Ngaio Marsh - Killer Dolphin

They edged through the pass-door and down the stairs into the stalls. There seemed to be a kind of wary alliance between them. Peregrine thought they probably went into little indignation huddles over Destiny and Harry Grove.

Charles Random, quiet and detached as usual, left by the stage-door and then Emily came out.

“Hullo,” she said, “are you benighted?”

“I’m waiting for you. Would you come and have supper at that new bistro near the top of Wharfingers Lane? ‘The Younger Dolphin’ it’s artily called. It’s got an extension license till twelve for its little tiny opening thing and its asked me to look in. Do come, Emily.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I’d be proud.”

“How lovely!” Peregrine exclaimed. “And it’s stopped raining, I think. Wait a jiffy and I’ll see.”

He ran to the stage-door. Water still dripped from the gutters in the alleyway but the stars shone overhead. Destiny and her smart friends came out, making a great to-do. When she saw Peregrine she stopped them all and introduced him. They said things like: “Absolutely riveting” and “Loved your play” and “Heaven.” They made off, warning each other about the puddles. Harry Grove said: “I’ll go on, then, and fetch it, if you really want me to. See you later, angel.”

“Don’t be too long, now,” Destiny called after him. Peregrine heard Harry’s sports car start up.

Peregrine told the stage-door keeper he could shut up shop and go. He returned to Emily. As he walked towards the darkened set he was aware of a slight movement and thought it must have been the pass-door into front-of-house. As if somebody had just gone through and softly closed it. A backstage draught no doubt.

Emily was on the set. It was shut in by the fire curtain and lit only by a dim infiltration from a working lamp backstage: a dark, warm, still place.

“I always think it feels so strange,” she said, “after we’ve left it to itself. As if it’s got a life of its own. Always waiting for us.”

“Another kind of reality?”

“Yes. A more impressive kind. You can almost imagine it breathes.”

A soughing movement of air up in the grill gave momentary confirmation of Emily’s fancy.

“Come on,” Peregrine said. “It’s a fine starry night and no distance at all to the top of Wharfingers Lane.” He had taken her arm and was guiding her to the pass-door when they both heard a thud.

They stood still and asked each other: “What was that?”

“Front-of-house?” Emily said.

“Yes. Winty or someone, I suppose.”

“Wouldn’t they all have gone?”

“I’d have thought so.”

“What was it? The noise?”

Peregrine said, “It sounded like a seat flapping up.”

“Yes. It did sound like that”

“Wait a bit.”

“Where are you going?” she said anxiously.

“Not far. Just to have a look.”

“All right.”

He opened the pass-door. The little twisting stair was in darkness but he had a torch in his pocket. Steps led down to the stalls box and up from where he stood to the box in the circle. He went down and then out into the stalls. They were in darkness. He flapped a seat down and let it spring back. That was the sound.

Peregrine called: “Hullo. Anyone there?” but his voice fell dead in an upholstered silence.

He flashed his torch across walls and shrouded seats. He walked up the new central aisle and into the foyer. It was deserted and dimly lit and the street doors were shut. Peregrine called up the stairs.

“Jobbins.”

“Eh?” Jobbins’s voice said. “That you, guv? Anything up?”

“I heard a seat flap. In front.”

“ Did jer, guv?”

Jobbins appeared on the stairs. He wore an extremely loud brown, black and white checked overcoat, a woollen cap and carpet slippers.

“Good Lord!” Peregrine ejaculated. “Are you going to the Dogs or Ally Pally or what? Where’s your brown bowler?”

“You again, guv?” Jobbins wheezed. “I’d of ’eld back me quick change if I’d known. Pardon the dishy-bill. Present from a toff this ’ere coat is and very welcome. Gets chilly,” he said, descending, “between nah and the witching ar, when my relief comes in. What’s this abaht a seat?”

Peregrine explained. To his astonishment Jobbins pushed the doors open, strode into the auditorium and uttered in a sort of hoarse bellow—

“Nah then. Out of it. Come on. You ’eard.”

Silence.

Then Emily’s voice sounding worried and lonely: “What goes on?” She had groped her way down into the house.

“It’s all right,” Peregrine shouted. “Won’t be long.” And to Jobbins: “What does go on. You sound as if you’re used to this.”

“ Which I am,” Jobbins sourly endorsed. “It’s that perishing child-wonder, that’s what it is. ’E done it before and ’e’ll do it again and once too often.”

“Done what?”

“ ’Angs abaht. ’Is mum plays the steel guitar in a caff see, acrost the river. She knocks off at eleven and ’er ’earts-delight sallies forth to greet ’er at the top of the lane. And ’e fills in the gap, buggering rhand and theyater trying to make out ’e’s a robber or a spectrum. ’E knows full well I can’t leave me post so ’e ’ides isself in various dark regions. ‘ ’Ands up,’ ’e yells. ‘Stick ’em up,’ ’e ’owls, and crawls under the seats making noises like ’e’s bein’ strangulated which ’e will be if ever I lay me ’ands on ’im. Innit marvellous?”

From somewhere backstage a single plangent sound rang out and faded. It was followed by an eldritch screech of laughter, a catcall and a loud slam.

“There ’e goes,” said Jobbins and flung an ejaculation of startling obscenity into the auditorium.

“I’ll get that little bastard,” Peregrine said. He foolishly made a dash for the treble-locked doors into the portico.

“You’ll never catch ’im, guv,” Jobbins said. His voice had almost vanished with excessive vocal exercise. “ ’E’ll be ’alf-way up the lane and going strong. His mum meets ’im at the top when she’s sober.”

“I’ll have the hide off him tomorrow,” Peregrine said. “All right, Jobbins. I’ll see you’re not pestered again. And anyway as far as the treasure is concerned this is your last watch.”

“That’s right, sir. Positively the last appearance in this epoch-making role.”

“Goodnight again.”

“Goodnight, guv. Best of British luck.”

Peregrine went into the stalls. “Emily!” he called. “Where are you, my poor girl?”

“Here,” Emily said, coming up the aisle.

“Did you see the little swine?”

“No. I was in front. He came down from the circle. I could hear him on the steps.”

Peregrine looked at his watch. Five past eleven. He took her arm. “Let’s forget him,” he said, “and sling our hooks. We’ve wasted ages. They shut at midnight. Come on.”

They slammed the stage-door behind them. The night was still fine and quite warm. They climbed Wharfingers Lane and went in under the illuminated sign of the new bistro: the younger dolphin.

It was crowded, noisy and extremely dark. The two waiters were dressed as fishermen in tight jeans, striped jumpers and jelly bag caps. A bas-relief of a dolphin wearing a mortar-board was lit from below.

As their eyes adjusted to the gloom they saw that Destiny and her three audience friends were established at a table under the dolphin and had the air of slumming. Destiny waggled her fingers at them and made faces to indicate that she couldn’t imagine why she was there.

They ate grilled sole, drank lager, danced together on a pocket-handkerchief and greatly enjoyed themselves. Presently Destiny and her friends left. As they passed Emily and Peregrine, she said: “Darlings! we thought we would but oh, no, no.” They went away talking loudly about what they would have to eat when they got to Destiny’s flat in Chelsea. At ten to twelve Peregrine said: “Emily: why are you so stand-offish in the elder Dolphin and so come-toish in the younger one?”