Ngaio Marsh - Night at the Vulcan

“My dear Gay,” Poole said, “I don’t suppose Helena or Mr. Alleyn or any of us imagines you went into Ben’s room, knocked him senseless with a straight left to the jaw and then turned the gas on. We merely want to know what you did do.”

J.G., who had given a sharp ejaculation and half risen from his chair, now sank back.

Alleyn said: “It would also be interesting, Mr. Poole, to hear how you knew about the straight left to the jaw.”

Poole was behind Martyn and a little removed from her. She felt his stillness in her own bones. When he spoke it was a shock rather than a relief to hear how easy and relaxed his voice sounded.

“Do you realize, Alleyn,” he said, “you’ve given me an opportunity to use, in reverse, a really smashing detective’s cliché: ‘I didn’t know. You have just told me!’ ”

“And that,” Alleyn said with some relish, “as I believe you would say in the profession, takes me off with a hollow laugh and a faint hiss. So you merely guessed at the straight left?”

“If Ben was killed, and I don’t believe he was, it seemed to me to be the only way this murder could be brought about.”

“Surely not,” Alleyn said without emphasis. “There is the method that was used before in this theatre with complete success.”

“I don’t know that I would describe as completely successful a method that ended with the arrest of its employer.”

“Oh,” Alleyn said lightly, “that’s another story. He underestimated our methods.”

“A good enough warning to anyone else not to follow his plan of action.”

“Or perhaps merely a hint that it could be improved upon,” Alleyn said. “What do you think, Mr. Darcey?”

“I?” J.G. sounded bewildered. “I don’t know. I’m afraid I haven’t followed the argument.”

“You were still thinking about the straight-left theory, perhaps?”

“I believe with the others that it was suicide,” said J.G. He had sat down again beside Gay. His legs were stretched out before him and crossed at the ankles, his hands were in his trousers pockets and his chin on his chest. It was the attitude of a distinguished M.P. during a damaging speech from the opposite side of the House.

Alleyn said: “And we still don’t know when Miss Gainsford left the Greenroom.”

“Oh, lawks !” Parry ejaculated. “This is too tiresome. J.G., you looked in at the Greenroom door when we came back for the curtain-call, don’t you remember? Was she there then? Were you there then, Gay darling?”

Gay opened her mouth to speak but J.G. said quickly: “Yes, of course I did. Stupid of me to forget Gay was sound asleep in the armchair, Mr. Alleyn. I didn’t disturb her.” He passed his right hand over his beautifully groomed head. “It’s a most extraordinary thing,” he said vexedly, “that I should have forgotten this. Of course she was asleep. Because later, when — well, when, in point of fact, the discovery had been made — I asked where Gay was and someone said she was still in the Greenroom, and I was naturally worried and went to fetch her. She was still asleep and the Greenroom, by that time, reeking with gas. I brought her back here.”

“Have you any idea, Miss Gainsford,” Alleyn asked, “about when you dropped off?”

“I was exhausted, Mr. Alleyn. Physically and emotionally exhausted. I still am.”

“Was it, for instance, before the beginning of the last act?”

“N — n—no. No. Because J.G. came in to see how I was in the second interval. Didn’t you, darling? And I was exhausted, wasn’t I?”

“Yes, dear.”

“And he gave me some aspirins and I took two. And I suppose, in that state of utter exhaustion, they worked. So I fell into a sleep — an exhausted sleep, it was.”

“Naturally,” Helena murmured with a glance at Alleyn, “it would be exhausted.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Jacko, “it was exhausted.”

“Well, it was,” said Gay crossly. “Because I was. Utterly.”

“Did anyone else beside Mr. Darcey go into the Greenroom during the second interval?”

Gay looked quickly at J.G. “Honestly,” she said, “I’m so muddled about times it really isn’t safe to ask me. I’m sure to be wrong.”

“Mr. Darcey?”

“No,” J.G. said.

“Well, my dearest J.G.,” Parry said, “I couldn’t be more reluctant to keep popping in like one of the Eumenides in that utterly incomprehensible play, but I do assure you that you’re at fault here. Ben went into the Greenroom in the second interval.”

“Dear Heaven!” Helena said, on a note of desperation. “What has happened to us all!”

“I’m terribly sorry, Helena darling,” Parry said, and sounded it.

“But why should you be sorry? Why shouldn’t Ben go and see his niece in the interval? He played the whole of the third act afterwards. Of course you should say so, Parry, if you know what you’re talking about. Shouldn’t he, Adam? Shouldn’t he, Mr. Alleyn?”

Poole was looking with a sort of incredulous astonishment at Darcey. “I think he should,” he said slowly.

“And you, Mr. Darcey?” asked Alleyn.

“All right, Parry,” said J.G., “go on.”

“There’s not much more to be said, and anyway I don’t suppose it matters. It was before they’d called the third act. Helena and Adam and Martyn had gone out. They begin the act. I come on a bit later and Ben after me and J.G. later still. I wanted to see how the show was going and I was on my way in the passage when Ben came out of his room and went into the Greenroom next door. The act was called soon after that.”

“Did you speak to him?” Alleyn asked.

“I did not,” said Parry with some emphasis. “I merely went out to the stage and joined Jacko and the two dressers and the call-boy, who were watching from the Prompt side, and Clem.”

“That’s right,” Clem Smith said. “I remember telling you all to keep away from the bunches. The boy called J.G. and Ben about five minutes later.”

“Were you still in the Greenroom when you were called, Mr. Darcey?”

“Yes.”

“With Mr. Bennington?”

“He’d gone to his room.”

“Not for the life of me,” Helena said wearily, “can I see why you had to be so mysterious, J.G.”

“Perhaps,” Alleyn said, “the reason is in your left trousers pocket, Mr. Darcey.”

J.G. didn’t take his hand out of his pocket. He stood up and addressed himself directly to Alleyn.

“May I speak to you privately?” he asked.

“Of course,” Alleyn said. “Shall we go to the Greenroom?”

In the Greenroom and in the presence of Alleyn and of Fox, who had joined them there, J. G. Darcey took his left hand out of his trousers pocket and extended it palm downwards for their inspection. It was a well-shaped and well-kept hand but the knuckles were grazed. A trace of blood had seeped out round the greasepaint and powder which had been daubed over the raw skin.

“I suppose I’ve behaved very stupidly,” he said. “But I hoped there would be no need for this to come out. It has no bearing whatever on his death.”

“In that case,” Alleyn said, “it will not be brought out. But you’ll do well to be frank.”

“I dare say,” said J.G. wryly.

“There’s a bruise on the deceased’s jaw on the right side that could well have been caused by that straight left Mr. Poole talked about. Now, we can of course determine whether make-up from your left fist is mixed with Bennington’s own make-up over this bruise. If you tell me you didn’t let drive at him we’ll make this experiment.”

“I assure you that you don’t need to do any such thing. I’ll willingly admit that I hit him,” J.G. said with a shudder.

“And also why you hit him?”