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

‘He must,’ Alleyn interjected, ‘have also entertained the very nasty notion of throwing suspicion of foul play on his fellow-actors. If there’s a gas-fire back to back with this –’

‘And there is,’ Fox said.

‘The devil there is! So what does Bennington do? He recreates as far as possible the whole set-up, leaves no note, no indication, as far as we can see, of his intention to gas himself, and – who’s next door, Fox?’

‘A Mr Parry Percival.’

‘All right. Bennington pushes off, leaving Mr Parry Percival ostensibly in the position of the Jupiter murderer. Rotten sort of suicide that’d be, Br’er Fox.’

‘We don’t know anything yet, of course,’ said Fox.

‘We don’t and the crashing hellish bore about the whole business lies in the all too obvious fact that we’ll have to find out. What’s on your inventory, Gibson?’

Sergeant Gibson opened his note-book and adopted his official manner.

‘Dressing-table or shelf,’ he said. ‘One standing mirror. One cardboard box containing false hair, rouge, substance labelled “nose-paste”, seven fragments of greasepaint and one unopened box of powder. Shelf. Towel spread out to serve as table-cloth. On towel – one tray containing six sticks of greasepaint. To right of tray, bottle of spirit-adhesive. Bottle containing what appears to be substance known as liquid powder. Open box of powder overturned. Behind box of powder, pile of six pieces of cotton-wool and a roll from which these pieces have been removed.’ He looked up at Alleyn. ‘Intended to be used for powdering purposes, Mr Alleyn.’

‘That’s it,’ Alleyn said. He was doubled up, peering at the floor under the dressing-shelf. ‘Nothing there,’ he grunted. ‘Go on.’

‘To left of tray: cigarette-case with three cigarettes and open box of fifty. Box of matches. Ash-tray. Towel, stained with greasepaint. Behind mirror: Flask: one-sixth full; and used tumbler smelling of spirits.’

Alleyn looked behind the standing glass. ‘Furtive sort of cache,’ he said. ‘Go on.’

‘Considerable quantity of powder spilt on shelf and on adjacent floor area. Considerable quantity of ash. Left wall. Clothes. I haven’t been through the pockets yet, Mr Alleyn. There’s nothing on the floor but powder and some paper ash, original form indistinguishable. Stain as of something burnt on hearth.’

‘Go ahead with it then. I wanted,’ Alleyn said with a discontented air, ‘to hear whether I was wrong.’

Fox and Gibson looked placidly at him. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘don’t mind me. I’m broody.’

He squatted down by the overcoat. ‘It really is the most obscene smell, gas,’ he muttered. ‘How anybody can always passes my comprehension.’ He poked in a gingerly manner at the coat. ‘Powder over everything,’ he grumbled. ‘Where had this coat been? On the empty hanger near the door presumably. That’s damned rum. Check it with his dresser. We’ll have to get Bailey along, Fox. And Thompson. Blast!’

‘I’ll ring the Yard,’ said Fox and went out.

Alleyn squinted through a lens at the wing-taps of the gas-fire. ‘I can see prints clearly enough,’ he said, ‘on both. We can check with Bennington’s. There’s even a speck or two of powder settled on the taps.’

‘In the air, I dare say,’ said Gibson.

‘I dare say it was. Like the gas. We can’t go any further here until the dabs and flash party has done its stuff. Finished, Gibson?’

‘Finished, Mr Alleyn. Nothing much in the pockets. Bills. Old racing card. Cheque-book and so on. Nothing on the body, by the way, but a handkerchief.’

‘Come on, then. I’ve had my bellyful of gas.’

But he stood in the doorway eyeing the room and whistling softly.

‘I wish I could believe in you,’ he apostrophized it, ‘but split me and sink me if I can. No, by all that’s phoney, not for one credulous second. Come on, Gibson. Let’s talk to these experts.’

IV

They all felt a little better for Jacko’s soup which had been laced with something that as J. G. Darcey said (and looked uncomfortable as soon as he had said it) went straight to the spot marked X.

Whether it was this potent soup or whether extreme emotional and physical fatigue had induced in Martyn its familiar compliment, an uncanny sharpening of the mind, she began to consider for the first time the general reaction of the company to Bennington’s death. She thought: ‘I don’t believe there’s one of us who really minds very much. How lonely for him! Perhaps he felt the awful isolation of a child that knows itself unwanted and thought he’d put himself out of the way of caring.’

It was a shock to Martyn when Helena Hamilton suddenly gave voice to her own thoughts. Helena had sat with her chin in her hand, looking at the floor. There was an unerring grace about her and this fireside posture had the beauty of complete relaxation. Without raising her eyes she said: ‘My dears, my dears, for pity’s sake don’t let’s pretend. Don’t let me pretend. I didn’t love him. Isn’t that sad? We all know and we try to patch up a decorous scene but it won’t do. We’re shocked and uneasy and dreadfully tired. Don’t let’s put ourselves to the trouble of pretending. It’s so useless.’

Gay said: ‘But I did love him!’ and J.G. put his arm about her.

‘Did you?’ Helena murmured. ‘Perhaps you did, darling. Then you must hug your sorrow to yourself. Because I’m afraid nobody really shares it.’

Poole said: ‘We understand, Ella.’

With that familiar gesture, not looking at him, she reached out her hand. When he had taken it in his, she said: ‘When one is dreadfully tired, one talks. I do, at all events. I talk much too easily. Perhaps that’s a sign of a shallow woman. You know, my dears, I begin to think I’m only capable of affection. I have a great capacity for affection but as for my loves, they have no real permanency. None.’

Jacko said gently: ‘Perhaps your talent for affection is equal to other women’s knack of loving.’

Gay and Parry Percival looked at him in astonishment but Poole said: ‘That may well be.’

‘What I meant to say,’ Helena went on, ‘only I do sidetrack myself so awfully, is this. Hadn’t we better stop being muted and mournful and talk about what may happen and what we ought to do? Adam, darling, I thought perhaps they might all be respecting my sorrow or something. What should we be talking about? What’s the situation?’

Poole moved one of the chairs with its back to the curtain and sat on it. Dr Rutherford returned and lumped himself down in the corner. ‘They’re talking,’ he said, ‘to Clem Smith in the – they’re talking to Clem. I’ve seen the police-surgeon, a subfusc exhibit but one that can tell a hawk from a hernshaw if they’re held under his nose. He agrees that there was nothing else I could have done which is no doubt immensely gratifying to me. What are you all talking about? You look like a dress-rehearsal.’

‘We were about to discuss the whole situation,’ said Poole. ‘Helena feels it should be discussed and I think we all agree with her.’

‘What situation pray? Ben’s? Or ours? There is no more to be said about Ben’s situation. As far as we know, my dear Ella, he has administered to himself a not too uncomfortable and effective anaesthetic which, after he had become entirely unconscious, brought about the end he had in mind. For a man who had decided to shuffle off this mortal coil he behaved very sensibly.’

‘Oh, please,’ Gay whispered. ‘Please!’

Dr Rutherford contemplated her in silence for a moment and then said: ‘What’s up, Misery?’ Helena, Darcey and Parry Percival made expostulatory noises. Poole said: ‘See here, John, you’ll either pipe down or preserve the decencies.’

Gay, fortified perhaps by this common reaction, said loudly: ‘You might at least have the grace to remember he was my uncle.’

‘Grace me no grace,’ Dr Rutherford quoted inevitably. ‘And uncle me no uncles.’ After a moment’s reflection, he added: ‘All right, Thalia, have a good cry. But you must know, if the rudiments of seasoned thinking are within your command, that your Uncle Ben did you a damn shabby turn. A scurvy trick, by God. However, I digress. Get on with the post-mortem, Chorus. I am dumb.’

‘You’ll be good enough to remain so,’ said Poole warmly. ‘Very well, then. It seems to me, Ella, that Ben took this – this way out – for a number of reasons. I know you want me to speak plainly and I’m going to speak very plainly indeed, my dear.’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Please, but –’ For a moment they looked at each other. Martyn wondered if she imagined that Poole’s head moved in the faintest possible negative. ‘Yes,’ Helena said, ‘very plainly, please.’

‘Well, then,’ Poole said, ‘we know that for the last year Ben, never a very temperate man, has been a desperately intemperate one. We know his habits undermined his health, his character and his integrity as an actor. I think he realized this very thoroughly. He was an unhappy man who looked back at what he had once been and was appalled. We all know he did things in performance tonight that, from an actor of his standing, were quite beyond the pale.’

Parry Percival ejaculated: ‘Well, I mean to say – oh, well. Never mind.’

‘Exactly,’ Poole said. ‘He had reached a sort of chronic state of instability. We all know he was subject to fits of depression. I believe he did what he did when he was at a low ebb. I believe he would have done it sooner or later by one means or another. And, in my view for what it’s worth, that’s the whole story. Tragic enough, God knows, but, in its tragedy, simple. I don’t know if you agree.’

Darcey said: ‘If there’s nothing else, I mean,’ he said diffidently, glancing at Helena, ‘if nothing has happened that would seem like a further motive.’

Helena’s gaze rested for a moment on Poole and then on Darcey. ‘I think Adam’s right,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid he was appalled by a sudden realization of himself. I’m afraid he was insufferably lonely.’

‘Oh, my God!’ Gay ejaculated and having by this means collected their unwilling attention, she added: ‘I shall never forgive myself: never.’