Ngaio Marsh: Vintage Murder

“Good enough,” said Mason. “Now listen.”

They talked. The telephone rang incessantly. Box-office officials came in, the local manager of the theatre, three slightly self-conscious reporters, and finally Mr. Alfred Meyer, carrying a cushion. This he placed on the swivel chair, and then cautiously lowered himself on to it.

“Well, Alf,” said Mason. “ ’Morning, George,” said Mr. Meyer.

Mason introduced the Australian advance, who instantly seized Mr. Meyer’s hand in a grip of iron and shook it with enthusiasm.

“I’m very glad to meet you, Mr. Meyer.”

“How do you do?” said Mr. Meyer. “Good news for us, I hope?”

The reporters made tentative hovering movements.

“These gentlemen are from the Press,” said Mason. “They’d like to have a little chat with you, Alf.”

Mr. Meyer rolled his eyes round and became professionally cordial.

“Oh, yes, yes,” he said, “certainly. Come over here, gentlemen, will you?”

The advance hurriedly placed three chairs in a semicircle close to Meyer, and joined Mason, who had withdrawn tactfully to the far end of the room.

The reporters cleared their throats and handled pads and pencils.

“Well now, what about it?” asked Mr. Meyer helpfully.

“Er,” said the oldest of the reporters, “just a few points that would interest our readers, Mr. Meyer.”

He spoke in a soft gruff voice with a slight accent. He seemed a very wholesome and innocent young man.

“Certainly,” said Mr. Meyer. “By God, this is a wonderful country of yours…”

The reporters wrote busily the outlines for an article which would presently appear under the headline: “Praise for New Zealand: An Enthusiastic Visitor.”

Two young men and a woman appeared in the office doorway. They were Australians who had travelled over to join the company for the second piece, and now reported for duty. Mason took them along to the stage-door, pointed out Gascoigne, who was in heated argument with the head mechanist, and left them to make themselves known.

The stock scene was being struck. The fluted columns and gilded walls of all stock scenes fell forward as softly as leaves, and were run off into the dock. An Adam drawing-room, painted by an artist, and in excellent condition, was shoved together like a gigantic house of cards and tightened at the corners. Flack, flack, went the toggles as the stage-hands laced them over the wooden cleats.

“We don’t want those borders,” said Gascoigne.

“Kill the borders, Bert,” said the head mechanist, loudly.

“Kill the borders,” repeated a voice up in the flies. The painted strips that masked the overhead jerked out of sight one by one.

“Now the ceiling cloth.”

Outside in the strange town a clock chimed and struck eleven. Members of the cast began to come in and look for their dressing-rooms. They were called for eleven-thirty. Gascoigne saw the Australians and crossed the stage to speak to them. He began talking about their parts. His manner was pleasant and friendly, and the Australians, who were on the defensive about English importations, started to thaw. Gascoigne told them where they were to dress. He checked himself to shout:

“You’ll have to clear, Fred; I want the stage in ten minutes.”

“I’m not ready for you, Mr. Gascoigne.”

“By — you’ll have to be ready. What’s the matter with you?”

He walked back to the stage. From up above came the sound of sawing.

Gascoigne glared upwards.

“What are you doing up there?”

An indistinguishable mumbling answered him.

Gascoigne turned to the head mechanist.

“Well, you’ll have to knock off in ten minutes, Fred. I’ve got a show to rehearse with people who haven’t worked for four weeks. And we go up to-night. Tonight! Do you think we can work in a sawmill. What is he doing ?”

“He’s fixing the mast,” said the head mechanist. “It’s got to be done, Mr. Gascoigne. This bloody stage isn’t—”

He went off into mechanical details. The second act was staged on board a yacht. The setting was elaborate. The lower end of a mast with “practical” rope ladders had to be fixed. This was all done from overhead. Gascoigne and the head mechanist stared up into the flies.

“We’ve flied the mast,” said the mechanist, “and it’s too long for this stage, see. Bert’s fixing it. Have you got weight on, Bert?”

As if in answer, a large black menace flashed between them. There was a nerve-shattering thud, a splintering of wood, and a cloud of dust. At their feet lay a long object rather like an outsize in sash-weights.

Gascoigne and the mechanist instantly flew into the most violent of rages. Their faces were sheet-white and their knees shook. At the tops of their voices they apostrophised the hidden Bert, inviting him to come down and be half killed. Their oaths died away into a shocked silence. Mason had run round from the office, the company had hurried out of the dressing-rooms and were clustered in the entrances. The unfortunate Bert came down from the grid and stood gaping in horror at his handiwork.

“Gawdstreuth, Mr. Gascoigne, I don’t know how it happened. Gawdstreuth, Mr. Gascoigne, I’m sorry. Gawdstreuth.”

“Shut your — face,” suggested the head mechanist, unprintably. “Do you want to go to gaol for manslaughter?”

“Don’t you know the first — rule about working in the flies. Don’t you know—”

Mason went back to the office. One by one the company returned to their dressing-rooms.

“And what,” said the oldest of the three reporters, “is your opinion of our railroads, Mr. Meyer? How do they compare with those in the Old Country?”

Mr. Meyer shifted uncomfortably on his cushion and his hand stole round to his rear.

“I think they’re marvellous,” he said.

Hailey Hambledon knocked on Carolyn’s door.

“Are you ready, Carol? It’s a quarter past.”

“Come in, darling.”

He went into the bedroom she shared with Meyer. It looked exactly like all their other bedrooms on tour. There was the wardrobe trunk, the brilliant drape on the bed, Carolyn’s photos of Meyer, of herself, and of her father, the parson in Bucks. And there, on the dressing-table, was her complexion in its scarlet case. She was putting the final touches to her lovely face and nodded to him in the looking-glass.

“Good morning, Mrs. Meyer,” said Hambledon and kissed her fingers with the same light gesture he had so often used on the stage.

“Good morning, Mr. Hambledon.” They spoke with that unnatural and half-ironical gaiety that actors so often assume when greeting each other outside the theatre.

Carolyn turned back to her mirror.

“I’m getting very set-looking, Hailey. Older and older.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Don’t you? I expect you do, really, You think to yourself sometimes: It won’t be long before she is too old for such-and-such a part.‘

“No. I love you. To me you do not change.”

“Darling! So sweet! Still, we do grow older.”

“Then why, why, why not make the most of what’s left. Carol — do you really believe you love me?”

“You’re going to have another attack. Don’t.”

She got up and put on her hat, giving him a comically apprehensive look from under the brim. “Come along now,” she said.

He shrugged his shoulders and opened the door for her. They went out, moving beautifully, with years of training behind their smallest gestures. It is this unconscious professionalism in the everyday actions of actors that so often seems unreal to outsiders. When they are very young actors, it often is unreal, when they are older it is merely habit. They are indeed “always acting,” but not in the sense that their critics suggest.