Clouds among the Stars

‘Is there anything I can do for you, Pa?’ I asked, still standing by the table, wanting but not daring to take his hand.

‘No, Harriet. These gentlemen,’ he waved in the direction of the constable, ‘have done their best to supply the few requirements a man can have in such unprosperous circumstances. My supper has been brought to me and simple though it was – and, let us be truthful, rather too early to be perfectly agreeable – it was wholesome and fresh.’

‘Well, sir,’ Inspector Foy brought a chair up to the table for me, ‘would you have any objection to running through a few details in the presence of your daughter? Informally, now, without Mr Sickert-Greene.’ Henry Sickert-Greene was our family’s solicitor. ‘No tape recorder. Nothing that’ll be used in court. While I understand Mr Sickert-Greene’s anxiety that you might incriminate yourself, his refusal to let you say anything doesn’t get us any further, does it? Sergeant Tweeter will write down anything you care to tell me and it needn’t go beyond the walls of this room. I want to get a clearer picture of what exactly happened this morning.’

I was pretty sure old Sickly Grin, as Bron had christened Mr Sickert-Greene years ago, would have disapproved strongly of this suggestion. I wondered if Inspector Foy was to be trusted. Looking at his nice straight nose and firm chin and intelligent grey eyes I felt almost certain that he was.

‘Do you mind a pipe, sir?’ Inspector Foy reached inside his coat.

‘Yes, I do. My voice is the chief tool of my trade, Inspector, and it is extremely susceptible to tobacco fumes.’

No one could accuse my father of trying to curry favour, at all events.

The inspector took his hand out again. ‘Would you tell your daughter what happened? Take as long as you like.’

‘Could you bear to talk about it?’ I asked timidly. Mentioning Sir Basil’s death seemed as insensitive as asking a stranger straight out how they had lost all their arms and legs.

‘Poor old Basil, do you mean? Oh-oh-oh!’ My father ran through two registers with the exclamation. ‘Murder most foul, strange and unnatural!’ He shook his head but there was a gleam in his eye I hoped Inspector Foy could not see. ‘Ha! What a lesson was there! Reduced from a strutting cock to a blood-boltered corpse in one tick – tock – of Time.’ He jerked his finger to imitate the minute hand of a clock. ‘Farewe-e-e-ll! A lo-o-ng farewell to all his greatness! Today he puts forth the tender leaves of hope, tomorrow, blossoms, the third day comes the killing frost.’

You had to hand it to him. The lightning change of expression from gentle introspection to malevolence as he spat out ‘killing frost’ was masterly. I did not dare to look at the inspector.

‘Oh dear! Was there much blood?’

‘Yes, Harriet. I was in blood stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er.’

‘Othello,’ I said automatically, then blushed, fearing the inspector would think I was trying to show off.

‘Tst! Macbeth.’

I could hear Sergeant Tweeter’s pencil, scribbling frantically.

‘What happened just before you found Sir Basil?’ asked the inspector.

‘There was the usual delay before the rehearsal. I generally use the time to warm up. I decided to run through the gouging scene – the one in which they put out my eyes – on my own. I was still undecided about the cry of pain for the second eye, whether to rise to a shrill scream or to stay in the lower register, a bellow of agony like a creature of sacrificial offering –’

‘Were you struck by anything unusual?’ the inspector put in. ‘Something about the stage that wasn’t quite as it should be?’

‘A theatre in rehearsal is always a mess.’ My father seemed irritated by the interruption. ‘Had the stage not been a clutter of heterogeneous objects then I might have thought it unusual. I expect there were props, flats, carpenters’ tools, scripts, paint pots, swords, lanterns, tea trays – the usual clutter of crude implements with whose assistance we actors conjure the illusion of man’s genius and depravity.’

‘Did you touch anything on your way?’

‘Nothing. Nothing at all. The auditorium was in semi-darkness, the stage lit by a single spotlight. I walked towards centre stage and, blinded by the light that was in my eyes – some fool had trained a single spot there – I stumbled across something that lay in my path and fell. I put out my hand. The thing was warm, unpleasantly sticky. It was poor Basil – his head quite crushed. I sprang to my feet with a cry of “Give me some light. Away!”’

‘Just a tick, sir,’ said Sergeant Tweeter. ‘When you said “away”, was you meaning one word or two? Away with the body or you was going away or you was hoping to find a way, sir?’

My father sighed impatiently. ‘It is a quotation from Hamlet. Doubtless had I been capable of thought at that moment I would have intended all three interpretations you put upon it. It was a horror, an abomination!’ He gave a shudder I was convinced was genuine. He was extremely squeamish.

‘What happened then?’

‘Several people came running onto the stage in response to my shouting.’

‘Can you remember who they were?’

‘Haven’t the least idea. The women were screaming at the tops of their voices and the men were nearly as bad. Wait a minute, I remember there was that little understudy among them – Sandra, I think her name is – who was flatteringly relieved to discover that it was Basil and not I who lay incarnadined and mute.’

There was a grunt of protest from Sergeant Tweeter but the inspector swept on.

‘Was there bad blood between Sandra and Sir Basil?’

‘It had nothing to do with poor Basil. She has a crush on me. Of course, I don’t take it seriously. She’s a sweet little thing, hardly out of school. You know how impressionable girls are at that age.’ If the inspector knew he wasn’t telling. He hummed up and down an octave. ‘But,’ continued Pa, ‘the theatre is an adder’s nest of jealousy and insecurity. And Basil, poor man, did not have the art of endearing himself to others. I dare say I could name several who actually hated him. But of course,’ he put on his noble Brutus face, ‘I shan’t.’

‘Very laudable, sir.’ The inspector’s voice was admiring. ‘But it might be in your own interest, as this is a case of murder, to put such scruples aside. This afternoon I interviewed several members of the cast. They none of them hesitated to mention a quarrel yesterday between you and Sir Basil.’

For a brief second Pa looked rather hurt by this treachery but then rapidly assumed a mask of world-weariness.

‘I have no secrets from you, Inspector. It was a childish row over a suggestion of Basil’s. He thought I should have my eyes gouged out offstage, to save messing about with blood bags.’

‘You didn’t think that was a good idea?’

‘Certainly not. In some second-rate productions the horrid deed is done in the wings. But that’s throwing away a great dramatic climax, for the lack of a little ingenuity. It was obvious that Basil was desperate to hog all the audience’s compassion for Lear. In many ways Gloucester is a much more sympathetic character.’

‘You quarrelled?’

‘I called him a fat, greasy lickspittle – or something like that. He called me a Casanova, an ageing lady-killer – among other things, I forget what.’ He lifted his chin, which was still firm and well-defined. ‘Spiteful nonsense, of course.’

‘So you were angry. Did you feel at that point you wanted to kill him?’

My father laughed as though indulging the inspector’s sense of drama. ‘I’m not a violent man nor is it my habit to assault people who call me hard names.’

‘But why have you been arrested?’ I asked.

My father gave a superior sort of smile. ‘You have to see it from a policeman’s point of view, to understand why such a hopeless bungle has been made of the business. Imagine yourself a young constable – about seventeen years old to judge from the down on his cheek – whose most exciting job of the day has been to take a lost puppy to the dog pound. You are informed that a famous actor has been found dead in suspicious circumstances. You come bounding in, almost swallowing your whistle with excitement. At last, a chance to use those handcuffs! Something to tell mother when you go home for tea! You see a possibly even more famous actor – it is not for me to say – prostrate at the scene of the crime – for Sandra’s eager embraces had prevented me from rising – and dripping with the corpse’s vital fluids. Naturally – because you are young and foolish and have no comprehension of human nature – you assume it was he who dispatched the man with all his crimes broad-blown, as flush as May, his heels kicking at heaven.’

‘Hang on a bit.’ Sergeant Tweeter was breathing hard now in his efforts to keep up. ‘Who was it kicked the dog?’

‘Never mind, Tweeter.’ Inspector Foy looked at his notebook. ‘We mustn’t forget that when PC Copper questioned you, your answers were, to say the least, ambiguous. When asked what you knew about Sir Basil’s death, you said, “Blood will have blood. Never shake thy Goldilocks at me.”’ The inspector frowned. ‘I think that must be gory locks. “Will all my great-nephew’s” – great Neptune’s, I think – “ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?”’

‘They were remarkably bloody.’ My father looked down at his spread fingers, now mercifully clean.

‘But you can’t arrest him for saying that,’ I protested. ‘He was in shock. He just said the first thing that came into his head. It didn’t mean anything.’

‘If you remember Macbeth as you ought, Harriet,’ said my father reprovingly, ‘you will know it is a moment of exquisite nuance in a scene crammed with meaning and expressed in the finest poetry: No-o-o! This my hand will rather the multitudinous seas –’

‘I understand, Miss Byng. But PC Copper is not a student of English literature. It sounded to him like a confession. When your father refused to say he didn’t do it, the constable placed him under arrest.’

I leant across the table and put my hand on my father’s arm. ‘Pa, tell them you didn’t kill Basil.’

‘Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought. Of this alone I am guilty.’ My father spoke in a slow dreamy voice. ‘I may not have been the instrument but I confess I was, God help me, frequently angry enough to wish him – no, not dead, but – out of my way.’