Ngaio Marsh - Killer Dolphin

The new curtain was half-lowered, the working lights went out, the stage-manager left and the stage-door banged distantly.

Peregrine turned to go out by front-of-house.

He came face to face with Mr. Conducis.

It was exactly as if the clock had been set back a year and three weeks and he again dripped fetid water along the aisle of a bombed theatre. Mr. Conducis seemed to wear the same impeccable clothes and to be seized with the same indefinable oddness of behaviour. He even took the same involuntary step backwards, almost as if Peregrine was going to accuse him of something.

“I have watched your practice,” he said as if Peregrine were learning the piano. “If you have a moment to spare there is a matter I want to discuss with you. Perhaps in your office?”

“Of course, sir,” Peregrine said. “I’m sorry I didn’t see you had come in.”

Mr. Conducis paid no attention to this. He was looking, without evidence of any kind of reaction, at the now resplendent auditorium: at the crimson curtain, the chandeliers, the freshly gilt scrollwork, and the shrouded and expectant stalls.

“The restoration is satisfactory?” he asked.

“Entirely so. We shall be ready on time, sir.”

“Will you lead the way?”

Peregrine remembered that on their former encounter Mr. Conducis had seemed to dislike being followed. He led the way upstairs to the office, opened the door and found Winter Meyer in residence, dictating letters. Peregrine made a complicated but apparently eloquent face and Meyer got to his feet in a hurry.

Mr. Conducis walked in looking at nothing and nobody.

“This is our Manager, sir. Mr. Winter Meyer, Mr. Conducis.”

“Oh, yes. Good morning,” said Mr. Conducis. Without giving an impression of discourtesy he turned away. “Really, old boy,” as Mr. Meyer afterwards remarked. “He might have been giving me the chance to follow my own big nose instead of backing out of The Presence.”

In a matter of seconds Mr. Meyer and the secretary had gone to lunch.

“Will you sit down, sir?”

“No, thank you. I shall not be long. In reference to the glove and documents: I am told that their authenticity is established.”

“Yes.”

“You have based your piece upon these objects?”

“Yes.”

“I have gone into the matter of promotion with Greenslade and with two persons of my acquaintance who are conversant with this type of enterprise.” He mentioned two colossi of the theatre. “And have given some thought to preliminary treatment. It occurs to me that, properly manipulated, the glove and its discovery and so on might be introduced as a major theme in promotion.”

“Indeed it might,” Peregrine said fervently.

“You agree with me? I have thought that perhaps some consideration should be given to the possibility of timing the release of the glove story with the opening of the theatre and of displaying the glove and documents, suitably protected and housed, in the foyer.

Peregrine said with what he hoped was a show of dispassionate judgment that surely, as a piece of pre-production advertising, this gesture would be unique. Mr. Conducis looked quickly at him and away again. Peregrine asked him if he felt happy about the security of the treasure. Mr. Conducis replied with a short exegesis upon wall safes of a certain type in which, or so Peregrine confusedly gathered, he held a controlling interest

“Your public relations and press executive,” Mr. Conducis stated in his dead fish voice, “is a Mr. Conway Boome.”

“Yes. It’s his own name,” Peregrine ventured, wondering for a moment if he had caught a glint of something that might be sardonic humour, but Mr. Conducis merely said: “I daresay. I understand,” he added, “that he is experienced in theatrical promotion, but I have suggested to Greenslade that having regard for the somewhat unusual character of the type of material we propose to use, it might be as well if Mr. Boome were to be associated with Maitland Advertising, which is one of my subsidiaries. He is agreeable.”

“I’ll be bound he is,” Peregrine thought.

“I am also taking advice on the security aspect from an acquaintance at Scotland Yard, a Superintendent Alleyn.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Yes. The matter of insurance is somewhat involved, the commercial worth of the objects being impossible to define. I am informed that as soon as their existence is made known there is likely to be an unprecedented response. Particularly from the United States of America.”

There followed a short silence.

“Mr. Conducis,” Peregrine said, “I can’t help asking you this. I know it’s no business of mine but I really can’t help it. Are you—have you—I mean, would you feel at all concerned about whether the letters and glove stay in the country of their owner or not?”

“In my country?” Mr. Conducis asked as if he wasn’t sure that he had one.

“I’m sorry, no. I meant the original owner.”

Peregrine hesitated for a moment and then found himself embarked upon an excitable plea for the retention of the documents and glove. He felt he was making no impression whatever and wished he could stop. There was some indefinable and faintly disgusting taint in the situation.

With a closed face Mr. Conducis waited for Peregrine to stop and then said: “That is a sentimental approach to what is at this juncture a matter for financial consideration. I cannot speak under any other heading: historical, romantic, nationalistic or sentimental. I know,” Mr. Conducis predictably added, “nothing of such matters.”

He then startled Peregrine quite shockingly by saying with an indefinable change in his voice: “I dislike pale gloves. Intensely.”

Far one moment Peregrine thought he saw something like anguish in this extraordinary man’s face and at the next that he had been mad to suppose anything of the sort. Mr. Conducis made a slight movement indicating the interview was at an end. Peregrine opened the door, changed his mind and shut it again.

“Sir,” he said. “One other question. May I tell the company about the letters and glove? The gloves that we use on the stage will be made by the designer, Jeremy Jones—who is an expert in such matters. If we are to show the original in the front-of-house he should copy it as accurately as possible. He should go to the museum and examine it. And he will be so very much excited by the whole thing that I can’t guarantee his keeping quiet about it. In any case, sir, I myself spoke to him about the glove on the day you showed it to me. You will remember you did not impose secrecy at that time. Since the report came through I have not spoken of it to anyone except Meyer and Jones.”

Mr. Conducis said, “A certain amount of leakage at this stage is probably inevitable and if correctly handled may do no harm. You may inform your company of all the circumstances. With a strong warning that the information is, for the time being, confidential and with this proviso: I wish to remain completely untroubled by the entire business. I realize that my ownership may well become known—is known in fact, already, to a certain number of people. This is unavoidable. But under no circumstances will I give statements, submit to interviews or be quoted. My staff will see to this at my end. I hope you will observe the same care, here. Mr. Boome will be instructed. Good morning. Will you—?”

He made that slight gesture for Peregrine to precede him. Peregrine did so.

He went out on the circle landing and ran straight into Harry Grove.

“Hall-lo, dear boy,” said Harry, beaming at him. “I just darted back to use the telephone. Destiny and I—” He stopped short, bobbed playfully round Peregrine at Mr. Conducis and said: “ Now , see what I’ve done! A genius for getting myself in wrong. My only talent.”