Ngaio Marsh - Night at the Vulcan

“No, by God, I can’t,” said J.G. hotly.

“He spoke about it in front of Miss Gainsford, didn’t he?”

“You can’t possibly ask Gay about it. It’s out of the question.”

“Not, I’m afraid, for an investigating officer,” said Alleyn, who thought that J.G.’s delicacy, if delicacy were in question, was possibly a good deal more sensitive than Miss Gainsford’s. “Do you suppose Bennington talked about this episode to other people?”

“In the condition he was in I should think it possible.”

“Well,” Alleyn said, “we shall have to find out.”

“See here, Alleyn. What happened, if he spoke the truth, was something entirely between himself and his wife and it’s on her account that I can’t repeat what he said. You know she and Poole were on-stage at the crucial time and that there’s no sense in thinking of motive, if that’s what you’re after, where they are concerned.”

Alleyn said: “This episode might constitute a motive for suicide, however.”

J.G. looked up quickly. “Suicide? But — why?”

“Shame?” Alleyn suggested. “Self-loathing if he sobered up after you hit him and took stock of himself? I imagine they’ve been virtually separated for some time.”

“I see you have a talent,” said J.G., “for reading between the lines.”

“Let us rather call it an ugly little knack. Thank you, Mr. Darcey, I don’t think I need bother you any more for the moment.”

J.G. went slowly to the door. He hesitated for a moment and then said: “If you’re looking for motive, Alleyn, you’ll find it in a sort of way all over the place. He wasn’t a likeable chap and he’d antagonized everyone. Even poor little Parry came off breathing revenge after the way he’d been handled, but, my God, actors do that kind of thing only too often. Feeling runs high, you know, on first nights.”

“So it would seem.”

“Can I take that child home?”

“I’m sorry,” Alleyn said, “not yet. Not just yet.”

“Well,” Alleyn said when J.G. had gone, “what have you got at your end of the table, Br’er Fox?”

Fox turned back the pages of his note-book.

“What you might call negative evidence, on the whole, Mr. Alleyn. Clearance for the understudies, who watched the show from the back of the circle and then went home. Clearance for the two dressers (male), the stage-manager and his assistant, the stage-hands and the night-watchman. They were all watching the play or on their jobs. On statements taken independently, they clear each other.”

“That’s something.”

“No female dresser,” Mr. Fox observed. “Which seems odd.”

“Miss Tarne was the sole female dresser and she’s been promoted overnight to what I believe I should call starletdom. Which in itself seems to me to be a rum go. I’ve always imagined female dressers to be cups-of-tea in alpaca aprons and not embryo actresses. I don’t think Miss Tarne could have done the job, but she comes into the picture as the supplanter of Uncle Ben’s dear little niece, whom I find an extremely irritating ass with a certain amount of low cunning. Miss Tarne, on the other hand, seems pleasant and intelligent and looks nice. You must allow me my prejudices, Br’er Fox.”

“She’s Mr. Poole’s third cousin or something.”

“The case reeks with obscure relationships — blood, marital and illicit, as far as one can see. Did you get anything from Bennington’s dresser?”

“Nothing much,” said Fox, sighing. “It seems the deceased didn’t like him to hang about on account of being a secret drinker. He was in the dressing-room up to about seven and was then told to go and see if he could be of any use to the other gentlemen, and not to come back till the first interval when the deceased changed his clothes. I must say that chap earns his wages pretty easily. As far as I could make out the rest of his duties for the night consisted in tearing off chunks of cotton-wool for the deceased to do up his face with. I checked his visits to the dressing-room by that. The last time he looked in was after the deceased went on the stage in the third act. He cleared away the used cottonwool and powdered a clean bit. In the normal course of events I suppose he’d have put Mr. Bennington into the fancy dress he was going to wear to the ball and then gone home quite worn out.”

“Was he at all talkative?”

“Not got enough energy, Mr. Alleyn. Nothing to say for himself barring the opinion that deceased was almost on the D.T. mark. The other dresser, Cringle, seems a bright little chap. He just works for Mr. Poole.”

“Have you let them go?”

“Yes, sir, I have. And the stage-hands. We can look them out again if we want them, but for the moment I think we’ve just about cleaned them up. I’ve let the assistant stage-manager — A.S.M. they call him — get away, too. Wife’s expecting any time and he never left the prompting book.”

“That reduces the mixed bag a bit. You’ve been through all the rooms, of course, but before we do anything else, Br’er Fox, let’s have a prowl.”

They went into the passage. Fox jerked his thumb at Bennington’s room. “Gibson’s doing a fly-crawl in there,” he said. “If there’s anything, he’ll find it. That dresser-chap didn’t clear anything up except his used powder-puffs.”

They passed Bennington’s room and went into Parry Percival’s, next door. Here they found Detective-Sergeants Thompson and Bailey, the one a photographic and the other a finger-print expert. They were packing up their gear. “Well, Bailey?” Alleyn asked. Bailey looked morosely at his superior. “It’s there all right, sir,” he said grudgingly. “Complete prints, very near, and a check-up all over the shop.”

“What about next door?”

“Deceased’s room, sir? His prints on the wing-tap and the tube. Trace of red greasepaint on the rubber connection at the end of the tube. Matches paint on deceased’s lips.”

“Very painstaking,” said Alleyn. “Have you tried the experiment?”

“Seeing the fires are back-to-back, sir,” Fox said, “we have. Sergeant Gibson blew down this tube and deceased’s fire went out. As in former case.”

“Well,” Alleyn said, “there you are. Personally I don’t believe a word of it, either way.“ He looked, without interest, at the telegrams stuck round the frame of Parry’s looking-glass and at his costume for the ball.

“ Very fancy,” he muttered. “Who’s in the next room?”

“Mr. J. G. Darcey,” said Thompson.

They went into J.G.’s room, which was neat and impersonal in character and contained nothing, it seemed, of interest, unless a photograph of Miss Gainsford looking insouciante could be so regarded.

In the last room on this side of the passage they saw the electric sewing-machine, some rough sketches, scraps of material and other evidences of Martyn’s sewing-party for Jacko. Alleyn glanced round it, crossed the passage and looked into the empty room opposite. “Dismal little cells when they’re unoccupied, aren’t they?” he said, and moved on to Gay Gainsford’s room.

He stood there, his hands in his pockets, with Fox at his elbow. “This one suffers from the fashionable complaint, Fox,” he said. “Schizophrenia. It’s got a split personality. On my left a rather too-smart overcoat, a frisky hat, chi-chi gloves, a pansy purse-bag, a large bottle of one of the less reputable scents, a gaggle of mascots, a bouquet from the management and orchids from — who do you suppose?” He turned over the card. “Yes. Alas, yes, with love and a thousand good wishes from her devoted J.G. On my right a well-worn and modest little topcoat, a pair of carefully tended shoes and gloves that remind one of the White Rabbit, a grey skirt and beret and a yellow jumper. A hand-bag that contains, I’m sure, one of those rather heartrending little purses and — what else?” He explored the bag. “A New Zealand passport issued this year in which one finds Miss Tarne is nineteen years old and an actress. So the dresser’s job was — what? The result of an appeal to the celebrated third cousin? But why not give her the understudy at once? She’s fantastically like him and I’ll be sworn he’s mightily catched with her. What’s more, even old Darcey says she’s a damn good actress.” He turned the leaves of the passport. “She only arrived in England seventeen days ago. Can that account for the oddness of the set-up? Anyway, I don’t suppose it matters. Let’s go next door, shall we?”