Ngaio Marsh - Killer Dolphin

“Well,” Alleyn said, “I’d better see.”

“We covered him,” Gibson said. “With a dust sheet. It’s about as bad as they come. Worst I’ve ever seen. Now!”

“Very nasty,” Fox said. He nodded to one of the men. “O.K., Bailey.”

Detective-Sergeant Bailey, a finger-print expert, uncovered the body of Jobbins.

It was lying on its back with the glittering mask and single eye appallingly exposed. The loudly checked coat was open and dragged back into what must be a knotted lump under the small of the back. Between the coat and the dirty white sweater there was a rather stylish yellow scarf. The letter H had been embroidered on it. It was blotted and smeared. The sweater itself was soaked in patches of red and had ridden up over the chest. There was something almost homely and normal in the look of a tartan shirt running in sharp folds under the belted trousers that were strained across the crotch by spread-eagled legs.

Alleyn looked, waited an appreciable time and then said: “Has he been photographed? Printed?”

“The lot,” somebody said.

“I want to take some measurements. Then he can be moved. I see you’ve got a mortuary van outside. Get the men up.” The Sergeant moved to the stairhead. “Just make sure those two young people are out of the way,” Alleyn said.

He held out his hand and Fox gave him a steel springtape. They measured the distance from that frightful head to the three shallow steps that led up to the circle foyer and marked the position of the body. When Jobbins was gone and the divisional-surgeon after him, Alleyn looked at the bronze dolphin, glistening on the carpet

“There’s your weapon,” Gibson said unnecessarily.

The pedestal had been knocked over and lay across the shallow steps at the left-hand corner. The dolphin, detached, lay below it on the landing, close to a dark blot on the crimson carpet where Jobbins’s head had been. Its companion piece still made an elegant arc on the top of its own pedestal near the wall. They had stood to left and right at the head of the stairs in the circle foyer. Four steps below the landing lay a thick cup in a wet patch and below it another one and a small tin tray.

“His post,” Alleyn said, “was on this sunken landing under—”

He looked up. There, still brillantly lit, was the exposed casket, empty.

“That’s correct,” Gibson said. “He was supposed to stay there until he was relieved by this chap Hawkins at midnight.”

“Where is this Hawkins?”

“Ah,” Gibson said disgustedly, “sobbing his little heart out in the gent’s cloaks. He’s gone to pieces.”

Fox said austerely, “He seems to have acted very foolishly from the start. Comes in late. Walks up here. Sees deceased and goes yelling out of the building.”

“That’s right,” Gibson agreed. “And if he hadn’t run into this Mr. Jay and his lady friend he might be running still and us none the wiser.”

“So it was Jay who rang police?” Alleyn interjected.

“That’s correct.”

“What about their burglar alarm?”

“Off. The switch is back of the box-office.”

“I know. They showed me. What then, Fred?”

“The Sergeant’s sent in and gets support. I get the office and I come in and we set up a search. Thought our man might be hiding on the premises but not. Either got out of it before Hawkins arrived or slipped away while he was making an exhibition of himself. The pass-door in the main entrance was shut but not locked. It had been locked, they say, so it looked as if that was his way out.”

“And the boy?”

“Yes. Well, now. The boy. Mr. Jay says the boy’s a bit of a young limb. Got into the habit of hanging round after the show and acting the goat. Jobbins complained of him making spook noises and that. He was at it before Mr. Jay and Miss Dunne left the theatre to go out to supper. Mr. Jay tried to find him but it was dark and he let out a catcall or two and then they heard the stage-door slam and reckoned he’d gone. Not, as it turns out.”

“Evidently. I’ll see Hawkins now, Fred.”

Hawkins was produced in the downstage foyer. He was a plain man made plainer by bloodshot eyes, a reddened nose and a loose mouth. He gazed lugubriously at Alleyn, spoke of shattered nerves and soon began to cry.

“Who’s going to pitch into me next?” he asked. “I ought to be getting hospital attention, the shock I’ve had, and not subjected to treatment that’d bring about an inquiry if I made complaints. I ought to be home in bed getting looked after.”

“So you shall be,” Alleyn said. “We’ll send you home in style when you’ve just told me quietly what happened.”

“I have! I have told. I’ve told them others.”

“All right. I know you’re feeling rotten and it’s a damn shame to keep you but you see you’re the chap we’re looking to for help.”

“Don’t you use that yarn to me. I know what the police mean when they talk about help. Next thing it’ll be the Usual Bloody Warning.”

“No, it won’t. Look here—I’ll say what I think happened and you jump on me if I’m wrong. All right?”

“How do I know if it’s all right!”

“Nobody suspects you, you silly chap,” Fox said. “How many more times!”

“Never mind,” Alleyn soothed. “Now, listen, Hawkins. You come down to the theatre. When? About ten past twelve?”

Hawkins began a great outcry against buses and thunderstorms but was finally induced to say he heard the hour strike as he walked down the lane.

“And you came in by the stage-door. Who let you in?”

Nobody, it appeared. He had a key. He banged it shut and gave a whistle and shouted. Pretty loudly, Alleyn gathered, because Jobbins was always at his post on the half-landing and he wanted to let him know he’d arrived. He came in, locked the door and shot the bolt. He supposed Jobbins was fed up with him for being late. This account was produced piecemeal and with many lamentable excursions. Hawkins now became extremely agitated and said what followed had probably made a wreck of him for the rest of his life. Alleyn displayed sympathy and interest, however, and was flattering in his encouragement. Hawkins gazed upon him with watering eyes and said that what followed was something chronic. He had seen no light in the Property Room so had switched his torch on and gone out to front-of-house. As soon as he got there he noticed a dim light in the circle. And there—it had given him a turn—in the front row, looking down at him was Henry Jobbins in his flash new overcoat.

“You never told us this!” Gibson exclaimed.

“You never arst me.”

Fox and Gibson swore quietly together.

“Go on,” Alleyn said.

“I said: ‘That you, Hen?’ and he says ‘Who d’yer think it is’ and I said I was sorry I was late and should I make the tea and he said yes. So I went into the Props Room and made it.”

“How long would that take?”

“It’s an old electric jug. Bit slow.”

“Yes? And then?”

“Oh Gawd. Oh Gawd.”

“I know. But go on.”

He had carried the two cups of tea through the house to the front foyer and up the stairs.

Here Hawkins broke down again in a big way but finally divulged that he had seen the body, dropped the tray, tried to claw his way out at the front, run by the side aisle through the stalls and pass-door, out of the stage-door and down the alley, where he ran into Peregrine and Emily. Alleyn got his address and sent him home.

“What a little beauty,” Fred Gibson said.

“You tell me,” Alleyn observed, “that you’ve searched the theatre. What kind of search, Fred?”

“How d’you mean?”

“Well—obviously, as you say, for the killer. But have they looked for the stuff?”