Ngaio Marsh - Night at the Vulcan

To

The Management and Company of

The New Zealand Student Players

of 1949 in love and gratitude

Cast of Characters

of the Vulcan Theatre

Martyn Tarne

Bob Grantley, business manager

Fred Badger, night-watchman

Clem Smith, stage-manager

Bob Cringle, dresser to Adam Poole

Adam Poole, actor-manager

Helena Hamilton, leading lady

Clark Bennington, her husband

Gay Gainsford, his niece

J. G. Darcey, character actor

Parry Percival, juvenile

Jacques Doré, designer and assistant to Adam Poole

Dr. John James Rutherford, playright

of the Criminal Investigation Department, New Scotland Yard

Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn

Detective-Inspector Fox

Detective-Sergeant Gibson

Detective-Sergeant Bailey, finger-print expert

Detective-Sergeant Thompson, photographer

P. C. Lord Michael Lamprey

Dr. Curtis

As she turned into Carpet Street the girl wondered at her own obstinacy. To what a pass it had brought her, she thought. She lifted first one foot and then the other, determined not to drag them. They felt now as if their texture had changed: their bones, it seemed, were covered by sponge and burning wires.

A clock in a jeweller’s window gave the time as twenty-three minutes to five. She knew by the consequential scurry of its second-hand that it was alive. It was surrounded by other clocks that made mad dead statements of divergent times as if, she thought, to set before her the stages of that day’s fruitless pilgrimage. Nine o’clock, the first agent. Nine thirty-six, the beginning of the wait for auditions at the Unicorn; five minutes past twelve, the first dismissal. “Thank you, Miss — ah— Thank you, dear. Leave your name and address. Next, please.” No record of her flight from the smell of restaurants, but it must have been about ten to two, a time registered by a gilt carriage-clock in the corner, that she had climbed the stairs to Garnet Marks’s Agency on the third floor. Three o’clock exactly at the Achilles where the auditions had already closed, and the next hour in and out of film agencies. “Leave your picture if you like, dear. Let you know if there’s anything.” Always the same. As punctual as time itself. The clocks receded, wobbled, enlarged themselves and at the same time spread before their dials a tenuous veil. Beneath the arm of a bronze nude that brandished an active swinging dial, she caught sight of a face: her own. She groped in her bag, and presently in front of the mirrored face a hand appeared and made a gesture at its own mouth with the stub of a lipstick. There was a coolness on her forehead, something pressed heavily against it. She discovered that this was the shop-window.

Behind the looking-glass was a man who peered at her from the shop’s interior. She steadied herself with her hand against the window, lifted her suitcase and turned away.

The Vulcan Theatre was near the bottom of the street. Although she did not at first see its name above the entry, she had, during the past fortnight, discovered a sensitivity to theatres. She was aware of them at a distance. The way was downhill: her knees trembled and she resisted with difficulty an impulse to break into a shamble. Among the stream of faces that approached and sailed past there were now some that, on seeing hers, sharpened into awareness and speculation. She attracted notice.

The stage-door was at the end of an alleyway. Puddles of water obstructed her passage and she did not altogether avoid them. The surface of the wall was crenellated and damp.

“She knows,” a rather shrill uncertain voice announced inside the theatre, “but she mustn’t be told.” A second voice spoke unintelligibly. The first voice repeated its statement with a change of emphasis: “She knows but she mustn’t be told ,” and after a further interruption added dismally: “Thank you very much.”

Five young women came out of the stage-door and it was shut behind them. She leant against the wall as they passed her. The first two muttered together and moved their shoulders petulantly, the third stared at her and at once she bent her head. The fourth passed by quickly with compressed lips. She kept her head averted and heard, but did not see, the last girl halt beside her.

“Well, for God’s sake!” She looked up and saw, for the second time that day, a too-large face, over-painted, with lips that twisted downwards, tinted lids, and thickly mascaraed lashes.

She said: “I’m late, aren’t I?”

“You’ve had it, dear. I gave you the wrong tip at Marks’s. The show here, with the part I told you about, goes on this week. They were auditioning for a tour— ‘That’ll be all for to-day, ladies, thank you. What’s the hurry, here’s your hat!’ For what it’s worth, it’s all over.”

“I lost my way,” she said faintly.

“Too bad.” The large face swam nearer. “Are you all right?” it demanded. She made a slight movement of her head. “A bit tired. All right, really.”

“You look shocking. Here: wait a sec. Try this.”

“No, no. Really. Thank you so much but—”

“It’s O.K. A chap who travels for a French firm gave it to me. It’s marvellous stuff: cognac. Go on .”

A hand steadied her head. The cold mouth of the flask opened her lips and pressed against her teeth. She tried to say: “I’ve had nothing to eat,” and at once was forced to gulp down a burning stream. The voice encouraged her: “Do you a power of good. Have the other half.”

She shuddered, gasped and pushed the flask away. “No, please!”

“Is it doing the trick?”

“This is wonderfully kind of you. I am so grateful. Yes, I think it must be doing the trick.”

“Gra-a-a-nd. Well, if you’re sure you’ll be O.K…”

“Yes, indeed. I don’t even know your name.”

“Trixie O’Sullivan.”

“I’m Martyn Tarne.”

“Look nice in the programme, wouldn’t it? If there’s nothing else I can do…”

“Honestly. I’ll be fine.”

“You look better,” Miss O’Sullivan said doubtfully. “We may run into each other again. The bloody round, the common task.” She began to move away. “I’ve got a date, actually, and I’m running late.”

“Yes, of course. Good-bye, and thank you.”

“It’s open in front. There’s a seat in the foyer. Nobody’ll say anything. Why not sit there for a bit?” She was half-way down the alley. “Hope you get fixed up,” she said. “God, it’s going to rain. What a life!”

“What a life,” Martyn Tarne echoed, and tried to sound gay and ironic.

“I hope you’ll be all right. ’Bye.”

“Good-bye and thank you.”

The alley was quiet now. Without moving she took stock of herself. Something thrummed inside her head and the tips of her fingers tingled but she no longer felt as if she were going to faint. The brandy glowed at the core of her being, sending out ripples of comfort. She tried to think what she should do. There was a church, back in the Strand: she ought to know its name. One could sleep there, she had been told, and perhaps there would be soup. That would leave two and fourpence for to-morrow: all she had. She lifted her suitcase — it was heavier than she had remembered — and walked to the end of the alleyway. Half a dozen raindrops plopped into a puddle. People hurried along the footpath with upward glances and opened their umbrellas. As she hesitated, the rain came down suddenly and decisively. She turned towards the front of the theatre and at first thought it was shut. Then she noticed that one of the plate-glass doors was ajar.