Ngaio Marsh - Vintage Murder

It was really a very large party. Twelve members of the company, as many more guests, and the stage staff, whom Carolyn had insisted on having and who sat at a separate table, dressed in their best suits and staring self-consciously at each other. Candles had been lit all down the length of the tables and the lamps turned out. It was all very gay and festive.

When they were settled Meyer, beaming complacently, rose and looked round the table.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” shouted little Ackroyd, “pray silence for His Royal Highness, Alfredo de Meyer.”

Much laughter from the guests who expected a comedian to be a comedian.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” said Meyer. “I suppose this is quite the wrong place for a speech but we can’t have anything to drink till I’ve made it, so I don’t need to apologise.”

“Certainly not”—from Mason.

“In a minute or two I shall ask you to drink the health of the loveliest woman and the greatest actress of the century — my wife.”

“Golly!” thought Alleyn. Cheers from everybody.

“But before you do this we’ve got to find something for you to drink it in. There doesn’t appear to be anything on the table,” said Meyer, with elaborate nonchalance, “but we are told that the gods will provide so I propose to leave it to them. Our stage-manager tells me that something may happen if this red cord here is cut. I shall therefore ask my wife to cut it. She will find a pair of shears by her plate.”

“Darling!” said Carolyn. “ What is all this? Too exciting. I shan’t cause it to rain fizz, shall I? Like Moses. Or was it Moses?”

She picked up the enormous scissors. Alfred Meyer bent his fat form over the table and stretched out his short arms to the nest of fern. A fraction of a second before Carolyn closed the blades of the scissors over the cord, her husband touched a hidden switch. Tiny red and green lights sprang up beneath the fern and flowers, into which the jeroboam was to fall and over which Meyer was bending.

Everyone had stopped talking. Alleyn, in the sudden silence, received a curious impression of eager dimly-lit faces that peered, of a beautiful woman standing with one arm raised, holding the scissors as a lovely Atropos might hold aloft her shears, of a fat white waistcoated man like a Blampied caricature, bent over the table, and of a red cord that vanished upwards into the dark. Suddenly he felt intolerably oppressed, aware of a suspense out of all proportion to the moment. So strong was this impression that he half rose from his chair.

But at that moment Carolyn cut through the cord.

Something enormous that flashed down among them, jolting the table, Valerie Gaynes screaming. Broken glass and the smell of champagne. Champagne flowing over the white cloth. A thing like an enormous billiard ball embedded in the fern. Red in the champagne. And Valerie Gaynes, screaming, screaming. Carolyn, her arm still raised, looking down. Himself, his voice, telling them to go away, telling Hambledon to take Carolyn away.

“Take her away, take her away.”

And Hambledon: “Come away. Carolyn, come away.”

No, don’t move him,” said Alleyn.

He laid a hand on Hambledon’s arm. Dr. Te Pokiha, his bronze fingers still touching the top of Meyer’s head, looked fixedly at Alleyn.

“Why not?” asked Hambledon.

George Mason raised his head. Ever since they had got rid of the others Mason had sat at the end of the long table with his face buried in his arms. Ted Gascoigne stood beside Mason. He repeated over and over again:

“It was as safe as houses. Someone’s monkeyed with it. We rehearsed it twelve times this morning. I tell you there’s been some funny business, George. My God, George, there’s been some funny business.”

“Why not?” repeated Hambledon. “Why not move him?”

“Because,” said Alleyn, “Mr. Gascoigne may be right.”

George Mason spoke for the first time.

“But who’d want to hurt him? Old Alf! He hasn’t an enemy in the world.” He turned a woebegone face to Te Pokiha.

“You’re sure, doctor, he’s — he’s — gone?”

“You can see for yourself, Mr. Mason,” said Te Pokiha; “the neck is broken.”

“I don’t want to,” said Mason, looking sick.

“What ought we to do?” asked Gascoigne. They all turned to Alleyn. “Do I exude C.I.D.?” wondered Alleyn to himself, “or has Hambledon blown the gaff?”

“I’m afraid you must ring up the nearest police station,” he said aloud. There was an instant outcry from Gascoigne and Mason.

“Good God, the police!”

“What the hell!”

“… but it was an accident!”

“That’d be, finish!”

“I’m afraid Mr. Alleyn’s right,” said Te Poldha; “it is a matter for the police. If you like I’ll ring up. I know the superintendent in Middleton.”

“While you’re about it,” said Mason with desperate irony, “you might ring up a shipping office. As far as this tour’s concerned—”

“Finish!” said Gascoigne.

“We’ve got to do something about it, Ted,” said Hambledon quietly.

“We built it up between us,” said Mason suddenly. “When I first met Alf he was advancing a No. 4 company in St. Helens. I was selling tickets for the worst show in England. We never looked back. We’ve never had a nasty word, never. And look at the business we’ve built up.” His lips trembled. “By God, if someone’s killed him — you’re right, Hailey. I’m — I’m all anyhow — you fix it, Ted. I’m all anyhow.”

Dr. Te Pokiha looked at him.

“How about joining the others, Mr. Mason? Perhaps a whisky would be a good idea. Your office—?”

Mason got to his feet and came down to the centre of the table. He looked at what was left of Alfred Meyer’s head, buried among the fern and broken fairy lights, wet with champagne and with blood. The two fat white hands still grasped the edges of the nest.

“God!” said Mason. “Do we have to leave him like that?”

“It will only be for a little while,” said Alleyn gently. “I should let Dr. Te Pokiha take you to the office.”

“Alf,” murmured Mason. “Old Alf!” He stood there, his lips shaking, his face ugly with suppressed emotion. Alleyn, who was accustomed to scenes of this sort, was conscious of his familiar daemon which took little at face value, and observed much. The daemon prompted him to notice how unembarrassed Gascoigne and Hambledon were by Mason’s emotion, how they had assumed so easily a mood of sorrowful correctness, almost as if they had rehearsed the damn’ scene, said the daemon.

They got Mason away. Te Pokiha went with him and said he would ring up the police. The unfortunate Bert, the stage-hand who had rigged the tackle under Meyer’s and Gascoigne’s directions, was hanging about in the wings and now came on the stage. He began to explain the mechanics of the champagne stunt to Alleyn.

“It was like this ’ere. We fixed the rope over the pulley, see, and on one end we fixed the bloody bottle and on the other end we hooked the bloody weight. The weight was one of them corner weights we used for the bloody funnels.”

“Ease up on the language, Bert,” suggested Gascoigne moodily.

“Good-oh, Mr. Gascoigne. And the weight was not so heavy as the bottle, see. And we took a lead with that red cord from just above the weight, see, and fixed it to the table. So when the cord was cut she came down gradual like, seeing she was that much heavier than the weight. The weight and the bottle hung half-way between the pulley and the table, see, so when she came down, the weight went up to the pulley. It was hooked into a ring in the rope. We cut out the lights and used candles so’s nothing would be noticed. We tried her out till he was sick and tired of her and she worked corker every time. She worked good-oh, didn’t she, Mr. Gascoigne?”