Ngaio Marsh - Killer Dolphin

“From stock. A thread of silk here, a seed-pearl there. Most of it’s false, of course. The sequins are Victorian, as you see.”

“They fill the bill quite well, however, at a distance. I hope you never feel tempted,” the assistant said with pedantic archness, “to go in for antiquarian forgery, Mr. Jones. You’d be much too successful.”

“To me,” Jeremy said, “it seems a singularly revolting form of chicanery.”

“Good. I understand that a car will be sent here to collect the glove tomorrow. I am to deliver it at the theatre and to see it safely housed. I believe you have designed the setting. Perhaps you would call in here and we can go together. I would prefer to have someone with me. Unnecessarily particular, I dare say, but there’s been so much publicity.”

“I will be delighted to come,” said Jeremy.

“There is to be an observer at the theatre, I understand, to witness the procedure and inspect the safety precautions. Somebody from the police, I think it is.”

“So I hear,” said Jeremy. “I’m glad to know they are being careful.”

The Malaise of First Night Nerves had gripped Peregrine, not tragically and aesthetically by the throat but, as is its habit, shamefully in the guts.

At half past six on Thursday morning he caught sight of himself in the bathroom shaving-glass. He saw, with revulsion, a long, livid face, pinched up into untimely wrinkles and strange dun-coloured pouches. The stubbled jaw sagged and the lips were pallid. There was a general suggestion of repulsive pig-headedness and a terrible dearth of charm.

The final dress-rehearsal had ended five hours ago. In fourteen hours the curtain would rise and in twenty-four hours he would be quivering under the lash of the morning critics.

“ Oh God, God, why, why have I done this fearful thing .”

Every prospect of the coming day and night was of an excursion with Torquemada: the hours when there was nothing to do were as baleful as those when he would be occupied. He would order flowers, send telegrams, receive telegrams, answer telephone calls. He would prowl to and fro and up and down all alone in his lovely theatre, unable to rest, unable to think coherently, and when he met anybody—Winty Meyer or the stage-director or the S.M. or some hellish gossip hound—he would be cool and detached. At intervals he would take great nauseating swigs from a bottle of viscous white medicine.

He tried going back to bed but hated it. After a time he got up, shaved his awful face, bathed, dressed, suddenly was invaded by a profound inertia and sleepiness, lay down and was instantly possessed of a compulsion to walk.

He rose, listened at Jeremy’s door, heard him snore and stole downstairs. He let himself out into London.

Into the early morning sounds and sights of the river and of the lanes and steps and streets. The day was fresh and sunny and would presently be warm. He walked to the gap where he could look across the Thames to Southwark. The newly painted stage-house and dome of The Dolphin showed up clearly now and the gilded flagpole glittered so brightly it might have been illuminated.

As he stared at it a bundle ran up and opened out into their new flag: a black dolphin on a gold ground. Jobbins was on his mark in good time. Big Ben and all the clocks in the City struck eight and Peregrine’s heart’s blood rose and pounded in his ears. The glory of London was upon him. A kind of rarefied joy possessed him, a trembling anticipation of good fortune that he was scared to acknowledge.

He was piercingly happy. He loved all mankind with indiscriminate embracement and more particularly Emily Dunne. He ran back to the flat and sang Rigoletto on his way upstairs.

“You look,” Jeremy said, “like the dog’s dinner and you sound like nothing on earth. Can you be joyful?”

“I can and I am.”

“Long may it last.”

“Amen.”

He could eat no breakfast. Even black coffee disgusted him. He went over to the theatre at nine o’clock. Jeremy was to come in at ten with Emily and the assistant from the museum to see the installation of the glove and documents. He, too, crackled like a cat’s fur with First Night Nerves.

When Peregrine arrived at The Dolphin it was alive with cleaners and florists’ assistants. As he went upstairs he heard the telephone ring, stop and ring again. The bar was in a state of crates, cartons and men in shirtsleeves, and on the top landing itself two packing cases had been opened and their contents displayed: a pair of wrought-iron pedestals upon which were mounted two bronze dolphins stylized and sleek. They were a gift from Mr. Conducis, who had no doubt commissioned Mr. Greenslade to go to “the best man.” This he might be said to have done with the result that while the dolphins were entirely out of style with their company and setting they were good enough to hold their own without causing themselves or their surroundings to become ridiculous.

Peregrine suggested that they should be placed in the circle foyer. One on each side of the steps from the sunken landing.

He crossed the foyer and went into the office.

Winter Meyer was behind his desk. He was not alone. A very tall man with an air of elegance and authority stood up as Peregrine entered.

“Oh Lord,” Peregrine thought. “Another of the Conducis swells, or is it somebody to check up on how we behave with the Royals? Or what?”

“ ’Morning, Perry old boy,” said Meyer. “Glad you’ve come in. Mr. Peregrine Jay, Superintendent Alleyn.”

Alleyn was not altogether unused to the theatrical scene or to theatrical people. He had been concerned in four police investigations in which actors had played—and “played” had been the operative word—leading roles. As a result of these cases he was sardonically regarded at the Yard as something of an expert on the species.

It was not entirely on this score, however, that he had been sent to The Dolphin. Some five years ago Mr. Vassily Conducis had been burgled in Drury Place. Alleyn had been sent in and had made a smartish catch and recovered the entire haul within twenty-four hours. Mr. Conducis was away at the time but on his return had asked Alleyn to call, probably with the idea of making a tangible acknowledgement. Possibly Alleyn’s manner had made him change his mind and substitute a number of singularly unsparkling congratulations delivered in a stifled tone from somewhere to the region of his epiglottis. Alleyn had left, uncharmed by Mr. Conducis.

Their next encounter was the result of a letter to Alleyn’s Great White Chief signed by Mr. Conducis and requesting advice and protection for the Shakespeare documents and glove.

“He’s asked for you, Rory,” the Great White Chief said. “No regard for your rank and status, of course. Very cool. In other respects, I suppose, you are the man for the job: what with your theatrical past and your dotage on the Bard. These damned objects seem to be worth the spoils of the Great Train Robbery. Tell him to buy protection from a reputable firm and leave us alone, by Heaven.”

“I’d be delighted.”

“No, you wouldn’t. You’re hell bent on getting a look at the things.”

“I’m not hell bent on getting another look at Conducis.”

“No? What’s wrong with him, apart from stinking of money?”

“Nothing, I daresay.”

“Well, you’d better find out when these things are going to be transferred and check up on the security. We don’t want another bloody Goya and worse on our hands.”

So Alleyn went to The Dolphin at nine o’clock on the morning of the opening performance.

The housing for the glove and letters was in a cavity made in the auditorium wall above the sunken landing which was, itself, three steps below the level of the circle foyer. In this wall was lodged a large steel safe, with convex plate glass replacing the outward side. The door of the safe, opposite this window, was reached from the back of the circle and concealed by a panel in the wall. Between the window and the exterior face of the wall were sliding steel doors, opened electrically by a switch at the back of the cavity. Concealed lighting came up when the doors were opened. Thus the glove and letters would be exposed to patrons on the stairs, the landing and, more distantly, in the foyer.