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

‘In a moment,’ he said, ‘you’ll be telling me the author ought to keep out of the theatre.’

‘That’s utter nonsense.’

‘Let them try to keep me out,’ he said and burst into a neighing laugh.

Miss Hamilton slightly opened her mouth, hardened her upper lip, and with the closest attention, painted it a purplish red. ‘Really,’ she said briskly, ‘you’d much better behave prettily, you know. You’ll end by having her on your hands with a nervous breakdown.’

‘The sooner the better if it’s a good one.’

‘Honestly, John, you are the rock bottom when you get like this. If you didn’t write the plays you do write – if you weren’t the greatest dramatist since –’

‘Spare me the raptures,’ he said, ‘and give me some actors. And while we’re on the subject I may as well tell you that I don’t like the way Ben is shaping in the big scene. If Adam doesn’t watch him he’ll be up to some bloody leading-man hocus-pocus and by God if he tries that on I’ll wring his neck for him.’

She turned and faced him. ‘John, he won’t. I’m sure he won’t.’

‘No, you’re not. You can’t be sure. Nor can I. But if there’s any sign of it tonight, and Adam doesn’t tackle him, I will. I’ll tickle his catastrophe, by God I will. As for that Mongolian monstrosity, that discard from the waxworks, Mr Parry Percival; what devil – will you answer me – what inverted sadist foisted it on my play?’

‘Now, look here, John –’ Miss Hamilton began with some warmth and was shouted down.

‘Have I not stipulated from the beginning of my disastrous association with this ill-fated playhouse that I would have none of these abortions in my works? These Things. These foetid Growths. These Queers.’

‘Parry isn’t one.’

‘Yah! He shrieks it. I have an instinct, my girl. I nose them as I go into the lobby.’

She made a gesture of despair: ‘I give up,’ she said.

He helped himself to another pinch of snuff. ‘Hooey!’ he snorted. ‘You don’t do anything of the sort, my sweetiepie. You’re going to rock ’em, you and Adam. Think of that and preen yourself. And leave all the rest – to me.’

‘Don’t quote from Macbeth. If Gay Gainsford heard you doing that she really would go off at the deep end.’

‘Which is precisely where I’d like to push her.’

‘Oh, go away,’ she cried out impatiently but with an air of good nature. ‘I’ve had you. You’re wonderful and you’re hopeless. Go away.’

‘The audience is concluded?’ He scraped the parody of a regency bow.

‘The audience is concluded. The door, Martyn.’

Martyn opened the door. Until then, feeling wretchedly in the way, she had busied herself with the stack of suitcases in the corner of the room and now, for the first time, came absolutely face to face with the visitor. He eyed her with an extraordinary air of astonishment.

‘Here!’ he said. ‘Hi!’

‘No, John,’ Miss Hamilton said with great determination. ‘No!’

‘Eureka!’

‘Nothing of the sort. Good morning.’

He gave a shrill whistle and swaggered out. Martyn turned back to find her employer staring into the glass. Her hands trembled and she clasped them together. ‘Martyn,’ she said, ‘I’m going to call you Martyn because it’s such a nice name. You know, a dresser is rather a particular sort of person. She has to be as deaf as a post and as blind as a bat to almost everything that goes on under her very nose. Dr Rutherford is, as I expect you know, a most distinguished and brilliant person. Our Greatest English Playwright. But like many brilliant people,’ Miss Hamilton continued in what Martyn couldn’t help thinking a rather too special voice, ‘he is eccentric. We all understand and we expect you to do so too. Do you know?’

Martyn said she did.

‘Good. Now, put me into that pink thing and let us know the worst about it, shall we?’

When she was dressed she stood before the cheval-glass and looked with cold intensity at her image. ‘My God,’ she said, ‘the lighting had better be good.’

Martyn said: ‘Isn’t it right? It looks lovely to me.’

‘My poor girl!’ she muttered. ‘You run to my husband and ask him for cigarettes. He’s got my case. I need a stimulant.’

Martyn hurried into the passage and tapped at the next door. ‘So they are married,’ she thought. ‘He must be ten years younger than she is but they’re married and he still sends her orchids in the morning.’

The deep voice shouted impatiently: ‘Come in!’ and she opened the door and went in.

The little dresser was putting Poole into a dinner jacket. Their backs were turned to Martyn. ‘Yes?’ Poole said.

‘Miss Hamilton would like her cigarette-case, if you please.’

‘I haven’t got it,’ he said and shouted: ‘Ella!’

‘Hallo, darling?’

‘I haven’t got your case.’

There was a considerable pause. The voice beyond the wall called: ‘No, no. Ben’s got it. Mr Bennington, Martyn.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Martyn said, and made for the door, conscious of the little dresser’s embarrassment and of Poole’s annoyance.

Mr Clark Bennington’s room was on the opposite side of the passage and next to the greenroom. On her entrance Martyn was abruptly and most unpleasantly transported into the immediate past – into yesterday with its exhaustion, muddle and panic, to the moment of extreme humiliation when Fred Badger had smelt brandy on her breath. Mr Bennington’s flask was open on his dressing-shelf and he was in the act of entertaining a thickset gentleman with beautifully groomed white hair, wearing a monocle, in a strikingly handsome face. This person set down his tumbler and gazed in a startled fashion at Martyn.

‘It’s not,’ he said, evidently picking up, with some difficulty, the conversation she had interrupted, ‘it’s not that I would for the world interfere, Ben, dear boy. Nor do I enjoy raising what is no doubt a delicate subject in these particular circumstances. But I feel for the child damnably, you know. Damnably. Moreover, it does rather appear that the doctor never loses an opportunity to upset her.’

‘I couldn’t agree more, old boy, and I’m bloody angry about it. Yes, dear, wait a moment, will you?’ Mr Bennington rejoined, running his speeches together and addressing them to no one in particular. ‘This is my wife’s new dresser, J.G.’

‘Really?’ Mr J. G. Darcey responded and bowed politely to Martyn. ‘Good morning, child. See you later, Ben, my boy. Thousand thanks.’

He rose, looked kindly at Martyn, dropped his monocle, passed his hand over his hair and went out, breaking into operatic song in the passage.

Mr Bennington made a half-hearted attempt to put his flask out of sight and addressed himself to Martyn.

‘And what,’ he asked, ‘can I do for the new dresser?’ Martyn delivered her message. ‘Cigarette-case? Have I got my wife’s cigarette-case? God, I don’t know. Try my overcoat, dear, will you? Behind the door. Inside pocket. No secrets,’ he added obscurely. ‘Forgive my asking you. I’m busy.’

But he didn’t seem particularly busy. He twisted round in his chair and watched Martyn as she made a fruitless search of his overcoat pockets. ‘This is your first job?’ he asked. She said it was not and he added: ‘As a dresser, I mean.’

‘I’ve worked in the theatre before.’

‘And where was that?’