of classification she gave him her full attention.

‘You will, I’m sure,’ he was saying, ‘realize that in these cases, our job is simply to determine that they are, on the face of it, what they appear to be. In order to do this effectively we are obliged to make a fairly thorough examination of the scene as we find it. This takes a little time always but if everything’s quite straightforward, as I expect it will be, we won’t keep you very long. Is that clear?’

He looked round his small audience. Poole said at once: ‘Yes, of course. We all understand. At the same time, if it’s a matter of taking statements, I’d be grateful if you’d see Miss Hamilton first.’

‘Miss Hamilton?’ Alleyn said and after a moment’s hesitation, looked at her.

‘I’m his wife,’ she said. ‘I’m Helena Bennington.’

‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. Yes, I’m sure that can be managed. Probably the best will be for me to see you all together. If everything seems quite clear there may be no excuse for further interviews. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have a look round and then rejoin you. There is a doctor among you, isn’t there? Dr Rutherford?’ Dr Rutherford cleared his throat portentously. ‘Are you he, sir? Perhaps you’ll join us.’

‘Indubitably,’ said the doctor. ‘I had so concluded.’

‘Good,’ Alleyn said and looked faintly amused. ‘Will you lead the way?’

They were at the door when Jacko suddenly said: ‘A moment, if you please, Chief Inspector.’

‘Yes?’

‘I would like permission to make soup. There is a filthy small kitchen-place inhabited only by the night-watchman where I have a can of prepared soup. Everyone is very cold and fatigued and entirely empty. My name is Jacques Doré. I am dogsbody-in-waiting in this theatre and there is much virtue in my soup.’

Alleyn said: ‘By all means. Is the kitchen-place that small sink-room near the dock with the gas-jet in it?’

‘But you haven’t looked at the place yet!’ Parry Percival ejaculated.

‘I’ve been here before,’ said Alleyn. ‘I remember the theatre. Shall we get on, Dr Rutherford?’

They went out. Gay Gainsford, whose particular talent, from now onwards, was to lie in the voicing of disquieting thoughts which her companions shared but decided to leave unspoken, said in a distracted manner: ‘When was he here before?’ And when nobody answered she said dramatically: ‘I can see it all! He must be the man they sent that other time.’ She paused and collected their reluctant attention. She laid her hand on J.G.’s arm and raised her voice: ‘That’s why he’s come again,’ she announced.

‘Come now, dear,’ J.G. murmured inadequately and Poole said quickly: ‘My dear Gay!’

‘But I’m all right!’ she persisted. ‘I’m sure I’m right. Why else should he know about the sink-room?’ She looked about her with an air of terrified complacency.

‘And last time,’ she pointed out, ‘it was Murder.’

‘Climax,’ said Jacko. ‘Picture and Slow Curtain! Put your hands together, ladies and gentlemen, for this clever little artiste.’

He went out with his eyes turned up.

‘Jacko’s terribly hard, isn’t he?’ Gay said to Darcey. ‘After all Uncle Ben was my uncle.’ She caught sight of Helena Hamilton. ‘And your husband,’ she said hurriedly, ‘of course, darling.’

III

The stage-hands had set up in the dock one of the trestle-tables used for properties. They had laid Clark Bennington’s body on it and had covered it with a sheet from the wardrobe-room. The dock was a tall echoing place, concrete floored, with stacks of old flats leaning against the walls. A solitary unprotected lamp bulb, dust-encrusted, hung above the table.

A group of four men in dark overcoats and hats stood beside this improvised bier and it so chanced they had taken up their places at the four corners and looked therefore as if they kept guard over it. Their hats shadowed their faces and they stood in pools of shadow. A fifth man, bareheaded, stood at the foot of the bier and a little removed from it. When the tallest of the men reached out to the margin of the sheet, his arm cast a black bar over its white and eloquent form. His gloved hand dragged down the sheet and exposed a rigid gaping face encrusted with greasepaint. He uncovered his head and the other three, a little awkwardly, followed his example.

‘Well, Curtis?’ he asked.

Dr Curtis, the police-surgeon, bent over the head, blotting it out with his shadow. He took a flashlamp from his pocket and the face, in this changed light, started out with an altered look as if it had secretly rearranged its expression.

‘God!’ Curtis muttered. ‘He looks pretty ghastly doesn’t he. What an atrocious make-up.’

From his removed position Dr Rutherford said loudly: ‘My dear man, the make-up was required for My Play. It should, in point of fact, be a damn sight more repellent. But vanitas vanitatum. Also: Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens. I didn’t let them fix him up at all. Thought you’d prefer not.’ His voice echoed coldly round the dock.

‘Quite so,’ Curtis murmured. ‘Much better not.’

‘Smell very noticeable still,’ a thick-set grizzled man observed. ‘Always hangs about in these cases,’ rejoined the sergeant, ‘doesn’t it, Mr Fox?’

‘We worked damn hard on him,’ Dr Rutherford said. ‘It never looked like it from the start. Not a hope.’

‘Well,’ said Curtis, drawing back, ‘it all seems straightforward enough, Alleyn. It doesn’t call for a very extensive autopsy but of course we’ll do the usual things.’

‘Lend me your torch a moment,’ Alleyn said, and after a moment: ‘Very heavy make-up, isn’t it? He’s so thickly powdered.’

‘He needed it. He sweated,’ Dr Rutherford said, ‘like a pig. Alcohol and a dicky heart.’

‘Did you look after him, sir?’

‘Not I. I don’t practise nowadays. The alcohol declared itself and he used to talk about a heart condition. Valvula trouble, I should imagine. I don’t know who his medical man was. His wife can tell you.’