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

‘There’s a general suggestion,’ he said, ‘that none of you was very surprised by this event. May I just – sort of tally-up – the general opinion as far as I’ve heard it? It helps to keep things tidy, I find. Miss Hamilton, you tell us that your husband had a curious, an almost morbid interest in the Jupiter case. You and Mr Doré agree that Mr Bennington had decided to take his life because he couldn’t face the “dissolution of his character”. Miss Gainsford, if I understand her, believes he was deeply disturbed by the mise en sèine and also by her inability to go on tonight for this part. Miss Tarne’s account of what was probably the last statement he made suggests that he wanted her to understand that some action he had in mind had nothing to do with her. Mr Doré supports this interpretation and confirms the actual words that were used. This, as far as it goes, is the only tangible bit of evidence as to intention that we have.’

Poole lifted his head. His face was very white and a lock of black hair had fallen over his forehead turning him momentarily into the likeness, Martyn thought inconsequently, of Michelangelo’s ‘Adam’. He said: ‘There’s the fact itself, Alleyn. There’s what he did.’

Alleyn said carefully: ‘There’s an interval of perhaps eight minutes between what he said and when he was found.’

‘Look here –’ Parry Percival began and then relapsed. ‘Let it pass,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘Pipe up, Narcissus,’ Dr Rutherford adjured him, ‘the inspector won’t bite you.’

‘Oh, shut up!’ Parry shouted and was awarded a complete and astonished silence. He rose and addressed himself to the players. ‘You’re all being so bloody frank and sensible about this suicide,’ he said. ‘You’re so anxious to show everybody how honest you are. The doctor’s so unconcerned he can even spare a moment to indulge in his favourite pastime of me-baiting. I know what the doctor thinks of me and it doesn’t say much for his talents as a diagnostician. But if it’s Queer to feel desperately sorry for a man who was miserable enough to choke himself to death at a gas-jet, if it’s Queer to be physically and mentally sick at the thought of it then, by God, I’d rather be Queer than normal. Now!’

There followed a silence broken only by the faint whisper of the young constable’s pencil.

Doctor Rutherford struggled to his feet and lumbered down to Parry.

‘Your argument, my young coxcomb,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘is as seaworthy as a sieve. As for my diagnosis, if you’re the normal man you’d have me believe, why the hell don’t you show like one? You exhibit the stigmata of that waterfly whom it is a vice to know, and fly into a fit when the inevitable conclusion is drawn.’ He took Parry by the elbow and addressed himself to the company in the manner of a lecturer. ‘A phenomenon,’ he said, ‘that is not without its dim interest. I invite your attention. Here is an alleged actor who, an hour or two since, was made a public and egregious figure of fun by the deceased. Who was roasted by the deceased before an audience of a thousand whinnying nincompoops? Who allowed his performance to be prostituted by the deceased before this audience? Who before his final and most welcome exit suffered himself to be tripped up contemptuously by the deceased, and who fell on his painted face before this audience? Here is this phenomenon, ladies and gents, who now proposes himself as Exhibit A in the Compassion Stakes. I invite your –’

Poole said: ‘Quiet!’ and when Dr Rutherford grinned at him added: ‘I meant it, John. You will be quiet if you please.’

Parry wrenched himself free from the doctor and turned on Alleyn. ‘You’re supposed to be in charge here –’ he began and Poole said quickly: ‘Yes, Alleyn, I really do think that this discussion is getting quite fantastically out of hand. If we’re all satisfied that this case of suicide –’

‘Which,’ Alleyn said, ‘we are not.’

They were all talking at once: Helena, the doctor, Parry, Gay and Darcey. They were like a disorderly chorus in a verse play. Martyn, who had been watching Alleyn, was terrified. She saw him glance at the constable. Then he stood up.

‘One moment,’ he said. The chorus broke off inconsequently as it had begun.

‘We’ve reached a point,’ Alleyn said, ‘where it’s my duty to tell you I’m by no means satisfied that this is, in fact, a case of suicide.’

Martyn was actually conscious, in some kind, of a sense of relief. She could find no look either of surprise or anger in any of her fellow-players. Their faces were so many white discs and they were motionless and silent. At last Clem Smith said with an indecent lack of conviction: ‘He was horribly careless about things like that – taps – I mean –’ His voice sank to a murmur. They heard the word ‘accident’.

‘Is it not strange,’ Jacko said loudly, ‘how loath one is to pronounce the word that is in all our minds. And truth to tell, it has a soft and ugly character.’ His lips closed over his fantastic teeth. He used the exaggerated articulation of an old actor. ‘Murder,’ he said. ‘So beastly, isn’t it?’

It was at this point that one of the stage-hands, following, no doubt, his routine for the night, pulled up the curtain and exhibited the scene of climax to the deserted auditorium.

CHAPTER 8 (#ulink_aaa02e8a-ae46-5e16-a730-fa8b7b9c7ea8)

After-Piece (#ulink_aaa02e8a-ae46-5e16-a730-fa8b7b9c7ea8)

When Martyn considered the company as they sat about their own working stage, bruised by anxiety and fatigue, Jacko’s ugly word sounded not so much frightening as preposterous. It was unthinkable that it could kindle even a bat-light of fear in any of their hearts. ‘And yet,’ thought Martyn, ‘it has done so. There are little points of terror, burning in all of us like match-flames.’

After Jacko had spoken there was a long silence broken at last by Adam Poole who asked temperately: ‘Are we to understand, Alleyn, that you have quite ruled out the possibility of suicide?’

‘By no means,’ Alleyn rejoined. ‘I still hope you may be able, among you, to show that there is at least a clear enough probability of suicide for us to leave the case as it stands until the inquest. But where there are strong indications that it may not be suicide we can’t risk waiting as long as that without a pretty exhaustive look round.’

‘And there are such indications?’

‘There are indeed.’

‘Strong?’

Alleyn waited a moment. ‘Sufficiently strong,’ he said.

‘What are they?’ Dr Rutherford demanded.

‘It must suffice,’ Alleyn quibbled politely, ‘that they are sufficient.’

‘An elegant sufficiency, by God!’

‘But, Mr Alleyn,’ Helena cried out, ‘what can we tell you? Except that we all most sincerely believe that Ben did this himself. Because we know him to have been bitterly unhappy. What else is there for us to say?’

‘It will help, you know, when we get a clear picture of what you were all doing and where you were between the time he left the stage and the time he was found. Inspector Fox is checking now with the stage-staff. I propose to do so with the players.’

‘I see,’ she said. She leant forward and her air of reasonableness and attention was beautifully executed. ‘You want to find out which of us had the opportunity to murder Ben?’

Gay Gainsford and Parry began an outcry but Helena raised her hand and they were quiet. ‘That’s it, isn’t it?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ Alleyn said, ‘that really is it. I fancy you would rather be spared the stock evasions about routine inquiries and all the rest of it.’

‘Much rather.’

‘I was sure of it,’ Alleyn said. ‘Then shall we start with you, if you please?’

‘I was on the stage for the whole of that time, Mr Alleyn. There’s a scene, before Ben’s exit between J.G. – that’s Mr Darcey, over there – Parry, Adam, Ben and myself. Then J.G. and Parry go off and Ben follows a moment later. Adam and I finish the play.’

‘So you, too,’ Alleyn said to Poole, ‘were here, on the stage, for the whole of this period?’

‘I go off for a moment after his exit. It’s a strange, rather horridly strange, coincidence that in the play he – the character he played, I mean – does commit suicide offstage. He shoots himself. When I hear the shot I go off. The two other men have already made their exits. They remain off but I come on again almost immediately. I wait outside the door on the left from a position where I could watch Miss Hamilton and I re-enter on a “business” cue from her.’

‘How long would this take?’

‘Shall we show you?’ Helena suggested. She got up and moved to the centre of the stage. She raised her clasped hands to her mouth and stood motionless. She was another woman.

As if Clem had called: ‘Clear stage,’ and indeed he looked about him with an air of authority, Martyn, Jacko and Gay moved into the wings. Parry and J.G. went to the foot of the stairs and Poole crossed to above Helena. They placed themselves thus in the business-like manner of a rehearsal. The doctor however remained prone on his sofa breathing deeply and completely disregarded by everybody. Helena glanced at Clem Smith who went to the book.

‘From Ben’s exit, Clem,’ Poole said and after a moment Helena turned and addressed herself to the empty stage on her left.

‘I’ve only one thing to say, but it’s between the three of us.’ She turned to Parry and Darcey. ‘Do you mind?’ she asked them.

Parry said: ‘I don’t understand and I’m past minding.’

Darcey said: ‘My head is buzzing with a sense of my own inadequacy. I shall be glad to be alone.’

They went out, each on his own line, leaving Helena, Adam, and the ghost of Bennington, on the stage.

Helena spoke again to vacancy. ‘It must be clear to you, now. It’s the end, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Clem’s voice said. ‘I understand you perfectly. Goodbye, my dear.’