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

Dr Curtis replaced the sheet. ‘That,’ he said to Rutherford, ‘might account for him going quickly.’

‘Certainly.’

‘There’s a mark under the jaw,’ Alleyn said. ‘Did either of you notice it. The make-up is thinner there. Is it a bruise?’

Curtis said: ‘I saw it, yes. It might be a bruise. We’ll see better when we clean him up.’

‘Right. I’ll look at the room,’ Alleyn said. ‘Who found him?’

‘The stage-manager,’ said Rutherford.

‘Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind asking him to come along when you rejoin the others. Thank you, so much, Dr Rutherford. We’re glad to have had your report. You’ll be called for the inquest, I’m afraid.’

‘Hell’s teeth, I suppose I shall. So be it.’ He moved to the doors. The sergeant obligingly rolled them open and he muttered: ‘Thankee,’ and with an air of dissatisfaction went out.

Dr Curtis said: ‘I’d better go and make professional noises at him.’

‘Yes, do,’ Alleyn said.

On their way to Bennington’s room they passed Jacko and a stage-hand bearing a fragrant steaming can and a number of cups to the stage. In his cubby-hole, Fred Badger was entertaining a group of stage-hands and dressers. They had steaming pannikins in their hands and they eyed the police party in silence.

‘Smells very tasty, doesn’t it?’ Detective-Inspector Fox observed rather wistfully.

The young constable, who was stationed by the door through which Martyn had made her entrance, opened it for the soup-party and shut it after them.

Fox growled: ‘Keep your wits about you.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said the young constable and exhibited his note-book.

Clem Smith was waiting for them in Bennington’s room. The lights were full on and a white glare beat on the dressing-shelf and walls. Bennington’s street clothes and his suit for the first act hung on coat-hangers along the walls. His make-up was laid out on a towel and the shelf was littered with small objects that in their casual air of usage suggested that he had merely left the room for a moment and would return to take them up again. On the floor, hard by the dead gas-fire, lay an overcoat from which the reek of gas, which still hung about the room, seemed to arise. The worn rug was drawn up into wrinkles.

Clem Smith’s face was white and anxious under his shock of dark hair. He shook hands jerkily with Alleyn and then looked as if he wondered if he ought to have done so. ‘This is a pretty ghastly sort of party,’ he muttered, ‘isn’t it?’

Alleyn said: ‘It seems that you came in for the worst part of it. Do you mind telling us what happened?’

Fox moved behind Clem and produced his note-book. Sergeant Gibson began to make a list of the objects in the room. Clem watched him with an air of distaste.

‘Easy enough to tell you,’ he said. ‘He came off about eight minutes before the final curtain and I suppose went straight to this room. When the boy came round for the curtain-call, Ben didn’t appear with the others. I didn’t notice. There’s an important light-cue at the end and I was watching for it. Then, when they all went on, he just wasn’t there. We couldn’t hold the curtain for long. I sent it up for the first call and the boy went back and hammered on this door. It was locked. He smelt gas and began to yell for Ben and then ran back to tell me what was wrong. I’d got the doctor on for his speech by that time. I left my ASM in charge, took the bunch of extra keys from the prompt corner and tore round here.’

He wetted his lips and fumbled in his pocket. ‘Is it safe to smoke,’ he asked.

‘I’m afraid we’d better wait a little longer,’ Alleyn said. ‘Sorry.’

‘OK. Well, I unlocked the door. As soon as it opened the stink hit me in the face. I don’t know why but I expected him to be sitting at the shelf. I don’t suppose, really, it was long before I saw him but it seemed fantastically long. He was lying there, by the heater. I could only see his legs and the lower half of his body. The rest was hidden by that coat. It was tucked in behind the heater, and over his head and shoulders. It looked like a tent. I heard the hiss going on underneath it.’ Clem rubbed his mouth. ‘I don’t think,’ he said, ‘I was as idiotically slow as all this makes me out to be. I don’t think honestly, it was more than seconds before I went in. Honestly, I don’t think so.’

‘I expect you’re right about that. Time goes all relative in a crisis.’

‘Does it? Good. Well, then: I ran in and hauled the coat away. He was on his left side – his mouth – it was – The lead-in had been disconnected and it was by his mouth, hissing. I turned it off and dragged him by the heels. He sort of stuck on the carpet. Jacko – Jacques Doré bolted in and helped.’

‘One moment,’ Alleyn said. ‘Did you knock over that box of powder on the dressing-table? Either of you?’

Clem Smith stared at it. ‘That? No, I didn’t go near it and I’d got him half-way to the door when Jacko came in. He must have done it himself.’

‘Right. Sorry. Go on.’

‘We lifted Ben into the passage and shut his door. At the far end of the passage there’s a window, the only one near. We got it open and carried him to it. I think he was dead even then. I’m sure he was. I’ve seen gassed cases before; in the blitz.’

Alleyn said: ‘You seem to have tackled this one like an old hand, at all events.’

‘I’m damn glad you think so,’ said Clem, and sounded it.

Alleyn looked at the Yale lock on the door. ‘This seems in good enough shape,’ he said absently.

‘It’s new,’ Clem said. ‘There were pretty extensive renovations and a sort of general clean up when Mr Poole took the theatre over. It’s useful for the artistes to be able to lock up valuables in their rooms and the old locks were clumsy and rusted up. In any case –’ He stopped and then said uncomfortably: ‘The whole place has been repainted and modernized.’

‘Including the gas installations?’

‘Yes,’ said Clem, not looking at Alleyn. ‘That’s all new too.’

‘Two of the old dressing-rooms have been knocked together to form the greenroom?’

‘Yes.’

‘And there are new dividing walls? And ventilators, now, in the dressing-rooms?’

‘Yes,’ said Clem unhappily and added: ‘I suppose that’s why he used his coat.’

‘It does look,’ Alleyn said without stressing it, ‘as if the general idea was to speed things up, doesn’t it? All right, Mr Smith, thank you. Would you explain to the people on the stage that I’ll come as soon as we’ve finished our job here? It won’t be very long. We’ll probably ask you to sign a statement of the actual discovery as you’ve described it to us. You’ll be glad to get away from this room, I expect.’

Inspector Fox had secreted his note-book and now ushered Clem Smith out. Clem appeared to go thankfully.

‘Plain sailing, wouldn’t you say, Mr Alleyn?’ said Fox, looking along the passage. ‘Nobody about,’ he added. ‘I’ll leave the door open.’

Alleyn rubbed his nose. ‘It looks like plain sailing, Fox, certainly. But in view of the other blasted affair we can’t take a damn thing for granted. You weren’t on the Jupiter case, were you, Gibson?’

‘No, sir,’ said Gibson looking up from his note-book. ‘Homicide dressed up to look like suicide, wasn’t it?’

‘It was, indeed. The place has been pretty extensively chopped up and rehashed but the victim was on this side of the passage and in what must have been the room now taken in to make the greenroom. Next door there was a gas-fire backing on to his own. The job was done by blowing down the tube next door. This put out the fire in this room and left the gas on, of course. The one next door was then relit. The victim was pretty well dead-drunk and the trick worked. We got the bloke on the traces of crepe-hair and greasepaint he left on the tube.’

‘Very careless,’ Fox said. ‘Silly chap, really.’

‘The theatre,’ Alleyn said, ‘was shut up for a long time. Three or four years at least. Then Adam Poole took it, renamed it the Vulcan and got a permit for renovation. I fancy this is only his second production here.’

‘Perhaps,’ Fox speculated, ‘the past history of the place played on the deceased’s mind and led him to do away with himself after the same fashion.’

‘Sort of superstitious?’ Gibson ventured.

‘Not precisely,’ said Fox majestically. ‘And yet something after that style of thing. They’re a very superstitious mob, actors, Fred. Very. And if he had reason, in any case, to entertain the notion of suicide –’