Ngaio Marsh - Killer Dolphin

The safe was a make well enough known to Alleyn. It carried a five figure lock. This combination could be chosen by the purchaser. It was sometimes based on a key word and a very simple code. For instance, the numbers from one to zero might be placed under the letters of the alphabet from A to J and again from K to T and again from U to Z. Each number had therefore two and in the case of 1-6, three corresponding letters. Thus, if the key word was “night” the number of the combination would be 49780.

Jeremy had caused the steel safe to be lined with padded yellow silk. On its floor was a book-hinged unit covered with black velvet. It had a variable tilt and was large enough to display the glove and two documents. He had made a beautifully lettered legend which had been framed and would be hung below the wall cavity. During performances the sliding doors would be retracted and the plate glass window exposed.

Alleyn made a very thorough inspection and found the precautions rather more efficient than might have been expected. There were not, at large, many criminal virtuosi of the combination lock who would be equal to this one. It would have to be a cracksman’s job. An efficient burglar alarm had been installed and would go into action at the first attempt at entry into the theatre. Once the glove and documents were housed the safe would not be re-opened, the interior lighting and sliding doors in front of the glass panel being operated from a switch inside the wall cavity. He pointed out that one man on another man’s shoulders could effect a smash, snatch and grab and asked about watchmen. He was told that for as long as the objects were in the theatre, there would be a man on the landing. Jobbins, late Phipps Bros., was revealed in a brand new uniform. He was to be on duty from four up to midnight, when he would be relieved by a trained man from a security organization. Jobbins would sleep on the premises in an unused dressing-room and could be roused in case of need. A second man already on duty would take over at 8 A.M. and remain in the foyer until Jobbins returned at four. The burglar alarm would be switched on by Jobbins after the show when he locked up for the night.

Alleyn had been fully informed of these arrangements when Peregrine walked into the office. As they shook hands he saw the pallor and the shadows under the eyes and thought: “First night terrors, poor chap.”

“Mr. Alleyn’s had a look at our security measures,” Meyer said, “and thinks they’ll pass muster. He’s going to wait and see the treasure safely stored.” His telephone rang. “Excuse me.”

Alleyn said to Peregrine: “You’re all in the throes of every kind of preoccupation. Don’t pay any attention to me. If I may, while I’m waiting I’ll look at this enchanting theatre. What a superb job you’ve done.”

This was unlike Peregrine’s idea of a plainclothes policeman. Alleyn had reached the door before he said: “I’ll show you round, sir.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. If I may just wander. You’re up to your neck, I’m sure.”

“On the contrary. Meyer is, but my problem,” Peregrine said, “is not having anything real to do. I’d like to show you The Dolphin.”

“Well, in that case—”

It was a comprehensive tour. Alleyn was so clearly interested and so surprisingly well-informed that Peregrine actually enjoyed himself. He found himself talking about the play and what he had tried to do with it and how it had been born of his first sight of Hamnet Shakespeare’s glove.

Alleyn knew about the terms of the will and about Joan Hart getting the wearing apparel. Indeed, Peregrine would have betted, Alleyn knew as much as he did about Shakespearean scholarship and was as familiar with the plays as he was himself.

For his part, Alleyn liked this strained, intelligent and modest young man. He hoped Peregrine had written and produced a good play. Alleyn asked one or two questions, and since he was a trained investigator and was personally attracted by the matter in hand, Peregrine found himself talking about his work with an ease that he would never have thought possible on a ten minutes’ acquaintance. He began to speak quickly and excitedly, his words tumbing over each other. His love of The Dolphin welled up into his voice.

“Shall we go backstage?” he said. “Or — wait a moment. I’ll take the Iron up and you can see Jeremy Jones’s set for the first act.”

He left Alleyn in the stalls, went through the pass-door, and sent up the elegantly painted fireproof curtain. He then moved onstage and faced the house. He had run up the pass-door passage very quickly and his blood pounded in his ears. Nervous exhaustion, wasn’t it called? He even felt a bit dizzy.

The cleaners upstairs had unshuttered a window and a shaft of sunlight struck down upon the stage. It was peopled by dancing motes.

“Is anything the matter?” an unusually deep voice asked quite close at hand. Alleyn had come down the centre aisle. Peregrine, dazzled, thought he was leaning on the rail of the orchestra well.

“No — I mean — no, nothing. It’s just that I was reminded of my first visit to The Dolphin.”

Was it because the reminder had been so abrupt or because over the last week Peregrine had eaten very little and slept hardly at all that he felt so monstrously unsure of himself. Alleyn wouldn’t have thought it was possible for a young man to turn any whiter in the face than Peregrine already was but somehow he now contrived to do so. He sat down on Jeremy’s Elizabethan dower chest and wiped his hand across his mouth. When he looked up Alleyn stood in front of him. “Just where the hole was,” Peregrine thought.

He said: “Do you know, underneath your feet there’s a little stone well with a door. It was there that the trap used to work. Up and down, you know, for Harlequin and Hamlet’s Ghost and I daresay for a Lupino or a Lane of that vintage. Or perhaps both. Oh dear.”

“Stay where you are for the moment. You’ve been overdoing things.”

“Do you think so? I don’t know. But I tell you what. Through all the years after the bomb that well gradually filled with stinking water and then one morning I nearly drowned in it.”

Alleyn listened to Peregrine’s voice going on and on and Peregrine listened to it, too, as if it belonged to someone else. He realized with complete detachment that for a year and three months some rather terrible notion about Mr. Conducis had been stuffed away at the back of the mind that was Peregrine. It had been, and still was, undefined and unacknowledged but because he was so tired and ravaged by anxiety it had almost come out to declare itself. He was very relieved to hear himself telling this unusual policeman exactly what had happened that morning. When he had related everything down to the last detail he said: “And it was all to be kept quiet, except for Jeremy Jones, so now I’ve broken faith, I suppose, and I couldn’t care, by and large, less. I feel better,” said Peregrine loudly.

“I must say you look several shades less green about the gills. You’ve half killed yourself over this production, haven’t you?”

“Well, one does, you know.”

“I’m sorry I dragged you up and down all those stairs. Where does that iron curtain work from? The Prompt side. Oh, yes, I see. Don’t move. I’ll do it. Dead against the union rules, I expect, but never mind.”

The fire curtain inched its way down. Alleyn glanced at his watch. Any time now the party from the museum should arrive.

He said: “That was an extraordinary encounter, I must say. But out of it — presumably — has grown all this: the theatre — your play. And now: tonight.”

“And now tonight. Oh God!”

“Would it be a good idea for you to go home and put your boots up for an hour or two?”