Max Collins - The London Blitz Murders

Now Agatha gave the director a smile to wonder about. “Oh, I’m sure you could have done, darling.”

Leaving Irene with a confused frown, Agatha found Janet Cummins and her cadet husband, Gordon, standing rather awkwardly against a wall-obviously feeling the outsiders. He was a most handsome boy in his blue uniform, and Janet was a knockout, proving the truth behind the cliche of a secretary turned raving beauty by taking off her eyeglasses. Janet’s full-bosomed figure was well-served by a pink off-the-shoulder gown.

“Well, Airman Cummins,” Agatha said and offered her hand.

He took it and half-smiled. “I’m afraid I don’t know whether to shake this or kiss it.”

“Entirely your choice.”

He shook it and all three of them laughed lightly.

“You are ravishing,” Agatha told Janet. “You belong up on that stage.”

The producer’s secretary beamed and all but blushed. Her complexion was peaches and cream and her brunette hair was nicely curled. The thought that Airman Cummins would have any need to go trolling among streetwalkers, with this pretty, voluptuous wife at hand, struck Agatha as absurd.

“I’m afraid,” Janet said, in belated response to Agatha’s compliment, “that my childhood ambitions to be an actress were quashed by a terrible strain of stage fright.”

“I suffer the same malady,” Agatha admitted. To the RAF cadet, she said, “I’m so delighted you could get leave for this evening.”

“Actually, I had picket duty again, but your friend Stephen Glanville, at the Air Ministry, arranged it for me. I have the whole night off to spend with Janet, don’t have to report in till nine a.m. He’s a true gentleman, Mr. Glanville is.”

“He is indeed. He’ll be here tonight. I’m expecting him momentarily.”

“I feel a fool, Mrs. Mallowan,” the cadet said, “not bringing a book for you to sign.”

“Did you forget?”

“Well… I thought it might be bad form, considering the occasion.”

“Nonsense. I’ll fix you up at a later date.”

His grin was infectiously boyish. “I’m so anxious to see how you’ve made this one into a play. The book ended so… finally.”

“I warned you before, young man-I’ve changed the ending. I hope you won’t be disappointed. Perhaps you can give me an honest appraisal, after the performance.”

“If I like it,” he said, “I’ll gush with praise.”

“And if you don’t?”

He shrugged. “I’ll gush with praise.”

They all laughed again and Agatha excused herself, to respond to Bertie Morris. The round producer with the matinee idol’s face stood off to one side, motioning at her frantically.

She joined him and said, “Why the semaphores, Bertie?”

“I need a favor. The critic from the Times desires the briefest of interviews.”

“Well, then, here it is: no.”

“But Agatha…”

“No. And if, at curtain, you try to ‘surprise’ me by requesting that I respond to the ‘author, author’ outcries with a speech, I will refuse… perhaps not graciously.”

“Not a speech… just a few words…”

“Bertie, must we have this conversation again? I cannot make speeches. I never make speeches. I won’t make speeches.”

“But Agatha…”

“And it is a very good thing that I don’t make speeches, because I should be so very bad at them.”

Bertie’s expression of disappointment melted into a warm smile. “Well, I had to try, didn’t I, darling?”

She returned the smile. “I suppose you did.”

“You’ve written a simply wonderful play.”

“I would settle for ‘good.’ ”

The producer chuckled, but the warmth in his eyes seemed genuine. “Agatha, in your quiet way, you are the most difficult prima donna of them all.”

“Bertie, you alone of the people I have called ‘darling’ tonight truly are… ‘darling,’ that is. And thank you.”

“Whatever for?”

“Well, for producing my play, for one thing, and selecting your lovely talented wife to direct, for another, as well as assembling such a fine cast in wartime. But also for being the only participant in those Golden Lion interviews, the other day, who hasn’t chastised me.”

“Oh, that! I thought it was exciting. A police inspector asking questions about a murder-rather like one of your plays!”

He seized a glass of champagne from a passing tray and moved on.

Twenty minutes later, Agatha was sitting in her inconspicuous seat off to one side between her two extremely handsome escorts-Stephen Glanville and Sir Bernard Spilsbury.

“Did you enjoy the ride?” she whispered to Stephen.

His eyes widened, and he whispered back: “I’ll have my revenge one day, my dear…. Didn’t you invite our inspector friend?”

“You’re the second person to ask me that. He’s working on the murders even as we speak.”

Stephen’s expression grew serious. “It still troubles me, you in the midst of that grotesque Grand Guignol. Tell me, are you having nightmares?”

“Not at all,” she lied. Well, sort of lied: the murder scenes had not turned up in her dreams; but the Gunman of her childhood nightmares had been with her every night this week.

She turned to Sir Bernard. “Thank you for accepting my invitation.”

“I had to miss a concert for this, you know,” he told her with a sideways glance that seemed vaguely reproving.

Agatha touched her bosom. “Oh, dear no…”

“Yes. It’s on the BBC this evening.”

And he smiled a little.

She chuckled. Those who considered Sir Bernard an aloof stuffed shirt didn’t know him very well.

“I feel privileged,” he was saying, “to accompany the author to a first night. And as possibly the only human being in the British Empire who has not yet enjoyed one of your thrillers, I look forward to the experience.”

Moved, she took Sir Bernard’s hand and squeezed it in thanks.

Stephen looked past Agatha to say to the pathologist, “A word of advice, Sir Bernard-if you figure out the mystery, don’t tell her. Annoys the bloody hell out of her.”

Agatha said, “Stephen,” sharply, but was amused.

Also, he was right. Max had figured out the novel tonight’s play was based upon, and she had never forgiven him.

The lights dimmed, and an expectant audience burst into applause. Bertie Morris came out on stage into the spotlight to welcome the first-night audience and Agatha did not hear a word of his speech, which wasn’t very long. She was nervous, as if about to go on stage herself.

But she needn’t have been. The performance-by a splendid cast that included Henrietta Watson, Linden Travers, Percy Walsh, Terence de Marney, Allan Jeayes, Eric Cowley and Gwyn Nichols-was letter perfect; no corpses were up and around (at least no unscripted corpses) and the audience tittered and even laughed at her occasional dark humor, gasping in collective fright and surprise at all the appropriate moments.

She was pleased. She liked the play and admired what Bertie and Irene had done with it. And the audience applauded long and loud, Agatha losing count of the curtain calls. At the end Bertie came out and introduced Irene, who bowed and spoke briefly; to the cries of “author, author,” Bertie gestured to Agatha in the audience and-reluctantly, terribly embarrassed-she stood and took a little bow.

The audience rose to its feet-her first standing ovation! How wonderful; and the applause ringing off the rafters was sheer music.

And Bertie, God bless him, had done no more than introduce her in the audience-no attempt to shame her into a dreaded speech.

When the lights came up, she did stand in the aisle and speak to a number of audience members, and consented to sign programs, novels and autograph books. She did not mind speaking, briefly, one person to another, with an intelligent fan. And anyone who liked her work qualified as that. Around such friendly, ordinary people as these theater patrons, her self-consciousness and nervousness were blissfully absent.